The Duchy of Persiceta (or Persiceto) in the Kingdom of the Lombards was created on territory taken from the Byzantine Empire by King Liutprand in 728. It comprised two '' pagi'' ("counties"):

Monteveglio Monteveglio (''Muntvì'' or ''Måntvî'' in the western Bolognese dialect) is a ''frazione'' (village) in the ''comune'' (municipality) of Valsamoggia. It is located about west of Bologna, near the Samoggia River, in the Italian region of Emi ...

south of the Via Aemilia and

Persiceto San Giovanni in Persiceto (from 1912 to 1927: ''Persiceto''; Bolognese dialect, Western Bolognese: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, northern Italy. Located in the northern part of the Metropolitan City, bordering ...

to the north. The ''pagus'' of Persiceto and the duchy as a whole were named for its chief fortress, the ''Castrum Persiceta''. In this region in 752, King Aistulf granted his brother-in-law Anselm land on which to build a monastery, Nonantola. The dukes of Persiceta were early patrons of Nonantola, and along with the kings gave it vast tracts of land amounting to about 400 square kilometres. Persiceta and Nonantola formed a common bulwark against Byzantine Italy, which Liutprand made no further attempt to occupy. The earliest recorded duke was a Friulian, Ursus I, around 750. His son John was duke between 772 and 776, during which period the Franks conquered the kingdom. John's son, Ursus II, was sent as a child to Nonantola, tonsured as a monk and in 789 gave all his earthly goods to the monastery his father had already well endowed. This land was later leased back to the townsfolk and serves as the basis for the ''Partecipanza'', a form of

agricultural cooperative An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity. A broad typology of agricultural cooperatives distinguishes between agricultural service cooperati ...

. Under the Franks the duchy became a ''pagus'' ruled by a gastald, eventually attached to

Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...

and ultimately, in 908, to Bologna."San Giovanni"
''Enciclopedia Italiana'' (1936). Retrieved 13 April 2013.

Notes

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References

*Brown, T. S. "Byzantine Italy, c. 680–c. 876". In Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), ''The New Cambridge Medieval History'', II. Cambridge: 1995. *Everett, Nicholas. ''Literacy and Lombard Italy, c. 568–774''. Cambridge: 2003. *Forni, Guglielmo. ''Persiceto e S. Giovanni in Persiceto''. Bologna: 1921. *Gaudenzi, Augusto. "Il monastero di Nonantola, il ducato di Persiceta, e la chiesa di Bologna". ''Bullettino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano'' 22 (1901), 77–214. *Santos Salazar, Igor
"''Castrum Persiceta'': Potere e territorio in uno spazio di frontiera dal secolo VI al IX"
''Reti Medievali Rivista'' 7, 1 (2006): 1–20. Kingdom of the Lombards States and territories established in the 8th century Former duchies