of the Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing her
own dukes: [36] the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of commerce;
and the voluntary attachment of Venice was finally ennobled by an equal
alliance with the Eastern empire. On the map of Italy, the measure of
the exarchate occupies a very inadequate space, but it included an ample
proportion of wealth, industry, and population. The most faithful and
valuable subjects escaped from the Barbarian yoke; and the banners of
Pavia and Verona, of Milan and Padua, were displayed in their respective
quarters by the new inhabitants of Ravenna. The remainder of Italy was
possessed by the Lombards; and from Pavia, the royal seat, their
kingdom was extended to the east, the north, and the west, as far as the
confines of the Avars, the Bavarians, and the Franks of Austrasia and
Burgundy. In the language of modern geography, it is now represented by
the Terra Firma of the Venetian republic, Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont,
the coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma, and Modena, the grand duchy of
Tuscany, and a large portion of the ecclesiastical state from Perugia
to the Adriatic. The dukes, and at length the princes, of Beneventum,
survived the monarchy, and propagated the name of the Lombards. From
Capua to Tarentum, they reigned near five hundred years over the
greatest part of the present kingdom of Naples. [37]

[Footnote 34: The papal advocates, Zacagni and Fontanini, might justly
claim the valley or morass of Commachio as a part of the exarchate.
But the ambition of including Modena, Reggio, Parma, and Placentia,
has darkened a geographical question somewhat doubtful and obscure
Even Muratori, as the servant of the house of Este, is not free from
partiality and prejudice.]

[Footnote 35: See Brenckman, Dissert. Ima de Republica Amalphitana, p.
1--42, ad calcem Hist. Pandect. Florent.]

[Footnote 36: Gregor. Magn. l. iii. epist. 23, 25.]

[Footnote 37: I have described the state of Italy from the excellent
Dissertation of Beretti. Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. i. p. 374--387)
has followed the learned Camillo Pellegrini in the geography of the
kingdom of Naples. After the loss of the true Calabria, the vanity of
the Greeks substituted that name instead of the more ignoble appellation
of Bruttium; and the change appears to have taken place before the time
of Charlemagne, (Eginard, p. 75.)]

In comparing the proportion of the victorious and the vanquished
peopl