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season zero

Episode 1: A Shattered Kingdom

In our inaugural episode and the first part of our prelude season, we look at how northern Italy went from being a single kingdom to a region full of small, rival states, a cutthroat environment in which families like the Medici would nonetheless thrive in. Join us as we look at how urban prosperity, a series of invasions, and a scandalous teenage pope all played a part in making northern Italy a shattered and divided kingdom under the weak sovereignty of a faraway emperor.  

King Totila of the Ostrogoths besieging Florence during the sixth-century Gothic War. From Giovanni Villani’s Nuova Cronica (early 1300s).
Emperor Otto I accepting the submission of the just deposed King Berengar II of Italy. From The Chronicle of Bishop Otto of Freising (c. 1200)
A map of Italy circa 1154, more or less after most of the political changes discussed in this episode. Courtesy of undevicesimus whose work can be seen here.

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