As early as the 3rd and 4th centuries, the city-states of northern Italy found themselves ideally placed at the crossroads of Europe. Italian bankers controlled the finances of Europe, and trade routes passed via Constantinople and Venice to Ravenna, considered by Emperor Honorius to be more easily defended than Milan. In the coming centuries, Ravenna’s position as the fulcrum of the Eastern, or Byzantine, Roman Empire and its Western counterpar…
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