Description
Book SynopsisAs mother, as regent, and as queen, Amalasuintha struggled at the palace of Ravenna to maintain the Ostrogothic dynasty. Massimiliano Vitiello demonstrates the ways in which her life shows the influence of both Western and Eastern imperial models on the formation of female political power in the post-Roman world.
Trade Review"In Vitiello's
Amalasuintha, the "Queen" becomes the entry point for a wide range of explorations into politics, diplomacy, propaganda, and the position of imperial and royal women extending well beyond her reign. In this way, although framed around the figure of Amalasuintha, the book is not entirely a biography; it rather serves as a careful study of late Ostrogothic Italy set within a much broader chronological and historical context." * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
"[T]his book acts as a fine biography of Amalasuintha, and a close study of Ostrogothic Italy on the eve of the reconquest. Vitiello reflects well on the sources for female authority in late antiquity, the achievements and limits of Amalasuintha, and especially the legacy that she left for the later female regents in the Frankish kingdoms, Lombard Italy and Visigothic Spain. She deserves to be better known today." * Parergon *
"An excellent study that discusses, in new and exciting ways, one of the most interesting figures in the history of the transition from the late Roman to the post-Roman world. Massimiliano Vitiello brings sources that are too often interpreted independently of each other together into a conversation and uses her eventually tragic history as a window onto the ongoing political experimentation in the post-Roman world." * Helmut Reimitz, Princeton University *
Table of ContentsAuthor's Note
Map of Europe and the Mediterranean World at the Beginning of Amalasuintha's
Regency, Late A.D. 526
Genealogy. The Family of Theodoric
Introduction
Chapter 1. Mother, Regent, and Queen: Amalasuintha and the Institutions of Power
Chapter 2. Amalasuintha at the Palace of Ravenna: The Making of a Queen
Chapter 3. A Regent with Imperial Ambitions
Chapter 4. Balancing Gothic Tradition with Roman Ideals
Chapter 5. Amalasuintha: A Meeting Point Between Kingdoms and Empire
Epilogue. Amalasuintha's Legacy in Early Medieval Italy
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
