Naples

   Italian city on the Bay of Naples, near Pompeii. It was captured by Belisarios (q.v.) from the Ostrogoths (q.v.) in 536, only to surrender to Ostrogoths under Totila (qq.v.) in 543. In 552 it returned to Byzantine hands, and thereafter the city maintained its independence from the Lombards (q.v.). When Constans II (q.v.) visited the city in 663 the city still owed its allegiance to Byzantium (q.v.), an allegiance it nominally maintained until 838, when Naples joined forces with the Arabs (q.v.), resulting in the conquest of Messina (q.v.) in 843. Naples became an active threat to Byzantium after 1139, the year it fell to the Normans (q.v.), and even more of a threat in 1194 when German emperor Henry VI (q.v.) acquired Naples and Sicily (q.v.). That threat continued with Manfred and Charles of Anjou (qq.v.), who lost Sicily (1282), but retained the Kingdom of Naples. Much later, Alfonso V (q.v.) reunited Sicily and Naples (1443), but his scheme to conquer the Ottomans (q.v.) and reestablish the Latin Empire of Constantinople (qq.v.) never materialized.