Republic of Amalfi

The Republic of Amalfi, also called the Duchy of Amalfi, was a de facto independent state centered on the southern Italian city of Amalfi during the tenth and eleventh centuries, having grown out of the larger Duchy of Naples under an initial patrician governor before achieving independence from Byzantine control and electing its first duke, or doge, in 958. With an estimated population of fifty to seventy thousand people during its two centuries of prominence, Amalfi became an economic power whose merchants dominated Mediterranean and Italian trade in the ninth and tenth centuries before being overtaken by the rising northern maritime republics. The republic's independence ended in 1073 when Norman forces conquered it, and its final decline came in 1137 when it was sacked by Pisa.