The Actors

Abstract This chapter is a study of the people in Ravenna and Venice. The elites of Ravenna (including its archbishops), as seen through their titles, status, anthroponymy, and wealth, show an increasing mix of the old ‘exarchal’ aristocracy with the new Carolingian-imported one. This elite is anti-papal and pro-imperial, as are the middle ranks, merchants, and artisans. The study of the Venetian actors follows the families of the doges, then those of the other nobles, as they all struggle with each other for control. Specific to Venice is the unusual status of the merchants, identical to the other aristocratic families whose wealth is sourced from both land and trade. While Ravenna preserved a strong awareness of its late antique heritage but gradually mixed into the rest of Italian politics, Venice, theoretically Byzantine in allegiance, in practice functioned, institutionally and culturally, much like the Italian society of the terraferma