Longtime Ottonian supporter Pope Benedict VII, after having reigned for almost ten years, had died of natural causes in July 983.

Otto II had returned to Rome in September to name a new Pope, selecting the Bishop of Pavia Pietro Canepanova (who reigns as Pope John XIV) in November or early December.

While Otto II is in Rome overseeing the election of the new pope, a malaria outbreak in central Italy prevents the resumption of military activity in southern Italy.

The outbreak ultimately leads to the death of the Emperor himself: he dies in his palace in Rome at the age of twenty-eight on December 7, 983, after having reigned for just over a decade.

Otto II's money and possessions are divided among the Catholic Church, the poor of the Empire, his mother Adelaide and sister Matilda, and those nobles loyal to him.

Otto II is then buried in the atrium of St. Peter's Basilica, becoming the only German ruler to be buried in a foreign country instead of in Germany.