Verona has long been the ordinary residence of the kings of Italy.

The government of the city has become hereditary in the family of Count Milo, progenitor of the counts of San Bonifacio.

Ratherius was born about 887 into a noble family which lived in the territory of Liège.

While still a boy, he had been sent as an oblate to the Benedictine Abbey of Lobbes in Hainaut, where he was a diligent student, acquired much learning, and became a monk of the abbey.

At an early age he displayed a restless nature, a disposition difficult to get along with, great ambition and harsh zeal.

Consequently, notwithstanding his strict orthodoxy, wide learning and sobriety of conduct, he has met with great difficulties in every position he assumed, and has nowhere attained permanent success.

When Abbot Hilduin of Lobbes went in 926 to Italy, where his cousin, Hugh of Provence, is king, he had taken Ratherius with him as companion.

After many difficulties, Ratherius had received from the king the Diocese of Verona in 931.

Upset about the good relations between the city and its Jewish inhabitants, he had badgered the town elders until they agreed to temporarily expel the Jewish community, present in Verona since Roman times.

Yet he only rules his see for two years, soon falling into a quarrel with both the members of his diocese and with the king, so that the latter sends him to prison and has him brought to Como.