The city of Amalfi and its territory were originally part of the larger ducatus Neapolitanus, governed by a patrician, but it extracts itself from Byzantine vassalage and first elects a duke in 958 It rises to become an economic powerhouse, a commercial center whose merchants dominate Mediterranean and Italian trade for a century before being surpassed and superseded by the other maritime republics of the North, like Pisa, Venice, and Genoa.

In 1073, Amalfi loses its independence and falls to the Normans, from whose yoke it fails in two separate attempts to free itself.