Description: As mother, as regent, and as queen, Amalasuintha struggled at the palace of Ravenna to maintain the Ostrogothic dynasty. Massimiliano Vitiello demonstrates the ways in which her life shows the influence of both Western and Eastern imperial models on the formation of female political power in the post-Roman world.
Review Quotes: "[T]his book acts as a fine biography of Amalasuintha, and a close study of Ostrogothic Italy on the eve of the reconquest. Vitiello reflects well on the sources for female authority in late antiquity, the achievements and limits of Amalasuintha, and especially the legacy that she left for the later female regents in the Frankish kingdoms, Lombard Italy and Visigothic Spain. She deserves to be better known today."-- "Parergon"