This volume examines the Italian peninsula in the early Middle Ages by focusing on research fields such as ethnic identity, memory, and use of the past. Particular attention is devoted to the way some authors were influenced by their own 'present' in their reconstruction of the past.

Luigi Andrea Berto is Professor of History at Western Michigan University, United States. His research focuses on Medieval Italy and the Mediterranean, with a special interest in the use of the past in the medieval and modern periods, and the relationships between Christians and Muslims.

1. Ethnic identities 2. Identity texts, gender, and ethnicity 3. The Lombard invasion and the settlement of the Lombards in Italy 4. The frontiers between the Lombard Kingdom and Byzantine Italy 5. Memory and the use of the past in Lombard southern Italy 6. Writing a book about the Barbarians in Italy during Fascism and reading it from 1940s to early 2000s 7. Modern history and early medieval history