Principality of Capua

The Principality of Capua was the Lombard state of the Terra di Lavoro, centred on Capua in southern Italy for about three centuries. Old Capua had been the greatest Roman city of the south. It enters history with Landulf the Old, who held the gastaldate for Benevento when Duke Sicard was murdered in 839 and sided his sons with Siconulf of Salerno. In 841 Saracens in Radelchis's pay sacked Old Capua to the ground, and Landulf raised New Capua on the hill of Triflisco, the city that stands today. A succession crisis in 887 raised Atenulf I to princely rank with the bishop of Naples behind him. From gastaldate to county inside Salerno the land rose to a sovereign principality, reaching its apogee in the late tenth century across most of the Terra di Lavoro. Under the Norman kings the former principality stayed one of the two chief mainland pillars of the Sicilian monarchy beside Apulia, its name living on as the Terra di Lavoro.