Peruffo, Alberto/Cristini, Luca S./Durand, Nadir Le ultime Battaglie degli Ostrogoti

With the death of Theoderic the Great in 526, the Ostrogothic kingdom was beset by hereditary disputes, which gave the Byzantine Emperor Justinian the pretext to invade Italy in 535 in order to reintegrate the Italian peninsula into the "Roman" Empire. Belisarius was the first major Byzantine general sent into Italy to reconquer what was once the heart of the Imperium Romanum.

He won battle after battle until the Ostrogoth leader Baduila, known as Totila, came on the scene from 541, and became the saviour for the Ostrogoths. After the defeat of Belisarius, Emperor Justinian sent a new general to Italy: Narses. Narses was very old, but nevertheless an able and skilful general who succeeded in inflicting a crushing defeat on the Ostrogoths at the battle of Tagina, now Gualdo Tadino. The situation of the Ostrogoths was made worse by the fact that their great king Baduila fell in the battle. The new Ostrogoth king Teia did not give up and raised a new army in 553. He again sought battle against the Byzantines, and in the Lattari Mountains, near Vesuvius, a new showdown took place. The Ostrogoths were again heavily defeated and King Teia also died in battle. This defeat marked the final end for the Ostrogoths and their empire in Italy.