The Duchy of Persiceta (or Persiceto) in the Kingdom of the Lombards was created on territory taken from the Byzantine Empire by King Liutprand in 728.
The dukes of Persiceta were early patrons of Nonantola, and along with the kings gave it vast tracts of land amounting to about 400 square kilometres.
[1] Persiceta and Nonantola formed a common bulwark against Byzantine Italy, which Liutprand made no further attempt to occupy.
John's son, Ursus II, was sent as a child to Nonantola, tonsured as a monk and in 789 gave all his earthly goods to the monastery his father had already well endowed.
Under the Franks the duchy became a pagus ruled by a gastald, eventually attached to Modena and ultimately, in 908, to Bologna.