[2] According to the most recent historiography, Lucca and Spoleto were the first Lombard duchies formed after the death of King Alboin, during the period of ducal anarchy (about 574), in the central part of Tuscia.

[4] In 593 King Agilulf, entering the passes of the central Apennines, with his own army reached the border of the Duchy of Rome, occupying Balneus Regis (Bagnoregio) and Urbs Vetus (Orvieto).

Rotari's last enterprise marked the end of Lombard expansion in Tuscia Langobardorum, bordering on the south with the territories owned by the Byzantines, but dominated by the growing Papal authority.

[5] The borders between the Duchy and the Byzantine Exarchate, negotiated in the peace treaty of 680 between King Perctarit and the Eastern Emperor Constantine IV, remained definitively stable.

For a long time the capital of Tuscia, it was the habitual seat of the Lombard kings, a privileged city for its past history, for road communications made even more convenient by the opening of the Via Francigena.

[8] In the last period of Lombard domination, King Aistulf, in view of an imminent clash with the Franks, sent Desiderius to Tuscia Langobardorum with the task of carrying out a vast military recruitment.