Amalfi, Maritime Republic from 1st of September 839, was one of the most important centres of Mediterranean in the Middle Ages, representing the meeting point between East and West thanks to warehouses that was able to build in various seaports.

These contacts made it so big to join around itself a territory, Amalfi dukedom, which swept from Vietri sul Mare as far as Capri isle, and it intervened to defend southern Italy and Papacy against saracenic attacks, excepting stipulating in a second moment diplomatic agreements with them to obtain trade facilities.

With  Maritime Republic decline the territory became feud of big families who carried on making both town and dukedom big from the architectonic point of view.  At the end of the feudal period inhabitants decided to buy the whole dukedom and also in Amalfi rose the public University (the town hall).