It will be remembered that in the year 575 Baduarius, the son-in-law of the emperor, had appeared in Italy at the head of an army, had been beaten by the Lombards, and a little later had died, probably in 575.[1] This man was not only a great Byzantine official, but the destined successor of Justin and one of the first personages of the empire.  It is obvious, if at such a moment he commanded the imperial armies in Italy, he was supreme governor of the province And it seems certain that it was to mark the amalgamation in him of the two offices, military and civil, that the new title of exarch was created.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Migne, lxxii. 865; Joannes Biclarensis, s.a. 575; cf.  Hodgkin, op. cit. v. p. 195, and Diehl, u.s.]

[Footnote 2:  “It is only an hypothesis,” says M. Charles Diehl, the originator of this theory, “but it explains how, between the prefect Longinus (569-572) and the exarch Smaragdus (584) was produced in the years 572-576 the administrative transformation out of which rose the exarchate.”]

At the same time as the central government took on a new form the provincial administration was re-organised.  Before the year 590, this had been certainly achieved.  Istria, as we have seen, was divided from Venetia and formed a new and a special government.  In Flaminia Rimini, which till now had been a part of the same province as Ravenna, was detached and became the capital of a new government in which a part of the Picenum, Ancona, and Osimo were involved.  While the exarchate properly so called, that is the region of Ravenna from which Rimini and Picenum were now separate, formed a new province under the direct authority of the governors-general of Italy, that is to say, of the exarch of Ravenna.  By the year 590, then, we see Italy thus divided into seven districts or governments:  (1) the Duchy of Istria, (2) the Duchy of Venetia, (3) the Exarchate to which Calabria is attached, (4) the Duchy of Pentapolis, (5) the Duchy of Rome, (6) the Duchy of Naples, (7) Liguria.

Geographically the exarchate of Ravenna was bounded on the north by the Adige, the Tartaro, and the principal branch of the Po as far as its confluence with the Panaro.  Hadria and Gabellum were its most northern towns in the hands of the imperialists.  The western frontier is more difficult to determine with exactitude; it may be said to have run between Modena and Bologna.  On the south the Marecchia divided the exarchate from the duchy of Pentapolis whose capital was Rimini.  The Pentapolis consisted of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia, and Ancona upon the sea and of the five inland cities of Urbino, Fossombrone, Jesi, Cagli, and Gubbio; while the great towns of the exarchate were set along the Via Aemilia and were Bologna, Imola (Forum Cornelii), Faenza, Forli, Forlimpopoli, and Cesena.

Such then, before the year 590, was the new imperial administration in the Italy formed by the Lombard invasion.