The Duchy of Amalfi or the Republic of Amalfi was a de facto independent state centred on the Southern Italian city of Amalfi during the 10th and 11th centuries. The city and its territory were originally part of the larger ducatus Neapolitanus, governed by a patrician, but it extracted itself from Byzantine vassalage and first elected a  duke (or doge) in 958. It rose to become an economic powerhouse, a commercial centre whose merchants dominated Mediterranean and Italian trade for a century before being surpassed and superseded by the other maritime republics of the North, like Pisa, Venice, and Genoa. In 1073, Amalfi lost its independence and fell to the Normans, from whose yoke it failed in two separate attempts to free itself.