Byzantine–Norman wars: After a siege of almost three years, Italo-Norman forces conquered the city of Bari, the capital of the Catepanate of Italy, ending more than five centuries of Byzantine presence in the region.

The Byzantine–Norman wars were a series of military conflicts between the Normans and the Byzantine Empire fought from c. 1040 to 1186 involving the Norman-led Kingdom of Sicily in the west, and the Principality of Antioch in the Levant. The last of the Norman invasions, though having incurred disaster upon the Romans by sacking Thessalonica in 1185, was eventually driven out and vanquished by 1186.

The siege of Bari took place 1068–1071, during the Middle Ages, when Norman forces, under the command of Robert Guiscard, laid siege to the city of Bari, a major stronghold of the Byzantines in Italy and the capital of the Catepanate of Italy, starting from 5 August 1068. Bari was captured on 16 April 1071 when Robert Guiscard entered the city, ending not only more than five centuries of Byzantine presence in Southern Italy but also ancient Roman control since the Roman expansion in Italy in the 3rd century BCE.

The Italo-Normans, or Siculo-Normans (Siculo-Normanni) when referring to Sicily and Southern Italy, are the Italian-born descendants of the first Norman conquerors to travel to Southern Italy in the first half of the eleventh century. While maintaining much of their distinctly Norman piety and customs of war, they were shaped by the diversity of Southern Italy, by the cultures and customs of the Greeks, Lombards, and Arabs in Sicily.

Bari is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea in southern Italy. It is the most important economic centre of mainland southern Italy. It is a port and university city as well as the city of Saint Nicholas. The city itself has a population of 315,473 inhabitants, and an area of over 116 square kilometres (45 sq mi), while the urban area has 750,000 inhabitants. Its metropolitan province has 1.2 million inhabitants.