 The affirmation of large landownership from the eighth/ninth centuries accelerated the process of land reclamation and intensified land use, transforming the landscape of the Po Valley.After the chaotic feudal dissolution of the empire and much fighting among pretenders to the imperial crown, Otto I of Saxony set the stage for the following phase of the region's history by adding the Po Valley to the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic nation in 962.In Veneto, the lagoon capital of Venice, emerged a great sea power in alliance with its old master, the Byzantine Empire.