Berengar II, de facto King of Italy, had appeared, through the agency of Conrad the Red, Duke of Lotharingia, at the 952 Reichstag in Augsburg and paid homage to Otto.

He and his son Adalbert remain Italian kings as Otto's vassals, though they had had to cede the territory of the former March of Friuli to him, which the German king has enfeoffed to his younger brother Duke Henry I of Bavaria as the Imperial March of Verona.

When Otto has to deal with the revolt of his son, Duke Liudolf of Swabia in 953, Berengar attacks the Veronese march; …