I LONGOBARDI II a.C.-VIII Secolo

1-1947615

Includes 16 full-color pages, with many b/w illustrations and maps. Italian text, but English captions to images. All color plates have full English translations.

The Lombards or Langobards were a Germanic tribe who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy. When the Lombard king Audoin defeated the Gepid leader Thurisind in 551 or 552; his successor Alboin eventually destroyed the Gepids at the Battle of Asfeld in 567. Following this victory, Alboin decided to lead his people to Italy, which had become severely depopulated after the long Gothic War (535-554) between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom there.

The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians, and Ostrogoths, and their invasion of Italy was almost unopposed. By late 569 they had conquered all the principal cities north of the Po River except Pavia, which fell in 572. At the same time, they occupied areas in central Italy and southern Italy. They established a Lombard Kingdom in Italy, later named Regnum Italicum (Kingdom of Italy), which reached its zenith under the eighth-century ruler Liutprand.

In 774, the Kingdom was conquered by the Frankish King Charlemagne, and integrated into his Empire. However, Lombard nobles continued to rule parts of the Italian peninsula well into the 11th century, when they were conquered by the Normans, and added to their County of Sicily. Their legacy is apparent in the regional appellation, Lombardy.