Lombardy

Lombardy, that part of Upper Italy which lies between the Alps and the Po, having the territory of Venice on the east, and Piedmont on the west. Its geographical characteristics are discussed under ITALY. Its history begins with the conquest by the Romans in 222, who called it Gallia Cisalpina. After the break up of the Roman empire it was successively in the hands of Odoacer, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantine emperors, and the Lombards (q.v.). Charlemagne incorporated it in his empire, but from 843 it was ruled by a separate line of kings, though before the kingdom ended (961) it had broken up into a number of independent duchies and civic republics. The Lombard cities, like those of Flanders at a later epoch, grew wealthy by industry and trade, and nurtured a vigorous love of freedom and independence. They resisted sturdily and successfully the attempts of the emperors Frederick I. and II. (q.v.) to curtail their liberties, forming themselves into strong leagues, which were powerful enough to rout the emperors in pitched battles. But, freed from threatening danger, they began to quarrel amongst themselves, and the country was for many years more or less distracted by internal dissensions. After the death (1447) of the last duke of Milan, whose ancestor, Count Azzo, had acquired the sovereignty over nearly all Lombardy in 1337, the country was made an object of contention between the king of France and the emperor. The last named having got the better in the contest, Lombardy passed through Charles V. to Spain, which held possession of it till 1713, when the duchies of Milan and Mantua came into the hands of Austria. Napoleon made it part of the Cisalpine republic, the Transpadane republic, and the kingdom of Italy successively. But in 1815 it was restored to Austria, and associated with the newly-acquired Venetian territory. In 1859 Lombardy was given up to Italy, and divided into the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Mantua, Milan, Pavia, and Sondrio. See Hodgkins, Italy and her Invaders (vols. v. and vi.); W. K. Williams, The Communes of Lombardy (1891).