History of Lombardy Italy - Travel Guide & Information

This description page of Lombardy, will guide you in planning your trip to Italy and help you to find useful travel information about the history of this Italian Region.

This region is one of the most historic in Europe. The Lombard plain, located in the central part of the region is at the confluence of several Alpine passes, near the River Po and easily accessible from Italian peninsula, its location has made it unavoidably a witness to much of European history for over two thousand years. Nearly every conqueror of Italy from Hannibal to Nazi Germany crossed through this area en route to Rome and the other Italian cities. At the axis of the plains and the trade routes is the city of Milan, the ancient Mediolanum, which means “middle of the plain” or more colloquially as “central place” in Latin. Much of the history of Lombardy is predicated by the history of Milan.

Milan was founded by Celtic tribes, who settled along the Po River some time around the 7th century BC. In 222 BC, Roman legions marched into the territory, defeated the locals and occupied the town. It was part of the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul and with the rest of Lombardy was thoroughly Romanized. Lombardy was home two of the Roman Empire’s greatest poets, Virgil, who penned the epic of the birth of Rome, The Aenid, and the humorous and Rome’s greatest romantic poet Catullus (who was born in nearby Verona, but spent most of his time at Sirmione on Lake Garda). At Como were born both Pliny the Elder, the great natural scientist, and his nephew, Pliny the Younger, a renown consul and lawyer who left vivid descriptions of the beauty of the lake.

To combat the near incessant threats from the barbarians Mediolanum rose to prominence as one of the capitals of the western half of the Roman Empire in third century AD. From here, Constantine proclaimed Christianity as the state religion of the Empire in the Edict of Milan in 313. Under the powerful bishop Ambrose in the fourth century AD the Roman Catholic Church successfully combated the Arian heresy, and he set up the Church as a power in its own right against the Empire.

After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, and following the Goths, a barbaric Germanic tribe, the Longobards or Lombards, invaded this region and much of the peninsula beginning in 568. They set up a kingdom in Pavia, and eventually gave their name to the region. It endured centuries of chaos caused by additional waves of barbarian invasions. Feudalism took hold, as it did throughout much of Europe during the Dark Ages.

Milan formed one of Italy’s first commune (or commonwealth) by 1024, under the leadership of the bishop Heribert. This led the city into a period of rapid growth. Many other cities, especially in the north became powerful and independent city-states. In this time of political fragmentation, many Italian cities began to assert their autonomy. These comuni contributed to the demise of feudalism in northern Italy replacing it with deeply rooted identification with the city rather than to the region or country. This sense is still strongly evident throughout Italy today.

The independent city-states, not just in Lombardy, but throughout Italy, often engaged in violent and frequent conflicts. In addition to the inter-city strife, these city-states suffered from turmoil from the divisive rivalries among their citizens, the longest-standing was the struggle between the Guelphs, who were originally supporters of the popes, and the Ghibellines, who began by supporting The Holy Roman Emperor. Despite, and maybe in part due to, such internal and external divisions, these city-states contributed a great deal to the economic, social, and cultural growth of Italy. In fact, by the 12th century, much of Italy was prospering at a rate unseen since the highlight of Roman times, and much ahead of the rest of Europe.

Milan subjugated the surrounding area and cities of Como, Pavia and Lodi. In response to a request from Lodi, The Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa, came to Italy in 1154 and eventually sacked Milan in 1158. Afterwards, the Milanese did not behave according to Barbarossa’s wishes and he returned, laid siege and eventually devastated Milan. Instead of being an example to the other independent-minded city-states, this instead spurred the creation of Lombard League that consisted of all of nearby cities (except for Pavia whose leaders despised Milan too much to participate). When Barbarossa returned to Italy a third time, this united Lombard League defeated him. During his fifth trip while preparing to lay siege to Milan in 1176, he was crushed at Legnano outside of Milan. This unity did not last long, and the city-states returned to their desired occasional warfare amongst themselves after the Treaty of Constance was signed with the Emperor in 1183, which kept him out of their business.

By 1300 the Holy Roman Emperor and the Holy See turned their attention away from Italy. The emperors worried about German affairs while the popes spent the time trying to spread its influence over the rest of Europe, and met considerable resistance from the French, who moved the papacy to France during this time. This lack of interference lasted in northern and central Italy until nearly 1500. The Black Death of 1347-48 killed about a third of the population of Italy. This put a temporary halt to the 400 years of continued prosperity and growth.

About the same time, many of the communal governments of the city-states fell under the rule of military dictators called signori, who curbed their factionalism and became hereditary rulers. In Milan the Visconti family rose to power in the 13th century, to be succeeded by the Sforza family in the mid-15th century. Milan reached its greatest glory under Gian Galeazzo Visconti who ruled from 1385 to 1402. He aimed to unite Italy under his lead, and did conquer much of the northern Italy before his death in 1402. Soon afterwards, Bergamo and Brescia were lost to the Venetian Republic.

As the larger cities expanded into the surrounding countryside, these absorbed many of the smaller cities. This was a time of economic growth, glittering cultural advancement and constant strife among the city-states. The frequent wars between these saw the rise in Italy of military leaders known as the condottieri, which were hired by city-states. The condottieri led mercenary troops that battled other mercenaries in a nearly constant game in which the wars decided the political questions, but were beautiful pageants that usually resulted in very few casualties and never the sack of the cities.

Lodovico Il Moro, who was possibly Milan’s most cultured leader, whose reign included patronage of Leonardo Da Vinci, was responsible for one of Italy’s greatest political mistakes. After his quarrel with the government of Naples grew, he invited Charles VIII of France to march through his territory and the rest of the Italy to claim the Kingdom of Naples. After not being stopped by a league of several Italian states at the Battle of Fornovo in 1494, the French had shown that the rich Italian cities and states were vulnerable in their disunity, and worthy of domination and exploitation. The Spanish soon followed the French, first to stake their claim to Naples, and then to much of the rest of the peninsula. This marked the beginning of a period of foreign domination that lasted until the mid-19th century. After defeating the French at Pavia in 1527, by roughly 1530 almost all of Italy had been subjugated by the Habsburg ruler Charles V, who was both the Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain. Though the Spanish rule brought peace and stability, at least during the first part of their dominance on the peninsula, it was a period that was characterized by general cultural and economic stagnation. Spain remained the dominant power in Italy until Austria replaced it after the War of the Spanish Succession that ended in 1714.

Under the enlightened rule of Austria’s Maria Theresa and her son, Joseph II, from 1740 to 1792, Lombardy experience intelligent economic reforms that helped to give this area an edge during the upcoming industrial revolution. In the 18th century some areas of Italy achieved independence. The most significant was the Savoy dynasty in Piedmont, which annexed Sardinia and portions of Lombardy and became an independent kingdom. Italy itself at this time still did play a key role in European politics.

Napoleon arrived in 1796 and set up the Cisalpine Republic in Lombardy. Italian patriots eagerly joined the French cause at first. The important victory over the Austrians at Marengo in nearby Piedmont in 1800 set the stage for the busy Napoleon to be crowned the King of Italy in Milan in 1805. Education and laws were reformed on the French model. But, by the time the Austrians chased out the French, most Italians had grown weary of the high taxes, oppression of the French and the ambitious, war-mongering Napoleon whose Grand Armée included many thousands of Italian soldiers killed in his ill-fated attempt to conquer Russia, and who looted much of Italy’s art treasures that currently provide the highlights of the Louvre.

The Congress of Vienna held after the Napoleonic wars tried to restore the ancient monarchial regimes and laws in Europe. But, the majority of Italians, especially in the north, enjoyed the ideals of the Napoleonic reforms and coupled with a growing sense of national pride during that time, gave rise to secret societies aiming for Italian unification and liberal reform. Milan revolted against the Austrian rule in 1848, which led to similar revolts in Venice and later Rome, and caused the Kingdom of Piedmont to declare war on Austria. After some early victories by Piedmont and there not terribly aggressive king, the Austrians won back control of the territories and suppressed the revolts by 1849. Piedmont did gain control of Lombardy and Tuscany when allied with the French in conflict ten years later. This was largely the result of the twin battles at Solferino and San Martino della Battaglia. The carnage at the former led to the formation of the International Red Cross. In 1860 adventurer and patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed to Sicily with a thousand volunteers, half of whom were from Lombardy, and eventually toppled the Kingdom of Naples in the south. Combined with the victories of Piedmont, which accounted for most of the rest of the peninsula, the Kingdom of Italy was declared in 1861.

Though the newly united Italian governments set a pattern of ineptness that continues to this day, in the north it was an improvement over the Austrian domination. With a unified country, trade increased and industry boomed in Lombardy, which, despite some violent labor strife in the 1890s and then again the next decade, began to join the mainstream of modern Europe. This was a time of general content, especially in the north, that was referred in somewhat derogatory fashion as Italietta, “little Italy.”

Italy could have avoided participation in the First World War, but it decided to join with the hope of gaining some territory from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. After help from the French on the Italian front, and the loss of several million men it did gain some land in the northeast. Northern Italian industry prospered during the years between the wars.

During the Second World War, the industrial areas of Lombardy, including Milan, were hard hit by Allied bombings during the summer of 1943. After Allied advances up the peninsula, Mussolini was deposed and the new Italian government signed an armistice. The German army still remained and fought on for another year-and-a-half in central then northern Italy. Mussolini was rescued from Allied captivity and re-installed as the head of a puppet government that was headquartered at the town of Salò on the western shore of Lake Garda. During this time of continued fighting, a widespread Resistance successfully harassed and battled the Germans. Mussolini was caught by partisans in April 1945 trying to escape to Switzerland, shot and his body and that of his mistress were hung on display in Milan.

With substantial aid from the Marshall Plan and some successful government planning, after the war, Milan and Turin in neighboring Piedmont provided the impetus for the economic comeback of the 1950s. This Italian version of capitalism featured some large multinational companies like Olivetti and Pirelli, but mostly thousands of small, usually family-run concerns. This economic growth was the impetus for a great amount of migration from southern Italy to Milan and Turin, which both grew tremendously during the postwar decades. The fashion industry moved from Florence to Milan beginning in the 1960s due to the lack of a major airport in Florence, which added international glamour to the prosperity, for which it is probably best known for today. While much of the rest of the region continues on as it has since the war, prosperous, well fed, attractively shorn, and visited by many European tourists, especially the attractive Lakes regions, if generally overlooked by North American tourists.

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