The Lombards (AD 568-774)

A Scandinavian people, the Lombards migrated into Italy through the Po Valley, under the leadership of king Alboin (reigned 561–572). They crossed the Julian Alps in 568. The territory was occupied by the Byzantines, and their invasion was almost unopposed. The territory in which the Lombards settled was inhabited by Ostrogoths with Germanic customs and Byzantines, who were influenced by the East and Roman Antiquity. Byzantine resistance made it difficult for the Lombards to establish themselves; and their insistence on continuing their ‘heretic’ religious practices made their integration even more difficult in the peninsula. It wasn't until the reign of king Perthari (reigned 671–688) that Catholicism became the official religion, and the Lombards maintained their legal practices for some considerable time.

Successor to the Ostrogothic kingdom for more than two centuries, the Lombard royal dynasty—there were 27 Lombard kings—made attempts to extend its territory to the south of the peninsula.

In the fragmented Europe of the High Middle Ages, several worlds coexisted around the Lombard centre of power: the power of Rome, the exarchate of Ravenna and Byzantium and Apostolic See, the Byzantine empire that tried to reconquer the West, and the Merovingian dynasty. Each people had their own laws and customs. What were the links between the different cultures? How were the Lombards influenced by the peoples whose territory they colonized? What elements of their Germanic culture did they maintain? What cultural reconciliations were made? Did the peninsula continue to maintain contact with the Mediterranean, which had previously been the source of its prosperity?

After a period of anarchy that lasted ten years (574–584), which resulted from the initial turmoil and political disorder during the rule of the Lombard dukes, the royalty was restored with the crowning of Authari. King Authari, and especially king Agilulf (reigned 590–616), made the Lombard kingdom more structured. Pavia, made capital in 626, became the centre of administrative organization, which was based on the Byzantine model. The Byzantine model, which originally came from the Hellenistic monarchies, transmitted these very old eastern traditions.

This period of stabilization favoured the development of Lombardian art. The Germanic practice of clothed burials and placing objects with the dead provide some information about Lombardian metalworking techniques. Although the first necropolises (ex. Cividale del Friuli in northeastern Italy) show a continuation of the Pannonian techniques and styles, there were strong Byzantine influences in the fashions of the seventh century. Women wore circular filigree earrings, and fibulae (they were round, in filigree, and embellished with stones) were worn separately; men wore Byzantine belt decorations. In Italy, the Lombards enhanced the traditional Germanic animal motifs with Mediterranean braiding and interlacing, on the ansated fibulae and burial crosses.

Lombard religious architecture was heavily influenced by Italo-Byzantine architecture, but also added some new elements. The churches were generally basilica churches (S. Apostle of Como) but they also had the characteristic of trefoil apses, such as the S. Saviour church of Brescia, and star-shaped rotundas, such as the Palatine chapels of Beneventum and Pavia.

The sculptures were also influenced by Byzantium art; the marble panels of abbess Theodata (d.720), the ciborium in the baptistery of Cividale, and the altar of Duke Ratchis in Cividale (744–9) copied the flat reliefs, stylization, abstraction, and symmetry. The Byzantine master sculptors certainly worked for the Lombards in the production of high-relief sculpture and sculpture in the round, which were common in the Classical world, particularly in the seventh and eighth centuries.

The Lombards did, however, develop their own particular vocabulary in the art of illumination with ornamented animal letters, centred crosses, and rectangular frontispieces, a model that was copied elsewhere, particularly in Gaul.

The Lombards were therefore influenced by the East and the Mediterranean, because of the proximity of the dynamic Byzantine world. Their relations with the rest of the Mediterranean—North Africa and the Levant—remained limited in the High Middle Ages and were confined to those that travelled by sea and on the rivers. This contact was initially with the southern Italian ports, then those of the west coast. Horizons broadened and extended, exceptionally, to Aleppo, Hama, Damascus, and Cairo. In the eighth century, Byzantine merchants brought salt and products from the East to the Lombard Court, but commercial relations with the Mediterranean remained limited.

The eighth century marked both the height and the end of the Lombard kingdom. Liudprand (reigned 712–744) extended the territory to its furthermost extent, but the peninsula was never entirely conquered. Charlemagne took possession of the Lombardian territory in 774, deposed king Desiderius, and became the 27^th king of the Lombards. As part of his programme of artistic renewal, he employed Lombardian artists, who were reputed for their skills.

E.D.-P.