LIUTPRANDO. – Bishop of Cremona, of Lombard family, born in Pavia or its environs in the first decades of the 10th century, died between 971 and 972 during a journey to Constantinople. His father had been a trusted agent of King Hugh and had been sent to Constantinople. After his father’s death in 927, his stepfather taught him Latin and Greek, as he himself recounts; in 931 he entered the court, and later became a cleric and deacon at Pavia. Under King Berengar he became secretorum concina et
epistolarum signator. He was sent to Constantinople, but on his return fell into disgrace and took refuge in Germany with Otto, writing the Antapodosis in 958, in which he recounts European events from 887 to 950, the final ones as an eyewitness and in a tone of violent polemic against Berengar and Queen Villa.
He accompanied Otto on his journey to Italy and was appointed on that occasion to the episcopal see of Cremona. On 2 February 962 he was present in Rome at the coronation of his patron. In 965, in Rome, he attended the Synod that deposed John XII (because of the favor he had shown to Berengar’s son) and elected the protoscriniarius Leo. In 965 he was present at the election of John XIII. In 967 he went to Constantinople to ask for Theophania, daughter of Nicephorus Phocas, in marriage for Otto II, and he composed an account of the journey, which has been preserved. According to the tradition recorded by Ughelli (Italia Sacra, Cremonenses episcopi, no. XXXIX) from the anonymous author of the Translatio s. Himerii, L. is said to have died on a subsequent journey to Constantinople to fetch Theophania, in 971–72.
To L. is due in part the fame of the women who lived around the papacy in the 10th century (Theodora, Marozia). A highly vigorous polemicist, his three historical works are a precious source for the history of the century, but they must be used with some caution.