LIUTPRANDO, king of the LONGOBARDI. — In 703, Ansprando, during the bitter struggles for succession to the Lombard throne, was forced to flee with his younger son L. to Teodoberto, king of the Bavarians. Nine years later (712), he came down into Italy and fought near Pavia, defeating the usurper Ariberto. After only three months of reign, L. succeeded him in the government.
L., having escaped a conspiracy plotted against him by one of his relatives, devoted ten years of his reign to reorganizing the State and undertook to continue Rotari’s legislative work with new laws.
These laws were formulated in fifteen assemblies between 719 and 724 and comprise 153 chapters. The King presented himself as a Christian and Catholic prince and adorned his prologues with biblical reminiscences, attesting to the participation of ecclesiastics in the drafting of the laws. Chapter 33 is particularly marked by ecclesiastical influence. A very substantial part of the legislation is directed against homicide, through a higher valuation of human life, and adds the confiscation of the guilty party’s property to the wergild, except in cases of legitimate self-defense. The laws aimed at combating superstitions and the practice of sorcery show the King to have possessed a wise and enlightened spirit (v. ROTARI).
Around 726 he took advantage of the struggles that had broken out in the Exarchate on the occasion of the iconoclast controversy and first invaded the Exarchate, conquering Bologna and other cities of Emilia, and then the Pentapolis, seizing Umana, Ancona, and Osimo; he captured Classe and laid siege to Ravenna, while part of his forces advanced into the Roman Duchy, occupying the castle of Sutri, which L. subsequently donated to the Pontiff. He then moved toward central and southern Italy, defeated the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento, and thereafter invaded the Roman Duchy, but was halted and pacified by Gregorio II; L. entered Rome as a friend and pilgrim, visited S. Pietro, and departed. In 734 he again took the field, invaded the Exarchate, and seized Ravenna, but his success was short-lived: the city was in fact liberated by the Venetians.
L. maintained friendly relations with Carlo Martello, who called upon the Lombard king for assistance against the Saracens infesting southern France. On his return from France, he marched against the rebellious duke of Spoleto, Trasamondo, depriving him of the Duchy. He intervened to quell the disturbances that had arisen in the Beneventan territory, and because Gregorio III had refused to surrender Godescalco, the usurper of the Duchy of Benevento, he invaded Roman territory and occupied several castles, but then returned to Pavia (739) to prepare a new expedition. In 740 he again attacked the Exarchate and Ravenna, while individual Lombard forces devastated the properties of the Roman Church. The Pope appealed to Carlo Martello, but without effect. The new pope, Zaccaria, reached an agreement with L.; new difficulties then arose, especially when the duke of Spoleto, Trasamondo, was deposed and replaced by Agiprando, the Lombard King’s nephew. Zaccaria was received by L. at Terni (742) and compensated for the damage he had suffered.
Having reorganized affairs in the south, L. returned to Pavia, and the following year once again moved against the Exarchate, directing his forces against the Greeks. The still-free populations of Emilia appealed to the Pontiff; he intervened effectively and, as usual, the Lombard King listened to the voice of the Pope, who had personally gone to Pavia (743). Before the ambassadors sent to Constantinople to negotiate peace had even returned, L. died in January 744. He was first buried beside his father, in the church of S. Adriano at Pavia; then, in the twelfth century, his remains were transferred to the church of S. Pietro in Ciel d’oro, where L. had had the relics of S. Agostino brought from Sardinia.