LOUIS II, King of Italy, ROMAN EMPEROR. - Son of Emperor Lothair I, b. around 820, d. near Brescia on 12 August 875. In 844 his father sent him to Italy, assisted by his great-uncle Drogo, bishop of Metz, with the title of king of the Lombards: he was charged with reasserting imperial authority, especially in Rome, against the popes and the local aristocracy, and with providing for the defense of the peninsula against the persistent danger of Arab invasions. After exercising authority at Pavia, he proceeded to Rome: there he imposed on Pope Stephen IV and on the Roman people the oath of fidelity to the emperor; by the Pope he was consecrated and crowned king of Italy. On this occasion the prince of Salerno, Siconulf, paid him homage. He then went to settle in the Italian capital, Pavia, but the worsening of the Arab danger forced him to return to France to provide for major armaments.
The expedition organized in the following years succeeded in driving back the Saracens threatening Benevento; however, Bari and the Gargano remained firmly in the hands of the enemy. Pope Leo IV himself in the year 849 took part in an expedition to drive the Saracens from Ostia. L. succeeded in organizing the two principalities of Salerno and Benevento so as to use them as bulwarks. Having returned to Rome in the spring of 850, L. was, by his father's arrangement, crowned emperor by Leo IV, and in the following years governed Italy as his father's colleague, but in his own name. Assemblies of bishops and counts gave him the opportunity to examine the conditions of the Kingdom, providing for the needs of the administration; his marriage to an Italian noblewoman, Ermengard, integrated him better into the life of the country. In accordance with Lothair's arrangements, he continuously kept watch over the papal Curia, controlling the elections of Benedict III and Nicholas I. After his father's death, in 855, he remained sole emperor, but he did not succeed in obtaining from his brothers a fair distribution of the domains, nor in imposing his authority on them. Only Lothair II ceded to him in 859 the bishoprics of Geneva, Lausanne, and Sion in order to have his help in his matrimonial dispute with the Pope; when his other brother, Charles, died in 862, he took part in the partition of the domains, occupying Arles, Embrun, and Grenoble. In the matrimonial question of his brother Lothair, L. first sought to compel Pope Nicholas I, even by violence, to second Lothair's claims for separation from his legitimate consort, but afterward he was reconciled with the Pope and contented himself with attempting a peaceful agreement. The Saracen threat forced him into a new great expedition into Apulia in 866, and then he endeavored to obtain the alliance of the Byzantine Emperor, but the negotiations for a marriage agreement failed. In 871 L. succeeded in wresting Bari from the Arabs, then an insurrection at Benevento immobilized him; taken prisoner, he regained his freedom on condition that he never return. He had himself released by the Pope from the oath imposed on him, and in 872 he had himself crowned again in Rome.
Bibliography4 works
Francesco Cognasso