HUGH, King of Italy. - Crowned in April 927, he held power until 947. Born between 880 and 881 to Count Tibaldo and to Berta, daughter of Lothair II of Lorraine, he became count of Vienne in 899 and governed the Kingdom of Provence when the emperor King Louis returned there, blind and without prestige, after the disastrous Italian expedition of 905.
In 912 he attempted an expedition into Italy on his own account, but without success, and he renewed the attempt with better fortune in 927, availing himself of the support of Marquis Guy of Tuscany, his uterine brother, and of the support of Pope John X, who hoped to find in him an aid against the turbulent Roman nobility. He landed at Pisa in April 927 and from there reached Pavia, where he was crowned king of Italy; but his understanding with John X, which seemed to prelude an action in Rome and in the Papal State and an imperial coronation, brought about a rupture with the house of Tuscany, and an agreement of the latter with that part of the Roman nobility that was led by Marozia (v.). Marozia came to an agreement with Guy of Tuscany and married him, but when Guy died, she carried out a skilful political diversion, and, in order to maintain the predominance of herself and her family, offered U. the imperial crown and her hand. A riot provoked by Alberic (v.), son of Marozia, forced U. to flee from Rome, but his will for revenge dominated his entire policy in the years that followed.
There was no lack of conspiracies at home and attacks from abroad, forestalled or contained with great vigor until 945, when Berengar of Ivrea (v.), having taken refuge in Germany, returned from there at the head of an army and, having entered Milan, received there the homage of the great men. U. abandoned power for a moment, while his son Lothair, who had been associated with him since 931, retained the royal title, leaving to Berengar the exercise of power. U. then returned to the throne, beside his son, but without exercising any effective authority (947). A year later he moved to Provence, where he had kept lands and possessions, in order to prepare there a military expedition against Berengar, but there he was instead overtaken by death on 10 April 948.
Bibliography
Gina Fasoli