1.
Medici Bank
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The Medici Bank was a financial institution created by the Medici family in Italy during the 15th century. It was the largest and most respected bank in Europe during its prime, there are some estimates that the Medici family was, for a period of time, the wealthiest family in Europe. Estimating their wealth in money is difficult and imprecise, considering that they owned art, land. With this monetary wealth, the family acquired political power initially in Florence, the Medicis were not only bankers but innovators in financial accounting. At one point, the Medicis managed most of the fortunes in the European world. There was even a time when the currency issued by the Medicis, giovannis father Averardo was not a very successful businessman or banker. A distant cousin, Vieri di Cambio, however, was one of Florences more prominent bankers and his banking house trained and employed Giovanni and his elder brother Francesco, who eventually became partners in the firm. Vieri was long-lived, but his bank split into three separate banks sometime between 1391 and 1392, the second, managed by Francesco and later his son, survived until 1443, a little less than a decade after Averardos death. The third bank was controlled by Giovanni in partnership with Benedetto di Lippaccio de Bardi, the branch in Rome was entrusted to Benedetto, and Giovanni took on Gentile di Baldassare Buoni as a partner. They raised 10,000 gold florins and began operating in Florence, but the Alberti firm split over internecine quarrels, and the clan was banished from Florence in 1382, creating yet another void. Giovannis choice proved to be prescient, especially since what Florence was lacking was a port on the Mediterranean—which it would obtain in 1406 with the conquest of Pisa. A factor was dispatched to Venice to seek out investment opportunities and he did well and on March 25,1402, the third branch of the Medici bank was opened. It suffered from some initial mismanagement, but soon was prospering and it was this branch that established the practice of having a general managers remuneration be paid through shares in the branch that he purchased with his investment. Also in 1402, the first Medici factory was established for the production of woolen cloth, by this point, the Rome branch had established a branch in Naples and Gaeta. In 1420, Benedetto di Bardi died, and was succeeded by his younger brother Ilarione di Bardi and he dissolved one of the wool factories, along with other reorganizations occasioned by partnerships coming to their designated end. Two Portinaris were put in charge of the Florence and Venice branches, according to Lorenzo, his fortune upon his death was worth around 180,000 gold florins. His death did not greatly affect the operations, and the transition to Cosimo went smoothly, aided by Ilarione. At this time, the Medici bank was flourishing, besides the branches in Rome and Florence, Ilarione would not last long in his position, and is mentioned as dead in a letter written in February 1433
2.
Pope
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The pope is the Bishop of Rome and, therefore, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, the office of the pope is the papacy. The pope is considered one of the worlds most powerful people because of his diplomatic and he is also head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the Italian capital city of Rome. The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history, the popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages, they played a role of importance in Western Europe. Currently, in addition to the expansion of the Christian faith and doctrine, the popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, charitable work, Popes, who originally had no temporal powers, in some periods of history accrued wide powers similar to those of temporal rulers. In recent centuries, popes were gradually forced to give up temporal power, the word pope derives from Greek πάππας meaning father. The earliest record of the use of title was in regard to the by then deceased Patriarch of Alexandria. Some historians have argued that the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, the writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD180 reflect a belief that Peter founded and organised the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peters presence in the early Roman Church, Clement of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians, c. 96, about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the struggles in our time and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, first, the greatest and most just columns, the good apostles Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement and in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did. Given this and other evidence, many agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero. Protestants contend that the New Testament offers no proof that Jesus established the papacy nor even that he established Peter as the first bishop of Rome, others, using Peters own words, argue that Christ intended himself as the foundation of the church and not Peter. First-century Christian communities would have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as leaders of their local churches, gradually, episcopacies were established in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure before Rome, some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did not occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, documents of the 1st century and early 2nd century indicate that the Holy See had some kind of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, though the detail of what this meant is unclear. It seems that at first the terms episcopos and presbyter were used interchangeably, the consensus among scholars has been that, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters whose offices were overlapping or indistinguishable
3.
Pope Paul III
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Pope Paul III, born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope from 13 October 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527. He convened the Council of Trent in 1545 and he was a significant patron of the arts and employed nepotism to advance the power and fortunes of his family. It is to Pope Paul III that Nicolaus Copernicus dedicated De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, alessandro’s humanist education was at the University of Pisa and the court of Lorenzo de Medici. Initially trained as a notary, he joined the Roman Curia in 1491. Farnese’s sister, Giulia was reputedly a mistress of Alexander VI, for this reason, he was sometimes mockingly referred to as the Borgia brother-in-law, just as Giulia was mocked as the Bride of Christ. More disparagingly he was referred to as Cardinal Fregnese, as Bishop of Parma, he came under the influence of his vicar general, Bartolomeo Guidiccioni. This led to the future pope breaking off the relationship with his mistress, under Pope Clement VII he became Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and dean of the College of Cardinals, and on the death of Clement VII in 1534, was elected as Pope Paul III. As a young cleric, Alessandro lived a dissolute life, taking for himself a mistress. By Silvia Ruffini, he fathered Pier Luigi Farnese, whom he created Duke of Parma, others included Ranuccio Farnese, the fourth pope during the period of the Protestant Reformation, Paul III became the first to take active reform measures in response to Protestantism. Paul III first deferred for a year and then discarded the whole project, in 1536, Paul III invited nine eminent prelates, distinguished by learning and piety alike, to act in committee and to report on the reformation and rebuilding of the Church. This report was printed not only at Rome, but at Strasburg, yet the Pope was in earnest when he took up the problem of reform. Yet it is clear that the Concilium bore no fruit in the situation. On the other hand, serious political complications resulted, in order to vest his grandson Ottavio Farnese with the dukedom of Camerino, Paul forcibly wrested the same from the duke of Urbino. He also incurred virtual war with his own subjects and vassals by the imposition of burdensome taxes, perugia, renouncing its obedience, was besieged by Pauls son, Pier Luigi, and forfeited its freedom entirely on its surrender. The burghers of Colonna were duly vanquished, and Ascanio was banished, after this the time seemed ripe for annihilating heresy. In 1540, the Church officially recognized the young society forming about Ignatius of Loyola, the second visible stage in the process becomes marked by the institution, or reorganization, in 1542, of the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. On another side, the Emperor was insisting that Rome should forward his designs toward a recovery of the German Protestants
4.
Papal States
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The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the states of Italy from roughly the 8th century until the Italian Peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. At their zenith, they covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Marche, Umbria and Romagna and these holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. By 1861, much of the Papal States territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy, only Lazio, including Rome, remained under the Popes temporal control. In 1870, the pope lost Lazio and Rome and had no physical territory at all, Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini ended the crisis between unified Italy and the Vatican by signing the Lateran Treaty, granting the Vatican City State sovereignty. The Papal States were also known as the Papal State, the territories were also referred to variously as the State of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, or the Roman States. For its first 300 years the Catholic Church was persecuted and unrecognized and this system began to change during the reign of the emperor Constantine I, who made Christianity legal within the Roman Empire, and restoring to it any properties that had been confiscated. The Lateran Palace was the first significant new donation to the Church, other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. But the Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, the seeds of the Papal States as a sovereign political entity were planted in the 6th century. Beginning In 535, the Byzantine Empire, under emperor Justinian I, launched a reconquest of Italy that took decades and devastated Italys political, just as these wars wound down, the Lombards entered the peninsula from the north and conquered much of the countryside. While the popes remained Byzantine subjects, in practice the Duchy of Rome, nevertheless, the pope and the exarch still worked together to control the rising power of the Lombards in Italy. As Byzantine power weakened, though, the took a ever larger role in defending Rome from the Lombards. In practice, the papal efforts served to focus Lombard aggrandizement on the exarch, a climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries embodied in the Lombard king Liutprands Donation of Sutri to Pope Gregory II. When the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell to the Lombards in 751, the popes renewed earlier attempts to secure the support of the Franks. In 751, Pope Zachary had Pepin the Younger crowned king in place of the powerless Merovingian figurehead king Childeric III, zacharys successor, Pope Stephen II, later granted Pepin the title Patrician of the Romans. Pepin led a Frankish army into Italy in 754 and 756, Pepin defeated the Lombards – taking control of northern Italy – and made a gift of the properties formerly constituting the Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope. The cooperation between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty climaxed in 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor, the precise nature of the relationship between the popes and emperors – and between the Papal States and the Empire – is disputed. Events in the 9th century postponed the conflict, the Holy Roman Empire in its Frankish form collapsed as it was subdivided among Charlemagnes grandchildren
5.
Santa Pudenziana
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The basilica of Santa Pudenziana is a 4th-century church of Rome, dedicated to Saint Pudentiana, sister of Saint Praxedis and daughter of Saint Pudens. It is the church for the Philippines. It has been suggested there was no such person as Pudentiana. St. Paul refers to Pudens, however, so it appears there was a real person with this name. The church of Santa Pudenziana is recognized as the oldest place of Christian worship in Rome and it was built over a 2nd-century house, probably during the pontificate of Pius I in 140–155 AD, and re-uses part of a bath facility still visible in the structure of the apse. This church was the residence of the Pope until, in 313, in the 4th century, during the pontificate of Pope Siricius, the building was transformed into a three-naved church. In the acts of the synod of 499, the bears the titulus Pudentis. The church is situated at a lower level, one enters through wrought iron gates. Steps spring down to the courtyard from both sides of the entrance. The architrave of the hall of the faded façade contains a marble frieze that used to belong to a portal from the 11th century. It is a significant work of sculpture in Rome. It shows Pastore, Pudenziana, Prassede and their father Pudens, the columns in the nave were part of the original basilica structure. The Romanesque belltower was added in the early 13th century, the painting of Angels and Saints before the Saviour on the dome is a fresco by a painter Pomarancio. During these last restorations some fragments of a Laocoön group were found that were larger than those in the Vatican, as no one was willing to pay extra for this find, they filled up the hole in the ground. The façade was renewed in 1870 and frescoes were added by Pietro Gagliardi, the right side of the present basilica was part of a Roman bath house dating from the reign of emperor Hadrian. On the wall behind the altar are three paintings made in 1803 by Bernardino Nocchi representing, St. Timotheus, The Glory of St Pudentiana. The mosaics in the apse are late Roman art and they date from around the end of the 4th century, they are regarded by different groups of scholars as dating from either the reign of Pope Siricius or the pontificate of Innocent I. They were heavily restored in the 16th century and they are among the oldest Christian mosaics in Rome and one of the most striking mosaics outside of Ravenna
6.
Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
7.
Condottieri
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Condottieri were the leaders of the professional military free companies contracted by the Italian city-states and the Papacy from the late Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance. In Renaissance Italian, condottiero meant contractor, in contemporary Italian, condottiero acquired the broader meaning of military leader, not restricted to mercenaries. In Italian historiography, Renaissance mercenary captains are usually called capitani di ventura, thus, the word Condottiere in the English language has come to denote, in the modern sense, any hired soldier. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Italian city-states of Venice, Florence, in the event that foreign powers and envious neighbors attacked, the ruling nobles hired foreign mercenaries to fight for them. From the eleventh to the century, European soldiers led by professional officers fought against the Muslims in the Crusades. These crusading officers provided large-scale warfare combat experience in the Holy Land, on the Crusades’ conclusion, the first masnada appeared in Italy. Given the profession, some masnade were less mercenaries than bandits and these masnada were not Italian, but German, from the Duchy of Brabant, and from Catalonia and Aragon. The latter were Spanish soldiers who had followed King Peter III of Aragon in the War of the Sicilian Vespers in Italy in October 1282, by 1333 other mercenaries had arrived in Italy to fight with John of Bohemia as the Compagnia della Colomba in Perugia’s war against Arezzo. The first well organised mercenaries in Italy were the Ventura Companies of Duke Werner von Urslingen, werner’s company differed from other mercenary companies because its code of military justice imposed discipline and an equal division of the contract’s income. The Ventura Company increased in number until becoming the fearsome “Great Company” of some 3,000 barbute, the first mercenary company with an Italian condottiero as its chief was the Company of St. George formed in 1339 and led by Lodrisio Visconti. This company was defeated and destroyed by Luchino Visconti of Milan in April 1339, later, in 1377, a second Company of St. Once aware of their military power monopoly in Italy, the bands became notorious for their capriciousness. In turn, many condottieri, such as Braccio da Montone and Muzio Sforza, consequently, the condottieri fought by outmanoeuvring the opponent and fighting his ability to wage war, rather than risk uncertain fortune —defeat, capture, death— in battlefield combat. Niccolò Machiavelli even said that condottieri fought each other in grandiose, in 1347, Cola di Rienzo had Werner von Urslingen executed in Rome, and Konrad von Landau assumed command of the Great Company. Towards the end of the century the Italians began to organize armies of the same description and this ended the reign of the purely mercenary company, and began that of the semi-national mercenary army which endured in Europe till replaced by the national standing army system. In 1363, Count von Landau was betrayed by his Hungarian soldiers, strategically, the barbuta was replaced with the three-soldier, mounted lancia, five lance composed a posta, five poste composed a bandiera. If the condotta expired definitively, the condottiere could not declare war against the contracting city-state for two years. In fifteenth-century Italy, the condottieri were masterful lords of war, during the wars in Lombardy, Machiavelli observed, the others being bred to arms from their infancy, were acquainted with no other art, and pursued war for emolument, or to confer honor upon themselves
8.
Gian Giacomo Medici
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Gian Giacomo Medici was an Italian condottiero, Duke of Marignano and Marquess of Musso and Lecco in Lombardy. Gian Giacomo Medici was the brother of Giovanni Angelo Medici, who was later to be elected Pope as Pius IV, Gian Giacomo, the eldest of fourteen children, was banished from Milan after a daring murder of revenge in broad daylight. He fled to Lake Como where he gathered about him a band of brigands answerable to none and he threw in his lot as bodyguard to the future Duke of Milan, Francesco II Sforza, who had been reinstated in Milan by Emperor Charles V. The Medeghino gained a reputation for violence in the Sforza pay, in partial recompense, he was made Marquis of Marignano on 28 March 1528. That he fled to Lake Como was no coincidence, for, he was born in Valsolda which is a part of the community of Porlezza. Evidence can be found that Marquis Giacomo di Medici was born in Valsolda and it was put there in honor of his achievements. A description of the relief can be found on a plaque alongside and it is likely that Gian Giacomo even had a residence in Cima, on the same spot where now stands a hotel, probably not called by chance Parco San Marco. The great engineer Agostino Ramelli trained with Gian Giacomo, who instructed him in mathematics, in 1543 he purchased the ancient fortified castle of Frascarolo, near present-day Induno Olona, in the Valceresio, which he converted into a sumptuous villa. In the summer of 1545 he married Marzia Orsini, daughter of Ludovico Orsini and he was made a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1555, also the year of his death. Il Medeghino is buried in the Duomo of Milan, since his only son, Camillo, was illegitimate, albeit made a Knight of the Order of Malta, Gian Giacomos honors passed to his brother Agosto
9.
Charles Borromeo
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Charles Borromeo was a cardinal who was archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584. Among the great reformers of the sixteenth century, Borromeo, with St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Philip Neri. He was a leading figure during the Counter-Reformation and was responsible for significant reforms in the Catholic Church and he is honoured as a saint in the Catholic Church and his feast day is November 4. Charles biography was written by three of his contemporaries, Agostino Valerio and Carlo Bascape, who wrote their contributions in Latin, and Pietro Giussanno. Father Giussannos account was the most detailed of the three, Charles was a descendant of nobility, the family of Borromeo was one of the most ancient and wealthy in Lombardy, made famous by several notable men, both in the church and state. The aristocratic Borromeo familys coat of arms included the Borromean rings, Charles father Gilbert was Count of Arona, his mother Margaret was a member of the Milan branch of the House of Medici. The third son in a family of six children, he was born in the castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, thirty-six miles from Milan, Borromeo received the tonsure when he was about twelve years old. At this time his uncle, Julius Caesar Borromeo, turned over to him the income from the rich Benedictine abbey of Sts. Gratinian and Felin, one of the ancient perquisites of this noble family, the young man attended the University of Pavia, where he applied himself to the study of civil and canon law. Due to a slight impediment of speech, he was regarded as slow, yet his thoroughness, in 1554 his father died, and although he had an elder brother, Count Federico, he was requested by the family to take the management of their domestic affairs. After a time, he resumed his studies, and on 6 December 1559 he earned a doctorate in utroque iure, on 25 December 1559, his uncle, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Medici, was raised to the pontificate as Pope Pius IV. The newly elected pope required his nephew Charles Borromeo to come to Rome, shortly thereafter, on 31 January 1560, the pope created him cardinal, and thus Charles as cardinal-nephew was entrusted with both the public and the privy seal of the ecclesiastical state. He was also entrusted in the government of the Papal States and appointed supervisor of the Franciscans, Carmelites, Charles committed to organize the third and last section of the Council of Trent, in 1562-63. He took a share in the creation of the Tridentine Catechism. In 1561, Borromeo founded and endowed a college at Pavia, today known as Almo Collegio Borromeo, on 19 November 1562, his older brother, Federico, suddenly died. His family urged Charles to leave the church to marry and have children, so that the name would not become extinct. Charles was appointed administrator of the Archdiocese of Milan on 7 February 1560, after his decision to put into practice the role of bishop, he decided to be ordained priest and on 7 December 1563 he was consecrated bishop in the Sistine Chapel by Cardinal Giovanni Serbelloni. Charles made his entry into Milan as archbishop on 23 September 1565
10.
Pavia
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Pavia is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy,35 kilometres south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of the Lombards from 572 to 774. Pavia is the capital of the province of Pavia, known for agricultural products including wine, rice, cereals. Although there are a number of industries located in the suburbs, Pavia is the episcopal seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Pavia. The city possesses many artistic and cultural treasures, including several important churches and museums, dating back to pre-Roman times, the town of Pavia, then known as Ticinum, was a municipality and an important military site under the Roman Empire. It was said by Pliny the Elder to have founded by the Laevi and Marici. It was at Pavia in 476 AD that the reign of Romulus Augustulus, ten months after Romulus Augustulus’s reign began, Orestes’s soldiers under the command of one of his officers named Odoacer, rebelled and killed Orestes in the city of Pavia in 476. Without his father Romulus Augustulus was powerless, instead of killing Romulus Augustulus, Odoacer pensioned him off at 6,000 solidi a year before declaring the end of the Western Roman Empire and himself king of the new Kingdom of Italy. Odoacer’s reign as king of Italy did not last long, because in 488 the Ostrogothic peoples led by their king Theoderic invaded Italy and waged war against Odoacer. After fighting for 5 years Theoderic defeated Odoacer and on March 15,493 assassinated Odoacer at a banquet meant to negotiate a peace between the two rulers, with the establishment of the Ostrogoth kingdom based in northern Italy, Theoderic began his vast program of public building. Pavia was among several cities that Theodoric chose to restore and expand and he began the construction of the vast palace complex that would eventually become the residence of Lombard monarchs several decades later. Near the end of Theoderic’s reign the Christian philosopher Boethius was imprisoned in one of Pavia’s churches from 522 to 525 before his execution for treason and it was during Boethius’s captivity in Pavia that he wrote his seminal work the Consolation of Philosophy. Pavia played an important role in the war between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths that began in 535, after the capitulation of the Ostrogothic leadership in 540 more than a thousand men remained garrisoned in Pavia and Verona dedicated to opposing Eastern Roman rule. The resilience of Ostrogoth strongholds like Pavia against invading forces allowed pockets of Ostrogothic rule to limp along until finally being defeated in 561, Pavia and the peninsula of Italy didn’t remain long under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire for in 568 a new people invaded Italy. This new invading people in 568 were the Lombards, in their invasion of Italy in 568, the Lombards were led by their king Alboin, who would become the first Lombard king of Italy. Alboin captured much of northern Italy in 568 but his progress was halted in 569 by the city of Pavia. Meanwhile Alboin, after driving out the soldiers, took possession of everything as far as Tuscany except Rome and Ravenna and some other fortified places which were situated on the shore of the sea. ”The Siege of Ticinum finally ended with the Lombards capturing the city of Pavia in 572. Pavia’s strategic location and the Ostrogoth palaces located within it would make Pavia by the 620s the main capital of the Lombards’ Kingdom of Pavia, under Lombard rule many monasteries, nunneries, and churches were built at Pavia by the devout Christian Lombard monarchs
Loughlin, James Francis (1911). "Pope Pius IV". Catholic Encyclopedia. 12.
Loughlin, James Francis (1911). "
