INTRODUCTION

Historical background and literature

Lombardy has been the centre of northern Italy not only geographically but also, for long periods in its history, politically and economically. It was always the heart of the Italian kingdom, originally named the regnum Langobardorum. Its political centre and capital was initially Pavia, but the nearby metropolis of Milan and its archbishops became increasingly important, as demonstrated in the coronation of the kings of Italy in the venerable Milanese abbey church of Sant'Ambrogio. The growing importance of Milan coincided with the weakening of the centralised royal administration in the region and the crystallisation of communal structures and institutions during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Tension between Milan and Pavia alongside the ascent of the former determined the political framework of Lombardy for centuries, while the rise of other important cities in the region such as Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Lodi and Mantua completed the picture. In the Middle Ages, the geographical concept of Longobardia or Lombardia extended beyond the confines of the modern region to comprehend such cities as Novara, Vercelli and Tortona in the Piedmont and Piacenza and Parma in Emilia. Contemporaries even described places as far away as Asti, Modena and Reggio as Lombard. Together with modern Lombardy, they formed a large but only vaguely defined region referred to here as ‘greater Lombardy’.

The traditional mints of Pavia and Milan also determined the pattern of the currency in the region. Pavia and its coinage were more influential in the west, reaching far into Liguria and the Piedmont, while Milan was more important in central and eastern areas. Milan's dominance over the other Lombard mints began to extend westwards in the thirteenth century,but it was only with the formation of the Milan-centred Visconti state in the fourteenth century that the metropolis gained undisputed supremacy. The development of the coinage in Lombardy thus mirrored political circumstances. From the 1420s, however, the expansion of Venice on to the so-called Terraferma, the mainland beyond the Venetian lagoons, stretched into Lombardy with the conquest of Brescia, Bergamo and Lodi.