The battle of Legnano was a battle between the imperial army of Frederick Barbarossa and the troops of the Lombard League on 29 May 1176, near the town of Legnano , in present-day Lombardy , Italy. Although the presence of the enemy nearby was already known to both sides, they suddenly met without having time to plan any strategy.
168-537: Pope Alexander III (c. 1100/1105 – 30 August 1181), born Roland ( Italian : Rolando ), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 September 1159 until his death in 1181. A native of Siena , Alexander became pope after a contested election , but had to spend much of his pontificate outside Rome while several rivals, supported by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa , claimed
336-419: A consequence, imperial power did not prevent the expansionist aims of the various municipalities in the surrounding territories and other towns, and cities began taking up arms against each other in contests to achieve regional hegemony. Frederick Barbarossa , on the other hand, repudiated the policy of his predecessors by attempting to restore imperial control over the northern Italian municipalities, also on
504-559: A few years earlier; these people would also have provided logistical support to the troops of the League. From a strategic point of view, in Legnano the municipal army was therefore in a position that would have prevented the emperor from making the most logical moves: to attack Milan or reach Pavia. After spending the night in Cairate, Frederick Barbarossa resumed the march on Pavia heading towards
672-598: A flooded moat that encircled the inhabited center, and by two access gates to the village: medieval Legnano thus appeared as a fortified citadel. A second reason that explains the positioning of the Carroccio in Legnano lay in the fact that the Legnanese was a territory not hostile to the troops of the Lombard League, given that the population of the area was still mindful of the devastation operated by Frederick Barbarossa
840-464: A historically connected territory with the emperor together with another area of Lombardy, the Martesana . The Lombard League troops took possession of the area between Legnano, Busto Arsizio, and Borsano. The remaining part of the army, which on the whole was formed by about 15,000 men (3,000 of whom were knights, while 12,000 were infantry ), followed with considerable detachment along the road between
1008-550: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when
1176-464: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of
1344-657: A local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has
1512-615: A military alliance symbolically led by Pope Alexander III , the Lombard League . The battle ended the fifth and last descent into Italy of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who after the defeat tried to resolve the Italian question by adopting a diplomatic approach. This resulted a few years later in the Peace of Constance (25 June 1183), with which the Emperor recognized the Lombard League and made administrative, political, and judicial concessions to
1680-463: A military campaign that lasted a few years, Barbarossa turned its attention to Milan, which was first besieged in 1162 and then, after its surrender (1 March ), completely destroyed. A similar fate fell on several cities allied to Milan. Frederick then exacerbated the grip of imperial power on Italian cities, going beyond the provisions decided during Roncaglia's second diet: he set up a bureaucratic structure run by officials who responded directly to
1848-403: A military union whose Latin name was Societas Lombardiae. According to the traditional narrative the municipalities sealed their alliance on 7 April 1167 with the oath of Pontida ; this event, however, is questioned by historians for its lack of mention in contemporary chronicles and because the first mention of the oath is late, given that it appears in a document dated 1505. On 1 December 1167
SECTION 10
#17328589164302016-645: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as
2184-504: A recognized independent kingdom. Afonso had been using the title of king since 1139. Even as a fugitive, Alexander enjoyed the favour and protection of Louis VII of France . In 1163 Alexander summoned clergy and prelates from England, France, Italy, and Spain to the Council of Tours to address, among other things, the unlawful division of ecclesiastical benefices, clerical usury, and lay possession of tithes. In March 1179, Alexander III held
2352-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving
2520-558: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of
2688-537: A saint. Alexander III beatified no one during his papacy but he did canonize ten saints which included notable figures of the age such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Becket . He died at Civita Castellana on 30 August 1181. It was one week short of twenty-two years since his election, the longest papacy since Adrian I in the 8th century. Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
2856-560: A second diet to Roncaglia (autumn 1158 ) where he reiterated the imperial dominion over the municipalities of northern Italy, with the authority of the sovereign that imposed itself on that of the local institutions, establishing, among other things, that the regalie were entirely paid to the sovereign. The proclamations of this second diet of Roncaglia had disruptive effects on the Italian communes, which immediately rebelled. After receiving reinforcements from Germany and having conquered several riotous municipalities in northern Italy during
3024-400: A semicircle defensive system. The position of the lances within this formation, all facing outwards, was certainly another reason for the victorious resistance, given that it constituted a defensive bulwark that could not be easily overcome Furthermore, the municipal troops, grouped on a territorial basis, were linked by kinship or neighborhood relations, which contributed to further compacting
3192-542: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Battle of Legnano The battle was crucial in the long war waged by the Holy Roman Empire in an attempt to assert its power over the municipalities of northern Italy , which decided to set aside their mutual rivalries and join in
3360-474: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
3528-504: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
SECTION 20
#17328589164303696-441: A wide semicircle 2–3 km, each of which consisted of soldiers protected by shields. Between one shield and another the lances were then stretched, with the first row of foot soldiers fighting on their knees so as to form a jumble of spears aimed at the enemy. During the fight, which lasted eight to nine hours from morning to three in the afternoon and which was characterized by repeated charges punctuated by long pauses to make
3864-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin
4032-668: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and
4200-729: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about
4368-550: Is from the opposite side, forcing the municipal troops to resist around the Carroccio with the escape road blocked by the Olona. Another possible reason that led the municipal troops to position the Carroccio in Legnano was to anticipate Barbarossa, still believed to be far away, by making an incursion into the Seprio with the aim of preventing a new alliance between the two: the Seprio was in fact
4536-528: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since
4704-455: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it
4872-498: Is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and a local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of
5040-458: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around
5208-626: Is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and
Pope Alexander III - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-538: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as
5544-501: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,
5712-936: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),
5880-579: The Antipope Paschal III , who in the meantime had ousted the legitimate pontiff, Alexander III, from Peter's throne; the latter, in 1165, after having obtained the recognition of the other European sovereigns, had returned to Rome, but Barbarossa, mindful of the role that his predecessors had on papal appointments, decided to intervene directly. As a test of strength, and for demonstration purposes, Frederick attacked some cities in northern Italy, reaching Rome victorious, but an epidemic that spread among
6048-672: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
6216-816: The Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and the municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian
6384-649: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in
6552-763: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and
6720-567: The Milanese Guido da Landriano , former consul of the Milanese capital, rector of the Lombard League as well as an expert knight. On the night of 28-29 May 1176, during the descent towards Pavia, Frederick Barbarossa was with his troops at the monastery of the Benedictine nuns of Cairate for a stop which later proved to be fatal, since it caused a delay compared to the contemporaneous moves of
6888-539: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after
Pope Alexander III - Misplaced Pages Continue
7056-674: The Third Council of the Lateran , one of the most important mediaeval church councils, reckoned by the Catholic Church as the eleventh ecumenical council . Its acts embodied several of the Pope's proposals for the betterment of the condition of the Church, among them the law requiring that no one could be elected pope without the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals. The rule was altered slightly in 1996, but
7224-496: The Ticino . Meanwhile, some avant-gardes of the Lombard League army stationed in Legnano, formed by 700 knights, broke away from the main army and searched the territory between Borsano and Busto Arsizio. According to other sources, the knights instead controlled the area between Borsano and Legnano, in other words, the modern-day districts of Ponzella and Mazzafame. At 3 miles (about 4.5 km) from Legnano, near Cascina Brughetto,
7392-514: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed
7560-481: The medieval commune . This institutional evolution was contemporary with the investiture struggle. When a city's bishop , who had traditionally exerted a strong influence on the civil matters of the municipality, became largely preoccupied with the contest between Empire and Papacy, the citizens were stimulated, and in some ways obliged, to seek a form of self-government that could act independently in times of serious difficulty. Citizens became increasingly aware of
7728-519: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From
7896-467: The 11th and the 12th centuries, the Papacy , the Holy Roman Empire , and their respective factions, the so-called " Guelphs and Ghibellines ", respectively. At times it was a dispute so bitter that several municipalities in northern Italy came to dismiss their bishops on the charge of simony, inasmuch as they had been invested in their offices by the emperor and not by the Pope. The dispute about investitures
8064-506: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and
8232-549: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian
8400-465: The 700 municipal knights on the track crossed—just outside a forest—300 knights of the imperial army on patrol, which represented only the vanguards of Frederick's troops. Being numerically superior, the Knights of the League attacked the imperial column and succeeded, at least initially, in gaining the upper hand. Immediately after the first clashes, Barbarossa arrived with the bulk of the army and charged
8568-541: The Alps at the head of his army five times. The first descent, which began in the autumn of 1154 and led only 1,800 men, led the king to besiege and conquer the riotous Asti , Chieri and Tortona and to attack some castles of the Milanese countryside, but not the capital of Milan, given that he did not have sufficient forces. This campaign continued with the convocation of diet of Roncaglia , with which Frederick re-established imperial authority, nullifying, among other things,
SECTION 50
#17328589164308736-438: The Alps from the usual Brenner, guarded by the League, the emperor had passed from Savoy thanks to the support of Count Humbert III . In the first phase of the campaign he succeeded in easily subjugating some cities of northwestern Italy, trying without luck to conquer also Alessandria (1174–1175). After this unfortunate siege, with the exhausted army, Frederick went to Pavia (April 1175), his ally and shortly before sacked by
8904-499: The Carroccio was placed along a slope flanking the river, presumably wooded, to have a natural defense on at least one side, that traced by the stream. In this way, Barbarossa, who was expected along the river coming from Castellanza , would have been obliged to attack the municipal army in a situation of disadvantage, having to go back to this depression. This choice turned out to be wrong: in fact Barbarossa arrived from Borsano (nowadays frazione (hamlet) of Busto Arsizio ), that
9072-417: The Carroccio, so that almost all the Brescians and most of the others fled to Milan, as well as most of the best Milanese. The others stopped at the Carroccio with the Milan infantrymen and fought heroically. Finally the emperor was made to flee, almost all the Comaschi were captured, of the Germans many were taken and killed, many died in the Ticino. As for the final stages of the battle, which are connected to
9240-421: The German imperial support) continued until Frederick Barbarossa's defeat at the Legnano in 1176, after which Barbarossa finally (in the Peace of Venice of 1177) recognized Alexander III as pope. On 12 March 1178, Alexander III returned to Rome, which he had been compelled to leave twice: the first time between 1162 and 23 November 1165. When Alexander was arrested by supporters of the imperialist Victor IV , he
9408-413: The Italian national anthem . In Legnano, to commemorate the battle, the Palio di Legnano takes place annually from 1935, on the last Sunday of May. In the institutional sphere, the date of 29 May was chosen as the regional holiday of Lombardy. The clash between the municipalities of northern Italy and imperial power originated in the struggle for investitures , or in that conflict which involved, in
9576-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has
9744-439: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
9912-423: The League was instead mainly made up of private citizens who were recruited in case of need; the knights of the League, given the high cost of the steed and armor, were of high social extraction, while the infantry were mostly peasants and citizens from the low social classes. However, the information regarding Barbarossa encamped in Cairate did not reach the leaders of the Lombard League, who were convinced that
10080-407: The Lombard League acted with foresight: to beat the emperor on time, they anticipated the times and moved towards Legnano to block the way towards the rest of his army, forcing him to fight in a territory known to them and therefore favorable. One of the most important phases of the battle was the strong resistance of the infantry around the Carroccio after the temporary retreat of the cavalry; under
10248-424: The Lombard League expanded considerably with the accession of the municipalities of the Lega Veronese. Arrived in northern Italy, Frederick decided to face the League, but finding himself in a stalemate that was caused by some failed sieges and by the constant growth of the number of cities that adhered to the municipal military alliance, he decided to postpone the confrontation and to return to Germany (1168). After
SECTION 60
#173285891643010416-401: The Lombard League. The emperor probably spent the night in Castelseprio in the manor of the counts of the homonymous county, who were bitter enemies of Milan. Barbarossa decided to stop in Cairate to cross the River Olona , the only natural barrier that separated it from the faithful Pavia, trusting to have the possibility to enter the area controlled by the allied city after having traveled
10584-403: The Lombard capital and Legnano. The decision to place the Carroccio in Legnano was not accidental. At the time the village represented an easy access for those coming from the north to the Milanese countryside, given that it was located at the mouth of the Valle Olona , which ends at Castellanza; this passage had therefore to be closed and strenuously defended to prevent the attack on Milan, which
10752-412: The Lombards could have known. Indeed, when it was said that they were near Bellinzona, it seemed like a fairy tale. The emperor wanted to pass and go to Pavia, believing that the Pavesi should come to meet him. Instead they came, met the Milanese with the knights indicated above, between Borsano and Busto Arsizio, and a huge battle was attacked. The emperor put to flight the knights who were on one side near
10920-497: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from
11088-417: The Milanese countryside: after defeating Brescia , which was a Milanese company, and having freed Lodi from the Milanese yoke, Barbarossa directed the attack to the Milanese capital, who agreed to surrender (8 September 1158) to avoid a long and bloody siege. Milan again lost the conquests made in previous years (Como, Pavia, Seprio and Brianza ), but it was not razed. Frederick Barbarossa, then, summoned
11256-457: The Milanese region. Of these, two contributed the most to fuel anti-imperial sentiment: to try to interrupt the supplies in Milan during one of his descents in Italy, in 1160, the emperor devastated the area north of the city destroying the crops and fruit trees of farmers. In particular, in fifteen days Barbarossa destroyed the countryside of Vertemate , Mediglia , Verano , Briosco , Legnano , Nerviano , Pogliano and Rho . The second event
11424-460: The armies repackage and refurbish, the first two lines finally gave way, but the third resisted shocks. According to other sources, the rows that capitulated were instead four, with a fifth and last that rejected the attacks. Meanwhile, the municipal troops who were retreating towards Milan met the bulk of the Lombard League army moving towards Legnano; the municipal army, now reunified, after having reorganized moved towards Legnano and arrived at
11592-430: The basis of the requests of some of the latter, who repeatedly asked for imperial intervention to limit Milan 's desire for supremacy: in 1111 and 1127 the city conquered, respectively, Lodi and Como , forcing Pavia , Cremona and Bergamo to passivity. To make matters worse the relations between the Empire and the municipalities were further soured by the harsh measures implemented by imperial authorities against
11760-446: The battle, which is connected to the initial clash between the two armies, seems to have taken place between Borsano and Busto Arsizio. This thesis is supported, among other things, by the document of the two anonymous chroniclers, where it is said that: Then Saturday 29 May 1176, while the Milanese were at Legnano together with fifty knights from Lodi, about three hundred from Novara and Vercelli, about two hundred from Piacenza, with
11928-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside
12096-448: The cavalry —and to a small number of militias on horseback. At this point an exceptional event occurred with respect to the traditional dominance of cavalry on infantry of that period. In Legnano the municipal infantry, with the few remaining knights, after being attacked by Barbarossa, settled around the Carroccio (maintaining a certain distance from the symbol of their municipalities), organizing themselves on some defensive lines along
12264-508: The city. The same source also mentions the distance of 3 miles (about 4.5 km) from Legnano in reference to the first contact of the two armies, confirming the hypothesis that this phase of the clash took place between Borsano and Busto Arsizio. The same document states that: Then they sent forward, towards Como, 700 soldiers to know on which side their powerful and very strong adversary advanced. There they met 300 Germanic soldiers, for about three miles, whose traces Frederick trodden with
12432-630: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian
12600-562: The conflict but merely describe the events; among the Teutonic documents, the most important are the annals of Cologne, the writings of Otto of Freising and the chronicles of Godfrey of Viterbo . The most important contemporary ecclesiastical sources are the writings of the Archbishop of Salerno and the Life of Alexander III drafted by Boso Breakspeare, with the first not referring to the indication of
12768-586: The conquests made by Milan in previous years, especially with regard to Como and Lodi. The first part of that journey continued along the Via Francigena and ended in Rome with the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Adrian IV (18 June 1155 ). During his stay in Rome, Frederick, who had left from the north with the title of King of Germany , was harshly contested by
12936-563: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of
13104-508: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to
13272-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during
13440-515: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in
13608-417: The defense of the Carroccio and the subsequent and resolute clashes between the two armies, the Life of Alexander III of Boso Breakspeare, contemporary with the battle, provides an important indication: in this text we indicate the toponyms, evidently crippled by the copyists, of Barranum and Brixianum , which could indicate Legnano and Borsano or Busto Arsizio and Borsano, and the precise distance between
13776-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date
13944-537: The difference between Frederick and his predecessors was felt. In fact, Barbarossa showed a strong aversion to municipal autonomies: his will was to restore effective power over northern Italy. The second descent, which began in June 1158, was originated by the rebelliousness of Milan and the allied municipalities to accept imperial power. This long expedition began with the attack of Frederick Barbarossa in Milan and his allies of
14112-572: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
14280-472: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
14448-424: The emblem of the autonomy of their municipalities, the municipal infantry resisted against a militarily superior army and moreover on horseback. The Carroccio also had a tactical function: being a very important symbol, in case of folding, the municipal army would have been obliged to protect it at all costs, and so it happened that, just to stay around the wagon, the municipal infantry they organized themselves into
14616-452: The emperor instead of the municipal autonomies, which were virtually suppressed, and established an imperial-nominated podestà at the head of the rebel cities. Meanwhile, Pope Adrian IV died and his successor, Pope Alexander III , soon proved to be in solidarity with the Italian municipalities and particularly hostile to the emperor. In 1163 the rebellion of some cities in northeastern Italy forced Frederick Barbarossa to descend for
14784-609: The emperor met his cousin Henry the Lion and other feudal lords in Chiavenna between January and February 1176 with the aim of asking for reinforcements to continue his campaign. When Henry denied him these, Frederick turned to his wife Beatrice of Burgundy ; Rainald of Dassel , the archbishop of Cologne and Archchancellor ; and Wichmann von Seeburg , archbishop of Magdeburg , asking for additional troops to be sent to Italy; after receiving
14952-540: The emperor was distant, still in Bellinzona waiting for the reinforcement troops. For this reason, the Carroccio , the emblem of the autonomy of the municipalities belonging to the Lombard League carrying the cross of Aribert , escorted by a few hundred men of the League, was transferred from Milan to Legnano, leaving from the capital of Milan from Porta Romana , and then up the Olona to its final destination. In Legnano
15120-425: The emperor's departure, the role of the Lombard League was limited to the diplomatic or military resolution of the diatribes that periodically broke out between the municipalities belonging to the alliance. Shortly after Barbarossa returned to Germany, the League founded a new city, Alessandria , named in honor of Pope Alexander III, who sided with the Italian municipalities so that the municipal military coalition
15288-597: The end of 1166 the emperor went to Italy for the fourth time at the head of a powerful army. To avoid the Marca of Verona, after having crossed the Alps from the Brenner Pass , instead of going along the usual Adige Valley , Barbarossa turned towards Val Camonica ; its objective was not, however, the attack on the rebellious Italian communes, but the Papacy. In fact, Frederick sided with
15456-458: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
15624-447: The exception is the Life of Alexander III written by Boso Breakspeare , which reaches four hundred words. On some occasions there is the problem of the distortion of toponyms made by the copyists of the time, who did not know the geography of the area. The contemporary sources that deal with the battle of Legnano are divided into three categories: the chronicles written by the Milanese or by
15792-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in
15960-539: The federated cities in the Lombard League, those written by the imperials or their allies and the ecclesiastical documents of the papal party. The contemporary Milanese chronicles unanimously report that the battle was fought de , apud , iuxta , ad Lignanum or inter Legnanum et Ticinum . Among them stands a document compiled by two anonymous chroniclers ( Gesta Federici I imperatoris in Lombardy . Trad.: "The exploits of Emperor Frederick I in Lombardy" ), whose two parts of
16128-468: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in
16296-456: The imperial army and with the sacking of the military camp of Frederick Barbarossa in Legnano. The emperor himself found it difficult to escape capture and reach the faithful Pavia. After the battle, the Milanese wrote to the Bolognese , their allies in the League, a letter stating, among other things, that they had in custody, right in Milan, a conspicuous loot in gold and silver, the banner,
16464-434: The imperial ones were heavy, while the losses attributable to the municipal army were quite slight. According to some studies conducted by Guido Sutermeister , part of the dead of the battle of Legnano were buried around the little church of San Giorgio, now no longer in existence, which once stood on the top of the hill of San Martino along the modern via Dandolo, in the near the church of San Martino in Legnano . From
16632-433: The imperial troops forced the first rows of the municipal army to back off in confusion. The strong impact then forced the municipal knights to retreat towards Milan, leaving the soldiers alone who were in Legnano to defend the Carroccio. Barbarossa therefore decided to attack the latter with the cavalry, given that it was defended only by the infantry—according to the canons of the time considered to be clearly inferior to
16800-415: The imperials to resist until the evening and then, at the end of the battle, fall back to catch up and reorganize did not go well. They tried to flee towards Ticino passing from Dairago and Turbigo , but were pursued by the troops of the Lombard League for eight miles. The waters of the river were the theater of the last phases of the battle, which ended with the capture and killing of many soldiers of
16968-412: The insufficient number of reinforcements coming from Germany and other Italian allies, the emperor decided to leave the alpine valleys resuming the march from Como to Pavia, both of his allies, in a hostile territory but characterized by the presence of vast areas covered with an impenetrable forest that allowed a relatively safe journey. His goal was to meet with the rest of his militias and to clash with
17136-483: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as
17304-485: The judicious use of money, however, Alexander III got him into his power, so that he was deposed in January 1180. In 1181, Alexander III excommunicated King William I of Scotland and put the kingdom under an interdict . Throughout his pontificate, Alexander III elevated 68 cardinals in fifteen consistories which included two of his successors, Urban III and Clement III , and a cardinal whom he would later canonize as
17472-472: The king and composed of the most valiant soldiers, the " gairethinx " or " arengo ". City consuls generally came from the increasingly dominant (merchant and professional) classes of a city; although the duration of a consul's mandate was only one year, and there was a certain turnover of individuals in the positions, a communal administration sometimes amounted to a coterie of leading families that shared municipal power in oligarchic fashion. In any case
17640-479: The king of France and King Henry II of England , recognized his authority. Because of imperial strength in Italy, Alexander was forced to reside outside Rome for a large part of his pontificate. When news reached him of the death of Victor in 1164, he openly wept, and scolded the cardinals in his company for rejoicing at the end of the rival antipope. However, the dispute between Alexander III, Victor IV and Victor's successors Paschal III and Calixtus III (who had
17808-563: The language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During the Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak
17976-631: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of
18144-434: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in
18312-525: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian
18480-563: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of
18648-448: The light cavalry, which came later, which carried out the decisive charge against the imperials. At centuries of distance, given the scarcity of authentic information written by contemporary chroniclers at the events, it is difficult to establish precisely where the clashes took place. The chronicles of the epoch that deal with the battle of Legnano are in fact short writings formed by a number of words between one hundred and two hundred;
18816-402: The middle of the fray trying to encourage his troops, but without appreciable results. In the heat of battle his horse was mortally wounded and the emperor disappeared to the sight of the fighters; in addition, the imperial army standard-bearer was killed, pierced by a spear. The imperials, attacked on two sides, then began to become discouraged and faced a total defeat. The strategy of
18984-645: The military forces specified in the various cities forming part of the alliance (30,000 men ), which were in fact still converging on Milan. The Lombard League was headed by the Cremonese Anselmo da Dovara and by the Vicentine Ezzelino I da Romano representing the two souls of the coalition, the Lombard and the Venetian. The military operations of the municipal troops, on this occasion, were instead guided by
19152-496: The military point of view, the battle of Legnano was a significant battle that involved a considerable number of men. Other important battles fought in the same period in fact employed a comparable number of soldiers: for example, 1,400 Aragonese knights and 800 French were involved in the Battle of Muret . At the strategic level, the clash between the two armies was carefully prepared by both factions. Barbarossa meticulously chose
19320-576: The militia of Brescia, Verona and the whole of the March [Trevigiana]. the infantry of Verona and Brescia were in the city, others were near by on the street and came to join the Milanese army – the Emperor Frederick was encamped with all the Comaschi near Cairate with about a thousand German knights, and it was said that they were two thousand he had brought across the valley of Disentis so secretly that none of
19488-452: The municipal armies, to try to find an agreement with the army of the League, but without success. During the negotiations the emperor thought, at a certain point, that the agreement was close and therefore dismissed most of his army; the negotiations, however, failed in May 1175 and the armies prepared themselves again for the war. Realizing the mistake he made, which would later prove decisive,
19656-520: The municipal troops in the Milanese or in Alessandria; Frederick Barbarossa was in fact certain that a march in forced stages towards Pavia could have prevented the municipal troops from intercepting it. The Lombard League, on the other hand, decided to engage in battle with the imperial army as soon as possible to prevent the reunification of the Teutonic armies; this despite being still in reduced ranks (15,000 men ), given that he could not count on all
19824-413: The municipal troops. Some chroniclers of the time report that Barbarossa's advisers had suggested to the emperor to stall for a new strategy, but the sovereign would have refused to take advantage of the numerical superiority and not to be forced to retreat towards hostile territories; furthermore, a retreat would have affected the prestige of the emperor. The fate of the battle, therefore, reversed and
19992-445: The municipalities, officially ending his attempt to dominate northern Italy. The battle is alluded to in the Canto degli Italiani by Goffredo Mameli and Michele Novaro , which reads: «From the Alps to Sicily , Legnano is everywhere» in memory of the victory of Italian populations over foreign ones. Thanks to this battle, Legnano is the only city, besides Rome , to be mentioned in
20160-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity
20328-434: The news on 24 March 1160, Alexander, who was at Anagni, excommunicated both Victor and Frederick. In 1161, King Géza II of Hungary signed an agreement and recognised Alexander III as the rightful pope and declared that the supreme spiritual leader was the only one who could exercise the rite of investiture . This meant that Alexander's legitimacy was gaining strength, as soon proved by the fact that other monarchs, such as
20496-639: The nobility of the Italian territories dominated by the Empire were much less (and progressively less) involved in the administrative functions of the city-dominated regions, than the nobility were in German lands. Because of the frictions that arose in the 11th and the 12th centuries, the cities of northern Italy experienced a rising ferment that led to the birth of a new form of local self-government based on an elective collegial body with administrative, judicial, and security functions, and which in turn designated city consuls:
20664-403: The northern Italian cities gradually ceased to recognize feudal institutions, which now seemed outdated. Moreover, previous emperors, for various vicissitudes, adopted for a certain period an attitude of indifference towards the issues of northern Italy, taking more care to establish relations that provided for supervision of the Italian situation rather than the effective exercise of power. As
20832-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on
21000-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of
21168-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:
21336-453: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it
21504-628: The papacy. Alexander rejected Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos ' offer to end the East–West Schism , sanctioned the Northern Crusades , and held the Third Council of the Lateran . The city of Alessandria in Piedmont is named after him. Rolando was born in Siena . From the 14th century, he was referred to as a member of the aristocratic family of Bandinelli , although this has not been proven. He
21672-500: The people of the city; in response, the emperor reacted by stifling the revolt in blood. Following this episode, and to Frederick's military campaign, the relations between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy began to crack. During the return trip to Germany, the emperor destroyed Spoleto , accused of having paid the fodro , that is, the taxes to be paid to the sovereign, with a false currency. Already during this first descent,
21840-448: The place to cross the Alps, deciding to wait for reinforcements and to cross the Alpine arch again centrally in place of the usual Brenner, to easily reach Pavia. In fact, the second choice would have involved a much longer journey in enemy territory. Moreover, shortening the journey to Alexandria, his real goal, he focused on the surprise effect, which he partly obtained. Even the leaders of
22008-422: The places, and the second that report the crippled toponym of Barranum . Among the sources after the battle, Bonvesin da la Riva , who wrote about a century after the fight, stated that the battle had taken place " inter Brossanum et Legnanum ", while Goffredo da Bussero, a contemporary of Bonvesin de la Riva, reported that " imperator victus a Mediolanensisbus inter Legnanum et Borsanum ". The first phase of
22176-412: The point where the Carroccio was located attacked the imperial troops on the sides and from behind, who were already tired from the vain assaults on the Carroccio. With the arrival of the cavalry, also the infantrymen around the communal cart passed to the counteroffensive. Sensing that the heart of the battle was now around the Carroccio, Frederick Barbarossa, with his usual audacity, threw himself into
22344-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to
22512-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
22680-528: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to
22848-471: The public affairs of their own municipality and disinclined to accept the ecclesiastical and feudal structures, with their rigid and hierarchical management of the government. The change that led to a collegial management of public administration was rooted in the Lombard domination of northern Italy; this Germanic people was in fact accustomed to settling the most important questions (which were usually of military nature) through an assembly presided over by
23016-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed
23184-399: The ranks of the imperial army (perhaps of malaria ) and which also affected the emperor himself, forced him to leave Rome, which in the meantime had surrendered, and to return precipitously to northern Italy in search of reinforcements (August 1167). A few months before the epidemic that struck the imperial army, the municipalities of northern Italy had joined forces in the Lombard League ,
23352-448: The ranks. In addition to fighting for their fellow soldiers, the municipal soldiers also fought for the freedom of their city and to defend their possessions and this led to a further stimulus to resistance against the enemy. This battle is one of the first examples in which the medieval infantry could demonstrate its tactical potential towards the cavalry. The merit of the victory of the municipal troops must however also be shared with
23520-479: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome
23688-442: The remaining 50 km in a horse day. Overall, according to most historians, the imperial army encamped in Cairate was formed by 3,000 men (2,000 of whom were reinforcements from Germany), the vast majority of whom were heavy cavalry , who was able, if necessary, to fight on foot. Despite the numerical disparity, the extent of the Teutonic army was highly respected, given that it consisted of professional soldiers. The army of
23856-402: The same proposal from a second Byzantine embassy. His stated reason amounted to it being too difficult. He appears to have feared Byzantine domination of Italy if the pope owed his position to its support. Besides checkmating Barbarossa, Alexander humbled King Henry II of England for the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170, to whom he was unusually close, later canonizing Becket in 1173. This was
24024-455: The second English saint canonized by Alexander, the first being Edward the Confessor in 1161. Nonetheless, he confirmed the position of Henry as Lord of Ireland in 1172. Through the papal bull Manifestis Probatum , issued on 23 May 1179, Alexander recognized the right of Count Afonso Henriques to proclaim himself king of Portugal – an important step in the process of Portugal becoming
24192-515: The shield and the imperial spear, and a large number of prisoners, including Count Berthold I of Zähringen (one of the princes of the Empire), Philip of Alsace (one of the empress's grandchildren) and Gosvino of Heinsberg (the brother of the Archbishop of Cologne). There are no precise data on the losses suffered by the two armies that faced each other in the battle of Legnano; from the descriptions in our possession, however, it can be affirmed that
24360-442: The site of the last phases of the battle and Milan, 15 miles (about 22 km), which is the exact distance between Legnano and the Lombard capital. This distance of 15 miles was then used to refer to Legnano also in subsequent documents. In fact, in the Life of Alexander III we read that: [The Milanese] settled, in large numbers, in a place suitable for them, between Barrano and Brissiano, around eight o'clock, 15 miles from
24528-800: The suggestion of his close friend Archbishop Eskil of Lund – exiled in Clairvaux , France, due to a conflict with the Danish king. The latter appointed a Benedictine monk Fulco as a bishop in Estonia . In 1171, Alexander became the first pope to address the situation of the Church in Finland , with Finns allegedly harassing priests and only relying on God in time of war. In the bull Non parum animus noster , in 1171 or 1172, he gave papal sanction to ongoing crusades against pagans in northern Europe , promising remission of sin for those who fought there. In doing so, he legitimized
24696-399: The support of the latter, he moved to Bellinzona to wait for them. Upon the arrival of the troops, Frederick realized, however, that their number was much lower than expected, since they consisted only of a number of knights including, according to the discordant sources of the time, between 1,000 and 2,000 units (the latter, according to most historians, is the most probable ). Despite
24864-464: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,
25032-451: The text, written by an unknown reporter between 1154 and 1167 and the other completed by another anonymous in 1177, they were copied in 1230 by Sire Raul . The annals of Brescia, of Crema, the Genoese chronicler Ottobono , Salimbene from Parma and the bishop of Crema also report apud Legnanum . The contemporary chronicles of the imperial part, on the other hand, do not specify the places of
25200-545: The third time in Italy in a military campaign that ended up in a stalemate, above all against the Veronese League , which in the meantime had formed between some cities of the March of Verona . With pacific Lombardy, Frederick in fact preferred to postpone the clash with the other municipalities of northern Italy due to the numerical scarcity of his troops and then, after having verified the situation, he returned to Germany. At
25368-463: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and
25536-529: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),
25704-666: The widespread use of forced conversion as a tactic by those fighting in the Baltic. In 1166, Alexander received an embassy from the Byzantine emperor Manuel I . The Byzantine ambassador, the sebastos Jordan relayed that Manuel would end the Great Schism of the eastern and western churches if Alexander would recognize him as emperor. As emperor, Manuel would supply the pope with men and money to restore his authority in Italy. Alexander gave an evasive answer, but in 1168 he rejected outright
25872-637: The working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian
26040-585: Was elected pope and took the name Alexander III. A minority of the cardinals, however, elected the cardinal priest Octavian, who assumed the name of Victor IV and became Frederick's antipope . By 1160, faced with a papal schism, Alexander, and Victor, were summoned by Emperor Frederick to a council in Pavia. Alexander refused, stating a pope can only be judged by God. The council of Pavia met from 5 to 11 February and recognized Victor IV's election as pope. On 13 February, Victor IV excommunicated Alexander. Upon receiving
26208-575: Was a high medieval fortification, the castle of the Cotta , which was built at the time of the Hungarian raids and which was later used during the battle of Legnano as a military outpost. Later, the castle of the Cotta was replaced, as a defensive bulwark of Legnano, by the Castle Visconteo , which rises further south along the Olona. The Cotta castle was flanked by a defensive system formed by walls and
26376-640: Was also facilitated by the presence of an important road that existed since Roman times, the Via Severiana Augusta , which connected Mediolanum (the modern Milan ) with the Verbanus Lacus (Lake Verbano, or Lake Maggiore ), and from there to the Simplon Pass (lat. Summo Plano ). His journey was then taken up by Napoleon Bonaparte to build the Simplon state road. For this reason, in Legnano there
26544-548: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only
26712-516: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on
26880-667: Was freed by Oddone Frangipane , who sent him to safety in the Campania . Alexander again left Rome in 1167, travelling first to Benevento and later moving to various strongholds such as those of Anagni , Palestrina , Ferentino , Tusculum , and Veroli . Alexander III was the first pope known to have paid direct attention to missionary activities east of the Baltic Sea. He had created the Archbishopric of Uppsala in Sweden in 1164, probably at
27048-435: Was instead linked to the measures taken by Frederick Barbarossa after the surrender of Milan (1162): the imperial vicar who administered the Milanese countryside after the defeat of Milan forced the farmers of the area to pay a heavy annual tax of foodstuffs for the emperor, which made the population increasingly hostile to imperial power. To try to pacify northern Italy and restore imperial power, Frederick Barbarossa crossed
27216-659: Was long thought to be the 12th-century canon lawyer and theologian Master Roland of Bologna, who composed the "Stroma" or "Summa Rolandi"—one of the earliest commentaries on the Decretum of Gratian —and the "Sententiae Rolandi", a sentence collection displaying the influence of Pierre Abélard , but John T. Noonan and Rudolf Weigand have shown this to be another Rolandus. Rolando probably studied at Bologna, where Robert of Torigni notes that he taught theology. In October 1150, Pope Eugene III created him Cardinal-Deacon of Santi Cosma e Damiano . Later he became Cardinal-Priest of St Mark . In 1153, he became papal chancellor and
27384-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of
27552-502: Was not the only source of friction between the Empire and the municipalities of northern Italy. A crisis of feudalism arose with the economic growth of northern Italian cities and their emerging desire to free themselves from imperial administration. Furthermore, the Italian territories of the Holy Roman Empire were distinctly different from the Germanic ones in socioeconomic and cultural aspects, and were not sympathetic to imperial power wielded by an authority of German lineage. Moreover,
27720-406: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by
27888-405: Was restored in 2007. The period from 1177, which saw the submission of both emperor Frederick and anti-pope Calixtus III, and this synod/council marked the summit of Alexander III's power. Nevertheless, soon after the close of the synod, the Roman Republic forced Alexander III to leave the city, which he never re-entered, and on 29 September 1179, some nobles set up the Antipope Innocent III . By
28056-409: Was symbolically headed by the same Pope. The foundation of a new city without the consent of the imperial authority was a serious setback to Frederick Barbarossa, who decided to definitively resolve the Italian question. In 1174 Frederick Barbarossa, to try to resolve the situation once and for all, went down to Italy for the fifth time with a powerful army of about 10,000 men. Instead of crossing
28224-497: Was the leader of the cardinals opposed to Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa . In 1156, he negotiated the Treaty of Benevento , which restored peaceful relations between Rome and the Kingdom of Sicily . At the diet of Besançon in October 1157, he and Cardinal Bernard of San Clemente delivered a papal message that seemed to claim that Frederick I was a papal vassal , resulting in a serious diplomatic incident. Pope Adrian IV died 1 September 1159. On 7 September 1159, Rolando Bandinelli
#429570