Lombard League in the context of "March of Verona"

Lombardy (Lombard: Lombardia), also called Historical Lombardy (Lombardia storega) or Greater Lombardy (Granda Lombardia), is a name referring to the territory, larger than the modern administrative region of Italy, which culturally, linguistically and politically has been historically considered Lombard.

Originally synonymous with Northern Italy, the definition of Lombardy shrank over time: Dante Alighieri, in his De vulgari eloquentia, recognised the autonomy of Romagna and Genoa from Lombardy. Since the 1400s Piedmont became more and more culturally autonomous from the rest of Lombardy, and by the 1600s there was a substantial partition between Lombardy and Piedmont, the latter being ruled by the House of Savoy.

The Palio di Legnano (Italian: [ˈpaːljo di leɲˈɲaːno]; known locally simply as Il Palio) is a traditional event generally held on the last Sunday of May in the city of Legnano, Italy, to recall the Battle of Legnano held on 29 May 1176 by the Lombard League and the Holy Roman Empire of Frederick Barbarossa. This Palio is composed by a medieval pageant and a horse race. Until 2005 the whole event was named Sagra del Carroccio.

The crusade against the Hohenstaufen was a series of wars launched against the rulers of the Hohenstaufen dynasty with the support and encouragement of the Papacy between 1240 and 1268. The campaigns followed the excommunication of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1239 and ended with the death of his grandson Conradin, a claimant to the Kingdom of Sicily.

On 20 March 1239, Pope Gregory IX excommunicated Frederick II, who was in Padua at the time preparing to campaign against the Lombard League. Almost immediately, Gregory began attacking the emperor in propaganda, aimed especially at Frederick's enemies. The legate Gregory of Montelongo effectively allied the papacy with the League. The network of north Italian cities opposed to the emperor was expanded to include Milan and Piacenza, while Genoa and Venice, through papal mediation, agreed to launch an offensive against the emperor.

The Treaty or Peace of Venice, 1177, was a peace treaty between the papacy and its allies, the north Italian city-states of the Lombard League, and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily also took part in negotiations and the treaty thereby determined the political course of all Italy for the next several years.

The treaty followed on the heels of the Battle of Legnano of 29 May 1176, a defeat for Frederick Barbarossa. Frederick quickly thereafter sent envoys to Pope Alexander III at Anagni, asking for an end to the schism between him and Frederick's antipope, Callixtus III. After a preliminary agreement was reached, a conference was scheduled for July 1177. Frederick spent some time in the interim interfering in Venetian rivalries in hopes of securing a pro-Imperial group in power at the time of the confrontation.