Frederick Barbarossa (Redbeard) succeeded his father Conrad in 1152, and began a reign which was disturbed by wars with his nobility and by expeditions into Italy to subdue the revolts of the city republics of Lombardy against imperial authority.  During his first expedition to Italy, 1154-1155, Barbarossa soon crushed all opposition and was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, at Rome, by Pope Hadrian IV.  During his second expedition, 1158-1162, he destroyed the city of Milan and dispersed the inhabitants, who sought refuge in cities with which they had formerly been at enmity.  Barbarossa’s violence antagonized the Italians, and they combined in the Lombard League to drive him out of Italy.  He was excommunicated by Pope Alexander III, who succeeded Hadrian in 1159, and to inaugurate the league a town named Alessandria in honor of the Pope was founded on the Piedmont frontier.  In the expedition of 1166-1168 Barbarossa, who had set up an antipope, captured Rome and enthroned Paschal III as pope.  His triumph however, was shortened by a pestilence which decimated his troops, and thence began a series of reverses which ended in the ascendency of the Lombard League.

No sooner had Frederick passed through North Italy on the way to his triumph and ultimate humiliation in Rome than the formation was begun of that greater Lombard League which was to prove so terrible and invincible an enemy.  Cremona was, according to the Emperor’s own account, the prime mover in the matter.  Mantua, Bergamo, and Brescia joined with that city, and bound themselves to mutual protection.  The league, which was to last for fifty years, was not openly hostile to the Emperor; fidelity to him, indeed, was one of the articles of its constitution.  But only such duties and services were to be performed as had been customary in the time of Conrad III; so the cities practically renounced the Roncaglian decrees and declared themselves in revolt.

From the beginning, too, the league took sides with Alexander.  But its most daring act of insubordination was the leading back in triumph of the Milanese to the scene of their former glory.  The outer walls of Milan had not been entirely levelled to the ground, and the city arose as if by magic from her ruins.  Bergamo, Brescia, and Cremona lent her efficient aid in the work of restoration.

A sculpture executed in 1171 by order of the consuls, and showing the return, accompanied by their allies, of the exiles, is still to be seen in Milan, near the Porta Romana.  How few of those who look on it to-day realize what that return meant to the long-suffering citizens, and what premonitions of evil to come must have gone with them.

The Lombard League spread rapidly.  Lodi, after much demur and after being surrounded by an army, was forced to join it.  Piacenza needed no constraint, and Parma yielded after some opposition.  Including Milan there were soon eight cities in the confederation.  The imperial officials were disavowed and the old consular rule reestablished, while everywhere Alexandrine bishops replaced those that had been invested by Victor and Paschal.