page_title: Battle of Legnano
section_title: The fifth and last descent
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Legnano / Background / The fifth and last descent
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Fußfall Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossas vor Heinrich dem Löwen
context_page_description: The Battle of Legnano was a battle between the imperial army of Frederick Barbarossa and the troops of the Lombard League on May 29, 1176, near the town of Legnano in present-day Lombardy, in Italy. Although the presence of the enemy nearby was already known to both sides, they suddenly met without having time to plan any strategy.
  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 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, with which the Emperor recognized the Lombard League and made administrative, political, and judicial concessions to 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: «[...]
context_section_description: 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 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 north-western 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 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, 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 was denied, Frederick turned to his wife Beatrice of Burgundy and the bishops of Cologne and Magdeburg asking for additional troops to be sent to Italy; after receiving 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 entity).
  Despite 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 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 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 the Milanese Guido da Landriano, former consul of the Milanese capital, rector of the Lombard League as well as an expert knight.
caption: Frederick Barbarossa kneeling before Henry the Lion at Chiavenna
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