Dating back to pre-Roman times, the
town of Pavia (then known as Ticinum) was a
municipality and an important military site (a
castrum) under the
Roman Empire. It was said by
Pliny the Elder to have been founded by the
Laevi and
Marici, two
Ligurian tribes, while
Ptolemy attributes it to the
Insubres. The Roman city most likely began as a
small military camp, built by the consul
Publius Cornelius Scipio in 218 BC to guard a wooden
bridge he had built over the river Ticinum, on his way
to search for
Hannibal, who was rumoured to have managed to lead
an army over the Alps and into Italy. The forces of Rome
and
Carthage ran into each other soon thereafter, and
the Romans suffered the first of many crushing defeats
at the hands of Hannibal, with the consul himself almost
losing his life. The bridge was destroyed, but the
fortified camp, which at the time was the most forward
Roman military outpost in the Po Valley, somehow
survived the long Second Punic War, and gradually
evolved into a garrison town.
Its importance grew with the
extension of the
Via Aemilia from
Ariminum (Rimini) to the
Po River (187 BC), which it crossed at Placentia (Piacenza)
and there forked, one branch going to
Mediolanum (Milan)
and the other to Ticinum, and thence to
Laumellum where it divided once more, one branch
going to
Vercellae - and thence to
Eporedia and
Augusta Praetoria - and the other to
Valentia - and thence to
Augusta Taurinorum (Turin)
or to
Pollentia.
Here, in 476,
Odoacer defeated
Flavius Orestes after a long siege. To punish the
city for helping the rival, Odoacer destroyed it
completely. However, Orestes was able to escape to
Piacenza, where Odoacer followed and killed him,
deposing his son
Romulus Augustus. This is commonly considered the
end of the
Western Roman Empire.
A late name of the city in Latin
was Papia (probably related to the
Pope), which evolved to the Italian name Pavia.
Sometimes it's been referred to as Ticinum Papia,
combining both Latin names.
Under the
Ostrogoths, Pavia became a fortified
citadel and their last bulwark in the war against
Belisarius.
After the
Lombards conquest, Pavia became the capital of their
kingdom (568-774). During the
Rule of the Dukes, it was ruled by
Zaban. It continued to function as the
administrative centre of the kingdom, but by the reign
of
Desiderius, it had deteriorated as a first-rate
defensive work and
Charlemagne took it in the
Siege of Pavia (June, 774) assuming the kingship of
the Lombards. The Hungarians burned Pavia from sometime
during 889 to 955 Ad. Pavia remained the capital of the
Italian Kingdom and the centre of royal coronations
until the diminution of imperial authority there in the
12th century. In 1004
Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor bloodily suppressed a
revolt of the citizens of Pavia, who disputed his recent
crowning as
King of Italy.
In the 12th century Pavia acquired
the status of a self-governing
commune. In the political division between
Guelphs and Ghibellines that characterizes the
Italian Middle Ages, Pavia was traditionally Ghibelline,
a position that was as much supported by the rivalry
with
Milan as it was a mark of the defiance of the
Emperor that led the
Lombard League against the emperor
Frederick Barbarossa, who was attempting to reassert
long-dormant Imperial influence over Italy.
In the following centuries Pavia
was an important and active town. Under the
Treaty of Pavia, Emperor
Louis IV granted during his stay in Italy the
Palatinate to his brother Duke
Rudolph's descendants. Pavia held out against the
domination of
Milan, finally yielding to the
Visconti family, rulers of that city in 1359; under
the Visconti Pavia became an intellectual and artistic
centre, being the seat from 1361 of the
University of Pavia founded around the nucleus of
the old school of law, which attracted students from
many countries.
The
Battle of Pavia (1525) marks a watershed in the
city's fortunes, since by that time, the former cleavage
between the supporters of the Pope and those of the Holy
Roman Emperor had shifted to one between a French party
(allied with the Pope) and a party supporting the
Emperor and King of Spain
Charles V. Thus during the
Valois-Habsburg
Italian Wars, Pavia was naturally on the Imperial
(and Spanish) side. The defeat and capture of king
Francis I of
France during the battle ushered in a period of
Spanish occupation which lasted until 1713 at the
conclusion of the
War of the Spanish Succession. Pavia was then ruled
by the
Austrians until 1796, when it was occupied by the
French army under
Napoleon. During this Austrian period the University
was greatly supported by
Maria Theresa of Austria and saw a great renaissance
that eventually led to a second renaissance due to the
presence of leading scientists and humanists like
Ugo Foscolo,
Alessandro Volta,
Lazzaro Spallanzani,
Camillo Golgi among others.
In 1815, it again passed under
Austrian administration until the
Second War of Italian Independence (1859) and the
unification of Italy one year later.