LOMBARDY, lom'bar-dl, Italy, that part of upper Italy between the Alps and the Po, with Venice on the east and Piedmont on the west. It formed an ancient kingdom, now a northern compartimento embracing the eight Provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Mantua, Milan, Pavia and Sondrio, with an aggregate area of 9,299 sqUare miles and a population in 1911 of 4,790,473. Lombardy took its name from the Longobardi or Lombards. (See LOMBARDS). Herding is a thriving indus try on the mountains ; on the lower slopes vines, fruit trees and silkworms are cultivated; on the plains rice and maize are among the principal crops. Linen and cotton are among the manufactures, also motor cars and accesso ries. After the fall of the Lombard kingdom (774) this territory remained attached to the empire of Charlemagne and his successors till 843, when an independent kingdom arose, though before its end (961) it had broken up into a number of independent duchies and civic repub lics. They successfully resisted the attempts of the Emperors Frederick I and II to curtail their liberties, and defeated them in battle. Freed
from external danger, they quarreled among themselves, and the country was for many years more or less an object of contention be tween the king of France and the emperor. The last named having won, Lombardy passed through Charles V to Spain (1535) which held possession until 1713, when Austria acquired the duchies of Mantua and Milan. The provinces were then called Austrian Lombardy, a name which they retained till Napoleon formed in 1797 out of them and other districts the Cisalpine, afterward the Italian, Republic, and at last, in 1805, the kingdom of Italy. By the Peace of Paris, 1814, and the act of the Congress of Vienna, 1815, Austria received back its old Lombard possessions; but in con sequence of the war of 1859 was compelled to cede them to Victor Emmanuel, king of Sar dinia, by the Peace of Zurich, and in 1861 they became part of the new kingdom of Italy.