ALBOIN, oyhdin ( ?-e. 573). The founder of the Lombard dominion in Italy. He succeeded his father in 561 A.D. as King of the Lombards, who were at that time settled in .Norieum and Pannonia. He first aided Narses against the 0Atrogoths, and afterward, allying himself with the Avars, attacked the Gepida. and defeated them in a great battle (566), slaying their king, Cunimund. with his own hand. On the death of his first wife. Chlotsuinda. he married Rosamund, daughter of Cunimund. He invaded Italy in 508 with his own nation of Lombards, sonic of the Gepidie, 20,000 Saxons, and adventurers from other nations; overran Venetia in 50S, Ligu ria in 569, and Etruria in 570, and captured Beneventum in 571. Pavia was conquered in 572, after three years of siege. During a feast at Verona lie made his queen drink out of the skull of her father, which he had converted into a wine-eup. lit revenge she incited her para mour, Helmichis, to murder her husband (572 or 573). To escape the fury of the Lombards. Rosa mund fled with her associate and the treasure to Longinus, the exarch, at Ravenna. Longinus becoming a suitor for her hand, she administered poison to Hebnichis, who. discovering the treach ery, caused her to swallow the remainder of the cup, and she died with him. For several centu ries the name of Alboin continued to be famous among the German nations, who celebrated his praises in martial songs.
ALBONI, 01-1.)5'ne, :MARIETTA ( 1823-94 ) . An Italian contralto, horn at Cesena. in the Roma
gna, March 10. 1823. A pupil of Mme. Bertolotti, and later of Rossini, she made her debut at the age of fifteen at Bologna as Orsini in Lacrezia Borgia, and her success led to an engagement at La Scala, Milan. In 1S46-47 she sang in all the principal cities of Europe; in London, at Covent Garden, in rivalry with Jenny Lind. who was at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1852 she visited the United States, singing in the chief towns in opera and concert. With the exception of Malibran (q.v.), she was the greatest contralto of the nineteenth century. Her voice, a fine contralto with a compass of two and one-half octaves, ranging as high as mezzo-soprano, possessed at once power, sweetness, fullness, and extraordi nary flexibility. In passages requiring elevation and semi-religious calmness she had no peers, owing to the moving quality of her voice. She possessed vivacity, grace, and charm as an ac tress of the comedienne type, but her attempt at a strongly dramatic part, like Norma, turned out a failure. She married Count l'epoli, of the Papal States, but kept her maiden name on the stage, appearing in opera at Munich as late as 1872. Her husband died in 1866, and in 1877 she married M. Zieger, a French officer. She died at Ville d'Avray, near Paris. Consult. G. T. Ferris, Great Singers (New York. 1893), which gives a most picturesque account of her professional career.