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Updated: June 9, 2025
In spite of their abhorrence of the iconoclastic Leo and his successors, the popes did not give up all hope that the emperors might aid them in keeping the Lombards out of Rome. At last a Lombard ruler arose, Aistulf, a "son of iniquity," who refused to consider the prayers or threats of the head of the Church. In 751 Aistulf took Ravenna and threatened Rome.
But the Franks were deaf. An expedition to crush the Lombards was a laborious and an expensive business, and Pepin had much to occupy him at home. In January 756, however, Aistulf, mad from the start, laid siege to Rome, and for three months laid waste the farms of the Campagna, S. Peter's patrimony. Narni was taken and indeed all seemed as hopeless as ever.
After the fall of the Gothic power, Pesaro was incorporated in the Exarchate, and together with four other cities on the Adriatic Ancona, Fano, Sinigaglia, and Rimini constituted the Pentapolis. When Ravenna fell into the hands of the Lombard King Aistulf, Pesaro also became Lombard; but later, by the deed of Pipin and Charles, it passed into the possession of the Pope.
Nonantulae," published by Muratori, we find a donation by King Aistulf to that monastery: "prope castellum Aginulfi, quod pertinet de curte nostra lucense, et duas casas masaritias de ipsa curte"; and "granum ilium, quod annue colligitur de portatico, in Curte nostra, quae sita est in Civitate Nova."
Gregory III excommunicated the iconoclasts ; the Lombard King Aistulf seized Ravenna, the last important stronghold of the Byzantines in the peninsula . Too late the Papacy realised that the orthodox Lombard was a greater menace than the Greek heretic. Aistulf regarded Rome, in common with the other territories of the Empire, as his rightful spoil.
Pepin marched on; Pavia was besieged, Aistulf was beaten to the dust. A treaty was drawn up in which the Lombard gave to "S. Peter, the Holy Roman Church, and all the popes of the Apostolic See forever" the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, and Comacchio.
When at last Aistulf in 751 made himself master of the impregnable city, it ceased, and suddenly, to be a capital, and though in 754 Pepin "restored" it to the papacy and established the pope throughout the Exarchate and the Pentapolis, he by that act founded the Papal States, whose capital of necessity was Rome.
The great army of Pepin crossed the Alps by the Mont Cenis, and in what was little more than a skirmish upon the northern side of the pass defeated the Lombard army and proceeded to invest Pavia and ravish the country round about. Aistulf, who was rather an impetuous than a great soldier, had soon had enough and was ready to entertain proposals for peace.
These events were the occupation of Ceccano in the duchy of Rome by Aistulf and the appeal of the emperor to the pope that he should go to Pavia and attempt to persuade the Lombard king to give up Ravenna and the cities he had lately taken.
His successor was never consecrated, but died within three days of his election and made way for Pope Stephen. In the confusion of all things it is said that a party in Rome urged Aistulf to usurp the empire. This was enough; it might have been, and perhaps was, expected. The pope had his answer ready. The heir of the empire in Italy was not the Lombard but the Holy See.
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