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The Lombards in Italy through a game: the story of a people attentive to the economy

The story of the Lombards in Italy represented in a video game. On Saturday 13 April seven cities will be connected to explore the maps of the conquest of Italy

The Lombards in Italy through a game: the story of a people attentive to the economy

The Lombards? “The attitude held by Italian culture and in particular by Italian historiography towards them has always oscillated between hostility and distrust”, writes the historian Stephen Gasparri of the Cà Foscari University in a very careful study. Minecraft, the video game that will be presented next Saturday in seven cities home to Lombard settlements, is certainly not hostile to their presence in Italy. A singular cultural event, that means reevaluate the Germanic people of the 8th century as a synthesis of integration and sociality. 

The city of Benevento it will be the main city on the Internet with the locations of the UNESCO serial site "The Lombards in Italy". Throughout the day, Minecraft will allow you to play with two new maps that reconstruct the Lombard presence in Italy. We will have gaming available as a light formula to reread an important and debated piece of our history.

Who were the Lombards?

When they arrived in Italy the Lombards brought with them unknown economic and social organizations. They enriched them curtes Romans around whom they developed a hard-working and productive life. They intensified agriculture with unknown methods, favoring the large estates in an even more incisive way. Finally they generated Curtense agriculture. Alone barbarians? The definition has never done justice to the German rulers from Friuli to Calabria. For years it was neglected their art, artisanal production, the institution of taxes, all activities that pirouetted in trade, in economic forms of solidarity among the exploited.

A journalist of the caliber of Gianni Brera, born near Pavia, he had the courage to describe his Lombardy permeated by a Lombard spirit. Many cultural stratifications still retain the Lombard imprint today. The duchies were the expression of an efficient territorial model, created after the conquest. Those curious about history know that in Italy there are those who have linked that invasion to the more recent and dramatic German presence in the Second World War or who, on some occasions, have made it a propaganda banner. But history and social phenomena leave no room for doubt, they are studied. The contradiction of the Lombard presence was that of reshaping the countryside and occupied places in a productive and modern way.

The places of Lombard power from 568 to 774 AD have been represented in dozens of exhibitions that have sought to improve the understanding of tireless conquerors. Among the other most successful representations is the 2017 international success of the Exhibition at the Archaeological Museum of Naples. A network of Lombard cities is protected by UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture. Next Saturday, in addition to Benevento, they will be online Cividale del Friuli (UD), Brescia, Castelseprio (IT GOES), Spoleto (PG), Campello sul Clitunno (PG), Monte Sant'Angelo (FG). The purpose of the game maps is to overturn the negative representation associated with the idea of ​​barbaric people.

A compass to learn about history

Yet the most recent historiography has traced the Lombard presence and the conquest of Italy to the Roman tradition, to the spirituality of Christianity (not to the sovereignty of the Pope), to Byzantine influence. The video game leads the players in a typical 8th century city where there are also historical monuments. With a compass the protagonist is guided through streets and shops, where special operations of restoration or protection of the frescoes become opportunities to interact with history.

Is a game enough to get rid of a long oral and written habit? There would have been no economic and social evolution, many studies say, if the Lombards had not subjugated people and territories with their presence. Where they have been they have structured a life system. Yes, recent historiography has refuted all monocultural representations, say the organizers. Today's representations highlight the ability of that people to have assimilated previous traditions. To overcome that hateful oscillation between hostility and distrust, which Prof Gasparri writes about.

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