Donation of Pepin

Common card · No. 309707

The Donation of Pepin, or Donation of Pippin, was the transfer of Frankish territory in Central Italy to Pope Stephen II made by Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, in 756. Credited with "effectively establishing the temporal authority of the papacy," the Donation took place amid the Byzantine Empire's decline in Italy and marked both "an important moment in the papal–Carolingian alliance" and an "important step" in the formation of the Papal States. With the fall of Ravenna, the imperial capital in Italy, to Aistulf, King of the Lombards in 751, "any semblance of imperial protection for Rome" had vanished and the pope, who had technically been a Byzantine subject to this point, turned to Pepin for assistance. The pope initially appealed to Byzantine Emperor Constantine V, but without success. Pepin invaded Italy and, following an initial victory in 755, he decisively "defeated Aistulf and imposed a peace on him" in 756. Pepin had promised Italian lands to Stephen II during a meeting at...

Read on Wikipedia · Image English: A fresco painter from the school of Giovan Battista Ricci (c. 1537–1627); by the time the fresco was created, the original document of King Pepin was irretrievably lost ("irrimediabilmente p…, Public domain