So superabundant were the forces of her population, so vast were the energies emancipated by her attainment of municipal freedom, that this mighty mother of peoples could not afford equal sustenance to all her children.

New-born, they had to strangle one another as they hung upon the breast that gave them nourishment.

It was impossible for the Emperor to overlook the apparent anarchy of his fairest province.
Therefore, when Frederick Barbarossa was elected in 1152, his first thought was to reduce the Garden of the Empire to order.

Soon after his election he descended into Lombardy and formed two leagues among the cities of the North, the one headed by Pavia, the center of the abrogated kingdom, the other by Milan, who inherited the majesty of Rome and contained within her loins the future of Italian freedom.

It is not necessary to follow in detail the conflict of the Lombard burghs with Frederick, so enthusiastically described by their historian, Sismondi, It is enough for our present purpose to remember that in the course of that contention both leagues made common cause against the Emperor, drew the Pope Alexander III.