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TheDuchy of Tridentum (Trent) was an autonomousLombard duchy, established byEuin during theLombard interregnum of 574–584[1] that followed the assassination of the Lombard leaderAlboin. The stronghold of Euin's territory was the Roman city ofTridentum in the upper valley of theAdige, in the foothills of theAlps in northern Italy, where the duchy formed one of themarches of theLombard Kingdom of Italy. There he shared power with the bishop, who was nominally subject to thePatriarch of Aquileia.[2] In 574–75, Lombard raiding parties pillaged the valley of the Rhône, incurring retaliatory raids into the duchy byAustrasian Franks, who had seized control of the mountain passes leading into thekingdom of Burgundy.[3] Euin was at the head of the army loyal toAuthari that went into the territory of theduke of Friuli inIstria, c 589, and he was sent byAgilulf to make peace with the Franks his neighbors, in 591.[4] After Euin's death c 595, Agilulf installedGaidoald, who was a Catholic, rather than anArian Christian.[5] After some friction between king and duke, they were reconciled in 600.[6] The separate Lombardduchy of Brescia was united with Tridentum in the person ofAlagis, a fervent Arian and opponent of the Lombard king,Perctarit, who was killed in the battle ofCornate d'Adda (688).
With the collapse of the Lombard kingdom in 773–74, the duchy of Tridentum passed intoFrankish control and was transformed. After German kingOtto I had subdued theItalian kingdom in 952 he incorporated Tridentum into theMarch of Verona. Its strategic position controlling theAlpine mountain passes encouraged the eleventh-centuryHoly Roman Emperors to invest the Bishop Ulrich II ofTrent with temporal powers over a sizable territory,[7] as an independent prince of theEmpire, with the powers and privileges of a duke. A succession ofPrince-Bishops ruled, except for a few short intervals,[8] until 1802, when the bishopric wassecularized and became a part of AustrianTyrol.