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Alboin was King of the Lombards. He invaded Italy in 568 and had his capital at Pavia. At Works, 20.360 [n/a] Ruskin describes the period as Homeric except that among the Lombards the barbaric horror was not partly mythic and symbolic as it was for the Greeks but literal. Alboin had killed his wife’s father and preserved his skull. Later in Verona he forced his wife to drink from it. In revenge her lover killed Alboin. Ruskin sees in this evidence of cruelty balanced by a ‘more subtle and intellectual law’ a balance shown in Lombard art and architecture, and associated by Ruskin with the pre-eminence of women which brings a ‘fearful element of evil’ as well as good (Works, 20.359 [n/a]).
‘Albion’ the reading at Notebook M p.78 of the Ruskin Library Transcript T7A is a mistake.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]