The region of Piacenza is the main Italian gateway to the Alps, being also the confluence of the River Trebbia, draining the northern Apennines, and the Po, the major waterway of northern Italy, draining to the east.

The right bank of the Po River between the Trebbia River and the Taro River is occupied by the Ananes or Anamari, a tribe of Cisalpine Gauls.

Before then, says Polybius, "These plains were anciently inhabited by Etruscans", before the Gauls took the entire Po valley from them.

Although Polybius says the Etruscans were expelled, he meant perhaps selectively, as Etruscan culture had continued in the area until assimilated to the Roman.

The Romans had planned to construct Piacenza and Cremona as Roman military colonies after the successful conclusion of the latest war with the Gauls ending in 219 BCE.

The Senate, declaring war on Carthage in the spring of 218 BCE, decides to accelerate the foundation and gives the colonists thirty days to appear on the sites to receive their lands.

They are each to be settled by six thousand Roman citizens but the cities are to receive Latin Rights; that is, they are to have the same legal status as the many colonies that had been co-founded by Rome and towns of Latium.

The reaction of the Gauls in the region is swift; they drive the colonists off the lands.

Taking refuge in Mutina, the latter send for military assistance.

A small force under Lucius Manlius is prevented from reaching the area.

The Senate now sends two legions under Gaius Atelius.

Collecting Manlius and the colonists, they descend on Cremona and Piacenza and successfully place castra there of 480 m2 (0.12 acre) to support the building of the city.

…Cremona, just east of the point where it crosses the Po.

Cremona is its central point, the distance being reckoned from it both eastwards and westwards.

From Cremona, the road runs eastward to …

Agilulf besieges Cremona and with the assistance of the Slavs the city is destroyed.

Conrad’s rebellion against his father in 1093 has the support of Matilda and her husband, Welf V, along with the Patarene-minded cities of northern Italy (Cremona, …

Conrad, shortly after the council, swears an oath of loyalty to Pope Urban II on April 10 at Cremona and serves as the Pope's strator (groom), leading the Pope's horse as a symbolic gesture of humility first performed, according to tradition, by Constantine I.

The duty of the strator had not been performed for a pope since the ninth century, and is revived specifically for Conrad.

In a second meeting at Cremona on April 15, Conrad swears an oath, either of "security" or of "fealty", to the pope, guaranteeing the "life, limb and Roman papacy" to Urban.

This oath is customary for kings who will be crowned emperor, but Conrad goes further and promises to forsake lay investiture.

Urban in turn promises Conrad "his advice and aid in obtaining the kingship and the crown of the empire", probably a promise to crown him in the future, after he has control of the kingdom.

By these actions Conrad has transformed himself from a rebellious son to a papally sponsored anti-king and supporter of the Reform movement.

Frederick, shouldering the blame for the failure of the Fifth Crusade and wishing to avoid the excommunication threatened by Pope Honorius III, prepares a new crusade.

Before embarking for the Holy Land to press his claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem-Acre, he convenes an imperial diet for Easter 1226 in Cremona, in northern Italy, in order to reinforce certain imperial rights in Italy and to prepare for the crusade.

The cities of Lombardy, however, reconstitute themselves, under the leadership of Milan, as the Lombard League, and not only sabotage the diet at Cremona but effectively oppose Frederick's reorganization of northern Italy.

Ghibelline rule had ended in Cremona after its commander relinquished control to a consortium of citizens.

In 1271 the position of Capitano del Popolo ("People's Chieftain") was created.

In 1276 the Signoria passed to marquis Cavalcabò Cavalcabò; in 1305 he was succeeded by his son Guglielmo Cavalcabò, who held power until 1310.

During this period many edifices were created or restored including the belfry of the Torrazzo, the Romanesque church of San Francis, the Cathedral's transepts and the Loggia dei Militi.

Moreover, agriculture was boosted with a new network of canals.

After some foreign invasions (notably that of Emperor Henry VII in 1311), the Cavalcabò lasted until November 29, 1322, when a more powerful family, the Visconti of Galeazzo I, came to prominence that in Cremona is to last for a century and a half.

The Visconti's signore had been interrupted in 1327 by Ludwig the Bavarian, in 1331 by John of Bohemia, and in 1403 by a short-lived return of the Cavalcabò.

On July 25, 1406, captain Cabrino Fondulo had killed his employer Ubaldo Cavalcabò along with all the male members of his family, and assumed control over Cremona.

However, he was unable to face the task, and had ceded the city back to the Visconti for a payment of forty thousand golden florins.

Thus Filippo Maria Visconti made his signoria hereditary.

Cremona has become part of the Duchy of Milan, and will follow its fate until the unification of Italy.

Under the Visconti and later the Sforza Cremona has undergone high cultural and religious development.

In 1411 Palazzo Cittanova had become the seat of the University of fustian merchants.

In 1441, the city hosts the marriage of Francesco I Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti in the temple built by the Benedictines, which today is the church of Saint Sigismund.

For this occasion a new sweet is devised, which evolves into the famous torrone.

Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, born in Pavia, had in 1470 been commissioned by Bartolomeo Colleoni to complete his funerary chapel, the Cappella Colleoni in Bergamo, which had been begun by Guiniforte and Francesco Solari.

Amadeo had added polychrome decoration and many sculptures in the ancient style including medallions, small columns, busts, reliefs of "Histories from the Old Testament" and "Histories of Hercules".

Amadeo also designed the funerary monument to Medea Colleoni, which was intended for the church of Santa Maria della Basella in Urgnano.

The condottiero's tomb was realized in collaboration with other artists, with Amadeo providing the reliefs of the lower sarcophagus and of the smaller upper sarcophagus, as well seven statues of the Virtues.

Amadeo was also commissioned by Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza to work for some years in the Certosa di Pavia.

During 1473-1476, Amadeo had realized half of the bas-reliefs in the right side of the façade.

In 1480 he finishes the arch of the Persian Martyrs in the Olivetani Monastery of Cremona (four marble reliefs remain today, dated 1484).

Also attributed to him are two statues of Justice and Temperance in Cremona, and reliefs in the National Antiquity Museum of Parma.

...Cremona and a ring of towns around the Adda River.

Here, Lautrec is reinforced by the arrival of fresh Swiss mercenaries; but, having no money available to pay them, he gives in to their demands to engage the Imperial forces immediately with about twelve thousand men.

Lautrec has meanwhile been reinforced by the arrival of sixteen thousand fresh Swiss pikemen and some further Venetian forces, as well as additional companies of French troops under the command of Thomas de Foix-Lescun and Pedro Navarro; he had also secured the services of the condottiere Giovanni de' Medici, who brings his Black Bands into the French service.

Composed primarily of arquebusiers—including Europe's first mounted arquebusiers—the company is considered to be the finest Italian troops available.

Initially in the service of Charles de Lannoy and the Pope, their name comes from their black mourning colors for the death of Pope Leo X.