The origins of the Lombards are quite obscure. According to the “Historia Lango-bardorum” written around 780 by the historian Paolo Diacono, a Lombard from Cividale del Friuli who became a Benedectine monk at Montecassino, their first homeland would have been Scandinavia. But the lack of any historical or archeolo-gical evidence induce to think of this as a legend. From there, at an unknown period but anyway before Christ, they transferred themselves to Northern Germany, around the mouth of the Elbe river, at the base of the Jutland Peninsula.