[3] In 574 and 575 the Lombards invaded Provence, then part of the kingdom of Burgundy of the Merovingian Guntram, but Burgundian counteroffensives pushed them across the Alps and into northern Italy, where they occupied the Susa and Aosia valleys.

Their intention to drive them from Italy, but after capturing Modena, Mantua, and Altino, had to stop at the Lombard capital at Pavia upon learning that the Frankish leader Cedinus had signed a ten-month truce with King Authari, which forced them to return to Gaul.

[7] Despite his conversion to Arian Christianity[b] and the toleration for the religion not permitted by his predecessors, Authari forbade the sons of Lombards from being baptized as Catholics, since he viewed it as an "instrument of the Empire" that would sap "the warrior vitality" from them.

A detailed account of the courtship by the eighth-century historian Paul the Deacon revealed that the marriage was also a political alliance designed to provide additional sanction to Authari's royal position.

[16] In the wake of Authari's death, Theodelinda increased her cooperation with Pope Gregory the Great in what came to mark a "high-point in Lombard history" from a religious perspective, according to historian Shami Ghosh.