Liutprand was among the greatest Lombard rulers, Catholic, intelligent, energetic and ambitious. His will to power derived from the awareness of having been the object of a special divine choice, as he himself announces in the prologue to Liutprandi Leges. He was loved and feared by his people, who admired the wisdom of the legislator, the effectiveness of the military commander and also the personal courage shown for example when he challenged a duel, only, two warriors who planned an attack against him.
He centralized the government of the Lombard kingdom in his hands, strongly limiting the autonomy of the dukes, enriching the legislation and carrying out decisively the integration between Germanic and Latin culture in Italy. It increased the possessions of the kingdom, contained the power of the papacy and carried out a policy of European scope. Next to Grimoaldo was the Lombard ruler who came closest to the project of becoming in fact what all the kings of Pavia claimed to be: rex totius Italiae.
Son of Ansprando, he escaped at a very young age to the vengeance of Ariperto II, who had his mother and brothers imprisoned and mutilated; Instead, Liutprando was returned to his father, exile in Bavaria. He returned to Italy in 712, when his father defeated and took over from Ariperto, and was immediately associated with the throne. Ansprando died after just three months, leaving Liutprando as the only king.
Liutprand tried to consolidate his authority within the kingdom which had experienced a long period of violence and disorder. He sought the support of the Church with large donations; issued new laws (153 chapters from 713 to 735) influenced not only by Roman law, but also by the canon law and implemented a rigid policy towards the rebel dukes of Benevento, Spoleto and Friuli. In order to act freely, he assured himself of the friendship of the Franks, agreeing with Carlo Martello threatened by the Arabs, and of the Bavari, marrying Guntruda, daughter of their duke. The iconoclasm, which opposed Gregory II to Emperor Leo III the Isauric, and the anti-Byzantine reaction in Italy seemed to offer Liutprand the opportunity to resume the expansionist program of his predecessors and at the same time to become the champion of the persecuted Church . In 726, Liutprando invaded the Exarchate and reached Ravenna; then he went to Rome conquering Sutri. Gregory II, fearing a Lombard victory that would limit the independence enjoyed by the Church, intervened with Liutprand and succeeded not only in stopping him, but also in giving Sutri "to the blessed apostles Peter and Paul" (728). This moral victory reported by the pontiff conditioned the subsequent policy of Liutprando and threw a serious mortgage on the fate of the kingdom itself. All subsequent enterprises of Liutprando against Ravenna (734, 740, 743) were in fact ably canceled by the popes Gregory III and Zechariah who not only influenced the conduct of the pious king with their prestige, but repeatedly supported the rebel duels of Benevento and Spoleto (732, 739, 742) and also invoked the intervention of the Franks against him. Won and deposed the dukes of Benevento and Spoleto, after a last expedition against Ravenna prevented by Pope Zaccaria (who went specifically to Pavia), Liutprando died while negotiating with Constantinople in January 744 and his body is now preserved, along with that of his father Ansprando, in the basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, in Pavia, next to the monastery that was built to keep the relics of Saint Augustine, taken in Sardinia in 723 to avoid the danger of desecration by the Saracen pirates and donate to the city of Pavia.