Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village of Fornovo a score of bare grey hovels on the margin of a pebbly river-bed beneath the Apennines.
Beyond the narrow sheen of water, stretched another rocky space, and then came the green of meadows and a brown city upon the rising ground. The city was Fornovo, and the diminished river was the Taro, the ancient boundary between the Gaulish and Ligurian folk. I stood upon the historic spot where Charles VIII had cut his way through the allies to win back to France after the occupation of Naples.
It is not in tournaments and tilts, however, that a knight can win his spurs. Bayard burned for battle. For many months he burned in vain; but at last the banners of the king were given to the wind, and Bayard, to his unspeakable delight, found himself marching under Lord Ligny against Naples. The two armies faced each other at Fornovo.
In more recent days, the retreat of Charles VIII. to Naples, when he passed by a corps of the Italian army at Fornovo, was an admirable one. The retreat of M. de Bellisle from Prague does not deserve the praises it has received. Those executed by the King of Prussia after raising the siege of Olmutz and after the surprise at Hochkirch were very well arranged; but they were for short distances.
So clinging is the sense of instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rot tyranny which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden day on Italy. In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in the dilapidated place.
The whole valley was a bed of gravel and big stones, very difficult for horses, about a quarter of a league in breadth, and on the right bank lodged our enemies." Any one who has visited Fornovo can understand the situation of the two armies. Charles occupied the village on the right bank of the Taro.
To such an extent were military affairs misconstrued in Italy, that, on the strength of this brigandage, the Venetians claimed Fornovo for a victory. See my essay 'Fornovo, in Sketches and Studies in Italy, for a description of the ground on which the battle was fought. On July 15, Charles at the head of his little force marched into Asti and was practically safe.
The good luck of the French and the dilatory cowardice of their opponents saved them now again for the last time. The action at Fornovo lasted a quarter of an hour, according to De Comines. The pursuit of the Italians occupied about three quarters of an hour more. Unaccustomed to the quick tactics of the French, the Italians, when once broken, persisted in retreating upon Reggio and Parma.
In order to comprehend the battle of Fornovo in its bearings on Italian history, we must go back to the year 1492, and understand the conditions of the various states of Italy at that date.
The battle of Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the trumpets which rang on July 6th, 1495, for the onset, sounded the réveille of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of the struggle of that day the Italians were already judged and sentenced as a nation.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking