Harmon Kardon Receiver Should've Bought The 254

on Dresden and Lodi, the crossroads of destiny

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  From the blog: The Garden of the Hesperides
  
  
  On May 10, 1796 column of the French army, commanded by a young general named typically Italian Napoleon Bonaparte, launched the decisive attack against the Austrian army perched in Lodi to dismiss the French contingent who had crossed the day before the Po at Piacenza, invading Lombardy on this side of the Adda, then under Austrian rule. It was left Paris sixty days before the March 11, just two days after his marriage to Josephine Tascher, widow Beauharnais, with a contingent of 38,000 men ill-equipped. The battle is historically known as the "Battle at the Bridge of Lodi . Swift action of that day Napoleon revealed in its full doti di grande stratega tattico. Mandando i suoi all'arrembaggio, i primi dei quali lanciati incontro a morte certa, non lasciò a Beaulieu il benchè minimo tempo per attendere i rinforzi sperati. Nonostante i 12 cannoni austriaci piazzati in difesa sul ponte, i francesi alla fine ebbero la meglio; grazie a coraggio, gagliardia e abnegazione, continuamente richiamati da Napoleone. Lasciarono però sul campo 350 morti. Gli austriaci, invece, dichiararono 153 morti e 1700 prigionieri in mano dei francesi. L'indomani l'Austria abbandonerà Milano. Quella sera del 10 maggio 1796 nasceva il mito di Napoleone, l'imperatore più potente d'Europa.
  Come scrisse egli stesso anni dopo " Fu solo alla sera di Lodi, che cominciai to claim to be a superior man and the ambition to carry out great things that until then had found its way into my mind as just a fantastic dream. "
  
  
  
  Even today the French attach great importance to Battle Bridge of Lodi , so that in several of their common, there are plazas or streets dedicated to it, it is the case of " rue du Pont de Lodi in the sixth arrondissement of Paris"; is also perhaps the most common name in France.
  
  
  

  The destination was Milan, where, immediately after the battle, had left a delegation to meet with General Bonaparte. It was headed by Francesco Melzi d'Eril, brother of Pietro Verri, but it is easy to supp orre that the head of the delegation wanted to be him, Pietro Verri , but at the time was already an aged sixty-eight, the father of seven daughters and husband of Vincenza, sister of the head of delegation.
  
  

  Pietro Verri had fought in Dresden for a short time, during the Seven Years' War . He had volunteered to escape the fate that his father, the lawyer Gabriele Verri, had already decided for him, according to the customs of the time, the magistrate wanted to like him, and married with those who had chosen him. He returned to Milan after the next Viennese parentheses, the brothers Pietro and Alessandro Verri had founded the Academy of Fists to discuss and develop a philosophy, economics and politics.
  
  
  It had been 30 years since that May 1766, when seven of the Society of punches had decided to put an end to their exciting experience, and to cease publication of their philosophical literary magazine, The Cafe. The publication had been alive only a little over two years, then people were not yet ready to incorporate the ideas "revolutionary" by "those seven who were thinking of philosophy, menandosi of punches at the end of almost every meeting .
  
  
  But after thirty years, something of those concepts had been assimilated by the people, the triumphal march of Napoleon to Milan would not have been that without the shock that these ideas were still produced.
  
  
  Although the breakthrough that everyone expected from Napoleon was later than expected (suppressed religious orders, churches stripped, works of art sent to France and to some extent, still not yet returned (*)... ), Milan began, for better or worse, a revolution in urban planning, in progress, which has led it to be one of the most attractive cities in the world. It should also be noted that Milan under Napoleon, was to be returned, after 14 centuries (see: Milan in Roman) , the capital of a strong united kingdom, the Kingdom of Italy (1805-1814) which included the regions and provinces in the north east and north of the center.
  
  Other City fatal to Napoleon, and doubly so in this case fatal, was Dresden.
  
  On the positive side: Pietro Verri
  
  
  because his " flattener to Milan, in 1759, during the Seven Years' War, during which, enlisted volunteer with the role of an officer in the General Staff of the Daun, the British had known Henry Lloyd, an adventurer who still had instilled a passion for the germs to economic studies, which will then be extended to the political ones, during his brief stay in Vienna next;
  
  
  negative:
  

  for the battle that marked the final destiny of Napoleon. In the post
  
  

  Views are mentioned the four destructions suffered from Dresden, a city martyr.
  
  
  Between the Seven Years War and World War II, both of which had leveled the city, and also include a Pyrrhic victory Napoleon achieved around the city. In 1813 his outpost, under the command of General Vandamme coalition defeated the Austro-Prussian-Russian, but his victory was short-lived. The haste to advance, in pursuit of the enemy, he made mistakes in assessing the consistency of their true strength. After three days of tracking these were the best in the Battle of Kulm . A month and a half later, Napoleon was defeated at Leipzig . It was October 19, 1813, began the demise of the Napoleonic myth.
  
  

  paraphrase the poet "was true glory ?..." also in view of the fact that if Lodi, which had been bestowed a monument (even if Napoleon himself had built), destroyed it in 1814? From the official site City of Lodi, reads: "... Down the hall, yard with tombstones, sculptures, funerary inscriptions ancient Jewish cemetery, fragments monument to Napoleon, already in Piazza Maggiore (**), demolished in 1814,
  probably after hearing the news of Napoleon's exile on Elba (ed.).
  

  

  (**) now Piazza della Vittoria, in 1924.
  E 'to assume that the new name has been attributed to Italy's victory in the First World War. but it would also be a source of pride, not for concealment Lodi, know and remember that the myth of Napoleon, for better or for worse , was born in their city. I myself have been frequent in love of their city, and I would be nice to know that Lodi rededicated a memorial worthy of the name to such a great personality that, for better or evil, drew the eternal pages of history.
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  This site the route suggested by the City of Lodi, to reach the bridge : " Take left off Independence Square and you get to near the present bridge over Barzaghi ( 1864). In front of the church of S. Rocco, is plaque commemorating the battle fought here and won by Napoleon against the Austrians (10 May 1796). The old wooden bridge was destroyed in 1859.
  (from Official Site City of Lodi: the city's tourist itinerary ) ----
  
  (*) Note: In the works of art stolen by Napoleon's French, transported to France and not yet returned to its rightful owners, after 200 years, I invite the experts of this art blog to write a post dedicated .
  
  --- Above, top to bottom:
  - The Bridge on the Adda at Lodi, from Wikipedia.org
  - commemorative "10 May 1796: photo of the
  - Pietro Verri Brera, photo of Innocent Fraccaroli
  - Napoleon Bonaparte crossing the Alps, a painting by Jacques-Louis David, from Wikipedia:
  - Battle of the Bridge Lodi - painting by Peter Joseph Bagetti (from Wikipedia)