Barletta duel
The duel of Barletta ( Italian Disfida di Barletta ) was a prearranged fight between 13 selected Italian and French knights, which was fought on February 13, 1503 on a field between Barletta , Andria and Quadrato in southern Italy. The reason was the cowardice in battle, imputed to the Italians by the French. In the fight the group of Italian knights won, the most famous of which was the Condottiere Ettore Fieramosca .
The duel
The Italian knights were not part of an Italian army, but fought under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba y Aguilar , also known as Gran capitano , for the Spaniards against a French army led by the viceroy Louis d'Armagnac , Duke of Nemours during the second French campaign the Italian Wars for possession of the Kingdom of Naples .
The cause of the fight were derogatory remarks by French knights in the wine cellar "Cantina della Disfida" - in particular by a certain Charles de Torgues, called Monsieur de La Motte, who was then also to be the leader of the French department in the duel - about the cowardice and lack of courage of the Italian mercenary. When this became known to the Italians, there was great excitement and it was agreed to clarify the question of courage and cowardice in a tournament battle to the life and death between 13 selected fighters of the two armies.
In this fight, which took place on neutral ground in the presence of referees, the Italians (Ettore Fieramosca, Guglielmo Albamonte from Palermo , Francesco Salamone from Sutera , Giovanni Capoccio from Spinazzola , Marco Corollario from Naples , Giovanni Bracalone de Carlonibus from Genazzano , Ludovico Abenevoli) won from Capua , Ettore Giovenale from Rome , Bartolomeo Fanfulla from Lodi , Romanello from Forlì , Pietro Riczio from Parma , Mariano Abignente from Sarno , Miale from Troia ) and were received with great jubilation in their army camp. The captured French had to pay ransom and their equipment fell to the enemy.
reception
For the Italian national consciousness this struggle is of great importance up to the present day, especially in view of the military ineffectiveness that the Italians are repeatedly accused of.
Accordingly, the subject was often dealt with in Italian literature, fine arts and film. In 1833, during the Risorgimento , the historical novel Ettore Fieramosca by Massimo d'Azeglio appeared , whose title hero was the leader of the Italian knights. Several film adaptations under the same title go back to this work, namely films by
- Ernesto Maria Pasquali (1909),
- Domenico Gaido and Umberto Paradisi (1915), as well as by
- Alessandro Blasetti (1938, German title: Storms over Morreale ).
In addition, Hector, the Knight Without Fear and Blame , takes on a film with Bud Spencer in the role of Fieramosca ( Pasquale Festa Campanile , 1976), in a parodic form of the duel of Barletta.
An Italian postage stamp was issued in 2003 for the 500th anniversary, and the historical struggle was commemorated in Barletta with numerous events and performances (including a reenactment ).
But as early as the 19th century, voices were raised against the stylization of the duel at the finest hour of Italian swordsmanship. So wrote the Neapolitan scholar Nunzio Federigo Faraglia:
“The duel of Barletta, one of the last and greatest spectacles of the already dying chivalry, was celebrated again and again as a great national event, for it had already come to the point where the Italians were satisfied with the success of a single day while themselves two foreign kings continued to quarrel for rule over Italy. The thirteen knights did not even fight for their fatherland, but on the contrary hastened the conquest of the kingdom [of Naples by the Spaniards] and its bitter enslavement, which would last two hundred years. "
literature
- Girolamo Arnaldi : Italy and its invaders: from the end of the Roman Empire until today. Wagenbach, Berlin 2005, pp. 127–129, ISBN 3-8031-3617-2 .
- Giuliano Procacci: La disfida di Barletta: tra storia e romanzo. Bruno Mondadori-Paravia, Milan 2001, ISBN 88-424-9773-8 .
Fiction:
- Massimo d'Azeglio: Ettore Fieramosca; ossia, La disfida di Barletta . L. Pezzati, Florence 1833.
Web links
- Barletta 500th Anniversary Website (English Version)
Individual evidence
- ^ William Roscoe: The life and pontificate of Leo the Tenth , Volume II . J. Mc Greery, Liverpool 1805, pp. 8 (English, online version in the Google book search).
- ↑ Quoted in Arnaldi: Italy and its invaders. 2005, p. 129