Lake Garda history and origins

Lake Garda history and origins

Thanks to its position, its shape, its fertile land and its beauty, Lake Garda has always been inhabited by peoples who have been clashing in tremendous wars of conquest. It tries to summarize, as far as possible, and in some respects widening the story of the Italian affairs, its history chronologically from its origins in order to better understand the development of settlements, fortified villages, religious and military buildings of historical importance Which form the cultural base of our area. A rich source of informed and commented information on the history of our Benacus is the three volumes of the. Archbishop Marco Gerosa “Benàco, in memories and sovereign beauties” from which various songs have been made and for those who love this area it is advisable to read it.

Lake Garda history and origins

TAKES SHAPE BENACO HOLLOW

For a period Benaco was a sea bed, then the bottom emerged and the glaciers gave birth to the main moraines of Lake Garda, at the opening of Lake Idro, to the fracturing of the dam from S. Vigilio to Sirmione. And consequently the small basin of the Valsabbia received the waters of Caffaro and Giudicarie, becoming the present Chiese river: the great Benacens morenes repelled the banks of the two side rivers, Chiese and Adige, excluding them from the Basin, and Benaco came to the east, adding to its narrow gulf the vast gulf from Garda to Peschiera.

FIRST INHABITANTS: LIGURI, VENETI, INSUBRI, ETRUSCHI, GALLI CENOMANI

It is certain that the territory of Brescia was home to human populations from the earliest times, not only historical but also prehistoric; Indeed it seems that man existed on this soil from the tertiary age of the earth when the plain was covered by Pliocene sea. Also in the southern part of Lake Garda there are traces of piles, lake houses of populations of remote prehistoric times

The Ligurians, of the Iberian lineage, are the oldest peoples of the province of Brescia and Benàco.

In the mountainous area, there were the Euganeans or Venetians, transferred from the banks of the Adriatic Sea, and had Stono as capital, the current Vestone.

It seems that the Venetians inhabited the eastern part, the Ligurians, the western one of Benacus, but together, or shortly afterwards, came the Umbri, a division of which, called the Insubrians, settled between the Po (Padus), the Alps, Ticino and Adda. From the Insubrians, the Sabines came to life, distinguished by the severity of their customs and religious piety, of which one part went to live the Sabbia Valley in the middle of the Triumplini, worshiping Saturn. These peoples practiced their activities at first in antagonism to each other, but subsequently coexisted with the commercial exchanges of sheep, fisheries and agriculture between the mountains, the hills, the lake and the plain, sprinkled with pilchards and Rude dwellings, especially on the shores of Benàco and Mella.

In the VII century BC appeared the Etruscans, a powerful navigator people, who had very much assimilated from the Phoenicians, and worked on the conquest of the Insubria, on the Po, rejecting the Umbrians towards the center of Italy, and also arranging himself on the banks of Benacus; here they remained until the V century BC when, as Tito Livio points out, they were later defeated and driven out by the Cenomans.

More than the mainland roads offered great opportunities in those times the waterways, and especially the lakes; A canal connecting the lake and the Mincio, the Adige and the Po, which is believed to be certain although there is no trace, had to put the lake through these rivers made navigable by the Etruscans, in direct communication with the Adriatic. In this regard, we remember that Hadria, today 30 km from the sea, was a seaside town and seems to have given its name to the Adriatic and later became a powerful Roman colony.

In the year 567 BC, the Etruscans were defeated, after a difficult and long bloody fight, by the Gauls Cenomans of Cimbric race (from the family of the Aulerci tribes in the N-W of France). From those people a strong nucleus broke out in the territory of Benaco at the command of Elitovio, who for the horror of the massacre and the rapidity of the action was called “the swirl”.

He crossed Insubria and stopped his seat in the territory, where now Brescia, Cremona, Mantua and Verona arise. At the Ligurian Citadel that existed on the Cydneo hill, the cenoms added the underlying.

The Cenomanians remained the western part of the lake, the Venetians on the east shore. The technique and the luxury of the Etruscans were quickly assimilated by these Gauls, so that the period of decay in the Benacens was short lived. Northern Italy was then without roads and as the main route served the same course of the river Padus (Po) which from Turin began to be navigable. The Cenomans chose Brescia as their headquarter and by the river, the Cenomans traders also reached the banks of the Adriatic, and this artery continued to be used until the late Roman Empire.

THE ROMANS

Later, in the immanent struggle between the Romans and the Celts (279 BC), the Benacus Cenomans, in contrast to the other Gauls, followed the parts of Rome, and along with the Venetians they helped it.

In 223 BC the commander C. Flaminio defeated the Gauls at the Clesis river (Chiese) and took possession of part of the territory that (less than 30 Km from Mincio river) came to the hills above Verona where the Euganeans lived.

Tito Livio and Polibio recall that the Brixia colony fought, along with the Romans, in the Second Punic War and valiantly fought against Annibale in the Battle of Trebbia.

With the II century B.C. The Roman republic was able to occupy the Venetian region (including Benacus) until Quarnaro, and annexed to the rest of the peninsula the Cisalpina Gaul, reduced to province.

Conquered the plan, the legions walked along the Clusium (Chiese) and the surrounding mountains, where the primitive inhabitants Ligurians and Umbri had fled to the coming of the Cenomans. There in the year 128 B.C. the proconsul Quinto Marzio was victorious over the Ligurians-Stones, taking over Stonos, or (as interpreted by the Rossi and supported by Maffei) Vetus-Stonum, the current Vestone.

Brixia, proclaimed dependent on the Roman people, was united with Gaul Transpadana with the territory of Benacus and then, in 555 year of Rome, thanks to Magno Gneo Pompeo Strabone, obtained the privilege of Latin Colonia.

Each region, which was exalted to the rank of Roman Colony, was ascended to one of the 36 tribes in which the Roman people were divided and therefore, as the city of Trento was called by the Tribe Papiria and that of Verona by the Tribe Pubblicia, so Brixia was admitted to the Tribe Fabia.

It is known that Cisalpina Gaul was disbanded by the Romans in Cispadana (here from Padus river) and Transpadana (beyond Padus river), of which was part the Lake Garda. With the death of Caesar in the 44th B.C. Begins the civil war and many republican Romans, driven out by Marco Antonio winner of the Battle of Filippi in 42 BC , They took refuge on Benaco. In the 25 BC. Ottaviano Augusto (25 BC-14 AC.), wins Marco Antonio and becomes emperor, thus he distributes the lands of Benaco among his legions, this is the period in which Publius Virgilio Marone is deprived of his lands in Mantua province. With Augusto the cisalpina Gaul was united to Italy by bringing the boundaries to the Alps, and to repair to the distance of the places, Augusto extended the only way, the Emilia (or Gallica), which crossed the Benacens Riviera to the Transpadana Gaul, opened roads in the valleys and plains and set up postal services favoring businesses. Everywhere, and also on the Benacens Riviera, opulent quiriti built sumptuous villas in many places, such as Lonato, Desenzano, Sirmione, Valtenesi, Salò, Toscolano, Riva. The Benacensan people, plagued by the continual raids of the Venenons, and cruelly plundered, invoked help from Rome, and Augustus sent to the rescue of those and other oppressed peoples, pretending for further conquests, an army commanded by his sons Druso and Tiberius in 15 B.C This is the first time, writes Scipione Maffei, that a military fleet was seen in the waves of our lake.

During the Augustan empire, a Roman family that will be of great importance to the Riviera, will take olace on Benaco, that of the Nonii Arrii, the owners of immense lands in our area and throughout Italy; Is in 38 AC. That their villa in Toscolano is built.

During the reign of Tiberius, Christianity on lake Garda began to spread, S.Anatolio in Milan, S.Marco in Aquileja

In 72 AC. Vespasiano builds the Capitolium in Brescia – It is believed that the Emperor offered the temple of the Most Great Gods to thank them for securing his kingdom with the victory against the rival Vitellio on the fields of Bedriaco, place between Mantova and Cremona, in Brescia fields. Then he gave it as a gift to the Brescians for having fought in that decisive battle alongside his Legions of the East.

The brightest period of the history of imperial Rome, in which the works of Brixia and the Riperiae Benacensis were also remarkable, was that of Publius Elio Adriano (117-138 AC) a wise prince; The goal of his policy was to maintain an armed peace, so that the sword of Rome was brilliant and mighty for all foreign threats on the strong defense of the borders with castles and formidable walls, which stand out here, especially in the Gaul-German provinces. In 119 A.C., two years after the assumption of the empire, he begins his peregrinations through provinces, and for about 17 years of reign on twentyone, he visits them all one by one; Brixia, and its area till Adda, was part of the consular province “Venice-Istria”, and had Aquileia as metropolis.

MILITARY EVENTS AND PRESENCES ON THE GARDA BETWEEN THE SECOND HALF OF THE III AND IV CENTURIES

In 264 AD the Alamanni penetrated the Po valley until Emperor Claudius II defeated them in the Lugana forest in the south of Sirmione. A new Alamanna raid occurred along the Adige Valley in 286-287. The presence of two viri datissimi in Toscolano (M. Aurdius Dubitatus and son), the praetorian Iulius Festus in Bedizzole, the knight (equis singularis) portrayed in the stele of Barbarano in Salò , which confirms the hypothesis of the establishment of a military flotilla on Lake Garda. The destruction by fire of the Grotte di Catullo villa in Sirmione, at the end of the third century, was also linked to the Alamann incursions that affected the lower lake, as well as the reinforcement of the defenses of Verona (in 265). In the 4th century, a military presence around the lake was also suggested by the burials inserted in the Grotte di Catullo, with typically military belt elements.

GOTHS AND ALAMANNI

In 250 A.C. Emperor Decius, who was defeated in the defense of the provinces threatened by the Goths, venturing into the swamp ground, his army was destroyed and the emperor was then betrayed in 268 A.C. Alamanni and Goths, daring from the victory against Decius, forcing the Ritiche Alps, had fallen in Italy lounging around Arilica (Peschiera), a strongest bastion, and in the Benacens territory, between the woods and the plane and, penetrating the forest Latina or Lucana, they braved at Brixia, dropping on Decentianum where they spread ruin and death. Then emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Claudio II came to the rescue, and made a memorable slaughtere of the barbarian hordes; The thankful of Benacens paid homage with tombstones and statues, found throughout the Benacensis Riviera, with the title of Gothic, Pius, Augustus, Invincible, Augusto. The massacre was terrible, and as Eutropius attests, more than 200.000 Goths fell into the woods and the lands framing the lake, so that all around it was shriveled with blood spilled, and the bones bloated for a long time.

During this time the coast and valleys were slaughtered by slaves; No people existed legally, but the patricians, the companions of the dukes who had subdued the Germans, dividing the remains.

330 A.C. – The empire is divided into four parts, with the “Tetrarchi” as commanders. The ancient Roman city of Byzantium is renamed in Constantinople and becomes the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine is in contrast to Rome, still pagan.

OSTROGOTHS

In 375 A.C. the war between Ostrogoths and Huns in the territory of present-day South Russia and the Black Sea pushes Ostrogoths to migration. It is the beginning of the wave of invasion of barbarians, driven to Italy by other tribes from Central Asia and Mongolia and attracted by the richness and fertility of the colonized Roman soil, whose empire denotes heavy signs of flooding and decay; In 404 A.C. The new capital of the Roman Empire of the West is Ravenna.

DEFENSE SYSTEM OF GARDA AND NEIGHBORING VALLEY BETWEEN THE V AND VII CENTURIES

Only from the V century the fortifications of Garda region began to take on the characteristics of an organic system of defenses, within the framework of broader strategies that included the castles of the Adige Valley and the adjacent valleys. The defenses were then completed during the VI century, by the Gothic government and perhaps even later by the Byzantine one. The castles of the V-VI century were not built by the populations, but were built by skilled workers on the will of the state.

From 540 until the Byzantine expeditions of the second half of the VI century, the Garda and Atesine territories were at the center of the military strategies of the Franks, Byzantines, of surviving groups of Goths and of the Longobards from 569. In 569 Verona was finally conquered by Alboino, who chose it as its capital, evidently for its central position with respect to the ongoing conflicts. In this historical context dominated by the war, it is not surprising that in those decades the castles of Garda and Val d’Adige present many archaeological traces of occupation.

The castle of Sirmione was occupied by the Longobards in 569, immediately after Verona. Then, in the late Longobard age, Sirmione is remembered as a castrum with a large dependent territory that includes both the north (with the Riva and Arco basin) and south of Lake Garda (from Salò to Peschiera and inland to beyond Goito).

The “anonymous Ravennate”, at the end of the VII century, remembers Garda like Sirmione, as civitates and therefore as the seat of an administrative authority. Garda and Sirmione are undoubtedly the most important castles in the Garda area and yet their strategic significance is fully comprehensible only in relation to a more complex system, which was intended to defend the communication axes of the Val d’Adige and Garda, starting from the three cities, Mantua, Verona and Trento, which acquired great importance in late antiquity.

In Verona already in 265 there were restoration interventions on the walls of the I century BC and the construction of a connection with the 550 m long amphitheater; subsequently, not before the late V century, the existing towers are reinforced and finally a second wall is built (attributable to the Gothic king Theodoric), thus forming an urban castrum.

In Mantua in the late ancient period, which cannot be specified, the walls were reinforced with the addition of a new wall. In this city, the oldest wall refers to the early IV century. The second belt, attached to the first, is evidently posterior, but is currently without chronological evidence.

In Trento, again in late antiquity, a new wall was added to the city wall, on the left Adige, a wall was built at the foot of the Doss Trento which can be traced back to the desire to create a further military base separate from the city.

Between the V and VI centuries, initiatives to reinforce the walls were implemented in all three centers, arranged along the north-south axis of the Atesino-Garda road system, which was protected with a series of organically connected castles, the which confirms the strategic importance of the three cities.

VISIGOTHS

In 408, Alarico the king of Visigoths and his hordes were overthrown with the violence of the hurricane on the land of Benaco; The Roman patricians, carrying with them families, slaves and liberti (slave become free) abandoned houses and fields that were soon overwhelmed by the immense wave, and also the western shore of the lake, felt under the extermination invasion.

UNNI

It is the spring of 452 A.C., Attila with his army of Unni destroys Aquileja, built in 181 BC by the Romans (population migration on the islets and foundations of Venice) and invades the entire region between Adda, Adige and Mincio, including Benaco; After destroying Brescia, planted its camp in the Lugana forest, on the southern shore of the lake. The Emperor Valentinian decides to send Pope Leone to deal with Attila, the pope moves infatuated in the holy mission, preceding the clamorous clergy, and meets him at Peschiera (the Roman Arilica), perhaps at Salionze; After a short while Attila desists in exchange for a remuneration and retires with his unni, he dies in a short time.

Flavio Oreste, a german Commander following Attila, tries in 476 A.C. to manage barbaric troops, marchs on Ravenna, lays Emperor Julius Nepote and places his son Romolo Augusto (he had with his wife of Roman origin). However, after time, barbarian armies, not satisfied with promises in the Italian lands, putted Odoacre as magister militum killing Oreste and dethrone Romolo Augusto. The Italic kingdom is formed and the Imperial insignia of Ravenna passes to Constantinople. – Romolo cause the age could not govern, and Oreste did it for him, first of all concerned with managing the barbarian troops who remained loyal only for the good payments that blew the state money.

489 A.C, – Theodoric meets Odoacre on Isonzo river: there in a bloody battle defeats him and makes him fall back on the Adige river where he once again defeats him.

LONGOBARDS

In April 568 the longobard Alboino invaded Italy – passing through the Julian Alps, which defenselessly, were wrapped and quickly overcome by the barbarian hurricane. In short, he conquered Vicenza and Verona; then Mantua and camped also in our province, leaving his name in Pralboino (Prato Alboino). From Trento to Ravenna and Rome everything became prey to those hungry hordes excluded Pavia who hungered hungry after three years. Alboino honored it by making it the capital of the Kingdom.

After so many carnages, the Longobards Dukes began fighting each other and finally ended when in 584 they elect as king Autari, who married Teodolinda of Bavaria, a pious woman innocent cause of fierce war. Even her daughter Gondeberga, who was the widow of his first husband in 643 A.C., the duke of Turin Arioaldo, was asked by longobards to find a new husband; the choice was Rotari Duke of Brescia. We see in him the first legislator of his people; in fact, he promulgates in Pavia an edict to collect the prescriptions of the fathers not yet written, Rotarian edict of 643 A.C.

In the period running from Rotary’s death in 652 A.C to the election of king Liutprando (712 A.C) is a continuous flashing of weapons, a quick succession of kings. It is certain that Desiderio and Ansa, the last unfortunate pair of Longobard kings, before they had the royal crown in 756 A.C, they were from the most noble and wealthy longobard families established in Brescia and its territory. Paolo Diacono says it coming from the Garda Riviera, precisely from Padenghe. They are the founders of San Salvatore in Brescia (now S. Giulia) and S. Salvatore in Sirmione.

END OF LONGOBARDS, THE CAROLINGIANS

In 773 A.C. – Carlo Magno from Cenisio comes in Italy with a strong army and at Chiuse, in the valley of Susa, near S. Michele, using the betrayal of Martino, deacon of Ravenna, plumbing behind the Longobards and dispersing them by forcing Desiderio and Adelchi (his son) to take refuge in Pavia and Verona. It is known that the last king of the Longobards then closed the existence in France with works of piety. It was enough three lives, that of Lodovico the Pius, of Charles the Calvo (peeled), and of Louis the Balbo, to overthrow the monarchy of the Carolingians.

During the year 776, the plague in a few days abducted in Brescia 4,000 people, spreading terror and death even among the Benacens. Then a vast fire destroyed, in the following February part of the city from Paravert to Carnarium, making many victims.

THE ANARCHY OF FEUDATORIES AND “ITALIA UNITED” OF BERENGARIO

We are in 888 A.C. And Berengario the king of Friuli and Verona, after annihilating Guido da Spoleto, the strongest of his rivals, was elected in Pavia by the great feudal lords, king of Italy. To rest from the care of the State had settled on the edge of the lake, in the very healthy Garda, electing that walled and protected by a strong castle city the capital of Giudicaria Gardese. In August 899 by the Julian Alps the Magiari or Ungheri fell in Friuli without resistance, crossed Venice and crashed into Lombardy, carrying desolation and terror everywhere, they were rejected but in that frangent were built everywhere on the Benaco land fortilis and castles destined to shelter the populations. Removed the threat of barbarians Berengario was in Rome in 915 to receive the imperial crown. He died killed on April 7, 924 in Verona. He was one of the protagonists of the period of the feudal anarchy, when the most important feudal lords of the peninsula struggled to control the territories of the Carolingian Kingdom of Italy; With him the unity of Italy had almost reached.

QUEEN ADELAIDE IN THE GARDA FORTNESS

In 945 Berengario was marquis of Ivrea, nephew of the former, who was then elected king (950-961); Suspecting that Lotario of Provenza, the groom of Adelaide, the daughter of the deceased Rudolf of Burgundy, recourse to the protection of Emperor Ottone I of Germany, killed him and pretended to join Adelaide’s bride to his son Adalberto. At his refusal he was imprisoned in the fortress of Garda . In his rescue will be Ottone I and the fate of the Castle of Garda are now linked to those of the fallen king. In three different castles, including Garda, Emperor Ottone besieged Berengar II, his wife and son Adalberto. This was the last land on which the banner of the kings of Italy still waved, and was dismantled by Ottone himself.

On Christmas of 951, Emperor Ottone I married the widow Queen Adelaide in Canossa not for mere sentimentality, but because she acquired the rights she had on the crown of Italy.

TOWARDS YEAR 1000

At that time, Christianity had triumphed over the lands of Benaco, where the shrines and monasteries were erected by the populations to earn Paradise, when they were gripped by the belief that the end of the world would have to be that year. Everyone was trying to acquire the salvation of the soul with all manner of religious acts. So the Christian faith and its manifestations were protected by principles, given by the rich, invoked by the peoples as relief in the feared passage to eternity. And every pieve, every monastery, every Chapel had revenues, privileges, rights of fishing, hunting, harvesting. Nobody cared more than anything, as if it were not more than this land, and to earn the Paradise the rich men left all they had to the churches and monasteries who bought so great properties. Many are made monks; Sanctuaries are a passing; With processions and endless penances (totua inundus stultizat). But after the thousand, and ended the fear, enmities and continuous private wars, began again. To calm the exalted spirits was said by some that the Lord had revealed that on certain days of the week these wars had to cease: And then it was decided that from the first hour of Thursday until the first hour of Monday every reprisal would have a respite, and everyone could safely wait for his business.

This was said of God’s truce, and the Church threatened spiritual punishment for those who dare to violate it, adding that the ecclesiastics, the pilgrims, the peasants, the working animals and the seeds brought to the field should enjoy perpetual respite. Meanwhile, for those days the people breathed.

1004 A.C. – Malvezzi describes the frightening earthquake of 1004, from which the city and province of Brescia were all disassembled; And first tells of the famine and mortality that made the territory of Brescia desert, “fames valida, grandisque mortalitas”; he speaks also of another earthquake that plagued above all the high Riviera Benacense, inciting the terror for which it seemed to mined and temples and mountains

END OF FEUDALISM, BARBAROSSA AND THE BIRTH OF THE COMMUNES

During the XI century, feudalism ended and Communes era started, the struggle for investitures begins, which resulted in the collapse of bishopric power in the cities on the one hand and the flourishing of the bourgeoisie on the other.

On March 4, 1152, Frederick Hohenstaufen (called red beared), a young man of 31 years, dared to work, craving for glory, strong in the arms, was elected by the Frankfurt Diet of Germany, who now essentially meant also king of Italy and Emperor, his first thought was to pass the Alps and to restore in Italy the imperial authority, almost completely disappeared for the establishment of the free Communes. With a strong army, the greatest of every other German who invaded our land, in October 1154 came down from the valley of Trento and at the beginning of the month, reached the Verona land, camped at Benaco. On June 18, 1155, received by Adriano IV the imperial crown and then went back to the peninsula to return to Germany, but happened that at Verona Chiuse the emperor had to pass an ambush tired by his enemies.

In 1156 the free municipality of Brescia ties with Milan and Piacenza and sends 200 horses and several soldiers to Milano in war with Pavia, the historic imperial city.

Brescia, for the jurisdiction of some castles, fought in the same year in the battle of Paiosco against Bergamo, whose army, between dead and prisoners, was completely disbanded.

Brescia, meanwhile, standing up for free, looked indignantly at certain castles sold to the invader.

When the Barbarossa descended in Italy for the second time in 1158, in order to capture Brescia and advance against Milan, he encountered stubborn resistance in Garda, the mighty fortress where his army repeated attacks from 1158 to 1162, we deduced that from this memorable bastion had to take the name Ottone to give it to the lake.

The deputies of Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona and Mantua and Milano, convened in April 1167 at the Pontida monastery, where they swore to join in alliance, and in a fraternal way they decided to rebuild Milan that the invader had destroyed.

When in 1174 the emperor descends for the fifth time in Italy from Moncenisio he finds the Lombarda League already established. Brescia, on 29 May 1176, participates, with his cavalry, at the titanic punch of the “company of death“, from which Barbarossa hardly be saved, hiding among the fallen and leaving the shield, the cross, the spear, the cash imperial.

In 1183 d.C. Frederick, with the Treaty of Constance on June 25, recognized to the communes the franchises they had enjoyed antiquity and granted the cities of the league the right to maintain their societies, to form new ones, to have their own magistrates. The triumphal success of the usurper also arouses new energies and correct arrangements in Brescia by developing industries and trades, as well as the gradual emancipation of gleba servants. Unfortunately, in the miraculous virtues, the germs of dissolution were latent. Soon the Communes competed with each other, not in a wise and balanced emulation, but in deplorable rivalries.

On March 26, 1189 an army of valiant Brescians passed through the banks of Benaco to go to Palestine where Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of the infidels led by Saladin. Even Barbarossa, although old, had taken part in the crusade of claim, but in Asia Minor, passing the Selef, he lost his life.

FREDERICK II, EZZELINO DA ROMANO FROM COMMUNES TO SEIGNORIES

In 1222 a hurricane and repeated earthquake shocks collapsed much of the memorable Roman castle of Scovolo. At the same time all of Italy Subalpina, Brescia and the province were bitterly beaten by the seismic phenomenon. Castles, churches, ruined buildings collapsed. In 1227, against Frederick II (who in 1220, at twenty-six, arranged the things of his kingdom in Germany, came to Italy, where Honor II crowns Emperor’), by Poncarale was renewed the Lombard League in Brescia’s land of Mosio; But this union reduced in 1238 to only Milan, Brescia, Piacenza and Bologna. Frederick at the head of his whole army swarmed by Ezzelino’s bands on 3 August 1238 besieged Brescia, but after two months had to retract. On the morning of August 30, 1258 in Torricella, tells the Malvezzi, there was a terrible battle between Ezzelino III and Brescia, where died almost all the brescian nobility; Four thousand citizens fell into the hands of the tyrant who sent them to death with fierce varieties of torments in Verona. The city was soon in its power and used the usual barbarian ways. It was then divided between him, Dovara and Pellavicino, but since they knew that he was going against them, they went away leaving everything in his power.

SCALIGERS AND VISCONTS

From the second half of the XIII century until the definitive settlement of the Serenissima is a continual war between Visconti and Scaligeri for the possession of the western coast of the lake, but in the meantime, there is the union of the Riviera community and the settlement of the politics of the Serenissima that will become operational in 1426.

1259 d.C. – The death of Ezzelino III and the birth of the Scaligeri – the Ghibelline family of the Scaligeri (called Della Scala) began in the second half of the XIII century, when the powerful Ghibelline Romano family was exterminated, through his Ezzelino III for over thirty years had dominated especially on east shore of the lake. This fierce monster was killed in battle at Cassano d’Adda on 27 September 1259 by the noble Mazzoldo Lavellongo from Brescia. Disappeared Ezzelino the story records that a Mastino I ° (believed in German origins) was mayor in 1260, then captain of the Veronese people. He maintained the rule with force and in 1275 he submitted Trento and Manerba. We already remembered that Mastino I created the Signoria of the Scaliger, whose capacity also turned to the banks of Benaco.

Take place in Sirmione, in 1276, the capture of the Patarini (heretic Cathars) by Alberto Della Scala.

In 1279, after the peace of Montichiari, the city of Brescia decreed the collapse of towers and houses to punish the rebellious peoples, namely those of Scovolo, Manerba, Bedizzole, and of how many other villages had opposed it , and issued a decree prohibiting the rise of the destroyed castles and dwelling there.

1282 – in the ancient parish of Maderno were found the relics of St. Ercolano

On several occasions in the years 1330/31 Mastino II of the Scala entered the Riviera and conquered all the most important castles, but then returned to its lands, also pushed by the reaction of Brescia.

While the West Riviera passed from Visconti to Scaliger family in several times, the noble feelings of the Riviera were sealed on 4 November 1334 in the solemn proclamation of the statutes by the General Council. They established that all the lands of the Riviera, bound in a Federation, had a single law to obey in the common interest. From the document of that meeting it turned out that the western Riviera, with Maderno’s capital, puts itself under the protection of Venice; in 1344 A.C. it can be said that the dominion of the Venetian lion began on Benacens, but will be officially done on 6 October 1426.

1354 – Giovanni Visconti divides the territory between his sons Matteo, Galeazzo and Bernabò; assigned to this last Brescia with the Garda Riviera. The story believes Bernabò a superstitious, cruel man, with a restless, stubborn spirit against the strain of many of his enemies, ready to resurrect from the misfortunes.

On July 6, 1362, Bernabò Visconti entered Valcamonica and then, land by land, he tooks back about all the Brescia territory. He then distributed the state among his sons to better govern it and the Riviera was assigned to Marco and Mother Beatrice, who was the guardian and governed him as Bernabò’s representative, accompanying fierce gunmen in military campaigns such as Landò and the Acuto.

In those years, Beatrice brought the capital of the Riviera from Maderno to Salò and strengthened the fortifications as massive gates against the common delinquents were needed, but on the other hand the militias were using other methods to conquer castles, the fire guns. So gradually the manners crumbled fell into ruin and were abandoned as new offensive and defense devices were perfected.

1375 A.C. – The Cansignorio of Scala – Signoria of the Scaliger was now in decline and their legitimate offspring was extinguished in 1375 with the death of Cansignorio, the murderer of brother Cangrande II and the usurper of his domination.

1385-1402 a.C. – On May 16, 1385, Gian Galeazzo, nephew of Bernabò, betrayed him captive with his family in the castle of Trezzo, where he poisoned him with a plate of legumes. Gian Galeazzo intruded on the struggles between Carraresi (Padova) and Scaligeri (Verona), and without scruples he invaded the state of both (1387-1388). The castle of Sirmione was occupied in the same year by Visconti troops.

On April 9, 1396 the Visconti put in Salò the Podestà with title of Captain and Rector of the Lake Riviera. The lands that formed the Community or Federation were 33, each of which had its own criminal, civil and administrative statutes coordinated with those of the entire community.

Gian Galeazzo had been attained by the apogee of the Viscontean domination when his political construction, constructed by whatever means, good or evil, was suddenly torn and crumbled for the inability of the successors. Victim of the plague died in the castle of Malegnano on September 3, 1402 and it can be said that then Milan and its territory were the center of a small monarchy that descended from the Alps in the heart of Umbria. After a brief division of the state, everything felt into the hands of Filippo Maria but, because of the city’s rebellion and the ingenuity of his father’s commanders (such as Pandolfo Malatesta), the dukedom collapsed.

THE SERENISSIMA AND LA MAGNIFICENT PATRIA

The Serenissima, though losing part of his domains, flourished in commerce, so he thought of recovering the territories, rather than raising them with his acute diplomacy, and succeeded in convincing Regent Caterina Visconti, Mother of Filippo Maria, to sell them the Verona territory (1404), so he first recovered the eastern shore of the lake.

On March 6, 1426, then, the Brescians swore an indissoluble loyalty to the Serenissima gathered at St. Peter de Dom, gathering the citizens and representatives of all the lands of the province.

On October 11, 1427, the battle of Maclodio had removed the lion town of Brescia to the ducal crown of Visconti, but Filippo Maria profoundly offended tried to recover the city by the Piccinino, which in 1438 encircled it in a circle of iron and fire.

Galeas per montes: to overcome the lack of arsenal on Benaco and to avoid the militia of Marquis Gonzaga, which had passed with the Visconti, the Serenissima decided the imminent operation of allocating to the lake a number of ships, making them trace trough the Adige valley; once on the lake, it was necessary to win the castle of Salò, but several unfortunate episodes led to the victory of the Milan army.

The important castle of Salò, to defended the territory of Brescia, was first captured by Piccinino, then kept by Gonzaga who had left the Serenissima to join the Visconti.

On April 10, 1440, there was a memorable decisive naval battle for the fate of Brescia and the western coast: some of the Visconti fleet saved, most drowned, or injured, or fallen prisoners, or trapped and killed. To Venetians remained the trophy of four hundred prisoners and a great deal of weapons. Talliano of Friuli difficulty was able to save himself to Riva.

May 26, 1449 – The expulsion of Jews from the Riviera was a consequence of the adversary propaganda of many Christians who exercised the most ruthless wear and tear in competition.

1484 a.C. – Pest plague in the Riviera and Salò – In 1484 the Benaco Riviera was once again afflicted by a proud plague and the council of the community of Salò provided for the construction of a lazzaretto.

1506 a.C. – In 1506 Solimano died, Emperor of Constantinople, who had for many years with Charles V and Francis I afflicted Europe. In fact, in the long war between the emperor and the King of France, Turkish Solimano was often allied with the latter and sent his ships in piracy to infest the coasts of Christian countries and especially of Italy.

1508-1515 a.C. – Cambrai League against the Serenissima: Venice, at that time, had quarrelled with Pope JuliusGiulio II precisely because of the well-known land of Pontevico so, secretly, Louis XII, the Emperor of Germany Massimiliano I, king of Spain Ferdinand V the Catholic, the king of England, Pope Giulio II, some Italian princes including the dukes of Savoy and Ferrara, the Marquis of Mantua, and even the king of Hungary, establishing a League against Venice that took place on December 10, 1508 in Cambrai. Venice loses to Ghiaradadda on 14 May 1509 and the French army of Louis XII enter Brescia and then Peschiera.

1515 dies Louis XII takes over Francesco I, September 14, 1515 is the battle of Melegnano with which Venice resumes almost all the lands, remains to the French Milan.

1516 – In January, at the death of the King of Spain Ferdinand, took the throne Charles of Austria his eighteen year old nephew . The new King of France, Francesco I, a young man of 22 years, reaped in the spirit the reconquest of the duchy of Milan, and passed the Alps from Stura to realize it. For this reason he allied, with the treaty of Blois, to the republics of Venice and Genoa against the Pope, Emperor Massimiliano, Spain and Milan.

On February 25, 1525, the army of Charles V and that of Francis I, led by him, clashed in Pavia, and after a terrible and obstinate fist the French went on course. The King who had fought like a lion and killed many warriors remained in prison. But she was so consoled to write to her mother, “Everything is lost except honor!” Fifteen days after this battle there was no longer a single Frenchman in Lombardy, and Francesco I was languishing prisoner in Spain.

1543 about – Accademia degli Unanimi in Salò

THE LEPANTO BATTLE AND THE LOSS OF FORCES OF SERENISSIMA

The war against the Ottoman Empire, although initially won by the Christian League in Lepanto, sees in the time the Serenissima committed itself to immense resources that ultimately caused its ruin.

On the morning of October 7, 1571, the two fleets clashed in the Gulf of Lepanto, the Christian one and Ottoman Turks. Christians were full of victory, but great losses; were thirty thousand, and perhaps more, the fallen of Muslims, including the wounded and the prisoners. The Venetians and the Pope wanted to pursue their enemies, and take away their old achievements but Spain did not consent. Shortly after, Pius V died, and the Venezians, who were not helped, made peace with the Turks, but incurred great expenses for the long and terrible war that sustained all the resources and residual energies of Venice. From the XVI to the XVIII centurie Ottoman Turks attempt to extend their power over the Balkan Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean.

In addition to the war against the Turks, to put to trial Venice and the Riviera, in those years (1576) develops an epidemic plague, later called the “plague of St. Charles”, which will also hit Milan.

On July 24, 1580, the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, came as Apostolic League in the countries of the Riviera.

On May 17, 1630, in the province of Brescia, the horrific scourge of bubonic plague that Manzoni admirably depicted fell.

THE SPANISH AND AUSTRIAN SUCCESS WAR

1700 – On November 1, 1700, Charles II of Spain died, calling as heir Filippo d’Angiò, the nephew of Louis XIV; to the war for the succession of Spain, to share a legacy, attended the Emperor of Germany, King of Bavaria and King of France Louis XIV, while the Serenissima decided to stay neutral nowadays. The clashes between these armies took place in our territory and the whole Riviera was plundered. Peace was finally marked on May 13, 1706, and peace was able to resume even the trades and industries of the Riviera of Salò. It was then a period of tranquility until the Austrian succession war (1735-1748), when there were similar effects to the Riviera similar to that of Spain.

THE BANDITISM

Around 1750, the banditism that had already begun about two centuries before, fought by the Veneto Senate, was fought in a vain struggle to turn off its origin, which had intensified growing much. The bullyes flocked everywhere, protected by the bosses who assuaged them by overthrowing the government and its laws, opposing the Ducal arms. The judges were then narrowed to close one eye, and often both of them on the criminals deeds of criminals. The Government promised and then allowed to run following the example of the Sovereigns of that time.

Not unfounded was this reaction invetenated by certain dissolute and cruel lords, who carried in the blood the perverted instincts, derived from the feudal origins of overwhelmingness and conquest. Each day the dissension between the people and the powerful was widening. The rich territory and the flourishing traffic of the Riviera, if they enriched the merchant and industrial classes, and with them the aristocracy, did not represent that a mediocre resource for the working class, subject to disastrous contracts. Desperation sometimes forced the unemployed to vulgar banditism and the consequent vices.

NAPOLEON AND THE END OF SERENISSIMA

On March 26, 1796, Napoleon Buonaparte was sent to Italy. Venice was now condemned to die by the Bonaparte, which, as is well known, was given to Austria; the Treaty of Campoformio, ratifying the preliminaries of Leoben, was actually signed on 17 October 1797 in Passariano where General Bonaparte had been established in the villa of Lodovico Manin, the last Doge in Venice.

1809 from the Imperial Palace Napoleon makes corrections and appoints a simple B. at the nomination decree of Senators of the Kingdom of Italy, make provisions for the opening of the Senate on the first day of April of that year 1809.

1814 after Napoleon the Austrians; after Napoleon’s fallen, the Italian people had to suffer the invincible power of the absburgic Empire, tempered by broad promises of independence and freedom to which the facts did not correspond.

From 1816 to 1848, Italy had to regain its independence with a sequel of conspiracies, riots, pains and unmarked sacrifices. For more than 33 years, the Austrians, dominating Lombardy and Venice, held the Brescia population with a fist of iron.

FIRST INDEPENDENCE WAR
On March 18, 1848, Milan went against the Austrian Empire during the Five Days, and on March 22, Venice also expelled the Austrians (who retired in the quadrilateral, made up of the four fortresses of Verona, Peschiera, Legnago and Mantua) and proclaimed the Republic of San Marco.

Then the king of Sardinia Carlo Alberto di Savoia, on March 23, 1848, headed a coalition of Italian states and declared war to Austria to conquer the Lombard-Venetian Kingdom. But when the pope withdrew from the conflict since the Austrian empire had threatened a schism, most Italian states withdrew their support for the enterprise. It was thus only the savoy Piemonte to fight against Austria.

In Tuscany the Democrats gave birth to the Tuscany Republic. In Rome, Pope Pio IX had to take refuge in Gaeta and on 9 February 1849 the Roman Republic was proclaimed, of which Mazzini and Garibaldi belonged. Brescia had the provisional government, extraditing the principles of Sigismund of Austria and Schwarzemberg, while the city guard revived the city of the remains of 4000 men at their command, in a rushing retreat to the quadrilateral.

On 11 June of that year 1848 the act of annexation of Lombardy to Piedmont.

The first war ended in March 1849, with the defeat of Novara. To remember the so-called Assault of Pastrengo, carried out by only 300 Carabinieri who, with the sacrifice of life, rejected thousands of Austrian soldiers. Everywhere and especially in the Riviera of Benaco, were born secret associations.

Despite the end of the war between the Savoy kingdom and Austria, the struggles continued in various cities of Italy.

SECOND INDEPENDENCE WAR
The Second Italian War of Independence was declared on April 27, 1859 and saw France and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the one hand and Austria on the other. The Franco-Piemontese armies, led by Napoleon III, defeat the Austrians in the battles of Magenta, Solferino and San Martino. Later, however, Napoleon III abandoned the war for the bloody balance following the Battle of Solferino and San Martino, and because he was fearful of a widening of the conflict in Central Europe, began negotiations with Austria, with which he signed the armistice July 11, 1859, at Villafranca di Verona.

France obtained from Austria the Lombardy, with the exception of Mantua. Disappointed Cavour resigns.

In 1860, France and Piemont agreed to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, the Legation of Romagna, the Duchy of Modena and Reggio and Tuscany, where a provisional government had settled by ending Grand Duchy of Tuscany. On March 24, 1860, the Kingdom of Sardinia surrendered to France the provisions of the agreements in exchange for Lombardy-Veneto: Savoy and the province of Nice (1859).

Venice remains under Austrian control, the Pontifical State, under the Pope’s government and the Kingdom of the two Sicilies under the absolute monarchy of the Bourbon.

The war was declared on April 27, 1859. On May 21st, the Franco-Sardinians won in Vercelli, and on June 6, the news of the happy Battle of Magenta was greeted with joy in the Riviera of Garda. They are days of unspeakable anxiety.

On eleven June, before the dawn’s rise, the Austrians left Brescia forever. The twelve disappeared from the biceps eagle replaced by the tricolor.

At dawn on June 12, 1859, there was a fervor, a widespread brusque, the chivalrous sound of the horses, the frustration of exterminated pieces of rocks, cannons, the trampling of bribes of arms across the Ticino and Mincio and even more, near us, from Adda to Oglio. On the evening of June 24th, the Austrians cleared the Mincio line sheltering under the strongholds of Verona, while on the hill of S. Martino, where the Ossuary stands today and elevates the monumental tower consecrated to the fighters of that fateful day, the tricolor flag waved in the sky purified by the flow of storms and blood.

Treaty of Zurich, where on 10 November 1859 Austria lent Lombardy to Italy. On 18 February 1861, the first Italian Parliament was opened in Turin, with the participation of the deputies of the city and province of Brescia.

On May 5, 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed with the Mille from Quarto (called Spedizione dei Mille, Thousand’s Mission), near Genoa, starting with the famous Expedition and, with the support of Vittorio Emanuele II, advanced rapidly up the Peninsula.

Meanwhile, the Sardinian army beat the papal one in the Battle of Castelfidardo, with the annexation of Marche and Umbria to the Kingdom of Sardinia. Following the meeting between Giuseppe Garibaldi and Vittorio Emanuele II, in the city of Teano, all the regions of the south entered the Savoy kingdom.

With a united Italy from the Alps to Sicily (but still missing from Triveneto and Lazio), on March 17, 1861, the national assembly gathered in Turin (capital of the new state) proclaimed the transformation of the Kingdom of Sardinia into the Kingdom of Italy of which Vittorio Emanuele II was the first king.

THOUSAND’S MISSION (SPEDIZIONE DEI MILLE)

On April 4, 1860, at the scream of liberty and in Italy, Palermo lifted the barricades

We know that in June 1865 the capital of Italy was transferred to Florence, just at the turn of the 6th centenary of Dante, and the new House, elected in November, faced serious financial and political problems. At the government was Lamarmora, already a collaborator and friend of Cavour, who was looking for an ally for the war against Austria and found him in Prussia, even aspiring to unity and independence. With the new year a treaty of friendship was laid down, agreeing that it could turn into a defensive and offensive alliance to get Italy throughout the Lombard-Venetian and Prussia the dominance in the Germanic Confederation.

On June 17, 1866, Garibaldi reviewed Brescia and settled there in his neighborhood by taking accommodation at the Hotel of Italy

THIRD INDEPENDENCE WAR
To complete unification of Italy still lacked the acquisition of Veneto annexed in 1866, of Rome annexed in 1870, of Trento with Trentino and Trieste with Venice Giulia, annexed between 1915-1918 (World War I). In 1866 the kingdom of Italy allied with Prussia against Austria. The war on the Italian front was marked by alternate events, but the Prussian victory allowed the Kingdom of Italy to join the Veneto.

FIRST WORLD WAR (or Fourth Independence War)
The conflict begun in Italy on 24 May 1915 with the declaration of war by Italy to Austria-Hungary ended on 4 November 1918 with the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the annexation to Italy of Part of the promised territories following the secret treaties of London signed by the Kingdom of Italy with the countries of the Tripartite Agreement. With Trento and Trieste annexed to the Italian territory the process of unification ended.

The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye of 1919 did not guarantee all the territories promised to Italy by the Agreement, in fact the problem of Fiume was unresolved, which was not annexed and became a cause of clash between Italy and the powers allied.

Lake Garda history and origins