He was the first to put cannons on carriages
Bartolomeo Colleoni went down in the history of war as the creator of field artillery, the first to put cannons on carriages in an open battle. This condottiere, the son of a condottiere, that is, a mercenary who was treacherously killed after the capture of the castle of Tressa near Milan, became much more famous as a shameless robber than as a general.
No wonder: he had a difficult childhood and great hardships, and the very essence of the wars of that time was, as you know, legalized robbery. However, in Renaissance Italy, condottiere acquired a certain romantic aura. The Italians were still very far from national unity, although they fought with the same Habsburgs and Hohenstaufens for some semblance of independence. But they fought more among themselves, preferring otherwise more "respectable" occupations.
As a result, the demand for military mercenaries grew rapidly, who made a profession out of war and were ready to serve whoever paid the most. Numerous ready-made detachments were formed, but more often something like mobile headquarters, ready to quickly put together entire armies. And the commanders of such headquarters, the condottieri, acquired authority comparable to that of princes, kings and dukes.
Nevertheless, of the many condottieri, it was Bartolomeo Colleoni who was honored in the IV volume of the textbook "History of the art of war in the framework of political history" by Hans Delbrück, a true classic who was so appreciated by K. Marx and F. Engels. Before Colleoni, artillery remained either a serf or a siege for a long time, and by the way, it was used already during the siege of Moscow by Khan Tokhtamysh in 1382, that is, long before the wars that the Venetian Republic was waging with its neighbors, the Habsburgs, and the Ottoman sultans. …
For some reason, Colleoni, who was born in 1400 in Bergamo, is listed in history exclusively as a Venetian mercenary, although he began in the army of the Kingdom of Naples, and later for many years served almost the main enemies of the Most Serene Republic - the Duke of Milan, and the Visconti, and who replaced them Sforza.
It seems that in Venice this true landsknecht was offered more than in Naples, and he immediately distinguished himself during the siege of Cremona, a fortress on the Po, which was considered the gateway to Lombardy. After his commander, Francesco Bussone, who had conferred the title of Count of Carmagnola, had his head cut off, Colleoni, no longer very young, commanded all the Venetian infantry. He was extremely careful, fought in many battles, including at Brescia, which he managed to free from the siege by the Milanese, which lasted for many months.
Artillery, fire
Duke Filippo Visconti of Milan, having made peace with Venice, immediately bought out an experienced soldier, who, it seems, was no longer afraid of anything. However, after several years of service, the aging duke was frightened by the popularity of Colleoni among the soldiers and sent him to prison. This ruler, who was unanimously called by his contemporaries a cruel paranoid, on the verge of death did not hide fears that his military leader would side with his rivals - the Sforza family.
And so it happened. With the transfer of the ducal throne to Francesco Sforza, Colleoni was released and fought with the army of Charles of Orleans, another contender for power in Milan. A series of victories followed in 1447, and a temporary alliance with Venice helped Bartolomeo Colleoni return under the banner of the Doges. The Grand Council of Venice solemnly presented him with the baton of the commander-in-chief of all the armed forces of the Most Serene Republic with the title of captain-general.
At this time, the Ottomans were making their last efforts to finally do away with the Byzantine Empire, more precisely, with what was left of it on the European continent. There is historical evidence that Colleoni was one of those who expressed their readiness to take part in the next Crusade and even visited many European monarchs to be recruited into the army.
The help of the Europeans to Constantinople was, alas, clearly insufficient, not least because Europe was still recovering from the plague, and England and France were exhausted by the Hundred Years War. Well, condottiere Colleoni, from whom neither a diplomat nor a recruiter has turned out, in the meantime gets more and more laurels and new trophies in the endless wars on the territory of Italy.
Almost an old man, the Venetian captain-general won his last victory at the town of Molinelli, not far from his hometown of Bergamo, where he was opposed by the troops of Florence, Bologna and even the Kingdom of Aragon, apparently also mercenaries. It was under Molinelli that the condottier first widely used light field artillery, which led to unprecedented losses among horses in those wars. More than a thousand of them died, while there were no more than 700 soldiers on both sides.
Interestingly, the Russian edition of "History …" by G. Delbrück lacks the author's characteristic remark that one of the opponents of the Condottier's army, Count Montefeltro, forbade to spare the surrendering, since Colleoni "used too much artillery." And military historians completely doubt the victory of the Venetian captain-general at Molinelli, especially since after the battle he decided to abandon the grandiose plans of the campaign against Milan.
However, this did not prevent the Grand Council of Venice from proclaiming the commander "the savior of the Venetian Republic" and offering to erect a monument to him in the city. The condottier did not have to wait long for a response, although he was very busy - again as commander of the united Christian army for the Crusade. The campaign, however, did not take place - due to disagreements in the ranks of the allies.
Colleono from Bergamo
Don Bartolomeo Colleoni, or rather, Colleono, by that time was perhaps the richest man in Venice, this is not the poorest city in Italy. His fortune, in terms of modern currencies, obviously reached several hundred million euros or dollars. And the condottiere, not paying attention to numerous relatives, right up to the adopted nephew, expressed his readiness to donate almost all of his wealth to Venice.
But on condition that a monument to him will not be anywhere, but right on San Marco. It is clear that St. Mark's Square was meant, next to the Doge's Palace, the Piazzetta and the Cathedral of Saint Evangelist. However, the prudent Venetians, seemingly not as thieving as the Neapolitans or Sicilians, managed to deceive even their "savior".
In fact, in the republic it was not customary to erect monuments to anyone, but an equestrian monument for a city where the main transport is gondolas is completely nonsense. In those days, to tell an Italian that he “sits on a horse like a Venetian” was not a compliment, but an insult. By the way, monuments to the author of wonderful comedies Carlo Goldoni not far from the Rialto Bridge and the Liberator King Victor Emmanuel II on the San Zacaria embankment will appear much later.
Instead of Piazza San Marco, the equestrian monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni was erected in 1496 at the scuola with the same name - San Marco. It was sculpted by the great Andrea Verrocchio, and cast from bronze twenty years after the death of Colleoni by the not so great master - Leopardi. And since then, the bronze condottiere has been standing on Piazza Giovanni and Paolo (in Venetian - Zanipolo).
At the same time, the monument was carefully measured, they removed it and continue to make copies to this day, but more on that below. And the ashes of the commander, who died 75 years old in his luxurious castle Malpag, was returned to Bergamo. Bartolomeo Colleoni was from this city - that is, Bergamask, this is how the common name of the townspeople sounds correctly.
The captain-general's relatives, whom he quite shamelessly deprived in favor of Venice, did a lot to make Bergamo Venetian, but everything turned out that the rich Venice had simply kept poor Bergamo for hundreds of years. However, the situation was about the same as with Verona, Padua and several other cities, which were simply given to the feeding of wealthy Venetian families. It's just that in the case of Bergamo, it turned out to be locals - Colleoni-Martinengo.
It is well known that from Bergamo he was a "servant of two masters" with a comedic surname, or rather a nickname - Truffaldino. At least it can be associated with the root truffa, which translates as "fraud". The surnames Colleoni are trying to somehow appropriate indecent linguistic roots, and not only from the threefold image of the lower part of the male reproductive organ on the family coat of arms. However, with a rather consonant local swearing, native speakers do not find any "eggs" or "scrotum" in this surname. Further coll - necks, as well as colla - hill, the case for the would-be translators does not move.
Today Bergamo is better known as the epicenter of the pandemic in northern Italy, but this Italian city has managed to give the world many celebrities over the centuries. Starting with the genius author of "Love Potion" and "Don Pasquale" Gaetano Donizetti and ending with Massimo Carrera - the last in the cohort of successful coaches of the Moscow football "Spartak". Originally from Bergamo, by the way, and one of the builders of St. Petersburg - Giacomo Quarenghi.
However, the main tourist attraction there is still the tomb of the Colleoni family in the upper city. And this is not surprising - almost half of the sights of old Bergamo were built with the money of Bartolomeo Colleoni. And this despite the fact that almost everything that he had left, he gave Venice.
From Moscow to the Polish outskirts
Bartolomeo Colleoni, more precisely, his monument, or more precisely, a plaster copy masterfully painted in bronze, settled in Moscow a little over a century ago. In the Italian courtyard of the Museum of Fine Arts, once named after Alexander III the Peacemaker, and now for some reason Pushkin, probably only because Alexander Sergeevich is “our everything”.
Don Bartolomeo peacefully neighbors in the Italian courtyard with another condottieri - Gattamelata from Padua, who gave glory and trophies to the same Venice for several decades before Colleoni. And the monument to him, much earlier, by Donatello, respectively, settled well in the historic center of Padua. Other neighbors at the copy of the Verrocchio monument are much more famous - Michelangelo's "David" and two more David - the work of the same Donatello and Verrocchio. But also - copies, albeit excellent.
In fact, the place of Colleoni or Gattamelata in the Italian courtyard could well have been taken by Marcus Aurelius, again - a copy of a statue from the Capitol Hill in Rome. However, masters from the Renaissance were more suitable as a textbook for the branch of the university, which was originally considered the museum of Alexander III.
Many of the Russians who have visited Venice are happy to look for the "original" of the work of the great Verrocchio in its labyrinths. Moreover, in many places, starting with the Athenian Acropolis and Florence and ending with the Venetian (again - A. P.) Cathedral of St. Mark, the real statues have long been removed somewhere. For the sake of safety, of course, for which special thanks to the restorers.
Not to say that the Venetian monument of Colleoni, in fact, an indisputable masterpiece, was very popular. If in Bergamo the tomb of a family with a dubious surname is visited by all tourists who find themselves in the city, then perhaps only the most stubborn get to the Venetian Zanipolo. The author, who first appeared in Venice more than ten years ago, did not miss the Gattamelate monument in Padua, but did not bother to remember that the second condottiere settled very close to St. Mark's Square.
On subsequent trips, and there have been three of them since then, the condottiere was almost the main attraction in Venice. But what a surprise it was when the author realized that he could well have seen Bartolomeo Colleoni twice more. And where - in Poland! However, there is nothing surprising - today for some reason it is considered not entirely decent to replicate copies, no matter how ingenious the original may be.
Preference these days is given to something new, even if absolutely mediocre or tasteless. Therefore, one cannot but pay tribute to the Poles, who at first actually got only one copy of Verrocchio's work, and even that one from the Germans. Poland received a cast statue of the Condottiere together with the Pomeranian Stettin, which after the Second World War it was decided to transfer to Poland and rename it in the Polish manner - in Szczecin.
It was in Stettin in 1913, just a year after the plaster copy of Colleoni settled in the museum on Volkhonka, that another, already cast copy of the Condottiere was born. The Germans did not skimp on the new casting, and a new monument was established in the city, which was once visited by the Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, who tried in vain to recruit an army for a new crusade.
This was done not by the example of the Russians, but according to the tradition of the beginning of the 20th century, when all the major cities of Europe and America acquired their museums and classical collections. The sculpture was taken over by the Stettin Contemporary Museum - at that time only the capital of one of the districts of Pomerania. During the years of both the First and Second World Wars, the monument was preserved intact. Stettin was almost never bombed by the British and Americans, and the troops of the Third Belorussian Front under the command of Rokossovsky who stormed the city usually did not shoot at cultural objects.
After the war, the Poles actively settled in Szczecin-Stettin, but for some reason it was decided to send the monument to Colleoni to the capital - Warsaw, where the restoration of the city was in full swing. The Condottiere was first housed in the storehouse of the National Museum, then in the Museum of the Polish Army and finally in the courtyard of the Academy of Fine Arts, which occupied the former Czapski Palace in Krakowskie Przedmiecie.
Cast Colleoni stood in this cozy courtyard for quite a long time, although already in the late 1980s, representatives of the museum in Szczecin began to claim it again. The disputes between the museum workers dragged on, and the 1913 casting was sent to the western outskirts of modern Poland only in 2002.
The Condottiere was erected on the Aviators Square, but its low pedestal cannot be compared with the Venetian one. But on it there is an inscription, which by definition does not belong in Venice - that Captain General Colleoni at the age of 54 visited northern Germany. There he tried to enlist the support of the Pomeranian dukes and recruit the Landsknechts for the Crusade, but to no avail.
However, it was also decided not to leave the Varshavians without a condottiere, and it was decided to quickly cast another copy for them. Now she flaunts not in the courtyard, but in front of the entrance to the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, all in the same Krakow suburb, where it is much easier to find her than the epic original on Zanipolo in Venice.
