On 27 November 1237, under the walls of Cortenuova, two of the largest armies of the Middle Ages met: that of Frederick II — with Ezzelino da Romano, the German cavalry, Hungarian and Bohemian troops and the Saracen archers of Lucera — and that of the Lombard League. It was an ambush: the garrison of the castle of Cividate signalled to the emperor with a column of smoke that the Guelphs had finished crossing the Oglio and were pitching camp for the night. More than ten thousand dead and prisoners were left on the field; the next day Frederick occupied the village and razed it to the ground.
Before being a battlefield, though, Cortenuova had been a royal court. The name appears for the first time in a diploma that Carloman, king of Italy and Bavaria, signed here on 19 October 877 while travelling from Milan to Brescia: «Actum in Curte Nova Villa Regia». It was a stopping place for the Frankish sovereigns, at the crossing of the roads between Milan and the Venetian lands and between Bergamo and Cremona. In 915 count Didone of Vidalengo exchanged it, along with twenty thousand hectares of land, with the bishop of Bergamo.
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📅 Every year, on 26 August and the fourth Sunday of September
On 26 August Cortenuova, a municipality of 1,942 inhabitants in the province of Bergamo, celebrates its patron Sant'Alessandro the martyr; co-patroness is Santa Fausta.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Cortenuova, but an easy day trip away.
