Solferino

On the rock of Solferino, twenty-three metres high and built in 1022, the battle that bears the village's name was fought on 24 June 1859: the largest since Leipzig, more than two hundred and thirty-four thousand soldiers in the field for twelve to fourteen hours, and by evening nearly thirty thousand men down among Austro-Venetians and Franco-Piedmontese. In proportion of losses it exceeded Waterloo. The rock, which commands the old Lombard-Venetian border, has for centuries been called the Spy of Italy. The name of the village, on the other hand, most probably comes from the medieval sulphurinus, a little sulphurous stream, yet the coat of arms granted in 2007 shows a sun: it illustrates the learned false etymology sol ferens, "which brings the sun".

The Red Cross was born out of that day, but not exactly here. According to his own diaries, found after his death and published in 1971, the Swiss businessman Henry Dunant saw neither the battle nor the field covered with the dead: he came from Brescia to Castiglione delle Stiviere on 25 June, the day after, and stayed there until the 30th tending the wounded whom the local people were rescuing. He crossed the territory of Solferino only on the 27th, on his way to Napoleon III's headquarters, and in his book he gave it a few lines. The book, though, is called Un souvenir de Solferino, and it honours the women of Castiglione who cared for everyone without looking at the uniform, repeating "tutti fratelli", all brothers: two words that became the motto of the Red Cross. At Solferino stand the ossuary of 1870 and the memorial raised in 1959.