The centre of Montebello is crossed by the 45th parallel, the line exactly halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. The name, though, is not about geography: it perhaps comes from the Latin Mons Belli, «mountain of war», recalling the battle of Clastidium of 222 BC, which Naevius turned into a tragedy and Polybius recounted at length. And in 1175, below these hills, the armies of the Lombard League and of Frederick Barbarossa were about to clash: instead they signed an armistice, the peace of Montebello, which put everything off to the following year, to Legnano.
The battles did come, in the end. On 9 June 1800 the French of generals Lannes and Victor beat the Austrians of general Ott here, and for that victory Lannes was made Duke of Montebello in 1808. On 20 May 1859, in the second war of independence, the Sardinian-Piedmontese cavalry of colonel Gerbaix de Sonnaz and the French infantry of general Forey forced the Austrians to withdraw beyond the Po. The village, born in the Middle Ages as a castrum and grown up around a Benedictine monastery, has carried that «della Battaglia» in its name ever since.
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📅 Every year, on the first Sunday of October
On the first Sunday of October Montebello della Battaglia, a municipality of 1,689 inhabitants in the province of Pavia, celebrates its patroness the Madonna del Rosario.
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 Montebello della Battaglia, but an easy day trip away.
