The Battle of the Sassi Grossi
Giornico, Leventina valley (TI)
Key figures: men of Uri, Confederates and Leventina people against the army of Milan
Wikipedia · Souvenir di montagna
The Gotthard road. From the 13th century, when the Schöllenen passage was opened, the Gotthard route became the shortest road between Germany and Milan. Whoever controlled the Leventina, the valley that runs down from the pass towards Bellinzona, also controlled the traffic, the tolls and the markets. For the peasants of Uri, on the northern side, the valley was a vital hinterland of pastures, chestnut woods and trade. As early as 1403 Uri and Obwalden took the Leventina under their protection, and in 1419 they also obtained Bellinzona, but in 1422, defeated at Arbedo by the army of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, they lost everything. Decades of wars, pledges and broken promises followed, and the question remained open.
The disputed valley. In 1466 the Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, promised the Leventina to the Canton of Uri, but did not keep his promise. In November 1478, in agreement with Pope Sixtus IV, then at war with Milan, the men of Uri and the other Confederates crossed the Gotthard. In the Leventina the population welcomed them as liberators; then they besieged Bellinzona with about 7,000 men. The siege failed, and in mid-December, with the first heavy snowfalls, the bulk of the army went back over the Gotthard.
Few against many. Only 175 Confederates remained in the valley, a hundred men of Uri and twenty-five each from Lucerne, Schwyz and Zurich, together with about 400 Leventina men. The Duchy of Milan sent an army of about 10,000 men against them, which marched up the Riviera and the lower Leventina in the snow.
The battle of 28 December 1478. The defenders left Bodio and Personico without fighting and lured the ducal army into the narrows between Bodio and Giornico, where the long column advanced crowded on the left side of the valley, between the snow and the frozen river. When its head emerged onto the plain in front of Giornico, the Confederates attacked from the front and the Leventina men from the mountainside, rolling, according to tradition, large stones and tree trunks down the slope. The Milanese army broke up; many drowned trying to ford the Ticino. The place is still called «dei Sassi Grossi» (of the Big Stones), and the battle takes its name from the stones, not from the men.
The consequences. With the Peace of Lucerne of 1480 Milan gave up the Leventina, which became a bailiwick of Uri until 1798. The Confederates obtained exemption from duties in the Duchy, while Bellinzona remained in Milanese hands for another twenty years. For the first time the Confederates established rule south of the Alps: it was the beginning of the future Italian-speaking Switzerland.
The monument. In 1928, for the 450th anniversary, it was decided to commemorate the battle with a monument. The competition was announced in 1929; in January 1930 the jury chose, from thirty-five entries, the sketch by the Ticino sculptor Apollonio Pessina, and the monument was inaugurated on 1 August 1937 at the northern entrance to Giornico. A granite warrior pushes a boulder, caught an instant before the throw: the stone is still motionless, but about to move. The story of the monument and its boulder is told in the chapter «02. Sassi Grossi» of Souvenir di montagna.
Apollonio Pessina (Ligornetto, 1879–1958), Monumento alla battaglia dei Sassi Grossi, 1937, granite. Giornico, Leventina valley (TI), northern entrance to the village
Souvenir di montagna, cavenago.info
The Battle of Giornico in the illustrated chronicle of Diebold Schilling the Younger of Lucerne, 1513
Diebold Schilling the Younger, Luzerner Schilling, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Giornico, church of San Nicolao: the apse frescoes, painted by Nicolao da Seregno in 1478, the year of the battle
Photo Laurom, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The monument at night: the raking light makes the planes of the boulder legible, which the flat daylight erases
Souvenir di montagna, cavenago.info
Frischhans Theiling, the Lucerne captain who according to tradition led the Confederates at Giornico. Portrait held at the Zentral- und Hochschulbibliothek Luzern
ZHB Luzern, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Battle of Arbedo of 1422, in which the Confederates lost the Leventina, in the chronicle of Diebold Schilling the Younger, 1513
Diebold Schilling the Younger, Luzerner Schilling, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Apollonio Pessina, plaster model for the Monumento alla battaglia dei Sassi Grossi, inv. 697. Casa Pessina, Ligornetto
Souvenir di montagna, cavenago.info