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Top 10 Facts: Pavia One of the major European settings in In Light’s Delay is the northern Italian city of Pavia, located about thirty miles south of Milan along the banks of the Ticino River. |
• The Ticino, which flows from Lake Maggiore, is a tributary of the Po, which it joins not long after passing through the city. Pavia, incidentally, also appears in Ron's next thriller, NINE DAYS IN OCTOBER. |
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• As a town, Pavia has an ancient and glorious history. A military camp under the Romans, it was later sacked by Attila the Hun during his brief incursion into the upper reaches of the peninsula in 452. The descriptive phrase by which Attila is best known—"Flagellum Dei" (the Scourge of God)—derives its origin from a 1500-year-old fresco on the walls of a monastery in Pavia.
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• In 568, another barbarian people, the Longobards invaded and established themselves in northern and central Italy, with their capital at Pavia. At the time, and for centuries to come, Pavia was more important than Milan. |
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The Longobard monarchy lasted almost 200 years.
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• In the late 8th century, the Franks invaded Italy and deposed Desiderius, the last of the Lombard kings. Charlemagne (724-814) had himself crowned King of Lombardy in Pavia.
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• In the 10th century, the Kingdom of Italy eventually fell into the hands of Otto I, a German elected as Holy Roman Emperor in 962. Ottonian control of Italy did not last long. Following the death of the German emperor Henry II in 1024, the people of Pavia burnt the royal palace, thus signaling an end to the Kingdom.
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• Pavia’s 11th-century Lombard Romanesque architecture includes the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at nearby Lomello and its own San Michele, noted for its sculptural ornamentation and pale-colored sandstone.
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• Pavia’s monasteries and churches, and the nearby Certosa, six miles to the north, all have relics and art of interest. Giangaleazzo Visconti founded the Certosa (which became a Carthusian monastery) as a family mausoleum and is entombed there in the south transept.
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St. Augustine’s tomb is in San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, consecrated in 1132 and mentioned by Dante in the Divine Comedy. Note the arcades at the very top of the facade.
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From the beginning of the 11th century down to the middle of the 12th, Milan’s population grew from 45,000 to 90,000 inhabitants, and the town rivaled and eventually surpassed Pavia in importance. The average distance between communes in north and central Italy was something like 20 to 25 miles, so there were many disputes over territory. |
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• The fortunes of the two cities are reflected in two castles, the construction of which carries us into the Renaissance. The Visconti family built their castle in Pavia in the 14th century and their successors as rulers of Milan, the Sforza, built their castle in Milan itself. |
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The
greatest of the Visconti was probably Giangaleazzo. He ordered the
building of Milan's main cathedral, begun in 1386.
He also built the Naviglio, a canal from Milan to
Pavia, and fostered dairy farming and commercial agriculture. |
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Under
Bernabò, crimes against the state were punished with 40 days
of torture. He forced the peasants to take care of his 5,000 hunting
dogs. At one point Bernabò received a papal bull of excommunication,
delivered by two Benedictine abbots. What did he do? Initially he
refused to accept the document and asked the two abbots to accompany
him to the covered bridge, arching high over the Ticino (see the
first photo on this page). And then he asked them rather brusquely
if they wanted to eat or drink. They look down, see the rushing water,
and afraid of drowning say they want to eat. So Bernabò makes
them eat not only the papal bull, which was written on pergamena
or parchment, usually made from calf or goat skin, but also the ribbon
and the wax seals. And that was his answer to the pope. |
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Bernabò succeeded
in obstructing a second marriage of Giangaleazzo, whose first wife
had died and who wanted to marry a Sicilian princess. Instead, in
1380, Bernabò forced his nephew to marry Bernabò’s
own daughter, Caterina. Giangaleazzo took his time, studying, reading,
adorning his palace in Pavia, until finally in 1385 he set out with
a large entourage on a pilgrimage. The number of his bodyguards didn’t
surprise anyone, especially his uncle, because everyone assumed Giangaleazzo
was timid. When he reached Milan, a city controlled by his uncle,
he hesitated to enter the city, out of fear assumed most. So his
uncle and cousins, pleased at this sign of deference, rode out to
meet him. After an affectionate greeting, Bernabò and his
men were taken prisoner.
Giangaleazzo entered the city in triumph, where he was welcomed as
a liberator. This bold deed was widely admired; even Chaucer refers
to it at one point. |
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• The Cathedral in Pavia (seen above), built by Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci, has the third largest cupola in Italy. The 11th-century municipal tower standing next to the Cathedral in this photo taken by me during my student days collapsed in 1989, killing several people. Contrast its austere simplicity to the Gothic spires of Milan cathedral (left). |
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• Pavia’s university is one of the oldest and most famous in Europe, having been founded in the 11th century. Its students have included the poet Petrarch, Leonardo da Vinci, Cesare Beccaria (author of the influential 18th century treatise On Crimes and Punishments), and the Romantic poet Ugo Foscolo (not to mention Ron, whose room at the Collegio Fraccaro overlooked these three towers).
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