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Home page/Alessandria/Museums/The
museum of Marengo
THE MUSEUM OF MARENGO
Roman findings testify the ancient importance of the village of Marengo
as a point of communication between the Liguria and the Padan Plain and,
along the centuries, as an important economic subject of that "federation"
of villages that in the 1168 joined to constitute the town of
Alessandria.
Meaningful as it was, the past of Marengo was dimmed on 14 June 1800
when the locality entered the history and witnessed a decisive victory
of the French First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, on that time making a
turning point in his career and in the European history.
The
battle is certainly world famous, but two words are in any case well
spent.
The
campaign began when the army of Napoleon crossed the Gran San Bernardo
and headed straight towards Lombardy in order to cut to the Austrian
feldmarshal Mélas the support coming to him from the North. In that
time, Mélas was moving to and fro between the southern Piedmont and the
Liguria. Therefore the fight was unavoidable. At Montebello, close to
Stradella, Napoleon had to disperse his forces to prevent Mélas from
escaping to the North: he lost compactness and could not avoid
withdrawing in front of the Austrians moving on and ended up
establishing his army near the pit called “Fontanone”
 Although
he tried several times to close the gap of the alignment, the battle
could not be restored until, unexpectedly, the division led by the
general Desaix eventually returned. The new forces helped Napoleon to
recover and to obtain a favorable armistice. Mélas had to sign depite
his having already sent victorious messages in Austria
On
the place of the battle, Antonio Delavo of Alessandria built in the XIX
century the Palace that still today includes the ancient tavern (place
of stay of the same Napoleon and shelter for the casualties of both
armies) and the park that, just near the "Fontanone", hosted the crucial
events of the historical battle. Napoleon himself wanted the
commemorative stele still present in the Villa to be built
 The
Museum, located in Spinetta Marengo, a few kilometers from
Alessandria can be visited from
Wednesday to Saturday (from 10 am to 12 am and from 2 pm to 6 pm; tel.
+39/0131/216344). It hosts important memories of the Napoleonic period,
printed documents of that time and remarkable plastic that reconstructs
the deployment of the forces and their historical crash.
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