Bergamo, the valleys and the war between Milan and Venice (1437-1441)

In October 1437 a Milanese column climbed the Valle Seriana above Nembro and was stopped by men who lived there. A month later Niccolò Piccinino’s army camped under Bergamo, stayed a few days and left without opening a breach. Local tradition calls those days the siege of Bergamo and makes it the central episode in the life of Bartolomeo Colleoni. The contemporary sources do not allow it. The Bergamasco had been Venetian for almost ten years. Through the deditions of 1427 and 1428 Venice had secured the valleys by confirming their statutes, jurisdictions and tax exemptions. When the duke of Milan attacked, the plain fell within weeks and the upper valleys did not. The difference lay not in walls or artillery but in what the communities stood to lose. The book follows the war valley by valley, from 1437 to the peace of Cavriana in 1441: the bombard in the mud, the suburbs put to the torch, the mule war on the passes, the bill paid by the communities. It sets Venetian, Milanese and Bergamasque sources against each other, uses the siege of Brescia as a benchmark, and separates what Colleoni did from what was later credited to him. Where the sources are silent, it says so.