The only witness of the famous battle of Ravenna is a lonely column called “Frenchmans’ column”, built in 1557 by the cardinal Pier Donato Cesi archbishop of Narni and political ruler of the Romagna region. It’s possible to see the monument, on the right embankment of the river Ronco, a few miles away from the city and near a village called Madonna dell’Albero. High cypresses surround the column underlining the mourning for all the people and soldiers that died in the battle and successively during a pestilence. The battle was on the morning of the 11th April 1512, Easter day. The two armies in battle were the French and the Holy League composed of Spanish, Italians and South Italian Greeks. Present were many important historical figures, in particular Baiardo, de La Palisse and Ludovico Ariosto (a famous Italian writer). One of the inscriptions of the column reminds us that during that day 20,000 people were killed. The French side won thanks to the presence of a breach near S. Mama, a Ravenna’s door wall. The Italian allies of the French army had made the breach two days before but they had been unable to enter the city. The death of the captain Gaston de Foix (1489-1512), nephew of the French king Louis XI, and the successive attacks of the Holy League were able to drive out the French to Milan.
The monument is now forgotten by everyone and is away from the common tourist pathways. It was considered to be a very good monument in past centuries and many people came to see it: among them the famous Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) who wrote: «lonely and high in the plane. It signes the place where the valiant knight was killed, where his bright youth was lost in the field». The column is now in a different place from where Wilde saw it. It was moved at the end of the XIX century about fifty metres away from its original place.