La Grande Bataille (14 June 1800) shattered the countryside of Marengo: the Austrian army, belittled by the counter-offensive managed by the French General Louis Alexandre Berthier (Versailles, 20 November 1753 – Bamberg, 1 June 1815), wounded in the right arm on the battlefield, back on the river Fontanone.
The military officer (Chief of Staff, Minister of War for the Consulate, Marshal of the Empire), devoted to Napoleon and so-called ‘the Emperor’s wife’, wrote the solemn dossier on the battle then translated into the idiom usual to the territories occupied by the Napoleon.
”My son, I wish you to have the report of the battle of Marengo and the tables translated into Italian, as laid out by Marshal Berthier: this can serve to instruct students at the Military School. Your affectionate Nap” wrote Napoleon to Eugène de Beauharnais, Josephine son, on 26 May 1806). Ugo Foscolo (Zante, 6 February 1778 – London, 10 September 1827), a Napoleonic army officer, was pleased by the burden of Minister Maria Augusto Caffarelli, who had already been delegated by the viceroy of Italy. The ‘Commentary on the Battle of Marengo’ (1806) spread by the Royal Printing House of Milan is embellished by the circulation of very few copies and never distributed. Today it is known the existence of three copies, rare papers (two original copies of Berthier and the autograph letter of Napoleon to Beauharnais), several precious volumes written by the signature and postings of Ugo Foscolo, the Adespota version published in Morbegno (1801).
