Every year the Historical Society of Novese (via Gramsci, 73 – Novi Ligure) organizes an exhibition of figures and maps to transmit the memory of the battle of Novi (15 August 1799) fought by the millenary european monarchies hostile to the First French Republic to liberate northern Italy invaded by the Napoleonic militia at the First Campaign of Italy (24 March 1796 – 17 October 1797). The collection is open to visitors for eight days (12-18 August) every Sunday (10-12) and weekdays (17-19). The triumph of Austro-Russian sanctioned by the bulletin of 12 thousand soldiers fallen on the area of eight square kilometers laid out by S. Antonio di Basaluzzo in Barbellotta stopped the artillery and infantry fight opened by the crowd of Austro-German-Russian relay in Fresonara: there the trumpet sounded at the couple of bells from the bell tower moved the procession of shooters chosen and encouraged by the brandy. The Habsburg militia located at the castle of Pasturana saw the enemy fleeing from the U Sé staircase and, thus, converged there to decimate the French forces: since that day the Pasturana stream is called Rio dei Morti. The saga unites the age of one thousand and the staircase already unique path laid from the inhabited center to the countryside. The Cisalpine hussard Ugo Foscolo has descended on the arena of battle: today the poet is commemorated by the plaque exposed to via Solferino in Novi.
General Barthélemy Catherine Joubert (Pont-de-Vaux, 14 April 1769 – Novi Ligure, 15 August 1799) was shot to death by the rival militia run by the Russian prince Aleksandr Suvorov (Moscow, 24 November 1730 – St Petersburg, 18 May 1800) settled at the castle of Pozzolo Formigaro. The solar parabola of Joubert alias the pilot for the French army lined up on the hills of Novese and assisted by the Polish and Italian troops has disappeared in Novi or Basaluzzo? Joubert is commemorated by the stele raised on the municipal territory of Basaluzzo by the Mayor Gianfranco Ludovici to mitigate the dispute. Instead, Novi prefers to celebrate the débâcle inflicted by the anti-French coalition and Joubert’s last breath exhaled at Durazzo Palace.
