The true story of the plug from the plugs at the .. …bomb

The family name Zignoni of San Giovanni Bianco is always tied to the company to Vistallo, to whom we owe the arrival in the country of the plug which is believed belonged to the crown of the Passion of Christ and that is the subject of five centuries of great veneration throughout the Valley Brembana.

But Vistallo Zignoni, in spite of the monument that his fellow citizens have erected in the square named after him, was not sure that hero without stain that might suggest the nature of his business. Having been banished from the territory of the Venetian Republic because of a murder committed in his youth, had enlisted as archer in the army of the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua. And as a soldier took part, the 6 July 1495 the battle of the Taro Fornovo fought by the troops of the Italian cities against the French king Charles VIII. He had fallen in the previous year in Italy under the pretext of restoring the French authority over the kingdom of Naples, but with the intention to impose its hegemony over the peninsula.

After the initial inertia, the Italian states had finally understood the danger posed by the presence on Italian soil to a fierce foreign king and had created an alliance to cope. Hence the hasty construction of an army that tried to bar the way to the French troops in the Apennines, started on the way back.

The clash, occurred in Fornovo, at the mouth of the Val di Taro, while welcoming the Italian troops, only served to slow down the march of the French, who were able to return home without much difficulty.

And’ in this battle that we encounter Vistallo Zignoni, the orders of the Gonzaga, as head of a drap roll call of crossbowmen. Taking advantage of the confusion of combat, Vistallo and his cronies penetrated into the enemy camp, took him prisoner a servant of the king and seized booty dell'ingente entrusted to his custody.

The company was not even too difficult, because the real bags were already loaded on mules, from the moment that the French army was attacked while he was in full ride attitude.

So it was that, While carrying on 55 mules laden with all points and taking the footman seized, Vistallo Zignoni and company, now losing interest in the bat-size, sought a safe place to enjoy the fruit of their brilliant company. When it was time to divide the booty, the Zignoni found himself the hands a box containing a precious reliquary where they were lined up a number of relics of the Passion of Christ, including a nice piece of crown of thorns.

The box was picked up by Charles VIII from the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, Dove was the time custodito, convinced that the relics contained in it would protect him against the dangers of the expedition to Italy and would have propitiated the victory in the event of battle.

Aware of the value of these relics, Vistallo thought it well to use it for their own power and above all to be to raise the call that has long prevented him from having a normal life. Procured a safe conduct, managed to go to Venice and getting an invitation from the Doge Agostino Barbarigo and the members of the Senate, to which handed the precious cofa-net. In return he obtained a series of favors: reimbursement of expenses “una tantum” of 50 ducati, an annuity of 10 guilders per month, other 3 guilders per month for each of the father and his two brothers, a commission of 150 ducats to start the first-born son to an ecclesiastical career. The call for murder he was not raised, but only suspended for a period of… one hundred years! Historical records show no sign of how it came to San Giovanni Bianco one of the plugs contained in the reliquary, but the most plausible hypothesis is that Vistallo, before handing the box to the Doge, has removed a thorn from the crown as a gift to his parish. Hence the singular devotion to their relic of San Giovanni in Fiore, never the weakening over the centuries. But many honors and awards not profited much the adventurer of San Giovanni Bianco, which ne-years following, settled to his country, had to deal with a series of mishaps and misunderstandings that poisoned the existence. The most troubled years were those between the 1509 and the 1517, quando i Francesi, entered temporarily in possession of the territory of Bergamo, gave themselves to actively search for it to make him pay for the insult suffered in Fornovo. And, failing to capture, banned it from the lands occupied by them, forcing him to seek refuge in Venice. In the same period the directors of San Giovanni Bianco, not shining for some gratitude, the confiscated all the goods, in order to retrieve a set of fees that he had always refused to pay, ritenen-dole illegitimate.

The result was a long legal dispute which led to the Zignoni even in jail for some time and that only the direct intervention of the Bishop of Bergamo, Peter Lippomani, earned at the end to compose. No less was his troubled family life: bride-to, with six children, also had a concubine in Brescia, who had given him two more children. Ad a certain point, then, a legitimate daughter, named Magdalene, had run away from ca-sa going to live “more uxorio” a villager with his com-, saddening even more the existence of the now old “hero” Fornovo.

If the adventurer Vistallo is the best known of Zignoni, something else gave luster to the family sangiovannese representatives that between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries began to specialize in the art of iron forging, acquiring wealth and prestige throughout the Valley Brembana. At the beginning of the seventeenth century Zignoni metallurgical, including excelled Prospero and his son Pompeo, came to possess goods of all kinds scattered throughout the valley: to-reni, forges, ovens, mills, which formed the base of an immense fortune. The crisis in the steel industry, that hit the province of Bergamo in the second half of the seventeenth century, determine the slow but inexorable decline of this powerful family.

In the meantime, however, the Zignoni had linked their names to an invention which would then radically changed the military strategy. Francesco Zignoni, son of Pompey, ingegnere mi-litare, in 1642 invented nothing less than the bombs Can-none. Before that date, the bullets fired by the guns were simple iron balls filled, the effects of which were limited to the force of the impact against the target.

Francesco Zignoni devised instead of iron balls empty inside, within which was inserted gunpowder, connected to a trigger that caused the outbreak at impact, greatly increasing the disruptive effect of the projectile.

The idea had come to him a couple of years before, when a militant in the Spanish army, and had devised a system to communicate with the inhabitants of the city of Turin, besieged by the French in their struggle for the regency of Piedmont. For this purpose, the Zignoni had crashed over the city of hollow balls of iron-containing messages for the besieged. The messages had passed early in supplies of all kinds, and also the gunpowder, in-serted in balls always larger. And the gunpowder suggested the idea of ​​bombs that could explode when hit the target, making these bullets far more deadly than traditional full balls.

It only remained to develop an efficient trigger, able to activate the burst. But research of this solution was fatal to Zignoni.

During a demonstration test of his invention, carried out in 1462 Verona, the presence of the gene-ral Alvise Zorzi, the inventor was in fact hit by the explosion of a bomb in advance, remaining killed instantly.

But his idea had proved good and was later refined and applied to military.

Taken from ... Stories of Brembo – Tarcisio Bottani – Wanda Taufer- Ferrari Editrice