Event
1503 battle of the Third Italian War
The Challenge of Barletta (Italian: Disfida di Barletta) originated from an episode that took place inside the Cantina della Sfida, around February 1503. The event saw thirteen Italian knights confront thirteen French knights. The encounter ended with the victory of the Italians, who triumphantly returned to Barletta, bringing the defeated French knights with them.
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Text from the Wikipedia article “Challenge of Barletta”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Challenge of Barletta (Italian: Disfida di Barletta) originated from an episode that took place inside the Cantina della Sfida, around February 1503. The event saw thirteen Italian knights confront thirteen French knights. The encounter ended with the victory of the Italians, who triumphantly returned to Barletta, bringing the defeated French knights with them.
The tournament was provoked by a French knight Charles de la Motte who, after drinking too much of the local wine, made disparaging remarks about the Italians. It consisted of a mounted tourney between 13 Italians (the most famous being Ettore Fieramosca), who were part of the Spanish army based in Barletta under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, and 13 French knights who were based in Canosa di Puglia. The Italian knights won the battle, and the French had to pay ransom. Barletta has since acquired the appellation Città della Disfida (City of the Challenge) as a result.
The event inspired a historical novel by the Italian writer Massimo D'Azeglio, Ettore Fieramosca, or La disfida di Barletta, written in 1833. A comedic version of the fight is also depicted in the 1976 Italian comedy film Il Soldato di Ventura.
French troops made an incursion up to Canosa di Puglia, where they had a small fight with Spanish troops. A few French soldiers were taken prisoner and were brought to Barletta. Among the French prisoners there was the nobleman Charles de Torgues, also known as Monsieur Guy de la Motte.
On 15 January 1503 the French prisoners were invited to take part to a banquet during which la Motte questioned the valor and courage of Italian soldiers, then allied with the Spaniards. An argument followed. To solve the question, the French waged a challenge according to specific rules set up by the French to show whether the Italians were up to the valor of French soldiers. The challenge consisted of a mounted tourney between 13 Italians (the most famous being Ettore Fieramosca), who were part of the Spanish army based in Barletta, and 13 French knights who were based in Canosa di Puglia. The number of 13 knights was set by la Motte, who believed that that would give to the Italians an opportunity to refuse the challenge because of the superstition associated with the number 13. The winners would receive as a bounty the weapons and the horses of the other army who had also to pay a ransom of 100 ducats for each knight (the gold value of 100 ducats is about US$15,000 in early 2018). Moreover, each army had to provide two hostages as a collateral. Prospero Colonna and Fabrizio Colonna were put in charge of making the Italian team. The captain of the Italians was Fieramosca.
For the two armies, the participants were as follows:
The field judges for the Italian faction were: Francesco Zurolo (or Zurlo), Diego Vela, Francesco Spinola, Alonzo Lopez; the French judges were: Lionnet Du Breuil, Monsieur de Murtibrach, Monsieur de Bruet, and Etum Sutte.
The Italian hostages were Angelo Galeotta and Albernuccio, and the French hostages were Monsieur de Musnai and Monsieur de Dumoble.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Challenge of Barletta”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.