La Battaglia dell’Ariotta, is is the first book review that I have done for my blog. About a month ago I ordered the book L’Ultima Battaglia del Medioevo, La Battaglia dell’Ariotta, Novara 6 Guigno 1513 by Mario Troso.
I became aware of the book when I was researching the Battle of Novara for an upcoming game that I am planning for the club’s game day. I visited the website of Societa Storica Novarese , the historical society of Novrese. On this website I discovered that the battle of Novara actually occurred near a small hamlet called Ariotta. This differs from most accounts that I have read in English books such as Oman, that reports that the battle occurred around the town of Trecate, which is about 8km east of Ariotta.
Now, I don’t consider myself an historical scholar, but I feel that information provided by the historical society of Novrese at least has to be taken seriously. This lead me to search on Google for “La Battaglia Dell’Ariotta” and to my surprise a number of Italian books came up. The one that most interested me was the book by Mario Troso. He has his own website here.
I actually found a copy on eBay and purchased the book for around 60 Euro including shipping to the United States (you may able to find it cheaper elsewhere as the cover price is 24 Euro). It seemed a little expensive, but the promise of a different perspective of the battle on the 6th June 1513 lured me in.
The book arrived within a week and when I opened the package what I found was by far the best book purchase that I have made on the Italian Wars. The 60 Euros was a distant memory. The book is absolutely beautifully presented with 127 glossy pages. The book is littered with maps, photographs and pictures. Troop movements and unit organizations are shown on clear maps. Everything that a Wargamer could ever need to recreate the battle of Novara (or as I now refer to it, the Battle of Ariotta), is included in this book. I cannot recommend it enough.
I understand that many readers may be put off that the book is in Italian, but please don’t let that daunt you. My Italian is only at a very basic level and to fully comprehend all of the value in this book you do need to be able to read the text. But we are now living in an age where technology can help you – I download the Google Translate app to my phone. With this app, you point the camera at a page in the book, take a picture of the page and the app then instantly translates the text into English. It really is instantaneous – not even a few seconds. While the translation may not be 100% perfect, it does make the text easily understandable. Now a whole new range of Italian books on the Italian Wars is open to me. The app is so easy to use, I think that anyone could use it to read foreign language texts within a few minutes.
Being able to read the texts allowed me to understand the sections on the events leading up to the battle, the description of the battle and the tactics used in the battle. One item that was particularly interesting was how pike blocks defended against cavalry. I had always wondered how cavalry could counter pike blocks and this book answered many of my questions. I will be going into detail on this subject in an upcoming blog post and showing how I have introduced some simple house rules for Pike and Shotte to accurately portray my new understanding.
The book also completely revised my understanding of the troop formations, deployments, movement and tactics at the battle. The recount of the battle of Ariotta in this book is completely different than the description given by Oman. It is as if they are talking about two different battles. I personally am more inclined to believe the account given by Mario Troso in this book. You are welcome to make your own choice on which account to believe. But looking on the positive side, I could replay both versions as a game, which gives me an extra battle to play with my figures – a wargaming win-win.
I would love to post some pictures of the maps and other items from the inside of the book just to show you how well the book is put together, but I want to respect the authors ownership of the material. What I can do is fully recommend this book, La Battaglia dell’Ariotta, if you are considering refighting the battle of Ariotta.
What is the book like for illustrations? Of the modern interpretation kind?
Most of the illustrations are pictures of armor and weapons from museums, and period paintings and drawings. There are a few modern maps of the area.
There are also two excellent map illustrations showing the positions and movements of the main units as the battle develops. There is also a 3D rendition of the battlefield with the locations and movements of the units.