In some of the texts about the Battle of Pavia there is discussion about how the terrain influenced the battle. It is important in the recreation to understand the topography of Pavia.
Where are the hills?
Some of the battle descriptions talk about hills used as vantage points and troops taking protection in valleys from artillery fire. The writings of Colonel Hardy de Perini are particularly notable in this regard. The book that I have even has a map with contours showing the church of San Paulo on a hill dominating the centre of the park. To the new comer to the Battle of Pavia, this contoured map is convincing. The problem is that there is no actual hill in the park and San Paulo is not even in the park.
Without visiting the battlefield (which I have not done yet), how can I be so sure of the topography of Pavia? This is where Google Maps and their street view feature comes in. Google allows people to use these images on non commercial blogs as long as full credit is given. All of the pictures in this next section are thanks to Google Maps.
Photos of the terrain.
The above images together view almost every part of the battlefield. They give views from each side of the park looking into the park and views from the center of the park. One thing that is notable is that the park area is as flat as a snooker table (or a billiard table for our US friends).
What is also notable from the images is that both the park walls and many of the woods are no longer there. The flatness of the ground does make it easier to put together from a modeling perspective. I feel that these images have helped me get a feel of the topography of Pavia
What about the five chapels?
The Swiss mercenaries of the French were housed in the area known as the five Chapels. These Chapels were San Paolo, San Spirito and San Giacomo which were close to the walls of the park. San Pietro and San Lazzaro which were a little further out to the East of Pavia. I will probably only include the first three on the table as they have the most influence.
In looking at modern day photos of the area, I imagined that these five chapels were located in small villages. However, I found an excellent website which totally changed my views. I would encourage you to visit this website as the site has some images put together by the author. In respecting the intellectual property of the author I do not want to copy these images. However, there are some images of old art-work which I am free to use. Here are some interesting images of the San Paulo, San Spirito, San Giacomo area.
Images of the five chapels.
One thing that these images make clear is that the chapels were not surrounding by other buildings. They were almost like a monastery complex. Also it appears that San Paulo was on a small mound. So Perini, when he refers to San Paulo being on a hill, was not completely wrong. He just got the location and its role in the battle wrong. The rest of the terrain around the five chapels is also completely flat, just like the terrain inside the park.
This finding about the five chapels has changed my entire view on what role they took in the battle. I will now be re-reading many of the texts with this new understanding.
The roads from Pavia to Mirabello.
There are two roads from Pavia to the Mirabello area. One runs to the east of the Vernavola river and one runs to the west.
I have found quite a lot of information about the road to the East. Many accounts comment on this being a raised road, almost a dyke, to prevent flooding of the park to near Torre del Gallo. With such agreement between sources on this road, this is how I will model it.
The road to the West of the Vernavola is more complicated. There are accounts that say that this road was a huge tree lined avenue used for horse races. The road ran from Pavia to the Castello Mirabello. Other sources claim that this road was also partially raised to prevent flooding. I need to do more work on researching this road. The idea of a tree lined road does appeal to me as it will look good on the table.
Conclusion
Hopefully some of the information of the topography of Pavia will be useful to those trying to recreate this interesting battle.
I apologize that there are no pictures of figures in this post, but I wanted to get some of the information about the battlefield documented. I should have some photos of new Italian Wars figures to post soon.