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NEW DRAMATURGIES

Ecodramaturgies
Theatre, Performance and Climate Change
Lisa Woynarski
 New Dramaturgies

Series Editors
Cathy Turner
Drama Department
University of Exeter Drama Department
Exeter, UK

Synne Behrndt
Royal Institute of Technology
Stockholm, Sweden
This series explores new dramaturgies within contemporary performance
practice and deploys dramaturgical thinking as a productive analytical and
practical approach to both performance analysis and performance-making.
Designed to inspire students, scholars and practitioners, the series extends
the understanding of the complex contexts of dramaturgy and embraces
its diversity and scope.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14742
 Lisa Woynarski

Ecodramaturgies
Theatre, Performance and Climate Change
Lisa Woynarski
University of Reading
Reading, UK

New Dramaturgies
ISBN 978-3-030-55852-9    ISBN 978-3-030-55853-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55853-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Trans-Plantable Living, Cardiff, Wales, 2013. Photo: Nigel Pugh

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 For Sally
with gratitude
 Series Editors’ Preface

The series New Dramaturgies is afforded by recent developments in the

discussion of dramaturgy: a significant number of English-language pub-
lications now exist that offer a range of introductory approaches to the
field, frequently by discussing the work of the dramaturg. Given the
greater understanding this body of work enables, it is now possible to
explore the subject and process of dramaturgy without centring on the
explication of fundamental terms and the division of roles, but rather
approaching it from a range of perspectives and in relation to emerging
debates and performance forms. While at times this may include further
enquiry into the dramaturg’s specific role, we also hope that the series
will make a significant contribution through the deployment of drama-
turgical thinking as an approach to performance analysis and
performance-making.
If dramaturgical practice entails the facilitation of practical decisions by
way of interpretation and critical perspective, dramaturgical analysis con-
cerns attention to detail in relation to a wider whole. Dramaturgy has been
characterised as being about making connections, moving between ele-
ments, forming organic wholes which are continually in process; this also
implies attention to audience and context. Dramaturgy, then, entails a
discussion of composition in terms of process and event, rather than the
self-contained and singular art work. We note that dramaturgy’s historical
association with literature, combined with its intrinsically holistic approach
to the theatre event, enables movement and comparison across dramatic,
postdramatic and other performance forms, without embedding divisions
between them. It is also possible to expand the concept of dramaturgy to

vii
viii Series Editors’ Preface

enable the discussion of performance in a wider, cultural sense. In this

respect there are resonances with both sociology and performance studies.
Thus, while the series is partly concerned with dramaturgy as a profes-
sional and research field, it is equally a means to a discussion of contempo-
rary performance, performance methodology and cultural context,
through an address to the composition of action and event—or series of
events. The title New Dramaturgies gestures towards our interest in dis-
cussing contemporary and future practices, yet the series is also concerned
with new approaches to performance histories, always considering these in
vibrant relationship to what is happening in the present, both in terms of
artistic and wider cultural developments.

Exeter, UK Cathy Turner

Stockholm, Sweden Synne Behrndt
 Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the lands, traditional territories and Nations

in which this writing, practice and research has taken place. This book was
written in Reading, UK and involves research from multiple locations and
many traditional territories (noted in the text). I acknowledge that univer-
sities and institutions in the Global North, including the one which I work
for in the UK, were built on colonialism, slavery and empire, the exploita-
tion of people and land. These contexts are a shared history and ongoing
reality. I acknowledge the violent practices in which land and resources
were stolen from Indigenous peoples and other First Peoples, as well as
the languages and knowledges lost through the imposition of Euro-­
Western frames. Settler colonialism and neocolonialism continues to vio-
lently reverberate across lands, oceans and peoples today.
Thanks go to many people for their contribution to the process of cre-
ating this book. First and foremost, I would like to thank Sally Mackey, a
generous, thoughtful, frank and kind PhD supervisor and mentor, who
taught me how to be an academic. I am also grateful to Gareth White for
his feedback and support at the very beginning when this project was in
PhD form.
I am so appreciative of Adelina Ong for her honest and thoughtful
feedback and for being an inspiring research companion, for listening and
prompting me always to think further and resist authority. Thanks for all
the days spent at the British Library. My thanks also go to the book sup-
port group: Angie Spalink and Jonah Winn-Lenetsky, whose comments
and friendship were invaluable to developing this book. I am also grateful
to Tanja Beer, Courtney Ryan and Bronwyn Preece, who gave me

ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

generous feedback. Special thanks go to Tamara Courage, John Whitney

and Sarah Wray for their proof-reading, and to Tanya Izzard for indexing.
As for my colleagues in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television at
the University of Reading, thank you for being a supportive team. Thanks
especially to Anna McMullan and Vicky Angelaki for their guidance at the
proposal stage; Lucy Tyler and Adam O’Brien for their thoughtful com-
ments on chapters and continued support; Jonathan Bignell, Lisa Purse
and Faye Woods for helping to carve out time to complete this project.
Financial research assistance was gratefully received from the Heritage and
Creativity Research Theme. I’d also like to thank the third year FTT stu-
dents of Performing Ecology, who engaged with these ideas as I tested
them out and creatively responded in truly impressive ways.
Many thanks to my talented and inspiring collaborators Tanja Beer,
Rosie Leach, Bronwyn Preece, Meghan Moe Beitiks and to all those who
participated in the Trans-Plantable Living Room, particularly the volun-
teers at Riverside Community Allotments. I would also like to thank all
the artists that have generously allowed me access to their work: David
Harradine, Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer, Violeta Luna, Chantal
Bilodeau, Deke Weaver and Zoe Svendsen.
I am grateful to those who have given valuable support to this research
in different ways, through advice and encouragement, including Kat Low,
Gilli Bush-Bailey, Sarah Standing, Sarah Blissett and Evelyn O’Malley.
Theresa J. May’s work inspired my early thinking on this subject and she
has offered generous guidance since. Thanks also to the Ecology and
Performance working group at ASTR, which has been a tremendously
fruitful place for the development of this research, as well as the Theatre
and Performance Research Association in the UK. Many thanks to Cathy
Turner and Synne Behrndt for their insight and generous support as series
editors, and to Tom Rene, Vicky Bates, Jack Heeney and Eileen Srebernik
at Palgrave for guiding me through the process. I am especially grateful to
my family, parents and sister for their tireless encouragement (and always
asking if the book was finished yet), and especially to my partner Mike
Medaglia, whose talent, love and care enabled this book.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 Intersectional Ecologies 33

3 More-than-Human Matters: Bioperformativity 71

4 Bodily Ecologies: Exposure, Participation and Immersion107

5 Earth As Home: Local, Imagined, Material, Global143

6 Decolonised Ecologies: Performance Against the

Anthropocene179

7 Conclusion: Imagining the Future(s)213

Index225

xi
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer, Common Salt at the Queen’s
House, Royal Museums Greenwich in front of the Armada
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, 2019. (Photo by: John Hunter,
courtesy of the artists) 45
Fig. 2.2 Common Salt by Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer, Museum of
English Rural Life (MERL), Reading, 2020. (Photo: Amie
Cliffen, courtesy of Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer) 49
Fig. 2.3 Rochelle Rose in Salt. by Selina Thompson, Royal Court,
London, 2019. (Photo: Johan Persson, courtesy of Selina
Thompson Company) 53
Fig. 3.1 Robin Dingemans in Fevered Sleep, It’s the Skin You’re Living
In, 2013. (Film Still: David Harradine (director), courtesy of
Fevered Sleep) 79
Fig. 4.1 Violeta Luna, NK603: Action for Performer & e-Maiz, 2014.
(Photo: Greg Craig, courtesy of Violeta Luna) 111
Fig. 4.2 WOLF dancers (from left) Jennifer Allen, Laura Chiaramonte,
Angie Pittman, and Jessica Cornish in Wolf by Deke Weaver,
Allerton, Illinois, 2013. (Photo: Valerie Oliveiro, courtesy of
Deke Weaver) 129
Fig. 5.1 Plantable (Lisa Woynarski, Megan Moe Beitiks, Bronwyn
Preece), Trans-Plantable Living, Cardiff, Wales, 2013. (Photo:
Nigel Pugh, courtesy of the artists) 147
Fig. 5.2 Fevered Sleep, Above Me the Wide Blue Sky, Young Vic, London,
2013. (Photo: Matthew Andrews, courtesy of Fevered Sleep) 148

xiii
xiv List of Figures

Fig. 6.1 Idle No More demonstration, Dundas Square, Toronto, 2013.

(Photo: Victor Biro/Alamy Stock Photo) 190
Fig. 7.1 Metis Arts, WE KNOW NOT WHAT WE MAY BE, Barbican,
London, 2018. (Photo: David Sandison, courtesy of Metis Arts) 214
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

As I write this, climate change has finally become the centre of media
attention to an almost unprecedented degree.1 In London, Extinction
Rebellion activists have blocked off five busy sites, which include Oxford
Circus and Waterloo Bridge, over a week in an act of non-violent civil
disobedience in April 2019. They have three simple demands: they want
the government to ‘tell the truth’ about the climate emergency; they want
emissions cut to net zero by 2025; and they want a citizen assembly to
inform climate-related decisions (Extinction Rebellion n.d.). That same
week, David Attenborough’s documentary Climate Change—The Facts
(2019) has aired on the BBC and internationally. The destructive and fatal
reality of climate change is unequivocally presented by one of the most
authoritative voices on nature in the UK. During this time, young climate
activist and founder of the school strike movement Greta Thunberg has
delivered a speech to European Union leaders holding back tears: ‘I want
you to act as if the house was on fire…We are in the midst of the sixth mass
extinction’ (quoted in Rankin 2019). Here, climate change has finally
been placed front and centre in the media, having pushed Brexit out of the
UK headlines for at least a week. Perhaps a critical mass has been reached.
There is no longer debate on whether anthropogenic climate change is
happening and at what rate, rather what the effects will be, emissions
reduction targets and what other action is necessary. The whiteness of
these voices have joined Inuit voices, African voices, Central American
voices, countries like the Maldives, Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands,

© The Author(s) 2020 1

L. Woynarski, Ecodramaturgies, New Dramaturgies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55853-6_1
2 L. WOYNARSKI

and other Indigenous2 voices who have all been saying for years that
urgent action is required as they are already experiencing the life-altering
and at times deadly effects of global climate change. This is the ecological
(and social, political) context in which this book has been written.
The urgency of climate change and its associated effects have created an
ecological imperative for all fields to address. As theatre scholar Wendy
Arons asserts: ‘humanity’s relationship to the environment is an issue of
urgent concern, and one that can and should be addressed by anyone
engaged in critical and intellectual pursuits, including theatre artists and
scholars’ (2007: 93). Theatre and performance can offer something dis-
tinctive in their engagement with ecology. They can upend reductive nar-
ratives and images, embodying and performing contradictions, erasures
and imaginative possibilities. Like theatre scholar Carl Lavery (2018), I am
skeptical of hyperbolic claims of what theatre can do, particularly in relation
to behaviour change. The problem–solution model, drawn on when the-
atre is utilised to ‘communicate’ specific ecological problems and ‘solu-
tions’, often instrumentalises performance in a reductive way and largely
focuses on content. This approach does not always leave room for the
nuance, complexity or intermeshment of contemporary ecological issues.
Rather, my argument that theatre and performance can offer new frames of
thinking, feeling and viewing, or tell/show us something about our cur-
rent ecological situation, follows theorisations on the social impact of the-
atre and performance in relation to ecology from such thinkers as Heddon
and Mackey (2012), Arons and May (2012, 2013), Kershaw (2007) and
Allen and Preece (2015). As Deirdre Heddon and Sally Mackey suggest, ‘it
is the combination of artistry and reality, of aesthetics and world, that has
the potential to produce affect’ (2012: 176). Through these combina-
tions, theatre and performance have the potential to engage ecological
thinking in unique ways to other mediums, speaking to our current con-
text. This is the animating principle of my theory of ecodramaturgies.
Our current global ecological circumstances could be characterised as a
crisis, catastrophe (Morton 2010) or emergency (Emmott 2012). The
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identi-
fied a tipping point of 1.5° Celsuis (above pre-industrial levels) as the level
at which the impacts of climate change would be irreversible and devastat-
ing (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2018), which is likely to happen within 12
years. However, climate change is an immediate threat; it is already pro-
ducing unequal and fatal effects for many. As Mike Hulme argues, ‘climate
change is not “a problem” waiting for “a solution”. It is an environmental,
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

cultural and political phenomenon that is reshaping the way we think

about ourselves, about our societies and about humanity’s place on Earth’
(2010: 41). Climate change is just one aspect of ecology; however, it is the
grand narrative of our current ecological context. Climate change is eco-
logical in that it requires an urgent and radical reconsideration of the rela-
tionship between humans and the earth, how we live and how we shape,
and are shaped by, the more-than-human world.3 This calls for a close
examination of how climate change intensifies inequalities and injustices,
falling along familiar patterns of vulnerability and marginalisation: race,
gender, class, disability, social mobility, political capital and colonisation.
This book asks questions about how theatre and performance embody,
reveal and intervene in these inequalities in a climate-changed world.
To understand the approach I have taken in this book, it is important
that the ‘I’ (and my knowledge) is situated. I am a white, Canadian (with
Belgian, Ukrainian, Polish and British heritage) cisgendered woman who
currently resides in the United Kingdom and holds a permanent academic
post at a university in an urban centre. As such the critique of dominant
Western worldviews, underpinned by colonialism, in this book is also self-­
reflexive. My experiences have shaped my political thinking, which informs
this book, as I strive for social values of justice, rooted in intersectional
feminist, anti-racist, decolonial, queer, disabled and non-anthropocentric
ways of thinking. This is ongoing work that I do not always get right. My
aim is not to speak for any group of people, rather I want to think critically
about some of the underlying ethnocentric assumptions made about ecol-
ogy, with an understanding of how this might develop what Joni Adamson
refers to as ‘a more inclusive environmentalism and a more multicultural
ecocriticism’ (2001: xix) by revealing different stories and dramaturgies.
My interest in this area stems from a formative experience learning
about global warming and a long-nurtured love of live theatre and perfor-
mance. As an 11 year old, I remember learning about global warming
being caused by greenhouse gases, and at the time in 1995, CFCs (chlo-
rofluorocarbons) were identified as a prime culprit. I clearly remember an
infographic that illustrated how greenhouse gases trapped in the atmo-
sphere causes temperatures to rise. The hole in the ozone seemed like an
immediate threat in the cultural imaginary of North America (the angel in
Tony Kusher’s 1991 Angels in America enters earth through a hole in the
ozone), while global bans of ozone-depleting chemicals were passed. I was
struck by the deep injustice of global warming then as it imprinted on my
4 L. WOYNARSKI

young mind a specific view of the future: chemicals were trapped in the
atmosphere and were destroying it. 1995 was also the 25th anniversary of
Earth Day and there was a certain cultural capital associated with (mostly
white) environmentalism. My interest in ecological issues continued as I
became involved in activist organisations and efforts during my under-
graduate degree.
My environmental consciousness-raising happened separately, but in
parallel to, my excitement at live theatre. I was born on traditional
Anishinabewaki territory in what is now known as Cambridge, a small city
in Ontario, Canada. Growing up I was privileged to be taken to see theatre
regularly as a child, including community theatre and annual trips to see
musicals in Toronto or plays at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. The thrill
of live performance was established in me from a young age. I also had the
chance to perform in summer camp productions (including delighting in
a large costume closet), and then study drama in high school, where I
developed my theatre-making, writing and directing my own plays and
taking them to local theatre festivals. My ecological interest and my inter-
est in theatre and performance remained separate until I wrote and
directed a play about a group of young people facing an uncertain ecologi-
cal future for my undergraduate honours project at the University of
Guelph, finally bringing the two together. This stemmed from a rather
naive belief in the social and political power of theatre and performance
after studying protest and political theatre practices. Although my think-
ing has become more nuanced and complex since that point, after writing
my MA dissertation and PhD on the subject, I am still committed to the
idea that theatre and performance can speak to critical socio-political and
ecological contexts and issues in imaginative ways, particularly in light of
climate and environmental inequalities and injustices. In performances, I
have been moved, angered, bored, scared and delighted; I have felt con-
nected and isolated; I have rethought my perspective and discovered new
things about the way the world works. It is from this position that I
approach Ecodramaturgies: Theatre, Performance and Climate Change.
The differentiated violence of climate change is difficult to conceptual-
ise for those who are not experiencing it directly. Rob Nixon, in his book
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2011) describes cli-
mate change and other ecological slow-moving crises as ‘long dyings’ (2).
This is the kind of violence that is often unseen or misunderstood because
it happens gradually over a long period of time, ‘a violence of delayed
destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

that is typically not viewed as violence at all’ (2). Nixon argues that this
slow violence has consequences across geographies, race, gender and eco-
nomic mobility, as ‘it is those people lacking resources who are the princi-
pal casualties of slow violence’ (4). Although slow moving and cumulative,
it is violence nonetheless, often against marginalised peoples, species,
places, and non-humans. Climate change needs to be understood as vio-
lence in order to understand its effects. Although it is slow moving, it is
happening now and many people are suffering at times fatal effects of
droughts, floods, fire, hurricanes, depleted soil, loss of biodiversity and
polluted air. It is not a White, Western and ‘full-stomach phenomenon’
(Nash 1982) as people of colour in the Global South (and other places)
are experiencing the violence of climate chaos on their living conditions,
health, livelihoods and well-being.
Connected to the concerns that animate this book are the representa-
tion issues for conceiving and understanding the idea of the slow violence
of climate change. Nixon perceives this as a representational barrier: ‘how
to devise arresting stories, images, and symbols adequate to the pervasive
but elusive violence of delayed effects…How can we turn the long emer-
gencies of slow violence into stories dramatic enough to rouse public sen-
timent and warrant political intervention’ (2011: 3). These key questions
are related to the central questions I am asking about images, narratives,
values, themes, processes, ethics and experiences of ecodramaturgies in
representing the complexity of ecological relationships across different
people, places and more-than-humans. Stories of climate change are often
anonymous and happen over timescales that are not compatible with our
understanding of temporalities or our human-centric narrative preferences
or the political cycle or the media cycle. These images, narratives and sto-
ries need to foreground the way the slow violence of ecological destruc-
tion magnifies differences, oppressions and vulnerabilities and the power
structures that underpin them. A lot about the world has changed since I
learned about global warming as an 11 year old, but theatre and perfor-
mance have continued to find ways of engaging and interrogating the
current complex reality. I hope this book contributes to the rich history of
understanding the interaction between theatre and the world.
In increasingly polarised political climates (in which climate change is
remarkably still a contested term in some places), I argue that theatre and
performance can open up ways of seeing and thinking, reflect blind spots
and injustices, nuance ecological ideas and conversations, ask questions
and problematise dominant anthropocentric modes of representation.
6 L. WOYNARSKI

This is based on what I call intersectional ecologies: a way of interpreting

ecodramaturgical practices, foregrounding marginalised perspectives and
acknowledging the multiple social and political forces that shape climate
change and related ecological crises. This is the lens I use to think and
write about a broad spectrum of ecologically oriented performance prac-
tices, largely from the UK, US, Canada, Europe, Africa and Mexico from
predominantly 2007-onwards. The focus on the contemporary allows for
exploration of timely ecological questions, including persistent issues such
as environmental justice, urbanisation, reductive images associated with
whitewashing climate change and the way in which race, class, gender and
colonialism produce ecological contexts and effects. Intersectional ecolo-
gies considers overlapping injustices, exclusions and oppressions asking
who is affected and marginalised, and whose voice or perspective is being
heard and whose is being erased. This book builds upon and expands the
work of other scholars who have contributed to the burgeoning discourse
of performance and ecology, extending it through the practice and critical
tool of ecodramaturgy. My aim is to broaden this discourse through a
variety of performance forms, including site-based, participatory, immer-
sive, installation, activism, film, live art and text-based plays, read from an
intersectional ecological perspective.
The current ecological crisis, and my own context within it, is one of
the reasons I took up this research. Although I consider myself an ‘eco-
logically conscious’ person, I am often conflicted, unsure and confused
about what to think, how to feel, how to move forward and how to take
action. Heddon and Mackey identify uncertainty and precarity as key
states when engaging in research about environmentalism and perfor-
mance. They write: ‘that science is so visibly unable to offer a definitive
solution to climate change prompts a new and potentially productive sen-
sibility, the acceptance of uncertainty: of epistemology, of actions, of
results, of futures’ (2012: 169). They link this uncertain state to the
uncertain nature of performance; particularly how multiple actants of per-
formance (such as audiences) might respond and experience a perfor-
mance. Heddon and Mackey suggest that this uncertainty (about
‘solutions’, the future, and the best way to address the ecological crisis)
may be productive and well placed in performance. Robert Butler, in his
2008 blog post on Ashdenizen, argued that one of the reasons theatre was
(then) reluctant to engage with climate change was because theatre and
performance-makers were unsure of what to think about it. Providing a
productive edge to uncertainty, Butler wrote ‘but not knowing what you
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

think about something is the perfect moment to engage with it’ (2008).
It is from this position that I approached this project. Rather than eschew
this complexity and uncertainty, I was motivated to take up this research
because of it. The urgency of the global climate emergency will not be
helped by reductive simplifications; complexity (and perhaps confusion
and conflict) can be embraced as generative concepts in imagining how we
live within it.
I am inspired by Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s thinking on decolonising
methodologies, mindful of how ‘research’ and ‘scholarship’ can be used
(and have historically been used) to further the ideological supremacy of
the ‘West’, often setting up the Other as anyone not a White, Western
man. After Edward Said, Tuhiwai Smith argues that the idea of the Other
is constructed through Western scholarship, institutions, vocabulary and
ideological discourses often underpinned by colonialism. ‘Both the formal
scholarly pursuits of knowledge and the informal, imaginative, anecdotal
construction of the Other are intertwined with each other and with the
activity of research’ (Tuhiwai Smith 1999: 2). In this book, I aim to avoid
the colonising legacy of research which also constructs the more-than-­
human as Other, in addition to women, people of colour, Indigenous
peoples, people with disabilities and many more. I position research as
Tuhiwai Smith does, ‘as a significant site of struggle between the interests
and ways of knowing of the West and the interests and ways of resisting
the Other’ (Tuhiwai Smith 1999: 2), extending the Other to include
more-than-human actants. This book aims to highlight forgotten, erased
or marginalised experiences and narratives by some of those most affected
by ecological crisis.

Conceptual Background
Before discussing where this project sits within the conceptual field of
performance and ecology, it is useful to clarify some of the terms used.
‘Ecology’ describes the interconnected relationships of the living world,
‘the study of animals and plants, our habitat and environment, as well as
the analysis of the interrelationships between us all’ (Giannachi and
Stewart 2005: 20). The term refers not to the biological scientific study of
organisms in the environment but the way in which we as human beings
relate to each other, our environment, and the more-than-human world.
Di Battista et al. indicate the complexity: ‘Ecology speaks to both complex
webs of relations between the human and non-human—themselves
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Title: Racconti storici - Nuovo volume

Author: Giambattista Bazzoni

Release date: December 22, 2023 [eBook #72470]

Language: Italian

Original publication: Milano: Manini, 1839

Credits: Barbara Magni and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
from images generously made available by Biblioteca
Nazionale Braidense - Milano)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RACCONTI

STORICI - NUOVO VOLUME ***
RACCONTI STORICI
NUOVO VOLUME
RACCONTI STORICI
DI

Giambattista Bazzoni
Nuovo Volume

MILANO
Presso Omobono Manini
1839
INDICE
 A
Sigismondo Raris
Consigliere.

M’è soave il credere, o Amico, che la tua Maria de Cheissing, la

beltà sì leggiadra ch’ora impalmata conducesti dalla patria vestfalica,
più grata essere ti debba per averla posta a soggiorno in parte
vaghissima di quella terra «ove fiorisce l’arancio,» come cantò il tuo
Goëthe, in questo ridente suolo lombardo, in questa bella Milano che
vi siede regina.
Ella fu qui non tua, e quando, reduce a’ suoi lari, questi campi e
questo cielo, che animava la rimembranza, le avranno sorriso in più
rosea tinta al pensiero, allora di certo l’immagine che nel suo vergine
cuore già sorgeva diletta, raccoglieva da quella luce poetica della
mente più vita d’amore. Quindi l’ebbra passione, quindi quella piena
d’affetti che rende ora sì lieti i tuoi giorni, i quali l’incolpabile e gentile
animo tuo merita numerare sempre ugualmente sereni e felici.
S’io dunque falsamente non m’appongo, entrambi prediligere dovete
vivamente questa contrada, pronuba e fautrice dell’avventurosa
vostra sorte. Ma ohimè! se all’innamorata fantasia qui altro non è
che splendido azzurro d’aure, verde di frondi, olezzo di fiori, se nelle
città grandeggiano allo sguardo monumenti sontuosi e l’arte assidua
ne fa elegante e festevole l’aspetto, molti e molti pur volsero
angosciosi tempi, che ogni cosa qui ammantarono di lugubre velo.
Tratto dal desìo di investigare le trapassate età, io stesso rimestava
le patrie vicende, e mi provai a dare colla penna forma e vita, dirò,
all’impressione che da quell’eco di potentissimi eventi mi derivava,
non m’annodando al rigore de’ fatti, chè troppo agevole riesce il
rilevarli nelle pagine stesse della storia. Ora concedimi adunque, che
ti presenti questi miei lavori, i quali io chiamo volentieri delineamenti
storici, e sarà il mio più caldo voto adempito, se essi varranno ad
ispiegare non senza qualche diletto allo spirito della tua amabile
Compagna, alcune delle scene che compongono la gran tela degli
avvenimenti svolti dai secoli in queste contrade, di cui è bello non
ignorare nè i luttuosi, nè i prosperi casi.
Io poi sarò lietissimo, se tu v’aggiungerai, siccome vero, il
convincimento che questa sia una prova della sincera rispondenza
alla tua cara amistà, di cui tanto mi pregio.
Giambattista Bazzoni.
 MILANO
NELL’ANNO 305 DELL’ERA

DELINEAMENTO A PANORAMA.

Seconda Roma.
ausonio.

Elmetti d’argento, lucenti loriche, clamidi purpuree, candide vesti

sacerdotali, aste d’oro recanti le insegne e le aquile romane, bighe
sonore, cavalli scalpitanti del lento procedere impazienti, clangore di
trombe, teste coronate di verdi serti, onda di popolo ammirante,
festoso; tale era il magnifico spettacolo che si presentava nell’ampia
via dell’antica Milano, che dal palazzo degl’Imperatori [1], correndo
presso l’Ippodromo o Circo [2], dirigevasi al tempio di Giove [3].
Il cielo era sereno, fulgidissimo il sole che irradiava la moltitudine
stipata nella via, e quella che ghermiva la sommità e le aperture
delle case, de’ palagi, e i peristilii de’ templi, recatasi spettatrice del
sontuoso trapassare di tanto corteo. Era quel dì il primo di maggio
segnato nelle tavole della storia a caratteri cubitali, poichè in tal
giorno due augusti, due imperatori romani dimettevano la porpora,
spogliandosi volonterosi della potestà più sovrana fra quante siano
state strette da mano d’uomo, per rientrare nel nulla della vita
privata. E questi due imperatori erano Diocleziano che in Nicomedia
cedeva la parte orientale dell’impero al Cesare Galerio, e
Massimiano Erculeo che in Milano ne cedeva la parte occidentale al
Cesare Costanzo Cloro.
Diocleziano, quello ch’ebbe il crudo vanto d’imporre il proprio nome
ad un’era tutta di sangue e di tormenti, l’era dei martiri, che oltre i
cristiani sterminò a centinaja di mila i popoli del settentrione, dai
Romani chiamati Barbari, quello che sdegnando come troppo
semplici gli imperiali ornamenti già assunti da un Augusto, da un
Nerone, da un Tiberio, da un Vespasiano, vestiva oro e seta e
cingeva non corona di lauro, ma diadema, facendosi appellare Giove
ed Eternità, ed erasi a modo dei monarchi asiatici circondato
d’eunuchi, quello stesso Diocleziano s’aveva l’inesplicabile vigor
d’animo di discendere spontaneo da tanta nube di fasto, di gloria e di
potenza per recarsi colla moglie in una casa di Salona sua terra
nativa a coltivare l’orto paterno. Ventun anni prima era egli salito al
soglio, evento da una Druidessa di Tongres vaticinatogli, e v’ascese
bagnandone i gradini di sangue, poichè non essendo che
comandante degli ufficiali di palazzo, quando Aprio, prefetto del
pretorio, uccise l’imperatore Numeriano reduce dalla Persia,
Diocleziano trapassò il petto ad Aprio, e fu egli quindi proclamato
all’impero.
Nel giorno stesso adunque che in Nicomedia scendeva Diocleziano
dal trono, ne scendeva pure Massimiano Erculeo in questa città di
Milano, ove aveva recata la sede dell’impero d’occidente. Costanzo
Cloro, il nuovo imperatore che succedeva a Massimiano, trovavasi
nelle Gallie, e frattanto in Milano veniva eletto Flavio Valerio Severo
al grado di Cesare, nome che davasi ai designati eredi del trono
imperiale.
Abbenchè gli abitanti di Milano già da alcuni anni solessero
ammirare lo sfoggio della romana magnificenza, pure quel giorno sì
straordinaria era la pompa, non che la causa di essa, che immenso
appariva il concorso de’ cittadini, a cui s’erano aggiunti
numerosissimi i forestieri convenuti nella capitale d’Insubria da altre
vicine parti, siccome dalle rive del Lario, del Ceresio, del Verbano,
da quelle del Ticino, dai laghi Gerundio ed Eghezzone [4] e dai colli
Orobii.
Nella adunata folla popolare tra l’indole varia delle fisonomie che
appalesavano le razze diverse degli abitatori in questa contrada
commisti, scernevansi più distinte e numerose quelle d’origine
gallica ed etrusca. I discendenti degli antichi occupatori delle Gallie
manifestavansi per chiome bionde, per occhi azzurri, per larghe e
rilevate ossa delle guancie, ed un’espressione del viso guerriera, e
tuttavia alquanto selvaggia; si riconoscevano i figli della gente
etrusca per volti affilati, pel mento acuto, gli occhi e i capelli
nereggianti, e per un’aria che indicava maggiore civiltà e coltura. Il
vestimento era pressochè in tutti consimile e sapeva del romano,
poichè non constava nella maggior parte che d’una tunica di lana sia
bianca, sia di tinta verde o rossa, a maniche brevi, stretta a mezzo il
corpo da una cintura di cuojo; i canuti vegliardi e alcuni pochi tra gli
uomini in età virile recavano folta e lunga la barba, e cadenti sugli
omeri i capegli. Qua e là distinguevasi frammischiato alla plebe
mediolanense, un Jutongio, un Alamanno, un Vandalo, un
Marcomanno, di quelli stati fatti prigionieri nelle ultime guerre e
dall’imperatore distribuiti come schiavi nelle provincie. Alcuni di essi
coprivansi ancora coi laceri avanzi de’ loro indumenti di pelli di topi
insieme congiunte o d’altri villosi animali delle germaniche e scitiche
selve; se ne scorgevano alcuni aventi a modo di collare un giro di
catena di ferro. Erano tutti ispidi, truci, e schiavi sì, ma di animo
indomato.
Fra mezzo al popolo nessuna toga patrizia: vedevansi queste
all’incontro formicare ne’ palazzi ove apparivano le matrone e le
donzelle coi cinti gemmati ed i pepli trapunti.
Là sugli elevati poggi e le finestre l’idioma più usato era il latino,
sebbene i Milanesi porgessero spesso occasione di burleschi motti e
sogghigni ai Romani, pronunciando quella lingua coll’accento
insubre, in cui principalmente dominava l’u acuto, che fu ne’ tempi
posteriori detto u lombardo, ma che venne innestato tra noi dagli
antichi Galli invasori. Mentre le dame e gli uomini di più raffinato
costume, favellando inframettevano nella lingua latina molte parole
greche, ch’era il vero linguaggio degli eleganti, nel dialogare del
popolo non udivasi neppure una sola terminazione latina, e sebbene
a tale idioma appartenessero la maggior parte delle parole usate
dalla plebe, esse venivano però detroncate e declinate in una foggia
speciale, che quella poi si fu che ingenerò così il nostro come molti
altri dialetti d’Italia.
Il Cesare Flavio Valerio Severo era alfine uscito dagli atrii imperiali.
Precedevano coi centurioni alla testa le coorti delle legioni di Ercole
e di Giove, create da Diocleziano per bilanciare il troppo funesto
potere de’ pretoriani; i cavalieri romani erano i più vaghi a vedersi,
seduti con somma agevolezza sui focosi cavalli, cui un semplice
drappo copriva il dorso; su quella gioventù vigorosa cupidi
s’affisavano gli sguardi femminili. Le loro nude e torose braccia, i
larghi petti ben annunziavano in essi i temuti vincitori dell’orbe intero.
Dietro tali schiere erano drappelli di guardie imperiali cogli scudi
d’argento, e la corta e larga spada svaginata; seguivano con rami di
sacre frondi i sacerdoti, indi sovra aurea quadriga, che cavalli
bianchissimi traevano, appariva coronato d’alloro il nuovo Cesare,
con lorica d’oro fulgidissima e purpureo manto.
La quadriga di Flavio Valerio Severo era seguita da un’altra salutata
più clamorosamente dai viva del popolo; stava in essa un uomo al
quale il crine incanutiva, abbronzato in volto, e le cui membra
appalesavano ancora tutta la forza e la solidità d’un atleta. Era
Massimiano l’abdicante imperatore, guerriero infaticabile, il recente
trionfatore de’ ribelli Bagaudi delle Gallie; gli stava alla destra suo
figlio Masenzio, alla sinistra la figlia Fausta entrambi predestinati alla
porpora. Di seguito a questo veniva sovr’alto carro un giovine per
nessun altro riguardo allora distinto, che per essere figlio di
Costanzo Cloro, il quale mentre doveva un giorno far perire a
Massimiano e Masenzio, doveva poi agli incestuosi ardori di Fausta,
assunta a consorte, sacrificare il suo proprio figliuolo. Susseguivano
in bell’ordine i proconsoli, e i magistrati del pretorio, e i tribuni e gli
edili, e chiudevano la schiera due coorti della legione italica.
Nel tempio fumavano l’are, il Flamine ordinava cadessero sui tori
ricinti di fiori le sacre bipenni: misti ai vapori del sangue delle vittime,
s’alzavano gli incensi odorosi. Eccheggiò d’inni e di preci il tempio, e
si proclamava il Cesare, pio clemente felice.
Compiti i sacri riti redivano i principi alla sede imperiale fra
l’acclamare del popolo incessante. Intanto dietro l’Ippodromo in una
via oscura, angusta, un branco di femmine dimesse e pochi uomini
di condizione servile, uscivano queti, silenziosi, da una casa
d’aspetto ruinoso, e in mezzo ad essi era un vecchio di veneranda
presenza, d’angelico sguardo. Mentre stavano per separarsi furono
scorti dai passanti nella via maggiore, ov’era la pompa trionfale e
cominciò tosto a serpeggiare una voce che ripeteva — i cristiani, i
cristiani. — In un istante quel nome circolò più rapido, fu in tutte le
bocche e s’alzò dalla massa intera, un urlo crescente, tonante, un
ruggito di detestazione, di minaccia, uno spaventoso barrito come
dicevasi allora. Egli era come se sbucato fosse da oscura caverna
un gruppo di tigri, di genii malefici, di furie, e non già misere
donnicciuole, poveri servi, vecchi cadenti, ch’altra colpa non
avevano agli occhi stessi di chi gli odiava, che di propagare ciò che
insegnava ad essi un divino maestro, l’amore cioè e l’uguaglianza fra
gli uomini, il perdono delle ingiurie, la carità senza limiti, virtù
coronate dalla speranza d’una perpetua felicità. Erano cristiani infatti
che uscivano col loro diacono da una specie di catacomba ove
dimoravano nascoste già da oltre due secoli le ossa di santa
Valeria [5], la moglie del primo martire milanese san Vitale, la madre
d’altri celebri martiri, Gervasio e Protasio, che tutti avevano
confessato col sangue all’epoca dell’impero di Nerone.
I cristiani nelle catacombe formavansi esatta la cronologia degli
imperatori romani colla serie dei cadaveri dei loro fratelli martirizzati.
La più abbondante messe d’umane reliquie s’era colà però da
pochissimo tempo accumulata, e l’aveva fornita Diocleziano.
Mandava quell’imperante a Mileto a consultare l’oracolo d’Apollo:
negava il dio il responso, e pronunciò la Pitonessa: che i giusti sparsi
sulla terra gli impedivano di dire il vero. Non potè a meno
Diocleziano di credere che i giusti, indicati dalla Pitonessa, i quali
ammutivano l’oracolo, fossero i cristiani, e determinò di finirla una
volta con questa, diceva esso, setta di stolti che adoravano un
giustiziato della Giudea, e che da ducent’anni stancavano
vanamente i carnefici dell’impero e impinguavano di loro carni le
fiere negli anfiteatri. Ordinò quindi una persecuzione, uno sterminio
generale de’ cristiani pel giorno delle feste terminali, che fu il 2 di
febbrajo dell’anno 302. Quindici giorni dopo non vi doveva essere
più traccia di cristianesimo come se non fosse mai apparso sulla
faccia della terra.
Abbenchè non si risparmiasse contro i seguaci del Nazareno alcun
genere di morte, e in tutto l’impero scorresse il sangue loro a torrenti,
quindici giorni dopo, il cristianesimo era più esteso e saldo di prima,
e quando tre anni e due mesi dopo quel famoso giorno 2 febbrajo
302, Diocleziano ritiravasi ad attendere alla coltura de’ fiori in
Salona, certamente avrà trovati colà non pochi cristiani impetranti sul
suo capo il perdono del cielo. Quest’era la consueta vendetta dei
discepoli di Cristo. Anche i miserelli che in Milano uscivano dal
sotterraneo ov’era la tomba di santa Valeria, al tremendo minacciare
delle turbe non opposero sicuramente in loro cuore che una prece,
un voto. E con quanta gioja avrebbero data essi pure la vita, se
avessero potuto sapere che là, fra quegli altieri romani, loro
infaticabili persecutori, eravi già quasi maturo per la sua alta
missione, un giovine, che quella che essi veneravano, obbrobriosa
immagine del patibolo, la croce, doveva stampare sulle insegne
imperiali, ed aveva ad inalzare al trono quella loro religione umile,
novella, sì abbietta e sprezzata, avanti a cui sarebbe andata fra poco
dispersa ed annichilita l’antica; se avessero insomma saputo che
dietro la imperiale quadriga di Massimiano veniva il fondatore
dell’impero d’oriente in Bisanzio, il figlio di sant’Elena, Costantino il
Grande!
Incolumi nella persona quella fiata i cristiani, nè altrimenti offesi che
dall’immane grido popolare traevano chi alla loro dimora per
riassumere assidui i domestici lavori, chi alle ignorate stanze degli
infermi recando ciò che nell’agape la carità di ciascuno aveva
tributato a sostentamento e sollievo di quelli che visitati dalla
sventura erano destituiti d’ogni umano soccorso.
Non così gli altri cittadini, che la giornata sacrarono al godimento de’
pubblici spettacoli di che il nuovo Cesare gratificava Milano. Nel già
accennato Ippodromo erano gare di cavalli ed ogni maniera di
giuochi circensi, nell’arena od anfiteatro costruito dal console Gabino
ai discobuli, ai lottatori succedevano le pugne de’ gladiatori, per le
quali tutti i ginnasii o scuole gladiatorie delle varie circonvicine città
avevano spediti a competitori i loro più valenti nell’arte di trucidarsi.
Lo spettacolo de’ gladiatori era il più accetto, il più avidamente
desiderato dal popolo, che dagli spalti, dalle gradinate, dal podio
accompagnava di fragorosissimi applausi il fortunato colpo, con cui
l’uno de’ combattenti, tutto all’altro immergeva l’acciaro nel petto, e
copriva di fischi, d’urla spietate, il trafitto che avesse osato morire
fuori delle regole dell’arte, cioè contorcendo o stirando sconciamente
le membra.
Giuochi s’eseguivano pure nel circo alla piazza detta Compitus [6];
quivi conveniva l’infima plebe. I precipui personaggi sedevano al
teatro [7], ove mimi e commedianti che avevano abbandonate le
scene capitoline rappresentavano nuove drammatiche composizioni,
con apologhi allusivi alla fausta giornata. Non mancava al tempo
medesimo gran numero di passeggianti sotto gli ombrosi viali del
Viridarium [8], luogo ove quotidianamente convenivano le più distinte
persone oziando a diporto.
Gli abitatori delle altre città, dei vichi, dei paghi, delle ville, qui la
prima volta accorsi quel dì solenne, passavano intanto curiosi e
stupiti da una piazza da una via nell’altra, ammirando gli eccelsi
palazzi, gli stupendi edificii, che le fiancheggiavano, de’ quali era sì
ricca Milano. Contemplavano l’arco romano [9] alta e massiccia mole
sostenuta da quattro grandi marmorei pilastri, fatta erigere dal
console Marco Marcello dopo la vittoria riportata sui Galli insubri;
fuori della porta Ticinense [10] passeggiavano lo stupendo porticato
delle terme, sorretto da magnifiche colonne corintie scanalate [11];
passavano rasente le forti mura che cingevano la città, munite ad
eguali spazii da quadrate torri che lo stesso imperatore Massimiano
aveva da poco fatto elevare; penetravano nel tempio del Sole alla
porta Argentea [12], in quella di Giano quadrifronte alla porta
Comense [13], visitavano la fabbrica delle monete [14], l’Accademia, la
via dei Sepolcri, e non potevano astenersi dall’esclamare concordi
ch’era milano una seconda roma.
 UN EPISODIO
DELL’ASSEDIO DEL BARBAROSSA

SECONDO DELINEAMENTO A PANORAMA.

Victa Victrix.

Due frati dell’ordine degli Umiliati, mentre ritornavano al loro

convento sull’ora dell’imbrunire nel giorno 24 d’agosto dell’anno
1158, giunti alla piazzuola di san Matteo alla Bacchetta vennero
scontrati da un uomo d’armi, che frettoloso correva alla loro volta.
Era costui tutto coperto di ferro, alto, complesso, rubesto all’aspetto,
e chiamavasi Masigotto della Cantarana. Arrestatosi ad essi di
contro il milite con voce affrettata:
— Ben trovati, padri santi, disse loro, io me ne andava appunto in
traccia di alcuno di voi.
— D’alcuno di noi?... e che bramate, valoroso fratello? — rispose
sorpreso all’inchiesta uno di que’ monaci.
— Siamo trecento di porta Nuova uniti alla Brera del Guercio nel
camerone dell’armeria, e vogliamo uscire questa notte per far prova
se quei del Barbarossa han duro il sonno.
— Ed in che modo possiamo noi prestarvi in tale impresa l’opera
nostra?
— Voi dovete venire a benedirci ed assolverci dai nostri peccati,
poichè non potendoci trascinare dietro il carroccio, se alcuno di noi
rimanesse di là del fossato, possa almeno rendere l’anima da buon
cristiano. Venite adunque affinchè stia colle nostre armi anco l’ajuto
del cielo. —
Aderirono ben tosto volonterosi i due frati all’invito, e seguirono il
soldato.
Milano, la più forte, la più prepotente città d’Italia di quel secolo,
vedevasi circondata da folte schiere nimiche che la stringevano, la
serravano irremissibilmente, come un cerchio di bragie ricinge senza
scampo uno scorpione che colla coda percosse la gente. Tanta furia
ostile era guidata intorno a Milano dall’imperatore Federigo I; ed a’
suoi agguerriti battaglioni, a que’ de’ regoli germanici suoi vassalli,
s’erano spontaneamente congiunti drappelli di combattenti di tutte le
circonvicine città, alle quali Milano era stata per lungo tempo
gravemente molesta. Unitamente ai Sassoni, ai Bavari, agli Svevi,
concorrevano quei di Como, di Lodi, di Cremona, di Pavia e d’altre
assai lontane terre, a formare più massiccia, più insolubile la catena
che accerchiava la nostra città, a cui agognavano dare l’ultima
stretta per vendicarsi delle tante patite ingiurie.
Gli edificii sacri, le ville, i casolari che stavano fuori e in prossimità
delle mura, erano stati cangiati in campali dimore pei capi
dell’esercito assediante. Sul più distinto fra essi vedevasi innalzato lo
stendardo imperiale, ed ivi aveva presa stanza lo stesso Federigo;
altrove era la bandiera del re di Boemia; più lungi quella
dell’arcivescovo di Colonia. Qua sorgeva l’insegna del palatino del
Reno, là quella del duca di Svevia, e lontano l’Austriaca, la Bavara,
la Vestfalica. Dall’uno all’altro degli isolati e distinti edificj occupati
dai condottieri dell’esercito, stendevansi a compire il grande giro le
file delle tende de’ soldati, avanti a cui erano ove steccati, ove
macchine militari, torri di legno con catapulte, mangani, petriere,
baliste. Dietro quella prima linea così ordinata allargavasi irregolare
l’accampamento per i pingui terreni suburbani, allora devastati
all’intutto, poichè li calcavano quindici mila cavalli d’Alemagna,
alcune migliaja d’Italiani e immenso numero di fanti.
Le mura che stavano a fronte a quell’oste minacciosa e ne
difendevano la città, erano in parte ancora quelle erette da
Massimiano Erculeo otto secoli addietro, ristaurate dalle ruine
cagionatevi dei Goti condotti da Uraja [15], ed in parte quelle
ricostruite ed ampliate da Ansperto che fu arcivescovo, e dir si
potrebbe signore della nostra città [16]. Quelle mura erano merlate;
vedevansi traforate da feritoje a diverse altezze, e s’avevano al
piede larga fossa e profonda. Sorgevano alte torri ove s’aprivano le
porte, e queste stavano chiuse in faccia ai nemico, servendo come
imposte a serrarle gli stessi ponti levatoj contesti da travi ferrate
rialzati colle pesanti catene.
Ardimentosi e forti i Milanesi, usi a provocare e cimentarsi di
continuo nelle zuffe coi vicini, non eransi punto inviliti d’animo, o
posti in ispavento per quella imponente congerie d’armati dal
teutonico imperatore raccolta e condotta ai loro danni. Ben lungi dal
sentirne tema molti de’ più baldi, insofferenti dello stare chiusi e
inoperosi, anelavano d’uscire a misurarsi coi nemici, a far prova con
essi di formidabili colpi, sdegnati in particolar modo che Lodigiani,
Comaschi, Pavesi, Bergamaschi e que’ delle altre città, tante fiate
vinte e sottomesse, ardissero ora presentarsi sotto le loro mura,
perchè s’avevano appoggio nel numeroso esercito straniero.
Frequenti sortite facevano quindi i Milanesi, mostrando agli
assedianti con qual fatta d’uomini avessero a contendere.
Di quei tempi tutti i cittadini in Milano erano combattenti. Venivano
divisi per parrocchia, e quelli spettanti a ciascuna parrocchia
formavano una legione che avevasi il proprio capo. Le parrocchie poi
o legioni che appartenevano ad una delle parti o sezioni della città,
che prendeva nome dalla porta a cui corrispondeva, costituivano un
corpo distinto, che s’aveva una speciale bandiera; e tal corpo
appellavasi col nome della porta stessa. Tutta la milizia poi aveva un
capitano generale, a cui erasi ben lungi dal prestare allora quella
cieca obbedienza che vediamo osservarsi di presente sia negli ordini
della milizia urbana, sia nella soldatesca propriamente detta. Il
capitano generale de’ Milanesi era in que’ giorni il conte Guido
Biandrate novarese.