30 lugl 1509 anni - Destruction of Sterpo

Descrizione:

"Asquinio and Federico Varmo brought several hundred militiamen from Belgrdo and Ariis to imperial Sterpo on the pretext that they needed to search the castle for munitions reportedly stored there to aid the enemy. Asquinio and Federico were influential leaders of the militias of the lower plain and well-known clients of Antonio Savorgnan. Three of Antonio's closest associates, Ippolito Valvasone, Francesco Cortona, and Vincenzo Pozzo, joined the local forces. Although Belgrado and Ariis were Savorgnan jurisdictions, Albertino Colloredo had at least 18 tenant in Belgrado and environs, but of course there is no way of knowing if any of them joined the militiamen at Sterpo.

In any event, the leaders told the militiamen that Albertino Colloredo was a "rebel and had assembled a great deal of munitions to requisition to the enemy for use against Saint Mark." At that time only Albertino's son, Nicoló, and four retainers manned the castle. When they saw the peasants approaching, they raised the drawbridge quickly enough to block entry. Negotiating across the moat, the Varmo captains apparently convinced Nicoló that they merely wanted to search for weapons and would not harm him or the castle, but when he lowered the bridge , the peasant militiamen swarmed across. They seized the tower, sacked the castle, and set it afire. During the following days they and other local peasants tore the remains down to the foundations. Nicoló was captured and taken as prisoner to Udine.

... Taken as plunder were 400 stazi of wheat, 100 of rye, 160 of spelt, 111 of millet, 13 beds, and blankets, sheets, table linens, wine, carts, cattle, horses, pigs, geese, and a deep-red cloak lined with the fur of a marten.

... The attack on Sterpo castle, however, had wide-ranging effects in Friuli. Their success in challenging the Colloredo helped the peasants better articulate their needs and emboldened them to put together a list of demands, presented to the luogotenente in November. Sterpo also represented a crossing of the Rubicon for the Friulan factions. Both sides later looked into this event as the beginning of an almost inevitable slide into factional civil war.

The peasants' November demands, the Eleven Articles or "supplication from every village in the patria," broaden the picture of general rural discontent of which the attack on Sterpo was only the most violent example.

First, the most pressing demands of the twenty representatives who spoke before the luogotenente concerned the distribution of the Venetian gravezze and other taxes, which they argued were corruptly by deputies who made the peasants bear an unfair portion of the burden. Pointing out how loyal they had been in opposing the enemy during the past year, how they had shed blood and lost their property, they requested that a chancellor be appointed at their own expense to audit the accounts.

Second, they complained that frequently the luogotenente had required them to sell their grain to him at a fixed price but later he would resell it at a higher price, defrauding them of any chance to make a profit.

Third, they requested that there be a limit to the ampunt that itinerant judges (gastaldi) could charge communities when they came to represent the luogotenente in court cases.

Fourth

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