On the banks of the Adda, flowing full bodied to join up with the Po,
Sits the town of Lodi in Lombardy from where they spread the water,
Gurgling down those Consorzio di Muzza to make the farmlands grow.
Lodi with the bridge beside mother earth’s bread basket daughter,
This river rises in the Alps and falls to swell the waters of Lake Como.
The date my friends is 9th of April, the year fourteen hundred and fifty four,
When all was not an idyllic life of harvest festival and sweet bucolic dreams,
With many battles fought savage and bloody across the Adda valley floor.
Four fierce campaigns fought by Venice with Milan, for hegemony it seems,
At last Milan, Naples and Florence forged a peace, finally wiped the score.
A fine treaty, saviour of humanity, disrupted art and that final vale of tears;
Michael Angelo, Titian, Leonardo Da Vinci all magicians of light and colour,
An apostrophe that their renaissance might flourish without destructive fears
Despite that these were all artists emboldened by a rush of creative valour
Such was powerful balance of the Peace of Lodi it lasted almost 50 years.
McTiernan
