The Capture of Ludovico il Moro at Novara

This history painting, executed in 1871 by Cesare Morbio and held at the town hall of Novara, depicts the capture of Ludovico Sforza, known as il Moro, on 10 April 1500. Betrayed by his own Swiss mercenaries as he attempted to flee Novara disguised as a common soldier, the Duke of Milan was recognised and handed over to French troops commanded by Louis II de La Trémoille. Painted nearly four centuries after the events, in a nineteenth-century academic style, the work illustrates how the history of the Italian Wars fed into the Italian pictorial imagination of the Risorgimento, blending local memory with a taste for dramatic history painting.