The Bridge of Lodi, Bonaparte's Close Column, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered "PONT DE LODI." in open capitals above the image. Bonaparte, in a bicorne and white breeches, stands with a group of officers before an ivy covered stone ruin wreathed in smoke and gestures to the right. An officer in a plumed hat sits a gray horse at the right of center, looking toward the river, where a column of troops crowds across the long bridge under clouds of smoke. A gun carriage and a fallen man lie at the right, and the dead lie beneath the wall at the left.

The caption below the image reads: "Dix mille hommes et trente pièces de canons gardaient ce pont; Bonaparte forme son armée en colonne serrée, et sans tirer un seul coup de fusil, cette masse traverse le pont, et remporte la victoire en moins de tems qu'il n'en faut, pour décrire le combat." In English: Ten thousand men and thirty pieces of cannon guarded this bridge; Bonaparte forms his army in close column, and without firing a single musket shot this mass crosses the bridge and wins the victory in less time than it takes to describe the fight. The figure 5 is lettered below the lower right corner of the image.

The plate comes from the first volume of Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827 by the Lithographie royale de Jobard, the press of Marcellin Jobard. Its title page describes a text written by a society of men of letters from the new documents dictated and corrected at Saint Helena by Napoleon himself, illustrated with lithographed plates after the first painters of the French school by Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877), the Belgian lithographer and painter. This volume follows Napoleon from his schooling at Brienne to the camp of Boulogne.

The action at Lodi was fought on 10 May 1796, when the French stormed the bridge over the Adda held by the Austrian rearguard.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.