Novara

Novara was a city west of Milan that had once enjoyed the rights of a free imperial city. By the late twelfth century it had accepted Milanese protection and later fell under Visconti rule.

In 1513 Swiss troops fighting for the Sforza defeated a French army near Novara. The city passed to the House of Savoy in 1735 and returned to Savoy in 1814 after the Napoleonic period. In 1821 Sardinian troops defeated Piedmontese constitutional liberals at Novara.