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Scottish Celts in Italy
The more you dig into Italy's regional history, the more you find.
Scotsitalian.com has pointed out to us a range of interesting facts, starting with Bonnie Prince Charlie.
 Firstly, in 1720 Charles Edward Stuart was born in Rome.
He was of course, the young pretender to the Scottish Throne.
With an army of 9,000 at one point they marched to within 130 miles of London.
Charles was a brave man but his limited military experience led to the disastrous defeat at Culloden to the English on the 16th April 1746.
Bonnie Prince Charlie's father spent most of his time in Italy.
His father was exiled King James VII and mother Mary Beatrice d'Este of Modena.
Though he was born in London in 1688 James Francis Edward was proclaimed King of Scots five times and attempted to regain his throne three times.
He died in Rome in 1766 and the Italians knew him as 'The King of Britain over here'.
The exiled king is buried in St Peter's church in Rome.
Also according to 'Scots Italian', the Battle of Pavia in 1525 featured many Scots mercenaries in the service of Francis I of France who eventually settled in the town of Gurro in Piemonte.
Until recently Gurro was only accessible by mule track and the villagers are very proud of their Scottish connections.
Indeed, a book called "The Lost Clan Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi of Gurro Novara" explains how the Scots Guards settled in the little hamlet of Gurro near the Italo-Swiss frontier and their descendants live here to this day.
www.museogurro.it/clan
www.scotsitalian.com |
