Benedikt Fontana
politician and leader of the Grisons (-1499)
Benedikt Fontana (c. 1450 – 22 May 1499) was a Romansh bailiff and minister who allegedly died a heroic death during the Battle of Calven in 1499, in present-day Grisons, Switzerland.
As a captain in the Three Leagues during the Swabian War, Fontana achieved fame fighting in the Battle of Calven against the Holy Roman Empire. While troops were under the command of Dietrich Freuler from the Swiss Confederacy, Freuler hesitated during an attack and Fontana is said to have assumed control and fought valiantly while shouting "We are Grisons, today or never!". Fontana was mortally wounded during the battle but the Swiss troops defeated the Empire's troops despite being outnumbered 2:1.
According to local legend, Fontana's sword was later thrown into the headwaters of a creek in his hometown of Salouf and has never been found. Fontana remains a legendary figure in Romansh culture to this day, and in 1903 a statue was erected to Fontana in the cantonal capital of Chur.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q816942. The first chronological checks are 1450, 1499 and 1903.
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This entry incorporates text from “Benedikt Fontana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.