I’ve been studying the life of Roberto San Severino for years and in the course of time I’ve had the opportunity to reconstruct his achievements beyond the “propaganda” of that time, through a continuous search for documents which have frequently taken me to the places where there are still traces of this Condottiero.
During my last trip I visited for the third time San Severino’s tombstone to pay tribute to him. This is the last tangible evidence of the Condottiero besides his armour kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.  

Roberto from San Severino, Venetian condottiero, died on the 10th of August 1487 drowning in the Adige river during the Battle of Calliano fought against the Austrian troops of Sigismund of Austria. 
His dead body will be found the following day downstream on a bend of the river and it was taken to Trento where Prince-Bishop Udalrico Frundsberg ordered that it be honourably buried in the Cathedral to honour the valiant enemy.

From a letter of Nicolò Sadoletto, orator of the Estes, dated 1st of September 1487 (Arch.ST.Mo) :
"Et è ordinato fargli sepoltura honoratissima lì in trento in la chiesa mazore apresso l'altare grande dove è deposito et già gli han facto uno grande cavallo et uno suso per sua memoria cum quella propria armadura, celada et zornea che haveva in campo la quale è sanguinosa" 
( “And we ordered to bury him in Trento in the Duomo near the high altar where in his memory there is a statue of a man with a sallet and giornea armour on a big horse, as San Severino wore before he died.”)

In 1493 the Statue was replaced with a tombstone by order of the Emperor Maximilian I.
The funerary monument which is still located in the right aisle of the Trento Cathedral is a work by sculptor Lucas Maurus (Luca Moro) and it depicts the Condottiero in armour, the same that the Emperor transferred to Vienna as war booty in memory of the victory over the Venetians.  

The statue has some iconographic meanings which refer to the defeat of the Condottiero and the Republic of Venice, as the broken Lance and the standard with the Winged Lion, symbol of Venice’s patron Saint Mark, over-turned.

Surrounding the picture there is an inscription in Gothic reminding of the Austrian victory, translated as follows:
" The year 1487 on Saint Lawrence’s day the illustrious Prince Archduke Sigismund of Austria defeated the Venetians, whose commander, lord Roberto, lies buried here. May God have mercy upon him”.

The second inscription in Latin says:
MCCCCLXXXVII - ITALAE VICTOR SEVERINA STIRPE ROBERTUS , SIGMUNDUM AUSTRALEM SENSIT IN ARMA DUCEM, TER PROCERES VENETI BELLO PETIERE TRIDENTUM, TER VICTI HIC VICTUS ECCE ROBERTUS ADEST.
Translated:
1487 – Roberto from the Severino ancestry (family), winner of Italy, fought three times against the Austrian Duke Sigismund, for three times the Venetian Pregadi (senators of the Republic of Venice)advanced towards Trento, for three times they were defeated, here’s Roberto the defeated.

The coats of arms at the top of the marble stonework belong to the dukes of Austria, Trento, Tyrol, the Episcopal Principality and the Prince-Bishop Udalrico Frundsberg.

In 1498 at the request of Ludovico il Moro the remains were moved to Milan at the Church of San Francis in a chapel dedicated to San Severino, which was removed after restoration works of the church.