At which battle did Napoleon first display his tactical brilliance in Italy in 1796?

Napoleon first displayed his celebrated tactical brilliance in Italy at the Battle of Lodi on 10 May 1796. The engagement was part of his first Italian campaign, during which the young general repeatedly moved faster than the Austrian and Piedmontese armies opposing him.

At Lodi, French troops pursued an Austrian rear guard commanded by Karl Philipp Sebottendorf to the Adda River. The Austrians held the far end of a long bridge with artillery and infantry. Napoleon brought up guns, arranged a cavalry movement across a ford, and then ordered French grenadiers to storm the bridge in a dangerous frontal assault.

The victory was tactically dramatic but strategically less decisive than Napoleon’s later legend suggested: the main Austrian army escaped. Nevertheless, the battle transformed Napoleon’s reputation among his soldiers and within his own imagination. He later described Lodi as the moment he realized he was superior to other commanders and capable of great achievements. Montenotte came earlier in the campaign, but Lodi is the conventional answer to this question because it became the iconic early demonstration of his battlefield style.