14 - Warfare and Italian states, 1300–1500

Summary

The history of Italian warfare from 1300 to 1500 has been dominated by discussion of mercenary soldiers. Italian states used them throughout the Middle Ages and by the fourteenth century the practice evolved into a species of “system,” characterized by reliance on preformed bands of substantial size, containing also foreign soldiers from outside of the peninsula. The era of the “companies of adventure” (compagnie di ventura), as it is known, lasted from roughly the second decade to the end of the fourteenth century. It was followed by the emergence in the fifteenth century of individual native mercenary captains, condottieri, who settled into regular service with states and were the precursor to more permanent armies by the middle of the century. The reliance on mercenaries rendered Italian warfare out of touch with developments elsewhere in Europe, and left the peninsula unprepared for the onslaught of the armies of France and Spain and the Italian Wars in the sixteenth century. The invasion of Italy in 1494 by the French king Charles VIII was the signal event that revealed the weakness of Italian military institutions and more generally the strength of the rising nation state over its evolutionary predecessor, the city-state.