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The Condottieri - 1350-1530

The most marked proof of the change which came over Italy toward the middle of the fourteenth century is furnished by the companies of adventure. It was with their own militia that the burghers won freedom in the war of independence, subdued the nobles, and fought the latths of the parties. But from this time forward they laid down their arms, and played the game of warfare by the aid of mercenaries. Ecclesiastical overlords, interfering from a distance in Italian politics; prosperous republics, with plenty of money to spend but no leisure or inclination for camp-life; cautious tyrants, glad of every pretext to emasculate their subjects, and courting popularity by exchanging conscription for taxation - all combined to favor the new system.

Mercenary troops are said to have been first levied from disbanded Germans, together with Breton and English adventurers, whom the Visconli and Castruccio took into their pay. They soon appeared under their own captains, who hired them out to the highest bidder, or marched them on marauding expeditions up and down the less protected districts. The names of some of these earliest captains of adventure, Fra Moriale, Count Lando, and Duke Werner, who styled himself the "Enemy of God and Mercy," have been preserved. As the companies grew in size and improved their discipline, it was seen by the Italian nobles that this kind of service offered a good career for men of spirit, who had learned the use of arms. To leave so powerful and profitable a calling in the hands of foreigners seemed both dangerous and uneconomical. Therefore, after the middle of the century, this profession fell into the hands of natives. The first Italian who formed an exclusively Italian company was Alberico da Barbiano, a nobleman of Romagna, and founder of the Milanese house of Belgiojoso. In his school the great condottieri Itraccio da Montone and Sforza Attendolo were formed; and henceforth the battles of Italy were fought by Italian generals commanding native troops. This was better in some respects than if the mercenaries had been foreigners. Yet it must not be forgotten that the new companies of adventure, who decided Italian affairs for the next century, were in no sense patriotic. They sold themselves for money, irrespective of the cause which they upheld ; and, while changing masters, they had no care for any interests but their own.

The name condottiero, derived from condotta, a paid contract to supply so many fighting men in serviceable order, sufficiently indicates the nature of the business. In the hands of able captains, like Francesco Sforza or Piccinino, these mercenary troops became movable despotisms, draining the country of its wealth, and always eager to fasten and found tyrannies upon the provinces they had been summoned to defend. Their generals substituted heavy-armed cavalry for the old militia, and introduced systems of campaigning which reduced the art of war to a game of skill. Battles became all but bloodless; diplomacy and tactics superseded feats of arms and hard blows in pitched fields. In this way the Italians lost their military vigor, and wars were waged by despots from their cabinets, who pulled the strings of puppet captains in their pay.

Nor were the people only enfeebled for resistance to a real foe ; the whole political spirit of the people was demoralized. The purely selfish link between condottieri and their employers, whether princes or republics, involved intrigues and treachery, checks and counterchecks, secret terror on the one hand and treasonable practice on the other, which ended by making statecraft in Italy synonymous with perfidy.

Various captains compete for the title of the ""Last of the Condottieri." Some mention Giovanni de Medici [1498-1526], father of Cosimo and nicknamed Giovanni delle Bande Nere ][Italian = of the black bands]. When Colonna, over eighty years of age, died on December 28, 1523, he was succeeded first by Lannoy, who was summoned hastily from Naples, and then by the Constable Bourbon, who was made lieutenant-governor of Lombardy. As a Frenchman taking service under a German Emperor he may be regarded as the last of the Condottieri.