Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy

The Italian republics, Florence and Venice, were often loth to give sweeping powers to a soldier. It meant paying a high salary as well as running the risks of a military coup. There was a lingering belief that it was better to employ all the good condottieri available and hope that they would seek to excel each other, even if cooperation between t

Andrea Toma-celli, who had used Boldrino to help him restore order in the Papal States, decided that he would anticipate Boldrino’s next desertion and win popularity with the local inhabitants by having him murdered at a dinner party in Macerata. Bold-rino’s company is said to have carried the body of their murdered leader with them for two years a

Some of the earliest mercenary companies originated as the bodyguards of civic officials.

The city militias were divided into companies from different quarters of the city, and it was rarely necessary to call out more than a part of the force at once. Each man was expected to keep his arms, and where applicable his horse, in readiness; but the service required of him was normally confined to defence of the walls of the city for the limi

In the first place the Company derived its name from the highly polished armour worn by its men-at-arms. They wore more plate armour than was common in Italy and had sufficient pages to keep it brightly burnished. The three-man lance formation, which this company was reputed to have introduced into Italy, consisted of two men-at-arms and a page.

Mercenaries live on war; when peace is signed they have only three choices: to retire to some base and live off their inflated seasonal earnings, to seek another war, or to create for themselves artificial conditions of war by becoming outlaws.

by the mid-fifteenth century, all Italian states were using another type of cavalry force known as the lanze spezzate. The name means broken lances and clearly the origins of such troops were individual cavalrymen who for various reasons had become detached from condottiere companies and their traditional lance formation, and had taken service dire

But perhaps the most significant and powerful of the new officials was the collaterale who began to assume an overall responsibility for the administration of the army. He drew up and signed the contracts, supervised inspections and pay, detected deserters and controlled demobilisation, and oversaw all the support services. He enforced the series o

Their concern was not to annihilate their rivals, but to achieve security and predominance within clearly defined spheres of influence. Their population resources were a good deal more limited than their wealth, and so their weapons were small professional mercenary armies, the activities of which were related to the needs and intentions of the sta