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

It was part of the early myth of Venice that her policies were not directed by individuals but by some sort of corporate awareness of the eternal needs of the Republic. Niccolò Piccinino is said to have remarked on one occasion that he would like to serve Venice ‘because while princes are mortal, the Republic will never die’.

Recent research into the Hundred Years War in Britain and France has emphasised that ‘war was the continuous exertion of military pressure, mainly on the civilian population’, but this is not the end of the interrelationship between war and society. Armies were not just the scourge of civilians, they were also the employees of civilians. They had t

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

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.

That these arrangements were either a novelty for France or unique in Europe is now very much questioned by historians, but they do help us to define what is meant by a standing army. First, such an army is organised on a permanent, professional footing; secondly it consists of companies of equal size, uniformly armed according to an overall plan;

A large condottiere company was divided into a number of squadrons. The largest of these was the ‘casa’ or household of the leader of the company. In this would be placed not only his most experienced and faithful men-at-arms but also his chancellors, grooms, trumpeters, and various attendants. In the casa of a condottiere prince like Sigismondo Ma

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

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