Condottieri (Italian:[kondotˈtjɛːri];sg.: condottiero or condottiere) were Italian military leaders during theMiddle Ages and theearly modern period. The definition originally applied only to commanders ofmercenary companies,condottiero inmedieval Italian meaning 'contractor' andcondotta being the contract by which the condottieri put themselves in the service of a city or lord. The term, however, came to refer to all the famed Italian military leaders of theRenaissance,Reformation andCounter-Reformation eras. Notable condottieri includeProspero Colonna,Giovanni dalle Bande Nere,Cesare Borgia, theMarquis of Pescara,Andrea Doria, and theDuke of Parma. They served Popes and other European monarchs and states during theItalian Wars and theEuropean wars of religion.[1][2][3]
Some authors have described the legendaryAlberto da Giussano as the "first condottiero" andNapoleon Bonaparte (in virtue of his Italian origins) as the "last condottiero". According to this view, the condottieri tradition would span a huge diverse period from theBattle of Legnano in 1176 to theBattle of Waterloo in 1815.[4][5] Most historians would narrow it down to the years fromc. 1350 toc. 1650, with a particular focus on the rise of the commanders offree companies (capitani di ventura) and their transformation into captain generals fighting for the major powers during the struggle for political and religious supremacy in Europe.
 | This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(April 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
.jpg)
In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Italiancity-states ofVenice,Florence, andGenoa were very rich from their trade with theLevant, yet possessed woefully small armies. In the event that foreign powers and envious neighbours attacked, the ruling nobles hired foreign mercenaries to fight for them. The military-service terms and conditions were stipulated in acondotta (contract) between the city-state and the soldiers (officer and enlisted man), thus, the "contracted" leader, the mercenary captain commanding, was titled the "Condottiere".
From the eleventh to the thirteenth century, European soldiers led by professional officers fought against theMuslims inthe Crusades (1095–1291). These crusading officers provided large-scale warfare combat experience in the Holy Land. At the Crusades' conclusion, the firstmasnada (bands of roving soldiers;pl.:masnade) appeared in Italy. Given the profession, somemasnade were less mercenaries than bandits and desperate men. Thesemasnade were not Italian, but (mostly)Flemings, from theDuchy of Brabant (hence,Brabanzoni), and fromAragon. The latter were Spanish soldiers who had followed KingPeter III of Aragon in theWar of the Sicilian Vespers in Italy in October 1282, and, post-war, remained there, seeking military employment. By 1333 other mercenaries had arrived in Italy to fight withJohn of Bohemia as theCompagnia della Colomba (Company of the Dove) inPerugia's war againstArezzo. The first well-organised mercenaries in Italy were the Ventura Companies ofDuke Werner von Urslingen andCount Konrad von Landau. Werner's company differed from other mercenary companies because its code of military justice imposed discipline and an equal division of the contract's income. The Ventura Company increased in number until becoming the fearsome "Great Company" of some 3,000barbute (eachbarbuta comprised a knight and a sergeant).
The first mercenary company with an Italian as its chief was the "Company of St. George" formed in 1339 and led byLodrisio Visconti. This company was defeated and destroyed byLuchino Visconti of Milan (another condottiero and uncle of Lodrisio) in April 1339. Later, in 1377, a second "Company of St. George" was formed under the leadership ofAlberico da Barbiano, also an Italian and the Count of Conio, who later taughtmilitary science to condottieri such asBraccio da Montone andGiacomuzzo Attendolo Sforza, who also served in the company.[6]
Once aware of their military power monopoly in Italy, the condottieri bands became notorious for their capriciousness and soon dictated terms to their ostensible employers. In turn, many condottieri, such as Braccio da Montone and Muzio Sforza, became powerful politicians. As most were educated men acquainted with Roman military science manuals (e.g.Vegetius'sEpitoma rei militarii), they began viewing warfare from the perspective of military science, rather than as a matter of valour or physical courage—a great, consequential departure fromchivalry, the traditional medieval model of soldiering. Consequently, the condottieri fought by outmanoeuvring the opponent and fighting his ability to wage war, rather than risking uncertain fortune—defeat, capture, death—in battlefield combat.
The earlier, medieval condottieri developed the "art of war" (military strategy andtactics) into military science more than any of their historical military predecessors—fighting indirectly, not directly—thus, only reluctantly endangering themselves and their enlisted men, avoiding battle when possible, also avoiding hard work and winter campaigns, as these all reduced the total number of trained soldiers available, and were detrimental to their political and economic interest.[7]Niccolò Machiavelli even said that condottieri fought each other in grandiose, but often pointless and near-bloodless battles. However, later in the Renaissance the condottieri line of battle still deployed the grand armoured knight and medieval weapons and tactics after most European powers had begun employing professional standing armies ofpikemen andmusketeers; this helped to contribute to their eventual decline and destruction.[citation needed]
In 1347,Cola di Rienzo (Tribune and effective dictator of the city) had Werner von Urslingen executed in Rome, and Konrad von Landau assumed command of the Great Company. On the conclusion (1360) of thePeace of Bretigny between England and France, SirJohn Hawkwood led an army of English mercenaries, called theWhite Company, into Italy, which took a prominent part in the confused wars of the next thirty years. Towards the end of the century, the Italians began to organize armies of the same description. This ended the reign of the purely mercenary company and began that of the semi-national mercenary army which endured in Europe till replaced by the national standing army system. In 1363, Count von Landau was betrayed by his Hungarian soldiers, and defeated in combat, by the White Company's more advanced tactics under commandersAlbert Sterz and John Hawkwood. Strategically, thebarbuta was replaced with the three-soldier, mountedlancia (acapo-lancia, a groom, and a boy); fivelance composed aposta, fiveposte composed abandiera (flag). By that time, the campaigning condottieri companies were as much Italian as foreign: theAstorre I Manfredi'sCompagnia della Stella (Company of the Star); a newCompagnia di San Giorgio (Company of St. George) under Ambrogio Visconti; Niccolò da Montefeltro'sCompagnia del Cappelletto (Little Hat Company); and theCompagnia della Rosa (Company of the Rose), commanded by Giovanni da Buscareto and Bartolomeo Gonzaga.
From the 15th century hence, most condottieri were landless Italian nobles who had chosen the profession of arms as a livelihood; the most famous of such mercenary captains was the son ofCaterina Sforza,Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, fromForlì, known asThe Last Condottiere; his son wasCosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany; besides noblemen,princes also fought as condottieri, given the sizable income to their estates, notablySigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord ofRimini, andFederico da Montefeltro, Duke ofUrbino; despite war-timeinflation, soldier's pay was high:
The condottieri company commanders selected the soldiers to enlist; thecondotta was a consolidated contract, and, when theferma (service period) elapsed, the company entered anaspetto (wait) period, wherein the contracting city-state considered its renewal. If thecondotta expired definitively, the condottiere could not declare war against the contracting city-state for two years. This military–business custom was respected because professional reputation (business credibility) was everything to the condottieri; a deceived employer was a reputation ruined; likewise, for maritime mercenaries, whosecontratto d'assento (lit. 'contract of assent') stipulated naval military-service terms and conditions; sea captains and sailors so-contracted were calledassentisti. Their principal employers wereGenoa and thePapal States, beginning in the fourteenth century, yetVenice considered it humiliating to so employ military sailors, and did not use naval mercenaries, even during the greatest danger in the city's history.
In 15th-century Italy, the condottieri were masterful lords of war; during thewars in Lombardy, Machiavelli observed:
None of the principal states were armed with their own proper forces. Thus the arms of Italy were either in the hands of the lesser princes, or of men who possessed no state; for the minor princes did not adopt the practice of arms from any desire of glory, but for the acquisition of either property or safety. The others (those who possessed no state) being bred to arms from their infancy, were acquainted with no other art, and pursued war for emolument, or to confer honour upon themselves.
— History I. vii.
In 1487, atCalliano, theVenetians successfully met and acquitted themselves against the Germanlandsknechte and the Swiss infantry, the best soldiers in Europe at the time.
In time, the financial and political interests of the condottieri proved serious drawbacks to decisive, bloody warfare: the mercenary captains often were treacherous, tending to avoid combat, and "resolve" fights with a bribe—either for the opponent or for themselves.[citation needed] Towards the end of the 15th century, when the large cities had gradually swallowed up the small states, and Italy itself was drawn into the general current of European politics, and became the battlefield of powerful armies—French, Spanish and German—the venture captains, who in the end proved quite unequal to the gendarmerie of France and the improved troops of the Italian states, gradually disappeared.
The soldiers of the condottieri were almost entirely heavy armoured cavalry (men-at-arms). Before 1400, they had little or nothing in common with the people among whom they fought, and their disorderly conduct and rapacity seem often to have exceeded that of medieval armies. They were always ready to change sides at the prospect of higher pay—the enemy of today might be the comrade-in-arms of tomorrow. Further, a prisoner was always more valuable than a dead enemy. As a consequence, their battles were often as bloodless as they were theatrical.
The age of firearms and weapons utilizing gunpowder further contributed to the decline of the condottieri. Although the mercenary forces were among the first to adapt to the emerging technologies on the battlefield,[citation needed] ultimately, the advent of firearms-governed warfare rendered their ceremonial fighting style obsolete. When battlefields shifted from chivalric confrontations characterized by ostentatious displays of power to an everyman's war, they were ill-prepared to adjust.
In 1494, the French kingCharles VIII's royal army invaded the Italian Peninsula, initiating theItalian Wars. The most renowned condottieri fought for foreign powers:Gian Giacomo Trivulzio abandoned Milan for France, whileAndrea Doria was Admiral of theHoly Roman EmperorCharles V. In the end, failure was political, rather than military, stemming from disunity and political indecision, and, by 1550, the military servicecondotta had disappeared, while the termcondottiere remained current, denominating the great Italian generals (mainly) fighting for foreign states; men such asGian Giacomo Medici,Ambrogio Spinola,Alexander Farnese,Marcantonio II Colonna,Raimondo Montecuccoli andProspero Colonna were prominent into the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The political practice of hiring foreign mercenaries, however, did not end. For example, theVatican'sSwiss Guard are the modern remnants of a historically effective mercenary army.
The end of theThirty Years' War in 1648 and the birth ofWestphalian sovereignty diminished Roman Catholic influence in Europe and led to the consolidation of large states, while Italy was fragmented and divided. The condottieri tradition greatly suffered from the political and strategic decline of Italy and never recovered.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Condottiere".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 854–855.
