The Florentine Republic is well-documented to have been essential in the formation and proliferation of Renaissance ideas throughout Europe. Peaking in the 15th century CE under Medici proxy rule, Florence set the standard for what/how a “modern” city should look and behave at the time. From 1434 to 1494, the Medici family ruled jointly with (but ranking higher than) the Council of Florence through the signoria system which had replaced free commune systems. The Florentine Republic briefly shook off the chains of Medici rule between 1494 and 1512 before being replaced by Papal proxy leaders in the form of cardinals. To the shock of no one, these cardinals were of the Medici family appointed to Florentine control by Pope Leo X (born as Giovanni di Lorenzo de’Medici, depicted in the Raphael painting below housed in the Uffizi).
The people of Florence were exhausted by decades of politicking and not-so-subtle Medici intervention in literally every aspect of life. To complicate matters, Florence had embroiled itself officially in the Italian Wars of 1494-1498, 1508-1516, and the war for Urbino in 1517. The Florentine economy was already suffering from prolonged warfare and it only got worse when, in 1526, Florence once again entered into the arena with the War of the League of Cognac on the side of France. Moreover, Italy was thrown right into chaos when Rome was sacked and Pope Clement VII (another Medici, crazy huh?) was captured in 1527.
Italy wasn’t looking too good and rival families to the Medici in Florence decided to once again throw off their chains. The rebellion succeeded and the Medici were exiled, but Florence continued to fight with the French. This was causing the Florentine economy to hemorrhage money. So bad was the state of the economy that, as Maurizio Arfaioli explains in The Black Bands of Giovanni, by 1528 the Florentine Republic was spending 30,000 ducatimonthly. Churches had been stripped of their silver, heavy taxes placed on the people, and most state assets had been pawned. Florence had put all of its eggs in one basket and, when the League’s army collapsed and was destroyed outside Naples in 1528, the Republic suffered a tremendous blow to its power. Pope Clement VII hadn’t been sitting idly either. Furious with the removal of his family from the city, a treaty was signed with Emperor Charles V to seize Florence and restore his family’s control. The result was a prolonged siege and utter destruction of the Florentine Republic in 1530. Imperial German troops were stationed in Florence and Alessandro de’Medici (pictured below in a painting housed at the Uffizi) was made Duke of the Florentine Republic, establishing hereditary dynastic rule officially.
Despite his decent rule, Alessandro didn’t last long and neither did the Duchy of Florence. He was assassinated seven years into his uneasy, but distinctly authoritarian reign and was replaced by Cosimo I de’Medici (pictured below in a portrait from the MET).
Cosimo immediately clamped down control and fought intensely in the last of the Italian wars, going so far as to invade the Republic of Siena and establish the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Thus ended the Florentine Republic, first in violent death throes and then in exhausted subservience. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany would remain in Medici hands until the early 18th century, growing ever irrelevant in European grand politics.
Notable Holy Roman Commanders in the War of the League of Cognac (1526-1530)
The Italians Wars as a whole mark some of the most chaotic times the region has experienced. The Italian states at the time were ravaged by consistent infighting, French and Holy Roman incursion, Papal attempts at dominance, and eventually Ottoman Turkish interference. This maelstrom of war lasted nearly 70 years and was characterised by intense bursts of conflict that devastated the region. Powerful commanders, however, were forged in the unforgiving crucible that was war-torn Italy and today I will be highlighting some from just this small segment in the entire overarching conflict.
The conflict began as a direct result of the French loss in the previous war (lasting from 1521-1525). The French had decisively lost at Pavia and Lombardy as a whole which prompted Pope Clement VIII to arrange a formal league led by the pride-damaged French but which also included the Republic of Florence, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, and the Republic of Genoa. The Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Navarre played a small, but present role as well. Opposing this League was the Holy Roman Empire and its holdings in Spain and Sicily.
Here are some of the Holy Roman/Imperial German leaders in the War of the League of Cognac.
Alfonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto. Painted by Titian in very early 1533. Housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Alfonso d’Avalos fought on the Imperial German side under Emperor Charles V and was appointed governor of Milan after it was seized from the Sforza family on the League’s side. He was commanded by Imperial Lieutenant of Naples, Don Hugo de Moncad, and was instrumental in the utter defeat of League forces outside of Naples in 1528. Further, for his actions he was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece.
Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. Painted by Battista Dossi (the sibling of Dosso Dossi) between 1534-1536. Housed in the Gallerie Estensi. Alfonso I d’Este had a very poor relationship with the Papacy even before this war. In 1510, Pope Julius II had excommunicated d’Este to annex his territories into Papal control. d’Este had then gone on to fight against the Papacy in the previous wars and eventually sided with Emperor Charles V as the French wanted to validate Papal claims on Ferrara.
Charles III, Duke of Bourbon. Painted sometime in the 16th century by an unknown artist. Housed in the Parc & Château de Beauregard. Charles had fought for the French for most of his career as Constable, but had severe disagreements with his treatment by King Francis I. For this, Charles conspired against Francis and defected to the Imperial German forces in 1523. Charles received a very diverse army of Italians, Germans, and Spaniards but faced grave issues regarding payment of troops (many of whom were mercenaries) and issues around food supply. His failure to control his forces resulted in the marching to Rome where he was shot and killed outside the walls which then triggered the impromptu Sack of Rome in 1527.
Ferrante I Gonzaga. Painted sometime in the 16th century by an unknown artist. I could not locate where it is housed. Gonzaga succeeded Charles III de Bourbon and was promoted to commander-in-chief of the Imperial German forces in Italy. Further, he was captain-general of the Imperial light cavalry with which he ruthlessly harassed and ambushed League forces successfully for the entire campaign. His creative and bold use of light cavalry as a critical instrument of this new mobile warfare led to him becoming a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1531 and eventually governor of the Duchy of Milan. Gonzaga was part of the forces with the Prince of Orange that crushed League forces outside of Naples in 1528.
Woodcut from Johann Wolf’s ‘Lectiones Memorabiles et Reconditae,’ a commonplace book published in 1600 of “everything strange, wonderful, terrible, incredible and impossible which the author could find in all literature of the previous sixteen centuries.” It depicts a creature reported to have washed up in the Tiber River in 1496, during the papacy of Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia). To Wolf, it “represented the form of the Roman papacy so perfectly and splendidly that it could not be the work of any human being but must be accepted as God’s own representation of the papal abomination.” Wolf believed Borgia “addressed himself to black magic…promising obedience to the devil,” expressing a popular idea contemporary to Borgia’s time and one that persisted in Wolf’s and beyond.
Sun Tzu is so fucking funny to me because for his time he was legitimately a brilliant tactician but a bunch of his insight is shit like “if you think you might lose, avoid doing that”, “being outnumbered is bad generally”, and “consider lying.”
My personal favourite is his lengthy lecture on the subject of Supplies Being Very Important I Cannot Stress Enough The Importance Of Protecting Your Supply Lines But Also Supply Lines Are Expensive As Shit So Steal The Enemy’s Supplies At Every Opportunity.
One of the more important things to consider about any historical work is the audience it was published for. The Art Of War was aimed at fancy nobles high on philosophy with little practical military experience who were nonetheless leading armies.
Sun Tzu, after desperatly trying to explain extremely basic logic to a bunch of upper-class twits, basically sat down and wrote the most elaborate “As per my last email” ever
