Condottieri (singular
condottiero and
condottiere) were the
mercenary soldier
leaders (or
warlords) of the professional, military
Free companies contracted by the Italian
city-states and the
Papacy, from the
late Middle Ages until the mid-16th century. In contemporary Italian,
condottiero means "contractor", and is synonymous with the modern English title
Mercenary Captain, which, historiographically, does not connote the hired soldier’s nationality.
These Italian words were standard usage in English writing of the
Napoleonic times that remained current in the histories until the late 20th century; because formally-employed, standing, professional armies were uncommon until late in the
Napoleonic Wars (1800–1815) thus, the word
Condottiere in the English language has come to denote any hired soldier.
History
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Italian
city-states of
Venice,
Florence, and
Genoa were very rich from their trade with the
Levant, yet possessed woefully small national 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 a
condotta (contract) between the City-State and the Soldier (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 the
Muslims in
the Crusades (1095–1291). These officers provided large-scale warfare combat experience in the foreign Holy Land of the Asian Middle East. On the Crusades’ conclusion, the first
masnada (bands of roving soldiers) appeared; they were not Italian, but (mostly) German, from the
Duchy of Brabant (hence,
Brabanzoni), and from
Catalonia and
Aragon. The latter were Spanish soldiers who had followed King
Peter III of Aragon to the Holy Land in October of 1282, and, post-war, remained there, seeking military employment. In Italy, in 1333, other mercenaries arrived with
John of Bohemia to fight, as the
Compagnia della Colomba (Dove Company),
Perugia’s war against
Arezzo; given the profession, some
masnade were less mercenaries than bandits and desperate men.
The first organised mercenaries were the Ventura Companies of
Duke Werner of Urslingen and
Count 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 3,000
barbute (each
barbuta comprised a knight and a sergeant). To this, the Italian nobleman
Lodrisio Visconti countered with the “Company of St. George” — featuring
cavalrymen as the key fighting men, and not
infantrymen. In Italy, the first mercenary army was led by
Alberico da Barbiano, the Count of Conio, who later taught
military science to condottieri such as Braccio da Montone and Giacomuzzo Attendolo Sforza.
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’s
Epitoma rei militarii), they began viewing warfare from the perspective of
military science, rather than that of
guts (physical courage) — a great, consequential departure from
chivalry, the traditional mediæval model of soldiering. Consequently, the condottieri fought by
out-manœuvring the opponent and fighting his
ability to wage war, rather than risk uncertain fortune — defeat, capture, death — in battlefield combat.
The mediæval condottieri developed the
art of war (strategy and tactics) 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. As a political scientist,
Niccolò Machiavelli mis-interpreted that condottieri fought each other in grandiose, but often pointless and near-bloodless battles. Militarily, the condottieri line of battle still deployed the grand armoured knight and mediæval weapons and tactics after most European powers had begun employing professional standing armies of
pikemen and
musketeers.
In 1347,
Cola di Rienzo had Werner of Urslingen executed in Rome, and Konrad von Landau assumed command of the Great Company. In 1362, Count von Landau was betrayed by his Hungarian soldiers, and defeated in combat, by the White Company’s more advanced tactics under commanders Albert Sterz and
John Hawkwood. Stategically, the
barbuta was replaced with the three-soldier, mounted
lancia (a
capo-lancia, a groom, and a boy); five
lance composed a
posta, five
poste composed a
bandiera (flag). By that time, the campaigning condottieri companies were as much Italian as foreign: the
Astorre I Manfredi’s
Compagnia della Stella (Star Company); a new Company of St. George under
Ambrogio Visconti;
Niccolò da Montefeltro’s
Compagnia del Cappelletto (Little Hat Company); and the
Compagnia della Rosa, commanded by
Giovanni da Buscareto and
Bartolomeo Gonzaga.
From the fifteenth century hence, most
condottieri were landless Italian nobles who had chosen the profession of arms as livelihood; the most famous of such mercenary captains was the son of
Caterina Sforza,
Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, from
Forlì, known as
The Last Condottiere; his son was
Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany; besides noblemen,
princes also fought as condottieri, given the sizable income to their estates, notably
Sigismondo Malatesta, Lord of
Rimini, and
Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of
Urbino; despite war-time
inflation, soldier’s pay was high:
The condottieri company commanders selected the soldiers to enlist; the
condotta was a consolidated contract, and, when the
ferma (service period) elapsed, the company entered an
aspetto (wait) period, wherein, the contracting city-state considered its renewal. If the
condotta 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, whose
contratto d’assento (contract of assent) stipulated naval military-service terms and conditions; sea captains and sailors so-contracted were called
assentisti. Their principal employers were
Genoa and the
Papal States, beginning in the fourteenth century, yet,
Venice 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 fifteenth-century Italy, the
condottieri were masterful lords of war; during the
wars in Lombardy, Machiavelli observed: “None of the principal states were armed with their own proper forces”:
History I. vii.
The fifteenth-century Italian armies defeated most of the
Turkish,
Swiss,
Hungarian,
German,
French, and
Austrian, incursions. In 1487, at
Calliano, the
Venetians successfully met and acquitted themselves against the German
landsknechte and the Swiss infantry, who then were the best soldiers in Europe.
Decline
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. In the event, the
condotta was so profitable that the commanding
condottieri officers had little interest in risking their armies; yet, if battle was due, they fought swiftly, decisively, and definitively, to leave the battlefield victorious and with as many soldiers as possible.
The “Age of the Condottieri” began in 1494, with the first, great foreign invasion in a century:
Charles VIII’s national
French army, which matched the divided Italian city-states and their smaller condottieri armies. The most renowned condottieri fought for foreign powers:
Gian Giacomo Trivulzio abandoned Milan for France, while
Andrea Doria was Admiral of the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. In the end, failure was political, rather than military, stemming from disunity and political indecision, and, by 1550, the military service
condotta had disappeared, while the term
condottiere remained current, denominating the great Italian generals (mainly) fighting for foreign states; men such as
Marcantonio II Colonna and
Raimondo Montecuccoli were prominent into the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. To wit, the political practice of hiring foreign mercenaries did not end, even in contemporary Italy, the
Vatican’s
Swiss Guards are the modern remnants of an historically effective mercenary army.
Distinguished condottieri
Principal battles of the condottieri
