"The Italian wars need to change name" Topic

Trying to find good info on the wars, is impossible.

You either get the Italan war of 1848, or Italy during WW1(don't be stupid enough to search for Great Italian wars) Or Italy during WW2.

Dosn't help much searching for the Renesanse war either.

I googled "Italian wars of the Renaissance", and got a whole slew of links from the 1494 to 1559 era.

Search on some of the names.

Francis 1
Gonsalvo de Cordoba
Macchiavelli
Guiciardini
Giovanni de Medici
Pescara
Bartolome D'Alviano
Cesare Borgia
Maximillian 1

Battles
Fornovo
Cerignola
Agnadello
Garigliano (Battle of the, not the river)
Novara
Marignano
Bicocca
Pavia

Louis the Spider
France vs. Venice 16th century

If you are using the internet, you may get some results on using alternative languages. If like myself, you are uni-lingual then on-line translators are very hand tools to assist. It may be that Italians (for example) have sites and some content out there. Google and other search engines default to the English speaking world wide web if that's where the searcher is from. Just a suggestion.

The usual English term for the era is "The Great Italian Wars"

Having said that the sources for this ear are fairly limited, even in print (at least in English).

The bible for this era is Oman's work on the Renaissance, which in one book goes over the armies, politics, and major battles of the era.

Mallet – The Italian Wars – is currently the only modern and best summary of the events.

There are heaps of fragments available, but no other decent overview. (Yep, I know Oman and Taylor).

The classic is of course Guiccardini, a contemporary, but his records tend to be a bit biased being from Florence, and both his and his brothers account on the Sack of Rome end in 1527 with the Sacco. In addition, the only available english translation ommits a lot of the "boring battles"…

Puster is there definitely no complete translation of Guiccardini in English? I have the work you are referring to and it does seem to skip parts.

I agree Mallet and Shaw "The Italian Wars" is the only real recent overview in English.

I would also recommend "The Black Bands of Giovanni" by Maurizio Arfaioli for a really detailed look at a particular band of troops in the Italian Wars and a detailed account of the Siege of Naples. It seems to have become insanely expensive on Amazon, however his thesis is pretty much the same work, and is very readable. It is available to download free from here: wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3099

Arfaioli himself offers a download of his book:
link

I agree that its the best available in english on the units of their time – comparable perhaps only with the "Schlacht bei Hemmingstedt", a German study on the – ironically – Black Band (or Black Guard) that came out of the remnants of the Imperial army fighting in Flanders in the mid-nineties and lost his cohesion when they lost badly to the peasant army in Dithmarschen 1500. Not exactly Italian wars, but detailed even beyond Arfaioli.

I found that in German there are a lot of information in the chronicles written in the 19th century, which are omitted by almost all later histories. Luckily many of these now become available via Internet, and I can just hope that similar developments will open new sources in Italy, France or Spain.

Regarding Guiccardini, I am not aware of another usable English translation. There is a French one, which also serves as base for other translation (rather then Guiccardinis rather complex Italian), but it is allegedly not very good and my French is near non-existant anyway.
Speaking of French, there are eg. several books published on Marignano that I would like to read, if only for their representation of the – surprise – Black Band (another one). Chamberlin (in his "Sack of Rome) even mixes up the French paid Black Band at Pavia (which is not the one fighting at Marignano, if my studies are correct, though they claim their succession) with the Black Band of Giovanni.

That said, Mallet is a good starting point. Once you establish a certain aspect as your interest you can hunt down other sources.

Cheers Puster, "Schlacht bei Hemmingstedt" sounds fascinating. It's a shame I can't read German as I would definitely look it up.

I have also noticed the various Black Bands seem to get muddled up

A complete English translation of Guicciardini's "History of Italy" dating from 1763 is available on Google books:

link

Thanks Il Condottiero, its free as well.

I think that is the one that used the French translation as the base. But better that then nothing, so thanks a lot for the link.

@Malatesta
To give them credit, the Black Bands of 1495-1500, of 1514-1523 (including Marignano), the one of 1525 and the later of 1526-28 are often mixed up and probably see themself in a tradition – I would bet that at least the odd individual served from the one to the other. Colours were often used, though: in the Frisian Feud they also created a White Band (from locals, other then the Saxon created Black Band) and the Italian army of 1528 also included a White Band from Venetia (iirc). The end of the Black Band that the Duke of Geldern hired after the Frisian Feud, sent to Marignano and then used in his own wars is not exactly clear, and it may be that there is a direct link into the French service.

The Hemmingstedt book even includes paylists and structural data and covers the other parts of the Danish army (mainly Feudal knights and levies). The actual battle gets a prtty short chapter, though. Fighting peasant – mainly Frisians – s was a speciality of both the first and second black band…

The 1763 edition indicates that it was translated from the Italian of Guicciardini.

I will give it a go and compare some passages with the modern translation :-)

That's interesting Puster, I would imagine named bands that existed for specific campaigns or wars would have actually been quite common. It really is a shame there is not more in English on these subjects – although saying that the English conflicts in France and Scotland in this period are covered really well