The Battle of Bicocca, 27 April 1522

OPPOSITE This depiction of the Battle of Pavia in 1525 gives a sense of what the fighting at Bicocca three years earlier was like. Note the close terrain, the dense formations, and the combination of horse and foot, pike and shot, and entrenched cannon.

March 7, 2022

Whenever the Italian Wars erupted anew, it was invariably at the initiative of the vainglorious and untrustworthy French Valois monarchy. By his victory at Marignano in 1515, King Francis I (1515-1547) had gained possession of the Duchy of Milan, and, by virtue of his alliance with the Republic of Venice, was dominant in northern Italy. With this he was never content. He continued to uphold a spurious claim to the Kingdom of Naples, and to envisage a French imperium over the entire Italian peninsula, in pursuit of which he was ever-prepared to renew the war when his great rival, Emperor Charles V (1519-1556), the ruler of Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, was distracted elsewhere.

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