MERCENARIES AND THEIR MASTERS: Warfare in Renaissance Italy

2-200410

Reprint of Michael Mallett's classic study of Renaissance warfare in Italy. His account of the age of the condottieri -- the mercenary captains of fortune -- and of the soldiers who fought under them is set in the wider context of the Italian society of the time and of the warring city-states who employed them.

The book concentrates on the 15th century, a confused period of turbulence and transition when standing armies were formed in Italy and more modern types of military organization took hold across Europe. But it also looks back to the middle ages and the 14th century, and forward to the Italian wars of the 16th century when foreign armies disputed the European balance of power on Italian soil.