(^76) Chapter Three
Venice, when it launched its first campaigns aimed at conquest on
terra firma (1405) took the lead in regularizing military condotta along
these lines. Venetian precocity arose in part from the fact that similar
practices had long prevailed in the fleet. Since before the First
Crusade, salaried rower-soldiers, formed into standard ships’ com
panies, had been employed season after season to make Venetian
power effective overseas. Management of semi-permanent land forces
required only modest readjustment of such practices.^8 Florence, on
the other hand, lagged far behind in its adaptation to the new con
ditions of war, partly, at least, because humanistically educated magis
trates like Machiavelli were dazzled by Roman republican institutions.
Accordingly, they deplored the collapse of the town militia, and
feared military coups d etat and the costs of professionalism so much
that they sacrificed military efficiency in favor of economy and faith
fulness to old traditions of citizen self-defense.
The Florentine fear of coups d’état was well grounded. Many am
bitious condottieri did indeed seize power from civic officers by illegal
use of force. The greatest city to experience this fate was Milan, which
became a military despotism after 1450, when Francesco Sforza took
power and began to use the resources of the city to support his mili
tary following on a permanent basis. Venice managed to escape any
such fate, partly by careful supervision of potential usurpers, partly by
dividing contracts among several different, mutually jealous captains,
and partly by bestowing civic honors and gifts upon loyal and suc
cessful condottieri and arranging suitable marriages for them with
members of the Venetian aristocracy.
Whether by usurpation or assimilation, therefore, outstanding con
dottieri quickly worked their way into the ruling classes of the Italian
cities. As that occurred, the first phase of institutional adjustment
between the old political order and newfangled forms of military en
terprise can be said to have been achieved. The cash nexus came to be
reinforced by a variety of sentimental ties connecting professional
wielders of armed force to the newly consolidated states that divided
sovereignty over the Italian landscape. A captain and his men might
still shift employers, however, if some unusual advantage beckoned,
or if his or the company’s pride were injured by some apparent pref
erence for a rival.
- And had been initiated by hiring Balkan Christians, the so-called “stradioti,”
shortly before the venture onto the Italian mainland began. Cf. Freddy Thieret, La
Roumanie vénetienne au moyen âge (Paris, 1959), p. 402.