The Business of War in Europe, 1000–1600 89
Guns of this radically new design accompanied the French army that
invaded Italy in 1494 to make good Charles VIII’s claim to the throne
of Naples. The Italians were overawed by the efficiency of the new
weapons. First Florence and then the pope yielded after only token
resistance; and on the single occasion when a fortress on the border of
the kingdom of Naples did try to resist the invaders, the French
gunners required only eight hours to reduce its wails to rubble. Yet
not long before, this same fortress had made itself famous by with
standing a siege of seven years.^22
The clumsy bombards of 1453 had already altered the balance be
tween besieger and besieged, but the resulting disturbance to estab
lished power relationships was enormously magnified by the French
and Burgundian invention of mobile siege guns between 1465 and
- Wherever the new artillery appeared, existing fortifications be
came useless. The power of any ruler who was able to afford the high
cos't of the new weapons was therefore enhanced at the expense of
neighbors and subjects who were unable to avail themselves of the
new technology of war.
In Europe, the major effect of the new weaponry was to dwarf the
Italian city-states and to reduce other small sovereignties to triviality.
The French and Burgundians did not long retain a monopoly, of
course; nearby territorial monarchs quickly acquired siege guns of the
new design, including the Hapsburg emperors and the Ottoman sul
tans.^23 A mighty struggle among the newly consolidated powers of
Europe ensued, lasting through most of the sixteenth century and re
ducing the Italian city-states to the condition of pawns to be fought
over.
Yet the ingenuity that made Italian skills the cynosure of all who
encountered them was not baffled for long by the heightened power
of siege guns. As a matter of fact, even before encountering the for
midable new French guns in 1494, Italian military engineers had been
most incisive account of early development of artillery in Europe that I have seen. In the
nineteenth century, detailed and more or less antiquarian writing on artillery achieved
striking refinement with such works as A. Essenwein, Quellen zur Geschichte der Feuer
waffen. 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1877; republished in facsimile, Graz, 1969). On the Burgun
dian development of artillery, cf. C. Brusten, L'armée bourguignonne de 1455 à 1468
(Brussels, 1954); Claude Gaier, L’industrie et le commerce des armes dans l’anciennes prin
cipautés belges du XIIIe à la fin du XVe siècle (Paris, 1973).
- Christopher Duffy, Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494–
1660 (London, 1979), pp. 8–9.
- The Hapsburgs shared the Burgundian inheritance with the French in 1477 and
thus fell heir directly to the gunfounding capabilities of the Low Countries. For the
Ottomans cf. John F. Guilmartin, Jr., Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and
Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the 16th century (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 255–56.
