The Art of War in Italy, 1494-1529.

by Frederick Lewis Taylor

This authoritative essay on the strategy, tactics, and military literature of the wars that represent the transition from medieval to modern warfare provides an ideal companion volume to Sir Charles Oman's famous study of the Art of War in the Middle Ages.

228 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1921

Reviews

[Steve Barrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative and easy to understand exposition on how the wars in Renaissance Italy in the early 16th century marked the turning point from medieval warfare to modern warfare. Medieval warfare was the sport of the nobility, a conflict among heavily armed horsemen ("men-at-arms") with a rabble of foot soldiers acting as screening troops and guards for the supply train. It was conducted without much strategy, as its goals were plunder and glory. This changed in the time period of the wars studied in this book. Warfare became subject to scientific thinking in the spirit of the Renaissance, as well as revolutionized by advances in gunpowder weaponry. Commanders developed military doctrine with the goal of winning battles decisively, applying principles of combined arms and the exploitation of terrain features. In the process, infantry became elevated relative to cavalry, which became a subordinate - though still essential - arm. The ratios of infantry to cavalry in fielded forces changed dramatically to favor the former over the latter. At the same time, a new form of light cavalry came into use for reconnaissance and skirmishing. Gunpowder weapons became classified into personal weapons, field artillery, and siege artillery, while fortification design underwent dramatic changes, as the old medieval castles could not withstand the new siege weapons of the time. All of these developments are detailed in this book, with ample footnotes to consult primary sources. A short book packed with information, and a must read for military history buffs.

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

There aren’t many academic books that are still worth reading a century after they were first written. Usually, they become outdated, the arguments they address become irrelevant and their conclusions are superseded.

Frederick Lewis Taylor’s The Art of War in Italy 1494-1529 is one of the very few exceptions to this rule. While more recent scholarship has refined and in some cases changed our views of the events during the wars that ended the medieval era and began the modern age, they have not overturned the facts upon which Taylor based his book. Taylor’s arguments are still fundamental to our appraisal of what happened during these wars and his conclusions are still very much worth considering.

It’s also helped by Taylor being an excellent, lively writer, far better than the usual run of academic authors. In fact, as a one-volume introduction to this fiendishly complicated period, there’s few better alternatives.