ABSTRACT
The campaign of 1494-95 which took the French army of Charles VIII to Naples and back to the battlefields of Fomovo and Novara has long been seen as a watershed in military as well as in European history. Not least amongst the military changes was the impact made on Italian fortifications by the improved French artillery on its first major expedition south of the Alps, and the revolution in the speed and tactics of siege warfare which these events were seen to have highlighted. Francesco Guicciardini was not the only near contemporary author to have noted the watershed, but his analysis has been so frequently quoted that it has assumed enormous authority. The technical superiority of the new weapons, the skills of the gunners and the logistical efficiency of the French siege train all feature in one of the best known of Guicciardini's passages:
The French brought a much handier engine made of brass, called Cannon, which they charged with heavy, iron balls, smaller without comparison than those of stone made use of hitherto, and drove them on carriages with horses, not with oxen, as was the custom in Italy; and they were attended by such clever men, and on such instruments appointed for the purpose that they almost ever kept pace with the army. They were planted against the walls of a town with such speed, the space between each shot was so little, and the balls flew so quick, and were impelled with such force, that as much execution was done in a few hours, as formerly, in Italy, in the like number of days. These, rather diabolical than human instruments, were used not only in sieges, but also in the field, and were mixed with others of a smaller size. Such artillery rendered Charles's army very formidable to all Italy.!
