Gonsalvo's first and only disastrous battle at Seminara, in the very toe of the Calabrian peninsula, seems to have set him searching for new tactics. His 'genitors' were completely driven off by the charge of the French gendarmes, and the Swiss pikemen ran over his miscellaneous infantry in one rush. Henceforth he not only set himself for a time to avoiding battles, and adopting guerillero methods of surprising detachments and cutting off convoys, but took to providing himself with pikemen to cover his crossbowmen and arquebusiers. Gonsalvo also adopted the system of 'digging himself in' whenever possible, and receiving charges rather than delivering them. The Spanish cavalry was never the decisive factor in any of the Italian campaigns. The 'genitors' were always useful, and superior to any other light horse that the enemy put into the field, particularly to the 'stradiots' whom the Venetians also, and the French occasionally, employed.