Abstract
Reviewed by: Catherine Fletcher, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Though casualty numbers are notoriously hard to calculate, it is likely that over one hundred thousand people were killed in the Italian Wars in the period 1494 to 1559. These conflicts are often perceived as a turning point in Italian history, thanks in part to the work of Francesco Guicciardini, whose History of Italy established that narrative even as the wars continued. They co-existed with some of the best-known artistic productions of the later Renaissance – literary, visual and architectural – but have had far less scholarly attention than the work of the Old Masters. Stephen Bowd’s new book brings together a rich array of evidence to explore not just the phenomenon of mass murder that gives the work its title, but many wider issues in the interaction between civilians and soldiers. The ‘dizzying complexity’ of the wars, involving the numerous Italian states in shifting alliances with France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, is a challenge to even experienced researchers. Different parts of Italy experienced the wars differently, with the Lombardy region around Milan coming off worst. The events are very helpfully summarized here in an account that complements the 2012 treatment by Mallett and Shaw, providing invaluable references to both printed and archive sources. Following this introductory material, Part II of the book deals with the experiences of civilians and soldiers, Part III with theoretical approaches and Part IV with representations of massacres.
Military violence, Bowd argues in Chapter 2, could be ‘purposive, planned, applied with calculation and imbued with a sense of honour’. Sacks and massacres were not merely a matter of releasing pent-up aggression but could be used strategically to ‘serve as a warning and encourage other towns to surrender’. The prospect of plunder was a reason to allow sacks, especially in light of the structural problems in ensuring troops were paid on time. The accounts of atrocities make for horrific reading: civilians were cut open in case they had swallowed the gold the soldiers sought; there were multiple instances of rape and mutilation; though there was also violent resistance. The role of women in warfare, particularly during sieges, is accorded detailed discussion.
On a theoretical level, sixteenth-century justifications for war focused principally on the ‘good and just intentions’ of those waging it, not the specifics of their tactics. As Bowd observes, Erasmus of Rotterdam had one character in his colloquy Military Affairs ask: ‘Butchers are paid to slaughter beef. Why is our trade denounced when we’re hired to slaughter men?’ Yet there was over the period of the wars a trend towards greater regulation of the conduct of armies, via the issue of military ordinances and punishments for misconduct. The rules of war were complicated by the absence of any real concept of civilians in the period: terms such as ‘imbellis’ and ‘paganus’ implied non-soldiers but also had pejorative connotations. In any case, the existence of civilian militias and part-time soldiers who joined up temporarily for a season or two blurred the divide. Dominican theologian Francisco de Vitoria was a critic of ‘indiscriminate bombardment in order to defeat a small number of enemy combatants’. On the other hand, in his Florentine Histories Niccolò Machiavelli argued that in fact ‘a harsher necessity of war was needed to restore Italy and strengthen states like Florence’. Chapter 5, which considers Machiavelli’s writings on war and society, provides important new context to the study of his work.
In the visual arts, an Italian tendency towards classicizing representations meant it was often left to artists from northern Europe to show the reality of contemporary war, illustrated graphically here by Urs Graf’s 1521 engraving of a Battlefield. It was rare for mass murder to be represented visually; nor do the textual sources tend to name victims, except for high-profile individuals. There were, however, some consistent motifs in literary representations, among them the discourse of martyrdom and evocations of the massacre of the innocents. Poets lamented Italian weakness, but at the same time might exalt the star commanders.
This is, in short, a work that offers new perspectives via the study of massacres on all manner of Renaissance sources and texts. Researchers on multiple themes will find inspiration here, whether in relation to the military revolution and the current scholarly interest in martial cultures, or when reconsidering the canonical literary works of Machiavelli and Guicciardini. There is food for thought here too on issues of the nation, religion and ethnicity in early modern European warfare. It is testimony to the strength of this book that it prompts as many new questions about these wars as it answers: it should be essential reading for scholars of early modern Europe.