French invasion of Italy, 1494

Another major development landmark in European political history coincided with a major landmark in the development of gunpowder weapons: the invasion of Italy in 1494 by the next French king, Charles VIII.  The secret of his success was the use of a new generation of artillery cast in bronze.  As the great Italian historian of the period, Francesco Guicciardini observed, the new French cannons were ‘lighter and all cast in bronze ... were drawn by horses with such dexterity that they could keep up with the marching speed of the army ... shot at very short intervals ... and could be used as usefully in the field as in battering down walls.’* In the space of little over a year, eight of the chief strongholds of northern Italy, including several previously thought impregnable, had been destroyed, and with them the heyday of the independent Italian city states and the culture of the High Italian Renaissance came to an end.

* Cipolla, Guns, Ships and Sails, p. 28; Guicciardini, Storia, vol. i. ch. 2; more detailed passage in Iovius, Historiae, vol. 1, pp. 24-5.