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Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdova | |
|---|---|
 Bronze copy by Bellver of the bust of the Great Captain commissioned by his wife from Diego de Siloé.[1] Located in the Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs, Córdoba. | |
| Born | September 1, 1453 |
| Died | December 2, 1515 (aged 62) |
| Spouse(s) | Isabel de Montemayor María Manrique de Lara |
| Children | Beatriz and Elvira Fernández de Córdoba y Figueroa |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | Crown of Castile and Crown of Aragon |
Rank | Captain General |
| Nickname | The Great Captain (El Gran Capitán) |
| Unit | Spanish Tercios |
| Commands | Captain General of the Royal Armies of Castile and Aragon Captain General of the expeditionary company to Naples (1494) Lieutenant General of Apulia and Calabria (1501) |
Conflicts | |
| Awards | Duchy of Santangelo Duchy of Terranova Duchy of Andria Duchy of Montalto Duchy of Sessa Golden Rose |
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba y Enríquez de Aguilar (Montilla, September 1, 1453 – Granada, December 2, 1515) was a Castilian nobleman and military commander, Duke of Santangelo, Terranova, Andria, Montalto and Sessa, called the Great Captain (Gran Capitán) for his excellence in war. In his honor, the tercio of the Spanish Legion quartered in Melilla bears his name.[2] He was also a knight and Commander of the Order of Santiago.
Background
A Castilian captain born in the Castle of Montilla, which at the time belonged to the Lordship of Aguilar, in the service of the Catholic Monarchs. A relative of Ferdinand the Catholic and a member of the Andalusian nobility (belonging to the House of Aguilar), he was the second son of the noble knight Pedro Fernández de Aguilar, 5th Lord of Aguilar de la Frontera and of Priego de Córdoba, who died very young, and of Elvira de Herrera y Enríquez, cousin of Juana Enríquez, Queen consort of Aragon, since she was the daughter of Pedro Núñez de Herrera, Lord of Pedraza, and of Blanca Enríquez de Mendoza, who was the daughter of Admiral Alfonso Enríquez (son of Fadrique Alfonso of Castile) and of Juana de Mendoza "la Ricahembra".
Gonzalo and his elder brother Alfonso Fernández de Córdoba were raised in Córdoba in the care of the prudent and discreet knight Pedro de Cárcamo. As a child he entered the service of Prince Alfonso, brother of the later Queen Isabella I of Castile, as a page, and upon the latter's death he passed into the retinue of Princess Isabella. Their sister, known by the name of Leonor de Arellano y Fernández de Córdoba, would marry Martín Fernández de Córdoba, Alcaide de los Donceles.
Military career
Training
Loyal to the Isabelline cause, he began the military career befitting a younger son of the nobility in the War of the Castilian Succession. At the Battle of Albuera, in 1479, against the Portuguese, his name already appears distinguished among the most notable warriors in the ranks of the Master of the Order of Santiago, Alonso de Cárdenas.[3] At this time he was appointed Voz y Voto Mayor of the Cabildo of Córdoba and married his cousin Isabel de Montemayor, who would die soon after while giving birth for the first time.[4]
As a wedding gift his brother had given him the mayoralty of Santaella. There he was taken prisoner by his cousin and enemy Diego Fernández de Córdoba y Montemayor, Count of Cabra, who kept him locked up in the Castle of Cabra until his release in 1476, when he was freed through the intercession of the Catholic Monarchs.[5]
But it was in the long Granada War that he stood out as a soldier at the siege of Tájara (a stronghold also known as the castle of Tajarja or tower of Tájara, located in the present-day area of Las Torres in Huétor-Tájar, Granada),[6] where he showed gifts of command as well as practical ingenuity by devising a siege machine made from the doors of houses to protect the advance of the troops.[5] But the actions that most distinguished him were the conquests of Íllora; of Montefrío, where he commanded the assault force and was the first to climb the wall in sight of the enemy;[3] and of Loja, where he took prisoner the Nasrid Monarch Boabdil, who surrendered after asking for mercy for the vanquished and the inhabitants. Accompanied by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, whom he would come to regard as his friend, he presented himself before King Ferdinand and threw himself at his feet.[5] In 1486 he was appointed Alcaide of Íllora with the mission of fomenting the dissensions between Boabdil, who was supported by the Abencerrajes, and El Zagal.
During these years he married for the second time, in the Palace of Portocarrero (Córdoba), María Manrique de Lara y Espinosa, Lady of Queen Isabella, of the lineage of the Dukes of Nájera, with whom he had two daughters:[5] Beatriz and Elvira Fernández de Córdoba, the latter being his heir.[7]
His career was nearly cut short in a night skirmish before Granada that took place before the end of the war; for, having fallen from his horse in the midst of the fray, he would have perished were it not for a loyal servant of the family who, putting him on his own horse, gave his life for that of his lord.[8]
A spy and negotiator, he took charge of the final negotiations with the Nasrid Monarch Boabdil for the surrender of the city at the beginning of 1492. In reward for his outstanding services, he received an encomienda of the Order of Santiago, the lordship of Órgiva, Province of Granada, and certain revenues from Granadan silk production, which contributed to increasing his fortune.
First expedition of the Great Captain to Italy
Background
In 1494 King Ferdinand I of Naples, son of Alfonso V of Aragon, died, and his son Alfonso II of Naples was proclaimed King.
Charles VIII of France decided that, in order to reconquer the Holy Places (the main objective of many contemporary kings), he had to conquer the territories of Italy. To cover his back, he signed a secret treaty with King Ferdinand which, in its published clauses, was an alliance against the Turks, but in secret was an alliance of friendship. That is, Spain would not stand in the way of France in its wars except against the Pope, and France would do the same. But when Ferdinand discovered the intentions of Charles VIII, he acted skillfully, considering Naples a territory enfeoffed to the Pope, and therefore within his concern. Ferdinand II of Aragon began a diplomatic offensive to help his relative, obtaining the approval of the Pope of Rome and of Florence and the neutrality of Venice.
Preparations
In 1495 the ports of the Cantabrian coast and of Galicia were summoned to provide ships, which were to gather at Cartagena and Alicante and place themselves under the orders of Galceran de Requesens i Joan de Soler, Count of Trivento and general of the galleys of Sicily.
Sixty ships and twenty smaller vessels were assembled, and 6,000 foot soldiers and 700 horsemen embarked. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba took command of the expedition. They put to sea in bad weather, and the convoy split in two. The vanguard group, that of Requesens, reached Sicily, where it waited at Messina for the arrival of the transports with the troops, which arrived on May 24.
The campaign
The fleet crossed to Calabria, occupying Reggio Calabria and the surrounding towns. The King of Naples, Alfonso, was defeated at Seminara. While Fernández de Córdoba maneuvered with great skill and achieved several successes, among them the long march to Atella that allowed him to arrive in time to fight, Requesens appeared with his galleys before the City of Naples. The Duke of Montpensier, lieutenant of Charles VIII, decided to leave the city walls to prevent the landing, and the people of Naples, seeing the French troops leave, rose up, so that the few French who remained had to take refuge in the castles of Nuovo and dell'Ovo. A French fleet appeared with 2,000 reinforcements, but decided not to confront Requesens and landed its men at Livorno. Montpensier was forced to withdraw toward Salerno, and Naples fell into the hands of the Spanish.
King Ferrante II of Naples died (1496) and was succeeded by his uncle Don Fadrique.
Gaeta and Taranto remained in French hands. Requesens organized two squadrons, one with four carracks and five naos that blockaded Gaeta, and another with four naos, a caravel and two galleys to guard the coast and intercept relief for the French. The latter captured a Genoese ship with 300 soldiers and a cargo of flour. The Venetians cooperated by watching the ports of Genoa and Provence.
Plague broke out in the French ranks, and Montpensier died of it along with many of his soldiers. Gaeta was forced to capitulate, the French being allowed to take all their belongings. They embarked for France, but a furious storm sank their ships.
Once the Kingdom of Naples had been secured for Don Fadrique, he assembled his troops with the intention of disbanding them, but the Pope asked him for help. A certain Menaldo Guerra, a Biscayan corsair, had seized Ostia and its castle under the French flag, closing the Tiber and laying Rome under contribution. For five days the Spanish batteries pounded the fortifications until they opened breaches in the walls. Ostia was taken by assault and Guerra and his henchmen surrendered as prisoners without offering resistance.[9] A few days later the Great Captain was acclaimed in Rome.
On receiving the Spanish general, Alexander VI dared to accuse the Catholic Monarchs of being ill-disposed toward him; but Gonzalo replied by listing the great services that the monarchs had rendered to the cause of the Church, branded the Pontiff ungrateful, and advised him in a brusque tone to reform his life and habits, since those he led caused great scandal in Christendom.[9] Despite this reprimand, Alexander VI granted Fernández de Córdoba the Golden Rose and the Blessed Sword.
After three years of campaigning, in 1498 the Spanish troops returned to Spain, leaving the Kingdom of Naples in the hands of Don Fadrique. In this campaign Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba earned his nickname of the Great Captain and the title of Duke of Santangelo.
Second expedition to Italy
Agreement with France
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Louis XII of France signed in 1500 a confidential treaty (the Treaty of Chambord-Granada) dividing the Kingdom of Naples between them, assigning to the Frenchman the provinces of Terra di Lavoro and the Abruzzi, with the titles of King of Naples and of Jerusalem, and to the Aragonese the rest, with the title of Duke of Apulia and Calabria.
The confidential agreement coincided with a request for help from Venice, whose stronghold of Modon, in the Peloponnese (Greece), was being attacked by the Turks. On the Spanish side, a fleet of 60 sail was prepared in Málaga, carrying 8,000 infantry and cavalry, commanded by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba as Captain General of sea and land.
The ships reached Messina after a painful crossing, for water ran short, and some men and many horses died. At Messina some 2,000 Spanish soldiers who had remained in Italy from the previous expedition joined the expedition, along with several Biscayan ships, among which, presumably, was that of Pedro Navarro.
On September 27 they put to sea, arriving on October 2 in time to relieve Candia. The Venetian fleet and two French carracks with 800 men joined the expedition. They agreed to take Cephalonia, beginning the siege of the island on November 8 and ending it on December 24 with the conquest of the fortress of San Giorgio. They returned to Sicily amid great hardships and some mutinies due to shortages.
In 1501 the Pope made public the secret agreement between France and Spain, and the French occupied their share with 20,000 men, meeting resistance only at Capua. The King of Spain ordered the Great Captain to occupy his share, but at Taranto he met resistance to his advance. The stronghold was well fortified and defended, so a land siege and a naval blockade were established, Juan de Lezcano capturing a ship carrying artillery and munitions for the stronghold.
Since it was impossible to do so by sea because of the strong defenses, 20 caravels were moved overland into the inner bay of Taranto, and the stronghold was attacked where it had no defenses. Thus, in 1502, Taranto surrendered to the Great Captain, and with this the Spanish and the French had each occupied their share of the Kingdom of Naples.
The agreement breaks down
From the beginning there was friction between the Spanish and the French over the division of Naples, which led to the reopening of hostilities. French numerical superiority forced Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba to use his genius as a strategist, concentrating on the defense of strongholds while awaiting reinforcements.
At the end of 1502 the Spanish entrenched themselves in Barletta, on the Adriatic coast. The Great Captain refused pitched battle, despite the discontent of his soldiers, but organized an active defense (harassing the enemy and attacking its lines of communication). During the French siege of Barletta the chivalric tournament known as the Challenge of Barletta took place.
When reinforcements arrived and he saw that the French had made the mistake of dispersing, he gave the order to abandon Barletta and went on the offensive, taking the town of Ruvo di Puglia and winning victory at the Battle of Cerignola, in which he crushed the troops of the French Generalissimo, Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, and within a few minutes 3,000 Swiss and French corpses lay on the battlefield.[10]
This victory coincided with that of the Spanish army under the command of Fernando de Andrade against the French troops of Bérault Stuart d'Aubigny at the Battle of Seminara.
The war was not yet over, and shortly afterward Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba took the fortresses of Castel Nuovo and Castel dell'Ovo.[11] The rest of the French troops marched to Gaeta to await the dispatch of reinforcements. Louis XII sent another great army under the command of Marshal Louis II de la Trémoille (30,000 soldiers, including 10,000 horsemen and numerous artillery).[10]
The Great Captain was unable to take Gaeta and set up a defensive line on the Garigliano River, relying on the castles of Montecassino and Roccasecca, to block the French path toward the Neapolitan capital. La Trémoille fell ill and was replaced by Francesco II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, who would later be replaced by Ludovico II, Marquis of Saluzzo.[10]
On the night of December 27, 1503,[10] the Spanish army crossed the Garigliano on a pontoon bridge and the following day surprised the French army, which fled in disarray.
The French left several thousand men on the battlefield, estimated at three or four thousand, with all their baggage, their banners and their artillery. Spanish casualties are not known but must also have been high.[12] The following day the Great Captain was already prepared to assault the heights of Monte Orlando, which dominated the stronghold of Gaeta, but before the artillery fired, a messenger from the Marquis of Saluzzo appeared proposing capitulation.
This capitulation was surprising because the French army still had numerous troops, the stronghold was provided with artillery, it had provisions for ten days, and the French fleet was anchored in the bay to supply them and maintain communications with the outside.[13] However, the French troops were completely demoralized. After the Battle of the Garigliano and the taking of Gaeta, the French abandoned Naples.
Viceroy of Naples
Once the war was over, Fernández de Córdoba governed as Viceroy in Naples for four years, with all the authority of a sovereign. He was the instrument for sending to Spain as a prisoner in 1504 Cesare Borgia, son of the Spanish Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), to be held in custody at Chinchilla.
But when the latter escaped in 1506 to Navarre and went from having been Bishop of Pamplona in his childhood thanks to his father to now being Constable of Navarre by appointment of his brother-in-law, the King consort John III of Albret, husband of the titular Queen of Navarre Catherine I of Navarre, who were struggling to prevent the absorption of their small kingdom by a Navarrese-Castilian-Aragonese coalition, Cesare Borgia would lose his life at the Battle of Viana in March 1507. The Navarrese Beaumontese would see more than 80% of the territory of the kingdom incorporated into the dominions of Ferdinand II of Aragon and his new young wife Germaine of Foix in 1512, as they advocated, and in the interregnum of 1516–1520 into those of his grandson.
An important member of the Royal Council of John III of Albret, a colleague of Cesare Borgia, was precisely the father of the later famous Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier, sent by the Founder of the Order, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, to India and Japan to evangelize by virtue of the papal privileges granted to the Portuguese and implemented in the Chancery for Eastern Affairs in Lisbon of King John III of Portugal "the Pious".
Upon the death of Isabella the Catholic, King Ferdinand echoed certain rumors accusing Fernández de Córdoba of misappropriating war funds during the Italian conflict, which, together with fears that he might make himself independent thanks to the great fame and notoriety he had acquired, ended in his removal from command; and although it has not been proven that the King asked him to account for them, Gonzalo, to show that what was said about him was not true, presented accounts (preserved in the General Archive of Simancas) in such detail that they have remained a proverb in popular speech. It is true, on the other hand, that the King did not fulfill the offers he had made to him, despite Gonzalo's wish to return to Italy. Gonzalo then retired to Loja, but, feeling ill, he returned to Granada at the beginning of August 1515, where he died on December 2.[14]
His remains were buried in 1552 in a pantheon in the church of San Jerónimo of Granada, where his wife and several other relatives would also come to rest, along with more than 700 war trophies. In 1810 the French troops of General Horace Sebastiani desecrated his tomb, mutilating his remains and burning the 700 banners. Sebastiani, in his flight from Spain in 1812, took away his skull and a probable copy of his ceremonial sword, objects whose whereabouts remain unknown to this day.[15]
The Great Captain's Art of War
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The Great Captain was an exceptionally gifted military genius who for the first time handled infantry, cavalry and artillery in combination while taking advantage of naval support. He knew how to move his troops skillfully and draw the enemy onto the ground he had chosen as most favorable. He revolutionized military technique by reorganizing the infantry into coronelías (the embryo of the future tercios). Idolized by his soldiers and admired by all, he found in his popularity his greatest enemy.
The combination of combat operations allowed Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, in the course of the Italian Wars, to introduce several successive reforms in the Spanish army that culminated in the Tercio. The first reorganization came in 1503. Gonzalo created the division with two coronelías of 6,000 infantrymen each, 800 men-at-arms, 800 light horse and 22 cannons. The general had in his hands all the means to carry combat through to a decision. Gonzalo de Córdoba gave predominance to the infantry, which is capable of maneuvering on every kind of terrain. He doubled the proportion of arquebusiers, one for every five infantrymen, and armed two out of every five infantrymen with short swords and throwing spears, tasked with slipping between the long pikes of the battalions of Swiss pikemen and Landsknechts and wounding the adversary in the belly.
He gave the cavalry a more important role in confronting an already "broken" enemy (pursuit or harassment) than in "breaking" it, taking away from it the role of Queen of battles that it had held until then.[16] He replaced medieval shock warfare with the tactic of defense-attack, giving preference to the infantry over all other arms.
He also put into practice a staggering in depth, in three successive lines, in order to have a reserve and an additional possibility of maneuver. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba eased the transition from the marching column to the order of battle by splitting the battalions into companies, each of which placed itself level with and to the right of the one preceding it, so that the combat formation was easily achieved. He trained his men through rigorous discipline and shaped their morale by awakening in them pride in their corps, personal dignity, a sense of national honor and religious zeal. He made of the Spanish infantry that formidable army of which the French said, after having fought against it, that "they had not fought with men but with devils".
Accounts of the Great Captain
Although it may be no more than a legend, it is said that King Ferdinand the Catholic asked Don Gonzalo to account for how he had spent the money of his kingdom. This would have been seen by Gonzalo as an insult. There are several versions of the reply; the most common would say:
For picks, shovels and hoes, one hundred million ducats; for alms so that friars and nuns would pray for the Spaniards, one hundred and fifty thousand ducats; for perfumed gloves so that the soldiers would not smell the stench of battle, two hundred million ducats; for replacing the bells damaged by the continuous ringing for victory, one hundred and seventy thousand ducats; and, finally, for the patience of having to stoop to these trifles of the king to whom I have given a kingdom, one hundred million ducats.
Whether or not the anecdote is true, the expression las cuentas del Gran Capitán ("the accounts of the Great Captain") has remained a set phrase for a poorly itemized account in which the items that make it up seem exaggerated, or for an explanation demanded for something to which one has no right.[17][18]
Fiction
| Year | Series | Actor |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Isabel | Sergio Peris |
| 2011 | Borgia | Scott Cleverdon |
References
- ↑ La Ilustración Española y Americana, Madrid, Year XIX, No. XL (October 30, 1875), cover and p. 267
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Yus Cabrera & Suárez Fernández 2007, p. 211.
- ↑ Martínez Láinez 1974, p. 38.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Martínez Láinez 1974, p. 39.
- ↑ Guarnido, Victoriano (1972): Repartimiento de Huétor-Tajar y su evolución posterior, in Cuadernos geográficos de la Universidad de Granada, No. 2. ISSN 0210-5462, 53-62. and Jiménez, Miguel (1995): El Poblamiento en la Tierra de Loja a Fines de la Edad Media, in Arqueología y territorio medieval, No. 2 pp. 63-82.
- ↑ "La descendencia del Gran Capitán – El Gran Capitán" (in español). Retrieved April 24, 2020.
- ↑ Yus Cabrera & Suárez Fernández 2007, p. 212.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Yus Cabrera & Suárez Fernández 2007, p. 221.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Martínez Láinez 1974, p. 44.
- ↑ Yus Cabrera & Suárez Fernández 2007, p. 260.
- ↑ Yus Cabrera & Suárez Fernández 2007, p. 267.
- ↑ Yus Cabrera & Suárez Fernández 2007, p. 268.
- ↑ Ruiz-Domènec 2002, pp. 492, 500.
- ↑ https://www.elindependientedegranada.es/cultura/localizamos-dos-espadas-mas-queridas-gran-capitan-desaparecidas-panteon-san-jeronimo-hace
- ↑ Guerrero, Juan Antonio. Revista Muy Historia. Guerreros de todos los tiempos (2012) p.45
- ↑ Arce Jiménez & Belmonte Sánchez 2000.
- ↑ Martínez Láinez 1974.
Works cited
- Arce Jiménez, Rafael; Belmonte Sánchez, LourdesLuis (2000). El Gran Capitán: repertorio bibliográfico (in español). Montilla: Ayuntamiento de Montilla. ISBN 84-89619-45-X.
- Martínez Láinez, Fernando (1974). "Grandes estrategas de la historia". Historia y Vida, Editorial Mundo Revistas, S.L. (in español) (Extra). Barcelona. ISSN 1139-3599.
- Ruiz-Domènec, José Enrique (2002). El Gran Capitán: Retrato de una época (in español). Barcelona: Ediciones Península. ISBN 84-8307-460-5.
- Yus Cabrera, Antonio; Suárez Fernández, Luis (2007). Los reyes católicos (in español). Madrid: Madrid Club Internacional del Libro, D.L., Serie Historia de España , 8. ISBN 978-84-407-1810-1.
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Further reading
- De Herrera, F. (1669). Historia de las proezas y hazañas del Gran Capitán Don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (in español). Biblioteca digital de Andalucía.
- Duponcet, J. N. (1728). Historia de Don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdova, renombrado el Gran Capitán (in español). Biblioteca digital de Andalucía. Jaén: Impr. Thomas Copado.
- Martínez Láinez, F.; Sánchez de Toca, J. Mª (2008). El Gran Capitán: Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (in español). Edaf.
- Nieto Cumplido, Manuel (2015). Infancia y juventud del Gran Capitán (1453-1481) (in español). Diputación de Córdoba.
- Quintana, J. M. (2010). Vida de Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, llamado el Gran Capitán (in español). Biblioteca Digital Moratín.
- López de Ayala, I. (1793). Vida de Gonzalo Fernández de Aguilar y Córdoba: llamado el Gran Capitán (in español). Biblioteca digital de Andalucía. Madrid: Oficina de Gerónimo y Herederos de Ibarra.
- Vaca de Osma, José Antonio (1998). El Gran Capitán (in español). Madrid: Espasa. ISBN 84-239-9920-3.
On military campaigns
- Fernández Duro, Cesáreo (1972). Armada Española, desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y Aragón (in español). Madrid: Museo Naval.
- Martín Gómez, Antonio L. (2000). El Gran Capitán. Las Campañas del Duque de Terranova y Santángelo (in español). ISBN 84-930713-1-5.
Novel
- Granados, Juan. 2006 (ed.). El Gran Capitán. Narrativa Histórica (in español). Barcelona: Edhasa. ISBN 84-350-6126-4.
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External links
- Portrait of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba with an epitome of his life included in the book Retratos de Españoles ilustres, published in 1791.
- El Gran Capitán, in Vidas de los españoles célebres (1807 and 1830), by Manuel José Quintana.
- Crónicas del Gran Capitán (1908), by Antonio Rodríguez Villa.
