Battle of Cerignola | |||||||
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Part of the Third Italian War | |||||||
![]() Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba finds the corpse of Louis d'Armagnac. Federico de Madrazo, 1835. Museo del Prado. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
~6,300[1]
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~9,000[1]
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
500 total casualties | 4,000 killed |
The Battle of Cerignola was fought on 28 April 1503 between Spanish and French armies outside the town of Cerignola, Apulia, Kingdom of Naples (now in modern-day Italy), approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Bari.[2] The Spanish force under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (El Gran Capitán) comprising 6,300 men, including 2,000 Landsknecht pikemen, 1,000 arquebusiers and 20 cannons, defeated the French force of 9,000 men, mainly gendarme heavy cavalry and Swiss mercenary pikemen, with about 40 cannons, led by Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, who was killed during the battle.
Cerignola was one of the first European battles won by gunpowder weapons, as the attacks by the French cavalry and Swiss pikemen were shattered by the fire of Spanish arquebusiers behind a defensive ditch. Military historian Bernard Montgomery described as the turning point of infantry finally taking the place of cavalry on battlefields: "Gonzalo de Córdoba had raised the infantry soldier armed with a handgun to the status of the most important fighting man on the battlefield - a status he was to retain for over 400 years".[3]