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Battle of Marignano | |||||||||
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Part of the War of the League of Cambrai | |||||||||
![]() Francis I Orders His Troops to Stop Pursuing the Swiss, a Romantic 19th century work by Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard (Galerie des Batailles, Palace of Versailles) | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Francis I Gian Giacomo Trivulzio Bartolomeo d'Alviano Louis de la Trémoille Charles III, Duke of Bourbon |
Marx Röist Maximilian Sforza[1] Cardinal Mattheus Schiner | ||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
22,200 men
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Casualties and losses | |||||||||
5,000 dead[4] Unknown wounded |
10,000 dead[5] Unknown wounded |
The Battle of Marignano was the last major engagement of the War of the League of Cambrai and took place on 13–14 September 1515, near the town now called Melegnano, 16 km southeast of Milan. It pitted the French army, composed of the best heavy cavalry and artillery in the world, led by Francis I, newly crowned King of France, against the Old Swiss Confederacy, whose mercenaries until that point were regarded as the best medieval infantry force in Europe. With the French were German landsknechts, bitter rivals of the Swiss for fame and renown in war, and their late arriving Venetian allies.