page_title: Battle of Pavia
section_title: Art
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Pavia / Art
caption_attribution_description: English: In 1521, King Francis I of France declared war against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and, in 1525, France was defeated at the battle of Pavia, in northern Italy. In this engraved relief, the artist has depicted the events in a style and technique reminiscent of ancient art, thereby lending the event a timeless, mythic status. An inscription indicates that it was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici (1511-35) in Rome. The engraving expressed his support of Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire.
context_page_description: The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–1526 between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg empire of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as well as ruler of Spain, Austria, the Low Countries, and the Two Sicilies.
  The French army was led by King Francis I of France, who laid siege to the city of Pavia with 26,200 troops since the month of October. The French infantry consisted of 6,000 French soldiers and 17,000 foreigners: 8,000 Swiss mercenaries and 9,000 German-Italian black bands. The French cavalry consisted of 2,000 gendarmes and 1,200 lances fournies. Charles V, intending to break the siege, sent a relief force of 22,300 troops under the command of the Fleming Charles de Lannoy, Imperial captain and viceroy of Naples, and of the French renegade Charles III, Duke of Bourbon.
context_section_description: In Rome Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, who acted as Florentine emissary to Charles V in 1535, expressed support for the Emperor's victory by commissioning a rock crystal low relief in the manner of an Antique cameo, from the gem engraver Giovanni Bernardi. The classicizing treatment of the event lent it a timeless, mythic quality and reflected on the culture and taste of the patron.
  An oil-on-panel Battle of Pavia, painted by an anonymous Flemish artist, depicts the military engagement between the armies of Charles V and Francis I.  Because of its detail, the painting is considered an accurate visual record, probably based on eyewitness accounts. A suite of seven Brussels tapestries after cartoons by Bernard van Orley (left) celebrate the Imperial–Spanish victory.
  In 2016, the Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte published his short story Jodía Pavía (1526) ("Fucking Pavia (1526)"), an enhanced version of a column published in El País Semanal in October 2000.
  It is a fictional letter by king Francis to his lover, written from his Madrid prison.
  In it, Francis explains the battle and laments his situation. 
  Pérez-Reverte uses a satirical and colloquial language with frequent anachronism (as an example, there are allusions to Errol Flynn and films).
caption: The Battle of Pavia in an engraved rock crystal cameo relief commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, by Giovanni Bernardi, Rome, c 1531–35 (Walters Art Museum)
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