Talk:Condottiero

message: __TOC__
The French sentence under Hawkswood - something about a funeral? - doesn't seem to fit.
--Quadalpha 23:24, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: These cities, such as Venice, Florence, and Genoa had woefully small armies and were increasingly becoming targets of attack by foreign powers as well as envious neighbors.
I don't think that's really true, especially of Venice. In times of emergency, all males between 17 and 60 years were registered and their weapons were surveyed. The register of 1338 estimated that 30,000 Venetian men were capable of bearing arms; many of them were skilled crossbowmen. In their 1426 alliance with Florence, Venice agreed to supply 8,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry -- very few of whom were mercenaries. I think later events and trends are being pushed to a too-early period. ---Michael K. Smith 21:21, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

message: Machiavelli wrote a lot of nonsense about the "Condottieri". For example he wrote that the battles of the "Condottieri" were rather "frivolous". This is not true. The modern historiography has demonstrated how bloody were the battles of the 15th Century in Italy. Gian Giacomo Trivulzio was considered a traitor by the Milanese who contempted him. Andrea Doria fought alongside "everybody" but his goal was a strong Republic of Genoa. A comparison between Trivulzio and Doria is misleading. The last famous battle of the "Condottieri" was Governolo (1526) when Giovanni delle Bande Nere fought against the Germans to shield Rome.
:Mm... if I thought I was better informed and smarter than Machiavelli, I'd stay anonymous too! --Wetman 09:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Whereas if I were naive enough to take a primary source at face value and ignore advances in historical scholarship I would be too ashamed to give my name. Perhaps you should stop editing this article and leave it to somebody competent.  -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.5.142.234 (talk) 12:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Condottieri, Machiavelli, and comments. 

message: :: Whereas if I were naive enough to take a primary source at face value and ignore advances in historical scholarship I would be too ashamed to give my name. Perhaps you should stop editing this article and leave it to somebody competent.  -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.5.142.234 (talk) 12:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: 2021

message: I knew that the article about the Condottieri had to cointain the tall story about the "bloodless" battles. It is always the same. Read in internet "Perdite segnalate dalle fonti coeve relative ad alcune battaglie e scontri" and you will see how bloody the battles were. Machiavelli`s books are full of wrong statements. The Condottiere Carmagnola was beheaded by Venice when the Venetians started to believe he didn`t fight enough.
It seems that Machievelli's account is widely accepted.  Original accounts of casualties from contemporary sources about particular battles are scarce and usually relate to great battles, sometimes against foriegners, which may have been fought in different ways than usual and been the exception rather than the rule.  In any case, it seems that departing from the accepted view would amount to original research.Revcasy (talk) 17:38, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: 2010

message: Why is it the condotta means contract here, when all my sources tell me condotta means 'conduct' and contract means 'contratto'? 
Furthermore, barbuta and barbute are names of an early Italian helmet, also known as  a Italian Sallet in Germany and a French sallet in France. Rev. James Triggs 20:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: About condotta I agree: condottiero comes from the verb "condurre", meaning "to lead". So "condottiero" literaly means "leader". There is no idea of contract. In fact, in Italian condottieri are also the generals of the regular army. Lele giannoni (talk) 18:39, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling Errors 

message: Now as many the condottieri comprised as many Italian companies as foreign, creating soon a host of national companies
I can't make heads or tails of that. I'd fix it, but I don't even know what it's supposed to mean. Kafziel Talk 15:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? 

message: it should mean leader of an army or armed bands and is used only in a historical way, it is not used to indicate a contemporary leaders. this should be checked Melaen (talk) 14:20, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  In contemporary Italian, ''condottiero'' DOESNT mean ''contractor'' 

message: The Ventura Company increased in number until becoming the fearsome “Great Company” of some 3,000 barbute (each barbuta comprised a knight and a sergeant). To this, the Italian nobleman Lodrisio Visconti countered with the “Company of St. George”—featuring cavalrymen as the key fighting men, and not infantrymen.
This seems self-contradictory, and checking the wikipedia entry for Great Company I see that it says that they were mainly cavalry, and the first sentence, describing the make-up of the company, seems to agree with this.  However, the second sentence above seems to imply that they were not.  Anyone care to clarify?
Revcasy (talk) 15:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Great Company and Cavalry 

message: The introduction to the article states that, in English, the term "Condottieri" has come to signify any mercenary, or mercenary captain, not just mercanaries who fought on the Italian Penninsula, or in the service of an Italian city-state.  In my experience this is true, and I have seen the term applied to mercenaries all over Europe during the Middle Ages.  However the article only covers the history of condottieri in its strictest, original sense.  This should either be clarified in the intro or the article should be expanded to include mercanaries outside of Italy. Revcasy (talk) 14:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of Article 

message: Can someone check the information about battle of Calliano? Internet sources including Italian wiki (Battaglia_di_Calliano) tell completely different story - strategic victory of German forces, who were largely outnumbered by Italians. Italians even lost general in that battle, and the battle is considered proof of German military dominance by Italian wiki article! Arxi (talk) 20:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Battle of Calliano - objectivity needed 

message: The article used to say: "in contemporary Italian, condottiero means "contractor", and is synonymous with the modern English title Mercenary Captain".
This is somewhat incorrect. In contemporary Italian, "condottiero" acquired the broader meaning of "military leader" (e.g., not restricted to mercenaries). This is especially used for great military leaders of the past. For example, if you look up "alessandro magno condottiero" on Google, you will find lots of references to Alexander the Great as a "condottiero". The same goes for Julius Caesar or Napoleon.
Many modern Italian speakers do not even know the original meaning of "condottiero", they just assume it means "leader" or "dux" (the verb condurre primary meaning is "to lead"; in the past it used to mean "to hire", "to sign a contract with", but today this meaning is lost).
The usual translation for "contractor" in contemporary Italian is mercenario; in recent years (e.g., after the War on Terror and Blackwater), the English word contractor is widely used in Italian, too.
I corrected the article to reflect this. --Lupo1982 (talk) 11:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: actually, "condottiero" literally means "leader" ("condurre" = "to lead"; "condottiero"="man who lead"="leader"). a condottiero led many mercenari (contractors, or mercenaries) as a mercenary officer. in fact, the condottieri are also called "capitani di ventura", which means "mercenary captain", because a mercenary company was called "compagnia di ventura" LAUD (talk) 01:34, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning in contemporary Italian 

message: This term is a bit confusing to me - is there a source for it?   I am assuming the term "modern" is being used in the modern period sense, versus the industrial or right now sense, but I don't know. What period would this term refer to?  Would one refer to a mercenary captain now? And isn't it a term rather than a title? I know I'm being picky, but I am big on trying to make Wikipedia more easily comprehensible to the average reader.  Thank you.  173.73.113.18 (talk) 16:21, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern Mercenary Captains 

message: It surprises me that an article on something as famous as the condottieri is so poorly cited. In the "Mercenary Captains" section of the article, which makes up the bulk, I count only two citations, although there are numerous references to other articles. The final subsection ("Decline") however, not only is completely lacking in citations but also does not make any reference to any other article. This (in addition to concerns brought up elsewhere in Talk about the reliability of Machiavelli as a source of information on the condottieri) leads me to question many of the statements in this section. For example this conclusion section states: "They were always ready to change sides at the prospect of higher pay – the enemy of today might be the comrade-in-arms of tomorrow." Which seems in conflict with a statement in the previous section: "If the condotta expired definitively, the condottiere could not declare war against the contracting city-state for two years. [...] professional reputation (business credibility) was everything to the condottieri; a deceived employer was a reputation ruined."
-A  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.154.203.137 (talk) 16:44, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concern over lack of citations