Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba , or simply Gonzalo de Córdoba , ( 1 September 1453 – 2 December 1515 ) , ( Italian : " Gonsalvo " or " Consalvo Ernandes di Cordova " ) , Duke of Terranova and Santangelo , Andria , Montalto and Sessa , was a Spanish general who fought in the Conquest of Granada and the Italian Wars . He reorganized the emerging Spanish army and its tactics , and came to be regarded as the " Father of Trench Warfare " . He was also called The Great Captain ( or " El Gran Capitán " in Spanish ) . Many influential men fought under him , including the father of Francisco Pizarro , and he was admired by the generation of conquistadors that followed . Early life . He was born at Montilla , in what is now the province of Córdoba , the son of Pedro Fernández de Córdoba , Count of Aguilar , and his wife Elvira de Herrera . He and his older brother , Alonso , became orphans when they were young . As the younger brother , he could not expect much in the way of inherited wealth or titles , and of his two options – the church or the military – he chose the latter . He was first attached to the household of Alfonso , Prince of Asturias , the half brother of King Henry IV of Castile . After Alfonso ' s death in 1468 , Córdoba devoted himself to Alfonso ' s sister , Isabella of Castile . When King Henry IV died in 1474 , Isabella proclaimed herself successor queen , disputing the right of Juana la Beltraneja , the king ' s 13 - year - old daughter and her niece , to ascend the throne . During the ensuing civil war between the followers of Isabella and Juana , there were also conflict with Portugal as King Afonso V of Portugal sided with his niece , Juana . Córdoba fought for Isabella under Alonso de Cárdenas , the grand master of the Order of Santiago . After the battle of Albuera , Cárdenas gave him special praise for his service . Marriage . Widowed at the age of 36 , he married Luisa Manrique de Lara , one of the ladies in waiting to Queen Isabella I of Castile , on 14 February 1489 . His only surviving daughter , Elvira Fernández de Córdoba y Manrique , would inherit all their titles upon his death in 1515 . To keep her father ' s name , she married within the close family , someone from a long time antagonistic branch but bearing her own family name , " Fernández de Córdoba " . Reconquista . During the ten - year long conquest of Granada under the Catholic monarchs , he completed his apprenticeship under his brother Alonso , the grand master of Santiago , Alonso de Cárdenas , and the counts of Aguilar and of Tendilla , of whom he spoke always as his masters . It was a war of sieges and the defence of castles or towns , of skirmishes , and of ambushes in the defile s of the mountains . The skills of a military engineer and a guerilla fighter were equally employed . Córdoba ' s most distinguished feat was the defence of the advanced post of Íllora . Able to speak Berber Arabic , the language of the emirate , he was chosen as one of the officers to arrange the capitulation , and , with the peace of 1492 , was rewarded with a grant of land in the town of Loja , near the city of Granada . Italian Campaigns . Gonzalo de Córdoba was an important military commander during the Italian Wars . He held command in Italy twice and won the title of the Great Captain . First Italian War . The Italian Wars began when Charles VIII of France marched to Italy with 25 , 000 men to make good an Angevin dynastic claim to the Neapolitan throne . When , in 1495 , the Catholic Monarchs decided to support King Ferrandino against Charles VIII of France , Gonzalo , then in his mid - forties , was chosen by the Queen ' s preferment to command the Spanish expedition of a little more than five thousand men . Ordered to pit his light infantry and cavalry against the heavy French forces , his first major battle in Italy , at Seminara in 1495 , ended in defeat at the hands of Bernard Stewart d ' Aubigny . The following year , he captured the rebel county of Alvito for the King and avoiding a major pitched battle , used his highly mobile forces to drive the French back to Calabria . During his first command he was mostly employed in Calabria in mountain warfare which bore much resemblance to his former experience in Granada . There was , however , a material difference in the enemy . The French forces under d ' Aubigny consisted largely of Swiss mercenary pikemen , and of their own men - at - arms , the heavily armoured professional cavalry , the " gendarmes " . With his veterans of the Granadine war , foot soldiers armed with sword and buckler , or arquebuses and crossbows , and light cavalry , who possessed endurance unparalleled among the soldiers of the time , he could carry on a guerrilla - like warfare which wore down his opponents , who suffered far more than the Spaniards from the heat . His experience at Seminara showed him that something more was wanted on the battlefield . The action was lost mainly because Ferdinand , disregarding the advice of Gonzalo , persisted in fighting a pitched battle with their more lightly equipped troops . In the open field , the loose formation and short swords of the Spanish infantry put them at a disadvantage against a charge of heavy cavalry and pikemen . Gonzalo therefore introduced a closer formation , and divided the Spanish infantry into the battle or main central body of pikemen , and the wings of shot , called a " colunella " – the original pike and shot formation . The French were expelled by 1498 without another battle and he returned home . Second Italian War . When the Great Captain reappeared in Italy he had first to perform the congenial task of driving the Turks out of Kefalonia , together with such condottieri as Pedro Navarro , helping the Venetian navy to reconquer the Castle of Saint Georges , 25 December 1500 , killing there over 300 people including the Albanian born leader of the garrison Gisdar , to aid in the campaign against Frederick IV of Naples . Córdoba was again on Italian soil in 1501 . Ferdinand II of Aragón had entered into his apparently iniquitous compact with Louis XII of France for the spoliation and division of the kingdom of Naples : The Secret Treaty of Granada . Córdoba was chosen to command the Spanish part of the coalition . After Ferrandino of Naples had abdicated , the French and Spaniards engaged in a guerilla war while they negotiated the partition of the kingdom . The Great Captain now found himself with a much outnumbered army besieged in Barletta by the French . The war was divided into two phases very similar to one another . During the end of 1502 and the early part of 1503 the Spaniards were besieged in Barletta near the Ofanto on the shores of the Adriatic . Córdoba resolutely refused to be tempted into battle either by the taunts of the French or the discontent of his own soldiers . Meanwhile he employed the Aragonese partisans in the country , and flying expeditions of his own men , to harass the enemy ' s communications and distracted his men with a tournament between Italian knights under Ettore Fieramosca and French prisoners . When he was reinforced , and the French committed the mistake of spreading out their forces to forage for supplies , he took the offensive and pounced on his enemies ' supply depot in the Cerignola . There he took up a strong defensive position ( he was still outnumbered three to one ) , threw up hasty field works and strengthened them with wired entanglements . The French made a headlong front attack , were repulsed , assailed in the flank , and routed in only half an hour by the combination of firepower and defensive measures . Later operations on the Garigliano against Ludovico II of Saluzzo were very similar , and led to the total expulsion of the French from the Kingdom of Naples . Later life . Córdoba was appointed Viceroy of Naples in 1504 . Córdoba aroused the jealousy of Ferdinand II of Aragon and he incited condemnations for corruption with his profligate spending of the public treasury to reward his captains and soldiers . The death of Queen Isabel I of Castile in 1504 deprived him of a friend and protector . He was recalled in 1507 . Ferdinand lauded him with titles and fine words , but left him unemployed till his death . Legacy . Córdoba was first among the founders of modern warfare . As a field commander , Córdoba , like Napoleon three centuries later , saw his goal in the destruction of the enemy army . He systematically organized the pursuit of defeated armies after a victory in order to destroy the retreating enemy . Córdoba helped found the first modern standing army and the nearly invincible Spanish infantry that dominated the battlefields of Europe for most of the 16th and 17th centuries . The best generals of Charles V , Holy Roman Emperor and Philip II of Spain were either the pupils of the Great Captain or were trained by them . Córdoba ' s influence upon military tactics was profound . Wellington ' s Torres Vedras campaign has a distinct resemblance to Córdoba ' s campaign at Barletta and the Battle of Assaye is easily compared with that at Garigliano . It is noted that Córdoba directed the first battle in history won by gunpowder small arms in the battle of Cerignola . Additionally at the end of the same battle of Cerignola occur for the first time a " call to prayer " ( toque de oracion ) adopted later for all western armies , when the Great Captain seeing the fields full of French bodies ( Christian like the Spaniards ) ordered to play three long tones and had his troops pray for all the fallen . He left no sons , so he was succeeded in his dukedoms by his daughter , Elvira Fernández de Córdoba y Manrique . His burial place , Monastery of San Jerónimo , Granada , was built in Renaissance style by his wife and daughter . It was desecrated by French Napoleonic troops under the command of Corsican General Sebastiani at the beginning of the 19th century . Stone from the tower was used to build the " Puente Verde " bridge over the river Genil . The monastery was fully restored at the end of the 19th century . Renown . Gonzalo ' s renown was great and his extensive knowledge was passed on to the next generation through the men that served under him . A few men such as Amador de Lares , who was steward to the Great Captain , accompanied Hernán Cortés during his conquest of the Aztec Empire . Italian historian Francesco Guicciardini said that it was given him by the customary arrogance of the Spaniards .