Francesco Ferruccio Francesco Ferruccio ( or Ferrucci ) ( 1489 – August 3 , 1530 ) was an Italian captain from Florence who fought in the Italian Wars . Biography . After spending a few years as a merchant ' s clerk he took to soldiering at an early age , and served his apprenticeship under Giovanni de ' Medici , in the latter ' s " Black Bands " ( " Delle Bande Nere " being Giovanni de ' Medici ' s nickname , from the black stripes on his insignia ) in various parts of Italy , earning a reputation as a daring fighter and somewhat of a swashbuckler . When Pope Clement VII and the emperor Charles V decided to reinstate the Medici in Florence , during the War of the League of Cognac , they attacked the Florentine republic , and Ferruccio was appointed Florentine military commissioner , where he showed great daring and resource by his rapid marches and sudden attacks on the Imperials . Early in 1530 Volterra had thrown off Florentine allegiance and had been occupied by an Imperial garrison , but Ferruccio surprised and recaptured the city . During his absence , however , the Imperials captured Empoli by treachery , thus cutting off one of the chief avenues of approach to Florence . Ferruccio proposed to the government of the Republic that he should march on Rome and terrorize the Pope by the threat of a sack into making peace with Florence on favorable terms , but although the war committee appointed him commissioner - general for the operations outside the city , they rejected his scheme as too audacious . Ferruccio then decided to attempt a diversion by attacking the Imperials in the rear and started from Volterra for the Apennines . But at Pisa he was laid up for a month with a fever , which enabled the enemy to get wind of his plan and to prepare for his attack . At the end of July Ferruccio left Pisa at the head of about 4 , 000 men . Although the besieged in Florence , knowing that a large part of the Imperialists under the Prince of Orange Philibert of Châlon , had gone to meet Ferruccio , wished to co - operate with the latter by means of a sortie , they were prevented from doing so by their own treacherous commander , Malatesta Baglioni . Left alone , Ferruccio encountered a much larger force of the enemy on August 3 at Gavinana . In the desperate battle that ensued , the Imperials were at first driven back by Ferruccio ' s onslaught and the Prince of Orange himself was killed . But when 2 , 000 Landsknecht reinforcements under Fabrizio Maramaldo arrived , the Florentines were almost annihilated , and Ferruccio was wounded and captured . Maramaldo out of personal spite dispatched Ferruccio with his own hand : " " Vile , tu uccidi un uomo morto ! " " ( " Coward , you kill a dead man ! " ) were , according to popular accounts , Ferruccio ' s last words uttered to his murderer . This defeat sealed the fate of the Republic , and nine days later Florence surrendered . Maramaldo ' s deed earned him immortal infamy , even turning his own surname as a synonym for " villainous " in Italian , while the verb " maramaldeggiare " exists as well - meaning " to bully a defenseless victim " . Posthumous myth . " L ' Assedio di Firenze " , the most famous novel of Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi , was based on - and greatly glorified - the life Ferruccio . He is indeed cited in " Il Canto degli Italiani " , the national anthem of Italy composed in 1847 by Goffredo Mameli . In a 1849 speech at Livorno , Garibaldi likened himself to Ferruccio : " " I have touched with my sword the ashes of Ferruccio , and I will know how to die like Ferruccio " " Under Fascism , the legend of his life and death was much celebrated , and a festival in his name was set up in Florence to inculcate his life as an exemplary model . This partially accounts for the popularity of naming male children in Tuscany born at that period " Ferruccio '