THE BATTLE OF AGNADELLO - 14 MAY 1509

The Battle of Agnadello, fought on May 14, 1509, in the Ghiara d’Adda district of Lombardy, is one of the most famous military engagements of the Italian Wars and, more broadly, of early modern European history. In a single afternoon of fierce fighting along the banks of the Adda River and across the fields of theGhiara d’Adda plain, the French royal army under King Louis XII annihilated the rearguard of the Venetian forces commanded by the condottiero Bartolomeo d’Alviano, inflicting catastrophic losses on one of the most formidable military forces on the Italian peninsula. Within a few weeks of the battle, the Republic of Venice, which had spent more than a century building its empire on the Italian mainland in northeastern and north-central Italy, lost virtually all of its continental possessions to the advancing armies of the League of Cambrai.