Twelve Swords from North of the Alps: German Captains Who Fought for Italian Cities

For more than two centuries, from the early 1300s until the mid-1500s, men-at-arms from German-speaking lands, from the territories of the Swiss canton of Aargau, from South Tyrol, from Istria and from Austria, crossed the Alps to place their swords in the service of the lords, republics and emperors contending for control of the Italian peninsula. The phenomenon was neither unified nor continuous: it arose from feudal ties to the Empire, was renewed with the great mercenary companies of the fourteenth century, became intertwined with the Guelph-Ghibelline wars in northern Italy, reappeared in the Italian Wars of the sixteenth century as a component of the imperial infantry clashing with France and Venice, and finally found an altogether distinctive episode in the Tyrolean peasants’ revolt of the 1520s.

In the early fourteenth century, the presence of captains tied to the Holy Roman Empire followed the logic of the Lombard and Venetian city factions: emperors descended into Italy with retinues of German and Swiss knights meant to support the imperial vicars, the Visconti in Milan, the Scaligeri in Verona. These were the years of Guarnieri di Homberg, a Swiss count who allied himself with the Visconti and ended up lord of Soncino, and of Malerba, a captain of fortune active between Lombardy, Piedmont and Romagna, involved in the first great multinational companies that foreshadowed the phenomenon of the White Company and the Company of San Giorgio.

In the second half of the fourteenth century, the flow of German captains intensified and became interwoven with the great international companies then raging across the peninsula: the White Company of Albert Sterz, the Star Company of Hannekin von Baumgarten, the Company of San Giorgio of John Hawkwood and Ambrogio Visconti. In this context operated Counts Rudolf and Johann of Habsburg, who fought alongside the Florentines and distinguished themselves at the Battle of Cascina in 1364, before passing, like many of their countrymen, into the great mercenary coalition that alternated service between Florence, Siena, the Papal States and Perugia.

In the early fifteenth century the center of gravity shifted toward the south, where the war of succession to the throne of Naples between the Angevins and the Durazzo branch offered new career opportunities to captains such as Angelino d’Austria, who rose from mercenary to Duke of Bari and lord of lands in Apulia and Capitanata. His is an emblematic case of how, for a German condottiero of this period, military service could translate into a lasting social ascent, culminating in a ducal title and hereditary fiefs.

The late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries saw German-speaking captains drawn into the Lombard wars among the Visconti, the Sforza and Venice, as in the case of Campanella, a mercenary from Ticino in the alternating service of Milan and Venice, and then, with the onset of the Italian Wars, into the great campaigns pitting France, Spain, the Empire and Switzerland against one another for control of Lombardy and Piedmont. This was the era of Giorgio di Pietrapiana, a South Tyrolean count who defended Trento against the Venetians and served Emperor Maximilian of Austria against the French and against the Swiss cantons themselves; of Rodolfo Salice and Alberto Pietra, both killed in the great infantry battles of Melegnano and Bicocca, which marked both the peak and the crisis of Swiss infantry warfare in Italy.

An entirely different chapter is that of Michael Gaismair, leader of the Tyrolean peasant revolt of 1525 and later a condottiero in the service of Venice: his story shows how thin the line between social rebellion and the profession of arms could be in Reformation-era Europe, and how a popular leader could transform himself, without abandoning his ideals, into a captain on the payroll of the Serenissima.

Closing the survey, chronologically, is Nicola della Torre, lord of Gradisca d’Isonzo in Friuli, whose career in the first half of the sixteenth century unfolded almost entirely in the service of the House of Austria against the Turks in Hungary and Croatia, and whose deep-seated hostility toward the Venetians, at whose hands he had suffered years of imprisonment, coherently closes out a tradition of captains for whom allegiance to the imperial orbit remained, despite the shifting fortunes of war, the guiding thread of an entire life.

The pages that follow reconstruct the stories of these twelve German-speaking condottieri, drawing on the site condottieridiventura.it, following the chronological order of their deaths and noting, where documented by the entries, any blood ties among them.

Guarnieri di Homberg: The Swiss Count in the Service of the Visconti

Guarnieri di Homberg, Count of Homberg and later lord of Soncino, is among the first Swiss captains to leave a substantial mark on the Italian wars of the early fourteenth century. In 1311 he served Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, and when Matteo Visconti was named vicar of Milan, he remained at his side. In February 1312 he was appointed at Genoa as captain-general of the Ghibelline league for Lombardy, a post from which he was soon replaced by Count Amadeus of Savoy. In March of that same year, moving from Brescia with his German cavalry, he defeated the Guelphs commanded by Count Guglielmo Cavalcabò at Soncino; Cavalcabò was captured and clubbed to death in the town square after having his helmet forcibly removed. For this victory Guarnieri di Homberg received the town as a fief. In the following years he operated between Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia, also clashing with Filippo of Savoy over control of Vercelli, a conflict in which he was seriously wounded in the side by a Savoyard knight. In January 1313 he supported Cangrande della Scala against Padua, then returned to Lombardy where he defeated the Guelphs at Ponte San Pietro. In March of the same year he fought at Quattordio against the Angevin seneschal Ugo del Balzo, in a battle that cost more than two thousand lives. Angered at Matteo Visconti, who had opposed his appointment as imperial vicar of Milan, he left imperial service in 1314, later returning to fight for the Visconti against Genoa at the end of the decade. He died in March 1320 in combat beneath the walls of Genoa. The chronicler Giovanni da Cermenate, in his Historia de situ Ambrosianae urbis, described him as a man experienced in arms. A harsher judgment comes from the modern historian Giuseppe Staffa, who in his work on the great medieval condottieri characterizes him as a notorious Swiss gentleman who, clinging to the emperor’s coattails, had descended into Italy like a ravenous locust.

Malerba: One of the Leaders of the Great Company, Killed at Smyrna

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Malerba, whose real name was reportedly Reinhold von Giver, Swiss or German, fought in 1338 for the Florentines against the troops of the lord of Verona, Mastino della Scala. In January 1339, with financing from della Scala, he formed the Company of San Giorgio together with Lodrisio Visconti, Count Lando and Duke Guarnieri d’Urslingen; the company moved from the Veneto toward the Duchy of Milan, then ruled by Azzone Visconti. At Parabiago his men surprised the Visconti forces of Giovannello Visconti and Giovanni Fieschi in their sleep, slaughtering and mutilating them; only a gift of ten flasks of ducats, presented to the condottiero disguised as Malvasia wine, allowed Azzone Visconti to avoid direct confrontation. In 1340, in the service of the Marquis of Monferrato, he ravaged the Canavese region for six months at the expense of Prince Giacomo of Savoy-Acaia: crops were burned, vineyards cut down, and Rivarolo Canavese along with the lands of numerous Piedmontese feudal lords were sacked. Returning to Milan, in 1342 he joined the Great Company of Guarnieri d’Urslingen. Captured by Walter VI of Brienne, Duke of Athens, while attempting to reach his companions in Romagna disguised as a friar, he was freed on a promise, soon broken, not to wage war against the Florentines. In 1344, fulfilling a vow made years earlier at the Battle of Canegrate, he departed on crusade against the Ottomans with twenty-five horsemen enlisted at his own expense. With his small company he joined the Venetians under Pietro Zeno and the Genoese under Martino Zaccaria in the siege of Smyrna. After the city’s capture, in January 1345 he was surprised in the church of San Giovanni, near the walls, while attending mass with the Patriarch of the Knights Hospitaller, Fra Manuele Camosini, and forty other horsemen: he was killed and beheaded; other accounts claim he was thrown to the dogs or flayed alive by his Turkish captors. Two Paduan chroniclers of the time, G. and C. Cortusi, described him as physically imposing, strong, and skilled in the art of war; the fifteenth-century historian Giorgio Merula, in his Historiarum Mediolani, likewise praised him for his strength and courage.

Rudolf and Johann of Habsburg: The Counts of Habsburg-Laufenburg

Rudolf of Habsburg, known as Count Menno and nicknamed “the beardless count,” and Johann of Habsburg, Count of Habsburg-Laufenburg, were brothers and brothers-in-law of Heinrich von Montfort. Before descending into Italy, Johann was captured by the people of Zurich and held prisoner for three years on an island near the Wellenberg tower, where the waters of the Limmat flow out of the lake. In January 1364, on the recommendation of Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua, the two brothers signed a contract at Constance for five hundred cavalry with the Florentines, receiving a monthly stipend of fifty florins; serving in the same company were other German captains such as Count Volkhard von Veringen and Heinrich von Montfort himself. In April 1364 they confronted the White Company of Albert Sterz and John Hawkwood, along with the three thousand mounted troops of Hannekin von Baumgarten, in defense of Florence; in May they sortied from the city with Heinrich von Montfort and Manno Donati to threaten Pisa and set fire to Livorno. The high point of their Italian career came at the Battle of Cascina in July 1364: when the Pisans caught the Florentines by surprise, Rudolf and Johann had the camp’s palisades opened and, together with Heinrich von Montfort, charged at the head of five hundred cavalry against the enemy, allowing the rest of the Florentine army time to arm itself; the fighting lasted three hours and ended in a Pisan defeat, with more than a thousand dead and two thousand prisoners left on the field. In 1365 Johann joined the Star Company of Sterz and Baumgarten in the invasion of Sienese territory, then in October founded, together with John Hawkwood and Ambrogio Visconti, the Company of San Giorgio, which absorbed the remnants of the White Company along with many Germans and Lombards. In 1366 he again campaigned against Siena, also acting as mediator in disputes between the commune and the mercenary companies, for which he received a thousand florins and a suit of armor. Sources of the period refer to him as captain of the great company of Germans. In March 1367 he defeated the Sienese again at Montalcinello, then, together with his brother Rudolf, confronted the forces of the antipope Clement VII and the Angevins in the Kingdom of Naples. In 1368 Johann served the Church against Milan for a monthly stipend of one hundred florins. Both brothers died in 1370. The historian Frances Stonor Saunders offers a nuanced portrait of Johann, describing him as a mercenary who combined soldiering with writing poetry; assessments of his brother Rudolf, Count Menno, are more straightforward, with the chroniclers Giovanni Villani and Scipione Ammirato describing him respectively as generous and handsome, and as a bold and forthright warrior.

Angelino d’Austria: From Mercenary to Duke of Bari

Angelino d’Austria, also known as Angelino Berger, Angelo Chel, Angelo di Stulich, Angelo di Sterlida and Angelillo Herga, embodies more than any other German-speaking condottiero the possibility of (temporary) social ascent through the profession of arms in southern Italy. In June 1379, in the service of Perugia, he attacked Cetona but was surprised and captured along with all his captains and two hundred cavalry. In May 1380 he served Florence and Siena in the company of Heinrich von Montfort; the following year he joined forces with Corrado Lando, Corrado di Altinberg and Amerigo Unghero to move into the March of Ancona with two thousand cavalry and a thousand infantry. Entering the service of the Kingdom of Naples, he fought alongside Otto of Brunswick at the Battle of San Germano, near Cassino, against the forces of the pretender to the Neapolitan throne, Charles of Durazzo. In 1383, together with Domenico da Siena, he opposed the counts of Caserta della Ratta and Bernardo della Sala, who were aligned with the antipope Clement VII and the Angevins of Provence. In the following years he operated mainly in Campania and Apulia, defending Naples against the Durazzo faction and coming to the city’s aid when they attempted to break in from Castel Sant’Elmo. January 1389 marked the turning point in his career, with his definitive switch to the opposing party, and his role grew increasingly significant. In October 1390 King Ladislaus of Naples confirmed his possession of the land of Montenero in Capitanata, which had been granted to him by the king’s mother, Margaret of Anjou. In 1391 he was appointed viceroy of the Abruzzo region; in April 1392 he was defeated and captured by the Sanseverino family at the Battle of Ascoli Satriano; once freed, he was sent to reconquer Abruzzo and was named captain of Sant’Angelo. In November of that same year he received the title of chamberlain from Ladislaus of Anjou. In February 1404 he was granted Rutigliano as security against a debt of thirteen thousand ducats in unpaid wages owed him by the crown; shortly afterward he was named Duke of Bari. He died in December 1406. The historian Corrado Argegni, in his work on condottieri, captains and tribunes, describes him as a captain of fortune who lived from the second half of the fourteenth century into the early fifteenth, and who played no small part in the wars that tormented the Kingdom of Sicily (as the Kingdom of Naples was then called) during that unhappy period’s bloody conflicts.

Campanella: The Ticinese Between Milan and Venice

Campanella, whose real name was reportedly Simone Albrici, a native of Locarno, served in November 1446 under Duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan against the Venetians; captured in a fierce night skirmish on the Adda, he switched immediately to the enemy’s payroll in order to secure his freedom. In 1447 he received orders from Bartolomeo Colleoni to enter the castle of Bosco Marengo and launch a surprise attack on the rearguard of the French troops under Rinaldo di Dresay; the operation’s success contributed greatly to the enemy’s defeat. In September 1448, still in the service of the Ambrosian Republic, he was recorded at the camp of Caravaggio, commanding a company of men-at-arms. In 1449 he changed allegiance once again, joining Francesco Sforza’s attack on that same republic: he descended into the Como area to relieve Franchino Rusca, occupied the Lugano valley and Porlezza, took the fortresses of Murcò and Codelago, and brought his troops as far as the heights above Como. The people of Como, led by Giovanni della Noce and Ferracuto, defeated him at Chiasso and subsequently stormed the castle of Morbegno, where the condottiero had taken refuge; Campanella died in 1449 defending the fortress. Leading witnesses of his time, such as Giovanni Simonetta, Pier Candido Decembrio and Pietro Spino, all spoke favorably of him.

Giorgio di Pietrapiana: The South Tyrolean Count of Trento

Giorgio di Pietrapiana, known in German sources as Georg von Ebenstein, a South Tyrolean count and lord of the castle of Pietrapiana on the hill near Povo di Trento, fought in his youth in Flanders. In August 1487, in the service of the Prince-Bishop of Trento, Ulrich von Frundsberg, he commanded the city garrison as castellan of the Buonconsiglio when the Venetians, led by Roberto da San Severino and Andrea dal Borgo, crossed the Adige to besiege Castel Pietra. On the plain of Mottarello, and then between Besenello and the Adige, a pitched battle was fought in which, after fluctuating fortunes, the Venetians were routed: many threw themselves into the river trying to reach the far bank. Among the drowned was Roberto da San Severino himself, whose body was recovered days later. In 1489, in the service of Emperor Maximilian of Austria against the French, he distinguished himself at the capture of Saint-Quentin in Picardy. Between 1491 and 1494 he was castellan of Segonzano, where in 1494 he hosted the painter Albrecht Dürer, passing through on his way to Venice via the Val di Cembra. In July 1495, in the pay of Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan, he commanded a contingent of German infantry at the Battle of Fornovo, took part in the siege of Novara, and was sent with Giacomo da Corte to defend Bellinzona when the city was threatened by the Swiss; on that occasion the Duke of Milan rewarded him with three hundred Rhenish florins. In 1499 he fought for Emperor Maximilian against the Swiss cantons; later he received four thousand ducats from the Duke of Milan to raise troops in Valtellina to oppose the French. He died in 1510. He is depicted in a fresco at the Palazzo Geremia in Trento, shown wrestling with the lion of Saint Mark before a solemn assembly of dignitaries. His valor on the battlefield was recognized even by his adversaries, as noted in the writings of Philippe de Commynes and J. de la Pilorgerie, who called him a valiant knight and an officer of merit; similar praise was echoed by Italian historians such as Paolo Giovio, who described him as a man of noble birth, distinguished by many feats of arms.

Rodolfo Salice: Fallen at Melegnano

Rodolfo Salice, also known as Rodolfo Long or Rodolfo di Salis, from the Grisons, nicknamed “the Tall,” took part in April 1500 in the Battle of Novara, where, together with Gaspare di Silenen of Uri, he was among those responsible for the betrayal that led to the capture of Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan by the enemy. In September 1515 he fought at the Battle of Melegnano: he charged bravely against the French, wounded the Baron of Bernia with a halberd blow, and kept fighting until he was killed by an artillery shot which, according to the verses of Niccolò degli Agostini, took off his leg. The poet describes how Rodolfo Long fought valiantly, driving into the thickest of the enemy ranks with fearless resolve, putting his foes to flight, until, amid the fierce struggle on the open field, an enemy cannon shot tore away the leg of the brave and spirited soldier.

Alberto Pietra: Senator of Bern, Fallen at Bicocca

Alberto Pietra, or Albrecht von Stein, a Swiss senator of Bern, served in April 1500 under Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan against the French; like other countrymen, he deserted the Sforza ranks shortly before the Battle of Novara to surrender to Louis of Luxembourg-Ligny, lieutenant-general of the opposing army. In January 1510 he is recorded in the Verona area serving Venice with two hundred and eight infantry; in 1513 he supported, on behalf of the restored Sforza in Milan, Cardinal Matthäus Schiner of Sion against the Venetians and French. In August 1515, after the capture of Prospero Colonna at Villafranca Piemonte, he criticized the retreat of the Swiss army so harshly that he was placed under arrest for twenty-four hours; in September of that year he took part in the Battle of Melegnano and, after two days of fighting, returned defeated to Bern with twenty-five infantry banners. In April 1516 he was tasked with joining the Constable of Bourbon in the Duchy of Milan with thirteen thousand Swiss troops; he remained the only condottiero of his nation, with three hundred men, still serving the French after all his other countrymen were dismissed to avoid a clash between Swiss troops on opposing sides. In April 1522 he obtained from the King of France command of the Swiss militia together with Arnold Winkelried; he pushed the French to fight at Bicocca partly due to the discontent of his troops, eager to return home over delayed pay. At dawn he led the infantry attack against the Landsknechts of Georg von Frundsberg; he was killed in the first assault by an arquebus shot. The chronicler Alfonso de Ulloa described him as distinguished in many wars.

Michael Gaismair: From the Peasants’ War to the Service of Venice

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Michael Gaismair, also recorded under variant spellings, was born near Sterzing (Vipiteno), into a bourgeois family that owned a mine and later held road-building contracts. He likely studied in Vienna, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree; he worked at the mining center of Schwaz before entering, due to competition from the Fugger family’s forestry companies, the service of the Adige lieutenancy and later the secretariat of the Prince-Bishop of Brixen, Sebastian Sprenz. In 1525, when the Tyrolean peasants’ revolt broke out, he took part in freeing Peter Passler, who had been sentenced to death at Brixen; he was elected supreme commander of the uprising, supported by ten bourgeois delegates and ten peasant representatives. Under his leadership the peasants sacked the abbey of Novacella. On this occasion Gaismair worked to steer the movement toward concrete political demands, such as the abolition of serfdom, and to this end convened an assembly at Merano to discuss such proposals. In July 1525, having gathered five thousand men from the Val Pusteria, he repeatedly defeated the forces of the German nobility. Facing the advance of Georg von Frundsberg, however, he was forced to surrender the castle of Brixen in exchange for a promise that no one would be punished for the revolt. Arrested in Innsbruck on the charge of being responsible for the sack of Novacella, he escaped from prison after seven weeks and launched a guerrilla campaign that took him to Switzerland, where he embraced the Protestant Reformation and negotiated with Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich. In 1526 a bounty was placed on his head; in retaliation the Habsburgs also had his brother Hans arrested and beheaded in Innsbruck. In July of that same year he entered the service of Venice with one thousand one hundred and sixty infantry, took part in the siege of Cremona, and in the following period operated between Lombardy, the Veneto, Tuscany and Umbria, always in the service of the Serenissima. Suffering seriously from health problems that required repeated thermal treatments at Abano Terme, in January 1528 he moved there with his wife and daughter. The Venetian authorities granted him an annual stipend of three hundred ducats. In August 1530, having returned to Padua, he was knighted by the Strozzi family and moved with his family into their small palace at Prato della Valle. In April 1532, during Holy Week, he was killed in his own home by a man from Padua and a man from Naples, with the complicity of one of his own servants, all of them eager to collect the bounty placed on his head by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria: he was struck forty-two times with dagger and sword. Official investigations, obstructed by certain Venetian nobles, never reached a conclusion. The historian Aldo Stella, in his study of the 1525 peasant revolution and Gaismair’s political vision, praises him as a figure of considerable importance, not only for the European horizons he envisioned and pursued in the liberation struggles of his Tyrolean compatriots, but also for having consistently advocated an original popular republicanism, one that sought to surpass, in distributive justice and social provision, every other admired form of republicanism then prevailing, from the more or less aristocratic model of Venice and Florence to the bourgeois model of Zurich.

Nicola della Torre: Lord of Gradisca d’Isonzo

Nicola della Torre, of Gradisca d’Isonzo, lord of Vipulzano, first served the Counts of Gorizia together with his brother Michele, with whom he shared much of his military career. In March 1508 the two brothers fought in Cadore under Sixt von Trautson and were taken prisoner by Bartolomeo d’Alviano at the Battle of Tai di Cadore; they remained imprisoned until a three-year truce was signed. In 1513, in imperial service, he was sent to Milan to press Viceroy Ramón de Cardona for the funds needed to pay the garrison of Verona, whose defense he remained committed to the following year. In March 1514 he was again defeated and captured, along with his brother, by Bartolomeo d’Alviano at the Battle of Pordenone. The two della Torre brothers were held in the Venetian prison of Terranova and were freed in December 1516 through a prisoner exchange. In 1519 he served Emperor Charles V in the wars in Flanders; in 1521 he received Vipulzano as a fief and became captain and governor of Gradisca d’Isonzo for Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. From 1527 onward he was engaged almost continuously, with growing responsibilities, in the wars against the Ottomans in Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia: he was named vice-duke of Carnia, then captain-general for Croatia, and finally, in July 1530, captain-general of the entire army operating in Hungary. In October and November 1529 he played a decisive role in the defense of Vienna against the Ottoman siege, entering the city with two thousand five hundred Spanish and Italian infantry. He married Caterina di Prodolano. In 1532 he again opposed the Turks at Passau alongside the Marquis del Vasto, Alfonso d’Avalos, earning warm praise from the emperor along with rights to the mines of Idrija and the fief of Steyr. In January 1542, during the conflict between the Empire and Piero Strozzi over possession of Marano Lagunare, he attempted in vain to retake the stronghold, which had fallen into his rival’s hands; the conflict ended with the purchase of the town by the Serenissima, which paid the Florentine condottiero the sum of 35,000 ducats. In his final years he lived in Vienna, afflicted with gout, always maintaining an open hostility toward Venice and the Patriarch of Aquileia. He died in early May 1557 at Gradisca d’Isonzo, where he was buried in the Church of the Servites. His remains were later transferred, in 1563, to the Church of Christ the Savior, to the Torriani chapel, where the mausoleum he dedicated to his wife, Caterina di Prodolano, still stands. The historian Pompeo Litta noted that his military standing, though considerably diminished after the Silesian war and the loss of Marano, had once risen to some prominence in arms.

Rodolfo di Salice: Colonel of the Grisons Infantry

A second Rodolfo di Salice, also called Rodolfo di Salis, from the Grisons, native of Promontogno in the Bregaglia valley, is not to be confused with his namesake who died at Melegnano. In 1525 he fought for France against the Empire; in January 1527 he commanded a company of Grisons infantry in the service of Venice. In 1530, serving Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan, he was defeated and wounded while opposing the Marquis of Musso, Gian Giacomo de’ Medici, at the Battle of San Pietro di Berbenno. In April 1531, again on behalf of the Duke of Milan, he recaptured the tower of Olonio and attacked the Tre Pievi following the retreat of the “Medeghino” (the aforementioned Medici) to Colico. In June 1560 he was engaged by Venice for a term of four years plus two years on standby, receiving a stipend of eight hundred scudi per year and the rank of colonel of the Grisons infantry. On the same occasion his son Ercole committed to taking his place in the event of his death, and was likewise engaged by the Serenissima, along with his brother Abbondio (with an annual stipend of two hundred scudi). Rodolfo di Salice died in 1565.

A Long-Standing Presence Between the Empire and the Italian Wars of Fortune

The twelve profiles gathered here span a period of two and a half centuries, mapping a constant but never unified presence in Italy: there are captains bound to the Empire, Swiss mercenaries embedded in the great companies of fortune or in the infantry of the Italian Wars (Guarnieri di Homberg, Malerba, Campanella, the two Rodolfo Salice, Alberto Pietra). Standing apart from all of them is the figure of Michael Gaismair, a leader of social revolt before he was a professional condottiero. The blood ties documented in these profiles concern mainly brothers: Rudolf and Johann of Habsburg, who died together in 1370, and Nicola and Michele della Torre, captured together twice in the wars against Venice; to these can be added the later family ties of Rodolfo di Salice with his sons Ercole and Abbondio, both engaged by the Serenissima under the same 1560 contract.

The deaths of these captains reflect the variety of possible trajectories for a German-speaking mercenary in Italy: some died in battle, like Guarnieri di Homberg beneath the walls of Genoa, or Rodolfo Salice and Alberto Pietra at Melegnano and Bicocca; some died in Asia as prisoners of a distant crusade, like Malerba at Smyrna; some were assassinated for a bounty, like Michael Gaismair in Padua; and some died, finally, as elderly feudal lords in their own territories, like Angelino d’Austria, Duke of Bari, Giorgio di Pietrapiana in Trento, and Nicola della Torre in Gradisca d’Isonzo. On the geopolitical level, the long presence of these captains testifies to just how stable, for two and a half centuries, the channel remained that connected the German-speaking lands to the Italian wars of fortune: a channel that in the fourteenth century served the interests of the imperial vicars and the great multinational companies, that in the early fifteenth century opened the way to lasting lordships in the south, and that in the sixteenth century became definitively bound, through Giorgio di Pietrapiana and Nicola della Torre, to the cause of the House of Austria against Venice and the Ottoman Empire.