d Conrad Lando succeeded to the command.
The Grand Company, as it was called, soon numbered about 7000 cavalry
and 1500 select infantry, and was for some years the terror of Italy.
They seem to have been Germans chiefly. On the conclusion (1360) of the
peace of Bretigny between England and France, Sir John Hawkwood (q.v.)
led an army of English mercenaries, called the White Company, into
Italy, which took a prominent part in the confused wars of the next
thirty years. Towards the end of the century the Italians began to
organize armies of the same description. This ended the reign of the
purely mercenary company, and began that of the semi-national mercenary
army which endured in Europe till replaced by the national standing army
system. The first company of importance raised on the new basis was that
of St George, originated by Alberigo, count of Barbiano, many of whose
subordinates and pupils conquered principalities for themselves. Shortly
after, the organization of these mercenary armies was carried to the
highest perfection by Sforza Attendolo, condottiere in the service of
Naples, who had been a peasant of the Romagna, and by his rival
Brancaccio di Montone in the service of Florence. The army and the
renown of Sforza were inherited by his son Francesco Sforza, who
eventually became duke of Milan (1450). Less fortunate was another great
condottiere, Carmagnola, who first served one of the Visconti, and then
conducted the wars of Venice against his former masters, but at last
awoke the suspicion of the Venetian oligarchy, and was put to death
before the palace of St Mark (1432). Towards the end of the 15th
century, when the large cities had gradually swallowed up the small
states, and Italy itself was drawn into the general current of European
politics, and became the battlefield of powerful armies--French, Spanish
and German--the condottieri, who in the end proved quite unequal to the
gendarmerie of France and the improved troops of the Italian states,
disappeared.

The soldiers of the condottieri were almost entirely heavy armoured
cavalry (men-at-arms). They had, at any rate before 1400, nothing in
common with the people among whom they fought, and their disorderly
conduct and rapacity seem often to have exceeded that of other medieval
armies. They were always ready to change sides at the prospect of higher
pay. They were connected with each other by the interest of a common
profession, and by the possibility th