The Battle of Bicocca or La Bicocca () was fought on 27 April 1522, during the Italian War of 1521–26. A combined French and Venetian force under Odet de Foix, Vicomte de Lautrec, was decisively defeated by an Imperial–Spanish and Papal army under the overall command of Prospero Colonna. Lautrec then withdrew from Lombardy, leaving the Duchy of Milan in Imperial hands.
Having been driven from Milan by an Imperial advance in late 1521, Lautrec had regrouped, attempting to strike at Colonna's lines of communication. When the Swiss mercenaries in French service did not receive their pay, however, they demanded an immediate battle, and Lautrec was forced to attack Colonna's fortified position in the park of the Arcimboldi Villa Bicocca, north of Milan. The Swiss pikemen advanced over open fields under heavy artillery fire to assault the enemy positions, but were halted at a sunken road backed by earthworks. Having suffered massive casualties from the fire of Imperial-Spanish arquebusiers, the Swiss retreated. Meanwhile, an attempt by French cavalry to flank Colonna's position proved equally ineffective. The Swiss, unwilling to fight further, marched off to their cantons a few days later, and Lautrec retreated into Venetian territory with the remnants of his army.
The battle is noted chiefly for marking the end of the Swiss dominance among the infantry of the Italian Wars, and of the Swiss method of assaults by massed columns of pikemen without support from other troops. Along with the previous encounter in Cerignola, in which Colonna also participated, it was one of the first engagements in which firearms played a decisive role on the battlefield. It has been also proposed that the Spanish arquebusiers performed there the first instance of volley fire in European warfare. Historian John Fortescue described it as, "...if it were necessary to fix an arbitrary date for the first really effective use of small fire-arms in the battlefield, the day of Bicocca might well be selected."
Prelude
At the start of the war in 1521, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X moved jointly against the Duchy of Milan, the principal French possession in Lombardy.Knecht, Renaissance Warrior, 177; Oman, Art of War, 174–175. A large Papal force under Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, together with Spanish troops from Naples and some smaller Italian contingents, concentrated near Mantua.Oman, Art of War, 174. The German forces which Charles sent south to aid this venture passed through Venetian territory near Valeggio unmolested; the combined Papal, Spanish, and Imperial army then proceeded into French territory under the command of Prospero Colonna.Oman, Art of War, 174–175. The apparent inability of the Venetians to prevent enemy passage through their territory prompted a number of complaints from the French. For the next several months, Colonna fought an evasive war of maneuver against the French, besieging cities but refusing to give battle.Oman, Art of War, 175. Oman writes that "[Colonna] refused battle several times, raised the siege of Parma when it was almost in his hands, rather than risk anything, and wearied out Lautrec by retreats and flank movements".
By the autumn of 1521, Lautrec, who was holding a line along the Adda river to Cremona, began to suffer massive losses from desertion, particularly among his Swiss mercenaries.Oman, Art of War, 175. Oman cites contemporary reports of 4,000 Swiss remaining out of an initial 20,000. Colonna took the opportunity this offered and, advancing close to the Alps, crossed the Adda at Vaprio; Lautrec, lacking infantry and assuming the year's campaign to be over, withdrew from the subsequent battle to Milan.Oman, Art of War, 175–176. Colonna, however, had no intention of stopping his advance; he launched a surprise attack on the city, overwhelming the Venetian troops defending one of the walls.Knecht, Renaissance Warrior, 180; Oman, Art of War, 176. Knecht writes that the attack took place on 19 November, while Oman gives a date of 23 November instead. Following some abortive street-fighting, Lautrec withdrew to Cremona with about 12,000 men.Oman, Art of War, 176. Lautrec's remaining forces consisted of 5,500 French and 6,400 Venetian troops.
By January 1522, the French had lost Alessandria, Pavia, and Como; and Francesco II Sforza, bringing further German reinforcements, had slipped past a Venetian force at Bergamo to join Colonna in Milan.Oman, Art of War, 176. Only Como was actually besieged by Imperial troops; the other two cities rose up against the French and drove them out. Lautrec had meanwhile been reinforced by the arrival of 16,000 fresh Swiss pikemen and some further Venetian forces, as well as additional companies of French troops under the command of Thomas de Foix-Lescun and Pedro Navarro; he had also secured the services of the condottiere Giovanni de' Medici, who brought his Black Bands into the French service.Oman, Art of War, 176. Giovanni had been in the Papal service, but reneged on his contract, claiming that it had been made with the recently dead Pope Leo X and not with his successor, Pope Adrian VI. The French proceeded to attack Novara and Pavia, hoping to draw Colonna into a decisive battle.Oman, Art of War, 176–177. Colonna, leaving Milan, fortified himself in the monastery of Certosa south of the city.Oman, Art of War, 176–177. Considering this position to be too strong to be easily assaulted, Lautrec attempted instead to threaten Colonna's lines of communication by sweeping around Milan to Monza, cutting the roads from the city into the Alps.Oman, Art of War, 177.
Lautrec was suddenly confronted, however, with the intransigence of the Swiss, who formed the largest contingent of the French army.Oman, Art of War, 177. The Swiss complained that they had not received any of the pay promised them since their arrival in Lombardy, and their captains, led by Albert von Stein, demanded that Lautrec attack the Imperial army immediately—else the mercenaries would abandon the French and return to their cantons.Knecht, Renaissance Warrior, 183; Oman, Art of War, 177. Lautrec reluctantly acquiesced and marched south towards Milan.Arfaioli, Black Bands, 10; Oman, Art of War, 177–178.
Battle
Dispositions Colonna had meanwhile relocated to a formidable new position: the manor park of Bicocca, about four miles (6 km) north of Milan.Knecht, Renaissance Warrior, 183; Oman, Art of War, 178. The park was situated between a large expanse of marshy ground to the west and the main road into Milan to the east; along this road ran a deep wet ditch, which was crossed by a narrow stone bridge some distance south of the park.Oman, Art of War, 178. The north side of the park was bordered by a sunken road, which Colonna deepened, constructing an earthen rampart on the southern bank.Oman, Art of War, 178. Oman notes that descriptions of the ground on the north side of the park in contemporary sources vary, with some referring to a sunken road while others refer to a ditch.
The entire length of the north side of the park was less than , allowing Colonna to place his troops quite densely; immediately behind the rampart were four ranks of Spanish arquebusiers, commanded by Fernando d'Ávalos, and behind them were blocks of Spanish pikemen and German landsknechts under Georg Frundsberg.Oman, Art of War, 178–179; Taylor, Art of War, 51–52. The Imperial artillery, placed on several platforms jutting forward from the earthworks, was able to sweep the fields north of the park as well as parts of the sunken road itself.Hall, Weapons and Warfare, 175; Oman, Art of War, 178. Most of the Imperial cavalry was placed at the south end of the park, far behind the infantry; a separate force of cavalry was positioned to the south, guarding the bridge.Oman, Art of War, 179; Taylor, Art of War, 125. Oman suggests that d'Avalos and other Spanish commanders remembered the result of the precipitous advance made by the Spanish cavalry at the Battle of Ravenna ten years prior, and positioned the cavalry further back to avoid a repeat.
On the evening of 26 April, Lautrec sent a force under the Sieur de Pontdormy to reconnoiter the Imperial positions.Oman, Art of War, 179. Colonna, having observed the French presence, sent messengers to Milan to request reinforcements; Sforza arrived the next morning with 6,400 additional troops, joining the cavalry near the bridge to the south of Colonna's camp.Oman, Art of War, 179. The Milanese force included 400 cavalry and 6,000 infantry. Oman describes the latter as "indifferent", and suggests that they were city militia.
At dawn on 27 April, Lautrec began his attack, sending the Black Bands to push aside the Spanish pickets and clear the ground before the Imperial positions.Oman, Art of War, 179. The French advance was headed by two columns of Swiss, each comprising about 4,000 to 7,000 men, accompanied by some artillery; this party was to assault the entrenched front of the Imperial camp directly.Arfaioli, Black Bands, 11; Hall, Weapons and Warfare, 175; Oman, Art of War, 179–180. Arfaioli gves the higher number for the size of the Swiss columns and Oman the lower one. Hall and Oman also mention that Pedro Navarro's sappers accompanied the Swiss, intending to assist the movement of the artillery. Lescun, meanwhile, led a body of cavalry south along the Milan road, intending to flank the camp and strike at the bridge to the rear.Oman, Art of War, 180. Pontdormy trailed Lescun with a separate cavalry force to ensure that he was not attacked from the flank. The remainder of the French army, including the French infantry, the bulk of the heavy cavalry, and the remnants of the Swiss, formed up in a broad line some distance behind the two Swiss columns; behind this was a third line, composed of the Venetian forces under Francesco Maria della Rovere, the Duke of Urbino.Oman, Art of War, 180–181. The Venetian line was shifted somewhat to the French right, and faced the Imperial camp on the side protected by the marshes.
The Swiss attack The overall command of the Swiss assault was given to Anne de Montmorency.Oman, Art of War, 180. As the Swiss columns advanced towards the park, he ordered them to pause and wait for the French artillery to bombard the Imperial defences, but the Swiss refused to obey.Oman, Art of War, 180; Taylor, Art of War, 126. Perhaps the Swiss captains doubted that the artillery would have any effect on the earthworks; historian Charles Oman suggests that it is more likely they were "inspired by blind pugnacity and self-confidence".Oman, Art of War, 180. Oman notes that this theory was popular among the French observers of the battle. In any case, the Swiss moved rapidly towards Colonna's position, leaving the artillery behind; there was apparently some rivalry between the two columns, as one, commanded by Arnold Winkelried of Unterwalden, was composed of men from the rural cantons, while the other, under Albert von Stein, consisted of the contingents from Bern and the urban cantons.Oman, Art of War, 180. The advancing Swiss quickly came into range of the Imperial artillery; unable to take cover on the level fields, they began to take substantial casualties, and as many as a thousand Swiss may have been killed by the time the columns reached the Imperial lines.Oman, Art of War, 180–181.