’This French artillery is very good and very effective.’ Hypotheses on the Diffusion of a New Military Technology in Renaissance Italy

This article aims to reconstruct and compare the technical developments of Italian ordnance production during the second half of the fifteenth century. The analysis will particularly focus on novelties and changes induced by the appearance and the assimilation of French royal cannons into Italian warfare, before and after the famed French Neapolitan campaign of 1494. Data have been collected from numerous contemporary chronicles and several critical editions of documents. Moreover, archival sources have been used for the examination of the significant Florentine case study. The results of the research demonstrate that the Italian states had for some time been engaged in the traditional manufacture of heavy guns, and so were skilled at adopting original practices, searching out innovations, and encouraging effective ideas, in the lively context of a Renaissance technological efflorescence.