ly Spanish and it numbered some
6000 cavalry and 16,000 infantry of most excellent fighting quality.

As the French advanced along the Via Aemilia, Cardona withdrew to
Faenza. Gaston went on to Ravenna, which he besieged. Cardona was
forced to intervene and try to save the city. He, too, approached
Ravenna. Upon Easter Day, 1512, the two armies met in the marsh
between Ravenna and the sea; and, in the words of Guicciardini, "there
then began a very great battle, without doubt one of the greatest that
Italy had seen for these many years.... All the troops were
intermingled in a battle fought thus on a plain without impediments
such as water or banks, and where both armies fought, each obstinately
bent on death or victory, and inflamed not only with danger, glory,
and hope, but also with the hatred of nation against nation. It was a
memorable spectacle in the hot engagement between the German and
Spanish infantry to see two very noted officers, Jacopo Empser, a
German, and Zamudio, a Spaniard, advance before their battalions and
encounter one another as if it were by challenge, in which combat the
Spaniard went off conqueror by killing his adversary. The cavalry of
the army of the League was not at best equal to that of the French,
and having been shattered and torn by the artillery was become much
inferior. Wherefore after they had sustained for some time, more by
stoutness of heart than by strength of arms, the fury of the enemy,
Yves d'Allegre with the rearguard and a thousand foot that were left
at the Montone under Paliose and now recalled charging them in flank,
and Fabrizio Colonna, fighting valiantly, being taken prisoner by the
soldiers of the Duke of Ferrara, they turned their backs, in which
they did no more than follow the example of their generals; for the
Viceroy and Carvagiale, without making the utmost proof of the valour
of their troops, betook themselves to flight, carrying off with them
the third division or rearguard almost entire with Antonio da Leva, a
man of that time of low rank though afterwards by a continual exercise
of arms for many years, rising through all the military degrees, he
became a very famous general. The whole body of light horse had been
already broken, and the Marchese di Pescara, their commander, taken
prisoner, covered with blood and wounds. And the Marchese della
Palude, who had led up the second division, or main battle, through a
field full of ditches and brambles in great di