Historedia
Episode 3 of 3

Battle of Cerignola

When
28 April 1503
Where
Cerignola
Part of
Italian War: Spanish Conquest of Naples and Battles of 1503

Spanish arquebusiers and artillery defeated French cavalry and Swiss pikemen, killing the Duke of Nemours.

Córdoba fortified the heights of Cerignola. French heavy cavalry charges were repulsed by intense Spanish fire. The battle is noted as the first European battle won by small firearms, marking a shift in military tactics.

Sources

  1. Battle of Cerignola Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-21

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.