1453-1515
General

Military Genius. Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba was born on 1 September 1453 in Montilla, a city in the province of Cordoba, Spain, into a noble family with a long tradition of military service to the Castilian monarchy. Fernandez de Cordoba rose in the favor of Queen Isabella for his service during the civil war and the Portuguese invasion that complicated her succession as queen of Castile in 1474. He was a combatant in the ten-year war with the Moors that ended with the conquest of Granada in 1492, marking the completion of the Christian reconquista (reconquest) of Spain. In 1495 Ferdinand of Aragon, Isabella's husband, gave him command of the forces dispatched to southern Italy to repulse the French, who had ousted Ferdinand's cousin, King Ferrante, from the throne of the Kingdom of Naples. On 28 June 1495 at Seminara, Fernandez de Cordoba gave battle to the French, whose...