Giovanni of the Black Bands dies while trying to stop the German Landsknechts who had descended from Germany to hang the Pope; the Germans have four arquebuses donated to them by the Duke of Este of Ferrara; Giovanni, mortally wounded by one of them, is cared for by the Gonzaga family in Mantua. He was the son of Giovanni de’ Medici and Caterina Riario Sforza, an excellent leader—he was seen by Machiavelli as the man capable of unifying Italy—and his figure is shrouded in legend, often concealing his ferocity. He earned his nickname when, upon the death of the Medici Pope Leo X, he changed the stripes of his ensign as a captain of fortune from white to black as a sign of mourning. A true mercenary, eager only to fight for whoever paid him best, in just four years, from 1522 to 1526, he changed sides four times: he was in the pay of the Pope, then of the French, of the Imperials, and then of the French again. He led the army of the League of Cognac, a Franco-Venetian-Papal alliance desired by Pope Clement VII (still a Medici) against the imperials, but he was killed by a culverin shot and the Landsknechts opened the way for the sack of Rome (1527).
