Heavy-armed cavaliers, officered by professional captains, fought the battles of Italy; while despots and republics schemed in their castles, or debated in their council-chambers, concerning objects of warfare about which the soldiers of fortune were indifferent.

The pay received by men-at-arms was more considerable than that of the most skilled laborers in any peaceful trade.

The perils of military service in Italy, conducted on the most artificial principles, were but slight; while the opportunities of self-indulgence--of pillage during war and of pleasure in the brief intervals of peace--attracted all the hot blood of the country to this service.[3] Therefore, in course of time, the profession of Condottiere fascinated the needier nobility of Italy, and the ranks of their men-at-arms were recruited by townsfolk and peasants, who deliberately chose a life of adventure.
[1] VIII.

51.
[2] We may remember how the Spanish general Cardona, in 1325, misused his captaincy of the Florentine forces to keep rich members of the republican militia in unhealthy stations, extorting money from them as the price of freedom from perilous or irksome service.
[3] Matarazzo, in his Chronicle of Perugia, gives a lively picture of an Italian city, in which the nobles for generations followed the trade of Condottieri, while the people enlisted in their bands--to the utter ruin of the morals and the peace of the community.
At first the foreign troops of the despots were engaged as body-guards, and were controlled by the authority of their employers.

But the captains soon rendered themselves independent, and entered into military contracts on their own account.