Battle of Pavia

On 24 February 1525 before Pavia in Lombardy, Francis I's army was surprised and encircled by Charles V's imperial forces under Charles de Lannoy. Despite the bravery of gendarmes and Swiss landsknechts, Spanish arquebusiers and tercios broke French cavalry charges within the walls of the Mirabello park. Francis I was captured on the battlefield, the first French king taken by the enemy since John the Good at Poitiers.

The Sixth Italian War pitted Francis I against Charles V for control of the peninsula. After the Siege of Pavia, the French army camped in the Mirabello park, hoping to force the Imperials to lift the siege. Lannoy and Pescara maneuvered by night to take the French on the flank and rear, while Milanese reinforcements blocked retreat toward the left bank of the Ticino.

The Imperials combined Spanish arquebusiers entrenched behind hedges and walls with heavy cavalry charges on French flanks. Francis I's gendarmes launched several heroic charges but met arquebus fire at close range. Progressive encirclement isolated French units; the wounded king was captured in the melee after the deaths of La Palice and Bonnivet.

Defeat was catastrophic: Francis I was taken to Spain and forced to sign the Treaty of Madrid (1526), ceding Burgundy and his Italian claims, before repudiating its clauses on return. France temporarily lost ascendancy in Italy; Charles V dominated Europe. Pavia symbolized the tactical superiority of fire infantry and tercios over heavy cavalry still dominant in French imagination.