Years of Crisis
The advent of the Italian Wars (1494–1559) coincided with a devastating epidemic, initially dubbed the mal francese by Italians, because it was thought to have been brought to the peninsula with Charles VIII’s invading army. Francesco was an early victim of the Great Pox. This chapter explores the physical and mental anguish associated with a disease from the perspective of an infected individual. The illness ruined Francesco’s military career and compromised the physically robust image of masculinity he had always cultivated. His alternating bouts of hope and despair provide an insight into how elite sufferers, such as he, dealt with the disease. The marquis assumed he would be able to prevail over the affliction, since he had the requisite courage and enough money to secure an effective cure, an attitude that led to his capture by Venetian mercenaries and year-long incarceration in Venice, when he returned to the battlefield while still in an enfeebled state.