Prospero Colonna (1452-1523) was a condotierro in the service of the Holy Roman Empire and the Papal States during the Italian Wars. He was responsible for the victory in the 1522 Battle of Bicocca, where the tercios of the Spanish Empire mauled the French army.
Biography[]
Prospero was born to the influential House of Colonna of Lazio in 1452, and was the cousin of Fabrizio Colonna. In 1484 he defended the castle of Paliano against the House of Orsini and the House of Riario, two rival families of northern Italy, seeing his first action. Pope Alexander VI imprisoned him after he took part in other battle deeds, but Prospero escaped and assisted King Charles VIII of France in capturing Naples in 1495. However, when the French king returned over the Alps to stop the Duchy of Milan from retaking control of Italy, Colonna fought against France. He was captured by France's ally, the Papal States, by their general Cesare Borgia. While being transferred from one Roman prison to another, Prospero and his fellow mercenary cousin Fabrizio were freed by Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who was fighting against the House of Borgia. Free, he commanded Spain's cavalry in the 1503 Battle of Garigliano. Prospero then added Itri, Sperlonga, Ceccano and Sonnino to his fiefs, becoming once again a great feudal lord in southern Italy.
In 1515, he became a general of Pope Leo X, and he served the Papal States in northern Italy. However, he was captured by King Francis I of France, although he remarked that France was a country that he always wanted to visit. He was later released, and in 1522 he took his revenge while fighting for the Spanish; his tercios mauled France's Landsknecht at the Battle of Bicocca. He died in Milan in 1523.