“This did not, however, keep the wars themselves from being bloody, as soldiers on all sides had no problems with pillaging and killing civilians.”
“The whole system collapsed pretty thoroughly in 1494 with the French invasion. The condottieri fell apart when faced with a real army that fought for keeps.”
- What keeps:D?
Furthermore; when the French, a people already insane by nature, enter another nation which also is out of their minds, but in a different way (like Italians are) the French automatically adopt the insanity of that particular nation - on top of their original insanity.
This explains the development of that particular epoque of Italian history in a quite satisfying manner.
Anyhow, good ol’ Luca reports that the French troops behaved very well while staying visiting Florence. According to Landucci, no citizen told of anything like a French soldier being overly drunk in the street or having harassed a Florentine girl.
Not altogether surprising, as Florence was an ally of the French, and had been for centuries.