Battle of Anghiari (1440)

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The Battle of Anghiari was a battle fought on June 29, 1440, between Milan and the Italian League led by Republic of Florence in the course of the Wars in Lombardy.

The League's army concentrating in Anghiari, a small centre of Tuscany, comprised: 4000 Papal troops, under Cardinal Lodovico Trevisan; a Florentine contingent of the same size, and a company of 300 men-at-arms (knights) from Venice, led by Micheletto Attendolo. Other men joined for the occasion from the Anghiari itself.

The famous condottiero Niccolò led for Milanese sovereign Filippo Maria Visconti a numerically superior force, which reached the area where the League had camped in the night of June 28. Some 2,000 men from the nearby Sansepolcro itself joined his troops. Confiding in his superior manpower, and on some certain surprise effect, Piccinino attacked in the afternoon of the following day. However, Micheletto from his camp noticed the dust lifted by the Milanese on the Sansepolcro-Anghiari road, and the surprise went lost.

Micheletto's knights blocked the Milanese vanguard on the bridge over a channel protecting the League camp. While the latter's army set for battle, Micheletto and the Venetians hold strong at the bridge, until pushed back the arrive of opponent reinforces led by the two captains Francesco Piccinino and Astorre Manfredi.

However, the advancing Milanese were in turn attacked from the right by the Papal troops, and obliged to retreat to the bridge. The battle continued for four hours, until a surrounding maneuver cut off a third of the Milanese on the League side of the channel.

The battle ended at high night with a victory for the League army.