Spain Banknotes 100 Pesetas banknote 1931 Gonzalo de Córdoba
Bank of Spain - Banco de España
Obverse: Portrait of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (The Great Captain), military of Queen Isabel of Castile, and later the Catholic Kings in Granada and Italy.
Reverse: Painting of painter José Casado del Alisal "The Great Captain lies, the day of the Battle of Cerignola, the body of his enemy the Duke of Nemours" - "El Gran Capitán encuentra, al día siguiente de la batalla de Ceriñola, el cadáver de su enemigo el Duque de Nemours".
The watermark is a head of warrior of Spanish Empire with helmet.
Original Size: 140 x 90 mm.
Printer: Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co. Ltd., New Malden, Surrey, England.
Spain Banknotes - Spain Paper Money
1931 Issue
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Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, byname El Gran Capitán (Spanish: “The Great Captain”) (born Sept. 1, 1453, Córdoba, Andalusia [now in Spain] — died Dec. 1/2, 1515, Granada, Spain), Spanish military leader renowned for his exploits in southern Italy.
Fernández was sent to the Castilian court at the age of 13 and distinguished himself in the fighting following Isabella I’s accession (1474), and he played an increasingly important role in the war against the Muslim kingdom of Granada. He was one of the two commissioners who conducted the final negotiations for the surrender of Granada (1492).
In 1495 Isabella gave him command of an expedition in support of the Aragonese king of Naples against the French in Italy. Fernández quickly achieved success on behalf of his ally and at the request of Pope Alexander VI defeated a lingering French garrison in Ostia (March 1497). In 1500 he was sent to Italy in command of a larger force, for cooperation with Louis XII of France against the Ottoman Turks but also to be ready to counter French ambitions in regard to Naples. Together with the Venetians, he captured (December 1500) the strongly held island of Cephalonia. The immediate Turkish threat having been removed, a secret agreement was signed by the king of France and Ferdinand dividing the Kingdom of Naples between them. The French disputed and overran the agreed lines of the division and by 1502 were engaged in a war with the Spaniards under Fernández in which he won the striking victories of Cerignola, Monte Cassino, and the Garigliano. In this last battle Fernández brought about the surrender of far larger and more heavily armed forces by an unexpected night attack (Dec. 27, 1503) across the flooded estuary by means of pontoons.
Ferdinand recalled Fernández from the viceroyalty of Naples in 1507 but again gave him a command following a French threat after the Battle of Ravenna (1512).
Battle of Cerignola - Part of the Second Italian War 1499–1504
The Battle of Cerignola was fought on April 28, 1503, between Spanish and French armies, in Cerignola, near Bari in Southern Italy. Spanish forces, under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, formed by 6,300 men, including 2,000 landsknechte, with more than 1,000 arquebusiers, and 20 cannons, defeated the French who had 9,000 men; mainly heavy gendarme cavalry and Swiss mercenary pikemen, with about 40 cannons, and led by Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, who was killed.
The battle resulted in a heavy French defeat with the French reported to have lost around 2,000 men, Spanish losses amounting to some 500 men. The French supplies, wagon train and all of the French artillery still in it fell into the hands of the victorious Spanish troops. The end of the battle saw the first time a "call to prayer" (toque de oracion) was issued, a practice that was later adopted by most Western armies, when the Great Captain, upon seeing the fields full of French bodies (who, like the Spaniards, were Christian), ordered three long tones to be played and his troops to pray for all the fallen.
After the battle the defeated French army retreated to the fortress of Gaeta north of Naples. De Córdoba's forces attempted to storm the fortress, but the attacks all failed. The besieged French were prepared for a long siege and were receiving supplies by sea. Thus unable to take Gaeta and fearing the arrival of possible French reinforcements, De Córdoba lifted the siege and retreated to Castellone, some 8 kilometers south of Gaeta.
In retrospect, Cerignola marks the beginning of a near invincible Spanish dominance on European battlefields until the defeat of Rocroi in 1643 and also marked the rise of pike and shot tactics. It is considered to be the first major battle won largely through the use of firearms, comparable to what was to occur in Japan seven decades later in the Battle of Nagashino in 1575.