CORDOBA, GONZALO FERNANDEZ DE (1453 1515), Spanish general and statesman, was the son of the count of Aguilar. He was born near Cordova on March 16, 1453. He was first attached to the household of Don Alphonso, the king's brother, and upon his death devoted himself to Isabella, after wards queen. During the civil war, and the conflict with Portugal which disturbed the first years of her reign, he fought under the grand master of Santiago, Alonso de Cardenas. The ability he displayed during the ten years' war for the conquest of Granada led the queen to choose him as commander of the Spanish expe dition sent to support the Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII. of France. In Italy, where he won the title of the Great Captain, he twice held the command. In 1495 he was sent with about 5,00o men to aid Ferdinand of Naples to recover his kingdom, and he returned home after achieving success in 1498. His mountain warfare in Calabria against the French forces, con sisting largely of Swiss pikemen and of their own men-at-arms, led him to see the inadequacy of foot soldiers armed with sword and buckler, or arquebuses and crossbows, and light cavalry, and to introduce the pike as a weapon, insisting at the same time on a much closer infantry formation.
After a brief interval of service in Spain against the Moors, Gonzalo returned to Italy in 1501, and was first employed in driving the Turks from Cephalonia. In the subsequent campaign against the French, Gonzalo stood at bay in the entrenched camp at Barletta, on the shores of the Adriatic, awaiting reinforce ments and harassing the French communications. Then in the early part of 1503 he pounced on the enemy's depot of provisions at Cerignola, took a strong position, threw up hasty field works, and strengthened them with a species of wire entanglements. The French made a headlong front attack, were repulsed, assailed in flank, and routed. The later operations on the Garigliano were very similar, and led to the total expulsion of the French from Naples. Gonzalo remained as governor of Naples till 1507. The death of the queen in 1504 had deprived him of a friend, and King Ferdinand, after loading him with titles and fine words, recalled him and left him unemployed till his death on Dec. 2, 1515.
The Great Captain is sometimes spoken of as the first of mod ern generals. There is much in his methods which bears a like ness to those of the duke of Wellington; Barletta, for instance, has a distinct resemblance to the Torres Vedras campaign, and the battle on the Garigliano to Assaye. As an organizer he founded the Spanish infantry of the i6th and 17th centuries, and he gave the best proof of his influence by forming a school of officers.