Gran Capitan (Great Captain) - Plaza de las Tendillas, Córdoba, Spain
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N 37° 53.069 W 004° 46.774
30S E 343508 N 4194491
Equestrian statue of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, a Spanish general and statesman who led successful military campaigns during the Conquest of Granada and the Italian Wars nicknamed as 'El Gran Capitán' on the Plaza (square) de las Tendillas
Waymark Code: WM15HWR
Location: Andalucía, Spain
Date Posted: 01/09/2022
Views: 5
The monument to the ‘Gran Capitan’ or ‘Great Captain’ is located in the central Plaza de las Tendillas. Built in 1923 by sculptor Mateo Inurria, it is a bronze equestrian figure with a white marble head.
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba was born in Montilla (Cordoba) on September 1, 1433 and died in Granada on December 2, 1515. He gained his sobriquet ‘Gran Capitan’ thanks the military genius he showed in the war against the Kingdom of Granada and the wars in Italy fought under the standards of the Catholic Monarchs.
Biography
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, 1st Duke of Santángelo (1 September 1453 – 2 December 1515) was a Spanish general and statesman who led successful military campaigns during the Conquest of Granada and the Italian Wars. His military victories and widespread popularity earned him the nickname "El Gran Capitán" ("The Great Captain"). He also negotiated the final surrender of Granada and later served as Viceroy of Naples. Fernández de Córdoba was a masterful military strategist and tactician. He was the first European to introduce the successful use of firearms on the battlefield and he reorganized his infantry to include pikes and firearms in effective defensive and offensive formations. The changes implemented by Fernández de Córdoba were instrumental in making the Spanish army the dominant force in Europe for more than a century and a half.
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).
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