The Battle of Pavia was fought on 24 February 1525 during the Italian War of 1521-1526 between the French army led personally by King Francis I and the imperial army of Charles V, consisting mainly of 12,000 German lansquenets and 5,000 Spanish soldiers, under the command of the Flemish captain Charles of Lannoy, the Italian leader Fernando Francis d’Avalos, and the French renegade Charles of Bourbon. The battle ended with a clear victory for the army of Emperor Charles V and King Francis I was taken prisoner by the imperials. The battle marked a decisive moment in the wars for dominance in Italy and affirmed the temporary supremacy of Charles V. From the point of view of military history, the battle is important because it demonstrated the overwhelming superiority of the imperial infantry and especially of its formations of Spanish (tercios) and German (Doppelsöldner) pikemen and arquebusiers who destroyed the famous French heavy cavalry with the fire of their weapons. Among the most significant works illustrating the battle, the cycle of seven Flemish tapestries made in Brussels based on drawings by van Orley and donated in 1530 to Emperor Charles V stands out. Today preserved in Naples at the Capodimonte Museum, they illustrate the various phases of the battle. Along the border of two of the seven tapestries is the initials of the tapestry maker, William Dermoyen,
