Introduction: Military Engineers from Polymath Courtiers to Specialist Troops

There had been medieval specialist builders of fortifications, but in Renaissance Italy virtuoso military engineers were a response to the need to create new artillery-resistant fortifications after the devastating invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France in 1494. Military engineers often had an artistic background. They were multi-tasking international hired guns who spent time on firework displays, canal construction, and town planning as well as fortification. Gradually, with the consolidation of early-modern warfare states cadres of specialist military engineers developed, but they were few in number, directing labour supplied by the infantry, and usually became self-contained combat engineers only late in the nineteenth century.