Resumen de Relations, Money, and Financial Skills to Fight an Attrition War.: The Strozzi Brothers, Bankers and Commanders

Michele Maria Rabà

• The essay examines the contribution provided by Piero, Roberto and Leone Strozzi - sons of the wealthy Florentine banker Filippo Strozzi- to the French war effort in the last two decades of the italian Wars. A contribution based on their military and diplomatic skills and on the availabity of money, but also on their banking knowhow and on consolidated relationships with a widespread network of financiers. These tools werw essential in a war of attrition- such as the one waged by the Valois against the Habsburgsfor the hegemony in europe and in the mediterranean-, because the allowed the three anti-Medici Florentine exiles to quickly transfer financial resources to the italian fronts, overcoming the physical distance that separated the king of France´s armies in the Peninsula and his fleets in the Mediterranean.