The Art of Renaissance Warfare tells the story of the knight during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries - from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the outbreak of the Thirty Years War in 1618. The period was a time of transition and innovation: a time, perhaps, when both military technology and military thinking were moving forward in accomplishment and backwards in morality. It was also a period that has provided fertile ground for the identification of a 'military revolution'. New technology on the battlefield posed deadly challenges for the mounted warrior, but it also stimulated change, and the knight moved with the times. Having survived the longbow devastation at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, he emerged triumphant, his armour lighter and more effective, and his military skills honed. From the eerie spectacle of a bristling 'hedgehog' of Swiss pikemen oozing its way across the battlefield, to the gargantuan cannon that breached the walls of Constantinople and required seventy oxen to move it, the developments in medieval warfare detailed in this book provide intriguing reading. Fighting was also conducted at sea, the lot of a typical oarsman being so arduous that a recruiting drive in Venice in 1522 offered, among other inducements, freedom for life from personal taxation, training in firearms, permission to wear personal arms (a coveted privilege), and freedom from prosecution for debt during galley service and for six months afterwards. This is a remarkably informative and entertaining book that will appeal to anyone interested in how battles were fought and won in the Dark Ages.