Francis I Taken Prisoner at the Battle of Pavia, 24 February 1525

This sixteenth-century engraving, attributed to Maarten van Heemskerck, depicts the capture of Francis I at the Battle of Pavia on 24 February 1525, the most resounding episode of the Italian Wars waged by the king of France. On that day, the French army, twenty-eight thousand strong, was annihilated in little over an hour by the imperial troops of Charles V, following a cavalry charge that the king himself led against the German landsknechts. Wounded and unhorsed, Francis I continued to fight among his fallen companions until surrender became inevitable, before being taken prisoner by the viceroy of Naples, Charles de Lannoy — the first capture of a king of France on a battlefield since that of John II the Good at Poitiers in 1356. Produced shortly after the events, this image, contemporary with the episode itself, conveys the immense shock felt throughout Europe at the news of the French king's defeat and captivity.