The 2025 Bill Kent Memorial Lecture
Wednesday, November 19 · 6 – 8pm AEDT
Monash Conference Centre

Despoiling the King in 1525: Capture, Plunder, and the Battle of Pavia
Associate Professor John Gagné

On the 500th anniversary of Renaissance Europe’s most renowned battle, we return to the Park of Mirabello, the walled hunting grounds outside the old Visconti palace at Pavia. It was here that Imperial forces destroyed France’s army and captured King François I as he fought to regain the duchy of Milan. Leaving aside questions of military history, this lecture explores the cultural significance of ensnaring one of Europe’s great kings on an Italian battlefield. By focusing on the monarch’s capture, we investigate not just the seizure of the royal person, but also the plundering of objects charged with his charisma: armour, weapons, decorations, flags, and clothing. These despoiled objects authenticated Imperial victory and exalted their owners. The “disassembly” of the royal warrior produced a host of these battle relics, whose traces – both real and legendary – this presentation reconstructs.

John Gagné is Cassamarca Associate Professor of History at the University of Sydney. His research pursues the intersections between war, representation, material culture, and the human body. He is the author of Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars (Harvard University Press, 2021), co-editor with Stephen Bowd and Sarah Cockram of Shadow Agents of Renaissance War: Suffering, Supporting, and Supplying Conflict in Italy and Beyond (Amsterdam University Press, 2023), and co-author with Timothy McCall of Fabric of War: The Material Culture and Social Lives of Banners in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2025). His research has appeared in Renaissance Quarterly, Sixteenth Century Journal, Art History, and I Tatti Studies in the Renaissance.

For any enquiries, please contact Jessica O’Leary via jessica.oleary@monash.edu