In Italian historiography, mercenary soldiers were for long regarded as an alien presence, alien in a literal sense because so many of them were foreigners; German, Hungarian, Spanish, Greek, Albanian, French, Swiss, English and Scottish soldiers can all be found fighting in Italy. They were also seen as alien in a more figurative sense, as an unwelcome scourge that fed upon, exploited and weakened Italian society and the states of Italy, damaging the economy and exacerbating the political divisions of the Peninsula. However, in more recent years, historians like Daniel Waley, John Hale, Michael Mallett, Nadia Covini and William Caferro have addressed these issues and have re-assessed our perception of the mercenary soldier in late medieval and early renaissance Italy. For example, it is now generally agreed that even in the later fourteenth century, when the presence of foreign-non-Italian-mercenary soldiers in the Peninsula and their political and military influence was at its height, the majority of mercenaries were in fact Italian.
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