Colorado Springs & Trinidad, Colorado

Lucca, Italy

ABOUT OUR NAME

This is a ten minute read, we recommend you have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

The tale of how The White Company came to be famous in the Italian Peninsula in the 1300's has many parallels to our company of the same name in Colorado in 2009.

Among the most successful buildings (there are many) in Italy is the Duomo in Florence. Its proper name is Santa Maria del Fiore (St Mary of the Flowers). Designed to accommodate 30,000 worshipers this building took an astonishing 272 years to build. Today over 2.0 million visitors come to experience it each year. Each visitor must make a reservation for a specific day and hour for their visit. Fast forward to today and think what it would be like to own a commercial building so successful that you could require reservations. This is the level of success we strive to bring to your building - this is what we mean when we say "successful buildings".

Inside the Duomo, in the southwest part of the narthex, mounted high on the polished marble wall you will find a splendid equestrian portrait of John Hawkwood. It was placed in the most important building in Florence by the citizens in 1394 to honor the man who helped them protect their city and bring stability to their commercial activities.

At the time, in Italy, there were city states, each with its own currency, protective walls and agricultural lands that were the basis of its economy. Growth meant acquiring more agricultural land, which was usually owned by the neighboring city state. It also meant defending its own land from others. Thus what was an economic issue quickly became a military problem.

Having little taste for warfare and a natural propensity for diplomatic slight of hand the crafty Italian city states began a practice of hiring private mercenary armies for both defense and conquest of land. These private armies were a product of a lull in the One Hundred Year War north across the Alps in France. Unemployed, but highly experienced English and German mercenaries flooded into Italy in the 14th century to practice their craft in the endless skirmishes among the Italian city states.

These private armies were experienced, disciplined and highly effective. Effective because their pay was based on victory. Victory, they quickly discovered depended upon gathering reliable intelligence and moving swiftly to exploit rapidly developing opportunities. It also depended upon employing the latest technology in weaponry, being fast and light in action plus rigorous training and discipline. These armies were called "Condottiere" literally meaning "Contractors".

John Hawkwood was born in Essex in 1320 and learned the craft of the soldier in France under Edward II and later as a commander of a company. In 1360 at 40 years of age and with a pause in the action in France he and his light and fast company went over the Alps to Milano Italy to work on behalf of the Visconti family, to protect and enlarge their empire. His success attracted the attention of Pope Gregory XI. The Vatican soon hired him away and he and his company plied their trade for the church. Success for the church resulted in the City of Pisa sending a delegation to hire him to protect their city from the larger city of Florence. The crafty Florentines followed Hawk wood's activities with great interest and very smartly hired him away from their enemies as their primary contractor for both diplomacy and military action.

With the help of Hawkwood as well as their own innate resourcefulness, creativity, industry and passion for excellence the Florentines went on to create the environment that produced the Renaissance in their beloved city. Today Florence still stands as the world pinnacle of all that is excellent in art, design, culture and gracious living.

Hawkwood is generally considered to have been one of the first military leaders in modern times. His army was composed of a group of skilled veterans. They studied history and learned that several centuries earlier Hannibal was able to wreak havoc on the Roman Legions by inventing the night attack. Hawkwood adopted this tactic with great success. They developed intelligence gathering techniques permitting them to anticipate their opponent's tactics. And most importantly they studied military technology and found ways to refine and improve it giving them advantages on the battlefield. At the time body armor had been in use for many decades and had grown heavy and elaborate to the point of limiting the soldier's agility as well as increasing the physical effort needed to attack. Hawkwood redesigned the armor for his soldiers removing the elaborate engraving, eliminating unnecessary parts, making it thinner and lighter. He also polished the armor to a mirror like finish which served to reflect the sunlight into the enemy's eyes and also startle and confuse them by reflecting their own images. Because of their bright armor Hawk wood's army became known as La Compagnia Bianca, The White Company. Because the letters w and K do not exist in Italian the name Hawkwood is difficult for Italians to pronounce. They refer to John Hawkwood as Giovanni Acuto, or John the keen one for his sharp thinking skills.

So successful was The White Company in the employee of the Florentines that in addition to putting his portrait in Santa Maria del Fiore they also gave him a castle for his retirement years. Castello di Montecchio Vesponi is near the town of Castiglion Fiorentino in Tuscany. He lived there until his death of natural causes at age 72. Today the castle is a highly successful privately owned building, still standing and in commercial use today. You may visit it in person or virtually awww.castellionscani.com. Today, with extensive military engineering experience and using the latest technology and limiting our work to one small area we bring discipline and creativity to your projects to produce successful historic buildings.

We also practice our craft in Lucca Italy in the area where John Hawkwood found success. While there we study the latest state of the art methods of rehabilitating historic structures as well as Italian/ Mediterranean Historic Residential Architecture.