The military reforms of the Florentine Republic were initiated by Florentine politician and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli during the short-lived Republic of Florence that lasted from 1498 to 1512 under the priest Girolamo Savonarola. In the pursuit of the republican spirit which pervaded Florence at the time, Machiavelli sought to establish a military establishment that was similar to that of ancient Rome. He was specifically focused upon the establishment of an army possessed with the discipline of the Roman legions. He sought to establish a citizen-infantry capable of taking the field against the Italian Condottieri of the day, who largely terrorized the peninsula, in addition to the chronic foreign invasions which occurred on a regular basis at this time. Broadly speaking Machi