Military Engineering in the 16th Century

In the 16th century, warfare was being revolutionized by gunpowder. Previously invulnerable high-walled medieval fortifications proved appallingly susceptible to artillery. Arquebus bullets easily penetrated plate armor. The age of the military engineer had arrived.

Edoardo Albert's The Man Who Stopped the Sultan: Gabriele Tadino and the Defence of Europe examines the era using the life of Gabriele Tadino as the lens to focus the picture.

Gabriele Tadino was the foremost military engineer of that century. Raised in Martinengo, then part of Venice’s Italian empire, he was the son of a doctor. He became an adult near the beginning of the Italian Wars, a 65-year period of strife when France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire used Italy as their playground for wars of empire. Instead of following his father into medicine, Tadino became a soldier, mastering the art of building fortifications and then becoming a condottiero, leading his own mercenary company.

Eventually Venice hired him to manage the fortifications of the Venetian colony in Crete. While he was there, Sulieman the Magnificent launched his 1522 attack on the Knight Hospitaler of St. John at Rhodes. When the knights asked for help in the siege, Tadino sailed to Rhodes to assist in its defense. He did so in defiance of Venice, which wished to stay neutral. Tadino’s assistance proved critical. The knights fought the Ottomans to a standstill for six months due to Tadino’s skills in siege warfare. Sulieman allowed them to depart with their possessions.

While Venice made Tadino a renegade, he was admitted to the Knights of St. John in a senior position. As a knight, Tadino served Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. He was instrumental in getting Charles to donate Malta, Gozo, and Tripoli to the Hospitallers. He also improved fortifications in the empire and trained the engineers who helped defend Vienna when the Ottomans invaded.

Albert puts Tadino’s life in context, explaining the political, military, and social intricacies of 16th-century Europe. He presents the complex politics of the era, a period when the modern nations of Europe were forming over a powder keg of religious strife. (Both the Reformation and the Islamic conquest were occurring.) He also shows the social upheaval occurring as the Middle Ages passed into the Modern Era.

The Man Who Stopped the Sultan is a fascinating examination of a transitional period in world history. It is both informative and entertaining.

“The Man Who Stopped the Sultan: Gabriele Tadino and the Defence of Europe,” by Edoardo Albert, Osprey Publishing, January 2026, 304 pages, $35.00 (Hardcover), $24.50 (E-book), $20.78 (Audiobook)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.