It was 1485, and the mercenary army of Medicean Florence was vying with Genoa for possession of the important coastal fortress of Sarzanello. The Pope himself had intervened in the 15-year-old conflict, and with the Peace of Lombardy assigned the castle and its port city to a neutral family; this solution, according to Machiavelli, suited neither combatant. A new Captain-General over the Florentine host was chosen on the Feast of St. John the Baptist (patron saint of the city), and on July 17, 1485, Niccolò Orsini, Count of Pitigliano, was invested with the command and tasked with the fort's reduction. Such are the bellicose but hopeful circumstances with which musicologist Timothy McGee has connected the composition of Alla Battaglia, by Lorenzo de Medici's young but celebrated Netherlandish composer, Heinrich Isaac.

The complete text, as reconstructed by McGee, consists of three stanzas and a refrain of the opening couplet ("To the battle, arm yourself everyone with breastplates and mail!"). Beginning with the "excellent captain," the poem calls forth the ranked gentiluomini and commanders of the Florentine army by name, to perforate the body of the enemy, bombard him well, and bring him captive under their banners. Isaac captures the spirit of this poem in an extended polyphonic setting of four partes, including the refrain. His upbeat textures vary between strong points of imitation, antiphonal effects between pairs of voices, and rollicking chordal passages. The music is peppered with frequent open fifth motives (evoking warlike calls of the horn) and exciting repetitions of small note-groups which build toward prominent cadences.

This piece has been popular with instrumental ensembles, largely due to its preservation in an important Florentine manuscript without text, and the suggestion that it was performed this way during a 1489 courtly dramatic presentation. A surviving partbook with text, however, gives evidence of at least one performance by the excellent singers assembled by Lorenzo il Magnifico for the Florentine chapels, perhaps assisted by his corps of trumpeters and shawms. (Fascinatingly, later in the piece's life it was copied into two German manuscripts with pious Latin texts inserted.)

In the summer of 1487, the Florentines finally succeeded in taking Sarzanello, with the aid of a huge cannon brought from Pisa. Sadly, they would only maintain their glorious hold for seven years; the French army's rampage down the Italian peninsula in 1494 swept the castle en passant.

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