innovations in French siege weaponry. Prior to this, field artillery guns were huge, large-caliber bombards: superguns that, along with enormous stones or other projectiles, were dragged from destination to destination. These behemoths could only be used effectively in sieges, and more often than not provided just a psychological effect on the battlefield; owning these giant mortars did not guarantee any army a victory. The French saw the limitations of these massive weapons and focused their efforts on improving their smaller and lighter guns, which used smaller, more manageable projectiles combined with larger amounts of gunpowder. Equipping them with trunnions was key for two reasons. First, teams of horses could now move these cannons fast enough to keep up with their armies and no longer had to stop and dismount them from their carriages to achieve the proper range before firing; second, the capability to adjust firing angle without having to lift the entire weight of the gun allowed tactical selection and reselection of targets rather than being deployed solely on the first target chosen. Francesco Guicciardini, an Italian historian and statesman, wrote that the cannons were placed against town walls so quickly, spaced together so closely and shot so rapidly and with such force that the time for a significant amount of damage to be inflicted went from a matter of days (as with bombards) to a matter of hours. For the first time in history, as seen in the 1512 battle of Ravenna and the 1515 Battle of Marignano, artillery weaponry played a very decisive part in the victory of the invading army over the city under siege. Cities that had proudly withstood sieges for up to seven years fell swiftly with the advent of these new weapons. Defensive tactics and fortifications had to be altered since these new weapons could be transported so speedily and aimed with much more accuracy at strategic locations. Two significant changes were the additions of a ditch and low, sloping ramparts of packed earth (glacis) that would surround the city and absorb the impact of the cannonballs, and the replacement of round watchtowers with angular bastions. These towers would be deemed trace Italienne. Whoever could afford these new weapons had the tactical advantage over their neighbors and smaller sovereignties, which could not incorporate them into their army. Smaller states, such as the principalities of Italy, began to conglomerate. Preexisting stronger entities, such as