 The Medici may have wished to emphasize that point that any condottiero , no matter how hostile or fickle , could be bought off and manipulated to Florentine interests and truly Florentinized . Attempts to claim Hawkwood as Florentine were well underway even before his death ; for example , Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder wrote in 1391 that Hawkwood " no longer has any foreign blood ... and has become regenerated more strongly and more healthful in fiber and body under the moderating sky of Italy " . Such a viewpoint has even crept into modern scholarship : the 19th @-@ century Italian historian Ercole Ricotti called Hawkwood " the last of the foreign condottieri or the first of the Italian ones " ; his 18th @-@ century biography Domenico Maria Manni called him " general captain of Florentine armies " and virtually ignored two decades of Hawkwood 's service to other city @-@ states ; even in the 20th century , Friedrich Gaupp attempted to characterize Hawkwood 's direct attack on Florence as a " marriage proposal " . 
