(...)the Duke of Savoy cheaply bought up abandoned bells - now rejected as idolatrous - and melted them down to make cannon (...)

Wrought iron was as much as ten times cheaper than bronze, but whole-cast bronze pieces were safer, less likely to murderously burst asunder - allowing and encouraging a gunner to use larger and more powerful powder charge.

Gilles de Gatineau (Canada) (2008/02/17):
Chapter 1 - The New Fury

Vitellozzo Vitelli (...) made a habit of chopping the offending limbs - their hands - from captured handgunners

punto bianco - point blank

peasants made the best soldiers because their familiar peacetime work with spade and shovel was the duty most often required in the field.

In 1570, the governor of Nicosia was skinned by the Turks for his temerity.

custom allowed a three-day sack for the troops to vent their fury

Chapter 2 - The New Legions

In 1576 aggrieved Habsburg troops, led by a strike leadership elected from the ranks, sacked the city of Antwerp in what became known as the "Spanish Fury" - some of the mutinous infantry units had not bee paid in four years.

fast horses were forbidden as a temptation to fly in the face of danger

a man should only put himself in danger when there was the possibility of his individual bravery being noticed and talked about (The Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione)

Chapter 3 - The New Ceasars

Another technical aid to generalship, popular at the time but (almost) completely discredited today, was astrology, which many Renaissance generals widely assumed could be used to manage time in a similar way to the use of cartography for managing distance and terrain.