HAWKWOOD, Sir John (oδ. 1394), an English adventurer who attained great wealth and renown by his services as a condottiere in the Italian wars of the 14th century. According to the accepted if not the authenticated account of his life, he was the son of a tanner of Sible Hedingham in Essex, and was apprenticed to a tailor in London. Pressed into the army, he served with honour in France, obtained the favour of the Black Prince, and received knighthood from King Edward III. On the peace of Bretigny in 1360, he collected a band of men-at-arms, and moved southward to Italy, where we find him assisting the Pisans to defeat the Florentines in 1364. His services were sought in succession by Bernabo Visconti, by the legate of Bologna, and by Pope Gregory XI. In 1375 the Florentines entered into an agreement with him, by which they were to pay him and his companion 130,000 gold florins in three months on condition that he undertook no engagement against them; and in the same year the priors >of the arts and the gonfalonier decided to give him a pension of 1200 florins per annum for as long as he should remain in Italy. His subsequent services to Florence as captaingeneral of the city λvere numerous and important. Hawkwood married Donnana, an illegitimate daughter of Bernabo Visconti, and one of his own daughters became the wife of the count of Porziglia. His latter years were spent in a villa in the neighbourhood of Florence. On his death in 1394 the republic gave him a public funeral of great magnificence and decreed the erection of a marble monument in the cathedral. This, however, was never executed; but Paolo Uccelli painted his portrait in terre-verte on the inner façade of the building, where it still remains, though damaged by removal from the plaster to canvas. ...