one of the greatest of the condottieri (leaders of bands of mercenary soldiers) who dominated Italian history in the 14th and 15th centuries. He was the first condottiere to found a state.

Born of a noble Perugian family, Braccio became the pupil of Alberico da Barbiano, the first great Italian condottiere, initiating a lifelong rivalry with another of Alberico's followers, Muzio Attendolo Sforza (Sforza, Muzio Attendolo). During the first quarter of the 15th century, hardly a major city of Italy carried on a campaign without employing either Braccio or Sforza. Braccio's political ambitions led him to invade papal Umbria (north of Rome) from 1416 to 1419. He seized Perugia, a conquest legitimated by Pope Martin V in 1420, when Braccio was granted the title of papal vicar. In the 1420s the two condottieri found themselves on opposite sides in a struggle between Queen Joan II of Naples and King Alfonso V of Aragon; Braccio was in Alfonso's employ and Sforza in Joan's. In a campaign in the Abruzzi (east-central Italy) in 1424, the rivals died within a few weeks of each other, Sforza by drowning and Braccio as a result of wounds suffered in battle against Sforza's son Francesco. After Braccio's death, the Umbrian principality reverted to the papacy.