There was a time in the history of Italy and Europe when women led armies and took them into battle. These adventurous stories which today seem almost legendary are often neglected by historians: however there was a real military training given to women by their fathers, and more frequently by their mothers or grandmothers, who created a feminine way of war. For centuries, it has been easy to idealise these women fighters, to embalm them in the role of exceptional and unrepeatable, almost literary figures, to tame their revolutionary and exemplary value. They even became myths, useful in certain periods, such as the Italian Risorgimento, for the construction of new national identities. This book tells of these women in the flesh, restoring them to their truth: feudal ladies, captains of fortune, knights and even ordinary women in arms defending their city.