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Depiction of Farinata degli Uberti by Andrea del Castagno, showing a 15th century condottiero's typical attire.

Condottieri (singular condottiero and condottiere) were the mercenary soldier leaders (or warlords) of the professional, military free companies contracted by the Italian city-states and the Papacy,^[1] from the late Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance. In Renaissance Italian, condottiero meant "contractor", and was synonymous with the modern English title Mercenary Captain, which, historiographically, does not connote the hired soldier’s nationality.^{[clarification needed]} In contemporary Italian, "condottiero" acquired the broader meaning of "military leader" (e.g., not restricted to mercenaries).

These Italian words were standard usage in English writing of the Napoleonic times that remained current in written histories until the late 20th century; because formally-employed, standing, professional armies were uncommon until late in the Napoleonic Wars (1800–1815) thus, the word Condottiere in the English language has come to denote, in the modern sense, any hired soldier.

History[link]

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Italian city-states of Venice, Florence, and Genoa were very rich from their trade with the Levant, yet possessed woefully small national armies. In the event that foreign powers and envious neighbours attacked, the ruling nobles hired foreign mercenaries to fight for them. The military-service terms and conditions were stipulated in a condotta (contract) between the city-state and the soldiers (officer and enlisted man), thus, the contracted leader, the mercenary captain commanding, was titled the Condottiere.

From the eleventh to the thirteenth century, European soldiers led by professional officers, fought against the Muslims in the Crusades (1095–1291). These crusading officers provided large-scale warfare combat experience in the foreign Holy Land of the Asian Middle East. On the Crusades’ conclusion, the first masnada (bands of roving soldiers) appeared in Italy. Given the profession, some masnade were less mercenaries than bandits and desperate men. These masnada were not Italian, but (mostly) German, from the Duchy of Brabant (hence, Brabanzoni), and from Catalonia and Aragon. The latter were Spanish soldiers who had followed King Peter III of Aragon in Italy in October 1282, and, post-war, remained there, seeking military employment. By 1333 other mercenaries had arrived in Italy to fight with John of Bohemia as the Compagnia della Colomba (Dove Company) in Perugia’s war against Arezzo.

The first well organised mercenaries in Italy were the Ventura Companies of Duke Werner von Urslingen and Count Konrad von Landau. Werner’s company differed from other mercenary companies because its code of military justice imposed discipline and an equal division of the contract’s income. The Ventura Company increased in number until becoming the fearsome “Great Company” of some 3,000 barbute (each barbuta comprised a knight and a sergeant). The first mercenary company with an Italian condottiero as its chief was the "Company of St. George" formed in 1339 and led by Lodrisio Visconti. This company was defeated and destroyed by Luchino Visconti of Milan (another condottiero and Uncle of Lodrisio) in April 1339. Later, in 1377, a second "Company of St. George" was formed under the leadership of Alberico da Barbiano, also an Italian and the Count of Conio, who later taught military science to condottieri such as Braccio da Montone and Giacomuzzo Attendolo Sforza, who also served in the company.^[2]

Once aware of their military power monopoly in Italy, the condottieri bands became notorious for their capriciousness, and soon dictated terms to their ostensible employers. In turn, many condottieri, such as Braccio da Montone and Muzio Sforza, became powerful politicians. As most were educated men acquainted with Roman military-science manuals (e.g. Vegetius’s Epitoma rei militarii), they began viewing warfare from the perspective of military science, rather than that of valor or physical courage—a great, consequential departure from chivalry, the traditional mediæval model of soldiering. Consequently, the condottieri fought by out-manœuvring the opponent and fighting his ability to wage war, rather than risk uncertain fortune—defeat, capture, death—in battlefield combat.

The earlier, mediæval condottieri developed the art of war (strategy and tactics) into military science more than any of their historical military predecessors—fighting indirectly, not directly—thus, only reluctantly endangering themselves and their enlisted men, avoiding battle when possible, also avoiding hard work and winter campaigns, as these all reduced the total number of trained soldiers available, and was detrimental to their political and economic interest.^[3] Niccolò Machiavelli even said that condottieri fought each other in grandiose, but often pointless and near-bloodless battles. However, later in the Renaissance the condottieri line of battle still deployed the grand armoured knight and mediæval weapons and tactics after most European powers had begun employing professional standing armies of pikemen and musketeers--this helped to contribute to their eventual decline and destruction.^{[citation needed]}

Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood (1436) in the Florence Cathedral, by Paolo Uccello. The fresco is an important artistic commemoration of a mercenary, and a seminal development of perspective.

In 1347, Cola di Rienzo (Tribune and effective dictator of the city) had Werner of Urslingen executed in Rome, and Konrad von Landau assumed command of the Great Company. On the conclusion (1360) of the Peace of Bretigny between England and France, Sir John Hawkwood led an army of English mercenaries, called the White Company, into Italy, which took a prominent part in the confused wars of the next thirty years. Towards the end of the century the Italians began to organize armies of the same description. This ended the reign of the purely mercenary company, and began that of the semi-national mercenary army which endured in Europe till replaced by the national standing army system. In 1363, Count von Landau was betrayed by his Hungarian soldiers, and defeated in combat, by the White Company’s more advanced tactics under commanders Albert Sterz and John Hawkwood. Stategically, the barbuta was replaced with the three-soldier, mounted lancia (a capo-lancia, a groom, and a boy); five lance composed a posta, five poste composed a bandiera (flag). By that time, the campaigning condottieri companies were as much Italian as foreign: the Astorre I Manfredi’s Compagnia della Stella (Star Company); a new Company of St. George under Ambrogio Visconti; Niccolò da Montefeltro’s Compagnia del Cappelletto (Little Hat Company); and the Compagnia della Rosa, commanded by Giovanni da Buscareto and Bartolomeo Gonzaga.

From the fifteenth century hence, most condottieri were landless Italian nobles who had chosen the profession of arms as livelihood; the most famous of such mercenary captains was the son of Caterina Sforza, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, from Forlì, known as The Last Condottiere; his son was Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany; besides noblemen, princes also fought as condottieri, given the sizable income to their estates, notably Sigismondo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, and Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino; despite war-time inflation, soldier’s pay was high:

• 1,900 monthly florins in 1432: Micheletto Attendolo (Florence)
• 6,600 monthly florins in 1448: William VIII of Montferrat, from Francesco Sforza (Milan); the enlisted soldier’s pay was 3,300 florins, half that of an officer’s
• 33,000 yearly scudi for 250 men in 1505: Francesco II Gonzaga (Florence)
• 100,000 yearly scudi for 200 men in 1505: Francesco Maria I della Rovere (Florence)

The condottieri company commanders selected the soldiers to enlist; the condotta was a consolidated contract, and, when the ferma (service period) elapsed, the company entered an aspetto (wait) period, wherein, the contracting city-state considered its renewal. If the condotta expired definitively, the condottiere could not declare war against the contracting city-state for two years. This military–business custom was respected because professional reputation (business credibility) was everything to the condottieri; a deceived employer was a reputation ruined; likewise for maritime mercenaries, whose contratto d’assento (contract of assent) stipulated naval military-service terms and conditions; sea captains and sailors so-contracted were called assentisti. Their principal employers were Genoa and the Papal States, beginning in the fourteenth century, yet, Venice considered it humiliating to so employ military sailors, and did not use naval mercenaries, even during the greatest danger in the City’s history.

In fifteenth-century Italy, the condottieri were masterful lords of war; during the wars in Lombardy, Machiavelli observed:

None of the principal states were armed with their own proper forces. Thus the arms of Italy were either in the hands of the lesser princes, or of men who possessed no state; for the minor princes did not adopt the practice of arms from any desire of glory, but for the acquisition of either property or safety. The others (those who possessed no state) being bred to arms from their infancy, were acquainted with no other art, and pursued war for emolument, or to confer honor upon themselves.

History I. vii.

The fifteenth-century Italian armies defeated most of the Turkish, Swiss, Hungarian, German, French, and Austrian incursions. In 1487, at Calliano, the Venetians successfully met and acquitted themselves against the German landsknechte and the Swiss infantry, who then were the best soldiers in Europe.

A 17th century Condottiere, by Artemisia Gentileschi.

Decline[link]

In time, the financial and political interests of the condottieri proved serious drawbacks to decisive, bloody warfare: the mercenary captains often were treacherous, tending to avoid combat, and "resolve" fights with a bribe — either for the opponent or for themselves. Towards the end of the 15th century, when the large cities had gradually swallowed up the small states, and Italy itself was drawn into the general current of European politics, and became the battlefield of powerful armies - French, Spanish and German - the condottieri, who in the end proved quite unequal to the gendarmerie of France and the improved troops of the Italian states, gradually disappeared.

The soldiers of the condottieri were almost entirely heavy armoured cavalry (men-at-arms). They had, at any rate before 1400, nothing in common with the people among whom they fought, and their disorderly conduct and rapacity seem often to have exceeded that of other medieval armies. They were always ready to change sides at the prospect of higher pay. They were connected with each other by the interest of a common profession, and by the possibility that the enemy of today might be the friend and fellow-soldier of tomorrow. Further, a prisoner was always more valuable than a dead enemy. In consequence of all this their battles were often as bloodless as they were theatrical. Splendidly equipped armies were known to fight for hours with hardly the loss of a man (Zagonara, 1423; Molinella, 1467).

The “Age of the Condottieri” began in 1494, with the first, great foreign invasion in a century: the French king, Charles VIII's royal army matched the divided Italian city-states and their smaller condottieri armies. The most renowned condottieri fought for foreign powers: Gian Giacomo Trivulzio abandoned Milan for France, while Andrea Doria was Admiral of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. In the end, failure was political, rather than military, stemming from disunity and political indecision, and, by 1550, the military service condotta had disappeared, while the term condottiere remained current, denominating the great Italian generals (mainly) fighting for foreign states; men such as Gian Giacomo Medici, Ambrogio Spinola, Marcantonio II Colonna and Raimondo Montecuccoli were prominent into the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. To wit, the political practice of hiring foreign mercenaries did not end, even in contemporary Italy. The Vatican’s Swiss Guards are the modern remnants of a historically effective mercenary army.

[edit] Distinguished condottieri

Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, by Piero della Francesca

Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni

• Roger de Flor (c. 1268–1305)
• Malatesta da Verucchio (1212–1312)
• Castruccio Castracani, Lord of Lucca (1281–1328)
• Walter VI of Brienne
• Cangrande della Scala (1291–1329)
• “Sir” John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto, c. 1320-1394)
• Giovanni Ordelaffi from Forlì (1355–1399)
• Facino Cane de Casale (c. 1360–1412)
• Andrea Fortebracci, aka Braccio da Montone (1368–1424)
• Alberico da Barbiano (1344–1409)
• Muzio Attendolo, aka Sforza (Strong) (1369–1424)
• Giovanni Vitelleschi (d. 1440)
• Erasmo da Narni, aka Gattamelata (1370–1443)
• Niccolò Piccinino (1380–1444)
• Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola aka “Count of Carmagnola” (1390–1432)
• Micheletto Attendolo (Muzio Attendolo’s cousin or nephew)
• Francesco Sforza (1401–1466)
• Sigismondo Malatesta (1417–1468)
• Bartolomeo Colleoni (c. 1400–1475)
• Federico III da Montefeltro (1422–1482)
• Cesare Borgia (1475–1507)
• Niccolò di Pitigliano (d. 1510)
• Bartolomeo d'Alviano (1455–1515)
• Gian Giacomo Trivulzio (c. 1441-1518)
• Giovanni dalle Bande Nere (1498–1526)
• Ferrante Gonzaga (1507–1557)
• Astorre I Manfredi (1345–1405)

[edit] Principal battles of the condottieri

• Battle of Forlì (1282) - a French army, for the Pope, against Guido I da Montefeltro, for Forlì
• Battle of Montecatini (1314)
• Battle of Parabiago (1339 - Lodrisio Visconti's "Company of St. George", for Verona, against Luchino Visconti and Ettore da Panigo for Milan.
• War of the Eight Saints (1375–1378)
  • Cesena Bloodbath (1377) - Papal and Breton mercenaries under John Hawkwood slaughtered more than 2,000 citizens of Cesena.
• Battle of Castagnaro (1387) - Giovanni Ordelaffi, for Verona, against John Hawkwood, for Padova
• Battle of Casalecchio (1402) - Alberico da Barbiano, for Milan, against Muzio Attendolo and others for the Bolognese-Florentine league.
• Battle of Sant'Egidio (1416) - Braccio da Montone, for himself, against Carlo I Malatesta, for Perugia
• Battle of Maclodio (1427) - Count of Carmagnola, for Venice, against Carlo I Malatesta, for Milan
• Battle of San Romano (1432) - Niccolò da Tolentino, for Florence, against Francesco Piccinino, for Siena
• Battle of Anghiari (1440) - Niccolò Piccinino, for Milan, against Florence, Papal States and Venice, under Micheletto Attendolo
• Battle of Fornovo (1495) - Italian League against Charles VIII of France
• Battle of Agnadello (1509) - Bartolomeo d'Alviano, for Venice, against France and Italian League
• Battle of Pavia (1525) - Spain against France
• Battle of Marciano (1554) - Gian Giacomo Medici for Florence and the Holy Roman Empire against Piero Strozzi for Siena and France

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Machiavelli, Niccolò. History of Florence. book I, ch. vii.(on-line text)
• Mallett, Michael (1974). Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy. Rowman and Littlefield.
• Rendina, Claudio (1992). I Capitani di ventura. Newton Compton.
• Ricotti, Ercole (1844–1845). Storia delle compagnie di ventura in Italia, 4 vols.
• B. Lenman, B., Anderson, T., eds. (2000). Chambers Dictionary of World History, Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., ISBN 0-550-13000-4
• Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince, trans. & ed. Rebhorn, Wayne A. ISBN 1-59308-328-9

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Condottieri.

• Adrian Fletcher's Paradoxplace Condottieri Statues & Paintings (English)
• Condottieri di ventura - a complete database about Condottieri operating in Italy between 1300 - 1550 (Italian)

The Honourable Umberto Bossi
Italian Minister of Federal Reforms
In office May 8, 2008 – November 16, 2011
Prime Minister	Silvio Berlusconi
Preceded by	Vannino Chiti
Italian Minister for Institutional Reforms and Devolution
In office June 11, 2001 – July 19, 2004
Prime Minister	Silvio Berlusconi
Preceded by	Antonio Maccanico
Succeeded by	Roberto Calderoli
Personal details
Born	(1941-09-19) 19 September 1941 (age 70) Cassano Magnago, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Lega Nord
Spouse(s)	Manuela Marrone

Umberto Bossi (born September 19, 1941) is an Italian politician, former leader of the Northern League, a party seeking autonomy or independence for Northern Italy or Padania. He is married to Manuela Marrone^[1] and has four sons (one of which was from his first wife).

Birth and education[link]

Umberto Bossi was born in 1941 in Cassano Magnago, in the province of Varese, Lombardy. He graduated from scientific high school (liceo scientifico) and later began studying medicine at the University of Pavia, though he did not get a degree. While there, in February 1979 he met Bruno Salvadori, leader of the Valdotanian Union.

Politics[link]

See also: Ideology of the Northern League

Before becoming a politician, Bossi was a sympathiser of the Italian Communist Party in his early years. After the death of Salvadori in a car accident during the summer of 1980, Bossi began focusing more on Lombardy. After two years, the autonomist Lega Lombarda was born. In that period Bossi met his second wife, Manuela Marrone.

The Lega Lombarda would later seek alliances with similar movements in Veneto and Piedmont, forming the Northern League, of which he is still the federal secretary. He became the undisputed and unchallenged leader of the party, a position that he has maintained to this day, even after a serious stroke.

When the scandals of Tangentopoli were unveiled from 1992 on, Bossi rode the wave, presenting himself as the new man in politics, and set out to sweep away corruption and incompetence. Bossi himself, however, received an eight-month suspended prison sentence, along with Lega Nord's treasurer at the time of the events Alessandro Patelli, for receiving a 200-million lire bribe in a trial that also convicted many of the politicians he routinely attacked, such as Bettino Craxi, Arnaldo Forlani and others.^[2] Bossi's sentence was upheld on appeal.^[3]

In 1998, Bossi received a one-year suspended prison sentence for incitement of violence after he uttered the following sentence at a Lega Nord meeting: "We must hunt down these rascals [neo-fascists], and if they take votes from us, then let's comb the area house by house, because we kicked the fascists out of here once before after the war."^[4]

While being Reforms minister in 2003 Bossi ordered the Navy to fire live rounds on boats holding illegal immigrants, stating "After the second or third warning, bang... we fire the cannon". [1]

Bossi was critical of the European Union, and once described it as a "nest of communist bankers".^[5]

Bossi gave his last two sons unusual, politically charged names: "Roberto Libertà" (libertà means freedom, and it is a feminine noun in Italian) and "Eridano Sirio" (Eridano being the name of an ancient god of the Po river). The other son, Renzo, became the center of a controversy when, on May 2012, it was identified as the holder of a degree issued by a private Albanian university. Renzo Bossi apparently graduated within one year instead of three (although previously it took to him three years to pass the high school maturity exam), "gave" all the exams in Albanian (a language he does not master), without visiting Albania even once (according to the Albanian border police system). Both Italian and Albanian prosecution offices investigated the case.

Institutional experience[link]

Bossi began his institutional career in 1987 as the only senator of the Lega Nord, of which he was the leader. He was then given the nickname Senatur (pron. [sena'tu:r]), senator in Lombard, which stuck even when he was later elected as a MP in the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

He was instrumental in the unexpected victory of Silvio Berlusconi's coalition in 1994, but he broke the alliance after just a few months, with the first Berlusconi cabinet collapsing before Christmas 1994.

Bossi agreed to return to an alliance with Berlusconi, which ultimately led to the (this time, easily predicted) 2001 electoral victory.

He then served in Silvio Berlusconi's second cabinet as Reforms Minister. However, after suffering a stroke on March 11, 2004, which seriously impaired his speech, he quit on July 19, 2004 to take up a seat as a member of the European Parliament, where he registered an attendance to 9 per cent of the plenary sessions in his last mandate.^[6] Bossi later slowly returned to active politics.

Return to political activity[link]

On 11 January 2005 Bossi appeared on the political scene at the last house of the Lombard federalist politician Carlo Cattaneo at Lugano after 306 days from the accident. During that day, he met the Minister of Economy Giulio Tremonti (Forza Italia) with whom he constituted the political agreement called the "Alliance of the North" (Asse del Nord). He also met a representative of the Lega dei Ticinesi, a Swiss localist Movement led by the Luganese enterpreneur Giuliano Bignasca. During his speech Bossi spoke against the "Europe of Masons".

During the national elections of 2006 he signed a political agreement with "Movimento per l'Autonomia" of the Sicilian politician Raffaele Lombardo.

On 17 September 2006 he returned in Venice for the 10th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of Padania. He declarated that the Parliament of the North must be opened again.

On 2 February 2007, in Vicenza, he officially opened the first monthly meeting of the Parliament of the North.^{[citation needed]} In the 2000 year, Umberto Bossi and Lega Nord have abandoned the idea of independence for Padania, proposed in 1996.

In September 2007, Bossi accepted an invitation by Father Florian Abrahamowicz to his celebration of a Tridentine Mass and said there were affinities between the Lega Nord and the followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.^[7] Father Abrahamowicz is seen as unofficial chaplain of the party.^[8]

Fourth Berlusconi cabinet[link]

On May 8, 2008, he became Minister for Institutional Reforms again, in Silvio Berlusconi's fourth cabinet. He held the position until November 16, 2011.

Resignation as leader of Lega Nord[link]

On April 5, 2012, when news broke of the alleged appropriation of party funds for the private affairs of his family, Umberto Bossi resigned as Lega Nord's federal secretary. Italian prosecutors have alleged that Bossi used the money earmarked for his party on his house renovations and on favours for his family.^[9] Following the resignation, the Lega Nord instantly gave him the honorary position of party President.^[5] Leadership of the Lega Nord is currently entrusted to a so-called "triumvirate" composed by Roberto Maroni, Roberto Calderoli and Manuela Dal Lago.

Interviews[link]

• "An Interview with Umberto Bossi". TELOS 109 (Fall 1996). New York: Telos Press

See also[link]

• Padania
• Lega Nord

References[link]

Umberto Bossi v t e Berlusconi II Cabinet (2001–2005) Berlusconi | Fini | Follini | La Loggia | Pisanu | Scajola | Frattini | Mazzella | Baccini | Stanca | Tremaglia | Prestigiacomo | Buttiglione | Bossi | Calderoli | Giovanardi | Ruggiero | Castelli | Tremonti | Siniscalco | Marzano | Moratti | Maroni | Martino | Alemanno | Lunardi | Sirchia | Urbani | Gasparri | Matteoli  v t e Berlusconi IV Cabinet (2008–2011) Berlusconi | Tremonti | Maroni | Alfano | Palma | Frattini | Sacconi | Fazio | Gelmini | La Russa | Scajola | Romani | Zaia | Romano | Prestigiacomo | Matteoli | Bondi | Galan | Bossi | Ronchi | Bernini | Vito | Brunetta | Calderoli | Fitto | Meloni | Carfagna | Rotondi | Brambilla | Brancher  v t e Leaders of Lega Nord Federal Secretary Umberto Bossi (1991–2012) Federal President Franco Rocchetta (1991–1994) Stefano Stefani (1995–2002) Luciano Gasperini (2002–2005) Angelo Alessandri (2005–2012) Umberto Bossi (2012–present) Chamber of Deputies Marco Formentini (1992–1994) Pierluigi Petrini (1994–1995) Vito Gnutti (1995–1996) Domenico Comino (1996–1999) Giancarlo Pagliarini (1999–2001) Alessandro Cè (2001–2005) Andrea Gibelli (2005–2006) Roberto Maroni (2006–2008) Roberto Cota (2008–2010) Marco Reguzzoni (2010–2012) Gianpaolo Dozzo (2012–present) Senate Francesco Speroni (1992–1994) Francesco Tabladini (1994–1996) Francesco Speroni (1996–1999) Luciano Gasperini (1999–2000) Roberto Castelli (2000–2001) Francesco Moro (2001–2004) Ettore Pirovano (2004–2006) Roberto Castelli (2006–2008) Federico Bricolo (2008–present) European Parliament Francesco Speroni (1989–1992) Luigi Moretti (1992–1999) Francesco Speroni (1999–2004) Mario Borghezio (2004–2009) Francesco Speroni (2009–present)

External links[link]

• Official biography from the Web site of Lega Nord. (Italian)
• The League, Bossi and what comes after, biography of Bossi and storyline of the League by the conservative magazine Ideazione. (Italian)
• Padanian poker's last hand, biography by the left-wing newspaper L'Unità. (Italian)

Antonio Conte

Personal information
Date of birth	(1969-07-31) July 31, 1969 (age 42)
Place of birth	Lecce, Italy
Height	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Playing position	Attacking midfielder
Club information
Current club	Juventus (head coach)
Youth career
	Lecce
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1985–1991	Lecce	89	(1)
1991–2004	Juventus	419	(44)
Total		508	(45)
National team
1993–2001	Italy	35	(3)
Teams managed
2006–2007	Arezzo
2007–2009	Bari
2009–2010	Atalanta
2010–2011	Siena
2011–	Juventus
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Antonio Conte (born July 31, 1969 in Lecce) is an Italian former footballer and manager. He is the current manager of Juventus.

Playing career[link]

Conte began to play football in his city, within the U.S. Lecce youth team, before making his Serie A debut with the first squad in 1985. He was signed by Juventus in 1991 (debuting November 17, 1991 vs. Torino^[1]), being later made captain before the promotion of Alessandro Del Piero to this role. During the 1998–1999 season when Del Piero suffered a horrendous leg injury, Conte returned to the captaincy and led Juventus to the UEFA Champions League semifinals. He maintained the captaincy till the 2001/02 season. In 2002–2003, Conte was part of the Juventus team that reached the UEFA Champions League final only to lose on penalties to AC Milan, with Conte himself coming closest to winning the game for Juventus in normal time when he crashed a header off the crossbar early in the second half. Conte became one of the most decorated and influential players of Juventus history. He played for the Italian national team and was a participant at the 1994 FIFA World Cup and the 2000 UEFA European Championship.^[2]