The Eleventh Canto continues with the fragments of Renaissance history. The recurring character we encounter is “Sigismundo.” Pound reflects on his career as a condotierre (mercenary), working for the various city states (including the Papacy) that vied for ascendancy in Italy.

Though not here, in the previous Canto, he was portrayed as a touch irreligious, but in truth, his life’s work was the reconstruction of a church in the town in Rimini.

Pound’s focus on things like the numbers of soldiers and mounted calvary on the various sides of the conflicts in which Sigismundo participated gives a nice touch of the quotidian to the whole matter. Not the grand sweep of history, but the logistical issues of a minor figure trying to get by in a land filled with great men.