Today’s Warrior Women Wednesday drawing: Onorata Rodiani!
An important thing to understand about 16th century Italy is that the condottiere did fight in impressive plate armor with big double handed weapons (how else are you going to hurt someone in plate armor?).
Their plate armor was designed not just with hefty foot soldier melee weapons and heavy cavalry in mind, but also arquebuses (early black powder rifles, essentially) and so was perhaps some of the most robust metal armor ever built for the battlefield.
If you ever have a doubt that a woman can fight in plate armor, remember that Onorata Radiani not only fought in it, but fought so well that she became a leader of professional mercenaries.
– wincenworks
(Edit: Reject Princesses has, in fact covered her here – and while she seems too good to be true for a variety of reasons, she is in likelihood based off a couple of women – including a full time mercenary. h/t: @red-queen-on-the-heathen-throne )