Who would rule Northern Italy? The Hapsburgs under the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V? Or the French, under Frances I? The Battle of Pavia, fought on February 24, 1525, settled the question once and for all. A suite of tapestries designed by the Flemish court painter Bernard van Orley and woven in the Brussels workshop of Willem and Jan Dermoyen lays the engagement before us in seven stupendous scenes. Long story short, Francis had laid siege to Pavia, a city in Lombardy some 20 miles south of Milan, in October 1524. Catching the French off guard, Charles’s forces burst forth from the nearby forest and broke the French stranglehold in a matter of hours. Van Orley conjures up combatants by the thousands, armed with old-fashioned pikes and new-fangled muskets. Among large-scale principal figures, Francis appears several times, heroic in action, tragic in defeat. Fine ladies and lowly peasant women are seen decamping along with a monkey and a mercenary who is making off with plump chickens. Routed mercenaries hack away at a bridge in hopes of saving their skins, while others perish in the rushing waters of the icy Ticino. Apart from the tapestries, on loan from the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, the exhibition also includes van Orley’s original concept designs, on loan from the Louvre—an extraordinary coup. Selected arms and armor are on view as well. Prominent among the talking heads in informative videos is Thomas P. Campbell, director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, who in an earlier phase of his career curated landmark tapestry shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this country and internationally, Campbell’s innumerable services to the long neglected art of the tapestry deserve a medal. —Matthew Gurewitsch