Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma

Alexander Farnese (Italian: Alessandro Farnese, Spanish: Alejandro Farnesio; 27 August 1545 – 3 December 1592) was an Italian noble and military leader, who was Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1586 to 1592, as well as Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592. Nephew to King Philip II of Spain, he served in the Battle of Lepanto and the subsequent campaigns of the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire. He was latter appointed general of the Spanish army during the Dutch revolt and its ramifications, serving in Netherlands, France and the Holy Roman Empire until his death in 1592.

Farnese was regarded by contemporaries and historians as the greatest general of his age, as well as one of the best in history, for his talents as a commander, strategist and diplomat. He held a high leadership over the soldiers and mercenaries of varied nationalities which composed the Spanish tercios, including Spaniards, Italians, Germans and Walloons. His campaigns marked Spain's greatest successes in the Eighty Years' War, giving the Spanish crown permanent control of the southern provinces, in the process establishing the cultural and religious separation which would eventually become the nation of Belgium.

During the French Wars of Religion, he decisively relieved Paris for the Catholic League, and also intervened in the Cologne War, granting victory to Ernest of Bavaria. He was slated to direct the land invasion of the British isles in the maligned 1588 Spanish Armada, which failed to embark him and his Army of Flanders. British historian Edward Shepherd Creasy wrote about him: "happy it is for England and the world that this island was saved from becoming an arena for the exhibition of his powers".