Fighting in Spain's Imperial armies—the famous tercios—he served under Charles V's principal commanders in the Italian Wars: Pedro Navarro, Fabrizio Colonna, and the illustrious Gran Capitán, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba.

He took part in the memorable Spanish victory at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and acquired a small fortune when the Imperial armies sacked Rome two years later.

Instead of competing in the violent plunder for gold and valuables, Carvajal seized legal documents belonging to a ranking Roman notary and ransomed them for a small fortune.

In the 1540s Francisco de Carvajal's use of firearms in Peru prefigured the volley fire technique that developed in Europe many decades after.

American historian William H. Prescott collected a number of details about the execution, claiming that Carvajal was not gravely troubled by the sentence, remarking simply, "basta matar": "They can only kill me.

I have nothing that lies heavy on my conscience, unless it be, indeed, the debt of half a real to a shopkeeper in Seville, which I forgot to pay before leaving the country.

Carvajal remains a folkloric character in Peru: One legend made him the illegitimate son of the Spanish-Italian tyrant Cesare Borgia.

Ricardo Palma pointed out in the Tradiciones peruanas that Carvajal was in fact Borgia's senior by 10 years, their only parentage, he added, being "that of cruelty."