[1] His full name was Gonzalo Andrés Domingo Fernández de Córdoba y Cardona-Anglesola.

He initiated his military career under Álvaro II de Bazán in 1612, defeating the Ottomans at La Goulette.

When he failed to take Casale and stop the French invasion in 1629, he was called back to Madrid and court-martialed.

Here he conducted operations on the lower Rhine in the rear of the victorious army of Gustavus Adolphus, but he was unable to prevent the Capture of Maastricht by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange.

He is also a character in the novel The Betrothed, where Alessandro Manzoni describes the anger of the Milanese populace towards him, when he leaves Milan in 1629.