At the age of six the boy was betrothed to Vittoria Colonna, daughter of the general Fabrizio Colonna, and the marriage was celebrated in 1509 on the island of Ischia. His position as a noble of the Aragonese party in Naples made it incumbent on him to support Ferdinand the Catholic in his Italian wars. In 1512, he commanded a body of light cavalry at the battle of Ravenna, where he was wounded and taken prisoner by the French. Thanks to the intervention of one of the foremost of the French generals, the Italian G. G. Trivulzio, who was his connection by marriage, he was allowed to ransom himself for 6,000 "ducats".