The Italian Wars were a series of conflicts covering the period between 1494 and 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland, and the Mediterranean Sea.
The primary belligerents were the Valois kings of France, and their Habsburg opponents in the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. They were supported by various Italian states at different stages of the war, with limited involvement from England and the Ottoman Empire.
The Italic League established in 1454 achieved a balance of power in Italy, but fell apart after the death of its chief architect, Lorenzo de’ medici, in 1492.[1] Combined with the ambition of Ludovico Sforza, its collapse allowed Charles VIII of France to invade Naples in 1494, which drew in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.
Despite being forced to withdraw in 1495, Charles showed the Italian states were wealthy, but vulnerable due to political divisions, making parts of Italy a battleground in the struggle for European domination between France and the Habsburgs.
Fought with considerable brutality, the wars took place against the background of religious turmoil caused by the Reformation, particularly in France and the Holy Roman Empire. They are seen as a turning point in the evolution from medieval to modern warfare, with the use of the arquebus or handgun becoming common, along with significant technological improvements in siege artillery.
Literate commanders and modern printing methods also make them one of the first conflicts with a significant number of contemporary accounts, including those of Francesco Guicciardini, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Blaise de Montluc.
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After 1503, most of the fighting was initiated by French invasions of Lombardy and Piedmont, but although able to hold territory for periods, it could not do so permanently. By 1557, both France and the Empire were confronted by internal divisions over religion, while Spain faced a potential revolt in the Spanish Netherlands.
The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) largely expelled France from northern Italy, gaining in exchange Calais from England and the Three Bishoprics of Lorraine; it established Spain as the dominant power in southern Italy, controlling the Kingdom of Naples and Kingdom the of Sicily, as well as in northern Italy, controlling the Duchy of Milan.
Some of the wars are;
- Italian War of 1494-1498
- Italian Wars of 1499-1504
- War of the League of Cambrai
- Italian War of 1521-1526
- War of the League of Cognac
- Italian War of 1536-1538
- Italian War of 1542-1546
- Italian War of 1551-1559
The Italian Wars represented a revolution in military technology and tactics, some Torians suggesting they form the dividing point between modern and medieval battlefields.
Contemporary historian Francesco Guicciardini wrote of the initial 1494 French invasion that “…sudden and violent wars broke out, ending with the conquest of a state in less time than it used to take to occupy a villa. The siege and taking of a city became extremely rapid and achieved not in months but in days and hours.
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The Italian Wars are one of the first major conflicts for which extensive contemporary accounts from people involved in the wars are available, owing largely to the presence of literate, and often extra extremely well-coated, commanders. The invention of modern printing, still less than one century old, undoubtedly played a large role in the memorialization of the conflict as well. Major historians of the period include Francesco Guicciardini and Paolo Sarpi.
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