Italian Wars - Prelude, Initial invasions, Shifting alliances, Habsburg against Valois, Warfare, Impact, Historiography, Aftermath, Further reading

A series of conflicts lasting from 1494 to 1559 (Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis) between the French Valois monarchs and the Habsburgs for the control of Italy. Both houses laid claim to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples, but after seven phases of warfare, involving a host of different monarchs and states, Spain emerged victorious.

Italian Wars

The Battle of Pavia by an unknown Flemish artist (oil on panel, 16th century).

Date	1494–1559
Location	Italy, France, England, Spain, and Germany
Result	Habsburg victory

Italian Wars
First – Second – League of Cambrai – Urbino – 1521 – League of Cognac – 1535 – 1542 – 1551

The Italian Wars, sometimes known as the Great Italian Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, all the major states of western Europe (France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England, Scotland, the Republic of Venice, the Papal States, and most of the city-states of Italy) as well as the Ottoman Empire.

Prelude

Following the Wars in Lombardy, Northern Italy had been largely at peace during the reigns of Cosimo de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence.

Initial invasions

First Italian War (1494–95)

Ludovico Sforza, seeking an ally against the Republic of Venice, encouraged Charles VIII of France to invade Italy, using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples as a pretext.

Second Italian War (1499–1504)

In 1500, Louis, having reached an agreement with Ferdinand I of Spain to divide Naples, marched south from Milan.

Shifting alliances

War of the League of Cambrai (1508–16)

Meanwhile, Pope Julius II was more concerned with curbing the territorial expansion of the Republic of Venice, and in 1508 formed the League of Cambrai, in which France, the Papacy, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire agreed to restrain the Venetians.

French forces under Gaston de Foix inflicted an overwhelming defeat on a Spanish army at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512, but Foix was killed during the battle, and the French were forced to withdraw from Italy by an invasion of Milan by the Swiss, who reinstated Maximilian Sforza to the ducal throne.

Louis mounted another invasion of Milan, but was defeated at the battle of Novara, which was quickly followed by a series of Holy League victories at La Motta, Guinegate, and Flodden Field, in which the French, Venetian, and Scottish forces were decisively defeated.

Italian War of 1521 (1521–25)

The elevation of Charles of Spain to Holy Roman Emperor, a position that Francis had desired, led to a collapse of relations between France and the Habsburgs.

War of the League of Cognac (1526–30)

In 1526, Pope Clement VII, alarmed at the growing power of the Empire, formed the League of Cognac against Charles, allying himself, the Republic of Venice, Florence, and a number of smaller Italian states with France.

Habsburg against Valois

Italian War of 1535 (1535–38)

The inconclusive third war between Charles and Francis began with the death of Francesco Maria Sforza, the duke of Milan.

Italian War of 1542 (1542–46)

Francis, allying himself with Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire, launched a final invasion of Italy.

Italian War of 1551 (1551–59)

In 1551, Henry II of France, who had succeeded Francis to the throne, declared war against Charles with the intent of recapturing Italy and ensuring French, rather than Habsburg, domination of European affairs. Charles' abdication in 1556 split the Habsburg empire between Phillip II of Spain and Ferdinand I, and shifted the focus of the war to Flanders, where Phillip, in conjunction with Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, defeated the French at St. Quentin. England's entry into the war later that year led to the French capture of Calais, and French armies plundered Spanish possessions in the Low Countries;

Warfare

The wars saw the introduction of many significant advances in military technology and tactics, including field artillery, muskets, and combined arms tactics.

Impact

By the end of the wars in 1559, Habsburg Spain had been established as the premier power of Europe, to the detriment of France.

The Italian Wars had a number of consequences for the work and workplace of Leonardo da Vinci, for example scuppering his plans for a "Gran Cavallo" horse statue in 1495 when the seventy tons of bronze were instead cast into weapons to save Milan.

Historiography

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 extremely well-educated—commanders.

Nomenclature

The naming of the component conflicts within the Italian Wars has never been standardized, and has varied among the various historians dealing with the period.

Contemporary accounts

A major contemporary account for the early portion of the Italian Wars is Francesco Guicciardini's Storia d'Italia (History of Italy), written during the conflict, and advantaged by the access Guicciardini had to Papal affairs.

Aftermath

The death of Henry II of France at the celebrations of the wars' end quickly led to the collapse of the French monarchy in the French Wars of Religion.