The Italian Wars

Italy was the background for outside powers between the French invasion of 1494 and the accession of Francis 1 in 1515 for different reasons.

Between these years, the States of Italy were invaded on a number occasions by armies from France, Spain and other countries. At this time, the Italian States were very vulnerable; there were conflicts in Italy itself, they had out of date military equipment and Italy had insecure frontiers and unreliable allies – “That Italy failed to organise herself against invaders was due to the selfish policies.”   This gave outside powers reason to use Italy as their battleground. Italy was a very wealthy country, showing this wealth, a Florentine Historian, Guicciardini said “Italy has never enjoyed such prosperity or known so favourable a situation”   Also, because the Pope lived in Italy, it gave enemies more incentive to fight in Italy as opposed to any other country. Another reason for Italy being the battleground was that foreign powers felt they had dynastic claims to certain states and therefore felt obliged to fight for them.

I feel the most important reason why outside powers chose Italy to fight in was basically because they ‘could.’ Italy was divided, unstable and disunited; there were even civil disputes e.g. when Venice and its neighbour Ferrara went to war. It was hard to keep foreign powers out of their country because they weren’t working together; each state was not strong enough to protect Italy on its own. The Papacy also didn’t help in keeping enemies out – “there was always scope for dissension between them (Orsini and Colonna); and while they remained armed before the very eyes of the pontiff, they kept the papacy weak and insecure.”   Also, it was playing its usual game of self interest. Pope Leo X in 1513 set about promoting the interests of himself and his family. He was prepared to negotiate for French aid to further his ambitions – this lead to more foreign powers (especially France), being...