The Italian Wars

Arthur Johnson

• Editorial: Ozymandias Press
• Año: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781531281175
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: European Renaissance History

At the date of the Italian expedition, Charles viii. had been eleven years on the throne of France. The monarchy to which he succeeded was, perhaps, less controlled by constitutional checks than any other in Europe. The crown had earned popularity as the leader in the struggle against the English - a struggle which had created the French nation; and as the patron of the middle classes against the feudal nobles. The Estates-General, the deliberative assembly of the kingdom, had never succeeded in vindicating its claims. The class divisions which divided it, as they did the people, had prevented united action. The third estate did not adequately represent the middle classes; the knights of the shire, those valuable representatives of the country districts, who had formed the backbone of the English House of Commons, did not exist.

THE LEAGUE OF CAMBRAY.

THE PRETEXT FOR THE INVASION of Italy by France and Spain had been the necessity of securing a base of operations for a crusade against the Turk. This had been prevented by the quarrel of the robbers over their spoil. They were now to prove by their attack on Venice—the only power which had seriously attempted to check the Moslem advance—that the idea, even if ever seriously entertained, had been definitely abandoned.

The hostility with which that republic was viewed by the rest of Italy dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century, when she definitely began to aim at establishing a dominion on the Italian mainland. A quarrel between Milan and the Carrara of Padua enabled her to overthrow that family, to seize Padua, then, step by step, Vicenza and Verona, and to advance to the Adige (1405). In 1427 and 1428, she wrested Brescia and Bergamo from the hands of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, and after his death secured Crema (1454). Meanwhile she had acquired the district of Friuli from the Patriarch of Aquileia (1420), and in 1441 had added Ravenna, hitherto an independent state under the Polentani, to her conquests. In 1484, the peace of Bagnolo, which closed the Ferrarese war, gave her Rovigo and the Polesine. In 1499, she gained Cremona and the Ghiara d’Adda from Louis xii., as the price of her assistance against Ludovico. On the death of Cæsar Borgia, she had occupied Faenza, Rimini, and Cesena; while in Apulia, she held the four towns, Trani, Otranto, Gallipoli, Brindisi, which she had acquired at the date of Charles viii.’s expedition. Thus, within the space of some hundred years, Venice had completely altered her character. The island city had gained a large territory on the mainland, which stretched to the neighbourhood of Milan, Florence, and the Papal States. The change of policy has usually been attributed to the advance of the Turk, which threatened her possessions in the Ægean Sea, and on the coast of Greece. This no doubt was one of her motives at a later date. But as her first advance on the mainland occurred in 1405, some years before the Turk seriously menaced her, we must look elsewhere for the primary cause. This is to be found in the danger to be apprehended from the growing power of Milan. As long as the plain of Lombardy and the approaches to the Alpine passes were in the hands of petty princes, she could hope to purchase, or to extort, an outlet for her commerce to the north; but, if these were to fall into the hands of the powerful and aggressive Dukes of Milan, they might be closed against her. An alternative route no doubt remained. She might have threaded the Straits of Gibraltar and reached the north of Europe by the Atlantic and the English Channel. But, though of late a Flanders fleet had yearly sailed from Venice, this route was not developed. It could, and probably would, have been closed by Spain. Nor would such a policy have saved her from Milan, which, if she became too powerful, might cut off her food supplies, surround her, and drive her into the sea.

The attempt, then, to form a state in Lombardy appears to have been inevitable; nor was it so selfish as her enemies declared it to be. Her treatment of the cities under her rule was not only infinitely superior to that of Milan, but compared most favourably with that of Florence. She left them as much local autonomy as was compatible with the maintenance of her supremacy; she did not tax them heavily. It was the aim of Venice to secure the affection of her subjects, and their loyalty in the days of her troubles, proved that she had succeeded. With equal injustice the policy of Venice towards the Turk has been denounced as faithless to the cause of Christianity. No doubt, despairing of the aid of Europe, she was anxious to keep on friendly terms with the Turk, and would, if possible, have avoided war; but this policy was forced upon her by the refusal of European states to sink their common jealousies and join heartily in a crusade. Venice, after all, was the only power which seriously attempted to check the advance of the Moslem, and the coalition against her is the best proof of the hollowness of the cry of a crusade on the part of her spoilers. But though the advance on the mainland seems to have been inevitable, and is capable of justification, it was none the less a fatal step. Had it been possible for Venice to conquer Milan, and to have secured the whole of Lombardy before the date of the French invasion, she might some day have become the capital of a united Italy, and the history of the Peninsula might have been a happier one. But for this her resources were not sufficient, nor is it likely that the European powers would have acquiesced. Failing this, her vain attempts to find a strategic frontier only added to her enemies, and earned her the name of the most selfish and grasping of the Italian states; while in her endeavour to protect her commerce by friendly treaties with the Turk, she added to her crimes the charge of treachery towards the cause of Christendom.

The real fault of Venice has not been so often noted by historians. Her interests imperatively demanded that the foreigner should be excluded from Italy. As long as the Peninsula was left to itself, she was strong enough to hold her own; but she was no match for the more powerful kingdoms of the north. Her vacillation at the date of the expedition of Charles viii. she had in part redressed by forming the League of Venice and driving him from Italy, although her occupation at that date of the Apulian towns eventually earned her the hostility of Ferdinand. The good work was, however, again undone by her foolish alliance with Louis xii. in his war against Milan. By this short-sighted policy she earned with some justice the accusation of territorial greed; irritated Maximilian, who did not relish being excluded from Lombardy; and established on her western frontier the ever-grasping power of France. Thus, by the close of the fifteenth century, Venice had incurred the enmity not only of the petty Italian states, but of the chief powers of Western Europe.

Maximilian desired to recover Friuli; Louis xii. wished to extend the frontiers of the Milanese; Florence feared that Venice might cross the Apennines; Ferdinand was determined to recover the cities in Apulia. Above all, Pope Julius was bent on humbling the proud republic. Her acquisitions in the Romagna interfered with his darling scheme of establishing the papal rule in that district. Between France in Milan, and Spain in Naples, Julius might hope to hold the balance, and to establish the temporal dominion of the Papacy, but Venice, or indeed any strong Italian power, would strenuously oppose it. In this Julius only followed the traditional policy of his predecessors in the papal chair, that of inveterate hostility to the growth of a strong native state in Italy. Moreover, the independent attitude of the republic in matters of church government, illustrated at this moment by her refusal to allow him to nominate to the vacant bishopric of Vicenza, angered the haughty prelate. ‘They wish to treat me as their chaplain,’ he said, ‘let them beware lest I make them humble fishermen as they once were.’

Under these circumstances the sole hope for Venice lay in the mutual jealousies of her enemies. From these she had profited hitherto, but when they ceased her day of reckoning would come. Hence it is necessary to treat in some detail the relations of the European powers at the opening of the sixteenth century.

At the close of the Neapolitan war, the alliance between the houses of Hapsburg and Spain, based on the marriage of the Archduke Philip, son of Maximilian, with Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, threatened to break up. By the deaths in 1497, and 1500, of John, the eldest son, and of Michael of Portugal, the grandson of the Spanish monarchs, Joanna became the heiress of Castile and Aragon, and, in the event of Isabella’s death, would become Queen of Castile to the exclusion of her father. This at once aroused the jealousy of Ferdinand against her husband the archduke. The temporary division of Castile and Aragon would arrest the unification of the Peninsula; while the prospect of Spain eventually falling to the Hapsburg was equally distasteful to him.

Ferdinand had accordingly rejected the treaty of Lyons (April 1503), concluded between Philip and Louis xii. for the settlement of the Neapolitan quarrel. By that treaty, it had been agreed that the kingdom of Naples should one day fall to Claude, the infant daughter of Louis xii., who had already, in 1501, been betrothed to Charles, the young son of the archduke. Philip, abandoned by his father-in-law, clung all the closer to the French alliance, and was supported by his father, Maximilian, who hoped by this marriage treaty to realise his most magnificent dreams. In September 1504, at Blois, Louis xii., influenced by his wife, Anne of Brittany, promised Milan, Genoa, Asti, Brittany, and Blois, as Claude’s dower, to which Burgundy was to be added in the event of his own death without male heirs. In the following year, Maximilian actually proposed, with the approval of the French Queen, that the Salic Law should be repealed, in order that Claude might succeed her father on the French throne.

Thus there seemed a prospect that the young Charles would some day unite the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, France, the Milanese, and the kingdom of Naples, with the hereditary dominions of the House of Hapsburg. Had this ever come about, the rest of Germany must have submitted, and the descendants of the poverty-stricken Frederick iii. would have found themselves masters of an empire over most of the Teutonic and Latin races of the continent. But the day dream was not to last. In November 1504, Isabella died, and Ferdinand, determined to retain his hold as regent of Castile, made haste to conciliate Louis xii. At Blois, in October 1505, he agreed to marry Germaine de Foix, the niece of the French king.To her the French claims on Naples were to be resigned, which, however, were to revert to Louis xii. in default of her having issue by Ferdinand. Ferdinand further promised to Louis a sum of money, and an amnesty to the French party in Naples. In the June of the following year, 1506, Ferdinand was indeed obliged to surrender the regency of Castile to Philip and Joanna; but in September the Archduke Philip died at Burgos; the unfortunate Joanna was declared to show signs of madness, and Ferdinand, by the help of Cardinal Ximenes, secured, though with difficulty, the government of Castile. Thus the quarrel between Louis xii. and Ferdinand was temporarily accommodated, and Ferdinand was secure in Spain and in Naples.

Meanwhile, in France the national hostility to a foreigner had been aroused. The Estates-General at Tours (May 1506) prayed the King to abandon the intended match between Claude and Charles, and to marry her to Francis of Angoulême, the heir-presumptive to the crown, who was ‘entirely a Frenchman.’ Maximilian, irritated at the failure of his schemes, now broke with Louis. In 1507, he summoned the Diet to Constance, and passionately demanded help of the empire. ‘The King of France,’ he said, ‘wishes to rob the Germans of the Imperial crown, the highest dignity of the world and the glory of our nation.’ In return for a promise to reorganise the Imperial Chamber, he received a contingent from the Diet; he also took a body of Swiss mercenaries into his pay. Crossing the Brenner, he reached Trent in February, 1508, and there, with the consent of the papal legate, declared himself Emperor-elect.

But as usual the pretensions of Maximilian outran his abilities to a ludicrous extent. The Venetians, fearing his designs on Friuli, refused him free passage, and enforced their refusal by arms. His attempt on Vicenza failed. The Duke of Gueldres, stirred up by Louis xii., threatened the Netherlands, and the would-be ruler of Western Europe was forced to accept the terms of the insolent republic and retire. Burning to revenge himself, he pocketed his pride, and at Cambray, December 1508, came to terms with Louis xii. Peace was made with the Duke of Gueldres, and Maximilian promised, in return for money, the investiture of Milan to Louis xii. and his descendants. Their quarrels thus accommodated, the King and Emperor agreed to partition the Venetian territory. All princes who had any claims on Venetian lands were asked to aid in checking her intolerable selfishness and greed by recovering their lost possessions. Ferdinand and the Pope shortly joined, the latter with some misgivings, and only after Venice had refused to restore to him Rimini and Faenza; a number of petty Italian princes followed suit, and Venice found herself face to face with one of the most shameful of coalitions in history. Ferdinand, however, was engaged in wars against the Moors of Africa. The penniless Maximilian was not ready for a fresh campaign; and the French, and papal troops, assisted by the Duke of Ferrara and other Italians, alone took the field.

The wisest policy for Venice would probably have been, as Pitigliano urged, to avoid pitched battles, and to play a waiting game. If the war were prolonged, the robbers would be sure to quarrel. But rasher counsels prevailed.Neglecting the movement of the papal troops in the Romagna, the Venetians turned against the French and attempted to stop their attack at the frontier. As the two armies were manœuvring in the valley of the Adda, it came about that the rear-guard of the Venetian army, under Bartolomeo d’Alviano, came within striking distance of the French advanced guard. Alviano, a condottier with more valour than discretion, thought it more honourable to be beaten than to retreat, and at once ordered the attack. The Venetian army was a curious medley of Italian condottiers and peasants, Greek light horse from the Peloponnese and the Ægean isles, and half-savage archers from Crete. Nevertheless it fought well, more especially the Italian infantry, composed of peasants from the Lombard plain and the slopes of the Alps and Apennines. But it was exposed to the attack of the whole French army, aided by a large body of Swiss. The van, under the Count of Pitigliano, whether from jealousy, or because it was too far distant, did not co-operate; and, after a desperate struggle, the Venetian army turned and fled, leaving Alviano a prisoner, and most of their infantry dead on the field. As is often the case with mercenaries, the defeated army soon became a mob. The cities refused refuge to the fugitives, and opened their gates to the victors. The French met with no opposition till they reached Peschiera, which they took by assault.

At Venice meanwhile, the Senate were debating their future policy amidst the wildest consternation. Deciding to bow to the storm and to abandon their subject cities, they authorised them to surrender. Verona, Vicenza, and Padua forthwith sent their keys to Louis, and on his chivalrous refusal to accept their submission, since they did not fall to his share, they turned to Maximilian. In the Romagna, the Pope occupied Ravenna, Rimini, and Faenza. The Duke of Ferrara entered the Polesine; the Marquis of Mantua seized the territories of which Venice had deprived him; and the Apulian towns surrendered to Ferdinand.

Venice had now lost all her acquisitions made during the fifteenth century, and seemed doomed to be confined again to her lagoons; nay, Maximilian even spoke of taking the city itself and dividing it into four districts among the confederates. But the Emperor as usual counted without his host. Neither Ferdinand nor Julius were willing to press matters so far; they stayed their hand, while Louis, having attained his object, withdrew to Milan, and then to France. In the conquered territories, more especially in those claimed by Maximilian, a reaction now took place in favour of the republic of St. Mark. The nobles had easily deserted Venice, but now the lower classes in town and country rose in her defence. The Senate regained courage. By a majority of one vote it was decided to resume the offensive, and, on July 17, Padua was re-taken. The law which forbade the Venetian nobility to serve on the mainland was revoked, and one hundred and seventy-six young nobles, headed by the sons of the Doge, Loredano, marched to the defence of the recovered city. Maximilian at last determined to come in person, and laid siege to Padua with a large army composed not only of Germans, but of Spanish auxiliaries, and reinforced by a French contingent. But the French and Germans were not on the best of terms. The French knights, when ordered to storm the breach on foot, demanded that they should be joined by the German men-at-arms, and not be left to fight side b...