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Italy’s Political Decline (1494-1527). Treaty of Lodi (1454-1455) created a balance of power among the city-states of Italy Allied Milan, Naples, and Florence to check the power of Venice and Papal States Worked together against foreign invaders. The French Invasion.
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Italy’s Political Decline (1494-1527) • Treaty of Lodi (1454-1455) created a balance of power among the city-states of Italy • Allied Milan, Naples, and Florence to check the power of Venice and Papal States • Worked together against foreign invaders
The French Invasion • Lodi shattered in 1494Naples prepared to attack Milan • Ludovicoil Moro (Milan) invited Charles VIII of France to lead the French troops against Naples to reclaim former lands (1266-1435) • French invaded in 1494 and forced Florence, Naples, and the Papal states into concession
The pope and Venice persuaded King Ferdinand of Aragon (Spain) to come help resist the French • 1490s-1590sItaly became a battleground in a war for supremacy between European monarchs • May 6, 1527, Spanish and German troops' sacking Rome that for two decades all but ended the role of the Papacy as the largest patron of Renaissance art and architecture • Ultimately led to the suppression and end of the Renaissance in Italy • leads to Italian political decline & Habsburg-Valois (Spanish-French) wars of first half 16th c., all French losses
Machiavelli: A Method of Power • The struggle between pope and the Holy Roman emperor had left Italy politically shattered while Spain, France, and England under the guidance of shrewd rulers, developed powerful states. • Machiavelli, a Florentine bureaucrat and diplomat, was deeply conscious of Italian disunity • He analyzed the methods of a great ruler in his infamous, The Prince
Machiavelli’s View • convinced by chaos of foreign invasions that Italian political unity & independence were ends justifying any means • concluded only a strongman could impose order on a divided & selfish people (Italians) • admirer of Roman rulers & citizens • virtù: ability to act heroically & decisively for the good of one’s country
The Prince (1513): recommends temporary use of fraud & brutality to achieve Italian unity; hoped for strong ruler from the Medici family • NM hopes were not achieved when Emperor Charles V of Spain sacked Rome in 1527, the year of Machiavelli’s death
The French Invasions (1494–1527) • Pope Alexander VI: corrupt member of Borgia family, children Cesare & Lucrezia • Louis XII (r. 1498–1515): allies with Alexander and takes Milan & part of Naples • Pope Julius II: “warrior pope” drives French out again • Francis I (r. 1515–1547): third French invasion