Maximilian I proposed himself as defender of the Church, declared Louis XII an enemy of Christianity and announcing his coming to Rome to be crowned Emperor and guarantee the freedom of the holy city.

[1] The first movements of the imperial armies on the borders of Cadore and towards Friuli began between 9 and 10 January 1508, leading Bartolomeo d'Alviano to carry out inspections of the castles of Botestagno and Chiusaforte, reinforcing the fortresses, ordering a moat to be dug in Primolano and ramparts built in Celazzo and Laurone.

On 24 January 1508 an imperial messenger reached Verona asking the mayor, Alvise Malipiero, to prepare lodgings for 8,500 horses, since Emperor Maximilian intended to stay there for three days before continuing to Rome.

In the following days the hostile intent of the imperials became evident as more and more men gathered around Trento and began to plunder the Lagarina Valley north of Rovereto and the Asiago plateau.

By next day only sixty infantrymen under Bortolo Malfato remained to oppose the Habsburg advance at Chiusa di Venas, but they too were forced to retreat first to Pieve and then, after a second battle that lasted four hours and in which they risked being encircled, to the castle of Gardona.

The Venetians, having learned the news, immediately ordered Bartolomeo d'Alviano, on his way to Friuli, to go to Bassano del Grappa together with Giorgio Corner and to prepare a plan to regain control of the region.

The second option was to detour to the Muda crossing the Val di Zoldo and then descend into Cadore; this road was difficult because it was long, steep and led to high altitudes, where the snow was even more abundant, yet it made it possible to avoid being sighted by the enemy.

[4] On 29 February, Alviano reached the Val di Zoldo with his army exhausted by the long march, and was greeted by a storm that prevented him from proceeding, therefore he stopped to clear the snow as much as possible.

This was the spark that forced the Venetian general to start a battle that lasted less than an hour and took place near the snow-covered banks of the Rio Secco, whose whiteness was stained by the shed blood.

The German infantrymen, about four thousand, knowing they were risking the encirclement, lined up in a square with the baggage and the women in the middle, then quickly marched against the Venetians with the intention of breaking through the ranks and opening up an escape route.

Alviano, riding a nag in the center of the Venetian array, ordered the wings, made up of crossbowmen, cavalrymen and stradioti, to attack the flanks of the enemy to disturb it and slow it down while he reorganized the army, as part of the cavalry had not yet arrived.

Rinieri della Sassetta, together with a dozen cavalrymen from Cardillo, Busicchio's stradioti and Franco dal Borgo's crossbowmen, attacked the enemy artillery on three sides and managed to capture it.

During the clashes the commander Sixt von Trautson engaged in a duel with Rinieri della Sassetta, who carried the banner of the Serenissima, managing to wound him with a blow to the face.

The Germans lost 1,688 men killed and another 500 surrendered at the end of the battle and were spared and later released under the payment of a ransom; the Venetians also captured eight enemy artillery pieces.

The fugitives tried to rejoin the bulk of the imperial army by dispersing and crossing the mountain passes, but about a hundred of them were killed by the stradioti in Val di Zoldo, others drowned in the Piave, and others still froze to death.

On the morning of March 3, d'Alviano had four falconets driven to the top of a hill in front of the fortress and began shooting without causing significant damage, given the small caliber of the guns.

However, on 8 March they captured a convoy of four wagons full of bread and wheat pulled by twenty horses and protected by some German soldiers who had not received the news of the defeat of the Rio Secco and were trying to reach their companions in Pieve.

Venice, which had already become the most powerful of the Italian states following the division of the Duchy of Romagna, further expanded its borders, reaching the apex of its terrestrial expansion and causing the discontent of many, first of all Pope Julius II, who on 10 December 1508 united France, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Ferrara, Mantua and the Duchy of Savoy in the League of Cambrai in an anti-Venetian function; in the spring of 1509, the battle of Agnadello marked the definitive halt to the Venetian domination in northern Italy to the advantage of the Kingdom of France.