The war pitted Charles VIII of France, who had initial Milanese aid, against the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and an alliance of Italian powers led by Pope Alexander VI, known as the League of Venice.

[9] To make the suspicions more concrete was added, at the end of the year, the attempted poisoning, perpetrated by Isabella of Aragon rea confesses, against Galeazzo Sanseverino, dear son-in-law and captain general of the Moro, as well as the danger that this was repeated against some other member of the ducal family.

[12] The point of definitive rupture, however, took place in January 1493, with the birth of Hercules Maximilian, eldest son of Moro and Beatrice: the possession of a legitimate descent was what was still missing for the spouses to be able to aspire to the ducal title.

[18] Francesco Guicciardini spoke at this point of a certain journey planned by King Ferrante to Genoa, where, accompanied by his nephew Ferdinand II of Naples, he was supposed to meet Ludovico and Beatrice to persuade them to peace, but stopped in those days, he died on January 25, 1494, according to some more of sorrow than of illness.

[citation needed] Charles was preceded in Italy by his cousin Louis d'Orleans, who in July 1494 arrived in the territories of the Duchy of Milan with the vanguards of the French army, benevolently welcomed in Vigevano by the Dukes of Bari Ludovico Sforza and Beatrice d'Este, then settled in his fief of Asti.

[20] Duke Ercole d'Este counted, perhaps through the intercession of his daughter and son-in-law, to be appointed captain general of the army French, but since he realized that the project would not go through, on September 22 he left discontent for Ferrara.

In front of her dying husband's bed, Duchess Isabella begs the sovereign Charles VIII on his knees not to want to continue the war against Alfonso her father and entrusts him with her son Francesco.

The looming danger of looting and violence of the French army (emphasized by the impassioned sermons of Girolamo Savonarola) that heightened the resentment of most citizens against the Medici came to pass when Charles VIII entered Fivizzano on October 29.

Piero, having taken new counsel, went to meet the king to negotiate, and was forced to grant him the fortresses of Sarzanello, Sarzana and Pietrasanta, the cities of Pisa and Livorno with their ports useful to French ships in support of the army, and the green light for Florence.

To avoid a further stay in the city, on January 6, 1495, Alexander VI welcomed Charles VIII and authorized his passage through the Papal States towards Naples, alongside his son Cesare Borgia as cardinal legate.

Knowing that he was deeply hated by the Neapolitan people and their allies, on January 22, 1495, Alfonso II decided to abdicate in favor of his more-popular son Ferdinand, in the hope that this would be enough to improve the political situation.

The Pope formed an alliance of several opponents of French hegemony in Italy: himself; Ferdinand of Aragon, who was also King of Sicily; the Emperor Maximilian I; Ludovico in Milan; and the Republic of Venice.

[24] After Ferdinand of Aragon had recovered Naples, with the help of his Spanish relatives with whom he had sought asylum in Sicily, the army of the League followed Charles's retreat northwards through Rome, which had been abandoned to the French by Pope Alexander VI on 27 May 1495.

Comines writes that, if the Duke of Orleans had advanced only a hundred paces, the Milanese army would have crossed the Ticino again, and he would have managed to enter Milan, since some noble citizens had offered to introduce him.

[31] The government of the state was then taken over by the Duchess Beatrice, appointed for the occasion governor of Milan,[32] who secured the support and loyalty of the Milanese nobles, took the necessary measures for the defense and abolished some taxes in hatred of the people.

[31] Not being able to count on her father's help, on June 27 Beatrice d'Este went alone, without her husband, to the military camp of Vigevano, both to supervise the order and to animate her captains to move against the Duke of Orleans, who in those days was constantly making raids in that area.

[39] Charles, wanting to avoid being trapped in Campania, on May 20 left Naples and marched north to reach Lombardy, but met the army of the League in the Battle of Fornovo, 30 km (19 miles) southwest of the city of Parma, on 6 July 1495.

[40] The result of the battle was however uncertain, and, in some ways, it still is today, because, despite the League having numerical superiority and the command of one of the most skilled leaders of the time, Francesco Gonzaga, the army of Charles VIII remained more powerful from a technological point of view, and in the number and quality of artillery.

Even if Fornovo had not been a total victory, every European sovereign would have hesitated in the face of the prospect of fighting in a foreign land and against a rich coalition (as we know, war is also fought with money) such as the eventual one of Italian Principalities, Lordships and Republics.

Duke Ercole d'Este also seemed to be of the same opinion: he sent, according to Comines, Count Albertino Boschetti to Vercelli, with the excuse of asking for safe conduct for the Marquis of Mantua and others who had to come to discuss peace.

An important consequence of the League of Venice was the political marriage arranged by Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor for the son he had with Mary of Burgundy: Philip the Handsome married Joanna the Mad (daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile) to reinforce the anti-French alliance between Austria and Spain.

The son of Philip and Joanna would become Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, succeeding Maximilian and controlling a Habsburg empire which included Castile, Aragon, Austria, and the Burgundian Netherlands, thus encircling France.

[citation needed] In a perspective that tends to conceal the presence of women in history, the blame was traditionally attributed only to Ludovico Sforza, as did for example Niccolò Machiavelli[57] and Francesco Guicciardini, who calls him "author and engine of all evil".

Giovan Battista Niccolini, in his own tragedy, will in fact put in the mouth of Count Belgioioso words of harsh reproach for the Moro: Ciò ebbe molto seguito nella corrente romantica.

Che tu sul capo alla tua patria aduni.Today this opinion tends to be revised, recalling how even Prince Antonello Sanseverino and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, both refugees at the court of France, had played a considerable part in inciting Charles VIII to descend into Italy, thus hoping to recover their possessions respectively against the Alfonso of Aragon and Pope Alexander VI.

[60] Even Ercole I d'Este, Moro's father-in-law, seemed to have been among the inciters and then supporters of Charles VIII as well as his successor Louis XII, in order to regain, with the help French, the territories that the Venetians had taken from him during the Salt War.

[60] Neutrality, however, contested by both Malipiero and Sanudo, who not only report episodes of espionage by the duke, but also of open hostility towards the Venetians on the part of Ferrara, whose population "wore French wing cridando: Franza!

[61] According to the two Venetian chroniclers, Duke Ercole would have warned Charles of the movements of the Collegati on the Taro, a favor for which his son Ferrante, who was in the pay of the French, would have been invested by the King of the Duchy of Melfi;[62] moreover he would have been the instigator of the attempted assassination of his son-in-law Francesco Gonzaga five days before the battle of Fornovo: Sanudo only alludes to it, saying that the Marquis Francesco, invited by some Ferrara to attend a duel, found four crossbowmen with loaded crossbows, one of whom refused to unload the weapon and for this he was beheaded; following this he decreed that no one from Ferrara could live in Mantonavo territory and that within three hours they had to evacuate the town: "what was the reason, I leave it to the wise men who will read".

[61] Malipiero, on the other hand, says it clearly, arguing that a few months later, finding himself seriously ill in Fondi, the Marquis Francesco had recommended his family and the state to the Signoria of Venice, saying that he could not trust anyone else, since "the Duke of Ferrara, his father-in-law, tried to have him poisoned".

Some judge that the ambitious and fanatical Charles VIII would in any case have accomplished the feat of Italy even without the incitements of the Italian lords, although the latter were worth to take away any delay and to overcome the resistance of his advisers, almost all opposed.