Literate commanders and modern printing methods also make them one of the first conflicts with a significant number of contemporary accounts, including those of Francesco Guicciardini, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Blaise de Montluc.

Followed shortly thereafter by a non-aggression pact known as the Italic League, it led to a forty-year period of stability and economic expansion, marred only by the 1479 to 1481 Pazzi conspiracy and 1482 to 1484 War of Ferrara.

The League's main supporter was the Florentine ruler Lorenzo de' Medici, who also pursued a policy of excluding France and the Holy Roman Empire from the Italian peninsula.

His son Charles VIII succeeded him in 1483 and formally incorporated Provence into France in 1486; its ports of Marseille and Toulon provided direct access to the Mediterranean and thus the ability to pursue his territorial ambitions.

[4] [5] The war began when Ludovico Sforza, then Regent of Milan, encouraged Charles VIII of France to invade Italy, using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples as a pretext.

[7] In October, Ludovico formally became Duke of Milan following the death of Gian Galeazzo, who was popularly supposed to have been poisoned by his uncle,[d] and the French marched through Italy virtually unopposed, entering Pisa on 8 November, Florence on 17th, and Rome on 31 December.

[8] Charles was backed by Girolamo Savonarola, who used the opportunity to established a short-lived theocracy in Florence, while Pope Alexander VI allowed his army free passage through the Papal States.

[14] Both sides claimed victory but the general consensus favoured the French, since the League suffered heavier casualties and failed to halt their retreat, the reason for fighting in the first place.

[23] With these agreements finalised, a French army of 27,000 under the Milanese exile Gian Giacomo Trivulzio invaded Lombardy,[24] and in August besieged Rocca d'Arazzo, a fortified town in the western part of the Duchy of Milan.

[28] However, Louis needed to maintain good relations with Florence, whose territory he would have to cross in order to conquer Naples, and on 29 June 1500 a combined Franco-Florentine army appeared outside Pisa.

His action was criticised by contemporaries like Niccolò Machiavelli and modern historians, who argue the 1499 Treaty of Marcoussis already gave Louis everything he needed, while inviting Spain into Naples could only work to his detriment.

This fear was shared by his home town of Genoa, which also resented its expulsion from the Po Valley, and Maximilian, whose acquisition of Gorizia in 1500 was threatened by Venetian possession of neighbouring Friuli.

[40] Now seeing the power of Louis XII as the greater threat, in February 1510 Pope Julius made peace with Venice, followed in March by an agreement with the Swiss Cantons to supply him with 6,000 mercenaries.

After a year of fighting in which Louis XII occupied large parts of the Papal States, in October 1511 Julius formed the anti-French Holy League, which included Henry VIII of England, Maximilian and Spain.

[41] A French army defeated the Spanish at Ravenna on 11 April 1512, but their leader Gaston de Foix was killed, while the Swiss recaptured Milan and restored Ludovico's son Massimiliano Sforza as duke.

[43] In March, Venice and France formed an alliance, but from June to September 1513 the League won victories at Novara and La Motta in Lombardy, Guinegate in Flanders and Flodden in England.

[45] Combined with the unpopularity of Massiliano Sforza, victory allowed Francis to retake Milan and the Holy League collapsed as both Spain and Pope Leo X saw little benefit in fighting on.

[57] Although the League gained an easy victory on 24 June when the Venetians occupied Lodi, this delay allowed Charles to gather fresh troops and support a Milanese revolt in July against Francesco Sforza, who was once again forced into exile.

Seeking to recapture Milan, Francis invaded Lombardy at the beginning of 1527, with an army financed by Henry VIII, who hoped thereby to win Papal support for divorcing his first wife, Katherine of Aragon.

[65] In April 1536, pro-Valois elements in Asti expelled the Imperial garrison and a French army under Philippe de Chabot occupied Turin, although they failed to take Milan.

The 1536 Franco-Ottoman alliance, a comprehensive treaty covering a wide range of commercial and diplomatic issues, also agreed to a joint assault on Genoa, with French land forces supported by an Ottoman fleet.

[72] On 14 April 1544, a French army commanded by Francis, Count of Enghien, defeated the Imperials at Ceresole, a victory of limited strategic value since they failed to make progress elsewhere in Lombardy.

[73] The Imperial position was further strengthened at Serravalle in June, when Alfonso d'Avalos defeated a mercenary force led by the Florentine exile Piero Strozzi on their way to meet Enghien.

[74] However, with his treasury exhausted and concerned by Ottoman naval strength in the Mediterranean Sea, on 14 September Charles agreed the Treaty of Crépy with Francis, which essentially restored the position to that prevailing in 1542.

[77] Despite his devout personal Catholicism and persecution of Huguenot "heretics" at home, in January 1552 he signed the Treaty of Chambord with several Protestant princes within the Empire, which gave him control of the Three Bishoprics of Toul, Verdun, and Metz.

[79] In 1553, a Franco-Ottoman force captured the Genoese island of Corsica, while supported by Henry's wife, Catherine de' Medici, French-backed Tuscan exiles seized control of Siena.

[81] In January 1556, Charles formally abdicated as Emperor and split his possessions; the Holy Roman Empire went to his brother Ferdinand I, while Spain, its overseas territories and the Spanish Netherlands were assigned to Philip.

Christine Shaw, Micheal J. Levin, and William Reger reject the concept of a Spanish hegemony on the ground that too many limits prevented Spain's dominance in the peninsula, and maintain that other powers also held major influence in Italy after 1559.

[93] Contemporary historian Francesco Guicciardini wrote of the initial 1494 French invasion that "...sudden and violent wars broke out, ending with the conquest of a state in less time than it used to take to occupy a villa.

Francisco Sebastián, an Italian veteran who accompanied Hernando de Soto on his expedition into North America, agreed with this assessment, largely because "no plunder of value could be obtained" from the inhabitants.