First Italian War
The
First Italian War (
1494â€"
95), sometimes referred to as the
Italian War of 1494 or
Charles VIII's Italian War, was the opening phase of the
Italian Wars. 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.
Ludovico Sforza, having seized the throne of the
Duchy of Milan in 1494, found himself opposed by the
Kingdom of Naples, whose ruler also had a claim on the Duchy. Ludovico decided to remove this threat by the efforts of Charles VIII, who had a claim to Naples through the
Angevin line. Charles, encouraged by Ludovico, gathered a large army, including the first
siege train to include artillery, and invaded the peninsula. Easily subduing
Florence, the French reached
Naples and captured it with little opposition.
The speed of the French advance, together with the brutality of their attacks on cities, left the remaining states of Italy in shock. Ludovico, realizing that Charles had a claim to Milan as well, and would likely not be sated with the annexation of Naples alone, turned to the Papacy; Alexander proceeded to construct the League of Venice, including himself, Milan, the
Republic of Venice, the Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I, and
Ferdinand I of Spain. This alliance, pledging itself to the expulsion of the French from Italy, gathered a
condottiere army under
Francesco II of Gonzaga. Charles, unwilling to be trapped in Naples, marched north to
Lombardy, where he met the League's army at the
Battle of Fornovo; although his defeat there was not decisive, he was nonetheless forced to abandon much of the booty from his campaign and return to France, where he soon died.
* Phillips, Charles and Alan Axelrod.
Encyclopedia of Wars. New York: Facts on File, 2005. ISBN 0816028516.
