Italy: Military History and Notable Events

1096 - 1099 - First Crusade (All Facts)

• Crusade during which Genoa, Venice, and Pisa; whose fleets had helped the Crusaders to capture ports south of Beirut, were rewarded with trading privileges after the Crusader victory

• Crusade during which

  • The Republics of Genoa, Venice, and Pisa and the Duchy of Amalfi

    • secured valuable commercial positions for its traders, leading to increased wealth and power, its people having

      • sent relief fleets during the First Crusade into the Holy Land, and were, in towns they conquered, rewarded with

        • Quarters

        • Warehouses

        • Markets

        • Churches

      • helped the Crusaders to capture ports in south Lebanon and were granted trading privileges as a result

      • helped the Christian Crusader fleets dominate the Mediterranean

      • attacked the Tunisian coast and extracted taxes from the Emir of Kairouan

      • gained wool and leather exports from the Muslims

• Crusade after which the scope of trade in Genoa, Venice, and Pisa steadily increased with imports of spices, cotton, silk, and fabric from the East balanced by exports of wool, flax, and hemp cloth as well as older-established provisions like corn, salt, oil, and wine

1122 - 1126 - Venetian Crusade (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the namesake fleet, in support of the Crusaders

  • Defeated the Egyptians and their fleet off Ascalon in 1123, in which they captured a large merchant convoy and drove the last Muslim ships from the Mediterranean

  • Pillaged Rhodes in 1125

  • Occupied Chios in 1125

  • Ravaged Samos and Lesbos in 1125

  • Occupied Cephalonia in 1125

1156 - Battle of Brindisi (All Facts)

• Battle in which King William of Sicily and his forces defeated the Byzantines, backed by Pope Hadrian IV, who capitulated at Benevento afterwards

1159 - 1160 - Siege of Crema (All Facts)

• Battle in which Frederick Barbarossa and the Holy Roman Empire attacked the namesake city, in which Barbarossa ordered

  • Prisoners, including children, to be tired to huge siege machines and hurled at the walls of the namesake city

  • The mass hanging of prisoners, only to see his own soldiers swinging from gallows

  • Child hostages to be brought to the front line

• Battle which ended the namesake city’s status as one of the many powerful independent Italian city-states at the time

  • When the namesake city opened its gates, its inhabitants watched as their city was razed to the ground

• Battle in which the namesake city’s inhabitants, shocked by the sight of the heads of decapitated prisoners being thrown around by Barbarossa’s troops, fiercely retaliated by tearing their prisoners literally limb from limb on the city walls

1176 - Battle of Legnano (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Lombard League defeated Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire and his forces to maintain control of Lombardy (in modern-day Italy)

• Battle whose terms of peace were completed between Pope Alexander III at Agnani and Frederick Barbarossa

• Battle after which Frederick Barbarossa acknowledged Pope Alexander III as the one and only true pontiff

  • Barbarossa finally succumbed to papal authority and accepted Pope Alexander III after he had kissed the feet of the pope as thousands watched him do so in St. Mark’s square

1183 - Peace of Constance (All Facts)

• Peace treaty which ended conflict between the Lombard League and Frederick Barbarossa and the Holy Roman Empire

1202 - 1204 - Fourth Crusade (All Facts)

• Crusade during which Venetian entrepreneurs backed the pillaging of Constantinople carried out by the French Catholic Crusaders, doing so in the name of religious unity

  • In fact, it was a short cut to repayment of a loan to fund the namesake conflict

  • The leader of this crusade, Boniface, the marquess of Montferrat, agreed to pay the Venetians for their efforts of support

• Crusade after which the leaders of the Republic of Venice formed a commission to allot some of the old empire to the new emperor and other shares to the Venetian Crusaders

  • By this means, they collected the Adriatic east coast, both shores of the Gulf of Corinth, islands such as Andros, and swathes of Albania

1260 - Battle of Montaperti (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Ghibellines and Republic of Siena defeated the Guelphs and Republic of Florence

1261 - Treaty of Nymphaeum (All Facts)

• Treaty between the Republic of Genoa and Michael VIII Palaeologus and the Byzantine Empire, which promised the Republic of Genoa all the trading privileges within the empire already enjoyed by the Republic of Venice

1263 - Battle of Settepozzi (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Venetians defeated the Genoese during the War of St. Sabas

1266 - Battle of Benevento (All Facts)

• Battle in which Charles of Anjou of Sicily and the Guelphs defeated King Manfred of Sicily and the Ghibellines

• Battle after which Charles of Anjou assumed the kingship of Sicily, succeeding King Manfred of Sicily

1268 - Battle of Tagliacozzo (All Facts)

• Battle in which Charles of Anjou of Sicily and the Guelphs defeated King Conradin of Sicily (of the Hohenstaufen Dynasty) and the Ghibellines, successfully defending Italy from them

1282 - 1302 - War of the Sicilian Vespers (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts waged by several medieval European kingdoms over control of the Kingdom of Sicily, in which their rulers fought over competing dynastic claims to the throne of Sicily

  • These competing political entities included the

    • Kingdom of France

    • Kingdom of Aragon

    • Kingdom of Naples

    • Papacy

  • The native population of Sicily was encouraged to rebel against Charles of Anjou and their French overlords by

    • the previous Hohenstaufen rulers

    • King Peter III of Aragon (who was married to a Hohenstaufen)

    • the Ghibellines (which lost the conflict against Charles of Anjou and the Guelphs)

    • Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus of the Byzantine Empire

• Series of conflicts which began with the namesake revolt in Sicily by the Sicilians against their French overlords following the death of King Charles of Anjou of Sicily and his being succeeded by King Peter III of Aragon

• Series of conflicts which came to an end when Charles of Valois of France invaded the Kingdom of Sicily, with the papacy’s permission, and got King Frederick III of Sicily to agree to Charles of Valois of France’s terms, thus ending the namesake war

1282 - Sicilian Vespers (All Facts)

• Revolt involving massacres which have claimed the lives of several thousand French men, women, and children

  • Revolt in which friars were dragged from Dominican and Franciscan monasteries and put to death if they could not pronounce the Sicilian word “ciciri”

• Revolt whose bloodshed began on Easter Monday, outside the Church of the Holy Spirit in Palermo in the Kingdom of Sicily

  • A crowd was waiting to go inside the church when a group of French officials started insulting the local women there

  • When one French sergeant began to molest a Sicilian woman, her husband drew a knife and stabbed him to death

  • As the bells began to toll for the namesake church service, the other Sicilians fell upon the French officials and butchered them

  • From there, messengers ran from the church square of the Church of the Holy Spirit through Palermo and out into the towns and villages, where the Sicilians rose up, killing their French overlords and proclaiming themselves independent of the Kingdom of France

• Revolt which allowed the Sicilian rebels, that were already planning to rebel against Charles of Anjou and their French overlords, to not wait any longer

  • The native population of Sicily was encouraged to rebel against Charles of Anjou and their French overlords by

    • the previous Hohenstaufen rulers

    • King Peter III of Aragon (who was married to a Hohenstaufen)

    • the Ghibellines (which lost the conflict against Charles of Anjou and the Guelphs)

    • Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus of the Byzantine Empire

• Revolt in which Messina was the last city to hold out against it, but it too had its French fleet in its harbor eventually destroyed by the rioters

1284 - Battle of Meloria (All Facts)

• Battle in which the the Republic of Genoa destroyed the Republic of Pisa off the coast of Italy during the Genoese-Pisan Wars

• Battle in which the Republic of Pisa lost its hold on Sardinia

• Battle after which the Republic of Genoa was the main rival to the Republic of Venice

1310 - Tiepolo Conspiracy (All Facts)

• Failed plot to overthrow Doge Pietro Gradenigo and his government of the Republic of Venice

• In response, Venice became governed more by a narrow oligarchy of merchants who consolidated their power after suppressing the namesake plot

1378 - 1381 - War of Chioggia (All Facts)

• War in which the Republic of Venice defeated its longtime rival, the Republic of Genoa, in which the Genoese / Republic of Genoa unconditionally surrendered to the Venetians / Republic of Venice

• Although its peace conference at Turin had left the two exhausted belligerents politically where they were before the fighting, the Venetians / Republic of Venice had set about making a speedy economic recovery and thus bolstered its trading power in its victory in the war

• War which was the culmination of over a hundred years of squabbling between the two dominant maritime trading republics of Italy

• War which saw the Genoese / Republic of Genoa spoiling for a fight with the Venetians / Republic of Venice and found one in the namesake lagoon in which their fleet was trapped by concrete-filled blockships and later sunk by their enemies

1380 - Battle of Chioggia (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Republic of Venice defeated the Republic of Genoa during the War of the namesake, thus defeating its long-standing rival and remaining the supreme maritime republic and city-state of Renaissance Italy

1378 - 1382 - Ciompi Revolt (All Facts)

• Revolt of politically unrepresented laborers in the Republic of Florence in Tuscany, Italy who did not belong to any guilds and were therefore unable to participate in the Florentine government

• Revolt whose goal was to make it so that only citizens who had actually worked for a living - either at trades or in business, would be able to hold office in the commune that would be Florence

• Revolt that emerged out of the Black Death, which considerably lessened the number of men in the cloth industry, regarding a conflict between the magnates or “Hats” and workers or “Cloaks”

• Revolt in which the “Cloaks” cried “Death to the Hats and long live to the Cloaks!” while they turned the tables on the aristocrats of Florence and rioted and burned throughout the city

  • In the inter-communal slanging match that grew and in response, the “Hats” shouted “Go back to your cloth-making” and “go and grind the pepper (to druggists)” and one aristocrat who lumped the workers together as a crowd of “robbers, traitors, murderers, assassins, gluttons, and malefactors”

  • This shouting match ended in violence in which traders, skilled artisans, and the poor joined together to force their way into the palace and take over the city of Florence

• Revolt which was brutally suppressed

1432 - Battle of San Romano (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Republic of Florence defeated the Republic of Siena during the Wars in Lombardy

1454 - Treaty of Lodi (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between the Republic of Florence and the Duchy of Milan, along with the Republic of Venice and Kingdom of Naples, presided over by Pope Nicholas V and Rome, which thus ended the Wars in Lombardy

• Treaty whose significance lies in having guaranteed Italy 40 years of stable peace, consequently favoring the artistic and literary flowering representative of the Italian Renaissance

• Treaty after which formed the Italic League, which lasted until the onset of the Italian Wars

1463 - 1479 - First Ottoman-Venetian War (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts in which the Ottoman Turks fought over control of the Mediterranean Sea with the Republic of Venice

1478 - Pazzi Conspiracy (All Facts)

• Plot by the namesake family to displace (rule in the place of) the Medici family in Florence

• Plot involving the murder of Giuliano de Medici and the attempted assassination of his brother Lorenzo de Medici

• Plot in which the members of the namesake rival banking family and their confederates, including the archbishop of Pisa, walked Giuliano de Medici arm-in-arm for High Mass attended by a cardinal from Rome who was believed to have been in on and encouraged the namesake plot, and then, during the Mass, the namesake plotters plunged their daggers into Giuliano de Medici 19 times while two priests attempted to stab Lorenzo de Medici

  • Lorenzo de Medici escaped, gashed in the neck, and ran to the sacristy for safety

  • In the stampede from the cathedral the assassins escaped

• Plot in which the people of Florence turned against the namesake family and hunted them and their friend down

• Plot after which the palaces of Florence were festooned with corpses of the namesake rebels hanged from their windows, at least 70 in total

1494 - 1559 - Italian Wars (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts between the Valois (France) and the Habsburgs (Spain and Holy Roman Empire) that began with the First Italian War and ended with the Ninth Italian War and mostly took place in (Northern) Italy

1494 - 1498 - First Italian War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the Habsburgs (Spain), with support from the Papacy and League of Venice, defeated the Valois (France)

• Conflict that began with King Charles VIII of France’s invasion of the Kingdom of Naples

• Conflict in which King Charles VIII and his army infected the Kingdom of Naples with the “French Pox” disease

• Conflict in which King Charles VIII and his army was forced to retreat from Italy, thus halting French expansion and preventing France from securing a permanent foothold in the Kingdom of Naples

1495 - Battle of Fornovo (All Facts)

• Battle in which King Charles VIII of France and his forces were defeated by the Italians and Swiss

• Battle which left the French army exhausted, emaciated, and riddled with disease, limping its way home to France after its defeat

1499 - 1501 - Second Italian War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the Valois (France), with support from the Papacy, Venice, Florence, and Switzerland, defeated the Habsburgs (Spain)

• Conflict in which King Louis XII of France, with the help of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio and his Italian forces, seized and conquered the Duchy of Milan

• Conflict after which Ludovico Sforza fled from the Duchy of Milan

• Conflict in which the Milanese rebelled against Gian Giacomo Trivulzio and his Italian forces and the French, thus Sforza returned and took advantage of the revolt and attacked the French back

  • He was eventually deserted by his troops, however, and handed over to the enemy and imprisoned by the French

1500 - Battle of Novara (All Facts)

• Battle in which King Louis XII and his forces defeated Ludovico Sforza and his Italian (Milanese) forces during the Second Italian War

• Battle which began when Ludovico Sforza, after having fled Milan, returned and corralled his troops and took advantage of the prior revolt against Gian Giacomo Trivulzio and the French and attacked the French

• Battle which ended when Ludovico Sforza’s troops deserted him and he was sent by Milan to be imprisoned in France

1502 - 1504 - Third Italian War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which King Ferdinand and the Habsburgs (Spain) defeated the King Louis XII and the Valois (France)

• Conflict in which King Ferdinand and the Habsburgs (Spain) took back the Kingdom of Naples from King Louis XII and France

1508 - 1516 - Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai / War of the Holy League (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the Valois (France) and Venice defeated the Habsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire) and England

• Conflict which began when King Louis XII of France, Pope Julius II and the namesake league sought to punish the Republic of Venice for annexing papal provinces on the Adriatic Sea and thus attacked and defeated the Republic of Venice as a result in the Battle of Agnadello

• Conflict in which Pope Julius II and the namesake league (including Venice, Spain, and Switzerland) then turned against France, whose foothold in northern Italy became too strong for the papacy and namesake league

  • Conflict in which Pope Julius II raised the cry to “clear the Barbarians out of Italy” (the French under King Louis XII), turning against the King of France after previously lifting the excommunication of Venice

• Conflict which saw protracted war in Lombardy, the Romagna, and Veneto in northern Italy

• Conflict in which King Francis of France secured the Duchy of Milan for the French

• Conflict triggered by a Genoese revolt against French forces that had occupied the city

• Conflict during which Matthäus Schiner dissuaded the Swiss (the Old Swiss Confederacy) from forming an alliance with the French against Pope Julius II

• Conflict which saw the following battles take place including

  • Battle of Agnadello

  • Siege of Mirandola

  • Battle of Ravenna

  • Battle of the Spurs

  • Siege of Tournai

  • Battle of Novara

  • Battle of Marignano

• Conflict which ended with

  • The Treaty of Fribourg

  • The Concordant of Bologna

1508 - 1511 - League of Cambrai (All Facts)

• (Temporary, short-lived) Military Alliance between King Louis XII of France, Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope Julius II and the Papacy, and King Ferdinand of Spain aimed at conquering the Republic of Venice and its Italian possessions that initiated the Fourth Italian War / namesake War

• Alliance which was the brainchild of Pope Julius II, ostensibly set up as a “Holy League” against the Ottoman Turks

  • The pope’s more immediate use for the league was to recover for the papacy the towns of the Romagna region under Venetian rule

  • However, the French gained too strong a foothold in northern Italy; and the namesake league eventually turned against France during the Fourth Italian War / namesake War

1509 - Battle of Agnadello (All Facts)

• Battle in which Louis XII and his French forces, with support from France’s allies in the League of Cambrai (the Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy, and Spain) defeated the Republic of Venice during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

• Battle which allowed Pope Julius II to reoccupy the Romagna

• Venice would eventually ally with France in the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

• Battle which gave France a much stronger foothold in northern Italy

• Battle after which the League of Cambrai turned against France, recognizing how strong it was becoming in the region of northern Italy

1511 - Siege of Mirandola (All Facts)

• Battle in which Pope Julius II and his forces, with help from the Habsburgs (Spain) and the Republic of Venice, defeated France during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

• Battle that was part of Pope Julius II's campaign to keep France from dominating northern Italy during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

1512 - Battle of Ravenna (All Facts)

• Battle in which France defeated Spain and the League of Cambrai / Holy League during the Fourth Italian War

• Battle in which honors were declared even

1513 - Battle of Novara (All Facts)

• Battle in which Milan, with help from Pope Leo X and his Holy League, along with Cardinal Matthäus Schiner and his Swiss forces, defeated France and the Republic of Venice during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

1515 - Battle of Marignano (All Facts)

• Battle in which King Francis and France defeated Cardinal Matthias Schiner and Switzerland during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

• Battle in which King Francis

  • initially tried to bribe the Swiss to avoid fighting them, but that approach failed and cemented the legacy of French kings as bad at bribing

  • thus planned to fight against the Swiss carefully knowing he was forced to fight

  • negotiated treaties with England, Austria, and Venice prior to it

  • assembled an army of 40K French artilleryman and German light infantry

  • crossed the Alps with his forces and drove the Swiss back into Lombardy, where he tried but failed to set up a last-ditch negotiation with the Swiss at Gallarate where he demanded the recognition of French claims to Lombardy and Milan and the withdrawal of the Swiss from Italy

• Battle in which the Swiss pikemen fought hard, but ultimately were defeated

• Battle after which King Francis and his forces marched towards and seized Milan in Italy

• Battle after which King Francis of France and Switzerland signed the Treaty of Fribourg

1521 - 1526 - Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which Charles V and the Habsburgs (the Holy Roman Empire and Spain) defeated King Francis and the Valois (France)

  • Conflict upon which King Francis of France lost his war with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V for supremacy in Europe

• Conflict which saw the

  • Holy Roman Empire’s invasion of Champagne

  • Battle of Bicocca

  • Siege of Marseilles

  • Battle of Pavia

• Conflict which saw

  • a modernization of European military forces, especially with regards to new arms (guns), defenses (Bastion Fort), and tactics / strategies

  • new tactics being developed for mounted troops using new carbines (arquebus) and horse pistols, which became the masters of the battlefield, replacing and eventually contributing to the elimination of armored cavalry and knights in armor

  • the implementation of the Bastion / Star Fort (“trace italienne;” a circuit of low, thick walls punctuated by square bastions), which

    • replaced the high and thin walls of the Middle Ages as new defenses

    • were designed to absorb the punishment of the heavy siege guns which were a part of every successful army by that time

    • changed the entire pattern of warfare because the cities protected by them could no longer be taken by traditional methods of blowing a hole in the walls and pouring infantry through the breach and instead forced towns to be encircled by siege-works and batteries and starved and frightened into submission

    • essentially made warfare more a matter of engineering and logistics

  • the advent of the gun bring about great changes at sea since

    • ships no longer rammed and boarded each other, but pounded each other with formidable arrays of guns firing through ports in ships’ sides

    • gunships eventually set the pattern which all maritime nations must have followed if they wanted to avoid facing inevitable defeat

• Conflict which ended with the Treaty of Madrid

1522 - Battle of Bicocca (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Habsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire), supported by the Papacy and the Duchy of Milan, defeated the Valois (France), supported by the Republic of Venice and Switzerland, during the Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War

• Battle after which the imperial army of the Holy Roman Empire occupied the Republic of Genoa, where a doge who supported Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was appointed

1525 - Battle of Pavia (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Habsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire) defeated King Francis and the Valois (France) during the Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War

• Battle which took place in Lombardy in Italy

• Battle before which

  • Pope Clement VII tried and failed to mediate between its two parties and battle was joined before first light in the morning

• Battle which began when

  • King Francis of France decided to lay siege to the namesake city; with an army of French and Italian infantry, German and Swiss mercenaries, and a strong train of artillery

• Battle during which

  • the siege initially went well; the French guns having broke down the defenses and King Francis’s regiments having stormed into the breaches

  • Antonio de Levya, the Spanish governor of the namesake town, had built new fortifications inside the walls, making it so that the French were routed by the namesake town’s defenders

  • the French forces retreated to mount a classic siege throughout the winter

  • King Francis, reinforced by Venetian troops, became sure of victory as the namesake town ran short of food and ammunition

  • the imperial forces of the Holy Roman Empire had been gathering at the town of Lodi, near the namesake, and had had marched on the namesake earlier in the month catching King Francis between the anvil of the namesake and the hammer of the attacking imperial army

  • the French guns have King Francis and France the advantage at first, but, he eventually ordered his forced to cease fire, since he believed in chivalry rather than guns

  • King Francis led his knights in a disorganized charge without waiting for the infantry and in the shambles that ensued 6K Frenchmen died

• Battle which ended when

  • King Francis of France had his horse shot from under him by an arquebus (a new type of gun at the time) and demounted, fought on foot, only to have his face blooded and his having surrendered his sword to the enemy

• Battle after which

  • King Francis of France was held captive by Lannoy (the viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples)

  • King Francis of France essentially lost his war with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V for supremacy in Europe

  • King Francis of France was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

1526 - Treaty of Madrid (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between King Francis of France (Valois) and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain (Habsburgs), which ended the Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War

• Peace Treaty in which

  • Holy Roman Emperor Charles V agreed to

    • release King Francis of France from captivity

  • King Francis of France agreed to

    • abandon and concede Burgundy to the Holy Roman Empire

    • give up claims to Flanders, Artois, Tournai, and all of Italy

    • pardon the rebel Charles of Bourbon

• Peace Treaty which was declared null and void by King Francis of France following his release from captivity

1526 - 1530 - Sixth Italian War / War of the League of Cognac (All Facts)

• Conflict in which Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Habsburgs (the Holy Roman Empire and Spain) defeated King Francis and the Valois (France), supported by the League of Cognac (England, Switzerland, and the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice, Milan, and Genoa)

• Conflict which ended the Republic of Florence (it was no longer a republic after the namesake conflict)

• Conflict during which the Papacy switched sides, initially supporting the League of Cognac, but then defecting to the Habsburgs

• Conflict which saw

  • The Sack of Rome

• Conflict which ended with

  • The Treaty of Cambrai / Ladies Peace / “Pax de Daimes”

1526 - 1529 - League of Cognac (All Facts)

• Anti-Habsburg military alliance formed by France, Venice, Florence, and Milan; as well as England, Switzerland, and the Kingdom of Navarre within Spain to curb the overwhelming dominance of Charles V in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and Italian city-states that supported him

• It was initially formed by the Papacy, but the Papacy, by the end of the namesake conflict / Sixth Italian War, switched to the side of Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire

1527 - Sack of Rome (All Facts)

• Conflict in which 15K German mercenaries sacked the namesake city and burned, looted, and raped in an orgy of destruction there

• Conflict in which the Vatican Palace was occupied by Lutheran troops, in which

  • its chapels were used as stables

  • Raphael’s paintings in the papal apartments were covered with graffiti

• Conflict in which Pope Clement VII beseeched Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to call of the men who were destroying the city

  • It was too late, however, as the imperial militias there mutinied as a result of not being paid, fed, or led by the Holy Roman Empire or any of its surviving commanders and fell upon one of the wealthiest cities in the world

  • The commanders of the armies sent to Italy had left before Pope Clement VII and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had signed a truce

1529 - Treaty of Cambrai / Ladies Peace / “Pax de Daimes” (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between Louise of Savoy (on behalf of King Francis of France) and Margaret of Austria (on behalf of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) which ended the Sixth Italian War / War of the League of Cognac

• Peace Treaty in which

  • King Francis of France

    • renounced all its rights in Italy, Flanders, and Artois

    • agreed to pay a ransom of two million crowns

  • Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire

    • renounced any claims to Burgundy

1530 - Flood in Rome (All Facts)

1535 - Conquest of Tunis (All Facts)

• Conflict in which King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles and his forces defeated Hayreddin Barbarossa and his Ottoman forces and takes the namesake city from him

• Conflict in which 60K allied troops took the namesake city, along with the port of La Goleta and the bulk of Barbarossa’s fleet of 80 galleys

• Conflict in which King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles allowed his soldiers five days of pillaging and 30K inhabitants were reported to have been killed

• Conflict which began when King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles chose to invade after Barbarossa’s fleet had ravaged southern Italy at the behest of the Turkish sultan

  • As a result, King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles believed that Spanish possession of the namesake would effectively cut off Barbarossa from Constantinople

• Conflict in which a combined fleet of Spanish and Genoan galleys sailed from Barcelona to Sardinia, where more ships joined their fleet with 22K German and Italian troops

• Conflict in which King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles’ shock troops, the formidable “tercio” were the first to land at La Goleta, followed by artillery and a detachment of cavalry

• Conflict in which Barbarossa chose to remain behind the walls, trusting the extreme heat to wear down the enemy

  • War in which many of King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles’s forces dying of dysentery

• Conflict in which Barbarossa had not reckoned with the firepower of the fleet and land-artillery who pounded the walls for five hours before the infantry broke through, causing the namesake to fall more easily

1536 - 1538 - Seventh Italian War (All Facts)

• Conflict between King Francis of France (Valois), with support from the Ottoman Turks; and Charles V of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire (Habsburgs) which ended indecisively without a victor

• Conflict which began when

  • King Francis of France tried to invade and pursue Piedmont

  • Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s troops invaded Provence, in pursuit of the army of King Francis of France

• Conflict during which

  • Anne of Montmorency drove back Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his forces, having applied scorched-earth tactics

• Conflict which ended with the Truce of Nice

1537 - 1540 - Third Ottoman-Venetian War (All Facts)

• War in which the Ottoman Turks defeated the Republic of Venice and its Holy League

• War which saw

  • The Siege of Corfu

  • The Battle of Prevesa

1537 - Siege of Corfu (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Ottoman Turks and France tried and failed to capture the namesake island from the Republic of Venice during the Third Ottoman-Venetian War

1538 - Holy League (All Facts)

• Alliance of Pope Paul III and the Papacy, Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire, and the Republic of Venice formed to counteract the Ottoman Turks during the Third Venetian-Ottoman War

1538 - Truce of Nice (All Facts)

• Truce made between King Francis of France (Valois) and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain (Habsburgs), which ended the Seventh Italian War / Four Years’ War

• Truce in which France gained Piedmont and Savoy from the Holy Roman Empire

1538 - Battle of Prevesa (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Ottoman Turks defeated Andrea Doria and the Republic of Venice and its Holy League

• Battle after which the Ottoman Turks gained naval supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea

1539 - Treaty of Toledo (All Facts)

• Treaty between King Francis of France and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, in which they agreed that neither of them would form future alliances with England; given King Henry VIII’s split with the Roman Catholic Church

1542 - 1546 - Eighth Italian War (All Facts)

• Conflict between King Francis of France (Valois), with support from the Ottoman Empire; and Charles V of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire (Habsburgs), with support from Italy and King Henry VIII and England; which ended in a stalemate

• Conflict which began when

  • King Francis of France reopened hostilities with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V after he had appointed his son Philip to claim the Duchy of Milan

  • Holy Roman Emperor Charles V violated the Treaty of Toledo and allied with King Henry VIII of England against King Francis and France

• Conflict which saw the

  • Siege of Nice

  • Battle of Ceresole

  • Siege of Saint-Dizier

  • Siege of Boulogne

• Conflict which contributed to the delay of the convention of the Council of Trent

• Conflict which ended with the Treaty of Crepy

1543 - Siege of Nice (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and Italy (Habsburgs) defeated France and the Ottoman Empire during the Eighth Italian War

• Battle during which

  • Hayreddin Barbarossa and his Ottoman forces bombarded, besieged, and sacked the namesake Holy Roman imperial town in France, capturing the namesake gateway to Italy from France

  • the namesake town was captured and sacked by Hayreddin Barbarossa and Turkish pirates rampaged through its burning ruins, looting and raping and setting it ablaze

• Battle which strained relations between the French and Ottoman Turks given that the Turkish pirates violated the agreement made between the governor of the town and the joint French and Turkish forces, in which the French blamed the Turks and the Turks blamed the French

1544 - Battle of Ceresole (All Facts)

• Battle in which France defeated the Holy Roman Empire and Spain (in in the namesake city south of Turin, in Italy) during the Eighth Italian War

1544 - Siege of Saint-Dizier (All Facts)

• Battle in King Henry VIII and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and their combined forces defeated France and took the namesake city (having threatened Paris at the time) during the Eighth Italian War

1544 - Treaty of Crepy (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between King Francis of France (Valois) and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain (Habsburgs), which ended the Eighth Italian War

  • which was made in an effort to restore Catholic unity in Europe

  • in which King Francis of France

    • promised to support Holy Roman Emperor Charles V against the Protestants if they rejected the decisions made in the Council of Trent

    • had his son, the Duke of Orleans, be promised to be married to a Habsburg princess, either

      • Mary, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V with a dowry that is the Netherlands

      • Anne, daughter of Habsburg King Ferdinand of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia with a dowry that is Milan

    • agreed to support Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in his war against the Ottoman Turks

  • in which a secret between them was agreed in which King Francis of France promised to help Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

    • reform the church

    • work towards bringing the German Protestants back into the Catholic fold, lending his army for the purpose if necessary

1545 - 1563 - Council of Trent (All Facts)

• First Council of the Catholic Church since the start of the Protestant Reformation

• Council presided over by Pope Paul III and maintained by his successors

• Council which

  • initiated the Catholic Counter-Reformation

  • debated the doctrinal controversies raised by the Protestant Reformation, which had been influential even within the Catholic Church including

    • sola fide (justification by faith)

      • Council which saw much disagreement even among Catholics as to whether man may receive grace by his own efforts and good works or receive grace by faith alone, as Protestants (Lutherans) argued

  • redefined Catholic dogma

  • worked to reunite Christendom

  • framed decrees which disdained any and all compromise with the Protestants (Lutherans)

• Council which

  • decreed that the scriptures are not the only source of divine revelation, as Protestants (Lutherans) claimed

  • decreed that apostolic tradition handed down by the Catholic Church is (was) sacred

  • decreed that Martin Luther’s doctrine of original sin is heretical

• Council attended by various groups who debated each other on these doctrinal issues including

  • Dominicans

  • Augustinians

  • Jesuits, who argued in this Council that man may attract divine mercy by his own efforts

• Council in which Holy Roman Emperor Charles V wished for the Papacy and Christendom to reconcile the Protestants (Lutherans), who were dividing Germany (the Holy Roman Empire) at the time by

  • reforming the Catholic Church’s practices

  • possibly permitting clergy to marry

• Council which

  • was attended by 60 or more Catholic bishops

  • had no Protestant (Lutheran) representatives

• Council which was postponed for several years due to the Italian Wars fought between King Francis of France and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, not starting until they were settled

• Council which took place in the namesake city and prince-bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany), chosen because, while close to Italy, it lay within the Holy Roman Empire and therefore met the demand that the council had to be on German soil

  • However, it was transferred to Bologna (in Italy) two years into its session