The Italian Wars :: History

The Italian WarsItaly was the background for outside powers between the French invasion of 1494 and the accession of Francis 1 in 1515 for different priming coats.Between these years, the States of Italy were invaded on a number occasions by armies from France, Spain and other countries. At this time, the Italian States were very vulnerable there were conflicts in Italy itself, they had out of date military equipment and Italy had insecure frontiers and treacherous allies That Italy failed to organise herself against invaders was due to the selfish policies. This gave outside powers reason to phthisis Italy as their battleground. Italy was a very wealthy country, showing this wealth, a Florentine Historian, Guicciardini verbalise Italy has never enjoyed such prosperity or known so favourable a situation Also, because the Pope lived in Italy, it gave enemies more incentive to fight in Italy as opposed to any other country. Another reason for Italy being the battleground was that f oreign powers felt they had dynastic claims to certain states and therefore felt make to fight for them.I feel the most important reason why outside powers chose Italy to fight in was basically because they could. Italy was divided, unstable and disunited there were counterbalance off civil disputes e.g. when Venice and its neighbour Ferrara went to war. It was hard to keep foreign powers out of their country because they werent working together each state was not strong luxuriant to protect Italy on its own. The Papacy also didnt help in keeping enemies out there was always scope for dissension between them (Orsini and Colonna) and art object they remained armed before the very eyes of the pontiff, they kept the papacy weak and insecure. Also, it was playing its usual game of self interest. Pope Leo X in 1513 set about promoting the interests of himself and his family. He was prepared to negotiate for French aid to further his ambitions this lead to more foreign powers (espe cially France), being able to easily use Italy as the main battleground. It can be disputed that the most important reason for Italy being the battle ground was that it was wealthy, but I feel that even though it was wealthy, there were certainly other wealthy states which could have been the battleground, had Italy not been such an easy target, with certain assets other countries did not have.This leads me to the next important reason why Italy was the battle ground wealth.