10 Facts About Italian Wars

Italian Wars, known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559 that took place primarily in the Italian peninsula.

Many of the Italian Wars states were involved on one side or the other, along with England and the Ottoman Empire.

Italian Wars's action was criticised by contemporaries like Niccolo 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.

Italian Wars continued attempts to restore the French position in Italy, encouraged by Italian exiles and his cousin Francis, Duke of Guise, who claimed the throne of Naples through his grandfather Rene II, Duke of Lorraine.

The most significant Italian Wars power left was the Papacy in central Italy, as it maintained major cultural and political influence during the Catholic Reformation.

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Italian Wars represented a revolution in military technology and tactics, some historians suggesting they form the dividing point between modern and medieval battlefields.

Infantry underwent profound developments during the Italian Wars, evolving from a primary pike- and halberd-wielding force to a more flexible arrangement of arquebusiers, pikemen, and other troops.

Italian Wars veterans included Diego Velazquez de Cuellar, who conquered Cuba in 1511, Francisco de Carvajal and Pedro de Valdivia, both of whom fought at Pavia in 1526.

Italian Wars are one of the first major conflicts for which extensive contemporary accounts from people involved in the wars are available, owing largely to the presence of literate, and often extremely-well educated, commanders.

Major contemporary account for the early portion of the Italian Wars is Francesco Guicciardini's Storia d'Italia, written during the conflict and advantaged by the access that Guicciardini had to papal affairs.