I have been favorably impressed and interested by the idea of Kynan, but I wanted to develop it in a different way, trying to respect (as far as possible) the character/nature of historical figures.

But it was right «give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar».
 
tiepologloria01.jpg


Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: the Glory of Spain, Allegory of Castile; Throne Room, Palacio Real, Madrid​



«Twenty years from now you will have the pleasure of seeing your children and grandchildren over all the thrones of Europe» (Hernando del Pulgar to Isabella and Ferdinand)
 
Chapter 1 - Four crowns for four sisters

Isabella of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon were errant sovereigns: aware of the importance of the physical presence of a ruler among its people, their every move was a piece in their project of unification of Spain.
Even their children were used in this project: the first born, called Isabella as the maternal grandmother, was born the 1st October 1470 in Dueñas, near Valladolid; in the Alcázar of Seville, between ten and eleven in the morning of 30 June 1478, was born the Crown Prince John; in the house of the Count of Cifuentes in Toledo on 6 November 1479 was born Joanna, named in memory of her paternal grandparents; in Cordoba on 29 June 1482 Maria and, finally, in Alcalá de Henares, in the palace of the Archbishop of Toledo, the Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza, on 15 December 1485 Catherine, a name that came from her maternal great-grandmother Catherine of Lancaster.

The four daughters were worth ties of blood with as many sovereigns of Europe. Never mind if it was unthinkable marry one of them to the King of France, the "enemy" par excellence: would have been enough marry them to all others, and the French king would be isolated.
The project of the first great matrimonial alliance had involved Portugal. At ten years old, their eldest daughter Isabella had been betrothed to the heir to the throne Alfonso of Aviz.
The second marriage covenant was directed toward England. Trade relations between the two countries dated back to 1470, and a year later was also was signed a treaty of defensive alliance. The Spanish merchants provided wine and iron to the British, by importing in turn the pond. A tie of blood would ensured the protection in English ports of the Spanish merchant ships direct in the Netherlands and those Burgundian direct in Spain.
To complete the arc in order to get around France in the Atlantic (from the Bay of Biscay, to the English Channel, at the North Sea), the most ambitious goal was a matrimonial alliance with Maximilian of Hapsburg, widower of Mary of Burgundy and guardian-regent for his son Philip as ruler of the Netherlands, as well as heir to the Imperial Crown. Isabella and Ferdinand had received by Massimiliano substantial contributions of weapons and men served for the "Reconquista". Trade relations between the two countries lasted for years: the good wool of Spain was the raw material for the very famous Flemish textile industry and the Castilians merchants were an important part of the flourishing economic situation of the country.
In 1488, in Valladolid, Maximilian and Ferdinand, skilled negotiator and brazen liar, had arranged the marriages of Philip and Margaret of Burgundy with Joanna and John of Spain.

On 20 November 1490 in Sevilla was celebrated the wedding by proxy between the Infanta Isabella and Prince Alfonso of Portugal. Two days later the couple met in Lisbon. The Infanta had brought a large dowry in gold and silver coins, clothes, fabrics and furnishings. In December, however, the prince died, by breaking his neck due to a fall from a horse.
 
Chapter 2 - Four weddings and too many funerals

Joanna was an impertinent girl who spoke with firmness and clarity, stubborn and rebellious, but considered the most intelligent of the children of Isabella and Ferdinand. She had been educated with care. Even as a child she was more fond at the father that at the mother, who showed herself as a resolute and invincible warrior, portrayed anywhere with a long sword in her hands, the helmet and the breastplate. Growing up, the temper of Joanna had stiffened. He had become taciturn and preferred to be alone. Fascinated by the spirituality of the mystical, tried to escape from the common and public religiosity.

At sixteen, Philip (IV) of Burgundy had been declared an adult and on 9 June 1494, with «Joyeuse Entrée» at Louvain, had taken possession of full sovereignty. Raised as the head of the House of Burgundy, and not of Austria, by his step-grandmother Margaret of York, Philip did not know a word of German. Neither very smart, nor cultured, he sought only the fun and was very easy plagiarise him.

On 31 January 1495 in Valladolid the Infanta Joan married by proxy Philip of Burgundy, who was «physically beautiful, brisk and vigorous» (Vincenzo Querino, Venetian ambassador), muscular, arrogant, nonchalant, with long blond hair and blue eyes, but with a few teeth and a rickety laugh.
On 5 November in Malines Margaret of Burgundy, a petite and plump little girl, irresistibly pretty, married by proxy John of Spain.
In the summer of 1496, a mighty Spanish fleet brought Joanna in the Netherlands and then would bring Margaret in Spain. On 21 October Philip had married in person Joanna in Lier.
In early January of 1497 Margaret of Burgundy had left for Spain, disembarking at Santander in March. Terminated the Lent, John of Spain married Margaret in person in Burgos on 3 April 1497. Soon thereafter, however, the Crown Prince had been hit by violent fevers, perhaps smallpox.

Between 1496 and 1497 started the negotiations for the marriage of the Infanta Maria with King James IV of Scotland, and of the Infanta Catherine with the Prince of Wales Arthur. Ferdinand and Isabella thought if Maria had become Queen of Scotland, the two sisters would have kept the peace between their husbands, and detach Scotland from the alliance with France (Auld Alliance), while Henry VII had joined the Holy League (October 1496).

Meanwhile, the Infanta Isabella, after seven years of insistent courting, had accepted to remarry with the new king of Portugal, Manuel of Aviz, a cousin of her late husband, as had been agreed in a clause of the first marriage contract. The wedding was celebrated on 30 September in Valencia de Alcántara.
On 4 October in Salamanca died the Crown Prince John of Spain. The widow, Margaret of Burgundy, was pregnant and would give birth in December. But, after the funeral, on the way to Granada, during a stop at the royal palace of Alcalá de Henares, she had given birth to a dead child.

The death of the beloved brother had devastated Joanna, who shown the first worrying signs of her dangerous hysteria.
Unexpectedly Philip of Burgundy had appointed himself «Prince of Asturias» and heir of Castile. For Isabella and Ferdinand instead the only heirs to the throne of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were the eldest daughter Isabella and her husband, the King of Portugal. Urged to reach Spain, only in the spring of 1498 they started, reaching Toledo, where on 29 April the Cortes of Castile, gathered in the cathedral, swore allegiance to them. In Zaragoza, however, the Cortes of Aragon did not recognize Isabella as heiress because they held that the succession in their kingdom were only in the male line; being the queen of Portugal pregnant, this finally resulted in a compromise: if was born a male, they would recognize the child as their own heir.

Isabella was humble and obedient, with a temperament dull, pious and sanctimonious. She was terrified by the pregnancy. She was terrified of dying in childbirth.
On 24 August 1498 in Zaragoza was born on Prince Michael of Peace, the heir to the throne of the kingdoms of Portugal, Castile and Aragon. Isabella, deeply debilitated by childbirth, was nearly died. From that day she was adamant in not wanting more have other pregnancies, doing everything to not sleep with her husband.

In the Netherlands, meanwhile, the spiritual and physical health of the Duchess Joanna (in the throes of a deep jealousy against the husband who neglected her, and, it was said, beat her) worried her parents in Spain. She was pregnant and on 15 November in Brussels was born a girl, named Eleanor in honor of the Portuguese mother of Maximilian of Hapsburg.
On 24 February 1500, feast of St. Matthias Apostle, during a big party with a banquet in the city of Ghent, had given birth, retreating into a latrine, a son. «A woman giving birth in a toilet a future king and emperor, is capable of anything», exclaimed with satisfaction the Duke Philip. The child had been called Charles, as Charles the Bold, and titled Duke of Luxembourg.
On 20 July in Granada the Crown Prince Michael of Peace died due to sudden and violent intestinal fevers. Immediately Isabella and Ferdinand had explained to their daughter Isabella the urgency to procreate another heir, but she was still terrified by the previous birth and the danger of dying.


On 19 May 1499, Pentecost Sunday, in Bewdley (Worcestershire), the Prince of Wales Arthur, Prince of Wales married by proxy the Infanta Catherine (the ceremony will be repeated in Ludlow, on 11 November 1500, after that the prince turned fourteen, the canonical age for marriage). On 20 July 1499, in Stirling Castle King, James IV of Scotland married by proxy the Infanta Maria. The two princesses, in their turn, were married by proxy in a double ceremony on 24 August 1500 in Granada, then embarking in La Coruña at the end of September 1501.

Catherine landed in England on 2 October 1501, at Plymouth. The next month the couple met each other for the first time at Dogmersfield in Hampshire (4 November), and on 14 November 1501 the marriage ceremony finally took place at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London; Maria, however, continued her journey to Scotland by marrying in person James IV on 10 December at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh.

On 18 July 1501 in Brussels was born the third daughter of Philip and Joanna of Burgundy, Isabella. In the meantime it had happened a danger rapprochement between the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, so that in December of that year Philip and his wife had paid a visit to King Louis XII at the Château de Blois.

In March 1502, the Princes of Wales Arthur and Catherine fell ill of a malign fever, and unexpectedly Arthur died on 2 April 1502 at Ludlow, while Catherine recovered...
The Queen Elizabeth of York, who at the same time was pregnant, died on 11 February 1503 after she gave birth a daughter (2 February), named Katherine, died a few days afterwards.
Following the death of his queen, Henry VII initially considered marrying Catherine himself, but the opposition of her parents and potential questions over the couple's issue and Catheine's position as future Queen Dowager (and not as Queen Mother) have aborted the idea. The King of England, however, entertained the project of remarriage to renew the alliance with Spain with Joanna of Naples (1479–1518), Dowager Queen of Naples (niece of Ferdinand II of Aragon and childless widow of her nephew Ferdinand II of Naples), suggested as a potential bride by Isabella and Ferdinand, who probably wished to divert Henry VII's interest from their daughter Catherine.
In the end, to settle the matter, it was agreed that Catherine would marry Henry VII's second son, Henry, Duke of York, new heir of the Crown. But this marriage, even if Catherine testified that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, depended on the Pope granting a dispensation (for the union between brother-in-law and sister-in-law, not very common, but not absolutely unprecedented) [1].
The betrothal contract between the Prince Henry and Catherine was signed on 23 June 1503.

During an extended stay at the Court of Bourg-en-Bresse, in Haute-Savoie, where lived Margaret of Burgundy, who in second wedding had been married to the Duke Philibert II of Savoy, the Duchess Joanna had given birth to her fourth son on 10 March 1503, baptized with the name of Frederick in homage to the paternal great-grandfather.

On 14 June 1503 in Alcalá de Henares Queen Isabel of Portugal, after a difficult birth which again put at risk her life, bore a second child. She had made a vow to the Virgin of Guadalupe that if she had given birth a healthy son and if she survived childbirth, she would devote her life to chastity, no longer sleeping with her husband. But it was not necessary: she died. And, unfortunately, she given birth a daughter, named Isabella as her.

In Rome, meantime, Pope Alexander VI died on Friday 18 August at the hour of vespers, after have confessed, received the Holy Eucharist and the Extreme Unction. The Cardinal Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini was elected on 22 September 1503, naming himself Pius III, succeeded, after his sudden death, by the Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, elected the 1st November 1503 as Julius II.



[1] In the Bible, a text forbade a man to marry his brother's widow (Leviticus, 18:16), but another text explicitly prescribed this between the duties of the younger brother (Deuteronomy 25:5-6, «Levirate marriage»).
 
Last edited:
Very, very interesting but I have only a couple of things to say about the planning from your family tree:
1) Charles of Austria and Burgundy without Spain will become surely the Holy Roman Emperor after his grandfather.
2) Ferdinand II OTL remarried to Germaine of Fox only for trying to keep his Kingdom of Aragon away from his hated son-in-law Philip of Burgundy. Without that conflict is unlikely who he will remarry (and in any case Germaine or another princess from Navarra is a more logical choice)
3) Is very unlikely who Manuel of Portugal will not remarry after Isabella's death, specially if his former father-in-law do it. He will be a much better and more likely husband for Margaret of England than Ferdinand of Aragon...
 
1) Charles of Austria and Burgundy without Spain will become surely the Holy Roman Emperor after his grandfather.

And more importantly he can actually devote more time to running the HRE rather than be distracted by Spanish affairs.
 
Last edited:
Chapter 3 - the bride of northern

«Desiring the Kingdom of Naples, [Louis XII] shared it with the king of Spain; and where before he was the referee of Italy, there he put one companion» (Machiavelli). Quarreling over the division of the spoils of Kingdom of Naples [2], the "cohabitation" between French and Spaniards in the Southern Italy was hard and soon war broke out again between France and Spain [3].
The Spanish forces had the upper hand against the French, who suffered defeat at Cerignola on 28 April 1503 and Garigliano on 29 December (after the famous Challenge of Barletta on previous 13 February). Louis XII was forced to abandon Naples and, on 2 January 1504, left Naples to withdraw to Lombardy. With the Treaty of Lyon (31 January 1504) France ceded Naples to Spain and, moreover, based on the terms of the treaty, it was defined their respective control over the Italian territories (France controlled northern Italy from Milan and Spain controlled Sicily and southern Italy).
Consequently, Louis XII firstly came to terms with the Emperor Maximilian and his son Philip of Burgundy, and, needing peace, agreed to sign the (first) Treaty of Blois (22 September 1504) [4].


The health of Isabella of Castile, meanwhile, was getting worse by the day. She was now forced to work laid down, leaning against the pillows. He had finalized the project of the appointment of her granddaughter Isabella of Portugal as heiress of the Kingdom of Castile, by designating her husband Ferdinand as regent and her son-in-law Manuel of Portugal as a lieutenant only in case of need. On 18 June 1504 in Segovia she was caught by a violent fever. Ferdinand was in Italy, engaged in military operations against the French. In August he had returned exhausted from tertian fever.
Hospitalized in Medina del Campo (Valladolid), Isabella died on 26 November.
The news put Europe in turmoil.

From his Court of Coudenberg in Brussels Philip (IV) of Burgundy proclaimed himself and his wife Joanna «King and Queen of Castile», he had sent to Rome the Prince of Chimay to make «the tributes of King Philip» to Pope Julius II, and already signed «Yo el Rey» while his father-in-law Ferdinand of Aragon was amazed by so much arrogance, having alongside the other son-in-law, the King Manuel of Portugal, who instead seemed respect the latest provisions of the deceased Queen of Castile about Ferdinand's regency.
Castile showed signs of restlessness disturbing, so much so that it was feared a civil war. Philip of Burgundy tried to meddle in Spanish affairs, for Ferdinand even more dangerous after the rapprochement between the Habsburgs and the King of France. In April 1505 Louis XII made an agreement with Philip at Hagenau, in which he added Naples at the Claude's dowry: but Naples had been in Spanish hands... showing in this way that that he did not accept the status quo and has not abandoned his own claim over the Southern Italy.

Such rapid political changes did not promise anything good for Ferdinand even on the side of the English ally.
The death of Catherine's mother, in fact, had decreased her "value" in the marriage market. Ostensibly, the marriage was delayed because the Prince Henry was not in age for the wedding, and because Ferdinand II procrastinated so much over payment of the remainder of Catherine's dowry that it became doubtful that the marriage would take place.
Philip took advantage of the situation to propose his own eldest daughter Eleanor as wife for the heir to the English throne and detach thus England from its Spanish alliance. In European courts it was said that Henry VII were trying to conclude three marriages with the Habsburgs: Prince Henry would marry Eleanor of Burgundy, the Princess Mary of England would marry Philip's heir, the Duke Charles, and the king himself would marry the double widow Margaret of Burgundy, Philip's sister.
To isolate Ferdinand II, the King of England had come to also propose his own eldest daughter, Princess Margaret, to the King Manuel of Portugal, not yet remarried.
On 27 June 1505, the day before before reaching the age of fourteen and entering the age of majority, the Prince of Wales formally repudiated his betrothed Catherine of Aragon.

Wasting no time, the King of Aragon immediately sent the Count of Cifuentes and Tomàs Malferit, a member of the Royal Council, in London with the intention to renew the Anglo-Spanish alliance. Philip was amassing in fact twelve thousand armed men to enter in Castile in agreement with Louis XII, who finally hoped to beat the ancestral enemy with the support of the Duke of Burgundy.
With the Treaty of Durham House (12 October 1505) Henry VII has pledged to marry the Prince of Wales with Catherine within a year and, to reinforce the Anglo-Spanish alliance, Ferdinand II of Aragon married the sixteen year old Princess Margaret Tudor in hope of generating a new male heir of Aragon, who would marry the baby-Queen Isabella II of Castile, also heiress of Portugal, in order to avoid the separation of the kingdoms.
Meanwhile King Manuel of Portugal was induced "smartly" to marry the Ferdinand's niece Joanna of Naples (on 29 November), after the Treaty of Salamanca (24 November), in which Ferdinand and Manuel were recognised as co-regents in Isabella II's name.

The wedding between the Prince of Wales and Catherine of Aragon took place on 7 January 1506; at the ceremony also took part the King of Scotland with his wife, Catherine's sister, who was pregnant with third child (after the princesses Isabella (Elizabeth), born on 24 October 1503, and Margaret, on 31 December 1504), the Crown Prince James, Duke of Rothesay (born on 3 March 1506). Meantime at Brussels the Duchess Joanna of Burgundy had given birth to the Princess Mary (15 September 1505).
Seen danger right ahead, Philip of Burgundy tried to persuade the English sovereign to disavow the newfound alliance with the King of Aragon: he had decided to depart in early January for London, a sconsigliatissimo period both by the doctors of the Duchess Joanna, who had given birth just fifty days before, which by sea experts. Inflexible, he had ordered the boarding Flussing for January 8th. Two hours after boarding, blizzards and storms broke out and the ship they were traveling on the dukes, the Julienne, had taken fire in the bow. What remains of the Burgundian fleet had miraculously landed in Weymouth; communicated its presence on British soil, Henry VII welcomes guests in Windsor, where the Court had withdrawn. The only thing that the Duke of Burgundy was only able to obtain has been a favorable trade treaty that would pour out the Netherlands much of the English wool, the mutual exchange of high decoration (the Garter and the Golden Fleece), and the promise of a double marriage between the old English King and the Philip's sister, Margaret, and between Charles of Burgundy and the Princess Mary Tudor, Henry VII's youngest daughter.
In fact, the Franco-Habsburg alliance was cracked.
That winter Louis XII fell gravely ill, so much so that even doctors they deemed him a goner: public pressure helped convince the King of France to marry his only living (at that time) daughter Claude to Francis of Angoulême, the heir presumptive to the Crown of France. This mean that the Treaty of Blois was void, but also ensured that the Duchy of Brittany would become a permanent part of France.
Then, as quickly Louis XII had been almost at death's door, so quickly he healed; but the relations with Maximilian of Austria and Philip of Burgundy, while remaining still "friendly", were severely embittered.
The discontent of all sovereign seemed to be the only kind of peace that Europe could get.
But, to quote the Guicciardini, «all was in vain because the Venetians» have been «ambitious and greedy of Italian domination».

[2] According to the terms of the Treaty of Granada (11 November 1500), Louis XII and the monarchs of Spain had agreed to divide the Kingdom of Naples, with the approval of Pope Alexander VI, nominal overlord of the Kingdom (25 June 1501).
[3] Discords have arose regarding boundaries and limits of the province between the Capitanata (roughly present-day province of Foggia) and the Abruzzi, where it was levied the «dogana delle pecore» (customs [tax] of the sheep), one of the most important revenue of the Kingdom of Naples.
[4] At the heart of this treaty was a marriage alliance was the proposed marriage between the infant Charles of Burgundy, grandson of Maximilian of Habsburg, and Claude of France, daughter of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany. If the King Louis XII were to die without producing a male heir, Charles would receive as dowry the Duchy of Milan with Genoa and Asti, the Duchy of Burgundy with Auxonne, Auxerrois, Mâconnais, Bar-sur-Seine and the county of Blois, and the Duchy of Brittany, of which Claude was already the heiress de jure matris. Louis had also given up to help the Count Palatine of the Rhine Ruprecht (1481–1504), in the fight against Maximilian (War of the Succession of Landshut). In return Maximilian agreed to invest Louis as Duke of Milan in return for a cash fee (the payment of one hundred twenty thousand florins «of the Rhine» and the annual gift of a pair of golden spurs on the feast of the Nativity of the Lord). At the same time they also agreed to prepare for an attack on Venice, a long-standing rival of the Emperor.
 
Chapter 4 - Venice the perfidious

The Venetians, because of their commercial nature, had sought to profit from the uncertainty in the papal capital after the death of Pope Alexander VI and the eclipse of the position of Cesare Borgia, massing troops at the border of Romagna of which they wished to take possession.
Pope Borgia, shortly before his death, had not hidden his feelings toward them when at the Florentine Machiavelli had said that «the Venetians were evil men and that he had never been able to tame them or to agree with them, and they were friends only of their own interests».
Wrote Antonio Battistella into «La Repubblica di Venezia ne' suoi undici secoli di storia» (The Republic of Venice in its eleven centuries of history) that «the Republic would have gladly passed the Adda and the Po and would have annexed Ferrara, and especially all the coastal lands of Romagna, Marche and Puglia»; the age-old desire to acquire Ferrara, of which, however, the Pope «rightly considered himself as feudal sovereign», «city that dominated the navigation of the Po and of all channel networks on which took place the commercial traffics of Lombardy and Emilia, nearby town to the valleys of Comacchio and to the salt pans of Cervia, such important for those who claimed the monopoly of salt [...] as well as for the safety of the conventions and relationships that Venice had formed gradually with several places of the Marche and Romagna, it must have seemed almost a necessity».
After bitter debates in the Senate, they decided to move resolutely from Ravenna and Cervia to Rimini and Faenza; with the election of the new Pope (Julius II) at the end of 1503, «friend until then of the Republic, [Venice] had felt assured of being able to easily proceed to the conquests, nevertheless admitting that for those lands, as vassal, would paid a fee to the Church».
The Venetians, as wrote the diarist Girolamo Priuli, were «so blinded by their greed and ambitione to increase the [Venetian] domain for their benefit» that they reputed the same Pontiff's request to obtain the return of Imola, Rimini and Faenza, rather a kind of formality , the act of one who, at the beginning of his pontificate, wanted above all to stress the good right of the Holy See to reclaim its property. So that employment and the Venetian presence in the Romagna have gone from strength to strength in the months following. They had not given so much thought at the grievances of Julius II, believing that their conquests would have been tacitly accepted and they would persuaded him saying to him that what they were doing was for the tranquility of the Romagna and to prevent surprises by their enemies. But the Pope had expressed its resolute intention to recover the lands taken away from the Church and seeing that his complaints remained a dead letter, in January 1504 had published a Bull by which ordered at the Venetians to return all the places of Romagna. To the injunction, the Doge Leonardo Loredan replied that never they would have gave back those lands, «even if we have to spend up to the foundations of our homes», response that would be seemed fair, but that certainly was reckless and it sounded like a challenge. The Doge would have to give ear to the words written by the Florentine gonfaloniere Pier Soderini to Machiavelli: «a Pope as friend is not worth much, as enemy is very detrimental».

If previously, remembered Machiavelli, «the papal power» had been «weak and wobbly» and «this meant that the temporal power of the Pope was lightly esteemed in Italy», the Pope Alexander VI «had showed how a pope would could benefit himself with money and with the army [...] and although his intention was not to make it big the Church, but the duke [his son Cesare Borgia], however what he did had increased the greatness of the Church; which [the Church] after his death, and eliminated the duke, it became the heir of his exploits. After him came Pope Julius II, who found the church great [i.e. potent] for the conquest of Romagna, and [...] opened a way to accumulate money, which had never been practiced before».
So, since the spring of 1504 the Pope had started to make contact with the sovereigns of Europe to counter the Venetian expansion: Julius II had done insert in the treaty of Blois (22 September 1504) a secret article in which, among the Pope, the Emperor, the King of France and Philip, Duke of Burgundy, had been concluded a league against Venice in order to «divide, then, the "Domini di Terraferma" of Venice».
The conflict between the Emperor Maximilian and the Serenissima dated back to the imperial sovereignty instances over the Lombardy and Veneto raised by the Venetian expansion in the Northeast Italian, which looked to the Emperor like usurpation of territories belonging to the Empire, on which he had «leaked the idea of claiming [those feuds]» because San Marco «had never renewed the investiture», in addition to the rivalry for the control of Gorizia, «the city that could be considered the eastern gate of Italy and very good base to attack Venice, [...], Trieste and the Northern Adriatic coast, in order to gain the freedom to expand in that sea; [...] although it was pregnant of menaces and foreboding of a first draft of the League of Cambrai, this agreement did not seem to surprise or upset the Serenissima: the Venetian Republic already knew the moods towards itself of the various princes and kings, despite their flattering overtures of friendship. So it does not disquieted, trusting that the jealousy and mutual suspicion, and the too prejudicial pacts at which France forced itself, hardly would left to mature a agreement so complicated and anti-political» (Battistella). And in fact such a new system of alliances-relationships, based mainly on a combination matrimonial, (as described above) lasted little.
In the changeable, uncertain and fluid political scenary, Venice, in obedience to a wise policy, tried to keep on friendly terms with Ferdinand II of Aragon and to calm down the Pope (in March 1505 the Serenissima had made a partial restitution to the Church of some of the territories Romagna, excluding, however, Cervia, Ravenna, Rimini and Faenza, asking of these the papal investiture). Furthermore the rupture occurred between Maximilian and Louis XII beacause this latter not having respected the agreed matrimonial chapters, seemed to have dispersed from the horizon of Venice the storm.
Indeed, driven by opposing interests, the one and the other, not for "friendship" towards the Serenissima, but for their own needs, were competing to earn his favor, Massimiliano wishing to have free passage on the Venetian territories to move to the conquest of Milan (which was a fief of the empire) and then go to Rome to wear the imperial crown (and then procure the election of his son Philip to King of the Romans); Louis XII wanting to go down to quell the revolt of Genoa, and to defend against that ally Lombardia again become an enemy.
In this difficult juncture, «the king of Aragon decided to come personally in Italy with the queen [Margaret Tudor] and the whole court, and with the intention to stop there some time» (Guicciardini).
Contrasts, then, had arisen also between France and Rome [5].

[5] Bartolomeo Cavalleri (ca.1450–1522), a sort of "ambassador" Estense at the Court of France, wrote from Lyon on 11 November 1503 to his lord Ercole d'Este that Louis XII, to the news that Giuliano della Rovere was elected Pope, exclaimed: «It will be a good French». The new Pope Julius II, who distrusted of those who would have preferred, istead of him, the Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, soon proved that...
 
Chapter 5 - Bologna and Genoa

In early 1506, Pope Julius II had begun to gather an army and gather financial funds in order to recover Perugia and Bologna, kept as lordships respectively, by the Baglioni and the Bentivoglio. On 26 August the Pontiff departed from Rome accompanied by over two thousand armed forces. On 13 September he entered in Perugia, solemnly greeted by Giovan Paolo Baglioni; reassured of the support of the French to the venture, and guaranteed the neutrality of Venice, he moved toward Bologna.
On 3 October in Cesena he received the Bolognese envoys, who reminded him of the chapters (statutes) granted by Nicholas V to the city in 1447 and confirmed by subsequent Popes: according Machiavelli, Julius II had said that if those freedoms were liked him, he would have kept those, otherwise he would have changed those, even with the use of weapons.
On 11 October the Pope fulminated excommunication against Giovanni Bentivoglio [6], who refused to give up his power, and an interdict against Bologna, when the city refused to return to the obedience of the Church. At the same time the French troops were approaching Modena, while the papal forces plundered the Bolognese countryside. On 2 November Giovanni Bentivoglio fled from Bologna with his family heading for the Lombardia, paradoxically under the protection of the King of France, his old ally, and on 11 Julius II made his triumphal entrance into the city on the gestatorial chair, accompanied by twenty-two cardinals and the papal court, throwing to the people with his own hands gold coins with his arms.
The personal friction between the Pope and the first counsellor of the French King, who had competed to the tiara against Julius II in the last conclave [7], had aggravated the contrast of a general political nature between the Pontiff and Louis XII, as was clearly visible during the revolt of Genoa against the French domination and especially after the refusal of the king, in July 1507, to deliver to the Pope the Bentivoglio family that had taken refuge in Milan.
But what happened in Genoa?

Genoa in the summer of 1506 had rebelled against the «devotion to the King of France» and the French governor, after trying in vain to restore order and his authority, with the Fieschi family, the main support of the French King, on 25 October abandoned the city port, leaving a garrison into the Castelletto. But realizing too late the meaning and, in perspective, the danger of that rebellion (for Louis XII would be was a serious danger lose the dominion of Genoa, because the city was important as route by land and sea in the direction of Milan and of France itself), the King of France decided to intervene when the season was too advanced to be able to organize a military expedition which was thus postponed to the following spring.
The Genoese people, called to elect a "popular government", on 10 April 1507 had elected eight tribunes, and among them Paolo da Novi, wise and prudent man, was elected as doge who tried to promote reforms and a peaceful coexistence. Supervened the French army commanded by Louis XII himself, after fierce fighting (Battle of Bastia del Promontorio, Forte Tenaglia, 25 April), had entered into Genoa on 29 April, by sending to death several rebel leaders, among whom the doge, who, fled, was captured in Pisa, from where he had tried to reach Rome and get the help of the Pope, and brought back in chains at home.
In the meantime, in fact, Julius II on 12 February 1507 had announced his return to Rome [8], ten days had come out from Bologna and on 27 March was back in the Eternal City. The next day, Palm Sunday, he went to his palace with a triumphal procession which was inspired directly to those of the ancient Roman world.
The attitude of the Pope, who was of Ligurian origins and born in Savona, on the question had been ambiguous: he had asked at Louis XII to recognize the new popular government instituted in Genoa, contenting himself to receive from that city a tribute of obedience, and to refrain from the use of the weapons, adducing many reasons, mainly that, arousing with the movement of troops and armies some other rebellion, were not postponed the projects of war against the Venetians. In response to indifference of the King of France at his requests, Julius II had sent a brief to Maximilian and the Electors of the Empire accusing Louis of wanting to get off to Italy with a powerful army by pretending to want to quell the riots in Genoa, but in truth to oppress the State of the Church and usurp the imperial dignity. Maximilian had thus convened the Imperial Diet in the city of Constance, where he had read the brief of the Pope.
Sensing the tension, completed the reconquest of Genoa, Louis XII had gone to Milan to celebrate his niece's marriage with the Duke of Savoy [9], by dismissing his army, «with which it would be easy, taking advantage of the victory, oppress whomever he wished in Italy; but, instead, he dismissed [his army] so early to certify to the Pope, to the King of the Romans and to Venetians, that his coming to Italy had not been for nothing but for the recuperation of Genoa» (Guicciardini).
Georges d'Amboise had sought, then, closer collaboration with Ferdinand II of Aragon.

[6] Declaring Giovanni a rebel and paying a bounty of 12,000 ducats on him if delivered alive, and 6,000, if dead, and the half respectively for each of the sons of him. In reality, the exiled Bentivoglios in the hands of Louis XII were, for him, a useful tool to blackmail Julius II. Writes the Florentine ambassador Francesco Pandolfini (1466–1520) to the Dieci di Balìa from on Blois 14 December 1506 (and then, again, from Bourges, on 16 February 1507) that King of France said to him: «Pope Julius knows that it would be sufficient a single word of mine in order to bring back Giovanni Bentivoglio in Bologna; it would be sufficient that I send only a letter to do it, and I could also gain from this, because Messer Giovanni, in return for my help, could give me hundred thousand ducats».
[7] Although Julius II had confirmed and enriched the offices of the Cardinal d'Amboise, he looked him with distrust because d'Amboise, powerful in the French Church thanks to his office as papal legate for life in France that subdued to him the entire Gallican clergy, enjoyed still of great influence in the College of Cardinals, and that, according to the public voice, continued to aspire to the pontificate. For his part, Louis XII to the aforementioned Pandolfini said that «I preferred to threaten him [Julius] because, to be honest, he was born by a peasant and it is neccesary to make him go with the stick [that is, treat him badly]».
[8] Citing the excuse that the Bologna air was harmful to his health and that the absence from Rome had decreased the Church's revenues, when in fact it was quite clear that he feared the French armies again came to Italy.
[9] Germaine of Foix (1488–1538), very voluminous and lazy, voracious and of rare ugliness, was niece, by the mother (Marie of Orléans (1457–1493)), of Louis XII of France, and cousin of the Queen of Navarre Catherine by father's side (John of Foix (1450–1500), Viscount of Narbonne and Count of Étampes, younger son of Queen Eleanor of Navarre). She married on 15 May 1507 in Milan the Duke Charles III of Savoy (1486–1553), who had succeeded to his half-brother Philibert II (the second husband of Margaret of Burgundy) in 1504. Charles's predecessors had insisted in an attempt to destroy the independence of Geneva and to recapture the city, while the nobility and clergy Savoyard had continued their economic expansion in and around the city, and, for their part, also the merchants and bankers Piedmontese have increased with the Genevans the their business, as a direct expression of the interests of the Savoy. The pressure Savoy Geneva had alerted Bern, Fribourg, the Valais and the France of Charles VIII and then of Louis XII. Charles III, thus, had inherited a very delicate state of things: so he took care immediately to confirm and preserve the relations of friendship or alliance with Pope Julius II, with Louis XII, with the Swiss cantons, and the feudal relationship with the emperor Maximilian, by showing signs of a political prudence, not insisting on action against the liberties of Geneva, but turning his interests to Italian domains, going in Piedmont and remaining there for two years, usually in Turin. But the collapse of the Savoyard finances, already really not flourishing, partly due to the frauds perpetrated by the former Ducal Secretary Jean Dufour, the indebtedness with strangers bankers and the alarming evidence of the danger that came from the Swiss cantons to the independence of the state, have pushed the young duke to seek a powerful ally, the King of France, with a marriage bond. Louis XII granted to the young couple the symbolic title of «King of Jerusalem» (formal title already in possession of the Savoy because the Duke Charles I (1468–1490) has been appointed heir by his aunt Charlotte de Lusignan, titular Queen of Cyprus, Armenia and Jerusalem, and widow of Charles's paternal uncle Louis of Savoy, Count of Geneva (d. 1482); however, theoretically, the title had gone out the House of Savoy with the death in 1499 of Yolande Louise, Charles's daughter and first childless wife of Philibert II of Savoy, even if the other European sovereigns had continued to recognize the title (also) to them).
 
Top