What Happened in Milan?

Poor Milanball. T_T

Milan's Spanish governors were just as incompetent as the average politician of today, if not even more so. A century was all it took them to turn what used to be the richest region of Europe into a shithole. It's the sort of thing that makes you glad that the House of Habsburg took over; at least they gave a few fucks, every once in a while.

On this thread there was comic involving Milan, the Papacy and the inquisition. What I can infer from this is that some point in its history something happened in Milan which set it back some, anyone care to illuminate?
 
First Milan's Visconti dynasty died out, then the Sforza dynasty - who took over after them - did the same, many years later. This resulted in a relatively long conflict for the duchy between the King of Spain, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor, and the King of France. Spain held the duchy throughout most of this period, however, and it was eventually recognized as a possession of Spain by treaty in 1559.

Milan, which in much of the 14th and 15th centuries was one of the greatest regional powers in Italy, declined heavily under the incompetent, corrupt or just plain negligent rule of many of the Spanish governors. It went from being a player in the Italian game to being little more than a piece.

The post there is slightly misleading though. The poster seems to be referring to the Austrian Habsburgs in the last part of the post, but it should be noted that it was the House of Habsburg who ruled Spain when Milan was a Spanish possession too.
 
First Milan's Visconti dynasty died out, then the Sforza dynasty - who took over after them - did the same, many years later. This resulted in a relatively long conflict for the duchy between the King of Spain, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor, and the King of France. Spain held the duchy throughout most of this period, however, and it was eventually recognized as a possession of Spain by treaty in 1559.

Milan, which in much of the 14th and 15th centuries was one of the greatest regional powers in Italy, declined heavily under the incompetent, corrupt or just plain negligent rule of many of the Spanish governors. It went from being a player in the Italian game to being little more than a piece.

The post there is slightly misleading though. The poster seems to be referring to the Austrian Habsburgs in the last part of the post, but it should be noted that it was the House of Habsburg who ruled Spain when Milan was a Spanish possession too.

Yes, I was referring to the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg, not the Spanish one.
 
At the time that the duchy of Milan finally fell to the Spanish Habsburgs, the Austrian Habsburgs would have loved to have gained Milan too*, but it passing to their Spanish relatives was the next best thing.

However the Spanish branch had more resources to initially gain to duchy and later to defend it.

(*= for a number of reasons including proximity to their core territories)

@ Kuld von Reyn: IIRC Charles V claimed it in his capacity as Holy Roman Emperor, though his Spanish possessions did help a lot to actually obtain it; also while held by the Spanish branch, Milan, like the Southern Netherlands, stayed a part of the Empire.
 
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While it's nice to blame the Spanish, the entire Mediterranean region declined as trade shifted to Northern Europe and the Atlantic. Venice also declined economically during this period.
 
While it's nice to blame the Spanish, the entire Mediterranean region declined as trade shifted to Northern Europe and the Atlantic. Venice also declined economically during this period.

Well, we can blame the Spanish, the Spanish Treasure Fleet.
 
While it's nice to blame the Spanish, the entire Mediterranean region declined as trade shifted to Northern Europe and the Atlantic. Venice also declined economically during this period.

True, but Spanish rule probably didn't help. Spain was an Atlantic power, after all.
 
While it's nice to blame the Spanish

It's been standard practice of Italian historiography for the best part of the last couple centuries.
How dare you imply that Italians are actually to bear any responsibility for the decline of the lands they lived in? It's obviously solely the fault of the greedy foreign oppressors. ;)
 
True, but Spanish rule probably didn't help. Spain was an Atlantic power, after all.

Italian possessions were quite a cash cow for the Spanish crown actually, at least until about 1620, which is when Italian economic decline really seems to start to kick in. Recent research seems to show that prior to that, while relatively ruined by decades of warfare, Italy in general and Milan in particular remained very dynamic economically and extremely lively culturally. After that, Spanish needs for cash increased (Thirty Years War and al.), while Italian ability to provide it declined, leading to some vicious Spanish fiscal policies which, rather predictably, fed into the general loop of further depression of the economy. This actually affected even the Italian territories that weren't under Spanish rule, particularly Genoa. My understanding is that Venice, while declining on its own, was the least affected by this dynamic (the long-term economic slump in the Ottoman Empire was probably more of a problem for it) but don't quote me on that.
Italian holdings, however, remained very valuable to Madrid all along. Even in Napoleonic times, a main policy goal of the Spanish crown was to (re-)acquire Italian lands at least indirectly.
 
It'd be interesting to see what happened to Languedoc and Marseilles during the early modern ages.

Marseilles flourished, in relative terms, as Genoa (whose banking milieu was neck-deep into the endless money sink of the Spanish royal coffers) lost ground.
Anyway, Spain was almost as much of a Mediterranean power as it was an Atlantic one, at least prior the turn of the 1700.
 
Could the Italian maritime states have managed to at least compete with the Iberian New World monopoly by 1) sponsoring some sort of presence there and 2) revitalizing the eastern route by fixing the Suez route?
 
Could the Italian maritime states have managed to at least compete with the Iberian New World monopoly by 1) sponsoring some sort of presence there and 2) revitalizing the eastern route by fixing the Suez route?

The Suez route seems to have remained pretty active ofr more than a century after 1492. Actually the Cape Route was more of a problem than the New World.
Establishing a presence in the new World would be serious challenge for Venice or Genoa, and would likely require active support for it on Iberian part.
 
The Suez route seems to have remained pretty active ofr more than a century after 1492. Actually the Cape Route was more of a problem than the New World.
Establishing a presence in the new World would be serious challenge for Venice or Genoa, and would likely require active support for it on Iberian part.

What about Tuscany? :D
 
If memory serves, there was also significant Florentine investments in Portuguese exploration in the 15th centure, though I never looked into what exactly that entailed. It did pay off financially speaking though.
 

Similar constraints, both geographical and concerning population base. It is unlikely to have significant success long-term or to change significantly the general dynamic where Italian colonies in the Americas would largely exist at the courtesy of Iberian states, particularly Spain.
 
I'm surprised that there weren't more Italians in the New World in general, serving as sailors, soldiers, merchants, and adventurers alongside the Iberians. There certainly were enough high profile navigators leading expeditions.
 
Italian holdings, however, remained very valuable to Madrid all along. Even in Napoleonic times, a main policy goal of the Spanish crown was to (re-)acquire Italian lands at least indirectly.

If one were a meanie, one could interpret that as "by Napoleonic times, Spain's economy was in such deep shit even Italy looked good by comparison." :p
 
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