page_title: Italian Wars
section_title: Italian War of 1536–1538
hierarchical_section_title: Italian Wars / Wars / Italian War of 1536–1538
caption_attribution_description: Truce of Nice 1538
context_page_description: The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a long series of wars fought between 1494 and 1559 in Italy during the Renaissance. The Italian peninsula, economically advanced but politically divided among several states, became the main battleground for European supremacy. The conflicts involved the major powers of Italy and Europe, in a series of events that followed the end of the 40-year long Peace of Lodi agreed in 1454 with the formation of the Italic League.
  The collapse of the alliance in the 1490s left Italy open to the ambitions of Charles VIII of France, who invaded the Kingdom of Naples in 1494 on the ground of a dynastic claim. The French were however forced to leave Naples after the Republic of Venice formed an alliance with Maximilian I of Austria and Ferdinand V of Spain. In 1499, Louis XII of France initiated a second campaign against Naples by first taking control of the Duchy of Milan thanks to Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI and condottiero for Louis XII, marking an open alliance between the Papacy and France.
context_section_description: Thus, this third war between Charles V and King Francis I of France began with the death of Francesco Sforza, the Duke of Milan during the night of November 1–2, 1535. Upon his death, Francesco Sforza left no heirs. Emperor Charles V was on another trip to Italy when he heard about the death of Sforza. When the representatives of Emperor Charles V took charge of the Duchy of Milan upon the death of Sforza, there were no protests or uprisings among the people of Milan. Nor were there any objections from any other Italian states. There were, however, objections from France. Francis I, king of France, firmly believed that Asti, Genoa and the Duchy of Milan were all rightfully his. Thus recovering Milan for France remained the primary goal for Francis I. So when Charles directly annexed the Duchy of Milan, King Francis I of France invaded Italy. At about this time, Francis told his council that he had allowed Emperor Charles V to become too strong in Italy.
  In 1536, a new congress was held in Rome between Charles V and Pope Paul II with the latter asking for peace in Italy and the first expecting the call for the ecumenical council to deal with Lutheranism. In late March 1536, a French army under the command of Philippe de Chabot, seigneur de Brion advanced into Piedmont with 24,000 infantry and 3,000 horse. The French Army captured and entered Turin in early April 1536, but failed to take Milan. Meanwhile, the pro-French section of the population in the city of Asti rose up against and overthrew their Imperial occupiers.
  In response to the capture of Turin by the French, Charles V invaded Provence, advancing to Aix-en-Provence. Charles took Aix on August 13, 1536, but could go no further because the French Army blocked all roads leading to Marseilles. Consequently, Charles withdrew back to Spain rather than attacking the heavily fortified town of Avignon.
  Charles V's fruitless expedition to Provence distracted his attention from events in Italy. French troops operating in the Piedmont were joined by 10,000 Italian infantry and a few hundred horses on a march to Genoa. These Italian troops had been raised by Guido Rangoni, Galeotto Pico Della Mirandola and other members of the military nobility of southern Lombardy. Galeotto had gained control of Mirandola in 1533 by killing his uncle Giovanni Francesco Pico Della Mirandola. In preparation for his invasion of Italy, Francis I's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Jean de La Forêt, obtained, in early 1536, a treaty of alliance between the Ottoman Empire and France. By the end of 1536, an Ottoman fleet was poised off the coast of Genoa ready to strike in coordination with the land forces marching toward Genoa. However, when the land forces arrived before Genoa in August 1536, they found that the garrison at Genoa had recently been reinforced. Furthermore, an expected uprising among Fregoso partisans in Genoa did not materialize. So the land forces moved by Genoa and marched on into the Piedmont where they captured and occupied Carignano along with three other towns between Turin and Saluzzo: Pinerolo, Chieri and Carmagnola. The active participation of the Ottomans in the war was not significant, but their very entry into the war had a curbing effect on the actions of Charles V. Fighting a two-front war, against the Ottomans in the east and the French in the west did not appeal to Charles V. Consequently, by 1538, Charles was ready for peace.
  The Truce of Nice, signed on June 18, 1538, ended the war, leaving Turin in French hands but effecting no significant changes to the map of Italy.
caption: The truce of Nice, 1538, between Francis I and Charles V, mediated by Pope Paul III
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:08:12 21:13:10", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7672", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2016", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1543"}