Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2

or his nephew, the titular Duke,
whom he kept in gilded captivity, and whom he eventually murdered. In
order to secure his usurped authority, this would-be Machiavelli thought
it prudent to invite Charles VIII. into Italy. Charles was to assert his
right to the throne of Naples. Lodovico was to be established in the
Duchy of Milan. All his subsequent troubles arose from this transaction.
Charles came, conquered, and returned to France, disturbing the
political equilibrium of the Italian States, and founding a disastrous
precedent for future foreign interference. His successor in the French
kingdom, Louis XII., believed he had a title to the Duchy of Milan
through his grandmother Valentina, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.
The claim was not a legal one; for in the investiture of the Duchy
females were excluded. It sufficed, however, to inflame the cupidity of
Louis; and while he was still but Duke of Orleans, with no sure prospect
of inheriting the crown of France, he seems to have indulged the fancy
of annexing Milan. No sooner had he ascended the French throne than he
began to act upon this ambition. He descended into Lombardy, overran the
Milanese, sent Lodovico Sforza to die in a French prison, and initiated
the duel between Spain and France for mastery, which ended with the
capture of Francis I. at Pavia, and his final cession of all rights over
Italy to Charles V. by the Treaty of Cambray.

Of all the republics which had conferred luster upon Italy in its
mediaeval period of prosperity Venice alone remained independent. She
never submitted to a tyrant; and her government, though growing yearly
more closely oligarchical, was acknowledged to be just and liberal.
During the centuries of her greatest power Venice hardly ranked among
Italian States. It had been her policy to confine herself to the lagoons
and to the extension of her dominion over the Levant. In the fifteenth
century, however, this policy was abandoned. Venice first possessed
herself of Padua, by exterminating the

John Addington Symonds (October 5, 1840 - April 19, 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. He was an early advocate of the validity of male love which included for him pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships, and which he would refer to as lamour de limpossible.

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