LITMIR.BIZ

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      Following their victory the French captured Cremona, Crema and Brescia. The pope, meanwhile, pushed towards Ravenna with his army, but Maximilian failed to appear in Italy. So Louis returned to France after celebrating his triumph in Milan. Venice, for its part, allowed imperial troops to occupy Treviso, Verona and Padua, handed over ports in southern Italy to Ferdinand of Aragon, released the people of the terra firma from their allegiance and accepted the pope’s occupation of towns in the Romagna. The Venetians, however, had enough experience of foreign affairs (their diplomats were the best in Europe at the time) to know that time was on their side: they felt sure that sooner or later the coalition against them would break up.

      Early in July the Venetians recaptured Padua from the emperor. He appealed for help to Louis XII, who promptly sent a force under La Palice, which was soon joined by a large army led by Maximilian himself; but he did not lay siege to Padua till mid-September. After breaching its wall, he prepared an assault, but the French nobles refused to fight as infantry as long as the German nobles remained mounted. In the end, the assault was abandoned. On 30 September, Maximilian angrily lifted the siege. He left that night for Austria, soon to be followed by the rest of his army. La Palice and his men returned to Milan.

      Julius II, meanwhile, began to detach himself from the league; he did not wish to see Venice destroyed, for her maritime co-operation was essential to his crusading plans. Nor was he keen to see France or the Empire strongly entrenched in north Italy. In February 1510 he lifted the interdict on Venice. He then detached Ferdinand of Aragon from the coalition. In return for the investiture of Naples, Ferdinand agreed to be neutral for the present. Henry VIII of England was also won over. But the pope’s most resounding diplomatic coup was to persuade the Swiss to debar France from raising mercenaries in the cantons. In the summer of 1510, Julius attacked Ferrara, seemingly an easy prey. The duke, Alfonso d’Este, appealed to Louis XII for help. Having recently abandoned the siege of Padua, the French army under Chaumont returned to the Milanese. They had to face a Swiss invasion, but it did not last long. Fighting around Ferrara continued for more than a year without giving the pope a decisive victory. Following the death of Chaumont on 11 February 1511, command of the French army in Italy was given first to Trivulzio, then to Gaston de Foix, duc de Nemours. He was young, handsome and brave, and his presence in Italy raised French morale, putting new life into the campaign.

      So far the pope had failed to detach Maximilian from his alliance with France. What is more, Louis and Maximilian were in agreement over the need to reform the church in its head and members. They supported the idea, put forward two hundred years earlier, that a General Council of the church was superior in authority to the pope. At their bidding five cardinals who had fallen out with the pope called a General Council to Pisa for the autumn of 1511. Julius was ordered to appear before this body under threat of deposition, but he was not easily intimidated: he replied by summoning an alternative council to Rome for April 1512.

       The battle of Ravenna

      Meanwhile, the French army in north Italy, now commanded by Gaston de Foix, invaded the Romagna, relieving Ferrara and capturing Mirandola. As it drew near to Bologna, the pope’s army fell back on Ravenna. Early in October 1511 a so-called Holy League was formed between the pope, Ferdinand of Aragon and Venice. Its avowed aim was to reconquer the lands recently taken from the Holy See, but its real purpose was to drive the French out of Italy.

      Gaston reorganized his army to face the threat of a triple invasion of Lombardy: by the Swiss in the north, by papal and Spanish forces from the south and by the Venetians in the east. The Swiss were the first to attack, capturing Bellinzona in December; but Gaston wisely remained inside Milan instead of coming out to meet them. He knew that if he left the city, the people of Milan would rebel. His caution was justified when the Swiss returned home of their own accord. The army of the Holy League, meanwhile, tried to win back lost ground in the Romagna, prompting Gaston to send reinforcements to Bologna. In February he marched to the relief of Brescia which was under attack from the Venetians. A fierce struggle ended in their defeat. When the pope heard the news, he is said to have torn off his beard. He could draw comfort, however, from the dismal failure of the Council of Pisa. It had been unable to gather international support and was disbanded soon after moving to Milan.

      In November, Henry VIII joined the Holy League and prepared to invade Picardy. The threat of such an attack, coupled with indications that Maximilian might change sides, impressed upon Louis XII the need for a decisive victory in Italy. While Gaston de Foix had been fighting near Brescia, a Hispano-papal army under Ramon de Cardona, viceroy of Naples, had reconquered most of the Romagna. Gaston marched on Ravenna in the hope of luring the enemy into the open. Although the viceroy’s army was smaller than that of the French, he came down from Imola and pitched camp on marshy ground outside Ravenna. It was protected by a deep trench, behind which was arrayed a battery of thirty guns and strange war machines which contemporaries compared to the scythed chariots used in antiquity. Gaston’s artillery consisted of thirty French guns and twenty-four supplied by the duke of Ferrara.

      At dawn on 11 April, Gaston, after crossing the River Ronco, formed his army into a crescent with infantry in the middle and cavalry on the wings. Closing in on the viceroy’s camp, he began a fierce bombardment. The Spanish guns responded, inflicting heavy losses on the French infantry. Eventually the Spanish cavalry came out and engaged the French men-at-arms in a bloody encounter which ended in a Spanish rout. The infantry, meanwhile, moved into action. More fierce fighting ended in victory to the French. But as Gaston tried to intercept some Spaniards who were fleeing from the field, his horse stumbled, enabling the enemy to fall on him and wound him fatally. Thus ended the career of a military leader of great promise. His death, Bayard wrote, made the victory seem like a defeat.

      The battle of Ravenna was one of the bloodiest on record. Both sides suffered heavily. Ramon de Cardona returned to Naples with only 300 horse and 3000 foot, having started out with 16,000 men. Among Spaniards taken prisoner were Fabrizio Colonna, general of the horse, and Pedro Navarro, general of the foot. A more unusual captive was the papal legate, Giulio de’ Medici, the future Pope Clement VII. French losses, though fewer, were none the less severe: 3000 to 4000 infantry, 80 men-at-arms, several gentlemen of the king’s household and nine archers of his guard. From the tactical standpoint, Ravenna is remembered as the first Italian battle in which cannon decided the day. Gaston de Foix saw that Spanish tactics could be overcome by superior artillery strength. His only serious mistake was to bring his infantry too far forward at the start so that it suffered heavier losses than necessary.

      Even if Gaston had survived, it is doubtful if the French could have taken advantage of their victory, for the odds were heavily against them. On 6 May, 18,000 Swiss troops led by Cardinal Schiner descended into Italy and joined the Venetian army near Verona. Together they marched on Milan. La Palice, the new French commander, retreated westward from Ravenna with an army much reduced in size after the recent battle to which disease and desertion had added their toll. The retreat soon turned into a headlong flight. By the end of June, France had lost the Milanese and her army was back in Dauphiné. The few French garrisons that had been left behind in Italy gradually capitulated.

      Ferdinand took advantage of Louis’s difficulties to invade Navarre in pursuit of the claim which his wife, Germaine de Foix, had inherited from her brother Gaston. Louis, who had supported Gaston’s claim against the ruling house of Albret, was obliged to support the rival claim of Jean d’Albret. However, Ferdinand, having occupied Spanish Navarre, declared himself its lawful sovereign. Louis despatched an army under the nominal command of François d’Angoulême, the effective commanders being marshals La Palice and Lautrec. They laid siege to Pamplona, but the arrival of Aragonese reinforcements forced them to withdraw. Spanish Navarre was irretrievably lost. All that remained to Jean d’Albret was a small portion of his kingdom on the French side of the Pyrenees.

      In Italy, meanwhile, important political changes were taking place. In November 1512 the emperor joined the Holy League, causing the Venetians to abandon their hostility to France. Within the Milanese, the departure of the French released the conflicting ambitions of former allies. The Swiss wanted Como and Novara; the marquis of Mantua claimed Peschiera; the pope wanted Parma and Piacenza; the duke of Savoy asked for Vercelli;

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