54 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



formed the famous league of Cambrai (Louis XII, Emperor 

 Maximillian, and Ferdinand of Spain) against Venice, with a view 

 to dispoilment of her territories. Quarrelling next with France, 

 he combined various powers in the Holy League (Ferdinand and 

 Venice, and afterwards England, and the Emperor Maximillian) 

 against her. The French were driven across the Alps (1512) ; 

 but Julius although he had secured the Papal States had to forego 

 his ultimate aim of expelling all foreign powers from Italy. There 

 was not much rest for Northern Italy during the time of Julius. 



The Feudal system had never in the northern part of Italy 

 established its rocky castles, and its pastoral and agricultural 

 entourage. There the city-states, patterned on great Rome, 

 maintained their ascendancy; and Venice, Florence, Pisa, Genoa, 

 Milan, Parma, Modena and other places, divided amongst them 

 the country parts and the less important towns and villages. 

 These cities were for the most part Republics, and their history is 

 almost confined to forming alliances one with another; breaking 

 them and making new combinations; eternal fightings and diplo- 

 macies. Northern Italy was seldom at peace and when she was 

 "the principal employment of her Princes'' as Machiavelli 

 tells us "was to watch each other and strengthen their own 

 influence by new alliances, leagues or friendships" (a). 



These cities were for the most part dominated by wealthy 

 and powerful families, whose factious rivalries and hatreds were 

 eternal sources of discord, revolution and assassination. The Medici 

 were the most prominent in Florence. Foreign fightings and 

 domestic broils were in Machiavelli's day the constant occupation 

 of the Florentines. 



Southern Italy. — All south of Rome, and the Island of 

 Sicily (known as the Two Sicilies) had boasted a King of its own — 

 the King of Naples. But Charles VIII of France, six years prior 

 to our central date, claiming title as Duke of Anjou, successfully 

 established himself there, although soon again expelled. Shortly 

 after our date, Louis XII of France and Ferdinand of Spain re- 

 conquered Naples (1501), divided it, and disputed and fought 

 over it. Finally this lower half of Italy became part of the Spanish 

 dominions. The feudal nobility was not yet quite extinct; but 

 force and crime were rapidly terminating their little individuali- 

 ties. Southern Italy was, in A.D. 1500, in worse case than many 

 other places. 



(a) Hist, of Florence, p. 344. 



