SPANISH AND FRENCH INTERVENTION
The inevitable catastrophe finally happened, when one of the Italian states asked a more powerful power for help in the fight against one of its domestic rivals. W 1494 r "at the request of the Duke of Milan, King Charles VIII of France traveled south, to re-put forward the long-held claim of the Angevins to the Kingdom of Naples. Having fulfilled their mission, Charles remained in Naples for three more months, to return to France; the kingdom passed into the hands of Ferdinand II of Aragonese, the future ruler of all Spain.
Person, who really brought Spanish rule to Italy was Charles V (1500-1558), Habsburg who within three years of inheriting the Austrian and Spanish thrones by bribery also secured the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. W 1527 r. imperial troops conquered Rome and this defeat was interpreted as a divine indulgence against disorganized and promiscuous Italy.. Some trouble was caused to the emperor by the French, but they were beaten at Pavia in 1526 r. and near Naples in 1529 r. Within the framework of the included in the 1559 r. of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis Spain received Sicily. Naples. Sardinia. Duchy of Milan and some Tuscan fortresses, to steer the Italian political scene with an iron fist for the next 150 lat. The remaining smaller states became satellites of Spanish or French sovereignty; only the papacy and Venice remained independent.
The social and economic problems were as violent as the political unrest. While the papacy fought the spread of the Reformation in northern Europe, major centers of production and trade had to adapt to the new situation resulting from the opening of trade routes in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans - discoveries overseas meant, that northern Italy found itself increasingly next to mainstream economic development. Economic recession in the mid-16th century. prompted wealthy Venetian and Florentine merchants to invest in land, and not in the enterprise, while in the south, high taxes and repressive feudal regimes led to the flourishing of guerrilla warfare, and even to the formation of peasant militia - this resistance was, however, brutally suppressed by the Spaniards.
In the 17th century. there was a crisis in the political life of Italy, for there was little room for maneuver between the papacy and the colonial powers. The Spaniards finally lost control of Italy at the beginning of the 18th century., when, as a result of the Spanish Succession War, Lombardy. Mantua. Naples and Sardinia passed into the hands of Austria. As a result of the machinations of the great powers, the coalition systems changed in the first half of the century like in a kaleidoscope.. Piedmont, which was ruled by the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, stayed in 1720 r. forced to surrender Sicily to the Austrians in exchange for Sardinia. W 1734 r. Naples and Sicily passed into the hands of the Spanish Bourbons. and three years later, after the Medici family died out, the Loreto dynasty gained Tuscany.
The relatively enlightened rule of the Bourbons in the south did not stop the economic polarization of society, but the northern states developed under the intelligent, although the autocratic power of Maria Theresa of Austria (1740-80) and her son Joseph II (1780-92), who prepared the ground for early industrialization. Rapid changes took place in April 1796 r.. when Napoleon's French troops invaded northern Italy. Within a few years, the French were driven out., but in 1810 r. Napoleon took over the entire peninsula, and his puppet regimes survived here until the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleonic power caused profound transformations, reducing the influence of the papacy, reforming feudal land tenure rights and introducing representative government in Italy. Elective assemblies based on French models were established, which gave the emerging middle class the opportunity for political debate and action.