The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, ...
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but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean Sea. The primary belligerents were the Valois kings of France, and their Habsburg opponents in the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. They were supported by various Italian states at different stages of the war, with limited involvement from England and the Ottoman Empire.
The Italic League established in 1454 achieved a balance of power in Italy, but fell apart after the death of its chief architect, Lorenzo de´ Medici, in 1492. Combined with the ambition of Ludovico Sforza, its collapse allowed Charles VIII of France to invade Naples in 1494, which drew in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite being forced to withdraw in 1495, Charles showed the Italian states were wealthy, but vulnerable due to political divisions, making parts of Italy a battleground in the struggle for European domination between France and the Habsburgs.
