The French invasion of Italy under Charles VIII in 1494-95 has long been seen as inaugurating a new and wretched era in Italian history. The present volume, the work of an international team of contributors, seeks to question that assumption by focusing anew on the intricate politics of Renaissance Italy and the long history of Angevin attempts to impose their rule in southern Italy. It was later invasions, it is argued, that did most to reshape the politics of the Italian peninsula. These studies also look at social and economic effects of the French invasion, as well as its cultural aspects, not least the impact of Renaissance culture in France itself. Combining survey papers and research articles, this volume presents a new introduction to the history of late 15th-century Italy. The appendix, listing the Ilardi collection of microfilms, will also provide an invaluable guide to the diplomatic history of the era.

The onset of the Italian Wars in 1494, subsequently seen as the onset of 'modern warfare', provides the starting point for this impressive survey of European Warfare in early modern Europe. Huge developments in the logistics of war combined with exploration and expansion meant interaction with extra-European forms of military might. Jeremy Black looks at technological aspects of war as well social and political developments and effects during this key period of military history. This sharp and compact analysis contextualises European developments and as establishes the global significance of events in Europe.

This volume analyses and compares different forms of nationalism across a range of European countries and regions during the long nineteenth century. It aims to put detailed studies of nationalist politics and thought, which have proliferated over the last ten years or so, into a wider European context. By means of such contextualization, together with new and systematic comparisons, What is a Nation? Europe 1789-1914 reassesses the arguments put forward in the principal works on nationalism as a whole, many of which pre-date the proliferation of case studies in the 1990s and which, as a consequence, make only inadequate reference to the national histories of European states. The study reconsiders whether the distinction between civic and ethnic identities and politics in Europe has been overstated and whether it needs to be replaced altogether by a new set of concepts or types. What is a Nation? explores the relationship between this and other typologies, relating them to complex processes of industrialization, increasing state intervention, secularization, democratization and urbanization. Debates about citizenship, political economy, liberal institutions, socialism, empire, changes in the states system, Darwinism, high and popular culture, Romanticism and Christianity all affected - and were affected by - discussion of nationhood and nationalist politics. The volume investigates the significance of such controversies and institutional changes for the history of modern nationalism, as it was defined in diverse European countries and regions during the long nineteenth century. By placing particular nineteenth-century nationalist movements and nation-building in a broader comparative context, prominent historians of particular European states give an original and authoritative reassessment, designed to appeal to students and academic readers alike, of one of the most contentious topics of the modern period.

This volume presents a comprehensive analysis of the peregrinatio academica of students from the Northern Netherlands to Italian universities and its place in the Low Countries' society and culture in the crucial period between 1426 and 1575.

This book investigates the economic, intellectual and political history of late medieval and early modern Genoa and the historical origins of the Genoese presence in the Spanish Atlantic. Salonia describes Genoa’s late medieval economic expansion and commercial networks through several case studies, from the Black Sea to southern England, and briefly compares it to the state-run military expansion of Venice’s empire. The author links the adaptability and entrepreneurial skills of Genoese merchants and businessmen to the constitutional history of the Genoese commune and to the specific idea of freedom progressively protected by its constitutions and embodied by institutions like the Bank of St. George. Moreover, this book offers an unprecedented account of the actions with which Ferdinand the Catholic protected Genoese merchants in his dominions and of the later, mutual understanding between the Genoese community and emperor Charles V during the Italian Wars, and in particular during the 1520s. These developments in Hispanic-Genoese diplomatic and economic relations are of great significance. The sixteenth-century Hispanic-Genoese alliance is important to understand the characteristics of Habsburg governance and the resilience of Genoa’s republican conservatism. Genoa’s republicanism (based on private wealth and private arms) contradicts historiographical narratives that assume the inevitability of the emergence of the modern, militarized and centralized state. It also shows the inadequacy of Tuscan-centric historical accounts of Renaissance republicanism. The last chapter of the book reveals the consequences of the 1528 Hispanic-Genoese alliance by considering case studies that illustrate the Genoese presence in the Spanish Americas, from Chile to Mexico, since the early stages of conquest and settlement.

This study is the first to examine the important political role played by astrology in Italian court culture. Reconstructing the powerful dynamics existing between astrologers and their prospective or existing patrons, The Duke and the Stars illustrates how the “predictive art” of astrology was a critical source of information for Italian Renaissance rulers, particularly in times of crisis. Astrological “intelligence” was often treated as sensitive, and astrologers and astrologer-physicians were often trusted with intimate secrets and delicate tasks that required profound knowledge not only of astrology but also of the political and personal situation of their clients. Two types of astrological predictions, medical and political, were taken into the most serious consideration. Focusing on Milan, Monica Azzolini describes the various ways in which the Sforza dukes (and Italian rulers more broadly) used astrology as a political and dynastic tool, guiding them as they contracted alliances, made political decisions, waged war, planned weddings, and navigated health crises. The Duke and the Stars explores science and medicine as studied and practiced in fifteenth-century Italy, including how astrology was taught in relation to astronomy.