War of the League of Cambrai


The War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League and several other names, was fought from February 1508 to December 1516 as part of the Italian Wars of 1494–1559. The main participants of the war, who fought for its entire duration, were France, the Papal States, and the Republic of Venice; they were joined at various times by nearly every significant power in Western Europe, including Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Florence, the Duchy of Ferrara, and the Swiss. The war started with the Italienzug of Maximilian I, King of the Romans, crossing into Venetian territory in February 1508 with his army on the way to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in Rome. Meanwhile, Pope Julius II, intending to curb Venetian influence in northern Italy, brought together the League of Cambrai — an anti-Venetian alliance consisting of him, Maximilian I, Louis XII of France, and Ferdinand II of Aragon — which was formally concluded in December 1508. Although the League was initially successful, friction between Julius and Louis caused it to collapse by 1510; Julius then allied himself with Venice against France. The Veneto–Papal alliance eventually expanded into the Holy League, which drove the French from Italy in 1512; disagreements about the division of the spoils, however, led Venice to abandon the coalition in favor of an alliance with France. Under the leadership of Francis I, who had succeeded Louis on the throne of France, the French and Venetians would regain the territory they had lost in a campaign culminating in the Battle of Marignano in 1515; the treaties of Noyon (August 1516) and Brussels (December 1516), which ended the war the next year, would essentially return the map of Italy to the status quo of 1508.