The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494-95: Antecedents and Effects (review)

Abulafia, David, ed., The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494-95: Antecedents and Effects, Aldershot, Variorum, 1995; cloth; pp. xiv, 496; 8 illustrations, 2 maps; R.R.P. £50.00. Charles VIII's descent into Italy in 1494 was long regarded as an epochmaking event in both Italian and European history. The idea dates back, at least, to Guiccardini's History ofItaly. For Italian scholars from the sixteenth century onward, the invasion inaugurated a half-century of warfare which brought to an end the peace, prosperity and cultural vitality of the quattrocento, and set in train the 'ruin of Italy'. Ultramontane historians took up and extended Guiccardini's point: 1494 marked the beginning of the process by which the Renaissance found a new home north of the Alps, transported, as indeed was Leonardo da Vinci, in the baggage-train of the French army. In the last few decades this simple picture has been much revised, and the event has lost its salience along with the master narrative in which it served as a crux. Happily, though, the quincentenary did not pass entirely unnoticed. A colloquium was organised at Cambridge, and some of its fruits are presented in the volume under review. David Abulafia's The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494-5. Antecede and Effects is neither a textbook nor a collection of sources and interpretations, though both are sorely needed by students and teachers. It is a collection of specialist studies. There are no claims to completeness or balance of coverage. Indeed the volume reflects a conscious decision to shift the emphasis away from Rome, Florence and Venice to Naples, Milan and some of the lesser Italian states. This presents problems for the reader w h o seeks in vain up-to-date analyses of Charles VIII's aims, the triumphal progress through Florence and Rome, and the organisation of the League of Venice. The book's real strengths— P A R E R G O N ns 16.1 Guly 1998) 106 Reviews the communication of new research from hitherto under-utilised sources, and an array of new perspectives—place demands on the reader. All the contributors play d o w n the epoch-making character of the event. In the first section Raymond Peyronnet and Alan Ryder demonstrate the continuity of French interest and involvement in Italy from the late fourteenth century, while Vincent Ilardi, Evelyn Welch, Humfrey Butters, Michael Mallett and Trevor Dean join the editor in analysing the instability and intrigue in the peninsula to which the French owed much of their initial success. In this view the French invasion was a disaster waiting to happen, and Italy's best hope lay not in Florentine diplomacy but in the entente between Milan and Naples. King Ferrante of Naples, a prince w h o m Louis XI, King Spider himself, aspired to emulate, replaces Lorenzo de' Medici as the man who really kept the barbarians at bay. The second section focuses more directly on the expedition of 1494-5. Two contributors address themselves to military matters. In his study of the Romagna campaign, in which the Neapolitan advance on the duchy of Milan failed before Mordano, Cecil Clough suggests that it was Italian attachment to classical and chivalric models of warfare, rather than reliance on mercenaries, which made them vulnerable to the French offensive. In his paper on the use of artillery, Simon Pepper scales downward traditional estimates of the size of the French artillery train and its capacity to destroy Italian fortifications, stressing instead the 'moral and shock effect of saturation bombardment' and, like Clough, the 'ruthlessness and determination' of the French. Meanwhile Christine Shaw charts the efforts made by the major players to secure the services of the Colonna and Orsini in Rome, and Carol Kidwell outlines Venice's self-interested operations along the Apulian coast. While the formation of the League itself is somewhat off-stage, there is an arresting account by David Chambers of Francesco II Gonzaga, the hero of Fornovo, and fascinating new insights drawn from the archives at Modena by Joel Blanchard regarding the activities of Philippe de Commynes. The third section considers the consequences of 1494. A. V Antonovicz...