The causes of the war
At the turn of the 15th – 16th centuries, Venice still did not feel the full consequences of the Great Geographical Discoveries, it was at the height of its power and was striving for even more. On this road, she entered into conflicts with the great powers of that time – with France, claiming the lands of the Duchy of Milan, and with Spain, moving south along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. In addition, the apple of discord between Venice and Rome was Romagna – land in Central Italy (which, after the conquest of Milan, was also claimed by France).
The Union was covered with a religious motive (the conquest of Venice as the first step towards war with the Turks), but the Allies thought about their benefits and divided the lands of Venice beforehand: the pope was to receive Faenza, Rimini, Ravenna ; Maximilian, as emperor, – Padua, Vicenza and Verona, and as the Archduke of Austria – Friul and Treviso brand; Louis XII – to Cremona, the lower reaches of the Adda, Brescia, Bergamo and Crema; Ferdinand – Apulian cities in the hands of the Venetians. The Pope, who did not want to increase the possessions of foreign rulers in Italy, informed the Venetians of the terms of this treaty and promised not to join the league and not to fight with Venice if she gave him the papal fiefs in Romagna. When the Venetians rejected this proposal, the pope joined the Cambrai League.
Cambrian League (1508–1510)
In January 1509, Louis XII declared war on Venice, and on April 27 the pope proclaimed the Venetians enemies of the church. The Venetian government was energetically preparing for defense, but the people were dejected, which was increasing by misfortunes: the explosion of a powder shop, the death of a ship carrying money to Ravenna, the destruction of the state archive, etc.
The war began favorably for the Allies, but then, thanks to the experience and firmness of the Venetian rulers and hindsight and disagreement of their enemies, the matter took a different turn. Soon Ferdinand, having received the Apulian cities, retreated from the union; Following this, the Venetians entered into negotiations with Julius II, who quarreled with the French king. Having received all his possessions back in Romagna, having secured the liberation of the clergy from taxes and free trade for his subjects on the Adriatic Sea, the pope made peace with Venice and removed from it the interdict. This was the beginning of the collapse of the Cambrai League.
Venetian-Papal Union (1510-1511)
Although Pope Julius II made no attempt to leave the Cambrai League, but they say he boasted that, having given Venice a absolution, he stabbed a dagger in the heart of the King of France. Now the pope considered France as the main obstacle to his policy in Italy, and not Venice.
With the onset of the spring of 1510, the French again marched. They were supported by the dukes of Anhalt and Alfonso of Ferrara. The Allies hoped to unite with the forces of Emperor Maximilian and solve the matter in Venice once and for all; at the same time, even without the imperial forces, the combined army of the allies surpassed the Venetian one. Venice’s problems were aggravated by the death of Pitigliano’s army commander; as a temporary measure, the command was entrusted to a civilian official Andrea Gritti.
The French, German and Ferrara army, meeting south of Legnago, quickly occupied Este and Montagnana, and began to attack Vicenza from the north. Gritti was unable to organize resistance and retreated to the east. On May 24, the Duke of Anhalt introduced his people into the city. The inhabitants of Vicenza, knowing that he was angry with them and offended by the recent defeat, fled to Padua or Venice. About a thousand people found shelter in a huge cave that goes to the mountain of Monte Berico. A gang of French mercenaries found their shelter, and when people refused to leave, they lit a big bonfire at the cave entrance. After everyone in the cave died, strangled by smoke, the French stripped the bodies and took away all that was valuable. Despite the fact that after they learned about this cruelty in the French camp and the guilty were severely punished, the news of this crime spread all over Northern Italy, and the prestige of France suffered considerable damage.
In May, Cardinal d’Amboise died, which knocked out King Louis XII. Meanwhile, Pope Julius II decided to expand the Papal State by annexing the duchy of Ferrara. As a result, the main opponents in the war were not France and Venice, but France and the Pope. In July, the combined forces of the Pope and Venice tried to dislodge the French from Genoa. Although the attempt ended in failure, rumors that the army of 15,000 Swiss, whom the Pope was able to hire in May, is going to capture Milan on the way to Ferrara, caused de Chomon’s rapid return with most of his army to Milan; the remaining French forces were not enough to prevent the Venetians from returning most of the cities to Trevisano. Meanwhile, the pope recognized Ferdinand of Aragon as king of Naples, disregarding the long-standing claims of King Louis. A few weeks later, the pope distributed a bull throughout the Christian world, in which he anathematized and excommunicated the duke of Ferrara.
In early August, the commander of the Venetian troops was approved by Lucho Malvezzi, a representative of the famous family of condottieri from Bologna. Under his command, the Venetians managed to conquer most of the region of Venice, including Vicenza, and by early September they drove the Duke of Anhalt to Verona, only the delay in Malvezzi prevented him from taking the city on the move.
When the Swiss-hired Pope arrived in Lombardy, several of their commanders, bought by de Chomon, returned, and the rest declared that they had been hired to protect the papal persona, and not for war with the emperor and the king of France. However, the combined papal and Venetian forces under the command of the pope’s nephew, the duke of Urbino, on August 17 took Modena. With the beginning of autumn, the papal and Venetian troops stood at the walls of Ferrara. The pope, determined to be present at the time of his triumph, left Rome at the end of August and arrived in Bologna by the end of September.
In early October, de Chomon marched south from Lombardy. The false attack in the direction of Modena misled and divided the papal troops, as a result of which de Chomon quickly surrounded the city and moved at full speed to Bologna. By October 18, he was a few kilometers from the city gates. The sick pope, who was, in fact, in an enemy city (the inhabitants of Bologna were on the verge of open rebellion because of the poor management of the papal protege, Cardinal Francesco Alidozi), considered himself doomed and had already begun peace negotiations with the French when reinforcements arrived: Venetian light cavalry and a squad from Naples, sent by King Ferdinand in gratitude for the recent recognition by Pope of his title. Proceeding from the new alignment of forces, foreign ambassadors at the Holy See convinced de Chomon not to hurry with the attack. De Chaumont, who did not dare to raise his hand at the papal person at the last moment, agreed to withdraw the troops. Immediately after his departure, Julius II excommunicated him.
During the 1511 winter campaign, papal troops laid siege to Mirandola Castle. Due to the illness of de Chomon, the French troops did not have time to rescue, and Mirandola fell. In February, de Chomon’s attempt to free Modena failed, and on March 11 he died of the disease, only seven hours before receiving a letter from the pope, in which he annulled the sentence of excommunication of de Chomon.
In mid-May, Gian Giacomo Trivoulzio, the Italian condotier who had gone over to the French and became Marshal of France, succeeded de Chomon. In the middle of May, he led a second expedition to Bologna, and as he approached, the people rebelled, seeing the opportunity to free themselves from the hated Cardinal Aldozi once and for all. The cardinal fled in panic, without warning the Duke of Urbino, who was standing close to the papal troops, or Venetians, who were not far from the papal troops, were approaching the French. On May 23, 1511, Trivoulzio entered Bologna with triumph; The papal and Venetian armies with difficulty were able to escape, having lost part of the convoy. The Duke of Urbino, upon whom the Pope laid the blame for the loss of the city, personally assassinated Cardinal Alidozi in Ravenna; retinue Aldozi did not dare to intervene, thinking that the duke is acting on the orders of the Pope. In the meantime, Trivulcio captured Mirandola’s castle. With the fall of Bologna and Mirandola, the road to church lands in Romagna opened for the French troops. All the works of Julius II over the past eight years have been destroyed. To top it all off, while in Rimini, the pope discovered an appeal nailed to the door of the church of Santo Francesco and signed by his nine cardinals, and supported by the emperor Maximilian and the French king Louis, in which the General Church Council would meet on September 1 in Pisa to investigate and correct abuses of his pontificate.
