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11 - Balancing Power in Italy, 1493

from Part III - Piero in Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2019

Alison Brown
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London
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Summary

Francesco Guicciardini, as we saw, famously attributed Italy’s ‘ruin’ after 1494 to Piero upsetting the balance of power between Milan and Naples by ‘throwing himself into the arms of Ferrante’ and ‘totally alienating Milan’. He was, of course, judging Piero in the light of what happened after the event, when Lodovico Sforza’s alliance with the king of France seemed to be a determining factor in the king’s victory and the overturning of the Medici regime. But before the French arrived in Italy, the situation was more fluid and Piero more concerned with preserving the balance held by his father than Guicciardini suggests. He was in fact wary of Ferrante and was in close contact with Lodovico, but since his diplomacy was often secret, like his father’s, hidden even from ambassadors like Piero Guicciardini in Milan, it is likely that Piero Guicciardini’s son, Francesco the historian, was unaware of it. Although the dispute over the lands had spoilt Piero’s visit to Rome, it only threatened Italy’s balance of power after the pope created the League of St. Mark to recover the lands from Virginio Orsini in April 1493. By following Piero’s moves in the face of this threat, we can understand better his secretive strategy to keep the old balance alive.1

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Balancing Power in Italy, 1493
  • Alison Brown, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Book: Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy
  • Online publication: 20 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108783798.015
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  • Balancing Power in Italy, 1493
  • Alison Brown, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Book: Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy
  • Online publication: 20 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108783798.015
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Balancing Power in Italy, 1493
  • Alison Brown, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Book: Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy
  • Online publication: 20 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108783798.015
Available formats
×