THE FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY, 1494-95and this should have further confirmed the warmth of rela-
tions between Milan and Naples.^2 The reality was, however,
that power in Milan was exercised by Giangaleazzo' s uncle,
Lodovico il Moro. And it was Ludovico who saw in the arrival
of French armies a chance to bolster his position in Milan,
and to counter Neapolitan influence in the peninsula, and,
no less urgently, to fend off Venice's attempts to secure its
influence in the cities of the Lombard plain.~
The moment was a propitious one for the French. The
death of King Louis XI (1461-83) marked the end of a reign
in which a firm emphasis had been placed on the consolida-
tion of royal authority within France and along its immediate
borders: the ending of the hundred-year-long conflict with
England; the resolution of difficulties with the Valois dukes of
Burgundy, past arbiters of Anglo-French relations; the asser-
tion of French interests in Provence and Roussillon - all
were sizeable objectives in themselves, whether or not Louis
'always loathed everything Italian', as the great sixteenth-
century Florentine historian Francesco Guicciardini asserted.^4
Louis did, however, mediate when appropriate in the affairs
of Italy, helping to broker peace between Naples, Florence
and Milan in 1479." Despite shocking Italians with his earthy
allusions to the doubtful parentage of King Ferrante, and
supporting Florence when it was threatened by Ferrante,
Louis had the political acuteness to realise that he would
gain nothing from further instability in the peninsula. He
was even prepared to lease the city of Genoa to Milan, put-
ting an end by an imaginative compromise to the bitter dis-
pute, itself largely fuelled by factionalism within Genoa, that
had soured relations between Milan and France. Louis was
- C.M. Ady, A history of Milan under the Sforzas (London, 1907), p. 126.
- F. Catalano, Ludovico il Moro (Milan, 1985). He was also duke of Bari
in southern Italy: L. Pepe, Storia della successione degli Sforzeschi negli stati
di Puglia e di Cala&ria (Bari, 1900); N. Ferorelli, 'II ducato di Bari sotto
Sforza Maria Sforza e Ludovico il Moro', Archivio storico Iombardo,^41
(1914), pp. 389-468 [also the critique of Pepe's book, Archivio storico
Lombardo, 29, 1902, pp. 412-22]; V.A. Melchiorre, Il ducato sforzesco di
Bari (Bari,^1 990). - F. Guicciardini, History of Italy, Book 1, cap. 4 (citations are from the
translation by C. Grayson, History ofltaly and History of Florence (Chalfont
St Giles, 1 964; there is also a very good translation of the History of Italy
by S. Alexander, 2nd edn, Princeton, NJ, 1984). - P.M. Kendall, Louis XI (London, 1971), pp. 417-18.