THE FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY, 1494-95the way for innumerable horrible calamities which later for
various reasons affected a great part of the rest of the world'.^10
Most dramatically, new forms of warfare and new attitudes to
the fighting of war reached the peninsula; whereas in past
times wars had cost little in blood, and had mainly consisted
of tactical manoeuvres by condottiere captains, now horrible
instruments arrived in Italy for the extermination of whole
armies. Guicciardini romanticises the nature of combat be-
fore 1494, just as he exaggerates the degree of peace achieved
in the aftermath of the Peace of Lodi of 1454.
News of French invasion plans posed a quandary for Flor-
ence; Piero de'Medici, whose hand was much less firm than
that of Lorenzo, had to balance the interests of Florentine
trade in France against Neapolitan demands for active sup-
port against the French. Venice too had to think hard about
its stance, and, not untypically, refused to take sides despite
being bombarded with pleading messages from both France
and Naples; the argument for neutrality was the unsurprising
one that the Turk was so serious a threat in the Balkans and
in the Mediterranean (raiding, in fact, as far as Venetian ter-
ritories in north-eastern Italy) that Venice could not allow
herself to be sucked in to peninsular rivalries.^11
The obvious first step in resistance against the French
had to be a naval victory off Genoa which would block French
access into the peninsula and prevent the French from land-
ing their field and siege artillery, much of it reportedly of
types as yet unknown in Italy. Two attempts by Alfonso's
brother Federigo to gain a foothold on the Genoese coast
met with failure. The way was thus clear for a French army to
move south; the French were at Asti in early September 1494,
and nothing seemed to stand in their way as they steadily pro-
gressed southwards.^12 It was a large army, containing many of
the feared Swiss infantrymen, as well as impressive machines,
and yet 'it was not the number but the calibre' of the troops
- History of Italy, Book 1, cap. 6.
- M. Jacoviello, Venezia e Napoli nel Quattrocento (Naples, 1992); C. Kidwell,
'Venice, the French invasion and the Apulian ports', in D. Abulafia,
The French descent into Renaissance Italy. Antecedents and effects (Alder-
shot, 1995), pp. 295-308. - C.H. Clough, 'The Romagna campaign of 1494: a significant military
encounter', in Abulafia, French descent, pp. 191-215, for action on one
front.