76 Ch. 2 • The Renaissance

Girolamo Savonarola being burned at the stake in Florence,

sixteenth-century painting.

predecessors widow, thereby keeping Brittany within his domains. When
Julius II, who had been a bitter enemy of Alexander VI, became pope in
1503, he drove the powerful Borgia family from Rome. Then the dissolute
pope set about trying to restore territorial holdings taken from the Papal
States by Venice and its allies, constructing an alliance against the Venetians
and becoming the last pope to lead his troops into the field of battle. That
year the Spanish army defeated the French army and the Habsburgs
absorbed the kingdom of Naples. Milan remained a fief of Louis XII until
French forces were driven from the city in 1512, the same year that a Span­
ish army defeated the Florentines and the Medici overthrew the republic.
Three years later, French troops overwhelmed Swiss mercenaries and recap­
tured Milan. After the intervention of Emperor Charles V in 1522 and
French defeats, the Lombardy city became a Spanish possession in 1535.

Machiavelli

A mood of vulnerability and insecurity spread through the Italian penin­

sula as the city-states battled each other. Peasants, crushed by taxes and

hunger, ever more deeply resented the rich. In turn, wealthy people were

increasingly suspicious of the poor, viewing them as dangerous monsters