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The wars in Lombardy were a series of conflicts between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan and their respective allies, fought in four campaigns in a struggle for hegemony in Northern Italy that ravaged the economy of Lombardy and weakened the power of Venice. They lasted from 1423 until the signing of the Treaty of Lodi in 1454. During their course, the political structure of Italy was transformed: out of a competitive congeries of communes and city-states emerged the five major Italian territorial powers that would make up the map of Italy for the remainder of the 15th century and the beginning of the Italian Wars at the turn of the 16th century, viz. Venice, Milan, Florence, the Papal States and Naples. Important cultural centers of Tuscany and Northern Italy—Siena, Pisa, Urbino, Mantua, Ferrara—became politically marginalized. The wars, which were both a result and cause of Venetian involvement in the power politics of mainland Italy, found Venetian territory extended to the banks of the Adda and involved the rest of Italy in shifting alliances but only minor skirmishing. The shifting counterweight in the balance was the allegiance of Florence, at first allied with Venice against encroachments by Visconti Milan, then switching to ally with Francesco Sforza against the increasing territorial threat of Venice. The Peace of Lodi, concluded in 1454, brought forty years of comparative peace to Northern Italy, as Venetian conflicts focussed elsewhere. After the Treaty of Lodi, there was a balance of power resulting in a period of stability lasting for 40 years. During this time, there was a mutual pledge of non-aggression between the five Italian powers, sometimes known as the Italic League. Even there was frequent tension between Milan and Naples, the peace held remarkably well until the outbreak of the Italian Wars in 1494, as Milan called upon the king of France to press his claim on the kingdom of Naples. ==First campaign== The first of four campaigns against the territorial ambitions of Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan, was connected to the death of the lord of Forlì, Giorgio Ordelaffi. He had named Visconti the trustee of his nine-year-old heir, Teobaldo II. The latter's mother, Lucrezia degli Alidosi, daughter of the lord of Imola, did not agree and assumed the regency for herself. The Forlivesi rebelled and called in the city the Milanese Visconti's condottiero, Agnolo della Pergola (May 14, 1423). Florence reacted by declaring war on Visconti. Its captain Pandolfo Malatesta therefore entered Romagna to help the Alidosi of Imola, but he was defeated and the city stormed on February 14, 1424. The young Luigi degli Alidosi was sent captive to Milan and a few days later the lord of Faenza, Guidantonio Manfredi, joined the Visconti party. The Florentine army, this time commanded by Carlo Malatesta, was again defeated, at the Battle of Zagonara in July; Carlo, taken prisoner, was freed by Visconti and joined him too. Florence thus hired Niccolò Piccinino and Oddo da Montone, but the two were also beaten in Val di Lamone. Oddo was killed but Piccinino was able to convince Manfredi to declare war against Visconti. After the failure in Romagna, Florence tried to defy the Visconti from the Ligurian side, by allying with the Aragonese of Naples. However, both a fleet of 24 Aragonese galleys sent to Genoa to move it to fight against the Milanese, and a land army, were unsuccessful. In the meantime, Piccinino and the other condottiero Francesco Sforza had been hired by Visconti, who also sent an army to invade Tuscany under Guido Torello. He subsequently defeated the Florentine army at Anghiari and Faggiuola. The Florentine disaster was countered by the pact signed on December 4, 1425 with the Republic of Venice. By the agreement the war was to be pursued at the common expense of both: the conquests in Lombardy to be assigned to the Venetians; those in Romagna and Tuscany to the Florentines; and the condottiero Carmagnola was appointed Captain General of the League. In the ensuing fighting seasons (1425–26), Carmagnola, recently in the pay of Visconti, retook Brescia, which he had recently taken on behalf of Visconti, after a long siege which saw massive use of artillery (November 26, 1426). Meanwhile the Venetian fleet on the Po River, under Francesco Bembo, advanced as far as Padua, and the Florentines regained all their lands in Tuscany. Visconti, who had already ceded Forlì and Imola to the Pope to gain his favour, called a mediation. Through the intervention of the Papal legate, Niccolò degli Albergati, the peace was signed on December 30, 1426 in Venice. Visconti regained the lands occupied by Florence in Liguria, but had to renounce the area of Vercelli, conquered by Amadeus VIII of Savoy, and Brescia, which went to Venice, and to promise to stop encroaching himself in Romagna and Tuscany. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wars in Lombardy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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