INTRODUCTION Thomas James Dandelet and John A. Marino On December 28–29, 1503, “the Great Captain,” Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, scored a definitive military victory for Ferdinand the Catholic against the French in the battle for the Kingdom of Naples at the Garigliano River. He had developed the strategic advantage of the Spanish tercios—light cavalry, infantry pikemen, and arquebus- armed infantry in a combined force—with his victory at Cerignola in the Tavoliere di Puglia eight months earlier on April 28. From there his Spanish forces marched to Naples, entered the city in tri- umph on May 16 to the jubilant reception of its noble citizenry, and departed again on June 18 for Gaeta and the final assault against the French at Garigliano. In Naples news of that victory touched off three days of continuous celebration, fireworks, and religious cer- emonies of thanksgiving with Gonzalo de Córdoba returning quietly on January 14, 1504, to become the first Spanish viceroy of the newly conquered Kingdom of Naples.1 With the Spanish conquest of southern Italy complete, together with the long-standing rule of Sicily from 1282 and Sardinia from 1297 through his Aragonese kingdom, Ferdinand the Catholic had taken a major step towards the eventual Spanish pacification and domination of much of Italy. Five aspects of the Spanish domination of Italy that changed the political landscape had been established before 1504. First, Italy had become an integral part of Aragonese ambitions for Catalan mercantile expansion and a Western Mediterranean “empire.” Sicily, Sardinia, and Naples were essential pieces of Aragon’s European puzzle, and partnering with Genoese financiers was common prac- tice for all three of the Iberian powers—Aragon, Castile, and Por- tugal—in their designs on North and West Africa, and beyond. Second, the 1442 conquest of Naples by Alfonso V of Aragon (1435–1458) 1 Guido D’Agostino, “Il governo Spagnolo nell’Italia meridionale (Napoli dal 1503 al 1580), in Storia di Napoli, vol. 5, pt. 1 (Naples: Società Editrice Storia di Napoli, 1967–1978), p. 3. 2 thomas james dandelet and john a. marino had made the Aragonese dynasty one of the major powers within Italy. As a signatory of the Peace of Lodi in 1454, Aragonese Naples became one of Italy’s five great powers guaranteeing protection from foreign invasion, while giving lip service to the uneasy penin- sular peace. Alfonso and his son Ferrante I (1458–1494) used Naples as a springboard for further intervention in Italian affairs. Third, patronage promoted Iberian families such as the Borgia, rewarded them for service, and also fostered the development of a pro-Aragonese party among the native elite in the Italian states as it provided outlets for military service and links to advancement. Alonso de Borja, a fellow Catalan, had entered Alfonso’s service in 1417, received promotions in Italy after 1432, and eventually became pope as Calixtus III (1455–1458); while Rodrigo Borgia, Calixtus III’s cardinal-nephew and head of the papal chancellery for thirty- five years after 1457, was elected pope as Alexander VI (1492–1503). Fourth, intermarriage was the glue binding such Iberian and Italian noble families together in their service to the crown. Just as the Catholic Kings and the Habsburgs employed marriage as state pol- icy, so too did the great noble families of Italy and Iberia seize upon the advantages of family alliances with one another. Fifth, Aragonese ascendancy not only solidified a pro-Aragonese party, but also that of a pro-Angevin (and later French) opposition. Ferrante’s succession in Naples was convulsed by two baronial revolts (1458–1462 and 1485–1486); and, when Rodrigo Borgia won the papacy over his long-time rival, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who had been car- dinal-nephew of Sixtus IV (1471–1484) and the power behind the throne of Innocent VIII (1471–1484), the future Pope Julius II (1503–1513) fled to the French court in 1494 and advised the French king Charles VIII to invade Italy. These were all themes that the grandson of the Catholic Kings, Charles V, expanded upon decisively in Italy a generation later with a series of major military and political victories: the defeat of the French at Pavia in 1525, the subjugation of the papacy after the Sack of Rome in 1527, his coronation as emperor at Bologna in 1530, the claiming of Milan after the devolution of Sforza rule in 1535, and the marriage of Cosimo de’ Medici and Eleonora of Toledo (the daughter of the viceroy of Naples) in 1539. By 1540, in short, Charles V had established the Spanish Habsburgs as the major force dominating Italian affairs for the next century and a half..