John Condren received an MLitt and subsequently a PhD in History from the University of St Andrews, after completing an undergraduate degree in Law and European Studies at the University of Limerick. He has taught at the Universities of Limerick, St Andrews, and Oxford, and is currently an Assistant Professor in History at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses primarily on the diplomatic, political, military, intellectual, and cultural history of the Italian peninsula, the kingdom of France, the Republic of Geneva, and the Swiss Confederacy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is his first book.

The Society for the Study of French History Book Prize 2025: Special commendation - ‘Historians of Louis XIV’s France will find in this book a prodigious range of detailed research with the potential to revise established assumptions about the geography of political power in the late seventeenth century.’‘Condren has written an excellent survey of the diplomatic and geostrategic developments in Northern Italy in the second half of the seventeenth century. He has filled a longstanding historiographical lacuna. As much as it presents a traditional reading of state relations, his inclusion and insistence on dynastic entanglements, the breath of his archival research and his lucid writing render his book a significant contribution not to be surpassed soon but merely complemented by research in its wake’ – The Seventeenth Century.‘This book will be of interest to all those who seek to better understand the late seventeenth-century diplomatic sparring between France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire that began in 1494. It will also be useful for scholars studying the interplay of large and small state relations in the style of Charles Tilly in early modern Europe. Finally, this is a welcome addition for scholars who want to know more about Louis XIV’s motives for his kingdom and his reign’ - American Historical Review, December 2025.

• Part I: In the shadow of the cardinals (1659-1680)Chapter One“The king loves Italians”: cultural ties, dynastic exchanges, and private interests between the small Lombardy courts and FranceChapter Two“For the public good of all Italy”: promoting a pax gallica in the north of the peninsula, 1659-1673Chapter Three“Full of animosity against Rome”: Italy and the Corsican Guards Affair, 1662-1665 Part II: Tutela Italiae (1680-1695)Chapter Four“Bound to France with links of gold”: negotiating with the duke of Mantua for the occupation of Casale, 1679-1684Chapter Five“His Majesty has enough enemies to contend with”: the path to war in Italy, 1685-1689Chapter Six“In the claws of the imperial eagle”: the Italian princes abandoned by France, 1690-1695ConclusionBibliographyAppendix 1Appendix 2Este family treeFarnese family treeGonzaga di Guastalla family treeGonzaga di Mantova and Gonzaga-Nevers family tree

John Condren received an MLitt and subsequently a PhD in History from the University of St Andrews, after completing an undergraduate degree in Law and European Studies at the University of Limerick. He has taught at the Universities of Limerick, St Andrews, and Oxford, and is currently an Assistant Professor in History at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses primarily on the diplomatic, political, military, intellectual, and cultural history of the Italian peninsula, the kingdom of France, the Republic of Geneva, and the Swiss Confederacy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is his first book.

The Society for the Study of French History Book Prize 2025: Special commendation - ‘Historians of Louis XIV’s France will find in this book a prodigious range of detailed research with the potential to revise established assumptions about the geography of political power in the late seventeenth century.’‘Condren has written an excellent survey of the diplomatic and geostrategic developments in Northern Italy in the second half of the seventeenth century. He has filled a longstanding historiographical lacuna. As much as it presents a traditional reading of state relations, his inclusion and insistence on dynastic entanglements, the breath of his archival research and his lucid writing render his book a significant contribution not to be surpassed soon but merely complemented by research in its wake’ – The Seventeenth Century.‘This book will be of interest to all those who seek to better understand the late seventeenth-century diplomatic sparring between France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire that began in 1494. It will also be useful for scholars studying the interplay of large and small state relations in the style of Charles Tilly in early modern Europe. Finally, this is a welcome addition for scholars who want to know more about Louis XIV’s motives for his kingdom and his reign’ - American Historical Review, December 2025.

• Part I: In the shadow of the cardinals (1659-1680)Chapter One“The king loves Italians”: cultural ties, dynastic exchanges, and private interests between the small Lombardy courts and FranceChapter Two“For the public good of all Italy”: promoting a pax gallica in the north of the peninsula, 1659-1673Chapter Three“Full of animosity against Rome”: Italy and the Corsican Guards Affair, 1662-1665 Part II: Tutela Italiae (1680-1695)Chapter Four“Bound to France with links of gold”: negotiating with the duke of Mantua for the occupation of Casale, 1679-1684Chapter Five“His Majesty has enough enemies to contend with”: the path to war in Italy, 1685-1689Chapter Six“In the claws of the imperial eagle”: the Italian princes abandoned by France, 1690-1695ConclusionBibliographyAppendix 1Appendix 2Este family treeFarnese family treeGonzaga di Guastalla family treeGonzaga di Mantova and Gonzaga-Nevers family tree