Italian Wars 1494-1559

Christine Shaw is Associate Member of the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. She has published extensively on the political and military society of Renaissance Italy and her previous books include Julius II: The Warrior Pope (1993), Italy and the European Powers: The Impact of War (as editor, 2006) and Barons and Castellans: The Military Nobility of Renaissance Italy (2015).The late Michael Mallett was Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Warwick and a distinguished historian of fifteenth- and sixteenth century Italy. His books included Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (1974), and (with J.R.Hale) The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c.1400 to 1617 (1984).

"This revised edition of the 2012 collaboration between Dr. Shaw (Oxford) and the late Prof. Mallett (Warwick) is a masterful overview of the protracted conflict between France and Spain for control of Italy that came to involve virtually every major European power, including the Ottoman Empire, with everyone demonstrating a remarkable flexibility in their loyalties and alliances. In a clear, highly readable account, the authors managed to integrate in an almost seamless fashion complex matters of dynastic ambition, personalities, diplomatic interactions, strategic maneuvering, war finance, and military operations, including some good battle pieces."NYMAS Review

• Introduction; 1. The genesis of the wars and the first French expedition; 2. Milan and Naples overwhelmed, 1496-1503; 3. The conflict widens; 4. New orders struggling to be born, 1512-1519; 5. The contest for supremacy in Italy, 1520-1529; 6. Testing the boundaries, 1529-47; 7. The French challenge, 1547-1559; 8. The transformation of war; 9. The resources of war; 10. Propaganda and images of war; 11. The legacies of the wars; Index