Wars in Lombardy

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Wars in Lombardy
Battle of Anghiari
Date 1423–1454 Location Lombardy Result Treaty of Lodi, compromise treaty leading to a balance of power and a period of stability
Belligerents
Venetian Republic Florentine Republic (until 1450) Kingdom of Naples Duchy of Savoy March of Montferrat	Duchy of Milan Republic of Genoa Marquisate of Mantua Republic of Lucca Republic of Siena Florentine Republic (from 1450) Kingdom of France
Commanders and leaders
Francesco Foscari Francesco Bussone Carlo I Malatesta Taddeo d'Este Niccolò Fortebraccio Jacopo Piccinino	Filippo Maria Visconti Francesco Sforza Cosimo de' Medici Niccolò Piccinino Niccolò Fortebraccio René of Anjou

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. 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. They were 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,^[a] 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,^[b] as Venetian conflicts focused elsewhere.^[c]

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 though 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 its claim on the kingdom of Naples.
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