The victorious enterprise of Charles VIII. compelled the great powers to form a league,—the first of European character,—from which amid tedious wars modern states gradually took their form. The Spanish house of the Habsburgs and France came prominently to the front, while Italy, still as a consequence of the facts and principles of the Middle Ages, remained the object and reward of the great struggle.

The French King had left Italy involved in the greatest turbulence. The country was severed intotwo parties: the league between Rome, Milan and Venice, which was supported by the two great powers, and the French party, to which Savoy, Montferrat, Ferrara, Florence and Bologna, the Orsini and the Prefect of the city belonged. All existing conditions were consequently shaken. The dynasty of Aragon could no longer feel secure in Naples, where it had already summoned Spain and Venice to its aid. Florence, which had lost Pisa and other cities, was threatened with the return and despotism of the Medici, and Ludovico Sforza must inevitably perish in the storm which he himself had evoked. No less convulsed was the State of the Church, which however in the Papacy possessed a power of recuperation and endurance. The republic of Venice was still the one great power in all Italy, and Venice now hoped to obtain dominion throughout the peninsula. In return for her services to the house of Aragon she had received possession of Brindisi, Trani, Gallipoli and Otranto.