Italy was a political community, one that was held together and divided not just by leagues and alliances, but by networks of agreements linking stronger powers to weaker ones. Lesser stateshad significant roles to play as participants in their own right and as the objects of competition and contention among the major players. Accepting the protection of a stronger power could be seen as defending, not compromising, libertà. Citizens of republics who exalted their own libertà as a quasi-sacred value never questioned their right to make other communities, for whom libertà could be just as potent a concept, subject to them. This complex system was radically changed by the Italian Wars (1494-1559). The ultramontane powers who wanted to establish themselves in Italy could play by different rules, but sometimes had to at least appear to adapt to the principles governing relations between states, as Italians understood them, and the importance attached to the concept of libertà.