This book by John Gagné offers an interesting description and interpretation of the progressive erosion and collapse of the social, cultural, and political ties that formed the base of the Sforza's sovereignty over the duchy of Milan. After half a century of dominance by the Sforza, Lombardy witnessed several changes of rulers between 1499 and 1535: Louis XII (1499), Ludovico il Moro (1500), again Louis XII (1500), Massimiliano Sforza (1512), François I (1515), Francesco II Sforza (1521), Charles V (1535). As explained in the introduction, frequent wars and lasting institutional instability during those years produced a “political chaos” (24) that the author proposes to understand as both the contrary and the precondition of sovereignty. From this point of view, the volume aims to grasp a better comprehension of the multilayered structure of power in Renaissance Italy by an accurate analysis of the concerted demolition of the foundations of Sforza authority sought by the French rulers and their supporters.

The monograph is divided into three parts, each of which focuses on a particular aspect of the Lombard society affected by the decline of the Sforza Duchy: politics (I), property (II), and people (III). The first section presents three different practices the French crown adopted to legitimize its new rule: the production of cultural and artistic artifacts that celebrated the validity and value of its ancient rights on Lombardy (chapter 1); its building initiatives and policies against political oppositions in the urban landscape of Milan (chapter 2); the persecution of Sforza heirs and the depiction of them as infamous princes (chapter 3).

To characterize the nonintuitive effects and the peculiar pace of those actions on the sphere of politics, Gagné uses two remarkable metaphors: the palimpsest and the shatter zone. As in the case of a manuscript in which a more recent writing has been superimposed on an earlier one, making it invisible but not inexistent, Sforza institutes were increasingly and effectively eradicated by the French policies, but due to their deep roots in Lombard society, they continued to exercise an influence for some time. On the other hand, the author suggests formulating the spatial dimension of conflict between statal powers not in terms of frontiers, but of a shatter zone that “invokes rupture, crumbling, fragmentation, and, most obviously, percussive impact” (19).

Property, used as a telling indicator of social cohesion, is at the center of the second section of the book. Here Gagné describes the practice of expropriation as a political instrument to oppress enemies and reward allies (chapter 4) and the legal quarrels on what had been stolen, confiscated, or damaged (chapter 5), which often led to the search of destroyed documents or to the production of forgeries (chapter 6). In the third and last section, the author studies how different groups of people reacted to the traumatic experience of recurrent war: elite refugees at the Habsburg court, as Massimiliano and Francesco Sforza (sons of Ludovico il Moro); Sforza supporters, who found shelter in Mantua or Venice (chapter 7); significant exponents of the Lombard clergy, who in those years revealed themselves as very sensitive to prophecy and Gallican issues (chapter 8); and the larger part of Lombard people, who tried in many ways to cope with the ruinous atmosphere of constant uncertainty, both material and emotional (chapter 9). The conclusion of the book briefly sketches the passage of Lombardy to Habsburg Empire and suggestively argues the possible role that the experienced disappearance of states like the Duchy of Milan could have played in the thought of early modern political theorists like Machiavelli and Hobbes.

In brief, Milan Undone is an insightful book, based on solid archival research and a sure knowledge of the extensive and multilingual scholarship related to the French rule in the Duchy of Milan, well written and enjoyable also for a nonspecialist reader interested in early modern Europe.