Charles VIII leaves Italy unconquered.
The success of the French king seemed marvelous, for even Naples speedily fell into his hands. But he and his troops were demoralized by the wines and other pleasures of the South, and meanwhile his enemies at last began to form a combination against him. Ferdinand of Aragon was fearful lest he might lose Sicily, and Maximilian objected to having the French control Italy. Charles' situation became so precarious that he may well have thought himself fortunate, at the close of 1495, to escape, with the loss of only a single battle, from the country he had hoped to conquer.
Results of Charles' expedition.
The results of Charles' expedition appear at first sight trivial; in reality they were momentous. In the first place, it was now clear to Europe that the Italians had no real national feeling, however much they might despise the "barbarians" who lived north of the Alps. From this time down to the latter half of the nineteenth century, Italy was dominated by foreign nations, especially Spain and Austria. In the second place, the French learned to admire the art and culture of Italy. The nobles began to change their feudal castles, which since the invention of gunpowder were no longer impregnable, into luxurious country houses. The new scholarship of Italy took root and flourished not only in France, but in England and Germany as well. Consequently, just as Italy was becoming, politically, the victim of foreign aggressions, it was also losing, never to regain, that intellectual preëminence which it had enjoyed since the revival of interest in classical literature.
Savonarola's reforms in Florence.
After Charles VIII's departure, Savonarola continued his reformation with the hope of making Florence a model state which should lead to the regeneration of the world. At first he carried all before him, and at the Carnival of 1496 there were no more of the gorgeous exhibitions and reckless gayety which had pleased the people under Lorenzo the Magnificent. The next year the people were induced to make a great bonfire, in the spacious square before the City Hall, of all the "vanities" which stood in the way of a godly life—frivolous and immoral books, pictures, jewels, and trinkets.
Savonarola condemned and executed, 1498.
Savonarola had enemies, however, even in his own Dominican order, while the Franciscans were naturally jealous of his renown and maintained that he was no real prophet. What was more serious, Alexander VI was bitterly hostile to the reforming friar because he urged the Florentines to remain in alliance with France. Before long even the people began to lose confidence in him. He was arrested by the pope's order in 1497 and condemned as a heretic and despiser of the Holy See. He was hanged, and his body burned, in the same square where the "vanities" had been sacrificed hardly more than a twelvemonth before.
Louis XII's Italian policy.
In the same year (1498), the romantic Charles VIII died without leaving any male heirs and was succeeded by a distant relative, Louis XII, who renewed the Italian adventures of his predecessor. As his grandmother was a member of the Milanese house of the Visconti, Louis laid claim to Milan as well as to Naples. He quickly conquered Milan, and then arranged a secret treaty with Ferdinand of Aragon (1500) for the division of the kingdom of Naples between them. It was not hard for the combined French and Spanish troops to conquer the country, but the two allies soon disagreed, and four years later Louis sold his title to Naples for a large sum to Ferdinand.