Prelude
After Charles VIII had died in 1498, he was succeeded by his cousin Louis of Orleans, who became known as King Louis XII. Louis XII had the same ambitions of Italian conquest as his cousin and set his sights on the Duchy of Milan, which his side of the family had a claim to. This put him at odds with the Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza, and the Venetians offered an alliance with the French king in order to divide Milan in half between the two countries a trend that would be seen later in the war.
With Louis XII taking over the late king’s army and hiring more Swiss mercenaries for the upcoming campaign, the new conflict broke out with his invasion of Milan in 1499. As of this point in the Italian Wars, the rivalry between France and Spain had not quite reached its breaking point, however, the two countries would only continue to gain more power and would eventually come to blows. This is one of the reasons why these wars are so important as they show how these two countries fought each other for dominance with the dynamic ever changing throughout.
Conflict
The French invasion of Milan was swift, with Ludovico Sforza finding Milan occupied by Italian condottieri that had gone over to the French, further showing the fickle nature that mercenaries had for their fellow Italians. With the French having seized Milan and imprisoned Ludovico Sforza it seemed that Louis XII had succeeded in securing his main objectives of the campaign. However, the Spanish kingdom was a threat to the growing French domain and so the Treaty of Granada was signed in 1500 that would split the Kingdom of Naples between both Spain and France for Louis XII sought to press his claim. This treaty between the two powerful nations was organized by Pope Alexander VI, who was also of Spanish descent, making him a prime candidate to be able to mediate a dispute between the two countries.
France and Spanish armies would invade Naples in 1501 splitting the kingdom between France in the north, which included the city of Naples, and the Spanish getting the southern half of the territory. However, this peace would not last for long as conflict would soon breakout between the two powers in 1502, resulting in the first large-scale conflict between France and Spain of the Italian Wars. During this conflict, Gonzalo de Cordoba, a Spanish commander who had completed the Reconquista for Spain, had to develop new tactics for his fight against the French army that greatly outnumbered his forces. With the French army having numerical superiority, Cordoba developed the pike and shot formation for the Spanish army that was able to inflict severe casualties on the French defeating them at the Battle of Cerignola. This battle would prove to be one of the first instances of gunpowder weapons being used so extensively, and with the army of elite Swiss mercenaries and French heavy cavalry being defeated by the new pike and shot formation. Combined with another additional defeat at Garigliano, Louis XII was forced to abandon Naples in 1504, much like his predecessor Charles VIII was forced to do only a few years earliers.
Aftermath
This set of conflicts, unlike the First Italian War, was much more conclusive with the Spanish being the clear victors of the war. The Spanish were able to develop a tactical advantage over their French rivals with the pike and shot that allowed them to use gunpowder units more effectively than the French were able to. Also, the war swung the balance of power in Italy in favor of Spain, with France left with only northern parts of Italy such as Milan as their only proof of their campaign. The defeat of the French during this conflict would only deepen the rivalry between France and Spain which would in turn only lead to more devastation for the Italian people as they would suffer from the decisions of foreign powers. Another important consequence was that because of the two powerful foreign countries involved themselves in Italy it was then up to the various Italian states such as Venice and the Papal States to figure out how best to keep themselves from being swallowed up like Naples had been.
The Italian Wars During the Renaissance 