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The French king supplemented his forces by recruiting several thousand Swiss mercenaries. The advance units of the French army defeated a Neapolitan army at the Battle of Rapallo. The Milanese army linked up with the French and soon Charles could march through Italy with little opposition. Anyone who defied him was massacred<ref> Ruggiero, Guido. The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento (Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 648 </ref>. Many City-States submitted to him including Florence. Charles VII could march into Southern Italy unopposed and occupied Naples. He only stayed in his new kingdom for several weeks and left a viceroy in charge of Naples. The Italian City-States saw that the French presence in southern Italy was a danger to them all<ref> Mallet, Michael; Shaw, Christine The Italian Wars: 1494–1559. (Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2012). p. 8</ref>. This led the usually fractious city-states to form an alliance known as the League of Venice or the Holy League. This League or alliance was unique in Italy and in Europe and its members were all united by their common fear of France and the ambitions of Charles VIII. Ironically, one of the instigators of the League was the Sforza Duke of Milan, who realized that Charles VIII had also a claim to his Duchy. The Pope helped to arrange for many Italian City-States, led by Venice to come together and to form a united Italian army, under the command of the Duke of Ferrara. The Neapolitan King deposed by Charles VII sought the support of the Spanish Royal Family and they offered to help him to recover his kingdom<ref> Mallet, p. 109</ref>. The French Viceroy found himself surrounded and a plague in Naples was decimating his army. Cut-off and surrounded it was decided that the French garrison must abandon the newly conquered kingdom and they were soon forced to retreat through Italy<ref> Anderson, M. S. The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919 (London: Longman, 1993). p. 3</ref>. The Pope abandoned Rome to the French army but they did not occupy the city. Charles VIII had returned to take charge of his army during their retreat through Italy. The League’s Army attacked the retreating French at Fornovo. They hoped to destroy the French army, but Charles VIII was able to inflict heavy casualties on the League and was able to resume his homeward march. Charles VIII died in April 1498, before he could regroup his forces and return to Italy to continue the war<ref>Anderson, p. 113</ref> .

[[File: Charles VIII Ecole Francaise 16th century Musee de Conde Chantilly.jpg|thumbnail|200px|Portrait of Charles VIII]]

Charles VII invasion was a failure and it achieved nothing. However, it is of great historic significance because it was to usher in an unprecedented period of warfare in Italy. The Italian Wars or the Hapsburg-Valois Wars, after the two Royal families who fought for control of Italy disturbed the peace of Italy for several decades. The invasion of 1494 was to start a series of wars that only ended in 1559. The period was not one of constant warfare but war and violence became ingrained in Italian life now. The main protagonists in the Wars were the French, led by the Valois Kings and the Hapsburg, first the Emperor Maximillian I and later Charles V. After the partition of the Hapsburg Empire, the Spanish Hapsburg’s sought to dominate Italy. The invasion of Charles VII was the first of the so-called Italian Wars. There were to be in total eight more major wars in the Peninsula in the period after Charles VIII retreat. In the 63 years from 1494 to 1559, there were only 19 years of peace in Italy and even in these years, there were smaller localized conflicts. These wars devastated the peninsula and they did great damage to the economy and society. The nature of warfare in this period was particularly brutal. The respective armies would often massacre entire populations. They would regularly engage in widespread looting and robbery. The local civilian populations suffered considerably. The scale of the suffering can be best seen in the Sack of Rome. The Imperial army mutinied in 1527 and attacked Rome, leaving the city devastated. The impact of the wars came at a time when Italy was already experiencing a period of economic decline because of the Discovery of the Americas, which disrupted the traditional trade networks upon which Cities like Venice and Florence depended. The impact of war on a declining economy meant that there was a severe economic downturn. This meant that funds for the patronage of artists and writers became scarce. There were fewer commissions as the City-States went into decline and they no longer had the means to pay lavish funds to sculptors and painters for public artworks. Even the Church did not have the funds to spend on art<ref> Anderson, p 119</ref>. This meant that many artists did not have the means to embark on ambitious projects. Many left Italy for work elsewhere and this is best seen in the example of Leonardo da Vinci leaving his homeland for the Court of the French King. The economic and social disasters produced by almost 60 decades of war did much to end the Renaissance as it destroyed the socio-economic framework that supported artists and writers and allowed them to produce great works.

==Cultural Impact of the Wars==

The Renaissance was a movement that sought to imitate the lost world of ancient Greece and Rome. The Renaissance unlike the Middle Ages, stressed the individual, reason, beauty, and secular values. This outlook became known as Humanism and changed European society. The Renaissance not only produced great works of art but also resulted in dramatic change in the outlook of Europeans. The Renaissance was in many ways to lay the groundwork for the rise of the modern world and especially ‘individualism and secularism. There was a widespread optimism especially among the Humanists and artists that men could develop and achieve excellence in the arts, politics, and science. The Renaissance was inherently optimistic about human nature and believed that people were not just inherently sinful and bad, as taught by the Catholic Church. This is evident in the preoccupations of the great artists and authors of the period. The many years of war and the economic and social dislocation it caused had a dramatic impact on the minds of the people in the Renaissance. They became less optimistic and the old beliefs on the ability of the human will and reason were challenged or abandoned <ref> Burkhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Penguin, London, 1993), p. 67, 145</ref>. The years of war led to a much more gloomy and darker world view and this contributed to the end of the Renaissance and arguably laid the foundations for the Counter-Reformation and the Baroque. The invasion of Charles VIII by initiating a series of wars led to a change in the mental outlook of Italians and an increasing ‘cultural pessimism’ that did much to undermine the values of the Humanists<ref> Burkhardt, p. 119</ref>.