Habsburg Italy

Southern Italy Series

-----Habsburg Italy-----

Between 1525 and 1713 the Habsburg Spanish monarchy dominated and integrated the Italian peninsula as no ruler had done since the Romans. In addition to the southern kingdoms of Sicily, Sardinia and Naples their dominion also extended northward to the duchy of Milan and the Stato dei Presidi, Piombino. Furthermore, the Spanish drew the northern duchies of Tuscany, Mantua, Parma and Modena into the Habsburg camp via royal marriages. Finally, the Republic of Genoa provided financial assistance to the Spanish by extending them credit in exchange for gold bullion to be delivered at a later date.

As Henry Kamen wrote in Empire: How Spain became a world power 1492-1763, the kingdom of Naples contributed to the Spanish monarchy by providing “military recruits, shipbuilding and taxes” p173.

Their military record is illustrious, their nobles “took part in all the military campaigns of the Habsburgs: they were present at the sack of Rome in 1527, at the defense of Vienna in 1529, and at the siege of Florence in 1530. In 1528 in Italy there were ‘many Neapolitan knights, gentleman and honorable citizens participating in various ventures alongside the Spanish soldiers and German mercenaries’. When the duke of Alba marched against the pope in 1556, the Neapolitan duke of Popoli commanded the cavalry. The great names among the Neapolitans were all present at Lepanto; they also served under Alba in Portugal in 1580. A Neapolitan, the prince of Carafa, defended the city of Amiens against Henry IV of France in 1597. The ordinary soldiers of Naples became in the seventeenth century the principal cannon fodder of Spain’s forces. From 1631 to 1636 alone, the kingdom provided the army of Milan with 48,000 soldiers and 5,500 horses.” p166

But for all that, the economy of southern Italy was still “dependent upon foreign imports for most of its raw materials and industrial goods, and faced serious problems when bad harvests (as in 1585 and the 1590s) caused a lack of ready cash. Despite this, the Spanish crown asked the kingdom to contribute more and more to war expenses. From around 1560 the burden rose significantly. The minimum war costs of the Crown in Naples, paid for by local taxes, doubled between 1560 and 1604. In the latter year the two biggest military expenses of the crown in Naples were the tercio (twenty-seven companies) of Spanish infantry, and the twenty-six galleys of the kingdom. Next in importance came the upkeep of the twenty companies of Italian infantry and cavalry. The burden of the galleys may be gauged by the estimate, made around 1560, that it cost as much to maintain a galley for one year as it did to build one. In the same period, around four hundred men were employed in the shipbuilding arsenal of the city. The kingdom, clearly, was contributing handsomely to maintaining the power of Spain.” p176

Nevertheless, the greatest role of any Italian in the service of Spanish power is reserved for the Genovese, “without whose crucial help at every stage the great Spanish empire might never have come into existence. They were the vital link with the kingdom of Naples, where they dominated the shipping industry, the export trade, the supply of food and the machinery of finance.” p297

But though the Spanish empire was grand and vast, it could not prevent the death of its heirless king Charles II in 1701. The succession dispute between the Hapsburgs Austrians and the Bourbon French eventually led to the War of the Spanish Succession. The French were successful in Spain, but they failed in Belgium and Italy to stop the British army commanded by the Duke of Marlborough and the Austrian army commanded by Prince Eugene of Savoy.

In the ensuing peace treaty, “the French agreed to transfer to the emperor all Spanish territory in Italy, including Naples, Sardinia, Milan and the fortresses of Tuscany; the Spanish Netherlands were ceded to him at the same time. With Minorca and Gibraltar in English hands, and Italy under Austrian control, Spain found itself deprived at one blow of its control of the western Mediterranean. Utrecht and Rastatt opened a new era in Spanish history, leaving the peninsular monarchy utterly alone in Europe and subordinated to the dictates of the two emergent world powers, France and Britain” p448

Southern Italy Series

500 BC [link] Origins
264 BC [link] The Punic Wars
115 AD [link] The Roman Empire
405 [link] East and West
526 [link] Collapse of the West
565 [link] Reconquest
572 [link] Lombard Invasion
751 [link] Lombard Italy
814 [link] Charlemagne’s Empire
1000 [link] Italy and the Holy Roman Empire
1095 [link] The Norman Conquest
1154 [link] The Kingdom of Sicily
1250 [link] Hohenstaufen Italy
1280 [link] Anjou Sicily
1300 [link] War of the Vespers
1400 [link] Black Death
1492 [link] Renaissance Italy
1559 [link] Italian Wars
1715 Habsburg Italy
1780 [link] Bourbon Italy
1799 [link] Revolutionary Italy
1812 [link] Napoleonic Italy
1860 [link] United Italy

2/19/12 EDIT:
map base source [link]
map base created by Citypeek [link]