Italian League
Italy in 1494, showing the borders that were broadly stabilised by the treaty 40 years earlier
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| Context | Treaty of Lodi, after the Wars in Lombardy |
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| Signed | August 30, 1454 |
| Location | Venice, Republic of Venice |
| Expiry | 1494 |
| Signatories | |
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The Italic League or Most Holy League was an international agreement concluded in Venice on 30 August 1454, between the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Florence, following the Treaty of Lodi a few months previously.
In the first half of the 15th century, the larger Italian powers had been consolidating their territories, with Savoy expanding towards the Ligurian coast, Venice focussing on Teraferma whilst the Stato da Màr were threatened by Turkish expansion, Milan expanding southwards (and, even after the dismembering of the empire after Gian Galeazzo Visconti's death, retaining the bulk of Lombardy), the Florentines having gained most of Tuscany and the Papal States having begun the unification of the Pontifical territories that would continue over the next two centuries, while Alfonso V, king of Aragon, acquired both Sicilies, reigning the Kingdom of Naples as Alfonso I, as well as expanding to the north.
Solemnly proclaimed on the 2 March 1455 with the accession of Pope Nicholas V (1447–55), king Alfonso and other small states to the League (excluding Malatestine Rimini, at Alfonso's insistence), by it was established a mutual defence agreement and a 25-year truce between the Italian powers, forbidding separate alliances and treaties while committing to maintenance of the established boundaries. After the period of confrontation, the Italian states acknowledged the condottiero Francesco Sforza as successor to the last of the Visconti in Milan, after having married the only daughter of Filippo Maria Visconti. The relative peace and stability resulting from Lodi and the League, promoted by Sforza, allowed him to consolidate his rule over Milan and it was Cosimo de' Medici's most important foreign policy decision to end the traditional rivalry between his Florence and Sforza's Milan.
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