MAARquises of Mantua: Faith in Power

Guglielmo, Vincenzo and the "Fifteen Years’ War" (1580-1595)

In 1580, two years after the death of the legitimate King Sebastian, Felipe II of Spain claimed the crown of Portugal, being grandson of former King Emmanuel (One King, One Crown event: Portugal becomes Spanish vassal). Twelve years later Iberian unification would become reality with Portuguese annexation to Spanish crown. In the same period of these events, Elizabeth I decided to convert again English state religion to Protestantism, following the inheritance of her father Henry VIII, and obviously broke up every contact with Catholic states. On June 1st, 1580 Guglielmo decided to declare war on Elizabeth and the other members of the alliance which Mantua belonged to – Papal State, Venice and Poland, all fervent Catholics, supported him in the conflict known as “15 Years’ War”.

The first skirmishes begun when a Mantuan army, strong of 8.000 men, invaded Romagna in the first Summer day of year 1580. Guglielmo would conscript 22.000 soldiers more and ask twice for war taxes to defeat English troops. Bologna was taken in October and a long series of naval battles in the Gulf of Venice started, bringing soon to a sort of stalemate due to Mantuan superiority at land and English superiority at sea. In the following years, Guglielmo would make important efforts to build a significant naval power, as witnessed by the inauguration of the first warship in February 1580, paid 68 ducats. As if the situation were not already complex, Venice took advantage of the critical situation of the Hapsburgs (bad reputation, repeated wars, internal instability) to declare war on Austria (January 1585), joined by Guglielmo, the Pope and Zygmunt III of Poland.

That year 1585, Gonzaga’s court was enjoyed by a strange event: a group of Japanese ambassadors arrived in Mantua, provoking great curiosity among the common people. An historian so described the mission in his chronicles:

“On their entry into the city of Mantua the Japanese were greeted with shots of artillery fire and the joyful crying of the crowds. The people awed at seeing men so rare who had never before appeared in our land. It was the day of Saturday, 13th July when they reached Mantua and were escorted to the Royal Court, where they were greeted by the Duke and welcomed with the very finest treatment. On the morning of the following Sunday they were taken to The Basilica of Saint Andrew for the Adoration of the Holy Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and after lunch at the Sanctuary of our Lord of the Grazie; and in the evening, for their pleasure, there was a magnificent display of fireworks, in the form of two castles above two huge ships over the Lower Lake, over by Palata”.

On August 15, 1587 Guglielmo died and left the throne to his primogenit Vincenzo I, who was completely different from his father: ingenious (first move: +1 innovation) and libertine, he suddenly found himself thrown in the middle of the battle field.


Mantua at Guglielmo’s death (1587), 167 VPs over Vincenzo’s shoulders.

Vincenzo I would never show any excessive zeal for the war against Austria and a separate peace with the Hapsburg would be settled in April, 1588. Instead, under his reign would begin the most important period for Ducal naval development. In order to contrast Elizabeth’s Mediterranean Navy, he ordered to build a navy strong of 2 warships and 8 galleys and tranports. But peace needed to be restored because of increasing war exhaustion in the conquered lands of Lombardia and Marche. More than 12.000 young would serve under conscription to preserve Ducal authority in those agitated provinces. The most difficult year for Duke Vincenzo I and Mantuan armies was 1593, when two provinces revolted and fell in the hands of protesters. Meanwhile English troops based in Florence surged again in the attempt of recapturing Bologna, but were blocked by Mantuan fierce resistance. At that time, over 400 ducats had been wasted for the “15 Years War”, but a victorious end was in touch of Vincenzo I. In April 1495, after other two years of stalemate, Pope Clemens VIII settled a separate peace with Elizabeth for 12 ducats. But the loss of the only allied directly neighbouring English possessions in Italy was soon recovered: the army, now led by the Marquis of Cremona, Vincenzo’s cousin, defeated English at Prato, near Florence, and 13.000 men entered the last English stronghold on May 24, 1595. Two months later Elizabeth I was forced to surrender and the Peace signed in Bologna (July 26, 1595) ended the 15 Years War with the cession of Romagna to Mantua, as its fourth province.

During those years Saint Aloysius Gonzaga (1568-1591) lived. When he was 12 years old he came under the spiritual guidance of St. Carlo Borromeo. Then he entered the Company of Jesuits and began his theological studies. In 1591 pestilence broke out and he dedicated himself to the care of the sick, and died. He was canonised in 1726.

End of the "Glorious Century" (1595-1604)

Vincenzo was born in 1562 and became the fourth Duke in Mantua in 1587, at age of 25 years. He spent a great part of his time with festivals, luxuries and lust (blessed him! Note of the author). In 1581 he had married Marguerite Farnese, sister of the Duke of Parma, but repudiated her because sterile. In 1584 he married Eleanor Medici, offspring of the great decadent Florentine dynasty. After the conquest of Romagna and the ending of the “Fifteen Years’ War” with England, he found himself at war again with the Pope and the Polish King when Venetian Doge Grimani declared war on Austria in August, 1595. Duke Vincenzo deployed his army in Tirol, but it was Doge Grimani to lead the joint armies. In December, just in time to avoid the harsh winter in the Alpine region, Venetians and Mantuans conquered Tirol. At that point, Vienna was into view, but Vincenzo I ordered his army to retreat, conscious of the difficulties they would find over the Alps. What would compensate those expected losses? The conflict between Venice and the Haspburgs stalled and two years later Austria paid an indemnity of 50 ducats to make peace.

Duke Vincenzo, munificent prince, encouraged many outstanding musicians, as Claudio Monteverdi and Giovanbattista Buonamente. The latter was leader of the Mantuan School of Violin-playing) and played an important role in the development and spread of violin music. He hosted one of the greatest XVI century Italian writers, Torquato Tasso, who died in 1595. Inside the Duchy, he continued the modernisation effort directed by his predecessors, headed to the building of a delegated branch of authority, the “Government Council”, structured on the example of the main European nations. He appointed efficient tax collectors and chief judges in Romagna in the first three years after the conquest and (random event) built a manufacturing centre in Marche in 1600.

Domestic Policy Sliders (1600)

At the century turning point, the towns under his magnificent authority accounted for:

• Mantua 87.000 inhabitants
• Milan 202.000 inh.
• Ancona 17.000 inh.
• Bologna 57.000 inh.

European Map (1600): Mantua, Lombardia, Romagna and Marche are Vincenzo I's lands

The Holy Alliance was signed on January 4th, 1602 in Madrid among Pope Clemens VIII, Felipe III, recently become King of Spain, Emperor of the New World (Spaniards conquistadors had conquered the whole Aztec Empire just three years before) and Holy Roman Emperor, King Zygmunt III of Poland, Vincenzo I, Duke of Mantua and the Venetian Doge Grimani. The Holy Alliance was the result of the religious zeal of Felipe III but ensured again a strong support to Vincenzo I when he took advantage of a casus belli against the Principate of Brandeburg, consequence of the peaceful annexation of the Electorate of Hannover, to declare war against the Protestant League among Brandeburg, Mecklemburg and Wurttemberg. Religion was a secondary issue, because Vincenzo’s aim was to revenge the humiliations provoked to Mantua just about 100 hundred years before by invading Wurttemberg troops, when Ulrich I was member of the former Great German Union. Unfortunatelly for the German, Frederick I of Wurttemberg was not cast in the same mould of his predecessor, and the Holy Alliance’ s troops, led by Mantua, occupied both Stuttgart and Zurich within four months. Vincenzo I showed now mercy for the Germans: the peace treaty signed on July 22, 1604 imposed them to cede Schwyz to Mantua, pay an 13 ducats indemnity and became Mantuan vassal!

Age of explorations: Dukes Vincenzo, Francesco IV and Ferdinando (1605-1627)

VINCENZO
In his late years, once secured the growing borders of his Duchy and strengthened its diplomatic and economic environment by accessing Felipe III’s Holy Alliance and improving the its infrastructures, Vincenzo I addressed his attention to arts again. The “Splendid Duke”, as he was called, patronised both the German painter Rubens and the Italian scientist Galileo. Vincenzo offered Galileo a golden medal and some other golden stuff in exchange for his “lessons”. The legend tells that the great scientist took the medal and sold the stuff for some money, 700 liras…

The Duke studied geography and learned about the wealth of Asia during the diplomatic contacts with ambassadors coming from those stranger lands. In February 1605, the Gonzaga managed to gain maps from Orissa ambassadors, well-funded by Vincenzo’s personal gifts. The best cartographers met in Mantua and new, precise maps were created, other acquisitions from the Polish King’s geographic collection were obtained (actually, Zygmunt III sent them to Mantua to protect his collection from the fury of invading Russian troops: in 1610 Czar Vladislav I would conquer five further Eastern province to the decadent Polish crown) to improve the knowledge of the huge region comprised between the Persian Gulf and the Pacific Ocean. Vincenzo’s efforts immediately began to bear fruits: the first trading post was established in Goa (India) in June 1605 and updated to permanent colony before his death, occurred on February 17 1612.

FRANCESCO IV AND FERDINANDO
Vincenzo was succeeded by his son Francesco IV, fifth Duke of Mantua, who reigned only ten months over a Duchy composed by five European provinces and an Indian colony, managing only to carry on the modernisation effort of his predecessors (+1 innovation slider).


Young Francesco IV portraited by Rubens

Ferdinando Gonzaga managed to keep his Duchy safe from the turbulence of European contest and ensuring a steady growth of mercantile activity in the main European centres of trade, Venice, Genoa, Andalusia and London. Two main events during the fourteen years of Ferdinando’s reign were the incorporation of Prussia and the French-Dutch wars against James I. In 1615 Johann Sigismund, Elector Prince of Brandeburg, incorporated Prussia into his dominions, building the embryo of another great continental power. The wars among James I of England and Louis XIII of France (supported by a myriad of satellites, as Netherlands, Munster, Baden, Hessen and the Native American Huron) exploded when the English settlers in North America attacked the Huron, traditionally friends of the French pioneers. The wars during the second decade of the century would cost to James I many of his overseas colonies and trading posts surrendered to (or burnt by) the French and the Dutch.

Ferdinando funded the voyages of Samuel Ticino (random explorer, 1614-1626), the greatest Mantuan sailor, who ascended to the honours of legend because of his discoveries and his fierce naval battles against pirates and privateers who infested North Atlantic from the Newfoundland Coast to Rio de Janeiro. He travelled to South, where he discovered the virgin island of Saint Helena (later colonised by Mantuan settlers). The first part of his career took place between French Surinam and Brazil, discovering sea zones and fighting privateers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. In 1620 and following years Ticino headed North his fleet, reaching Matagorda and then North American coasts. A reconnaissance mission landed in Manhattan in June 1621 to exchange first contacts with local Lenape tribes. Ticino passed then to the cold waters of Arctic Ocean, taking place in the Dutch colony in Stadacone and fighting again with the terrible privateers infesting also those coasts. In 1624, two years before his death (incredibly, he died in a bed, not at sea!) he reached even the Hudson Bay, completing the discovery of the whole Atlantic, north of Saint Helena. His entire fleet (he never lost a ship!) went east across the Atlantic and arrived in the harbour of Ancona on Febuary 14, 1627, Saint Valentine’s Day.

The crew members found that Ticino’s patron, Duke Ferdinando, had died in October 1626, succeeded by his brother Vincenzo II, who also renounced to the cardinalate to become Duke, as Ferdinando himself did in 1612. He would soon die, and with his death the direct line of the Gonzaga dynasty became extinct; its rights were inherited by Carlo I of Nevers, member of a collateral branch, but this is another history…

THE END

Carlo I of Nevers was a Gonzaga only for his surname. He never visited Mantua before his appointment as Duke, and was really a "Frenchman". Then the decadence of Mantuan Duchy started and I think this is a good point to finish my AAR, with the end of the direct line of the dynasty (also because I have started doing some strange things as colonizing Goa and Saint Helena, which are not so historically accurate). I’m going to write an epilogue - about “real” Mantuan history after the end of the direct line of the Gonzaga - when I come back from holidays, so keep following my AAR!

Epilogue

“The year of Our Lord 1627, first ruling year of Duke Carlo I of Gonzaga-Nevers, we underwritten Hastuneon are writing the epilogue of the nAARration of events that God in His magnificent providence reserved to our homeland for more than one century"

Some info & stats
I would like to recall that the AAR is based on a 1.05 EU2 game, played ata very hard/furious, without reloads and cheats, with those restrictions envisaged in the first post of this thread.

The game ended with Mantua controlling 5 European provinces (Mantua, Milan, Romagna, Marche, Schwyz), 1 colonial city (Goa), 1 colony (St. Helena) and two TPs (Palakimedi and Gaspesie).

The reputation of the Duchy was honourable and it belonged to the Holy Alliance with Spain, Papal State, Venice and Poland.

Inflation rate was 17% and technology levels were 20 (land)/16 (sea)/4 (trade)/4 (infra).

Mantua real history (1627-1708)
The decline of the Duchy of Mantua began with Vincenzo II who, being deeply in debt, was reduced to sell a good part of Gonzaga's art collection. Being childless, at his death the Duchy passed to Carlo Gonzaga-Nevers, a French prince belonging to a cadet branch of the Mantuan family. The presence of a French prince as the lord of an Italian Duchy, small but very important induced the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor to send an army of 36.000 mercenaries who besieged Mantua and spread the plague in 1630.

When they sacked and left Mantua, the Duchy had lost all its wealth and the splendour of once was only a faint memory. The prestige of Mantua would never return again, notwithstanding the attempts of Carlo I (1627-1665) and Ferdinando Carlo (1665-1707). At his death, he was succeeded by his son Ferdinando. He allied with the French at the time of the Spanish War of Succession, who resulted in a disaster for France. Fearing the punishment of the Hapsburgs, the Duke left Mantua and escaped to Venice. At his death (1708) he was declared dethroned and his family lost all rights on the Duchy of Mantua, that was annexed to Austria.

So the history of the Gonzaga's Mantua ended, 379 years since it started...