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Chapter 13: Reform, Trade, and Innovation, 1552-1559​

By the eighth year of his reign, King Alberto Carlo II of Modena had settled into his role as a reformist monarch. He had largely rebuilt Modena following the devastation of the wars of 1532-1545 and since the Treaty of Venice, which had ended the War of the League of Strasbourg, peace had prevailed for his kingdom. However, the truces with Austria and its allies had expired and the new Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I of Austria, was beginning to act aggressively toward Modena. He began to assemble a new coalition with renewed hopes of rolling back Modenese gains in Italy. This new coalition, while not as large or unified as the League of Strasbourg still represented a significant threat to the Italian kingdom. Along with Austria, the old League members Baden, the Palatinate, and Modena’s old rival in Italy, Milan were in it. Additionally, Hungary joined Maximilian I’s coalition as well. The former Modenese ally had a number of grievances against Modena and still hoped to take Ragusa.

To counter this growing threat, Alberto Carlo turned to diplomacy once again. His main focus, just like all of his predecessors, was the relationship with France. Following the War of the League of Strasbourg, the Franco-Modenese partnership experiences some rough times. King Charles VIII had felt betrayed by Alberto Carlo’s dealing with the former Emperor, Ladislav I and had grown to greatly dislike the Modenese king. However, Charles VIII died in 1548 and Alberto Carlo found a kindred spirit in his son, King Francois I. Both sought peace for their kingdoms and wanted to avoid war at all costs. Accordingly, both also agreed that the Franco-Modenese alliance was essential to maintaining this peace as any foreign power would have to think twice before going to war with both of these major powers. On New Year’s Day 1553 the two monarchs signed a renewed treaty of friendship and understanding which healed the rifts caused by the previous war and recommitted both kingdoms to mutual defense and assistance. With the French alliance restored to its previous level of strength, Alberto Carlo could refocus on internal matters.

The King of Modena’s policy of non-interference with the Protestants had worked well for the first eight years of his reign and there had been no notable religious disturbances since his coronation in 1544. However, this would be put to the test when Father Azeglio Dorso, a parish priest in the province of Ancona, published a Bible translated into Italian. The Church, and especially the Inquisition, raised a huge chorus of condemnation. The Warden of the Faith, Father Annibale Tomba, led the charge to crack down on this heresy. The Inquisition had been largely marginalized by King Alberto Carlo but the hard-line institution now saw an issue they could use to rally the more conservative elements within the Church and regain some of their influence.

Father Tomba declared that the Bible translation was a sign that the king’s hands off policy was failing. The policy was supposed to prevent the Protestants from raising disturbances and the Inquisition considered this to be a huge one. Tomba said this showed that softening the kingdom’s efforts to counter the Reformation was only emboldening the Protestants. He believed that it was the brutal crackdown in the Romagna in 1541 that had tamed the Protestants, not the king’s tolerant policies. The Warden of the Faith began touring the Catholic strongholds of the Modenese countryside rallying the conservative peasantry around his program of a renewed anti-Protestant crackdown. While King Alberto Carlo was greatly angered by this subversion of his rule by the maverick priest, he saw no choice but to yield on this matter. He acquiesced to Tomba’s demands and allowed the Inquisition free reign to deal with the heresy as they saw fit. Alberto Carlo rationalized this abandonment of his policy by saying that since the priest was a member of the Church the Inquisition had the right to deal with him as they saw fit. Privately however, he considered it a serious defeat and worried greatly that this would inflame religious tensions in the kingdom once again.

Father Dorso in question was burned at the stake on 28 December 1552. The Inquisition, once again playing its favored role as the hammer of the Catholic Church, did not stop there. They had all the other priests in the monastery scattered and reassigned to spread out locations around the kingdom and beyond. They wanted to ensure that no ideological core could form supporting and furthering this heresy. The Inquisition then burned Father Dorso’s church to the ground. The priest always insisted that his translation of the Bible was not mean at all to further the Reformation, but rather to strengthen the Catholic Church. He argued that a large part of what was causing so many conversions was that the people could not understand the Church’s messages and rituals because mass and the Bible were in Latin. As a result, they were turning to the simpler, more accessible Protestant sects. Dorso believed that the key to stemming the tide of the Reformation was to bring the Church closer to the masses. His theories drew directly from the ideological heritage of the Tolleranti, who had held many of the same views. Nevertheless, the Inquisition considered a Bible translated into Italian to be a huge threat and proceeded with the priest’s execution.

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Father Azeglio Dorso was burned at the stake for publishing a Bible translated into Italian

After that, it did not take long for King Alberto Carlo’s fears of renewed religious strife to be realized. Shortly thereafter, in June of 1553, massive pro-Protestant demonstrations broke out in Ferrara and Ancona. Even though Father Dorso had never meant for his translation to hurt the Catholic Church, his execution led to widespread support for the Protestants. While the protests in Ancona remained peaceful, the ones in Ferrara turned to riots and several Catholic priests were killed, two churches were burned down, and portions of the translated Bible, which had been salvaged and then copied, were distributed amongst the crowds.

King Alberto Carlo was furious. He called Father Tomba into a meeting and threatened him directly this time. While the Warden of the Faith was an independent post and the king had no authority to fire him, the priest’s protection was provided by the kingdom. King Alberto Carlo told Tomba that if he ever undermined the crown’s policies again, he would withdraw all protection from the priest and leave him at the mercy of whoever might choose to come after him. The king subtly hinted that he might have some idea where this threat might come from. After that, Tomba was cowed. He appealed to the Pope for support but, not wanting to risk another conflict with Modena, the Papacy refused to intervene on his behalf. Regardless, the damage was done. Ferrara was now firmly in the Protestant grip, Ancona was further alienated, and Alberto Carlo had to deal with religious issues once again.

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Following the burning of Father Dorso, pro-Protestant riots broke out throughout the province of Ferrara

One positive development for Modena on the religious front during this time was the rise of Cardinal von Ihering to the curia. As a young priest he had been an ardent follower of the anti-Protestant hardliner, Archbishop Bottura of Modena. Originally from Bavaria, von Ihering had gotten a transfer to the kingdom in order to study and work under Bottura, had helped the archbishop craft his Counter-Reformation policy, and had been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the creation of the office of Warden of the Faith. However, over time, von Ihering’s views had softened. This was especially true following the atrocities of 1541 in Romagna. By the time he became Archbishop of Pisa and Alberto Carlo took the throne, von Ihering was a supporter of the non-interference policy and helped marshal support amongst the Modenese clergy for that position. Originally good friends, he and Father Tomba had become heated enemies. It delighted King Alberto Carlo to see von Ihering going to Rome while Tomba was still stuck in his same office. The events at Ferrara had soured even the Pope’s opinion of Tomba and led to drastic budget cuts for the Modenese Inquisition. While the Inquisition was far from breathing its last, for the moment it was cowed.

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Cardinal von Ihering was the first religious figure loyal to Modena to reach the highest levels of the Church, he was a supporter of King Alberto Carlo’s non-interference policy

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Cardinal Matthias von Ihering

On the military front, matters were also tricky for Modena. Alberto Carlo had largely left the Modenese army to its own devices and it was really beginning to stagnate. The king’s push to enroll the best and brightest young people in the universities had left the military with a shortage of good officers. Additionally, major funding cuts were causing lowered morale and degraded capabilities. The troops had to make do with faulty and obsolete equipment and had only limited opportunities to drill and train. There was a great deal of debate within the military about how to proceed. Some of the younger officers, rising in the ranks in the years following the end of the War of the League of Strasbourg, favored taking the army in a more defensive direction. Many of them subscribed to King Alberto Carlo’s anti-war policies and felt that the offensively-minded army of the past had been culpable for precipitating conflict. Most of the remaining officers who had fought in the wars, felt instead that the army should maintain in its offensive posture, even in lean times. There was, without doubt, a generational conflict going on. The king, as expected, came down on the side of the younger, defensively-minded officers. He decided to follow their proposals to invest more in fixed fortifications and to back the inclusion of more defensive doctrine being taught in the military academies. There was a boost in army morale as a result of the new investments, but this did nothing to address the discipline problem plaguing the force or the internal conflicts it was facing.

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The military took a more defensively minded posture during these years

However, the old guard would have their moment in the sun as well. In 1556, four veteran officers of the last wars published The Lessons of the Wars of 1532-1545 to international acclaim. The book gave a history of the wars, laid out the main successes and failures of the Modenese war strategy, and came up with doctrinal remedies that, if put into place, the authors felt could improve the Modenese army’s performance even further. The most brilliant and insightful of the four was Foresto d’Appiani d’Aragona. D’Aragona, the son of Spanish parents who had immigrated to Modena, had been one of General Cosimo Casadei’s best battery commanders. He emerged from the wars as one of the lucky junior officers to have survived and, avoiding disillusionment with army institutions, continued his military career. Writing the portion of Lessons on artillery, he revisited and expanded on General Lazzaro Giardini and General Casadei’s theories of fire support coordination and combined arms. D’Aragona proved once again that even in the face of budget cuts and institutional stagnation, the Modenesi remained at the cutting edge of field artillery tactics and strategy. The same applied for the other officers who wrote the other sections of the book. All four of them showed that they had learned from and adapted to the different circumstances and events of the wars they had fought in.

Many militaries around Europe made The Lessons of the Wars of 1532-1545 required reading in their academies and it revived interest in the wars within the Modenese army itself. However, the highest levels of the military leadership, appointed to their current ranks by the king, refused to allow the book to be made part of the Royal Military Academy of Modena’s curriculum. This lead to the odd situation where a book written by Modenese officers was being studied by cadets and officers almost everywhere in Europe but not in Modena itself. It would take a return to war for the book to be made part of Modenese military doctrine and for its lessons to finally be internalized by the army.

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The publication of The Lessons of the Wars of 1532-1545 represented a major advance in Modenese military thought, but it would take years for the army to turn it into doctrine

During the period of 1552-59 Alberto Carlo focused more on international affairs than in the earlier years of his reign. This was partly by choice and partly by necessity. On 28 July 1555, Hungarian agents were discovered fabricating claims on Treviso. This sparked alarm throughout the kingdom and led to threats of war by both sides. There was no doubt in the minds of King Alberto Carlo’s advisors that Hungary wanted war. However, the king urged restraint. He was not convinced that any of Hungary’s allies would join a war if Hungary was the attacker. There was no kingdom in Europe that would be willing to risk hostilities with France just to help the Hungarians take a province in Italy. The Austrians certainly would not do so, as they had designs on northern Italy themselves, and any other Hungarian allies would be too weak to swing the balance of the war in the Hungarians’ favor.

Still, Modena sought to make new alliances. After the break with Hungary, the Modenese strategy of encircling Austria with allies was left with a gap to the east. Since the early days, Modena had sought to deter Austrian aggression be guaranteeing that any attack by the Habsburgs would force them to fight a war on four fronts. At the moment, Modena retained the alliance with France to cover the west, Bohemia to cover the north, and Modena covered the south itself. Alberto Carlo decided to try and peel away some old members of the League of Strasbourg from Austria’s orbit. The two main targets were Poland and Brandenburg. Both of these kingdoms had contributed heavily to the previous war effort but were left with no gains at all and were frustrated by Austrian arrogance. They felt that their troops had been sacrificed while Austrian troops were kept safe. Whether or not this is actually true remains debatable, but the perception was there.

Modena dispatched its two best diplomats to Warsaw and Berlin to negotiate new alliances with King Wladyslaw IV of Poland and King Johann Georg I of Brandenburg. The overture to Poland had the added bonus of being able to use Modena’s newfound enmity with Hungary to its advantage. The Hungarians and Poles were longtime rivals and Poland resented the way that the Austrians were cozying up to their enemies following the former’s break with Modena. Ferdinando Pico, the Modenese emissary to Poland, stressed the two kingdom’s mutual hatred of Hungary and pledged support to Poland should it come to war. As a result of Pico’s efforts, King Wladyslaw signed an alliance with Modena on 29 December 1555.

The wooing of Brandenburg took longer. The German kingdom had strong cultural and linguistic ties to Austria and they shared no common enemies with Modena either. Ippolito Allegri, the Modenese diplomat in Berlin, tried a variety of approaches but in the end, it would take a royal wedding to seal the partnership between the two kingdoms. Alberto Carlo’s younger sister, Eugenia, now 26 years old, married the much younger Prince Albrecht of Brandenburg, only 14, on 27 February 1559. With the houses of Jagiellon and Este now joined in marital union, King Johann Georg signed an alliance with Modena. The renewed encirclement of Austria was complete.

Throughout his reign, the merchants were Alberto Carlo’s strongest and most steadfast supporters. Therefore, the king wanted to make sure that they had all of the support they needed. In addition to curbing freedom of trade and increasing tariffs on foreign traders, the king also wanted to make sure their trade routes were properly protected. To do this, Alberto Carlo invested heavily in the Modenese trade fleet. When he came to power, the Modenese navy totaled 20 ships. By 1559, the size of the fleet had more than doubled to 44 vessels. The increase represented the largest and most rapid growth in the navy’s history. Not only did the kingdom invest in more ships, but also in naval technology, leading to the construction of better ships as well. As a result, Modena now had significant trading power in the major nodes of Ragusa, Genoa, and, most importantly, Venice. The merchants were happy, and they paid their king back by significantly increasing the amount of money the kingdom was making from trade.

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By 1559, Modena’s merchants and its trade fleet were amongst the strongest in the Mediterranean

Despite his best efforts however, Alberto Carlo could not keep Modena out of conflict forever. In the spring of 1559, the kingdom would once again find itself engulfed in war. The fourteen years of peace under King Alberto Carlo II had worked wonders for Modena, but it was once again time to honor alliances, strap on the armor, and go into battle. As the new martial tests came, Modena would learn once again why it was so important to maintain a strong and competent army. The army officers and troops who had persevered through the lean years of neglect would have their chance to prove to the world that, no matter what, Modenese soldiers were up to any challenge.
 
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Chapter 14: Making a Statement, 1559-1561​

After fifteen years of peace, the winds of war were about to sweep over the Kingdom of Modena once again. King Alberto Carlo II had rebuilt his kingdom in the years since the end of the War of the League of Strasbourg but had done so largely focused on technological, mercantile, and cultural advances. He had largely neglected his military and cut its funding in order to free up ducats to spend on his other projects. Nonetheless, the coming conflict would show the peaceful king how important his armed forces were. On the eve of war, in May of 1559, Modena held a commanding position on the Italian peninsula. Their historic rival in Italy, Milan, was reduced to a shell of its former self. The Republic of Genoa was still a formidable trading power but represented no threat to Modena on land. The Kingdom of Savoy was still strong militarily but Modena enjoyed warm relations with them. To the south, the Papal State was weak and not a military risk in any way. The Kingdom of Naples was ruled by Modena’s strongest and most loyal ally, the King of France in a personal union. Modena had never before been in as safe a position as they were now. Nonetheless, their greatest enemy, Austria, still loomed over the Alps and remained a very dangerous menace.

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The political situation in Italy in May of 1559

Austria was, at the time, under a regency council. The death of Maximilian I in 1555 left his two year old son, Franz, as the titular Archduke of Austria and the Holy Roman Emperor. While some of the Empire’s electors had wanted to elect a new Emperor from a different royal house, squabbles amongst them prevented the electors from unifying behind an alternate candidate. Additionally, they were all worried that if one voted for a different house but the others stayed with the Habsburg’s, then the dissenter would be open to Austrian retaliation. The newest elector, named by Maximilian I, the Ambrosian Republic of Milan, helped rally support behind Franz and the Habsburgs to ensure that the dynasty retained the imperial throne. As a result, Franz was elected Emperor Franz I following the death of his father. With the new Emperor far too young to rule, a regency council was established headed by his mother, Maximilian I’s wife, Maria Anna of Luxembourg. Her official title became Dowager Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and Archduchess Regent of Austria. However, she was commonly referred to simply as Empress Maria Anna. She would turn out to be a very capable ruler that would guide Austria through a difficult and turbulent time in its history. She managed to maintain the loyalty of the Austrian court and especially the military throughout her regency and also managed to fend off all challenges to Habsburg primacy within the Empire. Austria’s rivalries with France and Modena however would trouble her throughout her time in power.

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The Dowager Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, Maria Anna von Habsburg. Though she was a capable ruler, she struggled to deal with Austria’s two main enemies, France and Modena

In the spring of 1559, the Kingdom of Modena was jerked back onto a war footing when two of its allies, France and Bohemia, sent calls to arms to King Alberto Carlo II. The king, whose greatest hope had been to have a reign of peace, knew that the honor of Modena depended on aiding its allies his their time of need. Grudgingly and with a heavy heart, he issued declarations to Paris and Prague pledging his support to their causes. As a result, the kingdom went from being at peace to being involved in two separate wars simultaneously.

The first call to arms came from the Kingdom of France, Modena’s oldest and strongest ally. The French had initially gone to war with Savoy, in hopes of expanding into the Alps and taking Nice. King Francois I of France had originally planned on prosecuting the war alone. However, when Empress Maria Anna of Austria entered the war in defense of Savoy, the French king was prompted to seek the help of his ally, King Alberto Carlo. Like the King of Modena, the King of France had sought to pursue peaceful policies throughout his reign. However, two major issues precipitated the war against Savoy. First was the latter’s increased military expenditure especially the modernization of Savoyard forts in the Alps. Francois was continually getting reports from his generals and engineers that if Savoy managed to complete the modernization of its Alpine forts it would change the balance of power between the two kingdoms to France’s detriment. The second issue arose from France’s expanding naval and mercantile presence. Francois I sought to have France compete with Spain as the world’s greatest trade power. He had embarked on an ambitious fleet modernization and expansion project. On the Mediterranean, the French wanted to take the strategically important port of Nice, in order to move its center of trade closer to Genoa. Austria, on the other hand, sought to prevent the expansion of French territory and the increase of French trade power. Accordingly, the Empress declared war on France in order to defend Savoy. For Modena the decision to go to war against Savoy was a difficult one. While they were not formally allies, Savoy and Modena had historically enjoyed close relations. Even when they had been at war, it had always been as a result of one or the other’s allies. Nevertheless, for Modena the historic relationship with France trumped all other foreign policy goals and priorities so Alberto Carlo decided to enter the war on the French side. This war would come to be known as the Second Habsburg-Valois War, as the two most powerful royal families in Europe battles it out once again for supremacy on the continent.

The second war Modena would become involved with was between Bohemia and the Kingdom of Saxony. King Jaromir II of Bohemia had dreams of expanding his territory in the Holy Roman Empire and, in the long run, have the von Wittlelsbach Dynasty challenge the Habsburgs for the Imperial Crown, especially now that the Emperor was a small child. When Austria entered the war against France, Jaromir saw an opportunity to snatch territory from Saxony while Austria was distracted and less able to come to Saxony’s defense. The main reason Alberto Carlo decided to enter the war on the side of a Protestant kingdom attacking a Catholic one was a result of lost alliances from the Valois-Savoy War. The two kingdoms that King Alberto Carlo had worked hardest to court, Brandenburg and Poland, had entered that war on Austria’s side, thereby annulling their alliances with Modena. As a result, Bohemia became Modena’s only ally on Austria’s borders. Alberto Carlo did not want to find himself in a situation with no allies to help him fight Austria and so entered what he considered to be a stupid and reckless war on Bohemia’s part in the hopes of maintaining that alliance at least.

Once King Alberto Carlo II had weighed his political situation and decided to plunge his kingdom into war, he needed to actually prepare it for conflict. He had neglected the military almost from the first day of his reign and had either dismissed or marginalized almost every competent and experienced field officer. He had staffed the highest ranks of the army with men known more for their loyalty and obedience to him than any sort of battlefield skill or experience. While they had served the king well during peace time and had helped keep the military isolated, quiet, and out of politics, Alberto Carlo knew that if he wanted to win these wars he would need to bring back old political enemies and promote new officers to the highest ranks.

Alberto Carlo’s first piece of outreach was to his old rival, Alberto Carlo Malmussi. The hero of the War of the League of Strasbourg had been living a peaceful, quiet life in the Kingdom of Bohemia. When he was unofficially exiled from Modena by being made ambassador to Prague in 1546, King Jaromir II of Bohemia took an instant liking to the decorated and celebrated former general. Once Malmussi’s term as Modena’s ambassador to Bohemia ended in 1450, and it was clear that he was still not welcome to return to his homeland, King Jaromir offered him a position with the Bohemian military. For almost a decade, Malmussi had earned his living training and advising the Bohemian army while also living a comfortable life with his family on his country estate in Moravia. However, when King Alberto Carlo agreed to enter the war against Saxony in support of Bohemia, part of the deal was that Modena be allowed to make an offer to Malmussi to return to fight for the Modenese army. Jaromir agreed and Alberto Carlo dispatched his brother in law, Cesare Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, to Prague in an attempt to convince Malmussi to return to Modena. Along with the offer of a renewed commission, Alberto Carlo also offered Malmussi complete control of all strategy in the war, final say on personnel decisions, and, finally, titles, estates, and honors within Modena. Malmussi weighed the offer carefully, telling Gonzaga that he was unsure if he was still sharp enough to command armies as he had in the past and expressing reservations about returning to serve a king who had had him exiled. In the end, Malmussi could not turn down the opportunity to have full command of the war effort. It did not hurt that if he was successful, he would also be in a position to hold land and titles in two separate kingdoms: Bohemia and Modena.

When General Malmussi arrived in Modena on 12 July 1559, he was greeted by King Alberto Carlo, Queen Margherita, and the Queen Dowager, Béatrice, and given a full royal welcome back to the court. At the celebration feast that night, the old soldier sat at the king’s right hand. The king also promoted Malmussi from Knight Commander to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Eagle of Este, making him the highest ranking member of the order. Once all of the pomp and ceremony was finished, the king sat down one on one with the general and told him that he was in charge of all matters involved with the war effort.

From there, Malmussi’s first move was to assemble a new staff. He reviewed the lists of officers and selected those whom he knew personally or through reputation to be the most capable field commanders. He elevated all four of the officers who had written The Lessons of the Wars of 1532-1545. Malmussi thought the book was an excellent piece of military writing and while he was in his advisory and training role with the Bohemian army, Malmussi had made that book mandatory reading for all of his junior officers. Now he sought to bring its authors in to help him win a new war.

The opening strategy of the war was to launch an attack into Savoy as a feint in order to draw the Austrian armies away from the Alps, where they were occupying advantageous defensive positions. In this war, the Austrians wanted to attempt the opposite strategy of what they had tried during the War of the League of Strasbourg. They would fight a defensive war against Modena while, in conjunction with its allies, it would focus the strongest of its forces against France. Therefore, no Austrian armies had advanced into Italy, but instead had dug in and fortified their positions in the Alps to prevent any Modenese attempts to put pressure on Austria by advancing into their home provinces. However, the Modenesi had guaranteed the French that they would open a second front in the south. Malmussi saw an opportunity when Savoy sent its main army into battle with the French. That army was in turn destroyed at the Battle of Vaud on 17 July, leaving the Kingdom of Savoy open and almost totally undefended.

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The Modenese war plan against Austria and Savoy

Malmussi decided to split the Modenese army. He would take the smaller branch, about 6,000 men, west to attack Nice and cut Savoy off from the sea. He hoped that Austria would then move its armies to engage the Modenese in Savoy and leave themselves open to a counterattack from the south. Malmussi marched against Nice and began besieging it on 2 July 1559. The Austrians, seeing their Savoyard allies already in serious trouble, decided come to their rescue. Empress Maria Anna and her advisors thought it was imperative to maintain a battle front on the French southern flank in order to prevent them from focusing solely on military operations in the north, where Austria and its allies were in the process of launching multiple offensives. Without forces in the south, the Empress was not confident she could defeat the French in the north. Additionally, the conquest of Savoy was the main French war goal and achieving it so quickly, would make it more difficult for Austria to effectively prosecute the rest of the war.

An Austrian counterattack was exactly what General Malmussi had hoped would happen. Before he marched his army toward Nice, he left the bulk of the force under the command of the newly promoted General Foresto d’ Appiani d’Aragona. Selecting d’ Aragona to lead the Army of the Alps would turn out to be a brilliant move by Malmussi. However, the appointment was met with opposition initially, both within the top ranks of the military and at the court in Modena. After all, d’Aragona had only just become a general and while he was a veteran of the 1532-45 wars he had never commanded an entire army. Privately, King Alberto Carlo II was also skeptical but, true to his word of giving Malmussi full control over the war, the king publicly backed d’Aragona’s appointment. Malmussi, Alberto Carlo, and Modena would all be rewarded many times over for their move to stick with the freshly minted general. D’Aragona was about to embark on one of the most brilliant campaigns in the history of Modena and, by the end of his career, take his place near the top of the kingdom’s greatest all time military leaders.

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General Foresto d’Appiani d’Aragona would become one of the greatest military commanders in Modena’s history

Even before Modena engaged Austria in any land battle, King Alberto Carlo received excellent news from his navy. On 15 July a combined fleet from Modena and Naples met their Austrian and Hungarian counterparts for battle in the Adriatic. In a massive and bloody encounter, the Modenese-Neapolitan fleet managed to sink every one of their enemies’ vessels. While they did suffer the loss of 16 ships, they in turn sank a total of 28 Austrian and Hungarian ships, effectively crippling their naval force for the remainder of the war. Following the battle, Modena and Naples were able to control the Adriatic and effectively blockade both enemy kingdoms.

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Following the Battle of the Adriatic, Austrian and Hungarian naval capabilities were crippled for the rest of the war

Back on land, General Malmussi’s strategy was working out largely according to plan. Empress Maria Anna had sent an army under the command of General Günther Zakrzewsky to lift the siege of Nice. Malmussi did make an error in failing to predict that Zakrzewsky might split his army and cut off retreat routes. As a result, the Modenesi suffered much higher casualties than they had hoped during the battle that occurred outside of Nice, with Malmussi losing nearly half his force. Nevertheless, the scheme had largely worked out. The Austrian army had left its defensive positions in the Alps open. General d’Aragona had taken advantage of this and marched his Army of the Alps north and into Austria.

After quickly defeating the tiny garrison force the Austrians had left behind at Trent, General d’Aragona moved to strike at Austria’s allies, Riga and Hungary. With the Austrian army engaged in Savoy now, the Empress called on her allies to provide a rearguard to defend the Austrian homeland. Riga and Hungary both sent armies to try to do this, but they would prove no match for the motivated and disciplined Modenesi. The first major engagement came in the province of Tirol. D’Aragona, who had fought in the rugged, mountainous province as a junior officer, completely outmaneuvered his Rigan counterpart, General Baldwin Laporte, wiping out his army in the process.

While the Modenesi were fighting in Tirol, a Neapolitan army had also advanced north. Seeing an opportunity to strike decisively at the Hungarians as well, d’Aragona immediately marched his troops south, rendezvoused with the Neapolitans, and then attacked the Hungarians stationed at Görz who were protecting the Austrian port there. With a decisive numerical advantage, the Modenese-Neapolitan army completely routed General Anasztáz Losonci’s force, on 17 October. D’Aragona then left the Neapolitans to besiege Görz while he took his army east to pursue the retreating Hungarians deeper into Austria. This siege would remain a thorn in Austria’s side and its later attempts to lift it would result in one of their worst defeats of the war. The retreating Hungarians were reinforced by a newly arrived army from Riga, but that would not matter. D’Aragona caught his enemies in the Vipava Valley in the province of Krain and annihilated them on 21 November. Following d’Aragona’s first three major battles, his troops had killed or captured over 22,000 of the enemy while suffering less than 5,000 casualties on their side.

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General d’Aragona crushed Austria’s allies in a series of battles between 11 August and 21 November 1559

Following the destruction of the Hungarians and Rigans at the Battle of the Vipava Valley, Empress Maria Anna finally realized that her allies were completely incapable of defending Austria’s territories for her. She ordered General Zakrzewsky to abandon the defense of Savoy and return east to help fight the Modenesi invading Austria. Zakrzewsky advised the Empress that this course of action was inadvisable as his army needed time to recover from casualties it had taken on the campaign. Maria Anna however, was uninterested in this reasoning and ordered Zakrzewsky to attack the enemy anyway. To make matter worse for the Austrians, since their army had to march back to Austria through Italy, the Modenesi knew that they were coming ahead of time. As a result, General d’Aragona moved his force back into the Alps to cut off the Austrians’ advance and fight them on favorable terrain. The result was, yet again, a smashing success for the new general. Zakrzewsky’s force, now also tired from the march in addition to being numerically depleted, completely collapsed in the ensuing battle. The entire 10,000 man Austrian army was either killed or captured while the Modnesi suffered a mere 150 killed in action. Once again, the province of Trent had proved to be nothing but good fortune for Modena and nothing but misery and death for the Austrians. The Empress was humiliated by the loss of her force and becoming quite alarmed by what was looking like a nearly invincible Modenese army under d’Aragona’s command. Little did she know, d’Aragona was just getting started.

To make things even worse for Austria, they suffered another crushing defeat at the hands of the French in the Swiss province of Waldstätte. This battle essentially finished off any Austrian attempts to attack the French homeland. At the same time, Austria’s ally Poland had made the first attempted to dislodge the Neapolitans from their siege of Görz. However, this attack failed, with the outnumbered Neapolitans managing to repel repeated Polish assaults.

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Austria and its allies were decisively defeated in three simultaneous battles in the provinces of Waldstätte, Trent, and Görz

By New Year’s Day of 1560, Austria and its allies were facing the prospect of a total defeat. They had yet to win a battle of any consequence, their enemies were pouring into Austria, and their fleets had been utterly annihilated on the high seas. Empress Maria Anna was desperate to organize a counterattack to try and turn the tide of the war. She held an emergency war council with King Lászlo V of Hungary and King Jan II of Poland on 4 January in Vienna. The three agreed to marshal their remaining forces and drive against the weakest part of the enemy’s front, which they identified to be the Neapolitan army still besieging Görz. The Empress was proud of the way her small garrison in the port city was holding out and desperately wanted to relieve them. She believed that if the Austrians could lift the siege, it would result in a major morale boost in addition to the strategic benefits of liberating their only port city. She once again entrusted her best commander, General Zakrzewsky, with command of this new, unified army. The commander, for his part, was eager to have another shot at General d’Aragona and the Modenesi. The Austrian-Hungarian-Polish army began assembling outside of Vienna in mid-January. On 21 January they began to advance toward Görz.

One thing that the Austrians had done successfully was to keep the plans of the joint army secret. The Modenesi, Neapolitans, and French had no idea where it might be headed, which prevented them from moving to counter it sooner. By early February however, it was clear that they were set to attack the Neapolitans at Görz. The French and Modenese armies began to march there as well, ready to assist their allies in countering the attack. The Poles, Hungarians, and Austrians secured the major crossings over the Isonzo River located at the towns of Sagrado and Turriaco and surrounded the Neapolitans. The Polish and Hungarian armies were responsible for holding the west bank and the bridges while the Austrians sought to win a quick victory against the besiegers. However, the Neapolitans fought hard and survived long enough for General d’Aragona and the Modenesi to arrive and relieve them. D’Arragona’s force punched through the Polish lines on 9 February and captured the bridge at Sagrado. The following day, they advanced south on both banks of the Isonzo, routed the Hungarians at Turriaco, and took the second major bridge. From there, they marched back north to relieve the beleaguered Neapolitans and deliver desperately needed food and munitions supplies. A French army under the command of Francois de Lorraine, the Duke of Guise, crossed the Isonzo on 11 February and moved to crush the Austrians on the eastern bank. Seeing a very distinct possibility of his army being cut off and destroyed, General Zakrzewsky ordered his forces to retreat on the afternoon of 12 February, under intense attack from their enemies. The Polish army, cut off on the west bank of the Isonzo, was unable to retreat and the bulk of it ended up surrendering the following day, 13 February.

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The Battle of the Six Armies was the decisive clash of the war

In what would become known as the Battle of the Six Armies, General d’Aragona had once again bested Zakrzewsky and the Austrians. Inflicting three times as many casualties as they had taken, the Franco-Modenese allies were now in a position to push deep into Austria and also to invade Hungary. On the other side, Empress Maria Anna began to truly despair. No matter what she did, it seemed as if the Modenesi and the French were ready for it. To make matters worse, the retreat of the army from Görz had left the road to Vienna completely unguarded and open. All d’Aragona and the Duke of Guise had to do to be at the Empress’s doorstep was to march their armies north.

While General d’Aragona was making his name in Austria, General Malmussi had continued to carry on the war in the west. Following the defeat of his army at Nice as part of the diversionary maneuver earlier in the conflict, Malmussi had marched with what was left of his force back into Modena. There, he built a new army in order to go and assist the French and the other allies in the western front of the war. He also hoped to use the same army to attack some of Bohemia’s enemies in Germany. Thus far, Modena had largely been absent from the fighting in the Saxon-Bohemian War but that was about to change. Malmussi took his army through Savoy and Switzerland and into southern Germany. Wilhelm III, King of Hesse, was moving his army east toward Bohemia to support his ally, Saxony, on an offensive there. General Malmussi intercepted the Hessian army at Ansbach on 12 April 1560 and smashed them. The Saxon army, now without any support, was forced to call off the offensive against Bohemia. Saxony and its allies would not launch another major offensive for the rest of the war.

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General Alberto Carlo Malmussi and the Modenesi outfought King Wilhelm III and his Hessian army at the Battle of Ansbach. This was the only major battle Modena engaged in during the Saxon-Bohemian War

Following the victory at Ansbach, Malmussi and his force marched back west toward France. Once there, they joined up with a large French army poised to launch a massive invasion of Savoy. Francesco I, King of Savoy was trying to regroup his battered army in Germany and had been joined by a Polish army under the command of General Aleksy Ozarowski. The French invasion plan called for their army to completely blanket Savoy’s territory and completely cripple their ability to wage war. To do this, they planned to divide up their forces to cover as much territory as possible simultaneously. However, the Polish-Savoyard army remained a threat to these smaller, divided troops. To counter them, General Malmussi and the French General Nicolas de Bonnefoy came up with a plan to do both things at once. Bonnefoy would lead the French invasion force into Savoy and at the same time a joint French-Modenese army under Malmussi’s command would move to attack General Ozarowski’s force in Germany.

Malmussi’s army met the Poles and Savoyards in battle on 7 September 1560. Despite having a slight numerical advantage, Ozarwoski’s army was completely outclassed. The French and Modenese troops outfought their opponents in every facet of the battle. The key was that France and Modena had a long history of military cooperation, had a great deal of military doctrine in common, and many officers from both kingdoms spoke both French and Italian. The Poles and Savoyards, on the other hand, had no history of military cooperation, had very few officers who could speak the others’ language, and were generally unable to coordinate charges or combined arms maneuvers. This would be decisive in the fighting. Following the battle, the Polish army fled back to its homeland while the Savoyard army tried to retreat back toward Turin only to be cut to pieces by the French forces already occupying their territories. The French could now besiege the entire Kingdom of Savoy unopposed.

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The Franco-Modenese victory at Nassau cleared the way for the French invasion of Savoy[/U]
On 30 September 1560, Bohemia and Saxony signed the Treaty of Leipzig, ending the Saxon-Bohemian War. Saxony agreed to cede the province of Wittenberg to Bohemia. King Jaromir II of Bohemia viewed this as a major victory, and a first step toward challenging the Austrians for control of the Holy Roman Empire. Jaromir saw the Austrians struggling in their war against Modena and France and felt that it was within his kingdom’s grasp to challenge them. For Modena, the Bohemian victory represented a satisfactory outcome. While King Alberto Carlo had not been very enthusiastic about entering the war, Modena had contributed to the victory without losing too much and without becoming distracted from the main war effort against Austria. One war was over. The other, more important one, raged on.

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The Treaty of Leipzig ended the Saxon-Bohemian War

 
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Chapter 15: From Vienna to Rome, 1561-1563​

While the Saxon-Bohemian War may have ended, the Second Habsburg-Valois War was still very much ongoing. After the defeat of Poland and Savoy at Nassau, General Malmussi marched his army east to link up with General d’Aragona’s force fighting in Austria. With their two armies combined, Malmussi hoped that Modena could quickly knock Austria out of the war. D’Aragona, tired of spending all his time besieging Austrian cities in the west, was eager to march on Vienna, something that Malmussi had prohibited him from doing until the second Modenese army reached Austria. Malmussi was the more cautious of the two commanders and was worried about overextending the supply lines. The way he looked at it, the war was going so well that it would be foolish to risk so much by driving on Vienna recklessly.

General Malmussi and his army arrived at d’Aragona’s encampment in Tirol on Christmas Eve of 1560. Along with d’Aragona’s Modenese troops, Malmussi also found a sizable contingent from Liege present at the camp. The two commanders finalized their plans for a march on Vienna with the ultimate goal of capturing the Habsburg’s capital. The two men knew how big of a deal this was: Modena had never taken the capital of their most hated enemy. The army made final preparations and broke camp on 7 January 1561. They had initially planned on beginning the offensive sooner, but a major blizzard had hit Tirol and forced them to delay their departure. The path to Vienna was blocked by a joint Austrian-Hungarian force positioned in the province of Kärnten commanded by General Zakrzewsky. Zakrzewsky, by this point, was very much on the hot seat. Empress Maria Anna had gone into the war with a great deal of confidence in him. The Dowager Empress also owed him a great deal. Following the death of Maximilian I, it had been Zakrzewsky who had rallied the Austrian army behind Franz I and Maria Anna. With the military in her corner, no Austrian nobles or electors of the Holy Roman Empire were willing to challenge her. However, even that was not going to keep him in his position forever if he continued to lose to d’Aragona and the Modenesi.

Malmussi ceded overall command of the army in the field to d’Aragona because of the latter’s experience fighting Zakrzewsky and the skill he had thus far demonstrated in the war. For d’Aragona, being given command was a great honor. He looked up to Malmussi and was very grateful for the old general’s confidence in appointing him to command the Alpine front at the beginning of the war. At the Battle of Friesach, fought on 22 and 23 January 1561, the Austrian and Hungarian armies were once again beaten by the Modenesi and their allies from Liege. D’Aragona and Malmussi’s force had the numerical advantage at roughly 27,000 men against 22,000 Austrian and Hungarian troops. However, they had an even more decisive advantage in terms of artillery, bringing more than twice as many guns to the field as their adversaries. The Modenese field artillery, as it was apt to do, was decisive once again. Concentrated fires prevented the Zakrzewsky from massing his troops, and well executed combined arms actions enabled the Modenese infantry to receive fire support as they crossed the field for their own charges.

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Modena and Liege’s victory at the Battle of Friesach cleared the way to march on Vienna

With the victory at Friesach, the road was now clear to march on Vienna. Empress Maria Anna was not yet ready to give up her capital without a fight though. General Zakrzewsky reached Vienna in mid-February of 1561 fully expecting to be relieved of his command. However, the Dowager Empress ordered him to immediately prepare defenses to stop the Modenese advance. Empress Maria Anna swore to stay in the city no matter what happened and that she “would rather die than see this Italian rabble take the capital!” Poland, ever the stalwart ally, sent yet another army to try and assist the Austrians and Hungarians.

On the Modenese side, General d’Aragona had once again wanted to go straight to Vienna as soon as the fighting at Friesach had ended. The more cautious Malmussi however, wanted to wait for a French army, commanded by his old friend General Nicolas de Bonnefoy, to arrive and guarantee them numerical superiority and also to wait out the harsh winter to limit attrition on the march toward Vienna. Malmussi told his younger colleague that while he had fought brilliantly against the Austrians in the Alps, fighting them at the gates of their capital would be another story. The elder soldier explained that while he had total confidence in d’Aragona to lead the army in the field, he was still the overall commander in the war. Malmussi’s plan would turn out to be very sound in retrospect. The addition of French troops to those already there from Modena and Liege would give the allies an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

The joint force moved from their encampment in Kärnten in early April. General d’Aragona, determined to put a final exclamation point on his Austrian campaign, rode at the head of a 50,000 man army. The Austrian-Polish-Hungarian army defending Vienna had about 30,000 men but was well dug in. D’Aragona advanced his army straight up the Danube River Valley, planning to capture the bridge at Krems an der Donau, about 70 kilometers northwest of Vienna, cross the river there, and then cut off the retreat of the city’s defenders and attack from the east and west simultaneously. The Modenese general knew that if he could secure a river crossing then he could completely encircle the city and effectively besiege it.

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The Franco-Modenese army advances toward Vienna, Spring of 1561
D’Aragona’s army reached the town of Sankt-Pölten on the afternoon of 20 April 1561. Sankt-Pölten was defended by an Austrian and Polish force under the command of the Polish General Aleksy Ozarowski. The defenders were quickly overwhelmed by the much larger invasion force and were forced to retreat. From there d’Aragona split the army. He dispatched a cavalry-heavy detachment, under the command of the Duke of Mantua, to push toward the city of Tulln, harassing Ozarowski’s force as it retreated. The main goal of the detachment though was to disrupt the Austrian lines of supply and communication between Vienna and Krems as well as to lead the enemy into thinking the main thrust of the offensive would be focused on Tulln. The Duke of Mantua was under orders to engage the enemy only so long as the conditions were favorable and then break off to limit casualties. At the same time, the main force would drive north toward Krems, seize the bridge there, and then cross part of the army to the east bank of the Danube. On the morning of 21 April the Modenese cavalry struck their first win when they captured and burned an Austrian supply train headed north from Vienna. When Zakrzewsky heard of this he sent more troops to reinforce the garrison at Tulln. However, by the next day, the French and Modenese army had begun engaging the Austrian and Polish troops defending the west bank of the Danube near Krems and managed to force a retreat across the bridge and back into the town. They then set up their artillery batteries and began shelling it. After a brief but bloody battle at the Krems Bridge, French troops under the command of the Duke of Guise, fought their way across and established positions on the east bank of the river. This enabled more troops to come across and eventually push into the town of Krems itself. With the bridge lost, the Austrian and Polish troops began retreating south toward Vienna. D’Aragona’s plan was working out nicely.

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Vienna in 1561
The Modenese general had Bonnefoy and his French troops advance south on the east bank of the Danube while he took the bulk of his Modenese army south on the west bank to attack Vienna directly. This way, the Austrian retreat would be cut off and the city surrounded. The two forces advanced along the river side by side. They encircled and captured the town of Tulln on 24 April and took the bridge there as well. From that point, d’Aragona was in position for the final assault on Zakrzewsky’s army defending Vienna. General Malmussi volunteered to command the vanguard force that would lead the initial attack. While Malmussi was a cautious commander when it came to strategy, he was more than willing to put himself in positions of danger when it came to actual battle actions. At dawn on the 26 April and with heavy fire support from the Modenese batteries, he led six regiments into the heart of the defensive lines in the town of Döbling. The Hungarian troops defending it were rattled by the heavy barrage preceeding the assault and crumbled at the sight of the Modenese troops bearing down on them ferociously. The Italians poured into the town, followed closely by the Duke of Mantua’s cavalry, which sped through the breach in order to continue their disruption of Austrian communication and to cut off the enemy forces positioned between Döbling and the river. When General Zakrzewsky learned of the fall of Döbling and the breach in his lines he attempted to have his remaining troops retreat across the Danube at Floridsdorf and return to Vienna via the east bank of the river. However, unknown to the Austrian commander, the French forces under General Bonnefoy across the river had just captured that town, thereby cutting off the retreat. Cut off and effectively surrounded, the Austrian and Hungarian troops were forced to surrender. As a result, the entire northern section of Vienna’s defensive perimeter was wiped out, leaving the Modenese army free to pour through the gap.

However, d’Aragona was not satisfied with just getting to the city walls, he wanted to wipe out his enemy’s army. Now that Modenese troops were inside the defensive line, the Austrians panicked. Seizing the opportunity, d’Aragona launched a three pronged attack. He would split the main force into two, with one prong attacking each side of the defensive line, surrounding the enemy troops and preventing them from focusing their defenses in any one spot. The Duke of Mantua’s cavalry would at the same time speed down the inside of the defensive perimeter and harass and attack any forces they could catch, thereby further confusing and disorienting the enemy troops. Meanwhile, General Bonnefoy’s French army was covering the east bank of the Danube to prevent a retreat eastward. On the morning of 27 April Modena’s canons unleashed a punishing barrage on the defenders of Vienna, followed by cavalry probes of their lines, and culminating with yet another devastating infantry charge. The Austrians, Poles, and Hungarians, already demoralized, quickly began to crumble under the pressure. To the General Zakrzewsky’s credit, he was able to hold his army together and successfully orchestrate an orderly withdrawal. While his army took heavy casualties in the battles, Zakrzewsky’s skill prevented them from being totally wiped out.

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The Battle of Vienna was the crowning achievement of General d’Aragona’s Austrian campaign

With no ability to retreat eastward however due to the presence of the French, the Austrian commander ordered the army to retreat southward into the province of Steiermark. The Polish army, which had taken the biggest share of casualties during the defense of Vienna was forced to return to Poland to regroup taking with them the bulk of the remaining cavalry in the army. The Hungarians and Austrians meanwhile attempted to regroup in the town of Kapfenberg, north of Graz. However, they would get no reprieve. General d’Aragona detached part of his army to initiate the siege of Vienna and marched the rest of his force south in pursuit of his fleeing foes. The French-Modenese force caught up with the Austrians and Hungarians on 29 May 1561 and dealt them yet another serious defeat. With his army all but destroyed, General Zakrzewsky gave up his defense of the Austrian homeland and retreated into Hungary to lick his wounds. With their enemies’ armies wiped away, the French and Modenesi were free to begin laying siege to the major Austrian cities.

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The Battle of Kapfenberg drove the Austrian armies from their home provinces

King Alberto Carlo II was overjoyed when he received the news about the victories at Vienna and Kapfenberg. Flush with victory after victory, he and his advisors had seemingly forgotten their old peaceful ways and now began to hunger for more territory. Along with the successes in Austria, King Francois I of France was leading his armies to victory on the German front of the war as well. Austrian allies within the Holy Roman Empire were suffering serious setbacks militarily and the French were in position to possibly drive clear across Germany. Austria’s main ally within the Empire, Brandenburg, had been trying hard to drive back the French advances but with little success. Alberto Carlo began to realize that, since the current war against Austria was a French-led project, Modena was likely to get very little material gain from it. As a result, he wanted to seize another opportunity.

The Papal States, at the moment, stood alone. Their only ally, Austria, was already at war with Modena. Alberto Carlo and his advisors figured this was the perfect moment for them to strike at the Pope. The king sent a messenger to his army in Austria to offer General Malmussi the opportunity to command the army that would attack Rome. However, Malmussi, keen to continue overseeing the war effort in Austria, declined and instead offered the position to General d’Aragona. The latter, thinking already of his legacy, could not turn down the opportunity to be the man who conquered Vienna and Rome. He eagerly accepted. D’Aragona returned to Modena to command a newly raised army built specifically for the attack on the Pope.

When the Kingdom of Modena declared war on the Papal State on 1 October 1561, Pope Pius IV angrily denounced King Alberto Carlo and called on all Catholic kingdoms to rise up and repel the Modenesi. However, nobody responded to the Pope’s call. All of the other Catholic kingdoms were either already at war with Modena and losing, allied with Modena (such as France and Liege), or unwilling to fight what was proving to be one of the most formidable armies in Europe. As a result, Pope Pius was left to defend himself. His army, commanded by the Gonfaloniere of the Papal Forces, Rafaello Ruzzini, invaded the province of Firenze with the hopes of marching on Florence itself and seizing initiative in the war. However, General d’Aragona moved his army into the province shortly thereafter and the two sides met in battle on 27 November 1561. Ruzzini proved no match for the seasoned d’Aragona. The Papal forces were hopelessly outnumbered, poorly trained, and armed with inferior weapons and the Modenesi made quick work of them. With the Pope’s army destroyed, d’Aragona marched on Rome and began besieging the city.

King Francois I of France died on 23 December after falling ill while out campaigning in Germany. King Alberto Carlo never understood why a king would go out to war, preferring to rule from the capital instead. Nevertheless, he recognized in the death of Francois the loss of a kindred spirit and a close ally. The death of the King of France did present a political problem for Modena. Francois I had been married to Alberto Carlo’s older sister, Queen Anna Maria. His son, Ercole, was already betrothed to Maria Theresa, Princess of Bohemia and his second son, Azzo, was only three years old. As a result, Alberto Carlo was short on relatives to marry off. What he decided to do was to reach out to his brother-in-law, Cesare Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua. The Duke was still campaigning with General Malmussi in Austria but was recalled to Modena by the king. Alberto Carlo offered to arrange a marriage between Gonzaga and his niece Danielle, Princess of Orleans, daughter of Francois I and sister of the new king, Gaston I. Gonzaga, with his sister already married to Alberto Carlo, jumped at the opportunity. With his marriage, the House of Gonzaga would be linked with the royal families of both Modena and France. Cesare and Danielle were married on 15 January 1562 in Paris and then returned to Mantua together.

After the wedding, the Duke of Mantua returned to the Austrian campaign just in time to witness the fall of Klagenfurt to the Modenese army on 15 February after a long siege of 713 days. The Austrian cities were, overall, holding up much better than their armies in the field. Klagenfurt was the first and only Austrian city to fall to Modena during the war. The year 1562 was, for the most part, quiet on the Austrian front. Unlike the previous year, which witnessed d’Aragona and Malmussi’s brilliant drive to Vienna, this year would be one of sieges and attrition. There would not be a major battle in the field before the autumn of 1562, when Austria and its allies had regrouped their armies and were ready to attempt another time to dislodge the Modenese invaders. Modena did launch its invasion into Hungary, attacking Dalmatia and besieging the city of Split.

The biggest siege victory of 1562 came on 1 September when Rome surrendered to Modena after 391 days under siege. The defenders had actually agreed to surrender about ten days earlier however, while General d’Aragona accepted the city’s surrender, he refused to actually enter it. He wanted to give the honor of capturing Rome to his king, Alberto Carlo II. D’Aragona agreed to allow food and supplies to enter the city in exchange for the Romans dismantling all of the city’s gates in order to ensure the they would not change their minds after a nice meal and try to mount a defense again. Civilians came pouring out from the gates and General d’Aragona ordered that part of the army’s food stores be used to feed hungry women and children evacuating the city. Alberto Carlo, not normally one for excessive pageantry felt obligated to accept General d’Aragona’s offer to be the first to enter the city. The king arrived at Rome on the evening of 31 August and the following day, rode at the head of the army as it entered the city, with General d’Aragona at his side. For the general, this was the crown on top of what was already a brilliant career. To be the one to capture the ancient capital of the Roman Empire for Modena was an amazing honor. It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining down when King Alberto Carlo II arrived at Saint Peter’s Basilica to accept Pope Pius IV’s surrender of the city.

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Soldier’s from Modena’s army bring food and supplies to the people of Rome following the city’s surrender

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The capture of Rome and the surrender of the Pope

On the following day, Sunday 2 September, Alberto Carlo announced the Edict of Rome, formally annexing the city and province to the Kingdom of Modena and sending the Pope into exile. The edict was strongly worded, and accused the Pope both of weakening and dividing the Italian people as well as being responsible for the religious violence that had rocked Europe since the start of the Reformation. This last point served to further strengthen the accusations that Alberto Carlo was weak against the Protestants and even the rumors that he had actually converted to Protestantism. Catholic officials held it as sacrosanct that the Protestants and their Reformation were the ones responsible for the religious violence. The Edict of Rome marked the first time that a sitting monarch of a Catholic kingdom accused the Pope and the Inquisition of being the main culprits behind Europe’s religious turmoil.

The statements made by Alberto Carlo in the Edict of Rome stemmed from the Modenese king’s frustration with the way the Inquisition was carrying on within his kingdom and his desire to curb the Church’s power. By removing the Pope from Italy, Alberto Carlo sought to break the power of the Inquisition in Italy once and for all. With the Pope far away and weakened, it would be easy to diminsh the power of the Warden of the Faith and his cronies. In the following years, Alberto Carlo would initiate a widespread purge of the Catholic hierarchy in Italy, centralizing its control under the crown and rolling back many of the changes made under the Conventicle Act and the Counter-Reformation. Another advantage for Modena was that, in the turmoil surrounding the exile of the Papacy, King Alberto Carlo was able to swing many of the cardinals within the Curia over to his side. As a result, Modena was now able to wield effective control over the Papacy.

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Following the exile of the Pope, Modena was able to wield effective control of the Curia

The edict was met with hostility and outrage throughout the Catholic world. King Alberto Carlo was denounced in churches across Europe. Nevertheless, no kingdom was willing to challenge Modena. Alberto Carlo had informed the new French king, Gaston I, of his impending annexation of Rome and France declared its willingness to stand with its ally on this question. Furthermore, Modena’s second most important ally, the Kingdom of Bohemia, was Protestant and its king, Jaromir II, sent hearty congratulations on the Roman annexation to Alberto Carlo. With nobody willing to go to war with Modena, France, and Bohemia in defense of the Pope, the Papacy was exiled from its historical seat once and for all. Pope Pius IV relocated to Riga and would never set foot in the Eternal City again.

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King Alberto Carlo II rejected calls to restore the Pope to Rome
Modena’s continuing successes in war also came with certain benefits internally. With the Austrian and Hungarian navies beaten back, Modena was able to increase its trade capacity in the Mediterranean. Although Alberto Carlo had abandoned his earlier pacifist policies, he had not forgotten about his strongest and most stalwart supporters: the merchants. The Modenese trade fleet, despite the expenses and losses in war, had actually expanded in the three years since the commencement of hostilities in 1559. The increased focus on free trade did represent a departure from Alberto Carlo’s earlier mercantilist policies. Now that some of Modena’s biggest trade rivals were out of the picture, the merchants were clamoring for freeing up trade. This way, they would have more leverage in their deals and make more money off of imports. The king might not have known much about war, but he did know that as long as money, food, and supplies kept rolling into the kingdom the people would not get very upset. The fact that Modena was able to maintain an internal state of prosperity while also being at war dramatically changed the king’s future political calculus. Unlike the wars of 1532-45 when Italy became a battleground and was devastated, these current conflicts were having very minimal effects on the homeland. Even the drain on military aged males was negligible compared to the previous set of conflicts, having little noticeable effect on production and farm output. The king realized that, so long as he kept enemy troops from his territory, it was possible to wage war with little harm to Modena’s commerce or his own internal reform efforts.

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More free trade represented a departure from earlier mercantilist policies

The final three major battles on the Austrian front would be fought between late October of 1562 and early March of 1563. Austria and its allies attempted a final series of offensives to attempt to dislodge the Franco-Modenese invaders and turn the tide of the war. In keeping with recent history however, all would fail. The first attempt would be by Poland. A Polish army under the command of General Aleksy Ozarowski slipped between the Modenese and French armies and through an Alpine pass into Italy. This was the first time foreign troops had set foot on Italian soil since the Austrians had withdrawn from their defense of Savoy in the summer of 1559. General Malmussi was not going to let that stand for very long however. He dispatched d’Aragona to intercept the Poles and prevent them from pushing further into Italy. D’Aragona, his force bolstered by a French contingent, caught them outside the city of Treviso and proceeded to inflict heavy damange on Ozarwoski’s force. The Poles, badly beaten and unable to continue their advance, retreated back to Poland. This was the final major engagement for Poland in the war.

The second battle occurred at Lienz. The hapless General Zakrzewsky was trying to move north to link up with an army moving south from Brandenburg. However, d’Aragona learned of the maneuver and cut his rival off. Zakrzewsky’s army, made up entirely of fresh recruits marching through the winter snows for the first time, collapsed almost immediately. On Christmas Day 1562, thousands of young Austrian soldiers came marching toward the Modenese positions, threw down their weapons, and turned themselves over to their enemies. While they accepted the surrender of the regular troops and treated them well, the Modenesi, who hated the Austrians and everything they stood for, refused to accept the surrender of Zakrzewsky and his staff. They stripped them of their swords and rank insignias, placed them on mules, and dispatched them back to Vienna. Austria’s arrogance toward Italy in the past was being revisited on them many times over in the current war.

The final pitched battle of the war was again at Lienz. Brandenburg remained the only kingdom on Austria’s side with an intact and semi-capable army. They had fought exclusively on the German front for most of the war and had suffered a number of defeats against the French. However, their home kingdom remained untouched and they agreed to join with the Austrian forces for a final offensive. However, Brandenburg’s army, seeing action in Austria for the first time, fared no better than its allies. On 3 March 1562, a massive army made up of troops from France, Modena, Liege, and Naples tracked down and annihilated Brandenburg’s army at the Second Battle of Lienz. The Brandenburgian commander, General Clemens Arnswald, had failed to hide his army’s movements, enabling the allied force to track them down and destroy them. Following that, there would be no more major battles on the Austrian front for the remainder of the war.

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The Battle of Treviso and the two battles at Linz, represented the final major engagements of the war on the Austrian front

The sieges of the Austrian cities continued. Empress Maria Anna, still in a Vienna under siege, finally caved in and acknowledged her defeat. She sent emissaries to King Gaston I of France and King Alberto Carlo II of Modena with peace terms. This time, unlike at the end of the War of the League of Strasbourg, they would be substantial. In order to save her own lands, the Dowager Empress was more than willing to sell out her ally. According to the terms of the Treaty of Klagenfurt, Savoy was to be dismembered. France would gain the Savoyard provinces of Cuneo, Savoia (the Savoy family’s original home), and, most importantly, Nice. Additionally, Austria was forced to give up the province of Charolais in the west to Burgundy, further weakening their position in western Europe and reducing the threat on the French eastern border.

King Alberto Carlo II showered his two greatest soldiers, Alberto Carlo Malmussi and Foresto d’Appiani d’Aragona with lands and titles and honors. The king promoted his old rival Malmussi back to the position of Marshal of the Armies of Modena, the highest military rank in the kingdom. In addition he made him Duke of Siena after the previous duke died without any heirs. On top of all of that, King Jaromir II of Bohemia made Malmussi Duke of Brzeg. With these new acquisitions, Malmussi now had acquired enough lands to officially make his family into a new noble house, the House of Malmussi. These new titles and lands continued the rise of this former common soldier in the hierarchy of Europe.

While General d’Aragona did not quite reach Malmussi’s levels, he gained his own share of rewards as a result of his brilliant leadership in the war. Alberto Carlo now had the lands in the province of Roma to distribute and he made his talented general Count of Viterbo as well as royal governor of the newly annexed province. With the encouragement of Malmussi, the king also created the new title of Protector of the Realm, which he bestowed on d’Aragona. The distinction between the Marshal of the Armies of Modena and Protector of the Realm was that the former was a military rank reserved for the army’s leader whereas the latter was an award for the best field commander in the kingdom.

For the Austrians and Dowager Empress Maria Anna, this was a most humiliating defeat. Once again, Austria had been decisivelt defeated in a major war by France. Their armies had been outclassed in every way by Modena and France and their allies had fared just as poorly. The Austrians, who had held a dominating position over Italy within living memory, now had to give up whatever dreams they still had of ruling the peninsula. While Modena received no concrete gains from the war against Austria, they proved to their most hated rivals that the days of Austrian ambitions in Italy were at an end. No longer would Modena fear Austria. Going forward, it would be the Habsburgs who would have to tread lightly for fear of their southern neighbor. It would not be long before Austria and Modena were at war again.

Not only had Modena spearheaded the decisive defeat of their hated Austrian rivals, but they had captured Rome, the greatest city on the Italian peninsula. King Alberto Carlo had expelled the Pope from Italy, an incredible milestone which now opened the way toward unifying an Italian kingdom. With Papal authority removed as an obstacle, Savoy destroyed as a credible power, and France on board with the project of unification, only Milan remained as an obstacle to the completion of Alfonso I d’Este’s dream of forming a united Italian kingdom. Alberto Carlo would see to the continued progress of that dream in the very near future.

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General Alberto Carlo Malmussi and the Modenese army celebrate the news of the Austrian capitulation with General Nicolas de Bonnefoy and his French soldiers
 
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I didn't review these last two entries as closely as I usually do so I am going to do that now to make sure I didn't make any other oversights or errors because I already had noticed another. I might also add some to them as well. Additionally, I am going to make an entry later on the governance structure of the Kingdom of Modena and the various hierarchies etc. I welcome comments/thoughts on it when I put it up. I have a general understanding of feudalism and its structure but it is very far from comprehensive and if you guys see anything that is obviously absurd please let me know. I must say that playing EUIV and trying to make this AAR has shown just how lacking my knowledge of the pre-American/French Revolution world really is.
 
NOTE: The purpose of this post is to provide the reader with a sort of background of the various institutions and governmental structures in the kingdom. I probably should have done this much earlier. As I have said in the above post, my knowledge of pre-19th Century history is lacking. Working from this will enable me to write better and more interesting posts going forward think and add more to depth to this AAR. I feel like it has been somewhat lacking in that so far. Therefore, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions as to how I can improve either on this post or on the AAR in general, please let me know. Thanks, and here it is:

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The Governmental Structures and Institutions of the Kingdom of Modena in 1564


By 1564, King Alberto Carlo II had largely passed through most of his desired reforms. Those in the field of governance and trade were done in the peacetime years of 1546-1559 while those in the military realm were done on the fly during the wars of 1559-1563.

The Kingdom
The King – Ruler of the Kingdom of Modena. The king had wide ranging authority over matters both foreign and domestic. Alberto Carlo’s governance reforms were largely aimed at curbing the power of the local nobility in the provinces and giving more say on domestic policy to the crown. The king was also supreme commander of the armed forces, though Alberto Carlo chose to cede this right to Marshal Alberto Carlo Malmussi.

The Royal Council – Group of 6-12 trusted advisors who advised the king on various matters. There were three Chief Advisors, one for the military, one for internal administration, and one for diplomacy and trade. Below these advisors sat other members of the council who tended to specialize within one of the three Chief Advisors’ portfolios. Together the council was very influential on the king, especially during the reign of Alberto Carlo II.

Provincial Ministers – Within the local provincial power structure, the nobility was in charge of local politics, patronage, tax collection, etc. However, following Alberto Carlo’s reforms, a Provincial Minister was assigned to each province. These ministers were there to advise and/or coerce the local nobles into following policies or practices approved by the king. They also reported back to the king what was going on in the provinces. They were, essentially, the king’s eyes and ears on the ground. In many cases the Provincial Ministers were greatly resented by the local nobility. The ministers were oftentimes nobles of lower rank than the ones whom they were lecturing about royal policy and the nobility viewed them as unnecessary meddling on the part of the king. The Provincial Minister’s office was also where peasants could report abuses their noble overlords may have committed against them. Alberto Carlo was eager to maintain the loyalty and approval of the peasantry to use as a threat against any nobles who challenged his rule. The position of Provincial Minister was the lynchpin in the king’s centralization plan and was considered the highest position within the royal service aside from sitting on the Royal Council.

The Provinces
Each province in the kingdom was either a duchy, a “Free Republic”, or, in the case of Roma, a Royal Province. Each province was in turn divided into Contadi, or Counties, which were ruled by a local count or other noble. The exception to this is the three Free Republics, which operated virtually as non-sovereign city-states.

Duchies: Each ducal province was ruled by a duke who sat in the provincial capital. The duke had a great deal of authority over his province. The duke’s position was hereditary in some cases having been in the family for centuries. The duke was free to conduct affairs within his duchy rather freely so long as he stayed within the royal law and followed certain regulations imposed by the crown.
-- Ducal Provinces: Ancona, Brescia, Cremona, Ferrara, Firenze, Friuli, Mantua, Romagna, Parma, Sardinia, Treviso, Verona
-- Well Known Ducal Families (Year family took power in the province): The House of Gonzaga of Mantua (1433); The House of Colonna of Ferrara (1469), The House of Malmussi of Siena (1564)

Free Republics:
Three provinces within the kingdom were designated as Free Republics. All three had been taken by Modena during the Merchant Wars of 1524-27. These provinces were once strong merchant republics in their own right and maintained their republican tradition even following integration with Modena. While these provinces were not allowed to craft their own foreign policy, they had greater control over their internal affairs than the ducal provinces. This was especially true following Alberto Carlo’s reforms. As the main strongholds of the mercantile class, Alberto Carlo was very much interested in maintaining good relations with these cities. Pisa and Ragusa had both been peacefully integrated into the kingdom under Alberto Carlo’s rule. Prior to becoming a part of Modena, Pisa had been an independent kingdom and then a duchy following its vassalage under Modena. However, when Pisa was integrated into Modena, the local merchants lobbied for a return to the city’s old republican laws and this request was granted by King Alberto Carlo, thus making Pisa one of the Free Republics. Venice had been annexed directly by Modena in 1526 and unlike Pisa and Ragusa, had become a ducal province. However, Alberto Carlo reversed this, again at the behest of the Venetian merchants, and granted Venice Free Republic status as well. The cities were allowed to elect their own Doge, who answered only to the king. Additionally, the Free Republics were exempted from having a Provincial Minister.
-- Free Republics: Pisa, Ragusa, Venice

Royal Provinces: There were to Royal Provinces in the kingdom, Modena and Roma. These two were ruled directly by the king. Only certain parts of the provinces were divided into Contadi and these lands were usually reserved either for relatives of the king or particularly close and trusted friends or advisors.
-- Royal Provinces: Modena, Roma

The Contadi: Each ducal province was broken down further into Contadi, or counties, which were ruled by a count. The local count wielded power over his peasantry but did not have the authority to pass laws or recruit armies, these were reserved only for the duke of the province.

The Military
The military of Modena took major steps toward greater professionalization and standardization during the Wars of 1532-45 and those of 1559-63. By the end of the latter set of wars, there was a solid and standard chain of command which was to be followed under order of the king. Previously, nobles had raised their own armies and oftentimes were unwilling to follow orders of those of equal or lesser noble rank even if those same men were of higher rank within the military. By the end of the Valois-Savoy War, that had all changed. The reforms were instituted by Alberto Carlo Malmussi with the backing of the king and based on the ideas put forth in the book The Lessons of the Wars of 1532-1545.

The Marshal of the Armies of Modena: This was the highest military rank in the kingdom. It had existed since 1469 when King Almerigo I named Ennio Colonna to the rank. However, prior to 1563, it was considered more of an honorary title bestowed on a particularly renowned or decorated soldier toward the end of his career. Under the new reforms instituted by Alberto Carlo Malmussi with the backing of the king, Marshal of the Armies was made a permanent rank fixed atop the military hierarchy. The only person who was authorized to give orders to the Marshal was the king himself. All other men under arms were required to render obedience to the Marshal’s orders, regardless of their noble or aristocratic rank outside the military.

Protector of the Realm: This rank was created by King Alberto Carlo II and took the place of Marshal of the Armies as the highest honorary military title. It was first awarded to General Forest d’Appiani d’Aragona for his achievements in the Austrian campaign of 1560-61 and the conquest of Rome in 1562.

Generals: General had also previously been a largely honorary title bestowed on any noble who managed to raise multiple regiments of troops to bring to the battle. However, by the end of the War of the League of Strasbourg, general had become a formal rank. There were actually two types of generals, high generals, who commanded entire armies or fronts, and low generals who commanded flanks or sections of armies. However, the distinctions were not yet formalized and all held the title general equally except for the actual commander of the army in question, who was referred to as “The General of the Army”.

The Merchants

The mercantile interests within the kingdom were very unified and concentrated. There were four main trading companies in 1564, each of which operated specific geographic sectors and traded in specific goods. Alberto Carlo used the merchants to undermine the economic power of the nobles while the merchants gained increased support from the crown and favorable trade policies.

Trading Companies: There were four main trading companies (city out of which it was based): The St. Mark Trading Company (Venice), The Trade Company of Ragusa (Ragusa), The Mercantile Guild of Pisa (Pisa), and the Royal Trading Company (Lucca). The last of the four was directly administered by the crown and located in the province of Modena’s port city of Lucca. The other three were run independently by groups of traders. The St. Mark Trading Company of Venice grew from the Modenese trade delegation to Venice and was founded by the legendary trader Alberto Appuano.

The Merchant Fleet: The status of Modena’s mercantile fleet reflected the odd partnership between the kingdom’s merchants and the crown. The ships were officially owned by the kingdom but were used freely by the merchants. The trading companies were charged a fee for their usage but oftentimes, especially during the reign of King Alberto Carlo II, these fees were either waived or allowed to go unpaid.

The Church
Following the expulsion of the Pope from Italy in 1562 and the Modenese annexation of Rome, the power of the Catholic Church within the kingdom declined significantly. Under several kings in the past, especially Almerigo II, the Church was able to grow its influence and increase its independence. However, Alberto Carlo II aggressively pushed back against Papal influence and weakened the Inquisition. Alberto Carlo blamed the Church for stoking the fires of religious turmoil both within his kingdom and throughout Europe. His main tool for undermining the Church prior to the annexation of Rome had been to sell Church lands to local loyal nobles who could then exert their influence on appointments and funding. The Conventicle Act prevented the king from wielding direct influence over Church affairs but had no such prohibition for other nobles. Following the Papal expulsion, Alberto Carlo began to openly flaunt the Conventicle Act’s proscriptions and interfered heavily in Church matters, appointing loyal bishops and attaching royal officials to parishes to monitor masses.

The Warden of the Faith: The office of Warden of the Faith was, immediately following the beginning of the Counter-Reformation, an extremely powerful office. King Almerigo II, under whose reign it was created, gave the Church free reign over all religious matters. The Warden of the Faith was the Inquisition’s highest representative in the Kingdom of Modena and was responsible for carrying out Inquisitorial policy and overseeing trials of heretics, Jews, Muslims, sorcerers, and any other enemies of the Church. The first and only (to that point) Warden of the Faith was Father Alberto Tomba who took the office in 1530 at the age of 36. Under his watch the Inquisition reached very high levels of power and influence before being slowly and unceremoniously cut down by Alberto Carlo.

”The Slaughters of Romagna”: Following the killing of King Alfonso III fighting Protestant rebels, Father Tomba and the Inquisition used the death of the king as an excuse to enact brutally harsh and repressive policies on the Protestants of the province of Romagna. Under Father Tomba’s orders, thousands of Protestants, including women and children, were tortured, hanged, or burned at the stake. While in the short term the massacres served to extirpate Protestantism from the province, in the long run they had a negative effect on the Inquisition. Many clergymen who had supported it and even been part of it were disgusted and horrified by Tomba’s policies and defected en masse from the organization. King Alberto Carlo, only a child when the Romagnan slaughters happened, was also disgusted by them and swore that as king he would never allow such a thing to happen. The Slaughters of Romagna were simultaneously the high point of Inquisitorial power in the kingdom and also the beginning of its decline.
 
Historical Vignette 5: True Inquisitor, 1540 (Chapter 10)​


From the Diary of Father Martino Colle,
Inquisitor of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition
for the town of Pianoro, Province of Romagna, Kingdom of Modena


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8 August 1540 - I arrived today in the town of Pianoro in the Province of Romagna for my new assignment. Met the parish priest, Father Padovano. Had simple dinner with him. He told me that attendace at mass has been extremely low. This shocked me. The Romagna is a hotbed of heresy, but to find out that there are such few souls in this town who are still faithful to our Holy Church is disheartening. It makes it all the more imperative that I be able to root out the Protestant leaders around here.

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The town of Pianoro

15 August 1540 - Celebrated mass for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary today with Father Padovano and his flock. Father Padovano told me that the Assumption was the most important holiday in the town and when he was a child he remembers great feasts and games and festivities. Now however, with the town in the grip of heretics who shun our Blessed Virgin, the celebrations have become much more subdued. It was all held in the church, no procession down the main street of the town or large feast in the main square. Very sad.

20 August 1540 - In less than two weeks of being here, I have already identified a number of regular Protestant meeting places where they likely have their heretic masses. It is difficult for me to ascertain this for sure, but is has all the signs. My posting in Pianoro is very different from my last one in Sinalunga in the province of Siena. There, the heretics were a tiny minority and I could freely go about hunting them down. I could trust nearly everyone to be loyal to the Church. Here it is the opposite. The heretics have the upper hand, especially in the town. I have to tread carefully, I am widely despised, and nobody will speak to me. The heretics for obvious reasons and the true believers for fear of heretic retribution. This is certainly a much greater challenge.

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Father Martino Colle, Inquisitor of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition
for the town of Pianoro, Province of Romagna, Kingdom of Modena

29 August 1540 - Came across a group of children playing out by the stream. As there were no parents around, I figured perhaps I could get some information out of them as children are innocent and do not know about matters of the Inquisition. I asked the children if they prayed and they said yes. I then asked if they went to a special place to pray and they said that they did but not at the Church. They told me their parents say that those who go to the parish church are “slaves of the Pope.” They told me where the heretical mass they went to was located. It is apparently in the home of a Sandro Cataldi, a local merchant with close ties to Rodolfo Giardini, the Count of Bologna. I will have to visit the count to find out more about this Cataldi.

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Bridge over the stream near Pianoro

31 August 1540 - Received many cold stares at the market today. One or more of those children I spoke with must have told their parents about our little conversation. It is of no matter, I got enough of what I wanted out of them. Wrote a letter to Count Giardini today asking him to schedule me for a visit. I want to find out more of what he knows about Cataldi and about the heretics in Pianoro in general. I am told that the count is a faithful man of the Church, but I have my suspicions. The Giardini family have ruled Bologna for fifty years, and during that time the province of Romagna has sunk further and further into heresy. While in Bologna I will also stop and visit Father Mortara, Lord Inquisitor for the province. He may be able to provide me with guidance.


10 September 1540 - Returned from Bologna today. I may have been wrong to suspect Count Giardini, he proved very useful. While I do not approve of him doing business with known heretics like Cataldi, he offered me a great deal of assistance. He introduced me to an agent of his, Luigi Bolelli, whom the count says will be able to assist me. Bolelli will be arriving in Pianoro in a few days and blend with the local population. I was unsure whether to trust him at first but when I asked Father Mortara at our meeting, he told me that the count is a good friend of the Church and would not betray me. Mortara added that aside from the count’s faith, I could also keep in mind that if Giardini was discovered to have betrayed an agent of the Inquisition, he would lose his lands and titles and face possible execution. I plan to use this Bolelli to infiltrate the heretic masses. I shudder to think of the horrors that go on in those places.


13 September 1540 - Bolelli arrived today. We met secretly in the cellar of the home of one of the faithful, a cobbler named Tullizzi. We must keep our connection secret otherwise Bolelli will be useless to me. He recommended that rather than him just show up at the heretic mass, he wait to be invited to one. That would make it less suspicious and, he says, it is guaranteed to happen as these heretics always want to get more people to join their insurrection against the Holy Father.

19 September 1540 - Bolelli was right. He told me tonight that the previous day he had been invited to a heretic mass. Bolelli told me some Hungarian named Gábor Zrinski was the who spoke to him. I asked more information about this Zrinski but Bolelli told me he didn’t know much but would investigate further. He says their next mass is in two days and he will be going there with Zrinski. We have agreed to meet regularly twice each week to discuss our progress in the investigation. This Bolelli is turning out to be quite the good addition.

22 September 1540 - Met with Bolelli again tonight. He told me all about the heretic mass. It is done all in the vulgate, there is no Latin to speak of. The priest, which they call a minister, is barely distinguishable from his parishioners. By Bolleli’s account, the mass is quite simple. They sing a few songs, do a few prayers, and that is over. This is, of course, unsurprising as they have no properly trained priest and I must imagine this minister character’s sermons must be quite appalling. The most startling part, and what was apparently the main focus of the mass, is talking. These heretics actually sit in a circle and talk about how to “improve” the church, about the Lord Jesus Christ, and other such blasphemies. There is no mention of the Blessed Virgin whatsoever. Bolleli said he got a very warm welcome. This Zrinksi, who he says is some sort of leader within the heressy, introduced him as a new friend. Things are looking well. The more heretics Bolelli comes to know, the more we will find out.

30 September 1540 - Bolelli has now been to a number of heretic masses and he tells me that he is trying to compile a list of all of the townspeople who are involved with them. He also says he learned of a different heretic church but has not been able to confirm it yet. He said he will inform me when he is able to attend that one as well.

6 October 1540 - A peasant came in to my office today to inform me that his barn had been burned down. When I asked him why he was telling me and not the lord of the town, he said it was because the barn had been burned by demons. While I was ready to dismiss this as nonsense he told me that they had left behind a coin with what the peasant described as a satanic sigil. I asked him if he still had the coin and he said it was still at the location by his barn. He told me he had been afraid to touch it for fear of being cursed or possessed. I ordered him to take me to the barn immediately where we found the coin after some searching through the charred remains of the structure. The peasant was wrong, the crest on the coin was not a satanic sigil, but rather the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Hungary. This was truly something. The only man in the town who would have a Hungarian coin would be this Zrinksi character and likely he or someone he knew closely, was connected with this barn burning. And if they were connected with this one, they were also probably connected with the others. I asked the peasant if he knew if the other peasants whose barns had been burned were faithful believers or if he suspected them of being heretics. The peasant told me that all three of the others were faithful believers as well, that he knew it for sure. If the heretics are beginning to burn the property of true believers, I may have to move more swiftly to expose them and punish them. The Church must protect its flock.

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Coin found by Father Colle​

8 October 1540 - I told Bolleli to see what he could find out about this barn burning business. I told him that I suspected Zrinski was somehow involved because of the coin I’d found. He said it was possible as the Hungarian had been angrily denouncing some of the peasants in the heretic masses. I know why Zrinski and his ilk are trying to initimidate the peasants. Anywhere the heresy has sprung up, the peasants are always most resistant to it. The peasantry is, inherently, stuck in its ways and are uninterested in what these heretics have to say. In the past I have always found the peasants to be the best allies of the Inquisition. The townspeople are always suspect, the peasantry is rarely so. Knowing that they cannot win many peasants to their side, the heretics must be at least trying to intimidate them into submission.

23 October 1540 - Things have been quiet for most of the month. I have begun recording the list of names of known heretics that Bolleli is providing me in order to have it sent to Bologna and Father Mortara. Already over one hundred. One odd thing. The man whose cellar Bolleli and I use for our meetings, Tullizzi, was nowhere to be found tonight. The door to his house was open and Bolleli and I were able to get to the cellar but it was the first time he has not been there to greet us. He must have had some kind of emergency and gone somewhere.

27 October 1540 - Tullizzi still has not returned. I am beginning to become concerned about him. I wish he had informed me somehow that he would be leaving. I asked Father Padovano if he knew anything about the man’s whereabouts but he said he did not know anything. Bolleli and I have agreed to change our meeting place. We will be meeting in the church rectory, Bolleli promises me he can get in and out without being detected.

2 November 1540 - Bolleli thinks the heretics are amassing arms somewhere. He says he is unsure where but that they are beginning to trust him more and they are speaking more freely around him. He tells me that Zrinski is definitely involved with this scheme as well. He must be watched closely. I am going to speak with the lord of the town about putting some of his guards at my disposal should I need to arrest that Hungarian.

3 November 1540 - I went today to speak with Stefano Ludovisi, Lord of Pianoro, and asked him if he could lend me several of his guards to possibly arrest Zrinski. Of course I initially was not going to tell him who it was I wanted to arrest, that is Inquisition business. However, Ludovisi was evasive on the matter, telling me that he could not do it without definitive proof and that he needed to know who it was. I caved and told him I thought it was Zrinski. What would the Lord of Pianoro care if I arrested some Hungarian anyway? He still told me that he needed some more definitive proof but, if I got it, he would be glad to order the arrest himself.

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Coat of Arms of the Ludovisi Family, rulers of Pianoro

11 November 1540 - Dreadful news! Bolleli told me that he had found out the location of the second heretic mass and that Stefano Ludovisi allegedly attended it. I was shocked. If that was true it would mean that Ludovisi was just mocking me and lying when I asked him for the troops to arrest Zrinski. Bolleli does not know that Ludovisi knows that I know about Zrinski. No reason to trouble him with that knowledge. That also explains why that second heretic mass is so secretive. If I can expose the Lord of Pianoro as a heretic, it will certainly be a crowning achievement in my career but I must be careful.

15 November 1540 - Bolleli never arrived for our meeting tonight. It is possible he felt he could not get in undetected, he told me that might happen from time to time. Hope nothing is wrong.

16 November 1540 - They have killed Bolleli! His body was found in a ditch this morning with his throat cut and his eyes gouged out. Someone must have seen him! Someone must have known he was meeting with me. Ludovisi must have guessed it! Now my best hope to find out more about the heretics is gone. My chance to discover of the Lord of Pianoro is a heretic is gone. What will I do? I must ride to Bologna immediately to consult with Father Mortara. Count Giardini will want to know about the death of his agent as well. Father Padovano said he will handle the funeral arrangements.

19 November 1540 - My time in Bologna was useless. Father Mortara seems unconcerned either with the death of Bolleli or with the possibility that the lord of the town may be a heretic! He said it is to be expected that in a heretic-filled province like Romagna some of the local nobles will be heretics as well. He lectured me about being pragmatic about these matters. Absurd! The Church deserves better from its Inquisition, especially a Lord Inquisitor like Father Mortara. Count Giardini was not much more helpful. He said it was possible that Bolleli had gotten into some kind of personal dispute unrelated to his work. Another absurd claim. This was obviously the work of the heretics. He also refused to send any soldiers from Bologna to Pianoro. Am I the only one who cares?

21 November 1540 - I saw Zrinski in the street today on my way to the church. He gave me a defiant glare. The insolence! To stare down an Inquisitorial official that way. Everywhere I go in this town now I feel like I am watched and sized up. I am sure that if it were not for the retribution they would receive for killing an agent of the Inquisition, they would have cut my throat long ago, just like they did to Bolleli. I now only find comfort during my rides to the countryside, visiting with the peasants and just speaking with them. I have nobody to trust in the town aside from Father Padovano and he is old and often too tired to conversate. In the countryside I do not feel as if every person I pass is ready to sink a dagger into my back.

25 November 1540 - I have begun following random people leaving the heretic masses in hopes that one of them, eventually will go from there to wherever they are storing the arms. Zrinski never travels alone anymore, there are three or four men with him at all times. There is certainly a tense atmosphere in the town. Another barn was burned last night, the victim a true believer of course.

29 November 1540 - I have discovered the weapons store! I followed some youth from the heretic mass out to the countryside. He went into a large barn located on land owned by Cataldi. I snuck around the backside of the barn and peaked in through a crack. There were four men there and from what I could hear they were awaiting another shipment of weaponry. I waited there with baited breath until, after what seemed an eternity, a wagon flanked by two horsemen rolled up to the barn. The men unloaded countless swords, pikes, shields, and other accoutrements of war from the wagon. Are these heretics planning an insurrection? They must be, there is no other reason for this. I am sure had they caught me there they would have killed me on site. Fortunately, I was able to sneak away and return to town undetected. Tomorrow I must ride to Bologna again to inform Father Mortara and Count Giardini about this. They cannot put off action any longer.

30 November 1540 - I am trapped. They must have caught me last night after all. When I went to get on my horse this morning to go to Bologna, I was stopped by two of Lord Ludovisi’s guards, who told me rudely that I was to go and see him. When I did, he told me that by his order I was banned from leaving the town and would be under constant guard. Ludovisi’s guards are quite pathetic, nothing more than paid thugs who feel strong bullying peasants and shopkeepers but would not last a moment on a battlefield. In my younger army days I could have could through half of his men without a second thought. Alas battle wounds and time have limited my physical strength and quickness and now I feel like a helpless old man. Ludovisi said that he had reason to believe that I was stealing funds from the church and from the townspeople and that I could not leave until I was cleared in his investigation. When I informed him that he had no right to detain an official of the Inquisition, he told me, bombastically, that he did not answer to the Inquisition. We all answer to the Inquisition! I will have him burned at the stake for this outrage!

1 December 1540 - I went to church today for mass as I have done every Sunday since my arrival in Pianoro, but Father Padovano was not there. There were only a handful of parishioners who came to church today but I was not going to let down any servant of the Lord who, in these dangerous times, was willing to come to His house and hear mass. So, for the first time in many years, since before I joined the Inquisition, I performed a mass. I must say that it felt good to do so and I felt purified. However, I am concerned about Father Padovano. The old man was already infirm, and whatever has happened to him I am sure it is bad and that the heretics are behind it.

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The church in Pianoro

3 December 1540 - Father Padovano is still missing. However, I am not going to let this parish fall to pieces. I have, on top of my duties as agent of the Inquisition, taken up the duties of a parish priest as well. I have listened to confession, performed the last rites, and done a funeral mass in the three days since he has been missing. This evening Lord Ludovisi’s guards informed me that the investigation is still ongoing but that they have uncovered some “evidence” against me and I am now confined to the church grounds. When I asked about Father Padovano they just turned and left. This heretic devilry must be stopped.

5 December 1540 - I am in luck. A regiment of soldiers heading back from the war against Milan is supposed to be passing through the town tomorrow headed south toward Florence. If this is true, they will surely have a chaplain with them and the soldiers, being good true believers, will certainly want to confess or speak to the parish priest. There is no way that Lord Ludovisi will be able to prevent that from happening. The heretics with their weapons must surely be trembling at the approach of the king’s soldiers. Tonight I go to sleep with higher hopes than I have had in months.

6 December 1540 - I may have finally gotten word out to the outside world. I was only allowed to speak with the regimental chaplain, Father Umberto d’Arezzo, and even that only by order of the regiment’s commander. I told Father d’Arezzo the situation in the town and he promised that they would send word to Bologna and Count Giardini. He told me that unfortunately they could not stay as they had orders to muster in Florence to then go to Ancona to prepare defenses against another Spanish invasion. He said he had heard of my past career as a soldier and offered to take me with them instead, but I said I needed to stay and protect and mind the church. As an agent of the Inquisition, I have no right to abandon my assignment. I thanked Father d’Arezzo for his kindness and we prayed together in the chapel. Hopefully help will be coming soon.

11 December 1540 - Still no news or word from Bologna. I am wondering if Count Giardini has gone over to the heretics as well. At this point nothing would surprise me. I have kept busy tending the parish, enduring the cold, and speaking with the few brave souls still willing to venture the abuses of the heretics to make it to church. After I finish my assignment with the Inquisition here, I may request a transfer back to parochial duties. It is a more relaxed life.

13 December 1540 - There has been a great deal of stirring in the village. Out of my window I see a great deal of movement. More and more men coming into the town each day. The heretics must be making preparations for their insurrection. I must do something to stop this. I have sworn not to abandon my flock, but I need to think about the future of the Church. I must do something.

14 December 1540 - I am finally free from the vile clutches of the heretics. Last night was the most harrowing experience I have had in my life, more than combat even. I called for the guard and when he entered my room I sank a meat knife into his throat. I took his sword and quickly descended the stairs, my priest’s vestments now drenched in blood. The other guard, having heard the commotion, was on his way up the stairs. He must have been surprised to see a priest wielding a sword and covered in blood because he froze for a moment, a moment long enough for me to strike him down as well. I pray the Lord will forgive me but I am not ashamed to have killed heretics in defense of the Holy Church. I was seen exiting the Churchyard and the alarm was sounded. I ran into the fields, I had no time to get a horse, but I needed to leave the town. I ran for what seemed like an eternity. Several times I had to duck down into the grass to avoid being seen by horsemen. I finally came upon a farmhouse. As I approached it I realized my luck, it was the house of the same peasant who had reported the barnhouse burnings and found the Hungarian coin. When I knocked on his door he allowed me to enter. I told him I needed to escape as quickly as possible. He hid me in his storage cellar until the crack of dawn. Then, he got me up, gave me a set of peasants’ clothes to change into, hid me in a pile of hay in the back of his cart, and drove me out through the fields. Several groups of horsemen rode past us but nobody stopped him. He was going to drive me all the way to Bologna but I didn’t want it to be noticed that he was gone and so I had him let me off at an inn. There I managed to buy a horse with gold I had stashed away from the church (in the end Lord Ludovisi turned out to be right, I did steal from the church, but I am fairly sure our Holy Father would forgive me if he knew the circumstances), and rode the rest of the way to Bologna. I went immediately to see Father Mortara. My news, it seems finally jarred him to his senses. He had received word from Father d’Arezzo of my situation but had dismissed it as exaggeration from by young soldier they had sent to deliver it. Now though, he finally believed me. What a day. I must get some rest.

15 December 1540 - Met with Count Giardini today. It seems as if the count has not gone over to the heretics after all. He has promised to organize a militia to send to Pianoro immediately and he will also send word to Modena of what has happened. Hopefully, the insurrection can still be stopped.

3 January 1541 - Our initial attack against the heretics was disastrous. Our poorly trained and equipped militia was no match. We were outnumbered and hopeless. Of the 1,500 men who marched from Bologna to Pianoro, only 200 of us returned. Bolelli, bless his soul, was right, Zrinski was the one commanding the heretic army. They were surprisingly strong. Not only did they have numbers and good equipment, but I have heard that many heretics have been deserting from the royal armies to join Zrinski. Thankfully, the royal army is marching south under the command of King Alfonso III himself to crush these heretical insurrectionists. Despite the defeat, I cannot help but admit that I felt re-invigorated by the sting of combat.

7 January 1541 - I have joined up with the royal army. I discovered that my old comrade, Carlo Umberto di Vignola was now commanding an infantry regiment and I met up with him. He asked me to join the army as it moved south to crush the heretics. After receiving permission from Father Mortara, I eagerly volunteered. I offered him my services as a regimental chaplain for the remainder of the insurrection and Carlo accepted. I performed a mass for the troops and after we shared war stories. The regiment I was with had last fought in the siege of Cremona and was there when the last Milanese city standing fell back in September. They are battle-hardened, well equipped and trained, and morale is high coming off the last victory. I am proud to once again be under the command of our great king, Alfonso III. He was last my commander when he was still Prince Alfonso at the Battle of Innsbruck, where I was seriously wounded. It is an honor to serve under him again.

11January 1541 - Tomorrow we attack the heretic army at dawn. They will finally feel the retribution that is due to them for the terror they have wrought against the faithful and the Church. May the Lord lead us to victory.

12 January 1541 - Will the nightmare never end? Our glorious Christian king, Alfonso, was killed by the heretics in battle. He was a good and noble and brave king, he did not deserve to die like this. He will be avenged a thousand times over. The good news is that the king’s brave charge in the battle broke the heretic army and the coward Zrinski and his men fled. I was summoned by the new commander, General Malmussi, who asked me what I knew of Zrinski. The new general is a kind and decent man as well as a true believer. He swore to me that he and his men would not tire or cease until he had chased down and killed this heinous Hungarian and his evil followers. I may no longer be as strong and agile I was in my army days, but I can still swing a sword. May the Lord give us strength n these trying times.

15 January 1541 - Before we marched off to pursue the fleeing heretic army, General Malmussi summoned me again to get my list of known heretics in Pianoro. We then proceeded to round up as many of them as we could find. The women and children we let go, but all of the adult men were put to the sword. As the chief agent of the Inquisition in the town, I supervised the executions. We had captured Lord Ludovisi and some of his men attempting to flee following the battle. General Malmussi, knowing the abuses I had suffered at the hands of this vile so-called noble, as well as his likely responsibility for the deaths of Bolleli and others, gave me the honor of beheading this lecherous creature myself. I accepted the offer with gusto. Lord Ludovisi and his guards, as I expected, did not accept their fates with dignity. They cried and pleaded for their lives, but, as with the other heretics, their pleas fell on deaf ears. They were responsible for the deaths of our king and our comrades, they would find no compassion with us. Following the executions, we torched the homes of prominent known heretics and, to top it off, we lay waste to Ludovisi’s castle with fire and canons.

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All that remains of Lord Ludovisi’s castle after it was destroyed by the Modenese army
31 January 1541 - We have caught the heretic army and are making finally preparation to annihilate them. They are encamped very close to the town of Sinalunga, my first post as an Inquisitorial agent. I feel I have come full circle. My fight against the heresy will reach its climactic point in the same place where I began it. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

2 February 1541 - It is over. The last vestiges of the army of heresy have been cleansed. General Malmussi took Zrinski’s head himself, avenging our king. Following the battle, we rounded up the enemy soldiers who had survived and then put them to the sword or burned them alive. Not one was left living. The righteous wrath of an army who had suffered the death of its king and leader was unleashed upon them. For me, I had my opportunity to avenge Bolelli, Father Padovano, and those other true believers in Pianoro who had been slaughtered by the heretics. The cleansing of this heresy has just begun. However, I will not be participating in it. I spoke with Father Mortara and he has granted me permission to stay on with di Vignola’s regiment as their regimental chaplain. Next we march to Ancona to fight the Spaniards. I started out as a soldier and our kingdom remains engulfed in war. I feel like my job as an Inquisitor is done, my job I had started as a solider, remains unfinished. I seek to bring closure to that career as well. Anyway, Pianoro has been all but destroyed, there is nothing left for me to do there. I am tired of Inquisitorial work. I will leave it to younger, more zealous Inquisitors to finish the job of extirpating the heretics from the Romagna. I will return to where I belong, marching forward in a great army of Modena toward victory. Then, if I survive the war, I will go and be a simple parish priest, tending his flock and humbly serving the Lord. Yes, that sounds good.

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The burning of the heretics after the Battle of Sinalunga
 
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A couple of formatting notes: First, the above historical vignette is way behind as it is supposed to go with Chapter 10. However, I had started it then abandoned it and then decided to finish it so I figured I'd include it here anyway. At some point I may go back and edit it into where it is supposed to be. Second, I know I have been real sporadic with the updates recently but I am going to try to get them up more regularly going forward, at least one every 2-4 days (though this may be overly ambitious on my part). My semester at school ends on May 15 so I should have more time to work on this AAR then. Third, as I may have mentioned above, the game that this AAR is associated with is already up to 1644. I am not going to continue it until the AAR has caught up to the game and, at that point, I am thinking about opening it up to policy/strategy suggestions. Finally, I am still hoping for some comments on the way I have set up the governance structure for the Kingdom of Modena as I plan to build on and use this going forward.
 
Wow! This is...this is...I'm speechless. :) Great , great, job, JerseyGiant88! Are you a history writer by any chance? The governance system seems fine, detailed as usual. :D Perhaps more detail about the lesser provinces, and some info about laws/courts? I really can't comment on any game suggestions until I can see the 1644 update. ;) Keep up the awesome work!
 
Chapter 16: Mediolanum Captum Est, 1563-1566​

Modena’s wars against Austria and Saxony in support of their allies France and Bohemia had prompted a change in the thinking of King Alberto Carlo II. The man known for his peaceful policies over the first 15 years of his reign, the same one who had been nicknamed “The Scholar King”, was now becoming a conqueror. He saw that his kingdom had expended a great deal of blood and treasure in helping its allies but had not gotten any concrete gains from those wars. As a result, he had launched the Papal War of 1561-62 to conquer Rome. However, the stunning success of his armed forces both in that conflict as well as in the Second Habsburg-Valois War and the Saxon-Bohemian War convinced him of the viability of a militarist approach to foreign policy. Over the next four years, the king would engage in two further wars that would bring Modena within reach of unifying Italy.

The tiny Duchy of Bosnia became Alberto Carlo’s first target. They had just recently gained independence from Serbia, only controlled one province, had a weak military, and no allies. Alberto Carlo dispatched one of his diplomats to the province of Travunia to fabricate a claim on it. This diplomat managed to discover an ancient link between the Bosnian province and the House of Este based on a marriage between Azzo VIII, son of Obizzo II the first Lord of Ferrara, and a Bosnian princess in 1209. The link was quite tenuous, but it was enough for Alberto Carlo to have a reason to go to war. Additionally, the Modenese king argued that the duchy’s weak position made it a tempting target for the Ottoman Empire and that it was a strategic necessity for Modena to take it in order to protect their holdings in Ragusa as well as to help defend Christendom from further Ottoman encroachment.

Modena declared war on the Duchy of Bosnia on 1 August 1563 and the king sent Marshal Alberto Carlo Malmussi with an army to invade it. Malmussi, who was in Austria directing the last stages of the war against the Dowager Empress Maria Anna, went south with 10,000 men and easily defeated the small Bosnian army at the Battle of Trebinje. After that, the Modenesi besieged the city. Trebinje fell on 17 March 1564 and four days later, on 21 March, Modena officially annexed the Bosnia. Now King Alberto Carlo had a second province under his control on the eastern side of the Adriatic to add to Ragusa.

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The Battle of Trebinje was the only major battle of the Travunian War

Following the easy annexation of Travunia and the peace with Austria (three months earlier in December of 1563), Modena was temporarily back at peace. The king had a few months of respite to return to dealing with internal matters. The kingdom as a whole had not been affected much by the wars. The defeat of the Austrian and Hungarian fleets early in the Second Habsburg-Valois War had guaranteed the Modenese merchants continued freedom of navigation in the Mediterranean. Alberto Carlo’s investments in science and education had continued to pay dividends as well. While more young men were entering the military academies than in the earlier parts of Alberto Carlo’s reign, the Modenese universities were still producing large quantities of skilled administrators and scientists.

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Modena’s scientific innovation continued even during the war years of Alberto Carlo’s reign

This was not to say that the kingdom faced no internal problems. Religious tension remained high in the kingdom, especially following the spread of the Reform branch of the Reformation into the province of Ancona. Now the kingdom had two different Reformation sects within it, further complicating a difficult religious situation. Even Modena’s vaunted scientific innovation was not without its flaws. Several leading nobles at the court in Modena presented research to the king that many of the new water mills being built along the Po River were of low quality and hurting potential grain output. They proposed to scrap the new water mill methods and return to older techniques of building them. The king however, refused to abandon his new projects, having already invested a great deal in them. While this meant that Modena would not spend the money to rebuild a new mill network, in the long run it is likely to have cost the kingdom more as a result of decreased output. Additionally, Alberto Carlo’s refusal to re-assess his engineers’ work caused him and his advisors to lose some of their excellent reputation as open-minded, non-partisan thinkers.

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Flaws in some of Modena’s production methods caused the king and his advisors to lose face

The most troubling issue facing the kingdom though was corruption within the government. In the summer of 1564, the king’s advisor for the interior, Gianpietro Colonna, Duke of Ferrara, reported to the court on a rash of bribery, extortion, and financial mismanagement at the local levels of power. The Duke of Ferrara reported that local nobles, seeing great deals of tax money going to the crown, were either extorting the local peasantry or else charging huge bribes to deliver basic services. The Provincial Ministers were either kept in the dark about this or threatened by the local nobles. King Alberto Carlo was outraged. He put into place a series of anti-corruption measures, including the threat of execution to anyone found taking bribes or extorting peasants. The king declared that this was exactly the same as stealing from the crown and would be treated accordingly. To add to that, the king accelerated his efforts to reform local governance structures. This included giving more power to the Provincial Ministers including the authority to take control of local militias and military forces to use against rebellious or disobedient nobles. Alberto Carlo wanted to continue to transfer more local power to his officials, whom he appointed and whose loyalty he was sure of, and away from the local nobility. While it would take time, the reforms that the king was putting into place would curb the corruption problem in the long run. Many nobles were greatly angered by the king’s new policies. However, the wars had shifted the army’s loyalty squarely behind the Alberto Carlo and no noble dared challenge him in the field. It would be more than a decade and a half before one did rise up against the crown, and by then it would be too late.

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Massive government corruption was discovered and reported in the summer of 1564. From then on, King Alberto Carlo II launched aggressive anti-corruption measures and pushed further reforms of the local governance structures

King Alberto Carlo did not have too much time to dwell on internal matters however, he was already busy planning another war. He called in his two best commanders, Marshal Malmussi and General d’Aragona, to discuss the situation with them. King Alberto Carlo was worried about Milan. Modena’s old rival in Italy had been nearly wiped out, but was now threatening a resurgence. The Ambrosian Revolution, which overthrew the ruling Visconti Family in 1514 had re-energized Milan, stopped its steady decline, and positioned it to attempt to regain some of its lost power in Italy. The revolution was sparked by a dispute between the pro-Imperial Ghibellines and the pro-Papal Guelfs. The Visconti, who were Guelfs and wanted to maintain close relations with the Papacy. However, pro-Ghibelline factions within the city, seeking to move Milan further into the orbit of the Emperor, rebelled, overthrew the ruling Visconti, and established the Ambrosian Republic. They were led by Luchino Ghislieri who had Duke Carlo I imprisoned and then executed. The rest of the Visconti Family however, was allowed to remain in the city and brought back into the fold of Milanese politics within a few years.

For the subsequent three decades, the Captains-General and the ruling council had approached Italian politics from behind the scenes. But then, in 1552, Emperor Maximilian I of Austria granted elector status to the Ambrosian Republic and they began to assert themselves more. Shortly thereafter, in 1554, Milan, backed by Austria, defeated Switzerland and took the provinces of Waldstätte and Graubünden. Since then, Captain-General Giovanni Maria Ghislieri, grandson of the revolutionary leader, had become one of Empress Maria Anna’s staunchest supporters within the Empire during the near-crisis following the death of Emperor Maximilian I. Milan had been instrumental in convincing the other electors to continue backing the Habsburgs even considering the young age of Archduke Franz. The Milanesi knew that their only hope to avoid being destroyed by Modena was to maintain Austria’s support. King Alberto Carlo was afraid that it was only a matter of time before Austria used Milan to strike again at Modena in Italy. The king knew that Vienna was still licking its wounds from the beating it had taken during the Second Habsburg-Valois War, with their capital city itself having been put under siege and so he wanted to strike at Milan now, while Austria was weakened, and put it under Modenese control.

On 10 June 1564, the Kingdom of Modena went to war with the Ambrosian Republic of Milan, citing as their official cause of war the toppling of the Ambrosian Republic because it represented a threat to the political order in Italy. The alignment of the sides in this war was very similar to the alignment in the last war, even the way it came about. Just like France with Savoy, Modena had initially intended to fight the weaker Milan on its own. However, when Empress Maria Anna once again decided to intervene to protect one of her Italian allies, Modena called on France to repay their favor. The new King of France, Gaston I, had grown up hearing tales about the exploits of his father’s armies and was now eager to test his own mettle in war. King Alberto Carlo had not expected Austria to enter the war on Milan’s side, but Captain-General Ghislieri was able to get the Dowager Empress to throw her country’s weight behind her loyal elector in hopes of keeping it out of Modena’s clutches. It would be a disaster for the Habsburgs if so soon after making Milan an elector in order to secure an extra vote on their side it was then taken over and used against them.

The allies that Austria had brought in to fight France and Modena in the last war had tired of shedding blood to try to maintain Vienna’s influence in Italy. Poland, Hungary, and Brandenburg all refused to enter this war on Austria’s side. King Jan II of Poland had, by that point broken off the Austrian-Polish alliance as a result of what the Poles viewed as the abandonment of their troops by the Austrians at the Battle of Vienna and the Battle of the Six Armies. The breaking of the alliance would signal the beginning of a reorientation of Polish foreign policy toward the French and, by extension, Modena, against the Austrians going forward. Brandenburg and Hungary did maintain their alliances however both argued that since Austria was not attacked directly but rather was intervening on behalf of one of its own allies they had no obligation to enter the war. Austria did get one important ally to enter the war: the Kingdom of Burgundy. The Burgundians were no longer the power they once were and had been largely quiet in European affairs since decisive defeats against France in the Franco-Burgundian Wars of 1488-92 and 1508-11. However, like Milan with Modena, they viewed Austria as their only chance to hold off the French and maintain their position. As a result, when Empress Maria Anna called for their help they were willing to assist. Austria was also backed by the Palatinate, another of their staunch supporters within the Empire. The war side for Modena on the other hand was basically the same as in the last war. France, Naples, and Bohemia joined Modena, with both King Gaston I of France and King Jaromir II of Bohemia eager for another chance to defeat the hated Austrians. When Modena’s ambassador to Prague, Ludovico d’Este broached the possibility of Bohemia joining the war effort, Jaromir eagerly embraced the idea. Now King Alberto Carlo would have Austria encircled. The war sides were set and the Ambrosian War had begun.

The opening hostilities occurred in the province of Brescia. A massive army made up of both French and Modenese troops under General d’Aragona overran a much smaller Milanese force on 17 July. Following the battle, the army split, with d’Aragona taking part of it into Milan to begin besieging the Milanese cities, while the French General Nicolas de Bonnefoy pushed toward Austria. The next major clash came outside of Verona on 18 September. This time an Austrian army, under the command of General Franz von Schönburg moved into Modenese territory and was met by Bonnefoy’s Franco-Modenese force. Bonnefoy came out of it the better, wiping out Schönburg’s smaller force. Following that disaster, Austria did not attempt another offensive for several months. In the meantime, General d’Aragona was making excellent progress with his sieges, capturing the city of Schwyz and the surrounding province of Waldstätte on 8 January 1565.

However, it was not to be all smooth sailing for Modena and France. General d’Aragona died in his sleep on the night of 12 February 1565 at the age of 58. He had previously been in good health and good spirits. Rumor circulated that he had been poisoned by an Austrian or Milanese spy, but no proof of this was ever found. While d’Aragona did not live long enough to gain all of the titles and acclaim that Malmussi did, he did not fare too badly himself. At his death, he had never lost a battle in which he commanded, had achieved the highest possible rank within Modena’s military, become Count of Viterbo, and helped author one of the most important and influential works of military theory of the Sixteenth Century. King Alberto Carlo II even had a square in Modena renamed for the late general and a statue built in his honor. His campaign against Austria, especially the Battle of the Six Armies and the Battle of Vienna, would be studied in Modenese and later in Italian military academies for centuries.

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The death of General d’Aragona was mourned throughout the Kingdom of Modena

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Statue of General Foresto d’Appiani d’Aragona in Piazza d'Aragona, the square in Modena named after him. The general is considered by many military historians to be the greatest commander in the kingdom’s history

D’Aragona’s death forced Marshal Malmussi to take a more active role in planning and coordinating battle plans. The aging warrior, now in his 70’s and suffering from fading eyesight, had been ceding more and more of the actual battle planning to d’Aragona. Thankfully for him, he would find two very capable partners in the French and Neapolitan commanders he would work with. The Frenchman, Nicolas de Bonnefoy, as well as the Neapolitan commander Leopoldo Ludovisi, both performed very well throughout the war. Malmussi and Bonnefoy split the command duties. Malmussi would prosecute the sieges against the Milanese cities while Bonnefoy would command the armies in the field against the Austrians.

In April of 1565 Austria tried yet another ill-advised offensive into enemy positions in the Alps. General von Schönburg was making the same mistakes that had led General Zakrzewsky to disaster. To make matters even more difficult, the original French-Modenese army had been further strengthened by the arrival of a Bohemian contingent a month earlier. Von Schönburg’s army was destroyed by the combined Franco-Modenese-Bohemian force. Yet again, another Austrian had entered the Alps, yet again the venture had ended in humiliation and disaster.

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The Battle of Tirol saw the defeat of yet another Austrian army

In the meanwhile, more good news was coming for the allies. On 26 May 1565, after 350 days of siege, Marshal Malmussi and his troops smashed through the gates of Milan and captured the city. The hated Captain-General Ghislieri was captured and put in irons and displayed in the Piazza del Duomo. The sign “squire of the Empress” was placed around his neck. The following day, Malmussi sent Ghislieri back to Modena under an armed guard. He also sent his king a three word message: “Mediolanum captum est”, Latin for “Milan has been captured”. Modena now held the capital of its most hated enemy in Italy. If the Modenesi and their allies could continue their successes against Austria, it was only a matter of time before Milan would be under Modena’s control.

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The capture of Milan


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Soldiers of the Army of Modena enter Milan at the end of the siege; 26 May 1565

Shortly thereafter, King Alberto Carlo II gave a speech at the graduation ceremony of the University of Modena. He highlighted the military successes of recent years but also spoke at length of the continued need for reform and progress internally. In “The University Speech”, the man who was known as “The Scholar King” refused to dwell solely on military achievements. He told the students how it was easy to become wrapped up in war and obsess over expansion. However, he told them, it was just as important to produce skilled men who could manage and rule a kingdom as it was to produce conquerors. The king said that Modena by now had proven it had a knack for making great warriors. He added that while he regretted having neglected the military for so long, he did not at all regret the investments he had made in science, technology, and culture. Modena needed to work harder to build and improve its infrastructure, better its cultural output, and increase its trade. King Alberto Carlo concluded by saying that Modena was destined to be a great power, but that this could not be achieved simply by warfare, it required men of administrative talent in addition to a great and world-renowned culture. The speech was well received and helped continue to spur young men to go into government.

The king concluded his speech with an outline of how he planned to rule for the remainder of his reign. Shortly after King Alberto Carlo II had been crowned, he gave the April Proclamation in April of 1545, which meant to lay out his vision for the kingdom under his rule. Now, twenty years later, the thirty five year old monarch felt it was time to once again let his subjects know how he intended to proceed. He presented four pillars on which he planned to focus going forward. First, and much different from the April Proclamation of 1545 when he barely mentioned the military at all, was the defense of the realm. To do this, Alberto Carlo promised to maintain a well funded and trained military and to continue to invest ducats into military research. Second was the continued expansion of the trade fleet coupled with assistance to the merchants. Third, was the continued reform of the royal administration to improve local rule and centralize power in the hands of the crown. And fourth was the continued investment and improvement of the kingdom’s universities to continue producing excellent administrators, scientists, artists, and professors. With these four areas of focus, the king believed that Modena could claim its place amongst the top powers of the continent.

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King Alberto Carlo’s “University Speech” outlined his vision for the future of the kingdom

Back on the Austrian front, the Franco-Modenese forces were preparing to launch a final offensive to break the Habsburg armies. Bonnefoy and Malmussi decided to attack into Trent yet again. The Austrian troops there were new recruits and were hopelessly outnumbered. As if it were becoming a trend, an Austrian army was defeated in its own mountains. The two allied commanders then planned to pour over the Alps and into Austria’s home provinces. With its cities under siege yet again, the hope was that Empress Maria Anna would sue for peace.

The plan worked out very well. Under Bonnefoy’s command, the Franco-Modenese army smashed the overmatched Austrian defenders in Trent. After that, it was a matter of dividing up the invading force and beginning to besiege as many Austrian cities as the supply lines allowed. However, the joint plan did suffer a twist. King Gaston I ordered General Bonnefoy to return with his army to France. The king was planning a final assault on Burgundy to knock them out of the war once and for all and he wanted his best general there to execute it. As a result, the French left Austria and Marshal Malmussi stayed to prosecute the invasion and occupation of Austria alone. However, relief came from the north this time. Bohemia, having finally beaten back the Austrian invasion of their own kingdom, now was glad to repay the favor. They invaded Austria and began besieging the cities of Linz and Krems. By September of 1565, six of Austria’s eleven provinces were occupied, with their principal cities under siege.

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The easy victory at Trent cleared the way for the France and Modena’s invasion of Austria

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The allied sieges of Austrian territory, autumn of 1565

The year 1566 would bring more good news to the allies. Linz became the first Austrian city to fall to the allies when the Bohemians took it on 2 February. The French offensives against Burgundy were also a major success. General Bonnefoy and his troops destroyed the Burgundian armies and began occupying their territory as well. As a result, Burgundy was forced to sue for peace on 27 February, depriving Austria of its strongest ally in the war and, more importantly, taking away the only distraction to stop the French.

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Burgundy sued for peace in February of 1566

Austria did score one victory in battle in 1566, but even that turned out to be pyrrhic. The Austrian general Johann Wilhelm von Leyen, the Count of Graz, launched a diversionary attack that passed through the German principalities and around the Modenese positions in the Austrian Alps to attack directly into Italy from the north. Von Leyen hoped that this would cut off the Modenese supply lines and force them to withdraw from their sieges in Austria. On the way the Austrian general had also picked up reinforcements from the Palatinate to supplement his own troops. Von Leyen’s army attacked a combined Modenese-Neapolitan force near Brescia on 14 May. The outnumbered allies fought doggedly and forced the imperial troops to pay dearly for every piece of ground they took. The defenders were eventually dislodged and forced to retreat but not before inflicting nearly twice as many casualties on their opponents. General von Leyen had won a victory for Austria but with his army too battered to operate effectively in Italy, he decided to withdraw back into Germany rather than risk his force being completely destroyed.

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Austria’s victory at Brescia turned out to be a pyrrhic one

As a result of the Austrian withdrawal, Modena was able to maintain its sieges in Austria. Görz fell on 2 August after nearly a year under siege. More importantly, the final Milanese province still holding out, the province of Graunbünden was captured on 18 September. The mountainous province and its main city, Chur, were able to hold out for 525 days under siege. However, in the end, the Modenesi were able to take it.

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The capture of Görz and Chur effectively ended the war

With all of Milan’s territory now under Modenese control and with Austria under siege with no prospect of saving itself, Empress Maria Anna once again realized it was time to sue for peace. The terms dictated by King Alberto Carlo II were simple and severe: Milan would become a vassal of the Kingdom of Modena. Empress Maria Anna tried to protest but with no will to carry on the war, she had to concede. The Milanesi were, obviously very unhappy with the deal. However, the Ambrosian Republic was broken. The Modenesi had been working with several prominent families in Milan to get them to throw their support behind coming to terms with Modena. They were offered the opportunity to keep their lands and titles so long as they swore allegiance to King Alberto Carlo II. The Visconti Family, eager to regain their position of prominence in Milan which they had lost since King Carlo I was overthrown by the revolution, were the first to throw their still significant resources behind the invading Modenesi. Along with them, the powerful Franchi and Lamberti Families threw in their lot with the Estes after the fall of the city. On the other hand, King Alberto Carlo would strip several of the major families of all lands and titles and reduce them, essentially, to commoners. The Del Monte, Cardé, Adelasio, and della Torre Families suffered this fate. Most prominently, the House of Ghislieri, the most powerful family under the Ambrosian Republic, was banished from the realm to prevent them from making any claims to the throne of an independent Milan. The Ghislieris had produced four Captains-General of Milan and were founded by Luchino Ghislieri, the prominent Ghibelline politician who had led the Ambrosian Revolution. Captain-General Giovanni Maria Ghislieri, however, was not given the option of exile. He was executed by Modena shortly after the war to represent the definitive end of Milan as a rival power.

A second part of the treaty required Austria to recognize and accept Milan and Duke Massimiliano’s continued status as an elector within the Holy Roman Empire, even as a vassal of Modena. This was exactly what the Austrians had entered the war to prevent, but they had no choice at this point. The Treaty of Milan was signed on 12 December 1566.

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Coat of Arms of the House of Visconti, re-established as the rulers of Milan by King Alberto Carlo II of Modena

There was one more instance of bloodshed before the matter would be settled however, In March of 1567, a massive peasant uprising occurred in Lombardia, with the aim of overthrowing the new Modenese overlord along with their pawn the Duke Massimiliano Visconti and to re-establish the Ambrosian Republic. For the peasantry, despite initially opposing it, the republic had given them the greatest amount of representation they had ever had and they feared the re-establishment of a traditional feudal order would trample upon their newly gained rights. Unfortunately for them, their rebellion would be quite short-lived. On 26 May the battle-hardened Modenese army crushed the peasant rebels in battle.

Prince Ercole d’Este, who had long been eager to have a command, was finally allowed to do so in this battle. King Alberto Carlo did not think highly of his firstborn son and heir and had refused to allow him to have any meaningful participation in the Ambrosian War. Ercole had participated in the sieges of Milan and Chur, but not in any command capacity. However, the king finally relented and allowed his son to lead the army into battle against a rag-tag peasant force. Tension would remain between the king and his son over issues of military command going forward. It had taken Alberto Carlo a very long time to overcome his early anti-military policies and win the army’s loyalty. The last thing he needed was to squander that by appointing his son a general and having him lead the army to disaster. Fortunately, the battle against the peasants turned out well and, soon enough, the entire matter of Prince Ercole’s military and political career would resolve itself.

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The peasant rebels were crushed by an army commanded by Crown Prince Ercole in his first ever command

Regardless of intra-familial squabbles in the royal family, Alberto Carlo did need to address the issue of the peasantry in the province of Lombardia or potentially continue to face uprisings and rebellions. He decreed that the Duchy of Milan would not annul any of the privileges or rights gained by the peasants under the Ambrosian Republic so long as they did not rise up again. The way the king saw it, the Ambrosian revolutionaries in Milan only extended the new rights to the conservative peasants so as to win over their political loyalty against the pro-Papal Visconti and their supporters, so why should he not maintain their loyalty by the same methods? With the king's decree guaranteeing their rights, the Milanese peasants settled down and there would not be another revolt again.

Modena’s oldest and most hated rival on the peninsula was eliminated once and for all. The province of Lombardy, the wealthiest and most productive in Italy, was in Modenese hands. There was nothing left to stop the unification of the Italian kingdom. To make the victory even sweeter, Modena and its allies France and Bohemia had just forced the capitulation of the hated Austrians for the second time in four years. King Alberto Carlo II, despite having never wanted to be a conqueror, had just overseen some of the most important territorial and political gains in his kingdom’s history.
 
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I keep thinking I'd commented before and keep realizing I haven't.

But anyways very great writing. Although sad seeing Milan disappear like that :( lol...You are doing quite an amazing job with little Modena though!
 
The capital of Graubuenden is Chur. Great work as always.

P.S. Is Naples independent?

Yeah thanks for that. Forgot to go back and edit that part. Naples is in a Personal Union under France which has been nice since it keeps my southern flank secured.

I keep thinking I'd commented before and keep realizing I haven't.

But anyways very great writing. Although sad seeing Milan disappear like that :( lol...You are doing quite an amazing job with little Modena though!

Thanks. I've been following your Milan AAR as well and have been enjoying that greatly. It's funny, I started the game with the goal of uniting Italy which meant taking out all my rivals on the peninsula, but now that it's almost done I'm feeling a bit lonely. It's just Savoy, Genoa, and me left with Naples under France in a PU. Reading your Milan AAR makes me wish I hadn't rushed through the early parts of this game as much and done more on the balance of power in Italy, various intrigues, etc. Anyway, trying to make up for that now.
 
Yeah thanks for that. Forgot to go back and edit that part. Naples is in a Personal Union under France which has been nice since it keeps my southern flank secured.



Thanks. I've been following your Milan AAR as well and have been enjoying that greatly. It's funny, I started the game with the goal of uniting Italy which meant taking out all my rivals on the peninsula, but now that it's almost done I'm feeling a bit lonely. It's just Savoy, Genoa, and me left with Naples under France in a PU. Reading your Milan AAR makes me wish I hadn't rushed through the early parts of this game as much and done more on the balance of power in Italy, various intrigues, etc. Anyway, trying to make up for that now.

You are welcome.

In my Milan AAR my slow progress was more accidental, its my first playthrough in EUIV and only playthrough so far so I was treading very carefully in it. Didn't want to get ganked by the powers that be.

But its been great to see how far you have taken Modena so far, especially since it was an OPM and fairly weak at the beginning. Do you have any goals as to getting elected as Emperor?
 
Chapter 17: The Guardians of Wisdom, 1566-1571​

Following another victory against Austria and its allies and the subsequent vassalization of Milan, the Kingdom of Modena was riding high. King Alberto Carlo II had learned from his earlier days and, following the war, decided on a more balanced approach to his rule. Instead of privileging the administrative and cultural parts of his policy over the military, the king decided to embrace both. The policies he had outlined in The University Speech in 1565 were to be the focus of his reign.

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During the period High Renaissance Art and Architecture throughout Italy but especially within the Kingdom of Modena continued to flourish

One focus of King Alberto Carlo’s University Speech had been the need for Modena to not only have a great military, but also to build a world renowned culture. He attempted to further this goal by investing much more in the arts. The king’s wife, Queen Margherita, had long been trying to get him to take a greater interest in the arts and now, that Alberto Carlo saw it as important to the kingdom’s future, he took her advice. He began patronizing various well known artists and commissioning them to do works at the royal palaces. The Renaissance had been blooming in Italy largely out of the talent and innovation of individual artists. However, starting in the late 1560’s, the Kingdom of Modena would begin a large-scale increase in the funding it put into arts and culture. Some of the primary beneficiaries of this new-found largess, such as the artists Paolo Veronese and Titian, produced some of their greatest works while commissioned by the House of Este.

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Paolo Veronese (left) and Titian (right) were two of the towering artistic figures of the era

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Titian’s The Rape of Europa

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Veronese’s The Wedding at Cana


The second focus for the king was technology. The king, as well as his top commander, Marshal Alberto Carlo Malmussi, both knew that no matter how skilled, brave, and disciplined Modena’s armies were, that continued success in battle depended on them remaining at the cutting edge in terms of equipment and doctrine. Accordingly, the king ordered continued investment in military research and development, even now that the kingdom was at peace. Technological investments were focused on defensive as well as offensive improvements. Defensively, military engineers developed fortress improvements including the tenaille. Offensively, improvements in cavalry warfare and the development of the caracole technique, by which light cavalry harassed enemy infantry to soften them for a heavy cavalry charge, would benefit the army over the long term. Additionally, improvements in command and control techniques enabled commanders to occupy a wider battle line and still effectively maneuver their army.

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The development of the tenaille as a method of fortress defense was one of several military technology advances in the years following the Ambrosian War

Another thing that King Alberto Carlo did following the Ambrosian War, which he did not do after the War of the League of Strasbourg, was to put intelligent and talented men who served in the armed forces to work in the civilian administration. He awarded positions throughout the kingdom to officers who had shown skill and ability in war but who had grown tired of military life. He implemented this policy with the assistance and support of Marshal Malmussi so that the military would not view this as a purge or theft of talent, but rather as a reward to individual officers from the crown for outstanding service. Malmussi, once the king’s bitter rival, was now integral to helping him shape and execute his policy. The result of this infusion of new blood into the administrative apparatus of the kingdom was an increased dynamism. While it was initially unclear if the diverse worldviews of former soldiers and career administrators would clash, the result was just the opposite: the combined outlooks fed off each other to further advance Alberto Carlo’s reform efforts. It turned out that the former soldiers were just as enthusiastic about taking power away from privileged nobles as the career administrators were.

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The universities’ continued production of quality administrators led to tangible improvements in the kingdom’s governance

This is not to say the king ignored his career administrators either. Alberto Carlo continued to invest in the universities to make sure that they continued to graduate talented men to help him run his kingdom. He encouraged universities throughout the kingdom to send their best students to spend a year or two studying at elite universities around Europe such as the Collège de Sorbonne in Paris, the Univerzita Karlova in Prague, the Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Krakow, and the Université de Toulouse. This way, they could learn the governance structures and administrative methods of other kingdoms. Each returning student would have to write an extensive report on what he had learned abroad and which policies could be applied to the Kingdom of Modena. Then, the student would have to present it to the university as a whole. Alberto Carlo ordered that the best reports from each school be sent to him to read. Knowledge that the king himself might read a student’s report led to the study abroad programs becoming extremely competitive and students would exert themselves to write the best reports possible. Having one’s report read by the king was considered to be an incredible boost to the start of one’s career in the civil service. The continued investments in governance reforms along with an infusion of ideas from across Europe led to serious advances in administrative methods and capabilities.

For their part, other universities around Europe were eager to accept students from the kingdom’s universities. The Kingdom of Modena had, arguably, the richest tradition of higher education in all of Europe. It had the oldest university on the continent, l’Università di Bologna, founded in 1088, as well as a number of other venerable and highly prestigious schools. L’Università degli Studi di Modena, located in the capital city itself, was the second oldest university in Europe having been founded in 1175. In addition to these two, the universities in Padua (founded 1222), Siena (1246), and Macerata (1290) combined to give Modena five out of the twenty universities in Europe founded before 1300. In total, the Kingdom of Modena was home to the third largest number of universities (17) of any European state, behind only Spain (21) and France (18).

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The reading room in the library at the University of Bologna. The Kingdom of Modena was an educational powerhouse under King Alberto Carlo II

Not only was the high quality of the academic institutions leading to practical results in the improvement of governance and technology, but it also sparked a revolution of ideas and theories. Thinkers from across the kingdom were coming up with new and interesting approaches to national issues. One of the main concerns of King Alberto Carlo and his military leadership was the question of not just maintaining and increasing the quality of the army, but also being able to support a larger army in terms of total numbers. To better approach this, the King organized a partnership between the military and the universities to study questions of supply lines, troop retention, feeding the army, etc. This way, the army would be able to combine the firsthand knowledge of its officers with the technical and theoretical know-how of professors and scientists to devise the best way to support an ever expanding force.

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Improved administrative methods led to new avenues of thought and innovation in other fields, particularly in military matters

Things were not all going wonderfully however. The Church was, by this point, in almost open revolt against King Alberto Carlo. He had undermined their power, all but abandoned the Counter-Reformation, was supporting all sorts of “heretical” research in the universities, and, to top it all off, had ejected the Pope from Rome. The Warden of the Faith, Father Annibale Tomba, was desperate for an opportunity to stir up a controversy in the kingdom, get the more fanatical and conservative elements of the peasantry fired up and behind him, and put pressure on Alberto Carlo to re-embrace some of the Church’s and, especially, the Inquisition’s favored policies.

The grizzled old priest got his chance with the publication of the book On Man, Nature, & God by the philosopher Ignazio Bruno in 1568. Bruno, who taught at l'Università di Lucca, had first drawn the ire of the Church when he published his first book, The Sun & Stars in 1563, which built on the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus and his book, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, published in 1543. In his latest book, Bruno argued that while man, like all things, was created by God, he was not made in God’s image but was simply another animal that was endowed with superior intelligence. He referred to man as “the most favored creature,” but rejected the idea that man was somehow separate from the rest of the animal world. Bruno, who before going to teach at the university in Lucca had been on the faculty at the University of Bologna’s medical school, claimed that there were too many similarities in the structures of animals and humans for there to be any real difference between them. King Alberto Carlo read the book and told his advisors that he greatly enjoyed it. While he did not exactly agree with Bruno’s conclusions, he thought there was a lot of wisdom and that, with additional thought and critiques from his colleagues, Bruno could make an important philosophical breakthrough. Alberto Carlo’s other motivation for supporting Bruno was to show the universities that they were free to publish and write what they wanted and be protected from the excesses of the Inquisition.

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The famous Modenese philosopher Ignazio Bruno
Father Tomba and the Inquisition, of course, begged to differ. They seized on the book’s claims to argue that Bruno was undermining the Bible and committing an unacceptable heresy by saying that man was not created in God’s image. Father Tomba demanded the university hand Bruno over to the Inquisition for trial and claimed that, since this was a religious matter, the Inquisitorial courts would have the authority to try the case. When King Alberto Carlo heard the Warden of the Faith’s claims, he rejected them on the basis that the University of Lucca was located in a Royal Province and, according to the king, therefore not bound by the Conventicle Act. In response, Tomba sent his Inquisitorial agents into the towns and villages around Lucca to stir up the peasants against this so-called heretic. The Doge of the nearby Free Republic of Pisa, who was sympathetic to Bruno and a supporter of his book, sent a dispatch to the king informing him of the Inquisition’s actions and requesting armed support should a mob form and try to march on Lucca. The king, alarmed that the Inquisition would try to stir up trouble in a city within the Royal Province of Modena, immediately dispatched a regiment from the army to march to Lucca and bolster the defenses of the city.

On 17 September 1568, thousands of peasants, guided by priests from the Inquisition, began descending on Lucca, torches and pitchforks in hand. They surrounded the city and demanded that Bruno be handed over to them. The city garrison refused and so the peasants set up around the walls and prepared to starve out the city. The next morning however, on 18 September, a thousand heavily armed soldiers sent from Modena arrived outside Lucca. Some of the Inquisitorial agents argued that they should try to block the soldiers’ access to the city, but few of the peasants were willing to go along with that idea, as it meant almost certain slaughter. When the soldiers entered the city they received a hero’s welcome, students from the university passed out wine and food to them, and the troops were quartered in the university’s dormitories. The regiment was commanded by the 22 year old Marco Dalboni, a veteran of the Ambrosian War and the grandson of the legendary artillery officer Errico Dalboni. The city of Lucca bestowed upon the regiment the honorary title “Guardians of Wisdom” for defending the university and access to the city.

However, the atmosphere remained tense. The Inquisition rallied more peasants to the anti-Bruno cause and they continued to come toward Lucca. Finally, on 20 September, King Alberto Carlo issued a proclamation declaring that as the universities were under a royal charter, their publications and teachings fell under the authority of the crown and not that of the Inquisition regardless of the subject matter. He ordered the Inquisition to stand down and for all those who had travelled to Lucca to demonstrate against Bruno to return home. Alberto Carlo also sent a secret order to Captain Dalboni that anyone left camped outside the city by 25 September was to be rounded up and arrested, anyone who resisted was to be killed. By this point, nearly 11,000 people were estimated to be camped outside of Lucca. While most of the peasants returned home following the proclamation, some of the more fanatical elements, urged on by the Inquisitorial agents, stayed. Just before dawn on Saturday 25 September Dalboni mustered his troops and marched them through the city gates. They fell upon the sleeping peasants and priests as they slept. Almost all surrendered immediately but some of the Inquisitors tried to resist only to be quickly cut down by the soldiers. All of the peasants were given the option to either return home immediately or be marched to Modena for trial and probable execution. Almost all of them selected the former option. The Inquisitorial agents, numbering just about one hundred, were given no such option. They were bound and forced to march with Dalboni’s regiment back to Modena for trial.

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The publication of On Man, Nature, & God by the philosopher Ignazio Bruno sparked a clash between King Alberto Carlo II and Father Annibale Tomba and the Inquisition. The King sided decisively with Bruno against the Inquisition

King Alberto Carlo had them swiftly pronounced guilty of treason and insurrection for disobeying a direct royal order within a Royal Province. He even threatened the Warden of the Faith with arrest should he try to interfere with the dispensation of the king’s justice. Father Tomba, suddenly apologetic and contrite, pleaded in for his priests to be released and swore never to openly disobey the king again. King Alberto Carlo, seeing an opportunity to look merciful and yet also send a brutally decisive message to the Inquisition, decided to pardon all but twenty of the priests who had been present at Lucca. On 12 October 1568, these twenty priests of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition were beheaded in Piazza Grande, Modena’s main square. This marked the largest mass execution of Catholic clergymen on the Italian Peninsula since Roman times and caused major ripples of instability through the kingdom. Nevertheless, once again, nobody was willing to rise in open revolt against the king and his fiercely loyal army. Rumors would persist for years about impending peasant revolts due to the execution of the priests, but none ever materialized.

Father Tomba had badly miscalculated in his attempt to stir up problems using Bruno’s book to pressure the king. While Alberto Carlo was not a follower of Bruno’s theories, he had embraced the idea of protecting the research and findings of those in his universities and would broach no challenge to the freedom offered to the professors and philosophers there. Alberto Carlo was determined to build and maintain one of the greatest educational systems in Europe and he was going to protect his schools no matter what. For the Inquisition, the defeat at Lucca marked yet another major setback. Not only were twenty of their most senior priests dead, but there were no signs within Modena’s military of a backlash against Alberto Carlo. Even on an issue as contentious as questioning the Bible and executing priests, the military had stayed loyal and obeyed orders. This was a message to any and all potential rebels that if they wanted to challenge the king, it would be a tall order that would likely end in death.

Even in the midst of domestic troubles, King Alberto Carlo and his increasingly powerful military had the time to look overseas. The acquisition of the province of Travunia had whet Modena’s appetite for expansion in the Balkans. A second attempt to form a duchy would open up possibilities for this expansion. Only five years after the first incarnation of the Duchy of Bosnia was annexed by the Kingdom of Modena, rebels in the province of Zeta forced the Kingdom of Serbia to grant them independence and they re-founded the Duchy of Bosnia, this time with its capital in Zabljak. Duke Radijov Hrvatinic, the same man who had led the previous version, was once again put in place as the leader. However, this second Bosnian duchy would last even less time than the previous one.

In May of 1568, using the same claim on Zeta as that which had been used on Travunia, the Kingdom of Modena declared war on Bosnia. Once again, the war was a short, decisive affair. One battle, in which the armies of Modena overwhelmed the much weaker Bosnians followed by a siege were all it took. Zabljak fell on 1 June 1569 and three days later Duke Radijov agreed to terms of full annexation. This time however, instead of banishing the duke and risking that he and his Bosnian followers attempt to fight against Modena again, King Alberto Carlo elected to co-opt him instead. Duke Radijov was allowed to stay on as the Duke of Zeta as long as he pledged allegiance to the Kingdom of Modena and Alberto Carlo. As the House of Este had done in the past, it successfully transformed a former enemy family into a strong ally. This would not be the last time Bosnians would get their own land. In the future, “the Bosnian Question” would continue to provide Alberto Carlo’s successors with opportunities for expansion in the Balkans.

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The War for Zeta expanded Modenese holdings on the eastern side of the Adriatic even further

On 23 August 1569 tragedy struck the House of Este. Crown Prince Ercole,21 years old, was killed in a hunting accident. The prince and his squire got separated from the main hunting party and, as they attempted to locate it, came across a large bear. Against his squire’s advice, Ercole attempted to kill the bear with a spear but hit the beast in the shoulder and failed to kill it. This caused the bear to charge and begin mauling the Crown Prince. His squire managed to kill the bear with a well placed spear thrust to the back of the neck, but it was too late. Crown Prince Ercole d’Este, heir to the throne of Modena, lay mortally wounded.

Many said that his death was retribution from God for killing the priests and supporting the philosopher Ignazio Bruno less than a year earlier. Queen Margherita was devastated by the loss and went into an extended period of depression. Alberto Carlo, on the other hand, was not nearly as upset. He had always considered Ercole a bit stupid, arrogant, petulant, and impulsive. The king had long been saying that Ercole would make a terrible king and feared that his heir would undo many of the reforms and gains that the kingdom had made under his reign. The Crown Prince neglected his studies, was abusive toward his teachers, and he had a temperamental and sometimes cruel personality. What’s more, Ercole was also a terrible swordsman and appeared nearly incapable of grasping strategy. Alberto Carlo often commented how a brave but stupid king could at least inspire through acts of heroism on the battlefield. Ercole, however, was neither a man of the sword nor a man of books. While the king may have been personally sad to have lost a son, he told his closest advisors including Marshal Malmussi that Ercole’s death was good for the kingdom.

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Prince Ercole was killed in a hunting accident on 23 August 1569

As a result of Ercole’s death, Alberto Carlo’s second son, the 10 year old Azzo, became the new heir. Alberto Carlo had always preferred his younger son over the elder one. Azzo, while not great, was at least competent in his military studies and training. Additionally, and this made Alberto Carlo very proud, Azzo was an excellent student and studious boy who, when not training, could be found with his head buried in a book. Azzo was a precocious student and, even at his tender age, had already read On Man, Nature, & God and was the one who recommended to his father that he support Ignazio Bruno against Father Tomba and the Inquisition. The king thought that Azzo would make a much better ruler than Ercole and continued to push him to excel in his studies and training to become king.

Azzo’s status as the new heir also presented Alberto Carlo with diplomatic opportunities. Ercole had been betrothed to Princess Maria Theresa of Bohemia but with his death, plans for their marriage were called off. The King of Bohemia, Jaromir II, was already married to Alberto Carlo’s older sister, Anna Maria, and the Modenese-Bohemian alliance was strong and stable. Therefore, the King of Modena saw no reason for another wedding with the Bohemian von Wittelsbachs. It was the Bavarian branch of that same dynasty that Alberto Carlo now eyed for a partnership. Accordingly, he dispatched his trusted brother-in-law, the Duke of Mantua to Munich to speak with King Christof I of Bavaria in order to discuss the possibilities of a royal marriage. King Christof’s daughter, Princess Sophia Marie was 11 years old and appeared to be a good match for the new Crown Prince of Modena. The Bavarian king, like his Bohemian cousin, also viewed Austria as a weakened power ripe to be challenged for the Imperial Crown. For years, Bavaria had been in Vienna’s sphere of influence, but the south German kingdom was now seeking to become more assertive in Imperial politics and eyed an alliance with Modena as a way to balance against the Habsburgs. However, the negotiations would not be without turbulence as Christof began to view Alberto Carlo’s own maneuverings within the Empire as a potential threat in the long term. The two monarchs agreed, for the time being, to postpone wedding plans until their children came of age. However, the idea of uniting the Estes and the Bavarian von Wittlesbachs had been planted and the two kingdoms were moving closer toward an alliance.

In order to keep the Bohemian von Wittelsbachs happy, Alberto Carlo proposed an alternative marriage arrangement to King Jaromir II. The King of Modena had his sister, Anna Maria, propose to her husband that he instead marry Princess Maria Theresa to the grandson of Marshal Malmussi, who was the heir to his grandfather’s titles as the Duke of Siena in the Kingdom of Modena as well as the Duke of Brzeg in the Kingdom of Bohemia. Jaromir, who had become good friends with the Modenese commander during the latter’s sojourn in Bohemia training the king’s army, accepted the new arrangement. For Malmussi, this represented yet another step in the establishment of his family in the European nobility, now his house would be joined by marriage to one of the most important dynasties in Europe. Princess Maria Theresa and Malmussi’s grandson, Gianpaolo, were married on 7 March 1570 in Prague.

In the field of commerce, Modena’s merchants were, once again, worried about trade competition. The continuing expansion of Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the New World was bringing in large quantities of new and exotic products to Europe. This posed a challenge to the Modenese merchants, who were unable to trade in the colonies and were fearful of the effects of these new goods on their bottom line. They therefore appealed to King Alberto Carlo and, as usual, found a willing partner. The king reversed his earlier free trade laws, which he had passed in 1562, also at the request of the merchants, and reintroduced protectionist tariffs and trade exclusion zones, where foreign merchants were not allowed to sell their goods. On 22 September 1570 he introduced a whole new set of laws that were designed to provide maximum support and protection to his merchants. Having alienated the Church even further, the king needed to ensure that he kept the merchants on his side. The king had no issue with reversing the policy. The king largely left his trade policy to be made by the masters of the three big trade companies in the kingdom. This approach had worked in the past and the king saw no reason to change it now.

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King Alberto Carlo II increased protectionist policies to protect his merchants against New World imports

On 18 February 1568, Archduke Franz I of Austria officially came of age and took over the reins of power from his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Anna. He took over a state in as weak of a position as it had been in over a century and a half. Furthermore, the Holy Roman Empire was as fractured and divided as ever. With his hated rival Modena holding one of the electors as a vassal, and several other electors asserting themselves as potential candidates for Emperor he had a great deal to manage. As a member of the Holy Roman Empire, King Alberto Carlo attended Franz I’s coronation in Vienna. Unlike past Imperial coronations which were largely shows of Habsburg might to intimidate the other members of the Empire, this one was much more subdued. Alberto Carlo, King Gaston of France and King Jaromir II of Bohemia openly mocked their hosts at the celebratory feast after the coronation, referring to Franz as “the Boy Emperor” to his face and, at one point, causing the teenager to storm off in tears. There was no love lost between France, Modena, and Bohemia on the one hand, and the Habsburgs and their supporters on the other. With consecutive defeats in major wars, there was little the Austrians could say in return.

Alberto Carlo struck a foreign relations victory in the spring of 1571. Austria’s old ally, Poland, signed an alliance with Modena on 8 May. The Poles, having broken their alliance with Austria following the Second Habsburg-Valois War had tried to stay neutral in the continuing rivalry between Paris and Vienna. While King Jan II believed France was clearly the stronger of the two powers and he was still upset with the Austrians for abandoning his armies the last time they had fought together, he did not want to ally with France for fear of looking like he had stabbed his old allies in the back. However, Jan died on 7 March 1569 and his son, the newly crowned Aleksander I, had no such reservations. He hoped to make an alliance with France and then use that to move against Austria. Accordingly, he inked an alliance with King Gaston I of France in the summer of 1570 and then with France’s main ally, Modena, in the spring of 1571. For Alberto Carlo this alliance represented yet another piece in the continuing Modenese strategy of keeping Austria surrounded by allies to guarantee that any Austrian attack into Italy would mean Austria having to fight enemies all around.

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The alliance between Modena and Poland was a major foreign policy achievement for King Alberto Carlo

The years following the Ambrosian War were good ones for the Kingdom of Modena. With peace re-established, increased income from trade, and advances in technology, things were going well. The king’s continued efforts to centralize and reform the kingdom had been challenged by the Inquisition , but the challenge was definitively overcome. Modena’s position as a major player in Europe, whether on the battlefield, in the classrooms, or in the art workshops, was firmly established.
 
NOTE: So I have recently been swamped by finals as well as stuff from work so I haven't had much time to work on the history book aspect of the AAR. I will try to get the next chapter up by the end of the week. Just finished my last paper so that should clear up some time for me. I wrote this one just for fun. I wanted to do a Historical Vignette for the last chapter but couldn't come up with a good theme so I just wrote about the relief expedition to Lucca and how they basically spent their time in the city partying and bullshitting. I also plan on working Marco Dalboni more into the storyline later on so consider this an introduction to him. It doesn't really advance any storyline aspect but I enjoyed writing it and I hope it's an enjoyable read.

Historical Vignette 6: Philosophy, Wine, and Girls, 1568​


Captain Marco Dalboni rode at the head of his regiment as they approached the city of Lucca. He could see the priests and peasants along the sides of the rode staring him down, their glares filled with hatred and contempt. “What a bunch of superstitious fools,” he said, turning to his aide-de-camp, Davide Tolberti. Dalboni had no love for these people. Because of some theological disagreement they were bloackding and threatening a city of the Kingdom of Modena, and one in a Royal Province t that.

“Yes sir,” replied Tolberti, “they must be to follow the orders of the Inquisition. Only fools believe in things like witchcraft. Not to mention we could cut them all down like so many shrubs.”

Dalboni nodded in agreement. This mission was certain to be a colossal waste of time. Despite his troops being outnumbered more than ten to one by the assembled rag tag group around the walls of Lucca, he knew they could kill them all down with barely any casualties. Personally, he was just interested to talk to this Ignazio Bruno they were being sent to protect. The young officer had to admit that the man could certainly be convincing. And he was definitely on to something.

Though he was only 22, Dalboni had already seen his share of war. He had spent most of his adult life on campaign. He had missed the fighting of the Second Habsburg-Valois War but had gone on Marshal Malmussi’s expedition to conquer the Duchy of Bosnia as a 20 year old officer fresh out of the Academia Militare di Modena. He came from a long line of well respected soldiers and had a great deal to live up to. His grandfather, Errico, had fought with King Alfonso III (still the Crown Prince at the time) at the Battle of Trent and done the Tyrolean Campaign with him, falling at the Battle of Innsbruck during the First Habsburg-Valois War. Marco’s father, Lorenzo, the Count of Guastalla, had fought under General d’Aragona during the Second Habsburg-Valois War, done the Austrian campaign under the great commander, and gotten all the way to the gates of Vienna. Marco had not done too badly for himself either. For the last two years he had been the commander of the elite Fanteria Reale dell’Emilia (the Royal Emilian Infantry), considered one of the best infantry units in the entire Modenese army. During the Ambrosian War he had fought at Trent, just like his father and grandfather, and he and his men had been some of the first to enter Milan along with Marshal Malmussi after the city fell. He had much to be proud of. Therefore, having his regiment sent to squash some silly peasants and fanatical priests was, he thought, a bit beneath them.

Nevertheless, these were the king’s orders. The House of Dalboni was very close with the ruling House of Este, and Marco’s ancestor, Guido, had been one of the first lords to side with Alfonso d’Este in his rebellion against his cousin, Leonello d’Este of Ferrara. Guido had fought alongside Alfonso at the Battle of Comachio in 1445 when they defeated Ferrara’s army and effectively won the Clash of Clans. Ever since, the Dalboni Family had enjoyed a privileged position in the kingdom and strong ties with the kings of Modena. That is why King Alberto Carlo had sent Marco on this mission. They very well may have to kill Inquisitors and this was not something that he could assign to just anyone. The king had sent Marco because he knew that he could count on his loyalty and for him to do what was necessary for the kingdom. Marco would, of course, keep the family honor and kill as many priests as was necessary to fulfill the king’s wishes.

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Captain Marco Dalboni, commander of the elite Fanteria Reale dell’Emilia

Personally, Marco was not a friend of the Inquisition nor a man of the Church. Also, he had a great admiration for this philosopher was eager to meet him. Marco had always enjoyed philosophy and now he wanted the chance to discuss it with a professional. Bruno had written in his book On Man, Nature, & God (the same one that had caused all of this controversy) that man was no different from the animals except that God had favored man with more intelligence. Having seen the realities of war, Marco agreed with the man and was eager to learn more from him.

As Marco and his regiment reached the gate, he ordered them to stop. He saw the head of one of the city’s guards peer over the top of the wall to look down at him. “Identify yourself!” yelled the man atop the wall.

“I am Marco Dalboni of Guastalla,” the young officer yelled back, “I am here by order of His Majesty Alberto Carlo II, King of Modena, to protect this city and ensure that the road linking Lucca and Modena stay open.”

“A warm welcome to you then Lord Marco of Guastalla,” yelled back the guard, “we shall open the gate for you.”

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The city of Lucca as seen from the rooftops
With that, the northeast gate to the city of Lucca lurched open and Marco and part of his regiment rode in. The rest of it he assigned to stay and guard the gate and ensure that the rode stayed open so that a supply line could be maintained. Upon entering the city, people emerged from shops and homes and yelled greetings to the entering soldiers. Shortly, throngs of people lined the streets, eager to get a look at the men who were there to protect them. Captain Dalboni led his troops to the center of the city where they assembled in the Piazza Anfiteatro.

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The Piazza Anfiteatro
The captain of the city guard came up to Marco and shook his hand. “We are so happy you are here my Lord,” he said smiling from ear to ear, “the barbarians are at our gates, these madmen mean to starve us out or worse.”

“Do not worry about this rabble,” replied Marco, “we are here to guarantee not only the safety of the city, but also the freedom of travel on the roads.” Captain Dalboni saw another man hustling toward him, this one wearing a robe and sporting a distinguished-looking grey beard. Dalboni dismounted from his horse and his other officers did the same.

“Lord Dalboni,” said the old man, “welcome to Lucca. I am Gregorio Tomasi, the Dean of the university. We understand that you are here to defend us.”

“That is correct Master Tomasi, we will defend your serene institution from any attack on the part of the Inquisition. I was also told by my father, Carlo Dalboni, the Count of Guastalla, to pass on his salutations. He told me that you were one of his professors when you taught at the University of Modena. He has very fond memories of you.”

The old man screwed up his face in thought, then broke out into a smile, “ah yes, I remember your father. An excellent student. He always said he wanted to become a professor himself. I was quite saddened when I heard he had abandoned academia to join the army.” He looked at Captain Dalboni and quickly added, “not that there is anything wrong with military service of course. A noble profession. Just that I thought he was destined for a life of books.”

The younger Dalboni smiled at the old man. “No offense taken Master Tomasi, though you will be happy to know that since my father left the army he has become a patron of the university in Modena and has even commissioned the construction of a new wing of the library.”

“Ah that is very good, very good. It is always nice to see students giving back to their alma mater.”

“Master Buonafaccia,” said the young officer, “as much as I am enjoying this conversation, I am eager to meet the philosopher who is causing all of this turmoil. I figure that since my men and I are putting our lives on the line to save him from being burned alive, the least he could do is to buy us some food and drink.”

“Of course, of course,” replied Buonafaccia, “I will bring you to him. Also, where were you and your men planning on spending the night?”

“I believe we will just encamp here in the Piazza San Anfiteatro,” responded Marco, “we should all fit and with the bakery nearby I plan on waking up to the smell of fresh baking bread every morning.”

“Nonsense!” shouted the old man, “we would be honored to host you and your men in our dormitories. It may be a bit tight but this way you will not have to sleep outdoors.”

“That is very kind Master Buonafaccia, I believe we will take you up on your offer. I believe for most of the men here it will be their first time in an academic institution of any kind, so it shall surely be a novel experience for them.” Dalboni turned to one of his lieutenants, Gianluca Renzoni, “tell the men we will be staying in the university’s dormitories tonight. They are to follow any and all instructions from Master Buonafaccia or his assistants. Make sure to keep good order and discipline and let us not look bad before our hosts.”

“Yes sir!” replied Renzoni and turned to go and deliver the orders.

“Now,” said Dalboni turning back to the dean, “take me to see this philosopher.”

______________________________________________________________________
Several hours and many drinks later

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The Basilica of San Michele in Foro, across the square from the Taverna di San Michele

Captain Marco Dalboni, Davide Tolberti, Gianluca Renzoni, and another officer named Carlo Lamberti sat at a table with the esteemed philosopher Ignazio Bruno. They were in the Taverna di San Michele on Lucca’s main square. The conversation had turned, as alcohol-fuled conversations amongst men are apt to do, to the subject of women. After a vigorous debate about which of the serving girls at the tavern would be most fun to sleep with (the conversation stalemated between the dark-haired one with the nicely rounded hips and rear or the red-head with the very large bosom), the discussion turned more philosophical.

“So,” said Tolberti, “if we are all just animals, as you claim, then what is the purpose of all this chivalry and manners and courting? Why shouldn’t I just go up to Annunziata (the voluptuous brunette) over there with the nice big butt, drag her upstairs, and have my way with her? Why should that be considered a stain on my honor and such?”

The philosopher laughed. “My friend,” he responded, “it has less to do with the manners and chivalry in themselves as it has to do with the rules to the society. Yes, we may be animals, but that does not mean we cannot have structure. Look at ants. Surely you’d say they re less advanced than we are yet they have an incredibly efficient and well ordered society, not to mention a level of discipline that would surely make military officers such as you gentlemen envious. If you’d read my book, you would know that I cover this. We have decided that we want to live in a society and in order for that to happen there must be rules. Why are you here to protect me and this university and this city?”

“Because we were ordered to,” responded Tolberti.

“You were. However, what prevents our young captain here from deciding to change his mind, hand me over to the Inquisition in exchange for their support in his insurrection against the king, take Lucca, and declare independence?” Bruno turned to Captain Dalboni, “you can do it. If you took this city and had that rabble outside the walls on your side plus you gave the Inquisition an alternative to King Alberto Carlo to rally around, do you not think you might win? Think of it, King Marco I of Lucca. It has a nice ring to it.”

“We would be slaughtered,” replied Dalboni, “we have a thousand men plus some dirty peasants outside. My men alone could slaughter them all. They may be fanatics but they do not know how to fight for the most part. Even if there are maybe a thousand men out there who are war veterans, they lack adequate weapons and organization.”

“Yes, perhaps,” said Bruno, “I guess my example was a poor one. Or at least it should not be taken so literally. I am not, my young captain, advocating you launch an insurrection against our beloved king. I, for one, greatly admire him. There are few men from European noble families—no offense to present company—intelligent enough to qualify for a title as magnificent as “the Scholar King”, and we happen to have one of those few as our ruler. I should be quite upset if he were to lose his head. Not to mention that my plan included you handing me to those madmen out there to be burned, so there is certainly no personal gain in it for me.

“What I had hoped to illustrate was the deeper reason, aside from just force, that you do not revolt. I know that your family has fought alongside the Estes for generations. You come from a proud line of warriors. Even someone with as little military knowledge as me has heard of the exploits of your grandfather at the Battle of Trent. Your father is a close advisor of the king, not to mention a decorated military man himself. What I am saying is that the House of Dalboni has a certain loyalty and standing which makes an insurrection not worth it. You have always fought for the Estes, to a large extent your family’s honor is dependent on this. The Gonzagas of Mantua are the same way. If anything, they have even more motivation to revolt against the king. Their ancestors were once the sovereign rulers of Mantua until King Alfonso I conquered them. Yet they still remain loyal to the Estes. Our king even married into their family when he wed Queen Margherita.

“It is this structure, this complex system that we have devised, that keeps everything stable and peaceful and functioning. Going back to your initial question, Sir Davide, the reason you cannot grab Annunziata by the hair and drag her to your cave is the same reason why Captain Dalboni here will not launch an insurrection against King Alberto Carlo. We have rules, and if we do not follow rules we will have chaos. Men fear chaos.”

There was a silence for a moment. Bruno downed the remainder of his wine. Captain Dalboni and his fellow officers contemplated what the philosopher had just said. Finally, Dalboni spoke, “but insurrections happen. Wars happen. The world is not peaceful. Outside the walls of this city, there are men who are basically on the brink of insurrection, who may or may not be contemplating attacking my soldiers, because they think that burning you might be more important than living. How do you explain that?”

“You disappoint me,” replied the philosopher, “I thought at least you, Captain Dalboni, would have read my book. In it I explain this. The rules matter, but they are not sacrosanct. There are changes, there is progress. If there was no progress, I would have been burned long ago, probably after my first book. I am alive because many of the things I say, which would have been considered intolerable by everyone a century ago, are at least partially acceptable today. In one or two hundred years, people will wonder what this whole mess was about. Why, they will ask, would people want to burn poor old Ignazio Bruno just for stating what we all know to be true: that humans are just a type of animal? The problem for learned men like us is that the masses tend to resist progress. Well that’s not true. They are suspicious of progress and fear change, especially large-scale, unknown changes. As a result, they are easily manipulated by those who, like our friends in the Inquisition, need to maintain the status quo to stay relevant.” Bruno then leaned in and signaled for the other to do the same. He said, in a whisper, just loud enough for the men at the table to hear, “one day, people will stop believing in God, I am sure of it. Already there are people who are skeptical. I, myself, do not believe in God. Of course I cannot say this in public, even the king could not protect me then, even if he wanted to. But in private I believe it. I have only told my closest friends this belief but I figure since it is your mission to possibly die to protect me, you qualify as very close friends.”

The four soldiers leaned back in their chairs to think about what he had said. “Well then,” chimed in Tolberti, “if that is true I am going to grab Annunziata right now. When they ask me why I did it, I will reply, “Ignazio Bruno told me there is no God, which means no hell, which means no punishment.”

Bruno laughed, though he looked around the room nervously to make sure no one had overheard Tolberti’s exclamation about God not existing. When he was rather sure nobody had heard, the philosopher spoke again, “no my friend, that is where you are mistaken. The absence of God does not give us license to do what we want. Think about our ancestors, the Romans. They did not begin to believe in a Christian God until very late in the Empire, under Constantine. Yet before him there was not rampant debauchery and sinfulness. Well, maybe there was, but not to the point where it inhibited the function of the state and society. The Romans built the greatest empire in history without the help of Christ or the God of Christianity. My point is, God is not necessary for anything, for good or evil.”

“That is all well and good for a learned man like you,” said Dalboni, “but the average man as you said, the one tilling the fields or plowing the soil or making your boots or going off to war, he needs God. Not in the sense that he needs it to do his work, but he needs it to keep himself together, to keep society together. We all need it. Yes, you are right, I remember when I was in school thinking about how the great civilizations that existed before Christ got along just fine without him, but the change was rather gradual. We will not see the banishment of God from public life any time soon. It will only happen when it becomes better for the rulers of the most powerful states to banish God than to keep him around. Our king right now, whether or not he believes that God exists, needs God. He needs God almost more than he needs his army. Yes, the faithful occasionally throw tantrums as they are doing now, but, in the end, having religion keeps most people in line. And even if it might not actually be necessary, as you claim, I do not think there is a monarch in all of Christendom willing to take that gamble.”

“An astute observation my young captain,” said Ignazio, “you must surely be destined for great things.” Bruno chugged down what was left of his wine. “Gentlemen,” he said, “on that note I will retire to contemplate more on Captain Dalboni’s assertion that God remains necessary. It has truly been a pleasure. I expect that we will be seeing much more of each other in the coming days. Once again, I thank you for being here. And Tolberti, don’t be too rough with your tavern girl tonight, we need her to continue serving us wine in the nights to come. I bid you all good night.”

The assembled officers bade good night to the philosopher and he stumbled out of the door of the Taverna di San Michele.

“Funny old man,” said Renzoni.

“A bloody fool if you ask me,” replied Tolberti.

“Don’t be so harsh on him,” said Dalboni, “You’re just upset he didn’t give you moral license to rape and pillage at will. Plus, he is quite the thinker. You can’t ask a man to muse about the subject of God and war and the like after he has been drinking as much wine as he had. Remember, he had been here for a while before we arrived.”

Tolberti just snorted. Annunziata came over to the table again to see if the men needed any more drinks. “My lords,” she said with a smile, “would you like another round?”

“You know what I’d like,” said Tolberti leaning toward her, “I’d like to know if you and the other tavern girls would like to spend the rest of the evening with some real war heroes. We are the saviors of the city after all.”

“We close in half an hour, why don’t you ask me again then,” she responded with a mischievous smile, “in the meantime I’ll bring more wine.”

“You do that sweetheart,” said Tolberti grinning. He turned to the others, “see, we’ll have a a bunch of nice girls to keep us company for the night, what do you think Captain?”

“I think I’ll leave you boys to the fun,” replied Dalboni, “I am going to go to sleep.”

This response prompted loud cries of protest from the other three. Dalboni laughed. “Well Davide,” he said to Tolberti, “unlike you, I am considered to be devilishly handsome and there are noble women lined up to marry me. I have no need to tussle with tavern girls to have my fun. Now, if we were out on a long campaign like when we were in Milan, I may not be so picky. But when I can keep my standards high, I will do so.”

“You’re just afraid these tavern girls are too much woman for you,” retorted Tolberti, “go and mess with those skinny, delicate noble girls. If you need us, we’ll be here with the real women.”

“Very well Davide,” replied Marco laughing, “I will expect a full report in the morning on the amorous qualities of tavern girls as opposed to noble women.”

“Yes sir,” said Tolberti, “I will do very thorough research on the matter.”

“Good night gentlemen,” said Dalboni to Renzoni and Lamberti, “I will see you bright and early. Tomorrow morning we march out of the walls for a show of force. Hopefully that will show some of this rabble that they are playing a dangerous game.” With that he downed the last drop of wine in his cup, got up from the table, and walked out of the tavern. He emerged onto Piazza San Michele and turned right. Then made a left onto Via Santa Croce and headed toward the university. As he walked down the dark street three of his soldiers were walking toward him.

“Good evening sir,” they said as they saluted, “we’re headed down to the tavern if you care to join us.”

“Thank you men,” replied the captain, “but I am actually just coming from there. You should hurry though, I believe they mean to close soon.”

“Thank you sir,” they replied as they sped up their pace. Dalboni could hear one of them yelling at another about how they should have left sooner. The young officer laughed to himself. No matter the situation, give a man a drink and some women to look at and he will be content. As Dalboni continued down Via Santa Croce he passed the Palazzo Bernardini on his left. It was a beautiful new building. The Bernardini family was important in these parts and, judging from the palace, quite wealthy too.

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The Palazzo Bernardini

As Dalboni looked around the quiet streets, he couldn’t shake the thought that Ignazio Bruno was right. That really, at the end of the day, God was just something that people came up with to keep order. And that was, at the end of the day, what he was here to do. He would have to think this over more but, the captain had a distinct feeling that by the end of the time he spent in Lucca, and depending on how much time he spent conversing with Bruno, he might lose whatever affinity for God had stayed with him following the war. Then, he had lost his religion as a result of the despair and misery that he saw. However, now, he thought he might lose his religion by thinking. This thought relieved him. It made him feel…liberated.”

As Dalboni got closer to the dormitories, he could hear a loud racket. When he got close enough to see them, he spotted throngs of people out on the street. It looked like a giant festival. The streets were full of young men and women drinking and singing and celebrating. Amongst them were his soldiers singing and drinking and celebrating right alongside them. The sight made Dalboni smile. Here were his men, most of them illiterate and raised in the depths of poverty, making merry with university students and noble girls who were out on the streets to celebrate.

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The dormitories of the University of Lucca, where Captain Dalboni and his men were billeted

When his men spotted him, they gave their captain a loud cheer. One of them grabbed him with the familiarity that, in normal circumstances, would be an unacceptable breach of the separation between troops and officers. However, these were not normal circumstances. “We’ve been waiting for you sir!” said one of them, “welcome to the celebration!”

“Do you hear what they’re calling us sir!?” asked another excitedly.

“No,” responded the captain genuinely puzzled, “what are they calling us?”

“The Guardians of Wisdom!” came the overjoyed response, “Ha! These students are too funny!”

“Yeah look at me!” shouted another, “I can’t read and my mother was a whore, but I’m a guardian of wisdom!” None of this was said in a contemptuous tone however, his men were genuinely happy to be held in such high regard by people who would normally never think twice of them. When they had taken Milan, everyone had been afraid of them and kept their distance when possible. That was war. This, this was something else. This was fun.

“So you must be the illustrious Captain Dalboni that we have been hearing about so much,” said a pleasant voice from behind him. Dalboni turned around. Standing in front of him was a pretty girl wearing a fine silk dress. She handed him a half full bottle of wine. “I am Beatrice Bernardini,” she said, “it is a pleasure to meet you.”

Dalboni was flabbergasted and then managed to stupidly mutter, “wait, as in the Bernardini Palace?”

Beatrice giggled, “yes of course, my family has lived in Lucca forever. My father speaks very highly of you and your men.”

“Well that is very nice of him,” said the captain regaining his composure a bit, “I am surprised to see so many noble girls out with this rabble. I love my men, but I would never trust my daughter around them—if I had a daughter that is.”

Beatrice giggled again. “Nonsense,” she replied, “they are so wonderful. So many great stories. And, I must say, quite the gentlemen.”

Captain Dalboni almost choked at the last comment, “well give them some time. You may not think that after they have a few more bottles of wine each.”

“Well then I have the brave Captain Dalboni to protect me,” she said taking his arm and glancing down at his sword, “I hear you are quite the war hero.”

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Lady Beatrice Bernardini of Lucca, future Countess of Guastalla

Captain Dalboni looked at her. She was quite beautiful with dark hair and olive skin but with sparkling green eyes. He had planned on going back to his room and reviewing On Man, Nature, and God again so that he could better discuss it with Ignazio Bruno. Well, he thought to himself, philosophy can wait. That book will always be there, but I will not have the chance to court Beatrice Bernardini every night. “Well my lady,” he said looking at her with a smile, “I wouldn’t call myself a war hero, but I certainly have a few good stories I can tell you…”
 
Chapter 18: Bavarian Wedding, 1571-1575​

On 12 December 1571 King Alberto Carlo II of Modena held a large feast for his military commanders to celebrate the five year anniversary of the Treaty of Milan. The king promised his top officers continued funding and military expansion. He had dispensed with his early peaceful policies and was now eager to continue to reward the institution that had made the kingdom a power to be respected in Europe.

However, military might and territorial expansion were not the only things that the king had to be proud of. His governmental reforms, designed to centralize power to the crown and take it away from the local nobility was working. As more royal administrators filtered down into the provinces and the organization of the military modernized and centralized, the nobles’ ability to fight back was becoming very limited. Furthermore, his other governmental reforms, such as increased efficiency of tax collection and the curtailment of the local gentry’s rights to exact payment from the peasantry were also paying off. The universities continued to produce skilled administrators. Things were going very well.

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King Alberto Carlo surrounded himself with skilled advisors and administrators and his reforms continued to be well received by the majority of his subjects

However, below the surface, some tension remained. The nobility decided that it would not go down without a fight. While some were perfectly content with the king’s reforms, seeing them as a way to strengthen the kingdom, others thought differently. As a result, two formal, distinct factions formed amongst the nobles of the Kingdom of Modena: the Partito della Corona Unita (the Party of the United Crown) and the Partito di Tradizione (the Party ofTradition). The former, known also as the Coronisti supported the king’s reforms and the concentration of power in the crown. The latter, known as the Tradizionisti for short, were instead opposed to the reforms and wanted to maintain the power of the local nobles to make decisions on their own territory. The Tradizionisti were certainly the insurgent faction, and they were led by Ranuccio Farnese, the Duke of Parma; Pandolfo Malatesta, the Duke of Brescia, and Gian Federico Nobili, the Duke of Cremona. Their support was concentrated in the central Po River Valley, the former territories of the Duchy of Milan. The Coronisti on the other hand were led by Alberto Carlo Malmussi, the Duke of Siena; the king’s brother-in-law Cesare Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua; and Nicoló da Ponte, Doge of Venice. The Free Republics of Venice, Ragusa, and Pisa were strong supporters of the king’s reforms because they viewed a more centralized state as better for trade. For years the merchants had complained about local nobles taxing and extorting them and saw this as an excellent way to eliminate that once and for all. In the coming years the two sides would clash repeatedly in the royal court, sometimes literally. However, it would take another decade before the matter was decisively resolved.

In the meantime, a more pressing disturbance grabbed the kingdom’s attention. This one was, yet again, related to religious strife. An army of Protestant zealots rose up in the province of Ferrara. They were followers of yet another Hungarian firebrand, Ferenc Benovský. Like Gábor Zrinski’s revolt three decades earlier, Benovský sought to enlist the help of his native Kingdom of Hungary to the cause. Benovský was a relative of the ruling Hunyadi dynasty in Hungary and he and King Lászlo V were close friends growing up before Benovský decided to pursue theology as a career. While the Protestant rebel had not spoken with the Hungarian king in many years, Modenese authorities were convinced that there was a connection.

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The Protestant Insurrection of 1573 was led by a Hungarian firebrand preacher named Ferenc Benovský

As the zealots lay siege to Ferrara itself, tensions rose between Modena and Hungary. King Alberto Carlo ordered his army on full alert and both sides prepared for war. However, Modena was in a difficult position. There were only 5,000 men defending the kingdom’s provinces on the eastern side of the Adriatic and the direct route to Hungary from Italy was blocked by Austrian territory. As a result, the Modenese army would have to take a long, torturous route through France, southern Germany, and Bohemia in order to get to Hungary. The fear for the king was that by the time his army could reach the Hungarian borders, the enemy would have already overrun his Balkan possessions. Finally, the issue was resolved by the intercession of the Bohemian king, Jaromir II. King Jaromir was a Modenese ally and Bohemia and Hungary were not on good terms, however, he was a Protestant, and therefore had some pull on religious matters. Jaromir managed to convince Lászlo to back down and to openly condemn the Protestant rebels in the Kingdom of Modena. In return, King Alberto Carlo pledged that there would be no anti-Protestant crackdowns once the rebellion itself was defeated. Neither Hungary nor Bohemia wanted to see a repeat of what happened following the last major Protestant uprising in 1541. That revolt was followed by a bloodbath in the Romagna which managed to eradicate Protestantism from that province and also left thousands of dead behind it. The King of Hungary attempted to also secure leniency on his old friend Ferenc Benovský but Alberto Carlo would not budge on that issue. Nevertheless, the agreement was made, and the fate of Benovský and his followers was sealed.

With the threat of war with Hungary removed for the moment, the Modenese army could now focus on crushing the rebels. On 25 November 1573 General Rinaldo Pico, recently named the Protector of the Realm, attacked the rebel positions outside of Ferrara and routed them, forcing a retreat south into the Romagna. Benovský hoped that there was still an underground Protestant presence in that province that would rise up and support his army. However, no help materialized. The Hungarian preacher had failed to realize just how thoroughly the Inquisition had done its job following the 1541 revolt. Pico and his troops caught them outside the town of San Giorgio di Piano. After the battle, all of the rebel survivors were put to the sword, their bodies dumped in a mass grave, and the heads of Benovský and the other rebel leaders were put on display in the Piazza Ariostea in Ferrara. However, true to his word, Alberto Carlo ordered that there would be no further retaliation in the province itself after that.

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Benovský’s army was routed outside of Ferrara on 25 November 1573

The king did not, however, waste the lingering fear of a repeat of “the Slaughters of Romagna” to advance his agenda. He met with Protestant religious leaders from Ferrara and also from the province of Ancona and made a deal. He would do everything in his power to restrain what was left of the Inquisition and any other anti-Protestant extremists as long as they alerted him of any foreign elements trying to rile up their co-religionists to revolt. The Protestant leaders largely agreed. They had no illusions about the prospects of converting the entire kingdom but did have a great interest in being allowed to live peacefully. With that agreement struck, the king could rest a little easier about the continuing religious issues in his kingdom. The extreme tension that characterized the early parts of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation had passed, now it was just a matter of managing the continued tension in Italy and Alberto Carlo understood this clearly.

One thing that the king did worry about was the security of his possessions on the east bank of the Adriatic Sea. The near war with Hungary had illustrated just how exposed they were in the case of a war. For obvious reasons, the large bulk of the Modenese army had to be kept on the Italian peninsula. However, with no easy land access to the eastern provinces and very few transport ships, the army would have to march a very long distance to get there. And that was in the case of a war with Hungary. There was also another threat to consider: the Ottoman Empire. The Kingdom of Modena had had basically nothing to do with the Ottomans throughout its entire time as an independent kingdom but that was about to change. Over the previous five decades, under the sultans Abdulaziz I (ruled 1525-1554) and Bayezid II (ruled 1559-1568), the Turks had expanded rapidly and built up a massive army. Most of the Ottoman expansion had occurred in the Levant and North Africa, but with their Mamluk rivals largely crippled and most of the rest of the Middle Eastern states cowed under Turkish overlordship, the current ruler, Sultan Ahmed II, sought to refocus his empire’s attention on Europe.

Modena soon found itself on the brink of war yet again. Catholic missionaries, funded by the Kingdom of Modena, were well established in the province of Zeta. The province was majority Muslim but had always had a large Christian minority, both Catholic and Orthodox. However, since the province was annexed by Modena in 1569, Catholic missionary activity had increased exponentially and the faith was gaining many new followers. There was, of course, a political reason why the barely religious King Alberto Carlo was so interested in converting the people of Zeta. The local nobles in Zeta were almost all Muslim, having arrived there when the province was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the early 15th Century (it was previously Orthodox). It then fell back into Orthodox hands when it was taken by the Kingdom of Serbia in 1527, following their surprising victory against the Turks. By the time Zeta ended up under Modenese control, it was a mishmash of religious confessions. However, the nobility was almost solidly Muslim while the peasantry tended more toward the Christian denominations (there was, however, still a large Muslim contingent amongst the peasantry). Therefore, Alberto Carlo believed that if the peasantry could be placed solidly behind the Catholic Church, they would become more loyal to the king, and he could in turn use them to threaten the nobility in the province and guarantee they fall in line with his reforms.

This strategy was not lost on Zeta’s nobles however. Fearing the worst, they appealed to Constantinople and Sultan Ahmed II. Throughout the summer of 1574, tensions grew between the Catholic and Orthodox peasants on the one hand and the Muslim nobles on the other. Then, on a hot, humid night in late August, the situation boiled over. Peasants in the town of Golubovci had gathered to celebrate the Feast of Saint Bartholomew. The local lord, who was a Muslim, sent his guards to disperse the crowd. The peasants were initially able to drive them off and continue the celebration. However, a number of nobles combined their forces and attacked Golubovci again. This time the guards drew their swords and began cutting down the assembled peasants. In the end, between 30 and 40 people were slaughtered. When King Alberto Carlo heard of this, he was furious. This was the worst incident of nobles attacking peasants in decades, and it occurred at a time when he was attempting to curb their power.

Alberto Carlo summoned General Pico and the other top commanders to come up with a plan of action to respond. However, the king soon received a warning from the Ottoman ambassador to his court. The nobles in question had been guaranteed protection by Ahmed II, who declared that any attempt to arrest them or otherwise harm them would be considered an act of war. Furthermore, the Sultan demanded that the Modenese army in the east, normally stationed in Ragusa, be sent to Zeta to protect the nobles from potential peasant retaliation. The King of Modena went from furious to outraged. He ordered his generals to draw up a plan for war with the Ottoman Empire and dispatched emissaries to Paris and Prague to ask for support in a war against the Turks. However, both King Jaromir and King Gaston I of France urged Alberto Carlo to ease off. Even with the combined military power of the three kingdoms, mounting a campaign so distant from their territory would be extremely difficult. Additionally, the Ottoman armies were strong and they possessed a nearly endless supply of men. Finally, it would mean leaving themselves exposed at home when there were still dangerous rivals like the Austrians and the Spanish to consider. Both of Modena’s great allies had no taste for this war. As a result, Alberto Carlo was forced to accept the humiliation of ordering his men to protect the homes and lands of nobles who had slaughtered peasants senselessly. The first contact between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Modena had gone squarely in the former’s favor.

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The Ottomans humiliated Modena during the Zeta Crisis

Following the Zeta Crisis, Alberto Carlo knew he needed to do something about his exposed eastern lands. He was especially concerned about Ragusa, a major trading center and base of support. Doge Džono Miha Bobeljević travelled to Modena to speak with King Alberto Carlo personally. He requested the king come up with a plan to better defend Ragusa and the surrounding provinces. The king responded that he would do so, and promised that he would never let Ragusa fall. These same concerns over Ragusa’s safety were echoed by the Doges of the other two Free Republics: Venice and Pisa. The merchants tended to stick together, especially in the face of a foreign threat, and this matter was no exception. With his strongest political base firmly in favor of action, Alberto Carlo ordered his generals to come up with the best plan to protect Modenese power in the Balkans. The military men were more than happy to comply.

Not all was bad for King Alberto Carlo in the foreign policy realm however. While Modena discovered a new enemy in the Ottoman Empire and moved closer to war with Hungary, it also managed to gain new allies. Sensing that the balance of power in the Austro-Modenese rivalry had shifted in their favor, King Alberto Carlo and his advisors wanted to move to de-fang the Habsburgs on two fronts. The first was militarily, with continuing investments in military expansion and qualitative improvement. The second was on the political front, where Alberto Carlo sought to dethrone the Habsburgs from their control of the Empire. The possibility for Modena to compete for the Imperial throne had only recently even become realistic. With Duke Massimiliano Visconti in Milan an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Alberto Carlo now had one vote for Emperor and he sought to win the favor of other imperial electors.

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Modena’s continued investment in the military led to the creation of one of the best armies in Europe

The best chance was with the Kingdom of Saxony. The negotiations would be delicate, as Saxony was a rival of Bohemia, one of Modena’s key allies. Alberto Carlo would have to win over King Christian I without offending King Jaromir II of Bohemia in the process. After about a year of diplomatic maneuvering, Alberto Carlo finally secured a deal by which his daughter, the 13 year old Princess Alessandra, would marry Crown Prince Albrecht. The two were married on 12 September 1574 in Meissen. The royal marriage caused King Christian to swing his political allegiance in the Empire toward Modena, and to make Alberto Carlo a legitimate threat to Habsburg dominance.

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The political situation in the Empire following the wedding of Crown Prince Albrecht of Saxony and Princess Alessandra of Modena

King Alberto Carlo was angling for an even bigger alliance however. For a number of years there had been talk of the Kingdom of Bavaria joining the French-Bohemian-Modenese alliance. Originally this had been Alberto Carlo’s idea, but ongoing disputes with Bavaria’s King Christof I had changed his mind about the plan. However, King Gaston I of France was eager to bring the Bavarians on board and convinced the Modenese king to continue the negotiations he had started. One problem that remained was that Christof was eying the Imperial throne for himself and was suspicious of Alberto Carlo’s political maneuvers. Nevertheless, the Bavarian king saw the potential advantages and security presented by joining such a powerful triad of kingdoms. In May of 1571, a joint Bohemian-Modenese delegation, led by the Duke of Troppau for Bohemia and the Duke of Mantua for Modena, travelled to Bavaria. Their purpose was to inspect the Bavarian fortresses and the Bavarian army to assess the contributions that kingdom could make to the alliance. While King Christof initially seemed enthusiastic about the delegation’s arrival, he quickly cooled to the idea, to the point where he snubbed his guests at a celebration banquet held in their honor on the final night of their visit. The Modenesi pointed to this as yet another example of Bavarian unreliability, but the negotiations pressed on. Alberto Carlo also hoped to marry his eldest son and heir, Crown Prince Azzo, to King Christof’s daughter, Princess Sophia Marie. The Bavarian king however, was still undecided if he wanted to tie his fortunes with those of Modena or stay on his own. Prince Azzo, who traveled with the Bohemian-Modense delegation to Bavaria, met the princess and, following their meeting, Sophia Marie began lobbying her father to allow her to marry the Prince of Modena. However, it would not be his daughter’s romantic hopes that would sway Christof, but the realities of war.

Shortly after the departure of the delegation, Austria declared war on Bavaria. The Austro-Bavarian War of 1571-73 would turn into a stunning humiliation for King Christof. The Austrians, eager to get back on the winning side of a conflict following a series of defeats, held no punches. The Habsburg armies burned fields, tore down fortifications, and generally terrorized the populace. They captured Munich in June of 1573, forcing the Wittelsbachs to flee their capital. In the ensuing peace treaty Bavaria lost the recently-acquired province of Konstanz to Switzerland and was forced to end the vassalization of Wurttemberg. The Bavarian army that King Christof had so proudly shown the Bohemian-Modenese delegation was in ruins, and the conflict showed him that any hopes of fighting Austria alone were unrealistic. As a result, following the war, Christof and Alberto Carlo agreed on the wedding for Azzo and Sophia Marie as well as forging an alliance between their two kingdoms.

In February of 1575 King Alberto Carlo II, Queen Margherita, Crown Prince Azzo, and the rest of the royal Modenese royal court travelled to Munich for the royal wedding. Despite the mutual mistrust that existed between Alberto Carlo and King Christof, both kings did agree on making the wedding a lavish, large-scale event so as to emphasize the importance of the new union and to show a unified front. Royals from across the continent and beyond were invited and the wedding celebration lasted three days. Even Emperor Franz I of Austria, despite the mutual enmity between the two sides, was in attendance. Other notable rulers present were Gaston I of France, Jaromir II of Bohemia, Aleksander I of Poland, Zygimantas II of Lithuania, Johann Georg I of Brandenburg, Archbishop Rupprecht I of Cologne, and even al-Musta’in I Sultan of the Mamluk Empire. It was without doubt one o the grandest weddings in recent memory, probably the most lavish since King Enrique VI of Spain married Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain in 1553. The 15 year old Azzo and the 16 year old Sophia Marie took their vows on 11 February 1575, formally joining the House of Este with the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach.

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Crown Prince Azzo of Modena and Princess Sophia Marie of Bavaria on their wedding day

In contrast to the merriment and celebration of the wedding, the week following it was consumed with intense, occasionally heated negotiations over the entrance of Bavaria into the triple alliance of France, Modena, and Bohemia. The four kings spent long hours closed in a study hammering out the specifics of the new pact. Gaston was the most adamant for Bavaria joining the group while Alberto Carlo and Jaromir were more skeptical, especially following the thrashing the German kingdom had just received at the hands of the Austrians. The latter two both wanted Bavaria’s entrance to the alliance to be contingent on them joining all defensive and offensive wars, while Christof argued that his kingdom should only be required to join in conflicts where an alliance member was attacked first. In the end, the French were still the clear leaders of the group so when King Gaston insisted that Bavaria be allowed to enter on King Christof’s terms, the argument was finished. On 20 February, the League of the Four Kings was born with the signing of the Pact of Munich.


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Coats of arms of the League of the Four Kings, clockwise from top left: France, Bohemia, Bavaria, Modena

When Alberto Carlo returned to Modena, he was still in a celebratory mood. He ordered festivities across the kingdom, funded by the crown, in honor of the marriage between his son and Princess Sophia Marie. However, though things were joyous on the surface, storm clouds were gathering yet again. Internally there were still the internal disputes of the Coronisti-Tradizionisti feud to handle as well as the continuing religious strife, especially in the provinces of Ferrara and Zeta. In foreign affairs, there remained the matter of the kingdom’s weakness across the Adriatic Sea. All of these questions would be resolved in the next six years, but not before a great deal of bloodshed.

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King Alberto Carlo organized festivities across the kingdom in honor of Crown Prince Azzo’s marriage to Princess Sophia Marie of Bavaria