na humbled, Romagna
reduced to submission; and he carried on the policy of conquest by
trampling out the liberties of Bologna and Perugia, recovering the
cities held by Venice on the coast of Ravenna, and extending his sway
over Emilia. The martial energy of Julius added Parma and Piacenza to
the States of the Church, and detached Modena and Reggio from the Duchy
of Ferrara. These new cities were gained by force; but Julius pretended
that they formed part of the Exarchate of Ravenna, which had been
granted to his predecessors by Pepin and Charles the Great. He pursued
the Papal line of conquest in a nobler spirit than his predecessors, not
seeking to advance his relatives so much as to reinstate the Church in
her dominions. But he was reckless in the means employed to secure this
object. Italy was devastated by wars stirred up, and by foreign armies
introduced, in order that the Pope might win a point in the great game
of ecclesiastical aggrandizement. That his successor, Leo X., reverted
to the former plan of carving principalities for his relatives out of
the possessions of their neighbors and the Church, may be counted among
the most important causes of the final ruin of Italian independence.

Of the Duchy of Milan it is not necessary to speak at any great length,
although the wars between France and Spain were chiefly carried on for
its possession. It had been formed into a compact domain, of
comparatively small extent, but of vast commercial and agricultural
resources, by the two dynasties of Visconti and Sforza. In 1494 Lodovico
Sforza, surnamed Il Moro, ruled Milan for his nephew, the titular Duke,
whom he kept in gilded captivity, and whom he eventually murdered. In
order to secure his usurped authority, this would-be Machiavelli thought
it prudent to invite Charles VIII. into Italy. Charles was to assert his
right to the throne of Naples. Lodovico was to be established in the
Duchy of Milan. All his subsequent troubles arose from this transaction.
Charles came, conquered, and returned to France, disturbing the
political equilibrium of the Italian States, and founding a disastrous
precedent for future foreign interference. His successor in the French
kingdom, Louis XII., believed he had a title to the Duchy of Milan
through his grandmother Valentina, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.
The claim was not a legal one; for in the investiture of the Duchy
females were excluded. It sufficed, however, to inflame the cu