My Library

glossary of proper names Burgundy and Anjou to the French throne. In a treaty of 1474 he gained the right to levy troops in Switzerland. louis xii (1462–1515) King of France (1498–1515). Louis was the king who got France most determinedly involved in the affairs of Italy. Originally Duke of Orleans, he succeeded his cousin Charles VIII in 1498 and quickly made a deal with Pope Alex- ander VI that allowed him to renounce his first wife and marry Charles’s widow, thus adding Brittany to the French crown. Since the house of Orleans had claims to both Milan and Naples, Louis made an agreement with Venice to split Milan’s territory and took the town in 1499. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, took it back in 1500 but was driven out again. Louis then used the same policy in the south, reaching an agreement with Spain to divide the Kingdom of Naples and taking the town for France in 1501. However, the occupying powers fell out over the terms of the partition and in 1503 the Spanish defeated the French at Gari- gliano. In 1508 Louis joined the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Papal States, Florence and Spain in the so-called League of Cambrai, an aggressive alliance against the Venetians. Louis led the alliance’s army and scored a comprehensive victory over the Venetians at Agnadello (or Vailà) in 1509. But the consequent increase in the power of both Rome and France caused the two powers to fall out and in 1510 Pope Julius II, together with England, Spain, Switzerland and the Holy Roman Empire, formed the Holy League to drive France out of Italy, a goal that was finally achieved at the battle of Novara in 1513. Two years later, however, Louis’s successor, Francis I, would return to take Milan and much of northern Italy. luca rainaldi, bishop An ambassador for the Emperor Maximilian. ludovico ii Also known as Ludovico il Moro. See sforza, ludovico. macrinus Marcus Opellius Macrinus (c.165–218). Roman emperor (217–18). Macrinus was the first emperor not to have been a senator or a member of a senatorial family. He rose from humble origins to bureaucratic service under Severus and was then appointed prefect by Caracalla and proclaimed emperor after Caracalla was murdered (many believed that Macrinus him-