Peace of Lodi and the Italic League
The Peace of Lodi of 1454 and the subsequent Italic League established a defensive alliance among the five major Italian states — Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States, and Naples — committing them to mutual defence against external aggression and the maintenance of the balance of power among themselves. Negotiated largely by Francesco Sforza of Milan and Cosimo de' Medici's Florence, the league inaugurated roughly forty years of relative peace within the peninsula. Its collapse followed Charles VIII of France's 1494 invasion, which Ludovico Sforza had invited against his Neapolitan rivals, fatally undermining the system that had protected all of them.
- Year: 1454 CE
