Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII invaded Italy and began sixty years of war there. Born at Amboise in 1470, the only surviving son of Louis XI, he was a physically weak and poorly educated boy whose father kept him isolated, and he acceded at thirteen under the regency of his sister Anne de Beaujeu. He married Anne of Brittany in 1491, which attached the duchy to France permanently. He then decided to pursue an inherited Angevin claim to the kingdom of Naples, and bought off every neighbour to clear the way — returning territory to Spain, to the Habsburgs and to England at real cost. He crossed the Alps in 1494 with some 25,000 men and an artillery train that changed European warfare. The French guns were bronze, mounted on wheeled carriages, fired iron shot, and could be drawn by horses at the speed of the army; Italian fortifications built for older siege methods fell in hours rather than months. Machiavelli wrote that he took Italy with chalk, meaning that his quartermasters marked billets and nobody fought. He entered Naples in February 1495 and was crowned. The League of Venice — Milan, Venice, the papacy, Spain and the Emperor — formed against him within weeks, and he had to fight his way home at Fornovo in July, losing his baggage and treasure. The garrison he left in Naples surrendered within the year, and the campaign spread syphilis across Europe. He died at Amboise in April 1498 after striking his head on a door lintel, aged twenty-seven.
- Lived: 1470 CE – 1498 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: king, head_of_state
