ABSTRACT
As the Treaty of Cambrai was being concluded, Charles V was already on his way to Italy. Traditionally, this trip to Italy and the settlement of Italian affairs while Charles was there were seen as marking the end of Italian political liberty and independence, the beginning of a long period of Spanish oppression. But there was still much room for manoeuvre and evasion left to even the smaller Italian states and princes under the new dispensation, not least because French aspirations in Italy were by no means at an end. When this is borne in mind, the emperor’s visit in 1529-30 looks somewhat less epoch-making, even if it did mark a transition to a new era of Italian politics, and of the Italian Wars.
