ABSTRACT
The invasion of the Italian peninsula in 1494 by a powerful French army commanded in person by the king, Charles VIII, was quickly seen by contemporaries as opening a new epoch in relations between the states of western Europe. This judgement has been generally accepted by historians, and with reason. In the decades that followed, the ruling houses of France and the Spanish kingdoms (essentially Castile) emerged clearly as rivals for primacy in the west, powers with which no other could compete. Italy, from which for so long cultural leadership and example had radiated to the rest of Europe, now had her political division and military weakness, and her resulting helplessness in the face of determined foreign attack, brutally exposed. The complete inability of the increasingly divided Holy Roman Empire to act as any kind of effective unit was once more harshly underlined. The conventional view which sees the events of 1494 as marking a new era in international relations has therefore more substance than most generalizations of this kind.
