Italy was composed of five main political powers: Florence, Milan, Venice, the Papal States (including Rome), and the Kingdom of Naples, far in the southern tip of the Italian peninsula. Naples, in particular, had a vexed history, with powers such as France, Spain, and the popes all laying claim to it on various dynastic pretexts. The period prior to 1494 was relatively peaceful and prosperous, with the various Italian powers generally well balanced against each other.
The events that brought such turmoil to Machiavelli's time were set in motion when Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, invited French forces into Italy, offering to support French claims to the Kingdom of Naples, and hoping, in return, to conquer territory from the Venetians with the help of French troops. The French king, Charles VIII, invaded in 1494. Though he was driven out less than a year later by an Italian coalition that Sforza himself joined, on his first entry into Italy, Charles met with practically no resistance, a fact that was not lost on other European leaders. Machiavelli makes note of this in Chapter 12, when he mentions that Charles was able to conquer Italy with no more than a piece of chalk.
A few years later, Charles' successor, King Louis XII, also had designs on Italy. Louis claimed that he had a hereditary right to the duchy of Milan through his relation to the Visconti family, who had ruled Milan prior to the Sforza family. Louis' interest in Italian territory coincided with the ambitions of the powerful Borgia family. Pope Alexander VI, born Rodrigo Borgia, wanted to make his son Cesare a force in Italy. To do so, he needed the help of the French armies. Louis, meanwhile, needed favors that only a pope could manage. In order to consolidate his position in France, Louis needed to marry Charles' widow, Anne of Brittany, but could not do so until his marriage to his current wife was annulled. He also wanted one of his advisors, Archbishop Georges d'Amboise, made a cardinal so that he would eventually be a candidate for the papacy. In exchange for these favors, Louis agreed to help Alexander and Cesare conquer the Romagna region and to undertake a campaign against the Kingdom of Naples, which both France and the pope had claims to. Louis was also urged on by the Venetians, who wanted revenge on Sforza and Milan. Louis invaded and captured Milan from Sforza in 1499. Many considered it poetic justice that Sforza had been deprived of his dukedom by the very forces he had first invited into Italy.
