• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1374 0

lookout for insurrectionists within and heretics without. Hostile, watchful suspicion was a frame of mind deeply ingrained in the Spanish rulers of Milan. They knew how important it was that they maintained their grip on the city. Whoever controlled Milan controlled the overland route from Italy to the rest of Europe. Milan would be on the front line in the event of any attempted invasion from the Protestant north, so it needed its heavy fortifications. In Caravaggio’s day, the principal danger was thought to lie in France and, to a lesser degree, Switzerland. For all the animosity between the Milanese and their occupiers – caused to a large extent by taxes and grain levies on the local people to feed the Spanish troops – the religious and political interests of Catholic Spain and Catholic Italy were as one in the face of such perceived threats from the Protestant north.

Milan had been a strategically important city since the days of the Roman empire, when Julius Caesar and Pompey had at different times made their residence there. Unlike the caesars of the past, Philip II of Spain did not go so far as to live in Milan. But he jealously guarded his power over the city. He had inherited both his crown and his empire from his father, Emperor Charles V. There is no more vivid document of the larger world of realpolitik, of the patterns of religious and political division that fractured Europe in Caravaggio’s time, than the long ‘Instruction’ that the ailing Charles V dictated, towards the end of his life, for the benefit of his son. He warned his heir to watch out for the dangers lying in wait throughout the vast range of his territories, from Spain to Naples, from the Netherlands all the way across to Germany and Austria. He gave particular emphasis to the importance of keeping a grip on Milan, a key military outpost at the crossroads of Europe:

Leave German affairs, as I now do, to my brother Ferdinand, but maintain contacts there, for your vigilance must be alert throughout all the possessions of our house. The most constant threat comes from France. Their kings have been and are bound to us by treaties, but remember that they are not true to their undertakings and only keep to their word when they are too poor to go to war … Keep a good guard on our northern borders with France, and maintain a fleet of galleys in the Mediterranean as a warning both to the Turks and to the French. We need to maintain good relations with Genoa because of its port, so take good care for this.

In the north-east I have strengthened Flanders against France by my annexation of Guelders, Utrecht and Frisia. Still, you must keep money on hand there in case there is need for a sudden mobilisation; the inhabitants are reasonably loyal to us, but do not relax your watchfulness … I have settled the affairs of Savoy somewhat to the detriment of our ally the Duke, but do not help him to recover the lands occupied by the French even if they are his by right. That could give the French an excuse to press south again against our Milan and if that happens our links with Genoa and Florence and our rule in Naples and Sicily could all be put at risk.

Still Charles V continued, spinning out a web of complex alliances and counter-alliances, seeking to pass on to his son his own, pragmatically paranoid brand of statecraft:

Further to Italy: do not trust the Pope, who neither honours his word nor has the general interests of Christianity at heart; keep an eye on any strengthening of the Duke of Ferrara’s family relationships with the French; Venice is unlikely to form any close attachment to France, Florence is much indebted to our support of the Duke and is safe, but be watchful of Lucca and Siena. Above all, keep Milan and Naples well garrisoned with troops regularly paid to keep them loyal to us. As for the rest, remember that the Swiss covet part of our Franche-Comte; keep on good terms with England but, given the Pope’s resentment against that country, very warily; with Scotland, you need have little to do.13

Charles V gave Philip II that advice