The Italian Wars were a series of conflicts fought between 1494 and 1559, mostly in the Italian Peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and Mediterranean Sea. The primary belligerents were the Valois kings of France, and their Habsburg opponents in the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. At different points, various Italian states participated in the war, some on both sides, with limited involvement from England and the Ottoman Empire.
Left to right, top to bottom: Battle of Fornovo, 1495 Battle of Ravenna, 1512 Battle of Marignano, 1515 Battle of Pavia, 1525 Battle of Ceresole, 1544 Battle of St. Quentin, 1557
Italy after the 1454 Peace of Lodi
Louis XII
Emperor Maximilian, c. 1508
The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe since the High Middle Ages. It was also an early colonial power, with colonies in Asia and Africa, and the largest being New France in North America centred around the Great Lakes.
Louis XIV, a 1701 portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud
The provinces of the Kingdom of France in 1789
An 1841 portrait of Louis Philippe I by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
The Reims Cathedral, built where Clovis I was baptised by Remigius, functioned as the site for the coronations of the kings of France in the kingdom