In 1628 - when central Europe was all aflame in the Thirty Years' War and catholic and protestant forces were busy fighting for power and religious righteousness - in the north Italian town of Mantua, a struggle for succession and inheritance between some minor dukes drew the mightiest powers of Europe into a conflict they all wanted to avoid. A conflict that included besieging an island, heavily fortified and under unintentional quarantine. This was a conflict characterized by political intrigue and complex family entanglements. We disentangled them and present you a simplified, yet comprehensive analysis of the Mantuan War of Succession.
Contemporary historiography tells this intriguing story as follows:
On the 22 of December 1612, peace turned into turmoil in the small Italian Duchy. On this day, Fran-cesco IV of Mantua passed away. His dynasty, house Gonzaga, had ruled in the Duchy of Mantua since the 14th century. House Gonzaga had even managed to extend its rule to Montferrat through clever marriage politics in 1531. But then Francesco Gonzaga turned up his toes without a male heir, he only left a daughter, Maria. His two younger brothers, Ferdinando and Vincenzo had both joined the church and lived in celibacy. They one after another took over the duchy but neither of them secured the male succession.
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Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Report of the Ambassador of Vincenzo Tron in 1564 on the occasion of the succession of Duke Gui-glielmo, in: Segarizzi, Arnaldo (ed.), Relazioni di ambasciatori Veneti al Senato, Bari 1912.
Capilupi, Scipione, Memorie di molte miserie et accidenti occorsi alli stati di Mantova e Monferrato dopo la morte di Vincenzo secondo duca delli sudetti dui stati, in: Raccolta di cronisti e documen-ti storici lombardi inediti vol. 2, Milano 1857.
Literature:
Arnold, T. F., Fortifications and the Military Revolution. The Gonzaga Experience 1530-1630, in: Rog-ers, C. J. (Ed.), The Military Revolution Debate. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Boulder / San Francisco / Oxford 1995.
Lynn, J. A., The trace itallienne and the Growth of Armies, in: Rogers, C. J. (Ed.), The Military Revolution Debate. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Boulder / San Francisco / Oxford 1995.Parrott, D., Reichsitalien im Dreissigjährigen Krieg. Der Mantuanische Erbfolgekrieg und der Dreis-sigjährige Krieg, in: 1648: Krieg und Frieden in Europa (vol. 1), p. 153-160, München 1998.
Parrott, D., The Mantuan Succession, 1627-31. A Sovereignty Dispute in Early Modern Europe, in: English Historical Review 112 (1997), p. 20-65.
Sterling, R. A., Prelude to Disaster. The Precipitation of the War of the Mantuan Succession, 1627-29, in: Historical Journal 33 (1990), p. 769-85.
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11 апр 2020
