Charles VIII Enters Florence

1494

The French king rode into Florence on his march to Naples. Savonarola welcomed him as a divine scourge. The Medici were already fleeing. Charles's troops looted quietly while the friar negotiated the city's survival. The entry was bloodless, humiliating, and epoch-making: Italy's independence from transalpine power had evaporated overnight. The ease with which a foreign army crossed Italy exposed the peninsula's weakness and inaugurated sixty years of devastating Italian Wars.