The Twilight of a Military Tradition

In this path-breaking study, Gregory Hanlon argues that there was a startling decline of military activity for Italian aristocrats around the middle of the seventeenth century. Italian states virtually ceased making war against each other and, with the important exception of the Piedmontese, and in stark contrast to the rest of Europe, Italian elites lost interest in military affairs. Outlining the processof military withdrawal in the context of events unfolding in Europe, Hanlon explores how the Italians rallied to defend a certain Catholic conception of Europe. He examines their surprising prominence in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire on land, and against Ottoman and Barbary Coast ships at sea and their commitment to quell the Protestant Reformation in France and the Netherlands. He assesses their involvement in the Thirty Years War and investigates why this triggered a turning point in military enthusiasm. Alive to methodological issues and aware of the multifaceted nature of war, the author throws new light on the politics, society and culture of power in the early modern period. He provides at once a wide-ranging account of Italian history and important work in military history. This fascinating study gives students and scholars a much-neglected Italian dimension to the political and military history of Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. This unique work will prove of interest to students of early modern European history, particuarly those interested in the history of social elites and military history.

Knights and corsairs in the Mediterranean; Italy in the age of Hapsburg hegemony, 1560-1620; the Forty Years' War, 1618-1659; the Venetian epic, 1600-1718; the Spanish crisis and the rise of Austria, 1660-1710; profiles and careers' the piedmontese exception; the great powers and Italian demilitarization, 1700-1814; the military imagination.