The
Italian Wars, often referred to as the
Great Italian Wars or the
Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the
Habsburg–Valois Wars or the
Renaissance Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the
city-states of Italy, the
Papal States, most of the major states of Western Europe (
France,
Spain, the
Holy Roman Empire,
England, and
Scotland) as well as the
Ottoman Empire. Originally arising from dynastic disputes over the
Duchy of Milan and the
Kingdom of Naples, the wars rapidly became a general struggle for power and territory among their various participants, and were marked with an increasing number of alliances, counter-alliances, and betrayals.