AHC: Louis XII follows Machiavelli's advice.

Christian

In The Prince, Machiavelli wrote on Louis XII's actions in Italy as a prime example of what not to do if you want to hold newly conquered territories.

He shouldn't have empowered the Church by giving them temporal power when there were so many others who were clamoring to be his friend.

He shouldn't have brought the Spaniards in to partition the Kingdom of Naples.

When responding that he made a promise to the both of them so he can avoid war, he basically just says that its okay to break them, after all, its useless to make promises to avoid war because its just gonna happen sooner than later.

Also, a less important thing, but he says that Louis XII should have sent colonists to his new lands or at the very least just stayed in Italy to keep a closer eye on its development.

So, if he had followed his advice, at least retroactively, would he have been able to keep his conquests?
 

MiniaAr

I think he could have kept Milan.

One of the main piece of advice in the the Prince is that Louis XII should have kept the Venetian as allies instead of joining the League of Cambrai against them. I know that hindsight is 20/20 but the potential to add Brescia and Bergamo to the French Milanese possessions was not worth going to war against the only ally that depended on French support to keep their gains.

With a strong French-Venetian alliance in northern Italy, coordination between Spain, Austria and the Pope is much harder to achieve in my opinion and thus keeping Milan and subjugating Savoy seems possible for the French.
 
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