The price of Charles V’S protection in Italy: The Example of Lucca

Abstract

The agenti imperiali, the officals, ambassadors and military commanders representing the Emperor Charles V in Italy, made use of his status as Holy Roman Emperor and of the claims this gave him and them to intervene in Italian states over which he did not rule directly, to aid in establishing Spanish hegemony over Italy. The example of Lucca, a small state that asked for Charles’s protection as an Imperial city, while resolutely maintaining its independence and trying to fend off demands from the emperor and the agenti imperiali for heavy financial contributions to the maintainence of the Imperial army in Italy, casts light on how this was done.