Treaty of Lodi

The Treaty of Lodi, or Peace of Lodi, was a peace agreement to put an end to the Wars in Lombardy between the Venetian Republic and the Duchy of Milan, signed in the city of Lodi on 9 April 1454.

The historical relevance of the treaty lies in having guaranteed the Italian Peninsula 40 years of stable peace, consequently favoring the artistic and literary flowering of the Renaissance.

The political situation
After the death of the Duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti in 1447, the Golden Ambrosian Republic was proclaimed in Milan. The rulers decided to entrust the defense of the newborn state to Francesco I Sforza. The latter, after three years, proclaimed himself duke of Milan. In fact, for some time Venice had not abandoned its ambitions to expand into Lombardy and thus forged an alliance with Alfonso V of Aragon, king of Naples, and the emperor Frederick III of Habsburg, against Francesco Sforza and his allies. But after only three years news of the fall of Constantinople arrived. This event endangered the structure of the Venetian possessions in the Aegean Sea, so the Serenissima decided to put a temporary truce to the wars in the peninsula, stipulating the peace of Lodi together with other Italian powers.

The treaty


Venice and Milan concluded the final peace on April 9, 1454 at the residence of Francesco Sforza in Lodi. The Venetian signatories were Simone da Camerino and Paolo Barbo. The treaty was ratified by the most powerful Italian states, first of all Florentine Republic, which had long since sided with Milan thanks to the long-standing relationship between Cosimo de' Medici and Francesco Sforza.

After the treaty, Northern Italy was practically divided between the two states, despite the fact that some other powers persisted: the House of Savoy, the Republic of Genoa, the House of Gonzaga and the House of Este. It also established the succession of Francesco Sforza to the Duchy of Milan, the movement of the frontier between the aforementioned states on the Adda river, the affixing of border signals along the entire demarcation and the beginning of an alliance which culminated in the adhesion, at different times, to the Italic League. The lands of Asola, Lonato and Peschiera came under the dominions of the Venetian Republic, disappointing the expectations of the Gonzagas, who had always aimed for these places.

The historical relevance of the treaty
The importance of the Treaty of Lodi consists in having given the peninsula a new political-institutional structure which - by limiting the particular ambitions of the various states - ensured a substantial territorial balance for 40 years and the development of the Renaissance.

Lorenzo the Magnificent - in the second part of the fifteenth century - became the guarantor of this political equilibrium, implementing his famous "equilibrium policy".