Editing Pope Alexander VI (section)

=== French in retreat ===
{{More citations needed section|date=April 2014}}

A reaction against Charles VIII soon set in, for all the European powers were alarmed at his success. On 31 March 1495 the [[Holy League (1495)|Holy League]] was formed among the pope, the emperor, [[Venice]], Ludovico il Moro and [[Ferdinand II of Aragon|Ferdinand of Spain]].<ref>{{cite book |first=M. S. |last=Anderson |title=The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919 |location=London |publisher=Longman |year=1993 |page=3 |isbn=0-582-21232-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JmzuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA3 }}</ref> The League was ostensibly formed against the Turks, but in reality it was made to expel the French from Italy. Charles VIII had himself crowned King of [[Kingdom of Naples|Naples]] on 12 May, but a few days later began his retreat northward. He met the League at [[Battle of Fornovo|Fornovo]] and cut his way through them and was back in France by November. Ferdinand II was reinstated at [[Naples]] soon afterwards, with Spanish help. The expedition, if it produced no material results, demonstrated the foolishness of the so-called "politics of equilibrium", the Medicean doctrine of preventing one of the Italian principates from overwhelming the rest and uniting them under its hegemony.

Charles VIII's belligerence in Italy had made it transparent that the "politics of equilibrium" did nothing but render the country unable to defend itself against a powerful invading force. Italy was shown to be very vulnerable to the predations of the powerful nation-states, France and Spain, that had forged themselves during the previous century. Alexander VI now followed the general tendency of all the princes of the day to crush the great feudatories and establish a centralized despotism. In this manner, he was able to take advantage of the defeat of the French in order to break the power of the Orsini. From that time on, Alexander was able to build himself an effective power base in the Papal States.

[[File:Castel Sant'Angelo bild.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[Castel Sant'Angelo]] in Rome]]

[[Virginio Orsini]], who had been captured by the Spanish, died a prisoner at Naples, and the Pope confiscated his property. The rest of the Orsini clan still held out, defeating the papal troops sent against them under [[Guidobaldo da Montefeltro]], Duke of [[Urbino]] and [[Giovanni Borgia (1474)|Giovanni Borgia]], Duke of Gandia, at [[Soriano nel Cimino|Soriano]] (January 1497). Peace was made through Venetian mediation, the Orsini paying 50,000 ducats in exchange for their confiscated lands; the Duke of Urbino, whom they had captured, was left by the pope to pay his own ransom. The Orsini remained very powerful, and Pope Alexander VI could count on none but his 3,000 Spanish troops. His only success had been the capture of Ostia and the submission of the Francophile cardinals Colonna and [[Giovanni Battista Savelli|Savelli]].

Then occurred a major domestic tragedy for the house of Borgia. On 14 June, his son the [[Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía|Duke of Gandia]], who was lately created Duke of [[Benevento]] and had a questionable lifestyle, disappeared; the next day, his corpse was found in the Tiber.<ref name="Villari" /> Alexander, overwhelmed with grief, shut himself up in [[Castel Sant'Angelo]]. He declared that henceforth the moral reform of the Church would be the sole object of his life. Every effort was made to discover the assassin. No conclusive explanation was ever reached,<ref>{{harvp|Mallett|1981|pp=162–166}}</ref> and it may be that the crime was simply as a result of one of the Duke's sexual liaisons.