Spain thus established completehegemony over all the Italian states exceptVenice, which alone maintained its independence. Several Italian states were ruled directly, while others remained Spanish dependents. Naples,Sicily, andSardinia (which had all been dependencies of Aragon), as well asMilan, came under direct Spanish rule and owed theirallegiance to thesovereign according to their own laws and traditions. Theirforeign policy interests were subordinated to the imperial designs of Spain, which also appointed their chief officers (viceroys in Naples,Palermo, and Cagliari; a governor in Milan) and administered their internal affairs through local councils. From the beginning of Philip II’s reign, Italian affairs, which had originally been administered by the Council of Aragon, were coordinated by aCouncil of Italy in Madrid. At this council, the three major states—Naples, Sicily, and Milan—were each represented by two regents, one Castilian and one native. Sardinia remained adependency of Aragon. The king, however, continued to receive and be responsive to embassies sent by various groups outside official channels until the Spanish Habsburg line died out in 1700.

A vitriolic anti-Spanish polemic has long dominated the historiography of early modern Italy. It accuses Spanish rule of an authoritarianism closed to new ideas andinnovation, of presiding over an empty formalism in literary expression, and of promotingspagnolismo, an exaggerated andostentatious pomp—all perceived as the fruits of adecadent, backward-looking colonial domination. Faulting Spain for trying tointegrate Italy within its absolutist and imperial program or blaming Italy’s 17th-century decline on Spanish social and economic policies has served nationalistic fervor since the 16th century, but it has missed both the benefits of Spanish rule to Italian peace and security and the main causes of crisis in 17th-century Italy. To understand the latter, one must examine the internal conflicts and economic impediments that existed within the Italian states themselves rather than look to an absentee Spanish scapegoat. And, above all, early modern Italy must be understood in a wider Europeancontext and in relation to the economic shifts wrought by the new Asian and American trade. The touchstone for modern scholarship isFernand Braudel’sThe Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (1949), which continues to inspire and challenge research into Philip II’s empire and beyond.