Forms of popular protest and notions of democracy in Italy during the Italian Wars

This essay examines popular protest and resistance during the Italian Wars, 1494 to 1559, emphasizing the importance of the decade of the 1520s. It is a comparative analysis with Italy’s more thoroughly studied epoch of insurrec-tion during the late fourteenth century and concludes that the latter period, characterized by warfare and the growth of absolutism, was rich in new forms of protest wedded to ideals of equality and early practices of democracy