Italy was to provide a complex subplot to campaigning in other regions. Though hostilities stretched out over the entire course of the war, it was a strangely subdued theatre. Many of the Italian states had no interest whatsoever in the argument over who should take over the Habsburg throne, and most (including Venice and Tuscany) remained neutral. The pope made it clear he wasn’t taking sides either.
Fighting in Italy was therefore rather detached from (and undertaken for different purposes than) the fighting in Germany and the LowElizabeth Farnese. Don Philip, it was thought, would look good on the throne of Parma.
