In 1487, the Battle of Calliano determined the fate of both the Most Serene Republic of Venice and the Prince Bishopric of Trento. For almost sixty years from 1420, Venice desired to control Trento and extend its control to the borders of the Germanic world or rather the Holy Roman Empire. The battle erupted five years before the discovery of America in August of 1487. Italian speaking Tyroleans and German speaking soldiers of the Hapsburg dynasty defeated the Venetian army at Calliano in present day Trentino. This defeat marked the decline of Venice’s objective of controlling Trentino and the Adige Valley. The Prince Bishopric continued as a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire until 1802. On a larger scale, this meant the ultimate act of the expansion dreams of Italian city-states. Over the next century, France and Spain would battle each other with Spain controlling the peninsula until Austria replaced them in the 18th century. A sovereign Italy only emerged in 1861 and the final two Italian speaking regions of Trento and Trieste annexed in 1918 at the conclusion of the First World War.
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