Charles VIII
King of France · 1483-1498 · born on 30 June 1470, died on 7 April 1498
Son of Louis XI, Charles VIII came to the throne at thirteen, in 1483, under the regency of his sister Anne of Beaujeu. He married Anne of Brittany in 1491, at Langeais: the marriage placed the duchy under the king’s domination, but Anne kept her title of duchess, and the definitive union with the crown came only in 1532.
He claimed the kingdom of Naples and invaded the peninsula in 1494: this was the beginning of the Italian Wars. The expedition, initially victorious, ended in a difficult retreat in the face of the coalition of the Italian states, and Naples, once conquered, was lost by his successors.
He died accidentally in 1498, his head struck against a door lintel at the château of Amboise. With no male heir, he left the throne to his cousin Louis XII.