The Monferrato crisis (1612-1618) was a succession dispute between the duchies of Savoy and Mantua in which the monarchy of Philip III was involved from very early on. It was also a war that historiography has described as minor and whose most important milestones we now look back on with fresh eyes. Such is the case of the peace signed at Asti in 1615, once described as a "milestone in the Spanish decline". Through a new interpretation, the Monferrato conflict emerges as one of the most important challenges to the policy pursued by the Spanish Monarchy in Italy, at least since the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis, and as an immediate antecedent to the Thirty Years' War.

Throughout the eight chapters that make up the work, we propose a journey that will lead us to learn about the management of the war by the Spanish authorities and the repercussions that the conflict had on the Duke of Lerma's rule. This journey will also lead us to consider France's return to the Italian stage on the occasion of the Savoyard invasion of Monferrato and the negotiation of the Spanish-French double marriages, as well as the always ambiguous position of Italy's potentates. We will also travel through the words of the spectacular paper war waged by the contenders, which soon took on a strong anti-Spanish character, causing some of its most important texts to be interpreted, in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in a nationalist key. This propaganda, the volume of which was hitherto unknown, was also developed orally and visually, and materialised in the composition of various historical chronicles. This media dimension highlights the existence of incipient spaces of opinion that allow us to refer to the Monferrato crisis as a veritable war in the Parnassus.

ISBN 978-84-9744-382-1.