Abstract
Abstract This chapter shows the deepening of the Borromeos’ involvement with the Count-Duke of Olivares in the 1630s and 1640s, focusing on their role as military entrepreneurs during the Franco-Spanish War in Lombardy. The chapter offers a discussion of the historiography of the Union of Arms, Olivares’s project for a common defense of the Spanish empire, challenging the view that the project foundered on the resistance of the nobility. Instead, it argues that the lesser nobility embraced the Union of Arms as a way to offer its services to the crown. Focusing on Giulio Cesare Borromeo and his son Giovanni, the chapter retraces their phenomenal rise in the Spanish army but also indicates the contradictions this spawned: while they presented their military service as part of their feudal duty to protect their subjects, the quest for social ascent made them push to continue a war that had devastating consequences for the population they claimed to shelter.
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