The Battle of Bicocca or La Bicocca (Italian: Battaglia della Bicocca) was fought on 27 April 1522, during the Italian War of 152126. A combined French and Venetian force under Odet de Foix, Vicomte de Lautrec, was decisively defeated by an ImperialSpanish and Papal army under the overall command of Prospero Colonna. Lautrec then withdrew from Lombardy, leaving the Duchy of Milan in Imperial hands.

Having been driven from Milan by an Imperial advance in late 1521, Lautrec had regrouped, attempting to strike at Colonna's lines of communication. When the Swiss mercenaries in French service did not receive their pay, however, they demanded an immediate battle, and Lautrec was forced to attack Colonna's fortified position in the park of the Arcimboldi Villa Bicocca, north of Milan. The Swiss pikemen advanced over open fields under heavy artillery fire to assault the Imperial positions, but were halted at a sunken road backed by earthworks. Having suffered massive casualties from the fire of Spanish arquebusiers, the Swiss retreated. Meanwhile, an attempt by French cavalry to flank Colonna's position proved equally ineffective. The Swiss, unwilling to fight further, marched off to their cantons a few days later, and Lautrec retreated into Venetian territory with the remnants of his army.

The battle is noted chiefly for marking the end of the Swiss dominance among the infantry of the Italian Wars, and of the Swiss method of assaults by massed columns of pikemen without support from other troops. It was also one of the first engagements in which firearms played a decisive role on the battlefield.

Habsburg Spain is a contemporary historiographical term referred to the Spain of the 16th and 17th centuries (1516–1700) when it was ruled by kings from the House of Habsburg (also associated with its role in the history of Central and Eastern Europe). The Habsburg Hispanic Monarchs (chiefly Charles I and Philip II) reached the zenith of their influence and power ruling the Spanish Empire. They controlled territories over the five continents including the Americas, the East Indies, the Low Countries, Belgium, Luxembourg and territories now in Italy, France and Germany in Europe, the Portuguese Empire from 1580 to 1640, and various other territories such as small enclaves like Ceuta and Oran in North Africa. This period of Spanish history has also been referred to as the "Age of Expansion".

With the Habsburgs, Spain was one of the greatest political and military powers in Europe and the world for much of the 16th and 17th centuries. During the Habsburg's period, Spain ushered in the Spanish Golden Age of arts and literature producing some of the world's most outstanding writers and painters and influential intellectuals, including Teresa of Ávila, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Miguel de Cervantes, Francisco de Quevedo, Diego Velázquez, El Greco, Domingo de Soto, Francisco Suárez and Francisco de Vitoria.

Spain or "the Spains", referring to Spanish territories across different continents in this period, initially covered the entire Iberian peninsula, including the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, León, Navarre and, from 1580, Portugal.

The marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1469 resulted in the union of the two main crowns, Castile and Aragon, which eventually led to the de facto unification of Spain, after the culmination of the Reconquista with the conquest of Granada in 1492 and of Navarre in 1512–1529. Isabella and Ferdinand were bestowed the title of "Catholic King and Queen" by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, and the term Monarchia Catholica (Catholic Monarchy, Modern Spanish: Monarquía Católica) remained in use for the monarchy under the Spanish Habsburgs. The Habsburg period is formative of the notion of "Spain" in the sense that was institutionalized in the 18th century.Spain as a unified state came into being de jure after the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707 that succeeded the multiple crowns of its former realms. After the death in 1700 of Spain's last Habsburg king Charles II, the resulting War of the Spanish Succession led to the ascension of Philip V of the Bourbon dynasty and began a new centralizing state formation.