Trade in Italy during the Italian Wars was still significant, but it was smaller and more disrupted than in the 15th century because repeated invasions, sieges, blockades, and shifting control over key cities made commerce riskier and less predictable.

What “big” means here

If you mean the absolute size of trade , the best answer is that Italy remained one of Europe’s major commercial zones, especially through ports and wealthy city-states like Venice, Genoa, and Florence, but the wars weakened the volume and reliability of trade flows. If you mean trade’s importance to the economy , it stayed very important because Italian cities still depended heavily on long-distance exchange, finance, and manufactured goods, even as war damaged normal commercial activity.

Why trade changed

The Italian Wars made trade harder in several ways:

  • Armies disrupted roads and river routes.
  • Maritime trade faced naval conflict and piracy.
  • Cities under siege or occupation saw shortages and price spikes.
  • Political fragmentation meant merchants had to deal with many jurisdictions and tariffs.

Practical scale

A useful way to think about it is this: Italy was still commercially advanced, but the wars shifted trade from being a stable, growth-oriented system to a more defensive and opportunistic one, where merchants focused on security, protected routes, and wartime profit opportunities.

Bottom line

So, trade in Italy during the Italian Wars was substantial in importance but reduced in smooth operation and probably lower in volume than it would have been without war. It did not disappear; it became more fragmented, riskier, and less predictable.

TL;DR: Italy was still a major trading region during the Italian Wars, but warfare made trade more disrupted, costlier, and less reliable than before.