 During the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) and the Franco-Spanish War (1635–59), the "Presidi" served as a stopover on the so-called "Cammino di Fiandra" ("path of Flanders").Soldiers were massed in Naples and then moved in stages to the Spanish Netherlands, to fight Netherlandish rebels or the French.If they took ship in Naples, they usually stopped to revictual in the "Presidi" before moving on to Genoa; otherwise they marched overland from Naples to the "Presidi" and took ship there.