_The Visconti_
“Maudire la puissance, c’est blasphémer l’humanité.”
The Visconti had now firmly established their dominion in Milan, a
dominion destined, in the story of the unstable mediæval governments of
Italy, to be equalled by few in duration, and by none in extent. For
good or for evil the great city, with her command of the chief passes of
the Alps for war and commerce, her wealth as the capital of the vast
alluvial plain of Lombardy, was delivered into the hands of a race
singularly fitted to use these natural advantages for the creation of a
mighty State. The Visconti, as a family, were characterised by
exceptional ability and tenacity, and above all, by a subtlety of brain
and suppleness of conscience which, under the stress of ambition or
necessity, induced a perfidy so quiet and so effectual that the Snake
upon their shields became for all Italy a symbol of their political
methods, and an object of horror and fear. The vices and weaknesses
which ruined other Italian dynasties seemed to have little power over
these Milanese princes. Hot and rash of blood in the earlier
generations, they rarely allowed passion to override prudence; those of
them who did were quickly rooted out. Even that most fruitful disorder
in a reigning House, the jealous rivalry of its own members, could not
avail to overcome their political coolness or sagacity, or sunder their
union against a common enemy. With time this self-control became a habit
of cold and passionless judgment, all-powerful in the management of men
and States. Even the fatal weakness of remorse and superstitious fear,
to which they were all prone, could not undermine them; they were able
to parry their consciences, and delay repentance until their successors
were old enough to carry on their unscrupulous policy. Nor did the
arrogance and cruelty which tyranny bred in this sovereign race prove
their overthrow. In spite of its record of crime, no retributive
catastrophe ended the dynasty. It died out of itself, and we shall see
the last of the Visconti sink into the grave under the burden of an
empire greater almost than any other in Italy.
_Il Gran Matteo_, as posterity named the founder of the dynasty, was the
prototype in character of all the great sovereigns who were to follow
him. He ruled from the cabinet rather than from the saddle. Statecraft
was his victorious weapon, and his calculating and passionless nature
had its complement in a humanity remarkable for his time. But it needed
not only his incomparable prudence and foresight, but also the strong
arms of his three elder sons, Galeazzo, Marco, and Luchino, to assure
his dominion and restore it to its old extent. The remaining years of
the chief, as head of the Ghibelline party in North Italy, were spent in
a constant warfare with the Guelfs and their allies, King Robert of
Naples, and the Church. The awful papal ban fell again and again upon
the Visconte and his subjects. Nevertheless Piacenza, Bergamo, Lodi,
Como, Cremona, Alexandria, Tortona, Pavia, Vercelli, and Novara were
brought one by one beneath his sway by the victory of diplomacy or arms.
His success was embittered, however, by estrangement from his beloved
first-born, Galeazzo, who coveted his father’s supremacy, and jealously
resented the rivalry of his brother Marco. But Galeazzo’s hot temper had
been chastened by exile and time, and in spite of their mutual anger, he
supported his father’s policy with a wise loyalty.
The fortunes of the Guelf party sank low before the rapid growth of the
Viscontean power. Its hereditary leaders in North Italy, the Marquises
of Este, were entangled in an unnatural struggle with the Papacy, which
was itself enfeebled by the exile of Avignon, and by the operations of
its own selfish greed. But in 1319 the party gathered itself together
once more for a mighty effort to overthrow the Ghibelline domination in
Milan. The Cardinal Legate, Beltrando del Poggetto, in the name of Pope
John XXII., formed a great league of the Guelfs against the Visconti,
and hurled at them afresh the spiritual weapons of the Church. Matteo
was summoned repeatedly to answer for his sins at the feet of the Pope.
In 1322 he was cited finally before a tribunal of the Inquisition at
Alexandria. Instead of him, his son Marco appeared there at the head of
an army with banners spread. The Inquisitors hastily retreated to
Valenza, where in security they solemnly cursed Matteo for twenty and
five different crimes and heresies, and invoked every conceivable
penalty upon him and his House, even to the fourth generation. Full
remission of sins was offered to all who took arms against them.
The old Ghibelline chief, weakened by age and bodily infirmity, quailed
before this onslaught. Many of his own adherents and kinsmen were
deserting him. Milan, trembling under the ban of the Church and excited
by the papal agents, was verging on revolt. Matteo summoned the
offending Galeazzo, forgave him, and resigned to him the chieftainship.
Retiring to a village at a little distance from the city, he died
shortly after, full of years and sorrow.
Galeazzo and his brother Marco, bitter rivals, forgot for the time their
mutual wrongs, and with the other sons of Matteo stood up in manful
union against their foes. For fourteen days they concealed their
father’s death from the Milanese, while Galeazzo calmed the city by
conciliatory measures, and assumed the supreme power. The storm broke
heavily upon them now. Immense numbers from all North Italy joined the
standard of the Legate, which, impiously displaying the Cross in a
worldly quarrel was carried towards Milan, with the avowed purpose of
overthrowing the Visconti and restoring the Torriani. Monza and Piacenza
fell (1323), and the capital itself was attacked, the suburbs sacked,
and the walls closely blockaded. The straits of the Visconti appeared
desperate. But the brothers fought with invincible spirit, and they were
supported by the Emperor, Louis of Bavaria, who sent succour from
Germany. The papal army itself began to dissolve through rivalries and
dissensions, and sickness. The siege was soon raised, and early in the
following year (1324) the Visconti took the offensive and inflicted a
signal defeat upon the allies at Vaprio. Their fortunes now revived.
Within the next few years they recovered many of the lost cities of
their father’s State, and the Pope, realising the impossibility of
overthrowing them, began to listen to emissaries from Galeazzo with
suggestions for peace and reconciliation.
But the desire of the Visconte for a settlement of the long and
exhausting strife was baffled by his own party and his own household.
The other Ghibelline chiefs, especially the great Can Grande della
Scala, viewed unwillingly the increase of the Milanese power. Marco
Visconte, a splendid warrior, more skilled and daring in arms than any
other Lombard of his day, but unlike the rest of his House none too
wise—_savio non fu troppo_, says Villani—could not brook his elder
brother’s supremacy. Their kinsman Lodrisio fiercely resented his own
subordinate position. The citizens groaned under the heavy taxes exacted
to pay Galeazzo’s great army of German mercenaries. Complaints of the
Visconte’s arrogance, and information of his negotiations with the Pope,
were carried by intriguers to the Emperor.
Louis descended into Italy early in 1327, at the general call of the
Ghibellines. Galeazzo Visconte alone was silent, foreseeing that the
Emperor’s appearance would inflame anew the partisan strife. Louis
appeared shortly in Milan, followed by the Ghibelline lords of North
Italy, chief among them Can Grande. He was received with great homage
and ceremony and crowned in St. Ambrogio by two schismatic bishops, who
alone dared to anoint his excommunicated head. The Visconti appeared to
enjoy his full favour, and as vassals of the Empire were confirmed by
him in various honours and privileges. But intrigue was busy at work,
and the fair seeming was suddenly broken by a tragic event, if the
chroniclers tell us true. Stefano, the youngest of Galeazzo’s brothers,
as he was offering the cup to the Emperor at the banquet one night, was
called upon by the suspicious monarch to taste the wine. Having put his
lips tremblingly to it, he was struck with mortal sickness, and died
shortly after. This evidence of intended treachery naturally inflamed
Louis’ resentment against his hosts. The next day he summoned Galeazzo
to a council, and seizing as a pretext the refusal of the prince to
demand an enormous coronation gift from the almost revolting citizens,
he arrested him, with his son Azzo and his brothers, all except Marco.
The Visconti, surprised, could make no defence, and were carried off to
Monza and thrown into the dungeons of the Castle there which Galeazzo
himself had lately built.
Thus did the Visconti once more lose Milan. A governor, appointed by
Louis, reigned in their stead. Marco, if he owed his escape to
disloyalty, soon rued his mistake. The ruin of his house involved him
too, and he wandered in poverty and exile. Louis’ high-handed act was,
however, displeasing to many of his Ghibelline supporters, and he found
it prudent to release Galeazzo at the end of a year, at the request of
Castruccio, Lord of Lucca, the most powerful member of the Ghibelline
party at that time. The Visconte, broken by his sufferings in prison,
and unable to recover his State, joined his friend Castruccio, and died
a few months later. His son and brothers succeeded soon after, through
the intervention of Castruccio, in making their peace with the Emperor.
For the promise of sixty thousand golden florins, Louis granted to Azzo,
the dead prince’s heir, the title of Imperial Vicar of Milan, and the
Visconti once more took possession of the city with the full approval of
the people (1329).
Once restored to power, they were at little pains to pay the stipulated
sum to the Emperor, who by this time was fast losing prestige in Italy.
They reconciled themselves with the Church instead, and when the enraged
Louis presented himself with an army beneath the walls of Milan, he was
received with derision and jeers. The Emperor, enfeebled by the contempt
and desertion of nearly all his partisans, was helpless against the
renewed strength of the great Milanese House. He was glad to compound
with Azzo and to reconfirm him in the position of Imperial Vicar.
From this moment began the unbroken prosperity of Matteo Visconte’s sons
and of the great city which they ruled. Secure in the weakness of both
Empire and Church from further interference, Azzo was able to devote
himself to the expansion and development of his State. The short reign
of this prince, who had won great fame for his prowess in the Tuscan
wars with Castruccio, was wholly fortunate. The menace offered to its
prosperity by the rebellious attempts of his uncle Marco was overcome by
the death of that turbulent warrior, who was killed in 1329 apparently
by a fall from a window in his nephew’s palace, though it was generally
believed that he had been first strangled and then flung out by order of
his kinsmen. The other enemy within the House, Lodrisio Visconte, was
not so easily disposed of. Abandoning Milan, he allied himself with the
Scaligeri of Verona, with whom the Visconti had come into inevitable
collision, now that the weakness of their common Guelf foe had left the
field of North Italy open to the rival ambition of these two great
Ghibelline powers. In 1339 Lodrisio, with forces supplied by Martino
della Scala, invaded the Milanese territory, and approaching the
capital, spread terror and desolation everywhere. At Parabiago they
encountered the Milanese, under Luchino Visconte, who, after a
tremendous struggle, won a complete victory. Lodrisio was captured with
his two sons, and imprisoned in a strong castle. A few months later Azzo
died of gout, at the age of thirty-seven. In the brief years of his
reign he had completely restored the power and prestige of his House. He
left Milan fortified by new walls, beautified by new palaces, churches
and towers, a city fairer and greater than that ruined by Barbarossa,
and full of a rich, industrious and joyous life.
Azzo had no heir. He was succeeded by his uncles, Luchino, and the
ecclesiastic Giovanni, who was now Archbishop of Milan. The two brothers
thus held the whole dominion, spiritual as well as temporal. They worked
together with rare unanimity for the aggrandisement of their House and
State. Luchino pressed with his arms energetically against the
Scaligeri, whose empire was fast receding before the attacks of the rest
of the Ghibelline powers of North Italy, who in uniting with the
Visconti to crush this predominant member of the party, were but
smoothing the way for the rise of a State destined to be far greater
than Verona ever was. The Milanese prince added many cities to the
dominion of his House, and was the first to carry the fear of the
Visconti across the Apennines into Tuscany, where he had almost acquired
Pisa when recalled to Lombardy by the outbreak of war there.
[Illustration: TOWER OF S. GOTTARDO FROM THE CATHEDRAL]
Luchino was a careful ruler, thoughtful for the welfare and progress of
his subjects, and just towards the lower classes. He promulgated new
laws for the protection of the poor and weak, and for the encouragement
of industry, and refrained from excessive taxation. Nevertheless, he had
the same violent temper as his elder brothers, Galeazzo and Marco, and
soon developed the characteristic vices of tyranny—lust, cruelty and
suspicion. In Giovanni, on the contrary, all the rarer qualities of the
Visconti appeared, the subtle brain, the self-control and power of
biding their time, combined with a benignity which was never disturbed
except to good purpose, so that while steadily pursuing ends as vast and
ambitious as his brothers’, he still kept the respect and love of the
people. He well knew how to influence the course of events without
falling foul of his suspicious brother.
The younger princes of the House, however, the three sons of the dead
Stefano, were less cautious, and soon incurred the wrath of their
despotic uncle. He discovered, or perhaps invented, a conspiracy on
their part to oust him from power, and drove them mercilessly into exile
and poverty. The eldest, Matteo, took refuge with his wife’s family, the
powerful Gonzaga of Mantua, but Bernabò and Galeazzo had to fly to
France to escape from the tyrant’s snares. A confederate in their plot,
Francesco della Pusterla, head of one of the great Milanese Houses,
whose wealth and influence were necessarily a menace to the power of the
Visconti, was betrayed into Luchino’s hands and beheaded, with his sons
and his beautiful wife Margherita, who, according to the chroniclers,
had rejected the unlawful love of the tyrant.
Luchino is said to have come himself to an unnatural death in his old
age, through poison administered to him by his third wife, the young and
lively Elisabetta della Fiesca, in whose hearing the suspicious husband,
enraged by a report of light conduct on her part, had declared that he
would light a fine fire and do the greatest act of justice which he had
ever done in Milan. The accusations against this lady may, however, have
been trumped up to justify the persecution which she and her son,
Luchino Novello, and all the dead tyrant’s children, who had grown too
arrogant for the peace of the State, had to suffer from the Archbishop
after their father’s death. Giovanni imprisoned or banished them all.
Towards his other nephews, the banished sons of Stefano, whom misfortune
had chastened, Giovanni used a different policy. He won their loyalty
and obedience by recalling them from exile, granting them lands and
honours and making them his heirs, and about this time he obtained a
solemn act from the General Council of the people, still nominally the
ultimate authority in the community, recognising him and his nephews
after him as the true, legitimate and natural Lords of the city,
district, diocese and jurisdiction of Milan. Thus was the hereditary
dominion of the Visconti—already an established fact—formally legalised
by the will of the Commune.
Under the able rule of the Archbishop the power of the Visconti advanced
steadily, but more by the gentle pressure of a scheming and cunning
statesmanship than by the brute force of arms. His apparently peaceful
temper had lulled the jealousy and fear of the other powers, when in
1350 they were thunderstruck by his secret acquisition of Bologna—the
great object of contention between the two parties in North Italy—which
Giovanni de’ Pepoli sold to him for a large sum. Corio, the fifteenth
century historian, relates that Clement VI. sent a legate to the
Visconte to demand its restoration to the Holy See, and to bid him
renounce either the spiritual or temporal jurisdiction of Milan, since
his exercise of both together was a scandal to Christians. The
high-hearted Archbishop for answer unsheathed his sword in the midst of
the Cathedral, and raising the Cross in his other hand, cried—_This is
my spiritual weapon, and with this sword will I defend my temporal
empire undiminished_. Summoned to defend his contumacy before the Pope,
he sent his people to Avignon to provide lodgings and victuals for
twelve thousand horsemen and six thousand foot soldiers. But when
Clement heard of these preparations he called the envoys, and hastily
reimbursing them with their charges, sent them back with a message to
Giovanni excusing him from coming. Later historians throw doubt upon
this circumstantial tale. And certainly it seems strange that the Pope
should condemn the union of spiritual and temporal dominion. There is no
doubt, however, that the Papacy was powerless to check Giovanni’s
ambition, and was glad to confirm him in possession of Bologna for a
price.
Giovanni’s method was to inflame by unseen agencies the party spirit in
the cities which he coveted, and when both factions were exhausted, to
step in with his money-bags and quietly establish his own dominion. Thus
by a skilful manipulation of the vast wealth with which Milan supplied
him he succeeded with little expenditure of blood in embracing more and
more territory within his coil. In 1353 Genoa was yielded to him, and
Milan for a short time became a naval power, defying the fleets of
Venice. The importance of securing maritime outlets for a commercial
community turned the Archbishop’s attention on the seaport of Pisa also.
But here Florence interposed a barrier against both fraud and force, and
though he plagued the Tuscan Republic grievously by invading her
territories, raising the Barons of the Apennines against her and
intriguing with her foes in Pisa and Lucca, she successfully prevented
him from gaining a footing in Tuscany.
While the Visconti were thus extending their dominion far and wide and
creating a sovereignty more powerful than any in Italy, the capital
itself was making corresponding strides in wealth and civilisation. The
strong and single government, though involving so much cruel sacrifice
of rival interests and pride, and carried on by crafty and often
iniquitous means, was for the general advantage of the people. The
citizens lacked only freedom, and this very lack saved them from the
awful faction struggles which hindered the progress of the neighbouring
Communes. Under Azzo, Luchino and Giovanni Visconte, the city enjoyed an
unexampled length of peace. No hostile banner was seen from the walls,
no blood was spilt in fratricidal strife within. The Visconti employed
foreign and professional troops in their wars, thus weaning their
subjects from the habit of arms, dangerous to a tyrannic supremacy, and
sparing them for more profitable work. All classes, noble and plebeian,
engaged in commerce and industrial arts, and produced an ever increasing
flow of wealth, wherewith these princes were able to pay handsomely for
the hired support of their tyranny. Finding no opportunities of sedition
or turbulence, the more restless spirits abandoned the city, and,
joining the bands of military adventurers which roamed the country, they
fought for any prince or community that chose to hire them. The general
security of life and property in the Milanese State was assured by the
severe and, on the whole, impartial justice of Luchino and his brother,
and the wise statutes which they formed aided the development of trade
and industry. Safe from depredating troops and robber bands, the fertile
territory was brought to high cultivation, and wildernesses, untilled
before, now submitted to the husbandman. The engineering art was
actively practised in draining and irrigating the country and connecting
the city by canals with the great river waterways.
One of the chief sources of Milanese wealth was the breeding of
war-horses in the rich and well-watered pastures round the city. At the
same time the Milanese merchants were travelling all over England,
France and Flanders, buying fine wool, ‘with which in this city,’ says
the fourteenth century chronicler Fiamma, ‘very fine and beautiful
clothes are woven in great quantities and dyed with every different
colour and sent to all parts of Italy.’ Silk was also manufactured here
after 1314, when the silk-weavers of Lucca, disturbed by the invasions
of Uguccione da Faggiuola and of Castruccio, abandoned their city for
Milan. The constant wars abroad encouraged the armourer’s craft, of
which Milan became one of the greatest centres in Europe. With wealth, a
love of luxury and the soft pleasures of life grew in the people. Fiamma
notes with disapproval the changes in the antique costume, the
superfluous embroideries, the gold and silver and pearls, and the broad
fringes used in dress, the richness of the meats, and the esteem in
which masters of the culinary art were held, things conducive, according
to him, of the soul’s damnation.
Both Luchino and Giovanni lived much in the sight of their subjects,
keeping open Court and sharing in the public feasts and pleasures. The
benevolent Archbishop was much beloved. One of his first acts of
undivided sovereignty had been to release Lodrisio Visconte from the
dungeon in which he had dwelt ever since Parabiago, a resounding
generosity which covered many quiet deeds of harshness and oppression.
He died in 1354, leaving his dominions to Matteo, Bernabò and Galeazzo
II., to the entire exclusion of Luchino’s sons.
The new sovereigns had much ado at first to preserve their great
heritage. Many cities, patient under the Archbishop’s yoke, rebelled
against his successors, including Bologna. The Guelf enemies of Milan
tried to enlist the new Emperor Charles of Bohemia against the Visconti;
but that monarch preferred the large sum which they offered him for his
sanction of their rule as Imperial Vicars, rather than the hostility of
princes who could assemble six thousand men-at-arms and numberless foot
soldiers beneath his window as a spectacle for his entertainment when he
visited them in Milan. The Gonzaga of Mantua, once their allies and now
their bitterest foes, leagued, however, with the Church and the
hereditary foes of the Visconti and dealt them some heavy blows. The
German company which the Mantuan princes employed invaded the Milanese
territories under the formidable Count Lando, and penetrated nearly to
the capital. But the citizens, in spite of their softness and lack of
military practice, went forth with the courage of despair and defeated
and drove away the Count, who was greatly surprised, since he _nothing
esteemed the Milanese_. In other directions the Visconti suffered great
losses. Genoa revolted in 1356, and to secure peace they were compelled
to surrender Parma and Asti two years later.
The eldest brother, Matteo, had died in 1355. Weak, injudicious and a
glutton, he was only a hindrance to the progress of his House. General
report laid his death to his brothers’ charge. Bernabò and Galeazzo made
a fresh division of the State, and Milan itself was split up between
them. They worked together, however, with a single aim, in spite of
mutual hatred and jealousy, to repair the losses of their State. Pavia
had set up a free government, headed by the friar, Giacomo de’
Bussolari, who, an earlier Savonarola, sought to purge his city from
tyranny and sin at once. Steadfastly beset by Galeazzo’s army, it had to
yield at last to famine and sickness. Further afield Bernabò spent years
in a desperate struggle to recover Bologna, under a tempest of papal
anathemas, and though baffled himself, he prepared the way for his
successor. He was constantly in fierce conflict with the Marquises of
Este, whose rebel kinsmen he sheltered while they employed Luchino’s
disinherited sons against him. Galeazzo on his side had to sustain the
assaults of Savoy and Montferrat, which came near to ruining him.
But multitudinous and determined as their enemies were, the inimitable
statecraft which was the Viscontean heritage, backed by their vast
resources, enabled them to restore their power and to make Milan feared
and respected everywhere abroad. These princes rarely took the field
themselves, but entrusted their enterprises to the foreign companies by
whom the Italian wars were now chiefly waged. These bands of hardy and
unscrupulous adventurers, who were proof against the enervation which
wealth and civilisation had induced in the Italians, were become
powerful factors in the politics of the country. Most formidable of all
was the company of Sir John Hawkwood. These English mercenaries, says
Azario, were more excellent robbers than any of the other plunderers of
the Lombards. By day they mostly slept and waked by night. And so
diligent and skilful were they in capturing towns that their like had
never been seen. After suffering much from Hawkwood’s zeal against him
in the service of the Pope, Bernabò bribed him to his own side; but
after a few years the great captain, faithful only to caprice, suddenly
deserted the Visconte, with disastrous results to the latter. Later on,
Bernabò tempted him again by the gift of one of his own daughters in
marriage, with a large dowry. Nevertheless, the later part of Hawkwood’s
career was spent in the pay of Milan’s inveterate foe, Florence.
Milan, unaffected by the quarrels of her sovereigns, was now the
richest, most populous and luxurious city of Italy. The capitals of the
great European kingdoms had no such splendid palaces, such comely-paved
streets, such fair-fountained gardens and pleasaunces trodden by
beautiful exotic beasts and birds, as this seat of citizen princes. The
Visconti assumed the dignity and state of royalty. Galeazzo was himself
married to a princess of the ancient House of Savoy, and both brothers
pursued the sagacious policy of making alliances for their children with
the sovereign Houses of Europe. Bernabò made statesmanlike use of his
ten daughters and five sons by his wife Regina della Scala, and his
score or so of illegitimate children, wedding them, according to the
conditions of their birth, to royal princes and great Italian
potentates, or to lesser nobles and successful soldiers, such as
Hawkwood and Count Lando. Galeazzo married his one son and daughter with
even greater splendour, and endowed them so lavishly that it was almost
the ruin of his State. For his heir, Gian Galeazzo, he obtained the hand
of Isabella de Valois, for a sum of five hundred thousand florins. The
maiden Violante he gave to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III.,
with two hundred thousand florins and many fair lands and castles in
Piedmont.
This last marriage was celebrated in 1368, with unexampled magnificence.
The bridegroom arrived in Milan accompanied by the Sire le Despencer and
a train of two thousand Englishmen. A splendid cavalcade went forth to
meet him. First came Galeazzo himself, who was said to be more beautiful
in person than any other man in Italy, wearing, as his custom was, a
wreath of roses on his flowing golden hair, and attended by his greatest
vassals. With him was his wife, Bianca of Savoy, and his
daughter-in-law, the young French Isabella, and other noble ladies,
followed by eighty damsels apparelled in scarlet, with sleeves of white
cloth embroidered with trefoils, and girdles so richly worked that their
worth was eighty florins each. Gian Galeazzo, a boy of fifteen, came
next, leading a company of knights on steeds caparisoned as if for a
joust, and after these followed the officers of State and of the
household with their pages, all gorgeously arrayed. At the marriage
feast the very meats were gilded, and with each of the sixteen courses
splendid gifts were offered to the guests—highly-bred hounds with velvet
and silken collars and leashes of silk; falcons with chains of gold and
hoods of velvet, and silver buttons enamelled with the Snake; richly
ornamented saddles and other horse furniture; suits of armour fashioned
by the famous Milanese smiths; brocades of gold and richest silk, silver
flagons worked with enamel, silver-gilt basins, mantles and doublets
thickly sewn with pearls for the prince, and seventy-six splendid
coursers and war-horses, each more generous, beautiful, and gorgeously
caparisoned than the one before; and last of all twelve fat oxen.
Galeazzo and the bridegroom sat at one table with the noblest of the
guests, among whom was Messer Francesco Petrarca the poet, in the most
honourable place. At another were placed Regina della Scala and a number
of ladies. Such scenes as these are dimly pictured for us in primitive
frescoes here and there, in which we see assemblages of ladies in
jewelled robes and lofty peaked head-dresses, and gentlemen
correspondingly fine stiffly seated at narrow boards, or pacing with
slow and stately step through the dance within some spacious pillared
hall.
Though extravagantly lavish for State purposes, the Visconti did not
keep open Court like their predecessors. No tables were set out in the
streets for the common people on holidays, no oxen roasted whole or
wine-vats broached for all who liked to drink. The chroniclers complain
of the avarice of their Lords. The taxes were continually increased.
Pressed by the huge cost of their wars and their alliances, the Visconti
were in fact always in need of money, and so assured was their supremacy
in Milan, that they no longer feared the discontent of the citizens.
With the development of their despotism the social gulf between the
Visconti and the rest of the community had grown wide. Both brothers
were proud, suspicious and cruel. But the severity of the silent
Bernabò, and his terrible fits of rage and strange capricious temper,
made him the most feared. He was laudably resolved to maintain justice
and order, so that a man might go unarmed through any part of his
dominions, and to suppress the old faction hatreds, but his methods were
intolerably harsh. No one was allowed to call himself Guelf or
Ghibelline on pain of having his tongue cut out. To be found abroad in
the city at night, for any reason whatever, was to lose a foot, and so
forth. Moreover, on mere suspicion people were put to cruel death or
torment. This arbitrary severity was, however, of little avail, and
crime was far more rife in the city than before Bernabò’s time. The
tyrant’s passion for dogs was as extravagant as his disregard for human
suffering. He had five thousand hounds, which his subjects were
compelled to keep and tend for him, and if one were found to be either
too fat or too lean for the chase, or to have come to any harm, woe to
its guardian. Every sort of game was sacred to the prince’s sport, and
the peasants who slew wild boars or other forest creatures for food
during a severe famine, were hanged or blinded. Two Franciscan brothers,
who dared to expostulate with the prince for his harshness, were burnt
as heretics, an act something ironical on the part of one who himself
spent nearly all his life under the ban of the Church. There was a
certain grim humour in some of Bernabò’s fierce deeds, as in his
treatment of two dignified Benedictine abbots, who were sent to treat
with him by the Pope. The prince met them on a bridge over the Lambro,
where, with due reverence, they presented to him the pontifical Bulls.
Bernabò read them, and looking up, eyed the legates grimly, and asked
them whether they would prefer food or drink. Perceiving a sinister
meaning in the question, the trembling clerics glanced at the deep river
flowing beneath, and said that they would rather eat. Whereupon the
papal missives, parchment, seals, silk cord and all, were crammed down
their throats.
Galeazzo was not so capriciously cruel as his brother, but his rule was
equally oppressive. To add to the afflictions of the people, the country
was devastated by the foreign Companies, who robbed friends and foes
alike; and years of famine and pestilence came, which their Lords took
no more thoughtful measure to relieve than hanging some of the chief
ministers. To both brothers clings the horrible reproach of a decree,
condemning prisoners of State to the so-called Quaresima, a series of
tortures lasting forty days. Yet Galeazzo was conspicuous for domestic
virtues, and both princes were very devout, and founded many churches
and convents, and gave largely in alms. One has to remember in judging
these sovereigns that the Florentine chroniclers, who have always held
the ear of the world, hated them as the enemies of their city. They
depict them as barbarous and ignorant tyrants, sunk in gross vice. Yet
Petrarca, the recognised sovereign of thought and letters in fourteenth
century Italy, spent several years at Milan, in the service first of
Archbishop Giovanni, and afterwards of Galeazzo, and speaks of the city
and its Lords with great affection and respect. The high honour which
the Visconti paid to the poet shows their regard for the things of the
spirit. Their capture of Petrarca was felt to be as great a triumph as
the conquest of a province. Boccaccio and other Tuscan writers inveigh
fiercely against their countryman for his adherence to the Visconti,
pretending that he who loved freedom had been deluded by the vulgar
worship of riches and luxury, and had become a slave. But Petrarca,
whose close acquaintance could judge better of his hosts, probably
appreciated the large and far-reaching political ideas which were the
heritage of the Visconti, and perhaps saw in Milan a hope for Italy,
outside the conception of the Florentines, the possibility of a larger
freedom in national union, which should restore the successors of the
Romans to their lost glory.
The Visconti, moreover, took great pains to advance learning and culture
in their dominions. They founded the University of Pavia, the once
celebrated school of jurisprudence there having long decayed, and richly
endowed its chairs, and it was Galeazzo who started the famous library
at Pavia, to which all students were allowed access. Bernabò was
something of a scholar himself, and had studied the Decretals in his
youth; but the anxiety of constant wars and the cares of State hindered
him from doing all that he would willingly have done for the
intellectual welfare of the capital.
The bitter jealousy which prevailed between the two brothers divided
them much in later years, though it could not disunite them in the face
of their foes, and Galeazzo had left Milan and removed his Court to
Pavia, though still keeping his share of the government of the capital.
He died in 1378. His son, Gian Galeazzo, was delicate of constitution,
of retiring habits, and much given to study. The gentleness with which
he began to rule, remitting taxes and seeking to propitiate his
subjects, excited the scorn of the grim Bernabò, who readily accepted
the proposal of the young widower—Isabella de Valois having died—for the
hand of his daughter Caterina, thinking thus to get an extra hold upon
him. Little did the veteran prince suspect that this mild recluse, who
was hardly ever seen out of his palace at Pavia, was the very
quintessence of that subtlety, tenacity and ambition which had made the
House of the Visconti the most dreaded in Italy. Gian Galeazzo’s genius
for statecraft had been carefully trained by his father. While Bernabò
regarded him as of little account, he was strengthening his position
both at home and abroad by quiet diplomacy, and evolving mighty schemes
in his mind, while he patiently waited the ripe moment for their
accomplishment.
There is nothing more dramatic in all the sensational story of mediæval
Italy than Gian Galeazzo Visconte’s sudden spring to power. Seven years
had passed since his father’s death, and Bernabò’s tyranny had grown
ever more oppressive, in sharp contrast to his fellow-ruler’s. One day
in 1385 Gian Galeazzo set forth from Pavia for Milan, escorted by four
hundred men-at-arms, having announced his intention of visiting a holy
shrine near Varese and his desire of embracing his honoured uncle on his
way. He had arranged not to enter the capital, but to skirt the walls
till he reached the castle beside Porta Giovia, recently built by his
father. Laughing at the young man’s caution and his pusillanimity in
bringing so large an escort, the elder Visconte sent two of his sons on
ahead, and swinging himself into the saddle, galloped off, with two or
three servants only, to meet his nephew. The two Sovereigns had but
exchanged greetings when, Gian Galeazzo signed to the captain of his
escort, Jacopo dal Verme, who laid his hand upon Bernabò’s shoulder, and
in a moment the tyrant found himself a prisoner. With his sons he was
hurried into the Castle of Porta Giovia. Gian Galeazzo entered the city
and was received with immense joy. Not vainly had he counted upon the
terror and hatred which his uncle had excited. The people, rushing to
the houses of the fallen tyrant and his sons, sacked them from end to
end, fired and tore them down, and razed them to the ground. In a
General Council of the citizens the sole and absolute dominion of Milan
was unanimously conferred upon Gian Galeazzo and upon his male heirs.
Bernabò was removed soon after to the Castle of Trezzo, and died seven
months later, of poison, it was said. His sons, except the two captured,
had fled in all directions, and were doing their utmost to raise help
against the usurper. But so perfectly had Gian Galeazzo conceived and
accomplished his great stroke, and with the exercise of such consummate
diplomacy and such victorious arms did he secure himself afterwards,
that not one of Bernabò’s children, in spite of their princely
alliances, were able, with all their constant efforts, to overthrow him
or recover any part of their heritage.
The usurper’s one excuse for his treachery was that his uncle and
cousins had been openly intriguing against him. Immediately after the
capture of Bernabò he drew up a solemn indictment against him, charging
him with a catalogue of appalling crimes, and with insidious designs
against his, Gian Galeazzo’s, life, and sent it to all the Courts of
Europe. This characteristic attempt to give legal justification to his
action deceived nobody. Italy at large regarded the young ruler with an
admiration and dread which events soon proved well-founded. The brain
which had shown such sovereign dissimulation cherished ambitions before
which whole cities and states were to fall. It was not long before his
schemes began to be fulfilled. The story of Gian Galeazzo’s military
enterprises is one of almost unbroken conquest. He was no soldier
himself, but he knew how to choose his generals, and he got the best out
of them by interfering with them little and rewarding them very
generously. The chaotic state of Italy at the time gave him his chance.
So extraordinary was his success, that he was regarded as something
almost diabolical. It seemed to his terrified enemies that he fascinated
those whom he marked for destruction, so that they fell with eyes open
into his snares. Francesco da Carrara, Lord of Padua, was persuaded to
aid him to overthrow the Scaligeri of Verona. That city having been
conquered in 1387, Gian Galeazzo picked a quarrel with his ally,
besieged and captured Padua (1389), and sent Francesco to die in the
dungeons of Monza. Master now of Verona and Padua, the Visconte had
touched the Adriatic shore. Meanwhile Mantua and Venice looked on
stupidly and awaited their own destruction as if paralysed. General fear
possessed Italy at the rapid progress of the conqueror, who, unseen
himself, directed his instruments with such unfailing insight to his
desired ends. The Visconte’s policy was to strike at the weak first and
gradually prepare the way for greater enterprises. The Church was at
this time in the throes of the Great Schism, and Gian Galeazzo,
protesting conscientious difficulties in deciding to which Pope he owed
spiritual obedience, played them against one another, while he seized
the papal fiefs in the Romagna. His armies climbed the mountains and
poured into Umbria and Tuscany. Aroused at last by the example and
exhortations of Florence, Italy shook off her stupor, and a general
effort was made to stem the advance of the Visconte. Yet still he crept
on, remedying the checks to his arms by his stealthy diplomacy. The King
of France, in answer to the appeal of Florence, sent an army to invade
his States, but it was routed by Jacopo dal Verme, and Charles VI. was
himself converted into an ally by the Visconte’s flatteries and
promises. In 1399 he triumphed over Florence again by acquiring Pisa,
without a blow, from Gerardo d’Appiano, while Perugia, Siena and Assisi
submitted to his generals.
Already in 1395 Gian Galeazzo’s great increase of power and prestige had
been marked by his elevation to a new dignity. His untiring
negotiations, backed by the offer of an enormous sum, persuaded the
Emperor Wenceslaus to constitute the Milanese State, including a number
of conquered cities, into a Duchy, and to invest the Visconte and his
male heirs with it in perpetuity. The ceremony of investiture took place
in the Piazza of St. Ambrogio, where upon a great throne the imperial
legate robed and crowned the new duke in the sight of all the people, in
the midst of every pompous circumstance, while in the basilica
afterwards the Bishop of Novara, destined to become Pope Alexander V.,
preached the sermon and lauded the subject of his oration for his
illustrious blood, his conspicuous beauty of person and the virtuous
tranquillity of his mind.
Gian Galeazzo was as great an administrator as statesman and conqueror.
By wisdom, economy, careful distribution of taxation and supervision of
finances, he relieved the people from the cruel and ill-considered
burdens imposed by the bad management of his predecessors, while
increasing his own resources enormously. He was the very genius of
order. He saw that the law was properly and effectively carried out,
justice done to all, and perfect rule maintained throughout the State.
It was by his generous, just, and wise government of the cities which he
conquered that he consolidated his vast dominions.
In these favourable conditions Milan flourished exceedingly, and could
contribute without overwhelming distress her share of the duke’s annual
revenue of twelve hundred thousand florins, and of the extra levies for
special purposes, amounting sometimes to eight hundred thousand florins
in one year—sums far exceeding those commanded by any other Italian
prince.
Gian Galeazzo’s rule, though sometimes oppressive, was not carried on by
the harsh methods of his predecessors. Violence and wanton cruelty were
probably repugnant to his sensitive physical temperament and despicable
to his unimpassioned mind. He was never bloody, except for a purpose, as
in the awful sack of Verona after her revolt and recapture in 1390. But
for a refined and ingenious cruelty which exercised itself in long
worming plots ending far off in some unexpected catastrophe, Gian
Galeazzo seems to have had an artistic predilection. It was he, men
said, who by Iago-like suggestions drove Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua to
slay his wife Agnese, one of Bernabò Visconte’s daughters, in a frenzy
of jealousy, that he himself might be first and loudest afterwards in
proclaiming the innocence of the lady and exciting general execration of
the murderer. The beheading of young Obizzo d’Este at Ferrara has been
also attributed to evil suspicions which the Milanese prince instilled
into the Marquis Alberto for political ends. The Visconte’s influence is
plainer still in the hideous treachery and ingratitude of Jacopo
d’Appiano, who, with a kiss of peace, slew his protector and friend, the
noble Pietro Gambacorti, and made himself Lord of Pisa for Gian
Galeazzo’s benefit, as very shortly appeared.
The Duke’s piety was as marked as his less estimable characteristics. He
did not doubt his own righteousness or hesitate to invoke the aid of
Heaven for all his enterprises. He was assiduous in his devotion to the
Saints and observance of the Church’s rites and ceremonies. The
Cathedral of Milan, the vast Certosa of Pavia, and many other great
buildings, were planned and founded by this prince. These works were not
done solely for a spiritual reward, but also to proclaim his own glory
to the world and to encourage art and industry. All Gian Galeazzo’s
greatness of spirit showed in his buildings. His engineering schemes
were as mighty and daring in conception as undaunted and patient in
accomplishment. To subdue Padua and Mantua he undertook the gigantic
task of diverting the Brenta and Mincio. But here he measured himself
too audaciously against natural forces. One night the Mincio, ‘in
piena,’ hurled its waters at the huge dam and swept away the work which
had cost untold labour and gold.
With all his occupations of war and statesmanship, Gian Galeazzo found
time to continue his father’s patronage of Letters. He had as a youth
studied deeply himself in the University of Pavia. An early fresco at
Pavia, now long lost, represented him as a child standing in a crowd of
nobles and distinguished men in his father’s palace, and in answer to
the question, who was the greatest man present, pointing to the poet
Petrarca. This allegory recorded the honour which he paid all his life
to intellect and learning. He called the greatest scholars to the Chairs
of the University, including Emanuel Chrysoloras, who thus brought to
Milan the newly reviving knowledge of Greek. He made these men his
councillors and familiar associates. They read poetry to him and
discussed the new discoveries of antiquity, so that his castle has been
called a temple of wisdom. Architecture, sculpture, painting were
equally fostered by him. There was no sort of human activity which he
did not seek to stimulate for the advantage and glory of his State.
Though its operations meant destruction to lesser powers, Gian
Galeazzo’s brain was essentially kingly and creative. This was the
moment in Italy of the formation of great States. The old faction
struggles of the era of freedom had come to an end with the
establishment of tyrannies, and of these the lesser were now being
swallowed up by the greater. In this process Milan under the Visconti
was the leader. Its natural outcome seemed to be the foundation of a
great settled kingdom in the peninsula, like France and England in the
North. The patriotic spirits of the time dreamed of such a kingdom as
the redemption of Italy from her woes of constant dissension and
warfare. The idea took practical shape in the mind of the great Matteo’s
descendant and heir, in whom character and circumstance united to carry
the large political thought and ambition of the Visconti nearest to its
supreme fulfilment. And it was to Gian Galeazzo that the dreamers looked
for the realisation of their desire, as perhaps Petrarca had looked to
the earlier generation. Fazio degli Uberti, the fourteenth century
Florentine poet and exile, who lived long at the Viscontean Court, in
one of his canzoni makes Rome cry—
‘O figliuol mio, da quanta crudel guerra
Tutti insieme verremo a dolcie pace
Se Italia soggiace
A un solo re....’[2]
Footnote 2:
‘Oh my son, from what cruel warfare
Should we come all together to sweet peace
Could Italy be subject
To one sole king....’
To such a single crown Gian Galeazzo undoubtedly aspired. And though he
was defeated in the end, it was by no mortal means. All the efforts of
the hostile league of Florence, Venice, the Pope, and the lesser Italian
Princes, could not hinder his advance. His dominions at the beginning of
the fifteenth century embraced nearly the whole of Lombardy and the
Romagna. The Umbrian cities Perugia and Assisi were his. Lucca, Pisa and
Siena obeyed him. The tide of his success crept on. He foresaw and
discomfited every move of his opponents. In 1401 Bologna, long an
obstacle in his path, was surrendered to him by the Bentivogli. His
bravest and most obstinate foe, Florence, lay virtually at his mercy. On
every side of her he was supreme. Cut off from all help she waited his
deadly attack. The moment of his triumph was at hand.
In July 1402 the Duke instructed his armies to close round the city of
the Arno. Retiring from Milan, where the plague had appeared, to his
villa at Melegnano, he had the mantle, sceptre and diadem prepared for
his coronation as King of Italy. He had nothing to fear now from mortal
enemies. There was one power only which his arms and calculations could
not defy. On the 10th of August he was seized with the deadly contagion,
and a few days later he died, at the age of 49.
Who can tell the thoughts of the man as he lay on his death-bed, in his
hands at last all that he had laboured for day and night without
ceasing, and they powerless to close upon it. Who can measure the
passion of that defeated brain? His death caused infinite joy in
Florence, and in Italy generally. Yet there were many who, with an
anonymous poet of the time, wept for the loss which had deprived
‘questo emisfero
de quel che col pensiero
Sanar volia l’italico payese.’
Their lament was justified. The direct result of the tyrant’s death was
the release of all the elements of disorder and reaction in Italy, the
revival of angry faction, the break-up of a great organised State among
a host of greedy and warring pretenders, and the terrorism of military
adventurers over the whole country, ending in the establishment of a
dynasty in Milan destined to sell Italy to her final shame and ruin.
What if Gian Galeazzo had lived a few years longer? Florence would
probably have fallen before him, Florence whose incurable spirit of
individualism had been the one barrier between him and his ambition. But
was that single little torch of liberty, which itself was soon to waver
and be spent, worth the sacrifice of a united and peaceful Italy, strong
enough to resist all outside foes, forward enough to lead all Europe in
the path of progress?
Yet if that noble fruition of art and civilisation which glorifies the
fifteenth century in Florence was conditional on her independence, then
Italy through all the tears of her after centuries of sorrow and
humiliation might well answer Yes.
[Illustration: THE SNAKE OF THE VISCONTI]