PATRIOTIC STRUGGLES--GIAMPOLO DA LECA--RENUCCIO DELLA ROCCA.
Two bold men now again rise in succession to oppose Genoa. Giampolo da
Leca had, as we have seen, become connected with the Fregosi. Although
these nobles had resigned their title in favour of the Bank, they were
exceedingly uneasy under the loss of influence they had sustained.
Janus, accordingly, without leaving Genoa, incited his relative to
revolt against the governor, Matias Fiesco. Giampolo rose. But beaten
and hard pressed by the troops of the Bank, he saw himself compelled,
after a vain attempt to obtain aid from Florence, to lay down his arms,
and to emigrate to Sardinia with wife, child, and friends, in the year
1487.
A year had scarcely passed, when he again appeared at the call of
his adherents. A second time unfortunate, he made his escape again
to Sardinia. The Genoese now punished the rebels with the greatest
severity--with death, banishment, and the confiscation of their
property. More and more fierce grew the Corsican hatred towards Genoa.
For ten years they nursed its smouldering glow. All this while Giampolo
remained in exile, meditating revenge--his watchful eye never lifted
from his oppressed and prostrate country. At last he came back. He had
neither money nor arms; four Corsicans and six Spaniards were all his
troops, and with these he landed. He was beloved by the people, for he
was noble, brave, and of great personal beauty. The Corsicans crowded
to him from Cinarca, from Vico, from Niolo, and from Morosaglia. He
was soon at the head of a body of seven thousand foot and two hundred
horse--a force which made the Bank of Genoa tremble for its power. It
accordingly despatched to the island Ambrosio Negri, an experienced
general. Negri, by intrigue and fair promises, contrived to detach a
part of Giampolo's followers, and particularly to draw over to himself
Renuccio della Rocca, a nobleman of activity and spirit. Giampolo, with
forces sensibly diminished, came to an engagement with the Genoese
commander at the Foce al Sorbo, and suffered a defeat, in which his
son Orlando was taken prisoner. He concluded a treaty with Negri, the
terms of which allowed him to leave the island unmolested. He returned
to Sardinia in 1501, with fifty Corsicans, there to waste his life in
inconsolable grief.
Giampolo's fall was mainly owing to Renuccio della Rocca. This man,
the head of the haughty family of Cinarca, saw that the Genoese Bank
had adopted a particular line of policy, and was pursuing it with
perseverance; he saw that it was resolved to crush completely and
for ever the power of the seigniors, more especially of those whose
lands lay beyond the mountains, and that his own turn would come.
Convinced of this, he suddenly rose in arms in the year 1502. The
contest was short, and the issue favourable for Genoa, whose governor
in the island was at that time one of the Doria family. All the
Dorias, as governors, distinguished themselves by their energy and by
their reckless cruelty, and it was to them alone that Genoa owed her
gratitude for the important service of at length crushing the Corsican
nobility. Nicolas Doria forced Renuccio to come to terms; and one of
the conditions imposed on the Corsican noble was that he and his family
were henceforth to reside in Genoa.
Giampolo was, still living in Sardinia, more than all other Corsican
patriots a source of continual anxiety to the Genoese, who made several
attempts to come to an amicable agreement with him. His son Orlando,
who had newly escaped to Rome from his prison in Genoa, sent pressing
solicitations from that city to his father to rouse himself from his
dumb and prostrate inactivity. But Giampolo continued to maintain his
heartbroken silence, and listened as little to the suggestions of his
son as to those of the Genoese.
Suddenly Renuccio disappeared from Genoa in the year 1504; he left wife
and child in the hands of his enemies, and went secretly to Sardinia
to seek an interview with the man whom he had plunged into misfortune.
Giampolo refused to see him. He was equally deaf to the entreaties of
the Corsicans, who all eagerly awaited his arrival. His own relations
had in the meantime murdered his son. The viceroy caught the murderers,
and was about to execute them, in order to show a favour to Giampolo.
But the generous man forgave them, and begged their liberation.
Renuccio had meanwhile gathered eighteen resolute men about him, and,
undeterred by the fate of his children, who had been thrown into a
dungeon immediately after his flight, he landed again in Corsica.
Nicolas Doria, however, lost no time in attacking him before the
insurrection became formidable, and he gained a victory. To daunt
Renuccio, he had his eldest son beheaded, and he threatened the
youngest with a like fate, but allowed himself to be moved by the boy's
entreaties and tears. The unhappy father, defeated at every point, fled
to Sardinia, and then to Arragon. Doria took ample revenge on all who
had shown him countenance, laid whole districts of the island waste,
burned the villages, and dispersed the inhabitants.
Renuccio della Rocca returned in the year 1507. This unyielding man
was entirely the reverse of the moody and sorrow-laden Giampolo. He
set foot on his native soil with only twenty companions. Another of
the Dorias met him this time, Andreas, afterwards the famous Doge, who
had served under his cousin Nicolò. The Corsican historian Filippini,
a Genoese partisan, admits the cruelties committed by Andreas during
this short campaign. He succeeded in speedily crushing the revolt; and
compelled Renuccio a second time to accept a safe conduct to Genoa.
When the Corsican arrived, the people would have torn him to pieces,
had not the French governor carried him off with all speed to his
castle.
Three years elapsed. Suddenly Renuccio again showed himself in Corsica.
He had escaped from Genoa, and after in vain imploring the aid of
the European princes, once more bidding defiance to fortune, he had
landed in his native country with eight friends. Some of his former
vassals received him in Freto, weeping, deeply moved by the accumulated
misfortunes of the man, and his unexampled intrepidity of soul. He
spoke to them, and conjured them once more to draw the sword. They were
silent, and went away. He remained some days in Freto, in concealment.
Nicolo Pinello, a captain of Genoese troops in Ajaccio, accidentally
passed by upon his horse. The sight of him proved so intolerable to
Renuccio, that he attacked him at night and killed him, took his horse,
and now showed himself in public. As soon us his presence in the island
became known, the soldiers of Ajaccio were sent out to capture him.
Renuccio fled into the hills, hunted like a bandit or wild beast. The
peasantry, who were put to the torture by his pursuers, as a means of
inducing them to discover his lurking-places, at last resolved to end
their own miseries and his life. In the month of May 1511, Renuccio
della Rocca was found miserably slain in the hills. He was one of the
stoutest hearts of the noble house of Cinarca. "They tell," says the
Corsican chronicler, "that Renuccio was true to himself till the last,
and that he showed no less heroism in his death than in his life; and
this is, of a truth, much to his honour, for a brave man should never
lose his nobleness of soul, even when fate brings him to an ignominious
end."
Giampolo had meanwhile gone to Rome, to ask the aid of the Pope, but,
unsuccessful in his exertions, he died there in the year 1515.