The Duke of Milan assassinated--Count Girolamo Riario--The
Pazzi conspiracy--Duke Federigo's campaigns in
Tuscany--Progress of the Turks.
The mediæval history of Italy is too frequently traced in characters
of blood, and the period which we have now reached, although generally
regarded as one of comparative tranquillity, was signalised by
conspiracies systematically matured, and by murders perpetrated in
high places with revolting barbarity. It matters little that they were
instigated by political abuses or provoked by domestic tyranny; so
repugnant is assassination to the better feelings of mankind, that
public sympathy is ever with the sufferer, and the crime is
perpetuated by history as a national stigma. The brutalising influence
of such deeds descends like an hereditary taint to after generations,
and to it may in a great measure be ascribed the recklessness of human
life, and the consequent reputation for cruelty, which are still
imputed to the Italian nature, and which recent events but too sadly
confirm.
The earnestness of character, the energy of mind and action, which had
gained for Francesco Sforza the sovereignty of Milan, passed not to
his son. Galeazzo Maria was magnificent in his tastes. His court was
the most splendid of a brilliant age. In his duchy justice was prompt
and impartial. But his foreign policy and personal courage were
unstable, in his home administration cruelty and oppression were
aggravated by caprice. Yet these faults and foibles might have been
endured, had not the patience of his subjects been worn out by
outrages against their domestic peace. Machiavelli informs us that
hatred to their ruler, and the comparative benefits of a republic,
were lessons habitually instilled into such of the young nobles as
frequented the school of Cola Montano, then the most eminent teacher
in Milan. But it was not until several of these youths found their
wives or sisters sacrificed by the Duke's ruthless debauchery, that
the seditious seeds thus implanted sprang to sudden and full growth.
Seldom have the secrets of conspiracy and murder been so fully
detected and exposed.[183] There is, however, a melodramatic effect of
the narrative of old Sanzi which entitles it to notice as contemporary
and unpublished, although apparently biassed in favour of Galeazzo.
The three conspirators, mingling fanaticism with vengeance, sought by
religious observances to sanctify the deed of horror. Their invocation
to their city's patron saint for blessings on the attempt, with a
solemnity ill becoming its sacrilege, has been preserved; but Sanzi
adds that they bribed an apostate priest to consecrate at the altar a
sacramental wafer, which he administered not until each had shed upon
it a drop of his blood,--a blasphemous rite intended to seal their
mutual vows of fidelity and secrecy; also that they used to rehearse
their fury, and practise their swordsmanship, against a wooden puppet,
decked out in gold brocade, and kept for the purpose in one of their
houses. Among the solemn functions of Christmas week was that of St.
Stephen, performed in the picturesque old fane dedicated to the
protomartyr, where it was usual for the court to attend; the Duke on
this occasion accidentally left behind a cuirass, that defence of
despots, which he was wont to wear, and thus unconsciously facilitated
the execution of a concerted project. It was customary, in allusion
to the expiring year, to fire a light mass of carded flax suspended in
the church, whilst a warning voice
"Exclaimed, 'Thus human glory vanishes;
Unhappy he who hazards there his hopes!'"
[Footnote 183: We need not quote the many authorities, but in
MURATORI, _Script._, XXIII., pp. 268 and 777, will be found the Duke's
good and evil qualities fairly balanced, and frightful details of the
brutal licentiousness which he made his pastime.]
As the sovereign raised his eyes to this touching emblem of transient
and fragile existence, he was done to instant death by the poignards
of the three conspirators.[*184] The moral offences imputed to the
wretched man thus miserably summoned to his account have been
collected by Sismondi, the consistent impugner of princes.[185] Sanzi,
who generally leans to them, has thus painted them in colours less
loathsome:--
"A man he was remarkable for worth,
Though charged with faults not few, which in his state
Were freely challenged. Happy years of youth,
Though pregnant with the germs of age mature,
And preluding too oft its perils grave!
Here must my tongue this prince exalt, as one
Who even-handed justice dealt to all,
Subject or stranger, noble or obscure;
Nor willed that any, founding on his wealth
Or station, should the meanest pauper vex.
Yet is he censured as one pitiless,
And prone to undue passion: trite reproach
Of prosperous despots!"
[Footnote *184: Murder in church was a crime peculiar to that time. It
might seem that the "tyrants" were so well guarded that it was
impossible to lay hands on them save at mass; for on no other occasion
was the whole family gathered together. To say nothing of the clergy
and the Pope who murdered Giuliano and tried to murder Lorenzo de'
Medici in S. Maria del Fiore, it was in church the Fabrianesi murdered
their Signori the Chiavistelli (1435), the Milanesi Duke Giovan Maria
Visconti (1412), and Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1476). Ludovico Sforza
only escaped the same end because by chance he entered S. Ambrogio by
a door that was not watched. For the whole subject see REUMONT,
_Lorenzo de' Medici_, pp. 387-97, especially 396, and BURCKHARDT, _The
Civilisation of the Period of the Renaissance_ (trs. Middlemore,
1878), vol. I., p. 79.]
[Footnote 185: It is painful to find an author of our age, and
especially one of Sismondi's merited reputation and influence, so
warped by anti-despotic feelings as to become the apologist of
assassination. The phrase we use is startling, but surely not
misapplied to those passages in vol. XI., pp. 44 to 47, and p. 114,
where, by innuendo, if not by argument, motives which led to the
murder of Galeazzo Maria, and two years later to that of Giuliano de'
Medici, are shielded from infamy by ingenious special-pleading, worthy
the pen of Machiavelli or the morality of Loyola. I refer to the
comments of Roscoe in his volume of Additional Illustrations to his
_Lorenzo de' Medici_, pp. 114 to 119.]
The steady support long given by the Duke of Urbino to the Sforzan
dynasty suggested him as his most valuable stay in this crisis of
peril, and in obedience to a summons of the widowed Duchess he made
ready to march northward. The policy of the Holy See and of Naples,
whose batons he jointly held, clearly tended towards Lombardy; but,
unlike most successful conspiracies, the murder of Galeazzo Maria led
to no revolution, and Federigo returned to vindicate the papal
authority against the turbulent Carlo Braccio, who, ambitious of his
father's fame and fortunes, and instigated by Lorenzo de' Medici,
threatened Perugia from his stronghold of Montone. The ruin of so
petty an opponent added no laurel to the victor's already loaded
chaplet.
The Duke of Milan left a daughter, Caterina, the fruit of a boyish
intrigue, who was born in 1462, and became one of the most remarkable
women of her time. On the election of Sixtus, her father, willing to
conciliate by family ties a pontiff whose energy of character promised
no ordinary career, offered her in marriage to Girolamo Riario, one of
his favourite nephews, whom he had in 1480 created Count of Forlì, the
dispossessed fief of the Ordelaffi. In order that the bride's dowry
might tempt the ambitious Vicar of Christ, her father, in 1473, made
over to her such rights to the sovereignty of Imola as he had obtained
by purchase from its lords the Manfredi; and after the parties had
been betrothed, that seigneury was confirmed to Girolamo by his
Holiness as its ecclesiastical over-lord.[186] Caterina being,
however, but in her eleventh year, the nuptials were postponed, and
she meanwhile remained at Milan, cultivating the abstruse and
ornamental branches which were then included in female education.
Endowed with a lively genius, a ready apprehension, and a singularly
retentive memory, she quickly mastered these studies, and acquired a
rare facility of expressing herself with elegance and propriety. Her
marriage was solemnised soon after her father's murder, and having
being carried by her husband to Rome, she was welcomed with
magnificent festivities by the Pope, who found in her a brilliancy of
beauty and a courtesy of manner excelling all that rumour had
anticipated. Out of the growing favour of Sixtus for Count Girolamo,
seconded by his own ambitious intrigues, which aimed at an extended
sovereignty, sprang the seeds of a new conspiracy not less atrocious
than that of which the Duke of Milan was victim, and far more widely
influencing the politics of Italy.
[Footnote 186: The convention of Galeazzo Maria with Taddeo Manfredi,
and the bull investing Riario, explain this transaction more fully
than the authorities quoted by Sismondi, ch. lxxxiii. They are printed
in vol. III. of BURRIEL'S elaborate _Life of Caterina Riario Sforza_.]
* * * * *
Among the envoys who had repaired from all the parts of Italy to hail
the advent of Sixtus to the tiara was Lorenzo de' Medici; and he has
described the honourable reception and gifts accorded him by a pontiff
whose favour was ere long turned to deadly hatred. Aware of the rising
influence of this youthful guest, the Pope sought to attach him by
substantial benefits, including his nomination as banker to the Camera
Apostolica, with power to manage that important charge through his
uncle Tornabuoni, then resident from Florence at the papal court.
Fabroni, in his _Life of Lorenzo_, tells us that his Holiness, wishing
to realise the costly jewels accumulated by Paul II., sold them to the
Medici at a price yielding a large profit to the purchasers, who
gained still more from a lease, now conferred upon them, of the alum
mines at Cento Celle. Results more generally important of this visit
were the valuable relics in literature and art, which the Florentine
ambassador was enabled, by the liberality of the Pope, and many
dignitaries, to accumulate; and the strong representations which he
made, not vainly, against a reckless destruction of ancient buildings
in the city. But this amicable intercourse quickly cooled, and the
mutual jealousies of the parties, arising from complicated causes,
became aggravated by various concurrent grudges. Sixtus, ambitious and
warlike, desired to make himself arbiter, if not autocrat, of Italy.
Lorenzo was a man of peace, content to preserve the _status quo_ with
his neighbours, that he might leisurely establish at home, on a firm
basis, such power as should enable him to promote the commercial
prosperity and intellectual pre-eminence of his native city. From
similar views, rather than as a means of territorial aggrandisement,
he sought to extend his family influence, by securing for his brother
Giuliano a seat in the sacred college. With unaccountable blindness,
the Pope refused a favour which policy should have induced him to
volunteer; and from that moment the Medici were entirely alienated.
Their able diplomacy and ample means were especially directed to
thwart the views of his Holiness upon the feudatories of Romagna. By
their aid, Città di Castello had, in 1474, resisted the arms of his
legate Giuliano della Rovere; at their suggestion, two years later,
Carlo Braccio made an attempt upon Perugia; further, their credit was
interposed to extricate Taddeo Manfredi from those pecuniary
difficulties which induced him to surrender his fief of Imola to the
Duke of Milan. The last of these intrigues, although unavailing,
provoked the special indignation of Count Girolamo Riario, who,
finding himself thwarted in his matrimonial scheme, hampered in the
acquisition of a new state, and baffled in his aims at further
sovereignty, by the ever-watchful policy of Lorenzo, employed his
boundless influence to stimulate the Pontiff's growing dislike for the
Medici. This was at first vented in petty slights. Lorenzo lost his
agency for the Holy See; and his personal enemy, Salviati, received
the richly endowed mitre of Pisa. The quarrel, thus exasperated by
mutual affronts, boiled up until it exploded in bloody vengeance.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
LORENZO DE' MEDICI
_After the fresco by Ghirlandaio in S. Trinità, Florence_]
It is worthy of remark, that in Florence, which by democratic writers
is upheld as the model of Italian republics, almost every convulsion
originated from some personal pique or family feud, rather than in any
general outbreak against intolerable oppression. Without pausing to
examine how far the same remark is applicable to many popular
revolutions, we shall glance hurriedly at the events of the Pazzi
conspiracy, one of the numerous and melancholy proofs of corruption
and bad faith in high places, during these the palmy days of Italian
prosperity.
Those jealousies, with which the rising star of the Medici had to
contend in their native city, were the natural fruit of their rapidly
extending wealth and influence, rather than of direct aggressions upon
its freedom. They were sown by rival families,
"Whose aim was but themselves to magnify,"
and who were greedy of an ascendancy which, in other hands, would
probably have been used with less moderation; but in most cases they
were rendered abortive by the universal popularity of those against
whom they were directed. Among these rivals were the Pazzi, an injury
to one of whom, from the operation of a new law limiting female
succession, fanned into flame the smouldering sparks of an old hatred.
Francesco, another of this family, who resided at Rome, and who
supplanted Lorenzo as papal banker, seems to have been the first to
suggest violence, urged it is said by Count Girolamo, with whom he was
intimate, and who is alleged to have interested his uncle, the Pope,
in the foul scheme. At all events, there can be little doubt that the
plot was matured at Rome, and that its execution was chiefly entrusted
to Cardinal Raffaele Riario, the Count's nephew, aided by Francesco
Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, and by others who owed some private
grudge to the Medici. The purpose of this conspiracy, apparently
stimulated by a prelate, directed by a cardinal, and sanctioned by the
Pontiff, was the murder of Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. After
repeated postponements, the blow was struck on the 26th of April,
1478, in the cathedral of Florence, during celebration of high mass,
the elevation of the Host being the concerted signal for an
assassination by priestly hands. The sacrilegious attempt was but
partially successful. Giuliano, struck down by the dagger of Francesco
de' Pazzi, fell pierced by many mortal wounds; but Lorenzo, after
receiving a slight flesh-cut, was hurried by his attached friends into
the sacristy, and its doors secured. Salviati and other conspirators
meanwhile made a vain attempt to possess themselves of the Palazzo
Pubblico, and raise a revolutionary cry; but they being resisted from
within, and seconded by no response of the citizens, with whom the
existing government was highly popular, the émeute was promptly put
down, the Archbishop and its other leaders being instantly hanged from
the windows, and their bodies tossed into the piazza.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
GIULIANO DE' MEDICI]
The melancholy catalogue of crime contains no blacker atrocity, none
more fatal by example and social results, than such concerted murders
as those of Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Giuliano de' Medici. Yet when
history arraigns their assassins at the bar of human judgment, due
consideration should be given to certain extenuating pleas. The age
was one of violence, when life was little valued, and religion
exercised no vital influence on morals; when their public and private
excesses too often rendered those in high places a common nuisance;
when justice and vengeance were convertible terms, the dagger or the
poisoned draught their ready instruments. As we write these
sentences similar outrages are revived. One looked upon as the most
enlightened and most practical of Italian liberals is suddenly called
to administer the temporal affairs of Rome at a crisis of singular
difficulty. His private life is unchallenged, his public policy
untried. As he enters the anticipated scene of his future
labours,--the first constitutional assembly ever attempted in a city
which had long ruled the world,--he falls pierced to the heart by the
poignard of a dastardly miscreant. A crime for centuries disused
becomes again national, consecrated by pæans of the Roman populace,
who tramp the streets chanting--
"Blessings on the hand
That laid the tyrant low."[187]
When the dismal tidings reached Leghorn, the mob hurry to the piazza,
prompt, like the old democracy of Florence, to overturn existing
powers on the chance of new masters. The governor of the city, and
guardian of its peace, accepts and celebrates the cowardly murder, by
announcing to them from his balcony that "Pellegrino Rossi, a man
hated by all Italy for his principles, has fallen by a son of the
ancient Roman republic. May God save his soul, and the liberty of
Italy!"
[Footnote 187: On the 15th of November, 1848, Count Rossi was
assassinated on entering the Chamber of Deputies at its first sitting.
No effort was made by the bystanders or Assembly to seize the culprit.
At night the streets rang with the chorus--
"Benedetta quella mano
Che il tiranno pugnalò!"
It has been our study to exclude from these pages all allusion to
modern politics, or to events as yet untested by time. But when
outrages such as this are perpetrated in broad day, and applauded by a
people, it becomes all men to protest against lessons calculated to
annihilate civilisation, and to reproduce the worst features of the
dark ages.]
But to return from the melodramatic horrors of modern Italian
politics. Confessions by subordinate agents traced the origin of this
disgraceful plot of the Pazzi to the Roman court, and Sixtus, so far
from repelling the charge, adopted the attitude of a partisan, by
excommunicating Lorenzo and all Florence. The manifesto by which he
sought to justify this measure affords no sufficient defence, nor any
satisfactory contradiction of his privacy to the designs of the Pazzi;
indeed, when hard names are substituted for facts, and mixed up with
transparent evasions or detected falsehoods, the cause which they
defend naturally becomes suspected.
The official documents by which the Pontiff must be judged are
accessible to English readers in the Appendix to Roscoe's _Life of
Lorenzo_.[188] Giovanni Sanzi, whose ample details were unknown to
that accomplished biographer, confirms generally his account of the
conspiracy, but mentions a report that when imparted to his Holiness
he refused his consent, and dissuaded its leaders from their design.
This, if proved, would still leave him under scandal as an accessory
after the fact. We learn from the same chronicle that Duke Federigo,
when asked to share the plot, scouted it as utterly revolting to his
honour, and calculated to overwhelm its authors with eternal infamy,
adding that, during his own long struggle with Sigismondo Malatesta,
similar expedients had been repeatedly suggested to him, but that by
God's grace he had been enabled to resist them all: at the same time
he expressed his readiness to take the field against the Medici, and
try the fortune of war in open campaign. Lorenzo having subsequently
sent to demand why he concealed the conspiracy thus brought to his
knowledge, he denied the necessity of offending a good friend by
imparting to an enemy an attempt which he disapproved and abhorred,
adding, that he would soon be in Tuscany to settle all differences in
honourable warfare.
[Footnote 188: See also in FABRONIO, _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, ch.
ii., p. 130, a letter from Sixtus to Duke Federigo, explanatory of his
policy, but curious rather from the eccentricity of its illiterate
style, in which barbarous Latin forms a strange medley with
uncultivated Italian. Likewise, at p. 136, a protest of the Florentine
clergy to the Pope.]
[Illustration: _Alinari_
THE BIRTH OF VENUS
_Supposed portrait of Simonetta Cattaneo--mistress of Giuliano de'
Medici._
_Detail from the picture by Sandro Botticelli in the Uffizi Gallery,
Florence_]
Sanzi has thus rendered Lorenzo's spirited address to his fellow
citizens, when struck by excommunication and menaced with war:--
"Hear me! fair Florence' worthy denizens,
Thus called to choose betwixt my house and peace.
If 'tis your will our race to sacrifice,
Behold me ready, manacled and bound;
The fatal doom to suffer lead me forth!
Oh! that my blood the Pontiff might appease,
And sate the vengeance of yon bloody Count.
Oh! that, as metal by the fire refined,
You'd in the furnace cast me, from yourselves
To parry discipline not less severe.
But well I warn you that such woe to us
For you were still more fatal, and our foes,
My doom once sealed, your freedom straight would curb."
The appeal was not vainly made. The Lateran thunders fell harmless on
a people who, rallying round their favourite leader, appealed to a
general council, and meanwhile compelled their clergy to disregard the
censures hurled at them. Spiritual weapons being thus foiled, the
Pontiff had recourse to temporal arms.
The war which ensued, though limited in its field, included many
parties. Sixtus was supported by the Dukes of Calabria and Urbino, the
latter acting as generalissimo. The Medici, strengthened at home and
abroad by the failure of a conspiracy equally atrocious and
unprovoked, had for allies France and Venice, the Dukes of Milan and
Ferrara, with the Marquis of Mantua. Sismondi justly observes that the
Pope was prepared to take advantage of an explosion which he had
premeditated, whilst the Florentines were surprised at a moment of
confidence and repose. The ecclesiastical troops were accordingly
first in the field, and having united with those of Naples, entered
Tuscany by the Val di Chiana early in July. But on the do-little
system which then constituted warfare, the Dukes of Calabria and
Urbino, though met by no effectual opposition, lingered away the
summer, countermarching in plains where malaria was ever rife, and
signalising themselves by forays upon townships incapable of defence.
Leaving on the left Siena, their faithful and effective ally, they
reduced Radda on the 24th of August; but instead of then pushing
forward to the Arno, they consumed the autumn, attacking in detail
many surrounding places, of which Monte Sansovino alone offered a
serious resistance.
The exact sciences, which were encouraged at the court of Urbino, took
there, as elsewhere, the tendency most easy in an age of prevailing
superstition. Maestro Paolo, a noted German adept, was accordingly
retained by the Duke, and taught him astrology along with the kindred
branches of geometry and arithmetic. Yet Cortesio tells us that,
although he always had about him a number of soothsayers, and, in
deference to the notions current among his soldiery and subjects,
pretended to rely upon their prognostics, he utterly despised all
kinds of divination. The only notice of the subject I have discovered
among his letters is contained in one addressed to Ant---- Nar----,
which may have been written during the siege of Monte Sansovino, or
possibly from the leaguer of Colle, eleven months later. The reader
will judge how far it ought to be received with the gloss suggested by
Cortesio.
"I observe in your former longer letters that you wish to draw
auguries of futurity, which you announce to be pregnant with events of
the highest moment, saying that now is the time to gird ourselves for
great things; indeed, such words seem to point at some loftier issue.
It would, therefore, be agreeable to us that you should again acquaint
us by letter, whether that augury really infers any imminent result.
For, if perchance you allude only to this siege, we acknowledge to
have undertaken a difficult business, and that the town is by nature
or art amply provided; yet do we hope, through the grace of the
eternal God, to effect that which we have taken in hand. But if you
refer to something else, it will be not less gratifying to have from
you some explanation, and to know if it rest on your own or another's
opinion. Farewell."[189]
[Footnote 189: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1198.]
The leaguer was protracted by an incident mentioned by Sanzi, who
dwells at considerable length on a portion of his hero's life scarcely
touched by other biographers. The army suffering from scarcity and
sickness, natural results of its prolonged stay in a narrow and
unhealthy country, the dispirited troops sighed for winter quarters.
It happened that, during a skirmish, two of the Orsini, relations, but
banded under opposite banners, met and interchanged mutual wishes for
a truce. These aspirations, reported to the Duke of Urbino, were
promptly and publicly refused. The garrison, misled by this apparent
anxiety to continue hostilities, proposed a suspension of arms, the
very measure most fatal to their safety. This was accepted for ten
days, during which the besiegers obtained rest and forage, and, when
thus recruited from their languor, quickly reduced the place: it
surrendered on the 8th of December, whereupon the army fell back on
Bonconvento to pass the winter.
In a letter to Matthew Corvinus, King of Hungary, Federigo thus
briefly narrates this campaign:--"During last summer the illustrious
Lord Duke of Calabria was in the field, leading a large body of fine
troops of my Lords, the Pope and his Serene Majesty, against the
League, and had numerous advantages, especially in the Florentine
territory. Many of the enemy's castles and towns were taken,
dismantled, and burned, notwithstanding a very powerful army arrayed
against us, so that they were outmanoeuvred, as well in the
estimation as by the efficiency of our troops, and their strongholds
were attacked and carried by us. In consequence of these successes,
besides taking many towns, we made forays, plundering and wasting the
country even to the gates of Florence. Just then fortune turned quite
against us, and one after another our munitions and supplies failed.
There first occurred an immense explosion of artillery stores, which
prevented our undertaking further operations, and, subsequently, on
opening the siege of Monte Sansovino, a place of great importance to
us, we found ourselves in absolute want of everything, from the
terrible plague which raged throughout the friendly territory of
Siena. This, with continual heavy rains, weakened our army
exceedingly; and when the enemy discovered that we were thus harassed
by contagion, dearth, and weather, they advanced their army within
four miles, with the view of at once encouraging the besieged and
awing us. But they were foiled in both objects, for we, having granted
them a truce of eight days, obtained during that interval supplies,
which enabled us to renew the assault; and at its termination the town
was carried, under their eyes, to their great detriment and disgrace,
and to the credit of the Pope, his Majesty, and my illustrious general
the Duke, who, on the surrender of the place, went into quarters,
winter being at hand, where we are now making all preparations for
next year's campaign."[190]
[Footnote 190: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1198. In this collection of
Federigo's letters are other proofs of his intimacy with the
accomplished Sovereign of Hungary. In 1476 he entertained at Urbino
the ambassadors sent by that monarch to negotiate his marriage with
Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand of Naples; and having received,
through the physician Fontana, an invitation to the nuptials, the Duke
wrote to King Matthew that, though most willing to attend, this must
depend on the pleasure of his Holiness and Ferdinand, adding that he
had been the servant of his affianced bride from her tender years.]
Federigo suffered greatly this summer from an accident which he had
met with at San Marino some months before.[*191] While discoursing to
those around him on past incidents of his adventurous life, and in
particular of his prolonged struggle with Sigismondo Malatesta, to
which the surrounding country had been often witness, the wooden
balcony whence he surveyed these familiar scenes suddenly broke under
his weight, and he was precipitated with its ruins to the ground,
fracturing his left ankle and lacerating the leg. His first
exclamation was one of gratitude for escaping with his life. Gangrene
supervened, in consequence of tight bandaging, and a month elapsed ere
he could be carried home; but the wound continued so troublesome, that
for a considerable time his surgeons apprehended the limb could only
be saved by amputation, and when the Tuscan war opened, he was still
entirely dependent upon a litter, being unable to walk or ride. To
this circumstance may perhaps be, in part, ascribed the sluggish
tactics of that campaign; when it closed, he repaired to the mineral
springs of Petriolo, near Radicofani, attended by Maestro Ludovico, a
physician, and remained in that bleak sojourn for five months,
quitting it to rejoin the army at the end of May. In acknowledgment of
his services during the previous year, the King of Naples conferred on
him a right to make and export annually five hundred loads of salt
from the works of Manfredonia.
[Footnote *191: For an account of the Duke's connection with San
Marino, cf. G.G., _Tre Documenti inediti risguardanti la Rep. di S.
Marino_ (Pesaro, 1888). The first document refers to Federigo in 1461,
the others to 1502 and 1560.]
Roberto Malatesta was serving under the Duke of Calabria at the
surrender of Monte Sansovino, and, having quarrelled with him for
sanctioning a sack of that place, he, with a condottiere's easy
conscience, transferred his company to the Florentine camp. There,
too, were assembled the Duke of Ferrara, the Marquis of Mantua,
Costanzo Sforza of Pesaro, Nicolò Vitelli of Città di Castello, Carlo
Braccio of Montone. The promise afforded by these names proved,
however, illusory; and although a diversion was made by them in June
towards Perugia, the spring and summer again passed without notable
efforts on either side. This number of independent leaders, serving
under no recognised head, embarrassed the allies; and although they
obtained some inconsiderable successes near Thrasymene, the other
division of their forces sustained a decided check at Poggio
Imperiale, in Val d'Elsa, on the 7th of September. The ecclesiastical
forces, following up their advantage, laid siege to Certaldo and
Poggibonsi, both of which speedily fell. They next attacked Colle,
which held out till the 12th of November; its surrender, and the
approach of winter, led to a three months' truce, and the troops
repaired to quarters. Comines, then resident at Florence as envoy from
the French Court, criticises these operations as inert, and considers
the Italians as inferior to his countrymen in the attack or defence of
fortified places, but admits their superiority in the quartermaster's
department, and in commissariat arrangements.
The diary of an eye-witness, Allegretti of Siena, and the Duke of
Urbino's despatches to the magistrates of that city, still remaining
in its archives, enable us to state some curious facts relating to the
then infant art of gunnery.[*192] In the ecclesiastical army, which
had, on the whole, some advantage in this campaign, there were five
field-pieces, called bombards, distinguished by such startling names
as, the Cruel, the Desperate, the Victory, Ruin, None of your Jaw, &c.
One of the largest of them is described by Allegretti as consisting of
two portions; the tube, which was fully nine feet long, weighing
14,000 pounds, and the tail, half that length, weighing 11,000. It
discharged balls of stone, varying from 370 to 380 pounds, and was
made by one Pietro of Siena, surnamed Il Campano, from being a
bell-founder. In the town of Colle there were three bombards, and
during the siege, which lasted six weeks, 1024 shots were fired from
both sides.[193] Three of these enormous guns used in the siege
belonged to Siena, where the art of casting them was especially
followed; and it required above a hundred pairs of buffaloes to drag
them up to that city. The Pope and King of Naples had each but one
with the army; there were, however, other pieces of artillery, called
spingards, cerbottane, and passavolanti; one of the last class is
mentioned by Allegretti as about thirteen feet long. The extreme
inconvenience of such monstrous engines, in a hilly country, ill
supplied with roads, requires no comment.
[Footnote *192: ALLEGRETTI, _Diario Senese_, in MURATORI, _R.I.S._,
vol. XXIV. TONINI, _Storia di Rimini_ (Rimini), vol. IV., p. 163,
tells us that "Furono comprato nove palle di ferro del total peso
libbre 33, pro 9 pallottis bombatarum pond. 33 libr...."]
[Footnote 193: It was usual to bind the annual fiscal accounts of
Siena in wooden boards, on which some historical or domestic incident
was painted. Many of these _bicherne_ remain, curious memorials of
manners and of art. I found at p. 210 of Pecci's Iscrizioni, MSS. in
the public library there, a notice of one representing the siege of
Colle, which would valuably illustrate these observations, could it be
recovered.]
The following extracts are from Duke Federigo's despatches. On the
14th of July, 1478, he writes to Siena from the camp: "Since the
powder for the bombard which you sent me is not fit to be fired, and
will not answer the purpose, I pray you to let me have as soon as
possible some that will do the business, in order that time may not be
lost; and also to send me fine powder, fit for spingards, by mixing
which, what we have may be rendered serviceable. And I further pray
you to see that the other bombard be forwarded with all speed; for it
is impossible to say of what importance these things are, or what
honour and advantage will result if this be done with diligence, and
how much it will be otherwise if they are delayed."
On the 8th of August he writes from the camp at Castellina: "There
being hereabouts great scarcity of stones for the bombard, and the few
available ones only to be had with much difficulty, I send your
lordships the measure of its height, from which you can have them
prepared, since you have its diameter; and I pray you to cause search
be made in your stores, or outside the town, if any suitable ones can
be had for the said bombard. And I pray your lordships to let me know
immediately, that I may send for them without loss of time; and even
should they be somewhat large, I shall not object, as I can have them
reduced with much less trouble than it would take to have them
quarried and prepared, seeing how few here are adapted for that
bombard. Lastly, I beseech your lordships to let me have as many
hewers as possible."
On the 12th of August, he sends a messenger for two barrels of salt of
nitre for refining the powder supplied to him, which "to say the
truth, worked badly." Again, on the 18th of November, 1479, when in
camp before Colle, he writes: "I inform your lordships that we cannot
move from this, because the Marzochesca bombard has not been removed;
and I have not had it broken up, because Messer Borghese tells me your
lordships wish for it; and the muzzle of the last bombard which burst
is still here, for its carriage broke down on the march, as also its
_serandina_, and was left by the way; and thus we are unable to
decamp, as I have said. I therefore earnestly beg your lordships,
immediately on receipt hereof, to send hither all the Pope's and his
Majesty's buffaloes you have, and as many of your own as possible,
with such oxen as you can; also all the waggons you have, dismounting
the bombards from those which are already laden with them, in order
that we may be amply provided. Let other carts be made ready to
replace those that may break down, with lots of buffaloes and oxen;
and let them be brought hither safely and speedily, for your need and
ours: and in God's name, if ever you used diligence do so now, that
these carts, buffaloes, and oxen arrive quickly, seeing the Lord Duke
[of Calabria] and Messer Lorenzo have already written for theirs in
similar terms."
These remonstrances had their effect. On the 20th the camp was raised,
the troops dispersing into winter quarters, and so ended this dilatory
and unimportant war, marked by devastation rather than by victory,
barren of laurels, crowned by no enduring conquest. The two allied
leaders repaired to Siena, where they were honourably welcomed,
Federigo being lodged in the episcopal palace. In accordance with the
custom of that age, a large donation was given to each of them,
consisting of calves, wedders, capons, corn, bread, wine,
almond-cakes, almonds, ray-fish, pheasants, chickens, pigeons, etc.
Many influences favourable to peace were now brought to bear upon the
Pontiff; and although his own wishes were for a further humiliation of
the Medici, his ally of Naples being tired of a struggle in which no
personal interest was at stake, and no trophies had been earned, he
could not prevent the offer of a truce. It was eagerly accepted by the
Florentines, whose position was one of imminent peril. Long unused to
arms, and totally alien to the military spirit of the Peninsula, it
was their habitual policy to trust for defence to hired troops. Their
merchant families sent forth no martial geniuses, and Lorenzo avoided
appearing in the field, for which he felt himself in no way qualified.
But on this occasion they were singularly unfortunate in their
defenders. Nominally backed by all Upper Italy, they had no effectual
aid from Venice, occupied in protecting her mainland from the Turks.
The Duke of Ferrara, though titular leader of their motley army,
possessed neither talent nor influence to occupy such a position. The
other free captains sought their separate interests, and the
hereditary feuds of the Braccian and Sforzan companies broke out for
the last time, as the remnants of these once famous bands found
themselves encamped together. Even after this element of mutiny had
been extinguished, by detaching Carlo Braccio and his following on the
Perugian expedition, new quarrels arose between the Lords of Ferrara
and Mantua, which so disorganised the army that Machiavelli declares
it took to flight at Poggio Imperiale on seeing the dust raised by the
enemy's approach, abandoning to them camp, baggage, and artillery. But
this writer, prejudiced against the whole military system, may be read
with some qualification, when he declares its poltroonery to have
been such that the turn of a horse's head, or the whisking of his
tail, was enough to put it in a panic. Yet, with every allowance, it
seems clear that, had the confederates of Lower Italy then marched
upon the capital, instead of loitering on the Val d'Elsa, the fondest
wishes of Sixtus might have been gratified; and Baldi confers no
honour on the Duke of Urbino in claiming for him the credit of
successfully thwarting such a proposal, upon no better grounds than
that the army was too ill-disciplined to withstand the temptations of
success in so attractive an enterprise.
Lorenzo was alive to the delicacy of his position; the finances of his
country and his private resources wasted upon useless stipendiaries;
the patience of even his partisans exhausted by a mismanaged and
unfortunate war. His resolution was magnanimously formed and boldly
executed. Early in December he suddenly embarked for Naples to plead
for peace, if not for his family at least for his fellow citizens. The
fate of Giacopo Piccinino, in 1465, rendered such an appeal to
Ferdinand one of chivalrous daring, but it fully succeeded. The
gratifying compliments bestowed on Lorenzo were only equalled by his
own munificence; and although negotiations were protracted by
Ferdinand's cold and unrelenting disposition, and by the intrigues of
Sixtus, he was finally successful in removing all difficulties, and in
concluding a defensive treaty with Naples, which was proclaimed on the
25th of March. The Pope, unable to maintain the war single-handed, had
no option but to accede; it was not, however, until the end of the
year that he would grant a formal remission, and the removal of
ecclesiastical censures. To obtain this grace, there arrived in Rome
in November an embassy of eleven eminent citizens of Florence, who,
prostrated in the dust on Advent Sunday in the metropolitan church,
confessed their derelictions of duty, and implored pardon. They,
however, did not receive absolution until the irate Pontiff had read
them a severe rebuke, and had gently applied to the shoulders of each
a scourge of penance, whilst they recited the fifty-first penitentiary
psalm.[194]
[Footnote 194: Volterrano gives a curious account of this function,
_R.I.S._, XXIII., 114.]
Whilst the Duke of Calabria remained at Siena, nominally to overawe
the Florentines, and maintain his recent advantages, but in reality
ripening those schemes by which, ever since 1446, the house of Aragon
had aimed at establishing their influence in that republic, Federigo,
after being entertained at a ball in the Palazzo Pubblico, on the 18th
of December, 1479, went to the baths of Viterbo, which had been
recommended for his still suffering limb. We owe to Sanzi some notice
of his residence in that town, where his numerous suite, and his own
graceful and polished address, made a general sensation. It was his
delight to receive as guests such personages of distinction as passed
that way to Rome. Among these was the Duke of Saxony, who was
repairing to the Holy City on a pious pilgrimage with a goodly
cortège. To him and his attendants Federigo's courtly demeanour and
splendid hospitality were an agreeable surprise: though "barbarians"
by birth, they were fully qualified to appreciate such civilities, nor
were they allowed to depart without a promise to renew their visit to
him at Urbino on their return homewards. His son, Guidobaldo, and his
nephew, Ottaviano della Carda, joined in doing the honours to their
guest, who was distantly related to them through the Gonzaga family,
and they parted with mutual compliments and good wishes. Soon after
Christmas, Federigo received from the Pope, by the hands of Pier
Felice, his resident at Rome, the Sword and Hat, honours among the
highest at his Holiness's disposal, and reserved for sovereigns of
tried fidelity and devotion to the papacy, but which seemed on this
occasion to acquire new illustration in the person of the recipient.
In May he addressed this letter to his allies of Siena:--
"Mighty and potent Lords, dearest Brothers,
"It has pleased our lord his Holiness, and his Majesty the
most serene King, that I may return home; where, and
wherever I may be, your magnificences may dispose of me and
mine as of your own, for this much my long and true
friendship requires and exacts. And I ever shall remember
the great love and kindness I met with in many parts of your
land. Moreover I recommend to you my son Antonio, for whom I
have taken the precaution to let him be conducted home by
the goodness of Ottaviano, who accompanies him to Naples,
not being at present otherways required. From Viterbo, the
19th May, 1480.
"FEDERIGO DUCA D'URBINO, _manu propria_."
Bidding adieu to Viterbo amid the regrets of its inhabitants, the Duke
went to meet his daughter the Princess of Salerno; and having greatly
suffered from fatigue and pain during the last two years, returned
home almost a wreck. He was triumphantly welcomed by his people, and
soon after received a visit from Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, then
on his way to France as papal legate. About this time the Ordelaffi of
Forlì, making a final effort to maintain themselves against Count
Girolamo, appealed to Federigo. But being unable to espouse their part
while himself in the papal service, he counselled the last survivor of
that race to compromise with Riario by a sale of his rights, and to
hope for better days. This having been at length effected, Girolamo
and his Countess visited their new principalities, where,
notwithstanding the popular dissatisfaction with changes which had
extinguished the former dynasties, they speedily so gained all hearts,
that Sanzi gravely questions whether Jove himself, if descending upon
earth, would have had an equally honourable reception. This may be in
some degree attributed to the fickleness of popular opinion,
especially in a nation of lively and impressionable character; but
there was much to recommend the new-comers. Possessed of ample means,
and prodigal in their use, the ambition and political influence of
Girolamo promised a long career of advancement and of coming glories
for his subjects. Of Caterina, then in her twentieth year, we have
this florid description from her biographer Fabio Oliva: "As she
issued from her litter, it seemed as if the sun had emerged, so
gorgeously beautiful did she appear, laden with silver, and gold, and
jewels, but still more striking from her natural charms. Her hair,
wreathed in the manner of a coronet, was brighter than the gold with
which it was twined. Her forehead of burnished ivory almost reflected
the beholders. Her eyes sparkled behind the mantling crimson of her
fair cheeks, as morning stars amid those many-tinted lilies which
returning dawn scatters along the horizon." In somewhat less inflated
language, Ratti, the Sforzan biographer, says: "It would be difficult
to find in history any female who so far surpassed her sex, who was so
much the amazement of her contemporaries and the marvel of posterity.
Endowed with a lofty and masculine spirit, she was born to command;
great in peace, valiant in war, beloved by her subjects, dreaded by
her foes, admired by foreigners." The features of this siren of her
times are supposed to have been commemorated by more than one of those
church pictures into which it was then customary to introduce
likenesses of the donors and their families, especially the
altar-piece of the Torelli Chapel by Marco Palmeggiani, still in the
church of S. Girolamo at Forlì, which represents Caterina, her
husband, and her two eldest sons kneeling before the enthroned
Madonna. Another likeness is given in the preceding page from a rare
medallion of the lady of Imola in her more matronly years, whose
descendants still subsist in various princely houses, and in the noble
family of Riario Sforza at Naples. This much of a heroine who will
reappear at intervals in our pages.
The adhesion of Sixtus to the treaty which closed the Tuscan war was
partly extorted by his terror of the Turks, whose progress in Europe,
as yet, had met with no decided reverse. The energy and skill of
Loredano had, indeed, kept them in check during the campaigns of
1474-5, but Venice found herself exhausted by efforts which, although
of vital moment to Christianity, she was left to make single-handed.
The following year was one of comparative repose, till in 1477, the
Infidels, bursting those ramparts along the Isonzo by which the
Republic considered her territories secured, scoured the rich plains
of Friuli, and burned the mainland palaces of her citizens within
sight of the capital. During 1478 Troia fell, and Scutari suffered a
long and hopeless siege, whilst Sixtus was wasting in the Tuscan war
those energies which, as head of the Church, he might have easily
united against the victorious Crescent. After vainly protesting, and
threatening the Pontiff with a general council, the Signory, in
January, 1479, concluded with Mahomet II. a disastrous peace, at the
sacrifice of all their recent conquests in the East.
The Venetians were now justly incensed at the Pope and Ferdinand, who
had not only refused them aid in defending Western Europe from Turkish
inroads, but had effectually prevented Florence from contributing its
contingent for that purpose. With the King there was a further cause
of quarrel, as he had concluded a treaty with the Sultan in the spring
of 1478, recognising conquests wrested by him from their Republic.
Renouncing the tardy and uncertain remedy of a general council, they
sought more summary vengeance by inviting Mahomet to invade Lower
Italy, and when, after a siege of thirteen days, the Crescent waved
over the walls of Otranto, they so successfully diverted suspicions of
this anti-Italian policy from themselves to his Holiness, that
Ferdinand threatened to throw open to the Infidel a passage to Rome.
The panic which now spread throughout Italy, and this imminent peril
of the Holy See, at length forced the Pontiff to merge selfish
considerations, and to make an effort in the common cause. Bulls
exhorting all Christian princes to unity, were followed by diplomatic
arrangements with the powers of Italy; and Sismondi is probably
correct in ascribing to the terror of this crisis the Pope's tardy
absolution of the Medici and their adherents, which we have already
mentioned, and which was accompanied with a condition that Florence
should send a fleet to the rescue of Otranto.
The dangers impending over his own kingdom occasioned Ferdinand to
recall his son from Siena, and to invoke Federigo's services against
the Turk. The latter, foreseeing danger from the ambitious energy of
Mahomet, had already protested against the King's imprudence in
leaving his coasts unprotected, while pursuing schemes of idle
ambition in Tuscany; he hastened notwithstanding to obey the summons,
but was stopped by an order from Sixtus to guard the ecclesiastical
sea-board, menaced by an incursion from Scutari. To his counsels,
however, was ascribed the ultimate recovery of Otranto, in order to
effect which the Pontiff and Lorenzo de' Medici had hastily united
with Ferdinand. Exactly a year after its capture that city was
restored by its Moslem garrison, discouraged by the Sultan's death
three weeks previously. Yet these events which, by ridding Italy of
invasion, and closing the career of her most formidable foe, ought to
have been hailed with unalloyed satisfaction, were soon found to infer
new dangers, by promoting those internal distractions habitually
fermented in the Peninsula during each interval of repose.