State of the papacy at the accession of Alexander VI.--His
election, character, and children--The aspect of Italy at
the close of her golden age--The disputed succession of
Naples reopened--Character and views of Charles
VIII.--Proposed league to oppose him frustrated--State of
the Roman Campagna--The old and new military systems in
Italy.
The spiritual sway of the papacy at this time enjoyed great advantages
over its temporal dominion. Although the former had necessarily been
more permanent and influential under a Gregory or a Boniface, than
when wielded by imbecility or divided by schism, it continued as yet
undisputed. The power of the Keys was acknowledged to the utmost
limits of Christendom, whatever might be thought of their possessor or
policy. Monarchs and armaments, who defied or defeated the pontifical
banner, quailed under an interdict, and humbled themselves to the dust
for absolution. Another important vantage-ground of the Roman
ecclesiastical polity, well set forth by Robertson, was its unity.
Faithful to long traditionary maxims, as the magnetic needle to its
pole, few cases could occur unprovided for by precedent; and so
numerous were the checks and balance-wheels of the complicated
machine, which was kept in motion and regulated by a large and well
drilled staff, rather than by its apparent director, that his personal
conduct or private aims seldom perceptibly affected its working.
Although the same dignitaries who, by education and habit, were
enabled to maintain and transmit this unvarying system, formed also
the administrative government of the Papal State, they were, in the
latter capacity, merely ministers of a temporal prince, bound by
interest to flatter his foibles as well as to obey his behests. And
the sovereignty of Rome being elective, under circumstances often
inferring a very transient tenure of power, it was usually wielded
with much waywardness, selfishness, and caprice, even to the detriment
of that order by whom, through whom, and for whom the ecclesiastical
authority was exercised. Apart from the general question of the
fitness of priests for temporal sway, their circumstances were
peculiarly unfavourable at a time when no special requisites of
character were indispensable for holy orders, these being often
regarded as a mere qualification for preferments closed against the
laity. When legates were sent to lead armies, and cardinals took the
field as condottieri; when papal diplomacy and intrigue were rarely
veiled by a semblance of truth or honour; when poisoning by prelates
passed into a proverb, and "son of a clergyman" ceased to be an
imputation, it is not surprising that priest-ruled and priest-ridden
Italy should have become thoroughly demoralised. It was of this age
that Masse has pointedly remarked that "never were holy things mocked
with greater impunity, or spiritual power more unblushingly profaned;
never were the humane virtues held in such disrepute, nor blood so
treacherously spilt; never did poison more perfidiously contaminate
the veins of those whose presence was burdensome, or who clogged an
ambitious career, or whose death could serve any end whatever." Under
the new pontificate these evils were fully developed, and the fatal
influence exercised by it on Duke Guidobaldo and his state will demand
from us from time to time detailed notices of Alexander and his race.
* * * * *
Alfonso Borgia, on whom the triple tiara had been conferred in 1455,
with the title of Calixtus III., was descended from the ancient
Spanish family of Borja, at Xativa, in the kingdom of Murcia. His
sister Giovanna, or Isabella, married Giuffredo or Alfonso Lenzuoli,
and to them was born, in 1427, Roderigo, whose youth was spent in
arms, but on obtaining a page's appointment at the court of Alfonso
V., he laid aside the sword, and finally, in compliance with the
wishes of his family, entered the Church. Being there destined for
high preferment by the influence of his uncle, who had adopted him, he
exchanged his paternal name for that of Borgia. By this step, and by
his personal qualities, he so completely gained the favour of Calixtus
that, during his short pontificate, he rose to the highest honours,
and accumulated the best benefices at his disposal. To the dignities
of cardinal, vice-chancellor of the Church, and archbishop of
Valencia, were added the temporalities of three other archiepiscopal
and two episcopal sees, besides a shower of minor but rich endowments,
and various important legations. For the conspicuous part he was thus
called to fill nature had fully qualified him. His unbounded ambition
was supported by vigorous and varied talents; and, although his
acquirements by study were limited, his address and pliant sagacity,
seconded by great facility of speech, enabled him to bend people and
events to his purposes.[*231]
[Footnote *231: GASPAR VERONENSIS in MURATORI, _R.I.S._, III., pt.
II., 1036, speaking of the young Cardinal, says: "Formosus est,
laetissimo vultu, aspectuque jocundo, lingua ornata atque melliflua,
qui mulieres egregias visas ad se amandum gratior allicit, et mirum in
modum concitat, plusquam magnes ferrum; quas tamen intactas di mittere
sane putatur."]
The influence which Cardinal Borgia enjoyed from his abilities and
preferments was but little impaired by his notorious personal vices;
for the corruption of manners which disgraced the golden age of
Italian refinement had deeply tinctured the court of Rome. His open
immoralities brought upon him public censure from the worthy Pius II.,
but the laxer discipline of succeeding pontiffs left such scandals
unchecked. In order more easily to carry on a disgraceful intercourse
with his mistress Caterina Vanozza, he married her to a Roman, named
Domenico Arignano, and subsequently had by her three sons and a
daughter, whom he fully acknowledged as his children, allowing them
his adopted name. His general conduct and language were in all
respects consistent with such licentious courses. Guicciardini
describes him as of most debauched habits, insatiable avarice,
immoderate ambition, savage cruelty, and unscrupulous nepotism;
without sincerity, truth, good faith, shame, or religion. It would be
easy to adduce similar testimony from other contemporary authorities,
which, although widely varying in their details of scandal, agree in
the general estimate of his public and private character, even before
his elevation to the tiara.
On the death of Innocent VIII., Borgia was much the oldest cardinal.
His talents were unquestioned; his dissolute conduct could scarcely be
pleaded as disqualifying him from a dignity which Cibò and della
Rovere had just held. His rivals were Ascanio, son of the great
Francesco Sforza, and Giuliano della Rovere. The latter, at the head
of a feeble minority of five, who refused to sell their votes, earned
his uncompromising hatred. The former, finding success unattainable,
preferred making profit of his adherence to the winning candidate. To
him, to Orsini, Colonna, Savelli, and other influential members of the
conclave, those high dignities and benefices which their choice of
Borgia would render vacant, were lavishly promised, and, as an earnest
of future favours, treasures long purposely hoarded by the wily
Spaniard, were distributed amongst them in mule-loads. On the 11th of
August, Roderigo Borgia ascended the chair of St. Peter, amid festive
pageants more suited to a heathen triumph than a Christian coronation,
hailed by such epigrams as this:--
"Great under Cæsar, greatest under thee,
Rome hailed him _hero_, here a GOD we see!"[232]
[Footnote 232:
"Cæsare magna fuit, nunc Roma est maxima, Sextus
Regnat Alexander; ille vir, iste Deus."]
The sacred office to which Alexander VI. was thus elevated had no
salutary effect upon his unholy passions.[*233] The power he had
attained he administered by intrigue. Simony and poisoning were the
instruments of his administration; nepotism was its end. His temporal
policy was equally selfish, unstable, and dishonest. He was resolute
in nothing but his breaches of good faith. In the broils which he
fomented he sold his adherence to the best bidder, but ever kept
himself open for a higher offer. His contemporary, Machiavelli, thus
stamps his character, which he had carefully studied:--"His entire
occupation, his only thought, was deception, and he always found
victims. Never was there a man with more effrontery in assertion, more
ready to add oaths to his promises, or to break them; yet did his
deceit ever succeed to his heart's content."[*234] Sismondi terms him
"the most odious, the most publicly scandalous, and the most wicked of
all miscreants who ever misused sacred authority to outrage and
degrade mankind." No ecclesiastical writer has undertaken to defend
his reputation; most of them have treated him as a disgrace to the
papacy. Tommasi has termed him a "perfidious, sanguinary, and most
insatiable wolf, capable of insinuating himself like a fawning and
attached spaniel."
[Footnote *233: All that Dennistoun says of the Borgia must be
accepted with care. He takes the Puritan point of view in a country
where such a thing as Puritanism has happily seldom existed. Pastor,
to whom it seems natural to refer the reader [_A History of the
Popes_] is almost equally censorious though more discerning in his
condemnation. He, apparently holding a brief for the Papacy, felt it
incumbent upon him to restore the balance of some of his judgments by
denouncing Alexander VI. It is strange that the only two sane
historians of the Borgia should be Protestants. I gladly refer the
reader with every confidence to the work of CREIGHTON [_A History of
the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome_, vols. IV. and
V.] and of GREGOROVIUS [_Lucrezia Borgia_].]
[Footnote *234: As for Machiavelli's opinion of Alexander VI., it is
the most valuable we could possibly have, but he says little of him,
thinking him of small importance beside Cesare. Dennistoun, not
content with abusing the Pope himself by taking words out of the
context, tries to bring Machiavelli to his way of thinking. This is
not easily excused. In chapter xi. of _Il Principe_, Machiavelli says:
"Di tutti i Pontefici che sono stati mai, mostrò quanto un Papa e con
il denaro e con le forze si poteva prevalere." As Creighton says: "The
Borgia have become legendary as types of unrestrained wickedness, and
it is difficult to judge them fairly without seeming to palliate
iniquity.... The exceptional infamy which attaches to Alexander VI. is
largely due to the fact that he did not add hypocrisy to his other
vices.... Moreover, Alexander VI. was the only man in Italy who
clearly knew what he wanted to do and who steadily pursued his
purpose" (vol. V., pp. 51-52).]
Out of the conflicting statements which have reached us of the Borgian
pedigree and of Alexander's spurious offspring, we have prepared the
accompanying table as on the whole probable.[235] Francesco (called by
others Giovanni or Pietro), his eldest son by La Vanosia, was, at the
Pope's request, created Duke of Gandia by Ferdinand the Catholic, and,
as we shall see, came to a fearful end. The title descended to his
progeny, and was borne by his great-grandson, the famous general of
the Jesuits, who died in 1572, and was canonised as San Francesco
Borgia.[236] Cesare was his father's favourite, and we shall have
frequent occasion to trace him through the various phases of cardinal,
count, condottiere, usurper, sovereign, and prisoner. Giuffredo, with
the hand of a natural daughter of Alfonso II. of Naples, acquired high
honours in that kingdom. Lucrezia, after being branded with triple
incest and frequent poisonings, and after changing her husbands as
often as suited her father's schemes, dedicated her maturer years to
the patronage of letters and the cultivation of piety. Upon the
details and crimes of such a character there is fortunately little
occasion here to enter. Those who wish to learn them have only to turn
to any historian of her age; such as would see nearly all that has
been charged against her confronted with whatever redeeming traits
exist, and ingeniously redargued by negative proofs and assumed
improbabilities, may consult the dissertation appended to Roscoe's
_Leo the Tenth_.[*237]
[Footnote 235: Among numerous conflicting statements, the Duke of
Gandia is named Giovanni by Sismondi, in _Biog. Universelle_, _voce_
Borgia, Cæsar; and Francesco by Despartes, _voce_ Alexander VI. in the
same work.]
[Footnote 236: See below, p. 368.]
[Footnote *237: The Borgia entered as strangers into the cunning but
childish game of deception and lying that made up Italian politics.
Accepting the principles of the game, as all must who would play at
all, they broke through its absurd conventions. It was this that
caused them to be so universally hated. Savonarola, extraordinary
though his success was, knew that the greatest statesman in Italy saw
through his treason and his ambitions. The other politicians were
beaten at their own game, and loudly proclaimed that they had been
cheated. But, as Creighton reminds us, "Alexander dealt unscrupulously
with unscrupulous men, and played for higher stakes than any of them
dreamed of." Even his love for his children has been thrown in his
face. Would it have been a virtue in him to hate them?]
[Illustration: _Anderson_
POPE ALEXANDER VI.
_Detail from a fresco by Pinturicchio in the Borgia apartments of the
Vatican, Rome_]
We have now reached a period when our narrative must be extended, and
must include those great events which, besides revolutionising almost
every state in Italy, ultimately affected the political relations of
Western Europe. The fiery natures and turbulent spirits of the Italian
republicans and condottieri had for many years expended their energies
in petty broils and intestine struggles for mastery. Henceforward the
bloody drama was to be varied by the introduction of a new class of
actors; the battles of European ambition were to be fought on the
sunny plains of the Peninsula; her flourishing cities were to be the
spoil of victor and vanquished: the protracted struggle was destined
to leave her strength prostrated, her wealth wasted, her nationality
extinguished, her treasures of art defaced, the character of her
people degraded, their political independence destroyed. Although,
from 1466 to 1494, Italy had never remained very long free from
intestine commotions, the seat of serious warfare was during that
interval removed to Hungary, Turkey, and the Levant, and she enjoyed a
comparative repose, under the balmy influence of which, letters and
the liberal arts rose to high perfection. The invention of printing,
the study of the classics, the revival of ancient literature and
philosophy, the cultivation of vernacular poetry, and the adoption of
these tastes at many of the minor courts, all tended to this happy
result.
Under this prosperous state of things the condition of the Peninsula
is thus eloquently described by her Thucydides:--"Reduced to profound
peace and tranquillity, cultivated on her sterile and rugged sites as
in her more fertile districts, swayed by none but native masters, not
only did her population, commerce, and wealth abound, but she was
rendered gloriously eminent by the magnificence of her many princes,
by the splendour of her numerous noble and fair cities, and by the
seat and sovereignty of religion; whilst her celebrity was maintained
among all nations by the men whom she produced of high capacity for
public affairs, of elevated genius and acquirements in each branch of
learning, and every liberal or useful art, as well as of military fame
not unworthy of their age."[238] This was indeed her golden era, but
the pure metal was henceforward to be tarnished. The middle ages,
during which the civilisation of Europe had centred within her shores,
were now passed away: modern history was about to open, and with it
her subjugation. She had to learn, on a greater and more impressive
scale, the lesson which her annals have too often afforded, and as her
old republics had fallen one by one from want of union, so, at this
juncture, her states, failing in mutual good faith, became an
unresisting prey to the spoiler. She was in truth on the eve of that
fearful struggle which, after trampling for half a century on her
energies, left her to all intents at the mercy of those northern
powers whom she deemed barbarians. Their armies had heretofore
descended into her plains to fight under her banners and to receive
her pay; henceforward they warred on their own account, though not
less at her expense: formerly her mercenaries, they were in future her
foes.
[Footnote 238: Guicciardini, ch. i.]
The immediate cause of these evils was the disputed succession to the
crown of Naples, which we have formerly seen convulsing Italy, and
which it will require a brief digression and the annexed table to
explain. The Norman knights who in the eleventh century visited Lower
Italy in a crusade against the Saracens, soon contrived to make that
country their own. One of them, Robert Guiscard, by his valour and
talents acquired a supremacy in which he was succeeded by his nephew
Roger, who had by similar means made himself master of Sicily. In
1130, the latter procured from Innocent II. the investiture of a
kingdom nearly equal in extent to that of the Two Sicilies in our day,
which, during next century, passed by marriage into the line of the
Hohenstaufen emperors of Germany. But the same incurable jealousies,
which gave rise to the Guelphic and Ghibelline parties, made the popes
look with little favour on their new neighbours, who however
maintained their ground for three generations, notwithstanding
repeated offers of a competing investiture, by successive pontiffs, to
various English and French princes. The crown, thus sent a-begging,
was at length accepted by Charles Count of Anjou and Provence, seventh
son of Louis VIII. of France, who, in 1266, defeated and slew Manfred,
the last monarch of the Hohenstaufen line, and assuming the title of
Charles I., founded the first Angevine dynasty. But in consequence of
the brutal behaviour of his soldiery, he lost Sicily in a revolt,
during which there occurred, in 1282, the massacre of the French,
known as the Sicilian vespers. On this opening, Alfonso III. of Aragon
put in a claim through his mother, a daughter of Manfred, and having
established himself as King of Sicily, that title continued in his
successors, and was ultimately reunited to the crown of Naples. The
first house of Anjou, however, maintained themselves upon the throne
of Naples for about one hundred and seventy years, notwithstanding the
testamentary disposition of the maligned and unfortunate Queen Joanna
I., who, in 1382, bequeathed that kingdom and the county of Provence
to Louis I., second son of John II. of Anjou.
This will had been dictated by dislike of her second cousin and
adopted heir Charles Count of Durazzo, but it did not prevent him,
his son Ladislaus, and his daughter the beautiful and dissolute Joanna
II., from establishing a _de facto_ right to their heritage. Meanwhile
Louis I., Louis II., and Louis III., their rivals of the second
Angevine line, as it was called, persisted in styling themselves kings
of Naples as well as of Jerusalem, and having patched up their
defective title, by obtaining a recognition of their claims and
investitures from several popes, they each invaded their titular
kingdom. The first Angevine dynasty being about to close by the
childless death of Joanna II., she was persuaded to terminate the
struggle by settling her crown upon the second Angevine race, which at
her death in 1435, was represented by Rénier, usually called René le
Bon. The fatality of a disputed succession, with its attendant
miseries, was however still in store for unhappy Naples. Joanna II.
had already in 1421 adopted as her heir Alfonso V., King of Aragon and
Sicily, who was likewise representative of whatever claims might have
been transmitted from the old Norman dynasty, being in fact similar to
those upon which his family had acquired Sicily before 1300. Eugene
IV., at the same time, still further complicated this confusion, by
interposing his right as over-lord, alleging that the investiture had,
by failure of the reigning dynasty, lapsed to the Holy See.
After ineffectually attempting by an invasion to vindicate his title
against his rival of Aragon, René retired to his little state of
Provence, to dedicate his life to literature and the arts, but
especially to those chivalrous lyrics which, casting the halo of
poetic romance around the troubadours and their times, have wreathed
his brows with laurels far more enduring than the crown of Naples
could have conferred. Yet he and his nephew Charles continued titular
kings, until the latter, dying without surviving male issue in 1481,
left all his property, and therewith his claims upon Lower Italy, to
Louis XI. of France, his third cousin and nearest male heir, upon
whose death in 1483, these passed to Charles VIII. Alfonso V., having
repulsed the good René, had no further serious disturbance in his
possession of Naples and Sicily, now once more united; but he being
succeeded in these by a natural son Ferdinand I., his Spanish crown
going to his brother John II., the already defective title of the
house of Aragon to their Italian dominions on _terra firma_ was
thereby further weakened, at a moment when they exchanged the
competition of a petty and unwarlike prince for that of the powerful
and ambitious monarch of France.
Such was the political position of Naples; that of Milan must now
claim our attention. Giovanni Galeazzo had succeeded to the dukedom,
upon the assassination of his debauched father Galeazzo Maria, in
1476. Being then but seven years old, his mother, a princess of Savoy,
managed the government during four years, until the intrigues of his
uncle Ludovico supplanted her, and possessed himself virtually of the
sovereignty, though exercising it in the name of his nephew. He
married him at the age of twenty to Isabella, daughter of Alfonso
heir-apparent of Naples, but availing himself of his feeble character
maintained his own position, even after the Duke had attained to
manhood. He was generally known by the surname of _Il Moro_, from
using as his device the mulberry, which, being the last tree to hazard
its buds, and the first to mature its fruit, was the received emblem
of discretion and cautious policy. Ludovico il Moro may thus be
rendered Louis the Discreet, an epithet little in keeping with his
character, at once rash and restless, wavering and weak. Accordingly,
in pursuing his designs of unprincipled ambition, this unscrupulous
usurper most signally overreached himself, and, as we shall in due
time see, brought utter ruin upon his own person and house.
Venice, now at the summit of her pride and power, is thus finely
apostrophised by Politian;--
"Sole Queen of Italy! of regal Rome
The beauteous rival, ruling earth and sea,
Sovereigns would fain thy citizens become.
Ausonia's honoured light! 'tis but in thee,
Unquenched by barbarous hosts, our freedom glows;
'Tis to thy beams our sun a brighter radiance owes."[239]
[Footnote 239: _Opera Latina_, III., Eleg. i., p. 95.]
As yet she was the mart of the known world, for a commerce with the
enterprise of Columbus and the daring of De Gama were on the eve of
directing into new channels and rival ports. Her navy scarcely knew a
competitor on the seas. Her eastern possessions not only gave security
to her trade, but placed her foremost in defence of Christendom
against the Infidel, a post of natural glory and influence which it is
now difficult fully to appreciate. But these honourable and
substantial advantages sufficed her not. It was her ever cherished but
fatal ambition to swell her mainland possessions by every means of
arms or diplomacy. Although her citizens had no turn for military
exploits, although the gloomy genius of her government found no
sympathy among her _terra firma_ subjects, she pursued the ruinous
policy of intermingling in every combination, co-operating in every
war, which could add to her territories. At the moment of Charles's
invasion, she had gained her object of becoming one of the five great
Italian powers. How she lost it at the hands of his successor, and
how, in defending a pre-eminence she never should have desired, she
impaired the true sources of her superiority, will, in course of
events, come under our view.
In Florence Lorenzo de' Medici, to whose bright name history has done
justice, at the expense perhaps of some coeval stars in the Italian
hemisphere, had died a few months before Innocent VIII. He was happy
in living during a breathing time of comparative tranquillity, which
he had been not uninstrumental in preserving, and which it was perhaps
his good fortune not to survive. He had lived long enough to gain an
imperishable fame, and passed from life just before the golden age, of
which he was the signal ornament, began to be dimmed by influences
which he and his family were instrumental in promoting. Our admiration
of the assiduous and enlightened encouragement bestowed by him, and by
his son Leo X., upon letters and art, ought not to blind us to the
melancholy truths that the theoretical paganism of Lorenzo, the
practical worldliness of Leo, and the disastrous blundering of Clement
VII., have left upon the religion, the nationality, and the public
spirit of Italy, effects which counterbalance that vast impulse to
genius which the two first had the power to create, without the
judgment and virtue to direct. Lorenzo the Magnificent was succeeded
in his authority by his eldest son Pietro; but as that was founded
exclusively upon personal claims, and unsupported either by official
or hereditary dignities, it quickly passed from his feeble hands. It
was the folly of this Pietro that supplied a train to the smouldering
elements which we have endeavoured in this digression to analyse, and
which, had his father been spared, might have been welded into a
compact aggregate calculated to withstand barbarian aggression,
instead of, as we shall now see, bursting into a simultaneous and
destructive conflagration.[240]
[Footnote 240: Du Peloux, in a despatch addressed to Charles V. in
1529, alluding to the distractions and miseries of Italy, in terms
more appropriate to the period now under our review, observes "that
there were two races who occasioned all its misfortunes, the Medici
and the Sforza, and that it would be well for the world were both of
them extirpated."--_Lanz Correspondenz._]
Charles VIII. of France had attained his twenty-third year. It has
been well remarked of him that few monarchs have played so active a
part with fewer personal qualifications for success or distinction.
The hideous deformity of his body seems to have been equalled by the
defects of his character. Impetuous and fickle, ignorant and wilful,
he was alike devoid of judgment and of perseverance. The wars of the
Neapolitan succession, that had during much of the preceding century
harassed Lower Italy, were not forgotten, and the latent claims of the
Angevine dynasty became serious grounds for fresh anxiety, when vested
in the youthful monarch of a powerful ultra-montane nation. Ludovico
Sforza, situated nearest to the quarter whence the storm threatened,
was the first to take alarm, and for once his selfish policy tended to
a great and beneficial object. He proposed a general defensive
alliance of the Italian states against all foreign invasion. But his
counsels flowed from a tainted source. The King of Naples had already
interposed to emancipate his grand-daughter's husband from the unduly
prolonged regency of Ludovico, who soon perceived that his usurped
authority must be relinquished ere his overtures would be listened to
in that quarter. Yet the stake was worth an effort, and the new Pope's
elevation suggested a fit opportunity for the attempt, since it
attracted to Rome many embassies of congratulation which, when thus
congregated, might conveniently arrange the terms of a league. As a
preliminary, the Regent of Milan proposed that the various ambassadors
should give moral weight to their union, by entering the capital of
Christendom on the same day, in one imposing procession. This idea was
approved by most of the parties, but Pietro de' Medici, conceiving
that his personal vanity would be more effectively gratified by
exhibiting the superior magnificence of his retinue in a separate
display, resolved to thwart by indirect means a proposition to which
he could offer no reasonable objection. He, therefore, induced
Ferdinand to interpose some obstacles of etiquette, which marred by
miserable jealousies the intended unanimity of the demonstration.
Ludovico, having ascertained the origin of this intrigue, saw in it a
separation from the common cause by the two powers whose interests
were the most at variance with his own. The Medici were formidable
neighbours, as wielding the preponderating power of Florence, while
with the King of Naples the seeds of a domestic quarrel were already
rife.
Upon the coldness thus generated, other influences were brought
coincidently to bear. The Colonna and the Orsini had long been most
prominent and influential among the great barons of Rome. The
authority which they exercised over their fiefs in the Campagna was to
all intents sovereign. They alternately wasted that fair land with
their mutual broils, or bearded their ecclesiastical over-lord in his
capital. Those who have journeyed from Monterosi to Albano along the
lonely plain which, curtained by the Sabine mountains and the Alban
hills, stretches far around the Eternal City, or have cantered for
miles and miles across its vast expanse of undulating sward in
solitude and stillness; who have marked its rich vegetation running
wild in the most genial of European climes, its melancholy lines of
interrupted aqueducts witnessing to a long-degraded civilisation, its
distant and dilapidated watch-towers telling only of former forays,
its few isolated dwellings sheltering beneath crumbled walls and
broken battlements the units of a scanty and squalid population; and
who, to account for the spell of such a singular desolation, conclude
that this dreary waste has been depopulated by the course of nature;
such may wonder to hear that the mischief and misery are chiefly the
act of man. The calm serenity of these forlorn downs becomes deeply
touching from remembering that the soil was for centuries sodden with
blood, and covered with smouldering ruins; that European civilisation
there was nurtured, there waned, and there struggled into a second
life, amid the din of battles, the devastation of armies, the rapine
of banditti; that its long grass springs from the grave of ancient
refinement, of classic memorials, of mediæval strife.
In the middle ages much of the Campagna was fertile, and peopled by
an industrious peasantry. Its undulating slopes waved with abundant
crops, varied and sheltered by venerable woods, which the Goths and
Vandals of former centuries had spared. But incessant civil feuds
proved more fatal than barbarian hordes. The Ghibelline Colonna, from
their fortresses of Marino and Palestrina, watched the fitting moment
to pour their armed retainers on the plain, and, crossing the Tiber,
carried fire and sword, through the estates of their rivals, to the
very gates of Bracciano. The Guelphic Orsini waited for revenge only
till the ripened harvest had prepared for them a golden spoil in their
foemen's fields. Year after year did this miserable partizan-warfare
ravage those devoted lands till the peasantry by degrees were
exterminated, or driven to seek a livelihood in some more tranquil
spot; till of their smiling homes no stone remained upon another,
except where, at long intervals, the farm buildings were turned by
these men of blood into fortresses, or the tombs of the dead were
desecrated into defences for the living. A soil teeming with fertility
under a burning sun, and abandoned by man, ran to rank vegetation,
which, gradually choking the water-courses, generated miasma. The
evil, thus commenced, was augmented by cutting down the trees which
shadowed the burning earth, and, not unfrequently, covered a hostile
ambush. But the crowning mischief was the rash destruction of a vast
forest which, extending between the Campagna and the sea, excluded the
malaria that brooded over the Mediterranean coast from Leghorn to Mola
di Gaeta. Once admitted, that fearful scourge took possession of the
depopulated territory, which has ever since remained a puzzle to the
physiologist, a mystery to the moralist, a terror to all. At no period
had the feuds of the Colonna and Orsini been more virulent than during
the feeble reign of Innocent, when their armed bands had more than
once scoured the streets of Rome, and overawed the papal
government. The Savelli, the Frangipani, and the Gaetani, those
great families who, a century or two before, had been their rivals,
were no longer able to cope with them, and the lesser barons of the
Comarca sought protection and employment by ranging themselves as
their respective partizans. To humble these rampant houses was thus
the natural policy of the successors of St. Peter, and especially of
Alexander VI., who soon devoted his ambition and his authority to
provide temporal sovereignties for his illegitimate progeny. His
ruthless proceedings, and the changes which ensued over the whole
country, at length effectually quelled the lawless turbulence of these
chiefs; but it was too late to remedy the ruinous havoc which their
insatiate strife had occasioned.
[Illustration: "DIVA JULIA"
_From a bronze medal by L'Antico in the British Museum_]
[Illustration: CESARE BORGIA
_From a medal ca. 1500 in the British Museum_]
[Illustration: JULIUS II. AS CARDINAL
_From a medal in the British Museum_]
The late Pope, following the practice of the times, had endowed his
natural son Francesco Cibò (ancestor of the princes of Massa) with
Anguillara, Cervetri, and other holdings to the north-west of Rome,
and had married him to Madalena, sister of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Desirous of exchanging this precarious sovereignty for some more
peaceful home, Francesco, by the influence of his brother-in-law,
Pietro de' Medici, induced the King of Naples to advance 40,000 ducats
to Gentile Virginio Orsini, for the purchase of these castles, which
adjoined his fief of Bracciano. This slight circumstance served to
kindle that train which the long series of events now alluded to had
gradually prepared for combustion, and to ripen those jealousies
already sown among the Peninsular powers. The Pope saw in it an
accession of territory to one of those great barons of the Campagna
whom he had resolved to humble; Ludovico il Moro, with the coward
suspicions of guilt, watched every motion of Ferdinand, whose just
indignation at his treatment of the Duke of Milan he had too good
reason to dread. As soon, therefore, as he had ascertained that Pietro
de' Medici, abandoning the cautious neutrality which his father had
ever maintained between the Milanese and Neapolitan interests, had
united with Ferdinand in the affair of Orsini, as well as in the less
serious intrigue which had prevented the cementing of a general
confederation he plotted to provide for the King full occupation at
home.
Suddenly, however, the tangled policy of the Peninsular states assumed
an aspect more favourable to Ludovico. The ambitious overtures of
Alexander to obtain for his natural son Giuffredo the hand of Sancia
of Aragon having been spurned by her father Alfonso, the impetuous
Pontiff, in April, 1493, hastily concluded a defensive treaty with
Milan and Venice, for the avowed purpose of expelling Orsini, the ally
of Naples, from his recent acquisitions. These having been obtained by
that feudatory, with the aid of his tried friend Ferdinand, and his
relation Pietro de' Medici, he naturally looked to these two powers
for support; and thus was Italy on the point of relapsing into her
normal condition of feud. But the King of Naples, considering such a
price extravagant for the mere gratification of family pride, had
within a few weeks adjusted his differences with the Pope, by
betrothing his granddaughter to Giuffredo Borgia. As if by repulsion
of the magnetic poles, the accession of Ferdinand caused Il Moro to
secede from the alliance he had just before joined, but from which he
could no longer look for support in his lawless authority, and,
judging his only security to consist in the depression of that
monarch, he resolved to effect it at any price.
Upon these most inadequate grounds of personal pique, or personal
apprehension, did Ludovico madly run upon the very danger against
which he had been the first to prepare
"All the swords
In Italy, and her confederate arms."
In his eagerness to disable Ferdinand's anticipated vengeance upon his
own crimes, he renewed the calamities of a succession-war in the
south, and thereby laid open the Peninsula to a scourge whose
chastisement fell most heavily upon himself. Instead of heading a
league against foreign aggression, as he had just before proposed, he
made overtures to Charles VIII., tempting him with the diadem of
Naples as the reward of an invasion of Italy, and offering him free
passage through the Milanese. His private quarrel with the usurper did
not blind Ferdinand to the insanity of this step, and, forgetting his
feelings as a parent, he united with the other powers in representing
the peril of his policy. Gladly would Ludovico have withdrawn the
false step he had hastily made; but it was too late. The demon of
ambition was roused in the French king; the hour for retraction was
passed; that of bitter repentance was at hand. Behind her Alpine
barrier there was gathered an army, ready to burst upon fated Italy,
and to pour upon her plains calamities unknown since the fall of the
Western Empire.
* * * * *
With Federigo of Montefeltro and Roberto Malatesta, the old generation
of Italian condottieri may be said to have passed away. Political
changes and progressive civilisation, developed during forty years of
comparative tranquillity, already tended to limit both the supply of
veteran adventurers and the demand for their services. Under such
genial influences, the great companies of adventure had melted down to
petty followings, more proportioned to the exigencies of the age, and
to the resources and experience of their new leaders. Peaceful times
offered no rich prizes to call forth sustained daring, and to reward
vast enterprises. Captains of minor reputation, heading small bands
raised for some passing broil or petty foray, succeeded to the
Hawkwoods, Montoni, and Malatesta, without rivalling their deeds, or
maintaining their fame. The limited brigandage of the broken lances
differed from the sweeping desolation of their marshalled thousands
only in the narrower field on which it found scope; but the mercenary
system became more manageable when deprived of its cumbrous machinery,
and its leaders were henceforth the tools of their employers instead
of their virtual masters.
In bidding adieu to that system, we may quote the sweeping
condemnation bestowed upon it by Machiavelli; yet it is right to
remember that, as the advocate of infantry and national militia, he
had no toleration for the military art which they superseded, and that
he witnessed its practice only after its spirit was gone. "Whoever
relies for power upon mercenaries will never be stable or secure; for
they are disunited, ambitious, undisciplined, faithless: braggarts
among friends, dastards before the foe; destitute of fear of God, or
faith with man. To delay their assault is to postpone your own ruin;
in peace, you are plundered by them, in war by the enemy. The reason
of all this is, that they have no object, no inducement to keep the
field beyond their pittance of pay, which is never such as to induce
them to spend life and limb for you. They readily enough take service,
so long as you don't go to war, but when that comes, they desert or
fly. It were easy to establish all this, for the destruction of Italy
has arisen from no other cause but that, for many years, she depended
upon mercenary troops; who, indeed, occasionally did something, and
wore a semblance of valour when pitted against each other, but, on the
appearance of the stranger, showed in their true colours. Thus was
Charles of France allowed to take possession of the Peninsula as
easily as he would have chalked off his cantonments, and the result of
all their prowess left the country overrun by him, ravaged by Louis,
trampled on by Ferdinand, and insulted by the Swiss; in fine, by their
means she was enslaved and disgraced."
These changes led to considerable modifications in the art of war, to
which other circumstances greatly contributed. The invasion of Italy
by successive ultra-montane hosts brought into her battle-fields
other races, armed, drilled, and disciplined upon new principles; and
the descent of Charles VIII., which we are now about to describe,
forms an era in military tactics. The heavy accoutrements, the staid
evolutions, the blockade sieges, the bloodless encounters of the old
system were admirably suited for troops whose grand object was to
perform their term of service without unnecessary personal risk, and
to spare themselves all exertion which did not promise a meed of
booty. The invention of gunpowder at first tended to exaggerate the
very inconveniences which it was destined eventually to supplant: for
a time, defensive armour became more and more massive, and
horse-trappings less manageable. In order to resist the additional
weight, chargers of the most powerful shapes were sought for; but they
were in proportion sluggish and unhandy, apt to fall on the slightest
stumble, difficult to maintain in condition, and incapable of
sustained exertion. These evils having become apparent, the
men-at-arms ceased to be regarded as the sole sinews of war, and many
of them were converted into lances.
Unlike the cavalry which now bear that name, these lances were heavy
troops, and, like the men-at-arms, they each consisted of three
mounted soldiers--a head-lance on his charger, a soldier on his steed,
and a lacquey on his pad. The pay of these troops, which in 1492 were
already used in Romagna,[*241] was twelve florins for every lance,
being four times that of a foot-soldier; and they were reckoned twice
as effective as _balestrieri_ or light-horse, both new varieties of
mounted force. The former were brought into repute by Camillo Vitelli,
"In heart a lion, though a calf in name,"[242]
and were armed with cross-bows, their tactics being to gall the enemy
without coming to close quarters. Of the latter there were several
varieties, the most efficient of which were the Stradiotes. Accustomed
from childhood to constant skirmishes with their Turkish foes, in the
mountains of Albania, where manoeuvres of regular cavalry were
impracticable, they partook of the agility and address for which
Cossacks and Circassians have lately become celebrated. Their arms
were a spear ten feet long, a broad-sword and a mace, and they were
defended by an iron skull-cap, a small shield, and a short quilted
jerkin. They were introduced by the Venetians into Lombardy, where
their dashing qualities, as well as their ferocity, soon established
the reputation of these irregular horse as most formidable
mercenaries.
[Footnote *241: The _Lancia_ had been used in Romagna and the Marche
for over half a century, certainly, in 1492. Cf. EDWARD HUTTON,
_Sigismondo Malatesta_, p. 71. Cf. BATTAGLINI, _op. cit._, vol. II.,
p. 348.]
[Footnote 242: Of sixteen Vitelli named in the genealogy following the
appendix, all but the first were renowned condottieri.]
Infantry occupied, under the new system, a place until then denied
them. They had hitherto been of small account in the mustering of
armies, and were rarely relied on except in situations which excluded
cavalry evolutions. They carried small shields, and halberts or
lances, but were scarcely at all drilled, and never attempted to stand
against a charge of horse. More effective were their cross-bows, and
the rude muskets which they began to use. As fire-arms were made more
handy, the value of infantry rapidly increased, and its discipline
became an important branch of the military art. But in this section of
the service, Italians had to learn costly lessons from their alpine
neighbours.
In a land where nature had lavished her most sublime efforts, she
reared a race as hardy in heart and sinew as their climate was severe,
their scenery wild, their hardships extreme. Life was there a
perpetual struggle with privations, an unceasing exercise of toil. To
provide the necessaries of existence required limbs enduring of
fatigue, an eye of unerring accuracy, perseverance inexhaustible,
courage indomitable. And such were the qualities of the Swiss
mountaineers, which they developed in the chase, exercised in rude
sports, and perfected in their struggles with the house of Hapsburg,
until their shouts of victory echoed through the valleys around
Morgarten,--until Europe stood aghast at the issue of Granson, and of
"Morat the proud, the patriot field."
In their country of crags and ravines it was impossible either to rear
powerful horses, or to manoeuvre with heavy cavalry; the
accoutrements of _gens d'armerie_ were also too costly for a
population of scanty and much divided means. They therefore adopted,
what proved more effective even in the plain, an infantry so armed and
drilled as to withstand the shock of men-at-arms. In lines four deep,
or in cross-shaped columns, they received the charge upon their
bristling pikes, and with two-handed swords dealt fell blows on the
broken squadrons. Their defensive armour was of the least cumbrous
description, consisting generally but of breastplates; and with the
axe-headed halberts, which some of them carried, they unseated their
enemies, or cut their reins in the _mêlée_. By these means they were
enabled so well to apply the activity and endurance bestowed upon them
by nature, as to meet on equal terms with armies apparently much their
superiors. Louis XI. was the first sovereign to avail himself of a new
element, whose qualities he had learned by bloody experience at the
passage of the Birsa, in 1444.[243] But after the Swiss mercenaries
had tasted the gratification of regular pay, and the plunder of lands
more golden than their own, an appetite for adventure superseded the
pristine simplicity of their habits. The cantons, finding it difficult
to keep their youth at home, became parties to contracts which hired
out their services to the best bidder; and we shall henceforth find
them in the champagne lands of Lombardy, following with equal
goodwill the lilies of France, the lion of St. Mark, or the Papal
gonfalone. Thus in a few years, the military aspect of Southern Europe
became changed, not only by the employment of Swiss infantry in all
important enterprises, but from an adoption of their system by the
troops of Italy, France, and Germany.
[Footnote 243: RICOTTI, III., 257. The Swiss were first brought into
Italy by Sixtus IV., and fought at Giornico in 1479.]
The Emperor Maximilian was the first to organise in Germany a militia
of foot, under the name of _lanznechts_, against whom the Swiss,
recollecting their ancient struggles for liberty, nourished a rancour,
which only their common stipendiary interests could for the moment
suspend. Lightly armed with lance and dagger, but encumbered by a
preposterous camp-following; reckless of danger, yet indifferent to
glory; they were fractious, disobedient, debauched, impatient of
suffering, greedy of pay, devoted to plunder. But our notice of the
ultra-montane infantry would be incomplete without the Spaniards. They
were brought into Italy to maintain Ferdinand's pretensions upon
Naples, and to support the aspirations of his successor to extended
dominion in the Peninsula. Levied by tuck of drum, with scanty promise
of pay, but unlimited licence to pillage, they campaigned in the
spirit of pirates; and though the energy of Gonsalvo di Cordova
ultimately brought the Hispano-Neapolitan army into a very efficient
state, this stain was never effaced. The character for ferocity which
attached to their birth is stamped upon their military exploits, and
has left its traces to this day upon the inhabitants of Lower Italy.
The cavalry of Germany and Spain was decidedly inferior to the Italian
light horse and men-at-arms, and played but an unimportant part in the
wars which we are now to consider.
Our review of the military art in the Peninsula must needs include the
recent introduction of fire-arms. The researches of Gaye have
discovered that projectiles were used in Italy considerably earlier
than the date usually assigned to their invention, a due provision of
"cannons and metal balls," both for field-service and fortification,
being ordered by the Florentine government in February, 1326.[244]
Whatever may have been its origin, the invention was slowly followed
up; for, after nearly a century and three quarters, the Italian
artillery was still so cumbrous and defective as to be of little
practical utility, and it was rarely employed except in sieges.
Indeed, according to Guicciardini, the very name of cannons had passed
out of use, and the light and rapidly-served field-pieces of the
French army were regarded with as much surprise as apprehension.
[Footnote 244: _Carteggio d'Artisti_, preface to vol. II. Among the
other sources to which we have been indebted for these military
details, we may mention Machiavelli, Ricotti, and the Relazioni
Venete, _passim_, but especially Promis' edition of Francesco di
Giorgio on military institutions, a work of great learning and
research, published at Turin in 1841. See below, ch. xxvii.]
The development of the new power was extremely gradual; and although
we have seen it in operation at the battle of Molinella, in 1467, no
other instance occurred during that century of its being used with
effect in the field.[245] Nor is this surprising, when we consider the
unmanageable nature of the service, and the gradual steps whereby
science superseded rude contrivance. Heavy cannon were then from ten
to twelve feet long, requiring at times fifty yoke of oxen. They
carried balls of stone or metal of ten or twelve hundred pounds; and
after each discharge, some hours were needed to clean out, reload, and
point the piece. Even the flying artillery (_passa volanti_) were in
length sixty diameters, and the basilisks, reckoned as light guns,
were two-hundred pounders. We cannot now pursue the subject, but any
one who visits a complete armoury of 1480-1500, or examines the works
upon military engineering of that age, will probably conclude that few
modern discoveries in the destructive art had not even then been
approximated. For attack and defence of fortified places these
machines were certainly better adapted; yet, with all the talent and
princely encouragement then expended upon fortification, it must be
considered as in its infancy. But when the chivalry of the north
poured upon fated Italy, under Charles VIII., no part of their array
appeared so formidable as their field-train, powerful yet compact,
heavy but easily moved; and the unimportant service required from it
in that brief campaign, was performed in a manner which showed how
much even the Italians had to learn in this department. At the Taro,
the nature of the ground prevented it from contributing much to the
success of that bloody day, and it was reserved for the sanguinary
conflict of Ravenna to develop the capabilities of a service which
gradually became the right arm of European warfare.
[Footnote 245: Refer back to p. 189; also to p. 248, for a description
of the bombards used at the siege of Colle in 1479. The same tendency
to overweight artillery seems common to many half-civilised nations.
The size of the guns mounted in the Dardanelles is an instance, as
well as that of the Scottish Mons Meg; but the most gigantic
projectiles yet known have been found among the Burmese, and I believe
the Chinese. In modern warfare, field batteries are usually of six,
or, at most, nine pounders.]