THE CASTLE OF MONTOBBIO.
Count Gerolamo declines propositions of the governments--Intrigues of
the imperial party and revolutionary tendencies of the populace--The
Republic is induced by Andrea Doria to assault Montobbio--The
count’s preparations for defence--Verrina and Assereto assigned to
the command of the works--Andrea induces the government to decline
negotiations with Fieschi--Agostino Spinola closely invests the
castle--Mutiny of the mercenaries of the count--He offers to surrender
the castle on condition of security for the lives and property of the
beseiged--Opposition of Doria to this stipulation--The treason of
his mercenaries compels Fieschi to surrender--Doria, notwithstanding
the entreaties of the government, treats the defeated Fieschi
with great cruelty--Punishment of the Count of Verrina and other
accomplices--Raffaele Sacco and his letters--The castle of Montobbio
razed to the foundations.
THE castle of Montobbio was a beautiful and strong fortification,
situated ten miles from Genoa, occupying the brow of a mountain, and
looking down on a deep valley closed round with spurs of the Apennines.
The Beriana papers assert that it once belonged to an Obizzo di
Montobbio who sold it, in 1232, to Ansaldo Di Mari. We find no record
of the transfer to the Fieschi family. The torrent of Scrivia on the
south, and the wooded heights encircling it on every side, render the
position naturally impregnable. The rough crests afford no convenient
positions for placing batteries so as to enfilade the redoubts or
batter the walls. In fact, it often held large armies in check.
Gianluigi had greatly increased its power of resistance by employing in
his works the science of fortifications which was just then invented.
The use of bastions with angles dates from that period. Giuliano da
San Gallo employed them in the fortress of Pisa and Andrea Bergauni at
Nice. The count repaired the curtains and the walls, increasing the
width to fifteen feet, sloped their sides and constructed new bastions.
Portions of the walls which had been damaged by time were repaired, and
new videttes and towers were erected on the flanks. The residence of
the Count was situated on a mass of wall which commanded the whole rock
and was protected against both internal and external assault.
The senate saw at once that the obstinacy of the count rendered their
task a very difficult one; and as the place was deemed impregnable to
assault they set about plans for obtaining it by other means. They
first sent Paolo Pansa to Montobbio to offer Gerolamo fifty thousand
gold crowns of the sun to surrender the castle; but Fieschi, naturally
distrustful of men who had already violated their solemn pledges of
amnesty, refused to negotiate, replying to Pansa that he held Montobbio
in the name of the king of France and would defend it to the last
extremity.
The news of the Fieschi movement had alarmed all the friends of the
Spanish power. They anticipated that the rebellion would aid France to
diffuse general discontent in Italy, and their fears were strengthened
by the connection of the conspiracy with French intrigues and
movements. When therefore Fieschi declared that he would hold Montobbio
for France, his enemies did not for a moment doubt that the French king
would accept a castle so conveniently placed for kindling revolutionary
fires in Genoa. There was therefore a general concert of action among
the adherents of the empire to crush out the spark which otherwise
might wrap all Italy in flames. Cosimo collected his forces in Pisa and
put them under the command of Vitelli. He also ordered the immediate
return of Stefano Colonna from Rome, put him at the head of the Ducal
cavalry, and prepared to risk his own person in the imperial cause.
Gonzaga sent a large force to the frontiers of Bobbio under the command
of Ludovico Vistarino. Even the cardinal of Trento sent to Gonzaga to
enquire on what point he should precipitate six thousand men whom he
had collected to aid in crushing the Fieschi. Cæsar ordered Andrea to
invest Montobbio without a moment’s delay, offering to furnish the men
and money for the siege and empowered the admiral to cede Montobbio,
Cariseto and Varese to the Republic.
The French were not the only enemies before whom Spain trembled. The
adherents of Fieschi in Genoa, threatened a new outbreak. A rumour ran
that Gianluigi was not dead, but had gone to Provence to collect men
and arms, and the fable found such support in the popular affection
for him that it required a long time to dissipate the delusion. The
plebeians were expecting him to come to their deliverance and were on
the alert to second his first assault on the common enemy. Indeed, one
night a cry was raised for the Adorni (the name was synonymous with
popular liberty) and the people rushed to arms to the great fright of
the Dorias. The prince knew the popular faith in Gianluigi and had
lacked the courage to gibbet his body, according to the custom with
traitors, lest it should raise a popular tempest. Bonfadio, though
the instrument of the Doria faction, admits this to have been Doria’s
motive for refraining from putting this seal of treason on his enemy.
The same historian tells us that there was a constant peril of a new
rising, and that to prevent it the city guards were increased and eight
citizens appointed to suggest to the senate the most effectual means
of quieting the people and such additional laws as would meet the
exigencies of the occasion.
Andrea, stimulated by the messages of the emperor and by his desire
to avenge the blood of Gianettino through the extermination of the
Fieschi, made incessant appeals to the government for the Storming of
Montobbio. The senate yielded to these solicitations and also empowered
Andrea (this we learn from many documents) to undertake the operation
at his own charge and in the name of the emperor. Agostino Spinola was
ordered to mass his troops and closely invest the castle. This soldier
and scholar had followed the imperial fortunes since 1536 when Barnaba
Visconti, Bagone and Fregoso attempted to revolutionize Genoa. After
the expulsion of the French, he held a considerable corps of infantry
against Novi where Origa Gambaro, widow of Pietro Fregosi, a woman of
intrepid character, maintained the war with the aid of French troops.
The valour of Spinola overcame all obstacles. He opposed courage to
courage, treachery to treachery; and having allied himself with the
Cavanna faction in Novi, he defeated and destroyed the French army and
their leader Belforte, and thus restored Novi and Ovada to the Republic.
In the beginning of April 1547, he collected a considerable body of men
and began to make approaches to the castle of Montobbio. To prevent the
introduction of troops and supplies into the fortress he ordered Lamba
Doria, Bernardo Lomellini and Gabriele Moneglia to seize the passes of
the Apennines and keep close guard on the frontier. Gonzaga rendered
valuable aid in these operations. He sent captain Oriola with a company
of Spanish infantry to Torriglia with orders to assist the Genoese
generals in divising means to approach Montobbio.
Though the roads were rocky and broken, Spinola brought up many guns
by the way of the Gioghi and along the Scrivia, which is formed by the
confluence of the Laccio and Pantemina under the heights of Montobbio.
Flippo Doria, who had already acquired distinction in naval warfare,
was assigned to the command of the artillery. Andrea required that
Francesco and Domenico Doria should have command of a body of two
thousand infantry. The commissaries of the Republic were Cristoforo
Grimaldo Rosso, and Leonardo Cattaneo, with Domenico De Franchi, and
Domenico Doria for substitutes.
Count Gerolamo did not lose courage at the sight of these formidable
preparations to assail his stronghold, but applied himself diligently
to increasing his means of resistance. He fortified the approaches,
repaired the curtains, videttes and battlements, and added new bastions
and other works of defence. He had already collected a large body of
mercenaries and to cover Montobbio had garrisoned Cariseto and Varese.
He asked vainly for the assistance of the French troops in Mirandola,
and then turned his attention to negotiations with Pierluigi Farnese.
This duke pretended loyalty to the empire, but he secretly furnished
men and supplies, permitted his vassals in the mountains to enlist
under the standards of Fieschi and instigated the people of Valnura and
Trebbia to obstruct the passes in front of the imperial troops.
Gerolamo, knowing the worth of Verrina’s advice and courage and the
intrepidity of Assereto and the band of heroes who had taken refuge in
Marseilles, sent many messengers to urge them to share with him the
peril and glory of the siege. These refugees had sent Ottobuono and
Cornelio Fieschi to the court of France to plead their cause, and the
king had received them with marks of favour and promised to restore
their fallen fortunes. The assurances were reiterated frequently, but
the French monarch took no steps to prove his sincerity. Verrina and
Assereto grew weary of the tedious delay and accepted the invitation
of Gerolamo without awaiting the return of the Fieschi, preferring
the risk of battle to begging for aid which was always promised but
never given. They crossed Piedmont and found means to enter Montobbio.
Gerolamo received them with joy and committed the defence to their
hands. Later, Ottobuono came to Mirandola and Verrina and Vicenzo
Varese went there to aid him in urging the French commander to assist
in the defence of the castle. They solicited in vain. This refusal of
France to succour Gerolamo is a new proof that Gianluigi had not agreed
to deliver Genoa into the hands of the French monarch. Francis was
prodigal of promises, but he left the Fieschi to encounter the forces
of the empire alone.
Spinola planted batteries on a height now called _Costa Rotta_
near Granara, a village to the west of the castle; but though he
bombarded the citadel for forty days he was not able to gain one inch
of ground, while the fire of the fortress mowed down the flower of
his troops and daily explosions of his own guns added to the loss
of life. Besides, the inclemency of the season and incessant rains
prevented the formation of lines of circumvallation. The besieged were
greatly encouraged, and the soldiers of the Republic proportionately
demoralized, by these circumstances. On the tenth of May the podestà
of Recco was ordered to send to Montobbio as a reinforcement to the
besiegers all the men of that commune between the ages of seventeen
and sixty years.
On the contrary, Paolo Moneglia and Manfredo Centurione had obtained
possession of Varese, with little loss of life, through the treachery
of its commandant, Giulio Landi, who surrendered it hoping to obtain
the investiture of the feud. But this success by no means compensated
for the losses under the walls of Montobbio. The castle of Cariseto
opposed a vigorous resistance to the troops of the Republic. The people
of that feud destroyed the roads, constructed fortifications and closed
up the passes which led to the place. Boniforte Garofolo succeeded at
length in forcing a path across the rugged summits of the surrounding
hills and stormed the out-lying defences. The attack began at dawn of
the 14th of April. The besieged flocked to the parapets, loop-holes
and barbicans, and with their musquetry and cannon held the assailants
at bay. The battle lasted the entire day. On the morrow, the Genoese
artillery shattered a large tower which fell burying a considerable
part of the defenders under its ruins. This misfortune discouraged the
rest and they offered to make a conditional surrender of the place.
Garofolo demanded a surrender at discretion, and the garrison insisted
upon security for their lives and property. Gian Francesco Niselli, a
friend of Fieschi and Pierluigi Farnese, was by accident in the place
at the time of the assault, and he, seeing the hopelessness of the
defence, sent messengers to Count Paolo Scotti requesting him to obtain
the permission of Farnese for the retreat of the garrison into the
territory of Piacenza. The duke readily consented, and the peasants and
soldiers effected their retreat in the following night. They lit up
fires on the side of the place which the enemy held and retired over
broken and difficult foot-paths through the mountains.
The duke had been deeply affected at the death of Gianluigi; but
to avoid a rupture with the empire he had sent Ottavio Bajardi to
Ferrante Gonzaga, offering his troops and even his own person to the
imperial cause. But he at the same time contrived to have the Pope
secure him immunity from imperial demands. He sent Agostino Landi,
count of Compiano, to congratulate Doria on his escape from the perils
which had overhung his house and sent back to him a great number of
fugitive slaves, belonging to the Doria galleys, who had taken refuge
in the mountains of Piacenza. He afterwards sent Salvatore Pocino to
the emperor to deny charges of complicity with Gianluigi. The emperor
knew all the facts and received the envoy with great coldness; but the
duke’s son who was in the imperial service pleaded more successfully
for his father.
Meanwhile, the large imperial army, which had been massed in Varese to
support the siege of Montobbio, kept the duke in constant apprehension
that it might be destined to punish him for his treachery. These fears
were strengthened by the fact that Gonzaga had added to Vistarino
and Oriola five other captains, Sebastiano Picenardi, Lodovico da
Borgo, Pier Francesco Trecco, Osio Casale and Gianfrancesco Ali, with
considerable bodies of troops and strict orders to levy new recruits
in Monticello and Castelvetro, feuds of the duke. To provide for
the danger, Farnese, who had Cornelio Fieschi under his protection,
reorganized the army of twelve thousand infantry which he had collected
in January at Cortemaggiore, sent commissaries to forbid enrolment
of imperial troops in his feuds, fortified the castles in his
jurisdiction, placed six hundred infantry at Borgo, a greater number at
Bardi and ordered Francesco Clerici commanding at Compiano to be on the
alert and in constant readiness for battle. Shortly after he instructed
his commissioner in Venice to ask the consent of that Republic to his
drawing eight thousand arquebuses from Brescia. He was allowed to draw
only five thousand. These operations led to reciprocal suspicions,
rancours and threats between Farnese and the imperial captains, and
Gonzaga, to prevent an open outbreak, recalled Vistarino from Bobbio.
This measure relieved Farnese from his present peril and he resolved
to take advantage of the siege of Montobbio to get possession, in
advance of the imperial troops, of some feuds of the Fieschi. He seized
Calestano, and then sent Gianantonio Torti with a strong force to
occupy Valditaro. As the Fieschi had some imperial vassals in these
feuds, Farnese informed Gonzaga that he wished to hold them for the
interests and rights of the empire. He did not wait for an answer,
but hurried his troops into the feuds. His designs upon Valditaro were
thwarted by Scipione and Cornelio Fieschi, who threw themselves into
it with about one thousand of their vassals and shut the gates in the
faces of the Ducal forces. He called Scipione to himself in Piacenza
and persuaded him that the forces of his family were too weak to
contend with the empire. Scipione consented that the duke should occupy
the castle in the interest of his family. He returned to his vassals
and persuaded them to enlist in the service of Farnese, who sent his
agent, doctor Giovanni Landemaria, to take possession in his name. The
acts of the notary Bartolomeo Bosoni clearly prove these facts.
Gonzaga was enraged at this stratagem of Farnese; and in fact the
occupation was of short duration. On the death of Farnese, Valditaro
was created a principate by the emperor and passed to Agostino Landi
whose ancestors had once held it. The inhabitants always retained their
love for the Fieschi house, and remembered long the mild government of
their old masters. They several times conspired to restore Scipione who
was born among them. In 1552, Gonzaga, incensed at these movements,
instigated Landi to dismantle the forts and towers lest they should
afford a place of refuge for the Fieschi.
More than ten thousand balls had been thrown at Montobbio; but the
Fieschi, safe in their defences, laughed at the rage of the assailants
and their own fire often seriously damaged the enemy. The people of
the surrounding country scarcely concealed their sympathy for the
besieged and furnished the castle with meat and provisions of every
kind. The commissioners of the Republic complained of this and said
that the inhabitants of Bargagli, Stroppa and other villages never
brought even an egg to the camp of the Genoese, while they gave liberal
supplies to the enemy. Spinola, despairing of success in the siege,
united with the commissaries in urging the government to attempt a new
negotiation.
At this time Doria learned of the death of king Francis, and this
event removed all apprehension that the French would relieve Montobbio
and attack the Spanish power in Italy. The recent victory of the
emperor over Frederick of Saxony at Elbe stimulated Andrea to a more
enthusiastic support of the imperial cause and to make a vigorous
opposition to the proposals of accommodation which the senate assembled
to discuss. He declaimed wrathfully against the shameful cowardice of
making terms with traitors and declared that the Fieschi could hope
nothing from France, because the new king Henry II. could not, if he
wished it, devote any attention in the first month of his reign to the
petty concerns of Montobbio and its handful of defenders. Though the
majority of the senate favoured a treaty with Gerolamo, the powerful
will of Doria prevailed and new troops were sent to Spinola. The prince
sent to the duke of Florence for bombardiers, munitions and other
military material of which there was a scarcity in the army of Genoa.
The duke furnished these and a considerable force of infantry under
Paolo da Castello; Ferrante Gonzaga sent two companies of four hundred
arquebusiers, Filippo Doria was ordered by Andrea to make new surveys
of the heights around Montobbio and to endeavour to place his artillery
in better positions, and this general moved his guns to the less
elevated height called Olmeto in our time and renewed the attack.
This bombardment produced no better results than the first one and the
siege must have failed had not fortune opened a new and easier road to
victory. A general order forbade any person not in the army to approach
within two miles of the bastions under penalty of death. One day a
soldier of the garrison dressed as a mountaineer was arrested in the
act of examining the works of the besiegers, and on his person were
found letters of Gerolamo to his brother Ottobuono. In these letters
the count declared that he could not continue the defence for more than
three months as his military supplies were insufficient for a longer
period, and he urged Ottobuono to secure the immediate aid of France.
Spinola was greatly encouraged by this discovery of the weakness of
his adversary. He detained the soldier for some days and then, having
seduced him by splendid promises, sent him back to Montobbio with a
false letter of Ottobuono, in which the writer informed the count
of the death of king Francis and declared that the only hope of the
besieged was in an accommodation with the senate.
This intelligence greatly dispirited the garrison, in whom the want
of supplies and the obstinate courage of the besiegers were beginning
to produce apprehension. But desperation lent them new strength and
they made several bold sorties which seriously damaged the enemy. To
the want of supplies, a new and more dangerous evil was soon added.
The mercenaries collected by Fieschi in the neighbouring feuds, being
poorly fed and receiving no pay, began to murmur and finally refused
to expose themselves to further peril. The count found that his own
life was threatened by these rebellious soldiers, and in letters
written on the 20th of March to Gian Maria Manara in Valditaro he asked
ten faithful men to serve as a guard of his own person. Manara was a
physician by profession and had so much influence with the Fieschi that
they had left him to govern at pleasure the whole valley of the Taro.
He furnished the men and obtained other reënforcements from captain
Mengo da Montedoglio who commanded in Valditaro for Farnese. Gerolamo
also sent a messenger to Cardinal Farnese to ask asylum in the church
of that prelate in case he should be reduced to extremities. In this he
was successful, and the cardinal also wrote to the Duke of Piacenza to
give Gerolamo all possible aid.
During the first days of May the siege was prosecuted with increased
vigour. The artillery of Filippo Doria poured a storm of shot into the
castle, the walls fell down in large pieces and the outer curtains were
ruined. There were many indications that the resistance could not
long continue. Still, the subordinates of Gerolamo restored during the
night the damage caused by the Ligurian and Florentine guns during the
day and there was no sign of discouragement in the intrepid leaders.
But the mercenaries continued to murmur and to refuse obedience to the
commanders, complaining of their privations and demanding their wages.
The count saw that it was necessary to surrender. Gerolamo Garaventa
and Tommaso Assereto went to the camp of Spinola and offered to yield
the place but on terms which the victors would not accept.
The Genoese general resolved to make a final assault upon the work. He
sent trumpeters to proclaim that all who wished to save their lives
must come within his lines; all who resisted the assault would be put
to the sword. But though they had been many days in great privation,
only two of the soldiers of Fieschi obeyed the summons. The assault was
begun with great fury and, added to the discontent of the mercenaries,
convinced Fieschi that he must surrender at once. He offered Spinola
the castle on condition that the lives and goods of the defenders
should be respected.
The senate met in Genoa to consider this proposition and the debate
shows that the Fieschi had many sympathizers in the senate and that
Andrea Doria was the real master of the Republic. After two days of
discussion the senate resolved to accept the offers of Fieschi.The
count, who knew how little value the pledges of the government really
possessed, asked to be secured against the vengeance of Andrea Doria.
The senate promised to secure the assent of Andrea to the negotiation
and applied to him for the purpose. But the prince, who knew that
Gerolamo was now in his power, refused his coöperation and the senate
had not the courage to maintain their position.
The garrison at Montobbio were greatly distressed by this attitude of
Doria. All means of obtaining provisions were cut off, and they must
soon be reduced by starvation. Still, they held a bold front to the
enemy and resolved to die fighting rather than surrender at discretion.
But the mercenaries broke into open rebellion and the more desperate,
after demanding their pay on the instant, seized a tower which had
hitherto defied all the enemy’s guns and surrendered it to the soldiers
of the Republic. The count and his faithful soldiers were obliged to
take shelter in a wing of the fortress. The treason of the adventurers
(which is spoken of not only in inedited documents but also by Adriani)
took away all hope from the defenders. They resolved to imitate the
garrison of Cariseto and retire by night over the rugged and almost
inaccessible heights in their rear. But Vicenzo Calcagno reminded them
that the count, who was corpulent of body, would not be able to make so
fatiguing a march over wild mountain paths and that the troops of Doria
held all the passes behind them. Assereto and some others resolved
to risk the journey and set out; but after a fatiguing march over
toilsome foot-paths they were surrounded and forced to surrender. The
count who still hoped that the Republic would make good its promises
yielded the castle to Spinola, who entered it with flying banners on
the morning of the 11th of June.
Spinola, as a faithful servant of Andrea, ordered his Corsicans as soon
as he had taken possession of the works to execute Calcagno, Manara and
some other partisans of the count suspected of having participated in
the murder of Gianettino. Domenico Doria, il Converso, also made some
executions. The rest, including the mercenaries, were held as prisoners
of war. But these last only were permitted to depart on parole. Count
Gerolamo, Verrina and Assereto were reserved for public execution in
the city and were treated with great inhumanity.
At the news of the surrender of Montobbio, the senate again assembled.
Most of the senators held that one of the first families of Italy,
bound by relationship to the most illustrious houses, ought not to
be plunged into deeper calamity. They plead with Doria. The Fieschi
had been sufficiently punished by the confiscation of their property,
the destruction of their houses and the death of Gianluigi. Why vent
unchristian rage on the heads of Gerolamo and his brothers? They were
unfortunate young men to whom the plots of their brother had been
unknown. Gianluigi had suddenly precipitated them into rebellion
and they deserved pardon for their almost involuntary share in the
conspiracy. Let Doria open his great heart to more generous, to more
magnanimous counsels. Let him imitate the example of Cæsar who would
not condemn to death the Saxon whom he had conquered in battle.
Doria was deaf to these appeals of the senators. He refused all
compromises. The Fieschi and their companions must die. The writers in
the Doria interest do not disguise this fact. Mascardi says:--
“Those who favoured clemency were in the majority. They urged that
forbearance was a necessary quality in governments, that the violence
of Gianluigi mitigated the guilt of his confederates and that the youth
of his brothers ought to extenuate their offence. Andrea Doria was
greatly displeased to see the Republic so basely betrayed, and going
into the senate he spoke with so much force and authority that the
unfortunate men were condemned to death.”
In the monastery of St. Andrea della Porta lived a sister of the
Fieschi named Suor Angela Catterina. She imitated the example of the
two pious women in her family, of whom we have elsewhere spoken, and
she was held in high esteem. As soon as she heard of the condemnation
of her brother, Gerolamo, she made the most earnest supplications to
the government on his behalf.
“I could not,” said the afflicted sister, “abandon a brother in such
a terrible calamity. That God, whom human judges ought to imitate, is
compassionate as well as just with sinners. Senators should remember
that Gerolamo was drawn into the conspiracy of his brother without any
previous knowledge of his intentions, and, that he himself has never
plotted against the Republic, that he surrendered Montobbio with the
confident expectation that the senate would spare his life. The senate
should keep faith and pardon this son of Sinibaldo one of the warmest
advocates and defenders of the union and liberty of the country. Let
them remember what Christ said: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they
shall obtain mercy;’ almost beside myself with grief and more dead than
alive, I fall at the feet of the prince and conjure him by the mercy of
Christ to pardon my poor brother.” It was in vain. She was encouraged
to hope, but the pardon never came. The senate had not the courage to
take the victim out of the hands of Doria.
The populace was still agitated and full of seditious plans. Though
a deep mystery enveloped the action of the government, the people
suspected the vindictive intention of Doria and threatened revolt. This
led the government to transfer the execution from Genoa to Montobbio.
Two priests were at once despatched to the castle, Gian Maria Paulocio,
one of the officers of the Ruota, and Tommaso Doria, to examine the
prisoners and report their defence to the senate.
Soon after the _Podesta_ for criminal cases was also sent, under
decree of the 4th of July. This was Polidamante del Majno a man of
considerable talents. The count, Verrina and other leaders were
subjected to the rope torture, a useless barbarity because they
were already condemned to death. Polidamante tried every means to
escape this painful office, and we learn from some letters of his to
the senate that he had protested against being commissioned for the
examination.
The Republic had begun by declaring the Fieschi guilty of high treason
and denying them trial or defence. He subsequently wrote to the senate:
“If your excellencies do not make some change, I shall be in a very
painful position and people may justly think that I prosecute this
unfortunate affair (maladetta causa) with personal motives. You know
how I laboured to relieve myself from this duty. Therefore I beseech
you to relieve me at once from my present embarrassment by declaring
clearly that we may admit new testimony, or by revoking your second
decree, and proceeding logically by carrying out your first executive
mandate.” The senate solved the difficulty by ordering the punishment
of the prisoners without trial. The common soldiers were pardoned. Some
of the conspirators were condemned to the halter, others to the oar.
The sentence was executed on the 23rd of July. Desiderio Cangialanza
was the first to mount the scaffold and he was followed by some whose
names history has not preserved. It was too busy with laudations
of Doria and invectives against the fallen. Gerolamo, Verrina and
Assereto, being patricians, were beheaded in the chapel of San Rocco
at the foot of the fortress. Servile as was the age it was forced
to admire the heroic bearing of Verrina whose character was cast in
the old Roman mould. He was twice tortured, but he would not utter
a word about the secrets of the conspiracy. The night preceeding his
execution he spoke with serenity of the doctrines to which he had given
his faith, and encouraged his companions to meet their last hour with
courageous composure. He went to the scaffold with the step rather of a
conqueror than of a criminal.
The sentence of death embraced the exiles Ottobuono and Cornelio, and,
what is more iniquitous, the youthful Scipione and his descendants to
the fifth generation were banished. Some writers have maintained that
Sacco was also executed at Montobbio. But though the documents relating
to the treaty with Gerolamo are few and it is apparent that many have
been surreptitiously removed from the public archives, yet we have been
so fortunate as to find some letters of Sacco himself which entirely
invalidate this statement. Another person has already printed some of
them. His correspondence with Luigi Ferrero of Savona, in February,
show that he was then in Turin on his way back from France.
In Turin he was befriended by presidents Catto and Birago. The latter
concealed him in one of his own houses on the banks of the Po. He had
friends, kept up party affiliations, and hoped that the recent death of
the English monarch would occasion a war in Italy. In other letters,
addressed to his wife Alessandra, he alludes to his hope of French
interference and expresses an intention of returning to that court. He
gives her advice for the management of domestic affairs and recommends
her to Nicolò Doria, Antonio De Fornari and Giovanni Gerolamo Salvago.
There is a letter to count Gerolamo Fieschi in which he asks a hundred
crowns and letters of recommendations to the king of France, Delfino,
the admiral and the cardinals Tornone and Ferrara. He exhorts the
count to be diligent in furnishing his fortresses and to put on a bold
front in order to discourage his enemies and inspirit his friends.
The records of the trial show that the Ferrero gave these letters to
the senate. The most important of these epistles is the one written
in July to Pietro Francesco Grimaldi Robio, doctor of the college of
judges, in which he exculpates himself from the charge made by Verrina
of having been the first instigator of the conspiracy. He shows that
Verrina had been the beginning, middle and end of the plot. He says
that if Calcagno were alive, he would fully exculpate him from the
accusations; but as this person was dead it only remained for him to
recite all the facts of the conspiracy. This history he says will show
him to have been innocent. His only fault was that he had been born
in Savona. Had he been a Genoese he would have communicated his first
knowledge of the plot to the senate and thus escaped condemnation, or
be as lightly punished as many of his present accusers. He admits that
he concealed the conspiracy but asks: “Ought I to have denounced the
count, my master and exposed him to death and infamy? If this silence
is a fault, I do not hesitate to accept the responsibility of it, I
have already written to the Doge and I repeat, that if the senate will
send to Turin a person in whom they have confidence I will recite the
whole story of the plot. I do not say this to beg pardon for what I
have done, but to disprove unjust charges heaped upon my name.” These
are the customary phrases of informers.
These papers show that Sacco was not involved in the condemnation
of his accomplices. For the rest, we are not permitted to know what
was the nature of his revelations, because the most important papers
of this trial are wanting. We believe, however, that some mutilated
documents refer to this matter. We learn from them that a certain
Filippo di Graveggia carried letters under the saddle of a mule to
Parma, Bologna and other cities.
Having restored order, the government informed its friends of the
taking of Montobbio, especially Duke Cosimo whose aid had been so
valuable to the besiegers. But there were ominous signs of discontent
in all classes of the people in every part of the Republic. The
government sent Tommaso Spinola and Antonio Doria to Henry II. to
condole with him on the death of his father and congratulate him on
his accession to the throne; but the more important part of their
business was to spy out the movements of the Fieschi and to render them
obnoxious at the court where the name was held in such high esteem.
The fortress of Montobbio shared the fate of the palace in Vialata. The
government, in concert with Doria and Figueroa, decreed on the 11th of
June that it should be levelled with the earth, “so that,” said the
proclamation, “no evidence may remain that any fortification has ever
existed there.” Even the brow of the mountain was ordered to be thrown
into the valley so that no castle could ever be erected on the site.
Whoever should attempt to build there was declared a rebel and his
goods confiscated to the state.
Prince Doria assumed the charge of this demolition, but the expense was
borne by the Republic. Giovanni Bozzo, podestà of Montobbio, reported
on the 10th of August that Paolo di Mirandola had excavated three mines
under the castle, one on the East side seventy-six palms in length
with openings at the two sides; the second, on the South, ran twenty
palms into the mountain from the bank of the stream, the third, on the
West side where the principal battery had stood, penetrated a distance
of ten palms. Mirandola, he reports, declared that the mines must be
extended as the castle had the strength of steel. The explosion of
these mines blew the whole work to the ground reducing it at once to a
total ruin.
In our time even the face of nature is changed. Wild weeds grow on that
slope where gardens once bloomed. The daffodils which breathe their
perfume over the place are the only witnesses to ancient culture. A
beautiful lake which lay at the foot of the castle has disappeared. It
probably covered a spot to which tradition gives the name _Lago della
Signora_.