The Duomo—Our host’s advice—Joseph the Second—Tombs—That to the
memory of Giovanni and Gabrielle de’ Medici, designed by Michael
Angelo—Chapel of St. John—St. Bartholomew—Tomb of Otho, archbishop
of Milan—Crucifix carried by St. Charles of Borromeo—Antique
altar—Burial-place of St. Charles—La Scala—Opera ballet—The
Brera, once monastery of the Umiliati—Paintings—The old
castle—Arms of the Visconti—Prerogative preserved to himself by
Giovanni—The parricide—Filippo Mario—His innocent wife
executed—Carmagnuola Filippo’s general—Forced by his injustice to
change of party—Suspicions of his new masters—His
execution—Francis Sforza—His youth—His name’s origin—Jane of
Naples—Imprisoned by her husband—Set free—King James a monk of St.
Francis—Forte Braccio—Sforza’s death—Arena—Roman ruin.
27th.
Passed the morning in the ramblings which travellers are heir to, first
proceeding to the Duomo. As I wished to see there the holy mummy of St.
Charles, which lies in its crystal case and subterranean chapel, I
asked our host for directions: “You must knock,” said he, “at the door
of the sacristy, and there you will find a priest.” “A priest; a
gentleman?” “Yes, you had better ask his charge beforehand, as he may
be extravagant; and there are about a dozen steps to descend, and
should his demand be exorbitant, you can give him two-thirds or the
half, which will satisfy him.”
Passing the post-office and finding no letters, we arrived at the
cathedral in five minutes. It occupies one extremity of a most
irregular place, and if its façade wants taste, or at least
consistency, having some doors and windows of Roman architecture,
mingled with the Gothic, and its form is that of a heavy pyramid,—yet
seen in the bright sunshine, its mass of white marble, with all its
pinnacles surmounted by statues, standing shining forth from the purest
of blue skies as if they were carved in snow, its effect is far more
striking than the engravings would lead to expect, and the grandeur of
its size and delicacy of its execution justify the exclamation of
Joseph the Second: “It is a golden mountain, chiselled by fairies, and
metamorphosed to marble.” The statues which adorn the edifice are in
number about four thousand five hundred, of which two hundred and fifty
decorate the façade. Each of the twelve needles supports a colossal
figure; that of the Virgin having for base the tallest of all, of
Moorish architecture. Her statue is in gilt copper, and from the
pavement to the glory round her head the elevation is a hundred and
eight metres, eighty-six centimetres. To describe these and the bassi
relievi which encrust the façade of this noble church would be endless,
and indeed the intense heat prevented my examining the half of them;
but I particularly remarked for their beauty the two figures which
represent the Old and New Testament at either end of the great balcony
above the chief portal. The two interior columns of this central
entrance, for there are five, are of enormous height and size,
considering that each is carved of a single block of the pink granite
of Baveno. Within, the cathedral is divided into five aisles (the nave
being of double width), separated by fifty-two massive pillars of
octagon form; four others of far heavier dimensions, raised in the
centre of the church, support the cupola, and their strange capitals
each exhibit eight statues. On the right near the entrance is the tomb
of Eribert, archibishop of Milan, who died in 1035, and farther against
the wall a monument, which is a Gothic gem, decorated with small
statues, each in its niche; while on the top lies in marble effigy one
Marco Carelli, who gave 35,000 golden ducats towards the expenses of
the building. Of the chapels, that best worthy notice is beside the
small door which opens on the stair, whose 512 steps conduct to the
dome erected to the memory of Giovanni and Gabriello de’ Medici, by
Pope Pius the Fourth their brother. The real name was Medechino though
Giovanni, become one of the great captains of his day, took advantage
of its similitude with that of the Florentine house, and adopted their
armorial bearings. He had obtained distinction early. Presented when a
young officer to Francis Sforza, who having married Blanche of
Visconti, and lost his father-in-law, after their long dissensions,
became, in the latter’s place, lord of Milan; he gained his entire
confidence. Astorio Visconti might, it was feared, assert his right to
the Milanese sovereignty, and Medechino, with another named Pozzino,
were chosen for his assassins. Astorio dead, Sforza’s anxiety to rid
himself of his accomplices, induced him to command the death of
Pozzino, while Giovanni Giacomo received an order to repair to the
castle of Muzzo, on the shores of the lake of Como, charged with a
letter for the governor. On his way thither, though they had parted on
the best terms, he suspected the intentions of Sforza, and opened his
despatches. Finding there his doubts confirmed, he fabricated others,
commanding the governor to yield him present possession of the
fortress, and once installed therein, he held it against all the
efforts of the duke of Milan. He afterwards took Chiavenna; and,
lastly, offered himself to Charles the Fifth, the emperor, who created
him duke of Marignano, and to whom his courage and conduct rendered
signal service in the wars of Germany. Having incurred the emperor’s
displeasure, by unnecessarily prolonging the siege of Sienna, at the
head of the army which Charles placed at the disposal of the Grand Duke
Cosmo to subdue the revolted inhabitants, and also by his pillage and
cruelties exercised towards the peasantry of the country which
surrounds the town during the eight months the siege lasted, he fell
ill from grief at losing his master’s favour, and died at
Milan,—where, four years after, his brother, elected pope, raised this
mausoleum to his memory, designed by Michael Angelo. The six beautiful
columns are in Roman marble, the remainder of marble of Carrara,
excepting the statues which are of bronze; those of the brothers, of
colossal size, occupying the centre, between two weeping figures of
Peace and Heroism.
The large chapel, dedicated to San Giovanni Buono, which terminates the
transept, is next in order: it contains some fine bassi relievi and
statues; among the latter a group, near the altar, of a guardian angel,
who carefully leads a child, while his foot holds down, without an
effort, a prostrate demon. At the entrance of this chapel stand two
colossal figures of saints, bad, and in plaster,—though not perhaps
injurious to the effect of the whole, and to judge of it, this spot is
the best which can be chosen. We gazed at all its details, the hollow
of the high dome rich with countless statues; the chapel opposite, with
its rich stained window, seen athwart a forest of columns; the light
through the coloured glass crossing with a red ray pillar and floor,
and touching the forms of bishop and cardinal in their niches; on the
capitals the square grated aperture, before the steps of the choir,
which gives light and air to the burial place of St. Charles; the
semi-circular pulpits of carved and gilded bronze, supported by bronze
figures, leaned each against its massive column; the sculptured stalls
of the canons,—the altar with its curious temple and red canopy, and
the tall painted windows seen behind it, and the golden star shining on
the roof above, within which lies the relic of the St. Cloud which,
with multifarious ceremonies, is once a year let down by pulleys to
meet the eyes of the faithful, and with like pomp mounted to its place
again:—the rich lamps suspended by gilded chains, and the priests
officiating in their robes of black, green, and crimson,—and the view
seen dimly through and along the pillared arches where they turn round
choir and high altar. The white marble has no glare; it is stained with
a succession of softer greys than mellow stone. Near the same chapel of
San Giovanni, and the entrance to the subterranean passage which,
imagined by Pellegrini, leads to the Archevêché, hangs, suspended from
a pillar, a much-prized picture by Procaccini, effaced almost wholly.
As we passed on beside the choir, we looked through the gratings which,
surmounted by most delicate sculpture, light the subterranean chapel
beneath, also having marble columns, balustrades, and altars. Opposite
is a fine monument in black, supporting a figure in white marble, which
reclines upon it,—the head resting on the hand, executed by Augustin
Busti, to the memory of the Cardinal Marini Caracciolo; and near it and
the door, which opens into the southern sacristy, and which I beg you
to notice for its lovely and elaborate carvings, hangs an effigy of Our
Lady of Succour. Italian taste has glazed this picture, which is an
ancient one, and represents the Virgin giving the breast to the
Saviour, who stands on her knee,—and stuck, outside the glass, above
the heads and across the throats, tin crowns and bead necklaces. Above,
its pedestal jutting from the wall, is the statue of Pope Martin the
Fifth, raised by the command of Filippo Mario Visconti, last duke of
Milan of the name. The flayed St. Bartholomew, who carries his skin on
his shoulders, is a fine specimen of anatomy, and a most disagreeable
production of art. Past the three stained windows and the long lists of
relics contained in the Duomo, is a strange tomb, which resembles a red
marble chest, supported aloft by two columns, and containing the ashes
of Otho, archbishop of Milan. The seated statue above is that of Pope
Pius the Fourth; next comes the door of the northern sacristy, even
more beauteous in its sculpture than its companion, and the tomb of the
three brothers, Arcimboldi. We had arrived at the first chapel in the
transept, dedicated to St. Thecla, who is there among the lions, all
carved in white marble,—a red riband and silver heart hung round her
neck by some devotee.
The large chapel, which corresponding to that of San Giovanni Buono,
terminates this cross aisle, is dedicated to the Virgin; and beautiful,
in spite of masses of artificial flowers in the hands and tinsel on the
heads, is the group of the Virgin and Child. On either side of the
entrance is a colossal plaster statue, even worse executed than those
in San Giovanni’s chapel, and the floor in front is paved with the
tombs of six cardinals. Farther on, descending the aisle, there is over
an altar a wooden crucifix inclosed in a glass frame, interesting
because the same which was carried by St. Charles Borromeo when he
walked barefoot in the processions he instituted during the plague of
1576. There existed here formerly an antique altar, remarkable for its
age only, surmounted by a figure of the Virgin in wood, rudely carved
and heavily framed. When removed some time since, there were discovered
behind it two inscriptions by one Alexio of Albania, an officer of Duke
Francis Sforza, who, in gratitude to Our Lady for his successes, raised
this altar in the year 1480. Near the entrance stands the baptismal
font, (a large vase of porphyry, brought, it is believed, from the
baths of Maximilian,) beneath a tabernacle, whose pillars are of
antique marble, and their capitals of carved bronze.
The pavement, with its arabesque ornaments and various coloured
marbles, is worn by the feet of curious or faithful, and from the dirty
habits of the numbers who frequent the church, forces one to tread it
with the same precaution as the streets themselves.
Having made the tour, we returned to rest ourselves on one of the
benches opposite the choir, allowable, where people walk and talk
unscrupulously during mass, for I noticed even priests doing so with
the unconcern of two boys, who kneeled before San Giovanni Buono,
praying a little and talking a little by turns. Opposite the doors of
the two sacristies are steps conducting to the subterranean chapels,
the roof of the first supported by eight massive marble columns. The
sunbeams from above entered faintly, touching with their gold a part of
the quaint carving, and leaving the rest in obscurity, hardly lessened
by the light which burned feebly in the elegantly formed lamp before
the marble balustrade of the altar. The guide leads the way to the
inner chapel, which is St. Charles’s sepulchre. From the grated opening
in the floor above, it receives but a pale and imperfect day; and as
the torch which the priest bears flashes on the riches it contains, its
precious metals and marble floor, to the worth of four millions, it
resembles Aladdin’s cave rather than a burial place. The vault is of
octagon form, the roof encrusted with silver bassi relievi, recalling
the principal events of the saint’s life; the panels of cloth of gold
divided by silver Caryatides, representing the Virtues, one at each
angle; and the saint’s embalmed body attired in pontifical robes laid
at its extremity in a shrine of rock crystal mounted in silver and
ornamented with the arms of Philip the Fourth of Spain, (by whom it was
presented to the cathedral,) wrought in massive gold; the dead face and
hands are bare, the latter covered with jewels, which sparkle as in
mockery.
Having spent the day in the Duomo, the curiosity next in order was La
Scala. You know that it retains this name because erected on the site
of a church founded by Beatrice of La Scala, wife of Bernabo Visconti.
We went thither in the evening, the opera being Roberto Devereux, and
the ballet the last Visconti and first Sforza. The house, which yields
in size only to San Carlo of Naples, is freshly and brilliantly
decorated; its six rows of boxes which each with its drapery are
carried up the whole height, its pit seventy-five feet long and
sixty-six broad, are capable of containing three thousand six hundred
spectators. Its demerits are, that its fine lustre lights its immense
space imperfectly; that the effect of the royal box which fronts the
stage and is handsome, is injured by the crown above it, out of all
proportion ponderous; that its singers are scarce above mediocrity, and
its scenery below criticism. Whether from these causes or the season,
there were not a dozen people in the boxes, and the parterre was but
half filled. The governor’s box is within two of the stage, but he did
not occupy it. La Scala once boasted a first-rate scene-painter, but
dying, he failed to drop his mantle on his successor, and, saving a few
of his faded scenes, you can fancy nothing so pitiable. The prima
donna, who performs Queen Elizabeth of England and possesses a voice
just passable, is unhappily plain, and Roberto Devereux, Earl of Essex,
chanted a base most awful. The costumes were of any and no period, and
yet the audience in the pit determined to be pleased, and compensating
for its small numbers by applauding manfully, demanded the performers
at the close of the first act, when Roberto and his beloved, who,
fearing the queen’s ire, had just parted for ever, came forward to bow
and curtsey hand in hand. Of the undelivered ring we heard nothing, but
a great deal of a dirty blue scarf which belonged to the damsel, and by
mistake was sent as a token to the queen. Quitting the opera at the end
of the second act, an Italian custom which would destroy all illusion,
if such existed, we summoned patience to see the ballet, more fatiguing
to the eyes and incomprehensible to the understanding than anything I
could have imagined, the heads, arms and hands of the actors moving in
unison with every note of the music, and forming a ludicrous contrast
to the expressive French pantomime and magical decorations of the grand
Opera. The dancers were ungraceful, but all, even to the fat
figurantes, were applauded noisily, and they have, I observe, the habit
of concluding each pas seul with a grateful curtsey to the pit. The
palace of Visconti was a chaos of tin, coloured paper and sheets of
foil, and the ballet ended with a seafight, (rockets sent across the
stage representing cannon,) and the entrance of a party of pasteboard
deities who came in on wheels. We did not wait for the last act of the
opera, preferring to stroll home by the light of a young moon.
28th.
Torrents of rain. We passed a part of the day at the Brera, which was,
in times of yore, the monastery of the Umiliati; the order which
produced St. Charles’s assassin, and on its suppression was yielded to
that of the Jesuits, who have left in its noble courts and spacious
halls the mark of their wealth and power. A double tier of pillared
arcades surrounds the court, while opposite the entrance is the fine
staircase, designed by the architect Piermarini; a monument to whose
memory, with others sacred to native poets and painters, occupy places
beneath these porticoes, for the Brera unites within its walls the
picture gallery, the cabinet of medals, the observatory, and the
schools of painting, sculpture, architecture and anatomy, besides a
gymnasium and a botanical garden on the spot where the monks cultivated
theirs. In the fine rooms which contain the paintings are some of the
most splendid I have seen of Paul Veronese, particularly the Adoration
of the Saviour by the Wise Men of the East, whose subject might puzzle
a novice, for the wise men are dressed in the costume of Paul’s time,
one of them accompanied by his dwarf, and the baby Christ wears a pearl
diadem on his brow. I noticed also a superb Vandyck, St. Ambrose in
Prayer to the Virgin, and a Last Supper by Rubens, whose composition it
would be difficult not to prefer to that on the same subject by Paul
Veronese. Guercino’s Abraham and Agar, which several students were
employed in copying badly, is very beautiful; the weeping face of Agar
about to go forth to the desert contrasts finely with the proud and
half averted one of Sara. In one of the rooms are several heads of the
famed fresco of Leonardo da Vinci, carefully raised from the walls of
what was the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and is now a
barrack-room. We had gone thither hoping to see its remains, but the
convent, converted to military uses, is not now shown. We could enter
the church only, which, an ill-formed mass of red brick without, is
curious within, and has a side chapel filled with monuments, decorated
with ultra Catholic care, but many of them ancient and interesting. The
head of the Saviour, which is at the Brera, is mild and beautiful in
expression, but its colouring wholly faded.
The library is rich in curious manuscripts, and occupies five spacious
apartments; in the first are two bad portraits of the emperor and his
consort. All the modern productions we saw, for there is a smaller
chamber dedicated to them, were strangely wretched in their execution.
This part of Milan contains the widest streets and finest palazzi; the
latter awoke my admiration, with their double gates and arcaded courts,
surrounded by orange and pomegranate trees.
The most interesting spot in Milan, recalling as it does names famous
in its story, is the old castle, which held in turn the Visconti and
the Sforza. Originally built in 1358 by Galeazzo, lord of Milan, it was
demolished at his death through the jealous fears of the citizens, but
rebuilt by his son Giovanni Galeazzo. It stood unmolested till the
decease of Filippo Mario, last duke of the Visconti family, when the
Milanese, determined on adopting a republican form of government, razed
it to the ground once more. Francis Sforza, married to Blanche,
daughter of Filippo Mario, and become duke of Milan, raised it from its
ruins with strength and extent greater than before. It is this, of the
date of 1450, which exists even now, for only its fortifications were
destroyed in 1801 by Napoleon’s order, substituting a vast open space
and avenues, which form shady promenades. Towards the town are the two
massive round towers, and entering on this side you cross five inner
courts, in the last of which (that fronting the place d’armes and Arco
del Sempione) are the ancient state apartments. On the capitals of the
columns which support the vestibule of the grand staircase are carved
the arms of Sforza and Visconti; the latter bare the serpent on their
escutcheon on account of the exploit of an ancestor who, ere yet his
family ruled Milan, marched to the first crusade with Godfrey of
Bouillon, and there, in single combat, killed a Saracen general, and
despoiled him of his arms and the shield on which was emblazoned a
snake swallowing a child.
Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, born in 1347, whose daughter Valentine
espoused the duke of Orleans, the murdered son of Charles the Fifth of
France, purchased of the Emperor Wenceslas the rank of duke, which he
bore first of his family. He was a believer in astrology, and when
already attacked with plague, a comet becoming visible in the heavens,
he made no doubt that it appeared to summon him.
His son Giovanni Mario commenced his reign by a parricide. The duchess,
his mother, favoured the Guelph party. That of the Ghibellines, under
the name and by the authority of the duke, then fifteen years of age,
forced her to fly to Monza. Surprising her there, they dragged her back
to the castle of Milan, and soon after murdered her within its walls.
Giovanni Mario, by turns the instrument of Guelph and Ghibelline, lost
his large possessions one by one, till only the town of Milan obeyed
his sway, and even within the ducal city the sole prerogative he
reserved to himself was the command of its executions.
From his childhood surrounded by crime, and inured to the sight of
blood, he at last found pleasure only in witnessing a fellow creature’s
agony as the sole excitement strong enough to rouse him. The slow forms
of justice slurred over or put aside, the condemned were delivered to
his power to be hunted to death by bull-dogs, whom his huntsman Gevanco
had taught the taste of human flesh to accustom them to their fearful
office. At last, when the measure of his crimes was overflowing, he was
massacred by the Milanese nobles as he was about to enter the church of
St. Gothard, the 16th of May, 1412, aged only twenty-two years. His
brother Filippo Mario, on the news of his death, obliged the widow of
Facino Cave, Giovanni’s trusted general, who had died of malady the
same day as the duke by violence, to marry him ere she had laid her
husband in his grave, and although she was twenty years his senior; she
held at her disposal a brilliant army, the garrisons of various towns,
and a fortune of four hundred thousand golden florins.
Taking instant possession of her riches, he purchased with their
distribution the fidelity of Facino’s soldiers, and marched to Milan,
of which they made him master. He undertook to reduce Lombardy to the
obedience she had sworn to his father, but being cruel and crafty, and
not brave, and seldom daring to leave the shelter of his fortified
walls, he seemed little fitted to accomplish such an enterprise. It
happened, however, on almost the only occasion in which Filippo Mario
had been present in battle, that he distinguished among his soldiers
one named Carmagnuola, who, born in the lowest grade of society, had
been an officer’s servant, and now first enrolled himself in the ranks
of the army. Apt to discern the military merit he could not imitate, he
made Carmagnuola his officer, and the latter, rewarding his
quicksightedness, and himself recompensed with the titles of count and
the rank of general, reconquered all Lombardy. But Filippo Mario, in
the caprice of tyranny, flung down the foundations of his fortune.
Falsely accusing his wife Beatrice of being untrue to him, he sent her
to perish on the scaffold; and suddenly taking umbrage at the power and
distinction of Carmagnuola, he dismissed him from the command of his
troops, denied him an interview, flung into prison his wife and
daughters, and forced his general to fly for safety to Venice, whither
he was followed by an assassin, who failed to accomplish his errand.
Treachery obliging Carmagnuola to treason against the state he had
first served, he took the command of the armies of the two republics of
Venice and Florence, and the duke of Milan found him a victorious
enemy, though opposed to his son-in-law Francis Sforza. After a signal
defeat of the Milanese the peace which ensued restored his wife and
children to liberty, but Carmagnuola had roused Venetian suspicion by
generously sending back all the prisoners he had made in battle, and
when on the renewal of the war he met with unusual reverses, they
called his ill fortune perfidy. The Council of Ten, in consequence,
summoned him to Venice, there to advise the republic daring the
negotiations for peace, received him with extraordinary pomp, the doge
honouring him with a seat by his side, and expressing to him affection
and gratitude as the voice of the republic; but hardly had his soldiers
retired, leaving him unguarded in the senate, than Carmagnuola,
destined to be the mark of ingratitude, was seized and heavily ironed,
flung into a dungeon, and given to the torture. Twenty days after his
arrest he was brought forth—gagged lest he should assert his
innocence,—and beheaded. Of all his immense wealth which it
confiscated, the republic only allowing a poor annuity to his daughters.
His death, in 1432, delivered Duke Filippo Mario from his most
formidable foe, but ever pursuing the same wavering policy during his
whole reign, he troubled and devastated Italy with an inconstancy of
motive and action not to be comprehended. His natural daughter Blanche
long promised and at last married to Francis Sforza, he by turns united
his generals against his son-in-law, or sought his protection against
them. He had once again had recourse to him, and peace between them was
hardly ratified, when, as Francis and Blanche were on their way to join
him at Milan, he was seized with fever, and died almost suddenly.
This Francis Sforza, who succeeded to the last Visconti, despite the
right of the duke of Orleans, whose mother was Valentine of Milan, was
the son of a brave man, himself the founder of his family. His name was
Giaco Attendolo, and his father a labourer; and the young man, though,
from feelings of duty to his family, he pursued the like toil, was
often distracted from his occupation by a feeling which might be a
presentiment of future fortunes, that his place of exertion was
elsewhere. One day, while employed in cutting copsewood, he heard the
sound of military music proceeding from a troop of soldiers advancing
along the high road which bounded his father’s field, and his old
longings and hesitation returned upon him. With something of the
superstition of his time, he resolved that a presage should decide on
his destiny, and turning his face towards an oak tree, which grew at no
inconsiderable distance, and towered among the bushes old and mighty,
he flung his hatchet against its trunk: “If it falls harmless,” he
said, “my arm shall be that of a peasant still; if it pierces to the
core, I am a soldier!” Hurled with his whole force, the axe cut through
the bark, and sank deep into the tree, and Attendolo, casting one
glance where it lay buried in the stem of the old oak, sprang from the
place where he stood, and among the ranks of the soldiers: “My strength
has decided my fate,” he exclaimed, “you may call me Sforza.”
Received as one of their band, his impetuosity and courage, which
suffered no counsel, and was stopped by no resistance, soon confirmed a
name which became that of his family. It was an epoch for military
talent, and Sforza in a short time was of the chief of the condottieri
who sold their service to those states whose gold was most plenty, and
commanded a thousand horsemen.
In the year 1414, he conducted his army to Naples, and obtained honours
and employment from Jane the Second, queen of Naples, but when James of
Bourbon, comte de la Marche, her husband, less patient than she had
expected, seized on her low-born lover Alopo, and condemned him to die
in torments, Sforza was flung into a dungeon, where he remained a year,
during which period the queen was captive also, and watched unceasingly
by an old French knight, who was her gaoler.
A popular disturbance, occasioned by Neapolitan indignation, at length
freed the sovereign. James, whose day of power was over, as he
supported impatiently the influence of the queen’s new favourite
Caraccioli, was arrested in turn, and though at the pope’s intercession
he recovered his liberty, he thought fit to make his escape from the
palace, and fly to Tarento, with the intent of stirring to insurrection
the southern provinces. Besieged there, and losing all hopes of
reigning at Naples, he returned to France and exchanged his kingly
robes for the habit of St. Francis in the convent of Ste. Claire of
Besançon, where he died.
Towns, fortresses, and fiefs of importance, rewarded Sforza’s fidelity;
his soldiers were more devoted to him than ever before adventurers had
been to a condottiere. He had summoned his relatives around him, men,
like himself, reared in fatigues and hardships, and who made a ring of
gallant and devoted followers about his person. His rival in the same
career, one whose glory and genius equalled his own, was the
condottiere Forte Braccio, and in almost every occasion in which their
forces took different sides, Sforza’s had the disadvantage. When, after
having long served Queen Jane, he was won over by Pope Martin the Fifth
to quit her defence for that of Louis of Anjou, opposed to Braccio he
lost almost the whole of his army. Throwing himself on his generosity,
he rode to the camp with fifteen unarmed horsemen, and asked his
interest with Queen Jane, whose soldier he was determined to be once
more. Forgetting their long rivalry, the two captains repaired to her
court, where Jane received Sforza and named him lord high constable.
Soon after, she commanded him to oppose his forces to those of her
adopted son, Alfonso of Arragon, to whose party Braccio had remained
attached. Thus, though unwillingly, they became foes again; and Sforza,
having forced Alfonso to abandon Naples, marched to deliver the town of
Aquila, besieged by Braccio. The 4th of January, 1424, he arrived on
the shores of the river Pescara. Braccio’s troops, which occupied the
town of the same name, had defended its banks with palisades.
Determined to ford it, though at the very mouth, armed, and wearing his
helmet, Sforza first spurred his horse into the water, traversed it at
the head of four hundred men at arms, and dislodged the enemy; but the
remainder of his forces having failed to follow, he swam his charger
back to seek them.
Crossing for the third time, on his return to the attack, when about
half way over, he saw one of his young pages, whom the strength of the
current was about to bear away, and stooping suddenly over his horse to
seize and save him, himself lost his balance, and sank; the weight of
his armour preventing him from swimming, and even rendering it
impossible to recover his drowned body. He was the ablest and most
intrepid of Italian warriors. Of his posterity all lived and died
obscurely, saving the illegitimate son, who was duke of Milan, Francis
Sforza.
We have lingered perhaps too long for your patience in the Castello;
and the Arena, which, entering Milan by the Arco del Sempione, or Della
Pace, as it is now called, is on the left hand, is worth a visit. We
walked there last evening: the principal entrance also gives access to
the Pulvinare, a fine building, which contains a spacious hall and
commodious chambers, arranged for the reception of the court on the
occasion of a gala. A broad stair conducts to the former, whose columns
of red granite face the amphitheatre to which descend its granite
steps, the place assigned to the viceroy and dignitaries of Milan, and
covered with cushions and draperies when so honoured. The seats which
surround this amphitheatre, capable of containing thirty thousand
persons, are covered with green turf, and rise, range above range, up
the sloping sides to the level, which forms a pleasant walk under
orange and taller trees. There is a rivulet which fills the space with
water, when, instead of the races usually held here, the exhibition is
to be nautical. A grand fête will take place in a few days with a show
of fireworks, our host says unparalleled! but the rain, which to-day
has fallen in torrents, seems disinclined to give place to them, and
will prepare unpleasantly the green sofas of the audience.
Notwithstanding the weather, we visited the sixteen Corinthian columns,
which in this ancient city are the sole vestige of Roman grandeur;
thirty-three Paris inches in diameter, they are ten diameters in
height, and are believed to have stood in the exterior vestibule of
baths dedicated to Hercules, and restored by the Emperor Maximilian.
From their proximity to the church of San Lorenzo, they are called by
its name; they stand majestic and isolated, and spite the care bestowed
on their preservation, gradually crumbling to decay. The rain continues
as I have seldom seen it fall elsewhere, and as it falls here sometimes
for a fortnight uninterruptedly, so says our host in consolation; I did
not expect to dine at Milan, and at two in the afternoon, by
candlelight; yet this has happened to us twice, (when we chose that
hour, hoping the fog would yield to a fine evening, which it did not,)
in the large room, with its three high windows looking on the opposite
wall, which resembles the deserted refectory of a convent. To-morrow,
1st of October, we hope to leave on our way to Lodi.