CHAPTER III.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. FRANCE, VENICE, ROMAGNA. WAR AGAINST COLLEONE.

LIKE every unsuccessful conspiracy, this also contributed to strengthen

the power of those whom it was intended to ruin. In the proclamations

of the Republic to foreign powers it was particularly emphasised, as

we can well understand, that the freedom of state and city had been

saved from great danger, and the rescue was of course acknowledged

with praise and thanksgiving. ‘Already,’ wrote King Ferrante, on

September 28, to Lorenzo de’ Medici,[135] ‘we loved you on account of

your excellent qualities and the services done by your grandfather

and father. But as we have lately heard with what prudence and manly

courage you behaved in the late revolutions, and how courageously you

placed yourself in the foremost ranks, our affection to you has grown

remarkably. We wish, then, the illustrious Piero all happiness with so

worthy a son, and congratulate the Florentine people on so eminent a

protector of their freedom, and ourselves on a friend whose excellent

gifts increase visibly every day. Perhaps it would be our wish to

incite you to praiseworthy actions, but your noble and active nature

does not need encouragement, not to mention that you have the example

of your grandfather and your father constantly before your eyes.’ The

Republic had informed the French king of these events on September

28; the answer came from Bourges only on January 14 in the following

year, but it expressed Louis XI.’s friendly feelings.[136] It was very

important to him to remain in good understanding with Florence. He

was long in friendly relations with the house of Medici, and during

his residence at Mont Luçon in May 1465 granted to Piero and his

legitimate heirs the privilege of bearing the lilies in their coat of

arms.[137] The blameless and well-deserved reputation, says the King,

which the deceased Cosimo de’ Medici had gained during his life by his

actions and in all his transactions, which were conducted with prudence

and virtue, gives his children and relations a claim to honourable

consideration.

The influence exercised by Louis XI. on the development of the Italian

affairs of his time makes it necessary to give a retrospect of the

policy and situation of this monarch, under whom the French kingdom

began to assume that form which was completed by Richelieu. Louis

XI. had in 1461, on the death of his father, whom he succeeded at

the age of thirty-eight, found the country freed indeed from foreign

foes, after a hundred years’ struggle, but loosely held together.

For half the provinces of his kingdom recognised the King indeed as

their supreme lord, but were independent of him with regard to their

administration. They pursued a policy of their own, concluded alliances

of peace and war, while, as in the case of the most powerful of these

great feudatories, Charles Duke of Burgundy, the union of French

districts with foreign territories belonging nominally to the German

empire, constituted a power which, if they won over their neighbours

to their interests, might enter the lists with royal France. Louis,

as Dauphin, long at variance with his father and the government, had

relied upon Duke Philip the Good. Under him the dukedom, comprising

the greater part of Belgium of the present day, the Netherlands, with

Burgundy, Artois, Picardy, and Franche Comté, rose to the height of

its prosperity and power. Scarcely had Louis ascended the throne,

however, than he took measures against the great feudatories which

kindled the war known under the name of the War of the Public Good

(_Guerre du bien public_), in which Burgundy was also involved. This

war was indeed terminated in 1465 by the treaties of Conflans and St.

Maur, but only to break out afresh in another shape two years later,

when Charles the Bold had succeeded his father on the ducal throne.

Thus fully occupied at home and threatened in his own capital, Louis

had closely connected his foreign affairs with his internal policy. At

the commencement of his reign he had declared the pragmatic sanction of

his father, which placed limits on the authority of the Holy See in his

country, to be abrogated; nevertheless, when Pius II. refused to comply

with his wishes in political matters, he permitted a contradiction on

the part of his parliament which practically destroyed that authority.

In 1462 he had allowed John of Anjou to be defeated in the war against

King Ferrante, and thus made enemies of this family, to whom Provence

belonged, while he likewise estranged Duke Charles of Orleans by

allying himself closely with Francesco Sforza, whose states, as we

have seen, were claimed by the former on the ground of his mother’s

hereditary rights. The Duke of Milan had at least shown himself

grateful by sending him, during his war with the allied princes, the

auxiliary troop which Galeazzo Maria was commanding when his father’s

death summoned him home.

The year 1467 did not begin peacefully. It was very well known in

Florence that the exiles, untaught by the failure of those who had

made a similar attempt under far more favourable circumstances, after

the fall of the Albizzi, had, for the greater part, quitted the places

of exile assigned them, and retired to the Venetian territory. Here

they tried every means of returning home with foreign assistance.

Some applied even to the Venetian Signoria, and others to the

General-in-Chief, Bartolommeo Colleone.

Venice had no honourable excuse for breaking with the Florentines.

Outwardly the two states were in harmony. In the beginning of January

1467, both had joined the defensive alliance concluded at Rome under

the protection of Pope Paul II. which was to secure peace in Italy.

Florence had accepted the conditions, stipulating that ‘the French

King, whose authority essentially aided the preservation of peace and

the safety of the different states, should be permitted to join the

alliance at his pleasure, with authority next to that of the Pope.’[138]

This stipulation, however, did not appear to satisfy the Republic when,

before long, the political sky was clouded, so that in the following

March, Francesco Nori, a confidant of the Medici, was sent to Louis XI.

to propose an offensive and defensive alliance, irrespective of their

engagements with the other Italian powers.[139] The hostile disposition

of Venice was unmistakable, although an open breach of the peace was

avoided. The old grudge on account of the views on Milan, frustrated by

the Medici, came again into the foreground. It was proposed to employ

the hatred of the exiles in order to obtain in Florence a government

with obligations towards Venice, and therefore dependent on her, and to

overturn the power in Milan already shaken by Francesco Sforza’s death.

Bartolommeo Colleone was to be the instrument.

Whoever stands on the Piazza near the church of St. Giovanni e Paolo

in Venice will be reminded of long-vanished times by an equestrian

statue in bronze, almost more than by the surrounding buildings. A

slight, graceful pedestal supports a war-horse in a quiet but powerful

attitude, whose strong limbs do not prevent a mannerised treatment

of the neck and head. Upon this, on a high saddle, and holding the

richly-adorned bridle, sits the somewhat thick-set figure of a knight,

clothed in mail from head to foot, and showing beneath the helmet

a bold, marked countenance, which, slightly turned to the right,

seems to challenge an enemy. Thus has a Florentine artist, Andrea

del Verrocchio, depicted Bartolommeo Colleone, whose magnificence

and wealth may be admired in his chapel built in the cathedral of

Bergamo, which contains his tomb and that of his daughter Medea.

Born within the territory of this city, and acquainted early in his

paternal home with the miseries of war, Bartolommeo had earned his

spurs in the Neapolitan wars, had fought under the unhappy Carmagnola

for Venice, against Sforza for the Milanese republic, then in Venetian

service against the same enemy, and after the peace of Lodi retired

to his castle of Malpaga, in the valley of the Serio, enriched by his

campaigns, a strong man, but resenting his fate, because, although the

republic of St. Mark had chosen him as their captain-general amid great

honours, and had paid him a considerable sum, there was no prospect

before him of fresh laurels to be gained. The exiled Florentines now

came to him, having already had connections with him, and excited his

ambition. Diotisalvi Neroni was at Malpaga in October 1466, from whence

he wrote to a confidant that great events were approaching; if he

could be with him for two hours, he would tell him things to astonish

him.[140] It seems that a prospect was held out to the _condottiere_

of a dominion in the many-lorded and fickle Romagna—nay, of even

gaining Milan itself. His old connections in various quarters, as well

as the disturbances always prevailing under the minor dynasties, which

gravitated now in one and now in another direction, would enable him to

bring a considerable number of troops together.

In the Romagna—a name which is here employed in its widest

signification for all the country from the Lombard frontiers to those

of the march of Ancona, but which in a restricted sense comprises

Ferrara, Bologna, the exarchate of Ravenna and Romandiola—the abnormal

state of things still prevailed to which Dante alluded when he answered

the question of Guido of Montefeltro, in the lower world by saying,

that in the hearts of his oppressors the land was never free from war,

even if peace prevailed there for the moment.[141] On February 14,

1279, Rudolph of Hapsburg relinquished this province, which had been

till then regarded and governed as a part of the empire, in favour of

the Church, which put forward old claims to a part, and the inhabitants

had promised to be true to the Roman Church as heretofore to the

Roman Empire; they wished their allegiance to be measured by their

former obedience to the empire, of which the Church was the rightful

successor. But the Popes had from the beginning shared their authority

with the great and small lords who ruled in the various cities, the

propinquity of which only made the feuds of the Signori and citizens

more frequent and bitter. When the poet mentions the Polentani of

Ravenna and Cervia, the Ordelaffi of Forli, the Malatesta of Rimini,

Mainardo of Susinana, in Faenza and Imola, these are only a few out of

the great number of those who allowed only a general superintendence to

the representatives of the Popes, the Counts of Romagna and the legates

sent from Rome or Avignon, while they governed almost unrestrictedly in

their cities and the counties appertaining to them. When Pope Clement

VI. sent the Cardinal D’Albornoz as legate to this state, about the

middle of 1353, Romagna was lost to the Papacy. Albornoz regained,

partially reconquered it; but he left the domination of the different

families mostly as he found it, taking into account the inclinations

and traditions of the cities themselves, and contenting himself in

most cases with restoring the Papal authority as the supreme presiding

power. In this way the municipalities retained their statutory rights

and financial administration, were exempted from taxes and levies

on payment of a very moderate feudal contribution, and chose their

officers themselves, or, as happened with regard to the office of

Podestà, presented the candidates to the Pope or to his legate. The

position of the Papal plenipotentiaries was, however, all the more

difficult when they took up their residence in great cities, where

factions always prevailed; and the tedious insurrection which, actively

participated in by Florence, spread itself over Romagna at the time

of the last Pope in Avignon, Gregory XI., beginning at the Patrimony

and Umbria, showed on what a weak footing the Papal power stood in the

trans-Apennine provinces not long after the death of Albornoz.

In the time of which we are treating circumstances were very different

in different parts of Romagna, not only from internal and local causes,

but also in consequence of the interference of neigbouring powers. For

as already, in the middle of the preceding century, Giovanni Visconti,

Archbishop and Lord of Milan, had seized upon Bologna, so did Gian

Galeazzo fifty years later. Central Italy was probably preserved only

by the death of the most powerful of the Visconti from subjection to

their supremacy; and subsequently the last of that ambitious house

did actually get the great city, though only for a time, into his

power. Venice had already begun to fix her gaze on Romagna, and had

taken a firm footing in Ravenna in 1440, having declared Ostasio da

Polenta, her former protégé, to whom Filippo Maria Visconti had also

attached himself, to have forfeited the ancient inheritance of his

house, and sent him and his sons prisoners to Candia, whence none

of them returned. While the republic of St. Mark thus began to gain

territory on the seaside, and pursued a policy which some sixty years

later brought about a most dangerous conflict with the Papacy, Florence

made an attempt on the side of the Apennines, just as if the land

was without a master. In various ways, by purchase and mortgage, by

the subjection of petty lords such as the wide-spread Guidi, and the

voluntary resignation by the communes of their independence (which

happened with Modigliana in 1445), the Republic had extended its

dominions more and more over the ridge of the mountain range, and

created the territory, reaching far towards Faenza and Forli, which

down to our day has borne the name of Grand-ducal Romagna. This was,

however, not enough. The Accomandigia which has been spoken of in

connection with the Tuscan lords and territories extended likewise to

many in Romagna, and formed a political connection which would have

been in direct opposition to the Papal sovereignty had this sovereignty

not been so loose in its form. The Malatesta of Giaggiuolo, the

Manfredi of Faenza and Imola, the Alidosi of Imola and Castel del Rio,

the Ordelaffi of Forli, the counts of Montefeltro and Urbino, were all

Florentine Raccomandati, as was the case with many families of Umbria,

bordering upon Romagna and partly dependent upon her—the Accoromboni,

Brancaleoni, Gabrielli of Gubbio, the Vitelli of Città di Castello, the

Fortebracci of Montone, and the Trinci of Fuligno. The duration of the

Accomandigia was very various; it was concluded for a certain number

of years, just like a _condotta_ or mercenary contract, or for life.

The renewal followed then generally after a fixed interval, or from the

successors of the stipulating parties in the former manner. The lords

in the States of the Church made the reservation not to be obliged to

fight against the Pope or his vicars, the legates or governors; some of

them even refused to fight against the Angevin kings of Naples or the

Roman people. What difficulties and perplexities must therefore arise

from the frequent contests between the Popes and their feudatories, or

between the former and their neighbours, out of such associations, is

evident.

The state in this province actually most independent of Rome was

Ferrara.[142] In the beginning of the thirteenth century the

Ferrarese had elected Azzo VI. of Este their hereditary ruler, and

the investiture granted him by Pope Innocent III. of considerable

possessions in Romagna, as well as in the province of Ancona, had given

the house much distinction. A century later, in consequence of a family

quarrel, Venice attempted to put forth her claims to Ferrara, and Pope

Clement V. was obliged to give way. The attempt of the latter to hold

the town in the immediate control of the Church, at first successful,

soon failed, and the citizens in 1317 recalled the family of Este,

who were eleven years later invested with town and territory by Pope

John XXII. The imperial fiefs acquired by the lords of Ravenna, from

which they received in 1452 the ducal title from the Emperor Frederick

III., nineteen years before Pope Paul II. granted it to Borso d’Este

for Ferrara, made their position more independent than that of the

other Papal feudatories; but certain rights relating to the republic of

Venice, as well as the not always friendly neighbourhood on the lower

Po, gave rise to complications which might easily become dangerous. Far

less great in territory and power were the counts, afterwards dukes, of

Urbino;[143] they, with their little land, were in the same political

circumstances between Tuscany and Umbria, Romagna and Ancona. Their

family was invested by Frederick Barbarossa with the hilly region of

Montefeltro, which afterwards formed the north-western part of their

state. In the first decade of the thirteenth century they established

themselves in Urbino, which was subject to the Papacy, and gradually

extended their possessions on both sides of the mountains—to the

south by the acquisition of Gubbio and Cagli, to the north at a much

later time as far as the Adriatic sea. They were a warlike race which

had once given to the contest of Guelphs and Ghibellines a courageous

general in Guido of Montefeltro, and had now one of the best and most

highly-prized _condottiere_ in Federigo, who assumed the government in

1444, and for whom Pope Sixtus IV. afterwards renewed the ducal title

which his brother and predecessor had borne.

The Malatesta, Ordelaffi, Manfredi, and Alidosi were legally dependent

only on the Popes. But they were just the families who caused perpetual

strife. The Malatesta had established themselves in Rimini in the

latter part of the thirteenth century, and in the following century

enlarged their possessions by talent and skilful use of circumstances,

but had again weakened their power by dividing into several lines.

The three sons of Galeotto Malatesta, of whom the history of the wars

of Visconti and Albornoz has much to relate, formed the lines of

Rimini, Cesena, and Fano, the second of which expired in 1465 with

Malatesta Novello; while Sigismondo, the legitimised son of the lord

of Fano, had after the death without children of his uncle Carlo lord

of Rimini, become his successor, and Rimini remained the centre of

the dominions of this family. Sigismondo is a prototype of the city

tyrants of the fifteenth century—talented, active, enterprising, a

good warrior, the patron of intellectual effort, but passionate and

untrustworthy, and stained with faithlessness and cruelty in a measure

unusual even in those wild times. In 1447 and again in 1451 he fought

in the pay of Florence against the Neapolitan Aragonese, then shared

in Anjou’s enterprise against Naples, and was so pressed by Federigo

of Montefeltro that only the republic of Venice, which he had served

in the Morea, saved for him the remnant of his possessions. Pope Pius

II. prevented Rimini from falling into the hands of the Venetians by

investing Sigismondo with the sovereignty of the town and a little

territory, reserving its lapse to the Holy See in case of his decease

without rightful heirs, as had happened at Cesena in 1464. In 1466

Pope Paul II. endeavoured to persuade Sigismondo, on his return from

the Morea, to relinquish Rimini, offering him the government of Spoleto

and Fuligno—certainly a rich compensation, had not the intention too

evidently been to weaken the Malatesta by detaching them completely

from their native country and from the sea. His son Roberto, born like

himself out of wedlock, but legitimised by Pope Nicholas V., had taken

possession of Cesena in 1464, but was unable to retain it against the

Papal strength, as the inhabitants, tired of the endless oppressions of

the violent dynasties, rather surrendered themselves to the direct rule

of the Church, which allowed them greater freedom in their movements

and did not annoy them with taxes.

Confusion enough prevailed in the house of the Ordelaffi, who had taken

a firm footing in Forli in the last decades of the thirteenth century,

and at times ruled over Cesena. Albornoz had no worse opponent than

Cecco (Francesco) Ordelaffi, whom only Venetian protection saved from

complete ruin. His son Sinibaldo had returned by means of Florentine

support in 1375 to Forli, where he fell, ten years later, a victim to a

conspiracy of his two nephews. Antonio, the son of one of the latter,

had joined the Florentines during the wars of the last Visconti in

Romagna, and in 1441 they received him into their Accomandigia, and

obtained for him the investiture of Forli from Pope Nicholas V. His

two sons Cecco and Pino ruled at first together, but the latter in

1466 rid himself by violence of the former, who had been as bitter an

enemy of Florence as Cecco was an ardent friend of the Republic. With

the Manfredi too, who ruled in Faenza from 1314, there was nothing

but quarrels and repeated changes of party. The towns of Faenza and

Imola belonged in common to the different members of the family, and

in such a manner that the eldest always conducted the government. But

at the death of Guido Antonio, Taddeo Manfredi took possession of

Imola in 1448, to the prejudice of his uncle Astorre, to whom the

administration should have passed, and a contest arose which Pope Pius

II., Francesco Sforza, and Florence tried to appease, without however

procuring a real peace. Taddeo passed from one side to another, fought

first in Florentine, then in Aragonese, and then again in Florentine

pay. His uncle was not more constant. He had taken up arms for the

Visconti in 1440, had been taken prisoner in the battle of Anghiari,

and brought to Florence. Freed from prison, he had murdered him into

whose power he had fallen in the battle at Bologna, for which Francesco

Sforza set a price of a thousand gold florins on his head. Yet he

succeeded in reconciling himself with the Republic, in whose service he

fought against the Neapolitans in the Chiana valley in 1452. Florence

had repeatedly concluded defensive alliances with both lines of the

Manfredi since the year 1384. The Alidosi, once reigning in Imola,

which they lost now to the Church, now to the Visconti, and now to the

Manfredi, had been obliged to content themselves with the little Castel

del Rio in the territory of Imola, towards the mountains, with which

in 1392 they had joined the Florentine Accomandigia. A younger family

had associated itself with these elder dynasties. Alessandro Sforza,

brother of the Duke of Milan, had in 1445 acquired the lordship over

Pesaro, by the cession of Galeazzo Malatesta, maternal grandfather of

his wife Costanza da Varano, and maintained it under many changes of

fortune. Pope Nicholas V. had invested him with the government; he had

been an essential support to his brother in the contest for Milan, and

he afterwards performed mercenary service for King Ferrante and for

Venice.[144]

Among all the towns of this province, Bologna was the largest,

richest, and most powerful, and would have been destined to exercise

the greatest influence on the fate of Romagna, had not irreconcilable

factions weakened her internally, and robbed her of the fruits of

that heroic time in which she so gloriously conquered the Emperor

Frederick II., and the lion of San Marco. The supremacy of the Church,

which obtained greater authority here in proportion to the weakening

of the civil constitutions of Lombardy and the bordering countries,

was not able to suppress the factions which in 1337 brought the Pepoli

to power, and thirteen years later gave the city into the hands of the

Visconti, from whom Cardinal Albornoz wrested it after a possession of

ten years. Even then the quarrels did not cease, which in the beginning

of the fifteenth century brought the Visconti back again, who were

again expelled by Cardinal Baldassar Cossa, to return a third time in

1438 and assume the position beside the Bentivogli (who had risen to

the first rank among the contending native families) which belonged

to the Popes. The evident endeavour of Filippo Maria Visconti to

convert this relation into unlimited power, soon led to war. Supported

by Florence and Venice, who fought here in their own cause as well

as in that of Bologna, Annibale Bentivoglio completely defeated the

Milanese army, August 14, 1443, on the plain of San Giorgio, only to

fall two years afterwards beneath the dagger of murderers of high rank

who were in league with the Duke. It was especially important for the

Florentines not to let a party serviceable to their hereditary enemy

rise to power in a city which they rightly regarded as a protection

against the power of the Visconti. The members of the Bentivoglio

family were, however, either too young, or not in a position, or not

inclined to take the lead. Under these circumstances they hit upon a

peculiar idea. The exiled Count of Poppi, Francesco da Guidi, then in

Bologna, is said to have related that a cousin of Annibale Bentivoglio

had had a love affair with a girl in the above mentioned castle of

Casentino, and had a son who lived there with his maternal relatives.

Cosimo de’ Medici, and, at his suggestion, Neri Capponi, who knew more

about Casentino than anyone, took up the matter, and the end was that

Sante, the nephew of Antonio da Cascese, was recognised as Sante

Bentivoglio, waited upon in Florence most respectfully by deputies

from Bologna, who escorted him to their city, where he succeeded in

maintaining himself till his death by prudence, not unmixed with acts

of violence towards his opponents.

As the Florentines had done the most in enabling Sante Bentivoglio to

seize on the power, so they made it easier for him to preserve it. The

Bolognese ambassadors had represented how the position of the city was

such that they must throw themselves into the arms of the Duke of Milan

if the Holy See did not deal mercifully with them. ‘Beg his Holiness,’

so wrote the Signoria on February 3, 1446, to their ambassador to

Pope Eugenius IV., Paolo da Diaceto,[145] ‘to be gracious towards the

poor Bolognese people, who have been so afflicted by oppression and

misery, by fierce civil discord and strife, that it must move everyone

to pity. The Bolognese hope from the gentleness of his Holiness, and

the authority of the Republic of Venice, that it may be possible to

discover some decent form of paying the Pope a reasonable tribute; but

remaining otherwise in their present freedom, without Papal legates or

other officers in the name of the Church. Do you make the observation

that with people who are accustomed to bloodshed and full of suspicion,

violence does not suffice; and that one must rather temporise in order

to attain from them afterwards by love what violence cannot effect.’

So much, indeed, Bologna did not attain in the agreement concluded at

Rome with Pope Nicholas V. on August 24, 1447, for she was obliged to

receive a legate who shared the administration with the senate and the

city magistrates. But the choice of these bodies was free; the city

had its own militia and unrestricted power over its revenue, while

the Papal troops were bound to protect her from foreign enemies. It

is clear that such a relation might easily afford an opportunity for

difficulties, and it is to be accounted a merit in Sante Bentivoglio

that none arose under his government. When he died on October 1, 1463,

his party appointed Giovanni, the son of Annibale and Donnina Visconti,

then twenty years old, as his successor. By a treaty concluded with

Pope Paul II. in 1466, the latter acquired a legal power such as none

had had before him. This treaty secured him a seat and two votes in

the Senate, which consisted almost entirely of his partisans and was

renewed every six months, and thus placed him at the head of the

citizens who, after Sante’s death, had already shown themselves so

complaisant that they had conferred upon the youthful Giovanni the

dignity of Gonfaloniere, to which only men of mature age could usually

attain. By his marriage with Ginevra Sforza of Pesaro, Giovanni

Bentivoglio entered into relationship with Milan, in which he hoped to

gain some support against any hostility on the part of the Pope. That

he held fast to his friendship with Florence was, to say nothing of the

tradition of his predecessors, caused by his connections with Sforza.

We have seen that it was he who gave Piero de’ Medici information of

the unfriendly movements of Ercole d’Este.[146]

This was the state of Romagna when the country became the scene of

warlike events. The Florentines had not ceased to negotiate with

Venice, but in vain. Only by assuming that this Republic wished to

fish in troubled waters can we find a key to the events of 1467.

The last Visconti had accustomed his neighbours to his sending his

_condottiere_ upon them without declaration of war, under the pretext

of dismissing them from his service. Venice had, however, not yet

given so bad an example. There was a pretence of pacifying Bartolommeo

Colleone, whose mercenary compact was expiring; but the _condottiere_

must have known better the real intentions of the Signoria, for he

would hardly have entered upon a daring undertaking had he feared their

serious displeasure, instead of being certain of their opportune

support, at least with money. When the Florentines saw that war was

imminent, they concluded on January 4, 1467, at Rome and with Papal

consent, the compact already mentioned with King Ferrante and the Duke

of Milan. It was called ‘for the preservation of peace in Italy,’ and

Venice acceded to it in due form; while Siena, Lucca, and the Margrave

of Mantua were invited to join.[147] On the 18th, the alliance was

proclaimed in Florence. An extraordinary tax of a hundred thousand

gold florins was proclaimed to cover the first expenses of the war. In

the preceding November the government had been already empowered by a

special law passed in the Balia to enlist 1,500 horse and 500 foot, or,

if necessary, twice as many; with power to raise extraordinary taxes,

which excited violent complaints, as contrary to the freedom of the

people and to good order,[148] for though they wished to be safe they

did not like to pay. As the Duke of Milan had more troops than were

necessary, two thousand of his cavalry were taken into pay. Donato

Acciaiuoli had conducted the negotiations with Sforza. His cousin

Agnolo was an exile, his sister-in-law a daughter of Diotisalvi Neroni;

but his patriotism was trusted, and he deserved this confidence.

Federigo of Montefeltro was appointed general-in-chief, and he accepted

the offer, though Venice tried to turn him from it. Astorre and Taddeo

Manfredi both took service with the Florentines. The Neapolitans,

under the command of Napoleon Orsini, Count of Tagliacozza, crossed

the Tronto in April, twelve squadrons of cavalry strong, and joined

Federigo’s troops in Romagna.

On May 10, Bartolommeo Colleone crossed the Po. The lords of Mirandola

and Carpi, Ercole of Este, and the Count Deifebo of Anguillara, who had

been banished by the Pope, and was son of the old disturber of the

environs of Rome, had joined him immediately. On his further march,

the Ordelaffi of Forli and Alessandro Sforza of Pesaro came to him,

the latter of whom, won over by Venice, opposed his own nephew; while

Astorre Manfredi faithlessly turned his back upon Florence. Colleone’s

army soon numbered 8,000 horse and 6,000 foot. Galeazzo Maria Visconti,

persuaded by the representations of the Count of Urbino, now first set

out with his troops and marched against the Count by way of Bologna,

from whence men were sent to reinforce the allies. The general of the

latter, now of equal strength with Colleone, would willingly have given

battle; but he, on the one side, true to the old system of marches and

counter-marches, avoided a decision, and on the other the presence

of the Duke of Milan, whose experience did not equal his rank and

claims, hindered the allied commander in his movements. At last Sforza

was persuaded to visit Florence, and yield the command to Roberto da

Sanseverino. Meanwhile the Count of Urbino attacked the enemy on July

25 at Molinella, in the territory of Imola. From a skirmish of the

outposts of both armies a general battle arose, which was all the more

bloody because light field-pieces were employed, and a Milanese troop

of horse was enticed into an ambuscade; whereon, the Count, whose horse

had been killed under him, commanded that no quarter should be given.

The fight lasted for seven hours, in which, according to one of the

lowest estimates, 300 men and 400 horses were killed—a great number

for Italian warfare at that time. At nightfall they ceased to fight

on Colleone’s proposal, and then the Count of Urbino and Alessandro

Sforza, whose son Constanzo was amongst the prisoners, rode up to one

another and shook hands.

The battle was, as we have said, undecided. The dread of the Venetians

that their frontiers might be threatened—a dread which urged them to

stir up Savoy and the Genoese exiles to make a diversion for the Duke

of Milan, which was successful—shows on which side the advantage was.

To this was added, that King Ferrante, however much he longed for

peace, for which he exerted himself to the utmost by his ambassadors,

voted for energetic continuance of the war in order to bring peace,

and sent considerable reinforcements through his son Alfonso. Those

reinforcements were indeed outweighed by the conduct of the Duke of

Milan, who, discontented that a battle had taken place in his absence,

returned home notwithstanding all warnings, and called his troops home

to protect his own country. Galeazzo Maria has left a sad name in

history; but that he did not lack political insight is shown by the

representations he made to a Venetian ambassador travelling through

Milan, in respect to the policy of the Republic. ‘You Venetians,’ he

said, ‘who possess the most beautiful state in Italy, you are very

wrong not to be contented with that, but to destroy your peace and

that of your neighbours. If you knew how everyone is against you,

your hair would stand on end, and you would leave all in peace. Do

you suppose these Italian powers leagued against you really wish each

other well? Not in the least. The necessity of protecting themselves

against you has brought them together, and each one will do what it

can to clip your wings. Do you think to have accomplished something

grand by arming all Italy? Let others live! You have set everything

in excitement by this Bartolommeo of yours; you will see how far it

brings you profit. You have expended a quantity of money, and caused

others great expense too; you preach peace and sow war. May you reap

the result. At the death of my father, it seemed to me that a beautiful

estate had fallen to me, and I thought of nothing but leading a

pleasant life; you have obliged me to join King Ferrante, and to win

my father’s principal adherents who I formerly did not know. The Pope

who has sprung from your nobility will act more against you than all

the rest; and if the war lasts, he will demand Faenza, Forli, Ravenna,

and Cervia back again. The King of Naples is your declared enemy; and

if his power equalled his evil intentions, it would go hardly with

you. How Florence and Genoa are disposed towards you, you know, and

it is not much better with the other Italian commonwealths. You throw

your money away, and have nothing but disgrace from it; for it is said

that, according to your custom, you wish to swallow everything. Now

you are in pecuniary difficulties. I know with what pains you collect

levies, and how your criers march through the whole town. I know that

you have raised loans from banks and private persons which you will

not be able to repay.’ (‘He spoke,’ adds the ambassador, ‘as if he

had witnessed everything in Venice.’) ‘Ruling lords have one great

advantage over republics—they act for themselves, and swiftly; while

in these, the individual is always dependent on several. A Signor with

fifty thousand ducats is worth more than a free State with a hundred

thousand, because he can superintend the soldiers, and these act in

his presence. It depends upon you to have peace or war. If you choose

war, you will see all leagued against you, not only here, but beyond

the mountains. Believe me, your enemies will not sleep. I know all that

you have plotted against me with the Duke of Savoy and Fiesco, and the

Archbishop of Genoa. I pray you, annoy no one: keep peace for your own

advantage and that of Christendom.’[149]

Galeazzo Maria was right. His warning regarding foreigners referred

to the French King, who directed a letter, written in an angry tone,

to the Republic, saying that he knew of their machinations to disturb

the peace, and entreating them not to cause the Duke of Milan any

further annoyances in his territory, if they did not wish that he

should regard their foes as his friends.[150] But Galeazzo Maria, on

his side, had given Venice and Savoy much cause for suspicion and

complaints, planning even then an attack upon Vercelli, the possession

of which he had been promised at his marriage by King Louis XI. as

dowry.[151] So stood it then with Italian affairs and Italian princes.

The Venetians, moreover, relied on the want of harmony among the

allies, which the Duke could not deny. None trusted the other. It was

the Florentines who principally held the league together. However much

King Ferrante wished to agree with Piero de’ Medici, and whatever the

Republic might effect through her financial connections, she was yet

too weak in military matters to exercise preponderating influence.

Between the King and Sforza distrust and aversion prevailed, and

Ferrante said repeatedly that he suspected a separate peace with the

enemy, in which he was not deceived. The Pope said neither Yes nor

No. He had entered the league, but entrance into the league did not

imply fulfilment of the stipulations. He wished to free Romagna from

the war that desolated the country, but he had no inclination to make

overtures to Venice, his native country; always put the tardiness of

the Neapolitan’s movements forward as a pretext; wished for peace after

the battle of La Molinella, especially because he feared being drawn

into the thick of the contest by the allies, and wished to prescribe

the conditions of this peace, while he really did so little to bring

it about. But beside this, the war had displayed more than any other

the defects of the Italian armies, and from this point of view it

deserves more attention than it would otherwise claim. When we consider

that the two most famous generals of Italy at that day, Federigo of

Urbino and Bartolommeo, stood at the head of a considerable army; that

a Duke of Milan and Crown Prince of Naples were there; that the lords

of Lombardy and Romagna, who passed their lives in arms, and the best

Neapolitan warriors, the Sanseverini, Orsini, Davalos, &c., were in

the field; when we consider, on the other hand, the miserable results

of this eight months’ campaign, we shall anticipate the approaching

complete decline of that system of war which Alberigo da Barbiano

had inaugurated a century before, and which had passed through many

glorious days of military art and valour, although an evil lay in the

very existence of mercenary troops from which other countries had to

suffer.

The Neapolitan troops were certainly not among the worst, and had

practised leaders. And yet how did they prosper? Even before they had

marched out, there were the most unfavourable opinions as to their

quality and discipline. ‘When you hear from ill-wishers,’ wrote the

King on February 10, 1467, to one of his agents, ‘that our soldiers

will run away as soon as they have passed the frontiers, you must not

heed this, for, with God’s assistance, we hope to send them out in such

excellence and order, that they would rather attract others than go

over to them.’ But the result did not correspond with the expectation

of the monarch, who, however, devoted untiring care to military

affairs. The Duke of Calabria employed three months in crossing the

Tronto and dragging his army through Tuscany and Umbria, while the

enemy was in the heart of Romagna. The militia dispersed without

fighting. ‘It grieves my very soul,’ wrote the King on August 1, ‘this

flight of a part of our men-at-arms. But as the fault lies in their

badness and cowardice, and not in the treatment they had experienced

from us, we will bear it more easily.’ And on January 15, 1468, during

the truce: ‘Most of the soldiers leave the camp and return home, which

does not promote the general good, and is highly displeasing to us.’

The Duke of Calabria was amusing himself in the meantime in Florence

and Milan, whither his consort had gone to sweeten for him the hard

campaign, in which he never faced the foe. With the money advanced

by the Florentine banks, those of the Medici, Strozzi, Gondi, &c.,

the desertion of the enemy’s horse and foot was purchased, while the

Neapolitans, as they remained without pay, acted in friendly countries,

in the districts of Arezzo and Cortona, as if they had to do with their

enemies.

Besides Louis XI., another foreign sovereign tried to put a stop to

a war so prejudicial to the common Christian interest in a moment

when the progress of the Turks menaced both Italy and the Danubian

provinces. It was Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, who sent George

Hasznoz, afterwards Archbishop of Colocza to Venice, in order to bring

about an arrangement.[152] The Hungarian envoy, getting nothing but

empty words, went to Colleone’s camp, and meeting there with the same

ill-success, proceeded to Florence and Rome, to give an account of

his negotiation. More than six months had passed since the day of La

Molinella in useless marching and treating, in the midst of mutual

reproaches and quarrelling. Tommaso Soderini at Venice, Otto Niccolini

in Rome, acted with zeal and ability as Florentine ambassadors; the

Marquis of Ferrara did his best as mediator; Florence itself had made

many efforts, but in vain. At last, on Candlemas day 1468, Pope Paul

II. proclaimed peace in the church of Sta. Maria Araceli, on the

Capitol. The existing league, including Venice, was to be renewed.

Bartolommeo Colleone was to be sent to Albania to fight the Turks, with

an annual salary of 100,000 gold florins as captain-general, after

resigning the places in the Romagna held garrisoned by him. He had,

besides, demanded thrice the sum as compensation for the expenses of

a war which he had himself begun! King Ferrante protested four days

later; shortly before, he had declared he would do the Holy Father’s

pleasure in everything reasonable, but he would rather lose everything

than give Colleone a farthing. Galeazzo Maria was of the same opinion;

he said his money should not serve for an attack upon his state. The

Florentines seemed to have most wished to come to terms, and were

much disturbed when the King, Sforza, and Venice took up arms again.

Finally, the Marquis of Ferrara succeeded in reconciling the parties,

though Pope Paul was very angry; and on April 25 the definitive

peace was proclaimed at Rome, and two days later at Florence, in

which Colleone was not mentioned, and every one was to receive his

own again. In Florence the peace was solemnised by church festivals

and illuminations. Bartolommeo Colleone, then seventy-five years old,

but still in full strength, did not go to Albania, where the death of

Scanderbeg, which had happened in the February of the same year, 1468,

would have made a valiant general necessary, if the tactics of Italian

_condottieri_ had been suitable for such a land and such an enemy.

A throne such as the Florentine exiles had placed in his view, he

certainly was as far from obtaining as he was from reaping laurels in

his last campaigns. But he enjoyed for seven years longer the highest

honours paid to him by the Republic of Venice and foreign and Italian

princes, in his castle, where he died February 1, 1475, having made a

use of his colossal fortune which more honoured him than many of the

means by which it had been brought together.

The ill-success of Bartolommeo Colleone’s undertaking put an end of

course to all the exiles’ hopes of returning to their homes.

The biographer of Donato Acciaiuoli, Angiolo Segni, observes rightly,

‘The war excited by the exiles was soon ended. Bartolommeo’s army was

not defeated in battle with the allies, but it was equally far from

conquering, and the cause of the rebels was lost thereby. For those

who ruled in Florence it was enough not to be defeated; not so with

those in the field. Only by a victory could they expel their enemies,

and regain their home.’ All the distinguished men of the losing side

had been with Colleone—foremost of all Diotisalvi Neroni and Niccolò

Soderini, who in Venice opposed his own brother, whom Florence had

sent thither as her representative. Agnolo Acciaiuoli joined them at

last. Persuaded at length by the representations of his friends, he had

quitted Barletta and gone to Naples; King Ferrante, who, remembering

old connections, wished him well, vainly sought to persuade him not to

trust to the matter, nor to break the exile pronounced on him. He went

to Rome, and from thence to Romagna. When he saw the organisation of

Colleone’s troops, he is said to have anticipated the result at once.

When peace was concluded, he was declared a rebel with all the others,

his property confiscated, and a price put upon his head; he returned

to Naples, where he lived on the support afforded him by the King, and

passed his days mostly in pious exercises and the companionship of the

Carthusian monks, whose order had stood in intimate connection with his

family for more than a century. Niccolò Soderini went to Ravenna, where

the Emperor Frederick III. made him a knight and Palatine on his second

journey to Rome—cheap honours then, which could hardly have sweetened

the exile in which he died, 1474. Niccolò, says Alamamo Rinuccini, was

far more courageous than prudent; he did not know fear. Had his advice

been followed when he wished directly to give battle, his party would

not perhaps have had to submit, but Messer Luca, either cowardly or

bribed, betrayed his party and himself. Diotisalvi Neroni, at first

banished to the island of Sicily, saw sixteen years of exile pass away,

and died in extreme old age at Rome, where his tombstone is to be seen

in the Dominican church, Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, which contains many

Florentine monuments.[153]

One event during the war shows how high the waves of party feeling

rose. Lucrezia de’ Medici was at the Bagno a Morba with her son

Giuliano, the bath in the district of Volterra employed, perhaps even

in the times of the Romans, for rheumatic complaints. It is a lonely

spot on the southern side of the chain of hills which, separating the

valley of the Arno and Elsa from the sea-shore, bears the old Etruscan

town on its ridge. The retired situation had long attracted many a

prowler, and made the desolate region unsafe. One evening a hasty

messenger from Piero came to his wife with the command that she was

to repair without delay with the youth to Volterra, as it had been

announced in Florence from San Gemignano that the exiles meditated a

_coup-de-main_ to carry off both mother and son, whom they needed as

hostages. Giuliano had set off for Florence that same day; Madonna

Lucrezia, ill as she was, was carried to Volterra, fifteen miles

distant, in a litter by night, by the arrangement of the officials of

the place and vicinity, and here she was in safety. After having rested

here, where she was kindly received, she returned to her family.[154]