1500-1564

After the catastrophe of Novara and the final ruin of the Moro's cause, his loyal kinsfolk and followers were reduced to melancholy straits. A document among the Italian papers in the Bibliothèque Nationale gives a long list of the Milanese exiles who, in the year 1503, were living in exile, and whose lands and fortunes had been granted to French nobles or Italians who had embraced Louis XII.'s party. Among them we recognize many familiar names, Crivellis, Bergaminis, Marlianis, and Viscontis, who had served Duke Lodovico loyally and now shared in his disgrace. Many of these took refuge at Ferrara and Mantua; others went to Rome or lived in retirement on Venetian territory, while as many as two hundred and fifty were living at one time at Innsbrück. A few of these were pardoned in course of years, and obtained leave to return to their Lombard homes, but by far the greater number died in exile.

Chief among those courtiers and captains of the Moro who found refuge at Maximilian's court were the Sanseverino brothers. Two of these, Fracassa and Antonio Maria, were soon reconciled with King Louis by the powerful influence of their brothers, the Count of Caiazzo and Cardinal Sanseverino. For Galeazzo, the son-in-law and prime favourite of the Moro, a strange future was in store. After his brilliant years at the court of Milan, he, too, tasted how salt the bread of exile is, and how bitter it is to depend on the charity of others. In 1503, he was still living at Innsbrück, where Sanuto describes him as always dressed in black and looking very sorrowful, and held of little account by the German courtiers, although Maximilian always treated him kindly. He accompanied the Emperor to the Diet at Augsburg, and took an active part in his various efforts to obtain Lodovico's deliverance. But a year later, when all hope of obtaining Lodovico's release was at an end, a fresh attempt seems to have been made by the Sanseverino family to reconcile Galeazzo with King Louis. He came to Milan and saw the Cardinal d'Amboise, who embraced his cause warmly, and a petition for the restoration of Galeazzo's houses and estates, as well as the fortune of 240,000 ducats which he had inherited from his wife Bianca, was addressed to the King. The result was that he soon received a summons to the French court, where he quickly won the royal favour, and on the death of Pierre d'Urfé a year later, was appointed Grand Ecuyer de France. From that time Galeazzo became one of Louis XII.'s chief favourites, and seldom left the king's side. In 1507 he attended Louis XII. when he entered Milan for the second time, and was a conspicuous figure in the grand tournament that was held on the Piazza of the Castello. Once more he came back to the scene of his old triumphs, under these changed circumstances, and played a leading part in the wars that distracted the Milanese. Under Francis I., Galeazzo rose still higher in the royal favour, and won a signal victory over his old rival Trivulzio. The Grand Ecuyer boldly asserted his right to Castel Novo, which Louis XII. had granted to Trivulzio after the conquest of Milan, and, at the age of seventy, the old soldier came to Paris to plead his cause against Messer Galeazzo. But the suit was given against him, and he was thrown into prison for contempt of the king's majesty, and died at Chartres in 1518, bitterly rueing the day when he had entered the service of a foreign prince and led the French against Milan. Galeazzo triumphed once more, and kept up his reputation as a gallant soldier and brilliant courtier, until, in 1525, he was slain in the battle of Pavia, under the walls of the Castello, where, thirty-five years before, he had been wedded to Bianca Sforza.

Meanwhile Beatrice's sons grew up at Innsbrück, under the care of their cousin, the Empress Bianca. It was a melancholy life for these young princes, born in the purple and reared in all the luxury and culture of Milan. And when their cousin Bianca died in 1510, they lost their best friend. But a sudden and unexpected turn of the tide brought them once more to the front. That warlike pontiff, Julius II., who, as Cardinal della Rovere, had been one of the chief instruments in bringing the French into Italy, entered into a league with Maximilian to expel them and reinstate the son of the hated Moro on the throne of Milan. They succeeded so well that, in 1512, four years after Lodovico's death at Loches, young Maximilian Sforza entered Milan in triumph, amidst the enthusiastic applause of the people. Once more he rode up to the gates of the Castello where he was born, and took up his abode there as reigning duke. But his rule over Lombardy was short. A handsome, gentle youth, without either his father's talents or his mother's high spirit, Maximilian was destined to become a passive tool in the hands of stronger and more powerful men. His weakness and incapacity soon became apparent, and when, three years later, the new French king, Francis I., invaded the Milanese, and defeated the Italian army at Marignano, the young duke signed an act of abdication, and consented to spend the rest of his life in France. There he lived in honourable captivity, content with a pension allowed him by King Francis and with the promise of a cardinal's hat held out to him by the Pope, until he died, in May, 1530, and was buried in the Duomo of Milan. His brother Francesco was a far more spirited and courageous prince, who might have proved an admirable ruler in less troublous times, but was doomed to experience the strangest vicissitudes of fortune. After the second conquest of Milan by the French, he retired to Tyrol, until, in 1521, Pope Leo X. combined with Charles V. to oppose Francis I., and restore the Sforzas. Their aims were crowned with success, and by the end of the year Francesco Sforza was proclaimed Duke of Milan, only to be driven from his throne again three years later. After the defeat of Pavia, the young duke, who had won the love of all his subjects, was again restored; but having entered into a league with the Pope and Venice to expel the Imperialists, incurred the displeasure of Charles V., and was besieged in the Castello by the Connétable de Bourbon, who at length forced him to surrender. A prolonged struggle followed, in which Francesco Sforza was often worsted, and at one time forced to retire to Como. In the end, however, he was restored to the throne by Charles V., whose favour he succeeded in recovering, when, in 1530, that monarch visited Italy to receive the imperial crown. At length this long-distracted realm enjoyed an interval of peace, and a brighter day seemed about to dawn for the unhappy Milanese.

The young duke was very popular with the people, who rejoiced in having a prince of their own once more, and who, in Guicciardini's words, looked to see a return of that felicity which they had enjoyed during his father's reign. When, in 1534, he married Charles V.'s niece, Christina of Denmark, the splendour of the wedding fêtes, the balls and tournaments that took place in the Castello, recalled the glories of Lodovico's reign and the marriage of the Empress Bianca. The charms of the youthful bride revived the memory of the duke's mother, Beatrice d'Este, and a richly illuminated book of prayers, prepared in honour of this occasion, and adorned with miniatures and Sforza devices, bore witness to Francesco's artistic tastes, and showed his desire to tread in his father's steps. But these bright prospects were soon clouded. The young duke became seriously ill, owing to a dangerous wound which he had received from an assassin, Bonifazio Visconti, twelve years before, and, after lingering through the summer months, he died on All Souls' Day, 1535, to the consternation of the whole Milanese, On the 19th of November the last of the Sforzas was buried with royal pomp in the Duomo of Milan, and his childless widow, the youthful Duchess Christina, retired to the city of Tortona, which had been given her as her marriage portion. Her portrait, painted by the hand of Holbein, is familiar to us all as well as "the few words she wisely spoke," when, in reply to Henry VIII.'s offer of marriage, she said "that unfortunately she had only one head, but that if she had two, one should be at his Majesty's service."

Tomb of Lodovico Sforza and Beatrice d'Este Contessa of Pavia.[ToList]

A week or two later, Lodovico Sforza's only remaining son, Gianpaolo, the child of Lucrezia Crivelli, who had fought gallantly against French and Imperialists in defence of his brother's rights, died on his way to Naples. With him the last claimant to the throne of the Sforzas passed away. The duchy of Milan reverted to the Imperial crown, and this fair and prosperous realm sank into a mere province of Charles V.'s vast empire.

Thirty years after the last Sforza duke had been laid in his grave, the noble monument which the Moro had raised to his wife's memory in S. Maria delle Grazie was broken up. The friars who had known Lodovico and revered his memory were dead and gone, and the Prior then in office, seized with iconoclastic zeal, ordered the monument to be removed from the choir, in accordance with a canon of the Council of Trent. The tomb was taken to pieces, and Cristoforo Solari's beautiful effigies of the duke and duchess were offered for sale. Fortunately, the news of this act of vandalism reached the ears of the Carthusians at Pavia, and remembering how much they owed to the Moro's generosity, they sent word to a Milanese citizen, Oldrado Lampugnano, to purchase the two marble statues for the Certosa. Oldrado, whose father had been exiled after the Moro's fall, and who was himself a loyal partisan of the house of Sforza, bought Solari's effigies for the small sum of thirty-eight ducats, and removed them to the Certosa, "that shrine which had been so often visited by the said duke and duchess in their lifetime, and for which they had ever shown the greatest love and honour."

There we see them to-day—Lodovico with the hooked nose and bushy eyebrows, in all the pride of his ducal robes, and Beatrice at his side, in the charm and purity of her youthful slumber, surrounded by other memorials of Sforzas and Viscontis, wrought with the same exquisite art and enriched with the same wealth of ornament. After all, these marble forms could hardly find a better home than the great Lombard sanctuary which was so closely linked with the brightest days of Beatrice's wedded life, and which to the last remained the object of Lodovico Sforza's care and love.

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