CAN’ GRANDE DELLA SCALA
A Florentine Nobleman of the Fourteenth Century
[1314-1329 A.D.]
That party had just lost another of their most distinguished chiefs, Can’ Grande della Scala. He was the grandson of the first Mastino, whom the republic of Verona had chosen for master after the death of Ezzelino, in 1260. Can’ Grande reigned in that city from 1312 to 1329, with a splendour which no other prince in Italy equalled. Brave and fortunate in war, and wise in council, he gained a reputation for generosity, and even probity, to which few captains could pretend. Among the Lombard princes, he was the first protector of literature and the arts. The best poets, painters, and sculptors of Italy, Dante, to whom he offered an asylum, as well as Uguccione dà Faggiuola, and many other exiles illustrious in war or politics were assembled at his court. He aspired to subdue the Veronese and Trevisan marches, or what has since been called the Terra Firma of Venice. He took possession of Vicenza, and afterwards maintained a long war against the republic of Padua, the most powerful in the district, and that which had shown the most attachment to the Guelf party and to liberty. But Padua gave way to all the excesses of democracy; the people evinced such jealousy of all distinction, such inconstancy in their choice, such presumption, that the imprudence of the chiefs as well as of the mob drew down the greatest disasters on the republic. The Paduans, repeatedly defeated by Can’ Grande della Scala from 1314 to 1318, sought protection by vesting the power in a single person; and fixed for that purpose on the noble house of Carrara, which had long given leaders to the Guelf party.
The power vested in a single person soon extinguished all the courage and virtue that remained; and on the 10th of September, 1328, Padua submitted to Can’ Grande della Scala. The year following he attacked and took Treviso, which surrendered on the 6th of July, 1329. He possessed himself of Feltre and Cividale soon after. The whole province seemed subjugated to his power; but the conqueror also was subdued. Attacked in his camp with a mortal disease, he gave orders on entering Treviso that his couch should be carried into the great church, in which, four days afterwards, on the 22nd of July, 1329, he expired. He was not more than forty-one years of age; Castruccio was forty-seven at his death. Galeazzo Visconti died at about the same age, less than a year before.