ESTIMATES OF CASTRUCCIO
Tegrimi[h] his biographer says that Castruccio was a cruel avenger of his own wrongs; but as personal vengeance, never justifiable, assumes in princes a more sharp and bitter aspect, it would be difficult to say whether his conduct to his subjects merited the name of severity or cruelty. With the soldiers he was universally popular, and in speaking to them his eloquence and grace of manner and diction were wonderfully adapted as well to his own dignity as to the mind and feelings of his audience. He would often calm a tumultuous soldiery by simply calling them sons, fathers, and brothers, and no army ever mutinied under his command. He was first in every danger, first to seize the ladder and mount the wall; first to swim across a river when swelled to a torrent; first in every individual act of skill and courage, as he was first in talent and command; and he gained the hearts of soldiers by his agreeable familiarity with the meanest among them. His great reputation as a warrior secured his ascendency in field and council; and such was his soldiers’ confidence that often by his mere name and appearance the fortune of battle was restored, fugitives were arrested, and the foe defeated. His arrival alone was frequently sufficient to force an enemy from fortified places or insure their immediate surrender. Whatever were his individual sentiments he always consulted his council, composed of the ablest men of Lucca, and more especially of those most learned in history; but when it was a pure question of war he sought the opinion of old military men well acquainted with the seat of intended hostilities. Uneducated himself, he yet delighted in the company and conversation of literary men; he improved and maintained the roads and bridges of his state, had numerous spies, amongst them many women, in all parts of the world, and was properly said to have the wings of an eagle.[f]
“This Castruccio,” says Villani,[d] “was in person tall, dexterous, and handsome; finely made, not bulky, and of a fair complexion rather inclining to paleness; his hair was light and straight and he bore a very gracious aspect. He was a valorous and magnanimous tyrant, wise and sagacious, of an anxious and laborious mind and possessing great military talents; was extremely prudent in war and successful in his undertakings. He was much feared and reverenced and in his time performed many great and remarkable actions. He was a scourge to his fellow-citizens, to the Pisans, the Pistoians, the Florentines, and all Tuscany, during the fifteen (twelve?) years in which he held the sovereignty of Lucca. He was very cruel in executing and torturing men, ungrateful for good offices rendered to him in his necessities, partial to new people and vain of the high station to which he had mounted, so that he believed himself lord of Florence and king of Tuscany.”
Although the first warrior of his age, says Pignotti, it is doubted whether he was greater in arms than in council; although he was born and had lived in the midst of revolutions, he never shed blood unless when necessity demanded it. He was one of those great men who, although ignorant of letters himself, knew their value, and esteemed the learned. An encourager of useful arts and manufactures, he generously rewarded whoever introduced new ones. The monuments of the numerous works of public utility which he undertook are still remaining, such as bridges, roads, and fortresses.
He was certainly an extraordinary man, and had the theatre of his actions been more extensive, and his means greater, he would have distinguished himself equally with any of the celebrated men of antiquity. In the small sphere, however, in which he was obliged to act, as a private individual, he became one of the most powerful princes of Italy; since, at his death, he possessed Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, the Lunigiana, a great part of the coast to the east of Genoa, and innumerable castles; and if he had lived longer, in those times of revolution and the division of Italy into so many small sovereignties, it may be conjectured that his greatness would not have stopped here. Henry, his eldest son, was heir to his father’s estates, but not to his father’s talents. The power of Lucca terminated with Castruccio, since shortly afterwards we see this city offered for sale, bought by a private citizen, and the cities and castles which were once occupied by Castruccio retaken by the Florentines. Upon the arrival of the emperor, the sovereignty of Pisa, and afterwards that of Lucca, were taken away from his sons.[e]