Yet even in Milan there were many ill content to thrive under the orderly government of this benevolent usurper. Many voices that famine had silenced soon began to whisper—Republicans, Orleanists, Guelfs, Ghibellines were alike jealous and ill at ease under the military dictatorship of Sforza. Another party in the city headed by the Dowager-duchess still kept alive the pretensions of Savoy, and he was able to write to Lucerne that on the whole the news from Milan was not bad, for the people were already beginning to dislike Francesco Sforza, and that Madame de Milan proved herself an efficient supporter of his claims.
But if there was discontent in Milan, outside the walls the success of Sforza was regarded with unqualified hatred and desire for vengeance. Savoy wished to oust him from his seat. France and Orleans and Arragon and Germany thought it sufficient for the present to brand him as usurper. But the hatred of the Venetians for the man who once had been their servant was of a deeper kind, and they did not shrink from plotting his murder. On April 22, 1450, they had already decreed his death, and by August 26th the plan was in full train. The Council had heard through that gentleman and soldier, Ser Giacobo Antonio Marcello of Crema, that Vittore dei Scoraderi, the squire of Francesco, est contentus occidere Comitem Francescum; et sicut omnes intelligere possunt, mors illius comitis est salus et pax nostra et totius Italiæ. Nothing was to be sent in writing to this person which might compromise the Venetian Senate, but Marcello was instructed to offer him ample terms. Further injunctions were despatched on September 2nd, and early in December we hear again of a candidate, una persona intelligente et discreta, not a Venetian subject, who promised to despatch Count Francesco with aliqua venenosa materies.[[82]] To this intelligent assistant the Council recommended the use of certain little round pellets which, thrown upon the fire, exhale a most sweet and delectable odour; but before they were despatched for experiment on so illustrious a subject a secret trial was to be given them in Venice on the person of a prisoner condemned to death for larceny. In May, 1451, the Council added three other persons to the conspiracy, and by June the proffered reward had grown to the extravagant sum of 5,000 ducats, with a yearly revenue of 1,000 ducats in addition, and liberty to recall four exiles. In return for so much munificence it is expected that Count Francesco “shall by your industry be despatched before the end of October.” But in August an extension of leave was granted until December. Then the messages became frequent; and it is easy to divine that the noble person who is to despatch the Count is none other than Innocentio Cotta, a man of one of the great Guelf houses of Milan, who, despite his blue blood, was the most ardent champion of popular rights, and who is familiar to the readers of Corio’s history as the head and front of that little group of nobili audacissimi, who in 1459, unbroken by famine and long misery, spurred the people of Milan on to resist the arms of Sforza, and plundered the party of the Ghibellines for money to furnish troops to defend the city. The success of Count Francesco had added ruin to the chagrin and hatred of this man, and one of the conditions that Cotta demanded of the Venetians was that he should regain quelle forteze, terre e possessioni mie chio goldeva al tempo de la felice memoria del duca passato. To this man, even as to the Council, it appeared that the death of Count Francesco could only be useful and fertile in good (practica non potest esse nisi utilis et fructuosa, quum ex ea nullum damnum sequi potest), and with the sentiments less of an assassin than of a lofty classic tyrannicide—a character ever dear to the Italians—Innocentio Cotta received, in his Brescian exile, the little round and perfumed pellets of poison.
No less than eighteen times between the August of 1448 and the December of 1453 did the Venetian Council instigate their assistant to the deed. Poisons were despatched to him and apparently administered. But the venom of the Venetians was more odious than fatal. Their poisons, sublimated from an irrational medley of volatile substances, had no regular chemical action, and the receipts of them which remain exhibit an incoherent confusion of mercury, sal-volatile, copperas, cantharides, burned yeast, salts of nitre and arsenic, from which, after the endless simmerings and powderings of their preparation, the most deadly qualities had evaporated, and which left (according to the analysis of Professor Boutlerow) a comparatively harmless combination of ammoniacal chlorides.
The sedative prescription made no perceptible effect upon the iron constitution of the soi-disant Duke of Milan. He probably remained in total ignorance of the poison so frequently administered in the unbroken Venice glasses; but he could not remain equally unaware of the distaste and suspicion which environed him, and he grew to desire some superior show of legality. The troops and bread, with which he had convinced the Milanese, were admirable agents, but they could not do everything. Francesco Sforza had six young sons, and in his heart there increased that invincible longing to found a dynasty which has overcome so many conquerors. Somewhere in the Archives, he began to think, in some unfound testament or neglected codicil, there must be surely some mention of his wife, the late Duke’s only child. With possession already in its favour, the slightest mention in the old Duke’s will would serve to legalize the dynasty of Sforza. But nowhere in will or codicil was there any last reversion in favour of Madonna Bianca. The searchers only brought to light the testament of Giangaleazzo, which bequeathed Milan, failing direct male heirs, to the sons of his daughter Valentine.
Still, if Francesco Sforza could not legalize his own succession, he could at least secure himself against the raising of better-founded claims. On February 19, 1452,[[83]] Count Francesco wrote to Andriano Oliari of Pavia (the Oliari were a family of notaries to whom for generations the Archives of Milan were entrusted) commanding him to come at once to Milan and to bring with him to the palace the original will of Giangaleazzo Visconti,
“for [he explained], because of certain matters
which fall out at present, it is necessary that we see
the testament made by the illustrious quondam duke
the first.... Thou must come to-morrow, Sunday,
the twentieth of the present month, here, to our