[98]. The copy is to be found in Corio, 457-59. I do not know where to find the original document, but MSS. copies, evidently from the Archives of Pavia, are to be found among the British Museum documents, Additional MSS., 30, 675. Giovio mentions a report that after the death of Francesco Sforza II., Count Massimiliano Sforza found the deed and restored it to the Emperor. Lodovico il Moro ever insisted that he received Milan, not by succession, but direct from the Emperor. He called himself the fourth, and not the seventh, duke.
[99]. “Era molto odiato dai popoli a cagione dei denari.”—“Bello Gallico,” i. p. 176.
[100]. For this letter, and for the letters of Orleans to Bourbon, quoted from the Library of St. Petersburg, vide vol. ii. of Cherrier’s “Histoire de Charles VIII.,” p. 184, et seq.
[101]. This is the Venetian estimate. Guicciardini says, 300 lances, 3,000 Swiss, and 3,000 Gascons.
[102]. This is the Venetian estimate. For the figures of Giovio and Corio, see Cherrier, ii. 197.
[103]. Luenig, sectio ii. classis i.: “De Ducato Mediolanesi,” xliv.
[104]. See in Luenig, June 14, 1509, No. xlv., and also, with some unimportant variations of text, Bib. Nat. Paris, MS. 2950, Ancien Fonds Français.
[105]. Præfatus rex ex ducibus Mediolani originem trahit, medio illustris quondam dominæ Valentinæ aviæ suæ, filiæ quondam illustris Johannis Galeatii Mediolani ducis.
[106]. See for example “Protestations de François 1er,” Bib. Nat. MS. 2846.
[107]. Bib. Nat. MS. 2846, No. 57: Instruction baillée au Seigneur d’Espercieu après la mort du duc de Milan, Sforce, &c.