The Ladies of Milan.
“CHERCHEZ LA FEMME.”
When Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan, was murdered in church at Christmas by a band of heroes, his brothers, the Duke of Bari and Lodovico il Moro, were absent on an embassy in France. The head of affairs was Cecco Simonetta, since many years the secretary and minister, first of Count Francesco, and later of his son. Having lived so long in the family, Simonetta was aware how much his dead master’s children had to fear from their uncles. With one stroke of the pen he banished the Duke of Bari and Lodovico il Moro.
This was in 1476. For three years all went well in Milan. Simonetta had so long guided the course of affairs that the death of the Duke made little difference to the external policy of the state. Galeazzo Maria had called himself a Ghibelline, Cecco Simonetta dared at last to avow himself a Guelf; but under one as under the other, the course of Milan continued Liberal and French. Inside the city there were a few less murders,—less ominous stories than were told in the lifetime of the handsome, cruel, dilettante Duke. His widow, the Duchesse Bonne, had the wardship of her children, and lived a pleasant life in her beautiful palace, where Commines remembered to have seen her in great authority. She had two little boys and a girl; she had excellent counsellors, a court full of admirers, beautiful clothes, and a devoted lover.
Yet the Duchess was not satisfied. Bonne de Savoie was an empty pate, vain and restless, as was the temper of her house. There was in the palace a young man who carved before her at table, Antonio Tassino, an adventurer from Ferrara, “of very mean parentage,” not handsome, but with a certain grace and air in the way he wore his cloak. This was the Duchess’s lover, and there was no matter of state (says Corio) but she consulted her carver before she allowed it to pass. It is not surprising that Simonetta—an old statesman, tenacious of dignity, in spite of his Liberalism, was scandalized at the importance of Tassino. It is equally easy to imagine how the successful Ferrarese was irritated by the disdain of Simonetta. So it fell out; and rather out of spite than from conviction, Tassino constituted himself the chief of the Ghibellines in Milan, merely intending to procure the fall of Simonetta. So great was his influence over the Duchess, that he persuaded her at last to privily recall her husband’s brother, Il Moro—a Sforza, and therefore presumably a Ghibelline—who was at that moment engaged in the war at Genoa.
All that follows sound like a passage in some ancient novel of adventure. The Duchess sends to Genoa to Il Moro, who, coming at night to Milan, is secretly admitted by the Duchess and her lover through the garden gate of the palace. Lodovico returns not alone; Bari is dead but, in place of the lost brother, Roberto di Sanseverino a great captain, dare-devil, incorrigible, comes at his heels: a man whom Simonetta had exiled with the sons of Francesco Sforza, a Ghibelline à l’outrance, a personal enemy of Cecco. These were the men whom Bonne, weary of her ancient counsellor’s respectability, called home, “through great simplicity,” as Commines declares, “supposing they would do the said Cecco no harm, and the truth is that so they had both of them sworn and promised.”
When Sanseverino and Il Moro were safe in the palace, the Duchess sent for Simonetta and told him all she had done. She must have been alarmed to see the horror and consternation on the faithful secretary.[[111]] “Duchessa Illustrissima,” said the man, with the quiet of despair, “he will cut off my head, that is all; a little time more and he will send you packing!” The Duchess probably remembered these words when, the third day after their return, Il Moro and Sanseverino caused the man who had signed their exile to be carried through the streets of Milan in a wine barrel, and then—still in this ridiculous tumbril—taken to the fortress at Pavia. There was Simonetta imprisoned; but once inside the gates his lot appeared to mend. Lodovico il Moro frequently rode across to Pavia to take counsel with the wise old statesman[statesman] and learn his views of the world. He went indeed so often that the people of Milan began to murmur and to say that Lodovico, recalled by a Ghibelline coup d’étât, was a Guelf in disguise. To reassure them on that head, in the month of October, 1480, Lodovico intimated to Simonetta—not without many apologies—that, in deference to popular prejudice, he must even consent to lose his head. And in that very month, the first part of the secretary’s prophecy came true.
The second half was for a while delayed. Duchess Bonne found no reason to regret the step which had relieved her of an inconvenient old servant. “They used the lady very honourably in her judgment, seeking to content her humour in all things,” said Commines, who knew them all.
“But all matters of importance they two despatched alone, making her privy but to what pleased them; and no greater pleasure could they do her than to communicate nothing with her. For they permitted her to give this Anthony Tassino what she would; they lodged him hard by her chamber; he carried her on horseback behind him in the town; and in her house was nothing but feasting and dancing.” The Duchess had never led a happier life; but all that jollity endured but half a year. One day Lodovico took out his little nephews to walk in Milan; children are ever interested in things of warfare; he took them to the Rocca—the impregnable fortress—he took them inside; he did not bring them home.
English readers know what to expect when an ambitious uncle, in the Middle Ages, leaves two little Princes in the Tower. But no midnight assassin cut short the days of Giangaleazzo and his brother Ermes. They were more useful to their uncle, living—at least until he had made his own position surer: for at present he only ruled in Milan as Tutor and Regent of the little Duke. But, by whatever title, he ruled effectually, and soon he rid his palace of the tearful and frivolous presence of Madame Bonne, whom he exiled from her duchy “for immorality,” and who carried her inept remonstrances and her tarnished honour to find a none too chivalrous asylum at the court of her brother-in-law, Louis XI. of France, a man impatient of unsuccessful women.