In this manner the winter and time of truce passed without bringing matters to any agreement. If the position of their opponents was in some degree more favourable than that of the Florentines and their allies, yet it was at the same time such that this agreement must have been most desirable to them. In the Papal Neapolitan army there prevailed a great dearth of provisions. Long processions of mules with flour and bread traversed the Patrimony and Siena, and their guards were not always able to repulse hostile attacks. When the troops went into winter quarters, the greatest disorder prevailed; and had not the weather been very mild, the evils would have been felt still more. As the Neapolitan troops were quite in rags, the king sent a number of articles of clothing, while he caused great quantities of corn to be bought up in Piombino and the port of Telamone. The Pope commissioned the Commandant of Sto. Spirito, the great Roman hospital, with the provisioning of the camp. Two hundred mules from the Papal court were continually passing through the territory of Viterbo, to bring provisions to Acquapendente and the district of Siena. It may be easily understood that the cost was immense; and Sixtus IV. was compelled to borrow money continually, and mortgage a number of places to the rich cardinals and others. The parts of the Florentine and Sienese territories adjoining the States of the Church suffered severely from the march of the troops and scarcity of provisions, though not immediately touched by war.[279]
The announcement of the armistice being ended was not necessary to make the combatants take up arms; for though in the Chiana valley, and from Urbino, nothing was undertaken against the enemy on the part of the Duke of Calabria, everything was in preparation in the western districts of the Republic. The increasing annoyances here were connected with the insurrection of Genoa and the Milanese troubles. Roberto Sanseverino, compelled to quit Genoa, had repaired to France and put himself in communication with Louis XI. for the purpose of enlisting an Italian corps of mercenaries for the Burgundian war. At the end of January 1479, he had arrived at Asti, in order to effect enlistments there, but the Duchess-regent of Milan, rightly dreading the proximity of this restless man, forbad all her subjects to take service with him; a prohibition in which Venice, Florence, Mantua, Ferrara, Bologna, in short the whole league, joined. In vain did the king mediate with his sister-in-law. Roberto could not obtain what he desired, but he was all the more confirmed in the scheme, which seems to have been the real ground of his proceedings. At the beginning of February the report had already been spread that the Duke of Bari and Ludovico Sforza had appeared in the Lunigiana, in order thence to operate on the one side against Florence, on the other against Milan. It soon proved to be no empty rumour. In the neighbouring district of Parma, seditious proclamations of the two Sforza were soon spread; they wished, they said, to liberate their nephew, the young duke, from the servitude in which he was held. Among the Milanese mercenaries alarming movements were observed. At the end of February, the brothers, with Roberto, set up the flag of rebellion, and immediately afterwards the latter appeared with 400 foot and 500 to 600 horse, mostly people from the Genoese coasts, before the gates of Pisa.[280] The attack on the town failed, but he devastated all the more unsparingly the whole country round, while a Neapolitan corps advanced through the Cecina valley. Without the aid of the Lucchese, who were ill disposed towards Florence, it would have been impossible for Sanseverino to carry out his plans. The disinclination of the people in Lucca to their neighbours was, however, so great, that Piero Capponi, Neri’s energetic grandson, who was there as the Florentine plenipotentiary, had some trouble to hinder a formal alliance of the Republic with the enemies of Florence, and was in danger of his life when the mob, in defiance of the warning of more sensible people, stormed his house.[281] The Duke of Ferrara was obliged to come to the assistance of the threatened province with a portion of the troops encamped on the Poggio Imperiale; and as the Duke of Calabria meddled in the affair from the Riviera, it would have been a most dangerous diversion, if the fear of being cut off by the Milanese troops had not induced Roberto to withdraw about the middle of April.
It was high time; for scarcely had the termination of the armistice been published when the hostile leaders stood in the Chiana valley with their armies reinforced. This time the Florentines showed no lack of sensible dispositions. From Poggio Imperiale to the frontiers, their corps were so stationed that it would be difficult for the enemy to break through. On the side towards Poggio, where the head-quarters were, stood the Marquis of Mantua, and Deifebo dell’ Anguillara; while from the Romagna, Roberto Malatesta was marching towards Perugia, where Carlo Fortebraccio was to support him. They relied much on the latter, on account of the old connections of his family with Perugia; but he fell ill on the road, at Cortona, where he died on June 17. Meanwhile his son Bernardino had taken his place, and the troops had crossed the Papal frontiers on June 9. The treaties with Perugia with a view to her joining the league did not affect their purpose. The enemy had had time to send a considerable number of troops, chiefly cavalry, under the command of Matteo da Capoa and the prefect of Rome, to Umbria. On June 27 they met Malatesta between Cortona and Perugia, in the neighbourhood of the lake of Trasimen, where Hannibal had destroyed the Roman army. The little town of La Magione reminds us of one of the most eventful occurrences in the history of Cæsar Borgia. Here they were entirely defeated. But this advantage led to nothing but a renewal of plundering and depredations from which the country suffered severely, from the gates of Perugia to the valley of the Tiber towards Città di Castello on the one side, and the Chiana and Arno valleys on the other.
The miserable management of the war, which cost the Florentines more dearly than their enemies, because their territory, more than any other, was the theatre of war, avenged itself in another way. In the Florentine head-quarters nothing but discord prevailed, and the more incapable and irresolute the captain-general showed himself, the higher rose the insubordination of the officers. The old quarrel between the Sforzas and Braccios, which had once divided the Italian mercenaries into two camps, broke out here among the Florentine troops, which were composed of the two factions. During the skirmishes in Perugia, whither a considerable part of the hostile army had marched in order to avenge the repulse they had received, and hinder Malatesta’s further progress, the Florentine army advanced, and stormed and plundered the little Sienese town of Casole. Here the troops of the Duke of Ferrara and those of the Marquis of Mantua quarrelled so fiercely over the division of the booty, that the Florentine commissaries with difficulty separated and pacified them. On the other side, Roberto Malatesta and Costanzo Sforza were so much at enmity that it was not possible to leave one in the neighbourhood of the other. Thus a union of the hostile powers was not to be thought of. But now another and more serious complication arose. In Milan the crisis happened which had long been threatening. Roberto Sanseverino had, after quitting the territory of Pisa, kept himself till the summer in the Val di Taro, whence he continually annoyed Parma. He had then, believing he could not advance, and seeing that he was hindered by Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, turned to Liguria, where the Duke of Bari died after a short illness. When it was felt in Milan that they might at last give way to a feeling of security, the warlike Roberto, with Lodovico Sforza, who now bore the title of Bari, descended the inaccessible pass of the Apennines, Le Cento Croci, which was unguarded because it was held impracticable for great bodies of troops, into the valley of the Po, and on August 23 seized Tortona, where Lodovico had partisans. The greatest alarm arose in the capital. An army of 12,000 men was despatched to Tortona, whither the Marquis of Montferrat also hastened. It did not seem enough to oppose the formidable enemy. The Duke of Ferrara and the Marquis of Mantua were recalled from Tuscany with a part of the Milanese troops. On September 2, Ercole of Este arrived at Parma with 400 horse and 200 foot, whence on the following day he advanced to Piacenza. He had not yet crossed the Po when, at Voghera, the Marquis of Montferrat’s men fell in with those of Sanseverino, and inflicted severe losses on them. From Venice came the news that the Republic would send 1,000 horse and 2,000 foot to their assistance, but at the same moment, when the affairs of the Milanese Government seemed about to take a favourable turn, an unexpected mischance occurred. On September 6 a bonfire was lighted in the rebel camp, and joybells rang. In the ducal camp appeared a trumpeter of Sanseverino, with the information that peace was restored, and Lodovico Sforza, invited by the regent was on his way to Milan. The Duke of Ferrara had urged Bona of Savoy to reconcile herself with her two still remaining brothers-in-law. To her misfortune and that of the state, she had complied, in opposition to her trusty counsellors, who plainly foresaw the result of such a step. On September 7, Lodovico had arrived in Milan, and was joyfully received by a crowd of people. On the following day the duchess received him; he begged her pardon for the past, and promised allegiance. Immediately afterwards he was appointed governor-general of the duchy. The first thing which then happened was the arrest of Cecco Simonetta. The regent was obliged to put her signature to the decree which sent him, to whom more than to any one she owed the preservation of the state after her husband’s death, into a prison at Pavia, while the mob plundered his and his friends’ houses in such a way that even window-shutters and iron bars were carried off.[282]
The Tuscan war felt the reaction of these events, even before they were fully developed. Sigismondo d’Este had undertaken the supreme command for his brother, the duke. But the men were not only diminished in number, they were also careless in service. This was not unknown to the enemy, and he availed himself of it. The Duke of Calabria selected the most skilled among his captains, Matteo da Capoa, Giulio Acquaviva of Atri, Gentil Virginio and Giordano Orsini of Bracciano, &c., in order to attempt an attack on the Florentine side. From Chiusi they marched through the Arbia valley to Siena, and surprised Mont’Imperiale at the dawn of September 7, the day on which Lodovico Sforza entered Milan. The attempt succeeded perfectly. The confusion soon became so great that, notwithstanding the natural strength of the place, no one thought of serious opposition. Every obstacle was scattered in the shortest possible time. Most sought their safety in hasty flight. Of the combatants some were slaughtered, some captured; among the latter Galeotto Pico, Rodolfo Gonzaga, Niccolò da Correggio, and other captains, and about a hundred and fifty men-at-arms. Costanzo Sforza, pursued by Jacopo Appiano, lord of Piombino, on the road to San Gemignano, not only took his pursuer captive but saved the large banner of the Republic, and assembled in San Casciano as many as he could of the fugitives and those who had dispersed.
It was a severe blow. Florence saw herself threatened by the enemy, who took the castles of the Elsa valley one after the other, and attacked Colle, the most important place in this province, with greatly superior forces. Roberto Malatesta was ordered to protect Arezzo and the Arno valley. Costanzo Sforza covered the capital on the Sienese side, and drew reinforcements to himself from all quarters. In Poggibonzi and the lofty San Gemignano smaller corps were stationed. But all this only just sufficed to turn aside the most threatening part of the danger. Colle defended itself heroically, and did much injury to the Duke of Calabria, who conducted the siege in person, but the capitulation took place on November 14. Malatesta, who had quitted Umbria, where he expected the fall of Perugia, was displeased at the conduct of the war, the misfortunes of which he ascribed more to the constant interference of the Ten than to the captains or men, and employed the time of inaction which followed the taking of Colle to repair to Venice and withdraw from the Florentine service. The foreign affairs were not more consolatory. Little confidence was felt in Milan. Venice, whither Luigi Guicciardini went as ambassador, in order to represent the oppressed state of the Florentines and to entreat more powerful assistance, showed itself lukewarm, and was more disturbed by an attack of the Turks on Hungary than by the threatening of Florence by the Pope and Naples. If the season had been more favourable, the position might have become still worse. But even the enemy needed rest. The Duke of Calabria was in Siena; Urbino, aged and sick, in Viterbo. On November 24 a trumpeter of the former entered Florence with the offer of a truce. Two days afterwards it was proclaimed.
CHAPTER V.
FLORENCE AND HER ALLIES. LODOVICO IL MORO.