[224] Ritterzeit und Ritterwesen, vol. ii. last chapter.
[225] Muratori, Dissert. 29.
[226] Ibid. 23.
[227] Giannone, lib. i.
[228] Muratori, Annali d’Italia, vol. v. part 2. p. 171, &c. Even the Modenese librarian throws aside his dust and parchments, and warms himself into a humanised being at this story; while Sismondi passes it over with frigid indifference.
[229] Muratori, Dissert. 49.
[230] See in the twenty-seventh Dissertation of Muratori (Della Milizia de secoli rozzi in Italia) for a minute account of the armour of these different classes. I observe that Mr. Perceval, in his History of Italy, vol. i. p. 197., holds a different opinion from that which I have expressed in the text. Instead of thinking that the change in the military art formed one of the causes which hastened the overthrow of the Lombard liberties, he contends that, perhaps, it might be more correctly numbered among the circumstances which, after that overthrow had been accomplished, perpetuated the work of slavery.
[231] Perceval’s History of Italy, vol. i. chap. 5. part 1.
[232] Monstrelet, vol. xi. p. 328.
[233] Muratori, Dissert. 23. Muratori describes from a contemporary chronicle the entrance of Charles. The carriage of the Queen seems to have excited great astonishment, as carriages were in those days seldom used by ladies, and seldomer by men.