Venice

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

It was now Carmagnola's turn, and a new wrong which he had suffered filled his wrath to the full. At Treviso an attempt had been made to poison him. It had failed, and the perpetrator of the act had paid for it with his life; but it had turned the feeling of injury which Carmagnola had cherished before into fierce hatred, and he appeared before the Venetian Senate with fire in his heart and on his tongue. With hot words he depicted the benefits he had conferred on Philip, and the base ingratitude with which he had been treated. He declared that he had received no rewards, but simply the just hire for what he had accomplished; and now, he said, the prince he had thus served had not only wounded and insulted him, not only turned his back on him, and driven him into exile, but he had sought to kill him,—not in a fair and open battle, such as soldiers love, but in the way of the cowardly assassin, with poison. He then congratulated himself on his preservation, and declared that although he had left his wife, his children, and his wealth in the country he had lost, he was still fortunate in that he had found a country where justice was honored and villains did not rule.

Carmagnola then represented that Philip was far less powerful than he was thought by the Florentines; that his soldiers were not paid, his citizens were not rich, and his own means were much exhausted; that the Duke's successes had depended on himself; and that without him Philip was weaker than the Florentines, and much weaker than Venice. And finally he offered his services to the Republic, promising to increase its dominions and to conquer Philip, and declaring that though they might have had greater commanders, none had been more loyal than he would be to Venice, and none had ever hated her enemies as he hated the Milanese.

The speech of Ridolfi had appealed to the intellects of the Senators, but that of Carmagnola moved both their heads and hearts, and almost all pronounced for war. Foscari followed; and an old chronicler says that "the energetic speech and great influence of the Doge, which was greater than that of any prince before him," decided the Senate to make the league with the Florentines. War was at once declared against Milan, and Carmagnola was made general of the forces. He speedily led to action the soldiers who were ready, while all Italy was scoured for recruits.

The first point of attack was Brescia, and the story of its possession is indeed a sad one. Historians disagree as to the extent of blame to be fixed on Carmagnola; but at the best, as Bigli gives it, it seems a cold-blooded betrayal of the many Brescian friends of the great captain. By the aid of two men within the city, at the dead of night, Carmagnola marched his troops into the Piazza, the very centre of the city, and suddenly, with an illumination of torches and blare of trumpets, announced his sovereignty in the name of Venice, which he now served. The historian says: "Though at first dismayed by the clang of the trumpets and arms, as soon as they [the inhabitants] perceived that it was Carmagnola, they remained quiet in their houses, except those who rushed forth to welcome the besiegers, or who had private relations with the General. No movement was made from any of the fortified places in the city."

So far all had gone well, but the real work was yet to be done; and it was only after seven months of siege, of trenching and assaults, of shutting out supplies, and many tasks which demanded infinite skill and patience, that Carmagnola was master of the city with all its wealth,—a splendid conquest for Venice. Brescia being actually reduced, the villages and castles belonging to it surrendered without resistance, and as far as the Lago di Garda the sovereignty of the Republic was acknowledged.

Philip was furious, but as he was in no condition just then to make war, he employed a legate of the Pope to make peace for him; and this was accomplished at the cost of his relinquishing, not only Brescia, but a portion of the Cremonese territory, in all nearly forty miles in extent.

Meantime, in all these months, there had been some mysterious elements in the conduct of Carmagnola, which by no means escaped the all-searching eye of Venice. Very early in the siege of Brescia he had left the authority with his chief engineer, and after a plundering expedition on Lago di Garda, had retired to the Baths of Abano, pleading that an old wound in his thigh gave him so much pain as to unfit him for service. The Venetians regarded this as a hint for some benefit to be conferred on their Captain-General, and they promptly made him a noble of Venice, with the title of Count of Castelnuovo, and offered him a principality in Cremonese territory if he would rejoin his army and push his victory across the river Adda.

The Duke of Milan, on his part, was pursuing a tortuous policy, by which he set a snare for the great Free Lance. He determined to make it appear that he had some understanding with Carmagnola. His envoys were constantly seeking the General, and whenever Philip made any proposals to Venice, he named this officer as his ambassador. Carmagnola was weak enough to be flattered by this. He believed that he was absolutely essential to both Venice and Milan, that everything revolved around him, and that he might decide the fate of these two powers from his retirement at the Baths of Abano.

The treaty which followed the fall of Brescia was signed in December, 1425, and in one clause of it the Duke promised to restore to Carmagnola his property in Lombardy; but Visconti broke this as well as other stipulations of the treaty, and it soon became evident that war was again inevitable. In February, 1427, Carmagnola was summoned to Venice to aid the government in its plans for a new campaign. Soon after his arrival his wife joined him, and was accorded, by the Seigniory, a splendid reception, in which neither trouble nor money was spared; and thus the Senate indicated to its Captain that his faithful service would be fully recognized by the Republic.