Not for long, however, did the lion and the lamb thus couch together. Even while the Emperor still lingered in Milan, suspicion and discontent began to seethe among the citizens. The old fear and hatred of the Empire, which still lived in the descendants of Barbarossa’s victims, was fanned by the heavy exactions of the imperial officers, who demanded an enormous sum as a coronation gift from the already exhausted citizens. The German troops were also a continual vexation to the people. The Torriani did all they could to foster the growing spirit of revolt. Guido and his cousin the Archbishop forgot their feud in their common desire to get rid of the Emperor, and the Visconti themselves were found ready to sympathise with the general discontent. It was rumoured in the imperial palace that Galeazzo Visconte and Francesco della Torre had been seen joining hands in sign of amity at a meeting outside the gates. But whatever the other members of his House might be doing, the Head of the Visconti sat aloof, peacefully unconscious, apparently, of what was going forward.
Henry and his ministers grew uneasy, as the hostility of the city became ever more visible and menacing. At last, on a day in February, the storm burst. The whole of Milan rose suddenly in wild tumult, crowding and clamouring round their old leaders, the Torriani, who appeared with all their followers in full armour in the market-place. Before long Galeazzo Visconte also arrived upon the scene, mounted on his war-horse and arrayed for battle. But to the surprise and dismay of the conspirators he ranged himself with the imperial troops, who came charging down upon the Torriani and their disorderly host. Meanwhile, at the first sound of tumult, the Emperor, suspecting treachery, had despatched officers to arrest Matteo Visconte. They found that veteran sitting in the quiet loggia of his palace, most innocently occupied in reading a book. Hastening with them to the Court, he cast himself down before the Emperor, protesting his perfect loyalty and innocence of all offence, and offered his best services to aid in subduing the rebellion. The adherence of the Visconti was the Emperor’s salvation. By the powerful assistance of Galeazzo and his followers, the Germans, after a brief, fierce battle, completely overcame the rebels. The Torriani perceived too late that they had been outwitted and ruined by the cunning of the rival House, on whose help they had been led to depend. Simone and Francesco, Guido’s sons, fled at a gallop out of the city, while the old chief himself rose with difficulty from a bed of sickness and crept over a garden wall into the precincts of a nunnery, whence he was able after a while to escape into safety. Their adherents were put to the sword, and their houses were sacked and utterly destroyed by the Germans, who with vindictive fury, swept through the streets, slaying and spoiling without mercy.
Thus was the power of the Della Torre in Milan for ever overthrown. The Visconti, having cleverly disposed of their rivals, had now to rid themselves of the Emperor, in order to regain their old sovereignty. Henry, vexed at the bloodshed which had already stained his fair white banner of peace, and beginning to realise the secret strength of the spirit of faction, sent Matteo and Galeazzo into exile, lest he should appear to have favoured the Ghibellines in the late affair. But the fall of the Torriani had filled the Guelfs with distrust and fear of him. He passed on his way, to find the cities of Lombardy arming against him and his task of peace-making growing more and more difficult of accomplishment. Hardly was he gone from Milan before the Visconti returned, and in a very short time Matteo succeeded in making himself once more all-powerful. A year later the wisdom of the Milanese Serpent appeared to have completely charmed the Imperial Eagle, when in return for a timely supply of gold to support the Emperor’s enterprise, Matteo won the legal confirmation of his authority over the city, with the title of Imperial Vicar of Milan.
CHAPTER V
The Visconti
“Maudire la puissance, c’est blasphémer l’humanité.”
The Visconti had now firmly established their dominion in Milan, a dominion destined, in the story of the unstable mediæval governments of Italy, to be equalled by few in duration, and by none in extent. For good or for evil the great city, with her command of the chief passes of the Alps for war and commerce, her wealth as the capital of the vast alluvial plain of Lombardy, was delivered into the hands of a race singularly fitted to use these natural advantages for the creation of a mighty State. The Visconti, as a family, were characterised by exceptional ability and tenacity, and above all, by a subtlety of brain and suppleness of conscience which, under the stress of ambition or necessity, induced a perfidy so quiet and so effectual that the Snake upon their shields became for all Italy a symbol of their political methods, and an object of horror and fear. The vices and weaknesses which ruined other Italian dynasties seemed to have little power over these Milanese princes. Hot and rash of blood in the earlier generations, they rarely allowed passion to override prudence; those of them who did were quickly rooted out. Even that most fruitful disorder in a reigning House, the jealous rivalry of its own members, could not avail to overcome their political coolness or sagacity, or sunder their union against a common enemy. With time this self-control became a habit of cold and passionless judgment, all-powerful in the management of men and States. Even the fatal weakness of remorse and superstitious fear, to which they were all prone, could not undermine them; they were able to parry their consciences, and delay repentance until their successors were old enough to carry on their unscrupulous policy. Nor did the arrogance and cruelty which tyranny bred in this sovereign race prove their overthrow. In spite of its record of crime, no retributive catastrophe ended the dynasty. It died out of itself, and we shall see the last of the Visconti sink into the grave under the burden of an empire greater almost than any other in Italy.
Il Gran Matteo, as posterity named the founder of the dynasty, was the prototype in character of all the great sovereigns who were to follow him. He ruled from the cabinet rather than from the saddle. Statecraft was his victorious weapon, and his calculating and passionless nature had its complement in a humanity remarkable for his time. But it needed not only his incomparable prudence and foresight, but also the strong arms of his three elder sons, Galeazzo, Marco, and Luchino, to assure his dominion and restore it to its old extent. The remaining years of the chief, as head of the Ghibelline party in North Italy, were spent in a constant warfare with the Guelfs and their allies, King Robert of Naples, and the Church. The awful papal ban fell again and again upon the Visconte and his subjects. Nevertheless Piacenza, Bergamo, Lodi, Como, Cremona, Alexandria, Tortona, Pavia, Vercelli, and Novara were brought one by one beneath his sway by the victory of diplomacy or arms. His success was embittered, however, by estrangement from his beloved first-born, Galeazzo, who coveted his father’s supremacy, and jealously resented the rivalry of his brother Marco. But Galeazzo’s hot temper had been chastened by exile and time, and in spite of their mutual anger, he supported his father’s policy with a wise loyalty.
The fortunes of the Guelf party sank low before the rapid growth of the Viscontean power. Its hereditary leaders in North Italy, the Marquises of Este, were entangled in an unnatural struggle with the Papacy, which was itself enfeebled by the exile of Avignon, and by the operations of its own selfish greed. But in 1319 the party gathered itself together once more for a mighty effort to overthrow the Ghibelline domination in Milan. The Cardinal Legate, Beltrando del Poggetto, in the name of Pope John XXII., formed a great league of the Guelfs against the Visconti, and hurled at them afresh the spiritual weapons of the Church. Matteo was summoned repeatedly to answer for his sins at the feet of the Pope. In 1322 he was cited finally before a tribunal of the Inquisition at Alexandria. Instead of him, his son Marco appeared there at the head of an army with banners spread. The Inquisitors hastily retreated to Valenza, where in security they solemnly cursed Matteo for twenty and five different crimes and heresies, and invoked every conceivable penalty upon him and his House, even to the fourth generation. Full remission of sins was offered to all who took arms against them.
The old Ghibelline chief, weakened by age and bodily infirmity, quailed before this onslaught. Many of his own adherents and kinsmen were deserting him. Milan, trembling under the ban of the Church and excited by the papal agents, was verging on revolt. Matteo summoned the offending Galeazzo, forgave him, and resigned to him the chieftainship. Retiring to a village at a little distance from the city, he died shortly after, full of years and sorrow.
Galeazzo and his brother Marco, bitter rivals, forgot for the time their mutual wrongs, and with the other sons of Matteo stood up in manful union against their foes. For fourteen days they concealed their father’s death from the Milanese, while Galeazzo calmed the city by conciliatory measures, and assumed the supreme power. The storm broke heavily upon them now. Immense numbers from all North Italy joined the standard of the Legate, which, impiously displaying the Cross in a worldly quarrel was carried towards Milan, with the avowed purpose of overthrowing the Visconti and restoring the Torriani. Monza and Piacenza fell (1323), and the capital itself was attacked, the suburbs sacked, and the walls closely blockaded. The straits of the Visconti appeared desperate. But the brothers fought with invincible spirit, and they were supported by the Emperor, Louis of Bavaria, who sent succour from Germany. The papal army itself began to dissolve through rivalries and dissensions, and sickness. The siege was soon raised, and early in the following year (1324) the Visconti took the offensive and inflicted a signal defeat upon the allies at Vaprio. Their fortunes now revived. Within the next few years they recovered many of the lost cities of their father’s State, and the Pope, realising the impossibility of overthrowing them, began to listen to emissaries from Galeazzo with suggestions for peace and reconciliation.