CHAPTER VIII
The Sorrow of Milan
“Il povero Milano cridava, pensando di poter cridare, ma fu
una mala cosa per Milano.”—Burigozzo.
At Novara, Milan lost her independence for ever. The restoration of the Sforza, witnessed twice over in the first thirty years of the sixteenth century, was a mere puppet-show, barely concealing the hand of greater Powers behind. The Gascon archers, who from the Castello walls amused themselves by shooting to fragments the great clay model of ‘the Horse,’ had ruined as effectively the fair social fabric, as unique, as fragile, and as incomplete, which Leonardo’s work symbolised in the person of its founder, Francesco Sforza.
With the captivity of Lodovico began in fact that long foreign subjugation of Milan which was to endure into modern times. Her vicissitudes during the short period that still comes within the scope of our mediæval story are too sad to linger over. Reoccupied by the French after Novara, the city was mulcted in an enormous sum as the penalty of rebellion, and instead of the comparatively mild régime under a native governor, first instituted by Louis, she had to suffer the iron rule of a foreign viceroy, whose aim was to stamp out every spark of free and patriotic aspiration in the people.
But for several years Milan enjoyed at least outward peace, under the triumphant Lilies, governed in succession by the Cardinal de Rohan, the Sieur du Benin, and Charles d’Amboise, Sieur de Chaumont, the last of whom ruled from 1505 to his death in 1511. In 1509 domination of the French was shaken by a sudden reversal of policy on the part of Pope Julius, who, having used their aid to humble Venice, suddenly made friends with that Republic, and loudly roared to all Europe his intention of driving the French out of Italy. The immediate result for Milan was a great inroad of Swiss allies of the Pope, under that terrible peasant priest, the Cardinal de Sion, and the devastation of the fair Lombard provinces. The French, whose forces were weakened by dispersion in various directions and could ill resist this furious onslaught, endeavoured to dismay their adversary by raising a so-called General Council for the reform of the Church, in the shape of a few partisan cardinals, who sat solemnly in the Duomo at Milan and pronounced futile sentences of excommunication and deposition against the bellicose Pontiff.
But Julius, strong in alliance with the Emperor and the King of Spain, laughed at the feeble thunders of his rebellious sons. The French found better aid in the military genius of Gaston de Foix, the King’s nephew, who succeeded Chaumont as Governor of Milan and commander of the army in 1511. With a stern and silent rapidity which amazed all Italy, the young general of twenty-two swept through Lombardy, retaking lost cities, relieving those beleaguered, and carrying his arms against the Papalists and Imperialists right up to Ravenna, where he routed them utterly in the famous battle of Easter Day, 1512. The victory, however, issued fatally for the winners. The hero of it was borne dead from the field in slow and mournful procession back to Milan, followed soon after by his paralysed army in retreat before the renewed hosts which the inactivity of the new French commander, Palissy, had allowed the dauntless Pope to collect. Pressed on all sides in the Duchy by the Swiss, Palissy was unable to maintain his position there either, and continuing their retreat the French passed away over the Alps, abandoning all their conquests in Lombardy, except the fortresses of Milan and Cremona.
And now once more a Sforza was proclaimed Lord of Milan, amid the thunderous rejoicings of the people. But the son of Lodovico and Beatrice, Massimiliano, whom the Pope and the Cardinal de Sion, for their own political purposes, lifted to the throne of his ancestors at this juncture, was nothing but the feeble tool of those two potentates, a helpless and rotten bark tossed amid the storms of those contentious times. For the little authority which he wielded, he was utterly unfit. Bred up in exile at the Emperor’s Court, he had no affection for his country, and regarded his new sovereignty merely as an opportunity for extravagant pleasure and dissipation. The maintenance of his luxurious Court, and of the huge army necessary to defend the State, demanded enormous sums, to raise which he recklessly alienated the ducal revenues, and continually imposed unexpected taxes on his subjects. To satisfy rapacious allies and favourites, he flung away his fiefs, seeming, as a chronicler says, to follow the proverb—The fewer possessions, the fewer cares. While the light-minded youth forgot all duties and cares of State, in feasting, jousting and the dance, the resentment of the people was rising against him, his ministers and captains were intriguing with his foes, and the roar of the great guns at intervals from the Castello might have reminded him that the key of Milan was still held by the enemy, and that Louis in France was quickly preparing an expedition to reconquer Lombardy.
The first attempt of the French in 1513, under Louis de la Tremouille and Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, met, however, with an unexpected and signal defeat from the Swiss at Novara, which drove them back over the Alps. This was followed by the capitulation of the French garrison in the Castello of Milan, and Massimiliano seemed now firmly established in his seat. But Julius II. was dead, and the whole political scene had shifted once again. The Venetians were now ranged with France against the Papal League, and the accession of Francis I. to the French throne, early in 1515, raised up against the Sforza a young and enthusiastic foe, who was undaunted by the sad experiences of his two predecessors in their Italian ventures. The King hastened to raise an enormous army, with which he crossed the mountains in person, and, skilfully guided by Trivulzio, surprised and made captive Prospero Colonna, general of the ducal forces, who was awaiting him in a strong position. Advancing unopposed, almost up to Milan, Francis seemed about to complete a bloodless conquest, when a sudden rising of the Milanese themselves, and the arrival of a great force of Swiss to the aid of the Duke, checked his progress. And now at Marignano (Melegnano) outside Milan was fought that mighty battle (14th September 1515), not of men, but of giants—as the veteran Trivulzio affirmed—in which the fierce and stubborn Swiss and the gallant French contended all one evening and again the next day, till seven thousand of the mountaineers lay dead upon the field, and their brave comrades, utterly exhausted, were forced to give way and fly into Milan.
At news of the defeat Massimiliano retired into the Castello, abandoning the city to the enemy. Here he might have held out awhile, but his spirit was too small, and by the advice of Girolamo Morone, one of the most astute statesmen of that day, and the chief stay of this generation of the House of Sforza—who counted on the existence of a more promising younger brother, Francesco—the incompetent prince renounced his Duchy to the French King for a large pension. Retiring to France, this elder son of the Moro disappears ingloriously out of the story of Milan.