He and Sforza fought together against Piccinino and amongst other things took back Verona.
1439. Verona retaken by the Venetians, Giovanni Contarini; Sala delle Quattro Porte, ducal palace.
Gattamelata died of apoplexy not long after the end of that campaign, and was magnificently buried, in the presence of the Doge and the Signory. A picture representing his obsequies was painted by Mantegna, but his biographer, Marchese Eroli, writing in 1876, had not learned where it was, if it still existed, nor can I obtain any information on the subject.
The great Francesco Sforza was also during some time in the service of the Republic, but left it to marry Bianca Visconti with the prospect of succeeding to the Duchy, and he fought against Venice as bravely as he had lately fought under her standard. War was purely a matter of business with the condottieri, and so long as they fulfilled the conditions of each successive contract they undertook, no one ever blamed them for changing sides as often as was profitable. It was not even proper or customary to poison them for it, and in an age when political murder was as common as mere political calumny is now, the acts of Filippo-Maria Visconti were really looked on with disapproval by his fellow-scoundrels in power. It was considered that he went too far.
Rom. iv. 196.
Battle of Lake Garda, Tintorettto; ceiling, Hall of Great Council.
Astonishing things were done by the soldiers of that age. In the war with Milan, for instance, Venice at one time judged it necessary to get a small fleet into the Lake of Garda; and as the approaches by water were guarded by the Milanese, it was actually found possible to haul six galleys and twenty-five long-boats by means of oxen and capstans from the river Adige up the steep slope of the Monte Baldo and down to Torbole, where the vessels were launched into the lake—and promptly blockaded by the enemy.
In the same war Brescia successfully withstood a siege of no less than three years. It would take long to give even a slight idea of the feats of arms performed on both sides by hired troops, at a time when all Italy was on fire, and war was more or less continuous because the condottieri, who lived by it, were obliged to make it so or starve. The country was in a bad state; if the strong anywhere protected the weak, it was in order to enslave them more effectually, and the weak often revolted against the enforced protection they received.
Visconti died in 1447, leaving four wills, on the third of which Sforza founded those pretensions to the dukedom which he soon succeeded in establishing, though the Milanese declared that they would be a Republic, like Venice and Genoa. We smile at the futility of such a simple popular aspiration, in an age when soldiers were rulers and rulers were tyrants. The Milanese were obliged to employ Sforza to fight for them; he did so, routed the Venetians, forced them to a peace, and then entered into an alliance with them which gave them all the Cremasco, with Bergamo and Brescia, but landed him safely on the throne of Milan.
He had in him the stuff of a good prince, and he is said to have indulged dreams of uniting all Italy in a sort of federation to defend the country from foreign invasion.