At length from this welter of lost hopes and evil deeds there emerged, not Italy a nation, but five Italian states of pre-eminence in the peninsula, namely, Milan, Venice, Florence, Naples, and Rome. Each was more jealous of the other than of foreign intervention, so that on the slightest pretext one would appeal to France to support her ambitions, another to Spain or the Empire, and yet a third to Hungary or the Greeks. If Italy, as a result, became at a later date ‘the cockpit of Europe’, where strangers fought their battles and settled their fortunes, it was largely her lack of any national foresight in mediaeval times that brought on her this misery.
ITALY
in the LATER MIDDLE AGES
The history of Milan, first as a Commune fighting for her own liberty and destroying her neighbour’s, then as the battle-ground of a struggle between two of her chief families, and finally as the slave of the victor, is the tale of many a north Italian town, only that position and wealth gave to the fate of this famous city a more than local interest.
The Visconti
The lords of Milan in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries were the Visconti, typical tyrants of the Italy of their day, quick with their swords, but still more ready with poison or a dagger, profligate and luxurious, patrons of literature and art, bad enemies and still worse friends, false and cruel, subtle as the serpent they so fittingly bore as an emblem. No bond but fear compelled their subject’s loyalty, and deliberate cruelty to inspire fear they had made a part of their system.
Bernabò Visconti permitted no one but himself to enjoy the pleasures of the chase; but for this purpose he kept some five thousand savage hounds fed on flesh, and into their kennels his soldiers cast such hapless peasants as had accidentally killed their lord’s game or dared to poach on his preserves.
No sense of the sanctity of an envoy’s person disturbed this grim Visconti’s sense of humour, when he demanded of messengers sent by the Pope with unpleasant tidings whether they would rather drink or eat. As he put the question he pointed towards the river, rushing in a torrent beneath the bridge on which he stood, and the envoys, casting horrified eyes in that direction, replied, ‘Sir, we will eat.’ ‘Eat this, then,’ said Bernabò sternly, handing them the papal letter with its leaden seals and thick parchment, and before they left his presence the whole had been consumed.
Galeazzo Visconti, an elder brother of Bernabò, bore an even worse reputation for cruelty. Those he condemned to death had their suffering prolonged on a deliberate programme during forty-one days, losing now an eye, and now a foot or a hand, were beaten, forced to swallow nauseous drinks, and then, when the agony could be prolonged no further, broken on the wheel. The scene of this torture was a scaffold set in the public gaze that Milan might read what was the anger of the Visconti and tremble.
The most famous of this infamous family was Gian Galeazzo, son of Galeazzo, a youth so timid by nature that he would shake and turn white at the sudden closing of a door, or at a noise in the street below. His uncle, Bernabò, believed him half-witted, and foolishly accepted an invitation to visit him after his father’s death, intending to manage the young man’s affairs for him and to keep him in terrified submission. The wily old man was to find himself outmatched, however, for Gian Galeazzo came to their meeting-place with an armed guard, arrested his uncle, and imprisoned him in a castle, where he died by slow poison.