"Towards Romagna lay Pesaro, wrested in 1445 from the Malatesta by Francesco Sforza, and erected by him into a little sovereignty for a younger branch of his family.[271] It was then held by Giovanni Sforza, who in 1497 had been divorced from Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of the Pope. The next domain was Rimini, sadly fallen from the ascendency to which Pandolfo III. and his brother Carlo Malatesta had raised it in the preceding century. It had been, since 1482, in the hands of Pandolfo IV., natural son of Roberto Malatesta and son-in-law of Giovanni Bentivoglio of Bologna, whose debaucheries and cruelty had gained for him a bad notoriety. He had accepted the protection of Venice, which, anxious to secure an influence along the Adriatic coast, offered her pay to all the chiefs of this province, heeding little whether they led in person the levies which they thus became bound to maintain at her disposal, or only made these a pretext for receiving what was deemed an honourable pension.
"Westward of Rimini, Cesena formed part of the ecclesiastical state, having been seized from a branch of the Malatesta. Forlì, the ancient heritage of the Ordelaffi, had passed in 1480 to Girolamo Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV., who in 1473 had also been invested by his uncle with the lordship of Imola. These two seigneuries, separated by that of Faenza, had been held since 1488 by the youthful Ottaviano Riario, under tutelage of his mother, the undaunted Caterina Sforza, natural daughter of Duke Galeazzo of Milan. By her second [third] marriage with Giovanni, a cadet of the Medici, she had a son who became famous in the wars of Italy: and though her husband had died in 1498, she remained faithful to the interests of Florence, which took the young Ottaviano into her pay, as a guarantee of her protection.
"Between the two last-mentioned principalities, Faenza extended up the valley of the Lamone, as far as the Tuscan frontier. To this, as a point of attacking the Florentine republic, the Venetians attached great importance. Constituting themselves guardians of Astorre Manfredi its chief, then in his seventeenth year, they had appeased the struggle between him and his illegitimate brother Ottaviano, and had made themselves all but masters of Faenza and the passes of the Lamone. They had also seized Ravenna and Cervia from the families of Polenta and Malatesta. The rich and powerful city of Bologna had, since 1462, been absolutely ruled by Giovanni Bentivoglio. But of all the church feudatories, Duke Ercole d'Este was the most distant and the most independent; his family had for several centuries held Ferrara of the apostolic chamber, and the possession of the imperial fiefs of Modena and Reggio elevated his pretensions above the level of other pontifical vicars.
"The courts of so many petty sovereigns gave to Romagna a character of elegance and wealth. All their capitals had churches, tasteful palaces, and libraries; and each court strove to render itself not less distinguished for mental refinement. Among the pensioned attendants of each prince were numbered poets, philosophers, and men of letters; and the rivalry of these little states was most assuredly beneficial to the progress of literature, even whilst it generally tended to demean the character of the learned. But it is the nature of absolutism to promote costly vices: the flatterers who surround the most petty sovereign extol his munificence as a virtue, and he can seldom moderate his desires more than if he ruled a great empire. Hence it happened that the princes of Romagna found their revenues unequal to the sums they required for defence, for vanity, and for pleasures. They were ever seeking some pretext for extorting from their subjects a portion of their property, and they eked out the inadequate returns of taxation by fines and confiscations.
"There are certain descriptions of crime which seem peculiar to those families who, occupying a position of social isolation, have never learned the common feelings of humanity, and do not consider themselves subject to the ordinary code of morals. The princely races of Romagna had in fact given to their subjects frequent examples of parricide, poisoning, and treachery of every sort. The higher noblesse, too, deemed vengeful cruelty a proof of independence; and even in the villages hereditary hatred was cherished by the leaders of contending factions, and gratified by savage atrocities. Numerous bands of cut-throats were ever ready to be employed in aggression or defence; and enmities were seldom satisfied so long as one of any age or sex survived of the detested house. We are assured that when Arcimboldo, Archbishop of Milan and Cardinal of Santa Prassede, went as legate to Perugia and Umbria, he found there a gentleman who, after smashing against a wall the heads of the children of his foe, and strangling their mother who was pregnant, nailed to the door a surviving infant in trophy of his revenge, just as a gamekeeper would hang up the birds and beasts of prey which he had killed; nor was this outrage regarded by the neighbours as anything remarkable!"
Those who accompany our narrative of the Dukes of Urbino will, we trust, admit that this sweeping denunciation had its exceptions. The well known and never concealed prejudices of its able and eloquent author exempt us from the necessity of cautioning the reader against implicit credence in the view which here and in other passages he endeavours to establish, that Cesare Borgia's usurpations were hailed by the people of Romagna as a welcome relief from the perpetual oppressions of their domestic tyrants. Of extortion and confiscations I have discovered but few instances under these princes. Their personal vices were common to the age, and prevailed from the representatives of St. Peter, through all ranks and under all governments. It is unnecessary now to discuss how far the security and welfare of the masses were most promoted under such despotisms, or amid the ever restless anarchy of democracies like Florence, "whose whole history was one intermittent fever of insurrection; where each man's own arm was his best, often his sole, law and protection; where the magistrate of to-day might be the exile or martyr of to-morrow";[272] and whose convulsions are compared by her own Dante to those of
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"A sick wretch, Who finds no rest upon her down, but oft Shifting her side, short respite seeks from pain."—Purg. VI. |
Duke Valentino now assumed the life of a condottiere, in order to raise troops for his enterprise. His winning manners,—for none could better mask the nature of a hyæna under the manners of a dove,—his gallant bearing—for he was handsome, frank, and daring,—his prodigal pay and specious professions,—all contributed to gather around him many warrior chieftains with their respective followings, devoted to his person, and ready to promote whatever views his ambition might prompt. To such adherents Louis added a brigade, for which he had no longer immediate need, consisting of three hundred French lances, under Ives d'Allègre, and four thousand Swiss mercenaries, commanded by the Bailli of Dijon. At the head of this little army Borgia marched upon Imola, and there united it with the papal troops to the number, in all, of fifteen thousand men.
The same force of character by which we have already seen Caterina Riario Sforza prevail over the faction which murdered her first husband,[273] had enabled her to maintain her son Ottaviano's authority in Imola and Forlì during his long minority. She had given her hand to the brave and handsome Giacomo Fea, who at that crisis saved her cause by his defence of the citadel of Forlì, and in 1496 had been again widowed by a base cabal of disaffected nobles, who suffered at her hand a retribution resembling that endured by the Orsi in 1488. In 1497 she celebrated her third nuptials with Giovanni de' Medici, envoy from Florence at the court of her son. He was second cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and died in the following year, leaving by her an only child, well known in Italian history as Giovanni delle bande nere, whose brief but glorious career of arms we shall see cut short at the fight of Borgoforte, in 1527, and whose son was the Grand Duke Cosimo I. Ottaviano Riario was now in his twenty-first year, and seconded his mother's stout resistance by placing garrisons and supplies in Imola, Forlì, and his minor strongholds. But she vainly attempted to impart her own spirit to her dastardly or dissatisfied subjects. On the last day of 1499 the gates of Imola were opened to Duke Valentino, and the castle surrendered after a feeble defence. Sending her son and her treasure into Tuscany, Caterina once more entered the citadel of Forlì, which, after a bombardment of several days, was lost by treachery. The Countess was carried to Rome, but after a short imprisonment was permitted to retire to Florence, where she dedicated the eight remaining years of her chequered life to the education of her younger children, to charity and spiritual meditation, and to the austerities of an almost monastic discipline.
After this success, Cesare Borgia hastened to Rome to advise with his father as to their next step; but his progress was interrupted by the sudden recall of the French troops in his service. Ludovico Sforza so well employed the money he had carried into the Tyrol, and the support which he received from the Emperor Maximilian, that early in February he marched into Lombardy at the head of an army of Swiss, before whom the garrison of Milan retired, leaving him once more in possession of his capital and most of his original territory, where he was welcomed with general joy. But the reaction of his fortunes was momentary. Louis quickly repaired to Lombardy with reinforcements, and the combat which would have decided his fate was anticipated by the desertion of his Swiss mercenaries, who went over in a body to the French. Ludovico was carried to France, where he remained, during ten years, prisoner in a gloomy dungeon or cage at the Castle of Loches, and died on being released.[274] His talents and address aggravated his crimes; his treachery to his nephew and faithlessness to his allies lost him the goodwill of all; he was the earliest victim of those barbarian inroads which he first brought upon Italy, and which led to the annihilation of her independence.