[*63] Which among the condottieri is worthy of what Dennistoun seems to regard as only to be bestowed on the best of men? However, he is wrong about Piccinino. Of all the Bracceschi, he alone was an honourable man. Gaspare Broglio, one of Sigismondo Malatesta's captains, gives him the fifth place among the soldiers of Italy; after Carmagnuolo, Francesco Sforza, Sigismondo himself, and Federigo of Urbino. A fine fighter, an excellent strategist, it was his weakness to be true to his master. And then he was what Sforza never was, nor could the dukedom of Milan make him—a gentleman. Cf. Edward Hutton, Sigismondo Malatesta (Dent, 1906), passim, and G. Campano e G.B. Poggio, Vite di Braccio Fortebraccio e di Nic. Piccinino Perugini (Perugia, 1636).
[*64] Bianca Maria was promised and withheld from Sforza many times. At the beginning of the third war with Venice, which ended in 1432, the Emperor Sigismund came into Italy, and to Milan first, to receive the Iron Crown. It was on this occasion that Sforza was first betrothed to Bianca Maria Visconti, just then eight years old. At the date of their wedding—they had not met between—she was only seventeen, yet I suppose this to have been none too early for an Italian girl of the fifteenth century. Sforza was forty. A curious panegyric on the bride will be found in Sabadino G., Gynevra de la clare donne (Scelta di curiosità letterarie inedite o rare Dispensa, 223, Bologna, 1888). And see C.M. Ady, Milan under the Sforza (Methuen, 1907), pp. 18 and 24-5.
[65] That is, Charles II., king of Naples, when Dante wrote. See Purgatorio, v.
[*66] I think Dennistoun is wrong here. Galeotto, called Il beato, was the son of Pandolfo Malatesta by Allegra di Mori, and was born 1411. Sigismondo was his son by Madonna Antonia, and was born in 1417. See Battaglini, Basini Parenensis Poetæ Opera (Arimini, 1744), vol. II., p. 274; Clementini, Raccolto Istorico della Fondatione di Rimino (Rimini, 1617), vol. II., p. 299; and Edward Hutton, op. cit., p. 16. Novello was his son also by Madonna Antonia, and was born in 1418. Neither of these ladies was Pandolfo's wife. Pandolfo died before his brother Carlo. On Carlo's death the Malatesta territory was held in trust for a time by women till Galeotto succeeded. On his death the same thing happened; but at last Sigismondo took Rimini when he was fifteen, and Novello had Cesena. It is true that Novello predeceased Sigismondo, though only by a few years, but by then Sigismondo was fighting for his life, having lost everything save Rimini itself. All that Dennistoun says of the Malatesti is inaccurate and clouded by prejudice.
[67] Bib. Marucelli, MSS. G, No. 308.
[68] The heraldic bearing of the Montefeltri was an imperial eagle; of the Malatesta an elephant, allusive, perhaps, to the bones of Hannibal's elephants, said to have been found at the Furlo Pass, near Fossombrone and Fano, of which they were seigneurs.[*C]
[*C] See [note *2], [page 71], supra.
[69] See Ugolini, op. cit., pp. 4 and 5. S. Leo seems to have been called at one time Monteferetro. Cf. Marini, Saggio di ragioni della città di S. Leo (Pesaro, 1758), and Mazio, Relazione a Urbano VIII., dello stato d'Urbino (Roma, 1858).
[70] Views of S. Leo, from other points, will be found in Mr. Gally Knight's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy, and in Comte de Bylandt's Atlas de Volcans, where it is rendered subsidiary to the phenomena developed in that remarkable district.
[71] Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 928.