The misfortunes thus heaped upon Malatesta were paralleled by those which befel the Angevine cause. Hastening to obtain succours from Piccinino, he found him paralysed by an almost equally decisive defeat received before Troia on the 18th of August. Within a month the Prince of Tarento gave his adherence to Ferdinand, a clear proof that the star of Aragon was in the ascendant; and although this example was not adopted by Giacopo until the following autumn, his intermediate exertions were directed to securing the means of dictating favourable terms for himself, rather than to saving the Duke of Calabria from reverses rapidly accumulating around him. In August, 1463, he made his peace, receiving Sulmona and many adjoining townships as a sovereign principality, and in spring the Duke, whose footing had during many months been limited to the island of Ischia, returned to Provence, finally abandoning his pretensions to Lower Italy. These evil tidings are said to have found his father René so absorbed in painting a partridge that the loss of a kingdom neither shook his hand nor ruffled its plumage.
After his bootless visit to the Angevine camp Sigismondo turned for aid to Venice, and obtained the Signory's mediation with Pius in his behalf. But the Pontiff, by a long allocution recorded in his Commentaries, justified to their ambassador the strong measures required against so incorrigible an offender, who thereupon directed his energies to providing Fino and Rimini with means of resistance. In the reopening campaign his opponent's first measure was to bring Macerata and some other mountain fastnesses to terms, for which the noise of his guns sufficed. Thence he descended upon Fano, then held by Roberto Malatesta, and after the manner of the age preluded his attack by gathering in the harvest that awaited the townspeople's sickles. This delay allowed the languid ecclesiastical levies to arrive, and in July the siege was formed. Under a system of improved warfare few places would be more untenable, its position affording it no natural advantages, and lying open to assault by sea or land. It was otherwise in the infancy of artillery and military engineering. Much time and labour and some lives were expended before the besiegers' pieces could be brought to bear, or be protected from the heavy stones, weighing each 300 pounds, which were fired upon them from the ramparts. Sigismondo commanded the sea by means of vessels chartered at Venice, supplying the place with men, ammunition, and provisions; and although his fleet was seriously damaged by a flotilla of boats hastily manned by Federigo's orders, communications were quickly re-established under protection of some Venetian galleys: after these had been recalled, in consequence of urgent representations made to the Signory on behalf of the Pope, this service was performed by two Angevine galleys hired by Malatesta for the purpose. Neither perseverance nor courage in its proper sense were qualities of the Italian soldiery, even in their age of military reputation, and the discouragement resulting from this state of affairs was so aggravated by a terrific thunder-storm, under cover of which a sally captured their artillerymen and dismounted their guns, that it was with the utmost difficulty, and only by urgent representations to Pius himself, the lieutenant-general could keep his troops together. Aware that success constituted his best hold upon them, he redoubled his exertions, and in a short time had the satisfaction not only of remedying these reverses, but of seeing his operations put on a really satisfactory footing. The prospect of pillage now carried his army to the opposite extreme; they could not be restrained from an assault, which they gave with such impetuosity that the terrified citizens capitulated whilst Roberto with his mother and sisters retired into the castle. These ladies, remembering the Count's generous conduct to their Giovanni at Montefiori, and preferring his clemency to the risks of further resistance, induced Roberto to surrender it on the third day, before a shot had been fired in its defence. The conditions appear to have been a general assurance of protection to persons and property; and when the Malatesta family presented themselves before their conqueror, the ladies in convulsive grief, he was assailed by persuasions from the legate and most of his officers and advisers—
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"To keep the word of promise to the ear, And break it to the sense." |
They urged upon him that, in dealing with an enemy who had again and again set good faith at defiance, it was weakness to adhere to a capitulation, and thus lose the opportunity at length offered by fortune of avenging past injuries on the son of his foe; at all events that, under provocations so aggravated, he would be amply justified in observing the terms rather to the letter than in their spirit, and in exacting an ample ransom for his prisoners, as Sigismondo would, in the like circumstances, have assuredly done. These suggestions, though entirely conformable to the morality and honour of the age, were rejected by Federigo, to whose candid and generous mind they seemed mere sophistry. He, therefore, not only liberated the Malatesta, but escorted them to the place of their embarkation for Rimini. Pius has himself recorded the feelings with which he learned the fall of Fano. Rising from table, he spread his hands towards heaven, and poured forth thanks to the Almighty, who thus loaded him with benefits. After which, he said apart, "There is now nothing to keep me at home; God calls me to his own war, and lays open the way; there is no reason for further delay." These, however, were projects destined to remain unfulfilled.
The moral influence of the Count's moderation, as well as of his success, was proved in the speedy surrender of Mondolfo and Sinigaglia, by which the whole vicariat finally passed from the Malatesta, and lapsed to the Church. Fano has ever since been included in the ecclesiastical territory, but Sinigaglia, conferred by Sixtus IV. on his nephew, Giovanni della Rovere, son-in-law of Federigo, became the cradle of the second ducal dynasty of Urbino, and an integral portion of their duchy. In order to reduce what remained of the Rimini fiefs, the Count presented himself before the stronghold of Gradara, a mountain village, even now retaining some interesting memorials of the Malatesta, which quickly followed the example of Sinigaglia,[113] as did Maiuolo, Penna di Billi, and S. Agata, in Montefeltro.
Accident now intervened to save Sigismondo from utter destruction. Some disputes between Venice and the Emperor, originating in commercial jealousies, exposed Trieste to an attack by the former. It happened that Pius, having been bishop of that place, interposed in his behalf. The Venetian Signory had observed with jealousy the progress of the Church along the Adriatic, which they looked upon as their own lake, and where their ascendancy was apparently secure, so long as its western sea-board continued to be partitioned among petty feudatories and communities. Their plan of indirectly thwarting the siege of Fano having failed, they seized this opportunity of making the recal of their armament against Trieste conditional upon an arrangement between his Holiness and Malatesta, urging that it ill became him to preach Christian union as a preliminary to the Turkish crusade, whilst he pertinaciously instigated a selfish contest. It was not easy to evade or answer a plea which appealed to the Pontiff's ruling passion, especially as apprehensions began to be entertained that Sigismondo might in desperation sell his services, or even his territory, to the Infidel. Availing himself of this favourable opening, the culprit sent envoys from Rimini to Rome, to sue for peace on any terms. Those dictated by Pius were abundantly stringent to gratify vengeance and disarm apprehension. In order to expiate his flagrant heresies, commissioners, formally authorised by him, were to appear in the church of the Santissimi Apostoli, on a festival, during celebration of mass, and there publicly confess and recant their master's atheistical tenets. As an atonement for his treasons and temporal misdeeds, his possessions were forfeited to the Church, except Rimini and a few miles of the surrounding country, his conquests from Federigo being at the same time restored. Conditions of nearly equal severity were imposed on Malatesta of Cesena, and the remnant of territory allowed to the brothers was continued to them only during life, under burden of a heavy annual tribute. But for the imperious Sigismondo there was reserved a deeper humiliation. As the bishop who was commissioned to raise the interdict approached his capital, he and his people met him in suppliant guise. Proceeding to the cathedral, the prelate set forth the sins of the sovereign, and imposed upon the community three days of fasting and penance, with suspension of Divine ministrations. At the end of that interval, Sigismondo appeared on his knees before the bishop at the high altar, to acknowledge his errors, implore their remission, and pledge his future obedience: whereupon he and his people, who crowded around in the same abject attitude, were absolved, and received the benediction.
Thus ended twenty-four years of strife between Sigismondo and Federigo, which, necessarily occupying our narrative, may have unduly taxed the patience of our readers. When it began, the Malatesta owned the whole coast from Cervia and Cesena to the Fiumisino, near Ancona. Had their conduct equalled their daring ambition, they might, by acquiring the comparatively unimportant fiefs of Urbino, Durante, and Gubbio, and by absorbing the petty holdings which adjoined their northern frontier, have established a powerful state in the fairest and strongest provinces of Central Italy. But when the struggle closed, it left them but a precarious life-interest in mere fractions of that ample territory, the rest of which had gone to enrich the Church, or to aggrandise their especial enemies, the Montefeltri and the Sforza. The portion now accruing to Federigo, by authority of the Pope and the consistory, included about fifty townships between the Foglia and the Marecchia, which had been partly seized from himself and his predecessors, partly held as debatable land, subject to the strongest, but which henceforward continued incorporated with Urbino.