The forces of the league had orders to advance towards Parma, and meet the French and Milanese troops under d'Aubigny and Gian Francesco da Sanseverino, Count of Cajazzo, who had been retained by Ludovico il Moro. This, however, they were unable to effect, and, finding themselves much inferior in strength to the invaders, they retired upon Faenza. In that neighbourhood the two armies remained for some time, face to face, without further encounter than a few skirmishes, in which Guidobaldo distinguished his bravery. Whilst they lost time in disunited counsels, the progress of Charles in Central Italy occasioned the recall of the Florentine and papal contingents. The princes of Romagna, seeing the game virtually lost, found excuses for liberating themselves from a falling cause, and by withdrawing to their several states, sought safety in a neutral position. The Duke of Calabria thus abandoned, retired within the Neapolitan frontier to await fresh instructions from his father; and thus was the last chance of saving Italy shamefully lost. Meanwhile the French monarch took the road by Pontremoli and Sarzana, which fortress and Pietra Santa, Pietro de' Medici surrendered to him in a panic, as base as it was inexplicable. Disgusted with his cowardice, Florence and Pisa rose and expelled his whole race, but rashly crediting the assurances of Charles that he came as a deliverer and friend of liberty, received him with open arms.
The description of an eye-witness to the overthrow of the Medici conveys a vivid picture of the revolutions so common in republican Florence. It has been printed by Gaye,[254] from the original diary of Giusto. "On Sunday the 9th of November, the people of Florence rose in arms against the palle, that is, against Pietro de' Medici, who had so used his sway, and who repaired to the palace. The populace, observing this, rushed thither, crying, 'Live the people and liberty!' the children being first in the piazza: and by God's will all Florence armed and hurried to the palace, calling out, 'People and liberty!' so that Pietro, the Cardinal, and Giuliano his brother fled. And there was a reward of 2000 florins proclaimed by the Signory, for whoever would bring the Cardinal alive or dead to the palace; and thus matters continued. Next day all the banners and pennons were set up, and such was the people's fury at the palace, throughout the town, and at the gates, day and night, that although I have four times found Florence in arms since 1458, this has been the most unanimous and extraordinary affair, from the efforts made by the lilies to erase the balls [gigli and palle, the respective arms of the republic and of the Medici]: even children two or three years old, by a miracle, cried in the houses 'People and liberty!' and among them our little Catherine. Thus by God's grace did this community free itself from the hands of many tyrants, who, thanks to the blessed God! were expelled without bloodshed."
But with these revolutions, which ended in giving to Florence and Pisa independent popular governments,[*255] and with the war of rivalry which consequently ensued between them, we have at present no concern. The struggle was maintained during several years, with an obstinacy and bitterness which more than once compromised the general tranquillity of the Peninsula; when it terminated Pisa had been ruined and Florence was bankrupt. It was at this crisis that there occurred an anecdote preserved in the Corteggiano, among the facetiæ of the court of Urbino. One of the Florentine council, in a committee of ways and means, proposed to augment the customs revenue by doubling the number of city gates at which dues were collected!
Alexander, ever too occupied with private objects to heed the general cause, had meanwhile, upon a petty quarrel with the Colonna, withdrawn his troops from Romagna, to waste them and much precious time in wretched partizan struggles with these fractious barons, and in this miserable trifling employed his son Cesare. Vainly confident while no immediate danger impended, he had flattered himself that the French invasion would come to nothing. But when he saw two powerful armies reach his frontier, without obstacle or check, terror succeeded to foolish security. Abandoning his ally of Naples, he humbly besought his personal enemy Cardinal Ascanio Sforza to mediate with the French monarch in his behalf. Yet to the latest moment did he waver, alternately insolent and abject, fawning and fickle. Through these fluctuations it is needless to follow him. On the last day of 1494 the invading army marched unopposed and triumphant into Rome, and, leaving the city on the 28th of January, advanced towards Naples. A panic had already seized upon Alfonso, his army, and his people. On the 23rd of January he abdicated the crown in favour of his son Ferdinand, and fled with his treasures to Sicily, where he died after ten months of abject austerities, as an offset to long years of aggravated debauchery. The new King, upon his bloodless rout at the Garigliano, found himself without money, and supported neither by his troops nor his subjects. The bold front which he assumed availed nothing in circumstances so desperate. He retired to Ischia, and on the 22nd of February Charles took possession of Naples, amid the acclamations of a populace, whom the iron sway of the false and gloomy Ferdinand, and of his sanguinary son, had alienated from the Aragonese dynasty. But though we pass thus rapidly over the campaign of the French and Spaniards in Lower Italy, its results were of lasting importance. The foretaste of the Peninsula then obtained by these nations as its invaders or defenders stimulated a fatal relish for its attractions; and the appetite thus engendered was not stayed until that fair land had been trodden down by successive hosts, scarcely less damaging to her prosperity and destructive to her liberties as her selfish allies, than as her open foes.
Experience had by this time shown the folly of the Italian policy, and the various states were not unwilling to profit by its lesson. Forgetting for the moment their individual ends, they resolved to throw off an incubus which threatened to make the Peninsula a province of France. Ludovico Sforza had long sought to resile from his ill-judged engagements with Charles; the Venetians found that the Turkish crusade was but a false pretext; the Florentines saw their adhesion to the invader repaid by the loss of Pisa; the Pope, ever inclined to intrigue, was more especially ready to join in any plan which should open an escape from his blunders in bringing down such dangerous neighbours. Nor did the ultra-montane powers view with satisfaction so vast an accession to French influence. Ferdinand II. of Spain, whose envoy had formally broken with Charles ere he crossed the Neapolitan frontier, now put himself forward to wean the Venetians from their neutrality. Maximilian (who, not having been crowned, was only King of the Romans, but whom we shall generally call Emperor) burned for opportunity of avenging a double wrong which the French monarch had done him by jilting his daughter Margaret, and by espousing his betrothed bride, Anne of Bretagne. Having himself married in 1493 Bianca Sforza, her uncle Ludovico il Moro bribed him by a large dowry to take advantage of certain alleged flaws in the Milanese investitures, and to recognise him as Duke, passing over his sickly nephew Giovanni Galeazzo. The new charter in favour of Il Moro reached him immediately after the death of the latter, whose feeble and wretched existence was terminated, perhaps by poison, in October 1494. He left a son, and in defiance of the title of this child, whose injuries his uncle, Alfonso of Naples, was no longer in circumstances to redress, Ludovico seized the trappings of that sovereignty, which he virtually had usurped long before the imperial diploma reached him. Thus were these parties prepared for a united exertion in the common cause; and the minor feudatories of the Peninsula willingly joined them in a five years' league, for the purpose of restoring and maintaining the independence of Italy. It was concluded at Venice, on the 31st of March 1495, and by it Germany, Spain, Venice, Milan, and the Pope were bound to furnish 34,000 horse, and 20,000 foot, or monied contributions proportioned to their respective contingents of that force.
Anderson
BIANCA, DAUGHTER OF LUDOVICO SFORZA