"Most illustrious and most worshipful Lord,
"Having learned that his serene Majesty [Henry VIII.] has named me his adherent in the league lately made with his most Christian Majesty, it becomes a duty, which I by these letters discharge, to tender my respects, and humbly to kiss his hand, having no other proof at present to offer of the extreme obligation which, in addition to numberless others, I owe to his Majesty, for this affectionate and honourable recollection of me. And knowing the love which your most illustrious and reverend Lordship has ever exhibited towards my house, and especially for myself, I am satisfied (as, indeed, I have heard from the reverend Lord Protonotary Casale) that you have always borne in mind the services towards that crown of my most famous progenitors and myself. Whence, in addition to the boundless obligation I lie under to his most serene Majesty for naming me his adherent, I hold myself therein indebted to your most reverend and illustrious Lordship, considering it in a great measure owing to you. I have therefore written these presents, not as mere thanks, for I would not so commence what I cannot complete by words alone, but that you may know the great obligation I feel and have expressed, and how intensely I desire an opportunity of effectively demonstrating my natural and deserved anxiety to do you service; the which will be clearly made patent to your most reverend and illustrious Lordship, so often as I have it in my power to act upon my intentions. And, recommending myself to your good favour, I pray that you still keep in mind my services to his majesty. From Verona the 14th February, 1526.
"Servitor,
"El Duca d’Urbino."[302]
At length, in May 1526, a new confederacy was announced, in which the Pope, Francis I. (who had regained his liberty in March), Henry VIII., Venice, and Florence, were marshalled against Charles V., nominally to wrest from him the Milanese, which remained in his hands after the battle of Pavia. The citadel of Milan, however, was still held by Francesco Sforza; and the Duke of Urbino, by the senate's orders, led the Venetian troops from Verona to his relief, but under protest that he considered them unequal to the service. On his march, he received offers from an adherent of the Sforza to admit him into Lodi, and immediately detaching Malatesta Baglione to avail himself of the proposal, hastened onwards with the army to his support. The attempt was completely successful, and after a gallant resistance the imperialists evacuated the place on the 24th of June. This acquisition was of the utmost importance to the allies. It secured them command of the Adda, and gave them a strong position in the enemy's country, from whence they could operate with equal facility against Milan, Cremona, or Pavia.
The army of the League which now mustered at Lodi is estimated by Guicciardini and Muratori at sixteen thousand foot and four thousand horse. The Duke of Urbino was commander-in-chief of the Venetians; Count Guido Rangone held the same rank in the ecclesiastical forces, which included, however, the papal and Florentine contingents, led by their respective captains-general, Giovanni de' Medici and Vitello Vitelli. The embarrassment occasioned by so many commanders, under no common head, was especially felt by Francesco Maria, who, although admitted by Guicciardini to have been pre-eminent in rank, authority, and reputation, as well as actually leader of the combined army, was controlled by Pesaro, the Venetian Proveditore, and thwarted by the Pope's anomalous appointment of that historian himself as lieutenant-general, with ample indeed almost absolute powers in the army and throughout the states of the Church.
Francesco Guicciardini was a Florentine gentleman, born in 1482, and educated for the law, who, profiting by the partiality of Leo X. for his fellow-citizens, had held several important civil appointments, and had been successively named governor of Modena, Reggio, and Parma, to which Clement added, in 1523, a jurisdiction over all pontifical Romagna. He was gifted with considerable talents and great command of language, but these promotions had rendered him vain and overbearing. The accounts given us by the Urbino writers, of one whom they had good reason to regard with prejudice, should be received with caution; yet some anecdotes have come down which confirm the allegation of Leoni, that his dogmatical pretensions were neither authorised by etiquette, nor supported by his judgment or military experience.[303] No defect of character was less likely to meet with toleration from the blunt and hasty Francesco Maria, and in consequence of their being opposed to each other at the council-board, alike in momentous and trifling matters, scenes of insult and violence ripened aversion into rancour. In this contest the Florentine had the worst, but he amply availed himself of his pen as a means of vengeance; and in his History, which has become a standard authority, he studiously and throughout misrepresented the Duke of Urbino. Lipsius, while bearing strong testimony to his general truth and impartiality, admits that he on no occasion concealed his detestation of that prince. Later writers, especially Sismondi, have adopted his strictures with little modification, and an ingenious defence of the Duke, prepared by Baldi after his death, having never seen the light, the portraits of him hitherto passing current in history are exaggerations of a malevolent pencil. Yet it appears beyond question that an over-dilatory and cautious system increased upon Francesco Maria, and, in conjunction with other circumstances, greatly hampered his tactics and impaired their success, during his service under the lion of St. Mark.
The allied forces very considerably outnumbered those of Charles, who were scattered among several garrisons and detached positions. The moment, therefore, seemed propitious for following up their recent success, and effecting the main object of the campaign by a decided blow against Milan. That capital was occupied by about nine thousand imperialist troops, who blockaded Sforza in the citadel, and who, in letters casually intercepted, represented the citizens, though disarmed by their conquerors, as mature for a rising. A prompt movement for the relief of the hard-pressed fortress was therefore urged by Guicciardini, and seconded by the Proveditore, whose ear he had gained. The reasons by which Francesco Maria combated this proposal savoured unquestionably, even by Leoni's admission, rather of hollow excuses than of sound judgment, for whilst he awaited the Swiss auxiliaries, he allowed reinforcements to reach the imperial garrison.
Some light is, however, thrown upon this seeming inconsistency by an argument in his Discorsi Militari, wherein the Duke illustrates, from this very passage in his life, two axioms he broadly lays down,—that to rely mainly for the success of a war upon the support of a people, however gallant, is a great risk, if not inevitable ruin; and that no popular rising ever succeeded of itself, or without an overpowering force to second it. Considering that his uncle and himself had thrice regained their state by a popular emeute, this doctrine may seem ungracious from his mouth. Without, however, entering upon a question which the recent experience of Europe has greatly affected, or examining instances adduced by the Duke in support of his views, it seems likely that his reasoning was adopted to cloak some unavowed motive. Perhaps the alternative suggestion which he offered may afford some clue to the truth, keeping in view the relationship and confidential intercourse which had ever been maintained between the princes of Urbino and Ottaviano Fregoso. His proposition was that, instead of opposing their new and ill-disciplined levies to the veteran and lately victorious occupants of Milan, the allies should draw off towards Genoa, and there restore the supremacy of the Fregosi, thus giving time for the arrival of Swiss subsidies, and enabling them perhaps to intercept the reinforcements which Bourbon was bringing by sea from Spain. The motive alleged by Sismondi for this policy rests upon the broader ground of the Duke's desire to humble Clement, in revenge for all he had suffered, rather from the Pontiff's family than from himself; and it must be admitted that much of his conduct during this lamentable and inglorious war, until it ended in the sack of Rome, could scarcely have been different if actuated by that ungenerous calculation. Yet in the instance now under our consideration, it is but fair to notice Leoni's assertion, that his opinions were supported by Giovanni de' Medici delle Bande Nere, whilst those of Guicciardini, obtaining the suffrages of the other leaders, carried the day.