[290] Guicciardini, lib. xiv.
[*291] This account of Adrian VI.'s conclave is inaccurate and confused. Cf. Creighton, op. cit., vol. VI., pp. 216-222. The Duke of Urbino seems to have had no influence in the conclave.
[292] These articles are to be found in the Archivio Diplomatico at Florence.
[293] However these pretensions may have originated, they derived a quasi warrant in 1525, from a conditional investiture of the duchy for three generations, granted by Clement VII. to Ascanio "in case it should happen to lapse to the Holy See," Agnesina being there mentioned as eldest sister. Charles V. was vainly solicited by Ascanio to render this condition eventual, or by some other means to make good his possession, and the claim did not drop until 1530. Nor was it the only one vamped up on account of Duke Guidobaldo's unfruitful marriage. In 1505 the Prince of Salerno seems to have made similar pretensions through his mother, a sister still younger than Agnesina; and in order to dispose of these, Julius II. is said to have offered him his own daughter Felice, a union which however did not take place.
[294] Odet de Foix, Seigneur de Lautrec, and the Seigneur de l'Escu were both brothers of the chivalrous Gaston de Foix.
[*295] He died on the 14th September. For details, cf. Duke of Sessa's letters in Bergenroth, pp. 597, 599.
[*296] As usual, Machiavelli is right. If the proveditori had so bad an influence (and it was doubtless bad) the results should have been earlier seen, for it was an old custom with that Republic. Francesco Maria, whom Dennistoun rates so highly as a soldier, as we have seen, was not more harassed by these spies than his forerunners, Carmagnuola Colleoni and Sigismondo Malatesta. The custom rose out of the decision to employ no citizen as a captain-general. Nor was Venice alone in this practice; Siena and Florence followed it too on occasions.
[297] Sismondi's strictures curtly express the judgment pronounced upon Francesco Maria by those who follow, without examination, the prejudiced narrative of Guicciardini. Yet, as they are founded upon admitted defects in his generalship, it may be well to lay them before the reader. "He was not deficient in military talent, nor probably in personal courage, but, taking Prospero Colonna as his prototype, he exaggerated his method. His only tactics consisted in the selection and occupation of impregnable positions; whatever his numerical superiority, he evaded fighting; no circumstance, however urgent, could bring him to a general action; and by his obstinacy in refusing to risk anything, he made certain of losing all." But in estimating the commander we should not put out of view the discouraging nature of the cause, which this author elsewhere happily describes as a war without an object. *This applies better to the petty wars of Central Italy at this time and in the fifteenth century. Waged by paid captains, they may be said to have been without an object, or rather with but one object—war itself. One and all they ended in nothing, though here and there, as with the Sforza, the condottiere managed to establish himself. There was not, save in Florence, Milan, and Venice, a sufficiently strong economic reason to cause a real war. Such as they were, these wars were due to the greed of petty princes, in which the professional armies enjoyed themselves (few being killed) in sacking towns and cities whose inhabitants, altogether at their mercy, were the only victims. To drag out the war and to avoid serious fighting as much as possible were naturally the first objects of the average condottiere.
[298] The details given by Paruta appear to bear out this statement of the Duke's policy, but establish that, in the eyes of his employers, his prudence and caution availed more than dashing gallantry, an admission important in estimating his conduct throughout the campaign of Lombardy, and throwing light upon the hesitation which marked his subsequent career. Indeed, according to this author, the orders of the Signory were to avoid fighting as much as possible.
[299] See [vol. I., p. 68], for a notice of this association, so often mentioned in Venetian history.