[*300] The battle was fought on the 24th February.
[*301] So far as Julius is concerned, his one object was the absolute temporal dominion of the Church in Italy. He made the coming of an ultramontane power into Italy a certainty. His successors struggled in vain to save themselves and incidentally Italy from the consequence of his crime. But the policy of the Papacy was wise, if selfish. The only road to Italian unity lay through predominance of one power—Venice or Milan, for instance, or the Church herself. The popes successfully prevented this unity for more than a thousand years, really in self-defence—the defence of their temporal power at any rate; their international claims were destroyed by an eager and passionate nationalism. We have seen in our day how Piedmont united Italy, first destroying the Papacy, which remains merely as a spiritual power that seems in Italy to be slowly passing away.
[302] Brit. Mus. Cotton. MSS. Vit. B. VIII., f. 16, b. In f. 49, of B.V. there is a mutilated letter of compliment from the Duke to Henry VIII., in Latin, dated at Urbino 19 March, 1522.
[303] Leonardi's recollections of Francesco Maria, Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 1023, f. 85, and Baldi's defence of him from Guicciardini's charges, Ibid., No. 906, f. 214.
[304] Brit. Mus. Cotton. MSS., Vit. B. VIII., f. 93 b. In this volume are many despatches regarding the Lombard campaign, and the assault on Rome in 1526.
[*305] See Guicciardini's despairing letters to Giberti, Opere Inedite (1857-67, Firenze), vol. IV., pp. 73-146. Francesco Maria was to blame; he lost time in crossing the Adda, from whatever cause; he delayed again while the generals of the Emperor strengthened their lines round Milan—even when the allies arrived and their army numbered 20,000 against the 11,000 of the besiegers. He waited the arrival of the Swiss, he said, and went off meanwhile at the heels of the Venetian Proveditore to besiege Cremona. The Rocca of Milan fell on July 24th.
[*306] See his despairing letters cited above, [p. 441, note *1]. He was a true patriot and thought for Italy. The Duke's dilatory and inconclusive actions while Italy was slowly dying, and might have been saved, as he thought, disgusted and enraged him.
[307] Lettere, I., p. 28, edit. 1733.
[308] This treaty is printed by Molini, in the Documenti di Storia Italiana, I., 229. At p. 204 of the same volume is a despatch throwing valuable light on the tangled diplomacy of these times. The details of this event are often mixed up with those of the far more atrocious sack of Rome perpetrated by Bourbon a few months later; the best account of it is by Negri, an eye-witness, in the Lettere de' Principi.