In his extremity Lodovico turned to his sole remaining ally, the Emperor Maximilian, and sent Erasmo Brasca and Marchesino Stanga to Fribourg, to beg that a German force might be speedily sent to his assistance, while he earnestly entreated his niece the empress to plead his cause with her husband. Unfortunately, Bianca had little or no influence at the imperial court, and Maximilian, who would gladly have helped the duke, was hampered by want of money and already engaged in war with his turbulent Swiss neighbours. But Bianca did her best for her uncle, and in these last days her letters were his chief consolation. She sent him the latest and most confidential news, and wrote repeatedly from Fribourg and Innsbrück, encouraging him with hopes of speedy help, and reminding him how triumphantly he had overcome greater dangers in the past.
Even now, when his enemies were closing round him and the last struggle was at hand, Lodovico still clung to his old ideals. The love of art was still the ruling passion of his life, and Leonardo still for him the prince of painters. On the 26th of April, he made the Florentine master a present of a vineyard which he had bought from the monastery of S. Victor outside the Porta Vercellina, probably adjoining a house and piece of land which the painter had already received from him, near S. Maria delle Grazie. During the last few years the duke, we know, had found it increasingly difficult to provide money for his vast enterprises, and from a rough draft of a letter that has been found among Leonardo's manuscripts, we gather that the painter's salary was in arrears, and that his equestrian statue had not yet been cast in bronze:
"Signore," he writes in these fragmentary sentences, "knowing the mind of your Excellency to be fully occupied, I must ask pardon for reminding you of my small affairs.... My life is at your service; I am always ready to obey your commands. I will say nothing of the horse, because I know the times; but, as your Highness is aware, two years' salary is owing to me, and I have two masters working at my expense, so that I have had to advance fifteen lire out of my own purse to pay them. Gladly as I would undertake immortal works and show posterity that I have lived, I am obliged to earn my living.... May I remind your Highness of the commission to paint the Camerini, only asking ..."
The painter, we know, had never complained of Lodovico's want of liberality, and before he left Milan that December, he was able to send 600 gold florins to Florence, but he probably received the vineyard outside the gate in answer to this appeal. In the deed of gift, the duke expressly states that Leonardo, in his judgment and in that of the best judges, is the most famous of living painters, and that, having been employed by him in manifold works, in all of which he has shown admirable genius, the time has come to put the promises which have been made him into execution. Accordingly, the duke presents him with this vineyard, small indeed compared with the painter's merits, but which Leonardo may take as a sign that, as in the past, he will always find the ducal house sensible of his services, and that Lodovico himself will in the future more fully reward the master's excellent acts and singular talents.
A week later Lodovico remembered the altar-piece which Perugino had promised to paint for the Certosa, and on the 1st of May wrote to the Carthusian friars, desiring them to urge the Umbrian painter to complete and deliver the work without delay.
"You know," he wrote, "how much labour and expense we have bestowed on the decoration of the Certosa of Pavia, and how much we rejoice to see that the building is nearly finished. And we have always exhorted yourselves, venerable Prior and brothers, to choose the most excellent artists to paint pictures that may be at once helps to devotion and ornaments of the church. Since, with this intention, we proposed a certain Perugino and a Maestro Filippo, both of them admirable and honoured masters, to paint two altar-pieces, and disbursed large sums in order to obtain these pictures, we are seriously displeased to find that three years have passed without the work being done. This is unjust both to ourselves and the friars, since it deprives the Certosa of the perfection that we desire to see there, and we must beg you to insist on these excellent masters completing the said altar-pieces within a reasonable term, or else returning the money which they have received. For, as you know, nothing is dearer to our hearts than the things that concern this church and monastery."
Lodovico's exertions were not in vain, at least in the case of Perugino. Before the end of the year, the great altar-piece containing the lovely Madonna and saints, which now adorns the National Gallery, was finished, and while the duke himself wandered in exile beyond the Alps, the Umbrian painter's masterpiece was safely placed in the glorious church which he had loved so well.
This letter relating to the Certosa altar-piece and the gift to Leonardo were the last public acts in which the great Moro showed his love of art and generosity to artists. His fate was sealed, and already his foes were at the door. Before the end of May, King Louis and Cæsar Borgia came to Lyons, and Trivulzio descended upon Asti with fifteen thousand men. A few weeks later the Milanese envoy to Venice was dismissed, and the Venetian army prepared to enter the district of Cremona. Caterina Sforza, almost the only Italian ally who was still faithful to Milan, sent a troop of men from Forli to her uncle's help, but the invasion of Romagna by papal troops hindered her from attacking the Venetians as she had intended. In vain Lodovico sent despairing letters to Maximilian, begging for the promised reinforcements. Week after week went by, and still the German troops did not arrive. On the 13th of August, Trivulzio invaded the Milanese with a powerful force of well-trained soldiers, and took the castle of Annona. The same day the Venetians crossed the eastern frontier and advanced towards the river Adda. On the 14th Lodovico wrote the following letter to his niece, the Empress Bianca:—
"In our present great anxieties, while the French are attacking us on the one side, and on the other a large Venetian army is advancing, your Majesty's loving letter has been a great comfort, expressing not only the sympathy which you feel in our troubles, but the efforts you have made to induce your husband, the king, to help us in these bad times. What you say of his good-will is not more than we expected, but your kind words have given us unspeakable joy, and we are exceedingly grateful, and beg you with all our heart to continue your offices on our behalf with the king, entreating him to send us help immediately (presto, presto). Indeed, his troops ought to be here now, for we are already reduced to extremity, as you will learn from Messer Galeazzo Visconti and others, whom we have sent to your Majesty, praying that help may be speedy and effectual."[78]
Three days after, Bianca herself wrote to say that she had spoken to the emperor, and begged her maître d'hôtel to support her request, and that he had solemnly promised to send her uncle help. Maximilian kept his word, and before the month was over despatched a strong German force to the duke's relief. But the sorely needed succour came too late. When the Germans reached the Italian frontier, Milan had already surrendered, and they met Lodovico flying for his life. There were traitors in the Moro's camp and court. Not only had the Marquis of Mantua broken faith and refused to defend the Milanese against the Venetians, but two of the Sanseverino brothers, Fracassa and Antonio Maria, had for some time past threatened to enter the Venetian service; while Francesco Bernardino Visconti, the Borromeos, and Pallavicini were secretly corresponding with Trivulzio, and the Count of Caiazzo was out of temper and jealous of his younger brother Galeazzo, if he was not, as Corio and other contemporaries affirm, already in league with the French. Galeazzo himself, who had the supreme command of the Milanese forces and held Alessandria with 5000 men, was a brilliant carpet-knight and gallant soldier, but had little experience as a general, and had no confidence in his ill-paid and half-starved troops. When the duke, in a moment of irritation, reproached his son-in-law with thinking too much of fine clothes and fair ladies, Galeazzo boldly told him that his subjects were disaffected and tired of his rule, and that if he did not take vigorous measures, he would lose his state. His words proved all too true. One by one the fortresses of the Lomellina opened their gates to Trivulzio's victorious army, Antonio Maria Pallavicini surrendered Tortona without a blow, and when Galeazzo prepared to relieve Pavia, his troops refused to follow him. At the head of a handful of cavalry, he made a gallant attempt to reach Pavia, but the citizens, alarmed at the approach of the French, closed their gates and refused to admit any armed men.