At the news of his brother's capture, Ascanio Sforza left Milan to seek refuge across the Alps, but was himself taken prisoner, with his nephew Ermes, at the Castle of Rivolta, near Piacenza, by the Venetians, who delivered them up to the French king. Both were taken to France, and the cardinal was detained in honourable captivity in the citadel of Bourges, until, in January, 1502, he was released to take part in the conclave that elected Pius III. With Trivulzio's return to Milan a reign of terror began. The city was heavily fined, the partisans of the Sforza were exiled or imprisoned, Niccolo da Bussola and Leonardo's beloved friend, Jacopo Andrea, were hung, and their limbs drawn and quartered and exposed to view on the battlements of the Castello, in spite of Duke Ercole's intercession on behalf of the distinguished architect. Pavia was sacked by the French, and Lombardy paid with tears and blood for its loyalty to the race of Sforza. The period of anarchy and confusion which followed is described in mournful language by the Milanese chroniclers. During the next forty years, the city was continually taken and sacked by contending armies, her fair parks and gardens were trampled underfoot by foreign soldiery, and her beautiful churches and palaces destroyed by shells and cannon-balls. French and German ruffians tore the clothes off the backs of the poor, and snatched the bread from the lips of starving children. People were everywhere seen dying of hunger and the grass growing in the squares. There were no voices in the streets, often no services in the churches. Silence and desolation reigned throughout the unhappy city. "Blessed indeed," sighs the writer, "were those who were able to seek shelter in flight." Beyond the borders of Lombardy, there were others who grieved over the Moro's fall. In Mantua and Ferrara his friends shed secret tears over his fate. "Duke Ercole is very sad," writes our friend the annalist, "for his son-in-law's sake, and so are all the people." And Caterina Sforza, in her lonely captivity within the walls of the Castel' Sant' Angelo, wept over her uncle's ruin and the downfall of her race. Far away in Florence, one artist, who had lived in close intimacy with the Moro for many a long year, who had discussed a hundred problems and planned all manner of mighty works with him, heard the news with a pang of regret. Leonardo had been in Venice with Lorenzo da Pavia, the great organ-master, when the wonderful tidings of the duke's return had come. He and Lorenzo must have smiled when they saw the long faces and sinister air of the grave Venetian senators at this unexpected turn of affairs. Eagerly they watched and waited and wondered if these things could be really true, and if the Moro were to reign once more on his fathers' throne, and carry out all the great dreams of his soul. And now it was all over, and the French were supreme in Milan, and the great horse on which the master had spent the best years of his life was used as a target for the arrows of Gascon archers. The duke and Messer Galeaz were captives, Sforzas and Viscontis were in prison or exile, and Jacopo Andrea had died a cruel death. On Leonardo the blow fell with crushing force; but he held his peace, and only the few broken sentences in his notebook remain to tell of his shattered hopes and of his inconsolable regrets.
"The Saletta above ... (left unfinished).
"Bramante's buildings ... (left undone).
"The Castellano a prisoner ...
"Visconti in prison—his son dead.
"Gian della Rosa's revenues seized.
"Bergonzio"—the duke's treasurer—"deprived of his fortune.
"The duke has lost state, fortune, and liberty, and not one of his works has been completed."
In these last melancholy words we read Lodovico Sforza's epitaph, pronounced over him by Leonardo the Florentine.