1495
If the failure of the league to cut off the French king's return to Fornovo had disappointed Lodovico, he found compensation in the news that reached Milan from Naples. Hardly had Charles VIII. started on his march northwards, than Ferrante once more set foot in his own realm and received a joyful welcome from his subjects. On the 7th of July, the day after the battle of the Taro, he entered Naples, where the people took up arms in his favour, and the nobles who had been the first to join the French king hastened to assure him of their loyalty. One by one the castles in the neighbourhood surrendered to their rightful king, and Montpensier with the remnant of his forces retired into the Calabrian fastnesses, to carry on a petty war of depredation and skirmishes during the winter months. Lodovico hastened to impart the good news to his sister-in-law Isabella, who replied in the following letter:—
"Most illustrious Duke of Milan and dear Lord,
"The news of King Ferrante's entry into Naples, which your Highness was so good as to send me, has given me the greatest pleasure, both for his Majesty's own sake and for that of your Highness, since it seems to me that all this must help to deliver us the more speedily from the hands of the French. So I congratulate myself with your Excellency, and thank you with all my heart for your kindness in allowing me to share the good news, which has indeed given me the greatest happiness. I only hope that you may soon receive tidings of the recovery of Novara, and begging you to keep me informed of your successes, and to commend me cordially to my sister the duchess,
"I remain, your daughter and servant,
Isabella da Este."[61]
"Written with my own hand in Mantua on the 16th of July, 1495."
The siege of Novara, where the Duke of Orleans had been beleagured since the middle of June, was now the centre of interest in Lombardy. Immediately after Fornovo, the Count of Caiazzo's cavalry had joined his brother Galeazzo's force before Novara, and on the 19th of July the Marquis of Mantua encamped under the walls with the Venetian army. The garrison of the besieged city was six or seven thousand strong, and well provided with arms and ammunition, but already supplies of food were scarce, and men and horses were dying of sickness and hunger. Some dissensions having arisen between Francesco Gonzaga and the other leaders as to the conduct of the siege, the Duke of Milan himself visited the camp of the league on the 3rd of August, bringing with him, says Guicciardini, his beloved wife—"la sua carissima consorte"—who was his companion "no less in matters of importance than in actions familiar, and who on this occasion, it is said, chiefly by her advice and counsel brought the captains to an agreement." A council of war was held, and Lodovico's recommendation to blockade the town instead of carrying it by assault was finally adopted. On the 5th of August the duke and duchess were present at a grand review of the whole army, which, with Galeazzo's troops and the German and Swiss reinforcements, now amounted to upwards of forty thousand men. Never in the memory of man, say the chroniclers, had so great and splendid an army been seen in Italy as that which, with flying colours and beating drums, to the sound of trumpets and martial music, marched past the chariot of Duchess Beatrice. First came the hero of Fornovo, Francesco Gonzaga, at the head of his troop of horse, mounted on magnificent chargers, "a sight admirable to behold;" then the infantry, all in excellent order, led by their different Condottieri, in glittering armour; afterwards the artillery, firing big guns, which seemed to rend the air; then the Stradiots armed with lances, targets, and scimitars, and the Venetian cross-bowmen and light cavalry. These were followed by Galeazzo di Sanseverino, who looked his best that day, clad in French attire as a knight of the Order of St. Michel—for which, we are told, he was sharply reprimanded by the duke—followed by the flower of Milanese chivalry, bearing in their midst the ducal banner with the figure of a Moor, holding an eagle in one hand and strangling a dragon with the other. After Messer Galeaz came his brothers, Antonio Maria and Fracassa, "ce très-beau et très-gracieux gendarme," as Commines calls him, each leading his own squadron; and finally the German infantry, consisting of some five or six thousand men.
"It was indeed," writes the Neapolitan scholar, Jacopo d'Atri, who was in attendance on his master, the Marquis of Mantua, "a stupendous sight, and all who were present say that since the days of the Romans, so vast and well-disciplined an army has never been seen." And the Marquis of Mantua, in his letters, never ceased to regret his wife's absence, telling her that she had missed the grandest sight in the world, a thing the like of which she would never see again.
The only drawback to the day's success was an accident which befell the duke's horse, who stumbled and fell as Lodovico passed along the lines, throwing his rider to the ground, and soiling his rich clothes in the mud. "This," remarks the chronicler who tells the story, "was held to be an evil omen, and was remembered afterwards by many who were present that day." After this review, the duke and duchess returned to Vigevano, and the siege of Novara was prosecuted with fresh vigour. In vain Louis of Orleans and his famished soldiers looked out for the French army that was to bring them relief. King Charles had gone to visit his ally the Duchess of Savoy at Turin, and was consoling himself for the toil and disappointments of the campaign by making love to fair Anna Solieri in the neighbouring town of Chieri. Since his reduced forces were unequal to the task of facing the army of the league and relieving Novara, he sent the bailiff of Dijon to raise a body of twelve thousand Swiss in the Cantons friendly to France, and decided to await their arrival before he took active measures.
Meanwhile he and most of his followers were thoroughly tired of warfare, and the queen never ceased imploring him to return home. The French supplies of men and money were exhausted, and when Charles sent home for reinforcements, Anne of Brittany replied that there were no Frenchmen left to send, only widows weeping for their husbands, whose bones were whitening on the Italian plains. The Venetian ambassador, Commines, who was strongly in favour of peace, had already opened negotiations with some of his friends in Venice, and Charles lent a willing ear both to his proposals and to those of the Duchess of Savoy, who on her part offered to mediate between him and the Duke of Milan. But Briconnet, the Cardinal of S. Malo, Lodovico's old enemy and a staunch partisan of Orleans, defeated these plans by his intrigues, and the French army, leaving Asti, advanced to Vercelli, in the duchy of Savoy, and prepared to take the field. Both parties, however, were growing weary of this prolonged warfare, and Commines declares that in the French camp no one wanted to fight, unless the king led them to battle, and that Charles himself had not the slightest wish to take the field.