Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

His family had contrived to join him, by now, and the time passed pleasantly away for the grizzled and somewhat war-worn captain. He had punished Filippo, and had besides secured what promised to be the most profitable employment upon which he had ever entered. He knew the Visconti; he must have been quite sure that Filippo had no intention of giving up the struggle as tamely as that, and when it recommenced he would, he imagined, be able to dictate the terms under which he could condescend to serve.

He was right in both conjectures. No sooner was the peace signed than Filippo turned his energies to the accumulation of a force with which to open a campaign in the spring. Besides this, he assembled a fleet for the purpose of attacking Mantua and Ferrara. This the Venetians destroyed near Cremona on the 21st of May, 1427.

Filippo, who had up till now taken small thought of anything except numbers and talent, soon began to feel, as so many others have done before and since, the extreme difficulty of getting any cohesive action from a force which, split up into many small bodies, gave its allegiance to six or seven separate commanders, all of equal merit, and all claiming, on their records, the right to administer the whole. Carmagnola, on the other hand, being a Condottiere himself, allowed no one, however distinguished his birth or his position, even to approach his throne, much less share it. The Venetian authorities themselves he handled as roughly as he dared, and they, as Mocenigo had prophesied, found themselves under a despotism which made the rule of the dreaded “Ten” a kindergarten affair in comparison.

Filippo, exercising a purely imaginary authority, gave the command of his troops to Nicolo Piccino, a pupil of the celebrated Braccio, and he attacked Carmagnola at Casalecco on the 12th of July, but so thick was the dust under foot that before they had well engaged they became invisible and separated without shock.

It was a leisurely campaign. Whatever might be the anxiety of the principals to settle the quarrel, their defenders were not to be hurried, and it was not until the 11th of October that Carmagnola was called upon to fight a pitched battle. He had been spending most of his time in the interval at the baths of Albano, where he took a cure for rheumatism.

Suspicion is a disease among some people, and, though its workings are not by any means confined to one class, it must be owned that power of any kind has always been a happy breeding ground for it. With the rulers of Venice it was hereditary, and, since it was unsafe openly to suspect each other, they invariably lavished their venomous mistrust upon their servants and instruments. But, true to their Latinity, they gave their victim no chance of feeling it or even of defending himself. In silence they judged, in silence they acted, and always with such a wealth of deception, cunning, and falsehood as to proclaim their own cowardice and meanness from the housetops.

The battle of the 11th of October took place in a marsh near Macalo, and Carmagnola having lured his adversary, Carlo Malastata, into the swamps—with which he himself was perfectly familiar—turned upon and beat him soundly, capturing, it is said, upwards of five thousand, including Malastata himself.

He made no attempt to pursue, and immediately released all of his prisoners, thereby giving the Venetian Senate a solid handle for the blade of calumny which they had been forging. When the protests of the Venetians reached him, he refused to discuss the matter, merely replying that it was the custom of war and, further, that it was his wish. His contempt for his employers was a little too open, and they, though apparently acquiescing and praising his skill, were already plotting his end. The gentle habit of executing a defeated general, wherever possible, was in vogue then and for many years afterwards. As long as Carmagnola could continue to win cities and provinces for them, so long could he continue to live, but no longer.

A new peace was signed on the 18th of April, 1428, and peace descended upon Venice for nearly three years. Carmagnola passed the time in Venice with his family around him; treated with all honour and respect to his face, laughed at, as he knew, for his low birth and rough ways, behind his back. Disliked, but courted, under pressure, for no one could say how long this new peace would last, and Venice, in the field, was Carmagnola. Without him, Filippo’s men—Piccino, Tonelli, and the rest—would strip her to the waterfront.

The Florentines, grown confident and aggressive, now took the opportunity to attack the Lord of Lucca, Paolo Quinigi, a one-time ally of Filippo’s, and the Lucchesi, revolting, deposed Quinigi and sent him to Milan as a prisoner. The Florentines were, soon afterwards, attacked and routed by Piccino at Sarchio on the 2d of December, 1430; and once again the old flame broke out.