More Italian Yesterdays

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

It is extremely difficult if not impossible to discover the true character of Carmagnola at this time of day. Some speak of him as being a double-faced villain, some—Sismondi, for instance—as of a demi-god. Great he was, talented in many directions, and all but invincible; like others, he may have had several sides to his nature, and each of these, as it met for the moment the sun of events, may have represented the whole man for the time being.

The Duke of Milan now began to feel the weight of the hand he had turned against himself, although, at the outset of the war, Carmagnola does not appear to have exerted himself greatly. Brescia fell—whether to the Florentine commander or to the Venetian is a matter of opinion. Probably the Florentine siege works and the effect of Carmagnola’s reputation were equally responsible—and the Duke ceded the conquest on December 30; not, however, before he had made an attempt to burn down the Venetian arsenal, and another of his several agents had been caught by the Venetians and carefully tortured to death.

Carmagnola, from all accounts, seems still to have been divided between the desire of earning his pay from the Venetians and an unwillingness, even now and in spite of everything, to push his old employer more than was necessary to accomplish the ends he had in mind. This was difficult, for the Venetians, having paid, like the hard-headed merchants they were, wanted plenty of blood and destruction for their money; and the amicable habit, which time and practice had crystallized into a precedent, of returning prisoners after an engagement, in order to keep the good work going on, was not at all to their minds.

It was not long before Filippo began to tire of the almost monotonous series of defeats which overtook his leaders, and, though breathing fire against Carmagnola, and complaining bitterly of what he was pleased to call the “bad faith” of the poor Florentines (whom he had been bullying so heartily and for so long), he was forced to sue for the good offices of Pope Martin V, who, although none too pleased at being dragged into such company, yet helped him, for the sake of the smudged name he bore.

Of course such a peace could not last for any length of time. No one of the parties to it trusted any of the others in the slightest, and Venice had, so far, swallowed up all the profits of the campaign, which included Brescia and all its castles and territory up to the Lago di Garda, and a portion of Cremona besides.

This peace was concluded on December 30, 1426, and Carmagnola went into winter quarters, under the admiring eyes of his temporary fellow-citizens.

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 May 21, 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.