How large a portion of the labours and of the abilities of statesmen has been devoted to the perpetual trimming of this troublesome balance, at a later period of the world's history on the great theatre of Europe, we all know. And it is interesting to observe how thoroughly the theory was understood, and how perfectly and sedulously reduced to practice by exceedingly accomplished professors of the art of state-craft, in the miniature world shut off from the rest of Europe by the Alps. Indeed, the smallness of the objects to be weighed against each other rendered the task of keeping the scales even in that microcosm a peculiarly delicate one. Where very small matters were capable of disarranging the adjustment of the balance, only great dexterity and prudence could preserve the equilibrium. And accordingly, the game of checking and counter-checking, far-sighted schemes of attack, and still more cunningly devised means for future defence, was carried on upon that small chess-board with a perfection of duplicity, vigilance, and small vulpine sagacity, which might give a lesson to most modern professors of the same art.
Ferdinand of Aragon at Naples, Popes Paul II., and his successor Sixtus IV. at Rome, Lorenzo the Magnificent at Florence, Galeazzo Maria Sforza at Milan, and the Republic of Venice,[45] were the powers between whom and by whom the balance of power, the peace of Italy, and the possessions of each of them, were to be preserved. The first four of these were, at the time in question, united in a common course of policy by the necessity of watching and keeping in check the ambitious Queen of the Adriatic, far more powerful than any one of the four, though much less so than all of them together. The rest of Italy, not comprised in the above five states, consisted of a crowd of petty principalities, which served singularly to complicate the game played by the great players, and to increase the interest of its vicissitudes. If endowed with any military talent, these small princes of a city and its immediate neighbourhood would take service as generals of the forces, in the pay of one or other of their more powerful neighbours. And in this way several of them became important elements in the calculations of those potentates. Some, again, would die without heirs male, and leave their female successors, daughter or widow, a prize to be scrambled for by the royal crowd always on the look out for such windfalls. Others were perpetually at feud with their own subjects, and thus gave an opportunity to some neighbour to intervene on behalf of one or the other party, with the same ultimate result. Finally, (and this was perhaps the way in which they most seriously compromised the tranquillity and influenced the destinies of Italy)—they formed the material from which each new Pope, who was anxious to be the founder of a princely family sought to carve out a dominion for his "nephews" by any of those arts of fraud or intimidation, of which Rome was so consummate a mistress.
PROJECTS OF MARRIAGE.
No sooner had Catherine's legitimation given her the value of a piece on the political chess-board, than she became involved in the moves of the game. At a very early age she had been promised in marriage to the Count Onorato Torelli, scion of a noble family, which had in the preceding generation given valuable support to the Sforzas, ere their star was so decidedly in the ascendant. But Catherine became a princess; the young Onorato very conveniently died; and Duke Galeazzo conceived schemes for selling his daughter in a better market. The Manfredi were lords of Imola, a neat little city, situated in the midst of a rich alluvial territory between the foot of the Apennines and the Adriatic, about twenty miles to the south of Bologna; a compact and very desirable little sovereignty in short, with taxes capable of an increased yield in the hands of an enterprising possessor.
Now it so happened, that Tadeo Manfredi, the reigning prince, was involved in a dangerous quarrel with Guidazzo, his son, who complained that his spendthrift father was loading "the property" with an unconscionable amount of debt. And this uncomfortable state of things was talked over at the splendid court of Milan. Whereupon Duke Galeazzo came forward with a proposition, which he hoped would prove acceptable to all parties. He would assign within the limits of his duchy an appanage to Tadeo, would pay that extravagant old gentleman's debts, and would give his daughter Catherine, with the lordship of Imola, which was thenceforth to be his, to Guidazzo. The bargain certainly appeared advantageous enough to the Manfredi. The debts would be paid, and Guidazzo the heir, would after all be lord of his father's state; and whether in his own right, or that of his wife, would not so much signify.
But that little lady was, at the time she was thus disposed of, scarcely more than eight or nine years old. Poor Guidazzo had therefore to content himself with the promise of her hand, when she should have reached a marriageable age. And never was there period in the world's history, or clime on its surface, where slips between cup and lip were more abundant than in those good old times on the sunny side of the Alps.
Meanwhile old Tadeo is shelved on the estate of Castelnuovo, near Alessandria; Imola and its territory has passed into the hands of Duke Galeazzo; and young Guidazzo is dangling about the gay and magnificent court of Milan, and deems his fortune is a ripening, while his promised bride is daily growing in grace, beauty, and princely accomplishments, under the hot-house influences of the same splendid and dazzling environment.[46]
Dazzling indeed was the pomp, and ostentatiously reckless the expenditure of wealth, amid which Catherine passed those years of her life, when the impressions eagerly received from external objects are the most busy in forming the taste, and modifying the character. For the age was one of rapidly increasing luxury and riches. And the parvenu sovereign of Milan was especially bent on eclipsing his peers, and proving his right to his position among them by an unrivalled display of all that tailors, upholsterers, mercers, and jewellers can do towards creating the majesty that should hedge a king.
A DUCAL JOURNEY