A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 1 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

The Cardinal's visit to Milan was accordingly arranged with as little delay as possible. He left Rome with a train more like that of the most magnificent of popes, say the chroniclers, than what might befit a cardinal, and reached Milan on the 12th of September, 1473.[58] Great were the preparations made to receive him, and bitter were the groans of the magnificent Duke's hapless subjects under the new extortions necessitated by their master's gorgeous "hospitality." The glittering cavalcade of the lay prince met the no less glittering cavalcade of the ecclesiastical prince at the gates of the city; and, as those were "ages of faith," both proceeded at once to the cathedral to inaugurate the pleasure and business of the meeting by a solemn "Te Deum." So thoroughly did the sanctifying influences of religion, as has been often remarked, pervade every affair of life in those happy times!

DUCAL AMUSEMENTS.

All Milan was witness to the festal doings on this notable meeting,—the processioning, revelling, tailoring, gilding, and reckless profusion, which marked the noble rivalry between these two great men. This friendly emulation was pushed to an intensity, which seems unhappily to have led the lay champion in the generous contest to have recourse to disloyal arms against his rival. For a tell-tale gossip of the pestilent race of scribblers has recorded that the great Galeazzo purchased secretly a quantity of imitation gems, and passed them off for real;[59] an anecdote extremely creditable to the fifteenth century artificers in that line. In all the ordinary pastimes and pleasures of the princes of that day, of whatever sort, the splendid Cardinal, though so recently a mendicant friar, was able and willing to run neck and neck with his secular host. But some of Maria Galeazzo's favourite enjoyments were not ordinary. He was ever an avid eye-witness of the executions, tortures, and mutilations, which his duty as a sovereign obliged him frequently to inflict on his subjects. We have indeed on record a sufficient number of instances of princes who had this taste, to justify our deeming it part of a despotic ruler's natural idiosyncrasy. But Galeazzo had stranger, if less maleficent, propensities. He revelled in the sight of death, and human decay. Some strange touch of that insanity, which so frequently, and with such salutary warning, develops itself in minds exposed to the poison that wells out from the possession of unchecked power, influenced, as in such cases it is apt to do, his moral rather than his intellectual nature. He would cause himself to be brought into the presence of the suffering, the dying, and the dead, for the mere pleasure of witnessing pain and destruction. He would rifle graves to gaze on the process of corruption, and haunted charnel-houses, impelled by the instinct of the ghoul, rather than by any touch of that sentiment, which impels the morbid fanatic to seek in such contemplatio a moving sermon on the vanity of human wishes. This man, whose wishes, hopes, and ambitions were as unbridled in their violence as low and vain in their aims and scope, would hurry from the death-chamber to the revel, and from the charnel-house hasten to plot long-sighted intrigues in the council-hall.

For the latter the pleasure-loving Cardinal was as ready as for gala making and revelry. Long conferences were held between the host and his guest in the secrecy of the Duke's private chambers. But princes are more than other men subjected to the vigilant surveillance of those who form their pomp or minister to their service. And their secrets, therefore, are rarely absolutely secret. Accordingly, Corio, the page, chamberlain, and annalist—a dangerous pluralism for better sovereigns than Galeazzo Sforza!—Corio informs us, though qualifying his assertion with a cautious "si dice," that these prolonged discussions had for their object the terms of a bargain between the Duke and the Cardinal, by virtue of which the former was to be exalted into King of Lombardy by the acquisition of sundry provinces from the smaller princes around him, and especially by the conquest of the terra-firma possessions of Venice; while the latter was to be insured the succession to his uncle on the papal throne. This statement of the chamberlain and page has been believed by most subsequent historians. Verri, without any qualification, writes that such was the fact. Rosmini contents himself with saying that such is believed to have been the case.

DONE AND DONE.

But alas! for the short span which should forbid such long-sighted hopes. To men who live such lives as his Eminence the Cardinal Riario, the span is apt to be especially short. And as for the Duke ... there are Cola Montano the scholar, and his three young pupils, all the time of this splendid revelry in Milan, reading Roman history harder than ever!

Meanwhile the other business, which had to be settled between the high contracting powers—the marriage of Catherine to Girolamo Riario—though not unattended with those difficulties which naturally arise between parties intent on driving a hard bargain, was at length brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The Duke was to give his daughter the city and territory of Imola, and sixteen thousand ducats, besides certain estates in the Milanese for her separate use. The Pope was to give Girolamo forty thousand ducats, and "expectations;" which, in the case of such a nephew of such a Pope, might fairly be reckoned at a high figure.

The youthful bride, just past her eleventh birthday, was accordingly betrothed publicly to Girolamo Riario, who performed his part of the ceremony by proxy. The young couple had never seen each other; but we are told much of the mutual admiration of the future brother and sister-in-law for each other. The Cardinal was loud in his praises of the beauty, grace, and accomplishments of the hot-house forced child, who was to be made so important a stepping-stone to his brother's fortunes. And she was dazzled and delighted with his magnificence and splendour, and especially charmed, we are assured,[60] by his eloquence!

The luxuriously-nurtured little lady, it may be fancied, would not have appreciated so highly the "eloquence" of the mendicant friar, had he presented himself to her notice in his garb of some three years previously. But when grave historians[61] assure us, that the fortunate monk on his elevation "put on a lofty and imperial spirit," and when all Italy was admiringly marvelling at his cost-despising splendour, a little girl, and she the daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, may be excused for being captivated by one, who appeared to possess in a higher degree than any other man, all that her experience of life had taught her to value.

When these matters had thus been satisfactorily settled, the Cardinal prepared to bring his visit to a conclusion, and informed his host of his intention to pass a short time at Venice before returning to Rome. The Duke strongly urged him to abandon any such idea. The secret schemes which they had been engaged in concocting, were mainly based on the intended spoliation of the great republic. Uneasy suspicions, as the chroniclers mention, had already been aroused in various courts by the prolonged conferences of the Duke and his guest. The Signory of Venice had proverbially long ears, and unscrupulous arms at its command. It might well be, urged the Duke, that at the present conjuncture, Venice might not be so safe a place of sojourn for his Eminence as could be wished. Probably, also, Sforza had jealous suspicions that Riario's business at Venice might possibly be to play a double game,—to throw him over in case contingencies might arise to make such a policy expedient,—and to prepare his way with the Signory for any such eventualities.