The duke of Calabria believed that he should be assisted both by Francesco Sforza—who, before he was duke of Milan, had long fought, as his father had done before him, for the party of Anjou—and by the Florentine Republic, which had always been devoted to France. But Sforza judged that the security and independence of Italy could be maintained only so long as the kingdom of Naples did not fall into the hands of France. The French were already masters of Genoa and the gates of Italy; they would traverse in every direction and hold in fear or subjection every state in the peninsula, if they should acquire the sovereignty of Naples. For these reasons Sforza resisted all his friends, dependents, and even his wife, who vehemently solicited him for the house of Anjou; he also brought Cosmo de’ Medici over to his opinion, and thus prevented the republic of Florence from seconding a party towards which it found itself strongly inclined. The duke of Calabria, who had entered Naples in 1459, had begun successfully; but, receiving no assistance from abroad, he soon wearied and exhausted the people, who alone had to furnish him with supplies. He lost, one after the other, all the provinces which had declared for him, and was finally, in 1464, constrained to abandon the kingdom.
Ferdinand, to strengthen himself, kept in dungeons or put to death all the feudatories who had shown any favour to his rival; above all, he resolved to be rid of the greatest captain that still remained in Italy, Jacopo Piccinino, the son of Niccolo, and head of what was still called the militia, or school of Braccio. He sent to Milan, whither Piccinino, who had served the party of Anjou, had retired, and where he had married a daughter of Sforza, to invite him to enter his service, promising him the highest dignities in his kingdom. He gave the most formal engagements for his safety to Sforza, as well as to Jacopo himself. He received him with honours, such as he would not have lavished on the greatest sovereign. After having entertained him twenty-seven days in one perpetual festival, he found means to separate him from his most trusty officers, caused him to be arrested in his own palace, and to be immediately strangled. This happened on the 24th of June, 1465.[e]
Once firmly established on the throne of Naples, Ferdinand continued to hold his position and to render it more and more secure throughout the period of his life, which terminated in 1494. He was little respected, but he made himself pretty generally feared and was accounted the most astute politician of his time. In alliance with Pope Sixtus IV he made war against Milan and Florence, and in 1479 the allied forces had reduced Lorenzo de’ Medici to such an extremity that the great Florentine was constrained to visit Naples in the hope of conciliating his enemy. Lorenzo frankly acknowledged the danger in which he found himself, but he made a shrewd political move in pointing out that he was not without resources, inasmuch as it was open to him to invite the French into Italy. He admitted that the coming of these outsiders could only benefit him through injuring his enemies, but as a last resource he professed himself ready to adopt this expedient. He strongly represented, however, that he much preferred to enter into an arrangement with Ferdinand instead of opening up their country to the incursions of what the Italians were pleased to call barbarians. Ferdinand was fully alive to his danger, and was prepared to listen to terms.[a]
[1479-1494 A.D.]
Finally, Lorenzo offered him an indemnity in the republic of Siena, which the duke of Calabria, son of the king, already coveted. That state had made alliance with the pope and the king of Naples against Florence; had received, without distrust, the Neapolitan troops within its fortresses; and had repeatedly had recourse to the duke of Calabria to terminate, by his mediation, the continually renewed dissensions between the different orders of the republic. The duke of Calabria, instead of reconciling them, kept up their discord; and, by alternately granting succour to each party, was become the supreme arbitrator of Siena. Lorenzo de’ Medici promised to offer no obstacle to the transferring of that state in sovereignty to the duke of Calabria. On this condition, he signed his treaty with the king of Naples on the 6th of May, 1480. The republic of Siena would have been lost, and the Neapolitans, masters of so important a place in Tuscany, would soon have subjugated the rest, when an unexpected event saved Lorenzo de’ Medici from the consequences of his impudent offer. Muhammed II charged his grand vizir, Akhmet Giedik, to attempt a landing in Italy, which the latter effected, and made himself master of Otranto on the 28th of July, 1480. Ferdinand, struck with terror, immediately recalled the duke of Calabria, with his army, to defend his own states.
The Turks had no sooner been driven from Otranto by Alfonso, the eldest son of the king of Naples, on the 10th of August, 1481, than Sixtus excited a new war in Italy. His object was to aggrandise his nephew, Girolamo Riario, for whom he was desirous of forming a great principality in Romagna. With that view, he proposed to the Venetians to divide with him the states of the duke of Ferrara; but a league was formed, in 1482, by the king of Naples, the duke of Milan, and the Florentines, to defend the dukedom. The year following, Sixtus IV, fearing that he should not obtain for his nephew the best part of the spoils of the duke of Ferrara, changed sides, and excommunicated the Venetians, intending to take from them the provinces which he destined for Girolamo Riario. The new allies, without consulting him, soon afterwards made peace with the Venetians, at Bagnolo, on the 7th of August, 1484.[e]
Ferdinand had reason to desire peace rather than war, and his influence was valuable in maintaining a state of relative tranquillity in Italy throughout most of the later years of his reign. But his oppressive taxation led to a momentous event in the history of Italy. The Neapolitan nobles rebelled against their burdens and again aroused the dormant Angevin claim to activity. René II neglected his opportunity, but after Ferdinand, in 1492, had strengthened himself by an alliance with Piero de’ Medici, the jealous Lodovico Sforza appealed to the King of France. Ferdinand died in 1494, a few months before Charles VIII invaded Italy.[a]
THE TYRANTS OF LOMBARDY
[1152-1300 A.D.]