[1378-1394 A.D.]
The terror in which the house of Visconti had held Florence and the other Italian republics began somewhat to subside. Barnabò, grown old, had divided the cities of his dominions among his numerous children. His brother, Galeazzo, had died on the 4th of August, 1378, and been replaced by his son, Gian Galeazzo, called count de Virtù, from a county in Champagne, given him by Charles V, whose sister he had married. Barnabò would willingly have deprived his nephew of his paternal inheritance, to divide it among his children. Gian Galeazzo, who had already discovered several plots directed against him, uttered no complaint, but shut himself up in his castle of Pavia, where he had fixed his residence. He doubled his guard, and took pains to display his belief that he was surrounded by assassins. He affected, at the same time, the highest devotion; he was always at prayers, a rosary in his hand, and surrounded with monks; he talked only of pilgrimages and expiatory ceremonies. His uncle regarded him as pusillanimous, and unworthy of reigning. In the beginning of May, 1385, Gian Galeazzo sent to Barnabò to say that he had made a vow of pilgrimage to our Lady of Varese, near the Lago Maggiore, and that he should be glad to see him on his passage. Barnabò agreed to meet him at a short distance from Milan, accompanied by his two sons. Gian Galeazzo arrived, surrounded, as was his custom, by a numerous guard. He affected to be alarmed at every sudden motion made near him. On meeting his uncle, however, on the 6th of May, he hastily dismounted, and respectfully embraced him; but, while he held him in his arms, he said in German to his guards, “Strike!” The Germans, seizing Barnabò, disarmed and dragged him, with his two sons, to some distance from his nephew. Gian Galeazzo made several vain attempts to poison his uncle in the prison into which he had thrown him; but Barnabò, suspicious of all the nourishment offered him, was on his guard, and did not sink under these repeated efforts till the 18th of December of the same year.
Gian Galeazzo Visconti
[1385-1386 A.D.]
All Lombardy submitted, without difficulty, to Gian Galeazzo. His uncle had never inspired one human being with either esteem or affection. The nephew had no better title to these sentiments. False and pitiless, he joined to immeasurable ambition a genius for enterprise, and to immovable constancy a personal timidity which he did not endeavour to conceal. The least unexpected motion near him threw him into a paroxysm of nervous terror. No prince employed so many soldiers to guard his palace, or took such multiplied precautions of distrust. He seemed to acknowledge himself the enemy of the whole world. But the vices of tyranny had not weakened his ability. He employed his immense wealth, without prodigality; his finances were always flourishing; his cities well garrisoned and victualled; his army well paid; all the captains of adventure scattered throughout Italy received pensions from him, and were ready to return to his service whenever called upon. He encouraged the warriors of the new Italian school; he well knew how to distinguish, reward, and win their attachment. Many young Italians, in order to train themselves to arms, had, from about the middle of this century, engaged in the German, English, and French troops which inundated Italy; and they soon proved that Italian valour, directed by the reflection and intelligence of a highly civilised nation, who carried their arms as well as tactics to perfection, had greatly the advantage over the brute courage of barbarians.
Alberic, count of Barbiano, a Romagnole noble, and an ancestor of the princes Belgiojoso, of Milan, formed a company, under the name of St. George, into which he admitted Italians only, and which, in 1378, he placed in the service of Urban VI. This company defeated, at Ponte Molle, that of the Bretons, attached to Clement VII, and regarded as the most formidable of the foreign troops. From that time, the company of St. George was the true school of military science in Italy. Young men of courage, talent, or ambition flocked into it from all parts; and all the captains who, twenty years later, attained such high renown, gloried in having served in that company.
Gian Galeazzo was no sooner firmly established on the throne of Milan, than he resumed his project of subjugating the rest of Italy; the two principalities of the Della Scala at Verona, and of the Carrara at Padua, were the first to tempt his ambition. The house of La Scala had produced, in the beginning of the century, some great captains and able politicians; but their successors had been effeminate and vicious—princes who hardly ever attained power without getting rid of their brothers by poison or the dagger. The house of Carrara, on the contrary, which gloried in being attached to the Guelf party, produced princes who might have passed for virtuous, in comparison with the other tyrants of Italy. Francesco da Carrara, who then reigned, his son, and grandson were men of courage, endued with great capacities, and who knew how to gain the affection of their subjects. The republic of Venice never pardoned Carrara his having made alliance against her with the Genoese and the king of Hungary. After the death of the last named, Venice engaged Antonio della Scala to attack Padua, offering him subsidies to aid him in the conquest of that state. Carrara did all in his power to be reconciled to the prince, his neighbour, whom, in 1386, he repeatedly vanquished; as well as with the republic—always ready to repair the losses sustained by the lord of Verona. Unable to obtain peace, he was at last reduced to accept the proffered alliance of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who took Verona on the 18th of October, 1387. Instead of restoring to Carrara the city of Vicenza, as he had promised, he immediately offered his assistance to the Venetians against Padua; that republic was imprudent enough to accept the offer. Padua, long besieged, was given up to Visconti on the 23rd of November, 1388. A few days afterwards, Treviso was surrendered to him; so that the frontiers of the lord of Milan’s dominions extended even to the edge of the Lagune. He had no sooner planted his standard there, than he menaced Venice, which had so unwisely facilitated his conquests.
[1386-1390 A.D.]
All the rest of Lombardy was dependent on the lord of Milan. The marquis of Montferrat was brought up at the court of Galeazzo, who governed his states as guardian of this young prince. Albert, marquis d’Este, had, on the 26th of March, 1388, succeeded his brother in the sovereignty of Ferrara, to the prejudice of his nephew Obizzo, whom he caused to be beheaded with his mother. He put to death by various revolting executions almost all his relations, at the suggestion of Gian Galeazzo, whose object was, by rendering him thus odious to the people, to make the lord of Ferrara feel that he had no other support than in him. According to the same infernal policy Gian Galeazzo accused the wife of the lord of Mantua, daughter of Barnabò, and his own cousin and sister-in-law, of a criminal intercourse with her husband’s secretary. He forged letters by which he made her appear guilty, concealed them in her apartment, and afterwards pointed out where they were to be found to Francesco da Gonzaga, who, in a paroxysm of rage, caused her to be beheaded, and the secretary to be tortured, and afterwards put to death, in 1390; it was not till after many years that he discovered the truth. Thus all the princes of Lombardy were either subdued or in discredit for the crimes which Visconti had made them commit, and by which he held them in his dependence; he then began to turn his attention towards Tuscany. In the years 1388 and 1389, the Florentines were repeatedly alarmed by his attempts to take possession of Siena, Pisa, Bologna, San Miniato, Cortona, and Perugia; not one attempt had yet succeeded; but Florence saw her growing danger, and was well aware that the tyrant had not yet attacked her, only because he reserved her for his last conquest.
The arrival at Florence of Francesco II of Carrara, who came to offer his services and his hatred of Gian Galeazzo to the republic, determined the Florentines to have recourse to arms. The lord of Milan, in receiving the capitulation of Padua, had promised to give in compensation some other sovereignty to the house of Carrara; but he had either poisoned Francesco I, or suffered him to perish in prison. Several attempts had been made to assassinate Francesco II in the province of Asti, whither he had been exiled. In spite of many dangers, he at last escaped, and fled into Tuscany, taking his wife, then indisposed, with him. He left her there, and passed into Germany, in the hopes of exciting new enemies against Gian Galeazzo; while the Florentines made alliance with the Bolognese against the lord of Milan, and placed their army under the command of John Hawkwood, who ever afterwards remained in their service. Carrara, seconded by the duke of Bavaria, the son-in-law of Barnabò, whose death the duke was desirous of avenging, re-entered Padua on the 14th of June, 1390, by the bed of the Brenta, and was received with enthusiasm by the inhabitants, who regarded him more as a fellow-citizen than a master. He recovered possession of the whole inheritance of his ancestors.