With the Milanese in front, in their rear the levelled crossbows ready to shoot into the first vessel that gave way, and themselves armed only with short weapons, the Venetian sailors were compelled either to fight hand to hand with their enemies or be transfixed without resistance by their own or adverse missiles. The Lombards were thus rendered the less formidable of the two, and the closer the fight the more safety, because free from the arrows of either squadron; thus excited the galleons were resolutely run alongside those of the enemy and lashed there, and the battle became more fierce and obstinate; the Venetian mariners, chiefly Greeks and Slavonians, are described as displaying all the courage, sagacity, and savage fury of those nations.
The scene was appalling; no room for tactics, no hope in flight; man encountered man with the eye and hand of death; the struggle was personal, unrelenting, resolute; a struggle for existence, not for victory; the Venetians, pressed by a double danger, had no other hope; the Greeks of Crete and Negropont with the Slavonian crews performed such deeds as have been rarely equalled and never yet surpassed. Springing with the force of tigers on their prey it many times happened that when the Italian spear had pierced a Slavonian body the wounded man would seize and draw himself forward on the slippery staff until he grappled his enemy, and then both rolled struggling into the stream below. Again, two running each other through at the same moment and sternly following up their thrust would close and wrestle as long as life endured, or fall while yet writhing into the bloody Po; for that great stream, full and broad and ample as it was, became strongly crimsoned. Pacino at last gave way, and with a few as yet ungrappled galleys made good his flight, but left fourteen captured vessels in the hands of Venice.
An Italian Knight, Fifteenth Century
After the battle of Casa-al-Secco Carmagnola, who as Cavalcanti asserts was now at the head of fifty thousand fighting men, laid siege to Casalmaggiore on the Po and recaptured Bina which Sforza had surprised; he then reduced the former and both armies cautiously manœuvred, narrowly watching each other’s motions until the beginning of October, when the allies were besieging Pompeiano, a town situated about six miles from Brescia on the high-road to Crema. While Malatesta was absent with Filippo, the Milanese captains had so placed their army as to impede the enemy’s progress without risking a general engagement, but when Carlo returned he posted himself between Macalo (now Maclodio) and the allies, with an intention to succour the besieged. The two camps only four miles asunder were separated by what then was an extensive swamp, now a fertile plain; what was then fetid black and stagnant pools full of reeds and thorns, and swarming with snakes and every loathsome reptile, now abounding in corn and vines and mulberries. The high-road from Orci Novi on the Oglio to Pompeiano and Brescia ran like a causeway through this waste and passed by a wooden bridge over a channel of deep water that connected the opposite marshes. Adjoining the swamp and bridge one side of the road was flanked by an extensive wood, so thick and wild and full of savage beasts that both men and domestic cattle shunned it. Just at the bridge-head the road entered a sort of enclosed space or basin of solid earth in the midst of the marshes, a sort of trap from which no army once entered and cut off from the bridge could hope to escape except by the destruction of a superior enemy.
Niccolo Tolentino, a leader of great influence, having examined this ground, advised Carmagnola to occupy the position while he and his friend Bernardino with a strong division of the army concealed themselves in the wood on the other side of the bridge and awaited Carlo’s advance, who it was supposed would run headlong into the trap. This suggestion was followed; the ambuscade was posted in the wood that night, and the other troops were under arms at daylight. Carlo Malatesta on the other hand, whether for the reasons mentioned by Corio or a wilful determination to fight, was on his march by dawn of day; he soon crossed the bridge and entered the trap with loud shouts of “Viva il Duca! Viva il Duca!” Carmagnola had marshalled his army in the shape of a crescent and slowly retired before him, but still deepening his centre as if fearful of the encounter. When he heard that all had entered, he exclaimed, “They are caught,” and from a rising ground shortly addressed his people before the battle.
The instant that the enemy’s rear was well over the bridge and engaged with their antagonists, Bernardino darted like lightning from the wood and seized it at the head of a thousand horse; he was rapidly followed by Tolentino with a much larger force, but leaving the latter to defend the bridge he snatched up a heavy and well pointed lance, and with two hundred men-at-arms dashed deep into the Milanese rear with loud cries and great confusion. The two horns of the crescent then rapidly closed in; Carmagnola charged in front; the crossbows played unceasingly from every thicket; “San Marco,” “Duca,” and “Marzocco” resounded through the field. “The shouts of men, the neighing of horses, the shock of lances, the tempest of swords was so great,” says Cavalcanti, “that the loudest thunder might have rolled above unheeded. The wild beasts fled in terror through the woods and in these infernal swamps many swarms of serpents were seen rustling through the reeds at the unwonted uproar! O reader, think how cruel must have been this conflict when so many animals, enemies to our nature, fled in so wild affright! All was terror and distraction; Niccolo held steadily to the bridge; many were driven into the marshes or dragged by their stirrups through them; the flights of arrows were sometimes so dense as to obscure the sun, and this deadly archery did infinite mischief; the air itself seemed changed and terrified, and this great multitude was full of groaning, blood, and death!” Every hope of victory at length vanished and the Milanese broke, surrendered, and fled in all directions. Carlo Malatesta and eight thousand prisoners laid down their arms, but, strange to say, almost all were then or subsequently permitted to escape by Carmagnola; and this first sowed the seeds of Venetian jealousy.
Guido Torelli, Piccinino, and Francesco Sforza escaped, and by the next morning all but four hundred prisoners had obtained their liberty; this produced strong remonstrances from the Venetian commissaries, upon which Carmagnola sent for the remaining captives and said to them, “Since my soldiers have given your comrades their liberty I will not be behind them in generosity; depart, you also are free.” This battle was the climax of Carmagnola’s glory: whether he was unwilling to reduce his old patron too low, or was secretly influenced by the desire of peace and the recovery of his wife and children who were in Visconti’s hands, or by less honourable motives, seems uncertain; but his subsequent efforts were insignificant. There is no doubt, says Poggio, that he could that day have destroyed Filippo, if he had retained the prisoners who were the flower of that prince’s army; but according to the custom of modern soldiers they remained as lookers-on, intent only on dividing the booty, and let the men-at-arms go free.
None of this was lost on the Venetians; but not a reproach was heard, not a sentence uttered, no sign of displeasure reached his ear; he could still be useful, was adding bit by bit to their conquests, and as yet in too formidable a position to be struck; on the contrary, as was their usual custom when meditating the sacrifice of a victim, more deference was shown him, more respect paid him; but he was not forgotten.