An Italian Peasant
Charles VIII entered Italy in the month of August, 1494, with thirty-six hundred men-at-arms or heavy cavalry; twenty thousand infantry, Gascons, Bretons, and French; eight thousand Swiss, and a formidable train of artillery. This last arm had received in France, during the wars of Charles VII, a degree of perfection yet unknown to the rest of Europe. The states of upper Italy were favourable to the expedition of the French. The duchess of Savoy and the marchioness of Montferrat, regents for their sons, who were under age, opened the passages of the Alps to Charles VIII. Lodovico the Moor, regent of the duchy of Milan, recently alarmed at the demand made on him by the king of Naples, to give up the regency to his nephew, Giovanni Galeazzo, then of full age, and married to a Neapolitan princess, had himself called the French into Italy; and to facilitate their conquest of the kingdom of Naples, opened to them all the fortresses of Genoa which were dependent on him. The republic of Venice intended to remain neutral, reposing in its own strength, and made the duke of Ferrara and the marquis of Mantua, its neighbours, adopt the same policy; but southern Italy formed for its defence a league, comprehending the Tuscan republics, the states of the church, and the kingdom of Naples.
At Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici left three sons; of whom Piero II, at the age of twenty-one, was named chief of the republic. His grandfather, Piero I, son of Cosmo, oppressed with infirmities and premature old age, had shown little talent, and no capacity for the government of a state. Piero II, on the contrary, was remarkable for his bodily vigour and address; but he thought only of shining at festivals, tilts, and tournaments. It was said that he had given proofs of talent in his literary studies, that he spoke with grace and dignity; but in his public career he proved himself arrogant, presumptuous, and passionate. He determined on governing the Florentines as a master, without disguising the yoke which he imposed on them; not deigning to trouble himself with business, he transmitted his orders by his secretary, or some one of his household, to the magistrates.
Piero de’ Medici remained faithful to the treaty which his father had made with Ferdinand, king of Naples, and engaged to refuse the French a free passage, if they attempted to enter southern Italy by Tuscany. The republics of Siena and Lucca, too feeble to adopt an independent policy, promised to follow the impulse given by Medici. In the states of the church, Rodrigo Borgia had succeeded to Innocent VIII, on the 11th of August, 1492, under the name of Alexander VI. He was the richest of the cardinals, and at the same time the most depraved in morals, and the most perfidious as a politician. The marriage of one of his sons (for he had several) with a natural daughter of Alfonso, son of Ferdinand, had put the seal to his alliance with the reigning house of Naples. That house then appeared at the summit of prosperity. Ferdinand, though seventy years of age, was still vigorous: he was rich, he had triumphed over all his enemies; he passed for the most able politician in Italy. His two sons, Alfonso and Frederick, and his grandson, Ferdinand, were reputed skilful warriors; they had an army and a numerous fleet under their orders. However, Ferdinand dreaded a war with France, and he had just opened negotiations to avoid it when he died suddenly, on the 25th of January, 1494. His son, Alfonso II, succeeded him; while Frederick took command of the fleet, and the young Ferdinand that of the army, destined to defend Romagna against the French.
It was by Pontremoli and the Lunigiana that Charles VIII, according to the advice of Lodovico the Moor, resolved to conduct his army into southern Italy. This road traversing the Apennines from Parma to Pontremoli, over poor pasture lands, and descending through olive groves to the sea, the shore of which it follows at the foot of the mountains, was not without danger. The country produces little grain of any kind. Corn was brought from abroad, at a great expense, in exchange for oil. The narrow space between the sea and the mountains was defended by a chain of fortresses, which might long stop the army on a coast where it would have experienced at the same time famine and the pestilential fever of Pietrasanta. Piero de’ Medici, upon learning that the French were arrived at Sarzana, and perceiving the fermentation which the news of their approach excited at Florence, resolved to imitate that act of his father which he had heard the most praised—his visit to Ferdinand at Naples. He departed to meet Charles VIII. On his road he traversed a field of battle, where three hundred Florentine soldiers had been cut to pieces by the French, who had refused to give quarter to a single one. Seized with terror, on being introduced to Charles, he, on the first summons, caused the fortresses of Sarzana and Sarzanello to be immediately surrendered. He afterwards gave up those of Librafratta, Pisa, and Livorno (Leghorn), consenting that Charles should garrison and keep them until his return from Italy, or until peace was signed, and thus establishing the king of France in the heart of Tuscany. It was contrary to the wish of the Florentines that Medici had engaged in hostilities against the French, for whom they entertained an hereditary attachment; but the conduct of the chief of the state, who, after having drawn them into a war, delivered their fortresses, without authority, into the hands of the enemy whom he had provoked, appeared as disgraceful as it was criminal.
Piero de’ Medici, after this act of weakness, quitted Charles, to return in haste to Florence, where he arrived on the 8th of November, 1494. On his preparing, the next day, to visit the signoria, he found guards at the door of the palace, who refused him admittance. Astonished at this opposition, he returned home, to put himself under the protection of his brother-in-law, Paolo Orsini, a Roman noble, whom he had taken, with a troop of cavalry, into the pay of the republic. Supported by Orsini, the three brothers Medici rapidly traversed the streets, repeating the war-cry of their family, “Palle! Palle!”—without exciting a single movement of the populace, upon whom they reckoned, in their favour. The friends of liberty, the Piagnoni, on the other hand, excited by the exhortations of Savonarola, assembled, and took arms. Their number continually increased. The Medici, terrified, left the city by the gate of San Gallo, traversed the Apennines, retired first to Bologna, then to Venice, and thus lost, without a struggle, a sovereignty which their family had already exercised sixty years. The same day, the 19th of November, 1494, on which the Medici were driven out of Florence, the Florentines were driven out of Pisa.[d]
CHARLES VIII; HIS ARMY (1494 A.D.)
The French army was now ready to march on Florence. It consisted of thirty-six hundred men-at-arms; six thousand foot-archers from Brittany; six thousand crossbowmen from the central provinces; eight thousand Gascon infantry, at that time the most esteemed in France; all armed with arquebuses and two-handed swords; and eight thousand Swiss or German pikemen and halberdiers. An immense number of attendants followed and increased this splendid force which was led by the king, the duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII, the duke of Vendôme; the count of Montpensier; Louis de Ligne, lord of Luxemburg; Louis de la Trémouille and other great seigniors; besides the seneschal of Beaucaire, Briçonnet, bishop of St. Malo, both confidential advisers of Charles; and, though last not least, his father’s old and faithful counsellor Philip de Comines, lord of Argenton, who has left so interesting and instructive a history of his own times to posterity. The French man-at-arms or lance (a name which seems to have been gradually dropped in Italy after the disappearance of transalpine condottieri by whom it was introduced) consisted of six horsemen, of which two were archers; they were nearly all French subjects, and all gentlemen, who were neither enrolled nor removed at the general’s pleasure nor paid by him as in Italy, but received their salary direct from the crown. Their squadrons were always maintained complete, and every man was well equipped both with arms and horses, for their circumstances were equal to it, and there was a good spirit and an honourable emulation to distinguish themselves not only for the sake of glory but promotion; and the same spirit existed among the leaders and generals, who were all lords and barons or of illustrious family and nearly all native Frenchmen. None of the subordinate chiefs commanded more than a hundred lances, and when these were complete they looked only to glory and promotion, which were pursued with a singular devotion to the king whom they considered the source of both. The result of this spirit and this equality was a steadiness in their service, an absence of any desire, whether from avarice or ambition, to change their masters, and a similar absence of any rivalry with other captains for a larger command.
