The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 2

by William Hickling Prescott

[25] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 31.

[26] Oviedo notices Silva as one of three brothers, all gentle cavaliers, of unblemished honor, remarkable for the plainness of their persons, the elegance and courtesy of their manners, and the magnificence of their style of living. This one, Alonso, he describes as a man of a singularly clear head. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4.

[27] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, ubi supra.

[28] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib, 1, cap. 31, 41.

[29] Villeneuve, Mémoires, apud Petitot, Collection des Mémoires, tom. xiv. pp. 255, 256.

The French army consisted of 3600 gens d'armes, 20,000 French infantry, and 8000 Swiss, without including the regular camp followers. (Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, tom. xii. p. 132.)

The splendor and novelty of their appearance excited a degree of admiration, which disarmed in some measure the terror of the Italians. Peter Martyr, whose distance from the theatre of action enabled him to contemplate more calmly the operation of events, beheld with a prophetic eye the magnitude of the calamities impending over his country. In one of his letters, he writes thus; "Scribitur exercitum visum fuisse nostra tempestate nullum unquam nitidiorem. Et qui futuri sunt calamitatis participes, Carolum aciesque illius ac peditum turmas laudibus extollunt; sed Italorum impensâ instructas." (Opus Epist., epist. 143.) He concludes another with this remarkable prediction; "Perimeris, Galle, ex majori parte, nec in patriam redibis. Jacebis insepultus; sed tua non restituetur strages, Italia." Epist. 123.

[30] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 1, p. 71.—Scipione Ammirato, Istorie Fiorentine, (Firenze, 1647,) p. 205.—Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. iii. lib. 29, introd.—Comines, Mémoires, liv. 7, chap. 17.—Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 43.

[31] Du Bos, Histoire de la Ligue faite à Cambray, (Paris, 1728), tom. i. dissert, prélim.—Machiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine, lib. 5.—Denina, Rivoluzioni d'Italia, lib. 18, cap. 3.

[32] Arte della Guerra, lib. 2.