[33] Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, p. 137.—Comines, Mémoires, liv. 8, chap. 21.—Giovio, Vita Magni Gonsalvi, lib. 1, p. 221.—Guicciardini, Istoria, lib. 3, p. 160.—Villeneuve, Mémoires, apud Petitot, tom. xiv. p. 318.
[34] Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, lib. 29, cap. 2.—Summonte, Hist. di Napoli, lib. 6, cap. 2.—Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 188.
While stretched on his death-bed, Ferdinand, according to Bembo, caused the head of his prisoner, the Bishop of Teano, to be brought to him, and laid at the foot of his couch, that he might be assured with his own eyes of the execution of the sentence. Istoria Viniziana, lib. 3, p. 189.
[35] Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib, 4, p. 139.—Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 2, cap. 30, 33.—Guicciardini, Istoria, lib. 3, p. 160.— Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. iii. lib. 29, cap. 3.
CHAPTER III.
ITALIAN WARS.—GONSALVO SUCCORS THE POPE.—TREATY WITH FRANCE.— ORGANIZATION OF THE SPANISH MILITIA.
1496-1498.
Gonsalvo Succors the Pope.—Storms Ostia.—Reception in Rome.—Peace with
France.—Ferdinand's Reputation advanced by his Conduct in the War.—
Organization of the Militia.
It had been arranged by the treaty of Venice, that while the allies were carrying on the war in Naples, the emperor elect and the king of Spain should make a diversion in their favor, by invading the French frontiers. Ferdinand had performed his part of the engagement. Ever since the beginning of the war, he had maintained a large force along the borders from Fontarabia to Perpignan. In 1496, the regular army kept in pay amounted to ten thousand horse and fifteen thousand foot; which, together with the Sicilian armament, necessarily involved an expenditure exceedingly heavy under the financial pressure occasioned by the Moorish war. The command of the levies in Roussillon was given to Don Enrique Enriquez de Guzman, who, far from acting on the defensive, carried his men repeatedly over the border, sweeping off fifteen or twenty thousand head of cattle in a single foray, and ravaging the country as far as Carcassona and Narbonne. [1] had concentrated a considerable force in the south, retaliated by similar inroads, in one of which they succeeded in surprising the fortified town of Salsas. The works, however, were in so dilapidated a state, that the place was scarcely tenable, and it was abandoned on the approach of the Spanish army. A truce soon followed, which put an end to further operations in that quarter. [2]
The submission of Calabria seemed to leave no further occupation for the arms of the Great Captain in Italy. Before quitting that country, however, he engaged in an adventure, which, as narrated by his biographers, forms a brilliant episode to his regular campaigns. Ostia, the seaport of Rome, was, among the places in the papal territory, forcibly occupied by Charles the Eighth, and on his retreat had been left to a French garrison under the command of a Biscayan adventurer named Menaldo Guerri. The place was so situated as entirely to command the mouth of the Tiber, enabling the piratical horde who garrisoned it almost wholly to destroy the commerce of Rome, and even to reduce the city to great distress for want of provisions. The imbecile government, incapable of defending itself, implored Gonsalvo's aid in dislodging this nest of formidable freebooters. The Spanish general, who was now at leisure, complied with the pontiff's solicitations, and soon after presented himself before Ostia with his little corps of troops, amounting in all to three hundred horse and fifteen hundred foot. [3]