1st of March [1494] Charles VIII. made his state entry into Lyons, to assume the command of the expedition; an advanced guard under the Scotchman d'Aubigny was already pushing towards the Neapolitan frontier, and the Duke of Orleans was at Genoa. The Neapolitans on their side sent the Prince of Altamura with 30 galleys towards Genoa, while the Duke of Calabria, an inexperienced youth, entered the Pontifical States, under the guidance of tried generals. . . . The Pope seemed to have lost his head, and no longer knew what course to adopt. . . . Charles the VIII., having passed the Monginevra, entered Asti in the first days of September. He soon received intelligence that Don Frederico and the Neapolitan fleet had been repulsed with heavy losses before Porto Venere, and that the Duke of Orleans and his Swiss had entered Rapallo, sacked the place, and .put all the inhabitants, even the sick in the hospital, to the sword, thereby striking terror into the Italians, who were unaccustomed to carry on war in so sanguinary a fashion. On reaching Piacenza, the king learnt that Gio. Galeazzo, whom he had recently seen at Pavia, had just died there, poisoned, as all men said, by the Moor [Lodovico, the usurping uncle of Gio. Galeazzo the young Duke of Milan, was so called] . . . after celebrating his obsequies at Milan, [he] had entered St. Ambrogio, at the hour indicated by his astrologer, to consecrate the investiture already granted to him by Maximilian, King of the Romans. All this filled the minds of the French with suspicion, almost with terror; they were beginning to understand the nature of their closest ally's good faith. In fact, while Ludovico with one hand collected men and money for their cause, with the other he wove the threads of a league intended to drive them from Italy, when the moment should arrive. . . . Nevertheless the fortunes of the French prospered rapidly. The Duke of Calabria, having entered Romagna, withdrew across the Neapolitan frontier at the first glimpse of D'Aubigny's forces; and the bulk of the French army, commanded by the King in person, marched through the Lunigiana without encountering obstacles of any kind. After taking Fivizanno, sacking it, and putting to the sword the hundred soldiers who defended it, and part of the inhabitants, they pushed on towards Sarzana, through a barren district, between the mountains and the sea, where the slightest resistance might have proved fatal to them. But the small castles, intended for the defence of these valleys yielded one after the other, without any attempt to resist the invaders; and hardly had the siege of Sarzana commenced than Piero dei Medici arrived, frightened out of his senses, surrendered at discretion, and even promised to pay 200,000 ducats. But on Piero's return to Florence, on the 8th of November, he found that the city had risen in revolt, and sent ambassadors to the French King on its own account to offer him an honourable reception; but that at the same time it was making preparations for defence in case of need [see FLORENCE: 1490-1498]. So great was the public indignation that Piero took flight to Venice, where his own ambassador, Soderini, hardly deigned to look at him, having meanwhile declared for the republican government just proclaimed in Florence, where everything had been rapidly changed. The houses of the Medici and their garden at St. Mark had been pillaged, exiles had been recalled and acquitted; a price put on Piero's head and that of his brother, the Cardinal. . . . The fabric, so long and so carefully built up by the Medici, was now

suddenly crumbling into dust. On the 17th November Charles VIII., at the head of his formidable army, rode into Florence with his lance in rest, believing that that fact sufficed to make him master of the city. But the Florentines were armed, they had collected 6,000 soldiers within the walls, and they knew perfectly well that, from the vantage posts of towers and houses, they could easily worst an army scattered through the streets. They therefore repulsed the King's insolent proposals, and when he threatened to sound his trumpets, Piero Capponi, tearing up the offered treaty, replied that the Florentines were more ready to ring their bells. Through this firmness equitable terms were arranged. The Republic was to pay 120,000 florins in three quotas; the fortresses, however, were to be speedily restored to her. On the 28th November the French left the city, but not without stealing all that remained of the collection of antiquities in the Medici Palace. . . . Nevertheless the citizens were thankful to be finally delivered alike from old tyrants and new invaders. Having reached Rome, Charles VIII., in order to have done with the Pope, who now seemed inclined for resistance, pointed his guns against the Castle of St. Angelo, and thus matters were soon settled.... Scarcely encountering any obstacles, Charles led his army on to Naples." Ferdinand I, or Ferrante, had died on the 25th of January, 1494, and had been succeeded by his son Alfonso I, a prince more cruel and more hated than himse.f. The latter now renounced the throne in favor of his son, Ferdinand II, and fled to Sicily. "Ferdinand II., or Ferrandino, as he was called, after vainly seeking aid from all, even from the Turk, made a fruitless stand at Monte San Giovanni, which was taken, destroyed, and all its population put to the sword. . . . Naples rebelled in favour of the French, who marched in on the 22d of February [1495]. The following day Ferrandino fled to Ischia, then to Messina. And shortly the ambassadors of the Italian States appeared to offer congratulations to the conqueror. Now at last the Venetians were aroused, and having sent their envoys to Milan to know if Ludovico were disposed to take up arms to drive out the French, they found him not only ready to do so, but full of indignation. . . . He advised that money should be sent to Spain and to Maximilian, to induce them to attack France; but added that care must be taken not to call them into Italy, 'since having already one fever here, we should then have two.' A league was in fact concluded between the Venetians, Ludovico, the Pope, Spain and Maximilian.

The Neapolitans, soon wearied of bad government, had risen in revolt, and Charles VIII. after a stay of only 50 days in Naples had to make his departure with excessive haste, before every avenue of retreat should be cut off, leaving hardly more than 6,000 men in the kingdom, and taking with him a numerous army, which however only numbered 10,000 real combatants. On the 6th of July a pitched battle took place at Fornuovo near the river Taro. The allies had assembled about 30,000 men, three-fourths of whom were Venetians, the rest composed of Ludovico's soldiers and a few Germans sent by Maximilian. . . . The battle was bloody, and it was a disputed question which side obtained the victory; but although the Italians were not repulsed, remaining indeed masters of the field, the French succeeded in cutting their way through, which was the chief object they had in view. . . . Ludovico, taking advantage of the situation, soon made an agreement with the French on his own account, without concerning himself about the Venetians. . . . The fortunes of the

French now declined rapidly in Italy, and all the more speedily owing to their bad government in the Neapolitan kingdom, and their abominable behaviour towards the few friends who had remained faithful to them. . . . Ferdinand II., with the aid of the Spaniards under Gonsalvo di Cordova, advanced triumphantly through Calabria and entered Naples on the 7th of July, 1496. In a short time all the Neapolitan fortresses capitulated, and the French who had held them returned to their own country, more than decimated and in an altogether deplorable condition. On the 6th of October Ferdinand II. breathed his last, worn out by the agitation and fatigues of the war, and was succeeded by his uncle Don Federico, the fifth King [counting Charles VIII of France] who had ascended the Neapolitan throne within the last five years.... Naples was now in the absolute power of the Spaniards, who were already maturing their iniquitous designs upon the kingdom; these, however, were only discovered at a later period."P. Villari, Machiavelli and his times, v. 1, ch. 4, sect. 2.-"In spite of its transitory character the invasion of Charles VIII. . . was a great fact in the history of the Renaissance. It was, to use the pregnant phrase of Michelet, no less than the revelation of Italy to the nations of the North. Like a gale sweeping across a forest of trees in blossom, and bearing their fertilizing pollen, after it has broken and deflowered their branches, to far distant trees that hitherto have bloomed in barrenness, the storm of Charles's army carried far and wide through Europe thought-dust, imperceptible, but potent to enrich the nations. The French, alone, says Michelet, understood Italy. . . . From the Italians the French communicated to the rest of Europe what we call the movement of the Renaissance. There is some truth in this panegyric of Michelet's. The passage of the army of Charles VIII. marks a turning point in modern history, and from this epoch dates the diffusion of a spirit of culture over Europe."-J. A. Symonds, Rena'ssance in Italy: Age of the despots, ch. 9.-See also FRANCE: 1492-1515.

ALSO IN: P. Villari, History of Savonarola ant his times, v. 1, bk. 2, ch. 1-3.-J. Dennistoun, Memoirs of the dukes of Urbino, v. 1, ch. 14-15P. de Commines, Memoirs, bk. 7-8.-L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic nations from 1494 to 1514, bk. 1, ch. 1.

1494-1503.-Growing power of Venice and jealousies excited by it. See VENICE: 1494-1503. 1494-1509.-French deliverance of Pisa.Long struggle and Florentine reconquest. See PISA: 1494-1509.

1494-1527.-Machiavelli.-His political career. -"In 1494 the date of the expulsion of the Medici, Machiavelli [1469-1527] was admitted to the Chancery of the Commune as a clerk; and in 1498 he was appointed to the post of chancellor and secretary to Dieci di libertà e pace. This place he held for the better half of fifteen years; that is to say, during the whole period of Florentine freedom. His diplomatic missions undertaken at the instance of the Republic were very numerous... We find him at the camp of Cesare Borgia in 1502, in France in 1504, with Julius II. in 1506, with the Emperor Maximilian in 1507, and again at the French Court in 1510. To this department of his public life belong the despatches and Relazioni which he sent home to the Signory of Florence, his Monograph upon the Massacre of Sinigaglia, his treatises upon the method of dealing with Pisa, Pistoja, and Valdichiana, and those two remarkable studies of foreign nations which are entitled 'Ritratti delle Cose dell' Alemagna'

ITALY, 1499-1500

and 'Ritratti delle Cose di Francia.' It was also in the year 1500 that he laid the first foundations of his improved military system. [See MILITARY ORGANIZATION: 34.]... When Prato had been sacked in 1512, the Florentines, destitute of troops, divided among themselves, and, headed by the excellent but hesitating Piero Soderini, threw their gates open to the Medici. Giuliano, the brother of Pope Leo, and Lorenzo, his nephew, whose statues sit throned in the immortality of Michael Angelo's marble upon their tombs in San Lorenzo, disposed of the Republic at their pleasure. Machiavelli, as War Secretary of the anti-Medicean government, was of course disgraced and deprived of his appointments. In 1513 he was suspected of complicity in the conjuration of Pietropaolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi, was imprisoned in the Bargello, and tortured."-J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, pp. 244-245, 247.-"Two of his most important works the Discourses on the First

Ten Books of Livy and Il Principe [The Prince], were both probably composed, or begun, in this year (1513). . . . When after the sack of Rome, and the renewed expulsion of the Medici (1527), he hastened to Florence in evident hope of re-election as Secretary to the re-established Republic he was treated with, perhaps, justifiable suspicion and neglect. In June of the same year he died."-H. B. Cotterill, Italy from Dante to Tasso, p. 505.See also ITALIAN LITERATURE: 1450-1595; HIS

TORY: 22.

1499-1500.-Invasion and conquest of Milan by Louis XII of France.-His claim in right of Valentine Visconti.-Charles VIII died in April, 1498, and was succeeded by Louis of Orleans, who ascended the throne as Louis XII. On his coronation, Louis XII. "assumed, besides his title of King of France, the titles of King of Naples and of Jerusalem, and Duke of Milan. This was as much as to say that he would pursue a warlike and adventurous policy abroad. By his policy at home Louis XII. deserved and obtained the name of 'Father of the People'; by his enterprises and wars abroad he involved France still

ITALY, 1499-1500

were

more deeply than Charles VIII. had in that mad course of distant, reckless, and incoherent conquests for which his successor, Francis I., was destined to pay by capture at Pavia and by the lamentable treaty of Madrid, in 1526, as the price of his release. . . . Outside of France, Milaness (the Milanese district) was Louis XII.'s first thought, at his accession, and the first object of his desire. He looked upon it as his patrimony. His grandmother, Valentine Visconti, widow of that Duke of Orleans who had been assassinated at Paris in 1407 by order of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, had been the last to inherit the duchy of Milan, which the Sforzas, in 1450, had seized. When Charles VIII. invaded Italy in 1494, 'Now is the time,' said Louis, 'to enforce the rights of Valentine Visconti, my grandmother, to Milaness.' And he, in fact, asserted them openly, and proclaimed his intention of vindicating them so soon as he found the moment propitious. When he became king, his chance of success was great. The Duke of Milan, Ludovic, the Moor, had by his sagacity and fertile mind, by his taste for arts and sciences and the intelligent patronage he bestowed upon them, by his ability in speaking, and by his facile character, obtained in Italy a position far beyond his real power. . . . Ludovic was, nevertheless, a turbulent rascal and a greedy tyrant. . . . He had, moreover, embroiled himself with his neighbours, the Venetians, who watching for an opportunity of aggrandizing themselves at his expense." Louis XII promptly concluded a treaty with Venice, which provided for the making of war in common upon the duke of Milan, to recover the patrimony of the king-the Venetians to receive Cremona and certain forts and territory adjacent as their share of the expected spoils. "In the month of August, 1499, the French army, with a strength of from 20,000 to 25,000 men, of whom 5,000 were Swiss, invaded Milaness. Duke Ludovic Sforza opposed to it a force pretty near equal in number but far less full of confidence and of far less valour. In less than three weeks the duchy was conquered; in only two cases was any assault necessary; all the other places were given up by traitors or surrendered without a show of resistance. The Venetians had the same success on the eastern frontier of the duchy.'. . . Louis was at Lyons when he heard of his army's victory in Milaness and of Ludovic Sforza's flight. He was eager to go and take possession of his conquest, and, on the 6th of October, 1499, he made his triumphal entry into Milan amidst cries of 'Hurrah! for France.' He reduced the heavy imposts established by the Sforzas, revoked the vexatious game-laws, instituted at Milan a court of justice analogous to the French parliaments, loaded with favours the scholars and artists who were the honour of Lombardy, and recrossed the Alps at the end of some weeks, leaving as governor of Milaness John James Trivulzio, the valiant Condottiere, who, four years before, had quitted the service of Ferdinand II., King of Naples, for that of Charles VIII. Unfortunately Trivulzio was himself a Milanese and of the faction of the Guelphs. He had the passions of a partisan and the habits of a man of war; and he soon became as tyrannical and as much detested in Milaness as Ludovic the Moor had but lately been. A plot was formed in favour of the fallen tyrant, who was in Germany expecting it, and was recruiting, during expectancy, amongst the Germans and Swiss, in order to take advantage of it. On the 25th of January, 1500, the insurrection broke out; and two months later Ludovic Sforza had once more became master of Milaness,

ITALY, 1499-1507

where the French possessed nothing but the castle of Milan.... Louis XII., so soon as he heard of the Milanese insurrection, sent into Italy Louis de la Trémoille, the best of his captains, and the Cardinal d'Amboise, his privy councillor and his friend. . . . The campaign did not last long. The Swiss who had been recruited by Ludovic and those who were in Louis XII.'s service had no mind to fight one another; and the former capitulated, surrendered the strong place of Novara, and promised to evacuate the country on condition of a safe-conduct for themselves and their booty." Ludovic attempted flight in disguise, but fell into the hands of the French and remained in captivity, at the castle of Loches, in Touraine, during the remainder of his life-eight years. "And 'thus was the duchy of Milan, within seven months and a half, twice conquered by the French,' says John d'Auton in his 'Chronique,' 'and for the nonce was ended the war in Lombardy, and the authors thereof were captives and exiles.'"-F. P. Guizot, Popular history of France, ch. 27.

ALSO IN: A. M. F. Robinson, End of the Middle Ages: Valentine Visconti.-Idem, French claim to Milan.-E Walford, Story of the Chevalier Bayard, ch. 3-4.

1499-1507.-Cesare Borgia.-His plans for extending his principality.-"Among the eminent examples of Italian founders who rose to princely power by their own ability or by availing themselves of the advantages which fortune put within their reach.. [are] Francesco Sforza and Cesare Borgia [1476-1507]. . . . Cesare, being a Pope's son, had nothing to look to but the influence of his father. At first he designed to use this influence in the Church; but after murdering his elder brother, he threw aside the Cardinal's scarlet and proclaimed himself a political aspirant. His father could not make him lord of any state, unless it were a portion of the territory of the Church; and though, by creating, as he did, twelve Cardinals in one day, he got the Sacred College to sanction his investiture of the Duchy of Romagna, yet both Venice and Milan were opposed to this scheme. Again there was a difficulty to be encountered in the great baronial houses of Orsini and Colonna, who at that time headed all the mercenary troops of Italy, and who, as Roman nobles, had a natural hatred for the Pope. It was necessary to use their aid in the acquisition of Cesare's principality. It was no less needful to humour their animosity. Under these circumstances Alexander thought it best to invite the French king into Italy, bargaining with Louis that he would dissolve his marriage in return for protection awarded to Cesare. The Colonna faction meanwhile was to be crushed, and the Orsini to be flattered. Cesare, by the help of his French allies and the Orsini captains, took possession of Imola and Faenza, and thence proceeded to overrun Romagna [1499]. In this enterprise he succeeded to the full. Romagna had been, from the earliest period of Italian history, a nest of petty tyrants who governed badly and who kept no peace in their dominions. Therefore the towns were but languid in their opposition to Cesare, and were soon more than contented with a conqueror who introduced a good system for the administration of justice. But now two difficulties arose. The subjugation of Romagna had been effected by the help of the French and the Orsini. Cesare as yet had formed no militia of his own, and his allies were becoming suspicious. The Orsini had shown some slackness at Faenza; and when Cesare proceeded to make himself master of Urbino, and to place a foot in Tuscany by

the capture of Piombino-which conquests he completed during 1500 and 1501-Louis began to be jealous of him. The problem for the Duke was how to disembarrass himself of the two forces by which he had acquired a solid basis for his future principality. His first move was to buy over the Cardinal d'Amboise, whose influence in the French Court was supreme, and thus to keep his credit for awhile afloat with Louis. His second was to neutralise the power of the Orsini, partly by pitting them against the Colonnesi, and partly by superseding them in their command as captains. For the latter purpose he became his own Condottiere, drawing to his standard by the lure of splendid pay all the minor gentry of the Roman Campagna. Thus he collected his own forces, and was able to dispense with the unsafe aid of mercenary troops. At this point of his career the Orsini, finding him established in Romagna, in Urbino, and in part of Tuscany, while their own. strength was on the decline, determined if possible to check the career of this formidable tyrant by assassination. The conspiracy known as the 'Diet of La Magione' was the consequence. In this conjuration the Cardinal Orsini, Paolo Orsini, his brother and head of the great house, together with Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of Città di Castello, the Baglione of Perugia, the Bentivoglio of Bologna, Antonio da Venasso from Siena, and Oliverotto da Fermo took each a part. The result of their machinations against the common foe was that Cesare for a moment lost Urbino, and was nearly unseated in Romagna. But the French helped him, and he stood firm. Still it was impossible to believe that Louis XII. would suffer him to advance unchecked in his career of conquest; and as long as he continued between the French and the Orsini his position was of necessity insecure. The former had to be cast off; the latter to be extirpated: and as yet he had not force enough to play an open game. 'He therefore,' says Machiavelli, 'turned to craft, and displayed such skill in dissimulation that the Orsini through the mediation of Paolo became his friends again.' The cruelty of Cesare Borgia was only equalled by his craft; and it was by a supreme exercise of his power of fascination that he lured the foes who had plotted against him at La Magione into his snare at Sinigaglia. Paolo Orsini, Francesco Orsini, duke of Gravina, Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Oliverotto da Fermo were all men of arms, accustomed to intrigue and to bloodshed, and more than one of them were stained with crimes of the most atrocious treachery. Yet such were the arts of Cesare Borgia that in 1502 he managed to assemble them, apart from their troops, in the castle of Sinigaglia, where he had them strangled. Having now destroyed the chiefs of the opposition and enlisted their forces in his own service, Cesare, to use the phrase of Machiavelli, 'had laid good foundations for his future power.' He commanded a sufficient territory; he wielded the temporal and spiritual power of his father; he was feared by the princes and respected by the people throughout Italy; his cruelty and perfidy and subtlety and boldness caused him to be universally admired. But as yet he had only laid foundations. The empire of Italy was still to win; for he aspired to nothing else, and it is even probable that he entertained a notion of secularising the Papacy. France was the chief obstacle to his ambition. The alarm of Louis had at last been roused. But Louis' own mistake in bringing the Spaniards into Naples afforded Cesare the means of shaking off the French control. He espoused the cause of Spain, and by intriguing now with the one power and now with the other

ITALY, 1500-1600

made himself both formidable and desirable to each. His geographical position between Milan and Naples enforced this policy. Another difficulty against which he had to provide was in the future rather than the present. Should his father die, and a new Pope adverse to his interests be elected, he might lose not only the support of the Holy See, but also his fiefs of Romagna and Urbino. To meet this contingency he took four precautions. . . . In the first place he systematically murdered the heirs of the ruling families of all the cities he acquired as for example three Varani at Camerino, two Manfredi at Faenza, the Orsini and Vitelli at Sinigaglia, and others whom it would be tedious to mention. By this process he left no scion of the ancient houses for a future Pope to restore. In the second place he attached to his person, by pensions, offices, and emoluments, all the Roman gentry, so that he might be able to keep the new Pope a prisoner and unarmed in Rome. Thirdly, he reduced the College of Cardinals, by bribery, terrorism, poisoning, and packed elections, to such a state that he could count on the creation of a Pope, if not his nominee, at least not hostile to his interests. Fourthly, he lost no time, but pushed his plans of conquest on with the utmost speed, so as, if possible, to command a large territory at the time of Alexander's death. Machiavelli, who records these four points with approbation, adds: 'He, therefore, who finds it needful in his new authority to secure himself against foes, to acquire allies, to gain a point by force or fraud, &c., &c., could not discover an ensample more vigorous and blooming than that of Cesare.' Such is the panegyric which Machiavelli. . . records of a man who, taken altogether, is perhaps the most selfish, perfidious, and murderous of adventurers on record."-J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, pp. 271-272, 274-278. -See also PAPACY: 1471-1513.

16th century. - Historiography. Work of Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Baronius and Sarpi. See HISTORY: 22; 23.

1500-1600.-Renaissance.-Political and moral decline.-Italian art and its relation to the soIcial history of the country.-"At the end of the fifteenth century, Italy was the centre of European civilization: while the other nations were still plunged in a feudal barbarism which seems almost as far removed from all our sympathies as is the condition of some American or Polynesian savages, the Italians appear to us as possessing habits of thought, a mode of life, political, social, and literary institutions, not unlike those of to-day; as men whom we can thoroughly understand, whose ideas and aims, whose general views, resemble our own in that main, indefinable characteristic of being modern. They had shaken off the morbid monastic ways of feeling, they had thrown aside the crooked scholastic modes of thinking, they had trampled under foot the feudal institutions of the Middle Ages; no symbolical mists made them see things vague, strange, and distorted; their intellectual atmosphere was as clear as our own, and, if they saw less than we do, what they did see appeared to them in its true shape and proportions. Almost for the first time since the ruin of antique civilization, they could show well-organized, welldefined States; artistically disciplined armies; rationally devised laws; scientifically conducted agriculture; and widely extended, intelligently undertaken commerce. For the first time, also, they showed regularly built, healthy, and commodious towns; well-drained fields; and, more important than all, hundreds of miles of country owned not by feudal lords, but by citizens; cultivated not