CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER IV.POLITICAL CARES. THE BARONS’ WAR.Afterthe disturbance and unrest which ended the pontificate of Sixtus IV., the reign of Innocent VIII. seemed destined to commence in peace and tranquillity. The Pope’s desire to terminate the long dispute about Sarzana, which had distracted the Lunigiana for years, and threatened to assume dimensions greater than the worth of the cause, was very honourable to him, especially as it did not arise from partiality for his Genoese home. On September 17, only three weeks after his election, the Pope summoned the ambassadors of Naples, Florence, and Milan[268]to discuss the political situation. After the recent conclusion of peace, he said he considered it a duty of his apostolic office to ensure that peace, in order that all the Italian states might really enjoy its fruits and recover from the heavy expenses which had burthened the holy see with a debt of more than 250,000 ducats. The dispute about Sarzana, complicated by the Florentine attack on Pietrasanta, made him anxious in consideration of the disposition of the Genoese; for the latter, where their honour was at stake, would not scruple to set the world on fire, and had already, in times past, called the foreigner into Italy. He knew that they were not only in league with the Marquis of Saluzzo and Philip of Savoy, lord of Bresse, but were tryingto stir up the Duke of Orleans against Milan and the Duke of Lorraine against Naples; in which they would get support from France, as the regent was desirous to find occupation for these princes, and sustenance for their numerous troops in a foreign land. The commonwealth of Genoa had applied to him to bring the matter to a legal conclusion. He knew that his predecessor had made an unsuccessful attempt to do so; but as a native of Genoa, and being in a more favourable position than Pope Sixtus, he hoped to attain his object, as the Signoria would doubtless do all in their power to compose the strife.The ambassadors of Naples and Milan kept to generalities, though the former could not help owning that Sarzana had been taken from the Florentines in time of truce; that the blame really lay with the son of his king he naturally could not admit. Vespucci, however, went thoroughly into the matter. Sarzana, said he, was sold to the Republic by Lodovico Fregoso, the lord of the place. After we had held it for several years, his son Agostino took it by surprise in time of truce, and as he did not feel able to keep it, made it over to the bank of San Giorgio. In defiance of law and custom, which forbid the acceptance of an object in dispute, the bank received it just as if there were no such place as Florence in the world. Florence has a perfect right to make every effort to get back her own. She has equally a right to attack Pietrasanta, because Pietrasanta is an obstacle and an enemy to her. The Signoria, he added, has no thought of giving your Holiness advice, which you do not need, and is willing to agree to any reasonable compromise. But after all the unsuccessful efforts of Pope Sixtus, there is not much to be hoped. As to the possible introduction of foreigners by the Genoese, that is a matter not to be deemed unworthy of consideration, but it is not a ground for anxiety. The Dukes of Orleans and Lorraine personally are not in a condition to begin such an undertaking; and in the exhausted state of France her rulers will never think of giving them asou towards it. The Genoese alone would be utterly incapable of holding out long, even were they differently inclined. The Ferrarese ambassador offered his Duke’s mediation in case of a negotiation. The Pope had also consulted on the matter with Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and expressed his anxiety to him; whereupon Lodovico il Moro declared that nothing but the voluntary surrender of Sarzana on the part of Genoa could render a satisfactory termination possible.[269]Innocent’s mediation came to nothing. The Florentines took Pietrasanta, as has been already related, and the contest went on amid numberless suggestions of compromise for fully three years more.In vain the Pope honestly desired to make and to keep peace; misunderstandings arose on all sides. In defiance of their ostensible relations to each other, there was no true understanding and confidence between Lorenzo de’ Medici and Lodovico Sforza. The Moro’s conduct was always ambiguous; not only in the matter of Sarzana, where there was much underhand work going forward, but also in the constant miserable disturbances in Romagna, where Girolamo Riario, supported by him, was operating against the Manfredi, they having given shelter to the Florentine’sprotégé, the claimant of Forlì, Antoniello Ordelaffi, and being in alliance with the Bentivogli, who stood in equal fear of Lodovico and the Pope’s nephew. Giovanni Bentivoglio was in Tuscany in the beginning of 1485. He visited Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and in May he came to Florence, where he stayed with the Medici. He spoke out his mind unreservedly about the Moro’s intrigues.[270]Lorenzo was absent at the time; gout, the hereditary disease of the family, obliged him constantly to visit various baths, and just then he was at Bagno a Morba. During his stay there he had to devote his attention to the Sienese affairs, which were of some consequenceto Florence. He had perceived the mistake once committed in the Fortebracci affair, and thenceforward strove to keep on good terms with the neighbouring commonwealth. With regard to the frontier disputes, chiefly in the Chiana valley, where the small places were always in a state of feud one with the other, Florence showed herself disposed for an amicable settlement. ‘God is my witness,’ wrote Lorenzo to the Signoria of Siena on February 28, 1484,[271]‘that my personal mediation and that of others was little needed in the negotiations for the advantage of your Republic, namely, in the matter of the frontiers; for the whole city recognised, just as if acting in its own behalf, our common interest in a close and friendly connection. As the thing has been settled now with the agreement of all, so also in future we shall not fail to give active proofs of our sincere friendship.’This friendship was soon put to the proof. The party which had been defeated on the departure of the Duke of Calabria from Siena could not forget the mortification. In the beginning of April 1485, the Sienese ambassador at Florence announced that a body of 2,000 men, under the command of Giulio Orsini, was meditating an attack; whereupon a considerable force under Ranuccio da Farnese was despatched to the threatened ally.[272]It was believed that Perugia, Spoleto, and Todi served as places of meeting for the discontented, and that the Cardinal della Rovere had a hand in the undertaking. On May 4, Lorenzo wrote from Bagno a Morba to Siena[273]that they must look to the security of the frontiers. It was said that the Pope was inclined to maintain peace, and had spoken to the ambassadors to that effect. By the Florentines he had been urged to give practical proof of his good intentions, and not to suffer his dominions to be a harbour for designs against neighbouringStates. ‘Your Lordships must know,’ he continues, ‘better than I who am at a distance, what is your internal state and the mind of the citizens. If you are united, then, in my opinion, you have nothing to fear: for Siena is not to be taken with 2,000 men, and if the number of the aggressors increases, you will also receive increased assistance. Of that you need not doubt. Therefore, if there is among your citizens the amount of concord and love which is reckoned upon, your affairs will take a favourable course. I do not believe that this movement of the exiles can count on much support; for we hear from Lombardy that all the chief powers are desirous of peace. Nevertheless it is your and our duty to prepare for the worst and to have all available means in readiness. Thereunto I desire to encourage your Lordships, assuring you that we are of one mind with you, as events will prove.’A few days after this the exiles made a raid from Umbria into the Arezzo territory and thence turned towards the valley of the Arbia, where they attacked the castle of San Quirico, on the Roman road, but were beaten back; whereupon the troop dispersed. ‘The Signoria here,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘is delighted at the news and in good spirits. But the Sienese must be more delighted still; now they must be convinced that the number of participators is less than they suspected.’ On May 14, Lorenzo wrote from Pisa to the Sienese Signoria that Florence regarded their danger as her own; but he advised them to look to their internal condition. ‘It would be best to prevent the recurrence of such troubles by removing the occasion of your distress and of reproach from others. It seems to me time to come to a settlement of everything, provided that the origin of all this evil is rooted out. If this is done the past must not be too strictly inquired about. If such attempts against your Lordships are continued you will not want for protection, but the most effectual protection will be good and just government and true unity.’ More thantwo years later, Lorenzo wrote on another occasion: ‘Your Lordships know what has always been my conduct with respect to attempts at revolution and dangers which have befallen your citizens, and that I regard your welfare even as that of our own commonwealth. This seems to me to suit our friendly and neighbourly relations, as well as my devotion to your Signoria.’ Both by word and deed Lorenzo displayed his anxiety to maintain his political principle that it was important for the Republic to make herself secure by a good understanding with her neighbours, and to surround herself with a circle of bulwarks by keeping friends with Siena, Lucca, Bologna, Faenza, Perugia, and Città di Castello.[274]He remained faithful to this principle, with a few trifling exceptions, during the remainder of his life.His other principle was to do all he could to prevent any Italian state from gaining such an increase of importance as to destroy the balance of power. In the summer of that same year, 1485, a complication arose which threatened the peace of Italy and put to the proof Lorenzo’s political skill. It was a quarrel between Innocent VIII. and Ferrante of Naples. The kingdom of Naples, the greatest territorial power in Italy except Venice, was suffering from internal evils which both in earlier and later times proved incurable, and brought about the ruin of the fairest and richest portion of the peninsula. The political parties were as old as the monarchy; they were connected with deep-seated national divergences; and their differences were heightened and embittered by repeated conquests and changes of dynasty, by the feudal connection with the Holy See—dating from the time of the Normans—and by the passionate temper and moral degradation that poisoned and corrupted all civil and political relations in Southern Italy. The crown was completely held in check by the higher nobility; it would have been powerless had not the nobility been torn by factions.The split between the Aragonese and Angevin parties was of very long standing. The times of the second and of the first Joanna, the Sicilian Vespers, the French conquest, were all steps of a ladder ascending up to the Hohenstaufen Kaiser Henry VI. and the last of the Norman kings. The wars were fresh in the memories of all. It was not much more than twenty years since Ferrante had quelled the dangerous rising, the calamitous consequences of which never gave him any peace. His policy differed considerably from that of his father. King Alfonso’s hand had borne heavily on the party who had so long disputed his sovereignty over Naples, but when peace was restored he not only richly rewarded his own adherents, but tried to win over to his side his opponents. His son had a deep distrust of both parties, and his only aim was to increase the royal power at the expense of feudalism.Ferrante was not lacking in kingly qualities. He was sagacious, skilful, energetic, and a good financier according to the fiscal principles of the day—principles which of themselves would have sufficed to kindle rebellion among the nobles had political reasons been wanting. Numerous and important improvements in all branches of administration were due to him; increase of industry and commerce, great works for the general good, constructions for the enlargement and embellishment of the capital and other places, which assumed quite a different appearance under him. The disposition to promote the interests of science, art, and education he inherited from his father; and under both kings the Neapolitan Court, adorned by graceful and intellectual women, took a prominent place among the many Italian princely houses which distinguished themselves in this respect. Alfonso of Calabria equalled, if he did not surpass, his father in his love of literature and art. Ferrante had some regard for the condition of his people: ‘It is our will,’ he wrote, in November 1486, to the superintendent offinances in Terra di Bari and Otranto,[275]‘that our subjects shall receive good treatment at the hands of all our officers, and that they may not have to complain of oppression and undue burthens.’ Again, to the governor of Castrovillari, an important place in Calabria, and one which had been in the power of the enemies of the crown: ‘You are to treat all well, and not suffer any to be oppressed on account of the past. You are to bridle the passions which create discord among the people, and to see that every one obeys the laws.’ He formed a considerable military force, which enabled him to take a fitting part in Italian affairs, and to preserve peace for many years within his own dominions.But Ferrante’s good qualities were overshadowed by many bad ones. His illegitimate birth placed him from childhood in a false position. As a boy he learned to master his passions, and acquired a control over his words and manner which too often degenerated into dissimulation to secure his ends. Philippe de Commines (a contemporary somewhat prejudiced, it is true, against the house of Aragon), says, when speaking of Alfonso of Calabria, ‘The father was more dangerous than the son, for nobody ever understood either the man or his real thoughts. With an assumed smiling manner he would deceive and betray people; there was neither grace nor mercy in his disposition, as even his relatives and adherents acknowledged; he knew neither mercy nor pity for his poor people where money was concerned.’ In trying to promote trade and commerce he thought first of the interests of his own exchequer, and burdened the people with socages, requisitions, and duties which too often defeated his own object. From the very beginning of his reign he had to contend with difficulties with his relatives, with his subjects, with the Popes, till his natural distrustfulness had deepened into gloomy suspicion. The remembrance of past (and by no means always justifiable)opposition and the dread of fresh outbreaks, increased by the frequent threats on the part of foreign countries to revive the claims of Anjou, led him astray to unjust and cruel actions whereby he undermined the throne, to strengthen which was his constant and never-ceasing aim. The feudal arrangements of the kingdom not only weakened Ferrante’s political power, but had the inconvenient consequence of keeping him poor. It is difficult to believe that the ruler of such a fertile country, though in great part uncultivated, was in almost continual want of money, and was always obtaining drafts on foreign, and especially Florentine, banks, to which, in his turn, he had to give drafts on the current revenues. He once asked Lorenzo for a loan of 10,000 gold florins, which Lorenzo cut down to half; and Filippo Strozzi advanced him 20,000 on one occasion, besides undertaking the expense of provisioning the capital.As Ferrante advanced in years his eldest son acquired a baleful influence over him. Alfonso was by no means equal to his father. He was considered a tolerably good soldier, and was certainly not wanting in energy, nor apparently in personal valour; yet he never carried out any campaign of real importance, though the recapture of Otranto was looked upon as a brilliant success. He was not lacking in cultivation and interest in learning, but his bad qualities outweighed his good ones. He was haughty, violent, faithless, and cruel. He hated the barons of the kingdom from a despot’s instinct, he hated the influential servants of his father because their wealth excited his covetousness. As he had not inherited Ferrante’s power of dissimulation, enough was known of his sayings and projects to put others on their guard, and his hatred was paid back in kind. He was not more successful in making those beyond the kingdom favourably disposed to him. The quarrel with Milan, of which, however, the blame did not rest with him, was already beginning, though it did not come to an open rupture till after the death of his wife Ippolita. In Tuscany there wasa secret grudge against him on account of the events of 1478—his intrigues at Siena and the loss of Sarzana. He must have known how unpopular he was at Florence, but he did nothing to regain the favour of the government or the people. ‘On October 8,’ observes Alamanno Rinuccini, speaking of the year 1484,[276]‘the Duke of Calabria arrived in Florence on his way back from Lombardy, where he had been captain of the league against the Venetians. He was accompanied by about eight hundred horsemen in bad condition. On his entry he did not go to the palace to greet the Signoria as he had hitherto done, though the Signoria had made preparations to receive him, and summoned many citizens for the purpose of honouring him. This was considered a great piece of insolence. Nevertheless, in pursuance of a shameful order, he was left unmolested during his passage through our territory—to our shame, considering what he had done five years before.’ Commines has drawn in a few words a fearful picture of Alfonso: ‘Never,’ says he, ‘was seen a more cruel, wicked, vicious, base man, or one more addicted to excess.’ The Frenchman and the courtier of Charles VIII. speaks here, but the portrait drawn by the Venetian, Marino Sanuto, is not at all more flattering.[277]In the face of the Duke’s ill-will, now no longer doubtful, aggravated by a suspicion of encroachments on the part of the king, the most powerful of the Neapolitan barons had entered upon a league for mutual protection, when the outbreak of hostilities was precipitated by two distinct causes. Ferrante and his son, however pleased they professed to be at the election of Innocent VIII. as Pope, were in reality anything but satisfied, as they feared to find him an adherent of Anjou. The Duke had even made an effort to get himexcluded from the list of candidates for the pontificate. The embassy sent to Rome to present the congratulations of Naples was to try to procure the remission of that everlasting apple of discord, the feudal tribute. The Pope refused to remit it, the king held to his resolve not to pay, and the coming strife might be the more clearly foreshadowed as Cardinal della Rovere was opposed to the Aragonese claims. In the summer of 1485 the rupture took place. The Duke of Calabria persuaded the king not to allow the schemes of the discontented nobility to come to maturity, but to nip them in the bud by a sudden attack. The way in which he set to work furnished a new ground for heaping upon him accusations of fraud and violence. On June 23, by treacherously imprisoning the Count of Montorio, of the house of Cantelmo, the chief person in Aquila, and his people, he obtained possession of that city, which was an independent commonwealth under the suzerainty of the crown; shortly after, the same was done at Nola by arresting several of the Orsini, to whom the countship belonged. Many of the heads of the nobility were just then assembled at Melfi, in the Basilicata, on the occasion of a wedding in the Caracciolo family. In this manner a declaration of hostilities was hastened, which, from the intensity of opposition, could indeed hardly have been prevented under other circumstances, but which was now encouraged by the disagreement between the Pope and the king.On August 10, 1485, the Duke of Calabria left Naples to begin the war against the barons.[278]He did not find them unprepared; their vassals were in arms, and they had formed an alliance with the Pope, who was angry, not only at the refusal of the tribute, but also at the incredibly arbitrary conduct of the king with regard to Church matters. This monarch, nominally a vassal of Rome, not only subjected the clergy to the most despotically imposed taxation, buttreated the bestowal of ecclesiastical offices as a financial speculation. Affairs soon became complicated. On September 26 the inhabitants of Aquila rose against their oppressors, hewed the leader in pieces, set up the standard of the Church, and sent plenipotentiaries to Rome. Ferrante tried to avert the storm by sending his son, the Cardinal of Aragon, to Rome; but he died on October 16. On the 17th Ferrante caused a protest to be read in the cathedral of Naples, announcing that he had no intention of making war against the Pope. Next he tried to negotiate with the barons, sent his son Don Federigo to the Sanseverini at Salerno, and caused the Count of Montorio to be set at liberty. It was all in vain; no one trusted him. The people of Salerno kept the prince as a prisoner, and set up the standard of the Church on November 20; the king’s own friends began to desert him, one of his natural sons went over to the insurgents. Ferrante had long been accustomed to put no trust in his own relatives. This time the crisis was rendered doubly serious by the now openly declared conduct of Innocent VIII.The new Pope’s desire to maintain peace and heal the wounds inflicted during the late pontificate gave way at the approach of the Neapolitan troubles, the point of contention between the papal government and its neighbours. Innocent can hardly have been drawn into the fight by the secret motive of which he was accused—a preference for the interests of his own family before the welfare and peace of the country; but he may well have been influenced by his own and his predecessor’s repeated unpleasant experience of the Aragonese. He made the quarrel of Aquila and of the barons his own, accepted their tender of obedience, and began to arm. He had to be quick, not to give the Duke of Calabria time to scatter his opponents. While the king sought help from Florence and Milan, the Pope and the barons turned to Venice. The propositions of the nobles were very tempting to the Venetians, ever hankering after the cities on theApulian coast; but they had doubts about entering upon such a hazardous undertaking after all the losses they had sustained in the last war. They expressed regret for the oppression under which the barons described themselves as suffering, but they recommended a compromise through the mediation of the Pope; at the same time they dissuaded Rome from violent proceedings. But when Innocent, hurried on by the rapid progress of events, entered into negotiations with Roberto da Sanseverino to obtain his services, they contented themselves with half-measures. Roberto’s Venetiancondottahad expired at the peace of Bagnolo. The Republic might easily have restrained his ardour, for though his own people were deeply involved in the rising, thecondottiere, long a stranger to his own home, would have preferred his own advantage to all other considerations. But after a few indifferent remonstrances he was left free to go ‘according to his own pleasure,’ as was announced to the Pope on October 7.[279]How disagreeable all these matters were to the Florentines, and above all to Lorenzo, may be imagined. A dangerous flame was being kindled. Towards the end of August the Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, made to the Signoria, on behalf of the king, the first announcement of the outbreak of internal hostilities, but without owning their real importance. Before the middle of September it became known that the Pope was causing troops to march over the border. On October 3 the deliverance of Aquila from the garrison placed there by the Duke of Calabria became known. Thereupon Ferrante sent his eldest son’s confidant—Giovanni Albino—to Lorenzo, who had long been intimate with this learned and accomplished man, at once a politician and a historian:[280]‘You shall tell Lorenzo,’ such were Ferrante’s instructions,[281]‘that we turn to him asthe best friend we have in Italy, and one for whom, in case of need, we would risk our State, our children, and our own person. Beg him not to leave us in the lurch; he and his house shall be rewarded for their services to us.’ Then followed negotiations with Lodovico il Moro, to whom Albino proceeded on leaving Florence. It was ill speaking of Lodovico at the latter city, because his intrigues with Girolamo Riario kept up a constant fear of disturbances in Romagna; nevertheless, in the present conjuncture, it was necessary to try to keep at peace with him. The Duke of Bari’s policy was evidently to put the Florentines forward and watch the moment when he himself could most fittingly appear. He proposed that the Florentines should hinder Sanseverino’s passage through Umbria; but they answered that it would be far simpler forhimto prevent his crossing the Po, whence he would doubtless skirt the Adriatic coast and not turn inland at all. Next, Ercole d’Este gave notice that by a brief of October 1 the Pope had commanded him to grant a passage through the Duchy of Ferrara to Roberto da Sanseverino, who was leading 600 men-at-arms to his Holiness, and who, added the Duke, was expected to set out on the 10th from Cittadella, in the Paduan territory, cross the Po at Ficcarolo, and take the road through Romagna and the Marches—which showed that the Florentines were right in their answer to Sforza. Soon after news came from Siena that the Pope had asked that Republic for a body of 120 men-at-arms and 300 picked mercenaries.The Florentines did all they could to prevent the Sienese from yielding to the Pope’s demand. As the armed force of Florence was small, they took the Count of Pitigliano into their service and decided to await the course of events. But there was no real feeling of security, from the impossibility of trusting to the little neighbouring state. ‘The Sienese,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador,[282]‘being by natureat once frivolous and suspicious, and perpetually stirred up by the Pope, are in a violent fever, lamenting over the danger to which they would be exposed if the king got the victory over the Pope, as he would then employ their natural enemies—the Orsini—to avenge himself for the revolution of 1480. Their ambassador plagued the illustrious Lorenzo for two hours to-day with this nonsense, and it will cost a great deal of trouble to keep them neutral, for they are always getting troublesome.’ On October 10, the day on which Sanseverino began his march, Lodovico il Moro wrote to Lorenzo.[283]He represented to him the danger that would threaten the king if the enemy appeared on the frontiers of the already excited country. ‘As your Magnificence sees, prompt proceedings are necessary. The best way to help the king will be to break at once with the Church, as the Pope has done with the king. It appears to me necessary that you should induce the Signoria to consent to a declaration of war, that while awaiting reinforcements from hence they may set their armed force in order and despatch it to the frontier without minding the unfavourable season, which hinders neither the Pope nor the lord Roberto. What the foes think their troops capable of, ours can surely do. But there is no time to be lost in coming to a decision.’When this new complication arose, Lorenzo was at the baths of San Filippo in the Siena territory. The Morba waters had greatly benefited him in the spring, and in May the Anziani of Siena sent a special envoy to congratulate him on his recovery;[284]but it was not lasting. The position of affairs was such as to embarrass even as practised a politician as Lorenzo. He thought it needful to support the king, but he was too clear-sighted and knew his native city too well to give way to illusions as to the feeling about Naples. The king and the duke were hated; to enter on their behalf into a war, which would entail certainly greatexpenses and possibly serious complications, was pleasing to no one. When Lorenzo proposed to the Council to give support to Ferrante of Naples he met with vehement opposition. ‘At first,’ relates Niccolò Valori,[285]‘the majority were decidedly against the proposal. In the midst of this long-wished-for peace, said they, did he want to kindle the flame of a fresh war? Had he forgotten in what danger they had been placed by arms and the censures of the Pope? What if Venice should take part in the contest? How were they to help the king, hard-pressed at once by internal feuds and external war? Let him beware of turning aside the war from Ferrante, and drawing it upon his own home. Notwithstanding, Lorenzo urged the necessity of taking a side with so much eloquence that those who doubted were encouraged, and at last all were brought over to his view. I never read anything more earnest and impressive or better put together than this speech, which was taken down at the time.’ But while Lorenzo held it a political necessity to side with Naples, he clearly perceived the reason of this fresh disturbance of peace. The bad condition of the Neapolitan finances and army was no secret from him. ‘I regret,’ he wrote on November 3 to Albino,[286]after informing him of the proposals made by the insurgents in case of the neutrality of Florence, ‘that the king is no longer reputed to have a rich treasury and a good army as of old, when he was regarded as the arbiter of Italy. That the contrary is now the case I regret on account of my devotion to his Majesty; but, however matters may stand, I shall always fulfil my obligations. I am most deeply grieved that my lord the duke is denounced as cruel; though it be a false accusation, yet his Excellency should do all in his power to rid himself of it, for it can only be to his advantage to do so. If the taxes are hateful to the people let them be abolished, and let the former contributions suffice; onecarlino willingly and gladly paid is better than ten gained by compulsion and with ill-will; for no people willingly endures the imposition of fresh burthens.’ He also recommended keeping the soldiers in good humour; never had this been more needed. If the king had faith in himself he would conquer; the Signoria would be true to him. Ferrante thanked Lorenzo for his wise counsels, but remarked that he did not altogether understand them.

POLITICAL CARES. THE BARONS’ WAR.

Afterthe disturbance and unrest which ended the pontificate of Sixtus IV., the reign of Innocent VIII. seemed destined to commence in peace and tranquillity. The Pope’s desire to terminate the long dispute about Sarzana, which had distracted the Lunigiana for years, and threatened to assume dimensions greater than the worth of the cause, was very honourable to him, especially as it did not arise from partiality for his Genoese home. On September 17, only three weeks after his election, the Pope summoned the ambassadors of Naples, Florence, and Milan[268]to discuss the political situation. After the recent conclusion of peace, he said he considered it a duty of his apostolic office to ensure that peace, in order that all the Italian states might really enjoy its fruits and recover from the heavy expenses which had burthened the holy see with a debt of more than 250,000 ducats. The dispute about Sarzana, complicated by the Florentine attack on Pietrasanta, made him anxious in consideration of the disposition of the Genoese; for the latter, where their honour was at stake, would not scruple to set the world on fire, and had already, in times past, called the foreigner into Italy. He knew that they were not only in league with the Marquis of Saluzzo and Philip of Savoy, lord of Bresse, but were tryingto stir up the Duke of Orleans against Milan and the Duke of Lorraine against Naples; in which they would get support from France, as the regent was desirous to find occupation for these princes, and sustenance for their numerous troops in a foreign land. The commonwealth of Genoa had applied to him to bring the matter to a legal conclusion. He knew that his predecessor had made an unsuccessful attempt to do so; but as a native of Genoa, and being in a more favourable position than Pope Sixtus, he hoped to attain his object, as the Signoria would doubtless do all in their power to compose the strife.

The ambassadors of Naples and Milan kept to generalities, though the former could not help owning that Sarzana had been taken from the Florentines in time of truce; that the blame really lay with the son of his king he naturally could not admit. Vespucci, however, went thoroughly into the matter. Sarzana, said he, was sold to the Republic by Lodovico Fregoso, the lord of the place. After we had held it for several years, his son Agostino took it by surprise in time of truce, and as he did not feel able to keep it, made it over to the bank of San Giorgio. In defiance of law and custom, which forbid the acceptance of an object in dispute, the bank received it just as if there were no such place as Florence in the world. Florence has a perfect right to make every effort to get back her own. She has equally a right to attack Pietrasanta, because Pietrasanta is an obstacle and an enemy to her. The Signoria, he added, has no thought of giving your Holiness advice, which you do not need, and is willing to agree to any reasonable compromise. But after all the unsuccessful efforts of Pope Sixtus, there is not much to be hoped. As to the possible introduction of foreigners by the Genoese, that is a matter not to be deemed unworthy of consideration, but it is not a ground for anxiety. The Dukes of Orleans and Lorraine personally are not in a condition to begin such an undertaking; and in the exhausted state of France her rulers will never think of giving them asou towards it. The Genoese alone would be utterly incapable of holding out long, even were they differently inclined. The Ferrarese ambassador offered his Duke’s mediation in case of a negotiation. The Pope had also consulted on the matter with Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and expressed his anxiety to him; whereupon Lodovico il Moro declared that nothing but the voluntary surrender of Sarzana on the part of Genoa could render a satisfactory termination possible.[269]Innocent’s mediation came to nothing. The Florentines took Pietrasanta, as has been already related, and the contest went on amid numberless suggestions of compromise for fully three years more.

In vain the Pope honestly desired to make and to keep peace; misunderstandings arose on all sides. In defiance of their ostensible relations to each other, there was no true understanding and confidence between Lorenzo de’ Medici and Lodovico Sforza. The Moro’s conduct was always ambiguous; not only in the matter of Sarzana, where there was much underhand work going forward, but also in the constant miserable disturbances in Romagna, where Girolamo Riario, supported by him, was operating against the Manfredi, they having given shelter to the Florentine’sprotégé, the claimant of Forlì, Antoniello Ordelaffi, and being in alliance with the Bentivogli, who stood in equal fear of Lodovico and the Pope’s nephew. Giovanni Bentivoglio was in Tuscany in the beginning of 1485. He visited Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and in May he came to Florence, where he stayed with the Medici. He spoke out his mind unreservedly about the Moro’s intrigues.[270]Lorenzo was absent at the time; gout, the hereditary disease of the family, obliged him constantly to visit various baths, and just then he was at Bagno a Morba. During his stay there he had to devote his attention to the Sienese affairs, which were of some consequenceto Florence. He had perceived the mistake once committed in the Fortebracci affair, and thenceforward strove to keep on good terms with the neighbouring commonwealth. With regard to the frontier disputes, chiefly in the Chiana valley, where the small places were always in a state of feud one with the other, Florence showed herself disposed for an amicable settlement. ‘God is my witness,’ wrote Lorenzo to the Signoria of Siena on February 28, 1484,[271]‘that my personal mediation and that of others was little needed in the negotiations for the advantage of your Republic, namely, in the matter of the frontiers; for the whole city recognised, just as if acting in its own behalf, our common interest in a close and friendly connection. As the thing has been settled now with the agreement of all, so also in future we shall not fail to give active proofs of our sincere friendship.’

This friendship was soon put to the proof. The party which had been defeated on the departure of the Duke of Calabria from Siena could not forget the mortification. In the beginning of April 1485, the Sienese ambassador at Florence announced that a body of 2,000 men, under the command of Giulio Orsini, was meditating an attack; whereupon a considerable force under Ranuccio da Farnese was despatched to the threatened ally.[272]It was believed that Perugia, Spoleto, and Todi served as places of meeting for the discontented, and that the Cardinal della Rovere had a hand in the undertaking. On May 4, Lorenzo wrote from Bagno a Morba to Siena[273]that they must look to the security of the frontiers. It was said that the Pope was inclined to maintain peace, and had spoken to the ambassadors to that effect. By the Florentines he had been urged to give practical proof of his good intentions, and not to suffer his dominions to be a harbour for designs against neighbouringStates. ‘Your Lordships must know,’ he continues, ‘better than I who am at a distance, what is your internal state and the mind of the citizens. If you are united, then, in my opinion, you have nothing to fear: for Siena is not to be taken with 2,000 men, and if the number of the aggressors increases, you will also receive increased assistance. Of that you need not doubt. Therefore, if there is among your citizens the amount of concord and love which is reckoned upon, your affairs will take a favourable course. I do not believe that this movement of the exiles can count on much support; for we hear from Lombardy that all the chief powers are desirous of peace. Nevertheless it is your and our duty to prepare for the worst and to have all available means in readiness. Thereunto I desire to encourage your Lordships, assuring you that we are of one mind with you, as events will prove.’

A few days after this the exiles made a raid from Umbria into the Arezzo territory and thence turned towards the valley of the Arbia, where they attacked the castle of San Quirico, on the Roman road, but were beaten back; whereupon the troop dispersed. ‘The Signoria here,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘is delighted at the news and in good spirits. But the Sienese must be more delighted still; now they must be convinced that the number of participators is less than they suspected.’ On May 14, Lorenzo wrote from Pisa to the Sienese Signoria that Florence regarded their danger as her own; but he advised them to look to their internal condition. ‘It would be best to prevent the recurrence of such troubles by removing the occasion of your distress and of reproach from others. It seems to me time to come to a settlement of everything, provided that the origin of all this evil is rooted out. If this is done the past must not be too strictly inquired about. If such attempts against your Lordships are continued you will not want for protection, but the most effectual protection will be good and just government and true unity.’ More thantwo years later, Lorenzo wrote on another occasion: ‘Your Lordships know what has always been my conduct with respect to attempts at revolution and dangers which have befallen your citizens, and that I regard your welfare even as that of our own commonwealth. This seems to me to suit our friendly and neighbourly relations, as well as my devotion to your Signoria.’ Both by word and deed Lorenzo displayed his anxiety to maintain his political principle that it was important for the Republic to make herself secure by a good understanding with her neighbours, and to surround herself with a circle of bulwarks by keeping friends with Siena, Lucca, Bologna, Faenza, Perugia, and Città di Castello.[274]He remained faithful to this principle, with a few trifling exceptions, during the remainder of his life.

His other principle was to do all he could to prevent any Italian state from gaining such an increase of importance as to destroy the balance of power. In the summer of that same year, 1485, a complication arose which threatened the peace of Italy and put to the proof Lorenzo’s political skill. It was a quarrel between Innocent VIII. and Ferrante of Naples. The kingdom of Naples, the greatest territorial power in Italy except Venice, was suffering from internal evils which both in earlier and later times proved incurable, and brought about the ruin of the fairest and richest portion of the peninsula. The political parties were as old as the monarchy; they were connected with deep-seated national divergences; and their differences were heightened and embittered by repeated conquests and changes of dynasty, by the feudal connection with the Holy See—dating from the time of the Normans—and by the passionate temper and moral degradation that poisoned and corrupted all civil and political relations in Southern Italy. The crown was completely held in check by the higher nobility; it would have been powerless had not the nobility been torn by factions.The split between the Aragonese and Angevin parties was of very long standing. The times of the second and of the first Joanna, the Sicilian Vespers, the French conquest, were all steps of a ladder ascending up to the Hohenstaufen Kaiser Henry VI. and the last of the Norman kings. The wars were fresh in the memories of all. It was not much more than twenty years since Ferrante had quelled the dangerous rising, the calamitous consequences of which never gave him any peace. His policy differed considerably from that of his father. King Alfonso’s hand had borne heavily on the party who had so long disputed his sovereignty over Naples, but when peace was restored he not only richly rewarded his own adherents, but tried to win over to his side his opponents. His son had a deep distrust of both parties, and his only aim was to increase the royal power at the expense of feudalism.

Ferrante was not lacking in kingly qualities. He was sagacious, skilful, energetic, and a good financier according to the fiscal principles of the day—principles which of themselves would have sufficed to kindle rebellion among the nobles had political reasons been wanting. Numerous and important improvements in all branches of administration were due to him; increase of industry and commerce, great works for the general good, constructions for the enlargement and embellishment of the capital and other places, which assumed quite a different appearance under him. The disposition to promote the interests of science, art, and education he inherited from his father; and under both kings the Neapolitan Court, adorned by graceful and intellectual women, took a prominent place among the many Italian princely houses which distinguished themselves in this respect. Alfonso of Calabria equalled, if he did not surpass, his father in his love of literature and art. Ferrante had some regard for the condition of his people: ‘It is our will,’ he wrote, in November 1486, to the superintendent offinances in Terra di Bari and Otranto,[275]‘that our subjects shall receive good treatment at the hands of all our officers, and that they may not have to complain of oppression and undue burthens.’ Again, to the governor of Castrovillari, an important place in Calabria, and one which had been in the power of the enemies of the crown: ‘You are to treat all well, and not suffer any to be oppressed on account of the past. You are to bridle the passions which create discord among the people, and to see that every one obeys the laws.’ He formed a considerable military force, which enabled him to take a fitting part in Italian affairs, and to preserve peace for many years within his own dominions.

But Ferrante’s good qualities were overshadowed by many bad ones. His illegitimate birth placed him from childhood in a false position. As a boy he learned to master his passions, and acquired a control over his words and manner which too often degenerated into dissimulation to secure his ends. Philippe de Commines (a contemporary somewhat prejudiced, it is true, against the house of Aragon), says, when speaking of Alfonso of Calabria, ‘The father was more dangerous than the son, for nobody ever understood either the man or his real thoughts. With an assumed smiling manner he would deceive and betray people; there was neither grace nor mercy in his disposition, as even his relatives and adherents acknowledged; he knew neither mercy nor pity for his poor people where money was concerned.’ In trying to promote trade and commerce he thought first of the interests of his own exchequer, and burdened the people with socages, requisitions, and duties which too often defeated his own object. From the very beginning of his reign he had to contend with difficulties with his relatives, with his subjects, with the Popes, till his natural distrustfulness had deepened into gloomy suspicion. The remembrance of past (and by no means always justifiable)opposition and the dread of fresh outbreaks, increased by the frequent threats on the part of foreign countries to revive the claims of Anjou, led him astray to unjust and cruel actions whereby he undermined the throne, to strengthen which was his constant and never-ceasing aim. The feudal arrangements of the kingdom not only weakened Ferrante’s political power, but had the inconvenient consequence of keeping him poor. It is difficult to believe that the ruler of such a fertile country, though in great part uncultivated, was in almost continual want of money, and was always obtaining drafts on foreign, and especially Florentine, banks, to which, in his turn, he had to give drafts on the current revenues. He once asked Lorenzo for a loan of 10,000 gold florins, which Lorenzo cut down to half; and Filippo Strozzi advanced him 20,000 on one occasion, besides undertaking the expense of provisioning the capital.

As Ferrante advanced in years his eldest son acquired a baleful influence over him. Alfonso was by no means equal to his father. He was considered a tolerably good soldier, and was certainly not wanting in energy, nor apparently in personal valour; yet he never carried out any campaign of real importance, though the recapture of Otranto was looked upon as a brilliant success. He was not lacking in cultivation and interest in learning, but his bad qualities outweighed his good ones. He was haughty, violent, faithless, and cruel. He hated the barons of the kingdom from a despot’s instinct, he hated the influential servants of his father because their wealth excited his covetousness. As he had not inherited Ferrante’s power of dissimulation, enough was known of his sayings and projects to put others on their guard, and his hatred was paid back in kind. He was not more successful in making those beyond the kingdom favourably disposed to him. The quarrel with Milan, of which, however, the blame did not rest with him, was already beginning, though it did not come to an open rupture till after the death of his wife Ippolita. In Tuscany there wasa secret grudge against him on account of the events of 1478—his intrigues at Siena and the loss of Sarzana. He must have known how unpopular he was at Florence, but he did nothing to regain the favour of the government or the people. ‘On October 8,’ observes Alamanno Rinuccini, speaking of the year 1484,[276]‘the Duke of Calabria arrived in Florence on his way back from Lombardy, where he had been captain of the league against the Venetians. He was accompanied by about eight hundred horsemen in bad condition. On his entry he did not go to the palace to greet the Signoria as he had hitherto done, though the Signoria had made preparations to receive him, and summoned many citizens for the purpose of honouring him. This was considered a great piece of insolence. Nevertheless, in pursuance of a shameful order, he was left unmolested during his passage through our territory—to our shame, considering what he had done five years before.’ Commines has drawn in a few words a fearful picture of Alfonso: ‘Never,’ says he, ‘was seen a more cruel, wicked, vicious, base man, or one more addicted to excess.’ The Frenchman and the courtier of Charles VIII. speaks here, but the portrait drawn by the Venetian, Marino Sanuto, is not at all more flattering.[277]

In the face of the Duke’s ill-will, now no longer doubtful, aggravated by a suspicion of encroachments on the part of the king, the most powerful of the Neapolitan barons had entered upon a league for mutual protection, when the outbreak of hostilities was precipitated by two distinct causes. Ferrante and his son, however pleased they professed to be at the election of Innocent VIII. as Pope, were in reality anything but satisfied, as they feared to find him an adherent of Anjou. The Duke had even made an effort to get himexcluded from the list of candidates for the pontificate. The embassy sent to Rome to present the congratulations of Naples was to try to procure the remission of that everlasting apple of discord, the feudal tribute. The Pope refused to remit it, the king held to his resolve not to pay, and the coming strife might be the more clearly foreshadowed as Cardinal della Rovere was opposed to the Aragonese claims. In the summer of 1485 the rupture took place. The Duke of Calabria persuaded the king not to allow the schemes of the discontented nobility to come to maturity, but to nip them in the bud by a sudden attack. The way in which he set to work furnished a new ground for heaping upon him accusations of fraud and violence. On June 23, by treacherously imprisoning the Count of Montorio, of the house of Cantelmo, the chief person in Aquila, and his people, he obtained possession of that city, which was an independent commonwealth under the suzerainty of the crown; shortly after, the same was done at Nola by arresting several of the Orsini, to whom the countship belonged. Many of the heads of the nobility were just then assembled at Melfi, in the Basilicata, on the occasion of a wedding in the Caracciolo family. In this manner a declaration of hostilities was hastened, which, from the intensity of opposition, could indeed hardly have been prevented under other circumstances, but which was now encouraged by the disagreement between the Pope and the king.

On August 10, 1485, the Duke of Calabria left Naples to begin the war against the barons.[278]He did not find them unprepared; their vassals were in arms, and they had formed an alliance with the Pope, who was angry, not only at the refusal of the tribute, but also at the incredibly arbitrary conduct of the king with regard to Church matters. This monarch, nominally a vassal of Rome, not only subjected the clergy to the most despotically imposed taxation, buttreated the bestowal of ecclesiastical offices as a financial speculation. Affairs soon became complicated. On September 26 the inhabitants of Aquila rose against their oppressors, hewed the leader in pieces, set up the standard of the Church, and sent plenipotentiaries to Rome. Ferrante tried to avert the storm by sending his son, the Cardinal of Aragon, to Rome; but he died on October 16. On the 17th Ferrante caused a protest to be read in the cathedral of Naples, announcing that he had no intention of making war against the Pope. Next he tried to negotiate with the barons, sent his son Don Federigo to the Sanseverini at Salerno, and caused the Count of Montorio to be set at liberty. It was all in vain; no one trusted him. The people of Salerno kept the prince as a prisoner, and set up the standard of the Church on November 20; the king’s own friends began to desert him, one of his natural sons went over to the insurgents. Ferrante had long been accustomed to put no trust in his own relatives. This time the crisis was rendered doubly serious by the now openly declared conduct of Innocent VIII.

The new Pope’s desire to maintain peace and heal the wounds inflicted during the late pontificate gave way at the approach of the Neapolitan troubles, the point of contention between the papal government and its neighbours. Innocent can hardly have been drawn into the fight by the secret motive of which he was accused—a preference for the interests of his own family before the welfare and peace of the country; but he may well have been influenced by his own and his predecessor’s repeated unpleasant experience of the Aragonese. He made the quarrel of Aquila and of the barons his own, accepted their tender of obedience, and began to arm. He had to be quick, not to give the Duke of Calabria time to scatter his opponents. While the king sought help from Florence and Milan, the Pope and the barons turned to Venice. The propositions of the nobles were very tempting to the Venetians, ever hankering after the cities on theApulian coast; but they had doubts about entering upon such a hazardous undertaking after all the losses they had sustained in the last war. They expressed regret for the oppression under which the barons described themselves as suffering, but they recommended a compromise through the mediation of the Pope; at the same time they dissuaded Rome from violent proceedings. But when Innocent, hurried on by the rapid progress of events, entered into negotiations with Roberto da Sanseverino to obtain his services, they contented themselves with half-measures. Roberto’s Venetiancondottahad expired at the peace of Bagnolo. The Republic might easily have restrained his ardour, for though his own people were deeply involved in the rising, thecondottiere, long a stranger to his own home, would have preferred his own advantage to all other considerations. But after a few indifferent remonstrances he was left free to go ‘according to his own pleasure,’ as was announced to the Pope on October 7.[279]

How disagreeable all these matters were to the Florentines, and above all to Lorenzo, may be imagined. A dangerous flame was being kindled. Towards the end of August the Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, made to the Signoria, on behalf of the king, the first announcement of the outbreak of internal hostilities, but without owning their real importance. Before the middle of September it became known that the Pope was causing troops to march over the border. On October 3 the deliverance of Aquila from the garrison placed there by the Duke of Calabria became known. Thereupon Ferrante sent his eldest son’s confidant—Giovanni Albino—to Lorenzo, who had long been intimate with this learned and accomplished man, at once a politician and a historian:[280]‘You shall tell Lorenzo,’ such were Ferrante’s instructions,[281]‘that we turn to him asthe best friend we have in Italy, and one for whom, in case of need, we would risk our State, our children, and our own person. Beg him not to leave us in the lurch; he and his house shall be rewarded for their services to us.’ Then followed negotiations with Lodovico il Moro, to whom Albino proceeded on leaving Florence. It was ill speaking of Lodovico at the latter city, because his intrigues with Girolamo Riario kept up a constant fear of disturbances in Romagna; nevertheless, in the present conjuncture, it was necessary to try to keep at peace with him. The Duke of Bari’s policy was evidently to put the Florentines forward and watch the moment when he himself could most fittingly appear. He proposed that the Florentines should hinder Sanseverino’s passage through Umbria; but they answered that it would be far simpler forhimto prevent his crossing the Po, whence he would doubtless skirt the Adriatic coast and not turn inland at all. Next, Ercole d’Este gave notice that by a brief of October 1 the Pope had commanded him to grant a passage through the Duchy of Ferrara to Roberto da Sanseverino, who was leading 600 men-at-arms to his Holiness, and who, added the Duke, was expected to set out on the 10th from Cittadella, in the Paduan territory, cross the Po at Ficcarolo, and take the road through Romagna and the Marches—which showed that the Florentines were right in their answer to Sforza. Soon after news came from Siena that the Pope had asked that Republic for a body of 120 men-at-arms and 300 picked mercenaries.

The Florentines did all they could to prevent the Sienese from yielding to the Pope’s demand. As the armed force of Florence was small, they took the Count of Pitigliano into their service and decided to await the course of events. But there was no real feeling of security, from the impossibility of trusting to the little neighbouring state. ‘The Sienese,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador,[282]‘being by natureat once frivolous and suspicious, and perpetually stirred up by the Pope, are in a violent fever, lamenting over the danger to which they would be exposed if the king got the victory over the Pope, as he would then employ their natural enemies—the Orsini—to avenge himself for the revolution of 1480. Their ambassador plagued the illustrious Lorenzo for two hours to-day with this nonsense, and it will cost a great deal of trouble to keep them neutral, for they are always getting troublesome.’ On October 10, the day on which Sanseverino began his march, Lodovico il Moro wrote to Lorenzo.[283]He represented to him the danger that would threaten the king if the enemy appeared on the frontiers of the already excited country. ‘As your Magnificence sees, prompt proceedings are necessary. The best way to help the king will be to break at once with the Church, as the Pope has done with the king. It appears to me necessary that you should induce the Signoria to consent to a declaration of war, that while awaiting reinforcements from hence they may set their armed force in order and despatch it to the frontier without minding the unfavourable season, which hinders neither the Pope nor the lord Roberto. What the foes think their troops capable of, ours can surely do. But there is no time to be lost in coming to a decision.’

When this new complication arose, Lorenzo was at the baths of San Filippo in the Siena territory. The Morba waters had greatly benefited him in the spring, and in May the Anziani of Siena sent a special envoy to congratulate him on his recovery;[284]but it was not lasting. The position of affairs was such as to embarrass even as practised a politician as Lorenzo. He thought it needful to support the king, but he was too clear-sighted and knew his native city too well to give way to illusions as to the feeling about Naples. The king and the duke were hated; to enter on their behalf into a war, which would entail certainly greatexpenses and possibly serious complications, was pleasing to no one. When Lorenzo proposed to the Council to give support to Ferrante of Naples he met with vehement opposition. ‘At first,’ relates Niccolò Valori,[285]‘the majority were decidedly against the proposal. In the midst of this long-wished-for peace, said they, did he want to kindle the flame of a fresh war? Had he forgotten in what danger they had been placed by arms and the censures of the Pope? What if Venice should take part in the contest? How were they to help the king, hard-pressed at once by internal feuds and external war? Let him beware of turning aside the war from Ferrante, and drawing it upon his own home. Notwithstanding, Lorenzo urged the necessity of taking a side with so much eloquence that those who doubted were encouraged, and at last all were brought over to his view. I never read anything more earnest and impressive or better put together than this speech, which was taken down at the time.’ But while Lorenzo held it a political necessity to side with Naples, he clearly perceived the reason of this fresh disturbance of peace. The bad condition of the Neapolitan finances and army was no secret from him. ‘I regret,’ he wrote on November 3 to Albino,[286]after informing him of the proposals made by the insurgents in case of the neutrality of Florence, ‘that the king is no longer reputed to have a rich treasury and a good army as of old, when he was regarded as the arbiter of Italy. That the contrary is now the case I regret on account of my devotion to his Majesty; but, however matters may stand, I shall always fulfil my obligations. I am most deeply grieved that my lord the duke is denounced as cruel; though it be a false accusation, yet his Excellency should do all in his power to rid himself of it, for it can only be to his advantage to do so. If the taxes are hateful to the people let them be abolished, and let the former contributions suffice; onecarlino willingly and gladly paid is better than ten gained by compulsion and with ill-will; for no people willingly endures the imposition of fresh burthens.’ He also recommended keeping the soldiers in good humour; never had this been more needed. If the king had faith in himself he would conquer; the Signoria would be true to him. Ferrante thanked Lorenzo for his wise counsels, but remarked that he did not altogether understand them.

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