CHAPTER V.REACTION AFTER THE BARONS’ WAR. THE STRUGGLE FOR SARZANA.Lorenzo’sposition was anything but enviable. The Florentine merchants at Naples complained that the Duke of Calabria did not fulfil his obligations, and, moreover, treated them insolently, so that they found themselves compelled to leave the city.[287]The Pope, who on November 1, 1485, had issued a bull enumerating all the charges of the Holy See against the King of Naples, and threatening with excommunication all who should support the latter, exerted himself to prevent the Republic from taking part in the quarrel. The authority of the Medici even might receive a blow, for the position of affairs in the kingdom was considered bad in the extreme. Lorenzo was visibly full of cares. He proceeded very slowly. Towards the end of November Innocent sent the Archbishop of Florence to his cathedral city to try if he could change the mind of his brother-in-law. Rinaldo Orsini was a prelate of a type then but too common; from his youth up he had held benefices without spiritual functions, and so he treated his archbishopric as a sort of garrison, the revenue of which was sufficient for him. He was generally in Rome; leaving his vicar to look after the church affairs. Being in the habit of getting into debt, he afterwards tried to do a profitable piece of business with his see. At last, when things in Florence were altogetherchanged, and the powerful support of the Medici failed him, the universal dissatisfaction reduced him to resign for a pension and a titlein partibus. Before this, during the persecutions that broke out against his family in the time of the Borgias, his insignificance as a mere man of pleasure had saved him from the tragic fate of his cousin Cardinal Orsini, with whom he had been placed in the castle of St. Angelo. It may easily be imagined that he was not the man to make any impression on Lorenzo, more especially as the latter well knew that he was entirely a creature of the Pope, in daily anticipation of obtaining the cardinal’s hat. Rinaldo declared that Innocent was determined on war. For months past he had been warning the king, through the now deceased Cardinal of Aragon, through his brother Don Francesco, even through the Florentine ambassador; but Ferrante only went on more recklessly, and now at last allowed things to take their own course.[288]Meanwhile, November 10, Sanseverino arrived at Rome, and was solemnly received at the Porta del Popolo by the governor of the city, the papal court, the ambassadors of the Kaiser and of King Maximilian, and others. Twenty days after, in the Vatican basilica, he took the oath to the Pope as gonfalonier of the Church.[289]Innocent showed to the Florentine ambassador money and jewels to the value of 150,000 ducats, all of which, he said, was to be spent in carrying out the war. All recruiting and sales of horses in and around Rome, except for the service of the Church, were forbidden. But in Naples it was resolved not to await the attack. Alfonso of Calabria marched into the States of the Church, and was soon on the nearer side of the Alban hills, with the Campagna and the city lying before him; on the north-west the Orsini were taking up arms in alliance with him; Florentine troops were advancing under the Counts of Pitigliano and Marsciano and the lord of Piombino, and100 Milanese men-at-arms under the Count of Cajazzo—for that was all Lodovico sent after all his assurances! Soon the Neapolitans and the Papal troops attacked each other in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, by the bridges over the Anio. The whole city was in tumult. Monte Giordano, the Orsini stronghold in the Campus Martius, was burnt down; King Ferrante’s ambassador, who with his colleagues of Florence and Milan had remained in Rome after the fighting began, had his house plundered and wrecked, and fled to the Vatican. The greatest distress and insecurity prevailed; cardinals and others brought their valuables to the Pope’s palace and to the castle of St. Angelo for safety. But the duke proved himself a wretched general. He could not manage to effect a junction with the Orsini, and Sanseverino pressed the latter hard, compelled some of them to accept a compromise, and obstructed the road into Tuscany. Within the kingdom itself matters were taking an unfavourable turn; Alfonso, seeing himself in danger of being hemmed in within the Campagna, decided to make a diversion against the Pope and gain breathing-time for himself by coming to a personal understanding with Lorenzo and Lodovico. On January 17, 1486, the news reached Florence that the heir to the Neapolitan throne had left the army in a dangerous position, and with only 300 horsemen taken the road through the lower part of the Viterbo territory. After riding sixty miles a day, like a fugitive, he arrived at Pitigliano, the little capital of the Orsini territory, on the west of the lake of Bolsena; from thence he intended proceeding to Florence and Milan.The surprise in Florence was great. Negotiations had never ceased between the Pope and Lorenzo. It was said that the latter was trying to facilitate an accommodation; but there was a suspicion that he was playing a double game, that he had no confidence in the Neapolitan affairs, and that he had a hand in the defection of some of the Orsini, which put the Duke of Calabria into difficulties; and thatnow he wanted to hinder the Duke coming to Florence, in order to escape his reproaches. The Signoria immediately sent a special messenger to the Duke to prevent his coming to the city; Piero Capponi followed the messenger, to have an explanation with Alfonso, and to remain with the army as Florentine commissioner.[290]For some time past Lorenzo had been suffering severely; an affection of the bladder was now added to his old complaint the gout. He was not in a happy humour. He said he would have nothing more to do with business, for everything was going contrary to his desires and expectations; he meant to spend his time more agreeably. He begged Ercole d’Este and the Marquis of Mantua to send him falcons, and it was said that he was going to Pisa for change of air. His ill humour was visible. Sometimes he was in the city, sometimes at Careggi. The Duke of Calabria was urgent to see him at Pitigliano, in Florence, anywhere he liked; but he was not to be persuaded. Pier Filippo Pandolfini and Giovanni Serristori went in January to Pitigliano to agree upon the necessary arrangements.Meanwhile the situation had somewhat improved. The troops, deserted by the Duke whom all accused of cowardice and want of head, were guided by Paolo Orsini to Vicovaro in the valley of the Anio, beyond Tivoli; from thence the road into the kingdom was open to them. Gentile Virginio and others of the Orsini remained faithful. Letters from Milan announced an intention of abiding by this alliance. On February 3, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio and Marsilio Torello arrived in Florence with men-at-arms and archers, to join the Duke.[291]The latter came as far as Montepulciano, and wanted to make an attempt upon Perugia, where there was some understanding with a few of the Baglioni. But theFlorentines had no desire to see the fire kindled so near their own borders; and as the Milanese were of the same mind, the plan was given up. The war was again transferred to the Papal territory, where the union between the Orsini and the duke was at last effected. But it was a feeble war, which only served to display the decay of Italian military skill. One single fight, however, in which the allies were victorious, and which took place in the beginning of May near Campagnano, a place belonging to the Orsini and situated twenty-one miles north-west of Rome, deserves the name of a warlike achievement. The Florentine commissioner, who was not a military man, but had seen a good deal of fighting in his life, was very little edified by the proceedings. On the papal side they were no better off. Innocent, ill and repeatedly in danger of his life, saw his means disappearing, his capital disturbed and discontented, almost besieged, and the neighbourhood devastated. He had little confidence in Sanseverino, who failed to profit by the favourable moment of the Duke’s absence, and whose chief aim seemed to be to gain a red hat for one of his sons. This distrust was heightened by letters from Piero Capponi, which, by a not over-honourable artifice, raised doubts as to Sanseverino’s honesty, and were put into the enemy’s hands. Through the Bishop of Treviso the Pope tried to get help from Venice; through the Cardinal della Rovere, who went to Genoa at the end of March, he set on foot a negotiation with the Duke of Lorraine, who with the help of France was planning an expedition against Naples. But everything remained too long in suspense.In the College of Cardinals the different opinions produced violent disputes. As has been observed, Lorenzo remained in communication with Innocent, although he was the very corner-stone of the league in favour of Naples, and without Florentine money the king would long ago have been unable to carry on the war. It was his representations that chiefly contributed to induce the Pope to arrive at the needfulaccommodation. Ferrante on his part saw very well that unless he made peace abroad it was vain to think of restoring peace at home. Lodovico il Moro, though now less scanty in his contributions of assistance, was still more lavish of words than of deeds. His brother Ascanio was urging the Pope to an accommodation. On March 6 he spoke very strongly in the secret consistory in opposition to Cardinal La Balue, who was charged by France with supporting the interests of the Duke of Lorraine. The Pope, said Sforza, had a right to claim from King Ferrante the fulfilment of his obligations to the Church; but it was contrary to the duty of a cardinal to try and induce the Pope to drive the king from his hereditary throne and put a stranger in his place. He, Sforza, believed that he was not failing in his duty to the holy father in defending the rights of his relative. The cardinal of Erlau, the pious Franciscan Gabriel Rangoni, supported Ascanio, and said to the Pope: ‘Your Holiness has threatened to go as far as the Acheron. If the war continues, I fear those words will come true. May your wisdom find means to prevent greater troubles!’[292]The Florentines were wearied with the whole affair. Ambassadors came from René of Lorraine to argue against the alliance with Naples, and to recall the old relations with France, and the old devotion of Florence to the Holy See. They were answered that the league which had existed for some time between the Republic, Naples, and Milan had for its object the preservation of peace; the disturbance had come from the Pope. The latter had never mentioned the Duke of Lorraine in his negotiations with the city; and if he was now making use of his name to help his own cause, they must first of all find out his real aims, and then consult with the allies. The old obligations to France would be remembered as far as was consistent with honour. Theanswer, remarks Francesco Guicciardini,[293]was prudent, for ambassadors had arrived not only from the duke but also from the King of France, and for the sake of the merchants it was necessary to be cautious. The occurrence caused a good deal of anxiety, so that Lorenzo, who well knew the attachment of the citizens to the house of France and their hatred to King Ferrante, was afraid of the burthen becoming too heavy for his shoulders, particularly as the alliance with Ferrante was displeasing to many of the chief citizens. He would, perhaps, have changed his policy, although Venice, where his brother-in-law Bernardo Rucellai was ambassador, and which did not like seeing foreigners in Italy, now sided with the king; but suddenly peace put an end to all troubles.On the afternoon of August 11, 1486, this peace was signed at Rome by the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Tendilla, the Archbishop of Milan, and Gian Jacopo Trivulzio on behalf of Sforza, Cardinal Giovanni Michiel on behalf of the Pope, and Gioviano Pontano on behalf of Naples. King Ferrante was again formally to acknowledge the supremacy of the Church; to pay the tribute; to retain Aquila on condition of maintaining its liberties; not to oppress the barons who returned to their allegiance, and to give them complete freedom as to their abode and their family connections. These conditions were to be guaranteed by Milan and Florence. The Orsini were to beg the Pope’s forgiveness, and to be taken back into favour under guarantee of the said States; all places taken on either side were to be restored. Sanseverino was dismissed from the service of the Church. In Florence the conclusion of peace was celebrated by ringing the bells; but Lorenzo was highly displeased, not at the peace as such, but at the manner and the conditions of it, on which he spoke sharply to the Milanese ambassador. The conclusion had been arrived at without reference to him,and there had been no mention of Sarzana. In reality this was better than what had been originally intended, for Cardinal Sforza had exerted himself to get his brother Lodovico appointed arbiter in the question; but this scheme was foiled by the decided opposition of Capponi, who was then at Bracciano.[294]The Republic had spent all her money for a cause not her own.[295]And what a peace it was! Sanseverino had most decidedly not proved himself a hero in the war, and his conduct had not deserved any great confidence. But the way in which he was treated was almost past belief. The gonfalonier of the Church, who as holder of one of the highest dignities had handed the holy water to the Pope at a solemn mass a little while before, suddenly found himself like an outlaw chieftain compelled to use force against force. He was told he might go where he liked, and a claim which he sent in for arrears of pay was left unnoticed. Then, when he was about to take the road to Romagna, to return to the Venetian territory, he found himself surrounded by Neapolitan troops. To fight was certain ruin. He had nothing for it but to dissolve his bands; many escaped to the Marches; others were taken, plundered, slain; others again took service with the Duke of Calabria. With about a hundred horsemen Roberto cut his way through, and after many difficulties arrived as a fugitive, on the Venetian frontier which less than a year before he had crossed at the head of a powerful army. The Republic took him back into her service, and he showed himself not ungrateful and far less selfish than was the usual fashion ofcondottieri. A year after the conclusion of a peace so fatal to him, he met his death fighting gallantly in the neighbourhood of Roveredo, in the war stirred up by the frontier disputes between Venice and Archduke Sigismund of Austria-Tyrol.The Sanseverino affair, however, disappeared before what happened in Naples.Two days after the conclusion of the treaty, at Castelnuovo, on the occasion of a marriage arranged by the king between Marco Coppola, son of the Count of Sarno, chief counsellor of the crown, and a daughter of Antonio Piccolomini Duke of Amalfi, granddaughter of Ferrante, the count and his family were arrested, as well as Antonello Petrucci the other private secretary of the king, the Count of Burello, formerly ambassador to Rome, and many of their relatives and friends, all distinguished and influential persons. They had been in communication with the insurgent barons, and as far back as October of the previous year Lodovico il Moro had given the king proofs of their guilt; but the latter had secured them and then waited till the conclusion of peace to draw in the net. Only a fortnight before he had called the Count of Sarno ‘our best-beloved counsellor.’ Three months later the culprits were condemned to death and executed; and the shuddering city beheld the bleeding limbs of the Count of Carinola, son of Antonello Petrucci, quartered by the executioner’s hand. All their property was confiscated; not only were their possessions within the country sequestrated, but Ferrante at once sent one of the superior officers of the chamber of accounts to take possession of sums deposited in the banks in Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Milan. A million in gold is said to have thus passed into his hands. Horrified at this fearful vengeance, warned by the fate of Aquila, which lost all its liberties, and putting no trust in the stipulated guarantee of Florence and Milan, the barons were long undecided if they should trust themselves to the mercy of the king. Ferrante himself did not believe they would. At last, however, they submitted, besought pardon, and promised fidelity and obedience. ‘All the princes and lords who formerly rebelled against us,’ wrote the king on February 17, 1487, to Giovanni Nauclero,[296]his ambassador to Ferdinand the Catholic, ‘are now with us at Naples. They enjoy greater security for their persons and possessions, and greater contentment and tranquillity than before the war; for they have their revenues as heretofore, and while we know that we are safe with them because their castles are in our hands, they are safe with us, and, thank God, we live together without suspicion. The past has vanished from our memory, and we treat them as dear sons. We hope it will last, for we are resolved to give them daily greater occasion to remain in this mind. Thus we keep all parts of our kingdom in peace and quiet.’ Within three months came the confiscation of the principality of Salerno, whose lord—Antonello da Sanseverino—was absent from the country; and, later on, the arrest of those ‘dear sons’ the barons, who one after another disappeared and left no trace behind.The complications which arose from this interpretation of the conditions of peace between the king and the Pope, and the sentiments it awakened in Florence, will be mentioned later on. There can be little difference of opinion as to this melancholy episode and its influence on the destinies of Naples. But the whole blame must not be laid on Ferrante. A nobility so powerful and warlike, so rebellious, and among some of whom disaffection was an inheritance, rendered government impossible. Defection had penetrated the king’s own privy council, nay even his own family. How little unity there was in the latter is shown by the fact that the barons hoped and attempted to gain over to their side Don Federigo, who was as much beloved as his brother Alfonso was hated and feared. At Salerno they offered him the crown, which he refused. Ferrante conquered by prudence and force of arms, but he abused his victory by cunning, avarice, and cruelty. In the use of foul means he outdid his old enemy Louis XI.; but while the latter, who personallywas not a bit better, strengthened the royal power, Ferrante overshot the mark and cut the ground from under his own feet. Other men of the time were not more honest, yet they never enacted such horrible tragedies as those witnessed at Naples in 1486 and 1487. Ferrante’s reign lasted seven years longer, externally more quiet than before, more prosperous, more unlimited, less disturbed; but all his sagacity could not save him from the phantoms called up by the consciousness of past crimes and the fear of new dangers. In his strivings after despotic power, and in the interests of the latter, he made havoc of the old nobility. He could not destroy it so completely as to prevent its remaining one of the factors in all great political changes, or the enmity of a large portion of it from becoming fatal to his house, but he diminished the strength of the country, which was founded on the old feudal order of things. He hoped to find support from the people, but could not really raise them because his system of monopolies and finance oppressed them no less than the outgrowths of the feudal state, and he had not time to carry out the change in public matters which he might possibly have projected. The people, who had not forgotten old grievances, were bound by no ties of affection to their sovereign and his heir-apparent, who had come out of the Barons’ war with a greatly diminished reputation for military capacity and a yet more greatly increased reputation for faithlessness and cruelty.[297]Like the peace of 1484, that of 1486 did not take into consideration the Florentine desires and demands in the vexed question of Sarzana.Lorenzo was ill and out of humour. Repeated attacksof gout either laid him up at home, as in July 1486, or compelled him to go to Bagno a Morba, where he passed the September of the same year. He often sojourned at Careggi for a time or at the villa at Poggio a Cajano, where he sought refreshment and relaxation from the exciting affairs which never left him free. He was at no pains to conceal his irritation. One ally compromised him by faithlessness and severity, the other endangered his policy by double-dealing and the pursuit of selfish aims. The more lavish were the assurances of friendship, the nearer treachery was lurking. As to the treaty of peace and Trivulzio’s part in it, he declared the proceedings of Milan were downright disgraceful. When Ferrante began to meddle with the barons whose safety had been guaranteed by Florence and Milan, and it became evident that he aimed at their destruction and the confiscation of their property, Lorenzo remarked that from a political point of view the king was becoming too powerful. If he went on thus he would soon be master in Italy, in which case Florence and Milan would fare badly, as the predominance of his influence had repeatedly been injurious to them. From the Duke of Calabria the worst must be expected, as he was of a malicious and vindictive temper setting aside that, when once his object was attained he regarded neither friendship nor past services. Lorenzo saw that he must bring the Sarzana affair to a conclusion if he did not wish to endanger his own position. The thing could not be done in the year which ended the Barons’ war, but the next must not be allowed to pass without profit. There was not much to be expected from the allies. King Ferrante well knew how much he was indebted to Lorenzo and to Florence, and remarked that one good turn deserved another; but added that where an alliance was so sure and the will so entirely the same on both sides, conduct must be measured, not by the extent of the obligation, but by the power to serve. Then came the usual references to the exhaustion of the treasury, difficulties with the Pope, andthe danger from the Turks, all of which Bernardo Rucellai, the ambassador at Naples, likewise had to listen to.[298]To Lutozzo Nasi, another Florentine diplomatist, Ferrante said: ‘Lorenzo knows that I really love him and his city, for I have had practical proof of his attachment to me and mine. But for him, they and I would no longer be in this kingdom. He has conferred on us a benefit which we and our posterity never will or can forget, and we will always display our gratitude to him and the Signoria.’ But all this was mere talk. It was not of much use that Ferrante occasionally condescended to flatter the Signoria, as, for instance, when in the autumn of 1486 he appointed a house in Naples for their embassy, as King Ladislaus had once done for Venice; or when he sent back trophies of the war of 1478, declaring that he did not wish to preserve memorials of past strife when nothing should be thought of but reciprocal friendship.[299]In Lodovico il Moro Lorenzo had still less confidence, but on account of the situation in Northern Italy, and especially on account of the Venetians, he was yet more anxious to keep on the best terms possible with Milan. Lodovico was jealous of the close relations between his allies; so, in order not to increase this jealousy, Lorenzo found it convenient to point out the common interest of Florence and Milan in preventing the king from becoming too powerful. Moreover, the Sarzana affair still prevented the conclusion of a good understanding. Lodovico was always thinking of regaining Genoa, and was the more unwilling to turn the Genoese against him for the sake of a quarrel which kept them in continual suspense, because they had applied to Venice herself for aid against the Florentines. Innocent VIII. had made an attempt at mediation, whereby the Bank of San Giorgio was to give up Pietrasanta and receive Sarzanain exchange; but the matter fell through, nominally on account of disagreements between the Pope and his native city, but no doubt also because, after all the sacrifices that had been made, public opinion in Florence would have been in nowise satisfied with such a settlement. A trifling occasion, the occupation by the Florentines of a small castle beyond the Magra, sufficed to cause high words between Lorenzo and Lodovico. The former had sent Baccio Ugolini to the Duke of Calabria in 1486, and Sforza took it amiss that he had not been informed of the fact. ‘Milan and Lord Lodovico,’ returned Lorenzo, ‘seem to forget that this city calls herself a city of freedom, and that she would be in a sorry plight if she could not even send a man on an unofficial mission to the Neapolitan prince without taking advice from Milan about it.’ In Florence, he continued, nothing had been said when Lord Lodovico, without asking anybody’s opinion, made his agreement with Venice. Such things were tokens of disaffection, and should it ever befall that Milan was in need of Florence it would be impossible to incline the people in her favour if they had been previously driven to extremities. Such were the relations in which these Italian States, calling themselves allies, stood to each other! Then fine words followed again, and assurances of friendship, which kept up appearances and deceived nobody as to the real state of the case. To Lorenzo’s honour it must be said that he did all in his power to support the tottering edifice of concord.At the beginning of 1487 the Florentines were firmly resolved to make an end of the Sarzana affair, which was really becoming a disgrace to the Republic. But the Genoese were beforehand with them. On a hill to the east of the town of Sarzana lies the fort of Sarzanello, begun by the brave Ghibelin leader Castruccio Castracani when he extended the Lucchese territory as far as the Magra. It was a hill-fort, still worthy of notice for its construction, and it had always been held by the Florentines. In March 1487the commandant of Sarzana, Gian Luigi Fiesco of Lavagna, made a sudden attack on Sarzanello, took the outworks, and began to fire on the fortress. The famous Sienese architect Francesco di Giorgio, who, together with Giuliano da Sangallo, did more than anyone else for the military architecture of the time, was serving as an engineer in the Genoese camp, and he seems to have first adopted the mining system against Sarzanello. Florence saw there was no time to lose. The Count of Pitigliano and the lords of Piombino, Faenza, and Mirandola commanded the troops, to which Naples and Milan sent scanty contingents. On April 15 the besiegers of the fort were completely beaten, and their leader, Obietto Fiesco, fell into the hands of the victors. But the fight for the town of Sarzana dragged on, though the troops were better than some of their leaders. The place was in increasing misery, yet the defenders held out amid the distress and ruin of the inhabitants.In the beginning of June Lorenzo went to Pisa to be nearer the scene of action. On the 8th he was in the camp and ordered the town to be more closely surrounded. An attempt to relieve it failed. On the 21st it was decided to storm it, but a white flag was hoisted on the walls, and the next morning the gates were opened. The inhabitants were spared, the garrison remained prisoners of war. Two days before midsummer Lorenzo returned to Florence. ‘Never,’ writes the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘was he received with such acclamations by the people, who attribute the recapture of Sarzana to him before all others.’[300]It was not the importance of the place itself that Florence cared for; she regarded its seizure as an insult. ‘After you have saluted in our name the illustrious Signoria, my lords the Eight, and theillustrious lord Lorenzo,’ thus ran Ferrante’s instructions[301]of July 27 to Antonio Sperandeo, whom he was sending to Florence, ‘you shall express to them our joy at the recovery of Sarzana; a joy which beseems true and sincere friends on such a happy occasion, and is meet for a connection which makes the advantage and welfare of the one the advantage and welfare of the other. Therefore we rejoice at the conclusion of this affair as at a piece of good fortune to ourselves, and pray God that He may further the interests and well-being of us both, and lead us from good to better through a continuance of our reciprocal friendship.’ How much of these assurances of friendship should be laid to the account of the complications at home, may be left undecided.Lodovico il Moro took no trouble to hide his ill-humour, and immediately recalled his troops from the Florentine camp on the Magra, whereat the Florentines were highly indignant. Lorenzo said he supposed the Duke of Bari thought Genoa and the Castelletto would be given up to him next. But it actually came to pass. The Cardinal-Doge, Paolo Fregoso, perceived that he could not hold his ground amidst his many enemies, even if the Florentines—as they were certainly disposed to do—did not advance further towards the Riviera, where the neighbourhood of the gulf of Spezia was almost unprotected. While he began negotiating with Sforza the Adorni party were negotiating with France. Lodovico was quicker than the counsellors of the young king, and, after much debating in one form and another, the matter ended in Genoa once more acknowledging the Duke of Milan as her superior; whereupon the doge was pensioned and went to end his much-disturbed days at Rome. The Florentines were not destined long to enjoy the possession of Sarzana, which had cost them so much blood and still more money. During Charles VIII.’scampaign against Naples, both the town and the fortress passed into the hands of the French, who, when Florentine troops and commissioners came to demand their restoration, sold them to that same bank of San Giorgio with which the Republic had fought so long for their possession.
CHAPTER V.REACTION AFTER THE BARONS’ WAR. THE STRUGGLE FOR SARZANA.Lorenzo’sposition was anything but enviable. The Florentine merchants at Naples complained that the Duke of Calabria did not fulfil his obligations, and, moreover, treated them insolently, so that they found themselves compelled to leave the city.[287]The Pope, who on November 1, 1485, had issued a bull enumerating all the charges of the Holy See against the King of Naples, and threatening with excommunication all who should support the latter, exerted himself to prevent the Republic from taking part in the quarrel. The authority of the Medici even might receive a blow, for the position of affairs in the kingdom was considered bad in the extreme. Lorenzo was visibly full of cares. He proceeded very slowly. Towards the end of November Innocent sent the Archbishop of Florence to his cathedral city to try if he could change the mind of his brother-in-law. Rinaldo Orsini was a prelate of a type then but too common; from his youth up he had held benefices without spiritual functions, and so he treated his archbishopric as a sort of garrison, the revenue of which was sufficient for him. He was generally in Rome; leaving his vicar to look after the church affairs. Being in the habit of getting into debt, he afterwards tried to do a profitable piece of business with his see. At last, when things in Florence were altogetherchanged, and the powerful support of the Medici failed him, the universal dissatisfaction reduced him to resign for a pension and a titlein partibus. Before this, during the persecutions that broke out against his family in the time of the Borgias, his insignificance as a mere man of pleasure had saved him from the tragic fate of his cousin Cardinal Orsini, with whom he had been placed in the castle of St. Angelo. It may easily be imagined that he was not the man to make any impression on Lorenzo, more especially as the latter well knew that he was entirely a creature of the Pope, in daily anticipation of obtaining the cardinal’s hat. Rinaldo declared that Innocent was determined on war. For months past he had been warning the king, through the now deceased Cardinal of Aragon, through his brother Don Francesco, even through the Florentine ambassador; but Ferrante only went on more recklessly, and now at last allowed things to take their own course.[288]Meanwhile, November 10, Sanseverino arrived at Rome, and was solemnly received at the Porta del Popolo by the governor of the city, the papal court, the ambassadors of the Kaiser and of King Maximilian, and others. Twenty days after, in the Vatican basilica, he took the oath to the Pope as gonfalonier of the Church.[289]Innocent showed to the Florentine ambassador money and jewels to the value of 150,000 ducats, all of which, he said, was to be spent in carrying out the war. All recruiting and sales of horses in and around Rome, except for the service of the Church, were forbidden. But in Naples it was resolved not to await the attack. Alfonso of Calabria marched into the States of the Church, and was soon on the nearer side of the Alban hills, with the Campagna and the city lying before him; on the north-west the Orsini were taking up arms in alliance with him; Florentine troops were advancing under the Counts of Pitigliano and Marsciano and the lord of Piombino, and100 Milanese men-at-arms under the Count of Cajazzo—for that was all Lodovico sent after all his assurances! Soon the Neapolitans and the Papal troops attacked each other in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, by the bridges over the Anio. The whole city was in tumult. Monte Giordano, the Orsini stronghold in the Campus Martius, was burnt down; King Ferrante’s ambassador, who with his colleagues of Florence and Milan had remained in Rome after the fighting began, had his house plundered and wrecked, and fled to the Vatican. The greatest distress and insecurity prevailed; cardinals and others brought their valuables to the Pope’s palace and to the castle of St. Angelo for safety. But the duke proved himself a wretched general. He could not manage to effect a junction with the Orsini, and Sanseverino pressed the latter hard, compelled some of them to accept a compromise, and obstructed the road into Tuscany. Within the kingdom itself matters were taking an unfavourable turn; Alfonso, seeing himself in danger of being hemmed in within the Campagna, decided to make a diversion against the Pope and gain breathing-time for himself by coming to a personal understanding with Lorenzo and Lodovico. On January 17, 1486, the news reached Florence that the heir to the Neapolitan throne had left the army in a dangerous position, and with only 300 horsemen taken the road through the lower part of the Viterbo territory. After riding sixty miles a day, like a fugitive, he arrived at Pitigliano, the little capital of the Orsini territory, on the west of the lake of Bolsena; from thence he intended proceeding to Florence and Milan.The surprise in Florence was great. Negotiations had never ceased between the Pope and Lorenzo. It was said that the latter was trying to facilitate an accommodation; but there was a suspicion that he was playing a double game, that he had no confidence in the Neapolitan affairs, and that he had a hand in the defection of some of the Orsini, which put the Duke of Calabria into difficulties; and thatnow he wanted to hinder the Duke coming to Florence, in order to escape his reproaches. The Signoria immediately sent a special messenger to the Duke to prevent his coming to the city; Piero Capponi followed the messenger, to have an explanation with Alfonso, and to remain with the army as Florentine commissioner.[290]For some time past Lorenzo had been suffering severely; an affection of the bladder was now added to his old complaint the gout. He was not in a happy humour. He said he would have nothing more to do with business, for everything was going contrary to his desires and expectations; he meant to spend his time more agreeably. He begged Ercole d’Este and the Marquis of Mantua to send him falcons, and it was said that he was going to Pisa for change of air. His ill humour was visible. Sometimes he was in the city, sometimes at Careggi. The Duke of Calabria was urgent to see him at Pitigliano, in Florence, anywhere he liked; but he was not to be persuaded. Pier Filippo Pandolfini and Giovanni Serristori went in January to Pitigliano to agree upon the necessary arrangements.Meanwhile the situation had somewhat improved. The troops, deserted by the Duke whom all accused of cowardice and want of head, were guided by Paolo Orsini to Vicovaro in the valley of the Anio, beyond Tivoli; from thence the road into the kingdom was open to them. Gentile Virginio and others of the Orsini remained faithful. Letters from Milan announced an intention of abiding by this alliance. On February 3, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio and Marsilio Torello arrived in Florence with men-at-arms and archers, to join the Duke.[291]The latter came as far as Montepulciano, and wanted to make an attempt upon Perugia, where there was some understanding with a few of the Baglioni. But theFlorentines had no desire to see the fire kindled so near their own borders; and as the Milanese were of the same mind, the plan was given up. The war was again transferred to the Papal territory, where the union between the Orsini and the duke was at last effected. But it was a feeble war, which only served to display the decay of Italian military skill. One single fight, however, in which the allies were victorious, and which took place in the beginning of May near Campagnano, a place belonging to the Orsini and situated twenty-one miles north-west of Rome, deserves the name of a warlike achievement. The Florentine commissioner, who was not a military man, but had seen a good deal of fighting in his life, was very little edified by the proceedings. On the papal side they were no better off. Innocent, ill and repeatedly in danger of his life, saw his means disappearing, his capital disturbed and discontented, almost besieged, and the neighbourhood devastated. He had little confidence in Sanseverino, who failed to profit by the favourable moment of the Duke’s absence, and whose chief aim seemed to be to gain a red hat for one of his sons. This distrust was heightened by letters from Piero Capponi, which, by a not over-honourable artifice, raised doubts as to Sanseverino’s honesty, and were put into the enemy’s hands. Through the Bishop of Treviso the Pope tried to get help from Venice; through the Cardinal della Rovere, who went to Genoa at the end of March, he set on foot a negotiation with the Duke of Lorraine, who with the help of France was planning an expedition against Naples. But everything remained too long in suspense.In the College of Cardinals the different opinions produced violent disputes. As has been observed, Lorenzo remained in communication with Innocent, although he was the very corner-stone of the league in favour of Naples, and without Florentine money the king would long ago have been unable to carry on the war. It was his representations that chiefly contributed to induce the Pope to arrive at the needfulaccommodation. Ferrante on his part saw very well that unless he made peace abroad it was vain to think of restoring peace at home. Lodovico il Moro, though now less scanty in his contributions of assistance, was still more lavish of words than of deeds. His brother Ascanio was urging the Pope to an accommodation. On March 6 he spoke very strongly in the secret consistory in opposition to Cardinal La Balue, who was charged by France with supporting the interests of the Duke of Lorraine. The Pope, said Sforza, had a right to claim from King Ferrante the fulfilment of his obligations to the Church; but it was contrary to the duty of a cardinal to try and induce the Pope to drive the king from his hereditary throne and put a stranger in his place. He, Sforza, believed that he was not failing in his duty to the holy father in defending the rights of his relative. The cardinal of Erlau, the pious Franciscan Gabriel Rangoni, supported Ascanio, and said to the Pope: ‘Your Holiness has threatened to go as far as the Acheron. If the war continues, I fear those words will come true. May your wisdom find means to prevent greater troubles!’[292]The Florentines were wearied with the whole affair. Ambassadors came from René of Lorraine to argue against the alliance with Naples, and to recall the old relations with France, and the old devotion of Florence to the Holy See. They were answered that the league which had existed for some time between the Republic, Naples, and Milan had for its object the preservation of peace; the disturbance had come from the Pope. The latter had never mentioned the Duke of Lorraine in his negotiations with the city; and if he was now making use of his name to help his own cause, they must first of all find out his real aims, and then consult with the allies. The old obligations to France would be remembered as far as was consistent with honour. Theanswer, remarks Francesco Guicciardini,[293]was prudent, for ambassadors had arrived not only from the duke but also from the King of France, and for the sake of the merchants it was necessary to be cautious. The occurrence caused a good deal of anxiety, so that Lorenzo, who well knew the attachment of the citizens to the house of France and their hatred to King Ferrante, was afraid of the burthen becoming too heavy for his shoulders, particularly as the alliance with Ferrante was displeasing to many of the chief citizens. He would, perhaps, have changed his policy, although Venice, where his brother-in-law Bernardo Rucellai was ambassador, and which did not like seeing foreigners in Italy, now sided with the king; but suddenly peace put an end to all troubles.On the afternoon of August 11, 1486, this peace was signed at Rome by the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Tendilla, the Archbishop of Milan, and Gian Jacopo Trivulzio on behalf of Sforza, Cardinal Giovanni Michiel on behalf of the Pope, and Gioviano Pontano on behalf of Naples. King Ferrante was again formally to acknowledge the supremacy of the Church; to pay the tribute; to retain Aquila on condition of maintaining its liberties; not to oppress the barons who returned to their allegiance, and to give them complete freedom as to their abode and their family connections. These conditions were to be guaranteed by Milan and Florence. The Orsini were to beg the Pope’s forgiveness, and to be taken back into favour under guarantee of the said States; all places taken on either side were to be restored. Sanseverino was dismissed from the service of the Church. In Florence the conclusion of peace was celebrated by ringing the bells; but Lorenzo was highly displeased, not at the peace as such, but at the manner and the conditions of it, on which he spoke sharply to the Milanese ambassador. The conclusion had been arrived at without reference to him,and there had been no mention of Sarzana. In reality this was better than what had been originally intended, for Cardinal Sforza had exerted himself to get his brother Lodovico appointed arbiter in the question; but this scheme was foiled by the decided opposition of Capponi, who was then at Bracciano.[294]The Republic had spent all her money for a cause not her own.[295]And what a peace it was! Sanseverino had most decidedly not proved himself a hero in the war, and his conduct had not deserved any great confidence. But the way in which he was treated was almost past belief. The gonfalonier of the Church, who as holder of one of the highest dignities had handed the holy water to the Pope at a solemn mass a little while before, suddenly found himself like an outlaw chieftain compelled to use force against force. He was told he might go where he liked, and a claim which he sent in for arrears of pay was left unnoticed. Then, when he was about to take the road to Romagna, to return to the Venetian territory, he found himself surrounded by Neapolitan troops. To fight was certain ruin. He had nothing for it but to dissolve his bands; many escaped to the Marches; others were taken, plundered, slain; others again took service with the Duke of Calabria. With about a hundred horsemen Roberto cut his way through, and after many difficulties arrived as a fugitive, on the Venetian frontier which less than a year before he had crossed at the head of a powerful army. The Republic took him back into her service, and he showed himself not ungrateful and far less selfish than was the usual fashion ofcondottieri. A year after the conclusion of a peace so fatal to him, he met his death fighting gallantly in the neighbourhood of Roveredo, in the war stirred up by the frontier disputes between Venice and Archduke Sigismund of Austria-Tyrol.The Sanseverino affair, however, disappeared before what happened in Naples.Two days after the conclusion of the treaty, at Castelnuovo, on the occasion of a marriage arranged by the king between Marco Coppola, son of the Count of Sarno, chief counsellor of the crown, and a daughter of Antonio Piccolomini Duke of Amalfi, granddaughter of Ferrante, the count and his family were arrested, as well as Antonello Petrucci the other private secretary of the king, the Count of Burello, formerly ambassador to Rome, and many of their relatives and friends, all distinguished and influential persons. They had been in communication with the insurgent barons, and as far back as October of the previous year Lodovico il Moro had given the king proofs of their guilt; but the latter had secured them and then waited till the conclusion of peace to draw in the net. Only a fortnight before he had called the Count of Sarno ‘our best-beloved counsellor.’ Three months later the culprits were condemned to death and executed; and the shuddering city beheld the bleeding limbs of the Count of Carinola, son of Antonello Petrucci, quartered by the executioner’s hand. All their property was confiscated; not only were their possessions within the country sequestrated, but Ferrante at once sent one of the superior officers of the chamber of accounts to take possession of sums deposited in the banks in Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Milan. A million in gold is said to have thus passed into his hands. Horrified at this fearful vengeance, warned by the fate of Aquila, which lost all its liberties, and putting no trust in the stipulated guarantee of Florence and Milan, the barons were long undecided if they should trust themselves to the mercy of the king. Ferrante himself did not believe they would. At last, however, they submitted, besought pardon, and promised fidelity and obedience. ‘All the princes and lords who formerly rebelled against us,’ wrote the king on February 17, 1487, to Giovanni Nauclero,[296]his ambassador to Ferdinand the Catholic, ‘are now with us at Naples. They enjoy greater security for their persons and possessions, and greater contentment and tranquillity than before the war; for they have their revenues as heretofore, and while we know that we are safe with them because their castles are in our hands, they are safe with us, and, thank God, we live together without suspicion. The past has vanished from our memory, and we treat them as dear sons. We hope it will last, for we are resolved to give them daily greater occasion to remain in this mind. Thus we keep all parts of our kingdom in peace and quiet.’ Within three months came the confiscation of the principality of Salerno, whose lord—Antonello da Sanseverino—was absent from the country; and, later on, the arrest of those ‘dear sons’ the barons, who one after another disappeared and left no trace behind.The complications which arose from this interpretation of the conditions of peace between the king and the Pope, and the sentiments it awakened in Florence, will be mentioned later on. There can be little difference of opinion as to this melancholy episode and its influence on the destinies of Naples. But the whole blame must not be laid on Ferrante. A nobility so powerful and warlike, so rebellious, and among some of whom disaffection was an inheritance, rendered government impossible. Defection had penetrated the king’s own privy council, nay even his own family. How little unity there was in the latter is shown by the fact that the barons hoped and attempted to gain over to their side Don Federigo, who was as much beloved as his brother Alfonso was hated and feared. At Salerno they offered him the crown, which he refused. Ferrante conquered by prudence and force of arms, but he abused his victory by cunning, avarice, and cruelty. In the use of foul means he outdid his old enemy Louis XI.; but while the latter, who personallywas not a bit better, strengthened the royal power, Ferrante overshot the mark and cut the ground from under his own feet. Other men of the time were not more honest, yet they never enacted such horrible tragedies as those witnessed at Naples in 1486 and 1487. Ferrante’s reign lasted seven years longer, externally more quiet than before, more prosperous, more unlimited, less disturbed; but all his sagacity could not save him from the phantoms called up by the consciousness of past crimes and the fear of new dangers. In his strivings after despotic power, and in the interests of the latter, he made havoc of the old nobility. He could not destroy it so completely as to prevent its remaining one of the factors in all great political changes, or the enmity of a large portion of it from becoming fatal to his house, but he diminished the strength of the country, which was founded on the old feudal order of things. He hoped to find support from the people, but could not really raise them because his system of monopolies and finance oppressed them no less than the outgrowths of the feudal state, and he had not time to carry out the change in public matters which he might possibly have projected. The people, who had not forgotten old grievances, were bound by no ties of affection to their sovereign and his heir-apparent, who had come out of the Barons’ war with a greatly diminished reputation for military capacity and a yet more greatly increased reputation for faithlessness and cruelty.[297]Like the peace of 1484, that of 1486 did not take into consideration the Florentine desires and demands in the vexed question of Sarzana.Lorenzo was ill and out of humour. Repeated attacksof gout either laid him up at home, as in July 1486, or compelled him to go to Bagno a Morba, where he passed the September of the same year. He often sojourned at Careggi for a time or at the villa at Poggio a Cajano, where he sought refreshment and relaxation from the exciting affairs which never left him free. He was at no pains to conceal his irritation. One ally compromised him by faithlessness and severity, the other endangered his policy by double-dealing and the pursuit of selfish aims. The more lavish were the assurances of friendship, the nearer treachery was lurking. As to the treaty of peace and Trivulzio’s part in it, he declared the proceedings of Milan were downright disgraceful. When Ferrante began to meddle with the barons whose safety had been guaranteed by Florence and Milan, and it became evident that he aimed at their destruction and the confiscation of their property, Lorenzo remarked that from a political point of view the king was becoming too powerful. If he went on thus he would soon be master in Italy, in which case Florence and Milan would fare badly, as the predominance of his influence had repeatedly been injurious to them. From the Duke of Calabria the worst must be expected, as he was of a malicious and vindictive temper setting aside that, when once his object was attained he regarded neither friendship nor past services. Lorenzo saw that he must bring the Sarzana affair to a conclusion if he did not wish to endanger his own position. The thing could not be done in the year which ended the Barons’ war, but the next must not be allowed to pass without profit. There was not much to be expected from the allies. King Ferrante well knew how much he was indebted to Lorenzo and to Florence, and remarked that one good turn deserved another; but added that where an alliance was so sure and the will so entirely the same on both sides, conduct must be measured, not by the extent of the obligation, but by the power to serve. Then came the usual references to the exhaustion of the treasury, difficulties with the Pope, andthe danger from the Turks, all of which Bernardo Rucellai, the ambassador at Naples, likewise had to listen to.[298]To Lutozzo Nasi, another Florentine diplomatist, Ferrante said: ‘Lorenzo knows that I really love him and his city, for I have had practical proof of his attachment to me and mine. But for him, they and I would no longer be in this kingdom. He has conferred on us a benefit which we and our posterity never will or can forget, and we will always display our gratitude to him and the Signoria.’ But all this was mere talk. It was not of much use that Ferrante occasionally condescended to flatter the Signoria, as, for instance, when in the autumn of 1486 he appointed a house in Naples for their embassy, as King Ladislaus had once done for Venice; or when he sent back trophies of the war of 1478, declaring that he did not wish to preserve memorials of past strife when nothing should be thought of but reciprocal friendship.[299]In Lodovico il Moro Lorenzo had still less confidence, but on account of the situation in Northern Italy, and especially on account of the Venetians, he was yet more anxious to keep on the best terms possible with Milan. Lodovico was jealous of the close relations between his allies; so, in order not to increase this jealousy, Lorenzo found it convenient to point out the common interest of Florence and Milan in preventing the king from becoming too powerful. Moreover, the Sarzana affair still prevented the conclusion of a good understanding. Lodovico was always thinking of regaining Genoa, and was the more unwilling to turn the Genoese against him for the sake of a quarrel which kept them in continual suspense, because they had applied to Venice herself for aid against the Florentines. Innocent VIII. had made an attempt at mediation, whereby the Bank of San Giorgio was to give up Pietrasanta and receive Sarzanain exchange; but the matter fell through, nominally on account of disagreements between the Pope and his native city, but no doubt also because, after all the sacrifices that had been made, public opinion in Florence would have been in nowise satisfied with such a settlement. A trifling occasion, the occupation by the Florentines of a small castle beyond the Magra, sufficed to cause high words between Lorenzo and Lodovico. The former had sent Baccio Ugolini to the Duke of Calabria in 1486, and Sforza took it amiss that he had not been informed of the fact. ‘Milan and Lord Lodovico,’ returned Lorenzo, ‘seem to forget that this city calls herself a city of freedom, and that she would be in a sorry plight if she could not even send a man on an unofficial mission to the Neapolitan prince without taking advice from Milan about it.’ In Florence, he continued, nothing had been said when Lord Lodovico, without asking anybody’s opinion, made his agreement with Venice. Such things were tokens of disaffection, and should it ever befall that Milan was in need of Florence it would be impossible to incline the people in her favour if they had been previously driven to extremities. Such were the relations in which these Italian States, calling themselves allies, stood to each other! Then fine words followed again, and assurances of friendship, which kept up appearances and deceived nobody as to the real state of the case. To Lorenzo’s honour it must be said that he did all in his power to support the tottering edifice of concord.At the beginning of 1487 the Florentines were firmly resolved to make an end of the Sarzana affair, which was really becoming a disgrace to the Republic. But the Genoese were beforehand with them. On a hill to the east of the town of Sarzana lies the fort of Sarzanello, begun by the brave Ghibelin leader Castruccio Castracani when he extended the Lucchese territory as far as the Magra. It was a hill-fort, still worthy of notice for its construction, and it had always been held by the Florentines. In March 1487the commandant of Sarzana, Gian Luigi Fiesco of Lavagna, made a sudden attack on Sarzanello, took the outworks, and began to fire on the fortress. The famous Sienese architect Francesco di Giorgio, who, together with Giuliano da Sangallo, did more than anyone else for the military architecture of the time, was serving as an engineer in the Genoese camp, and he seems to have first adopted the mining system against Sarzanello. Florence saw there was no time to lose. The Count of Pitigliano and the lords of Piombino, Faenza, and Mirandola commanded the troops, to which Naples and Milan sent scanty contingents. On April 15 the besiegers of the fort were completely beaten, and their leader, Obietto Fiesco, fell into the hands of the victors. But the fight for the town of Sarzana dragged on, though the troops were better than some of their leaders. The place was in increasing misery, yet the defenders held out amid the distress and ruin of the inhabitants.In the beginning of June Lorenzo went to Pisa to be nearer the scene of action. On the 8th he was in the camp and ordered the town to be more closely surrounded. An attempt to relieve it failed. On the 21st it was decided to storm it, but a white flag was hoisted on the walls, and the next morning the gates were opened. The inhabitants were spared, the garrison remained prisoners of war. Two days before midsummer Lorenzo returned to Florence. ‘Never,’ writes the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘was he received with such acclamations by the people, who attribute the recapture of Sarzana to him before all others.’[300]It was not the importance of the place itself that Florence cared for; she regarded its seizure as an insult. ‘After you have saluted in our name the illustrious Signoria, my lords the Eight, and theillustrious lord Lorenzo,’ thus ran Ferrante’s instructions[301]of July 27 to Antonio Sperandeo, whom he was sending to Florence, ‘you shall express to them our joy at the recovery of Sarzana; a joy which beseems true and sincere friends on such a happy occasion, and is meet for a connection which makes the advantage and welfare of the one the advantage and welfare of the other. Therefore we rejoice at the conclusion of this affair as at a piece of good fortune to ourselves, and pray God that He may further the interests and well-being of us both, and lead us from good to better through a continuance of our reciprocal friendship.’ How much of these assurances of friendship should be laid to the account of the complications at home, may be left undecided.Lodovico il Moro took no trouble to hide his ill-humour, and immediately recalled his troops from the Florentine camp on the Magra, whereat the Florentines were highly indignant. Lorenzo said he supposed the Duke of Bari thought Genoa and the Castelletto would be given up to him next. But it actually came to pass. The Cardinal-Doge, Paolo Fregoso, perceived that he could not hold his ground amidst his many enemies, even if the Florentines—as they were certainly disposed to do—did not advance further towards the Riviera, where the neighbourhood of the gulf of Spezia was almost unprotected. While he began negotiating with Sforza the Adorni party were negotiating with France. Lodovico was quicker than the counsellors of the young king, and, after much debating in one form and another, the matter ended in Genoa once more acknowledging the Duke of Milan as her superior; whereupon the doge was pensioned and went to end his much-disturbed days at Rome. The Florentines were not destined long to enjoy the possession of Sarzana, which had cost them so much blood and still more money. During Charles VIII.’scampaign against Naples, both the town and the fortress passed into the hands of the French, who, when Florentine troops and commissioners came to demand their restoration, sold them to that same bank of San Giorgio with which the Republic had fought so long for their possession.
REACTION AFTER THE BARONS’ WAR. THE STRUGGLE FOR SARZANA.
Lorenzo’sposition was anything but enviable. The Florentine merchants at Naples complained that the Duke of Calabria did not fulfil his obligations, and, moreover, treated them insolently, so that they found themselves compelled to leave the city.[287]The Pope, who on November 1, 1485, had issued a bull enumerating all the charges of the Holy See against the King of Naples, and threatening with excommunication all who should support the latter, exerted himself to prevent the Republic from taking part in the quarrel. The authority of the Medici even might receive a blow, for the position of affairs in the kingdom was considered bad in the extreme. Lorenzo was visibly full of cares. He proceeded very slowly. Towards the end of November Innocent sent the Archbishop of Florence to his cathedral city to try if he could change the mind of his brother-in-law. Rinaldo Orsini was a prelate of a type then but too common; from his youth up he had held benefices without spiritual functions, and so he treated his archbishopric as a sort of garrison, the revenue of which was sufficient for him. He was generally in Rome; leaving his vicar to look after the church affairs. Being in the habit of getting into debt, he afterwards tried to do a profitable piece of business with his see. At last, when things in Florence were altogetherchanged, and the powerful support of the Medici failed him, the universal dissatisfaction reduced him to resign for a pension and a titlein partibus. Before this, during the persecutions that broke out against his family in the time of the Borgias, his insignificance as a mere man of pleasure had saved him from the tragic fate of his cousin Cardinal Orsini, with whom he had been placed in the castle of St. Angelo. It may easily be imagined that he was not the man to make any impression on Lorenzo, more especially as the latter well knew that he was entirely a creature of the Pope, in daily anticipation of obtaining the cardinal’s hat. Rinaldo declared that Innocent was determined on war. For months past he had been warning the king, through the now deceased Cardinal of Aragon, through his brother Don Francesco, even through the Florentine ambassador; but Ferrante only went on more recklessly, and now at last allowed things to take their own course.[288]
Meanwhile, November 10, Sanseverino arrived at Rome, and was solemnly received at the Porta del Popolo by the governor of the city, the papal court, the ambassadors of the Kaiser and of King Maximilian, and others. Twenty days after, in the Vatican basilica, he took the oath to the Pope as gonfalonier of the Church.[289]Innocent showed to the Florentine ambassador money and jewels to the value of 150,000 ducats, all of which, he said, was to be spent in carrying out the war. All recruiting and sales of horses in and around Rome, except for the service of the Church, were forbidden. But in Naples it was resolved not to await the attack. Alfonso of Calabria marched into the States of the Church, and was soon on the nearer side of the Alban hills, with the Campagna and the city lying before him; on the north-west the Orsini were taking up arms in alliance with him; Florentine troops were advancing under the Counts of Pitigliano and Marsciano and the lord of Piombino, and100 Milanese men-at-arms under the Count of Cajazzo—for that was all Lodovico sent after all his assurances! Soon the Neapolitans and the Papal troops attacked each other in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, by the bridges over the Anio. The whole city was in tumult. Monte Giordano, the Orsini stronghold in the Campus Martius, was burnt down; King Ferrante’s ambassador, who with his colleagues of Florence and Milan had remained in Rome after the fighting began, had his house plundered and wrecked, and fled to the Vatican. The greatest distress and insecurity prevailed; cardinals and others brought their valuables to the Pope’s palace and to the castle of St. Angelo for safety. But the duke proved himself a wretched general. He could not manage to effect a junction with the Orsini, and Sanseverino pressed the latter hard, compelled some of them to accept a compromise, and obstructed the road into Tuscany. Within the kingdom itself matters were taking an unfavourable turn; Alfonso, seeing himself in danger of being hemmed in within the Campagna, decided to make a diversion against the Pope and gain breathing-time for himself by coming to a personal understanding with Lorenzo and Lodovico. On January 17, 1486, the news reached Florence that the heir to the Neapolitan throne had left the army in a dangerous position, and with only 300 horsemen taken the road through the lower part of the Viterbo territory. After riding sixty miles a day, like a fugitive, he arrived at Pitigliano, the little capital of the Orsini territory, on the west of the lake of Bolsena; from thence he intended proceeding to Florence and Milan.
The surprise in Florence was great. Negotiations had never ceased between the Pope and Lorenzo. It was said that the latter was trying to facilitate an accommodation; but there was a suspicion that he was playing a double game, that he had no confidence in the Neapolitan affairs, and that he had a hand in the defection of some of the Orsini, which put the Duke of Calabria into difficulties; and thatnow he wanted to hinder the Duke coming to Florence, in order to escape his reproaches. The Signoria immediately sent a special messenger to the Duke to prevent his coming to the city; Piero Capponi followed the messenger, to have an explanation with Alfonso, and to remain with the army as Florentine commissioner.[290]For some time past Lorenzo had been suffering severely; an affection of the bladder was now added to his old complaint the gout. He was not in a happy humour. He said he would have nothing more to do with business, for everything was going contrary to his desires and expectations; he meant to spend his time more agreeably. He begged Ercole d’Este and the Marquis of Mantua to send him falcons, and it was said that he was going to Pisa for change of air. His ill humour was visible. Sometimes he was in the city, sometimes at Careggi. The Duke of Calabria was urgent to see him at Pitigliano, in Florence, anywhere he liked; but he was not to be persuaded. Pier Filippo Pandolfini and Giovanni Serristori went in January to Pitigliano to agree upon the necessary arrangements.
Meanwhile the situation had somewhat improved. The troops, deserted by the Duke whom all accused of cowardice and want of head, were guided by Paolo Orsini to Vicovaro in the valley of the Anio, beyond Tivoli; from thence the road into the kingdom was open to them. Gentile Virginio and others of the Orsini remained faithful. Letters from Milan announced an intention of abiding by this alliance. On February 3, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio and Marsilio Torello arrived in Florence with men-at-arms and archers, to join the Duke.[291]The latter came as far as Montepulciano, and wanted to make an attempt upon Perugia, where there was some understanding with a few of the Baglioni. But theFlorentines had no desire to see the fire kindled so near their own borders; and as the Milanese were of the same mind, the plan was given up. The war was again transferred to the Papal territory, where the union between the Orsini and the duke was at last effected. But it was a feeble war, which only served to display the decay of Italian military skill. One single fight, however, in which the allies were victorious, and which took place in the beginning of May near Campagnano, a place belonging to the Orsini and situated twenty-one miles north-west of Rome, deserves the name of a warlike achievement. The Florentine commissioner, who was not a military man, but had seen a good deal of fighting in his life, was very little edified by the proceedings. On the papal side they were no better off. Innocent, ill and repeatedly in danger of his life, saw his means disappearing, his capital disturbed and discontented, almost besieged, and the neighbourhood devastated. He had little confidence in Sanseverino, who failed to profit by the favourable moment of the Duke’s absence, and whose chief aim seemed to be to gain a red hat for one of his sons. This distrust was heightened by letters from Piero Capponi, which, by a not over-honourable artifice, raised doubts as to Sanseverino’s honesty, and were put into the enemy’s hands. Through the Bishop of Treviso the Pope tried to get help from Venice; through the Cardinal della Rovere, who went to Genoa at the end of March, he set on foot a negotiation with the Duke of Lorraine, who with the help of France was planning an expedition against Naples. But everything remained too long in suspense.
In the College of Cardinals the different opinions produced violent disputes. As has been observed, Lorenzo remained in communication with Innocent, although he was the very corner-stone of the league in favour of Naples, and without Florentine money the king would long ago have been unable to carry on the war. It was his representations that chiefly contributed to induce the Pope to arrive at the needfulaccommodation. Ferrante on his part saw very well that unless he made peace abroad it was vain to think of restoring peace at home. Lodovico il Moro, though now less scanty in his contributions of assistance, was still more lavish of words than of deeds. His brother Ascanio was urging the Pope to an accommodation. On March 6 he spoke very strongly in the secret consistory in opposition to Cardinal La Balue, who was charged by France with supporting the interests of the Duke of Lorraine. The Pope, said Sforza, had a right to claim from King Ferrante the fulfilment of his obligations to the Church; but it was contrary to the duty of a cardinal to try and induce the Pope to drive the king from his hereditary throne and put a stranger in his place. He, Sforza, believed that he was not failing in his duty to the holy father in defending the rights of his relative. The cardinal of Erlau, the pious Franciscan Gabriel Rangoni, supported Ascanio, and said to the Pope: ‘Your Holiness has threatened to go as far as the Acheron. If the war continues, I fear those words will come true. May your wisdom find means to prevent greater troubles!’[292]
The Florentines were wearied with the whole affair. Ambassadors came from René of Lorraine to argue against the alliance with Naples, and to recall the old relations with France, and the old devotion of Florence to the Holy See. They were answered that the league which had existed for some time between the Republic, Naples, and Milan had for its object the preservation of peace; the disturbance had come from the Pope. The latter had never mentioned the Duke of Lorraine in his negotiations with the city; and if he was now making use of his name to help his own cause, they must first of all find out his real aims, and then consult with the allies. The old obligations to France would be remembered as far as was consistent with honour. Theanswer, remarks Francesco Guicciardini,[293]was prudent, for ambassadors had arrived not only from the duke but also from the King of France, and for the sake of the merchants it was necessary to be cautious. The occurrence caused a good deal of anxiety, so that Lorenzo, who well knew the attachment of the citizens to the house of France and their hatred to King Ferrante, was afraid of the burthen becoming too heavy for his shoulders, particularly as the alliance with Ferrante was displeasing to many of the chief citizens. He would, perhaps, have changed his policy, although Venice, where his brother-in-law Bernardo Rucellai was ambassador, and which did not like seeing foreigners in Italy, now sided with the king; but suddenly peace put an end to all troubles.
On the afternoon of August 11, 1486, this peace was signed at Rome by the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Tendilla, the Archbishop of Milan, and Gian Jacopo Trivulzio on behalf of Sforza, Cardinal Giovanni Michiel on behalf of the Pope, and Gioviano Pontano on behalf of Naples. King Ferrante was again formally to acknowledge the supremacy of the Church; to pay the tribute; to retain Aquila on condition of maintaining its liberties; not to oppress the barons who returned to their allegiance, and to give them complete freedom as to their abode and their family connections. These conditions were to be guaranteed by Milan and Florence. The Orsini were to beg the Pope’s forgiveness, and to be taken back into favour under guarantee of the said States; all places taken on either side were to be restored. Sanseverino was dismissed from the service of the Church. In Florence the conclusion of peace was celebrated by ringing the bells; but Lorenzo was highly displeased, not at the peace as such, but at the manner and the conditions of it, on which he spoke sharply to the Milanese ambassador. The conclusion had been arrived at without reference to him,and there had been no mention of Sarzana. In reality this was better than what had been originally intended, for Cardinal Sforza had exerted himself to get his brother Lodovico appointed arbiter in the question; but this scheme was foiled by the decided opposition of Capponi, who was then at Bracciano.[294]The Republic had spent all her money for a cause not her own.[295]And what a peace it was! Sanseverino had most decidedly not proved himself a hero in the war, and his conduct had not deserved any great confidence. But the way in which he was treated was almost past belief. The gonfalonier of the Church, who as holder of one of the highest dignities had handed the holy water to the Pope at a solemn mass a little while before, suddenly found himself like an outlaw chieftain compelled to use force against force. He was told he might go where he liked, and a claim which he sent in for arrears of pay was left unnoticed. Then, when he was about to take the road to Romagna, to return to the Venetian territory, he found himself surrounded by Neapolitan troops. To fight was certain ruin. He had nothing for it but to dissolve his bands; many escaped to the Marches; others were taken, plundered, slain; others again took service with the Duke of Calabria. With about a hundred horsemen Roberto cut his way through, and after many difficulties arrived as a fugitive, on the Venetian frontier which less than a year before he had crossed at the head of a powerful army. The Republic took him back into her service, and he showed himself not ungrateful and far less selfish than was the usual fashion ofcondottieri. A year after the conclusion of a peace so fatal to him, he met his death fighting gallantly in the neighbourhood of Roveredo, in the war stirred up by the frontier disputes between Venice and Archduke Sigismund of Austria-Tyrol.The Sanseverino affair, however, disappeared before what happened in Naples.
Two days after the conclusion of the treaty, at Castelnuovo, on the occasion of a marriage arranged by the king between Marco Coppola, son of the Count of Sarno, chief counsellor of the crown, and a daughter of Antonio Piccolomini Duke of Amalfi, granddaughter of Ferrante, the count and his family were arrested, as well as Antonello Petrucci the other private secretary of the king, the Count of Burello, formerly ambassador to Rome, and many of their relatives and friends, all distinguished and influential persons. They had been in communication with the insurgent barons, and as far back as October of the previous year Lodovico il Moro had given the king proofs of their guilt; but the latter had secured them and then waited till the conclusion of peace to draw in the net. Only a fortnight before he had called the Count of Sarno ‘our best-beloved counsellor.’ Three months later the culprits were condemned to death and executed; and the shuddering city beheld the bleeding limbs of the Count of Carinola, son of Antonello Petrucci, quartered by the executioner’s hand. All their property was confiscated; not only were their possessions within the country sequestrated, but Ferrante at once sent one of the superior officers of the chamber of accounts to take possession of sums deposited in the banks in Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Milan. A million in gold is said to have thus passed into his hands. Horrified at this fearful vengeance, warned by the fate of Aquila, which lost all its liberties, and putting no trust in the stipulated guarantee of Florence and Milan, the barons were long undecided if they should trust themselves to the mercy of the king. Ferrante himself did not believe they would. At last, however, they submitted, besought pardon, and promised fidelity and obedience. ‘All the princes and lords who formerly rebelled against us,’ wrote the king on February 17, 1487, to Giovanni Nauclero,[296]his ambassador to Ferdinand the Catholic, ‘are now with us at Naples. They enjoy greater security for their persons and possessions, and greater contentment and tranquillity than before the war; for they have their revenues as heretofore, and while we know that we are safe with them because their castles are in our hands, they are safe with us, and, thank God, we live together without suspicion. The past has vanished from our memory, and we treat them as dear sons. We hope it will last, for we are resolved to give them daily greater occasion to remain in this mind. Thus we keep all parts of our kingdom in peace and quiet.’ Within three months came the confiscation of the principality of Salerno, whose lord—Antonello da Sanseverino—was absent from the country; and, later on, the arrest of those ‘dear sons’ the barons, who one after another disappeared and left no trace behind.
The complications which arose from this interpretation of the conditions of peace between the king and the Pope, and the sentiments it awakened in Florence, will be mentioned later on. There can be little difference of opinion as to this melancholy episode and its influence on the destinies of Naples. But the whole blame must not be laid on Ferrante. A nobility so powerful and warlike, so rebellious, and among some of whom disaffection was an inheritance, rendered government impossible. Defection had penetrated the king’s own privy council, nay even his own family. How little unity there was in the latter is shown by the fact that the barons hoped and attempted to gain over to their side Don Federigo, who was as much beloved as his brother Alfonso was hated and feared. At Salerno they offered him the crown, which he refused. Ferrante conquered by prudence and force of arms, but he abused his victory by cunning, avarice, and cruelty. In the use of foul means he outdid his old enemy Louis XI.; but while the latter, who personallywas not a bit better, strengthened the royal power, Ferrante overshot the mark and cut the ground from under his own feet. Other men of the time were not more honest, yet they never enacted such horrible tragedies as those witnessed at Naples in 1486 and 1487. Ferrante’s reign lasted seven years longer, externally more quiet than before, more prosperous, more unlimited, less disturbed; but all his sagacity could not save him from the phantoms called up by the consciousness of past crimes and the fear of new dangers. In his strivings after despotic power, and in the interests of the latter, he made havoc of the old nobility. He could not destroy it so completely as to prevent its remaining one of the factors in all great political changes, or the enmity of a large portion of it from becoming fatal to his house, but he diminished the strength of the country, which was founded on the old feudal order of things. He hoped to find support from the people, but could not really raise them because his system of monopolies and finance oppressed them no less than the outgrowths of the feudal state, and he had not time to carry out the change in public matters which he might possibly have projected. The people, who had not forgotten old grievances, were bound by no ties of affection to their sovereign and his heir-apparent, who had come out of the Barons’ war with a greatly diminished reputation for military capacity and a yet more greatly increased reputation for faithlessness and cruelty.[297]
Like the peace of 1484, that of 1486 did not take into consideration the Florentine desires and demands in the vexed question of Sarzana.
Lorenzo was ill and out of humour. Repeated attacksof gout either laid him up at home, as in July 1486, or compelled him to go to Bagno a Morba, where he passed the September of the same year. He often sojourned at Careggi for a time or at the villa at Poggio a Cajano, where he sought refreshment and relaxation from the exciting affairs which never left him free. He was at no pains to conceal his irritation. One ally compromised him by faithlessness and severity, the other endangered his policy by double-dealing and the pursuit of selfish aims. The more lavish were the assurances of friendship, the nearer treachery was lurking. As to the treaty of peace and Trivulzio’s part in it, he declared the proceedings of Milan were downright disgraceful. When Ferrante began to meddle with the barons whose safety had been guaranteed by Florence and Milan, and it became evident that he aimed at their destruction and the confiscation of their property, Lorenzo remarked that from a political point of view the king was becoming too powerful. If he went on thus he would soon be master in Italy, in which case Florence and Milan would fare badly, as the predominance of his influence had repeatedly been injurious to them. From the Duke of Calabria the worst must be expected, as he was of a malicious and vindictive temper setting aside that, when once his object was attained he regarded neither friendship nor past services. Lorenzo saw that he must bring the Sarzana affair to a conclusion if he did not wish to endanger his own position. The thing could not be done in the year which ended the Barons’ war, but the next must not be allowed to pass without profit. There was not much to be expected from the allies. King Ferrante well knew how much he was indebted to Lorenzo and to Florence, and remarked that one good turn deserved another; but added that where an alliance was so sure and the will so entirely the same on both sides, conduct must be measured, not by the extent of the obligation, but by the power to serve. Then came the usual references to the exhaustion of the treasury, difficulties with the Pope, andthe danger from the Turks, all of which Bernardo Rucellai, the ambassador at Naples, likewise had to listen to.[298]To Lutozzo Nasi, another Florentine diplomatist, Ferrante said: ‘Lorenzo knows that I really love him and his city, for I have had practical proof of his attachment to me and mine. But for him, they and I would no longer be in this kingdom. He has conferred on us a benefit which we and our posterity never will or can forget, and we will always display our gratitude to him and the Signoria.’ But all this was mere talk. It was not of much use that Ferrante occasionally condescended to flatter the Signoria, as, for instance, when in the autumn of 1486 he appointed a house in Naples for their embassy, as King Ladislaus had once done for Venice; or when he sent back trophies of the war of 1478, declaring that he did not wish to preserve memorials of past strife when nothing should be thought of but reciprocal friendship.[299]
In Lodovico il Moro Lorenzo had still less confidence, but on account of the situation in Northern Italy, and especially on account of the Venetians, he was yet more anxious to keep on the best terms possible with Milan. Lodovico was jealous of the close relations between his allies; so, in order not to increase this jealousy, Lorenzo found it convenient to point out the common interest of Florence and Milan in preventing the king from becoming too powerful. Moreover, the Sarzana affair still prevented the conclusion of a good understanding. Lodovico was always thinking of regaining Genoa, and was the more unwilling to turn the Genoese against him for the sake of a quarrel which kept them in continual suspense, because they had applied to Venice herself for aid against the Florentines. Innocent VIII. had made an attempt at mediation, whereby the Bank of San Giorgio was to give up Pietrasanta and receive Sarzanain exchange; but the matter fell through, nominally on account of disagreements between the Pope and his native city, but no doubt also because, after all the sacrifices that had been made, public opinion in Florence would have been in nowise satisfied with such a settlement. A trifling occasion, the occupation by the Florentines of a small castle beyond the Magra, sufficed to cause high words between Lorenzo and Lodovico. The former had sent Baccio Ugolini to the Duke of Calabria in 1486, and Sforza took it amiss that he had not been informed of the fact. ‘Milan and Lord Lodovico,’ returned Lorenzo, ‘seem to forget that this city calls herself a city of freedom, and that she would be in a sorry plight if she could not even send a man on an unofficial mission to the Neapolitan prince without taking advice from Milan about it.’ In Florence, he continued, nothing had been said when Lord Lodovico, without asking anybody’s opinion, made his agreement with Venice. Such things were tokens of disaffection, and should it ever befall that Milan was in need of Florence it would be impossible to incline the people in her favour if they had been previously driven to extremities. Such were the relations in which these Italian States, calling themselves allies, stood to each other! Then fine words followed again, and assurances of friendship, which kept up appearances and deceived nobody as to the real state of the case. To Lorenzo’s honour it must be said that he did all in his power to support the tottering edifice of concord.
At the beginning of 1487 the Florentines were firmly resolved to make an end of the Sarzana affair, which was really becoming a disgrace to the Republic. But the Genoese were beforehand with them. On a hill to the east of the town of Sarzana lies the fort of Sarzanello, begun by the brave Ghibelin leader Castruccio Castracani when he extended the Lucchese territory as far as the Magra. It was a hill-fort, still worthy of notice for its construction, and it had always been held by the Florentines. In March 1487the commandant of Sarzana, Gian Luigi Fiesco of Lavagna, made a sudden attack on Sarzanello, took the outworks, and began to fire on the fortress. The famous Sienese architect Francesco di Giorgio, who, together with Giuliano da Sangallo, did more than anyone else for the military architecture of the time, was serving as an engineer in the Genoese camp, and he seems to have first adopted the mining system against Sarzanello. Florence saw there was no time to lose. The Count of Pitigliano and the lords of Piombino, Faenza, and Mirandola commanded the troops, to which Naples and Milan sent scanty contingents. On April 15 the besiegers of the fort were completely beaten, and their leader, Obietto Fiesco, fell into the hands of the victors. But the fight for the town of Sarzana dragged on, though the troops were better than some of their leaders. The place was in increasing misery, yet the defenders held out amid the distress and ruin of the inhabitants.
In the beginning of June Lorenzo went to Pisa to be nearer the scene of action. On the 8th he was in the camp and ordered the town to be more closely surrounded. An attempt to relieve it failed. On the 21st it was decided to storm it, but a white flag was hoisted on the walls, and the next morning the gates were opened. The inhabitants were spared, the garrison remained prisoners of war. Two days before midsummer Lorenzo returned to Florence. ‘Never,’ writes the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘was he received with such acclamations by the people, who attribute the recapture of Sarzana to him before all others.’[300]It was not the importance of the place itself that Florence cared for; she regarded its seizure as an insult. ‘After you have saluted in our name the illustrious Signoria, my lords the Eight, and theillustrious lord Lorenzo,’ thus ran Ferrante’s instructions[301]of July 27 to Antonio Sperandeo, whom he was sending to Florence, ‘you shall express to them our joy at the recovery of Sarzana; a joy which beseems true and sincere friends on such a happy occasion, and is meet for a connection which makes the advantage and welfare of the one the advantage and welfare of the other. Therefore we rejoice at the conclusion of this affair as at a piece of good fortune to ourselves, and pray God that He may further the interests and well-being of us both, and lead us from good to better through a continuance of our reciprocal friendship.’ How much of these assurances of friendship should be laid to the account of the complications at home, may be left undecided.
Lodovico il Moro took no trouble to hide his ill-humour, and immediately recalled his troops from the Florentine camp on the Magra, whereat the Florentines were highly indignant. Lorenzo said he supposed the Duke of Bari thought Genoa and the Castelletto would be given up to him next. But it actually came to pass. The Cardinal-Doge, Paolo Fregoso, perceived that he could not hold his ground amidst his many enemies, even if the Florentines—as they were certainly disposed to do—did not advance further towards the Riviera, where the neighbourhood of the gulf of Spezia was almost unprotected. While he began negotiating with Sforza the Adorni party were negotiating with France. Lodovico was quicker than the counsellors of the young king, and, after much debating in one form and another, the matter ended in Genoa once more acknowledging the Duke of Milan as her superior; whereupon the doge was pensioned and went to end his much-disturbed days at Rome. The Florentines were not destined long to enjoy the possession of Sarzana, which had cost them so much blood and still more money. During Charles VIII.’scampaign against Naples, both the town and the fortress passed into the hands of the French, who, when Florentine troops and commissioners came to demand their restoration, sold them to that same bank of San Giorgio with which the Republic had fought so long for their possession.