tells us that C. commanded an army of 60,000 men. It is uncertain whether the Venetians did not poison Alviano in 1516, because he, as Prato says in
Arch. Stor. iii. p. 348, aided the French too zealously in the battle of S. Donato. The Republic made itself Colleoni’s heir, and after his death in 1475 formally confiscated his property. Comp. Malipiero,
Annali Veneti, in
Arch. Stor. vii. i. 244. It was liked when the Condottieri invested their money in Venice, ibid. p. 351.
51
Cagnola, in Arch. Stor. iii. pp. 121 sqq.
52
At all events in Paul Jovius, Vita Magni Sfortiæ, Rom. 1539, (dedicated to the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza), one of the most attractive of his biographies.
53
Æn. Sylv. Comment. de Dictis et Factis Alfonsi, Opera, ed. 1538, p. 251: Novitate gaudens Italia nihil habet stabile, nullum in eâ vetus regnum, facile hic ex servis reges videmus.’
54
Pii, ii. Comment. i. 46; comp. 69.
55
Sismondi, x. 258; Corio. fol. 412, where Sforza is accused of complicity, as he feared danger to his own son from P.’s popularity. Storia Bresciana, in Murat. xxi. col. 209. How the Venetian Condottiere Colleoni was tempted in 1466, is told by Malipiero Annali Veneti, Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 210. The Florentine exiles offered to make him Duke of Milan if he would expel from Florence their enemy, Piero de’ Medici.
56
Allegretti, Diari Sanesi, in Murat. xxiii. p. 811.
57
Orationes Philelphi, ed. Venet. 1492, fol. 9, in the funeral oration on Francesco.
58
Marin Sanudo, Vita del Duchi di Venezia, in Murat. xxii. col. 1241. See Reumont, Lorenzo von Medici (Lpz. 1874), ii. pp. 324-7, and the authorities there quoted.
59
Malipiero, Ann. Venet., Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 407.
60
Chron. Eugubinum, in Murat. xxi. col. 972.
61
Vespas. Fiorent. p. 148.
62
Archiv. Stor. xvi., parte i. et ii., ed. Bonaini, Fabretti, Polidori.
63
Julius II. conquered Perugia with ease in 1506, and compelled Gianpaolo Baglione to submit. The latter, as Macchiavelli (Discorsi, i. c. 27) tells us, missed the chance of immortality by not murdering the Pope.
64
Varelin Stor. Fiorent. i. pp. 242 sqq.
65
Comp. (inter. al.) Jovian. Pontan. De Immanitate, cap. 17.
66
Malipiero, Ann. Venet., Archiv. Stor. vii. i. pp. 498 sqq. After vainly searching for his beloved, whose father had shut her up in a monastery he threatened the father, burnt the monastery and other buildings, and committed many acts of violence.
67
Lil. Greg. Giraldus, De Sepulchris ac vario Sepeliendi Ritu. Opera ed. Bas. 1580, i. pp. 640 sqq. Later edition by J. Faes, Helmstädt, 1676 Dedication and postscript of Gir. ‘ad Carolum Miltz Germanum,’ in these editions without date; neither contains the passage given in the text.—In 1470 a catastrophe in miniature had already occurred in the same family (Galeotto had had his brother Antonio Maria thrown into prison). Comp. Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 225.
68
Jovian. Pontan. Opp. ed. Basileæ, 1538, t. i. De Liberalitate, cap. 19, 29, and De Obedientia, l. 4. Comp. Sismondi, x. p. 78, and Panormita, De Dictis et Factis Alphonsi, lib. i. nro. 61, iv. nro. 42.
69
Tristano Caracciolo. ‘De Fernando qui postea rex Aragonum fuit, ejusque posteris,’ in Muratori XXII.; Jovian Pontanus, De Prudentia, l. iv.; De Magnanimitate, l. i.; De Liberalitate, cap. 29, 36; De Immanitate, cap. 8. Cam. Porzio, Congiura dei Baroni del Regno de Napoli contro il re Ferdinando I., Pisa, 1818, cap. 29, 36, new edition, Naples, 1859, passim; Comines, Charles VIII., with the general characteristics of the Arragonese. See for further information as to Ferrante’s works for his people, the Regis Ferdinandi primi Instructionum liber, 1486-87, edited by Scipione Vopicella, which would dispose us to moderate to some extent the harsh judgment which has been passed upon him.
70
Paul. Jovius. Histor. i. p. 14. in the speech of a Milanese ambassador; Diario Ferrarese, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 294.
71
He lived in the closest intimacy with Jews, e.g. Isaac Abranavel, who fled with him to Messina. Comp. Zunz, Zur. Gesch. und Lit. (Berlin, 1845) s. 529.
72
Petri Candidi Decembrii Vita Phil. Mariæ Vicecomitis, in Murat. xx., of which however Jovius (Vitæ xii. Vicecomitum p. 186) says not without reason: ‘Quum omissis laudibus quæ in Philippo celebrandæ fuerant, vitia, notaret.’ Guarino praises this prince highly. Rosmino Guarini, ii. p. 75. Jovius, in the above-mentioned work (p. 186), and Jov. Pontanus, De Liberalitate, ii. cap. 28 and 31, take special notice of his generous conduct to the captive Alfonso.
73
Were the fourteen marble statues of the saints in the Citadel of Milan executed by him? See History of the Frundsbergs, fol. 27.
74
It troubled him: quod aliquando ‘non esse’ necesse esset.
75
Corio, fol. 400; Cagnola, in Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 125.
76
Pii II. Comment. iii. p. 130. Comp. ii. 87. 106. Another and rather darker estimate of Sforza’s fortune is given by Caracciolo, De Varietate Fortunæ, in Murat. xxii. col. 74. See for the opposite view the praises of Sforza’s luck in the Oratio parentalis de divi Francesci Sphortiæ felicitate, by Filelfo (the ready eulogist of any master who paid him), who sung, without publishing, the exploits of Francesco in the Sforziad. Even Decembrio, the moral and literary opponent of Filelfo, celebrates Sforza’s fortune in his biography (Vita Franc. Sphortiæ, in Murat. xx.). The astrologers said: ‘Francesco Sforza’s star brings good luck to a man, but ruin to his descendants.’ Arluni, De Bello Veneto, libri vi. in Grævius, Thes. Antiqu. et Hist. Italicæ, v. pars iii. Comp. also Barth. Facius, De Vir. III. p. 67.
77
Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. pp. 216 sqq. 221-4.
78
Important documents as to the murder of Galeazzo Maria Sforza are published by G. D’Adda in the Archivio Storico Lombardo Giornale della Società Lombarda, vol. ii. (1875), pp. 284-94. 1. A Latin epitaph on the murderer Lampugnano, who lost his life in the attempt, and whom the writer represents as saying: ‘Hic lubens quiesco, æternum inquam facinus monumentumque ducibus, principibus, regibus, qui modo sunt quique mox futura trahantur ne quid adversus justitiam faciant dicantve; 2. A Latin letter of Domenico de’ Belli, who, when eleven years old, was present at the murder; 3. The ‘lamento’ of Galeazzo Maria, in which, after calling upon the Virgin Mary and relating the outrage committed upon him, he summons his wife and children, his servants and the Italian cities which obeyed him, to bewail his fate, and sends forth his entreaty to all the nations of the earth, to the nine muses and the gods of antiquity, to set up a universal cry of grief.
79
Chron. Venetum, in Murat. xxiv. col. 65.
80
Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 492. Comp. 482, 562.
