Europe in the Sixteenth Century 1494-1598 Part 3

Alexander now demanded that the friar should be handed over to him for trial. After much negotiation it was agreed that the Pope should send two commissaries to judge of the spiritual offences, while the Florentine commissioners should decide on the offences against the city. At the same time, Alexander granted to Florence a tax of three-tenths on ecclesiastical revenues. 'Three times ten makes thirty,' said a Piagnone; 'they have sold our master, as Christ was sold, for thirty pieces of silver.' Meanwhile Savonarola had been put to the torture, and was said to have confessed that he was no true prophet. But it is acknowledged that confessions extorted under torture are not worthy of the slightest credit; there is good reason, moreover, to believe that his depositions were falsified. His enemies were determined on his ruin. All that was necessary to secure their final triumph was that the elections of May should return a Signory hostile to the friar. This was attained by excluding 200 Piagnoni from the Great Council. A Signory of Arrabiati was thus secured.

Savonarola and his two followers, found guilty of heresy by the papal commissaries, and of treason to the State by his fellow-citizens, went to their death with all the constancy of martyrs, May 23, 1498.

Contemporaries were much divided in their opinions on the merits of Savonarola, and the contest rages still. 'The thing I shall be most anxious to know when I get into Heaven,' said a later Pope, 'is whether Savonarola was a righteous man or no.' Those who denounce him as a hypocrite, pretending to believe in divine guidance, and in the gift of prophecy to attain his ends, are surely ignorant of the subtle influences under which religious leaders have ever acted; men who carry with them into life a profound conviction of the divine ruling of the world. Those who lightly dismiss him as a fanatic, have never felt the burning shame of sin which consumes the reformer's soul. That he was led to think that G.o.d had intrusted him with a mission and had used him as the trumpet of His warnings we may well believe; that he was betrayed into some extravagances will only convict him of ordinary human frailty.

As has been stated above, his real mistake lay in trespa.s.sing on the sphere of politics. Had he confined himself to the work of a moral reformer, he perhaps would not have risen so high; yet he would have escaped from many contradictions, and never have fallen so low. The office of the preacher and that of the statesman are not easily reconciled. When once he had a.s.sociated himself with the fortunes of a political party, nothing but complete supremacy could save him from disaster. For the rest, the work of Savonarola must not be confused with the later Reformation. He had no idea of breaking from the Church, or of disputing her doctrines. His mind was set in a mediaeval mould. He belongs to the long list of those great reformers who, like St. Francis of a.s.sisi, strove to bring the life of man into closer harmony with Christian teaching as then understood, but did not dispute the accepted interpretation of that teaching. He stands forth as the opponent of that G.o.dless pagan spirit which marred the movement of the Renaissance, to rebuke the moral turpitude of his country, which was surely working her ruin.

-- 3. _Louis XII. The War of Milan and Naples._

| Internal policy of Louis XII.

The accession of Louis XII. was popular. He had in his earlier years led the opposition against Anne of Beaujeu, and for that had suffered imprisonment, but of late he had been the loyal supporter of King Charles. Careless and fond of pleasure as a young man, he had, while retaining his generous and chivalrous spirit, now become more serious. Declaring at his accession that 'the King did not remember the wrongs done to him as Duke,' he showed favour to Anne of Beaujeu and her husband, whom he had once so bitterly resisted. On the marriage of their only child, Susanna, with the young Charles, Count of Montpensier, he annulled the decree of Louis XI. which had declared that, in the default of male issue, the dominion of Bourbon should fall to the crown. By this act of generosity, he postponed the incorporation of the last great n.o.ble domain in France.

| Louis determines to attack Milan.

The reign was inaugurated by several useful measures. The 'taille'[11]

was reduced; the sale of judicial offices forbidden; an attempt was made to check the venality of the magistrates. Provence and Normandy were given local _Parlements_ or courts of justice, which might serve as a counterbalance to the _Parlement_ of Paris, while the extravagant privileges of the University of Paris in the matter of jurisdiction were curtailed. Political interest may by some be held to justify Louis' divorce from his first wife Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI., and his marriage with Anne of Brittany, widow of Charles VIII.; for Jeanne was childless, and Brittany threatened to break away again from France. But, in the negotiations with the Pope concerning the divorce, the King acted meanly, and the stipulation insisted on by Anne of Brittany, that her duchy should not be united to the crown of France, might have led to further trouble, had not Francis of Angouleme, subsequently King Francis I., married Claude, the issue of the marriage. In a word the home policy of the King might justify his t.i.tle of 'Father of his People,' had not his ambition led him to follow in the steps of Charles and seek for conquests in Italy. If his chivalrous spirit demanded war, the renewed attempt of Maximilian to regain Burgundy and the lands on the west of Flanders, which he still claimed as the heritage of his son, the Archduke Philip, would have fully justified Louis in taking the offensive, and adding Franche-Comte to his dominions. But his eyes, like those of Charles, were dazzled with the fair skies and plains of Italy, and Italy alone would satisfy French ambitions. Milan, however, and not Naples, was the first object of Louis' attack.

The invasion of Charles VIII. should have taught the Italians the necessity of union. But this was not to be. Even in the League of Venice, the aims of Italian statesmen had been purely selfish, and the common danger once removed, their old rivalries returned and broke up the coalition.

| Alexander and Venice desert the League of Venice and | ally themselves with France.

Savonarola had been 'sacrificed by the Pope, because Florence would not join the League'--yet no sooner was he gone than Alexander VI.

deserted it himself. The chief aim of Alexander's pontificate was to strengthen the temporal dominion of the Papacy. Following in the steps of Sixtus IV., he hoped to gain his end through his family. His eldest son, the Duke of Gandia, was first chosen as his instrument.

He designed to make him Lord of the Patrimony of St. Peter and crush the Orsini, who had given him a pretext by supporting the cause of Charles VIII. But the Orsini had proved too strong. The attempt had failed, and the mysterious murder of the duke in June 1497, seemed for the moment to ruin his hopes. The Pope, however, was not a man easily dismayed. He shortly resumed his scheme, and now looked to his third son, the notorious Caesar Borgia. Caesar, unfortunately, was both deacon and cardinal; but in August 1498, his father released him from his ecclesiastical vows 'for the good of his soul.' Having thus removed this primary obstacle, the Pope at first designed to marry him to Carlotta, the daughter of Federigo of Naples, whereby Caesar might some day gain a claim to the throne of that kingdom. Baulked in this hope by the refusal of Federigo, Alexander turned to France. In return for the papal bull sanctioning the divorce of his first wife Jeanne, and a cardinal's hat for George of Amboise, his chief adviser, Louis XII. invested Caesar with the counties of Valentinois and Diois, and the t.i.tle of duke. Subsequently he bestowed upon him the hand of his niece, the beautiful Charlotte d'Albret (May 1499), and promised to a.s.sist him in his designs on the Romagna. Thus Alexander was detached from the League.

The relations between Venice and Ludovico had never been cordial.

At the battle of Fornovo, the duke had played it false, and ordered his troops not to press the French too closely. Shortly after this the Pisan War led to further disagreement. Angry at the refusal of Florence to join the League of Venice, Ludovico and Venice had both supported Pisa in her struggle for independence. But the l.u.s.t of conquest soon began to tempt them, and, as both could not hold Pisa, a quarrel was inevitable. At first Ludovico called upon the Emperor Maximilian to secure that city, hoping eventually to wrest it from his hands; but the expedition had failed (October 1496), and Ludovico, rather than see the city fall under Venetian control, deserted the Pisan cause, and aided the Florentines with men and money (May 1498).

Venice accordingly turned a ready ear to Louis' offers, and in the Treaty of Blois (February 1499), agreed to support his claim to the Duchy of Milan with arms: Louis, on his side, promising her Cremona and the Ghiara d'Adda, a small district on the left bank of that river, as her share of the Milanese spoil.

| Desperate position of Ludovico.

Thus Louis had succeeded in breaking up the League, and Ludovico was left without an available ally. Ferdinand of Spain was already thinking of seizing Naples for himself, and had no mind to interfere in Lombardy; Federigo of Naples was trembling for his throne, and was in no position to lend him aid; while Maximilian, at this time engaged in a war with the Swiss, and at variance with his Diet on questions concerning the Imperial Const.i.tution, could not render any a.s.sistance.

In his despair Ludovico stirred up the Turks, and Bajazet II. sent an army to ravage the Venetian territories in Friuli, an act which did not materially a.s.sist him, and still further irritated his enemies.

| The French enter Italy. August 1499.

In August 1499, the French army crossed the Alps commanded by three redoubtable leaders: the Lombard Trivulzio, who had deserted the cause of Alfonso of Naples and adopted France as his country, a man of whom Ludovico said, 'a halter awaits him as soon as caught'; Stuart d'Aubigny, who had already earned a reputation in the war of Naples; and Louis de Luxembourg, Count of Ligny, the patron of the Chevalier Bayard, whose chivalrous exploits in the coming campaigns remind us that the Middle Age had not yet departed. The Duke of Savoy gave them free pa.s.sage through Piedmont. At Asti they were joined by a contingent of 5000 Swiss, sent by the Cantons, who had made a treaty with Louis. The advance on Milan met with scant resistance. The village of Annona, fortified by Ludovico, indeed held out, but was taken by a.s.sault on the second day, and the garrison put to the sword.

Terrified by their fate, and beguiled by the promises and the bribes of Trivulzio, castles and cities opened their gates. Alessandria, evacuated by the Milanese army under Galeazzo di San Severino, who was probably bribed by the French, made submission, but was cruelly pillaged, and the French crossed the Po.

| The Venetians advance on Lodi.

| Ludovico flies to Innsbruck. The French and Venetians | occupy the Milanese. Sept. 1499.

| Reaction against the French.

Meanwhile the Venetian army from the east occupied Caravaggio, and advanced to Lodi. Ludovico now saw that his cause was lost. Warned by a riot in Milan that the capital could not be trusted, he despatched his two sons and his treasure to Germany, threw provisions into the castle of Milan, and fled to seek a.s.sistance of Maximilian at Innsbruck (September 2). Ludovico gone, the citizens of Milan hastened to offer the keys of the city to the French. On September 14, the citadel itself surrendered; Genoa followed suit, and thus within a month, the French and Venetians found themselves masters of the Milanese, without having had to fight a single important battle. But they were not to hold their conquest without another struggle. The rapidity of the French conquest, like that of Naples by Charles VIII., ill.u.s.trates the weakness of Italy. The treachery and cowardice of the soldiery was the result of the evil traditions of Italian condottier warfare. The army once gone, the citizens could scarcely have resisted if they would, and they would not if they could. Devoid of all sense of patriotism or loyalty, they feared the vengeance of the French, and listened easily to their promises of milder government, and lighter taxation. These indeed Louis attempted to fulfil, but extravagant expectations had been raised, and the choice of Trivulzio as Governor of Milan was an unfortunate one. A Lombard himself, he became a party man; his severity alienated the lower cla.s.ses, while the pride and insolence of the French soon lost them the affection of their new subjects.

| Ludovico returns. Feb. 1500.

| The French evacuate Milan, but take Ludovico prisoner | at Novara, April 5, and re-occupy the city.

A few months sufficed to disillusionise the Italians, and when, in February 1500, Ludovico returned with an army he had collected in the North, the French were forced to evacuate Milan and surrender their conquests as quickly as they had gained them. All seemed lost, when in April the French army, reinforced from France, again moved forward to relieve the citadel of Novara, which, with the castle of Milan, alone held out. The motley character of the army of Ludovico, composed as it was of mercenaries from Franche-Comte and Switzerland, Albania and Lombardy, would in any case have rendered victory doubtful, but the chances of battle were never tried owing to the treachery of the Germans and the Swiss. The latter pleaded as an excuse that they could not fight against their countrymen who were serving the French with leave of the Confederation. The only pretext the Germans could find was arrears of pay. Allowed by the French to retire, these honourable companions in arms did not even insist on the same terms being granted to their Milanese comrades, or to the Duke. When therefore the Milanese troops attempted to retreat, they were cut down by the French. The Duke was discovered among the Swiss in the disguise of a friar, and on April 17, the French re-entered the capital. The rich Duchy of Milan was now theirs, with the exception of the strip of country to the east of the Adda, which fell to the Venetians, and the district round Bellinzona, which was seized by the Swiss in the pay of Louis, and which they retain to this day.

| Fortunes of the Sforza family.

The Sforza family suffered cruelly for Ludovico's fatal act in first calling the French into Italy and for his subsequent breach of faith.

The Duke, who had vaunted himself on his cleverness, ended his days in the dungeons of Loches in Touraine (1508). His brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, and Francesco, son of the unfortunate Gian Galeazzo, also fell into French hands. Ascanio was released in 1503, but died in 1505. Francesco was forced to become a monk and died in 1511, and the only important representatives of the male line of the Sforza who remained were the two sons of Ludovico, Maximilian and Francesco Maria, who were hereafter for a period to regain the duchy.[12]

The collapse of the power of Ludovico is a signal ill.u.s.tration of the insufficiency and untrustworthiness of mercenary troops. Caring nothing for the cause they had momentarily espoused, they were ever open to bribes, or ready to desert when desertion served their turn.

| Short-sighted policy of Venice.

For the rest, the policy of Venice in thus calling the French for the second time into Italy, was as short-sighted as it was blameworthy.

The Venetians pleaded as a pretext their fears of the ambitious schemer Ludovico, yet he was never likely to be so formidable as the French, and, as Machiavelli well observes, 'in their desire to win two districts in Lombardy they helped Louis to become master of two-thirds of Italy.'

| Treaty of Granada between Louis and Ferdinand.

| Nov. 11, 1500.

Louis once master of Milan hurried on his preparations against Naples.

The only opponent who was likely to be formidable was Ferdinand the Catholic. He had helped to restore the Aragonese dynasty after the retreat of Charles, and might well put in his claim, if the illegitimate branch of his house were to be excluded. 'But how,' said his envoy, 'if you were to come to some agreement with us respecting Naples as you did with Venice about Milan?' The suggestion was welcomed by Louis, and in November 1500, the secret Treaty of Granada was signed. An excuse for that shameless compact was found in the alliance which Federigo in his distress had made with the Turk. After deploring the discords of Christian princes, which weakened them before the Turk, the preamble a.s.serts that 'no other princes, save the Kings of France and Aragon, have any t.i.tle to the crown of Naples, and as King Federigo has excited the Turk to the peril of Christendom, the two powers, in order to rescue it from this danger and to maintain the peace, agree to compromise their respective claims, and divide the kingdom of Naples itself.' The northern provinces, consisting of the Abruzzi and the land of Lavoro, with the t.i.tle of king, were to go to Louis; the Duchy of Calabria and Apulia in the south as a dukedom to Ferdinand. That there was danger to be apprehended from the Turks was true enough; not only had they ravaged Friuli in the autumn of 1499, they had also defeated the Venetian fleet off Sapienza, and taken Modon and Navarino in the Morea. That the cry of a crusade was not a mere pretext is proved by the treaties made by Louis in the spring of 1500 with Ladislas, King of Bohemia and Hungary, and with the King of Poland; by the fleet despatched by Ferdinand to aid the Venetians in the siege of St. George in Cephalonia (September 1500), and by the French attack on Mitylene in 1501. It is even possible, that the conquest of Italy from the north alone saved that country from falling before the Turk, but the advance of the Sultan might have been more successfully opposed by a joint European coalition, and, as events showed, l.u.s.t of conquest was the primary motive of the allies.

The treaty of Granada was 'the first open a.s.sertion in European politics of the principles of dynastic aggrandis.e.m.e.nt; the first of those part.i.tion treaties by which peoples were handed over from one Government to another as appendages to family estates.' Not only was the treaty of Granada a crime, it was also a fatal blunder on the part of Louis. 'The French,' says Machiavelli, 'have little skill in matters of State, for whereas before, Louis was sole umpire in Italy, he now entertained a partner, and whereas Louis might have made the king of Naples his pensioner, he turned him out and put the Spaniard in his place, who turned out Louis himself.' The compact was at first kept secret, and Federigo still hoped for a.s.sistance from Ferdinand.

In June 1501, however, when the French army under D'Aubigny entered Rome on its southward march, Pope Alexander publicly ratified the treaty, declared Federigo deposed as a traitor to Christendom, and invested Louis and Ferdinand with his dominions.

| Federigo abdicates and retires to France. August 1501.

Federigo, despairing of his cause, did not dare to meet the French in the field. Capua, which alone stood out, was taken by a.s.sault on July 23, and handed over to a brutal soldiery who ma.s.sacred the men and outraged the women. To save his country from further misery, the unfortunate King capitulated, and, accepting the terms of Louis, retired to France, to live till 1504 a pensioner, with the t.i.tle of Duke of Anjou.

The southern part of the kingdom made a somewhat more vigorous resistance to the Spaniards. They would have preferred, they said, the French as masters. But on the fall of Taranto in March 1502, Ferrante, the young Duke of Calabria, surrendered, and, in violation of a promise that he might retire whither he would, was sent to Spain to die in 1550.[13] Thus in less than two years the two families, whose quarrels had first invited the foreigner into Italy, had been driven from their country.

| Quarrel between Louis and Ferdinand.

Naples and Milan conquered, Western Europe found itself dominated by two great leagues, that of Louis XII., closely allied with the Pope and some of the German princes, and that of the Austro-Spanish houses. The latter was a family league cemented by the marriage of the Archduke Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian, with Joanna, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella,[14] and included England and Portugal. At this moment there seemed a prospect of these two leagues coalescing. In 1501, it had been agreed that Charles, the young son of the Archduke Philip, should marry the Princess Claude, daughter of Louis XII. The children were yet young, but the joint conquest of Naples by the Spanish and the French seemed a guarantee of their future friendship, and that the marriage would eventually take place.

Had this compact stood, Europe would have been united as it had never been before, and, if there was some danger that this powerful league would have destroyed the political balance, and ridden rough-shod over the smaller princes, at least a crusade to check the advance of the Turks, or even to drive them from Europe, might have been possible.

The dream, however, was soon to be dispelled by the quarrel of Louis and Ferdinand over their spoil in Naples. In the original treaty of part.i.tion no definite mention had been made of the Basilicata,[15] the Capitanata, and the two districts of the Princ.i.p.ati. These furnished an easy cause of dispute, which was further complicated by the claim to the tolls paid on the sheep-flocks as they pa.s.sed from their summer pasture in the Abruzzi to their winter quarters in the Capitanata. The quarrel might possibly have been compromised had it not been fomented by the internal factions of the country. The old partisans of Anjou were strongest in Apulia, while the Spaniards found many adherents in districts held by the French.

| The War of Naples. July 1502.

These dissensions soon led to an open rupture, and in July 1502, the war began. The ensuing struggle is famous in the history of chivalry, which gleamed forth for the last time in these Italian wars, and is well depicted in the picturesque pages of the life of Bayard. On the French side, we find Imbercourt, 'to whom, wherever there was a battle to fight, the heat of the Italian noontide seemed like the cool of morning'; the aged La Palice, who in the _melee_ forgot his age; and Bayard himself, the soul of knightly courtesy and valour. On the side of Spain, stood Diego de Paredes, whose feats of extravagant daring furnish the theme for many a Spanish romance; and Pedro de Paz, a squinting dwarf, who scarce could be seen above the head of his charger, yet had the heart of a lion; while Gonzalvo de Cordova, the 'Great Captain' himself, added to his masterly qualities as a general the chivalrous courtesy and manners of a knight-errant. These, and many others, fought, not so much for victory, as for honour.

Not content with the opportunities offered by the regular military operations for the display of their prowess, they challenged each other to jousts and tourneys, which, though fought _a l'outrance_, were conducted with all the punctiliousness, and all the ceremony of the lists. As we read the history of their combats, we fancy that we are present at a tournament of the Middle Ages--the contest, one for knightly prestige, the prize, some guerdon awarded by lady's hand.[16]

But the real issue was not decided by these feats of personal valour.

On the declaration of hostilities, the French had the advantage in numbers and in the quality of their troops, as well as the command of the sea.

| D'Aubigny's victory at Terranova, Dec. 15, 1502.

| Siege of Barletta.