Duke of Milan

“ A conference between the emperor, the Duke of Milan, and the ambassadors was held on the evening of that eventful day, and the details of the convention between the allied powers was finally agreed upon. A new league, which Henry the Seventh of England was afterwards invited to join, was formed between the Emperor Maximilian, the Duke of Milan, the Pope, the King of Spain, and the Venetian Republic; and Venice and Milan promised Maximilian a subsidy of 16,000 ducats if he would cross the Alps with an army, and compel the Florentines to give up Pisa and Leghorn. ”

“ When a prisoner in the hands of Filipo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan, in 1435, Alphonso persuaded his ferocious and crafty captor to let him go by making it plain that it was the interest of Milan not to prevent the victory of the Aragonese party in Naples. Like a true prince of the Renaissance he favoured men of letters whom he trusted to preserve his reputation to posterity. ”

“ We see her holding her court in the famous Castello of Porta Giovia or in the summer palaces of Vigevano and Cussago, in these golden days when Milan was called the new Athens, when Leonardo and Bramante decorated palaces or arranged masquerades at the duke's bidding, when Gaspare Visconti wrote sonnets in illuminated books, and Lorenzo da Pavia constructed organs or viols as perfect and beautiful to see as to hear, for the pleasure of the youthful duchess. ”

“ So large a body had never been assembled before, and the presence of these rude mountaineers, greedy for spoil and ready to quarrel with friends or foes, created general alarm. The Duke of Milan was now more eager than ever to conclude peace, and when Louis of Orleans and Trivulzio urged the king to break off negotiations and march at the head of the Swiss on Milan, Charles replied curtly that it was too late, for the preliminaries of peace were already signed. He himself had no wish but to return home and send help to his distressed troops in Naples. ”

“ Success depended on him: he could distribute the imperial troops, which he commanded, in such a manner as that they could oppose no resistance. The duke of Milan had been warned that Charles V intended taking his duchy from him to confer it on his brother Ferdinand of Austria. The kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan were ready to pass over from the emperor’s party to that of France, provided the French king would renounce all his claims to both, acknowledge Pescara king of Naples, Francesco Sforza duke of Milan ”

“ Many are the pleasant glimpses we catch of the family circle, whether in the Corte vecchia or old ducal palace of the Viscontis at Milan, in the beautiful park and gardens of the Castello at Pavia, or in their country homes of Vigevano and Binasco. We see Duke Francesco riding out with his young sons through the streets of Milan, visiting the churches and convents that were rising on all sides, the new hospital, which was the object of Madonna Bianca's tender care, the oak avenues and gardens with which she loved to surround her favourite shrines. ”

“ Lodi, Como, Piacenza and Brescia were recovered in the course of a few years, and in 1422 Genoa was won. Filippo’s rapid progress awakened the old terror of the Snake once again in Italy. The third Duke of Milan had indeed many of the successful qualities of his race, the craft, the patience, the untiring industry. But they were vitiated by his timidity of mind and body, which made him both suspicious and superstitious. Supremely 120perfidious himself, he dared trust no man, and constantly laid snares for his own agents, and ended by falling into them himself. ”

“ Women used to bring their sick children to the column to be healed by the serpent.
In the Sacristy of the Canons may be seen some beautiful illuminated books, the most precious of which is the famous Missal of Gian Galeazzo Visconte, of the late fourteenth century, which commemorates the coronation of that prince as first Duke of Milan. It is exquisitely illuminated, in clear brilliant colour, by a Lombard miniaturist, Annovello da Imbonate. ”

“ Clad in ducal robes, he appeared seated on a throne erected in front of the Duomo when the Genoese patricians arrived at Milan, and received their homage as duke of the principality of Genoa. His brother Ermes, his sisters Bianca and Anna, shared his state, and when Bianca's betrothed husband the young prince of Savoy died, she was formally affianced in the Duomo to the eldest son of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. But the real sovereign of Milan was Lodovico Duke of Bari. ”

“ Murder soon removed the elder son of the great duke; and the bastard Gabriello died on the executioner’s scaffold in hostile Genoa. Both died childless, and 195Milan fell to their younger brother, Filippo Maria. He ruled in peace and splendour for more than thirty years in Milan. But two marriages brought him no sons; only one daughter, and she illegitimate, cheered his magnificent palace. As the Duke grew old, men began to ask each other who should succeed him in Milan: his natural daughter, married to the great captain Francesco Sforza? or his nephew, his sister’s son, the Duke of Orleans? ”

“ The lords of the more powerful brought those of the weaker under their sway. The dominion, at first confined to a city, soon included districts containing many cities within their limits. The duchy of Milan, erected by the emperor in favour of the Visconti, represented a sovereignty extending over the whole of the Milanese. Alessandro Medici, duke of Florence, soon merged that title in the higher one, which conferred on him the grand duchy of the Tuscan states. ”

“ Especially he desired that Milan should have a due share in that splendid patrimony of light and learning which Italy was now inheriting 133across the chasm of the Middle Ages from her rediscovered Past. This man of war, bred up from childhood in the camp, entertained all the liberal ideals of the day. He particularly honoured virtuous and learned men, Corio tells us, and to his encouragement of art the city owed many beautiful buildings. In his patronage of the humanities, as in all his affairs, the Duke was nobly supported by his wife, Bianca Maria Visconte. ”

“ Duke Lodovico himself, finest and most appreciative of critics, would sometimes come, and many noble gentlemen were wont to visit the painter here and converse with him as they contemplated his work. The fame of the great picture spread quickly throughout Europe. When Louis XII. entered Milan in 1499, he came to see it, and expressed a desire, fortunately impracticable, to carry it away to his own country. With him were Duke Ercole of Ferrara, the Marquis Gian Francesco of Mantua, and many other brilliant and historic characters ”

“ Nor was the condition of the unfortunate young man improved even after his marriage to Isabella, the grand-daughter of the King of Naples.
Thus at the time when our story begins, the whole force and policy of Milan was moved at the will of one man. Ludovico, called the Duke of Bari from the Neapolitan fief he owned, and known from his complexion as the Moor, made a great impression on the men of his time. He was a master of every political art as then understood by Italian statesmen. By his wisdom he had risen, and by it he aspired to dominate Italy. ”

“ All important questions of peace and war and of making new laws are to be referred to representatives of the people, and the voice of the nation is as far as possible to be consulted in these matters. The young duke is to make the Castello his residence, and be as seldom absent from Milan as possible, never going further than his country houses of Abbiategrasso, Cussago, Monza, Dece, and Melegnano, until he has reached the age of fourteen. ”

“ The cell, as visitors to Loches remember, is cut out of the solid rock, and light and air can only penetrate by one narrow loophole. There, tradition says, Leonardo's patron, the great duke who had once reigned over Milan, beguiled the weary hours of his captivity by painting red and blue devices and mottoes on his prison walls. Among these rude attempts at decoration we may still discover traces of a portrait of himself in casque and armour, and a sun-dial roughly scratched on the stone opposite the slit in the rock. ”

“ An extraordinary vitality seemed to possess all classes in this morning of the Renaissance. The larger horizons revealed to the spirit by the revival of ancient literature and thought, the multiplicity of new interests created by increased knowledge, the joy of the release from the mediæval sense 142of guilt and sorrow, gave to this age the vigour and enthusiasm of a regenerated world. Milan was one vast hive of vivacious energies, busy in commerce, in art and all kinds of handiwork, in learning, poetry, music. The Duke’s excited spirit was eager for all intellectual and artistic novelties. ”

“ On the 4th he attended a solemn requiem mass for the lamented princess Bianca in the Duomo, and in the afternoon rode out to the Certosa with Lodovico, who showed him all the wonders of that famous church and abbey. On the 6th, the duke took his wife, whose delicate state of health needed rest, back to Milan, and a few days later returned with Foscari to meet the emperor at the ducal villa of Cussago. ”

“ Those who had really pure motives were drawn hopelessly into the whirlpool, and the Defenders of Liberty oppressed each other, and the citizens generally, with every cruelty and injustice.
Meanwhile the Duchy was claimed by the Guelf party for Alfonso of Aragon, on the strength of a will which his supporters had extracted from the dying Filippo. A pretension—first threat of the misfortune that was to fall later on Milan—was also advanced by the Duke of Orleans, son of Filippo’s sister, Valentina Visconte. The Emperor claimed the Duchy as a vacant fief. ”

“ The Renaissance was begun. The great Tuscan masters, summoned to Milan by this Duke and his predecessor, had recalled to the Lombard builders those classic principles native to Italy and long forgotten under the Gothic influences of the Middle Ages. The earlier Sforza sovereigns used their patronage to raise new churches, and it was not till the fervent artistic atmosphere of the end of the century had developed a certain eclecticism in cultured minds that the Duomo received a new impetus from Lodovico il Moro. ”

“ An irresistible panic seized him, and he retired, first to Abbiategrasso, beyond the Ticino, and then to Milan, where he took refuge in the Castello with his wife and children. The Venetian annalist Malipiero records how, on the 20th of June, two Lombard friars arrived at the convent of San Salvador in Venice, bringing word that the duke had fled in terror of his life to the Rocca, and would hardly see or speak to a single soul. "He is in bad health, with one hand paralyzed, they say, and is hated by all the people, and fears they will rise against him." ”

“ At the beginning of the tenth century we find these great territorial lords and bishops the chief powers in northern Italy—among them the archbishop of Milan, the duke of Friuli, and the count of Tuscany, the latter asserting his predominance since the time of Boniface I in 823. The obedience they pay the king of Italy is merely nominal, and indeed the king is constantly at war with his great vassals. ”

“ His son, Francesco, though only twenty-two, took command of his army, and soon showed equal valour and much greater ability. Engaged, in 1425, by Duke Filippo, he rapidly became a power in Milan, where he struggled with the rival Condottiere, Niccolò Piccinino, for supremacy in the councils of the Prince, and in the favour of the people. In 1432, Filippo gave 124him the highest mark of favour by promising him the hand of Bianca Maria, and with all solemnity the little girl of eight years old was betrothed to the great general. ”

“ Louis XII. in Milan—Hatred of the French rule—Return of Duke Lodovico—His march to Como and triumphal entry into Milan—Trivulzio and the French retire to Mortara—Surrender of the Castello of Milan, of Pavia and Novara, to the Moro—His want of men and money—Arrival of La Trémouille's army—Lodovico besieged in Novara and betrayed to the French king by the Swiss—Rejoicings at Rome and Venice—Triumph of the Borgias—Sufferings of the Milanese—Leonardo's letter. ”

“ The Sforzas, the successful usurpers, claimed possession as nine points of the law, and Maximilian the Emperor demanded Milan by right of his overlordship. Each was equally resolved to possess in that city the key of Italy. But these words, Milan, Italy, meant more to Francis than a mere political position. To his intensely artistic temperament, a corner of Italy was more precious than the whole of France. Milan to him meant beauty, poetry; gardened villas in which to pass a soft abandoned leisure; women more fair than those of his kingdom ”

“ The extinction of the throne, the flight of a dynasty, the sovereignty of the mob, and the universal frenzy of a nation, were bold sports, of which Italian souls knew nothing. But their effect was soon perilously felt; the populace of Milan determined to rival the populace of Paris—had an emeute of their own, built barricades, fought the Austrian garrison, and made themselves masters of the capital of Lombardy.
But the Italian is essentially a dramatist without the power of tragedy; he turns by nature to farce, and in his boldest affairs does nothing without burlesque. ”

“ Milanese arms and embroideries were sought after, woollen-weavers were very busy in Como and the capital. The work of canalisation went on. Milan passed as Italy’s most populous city and had 150,000 inhabitants. But at Naples the exigencies and venality of the [478] administration exhausted all sources of prosperity. Whilst rich families in Lombardy, the Marignani, the Sforza, the Serboni, the Borromei, and the Trivulzi, displayed a princely luxuriousness, the Neapolitan nobility, quickly ruined by court life, retired to their châteaux and lived by oppressing the peasants. ”