Matteo Visconti, whom Henry VII. placed at the head of the government after the Torriani interval of 1302-1311, passed his time in defending the Ghibelline cause in Northern Italy against Robert of Anjou. His successor, Galeazzo (1322-28), was so little a Ghibelline, however, that Louis of Bavaria coming to Italy in 1327 imprisoned him as a traitor; yet the Emperor, in need of money, sold to Galeazzo's son Azzo, after his father's death, both the lordship and the title of Imperial vicar. This prince, for he was no less during his reign of eleven years, governed with success and transformed Milan. He it was who founded the new rampart, the Refosso, to protect the new and larger city. He paved the streets and restored the palace. Moreover, he introduced and encouraged the silk industry which so largely increased the wealth of Milan. He died in 1339 with the reputation of a virtuous and pacific prince. Yet under him Milan had become the mistress of nine subject cities, namely, Como, Vercelli, Lodi, Piacenza, Cremona, Crema, Borgo S. Donnino, Bergamo and Brescia. He was succeeded by his uncle, Luchino (1339-49), under whom Milan brought seven other towns within her sway, namely, Parma, Novara, Alba, Alessandria, Tortona, Asti and Pontremoli. Luchino's brother Giovanni bought the archbishopric of Milan from the Papal Court at Avignon for 50,000 florins and a yearly payment of 10,000 florins, and in 1349 succeeded in reality feudalism was breaking up in Italy), the despotisms which arose in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Northern Italy and the Marches chiefly derived in each case either from Emperor or Pope. The Visconti held of the Empire, and in so far were legitimate enough; but few of the other lordships of Lombardy had so good a title as they the Marquis of Ferrara had, however, a sort of hereditary right drawn from long signorial possession. The Scala held Verona of the Empire, but what are we to say of the Carraresi of Padua, the Gonzaghi of Mantua, the Rossi and Correggi of Parma, the Scotti of Piacenza? Above all, what are we to say later of Francesco Sforza and his kind? him in the lordship. He bought Bologna from the Papal Legate for 200,000 florins, made war on Florence and extended his dominion as far as Genoa. Having Genoa in his grip, he had now to face Venice; he equipped a fleet and attacked the Venetians. Then suddenly without warning death took him. His great lordship passed to his three nephews: to Matteo was given Piacenza, Parma, Bologna, Lodi and Bobbio; to Bernabò, Cremona, Crema, Brescia and Bergamo; to Galeazzo, Como, Novara, Vercelli, Asti, Tortona and Alessandria. The death of the great archbishop seemed to offer an opportunity to these subject cities to throw off the Milanese yoke, and it took Bernabò and Galeazzo-Matteo soon died, not without suspicion of foul play-some four years to break the revolt. Galeazzo died in 1378, and his son Gian Galeazzo succeeded him. Impatient to reign alone, he presently flung Bernabò and his children into prison, where they ended their days. Gian Galeazzo was physically a coward and rather a great statesman than a general or leader. From the security of Pavia, however, he beat down every other lordship in Lombardy; with the assistance of the best condottieri of his time, Giacomo dal Verone, for instance, Facino Cane and Alberigo da Barbiano, he broke the Scaligers at Verona and Vicenza, took Padua from the Carrara, brought the Gonzaga of Mantua, the Este of Ferrara and the Marquis of Montferrat to heel, and seemed to be on the way to establish a great and even a permanent State which would at last direct and perhaps absorb all Italy. In 1395 the Emperor gave him a solemn confirmation of his authority in Lombardy and the title of Duke of Milan, admitting him among the great feudatories of the Empire. He himself had married the daughter of the King of France, and his sister had been the bride of the son of Edward of England. In the midst of his success death took him in 1402. He was but fifty years old. It is to him Milan owes her Cathedral. Nothing is more characteristic of all the despotisms of Italy than the fate of the Visconti house. At its highest fortune in 1402, when it seemed to be about to absorb the richest and the largest part of Italy, it suddenly came to nothing. Gian Galeazzo's elder son, Giovanni Maria, succeeded him in Milan; his younger son, Filippo Maria, reigned in Pavia. Giovanni in a reign of ten years lost Bologna, Perugia and Assisi to the Pope, and Verona, Vicenza and Padua to Venice; while Cremona, Lodi and Piacenza and Siena recovered their independence. When the Milanese nobles murdered him he was in possession only of his capital. His brother entered Milan and with the assistance of Carmagnola, the best condottiere of his day, he managed to regain much that had been lost; but he could not hold Carmagnola, whom he treated with extraordinary ingratitude as it appears. This soldier placed his sword at the service of Venice, and in that cause - Venice was then establishing herself on terra firma-he took Brescia from Visconti and, later, routed his army. When Filippo Maria died, in the midst of the war in 1447, the race of the Visconti was extinct. The death of the last Visconti left Milan without a master. It seemed for a moment as though she would be able to decide what form of government she would submit to. As a fact, however, this choice was never hers. The Republican form to which she leaned, seeing the success of Venice, was, save in Venice, extinct throughout Italy. Even in Venice, which called herself a Republic, what had really been established was that most ruthless and most enduring aristocratic oligarchy which we established in England in the seventeenth century, and which has endured till our own day. Such a government cannot be built up in a few months, or even in a single generation, nor at all unless a long period of safety from foreign interference has been secured. Milan had but a few months at most in which to establish a new government, and she was in the midst of a war with the most powerful State in Italy, Venice. Thus it was that the Ambrosian Republic was foredoomed to fail. Almost every commune in Italy had been captured by the Signori; everywhere adventurers, often of the meanest birth, marched about Italy at the head of bodies of mercenary troops looking for thrones. Among the basest, but also among the strongest of these adventurers, was Francesco Sforza, who had carved for himself out of the confusion of the Marches a sort of lordship. This soldier, the son as was long believed of a peasant, but as recent research seems to prove of one of the better sort of citizens of the little town of Cotignola, had in the service of various masters proved himself a fine soldier, and perhaps a better statesman. At any rate he had, after years of service and blackmail, persuaded Filippo Maria Visconti to give him his illegitimate daughter in marriage. This and this alone was Sforza's claim in theory to the throne of Milan. That he was able to make it good throws a lurid light upon the condition of Italy. Sforza was among the ablest soldiers of his day, and Milan needed a soldier: he offered himself and his troops to the Republic for service; they were accepted. In reality that decided the fate of the Republic, and the result was secured by the nervousness of Florence and Venice, both of which wished to see for their own sakes a stable government in Milan neither believed in the endurance of the Republic. : At first Sforza wished to prove to Milan how useful he could be. He therefore besieged Piacenza and gave battle to the Venetian army at Mozzanica. Victorious, he turned his troops against Milan in 1448, investing the city, which surrendered at discretion and in fear of famine. The adventurer made a triumphal entry, and was saluted in the name of Prince and Duke. The new dynasty, which was absolutely illegitimate in every sense of the word, endured for eighty-five years, and produced but one man of first-class ability, its founder, Francesco Sforza. Venice and Florence had been right. Sforza gave Milan sixteen years of peace, and after 1454, when he concluded a definite treaty with the former, he seems to have occupied himself solely with the enjoyment and the enrichment of his lordship. He it was who founded and built the Ospedale Maggiore, rebuilt the Castello originally built in 1368 by Galeazzo Visconti and destroyed by the Ambrosian Republic, and the Palazzo di Corte, where the Palazzo Reale, built in 1772, now stands. His successor, Galeazzo (1466-76), a cruel and lustful tyrant, was assassinated by three young Milanese nobles, Olgiati, Visconti and Lampagnani. It is his death that brings us face to face with reality. Why had Venice and Florence been so anxious to see Milan in the hands of a strong man rather than at the mercy of a Republic? That question was now to be answered. For Galeazzo Sforza's widow, Bona di Savoia, now ruled Milan in the name of her son, Giovanni Galeazzo. His uncle, Ludovico il Moro, succeeded in imprisoning them, and to give himself some support, married Beatrice d' Este of Ferrara, and gave his niece to the Emperor Maximilian in marriage, together with 400,000 ducats, to secure Imperial confirmation of his lordship. Thinking to make himself still more secure, he had married his nephew to a Neapolitan princess. It was from this quarter that his troubles first came. The King of Naples demanded that now his regency should end, since his nephew was of age. Ludovico, perhaps at the suggestion of Beatrice, looking for a way out and uncertain of the attitude of every one, and |