ambassadors abroad, while the acting magistrates at home were unpaid.
This form of government and councils continued, with slight modifications, until the month of December 1494, when the overthrow of the Medici was the signal of events which materially altered the constitution of the Republic.
CHAPTER VII.
FOREIGN RELATIONS. WAR AND PEACE. COUNCIL OF UNION.
While these things were going on at home, the exigencies of war for many years made serious demands on the State and its resources, and more than once the contest was carried into the territory of the Republic. To the dangers which arose from the fact that two ambitious and warlike princes governed the north and south of Italy, was added the unfavourable circumstance, that a Pope sat in St. Peter’s chair who was constantly drawn into the din of war, less, perhaps, from his own restlessness, than from the hopeless confusion in the States of the Church. The principal scene of the war was Romagna, a country which, by its distracted condition, by the number of its petty lords, and the violent character of its inhabitants—still more by its geographical position and the vicinity of powerful States—seemed destined to be the general battle-field.
The hereditary enmity of Filippo Maria Visconti was aggravated by the hatred of the Florentine exiles, who, despairing of a return to their country on peaceful terms, stirred up the Duke of Milan to strife with her, under the usual pretext that it was not a war against their country, but against a faction. The want of success which attended the troops of Visconti in the territory of Lucca, under Niccolò Piccinino, was an enticement for Cosimo de’ Medici to strive to obtain possession of this town, as he did six years later, but with no greater success than before. The war, begun in the Lucchese territory, was continued in the Romagna, where Florence and Venice, with the aid of Pope Eugenius IV., resisted Visconti. The Milanese army did indeed once again cross the Apennines, but only to suffer a decisive defeat, on June 29, 1440, at Anghiari, between Arezzo and the valley of the Tiber. This defeat led to peace in the following year, and enlarged the Florentine territory by the mountain region of the Casentino, where the supremacy of the counts Guidi, allied with Milan, who, since the days of imperial power in Italy, had had dominion here, came to an end. Scarcely was the Milanese war at an end than Florence, like Venice, was drawn into the contest with Naples which Renè of Anjou was carrying on against King Alfonso of Aragon; both representatives of the dualism which the fall of the Hohenstaufen had bequeathed to South Italy. The Sienese country, the territory of Volterra and the Pisan Maremma, were the scenes of a struggle which might have been dangerous to the Republic, if the king had not been detained by besieging smaller places—though he was not unskilled in war; he suffered moreover from the malaria of the plains, and wasting the years 1447 and 1448 in inglorious and fruitless undertakings, was obliged for a while to lay down his arms without concluding peace, with the intention of taking them up again under more favourable circumstances. The opportunity was not long delayed.
In the midst of the feud between Florence and the Aragonese, Filippo Maria Visconti died, the last of a race which, more than any other, had represented the arbitrariness and cruelty of mediæval tyranny. He had appointed Alfonso of Aragon his heir, with a view perhaps that the weapons which he had wielded all his life long without stirring from the walls of his castle, might not rest even after his death. But the dukedom of Milan was in danger of dissolution. The capital, with Como, Novara, and Alessandria, cried out for a republic; Lodi and Piacenza threw themselves into the arms of Venice, which, engaged in ceaseless strife with Visconti, was just now pressing him hard. Duke Charles of Orleans, Filippo Maria’s nephew, prepared to support the rights of inheritance by force of arms; while the Duke of Savoy turned his eyes towards the rich Lombardy which his successors never again lost sight of. But there was another competitor—not a prince, but more able and skilled in arms than all the princes of the time: Francesco Sforza, the son of a valiant and successful condottiere, who had risen from the ranks of the peasantry. He had been at the age of twenty-three leader of the victorious mercenary troops of his father, who gave his name to a famous school of warriors. He had served Florence and Venice in war against the Visconti and Alfonso of Aragon; striven for and against Pope Eugenius IV. in Romagna and the frontiers; and in the midst of rapid changes of fortune and party, preserved relations with Florence which proved more lasting than those of the condottieri generally were. Now attracted by Filippo Maria, again repelled by suspicion even after the latter had bestowed on him the hand of his natural daughter, Bianca Maria, he was about to come to his assistance, when the victorious Venetians had already crossed the Adda. The duke died, and the new republic, threatened by so many foes, chose him to be their general. Three years later he became Duke of Milan. Francesco Sforza possessed himself of the supreme power by treachery and force of arms, but he saved for half a century the independence of a State which, after 170 years of tyranny, was no longer capable of life as a commonwealth, and furthered its prosperity, while he powerfully contributed to the formation of a political system which, however great its weakness, was the most reasonable under existing circumstances.
Without the aid of Florence and Cosimo de’ Medici, he would not have attained his ends. Cosimo had recognised his ability in the war with Visconti, and made a close alliance with him. In order to retain him in his service, when Filippo Maria offered him as a bait the hand of his daughter, Cosimo had gone in 1438 to Venice, in order to obtain more favourable conditions for him from the Republic, friendly to himself, in which, however, he failed. During the distress of Sforza on the frontiers, he had supported him as much as he could. His son Piero was present at Sforza’s marriage. Now it was necessary to choose between Sforza and Venice, for there was only one alternative; either the condottiere would make himself Duke of Milan, or the Republic of San Marco would extend its rule over all Lombardy. In Florence several voices declared in favour of the old ally on the Adriatic, who, however she might seek her own advantage with unscrupulous zeal, had yet ever been faithful at critical moments. Cosimo de’ Medici gave the casting-vote in Sforza’s favour. Perhaps it was hard to think of his old personal connections and obligations, but political expediency gained the day. Without Florentine money, Sforza would never have been able to maintain the double contest—on the one side against Milan, which he blockaded and starved out; and on the other against the Venetians, who sought to relieve it, and whom he repulsed. And when, on March 25, 1450, he made his entry into the city which proclaimed him ruler, he was obliged to maintain himself with Florentine money till he had established his position and re-organised the State. A Florentine embassy went to congratulate him—Piero de’ Medici, Neri Capponi, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni. The Venetians were exceedingly irritated, as was natural. They judged rightly that the Sforza owed his success essentially to the favour of their former friends. Their indignation became fiercer when Florence entered into negociations (June 29) with King Alfonso, with whom they were still at war. Common animosity to Florence and Sforza drew Venice and the king nearer to one another, and at the end of 1451 an alliance, offensive and defensive, was concluded against them, which Siena, Savoy, and Montferrat joined. It was at first directed against the Duke of Milan; the Florentines had the choice of joining it, for form’s sake. But when they replied that, as peace prevailed in Italy, new alliances were not necessary, the Venetians banished all the Florentine merchants from their territories, refused a hearing to Otto Niccolini, who was entrusted with an embassy, and persuaded the king to adopt like measures. On May 16, 1452, the Republic and, four weeks later, King Alfonso declared war, which the Emperor Frederick III., then in Italy, and Pope Nicholas V., successor to Eugenius IV. since 1447, in vain endeavoured to prevent.
The Venetians began the war in Lombardy, the Neapolitans in the valley of the Chiana. Ferrante, Duke of Calabria, the king’s son, commanded the latter; Sigismundo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, the Florentines, who sent only foreign mercenaries to the field this time. The persistency with which the democracy had borne down the ancient nobility, who were trained to bear arms, had, in conjunction with the preponderance of the industrial and mercantile interests, completely annihilated the former warlike skill of the people, and though the Republic, in reliance on her pecuniary power, tried to hold her ground by means of mercenaries, she was far from being able to compete with States like Venice, Naples, and Milan, who, partly in