which contains his tomb and that of his daughter Medea. Born within the territory of this city, and acquainted early in his paternal home with the miseries of war, Bartolommeo had earned his spurs in the Neapolitan wars, had fought under the unhappy Carmagnola for Venice, against Sforza for the Milanese republic, then in Venetian service against the same enemy, and after the peace of Lodi retired to his castle of Malpaga, in the valley of the Serio, enriched by his campaigns, a strong man, but resenting his fate, because, although the republic of St. Mark had chosen him as their captain-general amid great honours, and had paid him a considerable sum, there was no prospect before him of fresh laurels to be gained. The exiled Florentines now came to him, having already had connections with him, and excited his ambition. Diotisalvi Neroni was at Malpaga in October 1466, from whence he wrote to a confidant that great events were approaching; if he could be with him for two hours, he would tell him things to astonish him.[140] It seems that a prospect was held out to the condottiere of a dominion in the many-lorded and fickle Romagna—nay, of even gaining Milan itself. His old connections in various quarters, as well as the disturbances always prevailing under the minor dynasties, which gravitated now in one and now in another direction, would enable him to bring a considerable number of troops together.
In the Romagna—a name which is here employed in its widest signification for all the country from the Lombard frontiers to those of the march of Ancona, but which in a restricted sense comprises Ferrara, Bologna, the exarchate of Ravenna and Romandiola—the abnormal state of things still prevailed to which Dante alluded when he answered the question of Guido of Montefeltro, in the lower world by saying, that in the hearts of his oppressors the land was never free from war, even if peace prevailed there for the moment.[141] On February 14, 1279, Rudolph of Hapsburg relinquished this province, which had been till then regarded and governed as a part of the empire, in favour of the Church, which put forward old claims to a part, and the inhabitants had promised to be true to the Roman Church as heretofore to the Roman Empire; they wished their allegiance to be measured by their former obedience to the empire, of which the Church was the rightful successor. But the Popes had from the beginning shared their authority with the great and small lords who ruled in the various cities, the propinquity of which only made the feuds of the Signori and citizens more frequent and bitter. When the poet mentions the Polentani of Ravenna and Cervia, the Ordelaffi of Forli, the Malatesta of Rimini, Mainardo of Susinana, in Faenza and Imola, these are only a few out of the great number of those who allowed only a general superintendence to the representatives of the Popes, the Counts of Romagna and the legates sent from Rome or Avignon, while they governed almost unrestrictedly in their cities and the counties appertaining to them. When Pope Clement VI. sent the Cardinal D’Albornoz as legate to this state, about the middle of 1353, Romagna was lost to the Papacy. Albornoz regained, partially reconquered it; but he left the domination of the different families mostly as he found it, taking into account the inclinations and traditions of the cities themselves, and contenting himself in most cases with restoring the Papal authority as the supreme presiding power. In this way the municipalities retained their statutory rights and financial administration, were exempted from taxes and levies on payment of a very moderate feudal contribution, and chose their officers themselves, or, as happened with regard to the office of Podestà, presented the candidates to the Pope or to his legate. The position of the Papal plenipotentiaries was, however, all the more difficult when they took up their residence in great cities, where factions always prevailed; and the tedious insurrection which, actively participated in by Florence, spread itself over Romagna at the time of the last Pope in Avignon, Gregory XI., beginning at the Patrimony and Umbria, showed on what a weak footing the Papal power stood in the trans-Apennine provinces not long after the death of Albornoz.
In the time of which we are treating circumstances were very different in different parts of Romagna, not only from internal and local causes, but also in consequence of the interference of neigbouring powers. For as already, in the middle of the preceding century, Giovanni Visconti, Archbishop and Lord of Milan, had seized upon Bologna, so did Gian Galeazzo fifty years later. Central Italy was probably preserved only by the death of the most powerful of the Visconti from subjection to their supremacy; and subsequently the last of that ambitious house did actually get the great city, though only for a time, into his power. Venice had already begun to fix her gaze on Romagna, and had taken a firm footing in Ravenna in 1440, having declared Ostasio da Polenta, her former protégé, to whom Filippo Maria Visconti had also attached himself, to have forfeited the ancient inheritance of his house, and sent him and his sons prisoners to Candia, whence none of them returned. While the republic of St. Mark thus began to gain territory on the seaside, and pursued a policy which some sixty years later brought about a most dangerous conflict with the Papacy, Florence made an attempt on the side of the Apennines, just as if the land was without a master. In various ways, by purchase and mortgage, by the subjection of petty lords such as the wide-spread Guidi, and the voluntary resignation by the communes of their independence (which happened with Modigliana in 1445), the Republic had extended its dominions more and more over the ridge of the mountain range, and created the territory, reaching far towards Faenza and Forli, which down to our day has borne the name of Grand-ducal Romagna. This was, however, not enough. The Accomandigia which has been spoken of in connection with the Tuscan lords and territories extended likewise to many in Romagna, and formed a political connection which would have been in direct opposition to the Papal sovereignty had this sovereignty not been so loose in its form. The Malatesta of Giaggiuolo, the Manfredi of Faenza and Imola, the Alidosi of Imola and Castel del Rio, the Ordelaffi of Forli, the counts of Montefeltro and Urbino, were all Florentine Raccomandati, as was the case with many families of Umbria, bordering upon Romagna and partly dependent upon her—the Accoromboni, Brancaleoni, Gabrielli of Gubbio, the Vitelli of Città di Castello, the Fortebracci of Montone, and the Trinci of Fuligno. The duration of the Accomandigia was very various; it was concluded for a certain number of years, just like a condotta or mercenary contract, or for life. The renewal followed then generally after a fixed interval, or from the successors of the stipulating parties in the former manner. The lords in the States of the Church made the reservation not to be obliged to fight against the Pope or his vicars, the legates or governors; some of them even refused to fight against the Angevin kings of Naples or the Roman people. What difficulties and perplexities must therefore arise from the frequent contests between the Popes and their feudatories, or between the former and their neighbours, out of such associations, is evident.
The state in this province actually most independent of Rome was Ferrara.[142] In the beginning of the thirteenth century the Ferrarese had elected Azzo VI. of Este their hereditary ruler, and the investiture granted him by Pope Innocent III. of considerable possessions in Romagna, as well as in the province of Ancona, had given the house much distinction. A century later, in consequence of a family quarrel, Venice attempted to put forth her claims to Ferrara, and Pope Clement V. was obliged to give way. The attempt of the latter to hold the town in the immediate control of the Church, at first successful, soon failed, and the citizens in 1317 recalled the family of Este, who were eleven years later invested with town and territory by Pope John XXII. The imperial fiefs acquired by the lords of Ravenna, from which they received in 1452 the ducal title from the Emperor Frederick III., nineteen years before Pope Paul II. granted it to Borso d’Este for Ferrara, made their position more independent than that of the other Papal feudatories; but certain rights relating to the republic of Venice, as well as the not always friendly neighbourhood on the lower Po, gave rise to complications which might easily become dangerous. Far less great in territory and power were the counts, afterwards dukes, of Urbino;[143] they, with their little land, were in the same political circumstances between Tuscany and Umbria, Romagna and Ancona. Their family was invested by Frederick Barbarossa with the hilly region of Montefeltro, which afterwards formed the north-western part of their state. In the first decade of the thirteenth century they established themselves in Urbino, which was subject to the Papacy, and gradually extended their possessions on both sides of the mountains—to the south by the acquisition of Gubbio and Cagli, to the north at a much later time as far as the Adriatic sea. They were a warlike race which had once given to the contest of Guelphs and Ghibellines a courageous general in Guido of Montefeltro, and had now one of the best and most highly-prized condottiere in Federigo, who assumed the government in 1444, and for whom Pope Sixtus IV. afterwards renewed the ducal title which his brother and predecessor had borne.
The