impregnable.
To it the Count his daring aims addressed;
And, knowing that a rock, which few to scale
Would venture, jutted midway from the ridge,
At midnight's murky hour the spot he gained,
With few but agile comrades, well prepared
With ladders; then alone and stealthily
The outposts reconnoitred, slumbering all,
Like men who knew no fears save from on high.
Next scaling one by one that arduous rock,
And reaching thence the level space beyond,
The town his soldiers entered silently.
Sudden uprose their cry, with clash of arms,
And furious blows and crackling flame, the work
Befitting, whilst the startled garrison,
Knowing nor whence nor what the sounds,
No struggle made, but rushed in desperation
Or here or there, whilst others stood transfixed
To find themselves befooled. Not more surprised
Was he who gained the golden fleece, to see
From the plough's furrow armed men spring forth,
Than were these luckless denizens to find
Their stronghold carried in the sudden fray."
A. Nini, del. A. Marchetti, sculp.
SAN LEO AND MAIUOLO
From a drawing by Agostino Nini
A somewhat different account of the means by which S. Leo was taken, has been adopted by Baldi, from Volpelli's history of that place.71 Matteo Grifone, who, from being a miller at S. Angelo in Vado, became a staunch follower of Count Federigo, and subsequently a general in the Venetian service, obtained permission to attempt a surprise. Accompanied by twenty picked men, he, in a dark and rainy night, gradually made his way to an outpost which he knew to be seldom occupied, and there left all but one comrade, with whom he effected an entrance by means of scaling-ladders. Silently and stealthily they two went from house to house, fastening each door with the chain which usually hung outside. At dawn, Federigo by concert led his troops to a feigned assault, to repel which the garrison sallied down the ridge. Grifone then, hastily admitting his men, closed the gates upon these skirmishers, and displaying in the piazza eight pair of colours which he had brought, raised the cry of Feltro! Feltro! The few defenders left in the citadel, conceiving the town to have been carried, and its inhabitants (who being barred into their dwellings could offer no resistance) to have sided with the enemy, surrendered without a blow. A temporary reconciliation with Sigismondo soon followed, by the interposition of Francesco Sforza, who gave to Malatesta his natural daughter Polissena in marriage, as a means of strengthening his hold on La Marca.
The father of Sforza, whether by birth a peasant or a gentleman, had owed his fortunes to his sword, which won him wealth and honours in various Italian states, especially in Romagna and Naples.*72 His son succeeded to these honours, as well as to the command of his veterans, and inherited talents and address of still higher quality. Availing himself of the enfeebled papacy, and the confusion into which the ecclesiastical states fell during the contest of Eugenius IV. with the Council of Basle, he overran La Marca, whilst Fortebraccio menaced Rome itself. In order to save the latter, Eugenius abandoned the former to Sforza, with the title of Marquis, and the authority of Vicar; this bribe was accepted, and the service rendered for it was the restoration of his supremacy over the rest of the papal territory. On the death of Joanna of Naples, Francesco Sforza, now the first soldier of his day, acknowledged René as her successor, and when that monarch, by withdrawing in 1442, left the kingdom to his rival Alfonso, Sforza lost his Neapolitan dignities and estates. The sacrifice was more than compensated by his marriage with the Duke of Milan's natural daughter; yet for a time this splendid alliance brought with it no good fruits. Filippo Maria had acceded to it with indifferent grace, and jealousy of his son-in-law led him, in 1443, to join Eugenius and Alfonso in a combination for wresting from Francesco the March of Ancona.
Nicolò Piccinino being again hired to serve against his old enemy, Count Federigo preferred, after his father's obsequies, joining him before Monteleone to remaining idle at home, Sanzi assuring us—
"That martial practice was his sole desire,
Ready his guard to mount by night or day,
And deeming cowardly the love of quiet."
He immediately attended his general to an interview with the King of Naples at Terracina, embarking at Civita Vecchia; and the impression made by him on that monarch is thus finely given by the same chronicler, in language splendid as his reception:—
"As its bright rays the comet's track precede,
So the Count's virtues harbingered his way.
And as Apollo scattering o'er the dawn
His plumes of gold, along the orient sky,
E'er he emerges calmly from his couch,
Bears in his brilliant orb the blazing signs
Of bounteous disposition: thus the youth
Round the king's inmost heart himself entwined
With hope's sweet fillet, and a lodgment made
Firm as the solid nail in growing tree."73
After three days spent in concerting plans for an attack upon La Marca, Nicolò returned to Tuscany, but Federigo was invited by Alfonso to remain with him until the campaign should open. Ere long, however, he rejoined his troops at Viterbo, and, after a foraging march through the enemy's country, reached Fano just before Sforza, who had for some time remained there awaiting his Venetian and Florentine contingents, put Piccinino once more to the rout at Monteluro. Giovanni Sanzi, then a youth residing at Colbordolo, went forth to see the battle, which he describes with much spirit:—
"War's crash and clang were there; the horseman's charge
With shock impetuous, and with ringing cheers
That seemed the vaulted sky to scare. There, too,
Men huddled lay on earth with dismal howls,
Their drums and spears a booty: some the while
Encouraging, some eager, some dismayed.
The very air, with clouds surcharged and dim,
Seemed wailing for the slaughter of that day,
Its fierce assaults and sanguinary scenes."
The Count shared not in this defeat, but lent opportune aid to rally the broken and disorganised troops, and was about this time rewarded by Eugenius with his promised investiture of the countship of Mercatello. In July he repaired to the baths of Campagnatico, in the Maremma, to recruit from an attack of fever, but on his return found new occupation from the Lord of Rimini.
The grandfather of that seigneur was Galeotto Malatesta, whose patrimony included Rimini, Faenza, and Fossombrone, and whose elder brother, Malatesta Malatesta, had transmitted the fief of Pesaro to his great-grandson Galeazzo. This Galeazzo was a man of feeble parts and degraded character, altogether unable to maintain his authority over a disgusted people, or to cope with his bold and ambitious cousin Sigismondo of Rimini. After the defeat of Monteluro, he had reluctantly received into Pesaro some of Piccinino's stragglers, and Sigismondo availed himself of this pretext to persuade his father-in-law Sforza to seize and make over to him that city. But Francesco, intent on sustaining his interests in La Marca, soon left the affair in the hands of Sigismondo, who, although able to overrun the surrounding country, could make no impression upon the capital, held by Count Federigo, even after its poor-spirited lord had withdrawn to Forlì. Thus baffled for eighteen months, the impetuous Sigismondo, by way of cutting short the contest, sent to Federigo this insolent