troop of white-plumed lances, exiled from his native Siena by adverse factions, and offered him a safe retreat in his state until times should change; an invitation which he declined, and so incurred a bloody death. At Florence the people gladly welcomed the conqueror of Volterra, and the magistracy received him at the door of the Palazzo Vecchio.
The war now impending was alike iniquitous in its motives, and disastrous in its attendant circumstances. Its seat was in the lower plains of Lombardy, where they merge into a wide delta, formed by the arterial channels of the rivers Po and Adige, and veined by the minor drainage of the Polesine and Ferrarese territories. Most of
"That level region, where no echo dwells,"
was, and still continues, so embanked that its waters may easily be let loose upon the hapless cultivators, submerging their dwellings and swamping their crops. Numerous streams, navigable by boats, laid it open to privateering incursions, highly attractive to amphibious Venetian adventurers. Finally, the malaria, always generated by summer heats, was naturally more inveterate when invaders had opened the sluices and broken the banks, thereby flooding an unusual extent of marsh-land. Thus ravaged by fire and sword, and decimated by disease, the unhappy natives had good cause to curse the ambition of which they were victims. In no part of Italy had the people been so exempt from the calamities of war. The family of Este, ever addicted to habits of almost effeminate indulgence, had been long represented by Duke Borso, whose reign, as described in the Ferrarese Diary, was one continued revel at home and pageant abroad. Those who would understand the extent to which prodigal magnificence and immoderate festivity were carried in the Peninsula, will there find details of refined luxury and lavish expenditure, scarcely credible in an age but emerging from what we are accustomed to regard as barbarism, or in a state enjoying no extraordinary resources.
The plan of the campaign was to reduce Ferrara by a combined attack, in which a flotilla of five hundred vessels of light draught, fitted out at Ancona and Venice, was to ascend the Po, and co-operate with the troops of Sanseverino. War was proclaimed on the 3rd of May, but the Venetian general had already opened his operations by invading the Polesine, a fenny dependency of the d'Este family extending between the Adige and the Po. Marching his army southward from Legnano, he crossed the Veronese marshes upon a hastily constructed roadway of beams, supported by flat boats and faggots, and attacked Mellara on the north bank of the Po. Having taken it in three days, he advanced eastward to Castelnuovo, which capitulated after a ten days' siege. Following the river's course, he reached Ficheruolo on the 11th of May, and immediately invested it. This place being scarcely more than twelve miles from Ferrara, already menaced by the armament on the lower reaches of the river, the Duke of Urbino advanced to meet the enemy, and posted himself at La Stellata, which lay opposite Ficheruolo and commanded the passes of the Po. His opinion of the state of matters may best be gathered from a despatch addressed by him about this time to Lorenzo de' Medici, and printed by Fabronio from the Florentine archives.
"Magnificent and dearest Brother,
"Your mightiness will see by the copy, herewith sent to the eight lords of the Balia, of a letter I have written to the most illustrious Duke of Ferrara, that I am advised of the loss of the fort of Mellara, and of the enemy's intention to unite the flotilla with their land forces, and to advance with the stream upon Ferrara: nor can there be a question that this design may to a certain extent succeed, unless prevented by speedy and effective measures on the part of the most serene League, that illustrious lord not being able to maintain himself single-handed, as your magnificence has already heard from himself.
"The remedy that occurs to me in this urgent danger is that your excellent Signory should send him as many infantry as possible, preferring those of Romagna, and the Val di Lamone, both as nearest and as the best drilled, and thus more suitable than any others that can be thought of. And so soon as the most illustrious Lord Duke of Milan shall forward the infantry and cavalry, for whom I have applied to him, I shall move upon the duchy to make the enemy pull up. And when the most serene League shall provide what is requisite for honour and utility, enabling me to face him, I am prepared to prove to him that it is one thing to form a project, but quite another to carry it into effect. I care not to detain your magnificence, feeling assured that once aware of the importance of this, your prudence will not delay the needful provisions.
"I urgently remind your magnificence to forward with all speed the infantry, as agreed on, into my state and that of the Lord Costanzo [of Pesaro]; for I have ordered my men-at-arms not to follow me till these come up, seeing it would be a risk to expose our territories without a force equal to defend them at all hazards. … From Rovere [opposite Mellara], the 4th May, 1482."196
The affairs of the League were far from promising. Ferdinand, caring little to send his troops through a hostile state in search of distant and unprofitable laurels, preferred carrying on a little war of his own against the Pope in the Pontine marshes to marching upon Lombardy. The Tuscans, ever averse to battle-fields, employed their stipendiaries, under Costanzo Sforza, in guarding the Umbrian principalities. The brunt of the war thus fell upon the Lords of Milan and Mantua; and the Duke of Urbino, ill satisfied with their exertions, took boat soon after the date of this despatch, and proceeded in person to urge further exertions upon them both. Sanzi, somewhat inconsistently, selects this visit of urgency to pause upon his raptures with the works of art he saw at Mantua, introducing an episodical criticism, and a catalogue of the best painters and sculptors of Italy, which will be afterwards noticed.197 On the 20th of May he returned, bringing with him their contingents to La Stellata, where the League lay almost inactive during the siege of Ficheruolo on the opposite bank of the Po, their offensive operations being confined to a pretty constant and galling discharge of long swivels across the river into the Venetian camp, which they also submerged by cutting the banks of the Mincio. This irksome aggression was answered by a message from Sanseverino that he would presently return fire for their water, and by sending to Federigo a fox in a cage, as a hint that, with all his cunning, he too might be entrapped; a paltry taunt, which provoked only a smile from the veteran. No warfare could be more irksome and inglorious; but Federigo, regarding Ferrara as Italy's best bulwark against the ambitious maritime Republic, resolved to defend it at any sacrifice. Ficheruolo held out until the end of June, by which time the marsh fever had become more fatal than human weapons, and mowed down both armies. The Venetian proveditore or commissioner was among its earliest victims; but, as the summer heats increased, the epidemic spread with augmented virulence, until 20,000 men are said to have perished in this miserable contest. Passing over the sad details, we may borrow from Sanuto an absurd incident which varied these horrors. In order to divert the people from their misfortunes, and to inspire them with courage, their sovereign had devolved extensive powers upon a commission or council of sixteen "sages," and the Duchess sent for a wandering friar, whose eloquence and sanctity were in high repute, to preach in the cathedral. One of his orations was wound up by an offer to provide an armada of twelve galleons, which should disperse the Venetian force before Ficheruolo. On the appointed day he produced a dozen of pennons, each surmounted by a cross, along with figures of Christ, the Madonna, and forty saints; and with these he formed a procession, marching at its head, and followed by a concourse of fanatics to the river's brink, opposite the leaguer. There he commenced shouting a sermon across the stream to Sanseverino; but the Duke of Urbino, attracted by the hubbub, sent him away, covered with ridicule, saying, "Why, Father, the Venetians are not possessed! Tell the Duchess it is money, artillery, and troops that we want to expel them." Although Federigo's obstinate policy averted from the doomed capital the visitation of a siege, its miseries were scarcely the less from such exemption. Many dead bodies, thrown by both armies into the river, aggravated the pestilence, which, spreading to the city, so deterred the peasantry, that its supplies were interrupted, until famine augmented the mortality. In this crisis, Sanzi represents the commander of the League as addressing to the Pontiff the following remonstrance:—
"Most holy Father! turn thy face away
From this so needless and destructive war,
Which direst ills on Italy entails:
Thy pastor's hand put forth that rose to pluck,
Ere others reap its glory: be invoked
With sov'reign and paternal care to free,
From discipline so ruinous and