CHAPTER XLI. ITALIAN MILITIA. - THE CAMERINO DISPUTES. HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER. "The great men whose talents gave lustre to that melancholy period had been formed under the influence of happier days, and would leave no successors behind them."- MACAULAY. THREE nearly cotemporary events had lately combined to extinguish the nationality of Italy, and those liberties which, shared in ample or more sparing measure by her many states, had till now crowned her military glories with intellectual renown. In the sack of Rome the power of the Keys had been shaken, the prestige of the papal city had passed away. The defence of Florence was the last effort of patriotism, and with it fell communal independence. The coronation of Charles V. laid upon the Peninsula an iron yoke of foreign despotism, which rendered her virtually a province of Spain. A necessary consequence of this sad change will be to limit the field of our investigation, and to restrict what remains of our work to the ducal family and their hereditary domains, which for the future were little more than an appanage of the Spanish monarchy. The Lords of Urbino had hitherto been prominent among the captains of adventure, and bore a part wherever engagements were offered, or hard blows to be had. But the condottiere system being now superseded, a new mode of warfare and machinery of defence became indispensable. Knight service and the romance of war were swept away by artillery; the imposing battaglia of men-at-arms proved powerless when confronted by battalions of steady infantry, or out-manœuvred by the dashing cavalry of Dalmatia. This lesson, first taught by the Swiss in their fastnesses, had been practically demonstrated to the Italians in every great action from the Taro to the recent Lombard campaigns, and had been adopted by most of their leaders. It now, however, became necessary to apply it in another sense, and, seeing that captains were no longer to be hired with their respective followings of efficient soldiery, to organise a militia of its own for the defence of each state, upon principles which Machiavelli was among the first to recognise and explain. Before that system came into general use, the Italian in fantry was notoriously incompetent to cope with transalpine levies, as Francesco Maria had bitterly experienced in the war of 1523-27. He therefore, in 1533, instituted a militia of his mountaineers, under the name of the Feltrian legion, which before his death numbered five thousand men, in four regiments, commanded by as many colonels. The object was to make them good soldiers without ceasing to be citizens; to maintain in readiness at small expense a military population, who were not men of war by profession. For this purpose lists were annually taken of all males from eighteen to twenty-five, learned professions and infamous persons being exempted, and to them arms were given. They were drilled and instructed in the necessary evolutions, and a proportion of them were called into active service when needed. On these occasions they were well paid; but, when kept on the reserve, their small stipend was rendered more attractive by a variety of political immunities and fiscal exemptions, including the exclusive privilege of bearing arms. The practical result was this, the able-bodied population were, on the one hand, brought into a sort of direct dependence on the executive, and, on the other, were taught that the safety of the commonwealth was intrusted to their swords and sinews. It is scarcely necessary to add that this system has been generally adopted, and that on it are still based the military institutions of most continental nations. In December, 1532, the Emperor returned to Italy, and was met near Vicenza by Francesco Maria, who welcomed him in his own name, and in that of the Signory. Dispensing with complimentary formalities, Charles received him at once to easy intercourse, and, requesting his continued attendance, spent much time in conversing with him on the art of war. At Bologna another congress was held by the Pontiff and the Emperor, in which were discussed the affairs of Italy, the proposed general council, and the matrimonial speculations of Clement for advancement of his house. The marriage of Alessandro de' Medici, now created Duke of Florence, was arranged with Margaret of Austria, natural daughter of Charles; but the hand of Caterina de' Medici, which the latter wished to be given to Francesco Sforza, was reserved by her ambitious uncle for a French prince. Charles left Bologna on the 28th of February, 1533, and embarked at Genoa for Spain, after giving some hope to Francesco Maria of a satisfactory settlement of his claims upon Sora. Clement in ten days after set out for Rome. The estrangement between these potentates, which at this meeting began to chill their intercourse, was greatly widened by the voyage of his Holiness in the following autumn to Marseilles, where he celebrated the nuptials of Caterina with Henry, second son and successor of Francis I. At this second congress of Bologna, Titian met the Emperor by special command; and it was perhaps on that occasion that he had commissions for portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, which now ornament the Florence gallery. The former is engraved as a frontispiece for this volume; of the latter we have lately spoken: both will demand further notice in our fifty-fourth chapter,and in the last No. of the Appendix. In April the Duchess Leonora gave birth to a son at Mantua, who was named after Julius II., and was destined to holy orders. His father had at the same time a severe fit of gout; and, on his return home, the painful duty devolved upon him of providing against the visitation of a scarcity which then lamentably affected Italy. The close of the year found him a suitor with the Pope in the affair of Camerino, which we shall now briefly explain. sons. The small state of that name in the March of Ancona had been ruled for nearly three hundred years by the Varana family, some of whom we have occasionally mentioned in these Memoirs, and whose pedigree is annexed. Exaggerating the domestic atrocities, then too frequent among Italians of their rank, they became revoltingly notorious, in 1433-4, for a complicated fratricide. Bernardo, Lord of Camerino, jealous of his brothers Giovanni and Pier-Gentile, the offspring of his father's second marriage, had them put to death by the agency of his own Ere many months passed, his subjects, loathing the foul deed, suddenly rose against its authors. With sweeping vengeance they slew him, his brother german Gentil Pandolfo, and his six sons, dashing the heads of the little ones against the wall. The succession was thus opened to Giulio Cesare, son of Giovanni, who, in 1451, married the only daughter of Sigismond Pandolfo, despot of Rimini. He lived to see the usurpations of Cesare Borgia, and, falling into the hands of Michelotto on the capture of La Pergola, the old man perished by the bowstring of that monster in 1502, along with his eldest son Venanzio, and two natural children. Venanzio had, in 1497, married Maria, the only sister of Duke Francesco Maria, of whom we have already had to tell a tale of scandal, and left one son Sigismondo. He was born in 1499, and escaped the fate of his father and uncles, from having been sent in infancy to Urbino. There he was educated; and we have seen him defending S. Leo, when scarcely beyond boyhood. After years of imprisonment and exile, his uncle Francesco Maria made an ineffectual attempt, on the death of Leo X., to vindicate his here ditary fief, from the usurpation of his paternal uncle, Giovanni Maria, its de facto lord. Sigismondo sought consolation for his hard fortunes in low debauchery, until he fell in 1522 by the hand of assassins, at the supposed instigation of his usurping uncle, who, in 1527, had absolution of the foul deed, and to whose career we must now turn." Giovanni Maria, second son of Giulio Cesare Count of Camerino, was sent to Venice on Borgia's approach, and so avoided the fate of his family. On the death of Alexander VI., being then in his twenty-second year, he made a descent upon La Marca, and possessed himself of his father's seigneury, in defiance of his infant nephew's title to it. His authority was recognised by the Holy See, at a time when the hereditary principle was loose, and a strong hand constituted the best claim. He found a warm supporter in Leo X., through sympathy of their common hatred for the della Rovere race, and received from him the lordship of Sinigaglia and prefecture of Rome, on the deprivation of Francesco Maria, along with the additional dignity of Duke of Camerino. After the death of Leo, Sigismondo for a few months made good his authority at Camerino, until supplanted by the usurper, whose title was conveniently completed by his nephew's murder; whereupon he became de jure its sovereign, and continued in undisturbed possession of his ill-gotten honours. On the death of Duke Giovanni Maria, in August 1527, the male heir of the fief was Ercole Varana, whose eldest son, Matteo, had been destined by the Duke's will to become husband of his infant daughter Giulia, then but four years old. This arrangement was, however, resolutely opposed by his widow, Caterina Cibo, neice of Leo X.; and ere any steps could be taken to carry it into effect, the town was sacked by Sciarra Colonna, who, with his son-in-law, Rodolfo Varana, a bastard • Many details regarding these transactions have been given, Vol. I. p. 394.; Vol. II. pp. 32. 305. 356. 402. |