Chapter VIII: Italy in the Fourteenth Century, 1313-1402 (2)

No sooner had the wealthy burghers won their victory by the abuse of what should have been a legal proceeding, than they were divided by the family quarrel of the Albizzi and the Ricci. Both families belonged to the _popolo grasso_, and [Sidenote: The Albizzi and Ricci.] their feud had at first none of the political significance which came to be associated with it. In fact, the Ricci were the first to urge the harsh enforcement of the anti-Ghibelline laws, hoping to discredit their opponents, who came originally from the Ghibelline town of Arezzo. But the Albizzi succeeded in gaining the support of the _parte Guelfa_, and were thus enabled to turn the tables on their rivals. The _ammonizio_ was as useful a weapon against the Ricci faction as against the _popolo minuto_. By 1374 the Albizzi and their supporters had got the government into their hands. But the indiscreet violence of their proceedings provoked serious opposition. The _ammoniti_, constantly increasing in number, became more and more formidable. The desire for office, such a passion among the Florentines, was not merely due to ordinary ambition, but also to the fact that the taxes were assessed by the arbitrary will of the state officials. The dominant faction, however, failed to appreciate the dangers that confronted them, and in seven months of 1377 more than eighty persons were admonished. This recklessness brought about their ruin. In May 1378, Salvestro de’ Medici, who belonged to the Ricci party, was drawn as gonfalonier. The bags were so depleted that the possibility of his selection was foreseen, but his attachment to Guelf principles was so well known that it was considered unsafe to accuse him. In his second month of office he proposed a law to lessen the power of the _parte Guelfa_, and to facilitate the recovery of civic rights by the _ammoniti_. As the scheme met with opposition in the council, one of Salvestro’s supporters, Benedetto Alberti, called the people to arms, and the law was carried under the pressure of mob violence. The result was an unforeseen revolution. The Ricci had been driven by common grievances into an alliance with the lesser guilds, but the [Sidenote: Rising of the Ciompi, 1378.] demand for redress was taken up by the _Ciompi_, the lowest class of all. They were influenced, not so much by the wish to obtain political power as by the desire to extort better terms from their employers. Their movement was half revolution and half strike. The rising of the mob, which speedily passed beyond the control of those who had called in its aid, might have destroyed the foundations of the state but for the action of a poor wool-comber, Michel Lando, who was raised to the office of gonfalonier by the accident of popular caprice. He succeeded in suppressing disorder, while he satisfied the more rational demands of his own class. A number of new guilds were formed of artisans who had hitherto been unorganised. Of the eight priors, three were to be taken from the _arti maggiori_, three from the _arti minori_, and two from the new guilds. After effecting this settlement, Lando, with a modesty as rare as the untaught statesmanship he had displayed, resigned his office. His retirement left the chief power in the hands of the party which had started the movement, but had been unable to control its course. Salvestro de’ Medici had disappeared from public life. Though he was only a distant relative of the later Medici, his career served to associate the family name with the popular cause, and to give them a cue for the policy they afterwards pursued. The leadership of his party fell into the hands of a triumvirate, consisting of Benedetto Alberti, Tommaso Strozzi, and Giorgio Scali. Alberti was a fairly moderate politician, but his two associates were ambitious demagogues, who imitated the abuses of the Albizzi, and employed the _ammonizio_ to rid [Sidenote: Counter-revolution in 1382.] themselves of their personal enemies. The inevitable reaction set in in 1382. A hostile _signoria_ came into office, and a servant of Giorgio Scali was arrested on a charge of bearing false witness. Strozzi fled from the city, but Scali, trusting in the favour of the mob, determined to resist. His attempt to rescue his servant was a failure, and he himself was seized by the priors. The populace would not rise on his behalf, and he was put to death. A counter-revolution undid all the changes of 1378. A _balia_ constituted by a parliament abolished the new guilds, and decreed that the priors should be chosen, four from the greater, and four from the lesser guilds. The gonfalonier was always to belong to the former, who thus secured a majority in the signory. The Albizzi and other exiles were recalled to the city.

For the next fifty years after 1382, Florence was ruled by an ever-narrowing oligarchy. First, the greater guilds [Sidenote: Oligarchical rule in Florence.] recovered a practical monopoly of office. Later, certain members of these guilds obtained such complete ascendency that the government almost ceased to be a republic, and thus the way was prepared for the absolutism of the Medici. In 1387 Benedetto Alberti, the most blameless of the leaders in 1378, was driven into exile. A new _squittinio_ filled the bags with the names of partisans of the dominant faction. A separate bag was formed for the chief leaders of the faction, and two priors were to be drawn from among them (_Priori del Borsellino_). Six of the priors were to belong to the greater guilds, and only two to the lesser. In 1393 Maso Albizzi, the leader of the oligarchy, held the office of gonfalonier, and further measures were taken to strengthen its supremacy. If a gonfalonier were drawn who was displeasing to the rulers, another was to be drawn in his place, though the former was to remain one of the priors. Three priors instead of two were to be taken from the _borsellino_, or special bag. The signory was allowed to raise troops, and to levy taxes for their payment, without having to obtain the consent of the councils. These measures provoked a rising among the artisans. The rioters repaired to the house of Vieri de Medici, and invited him to lead them against the Albizzi. Vieri, who was a kinsman of Salvestro de’ Medici, refused the offer of the mob, and the movement was suppressed. In 1397 another rebellion, in which two members of the Medici family were concerned, was also put down, and the rule of the dominant oligarchy was more firmly established than ever.

The great characteristic of this period of oligarchical government is the activity and aggressiveness of the republic [Sidenote: Growth of Florentine dominions.] in its external relations. Before 1342 Florence had acquired the rule of considerable territories beyond the limits of its own _contado_, but most of these dominions were lost in the disturbances which accompanied the expulsion of the Duke of Athens. The great service which the oligarchy rendered to Florence was the recovery of its ascendency in northern Tuscany. Prato, Pistoia, Volterra, San Miniato, and several lesser towns were acquired between 1350 and 1368. In 1387 the important town of Arezzo was sold to the Florentines by Enguerrand de Coucy, who had held it as the lieutenant of Louis of Anjou. For some years after this the growth of Florence was checked by a desperate war against the encroachments of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who threatened to unite Tuscany and Lombardy under his rule. It was in this war that Sir John Hawkwood commanded for Florence against the Milanese _condottiere_, Jacopo del Verme. After Hawkwood’s death in 1394, the republic was for a time in serious danger. To save their independence, the Florentines took the unusual step of appealing for German assistance, and urged the Elector Palatine, Rupert, who had been elected king of the Romans in opposition to Wenzel of Bohemia, to make war against the lord of Milan. The defeat of the German army at the battle of Brescia left Florence in greater straits than ever, when the sudden death of Gian Galeazzo in 1402 not only saved the Florentines from Milanese aggression, but enabled them to resume their policy of expansion. Within the next twenty years Pisa, Cortona, and Livorno had been added to the dominions of Florence.

In northern Italy the fourteenth century witnessed the final struggle between the two great maritime republics, [Sidenote: Venice and Genoa.] Venice and Genoa. Ever since the beginning of the Crusades they had been rivals for commercial and political ascendency in the Levant. At first the advantage had been on the side of the Venetians, and the diversion of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 to attack the Eastern Empire had given them a dominant position in the islands and coasts of the Ægean. But the Genoese had their revenge in 1261, when they aided to overthrow the Latin Empire, and to establish Michael Palæologus in Constantinople. As a reward for their services they received the suburb of Pera with the fortress of Galata, whence they could dictate to the occupants of the imperial throne. The control of the straits enabled them to assume a virtual monopoly of the trade of the Black Sea, and their port of Caffa in the Crimea became one of the most flourishing cities in the east. Pisa, which had once been the equal or even the superior of Genoa, lost all maritime importance after the battle of Meloria (1284). For the next century Venice and Genoa contended on fairly equal terms. In wealth and maritime power they were evenly matched. Genoa had most of the northern trade that passed through the Black Sea and Constantinople; but Venice, which retained possession of Negropont, Crete, and other islands, had the advantage in the other two channels of eastern trade, through Asia Minor and Egypt. Genoa, however, was ready to seize any opportunity of contesting this southern trade with her rival. The occupation of Chios gave her a valuable port in the Ægean. Cyprus, which became an important commercial centre after the fall of Acre (1291), was the scene of many conflicts between the two republics. The people and the ruling house of Lusignan were in favour of Venice, but the Genoese went to war to secure their interests, and the seizure of Famagusta in 1373 gave them for some time the upper hand in Cyprus. On the African coast they also succeeded in establishing trade settlements. Farther west, the Genoese had several things in their favour. The occupation of Corsica gave them a great addition of maritime strength, though their dispute with Aragon for the possession of Sardinia exposed them to the enmity of the Catalans, who ranked after Venice and Genoa as the third naval power in the Mediterranean. On the mainland the mountains which confined Genoa to a narrow strip of coast, and prohibited territorial expansion, served also to protect her from continental enemies. Venice, on the other hand, ever since the war with Mastino della Scala had given her territories on the mainland, was exposed to the hostility of her neighbours, especially the kings of Hungary and the lords of Padua. If these states were allied with Genoa, Venice ran the risk of being cut off from supplies both by sea and land. As against this balance of strength in east and west, there was one important difference between the two states which ultimately turned the scales decisively in favour of Venice. By the beginning of the century she had built up a constitution which, whatever its narrowness and other defects, had the supreme merit of stability. The so-called conspiracy of Marin Falier, which led to the execution of the Doge in 1355, only served to prove the strength of the edifice which he proposed to attack, and the impotence of the chief magistrate to resist the Council of Ten. Genoa, on the other hand, was one of the most turbulent and factious of Italian cities. For a long time the leaders of these domestic feuds were the four noble houses of Doria, Fieschi, Spinola, and Grimaldi, who disguised their family jealousies under the names of Ghibelline and Guelf. In 1339 the Genoese, weary of their factions, adopted for their chief magistracy the title of Doge, and conferred it by acclamation upon an eminent citizen, Simone Boccanegra. After the fashion of Florence and other Tuscan communes, the nobles were disqualified from holding political office. But in Genoa the remedy proved wholly illusory. The nobles continued to command the military and naval forces of the republic, and were thus enabled to retain their predominance in the state. The offices, which they could not hold themselves, were conferred upon their plebeian adherents, as the Adorni and Fregosi, who for a long time succeeded each other in the dogeship according to the fluctuations of power among their noble patrons. As Commines tells us, ‘the nobles in Genoa could appoint a doge, though they could not hold the office themselves.’ Thus Genoa continued to be distracted by factions, and when the citizens sought a brief interval of repose, the only method by which they could secure it was to sacrifice their liberty to a foreign ruler—sometimes to Milan, and sometimes to France.

The attempt of the Genoese merchants at Caffa to exclude the Venetians from the lucrative free trade with the Tartars led to numerous quarrels in the Black Sea, and [Sidenote: War of Venice and Genoa, 1350-5.] ultimately to open warfare between the two states. Venice secured the support of John Cantacuzene, the Greek emperor, who disliked Genoese dictation at Pera, and of Peter of Aragon, who was contending with Genoa for the possession of Sardinia. In 1352 Niccolo Pisani, with a powerful fleet of Venetian, Greek, and Catalan vessels, sailed to attack Pera, which was defended by the Genoese admiral, Paganino Doria. In the narrow waters of the Bosphorus the allies were unable to make full use of their numbers, and a furious storm threw their vessels into such disorder that they did more harm to each other than to the enemy. Pisani was forced to retire, but Doria, though victorious, had suffered such losses that he was superseded by Antonio Grimaldi. In 1353 the Aragonese, who had fewer interests in the Levant than their allies, insisted upon transferring hostilities to the coast of Sardinia. In the open water off Cagliari the Venetians and Catalans gained a complete victory, and Grimaldi with difficulty escaped to carry the news of this crushing disaster to Genoa. Pisani was too weakened by the encounter to venture a direct attack upon Genoa, but the Genoese were so panic-stricken that they offered the lordship of the city to Giovanni Visconti, in order to gain the aid of Milan. Venice replied to this move by an alliance with the opponents of Milan on the mainland, but the struggle continued to be fought out at sea. Paganino Doria, restored to the command after Grimaldi’s defeat, once more carried the war into eastern waters. Pisani, after an uneventful campaign in 1354, had retired into winter quarters at Portolungo on the coast of the Morea, under the shelter of the island of Sapienza. There the Venetians were surprised by Doria, and their fleet was completely annihilated (November 4, 1354). The battle of Sapienza was the most decisive engagement of the struggle. It was followed by the conspiracy and death of Marin Falier, and the Venetians were so discouraged by the combination of external defeat and domestic treason that they concluded peace with Genoa in 1355. All demands for concessions in the Black Sea were abandoned, and Genoa retained its superiority in the northern trade.

For the next twenty years the two republics remained at peace with each other. Genoa succeeded in throwing off the Milanese yoke in 1356, with the result that the factions resumed their quarrels. Venice became involved in a war with Lewis the Great of Hungary (1356-8), in which Dalmatia was lost and Treviso was only retained with difficulty. This was followed by a revolt in Crete which was put down (1364), and by almost continuous quarrels with Francesco Carrara of Padua. These events forced the Venetians to maintain a policy of peace in the east. Even the war of 1373 in Cyprus, which subjected that island to the suzerainty of Genoa, failed to provoke more than a verbal protest from Venice. But events in the Eastern Empire at last drove the two republics to resume hostilities. John Palæologus had promised to Venice the rocky island of Tenedos, which commanded the entrance to the Hellespont. The Genoese, regarding this as threatening their security in Pera, organised a palace revolution in Constantinople, and seated Andronicus on the throne in place of his father. In return for this aid the usurper ceded Tenedos to his allies. But the governor of the island refused to recognise the authority of Andronicus, and handed his charge over to the Venetians. This was the immediate occasion for war. Vettor Pisani, in 1378, defeated the Genoese fleet off Cape Antium, and cleared the Adriatic of [Sidenote: War of Chioggia, 1378-81.] the pirates who plundered Venetian commerce. The winter he spent in the harbour of Pola, and was still there when he was confronted by Luciano Doria in command of another Genoese force (May 7, 1379). In the battle which followed Pisani was completely defeated, and was sentenced by the indignant Venetians to six months’ imprisonment and exclusion from any command for five years. Pietro Doria, the successor of Luciano who had been killed in the engagement, led the victorious fleet to the lagoons of Venice. The town of Chioggia, which commanded one of the main entrances from the open sea, was taken after an obstinate defence, and the way was opened to Venice itself. A prompt attack would probably have been successful, but Doria preferred the slower and surer method of a blockade. In this he reckoned upon the aid of Francesco Carrara, who eagerly welcomed the opportunity of humbling the formidable republic, and undertook to prevent the transit of supplies from the mainland. Never had the Venetians been in such a strait, but the courage of the citizens rose to meet the danger. Every vessel in Venetian waters was equipped and manned, and Vettor Pisani, the idol of the sailors, was released from prison to assume the chief command. Messengers were sent eastwards to recall Carlo Zeno, who had been despatched to the Levant at the beginning of the war with the second Venetian fleet. Meanwhile Pisani undertook the defence of Venice, and gradually drove the Genoese back to their stronghold of Chioggia. There he determined to shut them in by blocking the main outlets to the sea. Ships full of stones were sunk in the channels of Brondolo, Chioggia, and Malamocco, and thus the blockaders were in their turn blockaded. But Pisani’s force was hardly strong enough to maintain the blockade during the storms of winter. If reinforcements came from Genoa he would be forced to retire, and Venice would once more be in imminent danger. So conscious were the Venetian leaders of the risk of ultimate defeat that they even discussed the possible abandonment of their islands and the transference of the republic to Crete. On the 1st of January 1380 sails were seen in the distance, but as they approached they proved to be the long-expected fleet of Zeno. This sealed the fate of the Genoese in Chioggia. Every effort to force a passage, or to cut a canal through the low-lying barrier between them and the sea, was foiled by the vigilance of the besiegers, and on June 24 the whole of the Genoese force was compelled to capitulate.

By the fall of Chioggia Venice secured a magnificent and permanent triumph over her great Italian rival. The naval [Sidenote: Decline of Genoa.] power of Genoa never recovered from the blow which it then received, and commercial superiority could only be maintained by maritime ascendency. Chagrined at such a sudden change from anticipated triumph to humiliating defeat, distracted by domestic feuds, and perpetually endangered by the aggressive policy of Milan, the Genoese sought to escape from their troubles by accepting the suzerainty of Charles VI. of France, and admitting a French governor into the city (1396). For the next century Genoa enters into history mainly as an object of contention between France and Milan, and the greatness of the republic perished with its independence.

But Venice had to pay more than one heavy penalty for her success. In the east the war of the two republics had been [Sidenote: Venice after the War.] suicidal. In their mutual jealousy they had completely lost sight of their common interest in upholding the Eastern Empire against the Turks. The struggle between Venice and Genoa was among the chief causes of the rapid growth of the Ottoman power, which was destined to be fatal to both the contending states. The more Venice gained in the east by the decline of Genoa the more she stood to lose to the advancing Turks; and nearer home the struggle was costly to Venice. By the peace of Turin, in 1381, she had to confirm the cession of Dalmatia to Hungary, to resign the island of Tenedos, which had been the occasion of the war, and to give up Treviso and all other possessions on the mainland of Italy. All that she had gained in the contest with the Scaligers was lost again. It is true that Treviso was ceded to Leopold of Hapsburg in order to disappoint Francesco Carrara, whose aggrandisement would be much more dangerous to Venice. But Leopold had too much to engage his attention in Germany to be keenly interested in Italian territories. Five years later he sold Treviso, with Feltre and Ceneda, to Carrara, who thus obtained that control over the approaches to the Alpine passes which had driven Venice to make war on Mastino della Scala. For the second time Venice was forced by the same danger to take an active part in the politics of northern Italy. There was one obvious method of humbling the house of Carrara, and that was to invite the intervention of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who required the annexation of Padua to complete his supremacy in Lombardy. On the other hand, such a policy involved the equally obvious danger that the lord of Milan would prove a far more formidable neighbour than the lord of Padua. To understand the course of action adopted by Venice in this dilemma it is necessary to turn to the history of Milan.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century the lordship of Milan was disputed by two families, the della Torre and the [Sidenote: The Visconti in Milan.] Visconti. The supremacy of the latter was established in 1312 when Henry VII. conferred the title of imperial vicar upon Matteo Visconti. Of Matteo’s numerous family four sons deserve mention: Galeazzo, Lucchino, and Giovanni, who all ruled in Milan, and Stefano, who died in 1327 without obtaining power, but whose children subsequently came to govern. Galeazzo, the eldest son, who succeeded his father in 1322, was deposed by Lewis the Bavarian in 1327, and died in the following year at the siege of Pistoia. His son Azzo recovered, in 1329, the sovereignty of Milan, and the tide of imperial vicar. He proved a successful ruler, and by joining in the successive leagues against John of Bohemia and Mastino della Scala, he extended his authority over the greater part of central Lombardy. On his early death in 1339 his uncle Lucchino succeeded to the lordship over Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Lodi, Piacenza, Vercelli, Novara, and a less complete sovereignty over Pavia. To these dominions Lucchino added Parma in 1346, and Tortona, Alessandria, and Asti in 1347. On the west these territories were bounded by the dominions of the Marquis of Montferrat and the Count of Savoy; while on the east they were separated from Venice and the States of the Church by the possessions of four tyrants of lesser power—the Gonzagas in Mantua, the house of Este in Ferrara, the della Scala in Verona and Vicenza, and the Carrara in Padua. On the death of Lucchino in 1349 his dominions passed to his younger brother Giovanni, who had entered the Church, and had received from Benedict XII. the archbishopric of Milan. In spite of his ecclesiastical position Giovanni did not scruple to aggrandise himself at the expense of the Papacy. In 1350 he induced the Pepoli, who had made themselves lords of Bologna, to cede that city to him. This advance from Lombardy into central Italy made a profound impression on contemporaries, and completely altered the position of the Visconti. It marked the beginning of a prolonged quarrel with the Papacy, and it alarmed Florence and the Tuscan communes for their independence. In 1353 the defeat of Genoa in her naval war with Venice led to the temporary submission of the Ligurian republic to Milanese rule. This was the last great triumph of the militant archbishop, who died suddenly in 1354.

The house of Visconti was now represented by the three sons of Stefano: Matteo, Bernabo, and Galeazzo. They agreed to divide their uncle’s dominions between them, but to keep the two chief cities of Milan and Genoa under their joint rule. Matteo, who was vicious and debauched even [Sidenote: Bernabo and Galeazzo Visconti.] beyond the standard of the Visconti, was assassinated by order of his brothers in 1355, and Bernabo and Galeazzo divided his share between them. On the whole their joint rule was wonderfully harmonious, though in later life they fell rather apart and adopted different residences—Bernabo in Milan and Galeazzo in Pavia. Few pictures are more repulsive than that which has been handed down of the domestic government of the two brothers. In the midst of lavish profusion and ostentatious patronage of men of letters, they ruled their subjects with a rod of iron. State criminals, instead of immediate execution, were publicly tortured for forty days according to a fixed daily programme. The game laws were enforced with atrocious severity even for those days. A peasant who had killed a hare was given to Bernabo’s hounds to be devoured by them. Yet these bloodthirsty despots, belonging to an upstart family and without any recognised or legal title in their dominions, were allowed to ally themselves by intermarriage with the greatest dynasties in Europe. They were the richest rulers of their time, and their wealth induced even kings to shut their eyes both to the cruelty of their rule and to their ignoble origin. Bernabo married his daughter Verde or Virida to the Leopold of Hapsburg who afterwards fell in the battle of Sempach. Galeazzo obtained for his son, Gian Galeazzo, the hand of Isabella, daughter of John of France, with the county of Vertus in Champagne; and his daughter Violante was married to Lionel of Clarence, the second son of Edward III. of England.

In spite of these alliances, which gave to the Visconti a unique position among the despots of northern Italy, the [Sidenote: Milanese reverses.] rule of the two brothers was by no means uninterruptedly successful. Genoa revolted in 1356 and recovered its freedom. Cardinal Albornoz, who was engaged in restoring papal authority in the Papal States, organised a league among the northern despots, the Gonzagas, the della Scala, the Marquis of Montferrat, and all who were jealous of Visconti ascendency. Pavia recovered its independence for two years under the encouragement of a republican monk, Jacopo Bussolari, but was compelled to surrender to Galeazzo in 1359. Asti, Novara, Como, and other western towns were for a time wrested from Visconti rule by the Marquis of Montferrat. A more serious loss was that of Bologna. Giovanni d’Oleggio, who had been appointed governor of the city by Giovanni Visconti, refused to acknowledge the authority of the latter’s nephews. When Bernabo endeavoured to compel his submission in 1360, Oleggio baulked him by surrendering Bologna to Albornoz. The successes of the papal legate and the return of Urban V. to Rome seemed for a moment to render hopeless any extension of the rule of the Visconti beyond the limits of Lombardy. But Albornoz died in 1368, Urban returned to Avignon in 1370, and a general revolt in Romagna against papal rule restored to the Visconti the advantages which for a moment they had lost. It was not, however, Bernabo Visconti who profited by these changes, but a new and more famous member of the family.

In 1378—an eventful year in Italian history—Galeazzo Visconti died, leaving his share of the family dominions to his only son, Gian Galeazzo. Fearing the ambition [Sidenote: Gian Galeazzo Visconti.] of Bernabo, who might well desire to provide for his numerous children at his nephew’s expense, the young prince ruled in Pavia with such ostentation of piety and moderation that his uncle deemed him a harmless simpleton. Having thus disarmed all suspicion, Gian Galeazzo decoyed his uncle from Milan to a friendly interview, consigned him to a prison which he never left alive, and reunited the territories of Bernabo with his own (1385). To the cruelty and unscrupulousness of his predecessors, Gian Galeazzo added a dogged resolution and a capacity for intrigue which enabled him to attain a height of power beyond their most sanguine dreams. Personally he was so timid that a sudden sound excited a terror which he could not conceal. But his lack of courage—an unusual defect among Italian tyrants—proved no bar to his ambition. His wealth enabled him to attract to his service most of the ablest _condottieri_ of the age, and to purchase from them a fidelity which was quite uncommon. Himself the husband of a French princess, he drew closer the connection with France by marrying his daughter, Valentina, to Charles VI.’s brother, Louis of Orleans (1389). The bride not only brought to the Orleans family the town of Asti as her dowry, but also an eventual claim to the succession in Milan which was fraught with most momentous consequences to Europe. A few years later Gian Galeazzo succeeded in removing one great defect in the dignity of the Visconti by obtaining from Wenzel, king of the Romans, the formal creation in his favour of a hereditary duchy of Milan (1395).

The great ambition of Gian Galeazzo Visconti was to found a kingdom of northern Italy, and circumstances were [Sidenote: His schemes.] so extraordinarily favourable that he very nearly succeeded in gaining his object. The two great Guelf powers, Naples and the Papacy, might naturally be expected to oppose such a design. But the Papacy was in the throes of the Schism, and Naples was the scene of civil strife between the two houses of Anjou. Of the three leading republics whose independence was directly threatened, Genoa was powerless. Florence was hampered by the jealousy of Siena, Perugia, and other communes in Tuscany and Romagna, while Venice had for the moment more immediate enemies than Milan, and might be bribed to aid in their destruction. The empire was in the feeble hands of Wenzel, France in the equally feeble hands of Charles VI., and both princes were allied with the Visconti. There seemed to be hardly any danger either of foreign intervention or of efficient resistance in Italy.

The first task which Gian Galeazzo undertook was the reduction of eastern Lombardy. A quarrel between Francesco Carrara and Antonio della Scala gave him his opportunity. [Sidenote: Conquest of Verona and Padua.] He offered his aid to both princes, but ultimately concluded a treaty with Carrara in 1387 by which Verona was to go to himself and Vicenza to Padua. Both cities were easily taken by Gian Galeazzo’s troops, and the once famous house of della Scala was ruined. But the lord of Milan kept Vicenza as well as Verona, and Carrara perceived too late that he had only hastened his own downfall. Venice was eager to punish the neighbour who had done all he could for her destruction in the wars both with Hungary and with Genoa. In spite of the obvious danger of aggrandising Milan, Venice agreed to a partition of the territories of Carrara. Resistance to such a combination was hopeless; Padua was compelled to surrender to Milanese rule, and Treviso and the marches were handed over to Venice (1388). The supremacy of Gian Galeazzo in Lombardy was now uncontested. The remaining princes of Savoy, Montferrat, Mantua, and Ferrara, were all, for one reason or another, his humble vassals.

In 1389 Gian Galeazzo was free to turn his attention to Tuscany and Romagna, where his ambition seemed to be equally favoured by internal dissensions. Siena, Perugia, and a number of petty lords in Romagna [Sidenote: War with Florence, 1390-2.] joined in a league against Florence, whose fall would have assured the supremacy of Milan. But the Florentine oligarchy served the republic faithfully in this hour of danger. Sir John Hawkwood was taken into the service of Florence, and the Count of Armagnac was bribed to bring a body of French troops to aid the republic. Visconti had engaged the most eminent Italian leaders, Jacopo dal Verme, Facino Cane, and others, and the numerical superiority of their troops might have gained an ultimate victory. Armagnac was defeated and slain, and this disaster compelled Hawkwood, who had invaded Lombardy as far as the Adda, to conduct a difficult and hazardous retreat. But the balance was turned against Milan by a wholly unexpected reverse in the north. The younger Francesco Carrara, who had been imprisoned with his father after the fall of Padua, succeeded in escaping. After hairbreadth escapes and the most romantic wanderings over Europe, he succeeded in getting supplies of money from Florence and of men from Bavaria. With a small body of followers he entered Padua by the bed of the Brenta in June 1390. The citizens welcomed his return, and the rule of Milan was overthrown. This revolution in Padua was a great blow to Gian Galeazzo. It compelled him to withdraw part of his forces from Tuscany, and in 1392 he decided to postpone his southern enterprise and to conclude a treaty. Padua was left in the hands of Francesco Carrara on condition of paying tribute to Milan; Florence was to abstain from intervention in Lombardy, and Gian Galeazzo from intervention in Tuscany.

The treaty of 1392 was followed by a few years of troubled peace, broken by only a brief renewal of hostilities in 1397, which was ended by another treaty in 1398. During these years Gian Galeazzo continued to prosecute his schemes by diplomacy and intrigue. [Sidenote: Successes of Gian Galeazzo.] In 1394 a revolution was effected in Pisa and the lordship of the city acquired by Jacopo d’Appiano, who was notoriously in the pay of Milan. Five years later, Appiano’s son completed the bargain by handing over Pisa to Gian Galeazzo in return for the principality of Piombino. Genoa only escaped a similar fate by a voluntary submission to France in 1396. Siena in 1399, Perugia and Assisi in 1400 sought to escape the disorders of faction by accepting the rule of Milan. Everywhere republican liberties seemed destined to give way to the advance of despotism. Paolo Guinigi, with the help of Milanese gold, made himself lord of Lucca in 1400, and in the next year Giovanni Bentivoglio became the master of Bologna. Slowly but surely the coils were being drawn round Florence, and the league which she had formed for the defence of liberty was wholly broken up. Hawkwood had died in 1394, and no leader of equal merit could be found except in the service of Milan. A momentary prospect of relief was offered when the princes of Germany in 1400 deposed the incapable Wenzel and gave the kingship of the Romans to the Elector Palatine, Rupert III. Rupert undertook to invade Italy and to crush the upstart ruler of Milan whom his rival had raised to the rank of duke. But the German troops were no match either in skill or in discipline for the mercenaries of Italy, and were utterly routed at Brescia by Jacopo dal Verme (October 24, 1401). The last hope of Florence disappeared when Giovanni Bentivoglio, who had turned against Milan, was compelled to surrender, and the Bolognese welcomed the substitution of a foreign for a native despot (July, 1402). But death intervened to thwart an [Sidenote: His death in 1402.] ambition which human opposition had failed to check. On September 3, 1402, Gian Galeazzo was carried off by the plague at the age of fifty-five. The kingdom of northern Italy perished with the man who had practically created it.

Footnote 9:

See Genealogical Table I, in Appendix.