R. Nisbet Bain - The Cambridge Modern History

The French meanwhile advanced rapidly. They had entered Turin on September 5; by November 8 they had reached Lucca almost without fighting. Italy was supposed to possess the most scientific generals of the age, but her soldiers were mercenaries who fought for booty as well as pay, and who thought it folly to slay an enemy who might be good for a rich ransom. An Italian battle had consequently become almost as bloodless as a review. The barbarity of the French, who actually strove to smite their antagonists hip and thigh, inspired the Italian warriors with nearly as much disgust as dismay: for the first time, perhaps, in history, armies fled although and because they despised the enemy. “The French,” said Alexander, “have conquered Italy con gesso,”—in allusion to the proceedings of the quartermaster, who simply chalks off the chambers and stables he thinks fit to appropriate. The political disorganisation was worse than the military, and evinced even more clearly the condition to which centuries of selfish intrigue had reduced Italy. Except the King of Naples, who could not abandon Alexander’s cause without deserting his own, no Italian prince gave any material aid to the Pope. Piero de’ Medici, the feeble and unpopular successor of the great Lorenzo, professed to be the ally of Rome and Naples. But ere the French had appeared before Florence, he made his submission in the hope of preserving his rule, which was nevertheless overthrown by a popular movement a fortnight afterwards (November 9). The Florentines acted partly under the inspiration of the Dominican Savonarola, who could hardly but perceive the fulfilment of his own prophecies in Charles’s expedition, and might plead the precedent of Dante for the ruinous error of inviting a deliverer from beyond the Alps.

Alexander showed as much resolution as could be expected, mustering troops, fortifying Rome, arresting Cardinals of doubtful fidelity, and appealing to the rest to accompany him in case of his being compelled to withdraw. But here lay the essential weakness of his position: he could not withdraw. Some authority must exist at Rome to negotiate with Charles VIII upon his entry, now plainly inevitable. If the King did not find the lawful Pope in possession, he might set up another. The need of a reformation of the Church in capite et membris had never appeared more urgent, and although the irregularities of Alexander’s life might be exaggerated by his enemies, they still afforded ground for doubting whether the caput at least was not beyond cure; while his election might be plausibly represented as invalid. If, on the other hand, Charles found Alexander in Rome, he might not only depose him but seize his person. The more violent the alarm into which Alexander was thrown-and so intense it was that a convention with the King of Naples providing for his removal to Gaeta was drawn up and approved, though never signed-the more credit he deserves for his perception that to await Charles would be the lesser peril of the two, and for his resolution in acting upon it. The lesson, that for his own security the Pope must be a powerful temporal sovereign, was no doubt fully impressed upon him: the still more important lesson, that spiritual authority cannot exist without allegiance to the moral code, was less easy of inculcation.

It soon appeared that the Pope’s policy was the right one for his present emergency. Charles VIII entered Rome on December 31, and Alexander shut himself up in the Castle of St Angelo. He seemed at the King’s mercy, but Charles preferred an accommodation. Men said that Alexander had bribed the French ministers; probably he had, but, corrupt or incorrupt, they could scarcely have advised Charles otherwise. The Pope could not be formally deposed except through the instrumentality of a General Council, which could not easily be convoked, and which, if convoked, would in all probability refuse to take action. Spain might be expected to take the side of the Spanish Pope, and there seemed no good reason for anticipating that other nations would take part with France. The imputations on Alexander’s morality were not regarded very seriously in so lax an age: and if, as a matter of fact, he had bought the papacy, the transaction could only be proved by the evidence of the sellers. If, on the other hand, Charles simply imprisoned the Pope without displacing him, he threw Christendom into anarchy, and incurred universal reprobation. To attempt the regeneration of the Church would imperil other projects nearer to Charles’s heart, and would be as wide a departure from the original purposes of his expedition as in the thirteenth century the capture of Constantinople had been from the aim of the Fourth Crusade. These considerations might well weigh with Charles’s counsellors in advising an agreement with the Pope, although they must have known that conditions extorted by compulsion would bind no longer than compulsion endured. They might indeed have obtained substantial security from the Pope, if they could have constrained him to yield the Castle of St Angelo; but this he steadfastly refused. Cannons were twice pointed at the ramparts; but history cannot say whether they were loaded, and only knows that they were never fired. It was at length agreed that the Pope should yield Civita Vecchia, make his Turkish captive over to the King, and give up his son Cesare as a hostage. Nothing was said of the investiture of Naples, and although Charles afterwards urged this personally upon the Pope at an interview, Alexander, with surprising constancy, continued to refuse, expressing however a willingness to arbitrate upon the claims of the competitors. On January 28, 1495, Charles left Rome to march upon Naples, and two days afterwards was taught the value of diplomatic pledges by the escape of Cesare Borgia, and by Alexander’s refusal to surrender Civita Vecchia. A month afterwards the much-coveted Jem died,—of poison, it was said, administered before his departure from Rome; but this is to attribute to poison more than it is capable of performing. Others professed to know that the Prince had been shaved with a poisoned razor; but his death seems sufficiently accounted for by bronchitis and irregularity of living. Jem’s death took place at Naples, which Charles had already entered as a conqueror. King Ferdinand’s successor, Alfonso, timorous as cruel, and oppressed by a consciousness of the popular hatred, had abdicated and fled to Sicily, leaving his innocent son Ferrante (or Ferrantino) to bear the brunt of invasion. The fickle people of Naples, who had had ample reason to detest the severity of the late King Ferrante’s government, and were without sufficient intelligence to appreciate the wisdom and care for the public welfare which largely compensated it, hastened to acclaim Charles, and Ferrantino retired with touching dignity. Within two months the Neapolitans became as weary of, Charles as they had ever been of Ferrante, and a dangerous League was formed in Italy behind his back. Ludovico Sforza had come to perceive how great a fault he had committed in inviting the French King; for the claims of the Duke of Orleans to Milan were at least as substantial as Charles’s pretensions to Naples. Maximilian and Ferdinand were no less perturbed at the rapidity of the French conquests; the Pope’s sentiments were no secret; and even the cautious Venetians saw the necessity of interference. Between these five Powers a League was concluded (March 31, 1495), whose object was veiled in generalities, but which clearly contemplated the expulsion of the French from Naples. The menace sufficed; on May 20, eight days after his solemn coronation as King of Naples, Charles quitted it, never to return. He did indeed leave a garrison, which was soon dislodged by Spanish troops sent from Sicily, aided by a popular rising, and the young King, so lately deserted by all, was welcomed back with delight. Charles, meanwhile, had proceeded towards Rome, professing an unreciprocated desire to confer with the Pope. Alexander withdrew first to Orvieto, then to Perugia. Charles, after a short stay in Rome, renewed his march northwards. On July 5 an indecisive engagement with the forces of the League at Fornovo, near Parma, insured him a safe retreat, and he was glad to obtain even so much. Notwithstanding the inglorious termination of an expedition which had begun so brilliantly, it forms an epoch in the history of Italy and Europe. In revealing the weakness of Italy, the decay of her military spirit, the faithlessness and disunion of her princes and republics, it not only invited invasion, but provided Europe with a new battlefield. It set up an antagonism between France and Spain, and, while alluring both Powers with visions of easy conquest, ruined the latter State by imposing sacrifices upon her to which she would in any case have been unequal, just at the time when her new acquisitions in America taxed her to the uttermost. It preserved Europe from France by diverting the energies which, wisely exerted, would easily have subdued the Low Countries and the Rhine provinces. Most important of all, the condition of general unsettlement which it ushered in greatly promoted all movements tending to the emancipation of the human intellect. Great was the gain to the world in general, but it was bought by the devastation and enslavement of the most beautiful region of Europe.