Jacob Burckhardt - The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

Authorities quoted by Dr. Geiger are: Reumont, Lorenzo , 2nd ed., i. 310; ii. 450. Desjardins: Négociations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane (Paris, 1859), i. 173. Kervyn de Lettenhove, Lettres et Négociations de Philippe de Comines , i. 180.

Fabroni, Laurentius Magnificus , Adnot. 205 sqq. In one of his Briefs it was said literally, ‘Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo;’ but it is to be hoped that he did not allude to the Turks. (Villari, Storia di Savonarola , ii. p. 48 of the ‘Documenti.’)

E.g. Jovian. Pontan. in his Charon . In the dialogue between Æcus, Minos, and Mercurius ( Op. ed. Bas. ii. p. 1167) the first says: ‘Vel quod haud multis post sæculis futurum auguror, ut Italia, cujus intestina te odia male habent Minos, in unius redacta ditionem resumat imperii majestatem.’ And in reply to Mercury’s warning against the Turks, Æcus answers: ‘Quamquam timenda hæc sunt, tamen si vetera respicimus, non ab Asia aut Græcia, verum a Gallis Germanisque timendum Italiæ semper fuit.’

Comines, Charles VIII. , chap. 7. How Alfonso once tried in time of war to seize his opponents at a conference, is told by Nantiporto, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1073. He was a genuine predecessor of Cæsar Borgia.

Pii II. Commentarii , x. p. 492. See a letter of Malatesta in which he recommends to Mohammed II. a portrait-painter, Matteo Passo of Verona, and announces the despatch of a book on the art of war, probably in the year 1463, in Baluz. Miscell. iii. 113. What Galeazzo Maria of Milan told in 1467 to a Venetian envoy, namely, that he and his allies would join with the Turks to destroy Venice, was said merely by way of threat. Comp. Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 222. For Boccalino, see page 36.

Porzio, Congiura dei Baroni , l. i. p. 5. That Lorenzo, as Porzio hints, really had a hand in it, is not credible. On the other hand, it seems only too certain that Venice prompted the Sultan to the deed. See Romanin, Storia Documentata di Venezia , lib. xi. cap. 3. After Otranto was taken, Vespasiano Bisticci uttered his ‘Lamento d’Italia, Archiv. Stor. Ital. iv. pp. 452 sqq.

Chron. Venet. in Murat. xxiv. col. 14 and 76.

Malipiero, l. c. p. 565, 568.

Trithem. Annales Hirsaug , ad. a. 1490, tom. ii. pp. 535 sqq.

Malipiero, l. c. 161; comp. p. 152. For the surrender of Djem to Charles VIII. see p. 145, from which it is clear that a connection of the most shameful kind existed between Alexander and Bajazet, even if the documents in Burcardus be spurious. See on the subject Ranke, Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtschreiber , 2 Auflage, Leipzig, 1874, p. 99, and Gregorovius, bd. vii. 353, note 1. Ibid. p. 353, note 2, a declaration of the Pope that he was not allied with the Turks.

Bapt. Mantuanus, De Calamitatibus Temporum , at the end of the second book, in the song of the Nereid Doris to the Turkish fleet.

Tommaso Gar, Relaz. della Corte di Roma , i. p. 55.

Ranke, Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker . The opinion of Michelet ( Reforme , p. 467), that the Turks would have adopted Western civilisation in Italy, does not satisfy me. This mission of Spain is hinted at, perhaps for the first time, in the speech delivered by Fedra Inghirami in 1510 before Julius II., at the celebration of the capture of Bugia by the fleet of Ferdinand the Catholic. See Anecdota Litteraria , ii. p. 419.

Among others Corio, fol. 333. Jov. Pontanus, in his treatise, De Liberalitate , cap. 28, considers the free dismissal of Alfonso as a proof of the ‘liberalitas’ of Filippo Maria. (See above, p. 38, note 1.) Compare the line of conduct adopted with regard to Sforza, fol. 329.

Nic. Valori, Vita di Lorenzo ; Paul Jovius, Vita Leonis X. l. i. The latter certainly upon good authority, though not without rhetorical embellishment. Comp. Reumont, i. 487, and the passage there quoted.

If Comines on this and many other occasions observes and judges as objectively as any Italian, his intercourse with Italians, particularly with Angelo Catto, must be taken into account.

Comp. e.g. Malipiero, pp. 216, 221, 236, 237, 468, &c., and above pp. 88, note 2, and 93, note 1. Comp. Egnatius, fol. 321 a . The Pope curses an ambassador; a Venetian envoy insults the Pope; another, to win over his hearers, tells a fable.

In Villari, Storia di Savonarola , vol. ii. p. xliii. of the ‘Documenti,’ among which are to be found other important political letters. Other documents, particularly of the end of the fifteenth century in Baluzius, Miscellanea , ed. Mansi, vol. i. See especially the collected despatches of Florentine and Venetian ambassadors at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of sixteenth centuries in Desjardins, Négotiations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane . vols. i. ii. Paris. 1859, 1861.

The subject has been lately treated more fully by Max Jähns, Die Kriegskunst als Kunst , Leipzig, 1874.

Pii II. Comment. iv. p. 190, ad. a. 1459.

The Cremonese prided themselves on their skill in this department. See Cronaca di Cremona in the Bibliotheca Historica Italica , vol. i. Milan, 1876, p. 214, and note. The Venetians did the same, Egnatius, fol. 300 sqq.

To this effect Paul Jovius ( Elogia , p. 184) who adds: ‘Nondum enim invecto externarum gentium cruento more, Italia milites sanguinarii et multæ cædis avidi esse didicerant.’ We are reminded of Frederick of Urbino, who would have been ‘ashamed’ to tolerate a printed book in his library. See Vespas. Fiorent.

Porcellii Commentaria Jac. Picinini , in Murat. xx. A continuation for the war of 1453, ibid. xxv. Paul Cortesius ( De Hominibus Doctis , p. 33, Florence, 1734) criticises the book severely on account of the wretched hexameters.

Porcello calls Scipio Æmilianus by mistake, meaning Africanus Major.

Simonetta, Hist. Fr. Sfortiæ , in Murat. xxi. col. 630.

So he was considered. Comp. Bandello, parte i. nov. 40.

Comp. e.g. De Obsidione Tiphernatium , in vol. 2, of the Rer. Italic. Scriptores excodd. Florent. col. 690. The duel of Marshal Boucicault with Galeazzo Gonzaga (1406) in Cagnola, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 25. Infessura tells us of the honour paid by Sixtus IV. to the duellists among his guards. His successors issued bulls against duelling.

We may here notice parenthetically (see Jähns, pp. 26, sqq.) the less favourable side of the tactics of the Condottieri. The combat was often a mere sham-fight, in which the enemy was forced to withdraw by harmless manœuvres. The object of the combatants was to avoid bloodshed, at the worst to make prisoners with a view to the ransom. According to Macchiavelli, the Florentines lost in a great battle in the year 1440 one man only.