278

FLORENCE RECOVERS PISA.

[CHAP. VI. more than himself, subsequently transferred his share to Maximilian; in consideration of which, and of the further aid of 300 lances, Maximilian, ever mean and necessitous, agreed to relinquish his pretensions to the regency of Castile.1 Pisa was at this time brought to extremity of famine. The Florentines entered it June 8th, 1509, and behaved with great liberality in relieving the distress of the inhabitants.

1 Prescott, Ferd. and Isabella, vol. iii. p. 349.

CHAP. VII.]

BATTLE OF AGNADELLO.

279

W

CHAPTER VII.

HEN the Venetians were at length tardily convinced of the reality of the League of Cambray, they endeavoured to detach some of the members from it; but in this they were unsuccessful, as well as in their attempts to obtain aid from England and the Ottoman Porte. Their own resources, however, enabled them to assemble a considerable army on the banks of the Oglio, consisting of about 30,000 foot and 12,000 horse, under two Orsini; the veteran Count of Pitigliano, with Alviano, a bastard of the same house, as second in command; with whom were joined Andrew Gritti and George Cornaro, as Provveditori. In the spring Louis despatched a herald to declare war against the Venetians, and about the same time, Julius launched against them a bull of excommunication, filled with the bitterest reproaches; to which the Venetians replied by a manifesto equally abusive, and, as usual, they appealed from the Pope to the expected General Council. In April Louis passed the Alps at the head of an army somewhat inferior in force to that of the Venetians. He had crossed the Adda, and was marching along its banks, when, at a bend of the river, the hostile armies suddenly found themselves in presence. A battle ensued, May 14th, 1509, which has been called by the French the Battle of Agnadello, and by the Italians, the Battle of Vailà, or of the Ghiara d'Adda. On this day the French van was led by Chaumont d'Amboise and Marshal Jacob Trivulzio; Louis himself commanded the main body, while La Palisse and the Duke of Longueville brought up the rear-guard. Pitigliano, whom the Venetian Senate had ordered to avoid a battle, had passed with his van the spot where the encounter took place. Alviano, with his division, had therefore to sustain the whole shock of battle; and though he made a brave resistance, his troops were cut down or dispersed, and he himself made prisoner. This victory enabled Louis to take possession of the whole Ghiara d'Adda. Crema was sold to him by the treacherous Venetian governor, Concino Benzone; Cremona, Bergamo, and Brescia also opened their gates. Peschiera, one of the few places that

280

PROCEEDINGS OF THE LEAGUE.

[CHAP. VII. resisted, was taken by assault; when Louis, with an inhumanity alien to his general character, caused its brave defender, Andrew Riva, and his son, to be hanged from the battlements, and the garrison to be put to the sword.

Louis had now achieved the conquest of all the territory assigned him by the Treaty of Cambray-namely, as far as the Mincio; he therefore halted his victorious army, and left the Emperor to achieve his part by reducing the places east of that boundary. He delivered to Maximilian's ambassador the keys of Verona, Vicenza, and Padua, which the inhabitants had sent him in token of their submission; and after making a triumphant entry into Milan, he dismissed great part of his army, and returned home. Meanwhile, the Papal army, under command of Francis Maria della Rovere, a nephew of the Pope's, had entered Romagna, all the towns of which, except Ravenna, were soon reduced. Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and the Marquis of Mantua, who had also joined the League, had succeeded in capturing several places. Although Ferdinand of Spain had ratified the Treaty of Cambray, he had no intention of carrying it out, beyond the recovery of his Neapolitan towns. Before the commencement of hostilities he had assured the Venetians that he had only entered into that part of the treaty which related to the Turks; that he was ignorant of Louis's motive in attacking them, and that he would use for them his good offices with that King. He took, at first, no part in the war in Upper Italy, but he sent a body of Spaniards to lay siege to Trani. It was late before the Emperor Maximilian appeared in the field. While the King of France was gathering his forces, he had assembled a Diet at Worms, to whom he submitted the plan of the League, and demanded their support. This, however was not only refused by the Diet, but they even accompanied their refusal with reproaches and complaints. Maximilian retorted with truth and vigour, though without effect, in a celebrated apology; and he found himself compelled to resort to his hereditary dominions to levy an army. It was not till three weeks after the battle of Agnadello that he appeared at Trent, with one thousand horse, and eight companies of infantry, for he had been delayed in raising even this small force, till he had received some money which he had

1 Daru, Hist. de Venise, liv. xxii. § 12, and Coxe, House of Austria, ch. xxiv., represent Louis as advancing to the neighbourhood of Venice, and insulting the Queen of the Adriatic with a distant

cannonade; but there does not appear to be any adequate authority for this statement. See Muratori, Annali, t. x. p. 41; Sismondi, Rép. Ital. t. xiii. p. 467; Martin, Hist. de France, t. vii. p. 376.

CHAP. VII.]

DESPERATE SITUATION OF VENICE.

281

borrowed from the King of England,' and from his other allies; and he was further detained in Trent till he should receive some auxiliaries raised by his daughter Margaret.

After the defeat of Agnadello the situation of Venice seemed desperate. A great part of the remnant of her army under Pitigliano had dispersed; the rest, almost in revolt, had retired to Mestre, on the Lagoon. It was under these circumstances that the Venetians issued the celebrated decree, by which they released all their Italian subjects from their allegiance; and thus, by an act by some attributed to fear and despair, by others to a refined and subtle policy, stripped themselves of what their enemies were seeking, and reduced their dominion to the islands which had been its cradle. They also abandoned to Ferdinand the seaport towns which they held in Apulia, and sent ambassadors to make the most humble submission to Pope and Emperor. Julius at first received the ambassadors with haughtiness, and prescribed some very insulting conditions; though at the same time he held out hope that he would not be inexorable. Antonio Giustiniani, the ambassador despatched by the proud aristocracy of Venice to Maximilian, is represented by some authors as making on his knees a most humiliating address to the Emperor; and he is said to have carried with him a carte blanche, on which Maximilian might write his own conditions. It is, at all events, certain that Venice made very humble submission, and even offered to pay the Emperor and his successors a yearly tribute of 500 pounds of gold; but Maximilian, whose chivalrous and romantic temper had been charmed by the magnanimity of Louis in abstaining from all encroachment on his possessions, had resolved to adhere to the French alliance; and he had even burnt his Red Book, in which were recorded all the injuries that he had ever received from France. He was not yet, however, in a position even to occupy the towns which had voluntarily surrendered, except with very inadequate forces; for Padua itself, though, from its vicinity to Venice, the most exposed to danger, he could spare only about 800 German troops. The lower classes in that city were favourably disposed towards the Venetians, who, encouraged by the absence of the French army, and by the apparent weakness of the

1

Henry VII. was a warm supporter of Maximilian, and in 1502 lent him 10,000l. for the war against the Turks. Rymer, tom. xiii. p. 9.

His speech is given by Guicciardini, lib. viii. (tom. iv. p. 193 sqq., ed. Milan,

1803), and the Latin original, from which he professed to translate it, has since been published by Goldasti, in the Polit. Imperial. But by Venetian authors it has been pronounced a literary imposture.

282

SIEGE OF PADUA.

[CHAP. VII. Emperor, permitted Andrew Gritti to retake Padua, which he captured by surprise, July 17th, 1509: upon which, all the surrounding territory declared in favour of the Venetians. This was the first symptom that Venice was beginning to revive, and it was followed by a few more successes. The peasants of North Italy, ruined and incensed by the ravages of French and Germans, supplied numerous willing recruits to her army, whose ranks were also swelled by the garrisons recalled from the towns in Romagna and Apulia, which had been abandoned to the Pope and the King of Aragon, as well as by the enlistment of fresh Albanians and Dalmatians; and Pitigliano thus again found himself at the head of a very considerable force. On the other hand, Maximilian's troops were also at last beginning to assemble on the frontier. The loss of Padua made him reflect with shame on his inactivity, and he resolved to wipe out the disgrace by recovering that city. His generals, Rudolph of Anhalt, the Duke of Brunswick, and Christopher Frangipani, a Hungarian, marched into the Friuli and Istria, where they took several places. In the war in these districts the Germans are said to have committed the most horrible cruelties, and to have hunted out with dogs the women and children who had hidden themselves in the cornfields. Maximilian, after ravaging the country round Padua, established his headquarters before the gate of Portello, September 15th, 1509. The Venetians, sensible of the importance of Padua, had thrown their whole army into that place. At the instance of the Doge, Leonardo Loredano, two of his sons, followed by 100 foot soldiers raised at their own expense, joined the garrison, and this animating example was followed by 166 nobles, each with a train proportioned to his means; though, by Venetian custom, those of gentle blood should serve only in the fleet. Thither, also, came all the peasants of the surrounding districts, with their herds and flocks; and that vast but deserted city received, without inconvenience, within its walls, a multitude amounting to five times its usual population.

Maximilian's army consisted of some 40,000 men, with 200 guns- a larger force than had for centuries been employed in any siege. All parties to the League of Cambray were represented there by at least a small body of troops, which consisted of Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and French; but of the last there were only 500 lances, under La Palisse, and 200 gentlemen volunteers. During this siege Maximilian gave signal proofs of bravery, activity, and intelligence; he was constantly present at the post of danger, and displayed all those military qualities which made