PT 4 (The last part)
THE SFORZAS OF MILAN
With the death of Hawkwood the time of the foreign Condottieri in Italian service began to fade, and from this time on the most prominent names in the annals of Italian wars were no longer English or German but Italian. The pattern of employment also changed, producing in one outstanding case, that of Francesco Sforza, an example of a man who started off as a mercenary captain and became a lord in his own right.
Francesco Sforza was the son of a certain Muzio Attendolo (1368-1424), a rough and illiterate soldier who earned himself the nickname of 'Sforza' ('the Force') through his prowess as a mercenary captain. On the death of his father Francesco inherited his command and his long tradition of service to the Visconti dukes of Milan.
Sforza was one of two condottieri whom Visconti employed. The other was a certain Piccinino, and an understandable rivalry grew up between them, a jealousy probably fostered by Visconti, who saw it as a way of keeping them from revolting against him. Piccinino had overall command of the Visconti forces, while to Sforza had long been promised the hand of Visconti's daughter.
In the early 1430s Sforza was sent south with an open brief to take the sides of the hill towns against the new and unpopular pope. So successful was he in this that Visconti became alarmed by the following and the lands that his employee was amassing and, in breach of his contract, was also retaining for himself. Meanwhile Piccinino had been sent elsewhere on a similar expedition and had obediently handed over all his conquests to Visconti.
As his relations with Visconti deteriorated and the prospects of marrying his daughter receded, the opportunistic Sforza, a condottiere if ever there was one, threw in his lot with Milan's great rival, Venice. A full-scale war with Milan erupted in 1438, but Sforza kept prudently in the shadows, allowing the famous condottieri Gattemalata and Colleoni to take the lead in Venice's battles against his old colleague and rival Piccinino. He finally took the field against Piccinino at the Battle of Anghiari in 1440, the bloody encounter later to be dismissed by Machiavelli as having only one casualty.
The greatest casualty at Anghiari, however, was Piccinino's reputation. Defeated by Sforza, he asked Visconti to retire him, at which the duke realized that the time was ripe to negotiate. The terms were quite straightforward. If Francesco Sforza would arrange a peace between Venice and Milan then he would receive the long-promised Visconti daughter and a large dowry. Victory was indeed sweet. Francesco's marriage to Bianca Visconti proved to be both happy and highly profitable. Bianca was also a redoubtable woman in her own right. On one occasion when Francesco was off campaigning some rebels seized one of his castles. Not wishing to have her husband distracted from his contractual duties Bianca led an army herself and recaptured the fortress.
The summer of 1447 found the Venetian army dangerously close to Milan. Sick and near to death, the old Visconti duke summoned Sforza's army to his aid, and while on the march Sforza received further news that the duke had died. Through his marriage and his unquestioned military skills Francesco Sforza had every chance of succeeding to the dukedom, but the citizens of Milan had other ideas. Suddenly they had the opportunity to throw off the old regime of dukes and their hired condottieri, and unilaterally declared the birth of the 'Golden Ambrosian Republic'.
But even a republic needed an army, and being stuck fast in the Italian mercenary tradition, Milan chose Francesco Sforza to be its captain general! Realizing the amazing opportunity he had been given, Sforza persuaded Milan to recruit the great condottieri Colleoni as well, and began a series of campaigns on the republic's behalf that promised nothing but personal success for the Sforza fortunes.
By 1448 Milan was running short of money, so Colleoni changed sides and went back to Venice. Sforza stayed on, thus demonstrating his great personal loyalty to the Milanese. A few months later his army was surprised early one morning by the Venetians at Caravaggio between Brescia and Milan. Keeping totally calm, Sforza sent a cavalry detachment round to the enemy rear while he held on against the frontal assault. The result was one of the most convincing condottieri victories of all time. Thousands ofVenetian prisoners were taken, and so devastating was the defeat that Venice was forced to sue for peace.
Negotiations, however, were conducted with Francesco Sforza himself, and not with the leaders of the Golden Ambrosian Republic, and a deal was struck whereby Sforza would receive Venetian support for his eventual takeover of Milan in return for a pledge on certain disputed territories. It was the sort of private arrangement that only a condottiere could make, and, like many a condottieri arrangement, it was as easily broken, because when Sforza did not deliver within almost a year Venice struck its own peace deal with Milan, leaving Francesco Sforza completely isolated.
Swift action was needed, so Sforza rapidly laid siege to Milan, and as the citizens grew hungry for bread, pro-Sforza sympathizers in the city stirred up a popular feeling for an honourable surrender. In February 1450, therefore, Francesco Sforza rode in triumph through Milan's open gates.
Thus did the son of an illiterate soldier rise to become one of the princes of the Renaissance through the greatest example of personal gain from mercenary service. Yet it was not to the glory of the Sforzas that Machiavelli and his contemporaries were to look when they searched their souls for the reasons for Italy's collapse in 1494. To them it was the earlier condottieri such as Hawkwood who had planted the seeds of Italy's humiliation through a form of warfare that men like Sforza had done nothing to control, and which was to leave such a bitter legacy behind it.
