Volume II Part 20 (1/2)

[21] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 18.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, ubi supra.

[22] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 28.--Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, (Milano, 1809,) tom. i. lib. 2, pp. 118, 119.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 43.

[23] Comines, Memoires, liv. 7, introd.

[24] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 20.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 123.--Comines, Memoires, liv. 7, chap. 3.--Mariana, Hist.

de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 6.--Zurita concludes the arguments which decided Ferdinand against a.s.suming the enterprise, with one which may be considered the gist of the whole matter. ”El Rey entendia bien que no era tan facil la causa que se proponia.” Lib. 1, cap. 20.

[25] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 31.

[26] Oviedo notices Silva as one of three brothers, all gentle cavaliers, of unblemished honor, remarkable for the plainness of their persons, the elegance and courtesy of their manners, and the magnificence of their style of living. This one, Alonso, he describes as a man of a singularly clear head. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4.

[27] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, ubi supra.

[28] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib, 1, cap. 31, 41.

[29] Villeneuve, Memoires, apud Pet.i.tot, Collection des Memoires, tom.

xiv. pp. 255, 256.

The French army consisted of 3600 gens d'armes, 20,000 French infantry, and 8000 Swiss, without including the regular camp followers. (Sismondi, Republiques Italiennes, tom. xii. p. 132.)

The splendor and novelty of their appearance excited a degree of admiration, which disarmed in some measure the terror of the Italians.

Peter Martyr, whose distance from the theatre of action enabled him to contemplate more calmly the operation of events, beheld with a prophetic eye the magnitude of the calamities impending over his country. In one of his letters, he writes thus; ”Scribitur exercitum visum fuisse nostra tempestate nullum unquam nitidiorem. Et qui futuri sunt calamitatis participes, Carolum aciesque illius ac peditum turmas laudibus extollunt; sed Italorum impensa instructas.” (Opus Epist., epist. 143.) He concludes another with this remarkable prediction; ”Perimeris, Galle, ex majori parte, nec in patriam redibis. Jacebis insepultus; sed tua non rest.i.tuetur strages, Italia.” Epist. 123.

[30] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 1, p. 71.--Scipione Ammirato, Istorie Fiorentine, (Firenze, 1647,) p. 205.--Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. iii. lib. 29, introd.--Comines, Memoires, liv. 7, chap. 17.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 43.

[31] Du Bos, Histoire de la Ligue faite a Cambray, (Paris, 1728), tom. i.

dissert, prelim.--Machiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine, lib. 5.--Denina, Rivoluzioni d'Italia, lib. 18, cap. 3.

[32] Arte della Guerra, lib. 2.

[33] Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 3.--Du Bos, Ligue de Cambray, tom. i. dis. prelim.--Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 41. Polybius, in his minute account of this celebrated military inst.i.tution of the Greeks, has recapitulated nearly all the advantages and defects imputed to the Swiss _herisson_, by modern European writers. (See lib. 17, sec.

25 et seq.) It is singular, that these exploded arms and tactics should be revived, after the lapse of nearly seventeen centuries, to be foiled again in the same manner as before.

[34] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. pp. 45, 46.--Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 3.--Du Bos, Ligue de Cambray, ubi supra.

[35] Guicciardini speaks of the name of ”cannon,” which the French gave to their pieces, as a novelty at that time in Italy. Istoria, pp. 45, 46.

[36] Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 42.--Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 7.

[37] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 35.--Alonso da Silva acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of the sovereigns, in his difficult mission. He was subsequently sent on various others to the different Italian courts, and uniformly sustained his reputation for ability and prudence. He did not live to be old. Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4.

[38] Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 6.--Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquia, lib. 3, cap. 14.

This branch of the revenue yields at the present day, according to Laborde, about 6,000,000 reals, or 1,500,000 francs. Itineraire, tom. vi.

p. 51.

[39] Zurita, Abarca, and other Spanish historians, fix the date of Alexander's grant at the close of 1496. (Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib, 2, cap. 40.--Reyes de Aragon, rey 30, cap. 9.) Martyr notices it with great particularity as already conferred, in a letter of February, 1495. (Opus Epist., epist. 157.) The pope, according to Comines, designed to compliment Ferdinand and Isabella for their conquest of Granada, by transferring to them the t.i.tle of Most Christian, hitherto enjoyed by the kings of France. He had even gone so far as to address them thus in more than one of his briefs. This produced a remonstrance from a number of the cardinals; which led him to subst.i.tute the t.i.tle of Most Catholic. The epithet of Catholic was not new in the royal house of Castile, nor indeed of Aragon; having been given to the Asturian prince Alfonso I. about the middle of the eighth, and to Pedro II., of Aragon, at the beginning of the thirteenth century.