Volume III Part 10 (1/2)

[20] The marshes of Minturnae lay between the city and the mouth of the Liris. (Cluverius, Ital. Antiq., lib. 3, cap. 10, sec. 9.) The Spanish army encamped, says Guicciardini, ”in a place called by Livy, from its vicinity to Sessa, _aquae Sinuessanae_, being perhaps the marshes in which Marius hid himself.” (Istoria, lib. 6.) The historian makes two blunders in a breath. 1st. _Aquae Sinuessanae_, was a name derived not from Sessa, the ancient Suessa Aurunca, but from the adjacent Sinuessa, a town about ten miles southeast of Minturnae. (Comp. Livy, lib. 22, cap.

14, and Strabo, lib. 5, p. 233.) 2d. The name did not indicate marshes, but natural hot springs, particularly noted for their salubrity.

”Salubritate harum aquarum,” says Tacitus in allusion to them (Annales, lib. 12); and Pliny notices their medicinal properties more explicitly.

Hist. Naturalis, lib. 31, cap. 2.

[20] This does not accord with Horace's character of the Garigliano, the ancient Liris, as the ”taciturnus amnis,” (Carm., lib. i. 30,) and still less with that of Silius Italicus,

”Liris ... qui fonte quieto Dissimulat cursum, et _nullo mutabilis imbre_ Perstringit tacitas gemmanti gurgite ripas.”

Puncia, lib. 4.

Indeed, the stream exhibits at the present day the same soft and tranquil aspect celebrated by the Roman poets. Its natural character, however, was entirely changed at the period before us, in consequence of the unexampled heaviness and duration of the autumnal rains.

[21] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 188.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 14.--Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. lib. 19, cap. 16.

--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 269.--Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, fol. 262-264.--Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., fol. 22.--Machiavelli, Legazione Prima a Roma, let. 11, Nov. 10.--let. 16, Nov. 13.--let. 17.--Chronica del Gran Capitan, lib. 2, cap. 106.--Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. pp.

440, 441.

[22] Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, fol. 264.

[23] Guicciardini, Istoria, lib. 6, pp. 327, 328.--Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t.

Virorum, fol. 262.--Machiavelli, Legazione Prima a Roma, let. 29.-- Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. pp. 443-445.

[24] Legazione Prima a Roma, let. 9, 10, 18.

The French showed the same confidence from the beginning of hostilities.

One of that nation having told Suarez, the Castilian minister at Venice, that the marshal de la Tremouille said, ”He would give 20,000 ducats, if he could meet Gonsalvo de Cordova in the plains of Viterbo;” the Spaniard smartly replied, ”Nemours would have given twice as much not to have met him at Cerignola.” Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. v. lib. 5, cap. 36.

[25] This barren tract of uninhabited country must have been of very limited extent; for it lay in the Campania Felix, in the neighborhood of the cultivated plains of Sessa, the Ma.s.sicau mountain, and Falernian fields,--names, which call up a.s.sociations, that must live while good poetry and good wine shall be held in honor.

[26] Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 28, cap. 5.--Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 6, p. 328.--Machiavelli, Legazione Prima a Roma, let. 44.--Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., fol. 22.--Chronica del Gran Capitan, cap. 107, 108.--The Neapolitan conquests, it will be remembered, were undertaken exclusively for the crown of Aragon, the revenues of which were far more limited than those of Castile.

[27] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 188.--Chronica del Gran Capitan, lib. 2, cap. 108.--Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. lib. 19, cap, 16.--Guicciardini, Istoria, lib. 6, p. 328.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. v. lib.

5, cap. 58.

[28] Giovio, Vita Magni Gonsalvi, fol. 265.--Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. p. 445.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. v. lib. 5, cap. 59.--Buonaccorsi, Diario, fol. 85.--Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., fol. 22.--Varillas, Hist. de Louis XII., tom. i. pp. 401, 402.

[29] Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. pp. 440-443.--Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t.

Virorum, fol. 264, 265.--Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 6, p. 329.-- Machiavelli, Legazione Prima a Roma, let. 44.--St. Gelais, Hist. de Louys XII., pp. 173, 174.

[30] Chronica del Gran Capitan, lib. 2, cap. 106.--Memoires de Bayard, chap. 25, apud Pet.i.tot, Collection des Memoires, tom. xv.--Varillas, Hist.

de Louis XII., tom. i. p. 417.--Quintana, Espanoles Celebres, tom. i. pp.

288-290.--Machiavelli, Legazione Prima a Roma, let. 39, 44.

[31] Compare the prose romances of D'Auton, of the ”loyal serviteur” of Bayard, and the no less loyal biographer of the Great Captain, with the poetic ones of Ariosto, Berni, and the like.

”Magnanima menzogna! or quando e il vero Si bello, che si possa a te preporre?”