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The competitors for the purchase were the Florentines and the Pisans; and in the course of the treaty the Pisans, finding that the Florentines, being the richer people, were about to obtain it, had recourse to arms, and, with the assistance of the Visconti, marched against Lucca.
When the line of the Visconti ended in the year 1447, their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poor soldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the last Visconti.
The Burgundian took off his hat, and exhibited two wonderful pearls, that were beautiful ear-pendants for Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, and candidly confessed that he would rather have left them round his wife's neck. Thereupon the servant exclaimed that their sins must have been as great as those of Visconti.
In a letter which Humboldt has printed at the conclusion of his work, from M. Visconti, it is remarked that we find mention made of this contrivance both in Homer's "Hymn to Mercury," and in the "Argonautics" of Apollonius Rhodius. The scholiast of the latter gives a description of the process, which exactly answers to the Mexican delineation.
In Venice, Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio were already showing signs of this familiarity with Eastern habits by the Turkish costumes and personages who figure in their pictures; and a troop of Turks were introduced into a masque written by the Milanese poet, Gaspare Visconti, and acted before the Court.
"King Louis, although the best and wisest King that France had known for many a day, was but mortal," said M. La Tour, twisting his moustache as if somewhat puzzled by our Quaker lady's direct question, "and having a sound claim to the Duchy of Milan, through his grandmother Valentine Visconti, he proceeded to make it good."
Inasmuch as political institutions like these are naturally secure in proportion to the size of the territory in which they exist, the larger principalities were constantly tempted to swallow up the smaller. Whole hecatombs of petty rulers were sacrificed at this time to the Visconti alone.
Acquiring an unlawful right over the towns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour or their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting the succession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately defying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving as condottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, and by their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing in no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy.
In 1366 his name appears in the marriage treaty of his brother Lionel with Violante Visconti of Milan, which provided that Edmund should be substituted for Lionel if his brother died before the marriage. From 1369 to 1371 the Earl was on the Continent with his brothers, the Black Prince and the Duke of Lancaster.
The dynasties of Visconti and Sforza from 1300 to 1500 bridged over the years that intervened between the Middle Age and the Renaissance, between the period of the free burghs and the period during which Italy was destined to become the theater of the action of more powerful nations. Their alliances and diplomatic relations prepared the way for the interference of foreigners in Italian affairs.
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