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But there are no guerrillas now, no condottieri who can be hired: the empire has a paid and standing army, as an empire should. The North Country chiefs, so powerful in the clan warfare of bygone days, are generals now, chiefs of staff. The captain-general, with a minute piece of Honey Dew under his tongue, sits in Number Seven.
The terrible way in which Ferdinand of Naples handled the conspiracy of the nobles of his kingdom made him, in the eyes of Italy, not horrible but great; and Macchiavelli speaks of the trick with which Cæsar Borgia outwitted his treacherous condottieri at Sinigaglia as a "masterstroke," while the Bishop Paolo Giovio called it "the most beautiful piece of deception."
The first great bacchanalian outbreak of military ambition took place in the duchy of Milan after the death of Giangaleazzo . The policy of his two sons was chiefly aimed at the destruction of the new despotisms founded by the Condottieri; and from the greatest of them, Facino Cane, the house of Visconti inherited, together with his widow, a long list of cities, and 400,000 golden florins, not to speak of the soldiers of her first husband whom Beatrice di Tenda brought with her.
The emergence of the Condottieri at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the anarchy they encouraged for their own aggrandizement, and the financial distress which ensued upon the substitution of mercenary for civic warfare, completed the democratization of the Italian cities, and marked a new period in the history of despotism.
The duke returned answer to Vitelli that he would be in Sinigaglia himself upon the morrow, and he invited the condottieri to receive him there, since he was decided to possess himself of the citadel at once, whether Doria chose to surrender it peacefully or not; and that, to provide for emergencies, he would bring his artillery with him.
One of the Italian condottieri, or leaders of free companies, had made his way to Moscow, and under his instructions, Ivan's troops were for the first time to conduct a siege in the regular modern manner, by digging trenches in the earth, and throwing up the soil in front into a bank, behind which the cannon and gunners are posted, with only small openings made through which to fire at some spot in the enemy's walls.
"When the successful army returned to England, several hundred of us from Essex and Suffolk remained in France and organized 'The White Company, which, with Sir John as commander, became famous as condottieri, or soldiers of fortune, and from 1360 to 1390 sold our services to various Italian powers.
On the same day the three standards were blessed in St. Peter's one being the Papal Gonfalon bearing the arms of the Church and the other two the personal banners of Guidobaldo and Gandia. The two condottieri attended the ceremony, arrayed in full armour, and received the white truncheons that were the emblems of their command.
"Well, what he did at Sinigaglia to the condottieri, to Vittellozzo, Oliverotto da Fermo, and his other two captain-adventurers, I have done to the Minister of Finance, to Don Calixto, Amparito's father, and many others." And Caesar explained his game. Alzugaray was amazed. "How much have you made?" "From what these telegrams say, I think I shall go over half a million francs.
Jacopo, when he had at length made himself a name in the service of different Condottieri, sent for his relations, and obtained through them the same advantages that a prince derives from a numerous dynasty.
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