Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
"I have heard," writes the Como historian, Paolo Giovio, "from Pier Francesco da Pontremoli, who was the duke's faithful companion and servant during his captivity, that he bore his miserable condition with pious resignation and sweetness, often saying that God had sent him these tribulations as a punishment for the sins of his youth, since nothing but the sudden might of destiny could have subverted the counsels of human wisdom."
There ensued an interchange of compliments between Pope and King, and early in January Charles entered Rome in such warlike panoply as struck terror into the hearts of all beholders. Of that entrance Paolo Giovio has left us an impressive picture.
Giovio describes him as fair of complexion, blue-eyed, curly-haired, and subject to the hereditary disease of gout. Azzo died in 1339, and was succeeded by his uncle Lucchino. In Lucchino the darker side of the Visconti character appears for the first time. Cruel, moody, and jealous, he passed his life in perpetual terror.
In the fifteenth century, Politian and Ermolao Barbaro made a conscious and deliberate effort to form a style of their own, naturally on the basis of their 'overflowing' learning, and our informant of this fact, Paolo Giovio, pursued the same end.
It is a singular instance of the extent to which Italian princes were controlled by policy and reason. It is written of course from the scholar's more than the politician's point of view. Compare with it Giovio, Elogia, and Pontanus, de Liberalitate. The generous humanity of Alfonso endeared him greatly to the Neapolitans.
Lodovico Sforza was certainly one of the most remarkable figures of the Italian Renaissance. He has generally been described as one of the blackest. "Born for the ruin of Italy," was the verdict of his contemporary Paolo Giovio, a verdict which every chronicler of the sixteenth century has endorsed.
And Delaborde, Porrò, Cantù, as well as those able and learned scholars, Signor Luzio and Signor Renier, all endorse these statements, and ascribe the duke's death to natural causes. Even Paolo Giovio, who hated the Moro as the man who had betrayed his country to the French, owns that there is much reason for doubting the truth of the accusation brought against him in this instance.
This royal marriage was celebrated at Pavia, where Galeazzo held his court, and the historian Giovio has given some curious and interesting details regarding it. He says that on the completion of the ceremony Galeazzo gave rich gifts to more than two hundred Englishmen, and it was generally considered that he had shown himself more generous than the greatest kings.
The same Platina and Giovio, whose great histories we only read because and so far as we must, suddenly come forward as masters in the biographical style. We have already spoken of Tristano Caracciolo, of the biographical works of Fazio and of the Venetian topography of Sabellico, and others will be mentioned in the sequel.
They were probably scarcely conscious of this themselves, for if we are summoned to quote any statement of doctrine on this subject, we are again forced to appeal to humanists like Paolo Giovio, who excuses the perjury of Giangaleazzo Visconti, through which he was enabled to found an empire, by the example of Julius Caesar.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking