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Updated: June 4, 2025
He was now for some time idle. He was left in garrison in Lombardy. But fiercer fields were soon to call him. Ludovico Sforza took Milan. At Binasco, Lord Bernardino Cazache, one of Sforza's captains, had three hundred horse; and twenty miles from Milan was Bayard's place of garrison. With fifty of his comrades he rode out one morning, bent on assaulting Lord Bernardino's force.
A thousand different studies in his sketch-books and manuscripts bear witness to the strange variety of subjects upon which his versatile genius was brought to bear. But the most important work upon which Leonardo was engaged, and that which lay nearest to Lodovico Sforza's heart, was the equestrian statue of Duke Francesco Sforza.
By ill chance it happened that Lionardo's greatest works soon perished. His cartoon at Florence disappeared. His model for Sforza's statue was used as a target by French bowmen. His "Last Supper" remains a mere wreck in the Convent delle Grazie. Such as it is, blurred by ill-usage and neglect, more blurred by impious re-painting, that fresco must be seen by those who wish to understand Da Vinci.
The brothers and these attendants rode together into Rome and as far as the Vice-Chancellor Ascanio Sforza's palace in the Ponte Quarter. Here Giovanni drew rein, and informed Cesare that he would not be returning to the Vatican just yet, as he was first "going elsewhere to amuse himself."
On his elder brother Sforza's death, the King of Naples had invested him with the duchy of Bari, and now he promised him men and money with which to assert his claims against his sister-in-law, the widowed Duchess Bona and the minions who had driven him and his brothers out of their native land.
The iniquities of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, il gran Biscione, the blood-thirst of Gian Maria, the dark designs of Filippo and his secret vices, Francesco Sforza's treason, Galeazzo Maria's vanities and lusts; their tyrants' dread of thunder and the knife; their awful deaths by pestilence and the assassin's poignard; their selfishness, oppression, cruelty and fraud; the murders of their kinsmen; their labyrinthine plots and acts of broken faith; all is tranquil now, and we can say to each what Bosola found for the Duchess of Malfi ere her execution:
She had seen him once in Rome, in her early youth, when she was Sforza's betrothed. No sacrifice would be too great for her if it would wipe out the remembrance of the nine years which had followed that day.
"Do you still follow the trade of arms?" "I think," Filippo interposed, "that our Excellency is in some error. This gentleman is Lazzaro Biancomonte, a poet of whom Italy will one day be proud, despite the fact that for a time he acted as the Lord Giovanni Sforza's Fool." Ramiro looked at his interlocutor, as the mastiff may look at the lap dog. He grunted, and blew out his cheeks.
On the one hand, Lodovico Sforza's troops checked the advance of the Venetians on the side of Modena; on the other, Ercole's brother-in-law, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, himself rode at the head of fifty horsemen and a troop of infantry to the help of the beleaguered city.
If we were not familiar with the character of the public men of that age we should be surprised to learn that King Federico's proxy on this occasion was none other than Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, who had been instrumental in bringing about the marriage of his nephew and Lucretia, and who had consented in Sforza's name to the disgraceful divorce.
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