Storying Death in the Renaissance: The Recapture of Roberto di Sanseverino (1418-1487) - Project MUSE
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Storying Death in the Renaissance: The Recapture of Roberto
di Sanseverino (1418-1487)
Melissa Meriam Bullard
MLN, Volume 119, Number 1 Supplement, January 2004 (Italian Issue Supplement),
pp. S178-S200 (Article)
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mln.2004.0027
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/53642
[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]S178 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
Storying Death in the Renaissance:
The Recapture of
Roberto di Sanseverino
(1418–1487)
❦
Melissa Meriam Bullard
The underlying problem this article addresses came to my attention
in a chance encounter that pitted Salvatore Camporeale, scholar of
Renaissance humanism, against modern literary critic George Steiner.
During his campus visit many years ago, over lunch I had mentioned
to Steiner something Camporeale had recounted, namely that one of
his most vivid boyhood recollections from WWII was of the cook at his
college reciting Dante as she stirred her kettle. Steiner seemed
skeptical and then shocked me by stating unequivocally that it could
not have happened as I had reported because Camporeale’s account,
like so many other stories of common folk reciting Dante, was purely
topological. I argued just as strongly that I believed Salvatore’s
memory was accurate and his experience singular, no matter how
many similar stock stories Steiner could cite. He countered
solomonically that literature precedes life, for the act of interpreta-
tion presupposes a frame of reference in which to place new events,
and thus a topos necessarily antedates our understanding of an event.
Back then I was not convinced. Only after encountering the intrigu-
ing case of Roberto di Sanseverino while doing archival research for
the edition of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s letters, did I begin to puzzle
through what Steiner had said. He summed up his perspective in After
Babel:
MLN 119 Supplement (2004): S178–S200 © 2004 by The Johns Hopkins University PressMLN S179
“Defined ‘topologically’, a culture is a sequence of translations and
transformations of constants (‘translation’ always tends towards ‘transfor-
mation’). When we have seen this to be the case, we will arrive at a clear
understanding of the linguistic-semantic motor of culture and of that
which keeps different languages and their ‘topological fields’ distinct from
each other.” (449)
What follows is an attempt to explore how topoi function in history
using the case of Roberto di Sanseverino, or in other terms, to
explain how Camporeale and Steiner can both be correct.
* * *
At the beginning of Henry IV, Part II, the curious figure of Rumour
enters the stage in a suggestive costume, which Shakespeare describes
as “painted full of tongues.” He introduces the play by twisting King
Henry’s victory over Hotspur at the Battle of Shrewsbury into a
defeat. The character portrays himself as follows:
“. . . Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it . . .
. . . The posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learn’d of me: from Rumour’s tongues.
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.”
(1. 1. 1–40)1
The confusions of battle, then as now, provide fertile ground for
unconfirmed reports, those born of hearsay as well as the ones
spawned with malicious intent.
Shakespeare’s Rumour might well have been present at the Battle
of Calliano in August 1487 when Roberto di Sanserverino disap-
peared under mysterious circumstances. The famous condottiere, whom
Machiavelli immortalized in his Istorie fiorentine as one of the most
distinguished mercenary captains of his day2, had led the Venetian
1
I am grateful to the anonymous person who drew my attention to Rumour’s speech
in connection with battle reports.
2
“capitano nella guerra riputatissimo,” Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, VII, 27, p. 494.
Machiavelli also mentions him in Chapter XII of the Prince, in his discussion of the evils
of mercenary warfare.S180 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
forces fighting against the Tyroleans. Was he missing, captured, or
dead? For two weeks conflicting rumors about his fate swirled around
Italy, as diplomatic dispatches storied his death and framed his life for
posterity. His checkered career in the service of the major states of
Italy, however, had won him more enemies than friends. As long as
the circumstances of his death remained clouded, Shakespeare’s
Rumour could have gleefully employed his many tongues, for those
early notices of Sanseverino’s whereabouts varied, depending upon
who admired and who despised him. These conflicting accounts,
together with certain events leading up to his death, and the literary
images used to characterize him both just before and just after death,
also reveal underlying tensions between an older chivalric military
ideal and the centralizing forces of the Renaissance state within which
fiercely independent condottieri like Sanseverino found increasingly
less room to operate unfettered. If this larger significance to the
death of Sanseverino was not as apparent to contemporaries as it is to
us in hindsight, their puzzled attempts to understand what happened
to him reflects their own unsettled passage from the old to the new. I
hope to show, as well, how early interpretations of Sanseverino’s fate
tagged his life with cultural referents, among them, in good Renais-
sance fashion, classical and chivalric topoi that added resonance to
his story.
Sanseverino, usually known simply as Signor Roberto,3 had been
hired by Venice to engage the army of Sigismund, archduke of
Austria and Count of Tyrol, which was invading and sacking Venetian-
held territory south of Trent.4 Venice and Sigismund had been
involved for years in commercial and territorial disputes in their
border lands, which disputes were hopelessly complicated by rivalries
among local potentates. On and off military campaigns interspersed
with intermittent peace negotiations marked the 1487 war. Outnum-
bered by the enemy, the Venetian forces had been on the defensive
for most of the summer. Unexpectedly, however, in early August after
winning a battle at Ravazzone near Rovereto, the Tyrolean commander
3
Sanseverino was so well known that even in the lists of Milanese diplomatic ciphers,
which read like a Who’s Who of the latter fifteenth-century, he is always listed as Signor
Roberto, never as Roberto di Sanseverino. See Cerioni, II, passim.
4
Signor Roberto’s joining the campaign the last week in May 1487 was part of a
Venetian effort to increase and invigorate its forces around Rovereto, which had been
under a lengthy enemy siege and finally forced to surrender 30 May. The single best
source on background to the war remains Onestinghel. See also Rambaldi and more
briefly, Mallett and Hale 53–54.MLN S181
Gaudenzio di Matsch withdrew the major body of his army back into
the Tyrol, leaving behind only garrison forces. Signor Roberto sought
to take advantage of the enemy’s departure to recover Rovereto and
then push on to capture Trent (Onestinghel 329).
The Battle of Calliano, in which Signor Roberto lost his life,
occurred on August 10, as he was moving his men across the Adige to
attack the castelli guarding the southern accesses to the city.5 Noted
for his feats of military engineering, he had had a pontoon bridge
constructed over the river to transport troops and weaponry for the
assault. A portion of his cavalry and infantry made it across, but
before they could plant their artillery, they were attacked by the
Tyroleans. Though smaller in number than Sanseverino’s army, the
Tyroleans enjoyed the advantage of surprise, while the Venetian
troops were seriously handicapped by their own disarray and lack of a
fortified defense. Under attack, the Venetian infantry panicked and
began retreating. In the fierce fighting that followed, the bridge was
severed from its moorings, cutting off escape. In the melee, the cream
of the Venetian forces was killed, drowned or wounded. Signor
Roberto and several other Venetian captains went missing.6
In the fifteenth century important news traveled with remarkable
speed around Italy, and rumors of Sanseverino’s defeat arrived in
several waves during the two-week interval before his body was found
washed up on the river bank. On August 12 just two days after the
battle, the Florentine ambassador in Venice sent home his first report
of the Venetians’ claim to victory at Calliano,7 in which Signor
Roberto had supposedly been injured and his whereabouts unknown.
The following evening the Venetian doge announced he had received
a letter from Roberto’s wife, which claimed her husband had been
5
The chronicler Domenico Malipiero erroneously dates the battle to 17 August, 306.
Most contemporary documents place it on August 10, the feast day of San Lorenzo.
6
Detailed accounts of Sanseverino’s strategy to capture the castelli can be found in
the August letters of the Venetian provveditori, Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV),
Collegio, Lettere Secrete, 1 (1486–89) used by Onestinghel 330–46. For the battle, see
also, Rambaldi. In his first report of 12 August, the Florentine ambassador estimated
the Tyrolean forces at 200 horse and 1,000 infantry, Paolo Antonio Soderini to the Otto
di Pratica, Archivio di Stato, Firenze (ASF), Otto di Pratica, Responsive, 3, f. 475. The
contemporary historian, Sigismondo dei Conti da Foligno, gave a vivid account of how
Signor Roberto’s men threw themselves into the swollen river, hoping their horses
could swim across, only to be lost in the torrent, and, weighted down by their armor,
drowned (I, 287).
7
Soderini to the Otto di Pratica, 12 August, ASF, Otto di Pratica, Responsive, 3, f.
477.S182 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
taken prisoner and was lodged in a castello owned by a Tyrolean
(“tedesca”) woman. It said Roberto had been thrice wounded, but his
life was not in danger.8 The Florentine ambassador, however, re-
mained skeptical, noting that the Venetian provveditori at the camp
had not confirmed this information. He also noted that the casualty
figures provided by a Venetian chancellor seemed to have been
adjusted downward in Venice’s favor.9
In the days that followed, the story changed. The Venetians
admitted suffering far greater losses, perhaps as many as 1,000 to the
enemy’s 400 men, and that Signor Roberto was feared dead.10 The
Tyroleans gave their version. One such report told of their decisive
victory and that Signor Roberto had perished.11 Likewise, in Trent
word circulated that Signor Roberto had first been wounded not
three, but four times, and that he had been killed in the fray. As the
days passed without word from Signor Roberto himself, his death
seemed increasingly likely, especially since his lance and helmet
(celatina), had been recovered.12 A search among the wounded and
captured, who had been removed to Trent, however, proved fruitless,
and still no trace of his body had been found.13
8
Ibid., f. 480. Following the Barons’ War and before joining the Venetian campaign
against Sigismund, Signor Roberto had been residing at his estates in Citadella near
Padua and living off a 12,000 ducat retainer, granted him the previous November. The
estates had been a gift of the Republic of Venice for his valorous service during the war
of Ferrara (Malipiero 302). According to the Doge, one of Signor Roberto’s heralds
had brought the news of his capture to Cittadella. The “tedesca” might be Barbara
Trapp from whose castello Beseno, some of the Tyrolean attackers had issued (Onestinghel
337). Assuming the incident actually happened, it could have been part of an attempt
to collect a handsome ransom for Signor Roberto, if we can believe a later account by
one of Signor Roberto’s secretaries, who claimed that his body had been among the
first recognized and recovered by the enemy, cited by Onestinghel (342). Conflicting
rumors had also reached Milan, including one letter that “dice che s’è salvato, in una
valata doppo uno certo monte,” Jacopo Trotti a Ercole d’Este, 14 August, Archivio di
Stato, Modena (ASMo), Archivio Segreto Estense (ASE), Carteggio degli ambasciatori,
Milan, 5. And again, the next day, “Del Signor Roberto non habiamo altro qui, se non
che a fare de mille parole, una. Et se ha del certo, on che ‘l sia morto on preso, ma
della morte molto più se prosuppone che d’altro,” idem, 15 August, loc. cit.
9
Soderini to the Otto di Pratica, 13 August, ASF, Otto di Pratica, Responsive, 3, ff.
480, 483.
10
Ibid.; idem, 14 August, loc. cit., f. 489.
11
Soderini included a copy of the letter in his report to the Otto di Pratica of 14
August, loc. cit., f. 491.
12
So the Doge informed Soderini and the Milanese ambassador, idem, 16 August,
loc. cit., f. 497.
13
The body was finally found some days later, disgorged by the receding flood waters
onto the river bank. It led to the speculation that wounded and fleeing, Signor Roberto
had fainted and fallen from his horse into the river, idem, 25 August, loc. cit., f. 515.MLN S183
Soon more letters from the battle camp made their way into the
diplomatic pouches. The Florentine ambassador in Milan wrote in
great detail about two letters Ludovico Sforza had received. One
account had the Tyroleans cutting the bridge with the Venetian
soldiers still on it, including Sanseverino and the provveditore, both of
whom disappeared afterwards. Another claimed that the enemy had
slaughtered so many troops that the ring securing the bridge had
snapped by itself; furthermore that Signor Roberto had been found
dead on the bank, but it was not known whether his men had thrown
his body in the river or if he had drowned along with so many
others.14 As though to mitigate the bad news, the Venetian ambassa-
dor in Milan claimed to have received a fresh report that Sanseverino
was alive and in camp.15
As time passed, more detailed reports reached Milan. A messenger
arrived for Signor Roberto’s son, the count of Caiazzo.16 An eye-
witness, this man had seen Signor Roberto wounded in the head with
blood flowing onto his chest; Roberto had started across the bridge,
but then turned back, after which he had seen him no more.17 Other
information forwarded to Milan specified that Signor Roberto had
been wounded in the head and in one hand, but still did not confirm
his death.18
On August 17, just a week after the battle, Ludovico Sforza
summoned the ambassadors in Milan to an unusual audience, “not to
do business, just to talk,” and Signor Roberto’s fate comprised the
main topic of discussion. As the assembled group well knew, Ludovico
14
“La seconda [lettera] de’ XII narra el medesimo del ponte et della passata del
Signor Roberto et dello uscire fuora de’ Todeschi, ma dice che nella fuga che facevano,
e venitiani si amazò tanto numero in sul ponte che ‘l ponte si ruppe et rovinò et morivi
una gran gente; il numero si dice non fa essere ancora inteso apunto; et che ‘l Signor
Roberto era suto trovato morto in sulla ghiara, ma che non si sapeva se era suto morto
in su la scaramuccia et che dipoi e suoi per minore sbigottamento lo gittassono nel
flume, o pure anneghasse insieme con li altri,” Piero Alamanni a Lorenzo de’ Medici,
14 August, ASF, Mediceo avanti il Principato (MAP), 7, 382.
15
“Lo imbassciatore Vinitiano ha lettera da Brescia de’ XIII et narra della rotta, ma
dice el Signor Roberto essere vivo et essere in campo,” ibid.
16
Notwithstanding the estrangement between Ludovico Sforza and Signor Roberto,
Giovanni Francesco was a condottiere in Milanese service. His father had renounced
the title to Caiazzo in his favor. Giovanni Francesco went on to fight for Milan in the
Italian Wars of the 1490's against Charles VIII, and he completed various diplomatic
missions before his death in 1501, Cerioni 224–25.
17
Piero Alamanni to the Otto di Pratica, 14 August, copy, ASF, MAP, 72, 440.
18
“dice che Signor Roberto essere ferito nella testa et in una mano et non dice né di
preso né di morte,” ibid.S184 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
Sforza and Roberto di Sanseverino were first cousins, but old en-
emies, related through Roberto’s mother Elisa Sforza, who was
Ludovico’s aunt. As young men, the two had been close. Back in 1478
following the assassination of duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Roberto
had accompanied Ludovico in exile. But subsequently he had be-
come estranged from il Moro and had allied with dissident Milanese
nobles against him.19
That evening, the Florentine ambassador observed that Ludovico
Sforza could hardly contain his glee as he described his old enemy’s
demise. With mounting enthusiasm, Sforza told just how “grandissimo”
the Venetian rout had been, and that of the twenty-four squadre that
had crossed the river, few survived. Warming to his topic, Ludovico
portrayed Roberto in a most unflattering light, as someone who had
been more concerned to save his own skin than to gain honor in
battle. Ludovico dramatized Signor Roberto’s final utterances, saying
that during the attack, he rode up and down along the river bank,
crying out piteously “Oh Roberto, you will certainly drown.” In
Ludovico’s rendition, Signor Roberto kept turning back, until finally
after receiving several wounds, he was captured. He supposedly died
a prisoner on the way to Trent.20
More than five hundred years hence, we cannot confirm the
19
Pellegrini 245–76; Cerioni II 225. For more general background, see Motta, “I
Sanseverino,” 155–301.
20
“Stasera mandò il Signor Ludovico per messer Simonocto [Belplatto], il Ferrarese
[Jacopo Trotti] et me con protextatione che non li parlassimo di facenda alcuna, ma
solo per visitare la Excellentia Sua. Giungnemmo là et Sua Signoria cominciò a
ragionare delle cose del Signor Roberto; et non sarie possibile a dire quanto piacere ha
preso di questo suo caso, non stante che s’ingegnia quanto può simularlo. El modo
della rotta et morte dovete sapere. Pure ne dirò con brevità quanto ce n’aportò Sua
Excellentia. La rotta è stata grandissima et di 24 squadre che haveano passato il fiume,
ne sono campati pochi. Il Signor Roberto andando due volte al fiume per passare disse
ad alta voce, ‘0 Roberto, anegherati tu da te medesimo,’ et ogni volta tornò in drieto.
Ultimamente fu preso et ferito in più luoghi. Andando alla volta di Trento prigione,
morì inanzi che si conducessi alla terra et infra e soldati morti vi furono la maggiore
parte de Coglioneschi ché pochi ne campò,” Piero Alamanni a Lorenzo de’ Medici 17
August, ASF, MAP, 50, 99. A similar theme that Signor Roberto turned his back on the
battle echoes in a subsequent account by Jacopo di Antonio Caniceo (1433–1511) who
had been present at the Battle of Calliano in the company of the Venetian captain,
Guido de’ Rossi. He composed Bellum Roboretannum celebrating Rossi’s role in the
battle, which circulated in manuscript and was used by Marin Sanuto, Onestinghel 6–
7n. and Rambaldi p. 117. Most of the other accounts analyzed by Rambaldi, however,
attributed to Signor Roberto a most valorous death in the heat of battle, including an
account that he literally died in the saddle when his favorite warhorse Campanello,
collapsed from exhaustion, ibid. 96ff and Onestinghel 341–42.MLN S185
veracity of these various renderings of Signor Roberto’s final hours,
nor is that our aim.21 Rather, the widespread interest shown Roberto
di Sanseverino and the urge to narrate his death in battle is what
draws our attention. In those weeks before the river finally disgorged
his body, the various reports, whether from sources sympathetic to
Venice, to Archduke Sigismund, to Signor Roberto himself, or to his
enemies like Ludovico Sforza, contained predictable interpretations
of his disappearance. At first the Venetians, on the defensive,
downplayed the extent of their losses. Then came the reports that
Signor Roberto was safe in camp. Even the “eye-witness” had left open
the possibility that he was still alive. On the other side, the Tyroleans
had immediately taken credit for killing the great man, thus enlarg-
ing their claims to a definitive victory. And before the assembled
ambassadors in Milan, Ludovico Sforza made a vindictive jab at
Signor Roberto’s honor, knowing that his dramatic simulation of the
condottiere’s supposedly cowardly demeanor would be news in every
major Italian city.
Lacking convincing evidence to limit the possibilities, the various
raconteurs used creative license, much in the way a storyteller might
invent a suitable ending to a tale, making the hero die heroically or
the villain, villainously.22 They followed impulses similar to Machiavelli,
who in his biography of Castruccio Castracani invented a more
impressive childhood for his hero. For Ludovico Sforza, Sanseverino
represented a traitor to family and existing authority, and hence
deserved a coward’s death. At the other end of the spectrum, to
Sanseverino’s defenders among the feudal aristocracy in Naples,
whose cause he had championed during their recent failed rebellion
against king Ferrante, he remained an admired defender of the
nobility’s traditional prerogatives, and hence a fallen hero. To us, less
invested in his fate, he probably seems more the old warrior past his
prime who died in battle with his boots on at the remarkable age of
sixty-nine.
21
Onestinghel, whose efforts to reconstruct the battle were based on extensive
research in Austrian, Tridentine, and Venetian sources, also concluded that exact
circumstances of Roberto’s death could not be verified, ibid.
22
Progoff 202–43. Mircea Eliade argued that popular memory was essentially
ahistorical, which, because it cannot retain historical events, transforms them into
archetypes. He recounted how the tragic death of a young Romanian villager was
converted in less than a generation into the story of a jealous mountain fairy who stole
the young man from his fiancée, 44–46.S186 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
* * *
Qualis vita, finis ita goes the Latin proverb, or as Giovanni Rucellai
recorded in his Zibaldone: “There is a popular saying that in a good
life there is a good death. . . .”23 This belief that the manner of a
person’s death mirrored the quality of his life helps explain why
Renaissance people had such curiosity about how death occurred.
Death under cloudy circumstances left ample room to speculate how
Signor Roberto’s life should be framed for posterity. In the days just
before and after the denouement at Calliano, two Florentine friends
had exchanged letters about this very issue. Paulo Antonio Soderini,
Florentine ambassador in Venice corresponded with his friend Niccolò
Michelozzi, secretary to Lorenzo de’ Medici. In good humanist
fashion, their letters contained references to both Roman and
medieval exempla. Only Soderini’s side of the exchange remains, but
he referred to an earlier letter his friend had written in response to a
prior account of the Venetian-Tyrolean conflict. Soderini penned,
somewhat cryptically: “If you have sent me a true model of another
Roman Scaevola, a few days ago I sent you a military model similar to
the stories of Roncesvalles from chivalric times.”24 What did this
curious exchange of historical references signify?
Lacking Michelozzi’s original letter comparing Sanseverino to the
ancient Roman hero Caius Mucius Scaevola, we can only speculate
what lies behind the analogy. The probable date of Michelozzi’s
earlier letter becomes important. Given that Soderini replied on
August 18th, Michelozzi’s letter must have been written the previous
week, before Sanseverino’s death was known. Thus Michelozzi would
have had in mind Signor Roberto’s role in earlier events. Soderini’s
reply comparing Signor Roberto to Roland, was penned after the
heavy Venetian losses had been acknowledged and Sanseverino’s
death seemed certain. Both comparisons are to legendary heroic
figures, the one who returned triumphant, the other who had died a
tragic death, and each image fit a different moment in Signor
Roberto’s life. The Scaevola analogy emphasized a heroism of per-
sonal virtù and patriotism; Roland, the heroism of a tragic defeat.
Both indicated possible endings projected onto Sanseverino’s life
23
Rucellai, I, 122.
24
“Se voi m’havete mandato un vero modello d’un altro Scievola romano, io ho
mandato a voi ne’ giorni passati un modello bellico simile in parte a quello che si
designa di Runcivalle ne’ tempi de’ paladini.,” Soderini to Michelozzi, 18 August,
Biblioteca Nazionale, Firenze (BNF), Ginori Conti, 29, 105, 6.MLN S187
story. Later Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire had rejected
such Renaissance uses of “figurative language” as inappropriate for
historical discourse,25 but modern research in cognitive psychology by
Paul Ricoeur, George Lakoff, and others, stresses how metaphoric
language is constructive of knowledge, and in the case of our two
Florentines, their choice of historical references provided a kind of
shorthand interpretation.26
Gaius Mucius Scaevola gained renown for his attempt to kill the
Etruscan king Porsenna, who was besieging Rome. Captured and
threatened with torture, the young Roman noble defiantly thrust his
right arm into the fire to show he had no fear of pain, hence his
surname “Lefty.” Scaevola’s exemplary courage had so impressed
Porsenna that he withdrew his army from Rome and sought peace. At
first glance, comparing Sanseverino to Scaevola seems forced. Signor
Roberto, a seasoned condottiere-for-hire nearly seventy years old, was
scarcely a patriotic youth defending his patria. And, strictly speaking,
by marching on Trent, Signor Roberto was thrusting into Tyrolean-
held territory, not defending Venice. In addition, it was commonly
known he had agreed only reluctantly to join the campaign, for he
had preferred a contract with Genoa. Under pressure from Sforza
and others, who feared his involvement in Liguria, the Venetians had
constrained him to fight against Sigismund.27
25
Voltaire wrote: “Ardent imagination, passion, desire—frequently deceived—pro-
duce the figurative style. We do not admit it into history, for too many metaphors are
hurtful, not only to perspicuity, but also to truth, by saying more or less than the thing
itself” (Works, 9, 64) as quoted by Hayden White, 53. The issue of what should properly
go into a Renaissance humanist biography was specifically addressed by Sanseverino’s
contemporary, Giovanni Caroli, in his Vitae fratrum as discussed by Camporeale 212–33.
More generally, on the language of Renaissance diplomacy, see my Lorenzo il Magnifico
43–79.
26
Lakoff and Johnson state, “This is an example of what it means for a metaphorical
concept, namely ARGUMENT IS WAR, to structure (at least in part) what we do and
how we understand what we are doing when we argue. The essence of metaphor is
understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of language is metaphorically
structured” (5) Cf. also Theodor Sarbin’s discussion of root metaphors: “To create and
use root metaphors is a special case of metaphor making, a common achievement of
human beings. When a person confronts a novel occurrence for which no ready-made
category or class is available, the occurrence remains uninstantiated, unclassified, or
unassimilated until a class or category is located or invented. The recognition of partial
similarity on some dimension or construct provides the basis for analogy, and if
linguistic translation is necessary, the partial similarity is expressed as metaphor,” 4.
27
The Estense ambassador in Milan had reported that Signor Roberto was negotiat-
ing with Genova which had offered him 20,000 ducats to get his men in order and
another 20,000 when he arrived in their camp, Jacopo Trotti to Ercole d’Este, 16 May,
ASMo, ASE, Milano, 5. An earlier rumor had set the amount of the contract offered byS188 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
If not in youth and patriotism, at least in experience and reputa-
tion, Signor Roberto had the trappings of a great champion. The
Venetian dispatch in May announcing his new command had exuded
confidence: “We have no doubt that as soon as he reaches [our]
camp, in time and with all dispatch the situation requires, he will
provide for the aid and liberation of Rovere through his authority,
experience, virtù, and superb administration.”28
Despite early setbacks, all that summer he had fought well and was
poised to deliver an important victory with the assault on Trent. The
Venetians were supporting him with ample reinforcements of men,
money, and supplies. They anticipated that “such a victory will bring
him perpetual honor” and “immortal glory will redound to His
Excellency.”29 For capturing Trent, the Venetians had promised to
have one of his sons made bishop of Trent, or even cardinal.30 The
popular Renaissance theme of virtù exercised in the face of adverse
fortuna also may have played into Michelozzi’s choice of the Scaevola
analogy. Just as Scaevola had turned personal disadvantage to the
greater advantage of Rome, so, too, Signor Roberto’s forces seemed
to have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat earlier in the
campaign. In the earlier battle for Rovereto, Signor Roberto had
constructed and led his men across the Adige over another pontoon
bridge, and like at Calliano, the enemy had surprised them. The
Genova at 100,000 ducats, idem, 24 April, loc. cit. In early June Soderini heard that a
Genoese representative was in Venice negotiating with Signor Roberto, letter to the
Otto di Pratica, 6 June, ASF, Otto di Pratica, Responsive. 3, f. 249. Venice finally offered
him 60,000 ducats to accept command of the Venetian forces, replacing Giulio Cesare
da Varano. The Florentines were greatly relieved at the news, for it meant that Signor
Roberto could not cause trouble for them in their campaign to wrest Sarzana from
Genova, Aldobrandino Guidoni to Ercole d’Este, 29 May, ASMo, ASE, Ambasciatori,
Firenze, 5. But in the event Venice and Sigismund should make peace, the pope feared
Signor Roberto might turn against him, “retrovandose prefato Signore Roberto su le
arme, facto l’acordo fra dicti alamanni et Venetiani, non voria stare ad perdere tempo,
et potria accendere qualche foco in Italia, maxime contra Sua Beatitudine, recordandose
de le iniurie passate,” Branda Castiglione al duca di Milano, 11 July, Archivo di Stato di
Milano (ASMi), Carteggio generale visconteo-sforzesco, Potenze Estere (SPE), Roma,
100.
28
“Non dubitiamo che zonta sarà la sua persona in campo mediante la sua auctorità
experientia et virtù et cum lo suo optimo governo in tempo et cum quella presteza ch’
el bisogno rechiede, la provedarà allo effectuale soccorso et libertatione de Rovere,” 28
May, ASV, Senato Deliberazioni, XXXIII, 48, fol. 75, cited Onestinghel 211.
29
“. . . a la excelentia soa [Signor Roberto] de’ consequir immortale gloria,” and
“tale victoria che gli haverà ad offerire honore perpetuo et gloria immortale,” 8 August,
ASV, Collegio, Lettere Segrete, 1, cited in Onestinghel 330 and 332.
30
Ibid. 334.MLN S189
infantry panicked and turned back, creating havoc among the
cavalry. They retreated over the bridge, but not before prisoners were
taken. To prevent pursuit the Tyroleans burned the fortress at
Rovereto and Sanseverino’s bridge, and then unexpectedly marched
back into Tyrol. Perhaps the Germans’ withdrawal suggested to
Michelozzi the topos of an enemy’s retreat in the face of bravery, for
like Porsenna after the encounter with Scaevola, the Tyrolean general
had removed his forces after Signor Roberto had assumed command
of the Venetian army. But following the defeat at Calliano, in
retrospect, Rovereto would seem like an eerie dress rehearsal. Simi-
larities between the two battles,—the pontoon bridges, infantry
retreat under attack, prisoners taken,—perhaps explains why later
chroniclers sometimes confused details of the two battles.31
Once the rout at Calliano became known, the theme of fortuna
returned in the Florentine understanding of events. This time,
however, the emphasis was on the fickleness of Fortune in war, the
same theme that undergirded Shakespeare’s personification of
Rumour at the Battle of Shrewsbury. On 18 August, the same day
Soderini wrote to Michelozzi referencing their exchange of the
Scaevola/Roland images, the Otto di Pratica, the Florentine council
on foreign affairs, had sent its formal condolences to Venice on that
theme. The letter paralleled Michelozzi’s juxtaposition of classical
and contemporary events:
Human affairs are subject to various conflicts and mockeries of Fortune,
which, although it dominates in every circumstance, nonetheless exercises
its greatest powers in matters of war, the outcome of which is totally
uncertain and most times goes against what military strategy would predict
and against the providence of whoever leads an army, because sudden and
accidental events often emerge which neither ingenuity nor human
resources can resist in any way. Ancient and modern histories are full of
such examples where one small mishap has thrown a flourishing and
powerful army into great loss and disarray. Thus news of what happened to
the army of your Illustrious Signoria under the command of the noble
Signor Roberto di San Severino comes as no surprise.32
31
Eg. Frati 114.
32
“Sono le cose humane sottoposte a varii conflicti et ludibrii di fortuna, la quale
benché in omni esse’ dominetur, niente di manco più exercita le forze sue nelle cose
della guerra, lo exito della quale è al tutto incerto et il più delle volte è molto contrario
a quello che ne dica la ragione militare e la providentia di chi è proposto al governo
delli exerciti, perché spesse volte nascono repentum casi e fortuiti e quali né lo
ingegno, né le forze humane possono in alchuno modo resistere. Di simili exempliS190 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
Michelozzi’s comparison of Signor Roberto to Scaevola and the
language of this official dispatch reflect characteristically Florentine
political thought with its republican overtones. The Scaevola analogy
appears only in the Florentine correspondence, appropriately, con-
sidering that since the time of Leonardo Bruni, educated Florentines
had steeped themselves in the mythology of the Roman republic and
considered themselves the cultural heirs to ancient Rome.33 It also fits
the Florentine government’s more general response to the progress
of the war. In Florentine eyes, a shared Romanitas was a defining
characteristic of Italianitas, a concept which frequently emerges in
contemporary diplomatic correspondence in contrast to the trans-
alpine “others,” who were generically designated “tedeschi ”, Ger-
mans.34 On 4 August, after receiving news that the “tedeschi ” (Tyroleans)
had abandoned the war after the battle for Rovereto, the Otto di
Pratica had written Soderini stating the hope that “the conclusion will
be according to Venice’s most just desire and to its exaltation and
glory and to the shame and confusion of that barbarous people,
which outcome will be to the common advantage and honor of all
Italy. . . .”35
In his letter to Michelozzi of 18 August written in the aftermath of
Calliano, Soderini lamented the “German” victory over “Italians” in
similar terms,
sono le historie antique et moderne piene et uno piccolo disordine ha messo uno
florido et potente exercito in grandissima iactura et confusione. Il perché non è da
maravigliarsi quello che si intende dello exercito di cotesta Ill.mo Signoria sotto lo
auspicio dello Ill. S. Ruberto da San Severino,” Otto di Pratica to Soderini, 18 August,
ASF, Otto di Pratica, Legazioni e Commissarie, 5, f. 271v. Later, Machiavelli, of course,
picked up a similar theme on fortuna in Chapter 25 of The Prince.
33
Giovanni Silvano has argued that the Renaissance republicanism of Venice and
Florence differed substantially and that Venetians were much less wedded than
Florentines to models from ancient Rome. His examples are sixteenth-century, but
they help underscore the intense and lingering fascination the Roman past held
especially for Florentines, passim.
34
Vincent Ilardi argues that “Italianità” assumed clear definition in the early
sixteenth century in the context of the Italian wars (339–67). These and other
diplomatic letters written before the invasions of the 1490’s, show, however, that the
concept had currency much earlier.
35
“. . . sperando che il fine habbi a essere apunto secondo il suo [Venice’s]
honestissimo desiderio et con exaltatione et gloria sua et vergogna et confusione di
quelle barbare gente, la qualcosa ancora non può essere senza comune utilità et
honore di tutta Italia et molto al proposito di tutti noi altri potentati . . . ,” ASF, Otto di
Pratica, Legazioni e Commissarie, 5, f. 255v. See also their dispatch of 11 August, ff.
262v–263r.MLN S191
. . . on that horrible day, the victory of honor was won by the other side,
which will give them [the “Germans”] more courage and strength every
day, and just the opposite to our Italians, since they have been diminished
by a first, then a second drubbing, to such a point that they will go more
willingly to any other undertaking than this one.36
More than the comparison to Scaevola, Soderini’s more enduring
analogy with Roland expanded the significance of Signor Roberto’s
life. According to medieval legend Roland had been the bravest and
best of the twelve paladins at Charlemagne’s court and had accompa-
nied him on the first Spanish campaign to fight the Saracens. Caught
at Roncevalles in an enemy ambush, he had fought bravely to the
end, refusing until it was too late to sound his horn, which would have
summoned Charlemagne to his rescue. Like Roland, Roberto had
died in a surprise enemy ambush. Roland’s story elevated Roberto’s
to a loftier level of chivalry and tragedy than had the Scaevola analogy
with its now inappropriate message of ill fortune turned to good
through bravery. Inflated with Roland’s image, Signor Roberto’s
death surpassed the event of itself. The dyad “fixed” the meaning of
Signor Roberto’s life within the rubric of a chivalric chanson de geste.
And because death was believed to reflect the whole life story, a
heroic death predicated a heroic life, one worthy of a Renaissance
uomo illustre.
Soderini was not alone in interpreting Sanseverino’s death in this
manner.37 Niccolò Sadoletti, who had heard an account from a
secretary, emphasized how valiantly Roberto had fought and died:
“On that day Roberto carried himself like a Caesar and like a paladin
of Orlando”.38 Funeral eulogies were spoken in Milan, Venice, and
even Trent. Giovanbattista Refrigerio wrote several posthumous ele-
gies praising Sanseverino as the “son of Mars and splendid lamp of
Italy’s honor” (Frati 337), who had now joined the immortal company
36
“. . . in quella terribile giornata, la victoria dello honore essendo restato dalla
banda loro (the “tedeschi”). Darà più animo et forza omgni giorno più loro, et a questi
nostri ‘Taliani il contrario, ché son ridocti pella prima et seconda bastonata ricevuta a’
termini che volentieri andrebbero a omgni altra impresa che a questa,” BNF, Ginori
Conti, 29, 105, 6. It is interesting to observe the extent to which condottieri and their
armies were viewed as carriers of peninsular honor. As Ilardi notes, Canto XXXIII of
Orlando Furioso celebrates Italian glory through the deeds of condottieri (355).
37
See particularly, Zippel 4–9. Worth noting also is the long association with the story
of Roland especially in Florence to be found in the fourteenth-century cantastorie
tradition in which the events at Roncevalles figured prominently.
38
“Questo suo narrava come quello die fece de la persona como Cesari et como uno
paladino de Orlando . . . ,” cited in Onestinghel 342n.S192 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
of such military luminaries as the two Scipios, Marcellus, Pyrrus,
Charlemagne, and Constantine. The Florentine ambassador noted
how once Signor Roberto’s body had been found and carried to
Trent, it had been given a dignified burial in the cathedral with “the
greatest honor and pomp.”39 They even erected a commemorative
equestrian statue of him dressed in the bloody armor he had worn in
the battle.40 Ironically, Signor Roberto’s corpse had completed the
object of his last campaign, namely reception and honor in Trent.
According to Soderini, Tridentine officials had sorrowed at Signor
Roberto’s death and at the mass slaughter of the Venetians, almost as
though the defeat of so many by so few exceeded the bounds of
reasonable expectations in war.41 Special regret also came in an
anonymous report from Milan that justified the murder of a certain
Tyrolean soldier because of the man’s excessive presumptuousness in
Signor Roberto’s regard. The soldier had hit Signor Roberto in the
face then jumped on his back to sever his helmet strap and cut his
throat (Frati 114). Such effrontery by a common soldier to a great
captain, was apparently inappropriate behavior not only in battle, but
especially in memory.
A Signor Roberto who died ignominiously was less apt to be
memorialized. Thus Ludovico Sforza’s dramatization of his imputed
cowardice appears all the more insidious as deliberate character
assassination. Ludovico had tried to kill him a second time, but
Soderini and others resurrected him via Roland.
If, as Bourdieu, Foucault and others have emphasized, classifica-
tion is a social act, product of mental and linguistic structures that are
socially and therefore, historically, bound,42 then designating Signor
Roberto a latter-day Roland made chivalry a rubric within which his
life would be viewed. Although transmuted by the urban culture of
the Italian Renaissance from its early medieval roots in feudal society,
39
“honore et pompa grandissima,” Soderini to the Otto di Pratica, ASF, Otto di
Pratica, Responsive, 3, f. 515. On Renaissance funeral orations, see McManamon.
40
“Et è ordinato fargli sepultura honoratissima lì in Trento in la chiesia mazore
apresso l’altare grande dove è deposito et già li hano facto uno grande cavallo et uno
suso per sua memoria cum quella propria armadura, celada et zornea che ‘l haveva in
campo, la quale è sanguinosa,” letter of Sadoletti, 1 September, quoted in Onestinghel
342 n. Later interpreters would see these events in a nationalistic light, as part of
celebrating the Tyrolean victory more than of honoring the dead, ibid. 347.
41
“. . . i Tedeschi proprii piangono la miseria et calamità di quelli dello exercito di
questa Signoria,” Soderini to the Otto di Pratica, 25 August, ASF, Otto di Pratica,
Responsive, 3, f. 515.
42
Bourdieu 282–84. Similarly, Burke 13 and Sarbin 4.MLN S193
chivalry had remained a living ideal, particularly among the nobility
in the fighting profession. During his life, Roberto had upheld the
chivalric self image of the late medieval aristocracy, and his
Rolandesque demise as the seasoned warrior slain in battle befit
expectations of a heroic, fallen commander.
Despite the bloody reality of actual battle, Renaissance warfare
retained notable ceremonial and chivalric trappings.43 Condottieri
and their men processed before and after campaigns, sometimes
along special routes that astrologers determined to be most propi-
tious.44 The ceremony bestowing the baton of command gave occa-
sion for special ritual and pomp. Chroniclers like Benedetto Dei
remarked at length, sometimes even listing the condottieri on both
sides of various battles (55–73). Tournaments and jousts still provided
immensely popular entertainments and occasions in which military
men could demonstrate their fighting skills and feats of horseman-
ship. Back in the 1470’s when Signor Roberto had been captain
general of Florence, he had, at his own expense, sponsored a series of
festive jousts honoring the feast day of San Giovanni (Newbigin 33–
34). Signor Roberto’s son, Galeazzo, who followed in his father’s
profession,was singled out by Castiglione for his superior athletic and
riding skills.45 Signor Roberto himself had a famous warhorse,
Campanello, who was mentioned as a prized captive at Calliano
(Onestinghel 347). In the fashion of a medieval knight from olden
times, Signor Roberto had, as a younger man, gone on a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem and had written an account of his adventures.46 The
43
Some condottieri like Signor Roberto’s son, Gasparre, were badly disfigured from
their battle wounds. In December 1486 when Gasparre, better known as Fracasso, paid
a visit to the duke of Ferrara to resolidify his family’s friendship with the Este, he could
hardly speak, “el non può parlare, Se non pocho, perché come l’ha dicto, due on tre
parole, el si mette uno drapsello a la bocha, per tante bave che gli haben dato per
cacione de quella ferita . . . ,” Jacopo Trotti a Ercole Este, 15 December 1486, ASMo,
ASE, Ambasciatori, Milano, 4. The best general study of the culture of the Renaissance
condottieri remains Mallett’s Mercenaries. More generally on the importance of chivalry
in late medieval European politics and warfare, see especially chapter 7 of Huizinga.
44
Mallett 207–208.
45
Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, 1:26. Horses occupied a central role in the chivalric
culture, and were often exchanged as tokens. When duke Ercole d’Este was planning
a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain to fulfill a vow, Galeazzo Sanseverino
kept his eye out for “uno bono ronzino per la persona de Vostra Signoria per il viaggio
de Santo Jacopo,” Jacopo Trotti to Ercole d’ Este, 16 December 1486, ASMO, ASE,
Milano, 4. On the place of the horse and horse racing in contemporary aristocratic
culture, see Mallett, “Horse-racing “.
46
An account of the 1458–59 pilgrimage attributed to Sanseverino has been edited
by Maruffi. See also Cerioni 225. Another famous Milanese condottiere, Gian GiacomoS194 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
well-known fifteenth-century Florentine poet Luigi Pulci returned to
those cavallaresque themes in his Morgante in which he narrated the
death of Roland at Roncesvalles and used Roman republican heroes,
though not Scaevola, as models of martyrdom (26.37–38). Undoubt-
edly Pulci drew upon the indigenous Florentine cantastorie tradition
which was filled with references to Roncesvalles. In addition, Marcello
Simonetta has suggested some possible correspondences between the
Morgante and passages in Sanseverino’s Viaggio in Terrasanta (193–97).
We also know Pulci was intimately acquainted with Sanseverino,
having been a member of his entourage, perhaps even his secretary,
from the 1470s (ibid. 197–98). Thus a plausible Florentine context
for Michelozzi’s ready reference to Roland certainly existed.
In fifteenth-century Italy warfare remained a heroic art. Practitio-
ners valued knightly conduct and its attendant skills and adhered to
codes of personal honor, as illustrated by an episode in the Venetian/
Tyrolean war involving Signor Roberto’s son Antonio Maria, who had
joined the campaign in May along with his father. In what seems like
a throwback to a more distant era, Antonio Maria sent a herald to the
Tyrolean commander challenging a representative to single combat
with lance, sword, club, and rapier. Giovanni Truchsess, count of
Sonnenberg and Waldburg, accepted on behalf of the Tyroleans.47
Ground rules were agreed upon and marshals selected from both
sides. The combatant who first invoked the name of St. Catherine to
halt the struggle would be declared vanquished and would be
obligated to surrender his horse and armor and pay a 1,000 ducats in
ransom to his opponent.48 Negotiations and preparing the jousting
Trivulzio went to the Holy Land in 1476, Motta, “Gian Giacomo Trivulzio,” and ten
years later, Ercole d’Este who after the War of Ferrara had vowed to make a pilgrimage
to Santiago de Compostela, had to be persuaded by the pope to discharge his
obligation closer to home by going to Rome instead, see Medici 198–200.
47
Following Onestinghel 217–20. By contrast, the contemporary chronicler
Sigismondo dei Conti da Foligno recounts the combat in some detail but somewhat
differently. According to him, Sonnenberg first offered the challenge, “un tedesco
nobile per nascita e per animo, uscito fuori dalle fortificazioni fece bandire esser egli
pronto contro qualunque italiano ovvero altro dei nemici volesse cimentare con lui:
mentre gli altri stavano silenziosi, si fece innanzi Antonio Maria figlio di Roberto,
acerrimo giovane. Sul principio il padre gli si opponeva, ma poscia permise: oltre la
gloria mille ducati d’oro acquistava il vincitore dal vinto,” 283.
48
Known as the “Challenge of Pradaglia,” the incident was widely narrated in both
Italy and in Austria. Subsequent narratives were imbued with nationalistic overtones as
both sides engaged the issue of German versus Italian military superiority, Onestinghel,
217n2.MLN S195
field took the better part of a week, halting the larger war. On the
appointed day, 12 June, the two champions were escorted by an equal
number of knights in armor and heralds in fine livery. They ex-
changed hostages to insure compliance. Banners and flowers fes-
tooned the field where both sides banqueted and toasted each other’s
valor until the appointed hour. The two men fought first with lances,
then, once unhorsed, came at each other with swords and rapiers,
and finally with daggers in hand-to-hand combat. The contest ended
when Antonio Maria called out to St. Catherine. His right arm was
pinned beneath Sonnenberg, who managed to free his rapier and
wound the Italian several times in the buttocks.
Honor functioned in defeat as well as in combat. Antonio Maria
duly sent the victor his horse and suit of arms, which armor was
preserved for generations by the lords of Waldburg and then in the
Duke of Bavaria’s collection (ibid. 220). Out of respect for his
vanquished adversary, Sonnenberg presented him with a beautiful
steed (corsiero) from his own stable, and in some accounts, the count
graciously refused the ransom payment. Each man’s personal honor
had been at stake along with the honor of his respective army. The
Challenge of Pradaglia, as it was called, would be seen in retrospect as
a bad omen for the subsequent Venetian losses at Rovereto and
Calliano. The episode also underscored the tragic themes in Signor
Roberto’s life, especially since at Rovereto, his son Antonio Maria was
unhorsed and captured again, and this time really held prisoner.
The previous year, another episode illustrates the persistent air of
pathos that clung to him in his final year of life. Signor Roberto’s
forced retreat out of papal lands in the aftermath of the Neapolitan
Barons’ War sparked extensive comment in diplomatic circles, just as
Pradaglia, Rovereto, and Calliano would later. Signor Roberto had
served as papal commander-in-chief supporting the rebel barons
against king Ferrante.49 Roberto’s personal sympathies lay with the
barons, some of whom were kinsmen. Even once their cause was
doomed and the king had had many first arrested then murdered,
Signor Roberto continued their efforts to induce the French into
Italy to pursue claims to the Neapolitan throne.50 Just as earlier in his
49
On the Barons’ War of 1485–1486, see the two articles by Butters.
50
During the autumn of 1486 Italian diplomatic correspondence was filled with
rumors and reports of his plots. A letter he wrote to the Neapolitan barons dated 4
November was intercepted by Milan, copied and sent all over Italy. In it Signor Roberto
pledged “la bona et sincera dispositione mia in adiutare le Signorie Vostre [the barons]
in sino a la morte,” ASF, Dieci di Balia, Responsive, 37, f. 200.S196 MELISSA MERIAM BULLARD
career he had cast his sympathies with the dissident Milanese nobles
against Ludovico Sforza, his championing of the Neapolitan barons
had all the flavor of a noble, lost cause.
The terms of the peace ending the Barons’ War had stripped
Signor Roberto of his command and denied him the state he had
been promised. Under pressure from Ludovico Sforza, the pope
agreed to abandon him entirely.51 Thus stateless and without pay or a
new contract to support his army, Signor Roberto marched north-
wards in the hopes that Venice would grant him residency. King
Ferrante’s son, the duke of Calabria, followed him with an army to
make sure he caused no further trouble. As Signor Roberto passed
through Tuscany, the Florentines hastily sent him 1200 florins,
supposedly overdue back pay. Others claimed, however, that Lorenzo
de’ Medici had agreed to the gift to keep him from disturbing
Florentine territory.52 But by the time Signor Roberto reached
Bologna, he had run out of money, and Venice would admit him with
only a small company.
The Duke of Calabria wrote a vivid narrative of Signor Roberto’s
farewell to his men, and similar accounts can be found in other
diplomatic letters:
From many messengers and especially from many of Signor Roberto’s
soldiers, we learned that last night at six, having been apprised that we
were following him, Signor Roberto summoned his squad leaders and
soldiers and spoke to them in this vein: he thanked them for the faithful
service they had given him in the past with which he was well satisfied. As
long as he had had the means he had not failed any of them, but now that
the potentates of Italy had decided to bring him down as they had done,
since he possessed neither the means nor a place to maintain and support
them, he gave them all permission to find other arrangements and
livelihood because he could keep them in service no longer. He was
persuaded that because they had served with him personally, they would
not lack good opportunities, and that perhaps by God’s grace they would
meet again sometime. And thus at that hour with about 150 horsemen and
his baggage, he turned toward Ravenna, leaving behind his whole other
51
Signor Roberto complained bitterly about his poor treatment, “dolendosi de la
fortuna sua che senza alcuno suo manchamento et deffecto era stato inganato et male
tractato dal summo pontifice et così da li altri potentati de Italia,” Stefano Barbavaria
to the duke of Milan, 18 November, ASMi, SPE, Venezia, 375. See also Barbavaria’s
letter of 22 November, ibid.
52
Aldobrandino Guidoni to Ercole d’Este, 4 November, ASMo, SPE, ambasciatori,
Firenze, 5.MLN S197
company, part of whom regrouped, part were scattered by the locals, and
part went here and part there seeking hire along various roads and
places.53
The Ferrarese ambassador captured the pathos in the farewell when
he remarked that Signor Roberto, “without the blare of trumpets and
with only 100 horse, left, almost fleeing, for Ravenna.”54 Here in a
nutshell, we have the tragic image of the vanquished leader, stateless
champion of lost causes, who had to disband his army and depart with
no sounding of trumpets, reminiscent of Roland’s horn which had
been silent at Roncesvalles.
All these episodes the year before he died occasioned extensive
comment, and when strung together evoked the undertones of
calamity in Signor Roberto’s life. Today we might regard him in two
ways: as one of the last great mercenary captains of the Renaissance
before the methods and personalities of war changed in the sixteenth
century; and also as one of the last condottieri who had lived and
fought for the prerogatives of an independent nobility in an era of
emerging territorial states and centralized governments. That image
of him wandering around Italy after the Barons’ War foretold the
coming fate of the European nobility—most immediately in Italy in
53
“. . . per più missi et maxime per multi soldati de’ quilli de lo Signor Roberto
habbimo adviso, como questa nocte a le sei hore, havendo inteso che nui lo
sequevamo, epso Signor Roberto chiamò li capi de squadra, et soldati soi, et li parlò in
questa sententia, che li rengratiava de li boni servitii che per lo passato li haveano facto,
et che de epsi restava ben contento, et che finché lui haveva havuto il modo, non era
manchato ad alcun de’ epsi, ma che adesso havendo li potentati de Italia deliberato
meterlo al fundo, como già lo haveano misso, non havendo epso modo, né loco de
posserli mantinere, et substentarce condurli, dava ad tucti licentia, che andassero ad
trovarse partito et modo da vivere, ché epso non li posseva tenere più, persuadendose,
che per essere stati con lui proprio [non] li mancharia bon partito, dicendoli ancora
che forse Dio li prestaria gratia de rivederli qualche volta. Et cossì lui con circa cento
cinquanta cavalli de li soi, et con le robbe sue in quella medesima hora se adviò verso
Ravenna, lassando tucta l’altra compagnia sua, de la quale parte, ne è venuta ad
retrovarne, parte è stata sbalisata da li vellani, et parte ne è andata in qua, et parte in
là, divisa per diversi lochi et camini, per trovare partito,” Alfonso d’Aragona to the
duke of Milan, 12 settembre, ASMi, SPE, Napoli, 247; similarly Dieci di Balìa to
Giovanni Lanfredini, 13 settembre, BNF, Fondo Nazionale, II.V, 20, f. 194. Signor
Roberto and his men had been refused hospitality in Bologna, and his poignant
statement to the Bolognese messenger, who had brought him the news and wanted a
reply, was reportedly, “io ho perduta la pen[n]a et inchiosto et la cartha dal navichare
sanza dire altro,” ibid.
54
“. . . senza son[n]o di tromba, solum cum cento cavalli et che ‘l se ne andette
quodammodo fugendo a Ravenna,” Jacopo Trotti to Ercole d’Este, 24 September,
ASMo, ASE, Milano, 4. See also Machiavelli’s rendition in his Storie Fiorentine, 8, 32.You can also read
