It would have been
strange indeed if a prince of this character had not also cherished the
highest ambitions in political matters. King Wenceslaus made him Duke
(1395); he was hoping for nothing less than the Kingdom of Italy or the
Imperial crown, when (1402) he fell ill and died. His whole territories
are said to have paid him in a single year, besides the regular
contribution of 1,200,000 gold florins, no less than 800,000 more in
extraordinary subsidies. After his death the dominions which he had
brought together by every sort of violence fell to pieces: and for a
time even the original nucleus could with difficulty be maintained by
his successors. What might have become of his sons Giovanni Maria (died
1412) and Filippo Maria (died 1447), had they lived in a different
country and under other traditions, cannot be said. But, as heirs of
their house, they inherited that monstrous capital of cruelty and
cowardice which had been accumulated from generation to generation.
Giovanni Maria, too, is famed for his dogs, which were no longer,
however, used for hunting but for tearing human bodies. Tradition has
preserved their names, like those of the bears of Emperor Valentinian
I. In May, 1409, when war was going on, and the starving populace cried
to him in the streets, _Pace! Pace!_ he let loose his mercenaries upon
them, and 200 lives were sacrificed; under penalty of the gallows it
was forbidden to utter the words pace and guerra, and the priests were
ordered, instead of _dona nobis pacem_, to say _tranquillitatem_! At
last a band of conspirators took advantage of the moment when Facino
Cane, the chief Condotierre of the insane ruler, lay in at Pavia, and
cut down Giovanni Maria in the church of San Gottardo at Milan; the
dying Facino on the same day made his officers swear to stand by the
heir Filippo Maria, whom he himself urged his wife to take for a second
husband.
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