At bottom, the occupation of Lower Italy by the Normans in the
eleventh century was of this character. Such attempts now began to keep
the peninsula in a constant ferment.
It was possible for a Condottiere to obtain the lordship of a district
even without usurpation, in the case when his employer, through want of
money or troops, provided for him in this way; under any circumstances
the Condottiere, even when he dismissed for the time the greater part
of his forces, needed a safe place where he could establish his winter
quarters, and lay up his stores and provisions. The first example of a
captain thus portioned is John Hawkwood, who was invested by Gregory XI
with the lordship of Bagnacavallo and Cotignola. When with Alberigo da
Barbiano Italian armies and leaders appeared upon the scene, the
chances of founding a principality, or of increasing one already
acquired, became more frequent. The first great bacchanalian outbreak
of military ambition took place in the duchy of Milan after the death
of Giangaleazzo (1402). 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.
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