His
wife was beautiful and virtuous, his children were like the angels of
heaven; he was seldom ill, and all his chief wishes were fulfilled. And
yet he was not without misfortune. His wife, out of jealousy, killed
his mistress; his old comrades and friends, Troilo and Brunoro,
abandoned him and went over to King Alfonso; another, Ciarpollone, he
was forced to hang for treason; he had to suffer it that his brother
Alessandro set the French upon him; one of his sons formed intrigues
against him, and was imprisoned; the March of Ancona, which he h ad won
in war, he lost again the same way. No man enjoys so unclouded a
fortune that he has not somewhere to struggle with adversity. He is
happy who has but few troubles.' With this negative definition of
happiness the learned Pope dismisses the reader. Had he been able to
see into the future, or been willing to stop and discuss the
consequences of an uncontrolled despotism, one pervading fact would not
have escaped his notice the absence of all guarantee for the future.
Those children, beautiful as angels, carefully and thoroughly educated
as they were, fell victims, when they grew up, to the corruption of a
measureless egotism. Galeazzo Maria (1466-1476), solicitous only of
outward effect, too k pride in the beauty of his hands, in the high
salaries he paid, in the financial credit he enjoyed, in his treasure
of two million pieces of gold, in the distinguished people who
surrounded him, and in the army and birds of chase which he maintained.
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