Here was no attendant
nobility to foster in the mind of the prince the mediaeval sense of
honour with all its strange consequences; but princes and counsellors
were agreed in acting according to the exigencies of the particular
case and to the end they had in view. Towards the men whose services
were used and towards allies, come from what quarter they might, no
pride of caste was felt which could possibly estrange a supporter; and
the class of the Condottieri, in which birth was a matter of
indifference, shows clearly enough in what sort of hands the real power
lay; and lastly, the government, in the hands of an enlightened despot,
had an incomparably more accurate acquaintance with its own country and
with that of its neighbors than was possessed by northern
contemporaries, and estimated the economical and moral capacities of
friend and foe down to the smallest particular. The rulers were,
notwithstanding grave errors, born masters of statistical science. With
such men negotiation was possible; it might be presumed that they would
be convinced and their opinion modified when practical reasons were
laid before them. When the great Alfonso of Naples was (1434) a
prisoner of Filippo Maria Visconti, he was able to satisfy his gaoler
that the rule of the House of Anjou instead of his own at Naples would
make the French masters of Italy; Filippo Maria set him free without
ransom and made an alliance with him.
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