It
was felt, with regret, that the value of the individual, which had been
the soul of the small and admirably organized bands of mercenaries,
would suffer from these novel means of destruction, which did their
work at a distance; and there were Condottieri who opposed to the
utmost the introduction at least of the musket, which had lately been
invented in Germany. We read that Paolo Vitelli, while recognizing and
himself adopting the cannon, put out the eyes and cut off the hands of
the captured 'schioppettieri' (arquebusiers) because he held it
unworthy that a gallant, and it might be noble, knight should be
wounded and laid low by a common, despised foot soldier. On the whole,
however, the new discoveries were accepted and turned to useful
account, till the Italians became the teachers of all Europe, both in
the build- ing of fortifications and in the means of attacking them.
Princes like Federigo of Urbino and Alfonso of Ferrara acquired a
mastery of the subject compared to which the knowledge even of
Maximilian I appears superficial. In Italy, earlier than elsewhere,
there existed a comprehensive science and art of military affairs;
here, for the first time, that impartial delight is taken in able
generalship for its own sake, which might, indeed, be expected from the
frequent change of party and from the wholly unsentimental mode of
action of the Condottieri.
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