During the Milano-Venetian war of 1451 and
1452, between Francesco Sforza and Jacopo Piccinino, the headquarters
of the latter were attended by the scholar Gian Antonio Porcellio dei
Pandoni, commissioned by Alfonso of Naples to write a report of the
campaign. It is written, not in the purest, but in a fluent Latin, a
little too much in the style of the humanistic bombast of the day, is
modelled on Caesar's Commentaries, and interspersed with speeches,
prodigies, and the like. Since for the past hundred years it had been
seriously disputed whether Scipio Africanus or Hannibal was the
greater, Piccinino through the whole book must needs be called Scipio
and Sforza Hannibal. But something positive had to be reported too
respecting the Milanese army; the sophist presented himself to Sforza,
was led along the ranks, praised highly all that he saw, and promised
to hand it down to posterity. Apart from him the Italian literature of
the day is rich in descriptions of wars and strategic devices, written
for the use of educated men in general as well as of specialists, while
the contemporary narratives of northerners, such as the 'Burgundian
War' by Diebold Schilling, still retain the shapelessness and matter-
of-fact dryness of a mere chronicle. The greatest _dilettante _who has
ever treated in that character of military affairs, Machiavelli, was
then busy writing his 'Arte della Guerra.
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