' But the development of the
individual soldier found its most complete expression in those public
and solemn conflicts between one or more pairs of combatants which were
practiced long before the famous 'Challenge of Barletta' (1503). The
victor was assured of the praises of poets and scholars, which were
denied to the northern warrior. The result of these combats was no
longer regarded as a Divine judgement, but as a triumph of personal
merit, and to the minds of the spectators seemed to be both the
decision of an exciting competition and a satisfaction for the honour
of the army or the nation.
It is obvious that this purely rational treatment of warlike affairs
allowed, under certain circumstances, of the worst atrocities, even in
the absence of a strong political hatred, as, for instance, when the
plunder of a city had been promised to the troops. After the forty
days' devastation of Piacenza, which Sforza was compelled to permit to
his soldiers (1477), the town long stood empty, and at last had to be
peopled by force. Yet outrages like these were nothing compared with
the misery which was afterwards brought upon Italy by foreign troops,
and most of all by the Spaniards, in whom perhaps a touch of oriental
blood, perhaps familiarity with the spectacles of the Inquisition, had
unloosed the devilish element of human nature.
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