But the patent of Charles the Bold had more significance.  In 1473 he entertained the project of employing the great Italian General against his Swiss foes; nor does it seem reasonable to reject a statement made by Colleoni’s biographer, to the effect that a secret compact had been drawn up between him and the Duke of Burgundy, for the conquest and partition of the Duchy of Milan.  The Venetians, in whose service Colleoni still remained, when they became aware of this project, met it with peaceful but irresistible opposition.

Colleoni had been engaged continually since his earliest boyhood in the trade of war.  It was not therefore possible that he should have gained a great degree of literary culture.  Yet the fashion of the times made it necessary that a man in his position should seek the society of scholars.  Accordingly his court and camp were crowded with students, in whose wordy disputations he is said to have delighted.  It will be remembered that his contemporaries, Alfonso the Magnanimous, Francesco Sforza, Federigo of Urbino, and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, piqued themselves at least as much upon their patronage of letters, as upon their prowess in the field.

Colleoni’s court, like that of Urbino, was a model of good manners.  As became a soldier, he was temperate in food and moderate in slumber.  It was recorded of him that he had never sat more than one hour at meat in his own house, and that he never overslept the sunrise.  After dinner he would converse with his friends, using commonly his native dialect of Bergamo, and entertaining the company now with stories of adventure, and now with pithy sayings.  In another essential point he resembled his illustrious contemporary, the Duke of Urbino; for he was sincerely pious in an age which, however it preserved the decencies of ceremonial religion, was profoundly corrupt at heart.  His principal lordships in the Bergamasque territory owed to his munificence their fairest churches and charitable institutions.  At Martinengo, for example, he rebuilt and re-endowed two monasteries, the one dedicated to S. Chiara, the other to S. Francis.  In Bergamo itself he founded an establishment named’ La Pieta,’ for the good purpose of dowering and marrying poor girls.  This house he endowed with a yearly income of 3000 ducats.  The Sulphur baths of Trescorio, at some distance from the city, were improved and opened to poor patients by a hospital which he provided.  At Rumano he raised a church to S. Peter, and erected buildings of public utility, which on his death he bequeathed to the society of the Misericordia in that town.  All the places of his jurisdiction owed to him such benefits as good water, new walls, and irrigation works.  In addition to these munificent foundations must be mentioned the Basella, or Monastery of Dominican friars, which he established not far from Bergamo, upon the river Serio, in memory of his beloved daughter Medea.  Last, not least, was the Chapel of S. John the Baptist, attached to the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, which he endowed with fitting maintenance for two priests and deacons.