period of Italian history, when the old fabric of social and political existence went to ruin under the impact of conflicting foreign armies.  He lived on until the year 1555, witnessing and taking part in the dismemberment of the Milanese Duchy, playing a game of hazard at high stakes for his own profit with the two last Sforzas, the Empire, the French, and the Swiss.  At the beginning of the century, while he was still a youth, the rich valley of the Valtelline, with Bormio and Chiavenna, had been assigned to the Grisons.  The Swiss Cantons at the same time had possessed themselves of Lugano and Bellinzona.  By these two acts of robbery the mountaineers tore a portion of its fairest territory from the Duchy; and whoever ruled in Milan, whether a Sforza, or a Spanish viceroy, or a French general, was impatient to recover the lost jewel of the ducal crown.  So much has to be premised, because the scene of our hero’s romantic adventures was laid upon the borderland between the Duchy and the Cantons.  Intriguing at one time with the Duke of Milan, at another with his foes the French or Spaniards, Il Medeghino found free scope for his peculiar genius in a guerilla warfare, carried on with the avowed purpose of restoring the Valtelline to Milan.  To steer a plain course through that chaos of politics, in which the modern student, aided by the calm clear lights of history and meditation, cannot find a clue, was of course impossible for an adventurer whose one aim was to gratify his passions and exalt himself at the expense of others.  It is therefore of little use to seek motives of statecraft or of patriotism in the conduct of Il Medeghino.  He was a man shaped according to Machiavelli’s standard of political morality—­self-reliant, using craft and force with cold indifference to moral ends, bent only upon wringing for himself the largest share of this world’s power for men who, like himself, identified virtue with unflinching and immitigable egotism.

Il Medeghino’s father was Bernardo de’ Medici, a Lombard, who neither claimed nor could have proved cousinship with the great Medicean family of Florence.  His mother was Cecilia Serbelloni.  The boy was educated in the fashionable humanistic studies, nourishing his young imagination with the tales of Roman heroes.  The first exploit by which he proved his virtu, was the murder of a man he hated, at the age of sixteen.  This ‘virile act of vengeance,’ as it was called, brought him into trouble, and forced him to choose the congenial profession of arms.  At a time when violence and vigour passed for manliness, a spirited assassination formed the best of introductions to the captains of mixed mercenary troops.  Il Medeghino rose in favour with his generals, helped to reinstate Francesco Sforza in his capital, and, returning himself to Milan, inflicted severe vengeance on the enemies who had driven him to exile.  It was his ambition, at this early period of his life, to be made governor of the Castle of Musso, on the Lake of Como.