and widest scope for martial science.  Afterwards the Medici ruled Bohemia as Spanish Viceroy; and then, as general of the league formed by the Duke of Florence, the Emperor, and the Pope to repress the liberties of Tuscany, distinguished himself in that cruel war of extermination, which turned the fair Contado of Siena into a poisonous Maremma.  To the last Il Medeghino preserved the instincts and the passions of a brigand chief.  It was at this time that, acting for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, he first claimed open kinship with the Medici of Florence.  Heralds and genealogists produced a pedigree, which seemed to authorise this pretension; he was recognised, together with his brother, Pius IV., as an offshoot of the great house which had already given Dukes to Florence, Kings to France, and two Popes to the Christian world.  In the midst of all this foreign service he never forgot his old dream of conquering the Valtelline; and in 1547 he made proposals to the Emperor for a new campaign against the Grisons.  Charles V. did not choose to engage in a war, the profits of which would have been inconsiderable for the master of half the civilised world, and which might have proved troublesome by stirring up the tameless Switzers.  Il Medeghino was obliged to abandon a project cherished from the earliest dawn of his adventurous manhood.

When Gian Giacomo died in 1555, his brother Battista succeeded to his claims upon Lecco and the Trepievi.  His monument, magnificent with five bronze figures, the masterpiece of Leone Lioni, from Menaggio, Michelangelesque in style, and of consummate workmanship, still adorns the Duomo of Milan.  It stands close by the door that leads to the roof.  This mausoleum, erected to the memory of Gian Giacomo and his brother Gabrio, is said to have cost 7800 golden crowns.  On the occasion of the pirate’s funeral the Senate of Milan put on mourning, and the whole city followed the great robber, the hero of Renaissance virtu, to the grave.

Between the Cathedral of Como and the corsair Medeghino there is but a slight link.  Yet so extraordinary were the social circumstances of Renaissance Italy, that almost at every turn, on her seaboard, in her cities, from her hill-tops, we are compelled to blend our admiration for the loveliest and purest works of art amid the choicest scenes of nature with memories of execrable crimes and lawless characters.  Sometimes, as at Perugia, the nexus is but local.  At others, one single figure, like that of Cellini, unites both points of view in a romance of unparalleled dramatic vividness.  Or, again, beneath the vaults of the Certosa, near Pavia, a masterpiece of the serenest beauty carries our thoughts perforce back to the hideous cruelties and snake-like frauds of its despotic founder.  This is the excuse for combining two such diverse subjects in one study.

* * * * *

BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI