[1] Arch.  Stor. xvi. 102.  See my Sketches in Italy and Greece, p.
    84.

    [2] Cinque Canti, ii. 5.

    [3] Ricordi Politici, ccxlii.

In the history of Italian despotism two points of first-rate importance will demand attention.  The first is the process by which the greater tyrannies absorbed the smaller during the fourteenth century.  The second is the relation of the chief Condottieri to the tyrants of the fifteenth century.  The evolution of these two phenomena cannot be traced more clearly than by a study of the history of Milan, which at the same time presents a detailed picture of the policy and character of the Italian despot during this period.  The dynasties of Visconti and Sforza from 1300 to 1500 bridged over the years that intervened between the Middle Age and the Renaissance, between the period of the free burghs and the period during which Italy was destined to become the theater of the action of more powerful nations.  Their alliances and diplomatic relations prepared the way for the interference of foreigners in Italian affairs.  Their pedigree illustrates the power acquired by military adventurers in the peninsula.  The magnitude of their political schemes displays the most soaring ambition which it was ever granted to Italian princes to indulge.  The splendor of their court and the intelligence of their culture bear witness to the high state of civilization which the Italians had reached.

The power of the Visconti in Milan was founded upon that of the Della Torre family, who preceded them as Captains General of the people at the end of the thirteenth century.  Otho, Archbishop of Milan, first laid a substantial basis for the dominion of his house by imprisoning Napoleone Della Torre and five of his relatives in three iron cages in 1277, and by causing his nephew Matteo Visconti to be nominated both by the Emperor and by the people of Milan as imperial Vicar.  Matteo, who headed the Ghibelline party in Lombardy, was the model of a prudent Italian despot.  From the date 1311, when he finally succeeded in his attempts upon the sovereignty of Milan, to 1322, when he abdicated in favor of his son Galeazzo, he ruled his states by force of character, craft, and insight, more than by violence or cruelty.  Excellent as a general, he was still better as a diplomatist, winning more cities by money than by the sword.  All through his life, as became a Ghibelline chief at that time, he persisted in fierce enmity against the Church.  But just before his death a change came over him.  He showed signs of superstitious terror, and began to fear the ban of excommunication which lay upon him.  This weakness alarmed the suspicions of his sons, terrible and wolf-like men, whom Matteo had hitherto controlled with bit and bridle.  They therefore induced him to abdicate in 1322, and when in the same year he died, they buried his body in a secret place, lest it should be exhumed, and