Such was the profusion of this banquet that the remnants taken from the table were enough and to spare for 10,000 men.’  Petrarch, we may remember, assisted at this festival and sat among the princes.  It was thus that Galeazzo displayed his wealth before the feudal nobles of the North, and at the same time stretched the hand of friendly patronage to the greatest literary man of Europe.  Meanwhile he also married his son Gian Galeazzo to Isabella, daughter of King John of France, spending on this occasion, it is said, a similar sum of money for the honor of a royal alliance.[4]

    [1] M. Villani, v. 81.  Compare Corio, p. 230.  Corio gives the date
    1356.

    [2] Namely, Alba, Cuneo, Carastro, Mondovico, Braida.  See Corio, p.
    238, who adds sententiously, ‘il che quasi fu l’ ultima roina del
    suo stato.’

    [3] Corio (pp. 239, 240) gives the bill of fare of the banquet.

    [4] Sismondi says he gave 600,000 florins to Charles, the brother of
    Isabella, but authorities differ about the actual amount.

Galeazzo held his court at Pavia.  His brother reigned at Milan.  Bernabo displayed all the worst vices of the Visconti.  His system of taxation was most oppressive, and at the same time so lucrative that he was able, according to Giovio’s estimate, to settle nine of his daughters at an expense of something like two millions of gold pieces.  A curious instance of his tyranny relates to his hunting establishment.  Having saddled his subjects with the keep of 5,000 boar-hounds, he appointed officers to go round and see whether these brutes were either too lean or too well-fed to be in good condition for the chase.  If anything appeared defective in their management, the peasants on whom they were quartered had to suffer in their persons and their property.[1] This Bernabo was also remarkable for his cold-blooded cruelty.  Together with his brother, he devised and caused to be publicly announced by edict that State criminals would be subjected to a series of tortures extending over the space of forty days.  In this infernal programme every variety of torment found a place, and days of respite were so calculated as to prolong the lives of the victims for further suffering, till at last there was little left of them that had not been hacked and hewed and flayed away.[2] To such extremities of terrorism were the despots driven in the maintenance of their illegal power.

[1] ’Per cagione di questa caccia continoamente teneva cinque mila cani; e la maggior parte di quelle distribuiva alla custodia de i cittadini, e anche a i contadini, i quali niun altro cane che quelli potevano tenere.  Questi due volte il mese erano tenuti a far la mostra.  Onde trovandoli macri in gran somma di danari erano condannati, e se grossi erano, incolpandoli del troppo, erano multati; se morivano, li pigliava il tutto.—­Corio, p. 247.

Read M. Villani, vii. 48, for the story