in the following sentences, which may be quoted for their graphic brevity:  ’False and pitiless, he joined to immeasurable ambition a genius for enterprise, and to immovable constancy a personal timidity which he did not endeavor to conceal.  The least unexpected motion near him threw him into a paroxysm of nervous terror.  No prince employed so many soldiers to guard his palace, or took such multiplied precautions of distrust.  He seemed to acknowledge himself the enemy of the whole world.  But the vices of tyranny had not weakened his ability.  He employed his immense wealth without prodigality; his finances were always flourishing; his cities well garrisoned and victualed; his army well paid; all the captains of adventure scattered throughout Italy received pensions from him, and were ready to return to his service whenever called upon.  He encouraged the warriors of the new Italian school; he knew well how to distinguish, reward, and win their attachment.’[3] Such was the tyrant who aimed at nothing less than the reduction of the whole of Italy beneath the sway of the Visconti, and who might have achieved his purpose had not his career of conquest been checked by the Republic of Florence, and afterwards cut short by a premature death.

[1] Giovio is particular upon these points:  ’Ho veduto io ne gli armari de’ suoi Archivi maravigliosi libri in carta pecora, i quali contenevano d’ anno in anno i nomi de’ capitani, condottieri, e soldati vecchi, e le paghe di ogn’ uno, e ’l rotulo delle cavallerie, et delle fanterie:  v’ erano anco registrate le copie delle lettere le quali negli importantissimi maneggi di far guerra o pace, o egli haveva scritto ai principi o haveva ricevuto da loro.’

[2] The description given by Corio (pp. 260, 266-68) of the dower in money, plate, and jewels brought by Valentina Visconti to Louis d’Orleans is a good proof of Gian Galeazzo’s wealth.  Besides the town of Asti, she took with her in money 400,000 golden florins.  Her gems were estimated at 68,858 florins, and her plate at 1,667 marks of Paris.  The inventory is curious.

    [3] ‘History of the Italian Republics’ (1 vol.  Longmans), p. 190.

At the time of his accession the Visconti had already rooted out the Correggi and Rossi of Parma, the Scotti of Piacenza, the Pelavicini of San Donnino, the Tornielli of Novara, the Ponzoni and Cavalcabo of Cremona, the Beccaria and Languschi of Pavia, the Fisiraghi of Lodi, the Brusati of Brescia.  Their viper had swallowed all these lesser snakes.[1] But the Carrara family still ruled at Padua, the Gonzaga at Mantua, the Este at Ferrara, while the great house of Scala was in possession of Verona.  Gian Galeazzo’s schemes were first directed against the Scala dynasty.  Founded, like that of the Visconti, upon the imperial authority, it rose to its greatest height under the Ghibelline general Can Grande and his nephew Mastino, in the first half of the fourteenth century (1312-51).