found that they had more to lose than to gain by defeating each other in any bloody or inconveniently decisive engagement.  Therefore they adopted systems of campaigning which should cost them as little as possible, but which enabled them to exhibit a chess-player’s capacity for designing clever checkmates.[3] Both Braccio and Sforza died in 1424, and were succeeded respectively by Nicolo Piccinino and Francesco Sforza.  These two men became in their turn the chief champions of Italy.  At the same time other Condottieri rose into notice.  The Malatesta family at Rimini, the ducal house of Urbino, the Orsini and the Vitelli of the Roman States, the Varani of Camerino, the Baglioni of Perugia, and the younger Gonzaghi furnished republics and princes with professional leaders of tried skill and independent resources.  The vassals of these noble houses were turned into men-at-arms, and the chiefs acquired more importance in their roving military life than they could have gained within the narrow circuit of their little states.

    [1] Vol. v. p. 207.

[2] This is the commonly received legend.  Corio, p. 255, does not draw attention to the lowness of Sforza’s origin, but says that he was only twelve years of age when he enlisted in the corps of Boldrino da Panigale, condottiere of the Church.  His robust physical qualities were hereditary for many generations in his family.  His son Francesco was tall and well made, the best runner, jumper, and wrestler of his day.  He marched, summer and winter, bareheaded; needed but little sleep; was spare in diet, and self-indulgent only in the matter of women.  Galeazzo Maria, though stained by despicable vices was a powerful prince, who ruled his duchy with a strong arm.  Of his illegitimate daughter, Caterina, the wife of Girolamo Riario, a story is told, which illustrates the strong coarse vein that still distinguished this brood of princes. [See Dennistoun, ’Dukes of Urbino,’ vol. i. p. 292, for Boccalini’s account of the Siege of Forli, sustained by Caterina in 1488.  Compare Sismondi, vol. vii. p. 251.] Caterina Riario Sforza, as a woman, was no unworthy inheritor of her grandfather’s personal heroism and genius for government.

[3] I shall have to notice the evils of this system in another place, while reviewing the Principe of Machiavelli.  In that treatise the Florentine historian traces the whole ruin of Italy during the sixteenth century to the employment of mercenaries.

The biography of one of these Condottieri deserves special notice, since it illustrates the vicissitudes of fortune to which such men were exposed, as well as their relations to their patrons.  Francesco Carmagnuola was a Piedmontese.  He first rose into notice at the battle of Monza in 1412, when Filippo Maria Visconti observed his capacity and bravery, and afterwards advanced him to the captaincy of a troop.  Having helped to reduce the Visconti duchy to order,