Carmagnuola found himself disgraced and suspected without good reason by the Duke of Milan; and in 1426 he took the pay of the Venetians against his old master.  During the next year he showed the eminence of his abilities as a general; for he defeated the combined forces of Piccinino, Sforza, and other captains of the Visconti, and took them prisoners at Macalo.  Carmagnuola neither imprisoned nor murdered his foes.[1] He gave them their liberty, and four years later had to sustain a defeat from Sforza at Soncino.  Other reverses of fortune followed, which brought upon him the suspicion of bad faith or incapacity.  When he returned to Venice, the state received their captain with all honors, and displayed unusual pomp in his admission to the audience of the Council.  But no sooner had their velvet clutches closed upon him, than they threw him into prison, instituted a secret impeachment of his conduct, and on May 5, 1432, led him out with his mouth gagged, to execution on the Piazza.  No reason was assigned for this judicial murder.  Had Carmagnuola been convicted of treason?  Was he being punished for his ill success in the campaign of the preceding years?  The Republic of Venice, by the secrecy in which she enveloped this dark act of vengeance, sought to inspire the whole body of her officials with vague alarm.

[1] Such an act of violence, however consistent with the morality of a Cesare Borgia, a Venetian Republic, or a Duke of Milan, would have been directly opposed to the code of honor in use among Condottieri.  Nothing, indeed, is more singular among the contradictions of this period than the humanity in the field displayed by hired captains.  War was made less on adverse armies than on the population of provinces.  The adventurers respected each other’s lives, and treated each other with courtesy.  They were a brotherhood who played at campaigning, rather than the representatives of forces seriously bent on crushing each other to extermination.  Machiavelli says (Princ. cap. xii.) ’Aveano usato ogni industria per levar via a se e a’ soldati la fatica e la paura, non s’ammazzando nelle zuffe, ma pigliandosi prigioni e senza taglia.’  At the same time the license they allowed themselves against the cities and the districts they invaded is well illustrated by the pillage of Piacenza in 1447 by Francesco Sforza’s troops.  The anarchy of a sack lasted forty days, during which the inhabitants were indiscriminately sold as slaves, or tortured for their hidden treasure.  Sism. vi. 170.

But to return to the Duchy of Milan.  Francesco Sforza entered the capital as conqueror in 1450, and was proclaimed Duke.  He never obtained the sanction of the Empire to his title, though Frederick III. was proverbially lavish of such honors.  But the great Condottiere, possessing the substance, did not care for the external show of monarchy.  He ruled firmly, wisely, and for those times well, attending to the prosperity of his states, maintaining good discipline in his cities, and losing no ground by foolish or ambitious schemes.  Louis XI. of France is said to have professed himself Sforza’s pupil in statecraft, than which no greater tribute could be paid to his political sagacity.  In 1466 he died, leaving three sons, Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, the Cardinal Ascanio, and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro.