THE PLOTS OF FIESCHI.

The political ideas of the sixteenth century—The advice of Donato Gianotto to the Italians—Generous aims of Gianluigi Fieschi—His reported plots with Cesare Fregoso disproved—The conspiracy with Pietro Strozzi a fable—Fieschi has secret conferences with Barnaba Adorno, lord of Silvano—Pier Luca Fieschi and his part in the conspiracy of Gianluigi—The Count sends Cagnino Gonzaga to treat with France—The purchase of the Farnesian galleys—Francesco Burlamacchi.

According to our belief, a single idea directed the movements of the Peninsula in the first part of the sixteenth century—the thought common to all the people of emancipating the country from that foreign power which was corrupting the national character, literature, and art. Classic and courtly history has found in these stormy years only local and isolated conspiracies; few writers, we might almost say none, have heard, in these risings of peoples crushed under the ambitions of the great, the mighty groan of a dying nation not yet resigned to her terrible fate.

The national Guelph tradition refused to yield place to the new imperial system which was slowly destroying the old charters of the communes. There were generous throbs which showed that the old body politic, though sore wounded, still contained the breath of life; every city of Italy on the verge of the grave rose up with the last strength of an expiring man, protested with blood, and died.

Palermo protested in her hero Giovanni Squarcialupo whose death consecrated her cause; she renewed her life in the patriotism of the Abbattelli, who could not turn back her destiny. Naples was lit up with insurrection. Milan, always foremost in magnanimous enterprises, raised her head, when Morone incited the marquis of Pescara against the emperor, and that nobleman first promised to lead the revolution and then betrayed it to the tyrant. Perugia in vain set up the banner of the Republic; Florence fought, Siena renewed the memory of Saguntum, and Lucca burned audacious fires of civil and religious liberty. There was scarcely a city or village which did not recall its Latin traditions, and combat the monarchical power which was descending like a tempest on the whole nation.

The blood which was poured out like water did not profit our cause. Some died in battle, some lost their heads on the block, and others preferred banishment to being witnesses of the national degradation. Hospitable Venice, who alone was clean from the Spanish leprosy, opened her doors to the fugitive patriots, and they, having broken their swords, continued to protest with their pens. Italian statesmen had good reason to struggle against the growing importance of the house of Hapsburgh, whose only enemy was France then barely escaped out of her contests with feudalism and with the English.

Donato Gianotti, the successor of Machiavelli, as secretary of the Florentine Republic, wrote a wonderful address to Paul III., in which he urged that Genoa should be redeemed from the hands of the Dorias and Spaniards, and the republic and principalities bound in alliance with France, as necessary measures for the defence of national liberty. The object of this discourse, so rich in political wisdom, was to warn the Italians of the danger of neglecting their own interests.

“They cannot,” he says, “secure their safety except by making preparations to take up arms against that power which can only secure itself in its possessions by enslaving all Italy.”[31] Gianotti urged the importance of tempting the confederates of the emperor, and, if possible, enlisting them in the national cause, and adds: “The State of Genoa under the authority of Andrea Doria, ought to be reconciled to the King of France; and I do not believe the Genoese would be disinclined to it, for their sympathies are for France, and they know the advantages to a Republic of independence and the free use of their political power. It was useful to the Genoese, at the moment, to follow the influence of Doria and, ceasing to be French, to become imperialists, as a step towards liberty; but at present it would not be less useful to them to unite, without altering the form of their state, with the other governments of the Peninsula.”

Gianotti expressed the hope that the Pope’s authority might induce Doria to risk his fortunes with those of Italy, and he thinks there could not be obstacles on the part of the French monarch, because political prudence would counsel him to ally himself with Genoa, without seeking to govern her as a subject province: “rather,” he adds, “the French king should refuse to govern Genoa, as such power would involve most embarrassments for himself. The French king should make allies of the Genoese, solely in order to detach them from his enemies.” He makes a similar suggestion to all the Italian states, especially Siena and Florence, “who for common interests ought to make common cause.” He argues that such a policy would free these states from that dependence on the empire, which some believed necessary to their existence, and would give them the repute of being able to live without leaning on foreign support. He advocates the policy which adjusts itself to the conveniences and changes of the times, and enforces this reasoning by the conduct and aims of the Emperor which left the Italians no hope but in war. He advises that arms and munitions both of offence and defence be acquired with as much haste as possible; that friendship be cultivated with foreign powers. “Peace,” he concludes, “may be more fatal than war, for the former must in the end subject us to despotism, while war may fortify our present liberties and restore those of which we have been defrauded.”[32]

This apparent digression upon the discourse of the Florentine statesman is very much to our purpose, and that his counsels were warmly welcomed by the Count Lavagna is manifest, for his scheme is moulded upon Gianotti’s plan. The Florentine laid down three rules of policy,—That our provinces, especially Genoa, break with the Emperor; that they form alliance with France—not to put themselves in her power, but to keep her from becoming their enemy,—and that, without seeking material aid from France, all the Republics should make vigorous preparation for war against the empire.

On these principles Fieschi constructed his too-much calumniated plot. Those who have written about it, without studying the character of the times, rather as romancers than historians, have transmitted us a fable that he sought the supreme control of the Republic; but he sought no other end than to bring back the government to its ancient principles. Revolution in Genoa never aimed at enslaving the people. In those centuries we had foreign generals and ministers among us, but never absolute rulers; and if these ministers attempted tyranny, they paid for their audacity with their blood, like Opizzino d’Alzate, or were expelled, like Trivulzio and others.

Gianluigi was not so short-sighted as not to know the temper of the Genoese, or to forget the lesson of then recent examples. He sought not to usurp the government and become the oppressor of the people, but to confer on his native land the blessings of its ancient order.

Though writers in the pay of Spain accused him of corrupt ambition, lust of gold and thirst for blood, it is time to render him the tardy justice of saying that no document can be quoted which proves that he cherished such infamous projects—projects alien to his gentle and humane character, to the traditions of his family, and to the spirit of the Guelph party then supported by the most sound and cultivated intellects of Italy.

Sismondi alone, of all historians, seems to us to have comprehended the real object of Fieschi. “Andrea Doria,” he writes, “had restored the name of Republic to his country, but not liberty nor independence. He called to the government a strict aristocracy, of whom Gianettino was the master. He bound the fate of his country to that of Austria, by bonds which humiliated the best part of the Genoese. Fieschi planned his conspiracy in order to deliver the country from the yoke of Spain and the Dorias.”[33]

The events we proceed to describe set the seal of truth upon the words of this illustrious historian.

Some tell us that Gianluigi plotted, so early as 1537, with Cesare Fregoso, to place the Republic in the hands of the French king; for which, Bonfadio adds,[34] he would have lost his head, if Andrea Doria had not saved him from the rigours of the law. This report was set on foot by the marquis Vasto, governor of Milan, who, after the assassination of Cesare Fregoso and Antonio Rancone, the messengers of King Francis to Soliman, endeavoured to justify his treachery by declaring, among other things, that he had found in commentaries of Fregoso, (which he never had in his hands) proofs that Fieschi took part in that plot. But these pretended conspiracies with the King of France are now destroyed by very authoritative testimony. If Bonfadio had remembered that, in 1537, Fieschi was still a lad, he would have hesitated to adopt that slander. It is known, too, that personal enmity existed between the families Fregoso and Fieschi of so bitter a character as to forbid all possibility of common political views and intimate secret negotiations. The memory of the day, when Doge Giano Fregoso and his brother Fregosino, encountering Gerolamo Fieschi, killed him with many blows, was not effaced; nor was it forgotten that the Fieschi retired to their castles to plan their revenge, collected three thousand soldiers and besieged the city from the valley of Bisagno, where the Fregosi were entrenched. A battle was fought, in which the Doge was defeated. The Fieschi entered the city as victors, killed Zaccaria Fregoso, dragged his corpse through the populous streets, and elevated Antoniotto Adorno to the office of Doge. From that day a mortal hatred had divided the two families. This fact alone renders the story of a plot with Fregoso highly improbable.

Bonfadio also accuses Fieschi of having attempted to betray the city to Pietro Strozzi, which, he says, would have been done, if Bernardino di Mendozza had not arrived with a strong body of Bisogni, in good time to overthrow the conspiracy. Some add that the count sent one Sacco, to Strozzi to instigate him to attack Genoa and to act as a guide. The circumstance deserves investigation.

In August, 1544, when the emperor had marched into France, Pietro Strozzi collected an army at Mirandola, with the design of attacking the territories of Milan in concert with Enghein. Aided by Pierluigi Farnese, he had already crossed the Po, and entered the province of Piacenza, where he lay encamped on the slopes of the Ligurian mountains, when, being assailed by Ridolfo Baglione and imperial troops sent from Naples, he was forced to fall back to Serravalle, on the banks of the Scrivia. Here he was overtaken by the prince of Salerno, and forced to accept battle. The fight was at first favourable to Strozzi, but in the end he suffered defeat. There were few killed, because the Italians recognized their brotherhood on the field of battle, threw down their arms and embraced each other. Strozzi took shelter with the remnant of his army in the territory of the Republic. The Fieschi, fearing the rage of a conquered Strozzi, and perhaps an assault upon Montobbio, fled into the city, and remained there until Strozzi evacuated his camp in the Apennines. This shows how completely Bonfadio was in error.[35]

Though, however, the count of Lavagna (then lord of thirty-three castles) had no secret correspondence with Fregoso nor Strozzi, he certainly had political relations with other persons; and this is what remains after eliminating the falsehoods spread abroad by Spain.

Having formed the purpose of deposing the old nobility and restoring the popular government, Fieschi saw that his best policy was to follow the fortunes of the Adorni, whose party his ancestors, and especially his father, had zealously supported. The views of Gianluigi found an echo in the breast of Barnaba Adorno, count of Silvano, of whom we must briefly speak.

Silvano is situated in the Val d’Orba in Monferrato, two miles beyond the Giovi. On the east and west lie the villages of St. Cristoforo, then a feud of the Dorias, of Montaldeo—honored as the birth-place, at a later period, of cardinal Mazzarino—and Mornese, a feud of the Serras; on the south lay Cremolino, possessed by the Dorias; and on the north the castles of Carpineto, and Montaldo, and the city of Alessandria. Nearer and almost contiguous to Silvano stood the castles of Lerma, Tagliolo, Ovada, Rocca Grimaldi, Capriata, and Castelletto Val d’Orba, also feuds of Barnaba Adorno.

Silvano was fortified by two large and strong towers, and was the usual residence of Adorno, who had strong friends and political allies in all the castles and villages around him. He devoted his early years to arms, and, rising to the rank of colonel under CÆsar, he acquired distinction in Provence and in the kingdom of Naples. In the latter he obtained the feud of Caprarica. Weary of the tumults of war, he retired to his home and married Maddalena, daughter of the Doge Antoniotto Adorno. In beauty, this woman was excelled by few persons of her time.

The quiet of Adorno was disturbed by serious quarrels, especially by one with count Paolo Pico of Mirandola, who attacked his lands and put Castelletto to fire and sword. This strife, so bloody in the civil war which it inflamed, was not less spirited before the tribunals of the empire; but it is not our province to enlarge on its many vicissitudes.

Adorno cherished the design of cultivating the popular party, and so raising the declining fortunes of his house, and he soon began to attempt plots against the new order in Genoa.

In this purpose he turned to the count of Lavagna, through the mediation of a Fra Badaracco, and, after many debates, it was resolved to unite their forces for the overthrow of the Dorias. Barnaba was to be elevated to the Dogate, and the count to govern the eastern Riviera as his father had done before him. They further agreed to place the Republic under the protection of France, without prejudice, however, to its liberties, and solely to secure it from the vengeance of CÆsar. Fra Badaracco, in order to find partisans, held conversations with some gentlemen whom he supposed to be dissatisfied with the government of the Dorias. But these persons exposed the matter in the senate: the friar was arrested, and some letters of Barnaba Adorno were found on his person. After having been tortured, Bardaracco was decapitated, having confessed that, besides Adorno, Gianluigi Fieschi and Pietra Paolo Lasagna were concerned in the conspiracy. The senators, not being able to obtain proofs of their guilt, decided not to prosecute the conspirators.

Having thus failed in his first effort, the count sought new paths to his end. He saw that it was necessary to have an understanding with the king of France, as a means of restraining the army which the emperor had in the territories of Milan, and to secure the capture of the fleet of Doria, which was the chief prop of the imperial power. It was plain that these naval and military forces would easily quell any insurrection, unless the troops of France in Piedmont were directed to hold the army of CÆsar in check. Gianluigi was induced to enter into an understanding with France by one of his relatives by blood, of whom we ought briefly to speak, because his name has been almost forgotten in our domestic histories.

A branch of the Fieschi family, expelled from Genoa in 1339, had taken up its residence in Piedmont and acquired there both possessions and honours. A certain Giovanni Fieschi—made bishop of Vercelli by Clement VI., in 1348—gave a share of the temporal government of his diocese to his brother NicolÒ, and conferred upon him some lands and castles.

We find in the archives of the court at Turin that the Fieschi ruled in Masserano until 1381, and that NicolÒ, Giovanni, and Antonio formed an alliance with count Verde. Some few years later, or in 1394, Lodovico Fieschi, also bishop of Vercelli and cardinal, petitioned Boniface IX. for the repayment of a large sum of money spent by him in maintaining the rights of his church, and he obtained permission to alienate from the jurisdiction of the church the castles of Masserano and Moncrivello, and to confer the feud upon his brother Antonio. This investiture was confirmed by subsequent popes, especially by Julius II.; and Alexander VI. added, in 1498, the feuds of Curino, Brusnengo, Flecchia, and Riva, assigning them to the brothers Innocenzo and Pier Luca.

The first of these had a son named Lodovico, and this Lodovico a daughter named Beatrice, whose hand her father gave to Filiberto Ferrero, a citizen of Biella, adopting him as a son.

The Fieschi possessions in this way passed into the family of Ferrero; and he, having obtained for his son Besso the hand of Camilla, niece of Paul III., secured the investiture of Masserano, then created a Marquisate. Whoever is desirous of learning how these feuds came into the possession of the Ferreri to the exclusion of the male line, and particularly of Gregory and Pier Luca Fieschi, may consult Curzio Giuniore.

This Pier Luca II., lord of Crevacuore, where he had an excellent mint, of whose coinage some specimens are preserved to us, constantly revolved revolutionary projects, as a means of recovering his lost dominions, and urged Count Gianluigi to proclaim himself a partisan of France. It is certain that by the advice of Pier Luca, Gianluigi bought the Farnesian galleys, of which we shall presently speak.

The count received Pier Luca at his house in Vialata with every mark of affection, and lent a willing ear to his suggestions; but fearing that France would wish to reduce Genoa to the condition of a French province, he resolved to ascertain the views of the ministers of that power, and to obtain pledges for the security of popular liberty.

He entrusted this negotiation to Gian Francesco, (called Gagnino) Gonzaga of the family of the dukes of Sabbione, a brave soldier, hostile to the empire. With his uncle Frederick he had fought against CÆsar at Parma, and later as a colonel of the Florentines in the celebrated siege of Florence. Being an open partisan of the French, he was banished from his native land.

Gonzaga presented himself before the French council of state, and reminded the ministers of the many services which the Fieschi family had rendered to the French crown; he showed clearly that the only means of driving the Spaniards from Lombardy, was to destroy the communication with their other Italian states: and the first step to this end would be to remove from power in Genoa the faction of the Dorias. Fieschi, he added, could accomplish this more easily than any other person, and he would attempt the enterprise if France would encourage his efforts, and promise not to lay violent hands on the Republic.

Doria had many enemies in Paris. Though the Chancellor Du Prat was dead and the constable Montmorency was fallen, yet the animosities awakened by Doria in that court were not buried. Delfino still remembered that Doria had taken Genoa from the dominion of France and he meditated vengeance.

The count of San Polo had not forgotten that Andrea caused his defeat and captivity at the battle of Landriano, by informing the Spaniards of the difficulties he was encountering in his retreat. Cardinal Tournon was unable to pardon Doria for throwing many obstacles in his way when he went to Rome to attend the conclave assembled to elect a successor to Clement VIII. Admiral Annebaut hoped to command the army to be sent for the conquest of Lombardy as soon as the revolution should break out in Genoa.

Thus all the ministers, actuated at once by personal and political motives, favoured the plans of Fieschi. Gonzaga was welcomed with delight and obtained a solemn promise that the crown of France would renounce all pretensions to the government of Genoa. He was also empowered to make use of the French troops in Piedmont in garrison at Turin, Moncalieri, Savigliano and Pinerolo; and to select in the port of Toulon such ships as might be adapted to serve the purposes of Fieschi.

This negotiation, securing the coÖperation of France without compromising the independence of the country, is highly creditable to Gianluigi and shows the keenness of his political vision which forecast all the dangers and complications of foreign assistance. Perhaps he listened too hopefully to these promises of foreign succour; but if French diplomatists then deceived him, he afterwards showed that he lacked neither courage nor will to undertake his revolution without their coÖperation.

France was at that time prodigal of flattery to Italy. She drew from us her luxury, her arts and the embellishments of her life; perhaps also her vices which she repaid to us with usury. She had apparently no schemes for the overthrow of the Italians, and sincerely, though not disinterestedly, sought our emancipation from the Spanish power. We are indebted to her for restraining CÆsar from destroying among us even the name of liberty; and this explains why our Republics, our people and our first intellects were so friendly to France. Whatever secret designs she may have cherished, she promoted popular franchises in Italy. She encouraged agriculture and commerce, and in war for the most part abstained from pillage and carnage, so that the people butchered by the Spaniards cried out, “Would that the French were here to liberate us from these miscreants!”

Some tell us that the Count, besides the aid promised, received an annual sum from France and that he was also salaried by CÆsar. But we have never found any credible testimony for such statements, and the authors seem to have spun them out of their own fancies or received them upon the faith of partisan writers. They should be consigned to that mass of idle rumours or malevolent slanders which we have set aside. Of similar cloth is the fable of the journey of Ottobuono, brother of Gianluigi, to Paris, and also to Rome to ask justice for a grave injury inflicted upon him by Gianettino.

In the mean while, Gianluigi lost no opportunity of making partisans. The times were propitious. The Duke of Piacenza, wishing to restrain the license of the nobles published a proclamation requiring them to reside in the city. This command offended not a few who were feudatories, but not subjects, of the duke. Among these were the Borromeo of Milan, who possessed Guardasone in the province of Parma, and the Fieschi who held Calestano. Gianluigi sent a message to the duke asking that the order might be revoked in his favour. His request was granted, and he went in person, ostensibly to thank the duke and render him homage as his feudatory, but in reality to treat for the purchase of the Farnesian galleys, a measure recommended by Pier Luca as necessary to the contemplated revolution.

To conceal his true intent he wrote to the Senate, on the 28th of September, 1545, that he was in Piacenza to pay homage to the duke, and that he found nuncios coming there from all the Italian provinces. He therefore advised that the Republic should also send a representative. The Senate followed his advice, and charged him with the honourable office.

Although the galleys of which we have spoken had already been asked for by Pietro Strozzi, by Prince Adamo Centurione, and by Cardinal Sauli, for a nephew who had already paid a part of the price, yet the duke, knowing the use Gianluigi intended to make of them, gave him the preference. The purchase was effected on the 23rd of November, 1545. The galleys were named the Capitana, Vittoria, Santa Caterina and Padrona, and had on board, in addition to arms and equipments, three hundred persons condemned for life, one hundred and eighty-five for various terms of years, and one hundred and eighty Turkish and other slaves.

The price amounted to thirty-four thousand gold crowns, to be paid in several instalments; one third on delivery of the vessels, another on Lady day, 1546, and the last one year later. The deferred payments were secured upon the feud of Calestano, with the consent of Gianluigi’s brother Gerolamo, who was lord of that property.[36] The contracting parties were, on one side, Paolo Pietro Guidi, president of the ducal chamber, and Giovanni Battista Liberati, the duke’s treasurer; and the Count of Lavagna on the other. We must not omit, among the conditions of the sale, that three of the galleys were to remain for two years longer in the service of the Apostolic See, Count Fieschi receiving the Papal bonds held by Orazio Farnese.

The low price of the galleys is explained by this condition, in virtue of which they were bound to remain in the port of Civita Vecchia, and the count was obliged to provide for the maintenance and pay of the officers and crews without deriving any advantage from the ownership. Gianluigi assigned the command to Giulio Pojano, who had also commanded them under Orazio Farnese when the emperor undertook the war of Algiers.

We are not able to decide with certainty whether, after this purchase, the count went to Rome, as some affirm. We find however that Duke Pierluigi, having proclaimed a tournament in Piacenza to take place on the 21st of February, 1546, and requested that the ladies of his feudatories should also attend, the countess Eleanora, as well as many others, complied with the invitation and was presented by her husband to the duke, who now treated Gianluigi as his equal.

Duke Farnese announced another tournament for the autumn of the same year, to celebrate the marriage of Faustina Sforza with Muzio Visconti Sforza, marquis of Caravaggio. At this festival the flower of the Italian nobility was gathered together; and in the tournament of the 20th of October, 1546, NicolÒ Pusterla and Count Fieschi obtained the highest honours.

It is not known what means the duke intended to employ for carrying out the contemplated revolution. Perhaps both Fieschi and Farnese were yet undecided. It is not impossible (we have strong testimony for the theory) that they waited, with the hope of enlisting on their side one who had even more audacity and strength than themselves, and who would have brought no mean forces into the alliance.

One of those reformers who makes centuries glorious was maturing a scheme of greater scope than that of Fieschi. Francesco Burlamacchi, born of a noble house in Lucca, had conceived the lofty design of revolutionizing, under popular auspices, the Tuscan cities oppressed by Cosimo; allying them to the still surviving republics of Lucca and Siena; embracing in the new nation Perugia, which since 1540 had maintained itself under popular government against the Papacy; taking away from the Apostolic See the temporal power, and restoring the church to the consecrated poverty of the Gospel.

He confided in the popular discontent at domestic and foreign tyranny, and not less in the reformed doctrines which were advocated by the most distinguished Italians, especially by those of Lucca. He proposed his scheme to his friends and sought partisans among the Florentine exiles, the faction of the Strozzi, and even among the German Lutherans who had at their head Phillip Landgrave of Hesse, and Frederick, duke of Saxony. Impatient of delay, he went in person to Venice, then the asylum of the Tuscan and Genoese exiles, and solicited their coÖperation. He made an arrangement with Leone Strozzi, prior of Capua, by which the latter agreed to support the enterprize; but Strozzi thought it wiser to procrastinate until the result of the Germanic war should be known.

Burlamacchi, having been created commissary of ordnance at Montagna, resolved to undertake his daring enterprize without waiting longer for foreign aid. He intended to rouse the people to arms, march rapidly upon Pisa—whose fortress, commanded by Vincenzo del Poggio, would be opened to him without bloodshed—to capture Florence, and thence spread the generous fire of liberty over the Peninsula.

The revolution was planned with great prudence and all contingencies were amply provided for. Unfortunately, however, he was obliged in the exercise of his office as Confaloniere of justice to issue a proclamation against one Andrea Pezzini who was cognisant of the conspiracy. This person in order to gratify his malice, revealed the whole scheme to Duke Cosimo. The government of Luca, mortally terrified by the Pope and the emperor, arrested Burlamacchi, in August 1546, and obtained from him by torture a confession of his revolutionary designs. Luca consigned him to the imperial ministers by whom he was beheaded in Milan.

Some confused and scattered papers which we have seen imply that there were messages and interviews between Gianluigi and Burlamacchi, and this corresponds with that which Adriani has written of the Lucchese revolutionist, viz: that he had formed friendship and made allies in every part of Europe. It is then very probable that he sounded Count Fieschi, whose enmity to the Spaniards was well known, as one whose great wealth and numerous dependents would greatly reinforce the revolution. Fieschi was often at his castle in Pontremoli and it would have been easy for the two to hold secret interviews without awakening the least suspicion. It is possible that Fieschi though satisfied of the good faith of France, believed that nothing could be attempted in Italy without her active coÖperation or, being a Guelph, disdained to embark in a scheme for the overthrow of the temporal power of the Papacy.

These first plots of Fieschi confute the charge, disproved by other and more direct evidence, made by sacred college of Padua, that he conspired against the government of the Dorias with the sole object of destroying Gianettino who was paying court to the countess of Lavagna.