Note 297 — Chapter XXXVII

Sismondi's strictures curtly express the judgment pronounced upon Francesco Maria by those who follow, without examination, the prejudiced narrative of Guicciardini. Yet, as they are founded upon admitted defects in his generalship, it may be well to lay them before the reader. "He was not deficient in military talent, nor probably in personal courage, but, taking Prospero Colonna as his prototype, he exaggerated his method. His only tactics consisted in the selection and occupation of impregnable positions; whatever his numerical superiority, he evaded fighting; no circumstance, however urgent, could bring him to a general action; and by his obstinacy in refusing to risk anything, he made certain of losing all." But in estimating the commander we should not put out of view the discouraging nature of the cause, which this author elsewhere happily describes as a war without an object. *This applies better to the petty wars of Central Italy at this time and in the fifteenth century. Waged by paid captains, they may be said to have been without an object, or rather with but one object—war itself. One and all they ended in nothing, though here and there, as with the Sforza, the condottiere managed to establish himself. There was not, save in Florence, Milan, and Venice, a sufficiently strong economic reason to cause a real war. Such as they were, these wars were due to the greed of petty princes, in which the professional armies enjoyed themselves (few being killed) in sacking towns and cities whose inhabitants, altogether at their mercy, were the only victims. To drag out the war and to avoid serious fighting as much as possible were naturally the first objects of the average condottiere.