Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/302

278 278 ITALIAN WARS. tactics. r.RT to remark, that his conduct throughout was equal- ly defective in principle and in sound policy. He alienated his allies by the most signal acts of perfi- dy, seizing their fortresses for himself, and entering their capitals with all the vaunt and insolent port of a conqueror. On his approach to Rome, the pope and the cardinals took refuge in the castle of 149 J. St. Angelo, and on the 31st of December, Charles defiled into the city at the head of his victorious chivalry ; if victorious they could be called, when, as an Italian historian remarks, they had scarcely broken a lance, or spread a tent, in the whole of their progress. ^° Italian Thc Italians were panic-struck at the aspect of troops so different from their own, and so superior to them in organization, science, and military equipment ; and still more in a remorseless ferocity of temper, which had rarely been witnessed in their own feuds. Warfare was conducted on pecu- liar principles in Italy, adapted to the character and circumstances of the people. The business of fighting, in her thriving communities, instead of forming part of the regular profession of a gentle- man, as in other countries at this period, was intrusted to the hands of a few soldiers of fortune, condottieri, as they were called, who hired them- selves out, with the forces under their command, consisting exclusively of heavy-armed cavalry, to 30 Guicciardini, Istoria, torn. i. di Napoli, toin. iii. lib. 29, introd. lib. 1, p. 71. — Scipione Ammi- — Coniincs,M6moires, liv. 7,cbap. rato, Istorie Fiorcntine, (Firenze, 17. — Oviedo, Quincuagoiuis, MS., •1647,) p. 205. — Giannone, Istoria bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 43.