Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/345

321 CAMPAIGNS OF GONSALVO. 321 CIIAPTEk II. fore Atella at the beginning of July. The king of Naples was no sooner advised of his approach, than he marched out of the camp, attended by the Venetian general, the marquis of Mantua, and the papal legate, Csesar Borgia, to receive him. All were eager to do honor to the man, who had achieved such brilliant exploits ; who, in less than a year, had made himself master of the larger part of the kingdom of Naples, and that, with the most limited resources, in defiance of the bravest and best disciplined soldiery in Europe. It was then, according to the Spanish writers, that he was by fg-^f ^^^ general consent greeted with the title of the Great Captain ; by which he is much more familiarly known in Spanish, and, it may be added, in most histories of the period, than by his own name.^^ Receives the title of 23Quintana, Espanoles C^lebres, torn. i. p. 228. — Giovio, Vita Magni Gonsalvi, lib. 1, p. 220. The Aragonese historians are much ruffled by the irreverent man- ner in which Guicciardini notices the origin of the cognomen of the Great Captain ; which even his subsequent panegyric cannot atone for. " Era capitano Consalvo Er- aandes, di casa d' Aghilar, di patria Cordovese, uomo di molto valore, ed esercitato lungamente nelle guerre di Granata, il quale nel principio della venuta sua in Italia, cognominato dalla jattanza Spa- gnuola il Gran Capitano, per signi- ficare con questo titolo la suprema podesta sopra loro, merito per le preclare vittorie che ebbe dipoi, che per consentimento universale gli fosse confermato e perpetuato ques- to sopranome, per significazione di virtu grande, e di grande eccellen- za nella disciplina militare." (Is- toria, torn. i. p. 112.) According to Zurita, the title was not confer- red till the Spanish general's ap- pearance before Atella, and the first example of its formal recognition was in the instrument of capitula- tion at that place. (Hist, del Rev Hernando, lib. 2, cap. 27.) This seems to derive support from the fact that Gonsalvo's biographer and contemporary, Giovio, begins to distinguish him by that epithet from this period. Abarca assigns a high- er antiquity to it, quoting the words of the royal grant of the duchy of Sessa, made to Gonsalvo, as au- thority. (Reyes de Aragon, rey 39, cap. 9.) In a former edition, I intimated my doubt of the histori- an's accuracy. A subsequent in- spection of the instrument itself, in a work since come into my pos- session, shows this distrust to have been well founded ; for it is there simply said, that the title was conferred in Italy. Pulgar, Suma- rio, p. 138. VOL. II. 41