Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/362

338 338 ITAL[AN WARS. PART Ferdinand's conduct through the whole of the 11. ^ Italian war had greatly enhanced his reputation qil^redTy^"' throughout Europe for sagacity and prudence. It afforded a most advantageous comparison with that of his rival, Charles the Eighth, whose very first act had been the surrender of so important a territory as Roussillon. The construction of the treaty re- lating to this, indeed, laid the Spanish monarch open to the imputation of artifice. But this, at least, did no violence to the political maxims of the age, and only made him regarded as the more shrewd and subtile diplomatist ; while, on the other hand, he appeared before the world in the imposing attitude of the defender of the church, and of the rights of his injured kinsman. His influence had been clearly discernible in every operation of mo- ment, whether civil or military. He had been most active, through his ambassadors at Genoa, Venice, and Rome, in stirring up the great Italian confed- eracy, which eventually broke the power of King Charles ; and his representations had tended, as much as any other cause, to alarm the jealousy of Sforza, to fix the vacillating politics of Alexander, and to quicken the cautious and dilatory movements of Venice. He had shown equal vigor in action ; and contributed mainly to the success of the war by his operations on the side of Roussillon, and still more in Calabria. On the latter, indeed, he had not lavished any extraordinary expenditure ; a cir- cumstance partly attributable to the state of his finances, severely taxed, as already noticed, by the Granadine war, as well as by the operations in I