Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/141

115 ARMIES ON THE GARIGLIANO. 116 at Genoa, under the marquis of Saluzzo, for the chapter relief of Gaeta, still blockaded by the Spaniards. '- '- He obtained a small supply of men from his Italian allies, and subsidized a corps of eight thousand Swiss, the strength of his infantry ; while the re- mainder of his army, comprehending a fine body of cavalry and the most complete train of artillery, probably, in Europe, was drawn from his own do- minions. Volunteers of the highest rank pressed forward to serve in an expedition, to which they confidently looked for the vindication of the national honor. The command was intrusted to the mare- chal de la Tremouille, esteemed the best general in France ; and the whole amount of force, exclusive of that employed permanently in the fleet, is vari- ously computed from twenty to thirty thousand nien.^ In the month of July, the army was on its march f/3^„'Jg°'"y^'- across the broad plains of Lombardy,- but, on reach- 15 03. ing Parma, the appointed place of rendezvous for the Swiss and Italian mercenaries, was brought to a halt, by tidings of an unlooked-for event, the death of Pope Alexander the Sixth. He expired on the 18th of August, 1503, at the age of seventy- two, the victim, there is very little doubt, of poison 6 Buonaccorsi, Diario, p. 78. — ly in their estimates of the French St. Gelais, Hist, de Louys XII., numbers. Guicciardini, whose mod- pp. 173. 174. — Varillas, Hist, de erate computation of 20,000 men is Louis Xn., tom. i. pp. 386, 387. — usually followed, does not take the M^moires de la Tremoille, chap, trouble to reconcile his sum total 19, apud Petitot, Collection des with the various estimates given by Memoires, torn. xiv. — Muratori, him in detail, which considerably Annali d'ltalia, tom. xiv. anno exceed that amount. Istoria, pp. 1503. — Carta de Gonzalo, MS. 308, 309, 312. Historians, as usual, diifer wide-