Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/29

3 PART SECOND. CHAPTER X. ITALIAN WARS. — PARTITION OF NAPLES. — GONSALVO OVERRUNS CALABRIA. 1498—1502. Louis Xn.'s Designs on Italy. — Alarm of the Spanish Court — Bold Conduct of its Minister at Rome. — Celebrated Partition of Naples. — Gonsalvo sails against the Turks. — Success and Cruelties of the French. — Gonsalvo invades Calabria. — He punishes a Mutiny. — His munificent Spirit. — He captures Tarento. — Seizes the Duke of Calabria. During the last four years of our narrative, in chapter which the unsettled state of thd kingdom and the — - — progress of foreign discovery appeared to demand the whole attention of the sovereigns, a most im- portant revolution was going forward in the affairs of Italy. The death of Charles the Eighth would seem to have dissolved the relations recently arisen between that country and the rest of Europe, and to have restored it to its ancient independence. It might naturally have been expected that France, under her new monarch, who had reached a mature age, rendered still more mature by the lessons he had received in the school of adversity, would feel the folly of reviving ambitious schemes, which had