Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/34

8 ITAl.IAN WARS. PART from his court, where he was convinced, indeed, his II. residence could be no longer useful." Negotiations Ferdinand had no better fortune at Venice, where with Venice and the em- peror. his negotiations were conducted by Lorenzo Suarez de la Vega, an adroit diplomatist, brother of Gar- cilasso.'^ These negotiations were resumed after the occupation of Milan by the French, when the minister availed himself of the jealousy occasioned by that event to excite a determined resistance to the proposed aggression on Naples. But the repub- lic was too sorely pressed by the Turkish war, — which Sforza, in the hope of creating a diversion in his own favor, had brought on his country, — to allow leisure for other operations. Nor did the Spanish court succeed any better at this crisis with the em- peror Maximilian, whose magnificent pretensions were ridiculously contrasted with his limited author- ity, and still more limited revenues, so scanty, in- deed, as to gain him the contemptuous epithet among the Italians of pochi denari, or " the Moneyless. " He had conceived himself, indeed, greatly injured, both on the score of his imperial rights and his con- nexion with Sforza, by the conquest of Milan ; but. 6 Zurita, Hist, del Rey Hernan- Castilian, however, appears to have do, torn. i. lib. 3, cap. 33. had its effect ; since we find the pope Garcilasso de la Vega seems to soon after revoking an offensive ec- have possessed little of the courtly clesiastical provision he had made and politic address of a diploma- in Spain, taking occasion at the tist. In a subsequent audience, same time to eulogize the character which the pope gave him together of the Catholic sovereigns in full with a special embassy from Cas- consistory. Ibid. lib. 3, cap. 33, tile, his blunt expostulation so much 35. exasperated his Holiness, that the ' Oviedo has made this cavalier latter hinted it would not cost him the subject of one of his dialogues, much to have him thrown into the Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. Tiber The bold bearing of the 3, dial. 44.