Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/52

26 ^SO ITALIAN WARS. rART quarters of the town, commanded bj strong towers, while its exposure to the sea made it easily open to supplies from abroad. Gonsalvo saw that the only method of reducing the place must be by blockade. Disagreeable as the delay was, he prepared to lay regular siege to it, ordering the fleet to sail round the south- ern point of Calabria, and blockade the port of Tarento, while he threw up works on the land side, which commanded the passes to the town, and cut off its communications with the neigh- bouring country. The place, however, was well victualled, and the garrison prepared to maintain it to the last.^^ In^e"army. Nothing trics morc severely the patience and discipline of the soldier, than a life of sluggish inaction, unenlivened, as in the present instance, by any of the rencontres, or feats of arms, which keep up military excitement, and gratify the cu- pidity or ambition of the warrior. The Spanish troops, cooped up within their intrenchments, and disgusted with the languid monotony of their life, cast many a wistful glance to the stirring scenes of war in -the centre of Italy, where Caesar Borgia held out magnificent promises of pay and plunder to all who embarked in his adventurous enter- prises. He courted the aid, in particular, of the Spanish veterans, whose worth he well understood, for they had often served under his banner, in his 36 Giovio, Vitae Illust. V^irnrum, poll, lib. 29, cap. 3. — Chronica p. 231. — Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., del Gran Capitan, cap. 31. fol. 9. — Giannone, Istoria di Na-