ubstance, did not care for the external show of
monarchy. He ruled firmly, wisely, and for those times well, attending
to the prosperity of his states, maintaining good discipline in his
cities, and losing no ground by foolish or ambitious schemes. Louis XI.
of France is said to have professed himself Sforza's pupil in
statecraft, than which no greater tribute could be paid to his political
sagacity. In 1466 he died, leaving three sons, Galeazzo, Duke of Milan,
the Cardinal Ascanio, and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro.

'Francesco's crown,' says Ripamonti, 'was destined to pass to more than
six inheritors, and these five successions were accomplished by a series
of tragic events in his family. Galeazzo, his son, was murdered because
of his abominable crimes, in the presence of his people, before the
altar, in the middle of the sacred rites. Giovanni Galeazzo, who
followed him, was poisoned by his uncle Lodovico. Lodovico was
imprisoned by the French, and died of grief in a dungeon.[1] One of his
sons perished in the same way; the other, after years of misery and
exile, was restored in his childless old age to a throne which had been
undermined, and when he died, his dynasty was extinct. This was the
recompense for the treason of Francesco to the State of Milan. It was
for such successes that he passed his life in perfidy, privation, and
danger.' In these rapid successions we trace, besides the demoralization
of the Sforza family, the action of new forces from without. France,
Germany, and Spain appeared upon the stage; and against these great
powers the policy of Italian despotism was helpless.

[1] In the castle of Loches, there is said to be a roughly painted
wall-picture of a man in a helmet over the chimney in the room known
as his prison, with this legend, _Voila un qui n'est pas content_.
Tradition gives it to Il Moro.

We have now reached the threshold of the true Renaissance, and a new
period is being opened for Italian politics. The despots are about to
measure their strength with the nations of the North. It was Lodovico
Sforza who, by his invitation of Charles VIII. into Italy, inaugurated
the age of Foreign Enslavement. His biography belongs, therefore, to
another chapter. But the life of Galeazzo Maria, husband of Bona of
Savoy, and uncle by marriage to Charles VIII. of France, forms an
integral part of that history of the Milanese despots which we have
hitherto been tracing. In him the passion