he ambition of de Vesc and Briconnet. In order to assure his
situation at home, Charles concluded treaties with the neighboring great
powers. He bought peace with Henry VII. of England by the payment of
large sums of money. The Emperor Maximilian, whose resentment he had
aroused by sending back his daughter Margaret after breaking his promise
to marry her, and by taking to wife Anne of Brittany, who was already
engaged to the Austrian, had to be appeased by the cession of provinces.
Ferdinand of Spain received as the price of his neutrality the strong
places of the Pyrenees which formed the key to France upon that side.
Having thus secured tranquillity at home by ruinous concessions, Charles
was free to turn his attention to Italy. He began by concentrating
stores and ships on the southern ports of Marseilles and Genoa; then he
moved downward with his army, to Lyons, in 1494.

At this point we are called to consider the affairs of Italy, which led
the Sforza to invite his dangerous ally. Lorenzo de' Medici during his
lifetime had maintained a balance of power between the several states
by his treaties with the Courts of Milan, Naples, and Ferrara. When he
died, Piero at once showed signs of departure from his father's policy.
The son and husband of Orsini,[1] he embraced the feudal pride and
traditional partialities of the great Roman house who had always been
devoted to the cause of Naples. The suspicions of Lodovico Sforza were
not unreasonably aroused by noticing that the tyrant of Florence
inclined to the alliance of King Ferdinand rather than to his own
friendship. At this same time Alfonso, the Duke of Calabria, heir to the
throne of Naples, was pressing the rights of his son-in-law, Gian
Galeazzo Sforza, on the attention of Italy, complaining loudly that his
uncle Lodovico ought no longer to withhold from him the reins of
government.[2] Gian Galcazzo was in fact the legitimate successor of
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who had been murdered in Santo Stefano in 1476.
After this assassination Madonna Bona of Savoy and Cecco Simonetta, who
had administered the Duchy as grand vizier during three reigns extending
over a period of half a century, governed Milan as regents for the young
Duke. But Lodovico, feeling himself powerful enough to assume the
tyranny, beheaded Simonetta at Pavia in 1480, and caused Madonna Bona,
the Duke's mother, on the pretext of her immorality, to quit the
regency. Thus he took the affairs of Milan