d for the allies to repel the invader by their
unassisted force. This might have been done if Alfonso's plan had been
adhered to. He designed sending a fleet, under his brother Don Federigo,
to Genoa, and holding with his own troops the passes of the Apennines to
the North, while Piero de' Medici undertook to guard the entrances to
Tuscany on the side of Lunigiana. The Duke of Calabria meanwhile was to
raise Gian Galeazzo's standard in Lombardy. But that absolute agreement
which is necessary in the execution of a scheme so bold and
comprehensive was impossible in Italy. The Pope insisted that attention
should first be paid to the Colonnesi--Prospero and Fabrizio being
secret friends of France, and their castles offering a desirable booty.
Alfonso, therefore, determined to occupy the confines of the Roman
territory on the side of the Abruzzi, while he sent his son, with the
generals Giovan Jacopo da Trivulzi and the Count of Pitigliano, into
Lombardy. They never advanced beyond Cesena, where the troops of the
Sforza, in conjunction with the French, held them at bay. The fleet
under Don Federigo sailed too late to effect the desired rising in
Genoa. The French, forewarned, had thrown 2,000 Swiss under the Baily of
Dijon and the Duke of Orleans into the city, and the Neapolitan admiral
fell back upon Leghorn. The forces of the league were further enfeebled
and divided by the necessity of leaving Virginio Orsini to check the
Colonnesi in the neighborhood of Rome. How utterly Piero de' Medici by
his folly and defection ruined what remained of the plan will be seen in
the sequel. This sluggishness in action and dismemberment of
forces--this total inability to strike a sudden blow--sealed beforehand
the success of Charles. Alfonso, a tyrant afraid of his own subjects,
Alexander, a Pope who had bought the tiara to the disgust of
Christendom, Piero, conscious that his policy was disapproved by the
Florentines, together with a parcel of egotistical petty despots, were
not the men to save a nation. Italy was conquered, not by the French
king, but by the vices of her own leaders. The whole history of
Charles's expedition is one narrative of headlong rashness triumphing
over difficulties and dangers which only the discord of tyrants and the
disorganization of peoples rendered harmless. The Ate of the gods had
descended upon Italy, as though to justify the common belief that the
expedition of Charles was divinely sustained and guided.[