DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36839#0187
FEDERICO DEFENDS PAVIA 159
on Monza. But Castiglione's pleasure in this good
news was considerably damped by bearing that im-
mediately after this brilliant feat of arms, the Mar-
quis had left the camp and retired to Mantua, partly
from dissatisfaction with the Cardinals and partly
owing to dissensions with Pescara. The long and
eloquent letter which he addressed to his master on
April 26 shows his consternation at what appeared to
him a fatal step.
' I am quite aware/ he wrote, ' that you have been
very badly treated by the Cardinals, and do not think
you could have remonstrated more vigorously than
I have done in your name. But although, my dear
lord, the need of money is great, I think that what
remains to be done is less than what has been
achieved, now that our enemies are weaker and the
Pope's coming draws nearer. . . . All the world
owns that you alone have been the victor in this
Lombard campaign by so gallantly exposing your
property, friends, State, and life, and by so doing
you have laid the Pope, Emperor, and Duke of Milan
under the utmost obligations. But by retiring now
you will deprive the Duke of Milan of the State
which you have given him, and the Church of the
lands which you have defended. More than this, you
will lose the glory of completing this victorious cam-
paign at so early an age, and I know not if Fortune will
ever again give you so great an opportunity, for such
occasions come but rarely in a lifetime. And V. E.
should be proud to serve Caesar, who, besides being
the greatest monarch in Christendom, is also your
supreme lord, and looks on you with the favour that
your glorious deeds deserve, and seems to have God
and Fortune, as well as reason, on his side. V. E.
has seen how all his enemies have been routed in this
campaign of Lombardy. Sig. Renzo, with his 10,000
or 12,000 infantry, has vanished into smoke, without
on Monza. But Castiglione's pleasure in this good
news was considerably damped by bearing that im-
mediately after this brilliant feat of arms, the Mar-
quis had left the camp and retired to Mantua, partly
from dissatisfaction with the Cardinals and partly
owing to dissensions with Pescara. The long and
eloquent letter which he addressed to his master on
April 26 shows his consternation at what appeared to
him a fatal step.
' I am quite aware/ he wrote, ' that you have been
very badly treated by the Cardinals, and do not think
you could have remonstrated more vigorously than
I have done in your name. But although, my dear
lord, the need of money is great, I think that what
remains to be done is less than what has been
achieved, now that our enemies are weaker and the
Pope's coming draws nearer. . . . All the world
owns that you alone have been the victor in this
Lombard campaign by so gallantly exposing your
property, friends, State, and life, and by so doing
you have laid the Pope, Emperor, and Duke of Milan
under the utmost obligations. But by retiring now
you will deprive the Duke of Milan of the State
which you have given him, and the Church of the
lands which you have defended. More than this, you
will lose the glory of completing this victorious cam-
paign at so early an age, and I know not if Fortune will
ever again give you so great an opportunity, for such
occasions come but rarely in a lifetime. And V. E.
should be proud to serve Caesar, who, besides being
the greatest monarch in Christendom, is also your
supreme lord, and looks on you with the favour that
your glorious deeds deserve, and seems to have God
and Fortune, as well as reason, on his side. V. E.
has seen how all his enemies have been routed in this
campaign of Lombardy. Sig. Renzo, with his 10,000
or 12,000 infantry, has vanished into smoke, without