their house, they inherited that monstrous capital of cruelty and
cowardice which had been accumulated from generation to generation.

Giovanni Maria, too, is famed for his dogs, which were no longer,
however, used for hunting but for tearing human bodies. Tradition has
preserved their names, like those of the bears of Emperor Valentinian
I. In May, 1409, when war was going on, and the starving populace cried
to him in the streets, _Pace! Pace!_ he let loose his mercenaries upon
them, and 200 lives were sacrificed; under penalty of the gallows it
was forbidden to utter the words pace and guerra, and the priests were
ordered, instead of _dona nobis pacem_, to say _tranquillitatem_! At
last a band of conspirators took advantage of the moment when Facino
Cane, the chief Condotierre of the insane ruler, lay in at Pavia, and
cut down Giovanni Maria in the church of San Gottardo at Milan; the
dying Facino on the same day made his officers swear to stand by the
heir Filippo Maria, whom he himself urged his wife to take for a second
husband. His wife, Beatrice di Tenda, followed his advice. We shall
have occasion to speak of Filippo Maria later on.

And in times like these Cola di Rienzi was dreaming of founding on the
rickety enthusiasm of the corrupt population of Rome a new State which
was to comprise all Italy. By the side of rulers such as those whom we
have described, he seems no better than a poor deluded fool.

Despots of the Fifteenth Century

The despotisms of the fifteenth century show an altered character. Many
of the less important tyrants, and some of the greater, like the Scala
and the Carrara had disappeared, while the more powerful ones,
aggrandized by conquest, had given to their systems each its