a rich Calabrian heiress, Polissella Ruffo, Countess of Montalto, who
bore him a daughter; an aunt poisoned both mother and child, and seized
the inheritance.

From the death of Piccinino onwards, the foundations of new States by
the Condottieri became a scandal not to be tolerated. The four great
Powers, Naples, Milan, the Papacy, and Venice, formed among themselves
a political equilibrium which refused to allow of any disturbance. In
the States of the Church, which swarmed with petty tyrants, who in part
were, or had been, Condottieri, the nephews of the Popes, since the
time of Sixtus IV, monopolized the right to all such undertakings. But
at the first sign of a political crisis, the soldiers of fortune
appeared again upon the scene. Under the wretched administration of
Innocent VIII it was near happening that a certain Boccalino, who had
formerly served in the Burgundian army, gave himself and the town of
Osimo, of which he was master, up to the Turkish forces; fortunately,
through the intervention of Lorenzo the Magnificent, he proved willing
to be paid off, and took himself away. In the year 1495, when the wars
of Charles VIII had turned Italy upside down, the Condottiere Vidovero,
of Brescia, made trial of his strength; he had already seized the town
of Cesena and murdered many of the nobles and the burghers; but the
citadel held out, and he was forced to withdraw. He then, at the head
of a band lent him by another scoundrel, Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini,
son of the Roberto already spoken of, and Venetian Condottiere, wrested
the town of Castelnuovo from the Archbishop of Ravenna. The Venetians,
fearing that worse would follow, and urged also by the Pope, ordered
Pandolfo, 'with the kindest intentions,' to take an opportunity of
arresting his good friend: the arrest was made, though 'with great
regret,' whereupon the order came to bring the prisoner to the gallows.
Pandolfo was considerate enough to strangle him in prison, and then