The elder of the King's sons, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, enjoyed in
later years a kind of co-regency with his father. He was a savage,
brutal profligate, who in point of frankness alone had the advantage of
Ferrante, and who openly avowed his contempt for religion and its
usages . The better and nobler features of the Italian despotisms are
not to be found among the princes of this line; all that they possessed
of the art and culture of their time served the purpose of luxury or
display. Even the genuine Spaniards seem to have almost always
degenerated in Italy; but the end of this cross-bred house (1494 and
1503) gives clear proof of a want of blood. Ferrante died of mental
care and trouble; Alfonso accused his brother Federigo, the only honest
member of the family, of treason, and insulted him in the vilest
manner. At length, though he had hitherto passed for one of the ablest
generals in Italy, he lost his head and fled to Sicily, leaving his
son, the younger Ferrante, a prey to the French and to domestic
treason. A dynasty which had ruled as this had done must at least have
sold its life dear, if its children were ever to hope for a
restoration. But, as Comines one-sidedly, and yet on the whole rightly
observes on this occasion, '_Jamais homme cruel ne fut hardi_': there
was never a more cruel man.

The despotism of the Dukes of Milan, whose government from the time of
Giangaleazzo onwards was an absolute monarchy of the most thorough-
going sort, shows the genuine Italian character of the fifteenth
century. The last of the Visconti Filippo Maria (1412-1447), is a
character of peculiar interest, and of which fortunately an admirable
description has been left us. What a man of uncommon gifts and high
position can be made by the passion of fear, is here shown with what
may be called a mathematical completeness. All the resources of the
State were devoted to the one end of securing his personal safety,