his service. It was otherwise at a later time with Torquato Tasso,
whose presence at court was jealously sought after.

The Opponents of the Despots

In face of this centralized authority, all legal opposition within the
borders of the State was futile. The elements needed for the
restoration of a republic had been for ever destroyed, and the field
prepared for violence and despotism. The nobles, destitute of political
rights, even where they held feudal possessions, might call themselves
Guelphs or Ghibellines at will, might dress up their bravos in padded
hose and feathered caps or how else they pleased; thoughtful men like
Machiavelli knew well enough that Milan and Naples were too 'corrupt'
for a republic. Strange judgements fell on these two so-called parties,
which now served only to give official sanction to personal and f
family disputes.

An Italian prince, whom Agrippa of Nettesheim advised to put them down,
replied that their quarrels brought him in more than 12,000 ducats a
year in fines. And when in the year 1500, during the brief return of
Lodovico il Moro to his States, the Guelphs of Tortona summoned a part
of the neighbouring French army into the city, in order to make an end
once for all of their opponents, the French certainly began by
plundering and ruining the Ghibellines, but finished by doing the same
to the Guelphs, till Tortona was utterly laid waste. In Romagna, the
hotbed of every ferocious passion, these two names had long lost all
political meaning. It was a sign of the political delusion of the
people that they not seldom believed the Guelphs to be the natural
allies of the French and the Ghibellines of the Spaniards. It is hard
to see that those who tried to profit by this error got much by doing