By his actions he must be judged. In the Italy of the Quattrocento, to do evil that good might come was excellent morality. The best men practised it, and differed only from the worst in the ends they pursued. Lodovico’s usurpation of power had its immediate justification in the salvation of the State. The prestige of his name, and his fine statesmanship, could alone avert the civil war and anarchy which Bona’s government was leading to, and oppose a barrier to the greed of Venice and Naples for Lombardy. The deposition of a weak woman by a strong and able man was an act unsingular in a country where beneath all law and convention reigned the tacit conviction that character was the true legitimacy. Once in power, he found that internal peace necessitated the sacrifice of the turbulent elements of which he had served himself to climb, and personal ingratitude became a public virtue. Freed from the prepotence of these restless spirits, the citizens could pursue their occupations undisturbed, and the prince could devote himself to his great schemes for the improvement of agriculture, the facilitation of commerce and the humanising of the people. It is these things—in which he carried on the noblest tradition of the Sforza domination—which are the Moro’s apology for much wrong-doing; it is these and not his ceaseless political activity, and immense prestige as a statesman, which make the story of Milan great during his reign, a period brilliant, joyous and prosperous beyond compare.
Though in title only regent for the young Duke, Lodovico was absolute sovereign. His extraordinary activity, resource and subtlety, backed by the boundless wealth of Milan, soon made his influence felt abroad. For the first year or two his cares at home kept him from interfering much in general affairs. The balance of power in Italy, deprived of the weight of Milan, wavered in consequence, and Sixtus IV., Naples and Venice did their utmost to swallow up Florence. The safety of the great Tuscan Republic, secured partly by the courage and address of Lorenzo de’ Medici, but more by the timely knock of the Turk at the door of Italy, at Otranto, was further assured by the fast-rising power of the new ruler of Milan, who by uniting his State in 1484, in a fresh alliance with Florence and Naples, restored to Italy that equilibrium which had been first established by his great father, Francesco.