It happened sometimes that after a very great victory the condottiero received extensive lands besides a large sum of money, and that he was formally adopted into the aristocracy of the country for which he had fought. In that case, he either disbanded his men and retired from the profession, or, if he was still ambitious, he entered upon a career of warfare and conquest on his own account. Francesco Sforza’s father began life as a peasant, and he himself ended as Duke of Milan, and left a great name which has descended to modern times.
The fifteenth century, as being the principal period of transition throughout Europe from ancient to modern warfare, was essentially the age of the condottieri, and many famous mercenary captains were employed by Venice; so many, indeed, that a review of their services would be almost a consecutive history of Venice’s relations with her neighbours during that time. There was Carmagnola and Gattamelata, and Francesco Sforza; there was Bartolommeo Colleoni, and Roberto Sanseverino, and there was even a Duke of Mantua. As Daru says, the Republic grew accustomed to keeping princes in her pay.
Even after the war of Chioggia was over, Venice was still involved in the long struggle with the Carrara of Padua which was to end with the almost total extermination of that family. Francesco Carrara had, indeed, signed the peace, like the Genoese and the King of Hungary. The Genoese power was broken for ever, and King Louis was far away and not anxious to renew a fruitless war now that his strongest allies were crippled; but Carrara had emerged from the contest practically unweakened, and Venice was not likely to forget that he had done everything in his power to further and abet the aims of Genoa.
There is no history more complicated and hard to bear in mind than that of the republics and principalities of northern Italy in the Middle Ages, as the crimes by which the despots kept their power were more tortuous than any committed before or since. In the events which led to the annexation of Padua by Venice two other states played a part, namely, the principality of Verona, held by an illegitimate descendant of the Scala family, who had incidentally murdered his own brother, the latter’s mistress and all their children; and the great dukedom of Milan, then ruled by Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, who had, in the ordinary course of events, got rid of his brother Bernabò by poison, and kept a couple of nephews locked up in a dungeon.