admirer of Francesco Sforza, must be placed in all that regards culture
and refinement far below these rulers.

Good and evil lie strangely mixed together in the Italian States of the
fifteenth century. The personality of the ruler is so highly developed,
often of such deep significance, and so characteristic of the
conditions and needs of the time, that to form an adequate moral
judgement on it is no easy task.

The foundation of the system was and remained illegitimate, and nothing
could remove the curse which rested upon it. The imperial approval or
investiture made no change in the matter, since the people attached
little weight to the fact that the despot had bought a piece of
parchment somewhere in foreign countries, or from some stranger passing
through his territory. If the Emperor had been good for anything, so
ran the logic of uncritical common sense, he would never have let the
tyrant rise at all. Since the Roman expedition of Charles IV, the
emperors had done nothing more in Italy than sanction a tyranny which
had arisen without their help; they could give it no other practical
authority than what might flow from an imperial charter. The whole
conduct of Charles in Italy was a scandalous political comedy. Matteo
Villani relates how the Visconti escorted him round their territory,
and at last out of it; how he went about like a hawker selling his
wares (privileges, etc.) for money; what a mean appearance he made in
Rome, and how at the end, without even drawing the sword, he returned
with replenished coffers across the Alps. Sigismund came, on the first
occasion at least (1414), with the good intention of persuading John
XXIII to take part in his council; it was on that journey, when Pope
and Emperor were gazing from the lofty tower of Cremona on the panorama
of Lombardy, that their host, the tyrant Gabrino Fondolo, was seized