with the desire to throw them both over. On his second visit Sigismund
came as a mere adventurer; for more than half a year he remained shut
up in Siena, like a debtor in gaol, and only with difficulty, and at a
later period, succeeded in being crowned in Rome. And what can be
thought of Frederick III? His journeys to Italy have the air of
holiday-trips or pleasure-tours made at the expense of those who wanted
him to confirm their prerogatives, or whose vanity is flattered to
entertain an emperor. The latter was the case with Alfonso of Naples,
who paid 150,000 florins for the honour of an imperial visit. At
Ferrara, on his second return from Rome (1469), Frederick spent a whole
day without leaving his chamber, distributing no less than eighty
titles; he created knights, counts, doctors. notaries--counts, indeed,
of different degrees, as, for instance, counts palatine, counts with
the right to create doctors up to the number of five, counts with the
rights to legitimatize bastards, to appoint notaries, and so forth. The
Chancellor, however, expected in return for the patents in question a
gratuity which was thought excessive at Ferrara. The opinion of Borso,
himself created Duke of Modena and Reggio in return for an annual
payment of 4,000 gold florins, when his imperial patron was
distributing titles and diplomas to all the little court, is not
mentioned. The humanists, then the chief spokesmen of the age, were
divided in opinion according to their personal interests, while the
Emperor was greeted by some of them with the conventional acclamations
of the poets of imperial Rome. Poggio confessed that he no longer knew
what the coronation meant: in the old times only the victorious
Imperator was crowned, and then he was crowned with laurel.

With Maximilian I begins not only the general intervention of foreign
nations, but a new imperial policy with regard to Italy. The first step
-- the investiture of Lodovico il Moro with the duchy of Milan and the