en crowned in the Cathedral, and having garrisoned his
fortresses, Charles set out for France, at the head of a small
army. As he came over the Apennines into Lombardy, at Fornovo he
was met by a larger force, chiefly provided by Venice, and had to
fight his way through. A fortnight after his departure, the
Spaniards, under Gonsalvo of Cordova, landed in Calabria, as
auxiliaries of the dethroned king. The throne was once more
occupied by the fallen family, and Charles retained nothing of
his easy and inglorious conquests when he died in 1498.

His successor, Lewis XII, was the Duke of Orleans, who descended
from the Visconti, and he at once prepared to enforce his claim
on Milan. He allied himself against his rival, Sforza, with Venice,
and with Pope Alexander. That he might marry the widowed queen,
and preserve her duchy of Brittany for the Crown, he required
that his own childless marriage should be annulled. Upon the
Legate who brought the necessary documents the grateful king
bestowed a principality, a bride of almost royal rank, and an
army wherewith to reconquer the lost possessions of the Church in
Central Italy. For the Legate was the Cardinal of Valencia, who
became thenceforward Duke of Valentinois, and is better known as
Caesar Borgia. The rich Lombard plain, the garden of Italy, was
conquered as easily as Naples had been in the first expedition.
Sforza said to the Venetians: "I have been the dinner; you will
be the supper"; and went up into the Alps to look for Swiss
levies. At Novara, in 1500, his mercenaries betrayed him and he
ended his days in a French prison. On their way home from the
scene of their treachery, the Swiss crowned their evil repute by
seizing Bellinzona and the valley of the Ticino, which has
remained one of their cantons.

Lewis, undisputed master of Milan and Genoa, assured of the Roman
and the Venetian alliance, was in a better position than his
predecessor to renew the claim on the throne of Naples. But now,
behind Frederic of Naples, there was Ferdinand of Aragon and
Sicily, who was not likely to allow the king for whom he had
fought to be deposed without resistance. Therefore it was a
welcome suggestion when Ferdinand proposed that they should
combine to expel Frederic and to divide his kingdom. As it was
Ferdinand who had just reinstated him, this was an adaptation to
the affairs of Christendom of the methods which passed for
justice in the treatment of unbelievers