hree centuries preceding the birth of the
famous general, Bartolommeo. He was born in the year 1400 at Solza, in
the Bergamasque Contado. His father Paolo, or Puho as he was commonly
called, was poor and exiled from the city, together with the rest of
the Guelf nobles, by the Visconti. Being a man of daring spirit, and
little inclined to languish in a foreign state as the dependent on
some patron, Puho formed the bold design of seizing the Castle of
Trezzo. This he achieved in 1405 by fraud, and afterwards held it as
his own by force. Partly with the view of establishing himself more
firmly in his acquired lordship, and partly out of family affection,
Puho associated four of his first-cousins in the government of Trezzo.
They repaid his kindness with an act of treason and cruelty, only too
characteristic of those times in Italy. One day while he was playing
at draughts in a room of the Castle, they assaulted him and killed
him, seized his wife and the boy Bartolommeo, and flung them into
prison. The murdered Puho had another son, Antonio, who escaped and
took refuge with Giorgio Benzone, the tyrant of Crema. After a short
time the Colleoni brothers found means to assassinate him also;
therefore Bartolommeo alone, a child of whom no heed was taken,
remained to be his father's avenger. He and his mother lived together
in great indigence at Solza, until the lad felt strong enough to enter
the service of one of the numerous petty Lombard princes, and to
make himself if possible a captain of adventure. His name alone was a
sufficient introduction, and the Duchy of Milan, dismembered upon the
death of Gian Maria Visconti, was in such a state that all the minor
despots were increasing their forces and preparing to defend by arms
the fragments they had seized from the Visconti heritage. Bartolommeo
therefore had no difficulty in recommending himself to Filippo
d'Arcello, sometime general in the pay of the Milanese, but now the
new lord of Piacenza. With this master he remained as page for two or
three years, learning the use of arms, riding, and training himself
in the physical exercises which were indispensable to a young Italian
soldier. Meanwhile Filippo Maria Visconti reacquired his hereditary
dominions; and at the age of twenty, Bartolommeo found it prudent
to seek a patron stronger than d'Arcello. The two great Condottieri,
Sforza Attendolo and Braccio, divided the military glories of Italy at
this period; and any youth wh