he temporary peace which he had
granted for the sake of the concession made to him. Lastly, Ferdinand
and Isabella were allies of the dethroned house. And so it came about
that all of them, for different reasons, felt a common fear, and were
soon in agreement as to the necessity of driving out Charles VIII,
not only from Naples, but from Italy, and pledged themselves to work
together to this end, by every means in their power, by negotiations, by
trickery, or by actual force. The Florentines alone refused to take part
in this general levy of arms, and remained faithful to their promises.

According to the articles of the treaty agreed upon by the confederates,
the alliance was to last for five-and-twenty years, and had for
ostensible object the upholding of the majority of the pope, and the
interests of Christendom; and these preparations might well have
been taken for such as would precede a crusade against the Turks, if
Bajazet's ambassador had not always been present at the deliberations,
although the Christian princes could not have dared for very shame to
admit the sultan by name into their league. Now the confederates had
to set on foot an army of 30,000 horse and 20,000 infantry, and each
of them was taxed for a contingent; thus the pope was to furnish 4000
horse, Maximilian 6000, the King of Spain, the Duke of Milan, and the
republic of Venice, 8000 each. Every confederate was, in addition to
this, to levy and equip 4000 infantry in the six weeks following the
signature of the treaty. The fleets were to be equipped by the Maritime
States; but any expenses they should incur later on were to be defrayed
by all in equal shares.

The formation of this league was made public on the 12th of April, 1495,
Palm Sunday, and in all the Italian States, especially at Rome, was
made the occasion of fetes and immense rejoicings. Almost as soon as
the publicly known articles were announced the secret ones were put into
execution. These obliged Ferdinand and Isabella to send a fleet of sixty
galleys to Ischia, where Alfonso's son had retired, with six hundred
horsemen on board and five thousand infantry, to help him to ascend
the throne once more. Those troops were to be put under the command
of Gonzalvo of Cordova, who had gained the reputation of the greatest
general in Europe after the taking of Granada. The Venetians with a
fleet of forty galleys under the command of Antonio Grimani, were to
attack all the French stations o