e beyond his years that his friends
feared he would not grow to man's estate. No pleasures in after-life
drew him away from business. Hunting, hawking, women, had alike no
charms for him. He took moderate exercise for the preservation of his
health, read and meditated much, and relaxed himself in conversation
with men of letters. Pure intellect, in fact, had reached to perfect
independence in this prince, who was far above the boisterous pleasures
and violent activities of the age in which he lived. In the erection of
public buildings he was magnificent. The Certosa of Pavia and the Duomo
of Milan owed their foundation to his sense of splendor. At the same
time he completed the palace of Pavia, which his father had begun, and
which he made the noblest dwelling-house in Europe. The University of
Pavia was raised by him from a state of decadence to one of great
prosperity, partly by munificent endowments and partly by a wise choice
of professors. In his military undertakings he displayed a kindred taste
for vast engineering projects. He contemplated and partly carried out a
scheme for turning the Mincio and the Brenta from their channels, and
for drying up the lagoons of Venice. In this way he purposed to attack
his last great enemy, the Republic of S. Mark, upon her strongest point.
Yet in the midst of these huge designs he was able to attend to the most
trifling details of economy. His love of order was so precise that he
may be said to have applied the method of a banker's office to the
conduct of a state. It was he who invented Bureaucracy by creating a
special class of paid clerks and secretaries of departments. Their duty
consisted in committing to books and ledgers the minutest items of his
private expenditure and the outgoings of his public purse; in noting the
details of the several taxes, so as to be able to present a survey of
the whole state revenue; and in recording the names and qualities and
claims of his generals, captains, and officials. A separate office was
devoted to his correspondence, of all of which he kept accurate
copies.[1] By applying this mercantile machinery to the management of
his vast dominions, at a time when public economy was but little
understood in Europe, Gian Galeazzo raised his wealth enormously above
that of his neighbors. His income in a single year is said to have
amounted to 1,200,000 golden florins, with the addition of 800,000
golden florins levied by extraordinary calls.[2] The