conjunction
with the Duchess Catherine and a certain Francesco Barbavara. This man
had been the Duke's body-servant, and was now the paramour of the
Duchess. The generals refused to act with them; and each seized upon
such portions of the Visconti inheritance as he could most easily
acquire. The vast tyranny of the first Duke of Milan fell to pieces in a
day. The whole being based on no legal right, but held together
artificially by force and skill, its constituent parts either reasserted
their independence or became the prey of adventurers.[1] Many scions of
the old ejected families recovered their authority in the subject towns.
We hear again of the Scotti at Piacenza, the Rossi and Correggi at
Parma, the Benzoni at Crema, the Rusconi at Como, the Soardi and
Colleoni at Bergamo, the Landi at Bobbio, the Cavalcabo at Cremona.
Facino Cane appropriated Alessandria; Pandolfo Malatesta seized Brescia;
Ottonbon Terzo established himself in Parma. Meanwhile Giovanni Maria
Visconti was proclaimed Duke of Milan, and his brother Filippo Maria
occupied Pavia. Gabriello, a bastard son of the first duke, fortified
himself in Crema.

[1] The anarchy which prevailed in Lombardy after Gian Galeazzo's
death makes it difficult to do more than signalize a few of these
usurpations. Corio, pp. 292 et seq., contain the details.

In the despotic families of Italy, as already hinted, there was a
progressive tendency to degeneration. The strain of tyranny sustained by
force and craft for generations, the abuse of power and pleasure, the
isolation and the dread in which the despots lived habitually, bred a
kind of hereditary madness.[1] In the case of Giovanni Maria and Filippo
Maria Visconti these predisposing causes of insanity were probably
intensified by the fact that their father and mother were first cousins,
the grandchildren of Stefano, son of Matteo il Grande. Be this as it
may, the constitutional ferocity of the race appeared as monomania in
Giovanni, and its constitutional timidity as something akin to madness
in his brother. Gian Maria, Duke of Milan in nothing but in name,
distinguished himself by cruelty and lust. He used the hounds of his
ancestors no longer in the chase of boars, but of living men. All the
criminals of Milan, and all whom he could get denounced as criminals,
even the participators in his own enormities, were given up to his
infernal sport. His huntsman, Squarcia Giramo, trained the dogs to their
d