But during these quiet years of study and development in little rock-bound Ischia, the world without was anything but quiet, as the outline of Neapolitan history in the last chapter sufficiently indicates; and Fabrizio Colonna was ever in the thick of the confusion. As long as the Aragonese monarchs kept up the struggle, he fought for them upon the losing side; but when, after the retreat of Frederick, the last of them, the contest was between the French and the Spaniards, he chose the latter, which proved to be the winning side. Frederick, on abandoning Naples, threw himself on the hospitality of the King of France, an enemy much less hated by him than was Ferdinand of Spain, who had so shamefully deceived and betrayed him. But his high Constable, Fabrizio Colonna, not sharing, as it should seem, his sovereign's feelings on the subject, transferred his allegiance to the King of Spain. And again, this change of fealty and service seems to have been considered so much in the usual course of things, that it elicits no remark from the contemporary writers. In fact, the noble Fabrizio, the bearer of a grand old Italian name, the lord of many a powerful barony, and owner of many a mile of fair domain, a Roman patrician of pure Italian race, to whom, if to any, the honour, the independence, the interests, and the name of Italy should have been dear, was a mere Captain of free lances,—a soldier of fortune, ready to sell his blood and great military talents in the best market. The best of his fellow nobles in all parts of Italy were the same. Their profession was fighting. And mere fighting, in whatever cause, so it were bravely and knightly done, was the most honoured and noblest profession of that day. So much of real greatness as could be imparted to the profession of war, by devotion to a _person_, might occasionally—though not very frequently in Italy—have been met with among the soldiers of that period. But all those elements of genuine heroism, which are generated by devotion to a _cause_, and all those ideas of patriotism, of resistance to wrong, and assertion of human rights, which compel the philosopher and philanthropist to admit that war may sometimes be righteous, noble, elevating, to those engaged in it, and prolific of high thoughts and great deeds, were wholly unknown to the chivalry of Italy at the time in question. [Sidenote: MEDIEVAL WARFARE.]