Men in the north fought openly in the field for counties, and marquisates, and dukedoms; but there was little finesse or diplomatic skill displayed except by Venice. There was cunning, indeed, but it was always exercised to gain some military advantage. The ambition of that part of the land was warlike, not peaceful. It was not luxury, and ease, and graceful enjoyment that was desired in combination with power, but it was splendour, and pomp, and domination. Weak tyrants were sure to fall; merely cruel ones generally retained their power; and cunning ones were frequently successful; but it was only by wielding the sword, either by their own hands or those of others. At the time in which Ramiro d'Orco spoke, every vestige of liberty was extinct in Lombardy. The Visconti, and after them the Sforzi, in Milan; the house of Della Scala, and after them the Visconti, in Verona; the Gonzagas in Mantua; the D'Estes in Ferrara; the Carraras in Padua; the Bentivogli in Bologna, and a hundred other princely houses, had attained power by both policy and the sword, and Genoa had passed frequently from anarchy to subjection, and subjection to anarchy. But the great military school of Alberic de Barbiano had raised up a vigorous and healthy spirit in the people, which, had it lasted, would have secured to both Romagna and Lombardy strength to resist foreign enemies, even if it could not control intestine divisions. But the great company of St. George, founded by Barbiano, was succeeded by two others, who, though they possessed all the energy of their predecessors, and were led by men of very superior abilities, were merely the companies of adventurous soldiers known as the Bracceschi and Sforzeschi. Their swords were at the command of those who could pay them best, and their leaders were men who sought to found dynasties upon military success. In this object Braccio de Montana failed. He was mortally wounded at Aquila in 1424, and his formidable band gradually dispersed, after having passed under the command of several others. Though Sforza perished in passing the Pescara ere he attained the power at which he aimed, the object was accomplished by his son Francesco, who established himself in the ducal throne of Milan. Thus, at the time when Ramiro d'Orco spoke, in 1494, the whole of Lombardy was under the domination of various princes, commonly and not unjustly called tyrants; but the chivalrous spirit of the people was by no means extinct; and even the course of the arts showed the tendency of the popular mind. It is true, Milan itself was more famous for the manufacture and even the invention of arms than for the fine arts, but in the pictures of that country during this and the preceding centuries saints and martyrs, angels and demons, are frequently represented in knightly harness, and in some it would be difficult to distinguish the messenger of peace from one of the terrible legionaries of the great companies.