A soldier by education, taste, and long habit, his character should be judged by a military standard; and perhaps the best tribute to his glory consisted in the public rejoicings ordered by Sultan Solyman on hearing of his untimely death. In following the narrative of his campaigns, we have unsparingly pointed out the faults which seemed to cramp his success. They were obviously systematic, arising from an excess of that caution, which his natural prudence and foresight prompted, and which the examples of Fabius Maximus and Prospero Colonna in some degree authorised. Yet we must not overlook an important element of consideration, in the quality of troops under his command from 1523 to 1528. His want of confidence in them was avowed, and in more than one instance it was justified, when their steadiness was put to the test. Nor was he less fettered by the faulty organisation of that army, made up of various contingents under their respective leaders, without a responsible commanding officer, and in which civilians were allowed a veto fatal to unity of action. The verdict of his contemporaries may, however, be admitted as conclusive upon his military reputation. Ruscelli tells us that he was, by common consent, called the father and founder of the art of war, as practised in the sixteenth century; and the opinion of the only dissentient, Guicciardini, a private enemy and no soldier, is amply balanced by that of Giovanni de' Medici, who ranked him in skilful tactics, and in the arts of command, as well as in foresight and activity, equal to the ablest generals. The testimony of Charles V. has been already given; and we are assured that after a public disputation in Padua, sustained by men of the greatest learning, he was voted a match to any hero of antiquity, in judgment, experience, ingenuity, and military talent. Promis, with assuredly no friendly leaning, admits his great skill in military architecture, stating that he was often consulted by the principal engineers of Italy, and especially by Sanmichele, upon the fortifications of Corfu, regarding which that author attributes to him a Report to the Signory of Rome, now in the Ambrosian Library of Milan.[39] His opinion as to the defences of their lagoons, and principal garrisons on terra-firma, was, on various occasions, requested by that Republic, and during his command in Lombardy the towns of Lodi, Crema, Bergamo, Martinengo, and Orcinovo were all strengthened after his designs. Tartagli and Contriotto acknowledged their obligations to his suggestions; but Promis denies him the invention of baloards, as we have already seen, when writing of Francesco di Giorgio. The school of military engineering formed under his eye, during almost continual campaigns, numbered many distinguished professors of that art, among whom were Pietro Luigi Escriva, Gianbattista Bellucci, Nicolò Tartaglia, Girolamo Genga, Gian Giacomo Leonardi, and Jacopo Fusto Castriotto,