Gradually these foreign condottieri, when not engaged in the service of any particular power, levied war like independent sovereigns; and Italy had fresh reason to repent the jealousy which had made her distrust her own sons. They fought with tenfold more fury now that the contest was no longer carried on by one troop of condottieri against another, but against the Italians themselves, to whom no tie of nature bound them; and so far was any cavaleresque generosity from mitigating the horrors of their wars, that one adventurer, Werner was his name, and Germany his country, declared, by an inscription which was blazoned on his corslet, that he was "the enemy of God, of pity, and of mercy." But the power of these foreign condottieri was not perpetual. Nature rose to vindicate her rights; and there were many daring spirits among the Italians, who, if not emulous of the fame, were jealous of the dominion of strangers. The company of Saint George, founded by Alberico de Barbiano, a marauding chief of Romagna, was the school of Italian generals. In the fifteenth century, the force of every state was led by an Italian, if not a native citizen; and when the Emperor Robert crossed the Alps with the gens-d'armerie of Germany, the Milanese, headed by Jacopo del Verme, encountered him near Brescia, and overthrew all his chivalry. [Sidenote: Chivalry in the north of Italy.] In northern Italy no knightlike humanities softened the vindictiveness of the Italian mind. Warriors never admitted prisoners to ransom. The annals of their contests are destitute of those graceful courtesies which shed such a beautiful lustre over the contests of England and France. No cavalier ever thought of combating for his lady's sake, and a lady's favour was never blended with his heraldic insignia. There were no regular defiances to war as in other countries: honour, that animating principle of chivalry, was not known; the object of the conquest was regarded to the exclusion of fame and military distinction. Stratagems were as common as open and glorious battle; and private injuries were revenged by assassination and not by the fair and manly joust à l'outrance: and yet when a man pledged his word for the performance of any act, and wished his sincerity to be believed, he always swore by the parola di cavaliere, e non di cortigiano; so general and forcible was the acknowledgment of chivalry's moral superiority. I know nothing in the history of the middle ages more dark with crime than the wars of the Italians,--nothing that displays by contrast more beautifully the graces of chivalry; and yet the Italian condottieri were brave to the very height of valour. Before them the German chivalry quailed, as it had formerly done before the militia of the towns. [Sidenote: Italians excellent armourers, but bad knights.]