The usurper’s one excuse for his treachery was that his uncle and cousins had been openly intriguing against him. Immediately after the capture of Bernabò he drew up a solemn indictment against him, charging him with a catalogue of appalling crimes, and with insidious designs against his, Gian Galeazzo’s, life, and sent it to all the Courts of Europe. This characteristic attempt to give legal justification to his action deceived nobody. Italy at large regarded the young ruler with an admiration and dread which events soon proved well-founded. The brain which had shown such sovereign dissimulation cherished ambitions before which whole cities and states were to fall. It was not long before his schemes began to be fulfilled. The story of Gian Galeazzo’s military enterprises is one of almost unbroken conquest. He was no soldier himself, but he knew how to choose his generals, and he got the best out of them by interfering with them little and rewarding them very generously. The chaotic state of Italy at the time gave him his chance. So extraordinary was his success, that he was regarded as something almost diabolical. It seemed to his terrified enemies that he fascinated those whom he marked for destruction, so that they fell with eyes open into his snares. Francesco da Carrara, Lord of Padua, was persuaded to aid him to overthrow the Scaligeri of Verona. That city having been conquered in 1387, Gian Galeazzo picked a quarrel with his ally, besieged and captured Padua (1389), and sent Francesco to die in the dungeons of Monza. Master now of Verona and Padua, the Visconte had touched the Adriatic shore. Meanwhile Mantua and Venice looked on stupidly and awaited their own destruction as if paralysed. General fear possessed Italy at the rapid progress of the conqueror, who, unseen himself, directed his instruments with such unfailing insight to his desired ends. The Visconte’s policy was to strike at the weak first and gradually prepare the way for greater enterprises. The Church was at this time in the throes of the Great Schism, and Gian Galeazzo, protesting conscientious difficulties in deciding to which Pope he owed spiritual obedience, played them against one another, while he seized the papal fiefs in the Romagna. His armies climbed the mountains and poured into Umbria and Tuscany. Aroused at last by the example and exhortations of Florence, Italy shook off her stupor, and a general effort was made to stem the advance of the Visconte. Yet still he crept on, remedying the checks to his arms by his stealthy diplomacy. The King of France, in answer to the appeal of Florence, sent an army to invade his States, but it was routed by Jacopo dal Verme, and Charles VI. was himself converted into an ally by the Visconte’s flatteries and promises. In 1399 he triumphed over Florence again by acquiring Pisa, without a blow, from Gerardo d’Appiano, while Perugia, Siena and Assisi submitted to his generals.