The essential writings of Machiavelli (51 page)

Serravalle is a castle town between Pescia and Pistoia, on a hill that blocks the Val di Nievole. It is not inside the pass itself, but about two bowshots above it. The pass is not steep, because it slopes up gently on both sides; but it is narrow, especially on the hill where the waters divide, so that twenty men standing side by side can hold it. This is where Castruccio wanted to meet the enemy: in part because his fewer men would have the advantage, but also because he did not want his troops to see the enemy forces before the battle, as he was worried that his men might be alarmed if they saw their great numbers. A German, Messer Manfredi, was the lord of Serravalle. Before Castruccio had become ruler of Pistoia, Messer Manfredi had been allowed to keep possession of the castle, even though it lay within the spheres of both Lucca and Pistoia. But as he promised to remain neutral, neither city moved to attack him. Furthermore, he was in a strong and secure location, and so was left alone. But now Castruccio wanted to occupy the castle of Serravalle. He had a good friend in Serravalle and made arrangements that on the night before he was to engage the Florentines in battle, his friend would allow four hundred of Castruccio’s men through the castle gates and murder the castellan.

In order to encourage the Florentines to enter the pass, Castruccio did not move his army from Montecarlo, and the Florentines for their part wanted to move the battle from Pistoia to the Val di Nievole. So they set up camp beneath Serravalle with the intention of crossing the hill the following day. But Castruccio, having secretly seized the castle under cover of darkness, marched his troops out of Montecarlo in the middle of the night and furtively arrived at the foot of Serravalle at dawn. Thus Castruccio and the Florentines, each on their side of the pass, began climbing the slope at the same time. Castruccio had sent his infantry along the main road and four hundred cavalrymen along a path on the left toward the castle. The Florentines, on the other side of the hill, had sent some four hundred horsemen ahead, followed by their infantry and then their men at arms. They did not expect to find Castruccio up on the hill because they did not know that he had taken the castle. Hence the Florentine horsemen were utterly taken aback when they climbed the slope and came upon Castruccio’s infantry. They found themselves so close to them that they barely had time to slip on their helmets. Unprepared soldiers were attacked by troops who were prepared and well ordered. Castruccio’s spirited men pushed back the Florentines, who could barely stand up to them, though some did try. But as word spread through the rest of the Florentine army, confusion ensued: The cavalry was hemmed in by the infantry, and the infantry by the cavalry and the baggage train. The men in front, hindered by the narrowness of the pass, could go neither forward nor back, so that in all the confusion nobody knew what could or should be done. The Florentine cavalry, meanwhile, was fighting hand to hand with Castruccio’s infantry and was being cut down and slaughtered, unable to defend itself because of the adverse terrain. The horsemen tried to stand their ground, more out of desperation than valor, because having the mountains on both sides, with their comrades behind them and the enemy in front, they found no road open for escape.

Castruccio saw that he did not have enough men to make the enemy retreat, and so sent a thousand infantry by way of the castle to join the four hundred horsemen he had positioned there. They struck the enemy’s flank with such fury that the Florentine troops, unable to stand up to the onslaught, began to flee, defeated more by the terrain than by Castruccio’s forces. The soldiers in the rear ran toward Pistoia, scattering over the plain, each man for himself.

The defeat was total and bloody. Many commanders were captured, among them Bandini de Rossi, Francesco Brunelleschi, and Giovanni della Tosa, all Florentine noblemen, as well as a number of Tuscans and Neapolitans sent by King Roberto to fight for the Florentines and the Guelph cause. When word of the rout reached the Pistoians, they immediately drove out the Guelph factions and surrendered to Castruccio, who then went on to occupy Prato
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and all the castles of the plains on both sides of the Arno. He then set up camp with his men on the plains of Peretola, some two miles from Florence. He stayed there many days, distributing loot and celebrating the victory, mocking the Florentines by coining money and setting up races with horses, soldiers, and whores. He made efforts to bribe some influential Florentines to open the gates of Florence under cover of darkness, but the conspiracy was revealed, and Tommaso Lupacci and Lambertuccio Frescobaldi were arrested and beheaded.

The Florentines, alarmed by the defeat, were worried that they might have to forfeit their liberty to Castruccio, and to secure help they sent emissaries to King Roberto of Naples, offering him Florence and its dominions for his protection. The king accepted, not so much because of the honor the Florentines were according him but because he knew how vital it was for his own position that the Guelph faction keep the upper hand in Tuscany. He agreed that the Florentines would pay him a tribute of two hundred thousands florins a year, and sent his son Carlo to Florence with a cavalry of four thousand men.
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In the meantime, the Florentines were given a respite from Castruccio and his soldiers as he was forced to leave for Pisa to crush a conspiracy set up by Benedetto Lanfranchi, one of the foremost men of Pisa. Lanfranchi could not bear his city being enslaved by a man from Lucca, and plotted to occupy the citadel, drive out the guards, and kill Castruccio’s supporters.
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But in conspiracies, though it is good for secrecy to keep the number of conspirators to a few, these few will then not be enough to carry out the conspiracy. In his attempt to bring more men into it, Benedetto Lanfranchi involved one who revealed the plot to Castruccio. Nor did the plot’s exposure occur without the help of Bonifacio Cerchi and Giovanni Guidi, two Florentines exiled in Pisa.
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Castruccio captured Benedetto, killed him, and sent the rest of his family into exile, and had many other Pisans of the noble classes beheaded. Castruccio now felt that Pistoia and Pisa could not be trusted and set about to secure them with diligence and force. This gave the Florentines time to gather their strength and await the arrival of Prince Carlo. When he arrived they immediately assembled a huge force that mustered most of the Guelphs of Italy, creating a massive army of more than thirty thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry. The Florentines conferred as to whether they ought to attack Pistoia first or Pisa and decided that Pisa was the better choice, since the recent conspiracy against Castruccio made success more certain. Pisa also seemed the better option, since the Florentines felt that once they had Pisa, Pistoia would surrender of its own accord.

The Florentines marched their army out in early May of 1328, immediately occupying Lastra, Signa, Montelupo, and Empoli, and marching all the way to San Miniato.
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Castruccio was not alarmed at the news of the extensive forces mobilized against him, as he believed that Fortune would now grant him power over all of Tuscany. He felt that there was no reason for the enemy to cut a better figure in Pisa than they had in the Battle of Serravalle, and that this time they would not have any hope of regrouping. Having gathered twenty thousand foot soldiers and four thousand cavalrymen, Castruccio stationed himself at Fucecchio and sent Pagolo Guinigi with an infantry of five thousand to Pisa.

Fucecchio, standing quite high above the plain, halfway between the Gusciana stream and the Arno River, is in a more secure location than any other castle in the Pisan territories.
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If the Florentines besieged Castruccio there, they could not block provisions coming in from Lucca or Pisa unless they split their forces in two; nor could they approach Fucecchio or Pisa without being at a disadvantage, because if they marched up to Fucecchio they would be caught between Castruccio’s army and that of Pagolo Guinigi stationed in Pisa, and in order to march on Pisa they would have to cross the Arno, which, with the enemy at their back, they could do only at great risk. By not positioning himself with his army on the bank of the Arno but having his men line up along the castle walls, Castruccio encouraged the Florentines to choose the alternative of crossing the Arno, leaving considerable terrain between himself and the river.

Once the Florentines had occupied San Miniato, they knew that they had to either march on Pisa or face Castruccio at Fucecchio, and measuring one alternative against the other, decided to attack Castruccio. The Arno was shallow enough to be easily forded, though not without the infantry being submerged up to their shoulders and the horsemen to their saddles. On the morning of June 10, the Florentines assembled in battle formation and sent part of their cavalry and an infantry battalion of ten thousand into the river. Castruccio, ready and determined, attacked them with an infantry battalion of five thousand, and three thousand horsemen, and before the Florentines managed to emerge from the waters, Castruccio’s forces set upon them. Then he sent a thousand infantrymen upstream along the riverbank and a thousand downstream. The Florentine infantry was weighed down by the waters and their weapons, and were struggling to climb the rocky banks. The horses that had managed to cross first had churned up the riverbed with their hooves, making the crossing harder for the rest, who were now stepping on unstable ground. Many horses toppled over onto their riders or became stuck in the mud. When the Florentine captains saw how difficult it was to cross at this part of the river, they moved their troops higher upstream to where the riverbed was not churned up and the banks were not as steep, but there they were met by the infantry Castruccio had sent upriver. These forces were lightly armed with bucklers and spears, and with loud battle cries plunged their blades into the foreheads and chests of the Florentine soldiers. The horses, alarmed by the shouting and carnage, balked and began falling and tumbling over each other.

The clash between Castruccio’s men and the Florentines in the river was harsh and terrible. Many men fell on both sides, and both sides fought with all their might. Castruccio’s men strove to drive the Florentines back into the river, while the Florentines strove to push ahead so that those emerging from the river behind them could fight. The captains on both sides exhorted their men, Castruccio reminding his soldiers that this was the same enemy they had vanquished at Seravelle not too long ago, while the Florentines rebuked their men for allowing Castruccio’s small army to overcome their superior forces.

Castruccio saw that the battle was dragging on and that his men and the enemy were already exhausted, with many wounded and dead on both sides. So he sent forward a fresh infantry battalion of five thousand, positioning them behind the men who were fighting, and ordered the men in the fray to fan out, half retreating to the left, the other half to the right. This opened up the terrain for the Florentines, and they advanced, but when the battle-worn Florentine soldiers came upon Castruccio’s rested men, they were easily pushed back into the river.

In the meantime, neither of the two cavalries had gained the upper hand because Castruccio, aware that his was the weaker, had ordered his captains to do no more than resist the enemy. He hoped to defeat the Florentine infantry first: Once the infantry was defeated, he could rout the cavalry with greater ease. And things went according to his plan. As the enemy infantry was driven back into the river, Castruccio unleashed the rest of his infantry on the enemy cavalry, wounding them with lances and spears, and then sent in his own cavalry with greater force, putting the enemy horsemen to flight. The rest of the Florentine foot soldiers fared no better: Once the Florentine captains had seen the difficulty their horsemen had in crossing the river, they had sent the rest of their foot soldiers to cross further downstream, with the design of attacking Castruccio’s flanks. But this proved to be a mistake, for the banks there were steep and lined with enemy soldiers.

To the great honor and glory of Castruccio, the Florentine army was utterly routed. Of all the multitude of Florentine soldiers, less than one-third managed to escape. Many commanders were taken captive, while King Roberto of Naples’s son Carlo and Michelagnolo Falconi and Taddeo degli Albizzi, the Florentine commissioners, fled to Empoli. As one can imagine in such a battle, the plunder was great and the slaughter even greater. The Florentine army lost 20,231 men, Castruccio 1,570.

But Fortune proved hostile to Castruccio’s glory and took his life just when she ought to have nurtured it, cutting short the grand designs he had aimed to achieve for so many years, designs that nothing but death could hinder. Exhausted from the day-long battle, Castruccio stood above the castle gate of Fucecchio, breathless and covered in sweat, waiting for his men to return from their victory, to receive them and thank them in person. He also wanted to keep an eye out in case some of the enemy forces regrouped to attack. It was the duty of a good leader to be the first to mount his horse and the last to dismount. But standing above the gates, exposed to a wind that usually rises at midday over the Arno and is almost always pestiferous, Castruccio caught a chill. Accustomed to the rigors of battle, he paid little heed to this, but it proved the cause of his death. The following night he was seized by a strong fever that kept rising. As all the doctors judged it fatal, Castruccio called Pagolo Guinigi to him and spoke the following words:
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“My son, had I believed that Fortune intended to cut me down midway to the glory I had seen was mine with so many successes, I would have tired myself less and left you a smaller state, fewer enemies, and less envy. I would have been content with ruling Lucca and Pisa and would not have subjugated the Pistoians and angered the Florentines with my many assaults. I would have made those cities my friends, and would have led my life, if not longer, then with greater tranquillity. I would have left you this state smaller, but doubtless more stable and secure. But Fortune, the arbitrator of all human affairs, did not give me sufficient judgment to understand this, nor enough time to be able to overcome what she had in store. Many have told you—and I have never denied it—that I came into your father’s house as a boy deprived of all the hopes that flourish in a young nobleman’s heart, and how your father nurtured and loved me more than if I had been of his blood. Under his tutelage I became valiant and able to grasp the gifts of Fortune, which you yourself have seen and still see. When your father died, he placed you and all he possessed in my care, and I have raised you, bound as I was and still am by a love and loyalty that have increased that wealth for you. So that you would not only inherit what your father left, but also what Fortune and my skill have gained, I never took a wife. I did not want my love for my sons to hinder me from showing to your father’s blood the gratitude I owe.
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I leave you a great state, and of that I am pleased. But I am most unhappy that I leave it to you weak and unstable. You own the city of Lucca, which will never be content to live under your reign. You own Pisa, whose men are fickle and disloyal, and though over the years Pisa has been accustomed to subjugation, it will always scorn the rule of a lord from Lucca. You own Pistoia, which cannot be loyal, as it is divided and angry at your blood for the recent injuries we have inflicted on them. You have the Florentines for neighbors, whom we have offended and harmed in a thousand ways, though not destroyed. They will hear the news of my death with greater joy than if they had acquired all of Tuscany. And you cannot rely on the princes of Milan or the Emperor, as they are far away, sluggish, and slow to send help. You can only place your hopes in your own industry, in the memory of my skill and prowess, and in the standing that our present victory has afforded you. If you use it with prudence, it will bring you advantage in a treaty with the Florentines, who, alarmed at their defeat, will be eager to negotiate. Whereas I sought to make them my enemy, in the belief that such enmity would bring me power and glory, you must seek with all your strength to make them your friends, because their friendship will bring you security and benefit. In this world it is vital to know oneself, to know how to measure one’s spirit and power. He who knows that he is unable to wage war must strive to reign through the art of peace, and my counsel to you is that you would do well to master this art, and so enjoy what my toil and peril have gained. It should be easy for you to accomplish this, if you esteem what I am telling you as true. And you will be indebted to me in two ways: first, for having left you this realm, and second for having taught you how to keep it.”