His acquisitions were well cemented; his armies in good condition; his treasury brim full; his generals highly paid.

All his lieutenants in city and in camp respected the iron will and the deep policy of the despot who swayed their action from his arm-chair in Milan.

He alone knew how to use the brains and hands that did him service, to keep them mutually in check, and by their regulated action to make himself not one but a score of men.

At last, when all other hope of independence for Italy had failed, the plague broke out with fury in Lombardy.

Gian Galeazzo retired to his isolated fortress of Marignano in order to escape infection.