Meanwhile the mutual jealousies and hatreds of those Powers, kept in check by no tie stronger than diplomacy, prevented them from forming any scheme of common action.

One great province (Naples) had fallen into Spanish hands; another (Milan) lay open through the passes of the Alps to France.

The Papacy, in the center, manipulated these two hostile foreign forces with some advantage to itself, but with ever-deepening disaster for the race.

As in the days of Guelf and Ghibelline, so now again the nation was bisected.

The contest between French and Spanish factions became cruel.