Ariosto, in the comparative calm of the sixteenth century, when tyrannies had yielded to the protectorate of Spain, sums up the records of the past in the following memorable passage:[2] 'Happy the kingdoms where an open-hearted and blameless man gives law! Wretched indeed and pitiable are those where injustice and cruelty hold sway, where burdens ever greater and more grievous are laid upon the people by tyrants like those who now abound in Italy, whose infamy will be recorded through years to come as no less black than Caligula's or Nero's.' Guicciardini, with pregnant brevity, observes:[3] 'The mortar with which the states of the tyrants are cemented is the blood of the citizens.' [1] Arch.Stor.xvi.102.See my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, p.
84.
[2] Cinque Canti, ii.

5.
[3] Ricordi Politici, ccxlii.
In the history of Italian despotism two points of first-rate importance will demand attention.

The first is the process by which the greater tyrannies absorbed the smaller during the fourteenth century.

The second is the relation of the chief Condottieri to the tyrants of the fifteenth century.

The evolution of these two phenomena cannot be traced more clearly than by a study of the history of Milan, which at the same time presents a detailed picture of the policy and character of the Italian despot during this period.