Jerome Cardan - 1854 Author:Henry Morley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HOLY MONITIONS. 21 CHAPTER III. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH ARE VANITY. Margaret of Austria: daughter of Maximilian; sister of the Archduke Philip; aunt of Char... more »les, then Duke of Luxembourg, afterwards Emperor Charles V; governor, for her nephew, of the Netherlands; widow of Jean of Castille the son of Ferdinand; widow also of Philibert of Savoy: acting on behalf of Maximilian and Ferdinand, had at Cambray concluded a league with the Cardinal d'Amboise, who acted on behalf of the Pope and of the King of France. By this league it was agreed to enlarge the borders of the French king's Milanese territory, by cutting off and appropriating the borders of the territory of the too prosperous Venetian republic. In the year 1509 the head of the Church began the enterprise by issuing monitions which bestowed the coveted lands on the first neighbour who seized them. Louis XII, King of France, entered Italy with thirty thousand men, and was allowed to cross the river Adda by which his Milanese duchy was parted from Venetian ground. On the other side a battle was soon fought near a village called Agna- dol, the Venetians were routed, and without more contest driven into Venice. The campaign, therefore, was soon ended. This was the victory of the Adda celebrated by a triumphal entry into Milan in the eighth year of Jerome Cardan's life. Louis XII, predecessor of King Francis I. of France, was a monarch of whom it is just to speak respectfully. He sought the welfare of his people. When, on the occasion of this brief Venetian campaign, he found his warfare so soon ended that he should not need the special taxes he had levied, he remitted them, and left the money in the pockets of his subjects. He detested all the arts which darkened counsel by a multitude of words, and expressed frequently ...« less