The cities of Imola, Forli, Cesena, and Rimini, and
all the castles of the Romagna, except those of Forli and Imola,
followed the fortune of the victory and were received by the legate in
the name of the council."
The site of this great battle is marked by a monument, a square
pilaster of marble, called the Colonna dei Francesi, adorned with
bas-reliefs and inscriptions, raised in 1557 by the President of the
Romagna, Pier Donato Cesi, on the right bank of the Ronco, some three
miles from the city. We may recall Ariosto's verses:
"Io venni dove le campagne rosse
eran del sangue barbaro e latino
che fiera stella dianzi a furor mosse.
"E vidi un morto all' altro si vicino
che, senza premer lor, quasi il terreno
a molte miglia non dava il cammino.
"E da chi alberga fra Garonna e Reno
vidi uscir crudelta, che ne dovria
tutto il mondo d'orror rimaner pieno."
The League of Cambray had succeeded in breaking the real security and
confidence of Venice; the death of Gaston de Foix, "the hero boy who
died too soon," destroyed the energy of her ally, the French army, in
Italy; and the battle of Novara, as I have said, in 1513, inducing
that ally to withdraw from the peninsula, left the republic to be
menaced by Cardona, who failed only to take Venice itself.
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