Carlo VIII nel castello di Pavia (ottobre 1494) nei dispacci cifrati di Giovan Battista Ridolfi

Four dispatches sent from Milan to Piero de’ Medici by the Florentine envoy Giovan Battista Ridolfi between 16 and 30 October 1494 (Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo avanti il Principato, LXXIV, 112-115) report, partly in cipher, what happened when Charles VIII stayed in the castle of Pavia, where the young duke Gian Galeazzo Maria Sforza lay dying. Three of them were never deciphered by the Medici chancery; the fourth carries the chancery’s interlinear decipherment. Using the key ASF, MAP, LXXII, 183 (“Cifra con Paulantonio Soderini”), this preprint gives a complete edition of the four letters, with a discussion of the conflicting chronicle accounts and of the Medici chancery’s use of cipher. According to Ridolfi, Isabella of Aragon refused to present herself to the king, pleading illness; neither dispatch supports the tradition, going back to Guicciardini, that she threw herself at the king’s feet. The letters also report a protest by the citizens of Pavia against Ludovico Sforza’s edict on the milling tax. Text in Italian, with an English summary. AI assistance (Claude, Anthropic) was used in transcription and decipherment and is disclosed in the text.