Among these appalling figures we may first notice certain of the 'Condottieri,' such as Braccio da Montone, Tiberto Brandolino, and that Werner von Urslingen whose silver hauberk bore the inscription: 'The enemy of God, of pity and of mercy.' This class of men offers us some of the earliest instances of criminals deliberately repudiating every moral restraint.Yet we shall be more reserved in our judgement of them when we remember that the worst part of their guilt--in the estimate of those who record it-- lay in their defiance of spiritual threats and penalties, and that to this fact is due that air of horror with which they are represented as surrounded.In the case of Braccio, the hatred of the Church went so far that he was infuriated at the sight of monks at their psalms, and had them thrown down from the top of a tower; but at the same time 'he was loyal to his soldiers and a great general.' As a rule, the crimes of the 'Condottieri' were committed for the sake of some definite advantage, and must be attributed to a position in which men could not fail to be demoralized.Even their apparently gratuitous cruelty had commonly a purpose, if it were only to strike terror.The barbarities of the House of Aragon, as we have seen, were mainly due to fear and to the desire for vengeance.The thirst for blood on its own account, the devilish delight in destruction, is most clearly exemplified in the case of the Spaniard Cesare Borgia, whose cruelties were certainly out of all proportion to the end which he had in view.
In Sigismondo Malatesta, tyrant of Rimini, the same disinterested love of evil may also be detected.It is not only the Court of Rome, but the verdict of history, which convicts him of murder, rape, adultery, incest, sacrilege, perjury and treason, committed not once but often.