310 ITALIAN WARS. PART ranks. The joung monarch, whose splendid arms . and towering plumes made him a conspicuous mark in the field, was exposed to imminent peril. He had broken his lance in the body of one of the foremost of the French cavaliers, when his horse fell under him, and as his feet were entangled in the stirrups, he would inevitably have perished in the melee, but for the prompt assistance of a young nobleman named Juan de Altavilla, who mounted his master on his own horse, and calmly awaited the approach of the enemy, by whom he was im- mediately slain. Instances of this affecting loyalty and self-devotion not unfrequently occur in these wars, throwing a melancholy grace over the darker and more ferocious features of the time. ^^ Gonsalvo was seen in the thickest of the fight, long after the king's escape, charging the enemy briskly at the head of his handful of Spaniards, not in the hope of retrieving the day, but of covering the flight of the panic-struck Neapolitans. At length he was borne along by the rushing tide, and succeeded in bringing off the greater part of his cavalry safe to Seminara. Had the French fol- lowed up the blow, the greater part of the royal army, with probably King Ferdinand and Gonsalvo at its head, would have fallen into their hands, and thus not only the fate of the campaign, but of Na- ples itself, would have been permanently decided by 18 Giovio, Hist, sui Temporis, lib. G, cap. 2. — Guicciardini, Is- iib. 3, pp. 83-85. — Chronica del toria, lib. 2, p. 112. — Garibay, Gran Capilan, cap. 24. — Sum- Compendio, torn. ii. lib. 19, p. 690. monie, Hist, di Napoli, torn. iii.
