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Title: The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09 : Italy
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09 : Italy" ***
THE WORLD IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES, VOLUME 09 ***

Transcriber’s Note: As a result of editorial shortcomings in the
original, some reference letters in the text don’t have matching entries
in the reference-lists, and vice versa.

THE HISTORIANS’ HISTORY OF THE WORLD

[Illustration: MACCHIAVELLI]

THE HISTORIANS’
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD

A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations
as recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of all ages:
edited, with the assistance of a distinguished board of advisers
and contributors, by

HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, LL.D.

[Illustration]

IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES

VOLUME IX--ITALY

The Outlook Company
New York

The History Association
London

1905

_All rights reserved._

Press of J. J. Little & Co.
New York, U. S. A.

Contributors, and Editorial Revisers.

Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin.
Prof. Joseph Halévy, College of France.
Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University.
Prof. Andrew C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan.
Prof. David H. Müller, University of Vienna.
Prof. Alfred Rambaud, University of Paris.
Capt. F. Brinkley, Tokio.

Prof. Eduard Meyer, University of Berlin.
Dr. James T. Shotwell, Columbia University.
Prof. Theodor Nöldeke, University of Strasburg.
Prof. Albert B. Hart, Harvard University.
Dr. Paul Brönnle, Royal Asiatic Society.
Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., London.

Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Möllendorff, University of Berlin.
Prof. H. Marczali, University of Budapest.
Dr. G. W. Botsford, Columbia University.
Prof. Julius Wellhausen, University of Göttingen.
Prof. Franz R. von Krones, University of Graz.
Prof. Wilhelm Soltau, Zabern University.

Prof. R. W. Rogers, Drew Theological Seminary.
Prof. A. Vambéry, University of Budapest.
Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, University of Berlin.
Dr. Frederick Robertson Jones, Bryn Mawr College.
Baron Bernardo di San Severino Quaranta, London.
Dr. John P. Peters, New York.

Prof. Adolph Harnack, University of Berlin.
Dr. S. Rappoport, School of Oriental Languages, Paris.
Prof. Hermann Diels, University of Berlin.
Prof. C. W. C. Oman, Oxford University.
Prof. I. Goldziher, University of Vienna.
Prof. W. L. Fleming, University of West Virginia.
Prof. R. Koser, University of Berlin.

PART XIV

THE HISTORY OF ITALY

BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES

FRANCESCO BERTOLINI, J. BURCKHARDT, PIERRE ANTOINE DARU, S. ASTLEY
DUNHAM, F. GUICCIARDINI, W. C. HAZLITT, HEINRICH LEO, MACHIAVELLI,
F. A. MIGNET, H. E. NAPIER, LORENZO PIGNOTTI, A. VON REUMONT,
WILLIAM ROSCOE, J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, J. A. SYMONDS

WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM

ADHÉMAR, AMMIRATO, ANAFESTO, GUGLIELMUS APULIENSIS, ANGELO MARIA
BANDINI, CARLO BOTTA, FLAVIUS BLONDUS, BOCCACCIO, POGGIO
BRACCIOLINI, H. B. BRIGGS, LYTTON E. G. BULWER, BURCHARD
(OR BURCHARDUS), ISAAC BUTT, CAFFARO, CAPPONI, GIOVANNI
DE CASTRO, BENVENUTO CELLINI, CARLO CIPOLLA, ANNA
COMNENA, ROBERT COMYN, ANTONIO COSCI, ANDREA
DANDOLO, DANTE, CARLO DENINA, G. B. DEPPING,
DUFFY, HUGO FALCANDUS, FICINO, FLODOARDUS, UBERTUS FOLIETA, E. A.
FREEMAN, GALILEO, GEBHARDT, E. GIBBON, P. L. GINGUENÉ, GIOVANNI
DIACONO, HENRY HALLAM, W. HEYD, KARL HILLEBRAND, WILLIAM
HUNT, J. LABARTHE, M. LAFUENTE, RICORDANO MALASPINA,
GOFREDUS MALATERRA, MÉMOIRES DE BAYARD, GIUSEPPE
MONTANELLI, E. MÜNTZ, MURATORI, F. T. PERRENS,
PETRARCH, GIOVANNI PONTANO, W. H. PRESCOTT,
E. PROCTOR, E. QUINET, J. REINACH, W. ROBERTSON, T. DE ROSSI,
JOHN RUSKIN, WILLIAM SPALDING, OTTOBONUS SCRIBA, SCRIBÆ,
MARCHIRIUS ET BARTHOLOMÆUS, ST. MARC, G. STELLA,
TEGRINI, G. B. TESTA, TRAVERSARI, GIORGIO VASARI,
G. VILLANI, M. VILLANI, P. VILLARI, F. M. A.
VOLTAIRE, WILLIAM WHEWELL, JULES ZELLER

_All rights reserved._

CONTENTS

VOLUME IX

ITALY

PAGE

INTRODUCTION. THE SCOPE OF ITALIAN HISTORY: A PREFATORY
CHARACTERISATION 1

CHAPTER I

ITALY IN THE DARK AGE (476 _ca._-1100 A.D.) 15

The Barbarian invaders, 17. Charlemagne and his successors, 18.
The empire and the papacy, 21. The disunited municipalities,
22. The origin of Venice, 24. The origin of the dogeship, 27.
Venice in the tenth century, 28. Prosperity and political
reforms, 32. Other maritime cities, 35. The Lombard cities
and their allies, 36. Florence, 39. Social conditions, 40.
Municipal wars, 41.

CHAPTER II

IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY (1152-1200 A.D.) 45

Frederick Barbarossa in Italy, 45. The siege of Crema,
50. Rival popes, 53. Imperial campaigns and reverses, 54.
Frederick once more aggressive, 57. Battle of Legnano; peace of
Constance, 58. Death of Frederick; his successor, 60. Growing
power of the nobility, 61.

CHAPTER III

THE NORMANS IN SICILY (787-1204 A.D.) 63

The Normans in France, 65. The Normans come to Italy, 68.
Capture of the pope; Robert Guiscard, 69. Conquest of Sicily;
Eastern invasions, 72. Roger, great count of Sicily, 76. Roger
II, 77. William the Bad (_il Malo_), 81. William the Good, 81.
Norman influence, 83.

CHAPTER IV

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 85

Factions in Florence, 87. Frederick II crowned emperor, 90.
Renewal of the Lombard League, 91. Frederick II and the Lombard
League, 92. Battle of Cortenuova, 93. Pope against emperor,
94. The Guelfs expelled from Florence; battle of Fossalta,
97. Death of Frederick II: the succession, 98. The pope and
the cities, 99. Florentine affairs; the Guelfs recalled,
101. Florence and Siena at war; battle of Montaperti, 102.
The tyrant Ezzelino, 104. The beginning of feudal tyranny in
Lombardy, 106. Perennial strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines, 108.
Charles of Anjou conquers Sicily, 109. The fall of Conradin;
Gregory X; Otto Visconti, 110. Ghibelline successes; the
Sicilian Vespers, 112. Waning influence of king, emperor, and
pope, 114. The republic of Pisa, 115. Pisa defeated by Genoa
near Meloria, 116. Perfidy and fall of Ugolino, 117. Florence;
the feud of the Bianchi and the Neri, 118. The pope sends
Charles of Valois as conciliator, 121.

CHAPTER V

THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE (1300-1350 A.D.) 124

An emperor once more in Italy, 126. Milan seditions; Genoa and
Venice at war, 128. Henry’s coronation and sudden death, 130.
Rival emperors; ecclesiastical dissensions, 131. Castruccio
Castracani, 133. Florence menaced, 135. The Florentine army
under Raymond of Cardona, 137. Raymond temporises, 139. A
brilliant skirmish, 140. Battle of Altopascio, 141. Castruccio
adds insult to injury, 143. Florence in despair calls on
the duke of Calabria, 144. Charles and his army, 145. The
Ghibellines call on Ludwig of Bavaria, 147. Successes of Count
Novello, 148. Ludwig comes to Italy, 149. Castruccio goes to
Rome, 150. Castruccio’s new conquest; his sudden death, 152.
Estimates of Castruccio, 153. Duke of Calabria dies; Ludwig
retires, 155. Can’ Grande Della Scala, 155. John of Bohemia
comes to Italy, 156. Lucca a bone of contention, 158. The duke
of Athens made protector of Florence, 162. Growing unpopularity
of the duke of Athens, 164. The duke driven from the city, 165.
Attempted reforms, 167. War of the factions in Florence, 169.
The Great Plague, 171. Boccaccio’s account of the plague in
Florence, 173. Napier’s reflections on the plague, 176.

CHAPTER VI

THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE (_ca._ 1250-1400 A.D.) 178

European culture in general, 181. The universities and
nascent scholarship, 183. Latin and the vernacular, 184. The
master poet, and his theme, 186. Dante the man, 187. Lesser
contemporaries of Dante, 190. Petrarch, 191. Early Italian
prose, 194. Boccaccio, 198. Lesser contemporaries of Petrarch
and Boccaccio, 202. Art in the thirteen and fourteenth
centuries, 203. The Tuscan school of painters, 207. Ruskin’s
estimate of Giotto’s tower, 209.

CHAPTER VII

ROME UNDER RIENZI (1347-1354 A.D.) 211

The rise of Rienzi, 213. Lord Lytton on the speech of Rienzi,
216. Rienzi’s opponents; his friends; his proclamations, 218.
Disaster succeeds victory, 220. Anarchy and jubilee in Rome,
223. Rienzi in exile; his renewed opportunity; his death, 224.

CHAPTER VIII

DESPOTS AND TYRANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
(_ca._ 1309-1496 A.D.) 230

The kingdom of Naples, 231. Joanna II, 234. Alfonso the
Magnanimous, 237. Ferdinand, 238. The tyrants of Lombardy, 240.
Companies of adventure, 241. Florence menaced by the Visconti,
243. Charles IV in Italy, 244. The “war of Liberation,” 248.
The papal schism, 249. Gian Galeazzo Visconti, 251. Filippo
Maria Visconti, 257. The house of Sforza, 258.

CHAPTER IX

THE MARITIME REPUBLICS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES 261

The affairs of Pisa and Genoa, 261. Naval exploits, 266. The
affairs of Venice, 269. The Tiepolo conspiracy, and the council
of Ten, 272. The story of Marino Falieri, 273. Venetian wars
and conquests, 275. Victories of Carmagnola, 279. Death of
Frescobaldi; the war ended and renewed, 284. The great naval
battle on the Po, 286. The revolt of Pisa; the cruel ruse of
Baldaccio, 288. The fall of Carmagnola, 289. Venice and the
Turks, 293. The government of Venice, 297. The two Foscari, 301.

CHAPTER X

THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 303

Venice in the Levant, 308. The commercial forebears of the
Venetians, 310. Venetian glass, 315. Other manufactures, 318.
The slave trade, 319. The decline of Venetian commerce, 323.
The bank of Venice, 324.

CHAPTER XI

THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE (1350-1400 A.D.) 326

Social upheavals of the middle of the fourteenth century,
327. Macchiavelli’s account of the Ciompi insurrection, 331.
The eight “saints of war,” 333. Mob violence, 336. Michele di
Lando, 340. Momentary peace; renewed insurrections, 343.

CHAPTER XII

FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI (1434-1492 A.D.) 349

The rise, reverses, and power of Cosmo de’ Medici, 350. Cosmo
and the revival of learning, 353. Last years of Cosmo, 356.
Roscoe’s estimate of Cosmo, 359. Cosmo’s successor, 361.
Piero’s sons and the conspiracies, 363. The Pazzi conspiracy,
365. Lorenzo the Magnificent in power, 370. The Florentines
routed at Poggibonzi, 373. Lorenzo’s embassy to Naples, 375.
Peace with honour, 376. Further papal wars, 379. Last years of
Lorenzo, 386. Von Reumont’s estimate of Lorenzo, 388.

CHAPTER XIII

ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE 391

Fifteenth century art, 392. Vasari’s estimate of fifteenth
century art, 393. Leonardo da Vinci, 395. The end of the
mediæval epoch, 398. The age of Michelangelo, 399. Michelangelo
as sculptor, 402. Raphael, 403. Ariosto, 405. Machiavelli, 406.

CHAPTER XIV

THE “LAST DAY OF ITALY” (1494-1530 A.D.) 408

Charles VIII; his army, 412. Charles VIII in Rome; a
contemporary account, 414. Charles goes to Naples, 420.
Florentine affairs; Savonarola, 421. The French in Milan, 424.
The French and Spaniards in Naples, 428. Northern Italy, 429.
The league of Cambray, 432. Battle of Ravenna, 435. The age
of Leo X, 439. Battle of Marignano; last years of Leo, 441.
Successors of Leo; Francis I and Charles V, 447. Capture and
sack of Rome, 452. The fall of Florence, 458.

CHAPTER XV

THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY (1530-1600 A.D.) 463

The siege and fall of Siena, 464. An Italian estimate of the
abdication of Charles V, 467. Renewed hostilities; the Treaty
of Cateau-Cambrésis, 468. A Spanish account of the battle of
Lepanto, 473. The general condition of Italy, 477. Pope Sixtus
V; Ferdinand, grand duke of Tuscany, 478. Pope Clement VIII,
481.

CHAPTER XVI

A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY (1601-1700 A.D.) 484

General conditions, 485. Galileo and the church, 493. The
successors of Urban VIII, 495. Lesser principalities, 498.
Tuscany, 501. Piedmont and Savoy, 502. Venice, 511. Venetian
wars with the Turks, 518.

CHAPTER XVII

ITALY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1701-1800 A.D.) 524

Italy in the war of the Spanish Succession, 528. War of the
Quadruple Alliance, 530. War of the Polish Succession, 532. War
of the Austrian Succession, 534. Forty years of “languid peace”
for divided Italy, 536. The kingdom of Naples and Sicily, 537.
The states of the church, 538. The Sardinian kingdom, 540. The
four republics, 541. Milan and Tuscany, 542. A Tuscan estimate
of Leopold, 546. Italy in the revolutionary age, 547. Time of
the French Republic under the national convention, 548. The
campaign of 1796 and its consequences, 551. The expulsion of
the French from Italy, 557. Bonaparte reconquers Italy, 564.
The growing desire for liberty, 565.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE NAPOLEONIC RÉGIME (1801-1815 A.D.) 566

The constitution of the republic, 567. Napoleon makes Italy
a kingdom, 568. The kingdom of Naples and the papacy, 570.
The islands of Sicily and Sardinia, 574. The rise of national
spirit, 574. The fall of Napoleon, 576.

CHAPTER XIX

INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES (1815-1848 A.D.) 578

Marriott on the Restoration, 580. Errors of the monarchy,
581. The insurrections of 1820-1821, 583. The revolutions of
1831, 585. Sassone on Mazzini and “young Italy,” 587. Fyffe’s
estimate of Mazzini, 588. Symonds on the problems and the
leaders, 589. Pope Pius IX and his liberal policy, 591.

CHAPTER XX

THE LIBERATION OF ITALY (1848-1866 A.D.) 593

The war between Naples and Sicily, 594. Revolt against the
pope; Rome a republic, 595. The French restore the pope, 597.
Revolutions in Tuscany and elsewhere, 598. Charles Albert’s war
with Austria, 598. Charles Albert abdicates: Victor Emmanuel
II succeeds, 600. Venice fails to acquire freedom, 601. Louis
Napoleon’s intervention, 603. Austria declares war: Magenta
and Solferino, 603. The papacy _versus_ unity, 606. Garibaldi
drives the Bourbons from Sicily, 607. The death of Cavour and
the revolt of Garibaldi, 611. Florence becomes the capital,
613. The war of 1866 and annexation of Venice, 614.

CHAPTER XXI

THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY (1867-1878 A.D.) 616

The revolt of Garibaldi, 617. The French intervene again:
Mentana, October 31st, 618. The Roman question renewed, 620.
Papal infallibility proclaimed, 621. Rome taken from the pope,
621. The plebiscite, 622. Rome again the capital of Italy, 624.
The Minghetti ministry, 625. Death of Victor Emmanuel and Pius
IX, 626.

CHAPTER XXII

RECENT HISTORY (1878-1903 A.D.) 628

Irredentism, the Triple Alliance and “Trasformismo,” 630. The
power of Crispi, 632. Death of King Humbert, of Crispi, and of
Leo XIII, 633.

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 635

A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN ITALY 639

A CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF ITALIAN HISTORY 646

INTRODUCTION

THE SCOPE OF ITALIAN HISTORY: A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION

THE DARK AGE

It has been observed again and again that the sweep of history is a
continuous stream, and that all attempts to divide it into epochs are
more or less arbitrary. Nevertheless, one cannot escape the tendency
to classify, and memory is greatly aided by such arbitrary divisions.
The largest and perhaps the most uniformly accepted of such arbitrary
parcelling out of history is the classification into ancient, mediæval,
and modern. Everyone is aware that the general historian usually regards
ancient history as closing either with the later decades of the fourth
century, when the northern barbarians began their invasions, or, perhaps
more generally, with the precise date 476, when the last emperor of old
Rome was dethroned. The ensuing epoch, comprising a period of about a
thousand years, is known as the mediæval period; which epoch is usually
considered as closing with the discovery of the New World in 1492. The
earlier centuries of this epoch are usually spoken of as constituting the
dark age.

Such a division is arbitrary, but not altogether illogical. It has been
urged that Rome itself did not know it had fallen in the year 476;
and that the Roman Empire--even the Roman Republic, in the phrasing
of the time--went on, as the minds of contemporaries conceived it,
uninterruptedly for many centuries after the date which we of later time
fix for the quietus of Roman imperial life. But few things are better
established than the fact that a clear conception of history demands
a certain opportunity for the observation of events in perspective.
In other words a contemporary judgment is rarely, if ever, the best
judgment regarding any epoch. In the multiplicity of details that are
thrust necessarily upon the attention of the contemporary observer,
large proportions are lost, and a confused mass of little things makes
the picture as unintelligible as is the large canvas of the painter
when viewed at too short a focus. With the historical view, as with
the painting, one must recede to a certain distance before gaining a
measurably true conception. And so looking back through the vista of
centuries one is able to observe very clearly that the time of the
alleged fall of the Western Roman Empire was a time of real crisis in the
sweep of historical events. The erection of the one focal date is, to
be sure, a quite unjustifiable marking of boundary lines, unless it be
regarded in the same way in which one thinks of the parallels of latitude
and longitude on the globe. It is a convenient milestone, nothing more.
But the epoch which it marks, if not to be limited to the confines of a
single year, is none the less a true epoch; as no one can doubt who will
consider the history of Rome in the aggregate during the first, second,
and third centuries of the Christian era, and then will consider the
history of the same city during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries.
Obviously, a vast change has come over the spirit of civilisation in this
time; the later centuries, contrasted with the earlier ones, may well be
considered a dark age.

We have already shown that during its period the eastern division of
the later Roman Empire was the seat of a culture which found expression
in the production of an elaborate literature. But the West during
this period was under quite different auspices. Rome had ceased to be
important as a centre of civilisation; its chief citizens had removed to
the city of Constantinople. Here in the West the half-civilised Herulians
and Ostrogoths held almost undisputed sway from 476 till about the middle
of the sixth century. Then for a century the Eastern Empire reasserted
control over Rome and the legions of Narses and Longinus upheld the
authority of the Byzantine emperors. But in 568 the Lombards under Alboin
swept down into Italy and their supremacy was hardly disputed until the
Carlovingians took a hand in Italian affairs, with the result that in 774
Charlemagne, capturing Desiderius in Pavia, assumed the title of king of
the Lombards and virtually ended the Lombard kingdom.

In 781 Charlemagne crowned his son Pepin king of Italy, and in the
memorable year 800 Charlemagne was himself crowned emperor of the West,
reviving the title and a semblance of the glory of the old Imperium.
Charlemagne’s successors retained nominal control over the empire, and
disputed with the popes the real control of Italy. This warfare between
the papal monarch and the emperors was a salient feature of the later
centuries of the epoch. The power of the church had increased slowly and
insidiously until in the ninth and tenth centuries the bishop of Rome
aspired to real kingship over Italy,--even over the entire empire.

The five hundred years of Italian history outlined in this period
contrast strangely (as has been said) in their world historical meaning
with the half millennium of empire that preceded it, or with the other
half millennium within which were comprised the events of the Roman
commonwealth. Those earlier periods, as we glance back over them in
perspective, bristle with great events; whereas this later epoch shows
a bare plane of mediocrity, if not of decline. Yet we must not think
of these later centuries as representing a time of relapse into actual
barbarism. It was rather an epoch when the decadent civilisation was
struggling against complete overthrow on the one hand, while the
new civilisation was striving to make itself felt,--striving as yet
ineffectually as regards the higher culture, yet none the less preparing
the way for the future germination of a new life in the old empire.

There is no more fascinating effort open to the historian than to glance
back through the mists of the centuries and attempt to penetrate the
gloom of this dark age, and visualise its social conditions. At best
such an attempt at reconstructing the distant past can be but partially
successful. If it be true that “we view the world through our own eyes,
each of us, and make from within us the things we see,” as Thackeray
tells us regarding our contemporary environment, vastly more distorted
must our image be of any past events. Where the monuments, art treasures,
and the literature of a great civilisation have been preserved to us,
as in the case of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and Greece, and Rome, we have
aids and accessories for the reconstruction of the picture that enable
us to view our rehabilitation with a certain confidence. But where
these mementoes of the past are lost or altogether lacking, the picture
must, indeed, be a vague and uncertain one,--the foggy tracery of the
impressionist as contrasted with the firm outlines of a Michelangelo.

And such are the disadvantages that beset the task of reconstructing the
image of Italy, or indeed of any other part of Europe, in the so-called
dark age. It was a time when the wealth of the later empire had been
transferred to the East. Western Europe was poverty-stricken; and this
practical fact, perhaps more than any other one cause, operated to
prevent the construction of such monuments of architecture and of art
as the earlier centuries achieved. We have seen illustrated again and
again that the seat of the greatest civilisation is almost sure to be
the commercial and monetary centre of the world; and we shall see the
same thing illustrated again with renewed force at a later day in Italy,
when the gold of the Florentine tradesmen, the Medici, stimulates the
art development of the later Renaissance. But in these post-imperial
times Italy has no wealth in commerce, as compared with the new centre
of the empire in Constantinople. Such Romans as remain in Italy are too
poor to build palaces and amphitheatres comparable to those of their
predecessors. They have enough to do to guard themselves against the
invaders from the north. At best they can hardly repair the structures
that the earlier civilisation has left them. We read that in Venice
it was at one time made a legal offence, punishable with a fine of
one thousand florins, to suggest any draft on the public treasury for
repairing state buildings. According to the familiar tradition, the doge
who finally had the temerity to violate the restriction, came before the
council with the thousand florins in his hand when making the suggestion.
This story illustrates the financial stress under which the Italian
cities laboured even at a comparatively late period of the Middle Ages.

But it would be a very great mistake to suppose that the lapse in the
material civilisation which undoubtedly took place in the later day of
imperial Rome coincided with an entire change in the social conditions
of the people. No trait in human nature is more fixed and more insistent
than the tendency to cling to the ways of our forbears. Conservatism is
the dominant motive of the mass of humanity. What our fathers thought
and believed, we for the most part think and believe. The average man
inherits his religion and his politics much as he inherits the colour
of his eyes; and has scarcely more likelihood of changing one than the
other. In the sweep of the centuries, ideas and customs do change, to
be sure; but the changes, in so far as they pertain to long-standing
principles or customs, are always slow and gradual.

Geologists of the nineteenth century demonstrated, after long study and
much argument, that there are no cataclysmic vaults in the sweep of the
geological and biological ages. The lesson thus taught regarding nature
at large is one which the sociologist might apply to his own would-be
science with advantage. In particular this lesson should be called to
the attention of the student of history who would have us believe that
there was a sudden and catastrophic change in the mentality of the people
of Italy in the fifth century A.D. No one who appreciates the true
character of human progress will be disposed to believe, in the absence
of confirmatory evidence, that the Italian of the sixth century differed
very greatly in his desires and aspirations from his grandparent who
lived while Rome was yet nominally governed by an Italian emperor. The
successive hordes of barbarians that swept down from the north took booty
wherever they could find it, and impoverished the country, but for the
most part they were not imbued with the spirit of wanton destruction. We
may well believe that they looked rather with awestruck admiration akin
to reverence upon the wonderful monuments of a civilisation so different
from anything they had previously witnessed. We know that relatively
civilised nations of the north sacked Rome in the sixteenth century more
disastrously than it was sacked by their alleged barbaric precursors of
the earlier millennium. Moreover, these invaders from the north were not
omnipresent. They came and went at relatively long intervals, and there
were some territories that they did not greatly molest. And the history
of invasions everywhere goes to show that after the moment of initial
conquest the barbaric vanquisher becomes, in matters of custom and
thought, a follower rather than a leader of the vanquished.

In the present case there can be no doubt that this rule held true. The
nations of the north were gifted with potentialities that were rapidly
developed through imitation of the southern civilisation. Long before
the so-called dark ages ended, there began to be centres of civilisation
in the north, and here and there a man of real genius--a Roger Bacon or
an Abelard--appeared to prove the rapid forward sweep of the culture
movement, since the highest genius never towers far above the culture
level of its time. But this could not have come to pass if the invader
from the north had entered Italy as an all-devastating eliminator of
previous civilisations. He came to conquer, but he remained to learn the
arts of civilisation.

In a word, then, we shall gain a truer picture of the state of Italy
in the so-called dark age if we think of it as differing not so
greatly in the ideals of its material civilisation from the Italy of
the Roman Empire. There is no great architecture, no great art, no
great literature; but we cannot believe that there were absolutely no
aspirations towards these antique ideals. When we recall how much that
was known to be produced in the earlier day has been utterly lost, we
need not doubt that there were some productions even in the field of
literature, of which we now have no knowledge, that we would gladly
reclaim from oblivion. The _cacoethes scribendi_ is too dominant an
impulse to be quite absent from any generation; surely, human nature
did not change so utterly in the dark age as to rout this impulse from
the human mind. What chiefly did occur, apparently, was the direction
of the literary impulse into an unfortunate channel--the channel of
ecclesiasticism. This carried it to a maelstrom from which the would-be
producer of literature was not able to disengage himself for many
generations. A startling evidence of this is found in the fact that as
Robinson[1] points out, there was no literary layman of renown from
Boetius (d. 524 or 525 A.D.) to Dante (1265-1321 A.D.).

Let us think, then, of the dark age as a time when Italy was
impoverished; a time when its material civilisation retrogressed; a time
when the stress of new conditions thrust some of the old ideals into the
background; but also as a time when the mixture of races was taking place
that was to give new strength and fibre to a senescent people; and to
make possible the resuscitation of the old ideals, the rehabilitation of
the old material civilisation, the regeneration of the race.

THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES

The regeneration is not to be effected, however, for some time to come.
The 11th and the 12th centuries are at best to see only the dawning of
the new day.

Culture of the creative kind is still in abeyance in Italy; there are
still no writers of significance; there is little art except as practised
in the illumination of manuscripts, and as foreshadowed in the beginnings
of architecture. Nevertheless, there is a germative culture. Here and
there a knight brings back a book from the East--for this is the age of
the Crusades. Here and there a monk pores over a classic manuscript.
Virgil was read and copied all through the dark age, as we know from the
incontestable evidence of extant manuscripts. There is no manuscript of
Horace in the uncial writing of the early centuries, yet he too must have
been read in the West, along with all the other Latin classics that have
come down to us, else these works would scarcely have been preserved;
for the Greek authors alone found favour in the East. Still it is to be
feared that the chief interest felt by many of the monks in the old-time
manuscripts was directed towards the material on which they were written
rather than towards the text itself. Hagiology often took the place of
history and many an ancient manuscript has been partially preserved in
palympsest, merely because a monk who wished to write the life of a saint
was too careless to complete the erasure of the earlier writing.

Contemplating the monastic life, through which it is often asserted the
germs of learning were preserved in the western world in this dark age,
one receives an impression of racial stasis which does not really accord
with the facts. If the monks were the preservers of the feeble torch of
learning, it was the wandering and warring hosts of the outside world
who were preparing their generation to receive the new light when it
should again burst forth. The Scandinavian and German hosts from the
north invaded Italy _en masse_, from time to time, as we have seen, and
successive bands of crusaders made Italy their highway when journeying
to and from the East. Many of these invaders found the southern clime
congenial and took up their permanent abode there. Thus the Normans
established a kingdom in Italy, and if the other hosts settled as
individuals rather than as nations, their influence must have been none
the less potent in bringing about that mixture of racial elements which
makes for racial progress.

Equally important must have been the influence of the commercial spirit.
The conquest of the Normans took from the Greek cities of southern Italy,
Amalfi, Naples, and Gaeta, the commercial supremacy they had previously
enjoyed. They were now superseded by Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. These
cities kept fleets on the sea in constant contact with the East. As might
have been expected, they led other Italian cities in power and influence,
and were the first to show intimations of that quickening of life which
presaged the new birth.

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

The first half of the thirteenth century furnishes additional chapters in
the old story of the fight between emperor and pope. Frederick II, the
present incumbent of the imperial throne, is one of the most picturesque
characters of the Middle Ages. He is a man of extraordinary versatility;
master of many languages, including Greek and Arabic, patron of the arts,
himself a poet, and what perhaps is most remarkable of all, considering
his scholarly proclivities, an advocate of the use of the vernacular
out of which is developing a new Italian language. Frederick is far too
broad and versatile a man to be confined within the narrow boundaries
of the church; hence his life is made up of a series of wrangles with
the popes. Yet he upholds the religious liberties of his subjects in
Sicily; he prosecutes a successful crusade, and restores the influence
of the western world in Jerusalem. He is under ban of excommunication
when he undertakes this crusade, and now he is again denounced for having
undertaken it. He rebels against the papal antagonism, and declares that
he will wear his crown and uphold its authority despite ecclesiastical
interference. We have seen like threats pronounced before, and have seen
such an emperor as Henry IV fail to make good his menace. But Frederick
adopts a novel plan which for a time proves expedient; he colonises
Luceria with a population of Saracens, which can furnish him a band of
thirty thousand infidel warriors to whom papal authority means nothing.
Notwithstanding this aid, however, he is barely able to hold his own
against the pope in the long run, and he dies just at the middle of the
century, worn out in middle life by endless warrings.

During the ensuing half century Italy is little troubled by the emperors;
papal authority is at its height, but a disunited Italy consumes its
strength in internal dissensions. The developing civilisation has
gradually focalised more and more towards the north and now its centre
has come to be Tuscany,--the same geographical location which furnished
the pre-Roman civilisation of the Etruscans. Florence is coming to be
the chief city of Tuscany; it is the chief centre also of one of the
most persistent and disastrous strifes that are convulsing Italy,--the
warfare of the Guelf and Ghibellines. This dissension is in no sense
confined to Florence, to be sure; it includes all Italy and even extends
beyond the national bounds. The factions war with varying success. In
1260 the Guelfs at Florence meet with a signal reverse at the battle
of Monteaperto. But eight years later at Theliacozza, the Ghibellines
under Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, receive a most disastrous
set-back.

An important feature of the epoch is the steady development of the half
dozen cities; in particular the rivalry between the three chief maritime
cities, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. Pisa has more than held her own until
now, but in 1284 she receives her quietus in the duel with Genoa off the
isle of Meloria; henceforth, she must yield supremacy to her conqueror
and to Venice.

But, as has been said, the maritime cities no longer hold uncontested
supremacy. Florence, “The Flower of Tuscany,” though lacking the
advantage of geographical position, is able, nevertheless, to take a
place among the commercial centres; thanks to her location on the highway
between Germany and southern Italy, she perhaps profits more by that all
essential mingling of the races to which reference has been made, than
any of her sister cities. Just at the close of the century the warfare of
the Guelfs and Ghibellines receives a new development in Florence through
the strife of the factions that come to be known as the Bianchi and Neri;
the dispute which began as a mere personal strife spreads its baneful
influence over the entire community.

Notwithstanding all these dissensions, however, there is marked progress
in civilisation during this century. The Italian cities can boast that
their streets are paved, while the streets of Paris, the foremost city
of the north, are mere beds of mud. The growing desire for education is
evidenced in the founding of schools and universities in Italy. Just at
the close of the century the since famous Palazzo Vecchio and the even
more famous Santa Croce were constructed. In the field of pictorial art
there were also evidences of the new plane of culture to which Italy had
attained, while scholarship found a worthy exponent in the celebrated
Thomas Aquinas.

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

For about a half century Italy has been free from the intrusions of the
emperors, but now early in the fourteenth century Henry VII crosses
the Alps. Unlike some of his predecessors, he meets a rather hearty
welcome from several of the cities and from the pope. The Florentines,
on the other hand, do not welcome him, and his coming leads to the usual
turmoils. His sudden death--perhaps from poison--dissipates all the
hopes based on the imperial presence. His successor, Louis of Bavaria,
also comes to Italy and in association with the great general Castruccio
makes war upon the Florentines, who have been forced much against their
will to put themselves under the leadership of the duke of Naples. The
Florentines hold their own fairly well against the outside invaders, but
find themselves unable to tolerate the tyranny within their walls, and
end by expelling the tyrant.

A striking feature of the century is the abandonment of Rome by the
popes, who retire to Avignon for more than seventy years, from 1305
to 1377, an interval famous ever since as the Babylonish captivity.
During the absence of the popes the Romans fared but ill. Lacking the
papal power which made their city a centre of world influence, they are
given over to minor dissensions. The famous Rienzi--“The last of the
tribunes”--makes an heroic effort to restore order just at the middle
of the century, and for a time dominates the situation; only to be
overthrown ingloriously after a brief period of authority.

In the north the Visconti make themselves dominant in Milan and interfere
perpetually in general politics, striving to subordinate all Italy to
their influence. Florence was brought into repeated conflicts with the
successive rulers of this family, and it was in these contests that the
great English general, Sir John Hawkwood came to the fore. Leader of a
band of mercenaries,--soldier of fortune in the most literal sense of
the word,--this famous warrior fought first against the Florentines,
and subsequently in their service. Despite some reverses he gained a
reputation which led Hallam to consider him the first great commander
since Roman times. This estimate perhaps does Hawkwood something more
than justice; it overlooks the great Castruccio, to go no further. But
undoubtedly Hawkwood was a redoubtable leader, and he was among the first
of a series of condottioria who gave distinction to Italian armies during
the ensuing century.

Genoa and Venice are drawn into a disastrous warfare; in fact the
various dominant cities of Italy are almost perpetually quarrelling.
Even the great plague which sweeps over Italy in 1348, despite its
devastations--so graphically described by Boccaccio--serves to give
scarcely more than a temporary lull to the dissensions. The insurrection
of the Ciompi, the Great Schism, and the outbreak of the war of Chioggia
are dissensions that mark the later decades of the century.

But all these political dissensions sink quite into insignificance in
comparison with the tremendous intellectual development of the time. As
we have seen, the western world has been preparing for centuries for the
development of an indigenous culture. Now the promise meets fruition. It
required but the waft of a breeze from the East to fan the smouldering
embers into flame. This vivifying influence came about partly through
the emigration of large numbers of scholars from Constantinople; a
migration incited chiefly by fear of the Turks. These scholars brought
with them their love of the Greek classics and stimulated the nascent
scholarship of Italy into a like enthusiasm. Soon there began and
developed a great fashion of searching for classical manuscripts, and
many half-forgotten authors were brought to light. It became the fashion
to copy these manuscripts, as every gentleman’s house must now have a
library. The revival of interest came about in time to save more than one
classical author from oblivion, whose works would probably have perished
utterly had they been subjected to another century of neglect. Such an
author as Velleius Paterculus, for example, is known exclusively through
a single manuscript, which obviously must have escaped destruction
through mere chance; and everyone is aware how large a proportion of
classical writers were not accorded even this measure of fortune. No
doubt many authors were inadvertently allowed to perish even after
this revival of interest, but the number must have been very small in
proportion to those that were already lost.

But the revival of interest in the works of antiquity was by no means
the greatest literary feature of the time. There came with it a creative
impulse which gave the world the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio,
not to mention the lesser chroniclers. Their work evidenced that
spontaneous outbreak of the creative impulse for which the classicism
of the East had been preparing. How spontaneous it was, how little
understood, even by its originators, is illustrated in the fact that
both Dante, the creator of Italian poetry, and Boccaccio, the creator
of Italian prose, regarded their work in the vernacular as relatively
unimportant; basing their hopes of immortality upon their archaic Latin
treatises, which the world promptly forgot. No better illustration could
be furnished anywhere of that spontaneity of truly creative art to which
we have had occasion more than once to refer.

Nor was it in literature alone that the time was creative. Pictorial art
had likewise its new beginning in this epoch. Cimabue, indeed, had made
an effort to break with the crude traditions of the eastern school of art
in the latter part of the thirteenth century; his greater pupil Giotto
developed his idea in the early decades of the fourteenth century, and
gathered by him, the school of painters in Florence attempted, following
their master, to go to nature and to reproduce what they saw. Their
effort was a crude and tentative one, judged according to the canons
of the later development; but it was the beginning of great things. In
architecture the effort of the time was not doomed to be content with
mere beginnings: “Giotto’s tower,” the famous Campanile, still stands
in evidence of the relative perfection to which this department of
art had attained. All in all, then, the fourteenth century was a time
of wonderful development in Italy; the clarion note of Dante has been
called the voice of ten silent centuries; it told of a new phase of the
Renaissance.

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

During the fifteenth century Italy enjoyed a period of relative immunity
from outside interference. An emperor was crowned at Rome in the early
days of the century, to be sure, and there were various efforts at
interference by other powers, including the coming of Charles VIII
in 1494. But, as a general thing, it was the Italians themselves who
competed with one another, rather than outside powers who quarrelled
with Italy as a whole. The great forces were, as before, the few
important cities. These were forever quarrelling one with another. Pisa
became subordinate to Florence, and the latter city waxed steadily in
greatness. In Milan the rule of the Visconti continued till towards the
middle of the century, when, on the disappearance of the last member of
that important family, the house of Sforza came to the fore and took to
itself the task of dictatorship. In Naples King Ladislaus, and later
Queen Joanna II, maintained regal influence and made their principality a
world power. Thus in the middle of the century the four great powers were
Naples, Milan, Venice, and Florence.

In these wars the mercenary leaders were much in evidence. These were
men to whom fighting was simply a business,--a means to a livelihood. No
question of patriotism was involved in their warfare; they gave their
services to the state that offered the most liberal payment in gold or
its equivalent. Half a dozen of these men gained particular distinction
in the fifteenth century. These were Braccio, Fortebraccio, Sforza
Attendola, and his son Francesco Sforza, Carmagnola, Niccolo Piccinino,
and Colleno Coleoni. These men were variously matched against one another
in the important wars.

Braccio and Sforza Attendola came into prominence in the papal wars,
having to do with the Great Schism, and beginning about the close of the
first decade of the fifteenth century. Braccio fought for Florence, and
Sforza at first for Pope John XXIII, and subsequently for King Ladislaus
of Naples, who at this time was the strongest ruler in Italy. This war
concerned most of the powers of Italy, and involved Anjou and France as
well. The death of Ladislaus helped to terminate the conflict, but at the
same time precipitated a new war, by raising the question of succession
to the throne of Naples.

In this war of the Neapolitan succession Fillipo Maria, duke of Milan,
upheld the cause of the house of Anjou, while Florence sided with
Alfonzo. The chief scene of the war was in the north where the forces
of Milan and Naples competed with those of Florence and Venice. It was
here that Carmagnola (born Francesco Dussone) was given the opportunity
to show his genius as a leader. He served first under Fillipo, but
subsequently entered the service of Venice and acquired new honours as
the opponent of his old employer. In later campaigns his chief opponent
was Francesco Sforza. The tragic end of Carmagnola will be recalled by
every reader.

After the settlement of this war of the Neapolitan succession Fillipo
Maria was soon embroiled again, this time with Pope Eugenius. The pope
took refuge in Florence and the Tuscans, again supported by Venice,
upheld him. Francesco Sforza now fought for the Florentines, his
opponent, the leader of the Visconti’s army, being Niccolo Piccinino. But
before the war was over the Visconti had gained Sforza back again. On the
death of Fillipo the Milanese established a republic, avowing that they
would never again submit to a tyrant. But necessity soon drove them to
call on Francesco Sforza to aid them in a war against Venice, and their
successful general presently usurped power, and established a new line
of tyrants. In the later wars between Milan and Venice Colleno Coleoni
appeared, and after bartering his services first to one party and then
to the other, became permanently established as generalissimo of the
land-forces of Venice in 1454.

One of the most striking features of this warfare was that it came to
nothing. So many rival interests were involved, so kaleidoscopic were the
shiftings of the various leaders, so utterly lacking is any great central
cause of contention, that it is sometimes almost impossible to say where
one war ends and another begins. Each petty state is thinking of its own
interests. And the only thing approaching a general principle of action
is the fear on the part of each state that any other single state might
gain too much influence over Italy as a whole. In other words the thought
of maintaining a balance of power is in the mind of all such leaders as
have no hope of making themselves supreme. As Florence at no time has a
hope of becoming politically dominant, her efforts are always directed
towards maintaining a balance of power, and where personalities do not
enter into the matter, she tends in the main to champion the cause of the
weaker party.

But despite the interest which necessarily attaches to all these
political jarrings, the really world-historical importance of
Florentine history during this period has to do not with wars, but
with the marvellous internal culture development. Already in the van
of the Renaissance movement Florence holds her proud position securely
throughout the fifteenth century, and is incontestably the culture centre
of the world.

This was the age of the Medici. It was then that Cosmo the Great and
Lorenzo the Magnificent made their influence felt, and enjoyed practical
dictatorship, though the form of government continued a democracy. The
real source of Florentine influence was founded on the old familiar basis
of commercial prosperity. We have seen how Florence in the previous
century produced such men as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Giotto.
The intellectual supremacy thus evidenced was maintained in the ensuing
century, but the early part of that century has no names to show that are
comparable to these in artistic greatness. The stamp of the times, at
least of the first half of the fifteenth century, is industrial rather
than artistic. This is the time when the gradually increasing commercial
and industrial importance of Italy has culminated in unequivocal world
supremacy. Venice and Florence are now the commercial centres of the
world. In Florence various forms of craftsmanship have attained a
degree of importance which will make them famous for all time. The
guilds of woollen weavers, of cloth merchants, of silk weavers, and of
money-changers have become institutions of world-wide influence. The
money lenders of Florence are found plying their trade in every capital
of Europe. Despite their extortions they are regarded everywhere as
a necessary evil; and Florentine gold in this century exercises an
influence almost as wide as the quondam influence of Roman arms. The
Florentine money-changer holds almost unchallenged the position that
the Jew occupied at a later day. Oddly enough, it may be noted that the
Jew himself is barred from plying the trade of money lender in Florence
until about the end of the first third of the fifteenth century when,
paradoxical as it may seem, he is legally granted the privilege, to
protect the borrower from the extortions of the native usurers of the
city.

The rapid development of commerce and industry brings with it, not
unnaturally, a great change in the habits of the Florentine people. Early
in the century the houses in Florence are still simple and relatively
plain in their equipment. The windows are barred by shutters, glass
not being yet in common use; the stairways are narrow; the entrances
unostentatious. But before the close of the century all this is changed.
The power of wealth makes itself felt in the houses, equipments, and
costumes of the people; in their luxurious habits of living; their
magnificent banquets and demonstrations; and all that goes to make up a
life of sensuous pleasure.

Most significant of all, however, is the influence which wealth has
enabled one family to attain; for the power of the Medici is, in its
essentials, the power of gold. It is a power wielded deftly in the hands
of prominent representatives of the family; a power that seems to make
for the good of the city. Under Lorenzo the Magnificent every form of art
is patronised and cultivated, and Florence easily maintains its supremacy
as the culture centre of Italy. Such sculptors as Donatello, Berrochio,
and their fellows; such painters as Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and
Ghirlandajo, not to mention a varied company of almost equal attainments;
and a company of distinguished workmen in all departments of the lesser
arts, lend their influence to beautify the city under the patronage of
Lorenzo. The school of art thus founded is to give the world such names
as Michelangelo and Raphael in the succeeding generations. Curiously
enough, by some unexplained oversight, the greatest painter of the
century, Leonardo da Vinci, was led to make his greatest efforts in Milan
and not in Florence during the life of Lorenzo, though he returned to the
latter city not long after the death of the great patron of art.

As a patron of literature Lorenzo was no less active. He founded and
developed a wonderful library in which the treasures of antiquity were
collected, in the original or in copies, without regard to expense, from
all parts of Europe. The art of book-making was carried to its highest
development in this period. The manuscripts of the time are marvels of
beauty. The ornamentation is beautiful, and the letters themselves are
printed with a degree of regularity closely rivalling the uniformity of
a printed page. And then not long after the middle of the century, just
when this art of the scribe was at its height, the printing-press was
introduced from Germany, and an easy mechanical means was at hand by
which the most perfect technique could be attained. True, the connoisseur
did not at first recognise the printed book as a possible rival of the
old hand-made work. For a long time the collector continued to employ
the hand workman, and the dilettante looked upon the printed book with
much the same scornful glance which the modern collector of paintings
bestows upon a chromo or lithograph. The first printing-press was set
up, according to Von Reumont, at Subiaco in a Benedictine monastery in
1465. Some fifteen years later Vespasiano da Bisticci, writing about
the library of the duke of Urbino, could proudly state that “All the
volumes are of the most faultless beauty, written by hand, with elegant
miniatures, and all on parchment. There are no printed books among them;
the duke would have been ashamed to have them.”[2]

Notwithstanding the scornful attitude of the connoisseur, however,
the art of printing books made its way rapidly. Hitherto the cost of
production had rendered even the most ordinary book a luxury not to
be possessed by any but the relatively wealthy. Naturally enough, an
eager band of book lovers hailed the advent of the new method, despite
its supposed artistic shortcomings; and before the end of the century
there were printing-presses in all the important centres of Italy, and
numberless classics, beginning with Virgil, had been given a vastly wider
currency than had ever previously been possible. It is needless here to
dwell upon the remoter influences of this rapid diffusion of classical
treasures; but nowhere was the influence more important than in Italy.

Summarising in a few words the influences of the fifteenth century in
Italy, it may be repeated that, as a whole, it is an epoch of industrial
and commercial progress rather than of the greatest art. The culminating
achievements of the century, the invention of the printing-press and the
discovery of America were not Italian triumphs; though as the birthplace
of Columbus and the home of Amerigo Vespucci, Italy cannot well be denied
a share in the finding of the New World. Indeed, the association of
Italy with this great achievement is perhaps closer than might at first
sight appear. For on the one hand, it is held that the geographical work
of Toscanelli was directly instrumental in stimulating Columbus to the
conception of a western passage to India; while, in another view, the
influence of the spirit of exploration and discovery fostered by the
commercial relations of Italy in making possible the feat of Columbus,
must have been inestimable. Be all that as it may, the discovery of the
New World--made in the last decade of the century, and, as it chanced in
the same year in which Lorenzo de’ Medici died--may well be considered
not merely as a culminating achievement of the century, but as symbolical
of that commercial and industrial spirit for which the century is chiefly
remarkable.

We have now advanced to the date which is usually named as closing the
mediæval epoch, but what has been said about the arbitrary character of
this classification should be borne in mind. The discovery of America in
1492 did indeed mark the beginning of a new era in one sense, since it
opened up a new hemisphere to the observation and residence of civilised
man. That discovery, too, prepared the way for the demonstration of the
fact that the world is round; hence it became an important corner-stone
in the building of that new structure of man’s conception of cosmology
of which the master builders were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and
Newton. But the building of this new structure,--a revolutionising of
man’s conception of the cosmos,--did not come about in a year or a
century; the superstitions based on the old conception of cosmology have
not lost their hold on mankind even in our own day. It has even been
suggested that the year 1859, when the promulgation of thought occurred
which gave the death-blow to the old ideas of cosmogony, and which may
be said for the first time to have rendered the old superstitions truly
obsolescent,--that this year rather than the year 1492 might well be
named as limiting the mediæval epoch. So perhaps it may be with more
remote generations of the future, but for the twentieth century observer
the older date will doubtless seem the better one. But, after all, the
question is one of no moment. Considering the recognised arbitrariness of
all such divisions it does not in the least matter as to the exact bounds
given to the mediæval epoch.

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The sixteenth century is a time of peculiar contrasts in Italy. The
invasions which began with the coming of Charles VIII in 1494 continue
and become more and more harassing. Italy comes to be regarded as the
proper prey of the French and Spanish rulers. The Italian principalities,
warring as ever with one another, welcome or repel the invaders in
accordance with their own selfish interests. All this time there has been
no unified government of Italy as a whole. Nominally the empire included
all, but this was a mere theory which, for the most part, would not bear
examination. Venice all along has claimed allegiance to the Eastern
Empire, which since the middle of the fifteenth century has ceased to
exist. Florence owes no allegiance to any outside power; it is strictly
autonomous. The democratic feeling is still strong there notwithstanding
the usurpations of the Medici. Venice and Florence with Siena and Lucca
are the only republics remaining at the beginning of the sixteenth
century. Of the scores of cities which formerly were republics, all the
rest have come under the influence of tyrants, or have been brought into
unwilling subordination to neighbouring cities. And now an even greater
humiliation is in store for many of them at the hands of the transalpine
conquerors.

Venice, recovering from her duel to the death with Genoa--the war of
Chioggia--continues to hold closely to her old traditions. Her commercial
prosperity continues for a time, but is gradually lessened through the
loss of eastern territories and through the rivalry brought about by the
discovery of America and of a sea route to India. Florence, having thrown
off in 1494 the thraldom imposed by the Medici, makes spasmodic efforts
to return to the old purely democratic system; but fails in the end. In
1569 Cosmo de’ Medici is made Grand Duke of Tuscany, a position which his
successors will continue to hold for seven generations (till 1737). In a
word the spirit of democracy is virtually dead in Italy, and as yet no
local tyrant arises who has the genius to unite the petty principalities
into a unified kingdom.

But if political Italy is chaotic and unproductive in this century the
case is quite different when we consider the civilisation of the time.
The vivifying influences of the previous century produced a development
particularly in the field of art, which now shows great results. The
early decades of the sixteenth century constitute an epoch of the
greatest art development in Italy. This is the age of Leonardo, of
Michelangelo, of Raphael, and of Titian, and of the host of disciples
of these masters. Under the patronage of successive popes, the master
painters are stimulated to their best efforts, and those wonderful
decorations of the Vatican are undertaken which have been the delight of
all later times.

The literary development, if it does not quite keep pace with the
pictorial, nevertheless attains heights which it has only once before
reached since classical times. All this culture development in a
time of turmoil and political disaster seems anomalous, and, as just
intimated, can only be explained as the fruitage of a development which
had its origin in an earlier epoch. The validity of this explanation
is illustrated in the rapid decline that takes place in Italy after
the middle of the sixteenth century--an intellectual decline which is
scarcely to be interrupted until the nineteenth century.

THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

After the wonderful development of the sixteenth century it is amazing
to consider this time of deterioration. The day of great men is not
altogether past--witness Galileo--but there are no such great poets,
historians, artists, as in past generations. Even the events of the
political world have small world-historical importance. Italy is the
battle-ground of nations; it is a geographical territory but it is
scarcely a state. It has no unity, it has no individuality; it has no
important autonomous states as a whole that command the attention of
the historian. The intellectual sceptre which Italy so long swayed has
been passed on to the nations of the north. The ecclesiastical spirit is
everywhere dominant.

The burning of Giordano Bruno in the last year of the sixteenth
century and the persecution of Galileo for daring to uphold the new
Copernican conception of cosmogony are typical features of the epoch.
Chronologically the mediæval era is past, but the spirit of mediævalism
still pertains in Italy; rather let us say that this unfortunate country
has lapsed back into an archaic cast of thought after having led the
world for generations.

The historian must note the play and counterplay of outside nations
who use the territory of Italy as their chess-board, but as regards
the Italian himself the world historian might virtually disregard his
existence during many generations. It is only towards the close of the
eighteenth century when Italy came under the sway of Napoleon that there
came about a reaction from the overbearing policy of this new tyrant;
then a desire for liberty began to make itself felt in Italy, and to
prepare the way for that struggle of a half century later which was to
weld the disunited subject principalities into a unified and autonomous
kingdom. But the intimations of this later development could hardly be
appreciated by the contemporary observer who saw Italy ground beneath
the heel of Napoleon, with no seeming chance of ever escaping from this
humiliating position.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

With the overthrow of Napoleon there was but slight betterment in the
immediate condition of Italy. An attempt was made by the powers that had
overthrown the French usurper to restore the Italian principalities to
something like their ante-revolutionary status. But, as has just been
noted, the spirit of liberty was taking possession of the land and its
long enslaved people began to dream of better things than they had known
for centuries. But their efforts to secure the freedom so long renounced
were at first only attempts; one petty rebellion after another seemed
to come to nothing. But, at last, under the guidance of such leaders as
Mazzini, Cavour, Garibaldi, and Victor Emmanuel, the seemingly impossible
was accomplished: outside influences were subordinated; the papal power
over secular affairs was restricted and at last virtually overthrown; and
for the first time in something like fourteen centuries the geographical
territory of Italy came politically under the sway of a single ruler
who owed no allegiance to alien lands: the dream of the visionaries was
accomplished: an Italian kingdom ruled by an Italian king took the place
of the enslaved, disunited principalities of the earlier centuries.

True, this achievement was not the culmination that some of the most
ardent patriots, with Mazzini at their head, had dreamed of. The aim of
that leader, as of many another, had been to achieve not a monarchical
but a republican unity. In their enthusiastic estimate the monarchical
form of government was obsolescent. Their enthusiasm harked back to the
days when Venice and Florence had carried out with so much success the
precepts of democracy. Their imagination was fired also by the example of
that newer republic of the West, whose free institutions have inspired so
much of emulation and so much of hatred in the minds of different classes
of people among the older governments of Europe. But if the dreams of
these enthusiasts were not to be realised, it sufficed for the more
conservative reformers that the constitutional monarchy, embodying many
of the precepts and principles of democracy, had at last brought Italy
under the sway of a single sceptre.

FOOTNOTES

[1] [_An Introduction to the History of Western Europe._]

[2] Quoted by Von Reumont, _Lorenzo de’ Medici il magnifico_.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I. ITALY IN THE DARK AGE

[Sidenote: [476-_ca._ 1100 A.D.]]

In taking up the history of Italy we shall, for convenience, go back to
the year 476, when the last legitimate emperor of old Rome in the West
was overthrown, and briefly recapitulate the story of events during the
period of invasion that immediately followed. It will be recalled that
we have already covered the period from 476 to 1024 in much detail in
our study of the Western Empire, in Volume VII. It will be unnecessary,
therefore, to treat this epoch here in anything but the barest outline;
and even this will involve unavoidable repetitions. Since the later
emperors of the Holy Roman Empire continued for some centuries to invade
Italy periodically, and to claim control over its affairs, it will be
almost impossible to avoid repetition here also; but inasmuch as such
monarchs as Conrad II, Henry IV, and Frederick II are necessarily given
full treatment in the volumes devoted to Germany, we shall deal somewhat
briefly with their Italian incursions in the present connection. A
similar duplication of matter will necessarily be involved in dealing
with the mediæval popes, whose history has already been chronicled in the
previous volume.

The story of temporal affairs in Italy lacks unity from the beginning
of the period under consideration till well towards the close of the
nineteenth century. For the most part, except during the relatively
brief periods when a strong emperor claimed dominion over all Italy,
the territory of the Italian peninsula was divided into numerous petty
kingdoms, no one of which attained supremacy over the others. First one
and then another became prominent, but often contemporaneous events
of local importance, having but slight world-historical importance,
confuse the picture, and make the presentation of the history of Italy
extremely difficult. We must necessarily overlook a large number of
such petty details, endeavouring to select such events as have real
importance, and to weld them into a continuous narrative. But at best
the story of Italian history lacks dramatic unity; the scene shifts from
one principality to another too frequently to make possible a really
harmonious presentation. We have really to do with a collection of
cities rather than with a nation. It is the old story of Greece over
again; only here there are more cities competing for supremacy, with no
one at any time quite so near success as Athens and Sparta respectively
were at successive periods. Yet Milan, Venice, and Florence at times
approached the goal if they did not quite attain it.[a]

Most of these cities were very old; the greater number flourished in at
least equal splendour in the time of the Roman Empire; some, such as
Milan, Verona, Bologna, Capua, were so considerable as to present an
image of Rome, with their circus, their amphitheatre, their tumultuous
and idle population, their riches and their poverty. Their administration
was nearly republican, most commonly composed, after the example of
Rome, of a curia, or municipal senate elected by the people, and of
duumvirs, or annual consuls. In all these towns, among the first class of
inhabitants were to be found the proprietors of the neighbouring land,
lodged in palaces with their slaves and freedmen; secondly, the artisans
and shopkeepers whom their necessities established around them; lastly,
a crowd of idle people, who had preserved just enough of land to supply,
with the strictest economy, the means of existence. It does not appear
that there was any prosperous manufactory in Italy. All manual labour,
as well in towns as in the country, was executed by slaves. Objects of
luxury, for the most part, came from Asia. War had for a long time been
the only occupation of the Italians; for a long period, too, the legions
had been levied partly among the Romans, and partly among their allies in
Italy: but, under the emperors, the distrust of the master seconded the
luxurious effeminacy of the subject, the Italians finally renounced even
war, and the legions were recruited only in Pannonia, Gaul, and the other
provinces bordering on the Rhine and the Danube.

At a later period, the barbarians who menaced Rome were seduced by
liberal pay to engage in its defence; and in the Roman armies the enemies
of Rome almost entirely replaced the Romans. The country could not, as in
modern states, supply the place of cities in recruiting the armies with
a class of men accustomed to the inclemencies of the weather and inured
to toil. The only labourers to be found were an oppressed foreign race,
who took no interest in public affairs. The Romans cultivated their land
either by slaves purchased from the barbarians and forced by corporal
punishment to labour, or by _coloni partiarii_, to whom was given a
small share in the harvest as wages; but, in order to oblige these last
to content themselves with the least possible share, they were attached
to the land, and nearly as much oppressed as slaves themselves. The
proprietors of land varied as between these two systems, according as the
price of slaves varied, or the _colons_ (peasants, labourers) were more
or less numerous; no cultivator of the land had any property in it.

The greater part was united in immense domains, sometimes embracing
whole provinces, the administration of which was intrusted to freedmen,
whose only consideration was, how to cultivate the land with the least
possible expense, and how to extract from their labourers the greatest
degree of work with the smallest quantity of food. The agriculturists, as
well what were called freedmen as slaves, were almost all barbarians by
birth, without any interest in a social order which only oppressed them,
without courage for its defence, and without any pecuniary resources for
themselves; their numbers also diminished with an alarming rapidity,
partly from desertion, partly from new invasions of barbarians, who
carried them off to sell as slaves in other Roman provinces, and finally
from a mortality, the necessary consequence of poverty and starvation.

Italy, nevertheless, was supposed to enjoy a constant prosperity. During
the entire ages of Trajan and the Antonines, a succession of virtuous and
philosophic emperors followed each other; the world was in peace; the
laws were wise and well administered; riches seemed to increase; each
succeeding generation raised palaces more splendid, monuments and public
edifices more sumptuous, than the preceding; the senatorial families
found their revenues increase; the treasury levied greater imposts. But
it is not on the mass of wealth, it is on its distribution, that the
prosperity of states depends; increasing opulence continued to meet
the eye, but men became more miserable; the rural population, formerly
active, robust, and energetic, were succeeded by a foreign race, while
the inhabitants of towns sank in vice and idleness, or perished in want,
amidst the riches they had themselves created.

THE BARBARIAN INVADERS

[Sidenote: [476-814 A.D.]]

It was into this Italy, such as despotism had made it, that the
barbarians penetrated. Eager for the booty which it contained and could
not defend, they repeatedly ravaged it during the last two centuries of
the Western Empire. The mercenary troops that Rome had levied amongst
them for its defence, preferring pillage to pay, frequently turned their
arms against those they were engaged to defend. They vied with the Romans
in making and unmaking emperors; and generally chose them from their own
ranks, in order to secure to the soldier a greater share of the property
of the citizen. The booty diminished as the avidity of these foreigners
increased. The pomp of the Western Empire soon appeared, to an army thus
formed, a useless expense. Odoacer, of the nation of the Heruli, chief
of the mercenaries who then served in Italy, suppressed it by deposing,
in 476, the last emperor. He took upon himself the title of king, and
distributed among his soldiers one-third of the land in the most fertile
provinces; he governed during seventeen years this still glorious
country, as a rich farm which the barbarians had a right to cultivate for
their sole use.

The mercenaries united under the sceptre of Odoacer were not sufficiently
strong to defend Italy against a new invasion of barbarians. The
Ostrogoths, encouraged by the Grecian sovereign of new Rome, the emperor
of the East, arrived in 489, under the command of Theodoric, from the
countries north of the Euxine to the borders of Italy; they completed
the conquest of it in four, and retained possession of the peninsula
sixty-four years, under eight successive kings. These new barbarians,
in their turn, demanded and obtained a portion of land and slaves; they
multiplied, it is true, but became rapidly enervated in a delicious
climate where they had suddenly passed from the severest privations to
the enjoyment of every luxury. They were at last conquered and subdued
in the year 553 by the Romans of Constantinople, whom they despised as
the degenerate successors of the same nation which their ancestors had
vanquished.

The invasion of the Lombards in 568 soon followed the destruction of
the monarchy of the Ostrogoths. Amongst the various hordes which issued
from the north of Germany upon the southern regions, the Lombards were
reputed the most courageous, the most cruel, and the proudest of their
independence; but their number was inconsiderable, and they scarcely
acknowledged any social tie sufficient to keep them united: accordingly,
they never completed the conquest of Italy. From 568 to 774, twenty-one
Lombard kings during 206 years succeeded each other without establishing
their dominion either on the lagunes, at the extremity of the Adriatic
Gulf, where such of the inhabitants of upper Italy as were personally the
most exposed had taken refuge and founded the Venetian Republic; or on
the shores of the Adriatic, now called Romagna, governed by a lieutenant
of the emperor of Constantinople, under the title of exarch of the
five cities of Pentapolis; or on Rome, defended only by the spiritual
arms of the patriarch of the Western church; or on the southern coast,
where the Greek municipalities of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi governed
themselves almost as independent republics. The Lombards, nevertheless,
founded a kingdom in northern Italy, of which Pavia was the capital; and
in southern Italy the duchy of Benevento, which still maintained its
independence two centuries after the kingdom was subjugated.

From the middle of the eighth century the Lombards, masters of a country
where the great towns still contained much wealth, where the land had
lost nothing of its fertility, where the example of the vanquished had
taught the vanquishers the advantage of reviving some agricultural
industry, excited the envy of their neighbours the Franks, who had
conquered and oppressed the Gauls, who despised all occupation but war,
and desired no wealth but what the sword could give. They by repeated
invasions devastated Italy; and at length, in 774, completed the
destruction of the Lombard monarchy.

For more than twenty years the popes or bishops of Rome had been in the
habit of opposing the kings of France to the monarchs of Lombardy, who
were odious to them, at first as pagans, and afterwards as heretics.
Chief of the clergy of the ancient capital, where the power of the
emperors of Constantinople had been nominally established but never
felt, they confounded their pretensions with those of the empire; and
the Lombards having recently conquered the exarchate of Ravenna, and the
Pentapolis, they demanded that these provinces should be restored to
Rome. The Frankish kings made themselves the champions of this quarrel,
which gave them an opportunity of conquering the Lombard monarchy;
but Charles, the king who accomplished this conquest, and who was the
greatest man that barbarism ever produced, in treating with Rome, in
subjugating Italy, comprehended all the beauty of a civilisation which
his predecessors had seen only to destroy; he conceived the lofty idea
of profiting by the barbarian force at his disposal to put himself at
the head of the civilisation which he laboured to restore. Instead of
considering himself as the king of the conquerors, occupied only in
enriching a barbarous army with the spoils of the vanquished, he made
it his duty and his glory to govern the country for its best interests,
and for the common good. He did more: in concert with Pope Leo III,
he re-established the monarchy of the conquered as a western Roman
empire, which he considered the representative of right, in opposition
to barbaric force; he received from the same pope, and from the Roman
people, on Christmas Day in the year 800, the title of Roman emperor, and
the name of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, which no one before had
ever so well deserved.

CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS SUCCESSORS

[Sidenote: [814-1039 A.D.]]

As king, and afterwards as emperor, he governed Italy, together with
his other vast states, forty years; he pursued with constancy, and with
increasing ability, the end he proposed to himself, _viz._, establishing
the reign of the laws, and a flourishing civilisation: but barbarism
was too strong for him; and when he died in 814 it was re-established
throughout the empire.

Italy had eight kings of the family of Charlemagne, reckoning his son
and grandson, who reigned under him, and were, properly speaking, his
lieutenants. Charles the Fat, great-grandson of Charlemagne, was deposed
in 888; after which ten sovereigns, either Italian or Burgundian, but
allied to the race of the Franks, disputed for seventy years more the
crown of Italy and the empire. In 951 Otto I of Saxony, king of Germany,
forced Berenger II, who then reigned, to acknowledge himself his vassal;
in 961 Otto entered Italy a second time with his Germans, was crowned at
Rome with the title of emperor, and sent Berenger II to end his days in a
fortress in Germany.

Nearly five centuries elapsed from the fall of the ancient Roman Empire
to the passing over of the renewed empire to the Germans. For a long
space of time Italy had been pillaged and oppressed in turn by barbarians
of every denomination, who wantonly overran the country only to plunder,
and believed themselves valiant because, though in small numbers, they
spread terror over a vast extent, and imagined by bloodshed to give a
dignity to their depredations. The country, thus exposed to so many
outrages, did not remain such as the Romans had left it. The Goth,
Lombard, Frank, and German warriors, who had successively invaded Italy,
introduced several of the opinions and sentiments of the barbarian race,
particularly the habit of independence and resistance to authority. They
divided with their kings the country conquered by their valour. They
caused to be ceded to them vast districts, the inhabitants of which they
considered their property equally with the land. The Lombard monarchy
comprehended thirty dukedoms, or marquisates; their number diminished
under Charlemagne and his successors; but at the same time there rose
under them a numerous class of counts and _vavaseurs_, amongst whom every
duke divided the province that had been ceded to him, under condition
that they should swear fealty and homage, and follow him to the wars.
The counts, in their turn, divided among the warriors attached to their
colours the land apportioned to them. Thus was the feudal system,
which made the possession of land the warrior’s pay, and constituted
an hereditary subordination founded on interest and confirmed by oath
from the king down to the lowest soldier, established at the same time
throughout Europe. The Lombards had carried into Italy the first germs
of this system which had been developed by the Franks and invigorated by
the civil wars of Charlemagne and his successors; these wars rendered it
necessary that every feudatory should fortify his dwelling to preserve
his allegiance to his lord; and the country, which till then had been
open and without defence, became covered with castles, in which these
feudal lords established their residence.

About the same time--that is to say, in the ninth century--cities
began to rebuild their ancient walls; for the barbarian kings who had
everywhere levelled these walls to the ground no longer opposed their
reconstruction, and the danger of being invaded by the rival princes
who disputed the throne made them necessary; besides, at this epoch new
swarms of barbarians from all parts infested Europe; the inhabitants of
Scandinavia, under the name of Danes and Normans, ravaged England and
France; the Hungarians devasted Germany and upper Italy; the Saracens,
masters of Africa, infested the southern coasts of Italy and the isles:
conquest was not the purpose of any of these invaders; plunder and
massacre were their only objects. Permission to guard themselves against
continual outrages could not be withheld from the inhabitants of towns.
Several thousand citizens had often been obliged to pay ransom to little
more than a hundred robbers; but, from the time they were permitted by
their emperors to rebuild their walls, to purchase or manufacture arms,
they felt themselves in a state to make themselves respected. Their
long suffering had hardened them, had accustomed them to privations and
danger, and had taught them it was better to defend their lives than
yield them up to every contemptible aggressor; at the same time, the
population of cities, no longer living in idleness at the expense of
the provinces of the empire, addicted themselves to industry for their
own profit: they had, accordingly, some wealth to defend. The ancient
curiæ and municipalities had been retained in all the towns of Italy
by their barbarian masters, in order to distribute more equally the
burdens imposed by the conquerors, and reach individuals more surely. The
magistrates were the chiefs of a people who demanded only bread, arms,
and walls.

In the meantime the dukes, marquises, counts, and prelates, who looked on
these cities as their property, on the inhabitants as men who belonged
to them, and laboured only for their use, soon perceived that these
citizens were ill disposed to obey, and would not suffer themselves to
be despoiled, since they had arms, and could defend themselves under the
protection of their walls: residence in towns thus became disagreeable to
the nobles, and they left them to establish themselves in their castles.
They became sensible that to defend these castles they had need of men
devoted to them; that, notwithstanding the advantage which their heavy
armour gave them when fighting on horseback, they were the minority; and
they hastened to enfranchise the rural population, to encourage their
growth, to give them arms, and to endeavour to gain their affections.
The effect of this change of rule was rapid: the rural population in the
tenth and eleventh centuries increased, doubled, quadrupled in exact
proportion to the land which they had to cultivate.

Otto I, his son Otto II, and his grandson Otto III were successively
acknowledged emperors and kings of Italy, from 961 to 1002. When this
branch of the house of Saxony became extinct, Henry II of Bavaria and
Conrad the Salian of Franconia filled the throne from 1004 to 1039.
During this period of nearly eighty years, the German emperors twelve
times entered Italy at the head of their armies, which they always drew
up in the plains of Roncaglia near Piacenza: there they held the states
of Lombardy, received homage from their Italian feudatories, caused the
rents due to be paid, and promulgated laws for the government of Italy.
A foreign sovereign, however, almost always absent, known only by his
incursions at the head of a barbarous army, could not efficaciously
govern a country which he hardly knew, and where his yoke was detested.
During these five reigns, the social power became more and more weak in
Italy. The emperors were too happy to acknowledge the local authorities,
whatever they were, whenever they could obtain from them their pecuniary
dues: sometimes they were dukes or marquises, whose dignities had
survived the disasters of various invasions and of civil wars; sometimes
the archbishops and bishops of great cities, whom Charlemagne and his
successors had frequently invested with duchies and counties escheated
to the crown, reckoning that lords elected for life would remain more
dependent than hereditary lords; sometimes, finally, they were the
magistrates themselves, who, although elected by the people, received
from the monarch the title of imperial vicars, and took part with the
nobles and prelates in the _plaids_ (_placita_), or diets of Roncaglia.

In the time of Conrad the Salian, the prelates almost throughout Lombardy
joined the cities against the nobles; and from 1035 to 1039 there was
a general war between these two orders of society. Conrad put an end
to it, by a constitution which is considered to be the basis of feudal
law. By this the inheritance of fiefs was protected from the caprices of
the lords and of the crown,--the most oppressive conditions of feudal
dependence were suppressed or softened,--and the few remaining slaves of
the land were set free.

THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY

The crown of Conrad the Salian passed in a direct line to his son,
grandson, and great-grandson. The first, Henry III, reigned from 1039 to
1056; the second, Henry IV, from 1056 to 1106; the third, Henry V, from
1106 to 1125. The last two reigns were troubled by the bloody quarrel
between the empire and the court of Rome, called the war of investitures.
Rome had never made part of the monarchy of the Lombards. This ancient
capital of the world, with the territory appertaining to it, had, since
the conquest of Alboin, formed a dukedom, governed by a patrician or
Greek duke, sent from Constantinople. The bishop of Rome, however, who,
according to the ancient canonical forms, was elected by the clergy, the
senate, and the people of his diocese, had much more authority over his
flock than this foreign magistrate.

[Sidenote: [717-1125 A.D.]]

The pontiff, however, who now began to take exclusively the name of pope,
had more than once successfully defended Rome with his spiritual arms
when temporal ones had failed. When, in the year 717, an iconoclast, or
enemy of images, filled the throne of Constantinople, the popes under the
pretence of heresy rejected his authority altogether; a municipality, at
the head of which were a senate and consuls, then governed Rome nearly as
an independent state; the Greeks, occupied with their own dissensions,
seemed to forget it; and Rome owed to this forgetfulness fifty years of
a sort of liberty. The Romans found once more a faint image of their
past glory; sometimes even the title of Roman Republic was revived. They
approved, notwithstanding, of Pope Stephen II conferring on the princes
of the Franks the dignity of patricians, in order to transfer to them the
authority which the Greek magistrate exercised in their city in the name
of the emperor of Constantinople; and the people gladly acquiesced when,
in the year 800, Leo III crowned Charlemagne as augustus, and restorer of
the Western Empire. From that period Rome became once more the capital of
the empire. At Rome the chiefs of the empire were henceforth to receive
the golden crown from the hands of the pope, after having received the
silver one of the kingdom of Germany at Aachen, and the iron crown of
Lombardy at Milan.

Great wealth and much feudal power were, by the gratitude of the
emperors, attached to the see of Rome. The papacy became the highest
object of ambition to the whole sacerdotal order; and, in an age of
violence and anarchy, barons notorious for their robberies, and young
libertines recommended only by the favour of some Roman ladies, not
unfrequently filled the pontifical chair. The other bishops selected
were often no better. The German emperors, on arriving at Rome, were
sometimes obliged to put an end to such a scandal, and choose among the
competitors, or depose a pope who put all Christendom to the blush. Henry
III obliged the people to renounce the right which they had hitherto
exercised, and so greatly abused, to take part in the election of popes.
He, himself, named four successively, whom he chose from among the most
learned and the most pious of the clergy of Italy and Germany; and thus
powerfully seconded the spirit of reform which began to animate the
church from the eleventh century.

THE DISUNITED MUNICIPALITIES

[Sidenote: [1046-1122 A.D.]]

The war of investitures, which lasted more than sixty years, accomplished
the dissolution of every tie between the different members of the
kingdom of Italy. Civil wars have at least this advantage--that they
force the rulers of the people to consult the wishes of their subjects,
oblige them to gain affections which constitute their strength, and to
compensate, by the granting of new privileges, the services which they
require. The prelates, nobles, and cities of Italy obeyed, some the
emperor, others the pope; not from a blind fear, but from choice, from
affection, from conscience, according as the political or religious
sentiment was predominant in each. The war was general, but everywhere
waged with the national forces. Every city armed its militia, which,
headed by the magistrates, attacked the neighbouring nobles or towns of a
contrary party. While each city imagined it was fighting either for the
pope or the emperor, it was habitually impelled exclusively by its own
sentiments: every town considered itself as a whole, as an independent
state, which had its own allies and enemies; each citizen felt an ardent
patriotism, not for the kingdom of Italy, or for the empire, but for his
own city.

At the period when either kings or emperors had granted to towns the
right of raising fortifications, that of assembling the citizens at the
sound of a great bell, to concert together the means of their common
defence, had been also conceded. This meeting of all the men of the
state capable of bearing arms was called a parliament. It assembled in
the great square, and elected annually two consuls, charged with the
administration of justice at home, and the command of the army abroad.
The militia of every city was divided into separate bodies, according
to local partitions, each led by a _gonfalonière_, or standard-bearer.
They fought on foot, and assembled round the _carroccio_, a heavy car
drawn by oxen, and covered with the flags and armorial bearings of the
city. A high pole rose in the middle of this car, bearing the colours
and a Christ, which seemed to bless the army, with both arms extended.
A priest said daily mass at an altar placed in the front of the car.
The trumpeters of the community, seated on the back part, sounded
the charge and the retreat. It was Heribert, archbishop of Milan,[3]
contemporary of Conrad the Salian, who invented this car in imitation of
the ark of alliance, and caused it to be adopted at Milan. All the free
cities of Italy followed the example: this sacred car, entrusted to the
guardianship of the militia, gave them weight and confidence. The nobles
who committed themselves in the civil wars, and were obliged to have
recourse to the protection of towns, where they had been admitted into
the first order of citizens, formed the only cavalry.

The parliament, which named the consuls, appointed also a secret council,
called a _consilio di credenza_, to assist the government, composed of
a few members taken from each division; besides a grand council of the
people, who prepared the decisions to be submitted to the parliament.
The _consilio di credenza_ was, at the same time, charged with the
administration of the finances, consisting chiefly of entrance duties
collected at the gates of the city, and voluntary contributions asked of
the citizens in moments of danger. As industry had rapidly increased,
and had preceded luxury, as domestic life was sober, and the produce
of labour considerable, wealth had greatly augmented. The citizens
allowed themselves no other use of their riches than that of defending
or embellishing their country. It was from the year 900 to the year 1200
that the most prodigious works were undertaken and accomplished by the
towns of Italy. They began by surrounding themselves with thick walls,
ditches, towers, and counter guards at the gates; immense works, which a
patriotism ready for every sacrifice could alone accomplish. The maritime
towns at the same time constructed their ports, quays, canals, and
custom-houses, which served also as vast magazines for commerce. Every
city built public palaces for the _signoria_, or municipal magistrates,
and prisons; and constructed also temples, which to this day fill us with
admiration by their grandeur and magnificence. These three regenerating
centuries gave an impulse to architecture, which soon awakened the other
fine arts.

[Sidenote: [568-1200 A.D.]]

The republican spirit which now fermented in every city, and gave to
each of them constitutions so wise, magistrates so zealous, and citizens
so patriotic and so capable of great achievements, had found in Italy
itself the models which had contributed to its formation. The war of
investitures gave wing to this universal spirit of liberty and patriotism
in all the municipalities of Lombardy, in Piedmont, Venetia, Romagna, and
Tuscany. But there existed already in Italy other free cities, of which
the experience had been sufficiently long to prove that a petty people
finds, in its complete union and devotion to the common cause, a strength
often wanting in great states. The free cities which flourished in the
eleventh century rose from the ruins of the Western Empire; as those in
Italy which preceded them in the career of liberty rose from the ruins of
the empire of the East.

When the Greeks resigned to the Lombards Italy, which a few years before
they had conquered from the Ostrogoths, they still preserved several
isolated ports and fortified places along the coast. Venice, at the
extremity of the Adriatic; Ravenna, at the south of the mouth of the Po;
Genoa, at the foot of the Ligurian Mountains; Pisa, towards the mouths of
the Arno; Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Amalfi, Bari, were either never conquered
by the Lombards, or were in subjection too short a time to have lost
their ancient walls and the habit of guarding them. These cities served
as the refuge of Roman civilisation. All those who had preserved any
fortune, independence of mind, or hatred of oppression, assembled in
them to concert the means of resisting the insolence of their barbarian
masters. The Grecian Empire maintained itself at Constantinople in all
its ancient pride; but, with oriental apathy, it regarded these remains
as still representing its province of Italy, while it did nothing for
their defence. From time to time, a duke, an exarch, a patrician, a
catapan, or other magistrate, was sent, with a title announcing the
highest pretensions, but unaccompanied by any real force. The citizens
of these towns demanded money and soldiers to repair and defend their
fortifications; whilst the emperors, on the contrary, demanded that the
money and soldiers of Italy should be sent to Constantinople. After some
disputes, the Greek government found it prudent to abandon the question,
and shut its eyes to the establishment of a liberty it despised,
but which perhaps might be useful in the defence of these distant
possessions; finally, the magistrates, whom these towns themselves
nominated, became the acknowledged depositories of the imperial
authority. The disposal of their own money and soldiers was allowed them,
on condition that nothing should be demanded of the emperors, who were
satisfied to see their names at the head of every act, and their image on
the coin, without exacting other acts of submission. This policy was not,
however, exactly followed with respect to Ravenna, or afterwards to Bari.
In these cities the representative of the emperor had fixed his residence
with a Greek garrison. Ravenna, as well as the cities appertaining to
it, denominated the Pentapolis, was conquered by the Lombards between
720 and 730. Bari became then the capital of the _thema_ of Lombardy,
which extended over a great part of Apulia. We have already shown how
Rome passed from the Greek to the Western Empire: we suspect, rather than
know, that Genoa and Pisa, after having been occupied by the Lombards,
preserved their relations with Constantinople. The _pallium_, or silk
flag, presented for some time to the emperors, was considered by them
as a sort of tribute; but Venice on the upper sea, Gaeta, Naples, and
Amalfi, on the lower, advanced more openly to independence.

[Illustration: VENICE]

THE ORIGIN OF VENICE

[Sidenote: [452-730 A.D.]]

From the invasion by Attila in 452, the marshes called Lagune, formed at
the extremity of the Adriatic by the slime deposited by seven or eight
great rivers, amidst which arose innumerable islands, had been the refuge
of all the rich inhabitants of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Treviso, and other
great cities of Venetia, who fled from the sabres of the Huns. The Roman
Empire of the West survived this great calamity twenty-four years; but
it was only a period of expiring agony, during which fresh disasters
continually forced new refugees to establish themselves in the Lagune. A
numerous population was at length formed there, supported by fishing, the
making of salt, some other manufactories, and the commerce carried on by
means of these many rivers. Beyond the reach of the barbarians, who had
no vessels, forgotten by the Romans, and their successors the Ostrogoths,
they maintained their independence under the administration of tribunes,
named by an assembly of the people in each of the separate isles.[b]

The authentic record of maritime Venice commences with the arrival of the
Lombards in Italy. Of the time previous to this period, the records are
the work of posterior chroniclers written in an adulatory spirit towards
the republican powers.

As Babbo rightly said with regard to the vaunted very ancient origin and
liberty of Venice, it was flattering to the republics to be credited
with such old and sovereign power, “but the truth is that liberty and
power do not rise to full force at once, but they gradually gain ground
in obscurity and difficulty.” But criticism has for some time directed
its attention to these inventions, and has finally silenced the Venetian
traditions with their pretended foundations.

However, it is not to be inferred that the Venetian islands were
uninhabited before the invasion of the Lombards, for there are documents
which prove the contrary. But, as anyone can see, there is a great
difference between the islands having inhabitants and being seats of an
organised and free state as we are asked to believe.

It is now generally granted that, during the Roman sway and at the
time of the temporary invasions, the stable populations of the islands
remained subject to continental Venetia, and more particularly to the
mother-city from which it received its magistrates. But when the foreign
invasions became more lasting, the bonds of independence were necessarily
loosened towards the mother-country, when they were not utterly broken.

[Sidenote: [538-600 A.D.]]

The first document showing the emancipation of the islands from
continental Venetia is the letter written by Cassiodorus to the tribune
of the maritime places, in the year 538, in which he asks him to
provide a transport to Ravenna for the wines and oils belonging to the
Istrians. But if this letter shows that the inhabitants of the islands
at the time of the Gothic rule had begun to elect their own magistrates
instead of receiving them from the mother-country, it does not prove
that the islands thenceforward had full political power, as Graswinkel
of antiquity and Crivello of modern times would have us to believe.
Because in this case the letter would not have been written in the name
of the prefect of the place as well as in the name of the king, as it
was customary with foreigners; neither would Cassiodorus have dared to
use to the Venetian tribune the same language as he used in his letters
to the _provinciali_ of Istria, to the _consulare_ of Liguria, and to
the _possessori_ of Syracuse, who were never thought to be independent
magistrates. Moreover, Balbo notes that the vicinity of the lagunes to
Ravenna, the capital and seat of the Gothic kings of Italy, renders every
other supposition absurd.

Hence Romanin shows that this dependence of the islands on the Gothic
dominion was more nominal than real. It is indisputable that it was
changed into a sort of protectorate before it became a real republic,
the rule of the east Goths being of too short duration to permit the
confirmation of their own power, and moreover the nominal amnesty of the
islands to the kingdom sufficiently satisfied the ambition of the Gothic
kings and relieved them of undertaking their conquest. When Italy passed
into the hands of the Greeks through the victories of Belisarius, the
Venetian islands followed the fate of the mother-country; and it relapsed
subsequently into the power of the Greeks after the short restoration of
the Gothic rule. Moreover, the Greek sovereignty of the islands seemed
to have become a mere military occupation; at least it appears so in
the second half of the sixth century, when the migrations were made
definitive to confirm the Lombard power in Italy.

To show how far removed from dependence on Constantinople the islands
were at that time, we quote the authority of the chronicler Giovanni
Diacono,[h] who dates the origin of the tribunal government and the
conformation of the rank to the metropolises of the islands from the
arrival of the Lombards. This fact, whilst showing on one side the
autonomous position assumed by the islands towards the Byzantine
Empire, proves on the other that the dependence of the islands on the
mother-country had now virtually ceased. Hence the tribunes after the
second half of the sixth century assume the solemn title of tribunes of
the islands of the maritime lagunes proposed by the corporations of the
same, to show that their election had been made with the full authority
of the islands without regard to the mother-cities. The form of the
political relations of the islands with Constantinople can be gathered
from the account given by the chronicler Altinate of Longinus’ visit to
the islands in the year (584) before returning to his country.

Altinate relates that when Longinus asked the islanders to receive him
into the lagunes, and thence to transport him to Constantinople in their
ships, he tried to persuade them by saying that he required no oath of
fidelity, but, if they wished to show themselves good servants of the
empire and ready to fight their enemies, he would make known or send
for what they wanted at Constantinople; he would ask the emperor for
whatever they wanted by means of a writing which he himself would place
in the hands of the emperor, which would increase the concessions to the
islands to have open and free entry to all the ports of the empire in
the ways of commerce. The Venetians, satisfied with such promises, after
having announced to the exarch how they were situated, how they had made
this sanctuary in the lagunes so as not to fear being subjugated by any
emperor, or king, or any prince whatsoever in the world, they received
him with great honour, and sent with him to Constantinople a deputation
to ask the emperor for the things promised by the exarch. And the emperor
gave to the Venetians a diploma by which they were to be held in honour
by all the authorities of the capital and the state, and to receive
the protection of the imperial forces for all the maritime district
and complete security for their commerce in the kingdom; and thus the
Venetians became subject to his dominion and became proud of the honour.
We see from this account of the chronicler Altinate, which was confirmed
by subsequent chroniclers, that the primary political relation of the
Venetians with the empire was, like that with the Gothic kings of Italy,
a relation of protection more than servitude.

“They recognised,” says Romanin, “the emperor as their lord, they bowed
to servile formulas, ordained by the proud vanity of the Eastern court,
they accepted the general custom of heading their acts with the name and
the year of the reigning cæsar; but they continued to rule themselves
with their own laws and with their own magistrates. They made wars
and concluded treaties, which they could not have done in a state of
subjection.”

And, supported by the authority of the Byzantine records, by the emperor
Constantine Porphyrogenitus at Calcondila, this condition of political
autonomy, enjoyed by the Venetians in the second half of the sixth
century (according to the author of the _Storia documentata di Venezia_),
reassumed the diverse conditions of life by which maritime Venice passed
from her first appearance upon the theatre of history until the conquest
of Italy by the Lombards. From the facts appearing among this accumulated
matter he had to conclude that the islands were at first dependent on
the Venetian territory to which they were annexed, that in the confusion
arising from the barbaric invasions in which they found themselves cut
off from the mother-country they had to provide for themselves and
nominate their own magistrates, that they recognised the Gothic dominion
which caused them no inconvenience, and they were left in possession of
their own municipal government; and that finally, at the time of the
Lombards, their constitution assumed a stable form, and their first
relations with the kings of Italy and with the emperors corresponded
rather to those of a protectorate than to a real dependency. Impartial
examination of subsequent events proves this fact, for full liberty in
the reforms of their own government and laws without the intervention of
any foreign power is evident; the wars were spontaneously undertaken and
the treaties independently concluded. By such means everything went on
naturally and progressively, as is seen by the records before us, and as
we learn from the national history and story of events.

THE ORIGIN OF THE DOGESHIP

[Sidenote: [600-713 A.D.]]

There are but few records of the period between the stipulation of the
compromise with the emperor Maurice to the foundation of the Venetian
dukedom, but they suffice to confirm the autonomous policy enjoyed by
the Venetian islands at that time. The majority of these records refer
to the wars engaged in by the Venetians with the Lombards. By these they
became masters of Padua. At the time of King Agilulf they turned their
arms against the islands to get them under their own sway. The increasing
prosperity of the islands, and the idea that the wealth accumulated
there had been mostly imported from the continent to protect it from
the usurpation of conquerors, kindled a strong desire to complete its
conquest. The external dangers of the islands were attended by the
internal disputes from the ambitions and jealousies of the tribunes.

An imminent invasion of the Lombards was feared when the greater part
of the country, recognising the gravity of the danger menacing them,
summoned a general council to Heraclea under the presidency of the chief
patriarch Aristoforo. And here it was unanimously agreed to introduce
a stricter form of government by preventing the rivalries of the
magistrates who were the chief fomenters of the internal dissensions.
And following the example of great cities like Rome, Genoa, and Naples,
which were saved by dukes, they agreed to appoint a chief magistrate with
jurisdiction over all the islands with the title of “duke” (_doge_).
Then, proceeding to the election of the person on whom this dignity
was to be conferred, their choice fell upon Paolu Lucio, or Paoluccio
Anafesto. Such was the origin of the Venetian dukedom as it is recorded
by chroniclers. But if there is unity among them as to the causes which
gave rise to the ducal power in maritime Venetia, there is none with
regard to the time in which it was instituted. Some put it in the year
697, others relegate it to the first years of the next century. Among
them there is Giovanni Diacono,[h] who puts the election of Paoluccio
at the time of Anastasius II, emperor, and of Liutprand king of the
Lombards. And as, according to the most ancient Venetian chronicler,
Liutprand succeeded to the throne in 712 and Anastasius in 713, the
election of Paoluccio could not have been before the latter year.

[Sidenote: [713-900 A.D.]]

Therefore between the two extreme dates quoted by the chroniclers there
is a difference of sixteen years, sufficient time to afford material for
criticism. But the different points were defended and contested without
result. Muratiri Leo defended the date of 697, which is the date given
by Dandolo and his followers; Romanin oscillated between the two dates;
Filiasi and Balbo were inclined to the medium course and put the election
of Paoluccio in the year 706 or 707. But as neither the one nor the
other adduces more authentic proofs in support of the closer date, we
will remain firm in preferring that of 713, which is according to the
most eminent author on Venetian matters. We are the more led to this
preference by the cause to which the chroniclers generally attribute the
foundation of Venetian dukedom. For if it is true that the imminence of
the Lombards led the inhabitants of the islands to institute a supreme
magistrate, it could not have referred to the time preceding Liutprand
in which the Lombards, either through flaccidness of purpose or through
internal disputes, were incapable of thinking of new conquests or
exercising fears or apprehensions among their neighbours. The chronicler
Giovanni says nothing of the attributes of the new magistrate, and his
silence on such an important subject is the more deplorable, as in the
computations made by posterior chroniclers on the ducal authority we find
names used of matters more contemporaneous to them than to the time of
which they speak.

Andrea Dandolo,[g] the most authentic among them, describes in the
following words the attributes of the first Venetian dukes: “They
had,” says the doge chronicler, “the power and right to convoke the
general meeting for public affairs, to appoint tribunes and judges to
administer all matters private, lay, and ecclesiastical, save the mere
spiritual; they had power in everything befitting the title of duke;
and by their orders there the councils of the clergy took place and the
election to the prelature was made by the clergy and the people, the
election and the investiture being from their hands, as they had the
power of appointment.” It is very doubtful whether the ducal attributes
were originally so defined in detail. Anyhow, from the appearance of a
military magistrate with the title of master of the militia alongside of
the first duke, it can be inferred that the jurisdiction of the duke was
limited to civil affairs. For the chronicler Giovanni,[h] in speaking of
Paoluccio Anafesto, says that he judged his own with temperate justice.
And here the verb to judge is used in a more definite and proper sense
than in that used by the Lombard histories and documents respecting their
dukes. It expresses that which is solely civil jurisdiction, whilst the
jurisdiction of the Lombard dukes included the military jurisdiction as
well as the civil.

We have an important document of the dogedom of Anafesto,[i] which shows
how beneficial the institution of the ducal power was to the Venetians.
This document is a convention of the doge with Liutprand, by which the
Lombard king conceded to the Venetians the trade of the territories of
the kingdom proper, and, defining the limits between the two states,
it declared to be Venetian the territories between the Piave Major
and the Piavicelli on the side of Heraclea. Such, according to the
chronicler Giovanni, was the tenor of the treaty of peace concluded
between Liutprand and the first doge of Venice. And we have authentic
confirmation of its truth in its verification, made by Barbarossa in the
year 1177, of that which pertained to the designation of the Venetian
confines on the part of Italy.[c]

It was in 809 [or 810], in a war against Pepin, son of Charlemagne, that
the Venetians made choice of the Island of the Rialto, near which they
assembled their fleet bearing their wealth, and built the city of Venice,
the capital of their republic. Twenty years afterward they transported
thither from Alexandria the body of St. Mark, the evangelist, their
chosen patron. His lion figured in their arms, and his name in their
language whenever they would designate with peculiar affection their
country or government.

VENICE IN THE TENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: [900-996 A.D.]]

While the Venetians disputed with the Lombards, the Frank and the
German emperors, the little land on which stood their houses, they had
also to dispute the sea that bathed them, with the Slavonians, who had
established themselves for the purpose of piracy on the eastern side of
the Adriatic.[b] It was hardly five hundred years since the fugitives
from Padua and Aquileia had sought refuge in the lagunes. Content with
having found safety there and freedom to enlarge their town and extend
their commerce, they had hitherto only made just wars, having only taken
to arms to repulse pirates, help oppressed neighbours, or to defend their
liberty against Pepin and the Hungarians.

Although many victories had given them a just appreciation of their
strength, they had no aggression to reproach themselves with, unless
perhaps that against the Saracens, but this war was undertaken at the
solicitation of the Italian people, and on the request of the Eastern
emperor. Moreover, in generally received ideas of this epoch, the
Saracens, in their quality as infidels, were beyond the pale of common
rights. The republic had never made incursions on the continent, for it
would not be just to lay to its account the short expeditions of the two
doges, who had no other object than their own interests.

[Illustration: A DOGE OF VENICE]

This union of exiles and fishers had become a rich, powerful, warlike,
yet at the same time a peaceful nation. The fruit of this moderation had
been if not an existence exempt from trouble, at least a medium to the
creation of an independent state, freeing itself little by little from
the influence of the two empires between which it found itself--a state,
moreover, which treated with its neighbours, counted many illustrious
families, whose princes married kings’ daughters, yet in its entity did
not extend beyond the lagunes and several points of the neighbouring
coast. A new scene was to open up.

Commerce, that profession in which fortunes are continually being tried,
is not a school of moderation. Successes inspire greediness and jealousy,
and these latter the spirit of domination. Maritime commerce wanted ports
where her ships could be gathered, authority where she bought, privileges
where she sold, safety for navigation, and, above all, no rivals. This
ambitious spirit is really the same as that of conquest. Venice will show
us an example of it.

No choice of the Venetians was more justified by its great and lasting
results than that of Doge Pietro Orseolo II in 991. He was the son of
him who had abdicated the dogate fifteen years before. As in the life of
all great men there is something of the marvellous, it was spread abroad
that his father had announced that his son would be the glory of his
country, and the holiness of Orseolo I gave to these paternal hopes all
the authority of a prophecy.

Hardly was the new doge on the throne, than the factions which had torn
Venice during the reign of his feeble predecessor calmed down or at any
rate were quiet. Deliberations had been frequently troubled ones; the
palace had more than once been stained with blood. Orseolo made a law by
which all acts of violence in the public assembly should be punished
by a fine of twenty gold livres or the death of those who had not the
wherewithal to pay. A statesman as well as a clever warrior, he occupied
himself with forwarding commercial prosperity. He treated with all the
Italian states for goods. He obtained from the emperor of the East that
all subjects of the republic should be exempt from dues throughout the
empire, not only in ports but inland, or at least that the dues should be
reduced in the proportion of thirty gold sols to two. Finally he assured
himself, by an embassy and presents, of the favour of Egyptian and Syrian
sultans. The interior commerce of the Adriatic was itself an abundant
source of riches for the Venetians. Favoured by concessions from the
patriarch of Aquileia and the Italian kings, their ships went the whole
length of Lombardy and Friuli to sell all sorts of foreign wares. They
were welcome in the ports of Apulia and Calabria; on the eastern coast of
the gulf they enjoyed some privileges, bought, it is true, by a tribute,
but which were none the less profitable.

They got from Dalmatia firewood, wines, oils, hemp, linen, all kinds of
grain and cattle. The eastern coast offered lead, mercury, and metals of
every kind, wood for building, wools, cloth, house linen, cordage, dried
fruits, and even slaves and eunuchs. Everywhere they possessed themselves
of the exclusive commerce in salt and salted fish, and carried into
every country the merchandise of the East. It was owing to a so extended
commerce that Venice, until then without territory, armed fleets, and
placed between two empires, knew how to resist one and make herself
necessary to the other. These advantages were considerable, but to enjoy
them peaceably it was necessary to be delivered from these Narentine
pirates, who for one hundred and fifty years annoyed Venetian commerce
with their continual inroads. They furnished no immediate cause for
attack, only demanded the annual tribute which the republic had promised
them, to which the doge answered that he would soon bring it himself.
Their attacks were at that time directed against the peoples established
the length of the Adriatic; the Istrians, Liburnians, and the Dalmatians.

[Sidenote: [996-997 A.D.]]

Various nations had established themselves one after another on these
coasts; at first they depended on their chiefs for protection; then those
in Dalmatia came under the sway of the Eastern emperor, while those
farther north looked to the ruler of the West. These two empires became
feeble; various commercial towns sprang up on the sea coast which came by
little and little to regard themselves as independent, and these would
have found an assured source of prosperity in maritime pursuits were it
not for the interference of the neighbouring Narentines. It would not be
unreasonable to conjecture that Venice was not without some anxiety, even
jealousy, with regard to these people settled on the east coast of the
Adriatic, for they were independent, industrious, and good sailors.

Venetian historians relate that all these people, as if moved
unanimously, sent deputies to Venice to implore help against the pirates,
offering to give themselves to the republic if she would deliver them.
There are very few people who will give themselves away, and there are no
magistrates who have the right of giving away people. This deputation, if
it be true that it took place, did more honour to the politics of those
who received it than to the wisdom of those who sent it. However that may
be, the Venetians hastened to collect a considerable armament to go and
help, or overthrow, their neighbours, and the doge, after having received
from the bishop’s hands the standard of the republic, went to sea in the
spring of the year 997.[d]

[Sidenote: [997-998 A.D.]]

It was on the 18th of May, 997, that the fleet left its moorings, and
pointed its prows toward Grado, where it was met by the patriarch Vitali
Sanudo, followed by a solemn procession of the clergy and the people.
From Grado the whole armament sailed successively to Pirano, Omago,
Emonia, Parenzo, Rovigno, Pola, Zara, Spalatro, Trau, Ossero, Arbo,
Veglia, Sebenigo, Belgrado, Lenigrado, and Curzola. All those places
appeared to welcome the Venetians as their deliverers, and each readily
took an oath of allegiance to its suzerain. At Zara, where the merchants
of Venice had formed their earliest settlements, and where the people
exhibited peculiar fervour, Orseolo spent six days; and during that
period arrived a deputation from Dircislaus, king of Croatia, whose alarm
at the successful progress of the expedition rendered him desirous of
conciliating the republic. The ambassadors of Dircislaus were dismissed
without an audience. At Trau, he found the brother of the king, Cresimir
by name, who implored his Serenity to aid him in establishing a joint
claim to the throne of his father, from which he stated that he had been
recently driven by the perfidy of Dircislaus. Orseolo entertained the
matter favourably, and even consented shortly afterward (998), as a mark
of his friendship and esteem, as well as on grounds of commercial policy,
to the union of his own daughter, Hicela, with the son of the Croatian
prince.

But the campaign was far from being at a close. A great impediment was
still to be conquered. Lesina, the principal member of the Illyrican
group, and the chief resort of the pirates, still remained untaken;
and the doge, having sent ten galleys from Trau to ravage the coast of
Narenta, hastened with the main squadron to accomplish that object.
Orseolo entered the harbour without hesitation; and the usual summons to
surrender having produced no effect, an order was given to commence the
assault. The Lesinese shrank in dismay from the tempest of stones and
darts which poured without cessation over their walls; the escarpment
was scaled; a tower was invested and taken; the Venetians entered the
town; and, after a brief interval of license and confusion, the arrival
of the doge restored order. The judicious clemency of Orseolo conciliated
the esteem of the vanquished; and such was the powerful effect which the
reduction of a place, generally thought to be unassailable, produced on
its neighbours that, so soon as she heard of the fall of Lesina, the
little republic of Ragusa despatched an embassy to offer her allegiance
to the conqueror. At the same time, the ten galleys which had undertaken
to lay waste the coast of Narenta, rejoined the main squadron with
forty Croatian prizes; and this collateral success, which might be
partly instrumental in humiliating King Dircislaus, afforded no slight
satisfaction to Orseolo. Having thus, in the course of a few months,
completed the object of his expedition, the doge concluded the campaign
by dictating terms to the sea-robbers of Narenta; and Orseolo, having
returned to the capital, and communicated to the national Arrengo the
wonderful success which had attended the arms of the republic, was
proclaimed Doge of Venice and Dalmatia (998). The assumption of this
lofty appellation seems to have been entirely in harmony with the notions
of sovereignty generally prevalent at that epoch. The incomplete conquest
and precarious tenure of a few hundred miles of the Dalmatian seaboard
sufficed, in the eyes of the Venetians, to constitute Dalmatia itself
into an integral portion of their dominions; and it is a circumstance
strikingly characteristic of the age, that, in conferring new honours
upon the crown, no attempt was made to discriminate between an immense
tract of country in which the republic had little or no territorial
interest and over a small portion only of which she exercised the barest
of feudal rights, and the islands, to which she enjoyed the fullest
prescriptive and possessory title.[4][k]

[Sidenote: [998-1198 A.D.]]

In the intervals of peace Orseolo nobly employed his fortune raising
public monuments. His father had founded a hospital and rebuilt at his
own expense the palace and church of St. Mark. The son had the cathedral
of Grado rebuilt, others say the whole city, and many buildings in
Heraclea. This magnificence may give an idea to what degree of splendour
the great families had arrived. This particular one had only been raised
to ducal dignity one generation.[d]

It would have been to expect from the illustrious citizens of Venice
more than one could expect from the human race to ask them to forget the
glory and splendour of their house, to raise themselves above domestic
interests, to work only for the grandeur of the state, and make this
generation consist in the equality of all the citizens. The tendency
towards aristocracy was for a long time only the result of influence
given by riches, office, the remembrance of service rendered, and
the respect which attaches itself naturally to an illustrious name.
This kind of aristocracy existed long before the legal one. In the
political order there was no distinction between nobles and plebeians,
and when a foreigner, or a prince even, was admitted to the quality of
Venetian, they said to him, “_Civem nostrum creamus_”--“We make you our
fellow-citizen.”

But the Venetian nobles had frequented the society of high French barons,
and naturally took some of their opinions. On their side the people and
the middle class, like the nobles, were also interested. If the very
legitimate pride of the aristocrats made them desire power, the good
sense of the other party advised them to claim a share. It was from the
struggle between these interests that a new form of government arose. One
historian has forgotten himself so far as to say that this revolution led
things back to “a natural order, in which the lower orders were dominated
by the upper.” The language has no more sense than dignity.[c]

PROSPERITY AND POLITICAL REFORMS

[Sidenote: [1198-1202 A.D.]]

The settlement of the Venetian constitution prepared the republic for
her brilliant career of commercial and political grandeur; and a new
source of wealth and power had meanwhile been unfolding itself in her
cupidity and ambition. No circumstance contributed more effectually to
her subsequent prosperity than the religious wars of the Europeans for
the recovery of the Holy Land from the Mohammedan infidels.

From the epoch of the Peace of Constance to the end of the twelfth
century, the history of Venice is occupied by no occurrence which
deserves to be recorded. But the first years of the thirteenth
century are the most brilliant and glorious in the long annals of the
republic. They are filled with the details of a romantic and memorable
enterprise--the equipment of a prodigious naval armament, the fearless
pursuit of a distant and gigantic adventure, the conquest of an ancient
empire, the division of the spoil, and the consummation of commercial
grandeur.

In the year 1198, Pope Innocent III, by the preaching of Fulk Neuilly,
a French priest, had stirred up the greatest nobles of that kingdom to
undertake a crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. Baldwin,
count of Flanders, enrolled himself in the same cause, and Boniface,
marquis of Montferrat, accepted the command of the confederates. They
were warned by the sad experience of former crusades not to attempt the
passage to Asia by land; and the maritime states of Italy were the only
powers which could furnish shipping for the transport of a numerous army.
The barons therefore sent a deputation to Venice to entreat the alliance
and negotiate for the assistance of the republic (1201 A.D.).

Henry Dandolo, who, at the extraordinary age of ninety-three, and
in almost total blindness, still preserved the vigorous talents and
heroism of youth, had been for nine years doge of Venice. He received
the illustrious ambassadors with distinction; and after the object of
their mission had been regularly laid before the councils of the state,
announced to them in the name of the republic the conditions upon which
a treaty would be concluded. As the aristocracy had not yet perfected
the entire exclusion of the people from a voice in public affairs, the
magnitude of the business demanded the solemn assent of the citizens,
and a general assembly was convened in the square of St. Mark. There,
before the multitude of more than ten thousand persons, the proud nobles
of France threw themselves upon their knees to implore the assistance of
the commercial republicans in redeeming the sepulchre of Christ. Their
tears and eloquence prevailed. The terms of alliance had been left to
the dictation of the doge and his counsellors; and for 85,000 marks of
silver, less than £200,000 ($1,000,000), and not an unreasonable demand,
the republic engaged to transport 4,500 knights with their horses and
arms, 9,000 esquires, and 20,000 infantry, to any part of the coasts of
the East which the service of God might require, to provision them for
nine months, and to escort and aid them with a fleet of fifty galleys;
but with the farther conditions that the money should be paid before
embarkation, and that whatever conquests might be made, should be equally
shared between the barons and the republic.

The Venetians demanded a year of preparation; and before that period had
expired, both their fidelity to the engagement and the extent of their
resources were conspicuously displayed. But all the crusaders were not
equally true to their faith; many whose ardour had cooled, shamefully
deserted their vows; others had taken ship for Palestine in Flanders,
at Marseilles, and at other Mediterranean ports; and when the army had
mustered at Venice, their numbers fell very short of expectation, and
they were utterly unable to defray the stipulated cost of the enterprise.
Though their noble leaders made a generous sacrifice of their valuables,
above 30,000 marks were yet wanted to complete the full payment; and the
republic, with true mercantile caution, refused to permit the sailing
of the fleet until the amount of the deficiency should have been lodged
in their treasury. The timid and the lukewarm already rejoiced that the
crusade must be abandoned, when Dandolo suggested an equivalent for the
remainder of the debt, by the condition that payment should be deferred
if the barons would assist the republic in reducing the city of Zara,
which had again revolted, before they pursued the ulterior objects of
their voyage.

The citizens of Zara had committed themselves to the sovereignty of
the king of Hungary, and the pope forbade the crusaders to attack the
Christian subjects of a monarch who had himself assumed the cross. But
the desire of honourably discharging their obligations prevailed with
the French barons over the fear of papal displeasure, and, after some
scruples, the army embarked for Zara (1202 A.D.). The aged doge having
obtained permission from the republic to take the cross and lead the
fleet, many of the citizens followed his example in ranging themselves
under the sacred banner, and the veteran hero sailed with the expedition
of nearly five hundred vessels, the most magnificent armament, perhaps,
which had ever covered the bosom of the Adriatic. Though Zara was deemed
in that age one of the strongest cities in the world, the inhabitants
were terrified or compelled into a surrender after a siege of only five
days: their lives were spared, but their houses were pillaged, and their
defences razed to the ground.

[It is unnecessary to follow further the remarkable fortunes of the
Venetians and crusaders. The story of the capture of Constantinople
has already been told in the history of the Eastern Empire and of the
Crusades.]

[Sidenote: [1032-1204 A.D.]]

The talents and heroism of the venerable Dandolo had won for the doges
of Venice the splendid and accurate title of dukes of three-eighths of
the Roman Empire; he died at Constantinople almost immediately after the
Latin conquest, full of years and glory; and bequeathed to the republic
the difficult office of governing a greater extent of dominion than
had ever fallen to the inhabitants of a single city. All the islands
of the Ionian, and most of those in the Ægean seas, great part of the
shores of continental Greece, many of the ports in the Propontis, or
Sea of Marmora, the city of Adrianople, and one-fourth of the eastern
capital itself were all embraced in her allotment, and the large and
valuable island of Candia was added to her possessions by purchase
from the marquis of Montferrat to whom it had been assigned. But the
prudence of her senate awakened Venice to a just sense of her own want
of intrinsic strength to preserve these immense dependencies; and it
was wisely resolved to retain under the public government of the state
only the colony at Constantinople, with the island of Candia and those
in the Ionian Sea. The subjects of the republic were not required to
imitate the forbearance of the senate, and many of the great Venetian
families were encouraged, or at least permitted, to found principalities
among the ruins of the Eastern Empire, with a reservation of feudal
allegiance to their country. In this manner most of the islands of the
Ægean Archipelago were granted in fief to ten noble houses of Venice, and
continued for several centuries subject to their insular princes.[o]

It was by slow and artfully disguised encroachments that the nobility
of Venice succeeded in substituting itself for the civic power, and
investing itself with the sovereignty of the republic. During the
earlier period, the doge was an elective prince, the limit of whose
power was vested in assemblies of the people. It was not till 1032
that he was obliged to consult only a council, formed from amongst the
most illustrious citizens, whom he designated.[5] Thence came the name
given them of _pregadi_ (invited). The grand council was not formed
till 1172, 140 years later, and was from that time the real sovereign
of the republic. It was composed of 480 members, named annually on the
last day of September by twelve tribunes, or grand electors, of whom
two were chosen by each of the six sections of the republic. No more
than four members from one family could be named. The same counsellors
might be re-elected each year. As it is in the spirit of a corporation
to tend always towards an aristocracy, the same persons were habitually
re-elected, and when they died their children took their places. The
grand council, neither assuming to itself nor granting to the doge the
judicial power, gave the first example of the creation of a body of
judges, numerous, independent, and irremovable; such, nearly, as was
afterwards the parliament of Paris. In 1179, it created the criminal
_quarantia_; called, also, the _vecchia quarantia_, to distinguish it
from two other bodies of forty judges created in 1229.[d]

OTHER MARITIME CITIES

[Sidenote: [589-1229 A.D.]]

The first magistrate of the republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi bore
likewise the title of doge. These three cities, forgotten by the Greek
emperors, and receiving no aid from them, still held by the ties of
commerce to Greece. The inhabitants had devoted themselves with ardour
to navigation; they trafficked in the Levant, and covered southern Italy
with its rich merchandise. The country situated beyond the Tiber had
been exposed to fewer invasions than upper Italy. It had not, however,
entirely escaped. A Lombard chief entered it in 589, and founded the
great duchy of Benevento, which comprehended nearly the whole southern
part of the peninsula. This dukedom maintained itself independent of the
kingdom of the Lombards at Pavia, and had not been involved in its fall.
It defended itself with valour against Charlemagne and his successors,
who attempted its conquest; but in 839, at the end of a civil war, it
was divided into the three principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and
Capua. The Saracens had established colonies, in the year 828, in Sicily,
which till then had been subject to the Greek Empire; these Saracens, a
few years afterwards, passed into southern Italy. The three republics
of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi preserved their independence by exciting
enmity between the Lombards and Saracens, who equally menaced them; but
these barbarians soon sank into the languor produced by the charms of
a southern climate. It seemed as if they had no longer courage to risk
a life to which so many enjoyments were attached. When they fought, it
was with effeminacy; and they hastened the termination of every war to
plunge again into the voluptuous ease from which it had roused them.
The citizens of the republics had the advantage over them of walls and
defiles; and without being braver than the Lombards, maintained their
independence against them for six centuries.

[Sidenote: [936-1195 A.D.]]

The republic of Pisa, which vainly sought to save from ruin these first
Italian republics of the Middle Ages, was a city which navigation and
commerce had enriched. Genoa, which soon became its rival, had escaped
the pillage of these northern conquerors, and had preserved a constant
intercourse with Constantinople and with Syria, from whence the citizens
brought the rich merchandise which they afterwards dispersed throughout
Lombardy. The Pisans and Genoese, invigorated by a seafaring life, were
accustomed to defend with the sword the merchandise which they conveyed
from one extremity to the other of the Mediterranean. They were often in
conflict with the Saracens, like them addicted to maritime commerce, to
which these last frequently added piracy. The Saracens pillaged Genoa in
the year 936. In 1004 they entered a suburb of Pisa, and again invested
that city in the year 1011. Their colonies in Sardinia, Corsica, and the
Balearic Isles constantly menaced Italy. The Pisans, seconded by the
Genoese, in their turn attacked Sardinia, in the year 1015; but completed
the conquest only in 1050. They established colonies there, and divided
it into fiefs between the most illustrious families of Pisa and Genoa.
They also conquered the Balearic Isles from the Saracens, between the
years 1114 and 1116.[e] The Pisan fleet of three hundred sail, commanded
by the archbishop Pietro Moriconi, attacked the Balearic Isles, where as
many as twenty thousand Christians were said to be held captive by the
Moslems, and returned loaded with spoil and with a multitude of Christian
and Moslem prisoners. The former were set at liberty or ransomed, and
among the latter was the last descendant of the reigning dynasty.
The chief eunuch, who had governed Majorca, perished in the siege.
Immediately afterwards the fourteen years’ war with Genoa broke out. The
two republics contested the dominion of the sea, and both claimed supreme
power over the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. A papal edict awarding
the supremacy of Corsica to the Pisan church proved sufficient cause for
the war, which went on from 1118 to 1132. Then Innocent II transferred
the supremacy over part of Corsica to the Genoese church, and compensated
Pisa by grants in Sardinia and elsewhere. Accordingly, to gratify the
pope and the emperor Lothair II, the Pisans entered the Neapolitan
territory to combat the Normans. They aided in the vigorous defence of
the city of Naples, and twice attacked and pillaged Amalfi, in 1135 and
1137, with such effect that the town never regained its prosperity. It
has been said that the copy of the _Pandects_ then taken by the Pisans
from Amalfi was the first known to them, but in fact they were already
acquainted with those laws. The war with Genoa never came to a real end.
Even after the retaking of Jerusalem by the Moslems (1187), the Pisans
and Genoese again met in conflict in the East, and performed many deeds
of valour. They were always ready to come to blows, and gave still more
signal proofs of their enmity during the Sicilian war in behalf of the
emperor Henry VI. There could be no lasting peace between these rival
powers until the one or the other should be crushed.[l]

When, towards the end of the eleventh century, the western world took up
the dispute with the Saracens for the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, Venice,
Pisa, and Genoa had already reached a high point of commercial power;
these three cities had more vessels on the Mediterranean than the whole
of Christendom besides. They seconded the crusaders with enthusiasm. They
provisioned them when arrived off the coast of Syria, and kept up their
communication with the West. The Venetians assert that they sent a fleet
of two hundred vessels, in the year 1099, to second the First Crusade.
The Pisans affirm that their archbishop Daimbert, who was afterwards
patriarch of Jerusalem, passed into the East with one hundred and twenty
vessels. The Genoese claim only twenty-eight galleys and six vessels;
but all concurred with equal zeal in the conquest of the Holy Land; and
the three maritime republics obtained important privileges, which they
preserved as long as the kingdom of Jerusalem lasted.[e]

THE LOMBARD CITIES AND THEIR ALLIES

[Sidenote: [1010-1125 A.D.]]

In the early days the Italian towns were only as yet larger groups of
dwelling-houses, without political significance, such as every place
acquires by more abundant and brisker communications, and by being the
seat of some sort of government administration; in short, when it
becomes the centre of a certain district. The three principal classes of
inhabitants were as a rule: (1) free Lombards; (2) tributary Romans; (3)
serfs and villeins. There were as yet not sufficient noble retainers in
the individual towns to form a class by themselves.

Among the Franks this state seemingly subsisted for some time, but the
foundations upon which it rested were undermined. The tributary Romans
became gradually either entirely free or really serfs; many of the free
Lombards took knightly service with the kings of the Franks or their
counts, and many more with bishops and abbots. Thus there grew up new
class distinctions, and once more the population seemed to fall into
three distinct classes: (1) noble retainers; (2) freemen; (3) bondsmen,
villeins, and the remainder of the tributaries who tended more and more
to become absorbed by the other classes. Simultaneously, however, there
arose another kind of distinction. It gradually came to pass when the
royal prerogative had become subjected to many changes, and could at best
be regarded but as an uncertain protection, that the bishops counted
far more noble retainers and serfs than the kings; and as the bishops
at the same time exercised feudal authority over their retainers and
villeins, a feeling of hostility sprang up between the nobles, freemen,
and tributaries under the king’s official magistrates (the counts and
gastalds) and the nobles, serfs, and tributaries under the bishop’s
magistrates (the _vogts_). What had been established under the Franks
then developed more fully under the Germans. The bishops also acquired
authority over the freemen, exercising the same power as the counts, and
began to assemble in one township men possessing quite different rights,
but having the same claims to distinction, _i.e._, noble retainers and
freemen of knightly descent. The serfs and villeins forming the third
class still remained for a long time politically minors.

A great deal of friction between the noble retainers and the freemen of
knightly descent was caused by their having to hold their lands in fief,
to enter into the feudal service of the bishops, or to renounce knightly
honours. Sanguinary fights took place without either party gaining any
decisive victory; compacts were made between the different classes of
citizens, and this was the origin of the common municipal constitution.
From that time the importance of the aldermen as representatives of
all the classes grew apace, whereas that of the episcopal magistrates
sensibly decreased. This representative administration had no sooner been
founded than it was again upset by a rupture between the spiritual and
temporal powers; the strife was no longer between counts and bishops,
or between the freemen and the retainers of the church, but between the
king and the pope. The spiritual power became divided against itself;
many bishops took up the cause of the king, and others that of the pope.
The same thing happened with the temporal power, for there were as many
princes and lords fighting against as for the king.

The representative administration of the cities was not attacked, but
that body found it difficult to decide by which party they were to be
governed, for each party, that of the king as well as that of the pope,
presently had its own bishops in each city and its adherents among both
nobles and freemen. The bishops were the only losers in this struggle,
for in each faction they strove to outdo each other in the matter of
liberality and in conceding their rights in order to win and retain more
partisans. The victorious party, however, when the struggle was at an
end, maintained the established representative administration, enriched
by the many liberties and rights conceded by the bishops. The aldermen
found their sphere of action greatly enlarged and enriched, so that
henceforth they assumed a position at the head of the municipality as
councillors and magistrates. This government had developed on similar
lines in all the cities, although the victory had remained sometimes with
the papal and sometimes with the royal party; therefore the strife had
been banished from the cities only to break out finally in the country,
which became divided into two factions, at the head of which were the
rival cities of Pavia and Milan.

At first Pavia belonged to the papal faction and Milan to the royal; but
when the former realised that she needed more temporal assistance than
the pope could afford her, and the latter city found that the king’s
protection brought with it interference in internal affairs, which in a
city of Milan’s power and wealth was soon felt to be oppressive, both
parties changed badges, and Pavia followed the royal faction, while Milan
flaunted the papal colours.[j]

[Sidenote: [1125-1155 A.D.]]

This change of parties occurred during the reigns of Lothair II and
Conrad III, who, from the year 1125 to 1152, placed in opposition the
two houses of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Germany. Milan, having during
the first half of the twelfth century experienced some resistance from
the towns of Lodi and Como, razed the former, dispersing the inhabitants
in open villages, and obliged the latter to destroy its fortifications.
Cremona and Novara adhered to the party of Pavia; Tortona, Crema,
Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza, and Parma to that of Milan. Among the towns
of Piedmont, Turin took the lead, and disputed the authority of the
counts of Savoy, who called themselves imperial vicars in that country.
Montferrat continued to have its marquises. They were among the few great
feudatories who had survived the civil wars; but the towns and provinces
were not in subjection to them, and Asti was more powerful than they were.

The family of the Veronese marquises, on the contrary, who from the time
of the Lombard kings had to defend the frontier against the Germans, were
extinct; and the great cities of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and
Mantua, nearly equal in power, maintained their independence. Bologna
held the first rank among the towns south of the Po, and had become
equally formidable on the one side to Modena and Reggio, and on the other
to Ferrara, Ravenna, Imola, Faenza, Forlì, and Rimini. Tuscany, which had
also had its powerful marquises, saw their family become extinct with the
countess Matilda, the contemporary and friend of Gregory VII. Florence
had since risen in power, destroyed Fiesole, and, without exercising
dominion over the neighbouring towns of Pistoia, Arezzo, San Miniato,
and Volterra, or the more distant towns of Lucca, Cortona, Perugia, and
Siena, was considered the head of the Tuscan League; and the more so that
Pisa at this period thought only of her maritime expeditions. The family
of the dukes of Spoleto had also become extinct, and the towns of Umbria
regained their freedom; but their situation in the mountains prevented
them from rising into importance. In fine, Rome herself indulged the
same spirit of independence. An eloquent monk, the disciple of Abelard,
who had made himself known throughout Europe, preached in 1139 a twofold
reform in the religious and political orders; the name borne by him was
Arnold of Brescia. He spoke to men of the ancient liberty which was
their right, of the abuses which disfigured the church. Driven out of
Italy by Pope Innocent II and the Council of Lateran, he took refuge in
Switzerland, and taught the town of Zurich to frame a free constitution;
but in the year 1143 he was recalled to Rome, and that city again heard
the words, “Roman Republic,” “Roman senate,” “comitia of the people.” The
pope branded his opinions with the name of “heresy of the politicians”;
and Arnold of Brescia, having been given up to him by the emperor, was
burned alive before the gate of the castle of St. Angelo, in the year
1155. But his precepts survived and the love of liberty in Rome did not
perish with him. In southern Italy, the conquests of the Normans had
finally smothered the spirit of liberty; and the town of Aquileia in the
Abruzzi alone preserved any republican privileges.[b]

FLORENCE

[Sidenote: [800-1207 A.D.]]

It appears that of all the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the
one which was to play the principal part in the history of civilisation
was the last to appear on the world’s stage. Florence was still a
mere unknown parish when Pisa, her neighbour, already covered the
Mediterranean with her vessels; and while Milan and the towns of Lombardy
were engaged in deadly fight against the empire, the Tuscan city stood
perfectly aloof from the struggle of the two parties, which were dividing
not only Italy, but the whole of Europe, and, from the Alps to the
Sicilian straits, covering the peninsula with ruins and deluging it in
blood.

Florence long had pursued her career in silence, growing rich by
trade, increasing in size by the reduction of her neighbours, becoming
powerful by the submission of the great, and she was neither more nor
less powerful than all those small political centres which contributed
so largely in bringing to light Italy’s exhaustless fertility in great
men. In fact, it was owing to this large number of small states, to
this multitude of diverse interests, that so many men were enabled to
distinguish themselves, and found a scene for their activity, and that
the curious medley which forms the Italian character was able to develop
freely, and to bear its finest fruits. In this respect all the small
towns of Italy are deeply interesting; to the historian as sources of
valuable research, to the philosopher as subjects of observation of
human nature. It is, however, natural that the state which exercised
its influence for the longest period, in the most powerful manner, and
over the widest extent of territory, should also attract the greatest
attention from posterity. Great interest is always felt in the childhood
of a famous man, even when it does not actually present so many curious
details as the childhood of many men who have remained unknown; we like
to see his first gropings, and in the features of some childish whim we
imagine that we can perceive the plan of the great acts which illustrated
his riper age.

In the same way the first symptoms of political life in Athens or in Rome
have always attracted attention, while certain towns of Hellas or Latium,
though probably far more developed in those obscure times, only interest
us as far as they enable us to find traces of the road which these great
centres of civilisation pursued when they first arose. So, in the dearth
which exists of authentic documents on the origin and early centuries of
Florence, in order to obtain a just and complete idea of what she was
before the beginning of the thirteenth century, we are often obliged to
illuminate the facts which have come down to us by the knowledge we have
of Lucca, Pisa, Fiesole, Siena, Arezzo, and other towns of Tuscany.

The chroniclers, by surrounding the origin of Florence with numerous
fables, have singularly concealed the real facts. However, it is probable
that they were right in assigning it a Roman origin, and it is evident
that in this first period and later on, Florence passed, as did the other
states, through the successive phases which were experienced by the
entire peninsula. Growing under the protection of the imperial eagle,
and submitting to the power of the bishop, like her sister-states, like
them, also, she knew how, both to free herself from episcopal dominion
and to oppose the empire. Although somewhat late, she followed the
example of all the great towns of Italy in subduing the small surrounding
towns and the country nobles, so as to increase her territory; she
profited, but to a less extent than Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, by the
commercial advantages of the Crusades. After undergoing the influence
of the German invasion, she supported, more than any other state, the
reaction of communal tendency against the Germanic tendency which was
everywhere felt during the twelfth century. When, later on, tyranny (in
the Greek sense of the word) confiscated democratic liberty, in every
town, in favour of a powerful family or a superior individual, Florence
produced the most accomplished type of the Italian tyrant.

However, turning back to the earliest historical facts proved by
unimpeachable witnesses, we see by the very importance which the
chroniclers attach to the traditions of Charlemagne, the second founder
of their city, how significant for the whole of Italy, and especially
for Florence, was the coronation of this emperor in Rome. They attribute
the new wall round the city to him also, as well as the establishment
of consular government; and their instinct was correct; for if these
acts were not the direct work of Charlemagne, they certainly were the
consequences of his work. The re-establishment of the Roman Empire must
infallibly be followed by the restoration of the ancient municipalities,
and in general by the whole of the Roman legislation, wherever it has
been destroyed by the invasion. The town was henceforth governed by
a marquis of Tuscany, as lieutenant of the empire, which was again
re-established by Otto the Great, who appears to have particularly
favoured the town of Florence.

At this period the solemn power of the imperial name was so great
that the city, whose rule already extended over a great part of the
surrounding country, and especially over the important town of Fiesole,
would never have dared to oppose the emperor, if the disputes which arose
towards the end of the eleventh century between the empire and the holy
see, had not offered it the long-wished-for opportunity to escape from
the marquisate of Tuscany. The majority of Florentines, for there were
already two parties in the city, enthusiastically espoused the cause of
the pope and the countess Matilda against the emperor Henry IV. A long
siege could not shatter their fidelity. It is from this period, probably,
that the establishment of consular government in Florence dates, which
the old chroniclers attributed to Charlemagne, and which the other towns
of Italy had long since adopted from Rome. This early constitution, which
united justice and government in the hands of two, later on of four, and
still later of six consuls, aided by a council of one hundred senators,
was maintained almost intact till 1207, when the example of the other
republics was followed and a podesta was intrusted with the jurisdiction.
Although all the free inhabitants co-operated in the election of the
magistrates, these latter were only chosen from among the urban nobility,
composed indeed of ancient middle-class families who had long been
wealthy, and of the descendants of Germanic immigrants.

_Social Conditions_

The population of Florence was then formed, as was that of the greater
number of Italian towns, of two very distinct classes--the patricians
and the people; the former included the descendants of noble families
and the burghers free since the conquest; the latter included all the
other inhabitants of the town, the ancient tributaries of the bishop or
the clients of the nobles whom they had freed. The descendants of these
freed men, and also those of immigrants from other towns, were born free,
earned much by the luxury of the upper classes, and were soon as rich as
the patricians. So, later on, they desired, and were able to obtain for
their special functionaries, entrance into the posts of the republic,
and thus it was that popular revolutions took place in the thirteenth
century. Before this time, the people were satisfied to assist in the
election of magistrates without dreaming of claiming the honour for
themselves. As for the nobles of the surrounding country who refused to
submit to the government, they were pursued, their lands devastated and
burned, even their fortresses were destroyed, so that in a short time
Florence had sole rule over the neighbouring land. The entire century
during which this constitution was in force, is filled with the sound of
strife with the nobles. At one time the young republic subdued the rock
of Fiesole, a veritable retreat of brigands; then the powerful family of
the Buondelmonti, of Monte Buono. This family, so famous and so fatal to
Florentine happiness, possessed a small castle about five miles distant
from the town which, commanding the Siena road, enabled them to impose
a toll upon all merchandise in its passage. Florence complained of this
imposition, and being refused redress destroyed their castle, obliging
them without further spoliation to become Florentine citizens; others
followed; and so they continued adding bit after bit to their possessions
by money, conquest, or persuasion, but still maintaining a close alliance
with Pisa, which at this period, although the most commercial and
military nation of Tuscany, was rivalled by Florence in ambition and
warlike propensities if not in power and celebrity.

_Municipal Wars_

[Sidenote: [1144-1146 A.D.]]

In the year 1144 all Tuscany was in arms, partly on account of these
republics, but more from those dissensions that spring from mutual
jealousy in rising states commencing the race of ambition and of
blood, who league for war as a pastime, and regard the butchery of
their fellow-creatures as legitimate amusement. Lucca and Pisa were in
constant collision, and the friendship of the former with Siena, of the
latter with Florence, occasioned a quadruple war between those states,
each jealous of the other’s ascendency; the necessities of commerce,
untouched as yet by its rivalry, kept peace between Pisa and Florence;
and the distance of the other two diminished their points of contact and
consequently their chances of quarrel.

Ulric, marquis or vice-marquis of Tuscany and imperial vicar, commanded
the Florentine army, with which he advanced to the gates of Siena and
burned a suburb; the Sienese demanded assistance from Lucca, who answered
by declaring war on Florence, not only to draw the enemy from her ally,
but also in aid of Count Guido Guerra of Modigliana, a Ghibelline chief
and confederate of Siena, who had already suffered from Florentine
aggression. Pisa on the other hand took the field at the request of
the Florentines and Count Guido’s possessions were devastated by these
combined forces while the Sienese, covertly advancing on Florence, fell
into an ambuscade and were nearly all made prisoners. More bitter was
the struggle between Pisa and Lucca where no exchange of prisoners took
place, no ransom was accepted, and where a strong personal feeling of
hatred pervaded every class; perpetual incarceration was with them the
consequence of defeat, and we are told by the bishop of Fresingen that
several years afterwards he saw “the Lucchese officers, wasted, squalid,
and miserable, in the dungeons of Pisa, drawing tears of compassion from
every passing stranger.”

At this period, however, not Tuscany alone but all northern Italy seems
to have been in similar confusion from similar causes; from jealousy,
faction, and that ever boisterous passage between comparative bondage and
complete independence, for Conrad with full employment in Germany was
forced to leave Italy uncontrolled, a prey to angry passions, unsettled
institutions, and political anarchy. The particular causes of discord
between the Tuscan cities are now difficult to trace; vicinity, by
multiplying the points of contact, increased the chances and was always a
source of dissension; but the peculiar enmity between Siena and Florence,
according to the Sienese historians, originated in the assistance given
to Henry IV during the siege of 1081; an injury in itself not easily
forgiven, but which, fostered as it was by national emulation, lasted
until long after the ruin of both republics.

[Sidenote: [1146-1204 A.D.]]

Elated by success and jealous of the counts Guidi by whose possessions
she was nearly surrounded, Florence assembled an army in February, 1146,
and besieged Monte Croce, a _castello_ about nine miles distant which
belonged to that family; but confidence in superiority of force created
carelessness of conduct, and Count Guido aided by the people of Arezzo
defeated them with great loss. For a time they were quieted by this sharp
military lesson, and a crusade the following year under the emperor
Conrad III carried off some of their more enterprising and devout spirits
to Palestine; amongst them Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida, who, after
having been knighted by Conrad, fell in battle against the infidels.[e]

So while the towns of Lombardy were leaguing together boldly to defend
the most cherished interests of independence, the little Tuscan republic
was only busy extending her territory, and increasing at the expense of
her neighbours, she was already the cunning Florence of the fifteenth
century, for whom egoism is the fundamental principle of politics.
However, it will not do to be unjust; while fighting and subduing the
neighbouring nobles she was also striking a blow at expiring Germanism;
it was the municipality triumphing over the members of the feudal body,
as at Legnano it triumphed over their chief. The emperor Frederick
Barbarossa was well aware of it; and when he came to Florence in 1184,
after the Peace of Constance, he listened with interest to the complaints
of the nobles, and was well pleased to take from the city the sovereignty
which she had violently assumed over the surrounding country, contrary to
written law. The Florentines submitted without a murmur to this severe
sentence; they knew that they had only to wait and to let the storm pass
over. In fact, four years later all the surrounding districts had once
more submitted to the burghers.

Ten years later they gained still further advantage by the interregnum
which left Germany a prey to the struggles of Otto IV and Philip of
Swabia and made Italy “a widow of her king.” It was then that they formed
a Guelf league on the model of the Lombard League, and succeeded in
subduing that part of the rural nobility which had till then remained
independent. The nobles were forced to take an oath of fidelity to the
republic and to promise to live peacefully and quietly in the town.

In the midst of these political disturbances the trade and wealth of the
city constantly increased. She had till then depended on Pisa, a much
richer and more flourishing town, to which she acted, so to say, as bank;
after destroying Fiesole, which dominated her completely by its position
and hindered her commerce, in the twelfth century, she made a swift step
forward and became, first the rival of Siena, later on that of Pisa
itself.

[Sidenote: [1138-1239 A.D.]]

This is the period which the Florentines of the following century were in
the habit of lauding as the golden age of the republic. The people were
still chivalrous and industrious; their manners were simple; dresses were
made of coarse material, women were honest and modest; young girls were
not married before the age of twenty; and men did not seek “the largest
dowry, but the best reputation.”

It would, however, be a great mistake to think that this period of
virtuous patriarchal customs, sobriety, and simple living was free from
disturbance. This people of Florence was a passionate race who had not
yet passed through two centuries of revolution, nor yet experienced the
paternal and enervating despotism of the Medicis, nor seen the armies
of Charles V. The state of the town was far from being a calm one, and
whether, because judiciary affairs had increased to too great an extent,
or because the consuls were lacking in requisite authority, it soon
became necessary, in order to maintain order and justice in the town, to
follow the example of the other republics and call in a foreign podesta.

“Vice increasing in the town,” says Malaspina,[n] “and cases of ill-will
and disputes becoming more frequent among the citizens, it was decided
in the interest of the republic, in order to facilitate the punishment
of crime and to prevent all interception, bribery, or intimidation of
justice, that a foreigner of gentle birth should be appointed to the
office of podesta for one year, to decide all trials with his judges, to
render justice, pronounce condemnation of wealth and body, and to carry
out the laws of the republic of Florence. Nevertheless the government
of the consuls did not cease, since it kept the direction of all other
business, and in this manner the town was governed till the period when
the first nation of Florence was formed.”[m]

As the two famous names of Guelf and Ghibelline originated in these two
rival houses of Bavaria and Franconia, and by their pernicious influence
destroyed Italian prosperity and happiness, a short account of them
will not here be irrelevant, especially as they were the principal
though remote source of that inveterate disunion which has left the
peninsula a constant prey to transalpine ambition. For many ages these
factions prowled over Italy like lions seeking whom they could devour;
they divided city from city, house from house, family from family; they
tore asunder all domestic ties, undermined the dearest affections,
and scattered duty, obligations, and humanity to the winds. But these
fatal appellations were originally nothing more than the distinctive
names of two princely German families whose chiefs were rivals in
personal ambition and feudal power. The enmity of one to the popes was
reason sufficient for the other’s determined adherence to the holy
see; and though mere leaders of a petty feud, their names became from
circumstances the rallying cry of two great opinions which, penetrating
with the wonted subtilty of religious and political rancour into the
smallest branches of national life, affected Italy and Germany to the
quick.

When Conrad III was crowned king of Italy, the last four emperors had
been chosen from the house of Franconia, a family that received its
name from the castle of Waiblingen, or Gueibelinga, situated amongst
the Hertfeld Mountains in the diocese of Augsburg and which was called
indiscriminately “Salic” or “Gueibelinga.” The rival house, originally
of Altdorf, at this period governed Bavaria, and in consequence of
several of its princes being named “Guelfo” or “Welf,” both the family
and its partisans received that appellation. The two last Henrys of
the Ghibelline house of Franconia had long contests with the church,
as already related, while the Bavarian Guelfs on the contrary always
declared themselves its protectors from the days of Guelf IV, son of
Albert Azzo, lord of Este, in 1076. From this branch is descended in a
direct line the royal family of England and from his brother Folco the
ancient marquises of Este, dukes of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio.

These things, springing as they did from rivalry and disappointment,
sharpened hereditary feuds, while the pontiff’s support of Lothair
augmented the Ghibellines’ enmity to holy church; these names were not,
however, permanently attached to the two factions until 1210, when
Innocent III drove the fourth Otto from the imperial throne and took
young Frederick of Sicily under his charge. The pope was then supported
by the Ghibellines; but when the same Frederick turned to rend the
church, the Guelfic banner again waved over it, and there continued until
the final dissolution of these adverse factions, long after the original
cause of their quarrels had melted entirely away.[e]

[Sidenote: [476-1250 A.D.]]

Such were the changes which the space of seven centuries from the fall
of the Roman Empire accomplished in Italy. Towards the end of the fifth
century the social tie, which had made of the empire one body, became
dissolved, and was succeeded by no other. The citizen felt nothing
for his fellow-citizen; he expected no support from him, and offered
him none. He could nowhere invoke protection; he everywhere saw only
violence and oppression. Towards the beginning of the twelfth century the
citizens of the towns of Italy had as little to expect from abroad. The
emperor of the Germans, who called himself their sovereign, was, with his
barbarian army, only one enemy more. But universally, where the circle
of the same wall formed a common interest, the spirit of association was
developed. The citizens promised each other mutual assistance. Courage
grew with liberty; and the Italians, no longer oppressed, found at last
in themselves their own defence.

When the inhabitants of the cities of Italy associated for their common
defence, their first necessity was to guard against the brigandage of
the barbarian armies, which invaded their country and treated them as
enemies; the second, to protect themselves from the robberies of other
barbarians who called themselves their masters. Their united efforts
soon insured their safety; in a few years they found themselves rich
and powerful; and these same men, whom emperors, prelates, and nobles
considered only as freed serfs, perceived that they constituted almost
the only public force in Italy. Their self-confidence grew with their
power; and the desire of domination succeeded that of independence.
Those cities which had accumulated the most wealth, whose walls enclosed
the greatest population, attempted, from the first half of the twelfth
century, to secure by force of arms the obedience of such of the
neighbouring towns as did not appear sufficiently strong to resist them.
These greater cities had no intention to strip the smaller of their
liberty; their sole purpose was to force them into a perpetual alliance,
so as to share their good or evil fortune, and always place their armed
force under the standard of the dominant city.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[3] [“The archbishop of Milan was the most powerful prince when there was
not an Italian emperor or king of Italy in the north of the peninsula.
Milan owes almost all her glory to her archbishops.”--MILMAN, _History of
Latin Christianity_.]

[4] [The famous and splendid ceremony of the espousal of the doge with
the Adriatic was instituted to symbolise this conquest.]

[5] The following is a list of the doges of Venice from about the
beginning of the eighth to the close of the thirteenth centuries:

713, Paoluccio Anafesto; 717, Marcello Tegliano; 726, Orleo Orso; 737,
Orso killed--the republic ruled by annually elected _maestro della
milizia_; 742, Diodato Orso; 755, Galla Catanio; 756, Domenico Monegaro;
764, Maurizio Galbaio; 787, Giovanni Galbaio; 796, Maurizio Galbaio II
(associated); 804, Banishment of the Galbaii--Obelerio di Antenori,
Beato and Valentino di Antenori associated; 809, Angelo Badoer; 827,
Giustiniano Badoer; 829, Giovanni Badoer; 836, Pietro Tradenigo; 864,
Orso Badoer; 881, Giovanni Badoer II; 887, Pietro Sanudo; 888, Giovanni
Badoer II; Pietro Tribuno; 912, Orso Badoer II; 932, Pietro Sanudo II;
939, Pietro Badoer; 942, Pietro Sanudo III; 959, Pietro Sanudo IV; 976,
Pietro Orseolo I; 978, Vitale Sanudo; 979, Tribuno Memo; 991, Pietro
Orseolo II; 1008, Ottone Orseolo; 1026, Pietro Barbolano; 1033, Domenico
Flabenigo; 1043, Domenico Contarini; 1071, Domenico Selvo; 1084, Vitale
Falieri; 1096, Vitale Michieli; 1102, Orlando Falieri; 1117, Domenico
Michieli; 1130, Pietro Polani; 1148, Domenico Morosini; 1156, Vitale
Michieli II; 1173, Sebastiano Ziani; 1179, Orlio Malipiero; 1192, Henry
Dandolo; 1205, Pietro Ziani; 1229, Jacopo Tiepolo; 1249, Marino Morosini;
1252, Reniero Zeno; 1268, Lorenzo Tiepolo; 1275, Jacopo Contarini; 1280,
Giovanni Dandolo.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II. IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY

FREDERICK BARBAROSSA IN ITALY

The long war of the investitures, between the Franconian emperors and the
popes, had given the first impulse to the ambition of the Lombard cities
for alliance; as general interests were involved, as it was a question
of distant operations and common danger, the cities felt the necessity
of alliances and of an active correspondence, which soon extended from
one extremity of Italy to the other. The smaller towns soon found that
this general policy was beyond their means, and that the great cities,
in which commerce and wealth had accumulated knowledge, and which alone
received the communications of the pope or of the emperor, naturally
placed themselves at the head of the league formed in their provinces,
either for the empire or for the church. These two leagues were not yet
known in Italy by the names of Guelf and Ghibelline, which in Germany had
been the war-cry of the two parties at the battle of Winsberg, fought
on the 21st of December, 1140, and which had previously distinguished,
the former the dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, devoted to the pope, the
latter, the emperors of the house of Franconia. But although these two
names, which seem since to have become exclusively Italian, had not yet
been adopted in Italy, the hereditary affection respectively for the two
parties already divided the minds of the people for more than a century,
and faction became to each a second country, often served by them with
not less heroism and devotion than their native city.[b]

[Sidenote: [1152-1155 A.D.]]

Such was the state of Italy, when the Germanic diet, assembled at
Frankfort in 1152, conferred the crown on Frederick Barbarossa, duke
of Swabia, and of the house of Hohenstaufen. This prince was nephew to
Conrad III, whom he succeeded; he was allied to the two houses of the
Guelfs and Ghibellines, which had contended with each other for the
empire, and was regarded, with good reason, by the Germans as their
most distinguished chief. Frederick Barbarossa was not only brave, but
understood the art of war, at least so far as it could be understood in
an age so barbarous. He made himself beloved by the soldiers, at the same
time that he subjected them to a discipline which others had not yet
thought of establishing. He held his word sacred; he abhorred gratuitous
cruelty, although the shedding of human blood had in general nothing
revolting in it to a prince of the Middle Ages; but the prerogatives
of his crown appeared to him sacred rights, which from pride, and even
from conscience, he was disposed to preserve and extend. The Italians
he considered in a state of revolt against the imperial throne and the
German nation, and he believed it to be his first duty to reduce them to
subjection.

[Illustration: A VENETIAN SOLDIER, TWELFTH CENTURY

(Based on Vicellio)]

Frederick Barbarossa, accordingly, in the month of October, 1154, entered
Italy with a powerful German army, by the valley of Trent. He proposed to
himself not only receiving there the crowns of Italy and the empire and
reducing to obedience subjects who appeared to him to forget their duty
to their sovereign, but also to punish in particular the Milanese for
their arrogance, to redress the complaints which the citizens of Pavia
and Cremona had brought against them, and to oblige Milan to render to
the towns of Lodi and Como, which it had dismantled, all the privileges
which Milan itself enjoyed. On arriving at Roncaglia, where the diets of
the kingdom of Italy were held, he was assailed by complaints from the
bishop and nobles against the towns, as well as by complaints against
the Milanese from the consuls of Pavia, of Cremona, of Como, and of
Lodi; while those of Crema, of Brescia, of Piacenza, of Asti and Tortona
vindicated them. Before giving judgment on the differences submitted to
his decision, Frederick announced his intention of judging for himself
the state of the country, by visiting in person Piedmont and Montferrat.
Having to pass through the Milanese territory on his way to Novara, he
commanded the consuls of Milan to supply him with provisions on the
road. The towns acknowledged that they owed the emperors upon their
journeys the dues designated by the feudal words “_foderum, parata,
mansionaticum_” (forage, food, and lodging); but the Germans, retarded in
their march by heavy and continued rain, took two days to reach a stage
which the Milanese supposed they would reach in one; provisions of course
failed; and the Germans avenged themselves on the unhappy inhabitants by
pillaging and burning the villages wherever sufficient rations were not
found.

Frederick treated with kindness the towns of Novara and Turin, but
those of Chieri and Asti had been denounced to him as entertaining the
same sentiments as Milan; the inhabitants fled at his approach, and he
plundered and burned their deserted houses. Arrived next before Tortona,
he ordered the inhabitants to renounce their alliance with the Milanese;
but they, trusting to the strength of the upper town, into which they had
retreated, while Frederick occupied the lower part, had the courage to
refuse. The Germans began the siege of Tortona on the 13th of February,
1155. They could not prevent the entrance of two hundred Milanese, to
assist in its defence. For sixty-two days did this brave people resist
the attacks of the formidable army of Frederick, the numbers of which
had been increased by the armed force of Pavia, and the other Ghibelline
towns. The want of water compelled them at last to surrender; and the
emperor allowed them to retire to Milan, taking only the few effects
which each individual could carry away. Everything else was given up
to the pillage of the soldiers, and the houses became a prey to the
flames. The Milanese received with respect these martyrs of liberty, and
every opulent house gave shelter and hospitality to some of the unhappy
inhabitants of Tortona. Frederick meanwhile placed on his head, in the
temple of Pavia, the iron crown of the kings of Lombardy, and began his
march on Rome, to receive there the golden crown of the empire.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN SOLDIER OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY]

But the Germans who accompanied the emperor, notwithstanding the ardour
with which they had undertaken this distant expedition, began to grow
tired of so long an absence from their home. The license extended to
their pillage and debauchery no longer appeared to them a sufficient
compensation for tedious marches and the dangers of war. They pressed the
emperor to advance towards Rome, and to avoid all quarrel with the great
towns by which they passed, although almost all refused to admit them
within their walls--providing subsistence and lodging for them in the
suburbs only. The impossibility of maintaining discipline in a rapacious
army, which beheld for the first time the unknown riches of commerce
and the arts; the difficulty of avoiding quarrels between two nations,
neither of which understood the language of the other, perhaps justified
this precaution. Frederick thus passed by Piacenza, Parma, Bologna, and
Florence. He was not received even into Rome; his troops occupied what
was styled the Leonine city, or the suburb built round the Vatican; he
was there crowned by the pope, Adrian IV, while his army was obliged
to repel the Romans, who advanced by the bridge of St. Angelo and the
Borgo[6] of Trastevere to disturb the ceremony. Frederick withdrew from
Rome the following day; conducting his army into the mountains to avoid
the great heat of summer. The citizens of Spoleto, not having supplied
with sufficient haste the provisions he demanded, he attacked, took,
and burned their city; sickness, however, began to thin the ranks of
his soldiers; many also deserted, to embark at Ancona. Frederick, with
a weakened army, directed his march on Germany by the valleys of the
Tyrol. The citizens of Verona, who would not admit the Germans within
their walls, constructed for him a bridge of boats on the Adige, which
he hastily passed over, but had hardly gained the opposite bank, when
enormous pieces of wood, carried down by the impetuosity of the current,
struck and destroyed the bridge. Frederick had no doubt that the Lombards
had laid this snare for him, and flattered themselves with the breaking
of the bridge whilst he should be in the act of passing over; but he was
no longer sufficiently strong to avenge himself.

[Sidenote: [1155-1158 A.D.]]

The emperor at length returned into Germany with his barbarian soldiers.
He everywhere on his passage spread havoc and desolation; the line by
which he marched through the Milanese territory was marked by fire;
the villages of Rosate, Trecale, and Galiata, the towns of Chieri,
Asti, Tortona, and Spoleto were burned. But whilst he thus proved his
barbarism, he also proved his weakness. He did not dare to attack the
stronger and more populous cities, which congratulated themselves on
having shut their gates, and refused submission to him. Thus a year’s
campaign sufficed to destroy one of the most formidable armies that
Germany had ever poured into Italy; and the example of ancient times
encouraged the belief that it would be long before the emperor could
again put the Germans in motion. The Milanese felicitated themselves on
having preserved their liberty by their courage and patriotism. Their
treasury was indeed empty; but the zeal of their opulent citizens, who
knew no other luxury than that of serving their country, soon replenished
it. These men, who poured their wealth into the treasury of the republic,
contented themselves with black bread, and cloaks of coarse stuff. At the
command of their consuls, they left Milan to join their fellow-citizens
in rebuilding, with their own hands, the walls and houses of Tortona,
Rosate, Trecale, Galiata, and other towns, which had suffered in the
contest for the common cause. They next attacked the cities of Pavia,
Cremona, and Novara, which had embraced the party of the emperor, and
subjected them to humiliating conditions; while they drew closer their
bonds of alliance with the towns of Brescia and Piacenza, which had
declared for liberty.

But Frederick had more power over Germany than any of his predecessors;
he was regarded there as the restorer of the rights of the empire and of
the German nation. He obtained credit for reducing Italy from what was
called a state of anarchy and revolt, to order and obedience. His vassals
accordingly flocked with eagerness to his standard, when he summoned
them at the feast of Pentecost, 1158, to compel the submission of Italy.
The battalions of Germany entered Lombardy at the same time by all the
passes of the Alps. Their approach to Brescia inspired the inhabitants
with so much terror, that they immediately renounced their alliance with
Milan, and paid down a large sum of money for their ransom. The Milanese,
on the contrary, prepared themselves for resistance. They had either
destroyed or fortified all the bridges of the Adda, flattering themselves
that this river would suffice to stop the progress of the emperor; but
a body of German cavalry dashed boldly into the stream, and, swimming
across the river, gained in safety the opposite bank. They then made
themselves masters of the bridge of Cassano, and the whole army entered
into the Milanese territory. Frederick, following the course of the Adda,
made choice of a situation about four miles from the ruins of the former
Lodi.[7] Here he ordered the people of Lodi to rebuild their town,
which would in future secure to him the passage of the Adda. He summoned
thither also the militias of Pavia and Cremona, with those of the other
towns of Lombardy, which their jealousy of Milan had attached to the
Ghibelline party; and it was not till after they had joined him that he
encamped, on the 8th of August, 1158, before Milan.

His engines of war, however, were insufficient to beat down the walls of
so strong and large a town; and he resolved to reduce the Milanese by
famine. He seized their granaries, burned their stacks of corn, mowed
down the autumnal harvests, and announced his resolution not to raise
the siege till the Milanese had returned to their duty. The few nobles,
however, who had preserved their independence in Lombardy, proceeded
to the camp of the emperor. One of them, the count of Blandrate, who
had before given proofs of his attachment to the town of Milan, offered
himself as a mediator, was accepted, and obtained terms not unfavourable
to the Milanese. They engaged to pay a tribute to Frederick of nine
thousand marks of silver, to restore to him his regal rights, and to
the towns of Lodi and Como their independence. On their side, they were
dispensed from opening their gates to the emperor. They preserved the
right of electing their consuls, and included in their pacification their
allies of Tortona and Crema. This treaty was signed the 7th of September,
1158.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, THIRTEENTH CENTURY]

Frederick, in granting an honourable capitulation to revolted subjects,
whom he had brought back to their obedience, had no intention of
renouncing the rights of his empire. He considered that he had preserved,
untouched, the legislative authority of the diet of his kingdom of Italy.
The Milanese, on the contrary, regarded their treaty as definitive; and
were both astonished and indignant when Frederick, having assembled,
towards the 11th of November following, the _placita_ or diets of the
kingdom at Roncaglia, promulgated by this diet a constitution which
overthrew their most precious rights. It took the administration of
justice from the hands of the consuls of towns, to place it in those of a
single judge, and a foreigner, chosen by the emperor, bearing the name of
_podesta_; it fixed the limits of the regal rights, giving them much more
importance than had been contemplated by the Milanese when they agreed to
acknowledge them; it deprived cities, as well as the other members of the
empire, of the right of making private war; it changed the boundaries of
territories appertaining to towns, and in particular took from Milan the
little town of Monza, and the counties of Seprio and of Martesana, which
the inhabitants had always regarded as their own property.

[Sidenote: [1158-1161 A.D.]]

Just motives had made the emperor and the diet consider these innovations
necessary for the public peace and prosperity; but the Milanese regarded
them only as perfidious violations of the treaty. When the podesta of
the emperor arrived at Milan to take possession of the tribunal, he was
sent contemptuously away. The Milanese flew to arms; and making every
effort to repossess the different passes of the Adda, prepared to defend
themselves behind this barrier. Frederick, on his side, assembled a new
diet of the kingdom of Italy at Bologna, in the spring of 1159, and
placed Milan under the ban of the empire.

The emperor did not yet attempt to reduce the Milanese by a regular
siege. His army was neither sufficiently numerous to invest so large a
town, nor his engines of war of sufficient force to make a breach in
such strong walls; but he proclaimed his determination to employ all his
power, as monarch of Germany and Italy, to ruin that rebellious town.
The Milanese, accordingly, soon saw their corn mowed down, their autumn
harvests destroyed, their vine stocks cut, the trees which covered their
country either cut down or barked, their canals of irrigation broken; but
the generous citizens of this new republic did not allow themselves to be
discouraged by the superior force of such an enemy, or by the inevitable
issue of such a contest. They saw clearly that they must perish; but it
would be for the honour and the liberty of Italy; they were resolved to
leave a great example to their countrymen, and to future generations.

_The Siege of Crema_

The people of Crema had remained faithful to the Milanese in their good
and evil fortune; but the siege of that town presented fewer difficulties
to the emperor than the siege of Milan. Crema was of small extent, and
could be invested on every side; it was also more accessible to the
engines of war, though surrounded by a double wall and a ditch filled
with water. The Cremonese began the siege on the 4th of July, 1159; and
on the 10th, Frederick arrived to direct it in person.[c]

The emperor regarded the inhabitants of the town as revolted subjects and
he probably expected to have little difficulty in accomplishing their
overthrow. Contrary to his expectations, however, the Cremascans proved
not only brave but stubborn, and despite his best efforts they held out
against him for about six months. The siege gave rise to many picturesque
incidents and furnished typical illustrations of the methods of warfare
of the time. Even before the first attack Frederick sought to frighten
the Cremascans into submission by the barbarous execution of several
of their citizens who had previously been sent to him as hostages.
Nothing daunted, the inhabitants of the besieged city retaliated in
kind; moreover, they gave proof of their intrepidity by sallying forth
and attempting to defeat a portion of the besieging army in open combat.
Their small numbers rendered this an act of hardihood, but it evidenced
the spirit in which they were prepared to repel the assault.

Frederick, on his part, began the construction of the usual machines
employed against walled cities. The chief of these consisted of great
towers called cats, which were tower-like structures provided with
battering-rams and with grappling-irons for tearing down walls. When
these were ready, a road-bed was made for them by filling in the
outer ditch with some two hundred casks and two hundred car-loads of
gravel. Over this improvised causeway the largest cat was slowly rolled
preparatory to the assault.

The Cremascans marshalled themselves on the walls opposite this point of
attack and assailed the cat with great stones hurled by catapults, and
with showers of blazing arrows which had been dipped in a composition of
oil, pitch, lard, and sulphur. These burning arrows were cut from the
walls of the cat with scythes, but it was with difficulty that the flames
could be extinguished, while the enemy’s projectiles threatened the
complete destruction of the invading engine before it could be brought
within close range of the walls.

Further enraged at the heroic resistance, Frederick resorted to one of
those measures of barbarity which seem almost incredible when rehearsed
to modern ears. He brought forth the Cremascan prisoners whom he had
previously spared, bound them in chains and suspended them by ropes
beneath their arms from the front of the cat. The Cremascans beheld with
horror their friends and relatives thus used to shield the foe; but at
length the needs of the many were held by the consul, Giovanni de Medici,
to outweigh the interests of the unfortunate few, and the missiles of
defence were again brought to bear upon the cat. Nine of the unfortunate
Cremascans dangling from the cat were killed, and others were frightfully
injured; but the occupants of the structure also suffered to such an
extent that they were glad presently to retire and for the moment to
acknowledge themselves beaten.

[Illustration: A GERMAN OFFICER, TWELFTH CENTURY]

Where the invaders had failed by open attack, they in the end succeeded
through the treachery of a Cremascan, one Marchisio, a mechanic of
great ingenuity, whose skill had largely aided the besieged garrison in
repulsing the enemy’s attack. Frederick found a way to approach this
man and through bribery to gain him over. The importance laid upon this
incident by the chroniclers of the siege illustrates the value that
attached to individual effort in the warfare of those times. The reader
of Roman history will recall how Archimedes long saved Syracuse from
destruction by the ingenuity with which he contrived means to repel the
assaults of the Romans. Warfare had but little changed in the interval
of about fourteen hundred years--had, indeed, but little changed since
the early days of the Egyptians and Babylonians--and the presence of one
inventive mind might seemingly suffice to turn the tide for or against
the besieged city. So now Marchisio, as the story goes, was able to
point out at once to Frederick the inadequacy of his method of attack.
He caused the emperor to abandon his cats, and to build in their place
gigantic towers, the largest being, it is said, about one hundred cubits
in height, and having attached to one of its upper stories a bridge no
less than forty-six cubits long, which would enable its occupants to
reach the wall of a city while their machine was yet at a considerable
distance. The tower itself was further guarded from missiles by brass and
iron plates.

In due course of time, these new machines being in readiness, a fresh
attack was begun. The largest tower approached within grappling distance
of the walls; the invaders poured over the bridge, despite the shower of
missiles that assailed them, and accomplished heroic deeds on the walls
where they grappled with the Cremascans. Tradition usually preserves the
names of one or two among the hardy warriors who figure in such a scene
as this. In the present case the chroniclers have loved to record the
deeds of one Berthold von Arach, represented as a giant in strength, who
was said to have sprung down from the wall with a small band of followers
and recklessly to have invaded the city itself. After performing the
usual deeds of prowess, he at last succumbed to superior numbers, and the
conqueror proudly affixed his scalp with its waving hair as a trophy to
his own helmet.

Another warrior who was said to have distinguished himself on that day
was Otto, count palatine of Bavaria. He it was whose efforts were held to
have turned the tide of battle against the Cremascans on the wall and to
have decided the fate of the day; though Conrad, his brother, who with
him led the assault, performed equal deeds of daring and barely escaped
with his life.

At last the Cremascans were driven to abandon their outer wall. On the
morrow, despairing of further defence, they offered to capitulate,
throwing themselves on the mercy of Frederick. “Sad is ever the lot
of the vanquished,” cried the despairing consul as he approached the
emperor. “Oh, sire, the hand of the Almighty is heavy upon us. We
surrender and throw ourselves upon your mercy. But if our prayers can
touch your heart let us not be delivered into the hands of the Cremonese,
whose many false accusations have wrought our ruin.” The emperor accepted
the capitulation, and extended more merciful terms than his attack in the
earlier part of the siege might have led one to expect. He permitted the
Cremascans with their wives and children to depart, as also the militias
of Brescia and Milan; the Cremascans taking with them so much as they
could carry, their allies going empty handed.[a]

“The surrender of Crema,” says Testa,[d] “took place on January 27th,
1160. When that unhappy multitude, which amounted to more than twenty
thousand persons, came forth, some with a few household goods, some with
little children in their arms, some carrying or supporting the women,
the infirm, and the wounded, it is said that, to avoid the quarters of
the Cremonese, they went close by the pavilion of the emperor; and that
he, at the sight of so much sorrow and distress, became thoughtful and
sad; until at last, seeing in the crowd an old and infirm Cremascan who,
having come to a difficult place, could hardly get any further, moved by
irresistible compassion, he went up to him, offered him his hand, and
helped him to go forward with the rest. So strongly can the most opposite
affections prevail in turn over the same heart!”

[Sidenote: [1161-1163 A.D.]]

The siege of Crema exhausted the patience of the German army. At this
period, soldiers were unaccustomed to such protracted expeditions. When
they had accomplished their feudal service, they considered they had a
right to return home. The greater number, accordingly, departed; but
Frederick, with immovable constancy, declared he would remain, with the
Italians only of the Ghibelline towns, to make war against the Milanese;
and placing himself at the head of the militias of Pavia, Cremona, and
Novara, carried on the war a whole year, during which his sole object
was to destroy the harvests, and prevent the entrance of any kind of
provision into Milan. In the month of June, 1161, a new army arrived
from Germany to his aid. His subjects began to feel ashamed of having
abandoned their monarch in a foreign country, amongst a people whom they
accused of perfidy and rebellion. They returned with redoubled animosity,
which was soon manifested by ferocious deeds; they tortured and put to
death every peasant whom they surprised carrying provisions of any kind
into Milan.

The rich citizens of the republic had aided the government in making
large magazines, which were already in part exhausted; an accidental fire
having consumed the remainder, hunger triumphed over courage and the
love of liberty. For three entire years had the Milanese, since they had
been placed under the ban of the empire, supported this unequal contest;
when, in the beginning of March, 1162, they were reduced to surrender at
discretion. In deep despair they yielded up their arms and colours, and
awaited the orders of the emperor. Frederick, harsh and haughty, was not
ferocious; never had he put to death by the executioner rebels or enemies
whom he had vanquished. He suffered nearly a month to elapse before he
pronounced his final determination; perhaps to augment the anxiety of
the subdued, perhaps, also, to pacify his own wrath, which he at last
vented on walls and inanimate objects, while he pardoned man. He ordered
the town to be completely evacuated, so that there should not be left in
it a single living being. On the 25th of March, he summoned the militias
of the rival and Ghibelline cities, and gave them orders to raze to the
earth the houses as well as the walls of the town, so as not to leave one
stone upon another.

Those of the inhabitants of Milan whom their poverty, labour, and
industry attached to the soil, were divided into four open villages,
built at a distance of at least two miles from the walls of their former
city. Others sought hospitality in the neighbouring towns of Italy;
even in those which had shown most attachment to the emperor. Their
sufferings, the extent of their sacrifices, the recollection of their
valour, and the example of their noble sentiments, made proselytes to
the cause of liberty in every city into which they were received. The
delegates of the emperor also (for he himself had returned to his German
dominions), the podestas whom he had established in every town, soon
made those Lombards who had fought with him feel only shame and regret
at having lent their aid to rivet his yoke on their own necks. All the
privileges of the nation were violated; justice was sacrificed to party
interest. Taxes continually augmenting had increased sixfold; and hardly
a third part of the produce of the land remained to the cultivator.
The Italians were universally in a state of suffering and humiliation;
tyranny at length reached even their consciences.

RIVAL POPES

On the death of Pope Adrian IV, in September, 1159, the electing
cardinals had been equally divided between two candidates; the one a
Sienese, the other a Roman. Both were declared duly elected by their
separate parties; the first, under the name of Alexander III; the second,
under that of Victor III. Frederick declared for the latter, who had
shown himself ready to sacrifice to him the liberties and independence
of the church. The former had been obliged to take refuge in France,
though almost the whole of Christendom did not long hesitate to declare
for him. While one council assembled by Frederick at Pavia rejected him,
another assembled at Beauvais not only rejected but anathematised Victor.
Excommunication at length reached even the emperor; and Alexander, to
strengthen himself against Frederick, endeavoured to gain the affections
of the people, by ranging himself among the protectors of the liberties
of Italy.

[Sidenote: [1163-1167 A.D.]]

Frederick re-entered Italy in the year 1163, accompanied not by an army,
but by a brilliant retinue of German nobles. He did not imagine that in
a country which he now considered subdued, he needed a more imposing
force; besides, he believed that he could at all times command the
militias of the Ghibelline towns; and, in fact, he made them this year
raze to the ground the walls of Tortona. He afterwards directed his steps
towards Rome, to support by his presence his schismatic pontiff; but,
in the meantime, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso, the most powerful
towns of the Veronese marches, assembled their consuls in congress, to
consider the means of putting an end to a tyranny which overwhelmed them.
The consuls of these four towns pledged themselves by oath in the name
of their cities to give mutual support to each other in the assertion
of their former rights, and in the resolution to reduce the imperial
prerogatives to the point at which they were fixed under the reign of
Henry IV. Frederick, informed of this association, returned hastily into
northern Italy, to put it down. He assembled the militias of Pavia,
Cremona, Novara, Lodi, and Como, with the intention of leading them
against the Veronese marches; but he soon perceived that the spirit of
liberty had made progress in the Ghibelline cities as well as in those of
the Guelfs; that the militias under his command complained as much of the
vexations inflicted by his podestas as those against whom he led them;
and that they were ill-disposed to face death only to rivet the chains of
their country. Obliged to bend before a people which he considered only
as revolted subjects, he soon renounced a contest so humiliating, and
returned to Germany, to levy an army more submissive to him.

Other and more pressing interests diverted his attention from this object
till the autumn of 1166. During this interval his anti-pope, Victor
III, died; and the successor whom he caused to be named was still more
strongly rejected by the church. On the other side, Alexander III had
returned from France to Rome; contracted an alliance with William, the
Norman king of the Two Sicilies; and armed the whole of southern Italy
against the emperor.

IMPERIAL CAMPAIGNS AND REVERSES

When Frederick, in the month of October, 1166, descended the mountains
of the Grisons to enter Italy by the territory of Brescia, he marched
his army directly to Lodi, without permitting any act of hostility on
the way. At Lodi, he assembled towards the end of November, a diet of
the kingdom of Italy, at which he promised the Lombards to redress the
grievances occasioned by the abuses of power by his podestas, and to
respect their just liberties; he was desirous of separating their cause
from that of the pope, and the king of Sicily; and to give greater weight
to his negotiation, he marched his army into central Italy. The towns
of Romagna and Tuscany had hitherto made few complaints, and manifested
little zeal in defence of their privileges. Frederick hoped that, by
establishing himself amongst them, he should revive their loyalty, and
induce them to augment the army which he was leading against Rome.
But he soon perceived that the spirit of liberty which animated the
other countries of Italy worked also in these; he contented himself,
accordingly, with taking thirty hostages from Bologna, and having vainly
laid siege to Ancona, he, in the month of July, 1167, marched his army
towards Rome.

The towns of the Veronese marches, seeing the emperor and his army pass
without daring to attack them, became bolder: they assembled a new diet,
in the beginning of April, at the convent of Pontida, between Milan
and Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo, of Brescia, of Mantua
and Ferrara, met there, and joined those of the marches. The union of
the Guelfs and Ghibellines, for the common liberty, was hailed with
universal joy. The deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to
the destruction of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages in
imploring aid of the confederated towns to rebuild the city of Milan.
This confederation was called the League of Lombardy. The consuls took
the oath, and their constituents afterwards repeated it, that every
Lombard should unite for the recovery of the common liberty; that the
league for this purpose should last twenty years; and, finally, that they
should aid each other in repairing in common any damage experienced in
this sacred cause, by any one member of the confederation; extending even
to the past this contract for reciprocal security, the league resolved to
rebuild Milan.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN OFFICER, TWELFTH CENTURY]

The militias of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Mantua, Verona, and Treviso
arrived the 27th of April, 1167, on the ground covered by the ruins
of this great city. They apportioned among themselves the labour of
restoring the enclosing walls; all the Milanese of the four villages,
as well as those who had taken refuge in the more distant towns, came
in crowds to take part in this pious work; and in a few weeks the
new-grown city was in a state to repel the insults of its enemies. Lodi
was soon afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to take the oath to the
league; while the towns of Venice, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, and Bologna
voluntarily and gladly joined the association.

Frederick, meanwhile, arrived within sight of Rome. The Romans dared
to await him in the open field; he defeated them with great slaughter,
and made himself master of the Leonine city. The inhabitants still
defending themselves in the Vatican, he dislodged them by setting fire
to Santa Maria, the adjoining church; Alexander, in his fright, escaped
by the Tiber. After his retreat the Romans took the oath of fidelity to
the emperor, without, however, receiving his army within their walls;
but fever, and the suffocating heat of the Campagna, soon began, by
its ravages, to avenge the Italians; from the first days of August an
alarming mortality broke out in the camp of the emperor.

[Sidenote: [1167-1174 A.D.]]

The princes to whom he was most attached, the captains in whom he had
most confidence, two thousand knights, with a proportional number of
common soldiers, were carried off in a few weeks. He endeavoured to
flee from the destructive scourge; he traversed in his retreat Tuscany
and the Lunigiana; but his route was marked with graves, in which every
day, every hour, he deposited the bodies of his soldiers. He was no
longer strong enough to vanquish even the opposition of the little town
of Pontremoli, which refused him a passage; and it was by roads almost
impracticable that he at length crossed the Apennines. He arrived at
Pavia about the middle of September, and attempted to assemble a diet;
but the deputies of Pavia, Novara, Vercelli, and Como alone obeyed his
summons. He harangued the assembly with great vehemence; and, throwing
down his glove, challenged the rebellious cities to a pitched battle.
He passed the winter in combating, with his small remaining army, the
league of Lombardy; but in the month of March, 1168, he escaped from the
Italians, and repassed Mont Cenis, to return and arm the Germans anew
against Italy.

After his departure, Novara, Vercelli, Como, Asti, and Tortona also
entered into the confederation, which resolved to found, as a monument
of its power, and as a barrier against the Ghibellines of Pavia and
Montferrat, a new city, on the confluence of the rivers Tanaro and
Bormida. The Lombards named it Alexandria (Alessandria), in honour of the
chief of the church, and of their league. They collected in it all the
inhabitants of the different villages of that rich plain, which extends
from the Po to the Ligurian Alps, and secured to them all the liberty and
privileges for which they themselves had fought.

Frederick had sacrificed more time, treasure, and blood, to strengthen
his dominion over Italy, than any of his predecessors; he had succeeded
for a long period in associating the German nation in his ambition. He
persuaded the Germans that their interest and their honour were concerned
in the submission of the Italians. They began, however, to feel tired of
a long contest, from which they derived no advantage; other interests,
affairs more pressing, demanded the presence of the emperor at home; and
Frederick was obliged to suspend for five years his efforts to subdue
Italy. During this period the towns of Lombardy, in the plenitude of
their power and liberty, corrected their laws, recruited their finances,
strengthened their fortifications, and finally placed their militias on a
better war establishment. Their consuls met also in frequent diets, where
they bound themselves by new oaths to the common defence, and admitted
fresh members into the confederation, which at length reached to the
extremity of Romagna.

Frederick, however, did not entirely abandon Italy. He sent thither
Christian, the elected archbishop of Mainz, and arch-chancellor of the
empire, as his representative. This warlike prelate soon felt that there
was nothing to be done in Lombardy; and he proceeded to Tuscany, where
the Ghibelline party still predominated. His first pretension was to
establish peace between the two maritime republics of Genoa and Pisa,
which disputed with arms in their hands the commerce of the East. As he
found a greater spirit of pride and independence in the Pisans, he caused
to be thrown into a dungeon their consuls, who had presented themselves
at the diet of the Tuscan towns convoked by him at San Ginasio, in the
month of July, 1173; he arrested, at the same time, the consuls of the
Florentines, their allies, while he studiously flattered those of Lucca,
of Siena, of Pistoia, and the nobles of Tuscany, Romagna, and Umbria;
promising to avenge them on their enemies: but, said he, “to do so more
effectually, you must first co-operate with me in crushing the enemies of
the emperor.” He thus succeeded in persuading them to second him in the
attack which he meditated for the following spring on Ancona.

This city, the most southern of all those attached to the league of
Lombardy, contained about twelve thousand inhabitants, enriched by
maritime commerce, and confident in the strength of their almost
unassailable position. Their town, beautifully situated on the extremity
of a promontory, which surrounded a magnificent port, presented on the
side open to the continent only precipitous rocks, with the exception of
a single causeway. The citizens had accordingly repulsed successively
for ages all the attacks of the barbarians, and all the pretensions of
the emperors. The archbishop Christian arrived before Ancona in the
beginning of April, 1174, and invested the city with an army levied among
the Ghibellines of Tuscany and Umbria. The people of Ancona repulsed
their attack with their accustomed bravery. But hunger, more formidable
than the sword, soon menaced them. The preceding harvests had failed;
their granaries were empty; and an enemy’s fleet closed their port. They
saw the harvest ripen, without the possibility of a single sack of corn
reaching them. All human subsistence was soon exhausted; undismayed,
however, they tried to support existence with the herbs and shell-fish
which they gathered from their rocks, or with the leather which commerce
had accumulated in their magazines. Such was the food on which had long
subsisted a young and beautiful woman. Observing one day a soldier
summoned to battle, but unable from hunger to proceed, she refused her
breast to the child whom she suckled; offered it to the warrior; and sent
him, thus refreshed, to shed his blood for his country.

But to whatever distress the people of Ancona were reduced, they rejected
every proposal to capitulate. At length the succour invoked from the
Guelfs of Ferrara and Romagna approached; Christian saw the fires which
they lighted on the mountain of Falcognara, about four miles from Ancona;
and, unable to give them battle with an army exhausted by the fatigues of
a long siege, he hastily retreated.

FREDERICK ONCE MORE AGGRESSIVE

[Sidenote: [1174-1175 A.D.]]

In the beginning of October, 1174, Frederick, at the head of a formidable
army, again re-entered Italy. He passed from the county of Burgundy into
Savoy, and descended by Mont Cenis. Suza, the first town to which he
came on his passage, was taken and burned; Asti, in alarm, opened its
gates, and purchased its security from pillage by a heavy contribution;
but Alexandria stopped the progress of the emperor. This city, recently
founded by the league of Lombardy, did not hesitate to enter into a
contest with the imperial power for the sake of its confederates;
although its mud walls were an object of derision to the Germans, who
first gave this town the surname of Alessandria _della paglia_, or
of straw. Nevertheless these walls of mud and straw, but defended by
generous and devoted citizens, resisted all the efforts of the most
valiant army and the most warlike monarch of Germany. Frederick consumed
in vain four months in a siege, which was prolonged through the winter.
The inundation of rivers more than once threatened him with destruction,
even in his camp; sickness also decimated his soldiers. Finally, the
combined army of the Lombard League advanced from Piacenza to Tortona;
and on Easter Sunday of the year 1175, Frederick found himself obliged to
raise the siege, and to march for Pavia, to repose his army.

This last check at length compelled the emperor to acknowledge the
power of a people which he had been accustomed to despise. The chiefs
of the Lombard army showed themselves well prepared for battle; but
still respecting the rights of their monarch, declined attacking him.
He entered into negotiations with them; all professed their ardent
desire to reconcile the prerogatives of the emperor and the rights of
the Roman church with those of liberty. Six commissioners were appointed
to settle the basis of a treaty which should reconcile the several
claims. They began by demanding that the armies on each side should
be disbanded. Frederick did not hesitate to comply; he dismissed his
Germans, and remained at Pavia, trusting solely to the fidelity of his
Italian Ghibellines. Legates from the pope arrived also to join the
commissioners; and the negotiations were opened. But the demands of
Frederick were so high as to render agreement almost impossible. He
declared that he desired only his just rights; “but they must be those,”
said he, “which have been exercised by my predecessors, Charlemagne,
Otto, and the emperors Henry III and Henry IV.” The deputies of the towns
opposed to this the concessions of Henry V and Lothair; but even these
could no longer satisfy them. For the Italians, liberty had advanced with
civilisation; and they could not now submit to the ancient prerogatives
of their masters, without returning to their own ancient barbarism.

THE BATTLE OF LEGNANO; THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE

[Sidenote: [1175-1177 A.D.]]

The negotiations were broken off, and Frederick sent to Germany for
another army, which, in the spring of 1176, entered the territory of
Como by the Grisons. The emperor joined it about the end of May, after
traversing, without being recognised, the territory of Milan. It was
against this great town that he entertained the most profound resentment,
and meditated a new attack. He flattered himself that he should find
the citizens still trembling under the chastisement which he had before
inflicted on their city. On the 29th of May, he met the Milanese army
between Legnano and Barano, about fifteen miles from Milan. Only a few
auxiliaries from Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Novara, and Vercelli had yet
joined them. An impetuous charge of the German cavalry made that of the
Lombards give way. The enemy pressed forward so near the _carroccio_, as
to give great alarm lest this sacred car should fall into their hands.
But in the army of the Milanese there was a company of nine hundred young
men, who had devoted themselves to its defence, and were distinguished
by the name of “the company of death.” These brave youths, seeing the
Germans gain ground, knelt down; and invoking God and St. Ambrose,
renewed their vow to perish for their country; then rising, they advanced
with such impetuosity that the Germans were disconcerted, divided, and
driven back. The whole army, reanimated by this example, hastily pressed
forward. The Germans were put to flight; their camp was pillaged;
Frederick was separated from his companions in arms, and obliged to
conceal himself, and it was not till he had passed several days, and
encountered various dangers, that he succeeded in reaching Pavia, where
the empress was already mourning his death.

[Sidenote: [1177-1183 A.D.]]

The defeat of Legnano at length determined Frederick to think seriously
of peace, and to abandon pretensions which the Lombards resisted with
so much energy. New negotiations were opened with the pope; and Venice
was chosen, in concert with him, as the place for holding a congress.
This town had withdrawn its signature from the league of Lombardy; it
was acknowledged foreign to the Western Empire, and might be considered
neutral and indifferent in the quarrel between the emperor and the free
towns. The pope, Alexander III, arrived at Venice on the 24th of March,
1177. The emperor, whose presence the Venetians feared, first fixed his
residence at one of his palaces, near Ravenna; approached afterwards as
far as Chioggia, and finally came even to Venice. The negotiation bore
upon three different points--to reconcile the emperor to the church, by
putting an end to the schism; to restore peace between the empire of the
West and that of the East, and the king of the Two Sicilies; and finally
to define the constitutional rights of the emperor and of the cities of
Lombardy.[c] Frederick was obliged to bend before the angry countenance
of a proud priest, and offer his head as a footstool to the Roman bishop!

“I will tread upon the aspic and basilisk,” said the pontiff as he placed
his foot upon the emperor’s neck, “and the lion and the dragon will I
trample beneath my feet.” “_Non tibi sed Petro_,” replied the prince.
“_Et mihi et Petro_,”[8] haughtily returned the priest while he pressed
more firmly on the humbled monarch.[b] So at least the story goes. But
unfortunately it is a narrative that cannot be accepted without many
grains of allowance. Contemporary accounts do not give these picturesque
details, and we are forced to conclude that the story of Frederick’s
humiliation was embellished in after times with incidents quite foreign
to the reality. But, divested of all apocryphal incidents, Frederick’s
concessions to the pope constituted a distinct abasement of the imperial
authority. If Alexander did not literally tread upon the neck of the
emperor, he was certainly entitled to feel that he was figuratively
grinding the secular “aspic and basilisk,” the royal “lion and dragon,”
beneath his spiritual heel.[a]

Frederick had few subjects of dispute with the Grecian emperor, or the
Norman king of the Sicilies; these parts of the treaty were not difficult
to terminate. But that part which related to the league of Lombardy must
be founded on a new order of ideas; it was the first pact that Europe
had seen made between a monarch and his subjects; the first boundary
line traced between authority and liberty. After long and vain attempts,
the negotiators separated, contenting themselves only with obliging
the emperor and the Lombards to conclude a truce of six years, bearing
date from the 1st of August, 1177. During its existence, the rights on
each side were to remain suspended; and the freedom of commerce was
re-established between the cities which remained faithful to the emperor,
and those which drew still closer their bonds of union by a renewal of
the league of Lombardy.

The six years of repose, however, which this truce guaranteed, accustomed
the emperor to submit to limitations of his authority. Thirty years had
passed since the contest had begun between him and the Italian nation;
age had now tempered his activity and calmed his pride. New incidents
had arisen in Germany to fix his attention. His son, Henry VI, demanded
to be associated in the sovereignty of his two kingdoms of Germany and
Italy. A definitive peace only could restore to Frederick his rights
and revenues in Lombardy, which his subjects there did not dispute, but
which the truce held suspended. The adverse claims were honestly weighed
at the Diet of Constance; reciprocal concessions were made both by the
monarch and his subjects, and the Peace of Constance, the basis of new
public rights for Italy, was at length signed on the 25th of June, 1183.
By this peace the emperor renounced all regal privileges which he had
hitherto claimed in the interior of towns. He acknowledged the right
of the confederate cities to levy armies, to enclose themselves within
fortifications, and to exercise by their commissioners within their own
walls both civil and criminal jurisdiction. The consuls of towns acquired
by the simple nomination of the people all the prerogatives of imperial
vicars. The cities of Lombardy were further authorised to strengthen
their confederation for the defence of their just rights, recognised by
the Peace of Constance. But, on the other side, they engaged to maintain
the just rights of the emperor, which were defined at the same time; and
in order to avoid all disputes, it was agreed that these rights might
always be bought off by the annual sum of two thousand marks of silver.
Thus terminated, in the establishment of a legal liberty, the first
and most noble struggle which the nations of modern Europe have ever
maintained against despotism.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN OFFICER, TWELFTH CENTURY]

The generous resistance of the Lombards, during a war of thirty years,
had conquered from the emperors political liberty for all the towns
of the kingdom of Italy. The right of obeying only their own laws, of
being governed by their own magistrates, of contracting alliances, of
making peace or war, and, in fine, of administering their own finances,
with the exception only of a certain revenue payable into the imperial
treasury, was more particularly secured by the Peace of Constance to the
confederate cities of the league of Lombardy.

But the Germans easily comprehended the impossibility of refusing to
their allies the privileges which their enemies had gained by conquest;
the liberties, therefore, stipulated by the Peace of Constance, were
rendered common to all the towns of Italy; and those which had been most
distinguished by their attachment to the Ghibelline party were often
found the most zealous for the establishment and preservation of all the
rights of the people. The cities, however, did not consider themselves
independent. They were proud of the title of members of the empire; they
knew they must concur in its defence, as well as in the maintenance of
internal peace; reserving only that it must be in pursuance of their
free choice and deliberation. They were in a manner confederates of an
emperor, who acted on them rather by persuasion than orders, rather
as a party chief than as a monarch; and as he was habituated to this
compromise with public opinion in his relations with the princes of the
empire, he yielded with the less repugnance to his Italian subjects.
It is a circumstance highly honourable to the princes of the house of
Hohenstaufen, which continued to reign sixty-seven years after the Peace
of Constance, that during this long period they made no attempt to
infringe the conditions of the compact. They admitted, with good faith,
all the consequences of the concessions made; they pardoned liberty,
which the vulgar order of kings always regarded as a usurpation by the
subjects of the rights of the crown.

DEATH OF FREDERICK; HIS SUCCESSOR

[Sidenote: [1183-1198 A.D.]]

It was not long, however, before the struggle was renewed between the
emperor and most of the towns. It was supported with not less devotion
and not fewer sacrifices; it caused not less calamity whilst it endured;
and it was crowned, at its close, with results not less happy. But the
cities did not, as in the preceding struggle, engage in it for their own
immediate interest; they rather seconded the policy of the holy see,
which sought the independence of the church and of Italy, and did not
cease to fight for the attainment of this object till the extinction of
the house of Hohenstaufen.

Frederick I survived the Peace of Constance seven years. During this
period he visited Italy with his son Henry VI; he remained some time
at Milan, where he was received with respect, and gained the affection
of all the inhabitants, towards whom he testified the utmost trust,
confidence, and kindness. Instead of endeavouring to intimidate Lombardy,
and recover by intrigues his former power, he was occupied only with
the marriage of his son Henry, whom he had previously crowned king
of Germany, with Constanza, sole heiress of the Norman kings who had
conquered the Two Sicilies. The union of this crown with that of Germany
and of Lombardy would have reduced the pope to be no more than the
first bishop of his states; it would have disarmed the two auxiliary
powers which had supported the league of Lombardy against the emperor;
and it alarmed the church, in proportion as it flattered his ambition.
The endeavours to prevent or dissolve this union gave rise to a series
of wars extending over a long period. Frederick Barbarossa did not see
the commencement of them. When the news of the taking of Jerusalem
by Saladin, on the 2nd of October, 1187, had thrown all Europe into
consternation, Frederick, listening only to his religious and chivalric
enthusiasm, placed himself at the head of the Third Crusade, which he
led into the East by land, and died the 10th of June, 1190, of a stroke
of apoplexy, caused by the coldness of the waters of the little river
Calycadnus [Salef] in Asia Minor.

Henry VI had worn for five years the German and Italian crowns, when he
received in Germany, where he then was with his wife, news of the death
of William II, king of the Two Sicilies, to whom Constanza was successor;
and a few months after, that of his father Frederick I. He immediately
began his journey towards southern Italy. Tancred, a bastard of the race
of the Norman kings, put in opposition to him by the Sicilians, defended,
for some time with success, the independence of those provinces, but
died in 1194; and Henry, who had entered the kingdom as conqueror, and
had made himself detested for his cruelty, also died there suddenly, on
the 28th of September, 1197. He left by his marriage with Constanza only
one son, Frederick II, hardly four years old, who lost his mother in the
following year; and was, under the protection of the pope, acknowledged,
child as he was, king of the Two Sicilies; but the imperial and Lombard
crowns were withheld from him for several years.

GROWING POWER OF THE NOBILITY

From the Peace of Constance to the death of Henry VI the free cities of
Italy had, for the space of fifteen years, no contest to maintain against
the emperors; but their repose and liberty were during this period
constantly endangered by the pretensions of the nobility. The growing
grandeur of the cities, and the decay of the imperial power, had left the
nobles of Italy in a very ambiguous position.

They in some measure no longer had a country; their only security was
in their own strength; for the emperor in resigning his power over the
towns had not thought of giving an organisation to the nobles dispersed
in castles. All the families of Italian dukes, and almost all those of
marquises and counts, had become extinct; those who remained had lost all
jurisdiction over their inferiors; no feudal tenure was respected; no
vassal appeared at the baronial court, to form the tribunal of his lord.
The frontiers of the kingdom of Lombardy were called _marches_, after
a German word adopted into almost all the European languages, and the
commander of these frontiers was called marquis; but the families of the
powerful Tuscan marquises were extinct, as well as those of the marquises
of Ancona, of Fermo, of Camerino, of Ivrea, and of those of the Veronese
and Trevisan marches. There remained, however, on these frontiers some
families which bore the same title, and had preserved some wrecks of
these ancient and powerful marquisates.

The nobles were not united by the hierarchical connection of the
feudal system, but by the affections or antipathies of the Guelfs or
Ghibellines. In general, the most powerful families among the nobles,
those who had castles sufficiently strong, lands sufficiently extensive,
and vassals sufficiently numerous to defend themselves, listening only
to the ambition of courts, were attached to the Ghibelline party. Those
families, on the contrary, who possessed castles capable of but little
resistance, situated on accessible eminences, or in plains; those whose
castles were near great towns, and too weak to support a contest with
them, had demanded to be made citizens of the towns; they had served them
in the wars of the league of Lombardy; they had since taken a principal
share in the government, and they thus found themselves attached by
common interests to the party of the Guelfs. Independent nobles were no
more to be found in all the plains of Lombardy; there was not one who
had not become citizen of some republic; but every chain of mountain was
thick-set with castles where a nobility, choosing obedience to an emperor
rather than to citizens, maintained themselves independent; these too,
attracted sometimes by the wealth and pleasures of towns, and sometimes
desirous of obtaining influence in the counsels of powerful republics,
in order to restore them to the emperor, demanded to be made citizens,
when they thought it would open the way to a share in the government; and
as war was their sole occupation, they were often gladly received by the
republics, which stood in need of good captains.

It was thus the Ghibelline family of Visconti, whose fiefs extended from
the Alps to the Lago Maggiore, became associated with the republic of
Milan. The house of Este, allied to the Guelfs of Saxony and Bavaria, and
devoted to the pope, possessors of several castles built on the fertile
chain of the Euganean hills, joined the republic of Ferrara; the parallel
chain, which serves as a base to the Tyrolese Alps, was crowned with the
castles of Ezzel, Ezzelino, or Eccelino, of Romano, a family enriched by
the emperors, entirely devoted to the Ghibelline party, and in process
of time attached to the republics of Verona and Vicenza. In like manner
were situated on the northern side of the Apennines the fortresses of the
Ghibelline nobles, who excited revolutions in the republics of Piacenza,
Parma, Reggio, and Modena: on the southern side were the castles of other
Ghibellines, in turns citizens and enemies of the republics of Arezzo,
Florence, Pistoia, and Lucca; lower in the valleys of the Po, or in
the upper vale of Arno, were the castles of the Guelfs, who had become
decidedly citizens of the same republics.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[6] Borgo is the communication between Trastevere and the Vatican.

[7] [In 1111, the Milanese totally destroyed the city of Lodi, and
forbade its rebuilding. Nevertheless a prosperous commune again came into
existence, and in 1158 the Milanese came again, repeating their work of
destruction in a more thorough manner.]

[8] [“Not to you but to St. Peter (I kneel),” said the prince. “Both to
me and to Peter,” returned the priest.]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III. THE NORMANS IN SICILY

A people forsooth most astute, vengeful of injuries; in the
hope of profit elsewhere despising their paternal territories,
imitative in every way, keeping some mean betwixt prodigality
and avarice. Their leaders indeed are most prodigal from their
delight in reputation. They are a people apt in flattery, so
studious of eloquence that even the very boys you’ll find are
orators. Unless kept under the yoke of law, the race is most
exceedingly unrestrained (_effrenatissima_) yet long suffering
in toil, in famine, in cold, when fortune demands; industrious
in falcon hunting. They rejoice in horses and the other affairs
of war, and in luxurious garb. From their name indeed comes the
name of their land. North in English means the region of the
north wind (_aquilo_) and because they themselves came thence
they call the land Normannia [Normandy].--MALATERRA.[b]

[Sidenote: [787-1204 A.D.]]

Normans is the softened form of the word “Northman,” applied first to the
people of Scandinavia in general, and afterwards specially to the people
of Norway. In the form of “Norman” (Northmannus, Normannus, Normand) it
is the name of those colonists from Scandinavia who settled themselves
in Gaul, who founded the Norman duchy, who adopted the French tongue and
French manners, and who from their new home set forth on new errands
of conquest, chiefly in the British Islands and in southern Italy and
Sicily. From one point of view the expeditions of the Normans may be
looked on as continuations of the expeditions of the Northmen. As the
name is etymologically the same, so the people are by descent the same,
and they are still led by the old spirit of war and adventure.

[Sidenote: [787-1090 A.D.]]

But in the view of general history Normans and Northmen must be carefully
distinguished. The change in the name is the sign of a thorough change,
if not in the people themselves, yet in their historical position. Their
national character remains largely the same; but they have adopted a
new religion, a new language, a new system of law and society, new
thoughts and feelings on all matters. Like as the Norman is still to the
Northmen, the effect of a settlement of Normans is utterly different from
the effect of a settlement of Northmen. There can be no doubt that the
establishment of a Norman power in England was, like the establishment
of the Danish power, greatly helped by the essential kindred of Normans,
Danes, and English. But it was helped only silently. To all outward
appearances the Norman conquest of England was an event of an altogether
different character from the Danish conquest. The one was a conquest
by a people whose tongue and institutions were still palpably akin to
those of the English. The other was a conquest by a people whose tongue
and institutions were palpably different from those of the English.
The Norman settlers in England felt no community with the earlier
Danish settlers in England. In fact the Normans met with the steadiest
resistance in a part of England which was largely Danish. But the effect
of real, though unacknowledged, kindred had none the less an important
practical effect. There can be no doubt that this hidden working of
kindred between conquerors and conquered in England, as compared with the
utter lack of all fellowship between conquerors and conquered in Sicily,
was one cause out of several which made so wide a difference between the
Norman conquest of England and the Norman conquest of Sicily.

These two conquests, wrought in the great island of the ocean and in
the great island of the Mediterranean, were the main works of the
Normans after they had fully put on the character of a Christian and
French-speaking people, in other words, after they had changed from
Northmen into Normans. The English and the Sicilian settlements form
the main Norman history of the eleventh century. The tenth century is
the time of the settlement of the Northmen in Gaul, and of the change
in religion and language of which the softening of the name is the
outward sign. By the end of it, any traces of heathen faith, and even
of Scandinavian speech, must have been mere survivals. The new creed,
the new speech, the new social system, had taken such deep root that the
descendants of the Scandinavian settlers were better fitted to be the
armed missionaries of all these things than the neighbours from whom they
had borrowed their new possessions. With the zeal of new converts they
set forth on their new errand very much in the spirit of their heathen
forefathers. If Britain and Sicily were the greatest fields of their
enterprise, they were very far from being the only fields. The same
spirit of enterprise which brought the Northmen into Gaul seems to carry
the Normans out of Gaul into every corner of the world.[c]

We may for the present leave the ethnology and early history of the
Northmen to the later history of Scandinavia, and fuller details of their
invasions of France and England to the histories of those countries,
giving here only a brief résumé of their wanderings, and a fuller account
of their career in the powerful little kingdom in Sicily where they
meddled busily with the affairs of all Europe, and much of Asia and
Africa. This was, as Freeman[c] says, “the most brilliant time for Sicily
as a power in the world.” Even under the Greeks it was not so prominent.
But before reaching this period, some mention of their first appearances
in continental European history is necessary.[a]

Evils still more terrible than political abuses were the lot of those
nations who had been subject to Charlemagne. They, indeed, may appear
to us little better than ferocious barbarians: but they were exposed
to the assaults of tribes, in comparison with whom they must be deemed
humane and polished. Each frontier of the empire had to dread the attack
of an enemy. The Saracens of Africa possessed themselves of Sicily and
Sardinia, and became masters of the Mediterranean Sea.

[Sidenote: [787-870 A.D.]]

Much more formidable were the foes by whom Germany was assailed. The
Slavonians, a widely extended people, whose language is still spoken
upon half the surface of Europe, had occupied the countries of Bohemia,
Poland, and Pannonia, on the eastern confines of the empire, and from
the time of Charlemagne acknowledged its superiority. But at the end of
the ninth century, a Tatarian tribe, the Hungarians, overspreading that
country which since has borne their name, and moving forward like a vast
wave, brought a dreadful reverse upon Germany. All Italy, all Germany,
and the south of France, felt the scourge; till Henry the Fowler, and
Otto the Great, drove them back by successive victories within their own
limits, where in a short time they learned peaceful arts, adopted the
religion, and followed the policy of Christendom.

[Illustration: A SLAVONIAN OF THE TENTH CENTURY]

If any enemies could be more destructive than these Hungarians, they
were the pirates of the north, known commonly by the name of Northmen
(Normans). The love of a predatory life seems to have attracted
adventurers of different nations to the Scandinavian seas, from whence
they infested, not only by maritime piracy, but continual invasions,
the northern coasts both of France and Germany. The causes of their
sudden appearance are inexplicable, or at least could only be sought in
the ancient traditions of Scandinavia. For undoubtedly the coasts of
France and England were as little protected from depredations under the
Merovingian kings, and those of the Heptarchy, as in subsequent times.
Yet only one instance of an attack from this side is recorded, and that
before the middle of the sixth century, till the age of Charlemagne. In
787, the Danes, as we call those northern plunderers, began to infest
England, which lay most immediately open to their incursions. Soon
afterwards they ravaged the coasts of France. Charlemagne repulsed them
by means of his fleets; yet they pillaged a few places during his reign.
It is said that, perceiving one day, from a port in the Mediterranean,
some Norman vessels which had penetrated into that sea, he shed tears,
in anticipation of the miseries which awaited his empire. In the ninth
century, the Norman pirates not only ravaged the Balearic Isles, and
nearer coasts of the Mediterranean, but even Greece.

THE NORMANS IN FRANCE

[Sidenote: [870-923 A.D.]]

In Louis’ reign their depredations upon the coast were more incessant,
but they did not penetrate into the inland country, till that of Charles
the Bald. The wars between that prince and his family, which exhausted
France of her noblest blood, the insubordination of the provincial
governors, even the instigation of some of Charles’ enemies, laid all
open to their inroads. They adopted a uniform plan of warfare both in
France and England; sailing up navigable rivers in their vessels of
small burden, and fortifying the islands which they occasionally found,
they made these intrenchments at once an asylum for their women and
children, a repository for their plunder, and a place of retreat from
superior force. After pillaging a town, they retired to these strongholds
or to their ships; and it was not till 872 that they ventured to keep
possession of Angers, which, however, they were compelled to evacuate.

Sixteen years afterwards, they laid siege to Paris, and committed
the most ruinous devastations on the neighbouring country. As these
Northmen were unchecked by religious awe, the rich monasteries, which
had stood harmless amidst the havoc of Christian war, were overwhelmed
in the storm. Perhaps they may have endured some irrecoverable losses
of ancient learning; but their complaints are of monuments disfigured,
bones of saints and kings dispersed, treasures carried away. St. Denis
redeemed its abbot from captivity with 685 pounds of gold. All the
chief abbeys were stripped about the same time, either by the enemy,
or for contributions to the public necessity. So impoverished was the
kingdom, that in 860 Charles the Bald had great difficulty in collecting
3000 pounds of silver, to subsidise a body of Northmen against their
countrymen. The kings of France, too feeble to prevent or repel these
invaders, had recourse to the palliative of buying peace at their hands,
or rather precarious armistices, to which reviving thirst of plunder
soon put an end. At length Charles the Simple, in 918, ceded a great
province (Neustria), which they had already partly occupied, partly
rendered desolate, and which has derived from them the name of Normandy.
Ignominious as this appears, it proved no impolitic step. Rollo [Rolf or
Hrolf an exile from Norway], the Norman chief, with all his subjects,
became Christians and Frenchmen.[d]

France would have only had to congratulate herself upon the assignment
she had been compelled to make to the Normans, had the Treaty of
Saint-Clair ratified peace forever between the kingdom and this nation
of pirates. Unfortunately such was not the case, and for a considerable
time the Normans continued to add their ravages to the burden of the many
sacrifices France had made, of all the calamities she had experienced.

Some years before, a number of pagans who were independent of Rollo, but
of whose adventures but little is known, had established themselves at
the mouth of the Loire. Rollo came and attacked them in their retreat,
but they defended themselves valiantly, and the conqueror of the shores
of the Seine was obliged to return to his domains, and leave the pagans
in possession of the mouth of the Loire. Sometime afterwards, both
companies united and fought together; this came about in the following
manner. There was much indignation in France on account of the deplorable
government of Charles the Simple, the last degenerate scion of the
Carlovingian race. Rudolf or Ralph, duke of Burgundy, who was considered
the only man capable of putting a stop to the anarchy in the kingdom and
the ravages of the Normans, was proclaimed king.

Charles entreated the help of the Normans of the Seine, and those of the
Loire. Accordingly they all came to join the forces of the fallen king,
marched with them towards the Oise, marking their progress by their usual
devastations. For the first time, the people of the north interposed in
a civil war which did not concern them. Rudolf turned his forces against
them, and put them to flight. They revenged themselves by killing the
prisoners they had taken. Regnaud, leader of the Normans of the Loire,
who had extended his inroads as far as Arras, was forced to retire to his
strongholds. Immediately after this retreat, the Burgundians crossed the
Epte and put Normandy to fire and sword. Rollo, who evidently had not
expected this invasion, made a truce with Rudolf, and gave him hostages,
as a guarantee of his peaceable intentions, but, in his turn, set up
claims which had to be satisfied. King Charles, he said, whose cause
he had followed, had promised him more lands. To do no less than the
dethroned monarch, Rudolf, according to Flodoard (or Frodoard),[e] the
historian, bestowed upon Rollo, Bessin, and also Maine. The Normans of
the Loire were treated in like manner, and it seems that a sum of money
was granted to them, and that a tax had to be levied in all parts of
France to pay it.

[Sidenote: [923-930 A.D.]]

The kingdom continued to be very much agitated by political events.
Although he twice sold peace to Rudolf and broke it again, the Norman
duke embraced Count Heribert’s cause, who, forsaking Rudolf after
seconding him ably, had gone over to the dethroned prince, his prisoner,
and with the assent of Rollo and Hugh, had again proclaimed the unhappy
Charles king. All seemed lost to Rudolf. But Charles was the puppet of
his party; scarcely had he reascended the throne, than Heribert once
more changed his mind, flung the phantom prince into prison again, and
acknowledged Rudolf. Charles died sometime after in the castle of his
jailer.

Whilst these events were taking place in the interior of France, the
Breton generals, in the vicinity of Normandy, commenced, perhaps in
revenge for the incursions of the Scandinavians, ravaging the territory
of their neighbours, and invaded the province of Bayeux, but Rollo
appeared with his warriors, engaged in battle with the aggressors and
conquered them. One of the Breton counts, Beranger, yielded to the
Normans; another, Alan, the chief instigator of the war, took refuge in
England. The nobles who had fought under these two commanders established
themselves in France, in Burgundy, or in Aquitaine; some of them followed
Alan to England. All those who remained were obliged to acknowledge the
suzerainty of the duke of Normandy. The neighbouring provinces, such as
Anjou and Poitou, were henceforth delivered from the hostile irruptions
of these turbulent chiefs. Thus, Rollo, in his old age, found himself
the peaceful possessor of Normandy, and able to maintain order and peace
therein.

It is said that Charles the Simple, while he was still upon the
throne, secretly sent emissaries to Rouen to his daughter Gisela who
had married Rollo; that this clandestine mission gave umbrage to the
Normans, and that Rollo seized and publicly put to death the envoys of
his father-in-law. Gisela died sometime afterwards; and Rollo lived as
before with Popa, by whom he had two children, a son named William, and a
daughter called Gerloc, who later received the Christian name of Adela or
Adeline.

When William grew to man’s estate, the Norman nobles requested their
duke to appoint his successor. He named his son, and he it was the
Normans had in mind, in spite of his illegitimacy. The nobles swore
fidelity and obedience to him beforehand. Rollo lived for five years
after this important event, and died of old age at Rouen. The precise
date of his death, and also his age, are unknown. Everything tends to
show that it was about the year 930, that the death of the first and
probably octogenarian duke of Normandy took place. His bravery, his
steadfastness, the energy of his government are incontestable, but it is
permissible to doubt the truth of the eulogies which the Norman monks in
their chronicles have bestowed upon his devotion, and his respect for
the clergy. It is possible he enriched the churches and convents, that
he walked in processions, and with bare feet before the relics of St.
Ouen, formerly taken to France, and which he forced his father-in-law to
restore; but on the other hand we read in an English chronicle, that he
sold or allowed to be sold many relics belonging to the Norman churches,
which were acquired by his ally, Athelstan, king of England.

A French historian, Adhémar,[f] even declares that, feeling his end
approaching, Rollo caused a hundred Christian prisoners to be sacrificed
to the northern idols, and he gave a hundred pounds in gold as a gift to
the churches of Normandy in order to propitiate the pagan gods and the
Christian deity at the same time. According to another historian it was
at the moment that he was about to embrace the Christian faith that Rollo
offered a last human sacrifice to the divinities of that worship he was
forsaking. Perhaps that massacre of Christian prisoners, which he ordered
when Rudolf drove him back from the north of France, was the cause of
these strange tales.

Rollo was buried in the church he had built at Rouen; afterwards his
remains were placed in a chapel of the cathedral itself. His tomb, facing
that of his son, is still to be seen there.[g]

THE NORMANS COME TO ITALY

[Sidenote: [930-1053 A.D.]]

When the Northmen, or Normans, had embraced Christianity, in their
attachment to pilgrimage to the Holy Land, they surpassed all the
European people. This was consistent enough with the habits of men, the
most enterprising, courageous, and valiant on earth. Two motives appear
to have directed their route to Naples; Mounts Cassino and Gargano were
illustrious for miracles; and from Naples, Gaeta, Amalfi, or Bari, parts
which maintained a constant intercourse with the East, a passage to Syria
might easily be obtained.

Early in the eleventh century, while forty of these adventurers were at
Salerno, on their return from the Holy Land, a Saracen fleet anchored
off the coast, and demanded heavy contributions as a reward for sparing
the city. The Normans instantly asked Guiomar III, prince of the place,
for arms. To the astonishment of the inhabitants, they mounted their
steeds, caused the gates to be opened, and plunged into the midst of the
misbelievers, many of whom they slew, the rest they forced precipitately
to embark.[9] Guiomar, with the hope of retaining them at his court,
offered them riches and honours as the condition; and when he found
them resolved to revisit their homes, he brought them to proclaim his
offers among their kindred and friends. It appears, however, that the
Normans had no great reason to be dissatisfied with their own country;
one knight only, Drengot by name, who, from a deadly feud with a noble of
his nation, was not averse to foreign adventure, resolved to collect his
kindred and dependents and sail for Italy.

On his arrival there with about one hundred followers, he found the yoke
of the Greeks no less detested than the depredations of the Saracens;
that the pope, emperor, and feudatory were alike prepared to reduce the
maritime places and the mountain forts. For some time their success was
thwarted by obstacles which valour could not surmount. On one occasion
they were defeated by a greatly superior force, and their leader slain;
and the emperor, Henry II, whose army they had joined, was compelled by a
pestilence to abandon the north of Italy. But under Rainulf, the brother
of Drengot, they resolved to establish a sovereignty for themselves; and
in this view they reduced Aversa, a fortress belonging to the duchy of
Naples, which they fortified in opposition to the wish of that republic.
That city, however, they had soon an opportunity of conciliating. When
Pandulf IV, prince of Capua, took Naples by surprise, where open force
would have failed, Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the
commonwealth, fled to Aversa, implored the succours of the strangers, and
with their aid expelled the garrison of Capua. The grateful chief erected
Aversa into a fief, with which he invested the Norman leader as Count
Rainulf. But this leader was not destined to lay the foundation of Norman
sovereignty.

About this time and allured by the same hope of distinction, there
arrived three sons of Tancred of Hauteville, an illustrious house of
Normandy. In the war which ensued, both Greeks and Saracens were worsted,
until all Apulia was wrested from the former, when the new conquests
were partitioned among twelve counts, each with a town and territory.
At the head of these adventurers was Guillaume Bras de Fer, eldest son
of Tancred. But they acknowledged no subordination; they committed on
churches and monasteries, Christians and infidels, friends and foes,
excesses which neither Greek nor Saracen could have exceeded, until the
pope, justly regarding them as the greatest curse of the country, formed
a league to expel them.

At the head of a motley army of Romans, Germans, Greeks, Campanians, and
Apulians, Leo IX himself took the field. Guillaume was dead, but his
brother Humphrey (or Humbert) filled his place; Humphrey was assisted by
Robert Guiscard [or Wiscard] another son of Tancred, and by the count of
Aversa.[i]

CAPTURE OF THE POPE; ROBERT GUISCARD (1053 A.D.)

The Normans of Apulia could muster in the field no more than three
thousand horse, with a handful of infantry; the defection of the natives
intercepted their provisions and retreat; and their spirit, incapable
of fear, was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the hostile
approach of Leo, they knelt without disgrace or reluctance before their
spiritual father. But the pope was inexorable; his lofty Germans affected
to deride the diminutive stature of their adversaries; and the Normans
were informed that death or exile was their only alternative.

Flight they disdained; and, as many of them had been three days without
tasting food, they embraced the assurance of a more easy and honourable
death. They climbed the hill of Civitella, descended into the plain, and
charged in three divisions the army of the pope. On the left, and in
the centre, Richard, count of Aversa, and Robert, the famous Guiscard,
attacked, broke, routed, and pursued, the Italian multitudes, who fought
without discipline, and fled without shame. A harder trial was reserved
for the valour of Count Humphrey, who led the cavalry of the right
wing. The Germans have been described as unskilful in the management of
the horse and lance; but on foot they formed a strong and impenetrable
phalanx, and neither man, nor steed, nor armour could resist the weight
of their long and two-handed swords. After a severe conflict they were
encompassed by the squadrons returning from the pursuit, and died in
their ranks with the esteem of their foes and the satisfaction of revenge.

The gates of Civitella were shut against the flying pope, and he was
overtaken by the pious conquerors, who kissed his feet, to implore his
blessing and the absolution of their sinful victory. The soldiers beheld
in their enemy and captive the vicar of Christ; and though we may suppose
the policy of the chiefs, it is probable that they were infected by the
popular superstition. In the calm of retirement, the well-meaning pope
deplored the effusion of Christian blood, which must be imputed to his
account; he felt that he had been the author of sin and scandal; and as
his undertaking had failed, the indecency of his military character was
universally condemned. With these dispositions, he listened to the offers
of a beneficial treaty; deserted an alliance which he had preached as the
cause of God, and ratified the past and future conquests of the Normans.
By whatever hands they had been usurped, the provinces of Apulia and
Calabria were a part of the donation of Constantine and the patrimony of
St. Peter: the grant and the acceptance confirmed the mutual claims of
the pontiff and the adventurers. They promised to support each other with
spiritual and temporal arms; a tribute or quit-rent of twelve-pence was
afterwards stipulated for every plough-land; and after this memorable
transaction, the kingdom of Naples remained above seven hundred years a
fief of the holy see.

[Illustration: NORMAN WOMAN OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY]

[Sidenote: [1015-1057 A.D.]]

The pedigree of Robert Guiscard, born about 1015, is variously deduced
from the peasants and the dukes of Normandy; from the peasants, by
the pride and ignorance of a Grecian princess; from the dukes, by the
ignorance and flattery of the Italian subjects. His genuine descent
may be ascribed to the second or middle order of private nobility. He
sprang from a race of _valvassors_, or _bannerets_, of the diocese of
the Coutances, in lower Normandy; the castle of Hauteville was their
honourable seat; his father Tancred was conspicuous in the court and
army of the duke; and his military service was furnished by ten soldiers
or knights. Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his own, made him
the father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by the impartial
tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was insufficient
for his numerous and daring progeny; they saw around the neighbourhood
the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and resolved to seek in foreign
wars a more glorious inheritance. Two only remained to perpetuate the
race, and cherish their father’s age; their ten brothers passed the Alps,
and joined the Apulian camp of the Normans. The elder were prompted by
native spirit; their success encouraged their younger brethren; and the
first three in seniority, William, Drogo, and Humphrey, deserved to be
the chiefs of their nation and the founders of the new republic.

Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the second marriage; and
even the reluctant praise of his foes has endowed him with the heroic
qualities of a soldier and a statesman. His lofty stature surpassed
the tallest of his army; his limbs were cast in the true proportion of
strength and gracefulness; and to the decline of life he maintained
the patient vigour of health and the commanding dignity of his form.
Robert, at once and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right
hand his sword, his lance in the left; in the battle of Civitella he
was thrice unhorsed, and, in the close of that memorable day, he was
adjudged to have borne away the prize of valour from the warriors of the
two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the consciousness of
superior worth; in the pursuit of greatness he was never arrested by the
scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of humanity; though
not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was
determined only by his present advantage.

The surname of Guiscard[10] was applied to this master of political
wisdom, which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation
and deceit; and Robert is praised by the Apulian poet[j] for excelling
the cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. According to the
Greeks he departed from Normandy with only five followers on horseback
and thirty on foot; yet even this allowance appears too bountiful: the
sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and
his first military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His
brothers and countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia; but they
guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the aspiring youth was
drawn forwards to the mountains of Calabria, and in his first exploits
against the Greeks and the natives it is not easy to discriminate the
hero from the robber. To surprise a castle or a convent, to ensnare a
wealthy citizen, to plunder the adjacent villages for necessary food,
were the obscure labours which formed and exercised the powers of his
mind and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard;
and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and
character of Normans.

[Sidenote: [1057-1060 A.D.]]

As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened the
jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient quarrel, his life
was threatened and his liberty restrained. After the death of Humphrey,
the tender age of his sons excluded them from the command; they were
reduced to a private estate by the ambition of their guardian and uncle;
and Guiscard was exalted on a buckler, and saluted count of Apulia, and
general of the republic. With an increase of authority and of force, he
resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that should
raise him forever above the heads of his equals. By some acts of rapine
or sacrilege, he had incurred a papal excommunication; but Nicholas II
was easily persuaded that the divisions of friends could terminate only
in their mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions
of the holy see; and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince,
than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred bishops was
convened at Melfi; and the count interrupted an important enterprise,
to guard the person and execute the decrees of the Roman pontiff. His
gratitude and policy conferred on Robert and his posterity the ducal
title, with the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both
in Italy and Sicily, which his sword could rescue from the schismatic
Greeks and the unbelieving Saracens.

This apostolic sanction might justify his arms; but the obedience of
a free and victorious people could not be transferred without their
consent; and Guiscard dissembled his elevation till the ensuing campaign
had been illustrated by the conquest of Cosenza and Reggio. In the hour
of triumph he assembled his troops and solicited the Normans to confirm,
by their suffrage, the judgment of the vicar of Christ. The soldiers
hailed with joyful acclamations their valiant duke; and the counts, his
former equals, pronounced the oath of fidelity with hollow smiles and
secret indignation.

CONQUEST OF SICILY; EASTERN INVASIONS (1060-1090 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1060-1081 A.D.]]

After this inauguration, Robert styled himself, “by the grace of God
and St. Peter, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of Sicily”; and
it was the labour of twenty years to deserve and realise these lofty
appellations. Such tardy progress, in a narrow space, may seem unworthy
of the abilities of the chief and the spirit of the nation; but the
Normans were few in number, their resources were scanty, their service
was voluntary and precarious. The bravest designs of the duke were
sometimes opposed by the free voice of his parliament of barons; the
twelve counts of popular election conspired against his authority; and
against their perfidious uncle the sons of Humphrey demanded justice
and revenge. By his policy and vigour, Guiscard discovered their plots,
suppressed their rebellions, and punished the guilty with death or exile;
but, in these domestic feuds, his years and the national strength were
unprofitably consumed.

After the defeat of his foreign enemies, the Greeks, Lombards, and
Saracens, their broken forces retreated to the strong and populous cities
of the sea coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and defence;
the Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the field, and their
rude attempts could only succeed by the efforts of persevering courage.
The resistance of Salerno was maintained above eight months; the siege
or blockade of Bari lasted near four years. In these actions the Norman
duke was the foremost in every danger; in every fatigue the last and most
patient.

Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been long
detained in Normandy by his own and his father’s age. He accepted a
welcome summons; hastened to the Apulian camp; and deserved at first
the esteem, and afterwards the envy, of his elder brother. Their valour
and ambition were equal; but the youth, the beauty, the elegant manners
of Roger, engaged the disinterested love of the soldiers and people.
So scanty was his allowance for himself and forty followers, that he
descended from conquest to robbery, and from robbery to domestic theft;
and so loose were the notions of prosperity, that, by his own historian
Malaterra,[b] at his special command, he is accused of stealing horses
from a stable of Melfi. His spirit emerged from poverty and disgrace;
from these base practices he rose to the merit and glory of a holy war;
and the invasion of Sicily was seconded by the zeal and policy of his
brother Guiscard.

After the retreat of the Greeks, the idolaters, a most audacious reproach
of the Catholics, had retrieved their losses and possessions; but the
deliverance of the island, so vainly undertaken by the forces of the
Eastern Empire, was achieved by a small and private band of adventurers.
In the first attempt, Roger braved, in an open boat, the real and
fabulous dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, landed with only sixty soldiers
on a hostile shore, drove the Saracens to the gates of Messina, and
safely returned with the spoils of the adjacent country. In the siege
of Trani, three hundred Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of
the island. In the siege of Palermo the Norman cavalry was assisted by
the galleys of Pisa; and, in the hour of action, the envy of the two
brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible emulation. After a
war of thirty years, Roger, with the title of Great Count, obtained the
sovereignty of the largest and most fruitful island of the Mediterranean;
and his administration displays a liberal and enlightened mind above the
limits of his age and education. The Moslems were maintained in the free
enjoyment of their religion and property.

To Robert Guiscard the conquest of Sicily was more glorious than
beneficial; the possession of Apulia and Calabria was inadequate to his
ambition; and he resolved to embrace or create the first occasion of
invading, perhaps of subduing, the Roman Empire of the East. From his
first wife, the partner of his humble fortunes, he had been divorced
under the pretence of consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was destined
to imitate, rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second
wife of Guiscard was the daughter of the princess of Salerno; the
Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger; their
five daughters were given in honourable nuptials, and one of them was
betrothed in a tender age to Constantine, a beautiful youth, the son and
heir of the emperor Michael.

But the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution: the imperial
family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the cloister; and Robert
deplored and resented the disgrace of his daughter and the expulsion of
his ally. A Greek, who styled himself the father of Constantine, soon
appeared at Salerno, and related the adventures of his fall and flight.
That unfortunate friend was acknowledged by the duke, and adorned with
the pomp and titles of imperial dignity; in his triumphal progress
through Apulia and Calabria, Michael was saluted with the tears and
acclamations of the people; and Pope Gregory VII exhorted the bishops to
preach, and the Catholics to fight, in the pious work of his restoration.
After two years’ incessant preparations, the land and naval forces were
assembled at Otranto, and Robert was accompanied by his wife, who fought
by his side, his son Bohemond, and the representative of the emperor
Michael.

Before the general embarkation the Norman duke despatched Bohemond
with fifteen galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu. The
Island of Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the arms or
the name of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu (we use the
modern appellation) to the siege of Durazzo. In the prosecution of his
enterprise the courage of Guiscard was assailed by every form of danger
and mischance. In the most propitious season of the year, as his fleet
passed along the coast, a storm of wind and snow unexpectedly arose;
the Adriatic was swelled by the raging blast of the south, and a new
shipwreck confirmed the old infamy of the Acroceraunian rocks. The sails,
the masts, and the oars were shattered or torn away; the sea and shore
were covered with the fragments of vessels, with arms and dead bodies;
and the greatest part of the provisions was either lost or damaged.

The Normans had wept during the tempest; they were alarmed by the hostile
approach of the Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers and
promises of the Byzantine court. The Apulian and Ragusian vessels fled to
the shore; several were cut from their cables, and dragged away by the
conqueror; and a sally from the town carried slaughter and dismay to the
tents of the Norman duke. A seasonable relief was poured into Durazzo,
and as soon as the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the
islands and maritime towns withdrew from the camp the supply of tribute
and provision. That camp was soon afflicted with a pestilential disease;
five hundred knights perished by an inglorious death; and the list of
burials (if all could obtain a decent burial) amounted to ten thousand
persons. Under these calamities the mind of Guiscard alone was firm and
invincible; and while he collected new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he
battered or scaled or sapped the walls of Durazzo.

[Sidenote: [1081-1085 A.D.]]

While the Roman Empire was attacked by the Turks in the East and the
Normans in the West, the aged successor of Michael surrendered the
sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious captain, and the
founder of the Comnenian dynasty. The princess Anna,[k] his daughter
and historian, observes, in her affected style, that even Hercules was
unequal to a double combat; and, on this principle, she approves a hasty
peace with the Turks, which allowed her father to undertake in person the
relief of Durazzo.

[Illustration: A NORMAN MATRON OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY]

Against the advice of his wisest captains Alexius resolved to risk
the event of a general action. The princess Anna, who drops a tear on
this melancholy event, is reduced to praise the strength and swiftness
of her father’s horse, and his vigorous struggle when he was almost
overthrown by the stroke of a lance which had shivered the imperial
helmet. His desperate valour broke through a squadron of Franks who
opposed his flight; and, after wandering two days and as many nights in
the mountains, he found some repose of body, though not of mind, in the
walls of Lychnidus. The victorious Robert reproached the tardy and feeble
pursuit which had suffered the escape of so illustrious a prize; but he
consoled his disappointment by the trophies and standards of the field,
the wealth and luxury of the Byzantine camp, and the glory of defeating
an army five times more numerous than his own.

A Venetian noble sold the city for a rich and honourable marriage. At
the dead of night several rope-ladders were dropped from the walls, the
light Calabrians ascended in silence, and the Greeks were awakened by
the name and trumpets of the conqueror. Yet they defended the street
three days against an enemy already master of the rampart; and near seven
months elapsed between the first investment and the final surrender of
the place. From Durazzo the Norman duke advanced into the heart of Epirus
or Albania, traversed the first mountains of Thessaly, surprised three
hundred English in the city of Castoria, approached Thessalonica, and
made Constantinople tremble.

A more pressing duty suspended the prosecution of his ambitious designs.
By shipwreck, pestilence, and the sword his army was reduced to a third
of the original numbers; and instead of being recruited from Italy, he
was informed, by plaintive epistles, of the mischiefs and dangers which
had been produced by his absence; the revolt of the cities and barons
of Apulia, the distress of the pope, and the approach or invasion of
Henry, king of Germany. Highly presuming that his person was sufficient
for the public safety, he repassed the sea in a single brigantine, and
left the remains of the army under the command of his son and the Norman
counts, exhorting Bohemond to respect the freedom of his peers, and the
counts to obey the authority of their leader. The son of Guiscard trod
in the footsteps of his father; and the two destroyers are compared, by
the Greeks, to the caterpillar and the locust, the last of whom devours
whatever has escaped the teeth of the former.

After winning two battles against the emperor, he descended into the
plain of Thessaly, and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of Achilles,
which contained the treasure and magazines of the Byzantine camp. The
courage of Bohemond was always conspicuous, and often successful; but his
camp was pillaged by a stratagem of the Greeks; the city was impregnable;
and the venal or discontented counts deserted his standard, betrayed
their trusts, and enlisted in the service of the emperor. Alexius
returned to Constantinople with the advantage, rather than the honour, of
victory. After evacuating the conquests which he could no longer defend,
the son of Guiscard embarked for Italy, and was embraced by a father who
esteemed his merit, and sympathised in his misfortune.

Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of Robert,
the most prompt and powerful was Henry IV, king of Germany and Italy,
and future emperor of the West. Henry was the severe adversary of the
Normans, the allies and vassals of Gregory VII, his implacable foe. The
long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the
zeal and ambition of that haughty priest; the king and the pope had
degraded each other, and each had seated a rival on the temporal or
spiritual throne of his antagonist. After the defeat and death of his
Swabian rebel, Henry descended into Italy, to assume the imperial crown,
and to drive from the Vatican the tyrant of the church. But the Roman
people adhered to the cause of Gregory; their resolution was fortified
by supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice
ineffectually besieged by the king of Germany.

In the fourth year he corrupted, it is said, with Byzantine gold, the
nobles of Rome, whose estates and castles had been ruined by the war. The
gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages, were delivered into his hands;
the anti-pope, Clement III, was consecrated in the Lateran; the grateful
pontiff crowned his protector in the Vatican; and the Emperor Henry fixed
his residence in the capitol, as the lawful successor of Augustus and
Charlemagne. The ruins of the Septizonium were still defended by the
nephew of Gregory; the pope himself was invested in the castle of St.
Angelo; and his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his Norman
vassal. Their friendship had been interrupted by some reciprocal injuries
and complaints; but, on this pressing occasion, Guiscard was urged by
the obligation of his oath, by his interest, more potent than oaths, by
the love of fame, and his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy
banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles;
the most numerous of his armies, six thousand horse, and thirty thousand
foot, was instantly assembled; and his march from Salerno to Rome was
animated by the public applause and the promise of the divine favour.

Henry, invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach;
recollected some indispensable affairs that required his presence in
Lombardy; exhorted the Romans to persevere in their allegiance; and
hastily retreated three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less
than three years, the son of Tancred de Hauteville enjoyed the glory of
delivering the pope, and of compelling the two emperors, of the East and
the West, to fly before his victorious arms.

But the triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By
the aid of the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or
scaled; but the imperial faction was still powerful and active; on the
third day, the people rose in a furious tumult; and a hasty word of the
conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the signal of fire and pillage.
The Saracens of Sicily, the subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his
brother, embraced this fair occasion of rifling and profaning the Holy
City of the Christians; many thousands of the citizens, in the sight,
and by the allies, of their spiritual father, were exposed to violation,
captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter of the city, from the Lateran
to the Colosseum, was consumed by the flames.

The deliverer and scourge of Rome might have indulged himself in a season
of repose; but in the same year of the flight of the German emperor,
the indefatigable Robert resumed the design of his eastern conquests.
The zeal or gratitude of Gregory had promised to his valour the kingdom
of Greece and Asia; his troops were assembled in arms, flushed with
success and eager for action. By the union of the Greeks and Venetians,
the Adriatic was covered with a hostile fleet. The dominion of the sea
was disputed in three engagements, in sight of the Island of Corfu; in
the two former, the skill and number of the allies were superior; but in
the third, the Normans obtained a final and complete victory. The winter
season suspended his progress; with the return of spring he again aspired
to the conquest of Constantinople; but, instead of traversing the hills
of Epirus, he turned his arms against Greece and the islands, where the
spoils would repay the labour, and where the land and sea forces might
pursue their joint operations with vigour and effect.

[Sidenote: [1085-1138 A.D.]]

But in the Isle of Cephalonia, his projects were fatally blasted by an
epidemical disease; Robert himself, in the seventieth year of his age,
expired in his tent (July 17th, 1085); and a suspicion of poison was
imputed, by public rumour, to his wife or to the Greek emperor. This
premature death might allow a boundless scope for the imagination of his
future exploits; and the event sufficiently declares, that the Norman
greatness was founded on his life. Without the appearance of an enemy, a
victorious army dispersed or retreated in disorder and consternation; and
Alexius, who had trembled for his empire, rejoiced in his deliverance.
Roger, his second son and successor, immediately sunk to the humble
station of a duke of Apulia; the esteem or partiality of his father
left the valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his sword. The national
tranquillity was disturbed by his claims, till the First Crusade against
the infidels of the East opened a more splendid field of glory and
conquest.

ROGER, GREAT COUNT OF SICILY (1101-1138 A.D.)

Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and
soon bounded by the sepulchre. The male line of Robert Guiscard was
extinguished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in the second generation;
but his younger brother became the father of a line of kings; and the
son of the Great Count was endowed with the name, the conquests, and
the spirit of the first Roger. The heir of that Norman adventurer was
born in Sicily; and, at the age of only four years, he succeeded to the
sovereignty of the island.[l]

This prince, who thus succeeded to such extensive states was dissatisfied
with the title of duke; to obtain a higher one, he lent his aid to
the anti-pope Anacletus II, who crowned him king of the Two Sicilies.
This new dignity caused him to regard the republican institutions of
Amalfi and Naples with dislike, perhaps with dread. He took the former,
abolished its privileges, and subjected it to a feudal governor. His next
step was to humble his proud barons, of whom some had too much power
always to remain peaceful. It was attended with equal success; one after
another all were subdued; but the chief, Robert, prince of Capua and
Aversa, the descendant of Drengot, was destined to give him some trouble.

Naples, though nominally subject to the Norman princes, still preserved
its own government, laws, and institutions, and was prepared to defend
them to the last extremity. It opened its gates to Robert, and thereby
afforded another stimulus to the vengeance of Roger. The republicans
obtained the aid of a fleet from Pisa; Amalfi was forced to equip
another to oppose them; the Pisans plundered Amalfi, their chief prize
being a copy of the famous _Pandects_, an accident which is said to
have changed the jurisprudence of half Europe; they were defeated, and
forced to re-embark by the king, who invested Naples more closely than
before. The besieged applied for relief to the emperor and the true pope,
Innocent II. Lothair marched in person to their aid, while a Pisan fleet
advanced by sea. The siege was raised; Robert of Capua was restored to
his principality, and the whole country as far as Bari threw off its
allegiance to the Normans.

But discord soon appeared between the pope, the emperor, and the
Pisans; their combined forces retired, and Roger had little difficulty
in regaining possession of his territories. The fate of Leo IV, a
century before, did not deter Innocent II from taking the field against
the excommunicated Normans; the result was the same; Innocent was
defeated and made prisoner, and was glad to procure his liberation by
confirming the regal title of Roger. He did more; he granted to the king
the investiture not only of Capua, but of Naples, which had hitherto
maintained something like independence, and over which he had assuredly
no control. The republic, abandoned by its allies, was constrained to
submit; the ducal crown was conferred on the king; the kingdom of the two
Sicilies was admitted into the great family of nations.

ROGER II (1138-1154 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1138-1154 A.D.]]

The reign of Roger II was one of vigour, of success, and of internal
tranquillity. He rendered tributary the Mohammedan tyrants of Tripoli
and Tunis, built fortresses, churches, and monasteries, and administered
justice with unparalleled severity, in regard not only to the poor,
but to his haughty barons. The feudal system which had long before
been introduced into Naples, he perfected; and extended its observance
to Sicily, which had hitherto followed the policy of the Greeks and
Saracens. By this revolution, the free colonists were at once transformed
into vassals; new laws were introduced, which were calculated to confirm
the ascendency of the nobles and prelates; and new fiscal impositions
followed, more oppressive, we are told, than any which had been invented
by preceding conquerors. But here, as everywhere else, the same system
also brought its advantages.

In their native hills and forests, the Normans, like the Lombards, and,
we may add, like all other people of Scandinavian or of Germanic descent,
had been accustomed to meet twice a year, not merely to advise their
chief, but to form a sort of diet or parliament, where their more weighty
affairs were discussed and decided. At first these assemblies consisted
of the conquerors only; but in time the more influential inhabitants
were permitted to attend them. During a long period, however--probably
unto the reign of Frederick II--they consisted of two estates only,
the nobles and the ecclesiastics; the great body of the people had no
rights, and consequently no representation. But as the towns purchased
their independence of the feudal tribunals, and constituted themselves
into municipal corporations; as the number of these corporations was
multiplied by charters from the crown the new communities were permitted
to send deputies to their general meetings.

The kings, who so often suffered from the powers of a haughty
aristocracy, were here, as elsewhere, sufficiently disposed to encourage
the formation and influence of this third chamber, or arm of the
legislature. Besides, the burgesses were generally more able to supply
the wants of the state; they were attached to the crown which had
called them into existence; and among them justice was administered, at
least in the last resort, by the royal judges. This triple power of the
legislature was established contemporaneously both in the island and on
the continent; but in the former, which had less intercourse with the
world, it has subsisted in greater vigour down to our own times.

But if Roger thus established his sovereignty, he had the mortification
to lose his two eldest sons, and to see the succession depend on a
third, who was at once vicious and imbecile. Soon after his death, which
happened in 1154, troubles began to distract the realm.[i]

Since the decease of Robert Guiscard, the Normans had relinquished above
sixty years their hostile designs against the Empire of the East. The
policy of Roger solicited a public and private union with the Greek
princes, whose alliance would dignify his real character; he demanded
in marriage a daughter of the Comnenian family, and the first steps of
the treaty seemed to promise a favourable event. But the contemptuous
treatment of his ambassadors exasperated the vanity of the new monarch;
and the insolence of the Byzantine court was expiated, according to the
laws of nations, by the sufferings of a guiltless people. With a fleet
of seventy galleys, George, the admiral of Sicily, appeared before
Corfu; and both the island and city were delivered into his hands by the
disaffected inhabitants, who had yet to learn that a siege is still more
calamitous than a tribute. In this invasion, of some moment in the annals
of commerce, the Normans spread themselves by sea, and over the provinces
of Greece; and the venerable age of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth was
violated by rapine and cruelty.

The silk-weavers of both sexes, whom George transported to Sicily,
composed the most valuable part of the spoil; and in comparing the
skilful industry of the mechanic with the sloth and cowardice of the
soldier, he was heard to exclaim, that the distaff and loom were the only
weapons which the Greeks were capable of using. The progress of this
naval armament was marked by two conspicuous events, the rescue of the
king of France, and the insult of the Byzantine capital. In his return by
sea from an unfortunate crusade, Louis VII was intercepted by the Greeks,
who basely violated the laws of honour and religion. The fortunate
encounter of the Norman fleet delivered the royal captive; and after a
free and honourable entertainment in the court of Sicily, Louis continued
his journey to Rome and Paris.

In the absence of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were
left without defence, and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy
and people--for the soldiers had followed the standard of Manuel--were
astonished and dismayed at the hostile appearance of a line of galleys,
which boldly cast anchor in front of the imperial city. The forces of the
Sicilian admiral were inadequate to the siege or assault of an immense
and populous metropolis; but George enjoyed the glory of humbling the
Greek arrogance, and of marking the path of conquest to the navies of the
West. He landed some soldiers to rifle the fruits of the royal gardens,
and pointed with silver, or more probably with fire, the arrows which he
discharged against the palace of the cæsars. This playful outrage of the
pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded moment, Manuel affected
to despise, while his martial spirit, and the forces of the empire,
were awakened to revenge. The Archipelago and Ionian Sea were covered
with his squadrons and those of Venice; in his homeward voyage George
lost nineteen of his galleys, which were separated and taken; after an
obstinate defence, Corfu implored the clemency of her lawful sovereign;
nor could a ship, or a soldier of the Norman prince be found, unless as
a captive, within the limit of the Eastern Empire. The prosperity and
the health of Roger were already in a declining state; while he listened
in his palace of Palermo to the messengers of victory or defeat, the
invincible Manuel, the foremost in every assault, was celebrated by the
Greeks and Latins as the Alexander or Hercules of the age.

[Illustration: A NORMAN MONK OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY]

A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied with having repelled
the insolence of a barbarian. It was the right and duty, it might be
the interest and glory, of Manuel to restore the ancient majesty of the
empire, to recover the provinces of Italy and Sicily, and to chastise
this pretended king, the grandson of a Norman vassal. The natives of
Calabria were still attached to the Greek language and worship, which
had been inexorably proscribed by the Latin clergy; after the loss of
her dukes, Apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of
Sicily; the founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword; and his death
had abated the fear without healing the discontent of his subjects; the
feudal government was always pregnant with the seeds of rebellion, and a
nephew of Roger himself invited the enemies of his family and nation.

[Sidenote: [1155-1156 A.D.]]

To the brave and noble Palæologus, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch
entrusted a fleet and army; the siege of Bari was his first exploit, and
in every operation, gold as well as steel was the instrument of victory.
Salerno, and some places along the western coast, maintained their
fidelity to the Norman king; but he lost in two campaigns the greater
part of his continental possessions; and the modest emperor, disdaining
all flattery and falsehood, was content with the reduction of three
hundred cities or villages of Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles
were inscribed on all the walls of the palace.

But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped from the
hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded by the prudence
of Alexander III, who paused on this deep and momentous revolution; nor
could the pope be seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual
inheritance of the Latin name. After his reunion with Frederick, he spoke
a more peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors,
excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final
separation of the churches, or at least the empires, of Constantinople
and Rome. The free cities of Lombardy no longer remembered their foreign
benefactor, and he soon incurred the enmity of Venice. One hundred
galleys were launched and armed in as many days; they swept the coasts of
Dalmatia and Greece; but after some mutual wounds, the war was terminated
by an agreement inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic.
The lieutenant of Manuel informed his sovereign that his forces were
inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily. His
prophecy was soon verified; the death of Palæologus devolved the command
on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike defective in military
talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land and sea; and a captive remnant
abjured all future hostility against the person or dominions of their
conqueror.

Yet the king of Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who
had landed a second army on the Italian shore; he respectfully addressed
the new Justinian; solicited a peace or truce of thirty years; accepted
as a gift the regal title; and acknowledged himself the military vassal
of the Roman Empire. The Byzantine cæsars acquiesced in this shadow of
dominion, without expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of
a Norman army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any
hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of that
period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman tyrant, who had
deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind; the sword of William
the Second, the grandson of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the
Comnenian race; and the subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers
as friends, since they detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies.
The Latin historians expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts
who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and
cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The Greeks accuse and
magnify the wanton and sacrilegious cruelties that were perpetrated in
the sack of Thessalonica, the second city of the empire. The former
deplore the fate of those invincible but unsuspecting warriors, who were
destroyed by the arts of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud in songs
of triumph the repeated victories of their countrymen on the sea of
Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the walls of
Durazzo. A revolution which punished the crimes of Andronicus, had united
against the Franks the zeal and courage of the successful insurgents;
ten thousand were slain in battle, and Isaac Angelus, the new emperor,
might indulge his vanity or vengeance in the treatment of four thousand
captives. Such was the event of the last contest between the Greeks and
Normans: before the expiration of twenty years, the rival nations were
lost or degraded in foreign servitude; and the successors of Constantine
did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy.

WILLIAM THE BAD (IL MALO) (1154-1166 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1154-1166 A.D.]]

The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and grandson;
they might be confounded under the name of William; they are strongly
discriminated by the epithets of the “bad” and the “good”; but these
epithets, which appear to describe the perfection of vice and virtue,
cannot strictly be applied to either of the Norman princes. When he was
roused to arms by danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate
from the valour of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners
were dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the monarch
is responsible not only for his personal vices but for those of Majo, the
great admiral, who abused the confidence, and conspired against the life
of his benefactor.

From the Arabian conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of oriental
manners; the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem of a sultan; and
a Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the
eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the religion
of Mohammed. An eloquent historian of the times, Falcandus,[m] has
delineated the misfortunes of his country; the ambition and fall of
the ungrateful Majo; the revolt and punishment of his assassins; the
imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself; the private feuds that
arose from the public confusion; and the various forms of calamity and
discord which afflicted Palermo, the island and the continent, during the
reign of William the First, and the minority of his son.

WILLIAM THE GOOD (1166-1189 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1166-1194 A.D.]]

The youth, innocence, and beauty of William II, endeared him to the
nation; the factions were reconciled; the laws were revived; and from the
manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily enjoyed a
short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose value was enhanced
by the remembrance of the past and the dread of futurity. The legitimate
male posterity of Tancred de Hauteville was extinct in the person of
the second William; but his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married
the most powerful prince of the age; and Henry VI, the son of Frederick
Barbarossa, descended from the Alps to claim the imperial crown and the
inheritance of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a free people,
this inheritance could only be acquired by arms.

The historian Falcandus writes at the moment and on the spot, with the
feelings of a patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman. “Constanza,
the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in the pleasures and
plenty, and educated in the arts and manners of this fortunate isle,
departed long since to enrich the barbarians with our treasures, and
now returns with her savage allies to contaminate the beauties of her
venerable parent. Already I behold the swarms of angry barbarians; our
opulent cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are shaken
with fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by
intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our citizens,
the rapes of our virgins and matrons. In this extremity (he interrogates
a friend) how must the Sicilians act? By the unanimous election of a king
of valour and experience, Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved;
for in the levity of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I
can repose neither confidence nor hope. Should Calabria be lost, the
lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength of Messina,
might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage
Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy with fire
the fruitful region, so often wasted by the fires of Mount Ætna, what
resource will be left for the interior parts of the island, these noble
cities which should never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a
barbarian?

“Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake; the ancient virtue
of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; but Palermo is still crowned
with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of
Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can unite
for their common safety, they may rush on the barbarians with invincible
arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should
now retire and rebel, if they should occupy the castles of the mountains
and sea coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack,
and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil, must resign
themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude.” We must not forget,
that a priest here prefers his country to his religion; and that the
Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were still numerous and powerful in the
state of Sicily.[m]

[Illustration: A NORMAN WARRIOR OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY]

The hopes or at least the wishes of Falcandus were at first gratified by
the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the grandson of the first
king, whose birth was illegitimate, but whose civil and military virtues
shone without a blemish. During four years, the term of his life and
reign, he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier,
against the powers of Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of
Constanza herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the
most liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the kingdom
of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle; and Henry pursued
his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The political balance of
Italy was destroyed by his success; and if the pope and the free cities
had consulted their obvious and real interest, they would have combined
the powers of earth and heaven to prevent the dangerous union of the
German Empire with the kingdom of Sicily.

But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican has so often been praised
or arraigned, was on this occasion blind and inactive; and if it were
true that Celestine III had kicked away the imperial crown from the head
of the prostrate Henry, such an act of impotent pride could serve only
to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who enjoyed
a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened to the promise
of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure; their fleet commanded
the Straits of Messina, and opened the harbour of Palermo; and the first
act of his government was to abolish the privileges, and to seize the
property, of these imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was
defeated by the discord of the Christians and Mohammedans; they fought
in the capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their
surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above thirty
years the peace of the island.

[Sidenote: [1194-1266 A.D.]]

By the policy of Frederick II, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted
to Nocera in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor
and his son Manfred were strengthened and disgraced by the service of the
enemies of Christ; and this national colony maintained their religion and
manners in the heart of Italy, till they were extirpated at the end of
the thirteenth century by the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou.

All the calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored, were
surpassed by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated
the royal sepulchres, and explored the secret treasures of the palace,
Palermo, and the whole kingdom; the pearls and jewels, however precious,
might be easily removed; but one hundred and sixty horses were laden with
the gold and silver of Sicily. The young king, his mother and sisters,
and the nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses
of the Alps; and on the slightest rumour of rebellion the captives were
deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity. Constanza
herself was touched with sympathy for the miseries of her country; and
the heiress of the Norman line might struggle to check her despotic
husband, and to save the patrimony of her newborn son, of an emperor so
famous in the next age under the name of Frederick II.

Ten years after this revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their
crown the duchy of Normandy; the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been
transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of
Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many trophies
in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East, were
lost either in victory or servitude, among the vanquished nations.[l]

In Sicily the circumstances of the conquest led the Norman settlers to
remain far more distinct from the older races of the land than they did
in England, and in the end not to lose themselves in those older races
of the land but in the settlers of other races who accompanied them and
followed them. So far as there ever was a Sicilian nation at all it
might be said to be called into being by the emperor-king Frederick II.
In his day a Latin element finally triumphed; but it was not a Norman
French-speaking element of any kind. The speech of the Lombards at last
got the better of the Greek, Arabic, and French; how far its ascendency
can have been built on any survival of an earlier Latin speech which had
lived alongside of Greek and Arabic, this is not the place to inquire.

NORMAN INFLUENCE

[Sidenote: [1130-1194 A.D.]]

Of all the points to be insisted on, that which it is most necessary to
bear in mind is the Norman power of adaptation to circumstances, the gift
which in the end destroyed the race as a separate race. English history
is utterly misconceived if it is thought that an acknowledged distinction
between Normans and English went on, perhaps into the fourteenth
century, perhaps into the seventeenth. Long before the earlier of those
dates the Norman in England had done his work; he had unwittingly done
much to preserve and strengthen the national life of a really kindred
people, and, that work done, he had lost himself in the greater mass of
that kindred people. In Sicily his work, far more brilliant, far more
beneficent at the time, could not be so lasting. The Norman princes
made Sicily a kingdom; they ruled it for a season better than any other
kingdom was ruled; but they could not make it a Norman kingdom, nor could
they themselves become national Sicilian kings. The kingdom that they
founded has now vanished from among the kingdoms of the earth, because
it was only a kingdom and not a nation. In every other way the Norman
has vanished from Sicily as though he had never been. His very works of
building are hardly witnesses to his presence, because, without external
evidence, we should never have taken them to be his. In Sicily, in short,
he gave a few generations of unusual peace and prosperity to several
nations living side by side, and then he, so to speak, went his way from
a land in which he had a work to do, but in which he never was really at
home. In England he made himself, though by rougher means, more truly at
home among unacknowledged kinsmen. When in outward show he seemed to work
the unmaking of a nation, he was in truth giving no small help towards
its second making.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[9] [Some historic doubt has been thrown on this anecdote by St. Marc.[h]]

[10] The Norman writers and editors most conversant with their own idiom
interpret Guiscard or Wiscard, by _Callidus_, a cunning man. The root
“wise” is familiar to our ear; and in the old word “wiseacre” we can
discern something of a similar sense and termination.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: [1197-1218 A.D.]]

The death of Henry VI was followed by a general war throughout the
empire, which gave fresh activity to the passions of the Italian nobles,
and greater animosity to the opposing parties. The two factions in
Germany had simultaneously raised to the empire the two chiefs of the
houses of Guelf and Ghibelline. Philip I, duke of Swabia, and brother of
Henry VI, had been named king of the Romans by the Ghibellines; and Otto
IV, son of Henry the Lion, duke of Bavaria and Saxony, by the Guelfs.
Their contest was prolonged to the 22nd of June, 1208, when Philip was
assassinated by a private enemy. The Germans, wearied with eleven years
of civil war, agreed to unite under the sceptre of his rival, Otto IV,
whom they crowned anew. The following year he passed into Italy, to
receive from the pope the golden crown of the empire.

But though Otto was the legitimate heir of the Guelfs of Bavaria, so long
chiefs of the opposition to the imperial prerogatives, yet now wearing
himself the crown, he was desirous of possessing it with these disputed
rights; every one was denied him, and all his actions controlled by
the pope. There was soon a declared enmity between the emperor and the
pontiff who, rather than consent to any agreement, or to abate any of his
pretensions, raised against the Guelf emperor the heir of the Ghibelline
house, the young Frederick II, grandson of Frederick I, hardly eighteen
years of age, and till then reigning under the pope’s tutelage over the
Two Sicilies only. Frederick, excited and seconded by the pope, boldly
passed through Lombardy in 1212, and arrived at Aachen, where the German
Ghibellines awaited, and crowned him king of the Romans and Germans. Otto
IV in the meantime returned to Germany, and was acknowledged by Saxony.

The civil war, carried on between the two chiefs of the empire, lasted
till the 19th of May, 1218, when Otto died, without any attempt by
either party to despoil his rival of his hereditary possessions. It
was this civil war that caused the names of Guelf and Ghibelline to be
exclusively substituted for those of party of the church and party of
the empire. In fact, each noble family, and each city, seemed to consult
only their hereditary affection, and not their political principles, in
ranging themselves under either standard. The Guelfs placed themselves
in opposition to the pope, to repel his Ghibelline candidate; and Milan,
Piacenza, and Brescia braved even excommunication to resist him; while,
on the contrary the Ghibellines of Pavia, Cremona, and of the marches
armed themselves with zeal against an emperor of the Guelf blood.

During this period, while the minority of Frederick II left so much
time to the cities of Italy to consolidate their independence, and to
form real republics, the person most influential and most prominent in
history was the pope, Innocent III, who reigned from 1197 to 1216. He
caused his power to be felt in the remotest parts of Christendom, but he
suffered to be constituted at Rome, under his own eye, a republic, the
liberty of which he respected, and over which he assumed no authority.
The thirteen districts of Rome each named annually four representatives
or _caporioni_; their meeting formed the senate of the republic, who,
with the concurrence of the people, exercised the sovereignty, with
the exception of the judicial power. This power belonged as in other
republics to a foreign military chief, chosen for one year, and assisted
by civil judges, dependent on him, but bearing the name of senator,
instead of podesta. We have still extant the form of oath taken by the
first of these senators, named in 1207. By it he engages to guarantee
security and liberty to the pope as well as to his brothers the
cardinals, but promises no submission to him for himself.

In the beginning of the pontificate of Innocent III, two German generals,
to whom Henry VI had given the titles of duke of Spoleto and marquis of
Ancona, held in dependence and subjection the provinces nearest Rome.
Innocent, to revive the spirit of liberty, sent thither two legates; and
by their interference, the cities of these provinces, built for the most
part in the mountains, and without any means of becoming either wealthy
or populous, threw off the German yoke, and made alliance with those
cities which from the preceding period had entered into the league of
Lombardy; thus two Guelf leagues were formed, under the protection of
the pope; one in the marches, comprehending the cities of Ancona, Fermo,
Osimo, Camerino, Fano, Jesi, Sinigaglia, and Pesaro; the other in the
duchy, comprehending those of Spoleto, Rieti, Assisi, Foligno, Nocera,
Perugia, Agubbio, Todi, and Città di Castello. These leagues, however,
in accustoming the cities of these two provinces to regard the pope as
their protector, led them afterwards to submit without resistance to the
sovereignty of the church.

Other legates had been about the same time sent into Tuscany by the pope;
they convoked at St. Ginasio, a borough situated at the foot of the
mountain of San Miniato, the diet of the towns of that country. These
provincial diets were in the habit of assembling frequently, and had
till then been presided over by an officer belonging to the emperor, in
memory of whom the castle in which he resided is still called San Miniato
al Tedesco. These diets settled the differences which arose between
cities, and had succeeded in saving Tuscany from the civil wars between
the Guelfs and Ghibellines. Pisa, which had been loaded with favours by
the sovereigns of the house of Hohenstaufen, and which had obtained from
them the dominion of sixty-four castles or fortified towns on the shores
of Tuscany, and over the isles of Corsica, Elba, Capraia, and Pianosa,
proclaimed its determination of remaining faithful to the Ghibelline
party, and its consuls withdrew from the diet convoked at St. Ginasio;
but those of the cities of Florence, of Siena, of Arezzo, of Pistoia, and
of Lucca accepted the protection of the pope, offered by his two legates,
and promised to coalesce in defence of their common liberty.[b]

[Illustration: FLORENCE]

FACTIONS IN FLORENCE

[Sidenote: [1177-1215 A.D.]]

We have already seen that the spirit of political as well as religious
party began to rise as early as 1177, and excepting some short intervals
of uneasy repose, remained in a state of violence until 1182. From this
epoch there are no accounts of actual war within the city of Florence
until 1215; but nearly five years of hard fighting between two great
factions of undiminished force was unlikely to be followed by a dead
calm except from exhaustion; or by any oblivion of injury in an age and
country where revenge was a duty, not a crime.

The great power and independence of the newly created podesta, together
with external hostilities, probably assisted in maintaining peace in
a city that prided itself on being founded under the protection and
ascendant of Mars, and therefore doomed by fate to everlasting troubles.
Hence Roccuzzo de’ Mozzi is made by Dante to say:

“_Io fui della città, che nel Batista_
_Cangiò ’l primo Padrone, onde ei per questo_
_Sempre con l’arte sua la farà trista._”

Disputes which had so long occupied the attention of Italy were not
without participation in Florence, where the quarrels of church and
empire did not fail to create two adverse opinions, but as yet confined
to words; the prevailing politics, being Guelfic and papal, while
the opposition led by Uberti was entirely imperial, were accidental
circumstances; but combined with and as it were grafted on local
politics, drew a distinct line between contending factions and boded
mischief.

In the year 1215, according to an ancient manuscript published from the
Buondelmonti library, Messer Mazzingo Tegrini de’ Mazzinghi invited
many Florentines of high rank to dine at his villa near Campi about
six miles from the capital; while at table the family jester snatched
a trencher of meat from Messer Uberto degli Infangati who, nettled at
this impertinence, expressed his displeasure in terms so offensive that
Messer Oddo Arrighi de’ Fifanti as sharply and unceremoniously rebuked
him; upon this Uberto gave him the lie and Oddo in return dashed a
trencher of meat in his face.

Everything was immediately in confusion; weapons were soon out, and while
the guests started up in disorder young Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti,
the friend and companion of Uberto, severely wounded Oddo Arrighi.

The party then separated and Oddo called a meeting of his friends to
consider the offence; amongst them were the counts Gangalandi, the
Uberti, Amidei, and Lamberti, who unanimously decided that the quarrel
should be quietly settled by a marriage between Buondelmonte and Oddo’s
niece, the daughter of Messer Lambertuccio di Capo di Ponte, of the
Amidei family. This proposition appears to have been unhesitatingly
accepted by the offender’s family as a day was immediately nominated for
the ceremony of plighting his troth to the destined bride.

During the interim Madonna Aldruda or Gualdrada, wife of Forese de’
Donati, sent privately for young Buondelmonte and thus addressed him:
“Unworthy knight! What! Hast thou accepted a wife through fear of the
Fifanti and Uberti? Leave her that thou hast taken, choose this damsel
in her place, and be henceforth a brave and honoured gentleman.” In so
saying she threw open the chamber door and exposed her daughter to his
view; the unexpected apparition of so much beauty, as it were soliciting
his love, had its usual consequence; Buondelmonte’s better reason was
overcome, yet he had resolution to answer, “Alas! it is now too late!”
“No,” replied Aldruda; “thou canst even yet have her; dare but to take
the step and let the consequences rest on my head.” “I do dare,” returned
the fascinated youth, and stepping forward again plighted a faith no
longer his to give.

Early on the 10th of February, the very day appointed for his original
nuptials, Buondelmonte passed by the Porta Santa Maria amidst all the
kinsfolk of his first betrothed, who had assembled near the dwellings of
the Amidei to assist at the expected marriage, yet not without certain
misgivings of his faithlessness. With a haughty demeanour he rode forward
through them all, bearing the marriage ring to the lady of his choice
and leaving her of the Amidei with the shame of an aggravated insult
by choosing the same moment for a violation of one contract and the
consummation of a second; for in those days, and for centuries after, the
old Roman custom of presenting a ring long before the marriage ceremony
took place was still in use.

Such insults were then impatiently borne; Oddo Arrighi assembled his
kindred in the no longer existing church of Santa Maria sopra Porta to
settle the mode of resenting this affront, and the moody aspect of each
individual marked the character of the meeting and all the vindictive
feeling of an injured family; there were, however, some of a more
temperate spirit that suggested personal chastisement or at most the
gashing of Buondelmonte’s face as the most reasonable and effectual
retribution. The assembly paused, but Mosca de’ Lamberti starting
suddenly forward exclaimed, “Beat or wound him as ye list, but first
prepare your own graves, for wounds bring equal consequences with death.”
“No. Mete him out his deserts and let him pay the penalty; but no delay.
Up and be doing.”

This turned the scale and Buondelmonte was doomed, but according to the
manners of that age, not in the field, which would have been hazardous,
but by the sure though inglorious means of noonday murder; wherefore, at
the very place where the insult was offered, beneath the battlements of
the Amidei, nay under the casement of the deserted maiden, and in his
way to a happy expecting bride, vengeance was prepared by these fierce
barons for the perjurer.

[Sidenote: [1215-1239 A.D.]]

On Easter morning, 1215, the murderers concealed themselves within the
courts and towers of the Amidei, which the young and heedless bridegroom
was sure to pass, and he was soon after seen at a distance carelessly
riding alone across the Ponte Vecchio on a milk-white palfrey, attired in
a vest of fine woollen cloth, a white mantle thrown across his shoulders
and the wedding garland on his head. The bridge was passed in thoughtless
gaiety, but scarcely had he reached the time-worn image of the Roman
Mars, the last relic of heathen worship then extant, when the mace of
Schiatto degli Uberti felled him to the ground, and at the base of this
grim idol the daggers of Oddo and his furious kinsmen finished the savage
deed; they met him gay and adorned for the altar, and left him with
the bridal wreath still dangling from his brow a bloody and ill-omened
sacrifice. The tidings of this murder spread rapidly, and disordered the
whole community of Florence; the people became more and more excited,
because both law and custom had awarded due penalties for faithless men,
and death was an unheard-of punishment.

Buondelmonte’s corpse was placed on a bier, with its head resting in the
lap of his affianced bride, the young and beautiful Donati, who hung like
a lily over the pallid features of her husband; and thus united were
they borne through the streets of Florence. It was the gloomy dawning of
a tempestuous day, for in that bloody moment was unchained the demon of
Florentine discord; the name of Guelf and Ghibelline were then for the
first time assumed by noble and commoner as the cry of faction; and long
after the original cause of enmity had ceased, they continued to steep
all Italy in blood.

It has been shown that there were already two parties existing in the
commonwealth; but it was not until after this outrage that the whole
community divided under the above appellations, one part siding with the
Buondelmonti, who were for the most part Guelfic chiefs and adherents of
the church; the other with the Uberti, leaders of the Ghibellines and
partisans of the empire. Of seventy-two powerful families mentioned by
Malespini, thirty-nine joined the Buondelmonti banner and thirty-three
fought under the colours of their enemies; but many more houses of
distinction took part in the civil war; many afterwards changed sides
through quarrels with their chiefs; many of the Buondelmonti who before
were Ghibellines now became Guelfs; the former were stigmatised with the
epithet of “_Paterini_,” and the latter with that of “_Traditori_.”

Nevertheless an attempt at reconciliation was made in 1239, by marrying
Neri Piccolino degli Uberti to the daughter of Rinieri Zingani de’
Buondelmonti, a lady celebrated for her wisdom, beauty, and talents.
Trusting to this tie the Uberti and some friends repaired with confidence
to visit Bertaldi de’ Buondelmonti of Campi, but were treacherously
attacked and beaten back with some bloodshed; this renewed the war with
greater violence and Neri dismissed his wife to her own relatives,
declaring that he disdained to become the propagator of a traitorous
brood from a deceitful stock. The unfortunate lady was then compelled by
her father to marry Count Pannochino de’ Pannochieschi, on whose mercy
she threw herself, imploring permission to retire into a convent; for
though abandoned by her husband she protested that she was still his wife
and therefore never could belong to another. Her motives were respected,
her prayer generously granted, and she immediately took the veil in the
convent of Montecelli.

[Sidenote: [1215-1225 A.D.]]

Immediately after Buondelmonte’s death a low and angry murmur rolled
sullenly through the whole Florentine population, and instinctive
preparations were everywhere in progress for some dimly apprehended
danger; as yet all was calm, but dark clouds were gathering around and
the echo of distant thunder marked the coming storm. Each house was armed
and fortified, towers were again mounted with warlike engines, _serragli_
(barricades) were erected, the shops all closed, the people in painful
doubt, and ancient citizens who remembered the troubles of other times
looked on and trembled. Nor was their apprehension vain; the curse of
heaven seemed to rest on this devoted city, and with but little cessation
during three and thirty years did Florence reek with the blood of her
children.[c]

The death of Innocent III [1216] and, two years afterwards, of Otto IV
broke the unnatural alliance between a pope and the heir of a Ghibelline
family. The Milanese, excommunicated by Innocent for having fought
against Frederick II, did not the less persist in making war on his
partisans; well convinced that the new pope, Honorius III, would soon
thank them for it. They refused Frederick the iron crown of Lombardy,
preserved at Monza, and contracted an alliance with the count Thomas of
Savoy, and with the cities of Crema, Piacenza, Lodi, Vercelli, Novara,
Tortona, Como, and Alessandria, to drive the Ghibellines from Lombardy.
The Ghibellines defeated them on the 6th of June, 1218, in a great battle
fought against the militias of Cremona, Parma, Reggio, and Modena, before
Ghibello. This reverse of fortune calmed for some time their military
ardour. The citizens of every town accused the nobles of having led
them into war from family enmities and interests foreign to the city;
at Milan, Piacenza, Cremona, and Modena, there were battles between the
nobles and the people. Laws were proposed to divide the public magistracy
in due proportions between them; finally the Milanese, in the year 1221,
expelled all the nobles from their city.

FREDERICK II CROWNED EMPEROR

The young Frederick re-entered Italy; and, after some differences with
Honorius III, received from him, on the 22nd of November, 1220, the crown
of the empire. He afterwards occupied himself in establishing order in
his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where, during his minority, the popes
had encouraged a universal insubordination. Born in the march of Ancona,
at Jesi, in December, 1194, he was Italian as well by language as by
affection and character. The Italian language, spoken at his court, first
rose above the _patois_ in common use throughout Italy, regarded only
as a corruption of Latin; he expressed himself with elegance in this
language, which, from his time, was designated by the name of _lingua
cortigiana_; he encouraged the first poets, who employed it at his court,
and he himself made verses; he loved literature and encouraged learning;
he founded schools and universities; he promoted distinguished men;
he spoke, with equal facility, Latin, Italian, German, French, Greek,
and Arabic; he had the intellectual suppleness and finesse peculiar to
the men of the south, the art of pleasing, a taste for philosophy, and
great independence of opinion, with a leaning to infidelity; hence he is
accused of having written a book against the three revelations of Moses,
Jesus, and Mohammed, entitled _De Tribus Impostoribus_, which no one has
ever seen, and which perhaps never existed. His want of faith in the
sacred character of the Roman church, and the sanctity of popes, is less
doubtful; he was suspicious of them, and he employed all his address
to defend himself against their enterprises. Honorius III, desirous of
engaging him to recover the Holy Land from the Saracens, made him, in
1225, marry Yolande de Lusignan, heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem;
after which, Honorius and his successor Gregory IX pressed him to pass
into Palestine. A malady stopped him, in 1227, just as he was about to
depart; the pope, to punish him for this delay, excommunicated him.
He still pursued him with his anathema when he went to the Holy Land
the year following, and haughtily testified his indignation, because
Frederick, in the year 1229, recovered Jerusalem from the hands of the
sultan by treaty, rather than exterminate the infidels with the sword.

RENEWAL OF THE LOMBARD LEAGUE

[Sidenote: [1225-1233 A.D.]]

Meanwhile the Guelf party again raised their standard in Lombardy;
the republics of Milan, Bologna, Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Faenza,
Mantua, Vercelli, Lodi, Bergamo, Turin, Alexandria, Vicenza, Padua, and
Treviso assembled their consuls in council at San Zenone in the Mantuan
territory, on the 2nd of March, 1226. They renewed the ancient league
of Lombardy for twenty-five years; and engaged to defend in concert,
their own liberty and the independence of the court of Rome. Three years
afterwards, they sent succour to Gregory IX, when he was attacked by
Frederick II on his return from the Holy Land; and they were included in
the treaty of peace between the pope and the emperor in 1230.

The pope, however, though defended by the arms of the Lombards, made them
pay dearly for the favour which he showed in naming them to the emperor
as his allies. He consented to protect their civil liberty only so far as
they sacrificed to him their liberty of conscience. The same spirit of
reformation which animated the Albigenses had spread throughout Europe;
many Christians, disgusted with the corruption and vices of the clergy,
or whose minds revolted against the violence on their reason exercised
by the church, devoted themselves to a contemplative life, renounced
all ambition and the pleasures of the world, and sought a new road to
salvation in the alliance of faith with reason. They called themselves
_cathari_, or the purified; _paterini_, or the resigned. The free towns
had, till then, refused permission to the tribunals of the Inquisition,
instituted by Innocent III, to proceed against them within their walls;
but Gregory IX declared the impossibility of acknowledging as allies of
the holy see republicans so indulgent to the enemies of the faith; at the
same time, he sent among them the most eloquent of the Dominicans, to
rouse their fanaticism. Leo da Perego, whom he afterwards made archbishop
of Milan, had an only too fatal success in that city, where he caused
a great number of _paterini_ to be burned. St. Peter Martyr, and the
monk Roland of Cremona, obtained an equal triumph in the other cities of
Lombardy.

The monk John of Vicenza had the cities of the march assigned to him
as a province, where the heretics were in still greater numbers than
in Lombardy, and included in their ranks some of the most powerful
nobles in the country; among others, Ezzelino II, of Romano. The monk
John announced himself the minister of peace, not of persecution. After
having preached successively in every town, he assembled, on the plain
of Paquara, the 28th of August, 1233, almost the whole population
of the towns of the march; he exhorted them to peace in a manner so
irresistible, that the greatest enemies, setting aside their animosities,
pardoned and embraced each other; and all, with tears of joy, celebrated
the warm charity of this man of God. This man of God, however, celebrated
the festival of this reconciliation by judging and condemning to the
flames sixty _cathari_ in the single town of Verona, whose sufferings he
witnessed in the public square; and afterwards obtained full power from
the towns of Vicenza and Padua to act there in the like manner.

FREDERICK II AND THE LOMBARD LEAGUE

[Sidenote: [1233-1236 A.D.]]

It was only a short period after the Peace of Paquara that Frederick
II, believing he had sufficiently re-established his power in southern
Italy, began to turn his attention towards Lombardy; he had no intention
of disputing the rights guaranteed by his grandfather at the Peace of
Constance; but it was his will that the cities should remain, what
they ought to be by the treaty, members of the empire, and not enemies
of the emperor. He had raised an army, over which he feared neither
the influence of the monks nor the pope. He had transported from the
mountains of Sicily, into the city of Luceria, in the capitanate,
and into that of Nocera, in the principato, two strong colonies of
Saracens, which could supply him with thirty thousand Mussulman soldiers,
strangers, by their language and religion, to all the intrigues of the
court of Rome. There was in the Veronese march a man endowed with great
military talents, ambitious, intrepid, and entirely devoted to the
emperor--Ezzelino III, of Romano, already powerful by the great fiefs he
held in the mountains, and the number of his soldiers, whom Frederick
made still more so, by placing him at the head of the Ghibelline party in
all the cities. Ezzelino, born on the 4th of April, 1194, was precisely
of the same age as the emperor. The pope had summoned him to arrest
his father, and deliver him to the tribunal of the Inquisition as a
_paterino_; but though Ezzelino knew neither virtue, pity, nor remorse,
he was not sufficiently depraved for such a crime.

[Illustration: A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY KNIGHT IN ARMOUR]

As Frederick was on the point of attacking the Guelfs of Lombardy on
the south with the Saracens, while Ezzelino advanced on the east, he
learned that his son Henry, whom he had in the year 1220 crowned king of
Germany, in spite of his extreme youth, seduced by the Guelfs and the
agents of the pope, had revolted against him. The Milanese, in 1234,
sent deputies to offer him the iron crown, which they had refused to his
father. The latter hastened into Germany, and ordered his son to meet him
at Worms, where he threw himself at the feet of his father, and entreated
forgiveness. Frederick deprived him of the crown, and sent him to Apulia,
where he died a few years afterwards. The emperor was obliged to employ
two years in restoring order in Germany; he after that returned into
Italy by the valley of Trento, and arrived, on the 16th of August, 1236,
at Verona with three thousand German cavalry. A senate of eighty members,
nobles and Ghibellines, then governed that republic; Frederick, by his
address in managing men, engaged them to name Ezzelino captain of the
people; this committed to him at the same time the command of the militia
and the judicial power; and, in the state of excitement in which parties
were much more occupied with the triumph of their faction than with the
security of their liberty, gave him almost sovereign power. Frederick,
obliged to return to Germany, left under the command of Ezzelino a body
of German soldiers, and another of Saracens, with which this able captain
made himself, the same year, master of Vicenza, which he barbarously
pillaged, and the following year of Padua. This last was the most
powerful city of the province, that in which the form of government was
the most democratic, and in which the Guelfs had always exercised the
most influence. Ezzelino judged it necessary to secure obedience by
taking hostages from the richest and most powerful families; he employed
his spies to discover the malcontents, whom he punished with torture, and
redoubled his cruelty in proportion to the hatred which he excited.

THE BATTLE OF CORTENUOVA

[Sidenote: [1236-1237 A.D.]]

The same year, 1237, Frederick approached Mantua, and thus giving courage
to the Ghibelline party, made them triumph over the Guelfs, who had, till
then, the ascendant in that city; he was joined there by ten thousand
Saracens, whom he summoned from Apulia, and afterwards advanced into
the Cremonese territory to attack the confederate army of the Guelfs,
commanded by the consuls of Milan, who knew no other art of war but
the bravery evinced in battle. Frederick was a more able captain; by
manœuvring between Brescia and Cremona, he drew the Milanese beyond the
Oglio, and finally succeeded, as they believed the campaign finished, in
placing himself between them and their country at Cortenuova near Crema.
The Guelfs, although thus cut off from retreat, boldly accepted battle on
the 27th of November, 1237, and long disputed the victory. Their defeat
was only the more bloody; it cost them ten thousand men killed or taken
prisoners, with the loss of the _carroccio_. The fugitives followed
during the night the course of the Oglio to enter the Bergamasque
Mountains; they would all, however, have fallen into the hands of the
Ghibellines, if Pagan della Torre, the lord of Valsassina, and a Guelf
noble, had not hastened to their assistance, opened the defiles covered
by his fortresses, and brought them thus safely to Milan. The citizens of
this town never forgot so important a service; and they contracted with
the house of della Torre an alliance which subsequently proved dangerous
to their freedom.

The defeat of the Guelfs at Cortenuova alarmed the towns of Lombardy,
the greater number of which detached themselves from Milan. Frederick,
entering Piedmont the following year, gave preponderance to the
Ghibelline party in the cities of Turin, Asti, Novara, Alexandria, and
several others. The constitution was not changed when the power in
council passed from one party to another; but the emperor generally
reckoned his partisans among the nobility, while the people were devoted
to the church; accordingly, the triumph of the aristocracy generally
accompanied that of the Ghibelline party. Four cities only, Milan,
Brescia, Piacenza, and Bologna, remained at the end of the year opposed
to the imperial power. Frederick began his attack on them by laying
siege to Brescia; but the Brescians dared to face the storm; they
supported, during sixty-eight days, the repeated attacks of the emperor,
rendered all his efforts fruitless, and forced him at last to raise the
siege with an army weakened and discouraged.

POPE AGAINST EMPEROR

[Sidenote: [1238-1243 A.D.]]

In the meantime, Gregory IX redoubled his efforts to save the Guelf party
from ruin. He saw, with alarm, an emperor, master of the Two Sicilies and
of Germany, on the point of vanquishing all resistance in upper Italy. He
anticipated that this monarch, whose Mussulman soldiers were constantly
passing through the states of Rome, would escape the influence of the
church, and soon evince no respect whatever for a religion which he
was accused of not believing. Gregory had recourse to the two maritime
republics of Venice and Genoa, which, in general occupied with their
conquests and commerce in the East, seldom took any part in the politics
of Italy. He represented to them that they would be soon deprived of
the freedom of the seas, if they did not make some effort to save the
champions of liberty and of the church in Lombardy. He at length obtained
their agreement to contract an alliance with the four only surviving
cities of the league of Lombardy; and finally, towards the beginning of
the year 1239, he fulminated another sentence of excommunication against
Frederick. This had a greater effect than Gregory ventured to hope. A
considerable number of nobles of Guelf origin, seduced by court favours,
had been won over to the imperial party. They perceived that, after the
anathema of the pope, the emperor distrusted them. The marquis d’Este
and the count di San Bonifazio were even warned that their heads were in
danger, and they made their escape from the imperial camp; all the other
Guelf nobles followed their example, and the Guelf cities gained captains
habituated to arms and familiarised with higher ideas of politics.

Gregory began to think he should give still greater weight to the
anathemas which he launched against the emperor if they were sanctioned
by a council. In the year 1241 he convoked at Rome all the prelates of
Christendom. Frederick, who had been established at Pisa since the autumn
of the year 1239, exerted himself to prevent the meeting of a council
which he dreaded. While the two other maritime republics had declared
for the Guelfs, Pisa was entirely of the Ghibelline party. The people
were enthusiastically attached to the emperor; and among the nobles, a
few only, proprietors of fiefs in Sardinia, headed by the Visconti of
Gallura, had forsaken him for the Guelfs. The Pisans, further excited
by their jealousy of the Genoese, promised Frederick that they would
brave for him all the thunders of the church, and assured him they knew
well how to hinder the meeting of the council. A considerable number of
French prelates had embarked at Nice for Ostia, on board Genoese galleys.
Ugolino Buzzacherino de Sismondi, admiral of the Pisans, lay in wait with
a powerful fleet before Meloria, attacked them on the 3rd of May, 1241,
sunk three vessels, took nineteen, and made prisoners all the French
prelates who were to join the council at Pisa. The republic loaded them
with chains, but they were chains made of silver, and imprisoned them in
the chapter house of the cathedral. Gregory, alarmed at this reverse of
fortune, survived only a few months; he died the 21st of August, 1241;
and the college of cardinals, reduced to a very small number, passed
nearly two years before they could agree on a new choice. At last, on
the 24th of June, 1243, Senibaldi de’ Fieschi, of Genoa, who took the
name of Innocent IV, was elected to the chair of St. Peter. His family,
powerful in Genoa and in the Ligurian Mountains, was also allied to
many noble families, who possessed castles on the northern side of the
Apennines; and this position gave him great influence in the neighbouring
cities of Placentia, Parma, Reggio, and Modena. The elevation of a
Fieschi to the pontificate gave courage to the Guelf party in all these
cities.

[Sidenote: [1243-1245 A.D.]]

Frederick had recourse in vain to the new pope to be reconciled to
the church; Innocent IV was determined to see in him only an enemy of
religion and of the pontifical power, and a chief of barbarians, who in
turns summoned his Germans and his Saracens to tyrannise over Italy. He
drew closer his alliance with the cities of the league of Lombardy, and
promised them to cause the emperor to be condemned and deposed by an
ecumenical council, as his predecessor would have done; but instead of
convoking the council in Italy, he fixed for that purpose on the city
of Lyons, one-half of which belonged to the empire and the other to the
kingdom of France. He determined on placing himself with the prelates
whom he had summoned under the protection of St. Louis, who then reigned
in France. He went from Rome to Genoa by sea, escaping the Pisan fleet
which watched to intercept his passage; he excited by his exhortations
the enthusiasm of the Guelfs of Genoa, and of the cities of Lombardy
and Piedmont, which he visited on his passage; and arriving at Lyons,
he opened, on the 28th of June, 1245, in the convent of St. Just, the
council of the universal church. He found the bishops of France, England,
and Germany eager to adopt his passions; so that he obtained from them
at their third sitting, on the 17th of July, a sentence of condemnation
against Frederick II. The council declared that for his crimes and
iniquities God had rejected him, and would no longer suffer him to be
either emperor or king. In consequence, the pope and the council released
his subjects from their oath of allegiance; forbade them under pain of
excommunication to obey him under any title whatever; and invited the
electors of the empire to proceed to the election of another emperor,
while the pope reserved to himself the nomination of another king of the
Two Sicilies.

Frederick at first opposed all his strength of soul against the sentence
of excommunication pronounced by the council on him. Causing his jewels
to be brought him, and placing the golden crown of the empire on his
head, he declared before a numerous assembly that he would still wear
it, and knew how to defend it; but, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of
the Ghibelline party, the devotion of his friends, and the progress of
philosophical opinions, which he had himself encouraged, the man whom
the church had condemned was in constant danger of being abandoned or
betrayed. The mendicant monks everywhere excited conspiracies against
him. They took advantage of the terrors inspired by sickness and age, to
make sinners return, as they said, to the ways of salvation, and desired
them to make amends for their past transgressions by delivering the
church of God from its most dangerous enemy. Insurrections frequently
broke forth in one or other of the Two Sicilies; still oftener the
emperor discovered amongst his courtiers plots to destroy him, either by
the dagger or poison; even his private secretary, his intimate friend,
Pietro delle Vigne, whom he had raised from abject poverty, to whom he
had entrusted his most important affairs, gave ear to the counsel of the
monks, and promised to poison his master.

[Sidenote: [1245-1248 A.D.]]

Frederick, on his part, became suspicious and cruel; his distrust fell
on his most faithful friends; and the executions which he ordered
sometimes preceded the proofs of guilt. He had confided Germany to
his son Conrad, and the exclusive government of the Veronese marches
to Ezzelino. The hatred which this ferocious man excited by his crimes
fell on the emperor. Ezzelino imprisoned in the most loathsome dungeons
those whom he considered his enemies, and frequently put them to death
by torture, or suffered them to perish by hunger; he was well aware that
the relatives of these victims must also be his enemies; they were,
in their turn, arrested; and the more he sacrificed to his barbarity,
the more he was called upon to strike. The citizens of Milan, Mantua,
Bergamo, and Brescia every day heard of new and horrible crimes committed
by the governor of the marches; they conceived the greater detestation
of the Ghibelline party, and entertained the firmer determination to
repel Frederick. He, on the contrary, had no thoughts of attacking them;
he established himself during the Council of Lyons at Turin, and thence
entered into a negotiation with St. Louis, to obtain by his mediation
a reconciliation with the church to which he made, in token of his
submission, the offer to accompany Louis to the Holy Land.

[Illustration: STREET COSTUME OF AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, THIRTEENTH CENTURY]

The revolt of Parma, on the 16th of June, 1247, obliged Frederick to
resume his arms at a moment when he was least disposed. The friends
and relatives of Pope Innocent IV, the Guelf nobles of the houses of
Corregio, Lupi, and Rossi, re-entering Parma, whence they had been
exiled, triumphed over their adversaries, and in their turn expelled
them from the city. Frederick was determined at any price to recover
Parma. He sent for a numerous band of Saracens from Apulia, commanded by
one of his natural sons, named Frederick, to whom he gave the title of
king of Antioch. He assembled the Lombard Ghibellines, under the command
of another of his illegitimate sons, named Hans or Hensius, called by
him king of Sardinia, and whom he had made imperial vicar in Lombardy.
Ezzelino arrived, too, at his camp from the Veronese march, with the
militias of Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, and the soldiers whom he had
raised in his hereditary fiefs.

On the other side, the Guelfs of Lombardy hastened to send succour to
a city which had just sacrificed itself for them. The Milanese set the
example; the militias of Mantua, Piacenza, and Ferrara followed it; and
the Guelfs, who had been exiled from Reggio, Modena, and other Ghibelline
cities, thinking they served their country in fighting for their faction,
arrived in great numbers to shut themselves up in Parma. Frederick was
prevented from hanging the hostages given previous to the revolt, before
the walls of the city, by the militia of Pavia, who declared it was
with the sword of Ghibelline soldiers only, and not with that of the
executioner, that they would secure the throne of the emperor. The siege
made little progress; the winter had begun, but Frederick persisted
in his attempt. He proclaimed his determination to raze Parma to the
ground, and to transfer those of the inhabitants who should be spared
into his fortified camp, of which he would make a new town, called
Vittoria. This camp, which he quitted on a hawking party, on the 8th of
February, 1248, was in his absence surprised by a sortie of a Guelf army
from Parma, taken, and pillaged; his soldiers were dispersed, and the
emperor had the humiliation of being forced to raise the siege.

THE GUELFS EXPELLED FROM FLORENCE; THE BATTLE OF FOSSALTA

[Sidenote: [1248-1249 A.D.]]

Before this event, he had sent his son, the king of Antioch, into Tuscany
with sixteen hundred German cavalry, to secure Florence to his party;
where, since the death of Buondelmonte, the Guelfs and Ghibellines,
always in opposition, had not ceased fighting. There was seldom an
assembly, a festival, a public ceremony, without some offence given,
either by one or other of the parties. Both flew to arms; chains were
thrown across the streets; barricades were immediately formed, and in
every quarter, round every noble family; the more contiguous, who had the
most frequent causes of quarrel, fought at the same time in ten different
places. Nevertheless the republic was supposed to lean towards the Guelf
party; and the Florentine Ghibellines, in their relations with other
people, had never sought to separate from their fellow-countrymen, or to
place themselves in opposition to their magistrates. Frederick, fearing
to lose Florence, wrote to the Uberti, the chiefs of the Ghibelline
faction, to assemble secretly in their palace all their party, to attack
afterwards in concert and at once all the posts of the Guelfs; whilst
his son, the king of Antioch, should present himself at the gates, and
thus expel their adversaries from the city. This plan was executed on the
night of Candlemas, 1248; the barricades of the Guelfs were forced in
every quarter, because they defended themselves in small bands against
the whole of the opposite party. The Ghibellines, masters of the town,
ordered all the Guelfs to quit it. They afterwards demolished thirty-six
palaces belonging to the same number of the most illustrious families
of that party; and intimidating the other cities of Tuscany, they
constrained them to follow their example, and declare for the emperor.

Frederick II, after the check experienced by him at Parma, returned
to his kingdom of Naples and Sicily, and left to his son Hensius, who
established himself at Modena, the direction of the war in Lombardy. The
pope, however, had sent a legate, the cardinal Octavian degli Ubaldini,
to the Guelf cities, to engage them to pursue their victory, and punish
the imperial party for what he called their revolt against the church.
The powerful city of Bologna, already celebrated for its university, and
superior to the neighbouring ones by its wealth, its population, and the
zeal which a democratic government excites, undertook to make the Guelf
party triumph throughout the Cispadane region. Bologna first attacked
Romagna, and forced the towns of Imola, Faenza, Forlì, and Cervia to
expel the Ghibellines, and declare for the church. The Bolognese next
turned their arms against Modena. The Modenese cavalry, entering Bologna
one day by surprise, carried off from a public fountain a bucket, which
henceforth was preserved in the tower of Modena as a glorious trophy. The
war which followed furnished Tassoni with the subject of his mock-heroic
poem, _La Secchia Rapita_. The vengeance of the Bolognese was, however,
anything but burlesque; after several bloody battles, the two armies
finally met at Fossalta on the 26th of May, 1249. Philip Ugoni of
Brescia, who was this year podesta of Bologna, commanded the Guelf army,
in which was united a detachment from the militias of all the cities of
the league of Lombardy. The Ghibellines were led by king Hensius; each
army consisted of from fifteen to twenty thousand combatants. The battle
was long and bloody, but ended with the complete defeat of the Ghibelline
party; King Hensius himself fell into the hands of the conquerors; he was
immediately taken to Bologna, and confined in the palace of the podesta.
The senate of that city rejected all offers of ransom, all intercession
in his favour. He was entertained in a splendid manner, but kept a
prisoner during the rest of his life, which lasted for twenty-two years.

DEATH OF FREDERICK II: THE SUCCESSION

[Sidenote: [1249-1250 A.D.]]

This last check overwhelmed Frederick. He had now during thirty years
combated the church and the Guelf party; his bodily as well as mental
energy was worn out in this long contest. His life was embittered by the
treason of those whom he believed his friends, by the disasters of his
partisans, and by the misfortunes which had pursued him even in his own
family. He saw his power in Italy decline; while the crown of Germany
was disputed with his son Conrad, by competitors favoured by the church.
He appeared to be at length himself disturbed by the excommunications of
the pope, and the fear of that hell with which he had been so incessantly
menaced. He implored anew the assistance and mediation of St. Louis of
France, who was then in the isle of Cyprus. He provided magnificently for
the wants of the crusade army, which this king commanded; he solicited
leave to join it. He offered to engage never to return from the Holy
Land, and to submit to the most humiliating expiations which the church
could impose. He succeeded in inspiring St. Louis with interest and
gratitude. Frederick, while waiting the effect of St. Louis’ good
offices, seemed occupied solely in the affairs of his kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, where he restored order, and established a prosperity not to be
seen elsewhere in Europe. On the 13th of December, 1250, he was seized
with a dysentery, of which he died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age,
at his castle of Florentino, in the capitanate where he had fixed his
residence.

The Italian cities, which for the most part date the commencement of
their liberty from the conflicts between the sovereigns of Italy and
Germany, or the invasion of Otto the Great, in 951, had already, at the
death of Frederick II, enjoyed for three centuries the protection and
progressive improvement of their municipal constitutions. These three
centuries, with reference to the rest of Europe, are utterly barbarous.
Their history is everywhere obscure and imperfectly known. It records
only some great revolution, or the victories and calamities of princes;
the people are always left in the shade: a writer would have thought it
beneath him to occupy himself about the fate of plebeians; they were not
supposed to be worthy of history. The towns of Italy, so prodigiously
superior to all others in wealth, intelligence, energy, and independence,
were equally regardless of preserving any record of past times. Some
grave chroniclers preserved the memory of an important crisis, but in
general the cities passed whole centuries without leaving any written
memorial; thinking it perhaps good policy not to attract notice, and to
envelope themselves in obscurity. They, however, of necessity departed
from this system in the last century, owing to the two conflicts, in
both of which they remained victorious. From 1150 to 1183, they had
fought to obtain the Peace of Constance, which they regarded as their
constitutional charter. From 1183 to 1250, they preserved the full
exercise of the privileges which they had so gloriously acquired; but
while they continually advanced in opulence, while intelligence and the
arts became more and more developed, they were led by two passions,
equally honourable, to range themselves under two opposite banners.
One party, listening only to their faith, their attachment, and their
gratitude to a family which had given them many great sovereigns, were
ready to venture their all for the cause of the Ghibellines; the other,
alarmed for the independence of the church, and the liberty of Italy,
by the always increasing grandeur of the house of Hohenstaufen, were
not less resolute in their endeavours to wrest from it the sceptre
which menaced them. The cities of the Lombard League had reached the
summit of their power at the period of this second conflict. During the
interregnum which lasted from the death of Frederick II to the entrance
into Italy of Henry VII in 1310, the Lombard republics, a prey to the
spirit of faction, and more intent on the triumph of either the Guelf
or Ghibelline parties, than on securing their own constitutions, all
submitted themselves to the military power of some nobles to whom they
had intrusted the command of their militias, and thus lost all their
liberty.

[Sidenote: [1250-1257 A.D.]]

On the death of Frederick II, his son, Conrad IV, king of Germany, did
not feel himself sufficiently strong to appear in Italy, and place on
his head, in succession, the iron crown at Monza, and the golden crown
at Rome. He wished first of all to secure that of the Two Sicilies; and
embarked at some port in Istria for Naples, in a Pisan vessel, during
the month of October, 1251. The remainder of his short life was passed
in combating and vanquishing the Neapolitan Guelfs. He died suddenly at
Lavello, on the 21st of May, 1254. His natural brother, Manfred, a young
hero, hardly twenty years of age, succeeded by his activity and courage
in recovering the kingdom which Innocent IV had already invaded, with
the intention of subduing it to the temporal power of the holy see. But
Manfred, beloved by the Saracens of Luceria, who were the first to defend
him, and admired by the Ghibellines of the Two Sicilies, was for a long
time detained there by the attacks of the Guelfs, before he could in his
turn pursue them through the rest of Italy. Conrad had left in Germany
a son, still an infant, afterwards known under the name of Conradin; he
was acknowledged king of Germany, under the name of Conrad V, by a small
party only. The electors left the empire without a head; and when they
afterwards proceeded to elect one in the year 1257, their suffrages were
divided between two princes, strangers to Germany, where they had never
set foot; one, an Englishman, Richard, earl of Cornwall; the other a
Spaniard, Alfonso X of Castile.

THE POPE AND THE CITIES

[Sidenote: [1251-1253 A.D.]]

Innocent IV was still in France when he learned of the death of Frederick
II; he returned thence in the beginning of the spring of 1251; wrote to
all the towns to celebrate the deliverance of the church; gave boundless
expression to his joy; and made his entry into Milan, and the principal
cities of Lombardy, with all the pomp of a triumph. He supposed that the
republicans of Italy had fought only for him, and that he alone would
henceforth be obeyed by them; of this he soon made them but too sensible.
He treated the Milanese with arrogance, and threatened to excommunicate
them for not having respected some ecclesiastical immunity. It was the
moment in which the republic, like a warrior reposing himself after
battle, began to feel its wounds. It had made immense sacrifices for the
Guelf party; it had emptied the treasury, obtained patriotic gifts from
every citizen who had anything to spare; pledged its revenues, and loaded
itself with debt to the extent of its credit. For the discharge of their
debts, the citizens resigned themselves to the necessity of giving to
their podesta, Beno de’ Gozzadini of Bologna, unlimited power to create
new imposts, and to raise money under every form he found possible. The
ingratitude of the pope, at a moment of universal suffering, deeply
offended the Milanese; and the influence of the Ghibellines in a city
where, till then, they had been treated as enemies, might be dated from
that period.

[Illustration: CLOISTERS OF SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE]

Innocent IV pursued his journey towards Rome; but found the capital
of Christendom still less disposed than the first city of Lombardy to
obey him. The Romans in 1253 called another Bolognese noble, named
Brancaleone d’Andolo, to the government of their republic; and gave him,
with the title of senator, almost unlimited authority. The citizens,
continually alarmed by the quarrels and battles of the Roman nobles, who
had converted the Colosseum, the tombs of Adrian, Augustus, and Cæcilia
Metella, the arches of triumph and other monuments of ancient Rome, into
so many fortresses, whence issued banditti, whom they kept in pay, to
pillage passengers and peaceable merchants, demanded of the government
above all things vigour and severity. They forgot the guarantee due to
the accused, in their attention to those only which were required by the
public peace. The senator Brancaleone, at the head of the Roman militia,
successively attacked these monuments, become the retreat of robbers and
assassins; he levelled to the ground the towers which surmounted them;
he hanged the adventurers who defended them, with their commanders the
nobles, at the palace windows of the latter; and thus established by
terror security in the streets of Rome. He hardly showed more respect
to Innocent than to the Roman nobility. The pope, in order to be at
a distance from him, had transferred his court to Assisi. Brancaleone
sent him word that it was not decorous in a pope to be wandering like a
vagabond from city to city; and that, if he did not immediately return to
the capital of Christendom of which he was the bishop, the Romans, with
their senator at their head, would march to Assisi and send him out of it
by setting fire to the town.

Thus, although the power of kings had given way to that of the people,
liberty was in general ill understood and insecure. The passions were
impetuous; a certain point of honour was attached to violence; the
nobles believed they gave proof of independence by rapine and outrage;
and the friends of order believed they had attained the highest purpose
of government, when they made such audacious disturbers tremble. The
turbulence and number of the noble criminals, the support which their
crimes found in a false point of honour, form an excuse for the judicial
institutions of the Italian republics, which were all more calculated to
strike terror into criminals too daring to conceal themselves, than to
protect the accused against the unjust suspicion of secret crimes. Order
could be maintained only by an iron hand; but this iron hand soon crushed
liberty. Nevertheless, among the Italian cities there was one which above
all others seemed to think of justice more than of peace, and of the
security of the citizen more than of the punishment of the guilty. It was
Florence; its judicial institutions are, indeed, far from meriting to be
held up as models; but they were the first in Italy which offered any
guarantee to the citizen; because Florence was the city where the love of
liberty was the most general and the most constant in every class; where
the cultivation of the understanding was carried farthest; and where
enlightenment of mind soonest appeared in the improvement of the laws.

FLORENTINE AFFAIRS; THE GUELFS RECALLED

[Sidenote: [1250-1260 A.D.]]

The Ghibelline nobles had taken possession of the sovereignty of Florence
with the help of the king of Antioch, two years before the death of his
father, Frederick II; but their power soon became insupportable to the
free and proud citizens of that republic, who had already become wealthy
by commerce and who reckoned amongst them some distinguished literary
men, such as Brunetto Latini, and Guido Cavalcanti, without having lost
simplicity of manners, their sobriety of habits, or their bodily vigour.

Frederick II still lived, when by a unanimous insurrection, on the 20th
of October, 1250, they set themselves free. All the citizens assembled
at the same moment in the square of Santa Croce; they divided themselves
into fifty groups, of which each group chose a captain and thus formed
companies of militia: a council of these officers was the first-born
authority of this newly revived republic. The podesta by his severity
and partiality had rendered himself universally detested: they deposed
him, and supplied his place by another judge, under the name of captain
of the people, but soon afterwards decreed that the podesta and the
captain should each have an independent tribunal, in order that they
should exercise upon each other a mutual control; at the same time, they
determined that both should be subordinate to the supreme magistracy of
the republic, which was charged with the administration, but divested
of the judicial power. They decreed that this magistracy, which they
called the _signoria_, should be always present, always assembled in
the palace of the republic, ever ready to control the podesta or the
captain, to whom they had been obliged to delegate so much power. The
town was divided into six parts, each _sestier_, as it was called, named
two _anziani_. These twelve magistrates ate together, slept at the public
palace, and could never go out but together; their function lasted only
two months. Twelve others, elected by the people, succeeded them; and
the republic was so rich in good citizens, and in men worthy of its
confidence, that this rapid succession of _anziani_ did not exhaust their
number. The Florentine militia at the same time attacked and demolished
all the towers which served as a refuge to the nobles, in order that all
should henceforth be forced to submit to the common law.

The new signoria was hardly informed of the death of Frederick, when by a
decree of the 7th of January, 1251, they recalled all the Guelf exiles to
Florence. They henceforth laboured to give that party the preponderance
throughout Tuscany. They declared war against the neighbouring cities of
Pistoia, Pisa, Siena, and Volterra; not to subjugate them, or to impose
hard conditions, but to force them to rally round the party which they
considered that of the church and of liberty. The year 1254, when the
Florentines were commanded by their podesta, Guiscardo Pietra Santa, a
Milanese, is distinguished in their history by the name of the “Year of
Victories.” They took the two cities of Pistoia and Volterra; they forced
those of Pisa and Siena to sign a peace favourable to the Guelf party;
they refused to profit by a treason which had given them possession
of the citadel of Arezzo and they restored it to the Aretini; lastly,
they built in the Lunigiana, beyond the territory of Lucca, a fortress
destined to shut the entry of Tuscany on the Ligurian side, which in
memory of their podesta bears to this day the name of Pietra Santa. The
signoria also showed themselves worthy to be the governors of a city
renowned for commerce, the arts, and liberty. The whole monetary system
of Europe was at this period abandoned to the depredations of sovereigns
who continually varied the title and weight of coins--sometimes to
defraud their creditors, at other times to force their debtors to pay
more than they had received, or the tax-payers more than was due. During
150 years more the kings of France violated their faith with the public,
making annually with the utmost effrontery some important change in the
coins. But the republic of Florence, in the year 1252, coined its golden
florin, of twenty-four carats fine, and of the weight of one drachma. It
placed the value under the guarantee of publicity and of commercial good
faith; and that coin remained unaltered as the standard for all other
values as long as the republic itself endured.

FLORENCE AND SIENA AT WAR; THE BATTLE OF MONTAPERTI

A conspiracy of Ghibellines to recover their power in Florence and to
concentrate it in the aristocratic faction, forced the republic, in the
year 1258, to exile the most illustrious chiefs of that party. It was
then directed by Farinata degli Uberti, who was looked upon as the most
eloquent orator and the ablest warrior in Tuscany. All the Florentine
Ghibellines were favourably received at Siena, although the two republics
had mutually engaged in their last treaty not to give refuge to the
rebels of either city. Farinata afterwards joined Manfred, whom he found
firmly established on the throne of the Two Sicilies, and represented
to him that, to guard his kingdom from all attack, he ought to secure
Tuscany and give supremacy to the Ghibelline party. He obtained from him
a considerable body of German cavalry, which he led to Siena.

[Sidenote: [1259-1260 A.D.]]

Hostilities between the two republics had already begun: the colours
of Manfred had been dragged with contempt through the streets by the
Florentines. Farinata resolved to take advantage of the irritation of
the Germans, in order to bring the two parties to a general battle. He
knew that some ignorant artisans had found their way into the signoria
of Florence, and he tried to profit by their presumption. He flattered
them with the hope that he would open to them one of the gates of Siena,
if they ordered their army to present itself under the walls of that
city. At the same time, his emissaries undertook to excite the ill will
of the plebeians against the nobles of the Guelf party, who, being
more clear-sighted, might discover his intrigues. Notwithstanding the
opposition of the nobles in council, the signoria resolved to march a
Guelf army through the territory of Siena.[b]

It is said[11] there were not less than thirty thousand, and auxiliary
troops came from all the allied cities, or those subjected to the
Florentines; but as the Ghibellines had been expelled from these cities,
the latter had united at Siena and the Guelfs at Florence, and the two
armies presented the sad spectacle of division and civil war in the whole
of Tuscany. From Arezzo alone it is asserted that nearly five thousand
came to the succour of the Florentines under the command of Donatello
Tarlati, whilst another band of outlaws, conducted by their bishop, had
joined in Siena, and if we are to believe Raffaello Roncioni, a chosen
body of three thousand Pisans also came to Siena. The army of the Guelfs
was superior in number to the Ghibellines, that faction being predominant
in Tuscany, but probably there was not that disproportion which some
historians wish to make us believe. The army of the Guelfs marched on as
to certain victory, hoping to enter Siena without fighting; arrived upon
the hills of Montaperti they halted to receive advice from the Sienese to
proceed further.

Nothing is more capable of disconcerting a leader and an army than to
see an enemy courageously advancing to meet them, whom they had believed
either beaten or fugitive; thus the Florentine generals, who went to
the certain conquest of Siena, when they perceived the enemy advancing
boldly, at the head of whom was the German troop, so formidable an enemy
to them, began to despair. They came to blows, and both sides fought
with great valour; but the Florentines, unable to resist the attack made
upon them by the Germans, gave way. Treachery aided to increase the
consternation. Many Ghibellines, hidden in time of the battle, went over
to the enemy. Among the rest, Bocca of the Abati, before going over to
the other side, aimed a treacherous blow at Jacopo Vacca, of the family
of the Pazzi, who carried the ensign of the republic, and brought him to
the ground with the loss of an arm.

This act spread terror among the Florentines, who could no longer
distinguish friends from foes; the only opposition was made around the
triumphant chariot which contained the flags, and around the better part
of the defenders, who were disposed rather to purchase for themselves
an illustrious death by valour, than their safety by flight. A part of
the broken army had taken refuge in the castle of Montaperti. The castle
being taken by force, the refugees were cut to pieces. It is not easy
to ascertain the number of killed in a battle, since the conquerors
always exaggerate it, and the conquered conceal it; the latter, or the
Florentine writers, acknowledge only twenty-five hundred killed, and
fifteen hundred prisoners--but the number must have been far greater.

This battle is reckoned among the most bloody of those times, and was
fought on the 4th of September, 1260. The Sienese celebrated the victory
with solemn pomp, in which the triumphant chariot (_carroccio_) of the
Florentines was seen dragged upon the ground, and the name of City of the
Virgin was taken by Siena on this occasion, as a devout attestation of
gratitude to heaven for the happy issue.[d]

The Florentine Guelfs found themselves too much weakened by the defeat
of Montaperti to maintain themselves in Florence. The circumference
of the walls was too vast, and the population too much discouraged by
the enormous loss which they had experienced to admit of defending the
city. All those accordingly who had exercised any authority in the
republic--all those whose names were sufficiently known to discover their
party--left Florence for Lucca together, on horseback. The Guelfs of
Prato, Pistoia, Volterra, and San Gemignano could not hope to maintain
their ground when those of Florence failed. All abandoned their dwellings
and joined the Florentines at Lucca. That city granted to the illustrious
fugitives the church and portico of San Friano and the surrounding
quarter, where they pitched their tents. The Ghibellines entered Florence
on the 27th of September, immediately abolished the popular government,
and formed a new magistracy, composed entirely of nobles, who took the
oath of fidelity to Manfred, king of the Two Sicilies.

At a diet of the Ghibelline cities assembled at Empoli, the ambassadors
of Pisa and Siena strongly represented that whilst Florence existed, the
preponderance of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany could never be secure.
They affirmed that the population of that proud and warlike city was
entirely devoted to the Guelf party, that there was no hope of mitigating
their hatred of the nobles and of the family of the last emperor, that
democratic habits were become a sort of second nature to every one
of the inhabitants; they concluded with demanding that the walls of
Florence should be razed to the ground, and the people dispersed among
the neighbouring towns. All the Ghibellines of Tuscany, all the deputies
of the cities jealous of Florence received the proposition favourably.
It was about to be adopted when Farinata degli Uberti rose, and repelled
with indignation this abuse of the victory which he had just gained.
He protested that he loved his country far better than his party; and
declared that he would, with those same companions in arms whose bravery
they had witnessed at the battle of Arbia, join the Guelfs and fight for
them, sooner than consent to the ruin of what was in the world most dear
to him. The enemies of Florence dared not answer him; and the diet of
Empoli contented itself with decreeing that the league of Tuscany should
take into pay one thousand of the soldiers of Manfred, to support in that
province the preponderance of the Guelf party. Dante has immortalised
Farinata as the saviour of Florence, and Bocca degli Abati as the traitor
who placed it on the brink of destruction. His poem is filled with
allusions to this memorable epoch.

THE TYRANT EZZELINO

[Sidenote: [1256-1260 A.D.]]

While the Ghibellines thus acquired the preponderance in Tuscany, the
tyrant fell who at the head of that party had caused so much blood to
flow in the Trevisan march. Ezzelino was hereditary lord of Bassano and
Piedmont: he succeeded in making himself named captain of the people by
the republics of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, and Belluno. By this
title he united the judicial with the military power; he was subject
only to councils which he might assemble or not at his pleasure. It does
not appear that there was any permanent magistracy like the signoria of
Florence, to repress his abuse of power. Accordingly he soon changed the
authority which he derived from the people into a frightful tyranny:
fixing his suspicions upon all who rose to any distinction, who in any
way attracted the attention of their fellow citizens, he did not wait for
any expression of discontent, or symptom of resistance in the nobles,
merchants, priests, or lawyers, who by their eminence alone became
suspected, to throw them into prison and there, by the most excruciating
torture, extract confessions of crimes that might justify his suspicions.
The names which escaped their lips in the agony of torture were carefully
registered in order to supply fresh victims to the tyrant. In the single
town of Padua there were eight prisons always full, notwithstanding the
incessant toil of the executioner to empty them; two of these contained
each three hundred prisoners. A brother of Ezzelino, named Alberic,
governed Treviso with less ferocity, but with a power not less absolute.
Cremona was in like manner subject to a Ghibelline chief; Milan no
longer evinced any repugnance to that party. In that city, as well as in
Brescia, the factions of nobles and plebeians disputed for power.

Alexander IV, to destroy the monster that held in terror the Trevisan
march, caused a crusade to be preached in that country. He promised
those who combated the ferocious Ezzelino all the indulgences usually
reserved for the deliverers of the Holy Land. The marquis d’Este, the
count di San Bonifacio, with the cities of Ferrara, Mantua, and Bologna,
assembled their troops under the standard of the church; they were joined
by a horde of ignorant fanatics from the lowest class, anxious to obtain
indulgences, but unsusceptible of discipline and incapable of a single
act of valour. Their number, however, so frightened Ezzelino’s lieutenant
at Padua, that he defended but feebly the passage of the Bacchiglione and
the town. The legate Philip, elected archbishop of Ravenna, entered Padua
at the head of the crusaders, on the 18th of June, 1256; but he either
would not or could not restrain the fanatic and rapacious rabble which he
had summoned to the support of his soldiers: for seven days the city was
inhumanly pillaged by those whom it had received as its deliverers. As
soon as Ezzelino was informed of the loss he had sustained, he hastened
to separate and disarm the eleven thousand Paduans belonging to his
army; he confined them in prisons, where all, with the exception of two
hundred, met a violent or lingering death.

[Illustration: ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, THIRTEENTH CENTURY]

During the following two years the Guelfs experienced nothing but
disasters: the legate whom the pope had placed at their head proved
incompetent to command them; and the crowd of crusaders whom he called
to his ranks served only to compromise them, by want of courage and
discipline. The Ghibelline nobles of Brescia even delivered their country
into the hands of Ezzelino after he had put the legate’s army to flight,
in the year 1258. The following year this tyrant, unequalled in Italy
for bravery and military talent, always an enemy to luxury, and proof
against the seductions of women, making the boldest tremble with a look,
and preserving in his diminutive person, at the age of sixty-five,
all the vigour of a soldier, advanced into the centre of Lombardy in
the hope that the nobles of Milan, with whom he had already opened a
correspondence, would surrender this great city to him. He passed the
Oglio and afterwards the Adda, with the most brilliant army he had ever
yet commanded: but the marquis Palavicino, Buoso da Doara, the Cremonese
chieftain, and other Ghibellines, his ancient associates, disgusted
with his crimes, had secretly made an alliance with the Guelfs for his
destruction.

When they saw that he had advanced so far from his home they rushed
upon him from all sides. On the 16th of September, 1259, whilst he
was preparing to retire, he found himself stopped at the bridge of
Cassano. The Brescians, no longer obedient to his command, began their
movement to abandon him; all the points of retreat were cut off by the
Milanese, Cremonese, Ferrarians, and Mantuans: repulsed, pursued as far
as Vimercato, and at last wounded in the foot, he was made prisoner
and taken to Soncino: there, he refused to speak, rejected all aid of
medicine, tore off all the bandages from his wounds, and finally expired,
on the eleventh day of his captivity. His brother and all his family were
massacred in the following year.

THE BEGINNING OF FEUDAL TYRANNY IN LOMBARDY

[Sidenote: [1256-1264 A.D.]]

The defeat of Ezzelino, and the destruction of the family of Romano,
may be regarded as the last great effort of the Lombards against the
establishment of tyranny in their country. About this time the cities
began to be accustomed to absolute power in a single person. In each
republic, the nobles, always divided by hereditary feuds, regarded it as
disgraceful to submit to the laws, rather than do themselves justice by
force of arms: their quarrels, broils, and brigandage carried troubles
and disorder into every street and public place. The merchants were
continually on the watch to shut their shops on the first cry of alarm;
for the satellites of the nobles were most commonly banditti, to whom
they gave shelter in their palaces, and who took advantage of the tumult
to plunder the shops. At the same time that the nobles irritated the
plebeians by their arrogance, they ridiculed their incapacity, and
endeavoured to exclude them from all the public offices. The people
often, in their indignation, took arms; the streets were barricaded and
the nobles, besieged in their town houses, were driven to take refuge in
their castles; but if the militia of the towns afterwards presumed to
pursue in the plains of Lombardy the nobles whom they forced to emigrate,
they soon found themselves sadly inferior. In the course of this century,
the nobles had acquired the habit of fighting on horseback with a lance
and covered with heavy armour. Continual exercise could alone render them
expert in the manœuvres of cavalry, and accustom them to the enormous
weight of the cuirass and helmet; on the other hand, this armour
rendered them almost invulnerable. When they charged with couched lance,
and with all the impetuosity of their war-horses, they overthrew and
annihilated the ill-armed infantry opposed to them without experiencing
themselves any damage. The cities soon felt the necessity of opposing
cavalry to cavalry, and of taking into their pay either those nobles who
made common cause with the people, or foreigners and adventurers who
about this time began to exchange their valour for hire.

As the custom was prevalent of giving the command of the militia to
the first officer of justice, in order to give him authority either to
direct the public force against rebels or disturbers of order, or to
discipline the soldier by the fear of punishment, no commander could be
found who would undertake the military service of a town, without at the
same time possessing the power of the judicial sword--such power as was
intrusted to the podesta or captain of the people. It became necessary
then to deliver into his charge what was named the signoria; and the more
considerable this corps of cavalry, thus placed for a certain number of
years at the service of the republic, the more this signoria, to which
was attached the power of adjudging life or death in the tribunals,
became dangerous to liberty.

Among the first feudal lords who embraced the cause of the people and
undertook the service of a town, with a body of cavalry raised among
their vassals, or among the poor nobles, their adherents, was Pagan della
Torre, the lord of Valsassina. He had endeared himself to the Milanese by
saving their army from the pursuit of Frederick II after the battle of
Cortenuova. He was attached by hereditary affection to the Guelf party;
and although himself of illustrious birth, he seemed to partake the
resentment of the plebeians of Milan against the nobility who oppressed
them. When he died, his brother Martino, after him Raymond, then Philip,
lastly, Napoleon della Torre, succeeded each other as captains of the
people, commanders of a body of cavalry which they had raised and placed
at the service of the city; they were the acknowledged superiors of the
podesta and the tribunals. These five lords succeeded each other in less
than twenty years; and even the shortness of their lives accustomed the
people to regard their election as the confirmation of a dynasty become
hereditary. Other Guelf cities of Lombardy were induced to choose the
same captain and the same governor as Milan, because they believed him a
true Guelf, and a real lover of the people.

These towns found the advantage of drawing closer their alliance with
the city which directed their party; of placing themselves under a more
powerful protection; and of supporting their tribunals with a firmer
hand. Martin della Torre had been elected podesta of Milan in 1256; three
years later he obtained the title of elder, and lord of the people. At
the same time, Lodi also named him lord. In 1263, the city of Novara
conferred the same honour on him. Philip, who succeeded him in 1264,
was named lord by Milan, Como, Vercelli, and Bergamo. Thus began to be
formed among the Lombard republics, without their suspecting that they
divested themselves of their liberty, the powerful state which a century
and a half later became the duchy of Milan. But the pope, jealous of the
house of della Torre, appointed archbishop of Milan Otto Visconti, whose
family, powerful on the borders of Lake Maggiore, then shared the exile
of the nobles and Ghibellines. This prelate placed himself at the head of
their faction; and henceforward the rivalry between the families of Della
Torre and Visconti made that between the people and the nobles almost
forgotten.

PERENNIAL STRIFE OF GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES

[Sidenote: [1257-1261 A.D.]]

The bitter enmity between the two parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines
was fatal to the cause of liberty. With the former, the question was
religion--the independence of the church and of Italy, menaced by the
Germans and Saracens, to whom Manfred granted not less confidence
than Frederick II; with the latter, honour and good faith towards an
illustrious family, and the support of the aristocracy as well as of
royalty; but both were more intent on avenging offences a thousand times
repeated, and guarding against exile, and the confiscation of property.

These party feelings deeply moved men who gloried in the sacrifices
which they or their ancestors had made to either party; while they
regarded as entirely secondary the support of the laws, the impartiality
of the tribunals, or the equal participation of the citizens in the
sovereignty. Every town of Lombardy forgot itself, to make its faction
triumph; and it looked for success in giving more unity and force to
power. The cities of Mantua and Ferrara, where the Guelfs were far the
more numerous, trusted for their defence, the one to the count di San
Bonifazio, the other to the marquis d’Este, with so much constancy, that
these nobles, under the name of captains of the people, had become almost
sovereigns. In the republic of Verona, the Ghibellines, on the contrary,
predominated; and as they feared their faction might sink at the death
of Ezzelino, they called to the command of their militia, and the
presidency of their tribunals, Mastino della Scala; lord of the castle
of that name in the Veronese territory; whose power became hereditary in
his family. The marquis Pelavicino, the most renowned Ghibelline in the
whole valley of the Po, whose strongest castle was San Donnino, between
Parma and Piacenza, and who had formed and disciplined a superb body of
cavalry, was named, alternately with his friend, Buoso da Doara, lord
of the city of Cremona. Pavia and Piacenza also chose him almost always
their captain; and this honour was at the same time conferred on him by
Milan, Brescia, Tortona, and Alexandria. The Ghibelline party had, since
the offence given by Innocent IV to the Guelfs of Milan, obtained the
ascendency in Lombardy. The house of Della Torre seemed even to lean
towards it; and it was all powerful in Tuscany. The city of Lucca had
been the last to accede to that party in 1263; and the Tuscan Guelfs,
obliged to leave their country, had formed a body of soldiers, which
placed itself in the pay of the few cities of Lombardy still faithful to
the Guelf party.

The court of Rome saw, with great uneasiness, this growing power of the
Ghibelline party, firmly established in the Two Sicilies, under the
sceptre of Manfred. Feared even in Rome and the neighbouring provinces,
master in Tuscany, and making daily progress in Lombardy, Manfred seemed
on the point of making the whole peninsula a single monarchy. It was
no longer with the arms of the Italians that the pope could expect to
subdue him. The Germans afforded no support. Divided between Richard
of Cornwall and Alfonso of Castile, they seemed desirous of delivering
themselves from the imperial authority, by dividing between foreigners an
empty title; while each state sought to establish a separate independence
at home, and abandon the supremacy of the empire over Italy. It was
accordingly necessary to have recourse to other barbarians to prevent
the formation of an Italian monarchy fatal to the power of the pontiff.
Alexander IV died on the 25th of May, 1261; three months afterwards, a
Frenchman, who took the name of Urban IV, was elected his successor; and
he did not hesitate to arm the French against Manfred.

CHARLES OF ANJOU CONQUERS SICILY

[Sidenote: [1261-1266 A.D.]]

His predecessor had already opened some negotiations, for the purpose of
giving the crown of Sicily to Edmund, son of Henry III, king of England.
Urban put an end to them by having recourse to a prince nearer, braver,
and more powerful. He addressed himself to Charles count of Anjou, the
brother of St. Louis, sovereign in right of his wife of the county of
Provence. Charles had already signalised himself in war; he was, like his
brother, a faithful believer, and still more fanatical and bitter towards
the enemies of the church, against whom he abandoned himself without
restraint to his harsh and pitiless character. His religious zeal,
however, did not interfere with his policy; his interests set limits
to his subjection to the church; he knew how to manage those whom he
wished to gain; and he could flatter, at his need, the public passions,
restrain his anger, and preserve in his language a moderation which was
not in his heart. Avarice appeared his ruling passion, but it was only
the means of serving his ambition, which was unbounded. He accepted the
offer of the pope. His wife Beatrice, ambitious of the title of queen,
borne by her three sisters, pawned all her jewels to aid in levying an
army of thirty thousand men, which she led herself through Lombardy. He
had preceded her. Having gone by sea to Rome, with one thousand knights,
he made his entry into that city on the 24th of May, 1265. A new pope,
like his predecessor a Frenchman, named Clement IV, had succeeded Urban,
and was not less favourable to Charles of Anjou. He caused him to be
elected senator by the Roman Republic, and invested him with the kingdom
of Sicily, which he charged him to conquer; under the condition, however,
that the crown should never be united to that of the empire, or to the
sovereignty of Lombardy and Tuscany. A tribute of eight thousand ounces
of gold, and a white palfrey, was, by this investiture, assigned to St.
Peter.

The French army, headed by Beatrice, did not pass through Italy till
towards the end of the summer of 1265; and in the month of February
of the following year, Charles entered, at its head, the kingdom of
Naples. He met Manfred, who awaited him in the plain of Grandella, near
Benevento, on the 26th of February. The battle was bloody. The Germans
and Saracens were true to their ancient valour; but the Apulians fled
like cowards, and the brave son of Frederick II, abandoned by them on the
field of battle, perished. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies was the price
of this victory. Resistance ceased, but not massacre. Charles gave up
the pillage of Benevento to his soldiers; and they cruelly put to death
all the inhabitants. The Italians, who believed they had experienced
from the Germans and Saracens of Frederick and Manfred all that could be
feared from the most barbarous enemies, now found that there was a degree
of ferocity still greater than that to which they had been accustomed
from the house of Hohenstaufen. The French seemed always ready to give
as to receive death. The two strong colonies of Saracens at Luceria and
Nocera were soon exterminated, and in a few years there remained not in
the Two Sicilies a single individual of that nation or religion, nor one
German who had been in the pay of Manfred. Charles willingly consented
to acknowledge the Apulians and Sicilians his subjects; but he oppressed
them, as their conqueror, with intolerable burdens. While he distributed
amongst his followers all the great fiefs of the kingdom, he so secured
with a hand of iron his detested dominion that two years afterwards,
when Conradin, the son of Conrad and the nephew of Manfred, arrived from
Germany to dispute the crown, few malcontents in the Two Sicilies had the
courage to declare for him.

[Sidenote: [1266-1268 A.D.]]

The victory of Charles of Anjou over Manfred restored the ascendant of
the Guelf party in Italy. Filippo della Torre, who for some time seemed
to hesitate between the two factions, at last gave passage through the
Milanese territory to the army of Beatrice. Buoso da Doara was accused
of having received money not to oppose her on the Oglio. The count di
San Bonifazio, the marquis d’Este, and afterwards the Bolognese, openly
joined her party. After the battle of Grandella, the Florentines rose,
and drove out, on the 11th of November, 1266, the German garrison,
commanded by Guido Novello, the lieutenant of Manfred. They soon
afterwards received about eight hundred French cavalry from Charles, to
whom they entrusted for ten years the signoria of Florence; that is to
say, they conferred on him the rights allowed by the Peace of Constance
to the emperors. At the same time they re-established, with full liberty,
their internal constitution; they augmented the power of their numerous
councils, from which they excluded the nobles and Ghibellines; and they
gave to the corporations of trade, into which all the industrious part of
the population was divided, a direct share in the government.

THE FALL OF CONRADIN; GREGORY X; OTTO VISCONTI

[Sidenote: [1268-1278 A.D.]]

It was about the end of the year 1267 that the young Conradin, aged
only sixteen years, arrived at Verona, with ten thousand cavalry, to
claim the inheritance of which the popes had despoiled his family. All
the Ghibellines and brave captains, who had distinguished themselves in
the service of his grandfather and uncle, hastened to join him, and to
aid him with their swords and counsel. The republics of Pisa and Siena,
always devoted to his family, but whose zeal was now redoubled by their
jealousy of the Florentines, made immense sacrifices for him. The Romans,
offended at the pope’s having abandoned their city for Viterbo, as well
as jealous of his pretensions in the republic, from the government of
which he had excluded the nobles, opened their gates to Conradin, and
promised him aid. But all these efforts, all this zeal, did not suffice
to defend the heir of the house of Hohenstaufen against the valour of the
French. Conradin entered the kingdom of his fathers by the Abruzzi and
met Charles of Anjou in the plain of Tagliacozzo, on the 23rd of August,
1268. A desperate battle ensued; victory long remained doubtful. Two
divisions of the army of Charles were already destroyed; and the Germans,
who considered themselves the victors, were dispersed in pursuit of the
enemy; when the French prince, who, till then, had not appeared on the
field, fell on them with his body of reserve, and completely routed them.
Conradin, forced to fly, was arrested, forty-five miles from Tagliacozzo,
as he was about to embark for Sicily. He was brought to Charles, who,
without pity for his youth, esteem for his courage, or respect for
his just right, exacted from the iniquitous judges before whom he
subjected him to the mockery of a trial, a sentence of death. Conradin
was beheaded in the market-place at Naples, on the 26th of October,
1268. With him perished several of his most illustrious companions in
arms--German princes, Ghibelline nobles, and citizens of Pisa; and, after
the sacrifice of these first victims, an uninterrupted succession of
executions long continued to fill the Two Sicilies with dismay.

The defeat and death of Conradin established the preponderance of the
Guelf party throughout the peninsula. Charles placed himself at the head
of it; the pope named him imperial vicar in Italy during the interregnum
of the empire, and sought to annex to that title all the rights formerly
exercised by the emperors in the free cities. Clement IV died on the
29th of November, 1268--one month after the execution of Conradin. The
cardinals remained thirty-three months without being able to agree on
the choice of a successor. During this interregnum--the longest the
pontifical chair had ever experienced--Charles remained sole chief of the
Guelf party, ruling over the whole of Italy, which had neither pope nor
emperor. He convoked, in 1269, a diet of the Lombard cities at Cremona,
in which the towns of Piacenza, Cremona, Parma, Modena, Ferrara, and
Reggio, consented to confer on him the signoria; Milan, Como, Vercelli,
Novara, Alessandria, Tortona, Turin, Pavia, Bergamo, and Bologna,
declared they should feel honoured by his alliance and friendship, but
could not take him for master. Italy already felt the weight of the
French yoke, which would have pressed still heavier if the crusade
against Tunis to which Charles of Anjou was summoned by his brother, St.
Louis, had not diverted his projects of ambition.

The conclave assembled at Viterbo at length raised to the vacant chair
Teobaldo Visconti, of Piacenza, who was at that time in the Holy Land.
On his return to Italy, in the year 1272, he took the name of Gregory X.
This wise and moderate man soon discovered that the court of Rome had
overreached itself; in crushing the house of Hohenstaufen, it had given
itself a new master not less dangerous than the preceding. Gregory,
instead of seeking to annihilate the Ghibellines, like his predecessors,
occupied himself only in endeavouring to restore an equilibrium and peace
between them and the Guelfs. He persuaded the Florentines and Sienese
to recall the exiled Ghibellines, for the purpose, as he announced, of
uniting all Christendom in the defence of the Holy Land; and testified
the strongest resentment against Charles, who threw obstacles in the way
of this reconciliation. He relieved Pisa from the interdict that had been
laid on it by the holy see. He showed favour to Venice and Genoa; both
of which, offended by the arrogance and injustice of Charles, had made
common cause with his enemies. He engaged the electors of Germany to take
advantage of the death of Richard of Cornwall, which took place in 1271,
and put an end to the interregnum by proceeding to a new election. The
electors conferred the crown, in 1273, on Rudolf of Habsburg, founder
of the house of Austria. The death of Gregory X, in the beginning of
January, 1276, deprived him of the opportunity to develop the projects
which these first steps seem to indicate; but Nicholas III, who succeeded
him in 1277, after three ephemeral popes, undertook more openly to
humble Charles, and to support the Ghibelline party. He forced the king
of Sicily to renounce the title of imperial vicar, to which Charles had
no title except during the interregnum of the empire; he still further
engaged him to resign the title of senator of Rome, and the dignity of
the signoria, which had been conferred on him by the cities of Lombardy
and Tuscany, by representing to him that his power over these provinces
was contrary to the bull of investiture, which had put him in possession
of the kingdom of Naples.

Rudolf of Habsburg, who had never visited Italy, and was ignorant of
the geography of that country, was, in his turn, persuaded by the pope
to confirm the charters of Louis le Débonnaire, of Otto I, and of Henry
VI, of which copies were sent to him. In these charters, whether true or
false, taken from the chancery at Rome, the sovereignty of the whole of
Emilia or Romagna, the Pentapolis, the march of Ancona, the patrimony
of St. Peter, and the Campagna of Rome, from Radicofani to Ceperano,
were assigned to the church. The imperial chancery confirmed, without
examination, a concession which had never been really made. The two
Fredericks, as well as their predecessors, had always considered this
whole extent of country as belonging to the empire, and always exercised
there the imperial rights. A chancellor of Rudolf arrived in these
provinces to demand homage and the oath of allegiance, which were yielded
without difficulty; but Nicholas appealed against this homage, and called
it a sacrilegious usurpation. Rudolf was obliged to acknowledge that it
was in contradiction to his own diplomas, and resigned his pretensions.
From that period, 1278, the republics held of the holy see and not of the
emperor.

[Sidenote: [1277-1280 A.D.]]

A revolution, not long previous, in the principal cities of Lombardy,
had secured the preponderance to the nobles and the Ghibelline party.
These, having been for a considerable period exiled from Milan,
experienced a continuation of disasters, and, instead of fear, excited
compassion. While Napoleon della Torre, chief of the republic of Milan,
was exasperating the plebeians and Guelfs with his arrogance and contempt
of their freedom, he was informed that Otto Visconti, whom he had
exiled, although archbishop of Milan, had assembled around him at Como
many nobles and Ghibellines, with whom he intended making an attack on
the Milanese territory. Napoleon marched to meet him; but, despising
enemies whom he had so often vanquished, he carelessly suffered himself
to be surprised by the Ghibellines at Desio, in the night of the 21st of
January, 1277. Having been made prisoner, with five of his relatives,
he and they were placed in three iron cages, in which the archbishop
kept them confined. This prelate was himself received with enthusiasm
at Milan, at Cremona, and Lodi. He formed anew the councils of these
republics, admitting only Ghibellines and nobles, who, ruined by a
long exile, and often supported by the liberality of the archbishop,
were become humble and obsequious; their deference degenerated into
submission, and the republic of Milan, henceforth governed by the
Visconti, became soon no more than a principality.

GHIBELLINE SUCCESSES; THE SICILIAN VESPERS

Nicholas III, of the noble Roman family of the Orsini, felt a hereditary
affection for the Ghibellines, and everywhere favoured them. A rivalry
between two illustrious families of Bologna, the Gieremei and the
Lambertazzi, terminated, in 1274, in the exile of the latter (who were
Ghibellines) with all their adherents. The quarrel between the two
families became, from that period, a bloody war throughout Romagna. Guido
de Montefeltro, lord of the mountains in the neighbourhood of Urbino, who
had never joined any republic, received the Ghibellines into his country;
and in commanding them gained the reputation of a great captain. Nicholas
III sent a legate to Romagna, to compel Bologna and all the Guelf
republics to recall the Ghibellines, and establish peace throughout the
province. He succeeded in 1279. Another legate on a similar mission, and
with equal success, was sent to Florence and Siena. The balance seemed at
last on the point of being established in Italy, when Nicholas died, on
the 19th of August, 1280.

[Sidenote: [1280-1282 A.D.]]

Charles, who had submitted without opposition, and without even
manifesting any displeasure, to the depression of a party on which were
founded all his hopes, and to a reconciliation which destroyed his
influence in the Guelf republics, hastened to Viterbo as soon as he
learned the death of the pope, fully resolved not to suffer another of
his enemies to ascend the chair of St. Peter. He caused three cardinals,
relatives of Nicholas, whom he regarded as being adverse to him, to
be removed by force from the conclave; and, striking terror into the
rest, he obtained, on the 22nd of January, 1281, the election of a pope
entirely devoted to him. This was a canon of Tours, who took the name of
Martin IV. He seemed to have no higher mission than that of seconding
the ambition of the king of the Two Sicilies, and serving him in his
enmities. Far from thinking of forming any balance to his power, he
laboured to give him the sovereignty of all Italy. He conferred on him
the title of senator of Rome; he gave the government of all the provinces
of the church to his French officers; he caused the Ghibellines to be
exiled from all the cities; and he encouraged, with all his power, the
new design of Charles to take possession of the Eastern Empire.

Constantinople had been taken from the Latins on the 25th of July, 1261;
and the son of the last Latin emperor was son-in-law of Charles of Anjou.
Martin IV excommunicated Michael Palæologus, the Greek emperor, who had
vainly endeavoured to reconcile the two churches. The new armament, which
Charles was about to lead into Greece, was in preparation at the same
time in all the ports of the Two Sicilies. The king’s agents collected
the taxes with redoubled insolence, and levied money with greater
severity. The judges endeavoured to smother resistance by striking
terror. In the meanwhile a noble of Salerno, named John da Procida,
the friend, confidant, and physician of Frederick II and of Manfred,
visited in disguise the Two Sicilies, to reanimate the zeal of the
ancient Ghibellines, and rouse their hatred of the French and of Charles.
After having traversed Greece and Spain to excite new enemies against
him, he obtained assurances that Michael Palæologus and Constanza, the
daughter of Manfred and wife of Don Pedro of Aragon, would not suffer
the Sicilians to be destroyed, if these had the courage to rise against
their oppressors. Their assistance was, in fact, promised--it was even
prepared; but Sicily was destined to be delivered by a sudden and popular
explosion, which took place at Palermo, on the 30th of March, 1282. It
was excited by a French soldier, who treated rudely the person of a young
bride as she was proceeding to the church of Montreal, with her betrothed
husband, to receive the nuptial benediction. The indignation of her
relations and friends was communicated with the rapidity of lightning to
the whole population of Palermo. At that moment the bells of the churches
were ringing for vespers; the people answered by the cry, “To arms--death
to the French!”

The French were attacked furiously on all sides. Those who attempted
to defend themselves were soon overpowered; others, who endeavoured
to pass for Italians, were known by their pronunciation of two words,
which they were made to repeat--_ceci_ and _ciceri_, and were, on their
mispronunciation, immediately put to death. In a few hours more than
four thousand weltered in their blood. Every town in Sicily followed the
example of Palermo. Thus the Sicilian Vespers overthrew the tyranny of
Charles of Anjou and of the Guelfs; separated the kingdom of Sicily from
that of Naples; and transferred the crown of the former to Don Pedro of
Aragon, the son-in-law of Manfred, who was considered the heir to the
house of Hohenstaufen.

[Sidenote: [1282-1288 A.D.]]

Charles of Anjou, the first French king of the Two Sicilies, survived
the Sicilian Vespers only three years. He died on the 7th of January,
1285, aged sixty-five years. At this period his son, Charles II, was
a prisoner in the hands of the Sicilians; he was set at liberty in
1288, in pursuance of a treaty by which he acknowledged the separation
and independence of the two crowns of Naples and Sicily. The first
was assigned to the Guelfs and the house of Anjou; the second to the
Ghibellines and the house of Aragon; but Nicholas IV, by whose influence
the treaty was made, broke it, released Charles from his oath, and
authorised him to begin the war anew.

WANING INFLUENCE OF KING, EMPEROR, AND POPE

[Sidenote: [1288-1303 A.D.]]

This war, which lasted twenty-four years, occupied the whole reign of
Charles II. This prince was milder than his father, but weaker also.
He had neither the stern character of Charles of Anjou, which excited
hatred, nor his talents, which commanded admiration or respect. He always
called himself the protector of the Guelf party, but ceased to be its
champion; and neither the court of Rome, nor the Guelf republics, any
longer demanded counsel, direction, or support from the court of Naples.
He died on the 5th of May, 1309, and was succeeded by his son Robert.
The influence of the emperors, as protectors of the Ghibelline party,
during this period was almost extinct in Italy. Rudolf of Habsburg, who
reigned with glory in Germany from 1273 to 1291, never passed the Alps
to be acknowledged emperor and king of the Lombards; after him, Adolphus
of Nassau, and his successor, Albert of Austria--the one assassinated
in 1298, the other in 1308--remained alike strangers to Italy. The
Ghibelline party was, accordingly, no longer supported or directed by
the emperors, but it maintained itself by its own resources, by the
attachment of the nobles to the imperial name, and still more by the
self-interest of the captains, who, raised to the signoria either by the
choice of the people or of their faction, created for themselves, in the
name of the empire, a sovereignty to which the Italians unhesitatingly
gave the name of tyranny.

Lastly, the third power, that of the pope, which till then had directed
the politics of Italy, ceased about this time to follow a regular system,
and consequently to give a powerful impulse to faction. Martin IV,
whose life terminated two months after that of Charles I, had always
acted as his creature, had seconded him in his enmities, in his thirst
of vengeance against the Sicilians, and in his efforts to recover his
dominion over Italy. But Honorius IV, who reigned after him, from 1285
to 1287, appeared to have no other thought than that of aggrandising the
noble house of Savelli at Rome, of which he was himself a member; after
him, Nicholas IV, from 1288 to 1292, was not less zealous in his efforts
to do as much for that of Colonna. His predecessor, Nicholas III, had a
few years previously set the example, by applying all his power as pope
to the elevation of the Orsini. These are nearly the first examples of
the nepotism of the popes, who had hardly yet begun to feel themselves
sovereigns. They raised these three great Roman families above all their
ancient rivals; almost all the castles in the patrimony of St. Peter, and
in the Campagna of Rome, became their property. The houses of Colonna,
Orsini, and Savelli, to support their nobility, soon began to traffic in
their valour, by hiring themselves out with a body of cavalry to such as
would employ them in war; whilst the peasants, their vassals, seduced
by the spirit of adventure, and still more by the hope of plunder,
abandoned agriculture to enlist in the troops of their liege lord. The
effect of their disorderly lives was that the two provinces nearest
Rome soon became the worst cultivated and the least populous in all
Italy, although the treasures of Europe poured into the capital of the
faithful. After Nicholas IV, a poor hermit, humble, timid, and ignorant,
was raised, in 1294, to the chair of St. Peter, under the name of
Celestine V. His election was the effect of a sudden burst of religious
enthusiasm, which seized the college of cardinals; although this holy
senate had never before shown themselves more ready to consult religion
than policy. Celestine V maintained himself only a few months on the
throne; all his sanctity could not serve as an excuse for his incapacity;
and the cardinal Benedict Cajetan, who persuaded him to abdicate, was
elected pope in his place, under the name of Boniface VIII. Boniface,
able, expert, intriguing, and unscrupulous, would have restored the
authority of the holy see, which during the latter pontificates had been
continually sinking, if the violence of his character, his ungovernable
pride, and his transports of passion, had not continually thwarted his
policy. He endeavoured at first to augment the power of the Guelfs by
the aid of France; he afterwards engaged in a violent quarrel with the
family of Colonna, whom he would willingly have exterminated; and,
finally, taking offence against Philip the Fair, he treated him with as
much haughtiness as if he had been the lowest of his vassals. Insulted,
and even arrested, by the French prince, in his palace of Anagni, on the
7th of September, 1303, Boniface died a few weeks afterwards of rage and
humiliation.

THE REPUBLIC OF PISA

[Sidenote: [1282-1288 A.D.]]

The republic of Pisa was one of the first to make known to the world
the riches and power which a small state might acquire by the aid of
commerce and liberty. Pisa had astonished the shores of the Mediterranean
by the number of vessels and galleys that sailed under her flag, by the
succour she had given the crusaders, by the fear she had inspired at
Constantinople, and by the conquest of Sardinia and the Balearic Isles.
Pisa was the first to introduce into Tuscany the arts that ennoble
wealth; her dome, her baptistery, her leaning tower, and her Campo Santo,
which the traveller’s eye embraces at one glance, but does not weary of
beholding, had been successively built from the year 1063 to the end of
the twelfth century. These _chefs-d’œuvre_ had animated the genius of
the Pisans; the great architects of the thirteenth century were, for the
most, pupils of Nicholas of Pisa. But the moment was come in which the
ruin of this glorious republic was at hand; a deep-rooted jealousy, to
be dated from the conquest of Sardinia, had frequently, during the last
two centuries, armed against each other the republics of Genoa and Pisa;
a new war between them broke out in 1282. It is difficult to comprehend
how two simple cities could put to sea such prodigious fleets as those of
Pisa and Genoa. In 1282, Ginicel Sismondi commanded thirty Pisan galleys,
of which he lost the half in a tempest on the 9th of September; the
following year Rosso Sismondi commanded sixty-four; in 1284, Guido Jacia
commanded twenty-four, and was vanquished.[b]

These repeated losses obliged the Pisans to ask succour from the
Venetians, in alliance with whom, in the Levant, they had often beaten
the Genoese. Alberto Morosini, a Venetian, mayor of Pisa, endeavoured to
effect a confederacy, but in vain; the Venetians chose to remain neutral.
True policy, however, ought to have counselled them to support a power,
by the ruin of which, their determined enemies, the Genoese, increased so
much in strength; and they had reason enough afterwards to perceive their
error. The last misfortune, instead of discouraging the Pisans, inflamed
them still more with a desire for vengeance; they made one of their
greatest efforts by arming seventy-two galleys, the command of which was
given to Count Ugolino, already very powerful in Pisa; the flower of the
nobility and Pisan citizens accompanied it, to which were added other
smaller vessels. But instead of attacking the Genoese fleet, only thirty
galleys strong, which were in Sardinia under the command of Giacaria,
and which they might have easily overpowered, they lost precious time by
insulting the city of Genoa, showing themselves before the port, throwing
against it a few mortars, and challenging the Genoese to battle; and
after these useless bravadoes returning home.

_Pisa Defeated by Genoa near Meloria_

[Illustration: THE BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE]

Nothing is more valuable in war than season and opportunity. The Genoese
had recalled the army of Giacaria with all expedition from Sardinia and
soon equipped a fleet of eighty-eight galleys with many other smaller
vessels, the command of which was given to Obert Doria. Putting to sea,
and hearing that the Pisan armament was near Meloria, they advanced to
that port. Doria, fearing that the superior number of their vessels might
oblige the Pisans to refuse battle, and retire into harbour, advanced
with only fifty-eight galleys, ordering the division of Giacaria to
remain behind with the remaining thirty. The Pisans accepted battle,
which was fought on the 6th of August with all the fury and animosity of
two nations seeking to destroy each other. The succour which arrived to
the Genoese with Giacaria, and which the Pisans did not expect, probably
decided the fate of that day. The galley upon which was the mayor of
Pisa, Alberto Morosini, fought furiously with the admiral’s ship,
commanded by Admiral Doria, who was joined, however, by other principal
galleys commanded by Admiral Giacaria. Even the galley which bore the
great Pisan standard was taken by the galley called _St. Matthew_ (_San
Matteo_), where were many of the family of Doria, and by the galley
_Finale_ the great standard was torn and broken down, and the defeat was
complete. Twenty-seven Pisan galleys were taken, and seven sunk; the
remainder, rendered unserviceable, with the advantage of night they saved
themselves in the neighbouring Pisan port, and with three of these the
count Ugolino escaped. The killed amounted to four thousand, and many
prisoners, among whom was the son of Count Ugolino.

These losses with those in anterior battles, amounted to about eleven
thousand, and all of the most considerable persons. This event destroyed
the maritime power of Pisa, which could never again recover itself and
assume the rank of her rivals. Many illustrious republics, as ancient and
modern history demonstrate, have risen after the most heavy losses. Pisa,
however, was no longer in this condition, and various causes combined to
prevent her regaining it; the first of which was the loss of her bravest
and wisest citizens taken prisoners, and whom the Genoese, actuated by
a cruel and useless policy, refused to set at liberty; and being kept
in prison for nearly fifteen years, or so long as the war lasted, the
greater part of them finished their life in wretchedness.[d]

_Perfidy and Fall of Ugolino_

[Sidenote: [1288-1293 A.D.]]

While the republic was thus exhausted by this great reverse of fortune,
it was attacked by the league of the Tuscan Guelfs; and a powerful
citizen, to whom it had entrusted itself, betrayed his country to enslave
it. Ugolino was count of the Gherardesca, a mountainous country situated
along the coast, between Leghorn and Piombino; he was of Ghibelline
origin, but had married his sister to Giovan di Gallura, chief of the
Guelfs of Pisa and of Sardinia. From that time he artfully opposed the
Guelfs to the Ghibellines; and though several accused him of having
decided the issue of the battle of Meloria, others regarded him as the
person most able, most powerful by his alliance, and most proper, to
reconcile Pisa with the Guelf league. The Pisans, amidst the dangers
of the republic, felt the necessity of a dictator. They named Ugolino
captain-general for ten years; and the new commander did, indeed,
obtain peace with the Guelf league; but not till he had caused all the
fortresses of the Pisan territory to be opened by his creatures to the
Lucchese and Florentines--a condition of his treaty with them which he
dared not publicly avow. From that time he sought only to strengthen
his own despotism, by depriving all the magistrates of power, and by
intimidating the archbishop Roger degli Ubaldini, who held jointly with
him the highest rank in the city. The nephew of Ubaldini, having opposed
him with some haughtiness, was killed by him on the spot with his own
hand. His violence, and the number of executions which he ordered, soon
rendered him equally odious to the two parties; but he had the art, in
his frequent changes from one to the other, to make the opposite party
believe him powerfully supported by that with which he at the moment
sided. In the summer of 1282 the Guelfs were exiled; but finding in the
Ghibelline chiefs, the Gualandi Sismondi and Lanfranchi, a haughtiness
which he thought he had subdued, he charged his son to introduce anew
the Guelfs into the city. His project was discovered and prevented; the
Ghibellines called the people on all sides to arms and liberty. On the
1st of July, 1288, Ugolino was besieged in the palace of the signoria;
the insurgents, unable to vanquish the obstinate resistance opposed to
them by himself, his sons, and his adherents, set fire to the palace;
and, having entered it amidst the flames, dragged forth Ugolino, two of
his sons, and two of his grandsons, and threw them into the tower of the
Sette Vie. The key was given to the archbishop, from whom was expected
the vigilance of an enemy, but the charity of a priest. That charity,
however, was soon exhausted; the key after a few months was thrown into
the river; and the wretched count perished in those agonies of hunger,
and of paternal and filial love, upon which poetry, sculpture, and
painting have conferred celebrity.

The victory over Count Ugolino, achieved by the most ardent of the
Ghibellines, redoubled the enthusiasm and audacity of that party, and
soon determined them to renew the war with the Guelfs of Tuscany.
Notwithstanding the danger into which the republic was thrown by the
ambition of the last captain-general, it continued to believe, when
engaged in a hazardous war, that the authority of a single person over
the military, the finances, and the tribunals was necessary to its
protection; and it trusted that the terrible chastisement just inflicted
on the tyrant would hinder any other from following his example.
Accordingly Guido de Montefeltro was named captain. He had acquired a
high reputation in defending Forlì against the French forces of Charles
of Anjou; and the republic had not to repent of its choice. He recovered
by force of arms all the fortresses which Ugolino had given up to the
Lucchese and Florentines. The Pisan militia, whom Montefeltro armed with
crossbows, which he had trained them to use with precision, became the
terror of Tuscany. The Guelfs of Florence and Lucca were glad to make
peace in 1293.

FLORENCE; THE FEUD OF THE BIANCHI AND THE NERI

[Sidenote: [1292-1300 A.D.]]

While the Pisans became habituated to trusting the government to a single
person, the Florentines became still more attached to the most democratic
forms of liberty. In 1282 they removed the _anziani_, whom they had at
first set at the head of their government, to make room for the _priori
delle arti_, whose name and office were preserved not only to the end
of the republic, but even to our day. The corporation of trades, which
they called the _arti_, were distinguished by the titles of major and
minor. At first only three, afterwards six, major _arti_ were admitted
into the government. The college, consisting of six _priori delle arti_,
always assembled, and living together, during two months, in the public
palace, formed the signoria, which represented the republic. Ten years
later, the Florentines completed this signoria, by placing at its head
the gonfalonier of justice, elected also for two months, from among
the representatives of the arts, manufactures, and commerce. When he
displayed the gonfalon, or standard of the state, the citizens were
obliged to rise and assist in the execution of the law. The arrogance
of the nobles, their quarrels, and the disturbance of the public peace
by their frequent battles in the streets, had, in 1292, irritated the
whole population against them. Giano della Bella, himself a noble, but
sympathising in the passions and resentment of the people, proposed to
bring them to order by summary justice, and to confide the execution of
it to the gonfalonier whom he caused to be elected. The Guelfs had been
so long at the head of the republic, that their noble families, whose
wealth had immensely increased, placed themselves above all law. Giano
determined that their nobility itself should be a title of exclusion,
and a commencement of punishment; a rigorous edict, bearing the title of
“ordinance of justice,” first designated thirty-seven Guelf families of
Florence, whom it declared noble and great, and on this account excluded
forever from the signoria; refusing them at the same time the privilege
of renouncing their nobility, in order to place themselves on a footing
with the other citizens. When these families troubled the public peace by
battle or assassination, a summary information, or even common report,
was sufficient to induce the gonfalonier to attack them at the head of
the militia, raze their houses to the ground, and deliver their persons
to the podesta, to be punished according to their crimes. If other
families committed the same disorders, if they troubled the state by
their private feuds and outrages, the signoria was authorised to ennoble
them, as a punishment of their crimes, in order to subject them to the
same summary justice. A similar organisation, under different names,
was made at Siena, Pistoia, and Lucca. In all the republics of Tuscany,
and in the greater number of those of Lombardy, the nobility by its
turbulence was excluded from all the magistracies; and in more than one,
a register of nobles was opened, as at Florence, on which to inscribe, by
way of punishment, the names of those who violated the public peace.

[Illustration: DOOR OF THE BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE]

However rigorous these precautions were, they did not suffice to retain
in subjection to the laws an order of men who believed themselves formed
to rule, and who despised the citizens with whom they were associated.
These very nobles, to whom was denied all participation in the government
of the republic, and almost the protection and equality of the law,
were no sooner entered into their mountain castles, than they became
sovereigns, and exercised despotic power over their vassals. The most
cultivated and wooded part of the Apennines belonged to the republic
of Pistoia. It was a considerable district, bordering on the Lucchese,
Modenese, Bolognese, and Florentine territory, and was emphatically
designated by the name of the “Mountain.” It was covered with castles
belonging either to the Cancellieri, or Panciatichi, the two families
most powerful in arms and wealth in all Italy; the first was Guelf,
the second Ghibelline; and as the party of the former then ruled in
Tuscany, they had obtained the exile of the Panciatichi from Pistoia. The
Cancellieri took advantage of this exile to increase their power by the
purchase of land, by conquest, and by alliance; in their family alone
they reckoned one hundred men at arms.[b]

The Cerchi and the Donati were, for riches, nobility, and the number
and influence of their followers, perhaps the two most distinguished
families in Florence. Being neighbours, both in the city and the country,
there had arisen between them some slight displeasure, which however had
not occasioned an open quarrel, and perhaps never would have produced
any serious effect if the malignant humours had not been increased by
new causes. It happened that Lore, son of Gulielmo, and Geri, son of
Bertacca, both of the family of Cancellieri, playing together, and coming
to words, Geri was slightly wounded by Lore. This displeased Gulielmo;
and, designing by a suitable apology to remove all cause of further
animosity, he ordered his son to go to the house of the father of the
youth whom he had wounded, and ask pardon. Lore obeyed his father; but
this act of virtue failed to soften the cruel mind of Bertacca, and
having caused Lore to be seized, in order to add the greatest indignity
to his brutal act, he ordered his servants to chop off the youth’s hand
upon a block used for cutting meat and then said to him, “Go to thy
father, and tell him that sword-wounds are cured with iron and not with
words.”

[Sidenote: [1300-1301 A.D.]]

The unfeeling barbarity of this act so greatly exasperated Gulielmo that
he ordered his people to take arms for his revenge. Bertacca prepared for
his defence, and not only that family, but the whole city of Pistoia,
became divided. And as the Cancellieri were descended from a Cancelliere
who had had two wives, of whom one was called Bianca (white), one party
was named by those who were descended from her, _Bianca_; and the other,
by way of greater distinction, was called _Nera_ (black). Much and
long-continued strife took place between the two, attended with the death
of many men and the destruction of much property; and not being able to
effect a union amongst themselves, but weary of the evil, and anxious
either to bring it to an end or, by engaging others in their quarrel,
increase it, they came to Florence, where the Neri, on account of their
familiarity with the Donati, were favoured by Corso, the head of that
family; and on this account the Bianchi, that they might have a powerful
head to defend them against the Donati, had recourse to Veri de Cerchi, a
man in no respect inferior to Corso.

This quarrel, and the parties in it, brought from Pistoia, increased
the old animosity between the Cerchi and the Donati, and it was already
so manifest, that the priors and all well-disposed men were in hourly
apprehension of its breaking out, and causing a division of the whole
city. They therefore applied to the pontiff, praying that he would
interpose his authority between these turbulent parties, and provide
the remedy which they found themselves unable to furnish. The pope sent
for Veri, and charged him to make peace with the Donati, at which Veri
exhibited great astonishment, saying that he had no enmity against
them, and that as pacification presupposes war, he did not know, there
being no war between them, how peace-making could be necessary. Veri
having returned from Rome without anything being effected, the rage of
the parties increased to such a degree that any trivial accident seemed
sufficient to make it burst forth, as indeed presently happened.

It was in the month of May, during which, and upon holidays, it is the
custom of Florence to hold festivals and public rejoicings throughout
the city. Some youths of the Donati family, with their friends, upon
horseback, were standing near the church of the Holy Trinity to look at a
party of ladies who were dancing; thither also came some of the Cerchi,
like the Donati, accompanied with many of the nobility, and, not knowing
that the Donati were before them, pushed their horses and jostled them;
thereupon the Donati, thinking themselves insulted, drew their swords,
nor were the Cerchi at all backward to do the same, and not till after
the interchange of many wounds, they separated. This disturbance was the
beginning of great evils; for the whole city became divided, the people
as well as the nobility, and the parties took the names of the Bianchi
and the Neri. The Cerchi were at the head of the Bianca faction, to which
adhered the Adimari, the Abati, a part of the Tosinghi, of the Bardi,
of the Rossi, of the Frescobaldi, of the Nerli, and of the Manelli;
all the Mozzi, the Scali, Gherardini, Cavalcanti, Malespini, Bostichi,
Giandonati, Vecchietti, and Arrigucci. To these were joined many families
of the people, and all the Ghibellines then in Florence, so that their
great numbers gave them almost the entire government of the city.

The Donati, at the head of whom was Corso, joined the Nera party, to
which also adhered those members of the above-named families who did not
take part with the Bianchi; and besides these, the whole of the Pazzi,
the Bisdomini, Manieri, Bagnesi, Tornaquinci, Spini, Buondelmonti,
Gianfigliazzi, and the Brunelleschi. Nor did the evil confine itself to
the city alone, for the whole country was divided upon it, so that the
captains of the Six Parts, and whoever were attached to the Guelfic party
or the well-being of the republic, were very much afraid that this new
division would occasion the destruction of the city, and give new life
to the Ghibelline faction. They therefore sent again to Pope Boniface,
desiring that, unless he wished that city which had always been the
shield of the church should either be ruined or become Ghibelline, he
would consider of some means for her relief. The pontiff thereupon sent
to Florence, as his legate, Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta, a Portuguese,
who, finding the Bianchi, as the most powerful, the least in fear, not
quite submissive to him, he interdicted the city, and left it in anger;
so that greater confusion now prevailed than previously to his coming.

The minds of men being in great excitement, it happened that at a funeral
which many of the Donati and the Cerchi attended, they first came to
words and then to arms, from which however nothing but merely tumult
resulted at the moment. However, having each retired to their houses,
the Cerchi determined to attack the Donati, but, by the valour of Corso,
they were repulsed and great numbers of them wounded. The city was in
arms. The laws and the seigniory were set at nought by the rage of the
nobility, and the best and wisest citizens were full of apprehension.
The Donati and their followers, being the least powerful, were in the
greatest fear, and to provide for their safety, they called together
Corso, the captains of the Parts, and the other leaders of the Neri, and
resolved to apply to the pope to appoint some personage of royal blood,
that he might reform Florence, thinking by this means to overcome the
Bianchi. Their meeting and determination became known to the priors, and
the adverse party represented it as a conspiracy against the liberties
of the republic. Both parties being in arms, the seigniory, one of whom
at that time was the poet Dante, took courage, and from his advice and
prudence, caused the people to rise for the preservation of order, and
being joined by many from the country, they compelled the leaders of both
parties to lay aside their arms, and banished Corso Donati, with many of
the Neri. And as an evidence of the impartiality of their motives, they
also banished many of the Bianchi, who, however, soon afterwards, under
pretence of some justifiable cause, returned.

_The Pope sends Charles of Valois as Conciliator_ (1301 A.D.)

Corso and his friends, thinking the pope favourable to their party,
went to Rome, and laid their grievances before him, having previously
forwarded a statement of them in writing. Charles of Valois, brother of
the king of France, was then at the papal court, having been called into
Italy by the king of Naples, to go over into Sicily. The pope, therefore,
at the earnest prayers of the banished Florentines, consented to send
Charles to Florence, till the season suitable for his going to Sicily
should arrive. He therefore came, and although the Bianchi, who then
governed, were very apprehensive, still, as the head of the Guelfs, and
appointed by the pope, they did not dare to oppose him. He had, however,
agreed not to seek to acquire sovereign authority over the city, and is
said to have pocketed 17,000 florins to bind the bargain.

[Sidenote: [1301-1302 A.D.]]

Thus authorised, Charles armed all his friends and followers, which step
gave the people so strong a suspicion that he designed to rob them of
their liberty, that each took arms, and kept at his own house, in order
to be ready, if Charles should make any such attempt. The Cerchi and
the leaders of the Bianchi faction had acquired universal hatred, by
having, whilst at the head of the republic, conducted themselves with
unbecoming pride; and this induced Corso and the banished of the Nera
party to return to Florence, knowing well that Charles and the captains
of the Parts were favourable to them. And whilst the citizens, for fear
of Charles, kept themselves in arms, Corso, with all the banished, and
followed by many others, entered Florence without the least impediment.
And although Veri de Cerchi was advised to oppose him, he refused to do
so, saying that he wished the people of Florence, against whom he came,
should punish him. However the contrary happened, for he was welcomed,
not punished by them; and it behooved Veri to save himself by flight.

Corso, having forced the Pinti Gate, assembled his party at San Pietro
Maggiore, near his own house, where, having drawn together a great
number of friends and people desirous of change, he set at liberty all
who had been imprisoned for offences, whether against the state or
against individuals. He compelled the existing seigniory to withdraw
privately to their own houses, elected a new one from the people of the
Nera party, and for five days plundered the leaders of the Bianchi. The
Cerchi and the other heads of their faction, finding Charles opposed to
them, and the greater part of the people their enemies, withdrew from
the city, and retired to their strongholds. And although at first they
would not listen to the advice of the pope, they were now compelled to
turn to him for assistance, declaring that instead of uniting the city,
Charles had caused greater disunion than before. The pope again sent
Matteo d’Acquasparta, his legate, who made peace between the Cerchi and
the Donati, and strengthened it with marriages and new betrothals. But
wishing that the Bianchi should participate in the employments of the
government, to which the Neri who were then at the head of it would not
consent, he withdrew, with no more satisfaction nor less enraged than on
the former occasion, and left the city interdicted for disobedience.

Both parties remained in Florence, and were equally discontented, the
Neri from seeing their enemies at hand, and apprehending the loss of
their power, and the Bianchi from finding themselves without either
honour or authority; and to these natural causes of animosity new
injuries were added. Niccolo de’ Cerchi, with many of his friends, went
to his estates, and being arrived at the bridge of Affrico, was attacked
by Simone, son of Corso Donati. The contest was obstinate, and on each
side had a sorrowful conclusion; for Niccolo was slain, and Simone was so
severely wounded that he died on the following night.

This event again disturbed the entire city; and although the Neri were
most to blame, they were defended by those who were at the head of
affairs; and before sentence was delivered, a conspiracy of the Bianchi
with Piero Ferrante, one of the barons who had accompanied Charles,
was discovered, by whose assistance they sought to be replaced in the
government. The matter became known by letters addressed to him by the
Cerchi, although some were of the opinion that they were not genuine, but
written and pretended to be found by the Donati, to abate the infamy
which their party had acquired by the death of Niccolo. The whole of the
Cerchi were however banished with their followers of the Bianca party, of
whom was Dante the poet, their property was confiscated, and their houses
were pulled down,[f] Dante was at Siena at the time of the pretended
conspiracy. It was decreed that if he ever returned to his native city
he should be burned alive. Another of the banished was Ser Petracco
di Parenzo dall’Incisa, whose son Francesco Petrarch saw the light in
exile.[h] Charles, having effected the purpose of his coming, left the
city, and returned to the pope to pursue his enterprise against Sicily,
in which he was neither wiser nor more fortunate than he had been at
Florence; so that with disgrace and the loss of many of his followers, he
withdrew to France.[f]

FOOTNOTES

[11] [The account here given by Pignotti is based chiefly upon the
contemporary writer Malepina.[e]]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V. THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE

[Sidenote: [1300-1350 A.D.]]

From the middle of the twelfth century we have seen nearly all the towns
of northern Italy shake off the imperial yoke. Towards the end of the
thirteenth the emperor Rudolf, instead of disputing their independence,
offered to sell it to them for money. In the franchised communes there
could no longer be any pretension to enslave fellow-citizens, but one
could be made of governing them. Riches became a title for taking part in
authority, by reason of the greater interest which the rich had in the
preservation and order of society. It may be seen that a right derived
from wealth is less extended than one derived from landed property. But
in towns there could hardly be landed property properly so called. One
could occupy a house, but not have those lands which, by their extent,
position, and the number of men cultivating them, give power to their
possessor.

Moreover, the privileged classes in towns distinguished themselves from
those in the country by the moderation of their pretensions. The latter
were always seen on horseback, clothed in armour, helmets on their
heads, and bearing arms whose use they reserved to themselves. They
always recalled the fact that their right was founded on their force and
valiance. In towns this apparel could have no use; riches would bring
clients, and seduction gain friends. Little by little the exercise of
authority, in so far as it was prolonged, happy, and met with favour,
became a right to new marks of confidence, these being the supposed debt
of those governed to those governing, and also supposed in the latter an
increase of experience, a transmission of knowledge, of good rules, and a
just ambition to make a name illustrious.

[Sidenote: [1300-1350 A.D.]]

The success of some lords had excited the ambition of all. But in the
large towns the mass of the population opposed a strong resistance to
them. Milan obliged its patricians to be content with a part of the
magistrature. After having excited general indignation by taking every
office, the Milanese nobles saw themselves reduced to signing a treaty
with the plebeians by which the latter were admitted to an equal share
in all public functions, from an ambassador’s charge to that of public
trumpeter. The prouder ones retired to their castles and revenged
themselves for their nullity by devastating the country. But even
these devastations augmented the strength of the towns--that is, their
population. The inhabitants, dispersed in a country open to ravages from
the lords, ran to seek shelter for their families or goods in a walled
city. Lordly feudal tyranny peopled the towns where so much resentment
fermented against it and where increased industry and riches finally
furnished the people the means of crushing these small tyrants.

When the translation of the holy see to Avignon left Rome to herself,
the tocsin of the Capitol obliged the barons to leave their fortified
retreats to come and humiliate themselves before the popular tribune, and
history shows us the Savelli, Frangipani, Colonna, and Orsini, standing
with bare heads, in a submissive attitude, subscribing tremblingly to
an oath of fidelity to the “law of good estate” in the hands of an
innkeeper. Their palaces were no longer their refuges, their excess had
no more the privilege of impunity. An attempt to revolt forced them to
hear their condemnation as though they were the lowest criminals and to
receive the pardon more humiliating still. In the greater part of the
republics where war demanded a leader, but where abuse of power had made
all the native nobles hateful, the rival factions called on a foreign
magistrate to govern Rome, demanded a head from Bologna and Venice
furnished one to Padua, Pisa, and Milan.

[Illustration: SAN MARCO, VENICE]

In those states where an unfertile soil tempted but a small part of
the population to agriculture, and offered no great means of power
to territorial lords, these latter saw their influence decrease in
proportion as other fortunes rose by means of commerce. They had,
however, to maintain themselves, the resources of the military service
and, above all, the faction. This was the condition of the nobles of
Genoa, Pisa, and Florence. When they tried violently to reseize the
power, they were suppressed and punished. Their fortresses were razed,
and hatred against them was carried to an injustice by depriving them of
rights which were common to all.

[Illustration: A DOGE OF VENICE]

It was in these commercial towns that the citizens, rapidly enriched by
fortunate enterprise, began to compare themselves with those ancient
possessors of privileges and to claim a share. A nobility sprang up of
quite different origin from the first, which disputed its authority,
but was disposed, like the other, to retain and abuse it. It is seen
that the influence of the privileged classes was modified according to
circumstances. Lords established in Italy by right of conquest ceased at
the time of the invasion of the Goths and other foreigners to be rulers,
and were no more than powerful vassals when regular monarchies arose.

When the commons were freed from the domination of the emperors, the
feudal lords retained their power where they had sufficient land to
preserve their pre-eminence. They shared or lost it from that or other
causes, particularly from commerce, which brought other means of power to
life which rivalled theirs. When these two kinds of nobles ceased to be
rivals, they agreed in order to rule. The hatred of the people against
the nobles hurried towns under the yoke of some of these powerful men,
who had made it believed that they sincerely took the popular side. That
is what cost the republic of Milan her proud liberty. In Genoa some
ambitious nobles took the same means to preserve influence. The Dorias
and Spinolas contracted an alliance with the people, and aided with
feigned zeal in the introduction of democratic forms into the government.
Other republics fell into an excess of distrust. Injustice nourished
hatreds and deprived the state of its most illustrious citizens.[b]

AN EMPEROR ONCE MORE IN ITALY

On the 25th of November, 1308, the diet of Germany named Henry VII of
Luxemburg as successor to Albert of Austria; and this election suddenly
brought Italy back to the same struggle for her independence which she
had so heroically supported against the two Fredericks. From the death
of the second Frederick, fifty-eight years had passed since she had
seen an emperor. Rudolf of Habsburg, Adolphus of Nassau, and Albert of
Austria had too much to do in Germany to occupy themselves with this
constantly agitated country, where they could demand obedience only with
arms in their hands. Henry VII was a brave, wise, and just prince; but
he was neither rich nor powerful. He secured to his son, by marriage,
the crown of Bohemia, which had excited some jealousy among the Germans;
and he believed it would be expedient, in order to avoid all quarrel in
the empire, to quit it for some time. To flatter the national vanity, he
determined on an expedition to Italy.

Henry, himself a Belgian, had no power but in Belgium and the provinces
adjoining France. From Luxemburg he went through the county of Burgundy
to Lausanne. Here he received, in the summer of 1310, the ambassadors
of the Italian states, who came to do him homage. He entered Piedmont,
by Mont Cenis, towards the end of September, accompanied by only two
thousand cavalry, the greater part of whom were Belgians, Franc-Comtois,
or Savoyards. This force would have been wholly insufficient to subdue
Italy; but Henry VII presented himself there as the supporter of just
rights, of order, and, to a certain degree, of liberty.

[Illustration: CORNER OF CHURCH OF SAN GIOVANNI, VENICE]

[Sidenote: [1295-1311 A.D.]]

The lords of all Lombardy and Piedmont came to present themselves to
Henry; some at Turin, others at Asti. He received them with kindness,
but declared his determination to establish legal order, such as had
been settled by the Peace of Constance, in all the cities of the empire;
and to name in each an imperial vicar, who should govern in concert with
the municipal magistrates. Philippone di Langusco, at Pavia; Simon da
Colobiano, at Vercelli; William Brusato, at Novara; Antonio Fisiraga, at
Lodi, in obedience to this intimation, laid down the sovereign power. At
the same time, Henry everywhere recalled the exiles, without distinction
of party; at Como and Mantua, the Ghibellines; at Brescia and Piacenza,
the Guelfs; leaving out, however, the exiles of Verona, a powerful city,
which he did not visit, and which was governed by Can’ Grande della
Scala, the most able Ghibelline captain in Italy, the best soldier, the
best politician, and the person whose services and attachment the emperor
most valued. The rich and populous city of Milan required also to be
treated with address and consideration. The archbishop Otto Visconti
had retained the principal authority in his hands to a very advanced
age. But long previously to his death, which took place in 1295, he
had transferred to his nephew, Matteo Visconti, the title of captain
of the people, and had accustomed the Milanese to consider him as his
lieutenant and successor. Matteo did, in fact, govern after him, and
with almost despotic power, from 1295 to 1302. He was also named lord of
several other cities of Lombardy; at the same time he strengthened his
family by many rich alliances. But Visconti had not the art to conciliate
either the remains of national pride, or the love of liberty which
still subsisted among his subjects, or the jealousy of the other princes
of Lombardy. A league to give the preponderance to the Guelf party in
this province was formed by Alberto Scotto, lord of Piacenza, and by
Ghiberto da Correggio, lord of Parma; they forced the Visconti to quit
Milan, in 1302, and installed in their place Guido della Torre and his
family, who had been exiles twenty-five years. When Henry VII presented
himself before Milan, he found it governed by Guido della Torre and the
Guelfs. Matteo Visconti and the Ghibellines were exiled. Henry exacted
their recall; he was crowned in the church of St. Ambrose, on the 6th
of January, 1311, and afterwards asked of the city a gratuity for his
army of one hundred thousand florins. Till then the Italians had seen in
the monarch only a just and impartial pacificator; but when he demanded
money, the different parties united against him.

MILAN SEDITIONS; GENOA AND VENICE AT WAR

[Sidenote: [1311-1312 A.D.]]

A violent sedition broke forth at Milan. The Della Torres and the Guelfs
were forced to leave that city. Matteo Visconti and the Ghibellines
were recalled, and the former restored to absolute power. The Guelfs,
too, in the rest of Lombardy, rose and took arms against the emperor.
Crema, Cremona, Lodi, Brescia, and Como revolted at the same time. Henry
consumed the greater part of the summer in besieging Brescia, which at
last, towards the end of September, 1311, he forced to capitulate. He
granted to that town equitable conditions, impatient as he was to enter
Tuscany; but, although Lombardy seemed subdued to his power, he left more
germs of discontent and discord in it than he had found about a year
before.

Henry VII arrived with his little army at Genoa, on the 21st of October,
1311. That powerful republic now maintained at St. Jean d’Acre, at Pera
opposite to Constantinople, and at Kaffa in the Black Sea, military and
mercantile colonies, which made themselves respected for their valour,
at the same time that they carried on the richest commerce of the
Mediterranean. Several islands in the Archipelago, amongst others that
of Chios, had passed in sovereignty to Genoese families. The palaces of
Genoa, already called the “superb,” were the admiration of travellers.
Its sanguinary rivalry with Pisa had terminated by securing to the former
the empire of the Tyrrhene Sea. From that time Genoa had no other rival
than Venice.

An accidental rencounter of the fleets of these two cities in the sea of
Cyprus lighted up between them, in 1293, a terrible war, which for seven
years stained the Mediterranean with blood, and consumed immense wealth.
In 1298, the Genoese admiral Lamba Doria, meeting the Venetian commander
Andrea Dandolo at Corzuola or Corcyra the Black, at the extremity of
the Adriatic Gulf, burned sixty-six of his galleys, and took eighteen,
which he brought into the port of Genoa, with seven thousand prisoners,
suffering only twelve vessels to escape. The humbled Venetians, in the
next year, asked and obtained peace. The Genoese, vanquishers in turn of
the Pisans and Venetians, passed for the bravest, the most enterprising,
and the most fortunate mariners of all Italy. The government of their
city was entirely democratic; but the two chains of mountains which
extend from Genoa, the one towards Provence, and the other towards
Tuscany (called by the Italians Le Riviere di Genoa, because the foot
of these mountains forms the shore of the sea), were covered with the
castles of the Ligurian nobles; the peasantry were all dependent on them,
and were always ready to make war for their liege lords. Four families
were pre-eminent for their power and wealth--the Doria and the Spinola,
Ghibellines; the Grimaldi and the Fieschi, Guelfs. These nobles, incensed
against each other by hereditary enmity, had disturbed the state by so
many outrages that the people adopted, with respect to them, the same
policy as that of the Tuscan republics, and had entirely excluded them
from the magistracy. On the other hand, they had rendered such eminent
and frequent services to the republic; above all, they had produced
such great naval commanders, that the people, whenever the state was in
danger, had always recourse to them for the choice of an admiral.

Seduced by the glory of these chiefs, the people often afterwards shed
their blood in their private quarrels; but often, also, wearied by the
continual disturbances which the nobles excited, they had recourse to
foreigners to subdue them to the common law. The people were in a state
of irritation against the Ligurian nobles, when Henry VII arrived at
Genoa, in 1311; and to oblige them to maintain a peace which they were
continually breaking, the Genoese conferred on that monarch absolute
authority over the republic for twenty years. But when the emperor
suppressed the podesta, and then the abbate or defender of the people,
and afterwards demanded of the city a gift of sixty thousand florins, the
Genoese perceived that they needed a government, not only to suppress
civil discord, but also to protect rights not less precious than peace;
an internal fermentation of increasing danger manifested itself; and
Henry was happy to quit Genoa in safety, on the 16th of February, 1312,
on board a Pisan fleet, which transported him with about fifteen hundred
cavalry to Tuscany.[12]

[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. TOMMASO, GENOA]

HENRY’S CORONATION AND SUDDEN DEATH

[Sidenote: [1312-1313 A.D.]]

Henry VII when he entered Italy, was impartial between the Guelfs and
Ghibellines. He owed his election to the influence of the popes, and
he was accompanied by cardinal legates, who were to crown him at Rome.
He had no distrust either of Robert, then king of Naples, the son of
Charles II, or of the Guelf cities. He had no hereditary affection for
the Ghibellines, the zealous partisans of a family long extinct. He
endeavoured, accordingly, to hold the balance fairly between the two
parties, and to reconcile them wherever he was allowed; but experience
had already taught him that the very name of elected emperor had a
magic influence on the Italians, either to excite the devoted affection
of the Ghibellines, or the terror and hatred of the Guelfs. It was
with the latter that resistance to him had begun in the preceding year
in Lombardy; and that revolt had burst forth on all sides since his
departure. Robert, king of Naples, who assumed the part of champion
of the Guelf party, already testified an open distrust of him; and
Florence, which by its prudence, ability, wealth, and courage was the
real director of that party, took arms to resist him, refused audience to
his ambassadors, raised all the Guelfs of Italy against him, and finally
constrained him to place that city under the ban of the empire. The
republic of Pisa, on the other hand, whose affection for the Ghibelline
party was connected with its hopes as well as its recollections,
served him with a devotion, zeal, and prodigality which he had not met
elsewhere. The Pisans had sent him, when at Lausanne, a present of sixty
thousand florins, to aid him on his passage to Italy. They paid his debts
at Genoa, and they gave him another present when he entered their city;
finally, they placed at his disposal thirty galleys and six hundred
crossbowmen, who accompanied him to Rome, where he received the golden
crown of the empire from the hands of the pope’s legate, in the church
of St. John Lateran, on the 29th of June, 1312. The Romans, who had
taken arms against him, and had received within their walls a Neapolitan
garrison, kept their gates shut during the ceremony, and would not suffer
one of his soldiers to enter the city.

The coronation of the emperor at Rome was the term of service of the
Germans; they took no interest afterwards in what was passing, or might
be done in that country. They were anxious to depart; and Henry found
himself at Tivoli, where he passed the summer, almost entirely abandoned
by his transalpine soldiers. Had the Neapolitan king Robert been bolder,
Henry would have been in great danger. In the autumn, however, the
Ghibellines and Bianchi of central Italy rallied round him, and formed a
formidable army, with which he marched to attack Florence, on the 19th of
September, 1312. The Florentines, accustomed to leave their defence to
mercenaries, whose valour was always ready for pay, made small account of
a military courage which they saw so common among men whom they despised;
but no people carried civil courage and firmness in misfortune further.
Their army was soon infinitely superior in numbers to that of Henry; they
carried on with perfect calmness their commerce and negotiations, as if
their enemies had already departed for Germany, but they would not drive
them out of their territory by giving battle; they preferred bearing
patiently their depredations, and waiting till they had worn out their
enthusiasm, exhausted their finances, and should depart of themselves,
which they did on the 6th of January, 1313, finding they could obtain no
advantage.

Henry, after giving some months of repose to his army, took the command
of the militia of Pisa, and made war at their head against Lucca; at the
same time, he solicited from his brother, the archbishop of Trèves, a
German reinforcement, which he obtained in the following month of July.
On the 5th of August, 1313, Henry VII departed from Pisa, commanding
twenty-five hundred ultramontane and fifteen hundred Italian cavalry,
with a proportionate number of infantry. He began his march towards Rome,
having been informed that Robert, called by the Florentines to their
aid, advanced with all the forces of the Guelf party to oppose him. The
declining military reputation of the Neapolitans inspired the Germans
with little fear, and Robert had but a small number of French cavalry to
give courage to his army; but the priests and monks, animated with zeal
in defence of the ancient Guelf party and the independence of the church,
seconded him with their prayers, and the report soon spread that they had
seconded him in another manner and in their own way. The emperor took
the road of San Miniato to Castel Fiorentino, arrived at Buon Convento,
twelve miles beyond Siena, and stopped there to celebrate the festival of
St. Bartholomew. On the 24th of August, 1313, he received the communion
from the hands of a Dominican monk, and expired a few hours afterwards.
It was said the monk had mixed the juice of Napel in the consecrated cup.
It was said, also, that Henry was already attacked by a malady which he
concealed. A carbuncle had manifested itself below the knee; and a cold
bath, which he took to calm the burning irritation, perhaps occasioned
his sudden and unexpected death.

RIVAL EMPERORS; ECCLESIASTICAL DISSENSIONS

[Sidenote: [1313-1322 A.D.]]

The electors of the empire were not convoked at Frankfort to name a
successor to Henry VII till ten months after his death. Ten, instead of
seven princes presented themselves; two pretenders disputed the electoral
rights in each of the houses of Saxony, Bohemia, and Brandenburg. The
electors, divided into two colleges, named simultaneously, on the 19th of
October, 1314, two emperors; the one, Ludwig IV of Bavaria; the other,
Frederick III of Austria. Their rights appeared equal; their adherents
in Germany were also of nearly equal strength; the sword only could
decide; and war was accordingly declared and carried on till the 28th
of September, 1322, when Frederick was vanquished and made prisoner at
Mühldorf.

The church abstained, while the civil war lasted, from pronouncing
between the two pretenders to the empire. Clement V did not witness their
double election; he died on the 20th of April, 1314. It was necessary,
two years afterwards, to use fraud and violence, to confine the cardinals
in conclave at Lyons, for the purpose of naming his successor. They
at last elected the bishop of Avignon. He was a native of Cahors, the
devoted creature of King Robert of Naples, and took the name of John
XXII. He was the first who made Avignon, which was his episcopal town,
the residence of the Roman court, exiled from Italy. He was an intriguer,
notoriously profligate, scandalously avaricious; he fancied himself,
however, a philosopher, and took a part in the quarrel between the
realists and nominalists; he made himself violent enemies in the schools,
on the members of which he sometimes inflicted the punishment of death.
While he used such violence towards his adversaries as heretics, he shook
the credit of the court of Rome, by being himself accused of heresy. His
great object was to raise to high temporal power the cardinal Bertrand
de Poiet, whom he called his nephew, and who was believed to be his son.
For that purpose he availed himself of the war between the two pretenders
to the empire, regarded by him as a prolongation of the interregnum,
during which he asserted all the rights of the emperors devolved on the
holy see. He charged Cardinal Bertrand to exercise those rights as legate
in Lombardy, crush the Ghibellines, support the Guelfs, but above all,
subdue both to the authority of the church and its legate.

The cardinal Bertrand de Poiet launched his excommunications and
employed the soldiers whom his father had raised for him in Provence,
particularly against Matteo Visconti, lord of Milan, one of the most
able and powerful of the Ghibelline chiefs. Visconti made himself
beloved by the Milanese, whom he had always treated with consideration.
Without being virtuous, he had preserved his reputation unstained by
crime. His mind was enlightened. To a perfect knowledge of mankind, he
added quick-sightedness, prompt decision, and a certain military glory,
heightened by that of four sons, his faithful lieutenants, who were all
distinguished among the brave. The Italians gave him the surname of
Great, at a period when, it is true, they were prodigal of that epithet.
Matteo Visconti, in his war with the Lombard Guelfs, took possession of
Pavia, Tortona, and Alessandria. He besieged, in concert with the Genoese
Ghibellines, Robert king of Naples, who had shut himself up in Genoa,
desirous of making that city the fortress of the Guelfs of Lombardy.
Visconti compelled the retreat of Philip of Valois, who, before he was
king, had entered Italy at the solicitation of the pope, in 1320.

The following year he vanquished Raymond de Cardona, a Catalonian, and
one of the pope’s generals; he persuaded Frederick of Austria, who had
sent his brother to aid the pope, to recall his Germans, making him
sensible it could suit neither of the pretenders to the empire to weaken
the Ghibellines, who defended in Italy the interests of whoever of the
two remained conqueror. But, after having made war against the church
party twenty years, without ever suspecting that he betrayed his faith,
for he was religious without bigotry, age awakened in him the terrors of
superstition; he began to fear that the excommunications of the legate
would deprive him of salvation; he abdicated in favour of his eldest son
Galeazzo, and died a few weeks afterwards, on the 22nd of June, 1322. The
remorse and scruples of Matteo Visconti had carried trouble and disorder
into his own party, and gave boldness to that of his adversaries. A
violent fermentation at Milan at length burst forth; Galeazzo was obliged
to fly, and the republic was proclaimed anew; but virtue and patriotism,
without which it could not subsist, were extinguished; and after a few
weeks Galeazzo was recalled, and reinvested with the lordship of Milan.

The two parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, since the death of Henry
VII, no longer nearly balanced each other in virtue, talents, and
patriotism. In the beginning of their struggle, there were almost as many
republics on one side as the other; and sentiments as pure and a devotion
as generous equally animated the partisans of the empire and of the
church. But, in the fourteenth century, the faction of the Ghibellines
had become that of tyranny--of the Guelfs that of liberty. The former
displayed those great military and political talents which personal
ambition usually develops. In the second were to be found, almost
exclusively, patriotism, and the heroism which sacrifices to it every
personal interest. The republic of Pisa alone, in Italy, united the love
of liberty with the sentiments of the Ghibelline party. This republic
had been thunderstruck by the death of Henry VII at a moment when a
career of glory and prosperity seemed to open on him. Pisa, exhausted
by the prodigious efforts which she had made to serve him, was true to
herself, when all the Guelfs of Tuscany rose at once, on the death of
Henry, to avenge on her the terror which that monarch had inspired. She
gave the command of her militia to Uguccione dà Faggiuola, a noble of
the mountainous part of Romagna, which, with the March, produced the
best soldiers in Italy. The Pisans, under the command of Faggiuola,
obtained two signal advantages over the Guelfs. They took Lucca, on
the 14th of June, 1314, while the Lucchese Guelfs and Ghibellines were
engaged in battle in the streets of that city; and, on the 29th of
August of the same year, they defeated, at Montecatini, the Florentines,
commanded by two princes of the house of Naples, and seconded by all the
Guelfs of Tuscany and Romagna. But the Pisans soon perceived that they
were fighting, not for themselves, but for the captain whom they had
chosen. Almost immediately after his victory, he began to exercise an
insupportable tyranny over Pisa and Lucca. Fearing much more the citizens
of these republics than the enemies of the states, he, on the slightest
suspicion, employed the utmost severity against all the most illustrious
families. At Lucca, he threw into a dungeon Castruccio Castracani, the
most distinguished of the Ghibelline nobles, who had recently returned to
that city with a brilliant reputation, acquired in the wars of France and
Lombardy. A simultaneous insurrection at Lucca and Pisa, on the 10th of
April, 1316, delivered these cities from Uguccione dà Faggiuola and his
son.[d]

The Pisans put Uguccione’s partisans to death, and gave the government
to Count Gaddo della Gherardesca. This news arrived at Lucca when the
Lucchese were tumultuously demanding the liberty of Castruccio. Uguccione
not daring to oppose the general wish, Castruccio was taken from prison
and presented to the public loaded with chains. At this spectacle the
people grew still more furious; Uguccione was obliged to fly; and the
chains being taken off Castruccio, the latter, by a rare good fortune,
was declared lord of Lucca on the very day which had been destined for
his death.[e]

CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI

Castruccio was the scion of a Ghibelline stock, and was devoted to the
Ghibelline cause; for four years successively he was freely elected
to command the Lucchese with almost sovereign power. He knew men and
how to govern them; knew what enmities to despise or punish, and what
friendships to win and retain. As a daring soldier and skilful general
he was beloved by the troops, for he was not blind to merit and knew how
to reward it, but cared little about the morality of his followers if
they only did their duty and quietly submitted to the rigid discipline
that he established and enforced. No man was more beloved by the people
or more generally popular with every class of citizen; they admired his
talents and were proud of his fame. In 1320 he felt so confident of his
position in the public mind that he ventured to expel the Avocati, who
with about 180 great Guelfic families now bid adieu to their country, and
then boldly demanded the supreme authority; out of 210 senators there
was but one voice against him, and the people unanimously confirmed this
election. He was therefore a legitimate ruler. His economical management
of the public revenue was exemplary and productive; he had amassed great
treasure, and his system of military honours and rewards heightened and
improved the warlike spirit of the people until it had acquired a more
professional character. All the neighbouring predaceous chiefs were
allured to his standard by the hope of future conquests, and rough and
unscrupulous as they were he made them all bend to his discipline.

Thus prepared on every hand to begin that career of ambition to which
he felt himself more than equal, Matteo Visconti’s proposal was warmly
received, and Philip of Valois’ expedition with the ready assistance
of the Guelfic league were together considered an infringement of the
general peace, or at least a sufficient excuse for retaliation on the
part of the Ghibellines. Uguccione Faggiuola was dead, a circumstance
that heightened the anxiety of both Castruccio and the Florentines,
particularly the latter, whose dread of this veteran chief, blinding them
as it did to the dangerous ambition of his successor, had never ceased
since the disaster of Montecatini.

[Sidenote: [1320-1321 A.D.]]

Such was the state of affairs in April, 1320, when Castruccio Castracani
with some Pisan auxiliaries suddenly occupying Cappiano, Montefalcone,
and the bridges of the Gusciano, broke into the Florentine territory
carrying death and devastation as far as Cerreto Guidi, Vinci, and
Empoli; then, getting possession of Santa Maria a Monte by treachery,
returned in triumph to Lucca. Afterwards, invading Lunigiana and
Garfagnana, he dispossessed Spinetto Malespina of several places
necessary for his own military operations and then marched with all his
force to aid the siege of Genoa. This city still maintained a fierce and
bloody struggle with its own exiles and the Lombard Ghibellines; war
raged not only round the walls but throughout the whole Riviera, or coast
district; it extended to Sicily and Naples and involved even more distant
countries in its action, so that the siege of Troy itself, as Villani[d]
asserts, was hardly equal to it for heroic deeds, marvellous exploits,
and hard-fought battles by land and water, without any cessation either
in summer or winter.

The Florentines determined to prevent a junction that would probably
have settled the fate of Genoa, therefore made a powerful diversion in
the Lucchese states which compelled Castruccio to return ere he had
joined the besiegers; avoiding an action they retreated to the frontier
at Fucecchio while the enemy halted in front of Cappiano, both armies
remaining nearly inactive until the advancing season drove them into
winter quarters. To make amends for this inglorious campaign, more
vigorous measures were pursued and an alliance was concluded with the
marquis Spinetto Malespina, who, although a Ghibelline, had been too
much injured by Castruccio on account of his friendship for Uguccione
not to seize the first opportunity of revenge. Florentine troops were
despatched to his aid, yet Castruccio was not apprehensive of anything in
that quarter, but prepared with the help of a powerful body of Lombard
Ghibellines for a more serious struggle on the side of Florence and soon
marched to raise the siege of Monte Vettolini at the head of sixteen
hundred men-at-arms. The Florentines, having only half that number,
immediately retired and allowed him to devastate their territory with
impunity for the last twenty days of June, after which he retired to
chastise the Malespini in Lunigiana.

Discontent ran high in Florence and the retiring seigniory were much
censured for their feeble conduct; the Agubbio faction was still
powerful, and probably the inconvenience of a fluctuating administration
was beginning to be felt, as the foreign affairs with a more complex
character embraced a wider circle; to remedy this, twelve counsellors,
two for each sesto under the denomination of “Buonuomini” were added to
the new seigniory, but to continue six months in office instead of two,
and without whose sanction nothing important could be undertaken. To
check also the increasing intimacy, and consequent favouritism between
citizens and foreign officers of state, which led to great abuse, it
was decreed that no stranger who brought a kinsman in his suite could
have a place in the commonwealth, and that until ten years from his
resignation of office he could not be re-elected. Some taxes were then
reduced, the gold and silver currency reformed, and preparations made
for a fresh campaign. Azzo of Brescia was appointed captain-general; one
hundred and sixteen knights and one hundred and sixty mounted crossbowmen
were enlisted and under the command of Jacopo da Fontana soon checked
Castruccio’s incursions so as to protect the line of the Gusciana. But
Philip of Valois’ expedition had in the meanwhile failed, and in Lombardy
the Tuscans were defeated at Bardo in the Val-di-Taro, their captain
the marquis of Cavalcabò was killed, Cremona recaptured, and Visconti
everywhere victorious.

[Sidenote: [1321-1323 A.D.]]

In Florence one of the first public measures in 1321 was to complete
the whole circuit of public walls and strengthen it by flanking towers
fifty-five feet high at regular intervals of more than one hundred
and eighty feet apart; a work that was doubtless accelerated by their
apprehension of Castruccio, which had now taken a more alarming character
from some recent proceedings at Pistoia.

This ever-vexed city, harassed by external war and inward troubles,
finally elected the abbate da Pacciana de’ Tedici, a tool of Castruccio,
as their ruler; he was a weak intriguing man who, catching at a popular
opinion, was suddenly floated into power by the stormy multitude without
ballast enough to steady him. Castruccio made good use of him, and a
truce was suddenly concluded with that leader against all the influence
of Florence, by which, according to Villani[d] (though unnoticed by the
anonymous author of the _Istorie Pistolese_),[f] an annual tribute of
three thousand florins was to be paid by Pistoia. The dread of Castruccio
was rapidly and generally spreading.

FLORENCE MENACED

He fortified Lucca, and prepared to invade Florentine territory. The
Florentines sent a strong detachment of troops into Lombardy on condition
that in the following summer the Genoese and other Guelfic powers were to
attack Lucca on every side and annihilate the rising power of Castruccio.
Scarcely had an army been assembled for this purpose, when intelligence
arrived that their principal condottiere, Jacopo di Fontanabuona, had
passed over with all his following to the enemy; he had been commissioned
to make himself master of Buggiano and other places by treachery, but
failed, and soon after joined Castruccio with two hundred men-at-arms.

Castruccio with this reinforcement and the possession of his enemy’s
secrets crossed the Gusciano on the 13th of June, 1323, attacked
Fucecchio and other places, ravaged the surrounding country, then passed
the Arno, devastated the territory of San Miniato and Montepopoli with
all the vale of Elsa, and marched quietly back to Lucca. On July 1st he
suddenly reappeared in front of Prato, only ten miles from the capital,
with six hundred men-at-arms and four thousand infantry; the citizens
sent in terror to Florence for help, but paralysed by Fontanabuona’s
treachery she was nearly destitute of regular troops. The citizens
however had not quite forgotten the use of arms, and their spirit was
still high; the shops were immediately closed, a candle was placed at the
Prato gate, and every individual liable to serve summoned to the ranks
ere it burned out, under the penalty of losing a limb; a proclamation
being issued to announce that all exiles who instantly joined the
army would be pardoned and restored to their country. By these prompt
measures, twenty-five hundred men-at-arms and twenty thousand infantry
were in the field round Prato on the 2nd of July, only one day after
Castruccio’s appearance, four thousand of whom were exiles!

[Sidenote: [1323-1324 A.D.]]

Castruccio’s rash advance with so small a force might have ended
disastrously if the Florentines had been well commanded; but he retired
in the night and made an unmolested retreat to Serravalle, the discord
in the Florentine camp, an offset from civil dissension, having saved
him. Thus ended this singular campaign in which the army scarcely saw
an enemy, but which brought back danger and revolution to the state.
The Florentines now added three subalterns (_pennoniere_) to each urban
company, so that the whole force became infinitely more flexible and
divisible and better adapted to real service.

He soon recommenced his successful incursions, but was generally too
weak to oppose the united strength of Florence; the moral effect of his
character was however very imposing in both states and nothing was too
daring either for his arms or conscience. His Ghibelline allies the
Pisans were deeply engaged in war with the king of Aragon for the defence
of Sardinia, which offered him a favourable occasion as he thought
of becoming their master; the conspiracy was however discovered; the
conspirator Betto or Benedetto Malepra de’ Lanfranchi with many others
lost his head; all friendship or alliance with Lucca was renounced by
Pisa, and 10,000 golden florins were offered for the head of Castruccio.
About two months afterwards he suddenly left his capital at the head of
a small detachment on the 19th of December, and by the treachery of an
inhabitant of Fucecchio was admitted at night into the town during a
deluge of rain, which at first concealed his aggression; the subsequent
struggle was fierce and bloody; a great part of the place was taken,
but alarm fires on the towers brought strong reinforcements from the
neighbouring garrisons; Castruccio held on with desperate resolution
against an overwhelming force of soldiers and citizens until, wounded,
fatigued, and hopeless of success, he sullenly retired with the loss of
banners and horses, but still unmolested; for the glory of repulsing him
was deemed sufficient, and the habitual dread of his prowess left no
appetite for a second encounter.

[Illustration: SAN MINIATO, FLORENCE]

Nothing of importance occurred between Castruccio and the Florentines in
the following year, for the former was busy with his intrigues against
Pisa and Pistoia, and the latter employed reducing some petty chieftains
in the Mugello, but still more seriously on the side of Arezzo where
the bishop was rapidly gaining ground against the Guelfs. Five hundred
men-at-arms were engaged in France, and other preparations making for the
day of battle which the Florentines foresaw must come before Castruccio
could be arrested in the rapid course of his ambition; a new confederacy
was therefore formed in March between Florence, Bologna, Siena, Perugia,
Orvieto, and Agubbio; with other communities and Guelfic lords, for the
recovery of Città di Castello, which was to be effected by a combined
army of three thousand men-at-arms levied for three years, a great part
of which was maintained by the Florentines.

[Sidenote: [1324-1325 A.D.]]

Castruccio meanwhile had moved towards the Pistoian Mountains, and
repairing the castle of Brandelli, whence there was a view of both
Pistoia and Florence, called it Bellosguardo and gazed with a longing
eye on either city. One was only his own in perspective, the other
was almost in his grasp; and Filippo Tedici, who had driven his uncle
from the government of Pistoia, and was in treaty with Castruccio and
Florence, pretending the greatest alarm, demanded assistance of the
latter, with whose aid he hoped to better his bargain. A body of troops
was directly sent under command of the podesta, but discovering his
object, this officer returned in disgust; upon which he made his terms
with Castruccio, and Pistoia was suffered for a while to exist as an
independent state. Florence had attempted to gain it by treachery but
failed, and Castruccio, tired of Filippo’s intrigues, offered him 10,000
florins and his daughter Dialta in marriage for immediate possession of
the city. This secured Filippo, who before daylight on the 5th of May,
1325, opened a gate to the Lucchese general; but the latter distrusting
his ally would not enter until he had actually unhinged it, and then took
possession of the place in the manner of the time by scouring the streets
at the head of his cavalry and trampling upon all that came in his way.

The fall of Pistoia was an event of great importance; equally distant
from Florence and Lucca and on the confines of both, it formed a
rallying-point for the armies of either, and its friendship or enmity had
considerable influence on every operation of the war; hence the eagerness
of Florence at all times to preserve her authority there, and hence the
general consternation when intelligence of its capture arrived at the
capital.

THE FLORENTINE ARMY UNDER RAYMOND OF CARDONA

She might have bought it for the same price or even less than Castruccio,
because Filippo felt himself too insecure not to make both friends and
money by the sacrifice of his country; but failing, either from want of
skill or perhaps dishonesty in her agents, she repeated her attempts to
surprise the place, thus forcing him into the arms of Castruccio, and
he poisoned his own wife to complete the union. Rumours of this event
reached Florence while the magistrates were engaged in public festivities
on the occasion of two foreign officers of state being dubbed knights by
the republic, and the banquet was going on in the church of San Piero
Scheraggio when the news was confirmed. In a moment the whole assembly
fell into confusion, the tables were overturned, and every man was
immediately armed and in his saddle; believing that a part of the town
might still hold out, a rapid march was made as far as Prato, where
hearing the whole truth they returned dejected and mortified to Florence.
The following day brought some consolation in the arrival of Raymond of
Cardona, who had been sent in the preceding November from Milan on a
mission to Rome; he had promised to return, but was absolved by the pope
and sent instantly to Florence as commander-in-chief of the republican
forces. His presence gave new spirit to the people, which was increased
by the capture of Artimino on the 22nd of May.

One of the finest armies ever assembled by the republic soon took the
field at the enormous expense of 3000 florins a day; the city bells
tolled as a declaration of war; the public standard waved over San Piero
a Monticelli; the _soldati_ or mercenary troops first moved to Prato,
and the _cavallate_ with all the mass of civic infantry joined them on
the following morning. One of the city bells which had been captured at
Montale broke while in the act of sounding; three weeks before there had
been a violent earthquake in Florence, and the following evening a broad
stream of fiery vapour flared over the city. All these circumstances were
dwelt upon with anxious and gloomy foreboding by numbers of citizens
over whose mind the talents and success of Castruccio had gained a
superstitious ascendency. The cavalry consisted of 500 gentlemen of the
highest rank in Florence under the name _cavallate_ or men-at-arms on
horseback, all magnificently equipped and a hundred of them mounted on
_destrieri_, the largest and finest war-horses of the time and which few
could afford to purchase; none cost less than 150 golden florins [nearly
£200 or $1000], yet there were 300 of these, natives and strangers,
in the Florentine army. Besides the cavallate there were 1500 foreign
cavalry in the pay of Florence, of whom 800 were French and German
gentlemen of the highest rank and distinction; the general-in-chief,
Raymond of Cardona, a Spanish condottiere, and his lieutenant, Borneo of
Burgundy, were followed by a troop of 230 Catalan and Burgundian cavalry,
and lastly there were 450 Gascons, French, Flemings, Italians, and men of
Provence picked with great care from the veteran companies of Masnadieri,
and all experienced soldiers. Fifteen thousand well-appointed infantry,
between citizens and rural troops, completed the personal force of this
fine army, and 800 canvas pavilions and other great tents, with 6000
_ronzini_ and baggage horses attended its movements.

[Illustration: THE PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE]

With the exception of 200 Sienese cavalry no allies had yet joined,
but hostilities commenced on the 17th of June by devastating the
Pistoian territory up to the gates of the capital, capturing many small
places, insulting Castruccio, who was in that city, by running for the
Palio under its walls, and sending him repeated challenges to battle.
Castruccio dryly answered that it was not the right time, and the
Florentines marched directly to besiege Tizzano, a strong town about
seven miles from Pistoia on the road to Florence; there every preparation
was apparently made for a regular siege, while Cardona on the 9th of July
sent his lieutenant Borneo with 500 picked men towards Fucecchio; and to
engage Castruccio’s attention a strong detachment was at the same time
directed to alarm Pistoia and the surrounding country. Borneo was joined
at Fucecchio by 150 Lucchese exiles and a numerous infantry, besides
some reinforcements from the garrisons in Val d’Arno. Carrying with him
a pontoon bridge, apparently the first noticed by the early historians
of these campaigns, he threw it silently over the Gusciana at Rosaiuolo
during the night, and the whole division crossed that river without being
perceived by the garrisons at the bridge of Cappiano or Montefalcone,
scarcely a mile above and below the point of passage.

RAYMOND TEMPORISES

On hearing this, Raymond suddenly quitted Tizzano, passed the lofty range
of Monte Albano, and by night-fall had joined his detachment and invested
the fortified bridge and fortress of Cappiano. This was an unexpected
stroke for the Lucchese general, who believed himself safe in that
quarter, and would appear to have doubted the possibility of so sudden a
passage of the Gusciana by any soldiers; so that this operation increased
the fame of Cardona, the confidence of the league, and the spirit of the
Florentines. His frontier line being thus broken, Castruccio immediately
quitted Pistoia, and entering the Val di Nievole threw his army in
position amongst the hills above Vivinaia, which he endeavoured to
strengthen while he pressed for the co-operation of all his friends; Pisa
disregarded this summons in consequence of his recent treachery; but from
Lucca, Arezzo, La Marca, Romagna, and the Maremma he assembled thirteen
hundred men-at-arms and a numerous infantry, with which he reinforced all
his positions from Vivinaia to Porcari, strengthening the latter with
additional works and troops to secure his communications with Lucca; and
finally cut a trench from the hills to the marsh of Bientina which was
guarded with the utmost solicitude.

The bridge of Cappiano was taken by Cardona on the 13th of July; the town
itself next fell; two days after, Montefalcone was summoned and reduced
in eight days, and thus the whole line of the Gusciana was cleared of the
enemy. This rapid success brought numerous reinforcements from Siena,
Perugia, Bologna, Agubbio, Grosseto, Montepulciano, Chiusi, Colle, San
Gimignano, Volterra, San Miniato, Faenza, Imola, Count Battifolle, and
the exiles from Lucca and Pistoia; all eager to assist in overwhelming
this formidable chieftain; so that the army had already swelled to 3454
men-at-arms and a proportionate number of infantry. With this immense
force Cardona advanced, and on the 3rd of August invested the strong
fortress of Altopascio, which crowns a hill rising from the marshes north
of the Bientina Lake; the place, although impregnable to an assault, was
so damaged by the battering engines and so poisoned by heat, sickness,
and the horrid stench of filthy matter which it was then usual to cast
into besieged towns, that on hearing of the discomfiture of a Lucchese
detachment sent from Pistoia to make a diversion towards Florence it
immediately surrendered.

The capture of this place was succeeded by doubts, discussion, and
delay; the troops had become sickly from heats and malaria, and the
army proportionably reduced; discontent and intrigues were plentiful,
and Castruccio, quick in the use of corruption, seized the favourable
moment to bribe two Frenchmen of high rank, but was detected and baffled.
Cardona himself, although proof against Castruccio’s temptations,
was false and ambitious; he had seen Florence in periods of distress
repeatedly surrender her liberties, and determined by getting her into
difficulties to try if he also could not become her master; the fall of
Altopascio elated him, his pockets were filled and his camp emptied by
the bribes of rich citizens who, tired of a long campaign and alarmed
at increasing sickness, cheerfully exchanged their money for leave of
absence and the pleasures of the capital. The cavalry, being generally
composed of these, was reduced along with the rest of the army to almost
half its original number, and Cardona wished this; for his thoughts ran
high, and hence his delays, discussions, and repeated demands to be
invested with the same power in the city that he already exercised in
the army; in order, as he said, to insure the necessary obedience. But
finding that the government would not listen to his request, he lay idle
amongst the Bientina marshes while Castruccio, with the eyes and activity
of a lynx, strained every nerve to catch him in his toils, and succeeded;
so that he who at first neglected the means of victory through bad faith,
was at last through incapacity unable to save himself from destruction.
Dissension arose both in the camp and city about the propriety of
withdrawing the army to a more healthy quarter or boldly pushing on to
Lucca; the most cautious advised the former course from a suspicion of
the general’s views and the state of the troops; but their opponents
prevailed both in camp and council, some of them even favouring Cardona’s
wildest speculations. It was therefore resolved to advance towards Lucca;
but instead of cutting through the enemy’s position while he was weak, by
a direct movement, as might have been effected, a bad unhealthy post was
occupied on the edge of the Sesto marsh, which decimated the troops while
it still more augmented the gains of the general.

A BRILLIANT SKIRMISH

Castruccio did not fail to profit by this delay, although his army also
had decreased from want of funds and sickness, and therefore could not
long maintain its position without reinforcements, but he discovered
in that of the enemy the seeds of certain victory. By reason, money,
and promises he had already prevailed on Galeazzo Visconti to send his
son with eight hundred horse into Tuscany; and with two hundred more
from Passerino, lord of Mantua and Modena, he hoped soon to recover his
ascendency; in the meanwhile his situation was very precarious, for
Cardona by a vigorous effort might have cut his line of communication;
the latter, now sensible of his errors and probably urged by the general
discontent, had actually detached a hundred men-at-arms and a body of
pioneers to clear a passage over the mountain. Castruccio’s outposts
soon checked their progress and were followed by a stronger body then
descending the hill in order of battle; skirmishing began, and voluntary
reinforcements pushed out unordered from the Florentine camp below. It
was entirely an encounter of cavalry; the green slopes of the hills
were covered with armed and plumed knights, the whole scene resembled
a tournament rather than a real battle and the effect is described
as beautiful. Each party was broken four different times and each
reuniting in compact order returned unconquered to the charge; many
lances were shivered, many gentlemen unhorsed, and arms and wounded and
expiring men lay scattered on the mountain side. The Florentines with
only half its numbers for three hours sustained and repulsed the charges
of Castruccio’s chivalry, and might have finally prevailed if they had
been well supported; but Cardona in complete order of battle looked on
inactively, his troops cooped up in a narrow angle of the plain below
whence they could not move without incurring danger. This did not escape
Castruccio who therefore pushed boldly on with augmenting numbers and,
though unhorsed by a German knight, wounded, and some of his bravest
followers slain, by night-fall had succeeded in driving the enemy back to
their entrenchments in face of a much superior army.

Forty men-at-arms were either killed or taken on the side of Florence,
and many wounded, but all in front; for the Florentines did not turn,
but battled proudly and retreated sullenly, more angry with their own
commander than with the enemy; they made no prisoners but must have smote
well in the conflict, for no less than a hundred of their opponents’
horses had galloped to the plain with empty saddles from the field of
battle.

THE BATTLE OF ALTOPASCIO

The trumpets of either host answered each other in defiance until after
dark, and neither choosing to own a defeat both remained under arms long
after night set in; but the Florentines lost their spirit from that day’s
fight and no longer trusted either in the faith or talents of their
general. Castruccio, being anxious to keep the Spaniard in his difficult
position, directed the governors of several towns in the Val di Nievole
to entangle him in a fictitious intrigue with the expectation of their
surrender, and Cardona, thus duped, notwithstanding every warning, chose
to continue in this state of vain inactivity.

On hearing of Azzo Visconti’s arrival at Lucca with eight hundred
men-at-arms he took fright and hastily retreated to Altopascio, whilst
Castruccio, apprehensive of his escape, hurried back to the capital
to accelerate the march of the Lombards. Visconti was so unwilling to
proceed without repose or money that it required all the influence of
Castruccio’s wife, seconded by the blandishments of the most beautiful
women in Lucca and the payment of 6000 florins, to gain his promise of
marching on the following morning; Castruccio then departed, leaving
to the women the care of keeping the young Milanese chieftain to his
engagement. On the morning of the 23rd of November the allied army
paraded ostentatiously in front of Castruccio’s position, with flying
colours and sound of many trumpets, daring him as it were to battle,
and the latter fearful of losing such a moment sent out some troops to
amuse them with a prospect of victory while he kept his main body in
hand awaiting the junction of Visconti. This was completed at nine in
the morning, when Castruccio was seen once more descending from the
hills with three-and-twenty hundred men-at-arms in majestic movement
towards the plain, while the greater part of his infantry remained in the
mountain and took no part in the events of this day. An advanced squadron
of 150 French and Italian gentlemen began the fight by a bold charge
directly through Visconti’s line; but the second line or main body of
Feditori, consisting of seven hundred horsemen under Borneo of Burgundy
who had been corrupted by Azzo or Castruccio, turned when it was time to
charge and fled from the encounter. The whole army, whose confidence was
already shaken, were confounded and some others began to fly; but had
Raymond promptly moved forward to the support of his first line which
had charged so effectively, the battle might still have been maintained
on equal terms; instead of which he remained motionless and added to the
general consternation.

[Illustration: ITALIAN SOLDIER OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

Presently the main body of cavalry, scarcely tarrying to exchange
a single lance-thrust, hurried off in universal confusion, leaving
everything to the infantry who still maintained their ground with
undaunted courage; but neither their arms nor discipline was calculated
to stand alone against such masses of man and steel as came successively
upon them, and after an obstinate resistance they also were discomfited.
The battle lasted but a short time, few were killed in the fight but
many in the pursuit, for Castruccio instantly sent on a detachment to
Cappiano, took possession of the bridge which had already been abandoned,
and cut off all direct means of escape. The slaughter was therefore
considerable but uncertain; the prisoners, amongst whom were Raymond of
Cardona and his son, were numerous; the carroccio, the martinella, with
all the public standards, banners, and baggage of the army, were taken;
Cappiano and Montefalcone soon capitulated, and Altopascio not many days
after. Thus did the tide of fortune turn and bear forward Castruccio to
prouder hopes and higher dignities. On the 27th of September his whole
army assembled at Pistoia and was reinforced by that garrison, while
Castruccio in all the confidence of victory dismantled the bridge and
forts of Cappiano and Montefalcone, and secure in the possession of
Pistoia left the rest of his frontier open to the Florentines, whose
territory he ravaged for nearly seven weeks without interruption. Policy
and necessity dictated this course, for his funds were exhausted, Azzo
Visconti was still unsatisfied, and the army in arrears of pay; so that
nothing but the plunder of Florentine citizens could supply his present
necessities. Carmignano was his first conquest; he then marched to
Lecore, to Signa, Campi, Brozzi, and Guaracchi; all were captured or fell
a prey to flames and plunder; Peretola, within two miles of Florence,
became for a while his headquarters, while from the Arno to the mountains
he ravaged all the plain, a plain covered, then as now, but more richly,
with magnificent villas and beautiful gardens, the delight of the
citizens and the admiration of the world. All was destroyed. The wealth
was plundered, the monuments of then reviving art were carried away and
reserved for the conqueror’s triumph. Games were celebrated and races run
on the very spot time out of mind reserved by the Florentines for their
public spectacles. A course of horsemen began the sports; that of footmen
followed; and afterwards, to make the insult still more disgusting,
a bevy of common prostitutes ran together in mockery, deriding the
impotence of the Florentines, not one of whom had the courage to come
forth and check these insulting spectacles. Yet the city was full of
troops, and thousands had escaped from the fight, but the star of
Castruccio shed its influence over them; their spirit was subdued, their
courage wasted, and distrust of those great families whose kinsmen were
prisoners to Castruccio, lest they should treat with him secretly,
completely distracted their judgment. After another course of devastation
the invaders reassembled on the 26th of October and repeated their
insults to please Azzo Visconti, who thus revenged a similar proceeding
of the Florentine auxiliaries, not long before, under the walls of Milan.

Castruccio next occupied Signa, as it gave him command of the Arno at
this point with a free entrance into the Val di Pesa and all the southern
country; he therefore reinforced and strengthened it, coined silver money
there with the imperial image as an act of high sovereignty, and passed
them current under the name of _Castruccini_.

CASTRUCCIO ADDS INSULT TO INJURY

Florence was during this time in a painful state of suspicion and dismay;
all the prisoners’ kinsmen were regarded with distrust and deprived
of office both within and without the city; half the Contado was a
desert, its starving inhabitants huddled together in the capital where
a wide-spreading mortality was the natural consequence. Deaths were so
frequent that the public crier, whose business it was to proclaim the
decease of a citizen according to ancient custom, was prohibited from
exercising his calling during the continuance of the malady. Every
precaution was adopted to secure the city; the walls were strengthened,
San Miniato a Monte was fortified, and even the citadel of Fiesole
repaired from mere apprehension of Castruccio, who threatened to restore
it and beleaguer Florence; and this he probably would have done had not
the bishop of Arezzo and the Ubaldini from incipient jealousy refused
to lend their assistance. Fearful of internal war, all exiles but the
regular _Escettati_ of 1311 were restored to their country on payment
of a trifling impost; assistance was demanded from King Robert and the
allies, but with little success, for through terror of Castruccio only
Colle and San Miniato Tedesco answered the call. King Robert afterwards
sent some trifling aid; but still Florence did not despair, and a bold
attempt was made to cut off Castruccio’s whole army in a pass of the Val
di Marina near Calenzano. New taxes were imposed to the annual amount of
180,000 florins beyond the ordinary revenue; levies were made in Mantua
and in Germany; Monte Buoni and other important posts were fortified to
protect the district; yet in the middle of all this danger two hundred
cavalry were magnanimously despatched to Bologna, which was sorely
pressed, and its army soon after defeated at Monteveglio by Passerino
lord of Mantua, with the assistance of Azzo Visconti and his followers,
fresh from their Tuscan victories.

But this Milanese chief, ere he finally quitted Tuscany, offered a
parting insult to Florence by holding public games in the very bed of the
Arno. He then returned with 25,000 florins as his share of the general
plunder, while Castruccio, loaded with prisoners and booty, resolved to
enter his capital in triumph like a Roman conqueror.

The fame of this event attracted a crowd of spectators from all parts
of Italy, eager to witness the revival of an ancient ceremony but more
eager to behold a hero whose reputation had already become familiar
to the world. On the 10th of November, being the festival of St.
Martin, Castruccio made this triumphal entry into Lucca; not in a car,
but on a magnificent courser, and at some distance from the gates a
solemn procession of the clergy, nobility, and almost all the women of
exalted rank in the city received him like a royal personage. At the
head of his procession were the prisoners of least note with uncovered
heads, and arms crossed upon the breast, stooping as it were in humble
supplication for the mercy of their emperor; next came the Florentine
carroccio rolling heavily along, drawn by the same oxen and decked with
the same trappings they had borne in the field, and overhung by the
reversed and now degraded standard of that republic. Then followed other
Florentine banners, those of the Guelf party and the kings of Naples,
with flags and pennons of inferior note, and various communities, all
trailing in the dirt and as it were sweeping the path of the conqueror.
Immediately after this mortifying spectacle walked the same chiefs who
had so often borne these flags to victory. Here Raymond of Cardona also
had full leisure to contemplate the effects of his own dishonesty; and
the gallant Urlimbach, a German knight who had unhorsed Castruccio,
could also muse on the instability of fortune, as despoiled of arms and
spurs he swelled the train of the victor. A multitude of noble captives
followed in this insulting procession, which was closed by Castruccio
and his legions in all the pride and insolence of victory. But nothing
mortified the prisoners so much as being compelled to bear large waxen
torches as offerings to St. Martin, the tutelar saint of Lucca and dear
to her troops because of the Bacchanalian license usual at his festival
on pretence of tasting the various flavours of the new-made wines, and
because the saint himself had once been a soldier.

FLORENCE IN DESPAIR CALLS ON THE DUKE OF CALABRIA

Thus bearded at their very gates, insulted, ridiculed, the country a
desert, Signa occupied by the enemy, Prato at his mercy, Montemurlo still
unsuccoured and ready to fall, the Bolognese army, their only bulwark
against Lombardy, defeated, their best chieftains prisoners, their army
diminished, their expenses increased, their allies daunted, death raging
within the city and destruction without, all things adverse to them, and
fortune courting their enemies--under such a pressure the people at last
gave way, and despair once more compelled them to a temporary surrender
of their independence. Charles duke of Calabria was therefore, and
perhaps not unexpectedly, offered the lordship of Florence for ten years
on certain conditions.

It was decreed that the prince should remain for thirty months
consecutively within the Florentine state, or at war in the enemy’s
dominions, and the three succeeding summer months in addition should
hostilities continue. That in time of war he was to maintain one thousand
transalpine cavalry and have an annual allowance from the republic of
200,000 golden florins; half that sum in peace, with the obligation of
maintaining only 450 men-at-arms. If in time of peace the duke wished
to be absent, he was bound to appoint a lieutenant of the blood royal
or of some other great and powerful family; also to nominate a vicar
for the administration of justice, who was not to alter any part of
the government, but on the contrary defend and maintain the priors and
gonfalonier, the executor of the ordinances of justice, and the sixteen
chiefs of companies. This decree, which passed on the 23rd of December,
1325, was despatched with a solemn embassy to Naples and finished the
transactions of that unfortunate year, which began so brightly for the
Florentines.

[Sidenote: [1325-1326 A.D.]]

Until the dictator’s arrival Florence gave the chief command of her
army to Pierre de Narsi, a French knight of exalted rank who was made
prisoner at Altopascio; he had just been ransomed, and smarting under the
indignity of Castruccio’s triumph sought revenge and distinction ere he
was compelled to relinquish his brief and hazardous dignity. Not being
able to save Montemurlo which, after a courageous resistance, honourably
capitulated on the 8th of January, he exerted himself less worthily
by trying to raise insurrections at Signa and Carmignano, and even
attempting the life of Castruccio. But his effort came to nothing.

CHARLES AND HIS ARMY

[Illustration: A FLORENTINE CITIZEN OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

The duke of Calabria was detained for some months, but on the 30th of
July he entered Florence followed by eleven hundred men-at-arms, one
hundred of whom were knights of the Golden Spur. He was lodged in the
podesta’s palace from whence the seat of justice was purposely, perhaps
derisively removed, and formally acknowledged as lord of the Florentine
Republic. It was the mark of misfortune, the stigma of disgrace; yet it
excited the admiration of Italy; for Italy beheld the Florentine people,
masters only of a small and not a very fruitful territory, after their
repeated misfortunes, after so many defeats, such reverses and so much
treasure lost--nay, at the very moment when they seemed to totter on the
very brink of ruin, suddenly rise in their strength and like a giant
refreshed with wine, by the power of their own resources as it were,
command the service of so great a prince, and an army such as had never
before been seen in Florence!

There were no less than two thousand men-at-arms assembled, most of them
belonging to the highest ranks of society, independent of the cardinal
legate’s court and followers which were far from trifling; and without
reckoning the Florentine chivalry or a single knight of the Guelfic
confederacy. So vast a development of national resources was the more
remarkable because at this very time the ancient bank of the Scali
and Amieri, which had already endured for 120 years with undiminished
reputation, failed for the enormous sum of 400,000 florins, which being
for the most part due in the city of Florence shook the republic to its
centre and, excepting bloodshed, was considered equally ruinous with the
battle of Altopascio itself.

The several contingents of the Guelfic league were afterwards summoned,
and increased this fine army to 3450 men-at-arms besides the Florentine
_cavallate_, never less than five hundred men, and a selection of some of
the best and bravest infantry in Tuscany. Sixty thousand florins were
immediately raised by a partial and extraordinary tax on the richest
citizens, and every diligence was used by the Florentines to insure
success; yet this great army remained entirely passive, and they had
the mortification to see their time and treasure idly wasted by him to
whom they had surrendered their liberties in the expectation of a very
different result. Seeing that nothing was to be expected from him, the
Florentines contented themselves with fortifying Signa and the opposite
town of Gangalandi in order to protect the agricultural labourers, and
then quietly awaited the movements of both their masters. Castruccio
had already driven Spinetto Malaspina from his dominions in Lunigiana
and compelled him to take refuge with the protector of all unfortunate
exiles, Cane della Scala; but the duke of Calabria tempted him once more
to try his fortune by the invasion of that province while he with the
Florentine army marched on Pistoia. Both these plans were executed and
with more hope of success because the towns of Mammiano and Gavignana
in the mountain of Pistoia had just revolted. Castruccio was not much
alarmed, and though very ill, reduced both places in the middle of a
severe winter, baffled the Florentine army which attempted in vain to
relieve them, and finally compelled it to return in disgrace to the
capital; then turning suddenly on Spinetto, once more drove him into
exile.

Thus failed the first dilatory attempt of this brilliant army, and
Florence became more desponding than ever; those that formerly used
to tremble at the formidable name of Uguccione now acknowledged that
he was only a sudden and startling noise, but that Castruccio was the
thunderbolt itself which had stricken and consumed their country. The
citizens were now utterly distracted and knew not where to turn, such was
the confusion and so great the waste of men, money, and credit occasioned
by his uncommon abilities and continual success; for in the midst of all
Castruccio’s good fortune he had never, it was said, committed a rash or
hazardous act; every event was calculated, few mistakes made, and victory
attended him as his shadow.

To prevent the people of Lunigiana from revolting he destroyed all their
fenced towns and augmented his army with the garrisons; the works of
Montale near Pistoia were dismantled, and Montefalcone shared the same
fate; for he used to say that those strongholds were the best which
could make long marches and keep themselves near or distant according as
they were wanted. The awe which his character impressed on the Guelfic
lords of Italy caused Robert to be blamed for opposing the inexperience
of his son to the power of so accomplished a general and exposing the
descendant of a line of illustrious princes to the disgrace of being
killed, defeated, or made prisoner by a simple gentleman of Lucca. Such
was the “form and pressure of the time”! In consequence of this, as was
supposed, Charles had instructions to tell the Florentines that unless
they would consent to take eight hundred of his foreign cavalry into the
pay of the confederacy he must return to Naples. This unexpected demand
and infringement of every compact, after all their exertions, astonished
the citizens; but there was no help and 30,000 florins were added to the
450,000 they had already thrown away upon the duke of Calabria, because
few of the allies would submit to the extortion. Yet this was not all,
and, as if to deride their weakness, he at the capricious request of the
duchess repealed some of their sumptuary laws, the solemn decrees of the
state, to which the citizens held with extreme tenacity; and they had
the mortification to see their wives and daughters in the midst of the
country’s misery, when they should rather have been clothed in mourning
for her slaughtered citizens, puffed up with such excess of vanity as
to adorn their heads, says Villani,[d] with “long tresses of white and
yellow silk instead of hair, which they wore in front; this decoration,
because it displeased the Florentines as immodest and unnatural, they had
already taken from the females and had made laws against it and other
disorderly ornaments; but thus the inordinate appetite of women overcame
the good sense of men.”

THE GHIBELLINES CALL ON LUDWIG OF BAVARIA

[Sidenote: [1322-1327 A.D.]]

The Lombard Ghibellines, seeing so formidable a display of Guelfic power
together with the more intimate union between the church and Naples, in
spite of Castruccio’s success could not help feeling that their cause
was in jeopardy, and therefore determined to support it by the imperial
power; Parma and Bologna had already given themselves to Rome, the bishop
of Arezzo was excommunicated and deposed; and besides Florence and Siena,
San Miniato, Colle, San Gimignato, and Prato had made Charles their lord,
the last even in perpetuity. This great extension of power gave the house
of Anjou command over the greater part of Italy, and therefore no time
was lost in despatching an embassy to implore the “Bavarian” (as Ludwig
was called by those who did not wish to be anathematised) to meet the
Italian Ghibellines or their ambassadors at Trent for the purpose of
considering the best means of exalting the imperial dignity.

[Illustration: A FLORENTINE OF THE UPPER CLASSES, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

Until the year 1322 Ludwig of Bavaria had been so occupied in struggling
for the crown with his rival Frederick of Austria that he had no leisure
to meddle with the peninsula; but the decisive battle of Mühldorf, in
which four thousand men-at-arms were killed in repeated charges on the
field, and Frederick of Austria was made prisoner, left him at liberty to
employ himself in foreign politics and turn his attention towards Italy.
Pope John XXII, whom he informed of the victory at Mühldorf, not having
before decided on the candidate he meant to support, received the letter
of Ludwig as his friend, and promised to aid him in the consummation
of peace; but when the pontiff heard of the assistance afforded to his
worst enemy, the excommunicated Galeazzo Visconti, in 1323, and of the
Bavarian’s having compelled Raymond of Cardona, the papal general, to
raise the siege of Milan, his anger exceeded all bounds. He insisted that
as pope he was the only legitimate ruler of the empire during a vacancy,
the only judge between two competitors; and until his decision was known
no king of the Romans could exist; it was, he said, a grave offence
against God, and a palpable contempt of the church to have exercised
the powers of royalty without its sanction, and protected its enemies,
especially Galeazzo Visconti and his brothers who had been declared
heretics by the definitive sentence of a competent tribunal. Ludwig was
therefore excommunicated, and again more solemnly in March, 1324, when
he was also declared incapable of ever ascending the imperial throne.
Frederick while in prison had been visited by Ludwig and treated with so
much and such unusual generosity that he acknowledged him as emperor and
was immediately liberated, ever after remaining his ally and intimate
friend. Germany was then pacified, the pope’s intrigues there were all
baffled, and the emperor prepared to visit Italy, to confirm his imperial
dignity by a public coronation, and revenge himself on the pontiff.

In this disposition an invitation from the Italian Ghibellines
was peculiarly well-timed, especially as Ludwig, weakened by long
wars, remained without money, and Italy was always considered as an
inexhaustible mine of treasure by transalpine nations. He therefore
repaired to Trent about the middle of February where he was met by Azzo
and Marco Visconti of Milan, Cane della Scala of Verona, Passerino
Buonacossi of Mantua, Renaldo marquis of Este, the bishop of Arezzo,
and ambassadors from Frederick of Sicily, Castruccio Castracani, the
exiles of Genoa and all the other Ghibellines. Here the pope was
declared heretical by a considerable body of the clergy and solemnly
excommunicated, ridiculed, and defied; the imputation was not new, for
this ambitious and mercenary pontiff was a zealous asserter of his
own infallibility, wished to dictate absolutely to the church, and
had made enemies of large bodies of the clergy--amongst others, of
the Franciscan or minor friars, who insisted on Christ’s poverty and
therefore, following his example, condemned all property in churchmen as
preposterous and unbecoming. These monks had been bold enough to denounce
John as heretical and excommunicated, upon which he burned some of them
and deprived others of the little they possessed conforming to their own
maxims; other causes had made other enemies amongst the secular clergy;
so that Ludwig found himself zealously supported by a powerful body even
in the church, and it was unanimously declared that as Christ had no
property all priests who had were enemies to his sacred poverty.

SUCCESSES OF COUNT NOVELLO

A conspiracy against the life of Castruccio failing in its purpose,
another excommunication of Ludwig and Castruccio, with all their
adherents, was solemnly pronounced on the great festival of the patron
saint of Florence by Cardinal Orsini; and immediately afterwards a noble
army of twenty-five hundred horse and twelve thousand infantry under
Count Novello encamped at Signa for three days on purpose to perplex the
enemy; but suddenly quitting this, they moved on Fucecchio and, crossing
the Gusciana by a bridge of boats previously prepared, appeared before
Santa Maria a Monte.

This was the strongest fortress in Tuscany, but at that time somewhat
weakened, because Castruccio had withdrawn a part of its garrison to
strengthen Carmignano, the supposed object of attack, and had left
but five hundred veterans with the people’s aid to defend it. Novello
stormed and took this fortress and gave its people over to indiscriminate
slaughter. He then attacked Artimino, which Castruccio had fortified so
strongly as to apprehend no danger in that quarter. But flushed with his
late victory, Novello at once gave the assault which was renewed for
three days successively, the last battle continuing without intermission
from noon until night-fall; when, all the palisades and one of the gates
being burned, the garrison, with the fate of Santa Maria before their
eyes, surrendered on the 27th of August. Count Novello wished to proceed
and carry Tizzano and Carmignano in the same manner, but Ludwig being now
close to Pontremoli, he and his troops were ordered back to Florence.

It was now about thirteen months since the duke of Calabria had entered
that city with the finest army that its vast resources had ever produced,
and 500,000 florins had been expended on him by the community; yet,
saving the capture of Santa Maria and Artimino, nothing had been done;
wherefore the people became justly discontented, though compelled
to suppress their ill-humour from a sense of present danger and the
threatening progress of the emperor.

LUDWIG COMES TO ITALY

Ludwig was crowned at Milan on the 31st of May by the excommunicated
Aretine prelate, the archbishop of Milan having refused to perform this
office; but whether from a delay in the promised supplies accompanied by
an insolent message from Galeazzo Visconti, as Villani avers, or from
the complaints of Marco, Lodrisio, and Azzo Visconti against Galeazzo’s
tyranny, or from suspicion of an attempt to poison the emperor,--as the
sudden death of Stefano Visconti after tasting his drink, led others to
suppose,--it is certain that on the 20th of July Galeazzo’s brothers,
Lucchino and Giovanni, and his son Azzo were arrested along with that
prince himself, and closely imprisoned; the strong castle of Monza being
given up to Ludwig as the price of the latter’s safety. This revolution
was effected at the public council of Milan after Visconti’s German
troops had been seduced; an imperial vicar and twenty-four citizens
were immediately appointed to govern the city thus suddenly restored
to apparent independence, and 50,000 florins were granted to the
emperor. This decided conduct pleased the Milanese and Guelfs as much
as it alarmed the other Lombards, because it was Visconti himself that
had brought Ludwig into Italy and he was the first to experience that
monarch’s ingratitude.

[Illustration: A TUSCAN OFFICER]

A diet afterwards assembled near Brescia where several new bishops were
created and about 200,000 florins collected from the Ghibelline states
of Lombardy; Ludwig then crossed the Po near Cremona, and with two
thousand men-at-arms marched through Parma, passed the mountains without
any opposition from the papal troops stationed in those parts, and
halted at Pontremoli on the 1st of September, 1327. Here he was received
by Castruccio, but refused to sojourn at Lucca until Pisa, which had
determined to shut her gates upon him, had been reduced. This city was at
once invested. The siege lasted a month, and the city might have baffled
Ludwig, but fresh discord, the curse of these licentious republics,
caused it to be surrendered on condition that neither their own exiles,
nor Castruccio, nor any of his people should be admitted into the town;
that their form of government should remain inviolate, and 60,000 florins
be paid into the imperial treasury. On the 11th of October Ludwig entered
Pisa, and three days after, the citizens, of their own accord but
principally through fear of the populace, destroyed the capitulation and
admitted both Castruccio and the exiles, while they threw themselves and
their country on the emperor’s mercy. Justice was well administered, but
dearly purchased by a contribution of 160,000 florins--enormous at any
time, but peculiarly so at a moment when the Sardinian War and final loss
of that province had reduced the whole community to the verge of ruin,
and when, only a few days before, 5000 florins could not be demanded
without the danger of revolution; so badly governed, or so short-sighted
and capricious were the people.

CASTRUCCIO GOES TO ROME

After the settlement of Pisa, Ludwig and Castruccio repaired to Lucca,
where the more powerful spirit of the latter was made manifest in its
immediate ascendency and influence over his guest, whose splendid
reception Castruccio followed up by a present of 50,000 florins; both
chiefs then proceeded to Pistoia, from whose heights Castruccio pointed
out the plain and towers of Florence, and showed the easy access which
the possession of the one gave him to the territory of the other.

Returning to Lucca for the feast of St. Martin, the emperor took that
opportunity of publicly placing on the head of Castruccio the ducal
circle, investing him with the states of Lucca, Pistoia, Volterra, and
the bishopric of Luni, conferring on him the privilege of quartering the
royal arms of Bavaria with his own, besides an unscrupulous donation of
the Pisan towns of Serrezzano, Rotina, Montecalvole, and Pietra Cassa.
The ceremony of receiving the ducal coronet from an emperor’s hands,
Castruccio’s great power, talents, and influence, and the universal
feeling that this title would not long continue vain and empty, but
become in substance as in name the first dukedom in Italy since the
time of the ancient Lombards, altogether imparted a solemn and imposing
character to the transaction which increased the apprehensions of every
Italian Guelf; nor was the Ghibelline Pisa less anxious or discontented
to see four of her walled towns quietly made over to Castruccio as a
coronation gift--an earnest, as it seemed to be, of her own destiny.

The duke of Calabria, knowing that Castruccio was unwillingly compelled
to follow Ludwig, who resumed his march towards Rome on the 15th of
December, also prepared to quit Florence, leaving Philip Sanguineto with
a thousand men-at-arms as his vicar. At a public feast he took leave of
the Florentines, promising to return when the kingdom of Naples should be
safe, and departed on the 27th of December, the same day that Castruccio
by another road marched from Lucca to join the imperialists.

[Sidenote: [1327-1328 A.D.]]

Charles governed despotically, like every ruler of that age; for liberty
then consisted in the privilege of being eligible to govern and choose
governors, rather than in being governed well; and although in doing
so he tyrannically condemned a citizen of rank who with as much reason
as insolence opposed the grant of a subsidy to King Robert, thereby
proving that freedom no longer existed in Florence, yet he made himself a
favourite with the citizens by great personal urbanity and his endeavours
to reconcile private feuds, together with considerable liberality and a
generally impartial administration of justice. On the other hand, he
was unpopular from his inactive, unwarlike character, and the excessive
cost of his maintenance; this, according to Villani, who was employed in
auditing the accounts, amounted in nine months to 900,000 florins; but
as the greater part was circulated within the town, although a highly
taxed people necessarily worked twice for the same money, it was still
accompanied by great activity and some outward appearance of prosperity.

[Illustration: MARBLE BOOK HOLDER FROM PISTOIA (1250 A.D.)]

The emperor’s arrival at Viterbo was immediately felt in Rome, where
a contest had previously arisen between Stefano Colonna seconded by
Napoleone Orsini, who adhered to King Robert; and his own brother Sciarra
Colonna, Jacobo Savelli, and Tebaldo di Santa Stazio, captains of the
people; the first two had been expelled; for Castruccio’s arts and
Ghibelline ducats had been long at work in that factious city which the
pontiff’s absence at Avignon left in a state of continual agitation. It
was generally governed by an oligarchy headed by the pope’s ministers
and those of the king of Naples; by the Colonnas, Savelli, and Orsini;
with occasional bursts of the most furious democracy; the senator
administered justice; a council of fifty-two members nominally formed
the government and was presided over by the prefect of Rome, two or
three captains of the people along with the senator being elected by the
popular voice. The Ghibelline chiefs sent privately to Ludwig, desiring
that no heed should be given to the Roman ambassadors, who wished to
settle the terms on which he was to be received, but that he should
march directly to Rome; with this hint Castruccio, who was appointed to
answer the embassy, immediately ordered the trumpets to sound to horse,
saying courteously,“This is the emperor’s answer.” These messengers were
detained, and Ludwig, suddenly appearing before the city, surprised the
disaffected, confirmed the doubtful, and gave spirit to his adherents. He
was crowned on the 16th of January, 1328.

During these transactions Benedetto da Orvieto, the duke of Calabria’s
judicial vicar, arrived at Florence, where the citizens still found
resources to complete the walls south of the Arno and erect the present
Roman gate so as to secure that quarter of the town, which had been
endangered by Castruccio’s late inroads on the Val di Greve. Neither
was the duke’s lieutenant Philip Sanguineto inclined to sleep; by means
of two Guelfic citizens of Pistoia, friends of Simone della Tosa, well
acquainted with the weak points of that city, a plan was laid to surprise
it and successfully executed. Having accurate measures of the walls and
ditches, Sanguineto, with six hundred men-at-arms, the two Pistoians, and
Simone della Tosa, but no other Florentine, repaired by night to Prato;
he was there joined by two thousand infantry with the requisite besieging
engines, ladders, and bridges, and continuing his march arrived under
the weakest point of the Pistoian capital before daylight. The ditch was
frozen hard enough to allow one man in armour to pass at a time, and thus
a hundred men-at-arms gained the ramparts, unperceived until the officer
of the night visited the guards with his patrol; a short conflict then
took place, the officer and patrol were put to death; but an alarm was
given, the garrison was immediately under arms, and the whole city in
confusion.

During this time bridges had been thrown over the ditch and engines set
to work at the wall which, with the assistance of some friends within,
was perforated sufficiently to allow of a man-at-arms leading his horse
through; the assailants were soon united and an obstinate conflict
followed with various success until broad daylight, when the Florentines
succeeded in overcoming all opposition, and then, driving their enemy
from the strong but as yet unfinished citadel, continued the plunder of
Pistoia for eight successive days. This event was known at Rome only
three days afterwards and raised Castruccio’s anger against Ludwig for
compelling him to leave Tuscany. He instantly set off with five hundred
horse and a thousand crossbowmen, and taking the Maremma road pushed
eagerly forward with only twelve followers; after some days, travelling
through a very dangerous country, Castruccio reached Pisa on the 9th of
February, where he soon contrived by intrigue and influence to acquire
supreme authority--a tolerable compensation for the loss of Pistoia.

CASTRUCCIO’S NEW CONQUEST; HIS SUDDEN DEATH

While Castruccio was steadying himself in the government of Pisa,
Sanguineto and the Florentines were in high disputation about putting
their recent conquests into a proper state of defence; the former
insisting that he had done his part in capturing the town, while
the citizens maintained that the duke was bound to discharge such
expenses from his salary. The altercation continued and Pistoia
remained unvictualled; but the Florentines, having gained some trifling
advantages, grew as careless and confident as if fortune had never
left their arms, while Castruccio hurried on his preparations for
recapturing the neglected place. Nevertheless the Pisans and even his
former adherents, now disliking his arbitrary sway, offered their city
to Ludwig; he, fearful of alienating Castruccio, referred them to the
empress, by whom it was accepted and her vicar immediately despatched to
take the reins of government. Castruccio was not thus to be despoiled; he
received the officer respectfully, but scoured the city with his horsemen
in the manner of the age as a mark of sovereignty; then dismissed the
imperial lieutenant loaded with gifts and caused himself to be elected
and proclaimed absolute lord of Pisa for two years.

Thus master of new and abundant resources, he lost no time in profiting
by the disputes at Florence, and immediately invested Pistoia with
a thousand men-at-arms and numerous infantry; the place was strong,
encompassed by a double ditch, and defended by Simone della Tosa with a
sufficient garrison besides many Guelfic citizens. There was a protecting
force at Prato only ten miles off and within sight of its signals, so
that if the town had been well provisioned it might have withstood all
Castruccio’s efforts until sickness compelled him to retreat. This chief,
who had remained at Pisa to complete his preparations, joined the army on
the 30th of May bringing strong reinforcements, and surrounded the town
with a palisaded ditch and lines of circumvallation. Here he resolved to
remain; nor did all the Florentine stratagems succeed in turning him from
his purpose, not even when they collected a formidable army of twenty-six
hundred men-at-arms and for three days successively defied him to battle,
which he constantly pretended to accept, while he only strengthened his
camp with additional trenches, fresh palisades, and wide-branching abbati.

Seeing no chance of provoking him, the allies changed their position, and
attacked the strongest point of his entrenchments with as little skill
as success, instead of cutting off his supplies by Serravalle, which he
would have been unable to prevent without a battle.

Sanguineto fell sick and had moreover quarrelled with some of the
confederate chiefs, so that he deemed it best to retire and make a
diversion elsewhere, leaving a strong convoy at Prato ready to succour
the place when a fair occasion offered. On the 28th of July, after
delivering another formal challenge which Castruccio was too sagacious to
accept, the confederated army drew off towards Prato and thence marched
in two divisions, one by Signa and the Gusciana to threaten Lucca, the
other by the left bank of the Arno, which destroyed Pontadera and carried
the rampart and Fosso Arnonico by storm. This was a great canal and
breastwork excavated and fortified with towers by the Pisans in 1176,
both as a national bulwark and an outlet for the superfluous waters of
the Arno, of which river some have supposed it to be one of the three
branches mentioned by Strabo. Thus was opened all the Pisan territory;
San Casciano and Sansavino soon fell and Pisa saw herself insulted at
her very gates with perfect impunity. Castruccio nevertheless remained
immovable; he calculated on starvation and the moral effect of seeing a
superior army retire without accomplishing anything, and accordingly on
the 3rd of August Pistoia surrendered to sixteen hundred men-at-arms and
the usual force of infantry, in face of an army of nearly double these
numbers.

Thus victorious he returned in triumph to Lucca, more powerful, more
dreaded, and more formidable than before; none of his important
enterprises ever failed and Italy had not beheld such a captain for
centuries. Lord of Pisa, Lucca, Lunigiana, and much of the eastern
Riviera of Genoa, and master of three hundred walled towns, he was either
courted or dreaded by every Italian prince from the emperor downwards.
But Florence was in terror at his very name; and Galeazzo Visconti the
once powerful lord of half Lombardy, who had been released by the emperor
in the preceding March at Castruccio’s intercession, now served under his
standard as a private individual. Visconti soon after expired at Pescia
from the effects of a fever engendered by the labours of the Pistoian
siege, and it was fatal to more than him: even Castruccio’s hour drew
near; for the same fever, the consequence of his personal fatigues, was
rapidly consuming him also. He feared the emperor’s resentment for the
usurpation of Pisa and would have made peace with Florence, but was too
much mistrusted and therefore failed. The malady increased; he informed
those about him that he was going to die and that his death would be the
signal for great revolutions; then, taking the necessary precautions to
insure his three sons the quiet succession of his three great cities, and
charging them to conceal his death until they were secure, he expired on
the 3rd of September, 1328, in the forty-seventh year of his age and the
twelfth of his rule over Lucca.

ESTIMATES OF CASTRUCCIO

Tegrimi[h] his biographer says that Castruccio was a cruel avenger of
his own wrongs; but as personal vengeance, never justifiable, assumes
in princes a more sharp and bitter aspect, it would be difficult to say
whether his conduct to his subjects merited the name of severity or
cruelty. With the soldiers he was universally popular, and in speaking
to them his eloquence and grace of manner and diction were wonderfully
adapted as well to his own dignity as to the mind and feelings of his
audience. He would often calm a tumultuous soldiery by simply calling
them sons, fathers, and brothers, and no army ever mutinied under his
command. He was first in every danger, first to seize the ladder and
mount the wall; first to swim across a river when swelled to a torrent;
first in every individual act of skill and courage, as he was first
in talent and command; and he gained the hearts of soldiers by his
agreeable familiarity with the meanest among them. His great reputation
as a warrior secured his ascendency in field and council; and such was
his soldiers’ confidence that often by his mere name and appearance the
fortune of battle was restored, fugitives were arrested, and the foe
defeated. His arrival alone was frequently sufficient to force an enemy
from fortified places or insure their immediate surrender. Whatever were
his individual sentiments he always consulted his council, composed of
the ablest men of Lucca, and more especially of those most learned in
history; but when it was a pure question of war he sought the opinion of
old military men well acquainted with the seat of intended hostilities.
Uneducated himself, he yet delighted in the company and conversation of
literary men; he improved and maintained the roads and bridges of his
state, had numerous spies, amongst them many women, in all parts of the
world, and was properly said to have the wings of an eagle.[f]

“This Castruccio,” says Villani,[d] “was in person tall, dexterous,
and handsome; finely made, not bulky, and of a fair complexion rather
inclining to paleness; his hair was light and straight and he bore a
very gracious aspect. He was a valorous and magnanimous tyrant, wise and
sagacious, of an anxious and laborious mind and possessing great military
talents; was extremely prudent in war and successful in his undertakings.
He was much feared and reverenced and in his time performed many great
and remarkable actions. He was a scourge to his fellow-citizens, to the
Pisans, the Pistoians, the Florentines, and all Tuscany, during the
fifteen (twelve?) years in which he held the sovereignty of Lucca. He was
very cruel in executing and torturing men, ungrateful for good offices
rendered to him in his necessities, partial to new people and vain of the
high station to which he had mounted, so that he believed himself lord of
Florence and king of Tuscany.”

Although the first warrior of his age, says Pignotti, it is doubted
whether he was greater in arms than in council; although he was born
and had lived in the midst of revolutions, he never shed blood unless
when necessity demanded it. He was one of those great men who, although
ignorant of letters himself, knew their value, and esteemed the learned.
An encourager of useful arts and manufactures, he generously rewarded
whoever introduced new ones. The monuments of the numerous works of
public utility which he undertook are still remaining, such as bridges,
roads, and fortresses.

He was certainly an extraordinary man, and had the theatre of his actions
been more extensive, and his means greater, he would have distinguished
himself equally with any of the celebrated men of antiquity. In the small
sphere, however, in which he was obliged to act, as a private individual,
he became one of the most powerful princes of Italy; since, at his death,
he possessed Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, the Lunigiana, a great part of the
coast to the east of Genoa, and innumerable castles; and if he had lived
longer, in those times of revolution and the division of Italy into so
many small sovereignties, it may be conjectured that his greatness would
not have stopped here. Henry, his eldest son, was heir to his father’s
estates, but not to his father’s talents. The power of Lucca terminated
with Castruccio, since shortly afterwards we see this city offered for
sale, bought by a private citizen, and the cities and castles which were
once occupied by Castruccio retaken by the Florentines. Upon the arrival
of the emperor, the sovereignty of Pisa, and afterwards that of Lucca,
were taken away from his sons.[e]

DUKE OF CALABRIA DIES: LUDWIG RETIRES

[Sidenote: [1328-1329 A.D.]]

The death of the formidable and ambitious Castruccio saved Florence from
the greatest danger which she had yet incurred; and, to complete her good
fortune, the sovereign she had chosen to oppose Castruccio, the duke of
Calabria, died also about the same time. He had distinguished himself
only by his vices, his want of foresight, and his depredations. Ludwig
of Bavaria, too, ceased to be formidable; he completed his discredit by
his perfidy towards those who had been the most devoted to him. Salvestro
de’ Gatti, lord of Viterbo, had been the first Ghibelline chief to open
a fortress to him in the states of the church; Ludwig arrested him and
put him to the torture to force him to reveal the place where he had
concealed his treasure. The emperor had rendered himself odious and
ridiculous at Rome by the puerility of his proceedings against John XXII,
and his vain efforts to create a schism in the church. Having returned
to Tuscany, he deprived the children of Castruccio of the sovereignty of
Lucca, on the 16th of March, 1329, and sold it to one of their relatives
who, a month afterwards, was driven out by a troop of German mercenaries
which had abandoned the emperor to make war on their own account, that is
to say, to live by plunder. Ludwig passed the summer of 1329 in Lombardy.
Towards the end of the autumn he returned to Germany, carrying with him
the contempt and detestation of the Italians. He had betrayed all who had
trusted in him; and completely disorganised the Ghibelline party which
had relied on his support.

CAN’ GRANDE DELLA SCALA

[Illustration: A FLORENTINE NOBLEMAN OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

[Sidenote: [1314-1329 A.D.]]

That party had just lost another of their most distinguished chiefs, Can’
Grande della Scala. He was the grandson of the first Mastino, whom the
republic of Verona had chosen for master after the death of Ezzelino,
in 1260. Can’ Grande reigned in that city from 1312 to 1329, with a
splendour which no other prince in Italy equalled. Brave and fortunate
in war, and wise in council, he gained a reputation for generosity, and
even probity, to which few captains could pretend. Among the Lombard
princes, he was the first protector of literature and the arts. The
best poets, painters, and sculptors of Italy, Dante, to whom he offered
an asylum, as well as Uguccione dà Faggiuola, and many other exiles
illustrious in war or politics were assembled at his court. He aspired to
subdue the Veronese and Trevisan marches, or what has since been called
the Terra Firma of Venice. He took possession of Vicenza, and afterwards
maintained a long war against the republic of Padua, the most powerful
in the district, and that which had shown the most attachment to the
Guelf party and to liberty. But Padua gave way to all the excesses of
democracy; the people evinced such jealousy of all distinction, such
inconstancy in their choice, such presumption, that the imprudence of
the chiefs as well as of the mob drew down the greatest disasters on the
republic. The Paduans, repeatedly defeated by Can’ Grande della Scala
from 1314 to 1318, sought protection by vesting the power in a single
person; and fixed for that purpose on the noble house of Carrara, which
had long given leaders to the Guelf party.

The power vested in a single person soon extinguished all the courage and
virtue that remained; and on the 10th of September, 1328, Padua submitted
to Can’ Grande della Scala. The year following he attacked and took
Treviso, which surrendered on the 6th of July, 1329. He possessed himself
of Feltre and Cividale soon after. The whole province seemed subjugated
to his power; but the conqueror also was subdued. Attacked in his camp
with a mortal disease, he gave orders on entering Treviso that his couch
should be carried into the great church, in which, four days afterwards,
on the 22nd of July, 1329, he expired. He was not more than forty-one
years of age; Castruccio was forty-seven at his death. Galeazzo Visconti
died at about the same age, less than a year before.

JOHN OF BOHEMIA COMES TO ITALY

[Sidenote: [1329-1335 A.D.]]

The Ghibelline party, which had produced such great captains, thus saw
them all disappear at once in the middle of their careers. Passerino
de’ Bonacossi, tyrant of Mantua, who belonged to the same party, had
been assassinated on the 14th of August, 1328, by the Gonzagas, who
thus avenged an affront offered to the wife of one of them. They took
possession of the sovereignty of Mantua, and kept it in their family till
the eighteenth century. Of all the princes who had well received Ludwig
of Bavaria in Italy, the marquis d’Este was the only one who preserved
his power. He was lord of Ferrara; and even this prince, though a Guelf
by birth, was forced by the intrigues of the pope’s legate to join the
Ghibellines.

The Ghibelline party, which had been rendered so formidable by the
ability of its captains, was now completely disorganised. The Lombards
placed no confidence in those who remained, they had forgotten liberty
and dared no longer aspire to it; but they longed for a prince capable
of defending them, and who, by his moderation and good faith, could give
them hopes of peace. They saw none such in Italy; Germany unexpectedly
offered one. John, king of Bohemia, the son of Henry VII, arrived
at Trent towards the end of the year 1330. The memory of his father
was rendered dearer to the Italians by the comparison of his conduct
with that of his successor; and John was calculated to heighten this
predilection. He could not submit to the barbarism of Bohemia, and
inhabited, in preference, the county of Luxemburg, or Paris; and having
acquired a spirit of heroism, by his constant reading or listening to the
French romances of chivalry, he aspired to the glory of being a complete
knight. All that could at first sight seduce the people was united in
him--beauty, valour, dexterity in all corporeal exercises, eloquence, an
engaging manner. His conduct in France and Germany, where he had been by
turns warrior and pacificator, was noble. He never sought anything for
himself; he seemed to be actuated only by the love of the general good or
glory.

The Italians, justly disgusted with their own princes, eagerly offered
to throw themselves into his arms; the city of Brescia sent deputies
to Trent, to offer John the sovereignty of their republic. He arrived
there, to take possession of it, on the 31st of December, 1330. Almost
immediately after, Bergamo, Cremona, Pavia, Vercelli, and Novara followed
the example of Brescia. Azzo Visconti himself, son of Galeazzo, who, in
1328, had repurchased Milan from Ludwig of Bavaria, could not withstand
the enthusiasm of his subjects; he nominally ceded the government to
John, taking henceforth the title of his vicar only. Parma, Modena,
Reggio, and lastly Lucca also soon gave themselves to John of Bohemia.
John, in all these cities, recalled indiscriminately the Guelf and
Ghibelline exiles, restored peace, and made them at last taste the
first-fruits of good government.

The Florentines did not find sufficient strength in the Guelf party
to oppose the menacing greatness of the king of Bohemia. Robert of
Naples was become old; he wanted energy, and his soldiers courage.
The republic of Bologna, formerly so rich and powerful, had lost its
vigour under the government of the legate, Bertrand de Poiet; those
of Perugia and Siena had within themselves few resources, and those
few their jealousy of Florence prevented their liberally employing.
There remained no free cities in Lombardy; and all those in the states
of the church, which during the preceding century had shown so much
spirit, had fallen under the yoke of some petty tyrant, who immediately
declared for the Ghibelline party. The Florentines felt the necessity
of silencing their hereditary enmities and their ancient repugnances,
and of making an alliance with the Lombard Ghibellines against John of
Bohemia, with the condition that in dividing his spoils they should all
agree to prevent the aggrandisement of any single power, and preserve
between themselves an exact equilibrium, in order that Italy after their
conquests should incur no danger of being subjugated by one of them. The
treaty of alliance against the king of Bohemia, and the partition of the
states which he had just acquired in Italy, was signed in the month of
September, 1332. Cremona was to be given to Visconti; Parma to Mastino
della Scala, the nephew and successor of Can’ Grande; Reggio to Gonzaga;
Modena to the marquis d’Este; and Lucca to the Florentines.

John did not oppose to this league the resistance that was expected from
his courage and talents. Of an inconstant character, becoming weary of
everything, always pursuing something new, thinking only of shining
in courts and tournaments, he soon regarded all these little Italian
principalities, of which he had already lost some, as too citizen-like
and unlordly: he sold every town which had given itself to him, to
whatever noble desired to rule over it; and he departed for Paris on
the 15th of October, 1333, leaving Italy in still greater confusion
than before. The Lombard Ghibellines, confederates of the Florentines,
succeeded, before the end of the summer of 1335, in taking possession of
the cities abandoned by the king of Bohemia. Lucca, which alone fell to
the share of Florence, was defended by a band of German soldiers, who
made it the centre of their depredations, and barbarously tyrannised over
the Lucchese. Mastino della Scala offered to treat for the Florentines
with the captains who then commanded at Lucca, and he succeeded in
obtaining the surrender of the town to him, on the 20th of December,
1335. As soon as he became master of it he began to flatter himself that
it would afford him the means of subjugating the rest of Tuscany; and,
instead of delivering it as he had engaged to the Florentines, he sought
to renew against them a Ghibelline league jointly with the Pisans and all
the independent nobles of the Apennines.

LUCCA A BONE OF CONTENTION

[Illustration: A FLORENTINE WELL HEAD, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

[Sidenote: [1334-1342 A.D.]]

The Florentines, forced to defend themselves against their ally, who
after they had contributed to his elevation betrayed them, sought the
alliance of the Venetians, who also had reason to complain of Mastino.
A treaty was signed between the two republics on the 21st of June,
1336. The war, to which Florence liberally contributed in money, was
made only in Lombardy and was successful. Padua was taken from Mastino
on the 3rd of August, 1337, and, as that town showed no ardent desire
of liberty, it was given in sovereignty to the Guelf house of Carrara.
The Venetians took possession of Treviso, Castelfranco, and Ceneda. It
was the first acquisition they had made beyond the Lagune, their first
establishment on terra firma, which henceforward was to mingle their
interests with those of the rest of Italy. But their ambition at this
moment extended no further. Satisfied themselves, and sacrificing their
allies, they made peace with Mastino della Scala on the 18th of December,
1338, without stipulating that the city of Lucca, the object of the war,
should be given up to the Florentines, for which these had contracted a
debt of 450,000 florins. The Florentines, successively betrayed by all
their allies, saw the danger of their position augment daily; the Guelfs
lost, one after the other, every supporter of their party; the vigour of
the king of Naples, now seventy-five years of age, was gone. The pope,
John XXII, had died at Avignon, on the 4th of December, 1334; and his
successor, Benedict XII, like him a Frenchman, neither understood nor
took any part in the affairs of Italy. A few months previous, on the 17th
of March, 1334, the cardinal Bertrand de Poiet had been driven by the
people from Bologna; and this ambitious legate, no longer supported by
the pope his father, had disappeared from the political scene.

But the Bolognese did not long preserve the liberty which they had
recovered. One of their citizens, named Taddeo de Pepoli, the richest
man in all Italy, had seduced the German guard which they held in pay,
and by its aid took possession of the sovereignty of Bologna on the
28th of August, 1337. He then made alliance with the Ghibellines. The
number of the free cities on the aid, or at least the sympathy, of which
Florence could reckon continually diminished. The Genoese, from the
commencement of the century, had consumed their strength in internal wars
between the great Guelf and Ghibelline families; as long as they were
free, however, the Florentines, without any treaty of alliance, regarded
them as friendly; but the long-protracted civil wars had disgusted the
people with the government; they rose on the 23rd of September, 1339,
and overthrew it, replacing the signoria by a single chief, Boccanera,
on whom they conferred the title of doge. It might have been feared that
they had only given themselves a tyrant; but the first doge of Genoa
was a friend to liberty; and the Genoese people, having imitated Venice
in giving themselves a first officer in the state with that title,
were not long before they carried the imitation further, by seeking to
combine liberty with power vested in a single person. In the meanwhile
Mastino della Scala suffered a Parmesan noble to take from him the city
of Parma. As from that time he had no further communication with Lucca,
he offered to sell it to the Florentines. The bargain was concluded in
the month of August, 1341; but it appeared to the Pisans the signal of
their own servitude, for it cut off all communication between them and
the Ghibellines of Lombardy. They immediately advanced their militia into
the Lucchese states, to prevent the Florentines from taking possession
of the town; vanquished them in a great battle, on the 2nd of October,
1341, under the walls of Lucca; and, on the 6th of July following, took
possession of that city for themselves.[c]

A republic like the Florentine, whose strength depends upon commerce,
should take no part in wars which do not affect her. The conquests she
can make are always more expensive than the revenues she can derive
from them are important, and awaken the jealousy of the neighbouring
states, engaging her in fresh broils with them. At the end of a war
which had been carried on for the acquisition of Lucca, the republic
found herself greatly in debt, without having been able to obtain the
city; and the chief source of her riches, commerce, received a terrible
shock in the failure of the trading firms of Peruzzi and Bardi. These
commercial houses had lent to Edward III, king of England, an immense sum
of money. The king was involved in a war with France; but, although he
was for the most part conqueror, and had frequently invaded the French
provinces, nevertheless the luxury and the magnificence of his court, the
incalculable expenses of war, which are burdensome even to conquerors,
rendered him unable to satisfy his creditors; and he was obliged to
fail in his contracts with these merchants for 1,365,000 florins in
gold. Giving money its value in those times we shall find it equivalent
to about 7,000,000 sequins [about £3,052,000 or $15,260,000]; and such
a sum being lost by the city of Florence, we may easily conceive what
injury was done to her commerce. She might, indeed, have been given up
for ruined; these temporary mischiefs, however, are easily repaired,
when the primary fountains of riches are not exhausted or diverted into
another channel, and as these remained untouched in Florence they very
soon filled up the momentary deficiency. But this could not have happened
at a more unlucky moment than when the public, which draws its revenues
from private individuals, was so much in debt. To this evil was added
the dearth of provisions; and, what very frequently accompanies it, a
pestilential fever whereby, if the old writers have not exaggerated, no
less than fifteen thousand persons died that year within the walls of
Florence.

[Sidenote: [1341-1342 A.D.]]

In order somewhat to console the Florentines for these calamities, a very
respectable embassy arrived from Rome. This city, in the absence of the
pontiff, had been agitated by political convulsions, originating in the
discord of the nobility, it having been reported that the Florentines
had, in a great measure, suppressed their own discords by depriving the
nobility of every share in the government. Roman ambassadors came to make
themselves acquainted with the Florentine constitution, and with the
means to prevent the great from disturbing the public tranquillity. But
while the Romans were coming to learn the manner of living peaceably from
the Florentines, domestic broils were upon the eve of recommencing in
Florence. Andrea Bardi and Bardo Frescobaldi had been very much aggrieved
by Jacopo Gabrielli, of Gubbio, lately created captain of the guard,
and the executor of the despotic orders of those few who wished for the
exclusive government in their own hands, from which both the nobility
and the common people were entirely removed, as well as many of their
own order. To these two, smarting under the pains of recent injuries,
were united many others from the great who were deprived by law of any
share in the government; together with others from the people, who, by
an overbearing preponderance, were kept at a distance from it; and a
conspiracy was planned to change the government. Their foreign friends,
the Pazzi, Tarlati, Guidi, and Ubertini, etc., were to come to Florence,
and on the 2nd of November the whole city was to rise and overturn the
constitution. The conspiracy was discovered the day before its execution,
by Andrea Bardi, who, either through fear or remorse, revealed the
correspondence to Jacopo Alberti, one of the heads of the government. The
latter, assembling, and there being no time to lose, ordered the public
alarm-bell to be rung; and the people throughout the city took up arms
against the traitors, whose succours had not yet arrived; hence those who
were on the right bank of the Arno did not move; on the other side, too,
arms were immediately taken up, and they endeavoured to defend themselves
in the street called Bardi. Surrounded on every side by the armed people,
they were about coming to blows, when the mayor Matteo of Ponte, a native
of Brescia, a venerable man, interposed; and setting before the Bardi
and Frescobaldi the imminent danger of being slaughtered with their
families, he persuaded them to lay down their arms, promising them that
the conspirators should leave Florence, out of which city he himself
accompanied them in the night.

Fortune appeared to be playing with the Florentines, by offering and
taking away from them, at the same time, the city of Lucca, always
annoying them, whether they aimed at obtaining it by arms or by money.
Mastino Scala, after the loss of Parma, which had been taken away from
him by Azzo Correggio, seeing himself unable any longer to maintain
Lucca, offered it to the Florentines for the sum of 250,000 florins in
gold; the latter consented; but before it came to their hands, they were
obliged to contend with the Pisans, who thought they would no longer be
enabled to maintain their liberty if Lucca belonged to the Florentines.
They would have been better pleased, as they were not able to conquer
the Florentines by money, had Lucca remained free; various councils were
held in which it was finally determined they should take up arms and
contend for the possession of Lucca with the Florentines, and after some
fruitless treaty with Mastino they laid siege to it. They had collected
many troops both from the Tuscan Ghibellines and the lords of Lombardy,
particularly from Lucchino Visconti, whose friendship they had purchased
with treachery.

One of the first Milanese citizens, Francis of Postierla, had married a
near relative of Lucchino, the beautiful and virtuous Margaret Visconti
who had rejected Lucchino when he fell in love with her. His ill will
being made known to the husband, induced him to frame a conspiracy; upon
the discovery of which Francis fled to Avignon, whence he was attracted
by Lucchino to Pisa by the most insidious artifices. In spite of a safe
passage, of which the rulers of Pisa had assured him, he was taken and
consigned to Lucchino; who, in order to crown his barbarous brutality,
ordered him to be beheaded, together with his beloved and unfortunate
consort. For this act of perfidy the Pisans received powerful assistance
from Lucchino, and were enabled to maintain their position in front of
the Florentines.

The viceroy of Mastino was treating at the same time with the Pisans and
putting up Lucca at auction. After various altercations about the payment
of the money, the people of the Florentines were finally introduced into
Lucca; but two strong places belonging to the Lucchese, the Cerruglio
and Montechiaro, still remained in the hands of the Pisans, for which
70,000 florins in gold were deducted. The Pisans, however, would not
depart; and remaining immovable in the plain of Lucca, the Florentines
would have shown their sense by standing upon the defensive, and either
by occupying important posts prevented the transport of provisions to
the Pisan army, or harassed their country with inroads; but they were
ashamed of leaving them quiet; and approaching the enemy, they offered
them battle near the Ghiaia, which the Pisans did not refuse; and they
fought with varying fortune. The victory inclined in the beginning in
favour of the Florentines, and Giovanni Visconti son of Lucchino was made
prisoner; but falling into disorder, in following up the enemy, they
were routed and put to flight by a band which remained in guard of the
camp. The archers took a great part in this victory, amongst whom were
many Genoese, greatly renowned in this manner of warfare. The cavalry
of the Florentines, so much more numerous than that of the Pisans, was
in a great measure disabled for action by the arrows. The loss of the
Florentines, in killed and prisoners, was not less than two thousand men.
The Pisans, taking courage at this advantage, again surrounded Lucca. It
was singular enough to behold the ambassadors of King Robert, appearing
at this moment, demanding the possession of Lucca from the Florentines,
as his own property, telling them Lucca had been given over to his
hands since the year 1313, when it was taken from them by Uguccione
dà Faggiuola. The prompt consent of the Florentines, however, did not
occasion less astonishment, who thus lost a city they had so much desired
and had purchased with so much treasure and blood.

The same ambassadors, having taken possession, went to Pisa, and
intimated to that republic to raise the siege of a city which belonged
to the king of Naples; but the Pisans, not yielding so easily, proposed
rather to send ambassadors to the king. It may be conjectured that the
king, as an ancient friend of the Florentines, acted in concert with them
to make the Pisans retreat as the latter really suspected. Malatesta had
been made general of the Florentines, and marched in order to raise the
siege of Lucca; he was however artfully held at bay by the captain of the
Pisans who, not having sufficient people to cope with the Florentines,
and knowing how greatly Lucca was deficient in provisions, chose to
fight by temporising. The duke of Athens arrived at the Florentine
army with one hundred French horse; and other reinforcements coming
up, various operations took place upon the Serchio, where the Pisans,
although inferior in number, made a brave defence; Malatesta, superior
in force, could never dislodge them or force them to battle; and, after
many attempts to relieve Lucca, he was obliged to retreat. The Lucchese,
thus abandoned, were forced to come to terms with the Pisans, which were
very moderate; since (having given time for the Florentines who were in
it to retire) they were content to keep a garrison for fifteen years in
the castle of Lucca, called Dell’Agosta in Ponte Tetto, and in the tower
of Montuolo--which was to be paid, however, by the Lucchese; in all other
respects they were free. Thus, after the waste of so much treasure and
blood, Lucca, which had been so greatly desired, was held for a moment
and again lost.

THE DUKE OF ATHENS MADE PROTECTOR OF FLORENCE

These unsuccessful events had, as usual, excited hatred against the
rulers of the Florentine Republic. The latter, in order to cover
themselves and distract the enemies’ attention and fury elsewhere,
elected as governor and protector of the city and its states, Walter,
duke of Athens and count of Brienne, of French extraction but brought
up in Greece and Apulia. Since he had fulfilled the duties of the duke
of Calabria in Florence, this man had acquired great reputation for
wisdom and justice; and after the expiration of the period of Malatesta’s
government was elected general and protector, with the most extensive
power of administering justice within and without Florence. The duke was
a man of vast ambition, and possessed sufficient talent to profit by the
circumstances in which the city was placed, divided as it was into three
orders of persons, the nobility, the rich middle class, and the common
people. The government was entirely in the hands of the second; the other
two orders, therefore, were necessarily discontented; and adding their
old wrongs to the misfortunes which had happened to the republic from the
improvident administration of those who governed, their complaints became
more frequent and daring; but those most irritated, and probably with
the most reason, were the nobility. The people, not content with having
deprived them of every share in the government, would not even administer
justice to them; they caused the laws to be put in force against them in
the severest manner, which laws were silent for the most part in favour
of the class that governed; and thus, even in the latter order, persons
were not wanting to whom the government became odious, since the most
important offices were concentrated in the hands of a few.

All these discontented persons united themselves with the duke, urgently
beseeching him to make himself absolute master of the city, and promised
to support him; thus preferring the slavery of their native country to
a free but aristocratic government, in which they had no share. The
duke both supported and fomented this good disposition towards him; and
by some acts of vigour, which bore the colour of the most scrupulous
justice, he drew upon himself the applauses of the discontented, and
struck terror into the people, having brought to justice and made some of
those persons feel the rigour of the laws, who, from being in the number
who divided the principal offices amongst themselves, went unpunished and
were consequently odious to the rest. Giovanni de’ Medici, among the most
powerful, had been captain of Lucca. When arrested, he confessed under
torture that he had permitted Tarlati to escape from the camp (although
fame reported he was guilty only of bad custody), and his head was taken
off. William Altoviti, accused of barter, met with the same fate. Rosso
Ricci and Naldo Rucellai were also arrested; the former had appropriated
to himself the pay of the soldiers; the latter had received money from
the Pisans in order to second their interests. The duke did not choose
to punish them with death, fearful that too much blood might disgust
the people; they were therefore first sentenced to the payment of a sum
of money, Ricci to perpetual imprisonment, and Rucellai was banished to
the confines of Perugia. These chastisements in four of the principal
families, which had been accustomed to go unpunished, and were odious to
the people and the nobility, drew down great applause upon the duke, who,
considering his design already mature for making himself absolute master,
and conscious he possessed the power, chose nevertheless to ask the
government from the gonfalonier and the priors, who denied it him with
modest but firm remonstrances.

[Illustration: ITALIAN SOLDIER OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

But the magistracy, knowing the great favour he enjoyed from the public,
in order not to excite a dangerous tumult, as the people were to assemble
the morning following, agreed upon giving him the government for a year,
under those limitations with which King Robert and the duke of Calabria
had formerly enjoyed it. The evening before, the magistracy went with
other respectable citizens to the duke, who, in order to gain greater
respect for piety and moderation, inhabited the convent of Santa Croce,
and after many discussions they feigned to agree to it. The conditions
were signed by notaries on both sides, and approved by the oath of
the duke, who came to the palace of the priors on the morning of the
8th of September, accompanied by the greater part of the nobility, by
an innumerable concourse of armed people, and by his own troops. The
gonfalonier made known the deliberations which had been held in the
evening; and when it was heard that the seigniory of Florence was given
to the duke for a year, many voices from the lower order of the people
cried out, “For life!” (_a vita_). The doors of the palace being opened,
he was conducted into it by the nobility, and installed absolute master,
sending away the priors and the gonfalonier, who, preserving the name
only, were removed elsewhere in order to represent a scenic farce.
Fireworks were set off for joy. The arms of the duke were seen hung up at
every corner; at the ringing of all the bells his banners were hoisted
upon the tower; and the bishop Acciajuoli pronounced a homily, wherein he
loudly extolled the praises due to the supposed virtues of the duke. All
the cities of the republic too surrendered to him; he became, therefore,
master of Florence, not with the limited authority by which the royal
family of Naples had more than once held it, but with the absolute power,
partly conceded to him and partly usurped. Right of life and death over
persons, distribution of employments, imposition of taxes or imposts--all
were at his will; so much can a momentary delusion effect, when produced
by the fury of parties!

GROWING UNPOPULARITY OF THE DUKE OF ATHENS

[Sidenote: [1342-1343 A.D.]]

Those who were to gain most by the change were the great, so-called,
who, being hitherto excluded from the employments and obliged to obey a
government of merchants, had now every reason to hope that the duke, to
whom their rank brought them nearer than the others, would grant them
his favour together with no small share in the government. One of the
first acts of the duke was to make peace, and afterwards an alliance
with the Pisans, thinking it necessary to confirm the dominion; which
very much displeased the Florentines. It is easier to acquire states
than to maintain them. The favoured by the change can be few, and these
produce endless discontents among those who either expected or thought
the same reward due to them. The mind too, which in the execution of the
enterprise, has been assiduously vigilant and active, when once it has
obtained its end, is accustomed generally to relax, at a time when its
vigilance ought to be increased. The duke thought he would be able to
preserve by force what he had acquired by benevolence, and took into pay
many foreign troops at the expense of the republic, an insufficient means
against a populous city, which may be badly inclined.

He soon neglected the friendship of the great, and began to cultivate
that of the common people, extending his favours to the lowest, in order
to deserve their powerful support. Principal persons were put to death
upon trivial pretences; others were fined heavily in money. To this were
added the insolence and dissoluteness of the duke and his dependants
towards the most honest women; amongst whom they endeavoured to introduce
the libertine customs and manners of the French and Neapolitan courts,
and substitute them in place of the modest and decent attributes of
the republican Florentines. Not only common dissoluteness degraded his
courtiers, but even vices which nature abhors. The seed of discontent
was sown in all orders of people--in the nobility, besides the motives
we have adduced, for not being admitted to the government, as they had
expected; in the people for having lost it; in all orders on account of
the increased impositions, so that three months had hardly elapsed before
the government of the duke became detested with more vehemence than it
had been before desired.

It was not difficult for the duke to perceive the change, and the
increasing hatred of the people against him; but his manner of acting in
these circumstances was not very judicious. It was natural to imagine
that, in a new principality, some conspiracy might be planned against
him; but he thought of gaining to himself the public affection by an air
of confidence and extraordinary security, which he carried so far as not
only to despise, but even to punish as calumniators whoever ventured to
give him salutary advice. Matthew of Morozzo, for having warned him that
the family of the Medici were conspiring to kill him, was, by an act of
cruelty at once useless and imprudent, flayed and hanged; this terrible
example, however, did not deter others, so great is the hope and courage
of informers. Lambert Abatti followed Matthew in giving information and
receiving punishment; for having disclosed to the duke that some noble
Florentines were conspiring for his death, and that they held a council
with John Riccio, a captain of Mastino, he received the reward due to
the trade of an informer. This cruel severity, without gaining him the
good disposition of the Florentines, was adapted only to invite the
discontented to conspire against him more openly. The duke, however,
with an unexampled frivolity, appears to have cared more for words than
actions; since, upon its being reported to him that Bettone of Cino,
who had been already promoted by him, spoke ill of his government, he
caused his tongue to be plucked out, to be stuck upon a lance, and the
unfortunate Bettone to be dragged close to it upon a car through the
city. He banished him afterwards to Romagna, where he died from the
consequences of the wound.

Words cannot express how much, in an eloquent city, eager to examine
and judge of public affairs, such a punishment at once disheartened
and embittered the citizens against him, who thus saw even the liberty
of speech denied them. All orders of the state were roused against the
duke; three conspiracies were formed against him at the same time,
and not one had any knowledge of the other. The bishop of Florence
(himself Acciajuoli) was the head of the first; he had loaded the duke
with excessive praises at his first installation, and was now ashamed
of it. As the three conspiracies did not communicate with each other,
the projects to get rid of the duke were various, none of which could
be carried into execution; because, as suspicions increased, he had
vigilantly put himself upon guard, although the conspirators for a
considerable time remained concealed. Francis Brunelleschi, one of the
adherents of the duke, received a hint of the conspiracy of the Medici
from a Sienese, who came there, but who could only name Paul Marzecca, a
Florentine citizen, and Simone of Monterappoli. These were arrested, and,
being tormented, revealed the names of the conspirators, of whom Antonio
Adimari was the ringleader, a man of great reputation, both for the
qualities with which he was endowed and the greatness of his family. When
summoned he appeared, and was detained; but the duke dared not put him to
death.

THE DUKE DRIVEN FROM THE CITY

Frightened at the great number and the respectability of the
conspirators, and not thinking he possessed a force sufficient to act
against them, he sent for aid from various parts of Tuscany and to the
lord of Bologna; a part of which arriving, he caused three hundred
of the principal citizens to be summoned, many of whom were of the
conspirators, under the pretext of wishing to consult with them, as he
was sometimes wont to do. It was his intention to arrest them, put part
of them to death, and keep the remainder in prison, and by this execution
to terrify the rest of the city, scour it with armed men, and establish
more firmly his dominion. The summons being made known, and so many being
found in the list that it appeared clearly a list of proscribed, the
number gave courage to each; in a short time the three conspiracies were
united into one, and they determined, instead of offering their heads to
the tyrant, to attack him courageously. The morning of St. Anne being
arrived, which was destined for the enterprise, contentions between the
people were purposely kindled, who coming to blows, all of a sudden the
people appeared in arms; the streets were barricaded; the nobility and
the people, forgetting their ancient contentions, embraced each other,
and united in sustaining the common cause. The foreign soldiers of the
duke, at the news of the rebellion, marched to his assistance; many could
not gain the palace, and were either killed or made prisoners. Some,
however, came up and joined the guard, which was accustomed to remain
there. A few of the nobles, who had remained faithful to him, and a part
of the lowest order of people whom he had endeavoured to gain over, came
to him; but these, seeing that the greater part of the city was in open
rebellion against him, abandoned him. The priors, who had incautiously
retired to the palace for safety at the beginning of the tumult, were
retained as hostages by the duke. The soldiers, part foot and part horse,
who were in the square in his defence, were very soon beaten by the
infuriated mob, and dismounting retired for safety within the palace.
All the streets that led to it were blockaded by the people, and no hope
of succour nor other defence remained to the duke but the walls. These
were very strong, and sufficiently provided with defenders; provisions,
however, were wanting. He remained there besieged until the 3rd of
August. In the meantime, having assembled the people in Santa Raparata,
he gave power to the bishop, united with fourteen citizens, to reform the
government. All the agents of the duke who came into the hands of the
people were cruelly murdered and torn to pieces. This fate attended a
notary of the protector (Simone Norcia), Arrigo Fei, who was discovered
in the act of escape, disguised as a friar, with another Neapolitan. The
people were not contented with a simple death, but murdered them publicly
in the most cruel manner.

[Illustration: ITALIAN WARRIOR OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

The duke, in the meantime, found himself pinched by hunger in the
palace, and seeing himself reduced to a bad condition sought for an
accommodation. The Sienese ambassadors had joined the Florentines with
opportune aid. These, together with the bishop and with Count Simone,
treated with the people, who, however, obstinately refused every
accommodation, unless William of Assisi protector, with his son, and
Cerettieri Visdomini were first given over to them. The duke refused; but
the French soldiers, who were shut up there, protested they would not
perish by hunger or by the sword for three persons they would not even
have saved, and in the same evening threw the son of the conservatore
out at the gate. He was a youth of fine aspect, of eighteen years of
age, and was guilty of no other crime but that of being son of an odious
man. This was sufficient for the mob to make a sacrifice of him; he was
stabbed by a thousand cuts, and even torn to pieces by the teeth of the
mob. The same end was made of the father, who had been spectator of the
execution of his son. Being demanded by loud shouts, and driven out from
the palace, he was cut to pieces, carried in triumph through the city,
and his blood and flesh tasted with a savage eagerness. It is strange
to see how the people, united, can commit such atrocious actions, which
any individual, taken abstractedly, could not be capable of; it would
appear that the passions become multiplied in proportion as the number
of the mob increases; and that, thinking to do themselves justice, an
emulation in cruelty arises, which makes everyone vie with another in
excesses of barbarity. This brutal occupation was the cause of the
safety of Visdomini, who, being forgotten in that moment, was enabled to
escape in the night. After so many cruelties, the people began to attend
to treaties of accommodation. The duke gave full power to enter into
them by the means of the bishop of Lecce, to fourteen elect, and to the
bishop Acciajuoli. By this treaty he solemnly renounced, on the 3rd of
August, before the Sienese ambassadors and Count Simone, the government
of Florence and the other cities of the republic; and in token of
renunciation laid down his mace before witnesses. He departed, on the 6th
of August, accompanied by the count, who ordered him on the confines to
confirm his abdication. He at first refused; but, upon being threatened
with being taken back to Florence, he was induced to ratify it. He left
behind him an atrocious and infamous memory; nor is any other praise due
to his government than for the care he gave himself to unite the minds of
many citizens who were alienated from one another by an inveterate and
hereditary hatred.[e]

ATTEMPTED REFORMS

These events, taking place in the city, induced all the dependencies
of the Florentine state to throw off their yoke; so that Arezzo,
Castiglione, Pistoia, Volterra, Colle, and San Gemigniano rebelled. Thus
Florence found herself deprived of both her tyrant and her dominions at
the same moment, and in recovering her liberty taught her subjects how
they might become free. The duke being expelled, and the territories
lost, the fourteen citizens and the bishop thought it would be better to
act kindly towards their subjects in peace, than to make them enemies by
war, and to show a desire that their subjects should be free as well as
themselves. They therefore sent ambassadors to the people of Arezzo, to
renounce all dominion over that city, and to enter into a treaty with
them; to the end that, as they could not retain them as subjects, they
might make use of them as friends. They also, in the best manner they
were able, agreed with the other places that they should retain their
freedom, and that, being free, they might mutually assist each other in
the preservation of their liberties. This prudent course was attended
with a most favourable result; for Arezzo, not many years afterwards,
returned to the Florentine rule, and the other places in the course of a
few months returned to their former obedience. Thus it frequently occurs
that we sooner attain our ends by a seeming indifference to them, than by
more obstinate pursuit.

Having settled external affairs, they now turned to the consideration of
those within the city; and after some altercation between the nobility
and the people, it was arranged that the nobility should form one-third
of the seigniory and fill one-half of the other offices. The city was
hitherto divided into sixths; and hence there would be six seigniors,
one for each sixth, except when, from some more than ordinary cause,
there had been twelve or thirteen created; but when this had occurred
they were again soon reduced to six. It now seemed desirable to make
an alteration in this respect, as well because the sixths were not
properly divided as that, wishing to give their proportion to the great,
it became desirable to increase the number. They therefore divided the
city into quarters, and for each created three seigniors. They abolished
the office of gonfalonier of justice, and also the gonfaloniers of the
companies of the people; and instead of the twelve buonuomini, or good
men, created eight counsellors, four from each party. The government
having been established in this matter, the city might have been in
repose if the great had been content to live in that moderation which
civil society requires. But they produced a contrary result, for those
out of office would not conduct themselves as citizens, and those who
were in the government wished to be lords, so that every day furnished
some new instance of their insolence and pride. These things were very
grievous to the people, and they began to regret that for one tyrant put
down there had sprung up a thousand. The arrogance of one party and the
anger of the other, rose to such a degree that the heads of the people
complained to the bishop of the improper conduct of the nobility, and
what unfit associates they had become for the people; and begged he would
endeavour to induce them to be content with their share of administration
in the other offices, and leave the magistracy of the seigniory wholly to
themselves.

The bishop was naturally a well-meaning man, but his want of firmness
rendered him easily influenced. Hence, at the instance of his associates,
he at first favoured the duke of Athens, and afterwards, by the
advice of other citizens, conspired against him. At the reformation
of the government he had favoured the nobility, and now he appeared
to incline towards the people, moved by the reasons which they had
advanced. Thinking to find in others the same instability of purpose, he
endeavoured to effect an amicable arrangement. With this design he called
together the fourteen who were yet in office, and in the best terms he
could imagine advised them to give up the seigniory to the people, in
order to secure the peace of the city; and assured them that if they
refused, ruin would most probably be the result.

This discourse excited the anger of the nobility to the highest pitch,
and Ridolfo de’ Bardi reproved him in unmeasured terms as a man of
little faith, reminding him of his friendship for the duke, to prove
the duplicity of his present conduct, and saying that in driving him
away he had acted the part of a traitor. He concluded by telling him
that the honours they had acquired at their own peril, they would at
their own peril defend. Then they left the bishop, and in great wrath
informed their associates in the government, and all the families of
the nobility, of what had been done. The people also expressed their
thoughts to each other, and as the nobility made preparations for the
defence of their seigniors, they determined not to wait till they had
perfected their arrangements; and therefore, being armed, hastened
to the palace, shouting, as they went along, that the nobility must
give up their share in the government. The uproar and excitement were
astonishing. The seigniors of the nobility found themselves abandoned;
for their friends, seeing all the people in arms, did not dare to rise in
their defence, but each kept within his own house. The seigniors of the
people endeavoured to abate the excitement of the multitude, by affirming
their associates to be good and moderate men; but, not succeeding in
their attempt, to avoid a greater evil, sent them home to their houses,
whither they were with difficulty conducted. The nobility having left the
palace, the office of the four councillors was taken from their party,
and conferred upon twelve of the people. To the eight seigniors who
remained, a gonfalonier of justice was added, and sixteen gonfaloniers of
the companies of the people; and the council was so reformed, that the
government remained wholly in the hands of the popular party.

WAR OF THE FACTIONS IN FLORENCE

At the time these events took place there was a great scarcity in this
city, and discontent prevailed both among the highest and lowest classes;
in the latter for want of food, and in the former from having lost their
power in the state. This circumstance induced Andrea Strozzi to think of
making himself sovereign of the city. Selling his corn at a lower price
than others did, a great many people flocked to his house; emboldened by
the sight of these, he one morning mounted his horse, and, followed by
a considerable number, called the people to arms, and in a short time
drew together about four thousand men, with whom he proceeded to the
seigniory, and demanded that the gates of the palace should be opened.
But the seigniors, by threats and the force which they retained in the
palace, drove them from the court; and then by proclamation so terrified
them, that they gradually dropped off and returned to their homes, and
Andrea, finding himself alone, with some difficulty escaped falling into
the hands of the magistrates.

This event, although an act of great temerity, and attended with the
result that usually follows such attempts, raised a hope in the minds
of the nobility of overcoming the people, seeing that the lowest of the
plebeians were at enmity with them. And to profit by this circumstance,
they resolved to arm themselves, and with justifiable force recover those
rights of which they had been unjustly deprived. Their minds acquired
such an assurance of success, that they openly provided themselves with
arms, fortified their houses, and even sent to their friends in Lombardy
for assistance. The people and the seigniory made preparation for their
defence, and requested aid from Perugia and Siena, so that the city was
filled with the armed followers of either party. The nobility on this
side of the Arno divided themselves into three parts; the one occupied
the houses of the Cavicciulli, near the church of St. John; another, the
houses of the Pazzi and the Donati, near the great church of St. Peter;
and the third, those of the Cavalcanti in the New Market. Those beyond
the river fortified the bridges and the streets in which their houses
stood; the Nerli defended the bridge of the Carraja; the Frescobaldi and
the Manelli, the church of the Holy Trinity; and the Rossi and the Bardi,
the bridge of the Rubaconte and the Ponte Vecchio. The people were drawn
together under the gonfalon of justice and the ensigns of the companies
of the artisans.

Both sides being thus arranged in order of battle, the people thought
it imprudent to defer the contest, and the attack was commenced by the
Medici and the Rondinelli, who assailed the Cavicciulli, where the
houses of the latter open upon the piazza of St. John. Here both parties
contended with great obstinacy, and were mutually wounded, from the
towers by stones and other missiles, and from below by arrows. They
fought for three hours; but the forces of the people continuing to
increase, and the Cavicciulli finding themselves overcome by numbers,
and hopeless of other assistance, submitted themselves to the people,
who saved their houses and property; and having disarmed them, ordered
them to disperse among their relatives and friends, and remain unarmed.
Being victorious in the first attack, they easily overpowered the Pazzi
and the Donati, whose numbers were less than those they had subdued;
so that there only remained on this side the Arno, the Cavalcanti, who
were strong both in respect of the post they had chosen and in their
followers. Nevertheless, seeing all the gonfaloniers against them,
and that the others had been overcome by three gonfaloniers alone,
they yielded without offering much resistance. Three parts of the city
were now in the hands of the people, and only one in possession of the
nobility; but this was the strongest, as well on account of those who
held it, as from its situation, being defended by the Arno; hence it
was first necessary to force the bridges. The Ponte Vecchio was first
assailed and offered a brave resistance; for the towers were armed, the
streets barricaded, and the barricades defended by the most resolute men;
so that the people were repulsed with great loss. Finding their labour
at this point fruitless, they endeavoured to force the Rubaconte bridge,
but no better success resulting, they left four gonfaloniers in charge of
the two bridges, and with the others attacked the bridge of the Carraja.
Here, although the Nerli defended themselves like brave men, they could
not resist the fury of the people; for this bridge, having no towers,
was weaker than the others, and was attacked by the Capponi, and many
families of the people who lived in that vicinity. Being thus assailed
on all sides, they abandoned the barricades and gave way to the people,
who then overcame the Rossi and the Frescobaldi; for all those beyond the
Arno took part with the conquerors.

[Sidenote: [1343-1344 A.D.]]

There was now no resistance made except by the Bardi, who remained
undaunted, notwithstanding the failure of their friends, the union of the
people against them, and the little chance of success which they seemed
to have. They resolved to die fighting, and rather see their houses
burned and plundered than submit to the power of their enemies. They
defended themselves with such obstinacy that many fruitless attempts were
made to overcome them, both at the Ponte Vecchio and the Rubaconte; but
their foes were always repulsed with loss.

There had in former times been a street which led between the houses of
the Pitti, from the Roman road to the walls upon Mount St. George. By
this way the people sent six gonfaloniers, with orders to assail their
houses from behind. This attack overcame the resolution of the Bardi, and
decided the day in favour of the people; for when those who defended the
barricades in the street learned that their houses were being plundered,
they left the principal fight and hastened to their defence. This caused
the Ponte Vecchio to be lost; the Bardi fled in all directions and
were received into the houses of the Quaratesi, Panzanesi, and Mozzi.
The people, especially the lower classes, greedy for spoil, sacked and
destroyed their houses, and pulled down and burned their towers and
palaces with such outrageous fury that the most cruel enemy of the
Florentine name would have been ashamed of taking part in such wanton
destruction.

The nobility being thus overcome, the people reformed the government; and
as they were of three kinds, the higher, the middle, and the lower class,
it was ordered that the first should appoint two seigniors, the two
latter three each, and that the gonfalonier should be chosen alternately
from either party. Besides this, all the regulations for the restraint of
the nobility were renewed; and in order to weaken them still more, many
were reduced to the grade of the people. The ruin of the nobility was so
complete, and depressed them so much, that they never afterwards ventured
to take arms for the recovery of their power, but soon became humbled and
abject in the extreme. And thus [adds Macchiavelli] Florence lost the
generosity of her character and her distinction in arms.[i]

THE GREAT PLAGUE

[Sidenote: [1344-1346 A.D.]]

For more than thirty years the heavy chain of misfortune had been
falling, link after link, on the devoted city of Florence; wars,
sickness, poverty, famines, floods, fires, and sanguinary revolutions
had successively tried the spirit of her sons; yet so great was its
elasticity that they still rose superior, and still held on their wonted
course of national enterprise. It was hoped that misfortune had at length
exhausted her quiver, when they were again stricken in common with all
the world by her most deadly shaft, the great and desolating plague of
1348.

[Illustration: ITALIAN ARMS, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

This dreadful visitation, which began in the far East and rolled dismally
over the western world, pressed with unwonted weight upon Florence, where
the people were predisposed for disease by a succession of events that
both morally and physically had affected the whole community. As far back
as the year 1345 unusual and constant rains accompanied and followed by
earthquakes continued from the end of July to the beginning of November;
the harvests were nearly ruined; but few grapes appeared; tillage
was interrupted, and the little wine that could be made had proved
unwholesome.

The Arno again swamped half Florence; streams, swelled into torrents,
rolled over banks and bridges and ravaged every district; Rifredi and
Borghetto were ruined by the Terzolla; the Mugnone and Rimaggio did equal
mischief, and an overwhelming flood was hourly expected in the capital.

The next year’s harvest failed, and the rain still poured down through
April, May, and June, 1346, with storms and tempests, and a partial
destruction of the smaller seeds; misfortune seemed busily brooding, but
not for Florence alone; France and the rest of Italy were struck with
equal apprehensions; corn and wine again failed; the poultry perished
for lack of food; cattle of every kind were fearfully diminished; the
price of oil became enormous, and fruit was almost entirely extinct.
Land produced at the utmost a quarter, and in some places only a sixth,
of the customary crops, and even that was unwholesome; want came like
an armed man; the peasants abandoned their farms and robbed each other
through sheer necessity; or else begged their bread in Florence, where
the concourse of starving wretches was overwhelming.

No land could be tilled unless the owner provided sustenance in kind for
his labourers besides the necessary seed, and this was almost impossible
even at an enormous cost; in former scarcities corn was extravagantly
dear but still to be had; now there was scarcely any even for the highest
offers until the government, with infinite exertion and by mere dint of
money, imported it from the Maremma, Romagna, Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria,
Barbary, Tunis, and the archipelago. But even the receipt of this was
difficult; for Pisa, equally distressed, detained all that entered Porto
Pisano until her own market was supplied. Thirty thousand florins were
nominally thus spent, one-third of which was supposed to have found its
way into the coffers of dishonest and heartless peculators. Ten great
ovens were erected by the government and strongly barricaded, where by
day and night men and women were constantly employed in making bread;
this was distributed every morning at the sound of the great bell, to
churches, convents, country parishes, and hungry creatures; but with
exceeding difficulty, from the fierce pressure of starving multitudes.
In April, 1347, it was found by the bread-tickets received that no less
than ninety-four thousand people were daily furnished with two loaves
each from these ovens. In this were not counted the citizens and their
households who were already supplied and did not share in the public
distribution, but bought better bread at more than double price from the
numerous private ovens. It was exclusive also of religious mendicants and
other systematic beggars who in infinite numbers crowded into Florence
from the adjacent towns and districts, and were in continual altercation
with the citizens. Yet none were refused, whether stranger or subject,
and all classes joined hand and heart in relieving the general misery.
The increase of grain from the wheat harvest of 1347 reduced the price,
towards the end of June, which however soon mounted up again from the
eagerness of bakers to purchase, in order to uphold the market by
refusing to make more than a certain quantity. This plunged the city into
confusion; tumults began, which the priors calmed by hanging the baker
who commenced this system, and corn fell to its natural value which the
harvest gradually diminished.

[Sidenote: [1346-1350 A.D.]]

Death and sickness of course attended this suffering, and to alleviate
the general distress the priors as early as March had decreed that nobody
should be arrested for any debt under one hundred golden florins until
the following August; and also, with a premium for importation, put a
maximum price on the bushel of wheat; this was useless; because hunger
backed by money overcame law, and corn sold for double the government
value. For further alleviation all the prisoners in the public jails were
released on a compromise with their creditors and enemies, as mortality
had already begun in these places to the number of two or three in a
day; public debtors for less than one hundred florins were also set at
liberty on paying fifteen per cent. of their fines; but very few could
take advantage of this, for all were suffering from poverty, hunger, and
distress.

The effects now began to appear; women and children of the poorest
classes sank under the woeful pressure; this lasted until November
and carried off about four thousand souls; but it was worse in Prato,
Pistoia, and Bologna, in Romagna, and throughout all France. In Turkey,
Syria, Tatary, and India, sickness raged with unheard-of violence, giving
rise and currency to a thousand marvellous tales, such as fire issuing
from the earth and air, and consuming men, cattle, houses, trees, and
even reducing the very earth and stones to cinders: those who escaped
this, died of pestilence; and on the banks of the Tanaïs, at Trebizond,
and in all the neighbouring countries, only one person in five was left
among the living; in other places it is said to have rained great black
maggots with eight legs, some alive, some dead, whose sting was death
and whose corruption poisoned the atmosphere; but these are the least
incredible of the numerous fables that this universal scourge generated
in morbid imaginations, and in which all men, being terror-struck,
believed implicitly. Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Syria, Crete, Rhodes, and the
other eastern isles bowed before the pestilence; thence it travelled with
the course of trade to Sicily, Sardinia, Elba, Corsica, and throughout
the coasts of Italy; four Genoese galleys carried it to that city out
of eight that had fled from the Euxine; Milan scarcely felt it, but as
there were then no lazarettos it swept over the Alps, searched every
vale in Savoy, ravaged Provence and Dauphiné, infected Burgundy and
Catalonia; missed Brabant, but holding on its course carried death and
misery through the rest of Europe until 1350, when it had penetrated even
the Boreal regions and nearly depopulated Iceland, which has never yet
recovered from its touch.

“This disease,” says Giovanni Villani,[d] “was of such a nature that
none survived its attack for three days; certain tumours appeared in the
groins and under the arms; the patient then spit blood; and the priest
that confessed him, and the neighbour who looked on him often took the
malady, so that every sick creature was abandoned: no confession, no
sacrament, no medicine, no attendance; yet the pope granted a pardon
to every priest who administered the holy communion, or confessed, or
visited and watched the dying man.”

This was in 1347, and solemn processions and offerings were made for
three days together to avert the pestilence from Florence; in December
the price of bread again augmented, because Romagna had absorbed every
bushel of grain from the Mugello district; Venice was empty and in want;
Louis of Hungary’s invasion of Apulia, together with pestilence on the
coast, prevented her customary supplies from Sicily and southern Italy.
Guards were placed round the Florentine state and grain was once more
purchased, so that the year 1348 came in with fear and hope, but some
diminution of misery. All these sufferings had painfully prepared a way
for heavier calamities, and they struck with killing force on a sickly,
weak, and desponding people.

Whether the great plague of 1348 fell with more fatal effects on Florence
than other places may be doubtful; yet the descriptive pen of Boccaccio
[j] has thrown a pall of immortality over this scene of universal
desolation and of death.[f]

BOCCACCIO’S ACCOUNT OF THE PLAGUE IN FLORENCE

[Sidenote: [1348 A.D.]]

The year of our Lord’s incarnation, 1348, had already come, when in the
noble city of Florence, lovely beyond all others of Italy, appeared the
mortal pestilence which by the operation of superior bodies, or from
wicked deeds, was by the just judgment of God for our correction let
loose on mortals. It began some years before in the eastern countries
and after having deprived them of an inconceivable mass of living beings
rolled westward in a continued course from realm to realm with mournful
augmentation. Human wisdom and human prudence availed not, for the city
had already been cleansed of its impurities by officers especially
appointed; entrance was denied to all infected persons, and every means
employed to preserve the public health. Neither were humble supplications
to the Almighty more successful, although made not once but repeatedly in
religious processions and divers other ways by devout persons; for very
early in spring the dismal signs glared horribly palpable and manifested
themselves in wonderful ways; not as in the east where bleeding at the
nose was a plain symptom of inevitable death, but at the beginning,
both in male and female, there appeared about the groins and under the
arm-pits certain tumours some of which increased to the size of a common
apple, others to that of an egg; and those greater and these less, and
were vulgarly called _gavoccioli_. And from the two parts of the body
above mentioned these deadly gavoccioli within a brief space began to
sprout and swell indiscriminately in every other; and soon after this the
nature of the disease began to change into black or livid spots, which in
many appeared on the arms, thighs, and other places; some large and few,
others small and numerous; and as the gavocciolo at first was and always
remained a certain sign of death, so also were these spots on whomsoever
they appeared.

For the cure of this malady neither the advice of medical men nor the
virtues of any nostrum availed or profited; on the contrary, whether
it were that the nature of the illness would not permit, or that the
ignorance of doctors (of whom, besides regular physicians, the number of
both sexes without a particle of knowledge was enormous) could not divine
the cause and therefore could apply no remedy; not only few survived, but
almost all about the third day from the appearance of these symptoms,
some sooner, some later, most of them without fever or any other
accident, expired.

There were some who fancied that to live moderately and avoid every
excess would be most efficacious in resisting contagion, and so having
formed their society they shrank from all the others by shutting
themselves up in those houses where no sickness as yet existed; to live
better they ate the most delicate food and drank the finest wines, but
in great moderation, holding no intercourse with the outward world, nor
permitting tales of death or sickness to reach their ears; but with music
and every other diversion that their means afforded they continued to
dwell in seclusion.

Others of a contrary opinion affirmed that drinking deep, and enjoyments,
and singing, and rambling about for amusement, and satisfying every
appetite, and mocking and ridiculing everything, was a sovereign antidote
to all existing evil; and as they said so they did; for night and day,
now at one tavern, now at another, onward they went; drinking without
mode or measure, but mostly at other people’s houses, whatever pleased
and delighted them; and this was easily done, for almost all, as if they
had deserted life, abandoned the care of themselves and everything they
possessed; wherefore most dwellings remained open to the world at large,
and the stranger that entered used them as if he were the lawful owner;
but with all this brutish sensuality they still kept aloof from the sick.

And in such affliction and misery was also the revered authority of our
laws both divine and human that, deserted by their ministers, they had
fallen to ruin and dissolution; for these like the rest were either sick
or dead; or if any remnants existed they were useless; wherefore all
persons were left to their own imaginings.

Many other people took a middle course between these two, neither
restricting themselves in their food like the former, nor running to
excess in drinking and dissipation like the latter, but made use of
things moderately according to their wants; and instead of shutting
themselves up they rambled about the town, some with bunches of flowers,
some with odoriferous herbs, and others with fragrant mixtures of
spices which they carried in their hands and continually applied to the
nostrils, esteeming it an excellent thing to comfort the brain by their
perfume because the air was loaded and disgusting with the stench of
death, disease, and offensive medicaments. Some again entertained more
unfeeling sentiments (as if they were haply more secure), declaring that
there was no better, nor even so good a remedy for the plague as to fly
before it; so, moved by this argument and caring only for themselves,
numbers of both sexes abandoned their native city, their homes, their
friendly meetings, their dearest relatives, and all their property, and
sought those of the stranger; or else retired to the seclusion of their
own country dwellings; as if the anger of God, being once moved thus to
punish human wickedness, would spare the rod to them and strike only
those enclosed within the walls; or, as if they counselled everyone to
fly because the final hour of Florence was arrived.

Many died that haply might have lived by timely aid; so that between
a want of that assistance which sufferers could not procure, and the
malignant nature of this disease, the multitudes of those who daily and
nightly expired in Florence would be terrible to hear, even without
beholding; wherefore, almost of necessity, things contrary to all former
habits were engendered amongst the surviving citizens.

[Illustration: LAMP, PALAZZO STROZZI, FLORENCE]

It was a custom, and we still see it maintained, that in cases of death
every female relation and neighbour should assemble within the house and
there weep for his loss; and before the mansion every male kinsman and
nearest neighbour also assembled, with other citizens in great numbers,
attended by divers of the clergy according to the dead man’s quality;
thence on the shoulders of his peers, with funeral pomp of torch and
music, the corpse was slowly borne away to that church which he had
previously chosen for a sepulchre. But when the pestilence raged most
fiercely these things almost entirely ceased, and new customs superseded
them; for people then died not only without such assemblies of wailing
women, but passed from the world in many instances without even a
single witness; and few were those to whom the piteous sobs and tears
of relatives were in mercy conceded; but instead thereof was heard the
laugh or the jest, or the convivial feast! and this custom the women in
general, casting aside their sex’s softness, did for their own especial
advantage most quickly learn.

There were but few whose bodies were accompanied to the church by more
than ten or twelve of their neighbours; nor were even these honourable
citizens, but certain gravediggers from the lowest classes named
_becchini_ who performed this mercenary service; they roughly shouldered
the bier and moved hastily and carelessly along, not to the church which
the deceased had selected, but to the nearest cemetery, led by some
half-dozen priests with few lights and sometimes none, who, assisted by
the _becchini_, and not troubling about a funeral service, tossed the
body into any empty pit that they happened to find.

The treatment of the lower and a great portion of the middle classes was
still worse, because the greater part of these being confined either by
hope or poverty to their houses, thousands daily sickened, and being
destitute of assistance were allowed to die; and many there were who
daily and nightly terminated their existence in the streets, and many
that expired in their own houses, the stench of whose carcasses was the
first notice of their dissolution. Of these and other victims all places
were full, and the neighbours, not less moved by the fear of putrid
bodies than by charity towards the dead, with the assistance of public
porters when they were to be had, dragged the corpses into the street
and left them before their several doors where especially in the morning
they were to be seen in heaps by those who wandered through the tainted
thoroughfares.[j]

NAPIER’S REFLECTIONS ON THE PLAGUE

In this wide and wasting pestilence all Europe was more or less immersed;
she was bereft of three-fifths of her population, and excepting Milan,
together with a few places at the foot of the Alps, the whole of Italy
was shaken to its centre. Genoa lost 40,000, Naples 60,000; and Sicily
and Apulia the incredible number of 530,000 souls! The city of Trapani
was completely depopulated; all died; and her silent walls and empty
dwellings were alone left to tell the tale. Throughout Tuscany the
harvest of death was proportionably great: Pisa lost four-fifths or, as
some say, seven-tenths; Florence three-fifths; but Siena mourned for
80,000 of her buried citizens and never recovered from the blow.

Amongst the illustrious victims of this universal sacrifice were
the celebrated Laura of Avignon and the historian Giovanni Villani
of Florence. The latter, says Sismondi (and his words will suit all
subsequent, as they are the echo of all antecedent writers), “was the
most expert, faithful, elegant, and animated historian that Italy had yet
produced: we have made habitual use of his history during more than half
a century with that confidence which is due to a judicious contemporary
author who had himself taken part in public affairs.” Villani was in
fact much more than a mere historian, and like almost all Florentines
became both merchant and politician; he travelled into France and the
Netherlands, was several times in the seigniory, superintended the
building of the present walls, directed the mint, and filled other high
offices in the commonwealth. He served also against Castruccio, was one
of the hostages delivered to Mastino della Scala, and spent a long life
in public and private activity; but finally, ruined by the failure of
the Bonaccorsi with whom he was in partnership, his latter days were
apparently unhappy and he died amidst the misfortunes of his country.

Sickness gave way before the August sun, and all that remained of
the Florentine people were free from disease at the new seigniory’s
inauguration on the 1st of September, but what the remnant was we are not
told; so small however that poverty disappeared, and riches abounded in
consequence of accumulated inheritances. Yet instead, as some expected,
of men’s hearts being softened and subdued and penitent, and turned to
religion and virtue and moderation by so awful a catastrophe, Florence
immediately became a theatre of luxury, riot, and debauchery. As if the
hand of God were tired, and death was swallowed up in victory, feasting,
taverns, and every kind of licentious revel occupied the people; both
sexes, high and low, with new and fanciful attire, but more especially
the latter, flaunted through the streets bedizened like players in the
rich garments of illustrious families, all now extirpated. And as if
these saturnalia were to be everlasting, few labourers would return to
agriculture, fewer still to trade, and those few insisted on exorbitant
remuneration. Unbounded pride and heartless prodigality were everywhere
triumphant; the hand of death had removed the burden of poverty; the
departure of death had removed the weight of terror, and the rebound
was startling. With feelings numbed, and passions free, no wish was too
vicious to indulge, no idea too strange for belief.

Superabundance of agricultural produce was looked for because of the
scarcity of mouths, and the contrary happened; for everything fell short
and long continued so, in some countries even to the most biting famine;
manufactures of almost all kinds, clothes, everything necessary for the
human body, were in like manner expected to appear spontaneously and in
profusion; but the reverse took place; most sorts of manufactured goods
soon doubled their former cost, and all labour brought twice the money
that it fetched before the pestilence; disputes, lawsuits, contests,
disturbances of every class sprouted like nettles throughout the land,
and Florence long and severely felt their evil consequences. Immense
treasures too had been willed away by dying men to public charities, or
in trust to corporate bodies for the poor; some directly, others after
several successions, all now swept off by exterminating plague; amongst
others there was left to the corporation of Orto-san-Michele alone the
vast inheritance of 350,000 florins, a sum equal to one year’s revenue of
the commonwealth. This was in trust for the poor; but there were no poor,
no paupers, no destitution; death had murdered poverty. Money, houses,
and other valuables abounded; the directors felt their hands at liberty,
their conscience easy; and unbounded peculation was the result; the
elections were kept close amongst themselves; they re-elected each other;
power and profit moved round in a circle undisturbed by any external
influence for three long years, until at last the angry voice of Florence
destroyed this nefarious and disgraceful system. In a similar manner,
but with better management, 25,000 florins were left to the hospital of
Santa Maria Nuova, and an equal sum to the new and useful company of
“Misericordia”; so that the city most abounded in charitable resources at
the very time when poverty was for the moment annihilated.

Many corrective laws for the various existing evils were promulgated by
those magistrates who still retained their discretion and now resumed
their power; one of these was to exonerate minors and married women from
any legal responsibility in affairs of pecuniary and other property,
unless with the consent of their relatives or guardians declared before
a judge in the court of the above corporation of Orto-san-Michele, which
had _ex-officio_ their guardianship. At the same period, and no less to
encourage population by the residence of students than for the dignity
of Florence, a public college was founded for the first time, and able
professors were appointed to the whole range of science, besides civil
and canon law and dogmatic theology.

It might have been supposed that all accounts between debtor and creditor
had been cancelled by the plague; but so many fraudulent bankruptcies had
previously occurred and so unwholesome a system of mercantile credits
had been allowed that it became an article of swindling speculation,
and large orders were frequently given on long credit with a sole view
to future insolvency. As a remedy there was now published a decree
forbidding any citizen to buy or sell on credit, not only in the state
itself but within a hundred miles of Florence, on pain of losing his
reputation and a fine equal to the amount of the purchase money. Nor
were sumptuary laws forgotten; for riches and luxury required control,
and a check was therefore placed on the expense of marriage ceremonies
which now were frequent in consequence of augmented wealth and thin
population; but as these could not at once raise citizens to the state
new scrutiny-lists became requisite for three years, which from necessity
admitted the nobles to many public offices both in town and country.[f]

FOOTNOTES

[12] [Hunt says: “Dante tells the feelings which were roused by the
coming of the king. He seemed to come as God’s vicegerent, to change the
fortunes of men and bring the exiled home; by the majesty of his presence
to bring the peace for which the banished poet longed, and to administer
to all men justice, judgment, and equity.”]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI. THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1250-1400 A.D.]]

We have seen much in recent chapters of the trials and disasters of
Florence. We now have the more agreeable task of recording her triumphs.
The record of petty quarrels and more pretentious warrings, through which
Florence has thus far been called to our attention, might well have
blinded our eyes to the observation of a remarkable culture development
which went on coincidentally with these political jarrings. In point of
fact, there was a most extraordinary intellectual development taking
place in Italy in the later centuries of the so-called dark ages, and the
focus and centre of that development was Florence; in proof of which that
city now gave to the world within a single century a school of writers,
led by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, who virtually stamped the Italian
language for the first time as a literary medium, and whose works marked
the highest development of Italian creative genius. And contemporaneous
with these writers were the artists Cimabue and Giotto, who gave an
altogether similar impulse to art. All these men were Florentines, and so
greatly did their influence preponderate over that of any other Italians
of the epoch that Symonds[b] is fully justified in saying: “It may be
affirmed without exaggeration that, prior to the close of the fifteenth
century, what we called Italian genius was in truth the genius of
Florence.”

This seemingly sudden efflorescence of genius had its origin, as has
been intimated, in a gradual development, which now for the first time
produced tangible results. If, on the one hand, it may be urged that
these great men were spontaneously creative, it must not be forgotten
that their genius was nurtured in a bed of classicism. Dante and Petrarch
and Boccaccio were all classical scholars, the last named being a student
of Greek as well as of Latin. All of them harked back to the great Roman
writers as their models of style, and founded their culture on a study of
ancient literature. But each of them in turn broke away spontaneously
from these ancient models when he came to his really creative efforts,
and each put forth in the vernacular the works that were destined to
give him perpetuity of fame. In their own day, to be sure, their Latin
works were regarded as having great importance. Boccaccio never dreamed
of placing his Italian writings on a par with his learned treatises
on mythology, geography, and biography; and we are assured that for
two centuries his name was famous all over Europe on account of these
scientific works, while the _Decameron_ was hardly known north of the
Alps. “Petrarch himself,” says Burckhardt,[c] “trusted and hoped that
his Latin writings would bring him fame with his contemporaries and with
posterity, and thought so little of his Italian poems that, as he often
tells us, he would gladly have destroyed them if he could have succeeded
thereby in blotting them out from the memory of man.” Yet these would-be
forgotten poems became a standard of taste for all the world, and have
kept their position in the estimate of critics of each succeeding
generation.

This sudden outburst of creative genius of a high order in Italy, while
the rest of the western world was bound by uncreative traditions,
has been variously explained. Burckhardt finds the explanation in
circumstances that led, in Italy earlier than elsewhere, to the
emancipation of the individual.[a]

In the Middle Ages, he says, both sides of human consciousness--that
which was turned within as that which was turned without--lay dreaming or
half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion,
and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were
seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as member
of a race, people, party, family, or corporation--only through some
general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective
treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this
world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted
itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual,
and recognised himself as such. In the same way the Greek had once
distinguished himself from the barbarian, and the Arabian had felt
himself an individual at a time when other Asiatics knew themselves only
as members of a race. It will not be difficult to show that this result
was owing above all to the political circumstances of Italy.

In far earlier times we can here and there detect a development of
free personality which in northern Europe either did not occur at all,
or could not display itself in the same manner. The band of audacious
wrong-doers in the sixteenth century described to us by Liutprand, some
of the contemporaries of Gregory VII, and a few of the opponents of the
first Hohenstaufen show us characters of this kind. But at the close of
the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the charm
laid upon human personality was dissolved; and a thousand figures meet us
each in its own special shape and dress. Dante’s great poem would have
been impossible in any other country of Europe, if only for the reason
that they all still lay under the spell of race. For Italy the august
poet, through the wealth of individuality which he set forth, was the
most national herald of his time. This fact appears in the most decisive
and unmistakable form. The Italians of the fourteenth century knew little
of false modesty or of hypocrisy in any shape; not one of them was afraid
of singularity, of being and seeming unlike his neighbours. By the year
1390 there was no longer any prevailing fashion of dress for men at
Florence, each preferring to clothe himself in his own way.

Despotism, as we have already seen, fostered in the highest degree
the individuality not only of the tyrant or condottiere himself, but
also of the men whom he protected or used as his tools--the secretary,
minister, poet, and companion. These people were forced to know all the
inward resources of their own nature, passing or permanent; and their
enjoyment of life was enhanced and concentrated by the desire to obtain
the greatest satisfaction from a possibly very brief period of power and
influence.

But even the subjects whom they ruled over were not free from the same
impulse. Leaving out of account those who wasted their lives in secret
opposition and conspiracies, we speak of the majority who were content
with a strictly private station, like most of the urban population of
the Byzantine Empire and the Mohammedan states. No doubt it was often
hard for the subjects of a Visconti to maintain the dignity of their
persons and families, and multitudes must have lost in moral character
through the servitude they lived under. But this was not the case with
regard to individuality; for political impotence does not hinder the
different tendencies and manifestations of private life from thriving
in the fullest vigour and variety. Wealth and culture, so far as
display and rivalry were not forbidden to them, a municipal freedom
which did not cease to be considerable, and a church which, unlike that
of the Byzantine or of the Mohammedan world, was not identical with
the state--all these conditions undoubtedly favoured the growth of
individual thought, for which the necessary leisure was furnished by the
cessation of party conflicts. The private man, indifferent to politics,
and busied partly with serious pursuits, partly with the interests of a
_dilettante_, seems to have been first fully formed in these despotisms
of the fourteenth century. Documentary evidence cannot, of course, be
required on such a point. The novelists, from whom we might expect
information, describe to us oddities in plenty, but only from one point
of view and in so far as the needs of the story demand. Their scene, too,
lies chiefly in the republican cities.

In the latter, circumstances were also, but in another way, favourable
to the growth of individual character. The more frequently the governing
party was changed, the more the individual was led to make the utmost of
the exercise and enjoyment of power. The statesmen and popular leaders,
especially in Florentine history,[13] acquired so marked a personal
character, that we can scarcely find, even exceptionally, a parallel to
them in contemporary history, hardly even in Jacob van Artevelde.

The members of the defeated parties, on the other hand, often came into
a position like that of the subjects of the despotic states, with the
difference that the freedom or power already enjoyed, and in some cases
the hope of recovering them, gave a higher energy to their individuality.
Among these men of involuntary leisure we find, for instance, an Agnolo
Pandolfini (died 1446), whose work on domestic economy is the first
complete programme of developed private life. His estimate of the duties
of the individual as against the dangers and thanklessness of public life
is in its way a true monument of the age.

[Illustration: DANTE]

Banishment, too, has this effect above all, that it either wears the
exile out or develops whatever is greatest in him. “In all our more
populous cities,” says Giovanni Pontano, “we see a crowd of people
who have left their homes of their own free will; but a man takes
his virtues with him wherever he goes.” And, in fact, they were by no
means only men who had been actually exiled, but thousands left their
native place voluntarily, because they found its political or economical
condition intolerable. The Florentine emigrants at Ferrara and the
Lucchese in Venice formed whole colonies by themselves.

The cosmopolitanism which grew up in the most gifted circles is in
itself a high stage of individualism. Dante, as we have already said,
finds a new home in the language and culture of Italy, but goes beyond
even this in the words, “My country is the whole world.” And when his
recall to Florence was offered him on unworthy conditions, he wrote
back: “Can I not everywhere behold the light of the sun and the stars,
everywhere meditate on the noblest truths, without appearing ingloriously
and shamefully before the city and the people? Even my bread will not
fail me.” The artists exult no less defiantly in their freedom from the
constraints of fixed residence. “Only he who has learned everything,”
says Ghiberti, “is nowhere a stranger; robbed of his fortune and without
friends, he is yet the citizen of every country, and can fearlessly
despise the changes of fortune.” In the same strain an exiled humanist
writes: “Wherever a learned man fixes his seat, there is home.”[c]

EUROPEAN CULTURE IN GENERAL

The oppression which weighed upon the rest of Europe contributed to the
maintenance of barbarism, less by rendering difficult and sometimes
dangerous the acquisition of knowledge, than by taking away all
attraction from the exercise of the mind. Thought was a pain to those
capable of judging the state of the human species; of studying the past,
of comparing it with the present; and of thus foreseeing the future.
Danger and suffering appeared on all sides. The men who, in France,
Germany, England, and Spain, felt themselves endued with the power of
generalising their ideas, either smothered them, not to aggravate the
pain of thought, or directed them solely to speculations the farthest
from real life--towards that scholastic philosophy which so vigorously
exercised the understanding, without bringing it to any conclusion.

In Italy, on the contrary, liberty secured the full enjoyment of
intellectual existence. Everyone endeavoured to develop the powers which
he felt within him, because each was conscious that the more his mind
opened the greater was his enjoyment; everyone directed his powers to a
useful and practical purpose, because each felt himself placed in a state
of society in which he might attain some influence, either for his own
benefit or that of his fellow creatures. The first want which towns had
experienced was that of their defence. Accordingly, military architecture
had taken precedence in the arts. From its exercise the transition was
easy to that of religious architecture, at a time when religion was
indispensable to every heart--to civil architecture, then encouraged by
a government in which everything was for all. The study and pursuit of
the beautiful in this first of the fine arts had paved the way to all
the others. From the pleasures of the imagination through the eye, men
ascended to those derived from the soul; and hence the birth of poetry.[d]

The language of Provence had attained its highest degree of cultivation;
Spain and Portugal had already produced more than one poet; and the
_langue d’Oil_, in the north of France, was receiving considerable
attention, while the Italian was not yet enumerated amongst the languages
of Europe, and the richness and harmony of its idiom, gradually and
obscurely formed amongst the populace, were not as yet appreciated.
But in the thirteenth century Dante arose to immortalise this hitherto
neglected tongue, and, aided by his single genius, it soon advanced with
a rapidity which left all competition at a distance.

The Lombardian duchy of Benevento, comprising the greater part of the
modern kingdom of Naples, had preserved, under independent princes, and
surrounded by the Greeks and the Saracens, a degree of civilisation
which, in the earlier part of the Middle Ages, was unexampled throughout
the rest of Italy. Many of the fine arts, and some branches of science,
were cultivated there with success. The schools of Salerno communicated
to the West the medical skill of the Arabs, and the commerce of Amalfi
introduced into those fertile provinces not only wealth but knowledge.
From the eighth to the tenth century, various historical works, written,
it is true, in Latin, but distinguished for their fidelity, their spirit,
and their fire, proceeded from the pen of several men of talent, natives
of that district, some of whom clothed their compositions in hexameter
verses, which, compared with others of the same period, display superior
facility and fancy.

The influx of foreigners consequent upon the invasion of the Norman
adventurers, who founded a sovereignty in Apulia, was not sufficiently
great to effect a change in the language; and, under their government,
the Italian or Sicilian tongue first assumed a settled form. The court
of Palermo, early in the twelfth century, abounded in riches, and
consequently indulged in luxurious habits; and there the first accents of
the Sicilian muse were heard. There, too, at the same period, the Arabs
acquired a degree of influence and credit which they have never possessed
in any other Christian court. The palace of William I, like those of the
monarchs of the East, was guarded by Mohammedan eunuchs. From them he
selected his favourites, his friends, and sometimes even his ministers.
To attach themselves to the arts and to the various avocations which
contribute to the pleasures of life, was the peculiar province of the
Saracens, by whom half of the island is still occupied. When Frederick
II, at the end of the twelfth century, succeeded to the throne of the
Norman monarchs, he transported numerous colonies of Saracens into
Apulia and the principality, but he did not banish them from either his
service or his court. Of them his army was composed; and the governors
of his provinces, whom he denominated justiciaries, were chosen almost
exclusively from their number. Thus was it the destiny of the Arabians,
in the east as well as in the west of Europe, to communicate to the Latin
nations their arts, their science, and their poetry.

From the history of Sicily, we may deduce the effects produced by
Arabian influence on the Italian, or as it was then considered, the
Sicilian poetry, with no less certainty than that with which we trace its
connection, in the county of Barcelona and in the kingdom of Castile,
with the first efforts of the Provençal and Spanish poets. William I,
an effeminate and voluptuous prince, forgot, in his palace of Palermo,
amidst his Moorish eunuchs, in the song and the feast, those commotions
which agitated his realms. The regency of the kingdom devolved, at his
decease, upon his widow, who entrusted the government to Gayto Petro,
the chief of the eunuchs, connected with the Saracens of Africa. All
the commerce of Palermo was monopolised by the infidels. They were the
professors of every art, and the inventors of every variety of luxury.
The nation accommodated itself to their customs; and in their public
festivals it was usual for Christian and Moorish women to sing in concert
to the music of their slaves. We may safely conclude that on these
occasions each party adopted their mother-tongue; and that the Italian
females who, in the words of Hugo Falcandus,[m] responded, in melancholy
cadence to the tambours of their Moorish attendants, would, in all
probability, adapt Sicilian words to African airs and measures.

THE UNIVERSITIES AND NASCENT SCHOLARSHIP

The universities and schools which were already founded obtained more
fame and became more active. The clash of arms, which had not prevented
their flourishing, did not prevent new ones being formed. That same
spirit of rivalry which armed one against the other, princes and nations,
led them to vie one with the other in seeking, by every means, greater
renown and greater glory for their little states. At one time professors
were seen quietly continuing their lectures while fighting was going
on under the walls of the town, or even in the streets and squares; at
another time, the rostrum was overthrown, the professors were driven
away, the scholars put to flight; but they soon returned, either under
the same government or under the new one which had taken its place, and
studies continued their course.

The University of Bologna suffered continual vicissitudes. At one
time excommunicated by Clement V, the greater number of the scholars
passed to the University of Padua, Bologna’s rival; at another time, in
consequence of quarrels which broke out between the professors and the
magistrates, or between the scholars and the citizens, whole classes
deserted and settled in the neighbouring towns. But all these wrongs
were righted. John XXII withdrew Clement’s interdict, and confirmed and
increased the privileges of the university; the magistrates and citizens
granted the amends demanded by professors and pupils; and this school,
which was already famous, became more brilliant and more famous. A
short time later, Milan, Pisa, Pavia, Piacenza, Siena, but especially
Florence, rivalled with Padua, Bologna, and the University of Naples
founded by Frederick II, which had so vastly increased under Robert of
Naples. Boniface VIII had founded the University of Rome, his successors
confirmed and even extended its privileges; but their bulls could not
repair the harm done to the new university by their absence; it could
not do aught but decline so long as their residence at Avignon left the
unfortunate town of Rome almost deserted, and, as a climax, always a prey
to sedition and torn by internal factions.

It must be remembered that in these universities and schools nothing was
taught except, as in the preceding century, what were commonly called
the seven arts. Literature, properly so called, was almost entirely
ignored. The ancient authors, who, later on, formed the base of literary
study, were scarcely beginning to be discovered. Libraries of schools
and monasteries, even those which several princes had worked to form,
mostly contained some of the works of the fathers, books on theology,
law, medicine, astrology, and scholastic philosophy; and even these were
few in number. It was in the course of the century then beginning that a
praiseworthy eagerness for the discovery of ancient manuscripts arose in
Italy, and, following Italy’s example, spread throughout Europe. The most
deserted and dusty corners of private houses and convents were searched
for the works of these authors, of whom till then nothing remained but
the name, and of those who had left many works of which only the smallest
part was known. This revolution was principally due to Petrarch, and it
is one of his strongest claims to glory.

One single example will prove the vastness of his work and how little
advanced even the learned of that time were. A professor of the
University of Bologna, writing to him on the subject of ancient authors,
especially of poets, and wishing to include among the latter Plato[14]
and Cicero, was ignorant of the name of Nævius, and even Plautius, and
thought that Ennius and Statius were contemporaries. The ignorance of the
copyists must be added to the imperfection of knowledge and the scarcity
of books. In transcribing the best books they frequently disfigured them
in such a manner that their authors themselves would have had trouble to
recognise them. All this must be remembered to tone down the accounts
found in histories of literature of the fine libraries given to certain
universities, or founded in certain towns, formed by a certain prince and
thrown open by his orders to the learned and to the public. When compared
with our large libraries, they are insignificant book-cupboards--an
absolute famine compared with appalling superabundance.

The science which obtained most assistance from them, and which was the
most abundantly provided with books, was scholastic theology; it was
therefore pursued more eagerly than ever. It was no longer the century
of men like Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura; but their example was
quite recent, and their admirers and disciples entertained the hope of
equalling them and even surpassing them in glory. Hence among theologians
arose that eagerness, that general fervour to interpret the same books
that their predecessors had interpreted, to explain the explanations
themselves, to commentate the commentaries; to deepen the shadows while
attempting to cast light upon them, and to obscure by explanation what
was at first clear. These are not only the ideas, but the very words
of the wise Tiraboschi; he added the very natural wish that none would
disturb the repose of these indefatigable commentators in the profound
oblivion and dust of the libraries where they lie buried. However, he
does not include among them about a dozen doctors, whose fame it appears
was very great in that century. We will only mention one of them--an
Augustine monk named Denis, a native of St. Sépulcre--because he was
the friend and spiritual adviser of Petrarch; this much may be said of
him, all the rest may be relegated to the same place of refuge whose
inviolability Tiraboschi reclaims for the mob of theologians of the
century. There should be no rank in dust and oblivion. All authors of
books which are unreadable or which teach nothing should sleep there
alike.

LATIN AND THE VERNACULAR

A complete separation had now taken place between the ordinary language
of the country and the Latin tongue. Of the latter, the women were
ignorant. The general adoption of the language to which their delicacy
gave new graces, and in which alone they were accessible to the gallantry
of their admirers, was a necessary result. It was now submitted to rules,
and enlivened by that sensibility of expression, of which a dead and
pedantic language ceases to be susceptible. For a century and a half,
in fact, it would seem that the Sicilians confined themselves to the
composition of love-songs alone. These primitive specimens of Italian
poetry have been studiously preserved, and they have been analysed by
M. Ginguené, with equal talent and learning. To his work, such of our
readers as may wish to obtain a more particular knowledge of these relics
will have satisfaction in referring; nor can they apply to a better
source of information for more complete and profound details on the
subject of Italian poetry than can possibly find a place in a condensed
history of the general literature of the south.

[Illustration: PORTION OF BRONZE ARCHITRAVE OF SOUTH DOOR, BAPTISTERY,
FLORENCE]

The merit of amatory poetry consists, almost entirely, in its expression.
Its warmth and tenderness of sentiment is injured by any exertion of mere
ingenuity and fancy, in the pursuit of which the poet, or the lover,
seems to lose sight of his proper object. Little more is required from
him than to represent with sensibility and with truth the feelings which
are common to all who love. The harmony of language is the best means of
expressing that of the heart. But this principle seems almost entirely
to have escaped the notice of the first Sicilian and Italian writers.
The example of the Arabs and of the Provençals induced them to prefer
ostentation to simplicity, and to exercise a false and affected taste
in the choice of their poetical ornaments. In the best specimens of
this school, we should find little to reward the labour of translating
them; and we feel less inclined to draw the inferior pieces from their
deserved obscurity. It is, therefore, principally with a view to the
history of the language, and of the versification, that we turn over the
pages of Ciullo d’Alcamo the Sicilian, those of Frederick II, and of
his chancellor, Pietro delle Vigne, of Oddo delle Colonne, of Mazzeo di
Ricco, and of other poets of the same class.

The language employed by the Sicilians in their poetical attempts was
not the popular dialect, as it then existed among the natives of the
island and as we still find it preserved in some Sicilian songs, scarcely
intelligible to the Italians themselves. From the imperial court and that
of the kings of Sicily, it had already received a more elegant form; and
those laws of grammar which were originally founded upon custom had now
obtained the ascendency over it, and prescribed their own rules. The
_lingua cortigiana_, the language of the court, was already distinguished
as the purest of the Italian dialects. In Tuscany it came into general
use; and previous to the end of the thirteenth century it received
great stability from several writers of that country, in verse as well
as in prose, who carried it very nearly to that degree of perfection
which it has ever since maintained. For elegance and purity of style,
Ricordano Malaspina, who wrote the _History of Florence_ in 1280, may be
pronounced, at the present day, to be in no degree inferior to the best
writers now extant.

THE MASTER POET, AND HIS THEME

No poet, however, had yet arisen, gifted with absolute power over the
empire of the soul; no philosopher had yet pierced into the depths of
feeling and of thought, when Dante, the greatest name of Italy, and the
father of her poetry, appeared, and demonstrated the mightiness of his
genius by availing himself of the rude and imperfect materials within his
reach, to construct an edifice resembling, in magnificence, that universe
whose image it reflects. Instead of amatory effusions addressed to an
imaginary beauty, instead of madrigals full of sprightly insipidity,
sonnets laboured into harmony, and strained or discordant allegories, the
only models, in any modern language, which presented themselves to the
notice of Dante, that great genius conceived, in his vast imagination,
the mysteries of the invisible creation, and unveiled them to the eyes of
the astonished world.

In the century immediately preceding, the energy of some bold and
enthusiastic minds had been directed to religious objects. A new
spiritual force, surpassing in activity and fanaticism all monastic
institutions before established, was organised by St. Francis and St.
Dominic, whose furious harangues and bloody persecutions revived that
zeal which, for several centuries past, had appeared to slumber. In
the cells of the monks, nevertheless, the first symptoms of reviving
literature were seen. Their studies had now assumed a scholastic
character. To the imagination of the zealot, the different conditions
of a future state were continually present; and the spiritual objects
which he saw with the eyes of faith were invested with all the reality of
material forms, by the force with which they were presented to his view
in detailed descriptions and in dissertations displaying a scientific
acquaintance with the exact limit of every torment, and the graduated
rewards of glorification.

A very singular instance of the manner in which these ideas were
impressed upon the people is afforded by the native city of Dante, in
which the celebration of a festival was graced by a public representation
of the infernal tortures; and it is not unlikely that the first
circulation of the work of that poet gave occasion to this frightful
exhibition. The bed of the Arno was converted into the gulf of perdition,
where all the horrors coined by the prolific fancy of the monks were
concentrated. Nothing was wanting to make the illusion complete; and
the spectators shuddered at the shrieks and groans of real persons,
apparently exposed to the alternate extremes of fire and frost, to waves
of boiling pitch, and to serpents. This scene occurred at Florence on the
1st of May, 1304.

It appears, then, that when Dante adopted, as the subject of his immortal
poem, the secrets of the invisible world, and the three kingdoms of the
dead, he could not possibly have selected a more popular theme. It had
the advantage of combining the most profound feelings of religion with
those vivid recollections of patriotic glory and party contentions which
were necessarily suggested by the reappearance of the illustrious dead on
this novel theatre.

At the close of the century, in the year 1300, and in the week of Easter,
Dante supposes himself to be wandering in the deserts near Jerusalem, and
to be favoured with the means of access to the realm of shadows. He is
there met by Virgil, the object of his incessant study and admiration,
who takes upon himself the office of guide, and who, by his own admirable
description of the heathen hell, seems to have acquired a kind of right
to reveal the mysteries of these forbidden regions. The two bards arrive
at a gate, on which are inscribed these terrific words:[e]

“Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me, among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”[o]

The theme of the poem is too familiar to need further exposition here.
It may be interesting to note, however, that the sequence of regions
through which the poet journeys in witnessing the rewards of paradise is
suggested by the ideas of cosmology that were prevalent in Dante’s time.
The poem thus has interest from a scientific as well as from an artistic
standpoint--an interest that is enhanced by the reflection that the time
was almost at hand when a new system of cosmology would supplant the
Ptolemaic one here suggested, and in so doing usher in a new scientific
era, somewhat as the poem itself ushered in a new era of literature.[a]

The power of the human mind was never more forcibly demonstrated, in
its most exquisite masterpieces, than in the poem of Dante. Without a
prototype in any existing language, equally novel in its various parts
and in the combination of the whole, it stands alone as the first
monument of modern genius, the first great work which appeared in the
reviving literature of Europe. In its composition, it is strictly
conformable to the essential and invariable principles of the poetical
art. It possesses unity of design and of execution; and bears the visible
impress of a mighty genius, capable of embracing, at once, the parts and
the whole of its scheme; of employing, with facility, the most stupendous
materials, and of observing all the required niceties of proportion,
without experiencing any difficulty from the constraint. In all other
respects, the poem of Dante is not within the jurisdiction of established
rules. It cannot with propriety be referred to any particular class of
composition, and its author is only to be judged by those laws which he
thought fit to impose upon himself. His modesty induced him to give his
work the title of a comedy, in order to place it in a rank inferior to
the epic, to which he conceived that Virgil had exclusive claims. Dante
had not the slightest acquaintance with the dramatic art, of which he
had, in all probability, never met with a single specimen; and from this
ignorance proceeded that use of the word which now appears to us to be
so extraordinary. In his native country, the title which he gave to his
work was always preserved, and it is still known as _The Divine Comedy_.
A name so totally different from every other seems to be happily bestowed
upon a production which stands without a rival.

_Dante the Man_

The glory which Dante acquired, which commenced during his lifetime, and
which raised him, in a little time, above the greatest names of Italy,
contributed but little to his happiness. He was born in Florence in
1265, of the noble and distinguished family of the Alighieri, which was
attached, in politics, to the party of the Guelfs.

Whilst yet very young, he formed a strong attachment to Beatrice, the
daughter of Folco de’ Portinari, whom he lost at the age of twenty-five
years. Throughout his future life, he preserved a faithful recollection
of the passion which, during fifteen years, had essentially contributed
to the happy development of his feelings, and which was thus associated
with all his noblest sentiments and his most elevated thoughts. It was
probably about ten years after the death of Beatrice when Dante commenced
his great work, which occupied him during the remainder of his life, and
in which he assigned the most conspicuous station to the woman he had
so tenderly loved. In this object of his adoration, he found a common
point of union for images both human and divine; and the Beatrice of his
paradise appears to us sometimes in the character of the most beloved
of her sex, and sometimes as an abstract emblem of celestial wisdom.
Far from considering the passion of love in the same light as the
ancients, the father of modern poetry recognises it as a pure, elevated,
and sacred sentiment, calculated to ennoble and to sanctify the soul;
and he has never been surpassed, by any who have succeeded him, in his
entire and affecting devotion to the object of his attachment. Dante
was, however, induced by considerations of family convenience to enter
into a new engagement. In 1291, a year after the death of Beatrice,
he married Gemma de’ Donati, whose obstinate and violent disposition
embittered his domestic life. It is remarkable that, in the whole course
of his work, into which he introduces the whole universe, he makes no
personal allusion to his wife; and he was actuated, no doubt, by motives
of delicacy towards her and her family, when he passed over, in similar
silence, Corso Donati, the leader of the faction of his enemies, and his
own most formidable adversary.

[Illustration: TORCH HOLDER, PALAZZO STROZZI, FLORENCE]

In the battle of Campaldino, in 1289, Dante bore arms for his country
against the Aretini, and also against the Pisans in the campaign of
1290--the year subsequent to that in which the catastrophe of Count
Ugolino occurred. He subsequently assumed the magisterial functions, at
the period so fatal to the happiness of his country, when the civil wars
between the Bianchi and the Neri broke out. He was accused of a criminal
partiality to the interest of the former faction, during the time when
he was a member of the supreme council; and when Charles de Valois, the
father of Philip VI, proceeded to Florence, to appease the dissensions of
the two parties, Dante was sentenced, in the year 1302, to the payment
of an oppressive fine and to exile. By the subsequent sentence of a
revolutionary tribunal, he was condemned, during his absence, to be
burned alive, with all his partisans.

From that period, Dante was compelled to seek an asylum at such of the
Italian courts as were attached to the Ghibelline interest, and were not
unwilling to extend their protection to their ancient enemies. To that
party, which he had opposed in the outset of his career, his perpetual
exile and his misfortune compelled him, ultimately, to become a convert.
He resided, for a considerable time, with the marquis Malaspina, in the
Lunigiana, with the count Busone da Gubbio, and with the two brothers
Della Scala, lords of Verona. But, in every quarter, the haughty
obstinacy of his character, which became more inflexible in proportion
to the difficulties with which he was surrounded, and the bitterness
of his wit, which frequently broke out in caustic sarcasms, raised up
against him new enemies. His attempts to re-enter Florence with his
party, by force of arms, were successively foiled; his petitions to
the people were rejected; and his last hope, in the emperor Henry VII,
vanished on the death of that monarch. His decease took place at Ravenna,
on the 14th of September, 1321, whilst he was enjoying the hospitable
protection of Guido Novello da Polenta, the lord of that city, who had
always treated him rather as a friend than as a dependant, and who,
a short time before, had bestowed upon him an honourable mark of his
confidence by charging him with an embassy to the republic of Venice.

On the death of her great poet, all Italy appeared to go into mourning.
On every side copies of his work were multiplied, and enriched with
numerous commentaries. In the year 1350, Giovanni Visconti, archbishop
and prince of Milan, engaged a number of learned men in the laborious
task of illustrating and explaining the obscure passages of the _Divina
Commedia_. Six distinguished scholars, two theologians, two men of
science, and two Florentine antiquaries united their talents in this
undertaking. Two professorships were instituted for the purpose of
expounding the works of Dante. One of these, founded at Florence, in the
year 1373, was filled by the celebrated Boccaccio. The duties of the
other, at Bologna, were no less worthily discharged by Benvenuto d’Imola,
a scholar of eminence. It is questionable whether any other man ever
exercised so undisputed an authority and so direct an influence over the
age immediately succeeding his own.

An additional proof of the superiority of this great genius may be drawn
from the commentaries upon his works. We are there surprised to see his
most enthusiastic admirers incapable of appreciating his real grandeur.
Dante himself, in his Latin treatise entitled _De Vulgari Eloquentia_,
appears to be quite unconscious of the extent of his services to the
literature of his country. Like his commentators, he principally values
himself upon the purity and correctness of his style. Yet he is neither
pure nor correct; but, what is far superior to either, he had the powers
of creative invention. For the sake of the rhyme, we find him employing a
great number of barbarous words, which do not occur a second time in his
verses. But, when he is himself affected, and wishes to communicate his
emotions, the Italian language of the thirteenth century, in his powerful
hands, displays a richness of expression, a purity, and an elegance
which he was the first to elicit, and by which it has ever since been
distinguished. The personages whom he introduces are moving and breathing
beings; his pictures are nature itself; his language speaks at once to
the imagination and to the judgment; and it would be difficult to point
out a passage in his poem which would not form a subject for the pencil.
The admiration of his commentators has also been abundantly bestowed
upon the profound learning of Dante, who, it must be allowed, appears to
have been master of all the knowledge and accomplishments of the age in
which he lived. Of these various attainments, his poem is the faithful
depository, from which we may infer, with great precision, the progress
which science had at that time made, and the advances which were yet
necessary to afford full satisfaction to the mind.[e]

The importance ascribed by Dante’s contemporaries to his writings other
than the famous poem is well illustrated in the comment of the historian
Giovanni Villani who, commenting on the death and burial of Dante, says:
“This was a great and learned person in almost every science, although
a layman; he was a consummate poet and philosopher and rhetorician; as
perfect in prose and verse as he was in public speaking a most noble
orator; in rhyming excellent, with the most polished and beautiful style
that ever appeared in our language up to his time or since. He wrote
in his youth the book of _The Early Life of Love_, and afterwards when
in exile made twenty moral and amorous canzonets very excellent, and
amongst other things three noble epistles; one he sent to the Florentine
government complaining of his undeserved exile; another to the emperor
Henry when he was at the siege of Brescia, reprehending him for his
delay and almost prophesying; the third to the Italian cardinals during
the vacancy after the death of Pope Clement, urging them to agree in
electing an Italian pope--all in Latin, with noble precepts and excellent
sentences and authorities, which were much commended by the wise and
learned. And he wrote the _Commedia_ where, in polished verse and with
great and subtile arguments, moral, natural, astrological, philosophical,
and theological, with new and beautiful figures, similes, and poetical
graces, he composed and treated in a hundred chapters, or cantos, of the
existence of hell, purgatory, and paradise, so loftily as may be said of
it that whoever is of subtile intellect may by his said treatise perceive
and understand. He was well pleased in this poem to blame and cry out
in the manner of poets, in some places perhaps more than he ought to
have done; but it may be that his exile made him do so. He also wrote
the _Monarchia_, where he treats of the office of popes and emperors.
And he began a comment on fourteen of the above-named moral canzonets in
the vulgar tongue, which in consequence of his death is found imperfect
except on three, which to judge from what is seen would have proved a
lofty, beautiful, subtile, and most important work, because it is equally
ornamented with noble opinions and fine philosophical and astrological
reasoning. Besides these he composed a little book which he entitled _De
Vulgari Eloquentia_, of which he promised to make four books (but only
two are to be found, perhaps in consequence of his early death), where in
powerful and elegant Latin and good reasoning he rejects all the vulgar
tongues of Italy.

“This Dante,” continues Villani, “from his knowledge, was somewhat
presumptuous, harsh, and disdainful, like an ungracious philosopher; he
scarcely deigned to converse with laymen; but for his other virtues,
science, and worth as a citizen, it seems but reasonable to give him
perpetual remembrance in this our chronicle; nevertheless his noble works
left to us in writing bear true testimony of him and honourable fame to
our city.”[f]

LESSER CONTEMPORARIES OF DANTE

To the same period with Dante belongs Francesco Barberini, the disciple,
like Dante, of Brunetto Latini, and author of a treatise in verse on
moral philosophy, which, in conformity with the affected spirit of the
times, he entitled _I Documenti d’Amore_. Cecco d’Ascoli was also the
contemporary of Dante, and his personal enemy. His poem in five books,
called _L’Acerba_, or rather, according to M. Ginguené, _L’Acerva_,
“the heap,” is a collection of all the sciences of his age, including
astronomy, philosophy, and religion. It is much less remarkable for
its intrinsic merit than for the lamentable catastrophe of its author,
who was burned alive in Florence as a sorcerer, in 1327, at the age of
seventy years, after having long held the professorship of judicial
astrology in the University of Bologna.

Cino da Pistoia, of the house of the Sinibaldi, was the friend of Dante,
and was equally distinguished by the brilliancy of his talents in two
different departments: as a lawyer, by his commentary on the first
nine books of the code, and, as a poet, by his verses addressed to the
beautiful Selvaggia de’ Vergiolesi, of whom he was deprived by death,
about the year 1307. As a lawyer, he was the preceptor of the celebrated
Bartolo, who, if he has surpassed his master, yet owed much to his
lessons. As a poet, he was the model which Petrarch loved to imitate;
and, in this view, he perhaps did his imitator as much injury by his
refinement and affectation as he benefited him by the example of his pure
and harmonious style. Fazio de’ Uberti, grandson of the great Farinata,
who, in consequence of the hatred which the Florentines entertained for
his ancestor, lived and died in exile, raised himself to equal celebrity
at this period by his sonnets and other verses. At a much later time of
life, he composed a poem of the descriptive kind, entitled _Dettamondo_,
in which he proposed to imitate Dante, and to display the real world, as
that poet had portrayed the world of spirits. But it need hardly be said
that the distance between the original and the imitation is great indeed.

In some respects all these poets, and many others whose names are yet
more obscure, have common points of resemblance. We find, in all, the
same subtlety of idea, the same incoherent images, and the same perplexed
sentiments. The spirit of the times was perverted by an affected
refinement; and it is a subject of just surprise that, in the very outset
of a nation, simplicity and natural feeling should have been superseded
by conceit and bombast. It is, however, to be considered that this nation
did not form her own taste, but adopted that of a foreign country,
before she was qualified, by her own improved knowledge, to make a
proper choice. The verses of the troubadours of Provence were circulated
from one end of Italy to the other. They were diligently perused and
committed to memory by every poet who aspired to public notice, some
of whom exercised themselves in compositions in the same language; and
although the Italians, if we except the Sicilians, had never any direct
intercourse with the Arabians, yet they derived much information from
them by this circuitous route. The almost unintelligible subtleties with
which they treated of love passed for refinement of sentiment; while the
perpetual rivalry which was maintained between the heart and the head,
between reason and passion, was looked upon as an ingenious application
of philosophy to a literary subject. The causeless griefs, the languors,
the dying complaints of a lover became a constituent portion of the
consecrated language in which he addressed his mistress, and from which
he could not without impropriety depart. Conventional feelings in poetry
thus usurped the place of those native and simple sentiments which are
the offspring of the heart.

PETRARCH

But, instead of dwelling upon these defects in the less celebrated
poets, we shall attempt to exhibit the general spirit of the fourteenth
century, as displayed in the works of the greatest man whom Italy, in
that age, produced, whose reputation has been most widely spread, and
whose influence has been most extensively felt, not only in Italy but in
France, in Spain, and in Portugal. The reader will easily imagine that it
is Petrarch, the lover of Laura, to whom we here allude.

Petrarch was the son of a Florentine, who, like Dante, had been exiled
from his native city. He was born at Arezzo, on the night of the 19th of
July, 1304, and he died at Arqua, near Padua, on the 18th of July, 1374.
During the century of which his life occupied the greater portion, he was
the centre of Italian literature. Passionately attached to letters, and
more especially to history and to poetry, and an enthusiastic admirer
of antiquity, he imparted to his contemporaries by his discourses, his
writings, and his example that taste for the recovery and study of Latin
manuscripts which so eminently distinguished the fourteenth century;
which preserved the masterpieces of the classical authors, at the very
moment when they were about to be lost forever; and gave a new impulse,
by the imitation of those admirable models, to the progress of the human
intellect.

[Illustration: PETRARCH]

Petrarch, tortured by the passion which has contributed so greatly to
his celebrity, endeavoured, by travelling during a considerable portion
of his life, to escape from himself and to change the current of his
thoughts. He traversed France, Germany, and every part of Italy; he
visited Spain; and, with incessant activity, directed his attention to
the examination of the remains of antiquity. He became intimate with
all the scholars, poets, and philosophers from one end of Europe to
the other, whom he inspired with his own spirit. While he imparted to
them the object of his own labours, he directed their studies; and his
correspondence became a sort of magical bond, which, for the first time,
united the whole literary republic of Europe. At the age in which he
lived, that continent was divided into petty states, and sovereigns had
not yet attempted to establish any of those colossal empires, so dreaded
by other nations. On the contrary, each country was divided into smaller
sovereignties. The authority of many a prince did not extend above thirty
leagues from the little town over which he ruled; while at the distance
of a hundred, his name was unknown. In proportion, however, as political
importance was confined, literary glory was extended; and Petrarch,
the friend of Azzo di Correggio, prince of Parma, of Lucchino and of
Galeazzo Visconti, princes of Milan, and of Francesco di Carrara, prince
of Padua, was better known and more respected, throughout Europe, than
any of those petty sovereigns. This universal reputation, to which his
high acquirements entitled him, and of which he frequently made use in
forwarding the interests of literature, he occasionally turned to account
for political purposes. No man of letters, no poet was doubtless ever
charged with so many embassies to great potentates--to the emperor, the
pope, the king of France, the senate of Venice, and all the princes of
Italy. It is very remarkable that Petrarch did not fulfil these duties
merely as a subject of the state which had committed its interests
to his hands, but that he acted for the benefit of all Europe. He was
intrusted with such missions on account of his reputation; and when he
treated with the different princes, it was, as it were, in the character
of an arbitrator, whose suffrage everyone was eager to obtain, that he
might stand high in the opinion of posterity.

The prodigious labours of Petrarch to promote the study of ancient
literature are, after all, his noblest title to glory. Such was the view
in which they were regarded by the age in which he lived, and such also
was his own opinion. His celebrity, notwithstanding, at the present day
depends much more on his Italian lyrical poems than on his voluminous
Latin compositions. These lyrical pieces, which were imitated from the
Provençals, from Cino da Pistoia, and from the other poets who flourished
at the commencement of that century, have served, in their turn, as
models to all the distinguished poets of the south.

The Latin compositions upon which Petrarch rested his fame, and which
are twelve or fifteen times as voluminous as his Italian writings, are
now only read by the learned. The long poem entitled _Africa_, which he
composed on the victories of the elder Scipio, and which was considered,
in his own age, as a masterpiece worthy of rivalling the _Æneid_, is
very fatiguing to the ear. The style is inflated, and the subject so
devoid of interest and so exceedingly dull as absolutely to prevent the
perusal of the work. His numerous epistles in verse, instead of giving
interest to the historical events to which they allude, acquire it from
that circumstance. The imitation of the ancients, and the fidelity of the
copy, which in Petrarch’s eyes constituted their chief merit, deprive
these productions of every appearance of truth. The invectives against
the barbarians who had subjugated Italy are so cold, so bombastic, and so
utterly destitute of all colouring suited to the time and place, that we
might believe them to have been written by some rhetorician who had never
seen Italy; and we might confound them with those which a poetic fury
dictated to Petrarch himself, against the Gauls who besieged the capital.

His philosophical works, amongst which may be mentioned a treatise on
_Solitary Life_, and another on _Good and Bad Fortune_, are scarcely
less bombastic. The sentiments display neither truth nor depth of
thought. They are merely a show of words on some given subject. The
author pre-determines his view of the question, and never examines the
arguments for the purpose of discovering the truth, but of vanquishing
the difficulties which oppose him, and of making everything agree with
his own system. His letters, of which a voluminous collection has been
published--which is, however, far from being complete--are perhaps more
read than any other of his works, as they throw much light upon a period
which is well worthy of being known. We do not, however, discover in them
either the familiarity of intimate friendship or the complete openness of
an amiable character. They display great caution and studied propriety,
with an attention to effect which is not always successful. An Italian
would never have written Latin letters to his friends, if he had wished
only to unfold the secrets of his heart; but the letters of Cicero were
in Latin, and with them Petrarch wished to have his own compared. He was,
evidently, always thinking more of the public than of his correspondent;
and in fact the public were often in possession of the letter before
his friend. The bearer of an elegantly written epistle well knew that
he should flatter the vanity of the writer by communicating it; and he
therefore often openly read it, and even gave copies of it, before it
reached its destination.

It is difficult to say whether the extended reputation which Petrarch
enjoyed, during the course of a long life, is more glorious to himself
or to his age. We have elsewhere mentioned the faults of this celebrated
man--that subtlety of intellect which frequently led him to neglect
true feeling, and to abandon himself to a false taste; and that vanity
which too often induced him to call himself the friend of cruel and
contemptible princes, because they flattered him. But, before we part
with him, let us once more take a view of those great qualities which
rendered him the first man of his age--that ardent love for science to
which he consecrated his life, his powers, and his faculties; and that
glorious enthusiasm for all that is high and noble in the poetry, the
eloquence, the laws, and the manners of antiquity. This enthusiasm is
the mark of a superior mind. To such a mind, the hero becomes greater
by being contemplated; while a narrow and sterile intellect reduces the
greatest men to its own level, and measures them by its own standard.

This enthusiasm was felt by Petrarch, not only for distinguished men, but
for everything that is great in nature, for religion, for philosophy,
for patriotism, and for freedom. He was the friend and patron of the
unfortunate Rienzi, who, in the fourteenth century, awakened for a moment
the ancient spirit and fortunes of Rome. He appreciated the fine arts as
well as poetry, and he contributed to make the Romans acquainted with the
rich monuments of antiquity, as well as with the manuscripts which they
possessed. His passions were tinctured with a sense of religion which
induced him to worship all the glorious works of the Deity, with which
the earth abounds; and he believed that, in the woman he loved, he saw
the messenger of that heaven which thus revealed to him its beauty. He
enabled his contemporaries to estimate the full value of the purity of a
passion so modest and so religious as his own; while to his countrymen
he gave a language worthy of rivalling those of Greece and Rome, with
which, by his means, they had become familiar. Softening and ornamenting
his own language by the adoption of proper rules, he suited it to the
expression of every feeling, and changed, in some degree, its essence.
He inspired his age with that enthusiastic love for the beauty, and that
veneration for the study of antiquity, which gave it a new character,
and which determined that of succeeding times. It was, it may be said,
in the name of grateful Europe that Petrarch, on the 8th of April, 1341,
was crowned by the senator of Rome, in the Capitol; and this triumph, the
most glorious which was ever decreed to man, was not disproportioned to
the authority which this great poet was destined to maintain over future
ages.[e]

EARLY ITALIAN PROSE

Already, for half a century, Italian poetry had been cultivated with
ardour and with success, and in Dante’s time there was scarcely a
well-educated Florentine who could not at need rhyme a sonnet or write a
short song in the vulgar tongue. It was not so easy to write in prose;
for if the poet had a language and rules of style, there had not yet been
a learned time for the prose writer; he had no fixed rules, the form
in short which allows a writer to express his thought in the logical
order necessary to convey all its shades of meaning, to show up its
striking points, artistically to subordinate the less important or purely
expletive parts. The poet, on the contrary, at his first attempt met with
metrical forms, long adopted and practised in Provençal, a parent idiom,
whose rules could, without any difficulty, be applied to Italian. He
found moreover that the Provençal poetry, whose prosody he borrowed, had
taken with slight differences the same subjects which he wished to sing
in Italian; so that he found a poetical storehouse, if the expression
may be allowed, of comparisons, epithets, connecting links, phrases, and
permissible inversions.

It was not so with prose. The Italian language, which could without
difficulty adopt the Provençal metrical system, found no prose developed
which it could take as a model. Latin was the only perfect type which it
could imitate; but the complete absence of any declension, the relatively
limited number of conjunctions, the impossibility of freeing itself
completely from analytical order, which it experienced in common with all
modern languages, did not allow it to be modelled on Cicero, as poetry
was modelled on Bertrand de Born or Sordello. To reach this point of
perfection two or three more centuries were needed, during which deep
thinkers and great artists moulded this refractory material.

It is true that the Latin historians, who were perfectly known, might
have been taken as examples to be copied and even imitated; for these
writers had treated the same kinds of subject which were again about
to be attempted. However, there was one difference: ancient history,
after all, was far distant, and the resemblance between the subjects
was more apparent than real; or at least, if this resemblance really
existed, men were too interested in the events to be able to judge them
and compare them with others as coldly as we are accustomed to do. To
sing the praises of his lady’s eyes, to express sentiments of fidelity
or sadness, to paint chivalrous tournaments, it suffices to have read
or to have listened to the Provençal troubadours, and the same words,
with very few changes, can almost be transported from one language into
the other. Imagine, on the other hand, a poor chronicler of the Middle
Ages imitating Sallust or Titus Livius: could the vernacular furnish
him with a single word to render those of his model--and the prose
writer, accustomed to think in Latin, could he find in Italian a single
expression equivalent to his thought? Whence could he have drawn that
common fund of ideas and formulas which is so necessary to write a real
history, however matter of fact, however little philosophic it might be?
Even in order to relate facts, putting aside all thought of interest, one
must have ideas.

But the difficulty was far greater when abstract subjects were treated.
There is even some confusion in the beautiful prose of Dante’s _Convito_,
and even in the scholastic digressions of _The Divine Comedy_, although
at the beginning of the fourteenth century the Italian language was
already far more developed than one hundred years before; and, to go no
further, some idea of the extreme difficulty of such an enterprise may be
found by calling to mind the obstacles which had to be overcome by the
first French and German philosophers who had the courage and self-denial
to expose in their mother-tongues (which were then nearly formed) ideas
reasoned in Latin; for a certain effort is needed to follow the French
and German writings of Descartes and Wolff, while their Latin works
present no difficulty. Therefore, besides the general and constant causes
for the priority of poetry to prose, there was in Italy a special cause
which contributed to develop poetry first in the vulgar tongue; this
cause was the existence of Provençal poetry, already flourishing and
cultivated.

A fact common alike to the literary history of Italy and to that of
all other nations is that the first attempts in prose were generally
historical writings. In fact, among all primitive people we see that the
first use they made of free speech was to decompose the epic poems,
to give the importance of historical tradition to stories of popular
imagination. Thus we see the Ionian chroniclers, up to Herodotus, add the
history of contemporary events to the deeds of heroes of fable, just as
the first Florentine chroniclers, till Villani, trace back the origin of
their native town and its early history to Roman names whose traditions
were doubtless retained in the popular poems prior to the Provençal
school which reigned in Italy towards the middle of the fourteenth
century, and relate, without metre or rhythm, what the Florentine woman
of the time of Frederick Barbarossa sang, seated at her spindle:

“_Favoleggiava con la sua famiglia_
_De’ Trojani, di Fiesole, e di Roma._”

--DANTE.

However this may be, it was only about this time that the use of the
vernacular spread little by little; that public treaties and commercial
correspondence began to be written in this language, and the public
already preferred to read in the Italian language stories and other works
written originally in Latin or sometimes in Provençal. But these writings
can scarcely be considered literary works; they cannot, therefore, be
taken as the starting-point of a history of Italian prose.

Just as the first Italian poems had been written in Sicilian dialect,
soon replaced by the Tuscan dialect, so the first somewhat important and
truly literary work in Italian prose was written in Sicilian dialect,
while nearly all the prose writers of the following period were Tuscans;
and this fact is sufficiently explained by the general history of Italy
in the thirteenth century.

While Florence and all the centre of the peninsula were in a state of
civil war, or painfully working to attain an independent municipal life,
Naples, the home of the Hohenstaufens and the capital of the kingdom
of the Two Sicilies, was enjoying profound peace, royal luxury, great
freedom of thought, and all the refinements of life, in the midst of
institutions which may be considered perfect for their time. Queen
Constanza had already granted special protection to the Provençal poets,
and her son, Frederick II, only placed above the troubadours of the south
of France the learned philosophers of Baghdad and Cordova, as if the
great man only believed himself understood or appreciated by those whose
glance was not troubled by religious, political, or local passions. The
influence of this brilliant court, which united taste for science with
frivolity, where serious discussions on law and philosophy alternated
with the gay Provençal wisdom, and where displays of chivalry and love
songs diverted the greatest statesmen of the Middle Ages after the
fatigues or annoyances of politics, this preponderant influence made the
Sicilian nation for a time the chief actor in the history of Italy, and
their language the dominant organ of the rising literature; and it is not
surprising that the first great work in Italian prose was written in the
dialect made popular by the beautiful songs of the emperor Frederick II
and his famous chancellor Pietro delle Vigne, King Enzio, and the brave
Manfred, his half-brother.

Matteo Spinelli, the contemporary of these poets of noble birth, has
left a chronicle under the very characteristic title “journal,” which
enables us to judge at once what Italian prose was at that period. If we
quote this work of Spinelli’s first, it is not because we are unaware
of the numerous and often vague attempts which preceded him; but all
previous writings may be considered as uncertain groping. The language
of these works is not even completely Italian yet, and the true modern
idiom has been considered to rise in all its individuality in the poems
of Ciullo d’Alcamo and in the _Journals_ of Spinelli. Moreover, the work
of the Sicilian chronicler (although, as its name seems to indicate,
it was a diary scarcely intended for publication) offers by its very
extent more ample matter for literary and philological study than certain
inscriptions, deeds, laws, decrees, and other documents of similar nature.

[Illustration: SAN MARTINO, NAPLES]

We do not mean to say that the _Journals_ have nothing Latin about
them, or that they are written in pure Italian or Sicilian. Latin
words, even phrases, which recall the customs of a dead language, are
frequently found in the midst of a speech in all other respects purely
Italian; but these souvenirs are always isolated, and do not alter the
general character of the tongue, which is essentially Sicilian. But what
distinguishes the style of this delightful teller of stories is not
only the sweetness characteristic of the dialect he employed, but also
a certain carelessness, a certain freedom in the construction of his
sentences. In the first prose writer of a language one certainly does
not expect Ciceronian periods; it appears perfectly natural that all his
sentences should be co-ordinate, instead of being subordinate to one
another, and that he should simply join his propositions by copulative
conjunctions, instead of arranging them in incidental phrases; but with
Spinelli, we simply find conversational language, and nothing more; that
is to say, his style is wanting in clearness. He writes as he would have
spoken to an attentive audience, with all the assistance to be derived
from gesture, intonation, and expressive glance. This conversational
style, applied to written works of great length, is often unintelligible
unless interpreted by a clever reader, who recites it as an actor recites
his rôle in a comedy. In the end it becomes wearisome by the very fact
that the necessary explanation, which recitation would give, is wanting.
But, on the other hand, there is an animation which the finest art could
not produce--each word, each expression creates a picture. One might be
listening to a loquacious barber, on the lookout for the gossip of the
day, serving up hot the talk of the town.

This is Spinelli’s specialty; he must not be looked on as a historian,
not even a political chronicler, but as a teller of stories, often
amusing, nearly always animated. The events of contemporary history are
only mentioned incidentally in the midst of town and country gossip.
But apart from the style and light shade of irony which form one of the
charms of Boccaccio, Spinelli’s stories are not less wanting in interest
than the stories of the _Decameron_. This is the great merit of the
_Journals_; their historic value is almost worthless, and, on account
of serious errors (chiefly those of chronology), they become dangerous
guides for the reader who takes them seriously and refers to them for
information on the period and country in which Spinelli lived. There is
a great difference to be seen when one passes from this expansive and
unpretentious gossip to professional men of letters, to the somewhat
pedantic orators of Florence, from the neglected Sicilian dialect to the
already majestic and developed language of Tuscany.

The study of rhetoric was first cultivated in Florence, and we see, by
Dante’s education, the importance attached to this branch of knowledge.
However, the earliest rhetoricians, such as Buoncompagni and Guidotto of
Bologna, seldom employed the vernacular. The honour of fixing, so to say,
the Tuscan dialect, of raising the Italian patois to the rank which Latin
had occupied exclusively till then, belongs to Brunetto Latini, of whom
Villani tells us that he was “the first to polish the Florentines,” and
to whom Dante, his pupil, raised a monument more durable than any other
claim to immortality which the poor orator possessed: “You taught me
how man can make himself immortal, and it is right that while I live my
tongue should declare the gratitude which I feel.”[g]

BOCCACCIO

But these after all are only tentative efforts. The first writer to
make use of the new vehicle as a medium for really artistic prose
of a creative type was a Florentine of a slightly later epoch, the
contemporary of Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, the famous author of the
_Decameron_. Boccaccio was born at Paris, in 1313, and was the natural
son of a merchant of Florence, himself born at Certaldo, a castle in the
Val d’Elsa, in the Florentine territory. His father had intended him for
a commercial life, but before devoting him to it, indulged him with a
literary education. From his earliest years, Boccaccio evinced a decided
predilection for letters. He wrote verses, and manifested an extreme
aversion to trade. He revolted equally at the prospect of a commercial
life, and the study of the canon law, which his father was desirous of
his undertaking. To oblige his father, however, he made several journeys
of business; but he brought back with him, instead of a love for his
employment, a more extended information, and an increased passion for
study.

He at length obtained permission to devote himself wholly to literature,
and fixed on Naples as his place of residence, where letters then
flourished under the powerful protection of Robert, the reigning monarch.
He was quickly initiated in all the sciences at that time taught. He
acquired also the rudiments of the Greek tongue, which, though then
spoken in Calabria, was an abstruse study with the early scholars. In
1341, he assisted at the celebrated examination of Petrarch, which
preceded his coronation at Rome; and, from that time, a friendship arose
between him and the poet, which terminated only with their lives. At this
period, Boccaccio, distinguished no less for the elegance of his person
than for the brilliancy of his wit, and devoted to pleasure, formed an
attachment to a natural daughter of King Robert, named Maria, who for
several years had been the wife of a Neapolitan gentleman. This lady
he has celebrated in his writings, under the name of Fiammetta. In the
attachment of Boccaccio, we must not look for that purity or delicacy
which distinguished Petrarch in his love for Laura. This princess had
been brought up in the most corrupt court of Italy; she herself partook
of its spirit, and it is to her depraved taste that the exceptionable
parts of the _Decameron_, a work undertaken by Boccaccio in compliance
with her request, and for her amusement, are to be attributed. On his
side, Boccaccio probably loved her as much from vanity as from real
passion; for, although distinguished for her beauty, her grace, and her
wit, as much as for her rank, she does not seem to have exercised any
extraordinary influence on his life; and neither the conduct nor the
writings of Boccaccio afford evidence of a sincere or profound attachment.

[Illustration: BOCCACCIO]

Boccaccio quitted Naples in 1342, to return to Florence. He came back
again in 1344, and returned for the last time in 1350. From that year,
he fixed himself in his native country, where his reputation had already
assigned him a distinguished rank. His life was thenceforth occupied by
his public employments in several embassies; by the duties which his
increasing friendship to Petrarch imposed on him; and by the constant and
indefatigable labours to which he devoted himself for the advancement
of letters, the discovery of ancient manuscripts, the elucidation of
subjects of antiquity, the introduction of the Greek language into
Italy, and the composition of his numerous works. After taking the
ecclesiastical habit, in 1361, he died at Certaldo, in the mansion of his
ancestors, on the 21st of December, 1375.

The _Decameron_, the work to which Boccaccio is at the present day
indebted for his highest celebrity, is a collection of one hundred novels
or tales. He has ingeniously united them, under the supposition of a
party formed in the dreadful pestilence of 1348, composed of a number of
cavaliers, and young, intelligent, and accomplished women, retired to a
delightful part of the country, to escape the contagion. It was there
agreed that each person, during the space of ten days, should narrate,
daily, a fresh story. The company consisted of ten persons, and thus
the number of stories amounted to one hundred. The description of the
enchanting country in the neighbourhood of Florence, where these gay
recluses had established themselves; the record of their walks, their
numerous fêtes, and their repasts, afforded Boccaccio an opportunity of
displaying all the treasures of his powerful and easy pen.

These stories, which are varied with infinite art, as well in subject
as in style, from the most pathetic and tender to the most sportive,
and, unfortunately, the most licentious, exhibit a wonderful power of
narration; and his description of the plague in Florence, which serves
as an introduction to them, may be ranked with the most celebrated
historical descriptions which have descended to us. The perfect truth
of colouring; the exquisite choice of circumstances, calculated to
produce the deepest impression, and which place before our eyes the
most repulsive scenes, without exciting disgust; and the emotion of the
writer, which insensibly pervades every part, give to this picture that
true eloquence of history which, in Thucydides, animates the relation of
the plague in Athens. Boccaccio had, doubtless, this model before his
eyes; but the events, to which he was a witness, had vividly impressed
his mind, and it was the faithful delineation of what he had seen, rather
than the classical imitation, which served to develop his talent.

The praise of Boccaccio consists in the perfect purity of his language,
in his elegance, his grace, and above all in that _naïveté_ which is the
chief merit of narration, and the peculiar charm of the Italian tongue.

Unfortunately Boccaccio did not prescribe to himself the same purity in
his images as in his phraseology. The character of his work is light and
sportive. He has inserted in it a great number of tales of gallantry;
he has exhausted his powers of ridicule on the duped husband, on the
depraved and depraving monks, and on subjects, in morals and religious
worship, which he himself regarded as sacred; and his reputation is thus
little in harmony with the real tenor of his conduct. The _Decameron_
was published towards the middle of the fourteenth century (in 1352 or
1353), when Boccaccio was at least thirty-nine years of age; and from the
first discovery of printing, was freely circulated in Italy, until the
Council of Trent proscribed it in the middle of the sixteenth century. At
the solicitation of the grand duke of Tuscany, and after two remarkable
negotiations between this prince and popes Pius V and Sixtus V, the
_Decameron_ was again published, in 1573 and 1582, purified and corrected.

Many of the tales of Boccaccio appear to be borrowed from popular
recitation, or from real occurrences. We trace the originals of several,
in the ancient French _fabliaux_; of some, in the Italian collection of
the _Centi Novelli_; and of others, again, in an Indian romance, which
passed through all the languages of the East, and of which a Latin
translation appeared as early as the twelfth century, under the name of
_Dolopathos_, or _The King and the Seven Wise Men_. Invention, in this
class of writing, is not less rare than in every other; and the same
tales, probably, which Boccaccio had collected in the gay courts of
princes, or in the squares of the cities of Italy, have been repeated to
us anew in all the various languages of Europe. They have been versified
by the early poets of France and England, and have afforded reputation
to three or four imitators of Boccaccio. But, if Boccaccio cannot boast
of being the inventor of these tales, he may still claim the creation
of this class of letters. Before his time, tales were only subjects
of social mirth. He was the first to transport them into the world of
letters; and, by the elegance of his diction, the just harmony of all
the parts of his subject, and the charm of his narration, he superadded
the more refined gratifications of language and of art, to the simpler
delight afforded by the old narrators.

It is unnecessary to speak here of Boccaccio’s other Italian works,
beyond naming his romances _Fiammetta_ and _Filocopo_, and his heroic
poems _La Teseide_ and _Filostrato_. The Latin compositions of Boccaccio
are voluminous, and materially contributed, at the time they were
written, to the advancement of letters. The most celebrated of these
works are two treatises; the one on the genealogy of the gods, and
the other on mountains, forests, and rivers. In the first, he gave
an exposition of the ancient mythology; and in the second, rectified
many errors in geography. These two works have fallen into neglect,
since the discovery of manuscripts then unknown, and in consequence
of the facilities which the art of printing, by opening new sources,
has afforded to the study of antiquity. In the age in which they were
composed, they were, however, equally remarkable for their extensive
information and for the clearness of their arrangement; but the style
is by no means so pure and elegant as that of Petrarch. But, while the
claim to celebrity, in these great men, is restricted to the Italian
poetry of Petrarch and to the novels of Boccaccio, our gratitude to them
is founded on stronger grounds. They felt more sensibly than any other
men that enthusiasm for the beauties of antiquity, without which we in
vain strive to appreciate its treasures; and they each devoted a long and
laborious life to the discovery and the study of ancient manuscripts.
The most valued works of the ancients were at that time buried among
the archives of convents, scattered at great distances, incorrect and
incomplete, without tables of contents or marginal notes. Nor did those
resources then exist, which printing supplies, for the perusal of works
with which we are not familiar; and the facilities which are afforded by
previous study, or the collation of the originals with each other, were
equally wanting. It must have required a powerful intellect to discover,
in a manuscript of Cicero, for example, without title or commencement,
the full meaning of the author, the period at which he wrote, and other
circumstances, which are connected with his subject; to correct the
numerous errors of the copyists; to supply the chasms, which, frequently
occurring at the beginning and the end, left neither title nor divisions
nor conclusions, nor anything that might serve as a clew for the perusal;
in short, to determine how one manuscript, discovered at Heidelberg,
should perfect another, discovered at Naples. It was, in fact, by long
and painful journeys that the scholars of those days equipped themselves
for this task. The copying a manuscript, with the necessary degree of
accuracy, was a work of great labour and expense. A collection of three
or four hundred volumes was, at that time, considered an extensive
library; and a scholar was frequently compelled to seek, at a great
distance, the completion of a work, commenced under his own roof.

Petrarch and Boccaccio, in their frequent travels, obtained copies of
such classics as they found in their route. Among other objects, Petrarch
proposed to himself to collect all the works of Cicero; in which he
succeeded after a lapse of many years. Boccaccio, with a true love of
letters, introduced the study of the Greek to the Italians, not only
with the view of securing the interests of commerce or of science, but
of enriching their minds, and extending their researches to the other
half of the ancient world of letters, which had, till then, remained
hidden from his contemporaries. He founded, in Florence, a chair for
the teaching of the Greek language; and he himself invited thither, and
installed as professor, Leontius Pilatus, one of the most learned Greeks
of Constantinople. He received him into his own house, although he was
a man of a morose and disagreeable temper; placed him at his table, as
long as this professor could be induced to remain at Florence; inscribed
himself among the first of his scholars, and procured at his own expense,
from Greece, the manuscripts, which were thus distributed in Florence,
and which served as subjects for the lectures of Leontius Pilatus.
For the instruction of those days consisted in the public delivery of
lectures with commentaries, and a book, of which there perhaps existed
only a single copy, sufficed for some thousand scholars.

LESSER CONTEMPORARIES OF PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO

There is an infinite space between the three great men whose works we
have just enumerated, and even the most esteemed of their contemporaries;
and, though these latter have preserved, until the present day, a
considerable reputation, yet we shall only pause to notice their
existence, and the epoch to which they belong. Perhaps the most
remarkable are the three Florentine historians of the name of Villani.
Giovanni, the eldest, who died in the first plague, in 1348; Matteo, his
brother, who died in the second plague, in 1361; and Filippo, the son
of Matteo, who continued the work of his father to the year 1364, and
who wrote a history of the literature of Florence, the first attempt of
this kind in modern times. Two poets of this age shared with Petrarch
the honours of a poetic coronation: Zanobi di Strada, whom the emperor
Charles IV crowned at Pisa in 1355, with great pomp, but whose verses
have not reached us; and Coluccio Salutati, secretary of the Florentine
Republic, one of the purest Latinists, and most eloquent statesmen whom
Italy in that age produced. The latter, indeed, did not live to enjoy the
honour which had been accorded him by the emperor, at the request of the
Florentines. Coluccio died in 1406, at the age of seventy-six, before the
day appointed for his coronation, and the symbol of glory was deposited
on his tomb; as, at a subsequent period, a far more illustrious crown was
placed on the tomb of Tasso.

Of the prose writers of Tuscany, Franco Sacchetti, born at Florence about
the year 1335, and who died before the end of the century, after filling
some of the first offices in the republic, approaches the nearest to
Boccaccio. He imitated Boccaccio in his novels, and Petrarch in his lyric
poems; but the latter were never printed, while of his tales there have
been several editions. Whatever praise be due to the purity and eloquence
of his style, we find his pages more valuable as a history of the manners
of the age, than attractive for their powers of amusement, even when the
author thinks himself most successful. His 258 tales consist, almost
entirely, of the incidents of his own time, and of his own neighbourhood;
domestic anecdotes, which in general contain little humour; tricks,
exhibiting little skill, and jests of little point; and we are often
surprised to find a professed jester vanquished by the smart reply of a
child or a clown, which scarcely deserves our attention. After reading
these tales, we cannot help concluding that the art of conversation had
not made, in the fourteenth century, an equal progress with the other
arts; and that the great men, to whom we owe so many excellent works,
were not so entertaining in the social intercourse of life as many
persons greatly their inferiors in merit.

Two poets of this time, of some celebrity, chose Dante for their
model, and composed after him in _terza rima_, long allegories, partly
descriptive, partly scientific. Fazio de’ Uberti, in his _Dettamondo_,
undertook the description of the universe, of which the different parts,
personified in turns, relate their history. Federigo Frezzi, bishop of
Foligno, who died in 1416, at the Council of Constance, has, in his
_Quadriregio_, described the four empires of Love, Satan, Virtue, and
Vice. In both of these poets we meet, occasionally, with lines not
unworthy of Dante; but they formed a very false estimate of the works of
genius, when they regarded the _Divina Commedia_ not as an individual
poem, but as a species of poetry which anyone might attempt.

The passionate study of the ancients, of which Petrarch and Boccaccio had
given an example, suspended, in an extraordinary manner, the progress of
Italian literature, and retarded the perfection of that tongue. Italy,
after having produced her three leading classics, sank, for a century,
into inaction. In this period, indeed, erudition made wonderful progress;
and knowledge became much more general, but sterile in its effects. The
mind had preserved all its activity, and literary fame all its splendour;
but the unintermitted study of the ancients had precluded all originality
in the authors. Instead of perfecting a new language, and enriching
it with works in unison with modern manners and ideas, they confined
themselves to a servile copy of the ancients. A too scrupulous imitation
thus destroyed the spirit of invention; and the most eminent scholars may
be said to have produced, in their eloquent writings, little more than
college themes. In proportion as a man was qualified by his rank, or by
his talents, to acquire a name in literature, he blushed to cultivate
his mother-tongue. He almost, indeed, forced himself to forget it, to
avoid the danger of corrupting his Latin style; and the common people
thus remained the only depositaries of a language which had exhibited
so brilliant a dawn, and which had now again almost relapsed into
barbarism.[e]

ART IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES

Turning from literature to the not distantly related field of art, let us
glance at some of the tentative efforts which prepared the way for the
succession of Florentine masters that were presently to take the lead in
this field and hold it for some centuries.

The Renaissance, that is, the resurrection, in the beginning of the
fifteenth century, of ideas and forms of classic antiquity, was preceded
by individual efforts which, though often failing to reach the mark,
ought to be taken account of in the history of this great revolution.
The plastic memories of the Græco-Roman world have played in the
preoccupation of the Middle Ages a more considerable rôle than is
usually thought. Mere force of events put our ancestors in the presence
of ancient _chefs-d’œuvre_, and they had to look at them whether they
would or not. Some saw in them only idolatrous monuments, and have
found fault with them as such. Others attributed to them magic virtues;
some have given themselves up to the admiration they felt in looking
at the immensity of Roman ruins, the richness of early materials, the
perfection of the handiwork. These latter, it might be affirmed, are the
most numerous. Even during the most sombre period of the Middle Ages, all
Europe felt the fascination that Rome, the oldest city _par excellence_,
exercised for twenty centuries. That which attracted from far and near
thousands of visitors to the banks of the Tiber was not only the promise
of indulgencies, a desire to pray on the tomb of martyrs, to contemplate
basilics resplendent with gold and precious stones, but also memories
left by the cæsars.

After having heard with a kind of incredulity the marvels of this
incomparable city, one is further amazed by the number of its temples,
palaces, baths, and amphitheatres. Have not reliable authors told us that
she lately possessed thirty-six triumphal arches, twenty-eight libraries,
856 public baths, twenty-two equestrian statues in gilded bronze,
eighty-four of the same in ivory, obelisks, and innumerable colossi?

[Illustration: DOORWAY, PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE]

From the twelfth century popular imagination laid hold of these pictures,
transforming and amplifying them. Wondrous tales became current and were
incorporated in works received as authoritative--the _Descriptis plenaria
Votius Urbis_, the _Graphia aurea urbis Romæ_, and lastly the _Mirabilia
civitatis Romæ_. Again at the end of the fifteenth century the valiant
Charles VIII, wanting to give his subjects some idea of the town into
which he had lately entered lance in hand, caused one of these records of
another age to be translated for them. A few extracts will show with what
strong faith these stories worthy of _The Thousand and One Nights_ were
received before the Renaissance:

“Inside the capital was the greater part of a golden palace adorned
with precious stones and said to equal the third part of the world,
in which there were as many statues of images as there are provinces
in all the world. Each image had a tambourine round its neck, placed
with mathematical art, so that if any region was in rebellion against
the Romans, immediately the image of the province turned its back to
the image of the city of Rome, which was the largest and dominated the
others, and the tambourine at its neck sounded. Then immediately the
Capitol guards told this to the senate, and people were forthwith sent to
expugn that province.

“The horses and nude men denote that in the time of the emperor Tiberius
there were two young philosophers, that is, Praxiteles and Phitas, who
said they were so wise that anything the emperor said in his room,
they not being there, could report word for word. And they did as they
said, not demanding money for it, but to be always remembered, so the
philosophers have two marble horses with their feet on the ground, which
denote the princes of this century. And they who are naked on the horses
denote that their arm, high and held out, and their bent backs speak of
things to come, and as they are naked, so the science of this world was
naked and open to their understanding.”

From admiration to imitation is only one step. Artists in their turn
went to work and took without scruple from what was a common heritage.
Doubtless many of these borrowings are unconscious or really only show
up the immense inferiority of the copyist. But is the influence of
the antique less striking? One must recall in this order of ideas the
splendid creations of architects in the Roman period--the duomo, the
campanile, and the baptistery of Pisa, the baptistery of Florence,
and the basilica of San Miniato, the duomo of Lucca, and so many
_chefs-d’œuvre_ raised according to principles that innovators of the
following age, the champions of Gothic style, were so audaciously to
trample underfoot.

Nicholas Crescentius (son of the celebrated tribune) in the eleventh
century, impelled by a desire to renew the ancient splendour of Rome,
had the elegant little house at Ponte Rotto built of antique fragments.
Similarly the emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1121-1190) had these
former glories in mind, when he had graven on his seal a view of Rome
with the Colosseum. But it was to his illustrious grandson Frederick
II (1184-1250) that the honour is due of first pleading the cause of
the Renaissance, and he should rightly be placed at the head of the
precursors. We possess numerous witnesses of his love for the monuments
of ancient art.

Now we see him striking _Augustales_, those curious imitations of Roman
imperial money, bearing on one side an effigy crowned with laurels, with
the epigraph AVG. IMP. ROM. and draped in the fashion of the cæsars; on
the reverse an eagle with outspread wings with the epigraph FREDERICVS.
Again he buys for a considerable sum (230 oz. of gold) an onyx cup and
other curiosities. From Grotta Ferrata he takes away two bronzes, statues
of a man and of a cow serving for a fountain, and carries them to Lucera.
The church of St. Michael of Ravenna furnishes the monolithic columns he
requires for his buildings at Palermo. Near Augusta in Sicily, he caused
excavations to be made in the hope of discovering ancient remains. Once,
it is true, yielding to urgent necessity he had several Roman monuments
at Brindisi destroyed that he might use the materials in constructing a
citadel. He tried just as he was departing for Palestine to make the town
safe from any attacks, but political reasons outweighed his antiquarian
scruples.

The work dreamed of by Frederick II as amateur was realised by his
contemporary Nicholas of Pisa (1207?-1278) who, in the thirteenth
century, held imitation of the antique as a principle, and used it as
a mirror by which nature might be the more clearly shown. His attempt
seems prodigious to us to-day; it supposes a power of initiative which
Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Van Eyck have hardly equalled.
Imitation with him was not confined to accessories--ornaments, costumes,
armour--nor to types, nor to proportions of figures, which are all
stumpy, as in the Roman sarcophagi of the decadence. The spirit of his
work recalls ancient models.

“Nicholas,” says M. Gebhardt,[n] “in the pulpits of Pisa and Siena,
and in the shrine of San Dominico at Bologna, recalls the traditions
of a great art with a naïve gravity and assured taste. He is hardly a
neo-Greek or a superstitious antiquary, but is imbued with the most
generous principles of antique sculpture--the harmonious ordering of the
scenes, the skilful employ of space where many persons move in a narrow
frame, the majestic tranquillity of pose, the finely ordered draperies,
the noble heads. But his eye and hand still express the fashion of
primitive sculpture; the movements express awkward timidity, the faces
are sometimes heavy. He gives an impression of Roman work at the end
of the empire. Nicholas of Pisa (Niccolo Pisano), if he discovered and
studied the Greek, did not renounce nature, and, in his best pieces, he
has returned to a study of life. It is in this that he shows himself an
intelligent disciple of the ancients. Apart from Nicholas of Pisa, the
Italian masters each put their own personality in the antique; none were
servile copyists, and it is Nicholas, the first and consequently the
least learned, whose chisel has left the most instructive reminiscences.”

One of the most noted pupils and collaborators of Nicholas, Brother
Guglielmo of Pisa (born about 1238, died after 1313), was inspired with
like principles, but not so strongly. In the pulpit of San Giovanni
Fuorcivitas at Pistoia, he has succeeded better than his master, in
reconciling pagan reminiscences with Christian ideas.

The historic sentiment is one of the distinctive traits of the school
of Nicholas of Pisa. It has recourse not only to antique marbles as
models of style, but to documents as well. Whilst, in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, painters and sculptors gave the costume of the
period to sacred characters, their predecessors of the thirteenth century
tried to restore, aided by archæology, the costumes of Christ and his
family, the apostles, martyrs, as absolutely as did the Renaissance
champions two hundred years later. Fra Guglielmo has pushed these
scruples very far; his apostles wear the toga, tunic, and sandals, and
hold a rolled volume in the hand.

In the _Descent of the Holy Ghost_ he seeks, moreover, faithfully to
reproduce the types of the primitive church, above all in the figures of
St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John. As with the sculptors of sarcophagi
in Rome, Milan, and the south of France, there is a complete absence of
nimbi, showing to what extent Nicholas of Pisa and his like disdained
mediæval tradition, at least as regards types, costumes, and attributes.
In the scene just mentioned one remarks also the grouping of the
apostles. They are placed in two ranks, one behind the other, just as in
a curious mosaic in the chapel of St. Aguilino (church of St. Lawrence
at Milan). An arrangement differing very little is found in another
bas-relief on the pulpit--that is, Christ washing the disciples’ feet.
The women’s dresses deserve special mention. In the _Annunciation_ and
_Visitation_, Mary and Elizabeth have the head half covered with a fold
of their mantle so as to expose the forehead and the greater part of the
hair. They might be Roman matrons.

In his quality as a member of the order of St. Dominican, Fra Guglielmo
had more than once to reprove the too pagan tendencies of his master.
The position of another disciple of Nicholas, Arnolfo of Cambio (died in
1310), the architect of the dome of Florence, was not less delicate, but
for other reasons. One is surprised to see this master, the promoter of
a style departing so singularly from antique tradition, returning to the
latter when he exchanges the builder’s compass for the sculptor’s chisel.
Let us hasten to add that the departure is not so great as one might
think. In his tomb of the cardinal of Braye at Orvieto, Arnolfo has known
how to give the Virgin a serene majesty, a simplicity which does not lack
grandeur, without pushing imitation as far as his master. He shows still
more entire independence in the tabernacle of St. Paul beyond the walls,
near Rome. If one did not know Arnolfo to have been Nicholas’ disciple,
it would be difficult to imagine it in looking at this hybrid monument.[i]

Without attempting even to name the other lesser schools of sculpture and
of architecture that were beginning to make their influence felt, let us
turn to culminating artistic achievements of the epoch, as represented in
the work of the great Florentines Cimabue and Giotto.

_The Tuscan School of Painters_

It is an undisputed fact that the revival of painting, like that of
sculpture, commenced in Tuscany. It is equally certain that about the
middle of the thirteenth century, or a little later, which is the point
at which improvement first manifested itself, the prevailing style was
the Byzantine, introduced by Greek artists from Constantinople. But it
has not by any means been clearly discerned wherein the peculiarities of
that style consisted; and it has been usually assumed that it was a rude
and defective manner which, as the first step in advance, the Italian
painters had to discard. Materials are extant which justify a different
conclusion, and evince that the introduction of this foreign taste, gross
and faulty as it was, truly formed the first stage in improvement.

From the ninth century till the middle of the thirteenth, painting among
the Byzantine artists differed from contemporary Italian works in several
important particulars. In both quarters art was timidly imitative; but in
the Eastern Empire the models from which it borrowed were more various
than in the West, and the execution was usually better; the fashion
of the drapery and ornament had a peculiar character of semi-oriental
barbarism; and, while in both countries the drawing of the figure was
generally bad, the common tendency of the Greeks was to lengthen it
disproportionally, and that of the Italians to represent it as short
and squab. But the most palpable distinctions were two in the technical
treatment. First, in the oldest Italian paintings the vehicle of the
colours is transparent, and the tone is therefore light and clear; in
the works from Constantinople the tone is dark and yellowish, being
produced by the use of some colouring matter which, if modern chemists
have rightly analysed it, was wax. The second difference was this--that
the Greeks, besides ornamenting their draperies richly with gilding,
surrounded their figures with a golden ground; a barbarous practice,
of which the oldest Italian works exhibit no trace. In those early
productions of the thirteenth century, where we can trace the first
ameliorations of art, we discover most, or all, of these peculiarities
derived from the Greek style; some of them prevailed very long; and the
most objectionable, the flaunting ground, was not entirely discarded even
in the time of Raffaelle.

[Illustration: CAMPANILE OF GIOTTO, FLORENCE]

The oldest name celebrated in Italian painting is that of Cimabue,
who, born about 1240, died in 1300. On the strength of his merit the
Florentines claim the glory of having resuscitated art--a pretension
which the school of Siena seems to have some right, in the person of
Duccio, to contest with them. The works of Cimabue were Byzantine,
in their style, in their colouring, and in their blaze of gold; and
tradition says that he was taught in his youth by Greek artists. He
improved, it is true, upon that school; but, though everything regarding
him is obscure, there is no sufficient reason for believing that his
improvement consisted in any departure from its principles. To him are
commonly assigned some ill-preserved fresco paintings in the church of
St. Francis at Assisi, which at all events give an idea of the masters
from whom he learned; but his boldness and loftiness of conception are
more clearly evinced by two rudely grand figures of Madonnas on wood,
both at Florence, the more celebrated of the two in the church of Santa
Maria Novella, the other in the Ducal Gallery.

[Illustration: FROM A PAINTING BY GIOTTO]

To this great artist succeeds the Florentine Giotto (1276-1336), whose
history and works are somewhat better known. The Italian novelists have
preserved anecdotes of his wealth, his ugliness, and his profane wit.
The story which describes him as a shepherd boy, discovered by Cimabue
drawing rude figures on a stone, is perhaps too picturesque to be true;
and his undoubted pieces display a marked dissimilarity in spirit to
those of his alleged teacher, while they deviate also from the Byzantine
style in colouring, if in nothing else, having a clear rosy hue which
indicates a return to the older Italian method, though it is also an
improvement on it. In the theory of his art, however, Giotto departed
essentially from all his predecessors. When we combine the criticisms
of the older writers with the few pictures which still can be certainly
or probably identified as his, we may describe his characteristics
as consisting in an attempt, made under manifold difficulties, but
attended with surprising success, to establish, instead of the rude,
vague, devotional loftiness of Cimabue, a beauty derived from a closer
observation of life, as well as enlivened by a better and less formal
expression of ordinary human feeling. His only existing work, which is
ascertained by a genuine inscription, is one in the church of the Santa
Croce in Florence, containing five divisions, of which that in the
centre represents the Saviour crowning the Virgin. The gallery of the
Florentine Accademia delle Arti contains some small compositions of his,
representing, in a fashion half religious and half comic, events from
the history of St. Francis. Frescoes in the upper church of that saint
at Assisi, assigned to Giotto by some critics, have been pronounced
by others to be inferior, and unlike his genuine remains; but others
on the vaulted roof of the subterranean part of the same building are
undoubtedly his, and resemble the pieces of the academy both in execution
and in spirit. Other pictures laying claim to his name occur in various
galleries throughout Italy as well as elsewhere.[e]

Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm that has been bestowed upon the
paintings of Giotto, it must frankly be admitted that these are to be
regarded as remarkable only when viewed in relation to the art of the
time in which they were produced. To extol them as masterpieces according
to the standards that were developed by the later Florentines would be to
throw criticism to the winds. But the architectural efforts of Giotto may
be praised with less reserve. The Campanile of Florence has aroused the
enthusiasm of most critics who have viewed it; Ruskin[k] declares that
“of living Christian works, none is so perfect as the tower of Giotto.”

The same writer speaks with equal enthusiasm of Giotto’s work in another
field: “Of representations of human art under heavenly guidance,” he
says, “the series of bas-reliefs which stud the base of this tower of
Giotto must be held certainly the chief in Europe. Read but these inlaid
jewels of Giotto once with patient following, and your hour’s study
will give you strength for all your life.” This may be held by colder
criticism to be an over-enthusiastic estimate, but few who have come
under the spell of the Campanile will wish to modify the eloquent words
in which Ruskin characterises that structure as a whole.[a]

_Ruskin’s Estimate of Giotto’s Tower_

“The characteristics of power and beauty,” he says, “occur more or
less in different buildings, some in one and some in another. But all
together, and all in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist,
as far as I know, only in one building in the world, the Campanile of
Giotto. In its first appeal to the stranger’s eye there is something
unpleasing--a mingling, as it seems to him, of over-severity with
over-minuteness. But let him give it time, as he should to all other
consummate art. I well remember how, when a boy, I used to despise that
Campanile, and think it meanly smooth and finished. But I have since
lived beside it many a day, and looked out upon it from my windows by
sunlight and moonlight, and I shall not soon forget how profound and
gloomy appeared to me the savageness of the northern Gothic, when I
afterwards stood, for the first time, beneath the front of Salisbury.
The contrast is indeed strange if it could be quickly felt, between
the rising of those gray walls out of their quiet swarded space, like
dark and barren rocks out of a green lake, with their rude, mouldering,
rough-grained shafts and triple lights, without tracery or other ornament
than the martins’ nests in the height of them, and that bright, smooth,
sunny surface of glowing jasper, those spiral shafts and fairy traceries,
so white, so faint, so crystalline, that their slight shapes are hardly
traced in darkness on the pallor of the eastern sky, that serene height
of mountain alabaster, coloured like a morning cloud and chased like
a sea-shell. And if this be, as I believe it, the model and mirror of
perfect architecture, is there not something to be learned by looking
back to the early life of him who raised it? I said that the power of
human mind had its growth in the wilderness; much more must the love and
the conception of that beauty, whose every line and hue we have seen to
be, at the best, a faded image of God’s daily work, and an arrested ray
of some star or creation, be given chiefly in the places which he has
gladdened by planting there the fir-tree and the pine. Not within the
walls of Florence, but among the far-away fields of her lilies, was the
child trained who was to raise that headstone of beauty above her towers
of watch and war. Remember all that he became; count the sacred thoughts
with which he filled the heart of Italy; ask those who followed him what
they learned at his feet; and when you have numbered his labours and
received their testimony, if it seem to you that God had verily poured
out upon this his servant no common nor restrained portion of his spirit,
and that he was indeed a king among the children of men, remember also
that the legend upon his crown was that of David’s: ‘I took thee from the
sheep-cote and from following the sheep.’”[k]

FOOTNOTES

[13] Franco Sacchetti, in his _Capitolo_ (_Rime_, publ. dal Poggiali,
p. 56), enumerates about 1390 the names of over a hundred distinguished
people in the ruling parties who had died within his memory. However many
mediocrities there may have been among them, the list is still remarkable
as evidence of the awakening of individuality.

[14] There was a comic poet named Plato.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII. ROME UNDER RIENZI

He is accused not of betraying but of defending liberty; he
is guilty not of surrendering but of holding the Capitol.
The supreme crime with which he is charged, and which merits
expiation on the scaffold, is that he dared affirm that the
Roman Empire is still at Rome, and in possession of the
Roman people. Oh, unpious age! Oh, preposterous jealousy,
malevolence unprecedented! What dost thou, O Christ, ineffable
and incorruptible judge of all? Where are thine eyes with
which thou art wont to scatter the clouds of human misery? Why
dost thou turn them away? Why dost thou not, with thy forked
lightning, put an end to this unholy trial?--PETRARCH.[i]

[Sidenote: [1347-1354 A.D.]]

The story of Cola di Rienzi furnishes a unique chapter in Italian
history. It is the story of a patriot and reformer, whose early
enthusiasm was not supported by true moral greatness, and whose efforts
were thus foredoomed to failure, after a momentary semblance of success.

The date of the accession of Charles IV is coincident with that of
the first and greatest rise of Rienzi to power in Rome. To disengage
Rienzi from the atmosphere of romance into which he has been cast for
the reader of to-day by the unguarded rhetoric in Lord Lytton’s novel,
and its offspring the libretto of an opera by Richard Wagner, is a task
which could serve little by its accomplishment. In whatever light we
regard the tribune we are bound to admit that his history is an eloquent
memorial of the sudden extinction of what at least appeared to be the
most brilliant possibilities. Who can refuse an ear to the story that
captivated the attention of Petrarch--that story whose fantastic glamour
the poet never entirely shook from him even when his faith in the power
of his friend was being rudely shaken? It is through Petrarch that the
romantic vision of Rienzi’s career has been transmitted to us, and
though we may smile at the poet’s unreal sense of government, we are
left to wonder at his great imaginative sympathy with the dreams of the
young Nicholas from the moment when he first heard them from the lips
of his friend at Avignon (in 1343) to the time when it needed all his
eloquence with the pope to save Rienzi from execution (in 1352). Against
such a story, illustrated in numerous glowing letters of Petrarch,
Hallam’s cold sense of justice rebels. He quotes the words of the staunch
republican Giovanni Villani,[b] a contemporary of Rienzi. “The design
he formed was a fantastic work and one of short duration.” He reminds
us of the passage in Madame de Staël’s _Corinne_, in which Oswald, Lord
Nelvil, and the heroine happen upon the castle of St. Angelo in their
intellectual perambulations through Rome. Nelvil is a descendant, in the
direct line, of another English hero in French fiction, Edward, Lord
Bumpton--the saddened English peer with beautiful manners and a heart
all Rousseau. Corinne attacks the monuments with a conscientious zeal
worthy of Baedeker and with more than Baedeker’s tenderness for the
general spirit of reflection which such sights are wont to raise. But her
critical faculty is never dormant. She couples Rienzi with Crescentius
and Arnold of Brescia, calling them “those friends of Roman liberty who
so often mistook their memories for hopes.” The phrase strikes a note of
enthusiasm from Hallam which all the rhetoric of Rienzi himself fails to
produce in the historian. Could Tacitus have excelled this, he asks?

But even robbed of the setting by which Petrarch has made it forever
memorable, the story of Rienzi’s attitude towards the institutions of
his time is in itself picturesque. Sismondi[c] says of him, “He rejected
with deep indignation the usurpation of two barbarians, the one German,
calling himself Roman emperor; the other a Frenchman who called himself
the pontiff of Rome.” In the disruption into which Rome was thrown by
the contests of the noble families, Rienzi saw a possible foundation for
creating a powerful sovereignty. The removal of the popes to Avignon made
his designs appear all the more feasible. The people of Rome were to be
the backbone of his strength. He won them by a singular eloquence to
which Petrarch bears evidence even at that period when he is tempted to
minimise the wisdom of his early enthusiasm for Rienzi. Rome was the prey
of feudal anarchy: the municipal government was reduced to impotence.
Seizing the opportune moment Cola di Rienzi (Nicola Gabrini), the son of
an innkeeper, makes a brilliant _coup d’état_ and becomes tribune elect
of the people in 1347. The feuds of the families of Colonna, Orsini and
Savelli have served the ends of the ambitious youth who at the age of
thirty-four found himself in a position of power all the greater that it
was comparatively undefined and absolutely unparalleled in the annals of
history. We can hardly be surprised that the success of his endeavours,
the material realisation of what even to Rienzi himself must have clearly
possessed some of the attributes of a dream, should have misled him into
the most extravagant abuses of power. He had dreamed even at that early
period of the unification of Italy, and now it seemed as if he were the
divine agent to bring about this unification. Sovereign princes became
his allies. He surrounded himself with all the tokens of magnificence
that occurred to a fertile and greedy imagination. He bathed in the
porphyry font of Constantine; he assumed the dalmatic worn by the ancient
emperors at their coronation, took the sceptre of government in his hand
and placed seven crowns on his head symbolising the seven gifts of the
Holy Ghost; he even compared himself to Christ.

The novel of Lord Lytton is a genuine attempt to convey a picture of an
achievement that offered an attractive subject for romantic treatment.
It lacks the sincere ring of the silver eloquence of Petrarch--its main
source of inspiration. It has little of the critical faculty revealed
in the phrase quoted from Madame de Staël; it is a curious combination
of diligent research, sympathetic insight, and a passion for high talk.
In the case of one to whom contemporaries affix the epithet “fantastic”
with noticeable frequency, the difficulties of precise delineation
are more than usually great. But such a chapter as that describing the
climax of Rienzi’s power during his first and greatest tribunate is a
valuable contribution towards that truth of narrative which lies midway
between the barren enumeration of facts and the perfervid rhapsodies of
those whom the facts have dazzled. For the main narrative of Rienzi’s
picturesque career, however, we shall trust to the more prosaic, yet
still appreciative, account of a recent Italian historian.[a]

THE RISE OF RIENZI

[Sidenote: [1342-1347 A.D.]]

Cola di Rienzi, full of the glories of ancient Rome, thought it possible
to realise politically the thoughts contained in his own works, and those
of his friend Petrarch, and of other great minds of his century. One idea
dominated Rienzi. He was the great dreamer of his time; but he was not
mad in thinking that Rome should rise above the party spirit of Guelfs
and Ghibellines which he equally blamed whilst lamenting the strife
continually excited by the one against the other.

In 1342, after the election of Clement VI in Avignon, the thirteen good
men who ruled Rome sent orators to the new pope asking him to return to
St. Peter’s seat. They had done the same at the election of Clement V,
John XXII, and Benedict XII. A young Roman, born to a tavern-keeper and
a washerwoman about the time of the coronation of Henry VII, took part
in the embassy. He was learned in Livy, Seneca, Cicero, and Valerius; he
was enthusiastic over the deeds of Julius Cæsar; he had learned to read
the ancient inscriptions which were no longer understood, and he loved to
expound them to the degenerate citizens; and, whilst telling them of the
good Romans and their great justice, he regretted not having been born in
their time. He either did not know or he forgot the stormy scenes of the
republic, the pusillanimity and the iniquity of the empire, and ignored
the virtues and the victories of that Rome which now lay abandoned not
only by her emperor, but even by her pope.

Being presented to Clement VI, Rienzi described to him the robberies
of the lords at Rome, their misdeeds, and the desolation of the city;
he spoke in such forcible words that Clement was astonished, and the
elegance of the Latin language used by the gifted citizen seemed
extraordinary. Petrarch also, who a few years previously had pressed
Benedict XII to return to Rome, represented to the new pope the city that
invited his return.

But Clement, more impressed by the miserable condition of Rome and the
states of the church than by the ardent words of poet or orator, had no
wish to leave Avignon. He authorised the jubilee for the year 1350, and
he deputed the young Stefano Colonna and Bertoldo Orsini to be his vicars
in Rome. He complimented Cola and appointed him notary of the chamber;
but the latter now began to show his teeth. The murder of a brother for
which he was unable to obtain justice had exasperated him against the bad
judges of Rome; so now returning from Avignon in favour with the pope, he
took courage to reprove them as kings of the “blood of the poor people”;
he admonished them with mysterious pictures; and he had a presentment
made of a ship about to sink in a stormy sea, under which was written:
“This is Rome.”

In his increasing assurance, and ascendency over the people, Cola
convoked them one day to the Lateran when he spoke in the vulgar tongue
so as to be understood by all. He showed the people the _Lex Regia_ of
Vespasian, which he had brought to light for the first time, and which he
thought had been hidden by Boniface VIII out of hatred of the empire. In
this the senate in the ancient Roman forms conferred the imperial power
on Vespasian. Cola, who took it literally, extolled the authority of the
Roman people: “See how fine the senate was, what authority it gave to
the empire;” and he lamented the loss of so much greatness, and deplored
above all the present desolation of the city, and implored the people not
to disgrace themselves before the pilgrims who would come to Rome for the
jubilee of 1350.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF VENUS, ROME]

All the people applauded, and the nobles scoffed, but he replied in
allegorical pictures and discourses. Rome was in a miserable condition;
murder and rapine were practised on the highways with impunity, pilgrims
were robbed and wounded, and honesty was out of court. Robert and Peter
Colonna were senators, but they were not sufficient to restrain anarchy.
Stefano Colonna, the elder, the valorous and terrible head of the
powerful family of that name, was a cornet in the Roman military; and
Cola thought that the time had arrived to summon the people to reorganise
the city and to substitute the “good state” for the present disorder.

On the 20th of May, 1347, he assembled the populace and addressed it
from the Campidoglio. Three standards were displayed before him--on
the one was depicted Rome, and signified Liberty; upon another was
St. Paul, who represented Justice; and upon the third was St. Peter,
indicating Peace and Concord. He was accompanied by Raymond, bishop
of Orvieto, the pope’s vicar in Rome for ecclesiastical matters. Cola
spoke of the misery and servitude of the people of Rome, and as “he for
the love of the pope and the salvation of the people exposed his person
to every danger,” he then published his decrees for the prevention of
murder, for the right distribution of justice, the organisation of the
soldiery of the corporation and for the assistance of widows, orphans,
and monasteries--the barons were to maintain the security of the
thoroughfares and not to favour any malefactor. Stefano Colonna returned
to Rome in indignation, but as he heard the sound of uproar and saw the
people bearing arms, he fled to Palestrina and shut himself up in his
family castle. The Orsini, Colonnas, and other barons who caused the
desolation of the city by their incessant strifes were expelled. Those
who had fled in terror at the sudden revolution responded to Cola’s
invitation and gradually returned, took the oath, and offered their
assistance to the city.

Cola di Rienzi hastened to restore peace by punishing the evil-doers,
and reinstating justice and security. He then took the title of tribune,
as head of the people. The pontifical vicar had been appointed his
colleague; but this was only nominal, for the true and sole head of Rome
was Cola.

The distance of the pope from Rome gave the tribune freedom to establish
his authority. Neither he nor the Roman people would have thought of the
tribunate if the pope had been there; but his absence, and the faint hope
of his return after his recent refusal, made a profound impression upon
the Romans.

Now the idea of the empire and the republic dazzled the eyes of the new
tribune. He wrote letters to the pope at Avignon, and to the cities of
Tuscany, Lombardy, and Romagna, to Lucchino Visconti, lord of Milan, to
the marquis of Ferrara, and to Ludwig the Bavarian at Naples.

He who called himself “_Nicolaus severus et clemens, sancte romane
reipublice liberator illustris_,” reported himself to the territories of
Italy as having assumed the title of tribune to repair the evils which
oppressed Rome, and requested that on the 1st of August all should send
two orators to treat on the welfare of the whole of Italy (_della salute
di tutta Italia_). The fame of the ardent dreamer who sought to reinstate
the Roman Empire, with Rome at the head and the Italian territories
dependent upon it, and united almost in confederation, ran throughout
Italy. The courier sent to Avignon said that thousands of people pressed
upon Rienzi as he passed by to kiss the wand he bore. The pope gave a
favourable reply.

The tribune, moreover, wishing to revive the pomp of old imperialism,
made a triumphal course through the city, and visiting the church of St.
Peter he was received by the clergy singing: “_Veni Creator Spiritus_.”
He ordered the barons to concede to the restoration of the palace of
the Campidoglio, the seat of the tribunate, and instituted the trained
bands of cavalry and foot-soldiers according to the wards of the city,
so that thirteen hundred infantry and three hundred and sixty cavalry
were enrolled. All the barons had obeyed, with the exception of Giovanni
da Vico, who by direct inheritance maintained the title of prefect of
the city, in which dignity he had succeeded his father. He was descended
from a family of German origin and of the imperial party which several
times gave Rome reason for war. He had been vicar in Viterbo during the
pontificate, and during its absence he had been tyrant; and he was not
inclined to submit now to the tribune. But Cola, with the aid of Tuscany,
the Campania, and the maritime provinces, forced him to obey the people
of Rome. Cola then reinvested him with the prefecture and left him
Viterbo; Cività Vecchia, Anagni, and the other territories submitted.

August approached, and the ambassadors arrived from Florence, Siena,
Teramo, Spoleto, Rieti, Amelia, Tivoli, Velletri, Foligno, Assisi;
the Venetians showed themselves favourable. The majority of the
tyrants of Lombardy made light of embassies (like Taddeo, Pepoli
of Bologna, Francesco Ordelaffi of Forlì, and Malatesta of Rimini)
although many almost repented later of having treated the invitation so
disrespectfully. It seems that Ludwig the Bavarian himself sent secret
envoys to Rome because the tribune wished to conciliate him with the
church. Also Louis of Hungary, who, by the murder of Andrea was Robert’s
successor to the kingdom of Naples, aspired to that kingdom, and,
accusing Joanna of complicity in the death of her husband, sent orators
to demand justice; and he wrote letters to the tribune, as also did
Joanna. Letters, moreover, arrived from Philip of France; but they came
too late--when Cola had fallen.

Cola, wishing to unite the glamour of pomp with the honour of the tribune
of Rome, was dressed as a _cavaliere_. In the presence of the orators
of the various Italian cities and amid a great concourse of people he
proceeded in triumph towards the Lateran. Cavaliere Vico Scotto presented
him with the sword and order of a cavaliere, and he had the vanity to
bathe in Constantine’s bath, in which it was said that Constantine
washed after being cured of leprosy by St. Silvester. Much was said by
the people at this seeming act of profanation, and Cola was unconscious
of the grave error that he made. His vanity began to be his ruin. Made
a cavaliere, he addressed a speech to the people on the dignities lost
by the citizens of Rome, he spoke of the empire and the popedom, and
finally summoned before his presence the imperial electors and Ludwig the
Bavarian and Charles IV of Bohemia who were pretendants to the empire
under the ancient law of the election of the future emperor by the Roman
people.[d]

Turning for the moment from the calm narrative of the historian, let
us listen to the eloquent account in which Lord Lytton describes this
remarkable scene.

LORD LYTTON ON THE SPEECH OF RIENZI

The bell of the great Lateran church sounded shrill and loud, as the
mighty multitude, greater even than that of the preceding night, swept
on. The appointed officers made way with difficulty for the barons and
ambassadors, and scarcely were those noble visitors admitted ere the
crowd closed in their ranks, poured headlong into the church, and took
the way to the chapel of Boniface VIII. There, filling every cranny, and
blocking up the entrance, the more fortunate of the press beheld the
tribune surrounded by the splendid court his genius had collected, and
his fortune had subdued. At length, as the solemn and holy music began
to swell through the edifice, preluding the celebration of the mass,
the tribune stepped forth, and the hush of the music was increased by
the universal and dead silence of the audience. His height, his air,
his countenance, were such as always commanded the attention of crowds;
and at this time they received every adjunct from the interest of the
occasion, and that peculiar look of intent yet suppressed fervour, which
is, perhaps, the sole gift of the eloquent that nature alone can give.

“Be it known,” said he, slowly and deliberately, “in virtue of that
authority, power, and jurisdiction, which the Roman people, in general
parliament, have assigned to us, and which the sovereign pontiff hath
confirmed, that we, not ungrateful of the gift and grace of the Holy
Spirit--whose soldier we now are--nor of the favour of the Roman people,
declare that Rome, capital of the world, and base of the Christian
church, and that every city, state, and people of Italy, are henceforth
free. By that freedom, and in the same consecrated authority, we proclaim
that the election, jurisdiction, and monarchy of the Roman Empire
appertain to Rome and Rome’s people, and the whole of Italy. We cite,
then, and summon personally, the illustrious princes, Ludwig duke of
Bavaria, and Charles king of Bohemia, who would style themselves emperors
of Italy, to appear before us, or the other magistrates of Rome, to plead
and to prove their claim between this day and the Day of Pentecost. We
cite also, and within the same term, the duke of Saxony, the prince of
Brandenburg, and whosoever else, potentate, prince, or prelate, asserts
the right of elector to the imperial throne--a right that, we find it
chronicled from ancient and immemorial time, appertaineth only to the
Roman people--and this in vindication of our civil liberties, without
derogation of the spiritual power of the church, the pontiff, and the
sacred college.[15] Herald, proclaim the citation, at the greater and
more formal length, as written and entrusted to your hands, without the
Lateran.”

As Rienzi concluded this bold proclamation of the liberties of Italy, the
Tuscan ambassadors, and those of some other of the free states, murmured
low approbation. The ambassadors of those states that affected the party
of the emperor looked at each other in silent amaze and consternation.
The Roman barons remained with mute lips and downcast eyes; only over
the aged face of Stefano Colonna settled a smile, half of scorn, half
of exultation. But the great mass of the citizens were caught by words
that opened so grand a prospect as the emancipation of all Italy; and
the reverence of the tribune’s power and fortune was almost that due to
a supernatural being; so that they did not pause to calculate the means
which were to correspond with the boast.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF NERVA]

While his eye roved over the crowd, the gorgeous assemblage near him,
the devoted throng beyond; as on his ear boomed the murmur of thousands
and ten thousands, in the space without, from before the palace of
Constantine (palace now his own!) sworn to devote life and fortune to
his cause; in the flush of prosperity that yet had known no check; in
the zenith of power, as yet unconscious of reverse, the heart of the
tribune swelled proudly; visions of mighty fame and limitless dominion;
fame and dominion once his beloved Rome’s, and by him to be restored,
rushed before his intoxicated gaze; and in the delirious and passionate
aspirations of the moment, he turned his sword alternately to the three
quarters of the then known globe, and said, in an abstracted voice, as a
man in a dream, “In the right of the Roman people this too is mine!”

Low though the voice, the wild boast was heard by all around as
distinctly as if borne to them in thunder. And vain it were to describe
the various sensations it excited; the extravagance would have moved the
derision of his foes, the grief of his friends, but for the manner of
the speaker, which, solemn and commanding, hushed for the moment even
reason and hatred themselves in awe; afterwards remembered and repeated,
void of the spell they had borrowed from the utterer, the words met the
cold condemnation of the well-judging; but at that moment all things
seemed possible to the hero of the people. He spoke as one inspired--they
trembled and believed; and, as rapt from the spectacle, he stood a moment
silent, his arms still extended, his dark dilating eye fixed upon space,
his lips parted, his proud head towering and erect above the herd, his
own enthusiasm kindled that of the more humble and distant spectators;
and there was a deep murmur begun by one, echoed by the rest, “The Lord
is with Italy and Rienzi!”

The tribune turned, he saw the pope’s vicar astonished, bewildered,
rising to speak. His sense and foresight returned to him at once, and,
resolved to drown the dangerous disavowal of the papal authority for this
hardihood, which was ready to burst from Raymond’s lips, he motioned
quickly to the musicians, and the solemn and ringing chant of the sacred
ceremony prevented the bishop of Orvieto all occasion of self-exoneration
or reply.

The moment the ceremony was over, Rienzi touched the bishop, and
whispered, “We will explain this to your liking. You feast with us at the
Lateran. Your arm.” Nor did he leave the good bishop’s arm, nor trust him
to other companionship, until to the stormy sound of horn and trumpet,
drum and cymbal, and amidst such a concourse as might have hailed, on
the same spot, the legendary baptism of Constantine, the tribune and his
nobles entered the great gates of the Lateran, then the palace of the
world.

Thus ended that remarkable ceremony and that proud challenge of the
northern powers, in behalf of the Italian liberties, which, had it been
afterwards successful, would have been deemed a sublime daring; which,
unsuccessful, has been construed by the vulgar into a frantic insolence;
but which, calmly considering all the circumstances that urged on the
tribune, and all the power that surrounded him, was not, perhaps,
altogether so imprudent as it seemed. And, even accepting that imprudence
in the extremest sense, by the more penetrating judge of the higher order
of character, it will probably be considered as the magnificent folly of
a bold nature, excited at once by position and prosperity, by religious
credulities, by patriotic aspirings, by scholastic visions too suddenly
transferred from reverie to action, beyond that wise and earthward policy
which sharpens the weapon ere it casts the gauntlet.[e]

RIENZI’S OPPONENTS; HIS FRIENDS; HIS PROCLAMATIONS

Germany was at this time divided, and Ludwig the Bavarian, who in the
first years of his reign had found a rival in Frederick of Austria,
and now another who was much more formidable in Charles, son of John
of Bohemia, grandson of Henry VII, was no longer reconciled with the
pope. In 1337 he approached the king of France, but here his friendship
with Edward of England stopped the way of unanimity. His protests of
submission provoked the declaration of the German electors on the
independence of the empire of the pontificate (1338). The negotiation was
continued in 1346. Ludwig wavered, and Clement VI again excommunicated
him, enjoining the electors to fill the vacancy by the election of the
king of the Romans.

Charles meanwhile, a candidate of the kingdom, came to Avignon to
renew the promises of Henry VII. He was elected the same year. Ludwig,
now weary of such a long strife, felt the need more than ever of
reconciliation and peace.

Now the tribune with no other power than that of the name of Rome
summoned before his tribunal the two rivals already adjudged by the pope
without regard to the orders given by the pope, nor of those of the
electors. “But the Roman Empire remains in Rome,” said Rienzi. “There
is no name on earth more august than that of the Roman Republic; all
the world recognises its supremacy. Rome is also the foundation of the
church. Can the Roman Empire be found elsewhere than at Rome? Do we not
find its laws among the Parthians, Persians, and Medes, and is it in Rome
that we are not to find the Roman Empire? And if not at Rome, where is it
to be?”

These were the ideas of Francesco Petrarch, who had become the firm and
enthusiastic friend of the tribune, having first been thrown with him at
Avignon. Thus when the daring attempt began to fail, the poet laureate
was untiring in exhorting the tribune to insure the welfare of Rome and
Italy. He was astounded at hearing many who were accredited with wisdom
doubt the importance of the cause that Rome and Italy should be in
concord.

The gentle spirit of Petrarch, intolerant at the pope’s residing at
Avignon, and regretting his sojourn in Gaul, and complaining of the
western Babylonia, now forgot his Colonna friends and incited Cola
against the barons. Cæsar Augustus at one time had prohibited the
Romans using the title of _domini_, and now everything is changed. “_O
miserabilem fortune vertiginem._” But in the meanwhile a great cause of
discord had arisen. Raymond, alarmed at the tribune’s speeches, made a
formal protest, but the voice of the notary who recorded it was drowned
by musical instruments.

Cola withdrew all the privileges and the concessions given solely to
the Roman people, and declared the Italian cities free; and on the 3rd
of August in a festival which can be called that of the Italian cities
he presented symbolical standards to the orators of some of the towns.
Those of Perugia, Siena, and Todi received the standards; but those of
Florence, to whom he wished to present a standard with Rome represented
as an aged woman seated before two young ones, were not there to receive
it, because they thought it would compromise the independence of their
city, as they opined that one of the young women represented Florence.

Henceforward the Florentines, practised in the affairs of the world, knew
that Cola’s enterprise “was a fantastic work of short durance.” Cola
figured as a messenger of God, and took the title of “candidate of the
Holy Spirit,” and had his titles engraved on a marble tablet on the door
of Santa Maria in Ara Cœli. He afterwards wrote to the pope acquainting
him with the deeds done, and wrote to the Italian cities repeating and
delineating his programme with greater exactitude. He was to re-establish
the laws of Rome; he declared that the monarchy of the world should
belong to Rome and all Italy. He summoned the ruling authorities in
Italy, the electors, and the German chancellors to appear in Rome before
him, and the other officials of the pope and the Roman people to justify
his laws (the 5th-6th of August). He wished to elect a new emperor at
Rome, and whilst (August) the matter was being debated in Rome before him
between Joanna of Naples and Louis of Hungary, his orators went to the
different cities (November, December) asking them to send ambassadors to
Rome for the coming festival of St. John, to treat on the election of
the new emperor, maintaining that in antiquity his election was always
looked for at the hands of the Romans and Italians, and to find means of
preventing the Germans ever descending that side of the Alps.

Subsequently when Cola himself was forced to take refuge with Charles
IV in Bohemia, he was astonished at the audacity with which, trusting
in the “majesty of the name of Rome,” he had cast down the gauntlet of
defiance before the German emperor.

On the 15th of August he had himself crowned in the Lateran with several
symbolical crowns, of oak, ivy, myrtle, laurel, olive, and silver. The
comptroller placed a golden apple in his hand. Then he forbade the use of
the names of Guelf and Ghibelline; he promulgated the Roman freedom of
the city of all Italians, and believing himself a hero of antique type,
he wrote of his coronation to the pope and to Charles IV. He gave feasts
and dressed in sumptuous attire.

He also ignored the signification of Guelf and Ghibelline, the laws of
the pope and the emperor, but all, according to Petrarch, was done in the
name of Rome, amid whose present miseries vivified by history and ancient
literature there arose before his eyes, drunk with enthusiasm, the
temples and courts of august Rome. The nobility, not being impressed with
his dreams, worked against him, and he was now in fear of treachery. He
invited Stefano Colonna, the elder, and other of the chief barons of the
Colonnas, the Orsini, and the Savelli, to a banquet and then kept them
prisoners. He wished to have them all killed, and had the room adorned
with white and red decorations as a sign of blood. Their approaching
death was announced to them, but then his courage failed him for the
execution of the sentence. Granting the prayers of several citizens he
pardoned them, believed in the sincerity of their promises, liberated
them, and covered them with honours. In all practical matters Rienzi’s
weakness and lack of judgment were clearly shown.

But naturally discontent arose among the Roman people, and a fire
and flame were kindled which could not be extinguished (the 15th of
September). The liberated barons rushed to their castles, fortified
Marino, and openly prepared for war, skirmishing even as far as the gates
of Rome. Cola was thus forced to besiege Marino. In the meanwhile the
causes of division with the pope increased. Clement VI was filled with
suspicion against Cola, seeing that he arbitrarily ruled the territories
of Sabina, which were under the pontifical sway. He sent to Rome the
cardinal Bertrando di Deux (the pontifical legate in Italy until 1346),
who subsequently co-operated in the ruin of the tribune. He came to Rome
in October and Cola arrogantly appeared before him clad in the imperial
dalmatic, to the sound of trumpets, the sceptre in his hand and crown
upon his head, terrible and fantastic to look at.

DISASTER SUCCEEDS VICTORY

Clement had written to this legate saying that Cola had exceeded the
limits of his authority, breaking the pontifical and imperial decrees
and favouring Louis of Hungary against Joanna of Naples whom the pope
held to be innocent of the accusation of complicity in the murder of
her husband Andrea. He gave orders for Cola to revoke the very fatuous
laws he had made and ordered him to be contented with the government of
Rome. But Cola was unwilling to receive such admonitions, which prevented
the fulfilment of his designs. The Colonnas in the meanwhile arrived
from Palestrina, and favoured by the discontent commencing in Rome they
entered upon the perilous venture of storming Rome at the gate of San
Lorenzo. Among the chief barons were Stefano Colonna, the younger, and
Giovanni his son, who died fighting. Cola felt certain of the prefect Da
Vico,--who, however, secretly favoured the Colonnas, the Orsini, and the
Savelli,--and had tried to imbue the others with his enthusiasm, saying
that St. Boniface, _i.e._, Boniface VIII, had appeared to him and assured
him of victory over the Colonnas. They in fact were conquered (the 20th
of November). Many of the most illustrious barons died in that fierce
battle, which was the grave of the old Roman nobility. The tribune,
being no warrior, could not boast of a real victory, but he nevertheless
celebrated his triumph, and like the ancients, he had arms hung up in the
temples, and he laid his steel sceptre and his crown of olive leaves at
the feet of the Virgin in Santa Maria in Ara Cœli, boasting before the
people of having done with his sword what neither pope nor emperor had
been able to do.

The next day he made his son Lorenzo a cavalier (knight) at the scene
of victory, sprinkling him with water from the ditch in which Stefano
Colonna had fallen, and bathing him with blood and water, he said to him:
“Thou shalt be a cavalier of victory”; and thus in vain and barbarous
ceremonies he lost precious time in which he could easily have surprised
Marino. The people murmured at seeing Rienzi sprinkle his son with the
blood of the Colonnas, for he seemed like an Asiatic tyrant, who forgot
the execution of justice in his love of eating and drinking.

[Illustration: MOUNT AVENTINE, ROME]

Cola began to be suspicious of the populace, and fearing their fury
he was in no hurry to assemble them for parliament. He had to cease
governing Sabina, although in the name of the church he continued to
issue laws and tracts. He approached the legate, but he did not recover
the good will of the people, who now regarded him as a tyrant (December,
1347).

Together with a pontifical vicar, he assembled the parliament of the
people, proposing a tax on salt, but in this the citizens did not
concur, and soon afterwards a council was formed of twenty-nine sages.
But scarcely were they assembled than he accused two of the members of
treachery; a tumult arose, and Cola, alarmed, and to reassemble the sole
public council and to excuse himself of any excess, said that he wished
to hold the court in the name of the pope and according to the orders
that the cardinal brought him in his name. But he postponed publishing
them (the 10th of December), and thus from hesitancy to hesitancy, from
vanity to vanity, he worked his own ruin.

The people were no longer with him, he was no longer the tribune of a
few months previous--full of confidence and enthusiasm. He did not know
how to keep the vicar on his side; and he withdrew to the legate at
Montefiascone, who was commencing operations against the tribune, as he
sided with the Colonnas and Savelli.

Letters arrived from the pope, accusing Cola of having summoned to his
court the Bavarian and the Bohemian, and for having incited the Italian
cities to assemble to elect the emperor, which he had asserted to be a
matter independent of the church and the city of Rome; in fact he had
incited the people to abandon him. Although Cola then abandoned (at least
in appearance) all his pretensions, it was too late.

Petrarch had left Valchiusa to come to Rome to visit the tribune and
the city, no longer in the hands of the barons, no longer decimated by
massacres, but ruled by a vigorous hand of ancient Roman descent. When he
arrived at Genoa, he heard on the way bad reports of Cola’s government.
He then wrote to him to reprove his decadence, and quoting Cicero and
Terence, he strove to inspire him with Roman steadfastness. “The foot
must be well planted,” he said to him, “so as to be firm and not to
present a ridiculous spectacle to the enemies.”

But these oratorical exhortations were fruitless--resistance had become
impossible; the legate, the people, were all against him; and those who
a few months before had hailed him as the restorer of the Roman Republic
now grumbled at him as the “iniquitous one who wished to tyrannise by
force.”

John Pipino of Altarmara who was put in prison by Robert had been set
free by Andrew in 1343. When Andrew was killed he left the kingdom and
went to Hungary, where he incited King Louis to go down to Italy to
vindicate the death of his brother, whilst he went to Rome to await
him. The tribune had banished him from Rome for the robberies he had
committed near Terracina, but favoured by the enemies of Cola, he was
able to fortify himself in the district of the Holy Apostles, under the
protection of the Colonnas.

Cola liberated the prefect Da Vico; but he was mistaken in thinking to
acquire a powerful friend, for he had already voted against the tribune;
his orders were not followed. The tribune was now quite cast down and
disheartened at seeing that the country which had glowed with the ardour
of a whole populace was now destitute of one in his favour; and he fell
to weeping and sighing.

The people meanwhile came to the Campidoglio, but full of a bad spirit
and actuated by his enemies. Cola appeared before them and told them how
much he had done in his tribunate; he justified his conduct, and said
that if his fellow-citizens were not satisfied with him it was the fault
of their jealousy, and that he would renounce power in the seventh month
from that in which he had assumed it. But the eloquent language which had
once affected Clement VI, and intoxicated the people with enthusiasm, was
now received coldly, and not a voice rose in his defence.

Weeping, Cola came out on horseback, and to the sound of trumpets and
with imperial accompaniments he passed through the city almost in triumph
and shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. When the tribune
descended from his grandeur, he bewailed the others who were associated
with him and he lamented over the unhappy people. The barons did not
dare to set foot in Rome for three days, and they finally returned, with
the legate, who disapproved of most of the deeds of the tribune, and
condemned him as a heretic. The count Pipino was executed eight days
afterwards in the Abruzzi, and a mitre was put upon his head with the
inscription that he was mockingly called the “liberator of the people of
Rome.”

Cola on the arrival of the king of Hungary fled to the Naples district
from the dangers which menaced him.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR AT ROME]

ANARCHY AND JUBILEE IN ROME

[Sidenote: [1347-1350 A.D.]]

Rome now returned to her old state of anarchy. The senators Bertoldo
Orsini and Luca Savelli failed in maintaining a more orderly government
than the senators preceding them. Stefano Colonna, the elder, died about
this time (1348-1350); Werner von Urslingen, the fierce captain of the
Great Company, had returned about a year before to this side of the
Alps after having laid Romagna waste, and in November, 1347, he, with
fifteen hundred armed soldiers, followed Louis of Hungary in Italy to the
conquest of Naples. The confusion with which he filled the kingdom led to
the victory of the Hungarians; then Urslingen was licensed, and it being
easy to find them he gathered mercenaries under him, and marching towards
Rome took and destroyed Anagni; but he did not get any further.

The Black Plague [described in our previous chapter], brought from the
Levant in a Genoese galley in 1347, broke out in that year in some places
of Tuscany, Romagna, and Provence. It ceased at the advent of winter, and
broke out again with devastating force at the approach of spring, and
ran riot over the whole of Italy, in 1348, excepting Milan and Piedmont.
John Villani fell a victim to this terrible disease. Three-fifths of
the population died in Florence, and two-thirds in Bologna. In Rome, on
the contrary, it seems to have been less prevalent; at least we have
no authentic records of the evil attending this city, now squalid and
desolate. At the end of the following year the arrival of the pilgrims
for the jubilee at Rome commenced. Germans and Hungarians came in great
numbers. The arrival of the pilgrims was attended with no disorder. They
were at first attacked by beggars when they reached the district of
Rome, and some were killed; but subsequently the Romans had the roads
protected. Countless were the Christians that went by thousands to the
Holy City. The roads leading to the churches of St. Peter, St. John the
Lateran, and St. Paul, and the highways outside the walls, were all
crowded with people. Louis of Hungary came to Rome after having returned
to his kingdom. Petrarch also came, but he neither found his old friends
the Colonnas there, nor his new friend Cola, and he was grieved to see
the Lateran half in ruins, the Vatican in disorder, and the church of the
Apostles in ruins.

What feelings must have filled the heart of the poet on revisiting the
Campidoglio and the district of the Apostles and the Colonna palace--in
all Rome there was nothing to remind him of the happy days of his
coronation! “Ah! it is not only we who are getting old that change, for
the things about us deteriorate,” he said some years later.

[Sidenote: [1350-1351 A.D.]]

Aribaldo, a Tuscan bishop, was legate in Rome during the jubilee; he died
on the 17th of August, 1350. The pope some time previously had deputed
him to continue the proceedings commenced by Cardinal Bertrand against
Cola.

The jubilee over, Rome relapsed into anarchy soon after it had elected
the thirteen good men; and Clement VI, whilst showing himself favourable
to the new administration, nominated four cardinals to examine into
matters, and he confided to them the main part of the government of Rome.
To them Petrarch addressed a letter full of the ideas he had expressed
in his epistle to Cola, and, incensed against the malevolent Roman
barons, he spoke of the _plebe Romana_ who in old times elected their
magistrates; and without touching on the tribunate he added that the two
senators of his time, the only advance on the conscript (_conscritti_)
fathers, represented the two consuls of ancient times.

He did not descend to especial admonitions upon the mode of governing,
but only maintained the necessity of restoring ancient liberty and
freeing the house of the apostles from the tyrants who had laid it waste.

RIENZI IN EXILE; HIS RENEWED OPPORTUNITY; HIS DEATH

Cardinal Aribaldo had always been in fear of Cola; he suspected that
the pope would change and desire the tribune’s return, and having been
wounded on the road he had no hesitation in attributing the deed to
the fugitive, who was leading a wandering life full of dangers. Cola
travelled in the Abruzzi, and there met with the friars who retained
faith in the poverty of Christ; and here Brother Angelo prophesied a
great future for him.

[Illustration: PORTA TIBURTINA, ROME]

In the meanwhile Ludwig the Bavarian died (the 11th of October, 1347)
and there remained only Charles IV from whom Cola began to expect the
fulfilment of his aspirations.[d] Petrarch had written a long letter to
the emperor in 1350 inviting him to interest himself in Italy. “Let not
solicitude for transalpine affairs, nor the love of your native soil
detain you; but whenever you look upon Germany think of Italy. There
you were born, here you were nurtured; there you enjoy a kingdom, here
both a kingdom and an empire; and as I believe I may, with the consent
of all nations and peoples, safely add, while the members of the empire
are everywhere, here you will find the head itself.” Shortly after he
had received this strange communication from Petrarch, the emperor was
confronted with Rienzi himself at Prague. He listened to his proposals
and then calmly handed him over to the pope at Avignon. Petrarch writing
to Nelli about him in 1352 says: “Cola di Rienzi has recently come, or
rather been brought a prisoner to the papal curia. He who was once the
tribune of the city of Rome, inspiring terror far and wide, is now the
most miserable of men.” Had it not been for Petrarch’s influence with the
pope and the complexion of politics at the moment, Rienzi no doubt would
have been killed. As it was, he was kept in prison while Clement lived.[a]

[Sidenote: [1351-1353 A.D.]]

In the meanwhile the people in Rome had given full authority to Giovanni
Cerrone (1351), to whom the pope had shown himself favourable, and had
appointed him senator and captain. But he fell very soon. The prefect
Giovanni da Vico, also under the ban of excommunication, did not wish
to submit to him and had re-occupied Viterbo, Toscanella, and other
territories of the patrimony, and then Corneto and Orvieto. Cerrone
could not subdue him, and with the same want of success he so alienated
everybody from him that he had to quit the city, which relapsed into the
usual anarchy. On the 6th of December, 1352, Clement VI died, leaving
the pontifical seat settled in Avignon, as he had obtained the city from
Queen Joanna of Naples for 8,000 florins.

His successor, Etienne d’Albert or Aubert, a Frenchman like his
predecessors, took the name of Innocent VI. He was a just, austere, and
severe man, a man of science and practical views. He began to reform the
curia of Avignon, and sought to find a remedy for the present prostration
of the pontificate by reconstructing the ecclesiastical state and
dividing it among petty and great vicars, tyrants, and lords.

The condition of the lands of the church has been often touched upon, but
it must now be examined more closely. The family of the prefect Da Vico
ruled over Viterbo, Orvieto, Toscanella, Corneto, Cività Vecchia, Terni,
Vertralla, etc. The lordships of the Malatesta of Rimini extended over
Fano, Pesaro, Sinigaglia, Ascoli, Osima, Ancora, etc.; the Montefeltri
ruled in Urbino and Cagli, the Varani in Camerino, the Da Montemilone in
Tolentino, the Gabrieli in Gubbio, the Trinci in Foligno, the Da Mogliani
in Fermo, the Alidosi in Imola, and the Manfredi in Faenza. The dominion
of the Ordelaffi embraced Forlì, Forlimpopoli, Cesena, etc.; that of the
Da Polentas, Ravenna, Cervia, etc. We omit the minor lordships.

Now Bologna was under the Visconti. Although the Da Varani, Di Camerini,
the Alidosi of Imola, and the Estes from time to time renewed their
declarations of fidelity and dependence, receiving under the title
of vicars the lands they possessed, the tenure was of an uncertain
character. Naturally such lordships were not always of the same extent,
but they were increased and reduced according to the various political
conditions and causes of war.

The man appointed by Innocent VI to undertake the difficult task of
raising a state on such insecure and insufficient soil was a Spaniard.
Don Gil Albornoz was born at Cuenca of illustrious family. Alfonso XI
of Aragon procured him the archbishopric of Toledo; he fought the Moors
who had invaded Andalusia and directed the siege of Algeciras; but when
Peter the Cruel succeeded to the throne he fled from Spain to Avignon,
where Clement VI promoted him to be cardinal (1350). This man, cultured,
zealous, and with the habits of a knight and of a resolute character, was
the friend and adviser of Innocent VI, who finding in him the man fitted
to punish the tyrants, sent him as legate to Italy. He wished him to be
accompanied by Cola di Rienzi, whom in accordance with the wish of the
Romans he liberated from prison, being persuaded, as the pope said when
announcing the liberation to the people of Rome, that if he had done
evil, he had also done good (September, 1353). Thus Innocent VI combined
the strongest and most courageous cardinal of the century with the man
of fancies, the skilled politician, the only person who could excite the
feeling of the Romans, and to these two men he entrusted the restoration
of pontifical authority in Italy.

So Cola di Rienzi, who was the Roman of authority in 1347, being now
persuaded of the real state of affairs, had to lower himself to take
part in the party struggle; and as he had made himself a Ghibelline
at the court of Charles IV at Prague so far as to boast of being the
bastard of Henry VII, so he now adhered to the idea of Guelf in the
prison of Avignon. The prison of Avignon had not been too hard for him,
for although he had been shut up in a tower he had been given a certain
amount of liberty, and he had been able to follow his wish of studying
the Bible, and the famous histories of Titus Livius, and several other
books.

[Sidenote: [1353-1354 A.D.]]

In Rome, at the beginning of 1353, Bertoldo Orsini and Stefano Colonna
were senators, and amid the turbulent vortex of factions they had
succeeded in occupying the lordship after the flight of Cerrone. The two
senators were not loved, and before long they were hated by the people,
who, harassed with want of provisions, rose up in fury on the 15th of
February, 1353. Colonna fled to his palace, but Orsini put on his armour
and descended the stairway to mount his horse in view of the people. Then
braving the populace he advanced until his strength failed him and he was
buried under a storm of stones.

The people then took a second tribune, Francesco Baroncelli, a friend of
Cola’s, who governed according to his powers, but not with vigour. He was
not recognised by the pope, who had different views on the government
of the city. The Baroncelli were descended from a civil family, and he
was the orator sent to Florence by Cola to announce his elevation to the
tribune at the beginning of his reign.

Albornoz and Cola then left Avignon together to put down the tyrants and
reorganise Rome. The cardinal Egidio (Gil), as he was called, was in
Lombardy in the summer of 1353. Hordes of Tuscans increased the numbers
of Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans in his following. He went down to
Montefiascone which he made the centre of his doings in Romagna. Cola
being in the service of the cardinal in the war was against the prefect
Da Vico, who retook Viterbo, and other places in the patrimony, and being
reinforced he had turned the anarchy of Rome to his own advantage. The
resistance was obstinate and it only terminated after a long struggle
on the 5th of June, when the prefect surrendered. Whilst Viterbo was
fighting, and the tyrants Bernardo Polenta, lord of Ravenna and Cervia,
Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini, Francesco Ordelaffi of Forlì were being
expelled from Romagna, the Roman people looked once more for salvation
from Cola, forgetting his bad government and the little peace he had
procured them.

The feeling for Cola revived from the time he was incarcerated in the
Avignon prison; and now that he was near Rome with the legate, it
increased still more, although it was not the spontaneous, universal
acclamation of 1347. Suspected by the Baroncelli of having communication
with the prefect, the public aversion towards him increased, until at the
end of 1353 rebellion broke out and the poor tribune was expelled and
nearly killed.

The Romans devoted themselves to the legate and assisted him in the siege
of Viterbo. The war and the negotiations proceeded prosperously for the
church. Roman Tuscany, Umbria, and Sabina gradually gave in, and the way
was being cleared for Cola to return to the government of Rome. But he
had not the necessary money to provide an army of mercenaries, with which
to maintain his dominion. The money he had in Perugia was from the two
young brothers Moriale (Monreal). Fra Moriale was a gentleman of Provence
by birth. The terrible freebooter from 1345 took part in the majority
of the Italian wars, fought with Louis of Hungary in the Neapolitan
enterprise, and in the neighbourhood of Rome both for and against the
prefect Da Vico. Subsequently tired of serving, he formed (1352) a
company of his own of fifteen hundred helmeted men and two thousand
foot-soldiers, and marched against Malatesta da Rimini, against whom he
had fought in the wars of Naples. The successful enterprises increased
the company, into which he introduced regulations like those of a
regular standing army independent of every state. Pisa, Siena, Arezzo,
Florence, and other cities of Tuscany and Romagna had dearly paid the
price of immunity from his terrible devastations.

In the July of 1354 he sent his company under the rightful vicar, Count
Lando, to fight for the league against the Visconti. Being a citizen of
Perugia, he there amassed the treasures extorted by terror or gained by
sacking the populations of all Italy. His brothers Arimbaldo, doctor of
law, and Brettone, cavaliere di Narbona, lived there; and they with their
brother’s permission gave Cola 4,000 florins to collect some followers
and to make other necessary provisions.

Fra Moriale, wiser than the brothers, did not believe in the success of
the enterprise. “My reason contradicts it,” said he; but he let the money
be given whilst preparing “magnificent things” with his mercenaries.

Cola was made senator of Rome by the legate, and having enlisted sixty
companies, with a few Perugian and Tuscan soldiery, he, on the 1st of
August, 1354, made a solemn entry into Rome by the Castello gate, under
triumphal arches and decorations of gold and silver. The people, joyous
and shouting, accompanied him to the Campidoglio, where Cola made an
eloquent speech, calling himself senator of Rome in the name of the
pope. He formed his government; he made the two brothers of Fra Moriale
captains of the militia; he announced his promotion to Florence, and
he received the embassies from the neighbouring places. Cola was not
the person he was of old to the Roman people, who were shocked at his
intemperate way of living. He had become stout, and he consumed his time
in eating and drinking. His former courage in restraining the barons had
not been forgotten, and he received obedience from them.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN KNIGHT, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

Stefano Colonna, who had been senator in 1351, shut himself up in
Palestrina, the Orsini shut themselves up in Marino, and from these
fortified spots they laid waste the territory near Rome. Cola proceeded
against Palestrina, as he was in need of the money with which to pay the
German mercenaries, but he wished to find means of oppressing Stefano,
the “poisonous serpent, the broken reed.” And he tried once more to bring
ruin on the house of Colonna, “the cursed house whose pride had brought
the city of Rome to poverty, whilst other places lived in wealth.”

So spoke Cola, and with a thousand Roman cavalry and soldiery, with the
people of Tivoli and Velletri, and reinforcements from the neighbouring
places, he laid siege to the famous Rock of the Colonnas. But the siege
had not long commenced and the raising of the earthworks was not finished
before disputes arose between the Velletrani and Tiburtini; but worse
than that was the arrival of Fra Moriale--for now that his brothers were
with Cola, he was able to come to Rome, from whence he had been formerly
banished. He came to defend the rights of his brothers, who could not get
the new senator to repay the money lent to him--perhaps, moreover, he was
moved by the terrible idea of taking possession of Rome, and sacking it
for his mercenaries, and then making it the centre for great power. His
fierce soldiers were already saying that “some fine city would be their
spoil.” What spoil could be better than Rome!

It seems that the Colonnas, reduced to a desperate condition, treated
with Moriale for the fall of the tribune. The latter, suspecting that
Moriale was planning his death, returned suddenly to town, and left the
siege of Palestrina without arranging for his return to it. In Rome he
sent for Moriale, and he appeared before Cola, who took him and had him
imprisoned in the Campidoglio, together with his brothers. At first Fra
Moriale thought he could purchase his liberty. Being brought forward
tied, and examined, he confessed he was the head of the Great Company.
Then when sent back to prison, he knew there was no hope for him. In the
morning, accompanied by his brothers, he was brought out of prison, and
beheaded on the 29th of August, 1354.

The Romans of those days, only judging from the number and the greatness
of his enterprises relative to the theatre in which they were enacted,
compared him to Cæsar; but Innocent VI, with more reason, likened him
to Holofernes and Attila. The destruction of the great terror of Italy
was considered a great credit to Cola, as he would have caused as much
harm in the future as he had in the past; but it must be remembered that
Cola was most anxious to take possession of the riches of the brigand.
“It seems,” says Matteo Villani,[f] “that he stained his fame with
ingratitude and avarice”; and Fra Moriale himself, at the moment of his
death, turned to the people and said, “I die for your poverty and my
wealth.”

Muratori[k] gives the following unpleasant word-portrait of Rienzi at
this period: “Formerly he was sober, temperate, abstemious; he had now
become an inordinate drunkard; he was always eating confectionery and
drinking. It was a terrible thing to be forced to see him. They said
that in person he was of old quite meagre; he had become enormously fat;
he had a belly like a tun; jovial like an Asiatic abbot. He was full of
shining flesh (carbuncles?) like a peacock-red, and with a long beard;
his face was always changing; his eyes would suddenly kindle like fire;
his understanding, too, kindled in fitful flashes like fire.”

After the death of Moriale, Cola pursued the war against the Colonnas
with ardour. He entrusted it to Riccardo degli Anibaldi, a doughty
warrior. He gave orders from the Campidoglio to his officers, and it
seems that he devoted attention and diligence to his soldiers. Cola also
once more gave a proof of constancy and ardour. The want of money for
the war forced him to increase or to again impose the taxes on wine and
salt. The Romans bore it silently until it seemed that he even taxed
the common foods. The pope conjured him to govern justly, and confirmed
him as senator. But causes of complaint now arose; and it appeared that
Cola’s weak nature broke under its own weight. He would first weep, and
then laugh; he incurred everybody’s suspicion, and he patronised one and
another without rhyme or reason, and would release people for money.

On the 4th of October he notified the legate at Montefiascone of his
great danger and that he had received no help. The blow fell suddenly on
the morning of the 8th of October. The Colonnas and Savelli were to the
fore. The people pressed to the palace crying, “Long live the people!
death to the traitor Cola di Rienzi! death to the traitor who has made
the tax, death!”

The tribune, unconscious of his danger, made no defence, nor sounded a
bell. “I also,” he said, “am with the people; the pontifical confirmation
has arrived; I have only to publish it to the council.” He was not afraid
until he saw he was abandoned by all, and that the uproar increased. He
wished to harangue the people from the window, but it was impossible, for
they threw stones and sticks at him, crying still louder, “Death to the
traitor!” Confusion filled the palace; he was doubtful of Brettone, the
brother of Fra Moriale, who was a prisoner. He vacillated, he put on his
helmet and took it off again, uncertain whether to meet death with the
dignity of the ancient Romans or to take refuge in flight--he finally
decided on the latter course.

The Romans were now firing the doors, when the tribune divested himself
of all his arms, laid aside the insignia of dignity, cut off his beard,
dyed his face black, and put on the door-keeper’s mantle and enveloped
his head with a bed-cover. Thus disguised he descended the stairway to
the outside door, and changing his voice, he mingled with the insurgents,
himself crying “Down with the traitor!” He was outside the palace when
he was recognised by his gold armlets, and conducted to the Place of the
Lion in the Campidoglio where the sentences were given. Here he stood for
the space of an hour, a wretched spectacle for the people who stood in
silence and seemed frightened at what they had done and uncertain whether
to pardon or sacrifice him. Cola stood firm and calm awaiting death,
and the people seemed in no hurry to bathe their hands in the blood of
him whom a few months previously they had accompanied in triumph to the
Campidoglio, crowning him with olive leaves, and uttering shouts of joy.

What memories must have filled the mind of the unhappy tribune!

Cecco del Vecchio gave him a blow in the stomach. The sight of blood
changed compassion to fury. A notary wounded him with his sword. He was
soon covered with wounds. He did not say a word, he did not utter a cry.
He was taken to St. Mark’s, and he was tied by the feet to a pillar. His
head was mangled and tufts of his hair strewed the way; he was riddled
with wounds in every part of his body. There he remained two days, whilst
rogues cast stones at him. On the third day Guigurth and Sciarretta
Colonna had him taken over to the field of Augustus, where he was burned
upon a pile of dry thistles. Such was the end of Cola di Rienzi, who made
himself august tribune of Rome, and constituted himself the champion of
the Romans.[d] “In the death, as in the life of Rienzi,” says Gibbon,[g]
“the hero and the coward were strangely mingled.” Posterity will compare
the virtues and failings of this extraordinary man; but in a long period
of anarchy and servitude the name of Rienzi has often been celebrated as
the deliverer of his country, and the last of the Roman patriots.

FOOTNOTES

[15] “_Il tutto senza derogare all’autorità della Chiesa, del Tapa e del
Sacro Collegio._” So concludes this extraordinary citation, this bold and
wonderful assertion of the classic independence of Italy, in the most
feudal time of the fourteenth century. The anonymous biographer of Rienzi
declares that the tribune cited also the pope and the cardinals to reside
in Rome. De Sade powerfully and incontrovertibly refutes this addition
to the daring or the extravagance of Rienzi. Gibbon, however, who has
rendered the rest of the citation in terms more abrupt and discourteous
than he was warranted by any authority, copies the biographer’s blunder,
and sneers at De Sade, as using arguments “rather of decency than of
weight.” Without wearying the reader with all the arguments of the
learned abbé, it may be sufficient to give the first two:

(1) All the other contemporaneous historians that have treated of
this event, G. Villani, Hocsemius, the Vatican manuscripts and other
chroniclers, relating the citation of the emperor and electors, say
nothing of that of the pope and cardinals; and the pope (Clement VI),
in his subsequent accusations of Rienzi, while very bitter against his
citation of the emperor, is wholly silent on what would have been to the
pontiff the much greater offence of citing himself and the cardinals.

(2) The literal act of this citation, as published formally in the
Lateran, is extant in Hocsemius (whence is borrowed, though not at all
its length, the speech in the text of our present tale), and in this
document the pope and his cardinals are not named in the summons.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII. DESPOTS AND TYRANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1309-1496 A.D.]]

In the present chapter we shall take up the history of Italy in the
latter part of the fourteenth century and carry it forward to about
the year 1500, with chief reference to the kingdoms of Naples and
Sicily--which become united into the kingdom of the Two Sicilies--in
the south, and the tyranny of the Visconti and Sforza at Milan in the
north. The history of these principalities necessarily involves reference
to most of the states of Italy, as they were constantly embroiled one
with another. But for such incidental references, we shall reserve the
more specific history of the important maritime republics, Venice and
Genoa, and of the chief Tuscan republic, Florence, for separate treatment
in later chapters. During the dominance of the Visconti in Milan in
the latter half of the fourteenth century and the first half of the
fifteenth, this principality dominated northern Italy and was much of
the time in open warfare with Florence. The history of Florence will,
therefore, be given considerable prominence, and our later chapters will
be chiefly directed to the events of the period of the great Medici,
Cosmo and Lorenzo, whose dictatorship in Florence, it will be recalled,
coincides in time with the later events of the present chapter. The
period now under consideration introduces a number of really important
men, including Alfonso the Magnanimous, king of Sicily and Naples.

But the kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the duchy of Milan, important as
they must have seemed to their Italian contemporaries, had no very direct
world-historical influences. They embroiled Italy and kept her in touch
with the nations of the north, to her disadvantage; but their rulers
had no thought beyond self-aggrandisement, and no one of them attained
sufficient influence to bring the entire peninsula under his control.
Despite the picturesqueness of individual characters,[16] therefore, we
shall be justified in dealing with the period somewhat briefly, reserving
larger space for the more important developments that came about through
the influence of the commercial republics.

THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES

[Sidenote: [1309-1326 A.D.]]

On the death of Charles II of Naples (1309) his younger son Robert
succeeded to the crowns of Naples and Provence to which he had no
recognised or inherited right. They belonged to Carobert, the young king
of Hungary, whose father was the elder son of Charles. But Naples was a
papal fief, and Robert, who hastened to Avignon, had little difficulty in
obtaining from Clement V who saw in this energetic vassal a formidable
opponent of the Ghibellines, a sentence setting aside the claims of
his nephew. At the same time he received the government of Ferrara as
viceroy of the pope. Robert was no military genius, but he possessed both
wisdom and address, and at once assumed the Guelf leadership in Italy.
He was a prominent member of the great league formed at Florence against
the designs of Henry VII, and the Tuscan republic went so far in 1312
as to confer a temporary dictatorship upon him, in anticipation of his
assistance in resisting imperial aggression.

But Robert’s ambition was none less than the general sovereignty of
Italy, and to this end he opposed Henry at every step. A Neapolitan
army seized the principal fortresses of Rome in an attempt to prevent
the emperor’s coronation, but the struggle was brought to an unexpected
end the following year (1313) by Henry’s sudden death. It seemed now
as if Robert would realise his dream, but a number of truly remarkable
leaders arose to meet the crisis from the Ghibelline ranks. Against the
talents and energies of Uguccione della Faggiuola, Castruccio Castracani,
Matteo Visconti, and Cane della Scala, whose exploits have been detailed
elsewhere, the Guelfic cause went swiftly to ruin. Robert saw his armies
and his allies repeatedly overcome, and when he passed into Provence in
1318 he had obtained no success but that of raising the Ghibelline siege
of Genoa, for which service that city surrendered its liberties into his
hands for ten years. The plight of the Guelfs became more desperate day
by day, but Robert remained in Provence insensible to their disasters,
and only his greed of dominion roused him to the continued appeals of the
Florentines. His command over that republic had expired in 1321, and now
he promised aid on condition that his son Charles be made its absolute
ruler for ten years. The Florentines stipulated for the preservation of
their liberties and agreed to his terms, and in 1326 the young duke of
Calabria arrived in Tuscany with two thousand men.

[Sidenote: [1285-1345 A.D.]]

During these years the kingdom of Naples saw little of its ruler, and was
exposed to the ambition of the Aragonese rulers of Sicily. The fortunes
of this Spanish house need not detain us. When Pedro I died in 1285,
Aragon and Sicily were separated, and the late king’s second son James I
received Sicily. He remained there but six years when he was called to
the throne of Aragon, and left his younger brother Frederick regent. But
James was faithless to his island subjects, and when his long standing
difficulties with the pope were settled in 1295, he agreed to restore
Sicily to the house of Anjou. Frederick placed himself at once at the
head of the opposition to the transfer and in 1296 was rewarded with
the crown. Frederick II was the restorer of Sicilian independence; and
by 1302 James gave up the attempt of forcing the Sicilians to keep his
perfidious agreement. Robert made several attempts to annex Sicily to his
dominions. The first in 1314 ended in a truce. Frederick, who repulsed
the ambitious monarch several times, died in 1337, and the great love of
his subjects established his feeble son Peter II on the throne. Robert
came again at Frederick’s death and also after that of Peter five years
later, but the independent spirit of the islanders was never overcome;
the projects were renounced and Sicily was left the peaceful possession
of its dynasty. Henceforth it sinks into obscurity until reunited with
Naples in 1435.[a]

The kings of Naples, about the middle of the fourteenth century, had sunk
very low in power and consideration. Robert died on the 19th of January,
1343, at the age of eighty. He had given his granddaughter, Joanna, in
marriage to her cousin Andrew, the son of the king of Hungary. Andrew was
son of the eldest son of Charles II, and had a better right than Robert
himself to the crown of Naples. The latter, whom his nephew regarded as a
usurper, had been desirous of compounding the rights of the two branches
of his family, by marrying Joanna to Andrew, and crowning them together;
but these young people felt towards each other only hatred.[b]

In this baneful sentiment Andrew was encouraged by his Hungarian
attendants, especially by his confessor. Other circumstances added to
the disagreeableness of his situation: he was rude and unpolished; the
Neapolitans, on the contrary, were the most polite people in Europe;
nor could he conceal from himself that he was the ridicule of the
court. He had other motives of discontent; his queen was suspected of
an intrigue with Louis of Tarentum, a prince of the royal family, and
to him, personally, she evidently bore an aversion. That he threatened
one day to be revenged, is certain; that his threats inspired several,
not even excepting Joanna, with fear, is equally undoubted; a plot was
formed for his destruction--whether with her privity, has been disputed
by one or two modern writers; but from her conduct before and after the
tragical event, there is circumstantial evidence enough to implicate her
in the guilt. One night (September 18th, 1345), the court having removed
to a solitary place in the vicinity of Aversa, Andrew was called by the
conspirators from the queen’s bed, under pretence of urgent business of
state, and murdered in the corridor. That she was aware of the plot may
be inferred--first, from her momentary reluctance to allow him to depart;
secondly, from her endeavours to screen the assassins from the pursuit of
justice; thirdly, from her marriage with Louis of Tarentum; and fourthly,
from the extreme care taken by the functionaries whom the pope ordered to
inquire into the murder to prevent the confessions of the tortured from
being heard--in other words, the implication of the queen. Some of the
conspirators were executed; but, as the queen herself and her paramour
escaped, this show of justice did not satisfy Louis, king of Hungary,
who invaded Naples, expelled Joanna, punished some of the suspected
nobles, and received the submission of the kingdom. Thence, however, he
was soon driven by the fearful plague which devasted all Europe in its
course, and which appears to have been more severely felt in Italy than
anywhere else. The sway of the Hungarians was already disagreeable to the
fickle Neapolitans; Joanna was recalled, and a desultory war followed.
Louis returned to the scene; but as his troops, after fulfilling their
usual feudal service, murmured to return, he was compelled to enter
into a truce with Joanna, on the condition that her guilt or innocence
should be left to the decision of the pope at Avignon; that if she were
declared guilty, she would resign the crown, but that, if she were
absolved, she should be allowed to retain it on paying a heavy sum as an
indemnification for the expense of the war.

[Sidenote: [1345-1386 A.D.]]

The decision of one so devoted as Clement VII to the interests of France
could not be doubted. Her complicity in the plot was not denied; but it
was gravely contended that witchcraft had been employed to seduce her;
in the end she was absolved, and the indemnity to King Louis approved.
Her subsequent reign continued to be one of guilt and disgrace. The great
barons were too proud to obey her husband, whose imbecility she herself
despised, and whose bed she dishonoured; the Grand Company of mercenaries
ravaged the kingdom to the very gates of the capital; as both he and the
people were too cowardly to oppose them, their retreat was purchased by
money. After his death, she married a third husband, a prince of the
house of Aragon; and, on his death, a fourth, Otto of Brunswick; but, as
she had issue by none of the four, the heir to the crown was Charles,
duke of Durazzo, the last male of the Neapolitan branch of Anjou, who
was also heir to the throne of Hungary. At the court of the latter
country, Charles had imbibed a feeling of hatred against the queen, whom
he resolved to dethrone--a resolution to which he was impelled by Urban
VI, who could never pardon her devotion to the anti-pope Clement. Her
attempt to exclude him from the succession, by the adoption of the count
of Anjou, and the step of Pope Urban, who, in 1380, declared her deposed
from the Neapolitan throne, and preached a crusade against her, sealed
her fate. The prince advanced to Rome, received the crown from the pope,
and marched on Naples, which, like the rest of that cowardly kingdom,
submitted to him, as it had done to every other invader from the downfall
of the Western Empire. Otto, indeed, made a show of resistance; but his
men abandoned him the moment the engagement commenced, and he fell, like
Joanna, into the hands of the victor. Her death was sudden and violent;
probably it was caused by suffocation with a feather bolster.

He had little reason to rejoice in this barbarity. He had soon to sustain
an invasion of Naples by Louis of Anjou, who, as usual, was joined by
a considerable number of adherents; and, though death rid him of a
formidable rival, he had to support a quarrel with an arrogant pope,
who excommunicated him and his army. During these transactions, Louis
of Hungary died, and the nobles, preferring the rights of his daughter
Maria to those of a distant relative, proclaimed her their sovereign. But
Charles had partisans, who invited him to resume the crown; he hastened
to Buda, forced the queen to abdicate, and was proclaimed in her stead;
but, in the height of his success, he was assassinated by the creatures
of the queen and her mother. This tragical event left Naples under
the regency of his widow, Margarita, during the minority of his son
Ladislaus [or Lancelot], then only ten years of age; and her government
was perpetually exposed to the intrigues of the French faction, which
espoused the interests of a son, equally young, of Louis of Anjou, who
was named after his father.[h]

[Sidenote: [1386-1416 A.D.]]

The reign of Ladislaus, the son and successor of Charles III, presents a
continued scene of perfidy and rapine. Whilst he successfully defended
his Neapolitan crown against the attempts of the duke of Anjou, he seized
for a moment that of Hungary; and availed himself of the great schism and
the absence of the pope from Rome continually to harass and pillage the
Romans. No treaties of amity could restrain his thirst for plunder; he
thrice led his troops to attack the devoted city, seized on the castle of
St. Angelo, and occupied Ostia, Viterbo, and great part of the patrimony
of St. Peter. His ravages were suspended by a premature death; and in
him providence is said to have anticipated a pest which in the next age
became the scourge of European incontinence. Though three times married,
Ladislaus left no legitimate issue. Unbounded in his lust, he forsook his
wives for his more libidinous paramours. Constantia, his first queen,
irreproachable in her fame, was divorced by her inconstant husband;
Maria of Cyprus, the second, died through an effort to stimulate her
own barrenness; and the third, the widow of Orsino, prince of Tarentum,
was espoused for the acquisition of her territories, and abandoned to
neglect and imprisonment immediately after the nuptial ceremonies. He was
succeeded by his sister, Joanna II; but the royal bed of Naples acquired
little purity by the exchange (1414).

[Illustration: NAPLES.--ARCH OF ALFONSO ON THE EXTREME LEFT]

_Joanna II_

[Sidenote: [1416-1420 A.D.]]

Joanna was already the widow of William, son of Leopold II, duke of
Austria, when the death of Ladislaus exalted her to the throne of Naples.
Equally devoid of personal charms and mental delicacy, the princess
scorned the irksome restraints of virtue and of rank. Her lovers were
selected according to her caprice without reference to their station;
and the fortunate possessor of her affections, on her accession to the
crown, was Pandolfello Alopo, whom she raised, from the humble station
of carver, to the office of grand-chamberlain. The irregularities of her
life and the default of an heir to the throne prompted her nobles to
recommend a second marriage; and she fixed upon a prince of the house
of Bourbon, Jacques de la Marche, the fourth in lineal succession from
Robert, youngest son of St. Louis.

But if Joanna flattered herself that in her new husband she was to find
a screen, and not a check to her vices, she was immediately undeceived;
for no sooner was the obscure count exalted into the king of Naples, than
he seized upon Alopo; and in the agonies of the rack the distracted lover
betrayed his intercourse with his mistress. The grand-chamberlain was
publicly beheaded, and the queen herself reduced to personal restraint
of no great severity or duration. The people, indignant at seeing
their queen thus imprisoned by a foreigner, burst into insurrection;
and the king was compelled to seek shelter in the _Castello dell’Ovo_.
His surrender was rewarded by the acknowledgment of his royal title,
and a stipend of 40,000 ducats a year--a sum, says the historian, not
exceeding the incomes of the Neapolitan gentry. The French monarch did
not long enjoy this semblance of royalty. He found himself the sport of
his faithless consort and her minions; his person was again insulted by
imprisonment, and his countrymen were commanded to depart the kingdom.
Having again recovered his liberty, he resolved no longer to be cheated
by the dreams of ambition; and renouncing his adulterous queen and
ungovernable subjects, he privately withdrew from Naples and retired into
France, where he ended his days in the habit of a Franciscan friar (1438).

Amongst the most conspicuous of Joanna’s favourites were Giacomuzzo
Attendolo, surnamed Sforza, and Ser Gianni Caracciolo, both distinguished
for their personal beauty. The former, the son of a peasant of Cotignola
in Romagna, had joined in early life the mercenary troops of Italy; and
after serving with renown under the banners of Ferrara, of Florence,
and of the church, entered the Neapolitan service, and was treated with
distinction by the queen upon her accession to the throne. The jealousy
of the minion Pandolfello Alopo procured the imprisonment of Sforza;
but he was soon reconciled to his rival; and being released from his
dungeon was created by Joanna grand constable of the kingdom. During
the transient reign of Jacques de la Marche he had again languished
in prison; but on his release was restored to his former dignity.
Meanwhile a new favourite was daily gaining unbounded influence over
the susceptible heart of Queen Joanna. Caracciolo, a man of birth and
discretion, and of a handsome and graceful person, was promoted to the
office of grand seneschal; and procured the removal of Sforza from court
upon the honourable employment of checking the ravages of the mercenary
Braccio. But the return of the victorious Sforza and the rivalry of the
two favourites soon filled the city with confusion; and Joanna could only
quiet the murmurs of her people by consenting to the banishment of the
beloved Caracciolo. The place of his exile was, however, too near the
city to prevent his interference in public affairs; and, from the island
of Procida, Ser Gianni continued to exert his influence over his queen
and mistress. He again procured the removal of Sforza for the purpose of
dislodging Braccio from the patrimony of St. Peter; but he took care that
his rival should be so poorly supported by troops that his defeat and
ruin appeared inevitable.

This unfortunate collision between the favourites was destined to produce
the most disastrous consequences, not merely to the kingdom of Naples but
to the whole of Italy. Indignant at the preference shown to Caracciolo,
Sforza abandoned his mistress, and encouraged Louis III the young duke of
Anjou to make good his pretensions to the Neapolitan throne by invading
the kingdom of Joanna. In Naples, a strong spirit existed favourable to
the claims of Louis. The inordinate affection of the queen for Caracciolo
(who was now again restored to her arms) had estranged the nobility from
her cause; and she deemed it prudent to seek the support of some foreign
potentate sufficiently powerful to counteract the designs of her enemies.
She therefore addressed herself to Alfonso V, king of Aragon, whom she
promised to adopt as her successor on the throne of Naples. This offer
being accepted by Alfonso, he set sail for his new inheritance, and
received the formal adoption from the childless Joanna, with the title of
duke of Calabria and possession of the Castel Nuovo. By this judicious
step the queen extricated herself from the pressing danger; Louis of
Anjou was staggered in his hopes, and after a feeble siege of Naples,
yielded to necessity and abandoned his enterprise. Sforza now found means
to seal his pardon, and was received with the utmost cordiality by Joanna
and Alfonso.

[Sidenote: [1420-1435 A.D.]]

The reappearance of his ancient rival at the Neapolitan court could not
fail to awaken the jealous and angry feelings of Caracciolo, who had
already perceived his authority endangered by the adoption of Alfonso.
To sow the seeds of dissension was now his object, and the unbounded
influence which he possessed over Joanna gave the utmost facility to his
sinister designs. He succeeded in persuading the credulous queen that
the Spaniard had resolved at once to usurp the succession, and designed
to dethrone her and carry her by force into Catalonia. Terrified at this
dismal suggestion, Alfonso became an object of distrust to Joanna. She
shut herself up in the Castel Nuovo; and the seizure and imprisonment of
the beloved Ser Gianni filled up the measure of her alarm and horror.
Abjuring all further connection with the king of Aragon she summoned
Sforza to her relief, and revoking her late adoption bestowed the
succession upon Louis of Anjou. The partial defeat of Alfonso and the
consequent exchange of prisoners once more restored Caracciolo to the
queen; but the unhappy kingdom was delivered over to the miseries of
war, the troops of Joanna being led by Sforza, and those of Alfonso by
his rival Braccio. The disorders of his Spanish dominions withdrew the
king for the present from Italy; and, with the exception of the Castel
Nuovo, Joanna was left in quiet possession of the kingdom; but not before
the two generals had perished in this desperate struggle. Sforza, in his
eager attempt to swim the river Pescara, then unusually swollen by the
influx of the sea, fell a sacrifice to his generous endeavour to save his
drowning page; and borne down by the additional weight of his armour he
sank to rise no more. His son Francesco Sforza narrowly escaped a similar
fate, and was destined to attain a glorious and triumphant elevation.
The death of Braccio was more congenial to his tumultuous life; he fell
mortally wounded in a desperate conflict, wherein his forces were utterly
routed.

After the retreat of Alfonso from Naples, Joanna continued to enjoy an
unmolested reign. Age had quenched the fires of lust; the life of her
once-loved Ser Gianni was sacrificed to jealousy and suspicion; and he
was assassinated with the connivance, if not by the command, of his
mistress. Her adopted son Louis expired in 1434, to the great grief
of Joanna and her subjects. She herself survived but a few weeks, and
died in 1435 in the sixty-fifth year of her age and twenty-first of her
reign. With her ended the race of Durazzo. By her will she bequeathed
the kingdom of Naples to René, duke of Anjou, brother of Louis; and the
adopted heir languished in the prison of the duke of Burgundy when he
was apprised of his nomination to the fairest kingdom of the earth. His
wife Isabella assumed the regency in his absence, and took possession of
Naples.

_Alfonso the Magnanimous_

[Sidenote: [1435-1458 A.D.]]

The claims of Alfonso were now again to be urged, and he marched at the
head of an army to enforce his pretensions. A singular misfortune which
befell the king in his progress proved highly beneficial to his cause.
Whilst he laid siege to Gaeta, a fleet from Genoa despatched by order
of Filippo Visconti, the reigning duke of Milan, attacked and defeated
the Spanish armament; and the king, his brother Juan, king of Navarre,
Henry of Aragon, and a host of nobles, were sent prisoners to Milan. By
a remarkable exercise of clemency and moderation, the duke restored his
captives gratuitously to liberty; and even entered into a league with
Alfonso, promising to assist him in the conquest of Naples.

Whilst a new fleet from Spain was again directed against Naples, René
purchased his liberty; and repairing to his new dominions, maintained
a doubtful contest with his rival during four years. In the middle of
the year 1442 the final blow was struck by the entry of Alfonso into
the capital, through the self-same aqueduct which nearly nine hundred
years before had admitted the soldiers of Belisarius. The duke of Anjou,
no longer able to contend with the fortunes of his rival, withdrew
into France; and Alfonso at length obtained from Pope Eugenius IV the
investiture of the kingdom of Naples, which his holiness had previously
conferred upon René. After a pause of eleven years René was induced to
reappear in Italy at the pressing instance of the duke of Milan, who
tempted him to take up arms against Venice, under a promise to afford his
assistance in wresting Naples from the Spaniard. But the French prince,
now advanced in years, soon grew weary of the toils of a campaign, and
readily yielded to the anxiety of his troops to return to their native
regions.

[Illustration: ALFONSO I

(From a painting)]

Alfonso survived this event only five years, and died on the 27th
of June, 1458. His paternal dominions, Aragon and Sicily, vested in
default of legitimate issue in his brother Juan, king of Navarre; but
he bequeathed the kingdom of Naples, his conquest, to his natural son
Ferdinand.[c] Whatever may be thought of the claims subsisting in the
house of Anjou, there can be no question that the reigning family of
Aragon were legitimately excluded from the throne of Naples, though force
and treachery enabled them ultimately to obtain it.

Alfonso, surnamed “the magnanimous,” was by far the most accomplished
sovereign whom the fifteenth century produced. The virtues of chivalry
were combined in him with the patronage of letters, and with more than
their patronage--a real enthusiasm for learning, seldom found in a
king, and especially in one so active and ambitious. This devotion to
literature was, among the Italians of that age, almost as sure a passport
to general admiration as his more chivalrous perfection. Magnificence
in architecture and the pageantry of a splendid court gave fresh lustre
to his reign. The Neapolitans perceived with grateful pride that he
lived almost entirely among them, in preference to his patrimonial
kingdom, and forgave the heavy taxes, which faults nearly allied to his
virtues--profuseness and ambition--compelled him to impose. But they
remarked a very different character in his son. Ferdinand was as dark and
vindictive as his father was affable and generous. The barons, who had
many opportunities of ascertaining his disposition, began, immediately
upon Alfonso’s death, to cabal against his succession, turning their
eyes first to the legitimate branch of the family, and, on finding that
prospect not favourable, to John, titular duke of Calabria, son of
René of Anjou, who survived to protest against the revolution that had
dethroned him.[d]

_Ferdinand_

[Sidenote: [1458-1479 A.D.]]

The duke of Calabria believed that he should be assisted both by
Francesco Sforza--who, before he was duke of Milan, had long fought,
as his father had done before him, for the party of Anjou--and by the
Florentine Republic, which had always been devoted to France. But Sforza
judged that the security and independence of Italy could be maintained
only so long as the kingdom of Naples did not fall into the hands of
France. The French were already masters of Genoa and the gates of Italy;
they would traverse in every direction and hold in fear or subjection
every state in the peninsula, if they should acquire the sovereignty of
Naples. For these reasons Sforza resisted all his friends, dependents,
and even his wife, who vehemently solicited him for the house of Anjou;
he also brought Cosmo de’ Medici over to his opinion, and thus prevented
the republic of Florence from seconding a party towards which it found
itself strongly inclined. The duke of Calabria, who had entered Naples in
1459, had begun successfully; but, receiving no assistance from abroad,
he soon wearied and exhausted the people, who alone had to furnish him
with supplies. He lost, one after the other, all the provinces which had
declared for him, and was finally, in 1464, constrained to abandon the
kingdom.

Ferdinand, to strengthen himself, kept in dungeons or put to death all
the feudatories who had shown any favour to his rival; above all, he
resolved to be rid of the greatest captain that still remained in Italy,
Jacopo Piccinino, the son of Niccolo, and head of what was still called
the militia, or school of Braccio. He sent to Milan, whither Piccinino,
who had served the party of Anjou, had retired, and where he had married
a daughter of Sforza, to invite him to enter his service, promising
him the highest dignities in his kingdom. He gave the most formal
engagements for his safety to Sforza, as well as to Jacopo himself. He
received him with honours, such as he would not have lavished on the
greatest sovereign. After having entertained him twenty-seven days in
one perpetual festival, he found means to separate him from his most
trusty officers, caused him to be arrested in his own palace, and to be
immediately strangled. This happened on the 24th of June, 1465.[e]

Once firmly established on the throne of Naples, Ferdinand continued to
hold his position and to render it more and more secure throughout the
period of his life, which terminated in 1494. He was little respected,
but he made himself pretty generally feared and was accounted the most
astute politician of his time. In alliance with Pope Sixtus IV he made
war against Milan and Florence, and in 1479 the allied forces had
reduced Lorenzo de’ Medici to such an extremity that the great Florentine
was constrained to visit Naples in the hope of conciliating his enemy.
Lorenzo frankly acknowledged the danger in which he found himself, but
he made a shrewd political move in pointing out that he was not without
resources, inasmuch as it was open to him to invite the French into
Italy. He admitted that the coming of these outsiders could only benefit
him through injuring his enemies, but as a last resource he professed
himself ready to adopt this expedient. He strongly represented, however,
that he much preferred to enter into an arrangement with Ferdinand
instead of opening up their country to the incursions of what the
Italians were pleased to call barbarians. Ferdinand was fully alive to
his danger, and was prepared to listen to terms.[a]

[Sidenote: [1479-1494 A.D.]]

Finally, Lorenzo offered him an indemnity in the republic of Siena, which
the duke of Calabria, son of the king, already coveted. That state had
made alliance with the pope and the king of Naples against Florence; had
received, without distrust, the Neapolitan troops within its fortresses;
and had repeatedly had recourse to the duke of Calabria to terminate, by
his mediation, the continually renewed dissensions between the different
orders of the republic. The duke of Calabria, instead of reconciling
them, kept up their discord; and, by alternately granting succour to
each party, was become the supreme arbitrator of Siena. Lorenzo de’
Medici promised to offer no obstacle to the transferring of that state
in sovereignty to the duke of Calabria. On this condition, he signed his
treaty with the king of Naples on the 6th of May, 1480. The republic
of Siena would have been lost, and the Neapolitans, masters of so
important a place in Tuscany, would soon have subjugated the rest, when
an unexpected event saved Lorenzo de’ Medici from the consequences of his
impudent offer. Muhammed II charged his grand vizir, Akhmet Giedik, to
attempt a landing in Italy, which the latter effected, and made himself
master of Otranto on the 28th of July, 1480. Ferdinand, struck with
terror, immediately recalled the duke of Calabria, with his army, to
defend his own states.

The Turks had no sooner been driven from Otranto by Alfonso, the eldest
son of the king of Naples, on the 10th of August, 1481, than Sixtus
excited a new war in Italy. His object was to aggrandise his nephew,
Girolamo Riario, for whom he was desirous of forming a great principality
in Romagna. With that view, he proposed to the Venetians to divide with
him the states of the duke of Ferrara; but a league was formed, in 1482,
by the king of Naples, the duke of Milan, and the Florentines, to defend
the dukedom. The year following, Sixtus IV, fearing that he should not
obtain for his nephew the best part of the spoils of the duke of Ferrara,
changed sides, and excommunicated the Venetians, intending to take from
them the provinces which he destined for Girolamo Riario. The new allies,
without consulting him, soon afterwards made peace with the Venetians, at
Bagnolo, on the 7th of August, 1484.[e]

Ferdinand had reason to desire peace rather than war, and his influence
was valuable in maintaining a state of relative tranquillity in Italy
throughout most of the later years of his reign. But his oppressive
taxation led to a momentous event in the history of Italy. The Neapolitan
nobles rebelled against their burdens and again aroused the dormant
Angevin claim to activity. René II neglected his opportunity, but
after Ferdinand, in 1492, had strengthened himself by an alliance with
Piero de’ Medici, the jealous Lodovico Sforza appealed to the King of
France. Ferdinand died in 1494, a few months before Charles VIII invaded
Italy.[a]

THE TYRANTS OF LOMBARDY

[Sidenote: [1152-1300 A.D.]]

While imperial power was declining in Italy, the free cities that had
resisted it in the days of its might were gradually falling under the
dominion of feudal tyrannies which rose upon the ruin of their republican
institutions. The slow operation of unnoticed causes had insensibly led
to the subversion of the liberties of communities once so powerful and
free. In one important respect, the Italian municipalities differed
essentially from those of other countries. They included in the roll of
their citizens the nobility of the district in which they were situated.
This, while it seemed to add, and did in fact add to the splendour of the
cities, was yet one of the principal elements of their decay.

The great territorial lords of northern Italy were compelled to seek the
protection and friendship of these powerful communities, and frequently
submitted to their rule. Many of them were bound to reside for a certain
portion of each year within the walls of the city whose citizenship
they had sought or been compelled to accept. Otho Frigisensis[i] (Otto
of Freising), the historian of the reign of Frederick I, complains:
“The cities so much affect liberty, and are so solicitous to avoid
the insolence of power, that almost all of them have thrown off every
other authority and are governed by their own magistrates, insomuch
that all that country is now filled with free cities, most of which
have compelled the bishops to reside within their walls, and there is
scarcely any nobleman, how great soever he may be, who is not subject
to the laws and government of some city.” Elsewhere the same writer
observes that the marquis of Montferrat was almost the only baron who had
preserved his independence, and had not become subject to the laws of any
city. The cities of Italy had been free before the institution of the
feudal lordships, and were not, as in other places, dependent upon the
privileges which it might suit the convenience of a baron to tolerate, or
a monarch to create.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN BARON, FIFTEENTH CENTURY]

This admission of a territorial aristocracy into the association of
the burghers, if at first it gave strength and elevation to these
communities, subjected them on the other hand to the danger of falling
under aristocratic influence. The great nobles built palaces in these
towns; these palaces became feudal fortresses in the centre of the
cities. Attended by armed retainers from their estates, they fortified
their mansions, and in many instances commanded the city by these
military strongholds. The citizens not only tolerated but encouraged
this for the sake of the strength which the retainers of these noblemen
brought to their military force. In the wars in which they were
frequently engaged with each other, it was of no small importance to one
of these cities to command the vassals of a great lord. By the presence
of such an aristocracy, sharing in all the councils of the community,
the very principle of republican equality was insensibly destroyed. The
nobleman who dwelt in his feudal castle frowning over the streets of the
city, who was master of no inconsiderable portion of their army, and
who brought into their assembly the influence both of wealth and power,
was very likely to become, when any emergency gave the opportunity, the
protector instead of the protected--the master instead of the subject of
the state.

[Sidenote: [1300-1531 A.D.]]

As the cities fell under the rule of princes, the number of these princes
was speedily reduced. The lords of the more powerful brought those of the
weaker under their sway. The dominion, at first confined to a city, soon
included districts containing many cities within their limits. The duchy
of Milan, erected by the emperor in favour of the Visconti, represented
a sovereignty extending over the whole of the Milanese. Alessandro
Medici, duke of Florence, soon merged that title in the higher one, which
conferred on him the grand duchy of the Tuscan states.

_Companies of Adventure_

With the subjection of the cities to tyrants the habit became general
of employing mercenary troops. Afraid of trusting to the militia of the
citizens, these petty lords employed bands of hirelings, who, under the
name of “companies of adventure,” sold their swords and services to
anyone who would pay them. The emperors, on their visits, were in the
habit of bringing in their train German guards, who frequently were not
required to return with their master to their native land. These men
were too glad to accept any service which retained them in the wealthy
country and luxuriant climate to which they had come. The citizens even
of the free cities were flattered by the strange argument which found a
justification for the employment of mercenaries, in the philosophical
reflection that the citizen who thus escaped military service was, in his
attention to his proper business, contributing far more to the wealth
and therefore to the greatness of the community than he could do in the
profession of arms. The argument was specious. It would have been true
if public spirit and patriotism formed no part of the possessions of the
state. With this fatal habit of substituting mercenaries for the national
militia passed away the greatness of the Italian cities. Milan had far
degenerated from the days of Legnano when the mercenary ferocity of
hirelings was substituted for the enthusiasm of her own free youth; and,
under her once proud banners, the “company of adventurers” took the place
of the “company of death.”[f]

The Visconti and Della Scalas had sent for many of these companies to
Germany, believing that these men--who did not understand the language
of the country, who were bound to it by no affection, and who were
accessible to no political passion--would be their best defenders.
They proved ready to execute the most barbarous orders, and for their
recompense demanded only the enjoyments of an intemperate sensuality.

But the Lombard tyrants were deceived in believing the German soldier
would never covet power for himself, and would continue to abuse the
right of the stronger for the advantage of others only. These adventurers
soon discovered that it would be better to make war and pillage the
people for their own profit, without dividing the spoil with a master.
Some men of high rank, who had served in Italy as _condottieri_ (hired
captains), proposed to their soldiers to follow them, make war on the
whole world, and divide the booty among themselves. The first company,
formed by an Italian noble at the moment that the Visconti dismissed
their soldiers, having made peace with their adversaries, made an
attack suddenly on Milan, in the hope of plundering that great city,
but was almost annihilated in a battle, fought at Parabiago, on the
20th of February, 1339. A German duke, known only by his Christian
name of Werner, and the inscription he wore on his breast of “enemy
of God, of pity, and of mercy,” formed, in 1343, another association,
which maintained itself for a long time under the name of “the Great
Company.” It in turns entered the service of princes, and, when they
made peace, carried on its ravages and plunderings for its own profit.
The duke Werner and his successors--the count Lando, a German, and the
friar Moriale, knight of St. John--devastated Italy from Montferrat to
the extremity of the kingdom of Naples. They raised contributions, by
threatening to burn houses and harvests or by putting the prisoners whom
they took to the most horrible tortures. The provinces of Apulia were,
above all, abandoned to their devastations; and the king and queen of
Naples made not a single effort to protect their people.

[Sidenote: [1339-1359 A.D.]]

There now remained no more than six independent princes in Lombardy.
The Visconti, lords of Milan, had usurped all the central part of that
province; the western part was held by the marquis of Montferrat, and
the eastern by the Della Scalas, lords of Verona, Carrara of Padua, Este
of Ferrara, and Gonzaga of Mantua. These weaker princes felt themselves
in danger, and made a league against the Visconti, taking into their
service the Great Company; but, deceived and pillaged by it, they
suffered greater evils than they inflicted on their enemies. When at last
the money of the league was exhausted, and it could no longer pay the
company, this band of robbers entered into the service of the republic
of Siena, to be let loose on that of Perugia, of which the Sienese had
conceived a deep jealousy. But the Florentines would not consent to
their entering Tuscany, where their depredations had been already felt.
They shut all the passes of the Apennines; they armed the mountaineers;
they made these adventurers experience a first defeat at the passage of
Scalella, on the 24th of July, 1358, and obliged them to fall back on
Romagna. The legate Albornoz, to deliver himself from such guests, made
them enter Perugia the year following. Never had the company been so
brilliant and so formidable; it levied contributions on Siena, as well
as Perugia; but vengeance and cupidity alike excited them against the
Florentines. They determined on pillaging those rich merchants, whom they
considered far from warlike, or forcing them to ransom themselves.

The marquis of Montferrat, desirous of taking the company into his
service, pressed the republic of Florence, by his ambassadors, to do
what the greatest potentates had always done--pay the banditti to be rid
of them. He offered himself for mediator and guarantee, and promised
a prompt and cheap deliverance; but the Florentine Republic protested
it would not submit to anything so base; it assembled an army purely
Italian, placing it under the command of an Italian captain, who was
ordered to advance to the frontier and offer battle to the company. The
robbers gave way in proportion to the firmness of the republic; they made
the tour of the Florentine frontier by Siena, Pisa, and Lucca, always
threatening, yet never daring to violate it. On the 12th of July, 1359,
they sent the Florentine commander a challenge to battle, and afterwards
failed to keep the rendezvous which they had given. They escaped at
last from Tuscany, without having fought, and divided themselves in the
service of different princes, humbled indeed, but too much accustomed to
this disorderly life not to be anxious to begin it anew.

_Florence Menaced by the Visconti_

[Sidenote: [1328-1352 A.D.]]

The republic of Florence was continually occupied, since the expulsion
of the duke of Athens, in guarding against the ambition of the Visconti,
which threatened the subjugation of all Italy. Azzo Visconti, the son of
that Galeazzo who had been so treacherously used by Ludwig of Bavaria,
had, in 1328, purchased the city of Milan from that emperor, and soon
afterwards found himself master of ten other cities of Lombardy; but
he died suddenly, in the height of his prosperity, the 16th of August,
1339. As he left no children, his uncle Lucchino succeeded him in the
sovereignty. Lucchino was false and ferocious, but clever, and possessed
in war the hereditary talent of the Visconti. He was called a lover
of justice, probably because he punished criminals with an excess of
cruelty, and maintained by terror a perfect police in his states. He
died, poisoned by his wife, on the 23rd of January, 1349. His brother
John, archbishop of Milan, succeeded him in power. The latter found
himself master of sixteen of the largest cities in Lombardy--cities
which, in the preceding century, had been so many free and flourishing
republics. His ambition continually aspired to more extensive conquests;
and, on the 16th of October, 1350, he engaged the brothers Pepoli to cede
to him Bologna.

[Illustration: BENITIER, SIENA CATHEDRAL]

These nobles, who had usurped the sovereignty of their country, were
at this time engaged in a quarrel with the legate, Gil Albornoz, who
asserted that Bologna belonged to the holy see. The archbishop was
already treated by the pope as an enemy, and preferred exciting still
further his wrath, to the renunciation of so important an acquisition.
When Clement VI summoned him to come and justify himself at the court
of Avignon, he answered that he would present himself there at the head
of twelve thousand cavalry and six thousand infantry. The pope, in his
alarm, ceded to him the fief of Bologna, on the 5th of May, 1352, on
condition of receiving from him an annual tribute of 12,000 florins.
Florence saw with terror this city, which had so long been her most
powerful and faithful ally, the Guelf city of letters, commerce, and
liberty, thus pass under the yoke of a tyrant, who had designs upon her
liberty also; who laid snares around her; who formed alliances against
her with all the petty tyrants of Romagna, and all the Ghibelline lords
of the Apennines. She was at peace with him, it was true; but she well
knew that the Visconti neither believed themselves bound by any treaty,
nor kept any pledge.

The number of free cities continually diminished. Pisa was still free,
but had, from attachment to the Ghibelline party, made alliance with the
Visconti. Siena and Perugia were free also, but weak and jealous; they
were incessantly disturbed by internal dissensions. The Florentines could
not reckon on them. The archbishop of Milan suddenly ordered, towards
the end of the summer, 1351, Giovanni Visconti da Oleggio, his lieutenant
at Bologna, to push into Tuscany at the head of a formidable army,
without any declaration of war. The republic had no ally, and but slight
reliance on the mercenaries in its service; but the Florentines, who
showed little bravery in the open field, defended themselves obstinately
behind walls; and the great village of Scarperia, in the Mugello,
although so ill fortified that the walls of many of the houses served
instead of a surrounding wall, and having a garrison only of two hundred
cuirassiers and three hundred infantry, stopped the Milanese general
sixty-one days. He was at last obliged, on the 16th of October, to retire
to Bologna.

[Sidenote: [1351-1356 A.D.]]

The republics of Venice and Genoa were, it might have been thought, the
natural allies to whom the Florentines should have had recourse for their
common defence. Their interests were the same; and the Visconti had
resolved not to suffer any free state to subsist in Italy, lest their
subjects should learn that there was a better government than their own.
Unhappily, these two republics, irritated by commercial quarrels in the
East, were then engaged in an obstinate war with each other.

Genoa had sacrificed her liberty to her thirst of vengeance; for although
the republic had not conferred the signoria on the archbishop Visconti
without imposing conditions, it soon experienced that oaths are not
binding on a prelate and a tyrant. The freedom of Venice also was in the
utmost danger from the consequences of the same war.

Though the war of the maritime republics might have deprived Florence of
the aid of Venice or Genoa, it had at least diverted the attention of
Giovanni Visconti, made him direct his exertions elsewhere, and procured
some repose to Tuscany. He died on the 5th of October, 1354, before he
could renew his attacks; and his three nephews, the sons of his brother
Stephen, agreed to succeed him in common. The eldest, who showed less
talent for government and more sensuality and vice than his brothers,
was poisoned by them the year following. The two survivors, Barnabò and
Galeazzo, divided Lombardy between them, preserving an equal right on
Milan and in the government. Their relative, Visconti da’ Oleggio, who
was their lieutenant at Bologna, made himself independent in that city
nearly about the same time that the Genoese, indignant at seeing all
their conventions violated, rose in insurrection on the 15th of November,
1356, drove out the Milanese garrison, and again set themselves free.

_Charles IV in Italy_

The entry of Charles IV into Tuscany formed also a favourable diversion,
by suspending the projects of the Visconti against the Florentines; but
it cost them one hundred thousand florins, which they agreed to pay
Charles by treaty on the 12th of March, 1355, to purchase his rights on
their city, and to obtain his engagement that he should nowhere enter
the Florentine territory. The republics of Pisa and Siena, who received
him within their walls, paid still dearer for the hospitality which they
granted him. The emperor encouraged the malcontents in both cities; he
aided them to overthrow the existing governments; he hoped by so doing
to make these republics little principalities, which he intended to
bestow as an appanage on his brother, the patriarch of Aquileia; but
after having caused the ruin of his partisans, after having ordered or
permitted the execution of the former magistrates, who were innocent of
any crime, insurrections of the people forced him to quit both cities,
without retaining the smallest influence in either. After he had quitted
Italy, the Visconti were engaged in the war to which we have already
alluded, against the marquises of Este, of Montferrat, Della Scala,
Gonzaga, and Carrara. The siege of Pavia and the ravages of the Great
Company exhausted their resources, but did not make them abandon their
projects on Tuscany. The influence which they retained in the republic
of Pisa, as chiefs of the Ghibelline party, seemed to facilitate their
schemes.

[Sidenote: [1342-1364 A.D.]]

Pisa, in losing its maritime power and its possessions in Sardinia,
had not lost its warlike character; it was still the state in Italy
where the citizens were best exercised in the use of arms, and evinced
the most bravery. It had given proofs of it in conquering, under the
eye of the Florentines, the city of Lucca, which it still retained.
Nevertheless, since the peace made by the duke of Athens on the 14th of
October, 1342, commercial interests had reconciled the two republics.
The Florentines had obtained a complete enfranchisement from all imposts
in the port of Pisa; they had established there their counting-houses,
and attracted thither a rich trade. From that time the democratic party
predominated in the Pisan Republic; at its head was a rich merchant,
named Francesco Gambacorta, who attached himself to the Florentines, and
to the maintenance of peace. His party was called that of the Bergolini;
while that of the great Ghibelline families attached to the counts of
la Gherardesca, who despised commerce and excited war, was called the
Raspanti party. The Visconti sought the alliance of the latter; the
moment did not appear to them yet arrived in which they could assume to
themselves the dominion over all Tuscany. It was sufficient for their
present views to exhaust the Florentine Republic by a war, which would
disturb its commerce; to weaken the spirit of liberty and energy in
the Pisans, by subduing them to the power of the aristocracy, in the
hope that when once they had ceased to be free, and had submitted to
a domestic tyrant, they would soon prefer a great to a little prince,
and throw themselves into his arms. The revolution, which in 1355 had
favoured the emperor in restoring power to the Raspanti, facilitated this
project.

In pursuance of this view, the party of the Raspanti, at the suggestion
of the Visconti, in 1357, began to disturb the Florentines in the
enjoyment of the franchises secured to them at Pisa by the treaty of
peace. The Florentines, guessing the project of the Lombard tyrant,
instead of defending their right by arms, resolved on braving an
unwholesome climate, and submitting to the inconvenience of longer and
worse roads, transported all their counting-houses to Telamone, a port
in the Maremma of Siena. They persisted till 1361 in despising all the
insults of the Pisans, as well as in rejecting all their offers of
reconciliation; at length, animosity increasing on both sides, the war
broke out, in 1362. The Visconti supplied the Pisans with soldiers.
France during this period had been laid waste by the war with the
English; and as the sovereigns were rarely in a state to pay their
troops, there had been formed, as in Italy, companies of adventurers,
English, Gascon, and French, who lived at the cost of the country,
plundering it with the utmost barbarity. The Peace of Bretigny permitted
several of these companies to pass into Italy; they carried with them the
plague, which made not less ravages in 1361 than it had done in 1348. The
English company commanded by John Hawkwood, an adventurer, who rendered
himself celebrated in Italy was sent to the Pisans by Barnabò Visconti.
After various successes, the two republics, at last exhausted by the
plague and by the rapacity and want of discipline of the adventurers
whom they had taken into pay, made peace on the 17th of August, 1364.
But the purpose of the Visconti was not the less attained. The Pisans,
having exhausted their resources, were at a loss to make the last payment
of thirty thousand florins to their army; they were reduced to accept
the offer made them by Giovanni Agnello, one of their fellow-citizens,
of advancing that sum, on condition of being named doge of Pisa. The
money had for this purpose been secretly advanced by Barnabò Visconti,
to whom Agnello had pledged his word never to consider himself more than
his lieutenant at Pisa. Thus the field fertilised by liberty became
continually more circumscribed; and Florence, always threatened by the
tyrants of Lombardy, saw around her those only who had alienated their
liberty, and who had no longer any sentiment in common with the republic.

[Sidenote: [1364-1367 A.D.]]

The chief magistrates of the Florentine Republic could not conceal from
themselves the danger which now menaced the liberty of Italy. They found
themselves closed in, blockaded as it were, by the tyrants, who daily
made some new progress. The two brothers Visconti, masters of Lombardy,
had at their disposal immense wealth and numerous armies; and their
ambition was insatiable. They were allied, by marriage, to the two houses
of France and England; their intrigues extended throughout Italy, and
every tyrant was under their protection. At the same time, their own
subjects trembled under frightful cruelties. They shamelessly published
an edict, by which the execution of state criminals was prolonged to the
period of forty days. In it the particular tortures to be inflicted, day
by day, were detailed, and the members to be mutilated designated, before
death was reached. On the other hand, their finances were in good order;
they liberally recompensed their partisans, and won over traitors in
every state inimical to them. They pensioned the captain of every company
of adventurers, on condition that he engaged to return to their service
whenever called upon. Meanwhile these captains with their soldiers
overran, plundered, and exhausted Italy during the intervals of peace;
reducing the country to such a state as to be incapable of resisting any
new attack. All the Ghibellines, all the nobles who had preserved their
independence in the Apennines, were allied to the Visconti. The march of
these usurpers was slow, but it seemed sure. The moment was foreseen to
approach when Tuscany would be theirs, as well as Lombardy; particularly
as Florence had no aid to expect either from Genoa or Venice. These two
maritime republics appeared to have withdrawn themselves from Italy,
and to place their whole existence in distant regions explored by their
commerce.

[Illustration: A FLORENTINE, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

For a moment, the few Italian states still free were led to believe that
the succour now so necessary to enable them to resist the Visconti would
arrive both from France and Germany. The pope and the emperor announced
their determination to deliver the country, over which they assumed a
supreme right, from every other yoke. Urban V, moved by the complaints
of the Christian world, declared that his duty as bishop of Rome was to
return and live there; and Charles IV protested that he would deliver
his Roman Empire from the devastations of the adventurers, and from the
usurpations of the Lombard tyrants. In 1367, Urban returned to Italy;
and the same year formed a league with the emperor, the king of Hungary,
the lords of Padua, Ferrara, and Mantua, and with the queen of Naples,
against the Visconti. But when Charles entered Italy, on the 5th of May,
1368, he thought only of profiting by the terror with which he inspired
the Visconti, to obtain from them large sums of money; in return for
which he granted them peace. He afterwards continued his march through
the peninsula, with no other object than that of collecting money.

[Sidenote: [1367-1370 A.D.]]

His presence, however, caused some changes favourable to liberty. A
festival was prepared for him at Lucca, on the 7th of September; on which
day he intended confirming, by his investiture, the sovereignty of the
doge Giovanni Agnello over Pisa and Lucca. But the stage on which Agnello
had mounted gave way, and in the fall he broke his leg. The Pisans
profited by this accident to recover their freedom, and the emperor kept
Lucca for himself. At Siena he favoured a revolution which overthrew
the ruling aristocracy; intending, on his return to that city, after a
devotional visit to Rome, to take advantage of the disturbance, and get
himself appointed to the signoria; but a sedition against him broke forth
on the 18th of January, 1369. Barricades were raised on all sides; his
guards were separated from him, and disarmed; his palace was broken into.
No attempt, indeed, was made on his person; but he was left alone several
hours in the public square, addressing himself in turn to the armed
troops which closed the entrance of every street, and which, immovable
and silent, remained insensible to all his entreaties. It was not till
he began to suffer from hunger that his equipages were restored to him,
and he was permitted to leave the town. He returned to Lucca, where he
had already lived, in the time of his father, as prince royal of Bohemia.
The Lucchese were attached to him, and placed in him their last hope to
be delivered from a foreign yoke, which had weighed upon them since the
year 1314. They declared themselves ready to make the greatest sacrifices
for the recovery of their freedom; and they at the same time testified to
him so much confidence and affection as to touch his heart. By a diploma,
on the 6th of April, 1369, Charles restored them to liberty, and granted
them various privileges; but, on quitting their city, he left in it a
German garrison, with orders not to evacuate that town till the Lucchese
had paid the price of their liberty. It was not till the month of April,
1370, and not without the aid of Florence and their other allies, that
they could acquit the enormous sum of three hundred thousand florins, the
price of the re-establishment of their republic. The Guelf exiles were
then immediately recalled; a close alliance was contracted with Florence;
and the signoria, composed of a gonfalonier and ten _anziani_, to be
changed every two months, was reconstituted.

Urban V, on his arrival in Italy, endeavoured also to oppose the
usurpations of the Visconti, who had just taken possession of San
Miniato, in Tuscany, and who, even in the states of the church, were
rendering themselves more powerful than the pope himself. Of the two
brothers, Barnabò Visconti was more troublesome to him, by his intrigues.
Urban had recourse to a bull of excommunication, and sent two legates
to bear it to him; but Barnabò forced these two legates to eat, in his
presence, the parchment on which the bull was written, together with the
leaden seals and silken strings. The pope, frightened at the thought of
combating men who seemed to hold religion in no respect, and wearied,
moreover, with his ill-success, was glad to return to the repose of
Avignon, where he arrived in the month of September, 1370, and died the
November following.

_The “War of Liberation”_

[Sidenote: [1370-1377 A.D.]]

Gregory XI, who succeeded him, was ambitious, covetous, and false.
He joined the Florentines in their war against the Visconti; but the
legates, to whom he had entrusted the government of the ecclesiastical
states, and who had rendered themselves odious by their rapacity and
immorality, formed the project of seizing for themselves Tuscany, which
they had engaged to defend. All the troops of the Florentines had been
placed at their disposal, for the purpose of carrying the war into
Lombardy. The cardinal legate, who commanded the combined army, resided
at Bologna; the church having rescued that city from the grasp of
Visconti da Oleggio, on the 31st of March, 1360. He signed a truce with
Barnabò Visconti, in the month of June, 1375; and, before the Florentines
could recall their soldiers, sent John Hawkwood with a formidable army to
surprise Florence. The Florentines, indignant at such a shameless want
of good faith on the part of the church, whose most faithful allies they
had always been, vowed vengeance on the see of Rome. They determined to
rouse the spirit of liberty in every city belonging to it, and drive out
the French legates--more odious and perfidious than the most abhorred of
the Italian tyrants. They, in the month of June, 1375, without placing
any confidence in Barnabò Visconti, made an alliance with him against the
priests, who had just deceived them under the faith of the most solemn
oaths. They admitted the republics of Siena, Lucca, and Pisa into this
league; they formed a commission of eight persons, to direct the military
department, called “the eight of war”; they assembled a numerous army,
and gave it colours, on which was inscribed, in golden letters, the word,
“Liberty!” This army entered the states of the church, proclaiming that
the Florentines demanded nothing for themselves--that not only would they
make no conquests, but would accept dominion over no people who might
offer themselves; they were desirous only of universal liberty, and would
assist the oppressed with all their power, solicitous for the recovery of
their freedom.

The army of liberty carried revolution into all the states of the
church with an inconceivable rapidity; eighty cities and towns, in ten
days, threw off the yoke of the legates. The greater number constituted
themselves republics; a few recalled the ancient families of princes,
who had been exiled by Gil Albornoz, and to whom they were attached
by hereditary affection. Bologna did not accomplish her revolution
before the 20th of March, 1376. This ancient republic, in recovering
its liberty, vowed fidelity to the Florentines, to whom it owed the
restoration of its freedom. The legates, beside themselves with rage,
endeavoured to restrain the people by terror. John Hawkwood, on the 29th
of March, 1376, delivered up Faenza to a frightful military execution;
four thousand persons were put to death, property pillaged, and women
violated. The pope, not satisfied with such rigour, sent Robert of
Geneva, another cardinal legate, into Italy, with a Breton company of
adventurers, considered as the most ferocious of all those trained to
plunder by the wars of France. The new legate treated Cesena, on the 1st
of February, 1377, with still greater barbarity. He was heard to call out
during the massacre, “I will have more blood--kill all--blood, blood!”
Gregory XI at last felt the necessity of returning to Italy, to appease
the universal revolt. He entered Rome on the 17th of January, 1377;
although the Florentines, who had sent the standard of liberty to the
senators and bannerets of Rome, and had made alliance with the Romans,
expostulated on the danger they incurred if they admitted the pontiff
within their walls.

[Sidenote: [1377-1378 A.D.]]

The two parties, however, began to be equally weary of the war. Some of
the cities enfranchised by the Florentines were already detached from the
league. The Bolognese had made, on the 21st of August, 1377, a separate
peace with the pope, who had agreed to acknowledge their republic.
Barnabò Visconti carried on with the holy see secret negotiations, in
which he offered to sacrifice to the church, his ally, the republic of
Florence. This republic was then pressed for its consent to the opening
of a congress for restoring peace to Italy, to be held at Sarzana, in the
beginning of the year 1378; the presidency of the congress was given to
Barnabò Visconti. The conference had scarcely opened when the Florentines
perceived, with more indignation than surprise, that the Lombard tyrant,
who had fought in concert with them, intended that they should pay to
him and to the pope the whole expenses of the war. The negotiations took
the most alarming turn, when the unexpected news arrived of the death
of Gregory XI, on the 27th of March, 1378; and the congress separated
without coming to any decision. The year which now opened was destined
to bring with it the most important revolutions throughout Italy. Amidst
those convulsions the Peace of Florence with the court of Rome, weakened
by the great western schism, was not difficult to accomplish.

_The Papal Schism_

The pontifical chair had been transferred to France since the year 1305.
Its exile from Italy lasted seventy-three years. The Christian world,
France excepted, had considered it a scandal; but the French kings
hoped by it to retain the popes in their dependence; and the French
cardinals, who formed more than three-fourths of the Sacred College,
seemed determined to preserve the pontifical power in their nation. They
were, however, thwarted in this intention by the death of Gregory XI at
Rome; for the conclave must always assemble where the last pontiff dies.
The clamour of the Romans and the manifestation of opinion throughout
Christendom were not without influence on the conclave. On the 8th of
April, 1378, it elected--not, indeed, a Roman, whom the people demanded,
but an Italian--Bartolommeo Prignani; who, having lived long in France,
seemed formed to conciliate the prejudices of both parties. He was
considered learned and pious. The cardinals had not, however, calculated
on the development of the passions which a sudden elevation sometimes
gives; or on the degree of impatience, arrogance, and irritability of
which man is capable, in his unexpected capacity of master, though in an
inferior situation he had appeared gentle and modest. The new pope, who
took the name of Urban VI, became so violent and despotic, so confident
of himself, and so contemptuous of others, that he soon quarrelled with
all his cardinals. They left him; assembled again at Fondi; and, on
the 9th of August, declared the holy see vacant; asserting that their
previous election was null, having been forced by their terror of the
Romans.

Consequently, on the 20th of September, they elected another pope. Their
choice, no better than the former, fell on Robert, cardinal of Geneva,
who had presided at the massacre of Cesena; he took the name of Clement
VII. He was protected by Queen Joanna, with whom Urban had already
quarrelled. Clement established his court at Naples; but an insurrection
of the people made him quit it the year following, and determined him on
returning, with his cardinals, to Avignon. Urban VI, meanwhile, deposed
as schismatics all the cardinals who had elected Clement, and replaced
them by a new and more numerous college; but he agreed no better with
these than with their predecessors. He accused them of a conspiracy
against him; he caused many to be put to the torture in his presence
and while he recited his breviary; he ordered others to be thrown into
the sea in sacks and drowned; he quarrelled with the Romans and the new
sovereign of Naples, whom he had himself named; he paraded his incapacity
and rage through all Italy; and finally took refuge at Genoa, where he
died, on the 9th of November, 1389. The cardinals who acknowledged him
named a successor on his death, as the French cardinals did afterwards
on the death of Clement VII, which took place on the 16th of September,
1394. The church thus found itself divided between two popes and two
colleges of cardinals, who reciprocally anathematised each other. Whilst
the Catholic faith was thus shaken, the temporal sovereignty of the
pope, founded by the conquests of the cardinal Albornoz, was overthrown.
Several of the cities enfranchised by the Florentines in the war of
liberty, preserved their republican government; but the greater number,
particularly in Romagna, fell again under the yoke of petty tyrants.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN SOLDIER, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

[Sidenote: [1378-1394 A.D.]]

The terror in which the house of Visconti had held Florence and the
other Italian republics began somewhat to subside. Barnabò, grown old,
had divided the cities of his dominions among his numerous children. His
brother, Galeazzo, had died on the 4th of August, 1378, and been replaced
by his son, Gian Galeazzo, called count de Virtù, from a county in
Champagne, given him by Charles V, whose sister he had married. Barnabò
would willingly have deprived his nephew of his paternal inheritance, to
divide it among his children. Gian Galeazzo, who had already discovered
several plots directed against him, uttered no complaint, but shut
himself up in his castle of Pavia, where he had fixed his residence.
He doubled his guard, and took pains to display his belief that he was
surrounded by assassins. He affected, at the same time, the highest
devotion; he was always at prayers, a rosary in his hand, and surrounded
with monks; he talked only of pilgrimages and expiatory ceremonies. His
uncle regarded him as pusillanimous, and unworthy of reigning. In the
beginning of May, 1385, Gian Galeazzo sent to Barnabò to say that he had
made a vow of pilgrimage to our Lady of Varese, near the Lago Maggiore,
and that he should be glad to see him on his passage. Barnabò agreed to
meet him at a short distance from Milan, accompanied by his two sons.
Gian Galeazzo arrived, surrounded, as was his custom, by a numerous
guard. He affected to be alarmed at every sudden motion made near him. On
meeting his uncle, however, on the 6th of May, he hastily dismounted,
and respectfully embraced him; but, while he held him in his arms, he
said in German to his guards, “Strike!” The Germans, seizing Barnabò,
disarmed and dragged him, with his two sons, to some distance from his
nephew. Gian Galeazzo made several vain attempts to poison his uncle in
the prison into which he had thrown him; but Barnabò, suspicious of all
the nourishment offered him, was on his guard, and did not sink under
these repeated efforts till the 18th of December of the same year.

_Gian Galeazzo Visconti_

[Sidenote: [1385-1386 A.D.]]

All Lombardy submitted, without difficulty, to Gian Galeazzo. His uncle
had never inspired one human being with either esteem or affection. The
nephew had no better title to these sentiments. False and pitiless, he
joined to immeasurable ambition a genius for enterprise, and to immovable
constancy a personal timidity which he did not endeavour to conceal. The
least unexpected motion near him threw him into a paroxysm of nervous
terror. No prince employed so many soldiers to guard his palace, or took
such multiplied precautions of distrust. He seemed to acknowledge himself
the enemy of the whole world. But the vices of tyranny had not weakened
his ability. He employed his immense wealth, without prodigality;
his finances were always flourishing; his cities well garrisoned and
victualled; his army well paid; all the captains of adventure scattered
throughout Italy received pensions from him, and were ready to return
to his service whenever called upon. He encouraged the warriors of the
new Italian school; he well knew how to distinguish, reward, and win
their attachment. Many young Italians, in order to train themselves to
arms, had, from about the middle of this century, engaged in the German,
English, and French troops which inundated Italy; and they soon proved
that Italian valour, directed by the reflection and intelligence of
a highly civilised nation, who carried their arms as well as tactics
to perfection, had greatly the advantage over the brute courage of
barbarians.

Alberic, count of Barbiano, a Romagnole noble, and an ancestor of the
princes Belgiojoso, of Milan, formed a company, under the name of St.
George, into which he admitted Italians only, and which, in 1378, he
placed in the service of Urban VI. This company defeated, at Ponte Molle,
that of the Bretons, attached to Clement VII, and regarded as the most
formidable of the foreign troops. From that time, the company of St.
George was the true school of military science in Italy. Young men of
courage, talent, or ambition flocked into it from all parts; and all the
captains who, twenty years later, attained such high renown, gloried in
having served in that company.

Gian Galeazzo was no sooner firmly established on the throne of Milan,
than he resumed his project of subjugating the rest of Italy; the two
principalities of the Della Scala at Verona, and of the Carrara at
Padua, were the first to tempt his ambition. The house of La Scala
had produced, in the beginning of the century, some great captains
and able politicians; but their successors had been effeminate and
vicious--princes who hardly ever attained power without getting rid of
their brothers by poison or the dagger. The house of Carrara, on the
contrary, which gloried in being attached to the Guelf party, produced
princes who might have passed for virtuous, in comparison with the
other tyrants of Italy. Francesco da Carrara, who then reigned, his
son, and grandson were men of courage, endued with great capacities,
and who knew how to gain the affection of their subjects. The republic
of Venice never pardoned Carrara his having made alliance against her
with the Genoese and the king of Hungary. After the death of the last
named, Venice engaged Antonio della Scala to attack Padua, offering him
subsidies to aid him in the conquest of that state. Carrara did all in
his power to be reconciled to the prince, his neighbour, whom, in 1386,
he repeatedly vanquished; as well as with the republic--always ready
to repair the losses sustained by the lord of Verona. Unable to obtain
peace, he was at last reduced to accept the proffered alliance of Gian
Galeazzo Visconti, who took Verona on the 18th of October, 1387. Instead
of restoring to Carrara the city of Vicenza, as he had promised, he
immediately offered his assistance to the Venetians against Padua; that
republic was imprudent enough to accept the offer. Padua, long besieged,
was given up to Visconti on the 23rd of November, 1388. A few days
afterwards, Treviso was surrendered to him; so that the frontiers of the
lord of Milan’s dominions extended even to the edge of the Lagune. He had
no sooner planted his standard there, than he menaced Venice, which had
so unwisely facilitated his conquests.

[Sidenote: [1386-1390 A.D.]]

All the rest of Lombardy was dependent on the lord of Milan. The marquis
of Montferrat was brought up at the court of Galeazzo, who governed his
states as guardian of this young prince. Albert, marquis d’Este, had,
on the 26th of March, 1388, succeeded his brother in the sovereignty of
Ferrara, to the prejudice of his nephew Obizzo, whom he caused to be
beheaded with his mother. He put to death by various revolting executions
almost all his relations, at the suggestion of Gian Galeazzo, whose
object was, by rendering him thus odious to the people, to make the lord
of Ferrara feel that he had no other support than in him. According to
the same infernal policy Gian Galeazzo accused the wife of the lord of
Mantua, daughter of Barnabò, and his own cousin and sister-in-law, of
a criminal intercourse with her husband’s secretary. He forged letters
by which he made her appear guilty, concealed them in her apartment,
and afterwards pointed out where they were to be found to Francesco da
Gonzaga, who, in a paroxysm of rage, caused her to be beheaded, and the
secretary to be tortured, and afterwards put to death, in 1390; it was
not till after many years that he discovered the truth. Thus all the
princes of Lombardy were either subdued or in discredit for the crimes
which Visconti had made them commit, and by which he held them in his
dependence; he then began to turn his attention towards Tuscany. In
the years 1388 and 1389, the Florentines were repeatedly alarmed by
his attempts to take possession of Siena, Pisa, Bologna, San Miniato,
Cortona, and Perugia; not one attempt had yet succeeded; but Florence
saw her growing danger, and was well aware that the tyrant had not yet
attacked her, only because he reserved her for his last conquest.

The arrival at Florence of Francesco II of Carrara, who came to offer his
services and his hatred of Gian Galeazzo to the republic, determined the
Florentines to have recourse to arms. The lord of Milan, in receiving the
capitulation of Padua, had promised to give in compensation some other
sovereignty to the house of Carrara; but he had either poisoned Francesco
I, or suffered him to perish in prison. Several attempts had been made
to assassinate Francesco II in the province of Asti, whither he had been
exiled. In spite of many dangers, he at last escaped, and fled into
Tuscany, taking his wife, then indisposed, with him. He left her there,
and passed into Germany, in the hopes of exciting new enemies against
Gian Galeazzo; while the Florentines made alliance with the Bolognese
against the lord of Milan, and placed their army under the command of
John Hawkwood, who ever afterwards remained in their service. Carrara,
seconded by the duke of Bavaria, the son-in-law of Barnabò, whose death
the duke was desirous of avenging, re-entered Padua on the 14th of June,
1390, by the bed of the Brenta, and was received with enthusiasm by the
inhabitants, who regarded him more as a fellow-citizen than a master. He
recovered possession of the whole inheritance of his ancestors.

[Sidenote: [1390-1391 A.D.]]

The extensive commerce of the Florentines had accustomed them to include
all Europe in their negotiations; and, as they liberally applied their
wealth to the defence of their liberty, they easily found allies
abroad. After having called the duke of Bavaria from Germany, in 1390,
they, in the year following sent to France for the count d’Armagnac
with a formidable army; but the Germans as well as the French found,
with astonishment, that they could no longer cope with the new Italian
militia, which had substituted military science for the routine of the
transalpine soldier. Armagnac was vanquished and taken prisoner, on the
25th of July, 1391, by Jacopo del Verme, and died a few days afterwards.
John Hawkwood, who, in the hope of joining him, had advanced far into
Lombardy with the Florentine army, was placed in the most imminent
peril.[e] He was in the heart of an enemy’s country; before him were the
whole forces of Milan, victorious and now far superior in numbers, which
approached to overpower him, and, in his rear, were three great rivers
which he could not hope to pass with impunity in their presence. But the
confidence which he felt in the resources of his own genius in no degree
abandoned him. After remaining inactive behind his entrenchments, as if
paralysed by terror, until the Milanese, their temerity and carelessness
increasing as he tamely received their insults, were thrown off their
guard, he suddenly fell upon them with so much impetuosity that he routed
them and captured twelve hundred horse. Having thus gained his object
of inspiring his enemy with respect, and deterring him from too close a
pursuit, Hawkwood commenced a masterly retreat, and had repassed both the
Oglio and Mincio before a single trooper of Gian Galeazzo dared appear on
their banks.

But he had yet the rapid Adige to cross, and the difficulty was the
greater as the enemy had already fortified themselves on the dykes,
which confine the waters of that river to its bed. The Lombard plains
are almost everywhere on a lower level than that of the streams which
intersect them, and are only preserved from continual inundations by
artificial embankments, between which the impetuous torrents that descend
from the melting of Alpine snows are securely conducted to the sea.
But when these dykes are burst or cut, the adjacent plains are at once
flooded. Hawkwood, on reaching the range of low land which is known as
the Veronese valley, found the Adige, the Po, and the Polesino before him
on the north, the south, and the west, and Jacopo del Verme hanging on
his rear; and in this situation the enemy suddenly cut the dykes of the
Adige, and let the river loose from its bed upon him. The lower ground
about the Florentine camp was at once inundated. As far as the eye could
stretch, the country, in every direction but one, was converted into a
vast lake of hourly increasing depth; the waters even menaced the rising
spot on which the army lay; provisions began to fail; and Jacopo del
Verme, his whole force guarding the only outlet, sent by a trumpet a fox
enclosed in a cage to the English captain. Hawkwood received the taunting
present with dry composure, and bade the messenger tell his general that
his fox appeared nothing sad, and doubtless knew by what door he would
quit his cage.

[Sidenote: [1391-1402 A.D.]]

A leader of less courageous enterprise and skilful resource than Hawkwood
might have despaired of bursting from the toils; but the wily veteran
knew both how to inspire his troops with unlimited confidence in his
guidance, and to avail himself of their devotion. Leaving his tents
standing, he silently and boldly led his cavalry before daylight into
the inundated plain towards the Adige; and, with the waters already at
the horses’ girths, marched the whole of the same day and the following
night beside the dykes of that river, until he found a spot where its bed
had been left dry by the escape of the waters; and crossing it at length
gave repose to his wearied troops on the Paduan frontiers. Part of his
infantry had perished, and he had lost many men and horses in the mud,
and in canals and ditches--the danger of which could not be distinguished
amidst the general inundation; but the army of the league was saved, and
Jacopo del Verme dared not pursue its hazardous retreat.[i]

After this campaign, the republic, feeling the want of repose, made peace
with Galeazzo, on the 28th of January, 1392, well knowing that it could
place no trust in him, and that this treaty was no security against his
intrigues and treachery.

These expectations were not belied; for one plot followed another in
rapid succession. The Florentines about this time reckoned on the
friendship of the Pisans, who had placed at the head of their republic
Pietro Gambacorta, a rich merchant, formerly an exile at Florence, and
warmly attached to peace and liberty; but he was old, and had for his
secretary Jacopo Appiano, the friend of his childhood, who was nearly
of his own age. Yet Galeazzo found means to seduce the secretary; he
instigated him to the assassination of Gambacorta and his children, on
the 21st of October, 1392. Appiano, seconded by the satellites furnished
him by the duke of Milan, made himself master of Pisa; but after his
death his son, who could with difficulty maintain himself there, sold the
city to Gian Galeazzo, in the month of February, 1399, reserving only the
principality of Piombino, which he transmitted to his descendants. At
Perugia, Pandolfo Baglione, chief of the noble and Ghibelline party, had,
in 1390, put himself under the protection of Gian Galeazzo, who aided him
in changing the limited authority conferred on him into a tyranny; but
three years afterwards he was assassinated, and the republic of Perugia,
distracted by the convulsions of opposing factions, was compelled to
yield itself up to Gian Galeazzo, on the 21st of January, 1400.

The Germans observed with jealousy the continually increasing greatness
of Visconti, which appeared to them to annihilate the rights of the
empire, and dry up the sources of tribute, on a partition of which they
always reckoned. They pressed Wenceslaus to make war on Gian Galeazzo.
But that indolent and sensual monarch, after some threats, gave it to be
understood that for money he would willingly sanction the usurpations of
Gian Galeazzo; and, in fact, on the 1st of May, 1395, he granted him, for
the sum of 100,000 florins, a diploma which installed him duke of Milan
and count of Pavia, comprehending in this investiture twenty-six cities
and their territory, as far as the Lagune of Venice. These were the same
cities which, more than three centuries before, had signed the glorious
league of Lombardy. The duchy of Milan, according to the imperial bull,
was to pass solely to the legitimate male heir of Gian Galeazzo. This
concession of Wenceslaus caused great discontent in Germany; it was
one of the grievances for which the diet of the empire, on the 20th of
August, 1400, deposed the emperor, and appointed Robert elector palatine
in his stead. Robert concluded a treaty of subsidy with the Florentines,
or rather entered into their pay, to oppose Gian Galeazzo; but when,
on the 21st of October, 1401, he met the Milanese troops, commanded by
Jacopo del Verme, not far from Brescia, he experienced, to his surprise
and discomfiture, how much the German cavalry were inferior to the
Italian. He was saved from a complete defeat only by Jacopo da Carrara,
who led a body of Italian cavalry to his aid. Robert found it necessary
to retreat, with disgrace, into Germany, after having received from the
Florentines an immense sum of money.

Gian Galeazzo Visconti continued his course of usurpation. In 1397, he
attacked, at the same time, Francesco da Gonzaga at Mantua, and the
Florentines, without any previous declaration of war. After having
ravaged Tuscany and the Mantuan territory, he consented, on the 11th of
May, 1398, to sign, under the guarantee of Venice, a truce of ten years,
during which period he was to undertake nothing against Tuscany. That,
however, did not prevent him, in 1399, from taking under his protection
the counts of Poppi and Ubertini, in the Apennines; or from engaging the
republic of Siena to surrender itself to him, on the 11th of November in
the same year.[e]

In Gian Galeazzo that passion for the colossal which was common to most
of the despots shows itself on the largest scale. He undertook, at the
cost of 300,000 gold florins, the construction of gigantic dykes, to
divert in case of need the Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua,
and thus to render these cities defenceless. It is not impossible,
indeed, that he thought of draining away the lagunes of Venice. He
founded that most wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia, and
the cathedral of Milan, “which exceeds in size and splendour all the
churches of Christendom.” The palace in Pavia, which his father Galeazzo
began and which he himself finished, was probably by far the most
magnificent of the princely dwellings of Europe. There he transferred
his famous library, and the great collection of relics of the saints, in
which he placed a peculiar faith. His whole territories are said to have
paid him in a single year, besides the regular contribution of 1,200,000
gold florins, no less than 800,000 more in extraordinary subsidies.[g]

The plague broke out anew in Tuscany, and deprived the free states of
all their remaining vigour. The magistrates, on whose prudence and
courage they relied, in a few days sank under the contagion, and left
free scope to the poorest intriguer. This happened at Lucca to the Guelf
house of Guinigi, which had produced many distinguished citizens, all
employed in the first magistracies. They perished under this disease
nearly about the same time. A young man of their family, named Paulo
Guinigi, undistinguished either for talent or character, profited by this
calamity, on the 14th of October, 1400, to usurp the sovereignty. He
immediately abjured the Guelf party, in which he had been brought up, and
placed himself under the protection of Gian Galeazzo. At Bologna, also,
the chief magistrates of the republic were in like manner swept away by
the plague.

Giovanni Bentivoglio, descended from a natural son of that king Enzio so
long prisoner at Bologna, took advantage of the state of languor into
which the republic had fallen, to get himself proclaimed sovereign lord,
on the 27th of February, 1401. He at first thought of putting himself
under the protection of the duke of Milan; but Gian Galeazzo, coveting
the possession of Bologna, instead of amicably receiving, attacked him
the year following. Bentivoglio was defeated at Casalecchio, on the
26th of June, 1402. His capital was taken the next day by the Milanese
general, he himself made prisoner, and two days afterwards put to death.
Another general of Galeazzo, in May, 1400, took possession of Assisi; the
liberty of Genoa, Perugia, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and Bologna had, one after
the other, fallen a sacrifice to the usurper. The Cancellieri, in the
mountains of Pistoia, the Ubaldini, in those of the Mugello, had given
themselves up to the duke of Milan. The Florentines, having no longer
communications with the sea, across the territories of Siena, Pisa,
Lucca, and Bologna, saw the sources of their wealth and commerce dry up.
Never had the republic been in more imminent danger; when the plague,
which had so powerfully augmented its calamities, came to its aid. Gian
Galeazzo Visconti was seized with it at his castle of Marignano, in which
he had shut himself up, to be, as he hoped, secure from all communication
with man. He was carried off by the pestilence, on the 3rd of September,
1402.[e]

[Sidenote: [1402-1412 A.D.]]

By his will he divided the greater portion of his dominions between his
two legitimate sons; to the elder, Gian Maria, he bequeathed the duchy
of Milan; to the second, Filippo Maria, the county of Pavia; but Pisa,
Sarzana, and Crema were bestowed on his favourite bastard, Gabriello
Visconti.

[Illustration: TORCH HOLDER, PALAZZO STROZZI, FLORENCE]

As the heir to the duchy had barely attained the age of fourteen, his
father entrusted the government to his widow Caterina, to Francesco da
Gonzaga, and to the principal commanders of his forces. But as these
soldiers of fortune were interested only in their own advancement, the
utmost confusion prevailed in Milan, and the duchess and her son were
compelled to seek security in the citadel. The long-forgotten names of
Guelf and Ghibelline again resounded through Lombardy; and in a short
space of time the duchy was stripped of all its dependent cities. Some,
indeed, maintained a nominal submission; but the rulers were too intent
on their own interest to be relied on; and the pontifical army had
little difficulty in procuring the restitution of Bologna and Perugia
to the pope. Siena revolted from the ducal vicar; Cremona gave herself
to Ugolino Cavalcabò; Parma and Reggio were seized by the condottiere
Ottobuono de’ Terzi; Brescia, by another adventurer, Pandolfo Malatesta.
Vercelli, Novara, and other towns in Piedmont fell into the hands of
the marquises of Montferrat and Saluzzo. Verona, after an obstinate
resistance, surrendered to Francesco da Carrara; and Vicenza escaped
his power by being ceded, together with Feltre and Belluno, to the
Venetians. Besides these heavy losses, domestic strife aggravated the
misfortunes of Milan; and a fierce quarrel between the duchess and her
son was terminated by her imprisonment and death. In the meantime the
flame spread to Pavia, and the young count Filippo was consigned to a
dungeon. The dominion of the bastard Gabriello over Pisa and Sarzana was
of brief duration; and he was compelled to sell the former city to the
Florentines, to the great indignation of her citizens.

[Sidenote: [1412-1432 A.D.]]

Amidst these disasters, the young duke, now fast attaining his majority,
evinced a fierceness and brutality of disposition which detached from
him the last remnant of his adherents. Amongst his favourite diversions
was the pastime of beholding his well-trained bloodhounds lacerate the
limbs of those subjects who incurred his displeasure; and his repeated
barbarities grew past endurance. At length a conspiracy was set on
foot for his destruction; and during mass in the church of St. Gothard
he was despatched by two blows. After his murder a struggle prevailed
between his brother Filippo Maria and Astorre, the natural son of Barnabò
Visconti, whose intrepidity caused him to be styled “the soldier without
fear.” His efforts, however, to supplant the legitimate heir were
unavailing; whilst defending the citadel of Monza his leg was shattered
by a stone; and his death, which immediately ensued, left Filippo Maria
in undisputed possession of the poor remains of his father’s once
extensive dukedom (1412).

_Filippo Maria Visconti_

It was the good fortune of the new duke to retain amongst his commanders
Francesco Bussone, surnamed Carmagnola; and by the skill and prowess of
this renowned general many of the lost territories of Milan were rapidly
recaptured. Bergamo, Piacenza, Como, and Lodi were again annexed to the
duchy; Cremona, Parma, Brescia, Crema, and Asti once more submitted;
and Genoa yielded to the arms of Carmagnola. These signal services were
rewarded by the duke with wealth and honours; who united the meritorious
warrior to one of his natural daughters, and even adopted him as his
successor in the dukedom, by the name of Francesco Visconti.

His well-earned trophies, however, were not long to be worn by the
gallant Carmagnola. Every day proved to him that, having reached the
highest point in his sovereign’s favour, the fickleness or jealousy of
the duke forbade him to look for a continuance of his regard. Without
being able to ascertain the cause of his disgrace, he found himself
deprived of his command, and even excluded from the ducal presence; and
he indignantly quitted the court of Milan, denouncing vengeance on the
ungrateful Filippo. As Venice was now in league with Florence and some
less considerable states, in order to check the increasing power of the
duke, Carmagnola offered his services to the Venetian government, and was
entrusted with the command of the allied army. The capture of Brescia and
other considerable cities soon reduced the duke to alarming extremities,
and he was happy to purchase a respite from this ruinous warfare by
ceding Bergamo and great part of the Cremonese to Venice. But the good
fortune of Carmagnola forsook him in a new campaign against his former
master; he received a complete overthrow by the Milanese troops under
Niccolo Piccinino, a defeat which was rendered doubly disastrous by its
mainly contributing to the discomfiture of the Venetian fleet two days
afterwards. Whilst the Venetian galleys were attacked in the Po by those
of Milan, the defeated general, encamped on the neighbouring shore, was
repeatedly summoned to the assistance of his naval colleague. But though
Carmagnola was still at the head of a considerable armament he made no
effort to accede to the call; and under the eyes of the troops of Venice
their fleet was entirely destroyed, with the loss of eight thousand
prisoners (1431).

After a short peace, the restless and ambitious spirit of the duke of
Milan again agitated Italy; and the papal dominions, as well as those of
Florence, were the objects of his rapacity. After ravaging Romagna and
defeating the Florentines at Anghiera, the Milanese general Piccinino
was recalled into Lombardy once more to the attack of Venice. But besides
her trusty general Gattamelata, the republic had secured the services of
Francesco Sforza, son of Giacomuzzo, the favourite of Joanna II, queen
of Naples. Francesco, endowed with the military talents of his father,
after leading the forces of the duke of Milan, saw reason to abandon his
patron, and devoted himself to the service of Venice. He was now opposed
to Piccinino, his former companion in arms, and the annals of Italy are
swelled with the splendid exploits of these great commanders. But the
genius of Sforza, if not superior to, was at least more fortunate than
that of his rival; and his glory was completed by a triumphant campaign,
in which he discomfited Piccinino and rescued Verona and Brescia from
the hands of Filippo. During a short interval of peace the duke of Milan
diligently laboured to recover the friendship of Sforza, who was won over
by the offer of Cremona and the hand of Bianca, the natural daughter of
Filippo. But the latter years of this inconstant prince were spent in
turmoil and distraction, and his new son-in-law became the object of his
bitterest persecution. Again reconciled to the duke, and again exposed to
his malice, Sforza still had good reason for preserving his connection
with Milan, since Filippo had no legitimate issue, and his marriage with
Bianca encouraged hopes of his succession to the duchy. At the close of
his life the duke again invoked the aid of Sforza against the Venetians,
and immediately afterwards terminated his tumultuous reign.

With him ended the dynasty of the Visconti in Milan. Without possessing
the personal courage which distinguished many of his family, Filippo
Maria Visconti was endowed with no common share of that keenness and
subtlety which are frequently more efficacious than wisdom and valour. He
has been praised for the clemency and generosity with which he treated
his prisoners--no inconsiderable merit in an age full of perfidy and
cruelty, when, the gates of the prison once closed upon the captive,
his fate remained matter of doubt and secrecy. We have already seen his
extraordinary moderation, when Alfonso of Aragon and his noble companions
were led prisoners to Milan; nor are there wanting other examples of the
magnanimous conduct of Filippo. But a dark stain rests upon his fame,
from his unfeeling treatment of his duchess Beatrice, whose alliance
and ample fortune had rendered him the most signal service, when in the
outset of his reign he was beset by poverty and threatened with expulsion
from his paternal inheritance. An improbable accusation of adultery with
one of his domestics stretched the devoted victims on the rack; and
condemned by the ravings of her imputed paramour the duchess suffered an
ignominious death. In the last moments of her life Beatrice maintained
a calmness which can seldom be commanded by guilt, and died with such
solemn assertions of her innocence as seem to have convinced all save her
obdurate husband (1418).

_The House of Sforza_

[Sidenote: [1432-1447 A.D.]]

Though the Milanese had long acquiesced in the hereditary succession
of the Visconti, Sforza beheld his hopes endangered by the spirit of
liberty which now prevailed in Milan. The late duke left no less than
four wills, each constituting a different successor, and bequeathing
the duchy according to the momentary dictates of his capricious temper.
By one of these, Bianca, the wife of Sforza, was declared his heir; but
the people rejected this attempt to dispose of them and the state, and
with loud shouts of “liberty!” opposed the pretensions of Francesco.
Despairing of present success, Sforza wisely resolved to temporise,
and his views were soon favoured by the proceedings of Venice. Anxious
to enrich herself with the spoils of Milan, that republic immediately
commenced aggressions on the Milanese territory, and Sforza was called
upon by the citizens to lead their army against the invaders. But while
Sforza affected to defend the interests of Milan, he secretly negotiated
with Venice; and at length, renouncing his allegiance to the Milanese,
attacked their domains, and with the aid of the Venetians carried his
conquests to the very gates of the city. In the height of his success
Sforza found his prospects endangered by the perfidious policy of his
ally. The senate, alarmed at his approaching power, now thought fit to
intimate the necessity of suffering Milan to remain free under its new
republican government, and even entered into a treaty with the Milanese
for the preservation of their liberty and territory. The genius of
Sforza triumphed in this emergency; he baffled the confederate hostility
of Venice and Milan; and by a strict blockade of the city reduced the
citizens to the last stage of famine. Within the walls a considerable
party was ready to surrender into his hands; and the populace, maddened
by hunger, anxiously besought their rulers to capitulate. An insurrection
of a few plebeians drove the regents from the palace; and Sforza was
received into the city with a burst of enthusiasm which saluted him by
the title of duke of Milan.

[Sidenote: [1447-1476 A.D.]]

For four years Sforza encountered the enmity of Venice, until the
Peace of Lodi in 1454 put an end to their languid warfare. He governed
Milan during sixteen years with prudence and moderation; and, already
possessed of a splendid territory, he wisely abstained from risking his
possessions by any wanton aggression upon the other states. He availed
himself, however, of the internal commotions of Genoa, who in 1435 had
revolted from Filippo Visconti, and now again placed herself under the
dominion of Milan. He maintained the respect of the Italian, as well as
foreign powers; rendered himself generally acceptable to his people;
and peaceably transmitted his duchy to his posterity. In that age of
treachery and perfidy, the means by which he had obtained his power left
no stigma on his reputation; it was sufficient that his bad faith and
dissimulation had been crowned with success.

[Illustration: COURT COSTUME OF A YOUNG ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, FIFTEENTH
CENTURY]

On the death of Francesco Sforza, in 1466, he was succeeded by his eldest
son Galeazzo Maria, a compound of ambition, lust, and cruelty. Contrary
to the wishes of her brother Amadeus IX, duke of Savoy, he had espoused
Bona, daughter of Duke Louis, and sister of Charlotte married to Louis
XI, king of France. But the nuptial tie placed no restraint on his
disorderly life; the dwellings of his subjects were perpetually invaded
by his illicit passions, and the honour of many noble families was
violated by his amours. His savage disposition made him no less odious;
and he delighted in aggravating the punishment of death by wanton and
refined tortures. At length three young men of noble birth united in the
design of destroying the tyrant. Carlo Visconti, Girolamo Olgiato, and
Andrea Lampugnano had been educated under the same master, and imbibed,
with the love of liberty, the dangerous lesson that the assassination
of a tyrant confers immortal fame. Their patriotism, however, was not
unmixed with personal motives, for all had been privately injured by
the object of their vengeance. The bloody deed was accomplished on
the festival of St. Stephen; Galeazzo fell beneath the daggers of
the conspirators, as he entered the church of the Martyr between the
ambassadors of Mantua and Ferrara. In the general confusion Olgiato
effected his escape; but the other two were instantly put to death by the
multitude. Nor did Olgiato long elude the pursuit of justice. His father,
in horror at his guilt, refused him admission within his doors; and after
a short concealment in the house of a friend he was dragged to execution,
and died exulting in his ill-gained immortality.

The conspirators had believed that Milan would approve their murderous
act, and rejoice in her liberation. But an indolent submission possessed
the minds of the people, and the vices of their oppressor appear to have
been forgotten in the emotions produced by his miserable fate. The young
son of the murdered duke was quietly acknowledged as his successor; and
as Gian Galeazzo Maria had only attained his eighth year, his mother,
Bona of Savoy, was recognised as regent during his minority. Aided by
her minister and favourite, Cecco Simonetta, the duchess soon found
herself sufficiently strong to counteract the sinister machinations of
her husband’s brothers, who were anxious to wrest the government out of
her hands. Sforzino, duke of Bari, Lodovico Sforza, surnamed Il Moro,
the Moor, Ottaviano, and the cardinal Ascanio were compelled to quit
Milan--the first being banished to his duchy, the second to Pisa, and
the cardinal to Perugia; whilst Ottaviano, in attempting his escape, was
drowned in the river Adda.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[16] It will be of aid to have a list of the kings of Naples and Sicily,
and of the tyrants of Milan, presented here as a guide to the text.

KINGS OF NAPLES AND SICILY (1309-1496 A.D.).--Naples (House of Anjou);
1309, Robert (The Wise); 1343, Joanna I; 1382, Charles III; 1386,
Ladislaus; 1414, Joanna II.

Sicily (House of Aragon); 1337, Pedro II, king of Sicily; 1342, Louis;
1355, Frederick III; 1377, Maria; 1402, Martin I, king of Aragon; 1409,
Martin II, king of Aragon; 1412, Ferdinand, king of Aragon; 1416, Alfonso
I, king of Aragon.

Naples and Sicily (House of Aragon); 1435, Alfonso I, king of Aragon;
1458, Ferdinand I, king of the Two Sicilies; 1494, Alfonso II; 1495,
Ferdinand II; 1496, Frederick II.

TYRANTS AND DUKES OF MILAN (1295-1494 A.D.).--1295, Matteo Visconti, lord
of Milan; 1322, Galeazzo Visconti; 1328, Azzo Visconti; 1339, Lucchino
Visconti; 1349, Giovanni Visconti; 1354, Matteo II, Barnabò, Galeazzo II;
1378, Gian Galeazzo, Barnabò Visconti; 1385, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, duke
of Milan in 1395; 1402, Gian Maria Visconti, duke; 1412, Filippo Maria
Visconti, duke; 1447, Francesco Sforza, duke from 1450; 1466, Galeazzo
Maria Sforza, duke; 1476, Gian Galeazzo Maria Sforza, duke; 1494,
Lodovico Maria Sforza, duke.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: WEST DOOR BAPTISTRY, PISA]

CHAPTER IX. THE MARITIME REPUBLICS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES

THE AFFAIRS OF PISA AND GENOA

In the disputes between the emperors and the popes, the Pisans followed
the Ghibelline, the Genoese, the Guelf party. Both republics, too, late
in the twelfth century, often replaced their consuls by podestas, and
both were the frequent theatre of strife between the nobles and the
populace. In Genoa, from 1190 to 1216, there appears to have been a
struggle whether consuls or the podesta should govern the state, for
during that period we find both, and, from 1216 to 1252, podestas alone.
But, as the popular assemblies were still convoked whenever any important
decision was to be made, and as the podesta, like the consul, was
elected, the citizens still retained some of their ancient privileges.
These, however, were not the only changes in the form of the executive;
the podesta was sometimes replaced by the _capitano_, sometimes by the
_abbate_, and at other times by the _anziano_--dignities of which we find
frequent instances in the thirteenth century. But none appear to have
enjoyed a long lease of power; often the very next election, according as
faction or prejudice or love of novelty prevailed, ended their name with
their administration; they could, however, hope that in the perpetually
revolving wheel of change their dignity might again attain the summit--a
hope which was almost sure to be realised. “At present,” says the
archbishop of Genoa, who wrote towards the close of the same century,
“we have an abbot and elders; whether we must soon change them or not,
no one can tell; but at least let us pray God that we may change for the
better, so that we are governed well, no matter whether we obey consuls,
or podestas, or captains, or abbots.”

[Sidenote: [1262-1298 A.D.]]

The good prelate proceeds to illustrate this truth by quaintly comparing
the different forms of government to three keys, one of gold, one of
silver, the third of wood; though the material of these, he observes,
is very differently estimated, one is in reality as good as another,
provided it does its office, that of opening. The first _capitano_
surnamed Boccanera, owed his election to the mob, whom he had gained by
flattery, and whom he persuaded to be no longer governed by tyrannical
podestas; his election was for ten years; a council of thirty-two elders
was elected to aid, or, rather, to obey him; a judge, two secretaries,
and twelve lictors were constantly to await his orders; and a knight and
fifty archers were appointed his body-guard. A man with powers so ample
was sure to become a tyrant; and we accordingly find that in the second
year of his administration a conspiracy was formed to depose him. This
time he triumphed; but when half his term was expired, a confederacy of
the nobles, aided by the populace, compelled him to retire into private
life.

[Illustration: A LOMBARD AMBASSADOR]

Into the endless domestic quarrels of the Guelfs and Ghibellines at
Genoa and Pisa, and the consequent alliances--alliances of momentary
duration--contracted in both cities with the emperor, the pope, or the
king of Naples, we cannot enter; and if we could, nobody would thank us
for the wearisome detail. As in Lombardy, the nobles were often banished,
and as often recalled. The year 1282 is more famous in the annals of both
republics, as the origin of a ruinous war between them. Pisa, with her
sovereignty over Corsica, Elba, and the greater part of Sardinia; with
her immense commerce, her establishments in Spain, Asia, and Greece, her
revenues and stores, had little to gain and much to lose, by contending
with a poor and perhaps braver power. If Genoa had less wealth, she had
equal enterprise, an equal thirst for gain, and equal ambition. Where
so much rivalry existed, it would easily degenerate into discord; and
petty acts of offence were followed by general hostilities. In one of
their expeditions the fleet of the Pisans was almost destroyed by a
tempest; a second, by the enemy; a third, after a bloody conflict off
the isle of Meloria, was all but annihilated, and the loss in killed was
five thousand, in prisoners eleven thousand. These prisoners the victors
refused to ransom and for a reason truly Italian--that the retention of
so many husbands in captivity would prevent their wives from renewing
the population, and that Pisa must in consequence decline. This infernal
policy succeeded; when, after sixteen years’ warfare, peace was made,
scarcely a thousand remained to be restored to their country.

But Pisa had other enemies; all the cities of Tuscany, with Florence at
their head, entered into an alliance with Genoa to crush the falling
republic, which had rendered itself so obnoxious by its Ghibelline
spirit. In this emergency, convinced how feeble must be the divided
efforts of its municipal magistrates, Pisa subjected itself to the
authority of an able and valiant noble, Ugolino della Gheradesca,
who dissipated the formidable confederacy, and, by some sacrifice of
territory, procured peace. Not less distracted was the internal state
of the republic, now the Ghibellines, now the Guelfs being called by
the populace to usurp the chief authority. Though the Genoese had less
domestic liberty, since they were more frequently under the control of
some one tyrant, they were in general much more tranquil. In 1312 they
submitted to the emperor Henry of Luxemburg, but evidently with the
resolution of throwing off the yoke the moment he repassed the Alps;
while the submission of the Pisans was sincere. Two years afterwards
the _capitano_ or dictator of the latter reduced Lucca, and humbled the
Florentines; but such was his own tyranny that the people expelled him.
His fate is that of all the petty rulers of Italy; yet, though after this
expulsion the forms of a republic were frequently restored, the spirit
was gone; there was no patriotism, no enlightened notions of social
duties; violence and anarchy triumphed, until the citizens, preferring
the tyranny of one to that of many, again created or recalled a dictator.
The war of the Pisans with Aragon for the recovery of Sardinia was even
more disastrous than that with the Genoese. It ended in the loss of
that important island, which had formed a considerable source of their
resources.

The evils, indeed, were partly counterbalanced by the conquest of Lucca,
which had sometimes proved a troublesome neighbour; but nothing could
restore them to their ancient wealth or power, so long as they were
menaced by so many rival states, especially those of Tuscany, and so long
as they were distracted by never-ceasing domestic broils. In fact, at one
time, their existence depended only on the imperial support; at another,
on the dissensions or misfortunes of their enemies.

[Sidenote: [1284-1369 A.D.]]

The little republic of Genoa, which, in imitation of Venice, had forsaken
its podestas, abbots, elders, and captains for a doge and senate--but a
senate much less aristocratic than that of the ocean queen, was scarcely
more enviable, though doubtless more secure. This republic, too, had
its pretensions to Sardinia, and consequently a perpetual enemy in the
Aragonese kings. Often vanquished, it implored the protection of the
king of Naples or the duke of Milan, according as policy or inclination
dictated. It had, however, a better defence in its natural position,
in the barren rocks which skirted it to the north and east, and in
the valour of its sailors; and when, as was sometimes the case, its
protectors became its masters, the foreign garrison, being cut off from
supplies both by sea and land, was soon compelled to surrender.

But Pisa had no such defence; and in 1369 she had the mortification
to see the republic of Lucca restored to independence by the emperor
Charles IV. On this occasion the Lucchese remodelled their constitution;
they retained their _anziani_, or elders, with a gonfalonier at their
head; both, however, in the fear of absolute sway, they renewed every
two months. Ten _anziani_, with the gonfalonier, formed the seigniory,
or executive government, and were assisted by a council of thirty-six,
called _boni homines_, and elected every six months. Over these was the
college of 180 members, who were annually elected.[b]

[Sidenote: [1339-1458 A.D.]]

Of all the republics, Genoa, in the fourteenth century, was accounted the
most wealthy and powerful. But after throwing off the yoke of Robert,
king of Naples, the city was agitated by continual commotions, in which
the Guelfs and Ghibellines were alternately expelled. The institution
of an officer called the abbot of the people, like that of the Roman
tribunes, had been intended to repress the power of the nobles; and the
attempt to dispense with this office was resisted by the commons, who
chose for their abbot, Simone Boccanera, a nobleman of the Ghibelline
party, and a zealous advocate for the popular cause. But his noble
descent impelled him to decline an office which had hitherto been held
by only one of the people; and the multitude overcame his scruples by
changing the title of abbot to that of duke, or doge, in imitation of the
Venetians (1339). A select few of the popular leaders were nominated as
his council; but the authority of Boccanera appears to have been almost
unlimited. He governed with firmness and discretion, and according to
Giovanni Villani a conspiracy of the nobles was promptly and capitally
punished. His reign was, however, suspended in 1344; the members of the
noble families, Doria, Spinola, Fieschi, and Grimaldi reassembled in the
suburbs, and the doge avoided a violent deposition by a secret retreat to
Pisa. After some confusion, a nobleman, Giovanni da Murta, was proclaimed
doge; but as renewed disorder convulsed the city, the contending
factions agreed to submit their differences to Lucchino Visconti, and
the rapacious arbitrator was prevented by death alone from occupying the
distracted state.

After the death of Da Murta, a new doge was set up; but disorder within
and defeat without induced Genoa to throw herself under the protection
of Giovanni Visconti. On the death of that prelate she reassumed her
independence; her original doge was recalled, and continued to rule until
1363. But from the death of Boccanera the state was torn by dissension
for upwards of thirty years, and two rival families of the mercantile
class, the Adorni, adherents of the Guelfs, and the Fregosi of the
opposite party, alternately furnished Genoa with an ephemeral sovereign.
In 1396 the reigning doge, Antonio Adorno, by an act of miserable
impolicy, surrendered the state to Charles VI, king of France, who
deputed the government to a renowned captain, Jean le Maingre, marshal
of France, and lord of Boucicault. The stern severity of this approved
soldier was manifested on his entry into the city; and two of the most
refractory citizens, Battista Boccanera and Battista Luciardo, were at
his command led out to execution. Boccanera’s head was severed from
the body, and his companion was about to suffer, when a new commotion
in the assembled crowd distracted the attention of the French guard.
The criminal seized the propitious moment, and darting into the dense
throng was lost among the multitude; but his place was instantly supplied
by the officer whose neglect had permitted his escape, and whose head
immediately rolled upon the ground at the mandate of the peremptory
Boucicault. For eight years the Genoese were overawed by his rigorous
government; but his absence favouring insurrection, the French lieutenant
was assassinated, and the state was delivered from the yoke of France.

[Illustration: GRAND CANAL, VENICE]

[Sidenote: [1458-1478 A.D.]]

But the spirit of independence was extinguished in Genoa, and she
withdrew herself from the bondage of France to acknowledge Filippo,
duke of Milan, as her master. Revolt from Milan and reinstatement of
the doge were immediately followed by his deposition, and a new form
of government was introduced by creating ancients and captains of the
people. After a few months’ duration this government was dissolved, and
Raffaello Adorno was created doge, and permitted to retain his power for
nearly four years. A new struggle between the rival families once more
convulsed the city; and whilst Alfonso, king of Naples, threatened Genoa
with a most formidable invasion, a grievous pestilence raged among her
citizens. In this complication of distress, the doge, Pietro Fregoso,
with the approbation of the principal citizens, craved the protection
of Charles VII, king of France; and the city being by treaty surrendered
to that monarch was occupied in his name by John of Anjou. The union of
the families Adorni and Fregosi enabled the Genoese to expel the French;
an Adorno was for a moment raised to the duchy and then expelled by
the Fregosi, and a Fregoso had scarcely mounted the throne ere he was
displaced by his kinsman, the archbishop Paolo. The odious character of
Paolo Fregoso threatened a speedy dissolution of his authority; and the
keen-eyed Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, already regarded Genoa as his
own. He obtained from Louis XI of France the cession of his rights; he
secured a strong party amongst the discontented citizens; and a general
revolt in April, 1464, enabled his friends to proclaim him lord of the
city.

During the residue of the reign of Francesco and that of his son,
Galeazzo Sforza, Genoa continued in repose; but the murder of the latter
prince incited the family of Fieschi to attempt a revolt from Milan. The
storm was, however, lulled by the presence of Lodovico and Ottaviano
Sforza, the young duke’s uncles; and their creature Prospero Adorno was
accepted by the people as their doge under the authority of the duke of
Milan. A few months dispelled his authority; and Battistino Fregoso was
proclaimed independent sovereign of Genoa.[17]

In the midst of these perpetual commotions, a new and singular
association of private individuals took place in Genoa. The bank, or
company, of St. George had been instituted about 1402, when a long course
of warfare had drained the public treasury. The contributions, therefore,
of private citizens were called in requisition, in security for the
repayment of which the customs were pawned by the republic; whilst each
lender participated in the receipts in proportion to the extent of his
advances.

The administration of their affairs required frequent meetings of the
body of creditors; and the palace over the custom-house being assigned
to them, they organised a particular form of government. A great council
of one hundred was established for deliberation on their common weal;
whilst the supreme management of their affairs was entrusted to a
directory of eight. The good order of their little government insured
their prosperity; the increasing necessities of the republic required
new advances; and the public lands were mortgaged to the bank, until
that body became possessed of nearly all the territory appertaining to
the state of Genoa. To the regulation and defence of this extending
territory the company alone were attentive; and, without any interference
on the part of the commonwealth, an annual election of their own
officers furnished an adequate supply of governors and magistrates for
the provinces. They wisely abstained from taking part in the unceasing
changes in the government; and, alike indifferent to the cry of Adorni
or Fregosi, were intent only on preserving their own independence, and
securing from the successful ruler the due recognition of their laws
and privileges. The administration of this society formed a striking
contrast to that of public affairs. Instead of tyranny, corruption, and
licentiousness, the bank of St. George presented a model of order, good
faith, and justice; and the people obtained thereby an influence in the
state, which more effectually preserved their liberty than all their
violent attempts to depress the aristocracy.

_Naval Exploits_

[Sidenote: [1337-1354 A.D.]]

Notwithstanding the perpetual dissensions of Genoa, she long continued
to maintain her naval renown; and whilst the plebeians were intent on
the depression of the nobles, the family of Doria were conducting her
fleets to the discomfiture of her enemies. Like her ancient rival Venice,
she had long been acquainted with the Levant; and Galata and Pera, the
suburbs of Constantinople, were the reward of services rendered to the
Greek emperor.

[Illustration: A VENETIAN NAVAL OFFICER

(After Vicellio)]

After the peace of 1299 the Venetians, though strengthened by the
alliance of the Aragonese, abstained for a time from renewing the
contest; and the first attack upon the galleys of Genoa was punished by
defeat and disgrace. A breach of faith on the part of Venice was resented
by the seizure of all her traders in the Black Sea; but Genoa paid dearly
for this aggression, and a signal defeat by the Venetians off Caristo
nearly annihilated her fleet. In 1351 a powerful armament sailed from
Venice under the command of Niccolo Pisani, one of the most distinguished
commanders of his age; and a fierce encounter in the Dardanelles covered
the sea with the fragments of the hostile vessels. But severely as the
Genoese suffered on this occasion, they might fairly claim the victory,
since the destruction of the Venetian and Aragonese galleys was more than
double the loss which they themselves sustained; and Pisani admitted
the defeat by leaving his enemies in possession of the scene of action.
Even the seat of empire was threatened by the conquerors; and the Greek
emperor averted their vengeance by the expulsion of his former allies
from the capital. But the pride of Genoa soon afterwards sustained a
severe check; her fleet, under Antonio Grimaldi, was surprised off
Cagliari on the anniversary of the defeat of Caristo; and the loss of
more than thirty ships and forty-five hundred prisoners reduced the
public to despair. This disaster, however, was amply compensated by a
splendid victory in the following year, achieved over Pisani by Andrea
Doria and his nephew Giovanni; and to the bold and spirited manœuvre of
the latter the success of the day was chiefly to be attributed. Whilst
the Venetians lay within the harbour of Sapienza, a little island of the
Morea, the younger Doria dashed into the port with twelve galleys, and,
placing his force between the shore and the enemy, commenced a furious
assault. Meanwhile the residue of the Genoese fleet attacked the galleys
of Pisani in front, and most complete victory was obtained. The Venetians
suffered an enormous loss of both vessels and men; and amongst the six
thousand prisoners led in triumph to Genoa was the renowned commander
Niccolo Pisani.

[Sidenote: [1354-1379 A.D.]]

The Genoese thus triumphant swept the coast of Barbary, assaulted and
plundered Tripoli, and sold the city to a wealthy Saracen for 50,000
pieces of gold. A more important conquest was achieved eighteen years
afterwards. At the coronation of Peter de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, a
dispute for precedence arose between the consuls of Genoa and Venice,
which the Cypriote authorities decided in favour of the latter. Irritated
by this award, the Genoese attempted to assert their right by violence;
and the Cypriotes, resenting an affront offered in the royal presence,
flew to arms, and immediately put the offenders to death. Not content
with this summary vengeance, they set on foot a general massacre
through the island, and a single Genoese was left alive to convey the
heavy tidings to the republic. A new fleet was forthwith sent from
Genoa, commanded by Pietro Fregoso, and the island of Cyprus offered
little resistance to the invaders. Nor can they be accused of want of
moderation, since only three lives were sacrificed to the manes of their
slaughtered countrymen. The king was restored to liberty, and even
permitted to retain his title; but a yearly tribute of 40,000 florins was
exacted by the conquerors.

A new offence soon kindled another war with Venice. So low had the Greek
Empire fallen that the Genoese had taken upon themselves to dethrone
the emperor Joannes Palæologus in favour of his son Andronicus, who
promised them in return the island of Tenedos. But the deposed tyrant
was supported by their ancient rival, who took advantage of the imperial
schism to get possession of Tenedos; and Genoa, strengthened by the
alliance of Louis, king of Hungary, Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua,
and the patriarch of Aquileia, declared war against the Venetians. The
fleet of Genoa was commanded by Luciano Doria, that of Venice by Vittore
Pisani. Fortune from the commencement favoured the Genoese; and in the
month of May, 1379, a great and sanguinary battle off Chioggia was
attended by a brilliant victory. The death of their admiral Doria, who
fell in the first onset, inspired them with vindictive fury; and fifteen
Venetian galleys and upwards of a thousand prisoners fell into the hands
of the conquerors. Many of these were inhumanly butchered by the Genoese
in revenge for the fall of Doria; whilst the defeated Pisani, returning
to the capital, was plunged into a dungeon by the implacable government
of Venice.

A reinforcement under Pietro Doria now enabled the Genoese to follow
up their victory, and the island and city of Chioggia were captured
with immense loss to the Venetians. The utmost consternation prevailed
throughout Venice, and the most humiliating terms of peace were proposed
by the disheartened senate. But the haughty Doria rejected all terms of
accommodation. “Never, by the faith of God!” he exclaimed, “never, my
lords of Venice, shall ye have peace till we have bridled those brazen
horses of St. Mark’s; when they are bitted, ye may dare to talk of peace.”

Nothing can more strongly mark the consternation of the Venetian
government than their yielding on this trying occasion to the outcries
of the populace. In obedience to their urgent call Pisani was delivered
from his dungeon and once more placed in command of the armament. Despair
prompted the most vigorous preparations for defence; great rewards were
promised to all whose exertions should be most conspicuous; and nobility
was to be the reward of the thirty citizens who should pre-eminently
distinguish themselves in preserving the state. The great aim of Pisani
was now to blockade the Genoese fleet, which had taken up its station
within the port of Chioggia. This daring enterprise was achieved with
incredible labour and severe loss on the part of the Venetians. By
sinking vessels laden with stones at the mouths of the several channels
which led into the Lagune, he rendered all egress impossible.[g]

[Sidenote: [1379-1381 A.D.]]

[Illustration: A VENETIAN GENERAL]

The circumstances of the two combatants were thus entirely changed.
But the Genoese fleet, though besieged in Chioggia, was impregnable,
and their command of the land secured them from famine. Venice,
notwithstanding her unexpected success, was still very far from secure;
it was difficult for the doge to keep his position through the winter;
and if the enemy could appear in open sea, the risks of combat were
extremely hazardous. It is said that the senate deliberated upon
transporting the seat of their liberty to Candia, and that the doge had
announced his intention to raise the siege of Chioggia, if expected
succours did not arrive by the 1st of January, 1380. On that very day,
Carlo Zeno, an admiral, who, ignorant of the dangers of his country, had
been supporting the honour of her flag in the Levant and on the coast of
Liguria, appeared with a reinforcement of eighteen galleys and a store
of provisions. From that moment the confidence of Venice revived. The
fleet, now superior in strength to the enemy, began to attack them with
vivacity. After several months of obstinate resistance, the Genoese,
whom their republic had ineffectually attempted to relieve by a fresh
armament, blocked up in the town of Chioggia, and pressed by hunger,
were obliged to surrender. Nineteen galleys only out of forty-eight were
in good condition, and the crews were equally diminished in the ten
months of their occupation of Chioggia. The pride of Genoa was deemed to
be justly humbled; and even her own historian Stella[h] confesses that
God would not suffer so noble a city as Venice to become the spoil of a
conqueror.

Each of the two republics had sufficient reason to lament their mutual
prejudices and the selfish cupidity of their merchants, which usurps in
all maritime countries the name of patriotism. Though the capture of
Chioggia did not terminate the war, both parties were exhausted, and
willing, next year, to accept the mediation of the duke of Savoy. By the
Peace of Turin, Venice surrendered most of her territorial possessions to
the king of Hungary. That prince and Francesco da Carrara were the only
gainers. Genoa obtained the isle of Tenedos, one of the original subjects
of dispute--a poor indemnity for her losses. Though, upon a hasty view,
the result of this war appears more unfavourable to Venice, yet in fact
it is the epoch of the decline of Genoa. From this time she never
commanded the ocean with such navies as in days gone by; her commerce
gradually went into decay; and the fifteenth century, the most splendid
in the annals of Venice, is, till recent times, the most ignominious in
those of Genoa. But this was partly owing to internal dissensions, by
which her liberty, as well as glory, was for a considerable space of time
suspended.

THE AFFAIRS OF VENICE[18]

[Sidenote: [1172-1319 A.D.]]

While Genoa lost even her political independence, Venice became more
conspicuous and powerful than before.

The great Council of Venice, as established in 1172, was to consist of
480 citizens, equally taken from the six districts of the city, and
annually renewed. But the election was not made immediately by the
people. Two electors, called tribunes, from each of the six districts,
appointed the members of the council by separate nomination. These
tribunes, at first, were themselves chosen by the people; so that the
intervention of this electoral body did not apparently trespass upon the
democratical character of the constitution. But the great council, which
was principally composed of men of high birth, and invested by the law
with the appointment of the doge, and of all the councils of magistracy,
seem, early in the thirteenth century, to have assumed the right of
naming their own constituents. Besides appointing the tribunes, they took
upon themselves another privilege; that of confirming or rejecting their
successors, before they resigned their functions.

These usurpations rendered the annual election almost nugatory; the same
members were usually renewed, and though the dignity of councillor was
not yet hereditary, it remained, upon the whole, in the same families.
In this transitional state the Venetian government continued during
the thirteenth century; the people actually debarred of power, but a
hereditary aristocracy not completely or legally confirmed. The right of
electing, or rather of re-electing, the great council was transferred,
in 1297, from the tribunes, whose office was abolished, to the council
of Forty; they ballotted upon the names of the members who already
sat, and whoever obtained twelve favouring balls out of forty retained
his place. The vacancies occasioned by rejection or death were filled
up by a supplemental list formed by three electors, nominated in the
great council. But they were expressly prohibited, by laws of 1298 and
1300, from inserting the name of anyone whose paternal ancestors had
not enjoyed the same honour. Thus an exclusive hereditary aristocracy
was finally established. And the personal rights of noble descent were
rendered complete in 1319, by the abolition of all elective forms. By
the constitution of Venice as it was then settled, every descendant of
a member of the great council, on attaining twenty-five years of age,
entered as of right into that body, which of course became unlimited in
its numbers.

[Sidenote: [1297-1319 A.D.]]

These gradual changes between 1297 and 1319 were first made known by
Sandi.[i] All former writers, both ancient and modern, fix the complete
and final establishment of the Venetian aristocracy in 1297.

But an assembly so numerous as the great council, even before it was
thus thrown open to all the nobility, could never have conducted the
public affairs with that secrecy and steadiness which were characteristic
of Venice; and without an intermediary power between the doge and the
patrician multitude the constitution would have gained nothing in
stability to compensate for the loss of popular freedom. The great
council had proceeded, very soon after its institution, to limit the
ducal prerogatives. That of exercising criminal justice, a trust of
vast importance, was transferred in 1179, to a council of forty members
annually chosen. The executive government itself was thought too
considerable for the doge without some material limitations. Instead
of naming his own assistants or _pregadi_, he was only to preside in a
council of sixty members, to whom the care of the state in all domestic
and foreign relations, and the previous deliberation upon proposals
submitted to the great council was confided.

[Illustration: A VENETIAN SENATOR]

This council of pregadi, generally called in later times the senate, was
enlarged, in the fourteenth century, by sixty additional members; and as
a great part of the magistrates had also seats in it, the whole number
amounted to between two and three hundred. Though the legislative power,
properly speaking, remained with the great council, the senate used to
impose taxes, and had the exclusive right of making peace and war. It was
annually renewed, like almost all other councils at Venice, by the great
council. But since even this body was too numerous for the preliminary
discussion of business, six councillors, forming, along with the doge,
the seigniory, or visible representative of the republic, were empowered
to despatch orders, to correspond with ambassadors, to treat with foreign
states, to convoke and preside in the councils, and perform other duties
of an administration. In part of these they were obliged to act with
the concurrence of what was termed the college, comprising, besides
themselves, certain select councillors, from different constituted
authorities.

It might be imagined, that a dignity so shorn of its lustre as that of
doge, would not excite an overweening ambition. But the Venetians were
still jealous of extinguished power; and while their constitution was
yet immature, the great council planned new methods of restricting their
chief magistrate. An oath was taken by the doge on his election, so
comprehensive as to embrace every possible check upon undue influence.
He was bound not to correspond with foreign states, or to open their
letters, except in the presence of the seigniory; to acquire no property
beyond the Venetian dominions, and to resign what he might already
possess; to interpose, directly or indirectly, in no judicial process,
and not to permit any citizen to use tokens of subjection in saluting him.

As a further security, they devised a remarkably complicated mode of
supplying the vacancy of his office. Election by open suffrage is always
liable to tumult or corruption, nor does the method of secret ballot,
while it prevents the one, afford in practice any adequate security
against the other. Election by lot incurs the risk of placing incapable
persons in situations of arduous trust. The Venetian scheme was intended
to combine the two modes without their evils, by leaving the absolute
choice of their doge to electors taken by lot.

[Sidenote: [1296-1310 A.D.]]

It was presumed that, among a competent number of persons, though taken
promiscuously, good sense and right principles would gain such an
ascendency, as to prevent any flagrantly improper nomination, if undue
influence could be excluded. For this purpose, the ballot was rendered
exceedingly complicated, that no possible ingenuity or stratagem might
ascertain the electoral body before the last moment. A single lottery,
if fairly conducted, is certainly sufficient for this end. At Venice,
as many balls as there were members of the great council present were
placed in an urn. Thirty of these were gilt. The holders of gilt balls
were reduced by a second ballot to nine. The nine elected forty, whom lot
reduced to twelve. The twelve chose twenty-five by separate nomination.
The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine; and each of the nine chose
five. These forty-five were reduced to eleven, as before; the eleven
elected forty-one, who were the ultimate voters for a doge.

A hereditary prince could never have remained quiet in such trammels as
were imposed upon the doge of Venice. But early prejudice accustoms men
to consider restraint, even upon themselves, as advantageous; and the
limitations of ducal power appeared to every Venetian as fundamental as
the great laws of the English constitution do to ourselves. Many doges of
Venice, especially in the Middle Ages, were considerable men; but they
were content with the functions assigned to them, which, if they could
avoid the tantalising comparison of sovereign princes, were enough for
the ambition of republicans. For life the chief magistrates of their
country, her noble citizens forever, they might thank her in their own
name for what she gave, and in that of their posterity for what she
withheld.

For some years after what was called the closing of the great council
by the law of 1296, which excluded all but the families actually in
possession, a good deal of discontent showed itself among the commonalty.
Several commotions took place about the beginning of the fourteenth
century, with the object of restoring a more popular regimen. Upon the
suppression of the last, in 1310, the aristocracy sacrificed their own
individual freedom along with that of the people, to the preservation
of an imaginary privilege. They established the famous Council of Ten,
that most remarkable part of the Venetian constitution. This council,
it should be observed, consisted in fact of seventeen, comprising the
seigniory, or the doge and his six councillors, as well as the ten
properly so called. The Council of Ten had by usage, if not by right, a
controlling and dictatorial power over the senate and other magistrates;
rescinding their decisions, and treating separately with foreign princes.
Their vast influence strengthened the executive government, of which they
formed a part, and gave a vigour to its movements, which the jealousy
of the councils would possibly have impeded. But they are chiefly known
as an arbitrary and inquisitorial tribunal, the standing tyranny of
Venice. Excluding the old council of Forty, a regular court of criminal
judicature, not only from the investigation of treasonable charges but
of several other crimes of magnitude, they inquired, they judged, they
punished, according to what they called reason of state.

The public eye never penetrated the mystery of their proceedings; the
accused was sometimes not heard, never confronted with witnesses; the
condemnation was secret as the inquiry, the punishment undivulged like
both. The terrible and odious machinery of a police, the insidious
spy, the stipendiary informer, unknown to the carelessness of feudal
governments, found their natural soil in the republic of Venice.
Tumultuous assemblies were scarcely possible in so peculiar a city, and
private conspiracies never failed to be detected by the vigilance of the
Council of Ten. Compared with the Tuscan republics, the tranquillity of
Venice is truly striking. The names of Guelf and Ghibelline hardly raised
any emotion in her streets, though the government was considered in the
first part of the fourteenth century as rather inclined towards the
latter party. But the wildest excesses of faction are less dishonouring
than the stillness and moral degradation of servitude.[j]

[Sidenote: [1289-1325 A.D.]]

On the death of Giovanni Dandolo in 1289, the long delay of the electors
to name a successor furnished an excuse to the populace to resume their
ancient privilege; and they tumultuously hailed Jacopo Tiepolo as their
doge. But Tiepolo, wisely declining an honour thus irregularly conferred,
withdrew for a time from Venice, and the Forty-one at length fixed on
Pietro Gradenigo, a nobleman extremely obnoxious to the people. With
him originated a measure which forever shut out the commonalty; and the
Forty, who were entrusted with the annual election of the council, were
enjoined to re-elect all such members of the old council as were not
declared unfit by twenty-nine voices. Not to render the people desperate,
three commissioners were appointed to make supplemental lists of such
other citizens as might be fit to fill vacancies caused by the rejection
of the former, or the death of existing members of the council; which
lists were in like manner subject to the approval of the Forty. But as
three commissioners were appointed by the council itself, it was easy
to foresee that this body would be careful to name such persons only as
favoured their own order; and lest the electors should err on the popular
side, a decree was soon afterwards made, by which they were forbidden
to insert any person in their lists, who himself or whose ancestor
had not formerly belonged to the great council. In course of time the
commissioners were wholly suppressed; the council was declared permanent;
and all who could prove themselves descended from one of this body were
entitled to inscribe their names in the Golden Book, and to enter this
noble assembly at the age of twenty-five.

_The Tiepolo Conspiracy, and the Council of Ten_

[Sidenote: [1325-1355 A.D.]]

These changes were not effected without some movement on the part of the
people; and the suppression of a feeble conspiracy, and the punishment
of its leaders, did not deter others from plotting against the power of
the aristocracy. A numerous band of citizens, headed by Baiamonte Tiepolo
(son of Jacopo), was formed, and extensive preparations were made for the
subversion of the government. But detection having prematurely driven the
conspirators into open revolt, they were easily overwhelmed and destroyed
in the narrow streets of Venice; and this new conspiracy furnished an
excuse for erecting that fearful tribunal--the Council of Ten. This
formidable assembly, though originally only a temporary measure, was
afterwards, in 1325, declared permanent. It was invested with arbitrary
and almost unlimited powers; under pretence of watching over the safety
of the republic, the Ten gradually assumed the government of the state,
made peace and war, disposed of the finances, and even abrogated the
proceedings of the great council. Their spies and emissaries pervaded
every quarter of the city; they seized, imprisoned, or put to secret
death, without responsibility to any higher authority; whilst no rank
was secure from their machinations. Even the doge himself might tremble
at their vigilance and severity; and the fate of Marino Falieri, thirty
years after the permanent institution of this council, forms a striking
event in the annals of this extraordinary oligarchy.[g]

_The Story of Marino Falieri_

Falieri, who had passed his fifteenth lustre, had married a young lady
of great beauty and elegance, and the union was naturally, perhaps
inevitably, accompanied by suspicions on the part of the doting husband.
They chiefly fell on the president of the old or “criminal forty” (so
called to distinguish that tribunal from two others of less dignity,
which took cognisance of minor matters), whom he somewhat rudely expelled
from his house at an entertainment he had given to the nobility. The
president felt the insult the more deeply, as his attentions had not been
devoted to the wife of the doge, but to one of her women. In the impulse
of the moment he wrote on the throne of the doge a verse which, whether
founded on truth or not, he knew must sorely wound him, as reflecting on
his honour and the fidelity of his consort. It ran:

“_Marin Falieri dalla bella moglie_,
_Altri la gode ed egli mantiene_”

(Marino Falieri of the beautiful wife; others enjoy her, he maintains
her). Falieri discovered the writer, and denounced him to the public
advocates; but, contrary to his expectation, those men, considering
the offence a venial one, carried the cause, not before the tremendous
Council of Ten, but the Criminal Forty--the very tribunal of which the
accused was president. The culprit met with favour; he was condemned only
to one month’s imprisonment.

From this moment the doge indulged uncontrolled animosity against the
tribunal, and even the whole order of nobles, whom he regarded as the
betrayers of his honour. It was followed by the hope of revenge. He
knew the dissatisfaction entertained by both the plebeians and the less
privileged nobles towards the government, and he artfully endeavoured to
foment it. His reply to a citizen who one day complained before him that
a wife or daughter had been dishonoured or insulted by a member of the
grand council, produced great impression: “You will never obtain justice.
Have not I myself been insulted, without the hope of adequate redress?”
In a short time he organised a conspiracy, the object of which was to
open the grand council to the nobility and the election of the members
of all the public functionaries, of the doge himself, to the citizens
at large. The evening before the day fixed for its execution, it was
denounced by one of the conspirators; others were arrested and tortured;
numbers were executed.[b]

But the demands of justice were not yet satisfied, and the law claimed
a larger sacrifice, a nobler victim. The process against Marino Falieri
followed. On the morning of Thursday, the 16th of April, 1355, the old
man was led from his apartments, attired in his robes of state, to the
great council chamber, where he was confronted with his accusers and
his judges. The bench was composed of the six privy councillors, nine of
the decemvirs, and a _giunta_ of twenty sages, which had been specially
convoked to meet the extreme gravity of the occasion. The latter had a
deliberative voice merely, and no vote.

The articles of arraignment were no sooner read than Falieri made a
candid and unreserved confession. He avowed all. He stigmatised himself
as the worst of criminals, and as one deserving of the highest penalty
which it was in the power of the laws to inflict. Without further
preamble it was then put to the vote, whether the accused should suffer
death. Five of the privy council and the nine decemvirs recorded their
suffrages in the affirmative. It was a majority of fourteen to one.
One voice alone, it seemed, asked mercy for him who had in the eyes of
the aristocracy aggravated the crime of treason by fraternising with
tradesmen and plebeians. After the delivery of the verdict the condemned
was led back to the palace. It had been ordered that “Marino Falieri,
being convicted of conspiring against the constitution, should be taken
to the head of the grand staircase of St. Mark’s, and there, being
stripped of the ducal bonnet and the other emblems of his dignity, should
be decapitated.” The sentence was one which could not fail to strike an
icy chill into every heart. But it was received by the doge with a placid
equanimity worthy of the hero of Lucca.

[Illustration: VENICE FROM SAN GIORGIO]

The execution took place on the following morning at the hour of tierce.
Giovanni Mocenigo, the senior privy councillor, followed by his five
colleagues, the decemvirs, the advocates of the commune, and the other
great officers of state, advanced to meet his serenity, who had been
conducted under guard from his own apartments to the great council
saloon. Forming a circle round him, they escorted him to the fatal
spot which had been selected for the horrid catastrophe. A stupendous
concourse of persons of all conditions had congregated to witness the
spectacle. A gloomy and awful stillness reigned throughout the Piazza.
The doge, amid a silence in which a whisper or a sigh would have been
audible, implored the forgiveness of his countrymen, and extolled the
equity of the doom which he was about to undergo. He was then uncrowned
and disrobed. A black cap was substituted for the biretta, and a cloak
of the same colour was cast across his shoulders. At an appointed signal
he laid his head on the block, and at a single stroke the executioner
severed it from his body. Immediately after the removal of the latter,
the doors of St. Mark’s were thrown open, and the crowd entered in wild
disorder, eager to catch a glimpse of the mutilated corpse, which was
there exposed to view preparatory to burial (Friday, April 17th, 1355).

[Sidenote: [1355-1405 A.D.]]

Thus miserably perished, at the ripe age of seventy-seven, one of the
greatest soldiers and statesmen whom Venice could boast; that same
Falieri who during two and forty years of public services had earned as
count of Valdemarino a splendid and enviable reputation. Such was the
ignominious fall of a man whose versatile talents had enabled him to
shine in every branch of official life, and whose uncontrollable passions
brought his white hairs before the close of seven months from a throne to
a scaffold. Falieri had survived most of his early friends, if not his
domestic happiness; it was ruled that he should survive his honour also.

The ducal remains were interred without any mark of pomp at San Giovanni
e Paolo, behind the monastery, and in the direction of the chapel of
Santa Maria della Pace; and from a mixed motive of delicacy and pride the
Ten directed their secretary to omit all direct allusions in the books of
their transactions to his sentence and execution. The words, “Let it not
be written” formed the sole clew afforded by the _Misti_ to a great crime
and a great tragedy. The effigy of Falieri found its place after the
sepulture in the hall, where the portraits of all his predecessors were
hung. It was not till twelve years posterior to the event which has been
narrated that the Ten, by a decree dated the 16th of March, 1367, caused
it to be cancelled, and a black crape arras to be substituted, surmounted
by the words, “_Hic est locus Marini Faletri decapitati pro criminibus_.”

Three centuries had passed away, when some labourers digging near the
spot accidentally exhumed a sarcophagus. The discovery did not at the
moment attract much curiosity, but the sarcophagus was eventually opened,
and it was then found to contain a skeleton with the skull placed between
the knees. This peculiarity was designated to indicate that the person,
whose spirit was once dwelling in the now uniformed clay, had died
by the hand of the executioner; and if any doubt still remained, the
half-defaced inscription on the urn served to show that the bones of the
unhappy Falieri were there.[k]

_Venetian Wars and Conquests_

[Sidenote: [1405-1450 A.D.]]

We have already earlier in this chapter told of the wars between Genoa
and Venice, culminating in the humiliation of the former at Chioggia.
The first success of Venice whetted the appetite of her people for
further conquests. And the queen of maritime cities did not confine her
aspirations to the scenes of her former victories.[a]

Her anxiety once more to display her banners upon _terra firma_ induced
Venice to lend her aid to Gian Galeazzo Visconti against the Carraras,
under the promise of the restitution of Treviso, which she had lost
during the war of the Chioggia. The bad faith of the lord of Milan would
fain have defrauded the Venetians of their share of the spoil, had not
dread of their power compelled their ally to be reluctantly honest in
his spoliation. By their friendly demonstrations towards Caterina, the
widowed duchess of Milan, the Venetians next obtained the cession of
Vicenza, Feltre, and Belluno; and Francesco Novello da Carrara, who
already counted Vicenza as his prey, was ever baffled in his hopes. His
son-in-law, the marquis of Ferrara, was compelled to declare against him;
and the citizens of Verona, worn out by siege and famine, opened their
gates to the troops of Venice. This important acquisition was followed
up by a succession of easy victories; the greatest part of the Paduan
territory submitted without a struggle; and the capital itself, wasted
by hunger and the plague, promised a speedy surrender. A last desperate
sortie was repulsed with terrible slaughter; and treachery opened the
gates and admitted the forces of Venice. Carrara and his son Francesco
Terzo had now no hope save in the clemency of the conquerors. They
proceeded to Venice, were received with apparent cordiality, and immured
in a dungeon. In this horrible vault they had the miserable satisfaction
of embracing a son and brother, Jacopo da Carrara. After lingering
nearly two months in this region of despair, the father was privately
strangled in prison; and on the following day his two sons perished in a
similar manner. Two brothers of this illustrious family still survived;
of these, Ubertino terminated his life by sickness soon after the ruin
of his house; and Marsilio expiated a rash attempt to regain Padua by
a public execution in 1435. Thus by the destruction of the once potent
families of Scala and Carrara, the tyrant of the Adriatic was predominant
in Lombardy, and invested with a splendid territory, including Padua,
Verona, and Vicenza. Fifteen years afterwards Friuli was wrested from the
patriarch of Aquileia.[g]

An illustrious fugitive, Francesco Carmagnola, who arrived about
this time at Venice, accomplished what Florence had nearly failed
in, by discovering to the Venetians the project of the duke of Milan
to subjugate them. Francesco Carmagnola had, by the victories he had
gained, the glory he had acquired, and the influence he obtained over
the soldiers, excited the jealousy, instead of the gratitude, of Filippo
Maria, who disgraced him, and deprived him of his employment, without
assigning any reason. Carmagnola returned to court, but could not even
obtain an interview with his master. He retired to his native country,
Piedmont; his wife and children were arrested, and his goods confiscated.
He arrived at last, by Germany, at Venice; soon afterwards some
emissaries of the duke of Milan were arrested for an attempt to poison
him. The doge, Francesco Foscari, wishing to give lustre to his reign
by conquest, persuaded the senate of Venice to oppose the increasing
ambition of the duke of Milan.[l]

Francesco Carmagnola was amongst the first soldiers, if not the first
captain of Italy, and well acquainted with all the troops, plans,
secrets, and resources of Visconti, for his talents had recovered the
duchy and he had long been that prince’s chief favourite and counsellor.
Seeing Guido Torelli and others preferred before him, his enemies more
heeded, and himself deprived of the Genoese government, he retired from
court, but having secret notice, whether true or false, that Filippo
intended to poison him, now fled to Venice and proved his sincerity, of
which that government doubted, by this explanation. He also discovered
many of Visconti’s secrets and his designs against Venice after the fall
of Florence, most of which seem to have been corroborated by confidential
letters of Visconti unfairly made use of by the Florentine government and
sent to Ridolfi for that purpose.

A gentleman named Perino Turlo, who enjoyed the favour and confidence
of Philip, was taken in an attack on Faenza, and being carried prisoner
to Florence, there received his liberty accompanied by great attentions
and flattery, and was finally dismissed (after declaring his belief that
Philip wished the friendship of Florence) with an earnest entreaty to
make peace between them. This was a scheme to ascertain Visconti’s real
designs on Venice, in order to facilitate the pending negotiations with
that state; but Perino soon returned with various propositions of peace
which Philip, he said, most earnestly desired, and as a proof of his
sincerity produced a _carte-blanche_ besides several letters which the
seigniory instantly despatched to Venice because they contained matter
of infinite danger to that republic. Lorenzo Ridolfi lost no time in
showing them, and the Venetians, seeing the liberal offers therein made
to Florence, the bold confidence of the Florentine ambassador in urging
the league, the important communications and promises of Carmagnola, and
the temptation of conquering Brescia which that captain had promised,
determined to accept the alliance, and a treaty was completed early in
1426.

[Sidenote: [1426-1427 A.D.]]

This league with Florence was to endure for ten years with conditions
extremely favourable to Venice whose real sources of strength still
lay in commerce, and whose geographical position gave her considerable
advantages in treating with Florence, to whom her co-operation both in
force and situation was of the last importance in a Lombard war. The
Venetian territory in that province from its recent acquisition had not
yet become an integral portion of her national strength; it was but a
lucky addition to an already consolidated power--a power still rising,
absorptive, and hitherto unweakened by expansion, which therefore might
be again lost without much dismay, because no national interests had as
yet taken root or identified themselves in any way with those provinces.
But for Florence war with Milan was ever a matter of vitality, and
especially after so many disasters; wherefore she eagerly consented to
any conditions, and peace, truce, and war were now equally submitted to
the fiat of that cunning and unbending aristocracy. Venice also made some
jealous terms about the Alexandrian trade, was moreover to have every
conquest that might be achieved in Lombardy, and Florence all those in
Romagna and Tuscany not already belonging to the church. Sixteen thousand
cavalry and eight thousand infantry were to constitute the minimum of the
combined force, and strong armaments of galleys on the Main and flotillas
on the Po were to act vigorously against Genoa and every other tangible
point of Visconti’s territory. Pope Martin refused to join, but Siena
followed Florence. Niccolo, marquis of Ferrara, accepted the command of
the Florentines, and united with the league for the promised acquisition
of Lugo and Parma if conquered. Amadeus, duke of Savoy, for his own
especial objects, the lord of Mantua, and other Lombard seigniors all
signed it, and Francesco, Count Carmagnola, was appointed generalissimo.

The Venetians alone brought into the field 8830 horse and 8000 foot,
the Florentines 6110 of the former and 6000 of the latter at an expense
of 4 and 3 florins a month respectively for every soldier of each arm.
To oppose them, Filippo had 8550 horse and 8000 foot, his whole revenue
amounting to 54,000 florins monthly. Other authors, and among them
Cagnola, make the allied armies amount to much larger numbers and by
the testimony of all there were full 70,000 of both hosts at Casa al
Secco; but Cambi gives the name and following of each particular leader;
those of Sforza, Piccinino, Pergola, and Tolentino being by far the most
numerous of the private condottieri and equal to any of the sovereign
princes.

War then commenced and Filippo withdrew his troops from Romagna;
Carmagnola in performance of his promise marched directly on Brescia;
by means of a secret understanding with the Avogadori family and other
Guelfs all inhabiting one particular quarter of the city and all hating
Visconti, he easily excited a revolt, and on the 17th of March, 1426,
made such a lodgment there as immediately enabled him to lay close siege
to the rest of the town. Brescia, one of the chief cities and most
celebrated manufactory of arms in Italy, was then divided into three
distinct fortified districts, each commanded by its citadel; and besides
them a strong elevated castle which overlooked the whole.

At first Carmagnola was only master of the ground he stood on, but the
battle soon began with all the fury of an assault and all the bitterness
of civil war until Francesco Sforza, who defended it, was forced to
yield and the allies completed their lodgment. As this news spread to
Milan and Florence, the whole force of war concentrated round Brescia;
Arezzo and Romagna were soon cleared of troops, and reinforcements
poured in from every quarter. One continued scene of war and blood, of
fire, rape, and robbery attracted the attention of all Italy for eight
successive months; so that, to use the words of Cavalcanti, “never was
any tavern so deluged with water as this unfortunate city was with
blood.” A ditch encompassed it so closely without that no succours could
enter to mitigate the general suffering; within, nothing was heard but
shrieks, weeping, and lamentation mingled with the shouts of struggling
warriors and the clang of arms; with a masterly hand, almost incredible
perseverance, and in face of the whole Milanese army led by the greatest
captains of the day, did Carmagnola in a few months subdue the three
citadels successively, and finally, aided by the Ghibellines themselves,
in November, 1426, that almost impregnable castle, the last stronghold of
Visconti, submitted to his arms. A well-directed artillery, which under
the name of _bombarde_ was now becoming common in sieges, materially
assisted him, and the castle at the moment of its surrender is described
as exhibiting the appearance of a porcupine from the innumerable arrows
that covered its walls, all fixed in the seams of mortar; a fact that
does more honour to the zeal than the training of Italian archers and
crossbowmen. Thus fell Brescia, as much to the shame of the Milanese
commanders as to the glory of Carmagnola, for its capture was admired
as one of the greatest military exploits of that age and added a noble
territory to the Venetian Republic.

Pope Martin, who in consequence of his alliance with Filippo had from
that prince’s necessities recovered not only the papal cities in Romagna
but others that never had legally belonged to the church, at last
bethought himself of reconciling the belligerent states; and through
his exertions and Filippo’s difficulties a general peace was signed at
Venice on the 30th of December, 1426, by which Savoy retained possession
of all her conquests on the Milanese state; Brescia and its territory
remained to Venice; all places captured from Florence were restored and
her merchants relieved by Filippo, as lord of Genoa, from the obligation
hitherto imposed on them of embarking their English and French goods in
Genoese bottoms. Milan was once more bound not to intermeddle with the
affairs of Bologna, Romagna, Tuscany, or any state between that city
and Rome, while Florence subscribed to the same conditions as regarded
Bologna and that part of Romagna not subject to her sway.

To the great satisfaction of Florence this treaty was proclaimed
early in 1427. She had up to the 9th of November with little or no
advantage expended 2,500,000 florins, and her ordinary war expenses
were estimated at about 70,000 a month. Upon this Giovanni Morelli, a
cotemporary historian, exclaims: “Make war, promote war, nourish those
who foment war; Florence has never been free from war, and never will
until the heads of four leading citizens are annually chopped off upon
the scaffold.” So true was it, as it would appear, if any credit may be
given to cotemporary writers though influenced by the prevalent spirit of
faction, that private gain was the great aliment of foreign and domestic
war in Florence.

But the ink was scarcely dry on the treaty when Filippo, either repenting
of what he had done or pursuing his secret intentions, with the certainty
of forever losing Brescia if he executed the treaty, invited Carmagnola
in person to take possession of Chiari, a fortified town forming a strong
outwork to that city on the road to Milan. Niccolo Tolentino, suspecting
treachery, dissuaded his general from doing so notwithstanding orders
from the Venetian seigniory, and his counsel was soon justified by
information that the detachment sent on this duty was surrounded and cut
to pieces within the walls. Visconti followed up this by the equipment of
a large flotilla on the Po, the augmentation of his army with disbanded
soldiers from the allies, and a sudden renewal of hostilities. The
astonished league almost immediately took the field with what troops
remained, the general having orders to make fierce war while a strong
armament was preparing to meet the enemy afloat and attack all vulnerable
points on the left bank of the Po.

The first encounter was at Gottolengo. Carmagnola had assembled his
military cars (which in those days were an indispensable portion of
all armies for the rapid movements of infantry), and filling them with
crossbowmen attempted to surprise the enemy. The Milanese, however, were
too experienced for this and mustering their whole force attacked him
unexpectedly while in some confusion on his march, and nearly defeated
the whole army; Carmagnola, however, rallied his people, and after
restoring order began an obstinate contest.

The heat was excessive, the dust intolerable, the visors of helmets,
the eyes and nostrils of the combatants were all choked up so that
respiration became almost impossible. The Milanese were supplied with
wine and water by the female peasantry, but such was the dust and
obscurity that friend and foe seemed alike unknown and many of the allies
received refreshment even from the hands of their enemies. Numbers fell
from their horses overpowered by heat and dust; the plain was strewed
with lances, shields, and wounded men; horses were galloping wildly
about the field, some with saddles, some without; others had them turned
under their bellies, and many men threw off all their armour to escape
suffocation. Piccinino was conspicuous beyond the rest in knightly
daring, and his lance’s point was felt throughout the throng; for this
battle excepting amongst the infantry seems to have been a confused
mass of single combats, more like the _mêlée_ of a tournament than a
scientific fight of disciplined soldiers; but the footmen, in firm
well-ordered battalions, with lowered spears, charged and withstood the
charges of the men-at-arms, killing both them and their horses. When the
struggle had lasted some hours and the allies were ready to give way, the
marquis of Mantua, hitherto deceived by false reports from a cowardly
fugitive, came suddenly up with his followers and dashing forward saved
all the cavalry and restored the day. The retreat was simultaneously
sounded on both sides; each host had been three times broken, all but the
infantry, who seem by their discipline to have preserved the rest.

The ducal forces throughout these two campaigns were smaller in numbers
than the allies, but better soldiers and with a greater number of more
able commanders; yet they were unsuccessful for want of a common chief,
while Carmagnola was implicitly obeyed, and all his advantages were
gained by bringing superior numbers against the weakest points of the
enemy. To remedy this, Visconti appointed young Carlo Malatesta of Pesaro
as his captain-general; a youth of no experience, but whose high rank and
family reputation were likely to restrain the continual bickering of the
chiefs.

_Victories of Carmagnola_

Meanwhile Carmagnola, angry at the somewhat disgraceful affair of
Gottolengo, conceived the idea of surprising Cremona--a thoroughly
Guelfic city and disaffected to every Ghibelline authority; with this
view he took up a strong position at Sommo close to the town, entrenched
and fortified his camp with a thousand war-cars as was his custom, and
trusted to those within the city for ultimate success. Filippo, for the
above reasons, became alarmed; wherefore, assembling a large force and
instantly embarking on the Po, he at once occupied and saved Cremona. A
council of war was of opinion that the enemy should be attacked because
Cremona secured their own safety in case of defeat, and a victory would
almost insure the fall of Mantua. To protect that place the army was
encamped in an open space about half a mile wide, contained between the
city walls and the surrounding ditch, called _Le Cerchie di Cremona_, the
defence of which involved that of the city itself; but as the circuit was
large, a continual stream of armed peasantry came pouring in at their
prince’s call, ranged under various flags and banners and augmenting the
aggregate of both armies to full seventy thousand combatants. The allies
were superior in the number of regular troops, the Milanese in experience
and discipline, and held themselves fully equal to their antagonists
independent of the peasantry; these, however, in the unsettled state
of that time and country well knew how to handle their weapons though
despised by the condottieri, who represented them to Filippo as useful
to fill up ditches and as convenient marks for exhausting the adverse
missiles and sparing the regular troops; however, their vast numbers
would, it was said, excite fear, “the true harbinger of defeat.”

Battle being resolved on, a corps of light-armed troops was sent forward
to begin, but these were quickly driven in on the main body by Taliano
Furlano, one of the adverse chiefs who, seeing the Milanese cavalry
already formed and the whole country as far as the eye could reach
covered with banners, instantly turned to give the alarm. Carmagnola
was soon in his saddle and personally directing the defence of a narrow
pass protected by a broad and deep ditch, which the enemy would be
compelled to win ere his main body could be attacked. This was quickly
lined with veteran soldiers and the road within it flanked by a body of
eight thousand infantry armed with the spear and crossbow, and posted
in an almost impenetrable thicket closely bordering on the public way.
This pass was called La Casa-al-Secco, and Agnolo della Pergola first
appeared before it with his followers, supported by a crowd of peasantry;
the ditch was deep, broad, and well defended, and an increasing shower
of arrows galled his people so sorely that he at once resolved to use
the rural bands as a means of filling it. Driving the peasant multitude
forward, he ordered the regular troops to put every luckless clown to
death who turned his face from the enemy; so that these wretches with the
spear at their back and the crossbow in front fell like grass under the
scythe of the husbandman. But they were more useful in death; by Agnolo’s
command both killed and wounded, all who fell, were rolled promiscuously
into this universal grave, covered up with mould and buried all together.

Here were to be seen distracted fathers with unsteady hand shovelling
clods upon the bodies of dead and wounded sons; sons heaping earth on
their fathers’ heads; brothers covering the bloody remains of brothers;
uncles, nephews; nephews, uncles--all clotted in this horrid compost!
If the wretches turned, a friend’s lance or dart went instantly through
their bodies; if they stood, an enemy’s shaft or javelin no less sharply
pierced them; alive, they filled the pit with sons and brothers, dead or
wounded, with themselves! They worked and died by thousands; even the
very soldiers that opposed them at last took pity and aimed their weapons
only at armed men. “And as a reward for this,” exclaims Cavalcanti, “God
lent us strength and courage.” Nevertheless, so many were thus cruelly
sacrificed that the moat was soon filled to the utmost level of its
banks with earth and flesh and human blood, and then the knights giving
spurs to their steeds dashed proudly over this infernal causeway! It was
now that the fight commenced: fresh squadrons poured in on every side and
all rushed madly to the combat, for on this bloody spot the day was to be
decided. “Here,” says Cavalcanti, “began the fierce and mortal struggle;
here every knight led up his followers and did noble deeds of arms; here
were the shivered lances flying to pieces in the air, cavaliers lifeless
on the ground and all the field bestrewed with dead and dying! Here too
was seen young Carlo Malatesta, himself and courser cased complete in
mail, and a golden mantle streaming from his shoulders! Whoever has not
seen him has not seen the pride of armies! Here was store of blood, and
lack of joy and fear and doubt hung hard on every mind! Nothing was heard
but the clang of arms, the shock of lances, the tempest of cavalry, and
the groans and cries and shouts of either host! The sun was flaming, the
suffering dreadful, the thirst intolerable; everything seemed to burn,
all conspired against the wish of men, but the Cremonese women brought
refreshments to our enemies.”

The whole battle appears to have been concentrated in this pass, so that
numbers made but little difference on either side; nevertheless the
Milanese chivalry were severely handled by the veterans in the wood, who
kept up a continual discharge of arrows on horse and man from the moment
the ditch was passed, or else ran in with their lances and speared them.
As many died from exhaustion and suffocation as from blows, for the
battle was fought early in July and lasted from two hours after sunrise
until evening; others it is said expired from the stench of carnage
rapidly corrupted by excessive heat. Carmagnola, forced by circumstances
into the thickest fight, was unhorsed, and a hard conflict between
those who tried to save and those who wished to take him prisoner soon
concentrated all the knightly prowess of both armies round his person; he
was remounted, and dust and confusion saved him more than once, as they
did Niccolo Piccinino, besides other leaders on both sides, from being
recognised and captured. The squadrons charged and recharged in dust and
darkness; no standards could be seen; the voice alone revealed a friend;
and when a retreat was sounded whole troops of cavalry ranged themselves
under adverse banners in total ignorance of their own position. One
attack was made by a strong detachment upon the baggage and for a while
placed the allies in great danger; but being finally repulsed with the
loss of five hundred prisoners a retreat was sounded; the captives were
equal, yet the victory of Casa-al-Secco was fairly claimed by Carmagnola.

Filippo previous to this battle had endeavoured to balance his ill
success by a naval victory; the Venetian armament on the Po had been
extremely active, and to check it he placed a strong squadron under the
orders of Pacino Eustachio of Pavia with instructions to lose no time in
bringing the enemy to action. The latter, commanded by Francesco Bembo,
did not shun the encounter, which took place near Brescello; but losing
three galleons in the commencement, Bembo, doubtful of consequences,
with that rapid and bold decision that marks a superior mind, suddenly
discontinued the contest and withdrawing all the crossbowmen from his
remaining galleons manned them with the crews of others armed only
with spears, swords, spontoons, battle-axes, and short arms of every
description. These he placed in the van, while the galleons thus emptied
were manned with crossbowmen alone and stationed close in the rear of his
first line, with rigid orders under the penalty of death to kill either
himself or any other man that should turn from the enemy. He then renewed
the attack.

With the Milanese in front, in their rear the levelled crossbows ready
to shoot into the first vessel that gave way, and themselves armed only
with short weapons, the Venetian sailors were compelled either to fight
hand to hand with their enemies or be transfixed without resistance by
their own or adverse missiles. The Lombards were thus rendered the less
formidable of the two, and the closer the fight the more safety, because
free from the arrows of either squadron; thus excited the galleons were
resolutely run alongside those of the enemy and lashed there, and the
battle became more fierce and obstinate; the Venetian mariners, chiefly
Greeks and Slavonians, are described as displaying all the courage,
sagacity, and savage fury of those nations.

The scene was appalling; no room for tactics, no hope in flight; man
encountered man with the eye and hand of death; the struggle was
personal, unrelenting, resolute; a struggle for existence, not for
victory; the Venetians, pressed by a double danger, had no other hope;
the Greeks of Crete and Negropont with the Slavonian crews performed such
deeds as have been rarely equalled and never yet surpassed. Springing
with the force of tigers on their prey it many times happened that when
the Italian spear had pierced a Slavonian body the wounded man would
seize and draw himself forward on the slippery staff until he grappled
his enemy, and then both rolled struggling into the stream below. Again,
two running each other through at the same moment and sternly following
up their thrust would close and wrestle as long as life endured, or fall
while yet writhing into the bloody Po; for that great stream, full and
broad and ample as it was, became strongly crimsoned. Pacino at last gave
way, and with a few as yet ungrappled galleys made good his flight, but
left fourteen captured vessels in the hands of Venice.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN KNIGHT, FIFTEENTH CENTURY]

After the battle of Casa-al-Secco Carmagnola, who as Cavalcanti asserts
was now at the head of fifty thousand fighting men, laid siege to
Casalmaggiore on the Po and recaptured Bina which Sforza had surprised;
he then reduced the former and both armies cautiously manœuvred, narrowly
watching each other’s motions until the beginning of October, when the
allies were besieging Pompeiano, a town situated about six miles from
Brescia on the high-road to Crema. While Malatesta was absent with
Filippo, the Milanese captains had so placed their army as to impede
the enemy’s progress without risking a general engagement, but when
Carlo returned he posted himself between Macalo (now Maclodio) and the
allies, with an intention to succour the besieged. The two camps only
four miles asunder were separated by what then was an extensive swamp,
now a fertile plain; what was then fetid black and stagnant pools full of
reeds and thorns, and swarming with snakes and every loathsome reptile,
now abounding in corn and vines and mulberries. The high-road from Orci
Novi on the Oglio to Pompeiano and Brescia ran like a causeway through
this waste and passed by a wooden bridge over a channel of deep water
that connected the opposite marshes. Adjoining the swamp and bridge one
side of the road was flanked by an extensive wood, so thick and wild and
full of savage beasts that both men and domestic cattle shunned it. Just
at the bridge-head the road entered a sort of enclosed space or basin of
solid earth in the midst of the marshes, a sort of trap from which no
army once entered and cut off from the bridge could hope to escape except
by the destruction of a superior enemy.

Niccolo Tolentino, a leader of great influence, having examined this
ground, advised Carmagnola to occupy the position while he and his friend
Bernardino with a strong division of the army concealed themselves in the
wood on the other side of the bridge and awaited Carlo’s advance, who
it was supposed would run headlong into the trap. This suggestion was
followed; the ambuscade was posted in the wood that night, and the other
troops were under arms at daylight. Carlo Malatesta on the other hand,
whether for the reasons mentioned by Corio or a wilful determination to
fight, was on his march by dawn of day; he soon crossed the bridge and
entered the trap with loud shouts of “_Viva il Duca! Viva il Duca!_”
Carmagnola had marshalled his army in the shape of a crescent and slowly
retired before him, but still deepening his centre as if fearful of the
encounter. When he heard that all had entered, he exclaimed, “They are
caught,” and from a rising ground shortly addressed his people before the
battle.

The instant that the enemy’s rear was well over the bridge and engaged
with their antagonists, Bernardino darted like lightning from the wood
and seized it at the head of a thousand horse; he was rapidly followed
by Tolentino with a much larger force, but leaving the latter to defend
the bridge he snatched up a heavy and well pointed lance, and with two
hundred men-at-arms dashed deep into the Milanese rear with loud cries
and great confusion. The two horns of the crescent then rapidly closed
in; Carmagnola charged in front; the crossbows played unceasingly from
every thicket; “_San Marco_,” “_Duca_,” and “_Marzocco_” resounded
through the field. “The shouts of men, the neighing of horses, the shock
of lances, the tempest of swords was so great,” says Cavalcanti, “that
the loudest thunder might have rolled above unheeded. The wild beasts
fled in terror through the woods and in these infernal swamps many
swarms of serpents were seen rustling through the reeds at the unwonted
uproar! O reader, think how cruel must have been this conflict when so
many animals, enemies to our nature, fled in so wild affright! All was
terror and distraction; Niccolo held steadily to the bridge; many were
driven into the marshes or dragged by their stirrups through them; the
flights of arrows were sometimes so dense as to obscure the sun, and
this deadly archery did infinite mischief; the air itself seemed changed
and terrified, and this great multitude was full of groaning, blood,
and death!” Every hope of victory at length vanished and the Milanese
broke, surrendered, and fled in all directions. Carlo Malatesta and eight
thousand prisoners laid down their arms, but, strange to say, almost all
were then or subsequently permitted to escape by Carmagnola; and this
first sowed the seeds of Venetian jealousy.

Guido Torelli, Piccinino, and Francesco Sforza escaped, and by the next
morning all but four hundred prisoners had obtained their liberty; this
produced strong remonstrances from the Venetian commissaries, upon which
Carmagnola sent for the remaining captives and said to them, “Since my
soldiers have given your comrades their liberty I will not be behind
them in generosity; depart, you also are free.” This battle was the
climax of Carmagnola’s glory: whether he was unwilling to reduce his old
patron too low, or was secretly influenced by the desire of peace and
the recovery of his wife and children who were in Visconti’s hands, or
by less honourable motives, seems uncertain; but his subsequent efforts
were insignificant. There is no doubt, says Poggio, that he could that
day have destroyed Filippo, if he had retained the prisoners who were
the flower of that prince’s army; but according to the custom of modern
soldiers they remained as lookers-on, intent only on dividing the booty,
and let the men-at-arms go free.

None of this was lost on the Venetians; but not a reproach was heard,
not a sentence uttered, no sign of displeasure reached his ear; he could
still be useful, was adding bit by bit to their conquests, and as yet in
too formidable a position to be struck; on the contrary, as was their
usual custom when meditating the sacrifice of a victim, more deference
was shown him, more respect paid him; but he was not forgotten.

_Death of Frescobaldi; the War Ended and Renewed_

[Sidenote: [1427-1428 A.D.]]

The liberated army of Milan was soon remounted, equipped, and in the
field; for most of these battles involved the waste of more money than
blood, as dead men paid no ransoms; and Visconti had ample resources.
He nevertheless became alarmed at his actual position, and sought new
strength by rousing the emperor Sigismund against Venice, by marrying his
daughter Maria to the duke of Savoy, and by stirring up the poor remnants
of the Carrara and La Scala families to agitate Padua and Verona. He
met these difficulties with an able head and a bold countenance, but
was in fact a strange character and differing according to cotemporary
writers from all other men. No stability, no confidence, no belief, no
firmness of purpose; mutable as the wind, no regard to promises, unsteady
in his friendships, and prone to sudden antipathies against those who
were apparently his dearest friends; cunning, sagacious, vain of his
own judgment, despising that of others; whimsically pacific and warlike
by turns; fond of a solitary life, he was rarely visible but governed
through his ministers and temporary favourites, and thence no doubt
proceeded many of his worst misfortunes.

A slight check before Genoa, more important from the heroic death
of Tommaso Frescobaldi than from any other injury, in some degree
damped the joy of Florence for this recent victory. Frescobaldi had
distinguished himself as Florentine commissary in the Aretine district
by an able and vigorous conduct under very trying difficulties and a
total neglect of him by the government; nevertheless he perseveringly
withstood the Milanese forces until the siege of Brescia relieved him.
Indignant at this treatment he personally and boldly reproached the Ten
of War with their conduct, and in no measured terms. Niccolo d’Uzzano
tried to soothe him and was respectfully heard; but Vieri Guadagni so
impatiently rated him as to be told by Tommaso that nothing but his high
official dignity was a protection from personal chastisement. Niccolo,
who fully appreciated the worth of Frescobaldi, reproved Vieri for
his intemperance, and that citizen was soon after sent as commissary
to conduct the war against Genoa, where, for a while, his vigour and
ability were no less conspicuous than before. At last Fregoso and the
Florentines were defeated in an attempt to enter Genoa; and Tommaso, who
fought to the last, after all were routed was wounded and made prisoner.
The governor, a stern and cruel man, promised him life, liberty, and
reward if he would divulge his government’s secrets and say who within
the city of Genoa were in league with Campo Fregoso, but the alternative
of death and torture if he refused. To this Frescobaldi firmly answered:
“Obizzino, if for my silence on the subject of state secrets thou wilt
put me to death, abandon all hope of knowing those things that duty to
my country and constancy of purpose, even did I know them, would prevent
my revealing; and, as I have no hope of mercy from thee, so thou needst
not expect any disclosures from me, for even if I were informed I would
not tell thee.” He was instantly put to the torture, his wounds broke out
afresh in the agony, but he died without uttering a syllable. A noble
example for his living descendants!

[Sidenote: [1428-1430 A.D.]]

Florence now wished earnestly for peace because she could no longer
expect to gain anything by war, and a continually augmenting expense was
exhausting her resources; the more equal action of the Catasto promoted
this wish because the rich and great now bore the principal burden. They
again argued, and rightly too, that if war continued, Filippo must lose
his state, which Venice, not Florence, would gain by the very conditions
of the league, and thence with augmented power become more formidable
than Visconti himself, for there would then be none but Florence to
oppose her. Naples, ruled by a weak, licentious woman, was distracted;
the pontiff would not move; the emperor would be shut out by Venice,
who held the keys of Italy, and France was far too distant; better, it
was once more repeated, to have an unenduring enemy than an everlasting
and powerful neighbour. Venice had now acquired a taste for Italian
conquest, and the petty acquisitions of Carmagnola were still adding to
her territory; but her suspicions were awake and she finally consented
to treat, while Visconti was really anxious for peace in consequence of
his recent overthrow. The sincerity of all parties soon produced its
effects and the cardinal of Santa Croce at last restored tranquillity by
accomplishing the signature of a treaty at Ferrara about the middle of
April, 1428, after nearly five years of constant hostilities. The cost of
this long and ruinous war, according to Cavalcanti, amounted to 3,500,000
florins--according to Macchiavelli, 3,050,000.

The Florentines gained nothing by it but a heavy debt and the institution
of the Catasto; the Venetians, in addition to Brescia, gained part of
the Cremonese state with Bergamo and its territory as far as the Adda,
which now became their western boundary. Thus, says Cavalcanti, by the
operation of wicked citizens our people were loaded with poverty, the
Venetians with riches and territory; and pride and covetousness was the
cause of all.

But the peace was not for long. The Florentines attacked Lucca; Piccinino
came to its aid, and the general war recommenced. No less than fourteen
towns revolted in favour of Piccinino during one night, all sending
their keys, and generally imprisoning the Florentine authorities; yet
amidst the sharp oppression and barbarity of the time, it is refreshing
to find that some of the latter were spared in consequence of their just
government, and, with their families, carried safe across the frontier by
the revolted people; but such exceptions only prove the general rigour of
Florentine sway.

[Sidenote: [1430-1431 A.D.]]

In this state of things Micheletto Attendolo of Cotignolo, a nephew of
Sforza, was made captain of the Florentine army, to which some spirit
was soon after restored by an advantage gained at Colle against Count
Alberigo da Barbiano, Piccinino’s successor by Bernardino degli Ubaldini
and also by the gallant behaviour of Ramondo Mannelli and Papi Tedaldi,
which cast still greater credit on the Florentine arms. Stung with a
late defeat on the Po, where they were completely routed by a Genoese
admiral, the Venetians sent a squadron to the Tuscan coast and Riviera
of Genoa to revenge this injury; they however seem to have been shy of
coming to a general engagement until the Florentines, tired of such
harassing inactivity, fitted out two galleys under the above officers and
either forced or shamed them into an attack on the Genoese squadron.
Principally by their own daring courage the latter were completely beaten
near Portofino, and their admiral Francesco Spinola and eight galleys
captured. But long ere this Niccolo Piccinino had ridden triumphant over
most of the Florentine territory, capturing or destroying town after town
from Pontremoli to the gates of Arezzo, which would also have fallen had
he not unaccountably stopped to besiege the little fortress of Gargonza
on his march. This unchecked career of victory riveted his favour with
Filippo Visconti, while it raised the jealousy of Niccolo Tolentino,
who was fed by that prince on promises alone; wherefore the latter
quitted Milan in disgust and engaged with the Florentines, who lent him
to the pontiff with two thousand followers, and the consequence of this
defection was Piccinino’s recall to defend Lombardy now threatened by
the league. Pope Martin V’s decease in February, 1431, brought joy to
Florence which during all his reign he had never ceased to hate, and the
election of Gabriel Condelmieri, cardinal of Siena and a Venetian, who
assumed the pontificate as Eugenius IV, was scarcely less satisfactory.
His first measure was an attempt to restore tranquillity; but this
was done with so decided a leaning towards Florence as to disgust the
Sienese, Visconti, and all her numerous enemies.

War therefore became certain, and the league between Florence and Venice
was more closely riveted; but Siena, in concert with Genoa, both of whom
had long been favouring Lucca and were encouraged by Piccinino, soon
broke into open war; she commenced hostilities under Visconti’s general
Alberigo, and by means of Genoa seduced the seignior of Piombino, a
recent ward of the Florentines, to take up arms against them.

The incursions of these neighbours in Val d’Ambra increased Florentine
difficulties, and an attempt was made to engage Francesco Sforza; but
true to his own interest he was bought off by the promise of Visconti’s
infant daughter Bianca in marriage.

To cope with him and Piccinino, Carmagnola, notwithstanding his strange
conduct in the late war, was again placed at the head of the Venetian
armies, and he advanced into the Cremonese state, but was defeated with
great loss in a most terrible and bloody battle by Sforza on the 6th of
June, 1431, at Soncino on the banks of the river Po.

_The Great Naval Battle on the Po_

[Illustration: A MAGISTRATE OF FLORENCE]

A flotilla consisting of one hundred vessels of all descriptions was
equipped on the Po, and, under Niccolo Trevigiano, moved straight on
Cremona; Visconti had also prepared his squadron under the command of the
Genoese admiral Grimaldi, or, as some say, Pacino Eustachio of Pavia,
who had formerly suffered a defeat--probably both were employed; but
Venice was too quick, and excelled the Milanese fleet in numbers, size,
and equipment, so that for some time they had command of the river. The
hostile armaments ultimately met at Bina, near Cremona, and fought until
night parted them, with the loss of seven Milanese galleys. Sforza and
Piccinino, who had manned the squadron from their troops and feared an
attack from Carmagnola during the next day’s fight, deceived the Venetian
general by means of some pretended deserters who reported that they
were preparing to attack him in the heat of the naval battle. Whether
Carmagnola were really deceived, or, as the Venetians thought, had come
unwillingly to war, is still unsettled; but he acted as if he were, and
not only remained under arms all day but refused any succour to the
admiral. Sforza and Piccinino on the contrary reinforced the fleet with
almost all their troops, and next day, towards the end of June, the most
obstinate naval battle then on record was the consequence.

The Venetian galleys took a position with their bows to the stream, and
all chained together the better to resist it; the Milanese, less in
number but crowded with men, bore gallantly down on their antagonists;
both fleets were glittering with steel and rough with pikes and lances.
The adverse admirals had a national hatred then far from extinct; the two
Milanese generals served personally on board, inspiriting their troops
as if on the field of battle; the defect of a weaker line of vessels was
compensated by a stronger personal force on the side of Milan, while on
that of Venice the last day’s success animated every breast to new and
more daring courage.

Thus prepared, the fight began, and the struggle was long and fierce; but
Grimaldi observed that the Po had risen during the night, and at that
season was unlikely to remain so; he therefore watched its fall, and
cheering his men to a little longer struggle seconded by the efforts of
both generals, looked anxiously for the grounding of the large Venetian
galleys, while his own lighter craft would still be afloat and able to
attack them. All turned out fortunate; the stream began to fall, the
water shoaled rapidly; the Venetians felt their galleys take the ground,
and turning all their attention to this accident exposed themselves to
the whole fury of Grimaldi who renewed the assault with double vigour.
Sforza and Piccinino fought like private men; the latter was severely
wounded in the neck and lamed for life, but all dashed boldly on to
victory while the Venetians struggled for existence: their admiral’s
galley at last struck, he himself escaping; but this was a signal of
defeat, and Grimaldi remained the conqueror. About twenty-nine galleons
and eight thousand prisoners were captured; the number of dead must
have been immense, but is not recorded, and Venice was furious; yet
the government looked in profound silence on Carmagnola with all the
mystery of its nature; no reproach, not an outward sign was suffered to
awaken his apprehensions; but a squadron immediately sailed to vindicate
national honour on the Tuscan and Genoese coasts, the result of which has
been already narrated.

On some erroneous suspicion of the Sienese, Count Alberigo was arrested
and sent prisoner to Milan where the duke absolved him; but Bernardino,
who had quitted the Florentines, succeeded and waged destructive war
against them, while Micheletto remained so idle and indifferent,
particularly in purposely neglecting a fair occasion of surprising
Lucca, that Niccolo Tolentino was ordered to supersede him. This general
had some immediate success, but receiving undue praise was imprudently
tempted to attack Bernardino at a place called the Capanne in Val d’Elsa,
where, at the moment of defeat, Micheletto came generously up to his
rescue and routed the enemy with great slaughter.

_The Revolt of Pisa; The Cruel Ruse of Baldaccio_

This raised the public spirits; but meanwhile the whole rural population
of Pisa revolted, and elected ten persons of a superior class with
authority to govern and tax them for all the purposes of war, resolving
to strike for Visconti while his forces were engaged in regular
hostilities; besides which a strong body of rustic youth were completely
armed and fought under their countryman Count Antonio da Pontedera, the
most active of Visconti’s partisans. Thus in addition to foreign war an
extensively organised rebellion pervaded the whole Pisan state, and these
untrained clowns battled with such valour and bitterness as shows the
excessive and universal detestation of Florentine rule, for no justly
governed though conquered people would have fought so rancorously. “Like
mad dogs, their bite is mortal,” said the men-at-arms: “we have not to
grapple with village clowns, but with demons of hell.” Wherefore none
of them were bold enough to meet this furious peasantry on equal terms;
“unless,” says Cavalcanti, “it were those who loved rather the requiem of
death than the pleasures of this world.”

Giovanni Fiesco, lord of Pontremoli, feeling the awkward position of his
states, which were alternately the prey of both parties, now sold that
town to Visconti; the war then became universal, malignant, destructive,
and attended with far more than common horrors; there was no present
mercy, and a dismal prospect for the future: famine stalked with
withering footsteps over all the land; fear and suspicion lurked in every
eye; and town and country, hamlet and village, castle and cottage, were
promiscuously overwhelmed in one vast flood of unutterable woe.

The condition of Pisa was lamentable: Giuliano di Guccio was the
Florentine captain or governor; Giuliano de’ Ricci the archbishop; both
of them men of stern, determined, and implacable natures, and the city
was pining from want. In this state, and probably fearful of a siege,
Guccio issued a hard command, “which for him was extreme cruelty and for
others tears.”

All the women, and their young and innocent children, without
distinction, were sternly driven from the town and their own homes.
“This unjust command was obeyed by the wretched victims, whose bitter
cries drew tears of pity even from the depths of the earth. Alas, what
a sight to behold these poor defenceless women and their nurslings thus
cast forth: some with an infant on each arm and on the back behind,
other little creatures clinging to their mothers’ skirts, naked and
barefoot; and thus they hastened along tripping and weeping with the pain
of their tender feet, and crying out with streaming eyes and uplifted
faces, ‘Where are we going to, mother?’ and making all beholders weep to
hear their sobbing voices and infantile questions, while the wretched
women answered, ‘We are going where our own evil fortune and the cruelty
of perverse men are sending us. O earth! Why art thou so hard-hearted
as to sustain a life which compared to death is sharpness? O profound
abyss, send forth thy messengers and let them drag us to thy dark
recesses, for thy bowels are sweeter than honey when placed beside the
bitterness of man! From some of us they have torn our husbands, from some
brothers, from others fathers; and now they cast us out desolate among
strange contending people, and we know not where to go! O God, provide
for thy creatures and punish us according to our sins, proportion the
punishment to the crime, and vouchsafe that support which will give us
patience to bear this unmitigated woe.’” Uttering such lamentations they
wandered towards Genoa but finally spread in all directions, and settled
particularly about Porto Venere and Pontremoli.

[Sidenote: [1431-1432 A.D.]]

The archbishop also had his share of this and other cruelties of a
similar nature; the times made people hard, but it becomes a priest’s
duty to try and soften them rather than ride by night, as this prelate
is described in the memoirs of his own family, on a powerful war-horse,
armed cap-à-pie, patrolling the streets to watch over the public
tranquillity; and if any wretch came under his suspicion in these
nocturnal rounds a waxen taper was instantly lighted and death and
confiscation of property, or else exile, submitted to his choice before
it had finished burning.

But the soldiers outdid even the priests. Baldaccio d’Anghiari was
one of those favourite generals of the Florentines that rendered war
more terrible by his natural or acquired ferocity. “He called homicide
boldness and resolution; the want of audacity he described as fearfulness
at alarming and doubtful things; fidelity was in his mind to be always
subservient to the cause he advocated, and sheer brutality was designated
as virtuous audacity. By such maxims he was led, and led others after him
with wonderful fortune to the most perilous achievements, and he often
put to death the enemies of Florence with his own hand, leaving others to
linger away a life which he had made worse than death itself.” This man,
thus described by a contemporary, took Collegioli, and in a sally that he
made from that place captured, amongst a crowd of prisoners, one named
Guasparri da Lucignano, who in person exactly resembled himself; it gave
rise to a strange notion which he hastened to realise thus.

Next morning Guasparri was attired in Baldaccio’s garments while his
men were ordered to give the Milanese war cry “_Duca! Duca!_” as if in
open mutiny, and follow it up by murdering the prisoner, whose bloody
and disfigured corpse was thrown from a tower into the ditch below. The
remaining prisoners were then set free and the body shown to them as
Baldaccio’s, against whom the troops affected to have mutinied; they were
ordered to disperse without delay and spread the news of this wicked
man’s death through the country, telling how the mutineers held the
castle in the duke’s name and waited for assistance. The story soon got
abroad and the Pisans in multitudes, armed and unarmed, crowded to see
the joyful spectacle, when suddenly the true Baldaccio appeared with his
troops, surrounded them, and sent them all prisoners to Florence.

Such atrocities, committed, not only without remorse or necessity, but
as it would seem for mere military pastime, gave the wars of this epoch
a character of barbarous vindictiveness and horror that was calculated
to lay a heavy load on the consciences of their authors; and if Cosmo
de’ Medici were really the fomenter of the Lucchese War, all his good
acts and good qualities were but a sorry exchange for the mass of human
suffering that his ambition inflicted and entailed upon his country. That
he could have prevented it there is no doubt had he only seconded Niccolo
da Uzzano; that he, on the contrary, strongly advocated and supported
it is equally certain; and that it was unjust and void of political
necessity can scarcely be questioned. Wherefore, putting aside all minor
accusations, he must stand convicted of advocating and fostering an
unjust and unnecessary war, waged with unusual horror, atrocious in its
character, and destructive in its consequences.

_The Fall of Carmagnola_

The Venetians, from their incipient discontent at Carmagnola’s conduct
after the victory of Macalo, had become deeply suspicious of his fidelity
since the naval action near Cremona (1432), and this was further
strengthened by his conduct at Cremona itself. His own troops had scaled
the walls and taken a gate of that city, where they defended themselves
for two whole days, vainly expecting assistance from Carmagnola who was
near at hand; at length exhausted with fatigue they could hold out no
longer and were all cut to pieces. He afterwards allowed Piccinino to
capture two fortified towns successively, under his very eyes and without
an effort to save them; so that, whether treacherous or not, Venice
had good cause for doubt and dissatisfaction. Carmagnola’s military
movements are said to have been always slow and well considered; nor was
he in the habit of permitting inclination to overcome reason; but the
Venetian commissaries attached to his army never ceased to urge him on
with all the confidence of ignorance; he, who was beyond measure proud
and never restrained his tongue, answered them in the manner of Hawkwood
to Andrea Vettori: “Go and prepare your broad cloths and leave me to
command the army.” “Foolish people,” said Carmagnola, “are you going to
teach one that was born in battles and nourished in blood? Go, mount your
senseless horses and visit the Caspian, then talk to me of its wonders,
and in such things I will place implicit faith; but be now content to
trust my experience, for I am not less expert on land than you are at
sea. You Venetians are rich in enterprise and prosperity, and if you
deem me faithless, why then, deprive me of office and I will seek my own
fortune.” The Venetians were both nettled and alarmed at this reproof,
particularly at the hint of seeking his own fortune, which indicated an
intention of returning to the duke, or, what would have been equally bad,
attaching himself to the emperor who was already in Italy.

[Illustration: GRAND CANAL, VENICE]

At what time they first began to entertain the idea of putting him to
death does not appear, but Cavalcanti asserts that it was continually in
debate and the secret closely kept for eight months by an assembly of
two hundred senators without a suspicion getting abroad or a word being
divulged on the subject. Finally his fate was decreed and in a manner
congenial to the time and country.[m] The incidents of its consummation
are too suggestive not to be given in some detail.

On the 28th of March, Foscari, in concert with all the members of the
privy council, proposed, at a meeting of the college, “that the pregadi
be dissolved, and that the Ten do take the matter into their own hands.”
The three chiefs of the Ten proposed as an amendment, that “this body
be not dissolved until the present business be out of hand.” But, on a
division, the first motion was carried by a majority of two, and the
dissolution was decreed, the decemvirs resolving to deal with the
matter before them “circumspectly, but vigorously.” In consideration
of the gravity of the question, the tribunal demanded the assistance
of a giunta of twenty senators; and these supplemental members, with
the doge and the privy council, raised the number to seven and thirty.
When the organisation of the conclave was nearly complete, a technical
irregularity having been discovered, the whole process was cancelled; and
the point, having been again submitted with all the previous forms, was
again solemnly confirmed. The senate was charged, upon pain of forfeiture
of goods and heads, to abstain from divulging any of these transactions,
and to keep the decemviral decree of the 28th a profound secret.

On the following day, Giovanni da Impero, secretary of the Ten, a person
of discreet character, and, according to the historian Sanuto, “with
a face as pale as a ghost,” was furnished with the ensuing written
instructions:

GIOVANNI:

We, Marco Barbarigo, Lorenzo Capello, and Lorenzo Donato,
chiefs of the council of Ten, and Tommaso Michieli and
Francesco Loredano, _avogadors_ of the commune, with our
council of Ten, command thee to repair forthwith to Brescia,
to Count Carmagnola, our captain-general, to whom, after the
customary salutations, you will say, that it being now full
time that something should be done for the honour and glory of
our state, various plans have suggested themselves to us for a
summer campaign. Much difference of opinion existing, and the
count enjoying peculiarly intimate conversance with Lombardy on
either side of the Po, we recommend and pray him to come here
so soon as may be, to consult with us and the lord of Mantua;
and if he consent to come accordingly, you will ascertain and
appraise us on what day he may be expected. But should he
decline to comply, you will with the utmost secrecy communicate
to our captains at Brescia and to our proveditor-general our
resolution to have the said Count Carmagnola arrested; and
you will concert with them the best means for carrying out
this our will, and for securing his person in our fortress of
Brescia. We also desire that, when the count himself shall
have been safely lodged, the countess his wife be similarly
detained, and that all documents, money, and other property,
be seized, and an inventory thereof taken. Above all, we wish
and charge thee, before seeking an interview with the count,
to disclose confidentially to the authorities at Brescia and
to the proveditor-general the nature of these presents (since
we ourselves have not communicated with them), enjoining them,
under pain of their goods and heads, in case the count be
contumacious, to execute our behests.

On the 30th, in consequence of an afterthought that Carmagnola might
penetrate the plans of the seigniory, and endeavour to escape, the
necessary orders were forwarded to the governors and captains of the
republic to second Da Impero, and if the general fled to any spot
within their jurisdiction, to detain him till further notice; and
a circular, superscribed by the doge, was sent to all the officers
serving immediately under Carmagnola, bidding them not be surprised
at these proceedings, assuring them of the earnest good-will of the
government, and soliciting their implicit obedience to the directions,
which they might receive through the authorities at Brescia and the
proveditor-general, Francesco Garzoni, Cornaro’s successor.

Having arrived at his destination, secretary Da Impero closeted
himself in the first instance with the podesta of Brescia and the
proveditor-general, and afterward proceeded to the quarters of the count
at or near Tercera. “After the customary salutations,” he presented his
credentials, which were as follows:

TO THE MAGNIFICENT COUNT CARMAGNOLA, Captain-General:

The prudent and circumspect person Giovanni da Impero, our
secretary, has been charged by us (_i.e._, the Ten) to speak
about certain matters to your magnificence, wherefore be
pleased to repose in him the faith you would give to ourselves.

Carmagnola, too glad to have an excuse for quitting camp, blindly fell
into the snare, and immediately started with the secretary of the Ten
for Venice. At Padua, he was received with military honours by the local
authorities; and he passed one night there, sharing the bed of Federigo
Contarini, captain of Padua, “his very good friend.” On the 7th of April
he reached the capital. A deputation of eight nobles was in waiting to
receive him. At the entrance of the palace, Da Impero vanished, and the
personal followers of the count were turned back with an announcement
that “their master will dine with the doge, and will come home after
dinner.” But his other companions remained, and ushered him into the hall
of St. Mark’s.

As he passed through, the general observed that the doors closed behind
him. He at once inquired where the doge was, declaring his wish to have
an audience, “as he had much to say to his serenity.”

Leonardo Mocenigo, one of the sages of the council, stepped up to him
and told him that Foscari, having had an accident in descending the
staircase, was confined to his room, and could not receive him till the
morrow.

Carmagnola then turned, with a gesture of impatience, on his heel, and
prepared to retrace his steps, remarking: “The hour is late, and it is
time for me to go home.”

When he arrived at the corridor which led to the Orba prison, however,
one of the nobles in attendance gently arrested his progress with, “This
way, my lord.”

“But that is not the right way,” retorted the count hurriedly.

“Yes, yes, it is perfectly so,” was the answer given.

At this moment, guards appeared, surrounded Carmagnola, and pushed him
into the corridor. The last words which he was heard to utter were: “I
am lost!” and, as he spoke, a deep-drawn sigh escaped from him. During
two days, he refused to take any kind of nourishment. The trial began on
the 9th of April with all the forms recognised and required in criminal
procedure by the constitution; the examination was conducted by a special
committee of nine persons--Luca Mocenigo, privy councillor; Antonio
Barbarigo, Bartolommeo Morisini, and Marino Lando, chiefs of the Ten;
Daniele Vetturi, Marco Barbarigo, and Luigi Veniero, inquisitors of the
Ten; and Faustino Viaro and Francesco Loredano, avogadors of the commune.

On the 11th, the accused, having declined to make any answers, was put
to the question. It happened that one of his arms had been fractured in
the service of the republic; and the committee consequently objected to
the use of the estrapade. But a confession was wrung from him by the
application of the brazier. During Lent, the process was suspended. At
its recommencement a mass of documents was submitted for investigation,
and numerous witnesses were summoned. Independently of the confession,
which was possibly of indifferent value, damning evidences of treasonable
connivance with Visconti were adduced. On the propriety of conviction
there was perfect unanimity; but in regard to the nature of the sentence
opinions were divided. The doge himself and three of the privy council
proposed perpetual imprisonment. The three chiefs of the Ten, and the
avogadors of the commune were, under all the circumstances of aggravated
guilt, in favour of capital punishment. A resort was had to the ballot,
and, of seven and twenty persons entitled to vote, nineteen voted for
death.

[Sidenote: [1432-1441 A.D.]]

On the 5th of May, 1432, Francesco di Carmagnola was led as a public
traitor to the common place of execution. He wore a scarlet vest with
sleeves, a crimson mantle, scarlet stockings, and a velvet cap _alla
Carmagnola_; a gag was in his mouth; his hands were pinioned behind him
according to usage; and there between the “red columns,” in the sight of
all Venice, his head was severed from his body at the third stroke of the
axe.

Thus fell, in the prime of life, the victim of his own blind and perverse
folly, a man of the first order of talents, and within whose reach the
most splendid opportunities had so recently been. The government of
Venice had tolerated his errors [says Hazlitt] until his criminality
was beyond a doubt. When his death was decreed, his corruption and
treason were already sufficiently glaring. Yet there were subsequent
discoveries, which made his case infinitely worse, and which procured
an instant mitigation of the penalty against Niccolo Trevisano and the
other officers concerned in the loss of the battle of the Po; and some
justice, however tardy and inadequate, was rendered to the sufferers by
the open declaration of a member of the seigniory in the great council,
“that, if the government had at the time been in possession of that
exact information which was now in its hands, its treatment of Trevisano
and his comrades would have been very different.” It has been said by a
modern writer, that “Carmagnola seems to have acted in so equivocal a
manner as would have made him amenable to any court-martial with little
chance of absolution.”[k]

There are other writers, however, who have regarded the guilt of
Carmagnola as by no means so clearly proved, and there are many who would
be disposed to approve the judgment of Pignotti,[o] who says, “Probably
he was guilty, but the public have always the right to term injustice any
act which decides the life and honour of a celebrated man without seeing
proofs of his guilt, or at least must consider them very doubtful, as no
person who possesses understanding can discover any reasonable motive for
concealing them. The proof of this,” Pignotti continues, “may be found
in the criminal system of the most polite nations, in particular in that
which has formed the glory and personal security of the English people.”

This perhaps is a slight over-statement; there may be reasons of state
that make it desirable to give publicity to all the facts where treason
is involved. And certainly it would seem as if the Venetian authorities
must have felt very sure of their ground before they decided to do away
with their captain-general, when no man of similar capacity was at hand
to take his place. Nevertheless, the question of the justice of the
execution of Carmagnola remains one of the unsolved problems of history.

Deprived of their great general, the Venetians were crippled, while the
cause of the Visconti was proportionately strengthened. Nevertheless,
the war was brought to a close not long after. Sigismund, who had been
crowned king of the Romans at Milan, was attacked by the Florentines and
shut up in Siena. Partly through his influence the duke of Milan was
led to sign a peace with the allies in 1433. The Venetians remained in
possession of Brescia and Bergamo.[a]

_Venice and the Turks_

[Sidenote: [1441-1465 A.D.]]

A little later, by the ruin and exile of the last of the noble family of
Polenta, the Venetians grasped the state of Ravenna (1441). In addition
to these possessions in Italy, Venice continued to enjoy extensive
territories in the East, besides Dalmatia and Durazzo; with other places
in Arbani, she was mistress of the chief cities in Morea and many of the
Ionian Islands. But the taking of Constantinople by the Turks and the
captivity of the Venetians settled in Pera, threatened her power in the
East, and she felt no repugnance to enter into a treaty with the enemies
of her religion. After the usual negotiations, terms were concluded
between Sigismund and Venice; by which her possessions were secured to
her and her trade guaranteed to her throughout the empire. In virtue of
this treaty, she continued to occupy Modon, Coron, Napoli di Romania
(Nauplia), Argos, and other cities on the borders of the peninsula,
together with Eubœa (Negropont), and some of the smaller islands. But
this good understanding was interrupted in 1463, when the Turks contrived
an excuse for attacking the Venetian territory. Under pretence of
resenting the asylum afforded to a Turkish refugee, the pasha of the
Morea besieged and captured Argos; and the republic felt itself compelled
immediately to resent the aggression.

[Illustration: A MAGISTRATE OF VENICE]

A reinforcement was sent from Venice to Napoli, and Argos was quickly
recaptured. Corinth was next besieged, and the project of fortifying
the isthmus was once more renewed. The promontory which unites the
Peloponnesus to the continent measures scarcely six miles across
between the gulfs of Ægina and Lepanto. In the early ages of Greece the
narrowness of this pass had suggested the possibility and expediency of
fortifying it by a rampart; under the emperor Justinian, the ancient
fortifications were renewed; and in 1413 a strong wall, named Hexamilion
from its length, was erected by the emperor Manuel. Upon the present
occasion, the labour of thirty thousand workmen accomplished the work
in fifteen days: a stone wall of more than twelve feet high, defended
by a ditch and flanked by 136 towers, was drawn across the isthmus; in
the midst the standard of St. Mark was displayed; and the performance of
the holy service completed the new fortification. But the approach of
the Turks, whose numbers were probably exaggerated by report, threw the
Venetians into distrust and consternation; and unwilling to confide in
the strength of their rampart they abandoned the siege of Corinth, and
retreated to Napoli, from which the infidels were repulsed with the loss
of five thousand men.

The Peloponnesus was now exposed to the predatory retaliations of the
Turks and Venetians; and the Christians appeared anxious to rival or
surpass the Mohammedans in the refinement of their barbarous inflictions.
The names of Sparta and Athens may create a momentary interest; the
former, denoted by the modern town of Mistra erected near its ruins;
the latter, the poor remains of the ancient city, but still one of
the richest and most populous of Greek possessions. In the year 1465
Sigismondo Malatesta landed in the Morea, with a reinforcement of a
thousand men; and, without effecting the reduction of the citadel,
captured and burned Mistra. In the following year, Vittore Capello, with
the Venetian fleet, arrived in the straits of Euripus, and landing at
Aulis marched into Attica. After making himself master of the Piræus,
he laid siege to Athens; her walls were overthrown; her inhabitants
plundered; and the Venetians retreated with the spoil to the opposite
shores of Eubœa.

[Sidenote: [1465-1478 A.D.]]

The victorious career of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, for a
time diverted the sultan from the war in the Morea; but when Matthias
was induced to change his antagonists, and, instead of warring against
the Turks, to turn upon his Christian brethren of Bohemia, Muhammed II
solemnly bound himself by oath to abolish the idolatrous religion of
Christ, and invited the disciples of the prophet to join him in his
pious design. In the beginning of the year 1470, a fleet of 108 galleys,
besides a number of smaller vessels, manned by a force 70,000 strong,
issued from the harbour of Constantinople, and sailed for the straits
of Euripus. Never since the days of Xerxes had those seas been cumbered
by so vast a multitude; and in the same place, whither the Great King
had once despatched his countless fleet, the vessels of the sultan were
anchored. The army landed without molestation on the island, which they
united to the mainland by a bridge of boats, and immediately proceeded
to lay siege to the city of Negropont. Muhammed caused his tent to be
pitched on a promontory of the Attic coast, and thence surveyed the
operations of his soldiery.

The hopes of the besieged were now centred in the Venetian fleet, which,
under the command of Niccolo Canale, lay at anchor in the Soronic
Gulf. But that admiral, whilst he awaited a reinforcement, let slip
the favourable opportunity of preventing the debarkation of the enemy,
or of shutting up the Turks in the island by the destruction of their
half-deserted fleet and bridge of boats. By an unaccountable inactivity,
he suffered the city to be attacked, which, after a vigorous resistance
of nearly a month, was carried by assault; and all the inhabitants who
did not escape into the citadel were put to the sword. At length that
fortress was also taken; and the barbarous conqueror, who had promised
to respect the head of the intrepid governor, deemed it no violation of
his word to saw his victim in halves. After this decisive blow, which
reduced the whole island, Muhammed led back his conquering army to
Constantinople. The Venetian admiral was forthwith superseded by a new
commander, and sent loaded with irons to Venice, where his countrymen, by
an unaccustomed exercise of moderation, were content to spare his life,
and punished his delinquency by perpetual exile.

This success encouraged the Turks to attack the Venetians in their
Italian territory; and the pasha of Bosnia invaded Istria and Friuli, and
carried fire and sword almost to the gates of Udine. In the following
year, however, the Turks were baffled in their attempt to reduce Scutari
in Albania, which had been delivered by the gallant Scanderbeg to the
guardian care of Venice. Some abortive negotiations for peace suspended
hostilities until 1477, when the troops of Muhammed laid siege to Croia
in Albania, which they reduced to the severest distress. But a new
incursion into Friuli struck a panic into the inhabitants of Venice,
who beheld, from the tops of their churches and towers, the raging
flames which devoured the neighbouring villages. A hasty muster of all
their available forces was made to defend the capital; but the Turks,
distrustful of their strength, or satiated with plunder, once more
withdrew into Albania. The siege of Croia was soon after terminated by
its surrender and the massacre of its inhabitants; and the sultan, in
person, undertook the reduction of the stubborn city of Scutari.

But not even the presence of the sultan could accomplish the capture of
that redoubted garrison. In vain did the janissaries scale the walls; in
vain did the Turkish artillery thunder against the shivered barriers;
whilst new assailants replaced those who fell overwhelmed by the javelins
and stones launched on them by the besieged. For two days and a night
the grand assault was kept up without intermission, until, weary of the
useless sacrifice of his men, Muhammed resolved to convert the siege into
a blockade. The surrounding country was harassed by the ravages of the
Turks; but a new attempt upon Friuli was successfully resisted; and the
infidels were compelled to confine their incursions to the frontiers of
Germany.

These repeated aggressions on her territories made Venice every day more
anxious to conclude a peace with the sultan; and a fresh negotiation was
opened, wherein the republic submitted to conditions she had, on a former
occasion, rejected. It was agreed that the islands of Negropont and
Mytilene, with the cities of Croia and Scutari in Albania, and of Tenaro
in the Morea, should be consigned to the Turk; whilst other conquests
were to be reciprocally restored to their former owners. A tribute of
10,000 ducats was imposed upon Venice, and the inhabitants of Scutari
were to be permitted to evacuate the city without molestation. Upon this
footing a peace was concluded, which delivered Venice from a ruinous
war of fifteen years. The poor remnant of the defenders of Scutari, now
reduced to 500 men and 150 women, were suffered to depart from their
homes; and being conducted to Venice were munificently provided for at
the expense of the republic (1479).[g]

[Sidenote: [1454-1489 A.D.]]

While Venice was thus contending with difficulty against Ottoman power
for the preservation of her colonies, Genoa, with less vigour and
fortune, had lost the whole of her possessions and influence in the Black
Sea. With the sceptre of Constantinople, the Turks had acquired the key
of the Euxine; the Genoese could no longer communicate by sea with their
great colony at Kaffa, except at the pleasure of the sultan: and it was
easy to foresee that Muhammed II would not permit them long to retain so
valuable a dependency. Upon the occasion of some petty quarrel with the
colonists of Kaffa, the Tatar governor of the Crimea besieged the place,
and invited the co-operation of the sultan. The Turkish fleet appeared
before the port, and easily effected a breach in the walls; the colonists
were reduced to capitulate; and the last vestige of the Genoese power
in the Euxine was destroyed (1475). The misfortunes of the Genoese were
without a counterpoise; but the reverses of Venice in the late war were
balanced by the acquisition of the large and beautiful island of Cyprus.

Ever since the conquest of Cyprus by Richard Cœur-de-Lion, and his gift
of its crown to Guy of Lusignan, the descendants of that chieftain
had preserved his inheritance with the kingly title. But a disputed
succession and a civil war in 1459 entailed ruin on the dynasty of
Lusignan. After a contest between the legitimate daughter, and James,
the natural son of the late king, in which the latter prevailed, the
Venetians bestowed on him their protection and the hand of Catherine
Cornaro, a young lady of noble family, who was solemnly declared the
adopted daughter of the republic. The new king of Cyprus, who had thus
contracted the singular relation of son-in-law to the Venetian state,
fulfilled its duties with fidelity and deference. But he died after
only a short reign; and the republic immediately acted as the natural
guardian of his widow and posthumous child. The Cypriotes, however, were
not disposed to accept of the insidious protection of a foreign state;
and, during the absence of the Venetian fleet, they rebelled against the
queen, and deprived her of the charge of her infant son. On his return,
Mocenigo, the Venetian admiral, saw the importance of the crisis. He
collected a strong body of land-forces from the republican colonies;
he awed the islanders into submission, and occupied their fortresses
with his troops; and from this epoch Cyprus may be numbered among the
possessions of Venice. The infant son of James of Lusignan and Catherine
Cornaro died; the republic faithlessly removed to Venice some natural
children on whom, in default of legitimate issue, James had settled the
succession; and, in 1489, the Venetian government at length wholly threw
off the mask and completed their perfidious usurpation, by obliging
the adopted daughter of their state to abdicate her kingdom. Catherine
Cornaro had enjoyed no more than the shadow of royalty under the
authority of the delegated counsellors of the Venetian senate: but that
body were still fearful of her attempting to render herself independent
by a second marriage; and after obtaining her solemn act of resignation
in favour of the republic, they withdrew her from the island, and
assigned her for life a castle and a revenue in their Lombard states.[p]

_The Government of Venice._

The government of Venice had now assumed that perfection of oligarchical
despotism which subsisted, with very little variation, from the year
1454 until the inglorious dissolution of the republic in 1797. The
sovereign authority was vested in the great council; the government in
the senate; the administration in the seigniory; the judicial authority
in the quarantia; and the police in the Council of Ten. To these august
assemblies the nobles were alone admissible; so that every member of the
subordinate councils had a seat in the great council.

The doge was, in name at least, the head of the government, and as
such presided over every council. The external marks of respect were
conceded to his station, and the splendour of the ducal trappings was
well contrived to dazzle the multitude. But from an absolute sovereign
the duke of Venice had gradually dwindled down to a powerless pageant;
and the aristocracy seem to have delighted in shackling their prince
with irksome, though generally wise restrictions. No person if chosen
was permitted to decline the dignity; and the dignity when once accepted
could never be resigned unless by the consent of the great council. On
the other hand, the doge was liable to deposition; and the history of
the unfortunate Foscari evinces the rigorous treatment to which the
sovereign was open. The doge was forbidden to quit the limits of Venice
without special permission; to possess property out of the city; to
exercise commerce; or to receive any gratuity from a foreign prince.
His revenue was limited to 12,000 ducats, and his expenditure was
matter of the severest scrutiny. In his public capacity he could make
neither war nor peace; he could open no despatches save in the presence
of the seigniory; nor could he return an answer to a foreign potentate
without their approbation. His wife and family were also precluded from
accepting presents. His brothers, his sons, and even his servants, were
ineligible to public office; and his children were prohibited from
contracting foreign marriages. After his death, his heirs were liable
to be visited for the errors of his reign; and compellable to make good
any malversation reported by the censors appointed to inquire into his
administration.

The great council included all the nobles who had attained the age of
twenty-five. We have already seen the artifices by which this noble
body shut the door of the assembly against all whose names were not
registered in the Golden Book. But during the famous war of Chioggia the
door was again unbarred; and faithful to her promise Venice admitted
into her nobility those thirty citizens who were adjudged to have
exerted themselves most strenuously in defence of their country. In this
illustrious assembly the real sovereignty of Venice existed; from the
great council emanated the senate and other councils; and it absorbed
all other assemblies, since only its own members were eligible to the
important departments of government. Its peculiar office was to make or
repeal laws; to ballot for magistrates; and to approve of, or annul, the
taxes proposed by the senate. The residue of the sovereign functions it
was content to leave to the senate; and as the senators were themselves
members of the council no great risk was incurred of any violent
collision.

[Illustration: BRONZE WELL IN THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE]

The chief restrictions imposed upon the nobles related to their
intercourse with foreign powers. They were forbidden to acquire foreign
property; to accept foreign presents; to hold communication with any
foreign ambassador. All intermarriages of themselves and their children
with foreigners were prohibited; but as too strict an adherence to this
prohibition might have deprived the state of advantageous alliances, an
ingenious evasion was contrived; and when the daughter of a Venetian
noble was sought by a foreign potentate, the state adopted her as its
own, and gave her in marriage as the daughter of St. Mark. Attempts were
made from time to time to prohibit the nobles from trading; but the
impolicy of such a restriction in a commercial state was too strongly
felt to render the interdiction available.

The senate, which originally consisted of sixty members, elected annually
by the great council from their own body, was afterwards increased
by the addition of sixty extraordinary members: and the admission of
various public functionaries, in virtue of their office, at length
swelled this body to three hundred. To the senate the immediate functions
of government were entrusted; and they deliberated and decided upon
many important points without any reference to the great council. They
made war or peace; entered into treaties; appointed ambassadors and
commanders; coined money; raised loans; and regulated the distribution
of the finances. But they had no authority to make laws or impose taxes,
unless these were afterwards approved and confirmed by the great council.

The executive power was vested in the seigniory which consisted of the
doge and the six red counsellors nominated by the great council, one for
every quarter of the city. To these were associated the three chiefs
of the criminal quarantia, and sixteen sages; and this assembly of
twenty-six was styled “the college.” They gave audiences to ambassadors
of foreign princes; received memorials and manifestoes; and opened all
public despatches, which they were bound to transmit for the perusal of
the senate. To them also belonged the convoking of the senate; and by
them the resolutions of the senate were to be effectuated.

The supreme judicial authority was lodged in a criminal tribunal of forty
judges, and two civil tribunals, each also consisting of forty. These
judges were all nominated from among the patricians by the great council;
those of the criminal quarantia were _ex-officio_ members of the senate;
and as the judges of the civil courts passed on to the criminal, all
became senators in rotation. These tribunals formed courts of appeal from
others of inferior jurisdiction; and administered justice according to
the civil law, modified by statutes and local customs. Their proceedings
were encumbered by formalities, and were consequently tardy; but their
decisions (which were given by ballot) are admitted to have evinced
sagacity and integrity. In criminal matters, indeed, the friends of the
accused were permitted to use private influence with the judges; but such
culpable attempts at the perversion of justice were strictly forbidden in
civil proceedings.

[Illustration: A VENETIAN NOBLEMAN]

[Sidenote: [1454 A.D.]]

The terrible Council of Ten had already overawed Venice for more than a
century, when a new engine of tyranny was introduced still more terrific.
The Council of Ten being deemed too numerous a body for securing the
desired promptness and mystery of their proceedings, it was resolved by
the great council in 1454 to erect another tribunal, consisting of three
members with the most unlimited authority over the lives and liberty
of the community. The Council of Ten were empowered to nominate two of
their black counsellors, and one member of the doge’s council; and were
directed to prepare a body of statutes for the guidance of this new
“Inquisition of State.” Three days after the passing of this decree the
council were ready with these statutes; but the elaborate minuteness of
their provisions clearly proves that much time and deliberation had been
previously expended upon them. That this frightful tribunal existed too
soon became manifest; yet such was the mystery which enveloped its origin
that no one presumed to fix the time of its establishment, until the
modern historian of Venice in his laborious researches discovered a copy
of this diabolical code. Such a tissue of refined cruelty and perfidy
was surely never before given to the world; and the framers of the
“Statutes of the Inquisition” appear to have been gifted with a subtle
and relentless spirit of wickedness which might challenge the malignity
of assembled fiends.

An attentive perusal of this manual of assassination can alone give
an adequate notion of the precision and acuteness with which the
depositaries of this unbounded power are enjoined to draw the unwary
into their snares; or of the cold-blooded and uncompromising villainy
recommended for the preservation of Venetian policy. Subject to these
instructions, the three inquisitors were abandoned to their own
discretion in selecting the time and place of seizure and investigation,
the tortures to be employed, and the manner of destroying their victims.
The nobles and citizens might thus be publicly exposed on a gibbet, or
silently consigned to the adjacent canal. Innumerable spies pervaded
the city; the recesses of domestic privacy and the inmost apartments of
the ducal palace were alike laid open to the penetrating gaze of the
Inquisition. Such was the mystery which surrounded the inquisitors that
it was never known, except by the council, to which of their members
this terrible office was entrusted; and an unguarded whisper in an
inquisitor’s presence might in a moment be followed by incarceration and
death.

A system, if possible more monstrous, was also encouraged at Venice.
A number of iron mouths in different parts of the city gaped for
accusations; and an anonymous charge deposited by a secret enemy was
sufficient to drag the unconscious accused before his judges. No human
being could enjoy security for an instant; the daggers and the poison of
the Inquisition were always at hand; and the innocent might suddenly be
torn from the midst of his friends and consigned to the burning heat of
the leaden roofs, or forever immured in the wells, those dismal dungeons
sunk lower than the surface of the canals, where they might sicken and
perhaps die from the foul air.

Amidst these institutions, where the functions of the state were
exclusively vested in the nobles, and the legislative, executive, and
judicial powers united in one body, we may be at a loss to discover what
security existed for the welfare of the subordinate classes. The three
avogadors, one of whom was necessarily a member of the great council
and senate, might, indeed, call upon the legislature to pause when any
measure was proposed injurious to the public; but in this anxiety for
the general good no safety was to be found for private life or liberty;
and we have no means of ascertaining the quantity of individual misery
inflicted by this odious government. But amidst the distraction of shows
and pageants, the people might at least console themselves with the
impartiality of their despotic rulers; since the nobles, and even the
doge himself, were liable to feel the rigour of this unsparing oligarchy.

The annals of Venice present many glaring instances of her noblest sons
perishing under the malice of an enemy, or sacrificed to the detestable
policy of the state; and every page of her history is deformed by
examples of perfidy and injustice. Without adverting to these, we will
here briefly repeat the characteristic story of Foscari; and it is
remarkable that the Inquisition of State originated at the close of this
doge’s reign.

[Illustration: ST. MARK’S, VENICE]

_The Two Foscari_

[Sidenote: [1423-1455 A.D.]]

On the death of Tommaso Mocenigo in 1423, Francesco Foscari was raised
to the ducal throne. A vigorous understanding, a bold and enterprising
spirit, were the conspicuous qualities of the new doge; and during
his long and warlike reign Venice attained a pitch of glory and power
she had never before enjoyed. But whilst Foscari was thus increasing
the prosperity of his country he was struggling with severe domestic
affliction. Three of his sons were successively swept away to the grave;
and the survivor was reserved but to augment the misery of his afflicted
father. Jacopo, the youngest Foscari, was secretly accused before the
Council of Ten of having received from Filippo, duke of Milan, presents
of money and jewels, and immediately summoned to answer the accusation.
The unhappy Francesco, who presided as doge, beheld his only son
stretched upon the rack, heard his confession of guilt, and acquiesced in
the sentence of perpetual banishment to Napoli di Romania. This sentence
was, however, in some degree mitigated; and Trieste was fixed on as the
place of his exile, whither he was allowed the consolation of being
accompanied by his young wife. After residing there above five years a
new calamity awaited him. On the 5th of November, 1450, Almoro Donato,
one of the chiefs of the council, was assassinated; and the circumstance
of a servant of Jacopo’s having been seen in Venice on that day was
deemed sufficient to fasten suspicion on his master. The severities of
the rack having extorted nothing from the servant, Jacopo was conducted
to Venice, and in his father’s presence once more put to the torture. Far
from admitting his participation in the murder, the unfortunate culprit
vehemently asserted his innocence; but his protestations availed him
nothing; and the inexorable council pronounced a sentence of perpetual
banishment to the island of Candia.

[Illustration: THE DOGANA, VENICE]

The doge Francesco had already on two occasions expressed his desire
of abdicating his dignity; but on each occasion the great council
refused to permit his resignation. The cruel persecution of his son now
redoubled his anxiety to descend from that eminence which exposed him
more conspicuously to the malice of his enemies. But the council not only
reiterated their refusal, but compelled him to bind himself by oath to
retain the duchy until relieved by death.

During a five years’ residence at Canea in Candia, Jacopo Foscari had
exerted every means in his power to obtain the reversal of his unmerited
sentence. Wearied of the hopeless attempt to soften his obdurate
countrymen, he at length addressed a letter to Sforza, duke of Milan,
entreating him to use his influence with the Venetian senate. To solicit
foreign protection was an offence at Venice; and the letter, by design
or accident, being intercepted, Jacopo was conveyed from Canea, and for
the third time put to the rack before the Council of Ten. He immediately
admitted the offensive letter, and rejoiced in the step he had taken,
which once more restored him to his beloved country, and to the presence
of his wife, his father, and all that was dearest to him upon earth.
This touching avowal weighed little with the heartless tribunal, and he
was sentenced to be imprisoned in a dungeon for a year, and then again
carried back into Candia. After the expiration of his imprisonment, he
was sent into exile and soon afterwards died. Meanwhile his innocence
of the imputed murder was completely established: the real assassin of
Donato confessed on his death-bed that his, not Jacopo’s, was the guilty
hand.

[Sidenote: [1455-1457 A.D.]]

The wretched father now sank under this accumulation of misery: he
fled from public business; abstained from attendance in the councils;
and at the age of eighty-four buried himself in retirement so suitable
to his years and misfortunes. But the malice of his enemies was still
unsatiated; it was resolved that he should be precipitated from a throne
he had already thrice attempted to vacate. By an enormous stretch of
power, the Council of Ten intimated to the doge in the name of the great
council, that the state called for his resignation and absolved him from
his oath. They condescended to offer him a pension of 1500 ducats, and
peremptorily insisted on his quitting the ducal palace within eight days
under pain of confiscation of his property. After a momentary struggle
with his pride the old man bowed to the decree, and descended the Giants’
Staircase, which thirty-four years before he had mounted as the sovereign
of Venice. The assembled populace beheld with pity and indignation the
aged father of the republic pass slowly towards his private dwelling;
but the murmurs of compassion were in a moment silenced by a menacing
proclamation of the Ten. The electors proceeded to the choice of a new
doge, and on the 30th of October, 1457, seven days after the deposition
of Foscari, Pasquale Malipiero was declared duly elected. The tolling
of the bell of St. Mark’s tower, which announced the election, awakened
in the soul of Foscari a conflict of passions too furious for exhausted
nature, and he survived the shock only a few hours. Notwithstanding the
resistance of his widow, the council, who had thus hurried him to his
grave, resolved upon the mockery of a magnificent funeral; and he was
interred with all the splendour usual at a doge’s obsequies, the newly
elected duke assisting in the habit of a senator.

One of the chief instruments of the ruin of Foscari was Giacomo Loredano,
a noble, whose long-cherished rancour was thus formally entered on his
commercial accounts: “Francesco Foscari, for the death of my father and
uncle.” But the debt was now liquidated, and on the opposite page the
cold-blooded Loredano wrote the discharge, “he has paid it.”[g]

FOOTNOTES

[17] Murat. Annali.--Without burdening the text with a barren enumeration
of names, we here subjoin a list of these doges, by which the insecurity
of their dignity will sufficiently appear. 1339. Simone Boccanera,
abdicated 1344; Giovanni da Murta, died 1350; Giovanni de’ Valenti.
— 1356. Boccanera restored, died 1363; Gabriello Adorno, deposed and
imprisoned 1370; Niccolo di Guarco, dep. 1383; Leonardo di Montaldo,
died 1384; Antonio Adorno, dep. 1390; Jacopo Campo Fregoso, dep. 1392;
Antonio restored and again dep. 1392; Antoniotto di Montaldo, dep. 1394;
Niccolo Zoaglio, dep. 1394; Antonio di Guarco, dep. 1394; Antonio Adorno
again restored, resigned 1396. — 1413. Georgio Adorno, dep. 1415; Barnabò
Goano, dep. 1415; Tommaso Fregoso, dep. 1442; Raffaello Adorno, resigned
1447; Barnabò Adorno, dep. 1447; Giano Fregoso, died 1448; Lodovico
Fregoso, dep. 1450; Piero Fregoso, dep. 1458. — 1461. Prospero Adorno,
dep. 1461; Lodovico Fregoso, dep. 1463; Paolo Fregoso, dep. 1464. — 1478.
Battista Fregoso, dep. 1483; Paolo Fregoso, restored, dep. 1487.

[18] DOGES OF VENICE, 1289-1501.--1289, Pietro Gradenigo, the 49th doge;
1311, Marino Giorgi; 1312, Giovanni Soranzo; 1328, Francesco Dandolo;
1339, Bartolommeo Gradenigo; 1343, Andrea Dandolo; 1354, Marino Falieri;
1355, Giovanni Gradenigo; 1356, Giovanni Delfino; 1361, Lorenzo Celsi;
1365, Marco Cornaro; 1367, Andrea Contarini; 1382, Michele Morosini;
1382, Antonio Venier; 1400, Michele Steno; 1414, Tommaso Mocenigo; 1423,
Francesco Foscari; 1457, Pasqual Malipier; 1462, Cristoforo Moro; 1471,
Niccolo Tron; 1473, Niccolo Marcello; 1474, Pietro Mocenigo; 1476, Andrea
Vendramin; 1478, Giovanni Mocenigo; 1485, Marco Barbarigo; 1486, Agostino
Barbarigo; 1501, Leonardo Loredano, the 75th doge.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER X. THE COMMERCE OF VENICE

In the preceding chapter we have followed the political development of
Venice, and seen that city acquire undisputed supremacy on the water and
then reach out for land conquests as well. We shall now interrupt the
rather depressing story of political wrangles, to consider the commercial
prosperity of the new world-emporium.

“Venice,” says Burckhardt,[b] “recognised itself from the first as a
strange and mysterious creation--the fruits of a higher power than human
ingenuity. The key-note of the Venetian character was a spirit of proud
and contemptuous isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city
by the other states of Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity
within. The inhabitants meanwhile were united by the most powerful ties
of interest in dealing both with the colonies and the possessions on
the mainland; and forcing the population of the latter, that is of all
the towns up to Bergamo, to buy and sell in Venice alone. A power which
rested on means so artificial could only be maintained by internal
harmony and unity. On the other hand, within the ranks of the nobility
itself, travel and commercial enterprises, and the incessant wars with
the Turks, saved the wealthy and dangerous from that fruitful source
of conspiracies--idleness. A free government in the open air gave the
Venetian aristocracy, as a whole, a healthy bias.”

The Venetian did, in point of fact, seem to differ materially from
his Italian neighbours. We have seen that the city did not come into
prominence until a relatively late period of the Middle Ages. Isolated
geographically, it held aloof from its neighbouring states and never
conceded allegiance to the Western Empire. Nominally, it sought the
protection of Constantinople; but in reality it neither needed nor
received aid from that quarter, and its allegiance to the Eastern emperor
was probably due largely to the harmlessness of his supposed authority.
The seafaring life had developed here, as so often elsewhere, a hardy and
liberty-loving race. The Venetian reminds us strongly of his prototype,
the old-time Phœnician. But in one regard the citizen of Venice proved
even more self-reliant than his prototype: he insisted always on
choosing his rulers; moreover, he not merely elected them, but he held
them amenable to the law. We have seen a striking illustration of this in
the preceding chapter, in the legal execution of the doge Marino Falieri.
Seldom, if ever, has that incident been precisely duplicated. The doge
of Venice, elected for life, was surrounded with all the semblance of
royalty and was to all intents and purposes a sovereign. Yet when this
distinguished incumbent of the office had proven himself disloyal to the
constitution, he was adjudged in practically the same manner with his
associates in crime, and subjected to the same punishment.

Nothing could be more characteristic than the manner in which the
punishment of Falieri was carried out. Up to the very last the doge was
treated with all respect. Even when led out to execution, he was still
clothed in his ducal robes. The mandate of the law was carried out not
in anger, but in sorrow; everything was legal, constitutional; there was
no breach of dignity. A vast concourse of people waited at the door of
the palace to view the corpse; but it was no clamouring mob: it was a
quiet and orderly gathering of citizens. The fall of the sovereign had
come about through no reign of terror such as pertained in latter-day
France, when Louis XVI was executed; no revolution like that which
brought Charles I to the block. The successor to the doge was elected in
precisely the same manner as if the previous incumbent of this office
had died a natural death. In all history, let it be repeated, there is
scarcely a precise parallel for this exhibition of the far-reaching scope
of Venetian justice.

We have now to view the real source of the power of this strange nation;
a power based, as has repeatedly been suggested, upon the old familiar
foundation of commercial prosperity. It was the independence born of this
prosperity that made Venice feared and hated by all the other powers of
Italy--feared and hated, but also admired. We read in Villani[c] that
when in the early part of the fourteenth century Venice condescended
to take common cause with Florence against the tyrant of Milan, the
Florentines regarded it as a singular honour for their country to have
become the confederate of the Venetians, “who, for their great excellence
and power, had never allied themselves with any state or prince, except
at their ancient conquest of Constantinople and Romania.” We learn, on
the other hand, from the Venetians, how some of the wise men of their
city regretted this same alliance with its attendant grasping after
political conquests, on the mainland. A remarkable account has been
preserved to us by Sanuto,[d] of the warning said to have been given to
his people by the doge Mocenigo, who died in 1423, and whose alleged
words we shall quote in some detail, because they furnish us with
statistics that will serve as introductory to our further studies of the
national commerce.

The doge asserted that the trade with Lombardy alone brought into Venice
each year no less than 28,800,000 ducats.[a] “My lords,” he is reported
as saying, “from the infirm state in which I find myself, I judge that I
am drawing near the close of my career; and the obligations under which
I lie to a country which has not only bred me, but has permitted me to
attain such lofty prominence, and has showered upon me so many honours,
have prompted me to call you together around me, in order that I may
commend to your care this Christian city, and persuade you to live in
concord with your neighbours, and to preserve this city, as I have done
to the best of my ability. In my time, 4,000,000 ducats of the public
debt have been paid though 6,000,000 remain, the latter of which were
contracted for the war of Padua, Vicenza, and Verona. We have regularly
paid the half-yearly interest on the funds and the salaries of the
public offices. Our city at present sends abroad for purposes of trade
in various parts of the world 10,000,000 ducats a year, of which the
interest is not less than 2,000,000. In this city there are 3000 vessels
of smaller burden, which carry 17,000 seamen; 300 large ships carrying
8000 seamen; 45 galleys and dromons constantly in commission for the
protection of commerce, which employ 11,000 seamen, 3000 carpenters,
3000 caulkers. Of silk cloth-workers there are 3000; of manufacturers
of fustian, 16,000. The rent-roll is estimated at 7,050,000 ducats.
The income arising from let houses is 150,000. We find 1000 gentlemen
with means varying between 700 and 4000 ducats a year. If you continue
to prosper in this manner, you will become masters of all the gold in
Christendom. But, I beseech you, keep your fingers from your neighbours,
as you would keep them out of the fire, and engage in no unjust wars, for
in such errors God will not support princes. Everybody knows that the
Turkish war has rendered you expert and brave in maritime enterprises.
You have six able captains, competent to command large fleets. You have
many persons well versed in diplomacy and in the government of cities,
who are ambassadors of perfect experience. You have numerous doctors in
different sciences, and especially in the law, who enjoy high credit
for their learning among strangers. Your mint coins annually 1,000,000
ducats of gold and 200,000 ducats of silver, of minor pieces, 800,000.
Of this sum 500,000 go to Syria, 100,000 to the Terra Firma, 100,000 to
various other places, 100,000 to England. The remainder is used at home.
You are aware that the Florentines send here every year 16,000 pieces
of fine cloth, of which we dispose in Barbary, Egypt, Syria, Cyprus,
Rhodes, Romania, the Morea, and Istria, and that they bring to our city
monthly 60,000 (70,000?) ducats’ worth of merchandise, amounting annually
to 840,000 or more, and in exchange purchase our goods to our great
advantage.

“Therefore it behoves you to beware lest this city decline. It behoves
you to exercise extreme caution in the choice of my successor, in whose
power it will be, to a considerable extent, to govern the republic for
good or for evil. Many of you are inclined to Messer Francesco Foscari,
and do not, I apprehend, sufficiently know his impetuous character, and
proud, supercilious disposition. If he is made doge, you will be at war
continually. Those who now possess 10,000 ducats will have only 1000.
Those who possess ten houses will be proprietors of one, and those who
now own ten coats will be reduced to a single coat. You will lose your
money and your reputation. You will be at the mercy of a soldiery. I have
found it impossible to forbear expressing to you thus my opinion. May God
help you to make the wisest choice! May he rule your hearts to preserve
peace.”

Such [says Hazlitt[e]] were the last words of a great and prophetic
statesman. The glaze of death was soon upon those eyes. Those lips were
soon mute. On the 4th of April, 1423, Tommaso Mocenigo expired, leaving
his country more prosperous and opulent than she had ever yet been. Her
treasury was full. Her debt was considerably reduced. The statistics of
her taxation and expenditure exhibited a surplus of 1,000,000 a year. Her
home and foreign trade was flourishing beyond any precedent. No European
power was more highly respected, and the alliance of none was more
eagerly sought and cultivated.[e]

These calculations of Mocenigo are declared by Hallam[f] to be so
strange and manifestly inexact as to deserve little regard; they
are, however, viewed with greater consideration by Daru,[g] and by
Hazlitt[e]. Doubtless they have not the accuracy of the reports of
modern statisticians, yet, as a general statement of what at least
are approximate facts, they have the fullest interest, and the utmost
significance. They furnish a clew to the power and greatness of this
remarkable city; a city which in the year 1422 is said to have had
a population of only 190,000, yet which was the most powerful state
of Italy, and which after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was the
uncontested world metropolis.

In considering the precise conditions of Venetian commerce and
manufacture it will be well to take at the same time a general view of
the commerce of late antiquity, that the conditions of trade in the East
to which Venice fell heir may be understood.[a]

It was to their political and territorial situation that the Venetians
owed their direction towards commercial operations--the cause of their
prosperity. Fugitives from the Italian continent, refuged in small,
uncultivated, barren islands, without certain communication with the
continent, they saw nothing round them but the sea, in their hands a few
fleeting possessions which they had saved from the general devastation,
but which would soon be lost if work and industry could not fructify them.

Salt was the only product of the soil they trod. Fishery could only
imperfectly provide a subsistence. But this fishery, this salt, became
a means of exchange to provide things necessary for life. Nearly
everything was lacking. The inhabitants of the lagunes were reduced to
seek on the neighbouring continent grain, wood, metals, stone, even
water. Happily for them their neighbours could bring them nothing. These
people, desolated by continual war, were not given to navigation. If at
that time, when so many fugitives took refuge in the lagunes, there had
been near them a commercial maritime town eager to bring them all they
wanted, such a town would have taken from them the few riches they had
brought into the islands, and little by little these fugitives, instead
of creating a country on uncultivated wastes, would have sought safety,
ease, or work with the foreigner. But the rigour of their condition, the
deprivation of all help condemned them to make great efforts, and their
heroic works contributed also to their happiness and glory.

Again, they would hardly have believed it to be a good thing that the
severity of their lot made them exert themselves on the sea. Continually
obliged themselves to seek what was lacking, they necessarily acquired
a habit of braving the ocean. When what they wanted was not to be found
on the neighbouring coast they sought it on the opposite one. Gradually
they noted at what points they could make their purchases or exchanges
with most advantage. These frequent crossings, made on their own account,
furnished occasion for becoming intermediaries for the two Adriatic
shores. These journeys had at first for object only the provisioning
of the islands. The spirit of commerce gave them wider views; their
limits were extended, their means perfected. Art and cupidity essayed
more difficult routes, and it was seen that this new town, placed in a
position so easy to defend, almost on the borders which separate Europe
from Asia, was called to become through the industry of its inhabitants
the principal market for western peoples. Other local circumstances gave
it the means of easy communication with a large number of consumers.
Italy being separated from Germany by the Alps was impracticable for
commerce. A port situated at the end of the Adriatic and the mouth of the
Po would be the natural market for wools, silks, cotton, saffron, oil,
manna, and all the other productions which Italy furnished to Hungary and
Germany.

For the same reason, all that the north had to get from the Levant,
Africa, and Spain had to pass by Venice. Journeys beyond the straits of
Gibraltar towards the eastern coast of Europe then meant a voyage of long
duration. Navigation was so imperfect that the eastern peoples had not
yet learned to seek Mediterranean products, and it was very rarely that
they made expeditions, which meant so much expense, danger, and loss of
time. The result was that the end of the Adriatic Sea was the sole point
of communication with the navigable sea, and Venice was a mart offering
equal security against all enemies and tempests. The Po, the Brenta, and
the Adige seemed to empty into the basin of the lagunes expressly to
offer the Venetians an easy route by which they could take without danger
or great expense all productions demanded by eastern Italy. Also it was
a constant care with this growing republic to assure free navigation and
all kinds of franchise on these waters and their numerous affluents.
About the year 713 the first doge of the republic concluded a peace with
Liutprand, king of Lombardy, which preserved to Venetians commercial
privileges in the ports and lands of this kingdom. Not only were they
exempt, with their neighbours, from all dues, but they held sovereign
rights in perpetuity, and the exercise of these gave them the means of
making themselves a burden to their rivals. One even sees them, in the
fifteenth century, offering to furnish Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of
Milan, with ten thousand foot and ten thousand horse, if he would let
them administer the custom-houses of his capital.

[Illustration: BRIDGE OF THE RIALTO, VENICE]

The republic did not give less attention to keeping the exclusive
privilege of furnishing this continent with products of her own small
territory. She perfected the art of extracting salt, and appropriated,
as far as she could, all the salt beds of her coasts. She prevented
her neighbours from exploiting those they had. The Venetians sold two
qualities of salt--that manufactured by themselves in their lagunes,
called Chioggia salt, and that drawn from the salt beds of Cervia,
Istria, Dalmatia, Sicily, the African coasts, the Black Sea, and even
Astrakhan. All these foreign salts were comprised under the name of
sea-salt or ultramarine salt. The first was of superior quality and
consequently of higher price. The Cervian salt beds belonged to the
Bolognaise. With them the Venetians treated, and, to preserve the
commerce of all the salt from this source, the latter determined the
quantity which should be allowed to be sold, establishing surveillance
even on the place of fabrication. The republic even obtained the right
to transport rocksalt which southern Germany and Croatia took from their
mines. They forced the king of Hungary to close his. The coast people
on the Adriatic were not allowed to send away their salt, while the
inhabitants of Italy could not take any but Venetian salt.

For any subject of the republic to buy foreign salt was a crime. The
house of the offender was razed, and he himself banished forever. Yet
while Venice made this monopoly she furnished all these people, now
her tributaries, with excellent salt at a very low price. Sales were
effected by companies, which undertook to provision such and such a
country. It is almost incredible how much treasure this one branch of
commerce for fourteen centuries procured the Venetians. These privileges
cost some bloodshed. But the defence of their pretensions and the wars
they had to sustain against the corsairs and jealous neighbours put them
under the necessity of forming a military marine. After some centuries
of effort, the flag of St. Mark was seen proudly flying all along the
Mediterranean. Venetian fleets made conquests, the republic founded rich
colonies, extended its navigation and commerce in all then known seas,
and arrogated the sovereignty of the Adriatic Sea. The continual wars
which divided other peoples, their gross ignorance, their almost general
isolation with regard to commerce and navigation, were so many favourable
circumstances which gave the republic time to establish the power of her
marine and the prosperity of her industry quite firmly.

VENICE IN THE LEVANT

After the fall of the Eastern Empire, Venice became mistress of nearly
all the maritime points of that empire, and had immense advantages in all
the Levant markets. Her merchants there enjoyed all the privileges of the
natives, and in every port her ships found not only free harbourage but
special protection. For eight centuries, that is from the epoch when the
Venetians wanted to become conquerors over the Italian lands, legislation
and politics had for their principal object the prosperity of commerce.
Privileges from the foreigner, assured safety with them, facilities for
the moving about of men, goods, and capital, the establishment of banks,
perfecting of money, encouragement of industrial manufactures, a vigilant
but not officious policy, a religious tolerance little known among other
nations, all concurred to make for Venetian commercial greatness.

If to these advantages one adds the possibility of obtaining civic
rights, and considers that a share in sovereignty was attached to
this title, one can imagine what an influx of strangers augmented the
population of Venice and increased its prosperity by bringing capital
and new industries. One can conceive also how citizens of such a state
would be attached to their country, and what would be the strength and
resources of this government. One would feel at the same time that the
republic would lose with regard to all these things when she adopted, or
rather submitted to, an aristocratic government. It has been said that
those of the citizens who arrogated all authority compensated the others
by abandoning to them all the advantages resulting from commerce. Indeed,
this has been given as a mark of disinterestedness and moderation from
the aristocratic classes. But this is an error. It is evident that, in
spite of a prohibitive law, the nobles continued to be merchants until
that epoch when the republic was already shorn of its power and commerce
of its splendour. Instances of this are to be found at every step in
history.

If one reflects on the influence that habits of work, emulation, riches,
travel, and association with foreigners must necessarily have had on
the manners of a people and the development of their intellectual
faculties, one may guess that the Venetians must already have become a
polished nation when other peoples, whom nature seemed to have placed in
a different rank, were still barbarians. One is not surprised to read
in the history of Charlemagne that the lords who composed his court
were astonished to see, at the Pavia fair, valuable carpets, silken
stuffs, gold tissues, pearls, and precious stones spread out by Venetian
merchants. Doubtless these lofty barons very much despised the merchants
and their business, but their pride would be lowered somewhat when Pepin
was beaten by these same men; when European kings found themselves
obliged to ask for Venetian ships to get into Palestine; and when the
Baldwins, the Montmorencies, and the counts of Champagne and of Montfort
contracted alliance with these merchants to conquer and share the empire
of Constantinople.

This superiority of the Venetians over other European peoples--we except
the Tuscans, whose literary glory gives them an infinite ascendency--was
maintained until well into the fifteenth century. All French, German,
and English towns were a formless mass of houses without architecture or
monuments. The lords of these countries lived in melancholy fortresses,
and hardly knew the meaning of luxury and art. At this epoch there was
neither letters nor elegance except in Italy and the part of Spain
occupied by the Moors. It would hardly be just to make out that all these
advantages were derived from one sole cause. Venice no doubt owed her
prosperity partly to the good fortune of having a regular government
long before other nations. But this government which watched over the
preservation of public fortune was not the cause of national wealth;
that was entirely due to commerce. From the eighth century, the commerce
of Venice with the East was sufficiently important to determine her to
remain in alliance with the emperor Nicephorus, in spite of Charlemagne’s
threats.

While, however, the Venetians enjoyed that opulence which is the just
fruit of labour, they were kept by their sumptuary laws within the bounds
of a wise economy--an economy which alone conserves the capital which
feeds commerce and is sole regulator of the price of handiwork. Commerce
has relations with the constitution. In the government of a despot it is
founded on luxury, its only object being to procure the nation all that
can minister to its pride, its luxuries, its fancies; in the government
of many it is generally founded on economy. Standing between the
voluptuous peoples of the East and the uncultivated European nations, the
Venetians imitated the industry of the one and preserved the simplicity
of the other.

During the first centuries of the Venetian Republic, all Europe was in
an uncultured condition. Art had left ancient Italy to pass over to
the empire and ornament the new capital of the world. But when Fortune
arrived unexpectedly with gifts, she found no man ready to receive
them. The peoples to whom Constantine had transported his throne had
a taste for voluptuousness rather than a genius for activity. In this
neighbourhood, a people of high antiquity, enlightened long before
the barbarians of the West, owed to its traditions, its activity, its
conquests, that variety of knowledge and works which distinguished
civilised nations. The Venetians were continually changing the products
of the East against merchandise from all Europe; to form such a chain of
communication was much for a population of fishers. But they carried
their industry even further. They saw that the Grecian Empire received
many useful things from far-off countries and from peoples almost
unknown, but also a multitude of superfluities which were becoming
needful for a society more refined. They established themselves as near
as they could to the source of these objects, and such was the success of
their activity and courage that they became first the carriers and then
the commercial masters of pleasure-loving Constantinople.

The peninsula of the Tauric Chersonese, situated at the end of the
Black Sea, had long been for the great cities of the Hellespont and the
Greek seas what Sicily had been for Rome--an inexhaustible storehouse
assuring subsistence to the population. This peninsula fed Athens, and
paid an annual tribute of 180,000 measures of wheat to Mithridates. It
had abundant salt beds and furnished wools and hides. These objects of
first necessity acquired a new value through the vicinity of a town like
Constantinople. Marco Polo, the Venetian, speaks of a journey made on
this coast by his father towards the middle of the thirteenth century.

The abundance of sequins throughout the East proves that the Venetians
had great commerce there--that their coin was taken confidently, and
that they were obliged to pay for a part of their purchases in ready
money. There is another fact by which one can judge of the great number
of Venetians spread through the Greek Empire. When Manuel Comnenus,
imitating the example of Mithridates, arrested in one day all subjects
of the republic found in the state, the prisons could hardly suffice
to contain them; they had to fill the churches and monasteries. The
difficulty of protecting their establishments in Asia, the jealousy of
the Genoese, and the revolutions of the Eastern Empire, obliged the
Venetians many times to seek new routes to re-establish their constantly
interrupted commercial relations.

The story of the vicissitudes which have changed so often the course of
commerce--that commerce which like a river pours continually into the
West, is one well worthy of attention. It seemed that Europe could not
suffice for herself. The activity of its inhabitants exhausted itself
in a thousand ways which produced needs foreign to its welfare. From
all time they counted eastern merchandise among objects of the first
necessity, and this commerce has occupied the industry of several peoples
more or less fortunately placed.[g]

Let us go back to Roman times, and trace briefly the development of trade
routes.

THE COMMERCIAL FOREBEARS OF THE VENETIANS

The crowd of barbarian people who inundated the Roman Empire at the end
of its existence brought with it the germs of a new life; when Rome
had succumbed, these germs began to develop themselves in all parts of
Europe--races young and vigorous but still half barbarous came, all at
once, into the foreground of history; mingled with the people whom Rome,
up till now, had kept under the yoke, they founded new nationalities;
it was a general transformation in the state, in society, and in the
ways and customs. Nevertheless, this overthrow did not affect all the
conditions of the life of the people in the same degree. In the domain of
commercial life we do not find, on the threshold of the Middle Ages, any
event which approaches in importance the discovery of the sea route to
the East Indies and the discovery of America, events which coincide with
the beginning of the modern epoch, and which have unexpectedly opened new
paths for commerce.

Between antiquity and the Middle Ages the transition was less abrupt; the
commercial intercourse and markets remained, generally, the same as of
old. Since the conquests of Alexander had brought the civilised people of
the West into contact with the remote East, the main currents of commerce
set thitherward, for there was the source of production of those articles
which had become necessary to the insatiable masters of the world. From
the Indies were obtained those spices which the Greeks and Romans put
into their food to heighten its flavour, the greater part of the perfumes
which they sprinkled on their persons and in their apartments, and the
ivory with which they made their precious utensils. China furnished the
silk with which the women, and later on, with the growth of luxury, even
the men of the imperial epoch loved to clothe themselves; for jewels,
the mountains of Persia and India sent their precious stones; the Indian
Ocean, its pearls.

Little by little, this commerce increased to such an extent, that in the
time of Pliny, the Roman Empire expended each year in Asia, in payment of
merchandise obtained from thence, 100,000,000 sesterces (about £800,000),
of which India alone absorbed one-half. In the Middle Ages, the Levant
was still the principal goal of the merchant of the West. The commodities
which later generations brought from America, such as sugar and cotton,
were then obtained from Smyrna, Asia Minor, or Cyprus; condiments from
India, spices and especially pepper, were some of the most highly
appreciated commodities at this period. But if we seek the origin of the
delicate fabrics, or the carpets which were used at the courts and among
the wealthy burghers of the Middle Ages, we have almost always to go to
the East. Thence came the raw material, very often the tissue or the
embroidery, and finally the name of the material.

[Illustration: A VENETIAN BRONZE KNOCKER]

As trade followed the same lines as in ancient days, so the great
commercial routes remained the same. To obtain the products of the
Levant, the merchantmen of the West, not knowing the route by the Cape
of Good Hope, confined themselves to the short voyage through the
Mediterranean or the waters which communicate directly with it. There
they were certain to find, along the shore, markets already famous in
ancient times, Alexandria, Tyre, Berytus, Antioch, Byzantium, Trebizond;
the creation of a new market was a great exception. Merchandise still
arrived at the ports of the Mediterranean or of the Pontus from the
remote East by the old ways of the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf; that
coming from the centre of Asia overland still followed the route we find
already quoted in Greek and Roman geographies from the narratives of the
merchants.

The only elements which had changed in commerce were the mediums;
Italians, Provençals, and Catalans had taken the place of Greeks and
Romans as commercial nations. But, with respect to this, do not let
us forget that the transition between antiquity and the Middle Ages
was gradual. In fact, when the empire was divided into two parts, the
Byzantine half had inherited the commerce of the East as a natural result
of its geographical situation. Having survived invasions, it played the
part of medium in the commercial relations between the West and the East,
until the time when the citizens of the sea-port towns of Italy, southern
France, and Spain were grown strong enough to do without one.

We possess a sufficient number of documents dating from the time of
Justinian (527-565 A.D.) to make a complete picture of the state of the
East at this time, from the commercial point of view. The most remote
countries of Asia with which the Greeks of Byzantium maintained a regular
commerce were also those which furnished the most precious and choice
products. For centuries, the silk industry had flourished in China, but
the secret of it had been so well kept that strangers had never been able
to learn the process of its manufacture. At length there came a time when
another country was able, in its turn, to cultivate this important branch
of industry. This good fortune fell to the lot of the small kingdom of
Khotan, in the centre of Asia, in consequence of the marriage of its
king with a Chinese princess who, it is said, betrayed the secret of her
compatriots and, managing to elude the supervision of the custom-house
officers, brought silkworms, eggs, and the seeds of the mulberry tree
into her new country.

We cannot say with certainty whether, in the seventh century, the
manufacture of silk had already spread from the East to the West, and
passed beyond the borders of Khotan, but we may assume that the greater
part of the silk which the western merchants received came from China.
The Chinese exported their products themselves; but at this time, with
rare exceptions, their ships only conveyed them as far as Ceylon, and
their caravans did not go beyond the frontiers of Turkestan. There other
nations received the precious wares and carried them farther west. But it
is difficult to make a distinction, for the ancient classical writers,
and those of the Byzantine epoch after them, gave the name of Seres, not
only to the producers of silk, but also to the various peoples engaged in
its distribution.

Such a silk-trading nation were the inhabitants of Sogdiana, in the
lowlands of Bokhara, a race distinguished from the remotest times for
their taste and aptitude for commerce. The silk was brought to them by
caravans from China, and they, in their turn, conveyed it either to the
markets of the north of Iran, or to those south of the Caspian Sea. Our
sources of information do not, indeed, positively state this as a fact.
In his chronicle, Theophanes of Byzantium [j] relates that the markets
and ports frequented by the silk merchants had changed masters three
times at short intervals; having originally been in the possession of
the Persians, they were taken from them by the so-called White Huns (the
Yue-thsi or Yuechi of the Chinese), and finally were occupied by the
Turks.

By whatever route the silk was conveyed, the Persians always endeavoured
to receive it first, and they watched jealously that it did not reach
the Romans of the East by any other route than that which traversed
their country or by any other hands than theirs. Nevertheless, a certain
portion of the silk was despatched from China to Ceylon by sea; there
it was transhipped and reached the Persian Gulf by the west coast of
India and the south coast of Carmania. It is obvious that when Chinese
wares followed the sea route, they might escape the Persians, for from
Ceylon it was possible to take them by the south of Arabia and Ethiopia.
Herein lay a danger to the Persian monopoly which the emperor Justinian
contrived to turn to his advantage. The Byzantines found it a great
hardship to be reduced to having no other intermediaries for these, to
them indispensable, articles than the Persians. There was no other nation
with whom they were so frequently at war, and how could they see with
indifference their own merchants supplying their enemies with enormous
sums in payment for the silks they purchased; or how bear patiently the
frequent interruptions to trade due to a state of warfare?

With a view to remedying these inconveniences, the emperor Justinian
attempted in the year 532 to open a road for the silk trade through
Ethiopia; the Ethiopians could, he thought, purchase the silk from the
Indians, and sell it to the Byzantines. Their king, an ally of Byzantium,
allured by the prospect of gain, entered into the emperor’s views. But
when his subjects arrived at the ports which the vessels from India had
just entered, they found the Persians masters of the situation in their
double capacity of neighbours and ancient clients; they were forced
to return empty-handed, and the Persians remained, for the nonce, in
uncontested possession of their monopoly.

When it was proved that the Ethiopians were neither strong nor
enterprising enough to wrest the silk trade from the hands of the
Persians, the problem seemed, for an instant, insoluble. Happily
Justinian succeeded in securing some silkworms’ eggs, brought back by
missionary monks who had penetrated to the heart of the countries which
produced them, probably to Khotan (about the year 552). Thus it is that
the manufacture of silk was introduced into the Grecian Empire, and from
the year 568 Justin II, the successor to Justinian, was able to show it
in full activity to a Turkish ambassador who happened to be at his court.
Many years elapsed, it is true, before sufficient raw silk was produced
in Greece to satisfy the demands of the native industry. For a long time
the greater part of the raw material and the better qualities of silk
had to be brought from China, and the exorbitant claims of the Persian
middlemen to be endured.

But the Persians were not merely transmitters, they were manufacturers
also. Hwen Tsang, who traversed the eastern frontier of Persia at the
beginning of the seventh century, says that the Persians were skilled in
the weaving of silken or woollen stuffs and carpets, and that products of
their industry were highly prized in the neighbouring kingdoms. They were
assisted by foreign workmen, who came to settle in Persia voluntarily
or under coercion from the Asiatic countries subject to Byzantium. By
the adoption of an unwise system of monopoly ruinous to the silk-weavers
of his country, Justinian promoted their emigration in large numbers to
Persia, others were brought there by force by King Sapor II as part of
the spoils he brought back from his victorious campaign in Mesopotamia
and Syria. A tradition current several generations later traced the
origin of the silk manufacture in Tuster, Susa, and other Persian cities,
to the colonies of Greek craftsmen.

To satisfy the luxury of the Sassanidian court, quantities of stuffs of
great value were necessary. When the victorious Greek army, led by the
emperor Heraclius against the Persians, took possession of the royal
castle of Dastagerd, in the year 627, they found there a quantity of
raw silk and piles of silken garments, embroidered carpets, and other
articles of this kind. It is permissible to suppose that they were of
native manufacture. The spoil gained on this occasion comprised other
things worthy of note. Large quantities of spices, evidently of Indian
origin, pepper, ginger, aloes, and aloe-wood (_agallochum_) fell into
the hands of the victors; they were consigned to the flames with the
rest, as it was impossible to carry everything off. Let us add that in
the year 636-637, at the storming of Madain (Ctesiphon), the capital
of the Sassanid Empire, by the Arabs, there were found large supplies
of musk, amber, sandalwood, and enough camphor to freight a ship; this
last produced nowhere but in the islands beyond India. The Arabs were
so ignorant of its uses, that they proposed to use it to flavour their
bread. All this proves to us that the luxury of the Sassanidian court was
one of the principal causes which turned the stream of Levantine commerce
towards Persia.

After the Persians had levied their supplies on the merchandise in
transit, there yet remained enormous quantities which passed directly
into the Byzantine Empire.[h] These goods were brought across Lake
Aral or down the Oxus into the Caspian Sea. From this sea they entered
the Volga, which flows into it, and thence were carried as far as that
place, which is eighteen miles from the Tanaïs. Man had even tried to
dig a canal of communication between the two rivers. Arrived in the
Tanaïs, Asiatic productions thence descended into the Palus-Mæotis,
crossed the Black Sea, and went to fill the stores of Constantinople,
then the most flourishing town in the world. An Armenian king thought of
shortening this journey by avoiding the Volga, Tanaïs, and Palus-Mæotis.
He established direct communication between the Cyrus, which flows
into the Caspian Sea, and the Phasis, which runs towards the end of
the Pontus-Euxinus. The crossing by land was only fifteen leagues. One
hundred and twenty bridges were thrown between the mountains to make this
route practicable for commerce, and these still witness to the greatness,
utility, and difficulties of the enterprise.

So long as commerce followed this route it enriched the maritime towns
of Kaffa, Trebizond, Sinope, and Byzantium, on the Black Sea. The greed
of the Tatars multiplied dangers on this route; they diverted towards
Lake Aral the Gihon and the Sihun, two rivers which discharged into the
Caspian Sea, and thus destroyed one of the communications between India
and Europe. Saracen industry reopened communication with the Red Sea,
Egypt, and Alexandria, and all the Syrian ports became marts for oriental
merchandise. This furnished the opportunity to the Venetian trader.
Never did people destined to rise to such great commercial enterprise
begin under narrower circumstances. The Venetians had no territory. They
were tributary to their neighbours for all necessaries of life, and had
nothing to offer in exchange save fish and salt--natural products, of
which man could not considerably augment the value. Yet, inasmuch as the
profits of this commerce were mediocre, so it was important to extend
them. To increase the consumption of fish, it was necessary to prepare it
in such a way that it would keep; and to have no rivals in the sale of
salt, it was imperative to sell at the lowest price.

The very poor profits that the islanders could make on these two objects
furnished them the means of buying larger products from the neighbouring
coasts. Wood from Dalmatia they made into boats, their islands became
dockyards that provided means of navigation on the neighbouring rivers
and ports. In proportion as the towns of Aquila, Padua, and Ravenna
acquired prosperity, so handicraft became dearer, and the inhabitants
more disdainful of this kind of work. Thus to the Venetians there
resulted not only the advantage of selling objects augmented in value
by their labour, but the still greater one of perfecting themselves in
the art of naval construction, while other peoples did not make similar
progress. Moreover, they always found plenty of material, and could
consequently always increase their marine. Their commerce becoming more
profitable, they transported into their isles other rough products,
higher priced and capable of receiving a still greater value when worked;
flax and hemp to make naval equipage, iron to forge anchors and arms.
These were the things which they bartered for the coveted products of the
East. Growing still richer, they exercised their talents on things more
valuable--wool, cotton, silk, silver, gold, even making a high-priced
ware of such common material as glass.[g]

Indeed, the manufacture of ornamental glass vessels became so
distinctively a Venetian specialty, and one carried to such unrivalled
perfection, that a more detailed reference to this branch of manufacture
may well occupy our attention.[a]

VENETIAN GLASS

The glass manufactories, to believe the Venetian authors, were almost
contemporaneous with the founding of the city itself. A great event which
marked the beginning of the twelfth century was the means of increasing
their prosperity, and contributed to the introduction of art into a
manufacture until then purely industrial. The Venetian Republic had,
in short, participated in the taking of Constantinople by the Latins
(1204), and imbued as she was with the spirit of commerce, she sought
to derive every possible advantage from this victory, in favour of her
dawning manufactures. The glass manufactories of the Eastern Empire were
inspected by agents of the republic, and Greek workmen were allured
to Venice. It is certain that, to date from the end of the thirteenth
century, an uninterrupted series may be produced of acts of the Venetian
government, which prove both the importance of the glass manufactories
from that remote period, and the special interest ever taken by the
state in the cultivation of the art, which, to use the expression of a
Venetian writer, it guarded as the apple of its eye. In this it displayed
great sagacity, since for many centuries the four quarters of the world
were inundated by the various productions of the glass manufactories of
Venice; and the sums of money procured to the republic by this branch of
industry alone would utterly defy calculation.

From the end of the thirteenth century, the manufactories of glass had
so multiplied in the interior of Venice, that the city was incessantly
exposed to fires. In 1287, a decree of the great council prohibited
any manufactory of glass to be established within the city, unless by
the proprietor of the house in which it was to be carried on. As this
exception in favour of the proprietors perpetuated the inconveniences
which the government had endeavoured to guard against, a new decree
was issued on the 8th of October, 1291, by which all the manufactories
of glass still existing in the interior of Venice were ordered to be
demolished and removed out of the city.

It was then that choice was made of the island of Murano, which is only
separated from Venice by a canal of small extent, for establishing in
it the manufactories of glass. In a few years, the whole island was
covered with glass manufactories of various descriptions. But a new
decree of the 11th of August, 1592, modified the rigour of the previous
regulations in favour of the manufactories of small glassware (_fabbriche
di conterie_) for the making of beads, false stones, and glass jewels.
These were now allowed to be set up in the very interior of Venice, with
the sole condition of their being insulated at least five paces from any
habitation.

This favour granted to glass jewelry proceeded from the immense trade in
it carried on by Venice at that period, and the government was careful
in no way to check a branch of industry which extended its relations in
Africa and Asia, and consequently favoured the extension of its navy,
upon which depended the increase of the power of the republic.

The Venetian glass-makers were soon engaged almost exclusively in this
branch of its manufacture, a circumstance which may be accounted for as
follows: About 1250, a Venetian Matteo Polo and his brother Niccolo,
father of the celebrated Marco Polo, were attracted by commercial views
to Constantinople. In 1256 they both visited the khan of Tatary, who
inhabited the banks of the Volga. War having obliged them to leave the
states of Bereke,[19] in which they had been stopping, they passed on to
Bokhara, to the south of the Caspian Sea, and afterwards proceeded to the
court of Kublai, great khan of the Tatars, whose sovereignty extended
over the greater part of Asia. On their return to their own country,
after twenty years’ absence, they found Marco Polo, whom they had left
in the cradle. Their narrations inflamed the imagination of the young
man, who desired to accompany his father and uncle in a new journey, on
which they set out. Marco Polo went with them in 1271. In 1274 he arrived
at the court of Kublai-Khan, attached himself to the service of that
monarch, became governor of one of his provinces, and was trusted by him
with the most important missions.

Extensive travels, and the duties of his high station, filled up the
best years of Marco Polo’s life. On returning to Venice, in 1295, after
having explored the greater part of Central Asia, the shores and islands
of the Indian Ocean, and those of the Persian Gulf, he pointed out to his
fellow-citizens, whose intrepidity as navigators was equal to their love
of enterprise as merchants, the routes they must follow to spread the
productions of European industry over Tatary, India, and even as far as
China; he described the manners of the people who inhabited these immense
regions, and their extraordinary predilection for beads, coloured stones,
and jewels of every description, with which they were fond of adorning
their persons and of decorating their garments. Nothing more was needed
to excite the industrial and mercantile spirit of the Venetians. The
glass-makers particularly devoted themselves more zealously than ever to
the manufacture of beads and glass jewels (_arte del margaritaio_, _arte
del perlaio_), a manufacture which, from that time, formed a totally
distinct branch from that of glass vessels (_fabbriche di vassellami o
recipiendi di vetro e cristallo_). The names of Cristoforo Briani and of
Domenico Miotto have been handed down to us as having been the inventors
of coloured beads (_margarite_), and as having also been the first
glass-makers who turned their attention to the imitation of precious
stones.

This Miotto having been successful in a large speculation he had made
at Bassora, almost all the Venetian glass-makers applied themselves to
the manufacture of these objects, which were soon dispersed over Egypt,
Ethiopia, and Abyssinia, along the coasts of North Africa, over central
Asia, India, and even as far as China.

This commercial movement would necessarily retard during the course
of the fourteenth century, any progress in the manufacture of glass
vessels; in fact, all the information existing upon the glass-making
of Venice at this period refers for the most part only to the making
of the margarite, which were a source of such commercial advantages to
the republic. Carlo Marino quotes a document from which it appears that
a certain Andolo de Savignon, Genoese ambassador at the court of the
emperor of China, obtained from the great council full powers to export
this same glass jewellery to a very considerable amount. We learn also,
from the inventories of the fourteenth century, that at that period
richly ornamented vases of glass were still obtained from the East. Yet
the manufacturers of glass vessels were already endeavouring to procure
the documents most needed for the improvement of their productions. The
learned Morelli has given an extract from a manuscript contained in the
Naniana library, and dating from the fourteenth century, which gives
an account of the processes employed by the Greeks for rendering glass
colourless and spotless, for gilding and staining it, and for covering it
with paintings.

The invasion of the Eastern Empire by the Turks, and the taking of
Constantinople in 1453, which occasioned the immigration of so many
artists into Italy, was beneficial to glass-making, as well as to the
other industrial arts. To date from the fifteenth century, we find
the manufacture of glass vessels taking a new direction. The Venetian
glass-makers borrowed from the Greeks all their processes for colouring,
gilding, and enamelling glass; and the Renaissance having restored a
taste for the fine forms of antiquity, the art of glass-making followed
the movement given by the great artists at that period who rendered Italy
illustrious; and vases were produced in no wise inferior in form to those
bequeathed by antiquity. Coccius Sabellicus,[k] a Venetian historian of
the fifteenth century, affords us evidence of the admiration excited in
his time by the beautiful and varied productions of the Venetian glass
manufactories.

At the end of the fifteenth century, or rather in the first years of the
sixteenth, the Venetian glass-makers distinguished themselves by a new
invention, that of vases enriched with filagrees of glass, either white
or coloured, which twisted themselves into a thousand varied patterns,
and appeared as if encrusted in the middle of the paste of the colourless
and transparent crystal. This invention, which, while it enriched the
vases with an indestructible ornamentation, preserved at the same time
their light and graceful forms, gave a new impulse to the manufactories
of glassware, and caused their beautiful productions to be even more
sought after by every nation of Europe. Accordingly the Venetian
government used every possible precaution to prevent the secret of this
new manufacture from being discovered, or Venetian workmen from carrying
away this branch of industry to other nations.

Already, in the thirteenth century, a decree of the great council had
prohibited the exportation, without the authority of the state, of
the principal materials used in the composition of glass. On the 13th
of February, 1490, the superintendence of the manufactories of Murano
was intrusted to the chief of the Council of Ten, and, on the 27th of
October, 1547, the council reserved to itself the care of watching over
the manufactories to prevent the art of glass-making from being carried
abroad. Yet all these precautions did not appear to have been sufficient,
and the inquisition of the state, in the twenty-sixth article of its
statutes, announced the following decision: “If a workman transport his
art into a foreign country to the injury of the republic, a message
shall be sent to him to return; if he does not obey, the persons most
nearly related to him shall be put into prison. If, notwithstanding
the imprisonment of his relatives, he persists in remaining abroad, an
emissary shall be commissioned to put him to death.” M. Daru, who, in
his _Histoire de la république de Venise_, has given us the text of this
decree, which he had copied from the archives of the republic, adds that,
in a document deposited in the archives of foreign affairs, two instances
were recorded of the execution of this punishment on some workmen whom
the emperor Leopold had enticed into his states.

If the government of Venice thought it needful, on the one hand, to
display all its severity against the glass-makers who should thus betray
the interests of their country, it, on the other hand, loaded with
favours those who remained faithful to its service, and great privileges
were accorded to the island of Murano. From the thirteenth century, the
inhabitants of Murano, for instance, obtained the rights of citizens of
Venice, which rendered them admissible to all the high offices of the
state.[i]

OTHER MANUFACTURES

Needless to say, glass production was not the only manufacturing industry
that flourished in Venice. From an early time there were brass or iron
foundries, or both, in operation there; but much more important forms of
manufacture than these were the making of cloth-of-gold and of purple
dye. These with glass-making were the most ancient, the most extensive,
and the most celebrated of Venetian industries.[a]

[Illustration: KNOCKER FROM THE PALAZZO CRIMANI]

The trade in cloths-of-gold in the form of mantles or _pallii_, for
either sex, was prodigious; and the profit arising to the Venetians
from this source alone was incalculably large; the courts of France
and Germany, and more particularly the former, were among the best
customers of the republic. Charlemagne himself was seldom seen without
a robe of Venetian pattern and texture; and the constant intercourse
which the patriarch Fortunato maintained with the son of Pepin, had at
least the good effect of spreading the knowledge and appreciation of the
manufactures of his country to the banks of the Seine and the Loire.
It was a point of policy which the republic steadily observed from the
beginning, to make every extension of territory, every treaty of peace,
beneficial to her interests as a mercantile power.[e]

The activity of all this industry increased the population, and this
led to increased consumption of every kind, this again leading to new
speculations and returns. The Venetians were no longer satisfied to go
and buy raw materials of the foreigner, but sought to make the country
produce them. Troops of sheep were reared in Polesine, and were sent into
the mountains of eastern Istria. The hill-sides of Friuli were covered
with mulberry trees. An attempt was made to naturalise the sugar-cane in
the isles of the Levant.[g]

THE SLAVE TRADE

But after all it was as a commercial rather than as a manufacturing city
that Venice was really great, and nature intended her for the former,
not for the latter. It was in transporting or bartering with the produce
of other peoples that her chief interest lay. In general, no more worthy
passport to fame could be desired by a people than comes through such
commercial enterprises. There was one phase of commerce, however, which
forms an ugly blot on the otherwise pleasant picture. This is the slave
trade. In carrying out this nefarious business the Genoese and Venetian
merchants found, at one time, an important source of revenue. The chief
market was Egypt.[a]

It appears that the mameluke sultans who governed Egypt from the middle
of the thirteenth century, finding only insufficient resources for
recruiting their armies in a native population little fitted for the
profession of arms, had recourse to another quarter: the purchase of
slaves, natives of the countries of the north. On the other hand, in
order to fill their harems and those of the great men of the court,
female slaves were brought in and were frequently renewed. They therefore
sent agents in search of slaves of either sex wherever they could obtain
them, even from Christian countries--Armenia Minor, for instance. The
religion to which they had belonged was of little consequence; if they
were Christians their new masters soon made converts of them. However,
the Egyptian agents by preference visited the countries where Islam was
the dominant religion, and _vice versa_ the merchants from Mussulman
countries brought troops of slaves to Egypt to sell them. So it was
especially the ports of Adalia and Candelore, situated in that part
of Asia Minor which had been subjugated by the Seleucidæ, which sent
young boys and young girls into Egypt. When Hadrianopolis and Gallipoli
had fallen into the power of the Osmanlis, it was from these two towns
that Greek or Christian vessels started, carrying slaves by hundreds to
Damietta or Alexandria.

But this trade attained its most flourishing condition in the countries
bordering the Black Sea. The development of the power of the mameluke
sultans in Egypt and the propagation of Islam in the great Mongol Empire
of Kiptchak by the khan Bereke had occurred almost simultaneously, and
these events were the occasion of an active exchange of correspondence
and embassies between the masters of the two countries. From this time,
the agents charged with the purchase of slaves for the sultans directed
their search especially towards the northern shores of the Black Sea,
and Sultan Bibars by embassies and presents succeeded in obtaining from
Michael Palæologus, who, it appears, was not aware of the importance of
the concession which he was asked to make, permission to send Egyptian
trading vessels through the Bosporus. Permission was granted only for
one vessel which was to make, once a year, the voyage to the Black Sea,
there and back; but instead of only one there were often two, and their
cargo on the return voyage consisted of slaves destined to reinforce the
sultan’s troops. It must be observed that the condition in which this
region then was could not have been more favourable to the development
of this kind of trade. Although the Tatars were solidly settled in
their empire of Kiptchak, there were still some unsubdued tribes, and
between them the normal state was one of war--skirmishing war in which
Circassians, Russians, Magyars, and Alajans carried off, each in their
turn, Tatar children whom they sold as slaves. Moreover the Tatars
reserved the same fate for the prisoners whom they brought back from
their raids in the Caucasus. And furthermore, among these savage tribes,
when provisions were too dear or taxes too heavy, nothing was more
common than to see parents selling their own children, especially their
daughters. Naturally, it was only the strong, healthy, and well-formed
who were put up for sale. But along the whole of the coast neither the
Tatars nor the tribes whom they had subdued possessed large trading
ports. Kaffa, Tana, etc., were in the hands of the Italians, and so it
happened that the slave trade was concentrated in the Italian marts, and
especially at Kaffa. This latter town was the habitual resort of the
agents charged with the purchase of slaves for the sultans of Egypt; a
certain number of them even lived there permanently.

The Genoese were obliged to permit the embarkation of slaves for Egypt
to take place in their port of Kaffa; if they had placed difficulties
in the way of the sultan’s agents, they would have risked compromising
their own commercial relations with Egypt to the greatest extent, and
even the existence of their colonies. Besides, this trade was severely
controlled by the colonial authorities. Every slave passing through
underwent examination; he was asked if he were Mussulman or Christian. If
he was of the Christian faith or if he expressed a wish to be converted,
the consul of Kaffa ransomed him and kept him in his possession; he
allowed only Mussulmans to leave. Slaves who wished to become Christians
also found a refuge in the bishop’s house, respected by the civil
authorities. Moreover, the government watched with the greatest care that
no inhabitant of Kaffa was carried away into slavery. Finally, there
was a tax upon the slave trade, and the republic of Genoa enforced it
energetically in 1431, in spite of the complaint of Sultan Barsabay, who,
in retaliation, imposed a tax of 16,000 ducats on the Genoese merchants
settled in Egypt.

So, legally, the slave trade was tolerated by the Genoese colonial
authorities only for Mussulmans and on condition that the transport
leaving for Egypt should be carried out by merchants of their religion
and in their own ships. Captains of Genoese ships were formally
forbidden, under pain of heavy fines, to ship mamelukes of either sex
for the purpose of carrying them into Egypt, Barbary, or the parts of
Spain occupied by the Saracens; no Genoese was allowed to take part in
this trade in any manner whatever. In the same way, on the departure from
Tana, the Venetian galleys were forbidden to receive on board Mussulman
or Tatar slaves destined to be sent into Turkish territory. These rules,
however, did not prevent certain Christians from the northern shores of
the Black Sea from sending slaves into Egypt. In 1307, the colonists of
Kaffa themselves stole Tatar children to sell them to the Mussulmans
(that is, to send them to Egypt). In 1371, a certain Niccolo di S.
Giorgio went to Kaffa and gave himself out as a “dealer in slaves.” We do
not know if he traded with Egypt, but, at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, a Genoese, named Segurano Salvago, went himself with slaves of
both sexes to the sultan of Egypt; another, named Gentile Imperiali,
accepted the post of agent for the sultan at Kaffa for the purchase
of slaves. Many Genoese also assisted indirectly in the transport of
slaves to Egypt; the means consisted simply in hiring their vessels for
this purpose to Mussulman slave merchants. Thus the complaints of Pope
John XXII were well-founded, when before the whole world he accused
the Genoese of contributing to increase the power of the infidels by
furnishing them with slaves. Nearly a century later, at Kaffa, Tana, and
other places, Christians and Jews bought Zichians, Russians, Alajans,
Mingrelians, and Abkas and sold them again to the Saracens, with a profit
often ten times as great as the price of purchase. These unhappy people,
who had been baptised according to the Greek rite, were forced to deny
their faith, and might esteem themselves happy if they did not become the
victims of the masters who employed them for their infamous pleasures.
Informed of this scandal, Martin V thundered excommunication against all
the Christians who took part in it, while as for the Jews, he decreed
that those proved guilty of it should be condemned to wear special marks
on their clothes (1425).

In this manner, there arrived every year in the great market of Cairo,
by way of Damietta or of Alexandria, about two thousand mamelukes, whom
the sultan caused to be priced by skilful experts. The subjects who
fetched the highest prices were the Tatars; they were worth from 130 to
140 ducats a head; for a Circassian they paid from 110 to 120 ducats, for
a Greek about 90, for an Albanian, a Slavonian or a Serbian, from 70 to
80. The merchants had the double advantage of making large profits and
of receiving tokens of the sovereign’s gratitude for the services they
rendered to Islam.

The eastern slaves sent towards the northern shores of the Black Sea did
not all leave with the large convoys for Egypt and Mohammedan countries
in general; there are many examples of sale and purchase by members of
the colonies themselves. Among others a certain Fatima may be mentioned,
whose name evidently proclaims her Mussulman origin. She was bought in
the first place by a Genoese, named Nicoloso da Murto, and ceded by him
to the prior of the church of St. Laurence of the Genoese, who sold her
to a third Genoese for the sum of 400 new Armenian _dirhems_; bills
of sale of a similar kind which took place at Famagusta are still in
existence. Those who had taken the habit of having foreign slaves in
their service, during their residence in the colonies of the Levant,
brought the custom back with them, and by their example encouraged others
to introduce into their houses slaves bought at a distance, instead of
hired servants or work-people. No prohibition existed against this, and
the slave trade in itself was not considered disgraceful, provided that
the merchant abstained from trading with Egypt. A Genoese law of 1441
furnishes a decided proof of this. It forbids all captains of large
galleys armed for war, which went to fetch goods from Romania or Syria,
to receive slaves on board, but the reason was that all disposable space
might be reserved for goods, and it makes an exception in the case
where a merchant on board is bringing a slave with him for his personal
service. There were other vessels specially destined to the transport of
slaves, and in respect to them the law took only such measures as were
necessary to prevent crowding, which would have an injurious effect on
the health of the cargo; for example, a vessel with one deck could not
take more than thirty slaves on board, a vessel with two decks not more
than forty-five, and a vessel with three decks not more than sixty.

At this period it was an understood thing that a Christian might, without
scruple, treat as a slave any infidel who fell into his hands; and, for
the greater part, it was precisely the infidels, that is to say the
pagans or Mussulmans who formed the objects of this trade. The majority
of foreign slaves brought to the Occident came originally from the empire
of Kiptchak, situated at the south of Russia, as it now exists, and
belonged either to the Tatar race, the most important one of the country,
or to one of the tribes under its power--tribes generally called by the
same name; the Circassians and the Russians were far less numerous; then
came the Turks and Saracens, a name which was doubtless applied to
the Egyptians and Syrians; and lastly, but in very small numbers, came
Bulgarians, Slavonians, and Greeks. According to the ideas of the time,
it was only in connection with the last named that any doubt could arise
as to the legality of selling them as slaves, for they were Christians;
but in practice men did not inquire too closely. As for those who were
not members of the Christian religion, they were generally converted
shortly after their arrival in the West and then exchanged their
barbarous name for a Christian one; but, in spite of their conversion,
their masters had no scruple in keeping them as slaves, and even in
selling them again.

The very origin of the great majority of these slaves leads to the
supposition that the nations which had colonies on the shores of
the Black Sea, the Genoese and Venetians for example, were also the
nations more especially addicted to trade in slaves. As a matter of
fact hundreds, thousands even, were sent to Genoa and Venice, while
they were far rarer at Pisa, Florence, Lucca, and Barcelona. In 1368
there were such large numbers of them in Venice that their quarrelsome,
undisciplined masses formed an actual danger to the safety of the city.
The Tatars were not brought there separately, but sometimes whole
families of them together. From the seaports the slaves were sometimes
sent into the interior; thus we hear in 1463 of a confectioner of
Vigevano who had a Circassian slave girl, just as Marco Polo had a Tatar
slave at Venice. Merchants from Genoa and Kaffa even took slaves of both
sexes to the court of the German Empire, and the emperor Frederick III
gave them permission to exhibit them for sale.

[Illustration: A VENETIAN STATESMAN]

One of the interesting sides of the question we are now studying is
the proportion of slaves of either sex in different countries; there
was a marked difference in this respect between Egypt and the West. In
Egypt, in spite of a somewhat large demand for female slaves for the
harems, there was a still larger demand for male slaves, for they formed
the chief contingent of army-recruiting; in the West, on the contrary,
preference was given to young girls, and for various reasons: possessing
a more gentle disposition, they more easily adapted themselves to life
in general; then they were more apt than men for the domestic services
required of them; they learned manual work more easily; and lastly, most
of them were the instruments of their master’s pleasure. Which was the
more enviable fate--that of the men slaves in Egypt, or that of the women
slaves in Italy? It would be difficult to say. The former underwent much
rough treatment while they were in the ranks, but they could rise to
high posts in the army, and have sometimes even been seen seated on the
throne of the sultan: the others were treated more kindly; and indeed
their master not infrequently set them free, either during his life or by
his will, but they never occupied a really respected position among the
people.

Youth and health were the two qualities most esteemed; if the slave was
also beautiful, naturally his value increased. M. Cibrario has made
a list of the sales of slaves, the greater number of which occurred
at Genoa or Venice; he found fifty-three in the thirteenth century,
twenty-nine in the fourteenth, and twenty-eight in the fifteenth; he
noted that the prices increased from one century to the other; for
example, in the thirteenth century they varied between 200 and 300 lire;
in the following century bargains struck under 500 lire are rare; the
highest price rose to about 1400 lire; in the fifteenth century the
current price was more than 800 lire; in 1492 at Venice a young Russian
girl was even sold for 87 ducats, that is 2093 lire. In Tuscany, Bongi
found that prices varied from 50 to 75 gold crowns; the two highest
prices were 85 and 132 gold crowns, and they also were paid for Russian
slaves.

The most brilliant period of the slave trade at Genoa and Venice
corresponds to the most prosperous time at Kaffa and Tana. But, in
1395, Tamerlane struck a blow at the colony of Tana from which it never
recovered; then came the taking of Constantinople by Muhammed II; then
this same sultan forbade the Venetians, through the whole extent of his
empire, to transport Mussulman slaves; he only permitted Christian slaves
to be taken. These various blows caused the ruin of this branch of trade;
in 1459, loud complaint was made in the Venetian senate of the increasing
rarity of slaves. However, Felix Fabri estimated that, at the end of
the fifteenth century, there were still at Venice about three thousand
slaves, natives of the north of Africa and of Tatary; he only mentions
Slavonian slaves, without giving the number.[h]

THE DECLINE OF VENETIAN COMMERCE

Venetian commerce was at its height in the fifteenth century, and
Venice was the undisputed business centre of the world, but not long
after this the prosperity of the city began to decline. There was no
very sudden change, but a gradual alteration brought about by changed
exterior conditions.[a] Other European peoples had become commercial,
and naturally ceased to procure from Venice what they could themselves
provide. They became rivals to Venice in every market where the natives
carried on only a passive commerce. Asiatic merchandise changed its
course and no longer flowed into the Adriatic. Finally those arts which
contributed to the perfecting of industry progressed among other nations
so quickly that the Venetians could not keep pace. After the fifteenth
century many causes made the commerce decline pretty rapidly. The first
of these causes was the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, and the
policy of Sultan Suleiman, who, in 1530, undertook to make all Asiatic
merchandise pass by Constantinople, even that coming to Europe by Syria
and Egypt. They had succeeded in making the divan understand that there
was no advantage in making the merchandise take a long détour, resulting
only in augmenting the price without profit to the seller. Direct
communication with Egypt and Syria was allowed, but when the Turks were
masters of nearly all Greece and the Albanian coasts, they accustomed
caravans to arrive there bringing all the divers productions from the
East. Then the Venetians, always prompt to seize on this merchandise
at its landing point, themselves established at Spalato--which offered
a sure and convenient port--a bank, a hospital, and a fair. In the
seventeenth century Spalato became a commercial town more abundantly
furnished than any Levantine port, being particularly well situated to
receive productions from Persia and the Black Sea.

The second cause of decadence was the ill treatment of European merchants
by the Turks, who put a stop to the coming of the large Venetian fleets.
A third was the discovery of America, and of a way to India by the Cape
of Good Hope. A fourth was the ill-directed power of Charles V who, from
the beginning of his reign in 1517, doubled the custom-house duties
payable by the Venetians in his states, making them 20 per cent. on all
goods imported or exported. This was practically a prohibitive tariff.
Moreover Charles formally forbade entry to merchants who did not consent
to stop direct trading with Africa and to bring into his town of Oran
all merchandise they had to sell to the Moors. The new king of Spain
wanted to make of this town, where there were already celebrated fairs, a
central and general mart for all barbarian commerce. The Venetians would
not submit, and had to choose between the commerce of Africa and Spain.

Under the reign of Philip II, son of Charles V, the jealousy of Spanish
ministers against Venetian commerce continued to be shown. Many Venetian
merchants were annoyed in their undertakings, many of their ships were
retained in port or seized in open sea under various pretexts. It became
necessary to take marines on board to protect them against this species
of piracy. Finally, a fifth cause of the commercial decadence was the
loss of the isles of Cyprus and Candia. One is perhaps surprised at the
number of reasons which made for the downfall of Venetian commerce, yet
we have not taken account of the rivalry of Hanseatic towns, leagued
towards the end of the twelfth century. Their ambition was confined to
creating a northern commerce, while that of Venice was to retain that of
the south; the success of one meant partial failure of the other. The
state of navigation was such that it was impossible to make a journey to
the Baltic by the Mediterranean and return in one year. That is why the
town of Bruges had been chosen as an intermediate mart, where merchandise
from north and south could be exchanged.

THE BANK OF VENICE

It remains to say a few words on the Bank of Venice. Its antiquity,
which goes back to the twelfth century, that is further than any other
known bank, proves the priority of the Venetians in all commercial
establishments. This bank was a depot which opened a credit to investors
to facilitate payments and bills of exchange; that is, instead of paying
real money, cheques could be drawn on the bank. Bills on this bank could
be payable at sight, and the bank always justified public confidence. In
the early days there had been plenty of private banks, supported entirely
by public confidence. These were principally held by nobles. Later on the
government profited by suppressing them, in accordance with the law which
forbade commerce to aristocrats, and established a sole national bank,
placing it under the care of a prince, and taking account of all funds
deposited therein. This bank was a depository pure and simple. The banker
held no right of retention or commission and paid no interest. In order
to insure capitalists paying in, it was necessary that the credit of the
bank should be such that notes on the bank should count in business as
real money.

This is how it was managed. First there was an office where cheques
presented were cashed promptly in coin. By proving themselves able to do
this, fewer demands of the kind were made. There were in Venice several
kinds of money. The best was chosen for the bank. It was ruled that it
would only take or pay ducats of full value, whose quality was finer and
alloy less common. It resulted then that drawers of a bill on private
bankers had to run the risk of being paid in money of base alloy, whilst
the holder of credit on the bank was sure of receiving the best value.
This system won bank money a preference over that of current coin and
augmented the credit of the establishment.

Little by little the government introduced the custom of making certain
payments in bills on the bank instead of in coin. It began by admitting
these bills in public depositories without difficulty, and when this
usage was established a law regulated that money would be given at the
bank for bills of exchange, whether from home or abroad, when these
exceeded 300 ducats. It was forbidden to refuse these bills when there
was no contrary convention. This was almost giving them a forced value,
yet no violence was offered to public confidence. Thus specie was
virtually multiplied by making bank bills do duty for it. The value of
these bills being rigorously sustained, and their redemption in the
best coin assured on demand, this convenient form of currency naturally
became popular. As a result, the government found itself in possession
of a large mass of funds which it could use for itself without paying
interest. It would be very difficult to state the amount deposited in
this central commercial bank. It necessarily varied. Towards the middle
of the eighteenth century there were 5,000,000 ducats sterling; at the
end of that century 14,000,000 or 15,000,000.[g]

FOOTNOTES

[19] Brother or son of Batu, grandson of Jenghiz Khan.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI. THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE

[Sidenote: [1350-1400 A.D.]]

In an earlier chapter we left the affairs of Florence shortly after
the time of the great plague in the middle of the fourteenth century.
Succeeding chapters have outlined the history of the Neapolitan kingdom,
of the Lombard tyrannies, and of the maritime republics, and, in so
doing, have necessarily brought us pretty constantly in contact with
Florentine affairs. We are now to give more specific attention to the
great Tuscan city, with regard to its internal conditions during the last
century following the great plague. The central events of this period
have to do with the struggles that culminated in the insurrection of the
_ciompi_, and the momentary assumption of power by the masses.

The growing discontent of the workmen gives us an illustration of
the old-time conflict between capital and labour. The attempt of the
wool manufactures to put themselves on a political equality with
the supposedly higher arts was one of those socialistic movements
which from time to time have made themselves felt among all European
civilised peoples. Nothing comparable to this was ever seen in the old
Orient, under despotic governments which subordinated and enslaved the
individual; but such uprisings occurred in Rome under the commonwealth,
and were only prevented from frequent repetition in imperial Rome by
the pauperising ministrations of the paternal government. The violent
outbreak of such a movement in Florence evidences the wide prevalence
there of the democratic spirit, and the discontent that is the natural
accompaniment of conditions making it possible for the individual to
better his social state. Again and again in Italy of this period men
came up from the masses and acquired the utmost distinction. Where such
a defiance of hereditary traditions is possible there must be a state
of social unrest; but, on the other hand, it is precisely this state of
unrest that makes a great progressive civilisation possible. The present
socialistic uprising in Florence did not reach more than a temporary
success, so far as the precise ambitions of its promoters were concerned;
but, doubtless it contributed their numberless ancillary channels to the
augmentation of the great stream of progress that was sweeping humanity
forward toward the deep waters of the Renaissance.

While our present concern has to do solely with these internal affairs
of Florence, it will be well to bear in mind the external political
conditions with which these struggles of the guilds were contemporary, as
they have been already outlined in previous chapters. It must be recalled
that during all this time of internecine strife Florence was pretty well
occupied with external warfares as well. This was the half-century when
the tyrants of Milan were making their power secure, and were reaching
out with more and more expectant grasp for the lands of influence that
might make them supreme in all Italy. Galeazzo Visconti was the enemy
of Florence during the early decades of the period, and his son Gian
Galeazzo, who succeeded him in 1385--just after the period of the
ciompi’s insurrection--terrorised northern Italy throughout the remainder
of the century. It was in the wars of these Lombard tyrants that Sir John
Hawkwood appeared. First he warred for Visconti; then, lured by the gold
of Florence, he turned enemy to his old employer. Opposed to Hawkwood
in his later campaigns was that other great leader of mercenaries,
Jacopo del Verme, the leader whose famous feat of cutting the dams and
flooding the plain about Hawkwood’s army gave the redoubtable Englishman
an opportunity to make that famous retreat which is one of the most
picturesque incidents of military annals.

Almost precisely contemporary with the insurrection of the ciompi, was
the termination of the so-called Babylonish Captivity of the popes at
Avignon, an event soon followed by the Great Schism and its attendant
dissensions. In the same decade, too, occurred the famous overthrow of
the Genoese by Venice in the war of Chioggia. All these events have been
treated elsewhere and will be disregarded in the present chapter; but, as
has been said, it will be well for the reader to bear in mind these great
political upheavals which furnish the setting for the local insurrections
in Florence, and which were of necessity closely associated with them in
the minds of contemporaries.[a]

SOCIAL UPHEAVALS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: [1339-1353 A.D.]]

Democracy had not had for the Florentines the disadvantage sometimes
attributed to it--that of making great enterprises impossible. It was
their ruling spirit; and, being neither an expedient of empiricism nor
yet a deduction of theory, it had not limited the advance of their
external power which absorbed their former rivals, Arezzo and Pistoia,
and reduced Siena to a tributary state. But in the interior of their town
itself they had always opposed a weak resistance to those fatal quarrels
which so often caused them to fall into a state of anarchy. Nobles
deprived of their rights, and finding in persecution that sustenance of
life which would soon have failed them had they been left to degenerate
in their narrow caste; burghers in possession of the privileges of
which they had despoiled the nobles, and which they guarded fiercely,
like a new garden of the Hesperides; lastly the people, who climbed to
the assault as the burghers had climbed before them--all kept up an
agitation with a contrary aim, but incessant, weakening the power of the
state. No stability was left to the state; never had Dante’s words been
truer with regard to what was woven in October and no longer existed in
mid-November. If one day, against their will, the burghers grudgingly
consented to the institution of casting lots which meant the ruin of
their pretensions to oligarchy, shortly after they withdrew with one
hand what they had given with the other; they replaced in the bags of
the electoral colleges the names which had been drawn from the priors’
bags, and _vice versa_, so that the same names could be frequently
drawn. But the triumph of their cunning was a short one! The democratic
instinct framed a law which made this abuse impossible (December, 1339);
henceforth the tickets drawn from the bags were destroyed, and no one who
filled one office could receive a second, till the bags had been entirely
emptied.

These continual changes in the institutions were not accomplished without
disturbances which were a constant cause of alarm, even if they did not
lead to taking up arms. Macchiavelli declares that the abasement of the
nobles was a cause of prosperity for Florence, because the magistrates
were more respected. How can this be believed when the rich burghers are
seen reproducing the excesses and abuses of those whom they succeeded in
power? A petition of August 27th, 1352, accused them of pride, arrogance,
and injustice, and obtained the concession that those accused of misdoing
should be punished as nobles. What threat could have been more effective
in holding them back on the brink of the precipice? However, they fell
to the bottom. The following year their acts of brigandage formed a
constant topic. Each night some daring robbery was committed. They forced
the tills of the money-changers; carried away clothes and cloth from
the tailors--forty-five articles on one occasion--two hundred halves
of salted pigs from a pork butcher; from others, beds with mattresses,
ticken, and covers. In spite of the traffic, which was great even after
the curfew, the robbers were never surprised at work. In vain did the
podesta, Paolo Vaiani, a severe Roman eager for justice, put on foot
all the men at his disposal, and even himself keep watch. After several
nights spent in the open air, he at last discovered certain men carrying
bales to the walls and throwing them over; their accomplices loaded a
boat with them and took them to Pisa. But they were men of low rank,
many of whom believed they were only helping a bankrupt and saving his
possessions from confiscation--the least of offences, if it was one
at all, according to the ideas of those times. These men received the
bastinado; the others were hanged.

The principal criminals were still to be discovered--those who prudently
remained in the background undeterred in their shameful exploits by these
examples _in anima vili_. After long investigation and examination it
was at last discovered that the thieves were “honourable citizens,” who
met with trumpets, lutes, and other musical instruments, as if for the
purpose of giving a serenade. Certain young men of good family stood at
either end of the street and begged the passers-by to take another road,
because the musicians wished to remain unrecognised. The deafening noise
made the request appear rational, and so the place was left free for
houses and shops to be pillaged in the darkness of the night, without
attracting suspicion, without fear of interruption. One of the leaders of
the band was Bordone Bordoni, of an old and wealthy burgher family, whose
members succeeded each other, almost without interruption, in public
offices. Put to torture, he confessed. His brother Gherardo, one of the
ambassadors sent the previous year to Charles IV, pleaded his cause with
the priors, and they, indulgent towards a criminal of their own rank,
opposed the capital sentence which the people demanded and which the
podesta wished to pronounce. Finding it impossible to bend this severe
Roman to their desire, they disbanded his body-guard. They believed that
without these latter he would be forced to submit. But he refused to
accept this ridiculous situation, indignantly gave up the rod, emblem of
command, and retired to Siena (March 11th, 1353).

[Sidenote: [1353-1355 A.D.]]

Immediately the town was roused. Men declared that justice was no longer
to be had by the humble. The least fault caused them to be slaughtered;
if, however, a man of powerful position was banished for a crime, he
posed as a victim of political proscription. If the podestas were
cashiered when they were anxious to render justice, who would be willing
to come to Florence? The walls were covered with angry inscriptions,
insulting the priors. Those who succeeded them hastened to disavow a
compromising fellowship; yielding to the general sentiment, they sent an
envoy to Siena to beg the podesta to return, promising strict obedience.
Paolo Vaiani did not yield immediately; he enumerated his grievances:
corn had increased in price, and his salary was not sufficient for
his expenses. If he returned, it must be with an increase of 2,000
florins--more than was needful, says one of the chroniclers. He had
Bordone beheaded, and sent many of his accomplices into exile. By this
means he calmed the people, and at last cleansed Florence of these
miscreants of high rank. But their relatives were left to rekindle the
almost extinguished fire. Gherardo Bordoni accused the Mangioni and the
Beccanugi of his brother’s death. To avenge him he took advantage of the
disorder in the town caused by the approach of the Grand Company (1354).
With his _consorti_ and his followers he pursued his enemies even to
their homes, and killed two women who, according to the custom of the
time, were enjoying the cool of the evening on the threshold. The troops
of the seigniory tried to restore order, but they were powerless. The
militia of the suburbs, with their gonfalons, were called out. This time
five of the Bordoni and twelve of their accomplices were condemned to
confiscation of goods and capital punishment, unless they preferred to go
into exile (July, 1354).

Far more serious, and with more disastrous results in this city
constantly a prey to the disputes of its families, was the rivalry of
the Ricci and the Albizzi. Macchiavelli compares it with that of the
Buondelmonti and the Uberti, in which history, not clear-sighted, and
misinformed, so long saw the generative act of Florentine annals. A
discussion was going on concerning the origin of the Albizzi. According
to some, they came from Arezzo, and consequently were Ghibellines. On
the contrary, others, their friends, declared that they had been driven
thence because they were Guelfs. True or false, the accusation of being
Ghibellines was not without danger at a time when the announced approach
of Charles IV was awakening former terrors. When minds are agitated, the
least incident appears important, and furnishes food for hatred. The
Albizzi have servants at Casentino to defend their property? It is a lie!
They are there to attack the Ricci. An ass brushed against one of the
Ricci at Mercato Vecchio, and the driver was beaten for his negligence?
Evidently the Ricci are attacking the Albizzi. And thus two large
families took up arms, and with them the entire city. It was not easy
to disarm them, and they were always ready to take up arms again. If an
occasion for doing so did not soon appear, they would employ ruse instead
of force.

The detail of events is wanting; but by the measures taken for or against
the great, the fluctuations of public opinion may be seen, or rather the
ephemeral preponderance of one or other of the two factions. At one time
popular government restores to the nobles, provided they be of the Guelf
faction, the right to hold posts of secondary importance, and suppresses
the big drum used to issue denunciations against them (April 10th,
1355). Twelve days instead of five, fifteen days instead of ten, as the
case may be, are allowed their enemies to bring an action against them,
and consequently for them to escape. They are allowed to enter the public
palace, and to rebuild their ruined houses. No more bail, no relatives
responsible beyond the third degree. At another time (August 21st,
1355), “in order to preserve and defend popular liberty and innocence,
especially that of weak and unhappy persons,” it was decreed that
nobles condemned for homicide, acts of wounding, robbing, incendiarism,
adultery, etc., “shall no longer be allowed, nor yet their descendants,
to live in the home of their family.” It was perceived that the burghers
were becoming infused with the spirit of the nobles, and in consequence
the difficulties of passing from one rank to the other were increased;
three-quarters of the votes were required in the ballot, a majority
difficult to realise, and it became, moreover, an obstacle to the
cancelling of sentences and to the recall of exiles. When the seigniory
was merciful to the nobles, it was a sign that the Albizzi were in power;
when it was severe to them, it was under the influence of the Ricci.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN BRONZE KNOCKER]

Most frequently the Ricci were in power. They held community of ideas
with the medium crafts, and with them they forbade the holding of
office by the fourteen lesser crafts, an accomplished fact which was
nevertheless always contested; they maintained the inexorable law of
_divieto_, which held at a distance the numerous relatives of a burgher
in office, without injuring the lower classes, who either had few
relatives or else did not know them. The nobles and the burghers forgot,
as did the Albizzi, that this government had been able to bring to a
happy conclusion the unfortunate affair of Telamone, without engaging
in war; to create a fleet, though they had no shore; to drive away the
free companies, without paying them shameful ransoms; to keep their
engagements with the Visconti, without offending the legate; and to
restore order, which, precarious as it may seem to us, then appeared
satisfactory. They saw only the crime of these lower classes in being so
numerous in office, as arrogant at having obtained position as they were
eager to obtain it, despotic, as their class always is, thinking only of
their own interests, and each of them believing himself a king. These
reproaches are heard in every age in the writings of the chroniclers,
always disposed to despise what lies before their eyes; and, moreover,
how many men can be found who do not deserve such reproaches? The
optical illusion which distance gives is necessary to perceive in the
rich burghers only, as we see them in the past, “the old friends of
their country, despisers of their own wealth to increase that of the
republic”; and it requires the contrary error, which comes from too
close a neighbourhood, to perceive only the failings of the lower class
in a government where the lesser crafts dominated. “It is wonderful,”
said Matteo Villani,[c] “that Florence did not perish then.” The simple
statement of facts shows us what to think on this subject. How many
times, under other governments, has Florence not been seen on the brink
of ruin, yet ever rising with powerful force which nothing could destroy.

Another historian of Florence, Signor Gino Capponi,[d] blames Dante for
lamenting the confusion of ranks, the introduction into the city of men
from Certaldo, Campi, and Signa, who became merchants and money-changers
and formed the nerve of the new race, and he approves the rich burghers
who were now the objects of the same complaints which they formerly
brought against the nobles. But it should be remembered that in each
seigniory of that time, at the most, three members out of nine were of
the lowest crafts, and that old families still kept their share. If the
people of the middle classes who make the laws agreed by preference with
the lowest classes, it certainly was no proof that the lowest classes
were unreasonably exacting; and it leads one to think that the rich
burghers were extremely so, especially in refusing to admit any newcomer
to a share in the power.[b]

MACCHIAVELLI’S ACCOUNT OF THE CIOMPI INSURRECTION

[Sidenote: [1355-1356 A.D.]]

After the victory of Charles the government was formed of the Guelfs of
Anjou and it acquired great authority over the Ghibellines. But time, a
variety of circumstances, and new divisions had so contributed to sink
this party feeling into oblivion, that many of Ghibelline descent now
filled the highest offices. Observing this, Uguccione, the head of the
family of the Ricci, contrived that the law against the Ghibellines
should be again brought into operation, many imagining the Albizzi to
be of that faction, they having arisen in Arezzo, and come long ago
to Florence. Uguccione by this means hoped to deprive the Albizzi of
participation in the government, for all of Ghibelline blood who were
found to hold offices would be condemned in the penalties which this
law provided. The design of Uguccione was discovered to Piero son of
Filippo degli Albizzi, and he resolved to favour it; for he saw that to
oppose it would at once declare him a Ghibelline; and thus the law which
was renewed by the ambition of the Ricci for his destruction, instead
of robbing Piero degli Albizzi of reputation, contributed to increase
his influence, although it laid the foundation of many evils. Piero
having favoured this law, which had been contrived by his enemies for
his stumbling-block, it became the stepping-stone to his greatness; for,
making himself the leader of this new order of things, his authority went
on increasing, and he was in greater favour with the Guelfs than any
other man.

As there could not be found a magistrate willing to search out who were
Ghibellines, and as this renewed enactment against them was therefore
of small value, it was provided that authority should be given to the
_capitani_ to find who were of this faction; and, having discovered, to
signify and admonish them that were, not to take upon themselves any
office of government; to which admonitions, if they were disobedient,
they became condemned in the penalties. Hence, all those who in Florence
were deprived of the power to hold offices were called _ammoniti_, or
“admonished.” The capitani, in time acquiring great audacity, admonished
not only those to whom the admonition was applicable, but any others at
the suggestion of their own avarice or ambition; and from 1356, when
this law was made, to 1366, there had been admonished above two hundred
citizens. The captains of the Parts and the sect of the Guelfs were thus
become powerful; for everyone honoured them for fear of being admonished;
and most particularly the leaders, who were Piero degli Albizzi, Lapo
da Castiglionchio, and Carlo Strozzi. The insolent mode of proceeding
was offensive to many; but none felt so particularly injured with it
as the Ricci; for they knew themselves to have occasioned it, they saw
it involved the ruin of the republic, and their enemies the Albizzi,
contrary to their intention, become great in consequence.

[Sidenote: [1356-1371 A.D.]]

On this account Uguccione de’ Ricci, being one of the seigniory, resolved
to put an end to the evil which he and his friends had originated,
and with a new law provided that to the six captains of Parts an
additional three should be appointed, of whom two should be chosen from
the companies of minor artificers, and that before any party could be
considered Ghibelline, the declaration of the capitani must be confirmed
by twenty-four Guelfic citizens, appointed for the purpose. This
provision tempered for the time the power of the _capitani_, so that the
admonitions were greatly diminished, if not wholly laid aside. Still
the parties of the Albizzi and the Ricci were continually on the alert
to oppose each other’s laws, deliberations, and enterprises, not from a
conviction of their inexpediency, but from hatred of their promoters.
In such distractions the time passed from 1366 to 1371, when the Guelfs
again regained the ascendant. There was in the family of the Buondelmonti
a gentleman named Benchi, who, as an acknowledgment of his merit in a war
against the Pisans, though one of the nobility, had been admitted amongst
the people, and thus became eligible to office amongst the seigniory; but
when about to take his seat with them, a law was made that no nobleman
who had become of the popular class should be allowed to assume that
office. This gave great offence to Benchi, who, in union with Piero
degli Albizzi, determined to depress the less powerful of the popular
party with admonitions, and obtain the government for themselves. By the
interest which Benchi possessed with the ancient nobility, and that of
Piero with most of the influential citizens, the Guelfic party resumed
their ascendency, and by new reforms among the “parts” so remodelled the
administration as to be able to dispose of the offices of the captains
and the twenty-four citizens at pleasure. They then returned to the
admonitions with greater audacity than ever, and the house of the Albizzi
became powerful as the head of this faction. On the other hand, the Ricci
made the most strenuous exertions against their designs; so that anxiety
universally prevailed, and ruin was apprehended alike from both parties.

The seigniory, induced by the necessity of the case, gave authority
to fifty-six citizens to provide for the safety of the republic. It
is usually found that most men are better adapted to pursue a good
course already begun, than to discover one applicable to immediate
circumstances. These citizens thought rather of extinguishing existing
factions than of preventing the formation of new ones, and effected
neither of these objects. The facilities for the establishment of
new parties were not removed; and out of those which they guarded
against, another more powerful arose, which brought the republic into
still greater danger. They, however, deprived three of the family of
the Albizzi, and three of that of the Ricci, of all the offices of
government, except those of the Guelfic party, for three years; and
amongst the deprived were Piero degli Albizzi and Uguccione de’ Ricci.
They forbade the citizens to assemble in the palace, except during the
sittings of the seigniory. They provided that if anyone were beaten, or
possession of his property detained from him, he might bring his case
before the council and denounce the offender, even if he were one of the
nobility; and that if it were proved, the accused should be subject to
the usual penalties. This provision abated the boldness of the Ricci,
and increased that of the Albizzi; since, although it applied equally
to both, the Ricci suffered from it by far the most; for if Piero was
excluded from the palace of the seigniory, the chamber of the Guelfs,
in which he possessed the greatest authority, remained open to him; and
if he and his followers had previously been ready to admonish, they
became after this injury doubly so. To this predisposition for evil, new
excitements were added.

_The Eight “Saints of War”_

[Sidenote: [1371-1375 A.D.]]

The papal chair was occupied by Gregory XI. He, like his predecessors,
residing at Avignon, governed Italy by legates, who, proud and
avaricious, oppressed many of the cities. One of these legates, then
at Bologna, taking advantage of a great scarcity of food at Florence,
endeavoured to render himself master of Tuscany, and not only withheld
provisions from the Florentines, but in order to frustrate their hopes
of the future harvest, upon the approach of spring, attacked them with
a large army, trusting that being famished and unarmed he should find
them an easy conquest. He might perhaps have been successful, had not his
forces been mercenary and faithless, and, therefore, induced to abandon
the enterprise for the sum of 130,000 florins, which the Florentines paid
them. People may go to war when they will, but cannot always withdraw
when they like. This contest, commenced by the ambition of the legate,
was continued by the resentment of the Florentines, who, entering into a
league with Barnabò of Milan, and with the cities hostile to the church,
appointed eight citizens for the administration of it, giving them
authority to act without appeal, and to expend whatever sums they might
judge expedient, without rendering an account of the outlay.

This war against the pontiff, although Uguccione was now dead, reanimated
those who had followed the party of the Ricci, who, in opposition to the
Albizzi, had always favoured Barnabò and opposed the church, and this,
the rather, because the eight commissioners of war were all enemies of
the Guelfs. This occasioned Piero degli Albizzi, Lapo da Castiglionchio,
Carlo Strozzi, and others to unite themselves more closely in opposition
to their adversaries. The Eight carried on the war, and the others
admonished during three years, when the death of the pontiff put an end
to the hostilities, which had been carried on with so much ability and
with such entire satisfaction to the people, that at the end of each year
the Eight were continued in office, and were called _santi_, or holy,
although they had set ecclesiastical censures at defiance, plundered the
churches of their property, and compelled the priests to perform divine
service. So much did citizens at that time prefer the good of their
country to their ghostly consolations, and thus showed the church that if
as her friends they had defended, they could as enemies depress her; for
the whole of Romagna, the Marches, and Perugia were excited to rebellion.

Yet whilst this war was carried on against the pope, they were unable to
defend themselves against the captains of the Parts and their faction;
for the insolence of the Guelfs against the Eight attained such a pitch,
that they could not restrain themselves from abusive behaviour, not
merely against some of the most distinguished citizens, but even against
the Eight themselves; and the captains of the Parts conducted themselves
with such arrogance that they were feared more than the seigniory. Those
who had business with them treated them with greater reverence, and
their court was held in higher estimation; so that no ambassador came to
Florence without commission to the captains. Pope Gregory being dead, and
the city freed from external war, there still prevailed great confusion
within; for the audacity of the Guelfs was insupportable, and as no
available mode of subduing them presented itself, and as it was thought
that recourse must be had of being prepared against this calamity, the
leaders of the party assembled to arms, to determine which party was the
stronger. With the Guelfs were all the ancient nobility, and the greater
part of the most powerful popular leaders, of which number, as already
remarked, were Lapo, Piero, and Carlo. On the other side, were all the
lower orders, the leaders of whom were the eight commissioners of war,
Giorgio Scali and Tommaso Strozzi, and with them the Ricci, Alberti, and
Medici. The rest of the multitude, as most commonly happens, joined the
discontented party.

[Illustration: A FLORENTINE MERCHANT]

[Sidenote: [1375-1378 A.D.]]

It appeared to the heads of the Guelfic faction that their enemies
would be greatly strengthened, and themselves in considerable danger in
case a hostile seigniory should resolve on their subjugation. Desirous,
therefore, to take into consideration the state of the city, and that of
their own friends in particular, they found the _ammoniti_ so numerous
and so great a difficulty, that the whole city was excited against them
on this account. They could not devise any other remedy than that, as
their enemies had deprived them of all the offices of honour, they
should banish their opponents from the city, take possession of the
palace of the seigniory, and bring over the whole state to their own
party--in imitation of the Guelfs of former times, who found no safety
in the city till they had driven all their adversaries out of it. They
were unanimous upon the main point, but did not agree upon the time of
carrying it into execution. It was in the month of April, in the year
1378, when Lapo, thinking delay unadvisable, expressed his opinion that
procrastination was in the highest degree perilous to themselves, as in
the next seigniory, Salvestro de’ Medici would very probably be elected
gonfalonier, and they all knew he was opposed to their party. Piero
degli Albizzi, on the other hand, thought it better to defer, since
they would require forces, which could not be assembled without exciting
observation, and if they were discovered, they would incur great risk.
He thereupon judged it preferable to wait till the approaching feast of
St. John, on which, being the most solemn festival of the city, vast
multitudes would be assembled, amongst whom they might conceal whatever
numbers they pleased. To obviate their fears of Salvestro, he was to be
admonished, and if this did not appear likely to be effectual, they would
admonish one of the “colleagues” of his quarter, and upon re-drawing, as
the ballot-boxes would be nearly empty, chance would very likely occasion
that either he or some associate of his would be drawn, and he would thus
be rendered incapable of sitting as gonfalonier.

They therefore at last came to the conclusion proposed by Piero, though
Lapo consented reluctantly, considering the delay dangerous, and that,
as no opportunity can be in all respects suitable, he who waits for
the concurrence of every advantage either never makes an attempt, or,
if induced to do so, is most frequently foiled. They admonished the
colleague, but did not prevent the appointment of Salvestro, for the
design was discovered by the Eight, who took care to render all attempts
upon the drawing futile.

Salvestro Alamanno de’ Medici was therefore drawn gonfalonier, and,
being of one of the noblest popular families, he could not endure
that the people should be oppressed by a few powerful persons. Having
resolved to put an end to their insolence, and perceiving the middle
classes favourably disposed, and many of the highest of the people on
his side, he communicated his design to Benedetto Alberti, Tommaso
Strozzi, and Giorgio Scali, who all promised their assistance. They,
therefore, secretly drew up a law which had for its object to revive
the restrictions upon the nobility, to retrench the authority of the
_capitani di parte_, and also to recall the _ammoniti_ to their dignity.

In order to attempt and obtain their ends, at one and the same time,
having to consult, first the colleagues and then the councils, Salvestro
being provost (which office for the time made its possessor almost
prince of the city), he called together the colleagues and the council
on the same morning, and the colleagues being apart, he proposed the law
prepared by himself and his friends, which, being a novelty, encountered
in their small number so much opposition that he was unable to have it
passed.

Salvestro, seeing his first attempt likely to fail, pretended to leave
the room for a private reason, and, without being perceived, went
immediately to the council, and taking a lofty position from which he
could be both seen and heard, said that, considering himself invested
with the office of gonfalonier not so much to preside in private cases
(for which proper judges were appointed, who have their regular sittings)
as to guard the state, correct the insolence of the powerful, and
ameliorate those laws by the influence of which the republic was being
ruined, he had carefully attended to both these duties, and to his utmost
ability provided for them, but found the perversity of some so much
opposed to his just designs as to deprive him of all opportunity of doing
good, and them not only of the means of assisting him with their counsel,
but even hearing him. Therefore, finding he no longer contributed either
to the benefit of the republic or of the people generally, he could not
perceive any reason for his longer holding the magistracy, of which he
was either undeserving, or others thought him so, and would therefore
retire to his house, that the people might appoint another in his stead,
who would either have greater virtue or better fortune than himself. And
having said this, he left the room as if to return home.

_Mob Violence_

Those of the council who were in the secret, and others desirous of
novelty, raised a tumult, at which the seigniory and the colleagues came
together, and finding the gonfalonier leaving them, entreatingly and
authoritatively detained him, and obliged him to return to the council
room, which was now full of confusion. Many of the noble citizens were
threatened in opprobrious language; and an artificer seized Carlo
Strozzi by the throat, and would undoubtedly have murdered him, but was
with difficulty prevented by those around. He who made the greatest
disturbance, and incited the city to violence, was Benedetto degli
Alberti, who, from a window of the palace, loudly called the people to
arms; and presently the courtyards were filled with armed men, and the
colleagues granted to threats what they had refused to entreaty. The
_capitani di parte_ had at the same time drawn together a great number of
citizens to their hall, to consult upon the means of defending themselves
against the orders of the seigniors; but when they heard the tumult that
was raised, and were informed of the course the councils had adopted,
each took refuge in his own house.

Let no one, when raising popular commotions, imagine he can afterwards
control them at his pleasure, or restrain them from proceeding to
the commission of violence. Salvestro intended to enact his law, and
compose the city; but it happened otherwise; for the feelings of all had
become so excited, that they shut up the shops; the citizens fortified
themselves in their houses; many conveyed their valuable property into
the churches and monasteries, and everyone seemed to apprehend something
terrible at hand. The companies of the arts met, and each appointed
an additional officer or syndic; upon which the priors summoned their
colleagues and these syndics, and consulted a whole day how the city
might be appeased with satisfaction to the different parties; but much
difference of opinion prevailed, and no conclusion was come to. On the
following day the arts brought forth their banners, which the seigniory,
understanding, and being apprehensive of evil, called the council
together to consider what course to adopt. But scarcely were they met,
when the uproar recommenced, and soon the ensigns of the arts, surrounded
by vast numbers of armed men, occupied the courts. Upon this the council,
to give the arts and the people hope of redress, and free themselves
as much as possible from the charge of causing the mischief, gave a
general power, which in Florence is called _balia_, to the seigniors, the
colleagues, the Eight, the _capitani di parte_, and to the syndics of
the arts, to reform the government of the city for the common benefit of
all. Whilst this was being arranged, a few of the ensigns of the arts and
some of the mob, desirous of avenging themselves for the recent injuries
they had received from the Guelfs, separated themselves from the rest,
and sacked and burned the house of Lapo da Castiglionchio, who, when he
learned the proceedings of the seigniory against the Guelfs, and saw
the people in arms, having no other resource but concealment or flight,
first took refuge in Santa Croce, and afterwards, being disguised as a
monk, fled into the Casentino, where he was often heard to blame himself
for having consented to wait till St. John’s day, before they had made
themselves sure of the government. Piero degli Albizzi and Carlo Strozzi
hid themselves upon the first outbreak of the tumult, trusting that when
it was over, by the interest of their numerous friends and relations,
they might remain safely in Florence.

The house of Lapo being burned, as mischief begins with difficulty but
easily increases, many other houses, either through public hatred or
private malice, shared the same fate; and the rioters, that they might
have companions more eager than themselves to assist them in their work
of plunder, broke open the public prisons, and then sacked the monastery
of the Agnoli and the convent of Santo Spirito, whither many citizens had
taken their most valuable goods for safety. Nor would the public chambers
have escaped these destroyers’ hands, except out of reverence for one of
the seigniors who, on horseback and followed by many citizens in arms,
opposed the rage of the mob.

This popular fury being abated by the authority of the seigniors and
the approach of night, on the following day the balia relieved the
admonished, on condition that they should not for three years be capable
of holding any magistracy. They annulled the laws made by the Guelfs to
the prejudice of the citizens; declared Lapo da Castiglionchio and his
companions rebels, and with them many others, who were the objects of
universal detestation. After these resolutions, the new seigniory were
drawn for, and Luigi Guicciardini was appointed gonfalonier, which gave
hope that the tumults would soon be appeased; for everyone thought them
to be peaceable men and lovers of order. Still the shops were not opened,
nor did the citizens lay down their arms, but continued to patrol the
city in great numbers.

[Illustration: ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

Presently a disturbance arose, much more injurious to the republic than
anything that had hitherto occurred. The greatest part of the fires and
robberies which took place on the previous days was perpetrated by the
very lowest of the people; and those who had been the most audacious
were afraid that, when the greater differences were composed, they would
be punished for the crimes they had committed; and that, as usual, they
would be abandoned by those who had instigated them to the commission
of crime. To this may be added the hatred of the lower orders towards
the rich citizens and the principals of the arts, because they did not
think themselves remunerated for their labour in a manner equal to their
merits. For in the time of Charles I, when the city was divided into
arts, a head or governor was appointed to each, and it was provided that
the individuals of each art should be judged in civil matters by their
own superiors. These arts were at first twelve; in the course of time
they were increased to twenty-one, and attained so much power that in a
few years they grasped the entire government of the city; and as some
were in greater esteem than others, they were divided into major and
minor; seven were called the “major,” and fourteen the “minor arts.”
From this division, and from other causes, arose the arrogance of the
_capitani di parte_; for these citizens, who had formerly been Guelfs,
and had the constant disposal of that magistracy, favoured the followers
of the major and persecuted the minor arts and their patrons; and hence
arose the many commotions already mentioned. When the companies of the
arts were first organised, many of those trades, followed by the lowest
of the people and the plebeians, were not incorporated, but were ranged
under those arts most nearly allied to them; and, hence, when they were
not properly remunerated for their labour, or their masters oppressed
them, they had no one of whom to seek redress, except the magistrate
of the art to which theirs was subject; and of him they did not think
justice always attainable. Of the arts, that which always had the
greatest number of these subordinates was the woollen; which being the
most powerful body, and first in authority, supported the greater part of
the plebeians and lowest of the people.

The lower classes, then, the subordinates not only of the woollen,
but also of the other arts, were discontented, from the causes just
mentioned; and their apprehension of punishment for the burnings and
robberies they had committed did not tend to compose them. Meetings took
place in different parts during night, to talk over the past, and to
communicate the danger in which they were. When one of the most daring
and experienced, in order to animate the rest, spoke thus: “If the
question now were whether we should take up arms, rob and burn the houses
of the citizens, and plunder churches, I am one of those who would think
it worthy of further consideration, and should, perhaps, prefer poverty
and safety to the dangerous pursuit of an uncertain good. But as we have
already armed, and many offences have been committed, and those who are
first in arms will certainly be victors, to the ruin of their enemies
and their own exaltation; thus honours will accrue to many of us, and
security to all.” These arguments greatly inflamed minds already disposed
to mischief so that they determined to take up arms as soon as they had
acquired a sufficient number of associates, and bound themselves by oath
to mutual defence, in case any of them were subdued by the civil power.

Whilst they were arranging to take possession of the republic, their
design became known to the seigniory, who, having taken a man named
Simone, learned from him the particulars of the conspiracy, and that
the outbreak was to take place on the following day. Finding the danger
so pressing, they called together the colleagues and those citizens who
with the syndics of the arts were endeavouring to effect the union of the
city. It was then evening, and they advised the seigniors to assemble
the consuls of the trades, who proposed that whatever armed force was in
Florence should be collected, and with the gonfaloniers of the people and
their companies meet under arms in the piazza next morning. It happened
that whilst Simone was being tortured, a man named Niccolo da San Friano
was regulating the palace clock, and becoming acquainted with what was
going on, returned home and spread the report of it in his neighbourhood,
so that presently the piazza of Santo Spirito was occupied by above a
thousand men. This soon became known to the other conspirators, and San
Pietro Maggiore and San Lorenzo, their places of assembly, were presently
full of them, all under arms.

At daybreak, on the 21st of July, there did not appear in the piazza
above eighty men in arms friendly to the seigniory, and not one of the
gonfaloniers; for knowing the whole city to be in a state of insurrection
they were afraid to leave their homes. The first body of plebeians that
made its appearance was that which had assembled at San Pietro Maggiore;
but the armed force did not venture to attack them. Then came the other
multitudes, and finding no opposition, they loudly demanded their
prisoners from the seigniory; and being resolved to have them by force if
they were not yielded to their threats, they burned the house of Luigi
Guicciardini; and the seigniory, for fear of greater mischief, set them
at liberty. With this addition to their strength they took the gonfalon
of justice from the bearer, and under the shadow of authority which it
gave them, burned the houses of many citizens, selecting those whose
owners had publicly or privately excited their hatred. Many citizens, to
avenge themselves for private injuries, conducted them to the houses of
their enemies; for it was quite sufficient to insure its destruction, if
a single voice from the mob called out, “To the house of such a one,” or
if he who bore the gonfalon took the road towards it. All the documents
belonging to the woollen trade were burned, and after the commission
of much violence, by way of associating it with something laudable,
Salvestro de’ Medici and sixty-three other citizens were made knights,
amongst whom were Benedetto and Antonio degli Alberti, Tommaso Strozzi,
and others similarly their friends; though many received the honour
against their wills. It was a remarkable peculiarity of the riots that
many who had their houses burned were on the same day and by the same
party made knights; so close were the kindness and the injury together.
This circumstance occurred to Luigi Guicciardini, gonfalonier of justice.

In this tremendous uproar, the seigniory, finding themselves abandoned by
their armed force, by the leaders of the arts, and by the gonfaloniers,
became dismayed; for none had come to their assistance in obedience to
orders; and of the sixteen gonfalons, the ensign of the Golden Lion
and of the Vaio, under Giovenco della Stufa and Giovanni Cambi, alone
appeared; and these, not being joined by any other, soon withdrew. Of the
citizens, on the other hand, some, seeing the fury of this unreasonable
multitude and the palace abandoned, remained within doors; others
followed the armed mob, in the hope that, by being amongst them, they
might more easily protect their own houses or those of their friends.
The power of the plebeians was thus increased and that of the seigniory
weakened. The tumult continued all day, and at night the rioters
halted near the palace of Stefano, behind the church of St. Barnabas.
Their number exceeded six thousand, and before daybreak they obtained
by threats the ensigns of the trades, with which and the gonfalon of
justice, when morning came, they proceeded to the palace of the provost,
who refusing to surrender it to them, they took possession of it by force.

The seigniory, desirous of a compromise, since they could not restrain
them by force, appointed four of the colleagues to proceed to the palace
of the provost, and endeavour to learn what was their intention. They
found that the leaders of the plebeians, with the syndics of the trades
and some citizens, had resolved to signify their wishes to the seigniory.
They therefore returned with four deputies of the plebeians, who demanded
that the woollen trade should not be allowed to have a foreign judge;
that there should be formed three new companies of the arts; namely, one
for the wool-combers and dyers, one for the barbers, doublet-makers,
tailors, and such like, and the third for the lowest class of people.
They required that the three new arts should furnish two seigniors;
the fourteen minor arts, three; and that the seigniory should provide
a suitable place of assembly for them. They also made it a condition
that no member of these companies should be expected during two years to
pay any debt that amounted to less than 50 ducats; that the bank should
take no interest on loans already contracted and that only the principal
sum should be demanded; that the condemned and the banished should be
forgiven, and the admonished should be restored to participation in the
honours of government. Besides these, many other articles were stipulated
in favour of their friends, and a requisition made that many of their
enemies should be exiled and admonished. These demands, though grievous
and dishonourable to the republic, were for fear of further violence
granted, by the joint deliberation of the seigniors, colleagues, and
council of the people. But in order to give it full effect, it was
requisite that the council of the commune should also give its consent;
and, as they could not assemble two councils during the same day, it
was necessary to defer it till the morrow. However, the trades appeared
content, the plebeians satisfied; and both promised that, these laws
being confirmed, every disturbance should cease.

On the following morning, whilst the council of the commune were
in consultation, the impatient and volatile multitude entered the
piazza, under their respective ensigns, with loud and fearful shouts,
which struck terror into all the council and seigniory; and Guerrente
Marignolli, one of the latter, influenced more by fear than anything
else, under pretence of guarding the lower doors, left the chamber and
fled to his house. He was unable to conceal himself from the multitude,
who, however, took no notice, except that, upon seeing him, they insisted
that all the seigniors should quit the palace, and declared that if they
refused to comply, their houses should be burned and their families put
to death.

The law had now been passed; the seigniors were in their own apartments;
the council had descended from the chamber, and without leaving the
palace, hopeless of saving the city, they remained in the lodges and
courts below, overwhelmed with grief at seeing such depravity in the
multitude, and such perversity or fear in those who might either have
restrained or suppressed them. The seigniory, too, were dismayed and
fearful for the safety of their country, finding themselves abandoned
by one of their associates, and without any aid or even advice; when,
at this moment of uncertainty as to what was about to happen, or what
would be best to be done, Tommaso Strozzi and Benedetto Alberti, either
from motives of ambition (being desirous of remaining masters of the
palace), or because they thought it the most advisable step, persuaded
them to give way to the popular impulse, and withdraw privately to their
own homes. This advice, given by those who had been the leaders of the
tumult, although the others yielded, filled Alamanno Acciajuoli and
Niccolo del Bene, two of the seigniors, with anger; and, reassuming a
little vigour, they said, that if the others would withdraw they could
not help it, but they would remain as long as they continued in office,
if they did not in the meantime lose their lives. These dissensions
redoubled the fears of the seigniory and the rage of the people, so that
the gonfalonier, disposed to conclude his magistracy in dishonour than in
danger, recommended himself to the care of Tommaso Strozzi, who withdrew
him from the palace and conducted him to his house. The other seigniors
were, one after another, conveyed in the same manner, so that Alamanno
and Niccolo, not to appear more valiant than wise, seeing themselves left
alone, also retired, and the palace fell into the hands of the plebeians
and the eight commissioners of war, who had not yet laid down their
authority.

_Michele di Lando_

When the plebeians entered the palace, the standard of the gonfalonier of
justice was in the hands of Michele di Lando, a wool-comber. This man,
barefoot, with scarcely anything upon him, and the rabble at his heels,
ascended the staircase, and, having entered the audience chamber of the
seigniory, he stopped, and turning to the multitude said, “You see this
palace is now yours, and the city is in your power; what do you think
ought to be done?” To which they replied, they would have him for their
gonfalonier and lord; and that he should govern them and the city as he
thought best. Michele accepted the command; and, as he was a cool and
sagacious man, more favoured by nature than by fortune, he resolved to
compose the tumult and restore peace to the city. To occupy the minds of
the people, and give himself time to make some arrangement, he ordered
that one Nuto, who had been appointed _bargello_, or sheriff, by Lapo da
Castiglionchio, should be sought. The greater part of his followers went
to execute this commission; and, to commence with justice the government
he had acquired by favour, he commanded that no one should either burn or
steal anything; while, to strike terror into all, he caused a gallows to
be erected in the court of the palace. He began the reform of government
by deposing the syndics of the trades, and appointing new ones; he
deprived the seigniory and the colleagues of their magistracy, and burned
the balloting purses containing the names of those eligible to office
under the former government. In the meantime, Ser Nuto, being brought
by the mob into the court, was suspended from the gallows by one foot;
and those around having torn him to pieces, in little more than a moment
nothing remained of him but the foot by which he had been tied.

The eight commissioners of war, on the other hand, thinking themselves,
after the departure of the seigniors, left sole masters of the city, had
already formed a new seigniory; but Michele, on learning this, sent them
an order to quit the palace immediately; for he wished to show that he
could govern Florence without their assistance. He then assembled the
syndics of the trades, and created as a seigniory, four from the lowest
plebeians, two from the major, and two from the minor trades. Besides
this, he made a new selection of names for the balloting purses, and
divided the state into three parts; one composed of the new trades,
another of the minor, and the third of the major trades. He gave to
Salvestro de’ Medici the revenue of the shops upon the Ponte Vecchio; for
himself he took the provostry of Empoli, and conferred benefits upon many
other citizens, friends of the plebeians, not so much for the purpose of
rewarding their labours, as that they might serve to screen him from envy.

It seemed to the plebeians that Michele, in his reformation of the
state, had too much favoured the higher ranks of the people, and that
they themselves had not a sufficient share in the government to enable
them to preserve it; and hence, prompted by their usual audacity, they
again took arms, and coming tumultuously into the court of the palace,
each body under their particular ensigns, insisted that the seigniory
should immediately descend and consider new means for advancing
their well-being and security. Michele, observing their arrogance,
was unwilling to provoke them, but without further yielding to their
request, blamed the manner in which it was made, advised them to lay
down their arms, and promised that then would be conceded to them, what
otherwise, for the dignity of the state, must of necessity be withheld.
The multitude, enraged at this reply, withdrew to Santa Maria Novella,
where they appointed eight leaders for their party, with officers and
other regulations to insure influence and respect; so that the city
possessed two governments, and was under the direction of two distinct
powers. These new leaders determined that eight, elected from their
trades, should constantly reside in the palace with the seigniory, and
that whatever the seigniory should determine must be confirmed by them
before it became law. They took from Salvestro de’ Medici and Michele
di Lando the whole of what their former decrees had granted them, and
distributed to many of their party offices and emoluments to enable them
to support their dignity. These resolutions being passed, to render them
valid they sent two of their body to the seigniory, to insist on their
being confirmed by the council, with an intimation, that if not granted
they would be vindicated by force. This deputation, with amazing audacity
and surpassing presumption, explained their commission to the seigniory,
upbraided the gonfalonier with the dignity they had conferred upon him,
the honour they had done him, and with the ingratitude and want of
respect he had shown towards them. Coming to threats towards the end of
their discourse, Michele could not endure their arrogance, and sensible
rather of the dignity of the office he held than of the meanness of his
origin, determined by extraordinary means to punish such extraordinary
insolence, and drawing the sword with which he was girt, seriously
wounded, and caused them to be seized and imprisoned.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN CAPTAIN, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

When the fact became known, the multitude were filled with rage, and
thinking that by their arms they might insure what without them they had
failed to effect, they seized their weapons, and with the utmost fury
resolved to force the seigniory to consent to their wishes. Michele,
suspecting what would happen, determined to be prepared, for he knew his
credit rather required him to be first in the attack than to wait the
approach of the enemy, or, like his predecessors, dishonour both the
palace and himself by flight. He therefore drew together a good number
of citizens (for many began to see their error), mounted on horseback,
and followed by crowds of armed men, proceeded to Santa Maria Novella,
to encounter his adversaries. The plebeians, who, as before observed,
were influenced by a similar desire, had set out about the same time as
Michele, and it happened that, as each took a different route, they did
not meet in their way, and Michele, upon his return, found the piazza
in their possession. The contest was now for the palace, and joining in
the fight, he soon vanquished them, drove part of them out of the city,
and compelled the rest to throw down their arms and escape or conceal
themselves, as well as they could. Having thus gained the victory, the
tumults were composed, solely by the talents of the gonfalonier, who
in courage, prudence, and generosity surpassed every other citizen of
his time, and deserves to be enumerated among the glorious few who have
greatly benefited their country; for, had he possessed either malice or
ambition, the republic would have been completely ruined, and the city
must have fallen under greater tyranny than that of the duke of Athens.
But his goodness never allowed a thought to enter his mind opposed to the
universal welfare: his prudence enabled him to conduct affairs in such a
manner that a great majority of his own faction reposed the most entire
confidence in him; and he kept the rest in awe by the influence of his
authority.

By the time Michele di Lando had subdued the plebeians the new seigniory
was drawn, and amongst those who composed it were two persons of such
base and mean condition that the desire increased in the minds of the
people to be freed from the ignominy into which they had fallen; and
when, upon the 1st of September, the new seigniory entered office and
the retiring members were still in the palace, the piazza being full of
armed men, a tumultuous cry arose from the midst of them, that none of
the lowest of the people should hold office amongst the seigniory. The
obnoxious two were withdrawn accordingly. The name of one was Il Tira,
of the other Baroccio, and in their stead were elected Giorgio Scali and
Francesco di Michele. The company of the lowest trade was also dissolved,
and its members deprived of office, except Michele di Lando, Lorenzo di
Puccio, and a few others of better quality. The honours of government
were divided into two parts, one of which was assigned to the superior
trades, the other to the inferior; except that the latter were to furnish
five seigniors, and the former only four. The gonfalonier was to be
chosen alternately from each.

_Momentary Peace; Renewed Insurrections_

[Sidenote: [1378-1381 A.D.]]

The government, thus composed, restored peace to the city for the
time; but though the republic was rescued from the power of the lowest
plebeians, the inferior trades were still more influential than the
nobles of the people, who, however, were obliged to submit for the
gratification of the trades, of whose favour they wished to deprive
the plebeians. The new establishment was supported by all who wished
the continued subjugation of those who, under the name of the Guelfic
party, had practised such excessive violence against the citizens. And
as amongst others thus disposed, were Giorgio Scali, Benedetto Alberti,
Salvestro de’ Medici, and Tommaso Strozzi, these four almost became
princes of the city. This state of the public mind strengthened the
divisions already commenced between the nobles of the people and the
minor artificers, by the ambition of the Ricci and the Albizzi; from
which, as at different times very serious effects arose, and as they will
hereafter be frequently mentioned, we shall call the former the popular
party, the latter the plebeian. This condition of things continued three
years, during which many were exiled and put to death; for the government
lived in constant apprehension, knowing that both within and without the
city many were dissatisfied with them. Those within, either attempted or
were suspected of attempting, every day some new project against them;
and those without, being under no restraint, were continually, by means
of some prince or republic, spreading reports tending to increase the
disaffection.

Gianozzo da Salerno was at this time in Bologna. He held a command
under Charles of Durazzo, a descendant of the kings of Naples, who,
designing to undertake the conquest of the dominions of Queen Joanna,
retained his captain in that city, with the concurrence of Pope Urban,
who was at enmity with the queen. Many Florentine emigrants were also
at Bologna, in close correspondence with him and Charles. This caused
the rulers in Florence to live in continual alarm, and induced them to
lend a willing ear to any calumnies against the suspected. Whilst in
this disturbed state of feeling it was disclosed to the government that
Gianozzo da Salerno was about to march to Florence with the emigrants,
and that great numbers of those within were to rise in arms, and deliver
the city to him. Upon this information many were accused, the principal
of whom were Piero degli Albizzi and Carlo Strozzi; and after these,
Cipriano Mangione, Jacopo Sacchetti, Donato Barbadori, Filippo Strozzi,
and Giovanni Anselmi, the whole of whom, except Carlo Strozzi, who fled,
were made prisoners; and the seigniory, to prevent anyone from taking
arms in their favour, appointed Tommaso Strozzi and Benedetto Alberti,
with a strong armed force, to guard the city. The arrested citizens were
examined, and although nothing was elicited against them sufficient to
induce the capitano to find them guilty, their enemies excited the minds
of the populace to such a degree of outrageous and overwhelming fury
against them, that they were condemned to death, as it were, by force.
Nor was the greatness of his family, or his former reputation, of any
service to Piero degli Albizzi, who had once been, of all the citizens,
the man most feared and honoured. Someone, either as a friend to render
him wise in his prosperity, or an enemy to threaten him with the
fickleness of fortune, had upon the occasion of his making a feast for
many citizens sent him a silver bowl full of sweetmeats, amongst which
a large nail was found, and being seen by many present, was taken for a
hint to him to fix the wheel of fortune which, having conveyed him to the
top, must, if the rotation continued, also bring him to the bottom. This
interpretation was verified, first by his ruin, and afterwards by his
death.

[Sidenote: [1381-1382 A.D.]]

After this execution the city was full of consternation, for both victors
and vanquished were alike in fear; but the worst effects arose from the
apprehensions of those possessing the management of affairs; for every
accident, however trivial, caused them to commit fresh outrages, either
by condemnations, admonitions, or banishment of citizens; to which
must be added, as scarcely less pernicious, the frequent new laws and
regulations which were made for defence of the government, all of which
were put in execution to the injury of those opposed to their faction.
They appointed forty-six persons, who, with the seigniory, were to
purge the republic of all suspected by the government. They admonished
thirty-nine citizens, ennobled many of the people, and degraded many
nobles to the popular rank. To strengthen themselves against external
foes, they took into their pay John Hawkwood, an Englishman of great
military reputation, who had long served the pope and others in Italy.
Their fears from without were increased by a report that several bodies
of men were being assembled by Charles of Durazzo for the conquest of
Naples, and many Florentine emigrants were said to have joined him.
Against these dangers, in addition to the forces which had been raised,
large sums of money were provided; and Charles, having arrived at Arezzo,
obtained from the Florentines 40,000 ducats, and promised he would not
molest them. His enterprise was immediately prosecuted, and having
occupied the kingdom of Naples, he sent Queen Joanna a prisoner into
Hungary. This victory renewed the fears of those who managed the affairs
of Florence, for they could not persuade themselves that their money
would have a greater influence on the king’s mind than the friendship
which his house had long retained for the Guelfs, whom they so grievously
oppressed.

This suspicion, increasing, multiplied oppressions; which again, instead
of diminishing the suspicion, augmented it; so that most men lived in the
utmost discontent. To this the insolence of Giorgio Scali and Tommaso
Strozzi (who by their popular influence overawed the magistrates) also
contributed, for the rulers were apprehensive that by the power these
men possessed with the plebeians they could set them at defiance; and
hence it is evident that not only to good men, but even to the seditious,
this government appeared tyrannical and violent. To put a period to the
outrageous conduct of Giorgio, it happened that his servant accused
Giovanni di Cambio of practices against the state, but the capitano
declared him innocent.

Upon this, the judge determined to punish the accuser with the same
penalties that the accused would have incurred had he been guilty; but
Giorgio Scali, unable to save him either by his authority or entreaties,
obtained the assistance of Tommaso Strozzi, and with a multitude of
armed men, set the informer at liberty and plundered the palace of the
capitano, who was obliged to save himself by flight. This act excited
such great and universal animosity against him, that his enemies began to
hope they would be able to effect his ruin, and also to rescue the city
from the power of the plebeians, who for three years had held her under
their arrogant control.

To the realisation of this design the capitano greatly contributed; for
the tumult having subsided, he presented himself before the seigniors,
and said he had cheerfully undertaken the office to which they had
appointed him, for he thought he should serve upright men who would take
arms for the defence of justice, and not impede its progress. But now
that he had seen and had experience of the proceedings of the city, and
the manner in which affairs were conducted, that dignity which he had
voluntarily assumed with the hope of acquiring honour and emolument he
now more willingly resigned, to escape from the losses and danger to
which he found himself exposed. The complaint of the capitano was heard
with the utmost attention by the seigniory, who promising to remunerate
him for the injury he had suffered and provide for his future security,
he was satisfied. Some of them then obtained an interview with certain
citizens who were thought to be lovers of the common good, and least
suspected by the state; and in conjunction with these, it was concluded
that the present was a favourable opportunity for rescuing the city from
Giorgio and the plebeians, the last outrage he had committed having
completely alienated the great body of the people from him. They judged
it best to profit by the occasion before the excitement had abated, for
they knew that the favour of the mob is often gained or lost by the
most trifling circumstance; and more certainly to insure success, they
determined, if possible, to obtain the concurrence of Benedetto Alberti,
for without it they considered their enterprise to be dangerous.

Benedetto was one of the richest citizens, a man of unassuming manners,
an ardent lover of the liberties of his country, and one to whom
tyrannical measures were in the highest degree offensive; so that he was
easily induced to concur in their views and consent to Giorgio’s ruin.
His enmity against the nobles of the people and the Guelfs, and his
friendship for the plebeians, were caused by the insolence and tyrannical
proceedings of the former; but finding that the plebeians had soon become
quite as insolent, he quickly separated himself from them; and the
injuries committed by them against the citizens were done wholly without
his consent. So that the same motives which made him join the plebeians
induced him to leave them.

Having gained Benedetto and the leaders of the trades to their side, they
provided themselves with arms and made Giorgio prisoner. Tommaso fled.
The next day Giorgio was beheaded, which struck so great a terror into
his party, that none ventured to express the slightest disapprobation,
but each seemed anxious to be foremost in defence of the measure. On
being led to execution, in the presence of that people who only a short
time before had idolised him, Giorgio complained of his hard fortune,
and the malignity of those citizens who, having done him an undeserved
injury, had compelled him to honour and support a mob, possessing neither
faith nor gratitude. Observing Benedetto Alberti amongst those who had
armed themselves for the preservation of order, he said, “Do you, too,
consent, Benedetto, that this injury shall be done to me? Were I in your
place and you in mine, I would take care that no one should injure you. I
tell you, however, this day is the end of my troubles and the beginning
of yours.” He then blamed himself for having confided too much in a
people who may be excited and inflamed by every word, motion, and breath
of suspicion. With these complaints he died, in the midst of his armed
enemies delighted at his fall. Some of his most intimate associates were
also put to death, and their bodies dragged about by the mob.

The death of Giorgio caused very great excitement; many took arms at the
execution in favour of the seigniory and the capitano; and many others,
either for ambition or as a means for their own safety, did the same.
The city was full of conflicting parties, which each had a particular
end in view, and wished to carry it into effect before they disarmed.
The ancient nobility, called “the great,” could not bear to be deprived
of public honours; for the recovery of which they used their utmost
exertions, and earnestly desired that authority might be restored to
the _capitani di parte_. The nobles of the people and the major trades
were discontented at the share the minor trades and lowest of the people
possessed in the government; whilst the minor trades were desirous of
increasing their influence, and the lowest people were apprehensive
of losing the companies of their trades and the authority which these
conferred.

Such opposing views occasioned Florence, during a year, to be disturbed
by many riots. Sometimes the nobles of the people took arms; sometimes
the major, and sometimes the minor trades and the lowest of the people;
and it often happened that, though in different parts, all were at
once in insurrection. Hence many conflicts took place between the
different parties or with the forces of the palaces; for the seigniory,
sometimes yielding and at other times resisting, adopted such remedies
as they could for these numerous evils. At length, after two assemblies
of the people, and many balias appointed for the reformation of the
city; after much toil, labour, and imminent danger, a government was
appointed, by which all who had been banished since Salvestro de’ Medici
was gonfalonier were restored. They who had acquired distinctions or
emoluments by the balia of 1378 were deprived of them. The honours of
government were restored to the Guelfic party; the two new companies of
the trades were dissolved, and all who had been subject to them assigned
to their former companies. The minor trades were not allowed to elect
the gonfalonier of justice; their share of honours was reduced from a
half to a third; and those of the highest rank were withdrawn from them
altogether. Thus the nobles of the people and the Guelfs repossessed
themselves of the government, which was lost by the plebeians after it
had been in their possession from 1378 to 1381, when these changes took
place.

The new establishment was not less injurious to the citizens, or less
troublesome at its commencement than that of the plebeians had been;
for many of the nobles of the people who had distinguished themselves
as defenders of the plebeians were banished with a great number of the
leaders of the latter, amongst whom was Michele di Lando; nor could all
the benefits conferred upon the city by his authority, when in danger
from the lawless mob, save him from the rabid fury of the party that was
now in power. His good offices evidently excited little gratitude in his
countrymen.

As these banishments and executions had always been offensive to
Benedetto Alberti, they continued to disgust him, and he censured them
both publicly and privately. The leaders of the government began to
fear him, for they considered him one of the most earnest friends of
the plebeians. It appeared as if, at any moment, something might occur,
which, with the favour of his friends, would enable him to recover his
authority, and drive them out of the city. Whilst in this state of
suspicion and jealousy, it happened that while he was gonfalonier of the
companies, his son-in-law, Filippo Magalotti, was drawn gonfalonier of
justice; and this circumstance increased the fears of the government, for
they thought it would strengthen Benedetto’s influence, and place the
state in the greater peril. Anxious to provide a remedy, without creating
much disturbance, they induced Bese Magalotti, his relative and enemy,
to signify to the seigniory that Filippo, not having attained the age
required for the exercise of that office, neither could nor ought to hold
it.

The question was examined by the seigniors, and part of them out of
hatred, others in order to avoid disunion amongst themselves, declared
Filippo ineligible to the dignity, and in his stead was drawn Bardo
Mancini, who was quite opposed to the plebeian interests, and an
inveterate foe of Benedetto. This man, having entered upon the duties
of his office, created a _balia_ for reformation of the state, which
banished Benedetto Alberti and admonished all the rest of his family
except Antonio. Not to give a worse impression of his virtue abroad
than he had done at home, he made a journey to the sepulchre of Christ,
and whilst upon his return died at Rhodes. His remains were brought
to Florence, and interred with all possible honours by those who had
persecuted him, when alive, with every species of calumny and injustice.
The family of the Alberti was not the only injured party during these
troubles of the city; for many others were banished and admonished.

[Sidenote: [1381-1393 A.D.]]

It was customary to create the balia for a limited time; and when the
citizens elected had effected the purpose of their appointment, they
resigned the office from motives of good feeling and decency, although
the time allowed might not have expired. In conformity with this laudable
practice, the balia of that period, supposing that they had accomplished
all that was expected of them, wished to retire; but when the multitude
were acquainted with their intention, they ran armed to the palace, and
insisted that, before resigning their power, many other persons should
be banished and admonished. This greatly displeased the seigniors; but
without disclosing the extent of their displeasure, they contrived to
amuse the multitude with promises, till they had assembled a sufficient
body of armed men, and then took such measures that fear induced the
people to lay aside the weapons which madness had led them to take up.
Nevertheless, in some degree to gratify the fury of the mob, and to
reduce the authority of the plebeian trades, it was provided that, as
the latter had previously possessed a third of the honours, they should
in future have only a fourth. That there might always be two of the
seigniors particularly devoted to the government, they gave authority to
the gonfalonier of justice, and four others, to form a ballot purse of
select citizens, from which, in every seigniory, two should be drawn.

This government, from its establishment in 1381, till the alterations
now made, had continued six years; and the internal peace of the city
remained undisturbed until 1393. During this time, Giovanni Galeazzo
Visconti, usually called the count of Virtù, imprisoned his uncle
Barnabò, and thus became sovereign of the whole of Lombardy. As he had
become duke of Milan by fraud, he designed to make himself king of Italy
by force. In 1391 he commenced a spirited attack upon the Florentines;
but such various changes occurred in the course of the war that he was
frequently in greater danger than the Florentines themselves, who,
though they made a brave and admirable defence, must have been ruined
if he had survived. As it was, the result was attended with infinitely
less evil than their fears of so powerful an enemy had led them to
apprehend; for the duke, having taken Bologna, Pisa, Perugia, and Siena,
and prepared a diadem with which to be crowned king of Italy at Florence,
died before he had tasted the fruit of his victories, or the Florentines
began to feel the effect of their disasters.[e]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII. FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI

[Sidenote: [1434-1492 A.D.]]

The democratic party at Florence, directed by the Alberti, Ricci, and
Medici, were deprived of power in 1381, in consequence of the abuse
which their associates, the ciompi, had made of their victory. From that
time their rivals, the Albizzi, directed the republic for the space of
fifty-three years, from 1381 to 1434, with a happiness and glory till
then unexampled. No triumph of an aristocratic faction ever merited a
more brilliant place in history. The one in question maintained itself by
the ascendency of its talents and virtues, without ever interfering with
the rights of the other citizens, or abusing a preponderance which was
all in opinion. It was the most prosperous epoch of the republic--that
during which its opulence acquired the greatest development; that in
which the arts, sciences, and literature adopted Florence as their native
country; that in which were born and formed all those great men, of whom
the Medici, their contemporaries, have reaped the glory, without having
had any share in producing them; that, finally, in which the republic
most constantly followed the noblest policy: considering itself as the
guardian of the liberty of Italy, it in turns set limits to the ambition
of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, of Ladislaus, king of Naples, and of Filippo
Maria, duke of Milan. Tommaso degli Albizzi, and after him Niccolo da
Uzzano, had been the chiefs of the aristocracy at this period of glory
and wisdom. To those succeeded Rinaldo, son of Tommaso degli Albizzi, who
forgot, a little more than his predecessors, that he was only a simple
citizen. Impetuous, arrogant, jealous, impatient of all opposition, he
lost the pre-eminence which his family had so long maintained.

Rinaldo degli Albizzi saw, with uneasiness, a rival present himself in
Cosmo, son of Giovanni de’ Medici, who revived a party formerly the
vanquishers of his ancestors. This man enjoyed a hereditary popularity
at Florence, because he was descended from one of the demagogues who,
in 1378, had undertaken the defence of the minor arts against the
aristocracy; he at the same time excited the jealousy of the latter
by his immense wealth, which equalled that of the greatest princes of
Italy. Although the Albizzi saw with distrust the family of their rivals
attain the supreme magistracy, they could not exclude from it Giovanni
de’ Medici, who was gonfalonier in 1421. His son Cosmo, born in 1389,
was priore in 1416; he was the head of a commercial establishment which
had counting-houses in all the great cities of Europe and in the Levant;
he at the same time cultivated literature with ardour. His palace, one
of the most sumptuous in Florence, was the resort of artists, poets, and
learned men; of those, among others, who about this time introduced the
Platonic philosophy into Italy. The opulence of Cosmo de’ Medici was
always at the service of his friends. There were very few poor citizens
at Florence to whom his purse was not open.[e]

THE RISE, REVERSES, AND POWER OF COSMO DE’ MEDICI

[Sidenote: [1389-1433 A.D.]]

Even in the lifetime of his father, Cosmo had engaged himself deeply,
not only in the extensive commerce by which the family had acquired
its wealth, but in the weightier concerns of government. After the
death of Giovanni de’ Medici, Cosmo supported and increased the family
dignity. His conduct was uniformly marked by urbanity and kindness to
the superior ranks of his fellow-citizens, and by a constant attention
to the interests and the wants of the lower class, whom he relieved with
unbounded generosity. By these means he acquired numerous and zealous
partisans of every denomination; but he rather considered them as pledges
for the continuance of the power he possessed than as instruments to be
employed in extending it to the ruin and subjugation of the state. “No
family,” says Voltaire,[f] “ever obtained its power by so just a title.”

The authority which Cosmo and his descendants exercised in Florence,
during the fifteenth century, was of a very peculiar nature, and
consisted rather in a tacit influence on their part, and a voluntary
acquiescence on that of the people, than in any prescribed or definite
compact between them. The form of government was ostensibly a republic,
and was directed by a council of ten citizens, and a chief executive
officer called the _gonfalonière_, or standard-bearer, who was chosen
every two months. Under this establishment the citizens imagined they
enjoyed the full exercise of their liberties; but such was the power
of the Medici that they generally either assumed to themselves the
first offices of the state, or nominated such persons as they thought
proper to those employments. In this, however, they paid great respect
to popular opinion. That opposition of interests so generally apparent
between the people and their rulers, was at this time scarcely perceived
at Florence, where superior qualifications and industry were the surest
recommendations to public authority and favour. Convinced of the
benefits constantly received from this family, and satisfied that they
could at any time withdraw themselves from a connection that exacted no
engagements, and required only a temporary acquiescence, the Florentines
considered the Medici as the fathers, and not as the rulers of the
republic. On the other hand, the chiefs of this house, by appearing
rather to decline than to court the honours bestowed on them, and by a
singular moderation in the use of them when obtained, were careful to
maintain the character of simple citizens of Florence and servants of
the state. An interchange of reciprocal good offices was the only tie by
which the Florentines and the Medici were bound, and perhaps the long
continuance of this connection may be attributed to the very circumstance
of its having been in the power of either of the parties, at any time, to
dissolve it.

[Sidenote: [1433 A.D.]]

But the prudence and moderation of Cosmo, though they soothed the
jealous apprehensions of the Florentines, could not at all times repress
the ambitious designs of those who wished to possess or to share his
authority. In the year 1433, Rinaldo de’ Albizzi, at the head of a
powerful party, carried the appointment of the magistracy. At that time
Cosmo had withdrawn to his seat at Mugello, where he had remained some
months, in order to avoid the disturbances that he saw were likely to
ensue; but at the request of his friends he returned to Florence, where
he was led to expect that a union of the different parties would be
effected, so as to preserve the peace of the city. In this expectation he
was, however, disappointed. No sooner did he make his appearance in the
palace, where his presence had been requested, on pretence of his being
intended to share in the administration of the republic, than he was
seized upon by his adversaries, and committed to the custody of Federigo
Malavolti. He remained in this situation for several days, in constant
apprehension of some violence being offered to his person; but he still
more dreaded that the malice of his enemies might attempt his life by
poison. During four days, a small portion of bread was the only food
which he thought proper to take.

The generosity of his keeper at length relieved him from this state
of anxiety. In order to induce him to take his food with confidence,
Malavolti partook of it with him. In the meantime, his brother Lorenzo,
and his cousin Averardo, having raised a considerable body of men from
Romagna and other neighbouring parts, and being joined by Niccolo da
Tolentino, the commander of the troops of the republic, approached
towards Florence to his relief; but the apprehensions that, in case they
resorted to open violence, the life of Cosmo might be endangered, induced
them to abandon their enterprise. At length Rinaldo and his adherents
obtained a decree of the magistracy against the Medici and their friends,
by which Cosmo was banished to Padua for ten years, Lorenzo to Venice for
five years, and several of their relations and adherents were involved in
a similar punishment.

Cosmo would gladly have left the city pursuant to his sentence, had he
been allowed to do so, but his enemies thought it more advisable to
retain him till they had established their authority; and they frequently
gave him to understand that if his friends raised any opposition to their
measures, his life should answer it. He also suspected that another
reason for his detention was to ruin him in his credit and circumstances,
his mercantile concerns being then greatly extended. As soon as these
disturbances were known, several of the states of Italy interfered in his
behalf. Three ambassadors arrived from Venice, who proposed to take him
under their protection, and to engage that he should strictly submit to
the sentence imposed on him. The marquis of Ferrara also gave a similar
proof of his attachment. Though their interposition was not immediately
successful, it was of great importance to Cosmo, and secured him from the
attempts of those who aimed at his life. After a confinement of nearly
a month, some of his friends, finding in his adversaries a disposition
to gentler measures, took occasion to forward his cause by the timely
application of a sum of money to Bernardo Guadagni, the gonfalonier, and
to Mariotto Baldovinetti, two of the creatures of Rinaldo. This measure
was successful. He was privately taken from his confinement by night, and
led out of Florence. For this piece of service Guadagni received 1,000
florins, and Baldovinetti 800. “They were poor souls,” says Cosmo in
his _Ricordi_, “for if money had been their object, they might have had
10,000, or more, to have freed me from the perils of such a situation.”

[Sidenote: [1434-1464 A.D.]]

From Florence, Cosmo proceeded immediately towards Venice, and at
every place through which he passed, experienced the most flattering
attention and the warmest expressions of regard. On his approach to that
city he was met by his brother Lorenzo and many of his friends, and
was received by the senate with such honours as were bestowed by that
stately republic only on persons of the highest quality and distinction.
After a short stay there, he went to Padua, the place prescribed for his
banishment; but on an application to the Florentine state, by Andrea
Donato, the Venetian ambassador, he was permitted to reside on any part
of the Venetian territories, but not to approach within the distance
of 170 miles of Florence. The affectionate reception which he had met
with at Venice induced him to fix his abode there, until a change of
circumstances should restore him to his native country.

Amongst the several learned and ingenious men who accompanied Cosmo
in his banishment, or resorted to him during his stay at Venice, was
Michellozzo Michellozzi, a Florentine sculptor and architect, whom Cosmo
(according to Vasari[g]) employed in making models and drawings of the
most remarkable buildings in Venice, and also in forming a library
in the monastery of St. George, which he enriched with many valuable
manuscripts, and left as an honourable monument of his gratitude, to
a place that had afforded him so kind an asylum in his adversity.
During his residence at Venice, Cosmo also received frequent visits
from Ambrogio Traversari, a learned monk of Camaldoli, near Florence,
and afterwards superior of the monastery of that place. Though chiefly
confined within the limits of a cloister, Traversari had, perhaps, the
best pretensions to the character of a polite scholar of any man of
that age. From the letters of Traversari,[h] now extant, we learn that
Cosmo and his brother not only bore their misfortunes with firmness,
but continued to express on every occasion an inviolable attachment to
their native place. The readiness with which Cosmo had given way to the
temporary clamour raised against him, and the reluctance which he had
shown to renew those bloody rencounters that had so often disgraced the
streets of Florence, gained him new friends. The utmost exertions of his
antagonists could not long prevent the choice of such magistrates as were
known to be attached to the cause of the Medici; and no sooner did they
enter on their office, than Cosmo and his brother were recalled, and
Rinaldo, with his adherents, was compelled to quit the city. This event
took place about the expiration of twelve months from the time of Cosmo’s
banishment.

From this time the life of Cosmo de’ Medici was one of almost
uninterrupted prosperity. The tranquillity enjoyed by the republic, and
the satisfaction and peace of mind which he experienced in the esteem and
confidence of his fellow-citizens, enabled him to indulge his natural
propensity to the promotion of science, and the encouragement of learned
men. The study of the Greek language had been introduced into Italy,
principally by the exertions of the celebrated Boccaccio, towards the
latter part of the preceding century, but on the death of that great
promoter of letters it again fell into neglect. After a short interval,
another attempt was made to revive it by the intervention of Emmanuel
Chrysoloras, a noble Greek, who, during the interval of his important
embassies, taught that language at Florence and other cities of Italy,
about the beginning of the fifteenth century. His disciples were numerous
and respectable. Amongst others of no inconsiderable note were Ambrogio
Traversari, Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini, the two latter of whom
were natives of Arezzo, whence they took the name of Aretino, Poggio
Bracciolini, Guarino Veronese, and Francesco Filelfo, who, after the
death of Chrysoloras, in 1415, strenuously vied with each other in the
support of Grecian literature, and were successful enough to keep the
flame alive till it received new aid from other learned Greeks, who were
driven from Constantinople by the dread of the Turks, or by the total
overthrow of the Eastern Empire. To these illustrious foreigners, as well
as to those eminent Italians, who shortly became their successful rivals,
even in the knowledge of their national history and language, Cosmo
afforded the most liberal protection and support. Of this the numerous
productions inscribed to his name, or devoted to his praise, are an ample
testimony. In some of these he is commended for his attachment to his
country, his liberality to his friends, his benevolence to all. He is
denominated the protector of the needy, the refuge of the oppressed, the
constant patron and support of learned men.

“You have shown,” says Poggio,[i] “such humanity and moderation in
dispensing the gifts of fortune, that they seem to have been rather the
reward of your virtues and merits, than conceded by her bounty. Devoted
to the study of letters from your early years, you have by your example
given additional splendour to science itself. Although involved in
the weightier concerns of state, and unable to devote a great part of
your time to books, yet you have found a constant satisfaction in the
society of those learned men who have always frequented your house.” In
enumerating the men of eminence who distinguished the city of Florence,
Flavio Biondo (Flavius Blondus)[j] adverts in the first instance to
Cosmo de’ Medici--“a citizen who, whilst he excels in wealth every other
citizen of Europe, is rendered much more illustrious by his prudence, his
humanity, his liberality, and what is more to our present purpose, by his
knowledge of useful literature, and particularly of history.”

_Cosmo and the Revival of Learning_

[Illustration: COSMO DE’ MEDICI]

That extreme avidity for the works of the ancient writers which
distinguished the early part of the fifteenth century announced the
near approach of more enlightened times. Whatever were the causes that
determined men of wealth and learning to exert themselves so strenuously
in this pursuit, certain it is that their interference was of the highest
importance to the interests of posterity, and that if it had been much
longer delayed, the loss would have been in a great degree irreparable;
such of the manuscripts as then existed of the ancient Greek and Roman
authors being daily perishing in obscure corners, a prey to oblivion
and neglect. It was therefore a circumstance productive of the happiest
consequences, that the pursuits of the opulent were at this time directed
rather towards the recovery of the works of the ancients than to the
encouragement of contemporary merit; a fact that may serve in some degree
to account for the dearth of original literary productions during this
interval. Induced by the rewards that invariably attended a successful
inquiry, those men who possessed any considerable share of learning
devoted themselves to this occupation, and to such a degree of enthusiasm
was it carried that the discovery of an ancient manuscript was regarded
as almost equivalent to the conquest of a kingdom.

As the natural disposition of Cosmo led him to take an active part in
collecting the remains of the ancient Greek and Roman writers, so he was
enabled, by his wealth and his extensive mercantile intercourse with
different parts of Europe and of Asia, to gratify a passion of this kind
beyond any other individual. To this end he laid injunctions on all his
friends and correspondents, as well as on the missionaries and preachers
who travelled into the remotest countries, to search for and procure
ancient manuscripts, in every language and on every subject. Besides the
services of Poggio and Traversari, Cosmo availed himself of those of
Cristoforo Buondelmonte, Antonio da Massa, Andrea de Rimino, and many
others. The situation of the Eastern Empire, then daily falling into
ruins by the repeated attacks of the Turks, afforded him, as Bandini[k]
notes, an opportunity of obtaining many inestimable works in the Hebrew,
Greek, Chaldaic, Arabic, and Indian languages. From these beginnings
arose the celebrated library of the Medici, which, after having been the
constant object of the solicitude of its founder, was after his death
further enriched by the attention of his descendants, and particularly
of his grandson Lorenzo; and after various vicissitudes of fortune, and
frequent and considerable additions, has been preserved to the present
times under the name of the Bibliotheca Mediceo-Laurentiana.

Amongst those who imitated the example of Cosmo de’ Medici was Niccolo
Niccoli, another citizen of Florence, who devoted his whole time and
fortune to the acquisition of ancient manuscripts; in this pursuit he
had been eminently successful, having collected together eight hundred
volumes of Greek, Roman, and oriental authors; a number in those times
justly thought very considerable. Several of these works he had copied
with great accuracy, and had diligently employed himself in correcting
their defects and arranging the text in its proper order. In this
respect he is justly regarded by Mehus as the father of this species
of criticism. He died in 1436, having by his will directed that his
library should be devoted to the use of the public, and appointed sixteen
curators, amongst whom was Cosmo de’ Medici. After his death, it appeared
that he was greatly in debt, and that his liberal intentions were likely
to be frustrated by the insolvency of his circumstances. Cosmo therefore
proposed to his associates, that if they would resign to him the right
of disposition of the books, he would himself discharge all the debts
of Niccolo, to which they readily acceded. Having thus obtained the
sole direction of the manuscripts, he deposited them for public use in
the Dominican monastery of San Marco, at Florence, which he had himself
erected at an enormous expense. This collection was the foundation
of another celebrated library in Florence, known by the name of the
Bibliotheca Marciana, which is yet open to inspection.

In the arrangement of the library of San Marco, Cosmo had procured the
assistance of Tommaso Calandrino (or Parentucelli), who drew up a scheme
for that purpose, and prepared a scientific catalogue of the books it
contained. In selecting a coadjutor, the choice of Cosmo had fallen upon
an extraordinary man. Though Tommaso was the son of a poor physician of
Sarzana, and ranked only in the lower order of the clergy, he had the
ambition to aim at possessing specimens of these venerable relics of
ancient genius. His learning and his industry enabled him to gratify
his wishes, and his perseverance surmounted the disadvantages of his
situation. In this pursuit he was frequently induced to anticipate his
scanty revenue, well knowing that the estimation in which he was held
by his friends would preserve him from pecuniary difficulties. With the
Greek and Roman authors no one was more intimately acquainted, and as
he wrote a very fine hand, the books he possessed acquired additional
value from the marginal observations which he was accustomed to make in
perusing them.

By rapid degrees of fortunate preferment, Tommaso was, in the short space
of twelve months, raised from his humble situation in the lower orders of
the church, to the chair of St. Peter, and in eight years, during which
time he enjoyed the supreme dignity by the name of Nicholas V, acquired
a reputation that has increased with the increasing estimation of those
studies which he so liberally fostered and protected. The scanty library
of his predecessors had been nearly dissipated or destroyed by frequent
removals between Avignon and Rome, according as the caprice of the
reigning pontiff chose either of those places for his residence; and it
appears from the letters of Traversari, that scarcely anything of value
remained. Nicholas V is therefore to be considered as the founder of the
library of the Vatican. In the completion of this great design, it is
true, much was left to be performed by his successors; but Nicholas had
before his death collected upwards of five thousand volumes of Greek and
Roman authors, and had not only expressed his intention of establishing a
library for the use of the Roman court, but had also taken measures for
carrying such intention into execution.

Whilst the munificence of the rich and the industry of the learned were
thus employed throughout Italy in preserving the remains of the ancient
authors, some obscure individuals in a corner of Germany had conceived,
and were silently bringing to perfection, an invention which, by means
equally effectual and unexpected, secured to the world the result of
their labours. This was the art of printing with movable types. The
coincidence of this discovery with the spirit of the times in which it
had birth was highly fortunate. Had it been made known at a much earlier
period, it would have been disregarded or forgotten, from the mere want
of materials on which to exercise it; and had it been further postponed,
it is probable that, notwithstanding the generosity of the rich and the
diligence of the learned, many works would have been totally lost, which
are now justly regarded as the noblest monuments of the human intellect.

Nearly the same period of time that gave the world this important
discovery, saw the destruction of the Roman Empire in the East. In the
year 1453, the city of Constantinople was captured by the Turks, under
the command of Muhammed II, after a vigorous defence of fifty-three
days. The encouragement which had been shown to the Greek professors
at Florence, and the character of Cosmo de’ Medici as a promoter of
letters, induced many learned Greeks to seek a shelter in that city,
where they met with a welcome and honourable reception. Amongst these
were Demetrius Chalcondyles, Joannes Andronicus Calistus, Constantine,
and Andreas Joannes Lascaris, in whom the Platonic philosophy obtained
fresh partisans, and by whose support it began openly to oppose itself
to that of Aristotle. Between the Greek and Italian professors a spirit
of emulation was kindled that operated most favourably on the cause of
letters. Public schools were instituted at Florence for the study of
the Greek tongue. The facility of diffusing their labours by means of
the newly discovered art of printing stimulated the learned to fresh
exertions; and in a few years the cities of Italy vied with each other in
the number and elegance of works produced from the press.

_Last Years of Cosmo_

Towards the latter period of his life, a great part of the time that
Cosmo could withdraw from the administration of public affairs, was
passed at his seats at Careggi and Caffaggiolo, where he applied himself
to the cultivation of his farms, from which he derived no inconsiderable
revenue. But his happiest hours were devoted to the study of letters and
philosophy, or passed in the company and conversation of learned men.
When he retired at intervals to his seat at Careggi, he was generally
accompanied by Ficino, where, after having been his protector, he
became his pupil in the study of the Platonic philosophy. For his use,
Ficino began those laborious translations of the works of Plato and his
followers which were afterwards completed and published in the lifetime
and by the liberality of Lorenzo. Amongst the letters of Ficino is one
from his truly venerable patron, which bespeaks most forcibly the turn
of his mind, and his earnest desire of acquiring knowledge, even at his
advanced period of life.

“Yesterday,” says he, “I arrived at Careggi--not so much for the purpose
of improving my fields as myself. Let me see you, Marsilio, as soon as
possible, and forget not to bring with you the book of our favourite
Plato, _De summo bono_, which I presume, according to your promise, you
have ere this translated into Latin; for there is no employment to which
I so ardently devote myself as to find out the true road to happiness.
Come then, and fail not to bring with you the Orphean lyre.” Whatever
might be the proficiency of Cosmo in the mysteries of his favourite
philosopher, there is reason to believe that he applied those doctrines
and precepts which furnished the litigious disputants of the age with
a plentiful source of contention, to the purposes of real life and
practical improvement. Notwithstanding his active and useful life, he
often regretted the hours he had lost. “Midas was not more sparing of his
money,” says Ficino,[l] “than Cosmo was of his time.”

The wealth and influence that Cosmo had acquired had long entitled him
to rank with the most powerful princes of Italy, with whom he might
have formed connections by the intermarriage of his children; but being
apprehensive that such measures might give rise to suspicions that he
entertained designs inimical to the freedom of the state, he rather chose
to increase his interest among the citizens of Florence by the marriage
of his children into the most distinguished families of that place.
Piero, his eldest son, married Lucretia Tornabuoni, by whom he had two
sons--Lorenzo, born on the first day of January, 1448, and Giuliano, born
in the year 1453. Piero had also two daughters, Nannina, who married
Bernardo Rucellai, and Bianca, who became the wife of Gulielmo de’ Pazzi.
Giovanni, the younger son of Cosmo, espoused Cornelia de’ Alessandri,
by whom he had a son who died very young. Giovanni himself did not long
survive. He died in the year 1461, at forty-two years of age. Living
under the shade of paternal authority, his name scarcely occurs in the
pages of history; but the records of literature bear testimony that in
his disposition and studies he did not derogate from the reputation of
that characteristic attachment to men of learning by which his family was
invariably distinguished.

Besides his legitimate offspring, Cosmo left also a natural son,
Carlo de’ Medici, whom he liberally educated, and who compensated the
disadvantages of his birth by the respectability of his life. The
manners of the times might be alleged in extenuation of a circumstance
apparently inconsistent with the gravity of the character of Cosmo
de’ Medici; but Cosmo himself disclaimed such apology, and whilst he
acknowledged his youthful indiscretion, made amends to society for the
breach of a salutary regulation, by attending to the morals and the
welfare of his illegitimate descendant. Under his countenance, Carlo
became proposto of Prato, and one of the apostolic notaries; and as his
general residence was at Rome, he was frequently resorted to by his
father and brothers for his advice and assistance in procuring ancient
manuscripts and other valuable remains of antiquity.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN CAPTAIN, FIFTEENTH CENTURY]

The death of Giovanni de’ Medici, on whom Cosmo had placed his chief
expectations, and the weak state of health that Piero experienced, which
rendered him unfit for the exertions of public life in so turbulent
a place as Florence, raised great apprehensions in Cosmo that at his
decease the splendour of his family would close. These reflections
embittered the repose of his latter days. A short time before his death,
being carried through the apartments of his palace, after having recently
lost his son, he exclaimed with a sigh, “This is too great a house for
so small a family.” These apprehensions were in some degree realised by
the infirmities under which Piero laboured during the few years in which
he held the direction of the republic; but the talents of Lorenzo soon
dispelled this temporary gloom, and exalted his family to a degree of
reputation and splendour, of which it is probable that Cosmo himself had
scarcely formed an idea.[d]

While Cosmo de’ Medici thus fixed the public attention by his private
life, Neri Capponi gained the suffrages of the people by his public
conduct. Charged, as ambassador, with every difficult negotiation--in
war, with every hazardous enterprise--he participated in all the
brilliant successes of the Florentines, as well during the domination of
the Albizzi as during that of the Medici. From the year 1434 to 1455, in
which Neri Capponi died, these two chiefs of the republic had six times
assembled the parliament to make a balia; and, availing themselves of its
authority, which was above the law, they obtained the exile of all their
enemies, and filled the balloting purses of the magistracy with the names
of their own partisans, to the exclusion of all others. It appears that
all the efforts of their administration were directed towards calming the
passions of the public, and maintaining peace without, as well as repose
within, the state. They had, in fact, succeeded in preventing Florence
from being troubled with new factions, or engaged in new wars; but they
drew on the republic all the evils attending an aristocratic government.
Medici and Capponi had not been able to find men who would sacrifice
the liberties of their country without allowing them to gratify their
baser passions. These two heads of the republic, therefore, suffered
their subordinate agents to divide among themselves all the little
governments of the subject cities, and every lucrative employment;
and these men, not satisfied with this first injustice, made unequal
partitions of the taxes, increasing them on the poor, lowering them on
the rich, and exempting themselves. At last they began to sell their
protection, as well with respect to the tribunals as the councils; favour
silenced justice; and, in the midst of peace and apparent prosperity,
the Florentines felt their republic, undermined by secret corruption,
hastening to ruin.

[Sidenote: [1455-1464 A.D.]]

When Neri Capponi died, the council refused to call a new parliament to
replace the balia, whose power expired on the 1st of July, 1455. It was
the aristocracy itself, comprehending all the creatures of Cosmo de’
Medici, that, from jealousy of his domination, wished to return to the
dominion of the laws. The whole republic was rejoiced, as if liberty had
been regained. The election of the signoria was again made fairly by
lot--the _catasto_ was revised, the contributions were again equitably
apportioned, the tribunals ceased to listen to the recommendations of
those who, till then, had made a traffic of retributive justice. The
aristocracy, seeing that clients no longer flocked to their houses with
hands full, began to perceive that their jealousy of Cosmo de’ Medici
had only injured themselves. Cosmo, with his immense fortune, was just
as much respected as before; the people were intoxicated with joy to
find themselves again free; but the aristocracy felt themselves weak
and abandoned. They endeavoured to convoke a parliament without Cosmo;
but he baffled their efforts, the longer to enjoy their humiliation. He
began to fear, however, that the Florentines might once more acquire a
taste for liberty; and when Lucas Pitti, rich, powerful, and bold, was
named gonfalonier, in July, 1458, he agreed with him to reimpose the
yoke on the Florentines. Pitti assembled the parliament; but not till he
had filled all the avenues of the public square with soldiers or armed
peasants. The people, menaced and trembling within this circle, consented
to name a new balia, more violent and tyrannical than any of the
preceding. It was composed of 352 persons, to whom was delegated all the
power of the republic. They exiled a great number of the citizens who had
shown the most attachment to liberty, and they even put some to death.[e]

Cosmo now approached the period of his mortal existence, but the
faculties of his mind yet remained unimpaired. About twenty days before
his death, when his strength was visibly on the decline, he entered into
conversation with Ficino, and whilst the faint beams of a setting sun
seemed to accord with his situation and his feelings, began to lament the
miseries of life and the imperfections inseparable from human nature.
As he continued his discourse, his sentiments and his views became more
elevated, and from bewailing the lot of humanity, he began to exult
in the prospect of that happier state towards which he felt himself
approaching. Ficino replied by citing corresponding sentiments from the
Athenian sages, and particularly from Xenocrates; and the last task
imposed by Cosmo on his philosophic attendant was to translate from the
Greek the treatise of that author on death. Having prepared his mind to
wait with composure the awful event, his next concern was the welfare of
his surviving family, to whom he was desirous of imparting, in a solemn
manner, the result of the experience of a long and active life. Calling
into his chamber his wife Contessina, and his son Piero, he entered into
a narrative of all his public transactions; he gave a full account of
his extensive mercantile connections, and adverted to the state of his
domestic concerns. To Piero he recommended a strict attention to the
education of his sons. He requested that his funeral might be conducted
with as much privacy as possible, and concluded his paternal exhortations
by declaring his willingness to submit to the disposal of providence
whenever he should be called upon. These admonitions were not lost on
Piero, who communicated by letter to Lorenzo and Giuliano the impression
which they had made upon his own mind. At the same time, sensible of
his own infirmities, he exhorted them to consider themselves not as
children but as men, seeing that circumstances rendered it necessary
to put their abilities to an early proof. “A physician,” says Piero,
“is hourly expected to arrive from Milan, but, for my own part, I place
my confidence in God.” Either the physician did not arrive, or Piero’s
distrust of him was well founded, for, about six days afterwards, being
the first day of August, 1464, Cosmo died, at the age of seventy-five
years, deeply lamented by a great majority of the citizens of Florence,
whom he had firmly attached to his interest, and who feared for the
safety of the city from the dissensions that were likely to ensue.

_Roscoe’s Estimate of Cosmo_

The character of Cosmo de’ Medici exhibits a combination of virtues
and endowments rarely to be found united in the same person. If in his
public works he was remarkable for his magnificence, he was no less
conspicuous for his prudence in private life. Whilst in the character
of chief of the Florentine Republic he supported a constant intercourse
with the sovereigns of Europe, his conduct in Florence was divested
of all ostentation, and neither in his retinue, his friendships, nor
his conversation, could he be distinguished from any other respectable
citizen. He well knew the jealous temper of the Florentines, and
preferred the real enjoyment of authority to that open assumption of it
which could only have been regarded as a perpetual insult by those whom
he permitted to gratify their own pride in the reflection that they were
the equals of Cosmo de’ Medici.

In affording protection to the arts of architecture, painting, and
sculpture, Cosmo set the great example to those who by their rank and
their riches could alone afford them effectual aid. The countenance
shown by him to those arts was not of that kind which their professors
generally experience from the great; it was not conceded as a bounty,
nor received as a favour, but appeared in the friendship and equality
that subsisted between the artist and his patron. In the erection of the
numerous public buildings in which Cosmo expended incredible sums of
money, he principally availed himself of the assistance of Michellozzo
Michellozzi and Filippo Brunelleschi--the first of whom was a man of
talents, the latter of genius. Soon after his return from banishment,
Cosmo engaged these two artists to form the plan of a mansion for his
own residence. Brunelleschi gave scope to his invention, and produced
the design of a palace which might have suited the proudest sovereign
in Europe; but Cosmo was led by that prudence which, in his personal
accommodation, regulated all his conduct, to prefer the plan of
Michellozzi, which united extent with simplicity, and elegance with
convenience. With the consciousness, Brunelleschi possessed also the
irritability of genius, and in a fit of vexation he destroyed a design
which he unjustly considered as disgraced by its not being carried into
execution. Having completed his dwelling, Cosmo indulged his taste in
ornamenting it with the most precious remains of ancient art, and in
the purchase of vases, statues, busts, gems, and medals, expended no
inconsiderable sum.

Nor was he less attentive to the merits of those artists whom his native
place had recently produced. With Masaccio, a better style of painting
had arisen; and the cold and formal manner of Giotto and his disciples
had given way to a more natural and expressive composition. In Cosmo de’
Medici this rising artist found his most liberal patron and protector.
Some of the works of Masaccio were executed in the chapel of the
Brancacci, where they were held in such estimation that the place was
regarded as a school of study by the most eminent artists who immediately
succeeded him. Even the celebrated Michelangelo, when observing these
paintings many years afterwards, in company with his honest and
loquacious friend Vasari, did not hesitate to express his decided
approbation of their merits. The reputation of Masaccio was emulated
by his disciple, Filippo Lippi, who executed for Cosmo and his friends
many celebrated pictures, of which Vasari[g] has given a minute account.
Cosmo, however, found no small difficulty in controlling the temper and
regulating the eccentricities of this extraordinary character. If the
efforts of these early masters did not reach the true end of the art,
they afforded considerable assistance towards it; and whilst Masaccio and
Filippo decorated with their admired productions the altars of churches
and the apartments of princes, Donatello gave to marble a proportion of
form, a vivacity of expression, to which his contemporaries imagined
that nothing more was wanting; Brunelleschi raised the great dome of the
cathedral of Florence; and Ghiberti cast in bronze the stupendous doors
of the church of St. John, which Michelangelo deemed worthy to be the
gates of paradise.

[Illustration: A FLORENTINE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY]

In his person, Cosmo was tall; in his youth, he possessed the advantage
of a prepossessing countenance; what age had taken from his comeliness
it had added to his dignity; and in his latter years, his appearance was
so truly venerable as to have been the frequent subject of panegyric.
His manner was grave and complacent, but upon many occasions he gave
sufficient proofs that this did not arise from a want of talents for
sarcasm; and the fidelity of the Florentine historians has preserved many
of his shrewd observations and remarks. When Rinaldo de’ Albizzi, who
was then in exile, and meditated an attack upon his native place, sent a
message to Cosmo, importing that the hen would shortly hatch, he replied,
“She will hatch with an ill grace out of her own nest.” On another
occasion, when his adversaries gave him to understand that they were
not sleeping, “I believe it,” said Cosmo, “I have spoiled their sleep.”
“Of what colour is my hair?” said Cosmo, uncovering his head to the
ambassadors of Venice, who came with a complaint against the Florentines.
“White,” they replied. “It will not be long,” said Cosmo, “before that
of your senators will be so, too.” Shortly before his death, his wife
inquiring why he closed his eyes, “That I may accustom them to it,” was
his reply.

If, from considering the private character of Cosmo, we attend to his
conduct as the moderator and director of the Florentine Republic, our
admiration of his abilities will increase with the extent of the theatre
upon which he had to act. So important were his mercantile concerns,
that they often influenced in a very remarkable degree the politics of
Italy. When Alfonso, king of Naples, leagued with the Venetians against
Florence, Cosmo called in such immense debts from those places as
deprived them of resources for carrying on the war. During the contest
between the houses of York and Lancaster, one of his agents in England
was resorted to by Edward IV for a sum of money, which was furnished to
such an extraordinary amount, that it might almost be considered as the
means of supporting that monarch on the throne, and was repaid when his
successes enabled him to fulfil his engagement. The alliance of Cosmo
was sedulously courted by the princes of Italy; and it was remarked that
by a happy kind of fatality, whoever united their interests with his,
was always enabled either to repress or to overcome their adversaries.
By his assistance the republic of Venice resisted the united attacks
of Filippo, duke of Milan, and of the French nation; but when deprived
of his support, the Venetians were no longer able to withstand their
enemies. Whatever difficulties Cosmo had to encounter, at home or abroad,
they generally terminated in the acquisition of additional honour to his
country and to himself. The esteem and gratitude of his fellow-citizens
were fully shown a short time before his death, when by a public decree
he was honoured with the title of _Pater Patriæ_, Father of his Country,
an appellation which was inscribed on his tomb, and which, as it was
founded on real merit, has ever since been attached to the name of Cosmo
de’ Medici.[d]

“With all his faults,” says Von Reumont,[c] “Cosmo was certainly a
remarkable man. More than anyone else he contributed to keep alive not
only the forms but much of the spirit of civil equality and dignity,
after it had become impossible to avoid a party government leading sooner
or later to the preponderance of one family.”

Marsilio Ficino[l] described Cosmo as “a man intelligent above all
others, pious before God, just and high-minded towards his fellow-men,
modest in everything that concerned himself, active in his private
affairs, but still more careful and prudent in public ones. He did not
live for himself alone,” adds the eulogist, “but for the service of God
and his country.”

COSMO’S SUCCESSOR

During the later years of Cosmo’s life Lucas Pitti came to regard
himself as the future chief of the state. It was about this time that
he undertook the building of that magnificent palace which formed the
residence of the grand dukes. The republican equality was not only
offended by the splendour of this regal dwelling, but the construction of
it afforded Pitti an occasion for marking his contempt of liberty and the
laws. He made of this building an asylum for all fugitives from justice,
whom no public officer dared pursue when once he took part in the labour.
At the same time individuals, as well as communities, who would obtain
some favour from the republic, knew that the only means of being heard
was to offer Lucas Pitti some precious wood or marble to be employed in
the construction of his palace.

[Sidenote: [1464-1466 A.D.]]

When Cosmo de’ Medici died, on the 1st of August, 1464, Lucas Pitti felt
himself released from the control imposed by the virtue and moderation
of that great citizen. Cosmo’s son, Piero de’ Medici, then forty-eight
years of age, supposed that he should succeed to the administration
of the republic, as he had succeeded to the wealth of his father, by
hereditary right; but the state of his health did not admit of his
attending regularly to business, or of his inspiring his rivals with much
fear. To diminish the weight of affairs which oppressed him, he resolved
on withdrawing a part of his immense fortune from commerce, recalling
all his loans made in partnership with other merchants, and laying out
this money in land. But this unexpected demand of considerable capital
occasioned a fatal shock to the commerce of Florence, at the same time
that it alienated all the debtors of the house of Medici, and deprived
it of much of its popularity. The death of Sforza also, which took place
on the 8th of March, 1466, deprived the Medicean party of its firmest
support abroad. Francesco Sforza, whether as condottiere or duke of
Milan, had always been the devoted friend of Cosmo. His son, Galeazzo
Sforza, who succeeded him, declared his resolution of persisting in
the same alliance; but the talents, the character, and, above all, the
glory of his father, were not to be found in him. Galeazzo seemed to
believe that the supreme power which he inherited brought him the right
of indulging every pleasure--of abandoning himself to every vice without
restraint. He dissipated by his ostentation the finances of the duchy of
Milan; he stained by his libertinism the honour of almost all the noble
families; and he alienated the people by his cruelty.

The friends of liberty at Florence soon perceived that Lucas Pitti and
Piero de’ Medici no longer agreed together; and they recovered courage
when the latter proposed to the council the calling of a parliament,
in order to renew the balia, the power of which expired on the 1st of
September, 1465: his proposition was rejected. The magistracy began again
to be drawn by lot from among the members of the party victorious in
1434. This return of liberty, however, was but of short duration. Pitti
and Medici were reconciled; they agreed to call a parliament, and to
direct it in concert; to intimidate it, they surrounded it with foreign
troops.

But Medici, on the nomination of the balia, on the 2nd of September,
1466, found means of admitting his own partisans only, and excluding
all those of Lucas Pitti. The citizens who had shown any zeal for
liberty were all exiled; several were subjected to enormous fines. Five
commissioners, called _accoppiatori_, were charged to open, every two
months, the purse from which the signoria were to be drawn, and choose
from thence the names of the gonfalonier and eight priori, who were to
enter office. These magistrates were so dependent on Piero de’ Medici,
that the gonfalonier went frequently to his palace to take his orders,
and afterwards published them as the result of his deliberations with his
colleagues, whom he had not even consulted. Lucas Pitti ruined himself
in building his palace. His talents were judged to bear no proportion to
his ambition; the friends of liberty, as well as those of Medici, equally
detested him, and he remained deprived of all power in a city which he
had so largely contributed to enslave.

Italy became filled with Florentine emigrants; every revolution, even
every convocation of parliament, was followed by the exile of many
citizens. The party of the Albizzi had been exiled in 1434; but the
Alberti, who had vanquished it, were, in turn, banished in 1466; and
among the members of both parties were to be found almost all the
historical names of Florence--those names which Europe had learned to
respect, either for immense credit in commerce, or for the lustre which
literature and the arts shed on them.

[Sidenote: [1466-1470 A.D.]]

Italy was astonished at the exile of so many illustrious persons. At
Florence, the citizens who escaped proscription trembled to see despotism
established in their republic; but the lower orders were in general
contented, and made no attempt to second Bartolommeo Colleoni, when he
entered Tuscany, in 1467, at the head of the Florentine emigrants, who
had taken him into their pay. Commerce prospered; manufactures were
carried on with great activity; high wages supported in comfort all who
lived by their labour; and the Medici entertained them with shows and
festivals, keeping them in a sort of perpetual carnival, amidst which the
people soon lost all thought of liberty.

Piero de’ Medici was always in too bad a state of health to exercise in
person the sovereignty he had usurped over his country; he left it to
five or six citizens who reigned in his name. Tommaso Soderini, Andrea
de’ Pazzi, Luigi Guicciardini, Matteo Palmieri, and Pietro Minerbetti,
were the real chiefs of the state. They not only transacted all business,
but appropriated to themselves all the profit; they sold their influence
and credit; they gratified their cupidity or their vengeance: but
they took care not to act in their own names, or to pledge their own
responsibility; they left that to the house of Medici. Piero, during the
latter months of his life, perceived the disorder and corruption of his
agents. He was afflicted to see his memory thus stained, and he addressed
them the severest reprimands; he even entered into correspondence with
the emigrants, whom he thought of recalling, when he died, on the 2nd of
December, 1469. His two sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano, the elder of whom was
not twenty-one years of age, were presented by Tommaso Soderini to the
foreign ambassadors, to the magistrates, and to the first citizens of the
ruling faction; which last he warned, that the only means of maintaining
their party was to preserve the respect of all for its chiefs. But the
two younger Medici, given up to all the pleasures of the age, had yet
no ambition. The power of the state remained in the hands of the five
citizens who had exercised it under Piero.

PIERO’S SONS AND THE CONSPIRACIES

Italy had reached the fatal period at which liberty can no longer be
saved by a noble resistance, or recovered by open force. There remained
only the dangerous and, most commonly, the fatal resource of conspiracy.
So far from experiencing the repugnance we now feel to assassination as a
means of delivering our country, men of the fifteenth century perceived
honour in a murder, virtue in the sacrifice, and historic grandeur in
conspiracy. Danger alone stopped them; but that danger must be terrible.
Tyrants, feeling themselves at war with the universe, were always on
their guard; and as they owed their safety only to terror, the punishment
which they inflicted, if victorious, was extreme in its atrocity. Yet
these terrors did not discourage the enemies of the existing order,
whether royalist or republican. Never had there been more frequent or
more daring conspiracies than in this century. The ill success of some
never deterred others from immediately treading in their steps.

The first plot was directed against the Medici. Bernardo Nardi, one of
the Florentine citizens, who had been exiled from his country in the time
of Piero de’ Medici, accompanied by about a hundred of his partisans,
surprised the gate of Prato, on the 6th of April, 1470. He made himself
master of the public palace, and arrested the Florentine podesta; he
took possession of the citadel and afterwards, traversing the streets,
called on the people to join him, and fight for liberty. He intended to
make this small town the stronghold of the republican party, whence to
begin his attack on the Medici. But although he had succeeded by surprise
in making himself master of the town, the inhabitants remained deaf
to his voice, and not one answered his call--not one detested tyranny
sufficiently to combat it, at the peril of the last extremity of human
suffering. The friends of the government, seeing that Nardi remained
alone, at last took arms, attacked him on all sides, and soon overpowered
him by numbers. Nardi was made prisoner, led to Florence, and there
beheaded with six of his accomplices; twelve others were hanged at Prato.

[Illustration: STREET COSTUME OF AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, FIFTEENTH CENTURY]

[Sidenote: [1476 A.D.]]

In 1476 a conspiracy was formed, at Milan, against Galeazzo Sforza, whose
yoke became insupportable to all who had any elevation of soul. There
was no crime of which that false and ferocious man was not believed
to be capable. Among other crimes, he was accused of having poisoned
his mother. It was remarked of him that, enjoying the spectacle of
astonishment and despair, he always preferred to strike the most suddenly
and cruelly those whom he had given most reason to rely on his friendship.

Not satisfied with making the most distinguished women of his states the
victims of his seduction or his violence, he took pleasure in publishing
their shame--in exposing it to their brothers or husbands. He not
unfrequently gave them up to prostitution. His extravagant pomp exhausted
his finances, which he afterwards recruited by the most cruel extortion
on the people. He took pleasure in inventing new and most atrocious forms
of capital punishment; even that of burying his victims alive was not the
most cruel. At last, three young nobles, of families who had courageously
resisted the usurpation of Francesco Sforza, and who had themselves
experienced the injustice and outrages of his son, resolved to deliver
their country from this monster; not doubting that, when he had fallen,
the Milanese would joyfully unite in substituting a free government for a
tyranny.

Girolamo Olgiati, Carlo Visconti, and Andrea Lampugnani resolved, in
concert, to trust only to themselves, without admitting one other person
into their secret. Their enthusiasm had been excited by the lessons of
their literary instructor, Colas di Montano, who continually set before
them the grandeur of the ancient republics, and the glory of those who
had delivered them from tyranny. Determined on killing the duke, they
long exercised themselves in the handling of the dagger, to be more sure
of striking him, each in the precise part of the tyrant’s body assigned
to him. Animated with a religious zeal, not less ardent than their
republican enthusiasm, they prepared themselves by prayer, by vows to
St. Stephen, and by the assistance of the mass, for the act which they
were about to perform. They made choice of the 26th of December, 1476,
St. Stephen’s Day, on which they knew that the duke Galeazzo would go in
state to the church of the saint. They waited for him in that church;
and when they saw him advance between the ambassadors of Ferrara and
Mantua, they respectfully approached him, their caps in hand. Feigning to
keep off the crowd, they surrounded him, and struck him all at the same
instant, in the midst of his guards and courtiers. Galeazzo Sforza fell
dead under their weapons; and the crowd which filled the church saw the
tumult and heard the cries, without comprehending the cause.

[Sidenote: [1476-1478 A.D.]]

The three conspirators endeavoured to escape from the church, to call
the people to arms and liberty; but the first sentiments which they
encountered were astonishment and terror. The guards of the duke drew
their swords only to avenge him. Lampugnani, in attempting to avoid them,
got entangled in the trains of the kneeling women, was thrown down, and
killed by an esquire of Galeazzo; a few steps from him, Visconti also was
put to death by the guards. But Olgiati had the misfortune to escape,
in this first moment, from all who pursued him; and, running through
the streets, called loudly to arms and liberty; not one person answered
the call. He afterwards sought to conceal himself, but was discovered,
seized, and put to the most excruciating torture. In the interval between
that infliction and his death, he wrote or dictated the narrative
demanded of him, and which has been handed down to us. It is composed
in a strain of the noblest enthusiasm, with a deep religious feeling,
with an ardent love of liberty, and with the firm persuasion that he had
performed a good action. He was again delivered to the executioner to
have his flesh torn with red-hot pincers. At the time of his martyrdom he
was only twenty-two years of age.[e]

_The Pazzi Conspiracy_

The public agitation excited by the assassination of the duke of Milan
had scarcely subsided, before an event took place at Florence of a much
more atrocious nature, inasmuch as the objects destined to destruction
had not afforded a pretext, in any degree plausible, for such an attempt.
Accordingly, we have now to enter on a transaction that has seldom been
mentioned without emotions of the strongest horror and detestation; and
which, as has justly been observed, is an incontrovertible proof of the
practical atheism of the times in which it took place--a transaction in
which a pope, a cardinal, an archbishop, and several other ecclesiastics
associated themselves with a band of ruffians, to destroy two men who
were an honour to their age and country; and purposed to perpetrate their
crime at a season of hospitality, in the sanctuary of a Christian church,
and at the very moment of the elevation of the Host, when the audience
bowed down before it, and the assassins were presumed to be in the
immediate presence of their God.

At the head of this conspiracy were Sixtus IV and his nephew, Girolamo
Riario. Raffaello Riario, the nephew of this Girolamo, who, although
a young man then pursuing his studies, had lately been raised to the
dignity of cardinal, was rather an instrument than an accomplice in the
scheme. The enmity of Sixtus to Lorenzo had for some time been apparent,
and if not occasioned by the assistance which Lorenzo had afforded to
Niccolo Vitelli, and other independent nobles, whose dominions Sixtus
had either threatened or attacked, was certainly increased by it. The
destruction of the Medici appeared, therefore, to Sixtus as the removal
of an obstacle that thwarted all his views, and by the accomplishment of
which the small surrounding states would soon become an easy prey. There
is, however, great reason to believe that the pope did not confine his
ambition to these subordinate governments, but that if the conspiracy
had succeeded to his wish, he meant to have grasped at the dominion of
Florence itself. The alliance lately formed between the Florentines,
the Venetians, and the duke of Milan, which was principally effected by
Lorenzo de’ Medici, and by which the pope found himself prevented from
disturbing the peace of Italy, was an additional and powerful motive of
resentment. One of the first proofs of the displeasure of the pope was
his depriving Lorenzo of the office of treasurer of the papal see, which
he gave to the Pazzi, a Florentine family, who, as well as the Medici,
had a public bank at Rome, and who afterwards became the coadjutors of
Sixtus in the execution of his treacherous purpose.

The conspiracy, of which Sixtus and his nephew were the real instigators,
was first agitated at Rome, where the intercourse between the count
Girolamo Riario and Francesco de’ Pazzi, in consequence of the office
held by the latter, afforded them an opportunity of communicating to each
other their common jealousy of the power of the Medici, and their desire
of depriving them of their influence in Florence; in which event it is
highly probable that the Pazzi were to have exercised the chief authority
in the city, under the patronage, if not under the avowed dominion,
of the papal see. The principal agent engaged in the undertaking was
Francesco Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, to which rank he had lately been
promoted by Sixtus, in opposition to the wishes of the Medici, who had
for some time endeavoured to prevent him from exercising his episcopal
functions. If it be allowed that the unfavourable character given him by
Politian is exaggerated, it is generally agreed that his qualities were
the reverse of those which ought to have been the recommendations to such
high preferment. The other conspirators were Jacopo Salviati, brother of
the archbishop; Jacopo Poggio, one of the sons of the celebrated Poggio
Bracciolini, and who, like all the other sons of that eminent scholar,
had obtained no small share of literary reputation; Bernardo Bandini,
a daring libertine, rendered desperate by the consequences of his
excesses; Giovan Battista Montesicco, who had distinguished himself by
his military talents as one of the condottieri of the armies of the pope;
Antonio Maffei, a priest of Volterra, and Stefano de Bagnone, one of the
apostolic scribes, with several others of inferior note.

In the arrangement of their plan, which appears to have been concerted
with great precaution and secrecy, the conspirators soon discovered that
the dangers which they had to encounter were not so likely to arise
from the difficulty of the attempt, as from the subsequent resentment
of the Florentines, a great majority of whom were strongly attached to
the Medici. Hence it became necessary to provide a military force, the
assistance of which might be equally requisite whether the enterprise
proved abortive or successful. By the influence of the pope, the king of
Naples, who was then in alliance with him, and on one of whose sons he
had recently bestowed a cardinal’s hat, was also induced to countenance
the attempt.

These preliminaries being adjusted, Girolamo wrote to his nephew, the
cardinal Riario, then at Pisa, ordering him to obey whatever directions
he might receive from the archbishop. A body of two thousand men were
destined to approach by different routes towards Florence, so as to be in
readiness at the time appointed for striking the blow.

Shortly afterwards, the archbishop requested the presence of the cardinal
at Florence, whither he immediately repaired, and took up his residence
at a seat of the Pazzi, about a mile from the city. It seems to have been
the intention of the conspirators to effect their purpose at Fiesole,
where Lorenzo then had his country residence, to which they supposed that
he would invite the cardinal and his attendants. Nor were they deceived
in this conjecture, for Lorenzo prepared a magnificent entertainment on
this occasion; but the absence of Giuliano, on account of indisposition,
obliged the conspirators to postpone the attempt. Being thus disappointed
in their hopes, another plan was now to be adopted; and on further
deliberation it was resolved that the assassination should take place
on the succeeding Sunday, in the church of the Reparata, since called
Santa Maria del Fiore, and that the signal for execution should be the
elevation of the Host. At the same moment, the archbishop and others
of the conspirators were to seize upon the palace, or residence of the
magistrates, whilst the office of Jacopo de’ Pazzi was to endeavour, by
the cry of “Liberty!” to incite the citizens to revolt.

The immediate assassination of Giuliano was committed to Francesco de’
Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, and that of Lorenzo had been intrusted to the
sole hand of Montesicco. This office he had willingly undertaken whilst
he understood that it was to be executed in a private dwelling, but he
shrank from the idea of polluting the house of God with so heinous a
crime. Two ecclesiastics were therefore selected for the commission of a
deed from which the soldier was deterred by conscientious motives. These
were Stefano da Bagnone, the apostolic scribe, and Antonio Maffei.

The young cardinal having expressed a desire to attend divine service
in the church of the Reparata, on the ensuing Sunday, being the 26th
day of April, 1478, Lorenzo invited him and his suite to his house in
Florence. He accordingly came with a large retinue, supporting the united
characters of cardinal and apostolic legate, and was received by Lorenzo
with that splendour and hospitality with which he was always accustomed
to entertain men of high rank and consequence. Giuliano did not appear, a
circumstance that alarmed the conspirators, whose arrangements would not
admit of longer delay. They soon, however, learned that he intended to be
present at the church. The service was already begun, and the cardinal
had taken his seat, when Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bandini, observing that
Giuliano was not yet arrived, left the church and went to his house, in
order to insure and hasten his attendance. Giuliano accompanied them,
and as he walked between them they threw their arms round him with the
familiarity of intimate friends, but in fact to discover whether he had
any armour under his dress; possibly conjecturing, from his long delay,
that he had suspected their purpose. At the same time, by their freedom
and jocularity, they endeavoured to obviate any apprehensions which he
might entertain from such a proceeding. The conspirators, having taken
their stations near their intended victims, waited with impatience for
the appointed signal. The bell rang, the priest raised the consecrated
wafer, the people bowed before it, and at the same instant Bandini
plunged a short dagger into the breast of Giuliano.

On receiving the wound, he took a few hasty steps and fell, when
Francesco de’ Pazzi rushed upon him with incredible fury, and stabbed him
in different parts of his body, continuing to repeat his strokes even
after he was apparently dead. Such was the violence of his rage that
he wounded himself deeply in the thigh. The priests who had undertaken
the murder of Lorenzo were not equally successful. An ill-directed blow
from Maffei, which was aimed at the throat, but took place behind the
neck, rather roused him to his defence than disabled him. He immediately
threw off his cloak, and holding it up as a shield in his left hand, with
his right he drew his sword, and repelled his assailants. Perceiving
that their purpose was defeated, the two ecclesiastics, after having
wounded one of Lorenzo’s attendants who had interposed to defend him,
endeavoured to save themselves by flight. At the same moment, Bandini,
his dagger streaming with the blood of Giuliano, rushed towards Lorenzo;
but meeting in his way with Francesco Nori, a person in the service of
the Medici, in whom they placed great confidence, he stabbed him with a
wound instantaneously mortal. At the approach of Bandini, the friends
of Lorenzo encircled him, and hurried him into the sacristy, where
Politian and others closed the doors, which were of brass. Apprehensions
being entertained that the weapon which had wounded him was poisoned,
a young man attached to Lorenzo sucked the wound. A general alarm and
consternation commenced in the church; and such was the tumult that
ensued that it was at first believed that the building was falling in;
but no sooner was it understood that Lorenzo was in danger, than several
of the youth of Florence formed themselves into a body, and receiving him
into the midst of them, conducted him to his house, making a circuitous
turn from the church, lest he should meet with the dead body of his
brother.

[Illustration: PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE]

While these transactions passed in the church, another commotion arose
in the palace, where the archbishop, who had left the church, as agreed
upon before the attack on the Medici, and about thirty of his associates,
attempted to overpower the magistrates, and to possess themselves of the
seat of government. Leaving some of his followers stationed in different
apartments, the archbishop proceeded to an interior chamber, where Cesare
Petrucci, then gonfalonier, and the other magistrates were assembled. No
sooner was the gonfalonier informed of his approach than, out of respect
to his rank, he rose to meet him. Whether the archbishop was disconcerted
by the presence of Petrucci, who was known to be of a resolute character,
of which he had given a striking instance in frustrating the attack of
Bernardo Nardi upon the town of Prato, or whether his courage was not
equal to the undertaking, is uncertain; but instead of intimidating the
magistrates by a sudden attack, he began to inform Petrucci that the pope
had bestowed an employment on his son, of which he had to deliver to him
the credentials. This he did with such hesitation, and in so desultory a
manner, that it was scarcely possible to collect his meaning. Petrucci
also observed that he frequently changed colour, and at times turned
towards the door, as if giving a signal to someone to approach.

Alarmed at his manner, and probably aware of his character, Petrucci
suddenly rushed out of the chamber, and called together the guards and
attendants. By attempting to retreat, the archbishop confessed his guilt.
In pursuing him, Petrucci met with Jacopo Poggio, whom he caught by the
hair, and throwing him on the ground, delivered him into the custody of
his followers. The rest of the magistrates and their attendants seized
upon such arms as the place supplied, and the implements of the kitchen
became formidable weapons in their hands. Having secured the doors of the
palace, they furiously attacked their scattered and intimidated enemies,
who no longer attempted resistance. During this commotion, they were
alarmed by a tumult from without, and perceived from the windows Jacopo
de’ Pazzi, followed by about one hundred soldiers, crying out, “Liberty!”
and exhorting the people to revolt. At the same time they found that the
insurgents had forced the gates of the palace, and that some of them were
entering to defend their companions. The magistrates, however, persevered
in their defence, and repulsing their enemies, secured the gates till a
reinforcement of their friends came to their assistance. Petrucci was now
first informed of the assassination of Giuliano, and the attack made upon
Lorenzo. The relation of this treachery excited his highest indignation.
With the concurrence of the state counsellors, he ordered Jacopo Poggio
to be hung in sight of the populace, out of the palace windows, and
secured the archbishop, with his brother, and the other chiefs of the
conspiracy. Their followers were either slaughtered in the palace, or
thrown half alive through the windows. One only of the whole number
escaped. He was found some days afterwards concealed in the wainscots,
perishing with hunger, and in consideration of his sufferings received
his pardon.

The young cardinal Riario, who had taken refuge at the altar, was
preserved from the rage of the populace by the interference of Lorenzo,
who appeared to give credit to his asseverations that he was ignorant of
the intentions of the conspirators. Ammirato[m] asserts that his fears
had so violent an effect upon him that he never afterwards recovered his
natural complexion. His attendants fell a sacrifice to the resentment of
the citizens. The streets were polluted with the dead bodies and mangled
limbs of the slaughtered. With the head of one of these unfortunate
wretches on a lance, the populace paraded the city, which resounded with
the cry of “_Palle! Palle!_” (Perish the traitors.) Francesco de’ Pazzi,
being found at the house of his uncle, Jacopo, where on account of his
wound he was confined to his bed, was dragged out naked and exhausted
by loss of blood, and being brought to the palace, suffered the same
death as his associate. His punishment was immediately followed by that
of the archbishop, who was hung through the windows of the palace, and
was not allowed even to divest himself of his prelatical robes. The last
moments of Salviati, if we may credit Politian, were marked by a singular
instance of ferocity. Being suspended close to Francesco de’ Pazzi, he
seized the naked body with his teeth, and relaxed not from his hold even
in the agonies of death.

Jacopo de’ Pazzi had escaped from the city during the tumult, but the
day following he was made a prisoner by the neighbouring peasants,
who, regardless of his entreaties to put him to death, brought him to
Florence, and delivered him up to the magistrates. As his guilt was
manifest, his execution was instantaneous, and afforded from the windows
of the palace another spectacle that gratified the resentment of the
enraged multitude. His nephew Renato, who suffered at the same time,
excited in some degree the commiseration of the spectators. Devoted to
his studies, and averse to popular commotions, he had refused to be an
actor in the conspiracy, and his silence was his only crime. The body
of Jacopo had been interred in the church of Santa Croce, and to this
circumstance the superstition of the people attributed an unusual and
incessant fall of rain that succeeded these disturbances. Partaking
in their prejudices, or desirous of gratifying their revenge, the
magistrates ordered his body to be removed without the walls of the
city. The following morning it was again torn from the grave by a great
multitude of children who, in spite of the restrictions of decency and
the interference of some of the inhabitants, after dragging it a long
time through the streets, and treating it with every degree of wanton
opprobrium, threw it into the river Arno. Such was the fate of a man who
had enjoyed the highest honours of the republic, and for his services to
the state had been rewarded with the privileges of the equestrian rank.
The rest of the devoted family were condemned either to imprisonment
or to exile, excepting only Guglielmo de’ Pazzi, who, though not
unsuspected, was first sheltered from the popular fury in the house of
Lorenzo, and was afterwards ordered to remain at his own villa, about
twenty-five miles distant from Florence.

[Sidenote: [1478-1480 A.D.]]

Although most diligent search was made for the priests who had undertaken
the murder of Lorenzo, it was not till the third day after the attempt
that they were discovered, having obtained a shelter in the monastery
of the Benedictine monks. No sooner were they brought from the place of
their concealment, than the populace, after cruelly mutilating them,
put them to death, and with difficulty were prevented from slaughtering
the monks themselves. Montesicco, who had adhered to the cause of the
conspirators, although he had refused to be the active instrument of
their project, was taken a few days afterwards, as he was endeavouring to
save himself by flight, and beheaded, having first made a full confession
of all the circumstances attending the conspiracy, by which it appeared
that the pope was privy to the whole transaction. The punishment of
Bernardo Bandini was longer delayed. He had safely passed the bounds of
Italy, and had taken refuge at length in Constantinople; but the sultan
Muhammed, being apprised of his crime, ordered him to be seized and sent
in chains to Florence, at the same time alleging as the motive of his
conduct the respect which he had for the character of Lorenzo de’ Medici.
He arrived in the month of December in the ensuing year, and met with the
due reward of his treachery. An embassy was sent from Florence to return
thanks to the sultan, in the name of the republic.[d]

LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT IN POWER

The ill success of the conspiracy of the Pazzi strengthened, as always
happens, the government against which it was directed. The Medici had
been content till then to be the first citizens of Florence: from that
time Lorenzo looked upon himself as the prince of the city; and his
friends, in speaking of him, sometimes employed that title. In addressing
him, the epithet of “most magnificent lord” was habitually employed. It
was the mode of addressing the condottieri, and the petty princes who
had no other title. Lorenzo affected in his habits of life an unbounded
liberality, pomp, and splendour, which he believed necessary to make
up for the real rank which he wanted. The Magnificent, his title of
honour, is become, not without reason, his surname with posterity. On
the failure of the conspiracy, he was menaced by all Italy at once.
The pope fulminated a bull against him on the 1st of June, 1478, for
having hanged an archbishop. He demanded that Lorenzo de’ Medici, the
gonfalonier, the priori, and the balia of Eight should be given up to
him, to be punished according to the enormity of their crime. At the
same time he published a league, which he had formed against them with
Ferdinand of Naples and the republic of Siena. He gave the command of
the army of the league to Federigo di Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, and
ordered him to advance into Tuscany.[e]

The Florentines now prepared for war, by raising money and collecting
as large a force as possible. Being in league with the duke of Milan
and the Venetians, they applied to both for assistance. As the pope had
proved himself a wolf rather than a shepherd, to avoid being devoured
under false accusations they justified their cause with all available
arguments, and filled Italy with accounts of the treachery practised
against their government, exposing the impiety and injustice of the
pontiff, and assured the world that the pontificate which he had wickedly
attained he would as impiously fill.

The two armies, under the command of Alfonso, eldest son of Ferrando
and duke of Calabria, who had as his general Federigo, count of Urbino,
entered the Chianti, by permission of the Sienese, who sided with the
enemy, occupied Radda with many other fortresses, and having plundered
the country, besieged the Castellina. The Florentines were greatly
alarmed at these attacks, being almost destitute of forces, and finding
their friends slow to assist; for though the duke sent them aid, the
Venetians denied all obligation to support the Florentines in their
private quarrels, since the animosities of individuals were not to be
defended at the public expense. The Florentines, in order to induce the
Venetians to take a more correct view of the case, sent Tommaso Soderini
as their ambassador to the senate, and, in the meantime, engaged forces,
and appointed Ercole, marquis of Ferrara, to the command of their army.
Whilst these preparations were being made, the Castellina were so hard
pressed by the enemy, that the inhabitants, despairing of relief,
surrendered, after having sustained a siege of forty-two days.

The enemy then directed their course towards Arezzo, and encamped before
San Savino. The Florentine army, being now in order, went to meet them,
and having approached within three miles, caused such annoyance that
Federigo d’Urbino demanded a truce for a few days, which was granted, but
proved so disadvantageous to the Florentines that those who had made the
request were astonished at having obtained it; for, had it been refused,
they would have been compelled to retire in disgrace. Having gained these
few days to recruit themselves, as soon as they were expired they took
the castle in the presence of their enemies. Winter being now come, the
forces of the pope and the king retired for convenient quarters to the
Sienese territory. The Florentines also withdrew to a more commodious
situation, and the marquis of Ferrara, having done little for himself and
less for others, returned to his own territories.

At this time, ambassadors came to Florence from the emperor, the king of
France, and the king of Hungary, who were sent by their princes to the
pontiff. They solicited the Florentines also to send ambassadors to the
pope, and promised to use their utmost exertion to obtain for them an
advantageous peace. The Florentines did not refuse to make trial, both
for the sake of publicly justifying their proceedings, and because they
were really desirous of peace. Accordingly, the ambassadors were sent,
but returned without coming to any conclusion of their differences. The
Florentines, to avail themselves of the influence of the king of France,
since they were attacked by one part of the Italians and abandoned
by the other, sent to him as their ambassador Donato Acciajuoli, a
distinguished Latin and Greek scholar, whose ancestors had always ranked
high in the city; but whilst on his journey he died at Milan. To relieve
his surviving family and pay a deserved tribute to his memory, he was
honourably buried at the public expense, provision was made for his sons,
and suitable marriage portions given to his daughters, and Guid’ Antonio
Vespucci, a man well acquainted with pontifical and imperial affairs, was
sent as ambassador to the king in his stead.

The attack of Signor Roberto upon the Pisan territory, being unexpected,
greatly perplexed the Florentines; for having to resist the foe in the
direction of Siena, they knew not how to provide for the places about
Pisa. To keep the Lucchese faithful, and prevent them from furnishing
the enemy either with money or provisions, they sent as ambassador Piero
di Gino Capponi, who was received with so much jealousy, on account of
the hatred which that city always cherishes against the Florentines
from former injuries and constant fear, that he was on many occasions
in danger of being put to death by the mob; and thus his mission gave
fresh cause of animosity rather than of union. The Florentines recalled
the marquis of Ferrara, and engaged the marquis of Mantua; they also
as earnestly requested the Venetians to send them Count Carlo, son of
Braccio, and Deifobo, son of Count Jacopo, and after many delays, they
complied; for having made a truce with the Turks, they had no excuse to
justify a refusal, and could not break through the obligation of the
league without the utmost disgrace. The counts Carlo and Deifobo came
with a good force, and being joined by all that could be spared from the
army, which, under the marquis of Ferrara, held in check the duke of
Calabria, proceeded towards Pisa, to meet Signor Roberto, who was with
his troops near the river Serchio, and who, though he had expressed his
intention of awaiting their arrival, withdrew to the camp at Lunigiana,
which he had quitted upon coming into the Pisan territory, while Count
Carlo recovered all the places that had been taken by the enemy in that
district.

[Illustration: HUNTING COSTUME OF AN ITALIAN BARON]

The Florentines, being thus relieved from the attack in the direction of
Pisa, assembled the whole force between Colle and Santo Geminiano. But
the army, on the arrival of Count Carlo, being composed of Sforzeschi and
Bracceshi, their hereditary feuds soon broke forth, and it was thought
that if they remained long in company they would turn their arms against
each other. It was therefore determined, as the smaller evil, to divide
them; to send one party, under Count Carlo, into the district of Perugia,
and establish the other at Poggibonzi, where they formed a strong
encampment in order to prevent the enemy from penetrating the Florentine
territory. By this they also hoped to compel the enemy to divide their
forces; for Count Carlo was understood to have many partisans in Perugia,
and it was therefore expected either that he would occupy the place,
or that the pope would be compelled to send a large body of men for its
defence. To reduce the pontiff to greater necessity, they ordered Niccolo
Vitelli, who had been expelled from Città di Castello, where his enemy
Lorenzo Vitelli commanded, to lead a force against that place, with the
view of driving out his adversary and withdrawing it from obedience to
the pope. At the beginning of the campaign, fortune seemed to favour the
Florentines; for Count Carlo made rapid advances in the Perugino, and
Niccolo Vitelli, though unable to enter Castello, was superior in the
field, and plundered the surrounding country without opposition. The
forces also at Poggibonzi constantly overran the country up to the walls
of Siena.

These hopes, however, were not realised; for, in the first place, Count
Carlo died while in the fullest tide of success, though the consequences
of this would have been less detrimental to the Florentines had not the
victory to which it gave occasion been nullified by the misconduct of
others. The death of the count being known, the forces of the church,
which had already assembled in Perugia, conceived hopes of overcoming
the Florentines, and encamped upon the lake, within three miles of
the enemy. On the other side, Jacopo Guicciardini, commissary to the
army, by the advice of Roberto da Rimino, who, after the death of Count
Carlo, was the principal commander, knowing the ground of their sanguine
expectations, determined to meet them; and coming to an engagement near
the lake, upon the site of the memorable rout of the Romans by Hannibal,
the Carthaginian general, the papal forces were vanquished. The news of
the victory, which did great honour to the commanders, diffused universal
joy at Florence, and would have insured a favourable termination of the
campaign, had not the disorders which arose in the army at Poggibonzi
thrown all into confusion; for the advantage obtained by the valour of
the one was more than counterbalanced by the disgraceful proceedings
of the other. Having made considerable booty in the Sienese territory,
quarrels arose about the division of it between the marquis of Mantua and
the marquis of Ferrara, who, coming to arms, assailed each other with
the utmost fury; and the Florentines, seeing they could no longer avail
themselves of the services of both, allowed the marquis of Ferrara and
his men to return home.

_The Florentines Routed at Poggibonzi_

The army being thus reduced, without a leader, and disorder prevailing
in every department, the duke of Calabria, who was with his forces near
Siena, resolved to attack them immediately. The Florentines, finding
the enemy at hand, were seized with a sudden panic; neither their arms
nor their numbers, in which they were superior to their adversaries,
nor their position, which was one of great strength, could give them
confidence; but observing the dust occasioned by the enemy’s approach,
without waiting for a sight of them, they fled in all directions, leaving
their ammunition, carriages, and artillery to be taken by the foe. Such
cowardice and disorder prevailed in the armies of those times that the
turning of a horse’s head or tail was sufficient to decide the fate of an
expedition. This defeat loaded the king’s troops with booty and filled
the Florentines with dismay, for the city, besides the war, was afflicted
with pestilence, which prevailed so extensively that all who possessed
villas fled to them to escape death. This occasioned the defeat to be
attended with greater horror; for those citizens whose possessions lay
in the Val di Pesa and the Val d’Elsa, having retired to them, hastened
to Florence with all speed as soon as they heard of the disaster, taking
with them not only their children and their property, but even their
labourers; so that it seemed as if the enemy were expected every moment
in the city.

Those who were appointed to the management of the war, perceiving the
universal consternation, commanded the victorious forces in the Perugino
to give up their enterprise in that district and march to oppose the
enemy in the Val d’Elsa, who, after their victory, plundered the country
without opposition; and although the Florentine army had so closely
pressed the city of Perugia that it was expected to fall into their hands
every instant, the people preferred defending their own possessions to
endeavouring to seize those of others. The troops, thus withdrawn from
the pursuit of their good fortune, were marched to San Casciano, a castle
within eight miles of Florence, the leaders thinking they could take up
no other position till the relics of the routed army were assembled. On
the other hand, the enemy being under no further restraint at Perugia,
and emboldened by the departure of the Florentines, plundered to a large
amount in the districts of Arezzo and Cortona; whilst those who under
Alfonso, duke of Calabria, had been victorious near Poggibonzi, took
the town itself, sacked Vico and Certaldo, and after these conquests
and pillagings encamped before the fortress of Colle, which was
considered very strong; and as the garrison was brave and faithful to
the Florentines, it was hoped they would hold the enemy at bay till the
republic was able to collect its forces. The Florentines being at San
Casciano, and the enemy continuing to use their utmost exertions against
Colle, they determined to draw nearer, that the inhabitants might be the
more resolute in their defence and the enemy assail them less boldly.
With this design they removed their camp from San Casciano to Santo
Geminiano, about five miles from Colle, and with light cavalry and other
suitable forces were able every day to annoy the duke’s camp.

All this, however, was insufficient to relieve the people of Colle; for,
having consumed their provisions, they were compelled to surrender on the
13th of November, to the great grief of the Florentines and joy of the
enemy, more especially of the Sienese, who, besides their habitual hatred
of the Florentines, had a particular animosity against the people of
Colle.

It was now the depth of winter, and the weather so unsuitable for war
that the pope and the king, either designing to hold out a hope of
peace or more quietly to enjoy the fruit of their victories, proposed
a truce for three months to the Florentines, and allowed them ten days
to consider the reply. The offer was eagerly accepted; but as wounds
are well known to be more painful after the blood cools than when they
were first received, this brief repose awakened the Florentines to a
consciousness of the miseries they had endured; and the citizens openly
laid the blame upon each other, pointing out the errors committed in
the management of the war, the expenses uselessly incurred, and the
taxes unjustly imposed. These matters were boldly discussed, not only
in private circles, but in the public councils; and one individual even
ventured to turn to Lorenzo de’ Medici and say, “The city is exhausted
and can endure no more war; it is therefore necessary to think of peace.”

Lorenzo was himself aware of the necessity, and assembled the friends in
whose wisdom and fidelity he had the greatest confidence, when it was
at once concluded that, as the Venetians were lukewarm and unfaithful,
and the duke in the power of his guardians, and involved in domestic
difficulties, it would be desirable by some new alliance to give a better
turn to their affairs. They were in doubt whether to apply to the king
or to the pope; but having examined the question on all sides, they
preferred the friendship of the king as more suitable and secure; for the
short reigns of the pontiffs, the changes ensuing upon each succession,
the disregard shown by the church towards temporal princes, and the
still greater want of respect for them exhibited in her determinations,
rendered it impossible for a secular prince to trust a pontiff, or safely
to share his fortune; for an adherent of the pope would have a companion
in victory, but in defeat must stand alone, whilst the pontiff was
sustained by his spiritual power and influence.

_Lorenzo’s Embassy to Naples_

Having therefore decided that the king’s friendship would be of the
greatest utility to them, they thought it would be most easily and
certainly obtained by Lorenzo’s presence; for in proportion to the
confidence they evinced towards him, the greater they imagined would be
the probability of removing his impressions of past enmities. Lorenzo,
having resolved to go to Naples, recommended the city and government
to the care of Tommaso Soderini, who was at that time gonfalonier of
justice. He left Florence at the beginning of December, and having
arrived at Pisa, wrote to the government to acquaint them with the cause
of his departure. The seigniory, to do him honour, and enable him the
more effectually to treat with the king, appointed him ambassador from
the Florentine people, and endowed him with full authority to make such
arrangements as he thought most useful for the republic.

At this time Roberto da San Severino, with Lodovico and Ascanio (Sforza,
their elder brother, being dead), again attacked Milan, in order to
recover the government. Having taken Tortona, and the city and the
whole state being in arms, the duchess Bona was advised to restore the
Sforzeschi, and to put a stop to civil contentions by admitting them to
the government. The person who gave this advice was Antonio Tassino,
of Ferrara, a man of low origin, who, coming to Milan, fell into the
hands of the duke Galeazzo, and was given by him to his duchess for
her valet. He, either from his personal attractions, or some secret
influence, after the duke’s death attained such influence over the
duchess, that he governed the state almost at his will. This greatly
displeased the minister Cecco, whom prudence and long experience had
rendered invaluable; and who, to the utmost of his power, endeavoured
to diminish the authority of Tassino with the duchess and other members
of the government. Tassino, aware of this, to avenge himself for the
injury, and secure defenders against Cecco, advised the duchess to
recall the Sforzeschi, which she did, without communicating her design
to the minister, who, when it was done, said to her, “You have taken a
step which will deprive me of my life, and you of the government.” This
shortly afterwards took place, for Cecco was put to death by Lodovico,
and Tassino being expelled from the dukedom, the duchess was so enraged
that she left Milan, and gave up the care of her son to Lodovico who,
becoming sole governor of the dukedom, caused, as will be hereafter seen,
the ruin of Italy.

Lorenzo de’ Medici had set out for Naples, and the truce between the
parties was in force, when, quite unexpectedly, Lodovico Fregoso, being
in correspondence with some persons of Sarzana, entered the place by
stealth, took possession of it with an armed force, and imprisoned
the Florentine governor. This greatly offended the seigniory, for
they thought the whole had been concerted with the connivance of King
Ferdinand. They complained to the duke of Calabria, who was with the
army at Siena, of a breach of the truce; and he endeavoured to prove,
by letters and embassies, that it had occurred without either his own or
his father’s knowledge. The Florentines, however, found themselves in
a very awkward predicament, being destitute of money, the head of the
republic in the power of the king, themselves engaged in a long-standing
war with the latter and the pope, in a new one with the Genoese, and
entirely without friends; for they had no confidence in the Venetians,
and on account of its changeable and unsettled state they were rather
apprehensive of Milan. They had thus only one hope, and that depended
upon Lorenzo’s success with the king.

Lorenzo arrived at Naples by sea, and was most honourably received, not
only by Ferdinand, but by the whole city, his coming having excited the
greatest expectation; for it being generally understood that the war
was undertaken for the sole purpose of effecting his destruction, the
power of his enemies invested his name with additional lustre. Being
admitted to the king’s presence, he spoke with so much propriety upon
the affairs of Italy, the disposition of her princes and people, his
hopes from peace, his fears of the results of war, that Ferdinand was
more astonished at the greatness of his mind, the promptitude of his
genius, his gravity and wisdom, than he had previously been at his
power. He consequently treated him with redoubled honour, and began to
feel compelled rather to part with him as a friend, than detain him as
an enemy. However, under various pretexts he kept Lorenzo from December
to March, not only to gain the most perfect knowledge of his own views,
but of those of his city; for he was not without enemies, who would
have wished the king to detain and treat him in the same manner as
Jacopo Piccinino; and, with the ostensible view of sympathising for him,
pointed out all that would, or rather what they wished should result
from such a course; at the same time opposing in the council every
proposition at all likely to favour him. By such means as these the
opinion gained ground that, if he were detained at Naples much longer,
the government of Florence would be changed. This caused the king to
postpone their separation more than he would have otherwise done, to see
if any disturbance were likely to arise. But finding everything going
quietly on, Ferdinand allowed him to depart on the 6th of March, 1479,
having, with every kind of attention and token of regard, endeavoured
to gain his affection, and formed with him a perpetual alliance for
their mutual defence. Lorenzo returned to Florence, and upon presenting
himself before the citizens, the impressions he had created in the
popular mind surrounded him with a halo of majesty brighter than before.
He was received with all the joy merited by his extraordinary qualities
and recent services, in having exposed his own life to the most imminent
peril, in order to restore peace to his country. Two days after his
return, the treaty between the republic of Florence and the king, by
which each party bound itself to defend the other’s territories, was
published. The places taken from the Florentines during the war were to
be given up at the discretion of the king; the Pazzi confined in the
tower of Volterra were to be set at liberty, and a certain sum of money,
for a limited period, was to be paid to the duke of Calabria.

_Peace with Honour_

As soon as this peace was publicly known, the pope and the Venetians were
transported with rage; the pope thought himself neglected by the king;
the Venetians entertained similar ideas with regard to the Florentines,
and complained that, having been companions in the war, they were not
allowed to participate in the peace. Reports of this description being
spread abroad, and received with entire credence at Florence, caused a
general fear that the peace thus made would give rise to greater wars;
and therefore the leading members of the government determined to confine
the consideration of the most important affairs to a smaller number, and
formed a council of seventy citizens, in whom the principal authority
was invested. The new regulation calmed the minds of those desirous of
change, by convincing them of the futility of their efforts. To establish
their authority, they in the first place ratified the treaty of peace
with the king, and sent as ambassadors to the pope, Antonio Ridolfi and
Piero Nasi. But, notwithstanding the peace, Alfonso, duke of Calabria,
still remained at Siena with his forces, pretending to be detained
by discords amongst the citizens, which, he said, had risen so high,
that while he resided outside the city they had compelled him to enter
and assume the office of arbitrator between them. He took occasion to
draw large sums of money from the wealthiest citizens by way of fines,
imprisoned many, banished others, and put some to death; he thus became
suspected, not only by the Sienese but by the Florentines, of a design to
usurp the sovereignty of Siena; nor was any remedy then available, for
the republic had formed a new alliance with the king, and was at enmity
with the pope and the Venetians. This suspicion was entertained not only
by the great body of the Florentine people, who are subtle interpreters
of appearances, but by the principal members of the government; and it
was agreed, on all hands, that the city never was in so much danger of
losing her liberty.

The Turkish emperor, Muhammed II, had gone with a large army to the siege
of Rhodes, and continued it for several months; but though his forces
were numerous, and his courage indomitable, he found them more than
equalled by those of the besieged, who resisted his attack with such
obstinate valour that he was at last compelled to retire in disgrace.
Having left Rhodes, part of his army, under the pasha Akhmet, approached
Velona, and, either from observing the facility of the enterprise, or
in obedience to his sovereign’s commands, coasting along the Italian
shores, he suddenly landed four thousand soldiers, and attacked the city
of Otranto, which he easily took, plundered, and put all the inhabitants
to the sword. He then fortified the city and port, and having assembled
a large body of cavalry, pillaged the surrounding country. The king,
learning this, and aware of the redoubtable character of his assailant,
immediately sent messengers to all the surrounding powers, to request
assistance against the common enemy, and ordered the immediate return of
the duke of Calabria with the forces at Siena.

This attack, however it might annoy the duke and the rest of Italy,
occasioned the utmost joy at Florence and Siena; the latter thinking she
had recovered her liberty, and the former that she had escaped a storm
which threatened her with destruction. These impressions, which were
not unknown to the duke, increased the regret he felt at his departure
from Siena; and he accused fortune of having, by an unexpected and
unaccountable accident, deprived him of the sovereignty of Tuscany. The
same circumstance changed the disposition of the pope; for although he
had previously refused to receive any ambassador from Florence, he was
now so mollified as to be anxious to listen to any overtures of peace;
and it was intimated to the Florentines that, if they would condescend to
ask the pope’s pardon, they would be sure of obtaining it. Thinking it
advisable to seize the opportunity, they sent twelve ambassadors to the
pontiff, who, on their arrival, detained them under different pretexts
before he would admit them to an audience. However, terms were at length
settled, and what should be contributed by each in peace or war.

The messengers were then admitted to the feet of the pontiff, who, with
the utmost pomp, received them in the midst of his cardinals. They
apologised for past occurrences, first showing they had been compelled
by necessity, then blaming the malignity of others, or the rage of the
populace, and their just indignation, and enlarging on the unfortunate
condition of those who are compelled either to fight or die; saying
that, since every extremity is endured in order to avoid death, they had
suffered war, interdicts, and other inconveniences brought upon them by
recent events, that their republic might escape slavery, which is the
death of free cities. However, if in their necessities they had committed
any offence, they were desirous to make atonement, and trusted in his
clemency, who, after the example of the blessed Redeemer, would receive
them into his compassionate arms.

The pope’s reply was indignant and haughty. After reiterating all the
offences against the church during the late transactions, he said that,
to comply with the precepts of God, he would grant the pardon they asked,
but would have them understand that it was their duty to obey; and that,
upon the next instance of their disobedience, they would inevitably
forfeit the liberty which they had just been upon the point of losing;
for those merit freedom who exercise themselves in good works and avoid
evil; that liberty, improperly used, injures itself and others; that to
think little of God, and less of his church, is not the part of a free
man, but a fool, and one disposed to evil rather than good, and to effect
whose correction is the duty not only of princes but of every Christian.
So that in respect of the recent events, they had only themselves to
blame, who, by their evil deeds, had given rise to the war, and inflamed
it by still worse actions, it having been terminated by the kindness of
others rather than by any merit of their own. The formula of agreement
and benediction was then read; and, in addition to what had already been
considered and agreed upon between the parties, the pope said that, if
the Florentines wished to enjoy the fruit of his forgiveness, they must
maintain fifteen galleys, armed and equipped, at their own expense,
so long as the Turks should make war upon the kingdom of Naples. The
ambassadors complained much of this burden in addition to the arrangement
already made, but were unable to obtain any alleviation. However, after
their return to Florence, the seigniory sent, as ambassador to the pope,
Guid’ Antonio Vespucci, who had recently returned from France, and who by
his prudence brought everything to an amicable conclusion, and obtained
many favours from the pontiff, which were considered as presages of a
closer reconciliation.

Having settled their affairs with the pope, Siena being free, themselves
released from the fear of the king by the departure of the duke of
Calabria from Tuscany, and the war with the Turks still continuing, the
Florentines pressed the king to restore their fortresses, which the duke
of Calabria, upon quitting the country, had left in the hands of the
Sienese. Ferdinand, apprehensive that if he refused they would withdraw
from the alliance with him, and by new wars with the Sienese deprive him
of the assistance he hoped to obtain from the pope and other Italian
powers, consented that they should be given up, and by new favours
endeavoured to attach the Florentines to his interests.

The castles being restored, and this new alliance established, Lorenzo
de’ Medici recovered the reputation which first the war and then the
peace, when the king’s designs were doubtful, had deprived him of; for
at this period there was no lack of those who openly slandered him with
having sold his country to save himself, and said that in war they had
lost their territories, and in peace their liberty. But the fortresses
being recovered, an honourable treaty ratified with the king, and the
city restored to her former influence, the spirit of public discourse
entirely changed in Florence, a place greatly addicted to gossip, and in
which actions are judged by the success attending them, rather than by
the intelligence employed in their direction; therefore, the citizens
praised Lorenzo extravagantly, declaring that by his prudence he had
recovered in peace what unfavourable circumstances had taken from them in
war, and that by his discretion and judgment he had done more than the
enemy with all the force of their arms.

[Illustration: FONTA GAZZA, SIENA]

_Further Papal Wars_

[Sidenote: [1480-1481 A.D.]]

The invasion of the Turks had deferred the war which was about to break
forth from the anger of the pope and the Venetians at the peace between
the Florentines and the king. But as the beginning of that invasion
was unexpected and beneficial, its conclusion was equally unlooked
for and injurious; for Muhammed dying suddenly, dissensions arose
amongst his sons; and the forces which were in Apulia, being abandoned
by their commander, surrendered Otranto to the king. The fears which
restrained the pope and the Venetians being thus removed, everyone became
apprehensive of new troubles. On the one hand was the league of the pope
and the Venetians, and with them the Genoese, Sienese, and other minor
powers; on the other, the Florentines, the king, and the duke, with whom
were the Bolognese and many princes. The Venetians wished to become
lords of Ferrara, and thought they were justified by circumstances in
making the attempt, and hoping for a favourable result. Their differences
arose thus: the marquis of Ferrara affirmed he was under no obligation
to take salt from the Venetians, or to admit their governor; the terms
of convention between them declaring that, after seventy years, the
city was to be free from both impositions. The Venetians replied that,
so long as he held the Polesine, he was bound to receive their salt
and their governor. The marquis refusing his consent, the Venetians
considered themselves justified in taking arms, and that the present
moment offered a suitable opportunity; for the pope was indignant against
the Florentines and the king; and to attach the pope still further, the
count Girolamo, who was then at Venice, was received with all possible
respect, first admitted to the privileges of a citizen, and then raised
to the rank of a senator--the highest distinctions the Venetian senate
can confer. To prepare for the war, they levied new taxes, and appointed
to the command of the forces, Roberto da San Severino, who being offended
with Lodovico, governor of Milan, fled to Tortona, whence, after
occasioning some disturbances, he went to Genoa, and whilst there, was
sent for by the Venetians, and placed at the head of their troops.

[Sidenote: [1481-1482 A.D.]]

These circumstances becoming known to the opposite league, induced it
also to provide for war. The duke of Milan appointed as his general
Federigo d’Urbino; the Florentines engaged Costanzo, lord of Pesaro; and
to sound the disposition of the pope, and know whether the Venetians
made war against Ferrara with his consent or not, King Ferdinand sent
Alfonso, duke of Calabria, with his army, across the Tronto, and asked
the pontiff’s permission to pass into Lombardy to assist the marquis,
which was refused in the most peremptory manner. The Florentines and the
king, no longer doubtful concerning the pope’s intentions, determined
to harass him, and thus either compel him to take part with them, or
throw such obstacles in his way as would prevent him from helping the
Venetians, who had already taken the field, attacked the marquis, overrun
his territory, and encamped before Figaruolo, a fortress of the greatest
importance. In pursuance of the design of the Florentines and the king,
the duke of Calabria, by the assistance of the Colonna family (the Orsini
had joined the pope) plundered the country about Rome, and committed
great devastation; whilst the Florentines, with Niccolo Vitelli, besieged
and took Città di Castello, expelling Lorenzo Vitelli, who held it for
the pope, and placing Niccolo in it as prince.

The pope now found himself in very great straits; for the city of Rome
was disturbed by factions, and the country covered with enemies. But
acting with courage and resolution, he appointed Roberto da Rimini to
take the command of his forces; and having sent for him to Rome, where
his troops were assembled, told him how great would be the honour if
he could deliver the church from the king’s forces and the troubles in
which it was involved; how greatly indebted not only himself, but all his
successors would be, and that not mankind merely, but God himself would
be under obligations to him. The magnificent Roberto, having considered
the forces and preparations already made, advised the pope to raise as
numerous a body of infantry as possible, which was done without delay.
The duke of Calabria was at hand, and constantly harassed the country
up to the very gates of Rome, which so roused the indignation of the
citizens that many offered their assistance to Roberto, and all were
thankfully received. The duke, hearing of these preparations, withdrew
a short distance from the city, that in the belief of finding him gone,
the magnificent Roberto would not pursue him, and also in expectation of
his brother Federigo, whom their father had sent to him with additional
forces. But Roberto, finding himself nearly equal to the duke in cavalry,
and superior in infantry, marched boldly out of Rome, and took a position
within two miles of the enemy. The duke, seeing his adversaries close
upon him, found he must either fight or disgracefully retire. To avoid
a retreat unbecoming a king’s son, he resolved to face the enemy; and
a battle ensued which continued from morning till midday. In this
engagement, greater valour was exhibited on both sides than had been
shown in any other during the last fifty years, upwards of a thousand
dead being left upon the field.

[Sidenote: [1482-1483 A.D.]]

The troops of the church were at length victorious; for her numerous
infantry so annoyed the ducal cavalry that they were compelled to
retreat, and Alfonso himself would have fallen into the hands of the
enemy, had he not been rescued by a body of Turks, who remained at
Otranto, and were at that time in his service. The lord of Rimini, after
this victory, returned triumphantly to Rome, but did not long enjoy the
fruit of his valour; for having, during the heat of the engagement, taken
a copious draught of water, he was seized with a flux, of which he very
shortly afterwards died. The pope caused his funeral to be conducted with
great pomp, and in a few days sent the count Girolamo towards Città di
Castello to restore it to Lorenzo, and also endeavour to gain Rimini,
which being by Roberto’s death left to the care of his widow and a son
who was quite a boy, his holiness thought might be easily won; and this
would certainly have been the case, if the lady had not been defended by
the Florentines, who opposed him so effectually as to prevent his success
against both Castello and Rimini.

Whilst these things were in progress at Rome and in Romagna, the
Venetians took possession of Figaruolo and crossed the Po with their
forces. The camp of the duke of Milan and the marquis was in disorder;
for the count of Urbino, having fallen ill, was carried to Bologna for
his recovery, but died. Thus the marquis’ affairs were unfortunately
situated, whilst those of the Venetians gave them increasing hopes of
occupying Ferrara. The Florentines and the king of Naples used their
utmost endeavours to gain the pope to their views; and not having
succeeded by force, they threatened him with the council, which had
already been summoned by the emperor to assemble at Bâle; and by means
of the imperial ambassadors, and the co-operation of the leading
cardinals, who were desirous of peace, the pope was compelled to turn
his attention towards effecting the pacification of Italy. With this
view, at the instigation of his fears, and with the conviction that the
aggrandisement of the Venetians would be the ruin of the church and
of Italy, he endeavoured to make peace with the league, and sent his
nuncios to Naples, where a treaty was concluded for five years, between
the pope, the king, the duke of Milan, and the Florentines, with an
opening for the Venetians to join them if they thought proper. When
this was accomplished, the pope intimated to the Venetians that they
must desist from war against Ferrara. They refused to comply, and made
preparations to prosecute their design with greater vigour than they had
hitherto done; and having routed the forces of the duke and the marquis
at Argenta, they approached Ferrara so closely as to pitch their tents in
the marquis’ park.

The league found they must no longer delay rendering him efficient
assistance, and ordered the duke of Calabria to march to Ferrara with his
forces and those of the pope, the Florentine troops also moving in the
same direction. In order to direct the operations of the war with greater
efficiency, the league assembled a diet at Cremona, which was attended by
the pope’s legate, the count Girolamo, the duke of Calabria, the seignior
Lodovico Sforza, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, with many other Italian princes;
and when the measures to be adopted were fully discussed, having decided
that the best way of relieving Ferrara would be to effect a division of
the enemies’ forces, the league desired Lodovico to attack the Venetians
on the side of Milan, but this he declined, for fear of bringing a war
upon the duke’s territories, which it would be difficult to quell. It was
therefore resolved to proceed with the united forces of the league to
Ferrara, and having assembled four thousand cavalry and eight thousand
infantry, they went in pursuit of the Venetians, whose force amounted
to twenty-two hundred men-at-arms, and six thousand foot. They first
attacked the Venetian flotilla, then lying upon the river Po, which they
routed with the loss of above two hundred vessels, and took prisoner
Antonio Justiniano, the purveyor of the fleet. The Venetians, finding all
Italy united against them, endeavoured to support their reputation by
engaging in their service the duke of Lorraine, who joined them with two
hundred men-at-arms; and having suffered so great a destruction of their
fleet, they sent him, with part of their army, to keep their enemies at
bay, and Roberto da San Severino to cross the Adda with the remainder,
and proceed to Milan, where they were to raise the cry of “The duke and
the lady Bona!”--his mother; hoping by this means to give a new aspect to
affairs there, believing that Lodovico and his government were generally
unpopular.

[Illustration: A FLORENTINE, FIFTEENTH CENTURY]

[Sidenote: [1483-1484 A.D.]]

This attack at first created great consternation, and roused the citizens
in arms, but eventually produced consequences unfavourable to the designs
of the Venetians; for Lodovico was now desirous to undertake what he
had refused to do at the entreaty of his allies. Leaving the marquis of
Ferrara to the defence of his own territories, he, with four thousand
horse and two thousand foot, and joined by the duke of Calabria with
twelve thousand horse and five thousand foot, entered the territory of
Bergamo, then Brescia, next that of Verona, and, in defiance of the
Venetians, plundered the whole country; for it was with the greatest
difficulty that Roberto and his forces could save the cities themselves.
In the meantime, the marquis of Ferrara had recovered a great part of his
territories; for the duke of Lorraine, by whom he was attacked, having
only at his command two thousand horse and one thousand foot, could not
withstand him. Hence, during the whole of 1483 the affairs of the league
were prosperous.

The winter having passed quietly over, the armies again took the field.
To produce the greater impression upon the enemy, the league united
their whole force, and would easily have deprived the Venetians of all
they possessed in Lombardy, if the war had been conducted in the same
manner as during the preceding year; for by the departure of the duke of
Lorraine, whose term of service had expired, they were reduced to six
thousand horse and five thousand foot, whilst the allies had thirteen
thousand horse and five thousand foot at their disposal. But, as is often
the case where several of equal authority are joined in command, their
want of unity decided the victory to their enemies. Federigo, marquis of
Mantua, whose influence kept the duke of Calabria and Lodovico Sforza
within bounds, being dead, differences arose between them which soon
became jealousies. Giovanni Galeazzo, duke of Milan, was now of an age
to take the government on himself, and had married the daughter of the
duke of Calabria, who wished his son-in-law to exercise the government
and not Lodovico; the latter, being aware of the duke’s design, studied
to prevent him from effecting it. The position of Lodovico being known to
the Venetians, they thought they could make it available for their own
interests, and hoped, as they had often before done, to recover in peace
all they had lost by war; and having secretly entered into treaty with
Lodovico, the terms were concluded in August, 1484.

When this became known to the rest of the allies, they were greatly
dissatisfied, principally because they found that the places won from
the Venetians were to be restored; that they were allowed to keep Rovigo
and the Polesine, which they had taken from the marquis of Ferrara, and
besides this retain all the pre-eminence and authority over Ferrara
itself which they had formerly possessed. Thus it was evident to everyone
they had been engaged in a war which had cost vast sums of money, during
the progress of which they had acquired honour, and which was concluded
with disgrace; for the places wrested from the enemy were restored
without themselves recovering those they had lost. They were, however,
compelled to ratify the treaty, on account of the unsatisfactory state
of their finances, and because the faults and ambition of others had
rendered them unwilling to put their fortunes to further proof.

The Florentines, after the pacification of Lombardy, could not remain
quiet; for it appeared disgraceful that a private gentleman should
deprive them of the fortress of Sarzana; and as it was allowed by the
conditions of peace not only to demand lost places, but to make war upon
any who should impede their restoration, they immediately provided men
and money to undertake its recovery. Upon this, Agostino Fregoso, who
had seized Sarzana, being unable to defend it, gave the fortress to the
bank of St. George, which readily accepted it, undertook its defence, put
a fleet to sea, and sent forces to Pietrasanta to prevent all attempts
of the Florentines, whose camp was in the immediate vicinity. The
Florentines found it would be essentially necessary to gain possession
of Pietrasanta, for without it the acquisition of Sarzana lost much of
its value, being situated between the latter place and Pisa; but they
could not, consistently with the treaty, besiege it, unless the people
of Pietrasanta, or its garrison, were to impede their acquisition of
Sarzana. To induce the enemy to do this, the Florentines sent from Pisa
to the camp a quantity of provisions and military stores, accompanied
by a very weak escort, that the people of Pietrasanta might have little
cause for fear, and by the richness of the booty be tempted to the
attack. The plan succeeded according to their expectation; for the
inhabitants of Pietrasanta, attracted by the rich prize, took possession
of it.

This gave legitimate occasion to the Florentines to undertake operations
against them; so leaving Sarzana they encamped before Pietrasanta, which
was very populous, and made a gallant defence. The Florentines planted
their artillery in the plain, and formed a rampart on the hill, that
they might also attack the place on that side. Jacopo Guicciardini was
commissary of the army; and while the siege of Pietrasanta was going on,
the Genoese took and burned the fortress of Vada, and, landing their
forces, plundered the surrounding country. Bongianni Gianfigliazzi was
sent against them with a body of horse and foot, and checked their
audacity, so that they pursued their depredations less boldly. The fleet
continuing its efforts went to Leghorn, and by pontoons and other means
approached the new tower, playing their artillery upon it for several
days, but being unable to make any impression they withdrew.

[Sidenote: [1485-1486 A.D.]]

In the meantime the Florentines proceeded slowly against Pietrasanta, and
the enemy taking courage attacked and took their works upon the hill.
This was effected with so much glory, and struck such a panic into the
Florentines, that they were almost ready to raise the siege, and actually
retreated a distance of four miles; for their generals thought that
they would retire to winter quarters, it being now October, and make no
further attempt till the return of spring.

When this discomfiture was known at Florence, the government was filled
with indignation; and, to impart fresh vigour to the enterprise, and
restore the reputation of their forces, they immediately appointed Guid’
Antonio Vespucci and Bernardo del Neri commissaries, who, with vast sums
of money, proceeded to the army, and intimated the heavy displeasure
of the seigniory, and of the whole city, if they did not return to the
walls; and what a disgrace, if so large an army and so many generals,
having only a small garrison to contend with, could not conquer so poor
and weak a place. They explained the immediate and future advantages
that would result from the acquisition, and spoke so forcibly upon the
subject, that all became anxious to renew the attack. They resolved, in
the first place, to recover the rampart upon the hill; and here it was
evident how greatly humanity, affability, and condescension influence
the minds of soldiers; for Guid’ Antonio Vespucci, by encouraging one
and promising another, shaking hands with this man and embracing that,
induced them to proceed to the charge with such impetuosity, that they
gained possession of the rampart in an instant. However, the victory was
not unattended by misfortune, for Count Antonio da Marciano was killed by
a cannon-shot. This success filled the townspeople with so much terror
that they began to make proposals for capitulation; and to invest the
surrender with imposing solemnity, Lorenzo de’ Medici came to the camp,
when, after a few days, the fortress was given up. It being now winter,
the leaders of the expedition thought it unadvisable to make any further
effort until the return of spring, more particularly because the autumnal
air had been so unhealthful that numbers were affected by it. Guid’
Antonio Vespucci and Bongianni Gianfigliazzi were taken ill and died, to
the great regret of all, so greatly had Antonio’s conduct at Pietrasanta
endeared him to the army.

Upon the taking of Pietrasanta, the Lucchese sent ambassadors to
Florence, to demand its surrender to their republic, on account of its
having previously belonged to them, and because, as they alleged, it was
in the conditions that places taken by either party were to be restored
to their original possessors. The Florentines did not deny the articles,
but replied that they did not know whether, by the treaty between
themselves and the Genoese, which was then under discussion, it would
have to be given up or not, and therefore could not reply to that point
at present; but in case of its restitution, it would first be necessary
for the Lucchese to reimburse them for the expenses they had incurred
and the injury they had suffered, in the death of so many citizens; and
that when this was satisfactorily arranged, they might entertain hopes
of obtaining the place. The whole winter was consumed in negotiations
between the Florentines and Genoese, which, by the pope’s intervention,
were carried on at Rome; but not being concluded upon the return of
spring, the Florentines would have attacked Sarzana had they not been
prevented by the illness of Lorenzo de’ Medici and the war between the
pope and King Ferdinand; for Lorenzo was afflicted not only by the gout,
which seemed hereditary in his family, but also by violent pains in the
stomach, and was compelled to go to the baths for relief.

The more important reason was furnished by the war, of which this was the
origin. The city of Aquila, though subject to the kingdom of Naples, was
in a manner free; and the count di Montorio possessed great influence
over it. The duke of Calabria was upon the banks of the Tronto with his
men-at-arms, under pretence of appeasing some disturbances amongst the
peasantry, but really with a design of reducing Aquila entirely under the
king’s authority, and sent for the count di Montorio, as if to consult
him upon the business he pretended then to have in hand. The count obeyed
without the least suspicion, and on his arrival was made prisoner by the
duke and sent to Naples. When this circumstance became known at Aquila,
the anger of the inhabitants arose to the highest pitch; taking arms
they killed Antonio Cencinello, commissary for the king, and with him
some inhabitants known partisans of his majesty. The Aquilani, in order
to have a defender in their rebellion, raised the banner of the church,
and sent envoys to the pope, to submit their city and themselves to
him, beseeching that he would defend them as his own subjects against
the tyranny of the king. The pontiff gladly undertook their defence,
for he had both public and private reasons for hating that monarch; and
Signor Roberto da San Severino, an enemy of the duke of Milan, being
disengaged, was appointed to take the command of his forces, and sent
for with all speed to Rome. He entreated the friends and relatives of
the count di Montorio to withdraw their allegiance from the king, and
induced the princes of Altimura, Salerno, and Bisignano to take arms
against him. The king, finding himself so suddenly involved in war had
recourse to the Florentines and the duke of Milan for assistance. The
Florentines hesitated with regard to their own conduct, for they felt all
the inconvenience of neglecting their own affairs to attend to those of
others, and hostilities against the church seemed likely to involve much
risk. However, being under the obligation of a league, they preferred
their honour to convenience or security, engaged the Orsini, and sent
all their own forces under the count di Pitigliano towards Rome, to the
assistance of the king. The latter divided his forces into two parts;
one, under the duke of Calabria, he sent towards Rome, which, being
joined by the Florentines, opposed the army of the church; with the
other, under his own command, he attacked the barons, and the war was
prosecuted with various success on both sides. At length, the king, being
universally victorious, peace was concluded by the intervention of the
ambassadors of the king of Spain, in August, 1486, to which the pope
consented; for having found fortune opposed to him he was not disposed
to tempt it further. In this treaty all the powers of Italy were united,
except the Genoese, who were omitted as rebels against the republic of
Milan, and unjust occupiers of territories belonging to the Florentines.
Upon the peace being ratified, Roberto da San Severino, having been
during the war a treacherous ally of the church, and by no means
formidable to her enemies, left Rome; being followed by the forces of the
duke and the Florentines, after passing Cesena, he found them near him,
and urging his flight reached Ravenna with less than a hundred horse. Of
his forces, part were received into the duke’s service, and part were
plundered by the peasantry. The king, being reconciled with his barons,
put to death Jacopo Coppola and Antonello d’Aversa and their sons, for
having, during the war, betrayed his secrets to the pope.

The pope having observed, in the course of the war, how promptly and
earnestly the Florentines adhered to their alliances, although he had
previously been opposed to them from his attachment to the Genoese,
and the assistance they had rendered to the king, now evinced a more
amicable disposition, and received their ambassadors with greater
favour than previously. Lorenzo de’ Medici, being made acquainted with
this change of feeling, encouraged it with the utmost solicitude; for he
thought it would be of great advantage, if to the friendship of the king
he could add that of the pontiff.

The pope had a son named Francesco, upon whom designing to bestow states
and attach friends who might be useful to him after his own death, he
saw no safer connection in Italy than Lorenzo’s, and therefore induced
the latter to give him one of his daughters in marriage. Having formed
this alliance, the pope desired the Genoese to concede Sarzana to the
Florentines, insisting that they had no right to detain what Agostino
had sold, nor was Agostino justified in making over to the bank of St.
George what was not his own. However, his holiness did not succeed with
them; for the Genoese, during these transactions at Rome, armed several
vessels, and, unknown to the Florentines, landed three thousand foot,
attacked Sarzanello, situated above Sarzana, plundered and burned the
town near it, and then, directing their artillery against the fortress,
fired upon it with their utmost energy. This assault was new and
unexpected by the Florentines, who immediately assembled their forces
under Virginio Orsini, at Pisa, and complained to the pope that, whilst
he was endeavouring to establish peace, the Genoese had renewed their
attack upon them. They then sent Piero Corsini to Lucca, that by his
presence he might keep the city faithful; and Pagolantonio Soderini
to Venice, to learn how that republic was disposed. They demanded
assistance of the king and of Signor Lodovico, but obtained it from
neither; for the king expressed apprehensions of the Turkish fleet, and
Lodovico made excuses, but sent no aid. Thus the Florentines in their
own wars were almost always obliged to stand alone, and found no friends
to assist them with the same readiness they practised towards others.
Nor did they, on this desertion of their allies (it being nothing new
to them), give way to despondency; for having assembled a large army
under Jacopo Guicciardini and Piero Vettori, they sent it against the
enemy, who had encamped on the river Magra, at the same time pressing
Sarzanello with mines and every species of attack. The commissaries being
resolved to relieve the place, an engagement ensued, when the Genoese
were routed, and Lodovico de’ Fieschi, with several other principal men,
made prisoners. The Sarzanesi were not so depressed at their defeat as
to be willing to surrender, but obstinately prepared for their defence,
whilst the Florentine commissaries proceeded with their operations, and
instances of valour occurred on both sides.

The siege being protracted by a variety of fortune, Lorenzo de’ Medici
resolved to go to the camp, and on his arrival the troops acquired
fresh courage, whilst that of the enemy seemed to fail; for perceiving
the obstinacy of the Florentines’ attack, and the delay of the Genoese
in coming to their relief, they surrendered to Lorenzo, without asking
conditions, and none were treated with severity except two or three who
were leaders of the rebellion. During the siege, Lodovico had sent troops
to Pontremoli, as if with an intention of assisting the Florentines; but
having secret correspondence in Genoa, a party was raised there who gave
the city to Milan.[r]

LAST YEARS OF LORENZO

[Sidenote: [1486-1491 A.D.]]

From this period until the death of Lorenzo Italy remained at peace and
little of any moment occurred at Florence. Lorenzo’s power augmented
daily, and like a deep and rapid stream looked clear and smooth and
beautiful until crossed by some obstacle; then its force mounted up and
swept everything violently away. Nor was it alone in Florence that its
strength and volume were felt; Lorenzo’s true object and interest, like
Ferdinand’s, was peace, and they held the balance in their hand; the
unquiet nature of Alfonso was doubtful and dangerous, but Lorenzo ruled
the unextinct energies of a powerful republic with the decision and unity
of an absolute monarch and would allow no seeds of discord to be sown
without an instantaneous effort to destroy; he influenced all the smaller
states, and the vast weight of Florence cast on the side of one or other
of the greater was never without its consequences. Disputes for instance
occurred this year between Lodovico Sforza and Alfonso of Calabria about
the former’s virtually usurping the whole sovereign authority of Milan
from his nephew; and these, partly by persuasion, and partly by threats
of placing himself on the side of the injured party, Lorenzo settled
as he did most others; for he was well convinced that nothing would
prove more dangerous to his own authority than any increase of power in
either of these potentates. By such judicious management he maintained
the peace of Italy, well knowing that no ties, whether of relationship,
or obligation, or personal attachment, would ever have the beneficial
effects that are produced by fear on sovereign princes.

If Cosmo purchased the liberties of Florence, Lorenzo received back the
money with interest, not in power alone, but in gold and silver: under
the gonfaloniership of Piero Alamanni in July and August, 1490, the
disorder of his finances had become so great as to make a fresh grant
of public money absolutely necessary to restore them, and in the year
1491, other fraudulent means were adopted to make up the deficiency.
His extensive commercial establishments were necessarily left in the
hands of agents who, puffed up with the importance of their master’s
name, squandered his substance while they neglected his affairs; from
the beginning his credit had been sustained by occasional grants of
public money to a large amount; but now the evil was so alarmingly
increased that a violent effort of the commonwealth became necessary to
remove it, and that effort no less than public bankruptcy! On the 13th
of August, 1490, a balia of seventeen members with the full powers of
the whole Florentine nation was created to examine the condition of the
coinage, the state of the various _gabelle_, and the public finances as
connected with the private necessities of Lorenzo; to ascertain also
what was spent on the occasion of making his son a cardinal, which with
subsequent donations amounted to 50,000 florins. The disorder both of the
public revenues and the private resources of the Medici was extreme, the
former having even been anticipated and spent by his own and his agents’
extravagance: the portions of young women, already mentioned as forming a
public stock based on national faith and moral integrity, were the first
and greatest sufferers; this branch of the public debt which previously
paid three per cent. per annum was at once reduced by the authority of
the commission to half that interest; and the instantaneous fall of
public credit reduced the _luoghi di monte_, or shares of 100 florins of
public stock, from twenty-seven to eleven and a half! The young women
who married were allowed a sufficient sum from their portions to pay the
contract duty, which of course immediately returned to the treasury; the
remainder was reserved, and a payment of seven per cent. promised at the
end of twenty years!

One consequence of this was a sudden check to marriage; and when the
portions were invested in public securities, dowers of 1500, 1800, and
even 2000 florins were given by parties of equal rank to make up the
deficiency between real and nominal portions, where 1100 had previously
served. There were consequently few marriages except those accomplished
by force of ready money, and even for these Lorenzo’s permission became
necessary!

“Now,” says Giovanni Cambi,[n] with all the indignation that might be
expected from the son of the persecuted Neri, “now let all reflect on
what it is to set up tyrants in the city and create balias, and assemble
parliaments.” The depreciated currencies of Siena, Lucca, and Bologna
affected that of Florence, so that to keep the silver coin in the country
it was in like manner depreciated; this measure was considered fair and
necessary at the moment by many; but for the people’s quiet, who first
and most sensibly feel such evils and who now justly began to murmur, it
was announced as a measure for enabling government to pay those marriage
portions which had been stopped the previous year. The public for a
season appear to have acquiesced in this, not immediately perceiving that
they were paying Lorenzo de’ Medici’s debts; but when this new money,
called the _quattrino bianco_ was issued at one-fifth more than its real
value and not taken by the treasury for more than its actual worth, the
citizens saw plainly that they were defrauded and that every species
of taxation was virtually augmented by it to that amount, whereupon a
deep murmur of indignation pervaded the community. Their anger was vain;
Lorenzo’s private necessities required the sacrifice, and his power
enforced it!

[Sidenote: [1491-1492 A.D.]]

When Innocent VIII made Lorenzo’s son, Giovanni de’ Medici, a cardinal
ere the boy had completed the age of fourteen, being rather ashamed of
his work he accompanied this honour by a stipulation that the hat was not
to be worn for three years. That time had now elapsed; Innocent sent the
long-desired insignia, and thus prepared the way for a pontificate which
encouraged Italian genius and established Medicean grandeur. The ceremony
of assuming this hat was performed with great pomp on the 10th of March,
1492, and on the 9th of the following April Lorenzo breathed his last at
Careggi in the forty-fourth year of his age.

On his death-bed Lorenzo is said to have sent for Girolamo Savonarola
(whom he had always unsuccessfully courted), to confess and grant him
absolution. The monk first demanded whether he placed entire faith in
the mercy of God, and was answered in the affirmative. He next asked if
Lorenzo were ready to surrender all the wealth which he had wrongfully
acquired. And this, after some hesitation, was also answered in the
affirmative. The third question was if he would re-establish popular
government and restore public liberty; but to this he would give no
answer, or according to others gave a decided negative; upon which the
uncompromising churchman quitted him without bestowing absolution. The
authenticity of this anecdote has been questioned, but it is in keeping
with the character of both men.[p]

VON REUMONT’S ESTIMATE OF LORENZO

Lorenzo de’ Medici was called from this world at the age of forty-three
years--a short life in which to have accomplished so much, to have
achieved fame so widespread and enduring. In the character of this
remarkable man, the foremost representative of a remarkable period, we
find the irresistible onward impulse of creative power united to a deep
knowledge of the stages that succeed each other in the development of the
new; we find the highest degree of receptivity combined with a student’s
seriousness and capacity for taking pains; we see a keen and joyous
appreciation of art go hand in hand with the practical sense necessary to
the proper conduct of life; we find him to possess, in a word, all the
qualities that go to make the statesman, the poet, the citizen, and the
prince.

He knew no fatigue under the multiplicity of public affairs that fell to
him as head of a peculiarly constituted state; with sure and rapid view
he could take cognisance of the whole mass of business while giving his
attention to the smallest details. In his later years he became wary and
discreet, never acting save as the result of deep reflection, holding
steadfastly to the goal he had set himself, conscious, but not unduly,
of the dignity of his position and that of the state he represented. In
his home and family life he was gay and companionable. As a husband he
was not above reproach, it is true; but he was tenderly attached to the
wife he had not chosen, devoted to the excellent mother with whom he had
many qualities in common, and to his children he was always a generous
provider, a wise counsellor and guide. He had the faculty of attracting
to himself people of the widest diversity of character, and was capable
of forming warm and lasting friendships; amid all the cares of state he
was never too busy to render assistance to a friend, and was as ready to
exert himself in behalf of the low as of the high.

It is not to be denied, however, that he possessed a share of the
weaknesses and failings of his times, which were chiefly apparent in
his political life, superior as it was in consistency and honesty of
purpose to that of most foreign or Italian statesmen of his day. His
interior policy, in particular, has received sharp blame, as much for
its refashioning of the constitution to permit an increase in personal
power as for the corrupt methods employed to gain undisputed control over
the state funds. As regards the latter charge it is difficult to see how
in later years--had longer life been granted to Lorenzo--a catastrophe
could have been avoided, unless a protracted peace had allowed the
maintenance of a perfect balance in the state expenditures. In respect
to the first shortcoming many contemporaries expressed the opinion that
Lorenzo’s fixed and secret aim was to create for himself a principality,
to attain which end he was merely awaiting a favourable opportunity--the
appointment to the office of gonfalonier, for example, when he should
have reached the proper age.

When all has been weighed and judged, undoubtedly the worst evil in
the rule of Lorenzo the Magnificent is just this lack of agreement
between form and fact, this diversion of the highest authority from
its proper centre. Personality had become the most powerful factor in
all departments of the administration--the political, the financial,
the judicial. Nevertheless if Florence was free from the excesses that
disgraced every other Italian state, if Lorenzo’s rule was mild and
blameless compared to that of Cosmo, not only the continuance of peace,
the assured position of the country, and the habit on the part of the
people of submitting to such a rule were to be thanked for it, but the
views and ability of the man who stood at the head. Lorenzo de’ Medici
was determined to be obeyed, but he was no tyrant: on the one hand too
keen-sighted a reader of men, and too well-versed in the traditions
of his people; on the other he was of a nature too magnanimous and
richly endowed, too open, too necessitous of friendship to fall into an
extreme of despotism. Above all he was a citizen of Florence, and if
left to himself, would have allowed nothing in his outer circumstances
to distinguish him from the rest of his fellow-citizens; but after the
Pazzi conspiracy it was deemed necessary that he should be accompanied
everywhere by a guard, formed at first of four trusted friends, later of
twelve paid members of the nobility.

As regards his arbitrary administration of the state finances opinions
varied even in his own time. Had he not diverted to his own purposes a
portion of the public funds, argued some, he would have been ruined,
and his ruin would have entailed that of countless others. All that he
took from first to last, as well to preserve his credit as to carry on
an extravagant mode of life, was as nothing compared to the losses an
incompetent ruler would have brought upon the state; one ill-considered
or untimely public regulation alone would have cost the treasury dearer
than Lorenzo’s entire rule. The final aim of all the Medici, so ran the
general opinion, was their own profit or advancement, but they remained
Florentine citizens to the end, and in most cases their interests and
those of their city were identical. To the kindly disposed who rendered
this judgment after Lorenzo’s death, the answer was indeed given that
the aim of the Medici had been none the less sole dominion, because it
was given the form of democracy by the destruction of the patrician
influence, and the raising to favour of members of the lower classes;
that a subtle, crafty tyranny, like that of Cosmo de’ Medici, or one
tempered by generosity and benevolence, like Lorenzo’s, was the more
dangerous for the people inasmuch as it paved the way for a severer form.

In the ninth chapter of his _History of Florence_ Guicciardini[q] gives a
masterly summing up of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s influence over the city that
gave him birth. “Florence,” he says, “did not become free under Lorenzo
de’ Medici, but a better master no city could have had. Incalculable good
resulted to it as the outpouring of his own benevolent nature, while the
evils that are inseparable from tyranny in any form were limited in their
workings--rendered almost harmless, in fact, when his will came into
play. There were doubtless many who rejoiced at his death; but all who
took any part in the administration regretted it deeply, even those who
thought they had grounds of complaint against him, for none could tell
what a change of rulers might bring about.”[c]

[Illustration: POPE LEO IV ARRESTING THE CONFLAGRATION

(By Raphael)]

CHAPTER XIII. ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE

What we call, for want of a better name, the Renaissance,
was a period of transition from the Middle Ages to the first
phase of modern life. It was a step which had to be made, at
unequal distances of time and under varying influences, by all
the peoples of the European community. At the commencement
of this period, the modern nations acquired consistency
and fixity of type. Mutually repelled by the principle of
nationality, which made of each a separate organism, they were
at the same time drawn and knit together by a common bond of
intellectual activities and interests. The creation of this
international consciousness or spirit, which, after the lapse
of four centuries, justifies us in regarding the past history
of Europe as the history of a single family, and encourages us
to expect from the future a still closer interaction of the
western nations, can be ascribed in a great measure to the
Renaissance.[b]

We must now interrupt the story of political development, to make a
casual survey of the culture of the time of the Medici and the succeeding
generation. Scholarship had progressed pretty steadily since the days of
Petrarch. “Even the early part of the fifteenth century,” says Roscoe,[j]
“produced scholars as much superior to Petrarch and his coadjutors,
as they were to the monkish compilers and scholastic disputants who
immediately preceded them; and the labours of Leonardo Aretino, Gianozzo
Manetti, Guarino Veronese, and Poggio Bracciolini, prepared the way for
the still more correct and classical productions of Politiano, Sannazaro,
Pontano, and Augurelli.”

Now there came a fresh impulse through the arrival of numerous Greek
scholars from the East, and their example led to a more philosophical
study of classical languages. The establishment of public libraries in
Italy began now to be a prominent feature of the culture development.
Cosmo de’ Medici was particularly active in this direction; his son
Piero steadily pursued the same object; and Lorenzo brought the work
to a culmination in the final development of the Laurentian library.
The interest in the classics was probably influential in retarding the
development of Italian literature. Nevertheless, the influence of Lorenzo
de’ Medici was directed also towards the field of creative literature,
and he himself was prominent in the restoration of Italian poetry.[a] He
attempted to restore the poetry of his country, to the state in which
Petrarch had left it; but this man, so superior by the greatness of his
character, and by the universality of his genius, did not possess the
talent of versification in the same degree as Petrarch. In his love
verses, his sonnets, and canzoni, we find less sweetness and harmony.
Their poetical colouring is less striking; and it is remarked that they
display a ruder expression, more nearly allied to the infancy of the
language. On the other hand, his ideas are more natural, and are often
accompanied by a great charm of imagination.

The most talented literary protégé of Lorenzo was the famous scholar,
Angelo Politiano. Politiano was born on the 24th of July, 1454, at Monte
Pulciano (Mons Politianus), a castle, of which he adopted the name,
instead of that of Ambrogini, borne by his father. He applied himself
with ardour to those scholastic studies which engaged the general mind
in the fifteenth century. Some Latin and Greek epigrams, which he wrote
between the age of thirteen and seventeen, surprised his teachers and the
companions of his studies. But the work which introduced him to Lorenzo
de’ Medici, and which had the greatest influence on his age, was a poem
on a tournament, in which Julian de’ Medici was the victor, in 1468.
From that time, Lorenzo received Politiano into his palace; made him the
constant companion of his labours and his studies; provided for all his
necessities, and soon afterwards confided to him the education of his
children. Politiano, after this invitation, attached himself to the more
serious studies of the Platonic philosophy, of antiquity, and of law;
but his poem in honour of the tournament of Julian de’ Medici remains
a monument of the distinguished taste of the fifteenth century. This
celebrated fragment commences like a large work, but unfortunately was
never finished.[c]

We need not now mention the other minor poets of the age. Suffice it
that, all in all, the age of the Medici cannot be called a time of really
great literary development. It produced no Dante, Petrarch, or Boccaccio.
But it witnessed a tremendous advance in general culture, due in part to
the study of the classics, and it prepared the way for Ariosto and Tasso.

FIFTEENTH CENTURY ART

The real glory of the time was its achievement in the field of the
graphic arts. In this field also the epoch was transitional; but the
transition carries us, in the latter part of the epoch, to heights never
previously attained. At the beginning of the fifteenth century such work
as that of Giotto represents the highest standard of accomplishment;
before the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Leonardo da Vinci had produced
his greatest masterpiece. In other words, the fundamental problems of
the pictorial art which the fourteenth century had failed to solve
had yielded to the researches of this later generation. The laws of
perspective had been perfected by Brunelleschi and Masaccio; anatomy
had been studied as never previously by the Florentines Ghiberti and
Donatello; and a large number of earnest investigators, turning to nature
on the one hand for their model, while developing a pictorial sense
by observation combined with reflection, had prepared the way for the
final realisation of the value of light and shadow and of the proper
distribution of the parts of a composition which reached approximate
perfection at the hands of Leonardo.

A brief but comprehensive estimate of the art development of the
first half of the fifteenth century has been left us by Vasari,
himself an artist contemporary with Michelangelo. Viewing the work
of his predecessors from the standpoint of the final culmination of
the sixteenth century,--the time of Michelangelo,--Vasari combines
the judgment of a tolerably keen critic with the sympathies of a
fellow-student. His estimate thus has double value.[a]

_Vasari’s Estimate of Fifteenth Century Art_

[Illustration: JESUS DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS

(By Leonardo da Vinci)]

In this period, he says, the arts will be seen to have infinitely
improved at all points; the compositions comprise more figures; the
accessories and ornaments are richer, and more abundant; the drawing
is more correct, and approaches more closely to the truth of nature;
and, even where no great facility or practice is displayed, the works
yet evince much thought and care; the manner is more free and graceful;
the colouring more brilliant and pleasing, insomuch that little is now
required to the attainment of perfection in the faithful imitation of
nature. By the study and diligence of the great Filippo Brunelleschi,
architecture first recovered the measures and proportions of the
antique, in the round columns as well as in the square pilasters, and
the rusticated and plain angles. Care was taken that all should proceed
according to rule; that a fixed arrangement should be adhered to, and
that the various portions of the work should receive each its due measure
and place. Drawing acquired force and correctness, a better grace was
imparted to the buildings erected, and the excellence of the art was
made manifest: the beauty and variety of design required for capitals
and cornices were restored; and, while we perceive the ground plans of
churches and other edifices to have been admirably laid at this period,
we also remark that the fabrics themselves are finely proportioned,
magnificently arranged, and richly adorned, as may be seen in that
astonishing erection, the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore, in Florence,
and in the beauty and grace of its lantern; in the graceful, rich,
and variously ornamented church of Santo Spirito; and in the no less
beautiful edifice of San Lorenzo; or again, in the fanciful invention of
the octangular church of the Angioli; in the light and graceful church
and convent belonging to the abbey of Florence; and in the magnificent
and lordly commencement of the Pitti Palace, to say nothing of the
vast and commodious edifice constructed by Francesco di Giorgio, in
the church and palace of the Duomo, at Urbino; of the strong and rich
castle of Naples; or of the impregnable fortress of Milan, and many other
remarkable erections of that time.

What is here said of architecture, may with equal propriety be affirmed
of painting and sculpture, in both of which are still to be seen many
extraordinary works executed by the masters of the period, as that of
Masaccio in the church of the Carmine, for example, where the artist has
depicted a naked figure shivering with the cold, besides many spirited
and life-like forms, in other pictures. Meantime the art of sculpture
made so decided an improvement as to leave but little remaining to be
accomplished. The method adopted by the masters of the period was so
efficient, their treatment so natural and graceful, their drawing so
accurate, their proportions so correct that their statues began to
assume the appearance of living men, and were no longer lifeless images
of stone, as were those of the earlier day. Of this there will be found
proof in the works of the Sienese, Jacopo della Quercia, which, as
compared with earlier works, possess more life and grace, with more
correct design, and more careful finish; those of Filippo Brunelleschi
exhibit a finer development and play of the muscles, with more accurate
proportions, and a more judicious treatment--remarks which are alike
applicable to the works produced by the disciples of these masters. Still
more was performed by Lorenzo Ghiberti, in his work of the gates of San
Giovanni, fertility of invention, judicious arrangement, correct design,
and admirable treatment, being all alike conspicuous in these wonderful
productions, the figures of which seem to move and possess a living soul.
Donato [Donatello] also lived at the same period. His productions are
equal to good works of antiquity. He is the type and representative of
all the other masters of the period; since he united with himself the
qualities which were divided among the rest, and which must be sought
among many, imparting to his figures a life, movement, and reality which
enables them to bear comparison with those of later times--nay even, as
has been said, with the ancients themselves.

Similar progress was made at the same time in painting which the
excellent and admirable Masaccio delivered entirely from the manner
of Giotto, as regards the heads, the carnations, the draperies,
the buildings, and colourings; he also restored the practice of
foreshortening, together with more natural attitudes, and a much more
effectual expression of feeling in the gestures and the movements of
the body, art seeking to approach the truth of nature by more correct
design, and to exhibit so close a resemblance to the countenance of the
living man that each figure might at once be recognised as the person
for whom it was intended. Thus the masters constantly endeavoured to
reproduce what they beheld in nature, and no more; their works became,
consequently, more carefully considered and better understood. This
gave them courage to impose rules of perspective, and to carry the
foreshortenings precisely to the point which gives an exact imitation
of the relief apparent in nature and the real form. Minute attention
to the effects of light and shade, and to various difficulties of the
art, succeeded, and efforts were made to produce a better order of
composition. Landscapes also were attempted. Tracts of country, trees,
shrubs, flowers, the clouds, the air, and other natural objects were
depicted with some resemblance to the realities represented, insomuch
that we may boldly affirm that these arts had not only become ennobled,
but had attained that flower of youth from which the fruit afterwards to
follow might reasonably be looked for, and hope entertained that they
would shortly reach the perfection of their existence.[d]

We must not pause even to mention the names of all the distinguished
company of artists, a good proportion of them Florentines, who flourished
in the time of Masaccio and in the immediate succeeding generation,
although this list includes such names as Ghirlandajo, Filippo Lippi,
Filippino Lippi, Perugino, and Botticelli; the last named in particular
is still the delight of all who love the spirituelle in art; the others
are known and esteemed by all students of painting, and by the countless
hosts of travellers who flock yearly to the churches and galleries
of Italy to see their works. We must pause for a moment, however, to
consider the work of the great master, whose accomplishment was in some
sense to eclipse their efforts, the versatile genius, Leonardo da Vinci.

_Leonardo da Vinci_

Without question Leonardo was the most colossal intellect of the
century;[20] indeed, he has been called by Hamerton[e] the most
comprehensive genius of any age. Scarcely any other intellectual hero
ever so completely won the admiration of his contemporaries and the
unqualified approval of posterity. Vasari’s estimate of Leonardo voices
the contemporary judgment regarding him.[a]

[Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI

(1452-1519)]

The richest gifts, he says, are occasionally seen to be showered, as
by celestial influence, on certain human beings--nay, they sometimes
supernaturally and marvellously congregate in one sole person; beauty,
grace, and talent being united in such a manner that to whatever the
man thus favoured may turn himself, his every action is so divine as to
leave all other men far behind him, and manifestly to prove that he has
been specially endowed by the hand of God himself, and has not obtained
his pre-eminence by human teaching, or the power of man. This was seen
and acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, in whom,
to say nothing of his beauty of person, which yet was such that it has
never been sufficiently extolled, there was a grace beyond expression
which was rendered manifest without thought or effort in every act and
deed; and who had besides so rare a gift of talent and ability that
to whatever subject he turned his attention, however difficult, he
presently made himself absolute master of it. Extraordinary power was in
his case conjoined with remarkable facility, a mind of regal boldness
and magnanimous daring; his gifts were such that the celebrity of his
name extended most widely, and he was held in the highest estimation, not
in his own time only, but also, and even to a greater extent, after his
death--nay, this he has continued, and will continue in all succeeding
ages.[d]

Our present concern is chiefly with Leonardo as an artist, but it is
impossible not to consider the other phases of his multifarious genius.
Hallam has briefly summarised his position as a writer and scientific
investigator.[a]

As Leonardo was born in 1452, he says, we may presume his mind to have
been in full expansion before 1490. His _Treatise on Painting_ is known
as a very early disquisition of the rules of the art. But his greatest
literary distinction is derived from those short fragments of his
unpublished writings that appeared not many years since; and which,
according, at least, to our common estimate of the age in which he lived,
are more like revelations of physical truths vouchsafed to a single mind,
than the superstructure of its reasoning upon any established basis. The
discoveries which made Galileo, and Kepler, and Mæstlin, and Maurolycus,
and Castelli, and other names illustrious, the system of Copernicus, the
very theories of recent geologers, are anticipated by Da Vinci, within
the compass of a few pages, not perhaps in the most precise language, or
on the most conclusive reasoning, but so as to strike us with something
like the awe of preternatural knowledge.

In an age of so much dogmatism, he first laid down the grand principle of
Bacon, that experiment and observation must be the guides to just theory
in the investigation of nature. If any doubt could be harboured, not
as to the right of Leonardo da Vinci to stand as the first name of the
fifteenth century, which is beyond all doubt, but as to his originality
in so many discoveries, which, probably, no one man, especially in such
circumstances, has ever made, it must be on a hypothesis, not very
untenable, that some parts of physical science had already attained
a height which mere books do not record. The extraordinary works of
ecclesiastical architecture in the Middle Ages, especially in the
fifteenth century, as well as those of Toscanelli and Fioravanti, which
we have mentioned, lend some countenance to this opinion; and it is said
to be confirmed by the notes of Fra Mauro, a lay brother of a convent
near Venice, on a planisphere constructed by him, and still extant.
Leonardo himself speaks of the earth’s annual motion, in a treatise
that appears to have been written about 1510, as the opinion of many
philosophers in his age.[f]

Among the almost numberless scraps of manuscript left us by Leonardo is
a letter which he addressed to Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan, in 1483.
The original of this letter exists in the author’s own orthography,
and it gives his own estimate of his accomplishments at the age of
thirty-one. It will be borne in mind, of course, that this letter is
addressed to a prince who would be likely to value the services of a
practical engineer more than those of a mere painter. This, no doubt,
explains in part the subordinate place given to Leonardo’s capacity as
sculptor and painter, which, as will be seen, is only mentioned after ten
other specifications. Nevertheless, it was while in Milan that Leonardo
executed his greatest work, the famous _Last Supper_. The letter is as
follows:[a]

Having seen and sufficiently considered the works of all
those who repute themselves to be masters and inventors of
instruments for war, and found that the form and operation of
these works are in no way different from those in common use,
I permit myself, without seeking to detract from the merit of
any other, to make known to your excellency the secrets I have
discovered, at the same time offering with fitting opportunity,
and at your good pleasure, to perform all those things which,
for the present, I will but briefly note below.

(1) I have a method of constructing very light and portable
bridges, to be used in the pursuit of, or retreat from, the
enemy, with others of a stronger sort, proof against fire or
force, and easy to fix or remove. I have also means for burning
and destroying those of the enemy.

(2) For the service of sieges, I am prepared to remove the
water from the ditches, and to make an infinite variety of
fascines, scaling-ladders, etc., with engines of other kinds
proper to the purposes of a siege.

(3) If the height of the defences or the strength of the
position should be such that the place cannot be effectually
bombarded, I have other means, whereby any fortress may be
destroyed, provided it be not founded on stone.

(4) I have also most convenient and portable bombs, proper for
throwing showers of small missiles, and with the smoke thereof
causing great terror to the enemy, to his imminent loss and
confusion.

(5) By means of excavations made without noise, and forming
tortuous and narrow ways, I have means of reaching any given
... (point?), even though it be necessary to pass beneath
ditches or under a river.

(6) I can also construct covered wagons, secure and
indestructible, which, entering among the enemy, will break
the strongest bodies of men; and behind these the infantry can
follow in safety and without impediment.

(7) I can, if needful, also make bombs, mortars, and
field-pieces of beautiful and useful shape, entirely different
from those in common use.

(8) Where the use of bombs is not practicable, I can make
crossbows, mangonels, ballistæ, and other machines of
extraordinary efficiency and quite out of the common way. In
fine, as the circumstances of the case shall demand, I can
prepare engines of offence for all purposes.

(9) In case of the conflict having to be maintained at sea, I
have methods for making numerous instruments, offensive and
defensive, with vessels that shall resist the force of the most
powerful bombs. I can also make powders or vapours for the
offence of the enemy.

(10) In time of peace, I believe that I could equal any other,
as regards works in architecture. I can prepare designs for
buildings, whether public or private, and also conduct water
from one place to another.

Furthermore, I can execute works in sculpture, marble, bronze,
or terra-cotta. In painting also I can do what may be done, as
well as any other, be he who he may.

I can likewise undertake the execution of the bronze horse,
which is a monument that will be to the perpetual glory and
immortal honour of my lord your father of happy memory, and of
the illustrious house of Sforza.

And if any of the above named things shall seem to any man to
be impossible and impracticable, I am perfectly ready to make
trial of them in your excellency’s park, or in whatever other
place you shall be pleased to command, commending myself to you
with all possible humility.[g]

Leonardo liked better to theorise, observe, and commit his inferences
and perceptions to his memorandum-book, than to weary himself with those
slavish details which are essential to the production of every immortal
work. From these causes, aided by his extreme fastidiousness of taste and
love for minute finish, his works were few, and scarcely one of them was
ever completed. But this very universality of capacity, with his eagerly
inquiring spirit, qualified him to supply the defects under which art
yet laboured: no one has as good a claim as he, to be considered the
parent of the highest school in his art; and no artist, before or since,
has ever united in himself so many of the most illustrious qualities of
genius.

His most characteristic excellence, in his own profession, is his tone
of feeling and imagination, which is mild, graceful, and poetically
devotional; too ethereal for effectively depicting scenes from active
life, but admirably harmonised to religious subjects. To these merits
in the poetical elements of his art, he added others not less valuable
in the practical; for not only was he the first who exhibited minutely
scientific anatomical knowledge, but he set a perfect example of relief
and harmony in colouring, for which, especially in that rich dark style
which is common with him, his pictures and those of his school are at
this day a banquet to the eye.[h]

[Illustration: MODESTY AND VANITY

(By Leonardo da Vinci)]

We possess pictures enough of this great master, says Grimm,[i] to
prevent us from considering the accounts of the magic of his art as
empty exaggeration. We are ever inclined to be incredulous. Leonardo’s
paintings, however, possess such a charm, that the truest description
falls far short of them. We should scarcely consider them possible, if
we did not see them with our eyes. He possesses the secret of letting us
almost read the beating of the heart in the countenance of those whom
he represents. He seems to see nature in constant holiday brightness,
and never otherwise. Our feelings become gradually so deadened, that
perceiving the same loss among our friends, we at length believe, that
the fresh spring-like appearance of nature and life, which opened before
us so long as we were children, was only the delusion of happiness, and
that the dimmer light in which they appear to us subsequently, affords
the more true view. But let us step before Leonardo’s finest works,
and see if the dreams of ideal existence do not appear natural and
significant! As splinters of metal are drawn to the magnet as it moves
through iron filings, and adhere to it in a thousand fine points, while
the grains of sand fall powerless away, so there are men, who, passing
through the lifeless throng of constant intercourse, carry away with
them, involuntarily, only the traces of the genuine metal in it, in this
following their nature alone, which absorbs it on every side. They are
rare privileged men to whom this is awarded. Leonardo belonged to these
favoured ones of fate.[i]

THE END OF THE MEDIÆVAL EPOCH

While Leonardo was in his prime the period usually marked as terminating
the Middle Ages was passed. Recent students are much less disposed than
were students of the earlier generation to emphasise the division of
past time into epochs; and of course it cannot be too often emphasised
that the year 1492 marked no decisive turning-point in the estimate of
contemporary minds. Nevertheless, the close of the fifteenth century
has by common consent been regarded as marking the culmination of
that intellectual development in Italy which has long been spoken
of as the Renaissance. Scholars of to-day are fond of pointing out
that the real re-birth of culture began away back in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries; and we have seen how far this new development had
progressed in the time of Dante and Petrarch. Nevertheless, despite the
illogicality of such divisions, classifications of time, like the minor
classifications of the zoölogist, have utility as aids to memorising and
to vivid presentation of the facts of history, that make them all but
indispensable. And doubtless the popular mind at least will long cling to
the term “Renaissance” and apply it more particularly to that great final
development of the graphic arts which reached its culmination late in the
fifteenth and early in the sixteenth century and which had such exponents
as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and their minor confrères.

It is quite impossible to attempt anything like an elaborate discussion
of the culture of this period within present spatial limits. We can
at best glance at the work of the great central figure of the epoch,
Michelangelo, and, letting him typify the period, content ourselves with
scarcely more than mentioning the names of his great contemporaries.[a]

THE AGE OF MICHELANGELO

[Illustration: MICHELANGELO

(1475-1564)]

But he who bears the palm from all [says Vasari with an enthusiasm
which all posterity has echoed], whether of the living or the dead; he
who transcends and eclipses every other, is the divine Michelangelo
Buonarotti, who takes the first place, not in one of these arts only,
but in all three. This master surpasses and excels not only all those
artists who have well-nigh surpassed nature herself, but even all the
most famous masters of antiquity, who did, beyond all doubt, vanquish
her most gloriously; he alone has triumphed over the later as over the
earlier, and even over Nature herself, which one could scarcely imagine
to be capable of exhibiting anything, however extraordinary, however
difficult, that he would not, by the force of his most divine genius, and
by the power of his art, design, judgment, diligence, and grace, very far
surpass and excel; nor does this remark apply to painting and the use
of colours only, wherein are, nevertheless, compromised all corporeal
forms, all bodies, direct or curved, palpable or impalpable, visible or
invisible, but to the exceeding roundness and relief of his statues also.
Fostered by the power of his art, and cultivated by his labours, the
beautiful and fruitful plant has already put forth many and most noble
branches, which have not only filled the world with the most delicious
fruits, in unwonted profusion, but have also brought three noble arts
to so admirable a degree of perfection, that we may safely affirm the
statues of this master to be, in all their parts, more beautiful than
the antique. If the heads, hands, arms, or feet of the one be placed
in comparison with those of the other, there will be found in those of
the modern a more exact rectitude of principle, a grace more entirely
graceful, a much more absolute perfection, in short, there is also in
the manner, a certain facility in the conquering of difficulties, than
which it is impossible even to imagine anything better; and what is here
said applies equally to his paintings, for if it were possible to place
these face to face with those of the most famous Greeks and Romans, thus
brought into comparison, they would still further increase in value, and
be esteemed to surpass those of the ancients in as great a degree as his
sculptures excel all the antique.[d]

Painting, sculpture, and architecture, with fortification, theology,
and poetry, employed by turns the universal genius of the great
Florentine. Born of a distinguished family, who reluctantly gave way
to his inclination, he was first instructed in painting: and for his
study of this art as well as of sculpture, the antiques in Florence
and Rome, and the anatomy of the human body, were actively laid under
contribution. Indeed, his profound anatomical knowledge gave at once the
most prominent feature to his style of design, and the most dangerous of
the examples which he furnished to his indiscriminating imitators; and
among his grandest figures some are exact reproductions of the Torso of
the Belvedere. The influence which this extraordinary man exercised over
every department of art, was as great in painting as in any of his other
pursuits; but his predilection for sculpture, assisted perhaps by other
motives, diverted him from the use of the pencil, and his works were
consequently few.

He despised oil-painting, and it is doubtful whether there exists a
single genuine picture of his executed in that way. Florence contains a
doubtful piece in oils representing the _Fates_, and a composition of a
_Holy Family_ in distemper, which is acknowledged to be that which he
produced for Angelo Doni. But several masterpieces, still extant, are
believed to have been painted after his designs. Rome contains two of
these,--Daniele da Volterra’s _Deposition from the Cross_, in the church
of the Trinità de’ Monti, and an _Annunciation_ by Marco Venusti, in the
sacristy of the Lateran. The finest, however, of all the works in which
his assistance has been traced, is the oil-painting of the _Raising of
Lazarus_, executed by the Venetian Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, who, after
acquiring great excellence in his native school, went to Rome and studied
design under Buonarroti. He was prompted to attempt the _Lazarus_ by
his master, who desired to eclipse, by a union of Florentine drawing
with Venetian colour, the great picture of the _Transfiguration_, on
which Raphael was then engaged. Michelangelo unquestionably designed the
principal group in Sebastiano’s piece; and the strength of expression,
the grandeur of composition and style, and the anatomical knowledge,
favour the belief that he actually painted a great part of it. The figure
of Lazarus, seated on his coffin, assisting in disengaging himself from
the grave-clothes, and gazing up at the Saviour in the first return
of consciousness, amazed, grateful, and adoring, is in every respect
inspired by the patriarchal sublimity and powerful expression which
belong to the master.

But Buonarroti’s genius shone forth unclouded in his immense series of
paintings in fresco, which still adorn Rome in the Sistine chapel of the
Vatican. Their history is as characteristic as the works themselves.
Before leaving Florence he had begun, and he afterwards at intervals
finished, a work which, now lost, is described as having more than any
other evinced his anatomical skill and power of expression. This was the
famous cartoon of Pisa, figuring the Florentine soldiers bathing in the
Arno and called to arms on a sudden attack by the Pisans. In 1504 Julius
II invited him to Rome and employed him as a sculptor; but some years
later the same pontiff ordered him to paint in fresco the ceiling of the
Sistine chapel. Dissatisfied with his assistants he executed the whole of
the immense ceiling with his own hands, in the space of twenty months,
finishing it in 1512 or 1513. The universal admiration excited by this
stupendous work did not tempt the artist to prosecute painting further;
and his next great undertaking, the _Last Judgment_, which fills the end
of the same chapel, was not commenced till the pontificate of Paul III,
and was completed, after eight years’ labour, in 1541. His last frescoes,
the _Crucifixion of Saint Peter_ and the _Conversion of Saint Paul_, both
in the Pauline chapel of the Vatican, were the offspring of old age, and
bodily, though not mental, exhaustion.

The frescoes of the Sistine chapel represent, from the pages of the
Bible, the outlines of the religious history of man. The spirit which
animates them is the stern awfulness of the Hebrew prophets; the milder
graces of the new covenant glimmer faintly and unfrequently through;
the beauty and repose of classicism are all but utterly banished. The
master’s idea of godhead is that of superhuman strength in action, and
the divinity which he thus conceives he imparts to all his figures of the
human race. The work, as a whole, is one which no other mind must venture
to imitate; but of those very qualities which make it dangerous as a
model in art, none could be removed without injuring its severe sublimity.

[Illustration: RAPHAEL

(1483-1520)]

The ceiling is divided into numerous compartments, each of which contains
a scene selected from the Old Testament:--the Creator forming the
elements, the earth, the first man;--the creation of Eve, and the fall
of man, in which feminine grace for a moment visits the fancy of the
artist;--the expulsion from Eden;--the deluge, and the subsequent history
of Noah;--the brazen serpent, the triumphs of David and of Judith, and
the symbolical history of Jonah. The absorbed greatness which animates
the principal figures of these groups, is repeated in the ornamental
divisions of the ceiling, where are the Sibyls, and those unparalleled
figures of the prophets, which are the highest proofs of the painter’s
religious grandeur.

The _Last Judgment_, a colossal composition, sixty feet in height by
thirty in breadth, and embracing an almost countless number of figures,
is a more ambitious and also a more celebrated work, but is far from
being so completely successful. No artist but Michelangelo could have
made it what it is; but it might have been made much greater by him,--the
painter of the _Eve_, the _Delphic Sibyl_, the _Lazarus_, and the
_Prophets_. Its faults are many;--an entire absence of beauty and of
repose;--vagueness and monotony of character, which is increased by
the general nudity of the figures;--ostentatious display of academic
attitudes and anatomy;--and, in some prominent personages, especially the
Judge, an absolute meanness and grossness of conception. The merits of
this wonderful monument of genius are less easily enumerated. Its heaven
is not the heaven either of art or of religion; but its hell is more
terribly sublime than anything which imagination ever framed. Vast as
the piece is, its composition is simple and admirable, and nothing ever
approached to its perfect unity of sentiment. Every thought and emotion
are swallowed up in one idea,--the presence of the righteous Judge: with
the exception of a single unobtrusive group composed by a reunited wife
and husband, every one in the crowd of the awakened dead stands solitary,
waiting for his doom.

_Michelangelo as Sculptor_

The character of this great man’s sculpture was as vast, as strong, as
eagerly bent on the exhibition of science and the representation of
violent action, as were his wonderful paintings; but the plastic art
was still less fitted than the pictorial, for being guided by these
principles uncontrolled. Though he adored the antiques for their anatomy,
he was blind to their beauty and repose: his own ideal was a ruder one,
which neither his skill nor that of any other was qualified fully to
express; and yet his vigour and feeling do in a few instances overcome
all material obstacles, leading him to the very verge of sublimity, and
not far from the true path of art.

His purest works are those of his youth, executed while his imagination
was still filled by the Grecian statues, which, with Ghirlandajo’s
other pupils, he had studied in the gardens of the Medici. There is
much antique calmness in the fighting groups on the bas-relief which,
preserved by the Buonarroti family in Florence, is the earliest of his
known specimens; and his _Bacchus_ with the young Faun in the Uffizi, an
effort of his twenty-fourth year, possessing indifferent and somewhat
inaccurate forms, approaches, in its softly waving lines and gentleness
of expression, nearer to the Greek than any other work of its author.
The _Pieta_ of St. Peter’s is characterised, especially in the figure of
the mother, by much of the same temper, which is not lost even in the
colossal _David_ of the Florentine Piazza del Granduca.

His genius had free scope in the three greatest of his works: the
Monument of Pope Julius II, and the Tombs of Julian and Lorenzo de’
Medici. The first of these, planned by the old priest himself with his
characteristic boldness and magnificence, but curtailed in its execution
by the parsimony of his heirs, furnished occupation to the artist, at
intervals, during many years. Statues merely blocked out, which were
intended to belong to it, are now in the gardens of the Pitti palace;
two slaves are in the Louvre; the remainder of the monument, being the
only part that was finished by the master, consists of the celebrated
sitting figure of Moses, in the Roman church of San Pietro in Vincoli.
The lawgiver of the Hebrews, a massy figure in barbaric costume, with
tangled goat-like hair and beard, and horns like Ammon or Bacchus, rests
one arm on the tables of the law, looking forward with an air of silent
and gloomy menace. The strength of the work is unquestionable; its value
as being, with the _Victory_, the most characteristic of its author’s
works, is equally clear; its sublimity admits of greater doubt. The
tombs of the two Medici, finished earlier than the Moses, are works of
a far higher and purer strain; being really the finest that Michelangelo
ever produced. Upon each of the two sarcophagi rests a sitting figure in
armour, the likeness of the dead man who reposes within. On each side
of Lorenzo is a reclining statue, the one representing Twilight, the
other Dawn; and Julian’s tomb is in like manner flanked by the recumbent
figures of Night and Day. The statue of Lorenzo is a fine and simple
portrait: that of Julian has scarcely ever been surpassed for its air
of dignified and thoughtful repose. The Dawn is a majestic female; the
Twilight is a grand male figure, looking down. The Day is unfinished, but
fine--a bold male form; the Night is a drooping, slumbering, sad-looking
female.

[Illustration: THE DEAD CHRIST IN THE ARMS OF THE VIRGIN

(By Andrea del Sarto, a famous Florentine contemporary of Michelangelo)]

RAPHAEL

The one great rival of Michelangelo, and the one painter whom posterity
has been disposed to rank even above him in genius is Raphael. This
wonderful man was the son of an obscure painter in Urbino. He studied
under Perugino, and is believed to have profited largely also through
study of the works of Leonardo and of Michelangelo, but particularly
from Narcaccio.[a] To Michelangelo’s cartoons as well as to his Sistine
ceiling, Raphael certainly owed deep obligations. In his twenty-sixth
year, invited by his kinsman Bramante, he migrated to Rome, where he
laboured with unwearied industry from that time till his death, which
took place when he was thirty-seven years old, and about to be raised by
Leo X to the rank of a cardinal.

Raphael found the mechanism of art nearly complete, and its application
no longer exclusively ecclesiastical. These two circumstances gave full
play to that union of powers, which his mind possessed to an unequalled
extent. Far less correct than Michelangelo in drawing and anatomy, less
profound in his study of the antique, and less capable of dealing with
those loftiest themes that may be said to hover on the very brink of
impracticability, he yet possessed knowledge of a high order, an elevated
sense of sublimity and energy within his own sphere, an extensive and
felicitous invention, and a feeling of beauty and grace which was the
very purest and most divine that art has ever boasted. The idealism of
his genius was united to a perception of character and expression, and
a dramatic power of representing human action, which he used with the
happiest effect when his subject called for their exercise. His admirers
are influenced more by their own prepossessions than by his peculiar
merits, when they give the preference to his Madonnas, saints, angels, or
apostles, to his portraits, or to his historical and epic compositions.

[Illustration: TIZIANO VECELLI TITIAN

(1477-1576)]

The general progress of Raphael’s manner may be traced with sufficient
certainty. He appears at first as little more than the ablest pupil of
Pietro; inspired by all the warmth and tenderness of the Perugian school,
but embarrassed by all his master’s timidity and littleness. When he
had become acquainted with the bolder spirit and the better mechanism
of the Florentines, we see how his genius gradually extricated itself,
and how, though still guided by the devotional temper of his youthful
models, he attained greater freedom both in handling and invention. In
his earliest works at Rome he struggles to emerge into a sphere wider
than either of these: his idealism is not lost, but it is strengthened
by a more intimate acquaintance with life and nature; and both his fancy
and his power of observation are rendered gradually more efficient by an
improved technical skill, by greater ease and strength of drawing, by
greater mastery of colour as well as of light and shade, and by rapid
approaches towards that unity of conception and that breadth of design,
which ennoble his finest works.

Till we find Raphael in Rome, we must be contented to trace his progress
by his altar-pieces, and two or three portraits. Of genuine pictures
belonging to this youthful period, and still in Italy, several possess
very high merit; and one of these,--the _Borghese Entombment_,--painted
after the artist had nearly emancipated himself from the Umbrian
trammels, is equal to the best of his works both in expression and
composition.

His great frescoes cover the walls and part of the roofs, in four of
the state-rooms belonging to the old Vatican palace. The first chamber,
called that of the Segnatura, was finished in 1511; and under the reign
of the same pope, Julius II, the next apartment, named, from its main
subject, that of the Heliodorus, was partly painted. After the accession
of Leo X, the artist completed that chamber, and proceeded to the third,
that of the Incendio, which he finished in 1517. For the fourth, the hall
of Constantine, he left the designs, which were painted by his surviving
pupils. Under Leo he also designed the small frescoes in the arcade
called Raphael’s Loggie; and in the same pontificate he produced the
celebrated Cartoons.[h]

With this brief summary, and with no more than a mere mention of the
great Venetian painters, Titian and Tintoretti, and that other great
contemporary painter Correggio, we must turn from the art of the period
to catch the barest glimpse of the two or three literary figures of the
time, before we turn back to the sweep of political events. Michelangelo
himself was a poet, but we shall not attempt to deal here with this side
of the multiform genius of that extraordinary man. Instead we shall turn
to the central literary figure of the epoch, Ariosto.[a]

_Ariosto_

Lodovico Ariosto was born on the 8th of September, 1474, at Reggio,
of which place his father was governor, for the duke of Ferrara. He
was intended for the study of jurisprudence, and, like many other
distinguished poets, he experienced a long struggle between the will of
his father, who was anxious that he should pursue a profession, and his
own feelings, which prompted him to the indulgence of his genius. After
five years of unprofitable study, his father at length consented to his
devoting himself solely to literature.

The _Orlando Furioso_ of Ariosto is a poem universally known. It has been
translated into all the modern tongues; and by the sole charm of its
adventures, independently of its poetry, has long been the delight of the
youth of all countries. It may therefore be taken for granted, that all
the world is aware that Ariosto undertook to sing the Paladins and their
amours at the court of Charlemagne, during the fabulous wars of this
monarch against the Moors. If it were required to assign an historical
epoch to the events contained in this poem, we must place them before the
year 778, when Orlando was slain at the battle of Roncesvalles, in an
expedition which Charlemagne made, before he was emperor, to defend the
frontiers of Spain. But it may be conjectured, that the romance writers
have confounded the wars of Charles Martel against Abd el Rahman, with
those of Charlemagne; and have thus given rise to the traditions of the
invasion of France by the Saracens, and of those unheard-of perils,
from which the west of Europe was saved by the valour of the Paladins.
Every reader knows that Orlando, of all the heroes of Ariosto the most
renowned for his valour, became mad, through love for Angelica; and
that his madness, which is only an episode in this long poem, has given
its name to the whole of the composition, although it is not until the
twenty-third canto that Orlando is deprived of his senses.

It does not appear that Ariosto had the intention of writing a strictly
epic poem. He had rejected the advice of Bembo, who wished him to
compose his poem in Latin, the only language, in the opinion of the
cardinal, worthy of a serious subject. Ariosto thought, perhaps, that an
Italian poem should necessarily be light and sportive. He scorned the
adopted rules of poetry, and proved himself sufficiently powerful to
create new ones. His work may, indeed, be said to possess an unity of
subject; the great struggle between the Christians and the Moors, which
began with the invasion of France, and terminated with her deliverance.
This was the subject which he had proposed to himself in his argument.
The lives and adventures of his several heroes, contributed to this great
action; and were so many subordinate episodes, which may be admitted
in epic poetry, and which, in so long a work, cannot be considered as
destroying the unity.

The poem of Ariosto is, therefore, only a fragment of the history of the
knights of Charlemagne and their amours; and it has neither beginning nor
end, further than any particular detached period may be said to possess
them. This want of unity essentially injures the interest and the general
impression which we ought to derive from the work. But the avidity with
which all nations, and all ages, have read Ariosto, even when his story
is despoiled of its poetic charms by translation, sufficiently proves
that he had the art of giving to its individual parts an interest which
it does not possess as a whole.

_Machiavelli_

From Ariosto we turn to his great contemporary, the illustrious secretary
of the Florentine republic, Niccolo Machiavelli, a man of profound
thought, and the most eloquent historian and most skilful politician that
Italy has produced. But a distinction less enviable has attached his name
to the infamous principles which he developed, though probably with good
intentions, in his treatise, entitled _Il Principe_; and his name is, at
the present day, allied to everything false and perfidious in politics.

Machiavelli was born at Florence, on the 3rd of May, 1469, of a family
which had enjoyed the first offices in the republic. We are not
acquainted with the history of his youth; but at the age of thirty he
entered into public business as chancellor of the state, and from that
time he was constantly employed in public affairs, and particularly in
embassies. He was sent four times, by the republic, to the court of
France; twice to the imperial court; and twice to that of Rome. Among
his embassies to the smaller princes of Italy, the one of the longest
duration was to Cæsar Borgia, whom he narrowly observed at the very
important period when this illustrious villain was elevating himself by
his crimes, and whose diabolical policy he had thus an opportunity of
studying at leisure. In the midst of these grave occupations his satiric
gaiety did not forsake him; and it was at this period that he composed
his comedies, his novel of _Belfagor_, and some stanzas and sonnets
which are not deficient in poetical merit. He had a considerable share
in directing the councils of the republic as to arming and forming its
militia; and he assumed more pride to himself from this advice, which
liberated the state from the yoke of the _Condottieri_, than from the
fame of his literary works. The influence to which he owed his elevation
in the Florentine Republic was that of the free party which contested
the power of the Medici and at that time held them in exile. When the
latter were recalled in 1512 Machiavelli was deprived of all his employs
and banished. He then entered into a conspiracy against the usurpers,
which was discovered, and he was put to the torture, but without wresting
from him, by extreme agonies, any confession which could impeach either
himself or those who had confided in his honour. Leo X, on his elevation
to the pontificate, restored him to liberty.

Machiavelli has not, in any of his writings, testified his resentment
of the cruel treatment he experienced. He seems to have concealed it at
the bottom of his heart; but we easily perceive that torture had not
increased his love of princes, and that he took a pleasure in painting
them as he had seen them, in a work in which he feigned to instruct
them. It was, in fact, after having lost his employs that he wrote on
history and politics, with that profound knowledge of the human heart
which he had acquired in public life, and with the habit of unweaving,
in all its intricacies, the political perfidies which then prevailed in
Italy. He dedicated his treatise of the _Principe_, not to Lorenzo the
Magnificent, but to Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, the proud usurper of the
liberties of Florence, and of the estates of his benefactor, the former
duke of Urbino, of the house of Rovere. Lorenzo thought himself profound
when he was crafty, and energetic when he was cruel; and Machiavelli,
in showing, in his treatise of the _Principe_, how an able usurper, who
is not restrained by any moral principle, may consolidate his power,
gave to the duke instructions conformable to his taste. The true object,
however, of Machiavelli could not be to secure on his throne a tyrant
whom he hated, and against whom he had conspired. Nor is it probable that
he only proposed to himself to expose to the people the maxims of tyranny
in order to render them odious; for an universal experience had, at that
time, made them known throughout all Italy, and that diabolical policy
which Machiavelli reduced to a system was, in the sixteenth century, that
of all the states.

It was also at this period of his life that Machiavelli wrote his
_History of Florence_, dedicated to Pope Clement VII, and in which he
instructed the Italians in the art of uniting the eloquence of history
with depth of reflection. He has attached himself, much less than his
predecessors in the same line, to the narration of military events. But
his work, as a history of popular passions and tumults, is a masterpiece.
He was again employed in public affairs by the pope, and was charged with
the direction of the fortifications, when death deprived his country of
his further services, on the 22nd of June, 1527, three years before the
termination of the Florentine Republic.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[20] [Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452; he lived till 1519, when he
died in France at the court of Francis I.]

[Illustration: FRESCOES BY CORREGGIO]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV. THE “LAST DAY OF ITALY”

[Sidenote: [1494-1530 A.D.]]

The period was at length arrived when Italy--which had restored
intellectual light to Europe, reconciled civil order with liberty,
recalled youth to the study of laws and of philosophy, created the
taste for poetry and the fine arts, revived the science and literature
of antiquity, given prosperity to commerce, manufactures, and
agriculture--was destined to become the prey of those very barbarians
whom she was leading to civilisation. Her independence must necessarily
perish with her liberty, which was hitherto the source of her grandeur
and power. In a country covered with republics three centuries before,
there remained but four at the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici; and in
those, although the word “liberty” was still inscribed on their banners,
that principle of life had disappeared from their institutions.
Florence, already governed for three generations by the family of the
Medici, corrupted by their licentiousness, and rendered venal by their
wealth, had been taught by them to fear and to obey. Venice with its
jealous aristocracy, Siena and Lucca, each governed by a single caste
of citizens, if still republics, had no longer popular governments or
republican energy. Neither in those four cities, nor in Genoa, which had
surrendered its liberty to the Sforzas, nor in Bologna, which yielded to
the Bentivoglios, nor in any of the monarchical states, was there to be
found throughout Italy that power of a people whose every individual will
tends to the public weal, whose efforts are all combined for the public
benefit and the common safety. The princes of that country could appeal
only to order and the obedience of the subject, not to the enthusiasm of
the citizen, for the protection of Italian independence and of their own.

Immense wealth, coveted by the rest of Europe, was, it is true, always
accumulating in absolute monarchies, as well as in republics; but
if, on the one hand, it furnished the pay of powerful armies, on the
other, it augmented the danger of Italy, by exciting the cupidity of
its neighbours. The number of national soldiers was very considerable;
their profession was that which led the most rapidly to distinction and
fortune. Engaged only for the duration of hostilities, and at liberty to
retire every month, instead of spending their lives in the indolence of
garrisons or abandoning the freedom of their will, they passed rapidly
from one service to another, seeking only war, and never becoming
enervated by idleness. The horses and armour of the Italian men-at-arms
were reckoned superior to those of the transalpine nations, against which
they had measured themselves in France during “the war of the public
weal.” The Italian captains had made war a science, every branch of
which they thoroughly knew. It was never suspected for a moment that the
soldier should be wanting in courage; but the general mildness of manners
and the progress of civilisation had accustomed the Italians to make war
with sentiments of honour and humanity towards the vanquished. Ever ready
to give quarter, they did not strike a fallen enemy. Often, after having
taken from him his horse and armour, they set him free; at least, they
never demanded a ransom so enormous as to ruin him. Horsemen who went to
battle clad in steel were rarely killed or wounded, so long as they kept
their saddles. Once unhorsed, they surrendered. The battle, therefore,
never became murderous. The courage of the Italian soldiers, which had
accommodated itself to this milder warfare, suddenly gave way before the
new dangers and ferocity of barbarian enemies. They became terror-struck
when they perceived that the French caused dismounted horsemen to be put
to death by their valets, or made prisoners only to extort from them,
under the name of ransom, all they possessed. The Italian cavalry, equal
in courage and superior in military science to the French, were for some
time unable to make head against an enemy whose ferocity disturbed their
imaginations.

While Italy had lost a part of the advantages which, in the preceding
century, had constituted her security, the transalpine nations had
suddenly acquired a power which destroyed the ancient equilibrium. Up to
the close of the fifteenth century, wars were much fewer between nation
and nation than between French, Germans, or Spaniards among themselves.
Even the war between the English and the French, which desolated France
for more than a century, sprang not from enmity between two rival
nations, but from the circumstance that the kings of England were
French princes, hereditary sovereigns of Normandy, Poitou, and Guienne.
Charles VII at last forced the English back beyond sea, and reunited to
the monarchy provinces which had been detached from it for centuries.
Louis XI vanquished the dukes and peers of France who had disputed his
authority; he humbled the house of Burgundy, which had begun to have
interests foreign to France. His young successor and son, Charles VIII,
on coming of age, found himself the master of a vast kingdom in a state
of complete obedience, a brilliant army, and large revenues; but was
weak enough to think that there was no glory to be obtained unless in
distant and chivalrous expeditions. The different monarchies of Spain,
which had long been rivals, were united by the marriage of Ferdinand of
Aragon with Isabella of Castile, and by the conquest which they jointly
made of the Moorish kingdom of Granada. Spain, forming for the first
time one great power, began to exercise an influence which she had never
till then claimed. The emperor Maximilian, after having united the Low
Countries and the county of Burgundy, his wife’s inheritance, to the
states of Austria, which he inherited from his father, asserted his right
to exercise over the whole of Germany the imperial authority which had
escaped from the hands of his predecessors. Lastly, the Swiss, rendered
illustrious by their victories over Charles the Bold, had begun, but
since his death only, to make a traffic of their lives, and enter the
service of foreign nations. At the same time, the empire of the Turks
extended along the whole shore of the Adriatic, and menaced at once
Venice and the kingdom of Naples. Italy was surrounded on all sides by
powers which had suddenly become gigantic, and of which not one had, half
a century before, given her uneasiness.

[Sidenote: [1492-1494 A.D.]]

France was the first to carry abroad an activity unemployed at home,
and to make Italy feel the change which had taken place in the politics
of Europe. Its king, Charles VIII, claimed the inheritance of all the
rights of the second house of Anjou on the kingdom of Naples. Those
rights, founded on the adoption of Louis I of Anjou by Joanna I, had
never been acknowledged by the people or confirmed by possession. For
the space of a hundred and ten years Louis I, II, and III, and René, the
brother of the last, made frequent but unsuccessful attempts to mount
the throne of Naples. The brother and the daughter of René, Charles of
Maine and Margaret of Anjou, at last either ceded or sold those rights
to Louis XI. His son, Charles VIII, as soon as he was of age, determined
on asserting them. Eager for glory, in proportion as his weak frame and
still weaker intellect incapacitated him for acquiring it, he, at the age
of twenty-four, resolved on treading in the footsteps of Charlemagne and
his paladins; and undertook the conquest of Naples as the first exploit
that was to lead to the conquest of Constantinople and the deliverance of
the Holy Sepulchre.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN PEASANT]

Charles VIII entered Italy in the month of August, 1494, with thirty-six
hundred men-at-arms or heavy cavalry; twenty thousand infantry, Gascons,
Bretons, and French; eight thousand Swiss, and a formidable train of
artillery. This last arm had received in France, during the wars of
Charles VII, a degree of perfection yet unknown to the rest of Europe.
The states of upper Italy were favourable to the expedition of the
French. The duchess of Savoy and the marchioness of Montferrat, regents
for their sons, who were under age, opened the passages of the Alps to
Charles VIII. Lodovico the Moor, regent of the duchy of Milan, recently
alarmed at the demand made on him by the king of Naples, to give up the
regency to his nephew, Giovanni Galeazzo, then of full age, and married
to a Neapolitan princess, had himself called the French into Italy; and
to facilitate their conquest of the kingdom of Naples, opened to them
all the fortresses of Genoa which were dependent on him. The republic
of Venice intended to remain neutral, reposing in its own strength, and
made the duke of Ferrara and the marquis of Mantua, its neighbours, adopt
the same policy; but southern Italy formed for its defence a league,
comprehending the Tuscan republics, the states of the church, and the
kingdom of Naples.

At Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici left three sons; of whom Piero II, at
the age of twenty-one, was named chief of the republic. His grandfather,
Piero I, son of Cosmo, oppressed with infirmities and premature old
age, had shown little talent, and no capacity for the government of a
state. Piero II, on the contrary, was remarkable for his bodily vigour
and address; but he thought only of shining at festivals, tilts, and
tournaments. It was said that he had given proofs of talent in his
literary studies, that he spoke with grace and dignity; but in his public
career he proved himself arrogant, presumptuous, and passionate. He
determined on governing the Florentines as a master, without disguising
the yoke which he imposed on them; not deigning to trouble himself with
business, he transmitted his orders by his secretary, or some one of his
household, to the magistrates.

Piero de’ Medici remained faithful to the treaty which his father had
made with Ferdinand, king of Naples, and engaged to refuse the French a
free passage, if they attempted to enter southern Italy by Tuscany. The
republics of Siena and Lucca, too feeble to adopt an independent policy,
promised to follow the impulse given by Medici. In the states of the
church, Rodrigo Borgia had succeeded to Innocent VIII, on the 11th of
August, 1492, under the name of Alexander VI. He was the richest of the
cardinals, and at the same time the most depraved in morals, and the most
perfidious as a politician. The marriage of one of his sons (for he had
several) with a natural daughter of Alfonso, son of Ferdinand, had put
the seal to his alliance with the reigning house of Naples. That house
then appeared at the summit of prosperity. Ferdinand, though seventy
years of age, was still vigorous: he was rich, he had triumphed over all
his enemies; he passed for the most able politician in Italy. His two
sons, Alfonso and Frederick, and his grandson, Ferdinand, were reputed
skilful warriors; they had an army and a numerous fleet under their
orders. However, Ferdinand dreaded a war with France, and he had just
opened negotiations to avoid it when he died suddenly, on the 25th of
January, 1494. His son, Alfonso II, succeeded him; while Frederick took
command of the fleet, and the young Ferdinand that of the army, destined
to defend Romagna against the French.

It was by Pontremoli and the Lunigiana that Charles VIII, according
to the advice of Lodovico the Moor, resolved to conduct his army into
southern Italy. This road traversing the Apennines from Parma to
Pontremoli, over poor pasture lands, and descending through olive groves
to the sea, the shore of which it follows at the foot of the mountains,
was not without danger. The country produces little grain of any kind.
Corn was brought from abroad, at a great expense, in exchange for oil.
The narrow space between the sea and the mountains was defended by a
chain of fortresses, which might long stop the army on a coast where
it would have experienced at the same time famine and the pestilential
fever of Pietrasanta. Piero de’ Medici, upon learning that the French
were arrived at Sarzana, and perceiving the fermentation which the news
of their approach excited at Florence, resolved to imitate that act of
his father which he had heard the most praised--his visit to Ferdinand
at Naples. He departed to meet Charles VIII. On his road he traversed a
field of battle, where three hundred Florentine soldiers had been cut
to pieces by the French, who had refused to give quarter to a single
one. Seized with terror, on being introduced to Charles, he, on the
first summons, caused the fortresses of Sarzana and Sarzanello to be
immediately surrendered. He afterwards gave up those of Librafratta,
Pisa, and Livorno (Leghorn), consenting that Charles should garrison
and keep them until his return from Italy, or until peace was signed,
and thus establishing the king of France in the heart of Tuscany. It
was contrary to the wish of the Florentines that Medici had engaged in
hostilities against the French, for whom they entertained an hereditary
attachment; but the conduct of the chief of the state, who, after having
drawn them into a war, delivered their fortresses, without authority,
into the hands of the enemy whom he had provoked, appeared as disgraceful
as it was criminal.

Piero de’ Medici, after this act of weakness, quitted Charles, to return
in haste to Florence, where he arrived on the 8th of November, 1494. On
his preparing, the next day, to visit the signoria, he found guards at
the door of the palace, who refused him admittance. Astonished at this
opposition, he returned home, to put himself under the protection of his
brother-in-law, Paolo Orsini, a Roman noble, whom he had taken, with a
troop of cavalry, into the pay of the republic. Supported by Orsini,
the three brothers Medici rapidly traversed the streets, repeating the
war-cry of their family, “_Palle! Palle!_”--without exciting a single
movement of the populace, upon whom they reckoned, in their favour.
The friends of liberty, the Piagnoni, on the other hand, excited by
the exhortations of Savonarola, assembled, and took arms. Their number
continually increased. The Medici, terrified, left the city by the gate
of San Gallo, traversed the Apennines, retired first to Bologna, then
to Venice, and thus lost, without a struggle, a sovereignty which their
family had already exercised sixty years. The same day, the 19th of
November, 1494, on which the Medici were driven out of Florence, the
Florentines were driven out of Pisa.[d]

CHARLES VIII; HIS ARMY (1494 A.D.)

The French army was now ready to march on Florence. It consisted of
thirty-six hundred men-at-arms; six thousand foot-archers from Brittany;
six thousand crossbowmen from the central provinces; eight thousand
Gascon infantry, at that time the most esteemed in France; all armed
with arquebuses and two-handed swords; and eight thousand Swiss or
German pikemen and halberdiers. An immense number of attendants followed
and increased this splendid force which was led by the king, the duke
of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII, the duke of Vendôme; the count of
Montpensier; Louis de Ligne, lord of Luxemburg; Louis de la Trémouille
and other great seigniors; besides the seneschal of Beaucaire, Briçonnet,
bishop of St. Malo, both confidential advisers of Charles; and, though
last not least, his father’s old and faithful counsellor Philip de
Comines, lord of Argenton, who has left so interesting and instructive a
history of his own times to posterity. The French man-at-arms or lance
(a name which seems to have been gradually dropped in Italy after the
disappearance of transalpine condottieri by whom it was introduced)
consisted of six horsemen, of which two were archers; they were nearly
all French subjects, and all gentlemen, who were neither enrolled nor
removed at the general’s pleasure nor paid by him as in Italy, but
received their salary direct from the crown. Their squadrons were always
maintained complete, and every man was well equipped both with arms and
horses, for their circumstances were equal to it, and there was a good
spirit and an honourable emulation to distinguish themselves not only for
the sake of glory but promotion; and the same spirit existed among the
leaders and generals, who were all lords and barons or of illustrious
family and nearly all native Frenchmen. None of the subordinate chiefs
commanded more than a hundred lances, and when these were complete they
looked only to glory and promotion, which were pursued with a singular
devotion to the king whom they considered the source of both. The result
of this spirit and this equality was a steadiness in their service, an
absence of any desire, whether from avarice or ambition, to change their
masters, and a similar absence of any rivalry with other captains for a
larger command.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, FIFTEENTH CENTURY]

All this differed from the Italian army in which the men-at-arms were
at this time principally composed of the lower ranks of society, of
strangers from other states, the subjects of other princes; all depending
on the condottieri, with whom they agreed for their salary and by them
alone was it paid, yet without any generous stimulus to honour, glory, or
good service--but on the contrary the certainty of an unfeeling dismissal
when no longer wanted. The generals themselves were rarely the subjects
of those they served and frequently had different ends and interests,
which were sometimes even directly inimical. Amongst them there was
abundance of hatred and rivalry and consequent absence of discipline:
nor had they always a prefixed period of service; wherefore being entire
masters of their troops they left their numbers incomplete, though paid
for; defrauded their employers; demanded shameful contributions from
them in emergencies, and then tired of the service, or stimulated by
ambition or avarice or some other temptation they were not only fickle
but unfaithful. Nor was there less difference in the infantry of France
and Italy; the latter fought in compact and well-ordered battalions, but
scattered over the country and taking advantage of its banks and ditches
and all its local peculiarities. The Swiss in French pay on the contrary
combated in large masses of an invariable number of rank and file, and
never breaking this order they presented themselves like a strong,
solid, and almost unconquerable wall where there was sufficient space
to deploy their battalions; with similar discipline and similar order
did the French and Gascon infantry fight, but not with equal bravery. In
their ordnance however the French were far superior to the Italians and
sent so great a quantity both of battering and field artillery to Genoa
for this war, and of so superior a nature, that the Italian officers
were astonished. Hitherto in Italy this warlike arm whether used in the
field or fortress had been of a very cumbrous construction; the largest
were denominated _bombarde_ and were made both of brass and iron, but of
great size--difficult of transport, difficult to place, and difficult
to discharge; much time was consumed in loading; a long interval passed
after every round; and the effect in general was comparatively trifling
with reference to the time and labour employed, there being always a
sufficient interval after each discharge for the garrison to repair the
damage at their leisure. The French had already cast much lighter pieces
of brass ordnance to which they seem to be the first who gave the name
of cannon, and used iron shot instead of stone balls: these were placed
on lighter carriages, and instead of bullocks as in Italy, they were
drawn by horses and kept pace with the army. They were placed in battery
with a rapidity that astonished the Italians, and their fire was so quick
and well-directed that what had previously been many days’ work amongst
the latter was accomplished in a few hours by the Frenchmen; so that this
alone made their army formidable to all Italy independent of their native
ferocity and valour.[e]

Charles VIII, on receiving from Piero de’ Medici the fortresses of
Librafratta, Pisa, and Livorno, in the Pisan states, engaged to preserve
to the Florentines the countries within the range of these fortresses,
and to restore them at the conclusion of the war. But Charles had very
confused notions of the rights of a country into which he carried war,
and was by no means scrupulous as to keeping his word. When a deputation
of Pisans represented to him the tyranny under which they groaned, and
solicited from him the liberty of their country, he granted their request
without hesitation, without even suspecting that he disposed of what was
not his, or that he broke his word to the Florentines; he equally forgot
every other engagement with them. Upon entering Florence, on the 17th of
November, at the head of his army, he regarded himself as a conqueror,
and therefore as dispensed from every promise which he had made to
Piero de’ Medici--he hesitated only between restoring his conquest to
Piero, or retaining it himself. The magistrates in vain represented to
him that he was the guest of the nation, and not its master; that the
gates had been opened to him as a mark of respect, not from any fear;
that the Florentines were far from feeling themselves conquered, whilst
the palaces of Florence were occupied not only by the citizens but by
the soldiers of the republic. Charles still insisted on disgraceful
conditions, which his secretary read as his ultimatum. Piero Capponi
suddenly snatched the paper from the secretary’s hand, and tearing it,
exclaimed, “Well, if it be thus, sound your trumpets, and we will ring
our bells!” This energetic movement daunted the French; Charles declared
himself content with the subsidy offered by the republic, and engaged
on his part to restore as soon as he had accomplished the conquest of
Naples, or signed peace, or even consented to a long truce, all the
fortresses which had been delivered to him by Medici. Charles after this
convention departed from Florence, by the road to Siena, on the 28th of
November. The Neapolitan army evacuated Romagna, the patrimony of St.
Peter, and Rome, in succession, as he advanced. He entered Rome on the
31st of December, without fighting a blow.[d]

Some very interesting details of the king’s entry into Rome and his
reception there by the pope have been preserved to us in a diary kept by
one John Burchard, “master of ceremonies of the chapel of Pope Alexander
VI.” A few extracts from this diary are here given:

_Charles VIII in Rome: A Contemporary Account_

From the diary of John Burchard, master of ceremonies of the chapel of
Pope Alexander VI (1494-1495). “Book of notes collected by me, John
Burchard of Strasburg, protonotary of the apostolic see, etc.”

The 19th and 21st, 22nd and 23rd of December the troops of the king of
France made excursions as far as San Lazaro and across the meadows which
surround the castle of St. Angelo. They had even formed the plan of
seizing Rome by treachery at night in one direction, while the Colonna
would enter from another with the aid of a thousand Frenchmen who were
to come down the river from the environs of Ostia; but a high wind so
disturbed their intentions that they could not put them into execution.
They wished, in truth, to enter the city by the Porto San Paolo, fire,
pillage it, and commit a thousand other atrocities, and the author of the
project was, they say, Cardinal Gurck, who himself would have come to the
gate of the city, had not the fierce storm compelled him to go back.

This same cardinal was one of the principal abettors of the king of
France’s march upon Rome. He had, in fact, decided the inhabitants of
Aquapendente and other lands of the church to grant passage to the king
of France, by vaunting the liberality and affability of that prince and
of the French in general; he assured them that the French would take
nothing without paying for it, not even a fowl, an egg, or the slightest
thing, affirming also that our holy father had promised the king he would
let him cross the estates of the church. By such discourse and similar he
induced the people to let the king of France and his troops in, contrary
to the pope’s express wish. And to prove to the German officials who were
in the city that he was looking after their interests, he wrote an open
letter which he caused to be distributed among the most prominent of them
in the city:

To our brothers and friends the prelates and other dignitaries
of the German nation and the estates of the Most Illustrious
Archduke Philip: residents of this city:

We call on God who sounds all hearts and loins to witness that
we have made every effort with the Most Christian King, as well
in the name of our Sovereign Pontiff and in our own, to induce
friendship and good feeling between the Pope and the King;
nevertheless we have not as yet been able to succeed; we do not
know to whom to attribute the fault, but it certainly is not
to the King of France who has no other desires than to conduct
himself as a submissive son towards the Sovereign Pontiff and
the Holy See according to the example of his predecessors.
Doubtless the principal obstacle to this arrangement comes from
the gravity of our offences towards God, and if he does not
let Himself be appeased by the prayers of pious souls, this
alliance and the consequent peace between Christian princes
cannot take place. In any case as it is to be feared that the
troops of the Most Christian King and his allies will in a few
days invade the city, if the enemies, which the King has in
Rome, oppose the ratification of the above mentioned agreement.
I have used my influence with the Prince that his troops may
cause no harm to foreigners, to whatever nation they may
belong, residing for the moment in Rome, at least unless they
are found in arms against his Majesty. In consequence, the King
wishes and directs that all subjects of the Most Serene King
of the Romans, and the Most Illustrious Prince, Archduke of
Austria, be not treated by his troops with less respect than
his own subjects and all the Roman citizens. To this effect
he has sent me to my Lord Count of Montpensier, his relative
and lieutenant-general, to let him know on the part of the
King that he must take measures to prevent the troops from
committing any outrage or annoyance upon the above mentioned
residents of Rome and especially upon the Most Reverend
Cardinals, foreigners of all nations, Roman citizens, and
finally the subjects of the Emperor and the Archduke.

I have wished to make known to you this determination that in
case (from which God preserve us) of the King’s troops entering
Rome in arms, you would be informed of his Most Christian
Majesty’s good intentions; if you would protect the more easily
your persons and your property, I advise you in case of tumult,
to take refuge, with the permission of the Lord Secretary, the
Cardinal of Lyons, in my palace; I am writing at the moment to
the said Secretary to ask that he be pleased to give you this
shelter; indeed I have not forgotten that God created me out of
nothing, that He raised me to the dignity and responsibilities
of the Cardinalate, at the prayers of the King of the Romans
and the electors of the Empire. This is why, as long as I
shall live, I shall force myself, through gratitude, to render
service to the Emperor, the Archduke Philip, and all their
subjects with the same devotion as if I were born in their
states. Adieu, dearly beloved brethren. Pray God to hear our
desires which are for universal peace among all Christians and
universal war against the Turks.

Your friend and brother,

CARDINAL GURCK.

Formello, 23rd December.

December 25th, feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the most
reverend cardinal Mont-Real, who was to say high mass, was appointed
by the holy father, on receipt of what had been learned of the king of
France’s intentions concerning his entry into Rome, to go to that prince
and beg him to send one of his men who would consult with the pope as
to the manner in which he would make his entry. The morning of the same
day our holy father the pope before going to his chapel called all the
cardinals, with the exception of the cardinal of Alessandria who was to
say mass, together in the hall known as Papagallo, and announced the
arrival of the king of France, in the presence of the duke of Calabria.

On Friday the 26th of the same month, our holy father betook himself to
the large chapel of the palace where he received the king’s ambassadors
who, to the number of three, had been sent the night previous. They were:
the grand marshal of the realm, Messire Jean de Gannay first president
of the parliament of Paris, and one other--all laymen. I caused them
to be placed--the grand marshal on the steps of the pontifical throne,
in front and above the senator; the two others on the bench of the lay
ambassadors, where were seated two ambassadors from the king of Naples,
who, refusing to recognise the new-comers on pretext that they knew
nothing of their characters as ambassadors, got up and left the place;
but on the information I gave them by special order of the pope that they
were ambassadors of the king of France, they came back to their bench and
yielded the point. The king’s envoys were accompanied by a large number
of Frenchmen, several of whom, forgetting all decorum, tried to place
themselves close to the prelates and even in their seats. I was obliged
to make them get out and assign them more suitable positions. Whereupon
the pope called me to him and said in great irritation that I was
compromising his interests, that the French must be let place themselves
where they wished; I replied to his holiness, who thus let himself be
carried away a little, that his wish being known to me I would let them
place themselves where they wished without making any observation.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF VENUS, ROME]

Wednesday December 31st, at early morning, I set out on horseback by
order of our holy father the pope to meet the king of France, to inform
him of the order of his reception according to the ceremonial, to learn
his wishes and execute all that his majesty would prescribe for me: I was
accompanied by the reverend father in Jesus Christ, the lord Bartolommeo,
bishop of Nepi, the pope’s secretary; by Lord Jerome Porcario, auditor
of the Rote, by the dean Coronato de Planca; and by Marius Milorius,
Christopher Buzolus, chancellor of Rome, and Jacob de Sinibaldis--Roman
citizens. At Galera, two miles from the city, we met the most reverend
cardinals of San Pietro in Vincoli, Gurck and Savelli, to whom I made
homage without descending from my horse. A short time after we came upon
the king to whom we made our respectful salutations, but still remained
on horseback on account of the mud and the bad weather.

[Sidenote: [1494-1495 A.D.]]

The bishop of Nepi having explained to the king what the holy father
charged him with saying touching the prince’s reception, on my side I
made known to his majesty the object of our errand. The king replied
that he desired to enter Rome without pomp; he then listened to Lord
Jerome Porcario who spoke on behalf of his Roman colleagues, placing the
citizens and all they possessed at the king’s disposition. The king made
a short reply without explaining what he was going to do about the offer
Porcario had just made him. The Romans withdrew. On the king’s invitation
I accompanied him for the space of about four miles; he questioned me
on the ceremonial, the pope, and the cardinals, of Valentino’s (Cesare
Borgia) rank and position, plying his questions so that I could scarce
answer one satisfactorily. In the outskirts of Burghetto two Venetian
ambassadors presented themselves before the king; they were soon followed
by the most reverend cardinal Ascagni, who, without descending from his
mule, uncovered himself before the king; the prince did the same to
the cardinal; both then resumed their headgear, and the most reverend
cardinal Ascagni rode on the king’s left hand and accompanied him over
the Milvian bridge and as far as the palace of St. Mark, ordinary
residence of the most reverend cardinal of Benevento. We arrived there
towards the second hour of the night, over roads deep with mud. From the
palace of the most reverend cardinal of Lisbon, close to the church of
San Laurentio, to the palace of St. Mark the whole route was lighted up
with fires, torches, and candles, and from nearly all the houses came
shouts of “_Francia! Francia! Columna! Columna! Vincula! Vincula!_”

This same day before the king’s entry into Rome, the keys of all the city
gates were delivered into the hands of the grand marshal of the king
of France, according to the command of that prince and with the pope’s
consent. The French said in fact, and indeed it was quite true, that on
a former occasion the keys had been similarly turned over to the duke of
Calabria during his visit to Rome, and that the king of France should
have the same rights. The following days, all the most reverend cardinals
residing in Rome visited the king of France in turn, according to
custom, except the cardinals of Naples and of Orsini, who, lodged in the
apostolic palace in apartments which the holy father had assigned them,
did not leave the palace and make this visit. Before his entry I had
informed the king on the way that, in receiving the cardinals’ visits,
he should himself go forward to meet them, conduct them to the door
on leaving, give them his hand, and I instructed him in other similar
customs. But he acted entirely differently. He neither went forward to
meet them nor conducted them to the door; the members of his suite did
not pay the respects expected of them. The nearest courtyard to the
king’s apartments in the palazzo San Marco was strewn with straw and not
even cleaned; candles were fastened to the doors and chimney places--in
fact, one would have thought himself in a pig pen.

Saturday, January 3rd, the partisans of the Colonna and the French
wrecked the residences of the most reverend cardinal of Naples’ nephew,
of Jacob de Comititibus’ son, and of Lord Bartolommeo de Lucca,
_valet-de-chambre_ of our holy father the pope. The French, that they
might lodge themselves in their own fashion, forced an entrance into
the houses from all sides, threw out even beasts and movables, burned
the woodwork, and ate and drank their fill without paying for anything,
all of which caused great talk among the people. In consequence of
this, the king of France caused an order to be published all over the
city forbidding the entering of houses by force under penalty of death.
Monday, January 5th, pontifical vespers were said in the great chapel
of the palace and in the pope’s presence. Before his holiness left the
Papagallo chamber several Frenchmen were admitted to kiss his foot.

Sunday, January 11th, it was agreed between our holy father the pope and
Philip de Bresse, the king of France’s uncle, that his holiness would
deliver for six months the sultan Djem, brother of the Grand Turk, to
the king of France, who would at once pay twenty thousand ducats to the
pope and would pledge himself, under the security of the Florentine
and Venetian merchants, to return the same sultan Djem to the pope
immediately the six months had expired; the king of France could receive
the crown of Naples without prejudice to the right of any others; and
that the cardinals of San Pietro in Vincoli, Gurck, Savelli, and Colonna
would be safe from all reproach.

Sunday, January 18th, the holy father sent for me by one of the pages and
told me that the next day a public consistory would be held to receive
the king of France. According to the wishes of his holiness, I arranged
that the president of the parliament of Paris should say a few words
in the king’s name, a speech in which his majesty would recognise his
holiness the pope as the true vicar and successor of St. Peter. The holy
father further made known to me his intention of saying mass pontifically
and publicly in the basilica of St. Peter on the following Tuesday, the
feast of St. Sebastian, in honour of the king, asking me what place the
prince should occupy and which mass to celebrate. He counted, in fact,
on saying the mass of the Holy Ghost, the office of which he knew best.
I replied to his holiness that the mass to celebrate was that of St.
Sebastian; and as for the king he would occupy a special seat placed
in front of the cardinals’ bench, between that bench and the chair of
the cardinal of Naples, who would assist. As a matter of fact, it was
not the cardinal’s duty to fulfil that function on this day; but there
was no objection to his doing so, as it was the custom to assist his
holiness on all days when he was not familiar with the office. While we
were conversing, the king of France arrived at the pontifical palace; the
pope, informed of his coming, went to meet him at the palace entrance.
The pope wore a white camail, a rich stole, and white cap, a costume
scarcely suitable under the circumstances. His majesty came to settle
definitely with the pope the articles of agreement already concluded and
signed, upon which a difference had already risen between them concerning
the securities to be given by the king for the return of the Turk at the
end of six months.

The agreement stated, in effect, that the king would furnish several
nobles and prelates of his realm of the pope’s choosing, for security;
the president claimed that this clause must be limited to ten persons
only, while the pope demanded thirty or forty. The discussion on this
point was prolonged for three or four hours; finally the pope entered
an apartment in which two papal chairs had been placed, followed by the
king, whom he made sit in one of these chairs, after which he seated
himself in the other, on the king’s right. On the pope’s side were the
cardinals of St. Anastasia and St. Alessandria. On the king’s side,
the most reverend cardinals of St. Denis and St. Malo, the two papal
secretaries, the datary, and several others.

The articles of agreement were read and agreed to. Two notaries were
called in--namely, the noble Stephen de Harnia for the pope, and the
noble Oliver Yvan, clerk of Mans, for the king. These wrote out the
treaty in French for his majesty, and in Latin for his holiness.

Monday, January 19th, the great hall of the apostolic palace was arranged
in the usual manner for the public consistory, at which the reception of
the king of France and the ceremony of obedience were to take place.

The king placed himself on the left of the sovereign pontiff, and I
motioned him to pronounce the formula of obedience. He said that he was
going to do it immediately; but at that moment the president of the
parliament of Paris advanced to the pope’s feet and, kneeling, explained
that the king had come in person to take the oath of obedience; but
before doing so he wished to obtain three favours from his holiness,
according to the customary privilege of vassals before the oath or homage
of their obedience. He asked the confirmation of the rights granted to
him the most Christian king, the queen his spouse, to the dauphin his
son, and to all the others included in the book whose title he mentioned;
next, the investiture of the kingdom of Naples for himself; and, finally,
the annulling of the clause concerning the security to guarantee the
return of the Grand Turk’s brother to the pope--an article agreed to the
day before with the others. The pope replied that he willingly confirmed
the privileges which were the subject of the first demand, as they had
been established by custom; but as for the investiture of the kingdom
of Naples, since that was an affair in which another was interested, it
could not be decided until after mature deliberation and consultation
with the cardinals, among whom he would make every effort that his
majesty should receive the satisfaction he desired; and as regards
Djem--the Grand Turk’s brother--he desired to agree unanimously with
the king and the sacred college, hoping that there would be no point of
difference between them concerning that article. After receiving this
reply the king, who was standing on the pope’s left, pronounced the
following words:

“Holy father, I have come to make obedience and reverence to your
holiness in the manner that my predecessors the kings of France have
done.”

After which the president, of whom we have spoken and who remained on his
knees, got up and, standing before his holiness, enlarged in these words
upon what the king had just said:

“Most holy father, there is an ancient custom among Christian princes,
especially the most Christian kings, to testify through their ambassadors
to their veneration for the holy see and for the popes whom the Almighty
has put at the head of the church; but the king here present, having
formed the design of visiting the tomb of the holy apostles, has come
in person to perform this duty. Thus he recognises you, holy father, as
the head of all the faithful, as the true vicar of Jesus Christ and as
the legitimate successor of the holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul,
willingly granting you that filial obedience which the kings of France,
his predecessors, were accustomed to profess to the popes. This is why
the king offers himself and all dependent on him to the service of your
holiness and of the holy see.”

Tuesday, January 27th, the sultan Djem, brother of the Grand Turk,
was taken from the castle of St. Angelo to the palace of St. Mark and
delivered into the hands of the king of France.

Wednesday, January 28th, the king of France and his people, all in
arms, visited the pope, with whom the king of France remained alone for
some time. He then withdrew, and was escorted by the pope as far as
the gallery leading to the main apartments, where the king knelt and
uncovered. The pope likewise bared his head in order to embrace him;
the king pretended to wish to kiss the pope’s feet, but he would not
allow it. The king departed and mounted the horse that was waiting for
him at the entrance of the private garden, where he waited some time for
Cardinal Valentino who was going with him to Naples; finally the latter,
after taking leave of the pope, came to the place where the king was
waiting, mounted his mule in cardinal’s robes, and presented the king
with six superb horses. The king then started with Cardinal Valentino on
his left; the other cardinals, whose escort the king did not wish for,
retired. The king made straight for Marino, where he arrived during the
course of the day. The cardinals of San Pietro in Vincoli, Savelli, and
Colonna, and the auditor of the chamber also left Rome with the king.
During the evening Cardinal Gurck followed the king. The Grand Turk’s
brother had already left for Marino.[f]

_Charles goes to Naples_

The first resistance which Charles encountered was on the frontiers
of the kingdom of Naples; and having there taken by assault two small
towns, he massacred the inhabitants. This instance of ferocity struck
Alfonso II with such terror, that he abdicated the crown in favour of his
son, Ferdinand II, and retired with his treasure into Sicily. Ferdinand
occupied Capua with his whole army, intending to defend the passage of
the Volturno. He left that city to appease a sedition which had broken
out at Naples; Capua, during his absence, was given up through fear to
the French, and he was himself forced, on the 21st of February, to embark
for Ischia. All the barons, his vassals, all the provincial cities, sent
deputations to Charles; and the whole kingdom of Naples was conquered
without a single battle in its defence. The powers of the north of Italy
regarded these important conquests with a jealous eye; they, moreover,
were already disgusted by the insolence of the French, who had begun to
conduct themselves as masters throughout the whole peninsula. The duke
of Orleans, who had been left by Charles at Asti, already declared his
pretensions to the duchy of Milan, as heir to his grandmother, Valentina
Visconti. Lodovico Sforza, upon this, contracted alliances with the
Venetians, the pope, the king of Spain, and the emperor Maximilian, for
maintaining the independence of Italy; and the duke of Milan and the
Venetians assembled near Parma a powerful army, under the command of the
marquis of Mantua.

[Sidenote: [1495-1496 A.D.]]

Charles VIII had passed three months at Naples in feasts and tournaments,
while his lieutenants were subduing and disorganising the provinces. The
news of what was passing in northern Italy determined him on returning to
France with the half of his army. He departed from Naples, on the 20th
of May, 1495, and passed peaceably through Rome, whilst the pope shut
himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. From Siena he went to Pisa, and
thence to Pontremoli, where he entered the Apennines. Gonzaga, marquis
of Mantua, awaited him at Fornovo, on the other side of that chain of
mountains. Charles passed the Taro, with the hope of avoiding him; but
was attacked on its borders by the Italians, on the 6th of July. He was
at the time in full march; the divisions of his army were scattered, and
at some distance from each other. For some time his danger was imminent;
but the impetuosity of the French, and the obstinate valour of the Swiss,
repaired the fault of their general. A great number of the Italian
men-at-arms were thrown in the charges of the French cavalry, many others
were brought down by the Swiss halberds, and all were instantly put to
death by the servants of the army. Gonzaga left thirty-five hundred dead
on the field, and Charles continued his retreat. On his arrival at Asti,
he entered into treaty with Lodovico Sforza, for the deliverance of the
duke of Orleans, whom Sforza besieged at Novara. He disbanded twenty
thousand Swiss, who were brought to him from the mountains, but to whose
hands he would not venture to confide himself. On the 22nd of October,
1495, he repassed the Alps, after having ravaged all Italy with the
violence and rapidity of a hurricane. He had left his relative, Gilbert
de Montpensier, viceroy at Naples, with the half of his army; but the
people, already wearied with his yoke, recalled Ferdinand II. The French,
after many battles, successively lost their conquests, and were at length
forced to capitulate at Aversa (Atella), on the 23rd of July, 1496.

The invasion of the French not only spread terror from one extremity
of Italy to the other, but changed the whole policy of that country,
by rendering it dependent upon that of the transalpine nations. While
Charles VIII pretended to be the legitimate heir of the kingdom of
Naples, the duke of Orleans, who succeeded him under the name of Louis
XII, called himself heir to the duchy of Milan. Maximilian, ambitious
as he was inconsistent, claimed in the states of Italy prerogatives to
which no emperor had pretended since the death of Frederick II in 1250.
The Swiss had learned, at the same time, that at the foot of their
mountains there lay rich and feeble cities which they might pillage,
and a delicious climate, which offered all the enjoyments of life; they
saw neighbouring monarchs ready to pay them for exercising there their
brigandage. Finally, Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of Aragon and
Castile, announced their intention of defending the bastard branch of
the house of Aragon, which reigned at Naples. But, already masters of
Sicily, they purposed passing the strait and were secretly in treaty with
Charles VIII, to divide with him the spoils of the relative whom they
pretended to defend. Amidst these different pretensions and intrigues,
in which Italian interests had no longer any share, the spirit of
liberty revived in Tuscany once more, but only to exhaust itself in a
new struggle between the Florentines and Pisans. The French garrisons
which Charles had left in Pisa and Librafratta, instead of delivering
them to the Florentines, according to his order, had given them up to the
Pisans themselves on the 1st of January, 1496. The allies, who had fought
Charles at Fornovo, reproached the Florentines with their attachment
to that monarch, and took part against them with the Pisans. Lodovico
Sforza, and the Venetians, sent reinforcements to the latter, and the
emperor Maximilian himself brought them aid. Thus, the only Italians who
had at heart the honour and independence of Italy exhausted themselves in
unequal struggles and in fruitless attempts.[d]

FLORENTINE AFFAIRS; SAVONAROLA

[Sidenote: [1494-1498 A.D.]]

The Florentine Republic was the only friendly power that Charles had left
in Italy; a friendship, though false, in every way important and almost
indispensable to France in the prosecution of her Italian conquests,
but equally so to Florence as her widest and richest field of commerce.
Yet so far from trying to conciliate the latter, that monarch not only
broke his oath and retained her fairest possessions, but left his wildest
soldiers to protect her revolted subjects; his Gascon infantry, when
unchecked by the royal presence, and imbued with all the Pisan hatred of
Florence, carried on their warlike operations in a spirit of barbarity
as yet unknown to the Italians. Among other excesses they fancied that
the Florentines swallowed their gold and jewels before every encounter
in order to preserve something if taken prisoners; wherefore all their
suspected captives were killed and ripped open to make a thorough search
for those embowelled treasures: for such cruelty, however, they paid full
dearly when made prisoners at Ponte di Sacco, in despite of every effort
of the Florentine commissaries.[e]

At the moment when Florence expelled the Medici, that republic was
bandied between three different parties. The first was that of the
enthusiasts, directed by Girolamo Savonarola; who promised the miraculous
protection of the Divinity for the reform of the church and the
establishment of liberty. These demanded a democratic constitution--they
were called the Piagnoni. The second consisted of men who had shared
power with the Medici, but who had separated from them; who wished to
possess alone the powers and profits of government, and who endeavoured
to amuse the people by dissipations and pleasures, in order to establish
at their ease an aristocracy--these were called the Arabiati. The third
party was composed of men who remained faithful to the Medici, but not
daring to declare themselves, lived in retirement--they were called Bigi.
These three parties were so equally balanced in the balia named by the
parliament, on the 2nd of December, 1494, that it soon became impossible
to carry on the government. Girolamo Savonarola took advantage of this
state of affairs to urge that the people had never delegated their power
to a balia which did not abuse the trust. “The people,” he said, “would
do much better to reserve this power to themselves, and exercise it by a
council, into which all the citizens should be admitted.” His proposition
was agreed to: more than eighteen hundred Florentines furnished proof
that either they, their fathers, or their grandfathers had sat in the
magistracy; they were consequently acknowledged citizens, and admitted
to sit in the general council. This council was declared sovereign, on
the 1st of July, 1495; it was invested with the election of magistrates,
hitherto chosen by lot, and a general amnesty was proclaimed, to bury in
oblivion all the ancient dissensions of the Florentine Republic.

[Illustration: SAVONAROLA

(From an old print)]

So important a modification of the constitution seemed to promise this
republic a happier futurity. The friar Savonarola, who had exercised
such influence in the council, evinced at the same time an ardent love
of mankind, deep respect for the rights of all, great sensibility, and
an elevated mind. Though a zealous reformer of the church, and in this
respect a precursor of Luther, who was destined to begin his mission
twenty years later, he did not quit the pale of orthodoxy; he did not
assume the right of examining doctrine; he limited his efforts to the
restoration of discipline, the reformation of the morals of the clergy,
and the recall of priests, as well as other citizens, to the practice of
the Gospel precepts: but his zeal was mixed with enthusiasm; he believed
himself under the immediate inspiration of providence; he took his own
impulses for prophetic revelations, by which he directed the politics
of his disciples, the Piagnoni. He had predicted to the Florentines the
coming of the French into Italy; he had represented to them Charles VIII
as an instrument by which the Divinity designed to chastise the crimes of
the nation; he had counselled them to remain faithful to their alliance
with that king, the instrument of providence, even though his conduct,
especially in reference to the affairs of Pisa, had been highly culpable.

This alliance however ranged the Florentines among the enemies of Pope
Alexander VI, one of the founders of the league which had driven the
French out of Italy; he accused them of being traitors to the church and
to their country for their attachment to a foreign prince. Alexander,
equally offended by the projects of reform and by the politics of
Savonarola, denounced him to the church as a heretic, and interdicted him
from preaching. The monk at first obeyed, and procured the appointment
of his friend and disciple the Dominican friar, Buonvicino of Pescia,
as his successor in the church of St. Mark; but on Christmas Day, 1497,
he declared from the pulpit that God had revealed to him that he ought
not to submit to a corrupt tribunal; he then openly took the sacrament
with the monks of St. Mark, and afterwards continued to preach. In the
course of his sermons, he more than once held up to reprobation the
scandalous conduct of the pope, whom the public voice accused of every
vice and every crime to be expected in a libertine so depraved--a man so
ambitious, perfidious, and cruel--a monarch and a priest intoxicated with
absolute power.

In the meantime, the rivalry encouraged by the court of Rome between
the religious orders soon procured the pope champions eager to combat
Savonarola: he was a Dominican--the general of the Augustines, that order
whence Martin Luther was soon to issue. Friar Mariano di Ghinazzano
signalised himself by his zeal in opposing Savonarola. He presented to
the pope Friar Francis of Apulia, of the order of minor Observantines,
who was sent to Florence to preach against the Florentine monk, in the
church of Santa Croce. This preacher declared to his audience that he
knew Savonarola pretended to support his doctrine by a miracle. “For me,”
said he, “I am a sinner; I have not the presumption to perform miracles;
nevertheless, let a fire be lighted, and I am ready to enter it with
him. I am certain of perishing, but Christian charity teaches me not to
withhold my life, if, in sacrificing it, I might precipitate into hell a
heresiarch, who has already drawn into it so many souls.”

This strange proposition was rejected by Savonarola; but his friend
and disciple, Friar Domenico Buonvicino, eagerly accepted it. Francis
of Apulia declared that he would risk his life against Savonarola
only. Meanwhile, a crowd of monks, of the Dominican and Franciscan
orders, rivalled each other in their offers to prove by the ordeal of
fire, on one side the truth, on the other the falsehood, of the new
doctrine. Enthusiasm spread beyond the two convents; many priests and
seculars, and even women and children, more especially on the side of
Savonarola, earnestly requested to be admitted to the proof. The pope
warmly testified his gratitude to the Franciscans for their devotion.
The signoria of Florence consented that two monks only should devote
themselves for their respective orders, and directed the pile to be
prepared. The whole population of the town and country, to which a signal
miracle was promised, received the announcement with transports of joy.

On the 7th of April, 1498, a scaffold, dreadful to look on, was erected
in the public square of Florence: two piles of large pieces of wood,
mixed with fagots and broom, which should quickly take fire, extended
each eighty feet long, four feet thick, and five feet high; they were
separated by a narrow space of two feet, to serve as a passage by which
the two priests were to enter, and pass the whole length of the piles
during the fire. Every window was full; every roof was covered with
spectators; almost the whole population of the republic was collected
round the place. The portico called the Loggia de’ Lanzi, divided in two
by a partition, was assigned to the two orders of monks. The Dominicans
arrived at their station chanting canticles, and bearing the holy
sacrament. The Franciscans immediately declared that they would not
permit the host to be carried amidst flames. They insisted that the friar
Buonvicino should enter the fire, as their own champion was prepared to
do, without this divine safeguard. The Dominicans answered, that they
would not separate themselves from their God at the moment when they
implored his aid. The dispute upon this point grew warm. Several hours
passed away. The multitude, which had waited long, and begun to feel
hunger and thirst, lost patience; a deluge of rain suddenly fell upon
the city, and descended in torrents from the roofs of the houses--all
present were drenched. The piles were so wet that they could no longer be
lighted; and the crowd, disappointed of a miracle so impatiently looked
for, separated, with the notion of having been unworthily trifled with.
Savonarola lost all his credit; he was henceforth rather looked on as
an impostor. Next day his convent was besieged by the Arabiati, eager
to profit by the inconstancy of the multitude; he was arrested, with
his two friends, Domenico Buonvicino and Silvestro Marruffi, and led
to prison. The Piagnoni, his partisans, were exposed to every outrage
from the populace--two of them were killed; their rivals and old enemies
exciting the general ferment for their destruction. Even in the signoria
the majority was against them, and yielded to the pressing demands
of the pope. The three imprisoned monks were subjected to a criminal
prosecution. Alexander VI despatched judges from Rome, with orders to
condemn the accused to death. Conformably with the laws of the church,
the trial opened with the torture. Savonarola was too weak and nervous to
support it: he avowed in his agony all that was imputed to him; and, with
his two disciples, was condemned to death. The three monks were burned
alive, on the 23rd of May, 1498, in the same square where, six weeks
before, a pile had been raised to prepare them a triumph.

THE FRENCH IN MILAN

[Sidenote: [1498-1499 A.D.]]

The expedition of Charles VIII against Naples had directed towards Italy
the attention of all the western powers. The transalpine nations had
learned that they were strong enough to act as masters, and if they
pleased as robbers, in this the richest and most civilised country of
the earth. All the powers on the confines henceforth aspired to subject
some part of Italy to their dominion. They coveted their share of tribute
from a land so fruitful of impost, from those cities in which industry
employed such numbers, and accumulated so much capital. Cupidity put arms
in their hands, and smothered every generous feeling. The commanders
were rapacious; the soldiers thought only of pillage. They regarded
the Italians as a race abandoned to their extortions, and vied with
each other in the barbarous methods which they invented for extorting
money from the vanquished, until at last they completely destroyed the
prosperity which had provoked their envy.

Charles VIII died at Amboise, on the 7th of April, 1498, the day destined
at Florence for the trial by fire of the doctrine of Savonarola. Louis
XII, who succeeded that monarch, claimed, as grandson of Valentina
Visconti, to be the legitimate heir to the duchy of Milan, although,
according to the law acknowledged by all Italy, and confirmed by
the imperial investure granted to the father of Valentina, females
were excluded from all share in the succession. This monarch, at his
coronation, took with the title of king of France those of duke of Milan
and king of Naples and Jerusalem. It was to the duchy of Milan that he
seemed particularly attached, apparently as having been the object of
his ambition before he came to the throne. He preserved during his whole
reign, as if he were simply duke of Milan, a feudal respect for the
emperor as lord paramount, which was as fatal to France as to Italy.

After having thus announced to the world his pretensions to the duchy
of Milan, Louis hastened to secure his possession of it by arms. He
easily separated his antagonist, Lodovico Sforza, from all his allies.
The emperor Maximilian had married the niece of Lodovico, to whom he had
granted the investure of his duchy; but Maximilian forgot, with extreme
levity, his promises and alliances. A new ambition, a supposed offence,
even a whim, sufficed to make him abandon his most matured projects. The
Swiss had just then excited his resentment; and to attack them the more
effectually, he signed with Louis XII a truce, in which Lodovico Sforza
was not included, and was therefore abandoned to his enemy. The Venetians
were interested still more than the emperor in defending Lodovico, but
were incensed against him; they accused him of having deceived them, as
well in the war against Charles VIII as in that for the defence of Pisa.
They suspected him of having suggested to Maximilian the claims which he
had just made on all their conquests in Lombardy, as having previously
appertained to the empire. They were obliged, moreover, to reserve all
their resources to resist the most formidable of their enemies. Bajazet
II had just declared war against them. Bands of robbers continually
descended from the mountains of Turkish Albania to lay waste Venetian
Dalmatia. The Turkish pashas offered their support to every traitor who
attempted to take from the Venetians any of their stations in the Levant.
Corfu very nearly fell into the hands of the Turks; at length hostilities
openly began. The Turks attacked Zara; all the Venetian merchants
established at Constantinople were put into irons, and Scander Pasha,
sanjak of Bosnia, passed the Isonzo on the 29th of September, 1499, with
seven thousand Turkish cavalry. He ravaged all the rich country which
extends from that river to the Tagliamento, at the extremity of the
Adriatic, and spread terror up to the lagunes which surround Venice.
Invaded by an enemy so formidable, against whom they were destined to
support, for seven years, a relentless war, the Venetians would not
expose themselves to the danger of maintaining another war against the
French. On the 15th of April, 1499, they signed, at Blois, with Louis, a
treaty, by which they contracted an alliance against Lodovico Sforza and
abandoned the conquest of the Milanese to the king of France, reserving
to themselves Cremona and the Ghiara d’Adda.

[Sidenote: [1499-1500 A.D.]]

Lodovico Sforza found no allies in any other part of Italy. Since the
execution of Savonarola at Florence, the faction of the Arabiati had
succeeded that of the Piagnoni in the administration, without changing
its policy. The republic continued to guard against the intrigues of the
Medici, who entered into an alliance with every enemy of their country,
in order to bring it back under their yoke. Florence continued her
efforts to subdue Pisa; but, fearing to excite the jealousy of the kings
of France and Spain, did not assemble for that purpose either a numerous
army or a great train of artillery. She contented herself with ravaging
the Pisan territory every year, in order to reduce that city by famine.
Even these expeditions were suspended when those powerful monarchs found
it convenient to make a show of peace. The cities of Siena, Lucca, and
Genoa, actuated by their jealousy of Florence, sent succour to Pisa.
Pope Alexander VI, who had been always the enemy of Charles VIII, now
entered into an alliance with Louis XII; but on condition that Cesare
Borgia, son of Alexander, should be made duke of Valentinois in France
and of Romagna in Italy--the French king assisting him against the petty
princes, feudatories of the holy see, who were masters of that province.
The king of Naples, Frederick, who had succeeded his nephew Ferdinand
on the 7th of September, 1496, was well aware that he should, in his
turn, be attacked by France; but although he merited, by his talents
and virtues, the confidence of his subjects, he had great difficulty in
re-establishing some order in his kingdom, which was ruined by war, and
had neither an army nor an exchequer to succour his natural ally, the
duke of Milan.

A powerful French army, commanded by the sires De Ligny and D’Aubigny,
passed the Alps in the month of August, 1499. On the 13th of that month
they attacked and took by assault the two petty fortresses of Arazzo and
Annone, on the borders of the Tanaro; putting the garrisons, and almost
all the inhabitants, to the sword. This ferocious proceeding spread
terror among the troops of Lodovico Sforza. His army, the command of
which he had given to Galeazzo San Severino, dispersed; and the duke, not
venturing to remain at Milan, sought for himself, his children, and his
treasure refuge in Germany, with the emperor Maximilian. Louis XII, who
arrived afterwards in Italy, made his entry into the forsaken capital
of Lodovico on the 2nd of October. The trembling people, wishing to
conciliate their new master, saluted him with the title of duke of Milan,
and expressed their joy in receiving him as their sovereign. The rest of
Lombardy also submitted without resistance; and Genoa, which had placed
itself under the protection of the duke of Milan, passed over to that of
the king of France.

Louis returned to Lyons before the end of the year; the fugitive hopes
which he had excited already gave way to hatred. The insolence of the
French, their violation of all national institutions, their contempt of
Italian manners, the accumulation of taxes, and the irregularities in the
administration rendered their yoke insupportable. Lodovico Sforza was
informed of the general ferment, and of the desire of his subjects for
his return. He was on the Swiss frontier, with a considerable treasure;
a brave but disorderly crowd of young men, ready to serve anyone for
pay, joined him. In a few days five hundred cavalry and eight thousand
infantry assembled under his banner; and, in the month of February,
1500, he entered Lombardy at their head. Como, Milan, Parma, and Pavia
immediately opened their gates to him: he next besieged Novara, which
capitulated. Louis, meanwhile, displayed great activity in suppressing
the rebellion: his general, Louis de la Trémouille, arrived before
Novara, in the beginning of April, with an army in which were reckoned
ten thousand Swiss. The men of that nation in the two hostile camps,
opposed to each other for hire, hesitated, parleyed, and finally
took a resolution more fatal to their honour than a battle between
fellow-countrymen could have been. Those within Novara not only consented
to withdraw themselves, but to give up to the French the Italian
men-at-arms with whom they were incorporated, and who were immediately
put to the sword or drowned in the river. They permitted La Trémouille to
arrest in their ranks Lodovico Sforza and the two brothers San Severino,
who attempted to escape in disguise. They received from the French the
wages thus basely won, and afterwards, rendered reckless by the sense
of their infamy, they in their retreat seized Bellinzona, which they
ever after retained. Thus, even the weakest of the neighbours of Italy
would have their share in her conquest. Lodovico Sforza was conducted
into France, and there condemned to a severe captivity, which, ten years
afterwards, ended with his life. The Milanese remained subject to the
king of France from this period to the month of June, 1512.

[Illustration: CAPO DI MONTE PALACE, NAPLES]

The facility with which Louis had conquered the duchy of Milan must have
led him to expect that he should not meet with much more resistance
from the kingdom of Naples. Frederick also, sensible of this, demanded
peace; and, to obtain it, offered to hold his kingdom in fief, as
tributary to France. He reckoned, however, on the support of Ferdinand
the Catholic, his kinsman and neighbour, who had promised him powerful
aid and had given him a pledge of the future by sending into Sicily his
best general, Gonsalvo de Cordova, with sixty vessels and eight thousand
chosen infantry. But Ferdinand had previously proposed to Louis a secret
understanding to divide between them the spoils of the unhappy Frederick.
While the French entered on the north to conquer the kingdom of Naples,
he proposed that the Spaniards should enter on the south to defend it;
and that, on meeting, they, instead of giving battle, should shake hands
on the partition of the kingdom--each remaining master of one-half. This
was the basis of the Treaty of Granada, signed on the 11th of November,
1500. In the summer of 1501 the perfidious compact was executed by the
two greatest monarchs of Europe.

THE FRENCH AND SPANIARDS IN NAPLES

[Sidenote: [1500-1504 A.D.]]

The French army arrived at Rome on the 25th of June, at the same time
that the army of Gonsalvo de Cordova landed in Calabria. The former,
from the moment they passed the frontier, treated the Neapolitans as
rebels, and hanged the soldiers who surrendered to them. Arrived before
Capua, they entered that city while the magistrates were signing the
capitulation, and massacred seven thousand of the inhabitants. The
treachery of Ferdinand inspired the unhappy Frederick with still more
aversion than the ferocity of the French. Having retired to the island
of Ischia, he surrendered to Louis, and was sent to France, where he
died, in a captivity by no means rigorous, three years afterwards. The
Spaniards and French advanced towards each other, without encountering
any resistance. They met on the limits which the treaty of Granada
had respectively assigned to them; but the moment the conquest was
terminated, jealousy appeared. The duke de Nemours and Gonsalvo de
Cordova disputed upon the division of the kingdom; each claimed for his
master some province not named in the treaty.

Hostilities at last began between them on the 19th of June, 1502, at
Atripalda. Louis, while the negotiation was pending, delayed sending
reinforcements to his general. After a struggle, not without glory,
and in which La Palisse and Bayard first distinguished themselves,
D’Aubigny was defeated at Seminara on the 21st of April, and Nemours
at Cerignola on the 28th of the same month, 1503. The French army was
entirely destroyed, and the kingdom of Naples lost to Louis XII. Louis
had sent off, during the same campaign, a more powerful army than the
first, to recover it; but, on arriving near Rome, news was received of
the death of Alexander VI, which took place on the 18th of August, 1503.
The cardinal D’Amboise, prime minister of Louis, detained the army there
to support his intrigues in the conclave: when it renewed its march,
in the month of October, the rainy season had commenced. Gonsalvo de
Cordova had taken his position on the Garigliano, the passage of which
he defended, amidst inundated plains, with a constancy and patience
characteristic of the Spanish infantry. During more than two months the
French suffered or perished in the marshes: a pestilential malady carried
off the flower of the army, and damped the courage and confidence of the
remainder. Gonsalvo, having at last passed the river himself, on the 27th
of December, attacked and completely destroyed the French army. On the
1st of January, 1504, Gaeta surrendered to him; and the whole kingdom of
Naples was now, like Sicily, but a Spanish possession.

Thus the greater part of Italy had already fallen under the yoke of the
nations which the Italians denominated barbarian. The French were masters
of the Milanese and of the whole of Liguria; the Spaniards of the Two
Sicilies; even the Swiss had made some small conquests along the Lago
Maggiore; and this was the moment in which Louis XII called the Germans
also into Italy. On the 22nd of September of the same year in which he
lost Gaeta, his last hold in the kingdom of Naples, he signed the Treaty
of Blois, by which he divided with Maximilian the republic of Venice, as
he had divided with Ferdinand the kingdom of Naples. Experience ought
to have taught him that Maximilian, like Ferdinand, would reserve for
himself the conquests made in common. The future ought to have alarmed
him; for Charles, the grandson and heir of Maximilian of Austria, and of
Ferdinand of Aragon, of Mary of Burgundy, and of Isabella of Castile, was
already born. It was foreseen that he would unite under his sceptre the
greatest monarchies in Europe; and Louis, instead of guarding against his
future greatness, had promised to give him his daughter in marriage. It
was the thoughtlessness of Maximilian, and not the prudence of Louis,
that delayed during four years the execution of the Treaty of Blois.

NORTHERN ITALY

[Sidenote: [1500-1509 A.D.]]

During this interval, Genoa--which had never ceased to consider herself
a republic, although the signoria had been conferred first on Ludovico
Sforza, and next on Louis XII, as duke of Milan--learned from experience
that a foreign monarch was incapable of comprehending either her laws
or liberty. According to the capitulation, one-half of the magistrates
of Genoa should be noble, the other half plebeian. They were to be
chosen by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens; they were to retain
the government of the whole of Liguria and the administration of their
own finances, with the reservation of a fixed sum payable yearly to
the king of France. But the French could never comprehend that nobles
were on an equality with villeins; that a king was bound by conditions
imposed by his subjects; or that money could be refused to him who had
force. All the capitulations of Genoa were successively violated; while
the Genoese nobles ranged themselves on the side of a king against
their country: they were known to carry insolently about them a dagger,
on which was inscribed “Chastise villeins”; so impatient were they to
separate themselves from the people, even by meanness and assassination.
That people could not support the double yoke of a foreign master and of
nobles who betrayed their country. On the 7th of February, 1507, they
revolted, drove out the French, proclaimed the republic, and named a new
doge; but time failed them to organise their defence. On the 3rd of April
Louis advanced from Grenoble with a powerful army. He soon arrived before
Genoa: the newly raised militia, unable to withstand veteran troops,
were defeated. Louis entered Genoa on the 29th of April; and immediately
sent the doge and the greater number of the generous citizens, who had
signalised themselves in the defence of their country, to the scaffold.

Independent Italy now comprised only the states of the church, Tuscany,
and the republic of Venice; and even these provinces were pressed by the
transalpine nations on every side. The Spaniards and French alternately
spread terror through Tuscany and the states of the church; the Germans
and Turks held in awe the territories of Venice. The states of the
church were at the same time a prey to the intrigues of the detestable
Alexander, and his son Cesare Borgia. More murders, more assassinations,
more glaring acts of perfidy were committed within a short space, than
during the annals of the most depraved monarchies. Cesare Borgia, whom
his father created duke of Romagna in 1501, had previously despoiled and
put to death the petty princes who reigned at Pesaro, Rimini, Forlì, and
Faenza. He had, in like manner, possessed himself of Piombino in Tuscany,
the duchy of Urbino, and the little principalities of Camerino and
Sinigaglia. He had caused to be strangled in this last city, on the 31st
of December, 1502, four tyrants of the states of the church, who followed
the trade of condottieri. These princes had served in his pay, and,
alarmed by his intrigues, had taken arms against him; but, seduced by his
artifices, they placed themselves voluntarily in his power. Cesare Borgia
had made himself master of Città di Castello, and of Perugia; and was
menacing Bologna, Siena, and Florence, when, on the 18th of August, 1503,
he and his father drank, by mistake, a poison which they had prepared
for one of their guests. His father died of it, and Borgia himself was
in extreme danger. In thirteen months he lost all his sovereignties, the
fruits of so many crimes. Attacked in turn by Pope Julius II, who had
succeeded his father, and by Gonsalvo de Cordova, he was at last sent
into Spain, where he died in battle, more honourably than he deserved.

In Tuscany, the republic of Florence found itself surrounded with
enemies. The Medici, continuing exiles, had entered into alliances with
all the tyrants in the pontifical states: they took part in every plot
against their country; at the same time, they sought the friendship
of the king of France, who was more disposed to favour a prince than
a republic. Piero de’ Medici had accompanied the army sent, in 1508,
against the kingdom of Naples, and lost his life at the defeat of the
Garigliano. His death did not deliver Florence from the apprehension
which he had inspired. His brothers Giovanni and Giuliano carried on
their intrigues against their country. The war with Pisa, too, which
still lasted, exhausted the finances of Florence. The Pisans had lost
their commerce and manufactures; they saw their harvests, each year,
destroyed by the Florentines: but they opposed to all these disasters
a constancy and courage not to be subdued. The French, Germans, and
Spaniards in turn sent them succour; not from taking any interest in
their cause, but with the view of profiting by the struggle which they
protracted. Lucca and Siena also, jealous of the Florentines, secretly
assisted the Pisans; but only so far as they could do it without
compromising themselves with neighbours whom they feared. Lucca fell, by
degrees, into the hands of a narrow oligarchy. Siena suffered itself to
be enslaved by Pandolfo Petrucci, a citizen, whom it had named captain
of the guard, and who commanded obedience, without departing from the
manners and habits of republican equality.

In the new position of Italy, continually menaced by absolute princes,
whose deliberations were secret, and who united perfidy with force, the
Florentines became sensible that their government could not act with the
requisite discretion and secrecy, while it continued to be changed every
two months. Their allies even complained that no secret could be confided
to them, without becoming known, at the same time, to the whole republic.
They accordingly judged it necessary to place at the head of the state a
single magistrate, who should be present at every council, and who should
be the depositary of every communication requiring secrecy. This chief,
who was to retain the name of gonfalonier, was elected, like the doge of
Venice, for life; he was to be lodged in the palace, and to have a salary
of 100 florins a month. The law which created a gonfalonier for life
was voted on the 16th of August, 1502; but it was not till the 22nd of
September following that the grand council chose Pietro Soderini to fill
that office. He was a man universally respected; of mature age, without
ambition, without children; and the republic never had reason to repent
its choice. The republic, at the same time, introduced the authority of a
single man into the administration, and suppressed it in the tribunals. A
law of the 15th of April, 1502, abolished the offices of podesta and of
captain of justice, and supplied their places by the _ruota_; a tribunal
composed of five judges, of whom four must agree in passing sentence:
each, in his turn, was to be president of the tribunal for six months.
This rotation caused the name of _ruota_ to be given to the supreme
courts of law at Rome and Florence.

The most important service expected from Soderini was that of subjecting
Pisa anew to the Florentine Republic: he did not accomplish this until
1509. That city had long been reduced to the last extremity: the
inhabitants, thinned by war and famine, had no longer any hope of holding
out; but Louis XII and Ferdinand of Aragon announced to the Florentines
that they must be paid for the conquest which Florence was on the point
of making. Pisa had been defended by them since 1507, but only to prevent
its surrendering before the amount demanded was agreed on: it was at
length fixed at 100,000 florins to be paid to the king of France, and
50,000 to the king of Aragon. This treaty was signed on the 13th of
March; and on the 8th of June, 1509, Pisa, which had cruelly suffered
from famine, opened its gates to the Florentine army: the occupying army
was preceded by convoys of provisions, which the soldiers themselves
distributed to the citizens. The signoria of Florence abolished all
the confiscations pronounced against the Pisans since the year 1494;
they restored to them all their property and privileges. They tried, in
every way, to conciliate and attach that proud people; but nothing could
overcome their deep resentment, and their regret for the loss of their
independence. Almost every family, which had preserved any fortune,
emigrated; and the population, already so reduced by war, was still
further diminished after the peace.

The republic of Venice was condemned, by the war which it had to support
against the Turkish Empire, from 1499 to 1503, to make no effort for
maintaining the independence of Italy against France and Aragon. It had
solicited the aid of all Christendom, as if for a holy war, against
Bajazet II; and, in fact, alternately received assistance from the
kings of France, Aragon, and Portugal, and from the pope: but these
aids, limited to short services on great occasions, were of little
real efficacy. They aggravated the misery of the Greeks among whom the
war was carried on, caused little injury to the Turks, and were of but
little service to the Venetians. The Mussulmans had made progress in
naval discipline; the Venetian fleet could no longer cope with theirs;
and Antonio Grimani, its commander, till then considered the most
fortunate of the citizens of Venice, already father of a cardinal,
and destined, long after, to be the doge of the republic, was, on his
return to his country, loaded with irons. Lepanto, Pylos, Modon, and
Coron, were successively conquered from the Venetians by the Turks; the
former were glad at last to accept a peace negotiated by Andrea Gritti,
one of their fellow-citizens, a captive at Constantinople. By this
peace they renounced all title to the places which they had lost in the
Peloponnesus, and restored to Bajazet the island of Santa Maura, which
they had, on their side, conquered from the Turks. This peace was signed
in the month of November, 1503.

[Sidenote: [1441-1509 A.D.]]

The period in which the republic of Venice was delivered from the terror
of the Turks was also that of the death of Alexander VI, and of the ruin
of his son, Cesare Borgia. The opportunity appeared to the signoria
favourable for extending its possessions in Romagna. That province had
been long the object of its ambition. Venice had acquired by treachery,
on the 24th of February, 1441, the principality of Ravenna, governed for
166 years by the house of Polenta. In 1463, it had purchased Cervia,
with its salt marshes, from Malatesta IV, one of the princes of Rimini;
upon the death of Cesare Borgia, it took possession of Faenza, the
principality of Manfredi; of Rimini, the principality of Malatesta; and
of several fortresses. Imola and Forlì, governed by the Alidosi and
the Ordelaffi, alone remained to be subdued, in order to make Venice
mistress of the whole of Romagna. The Venetians offered the pope the
same submission, the same annual tribute, for which those petty princes
were acknowledged pontifical vicars. But Julius II, who had succeeded
Borgia, although violent and irascible, had a strong sense of his duty
as a pontiff and as an Italian. He was determined on preserving the
states of the church intact for his successors. He rejected all nepotism,
all aggrandisement of his family; and would have accused himself of
unpardonable weakness, if he suffered others to usurp what he refused
to give his family. He haughtily exacted the restitution of all that
the Venetians possessed in the states of the church; and as he could
not obtain it from them, he consented to receive it from the hands of
Louis and Maximilian, who combined to despoil the republic. He, however,
communicated to the Venetians the projects formed against them, and it
was not till they appeared resolved to restore him nothing, that he
concluded his compact with their enemies.

THE LEAGUE OF CAMBRAY

[Sidenote: [1504-1509 A.D.]]

The league against Venice, signed at Cambray, on the 10th of December,
1508, by Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian, and the cardinal
d’Amboise, prime minister of Louis, was only the completion of the
secret Treaty of Blois, of the 22nd of September, 1504. No offence had
been given, to justify this perfidious compact. Maximilian, who detested
Louis, had the same year endeavoured to attack him in the Milanese; but
the Venetians refused him a passage; and after three months’ hostilities,
the treaty between the emperor and the republic was renewed, on the 7th
of June, 1508. Louis XII, whom the Venetians defended, and Maximilian,
with whom they were reconciled, had no other complaint against them
than that they had no king, and that their subjects thus excited the
envy of those who had. The two monarchs agreed to divide between them
all the Terra Firma of the Venetians, to abandon to Ferdinand all their
fortresses in Apulia, to the pope the lordships in Romagna, to the houses
of Este and Gonzaga the small districts near the Po; and thus to give all
an interest in the destruction of the only state sufficiently strong to
maintain the independence of Italy.

France was the first to declare war against the republic of Venice, in
the month of January, 1509. Hostilities commenced on the 15th of April;
on the 27th of the same month the pope excommunicated the doge and the
republic. The Venetians had assembled an army of forty-two thousand
men, under the command of the impetuous Bartolommeo d’Alviano and the
cautious Pitigliano. The disagreement between these two chiefs, both
able generals, caused the loss of the battle of Agnadello, fought on the
14th of May, 1509, with the French, who did not exceed thirty thousand.
Half only, or less, of the Venetian army was engaged; but that part
fought heroically, and perished without falling back one step. After this
discomfiture, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, and Cremona hastily surrendered
to the conquerors, who planted their banners on the border of Ghiara
d’Adda, the limits assigned by the treaty of partition. Louis signalised
this rapid conquest by atrocious cruelties; he caused the Venetian
governors of Caravaggio and of Peschiera to be hanged, and the garrison
and inhabitants to be put to the sword; he ruined, by enormous ransoms,
all the Venetian nobles who fell into his hands; seeking to vindicate to
himself his unjust attack by the hatred which he studied to excite.

The French suspended their operations from the 31st of May; but the
emperor, the pope, the duke of Ferrara, the marquis of Mantua, and
Ferdinand of Aragon profited by the disasters of the republic to invade
its provinces on all sides at once. The senate, in the impossibility of
making head against so many enemies, took the generous resolution of
releasing all its subjects from their oath of fidelity, and permitting
them to treat with the enemy, since it was no longer in its power to
defend them. In letting them feel the weight of a foreign yoke, the
senate knew that it only rendered more dear the paternal authority of the
republic; and, in fact, those citizens who had eagerly opened their gates
to the French, Germans, and Spaniards, soon contrasted, in despair, their
tyranny with the just and equal power which they had not had the courage
to defend. The Germans, above all, no sooner entered the Venetian cities,
than they plunged into the most brutal debauchery; offending public
decency, and exercising their cruelty and rapacity on all those who
came within their reach. Notwithstanding this, the native nobles joined
them. They were eager to substitute monarchy for republican equality
and freedom, but their insolence only aggravated the hatred which the
Germans inspired. The army of the republic had taken refuge at Mestre, on
the borders of the Lagune, when suddenly the citizen evinced a courage
which the soldier no longer possessed. Treviso, in the month of June, and
Padua on the 17th of July, drove out the imperialists; and the banners of
St. Mark, which had hitherto constantly retreated, began once again to
advance.

[Illustration: DOORWAY OF ST. MARK’S SCHOOL, VENICE]

The war of the league of Cambray showed the Italians, for the first time,
what formidable forces the transalpine nations could bring against them.
Maximilian arrived to besiege Padua in the month of September, 1509. He
had in his army, Germans, Swiss, French, Spaniards, Savoyards; troops of
the pope, of the marquis of Mantua, and of the duke of Modena; in all
more than one hundred thousand men, with one hundred pieces of cannon. He
was, notwithstanding, obliged to raise the siege, on the 3rd of October,
after many encounters, supported on each side with equal valour. But
these barbarians, who came to dispute with the Italians the sovereignty
of their country, did not need success to prove their ferocity. After
having taken from the poor peasant, or captive, all that he possessed,
they put him to the torture to discover hidden treasure, or to extort
ransom from the compassion of friends. In this abuse of brute force, the
Germans showed themselves the most savage, the Spaniards the most coldly
ferocious. Both were more odious than the French; although the last
mentioned had bands called flayers (_écorcheurs_), formed in the English
wars, and long trained to grind the people.

[Sidenote: [1509-1511 A.D.]]

Pope Julius II soon began to hate his accomplices in the league of
Cambray. Violent and irascible, he had often shown in his fits of passion
that he could be as cruel as the worst of them. But he had the soul of an
Italian. He could not brook the humiliation of his country, and its being
enslaved by those whom he called barbarians. Having recovered the cities
of Romagna, the subject of his quarrel with the Venetians, he began to
make advances to them. At the end of the first campaign, he entered into
negotiations; and on the 21st of February, 1510, granted them absolution.
He was aware that he could never drive the barbarians out of Italy but by
arming them against each other; and as the French were those whom he most
feared, he had recourse to the Germans. It was necessary to begin with
reconciling the Venetians to the emperor; but Maximilian, always ready to
undertake everything, and incapable of bringing anything to a conclusion,
would not relax in a single article of what he called his rights. As
emperor, he considered himself monarch of all Italy; and although he
was always stopped on its frontier, he refused to renounce the smallest
part of what he purposed conquering. He asserted that the whole Venetian
territory had been usurped from the empire; and before granting peace to
the republic, demanded almost its annihilation.

It was with the aid of the Swiss that the pope designed to liberate
Italy. He admired the valour and piety of that warlike people; he saw,
with pleasure, that cupidity had become their ruling passion. The
Italians, who needed the defence of the Swiss, were rich enough to pay
them; and a wise policy conspired for once with avarice; for the Swiss
republics could not be safe if liberty were not re-established in Italy.
Louis XII, by his prejudice in favour of nobility, had offended those
proud mountaineers, whom, even in his own army, he considered only
as revolted peasants. Julius II employed the bishop of Sion, whom he
afterwards made cardinal, to irritate them still more against France.
In the course of the summer of 1510, the French, according to the plan
which Julius had formed, were attacked in the Milanese by the Swiss, in
Genoa by the Genoese emigrants, at Modena by the pontifical troops, and
at Verona by the Venetians; but, notwithstanding the profound secrecy in
which the pope enveloped his negotiations and intrigues, he could not
succeed, as he had hoped, in surprising the French everywhere at the same
time. The four attacks were made successively, and repulsed. The sire de
Chaumont, lieutenant of Louis in Lombardy, determined to avenge himself
by besieging the pope in Bologna, in the month of October. Julius feigned
a desire to purchase peace at any price; but, while negotiating, he
caused troops to advance; and, on finding himself the stronger, suddenly
changed his language, used threats, and made Chaumont retire. When
Chaumont had placed his troops in winter quarters, the pope, during the
greatest severity of the season, attacked the small state of Mirandola,
which had put itself under the protection of France, and entered its
capital by a breach, on the 20th of January, 1511.

[Sidenote: [1511-1512 A.D.]]

The pope’s troops, commanded by the duke of Urbino, experienced in
the following campaign a signal defeat at Casalecchio, on the 21st of
May, 1511. It was called “the day of the ass-drivers,” because the
French knights returned driving asses before them loaded with booty.
The loss of Bologna followed; but Julius II was not discouraged. His
legates laboured, throughout Europe, to raise enemies against France.
They at last accomplished a league, which was signed on the 5th of
October, and which was called “holy,” because it was headed by the
pope. It comprehended the kings of Spain and England, the Swiss, and the
Venetians. Louis XII, to oppose an ecclesiastical authority to that of
the pontiffs, convoked, in concert with Maximilian, whom he continued
to consider his ally, an œcumenical council. A few cardinals, who had
separated from the pope, clothed it with their authority; and Florence
dared not refuse to the two greatest monarchs of Europe the city of Pisa
for its place of meeting, although the whole population beheld with dread
this commencement of a new schism.[d]

The combined forces were to be placed under the command of Raymond de
Cardona, viceroy of Naples, a person of polished and engaging address,
but without the resolution or experience requisite to military success.
The rough old pope sarcastically nicknamed him “Lady Cardona.” It was an
appointment that would certainly never have been made by Queen Isabella.
Indeed, the favour shown this nobleman on this and other occasions was so
much beyond his deserts as to raise a suspicion in many that he was more
nearly allied by blood to Ferdinand than was usually imagined.

THE BATTLE OF RAVENNA

[Sidenote: [1512 A.D.]]

Early in 1512, France, by great exertions and without a single
confederate out of Italy, save the false and fluctuating emperor, got an
army into the field superior to that of the allies in point of numbers,
and still more so in the character of its commander. This was Gaston de
Foix, duke of Nemours and brother of the queen of Aragon. Though a boy
in years--for he was but twenty-two--he was ripe in understanding, and
possessed consummate military talents. He introduced a severer discipline
into his army, and an entirely new system of tactics. He looked forward
to his results with stern indifference to the means by which they were
to be effected. He disregarded the difficulties of the roads and the
inclemency of the season, which had hitherto put a check on military
operations. Through the midst of frightful morasses, or in the depth of
winter snows, he performed his marches with a celerity unknown in the
warfare of that age. In less than a fortnight after leaving Milan he
relieved Bologna (February 5th), then besieged by the allies, made a
countermarch on Brescia, defeated a detachment by the way, and the whole
Venetian army under its walls, and, on the same day with the last event,
succeeded in carrying the place by storm. After a few weeks’ dissipation
of the carnival, he again put himself in motion, and, descending on
Ravenna, succeeded in bringing the allied army to a decisive action under
its walls. Ferdinand, well understanding the peculiar characters of the
French and of the Spanish soldier, had cautioned his general to adopt
the Fabian policy of Gonsalvo, and avoid a close encounter as long as
possible.

This battle, fought with the greatest numbers, was also the most
murderous which had stained the fair soil of Italy for a century (April
11th, 1512). No less than eighteen or twenty thousand, according to
authentic accounts, fell in it, comprehending the best blood of France
and Italy. The viceroy Cardona went off somewhat too early for his
reputation. But the Spanish infantry, under the count Pedro Navarro,
behaved in a style worthy of the school of Gonsalvo. During the early
part of the day, they lay on the ground, in a position which sheltered
them from the deadly artillery of Este, then the best mounted and best
served of any in Europe. When at length, as the tide of battle was going
against them, they were brought into the field, Navarro led them at once
against a deep column of _lansquenets_ who, armed with the long German
pike, were bearing down all before them. The Spaniards received the shock
of this formidable weapon on the mailed panoply with which their bodies
were covered, and, dexterously gliding into the hostile ranks, contrived
with their short swords to do such execution on the enemy, unprotected
except by corselets in front, and incapable of availing themselves of
their long weapon, that they were thrown into confusion and totally
discomfited. It was repeating the experiment more than once made during
these wars, but never on so great a scale, and it fully establishes the
superiority of the Spanish arms.

The Italian infantry, which had fallen back before the lansquenets,
now rallied under cover of the Spanish charge; until at length the
overwhelming clouds of French _gendarmerie_ headed by Ives d’Alègre, who
lost his own life in the _mêlée_, compelled the allies to give ground.
The retreat of the Spaniards, however, was conducted with admirable
order, and they preserved their ranks unbroken, as they repeatedly turned
to drive back the tide of pursuit. At this crisis, Gaston de Foix,
flushed with success, was so exasperated by the sight of this valiant
corps going off in so cool and orderly a manner from the field, that
he made a desperate charge at the head of his chivalry, in hopes of
breaking it. Unfortunately, his wounded horse fell under him. It was in
vain his followers called out, “It is our viceroy, the brother of your
queen!” The words had no charm for a Spanish ear, and he was despatched
with a multitude of wounds. He received fourteen or fifteen in the face;
“good proof,” says Bayard’s secretary and biographer, called the _loyal
serviteur_,[j] “that the gentle prince had never turned his back.”

There are few instances in history, if indeed there be any, of so brief
and at the same time so brilliant a military career as that of Gaston de
Foix; and it well entitled him to the epithet his countrymen gave him
of “the thunderbolt of Italy.” He had not merely given extraordinary
promise, but in the course of a very few months had achieved such results
as might well make the greatest powers of the peninsula tremble for their
possessions. His precocious military talents, the early age at which
he assumed the command of armies, as well as many peculiarities of his
discipline and tactics, suggest some resemblance to the beginning of
Napoleon’s career.

Unhappily, his brilliant fame is sullied by a recklessness of human life,
the more odious in one too young to be steeled by familiarity with the
iron trade to which he was devoted. It may be fair, however, to charge
this on the age rather than on the individual, for surely never was there
one characterised by greater brutality and more unsparing ferocity in its
wars. So little had the progress of civilisation done for humanity. It is
not until a recent period that a more generous spirit has operated; that
a fellow-creature has been understood not to forfeit his rights as a man
because he is an enemy; that conventional laws have been established,
tending greatly to mitigate the evils of a condition which, with every
alleviation, is one of unspeakable misery; and that those who hold the
destinies of nations in their hands have been made to feel that there is
less true glory, and far less profit, to be derived from war than from
the wise prevention of it.

The defeat at Ravenna struck a panic into the confederates. The stout
heart of Julius II faltered, and it required all the assurances of the
Spanish and Venetian ministers to keep him staunch to his purpose. King
Ferdinand issued orders to the great captain to hold himself in readiness
for taking the command of forces to be instantly raised for Naples. There
could be no better proof of the royal consternation.

The victory of Ravenna, however, was more fatal to the French than
to their foes. The uninterrupted successes of a commander are so far
unfortunate, that they incline his followers, by the brilliant illusion
they throw around his name, to rely less on their own resources than on
him whom they have hitherto found invincible; and thus subject their own
destiny to all the casualties which attach to the fortunes of a single
individual. The death of Gaston de Foix seemed to dissolve the only bond
which held the French together. The officers became divided, the soldiers
disheartened, and, with the loss of their young hero, lost all interest
in the service.[g]

The ministers of Louis thought they might, after the battle of Ravenna,
safely dismiss a part of their army; but Maximilian, betraying all his
engagements, abandoned the French to their enemies. Without consenting
to make peace with Venice, he gave passage through his territory to
twenty thousand Swiss, who were to join the Venetian army, in order to
attack the French. He, at the same time, recalled all the Germans who had
enlisted under the banner of France. Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry VIII
of England almost simultaneously attacked Louis, who, to defend himself,
was obliged to recall his troops from Italy. In the beginning of June,
they evacuated the Milanese; of which the Swiss took possession, in the
name of Massimiliano Sforza, son of Lodovico il Moro (the Moor). On the
29th of the same month, a revolution drove the French out of Genoa; and
the republic and a new doge were again proclaimed. The possessions of
France were soon reduced to a few small fortresses in that Italy which
the French thought they had subdued. But the Italians did not recover
their liberty by the defeat of only one of their oppressors. From the
yoke of France, they passed under that of the Swiss, the Spaniards, and
the Germans; and the last they endured always seemed the most galling.
To add to their humiliation, the victory of the Holy League enslaved the
last and only republic truly free in Italy.

Florence was connected with France by a treaty concluded in concert
with Ferdinand the Catholic. The republic continued to observe it
scrupulously, even after Ferdinand had disengaged himself from it.
Florence had fulfilled towards all the belligerent powers the duties of
good neighbourhood and neutrality, and had given offence to none; but
the league, which had just driven the French out of Italy, was already
divided in interest, and undecided on the plan which it should pursue. It
was agreed only on one point, that of obtaining money. The Swiss lived at
discretion in Lombardy, and levied in it the most ruinous contributions:
the Spaniards of Raymond de Cardona insisted also on having a province
abandoned to their inexorable avidity; Tuscany was rich and not warlike.
The victorious powers who had assembled in congress at Mantua proposed
to the Florentines to buy themselves off with a contribution; but the
Medici, who presented themselves at this congress, asked to be restored
to their country, asserting that they could extract much more money by
force, for the use of the Holy League, than a republican government could
obtain from the people by gentler means. Raymond de Cardona readily
believed them, and in the month of August, 1512, accompanied them across
the Apennines, with five thousand Spanish infantry as inaccessible to
pity as to fear. Raymond sent forward to tell the Florentines that, if
they would preserve their liberty, they must recall the Medici, displace
the gonfalonier Soderini, and pay the Spanish army 40,000 florins. He
arrived at the same time before the small town of Prato, which shut
its gates against him; it was well fortified, but defended only by the
_ordinanza_, or country militia. On the 30th of August, the Spaniards
made a breach in the wall, which these peasants basely abandoned. The
city was taken by assault; the militia, which would have incurred less
danger in fighting valiantly, were put to the sword; five thousand
citizens were afterwards massacred, and others, divided among the
victors, were put to lingering tortures, either to force them to discover
where they had concealed their treasure, or to oblige their kinsmen to
ransom them out of pity; the Spaniards having already pillaged all they
could discover in holy as well as profane places.

The terror caused at Florence, by the news of the massacre of Prato,
produced next day a revolution. A company of young nobles, belonging to
the most illustrious families, who, under the title of Society of the
Garden Ruccellai, were noted for their love of the arts, of luxury and
pleasure, took possession, on the 31st of August, of the public palace;
they favoured the escape of Soderini, and sent to tell Raymond de Cardona
that they were ready to accept the conditions which he offered. But all
treaties with tyrants are deceptions. Giuliano de’ Medici, the third
son of Lorenzo, whose character was gentle and conciliatory, entered
Florence on the 2nd of September, and consented to leave many of the
liberties of the republic untouched. His brother, the cardinal Giovanni,
afterwards Leo X, who did not enter till the 14th of the same month,
forced the signoria to call a parliament on the 16th. In this pretended
assembly of the sovereign people, few were admitted except strangers
and soldiers: all the laws enacted since the expulsion of the Medici in
1494 were abolished. A balia, composed only of the creatures of that
family, was invested with the sovereignty of the republic. This balia
showed itself abjectly subservient to the cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici,
his brother Giuliano, and their nephew Lorenzo, who now returned to
Florence after eighteen years of exile, during which they had lost every
republican habit, and all sympathy with their fellow-citizens. None of
them had legitimate children; but they brought back with them three
bastards,--Giulio, afterwards Clement VII, Ippolito, and Alessandro,--who
had all a fatal influence on the destiny of their country. Their fortune,
formerly colossal, was dissipated in their long exile; and their first
care, on returning to Florence, was to raise money for themselves, as
well as for the Spaniards, who had re-established their tyranny.

[Sidenote: [1512-1513 A.D.]]

The three destructive wars--_viz._, that of the French and Swiss in the
Milanese, that of the French and Spaniards in the kingdom of Naples,
that of the French, Spaniards, Germans, and Swiss, in the states of
Venice--robbed Italy of her independence. The country to which Europe was
indebted for its progress in every art and science, which had imparted
to other nations the medical science of Salerno, the jurisprudence of
Bologna, the theology of Rome, the philosophy, poetry, and fine arts
of Florence, the tactics and strategy of the Bracceschi and Sforzeschi
schools, the commerce and banks of the Lombards, the process of
irrigation, the scientific cultivation both of hills and plains--that
country now belonged no more to its own inhabitants! The struggle between
the transalpine nations continued, with no other object than that of
determining to which of them Italy should belong; and bequeathed nothing
to that nation but long-enduring, hopeless agonies. Julius II in vain
congratulated himself on having expelled the French, who had first
imposed a foreign yoke on Italy; he vowed in vain that he would never
rest till he had also driven out all the barbarians; but he deceived
himself in his calculations: he did not drive out the barbarians, he only
made them give way to other barbarians; and the new-comers were ever the
most oppressive and cruel. However, this project of national liberation,
which the pope alone could still entertain in Italy with any prospect
of success, was soon abandoned. Eight months after the expulsion of the
French from the Milanese, and five months after the re-establishment
of the Medici at Florence, Julius II, on the 21st of February, 1513,
sank under an inflammatory disease. On the 11th of March, Giovanni de’
Medici succeeded him, under the name of Leo X--eleven months after the
latter had been made prisoner by the French at the battle of Ravenna, and
six months after the Spanish arms had given him the sovereignty of his
country, Florence.

THE AGE OF LEO X

It has been the singular good fortune of Leo X to have his name
associated with the most brilliant epoch of letters and the arts
since their revival. He has thus shared the glory of all the poets,
philosophers, artists, men of learning and science, his contemporaries.
He has been held up to posterity as one who formed and raised to eminence
men who were in fact his elders, and who had attained celebrity before
the epoch of his power. His merit consisted in showering his liberality
on those whose works and whose fame had already deserved it. His reign,
on the other hand, which lasted nine years, was marked by fearful
calamities, which hastened the destruction of those arts and sciences to
which alone the age of Leo owes its splendour. The misfortunes which he
drew down on his successor was still more dreadful. The pope was himself
a man of pleasure, easy, careless, prodigal; who expended in sumptuous
feasts the immense treasures accumulated by his predecessors. He had
the taste to adorn his palace with the finest works of antiquity, and
the sense to enjoy the society of philosophers and poets; but he had
never the elevation of soul to comprehend his duties, or to consult his
conscience. His indecent conversation and licentious conduct scandalised
the church; his prodigality led him to encourage the shameful traffic in
indulgences, which gave rise to the schism of Luther; his thoughtlessness
and indifference to human suffering made him light up wars the most
ruinous, and which he was utterly unable to carry on; he never thought
of securing the independence of Italy, or of expelling the barbarians:
it was simply for the aggrandisement of his family that he contracted or
abandoned alliances with the transalpine nations: he succeeded, indeed,
in procuring that his brother Giuliano should be named duke of Nemours,
and he created his nephew duke of Urbino; but he endeavoured also to
erect for the former a new state, composed of the districts of Parma,
Piacenza, Reggio, and Modena; for the latter, another, consisting of the
several petty principalities which still maintained themselves in the
states of the church. His tortuous policy to accomplish the first object,
his perfidy and cruelty to attain the second, deserved to be much more
severely branded by historians.

The sovereign pontiff and the republic of Venice were the only powers in
Italy which still preserved some shadow of independence. Julius II had
succeeded in uniting Romagna, the Marches, the patrimony and campagna
of Rome, to the holy see. Amongst all the vassals of the church, he had
spared only his own nephew, Gian Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino. On
the defeat of the French, he further seized Parma and Piacenza, which he
detached from the Milanese, without having the remotest title to their
possession, as he also took Modena from the duke of Ferrara, whom he
detested. Leo X found the holy see in possession of all these states,
and was at the same time himself all-powerful at Florence. Even the
moment of his elevation to the pontificate was marked by an event which
showed that every vestige of liberty had disappeared from that republic.
The partisans of the Medici pretended to have discovered at Florence a
conspiracy, of which they produced no other proofs than some imprudent
speeches, and some wishes uttered for liberty. The most illustrious
citizens were, nevertheless, arrested; and Macchiavelli, with several
others, was put to the torture. Pietro Boscoli and Agostino Capponi were
beheaded; and those who were called their accomplices exiled. The two
republics of Siena and Lucca were in a state of trembling subjection to
the pontiff; so that all central Italy, peopled with about four million
inhabitants, was dependent on him: but the court of Rome, since it
had ceased to respect the ancient municipal liberties, never extended
its authority over a new province without ruining its population and
resources. Law and order seemed incompatible with the government of
priests: the laws gave way to intrigue and favour; commerce gave way to
monopoly. Justice deserted the tribunals, foresight the councils, and
valour the armies. It was proverbially said that the arms of the church
had no edge. The great name of pope still moved Europe at a distance, but
it brought no real force to the allies whom he adopted.

[Sidenote: [1513-1515 A.D.]]

The republic of Venice, with a smaller territory, and a far less numerous
population, was in reality much more powerful than the church. Venetian
subjects, if they did not enjoy liberty, had at least a government
which maintained justice, order, and the law; their material prosperity
was judiciously protected. They in return were contented, and proved
themselves devotedly attached to their government; but the wars raised by
the league of Cambray overwhelmed that republic with calamity. The city
of Venice, secure amidst the waters, alone escaped the invasion of the
barbarians; though, even there, the richest quarters had been laid waste
by an accidental fire. The country and the provincial towns experienced
in turn the ferocity of the French, Swiss, Germans, and Spaniards. Three
centuries and a half had elapsed since this same Veronese march, the
cradle of the Lombard League, had repelled the invasion of Frederick
Barbarossa. But while the world boasted a continual progress, since
that period, in civilisation,--while philosophy and justice had better
defined the rights of men,--while the arts, literature, and poetry had
quickened the feelings, and rendered man more susceptible of painful
impressions,--war was made with a ferocity at which men in an age of
the darkest barbarism would have blushed. The massacre of all the
inhabitants of a town taken by assault, the execution of whole garrisons
which had surrendered at discretion, the giving up of prisoners to the
conquering soldiers in order to be tortured into the confession of hidden
treasure, became the common practice of war in the armies of Louis XII,
Ferdinand, and Maximilian. Kings were haughty in proportion to their
power; they considered themselves at so much the greater distance above
human nature: they were the more offended at all resistance, the more
incapable of compassion for sufferings which they did not see or did
not comprehend. The misery which they caused presented itself to them
more as an abstraction; they regarded masses, not individuals; they
justified their cruelties by the name of offended majesty; they quieted
remorse by considering themselves, not as men, but as scourges in the
hand of God. Centuries have elapsed, and civilisation has not ceased to
march forward; the voice of humanity has continued to become more and
more powerful; no one now dares to believe himself great enough to be
dispensed from humanity; nevertheless, those who would shrink with horror
from witnessing the putting to death of an individual do not hesitate to
condemn whole nations to execution. The crimes which remain for us to
relate do not merit more execration than those of which we are ourselves
the witnesses at this day. Kings, in their detestation of freedom, let
loose upon unhappy Italy, in the sixteenth century, famine, war, and
pestilence; as, from the same motive in a later time, they loosed upon
heroic Poland, famine, war, and the cholera.

Louis XII, after having lost the Milanese, through his infatuated
ambition to reconquer the small province of the Cremonese, which he had
himself ceded to the republic of Venice, felt anew the desire of being
reconciled with that republic, his first ally in Italy. The Venetians,
who knew that without their money, artillery, and cavalry, the Swiss
could never have faced the French, much less have driven them out of
Italy, saw that their allies did not appreciate their efforts and
sacrifices. Maximilian, who in joining never granted them peace, but
only a truce, reasserted his claims on Verona and Vicenza, and would not
consent to allow the Venetians any states in terra firma but such as they
purchased from him at an enormous price. The pope, to enforce the demands
of Maximilian, threatened the Venetians with excommunication; and their
danger after victory appeared as great as after defeat. Andrea Gritti,
one of their senators,--made prisoner after the battle of Agnadello,
and the same who, during his captivity at Constantinople, had signed
the peace of his country with the Turks,--again took advantage of his
captivity in France to negotiate with Louis. He reconciled the republic
with that monarch, who had been the first to attack it; and a treaty
of alliance was signed at Blois, on the 24th of March, 1513. This was,
however, a source of new calamity to Venice. A French army, commanded
by La Trémouille, entered the Milanese, and on its approach the Germans
and Spaniards retired. The Swiss, who gloried in having re-established
Massimiliano Sforza on the throne of his ancestors, were, however,
resolved not to abandon him. They descended from their mountains in
numerous bodies, on the 6th of June, 1513; attacked La Trémouille at the
Riotta, near Novara; defeated him, and drove him back with all the French
forces beyond the Alps. The Spaniards and the soldiers of Leo X next
attacked the Venetians without any provocation: they were at peace with
the republic, but they invaded its territory in the name of their ally
Maximilian. They occupied the Paduan state, the Veronese, and that of
Vicenza, from the 13th of June till the end of autumn. It was during this
invasion the Spaniards displayed that heartless cruelty which rendered
them the horror of Italy; that cupidity which multiplied torture, and
which invented sufferings more and more atrocious, to extort gold from
their prisoners. The Germans in the next campaign overran the Venetian
provinces; and, notwithstanding the savage cruelties and numerous crimes
of which the country had just been the theatre, yet the German commander
found means to signalise himself by his ferocity.

_The Battle of Marignano; Last Years of Leo_

Francis I succeeded Louis XII on the 1st of January, 1515; on the 27th
of June he renewed his predecessor’s treaty of alliance with Venice; and
on the 15th of August entered the plains of Lombardy, by the marquisate
of Saluzzo, with a powerful army. He met but little resistance in the
provinces south of the Po; but the Swiss meanwhile arrived in great force
to defend Massimiliano Sforza, whom, since they had reseated him on
the throne, they regarded as their vassal. Francis in vain endeavoured
to negotiate with them: they would not listen to the voice of their
commanders; democracy had passed from their _landsgemeinde_ into their
armies, popular orators roused their passions; and on the 13th of
September they impetuously left Milan to attack Francis I at Marignano
(Melegnano). Deep ditches lined with soldiers bordered the causeway by
which they advanced; their commanders wished by some manœuvre to get
clear of them, or make the enemy change his position; but the Swiss,
despising all the arts of war, expected to command success by mere
intrepidity and bodily strength.[d]

As soon as Francis I became aware that the Swiss were marching against
him he made vigorous preparations to receive them. The duchy of Milan,
which with prudent negotiation he hoped to obtain, could only be gained
by a complete victory.

His army was drawn up on three lines on the road leading from Marignano
to Milan; the advance-guard, commanded by the high constable of Bourbon,
encamped in the village of San Giuliano, a short distance below San
Donato; the main body of the army, the command of which the king had
reserved for himself, was at Santa Brigitta, within bowshot of the
high constable; the rear-guard, placed under the command of the duke
of Alençon, was at about the same distance from the king’s main body.
The army, thus disposed in echelons, held the highway of Milan on its
left, and protecting its right by the river Lambro, occupied a territory
covered with trenches and intersected with small irrigation canals, which
would guard it from the sudden attacks of the Swiss infantry, and also
sometimes be inconvenient for the deploying and the charges of its own
cavalry, wherein lay a principal portion of its strength.

Francis I hastily made his arrangements to face the danger, and withstand
the shock of an encounter with the Swiss army. As he himself said in the
animated description of the battle he sent to his mother, the regent,
he “placed his German foot-soldiers in order.” He had formed two corps
of them, each nine thousand strong, and placed them on the sides of the
avenue by which the Swiss were advancing, besides the picked corps of six
thousand lansquenets of the Black Companies. The Gascon archers and the
French adventurers, under Pedro Navarro, occupied, not far from there, a
very strong position near the heavy artillery, which was ably led by the
seneschal of Armagnac.

The Swiss then came up. They had made the distance between Milan and the
French camp without stopping. “It is not possible,” says the king, “to
advance with greater fury or more boldly.” The discharge of the artillery
forced them to take shelter for a moment in a hollow. Then, with levelled
pikes, they fell upon the French army. The high constable of Bourbon, and
Marshal de la Palice at the head of the men-at-arms of the advance-guard,
charged, but were not able to break through them. Thrown back themselves
upon their infantry, they were pursued by the Swiss, who attacked the
lansquenets with fury and put them to rout. The day was declining, and
the battle, begun late (between four and five o’clock), was assuming
the same appearance as at Navarre. The largest company of Swiss, having
driven back the men-at-arms and overthrown the lansquenets, was marching
upon the guns to seize them, turn them against the French army, and thus
complete her defeat.

But there were braver hearts and more resolute spirits amongst those
commanding at Marignano than at Navarre. Francis I, armed _cap-à-pie_,
mounted on a great charger whose caparison was covered in fleur-de-lis
and his initial, F, crowned, had flung himself in this victorious moment
before the Swiss at the head of two hundred men-at-arms, as well as
eight hundred horsemen. After having valiantly charged one of their
companies and forced them to throw down their pikes, he had attacked
a large company which he was not able to overcome but compelled to
retreat. Then, proceeding in the direction of his threatened artillery,
he there rallied five or six thousand lansquenets, and more than three
thousand men-at-arms, with whom he made a firm stand against the largest
detachment of the Swiss, who were not able to seize and remove the pieces
of cannon as they intended. The better to impede these Swiss, Francis
I discharged a charge of artillery upon them, which dislodged them and
obliged them to return to a trench they had crossed and there take
shelter.

The high constable, on his side, having rallied a large company of
men-at-arms and the majority of the infantry, had attacked five or six
thousand Swiss with much vigour, and had driven them back to their own
places. Night fell whilst both sides were fighting thus--the Swiss
without succeeding in carrying the French camps, the French unable to
completely repulse the attacks of the Swiss. They continued fighting
with pertinacity and no little confusion for several hours by the dim
light of the moon, still veiled by the clouds of dust. The hostile troops
had some difficulty in recognising each other in this vast and confused
struggle. Towards eleven o’clock at night, the moonlight having failed
them, darkness prevented their continuing this desperate conflict. The
Swiss had had the advantage at the commencement of the battle, as they
had broken through the French lines, but things had been less favourable
to them at the finish, as they had been partly driven back to their own.
In spite of their efforts, having attacked that day without vanquishing,
they awaited the morrow to recommence the battle.

[Illustration: ITALIAN ARMOUR, FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY]

Both sides passed the night under arms in the position occupied at the
cessation of action owing to the darkness, and not far from each other.
Francis I, after many charges, had returned to the artillery, who, firing
opportunely upon the Swiss battalions, had several times broken through
them, and were shortly to prove to be of even more powerful assistance.
Showing the foresight of a general after showing the intrepidity of a
soldier, he caused Duprat, the chancellor, who had followed him on this
campaign, to write three most important letters, which were confided
to trusty messengers. The first was addressed to the Venetian general,
Bartolommeo d’Alviano, whom he enjoined to set out immediately, and
to come from Lodi with his customary promptitude, so as to join the
forces he commanded to those of Francis on the following day. The
second exhorted Louis d’Ars, who occupied Pavia, to carefully guard his
stronghold which might, in case of disaster, serve as a point of retreat.
In the third he warned Lautrec of the attack of the Swiss, and advised
him not to remit or allow to be taken the money he carried about him, in
execution of the violated treaty of Gallarate. These precautions taken,
he “spent the rest of the night,” so he wrote after the battle, “in the
saddle, his lance in hand, and his helmet on his head,” and only rested
for a few moments, leaning on a gun-carriage.

An hour before dawn he prepared everything for the coming battle. He took
up a position slightly in the rear, and more favourable than the one he
had occupied the preceding day. Instead of leaving his army drawn up in
three lines, he placed his men abreast in only one line. Remaining in the
centre of his battle array, he called upon the high constable of Bourbon
to form his right wing with the advance-guard, and his brother-in-law,
the duke of Alençon, to form his left wing with the rear-guard. The
guns, well placed and defended, were by well-directed firing, to harass
the enemy on their march, and could only be approached by them with
difficulty. It was in this order that Francis I awaited the attack of the
Swiss.

The leaders of the allies had held a council of war during the night, to
consult as to the next day’s battle and how to render it more decisive.
At daybreak they closed up their huge battalions and set out somewhat
ponderously. They seemed at first to be proceeding in a body towards the
centre of the French army, but some discharges of artillery which pierced
their ranks caused them to retreat in the direction of the positions they
had occupied during the night. There they formed into three detachments
which marched on the main body and the two wings of the French. The
first detachment, supported by the six small guns of the Swiss, advanced
towards Francis I, whose steadfast attitude and powerful artillery kept
it at a certain distance. Whilst this detachment of eight hundred men
faced and attacked the king, the two other detachments of about equal
strength had flung themselves upon the two wings commanded by the high
constable and the duke of Alençon, hoping to scatter them, so as to then
surround, and thus easily overcome, the main body of the army. Whether
the Swiss had less confidence than the day before, or whether they were
met with even more courage and steadfastness, they saw their enemies
facing their pikes as they had never done yet. The high constable with
his lansquenets and men-at-arms, and Pedro Navarro with the Gascon
archers and the adventurers, resisted the detachment attacking the right
wing, and, after a sharp struggle, drove it back. In the left wing the
duke of Alençon was at first less fortunate. Whilst the king stopped
the advance of the central column of the Swiss, and the high constable
victoriously drove back the left one, the right column had turned and
assailed the forces of the duke of Alençon, which had been scattered and
had retreated in confusion. In spite of the terror of the fugitives, who
had precipitately fled from the field of battle, and were spreading along
the road to Pavia the news of the victory of the Swiss, the conflict
remained at this point.

D’Aubigny and Aymar de Prie, having rallied the troops, did their utmost
to repair the disaster of the duke of Alençon, and bravely charged the
enemy. They were struggling with them when Bartolommeo d’Alviano, who had
started early from Lodi, arrived about ten o’clock from that side of the
battle-field. At the head of his armed men and his light cavalry, he at
once fell upon the Swiss with the cry of “Saint Mark!” This unexpected
attack disconcerted them. They feared the whole Venetian army would be
upon them, and they retreated. Closely pursued, they fell back towards
the centre, where the allies’ battalions, placed opposite Francis I,
had not been able to make any progress. They discharged and received
cannon-shots during several hours, possibly awaiting the victorious
issue of the two attacks of the right and left wings to attempt more
securely to break through the main body of the army. They made one last
and vigorous effort. A company of five thousand men were told off, and
marched with the resolution of despair as far as the French lines.
But, taken obliquely by the artillery, charged by Francis I and his
men-at-arms, attacked with hatchets and pikes by the valiant lansquenets
of the Black Company, stationed in the centre with the king, pierced by
the arrows of the Gascon archers, who had hastened from the right side
where they had gained the mastery, the Swiss company was cut to pieces
and none escaped.

[Sidenote: [1515-1516 A.D.]]

The king, with a decisive movement, then bore down with his cavalry upon
the other confederates, who abandoned their position and their guns.
The Swiss, driven back or vanquished on every side, gave the signal
for retreat, and retired from the battle-field, leaving from seven to
eight thousand dead. Carrying their wounded, they retook the Milan road
in fairly good order and without pursuit, and entered that town with
a haughty demeanour, and not as a defeated army. They were beaten,
nevertheless, for they had just lost at Marignano that prestige, which,
since Sempach, Granson, and Morat, and as late as at Novara, had made
them invincible.[h]

This horrible butchery, however, hastened the conclusion of the wars
which arose from the league of Cambray. The Swiss were not sufficiently
powerful to maintain their sway in Lombardy; eight of their cantons, on
the 7th of November, signed, at Geneva, a treaty of peace with Francis I,
who compensated with considerable sums of money all the claims which they
consented to abandon. On the 29th of November the other cantons acceded
to this pacification, which took the name of “_Paix perpétuelle_,”
and France recovered the right of raising such infantry as she needed
among the Swiss. Raymond de Cardona, alarmed at the retreat of the
Swiss, evacuated Lombardy with the Spanish troops. The French recovered
possession of the whole duchy of Milan. Massimiliano Sforza abdicated the
sovereignty for a revenue of 30,000 crowns secured to him in France. Leo
X, ranging himself on the side of the victors, signed, at Viterbo, on the
13th of October, a treaty, by which he restored Parma and Piacenza to the
French.

In a conference held with Francis at Bologna, between the 10th and
15th of the following December, Leo induced that monarch to sacrifice
the liberties of the Gallican church by the concordat, to renounce the
protection he had hitherto extended to the Florentines and to the duke
of Urbino, although the former had always remained faithful to France.
The pope seized the states of the duke of Urbino, and conferred them on
his nephew, Lorenzo II de’ Medici. Amidst these transactions, Ferdinand
the Catholic died, on the 15th of January, 1516, and his grandson Charles
succeeded to his Spanish kingdoms. On the 13th of August following,
Charles signed, at Noyon, a treaty, by which Francis ceded to him all his
right to the kingdom of Naples as the dower of a newborn daughter, whom
he promised to Charles in marriage. From that time Maximilian remained
singly at war with the republic of Venice and with France. During the
campaign of 1516, his German army continued to commit the most enormous
crimes in the Veronese march; but Maximilian had never money enough to
carry on the war without the subsidies of his allies; remaining alone,
he could no longer hope to be successful. On the 14th of December he
consented to accede to the treaty of Noyon; he evacuated Verona, which
he had till then occupied, and the Venetians were once more put by the
French in possession of all the states of which the league of Cambray
had proposed the partition: but their wealth was annihilated, their
population reduced to one-half, their constitution itself shaken, and
they were never after in a state to make those efforts for the defence
of the independence of Italy, which might have been expected from them
before this devastating war.

[Sidenote: [1516-1519 A.D.]]

Had Italy been allowed to repose after so many disasters, she might
still have recovered her strength and population; and when the struggle
should have recommenced with the transalpine nations, she would have
been found prepared for battle; but the heartless levity and ambition of
Leo did not give her time. While the family of the Medici was becoming
extinct around him, he dreamed only of investing it with new dignities;
he refused the Florentines permission to re-establish their republic,
and offered his alliance to whatever foreign monarch would aid him in
founding on its ruins a principality for the bastard Medici. His third
brother Giuliano, duke of Nemours, whom he had at first charged with the
government of Florence, died on the 17th of March, 1516. Lorenzo II, son
of his eldest brother Piero, whom he had made duke of Urbino, and whom he
sent to command at Florence after Giuliano, rendered himself odious there
by his pride and by his contemptible incapacity--he too died only three
years afterwards, on the 28th of April, 1519. Leo supplied his place by
Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, afterwards Clement VII. This prelate was the
natural son of the first Giuliano killed in the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478.
He was considered the most able of the pope’s ministers, and the most
moderate of his lieutenants. Giuliano II had also left an illegitimate
son, Ippolito, afterwards cardinal; and Lorenzo II had a legitimate
daughter, Catherine, afterwards queen of France, and an illegitimate son,
Alexander, destined to be the future tyrant of Florence. Leo, whether
desirous of establishing these descendants, or carried away by the
restlessness and levity of his character, sighed only for war.

[Illustration: AN ATTENDANT OF AN ITALIAN PRINCE, FIRST HALF OF SIXTEENTH
CENTURY]

[Sidenote: [1519-1522 A.D.]]

The emperor Maximilian died on the 19th of January, 1519, leaving his
hereditary states of Austria to his grandson Charles, already sovereign
of all Spain, of the Two Sicilies, of the Low Countries, and of the
county of Burgundy. Charles and Francis both presented themselves as
candidates for the imperial crown; the electors gave it to the former, on
the 28th of June, 1519; he was from that period named Charles V. Italy,
indeed the whole of Europe, was endangered by the immeasurable growth
of this young monarch’s power. The states of the church, over which he
domineered by means of his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, could not hope
to preserve any independence but through an alliance with France. Leo at
first thought so, and signed the preliminary articles of a league with
Francis; but, suddenly changing sides, he invited Charles V to join him
in driving the French out of Italy. A secret treaty was signed between
him and the emperor, on the 8th of May, 1521. By this the duchy of Milan
was to be restored to Francesco Sforza, the second son of Louis the Moor.
Parma, Piacenza, and Ferrara were to be united to the holy see: a duchy
in the kingdom of Naples was to be secured to the bastard Alessandro de’
Medici. The pope united his army to that of the emperor in the kingdom of
Naples; the command of it was given jointly to Prospero Colonna and the
marquis Pescara: war was declared on the 1st of August, and the imperial
and pontifical troops entered Milan on the 19th of November: but in the
midst of the joy of this first success, Leo X died unexpectedly, on the
1st of December, 1521.

SUCCESSORS OF LEO; FRANCIS I AND CHARLES V

Death opportunely delivered Leo from the dangers and anxieties into which
he had thoughtlessly precipitated himself. His finances were exhausted;
his prodigality had deprived him of every resource; and he had no means
of carrying on a war which he had only just begun. He left his successors
in a state of distress which was unjustly attributed to them, and which
rendered them odious to the people; for the war into which he had plunged
them, without any reasonable motive, was the most disastrous of all those
which had yet afflicted unhappy Italy. There remained no power truly
Italian that could take any part in it for her defence. Venice was so
exhausted by the war of the league of Cambray that she was forced to
limit her efforts to the maintenance of her neutrality, and was hardly
powerful enough to make even her neutral position respected. Florence
remained subject to the cardinal Giulio de’ Medici. The republics of
Siena and Lucca were tremblingly prepared to obey the strongest: all the
rest depended on the transalpine power; for an unexpected election, on
the 9th of January, 1522, had given a Flemish successor to Leo X, under
the name of Adrian VI. This person had been the preceptor of Charles
V, and had never seen Italy, where he was regarded as a barbarian. The
kingdom of Naples was governed and plundered by the Spaniards. After
the French had lost the duchy of Milan, Francesco Sforza, who had been
brought back by the imperialists, possessed only the name of sovereign.
He had never been for a moment independent; he had never been able to
protect his subjects from the tyranny of the Spanish and German soldiers,
who were his guards. Finally, the marquis de Montferrat and the duke of
Savoy had allowed the French to become masters in their states, and had
no power to refuse them passage to ravage oppressed Italy anew.

[Sidenote: [1522-1525 A.D.]]

The marshal Lautrec, whom Francis I had charged to defend the Milanese,
and who still occupied the greater part of the territory, was forced by
the Swiss, who formed the sinews of his army, to attack the imperialists
on the 29th of April, 1522, at Bicocca. Prospero Colonna had taken
up a strong position about three or four miles from Milan, on the
road to Monza: he valued himself on making a defensive war--on being
successful without giving battle. The Swiss attacked him in front,
throwing themselves, without listening to the voice of their commander,
into a hollow way which covered him, and where they perished, without
the possibility of resistance. After having performed prodigies of
valour, the remainder were repulsed with dreadful loss. In spite of the
remonstrances of Lautrec, they immediately departed for their mountains;
and he for his court, to justify himself. Lescuns, his successor in the
command, suffered the imperialists to surprise and pillage Lodi; and was
at last forced to capitulate at Cremona on the 6th of May, and evacuate
the rest of Lombardy. Genoa was not comprehended in the capitulation,
and remained still in possession of the French; but, on the 20th of May,
that city was also surprised by the Spaniards, and pillaged with all
the ferocity which signalised that nation. It was one of the largest
depots of commerce in the West, and the ruin of so opulent a town shook
the fortune of every merchant in Europe. The general of Charles then,
judging Lombardy too much exhausted to support his armies, led them to
live at discretion in the provinces of his ally, the pope. They raised
among the states still calling themselves independent enormous subsidies
to pay the soldiers, for which purpose Charles never sent money. The
plague, breaking out at the same time at Rome and Florence, added to
the calamities of Italy so much the more that Adrian VI abolished,
as pagan superstition or acts of revolt against providence, all the
sanitary measures of police which had been invented to stop the spread of
contagion. The pope died on the 14th of September, 1523; and the Romans,
who held him in horror, crowned his physician with laurel, as the saviour
of his country.

The death of Adrian, however, saved no one. The cardinal Giulio de’
Medici was chosen his successor, on the 18th of November, under the name
of Clement VII. This man had passed for an able minister under his cousin
Leo X, because prosperity still endured, and the pontifical treasury was
not exhausted; but when he had to struggle with a distress which he,
however, had not caused, his ignorance in finance and administration,
his sordid avarice, his pusillanimity, his imprudence, his sudden
and ill-considered resolutions, his long indecisions, made him alike
odious and contemptible. He was not strong enough to resist the tide of
adversity. He found himself, without money and without soldiers, engaged
in a war without an object; he was incapable of commanding, and nowhere
found obedience.

The French were not disposed to abandon their title to Lombardy, the
possession of which they had just lost. Before the end of the campaign,
Francis sent thither another army, commanded by his favourite, the
admiral Bonnivet. This admiral entered Italy by Piedmont; passed the
Ticino on the 14th of September, 1523; and marched on Milan. But Prospero
Colonna, who had chosen, among the great men of antiquity, Fabius
Cunctator for his model, was admirable in the art of stopping an army,
of fatiguing it by slight checks, and at last forcing it to retreat
without giving battle. Bonnivet, who maintained himself on the borders
of Lombardy, was forced, in the month of May following, to open himself
a passage to France by Ivrea and Mont St. Bernard. The chevalier Bayard
was killed while protecting the retreat of Bonnivet, in the rear-guard.
The imperialists had been joined, the preceding year, by a deserter of
high importance, the constable Bourbon, one of the first princes of the
blood in France, who was accompanied by many nobles. Charles V put him,
jointly with Pescara, at the head of his army, and sent him into Provence
in the month of July; but, after having besieged Marseilles, he was soon
constrained to retreat. Francis I, who had assembled a powerful army,
again entered Lombardy, and made himself master of Milan: he next laid
siege to Pavia, on the 28th of October. Some time was necessary for the
imperialists to reassemble their army, which the campaign of Provence had
disorganised. At length it approached Pavia, which had resisted through
the whole winter. The king of France was pressed by all his captains
to raise the siege, and to march against the enemy; but he refused,
declaring that it would be a compromise of the royal dignity, and
foolishly remained within his lines. He was attacked by Pescara on the
24th of February, 1525; and, after a murderous battle, made prisoner.

For several months, while Francis I was besieging Pavia, he appeared the
strongest power in Italy; and the pope and the Venetians, alarmed at his
proximity, had treated with him anew, and pledged themselves to remain
neutral. The imperial generals, after their victory, declared that these
treaties with the French were offences against their master, for which
they should demand satisfaction. Always without money, and pressed by
the avidity of their soldiers, they sought only to discover offenders,
as a pretence to raise contributions, and to let their troops live at
free quarters. The pope and the Venetians were at first disposed to join
in a league for resisting these exactions; and they offered Louise of
Savoy, regent of France, their aid to set her son Francis at liberty. But
Clement VII had not sufficient courage to join this league; he preferred
returning again to the alliance of the emperor and the duke of Milan, for
which he paid a considerable sum. As soon as the imperial generals had
received the money, they refused to execute the treaty which they had
made with him, and the pope was obliged to go back to the Venetians and
Louise of Savoy.

Meanwhile Girolamo Morone, chancellor of the duke of Milan, an old man
regarded as the most able politician of his time, made overtures, which
revived the hope of arming all Italy for her independence. Francesco
Sforza found himself treated by the Germans and Spaniards with the
greatest indignity in his own palace: his subjects were exposed to every
kind of insult from an unbridled soldiery; and when he endeavoured
to protect them, the officers took pleasure in making him witness
aggravations of injustice and outrage. The man, however, who made the
German yoke press most severely on him was the marquis Pescara, an
Italian, but descended from the Catalonian house of Avalos, established
in the kingdom of Naples for more than a century. He manifested a sort
of vanity in associating himself with the Spaniards: he commanded their
infantry; he adopted the manners as well as pride of that nation. Morone,
nevertheless, did not despair of awakening his patriotism, by exciting
his ambition. The kingdom of Naples, which had flourished under the
bastard branch of the house of Aragon when the family of Avalos first
entered it, had sunk, since it had been united to Spain, into a state of
the most grievous oppression. Morone determined on offering Pescara the
crown of Naples, if he would join his efforts to those of all the other
Italians, for the deliverance of his country. Success depended on him:
he could distribute the imperial troops, which he commanded, in such a
manner as that they could oppose no resistance. The duke of Milan had
been warned that Charles V intended taking his duchy from him to confer
it on his brother Ferdinand of Austria. The kingdom of Naples and the
duchy of Milan were ready to pass over from the emperor’s party to that
of France, provided the French king would renounce all his claims to
both, acknowledge Pescara king of Naples, Francesco Sforza duke of Milan;
and restore to Italy her independence, after having delivered her from
her enemies.

[Sidenote: [1525-1526 A.D.]]

This negotiation was at first successful; each of the governments to
which the proposition of concurring in the independence of Italy was
addressed, seemed to agree to it. France renounced all pretensions to
Lombardy and the Two Sicilies; Switzerland promised to protect, on its
side, the land of ancient liberty, and to furnish it with soldiers; Henry
VIII of England promised money; Pescara coveted the crown, and Sforza
was impatient to throw off a yoke which had become insupportable to him;
but, unhappily, the negotiation was intrusted to too many cabinets, all
jealous, perfidious, and eager to obtain advantages for themselves by
sacrificing their allies. Clement was desirous of obtaining from the
emperor a more advantageous treaty, by threatening him with France; the
queen regent of France endeavoured to engage Charles to relax his rigour
towards her son, by threatening him with Italy; Pescara, reserving the
choice of either betraying his master or his allies, as should prove
most profitable to him, had warned Charles that he was engaged in a plot
which he would reveal as soon as he had every clew to it. The duchess
of Alençon, sister of Francis, sent by her mother to negotiate at
Madrid, spoke still more clearly. She offered Charles to abandon Italy,
the project respecting which she disclosed, provided the emperor, in
restoring her brother to liberty, would renounce his purpose of making
him purchase it at the price of one of the provinces of France. Pescara,
finding that his court knew more than he had told, determined on adopting
the part of provocative agent instead of rebel; he had only to choose
between them. On the 14th of October, 1525, he invited Morone to a last
conference in the castle of Novara. After having made him explain all his
projects anew, while Spanish officers hid behind the arras heard them,
he caused him to be arrested, seized all the fortresses in the state of
Milan, and laid siege to the castle, in which the duke had shut himself
up. He denounced to the emperor as traitors the pope, and all the other
Italians his accomplices; but while he played this odious part, he was
attacked by a slow disease, of which he died on the 30th of November,
1525, at the age of thirty-six, abhorred by all Italy.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN CAPTAIN, FIRST HALF OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY]

Charles, abusing the advantages which he had obtained, imposed on Francis
the treaty of Madrid, signed on the 14th of January, 1526; by which the
latter abandoned Italy and the duchy of Burgundy. He was set at liberty
on the 18th of March following; and almost immediately declared to the
Italians that he did not regard himself bound by a treaty extorted from
him by force. On the 22nd of May, he joined a league for the liberty of
Italy with Clement VII, the Venetians, and Francesco Sforza, but still
did not abandon the policy of his mother: instead of thinking in earnest
of restoring Italian independence, and thus securing the equilibrium
of Europe, he had only one purpose--that of alarming Charles with the
Italians; and was ready to sacrifice them as soon as the emperor should
abandon Burgundy. At the same time, his supineness, love of pleasure,
distrust of his fortune, and repugnance to violate the Treaty of
Madrid, hindered him from fulfilling any of the engagements which he
had contracted towards the Italians; he sent them neither money, French
cavalry, nor Swiss forces. Charles, on the other hand, sent no supplies
to pay his armies to Antonio de Leyva, the constable Bourbon, and Hugo de
Monçada, their commanders. These troops were therefore obliged to live
at free quarters, and the oppression of the whole country was still more
dreadful than it had ever yet been.

[Sidenote: [1526-1527 A.D.]]

The defection of the duke of Milan, in particular, gave a pretence to
Antonio de Leyva to treat the wretched Milanese with redoubled rigour,
as if they could be responsible for what Leyva called the treachery of
their master. The Spanish army was quartered on the citizens of Milan;
and there was not a soldier who did not make his host a prisoner, keeping
him bound at the foot of the bed, or in the cellar, for the purpose of
having him daily at hand, to force him, by blows or fresh torture, to
satisfy some new caprice. As soon as one wretched person died under his
sufferings, or broke his bonds and ended his sufferings by voluntary
death, either precipitating himself through a window or into a well, the
Spaniard passed into another house to recommence on its proprietor the
same torture.

The Venetians and the pope had united their forces, under the command of
the duke of Urbino, who, exaggerating the tactics of Prospero Colonna,
was ambitious of no other success in war than that of avoiding battle.
He announced to the senate of Venice that he would not approach Milan
till the French and Swiss, whose support he had been promised, joined
him. His inaction, while witnessing so many horrors, reduced the Italians
to despair. Sforza, who had been nine months blockaded in the castle
of Milan, and who always hoped to be delivered by the duke of Urbino,
whose colours were in sight, supported the last extremity of hunger
before he surrendered to the Spaniards, on the 24th of July, 1526. The
pope, meanwhile, was far from suspecting himself in any danger; but
his personal enemy, Pompeo Colonna, took advantage of the name of the
imperial party to raise in the papal state eight thousand armed peasants,
with whom, on the 20th of September, he surprised the Vatican, pillaged
the palace, as well as the temple of St. Peter, and constrained the pope
to abjure the alliance of France and Venice. About the same time, George
of Frundsberg, a German condottiere, entered Lombardy with thirteen
thousand adventurers, whom he had engaged to follow him, and serve the
emperor without pay, contenting themselves with the pillage of that
unhappy country.

The constable Bourbon, to whom Charles had given chief command of his
forces in Italy, determined to take advantage of this new army, and unite
it to that for which at Milan he had now no further occasion; but it was
not without great difficulty that he could persuade the Spaniards to quit
that city where they enjoyed the savage pleasure of inflicting torture
on their hosts. At length, however, he succeeded in leading them to
Pavia. On the 30th of January, 1527, he joined Frundsberg, who died soon
after of apoplexy. Bourbon now remained alone charged with the command
of this formidable army, already exceeding twenty-five thousand men, and
continually joined on its route by disbanded soldiers and brigands intent
on pillage. The constable had neither money, equipments, nor artillery,
and very few cavalry; every town shut its gates on his approach, and
he was often on the point of wanting provisions. He took the road of
southern Italy, and entered Tuscany, still uncertain whether he should
pillage Florence or Rome. The marquis of Saluzzo, with a small army,
retreated before him; the duke of Urbino followed in his rear, but always
keeping out of reach of battle. At last, Bourbon took the road to Rome,
by the valley of the Tiber. On the 5th of May, 1527, he arrived before
the capital of Christendom. Clement had on the 15th of March signed
a truce with the viceroy of Naples and dismissed his troops. On the
approach of Bourbon the walls of Rome were again mounted with engines of
war.[d]

CAPTURE AND SACK OF ROME

[Sidenote: [1527 A.D.]]

Bourbon encamped in the fields near Rome on the 5th of May and with
military insolence sent a trumpeter to the pope to ask for passage
through the city, that he might lead his army into the kingdom of
Naples. The next day at daybreak he attacked Borgo on the side of the
mountain and the church of Santo Spirito, resolved to conquer or die
(for indeed no other hope was left him) and a fierce battle was begun.
Fortune favoured him in approaching, for a thick fog arose before day
which enabled him more securely to establish his army in the place where
the battle commenced. From the first Bourbon fought desperately at the
head of his troops, not only because he had no refuge if the victory
failed him but also because it appeared to him that the German infantry
proceeded coldly to the assault. The assault was but begun when he was
wounded by an arquebuse and fell dead.[b] The fall of Bourbon was due
to Benvenuto Cellini, if we may accept the statements of that somewhat
egotistical autobiographer. Cellini was participating in the defence of
Rome and has left us a vivid account of many of its incidents. He tells
us that he had gone with one Alexander del Bene to the walls of Campo
Santo, and that finding the enemy irresistible they had determined to
return with the utmost speed, but that before doing so he was determined
to perform some manly action.[a] “Having taken aim with my piece,” he
says, “where I saw the thickest crowd of the enemy, I fixed my eye on
a person who seemed to be lifted up by the rest: but the misty weather
prevented me from distinguishing whether he was on horseback or on foot.
Then turning suddenly about to Alexander and Cecchino, I bade them
fire off their pieces, and showed them how to escape every shot of the
besiegers. Having accordingly fired twice for the enemy’s once, I softly
approached the walls, and perceived that there was an extraordinary
confusion among the assailants, occasioned by our having shot the duke of
Bourbon: he was, as I understood afterwards, that chief personage whom
I saw raised by the rest.”[c] The fall of Bourbon, far from cooling the
ardour of his soldiers did but increase it, and after fighting furiously
for two hours they entered Borgo at last, assisted by the weakness of the
defences and the faint resistance of the enemy.

As it is always difficult to carry an assault without cannon, the
besiegers lost about a thousand men. As soon as the imperial army had
forced an entrance, everyone took to flight, and many made for the
castle, leaving the suburbs at the mercy of the conquerors. The pope,
who awaited the event in the Vatican, when he heard that the enemy was
in the city, immediately fled to the castle with many cardinals. Here he
considered whether he should stay where he was, or if he might escape
through Rome with the light cavalry of his guard and reach a place of
safety.

News was brought him by Berard de Padone, of the imperial army, of the
death of Bourbon and that the troops, full of consternation at their
loss, were disposed to come to terms. The pope sent an envoy to their
chiefs and unfortunately gave up the idea of flight, while he and his
captains had never been so irresolute in taking measures for their
own defence as they were on this occasion. The Spaniards, finding no
attempt was made to defend the Trastevere, entered it at noon without
any resistance. They had no difficulty in entering Rome by the Ponte
Sisto at five o’clock the same evening. Here, as is usual in such cases,
everything was in confusion, and all the court and citizens had taken to
flight except those who trusted in the name of their party, and certain
cardinals who were known for their adherence to Cesare, and therefore
thought themselves safer than the rest. Then the soldiers sacked the
city on every side without distinction of friend or foe.

It is impossible to estimate the extent of the spoil because of the
accumulation of riches, and rare and precious things belonging to the
courtiers and merchants, and of the quality and number of the prisoners
for whom heavy ransoms were paid. But worst of all, the soldiers,
especially the Germans, who were rendered cruel and insolent by their
hatred for the Roman church, seized several prelates and having dressed
them in their pontifical robes and the insignia of their office, mounted
them on asses and led them with scorn and derision through the streets of
Rome.

Four thousand men or thereabout perished in the battle or in the fury of
pillage. The palaces of the cardinals were all sacked (including that
of Cardinal Colonna, who was not with the army) excepting those palaces
in which the merchants had taken refuge with their personal effects and
those of many others, and which were spared from pillage upon payment
of large sums of money. Many who had thus compounded with the Spaniards
were pillaged by the Germans or obliged to compound with them also.
The marchioness of Mantua paid 50,000 ducats to save her palace, this
sum being furnished by the merchants who had taken refuge there; it
was rumoured that 10,000 went to her son Don Ferrand. The cardinal of
Siena, who had inherited his adherence to the emperor from his ancestors,
was taken prisoner by the Germans, who sacked his palace though he had
compounded for it with the Spaniards. They led him bareheaded through
Borgo with many blows, and he only escaped from their hands by payment
of 5,000 ducats. The cardinals of Minerva and Ponzetto met with a
similar misfortune; they were taken prisoner by the Germans and paid
their ransom, but they were first led through Rome in a vile procession.
The Spanish and German prelates, who did not expect insult from their
compatriots, were taken prisoner and treated as cruelly as the rest.

On every side arose the cries and lamentations of Roman ladies and nuns
dragged off by bands of soldiers to satisfy their lust. Everywhere arose
the wails of those who were being horribly tortured to force them to
pay ransom, and reveal where their property was concealed. All the holy
things, the sacrament, and relics of saints, of which the churches were
full, lay scattered on the ground stripped of their ornaments and further
outraged by the barbarous Germans. Whatever escaped the soldiers (which
was everything of little value) was pillaged by the peasants of the lands
of Colonna who arrived later; but Cardinal Colonna who arrived next
day saved many ladies who had taken refuge in his palace. It was said
that the spoil in money, gold, silver, and precious stones amounted to
1,000,000 ducats, and that the ransoms amounted to a much higher sum.

While the imperial army was taking Rome, Count Guido at the head of
the light cavalry and eight hundred arquebusiers appeared on the Ponte
de Salara, expecting to enter the city that evening; for in spite of
the letter of the bishop of Verona he had continued on his way, not
wishing to lose the glory of having helped to save the capital. But
being informed of what had occurred, he resolved to withdraw to Orticoli
where he rejoined the rest of his troops. As it is human nature to judge
mildly and favourably of one’s own actions and to look with the utmost
severity on the actions of others, there were some who greatly blamed
the count for having missed so good an opportunity; for the imperial
troops all intent on pillage, ransacking the houses, seeking hidden
treasures, taking prisoners and removing their booty to a safe place,
were scattered about the city in disorder, heedless of their banners and
of the commands of their captains. Therefore many believed that if Count
Guido had promptly led his men into Rome and marched upon the castle,
which was not besieged nor guarded by any from without, he might not only
have liberated the pope but also have achieved a more glorious success.
The enemy was so intent on plunder that it would have been difficult to
assemble a large number upon any sudden alarm. This was most certainly
proved a few days later when by command of the captains, or upon some
alarm, the call to arms was sounded and not a soldier rallied to his
banner. However, men often persuade themselves that if a certain act had
been done or omitted, certain results would have followed; whereas if the
matter had been put to the proof, experience would often show them their
mistake.[b]

[Illustration: PORTA DEL POPOLO, ROME]

[Sidenote: [1527-1528 A.D.]]

The capital of Christendom was thus abandoned to a pillage unparalleled
in the most calamitous period--that of the first triumph of barbarism
over civilisation: neither Alaric the Goth nor Genseric the Vandal had
treated it with like ferocity. This dreadful state of crime and agony
lasted not merely days, but was prolonged for more than nine months:
it was not till the 17th of February, 1528, that the prince of Orange,
one of the French lords who had accompanied Bourbon in his rebellion,
finally withdrew from Rome all of this army that vice and disease had
spared. The Germans, indeed, after the first few days, had sheathed their
swords, to plunge into drunkenness and the most brutal debauchery; but
the Spaniards, up to the last hour of their stay in Rome, indefatigable
in their cold-blooded cruelty, continued to invent fresh torture to
extort new ransoms from all who fell into their hands; even the plague,
the consequence of so much suffering, moral and physical, which broke out
amidst all these horrors, did not make the rapacious Spaniard loose his
prey.

The struggle between the Italians, feebly seconded by the French, and the
generals of Charles V, was prolonged yet more than two years after the
sack of Rome; but it only added to the desolation of Italy, and destroyed
alike in all the Italian provinces the last remains of prosperity. On the
18th of August, 1527, Henry VIII of England and Francis I contracted the
Treaty of Amiens, for the deliverance, as the two sovereigns announced,
of the pope. A powerful French army, commanded by Lautrec, entered
Italy in the same month, by the province of Alessandria. They surprised
Pavia on the 1st of October, and during eight days barbarously pillaged
that great city, under pretence of avenging the defeat of their king
under its walls. After this success, Lautrec, instead of completing the
conquest of Lombardy, directed his march towards the south; renewed the
alliance of France with the duke of Ferrara, to whose son was given in
marriage a daughter of Louis XII, sister of the queen of France. He
secured the friendship of the Florentine Republic, which, on the 17th of
the preceding May, had taken advantage of the distress and captivity of
the pope to recover its liberty and to re-establish its government in
the same form in which it stood in 1512. The pope, learning that Lautrec
had arrived at Orvieto, escaped from the castle of St. Angelo on the 9th
of December, and took refuge in the French camp. The Spaniard Alarcon
had detained him captive, with thirteen cardinals, during six months,
in that fortress; and, though the plague had broken out there, he did
not relax in his severity. After having received 400,000 ducats for his
ransom, instead of releasing him, as he had engaged to the next day, it
is probable that he suffered him to escape, lest his own soldiers should
arrest him in order to extort a second ransom.

Lautrec passed the Tronto to enter the Abruzzi with his powerful army
on the 10th of February, 1528. The banditti whom Charles V called his
soldiers, whom he never paid, and who showed no disposition to obedience,
were cantoned at Milan, Rome, and the principal cities in Italy: they
divided their time between debauchery and the infliction of torture on
their hosts; their officers were unable to induce them to leave the towns
and advance towards the enemy. The people, in the excess of suffering,
met every change with eagerness, and received Lautrec as a deliverer. He
would probably have obtained complete success, if Francis had not just at
this moment withheld the monthly advance of money which he had promised.
That monarch, identifying his pride of royalty with prodigality,
exhausted his finances in pleasures and entertainments; his want of
economy drew on him all his disasters.

Lautrec, on his side, although he had many qualities of a good general,
was harsh, proud, and obstinate: he piqued himself on doing always
the opposite of what he was counselled. Disregarding the national
peculiarities of the French, he attempted in war to discipline them in
slow and regular movements. He lost valuable time in Apulia, where he
took and sacked Melfi, on the 23rd of March, with a barbarity worthy
of his adversaries, the Spaniards: he did not arrive till the 1st of
May before Naples. The prince of Orange had just entered that city with
the army which had sacked Rome, but of which the greater part had been
carried off by a dreadful mortality, the consequence and punishment of
its vices and crimes. Instead of vigorously attacking them, Lautrec, in
spite of the warm remonstrances of his officers, persisted in reducing
Naples by blockade; thus exposing his army to the influence of a
destructive climate. The imperial fleet was destroyed, on the 28th of
May, in the gulf of Salerno, by Filippino Doria, who was in the pay of
France. The inhabitants of Naples experienced the most cruel privations,
and sickness soon made great havoc amongst them: but a malady not less
fatal broke out at the same time in the French camp. The soldiers, under
a burning sun, surrounded with putrid water, condemned to every kind
of privation, harassed by the light cavalry of the enemy, infinitely
superior to theirs, sank, one after the other, under pestilential fevers.
In the middle of June, the French reckoned in their camp twenty-five
thousand men; by the 2nd of August there did not remain four thousand
fit for service. At this period all the springs were dry, and the troops
began to suffer from hunger and thirst. Lautrec, ill as he was, had till
then supported the army by his courage and invincible obstinacy; but,
worn out at last, he expired in the night of the 15th of August: almost
all the other officers died in like manner. The marquis of Saluzzo,
on whom the command of the army devolved, felt the necessity of a
retreat, but knew not how to secure it in presence of such a superior
force. He tried to escape from the imperialists, by taking advantage of
a tremendous storm, in the night of the 29th of August; but was soon
pursued, and overtaken at Aversa, where, on the 30th, he was forced
to capitulate. The magazines and hospitals at Capua were, at the same
time, given up to the Spaniards. The prisoners and the sick were crowded
together in the stables of the Magdalen, where contagion acquired new
force. The Spaniards foresaw it, and watched with indifference the agony
and death of all; for nearly all of that brilliant army perished--a few
invalids only ever returning to France.

[Illustration: CASTEL DELL’OVO, NAPLES]

[Sidenote: [1528-1529 A.D.]]

During the same campaign another French army, conducted by François de
Bourbon, count of St. Pol, had entered Lombardy, at the moment when
Henry, duke of Brunswick, led thither a German army. Henry, finding
nothing more to pillage, announced that his mission was to punish a
rebellious nation, and put to the sword all the inhabitants of the
villages through which he passed. Milan was at once a prey to famine
and the plague, aggravated by the cupidity and cold-blooded ferocity of
Leyva, who still commanded the Spanish garrison. Leyva seized all the
provisions brought in from the country; and, to profit by the general
misery, resold them at an enormous price. Genoa had remained subject
to the French, and was little less oppressed; none of its republican
institutions was any longer respected: but a great admiral still rendered
it illustrious. Andrea Doria had collected a fleet, on board of which he
summoned all the enterprising spirits of Liguria: his nephew Filippino,
who had just gained a victory over the imperialists, was his lieutenant.
The Dorias demanded the restoration of liberty to their country as the
price of their services: unable to obtain it from the French, they passed
over to the imperialists. Assured by the promises of Charles, they
presented themselves, on the 12th of September, before Genoa, excited
their countrymen to revolt, and constrained the French to evacuate the
town: they made themselves masters of Savona on the 21st of October,
and a few days afterwards of Castelletto. Doria then proclaimed the
republic, and re-established once more the freedom of Genoa, at the
moment when all freedom was near its end in Italy. The winter passed in
suffering and inaction. The following year, Antonio de Leyva surprised
the count de St. Pol at Landriano, on the 21st of June, 1529, and made
him prisoner, with all the principal officers of the French army. The
rest dispersed or returned to France. This was the last military incident
in this dreadful war.

Peace was ardently desired on all sides; negotiations were actively
carried on, but every potentate sought to deceive his ally in order to
obtain better conditions from his adversary. Margaret of Austria, the
sister of the emperor’s father, and Louise of Savoy, the mother of the
king of France, met at Cambray; and, in conference to which no witnesses
were admitted, arranged what was called “_le traité des dames_.” Clement
VII had at the same time a nuncio at Barcelona, who negotiated with the
emperor. The latter was impatient to arrange the affairs of Italy, in
order to pass into Germany. Not only had Suleiman invaded Austria, and,
on the 13th of September, arrived under the walls of Vienna, but the
reformation of Luther excited in all the north of Germany a continually
increasing ferment. On the 20th of June, 1529, Charles signed at
Barcelona a treaty of perpetual alliance with the pope: by it he engaged
to sacrifice the republic of Florence to the pope’s vengeance, and to
place in the service of Clement, in order to accomplish it, all the
brigands who had previously devastated Italy. Florence was to be given
in sovereignty to the bastard Alessandro de’ Medici, who was to marry
an illegitimate daughter of Charles V. On the 5th of August following,
Louise and Margaret signed the Treaty of Cambray, by which France
abandoned, without reserve, all its Italian allies to the caprices of
Charles; who, on his side, renounced Burgundy, and restored to Francis
his two sons, who had been retained as hostages.

Charles arrived at Genoa, on board the fleet of Andrea Doria, on the 12th
of August. The pope awaited him at Bologna, into which he made his entry
on the 5th of November. He summoned thither all the princes of Italy,
or their deputies, and treated them with more moderation than might
have been expected after the shameful abandonment of them by France.
As he knew the health of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, to be in a
declining state, which promised but few years of life, he granted him
the restitution of his duchy for the sum of 900,000 ducats, which Sforza
was to pay at different terms: they had not all fallen due when that
prince died, on the 24th of October, 1535, without issue, and his estates
escheated to the emperor. On the 23rd of December, 1529, Charles granted
peace to the Venetians; who restored him only some places in Apulia, and
gave up Ravenna and Cervia to the pope. On the 20th of March, Alfonso
d’Este also signed a treaty, by which he referred his differences with
the pope to the arbitration of the emperor. Charles did not pronounce
on them till the following year. He conferred on Alfonso the possession
of Modena, Reggio, and Rubiera, as fiefs of the empire; and he made the
pope give him the investiture of Ferrara. On the 25th of March, 1530,
a diploma of the emperor raised the marquisate of Mantua to a duchy,
in favour of Federigo de Gonzaga. The duke of Savoy and the marquis of
Montferrat, till then protected by France, arrived at Bologna, to place
themselves under the protection of the emperor. The duke of Urbino
was recommended to him by the Venetians, and obtained some promises
of favour. The republics of Genoa, Siena, and Lucca had permission to
vegetate under the imperial protection; and Charles, having received from
the pope, at Bologna, on the 22nd of February and 24th of March, the two
crowns of Lombardy and of the empire, departed in the beginning of April
for Germany, in order to escape witnessing the odious service in which he
consented that his troops should be employed against Florence.

THE FALL OF FLORENCE

[Sidenote: [1527-1530 A.D.]]

The Florentines who, from 1512, had been victims of all the faults of
Leo X and Clement VII, who had been drawn into all the oscillations of
their policy, and called upon to make prodigious sacrifices of money
for projects with which they had not even been made acquainted, were
taught under these popes to detest the yoke of the Medici. When the
constable of Bourbon approached their walls in his march to Rome, on
the 26th of April, 1527, they were on the point of recovering their
liberty; the cardinal De Cortona, who commanded for the pope at Florence,
had distributed arms among the citizens for their defence, and they
determined to employ them for their liberation; but the terror which this
army of brigands inspired did the cardinal the service of repressing
insurrection. When, however, they heard soon after of the taking of Rome,
and of the captivity of the pope, all the most notable citizens presented
themselves in their civic dress to the cardinal De Cortona; declared
firmly, but with calmness, that they were henceforth free; and compelled
him, with the two bastard Medici whom he brought up, to quit the city.
It was on the 17th of May, 1527, that the lieutenant of Clement obeyed;
and the constitution, such as it existed in 1512, with its grand council,
was restored without change, except that the office of gonfalonier was
declared annual. The first person invested with this charge was Niccolo
Capponi, a man enthusiastic in religion, and moderate in politics; he was
the son of Pietro Capponi, who had braved Charles VIII. In 1529, he was
succeeded by Baldassare Carducci, whose character was more energetic, and
opinions more democratic. Carducci was succeeded, in 1530, by Raffaelle
Girolami, who witnessed the end of the republic.

Florence, during the whole period of its glory and power, had neglected
the arts of war; it reckoned for its defence on the adventurers whom its
wealth could summon from all parts to its service; and set but little
value on a courage which men, without any other virtue, were so eager to
sell to the highest bidder. Since the transalpine nations had begun to
subdue Italy to their tyranny, these hireling arms sufficed no longer for
the public safety. Statesmen began to see the necessity of giving the
republic a protection within itself. Macchiavelli, who died on the 22nd
of June, 1527, six weeks after the restoration of the popular government,
had been long engaged in persuading his fellow citizens of the necessity
of awakening a military spirit in the people; it was he who caused the
country militia, named _l’ordinanza_, to be formed into regiments. A
body of mercenaries, organised by Giovanni de’ Medici, a distant kinsman
of the popes, served at the time as a military school for the Tuscans,
among whom alone the corps had been raised; it acquired a high reputation
under the name of _bande nere_. No infantry equalled it in courage and
intelligence. Five thousand of these warriors served under Lautrec in the
kingdom of Naples, where they almost all perished. When, towards the year
1528, the Florentines perceived that their situation became more and more
critical, they formed, among those who enjoyed the greatest privileges
in their country, two bodies of militia, which displayed the utmost
valour for its defence. The first, consisting of three hundred young men
of noble families, undertook the guard of the palace, and the support
of the constitution; the second, of four thousand soldiers drawn only
from among families having a right to sit in the council general, were
called the civic militia; both soon found opportunities of proving that
generosity and patriotism suffice to create, in a very short period, the
best soldiers. The illustrious Michelangelo was charged to superintend
the fortifications of Florence; they were completed in the month of
April, 1529. Lastly, the ten commissioners of war chose for the command
of the city Malatesta Baglioni of Perugia, who was recommended to them
as much for his hatred of the Medici, who had unjustly put his father to
death, as for his reputation for valour and military talent.

Clement VII sent against Florence, his native state, that very prince
of Orange, the successor of Bourbon, who had made him prisoner at Rome;
and with him that very army of robbers which had overwhelmed the holy
see, and its subjects, with misery and every outrage. This army entered
Tuscany in the month of September, 1529, and took possession of Cortona,
Arezzo, and all the upper Val d’Arno. On the 14th of October the prince
of Orange encamped in the plain of Ripoli, at the foot of the walls of
Florence; and, towards the end of December, Ferdinando di Gonzaga led
on the right bank of the Arno another imperial army, composed of twenty
thousand Spaniards and Germans, which occupied without resistance Pistoia
and Prato. Notwithstanding the immense superiority of their forces, the
imperialists did not attempt to make a breach in the walls of Florence;
they resolved to make themselves masters of the city by a blockade. The
Florentines, on the contrary, animated by preachers who inherited the
zeal of Savonarola, and who united liberty with religion as an object
of their worship, were eager for battle; they made frequent attacks on
the whole line of their enemies, led in turns by Malatesta Baglioni and
Stefano Colonna. They made nightly sallies, covered with white shirts to
distinguish each other in the dark, and successively surprised the posts
of the imperialists; but the slight advantages thus obtained could not
disguise the growing danger of the republic. France had abandoned them to
their enemies; there remained not one ally either in Italy or the rest
of Europe; while the army of the pope and emperor comprehended all the
survivors of those soldiers who had so long been the terror of Italy by
their courage and ferocity, and whose warlike ardour was now redoubled by
the hope of the approaching pillage of the richest city in the West.

The Florentines had one solitary chance of deliverance. Francesco
Ferrucci, one of their citizens, who had learned the art of war in the
_bande nere_, and joined to a mind full of resources an unconquerable
intrepidity and an ardent patriotism, was not shut up within the walls of
Florence; he had been named commissary-general, with unlimited power over
all that remained without the capital. Ferrucci was at first engaged in
conveying provisions from Empoli to Florence; he afterwards took Volterra
from the imperialists, and, having formed a small army, proposed to the
signoria to seduce all the adventurers and brigands from the imperial
army, by promising them another pillage of the pontifical court, and
succeeding in that, to march at their head on Rome, frighten Clement,
and force him to grant peace to their country. The signoria rejected
this plan as too daring. Ferrucci then formed a second, which was little
less bold. He departed from Volterra, made the tour of Tuscany, which
the imperial troops traversed in every direction, collected at Livorno,
Pisa, the Val di Nievole, and in the mountains of Pistoia, every soldier,
every man of courage, still devoted to the republic; and, after having
thus increased his army, he intended to fall on the imperial camp before
Florence and force the prince of Orange, who began to feel the want
of money, to raise the siege. Ferrucci, with an intrepidity equal to
his skill, led his little troop, from the 14th of July to the 2nd of
August, 1530, through numerous bodies of imperialists, who preceded,
followed, and surrounded him on all sides, as far as Gavinana, four
miles from San Marcello, in the mountains of Pistoia. He entered that
village about midday, on the 2nd of August, with three thousand infantry
and five hundred cavalry. The prince of Orange at the same time entered
by another gate, with a part of the army which besieged Florence. The
different corps, which had on every side harassed Ferrucci in his march,
poured in upon him from all quarters; the battle instantly began, and
was fought with relentless fury within the walls of Gavinana. Philibert
de Châlons, prince of Orange, in whom that house became extinct, was
killed by a double shot, and his corps put to flight, but other bands of
imperialists successively arrived, and continually renewed the attack
on a small force exhausted with fatigue; two thousand Florentines were
already stretched on the field of battle, when Ferrucci, pierced with
several mortal wounds, was borne bleeding to the presence of his personal
enemy, Fabrizio Maramaldi, a Calabrese, who commanded the light cavalry
of the emperor. The Calabrese stabbed him several times in his rage,
while Ferrucci calmly said, “Thou wouldst kill a dead man!” The republic
perished with him.

[Sidenote: [1530-1531 A.D.]]

When news of the disaster at Gavinana reached Florence, the consternation
was extreme. Baglioni, who for some days had been in treaty with the
prince of Orange, and who was accused of having given him notice of the
project of Ferrucci, declared that a longer resistance was impossible,
and that he was determined to save an imprudent city, which seemed bent
upon its own ruin. On the 8th of August he opened the bastion, in which
he was stationed, to an imperial captain, and planted his artillery so as
to command the town. The citizens in consternation abandoned the defence
of the walls to employ themselves in concealing their valuable effects in
the churches; and the signoria acquainted Ferdinando di Gonzaga, who had
succeeded the prince of Orange in the command of the army, that they were
ready to capitulate. The terms granted on the 12th of August, 1530, were
less rigorous than the Florentines might have apprehended. They were to
pay a gratuity of 80,000 crowns to the army which besieged them, and to
recall the Medici. In return, a complete amnesty was to be granted to all
who had acted against that family, the pope, or the emperor. But Clement
had no intention to observe any of the engagements contracted in his
name. On the 20th of August, he caused the parliament, in the name of the
sovereign people, to create a balia, which was to execute the vengeance
of which he would not himself take the responsibility; he subjected to
the torture, and afterwards punished with exile or death, by means of
this balia, all the patriots who had signalised themselves by their zeal
for liberty. In the first month 150 illustrious citizens were banished;
before the end of the year there were more than one thousand sufferers;
every Florentine family, even among those most devoted to the Medici, had
some one member among the proscribed.

Alessandro, the bastard Medici, whom Clement had appointed chief of
the Florentine Republic in preference to his cousin Ippolito, did not
return to his country till the 5th of July, 1531; he was the bearer of
a rescript from the emperor, which gave Florence a constitution nearly
monarchial; but, so far from confining himself within the limits traced,
Alessandro oppressed the people with the most grievous tyranny. Cruelty,
debauchery, and extortion marked him for public hatred. On the 10th of
August, 1535, he caused to be poisoned his cousin, the cardinal Ippolito,
who undertook the defence of his fellow countrymen against him. He at
last, on the 6th of January, 1537, was himself assassinated by his
kinsman and companion in licentiousness, Lorenzino de’ Medici.

[Sidenote: [1531-1737 A.D.]]

But the death of Alessandro did not restore freedom to his country. The
agents of his tyranny, the most able but also the most odious of whom was
the historian Guicciardini, needed a prince for their protector. They
made choice of Cosmo de’ Medici, a young man of nineteen, descended in
the fourth generation from Lorenzo, the brother of the former Cosmo. On
the 9th of January, 1537, they proclaimed him duke of Florence, hoping to
guide him henceforth at their pleasure; but they were deceived. This man,
false, cool-blooded, and ferocious, who had all the vices of Filippo II,
and who shrank from no crime, soon got rid of his counsellors, as well
as of his adversaries. Cosmo I, in 1569, obtained from the pope, Pius V,
the title of grand duke of Tuscany, a title that the emperor would not
then acknowledge, though he afterwards, in 1575, granted it to the son of
Cosmo. Seven grand dukes of that family reigned successively at Florence.
The last, Gian Gastone, died on the 9th of July, 1737.[d]

Right had disappeared, cries Quinet, leaving an immense gap--in fact a
gulf which opened under the nation’s feet and into which she went head
foremost, almost dragging her conquerors after her. To understand these
times we must remember that there had been no real conquest because no
national resistance. No one in the fifteenth century had really defended
the sovereignty of Italy. When Europe presented herself she entered as
into a vacant heritage, devoid of humanity. Italy did not defend herself,
because practically non-existent. She had not been able to pull herself
together. Never has such a thing been seen on the earth: a great people
invaded, and this invasion finding no obstacle. The foreigners who
entered, by the always open breach of the papacy, came with precaution.
They sounded the land, thinking to find a people, and only found an
illusion. Reassured, they came on restrainedly. Europe overflowed the
empty places.

In her last moments Italy made profession of worshipping only strength,
crying with Macchiavelli, “Woe to the conquered!” She reserved for
her defeat none of those life doctrines which nourish even corpses
and prevent their crumbling to powder. Her theories were only for the
victorious. Now that she was conquered she was taken in her own trap, and
could not well revive because she had pronounced her own death sentence.

Evil had arrived at such a pitch that two things were equally necessary:
Luther’s reform to break Catholicism; the chastisement of Italy to
restore that which threatened to disappear--the human conscience. Each
town was smitten by the arms proper to her. Venice fell slowly but
noiselessly, like a body drowned by the doges in the lagunes. There
were other cities which languished as if they had been poisoned. As for
Florence, who had gained so many subjects, she perished, put up and sold
at auction like poisoners bought and sold for the pleasure of choking
them.

In reality, the papacy had the honour of aiming the two decisive blows.
Julius II, in the league of Cambray, crushed Venice. Clement VII, in
league with Charles V, crushed Florence. These two vital centres once
destroyed, all was lost.[i]

[Sidenote: [1494-1530 A.D.]]

The evil destiny of Italy was accomplished. Charles VIII, when he
first invaded that country, opened its gates to all the transalpine
nations: from that period Italy was ravaged, during thirty-six years, by
Germans, French, Spaniards, Swiss, and even Turks. They inflicted on
her calamities beyond example in history; calamities so much the more
keenly felt, as the sufferers were more civilised, and the authors more
barbarous. The French invasion ended in giving to the greatest enemies
of France the dominion of that country, so rich, so industrious, and of
which the possession was sought ardently by all. Never would the house
of Austria have achieved the conquest of Italy, if Charles VIII, Louis
XII, and Francis I had not previously destroyed the wealth and military
organisation of the nation; if they had not themselves introduced the
Spaniards into the kingdom of Naples, and the Germans into the states of
Venice; forgetting that both must soon after be subject to Charles V. The
independence of Italy would have been beneficial to France; the rapacious
and improvident policy which made France seek subjects where it should
only have sought allies, was the origin of a long train of disasters to
the French.

A period of three centuries of weakness, humiliation, and suffering, in
Italy, began in the year 1530; from that time she was always oppressed
by foreigners, and enervated and corrupted by her masters. These
last reproached her with the vices of which they were themselves the
authors. After having reduced her to the impossibility of resisting,
they accused her of cowardice when she submitted, and of rebellion when
she made efforts to vindicate herself. The Italians, during this long
period of slavery, were agitated with the desire of becoming once more a
nation: as, however, they had lost the direction of their own affairs,
they ceased to have any history which could be called theirs; their
misfortunes have become but episodes in the histories of other nations.[d]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV. THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY

From 1530 to 1796, that is, for a period of nearly three
centuries, the Italians had no history of their own. Their
annals are filled with records of dynastic changes and
redistributions of territory, consequent upon treaties signed
by foreign powers, in the settlement of quarrels which nowise
concerned the people. Italy only too often became the theatre
of desolating and distracting wars. But these wars were fought
for the most part by alien armies; the points at issue were
decided beyond the Alps; the gains accrued to royal families
whose names were unpronounceable by southern tongues. That the
Italians had created modern civilisation for Europe availed
them nothing. Italy, intellectually first among the peoples,
was now politically and practically last; and nothing to her
historian is more heart-rending than to watch the gradual
extinction of her spirit in this age of slavery.--J. A.
SYMONDS.[b]

[Sidenote: [1530-1600 A.D.]]

The first circumstance, after the fall of Florence, which interrupted
the ignominious repose of Italy, was the renewal of hostilities between
Francis I and the emperor. During the expedition of Charles V against
Tunis, the French monarch availed himself of the distraction of the
imperial strength to commence his offensive operations. His troops broke
into the territories of the duke of Savoy, against whom he had some
causes of dissatisfaction, and easily wrested all Savoy, and the greater
part of Piedmont, from that feeble prince; while the imperialists took
possession of the remainder of his states, under pretence of defending
them. Meanwhile the death of Francesco Sforza, who left no posterity,
revived the long wars for the possession of the Milanese state. On the
one hand, Francis I, alleging that he had only ceded that duchy to
Sforza and his descendants, insisted that his rights returned to him in
full force by the decease of that prince without issue; on the other,
Charles V anticipated his designs by seizing the duchy as a lapsed fief
of the empire. Francis I, after some hollow negotiations with his crafty
rival, once more staked the decision of his pretensions on a trial of
arms. Lombardy became again the theatre of furious contests between the
French and the imperialists; but the usual fortunes of Francis still
pursued him; and although his troops inflicted a sanguinary defeat on
their opponents in the battle of Cerisole, the fruits of their victory
were lost by the necessity, under which the French monarch was placed,
of turning his strength to the defence of the northern frontiers of his
own kingdom. The peace of Crespy, in 1544, left Charles in possession of
Lombardy; and though Francis still retained part of the dominions of the
duke of Savoy, the despotic authority of his rival over Italy remained
unshaken.

[Sidenote: [1535-1554 A.D.]]

The tranquillity restored to the peninsula by the peace of Crespy was
not materially disturbed for several years. This period was indeed
signalised by the abortive conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa, and earlier by
the separation of Parma and Piacenza from the papal dominions, and their
erection into a sovereign duchy. These territories, which originally
formed part of the Milanese states, had first been annexed to the holy
see by the conquests of Julius II; they had frequently changed masters
in the subsequent convulsions of Italy; and their possession had finally
been confirmed to the papacy by the consent of Francesco Sforza. By
the subserviency of the sacred college, the reigning pontiff, Paul
III, of the family of Farnese, was suffered to detach these valuable
dependencies from the holy see, and to bestow them upon his son with the
ducal dignity. But neither the trifling change which was wrought in the
divisions of Lombardy by the creation of the duchy of Parma and Piacenza,
nor the dangerous conspiracy of Fiesco, affected the general aspect and
the quietude of Italy.

Shortly after the death of Pope Paul III, however, the determination of
the emperor to spoil his family obliged Ottavio Farnese, the reigning
duke of Parma, to throw himself into the arms of Henry II, the new
monarch of France; and thus a new war was kindled in Lombardy and
Piedmont, in which the French appeared, as the defenders of Ottavio,
against the forces of Charles V and of the new pope, Julius III (1551).
The war of Parma produced no memorable event, until it was extended into
Tuscany by the revolt of Siena against the grievous oppression of the
Spanish garrison, which the people had themselves introduced to curb the
tyranny of the aristocratical faction of their republic. After expelling
their Spanish masters, the Sienese invited the aid of the French for the
maintenance of their liberties against the emperor (1552).[c]

THE SIEGE AND FALL OF SIENA

[Sidenote: [1554 A.D.]]

Cosmo I, duke of Florence, had promised to remain neutral in the war
lighted up anew between the French and the imperialists; he nevertheless,
on the 27th of January, 1554, attacked, without any declaration of war,
the Sienese, whose city he hoped to take by surprise. Having failed in
this attack, he gave the command to the ferocious Medecino, marquis
of Marignano, who undertook to reduce it by famine. The first act of
Marignano was to massacre without mercy all the women, children, aged,
and sick, whom the Sienese, beginning to feel the want of provisions, had
sent out of the town; every peasant discovered carrying provisions into
Siena was immediately hung before its gates. The villages and fortresses
of the Sienese, for the most part, attempted to remain faithful to the
republic; but in all those which held out until the cannon was planted
against their walls, the inhabitants were inhumanly put to death.[d]

To oppose Marignano, and the formidable army which he assembled, the
king of France made choice of Pietro Strozzi, a Florentine nobleman, who
had resided long in France as an exile, and who had risen by his merit
to high reputation as well as command in the army. He was the son of
Filippo Strozzi, who, in the year 1537, had concurred with such ardour
in the attempt to expel the family of Medici out of Florence, in order
to re-establish the ancient republican form of government, and who had
perished in the undertaking. The son inherited the implacable aversion
of the Medici, as well as the same enthusiastic zeal for the liberty of
Florence which had animated his father, whose death he was impatient
to revenge. Henry flattered himself that his army would make rapid
progress under a general whose zeal to promote his interest was roused
and seconded by such powerful passions; especially as he had allotted
him, for the scene of action, his native country, in which he had many
powerful partisans, ready to facilitate all his operations.

But how specious soever the motives might appear which induced Henry
to make this choice, it proved fatal to the interests of France in
Italy. Cosmo, as soon as he heard that the mortal enemy of his family
was appointed to take the command in Tuscany, concluded that the king
of France aimed at something more than the protection of the Sienese,
and saw the necessity of making extraordinary efforts not merely to
reduce Siena, but to save himself from destruction. At the same time the
cardinal of Ferrara, who had the entire direction of the French affairs
in Italy, considered Strozzi as a formidable rival in power, and, in
order to prevent his acquiring any increase of authority from success,
he was extremely remiss in supplying him either with money to pay his
troops, or with provisions to support them. Strozzi himself, blinded
by his resentment against the Medici, pushed on his operations with
the impetuosity of revenge, rather than with the caution and prudence
becoming a great general.

At first, however, he attacked several towns in the territory of Florence
with such vigour as obliged Medecino, in order to check his progress, to
withdraw the greater part of his army from Siena, which he had invested
before Strozzi’s arrival in Italy. As Cosmo sustained the whole burden
of military operations, the expense of which must soon have exhausted
his revenues; as neither the viceroy of Naples nor governor of Milan was
in condition to afford him any effectual aid; and as the troops which
Medecino had left in the camp before Siena could attempt nothing against
it during his absence, it was Strozzi’s business to have protracted
the war, and to have transferred the seat of it into the territories
of Florence; but the hope of ruining his enemy by one decisive blow
precipitated him into a general engagement, not far from Marciano. The
armies were nearly equal in number; but a body of Italian cavalry,
in which Strozzi placed great confidence, having fled without making
any resistance, either through the treachery or the cowardice of the
officers who commanded it, his infantry remained exposed to the attacks
of all Medecino’s troops. Encouraged, however, by Strozzi’s presence and
example, who, after receiving a dangerous wound in endeavouring to rally
the cavalry, placed himself at the head of the infantry, and manifested
an admirable presence of mind, as well as extraordinary valour, they
stood their ground with great firmness, and repulsed such of the enemy
as ventured to approach them. But those gallant troops being surrounded
at last on every side, and torn in pieces by a battery of cannon which
Medecino brought to bear upon them, the Florentine cavalry broke in on
their flanks, and a general rout ensued. Strozzi, faint with the loss
of blood, and deeply affected with the fatal consequences of his own
rashness, found the utmost difficulty in making his escape with a handful
of men.

Medecino returned immediately to the siege of Siena with his victorious
forces, and as Strozzi could not, after the greatest efforts of
activity, collect so many men as to form the appearance of a regular
army, he had leisure to carry on his approaches against the town without
molestation. But the Sienese, instead of sinking into despair upon this
cruel disappointment of their only hope of obtaining relief, prepared to
defend themselves to the utmost extremity, with that undaunted fortitude
which the love of liberty alone can inspire. This generous resolution
was warmly seconded by Montluc, who commanded the French garrison in
the town. The active and enterprising courage which he had displayed on
many occasions had procured him this command; and as he had ambition
which aspired to the highest military dignities, without any pretensions
to attain them but what he could derive from merit, he determined to
distinguish his defence of Siena by extraordinary efforts of valour
and perseverance. For this purpose, he repaired and strengthened the
fortifications with unwearied industry; he trained the citizens to
the use of arms, and accustomed them to go through the fatigues and
dangers of service in common with the soldiers; and as the enemy were
extremely strict in guarding all the avenues to the city, he husbanded
the provisions in the magazines with the most parsimonious economy,
and prevailed on the soldiers, as well as the citizens, to restrict
themselves to a very moderate daily allowance for their subsistence.
Medecino, though his army was not numerous enough to storm the town
by open force, ventured twice to assault it by surprise; but he was
received each time with so much spirit, and repulsed with such loss, as
discouraged him from repeating the attempt, and left him no hopes of
reducing the town but by famine.

[Sidenote: [1554-1556 A.D.]]

With this view he fortified his camp with great care, occupied all the
posts of strength round the place, and having cut off the besieged from
any communication with the adjacent country, he waited patiently until
necessity should compel them to open their gates. But their enthusiastic
zeal for liberty made the citizens despise the distresses occasioned
by the scarcity of provisions, and supported them long under all the
miseries of famine: Montluc, by his example and exhortations, taught his
soldiers to vie with them in patience and abstinence; and it was not
until they had withstood a siege of ten months, until they had eaten up
all the horses, dogs, and other animals in the place, and were reduced
almost to their last morsel of bread, that they proposed a capitulation
(1555). Even then they demanded honourable terms; and as Cosmo, though
no stranger to the extremity of their condition, was afraid that despair
might prompt them to venture upon some wild enterprise, he immediately
granted them conditions more favourable than they could have expected.

The capitulation was made in the emperor’s name, who engaged to take
the republic of Siena under the protection of the empire; he promised
to maintain the ancient liberties of the city, to allow the magistrates
the full exercise of their former authority, to secure the citizens in
the undisturbed possession of their privileges and property; he granted
an ample and unlimited pardon to all who had borne arms against him; he
reserved to himself the right of placing a garrison in the town, but
engaged not to rebuild the citadel without the consent of the citizens.
Montluc and his French garrison were allowed to march out with all the
honours of war.

[Illustration: POPE PAUL III]

Medecino observed the articles of capitulation, as far as depended on
him, with great exactness. No violence or insult whatever was offered to
the inhabitants, and the French garrison was treated with all the respect
due to their spirit and bravery. But many of the citizens suspecting,
from the extraordinary facility with which they had obtained such
favourable conditions, that the emperor, as well as Cosmo, would take
the first opportunity of violating them, and disdaining to possess a
precarious liberty, which depended on the will of another, abandoned the
place of their nativity, and accompanied the French to Montalcino, Porto
Ercole, and other small towns in the territory of the republic. They
established in Montalcino the same model of government to which they had
been accustomed at Siena, and appointing magistrates with the same titles
and jurisdiction, solaced themselves with this image of their ancient
liberty.[e]

[Sidenote: [1556-1557 A.D.]]

The Spaniards retained possession of Siena for two years, and did not
surrender it to the duke of Florence until the 19th of July, 1557. After
the subjugation of Siena, there remained in Italy only three republics,
Lucca, Genoa, and Venice, unless it may be permitted to reckon San
Marino, a free village, situated on the summit of a mountain of Romagna,
which has alike escaped both usurpation and history until our own time.[d]

In the same year that witnessed the fall of Siena (1565), Charles V began
putting into execution his intention to abdicate the various crowns of
his vast dominions.

AN ITALIAN ESTIMATE OF THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V

It has never been doubted that the ambition of Charles V was great
and insatiable, and that this alone was his dominant passion. It was
therefore a greater marvel that he should voluntarily despoil himself
of all authority and dignity. But a close examination of the question
will show that his action had its origin in that very ambition. After
thirty years of continual warfare, journeys, negotiations, and perils, he
realised that he was no happier than before, and perhaps higher motives
prompted him to think upon the vanity and frailty of human greatness; or
satiety and weariness having disgusted him with kingship and power, he
thought to win the praise of men by other means, and to seek tranquillity
and repose in private life.

But it is most probable that after his reverses in Germany Charles
recognised the impossibility of attaining to that absolute monarchy which
he longed for, and experienced in himself that change of feeling to which
the human heart is naturally inclined; and that the excessive longing
for sovereignty over the whole world was succeeded by total lethargy and
a longing for quiet and inaction, more especially as he was suffering
from ill health and was beginning to feel the weight of years. The care
which he had taken to accustom Prince Philip, his only son, to the cares
of government, sending him to Italy and investing him with the duchy of
Milan in 1540, might lead one to believe that he had long since conceived
and matured the design of renouncing his authority before he died; and
that he would have done so much sooner if matters had been in such a
state that he could have withdrawn with dignity, and without laying
himself open to a charge of weakness.

In the meanwhile Henry II, no more resolved to keep peace with Charles
V than firmly persuaded that this was the sincere desire of the latter,
had leagued himself with the German princes, the enemies of the emperor,
and hostilities were begun on both sides without any formal declaration
of war. Thus while the French attacked Toul, Verdun, and Metz in Lower
Germany, the German allies, whose chief leaders were Maurice, duke and
elector of Saxony, Duke Albert of Mecklenburg, and Albert of Brandenburg,
markgraf of Kulmbach and Bayreuth, showed such spirit in their encounter
with the imperial army in the direction of the Tyrol that the emperor
himself, surprised at Innsbruck, withdrew hastily into Dalmatia to the
lands of his brother Ferdinand, leaving all his baggage as spoil to
the enemy. This fresh blow further confirmed him in his resolution to
withdraw from the world. After the flight from Innsbruck it was observed
that he suffered from a melancholy humour, and in Villach in Carinthia
shut himself in his room for several days, giving no audiences and
despatching no business. Having recruited his army he marched towards
Flanders, where he vainly attempted to besiege Metz, which was occupied
by the king of France. Still further saddened by this proof of his
altered fortune, he almost entirely abandoned the administration of his
dominions, partly to Prince Philip and partly to his favourite the bishop
of Arras, and his sister the widowed queen of Hungary.

[Sidenote: [1555-1556 A.D.]]

In order to evade the cares of government, which had now become
distasteful to him, he reduced himself to a private house in Brussels,
where, says Segin,[g] “he took great interest in clock-making, delighting
in such machinery and in talking with the workmen and watching their
work.” He began the formal abdication of his crown by making over the
kingdom of Naples to his son (1554). Julius III approved this abdication,
and received in the name of King Philip the homage paid to him by the
kings of Naples as feudatories of the holy see. Thus the states of Milan
and Naples changed their ruler somewhat earlier than Spain. But this
separation of the kingdom of Naples and duchy of Milan from Spain, to
which they were justly united, the former because of the ancient right
of the king of Aragon, and the latter because of the will of Charles,
who bestowed it upon the heir presumptive of the throne of Spain, was
only temporary, for the next year (1555) Charles further bestowed the Low
Countries upon his son, and a little later (1556) the kingdom of Spain
and the dominions of the new world.[f]

RENEWED HOSTILITIES; THE TREATY OF CATEAU-CAMBRÉSIS

At the time of the abdication of Charles V the flames of war which had
raged in Europe with such intense violence during the greater part of
his long reign seemed already expiring in their embers. But they were
rekindled in Italy, almost immediately after the accession of Philip II,
by the fierce passions of Paul IV, a rash and violent pontiff. In his
indignation at the opposition which Charles V had raised against his
election, and moreover to gratify the ambition of his family, Paul IV had
already instigated Henry II of France to join him in a league to ruin the
imperial power in Italy; and he now, in concert with the French monarch,
directed against Philip II the hostile measures which he had prepared
against his father.

Philip II, that most odious of tyrants, whose atrocious cruelty and
imbecile superstition may divide the judgment between execration and
contempt, shrank with horror from the impiety of combating the pontiff,
whom he had regarded as the vicegerent of God upon earth. He therefore
vainly exhausted every resource of negotiation, before he was reconciled
by the opinion of the Spanish ecclesiastics, whom he anxiously consulted,
to the lawfulness of engaging in such a contest. At length he was
prevailed upon to suffer the duke of Alva to lead the veteran Spanish
bands from the kingdom of Naples into the papal territories. The advance
of Alva to the gates of Rome, however, struck consternation into the
sacred college; and the haughty and obstinate pontiff was compelled
by the terror of his cardinals to conclude a truce with the Spanish
general, which he immediately broke on learning the approach of a
superior French army under the duke de Guise (1556).

[Sidenote: [1556-1557 A.D.]]

This celebrated captain of France, to whom the project was confided
of conquering the kingdom of Naples from the Spaniards, was, however,
able to accomplish nothing in Italy which accorded with his past and
subsequent fame. Crossing the Alps at the head of twenty thousand men, he
penetrated, without meeting any resistance, through Lombardy and Tuscany
to the ecclesiastical capital. If he could effect the reduction of the
kingdom of Naples, it was imagined that the Spanish provinces in northern
Italy must fall of themselves; and having, therefore, left the Milanese
duchy unassailed behind him, he passed on from Rome to the banks of the
Garigliano, where he found Alva posted with an inferior force to oppose
him. The wily caution of the Spanish general and the patient valour of
his troops disconcerted the impetuosity of the French and the military
skill of their gallant leader: and disease had already begun to make
fearful havoc in the ranks of the invaders, when Guise was recalled, by
the victory of the Spaniards at St. Quentin, to defend the frontiers of
France.[c]

[Illustration: THE COLONNADE, ST. PETER’S, ROME]

The confusion at Rome was great. But the pope, though considerably
grieved, gave no external sign of being disturbed or alarmed. “The
ambassador of France has just assured me,” wrote the bishop of Anglone
on the 25th of August, 1557, “that the pope felt greatly the constable’s
defeat, and is troubled; yet in spite of his affliction he does not say
cease, but that his courage is greater than ever, and, from what he sees
and believes, his holiness is more than ever disposed to continue the
friendly relations, as he well knows he cannot bear the cost alone and
has need of the king’s aid.” Nevertheless, Paul IV could not be unmindful
that he was left alone to face the victorious enemy, bolder in their
pretensions, as they knew themselves superior to their adversary.

The pope therefore took the resolution of checking the victorious march
of the duke of Alva, and saving Rome by coming to terms. Cardinal
Caraffa attempted through the medium of Alessandro Placidi to negotiate
with the Spanish viceroy, but the conditions imposed were too onerous
to be accepted by the pontifical court. Cosmo intervened in favour of
the latter, being anxious for peace, and a peace was signed upon most
honourable terms for the pope, who through the sagacity of Silvestro
Aldobrandini recovered all he had lost, and was enabled to confirm the
sentences against the rebellious vassals, while King Philip promised to
send a solemn embassy to him, asking grace and pardon.

[Sidenote: [1557-1558 A.D.]]

But in a secret article of the treaty (an article which the pope
ignored), the duchy of Paliano, the apparent cause of the war, remained
in the hands of the Spanish. The duke of Alva had therefore to repair to
Rome, and, though much against his will, was forced to bow before the
pontiff and ask pardon for having made war on the church. The pope, who
could hardly believe that he was free from a war into which he had been
dragged without foreseeing all the consequences, received him with great
benignity and sent the _rosa benedetta_ to his wife the vice-queen. The
duke of Ferrara was not included in the peace, but Cosmo prevailed upon
Philip to receive him into favour, which was to the great advantage of
the duke, who was now on friendly terms with the Venetians, having taken
part in the fight between the pope and Spain without the republic’s
consent, and who saw himself threatened by Duke Ottavio Farnese, anxious
to enlarge his dominions at the expense of the house of Este; while his
people, exhausted by a disastrous war, ardently longed for peace.

De Guise left Rome on the same day as the duke of Alva entered the town;
he proceeded in all haste to France, where his arrival was eagerly looked
for, and was appointed lieutenant-general with full powers. At the head
of the French army he entered the field, though the season was far
advanced. While feigning to bear down on the frontier of Flanders, he
suddenly turned and fell upon Calais, the last place which the English
held in France--an important dominion, as it secured them an easy and
safe passage into the heart of the country. In eight days De Guise took
possession of the place; a success due not so much to valour as to his
usual foresight, he having seized the moment when the fort was left
denuded of its garrison. This victory avenged St. Quentin and partly
smoothed the way to a general peace.

First a truce was spoken of, then a general disarming, then a disbanding
of foreign troops; but ultimately the two powers appointed their
plenipotentiaries, who on the 12th of October, 1558, assembled at
Cercamps, to formulate their proposals. Negotiations were long and
difficult, especially respecting the question of the possession of
Calais, being suspended on the 17th of November, 1558, on account
of the death of Mary Tudor, queen of England; they were resumed at
Cateau-Cambrésis in the following year, and finally peace was signed
between England and France in the first place, between France and
Spain in the second. The conditions were as follows: France restored
Marienburg, Thionville, Damvillers, Montmédy, in exchange for St.
Quentin, Ham, Catalet, and Thérouanne; she kept Calais and restored
without compensation Bovigny and Bouillon to the bishop of Liège, while
Philip kept Hesdin. In Italy the French evacuated Montferrat, Milan,
Corsica, Montalcino, Siena, Piedmont, excepting the forts of Turin,
Chieri, Pinerolo, Chivasso, Villanova d’Asti, which she held in pledge,
and which by the Treaty of Fossano, signed by the cardinal of Lorraine in
the name of the king of France, were restored to Emmanuel Philibert in
exchange for the forts of Savigliano and Perosa.

[Sidenote: [1558-1565 A.D.]]

The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis left Savoy, Bresse, and Bugey free, but
not so the duchy of Saluzzo, which held by France was occupied by Henry
IV and definitely abandoned to Piedmont in 1601, in exchange for Bresse
and Bugey. The restitution of the forts of Piedmont on the part of France
put the seal on the separation of this power from northern Italy. Two
marriages were arranged to make the peace binding, one between Philip II,
left a widower a short time previously, and Elizabeth of Valois, eldest
daughter of Henry, and the other between Margaret, sister of the latter,
and the duke of Savoy.

The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, completed fifty years later by that
of Vervins, was the fundamental treaty of Europe until the Treaty of
Westphalia. Few diplomatic acts have had such lasting results. The
convention of the 2nd of April, 1559, answered the momentary needs of
Europe; defined the limits of the possessions of every nation; broke the
power of the house of Habsburg, which inclined to universal monarchy;
lessened the authority of Philip II in Italy and the Low Countries, and
compelled the said monarch to keep within the limits of the Iberian
peninsula; and assured liberty to the rest of Europe, so recently
threatened by the omnipotence of Charles V.[h]

But in its consequences to Italy, this famous treaty was particularly
important. To detach the duke of Parma from the French interest during
the late war, Philip had already restored to him the part of his states
which Charles V had formerly seized: to confirm the fidelity of Cosmo
I, afterwards grand duke of Tuscany, he had assigned Siena to the
sceptre of the Medici, and retained only in Tuscany the small maritime
district which was destined to form a Spanish province, under the title
of _lo stato degli presidi_--the state of the garrisons. The general
pacification confirmed these cessions of Philip; it also restored to the
house of Savoy the greater part of its possessions, which the French and
Spanish kings engaged to evacuate; and it left the kingdom of Naples and
the duchy of Milan under the recognised sovereignty of Spain.

Thus the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis may be considered to have finally
regulated the limit and the existence of these Italian principalities and
provinces which, under despotic government, whether native or foreign,
had embraced almost the whole surface of the peninsula; and it left only
the shadow of republican freedom to Venice, Genoa, Lucca, and--if it be
worth naming--to the petty community of San Marino in the ecclesiastical
states. But this same pacification is yet more remarkable, as the era
from which Italy ceased to be the theatre of contention between the
monarchs of Spain and Germany and France, in their struggle for the
mastery of continental Europe. Other regions were now to be scathed by
their ambition, and other countries were to succeed to that inheritance
of warfare and all its calamities, of which Italy had reaped, and was yet
to reap, only the bitterest fruits.[c]

A new phase now began for Italy; she no longer resisted servitude but
became resigned, nay hastened to it. That same brilliant genius that
had strayed in the slippery paths of the Renaissance expiated its pagan
scepticism in the rigours of penitence and sometimes in the weaknesses of
superstition.

Pius IV set the example of resignation. Entirely occupied in embellishing
Rome, he had built the Porta Pia, opened up the via Montecavallo;
protected the coasts against barbaric pirates by the Borgo, Ancona, and
Cività-Vecchia fortifications, and had no other object than peace in
his relations with foreign powers. Solicited by the Savoy ambassador to
help his master in recovering Geneva, now turned Protestant, “What are
we coming to,” he said to him, “that such propositions should be made
to me? I desire above all things peace.” He was convinced that the holy
see could not long maintain itself without help from the princes, and
above all made much of those who reigned over Italy. He thought once
of conferring the title of king on Cosmo, or at least of making him
archduke. He refused nothing to his vassal Philip II for the kingdom of
Naples, and allowed him to oppose the formality of the _exequatur_ to his
own decrees. Still less did he combat the measures which the king took in
Milan to restrain the privileges left by Charles V to the senate and the
last communal liberties.

[Illustration: THE LION OF ST. MARK’S, VENICE]

[Sidenote: [1563-1572 A.D.]]

The holy see, it is true, gained spiritually what she lost temporally.
In the last sessions of the Council of Trent, which she had the glory
of reopening in 1563, Pope Pius IV, by politic concessions made to the
prince, strengthened the religious reforms which it had seemed possible
might be seized from him. By ceasing to invoke his right over crowned
heads he obtained one thing--there was no more talk of reforming the
church by reforming the head of it. The council, instead of putting
itself above him, bowed before his authority. Not only was tradition
maintained, and dogma in all its rigour, but the power of the holy see
in all of its Catholicity was raised and extended. The pope remained
sole judge of the changes to be worked in discipline, was infallible in
matters of faith, supreme interpreter of canons, uncontested head of
bishops, and Rome could console herself for the definite loss of a part
of Europe by seeing her power doubled in the Catholic nations of the
south who rallied religiously round her.

The lay sovereigns of Italy had not this compensation. Cosmo de’ Medici
could freely restrain by terror his subjects of Florence and Siena, who
still feared him. He could fortify Grossetto, Leghorn; found the order of
the cavaliers of St. Stephen against pirates; construct galleys, hollow
out canals, irrigate and try to repeople and make the Maremma healthy;
but in seizing the little town of Foligliano from Niccolo Orsini he
roused the discontent of the sovereigns, and did not appease them save by
accepting the hand of the archduchess Johanna, an Austrian princess, for
his son. The duke of Savoy, Emmanuel Philibert, who had given a victory
to Philip II over the king of France at St. Quentin, recovered, through
favour of the troubles in France, all his Piedmontese towns. But neither
from the king of Spain nor the pope did he obtain the help he needed to
reduce Geneva.

Under Pope Pius V (1566) the work of Catholic restoration and weakening
of the peninsula was finished. This holy but inflexible old man, admired
by the people for his always bare head, long white beard, and countenance
beaming with piety, got the Roman Inquisition admitted into all the
Italian states, and severely watched over faith and customs. Bishops were
bound to keep in residence, monks and nuns forced to strict seclusion.
The Collegium Germanicum, founded by the Jesuits, became a forcing
house for priests for Italy and Germany. Abuses had partly disappeared;
scandals diminished in Rome. Cardinals eminent for their piety gave
tone to the Roman court--among these the politic Gallio di Como, the
administrator Salviati, San Severino, the man of the Inquisition, and
Madruzzi, surnamed the Cato of the sacred college. Tiepolo, the Venetian
ambassador, a little later rendered the Holy City this witness: “Rome
strives to conquer the disrepute into which she had fallen; she has now
become more Christian in her customs and manner of living.” In Lombardy,
the archbishop of Milan, Carlo Borromeo, a worthy emulator of Pius V, did
not content himself with reforming the churches and clergy, the monks
and nuns. He restrained public amusement, watched over the regularity
of marriages and the general conduct of the laity: his zeal even led
him beyond the limit of his powers. He aspired to lend his religious
decrees the aid of military force, and the governor of Milan bowed to the
ascendency of a zeal free from all political ambition.

This reform, quite ecclesiastical and for discipline, had not,
unfortunately, anything practical or strong. Worship was re-established
without reformation of men’s characters. The faith was strengthened
without correction of manners. Minds were dominated without souls
being uplifted. One great action stands out during this epoch. Pius V
determined a league against the Turks and among the Italian and Spanish
states. Under the leadership of Don John, the vassals of Venice, Genoa,
Tuscany, Naples, and the church states carried a glorious victory
at Lepanto (1571).[i] So great and so glorious was this victory,
that we must give it more than passing notice. As one of the great
decisive battles between the Orient and the Occident, it had really
world-historical significance. We shall adopt the enthusiastic narrative
of the Spanish historian Lafuente.[a]

A SPANISH ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO

[Sidenote: [1571 A.D.]]

The Turkish fleet in Lepanto had been reinforced with ships, victuals,
artillery, and soldiers drawn from the Morea and Modon, so that it
numbered no less than 240 galleys, and a multitude of galiots, foists,
and other craft, with 120,000 men, soldiers and rowers. Pertev Pasha and
Ali Uluch, as also the viceroy of Alexandria and other Turkish generals,
counselled Ali Pasha not to fight or to risk in one battle the loss of
the conquests made in Cyprus. But Ali, as commander-in-chief of the
fleet, rejected their advice as cowardly. The reason of this was that
a famous corsair, disguised as a fisherman, had been able to approach
and reconnoitre the Christian galleys, and whether to encourage the
Mussulmans, or because he had not seen the whole fleet, had greatly
underestimated their numbers, and had assured the pasha of a certain,
indeed almost infallible victory.

Don John’s generals, amongst whom were Giovanni Andrea Doria, Ascanio de
la Corna, and Sebastian Veniero, also feared engaging in a battle; and
some, declaring that it would be rashness, came forward to advise him
to retreat. “Gentlemen,” replied the son of Charles V, “it is no longer
the hour for advising, but for fighting;” and he continued disposing the
order of battle.

Besides his natural valour, his confidence had been heightened by the
report he had received that Ali Uluch, the Algerian, had separated from
the Turkish fleet. Both commanders were deceived and confident, both
counted on the victory, both were equally anxious for battle; it would
seem that they were moved by a mysterious force. Don John passed from
ship to ship encouraging the Christians. “Brothers,” he cried in sonorous
accents to the Spaniards, “we are here to vanquish or die, if God so
wishes it. Do not give your arrogant enemy occasion to cry out with
haughty impiety, ‘Where is your God?’ Fight with faith in his holy name;
killed or victorious, you shall enjoy immortality.” And to the Venetians:
“The day has come to avenge insults; you hold in your hands the remedy to
your sufferings, wield your swords with courage and anger.” And the fire
of his words inflamed the hearts of the combatants with warlike ardour.

Ali Pasha, who was confident of victory, thinking that the whole of the
Christian fleet was in sight, when the greater part of it was hidden from
him by the Curzolari Islands, was dumfounded, and cursed the corsair who
had deceived him, when upon his sailing into the open he discovered its
magnitude, saw the multitude of sails and the admirable order in which it
was disposed.

Don John also perceived that he had been mistaken in the number of the
enemy’s ships, and that it was uncertain whether Ali Uluch had deserted;
he fully weighed the danger into which he had run, but remembered who
he was, fixed his eyes on a crucifix which he always wore, then raised
them to heaven, and placing his trust in God resolved to fight with the
presentiment of victory. The wind, which at first had been contrary
to the Christians, presently turned against the infidels, rendering
the operations of their ships difficult, and being favourable to the
Christian fleet, which raised their courage. Among other things Don John
caused the beakheads of all the galleys to be cut away, commencing with
his own flag-ship, which measure, as afterwards proved, was of great
advantage.

Six Venetian galleasses sailed as a vanguard, the left wing formed of
sixty galleys was commanded by the _provveditore_ Barbarigo; Giovanni
Andrea Doria commanded the right which was composed of nearly an equal
number of sail; in the centre division, composed of sixty-three galleys,
was the generalissimo Don John of Austria in his flag-ship, having on
each side the two generals of Rome and Venice, Colonna and Veniero, and
in the rear his lieutenant, Requesens, chief knight commander of Castile.
The rear-guard or relief squadron, of thirty-five galleys, was commanded
by Don Alvaro de Bazan, marquis of Santa Cruz.

The Turkish fleet, more numerous than the Christian, formed a half moon
and was also divided into three bodies. The right, of fifty-five galleys,
was commanded by the viceroy of Alexandria, Muhammed Siroko; the left
wing, composed of ninety-three, by Ali Uluch of Algiers, and the two
pashas, Pertev and Ali, were in the centre with ninety-six sail, with
their corresponding relief force or rear-guard. So that each division
faced the corresponding division of the enemy, and the standard of the
Grand Turk fluttered in front of the holy standard of the league.

The wind had fallen, the waters of the gulf were tranquil, and the
sun shone out from a blue and clear sky, as though God wished that no
element should disturb the struggle of men, that nature should oppose
no obstacle to the battle which was to decide the triumph of the cross
or the crescent. If the reflection of the polished arms, the shining
shields, and burnished helmets of the Christians dazzled the Mussulmans,
the eyes of the allies were wounded by the gilded poop lanterns, the
silver and gold inscriptions of the Turkish standards, the stars, the
moon, the double-edged scimitars, which shone from the ships of the
Ottoman admirals. Nothing could be discerned on the horizon but banners
and pendants of varied colours. For a brief space the two fleets surveyed
one another in mutual wonder; this impressive silence was broken by a
broadside discharged from Ali’s galley, which was answered by another
from Don John’s flag-ship.

The first boom of the artillery, which was the signal for battle, was
followed instantly by the usual clamour and shouting, with which the
Moors commence a fight. The Turkish right wing commanded by the viceroy
of Alexandria first engaged with the Christian left, commanded by the
_provveditore_ Barbarigo. The Venetians fought unshielded with the
furious courage and passion of men fighting the murderers of their
compatriots. Doria the Genoese engaged with Ali Uluch the Algerian, who
captured the flag-ship of Malta, and put all her defenders to the sword,
with the exception of the prior and two other knights, who, covered with
wounds, were saved by being counted among the dead.

Ali Pasha and Don John of Austria sought each other with equal hatred,
until with a terrible shock their two galleys rushed together, the fire
of the artillery and arquebuses from the Spanish ship doing deadly work
on the men of the Turkish galley. The action became general, and the
contending galleys changed about; the sea was white with the foam of the
troubled waves, the smoke of the artillery and arquebuses darkened the
sky, turned midday into night, the sparks flying from the swords and
shields as they clashed together seemed like lightning flashing from
black clouds. Ships were engulfed in the waves, Turks and Christians fell
in a muddled heap, clasped together like brothers, with the hatred of
enemies, by the side of a sinking ship; greedy flames devoured others;
a Turkish ship would be seen flying a Christian flag, and a Spanish
galley guided by a Turkish commandant. Swords broken, they fought hand
to hand; all was destruction and death, until the sea became reddened
with blood. “Never,” says the author of the _Memories of Lepanto_, “had
the Mediterranean witnessed on her bosom, nor shall the world again see,
a conflict so obstinate, a butchery so terrible, men so valiant and so
enraged.”

With his youthful and untiring arm Don John of Austria wielded his sword
unceasingly, his person being ever exposed to danger; youthful also in
the battle appeared the veteran Sebastian Veniero; Colonna did justice
to his illustrious name; Requesens showed himself a worthy lieutenant of
the valiant prince Don John; the prince of Parma proved that the blood of
Charles V ran in his veins; the wounds he received did not check Urbino;
Figueroa, Zapata, Carillo, every captain of the flag-ship worked like
men well used to battle, setting little value on their lives, when the
flag-ship was hard pressed, because Ali and Pertev Pasha also fought like
heroes with their janissaries.

Don Alvaro de Bazan came to the rescue, as though his galley was moved
by lightning, and mowed down Mussulmans, clearing all before him, though
balls turned against his shield. Like a whirlwind he moved, nor did his
fire slacken though ships were engulfed at his side and captains fell
lifeless before him. Ali Uluch held Doria in desperate conflict; the
marquis of Santa Cruz, leaving the flag-ship in safety, rushed to his
assistance, regained the flag-ship of Malta, relieved the Genoese, and
put the Algerian to ignominious flight.

It is impossible to relate the special deeds of prowess of every captain
and every soldier in the stupendous struggle, in which the janissaries,
who held themselves to be the most valiant warriors of the world, were to
learn that there were Christian soldiers more valiant, more audacious,
and more daring than they. Nevertheless we cannot omit making special
mention of a Spanish soldier who, prostrated with fever on board Giovanni
Andrea Doria’s galley, but feeling a more fierce fever burning in his
breast, that is to say, the fire of courage and the desire of battle,
left his bed and begged the captain to station him at the post of
greatest danger. In vain his comrades, in vain the captain himself, tried
to convince him that he was more in a condition to be curing his body
than exposing it to danger. The soldier insisted, the soldier fought
valiantly, the soldier was wounded in the breast and left hand, but yet
he would not retreat, for the maxim of this soldier was, that wounds
received in battle are stars which guide to the heaven of glory. The
stubborn soldier stood firm, and could not be prevailed upon to retire
that he might be attended to, until his galley had ceased to battle, the
captain Francisco de San Pedro being killed in the fight. The reader will
understand why, in the midst of numerous other deeds of prowess, we have
singled that of this soldier in particular, for he will have divined that
this soldier was no other than Miguel de Cervantes, who, then unknown to
the world as a soldier, became afterwards famous as a writer.

But it is now time to draw this furious fight to a close, the result of
it being for a time doubtful. The Turks had already suffered a great loss
when Pertev Pasha, pressed by Don Juan de Cordova, fell into the sea, and
his galley was boarded by Paulo Jordan Urbino, the seraskier being forced
to swim to a small boat in which to escape. But the Christians did not
set up the cry of victory until they saw Ali Pasha, after the vigorous
and stubborn efforts of himself and the three hundred janissaries of his
flag-ship, fall on the gangway wounded in the forehead by a ball from one
of Don John’s arquebusiers.

Another cut off his head and presented it to the Christian generalissimo,
who with noble generosity censured the action with horror, and ordered
such trophies to be thrown into the sea; nevertheless he could not
prevent the head of the Turkish admiral from being raised and exhibited
on the point of a spear. The Christian’s cry of victory resounded through
the air, and was carried by the winds to the shore.

The last engagement was between the galleys of Ali Uluch and Giovanni
Andrea Doria, but on the approach of Don John, the viceroy of Algiers
hastened to effect his escape, with forty vessels saved from the general
destruction; and so great was his haste that neither Giovanni Andrea nor
Alvaro de Bazan could give chase. Nevertheless well-nigh all his men
perished, either drowned in the waves, when jumping in terror to the
shore, or killed among the rocks by the Venetians.

In this memorable battle the Turks lost 220 ships; of this number 130
fell into the hands of the Christians, more than 90 were engulfed in the
sea, or reduced to ruins by fire, 40 alone escaped; 25,000 Turks fell
in battle, 50,000 were taken prisoners; the allies took from them 17
heavy cannon, and 250 of smaller calibre, more than 12,000 Christians,
captives of the Mussulmans, employed as rowers, saw their chains broken
and precious liberty recovered. The Christian losses were also great,
about 8,000 valiant soldiers and sailors were killed, 2,000 of these were
Spaniards, 800 of the papal army, and the rest Venetians. Only 15 ships
were lost. On the other hand the gilded poop lanterns, the purple banners
embroidered in gold and silver, the stars and moon, the pasha’s pennons,
were precious trophies which the allies won in the battle.

Such in brief, concludes Lafuente, was the famous naval battle of
Lepanto, the most famous ever recorded in the annals of nations, for the
number of ships, the exertions and valour of the combatants, for the
complete destruction of a fleet as formidable as was the Ottoman fleet.
The janissaries were no longer invincible; the Sublime Porte was to lose
its supremacy in the Mediterranean.[j]

THE GENERAL CONDITION OF ITALY

[Sidenote: [1569-1585 A.D.]]

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John,” Pius V could cry
in his enthusiasm over the victory of Lepanto. But besides this victory
there was little to arouse enthusiasm in Italy; scandals and baseness
prevailed everywhere. The Medici offered the worst examples of this.
Dreadful rumours circulated on the sudden and close deaths of Cosmo’s
two sons. It was confidently said that one, Giovanni, had in a fit of
jealousy during a hunting party assassinated his brother Garcias, and
that Cosmo had slain the fratricide some days later in the arms of
his mother. The third, Francesco, although married to the archduchess
Johanna, publicly contracted a liaison which seemed to give rise every
day to fresh scandals, and Cosmo in the recesses of his palace indulged
in stormy passions made worse by a sombre melancholy. All this did not
hinder Pope Pius V, in 1569, from conferring on Cosmo, by what right is
not known, the title of grand duke. This act showed to what depths the
Italian princes had sunk. The other small sovereigns, whose lives were
also not the most exemplary, showed themselves very jealous. The dukes
of Ferrara and Savoy protested at the courts of Madrid and Vienna, and
aspired to guard the right of precedence, which the pope had also just
changed. At least they would be of the first rank among slaves. The right
of precedence, such as it was in the general servitude, remained the
object of the princes’ feverish rivalry. To maintain this their wise men
used a good deal of heraldic and feudal science. Their ambassadors fought
at the courts of Madrid and Vienna.

Loss of liberty was not compensated for by material prosperity. This was
clearly shown during the reigns of Gregory XIII at Rome and Francesco I
at Florence.

Gregory XIII, although of less deep piety than his predecessor, was
carried along in his spiritual government by the vigorous impulse given
by Pius V. He founded an international college at Rome, and accomplished
a work truly European by the reform of the calendar in 1582. His attempts
to regulate economic conditions were not so successful. Francesco de’
Medici, more docile still than his father to the Spanish yoke, obtained
by concessions in 1576, from the emperor and the Spanish king, that
recognition of his grand-ducal title which Cosmo had refused, with the
right of precedence over the other dukes. With less reverence than ever
he established Bianca Capello in his palace, she losing nothing of his
affection for having given him a child by another father; she even became
his wife after the death of the archduchess. Quite a Spanish prince, he
separated himself entirely from the people. After the fashion of Philip
II he only lived in the midst of courtesans and favourites, who began
to form a nobility in a state which was formerly largely democratic.
But through his negligence all the elements of order and prosperity in
Tuscany were lost. The city of Leghorn alone slightly developed, thanks
to the commercial privileges he granted her, but the rest of the country
became deserted compared to what it had been under Cosmo I. Pisa, from
twenty-two thousand inhabitants, fell to eight thousand; and in 1575 a
conspiracy was necessary to overthrow that voluptuous tyrant who had no
thought for the morrow.

In the Milanese, where the governors respected the débris of ancient
liberties, there was still some activity. Milanese arms and embroideries
were sought after, woollen-weavers were very busy in Como and the
capital. The work of canalisation went on. Milan passed as Italy’s most
populous city and had 150,000 inhabitants. But at Naples the exigencies
and venality of the administration exhausted all sources of prosperity.
Whilst rich families in Lombardy, the Marignani, the Sforza, the Serboni,
the Borromei, and the Trivulzi, displayed a princely luxuriousness, the
Neapolitan nobility, quickly ruined by court life, retired to their
châteaux and lived by oppressing the peasants. Even the townsfolk,
crushed by taxation, and above all by the caprice of viceroys, were
ruined. The miserable tax-payers, after all their furniture had been
sold, were even driven to strip off their roofs and sell the material.
Towns fell into decay. Localities formerly very flourishing, like
Giovinazzo in Apulia, completely disappeared. A whole province was
desolated; Calabria was now only crossed by caravans.

[Illustration: SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO, VENICE]

In the whole peninsula brigandage was organised, as in great epochs of
misery. The discontented, the banished, ruined people, and bad subjects
united in bands under bold and adventurous chiefs and wrought sanguinary
revenge. The Apennine gorges, the little châteaux there, became the
refuge for these outlaws or bandits who replaced the condottieri, and
were as a last and wild protestation of national independence. The
people, far from despising them, called them the _bravi_. Grandees,
princes, even cardinals often went to these men to seek help needed to
execute vengeance or even to satisfy their cupidity. Marco Bernardi
of Cosenza in Calabria; Pietro Leonello of Spoleto in the Marches;
Alfonso Piccolomini, lord of Montemarciano, and his noble family in the
Apennines, became the terror of the peninsula. It needed a real military
Spanish expedition to destroy Marco Bernardi and his band. Alfonso
Piccolomini seized châteaux and even small towns in the papal states.
Pope Gregory XIII augmented his military forces and gave Cardinal Sforza
the fullest power to rid the patrimony of St. Peter of this brigandage.
Gregory XIII could not, however, disarm Piccolomini but by pardoning
him and restoring his goods. Such was the state to which imperial and
pontifical restoration had reduced the peninsula towards the end of
the sixteenth century. But at the threshold of the seventeenth century
two energetic men tried to raise Italy and even put her in the way of
profiting by the restoration of France, her natural protector, since
she had fallen under the Spanish yoke: these were Sixtus V, sovereign
pontiff, and Ferdinand I, grand duke of Tuscany.

POPE SIXTUS V; FERDINAND, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY

[Sidenote: [1585-1590 A.D.]]

Felice Peretti [Sixtus V], one of a poor slave family who had taken
refuge at Montalto, had been raised in the rough school of poverty.
He had often in his youth guarded the fruit or taken care of swine.
Received into a Franciscan convent, he had risen by showing a mixture
of theologic erudition and facility in administration, which evidenced
a decided mind and firm character. He was sixty-four and somewhat
infirm when called to the papacy (1585). This honour seemed to tend to
rejuvenescence, a fact which gave rise to a report that the day after
his exaltation he had thrown away his crutches. He was the first for
some time who understood that the pope, as temporal sovereign, cannot
be absorbed exclusively in religious duties without imperilling that
same spiritual power, and he undertook first to destroy brigandage and
raise the finances of the holy see. From the first day, most energetic
measures were taken against the brigands. A price was set on the heads
of the leaders; their relatives were rendered responsible and liable for
all their misdeeds. The holy father found good all the measures exercised
against them. No pity was to be expected from him. “As long as I live,”
he said the very day of his coronation, “every criminal shall suffer
capital punishment.” At the end of two years, ambassadors congratulated
the pope on the safety of the roads in the pontifical domain.

Gregory XIII had, as Sixtus V said, eaten the revenues of three pontiffs:
his own, those of his predecessor, and those of his successor. Sixtus
V exercised considerable economies in the expenses of the pontifical
chamber. He created a number of venal duties, and established _monti_
on the consumption of wine, wood, and even small industries. In a short
time he had paid his debts, and could put aside annually a million gold
crowns: a reserve destined to pay for great events such as a crusade,
a famine, or an invasion of St. Peter’s domain. The ordinary excess
of receipts was employed by him in embellishing Rome. Since Sixtus IV
had joined the two shores of the Tiber by the bridge which bears his
name, the lower part of the town had been entirely rebuilt; beyond the
river rose the marvels of the Vatican, the Belvedere, the Loggia, and
the palace of the Chigi; beyond these, the Cancellaria of Julius II,
the Farnese and Orsini palaces. But the heights of the town were always
abandoned; the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli and the palace of the
Conservatori on the Capitoline no longer attracted the inhabitants.
Sixtus V, to repeople these beautiful and celebrated heights, conducted
greatly needed water there by means of works which rivalled those
of the Romans. He caused to flow, sometimes under ground, sometimes
in aqueducts, to the Capitoline and Quirinal, that _aqua felice_
which gave in four hours 20,537 cubic metres of water and nourished
twenty-seven fountains. He planned a great number of streets, facilitated
communication between the higher and the lower towns, and doubled, as it
were, the town of Rome.

The former Franciscan monk also caused a reaction against paganism
in art; and was happy in celebrating in his works the triumph of the
Christian faith. He surmounted with a cross the beautiful obelisk which
the architect Fontana had raised with so much trouble and delight on the
Piazza di San Pietro. He knocked down the statues of Trajan and Antoninus
from the triumphal columns of those emperors to put up St. Peter and
St. Paul, and to build his churches and realise his plans destroyed the
monuments of antiquity, even the beautiful temple of Severus. He even
sacrificed to this Christian vandalism the beautiful tomb of Cæcilia
Metella. But before all, this positive mind had always one end in
view--public utility; and Rome really rose under his pontificate.

The death of the grand duke of Florence, Francesco, was as favourable to
Tuscany as that of Gregory XIII to the church states. Duke Francesco and
Cardinal Ferdinand de’ Medici, rarely in accord, were still embroiled
after the accession of Pope Sixtus V. In the autumn of 1587, Francesco
having fallen ill, Ferdinand came to Florence and there was reconciled
with him. But some days after the fever of Francesco grew worse, Bianca
Capello herself was attacked by the same illness. The husband and wife
whose passion for each other had troubled the court of Tuscany, even of
Italy, died within two days of each other, and Cardinal Ferdinand became
duke of Florence. A thousand rumours were set afloat to damage him, but
the new duke soon stifled them by benefits bestowed. An enlightened
man, with practical good sense and resolution, Ferdinand I repaired
the miseries caused by the negligence of Francesco. The prosperity of
Leghorn was taken in hand; the town of Pisa helped by the opening of a
canal which put her in communication with Leghorn at that point where
the Genoese were soon to assist at a yearly fair. The course of the Arno
received a more advantageous direction; there was much done in the way of
draining inundated lands, and the prospect of repeopling the Maremma was
reundertaken by increasing the water-supply and damming the overflow of
Lake Fucecchio. Ferdinand kept a navy sufficiently considerable to drive
the Barbary pirates back to Bona, and tried to reanimate art and letters,
which had been the glory of his country and his ancestors.

Pope Sixtus V and Ferdinand were so constituted as to understand each
other. Their foreign policy began to betray more independence. Sixtus
V pursued as far as Spanish territory the brigands who were sometimes
protected by them. Ferdinand sent away all the Spaniards whom Francesco
had taken into pay, and confided his fortresses to Italians whom he
could trust. Both men had come to a good understanding with the Venetian
republic. The pope particularly was fond of that town, which had helped
him to destroy the brigands. He often assured her that he would willingly
shed his blood for her. They also attached to themselves the Gonzagas of
Mantua and Genoa, threatened by Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy, who hoped
to obtain everything from Spain by proving himself her most zealous
partisan. It was already a scene of resistance. But help must be sought
from without. France, preyed upon for twenty-five years by the horrors of
a religious war which paralysed all foreign politics, could hardly stand
against the efforts and intrigues of Philip II. Ferdinand and Venice
favoured as much as they could the restoration of a strong and national
power. The republic guessed first what the future would be, and had the
courage to recognise Henry IV before all the other states. After her,
Ferdinand entered into friendly relations with the new king; and while
the duke of Savoy seized from him Barcelonnette and Antibes, he threw
himself into the château d’If and put an efficient garrison there.

Sixtus V hesitated. He threatened to break with the republic, for which
he had promised to shed his blood. He allowed himself, however, to be
persuaded to relent, and even received M. de Luxembourg, the envoy of
Henry IV, in private audience. The Spanish ambassador begged, threatened.
Sixtus went down before such boldness. Philip II again began to send
bandits to the pontifical territory, and intercepted the convoys laden
with grain which Ferdinand had caused to come for the provisionment of
Tuscany.

Sixtus V went so far as to speak of excommunicating the Catholic king
of Spain. This energetic man, however, bent under so great a task, and
died the 7th of August, 1590, pursued by the cowardly maledictions of the
people, who broke his statues, and decided that that honour should not
again be given to living popes.

POPE CLEMENT VIII (1590-1605 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1590-1600 A.D.]]

The death of Sixtus V again agitated the conclave. The Medicean party at
last arrived at finding a pope, if not hostile, at least less devoted
to Spain--Urban VII. But he died at the end of seven days, and the
struggle recommenced. The viceroy of Naples, to finish it, sent brigands.
Olivares threatened the cardinals with a siege. Gregory XIV, a pope
devoted to Spain, was elected; but only reigned seven months. A third
struggle began, more fierce than the preceding ones. The cardinal of
San Severino, supported by the Spaniards, failed one day of the papacy
by a single vote. “Anxiety,” he himself said, “made me sweat blood.”
Cardinal Aldobrandini, the creature of Sixtus V, much less devoted to the
Spaniards, was at last elected on January 30th, 1592, and took the name
of Clement VIII.

This was a victory for Italy. The abjuration of Henry IV, his entry into
Paris in 1594, was another. It was celebrated in the peninsula as a
national event. The pope, who up to then had managed the Spanish and only
secretly received the ambassadors of Henry IV, no longer resisted the
insistences of the grand duke of Florence. In vain the Spanish party left
Rome with the cardinals, who led them; in vain the duke of Sessa, Philip
II’s ambassador, threw his Abruzzian bandits on church lands. Supported
by the Venetians, by the duke of Tuscany, by the emperor himself, to
whom the Italians furnished help against the Turks, the pope carried all
before him. He declared in solemn ceremony (September 8th, 1595) Henry to
be reconciled with the Catholic church, thus re-establishing between the
orthodox powers a favourable equilibrium to his own independence and the
freeing of Italy. The peninsula, in effect, soon found she had gained a
powerful support against Spain. Alfonso II, duke of Ferrara, Modena, and
Reggio, dying in 1597, had left his heritage to Don Cesare his cousin,
in default of a direct heir. Clement VIII claimed, as fief of the holy
see, the town of Ferrara, hurled excommunication against Don Cesare, who
aspired to all the heritage, and raised a loan to support an army of
spiritual thunderbolts.

At first events did not seem to favour the holy see. The court of Spain,
who thought it had somewhat against Clement VIII, was ill disposed. The
grand duke of Tuscany, brother-in-law to Don Cesare, this time abandoned
the pope. Even the Venetian Republic hindered him from recruiting
soldiers in Dalmatia. Henry IV forgot what he owed to Venice, to the
grand duke, and offered to send an army beyond the mountains to put the
pope in possession of Ferrara. Don Cesare, obliged to yield, gave up the
town after taking away the archives, the library, and the artillery of
his predecessors. He thereafter contented himself with the title of duke
of Modena and Reggio. The town of Ferrara lost all its advantages, all
its éclat as capital, and soon saw rise in place of the ducal palace and
the beautiful belvedere sung by her poets, a citadel which easily kept in
awe a town promptly dispeopled.

Philip II, who for thirty years had allowed nothing to be done in Italy
without his permission, was obliged to yield this time. He thus signed,
before dying, the peace of Vervins, which announced the re-establishment
of French power and the decadence of Spain. His successor, Philip III,
abandoned even the most faithful of the servitors of his house in
Italy--Charles Emmanuel I, duke of Savoy, from whom Henry IV, by the
treaty of Lyons, received in 1600 Bugey, Valromey, and Gex, in exchange
for the marquisate of Saluzzo.

Italy now turned with full hope towards France. The holy see had nothing
but kindness for her. The learned cardinal Baronius repeated, to whoever
cared to listen, that the papacy had never received of any nation so much
service. “Can it be allowed,” cried the cardinal’s nephew, Aldobrandini,
through whose hands all affairs passed, “can it be allowed that the
Spanish should command in the house of a stranger in spite of him?” And
it was not perhaps without reflection that he put millions in reserve and
maintained an army of twelve thousand men. Not having had occasion to
meddle with France since the Peace of Lyons, Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy
began to understand that it was in Italy, at the expense of Spain, that
he must seek aggrandisement. So he entered into intimate relations with
Henry IV, so long time his enemy. In waiting for better things, he ended
by organising the senate established by his father at Carignan on the
model of the French parliaments. He reanimated agriculture and commerce
and fortified Turin, an Italian city. He himself wrote a parallel between
great men ancient and modern, and began to found the military power of
his little state.

Ferdinand of Tuscany, only too happy to see Maria de’ Medici mount the
French throne, did not long hold out before Henry IV. He was bold enough
to send his admiral Inghirami, at the head of his fleet, to fight the
Turks in the Adriatic, even seeking to seize from them the isle of
Cyprus. In the north and south of Italy the Milanese and the Neapolitans
themselves began to grow restless under the iron yoke of Spain. It
was perhaps the time to attempt something. Cardinal Aldobrandini once
proposed to Venice a league against Spain. But Cardinal Aldobrandini and
Ferdinand were sworn foes. Henry IV, moreover, was not yet firmly enough
established in France to act outside it.

There then remained only one alternative for the Neapolitan kingdom--one
of those isolated revolts, so extraordinarily foolish, so frequent in
the peninsula, which can only be explained by the misery of the people.
A Dominican, Tommaso Campanella, a deep thinker if he had not been a
still greater dreamer, tore himself from his philosophic elucidations
and dreams to call, like a new Savonarola, his compatriots to liberty.
He believed in the faith of the Apocalypse that the seventeenth century
would be for Italy the signal for a cataclysm wherein would be engulfed
the Spanish domination, and he formed the project of founding a kind of
universal theocratic republic. He began first by Calabria, his country.
Monks, not only Dominicans, but Franciscans and Augustines, drawn away by
his eloquence, began to preach the doctrines of this new emissary from
God, and blew upon the hardly extinct ashes of Neapolitan frenzy. Even
many bishops and a few barons followed the monks. An army, recruited in
part by bandits, went out from Calabria. The count of Lemos, viceroy
of Naples, soon had the upper hand. The unfortunates who were seized
perished in frightful torments. Tommaso Campanella, regarded as insane,
was thrown in a dungeon, where he stayed twenty-seven years, and passed
from the dream of a universal republic to that of a universal holy empire.

This attempt sufficed to put the Spanish government, already full of
distrust, still more on their guard. Philip III, at Rome, roused Cardinal
Farnese, head of his faction, against Aldobrandini. The garrisons
of Tuscany were strengthened; Fuentes, governor of Milan, assembled
sufficient troops to scare the whole peninsula. He would have done
more, if the king of Spain, Philip III, and his minister, the duke of
Lerma, satisfied with maintaining their domination, had not taken every
precaution not to rouse the intervention of Henry IV from beyond the
Alps.[i]

Fully to appreciate the character of the times just treated, one must
recall the state of contemporary civilisation. We have been brought
somewhat in contact with the conditions in Germany, France, and Spain,
because these countries were in constant political association with
Italy. To complete the picture, it should be recalled that the sixteenth
century was the age of Henry VIII and Elizabeth in England; therefore,
the time of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Bacon. It was the age also of
Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin; the time when the spirit of the Reformation
was actively battling with the old ecclesiasticism, and when the counter
influence of the Inquisition made itself felt everywhere. Italy being
relatively uninfluenced by the Reformation was also relatively free from
the excesses of the Inquisition. Nevertheless, it furnished just at the
close of the century a most striking illustration of inquisitorial power
in the persecution, imprisonment, and finally the execution by burning at
the stake of the famous philosopher, Giordano Bruno.

But the Italian civilisation of the time presents some more attractive
features. The artistic impulses of the Renaissance, at which we have
glimpsed in an earlier chapter, could not be blotted out in a single
generation; and it must be recalled that Michelangelo lived until the
year 1564; so the art movement did not pass its climax before the
middle of the century. In the field of literature the activities of the
earlier generation were unabated. “Among the numbers of men who had
devoted themselves to letters,” says Sismondi,[k] “Italy produced at
this glorious epoch, at least thirty poets, whom their contemporaries
placed on a level with the first names of antiquity, and whose fame, it
was thought, would be commensurate with the existence of the world. But
even the names of these illustrious men begin to be forgotten; and their
works, buried in the libraries of the learned, are now seldom read.

“The circumstances of their equality in merit has doubtless been an
obstacle to the duration of their reputation. Fame does not possess
a strong memory. For a long flight, she relieves herself from all
unnecessary encumbrances. She rejects, on her departure, and in her
course, many who thought themselves accepted by her, and she comes down
to late ages, with the lightest possible burthen. Unable to choose
between Bembo, Sadoleti, Sanazzaro, Bernardo Accolti, and so many others,
she relinquishes them all.”

There is one name, however, that stands out from amidst this company in a
secure position. This is the name of Torquato Tasso, the famous author of
the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ (“Jerusalem Delivered”), a poem dealing with
the First Crusade, which by common consent has high rank among the great
epics, and which placed its author in contemporary estimation, as in that
of posterity, on an approximate level with Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto.
The appearance of Tasso in this epoch is another illustration of that
fruitage of literary genius in times of political degeneration to which
reference has previously been made.[a]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVI. A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY

From the fall of Siena on to the nineteenth century Italy
can scarcely be said to have existed at all except as a
geographical expression. Italians still ruled over certain
parts of the land, but they had the vices without the virtues
of their nation, and reigned more as the dependents of foreign
sovereigns than as independent princes. During the seventeenth,
the eighteenth, and the early part of the nineteenth centuries,
Italy was made the scene of wars in which her people had no
interest, and was divided by treaties which brought her no
good.[b]--HUNT.

[Sidenote: [1601-1700 A.D.]]

The general aspect of Italy, during the whole course of the seventeenth
century, remained unchanged by any signal revolution. The period which
had already elapsed between the extinction of national and civil
independence and the opening of the period before us had sufficed to
establish the permanency of the several despotic governments of the
peninsula, and to regulate the limits of their various states and
provinces. If we except some popular commotions in Naples and Sicily,
the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor had wholly ceased.
Servitude had become the heirloom of the people; and they bowed their
necks unresistingly and from habit to the grievous yoke which their
fathers had borne before them. Their tyrants, domestic and foreign,
revelled or slumbered on their thrones.

The Italian princes of the seventeenth century were more voluptuous and
effeminate, but perhaps less ferocious and sanguinary, than the ancient
Visconti, the Scala, the Carrara, the Gonzaga. But the condition of
their subjects was not the less degraded. Their sceptres had broken
every mouldering relic of freedom; and their dynasties, unmolested in
their seats, were left (we except that of Savoy) to that quiet and
gradual extinction which was insured by the progress of mental and
corporeal degeneracy--the hereditary consequences of slothful and bloated
intemperance. The seventeenth century, however, saw untroubled to its
close the reign of several ducal houses, which were to become extinct in
the following age.

[Sidenote: [1600-1627 A.D.]]

Compared with that of the preceding century, the history of Italy at
this period may appear less deeply tinged with national crime, and
humiliation, and misery; for the expiring throes of political vitality
had been followed by the stillness of death. But, as a distinguished
writer has well remarked, we should greatly err if, in observing that
history is little more than the record of human calamity, we should
conclude that the times over which it is silent are necessarily less
characterised by misfortune. History can seldom penetrate into the
recesses of society, can rarely observe the shipwreck of domestic peace
and the destruction of private virtue. The happiness and the wretchedness
of families equally escape its cognisance. But we know that, in the
country and in the times which now engage our attention, the frightful
corruption of manners and morality had sapped the most sacred relations
of life. The influence of the Spanish sovereignty over a great part
of the peninsula had made way for the introduction of many Castilian
prejudices; and these were fatally engrafted on the vices of a people
already too prone to licentious gallantry. The merchant-noble of the
Italian republics had been taught to see no degradation in commerce; and
some of the numerous members of his household were always engaged in
pursuits which increased the wealth and consequence of their family.

But the haughty cavalier of Spain viewed the exercise of such plebeian
industry with bitter contempt. The Spanish military inundated the
peninsula; and the growth of Spanish sentiment was encouraged by the
Italian princes. They induced their courtiers to withdraw their capital
from commerce, that they might invest it in estates, which descended to
their eldest sons, the representatives of their families; and the younger
branches of every noble house were condemned to patrician indolence,
poverty, and celibacy. It was to recompense these younger sons, thus
sacrificed to family pride, and forever debarred from forming matrimonial
connections, that the strange and demoralising office of the _cicisbeo_,
or _cavaliere servente_, was instituted: an office which, under the guise
of romantic politeness, and fostered by the dissolute example of the
Italian princes and their courts, thinly veiled the universal privilege
of adultery.

This pernicious and execrable fashion poisoned the sweet fountain of
domestic happiness and confidence at its sources. The wife was no longer
the intimate of her husband’s heart, the faithful partner of his joys and
cares. The eternal presence of the licensed paramour blasted his peace;
and the emotions of paternal love were converted into distracting doubts
or baleful indifference. The degraded parent, husband, son, fled from the
pollution which reigned within his own dwelling, himself to plunge into
a similar vortex of corruption. All the social ties were loosened: need
we demand of history if public happiness could reside in that land, where
private morality had perished.

GENERAL CONDITIONS

[Sidenote: [1600-1700 A.D.]]

In attempting to bring the unimportant fortunes of Italy during the
seventeenth century into a general point of view, we should find
considerable and needless difficulty. In the beginning of the century,
a quarrel between the popedom and Venice appeared likely to kindle a
general war in the peninsula; but the difference was terminated by
negotiation (1627).

Twenty years later, the disputed succession of the duchy of Mantua
created more lasting troubles, and involved all Lombardy in hostilities;
in which the imperialists, the Spaniards, the French, and the troops of
Savoy once more mingled on the ancient theatre of so many sanguinary
wars and calamitous devastations. But this uninteresting struggle, if
not marked by less cruelty and rapine towards the inhabitants of the
country, was pursued with less destructive vigour and activity than
in the preceding century; nor were the French arms attended by those
violent alternations of success and failure which had formerly inflicted
such woes upon the peninsula. From the epoch at which Henry IV excluded
himself from Italy by the Savoyard treaty, until the ambitious designs
of Cardinal Richelieu involved France in the support of the pretensions
of the Grisons over the Valtelline country against Spain, the French
standards had not been displayed beyond the Alps. But from the moment at
which the celebrated minister of Louis XIII engaged in this enterprise,
until the Peace of the Pyrenees, the incessant contest of the French and
Spanish monarchies, in which the dukes of Savoy and other Italian powers
variously embarked, was continually extended to the frontiers of Piedmont
and Lombardy.

The arms of the combatants, however, seldom penetrated beyond the
northern limits of Italy; and their rivalry, which held such a fatal
influence on the peace of other parts of the European continent, can
scarcely be said to have materially affected the national affairs of
the peninsula. Meanwhile, the few brief and petty internal hostilities
which arose and terminated among the Italian princes were of still less
general consequence and interest. The subsequent gigantic wars into which
Louis XIV, by his insatiable lust of conquest, forced the great powers of
Europe, were little felt in Italy until the close of the century--except
in the territories of the dukes of Savoy. Thus, altogether, instead of
endeavouring to trace the history of Italy during the seventeenth century
as one integral and undivided subject, it will be more convenient still
to consider the few important events in the contemporary annals of her
different provinces as really appertaining, without much connection, to
distinct and separate states.

The immediate dominion of the Spanish monarchy over great part of Italy
lasted during the whole of the seventeenth century. Naples, Sicily,
Milan, and Sardinia were exposed alike to the oppression of the Spanish
court, and to the inherent vices of its administration. Its grievous
exactions were rendered more ruinous by the injudicious and absurd manner
of their infliction; by the private rapacity of the viceroys, and the
peculation of their officers. Its despotism was aggravated by all the
wantonness of power, and all the contemptuous insolence of pride. But of
these four subject states, the last two, Milan and Sardinia, suffered
in silence; and except that the Lombard duchy was almost incessantly a
prey to warfare and ravages from which the insular kingdom was exempted,
a common obscurity and total dearth of all interest equally pervade
the annals of both. But the fortunes of the two kingdoms of Naples and
Sicily were more remarkable from the violent efforts of the people,
ill conducted and unsuccessful though these were, to shake off the
intolerable yoke of Spain.

The decline of the Spanish monarchy, which had already commenced
in the reign of Philip II, continued rapidly progressive under his
successors, the third and fourth Philip, and the feeble Charles II, so
the necessities of the Spanish government became more pressing, and its
demands more rapacious and exorbitant. Of the revenue of about 6,000,000
gold ducats, which the viceroys extorted from the kingdom, less than
1,500,000 covered the whole public charge, civil and military, of the
country; and after all their own embezzlements and those of their
subalterns, they sent yearly to Spain more than 4,000,000, no part
of which ever returned. Thus was the kingdom perpetually drained of
wealth, which nothing but the lavish abundance of nature in that most
fertile of regions could in any degree have renovated. But even the
luxuriant opulence of Naples could neither satisfy the avarice of the
court of Madrid, nor protect the people from misery and want under a
government whose impositions increased with the public exhaustion, and
were multiplied with equal infatuation and wickedness upon the common
necessaries of life. In this manner, duties were established upon flesh,
fish, oil, and even upon flour and bread; and the people found themselves
crushed under taxation, to pay the debts and to feed the armies of Spain.
Their wealth and their youth were alike drawn out of their country, in
quarrels altogether foreign to the national interests; in the unfortunate
and mismanaged wars in the Spanish court in Lombardy and Catalonia,
and in the Low Countries and Germany. Meanwhile, as during the last
century, the interior of the kingdom was almost always infested with
banditti, rendered daring and reckless of crime by their numbers and the
defenceless state of society; and so ill-guarded were the sea coasts that
the Turkish pirates made habitual descents during the whole course of
the century, ravaged the country, attacked villages and even cities, and
carried off the people into slavery.

[Illustration: WELL NEAR THE PIAZZA DEI SIGNORI, VERONA]

It cannot excite our surprise that the evils of the Spanish
administration filled the Neapolitans with discontent and indignation; we
may only wonder that any people could be found abject enough to submit to
a government at once so oppressive and feeble. The first decided attempt
to throw off the foreign yoke had its origin among an order in which such
a spirit might least be anticipated. In the last year of the sixteenth
century, Tommaso Campanella, a Dominican friar, had, on account, says
Giannone, of his wicked life and the suspicion of infidelity, incurred
the rigours of the Roman Inquisition. On his release he laboured, in
revenge for the treatment which he had received at Rome, to induce the
brethren of his own order, the Augustines, and the Franciscans, to excite
a religious and political revolution in Calabria. He acquired among
them the same reputation for sanctity and prophetic illumination which
Savonarola had gained at Florence a hundred years before. He secretly
inveighed against the Spanish tyranny; he declared that he was appointed
by the Almighty to overthrow it, and to establish a republic in its
place; and he succeeded in enlisting the monastic orders and several
bishops of Calabria in the cause. By their exhortations, a multitude of
people and banditti of the province were roused to second him, and his
design was embraced by great numbers of the provincial barons, whose
names the historian declares that he suppresses from regard to their
descendants. Campanella relied likewise on the assistance of the Turks in
the meditated insurrection. But the secret of so extensive a conspiracy
could not be preserved; the government got notice of it before it was
ripe for execution; and Campanella and his chief priestly associates,
with other conspirators, were adroitly arrested. Many of them were put to
death under circumstances of atrocious cruelty; but Campanella himself,
in the extremity of his torments, had the consummate address to render
his confession so perplexed and incoherent that he was regarded as a
madman, and sentenced only to perpetual imprisonment; from which he
contrived at length to escape. He fled to France, and peaceably ended his
life many years afterwards at Paris.

[Sidenote: [1600-1647 A.D.]]

After the suppression of this conspiracy, Naples was frequently agitated
at different intervals by commotions, into which the lower people
were driven by misery and want. These partial ebullitions of popular
discontent were not, however, marked by any very serious character until
the middle of the century, when the tyranny of the viceregal government
and the disorders and wretchedness of the kingdom reached their
consummation. The Spanish resources of taxation had been exhausted on the
ordinary articles of consumption; the poor of the capital and kingdom had
been successively compelled to forego the use of meat and bread by heavy
duties; and the abundant fruits of their happy climate remained almost
their sole means of support. The duke of Arcos, who was then viceroy,
could find no other expedient to meet the still craving demands of his
court upon a country already drained of its life-blood, than to impose a
tax upon this last supply of food; and his measure roused the famishing
people to desperation.

An accidental affray in the market of Naples swelled into a general
insurrection of the populace of the capital; and an obscure and bold
individual from the dregs of the people immediately rose to the head
of the insurgents. Tommaso Aniello, better known under the name of
Masaniello, a native of Amalfi and servant of a fisherman, had received
an affront from the officers of the customs and sought an occasion of
gratifying his lurking vengeance. Seizing the moment when the popular
exasperation was at its height, he led the rioters to the attack and
demolition of the custom-house. The flames of insurrection at once spread
with uncontrollable violence; the palace of the viceroy was pillaged; and
Arcos himself was driven for refuge to one of the castles of Naples. The
infuriated populace murdered many of the nobles, burned the houses of
all who were obnoxious to them, and filled the whole capital with flames
and blood. Their youthful idol Masaniello, tattered and half naked,
with a scaffold for his throne and the sword for his sceptre, commanded
everywhere with absolute sway.

The viceroy, terrified into virtue at these excesses, which the long
oppression of his court and his own tyranny had provoked, and finding
the insurrection spreading through the provinces, consented to all
the demands of Masaniello and his followers. By a treaty which he
concluded with the insurgents, he solemnly promised the repeal of all
the taxes imposed since the time of Charles V, and engaged that no
new duties should thenceforth be levied; he guaranteed the ancient
and long-violated privileges of parliament; and he bound himself by
oath to an act of oblivion. A short interval of calm was thus gained;
but the perfidious viceroy employed it only in gratifying the vanity
of Masaniello by caresses and entertainments; until, having caused a
potion to be administered to him in his wine at a banquet, he succeeded
in unsettling his reason. The demagogue then by his extravagances and
cruelties lost the affection of the people; and Arcos easily procured his
assassination by some of his own followers.

[Sidenote: [1647-1648 A.D.]]

The viceroy had no sooner thus deprived the people of their young
leader, whose native talents had rendered him truly formidable, than
he immediately showed a determination to break all the articles of his
compact. But the people, penetrating his treachery, flew again to arms;
and the insurrection burst forth in the capital and provinces with more
sanguinary fury than before. Again Arcos dissembled; and again the
deluded people had laid down their arms; when, on the appearance of a
Spanish fleet before Naples, the citadels and shipping suddenly opened a
tremendous cannonade on the city; and at the same moment some thousand
Spanish infantry disembarked and commenced a general massacre in the
streets. The Neapolitans were confounded and panic-stricken at the
aggravated perfidy; but they were a hundred times more numerous than the
handful of troops which assailed them. When they recovered from their
first consternation, they attacked their enemies in every street; and
after a frightful carnage on both sides, the Spaniards were driven either
into the fortresses or the sea.

After this conflict, the people, who, since the death of Masaniello,
had fallen under the influence of Gennaro Annese, a soldier of mean
birth, resolved fiercely and fearlessly to throw off the Spanish yoke
altogether. It chanced that Henry, duke of Guise, who by maternal descent
from the second line of Anjou had some hereditary pretensions to the
Neapolitan crown, was at this juncture at Rome on his private business;
and to him the insurgents applied, with the offer of constituting him
their captain-general. At the same time they resolved to erect Naples
into a republic under his presidency; and the duke, a high-spirited
prince, hastened to assume a command which opened so many glorious
prospects of ambition. The contest with the Spanish viceroy, his
fortresses, and squadron, was then resumed with new bloodshed, and with
indecisive results. But though the Neapolitans had hailed the name of a
republic with rapture, they were, of all people, by their inconsistency
and irresolution, least qualified for such a form of government. In this
insurrection, they had for some time professed obedience to the king of
Spain, while they were resisting his arms; and even now they wavered,
and were divided among themselves. On the one hand, the duke de Guise,
outraged by their excesses, and grasping perhaps at the establishment
of an arbitrary power in his own person, began to exercise an odious
authority, and showed himself intolerant of the influence of Annese: on
the other, that leader of the people was irritated at finding himself
deprived of all command. In his jealousy of Guise, he basely resolved
to betray his countrymen to the Spaniards; and in the temporary absence
of the duke, who had left the city with a small force to protect the
introduction of some supplies, he opened the gates to the enemy (1648
A.D.). When the Spanish troops re-entered the capital the abject
multitude received them with loud acclamations; and the duke of Guise
himself, in endeavouring to effect his flight, was made prisoner, and
sent to Spain. In one of those gloomy Spanish dungeons he was kept a
prisoner and mourned for some years the vanity of his ambition.

[Sidenote: [1648-1674 A.D.]]

Thus, in a few hours, was the Spanish yoke again fixed on the necks of
the prostrate Neapolitans; and it was riveted more firmly and grievously
than ever. As soon as their submission was secured, almost all the men
who had taken a prominent share in the insurrection, and who had been
promised pardon, were seized, and under various pretences of their having
mediated new troubles, were either publicly or privately executed. The
traitor Gennaro Annese himself shared the same fate--a worthy example
that neither the faith of oaths, nor the memory of eminent services
are securities against the jealousy and vengeance of despotism. That
despotism had no longer anything to fear from the degraded people who
had returned under its iron sceptre. The miseries of Naples could not
increase; but they were not diminished until the death of Charles II and
the extinction of the Austrian dynasty of Spain in the last year of the
century.

The sister kingdom of Sicily had long shared the lot of Naples, in all
the distresses which the tyrannical and impolitic government of Spain
could inflict upon the people. The Sicilians were only more fortunate
than their continental neighbours, as the inferior wealth and resources
of their island rendered them a less inviting prey to the insatiable
necessities of Spain, to the drain of her wars, and the rapacity of her
ministers. But even in Sicily, which by the excellence of its soil for
raising corn seems intended to be the granary of Italy, the Spanish
government succeeded in creating artificial dearth and squalid penury;
and in the natural seat of abundance, the people were often without bread
to eat. Their misery goaded them at length nearly to the commission of
the same excesses as those which have just been described at Naples. A
few months earlier than the revolt under Masaniello the lower orders rose
at Palermo, chose for their leader one Giuseppe d’Alessi, a person of as
low condition as the Neapolitan demagogue, and under his orders put their
viceroy, the marquis of los Velos, to flight. But this insurrection at
Palermo was less serious than that of Naples and, after passing through
similar stages, was more easily quelled. The Sicilian viceroy, like
Arcos, did not scruple at premeditated violation of the solemnity of
oaths. Like him, he swore to grant the people all their demands, and a
total amnesty; and yet, after perfidiously obtaining the assassination of
the popular leader, he caused the inhabitants to be slaughtered in the
streets, their chiefs to be hanged, and the burdens which he had been
forced to remove to be laid on again.

This detestable admixture of perfidy and sanguinary violence bent
the spirit of the Palermitans to the yoke, and Sicily relapsed into
the tameness of suffering for above twenty-seven years; until this
tranquillity was broken, during the general war in Europe, which preceded
the Treaty of Nimeguen, by a new and more dangerous insurrection.
The city of Messina had, until this epoch, in some measure enjoyed a
republican constitution and was governed by a senate of its own, under
the presidency only of a Spanish lieutenant, with very limited powers.
This freedom of the city had insured its prosperity: its population
amounted to sixty thousand souls, its commerce flourished, and its wealth
rivalled the dreams of avarice. The Neapolitan historian asserts that
the privileges of the people had rendered them insolent; but there is
more reason to believe that the Spanish government looked with a jealous
and unfriendly eye upon a happy independence, which was calculated
to fill their other Sicilian subjects with bitter repinings at the
gloomy contrast of their own wretched slavery. Several differences with
successive viceroys regarding their privileges had inspired the citizens
of Messina with discontent; and at length they rose in open rebellion
against their Spanish governor, Don Diego de Soria, and expelled him
from the city (1674 A.D.). Despairing of defending their rights, without
assistance, against the whole power of the Spanish monarchy, they had
then recourse to Louis XIV, and tempted him with the offer of the
sovereignty of their city, and the eventual union of their whole island
with the French dominions. Louis eagerly closed with a proposal, which
opened at least an advantageous diversion in his war against Spain. He
was proclaimed king of Sicily at Messina, and immediately despatched a
small squadron to take possession of the city in his name.

[Sidenote: [1674-1679 A.D.]]

The arrival of his force was succeeded, early in the following year, by
that of a formidable French fleet, under the duke de Vivonne; and the
Messinese, being encouraged by these succours, rejected all the Spanish
offers of indemnity and accommodation. On the other hand, the court
of Madrid, being roused to exertion by the danger of losing the whole
island, had fitted out a strong armament to secure its preservation and
the recovery of Messina; and a Dutch fleet under the famous De Ruyter
arrived in the Mediterranean to co-operate with the Spanish forces. The
war in Sicily was prosecuted with fury on both sides for nearly four
years; and several sanguinary battles were fought off the coast, between
the combined fleets and that of France. In all of these the French had
the advantage: in one, the gallant De Ruyter fell; and in another, the
French, under Vivonne and Duquesne, with inferior force, attacked the
Dutch and Spanish squadrons of twenty-seven sail of the line, nineteen
galleys, and several fire-ships at anchor, under the guns of Palermo,
and gained a complete victory. This success placed Messina in security,
and might have enabled both Naples and Sicily to throw off the onerous
dominion of Spain. But the spiritless and subjugated people evinced no
disposition to rise against their oppressors; and all the efforts of the
French eventually failed in extending the authority of their monarch
beyond the walls of Messina.

The French king had lost the hope of possessing himself of all Sicily,
and was already weary of supporting the Messinese, when the conferences
for a general peace were opened at Nimeguen. There, dictating as a
conqueror, he might at least have stipulated for the ancient rights of
the Messinese, and insisted upon an amnesty for the brave citizens, who,
relying on the sacred obligation of protection, had utterly provoked the
vengeance of their Spanish governors by placing themselves under his
sceptre. But, that his pride might not suffer by a formal evacuation of
the city as a condition of the approaching peace, he basely preferred the
gratification of this absurd punctilio to the real preservation of honour
and the common dictates of humanity. His troops were secretly ordered
to abandon Messina before the signature of peace; and so precipitate
was the embarkation that the wretched inhabitants, stricken with sudden
terror at their impending fate, despairing of pardon from their former
governors, and hopeless of successful resistance against them, had only a
few hours to choose between exile and anticipated death. Seven thousand
of them hurried on board the French fleet, without having time to
secure even their money or portable articles, and the French commander,
fearing that his vessels would be overcrowded, sailed from the harbour;
while two thousand more of the fugitives yet remained on the beach with
outstretched arms, in the last agonies of despair, vainly imploring him
with piercing cries not to abandon them to their merciless enemies.

The condition of the Messinese who fled for refuge to France, and of
those who remained in the city, differed little in the event. Louis XIV,
after affording the former an asylum for scarcely more than one short
year, inhumanly chased them in the last stage of destitution from his
dominions. About five hundred of them, rashly venturing to return to
their country, under the faith of Spanish passports, were seized on their
arrival at Messina, and either executed or condemned to the galleys.
Many others, even of the highest rank, were reduced to beg their bread
over Europe, or to congregate in bands, and rob on the highways; and the
miserable remnant, plunged into the abyss of desperation, passed into
Turkey, and fearfully consummated their wretchedness by the renunciation
of their faith. Their brethren, who had not quitted Messina, had
meanwhile at first been deluded with the hope of pardon by the Spanish
viceroy of Sicily. But the amnesty which he published was revoked by
special orders from Madrid; and all, who had been in any way conspicuous
in the insurrection, were either put to death or banished. Messina was
deprived of all its privileges; the town-house was razed to the ground;
and on the spot was erected a galling monument of the degradation of
the city--a pyramid surmounted by the statue of the king of Spain,
cast with the metal of the great bell which had formerly summoned the
people to their free parliaments. The purposes of Spanish tyranny were
accomplished: the population of Messina had dwindled from sixty to
eleven thousand persons; and the obedience of the city was insured by a
desolation from which it has never since risen to its ancient prosperity.

[Sidenote: [1600-1679 A.D.]]

Thus were the annals of Naples and Sicily distinguished only, during the
seventeenth century, by paroxysms of popular suffering. The condition of
central Italy was more obscure and tranquil; for the maladministration
of its rulers did not occasion the same resistance. Yet if the papal
government was less decidedly tyrannical and rapacious than that of
Spain, the evils, which had become inherent in it during preceding ages,
remained undiminished and incurable; and agricultural and commercial
industry was permanently banished from the Roman states. Meanwhile the
succession of the pontiffs was marked by few circumstances to arrest our
attention. To Clement VIII, who reigned at the opening of the century,
succeeded in 1604 Leo XI, of the family of Medici, who survived his
election only a few weeks; and on his death the cardinal Camillo Borghese
was raised to the tiara by the title of Paul V. Filled with extravagant
and exploded opinions of the authority of the holy see, Paul V signalised
the commencement of his pontificate by the impotent attempt to revive
those pretensions of the papal jurisdiction and supremacy over the powers
of the earth, which, in the dark ages, had inundated Italy and the empire
with blood. He thus involved the papacy in disputes with several of the
Catholic governments of Europe, and in a serious difference with Venice
in particular. After his merited defeat on this occasion, he cautiously
avoided to compromise his authority by the repetition of any similar
efforts; and during the remainder of his pontificate of sixteen years,
his only cares were to embellish the ecclesiastical capital, and to
enrich his nephews with vast estates in the Roman patrimony, which thus
became the hereditary possessions of the family of Borghese.

[Illustration: THE RECANTATION OF GALILEO]

Paul V, on his death in 1621, was succeeded by Gregory XV, whose
insignificant pontificate filled only two years; and in 1623 the conclave
placed the cardinal Maffeo Barberini in the chair of St. Peter, under the
name of Urban VIII. This pope, during a reign of twenty-one years, was
wholly under the guidance of his two nephews, the cardinal Antonio and
Taddeo Barberini, prefect of Rome. These ambitious relatives were not
satisfied with the riches which he heaped upon them; and their project of
acquiring for their family the Roman duchies of Castro and Ronciglione,
fiefs held of the church by the house of Farnese, involved the papacy
in a war with Parma. Odoardo Farnese, the reigning duke of Parma, had
contracted immense debts to charitable foundations at Rome, of which he
neglected to pay even the interest. He thus afforded Taddeo Barberini, as
prefect of that capital, a pretext for summoning him before the apostolic
chamber; and on his contemptuous neglect of the citation, the Barberini
obtained an order for sequestrating his Roman fiefs. The duke of Parma
had recourse to arms for his defence; the pope excommunicated him; and
hostilities commenced between him and Taddeo, who acted as general of the
church. But this war of the Barberini, as it has been named, the only
strictly Italian contest of the century, produced no decisive result. It
was invested with a ridiculous character by the cowardice of Taddeo and
the papal troops, who, to the number of eighteen thousand, fled before a
handful of cavalry under the duke Odoardo. After this disgraceful check,
the Barberini were but too happy to obtain a suspension of arms; and the
war was shortly terminated by a treaty, which left the combatants in
their original state (1644).

Urban VIII, or rather his nephews, had thus failed in gaining possession
of the fiefs of Castro and Ronciglione; but the pope had succeeded
some years before in securing to the holy see a much more important
acquisition, which he did not venture to appropriate to his family.
This was the duchy of Urbino, which had remained under the sovereignty
of the family of Rovere since the beginning of the sixteenth century,
when Julius II had induced the last prince of the line of Montefeltro to
adopt his nephew for a successor. The house of Rovere had for 120 years
maintained the intellectual splendour of the little court of Urbino, the
most polished in Italy; but Urban VIII persuaded the aged duke, Francesco
Maria, who had no male heirs, to abdicate his sovereignty in favour of
the church. The duchy of Urbino was annexed to the Roman states; and the
industry and prosperity for which it had been remarkable under its own
princes immediately withered.[c]

GALILEO AND THE CHURCH

[Sidenote: [1610-1632 A.D.]]

During the pontificate of Urban VIII, an interesting controversy between
science and theology reached a culmination in the persecution of Italy’s
most famous scientist of the century, Galileo. This great experimental
philosopher had developed the telescope, and in 1610 made the discovery
of the satellites of Jupiter. This discovery, along with others almost
equally interesting, was announced in Galileo’s _Nuncius Sidereus_,
published at Venice in 1610.[a]

The title of this work will best convey an idea of the claim it made
to public notice: “_The Sidereal Messenger_, announcing great and very
wonderful spectacles, and offering them to the consideration of everyone,
but especially of philosophers and astronomers; which have been observed
by _Galileo Galilei_, etc., by the assistance of a perspective glass
lately invented by him; namely, in the face of the moon, in innumerable
fixed stars in the milky-way, in nebulous stars, but especially in four
planets which revolve round Jupiter at different intervals and periods
with a wonderful celerity; which, hitherto not known to any one, the
author has recently been the first to detect, and has decreed to call the
_Medicean stars_.”

The interest this discovery excited was intense; and men were at
this period so little habituated to accommodate their convictions
on matters of science to newly observed facts that several of “the
paper-philosophers,” as Galileo termed them, appear to have thought they
could get rid of these new objects by writing books against them. The
effect which the discovery had upon the reception of the Copernican
system was immediately very considerable. It showed that the real
universe was very different from that which ancient philosophers had
imagined, and suggested at once the thought that it contained mechanism
more various and more vast than had yet been conjectured. And when the
system of the planet Jupiter thus offered to the bodily eye a model
or image of the solar system according to the views of Copernicus, it
supported the belief of such an arrangement of the planets, by an analogy
all but irresistible.

[Illustration: GALILEO GALILEI]

Later in the same year Galileo observed and reported the phases of the
planet Venus, thus further corroborating the Copernican doctrine. This
doctrine when first promulgated by Copernicus had apparently excited no
very great alarm among the theologians of the time. But its assertion
and confirmation by Galileo now provoked a storm of controversy, and
was visited by severe condemnation. Galileo’s own behaviour appears
to have provoked the interference of the ecclesiastical authorities;
but there must have been a great change in the temper of the times to
make it possible for his adversaries to bring down the sentence of the
Inquisition upon opinions which had been so long current without giving
any serious offence.

The heliocentric doctrine had for a century been making its way into the
minds of thoughtful men, on the general ground of its simplicity and
symmetry. Galileo appears to have thought that now, when these original
recommendations of the system had been reinforced by his own discoveries
and reasonings, it ought to be universally acknowledged as a truth and a
reality. And when arguments against the fixity of the sun and the motion
of the earth were adduced from the expressions of Scripture, he could not
be satisfied without maintaining his favourite opinion to be conformable
to Scripture as well as to philosophy; and he was very eager in his
attempts to obtain from authority a declaration to this effect. The
ecclesiastical authorities were naturally averse to express themselves in
favour of a novel opinion, startling to the common mind, and contrary to
the most obvious meaning of the words of the Bible; and when they were
compelled to pronounce, they decided against Galileo and his doctrines.
He was accused before the Inquisition in 1615; but at that period the
result was that he was merely recommended to confine himself to the
mathematical reasonings upon the system, and to abstain from meddling
with the Scripture. Galileo’s zeal for his opinions soon led him again
to bring the question under the notice of the pope, and the result was a
declaration of the Inquisition that the doctrine of the earth’s motion
appeared to be contrary to the sacred Scripture. Galileo was prohibited
from defending and teaching this doctrine in any manner, and promised
obedience to this injunction. But in 1632 he published his _Dialogo delli
due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo, Tolemaico e Copernicano_;[g] and in this,
he defended the heliocentric system by all the strongest arguments which
its admirers used. Not only so, but he introduced into this _Dialogue_
a character under the name of Simplicius, in whose mouth was put the
defence of all the ancient dogmas, and who was represented as defeated
at all points in the discussion; and he prefixed to the _Dialogue_ a
notice, _To the Discreet Reader_, in which, in a vein of transparent
irony, he assigned his reasons for the publication. “Some years ago,”
he says, “a wholesome edict was promulgated at Rome, which, in order to
check the perilous scandals of the present age, imposed silence upon the
Pythagorean opinion of the motion of the earth. There were not wanting,”
he adds, “persons who rashly asserted that this decree was the result,
not of a judicious inquiry, but of a passion ill-informed; and complaints
were heard that counsellors, utterly unacquainted with astronomical
observations, ought not to be allowed, with their undue prohibitions,
to clip the wings of speculative intellects. At the hearing of rash
lamentations like these, my zeal could not keep silence.” And he then
goes on to say that he wishes, by the publication of his _Dialogue_, to
show that the subject had been fully examined at Rome. The result of
this was that Galileo was condemned for his infraction of the injunction
laid upon him in 1616; his _Dialogue_ was prohibited; he himself was
commanded to abjure on his knees the doctrine which he had taught; and
this abjuration he performed.

The ecclesiastical authorities having once declared the doctrine of the
earth’s motion to be contrary to Scripture and heretical, long adhered in
form to this declaration, and did not allow the Copernican system to be
taught in any other way than as an “hypothesis.”[f]

THE SUCCESSORS OF URBAN VIII

[Sidenote: [1632-1660 A.D.]]

Urban VIII was succeeded in 1644 by Innocent X, who revived with more
success the pretensions of the holy see to the fiefs of Castro and
Ronciglione. The unliquidated debts of the house of Farnese were still
the pretext for the seizure of these possessions; but the papal officers
were expelled from Castro, and the bishop, whom Innocent had installed in
that see, was murdered by order of the minister of Ranuccio II, duke of
Parma. The pope was so highly exasperated by these acts, that he directed
his whole force against Castro; the Parmesan troops were repulsed in
an attempt to succour the place; and when famine had compelled it to
surrender, the pope, confounding the innocent inhabitants with the
perpetrators of the assassination, caused the city to be razed to its
foundations, and a pyramid to be erected on the ruins commemorative of
his vengeance. The restitution of these fiefs to the house of Parma was
made a condition of the peace of the Pyrenees; but Alexander VII, who
succeeded Innocent X in 1656, contrived after many negotiations to obtain
permission to hold them in pledge, until Ranuccio II should discharge
the debts of his crown. By the failure of the duke to satisfy this
engagement, the disputed states remained finally annexed to the popedom.

The pontificate of Alexander VII proved, however, an epoch of grievous
humiliation for the pride of the holy see. In 1660, an affray was
occasioned at Rome through the privileges, arrogantly claimed by the
French ambassadors, of protecting all the quarter of the city near
their residence from the usual operations of justice; and Louis XIV
determined, in the insolence of his power, to support a pretension which
would be intolerable to the meanest court in Europe. He sent the duke
of Créqui as his ambassador to Rome, with a numerous and well-armed
retinue, to brave the pope in his own capital. Créqui took formal
military possession of a certain number of streets near the palace of
his embassy, according to the extent over which the right of asylum had
been permitted by usage to his predecessors. He placed guards throughout
this circuit, as if it had been one of his master’s fortresses; and the
papal government, anxious to avoid a rupture with the haughty monarch of
France, overlooked the usurpation. But every effort to preserve peace
was ineffectual against the resolution which had been taken on the
opposite side to provoke some open quarrel. The duke of Créqui’s people
made it their occupation to outrage the police of Rome, and to insult
the Corsican guard of the pope. Still, even these excesses of the French
were tolerated by Alexander, until they rose to such a height that the
peaceful citizens dared no longer to pass through the streets by night.
At length the Corsican guards were goaded into a fray with the followers
of the embassy, which brought matters to the crisis desired by Louis.
While the Corsicans were violently irritated by the death of one of their
comrades in the broil, they happened to meet the carriage of the duchess
of Créqui; they fired upon and killed two of her attendants, and the duke
immediately quitted Rome, as if his master had received in his person an
unprovoked and mortal affront.

[Illustration: COSTUME WORN BY THE MEMBER OF THE BROTHERHOOD WHO
ACCOMPANIED THE CONDEMNED TO THE SCAFFOLD, VENICE]

[Sidenote: [1660-1664 A.D.]]

Alexander VII soon found that Louis XIV was resolved to avail himself of
the most serious colouring which could be given to this affair. The king
expelled the pope’s nuncio from France; he seized upon Avignon and its
papal dependencies; and he assembled an army in Provence, which crossed
the Alps to take satisfaction in Rome itself. The pope at first showed
an inclination to assert the common rights of every crown with becoming
spirit; and he endeavoured to engage several Catholic princes to protect
the dignity of the holy see. But none of the great powers were in a
condition at that juncture to undertake his defence. His own temporal
strength was quite unequal to a struggle with France; the spiritual
arms of the Vatican had now fallen into contempt; and he had the bitter
mortification of being obliged to submit to the terms of accommodation
which Louis XIV imperiously dictated. The principal of these were the
banishment of all the persons who had taken a part in the insult offered
to the train of the French ambassador; the suppression of the Corsican
guard; the erection of a column, even in Rome, with a legend to proclaim
the injury and its reparation: and, finally, the mission of one of the
pope’s own family to Paris to make his apologies. All these humiliating
conditions were subscribed to, and rigorously enforced. Cardinal Chigi,
the nephew of Alexander VII, was the first ecclesiastic despatched to any
monarch, to demand pardon for the holy see.

[Sidenote: [1600-1700 A.D.]]

Alexander VII did not survive this memorable epoch of degradation for the
papacy above three years. He was succeeded in 1667 by Clement IX, who
wore the triple crown over two years, and was replaced in 1670 by Clement
X. The unimportant reign of this pope occupied seven years, and closed in
1676. The pontificate of his successor, Innocent XI, was more remarkable
for the renewal of the quarrel respecting the privileges of the French
embassy. To terminate the flagrant abuses which these privileges
engendered, Innocent published a decree that no foreign minister should
thenceforth be accredited at the papal court, until he had expressly
renounced every pretension of the kind. This reasonable provision was
admitted without opposition by all the Catholic monarchs, except Louis
XIV: but he alone refused to recognise its justice; and on the death
of the duke d’Estrées, his ambassador at Rome, he sent the marquis de
Lavardin to succeed him, and to enforce the maintenance of the old
privileges. For this purpose, Lavardin was attended by a body of eight
hundred armed men; and the sovereignty of the pope was again insolently
braved in his own capital. The guards of Lavardin violently excluded
the papal police from all access to the quarter of the city which they
occupied; and Innocent at length excommunicated the ambassador. This
proceeding would at Paris have excited only ridicule; but in Rome the
outraged pride of the court, and the prejudices which still enveloped the
ancient throne of papal supremacy and superstition, excluded Lavardin
from the pale of society; and he found the solitude in which he was left
so irksome that he at last petitioned to be recalled.

The pontificate of Innocent XI terminated in 1689; and it was not until
three years after his death that Louis XIV was at length persuaded to
desist from the assertion of a pretended right, which could have no other
object than to gratify his pride at the expense of multiplying crime and
anarchy, in the chosen seat of the religion which he professed. This
was the last event in the papal annals of the seventeenth century which
deserves to be recorded. We have already found the reigns of several of
the popes entirely barren of circumstance; and after that of Innocent XI,
we should be altogether at a loss how to bestow a single comment upon the
obscure pontificates of his next three successors: of Alexander VIII, who
died in 1691; of Innocent XII; and of Clement XI, who was placed in the
chair of St. Peter in the last year of the century.

The two contests with the popedom, which the house of Farnese maintained
for the possession of the fiefs of Castro and Ronciglione, were almost
the only remarkable circumstances in the annals of the duchy of Parma
during this century. Ranuccio I, the son of the hero Alessandro Farnese,
who wore the ducal crown at its commencement, resembled his father in
no quality but mere courage. His long reign was distinguished only for
its habitual tyranny and avarice; and for the wanton cruelty with which
he caused a great number of his nobility and other subjects to be put
to death in 1612, that he might confiscate their property under the
charge of a conspiracy, which appears to have had no real existence. He
was succeeded in 1622 by his son, Odoard, whose misplaced confidence
in his military talents plunged his subjects into many calamities.
Vainly imagining that the martial virtues of his grandfather Alessandro
were hereditary in his person, he eagerly sought occasion of entering
on a career of activity and distinction in the field, for which his
egotistical presumption and his excessive corpulence equally disqualified
him. By engaging, in 1635, in the war between France and Spain in
northern Italy, as the ally of the former power, he exposed his states
to cruel ravages; and though, in the subsequent war of the Barberini he
was indebted to the misconduct of the papal army for the preservation
of his fiefs, that contest did not terminate until he had consumed the
resources of his duchy by his prodigality and ignorance.

The death of Odoard, in 1646, relieved his subjects from the apprehension
of a continuance of similar evils from his restless temper; and the mild
and indolent character of his son Ranuccio II seemed to promise an era
of greater tranquillity. But Ranuccio was always governed by unworthy
favourites, who oppressed his people; and it was one of these ministers,
whose violence, as we have seen, provoked the destruction of Castro, and
entailed the loss of its dependencies on the duchy of Parma. The long
and feeble reign of Ranuccio II, thus marked only by disgrace, was a
fitting prelude to the extinction of the sovereignty and existence of
the house of Farnese. Buried in slothful indulgence and lethargy, the
members of the ducal family were oppressed with hereditary obesity, which
shortened their lives. Ranuccio II himself survived to the year 1694;
but he might already anticipate the approaching failure of the male line
of his dynasty. Odoard, the eldest of his sons, had died before him of
suffocation, the consequence of corpulence; the two others, Don Francesco
and Don Vincente, who were destined successively to ascend the throne
after him, resembled their brother in their diseased constitutions; and
the probability that these princes would die without issue rendered
their niece, Elizabeth (Elisabetta) Farnese, daughter of Odoard, sole
presumptive heiress of the states of her family.

LESSER PRINCIPALITIES

Of the dukes of Parma, whose reigns filled the seventeenth century, not
one deserved either the love of his people or the respect of posterity.
The contemporary annals of the princes of Este were graced by more
ability and virtue. But the reduction of the dominion of those sovereigns
to the narrow limits of the duchies of Modena and Reggio diminished
the consequence which their ancestors had enjoyed in Italy during the
preceding century, before the seizure of Ferrara by the Roman see. Don
Cesare of Este, whose weakness had submitted to this spoliation, reigned
until the year 1628. His subjects of Modena forgave him a pusillanimity
which had rendered their city the elegant seat of his beneficent reign.
His son, Alfonso III, who succeeded him, was stricken with such wondrous
affliction for the death of his wife, only a few months after his
accession to the ducal crown, that he abdicated his throne, and retired
into a Capuchin convent in the Tyrol. On this event, his son Francesco
I assumed his sceptre in 1629, and reigned nearly thirty years. Joining
in the wars of the times in upper Italy between France and Spain, and
alternately espousing their opposite causes, Francesco I acquired the
reputation of one of the ablest captains of his age, as he was also
one of the best sovereigns. His skilful conduct and policy in these
unimportant contests were rewarded by the extension of his territories;
and in 1636, the little principality of Correggio (more famous in the
annals of art than of war) was annexed to his imperial fiefs. Neither the
short reign of his son and successor, Alfonso IV, which commenced in 1658
and ended in 1662, nor that of his grandson, Francesco II, which began
with a feeble minority and terminated after a protracted administration
of the same character, demand our particular notice; and in 1694, the
cardinal Rinaldo, son of the first Francesco, succeeded his nephew, and
entered upon a reign which was reserved for signal calamities in the
first years of the new century.

In the affairs of Parma and Modena, during the century before us, there
is scarcely anything to invite our attention; but the fortunes of Mantua,
so obscure in the preceding age, were rendered somewhat remarkable
in this by the wars which the disputed succession to its sovereignty
occasioned. The reign of Vincente I, who, having succeeded to the ducal
crowns of Mantua and Montferrat in 1587, still wore them at the opening
of the seventeenth century, and that of his successor Francesco IV,
were equally obscure and unimportant. But, on the death of Francesco,
in 1612, some troubles arose, from the pretensions which the duke of
Savoy advanced anew over the state of Montferrat. It was not until after
several years that negotiations terminated the indecisive hostilities
which were thus occasioned, and in which Spain interfered directly
against the duke of Savoy, while France more indirectly assisted him.
By the Treaty of Asti in 1615, and of Madrid in 1617, the duke of Savoy
engaged to leave Montferrat to the house of Gonzaga, until the emperor
should decide on his claims. The last duke of Mantua, Francesco IV,
had left only a daughter: but as Montferrat was a feminine fief, that
state descended to her; while her father’s two brothers, Ferdinando and
Vincente II, reigned successively over Mantua without leaving issue. On
the death of the latter of these two princes, both of whom shortened
their days by their infamous debaucheries, the direct male line of the
ducal house of Gonzaga became extinct; and the right of succession to the
Mantua duchy devolved on a collateral branch, descended from a younger
son of the duke Federigo II, who had died in 1540. This part of the
family of Gonzaga was established in France, in possession of the first
honours of nobility, and was now represented by Charles, duke de Nevers.
By sending his son, the duke of Rethel, to Mantua in the last illness of
Vincente II, Charles not only secured the succession to that duchy, which
he might lawfully claim, but reannexed Montferrat to its diadem. For,
on the very same night on which Vincente II expired, the duke of Rethel
received the hand of Maria, the daughter of Francesco IV, and heiress of
Montferrat; and the right of inheritance to all the states of the ducal
line thus centred in the branch of Nevers.

[Sidenote: [1630-1680 A.D.]]

The new ducal house of Gonzaga did not commence its sovereignty over
Mantua and Montferrat without violent opposition. The duke of Savoy
renewed his claim upon the latter province; and Cesare Gonzaga, duke
of Guastalla, the representative of a distant branch of that family,
made pretensions to the duchy of Mantua. At the same time the Spanish
government thought to take advantage of a disputed succession, for the
purpose of annexing the Mantuan to the Milanese states; and the emperor
Ferdinand II placed the duke of Nevers under the ban of the empire for
having taken possession of its dependent fiefs without waiting for a
formal investiture at its hands. The objects of Ferdinand were evidently
to revive the imperial jurisdiction in Italy, and to enrich the Spanish
dynasty of his family by the acquisition of these states. To promote
these combined plans of the house of Austria an imperial army crossed the
Alps, and surprised the city of Mantua, which was sacked with merciless
ferocity (1630). At the same time the duke of Savoy concluded a treaty
with Spain, for the partition of Montferrat; and the new duke of Mantua
seemed likely to be dispossessed of the whole of his dominions. But
fortunately for him, it was at this juncture that Cardinal Richelieu had
entered on his famous design of humbling the power and ambition of both
the Spanish and German dynasties of the house of Austria; and a French
army, under Louis XIII in person, forcing the pass at Susa, crossed the
Alps to support the Gonzagas of Nevers against all their enemies. We pass
over the uninteresting details of the general war, which was thus kindled
in northern Italy by the Mantuan succession. When Richelieu himself
appeared on the theatre of contest, at the head of a formidable French
army, all resistance was hopeless; and his success shortly produced an
accommodation between the belligerents in the peninsula, by which the
emperor was compelled, in the settlement of the matter, to bestow the
disputed investiture of Mantua and Montferrat upon Charles of Nevers
(1631).

[Illustration: THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE, GENOA]

This prince, who thenceforth reigned at Mantua under the title of Carlo
I, retained that duchy without further opposition. But in 1635 he was
drawn, by the memory of the eminent services which France had rendered
him, into an alliance with that power against Spain, in the new war which
broke out between the rival dynasties of Bourbon and Austria. Such a
connection could serve, however, only to destroy the repose and endanger
the safety of his duchies. Neither Carlo I nor his son Carlo II, who
succeeded him in 1637, could prevent Montferrat from being perpetually
overrun and ravaged by the contending armies of France, Spain, the
empire, and Savoy; and the Mantuan dukes abandoned almost every effort
to retain the possession of that province until, after being for above
twenty years the seat of warfare and desolation, it was at length
restored to Carlo II by the general Peace of the Pyrenees.

Carlo II died in 1665; and his son Ferdinando Carlo commenced the long
and disgraceful reign with which the sovereignty and race of the Gonzagas
were to terminate early in the next century. This prince, more dissolute,
more insensible of dishonour, more deeply buried in grovelling vice than
almost any of his predecessors, was worthy of being the last of a family
which, since its elevation to the tyranny of Mantua, had, during four
centuries of sovereignty, relieved its career of blood and debauchery by
few examples of true greatness and virtue. To gratify his extravagance,
and indulge in his low and vicious excesses, Ferdinando Carlo crushed
his people under grievous taxation. To raise fresh supplies, which
his exhausted states could no longer afford, he shamelessly in 1680
sold Casale, the capital of Montferrat, to Louis XIV, who immediately
occupied the place with twelve thousand men under his general Catinat.
The sums which the duke thus raised, either by extortion from his
oppressed subjects or from this disgraceful transaction, were dissipated
in abandoned pleasures in the carnivals of Venice, among a people who
openly evinced their contempt for him, and whose sovereign oligarchy
passed a decree forbidding any of their noble body from mingling in his
society.

TUSCANY

[Sidenote: [1600-1670 A.D.]]

From the affairs of Mantua, we may pass to those of Tuscany; but the
transition is attended with little augmentation of interest. A common
dearth of attraction marks the annals of most of the despotisms of Italy;
and when Tuscany descended to the rank of a duchy, her pre-eminence of
splendour survived only in the past, and her modern story sank into
the same ignominious obscurity with that of Parma, and Modena, and
Mantua. We are reminded only of the existence of the solitary republic
which survived in this quarter of Italy, to wonder how Lucca escaped
subjugation to the power whose dominions encircled and hemmed in her
narrow territory; and we are permitted to contemplate her ancient
republican rivals, Florence, Siena, and Pisa, only as the capital and
the provincial cities of the ducal sovereigns of Tuscany. Of these
princes of the house of Medici, four reigned successively during the
seventeenth century. At its commencement, the ducal crown was worn by
Ferdinand I, whose personal vices and political talents have been already
noticed. After the failure of his project to throw off the Spanish yoke,
his efforts were exclusively devoted to the encouragement of commerce
and maritime industry among his subjects; and the enlightened measures
to which he was prompted by a thorough knowledge of the science of
government, and a keen perception of his own interests, were rewarded
with signal success. To attract the trade of the Mediterranean to the
shores of Tuscany, he made choice of the castle of Livorno (Leghorn)
for the seat of a free port. He improved the natural advantages of
its harbour, which had already excited the attention of some of his
predecessors, by several grand and useful works; he invested the
town which rose on the site with liberal privileges; and from this
epoch, Livorno continued to flourish, until it attained the mercantile
prosperity and opulence which have rendered it one of the first maritime
cities of the peninsula. The skilful policy which Ferdinand I pursued
in this and other respects produced a rapid influx of wealth into his
states; and before his death, which occurred in 1609, he had amassed
immense treasures.

Several of the first princes of the ducal house of Medici seemed to have
inherited some portion of that commercial ability by which their merchant
ancestors had founded the grandeur of their house; and they profited by
the contempt or ignorance which precluded other Italian princes from
rivalling them in the cultivation of the same pursuits. Cosmo II, the son
and successor of Ferdinand, imitated his example with even more earnest
zeal, and with more brilliant success. But on his death, in 1621, the
minority of his son Ferdinand II destroyed the transient prosperity of
the ducal government. The rich treasury of the two preceding dukes was
drained in furnishing troops and subsidies to Spain and Austria; and
Ferdinand, who was left under the guardianship of his grandmother and
mother, was only released from female tutelage on attaining the age of
manhood, to exhibit during his long reign all the enfeebling consequences
of such an education. His character was mild, peaceable, and benevolent;
and his administration responded to his personal qualities. From this
epoch, the political importance of Tuscany entirely ceased; the state was
stricken with moral paralysis; and lethargy and indolence became the
only characteristics of the government and the people.

Ferdinand II, however, was not destitute of talents; and the enthusiasm
with which the grand-duke and his brother promoted the cultivation of
science at least protected his inactive reign from the reproach of utter
insignificance. But his son, Cosmo III, who ascended his throne in 1670,
reigned with a weakness which was relieved by no intellectual tastes.
Unhappy and suspicious in his temper, his life was embittered by domestic
disagreements with his duchess; fanatical and bigoted, he was constantly
surrounded and governed by monks; and at the close of the seventeenth
century, Florence, once the throne of literature, the fair and splendid
seat of all the arts which can embellish and illumine life, was converted
into the temple of gloomy superstition and hypocrisy.

PIEDMONT AND SAVOY

[Sidenote: [1027-1700 A.D.]]

While the other ducal thrones of Italy were thus for the most part
filled only by slothful voluptuaries, that of Savoy seemed reserved
for a succession of sovereigns, whose fearless activity and political
talents constantly placed their characters in brilliant contrast with
the indolence and imbecility of their despicable contemporaries.[c] The
history of this house shows in a striking manner how the destinies of
a nation may depend on the fortunes of a princely family. During eight
centuries the princes of Savoy have, in the words of Charles Emmanuel
III, “treated Italy as an artichoke to be eaten leaf by leaf.” Their work
is now perfected in the freedom of the state.

The descent of Humbert the Whitehanded, the founder of the family, is
uncertain, but he was probably a son of Amadeus, the great-grandson
of Boson of Provence. In reward for services rendered to Rudolf III
of Arles, Humbert obtained from him in 1027 the counties of Savoy and
Maurienne, and from the emperor Conrad the Salic, Chablais, and the
lower Valais. On his death in 1048 he was succeeded perhaps by his
eldest son, Amadeus I, but eventually by his fourth son, Otho, who, by
his marriage with Adelaide of Susa, obtained the counties of Turin and
the Val d’Aosta, and so acquired a footing in the valley of the Po. Otho
was succeeded in 1060 by his son Amadeus II, who maintained a judicious
neutrality between his brother-in-law, the emperor Henry IV, and the
pope. In reward for his mediation he obtained from the former, after
Canossa, the province of Bugey. The accession of his son Humbert II in
1080 brought fresh increase of territory in the valley of the Tarantaise,
and in 1091 this prince succeeded to the dignities of his grandmother,
Adelaide. Amadeus III came to the throne in 1103, and in 1111 his states
were created counties of the empire by Henry V. On his way home from the
crusades in 1149 Amadeus died at Nicosia, and was succeeded by his son
Humbert III. The prince took the part of the pope against Barbarossa, who
ravaged his territories until Humbert’s death in 1188. The guardians of
his son Thomas reconciled their ward and the emperor. He received from
Henry VI accessions of territory in Vaud, Bugey, and Valais, with the
title of imperial vicar in Piedmont and Lombardy. He was followed in 1233
by Amadeus IV. A campaign against the inhabitants of Valais ended in the
annexation of their district, and his support of Frederick II against the
pope caused the erection of Chablais and Aosta into a duchy.

[Sidenote: [1253-1482 A.D.]]

In 1253 his son Boniface succeeded to his states at the age of nine, but
after giving proofs of his valour by defeating the troops of Charles of
Anjou before Turin, he was taken prisoner and died of grief (1263).

The Salic law now came into operation for the first time, and Peter,
the uncle of Boniface, was called to the throne. This prince, on the
marriage of his nieces, Eleanor and Sancha of Provence, with Henry III
of England and Richard, earl of Cornwall, had visited England, where
he had been created earl of Richmond, and built a palace in London,
afterwards called Savoy House. In return he recognised the claims of
Richard to the imperial throne, and received from him Kyburg, in the
diocese of Lausanne. At his death in 1268 he was succeeded by his brother
Philip I, who died in 1285, when their nephew Amadeus V came to the
throne. This prince, surnamed the Great, united Baugé and Bresse to his
states in right of his wife Sibylla, and later on lower Faucigny and
part of Geneva. For his second wife he married Mary of Brabant, sister
of the emperor Henry VII, from whom he received the seigniory of Aosta.
His life was passed in continual and victorious warfare, and one of
his last exploits was to force the Turks to raise the siege of Rhodes.
He died in 1323. His son Edward succeeded him, and dying in 1329, was
followed by his brother Aymon. This prince died in 1343, when his son
Amadeus VI ascended the throne. His reign was, like his grandfather’s,
a series of petty wars, from which he came out victorious and with
extended territory, until he died of the plague (1383). The promising
reign of his son Amadeus VII was cut short by a fall from his horse
in 1391. Before his death, however, he had received the allegiance of
Barcelonnette, Ventimiglia, Villafranca, and Nice, so gaining access to
the Mediterranean.

His son Amadeus VIII now came to the throne, under the guardianship of
his grandmother Bona (Bonne) de Bourbon. On attaining his majority he
first directed his efforts to strengthening his power in the outlying
provinces. The states of Savoy now extended from the Lake of Geneva to
the Mediterranean, and from the Saône to the Sesia. Amadeus threw all
the weight of his power on the side of the emperor, and Sigismund in
1416 erected the counties of Savoy and Piedmont into duchies. At this
time, too, the duke recovered the fief of Piedmont, which had been
granted to Philip, prince of Achaia, by Amadeus V. The county of Vercelli
afterwards rewarded him for joining the league against the duke of
Milan, but in 1434 a plot against his life made him put into execution
a plan he had long formed, of retiring to a monastery. He accordingly
made his son Louis lieutenant-general of the dukedom, and assumed the
habit of the knights of St. Maurice. But he was not destined to find the
repose he sought. The prelates assembled at the council of Bâle voted
the deposition of Pope Eugenius IV, and elected Amadeus in his place, as
Felix V. He abdicated his dukedom definitely, but without much gain in
temporal honours, for the schism continued until the death of Eugenius
in 1447, shortly after which it was healed by the honourable submission
of Felix to Nicholas V. The early years of Louis’ reign were under the
guidance of his father, and peace and prosperity blessed his people; but
he afterwards made an alliance with the dauphin which brought him into
conflict with Charles VII of France, though a lasting reconciliation was
soon effected. His son Amadeus IX succeeded in 1465, but, though his
virtues led to his beatification, his bodily sufferings made him assign
the regency to his wife Yolande, a daughter of Charles VII. He died
in 1472, when his son Philibert I succeeded to the throne and to his
share in the contests of Yolande with her brother and brothers-in-law.
His reign lasted only ten years, when he was succeeded by his brother
Charles I. This prince raised for a time by his valour the drooping
fortunes of his house, but he died in 1489 at the age of thirty-one,
having inherited from his aunt, Charlotte of Lusignan, her pretensions to
the titular kingdoms of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia. He was succeeded
by his son Charles II, an infant, who, dying in 1496, was followed by
Philip II, brother of Amadeus XI. He died in 1497, leaving Philibert
II, who succeeded him, and Charles III, who ascended the throne on his
brother’s death in 1504. In spite of himself Charles was drawn into the
wars of the period, but the decisive victory of Francis at Marignano
gave the duke the opportunity of negotiating the conference at Bologna
which led to the conclusion of peace in 1516. Charles was less fortunate
in the part he took in the wars between Francis I and Charles V, the
brother-in-law of his wife. He tried to maintain a strict neutrality,
but his attendance at the emperor’s coronation at Bologna in 1530 was
imperative in his double character of kinsman and vassal. The visit was
fatal to him, for he was rewarded with the county of Asti, and this so
displeased the French king that on the revolt of Geneva to Protestantism
in 1532, Francis sent help to the citizens. Berne and Fribourg did
likewise, and so expelled the duke from Lausanne and Vaud. Charles now
sided definitely with the emperor, and Francis at once raised some
imaginary claims to his states. On their rejection the French army
marched into Savoy, descended on Piedmont, and seized Turin (1536).
Charles V came to the aid of his ally, and invested the city, but was
obliged to make peace. France kept Savoy, and the emperor occupied
Piedmont, so that only Nice remained to the duke. On the resumption of
hostilities in 1541 Piedmont again suffered. In 1544 the Treaty of Crespy
restored his states to Charles, but the terms were not carried out, and
he died of grief in 1553. His only surviving son, Emmanuel Philibert,
succeeded to the rights, but not the domains of his ancestors. On the
abdication of Charles V the duke was appointed governor of the Low
Countries, and in 1557 the victory of St. Quentin marked him as one of
the first generals of his time. Such services could not go unrewarded,
and the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis restored him his states, with certain
exceptions still to be held by France and Spain. One of the conditions of
the treaty also provided for the marriage of the duke with Margaret of
France, sister of Henry II. The evacuation of the places held by them was
faithfully carried out by the contracting powers, and Emmanuel Philibert
occupied himself in strengthening his military and naval forces, until
his death in 1580 prevented the execution of his ambitious designs. His
son Charles Emmanuel I, called the Great, threw in his lot with Spain,
and in 1590 invaded Provence and was received by the citizens of Aix.
His intention was doubtless to revive the ancient kingdom of Arles, but
his plans were frustrated by the accession of Henry IV to the throne of
France.[e]

[Sidenote: [1482-1601 A.D.]]

By his treaty with Henry, in the year 1601, Charles Emmanuel exchanged
his Savoyard county of Bresse for the Italian marquisate of Saluzzo. By
this arrangement, the duke of Savoy sacrificed a fertile province to
acquire a barren and rocky territory; but he excluded the French from
an easy access into Piedmont, and strengthened his Italian frontier. By
consolidating his states, he gained a considerable advance towards the
future independence of his family; and the superiority of his policy
over that of Henry IV in this transaction occasioned the remark of a
contemporary, that the French king had bargained like a peddler, and the
Savoyard duke like a king.

From this epoch, the house of Savoy became almost exclusively an Italian
power, and its princes, to use the language of one of their historians,
thenceforth viewed the remains of their transmontane possessions only
as a nobleman, moving in the splendour of a court, regards the ancient
and neglected fief from which he derives his title. Charles Emmanuel
found that the improvement effected in the geographical posture of
his states immediately increased his importance; and his alliance was
courted both by France and Spain. But during the remainder of his long
reign, his own restless and overweening ambition, and the natural
difficulties of his situation, placed as he was with inferior strength
between two mighty rivals, entailed many calamities on his dominions. He
made an unsuccessful attempt in 1602 to surprise Geneva by an escalade
in the night, and after a disgraceful repulse concluded a peace, which
recognised the independence of that republic. Ten years later, he
endeavoured, as we have seen, to wrest Montferrat from the house of
Gonzaga; but being violently opposed by Spain, and weakly supported by
France, he was compelled, after several years of hostilities, to submit
his claim to the decision of the emperor--or, in other words, to abandon
it altogether. Such checks to his ambition were, however, of little
importance, in comparison with the reverses consequent upon the share
which he took in the war of the Mantuan succession (1628).

[Sidenote: [1601-1634 A.D.]]

In that contest he was induced, by the hope of partitioning Montferrat
with the Spaniards, to unite with them against the new duke of Mantua
and the French his supporters; and he suffered heavily in this alliance.
When Louis XIII, at the head of a gallant army, forced the strong pass of
Susa against the duke and his troops, and overran all Piedmont, Charles
Emmanuel was compelled to purchase the deliverance of his states by
signing a separate peace, and leaving the fortress of Susa as a pledge
in the hands of the conquerors. They insisted further that he should
act offensively against his former allies; but Louis XIII and his great
minister Richelieu were no sooner recalled into France by the war against
the Protestants, than the versatile duke, resenting their tyranny,
immediately resumed his league with Spain.

The possession of Susa rendered the French masters of the gates of the
Savoyard dominions; and as soon as Richelieu had triumphantly concluded
the war against the Huguenots, he returned to the Alps. He was invested
by his master with a supreme military command, which disgraced his
priestly functions; and he poured the forces of France again into
Piedmont. All Savoy was conquered by the French king in person; and above
half of Piedmont was seized by his forces under the warlike cardinal.
Amidst so many cruel reverses, oppressed by the overwhelming strength of
his enemies, and abandoned by his Spanish allies, who made no vigorous
efforts to arrest the progress of the French, Charles Emmanuel suddenly
breathed his last, after a reign of fifty years (1630).

Victor Amadeus I, his eldest son and successor, was the husband of
Christina, daughter of Henry IV of France, and therefore disposed to
ally himself with her country. Almost immediately after his accession
to the ducal crown, he entered into negotiations with Richelieu, which
terminated in a truce. In the following year, the general peace, which
concluded the war of the Mantuan succession, was signed at Cherasco
(1631). By this treaty, the new duke of Savoy recovered all his dominions
except Pinerolo (Pignerol), which he was compelled to cede to the French;
who, although Richelieu restored Susa to Victor Amadeus, thus retained
possession of the passes of the Alps by Briançon and the valley of
Exilles. Victor Amadeus was not inferior to his father either in courage
or abilities; but he was not equally restless and intriguing. Submitting
to circumstances beyond his control, he endured the ascendency which
France had acquired over his states, and the yet more galling pride of
Richelieu, with temper and prudence. To the close of his short reign
he maintained with good faith a close alliance with Louis XIII, which
indeed it was scarcely optional with him to have rejected, and which, in
1634, involved him, as an auxiliary, in a new war undertaken by Richelieu
against the house of Austria.

[Sidenote: [1634-1657 A.D.]]

The death of Victor Amadeus in 1637, while this contest was yet
raging, was the prelude to still heavier calamities for his house and
his subjects than either had known for nearly a century. He left two
infant sons, the eldest of whom dying almost immediately after him, the
succession devolved upon the other, Charles Emmanuel II, a boy of four
years of age. By his testament, Victor Amadeus committed the regency of
his states, and the care of his children, to his duchess Christina. The
government of that princess was in the outset assailed by the secret
machinations of Richelieu, and by the open hostility of the brothers
of her late husband. Richelieu designed to imprison the sister, and to
despoil the nephew of his own master; and he would have annexed their
states to the French monarchy, under the plea that the care of the
young prince and the regency of his duchy belonged of right to Louis
XIII, as his maternal uncle. When the vigilance of Christina defeated
the intention of the cardinal to surprise her at Vercelli, the sister
of Louis XIII had still to endure all the despotic influence of her
brother’s minister. The conduct of her husband’s relations left her
however no alternative but to purchase the aid of the French against them.

Both the brothers of Victor Amadeus, the cardinal Maurice, and Prince
Thomas (founder of the branch of Savoy-Carignano), had quarrelled with
the late duke, and withdrawn from his court to embrace the party of
his enemies; the one entered the service of the emperor, the other
that of the king of Spain in the Low Countries. On the death of Victor
Amadeus, they returned to Piedmont only to trouble the administration of
Christina by themselves laying claim to the regency; and at length, on
her resisting their pretensions, they openly asserted them in arms. The
two princes were supported by the house of Austria; the duchess-regent
was protected by France; and the whole country of Savoy and Piedmont was
at once plunged into the aggravated horrors of foreign and civil war. In
the first year of this unhappy contest, the capital was delivered into
the hands of Prince Thomas by his partisans; and the regent, escaping
with difficulty on this surprise into the citadel of Turin, was compelled
to consign the defence of that fortress to the French, who treacherously
retained the deposit for eighteen years. In like manner, they acquired
possession of several important places; the Spaniards on their part
became masters of others; and while the regent and her brothers-in-law
were contending for the government of Piedmont, they were betrayed by the
ill faith and ambition of their respective protectors.

A reconciliation in the ducal family was at length effected by the tardy
discovery that mutual injuries could terminate only in common ruin. The
two princes deserted the party of Spain, and succeeded in recovering for
their house most of the fortresses which they had aided the Spaniards in
reducing. The duchess-mother retained the regency; and the princes were
gratified with the same appanages by which she had originally offered
to purchase their friendship. Still the French remained all powerful in
Piedmont; and if death had not interrupted the projects of Richelieu,
it is probable that the ducal house of Savoy would have been utterly
sacrificed to his skilful and unprincipled policy, and that its dominions
would have been permanently annexed to the monarchy of France. Even
under the government of his more pacific successor, Mazarin, it was
not until the year 1657 that the French garrison was withdrawn from the
citadel of Turin; and this act of justice was only extorted from that
minister as the price of his niece’s marriage into the ducal family of
Savoy. The exhaustion of Spain and the internal troubles of France had
totally prevented the active prosecution in northern Italy of the long
war between those powers. But the embers of hostility were not wholly
extinguished in Piedmont until the Peace of the Pyrenees, by which
Charles Emmanuel II recovered all his duchy except Pinerolo and its
Alpine passes, and these the French still retained (1659).

[Sidenote: [1657-1692 A.D.]]

The termination of the minority of Charles Emmanuel II, in 1648, had put
an end to the intrigues of his uncles. But the duke continued to submit
to the ambitious and able control of his mother until her death; and his
subsequent reign was in no respect brilliant. His states, however, after
the Treaty of the Pyrenees, enjoyed a long interval of repose; and though
the early close of his life in 1675 subjected them to another minority,
it proved neither turbulent nor calamitous, as his own had done. His
son, the celebrated Victor Amadeus II, was only nine years old when
he nominally commenced his reign under the regency of his mother. The
princess, a daughter of the French house of Nemours, had all the ambition
without the talents which had distinguished the duchess Christina.
Surrounded by French favourites and by the partisans of that nation, she
was wholly subservient to the will of Louis XIV; and Victor Amadeus,
on attaining the age of manhood, gave the first indications of the
consummate political ability for which he became afterwards so famous, by
his decent address in dispossessing his reluctant parent and her faction
of all influence in public affairs, without having recourse to actual
violence.

The policy of the duke soon excited the suspicion of Louis XIV; and after
exhausting all the resources of negotiation and intrigue for some years,
to gain him over to his purpose of wresting Milan from the Spaniards, the
French monarch resolved to disarm him. But Victor Amadeus penetrated his
designs, and anticipated their execution. He was too good a politician,
and too sensible of his own weakness, not to discover that, if he
consented to open a free passage to Louis XIV through his dominions, and
to aid him in effecting the conquest of Lombardy, he should speedily be
despoiled in his turn, and reduced to the rank of a vassal of the French
crown. He therefore acceded to the league of Augsburg between the empire,
England, Spain, and Holland; and his subjects eagerly seconded him in his
resolution rather to encounter the dangers of a contest with the gigantic
power of France, than to submit without a struggle to the imperious and
humiliating demands of Louis.

The commencement of the war in Piedmont was marked by a torrent of
misfortune, which might have overwhelmed a prince of less fortitude than
Victor Amadeus with sudden despair. Although he was joined by a Spanish
army at the opening of hostilities, the French, who commanded the gates
of Italy by the possession of Pinerolo had already assembled in force in
Piedmont. They were led by Catinat, who deserves to be mentioned among
the most accomplished and scientific captains of his own or of any age;
and the superior abilities of this great commander triumphed over the
military talents of the young duke. At the battle of Staffarda (1690) in
the first campaign, the allies were totally defeated; and great part both
of Savoy and Piedmont was almost immediately afterwards reduced by the
conquerors. Victor Amadeus was however undismayed; he continued the war
with energy and skill; and the support of his allies and his own activity
had the effect of balancing the fortune of the contest. Penetrating into
France, in 1692, he was even enabled to retaliate upon his enemies by
this diversion, for the ravage of his dominions; and although Catinat,
in the fourth campaign, inflicted at Marsaglia upon the Piedmontese,
Austrian, and Spanish armies, under the duke in person and the famous
prince Eugene, a yet more calamitous and memorable defeat than that at
Staffarda, the allies speedily recovered from the disaster.

But it comes not within our purpose to repeat the often-told tale of
military operations, which belong to the general history of Europe. After
six years of incessant warfare, Victor Amadeus was still in an attitude
to render his neutrality an important object for France to gain, and one
which he had himself every reason to desire. So that it could be attained
with advantage to himself, he was little scrupulous in abandoning his
allies; and the conditions which he extorted from Louis XIV had all
the results of victory. By the separate peace concluded between France
and Savoy at Turin, Louis XIV abandoned the possession of Pinerolo and
restored all his conquests in Savoy and Piedmont; but the most material
stipulation of the treaty was the neutrality of all Italy, to which the
contracting parties equally bound themselves to oblige all other powers
to accede. To enforce this article, Victor Amadeus did not hesitate to
join his arms to those of France against his former allies; and the
entrance of his forces, in conjunction with the army of Catinat, into the
Milanese territories, immediately compelled the emperor and the king of
Spain to consent to a suspension of arms in the peninsula.

[Illustration: A MUSKETEER OF THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]

The allies of Victor Amadeus might justly reproach him with a desertion
of their cause, and perhaps even with the aggravation of perfidy; but
he deserved the gratitude of Italy, if not for his selfish policy, at
least for its fruits. In closing the gates of his own frontiers, he
had skilfully provided also for the repose of the peninsula and its
evacuation by the French. All Italy regarded him as a liberator; the
security of his own dominions was effected, and his power and consequence
were prodigiously augmented. Thus, by establishing the independence of
his states, he prepared the claim of his house to the assumption of the
royal title among the powers of Europe, to which he elevated it in the
beginning of the new century.

The increasing power of the sovereigns of Piedmont was a foreboding of
evil for the only republic of the Middle Ages which had partially escaped
the storms of despotism in that quarter of Italy; and Genoa had already
gained, during the seventeenth century, sufficient experience of the
dangers of her vicinity to the princes of the house of Savoy. In the
Grison war, between France and the house of Austria, the republic was
involved by her dependence upon Spain; and the share which she took in
the contest enabled the duke of Savoy, then in alliance with France, to
draw down the weight of the French arms upon her. Besides being actuated
by the usual rapacity of his ambition, with the hope of annexing the
Genoese territory to his states, Charles Emmanuel I had several causes
of offence against the republic. Her rulers had before given assistance
to the Spaniards against him; they had attempted to control him in the
purchase of the fief of Zucarel from the family of Carretto; and the
populace of Genoa had insulted him by defacing his portrait in their
city during the excesses of a riot. He therefore pointed out Genoa to
his allies for an easy and important conquest; and while he overran
the Ligurian country, a French army of thirty thousand men under the
constable de Lesdiguières advanced to the siege of the republican
capital. Though the Genoese were unprovided against this sudden attack,
they were animated by the brave spirit, and the eloquence of one of
their fellow-citizens, a member of the illustrious house of Doria, to
oppose a firm resistance to the besiegers; and their gallant defence
of the city was converted into a triumph, at the moment when they were
reduced to extremity. A powerful Spanish armament, equipped with unusual
vigour, arrived to their succour from Naples and Milan; the French were
compelled to raise the siege; and the peace, which shortly followed these
hostilities, served only to cover the duke of Savoy with the disgrace of
merited failure in his designs against the existence of the republic.

[Sidenote: [1624-1628 A.D.]]

The secret hostility which Charles Emmanuel cherished against Genoa
menaced her, a few years later, with more imminent perils; since the
revengeful spirit of the duke was associated with the discontent of a
large party in the republic. We have formerly noticed the constitution of
the sovereign oligarchy of Genoa, and its tendency, by the extinction of
some noble houses, and the reduction of numbers in others, to narrow the
circle of political rights. The surviving body, meanwhile, were sparing
in the use of the law, which authorised them to admit ten new families
annually to a share in their privileges of sovereignty. The senate either
began to elude it altogether, or applied it only to childless or aged
individuals. Thus, before the middle of the seventeenth century, the
number of persons whose names appeared in the _libro d’oro_--the golden
volume of privileged nobility--had dwindled to about seven hundred. A law
was then passed, by which the whole of these exclusive proprietors of the
rights of citizenship thenceforth took their seats in the great council,
on reaching the age of manhood, instead of entering it by rotation, as
had formerly been the practice, when the republic was represented by a
more comprehensive aristocracy.

While the arrogance and the individual importance of the members of
the oligarchy were increased in proportion to this diminution in their
numbers, another class, that of the unprivileged aristocracy of birth
and wealth, had multiplied in the state. Many ancient houses, possessors
of rural fiefs in Liguria, and invested with titles of nobility, had
been originally omitted in the roll of citizenship; many other families
of newer pretensions had since acquired riches and distinction by
commercial industry, and accidents of fortune; and the union of all these
constituted an order, which rivalled the oligarchy in the usual sources
of pride, and far outweighed them in numbers. Affected superiority and
contempt on the one hand, and mortification and envy on the other,
produced reciprocal hatred between these branches of the Genoese
aristocracy; and their divisions inspired the duke of Savoy with the hope
of plunging the state into an anarchy, by which he might profit.

[Sidenote: [1628-1672 A.D.]]

Pursuing his master’s views, the ambassador of Charles Emmanuel at
Genoa selected a wealthy merchant of the unprivileged aristocracy,
Giulio Cesare Vachero, for the agitator and leader of a conspiracy to
overthrow the oligarchical constitution. Vachero, although engaged in
the occupation of commerce, aspired to move in the sphere of nobility.
His immense riches, his numerous retinue, his splendid establishment,
rivalled the magnificence of the Fregosi, the Adorni, the _popolani
grandi_ of other days. He always appeared armed and in martial
costume--the characteristics of the gentleman of the times; he was
surrounded by bravos; and he unscrupulously employed these desperate
men in the atrocious gratification of his pride and his vengeance. He
found sufficient occupation for their poniards in the numerous petty
affronts, which the privileged nobles delighted to heap on a person of
his condition. Vachero was stung to the soul by all the scorn and disdain
which the highly born affect for upstart and unwarranted pretensions--by
the contemptuous denial of the courtesy of a passing salutation, the
supercilious stare, the provoking smile of derision, the taunting
innuendo, the jest, the sneer. Every one of these slights or insults
offered to himself or his wife was washed out in the blood of the noble
offenders (1628).

But all these covert assassinations could not satiate the revengeful
spirit nor heal the rankling irritation of Vachero; and he was easily
instigated by the arts of the Savoyard ambassador to organise a plot,
and to place himself at its head, for the destruction of the oligarchy.
He knew that his discontent was shared by all the citizens like himself,
whose names had not been admitted into the _libro d’oro_; and he reckoned
on the co-operation of very many of the feudal seigniors of Liguria,
whose ancient houses had never been inserted in that register, and who
found their consequence eclipsed in the city, by their detested and more
fortunate rivals of the oligarchy. He readily induced a numerous party
to embrace his design; he secretly increased the force of his retainers
and bravos; and he lavished immense sums among the lower people, to
secure their fidelity without entrusting them with his plans. The day
was already named for the attack of the palace of government: it was
determined to overpower the foreign guard; to cast the senators from
the windows; to massacre all the individuals embraced in the privileged
order; to change the constitution of the republic; and finally, to invest
Vachero with the supreme authority of the state, by the title of doge,
and under the protection of the duke of Savoy. But at the moment when the
conspiracy was ripe for execution, it was betrayed to the government by
a retainer of Vachero, who had been appointed to act a subordinate share
in it. Vachero himself, and a few other leading personages in the plot,
were secured before the alarm was given to the rest, who immediately
fled. The guilt of Vachero and his accomplices was clearly established;
the proofs against them were even supported by the conduct of the duke
of Savoy, who openly avowed himself the protector of their enterprise;
and notwithstanding his arrogant threat of revenging their punishment
upon the republic, the senate did not hesitate to order their immediate
execution.

The insolent menaces of Charles Emmanuel were vain; and the firmness of
the Genoese government produced no material consequences. During the
distractions which closed his own reign, and which, filling that of
his son, extended through the minority of his grandsons, the republic
remained undisturbed by the aggressions of the house of Savoy. In this
long period of above forty years, the repose of Genoa was disturbed
neither by any other foreign hostilities, nor by intestine commotions.
A second war, which at length broke out between the republic and the
duchy of Savoy, during the reign of Charles Emmanuel II, scarcely
merits our notice, for its circumstances and its conclusion were alike
insignificant; and during the remainder of the seventeenth century,
the Genoese oligarchy were only startled from their dream of pride and
security by a single event--the most humiliating, until our own times at
least, in the long annals of their republic.

When Louis XIV became master of Casale by purchase from the duke of
Mantua, he demanded of the republic of Genoa permission to establish
a depot at the port of Savona, for the free supply of salt to the
inhabitants of his new city, and the transit of warlike stores and
recruits for his garrison. The Genoese government were sufficiently
acquainted with the character of the French monarch to anticipate that
their compliance with this demand would terminate in his appropriating
the port of Savona altogether to himself; and cautiously exerting the
option of refusal which they unquestionably possessed, they eluded the
application. With equal right and more boldness, they fitted out a few
galleys to guard their coasts against any surprise, and to protect their
revenue on salt. Louis imperiously required them to disarm this squadron;
and then, driven beyond all the limits of endurance, and justly incensed
at such an insult upon the independence of the republic, the senate
treated the summons with contempt.

But the oligarchy of Genoa had not sufficiently measured the weakness
of their state, or the implacable and unbounded pride of the powerful
tyrant. A French armament of fourteen sail of the line, with a long
train of frigates, galleys, and bomb ketches, suddenly appeared before
Genoa, and a furious bombardment of three days, in which fifty thousand
shells and carcasses are said to have been thrown into the place, reduced
to a heap of ruins half the numerous and magnificent palaces, which
had obtained for Genoa the appellation of “the Proud.” The senate were
compelled to save the remains of their capital from total destruction
by an unqualified submission; and the terms dictated by the arrogance
of the French monarch, obliged the doge and four of the principal
senators, to repair in their robes of state to Paris, to sue for pardon
and to supplicate his clemency. The epithets of glory have often been
prostituted on the character of Louis XIV, by those who are easily
dazzled with the glare of false splendour; but of all the wholesale
outrages upon humanity which disgraced the detestable ambition of that
heartless destroyer of his species, this unprovoked assault upon a
defenceless people, merely to gratify his insatiable vanity, was--if we
except the horrible devastation of the Palatinate--the most barbarous and
wanton.

VENICE

[Sidenote: [1600-1685 A.D.]]

While Genoa was either wholly subservient to the influence of Spain,
with difficulty repulsing the machinations of the princes of Savoy,
or enduring all the insulting arrogance of France, her ancient rival
was holding her political course with more pretensions to independence
and dignity. Throughout the age before us, Venice seemed roused to
the exertion of the few remains of her ancient spirit and strength.
Starting with renewed vigour from the languor and obscurity of the
preceding century, the republic evinced a proud resolution to maintain
her prescriptive rights, and even in some measure aspired to assert the
lost independence of Italy. Her efforts in this latter respect, indeed,
deserve to be mentioned, rather for the courage which dictated them, than
for their results. The relative force of the states of Europe had too
essentially changed; the commercial foundations of her own prosperity
were too irretrievably ruined to render it possible that she should
rear her head again above other powers of the second order, or become
the protectress and successful champion of the peninsula. But, in the
seventeenth century, the annals of Venice were at least not stained with
disgrace. Even her losses, in a protracted and unequal contest with the
Turks, were redeemed from shame by many brilliant acts of heroism in her
unavailing defence; and the unfortunate issue of one war was balanced by
the happier results of a second. But the firmness of the republic was
conspicuous, and her success unalloyed.

[Sidenote: [1600-1606 A.D.]]

The first of the struggles, in which Venice was called upon to engage
in this century, was produced, soon after its opening, by that violent
attempt of Pope Paul V, to which we have before alluded, to revive the
monstrous and exploded doctrine of papal jurisdiction and supremacy
over the temporal affairs of the world (1605). The Venetians had, even
in the dark ages, been remarkable for their freedom from the trammels
of superstition, and consistent in repelling the encroachments of
ecclesiastical power. Upon no occasion would the senate either permit
the publication or execution of any papal decree in their territories,
until it had received their previous sanction; or suffer an appeal
to the court of Rome from any of their subjects, except by their own
authority, and through the ambassador of the republic. The jurisdiction
of the Council of Ten was as despotic and final over the Venetian clergy
as over all other classes in the state; and while ecclesiastics were
rigidly excluded from all interference in political affairs, and from
the exercise of any civil functions, the right of the secular tribunals
to judge them in every case not purely spiritual was a principle, from
which the government never departed either in theory or practice. Of all
the extravagant privileges claimed by the Romish church for its militia,
the exemption of the ecclesiastical body from taxation (unless as the
immediate act of the popes) was the only one recognised by the Venetian
government; and, to annul this, immunity was a project which had more
than once been entertained.

[Illustration: A VENETIAN BEGGAR

(Many of these were people in straitened circumstances, who wore a mask
to disguise their features.)]

With a spirit similar to that which retained the clergy under due
subjection, universal religious toleration was a steady maxim of the
Venetian senate. The public and peaceable worship of the Mussulman, the
Jew, the Greek, the Armenian, had always been equally permitted in the
republican dominions; and in later times even the Protestant sects had
met in the capital and provinces with a like indulgence. The iniquitous
principles of the oligarchical administration forbid us from attributing
to its conduct in these respects any higher or more enlightened motive
than the interested and necessary policy of a commercial state. But
it is a striking proof of the ability and stern vigilance of this
government, that, notwithstanding its universal toleration and rejection
of ecclesiastical control, no pretence was left for the popes to impugn
its zealous fidelity to the Romish church; and that, at a time when all
Europe was convulsed by the struggle of religious opinions, Venice alone
could receive into her corrupted bosom the elements of discord, without
shaking the foundations of her established faith or sustaining the
slightest shock to her habitual tranquillity.

The fierce temper with which Paul V seated himself on the papal throne,
and the systematic determination of the Venetian senate to submit to no
ecclesiastical usurpations, could not fail to bring the republic into
collision with so rash and violent a pontiff. Accordingly Paul V had
scarcely commenced his reign, when he conceived offence at the refusal of
the senate to provoke a war with the Turks, by assisting the Hungarians
at his command with subsidies against the infidels. His dissatisfaction
with the republic was increased by her obstinacy in levying duty upon all
merchandise entering the papal ports in the Adriatic--a matter in which,
assuredly, religion was in nowise interested; and it reached its height
when the senate passed a law, or rather revived an old one, forbidding
the further alienation of immovable property in favour of religious
foundations; which indeed, even in their states, were already possessed
of overgrown wealth.

At this juncture the Council of Ten, acting upon its established
principle of subjecting priests to secular jurisdiction, caused two
ecclesiastics, a canon of Vicenza, named Sarraceno, and an abbot of
Nervesa, to be successively arrested and thrown into prison, to await
their trials for offences with which they were charged. Their alleged
crimes were of the blackest enormity: rape in one case; assassination,
poisonings, and parricide in the other. The pope, as if the rights of
the church had been violently outraged by these arrests, summoned the
doge and senate to deliver over the two priests to the spiritual arm, on
pain of excommunication; and he seized the occasion to demand, under the
same penalty, the repeal of the existing regulations against the increase
of the ecclesiastical edifices and property. But the doge and senate,
positively refusing to retract their measures, treated the papal menaces
with contempt; and Paul V then struck them, their capital, and their
whole republic with excommunication and interdict (1606).

The Venetian government endured the anathemas, so appalling to the
votaries of superstition, with unshaken firmness. In reply to the papal
denunciations of the divine wrath against the republic, they successfully
published repeated and forcible appeals to the justice of their cause,
and to the common-sense of the world. The general sentiment of Catholic
Europe responded to their arguments; and their own subjects, filled with
indignation at the unprovoked sentence against the state, zealously
seconded their spirit. In private the doge had not hesitated to hold
out to the papal nuncio an alarming threat that the perseverance of his
holiness in violent measures would impel the republic to dissolve her
connection altogether with the Roman see; and the open procedure of the
senate was scarcely less bold. On pain of death, all parochial ministers
and monks in the Venetian states were commanded to pay no regard to
the interdict, and to continue to perform the offices of religion as
usual. The secular clergy yielded implicit obedience to the decree; and
when the Jesuits, Capuchins, and other monastic orders endeavoured to
qualify their allegiance, between the pope and the republic, by making
a reservation against the performance of mass, they were immediately
deprived of their possessions, and expelled from the Venetian territories.

The pope, finding his spiritual weapons ineffectual against the constancy
of the Venetians, showed an inclination to have recourse to temporal
arms. He levied troops, and endeavoured to engage Philip III of Spain
and other princes in the support of his authority. At the same time, both
the Spanish monarch and Henry IV of France, the ally of the republic,
began to interest themselves in a quarrel which nearly concerned all
Catholic powers, and threatened Europe with commotion. In reality, both
sovereigns aspired to the honour of being the arbiter of the difference.
But the feint of arming to second the pope, by which Philip III hoped
to terrify the republic into submitting to his mediation, had only the
effect of determining the senate to prefer the interposition of his
rival; and Henry IV became the zealous negotiator between the pope and
the republic.

[Sidenote: [1606-1615 A.D.]]

Paul IV discovered at length that Spain had no serious resolution to
support him by arms, and that, without the application of a force which
he could not command, it was vain to expect submission from so inflexible
a body as the Venetian oligarchy. He was therefore reduced to the most
humiliating compromise of his boasted dignity. Without obtaining a
single concession on the point in dispute, he was obliged to revoke
his spiritual sentences. The doge and senate could not even receive an
absolution; they refused to alter their decree against the alienation
of property in favour of the church; and though they consigned the two
imprisoned ecclesiastics to the disposal of Henry IV, they accompanied
this act with a formal declaration, that was intended only as a voluntary
mark of their respect for that monarch their ally, and to be in no
degree construed into an abandonment of their right and practice of
subjecting their clergy to secular jurisdiction. Even their deference
for Henry IV could not prevail over their resentment and suspicion
of the banished Jesuits: they peremptorily refused to reinstate that
order in its possessions; and it was not until after the middle of the
century that the Jesuits obtained admission again into the states of the
republic. Thus, with the signal triumph of Venice, terminated a struggle,
happily a bloodless one, which was not less remarkable for the firmness
of the republic than important for its general effects in crushing the
pretensions of papal tyranny. For its issue may assuredly be regarded
as having relieved all Roman Catholic states from future dread of
excommunication and interdict--and therefore from the danger of spiritual
engines, impotent in themselves, and formidable only when unresisted.

With the same unyielding spirit which characterised their resistance to
papal and ecclesiastical usurpation, the Venetian senate resolved to
tolerate no infringement upon the tyrannical pretension of their own
republic to the despotic sovereignty of the Adriatic. Before the contest
with Paul V, their state had already been seriously incommoded by the
piracies of the Uscochi. This community, originally formed of Christian
inhabitants of Dalmatia and Croatia, had been driven, in the sixteenth
century, by the perpetual Turkish invasions of their provinces, to the
fastness of Clissa, whence they successfully retaliated upon their
infidel foes by incursions into the Ottoman territories. At length,
overpowered by the Turks, and dispersed from their stronghold, these
Uscochi, or refugees, as their name implies in the Dalmatian tongue,
were collected by Ferdinand, archduke of Austria (afterwards emperor),
and established in the maritime town of Segna to guard that post against
the Turks. In their new station, which, on the land side, was protected
from access by mountains and forests, while numerous inlets and intricate
shallows rendered it difficult of approach from the sea, the Uscochi
betook themselves to piracy; and, for above seventy years, their light
and swift barks boldly infested the Adriatic with impunity. Their
first attacks were directed against the infidels; but irritated by the
interference of the Venetians, who, as sovereigns of the Adriatic, found
themselves compelled by the complaints and threats of the Porte to punish
their freebooting enterprises, they began to extend their depredations to
the commerce of the republic.

[Sidenote: [1615-1617 A.D.]]

It was to little purpose that the senate called upon the Austrian
government to restrain its lawless subjects; their representations
were either eluded altogether, or failed in obtaining any effectual
satisfaction. The Uscochi, a fearless and desperate band, recruited
by outlaws and men of abandoned lives, became more audacious by the
connivance of Austria; and the republic was obliged to maintain a small
squadron constantly at sea to protect her commerce against them. At
length, after having recourse alternately, for above half a century,
to fruitless negotiations with Austria, and insufficient attempts to
chastise the pirates, the republic seriously determined to put an end to
their vexatious hostilities and increasing insolence. The capture of a
Venetian galley and the massacre of its crew in 1615, and an irruption
of the Uscochi into Istria, brought affairs to a crisis. The Austrian
government, then directed by the archduke Ferdinand of Styria, instead
of giving satisfaction for these outrages, demanded the free navigation
of the Adriatic for its vessels; and the senate found an appeal to arms
the only mode of preserving its efficient sovereignty over the gulf. The
Venetian troops made reprisals on the Austrian territory; and an open war
commenced between the archduke and the republic.

The contest was soon associated, by the interference of Spain, with the
hostilities then carried on between that monarchy and the duke of Savoy
in northern Italy respecting Montferrat. For protection against the
enmity of the two branches of the house of Austria, Venice united herself
with Savoy, and largely subsidised that state. She even sought more
distant allies, and a league, offensive and defensive, was signed between
her and the seven united provinces. Notwithstanding the difference of
religious faith, which, in that age constituted in itself a principle of
political hostility, the two republics found a bond of union, stronger
than this repulsion, in their common reasons for opposing the Spanish
power. They engaged to afford each other a reciprocal assistance in
money, vessels, or men, whenever menaced with attack; and in fulfilment
of this treaty, a strong body of Dutch troops arrived in the Adriatic.
Before the disembarkation of this force, the Venetians had already gained
some advantages in the Austrian provinces on the coasts of that sea; and
the archduke was induced by the appearance of the Dutch, and his projects
in Germany, to open negotiations for a general peace in northern Italy.

[Illustration: LION, SUPPORTING THE PILLAR OF THE PULPIT, ST. MARK’S]

The same treaty terminated the wars of the house of Austria respecting
Montferrat and the Uscochi. Ferdinand of Austria gave security for
the dispersion of the pirates, whom he had protected; and thus the
Venetian republic was finally delivered from the vexatious and lawless
depredations of those freebooters, who had so long annoyed her commerce
and harassed her subjects (1617). It does not appear that the force of
this singular race of pirates, who had thus risen into historical notice,
ever exceeded a thousand men; but their extraordinary hardihood and
ferocity, their incessant enterprise and activity, their inaccessible
position, and the connivance of Austria, had rendered them formidable
enemies. Their depredations, and the constant expense of petty armaments
against them, were estimated to have cost the Venetians in thirty years a
loss of more than 20,000,000 gold ducats; and no less a question than the
security of the dominion of the republic over the Adriatic was decided by
the war against them.

[Sidenote: [1617-1618 A.D.]]

Although Spain and Venice had not been regularly at war, the tyrannical
ascendency exercised by the Spanish court over the affairs of Italy,
occasioned the Venetians to regard that power with particular
apprehension and enmity; and the spirit shown by the senate in the late
contest had filled the Spanish government with implacable hatred towards
the republic. By her alliances and her whole procedure, Venice had
declared against the house of Austria, and betrayed her disposition to
curb the alarming and overspreading authority of both its branches in
the peninsula. The haughty ministers of Philip III secretly nourished
projects of vengeance against the state, which had dared to manifest
a systematic hostility to the Spanish dominion; and they are accused,
even in apparent peace, of having regarded the republic as an enemy whom
it behoved them to destroy. At the epoch of the conclusion of the war
relative to Montferrat and the Uscochi, the duke of Osuna was viceroy
of Naples, Don Pedro de Toledo, governor of Milan, and the marquis of
Bedmar, ambassador at Venice from the court of Madrid. To the hostility
entertained against the republic by these three ministers, the two
former of whom governed the Italian possessions of Spain with almost
regal independence, has usually been attributed the formation, with the
connivance of the court of Madrid, of one of the most atrocious and
deep-laid conspiracies on record. The real character of this mysterious
transaction must ever remain among the unsolved problems of history;
for even the circumstances which were partially suffered by the Council
of Ten to transpire were so imperfectly explained, and so liable to
suspicion from the habitual iniquity of their policy, as to have given
rise to a thousand various and contradictory versions of the same events.
Of these we shall attempt to collect only such as are scarcely open to
doubt.

The Venetians had no reason to hope that the exasperation of the Spanish
government, at the part which they had taken in the late war in Italy,
would die away with the termination of hostilities; and it appeared to
the world a consequence of the enmity of the court of Madrid towards
the republic that the duke of Osuna, the viceroy of Naples, continued
his warlike equipments in that kingdom with undiminished activity,
notwithstanding the signature of peace. The viceroy, indeed, pretended
that his naval armaments were designed against the infidels; and when
the court of Madrid recalled the royal Spanish fleet from the coasts of
Italy, the duke of Osuna sent the Neapolitan squadron to sea under a flag
emblazoned with his own family arms. But it was difficult to suppose,
either that a viceroy dared to hoist his personal standard unsanctioned
by his sovereign and would be suffered to engage in a private war against
the Ottoman Empire, or that he would require for that purpose the charts
of the Venetian lagunes, and the flat-bottomed vessels fitted for
their navigation, which he busily collected. The republic accordingly
manifested serious alarm, and sedulously prepared for defence.

Affairs were in this state, when one morning several strangers were
found suspended from the gibbets of the square of St. Mark. The public
consternation increased when, on the following dawn, other bodies were
also found hanging on the same fatal spot--also of strangers. It was at
the same time whispered that numerous arrests had filled the dungeons
of the Council of Ten with some hundreds of criminals; and there was,
too, certain proof that many persons had been privately drowned in the
canals of Venice. To these fearful indications that the state had been
alarmed by some extraordinary danger, the terrors of which were magnified
by their obscurity, were shortly added further rumours that several
foreigners serving in the fleet had been poniarded, hanged, or cast into
the sea. The city was then filled with the most alarming reports: that
a conspiracy of long duration had been discovered; that its object was
to massacre the nobility, to destroy the republic, to deliver the whole
capital to flames and pillage; that the Spanish ambassador was the mover
of the horrible plot. Venice was filled with indignation and terror; yet
the impenetrable Council of Ten preserved the most profound silence,
neither confirming nor contradicting the general belief. The life of the
marquis of Bedmar was violently threatened by the populace: he retired
from Venice; the senate received a new ambassador from Spain without any
signs of displeasure; and, finally, it was not until five months after
the executions that the government commanded solemn thanksgiving to be
offered up to the Almighty for the preservation of the state from the
dangers which had threatened its existence.

[Sidenote: [1618-1619 A.D.]]

On the extent of these dangers nothing was ever certainly known; but
amongst the persons executed the most conspicuous was ascertained to be
a French naval captain of high reputation for ability and courage in his
vocation, Jacques Pierre, who, after a life passed in enterprises of a
doubtful or piratical character, had apparently deserted the service of
the viceroy of Naples to embrace that of the republic. This man, and a
brother adventurer, one Langlade, who had been employed in the arsenal
in the construction of petards and other fireworks, were absent from
Venice with the fleet when the other executions took place; and they were
suddenly put to death while on this service. Two other French captains
named Regnault and Bouslart, with numerous foreigners, principally of
the same nation, who had lately been taken into the republican service,
were privately tortured and executed in various ways in the capital; and
altogether 260 officers and other military adventurers are stated to
have perished by the hands of the executioner for their alleged share
in the conspiracy. The vengeance or shocking policy of the Council
of Ten proceeded yet further; and so careful was that body to bury
every trace of this inexplicable affair in the deepest oblivion, that
Antoine Jaffier, also a French captain, and other informers, who had
revealed the existence of a plot, though at first rewarded, were all in
the sequel either known to have met a violent death, or mysteriously
disappeared altogether. Of the three Spanish ministers, to whom it has
been customary to assign the origin of the conspiracy, the two principal
were distinguished by opposite fates. The marquis of Bedmar, after the
termination of his embassy, found signal political advancement, and
finished by obtaining a cardinal’s hat, by the interest of his court
with the holy see. But the duke of Osuna, after being removed from
viceroyalty, was disgraced on suspicion of having designed to renounce
his allegiance, and to place the crown of Naples on his own head; and he
died in prison.

Whether the safety of Venice had really been endangered or not by the
machinations of Spain, the measures of that power were observed by the
senate with a watchful and jealous eye; and, for many years, the policy
of the republic was constantly employed in endeavours to counteract the
projects of the house of Austria. In 1619, the Venetians perceived with
violent alarm that the court of Madrid, under pretence of protecting the
Catholics of the Valtelline against their rulers, the Protestants of the
Grison confederation, was labouring to acquire the possession of that
valley, which, by connecting the Milanese states with the Tyrol, would
cement the dominions of the Spanish and German dynasties of the Austrian
family. The establishment of this easy communication was particularly
dangerous for the Venetians, because it would envelop their states, from
the Lisonzo to the Po, with an unbroken chain of hostile posts, and
would intercept all direct intercourse with Savoy and the territories of
France. The senate eagerly therefore negotiated the league between these
last two powers and their republic, which, in 1623, was followed by the
Grison war against the house of Austria. This contest produced little
satisfactory fruits for the Venetians; and it did not terminate before
the Grisons, though they recovered their sovereignty over the Valtelline,
had themselves embraced the party of Spain.

[Sidenote: [1619-1645 A.D.]]

The Grison war had not closed, when Venice was drawn, by her systematic
opposition to the Spanish power, into a more important quarrel--that of
the Mantuan Succession, in which she of course espoused the cause of the
Gonzaga of Nevers. In this struggle the republic, who sent an army of
twenty thousand men into the field on her Lombard frontiers, experienced
nothing but disgrace; and the senate were but too happy to find their
states left, by the Peace of Cherasco in 1631, precisely in the same
situation as before the war; while the prince whom they had supported
remained seated on the throne of Mantua. This pacification reconciled
the republic with the house of Austria, and terminated her share in the
Italian wars of the seventeenth century. Her efforts to promote the
deliverance of the peninsula from the Spanish power can scarcely be said
to have met with success; nor was the rapid decline of that monarchy,
which had already commenced, hastened, perhaps, by her hostility. But she
had displayed remarkable energy in the policy of her counsels; and the
recovery of her own particular independence was at least triumphantly
effected. So completely were her pretensions to the sovereignty of
the Adriatic maintained that, when in the year 1630, just before the
conclusion of the Mantuan War, a princess of the Spanish dynasty wished
to pass by sea from Naples to Trieste, to espouse the son of the emperor,
the senator refused to allow the Spanish squadron to escort her, as an
infringement upon their right of excluding every foreign armament from
those waters; but they gallantly offered their own fleet for her service.
The Spanish government at first rejected the offer; but the Venetians,
says Giannone, boldly declared that, if the Spaniards were resolved to
prefer a trial of force to their friendly proposal, the infanta must
fight her way to her wedding through fire and smoke. The haughty court of
Madrid was compelled to yield; and the Venetian admiral, Antonio Pisani,
then gave the princess a convoy in splendid bearing to Trieste with a
squadron of light galleys.

_Venetian Wars with the Turks_

[Sidenote: [1645-1657 A.D.]]

Throughout the remainder of the seventeenth century, the affairs of
Venice had little connection with those of the older Italian states; and
in tracing the annals of the republic, our attention is wholly diverted
to the Eastern theatre of her struggles against the Ottoman power. It was
a sudden and overwhelming aggression which first broke the long interval
of peace between the Turkish and Venetian governments. Under pretence
of taking vengeance upon the knights of Malta, for the capture of some
Turkish vessels, the Porte fitted out an enormous expedition; and 348
galleys and other vessels of war, with an immense number of transports,
having on board a land-force of fifty thousand men, issued from the
Dardanelles with the ostensible design of attacking the stronghold of
the order of St. John (1645). But instead of making sail for Malta, the
fleet of the sultan steered for the shores of Candia; and unexpectedly,
and without any provocation, the Turkish army disembarked on that island.
The Venetians, although the senate had conceived some uneasiness on the
real destination of the Ottoman expedition, were little prepared for
resistance; but they defended themselves against this faithless surprise
with remarkable courage, and even with desperation. During a long war of
twenty-five years, the most ruinous which they had ever sustained against
the infidels, the Venetian senate and all classes of their subjects
displayed a zealous energy and a fortitude worthy of the best days of
their republic. But the resources of Venice were no longer what they
had been in the early ages of her prosperity; and although the empire
of the sultans had declined from the meridian of its power, the contest
was still too disproportionate between the fanatical and warlike myriads
of Turkey and the limited forces of a maritime state. The Venetians,
perhaps, could not withdraw from the unequal conflict with honour; but
the prudent senate might easily foresee its disastrous result.

The first important operation of the Turkish army in Candia was the
siege of Canea, one of the principal cities of the island. Before the
end of the first campaign, the assailants had entered that place by
capitulation; but so gallant was the defence that, although the garrison
was composed only of two or three thousand native militia, twenty
thousand Turks are said to have fallen before the walls. Meanwhile, at
Venice, all orders had rivalled each other in devotion and pecuniary
sacrifices to preserve the most valuable colony of the state; and
notwithstanding the apathy of Spain, the disorders of France and the
empire, and other causes, which deprived the republic of the efficient
support of Christendom against a common enemy, the senate were able to
reinforce the garrisons of Candia, and to oppose a powerful fleet to the
infidels. The naval force of the republic was still indeed very inferior
in numbers to that of the Moslems; but this inferiority was compensated
by the advantages of skill and disciplined courage; and throughout the
war the offensive operations of the Venetians on the waves strikingly
displayed their superiority in maritime science and conduct. For many
successive years, the Venetian squadrons assumed and triumphantly
maintained their station, during the seasons of active operations, at
the mouth of the Dardanelles, and blockaded the straits and the port
of Constantinople. The Mussulmans constantly endeavoured with furious
perseverance to remove the shame of their confinement by an inferior
force; but they were almost always defeated. The naval trophies of Venice
were swelled by many brilliant victories, but by five in particular:
in 1649 near Smyrna; in 1651 near Paros; in 1655 at the passage of the
Dardanelles; and, in the two following years, at the same place. In
these encounters, the exploits of the patrician families of Morosini, of
Grimani, of Mocenigo emulated the glorious deeds of their illustrious
ancestors; and their successes gave temporary possession to the republic
of some ports in Dalmatia, and of several islands in the Archipelago.

But, notwithstanding the devotion and courage of the Venetians on their
own element, and their desperate resistance in the fortresses of Candia,
the war in that island was draining the life-blood of the republic,
without affording one rational hope of ultimate success. The vigilance of
the Venetian squadrons could not prevent the Turks from feeding their
army in Candia with desultory and perpetual reinforcements of janissaries
and other troops from the neighbouring shore of the Morea; and whenever
tempests, or exhaustion, or the overwhelming strength of the Ottoman
armaments compelled the republican fleet to retire into port, the numbers
of the invading army were swollen by fresh thousands. The exhaustless
stream of the Ottoman population was directed with unceasing flow
towards the scene of contest: the Porte was contented to purchase the
acquisition of Candia by the sacrifice of hecatombs of human victims. To
raise new resources, the Venetian senate were reduced to the humiliating
expedient of offering the dignity of admission into their body and
the highest offices of state to public sale: to obtain the continued
means of succouring Candia, they implored the aid of all the powers of
Europe. As the contest became more desperate, their entreaties met with
general attention; and almost every Christian state afforded them a few
reinforcements. But these were never simultaneous or numerous; and though
they arrested the progress of the infidels, they only protracted the
calamitous struggle.

[Sidenote: [1648-1669 A.D.]]

In 1648 the Turkish army had penetrated to the walls of Candia, the
capital of the island; and for twenty years they kept that city in a
continued state of siege. But it was only in the year 1666 that the
assaults of the infidels attained their consummation of vigour, by the
debarkation of reinforcements which raised their army to seventy thousand
men, and on the arrival of Akhmet Kiupergli, the famous Ottoman vizir,
to assume in person the direction of their irresistible force. This
able commander was opposed by a leader in no respect inferior to him,
Francesco Morosini, captain-general of the Venetians; and thenceforth
the defence of Candia was signalised by prodigies of desperate valour,
which exceed all belief. But we, in these days, are surprised to find
that the Turks, in the direction of their approaches, and the employment
of an immense battering train, showed a far superior skill to that of the
Christians. The details of the siege of Candia belong to the history of
the military art; but the general reader will best imagine the obstinacy
of the defence from the fact that, in six months, the combatants
exchanged thirty-two general assaults and seventeen furious sallies; that
above six hundred mines were sprung; and that four thousand Christians
and twenty thousand Mussulmans perished in the ditches and trenches of
the place.

The most numerous and the last reinforcements received by the Venetians
was six thousand French troops, despatched by Louis XIV under the dukes
of Beaufort and Navailles. The characteristic rashness of their nation
induced these commanders, contrary to the advice of Morosini, to hazard
an imprudent sortie, in which they were totally defeated, and the former
of these noblemen slain. After this disaster, no entreaty of Morosini
could prevent the duke of Navailles from abandoning the defence of the
city, with a precipitation as great as that which had provoked the
calamity. The French re-embarked; the other auxiliaries followed their
example; and Morosini was left with a handful of Venetians among a mass
of blackened and untenable ruins. Thus deserted, after a glorious though
hopeless resistance which has immortalised his name, Francesco Morosini
ventured on his sole responsibility to conclude a treaty of peace with
the vizir, which the Venetian senate, notwithstanding their jealousy of
such unauthorised acts in their officers, rejoiced to confirm. The whole
island of Candia, except two or three ports, was surrendered to the
Turks; the republic preserved her other possessions in the Levant; and
the war was thus terminated by the event of a siege, in the long course
of which the incredible number of 120,000 Turks and 30,000 Christians are
declared to have perished (1669).

[Sidenote: [1669-1687 A.D.]]

Notwithstanding the unfortunate issue of this war, the Venetian republic
had not come off without honour from an unequal struggle, which had been
signalised by ten naval victories and by one of the most stubborn and
brilliant defences recorded in history. Although, therefore, a prodigious
expenditure of blood and treasure had utterly drained the resources of
the republic, her courage was unsubdued, and her pride was even augmented
by the events of the contest. The successes of the infidels had inspired
less terror than indignant impatience and thirst of revenge; and the
senate watched in secret for the first favourable occasion of retaliating
upon the Mussulmans. After the Venetian strength had been repaired by
fifteen years of uninterrupted repose and prosperous industry, this
occasion of vengeance was found, in the war which the Porte had declared
against the empire in 1682. An offensive league was signed between the
emperor, the king of Poland, the czar of Muscovy, and the Venetians. The
principal stipulation of this alliance was that each party should be
guaranteed in the possession of its future conquests from the infidels;
and the republic immediately fitted out a squadron of twenty-four sail of
the line, and about fifty galleys.

There appeared but one man at Venice worthy of the chief command--that
Francesco Morosini, who had so gallantly defended Candia, and whom the
senate and people had rewarded with the most flagrant ingratitude. A
strange and wanton accusation of cowardice was too palpably belied by
every event of his public life to be persisted in, even by the envy
which his eminent reputation had provoked, and by the malignity that
commonly waits upon public services, where they have been unfortunate.
But a second and unprovoked charge of malversation had been followed by
imprisonment. Still, however, devoting himself to his country’s cause,
and forgetting his private injuries, Morosini shamed his enemies by a
noble revenge; and, once more at the head of the Venetian armaments, he
led them to a brilliant career of victory. The chief force of the Ottoman
Empire was diverted to the Austrian War; and the vigorous efforts of the
republican armies were feebly or unsuccessfully resisted by the divided
strength of the Mussulmans. In the first naval campaign, the mouth of the
Adriatic was secured by the reduction of the island of Santa Maura, one
of the keys of that sea; and the neighbouring continent of Greece was
invaded. In three years more, Morosini consummated his bold design of
wresting the whole of the Morea from the infidels. In the course of the
operations in that peninsula, the count of Königsmark, a Swedish officer
who was entrusted with the command of the Venetian land-forces under
the captain-general, inflicted two signal defeats in the field upon the
Turkish armies. Modon, Argos, and Napoli di Romania, the capital of the
Morea, successfully fell after regular sieges.[c]

The year 1687 was not so propitious for the Venetians; nevertheless
Morosini rendered himself master of Lepanto and Corinth. The conquest of
the Morea was nearly completed. At this time the senate voted for the
great captain a bust in bronze, bearing the inscription: “_Francisco
Maurocenico Peloponnesiaco adhuc viventi Senatus_.” This honour redoubled
the ardour of Morosini. After conquering Sparta he turned to Attica,
and laying siege to Athens easily took it. It was in this assault on
Athens that a shell struck the Parthenon, of which the Turks had made a
powder magazine, and reduced that celebrated edifice to ruins. Morosini,
who to skill in war and love of country added admiration for the great
and beautiful, did his best to save what he could of this venerated
relic, and exclaimed: “Oh Athens, protector of Art, to what art thou
reduced!” Thus was ancient Greece avenged on ancient barbarism. But
different rulers had left too deep furrows on this sacred soil to enable
the republic of Venice, already enfeebled, to recall it to life; there
reigned the silence of a past which could never be renewed.

[Sidenote: [1687-1695 A.D.]]

In 1688 the Venetian fleet leaving the Gulf of Ægina operated against
the island of Negropont (Eubœa), but was unable to take it, not only on
account of the resistance offered by the Turks, but because sickness
had begun to decimate the ranks, and a band of Germans fighting for the
republic were withdrawn. The Venetians were however continually gaining
victories in Dalmatia, while the Turks were frequently discomfited in
Hungary; so that the latter began to make proposals for peace. The
demands of the allies, however, were so exorbitant that the negotiations
failed, and the Turks decided to continue the war to the utmost of their
power, a decision which was influenced by the turbulent state of Europe.
Morosini was not discouraged by this new boldness on the part of the
Turks; he had now been raised to the supreme dignity of the dogeship,
and wished by some fresh, great deed to prove that the republic had done
wisely in reposing complete faith in him. He had in his mind the design
of attempting once more the conquest of Negropont; but the forces there
being already under other leaders, he decided to take Monembasia, which
would make the conquest of the Morea quite complete. But the siege had
scarcely begun when Morosini fell ill, and he was obliged to surrender
his command to Girolamo Cornaro and return to Venice. The porte brought
forward fresh proposals for peace, but they were rejected.

The emperor wished to employ all his forces against the French; he was
not disinclined to listen to suggestions for an agreement. Knowing this,
the Venetians understood how much it was to their interest to conduct
carefully the enterprise which they had in hand, so that if peace
should be concluded it might be to their advantage. So Cornaro assailed
Monembasia with great ardour until he finally mastered it, after which
he attacked the Ottoman fleet and defeated it at Mytilene. After the
taking of Vallona, which was dismantled, an illness ended Cornaro’s
honoured life. Domenico Mocenigo who succeeded him in his command was
very different from his predecessor. An attempt made by him to conquer
Candia failed through his cowardice; he was punished by the senate,
who deprived him of his command and begged Morosini to place himself
once more at the head of the army. Morosini, though well on in years,
started at once from Monembasia the 24th of May, 1693. On this occasion,
however, he did nothing very remarkable beyond acquiring possession
of some islands--among others Salamis; partly because the season was
unfavourable, and the Turks were strongly fortified in the Hellenic
territory which still remained to them. He died not long after (January
9th, 1694), and was succeeded in his command by Antonio Zeno.

The new commander, while the troops were gaining fresh victories in
Dalmatia, took Scio; but he afterwards allowed a favourable opportunity
of defeating the Turkish fleet to escape him, and did not even trouble to
keep Scio which he had conquered. He was called upon to give an account
of his conduct, and thrown into prison where he died before sentence
had been pronounced against him. His successor, Alessandro Molin, was
more fortunate. It seemed as though the star of Venice was once more
declining, and the enemy’s forces again became threatening. The Turks,
recovering from the defeats they had sustained, again attempted the
reconquest of the Morea. But not only were they unsuccessful in this,
but Molin determined to meet them off Scio and there gained over them a
signal victory. Equally auspicious for Venice were the years 1696, 1697,
1698, in which last, on September 20th, the purveyor extraordinary,
Girolan Dolfin, gained another naval victory by which supremacy of the
sea was secured to the republic and the dominion of the Archipelago
guaranteed. But already the other great victory of Zenta, within the
military boundaries, was gained by Prince Eugene of Savoy on September
11th; and as the Turks lost their grand vizir, seventeen pashas, thirty
thousand soldiers dead and three thousand prisoners, the sultan was
convinced that the only thing which remained for him to do was to sue
once more for peace, the more so as Cornale, who succeeded Molin as
commander, had in various encounters defeated the Ottoman army and,
closing the passage of the Dardanelles, had several times reduced
Constantinople to starvation. The Christian powers were not this time
deaf to the request of the sultan. They perceived the necessity of making
peace with the East, since the hopes and fears growing out of the war of
the Spanish Succession had given rise to contentions of all kinds among
the three cabinets.

[Sidenote: [1695-1699 A.D.]]

Through the mediation of England and Holland--after the overcoming of
many difficulties brought forward principally by the Venetians, who
feared that they might lose in peace what they had gained in war, or
that they would not receive from the empire, a rival power, all due
regard for their interests--on the 13th of November, 1693, the imperial
plenipotentiaries, with those of Poland, Russia, Venice, and the Turks,
assembled in congress at Karlowitz, a town on the Danube to the south of
Peterwardein.[d]

By the Treaty of Karlowitz, which the republic, in concert with the
empire, concluded with the Ottoman Porte, Venice retained all her
conquests in the Morea (including Corinth and its isthmus), the islands
of Algina and Santa Maura, and some Dalmatian fortresses which she had
captured; and she restored Athens and her remaining acquisitions on the
Grecian continent (1699).[c]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVII. ITALY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: [1701-1800 A.D.]]

Italy’s condition when she left the death-stricken hands of the dynasty
of Charles V made a lively impression on her new sovereigns. It showed
what could be done towards the unhappiness of a country by foreign
rule--a rule which only thought from day to day of gathering fruits of
conquest, without even trying to assure those of the morrow.

For a century and a half the governors of Milan and Naples, and following
their example the independent sovereigns, egoists, or oppressors, with
rare exceptions, had allowed ancient evils to subsist or replaced them
by new ones. They had only sought to exploit to their own profit the
privileges, the old institutions of the Middle Ages, instead of reforming
or ameliorating them. Nobles and clergy in particular had been left in
possession of their old rights over the chase, fishing, mills, furnaces,
justice even, and were the real instruments of domination. Thence arose
the strangest position of affairs.

Legislations, ancient and contradictory customs which in the south
went back to the Normans, the Hohenstaufens, and the Angevins, or in
the north at Bologna, Florence, Pisa, Siena, survived in institutions
of lost republics, formed an inextricable chaos where the arbitrator
reaped a rich harvest. Privileges and jurisdictions, both feudal and
clerical, confused or perverted the systems of judicial and political
administration; taxation varied in every country and for every person;
power made itself oppressively but universally felt. The general
tax-collectors, to whom finance was given over, and venal officials, who
represented authority, still further augmented disorder. Lastly the power
of the holy see, taking a more active part in political institutions in
Italy than anywhere else, came as a final burden.

In the country the rights of primogeniture, mortgage, trusteeship,
and free pasturage condemned the land to sterility. In towns the old
corporations, statutes, and recent monopolies killed all commerce and
industry. There were hardly any natural products in this the most fertile
country of Europe, still less of manufactured products in towns which
formerly had filled the markets of Europe with their exports, and the
bad condition of the roads overburdened with turnpikes did not allow of
transit over a peninsula so admirably situated and which in the Middle
Ages had served as a link between Europe and the Levant. Moreover the
deserted state of Apulia recalled the times of the decadence of the Roman
Empire. In the kingdom of Naples the royal pasturage had an extent of
fifty miles in length and fifteen miles in breadth. In Tuscany and the
papal states the Maremma reached as far as the Mediterranean coasts. The
greater part of the towns in central and southern Italy were depopulated,
their palaces deserted, the houses fallen into ruins and never repaired.
Even literature and art, which had maintained themselves up to that time,
had now shared the common fate.[h]

[Sidenote: [1701-1725 A.D.]]

Politically the eighteenth century, like the sixteenth, began in Italy
with fifty years of warfare; but the sufferings of the country, although
often heavy, were always much lighter than those which had prevailed
during the great struggle between France and the house of Charles V.

There broke out successively four European wars, into all of which the
Italians were dragged by their foreign masters.[f] The first of these was
the war of the Spanish Succession; the second, the war of the Quadruple
Alliance; the third, the war of the Polish Succession; the fourth,
the war of the Austrian Succession. A brief review of the effect upon
Italy of these wars will form the chief topic of the present chapter.
But before taking up the sweep of these political events, it may be of
interest to glance at the internal conditions of the most interesting of
Italian states, Tuscany, and witness the passing of its famous family of
Medici, which now becomes extinct after three centuries of domination.
Cosmo III, who occupied the ducal throne at the close of the century,
continued to reign until 1723.[a]

Although neither public nor private conditions were very satisfactory
under his government, the brilliancy of the court gave no indication
that times were bad. There never was a time of greater luxury, nor had
so many rich gifts ever found their way into foreign lands before.
Cosmo had an abnormal craving for notoriety. He wished to pass for
the most magnificent of sovereigns, while his ever-increasing leaning
towards piety gave rise to the most singular contrasts between his
private and his court life--contrasts which were intensified by the
habits and surroundings of his sons and for a time of his own brother
also. The latter, Francesco Maria, when cardinal, knew no moderation
in his expenditure, and the learned French Benedictines who saw him in
Rome, in 1687, report that the grand duke was forced on account of his
extravagance to recall him to Siena, and then describe how refreshments
alone cost him daily twenty-five _louis d’or_. Besides monks of all
orders, who were always to be found in the palace (the prince had founded
near the Ambrogiana an Alcantarian[21] monastery which was maintained at
his expense), individuals of all nations presented themselves at court.
The ambassadors took the greatest pains to gratify Cosmo’s wishes: Czar
Peter sent him four Calmucks, and from the Danish king, Frederick IV,
he received Greenlanders. The residences were filled with treasures and
curiosities of all kinds, and the princely vineyards and gardens were
of the choicest. At the end of the winter of 1719, King Frederick IV of
Denmark spent nearly six weeks in Florence, which he had already visited
as crown prince in 1692 under the incognito of the count of Schaumburg.
The great trouble which the ceremonial gave, in spite of the incognito
on that occasion, is described by the prince’s attendant, Hans Heinrich
von Ahlefeld, in his account of the journey. An inscription on the
archway of the Porta San Gallo commemorates the visit of the Scandinavian
monarch, whose predecessor, Christian I, had passed through that very
gate 235 years before. Cosmo celebrated the visit of his exalted guest,
in spite of the Lenten season, by balls and music. A large print which
represents the evening progress of the princess Violante Beatrice at the
time of the investment of Siena on April 12th, 1717, gives some idea of
the brilliancy and ceremonial as well as of the costumes and uniforms in
customary use on official occasions: the princess drove through the gaily
decorated town in her state carriage, almost entirely made of crystal
and drawn by six horses, surrounded by pages and halberdiers bearing
torches, and followed by the magnificent carriages of the nobility on
to the Piazza del Campo, whose every tower and roof was brilliantly
illuminated and which was filled to overflowing by a surging crowd.
The privations and losses of later years so depressed Cosmo, however,
that he could think of nothing but his religious exercises, and the
distinguished flower of Florentine youth went into foreign lands to
seek compensation for the restrictions imposed upon them at home. When
in 1720 the electoral princess of the Palatinate, who was by no means a
pleasure-seeker, felt it incumbent upon her to break through this severe
régime by encouraging the carnival festivities, the whole nation showed
unmistakably how hateful this morose existence had been to them.[b]

Cosmo III died at an advanced age on October 31st, 1723, leaving as
his successor his son Giovan Gastone. The country at this time was
plunged in debt, industries had decayed, prosperity was destroyed.
The new archduke drove away the monks and priestly flatterers that
had surrounded his father, suppressed several pensions that had been
awarded, converted heretics, Turks, and Jews--lightened, in a word, many
of the burdens that oppressed the land without displaying the energy
necessary to remove the worst evils from which it suffered. He held at a
distance his German wife, who had lately entered with alacrity upon the
duties of her position as reigning archduchess in Florence. In matters
pertaining to exterior politics he followed closely in the footsteps of
his father. Entertaining little hope of setting aside the decisions of
the Quadruple Alliance, he took good care to fix the allodial estates of
the house of Medici and to indicate which portions could be looked upon
as territorial and which must be ceded to the electress of the Palatinate
as compensation for the future transfer of the feudal tenure to another
family of the Medici female line.

A new turn was given to Tuscan affairs in 1725, while the belief still
prevailed that the infante Charles would shortly arrive from Spain with
an armed force with the intention of so establishing himself in Tuscany
that his position and that of his successors could not be shaken either
by the negotiations at Cambray or the pretensions of the emperor. Instead
of this solution the Madrid court secretly despatched to Vienna Baron
de Ripperda, an able Belgian who had recently gone over to the Catholic
church. This envoy succeeded in effecting a separate contract between
the emperor and Philip V whereby Tuscany and Parma were to be held
as possessions of the infante Charles and his successors without the
establishment there of foreign garrisons, exactly in accordance with the
provisions of the Quadruple Alliance. Although this agreement (which
brought to a close the congress of Cambray) dispelled the fears of the
archduke as to an irruption of the Spaniards into his domains before his
death, and made possible an undisturbed continuance of his dissolute mode
of life, fresh mistrust arose between the courts of Vienna and Madrid
which created renewed tension in the affairs of the Italian states.[c]

[Sidenote: [1725-1743 A.D.]]

Giovan Gastone loved conviviality, and during the first years of
his reign he took part in the social functions given by the most
distinguished families in the capital. Florence seemed to be suddenly
transformed. The new sovereign put a stop to the prying censorship of
morals with which his predecessor had tormented his subjects of all
classes. After he had once made the regulations that seemed to him
urgently needed, he refused to hear anything more about the affairs of
administration, and he prohibited all reports on the life and doings of
his subjects. The doors of his palace were closed to all the monks and
clergy, and to the converts and neophytes that Cosmo had loved to gather
round him. The palace, however, gained nothing by the changed company
in which Giovan Gastone indulged, more especially during the last sad
years of his reign. When his father’s pensions to his clerical protégés
ceased, the ill-deserved gratuities bestowed upon the depraved clients
of Giuliano Dami, the _ruspanti_ (as they were called from their weekly
doles of the goldpieces known as _ruspo_) were much worse. The depravity
of morals from which the whole of Italy suffered had never been worse.
And Giovan Gastone’s indifference increased with his ill-health. “The
present court,” writes Johann Georg Keysler in January, 1730, “is very
quiet and dreary. The sister of the grand duke has turned _dévote_
and frequents cloisters and churches more than the court. The grand
duchess, widow of the elder brother, is of a lively disposition, it is
true, and particularly gracious to foreigners, but perhaps she shrinks
from the thought of passing for a lover of vanities in the eyes of her
sister-in-law. The grand duke himself has not left his room since last
July. No traveller or foreign minister is admitted to an audience with
him, and he spends most of his time in bed, partly on account of the
discomforts of asthma and dropsy from which he suffers, and partly on
account of the strong drinks and liquors which he takes.”

The presence of the infante Don Charles roused this gloomy court for
the last time. The prince shot hares and game in the Boboli Gardens and
drove through the corridor between the palace and the Uffizzi in a little
carriage drawn by a stag. As soon as he had gone everything returned to
its former gloom. Giovan Gastone did not leave his couch again. Only
once, just before the last crisis, when he felt himself a little better,
he was carried in his arm-chair to the window on the ground-floor, while
the surging crowds thronged the square. He doled out money by handfuls
and bought masses of things that were offered to him, such as books,
pictures, stuffs and all the thousand and one strange things which were
exposed for sale at this curious fair. Thus did the last of the Medici
bid his last farewell to the Florentine people.[b]

Gastone had no bounds to his profusion and the dissipation of their
wealth; and when he died (1737), his reign had inflicted many deep wounds
on the prosperity of Tuscany. The death of his sister, a few years
afterwards, completed the extinction of the sovereign house of Medici.
A distant collateral branch of the same original stock, descended from
one of the ancestors of the great Cosmo, was left to survive even to
these times; but no claim to the inheritance of the ducal house was
ever recognised in its members. Francis of Lorraine, the consort of
Maria Theresa of Austria, to whom this inheritance was assigned by the
Peace of Vienna, naturally resided little in Tuscany, and his elevation
to the imperial crown seemed to consign the grand duchy to the long
administration of foreign viceroys. But the governors chosen by Francis
were men of ability and virtue, who strove to ameliorate the condition
of the people; and on the death of the emperor Francis (1765), his will,
in consonance with the spirit of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, gave to
Tuscany a sovereign of its own. This was his second son, Peter Leopold,
to whom he bequeathed the grand duchy, while his eldest, Joseph II,
succeeded to his imperial crown. Leopold was only eighteen years of
age when he commenced a reign which exhibited to admiration the rare
spectacle of a patriot and a philosopher on the throne.[e] We shall have
occasion to make further reference to the life of this remarkable prince
later on. Now we must take up the development of Italian history in
general from the beginning of the century. Our first concern is with the
wars that grew out of the extinction of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain.[a]

ITALY IN THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION

[Sidenote: [1700-1765 A.D.]]

Charles II of Spain died without sons in the year 1700, and several
sovereigns, amongst whom was Victor Amadeus II, laid claim to the
throne and made alliances to obtain it, or at least to divide the vast
inheritance among themselves. Before dying, Charles had appointed Philip
duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV, to be his successor, and although
the country was exhausted and a terrible war could be foreseen, the king
of France accepted the inheritance for his grandson with the famous
saying, “The Pyrenees are no more.” Philip V was in fact recognised in
Madrid, but a European war of thirteen years’ duration followed.

The duke of Savoy was undecided what side to adopt, but willing or
unwilling he was compelled to side with France, and to give in marriage
to Philip V his daughter Maria Louisa, who in spite of her youth showed
great judgment, and during her husband’s absence on his campaign in
Italy, governed the kingdom in a wise and intelligent manner. Clement XI,
exalted in that year to the pontifical see, would not side with France,
but intervened to prevent war; and, seeing that he was unsuccessful,
endeavoured--but in vain--to form a league among the Italian princes to
save Italy from again becoming the arena of European wars. To this pope,
sincerely and courageously Italian, praise is due. Eugene of Savoy,
conqueror of the Turks, was despatched from Hungary to Italy against the
Franco-Piedmontese, and it must have grieved him to turn his arms against
his kinsman.

For two years the war was continued without any definite results, though
the French were worsted at Chiari, and their mediocre General Villeroi
was taken prisoner at Cremona; later at Luzzara in Modena the victory was
uncertain. Meanwhile Eugene, more than ever disgusted with the arrogance
of the French, endeavoured to separate the duke from the league, and had
no trouble in persuading him to abandon it. Louis XIV avenged himself by
taking prisoner all the Piedmontese on his territory. The duke arrested
the French ambassador, and appealed to his people saying, “I prefer the
honour of dying arms in hand to the shame of suffering myself to be
oppressed.” Having renewed his troops, he confronted the enemy’s arms
almost alone (Eugene had returned to fight in Germany); his courage
appeared to become stronger in danger.

Fortune does not always favour the good and brave, and Victor lost
many towns and was reduced to defending his own capital. A desperate
attack was made on the latter, but the citizens maintained their ancient
reputation.

[Sidenote: [1706-1714 A.D.]]

Before giving orders for the bombardment, La Feuillade, who commanded
the besiegers, sent word to the duke to inquire where he was quartered,
that he might spare him. “On the walls of the citadel,” replied the duke.
The defence being well ordered, the duke made a sally with a few brave
and tried followers. Thus threatened at close quarters, hearing distant
rumours of trouble, suffering, and every kind of want, the intrepid men
of Turin held out. The fury of the artillery, the laying of mines, the
assaults, lasted three months, but day and night the citizens above and
below ground watched and combated. Even from the orphanage the orphans
came forward to labour in the mines. Aid was expected, but it came not;
though the ever active Eugene was commissioned to bring reinforcements.
Eventually the two princes met, and together from the hill of Superga
they drew up the plan of battle, the duke promising to erect there a
church in thanksgiving if the victory was his.

[Illustration: TURIN]

Turin was in peril. On the 29th of August a large number of the enemy
reached a postern of the citadel unseen; a mine was laid at the spot, but
could not be fired without danger; in this imminent peril Pietro Nicco
d’Andorno, of Biella, made the companies retire, and like a new Decius
offered himself to die; the match being applied, he was buried with the
French under the ruins. This great deed brought glory on Turin, and the
fame of it shall live forever in the country. Nevertheless the French
occupied the castle of Pianezza, on the left bank of the Dora Riparia;
it was imperative that the Piedmontese should dislodge them from this
place, but for this it was necessary to take them unawares and they knew
not how. But an old peasant woman, by name Maria Bricca, discovered on
the night of the 5th of September that instead of keeping watch the
French were amusing themselves, and she immediately ran to give the news
in the Italian camp. At the head of the soldiers she led the way by a
subterranean passage into the castle, and, hatchet in hand, crying “_Viva
Savoia_” she informed the enemy they were prisoners.

Two days later Victor and Eugene, uniting their talents and forces,
inflicted on the French a crushing defeat, so that twenty thousand were
left dead on the field and the survivors fled beyond the Alps. The
Franco-Spaniards evacuated Naples; and the Austrians, solely because
they were the new lords, were greeted as friends and liberators. The war
was continued outside Italy, and later the exhausted powers were brought
to signing the Treaty of Utrecht 1713, confirmed the following year at
Rastatt. By this treaty Austria obtained Milan, Naples, and Sardinia;
Victor Amadeus obtained the far distant Sicily, Montferrat, Lomellina,
and Val di Susa, with the title of king; a few small states were
distributed--Mantua, Mirandola, and afterwards, Guastalla.

This aggrandisement of the house of Savoy and also that of Prussia
was specially insisted upon by England, then the peacemaker of the
continent and arbitrator in this peace, for which reason she intervened
between France and Austria, and preserved European equilibrium. Thus
were favoured the legitimate ambitions of two minor states, Piedmont
and Prussia, that aimed at a high mark, and in the similarity of their
fortunes they became the bulwarks of two nations, the hope and pride of
two countries.[d]

WAR OF THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE

[Illustration: COURT OF PALACE BUILT BY CHARLES VII OF NAPLES AT PORTICI
IN 1738]

[Sidenote: [1714-1718 A.D.]]

It was by the ambitious intrigues of an Italian princess and an Italian
priest, that the repose of the peninsula was again disturbed, only four
years after this pacification. Giulio Alberoni, the son of a peasant, and
originally a poor curate near Parma, had risen by his talents and artful
spirit to the office of first minister of Spain. Philip V, on the death
of his queen, Maria Louisa of Savoy, had espoused the princess Elizabeth
Farnese; and Alberoni, by means of this marriage, of which he was
regarded as the author, enjoyed the favour of the new queen, and acquired
an absolute ascendency over the feeble mind of her husband.

His first object was to obtain a cardinal’s hat for himself; and being
indulged with that honour by the pope, the next and more comprehensive
scheme of his ambition was to signalise his public administration. To
his energetic and audacious conceptions, it seemed not too gigantic
or arduous an undertaking to recover for the Spanish monarchy all its
ancient possessions and power in Italy, which had been totally lost by
the Peace of Utrecht. He duped the wily Victor Amadeus, and enlisted him
in his views by the promise of the Milanese provinces in exchange for
Sicily; and the disgust which the stern and haughty insolence of the
imperial government had already excited in the peninsula, rendered the
pope, the grand duke of Tuscany, and other Italian princes, not adverse
to the designs of the Spanish minister.

But the great powers of Europe looked with far different eyes upon his
unquiet ambition. The personal interest and feelings of the duke of
Orleans, who now governed France during the minority of Louis XV, placed
him in opposition to Philip V; and the duke discovered a plot laid by
Alberoni, through the Spanish ambassador at Paris, to deprive him of the
regency of France, to which the cardinal persuaded his master to assert
his claim as the nearest relative of Louis XV. The intrigues held with
the Scottish Jacobites by Alberoni, who had formed a chimerical scheme of
placing the pretender on the throne of Great Britain, and thus securing
a new and grateful ally for Spain, rendered George I as jealous as the
duke of Orleans of the designs of the court of Madrid. For their mutual
protection against the machinations of Alberoni, the British monarch and
the French regent negotiated a defensive league between Great Britain,
France, and Holland, which, by the accession of the emperor to its
objects, shortly swelled into the famous Quadruple Alliance (1718).

Besides the provision of the contracting parties for their mutual
defence, the Quadruple Alliance laboured at once to provide for the
continued repose of Italy, and to gratify the ambition both of the
family of Austria and of the Spanish house of Bourbon. Although Parma
and Piacenza were not feminine fiefs, the approaching extinction of the
male line of Farnese gave Elizabeth the best subsisting claim to the
succession of her uncle’s states. To the grand duchy of Tuscany she had
also pretensions by maternal descent, after the failure of the male
ducal line of Medici; which, like that of Farnese, seemed to be fast
approaching its termination. As, therefore, the children of the young
queen were excluded from the expectation of ascending the Spanish throne,
which the sons of Philip by his first marriage were of course destined
to inherit, the idea was conceived of forming an establishment in Italy
for Don Charles, her first-born; and the Quadruple Alliance provided
that the young prince should be guaranteed in the succession both of
Parma and Piacenza, and of Tuscany, on the death of the last princes of
the Farnese and Medicean dynasties. It was to reconcile the emperor to
this admission of a Spanish prince into Italy, that Sicily was assigned
to him in exchange for Sardinia. The weaker powers and the people were
alone sacrificed. While the princes of Parma and Tuscany were compelled
to endure the cruel mortification of seeing foreign statesmen dispose by
anticipation of their inheritance, during their own lives, and without
their option; and while, with a far more flagrant usurpation of natural
rights, the will of their subjects was as little consulted--it was
resolved to compel Victor Amadeus to receive, as an equivalent for his
new kingdom of Sicily, that of Sardinia, which boasted not a third part
of either its population or general value.

The provisions of the Quadruple Alliance were haughtily rejected by
Alberoni, who had already entered on the active prosecution of his
designs upon the Italian provinces. Having hitherto endeavoured, during
his short administration, to recruit the exhausted strength of Spain,
he now plunged that monarch headlong into a new contest, with such
forces as had been regained in four years of peace; and his vigorous,
but overwrought direction of the resources of the state, seemed at
first to justify his presumption. A body of eight thousand Spaniards
was disembarked on the island of Sardinia, and at once wrested that
kingdom from the feeble garrisons of the imperialists (1717). In the
following year, a large Spanish fleet of sixty vessels of war, convoying
thirty-five thousand land-forces, appeared in the Mediterranean; and
notwithstanding the previous negotiations of Alberoni with Victor
Amadeus, Sicily was the first object of attack. Against this perfidious
surprise, the Savoyard prince was in no condition to defend his new
kingdom; and though his viceroy at first endeavoured to resist the
progress of the Spanish arms, Victor Amadeus, sensible of his weakness
and inability to afford the necessary succours for preserving so
distant a possession, made a merit of necessity, and assented to the
provisions of the Quadruple Alliance (1718). Withdrawing his troops from
the contest, he assumed the title of king of Sardinia, though he yet
possessed not a foot of territory in that island.

[Sidenote: [1718-1731 A.D.]]

Meanwhile the powers of the Quadruple Alliance, finding all negotiations
hopeless, had begun to act vigorously against the Spanish forces. Even
before the open declaration of war, to which England and France had
now recourse to reduce the court of Spain to abandon its designs, Sir
George Byng, the British admiral in the Mediterranean, had not hesitated
to attack the Spanish fleet, which he completely annihilated off the
Sicilian coast. This disaster overthrew all the magnificent projects of
Alberoni. The British admiral poured the imperial troops from the Italian
continent into Sicily; and the Spaniards rapidly lost ground, and made
overtures for evacuating the island. The enterprises of the court of
Madrid were equally unfortunate in other quarters; and Philip V, at last
discovering the impracticability of Alberoni’s schemes, sacrificed his
minister to the jealousy of the European powers, and acceded to the terms
of the Quadruple Alliance (1719). Victor Amadeus was placed in possession
of the kingdom of Sardinia, which his house has retained ever since this
epoch with the regal title. The cupidity of the emperor was satisfied
by the reunion of the crowns of the Two Sicilies in his favour; and
the ambitious maternal anxiety of the Spanish queen was allayed by the
promised reversion of the states of the Medici and of her own family to
the infante Don Charles (1720).

For thirteen years after the conclusion of the war of the Quadruple
Alliance, Italy was left in profound and uninterrupted repose. The first
half of the eighteenth century was completely the age of political
chicanery; and the intricate negotiations, which engrossed the attention
and only served to expose the laborious insincerity of the statesmen of
Europe, seemed to be ever threatening new troubles. But the treaties,
which followed that of the Quadruple Alliance in thick succession for
many years, had no other effect in Italy than to secure the Parmesan
succession to the infante Don Charles of Spain. Francesco and Antonio,
the two surviving sons of the duke Ranuccio II of Parma and Piacenza, who
died in 1694, had both inherited the diseased and enormous corpulence of
their family. Neither of them had issue; the duke Francesco terminated
his reign and life in 1727; and Antonio, his successor, survived him
only four years. The death of the youngest of her uncles realised the
ambitious hopes which Elizabeth Farnese had cherished of conveying the
states of her own house to her son (1731). The male line of Farnese
having thus become extinct, the youthful Don Charles, with a body of
Spanish troops, was quietly put in possession of the duchies of Parma and
Piacenza, and reluctantly acknowledged by the last prince of the Medici
as his destined successor in the grand duchy of Tuscany.

THE WAR OF THE POLISH SUCCESSION

[Sidenote: [1731-1738 A.D.]]

The final settlement of the Parmesan and Tuscan succession seemed to
eradicate the seeds of hostilities in Italy; but it had become the
unhappy fortune of that country to follow captive in the train of foreign
negotiation, and to suffer and to bleed for the most distant broils of
her foreign masters. Only two years had elapsed after the elevation of
the Spanish prince to the ducal throne of Parma, when Italy was suddenly
chosen as the field for the decision of a quarrel which had originated
in the disputed election of a king of Poland. Upon this occasion, the
two branches of the Bourbon dynasty united in the same league against
the house of Austria, and resolved to attack its possessions in Italy.
Charles Emmanuel III, the new king of Sardinia, joined their formidable
confederacy, and the imperial strength in the peninsula was crushed under
its weight.

While Charles Emmanuel, at the head of the French and Piedmontese troops,
easily conquered the whole Milanese states in a short time, the Spaniards
at Parma, being delivered of all apprehension for the issue of the war in
Lombardy, found themselves at liberty to divert their views to the south.
A Spanish army of thirty thousand men disembarked in the peninsula under
the duke of Montemar, and joined Don Charles; and that young prince, at
the age of seventeen, assuming the nominal command-in-chief of the forces
of Spain in Italy, led them to attempt the conquest of the Sicilies.
The duke of Montemar, who guided his military operations, gained for
him a complete and decisive victory at Bitonto in Apulia over the
feeble imperial army, which was intrusted with the defence of southern
Italy. The opposition of language, and manners, and character, between
the Germans and Italians, rendered the cold sullen tyranny of Austria
peculiarly hateful to the volatile Neapolitans; and they eagerly threw
off a yoke to which time had not yet habituated them. The capital had
already opened its gates before the battle of Bitonto; and the provinces
hastened to offer a ready submission to the conquerors. The Sicilians
imitated the example of their continental neighbours; and at Naples and
Palermo Don Charles received the crowns of the Two Sicilies (1735).

For the facility with which the Spaniards had effected these conquests,
they were principally indebted to the powerful operations of the French
in Lombardy, and to the vigour with which the armies of Louis XV pressed
those of the emperor in Germany, and prevented him from despatching
sufficient succours to his Italian dependencies. The court of Madrid now
began to cherish again the hope of recovering the whole of the Italian
provinces, which the Spanish monarchy had lost by the Peace of Utrecht;
and the duke of Montemar conducted his army into Lombardy to unite with
the French and Piedmontese in completing the expulsion of the Austrians
from the peninsula. But the emperor, discouraged by so many reverses,
made overtures of peace; and the French cabinet was not disposed to
indulge the ambition of Spain with further acquisitions.

Negotiations for a general peace were opened, to which Philip V was
compelled to accede; and at length the confirmation of the preliminaries
by the Peace of Vienna once more changed the aspect of Italy. The crowns
of Naples and Sicily were secured to Don Charles. The provinces of Milan
and Mantua were left to the emperor; the duchies of Parma and Piacenza
were annexed to his Lombard possessions to recompense him in some measure
for the loss of the Sicilies; and the extinction of the house of Medici
by the death of the grand duke Giovan Gastone, while the negotiations
were yet pending, completed a new arrangement for the succession of
Tuscany. Francis, duke of Lorraine, who had lately received the hand
of Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter and heiress of the emperor, took
possession of the grand duchy, in exchange for his hereditary states; and
Charles VI was gratified by this favourable provision for his son-in-law
and destined successor in the imperial dignity. Finally, the king of
Sardinia, in lieu of the ambitious hopes, with which he had been amused,
of possessing all the Milanese duchy, was obliged to content himself with
the acquisition of the valuable districts of Tortona and Novara.

THE WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION

[Sidenote: [1738-1742 A.D.]]

This general accommodation among the arbiters of Italy procured only a
brief interval of repose for the degraded people of the peninsula, before
they were exposed to far greater evils than those which they had suffered
in the short course of the late war. The emperor Charles VI died only two
years after the confirmation of the Peace of Vienna; and the very powers
who by that treaty had guaranteed the famous Pragmatic Sanction--or
act by which the emperor, as he had no son, was allowed to settle his
hereditary states upon his daughter Maria Theresa--conspired to rob her
of those dominions. The furious war of the Austrian Succession which
followed, filled Italy during seven years with rapine and havoc.

In the year after the death of Charles VI, a Spanish army under the duke
of Montemar, disembarked on the Tuscan coast to attempt further conquests
in Italy; and although these troops arrived to attack the territories
of his consort, the new grand duke was obliged to affect a neutrality
and to permit their free passage through his dominions. On the other
hand, the king of the Sicilies, who desired to aid his father’s forces
in their operations, was equally compelled to accept a neutrality, by
the appearance of a British squadron in the bay of Naples, and the
threatened bombardment of that city. This humiliation, to which the
exposed situation of his capital reduced him, did not, however, prevent
the Neapolitan monarch at a later period from taking part in the war. But
his engagement in the contest had only the effect of drawing the Austrian
arms into southern Italy, and inflicting the ravages of a licentious
soldiery upon the neutral states of the church and the frontiers of
Naples (1742).

But northern Italy was the constant theatre of far more destructive
hostilities; and the Italian sovereign, who acted the most conspicuous
part in the general war of Europe, was Charles Emmanuel III, the king
of Sardinia. That active and politic prince, pursuing the skilful but
selfish and unscrupulous system of aggrandisement, which had become
habitual to the Savoyard dynasty, made a traffic of his alliance to the
highest bidder. He first offered to join the confederated Bourbons;
but the court of Spain could not be induced to purchase his adherence
by promising him an adequate share of the Milanese states, which the
Spaniards were confident of regaining. Charles Emmanuel therefore
deserted the Bourbon alliance to range himself in the party of Maria
Theresa. But it was not until he had extorted new cessions of territory
from that princess in Lombardy, and large subsidies from England which
protected her, that he entered seriously and vigorously into the war,
as the auxiliary of Austria and England. As soon as Charles Emmanuel
began to declare himself against the Bourbon cause, his states became
immediately the prey of invasion. Although the Spanish dynasty pretended
to lay claim to the whole succession of the house of Austria, the real
motive which actuated the court of Madrid in these wars was the ambition
of the queen of Spain, Elizabeth Farnese, to obtain an establishment
in Italy for another of her sons, the infante Don Philip; and that
prince, leading a Spanish army from the Pyrenees through the south of
France, overran and occupied all Savoy, which was mercilessly pillaged
by his troops. But Don Philip was unable to penetrate into Piedmont; and
meanwhile the duke of Montemar, with the Spanish army already in Italy,
had been oppressed successfully by the Austrians and Piedmontese on these
opposite frontiers of Lombardy.

[Sidenote: [1742-1748 A.D.]]

But Charles Emmanuel, even after he had formally pledged himself to
England and Austria, was perpetually carrying on secret and separate
negotiations with the Bourbons; and it was only because he could not
obtain all the terms which he demanded of them, and because he was also
as suspicious of their ill-faith as he was conscious of his own, that
he maintained his alliances unchanged to the end of the war (1743).
His states were almost constantly the theatre of hostilities, equally
destructive to his subjects, whether success or failure alternately
attended his career. Yet he displayed activity and skill and courage,
scarcely inferior to the brilliant qualities which had distinguished his
father, Victor Amadeus. When, however, the infante Don Philip had been
joined by the prince of Conti with twenty thousand men, all the efforts
of the Sardinian monarch, though he headed his troops in person, could
not resist the desperate valour of the French and Spanish confederates;
who, forcing the tremendous passes of the Alps, broke triumphantly into
Piedmont, and for some time swept over its plains as conquerors (1744).
But reinforced by the Austrians, Charles Emmanuel, before the end of
the same campaign, turned the tide of fortune, and obliged the allies
to retire for the winter into France. They still retained possession of
the duchy of Savoy, and crushed the inhabitants under every species of
oppression.

In the following year, Genoa declared for the Bourbon confederation; and
the Spanish and French forces under Don Philip, being thus at liberty
to form a junction in the territories of that republic with the second
Spanish army from Naples, the king of Sardinia and the Austrians were
utterly unable to resist their immense superiority of numbers (1745). In
this campaign, Parma and Piacenza were reduced by the duke of Modena, the
ally of France and Spain; Turin was menaced with bombardment; Tortona
fell to the Bourbon arms; Pavia was carried by assault; and Don Philip,
penetrating into the heart of Lombardy, closed the operations of the year
by his victorious entry into Milan.

But such were the sudden vicissitudes of this sanguinary war, that the
brilliant successes of the Spanish prince were shortly rendered nugatory
by a growing misunderstanding between the courts of Paris and Madrid,
and by the arrival of large reinforcements for the Austrian army in the
peninsula (1746). Don Philip lost, in less than another year, all that he
had acquired in the preceding campaign. He was driven out of Milan; he
was obliged to evacuate all Lombardy; and the French and Spanish forces
were finally compelled, by the increasing strength of the Austrians, to
recross the Alps, and to make their retreat into France. The king of
Sardinia and his allies carried the war into Provence, without meeting
with much success; and the French in their turn endeavoured once more to
penetrate into Piedmont. But while that quarter of Italy was threatened
with new ravages, the peninsula was saved from further miseries by the
signature of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748).

One of the declared purposes of the European powers in their assembled
congress was to give independence to Italy; and if that object could
have been attained without the restoration of ancient freedom, and the
revival of national virtue among the Italians, the provisions of the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle would have been wise and equitable. The
Austrians were permitted to retain only Milan and Mantua; and all other
foreign powers consented to exclude themselves from the peninsula. The
grand duke Francis of Lorraine, now become emperor, engaged to resign
Tuscany to a younger branch of his imperial house. The throne of the Two
Sicilies was confirmed to Don Charles and his heirs, to form a distinct
and independent branch of the Spanish house of Bourbon; and the duchies
of Parma and Piacenza were elevated anew into a sovereign state in favour
of Don Philip, who thus became the founder of a third dynasty of the
same family. The king of Sardinia received some further accessions of
territory, which were detached from the duchy of Milan; and all the other
native powers of Italy remained, or were re-established, in their former
condition.

FORTY YEARS OF “LANGUID PEACE” FOR DIVIDED ITALY

[Sidenote: [1748-1789 A.D.]]

Thus was Italy, after two centuries of prostration under the yoke of
other nations, relieved from the long oppression of foreigners. A small
portion only of her territory remained subject to the empire; and all the
rest of the peninsula was divided among a few independent governments.

But after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Italy was still as little
constituted as before to command the respect or the fear of the world.
Her people for the most part cherished no attachment for rulers to whom
they were indebted neither for benefits nor happiness, in whose success
they could feel no community of interest, and whose aggrandisement could
reflect no glory on themselves.

The condition of Italy after the nominal restoration of her independence,
offers, as a philosophical writer has well remarked, a striking lesson
of political experience. The powers of Europe, after having in some
measure annihilated a great nation, were at length awakened to a sense of
the injury which they had inflicted upon humanity, and upon the general
political system of the world. They laboured sincerely to repair the
work of destruction; there was nothing which they did not restore to
Italy, except what they could not restore--the extinguished energies and
dignity of the people. Forty years of profound peace succeeded to their
attempt; and these were only forty years of effeminacy, weakness, and
corruption--a memorable example to statesmen that the mere act of their
will can neither renovate a degraded nation, nor replenish its weight in
the political balance; and that national independence is a vain boon,
where the people are not interested in its preservation, and where no
institutions revive the spirit of honour, and the honest excitement of
freedom.

During these forty years of languid peace (from the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle to the epoch of the French Revolution) the general
history of Italy presents not a single circumstance for our observation;
and it only remains for us to pass in rapid review the few domestic
occurrences of any moment in the different Italian states of the
eighteenth century. The affairs of the Sicilies, of the popedom, of the
states of the house of Savoy, of the duchies of Tuscany and Modena,
of the republics of Genoa and Venice, and of the Milanese and Mantuan
provinces, may each require a brief notice. But the obscure or tranquil
fortunes of Lucca, and of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, would
scarcely merit a separate place in this enumeration.

The duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which had once more been separated
from that of Milan to form the independent appanage of a Spanish prince,
relapsed into the deep oblivion from which the dispute for their
possession had alone drawn them. Don Philip reigned until the year 1765,
and his son, Don Ferdinand, succeeded him. The administration of both of
these princes was, in a political sense, marked by no important event;
but the literary and scientific tastes of Don Philip entitle him to be
mentioned with respect, and shed some beneficial influence on his ducal
states.

THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES AND SICILY

[Sidenote: [1738-1765 A.D.]]

The transition of the crowns of Naples and Sicily, from the extinguished
Spanish branch of the house of Austria to the collateral line of Germany,
and from that dynasty again to a junior member of the Spanish Bourbons,
has already been noticed; and we take up the annals of the Sicilies from
the epoch only at which the infante Don Charles was confirmed in the
possession of their throne by the Treaty of Vienna. This sovereign, who
reigned at Naples under the title of Charles VII, but who is better known
by his later designation of Charles III of Spain, governed southern Italy
above twenty-one years.

The general reputation of his character has perhaps been much over-rated;
but, as the monarch of the Sicilies, he undoubtedly laboured to promote
the welfare of his kingdom. The war of the Spanish Succession paralysed
all his efforts during the first half of his reign; but after the
restoration of tranquillity in 1748, he devoted himself zealously and
exclusively to the pacific work of improvement. He was well seconded by
the virtuous intentions, if not by the limited talents, of his minister
Tanucci. The principal error of both proceeded from their ignorance of
the first principles of finance; and the cultivated mind and theoretical
knowledge of Tanucci fitted him less for the active conduct of affairs
than for the station of professor of law, from which the king had raised
him to his friendship and confidence.

It has been objected as a second mistake of Charles, or his minister,
that the system of government which they adopted contemplated only the
continuance of peace, and contained no provision against the possibility
of war. No attempt was made either to kindle a martial spirit in the
people, or to rouse them to the power of defending themselves from
foreign aggression and insult. The army, the fortifications, and all
warlike establishments were suffered to fall into utter decay; and the
military force of the kingdom, which was nominally fixed at thirty
thousand men, was kept so incomplete that it rarely exceeded half that
number. The only security for the preservation of honourable peace at
home was forgotten in a system which neglected the means of commanding
respect abroad; but Charles occupied himself, as if he indulged the
delusive hope of maintaining his subjects in eternal tranquillity.
He studiously embellished his capital; and the useful public works,
harbours, aqueducts, canals, and national granaries, which preserve the
memory of his reign, are magnificent and numerous.

The laudable exertions of Charles were but just beginning to produce
beneficial effects, when he was summoned by the death of his elder
brother, Ferdinand VI of Spain, who left no children, to assume the
crown of that kingdom (1759). According to the spirit of the Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, his next brother, Don Philip, duke of Parma, should
have succeeded to the vacant throne of the Sicilies; but Charles III was
permitted to place one of his own younger sons in the seat which he had
just quitted. His eldest son betrayed such marks of hopeless idiocy that
it was necessary to set him altogether aside from the succession to any
part of his dominions; the inheritance of the Spanish throne was reserved
for the second, who afterwards reigned under the title of Charles IV; and
it was to the third that the sceptre of the Sicilies was assigned.

[Sidenote: [1759-1825 A.D.]]

This prince, who under the name of Ferdinand IV of Naples and Sicily
reigned till 1825, was then a boy of nine years of age. Charles appointed
a Neapolitan council of regency to govern in his son’s name; but the
marquis Tanucci remained the real dictator of the public administration;
and the new monarch of Spain continued to exercise a decisive influence
over the councils of the Two Sicilies during the whole of his son’s
minority, and even for some time after its expiration. It was by the
act of Tanucci, and in conjunction with the policy of Charles, that
the Jesuits were expelled from the Two Sicilies and from Spain at the
same epoch; that the ancient usurpations of the holy see were boldly
repressed; and that the progress of other useful reforms was zealously
forwarded.

It was the most fatal negligence of Charles III, and the lasting
misfortune of his son, that the education of Ferdinand IV was entrusted
to the prince of San Nicandro, a man utterly destitute of ability or
knowledge. The young monarch, who was not deficient in natural capacity,
was thus permitted to remain in the grossest ignorance. The sports of
the field were the only occupation and amusement of his youth; and the
character of his subsequent reign was deplorably influenced by the
idleness and distaste for public affairs in which he had been suffered to
grow up. The marriage of Ferdinand with the princess Carolina of Austria
put a term to the ascendency of Charles III over the Neapolitan councils.
His faithful servant Tanucci lost his authority in the administration;
some years afterwards he was finally disgraced; and the ambitious consort
of Ferdinand, having gained an absolute sway over the mind of her feeble
husband, engrossed the direction of the state. Her assumption of the
reins of sovereignty was followed by the rise of a minion, who acquired
as decided an influence over her spirit as she already exercised over
that of the king. This was the famous Acton, a low Irish adventurer,
who, after occupying some station in the French marine, passed into
Tuscany, and was received into the service of the grand duke. He had the
good fortune to distinguish himself in an expedition against the pirates
of Barbary; and thenceforth his elevation was astonishingly rapid. He
became known to the queen, and was entrusted with the direction of the
Neapolitan navy. Still young, and gifted with consummate address, he won
the personal favour of Carolina; he governed while he seemed implicitly
to obey her; and without any higher qualifications, or any knowledge
beyond the narrow circle of his profession, he was successively raised to
the office of minister of war and of foreign affairs. The whole power of
government centred in his person; and Acton was the real sovereign in the
Sicilies, when the corrupt court and the misgoverned state encountered
the universal shock of the French Revolution.[e]

THE STATES OF THE CHURCH

[Sidenote: [1700-1800 A.D.]]

On the outline of government and policy in the ecclesiastical state, as
these features presented themselves in the seventeenth century, very
little has to be either altered or added, if we would make the picture
true for the age that succeeded. It is necessary indeed to pay, at
the outset, that tribute of respect which is deserved by the personal
character of most of the sovereigns who ruled on the Seven Hills during
the eighteenth century. Never had the bishops of Rome been so decorous,
so generally unexceptionable in morals; seldom had they numbered so many
men of sincere and earnest piety; never had the list included names more
illustrious for talent and learning. Two popes in particular, Prospero
Lambertini and the accomplished Antonio Ganganelli, would have reflected
honour upon any throne in Christendom.

But those venerable priests, who, for a few years before they sank into
the grave, left the altar and the closet, the breviary and the pen, to
wear the triple crown and wield the keys of St. Peter, discovered by
sad experience what everyone who has administered that office must have
discovered before he had slept a month under the roof of the Vatican.
Genius becomes a public calamity, virtue itself is paralysed into
despair, when, after a lifetime spent in the library or the cloister,
they are summoned, in the decrepitude of old age, to discharge duties
more complicated, more difficult, requiring greater versatility and
greater energy in action than those which belong to any other sovereignty
in the world. Where the whole edifice of government must be overturned
before effectual repair can be wrought upon any of its parts, differences
in the character of successive rulers are confined in their results
to individual and temporary interests. In regard to the permanent
improvement or deterioration of the state, Rodrigo Borgia was as innocent
as the irreproachable Barnaba Chiaramonti; Clement VII was as wise as
Sixtus V; and the hermit-pope Pietro di Murrhone, with his gentle and
pious ignorance, was not more helpless than Julian della Rovere, who wore
armour beneath his sacerdotal robe.

The most unpleasing task which the popes of the eighteenth century had to
perform was that of accommodating their prerogatives over the Catholic
states to those opinions of independence which were now rooted in every
cabinet of Europe. The priestly chiefs bowed with infinite reluctance to
this hard necessity; some of them disgraced themselves by persecuting
foreign inquirers, like Giannone and Genovesi; and, but for the activity
and talent of Clement XIV, who yielded gracefully what he had no power
to withhold, the papal court might have suffered losses infinitely more
injurious than the sacrifice which it was obliged to make of its able
servants the Jesuits. Pius VI, on whose head were to break the thunders
of the French Revolution, was more a man of the world than any of his
recent predecessors. Long employed in offices of the government, and
familiar in an especial degree with the business of the Roman exchequer,
he distinguished himself by endeavours zealous and incessant, but
utterly unsuccessful, to introduce internal ameliorations. The sluggish
imbecility of the papal rule cannot be better proved than by the fact
that, till the middle of the eighteenth century, while internal taxes and
restrictions ground the faces of the people, there was no duty (though,
at several points of time, there were absolute prohibitions) on the
importation of foreign manufactures; and that one of the most vaunted
measures of this reign was the organisation of a force to protect the
frontiers against smuggling; a measure of which, amidst all their recent
tariffs, the popes do not appear to have ever dreamed.

In the details of his new system of foreign duties on merchandise, as
well as in many of his regulations for agriculture and internal trade,
Pius and his advisers proved singularly how much they were still in the
dark as to the principles of political economy. His partial abolition of
the innumerable baronial tolls did not confer benefits half sufficient to
counterbalance the evils produced by his arbitrary restrictions on the
corn-trade; his expensive operations for draining the Pontine marshes
were rendered useless by his gift the reclaimed lands to his nephew; and
his depreciation of the currency by excessive issues of paper money was
an anticipation of one of the worst errors committed by the leaders of
the French Revolution.

THE SARDINIAN KINGDOM

During the latter half of the eighteenth century, the counts of Savoy
were precluded from prosecuting further that policy which had gained
for them an extensive dominion and a kingly name. But, even amidst the
wars which had preceded this period, and still more energetically after
their close, the able and ambitious Victor Amadeus continued that system
of internal improvement, to whose results he looked forward as likely
to make him the sovereign of a people rich as well as warlike, rivals
of their southern neighbours in literature and art, as they had already
outstripped them in energy and public spirit.

In his endeavours for the intellectual improvement of the higher ranks
(for whom exclusively his institutions were designed), he succeeded as
ill as an arbitrary king may be expected to succeed when he aims at
amending a corrupted, martial, and ignorant aristocracy. For commerce he
was able to effect greatly more, through those regulations imposed on the
silk-manufacture, which, however alien their narrow spirit may be to the
genuine principles of commerce, were found to be not ill-calculated to
check an equally narrow spirit abroad, and were accordingly imitated in
Milan and the eastern provinces. Several excellent laws aided the rural
population. One enactment expressly recognised, in contradiction to all
older practice, agricultural leases for a fixed term of years, usually
from nine to eighteen; and not only so, but the lawgivers studiously left
loopholes for evading a rule which they were in terms obliged to enact,
for making the endurance of such leases dependent on the survivance of
the landlord who had granted them. This characteristic artifice shows
the influence of the higher classes, against whom however Victor Amadeus
carried by arbitrary interference his great and beneficial measure
for an equalisation of public burdens. For, before he abdicated the
throne, all the estates in Piedmont, without distinction of tenure, were
subjected to an impartial land-tax, assessed in conformity to a general
valuation, which likewise furnished the materials for levying all local
burdens on the communes, such as those for roads, schools, and costs of
administration.

When we add such improvements as these to the changes which we perceived
to be in progress during the seventeenth century, we shall wonder, if
we learn nothing more, how it should have happened that the subjects of
this kingdom were not only the first to throw themselves into the arms of
the revolutionary French, but have since complained of their government
more bitterly than any other Italians. It is not difficult to find the
reasons. All the reforms of the Piedmontese princes were made for their
own ends, not for the sake of the people, who were kept peremptorily in
subjection to the king, and left in total dependence on his character for
their share of individual comfort; the nobles, likewise, being disarmed
as well as the commonalty, the crown was freed from the only check on its
conduct; and bitter discontents arose both from that abject submission
to the priesthood, and from that childish fear of change, which for the
last few generations have distinguished the princes. But, at the same
time, amidst the innovations which were introduced after the middle of
the seventeenth century, it had been found expedient to conciliate
the alarmed aristocracy by leaving its members in possession of many
personal and empty, yet invidious privileges; and the consequence was a
haughtiness on the part of the upper ranks met by sullen defiance among
the multitude, a mutual mistrust among all orders, ready to kindle into
deadly hatred.

[Sidenote: [1700-1740 A.D.]]

Charles Emmanuel III, notorious in the early years of his reign for his
ingratitude towards a father who had resigned the throne in his favour,
was more creditably distinguished in later life by his endeavours to
reconcile the conflicting wishes of the different orders of society, and
to purify completely the administration of justice. His nobles complained
of the number of commoners whom he promoted to public posts: the suitors
in the courts of law marvelled at the conduct of a king who so far
distrusted his own judgment, and so far honoured the judicial servants
of his crown, as to refuse granting any briefs of dispensation from
judicial sentences, unless after consultation with the judges by whom
the decision had been pronounced. He was less prudent in his management
of the military force, which he weakened greatly by the promotion of
inefficient officers, the nobility being always preferred, and a commoner
finding it all but impossible to rise to high rank. This abuse became
greatly more flagrant in the reign of his successor, who gave the last
impulse to the growing discontent of his subjects, by his superstitious
subservience to confessors and bigots, and not less by increasing his
army to an unreasonable size, and taxing the people severely for its pay
and subsistence.

Sardinia, rude, poor, and lawless, like other provinces of Spain, was
little improved by its new sovereign, Victor Amadeus II. In his son,
however, it found the best ruler it had seen for ages. Much was done by
him to weaken feudalism, encourage agriculture, and extirpate the bands
of robbers; two universities were founded, and the inferior schools
somewhat improved; and the year 1738 was a remarkable epoch in the
island, from the reforms which it witnessed in every department.

THE FOUR REPUBLICS

[Sidenote: [1736-1768 A.D.]]

The history of Lucca offers no fact worthy of being mentioned. Its
oligarchy grew more and more exclusive, and the peasant landholders in
its rural districts became impoverished through the excessive division of
property by succession.

The miniature republic of San Marino had retreated into its wonted
obscurity since 1739, when the fallen intriguer, Cardinal Alberoni, then
papal legate in Romagna, repeated at its expense that treachery by which
he had formerly convulsed all Europe. Alleging that the government of San
Marino had become a narrow oligarchy, which was true but did not justify
his interference, he conquered its territory with a single company of
soldiers and a few officers of police. The people appealed to Clement
XII, who ordered them to determine their own fate in a general meeting:
they unanimously voted against submission to the church, and the papal
troops were withdrawn.

In 1746, the Genoese commonalty, unsupported by the nobles, showed, in
their expulsion of the Austrians, a spirit worthy of their fathers. With
this bold insurrection the history of the republic of Genoa closes for
half a century. In 1718 it had increased its territory, by purchasing the
imperial fief of Finale; but within a few years it lost Corsica.

The revolted Corsicans allowed their country to be formed into a mock
kingdom in 1736, by the foolish ambition of Theodore von Neuhof, a
German baron; and, after they had been deserted by him, they continued
to resist the united forces brought against them by the Genoese and Louis
XV of France. The islanders now established a republic, which, from
1755, was headed by the celebrated Pasquale Paoli: and the contest for
freedom was maintained manfully till Genoa, tired of an expensive war,
and deeply indebted to France, ceded Corsica to that power on receiving
an acquittance. Louis renewed the attack with increased vigour, and the
besieged republicans resisted bravely till the struggle became utterly
hopeless. Paoli emigrated to England, and the island became a French
province in 1768, the year before it gave birth to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The commerce of Venice was nearly at a end; her manufactures were
insignificant; her flag was insulted on her own Adriatic by every power
of Europe. She still, however, possessed an Italian territory, peopled
by two millions and a half of subjects; her Dalmatian and Albanian
provinces and the Ionian Isles had half a million more. Her taxes had
been nearly doubled in the eighteenth century, and amounted, in 1789, to
about 11,600,000 ducats (£1,919,800 or $9,599,000); her public credit was
bad; and her debt was 44,000,000 ducats (£7,283,300 or $36,416,500). The
gloomy government remained unchanged. The Council of Ten had resisted
frequent attempts to overturn it: an attack in 1761 was checked by
arrests and imprisonments in monasteries; and the Ten and the Three still
exercised, though more cautiously than before, their singular functions.
Their spies cost annually, in the eighteenth century, about 200,000
ducats; and more than one secret execution was laid to their charge.
But licentiousness was more prevalent than cruelty; infamous women were
pensioned as informers by the state; and in the public gaming-houses,
amidst the masked gamesters, senators, officially appointed, presided
undisguised.

In 1768, the nobles, displeased with the church, named a commission
to inquire into the state of its revenues. The report, which is still
extant, is curious. The commissioners estimate the gross income at
4,274,460 ducats (£719,100, $3,595,500). Of this sum, 2,734,807 ducats
were permanent, being derived from lands, money invested, or perpetual
rents. The remainder was casual, being made up of the alms bestowed on
mendicant orders, and of the prices paid for temporary masses. The whole
number of masses for which the clergy received payment was prodigious,
being not less than 8,938,459. Of these the parochial and other secular
clergymen celebrated 4,250,060; the monastic orders celebrated the rest,
being 4,688,399, of which 3,107,682 were masses on perpetual foundations.
On the latter class the Venetian commissioners sarcastically remark
that the whole number of the monks and friars was 7,638, of which only
3,272 were in priest’s orders, and entitled to say mass; and that,
consequently, if the monks performed all the masses for which they took
payment, each of their priests would have to officiate fourteen or
fifteen hundred times a year.

MILAN AND TUSCANY

[Sidenote: [1755-1790 A.D.]]

For seventeen years after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the duchies of
Milan and Mantua, forming one province, and the grand duchy of Tuscany
as another, were governed by viceroys appointed by Maria Theresa and her
husband Francis. On the emperor’s death in 1765, the two Lombard duchies
continued to constitute a province of the empire under his son Joseph
II; but Tuscany was formed into an independent sovereignty for Peter
Leopold, the new emperor’s younger brother. All these sovereigns were
remarkable persons: the sons were worthy of their heroic mother; and
Leopold, free from that ambition which stained the names of Maria Theresa
and Joseph with the infamous partition of Poland, was one of the greatest
men that ever filled a throne.

The statistical results of this period were highly pleasing. Austrian
Lombardy, at length enabled to profit in some measure by its singular
physical advantages, was, in 1790, by far the most flourishing province
in Italy; while Tuscany also was prosperous, and in some respects more
decidedly so than Joseph’s duchies. The institutions of both states were
wonderfully improved; and the history of these changes is one of the most
interesting pages in the annals of modern Italy.

That the long servitude of the Italians had ruined their character as
well as their national resources, could not have been more clearly
proved than by the bitter opposition with which they met all the reforms
introduced by their new masters. There was hardly an improvement of
any importance, especially in Lombardy, that was not absolutely forced
upon the natives; and the most sweeping changes were skilfully evaded,
some of them during more than a generation. Much of this delay was
attributable to the wonted slowness of the Austrian court; but much also
was produced by the passive resistance of the people. The great system of
administration, the first draft of which had been laid before the empress
in 1739, did not come into activity till 1755, and its introduction makes
that year an important epoch for northern Italy.

A few only of the features which distinguished the plan of taxation
can be here described. One of the worst evils to be removed was the
subdivision of the state into seven districts, each of which, like a
separate kingdom, has its duties on mercantile imports, exports, and
transits. This abuse was swept away by a single stroke of the pen; and
similar restrictions on agricultural produce shared the same fate.
The excise was subjected to good regulations, and the customs based
on principles as fair as any that then prevailed in Europe. Lastly, a
new survey and valuation formed the rule for an equitable assessment
of the land-tax. A dispassionate and well-qualified judge was able to
find in the system but four serious defects: an insufficient check on
the land-valuators; the retention of the unwise mercantile-tax; the
imposition of a capitation-tax on the peasantry and others who paid no
land-tax; and the permission to the church, which possessed a third of
the lands in the state, and had till now paid no taxes for them, to
retain too many of its Spanish privileges.

But the portion of the plan that most interests us is the administrative.
In the general government, the obnoxious senate was retained, and formed
a very injurious barrier between the subjects and the throne, generating
petty cabals, and assisting in keeping up that tendency to secrecy and
plotting which had been triumphant under the Spaniards. In the provincial
government, the leading principle was, to subject everything in the last
instance to the control of the boards of administration at Milan, while
the immediate administration of every province was put under a delegate
appointed by the sovereign; although, at the same time, a considerable
part of the actual management was consigned to a provincial council
established in every chief city. The local statutes of the old republics
or petty principalities, which it was not in all cases considered safe
to touch, created many diversities in the execution of this plan; but
the general rule was to introduce in the provincial councils members of
three orders: the representatives of the cities, who were nobles, and
elected by their own class in each town; the representatives elected by
the landholders of the province; and the mercantile men who represented,
and were elected by, the corporation of merchants. The council so formed
devolved its ordinary powers on a committee of its own body, called the
prefects of government. Communal councils were also instituted, according
to regulations laid down in a prolix code. Each of them administered
the patrimony of the commune, under the presidency of a chancellor
appointed by the sovereign. Their own members were five for each commune:
three representatives of the landholders, one representative of the
mercantile body, and one representative of those who were subject to
the capitation-tax. They were elected annually in a meeting of all the
landholders rated on the books for the land-tax; soldiers and churchmen,
however, being ineligible. The same constituency also elected the consul,
who was an inferior criminal judge, and the syndic, who had dignity
without any real duties.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN PEASANT, CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

Joseph, seconded by his excellent viceroy Count Firmian, under whom
served Verri, Carli, Neri, and other enlightened Italians, followed out
the plan of amelioration which had been thus delineated for him. He
improved the courts of justice and the judicial procedure, especially
in criminal causes, abolishing, at the suggestion of Beccaria, torture
and secret trials. He annulled or diminished the most vexatious of the
feudal privileges, and imposed checks on the perpetual destination
of estates. He patronised agriculture, and extended commerce and
manufactures by the construction of roads, as well as by the abolition of
some remaining imposts and restrictions. When the death of his mother,
in 1780, freed him from her remonstrances on ecclesiastical matters,
he commenced with his accustomed impetuosity a series of changes in
that department, which Pius VI considered so dangerous that he made a
fruitless journey to Vienna in the hope of procuring their repeal. The
most material of those measures were the following: all dissenters were
to enjoy toleration; the bishops were forbidden, as they had already
been forbidden by other princes, to act upon any papal bull but such as
should be transmitted to them by the government; the monastic clergy
were declared to be dependent, not on the general of their order who
lived in Rome, but directly on the resident bishop of the diocese within
which their cloister was situated; lastly, all nunneries were suppressed,
except those which pledged themselves to occupy their members in the
education of the young. The emperor’s death interrupted the consolidation
of his famous system for giving uniformity to his system of government
throughout all the Austrian dominions. The decree of 1786, which
promulgated this new constitution, divided the Italian provinces into
eight circles, in each of which the local administration was to be vested
in a chamber closely dependent upon the government. This departure from
the late arrangement created in Lombardy universal discontent.

Sometimes unjust and cruel, often misjudging and imprudent, always
headstrong, passionate, and despotic, doing good to his subjects by
force, and punishing as ungrateful all who refused to be thus benefited,
Joseph was an unconscious instrument in the hand of providence for
advancing in southern Europe the great revolution of his time. One
inveterate evil was extirpated, that another might be substituted for
it, which, being less deeply rooted, was destined in its turn to wither
and die away. “At length,” said a noble-minded Italian in the last stage
of the emperor’s reign, “the obstacles which hindered the happiness
of nations have mainly disappeared. Over the greater part of Europe
despotism has banished feudal anarchy; and the manners and spirit of the
times have already weakened despotism.”

The reforms in the grand duchy of Tuscany went infinitely further than
those of Joseph and his mother in the provinces of the Po. They were
commenced during the life of Francis, by the prince of Craon, his viceroy
at Florence; and the plan was formed, even thus early, for consolidating
into one common code all those contradictory laws which, subsisting in
the old Tuscan communities, had been maintained since the subjection of
all to the duchy. But it was reserved for younger hands to construct this
noble edifice.

Till we reflect that Leopold’s scheme of legislation for Tuscany was
devised and executed long before that change of opinions which the
French Revolution diffused through the whole of Europe, we are not fully
aware how very far he stood in advance of his age. In his new code the
criminal section was especially bold, inasmuch as it swept away at once
torture, confiscation, secret trial, and even the punishment of death.
Imprisonment for debt, forbidden by one of his laws unless the claim
exceeded a certain amount, was afterwards abolished altogether. All
privileged jurisdictions were destroyed, and the public courts fortified
in their independence and authority. Restrictions on agriculture were
totally removed; and large tracts of common were brought into cultivation
by being divided among poor peasants in property, subject only to a small
crown-rent. The grand duke discontinued the ruinous system of farming
out the taxes; he diminished their amount, and abandoned most of the
government monopolies. Notwithstanding, he was able, before he left
Italy, to pay off the greater part of a large national debt; for, under
his new system, and especially through the absolute freedom which he
allowed to commerce, industry flourished so wonderfully, that his revenue
suffered hardly any diminution.

Leopold’s ecclesiastical reforms were equally daring, and gave deep
offence to the papal government. They were chiefly designed for improving
the condition of the parochial clergy, and for curbing the monastic
orders. He suppressed the Inquisition; he imposed severe limitations on
the profession of monks and nuns; he made the regular clergy dependent,
not merely (as his brother had done) on their bishop, but directly on
the priest of the parish; he taxed church-lands like those belonging to
laymen; he even seized arbitrarily several large estates which had been
destined to useless ecclesiastical purposes, and applied their proceeds
towards increasing the insufficient incomes of the priests in rural
parishes. This step, as well as several others, formed parts of his
great scheme against tithes, of which he gradually introduced a general
commutation.

In the system which this great man enforced there were unquestionably
many defects. There was something (though not much) of his brother’s
hasty disregard for obstacles arising from foreign quarters; a fault
which made his scheme for free trade in some respects injurious to
his subjects, and forced him in his later years to resume a few
restrictions. There was a disposition to overstrain the principles of
reform, manifested when he totally abolished trading corporations, or
when, in the last year of the period, he annulled at a blow all rights
of primogeniture, and all substitutions in succession to land. There
was a jealous watchfulness over details, a temper exceedingly useful
but very irritating, which displayed itself with equal force in the
severe system of police, and in the curious circular letter which he
addressed to the nobles, requesting that their ladies might be made to
dress more economically. There was some fickleness of purpose, though
much less than those have believed, who forget the existence of that
chaos of local laws and privileges, through which he had for years to
pilot his way, embarrassed, misled, and thwarted at every step. Lastly,
there were two absolute wants. Leopold did not, because in a single
generation he could not, renovate the heart and mind of his people; and
therefore the degenerate Florentines murmured at his strictness of rule,
and ridiculed his personal peculiarities. He did not give to his subjects
a representative constitution; and therefore his fabric of beneficent
legislation crumbled into fragments the moment his hand ceased to support
its weight.

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL, TIVOLI]

It is said, indeed, that he had sketched a constitution before he left
Tuscany; but, at all events, his reforms in the local administration
went very far towards this great end. His purpose, in which, as in so
much besides, he was obstructed by a multiplicity of special statutes
and customs, was to introduce over the duchy one uniform system of
municipal government, embracing all districts, rural as well as urban.
During his whole reign, step after step led him towards this result,
by organising new communal councils in various provinces, which had at
length comprehended nearly the whole state. At the same time there was
extended to the new boards the privilege conferred first on those in
the Florentine territory, of managing their local patrimony as of old,
without dependence upon the supreme government. The polity of Alessandro
de’ Medici, which still prevailed in Florence, was annulled in 1781; and
the elective board which administered the affairs of the city thenceforth
consisted of a gonfalonier, as president, eleven priors, and twenty
councillors.[f]

_A Tuscan Estimate of Leopold_

The reforms of Leopold I (Emperor Leopold II) did not suffice to drag
Tuscany from the abyss into which she had been cast by the _sbirocracy_
of the Medici. A fallen people would rise again to the enthusiasm of
grand ideas, but what grand idea did Leopold I place at the head of the
regenerative movement? He corrected clerical abuses, but did not enkindle
the religious faith of the people after the example of the ardent
preachers of the Crusades of the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century
reformers. He recognised equality in civil laws, but did not make a
social _credo_ of it like the French republicans.

Leopold’s idea was a paternal government, a sort of family council, where
the most touching accord would reign between the prince and the assembly
elected by the commons. He wanted to make another Arcadia of Tuscany,
an Arcadia simply occupied with its well-being and material progress,
foreign to the use of arms and neutral in all aspects of war. But this
was not the way to model character and make free citizens. The shock
given to Europe by the French Revolution and the results therefrom had
quite other effects. When Italy owed to the France of ’89 that moral
shock which stirred up men’s minds and made them enter into communication
with the universal conscience, it did not need more to convict of error
those who reproached the French Revolution with having upset the reforms
of Italian princes without any compensation. Abstention in this gigantic
struggle was impossible. It was imperative to fight either for the powers
of the past or for those of the future; so this worship of principles
became the great passion of souls, and character regained all its old
vigour. The Restoration came to check this salutary movement.

The sleeping _sbirocracy_ inaugurated by Fossombroni went back to
the Medici traditions and the meanness of the old régime was again
substituted for the moral and political grandeur of the French epoch.
But it was thenceforth impossible to stifle the germs of the new life.
We shall see these germs, in spite of most unfavourable conditions,
fructifying in Tuscany as in other parts of Italy; we shall see the
country of Michelangelo coming out of its abasement and paying the
Italian revolution the tribute of its genius, its love, and its blood.[g]

ITALY IN THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE

[Sidenote: [1790-1794 A.D.]]

For the sovereigns of Italy, as well as for the people, the first three
years of the revolutionary age formed a time of abortive plans and
earnest preparation.

Events of immediate interest cut short two visionary designs, of which,
although both must have failed of success, yet either, by the very
attempt, might have given another colour to the history of Europe. A few
aspiring cardinals, looking back to Gregory VII and Sixtus V, devised
an Italian league, to be headed by the pope; and at the court of Turin,
which took example from its own more recent annals, there was planned a
campaign against its Austrian neighbours. But Rome was destined to fall a
passive victim to foreign aggression; and the ambitious king of Sardinia
became the scapegoat of the prince whose Lombard crown he had wished to
transfer to his own brows.

The emperor Joseph died in the beginning of the year 1790, and Leopold,
leaving Tuscany to his second son Ferdinand, received both the hereditary
dominions of Austria and the imperial dignity. He extricated himself
skillfully from the foreign wars into which his brother had plunged; but
neither the internal discontents of the Low Countries, nor the dangers
which threatened Louis XVI, were evils so easily remedied. He employed
his diplomacy in endeavouring, by means of a European congress, to impose
constitutional limitations on all the contending parties in France;
but disappointment in this scheme, and fresh revolts among his own
provinces, embittered every moment of his life. He was tempted to become
a leading party in the fatal Treaty of Pilnitz, which may be truly said
to have destroyed the French monarchy; and in the spring of 1792, his
death, at the age of forty-four, saved him from beholding the calamities
which speedily followed. His hereditary estates descended to his eldest
son Francis, who likewise succeeded him as emperor; and the policy of the
new reign, warlike as well as anti-revolutionary from its very opening,
accelerated the contest which soon desolated Europe.

Two other Italian courts, besides those of Lombardy and Tuscany, were
deeply interested in the fate of the royal family in Paris. The queen
of Naples was, like Marie Antoinette, a daughter of Maria Theresa; and
the two brothers of Louis XVI were sons-in-law of the king of Sardinia.
The advisers of Ferdinand prepared for the struggle by strengthening the
artillery and marine, by reconciling themselves with the see of Rome, by
imposing extraordinary taxes, and by seizing the money deposited in the
national banks; but to these measures were added others of a different
cast, designed for crushing the dreaded strength of public opinion.
Arbitrary commissions were organised for trying political offences;
spies were set to watch Cirillo, Pagano, Conforti, Delfico, and other
men of liberal views; foreign books and newspapers were excluded; and
Filangieri’s work was burned by the hands of the common hangman. In
the other extremity of the peninsula, the count d’Artois imitated at
Turin, on a smaller scale, the court of emigrant nobles which surrounded
Monsieur at Coblenz. Simultaneously with that alliance between the
emperor and the king of Prussia, which produced the abortive invasion of
France in 1792, there was concluded an Italian league, headed openly by
Naples and Rome, and secretly joined by Victor Amadeus, while the grand
duke of Tuscany, as well as the Venetians and the Genoese, remained
determinedly neutral.

_Time of the French Republic under the National Convention_

The little cloud which rose over the tennis-court at Versailles, had
already overshadowed all the thrones in Europe; and that of Sardinia
was the first on which it discharged its tempest. Where both parties
were resolved on war, a pretence was readily found. Semonville, sent
to negotiate for a passage for the French armies through Piedmont, was
reported to have propagated revolutionary doctrines on his way: he was
ordered to quit the king’s dominions, and a second envoy was refused
leave to cross the frontier.

On the 18th of September, 1792, the national assembly declared war
against the king of Sardinia; and an invasion of his states immediately
ensued. The Savoyards, discontented and democratic, had no will to fight;
the Piedmontese, ill-officered as well as mutinous, had neither will
nor ability; and within a fortnight Savoy and the county of Nice were
in the possession of the French troops. The atrocities, however, which
took place at Paris during the autumn of that year, and the execution
of the king in the beginning of the next, not only gave fresh vigour to
the operations of the allied sovereigns, but added new members to their
league. In 1793 a British fleet occupied Corsica; while the Austrians and
Piedmontese vainly tried to fight their way against Kellermann through
Savoy to Lyons. During the succeeding summer, the republicans, entering
Italy with one army by the Alps, and with another through the neutral
territory of Genoa, maintained a more energetic campaign, which left
them masters of all the passes leading down into Piedmont. At the same
time Pasquale Paoli, supported by England, arranged a constitution for
Corsica, which acknowledged George III as its king.

[Sidenote: [1793-1795 A.D.]]

In the course of the year 1795, the alarm produced by the recent
successes of the French not only disarmed some of their most active
enemies, but gained for them allies in Italy itself, the stronghold of
legitimate monarchy. Ferdinand of Tuscany, a cautious or timid man,
anxious to preserve the commerce of Leghorn, and seeing no reason why he
should sacrifice his people to the ambition or revenge of the greater
European courts, was the first crowned head that recognised the new
democratic state. In February of this year, he concluded a treaty with
France, disclaiming his enforced connection with the allies, and binding
himself to a strict neutrality. Soon afterwards the coalition lost three
of its members, Holland, Prussia, and Spain. Within the Alps the war
languished; and the Austrians and Piedmontese were able, till the end of
the autumn, to keep the invading armies cooped up in the northwestern
corner of the peninsula. Meanwhile that fermentation of men’s minds,
which had its centre in Paris, was diffusing itself over most of the
Italian provinces, among those classes that were predisposed to receive
such an impulse.

Tuscany was the quarter in which the new opinions met with the least
countenance. Although the grand duke had been tempted to depart from some
of his father’s commercial and agricultural laws, his plan of polity
remained so far entire that the constitutionalists had really little to
complain of. In ecclesiastical matters, however, the priesthood renewed
with success those instigations by which many of them long before had
crippled the efforts of their bold reformer; and Leopold had not been
twelve months at Vienna, when the peasantry clamorously demanded the
re-establishment of certain religious fraternities and forms of worship
which he had abolished as superstitious and hurtful. In the eastern
provinces of the papal state there was much silent discontent among
all classes; but in Rome itself, although a few men held democratic
opinions, the only outbreak that happened was that of January, 1793,
when Bassville, the French secretary of legation, an active republican
agent, was stoned to death by the populace. In Parma, Duke Ferdinand had
recently alarmed the thinking part of his subjects by introducing the
papal Inquisition, and by exhibiting himself, in strong contrast to his
early habits, as a religious formalist and devotee. The duke of Modena
was perhaps more unpopular than he deserved to be. In the republics
opinions were greatly divided, though from dissimilar causes. San Marino
was a cipher; Lucca was made passive, not only by her own insignificance,
but by a general indifference towards change; the Venetians were
distracted by two opposite feelings, their fear of Austrian encroachment
and their hatred of Parisian democracy; the Genoese, although the
revolutionary party was strong among them, not only dreaded the
destruction of their commerce, but were personally interested in the
French funds.

In the remaining sections of the peninsula, the extreme south and the
extreme north, were to be found the most zealous disciples of the
Revolution. In the kingdom of Naples, both on the mainland and in Sicily,
conspiracies were repeatedly discovered, and the plotters executed,
several of them having been previously tortured to enforce a discovery of
their accomplices. Even the ministers of state charged each other with
treason; and Acton procured the imprisonment of the chevalier De’ Medici,
with several other men high in office. The people, although strong in
prejudice, were at this time discontented with the increased taxation,
and the renewal of arbitrary interference by the government; many of the
nobles were as eager as the middle classes in their wishes for general
amelioration; and the church herself, whose property the rulers were
every day seizing to satisfy the necessities of the exchequer, was not
at first able to discover whether republicanism or legitimate monarchy
was likely to be her most dangerous enemy. Throughout Austrian Lombardy
the desire of change became almost universal. The people at large
were disgusted by public burdens heavily augmented, and by the coarse
insolence of the German satellites who exacted them; those classes, which
had enjoyed the semblance of political power under the constitution of
Maria Theresa, were provoked by that mixture of military command and
absolute foreign rule which, since Leopold’s death, had been substituted
for it; and reflecting men perceived, in the attitude which the cabinet
of Vienna had now decidedly assumed, no prospect of improvement or relief
if the allied sovereigns should be victorious. Piedmont was a still more
favourable soil for republicanism, and there its principles soon rooted
themselves very deeply. On the mainland, more than one conspiracy was
discovered and punished; while the Sardinians, finding themselves treated
as rebels when they sent deputies to demand those reforms which they
conceived themselves to have merited by their brave resistance to the
French fleet, broke out into open revolt, killed several members of the
government, and were with difficulty dissuaded by the viceroy from giving
up the island to France.

_The Campaign of 1796 and its Consequences_

[Sidenote: [1796 A.D.]]

The Italians were soon to learn that their wishes and interests were
matters of as absolute indifference to those who now contended on their
soil, as they had been during the whole preceding course of their modern
history. Their future master, the French general Bonaparte, receiving
from the Directory the command of the army of Italy, avowed on quitting
Paris his determination to finish the war in a month by complete success
or utter defeat. That which seemed to others an idle bravado, suggested
by sudden elevation to a young and self-confident man, was, in the mind
of the speaker himself, a pledge to be literally fulfilled. He began his
attack on the 12th of April, 1796, and on the 15th of May he entered
Milan in triumph as the conqueror of all Lombardy and Piedmont.

This wonderful campaign embraced several of Napoleon’s most celebrated
victories. The battles of Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego, fought on
three successive days in April, amidst the mountains which lie northwest
from Genoa, drove back into the plain Beaulieu’s Austrian army, and its
Piedmontese allies under Colli. Victor Amadeus, not less inconstant than
imprudent, deserted the contest in premature despair; and in May his
ambassadors at Paris signed a discreditable peace, by which he gave up
Savoy and Nice to the French Republic, admitted garrisons into some of
his fortresses, dismantled the rest, and paid heavy contributions to the
invaders. Bonaparte, pursuing the Austrians into Lombardy, intimidated
the duke of Parma into an armistice, which was purchased by a large
payment in money, and the surrender of twenty works of art, to be
selected by French commissioners, and placed in the museum at Paris. The
bloody passage of the bridge of Lodi, where Napoleon himself, with the
generals of his staff, charged in person up to the mouths of the enemy’s
guns, left the plain of the Po completely open to his armies, and kindled
among the young conqueror’s soldiers that devoted confidence which
bore them onward through years of victory. Milan received a provisional
government and national guard, but had to contribute heavily for the
support of the republican troops; and the duke of Modena, also, could
not obtain an armistice without furnishing liberal supplies, to which,
according to the rule thenceforth invariably followed by the invaders,
was added the surrender of the choicest pictures from his gallery.

Already feared as well as honoured abroad, General Bonaparte next
proceeded to intimidate the government at home. To Carnot’s order for
marching upon Rome and Naples with one division of the army, while
Kellermann, with another, should keep his hold of Lombardy, he replied
by transmitting his resignation, and denouncing the project as ruinous.
In the south, said he, there are no enemies worth conquering; the
possession of Italy must be contested with the Austrians, and the plains
of the Po ought to be the scene of the struggle. While he waited for the
answer to his bold remonstrance, the peasantry, excited by the priests
and some of the nobles, rose in several quarters against him. At Milan
the disturbance was easily quieted; but at Pavia it was not suppressed
till the town was taken by storm, and given up to be plundered by the
soldiery. This terrible example produced its effect; the Italians
trembled and submitted, and the French and Germans were left to fight
their battles undisturbed. Meanwhile, the Directory, aware, as their
general well knew, that they could not dispense with his services,
sent an approval of all his plans, and confirmed him in the undivided
command of the army, stipulating only that he should satisfy the honour
of France by humbling, in his own way, the pope and the king of Naples.
He received these instructions while occupying the line of the Adige;
and, after having distributed troops on different points in the north,
he himself prepared to march as far southwards as might be necessary for
frightening his adversaries in that quarter. Before he had time to cross
the Apennines, the king of Naples had lost heart, and made humiliating
submissions, concluding an armistice, afterwards changed into a treaty
of peace. The pope, left totally defenceless, and seeing the conqueror
holding Bologna in person, concluded a truce on harder terms than any
which had been yet exacted. The citadel of Ancona was to be given up
with all its stores; the French were also to retain possession of the
provinces of Bologna and Ferrara, where both the chief cities had
organised free governments for themselves; the papal treasury was to pay
large contributions in money and provisions; and Paris was to be adorned
by a hundred works of art, and five hundred manuscripts from the Vatican.
Having thus dealt with the enemies of the republic, Bonaparte next
proceeded to dispose of the grand duke of Tuscany, its earliest friend.
On a pretence that the neutrality had been violated, he seized the port
of Leghorn, confiscated the goods of English traders which lay there, and
attempted, though unsuccessfully, to capture their merchant-ships.

The wars of 1796 were not yet at an end. In September a second Austrian
army of sixty thousand men, under the veteran marshal Wurmser, marched
through the Tyrol; but his active adversary had already returned
northwards; and a campaign of six days in the neighbourhood of the Lake
of Garda, and along the valley of the Brenta, forced the shattered
remains of the imperial forces to take refuge in the strong fortress
of Mantua, which the French had already attacked, and now invested
anew. In November a third Austrian army, under Alvinzi, placed its
enemy in extreme peril; but the desperate battle of Arcola, fought near
Verona during three whole days, drove this host likewise back into the
mountains. The military events of the year were closed by the revolt of
the Corsicans against the English, after which the French envoy Saliceti
established in the island a provisional democratic government.

[Sidenote: [1796-1797 A.D.]]

But there were yet other tasks to be performed. The French had excited
in the minds of all the Italians wishes which it was very far from
easy to gratify. The Lombards demanded an independent and republican
organisation; but the Directory, anticipating the chances of war,
which might make it necessary to buy a peace with Austria, dared not
as yet to do more than throw out vague encouragements. The pope, whose
eastern provinces entertained similar desires, was not so dangerous;
and Bonaparte, without consulting his masters, freed them from any
embarrassment into which they might have been thrown by their recent
treaty with the duke of Modena. That prince’s capital was disaffected,
and Reggio had already openly revolted. Napoleon, professing to have
discovered that the duke had violated the neutrality, deposed his
administration, and declared the provinces free. By his instigation,
also, deputies from Bologna, Ferrara, Reggio, Mirandola, and Modena,
chosen respectively by the lawyers, landholders, and merchants, assembled
in the end of 1796, and erected the two papal legations with the Modenese
duchy into a commonwealth. This state, lying wholly between the Po and
Rome, was called the Cispadane Republic.

The contest among the foreigners for the soil of Italy was ended in the
spring of 1797. In January of that year, Alvinzi’s army, increased by
reinforcements to fifty thousand men, attacked that under Bonaparte,
amounting to about forty-five thousand, at Rivoli, between the river
Adige and the Lake of Garda. This bravely fought battle closed in the
total rout of the Austrians; and early next month, Wurmser, compelled by
disease and famine, surrendered Mantua. The last effort of the emperor,
who sent the archduke Charles across the northeastern frontier of
Italy, was as unfortunate as the preceding ones; the hereditary states
of Austria were invaded by the victorious general in person; and their
sovereign submitted in April, when the French army lay within twenty-five
leagues of Vienna.

But, before crossing the Alps, the young conqueror had humbled another
enemy. Pius VI, not altogether without provocation, had broken the
convention of Bologna, and raised troops to assist the emperor; upon
which, Bonaparte, after his victory over Alvinzi, marching rapidly
southward, overthrew the papal troops under Colli, and dictated at
Tolentino, in February, the terms of a humiliating peace. The pope
formally relinquished to the Cispadane Republic, not only the legation
of Bologna and Ferrara, already ceded, but the province of Romagna in
addition; he yielded to the French Republic his territories of Avignon
and the neighbouring Venaissin; he left Ancona in the hands of its
troops, till a general peace should be concluded; he engaged to pay large
contributions as the ransom of those other provinces which the enemy had
just seized; and he renewed the obligation to deliver manuscripts and
works of art, which accordingly were soon carried away.

The peace with the emperor was not arranged so easily. Its outlines
were contained in the preliminaries of Leoben, signed on the 18th of
April, 1797; and the main difficulties were obviated at the expense of
Venice, whose government, regarded with dislike by both parties, had
acted so as to forfeit all claims on the indulgence of the one, without
being able to earn much gratitude from the other. Besides yielding the
Austrian Netherlands and the frontier of the Rhine, Francis entirely
renounced his provinces in Lombardy, and agreed to acknowledge the new
Italian republics. In compensation for these sacrifices, he was to
receive, almost entire, the mainland provinces of Venice, including
Illyria, Istria, and upper Italy as far west as the Oglio; the districts
of Bergamo and Brescia, with the Polesine, all lying beyond that river,
being intended to form part of the Cispadane Republic. These Venetian
territories were already in revolt, and had declared themselves free
commonwealths, demanding protection from the French, who had excited
them to insurrection, and now coolly abandoned most of them to a new
master. For the injustice contemplated towards these unfortunate Lombards
no palliation could be offered, and none was ever attempted; but for
the wrong threatened to the Venetian Republic itself, pretexts speedily
presented themselves.

[Illustration: MONACO]

Before the preliminaries were signed, Colonel Junot had been despatched
to Venice, to demand satisfaction for a slaughter of some soldiers in
the towns bordering on the Lake of Garda. In Verona also, about the same
time, the populace of the city and district, headed by a few of the
nobles and clergy, attacked, robbed, and murdered the French and their
partisans; and on the 17th of April, there broke out a general massacre.
The Veronese mob, and the Venetian troops, drove the foreigners into the
citadel, and held the town three days, committing horrible cruelties on
all who were suspected of being favourable to the enemy; but, on the 20th
of the same month, a detachment of the French stormed the place, and
revenged their friends by numerous executions, in the course of which
there perished several noblemen, and a Capuchin friar, whose eloquence
had been the prop of the insurrection. On the approach of the same
evening, a French privateer, in escaping from an Austrian vessel, ran
into the harbour of Venice, in violation of the ordinary law; upon which
a scuffle ensued with the Slavonian sailors, and the French captain and
several of his crew were killed. Bonaparte received at once the welcome
news of both occurrences--the taking of Verona, and the outrage on the
ship. He instantly ordered the French envoy at Venice to depart, but
not till he should have demanded that the commandant of the port and
the three inquisitors of state should be put in prison for trial. The
cowardly senate, without a moment’s hesitation, arrested those men,
ordered the public prosecutors to draw up indictments against them, and
instructed the deputies who attended at the general’s headquarters to
offer the most humble submissions.

Bonaparte told them abruptly that their aristocratic constitution was out
of date, and he intended to annul it. Without waiting for an answer he
declared war on Venice, whose leaders had already foreseen his sentence,
and endeavoured to palliate its effects. A few of the principal nobles
held a secret meeting in the apartments of the imbecile Lodovico Manin,
the hundred-and-twentieth and last doge, where they resolved to summon
the grand council, and propose alterations in the constitution. About
the very time when the lords of the Adriatic crouched thus abjectly,
the last instance of Venetian spirit was exhibited in Treviso by Angelo
Giustiniani, the governor of the province, who, on giving up his sword
to the French general, reproached him to his face with his betrayal of
Venice. Napoleon listened quietly to his invectives, and dismissed him
unharmed.

Next day, while the city resounded with impotent preparations for
defence, about half of the members of the grand council met to decree
its dissolution. The doge prefaced, by a long speech, a motion for
authorising the envoys to treat with the victorious general regarding
alterations on the constitution. The motion was seconded by Pietro
Antonio Bembo, and carried almost unanimously. Bonaparte, however,
insisted that the council should by a formal act depose itself, and
create a democracy. His agents used in the city the necessary means of
allurement and intimidation; and on the 12th of May, 1797, the grand
council met for the last time. The people gathered in the square of St.
Mark; the sailors belonging to the ships of war, already ordered to
leave the harbour, made a confused noise; and, a few musket-shots being
fired, a universal panic seized the nobles. There was a sudden cry for
the question; it was put, and the abolition of the constitution was
carried by 512 voices to 20, five members declining to vote. The people
were surprised to see their chiefs leaving the palace dejected; but the
cause was soon explained. A tumult arose; the mob attacked the houses of
several French partisans, and finding one man with a tricolour cockade
in his pocket, nailed it upon his forehead. Order being restored, a
provisional administration was established; and, on the 16th of May, a
definitive treaty was signed at Milan between France and the new republic
of Venice. The representative form of government was recognised; the
infant state received, on its own petition, a garrison of French troops;
while a fine, and the delivery of pictures and manuscripts, were secretly
stipulated. When, soon afterwards, the Venetian envoys who had signed
this convention demanded that Bonaparte should procure a ratification
of it, he coolly reminded them of a fact which he himself had probably
recollected a few days earlier--that, when the treaty was arranged, their
mandate had expired by the dissolution of their constituency, the grand
council. He therefore declared that the compact was null, and that the
Directory must be left to determine for themselves in relation to the
revolutionised state.

At this time, however, it was the conqueror’s wish, by an act equally
unjust towards another section of the Italians, to compensate to the
Venetians in some measure the spoliation they had suffered. He designed
to incorporate with Venice his newly formed Cispadane Republic, while a
transpadane republic should contain the Venetian districts of Bergamo and
Brescia, in addition to the emancipated provinces in central Lombardy, no
longer liable to be claimed by Austria. But Venice was destined to be the
victim of a treachery yet more inexcusable. The cession of Mantua to the
Austrians, which was involved in the plan sketched at Leoben, was viewed
with disapprobation in Paris; while the Venetians were considered at once
too aristocratic to be safe neighbours, and too weak to be useful allies.
Francis, on the other hand, was extremely desirous to command the head of
the Adriatic; and his plenipotentiaries and the French general treated
secretly for exchanging the islands and duchy of Venice for the fortress
and province of Mantua.

In the meantime, the new position of matters altered Bonaparte’s views
as to the organisation of upper Italy. The inhabitants of the Cispadane
Republic, whose constitution, though framed, had never been formally
approved, were easily induced to accept a plan submitted to them, for
uniting all the free provinces of the north into one powerful state;
and, on the 30th of June, 1797, was announced the formation of the new
commonwealth, which was named the Cisalpine Republic. A proclamation,
signed by Bonaparte, declared that the French Republic had succeeded by
conquest to the possession of that Italian territory formerly held by the
house of Austria and other powers; but that, relinquishing its claims,
it pronounced the new state independent, and, convinced equally of the
blessings of liberty and the horrors of revolution, bestowed upon it its
own constitution, “the fruit of the experience of the most enlightened
nation in the world.” The prescribed polity accordingly bestowed the
right of citizenship on all men born and residing in the state (except
beggars or vagabonds), who should have attained the age of twenty-one,
and demanded inscription on the roll. The active franchise was vested in
assemblies elective and primary, the executive in a directory of five
members, and the making of the laws, with other deliberative functions,
in a legislative body and council of ancients--all in close imitation
of the French constitution of 1795. Napoleon, as usual, reserved to
himself the power of naming, for the first time, the members of the
Directory and of both councils. That the choice of these bodies, as well
as of such functionaries as were to be appointed by them, would fall
on persons zealous in the republican cause, was a thing unavoidable as
well as proper; but it was universally admitted that the selection was,
with very few exceptions, exceedingly judicious. The president and first
director was the ex-duke Serbelloni, who did not long remain in active
life; and three of the other directors, men both able and honest, were
Alessandri a nobleman of Bergamo, Moscati a physician, and Paradisi a
distinguished mathematician. Count Porro of Milan was minister of police;
Luosi, a lawyer of Mirandola, was minister of justice; and the secretary
of the Directory was Sommariva, a retired advocate of Lodi, who has since
been so well known in Paris for his patronage of the fine arts. In the
committee who framed the constitution, we find the names of Mascheroni
the poet and man of science, and of Melzi d’Eril, whose talents,
integrity, and independence were afterwards well proved in a higher
sphere. Melzi was a noble Milanese of Spanish extraction, and uncle to
Palafox, the defender of Saragossa.

The republic at first embraced the Austrian duchy of Milan, the Venetian
provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, and Polesine, the Modenese principalities
of Modena, Reggio, Mirandola, and Massa-Carrara, and the three papal
legations of Ferrara. Bologna, and Romagna. In the following autumn
the province of Mantua was incorporated with it. About the same time
the Alpine district of the Valtelline, including Chiavenna and Bormio,
was claimed as a dependency by the Grisons, but denied its subjection.
Bonaparte, chosen arbiter, adjudged all the disputed territories to be
independent, upon which their inhabitants offered themselves, and were
received, as members of the Cisalpine Republic.

[Sidenote: [1797-1798 A.D.]]

The aristocracy of Genoa did not long survive that of Venice. Internal
factions were quieted by a convention in June, 1797, in which the
principle of democracy was recognised, and a provisional government
named by the French commander-in-chief. The defeated nobles, entering
into alliance with a few unscrupulous ministers of the church, were
able to convince the populace that their foreign friends wished to
destroy the ancient faith; and it is said that, for the benefit of
the better educated class, there was printed a falsified copy of the
proposed constitution, containing an article which declared the Catholic
religion to be abolished in the state. In September several thousand
armed peasants attacked the city, but were beaten with great slaughter
by General Duphot, at the head of the national guards and French troops;
and, on the 2nd of December, there was publicly laid before the people,
and approved, a constitution of the same sort as the Cisalpine, under
which the Genoese state was styled the Ligurian Republic.

The fate of Venice had been already settled. Its interests formed no
part of those difficulties which made the negotiations of the autumn so
stormy; and on the 17th of October, 1797, the treaty of Campo-Formio
established peace definitively between France and Austria, to which
latter the island-city was given up without reserve or conditions. The
fleets of the Directory seized the Ionian Islands, the Austrians occupied
the mainland, and on the 18th of January, 1798, the French troops,
in Venice since the preceding spring, evacuated it, and admitted the
soldiers of the emperor.

Though Pius VI still retained his western and southeastern provinces,
he was about to lose these also. His subjects were now universally
infected with the prevalent love of change; Urbino, Macerata, and other
places, repeatedly declared themselves republican and independent; and
the Directory watched but for a plausible pretence to strike the last
blow. In December, 1797, a quarrel between some of the French partisans
in Rome and the papal soldiery produced a riot, in the course of which
the democratic party fled for refuge to the Corsini palace, occupied
by Joseph Bonaparte, the ambassador of France. The military pursued
them, and in the confusion General Duphot was shot upon the staircase.
The Parisian government exclaimed against this violation of public
law, recapitulated all the offences already committed by the papal
court, refused to accept its apologies, and in February, 1798, an army
under Berthier occupied its capital. Their general demanded that the
pope should resign his temporal sovereignty, retaining his universal
bishopric, and receiving a large pension. Pius, obstinately refusing,
was carried into Tuscany, and thence into France, where he died. The
nobles and cardinals were plundered; and though the people at large were
better treated, yet, with the characteristic fickleness of their race,
they attempted in the Trastevere a revolt, which was not quelled without
much bloodshed. The French soldiers and subalterns themselves, not only
defrauded of their pay but disgusted by the rapine of the superior
officers and commissaries, mutinied both in Rome and Mantua; and General
Masséna, the worst offender, found it prudent to resign his command.

On the 20th of March, 1798, the constitution of the Roman or Tiberine
Republic was formally proclaimed. Like the rest, it was a servile copy
from that of the French, which, however, it was thought necessary in
this instance to disguise under classical names. The state was at first
composed of the Agro Romano, with the Patrimony (_Patrimonium Petri_),
Sabina, Umbria, the territories of Orvieto, Perugia, Macerata, Camerino,
and Fermo; but the March of Ancona, which had been temporarily formed
into a separate commonwealth, was soon added to it.

_The Expulsion of the French from Italy (1798-1799 A.D.)_

[Sidenote: [1798-1799 A.D.]]

The years 1798 and 1799 formed a strong contrast to those which
immediately preceded them. Within and without, in finance, in diplomacy,
and in war, France was alike unfortunate. In the beginning of this period
her champion Bonaparte sailed for Egypt with his Italian army; and the
fields where these brave men had gained their laurels were now to be
the scene of repeated and disastrous defeats, inflicted upon those who
attempted to retain their conquests.

[Illustration: THE FORUM, POMPEII, AT THE PRESENT TIME]

The French owed this result in some measure to their own misconduct;
for, little as the Italians were able to influence permanently the
destiny of their native land, the resentment which was kindled throughout
the country by the behaviour of the foreigners, aided materially in
precipitating their second change of masters. The policy pursued
systematically by the French Republic towards those new commonwealths,
which she professed to regard as her independent allies, would have been
insufferably irritating even though it had been administered by agents
prudent and honourable. Each state was obliged not only to receive a
large body of French soldiers, but to defray the expenses of their
subsistence. The Cisalpine Republic, by a treaty which its legislative
councils long refused to ratify, was compelled to admit an army of
twenty-five thousand men, and to pay annually for its support eighteen
millions of francs; even its own native troops were placed under the
command of the French generals; the members of its administration were
forcibly displaced if, like Moscati and Paradisi, they refused to obey
orders transmitted from Paris; and some of the most patriotic Lombards,
such as Baron Custodi and the poet Fantoni, were imprisoned for that
opposition which the foreign rulers called incivism. The constitution
itself soon gave way; for, on the last day of August, 1798, an irregular
meeting of the councils substituted for it a new one, dictated by Trouvé
the French envoy at Milan; and his plan again made room for other
changes, enforced by his successor the notorious Fouché, and by Fouché’s
successor Rivaud. The opposition party in Paris remonstrated in vain;
and the Lombards began to hate equally the French nation, and those of
themselves who were unfortunate enough to hold places of authority. A
few honest patriots, headed by General Lahoz of Mantua, and the Cremonese
Birago, who had been minister at war, organised a secret society for
establishing Italian independence; and in the Ligurian and Roman states a
similar spirit was rapidly spreading, although it worked less strongly.
There, indeed, the grievances were not of so outrageous a kind, and
consisted mainly in the extortions and oppressions practised incessantly
by the generals and agents of the Directory, than which no government on
earth had ever servants more shamefully dishonest.

But the French Republic, before losing its hold of Italy, had the
fortune for a short time to possess the whole peninsula. The sovereigns
of continental Europe, having lost sight of Napoleon, began to recover
courage; and no sooner did the intelligence arrive that Nelson had
destroyed the enemy’s fleet at Abukir, than a new league was formed,
in which Italy was made one of the principal objects. The first move
was made, imprudently and prematurely, by the king of Naples, or rather
by his queen and her advisers, who, raising an army of eighty thousand
men, invaded the Roman territories. In November, 1798, they seized the
capital, where their soldiers behaved with an insolent cruelty which
made the citizens, although heartily sick of the French, wish fervently
to have them back again. The Austrian general Mack, who had been placed
at the head of the Neapolitan troops, showed on a small scale that
incapacity which afterwards more signally disgraced him; his soldiers
were undisciplined, indolent, and lukewarm; and Championnet, reconquering
the papal provinces with a French army not half so large as that of his
adversary, pursued him southward, and, almost without striking a blow,
became master of the kingdom of Naples.

The only resistance really formidable was offered when the republican
troops approached the metropolis. The weak king had already fled,
and, embarking on board the English fleet, crossed into Sicily. The
peasantry hung on the rear of the invaders, and massacred stragglers;
and the _lazzaroni_, that wild race who formed in those days so large a
proportion of the populace, rose in fury on the report that a convention
was concluded by the governor Prince Pignatelli. The fierce rabble
filled the streets, howling acclamations to the king, the holy Catholic
faith, and their tutelary saint Januarius; they drove out the regency,
butchered the suspected democrats, and, with arms, though without either
discipline or officers, poured out to meet the enemy on the plains. The
French cannon mowed them down like grass; but for three whole days they
again and again returned to meet the charge, and several thousands of
them fell before they gave way. The wrecks of this irrationally brave
multitude next defended the city, which the assailants had to gain street
by street. Championnet, accompanied by Faypoult, the commissioner of the
Directory, took formal possession of Naples, divided all the mainland
provinces into departments, and formed them into one state, called the
Parthenopean Republic. A commission of citizens was appointed to prepare
a constitution, in which the chief part of the task was performed by
Mario Pagano. The plan which was finally approved was in substance the
same as the other Italian charters; but its author had added to the
ordinary features two original ones--a tribunal of five censors, whose
functions as correctors of vice were not likely to do much good, and an
ephorate or court of supreme revision for laws and magistracies, which
promised better fruits.

The nobles in the provinces were much divided in their opinions; but
many of them still fondly remembered the lessons which they had learned
from Filangieri and his scholars; and the middle classes, having yet
experienced no evils but those of absolute and feudal monarchy, listened
with eagerness to the promises held out by the republicans. In the huge
metropolis the adherents of the king were powerless; many were willing,
from the usual motives, to worship the rising sun; a few lettered
enthusiasts were sincere in their hopes of witnessing at length that
regeneration which their country so greatly needed; and the lazzaroni
themselves became submissive and well-disposed, as soon as the saints,
through the agency of their accredited servants, had declared in favour
of freedom and democracy.

Says Botta:[i] “Championnet understood perfectly the importance which
those fiery spirits attached to their religious belief. Accordingly he
placed a guard of honour at the church of St. Januarius, and sent to
those who had charge of it a polite message, intimating that he should
be particularly obliged if the saint would perform the usual miracle of
the liquefaction of his blood. The saint did perform the miracle; and
the lazzaroni hailed it with loud applause, exclaiming, that after all
it was not true that the French were a godless race, as the court had
wished them to think; and that now nothing should ever make them believe
but that it was the will of heaven that the French should possess Naples,
since in their presence the blood of the saint had melted.”

Piedmont had already fallen. Ginguené, who afterwards wrote the history
of Italian literature, had failed, as ambassador at Turin, in executing
with proper cunning the plans of Talleyrand; but his successor soon
contrived to irritate into open resistance the new prince Charles
Emmanuel, a weak, bigoted, conscientious man. General Joubert seized
the province and citadel of Turin; and the king, executing on the 9th
of December, 1798, a formal act of abdication of his sovereignty over
the mainland, was allowed to retire into Sardinia. The provisional
government named for Piedmont, among whom was the historian Botta, found
it impossible to rule the impoverished and distracted country; repose was
the universal wish, and a union with the all-powerful neighbour seemed
the only probable means of obtaining it. Early in the ensuing spring
Piedmont was organised on the model of the French Republic, as the last
step but one towards a final incorporation.

There remained to be destroyed no more than two of the old Italian
governments. In January, 1799, Lucca, then occupied by French troops
under General Miollis, abolished its oligarchy, and assumed a directorial
and democratic constitution, after the fashionable example. In March,
the Directory, now assured of a fresh war with Austria, seized all the
large towns in Tuscany, placed the duchy under the protection of a French
commissioner, and allowed the grand-duke Ferdinand to retire to Vienna
with a part of his personal property.

But a storm was now about to break upon the heads of the French in every
quarter of Italy; and the year 1799 became for the grim Suvaroff that
which 1796 had been for Bonaparte. In the end of March the Austrian
general Bellegarde crossed the Alps, beat back the republican forces in
the north, and joined the Russians, raising the allied army to a strength
of sixty thousand, while its opponents in the peninsula did not amount to
a third of the number. The gallant Moreau, the French commander-in-chief,
had the hard task of fighting for the honour of his nation without a
chance of victory; and Macdonald, the new commandant of Naples, was
ordered to cut his way to his superior through the whole length of Italy;
an undertaking which he accomplished with great loss but signal bravery.
The allies overran the Milanese and Piedmont; and the Directory sent two
new armies under Championnet and Joubert, both of which were defeated.
Most of those Italians who had taken a lead in the republican governments
fled into France, and those who remained behind were imprisoned and
otherwise punished. The peasantry in almost every province rose and aided
the allies. Naples was lost in June, and Rome immediately followed.
Ancona, desperately defended by General Monnier, capitulated in October;
and at the end of the year Masséna commanded, within the walls of Genoa,
besieged, famished, and about to surrender, the only French troops that
were left in Italy.

Although the military events of this year do not possess such importance
as to deserve minute recital, yet one chapter of its history, embracing
the horrible fate which befell Naples, is both painfully interesting in
itself, and strikingly illustrative of the disorganised state of society
in that quarter. The spectacle which was exhibited in the overgrown
metropolis of that kingdom was indeed so unlike anything we should expect
to witness in modern times that we endeavour to find a partial solution
of the problem in the moral and statistical position of the city. We can
find no parallel without reverting to the period of the Roman Empire.

The municipal constitution of Naples, whose main features have already
been incidentally described, was the model for all the cities in the
kingdom, except Aquila, whose polity was copied from Rome. Thefts
and robberies were rare, the homicides were estimated at about forty
annually, and some vices the government chose to overlook. The municipal
administration, with a jurisdiction extending only over the markets
and the university, belonged to the _eletti_ or representatives of
the _piazze_, _seggi_, or _sedili_, of which there were six, composed
exclusively of nobles. These patricians, meeting in open porticoes,
several of which may still be seen in ruins, chose annually deputies
in each piazza, and the deputies chose the _eletto_. A seventh piazza
was formed for the _popolo_ or plebeian burghers; but care was taken
that this class should have no real power. They were divided locally
into twenty-nine wards, for each of which the king every year named a
capitano; and the twenty-nine captains, who were held to compose the
piazza of the people, appointed as the _eletto del popolo_ a citizen, not
noble, suggested by the crown. The seven _eletti_, with a _syndic_ chosen
by the six noble _eletti_, formed the municipal council, and met twice
a week in a convent, from which the board derived its usual name of the
tribunal of San Lorenzo. Many functions of the municipality were devolved
upon nine deputations of citizens, chosen periodically by the patrician
_piazze_.

But of the _popolo_, a very large number, said to have amounted in the
end of the eighteenth century to thirty thousand or more, were known in
ordinary language by the name of _lazzari_ or _lazzaroni_. These were
the lowest of the inhabitants, including, of course, many who had no
honest means of livelihood, but consisting mainly of those who, though
they gained their bread by their labour, did not practise any sort of
skilled industry. Their distinctive character, as compared with the
populace of other great cities, lay in two points. First, the usual
cheapness of fruits and other vegetables enabled them to subsist on the
very smallest earnings; while the mildness of the climate made them,
during the greater part of the year, nearly independent both of clothing
and shelter. Accordingly, many of them were literally homeless, spending
the day in the streets as errand-porters, fruit-sellers, day-labourers,
or mere idlers, and sleeping by night on the steps of churches or
beneath archways; while all of them were for a great part of their time
unemployed. These circumstances produced their second peculiarity, that
strong spirit of union which had at one time extended to a regular
organisation. They were the only class in Italy whom the Spaniards
feared; the viceroys named them in their edicts with deference, and
received deputations from them to complain of grievances; and in the
seventeenth century they were even allowed to meet tumultuously once a
year in the piazza del Mercato, and name by acclamation their temporary
chief or _capo-lazzaro_. Since the accession of the Bourbons, it is true,
they were less closely banded together, and their custom of electing an
annual head seems to have fallen into disuse; but we have already seen,
and shall immediately discover still more dreadful proofs, that the
ancient temper was not yet extinct.

We cannot fail to be struck with the likeness which this unwieldy and
dangerous commonalty bore to the populace of imperial Rome; and the
system which was pursued for furnishing the city with provisions was
another point of close resemblance. During four hundred years every
conceivable plan for preventing scarcity by restrictive laws had been
tried without effect. An assize of bread and flour, fixed in 1401,
was followed in 1496 by the building of public magazines, in which
the _eletti_ kept a large stock of grain; and at the same time there
was established a strict monopoly in favour of a prescribed number of
flour-merchants and bakers. The municipality lost enormously by this
system; for dearths became frequent, and the corporation then, exactly
like the Roman senate and emperors, sold their corn at a heavy loss, and
lowered the price of the bread. Since 1764 the city had been supplied
by eighteen privileged bakers, by the macaroni-makers, and one or two
subordinate crafts; these tradesmen paid rent to the government for their
shops; and not only were they obliged to buy the greater part of their
flour from the public granaries, but had to deposit corn of their own
in large quantities, as a security for their engagements, being bound
likewise to purchase this grain from the distant provinces. In the year
1782 it was ascertained from official returns that, in the nineteen years
preceding, the corporation had lost 2,632,645 ducats, or about £436,000.
They had spent this money without earning so much as thanks; for there
was a general prejudice against their establishments, and, both at Naples
and at Palermo, where there was a similar system, more than two-thirds of
the people made their own bread at home, except when the price of grain
rose, on which everyone flocked to the public bakehouses.

Such was the scene, and such were the principal actors, in that fearful
tragedy of which we are now to be spectators.

Scarcely had the Parthenopean Republic been proclaimed when the ferocious
cardinal Ruffo landed at Reggio, bringing with him from Sicily a patent
as royal vicar. In Calabria, and the other southern provinces, he soon
organised numerous tumultuary hordes, several of whose captains were
the most practised robbers, a few bands being commanded by military
subalterns, and some by parish priests. Proni, one of the leaders,
was a convicted assassin; De’ Cesari was a notorious highwayman, as
was Michele Pezzo, better known by the name of Fra Diavolo, or Friar
Beelzebub; and Mammone Gaetano, a miller of Sora, was the worst monster
of all. The brigands crowded to serve under their favourite captains;
many old soldiers enlisted, and the peasants, aroused by their clergymen,
joined in thousands, and quickly learned the trade of murder. The French
despatched against them General Duhesme, who was accompanied by a young
Neapolitan, Ettore Caraffa, count of Ruvo, a man every way worthy to be
pitted against the cardinal and his associates. The two parties swept
over the kingdom like a plague, from Reggio to the mountains of the
ulterior Abruzzo; and the war, if it deserves the name, soon became on
both sides a struggle of revenge and extermination. Prisoners were put
to the torture; villages and towns were burned, and their inhabitants
massacred; Caraffa had the barbarous satisfaction of exterminating his
rebellious vassals; and Ruffo’s followers, enamoured of bloodshed and
pillage, speedily ceased to ask whether their victims were republicans or
royalists.

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN PEASANT WOMAN]

The cardinal, soon reducing the southern districts, advanced upon Naples;
and the French, unable to cope with him, evacuated the city, leaving
but weak garrisons in the three castles. The republican government lost
authority at once, and the legislative councils were insulted in their
halls by bands of armed ruffians. No plan of defence seems to have been
matured, although the leading men did all they could to inspirit the
people. In the theatres, which continued open, Alfieri’s tragedies were
received with shouts, and interrupted by vehement addresses from persons
in the crowd; friars preached freedom and resistance in the churches
and on the streets; and the superstitious _lazzaroni_ were for a time
kept in check, by seeing the saints anew manifest their favour to the
revolution.[22] The few native troops which still were under arms were
sent out and defeated in the plain; and, when the royalists approached,
abject terror alternated with the resolution of despair. Most members of
the councils and administration retired into the lower forts, the Castel
dell’Ovo and Castelnuovo.

There were in Naples about two thousand Calabrese, men of all ranks,
nobles, priests, and peasants, driven from their homes by Ruffo’s hordes.
They alone were firm. A part of them took up their post in the city;
the rest, unprovided with artillery, marched out and garrisoned the
castle of Viviena, beyond the bridge of the Maddalena. The royalists
surrounded them, their heavy guns battered down the walls of the fort,
and the assailants entered by storm. The republicans fought like hungry
tigers, not a man surrendered or fled; and, when all but a handful had
fallen, Antonio Toscani, a priest of Cosenza, who commanded this little
remnant, threw a match into the powder-magazine beside him, and perished
in the common destruction of friends and enemies. The streets were for a
time defended by the remaining Calabrese, while Prince Caraccioli, the
king’s admiral, who had joined the popular party, kept up a fire on the
royalists from a few small vessels in the harbour; but a body of the
_lazzaroni_ suddenly attacked the republicans in the rear, their ranks
were broken, and the city was lost. Ruffo took possession of it on the
14th of June, 1799.

Dark as are the crimes which stain the history of our race, humanity has
seldom been disgraced by scenes so horrible as those which followed.
Universal carnage was but one feature of the atrocity; the details are
sickening, many of them utterly unfit to be told. Some republicans were
strangled with designed protraction of agony; others were burned upon
slow fires; the infuriated murderers danced and yelled round the piles on
which their victims writhed; and it is even said that men were seen to
snatch the flesh from the ashes, and greedily devour it. The _lazzaroni_,
once more loyal subjects, eagerly assisted in hunting down the rebels;
during two whole days the massacre was uninterrupted, and death without
torture was accepted as mercy.

The two lower castles surrendered on a capitulation with the cardinal
which stipulated that the republicans should, at their choice, remain
unmolested in Naples or be conveyed to Toulon; and two prelates with two
noblemen, who were prisoners in the forts, were consigned to Colonel
Méjean, the French commandant of the Castel Sant’ Elmo, as hostages for
the performance of the convention. The last incidents of this bloody
tale cannot be told without extreme reluctance by any native of the
British Empire; for they stain deeply one of the brightest names in
the national history. While the persons protected by the treaty were
preparing to embark, the English fleet under Nelson arrived, bringing
the king, the minister Acton, and the ambassador Sir William Hamilton,
with his wife, who was at once the queen’s confidante and the evil
genius of the brave admiral. The French commandant, treacherous as well
as cowardly, surrendered the castle, and gave up the hostages without
making any conditions. The capitulation was declared null, although the
cardinal indignantly remonstrated, and retired from the royal service
on failing to procure its fulfilment. The republicans were searched for
and imprisoned; and arbitrary commissions sat to try them. Under the
sentences passed by such courts, in the metropolis and the provinces,
four thousand persons died by the hand of the executioner.

Among them were some whose names appeared with distinction on the file
of literature: Domenico Cirillo, the naturalist, who refused to beg his
life; the eloquent and philosophical Mario Pagano; Lorenzo Baffi, the
translator of some of the Herculanean manuscripts, who rejected poison
offered to him by his friends in prison; Conforti, a learned canonist,
and writer on ethics and history; Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, a woman of
much talent, who had edited a democratic newspaper. Mantonè, an artillery
officer, who had been the republican minister-at-war, made on his trial
no defence but this, “I have capitulated.” On board one of the ships was
executed the aged Admiral Caraccioli, with whose name we are but too well
acquainted. Another victim, the count of Ruvo, does not inspire so much
compassion, unless we are to believe, as his whole conduct leads one to
suspect, that he was absolutely insane. Being sentenced to be beheaded,
he insisted on dying with his eyes unbandaged, laid himself upon the
block with his face uppermost, and watched steadily the descending axe.
Superstitious folly closed scenes which had begun in treachery and
revenge. St. Januarius, for having wrought republican miracles, was
solemnly deposed by the _lazzaroni_, with the approval of the government;
and in his place was substituted, as patron of the city, St. Anthony of
Padua, who, through the agency of the church, had revealed a design said
to have been formed by the advocates of democracy, for hanging all the
loyal populace. The new protector, however, proved inefficient; and the
old one was soon reinstated.

_Bonaparte Reconquers Italy_

[Sidenote: [1799-1801 A.D.]]

The fortunes of France, sunk to the lowest ebb, were about to swell again
with a tide fuller than ever. While the restored sovereigns of Italy
were busied in reorganising their states and punishing their revolted
subjects, Paris saw the “heir of the Revolution” take possession of
his inheritance. Bonaparte, having returned from the East, was master
of France, and resolved to be master of Europe. He was nominated first
consul under the constitution called that of the year Eight, which was
proclaimed on the 26th day of December, 1799.

In May, 1800, the main body of the French army, led by Napoleon in
person, effected its celebrated passage of the Great St. Bernard. The
invaders, pouring from the highlands, overran Lombardy, and attacked
Piedmont. The Austrian general Melas, with forty thousand men, was
stationed near Alessandria, when the first consul, somewhat inferior in
strength, advanced against him; and on the 14th of June the two hosts
encountered each other on the bloody field of Marengo. In the evening,
when the French had all but lost the battle, Desaix came up and achieved
the victory at the cost of his life; the Austrians were signally
defeated, and the reconquest of Italy, so far as it was judged prudent
to attempt it, was already secured. Melas concluded an armistice which
gave the enemy possession of Genoa, Savona, and Urbino, with all the
strong places in Piedmont and Lombardy as far east as the Oglio. Napoleon
reorganised the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics, created a provisional
government in Piedmont, and returned to Paris.

Meanwhile, the old pope having died the preceding year, a conclave, which
opened at Venice in March, 1800, had raised to the papal chair Cardinal
Chiaramonti, a native of Cesena and bishop of Imola, who, since the
annexation of his see to the Cisalpine commonwealth, had favoured liberal
opinions in politics. He was allowed by all parties to return to Rome,
and assume the government of the provinces which had formed the Tiberine
Republic. The king of Naples was left unmolested, but Tuscany, at first
given up to the Austrians, was seized in a short time by the French.

The negotiations for a lasting peace proved abortive, and a new war
speedily commenced, which was chiefly waged on the northern side of
the Alps, and ended in December, 1800, with Moreau’s victory over the
Austrians at Hohenlinden. In the beginning of the following year, the
Peace of Lunéville restored matters in northern Italy nearly to the same
position which they had occupied under the Treaty of Campo-Formio; but
Tuscany was erected into the kingdom of Etruria, and given to Louis, son
of the duke of Parma, though the French were to retain Elba, Piombino,
and the coast-garrisons. The new king’s father (whose duchy was given to
France), and the grand duke of Tuscany, were to be compensated in Germany
for the loss of their Italian states. The king of Naples, after invading
the Roman provinces, and giving Murat the trouble of marching an army as
far as Foligno to meet him, abandoned his engagements with England, and
concluded an alliance with the French Republic.

Napoleon, restoring the Catholic religion in France, and endeavouring
to maintain a good understanding with the court of Rome, proceeded to
rearrange the republican states of Italy. According to his usual policy,
however, he tried to make all his changes appear to have proceeded from
the wish of the people themselves; and, through honest conviction in
many cases, and selfish subserviency in many more, he was easily able to
procure converts to his opinions.[f]

THE GROWING DESIRE FOR LIBERTY

If the great desire of Italy at the end of the eighteenth century was
incontestably to become a nation, a desire all the more ardent because
it was so recent, since it dated back only forty years, was she ready to
take action and undertake her own government? It is doubtful. Not that
the Italian middle-class educated in the school of French philosophers
and convinced of the principles of ’89 was not thenceforth capable to
assume the power, and even to obtain the adhesion of the rural masses to
the new ideas, in spite of their ignorance and submission to the clergy;
but because a nation cannot exist without a leader--and there was no
leader. Under the successive domination of so many foreign tyrannies,
all these noble towns, each of which had formerly been a small state
and had astonished the world with its magnificence, had fallen, one
after the other, to the rank of prefectures without moral authority
and without credit. As she had borne the burden of her cosmopolitism
for three centuries, Italy was now about to expiate, during a shorter
period, but still severely, this hatred of all concentration which
had been, since the fall of the Roman Empire, the strongest and most
constant of her passions. The municipal spirit of antiquity, which had
inspired all the towns of the peninsula during the whole of the Middle
Ages, had been, even more than the Catholic and universal spirit of
papacy, the rock on which the modern principle of national unity had
been wrecked. The Ghibellines had incarnated this principle in the house
of Hohenstaufen, and the Guelfs for many years in the house of Anjou,
but it had been overthrown in Italy at the very moment when it was
triumphing over all the rest of Europe. And hence it doubtless was that
arose the incomparable lustre of Italian civilisation at the dawn of the
Renaissance, that universal blossoming of literature and art even in the
most humble towns where there was then more intellectual culture than
in the greatest cities of Germany, of England, or even of France. But
from the same cause also arose that marvellous and fruitful intensity of
individual and municipal life, that phenomenon, almost unique in history,
of a nation repulsing the idea of unity, similar to a nebula refusing
to take form. The law of development carried into effect by the various
states of Latin Europe had been the successive agglomeration of all the
elements of the same or similar origin round a central nucleus, their
crystallisation round a concrete sovereignty, and if the expression may
be allowed, one soul in common. But Italy had systematically evaded this
law of centralisation, a law not only historical but physical, which in
politics as in nature is the indispensable condition of all progress.
She was therefore at the end of the fifteenth century the hydra with a
hundred heads. Then the hundred heads fell one after the other under the
blows of the great French, German, and Spanish invasions; the nation
itself had almost perished. And now that the nation had slowly formed
again she sought for a head in vain. If she wished to live, and she
wished it with invincible passion, she in turn must realise what all the
other nations of Europe had accomplished so many centuries ago, and,
forsaking her past, she must set to work to take a central sovereignty.
Nationality is unity, and unity can only be formed round a common
centre.[j]

FOOTNOTES

[21] Alcantarians, an order of Franciscan monks.

[22] “In the midst of this confusion, the customary annual procession of
St. Januarius took place. Before it began, the democratic leaders sent
to the keepers of the church, desiring them to pray heartily that the
saint might perform the miracle. The keepers did pray heartily, and the
blood bubbled up in less than two minutes. The lazzaroni shouted that St.
Januarius had become a republican.”--BOTTA.[i]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVIII. THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME

[Sidenote: [1801-1815 A.D.]]

The mind of Bonaparte was capable of exercising the most contrary
qualities in the prosecution of his designs. Having reconciled himself to
the pope, defeated Austria, and deluded Alexander, being also confident
of peace with England, he applied himself to bringing into effect that
which he had so long conceived in his own mind, and had so pertinaciously
pursued. He was anxious that the first impulse should come from Italy,
fearing that a certain residuum of republican opinions in France might
prove a bad consequence, if the way were not smoothed for his design by
some exciting precedent. Thus, having conquered Italy by the arms of
France, he sought to vanquish France by the obsequious concessions of
Italy.

His Italian machinations were opened with imposing effect; and
in Lombardy his most devoted adherents were artfully employed in
disseminating the idea of the insecurity arising to the Cisalpine
Republic from the temporary nature of its government.

[Sidenote: [1801-1802 A.D.]]

Whilst these ideas were disseminated amongst the people, Petiet
negotiated with the chiefs of the republic, in order that the imperative
commands of the consul might appear to be the desires and the spontaneous
supplications of the nation. When the consultations were concluded at
Paris for the design, and at Milan for its execution, a decree was issued
by the legislative council of the Cisalpine Republic, commanding an
extraordinary _consulto_ to proceed to Lyons, in order there to frame the
fundamental laws of the state, and to give information to the consul.[b]

In December, 1801, at Lyons, a deputation of four hundred and fifty
citizens, from the Cisalpine Republic, offered to Napoleon, then first
consul, the presidency of their government for a term of years. He
accepted the gift, and in January, 1802, with the assent of the deputies,
promulgated a constitution for their state, which was now named the
Italian Republic. In June following, the Ligurian Republic likewise
accepted an altered charter, which received modifications in December.
The Piedmontese, wearied of anarchy and of their despot, General Menou,
consented, for the second time, that their country should be made a
province of France; and the formal annexation took place in September of
the same year.

[Illustration: PIAZZA DELLA COLLEGIATE]

The gradual changes of view in Bonaparte and his countrymen are
curiously illustrated by the successive constitutions which their
influence established in Italy. In 1802, at home as well as abroad, they
were immeasurably distant from the universal citizenship and primary
assemblies of 1793; southern polity differed in several prominent
points from that which had been imposed on their own country. It is
best exemplified by the constitution of the Italian Republic, which was
closely copied in the Ligurian; and these charters were considered at the
time, not without probability, as experiments by which, as we have said,
the first consul tried the temper of his future subjects on his own side
of the Alps. In the first place, this system boldly shook off democracy;
for the citizens at large were disfranchised, not indeed in words, but
in reality: a step which had not been fully taken in France, even by
Bonaparte’s consular constitution. Next, the Italian acts divided among
the colleges, or bodies of the middle and upper classes (boards elected
with something like freedom of choice), most of those functions which in
Paris were committed to the consul’s favourite tool, the self-appointed
senate. Lastly, the mass of the people being thus disarmed, and the
educated leaders lulled into acquiescence, the president of the state
received a power far beyond even that which he exercised over his French
fellow-citizens.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC

The details of the constitution given to the Italian Republic are
historically curious, in relation both to what went before and to what
followed.

It at once narrowed the franchise, declaring citizenship to be dependent
on a property-qualification, which was to be fixed by the legislature;
but this right carried, by itself, not a particle of political power.
The elective functions were vested exclusively in three colleges and a
board of censors, which were to be convoked once at least in two years,
for short sessions. The college of the _possidenti_ or landholders was
composed of three hundred citizens, rated for the land-tax on property
worth not less than 6,000 Milanese livres, or about £170. It was
self-elected, and met at Milan. The college of the _dotti_ or savants
contained two hundred citizens, eminent in art, theology, ethics,
jurisprudence, physics, or political science. It sat at Bologna. The
college of the _commercianti_ or merchants consisted of two hundred
citizens, elected by the board itself from among the most distinguished
mercantile men or manufacturers. Its seat was Brescia. Members of all
the colleges held their places for life. The censors were a committee
of twenty-one named by the colleges at every sitting. This commission,
assembling at Cremona, nominated the council of state, the legislative
body, the courts of revision and cassation, and the commissaries of
finance, all from lists submitted by the colleges. It was likewise
authorised to impeach public servants for malversation in office.

[Sidenote: [1802-1804 A.D.]]

The administration was vested in a president (who could name a
vice-president), a council of state, a cabinet of ministers, and a
legislative council. The president was elected by the first of these
bodies, and held his office for ten years. He possessed the initiative in
all laws, and in all diplomatic business, and also the whole executive
power, to be exercised through the ministry.

The council of state was particularly designed for advising in foreign
affairs, and for sanctioning by its decrees all extraordinary measures of
the president. The ministers lay under a broad personal responsibility,
both for acts and omissions. The legislative council, chosen, like the
ministry, by the president, had a deliberative voice in all drafts of
law; and the preparation and carrying through of bills were to be mainly
intrusted to it.

The legislative body, which possessed the functions indicated by its
name, consisted of seventy-five members, one-third of whom were to go out
every two years. It was to be convoked and prorogued by the government;
but its sittings were to last not less than two months in every year.

The Catholic clergy were recognised as the ministers of the national
church, and as entitled to possess the ecclesiastical revenues. The
administration named the bishops, who again appointed the parish priests,
subject to the approval of the government. An unqualified toleration was
promised to all other creeds.

The tenor of this charter, and the position which Napoleon held in virtue
of it, made it more natural than usual that he should, as his countrymen
had invariably done in similar cases, nominate for the first time all the
members of the government. The choice was in general wise and popular.
Melzi d’Eril was vice-president.

Under this new order of things, while the Neapolitan government ruled
with jealousy and little wisdom, and the court of Rome with kindness but
feebly, the remainder of the peninsula was subject, either in reality or
both in reality and in name, to the French Republic. Sustained by foreign
influence, the northern and central regions of Italy began to enjoy a
prosperity and quiet to which for years they had been strangers. The new
commonwealths were as far as ever from being nationally independent; some
parts of the country were avowedly provinces of France; and everywhere
the political privileges of individuals had, as we have seen, shrunk
far within the limits to which they had stretched immediately after the
Revolution. But the absence of national independence, although a great
evil, was counterbalanced by many advantages; and the curtailment of
public rights, as bitter experience had proved, was a blessing both to
the state and to its citizens.

NAPOLEON MAKES ITALY A KINGDOM

[Sidenote: [1804-1805 A.D.]]

On the 18th day of May, 1804, the senate declared Napoleon emperor of the
French, “through the grace of God and the principles of the republic.”
The pope, after much hesitation, consented to bestow on the new empire
the sanction of the church; and accordingly, journeying to Paris in the
dead of winter, he officiated at the coronation in Notre Dame.

The Italians could not reasonably expect that they should be allowed to
stand solitary exceptions to the new system of their master; and the
principal citizens in Lombardy were speedily prepared, by arguments or
inducements suited to the occasion, for taking such steps as should place
them, with an appearance of voluntary submission, under the monarchical
polity. The vice-president Melzi was sent to Paris at the head of a
deputation from the Italian Republic. In March, 1805, these envoys
waited on the emperor, and presented to him an instrument purporting to
contain the unanimous resolution of the constituted authorities of the
state, whereby they offered to him and his male descendants, legitimate,
natural, or adopted, the crown of their republic, which they consented
should be transformed into “the kingdom of Italy.” The resolutions were
immediately embodied in a constitutional statute, by which Napoleon
accepted the sovereignty, but pledged himself to resign it in favour
of one who should be born or adopted his son, as soon as Naples, the
Ionian Isles, and Malta should be evacuated by all foreign troops. In
April the emperor-king passed through Piedmont in triumph, and on the
26th of May his coronation was performed in the cathedral of Milan. The
archbishop of the see, Cardinal Caprara, who had been his principal
assistant in negotiating with the pope, attended at the ceremony, and was
allowed to consecrate the insignia; but the “iron crown” of Lombardy, the
distinctive symbol of royal power, was, like the diadem of France, placed
on Napoleon’s head by his own hand.

“This part of the ceremonial,” says Denina,[c] “differed from the
ancient usage. It left no room for supposing that the crowned monarch
acknowledged himself to derive from any other than God, or the power
which by the divine will he held in his hands, that proud ensign of
sovereignty, of which he thus publicly took possession.”

He did not leave the peninsula till he had not only organised the
government and constitution of his own kingdom of Italy, but completed
material changes on the adjacent states. Before the coronation, the
doge and senate of Genoa, warned that the independence of the Ligurian
Republic could not be guaranteed, and jealously averse, it is said, to a
union with the new kingdom, petitioned for annexation to France. Their
lord condescendingly granted the prayer which he had himself dictated;
and the formal incorporation was completed in October, 1805. In March
of the same year, the principality of Piombino had been given to his
sister Elisa Bonaparte, as a fief of the French Empire; and in July
the territories belonging to the republic of Lucca were erected into
another principality for her husband, Pasquale Bacciocchi. The only
parts of upper Italy that remained unappropriated were the provinces of
the ex-duke of Parma, which, though occupied by the French, were not
formally incorporated either with the empire or the kingdom of Italy. The
viceroyalty of the latter was conferred on Eugène Beauharnais, the son of
the empress Josephine. None of the great powers in Europe acknowledged
the new kingdom, and indeed none of them was asked to do so.

[Sidenote: [1805-1808 A.D.]]

The legitimate sovereigns did not leave their plebeian brother to enjoy
unmolested so much as the first year of his reign. An invasion of
Italy under the archduke Charles ended in the defeat of the Austrians
by Masséna upon the Adige; and in December, 1805, the great battle of
Austerlitz forced the emperor Francis to conclude the unfavourable
Treaty of Presburg. In respect to the Italian peninsula, he acknowledged
Napoleon’s kingly title, and acquiesced in all his other arrangements;
but, further, he was compelled to surrender Venice with its provinces
as he had received them at the Peace of Campo-Formio, consenting that
they should be united with the kingdom of Italy. In January, 1806, the
island-city was occupied by French troops under General Miollis.

Napoleon seized the opportunity of the new acquisition, for founding
that hereditary noblesse with Italian titles, whose ranks were speedily
filled by his most useful servants, civil as well as military. There
were specified certain districts which the emperor reserved the right
of erecting into dukedoms, appropriating to their titular possessors a
fifteenth part of the revenues derived from the provinces in which they
lay, and setting aside for the same purpose the price of large tracts of
national lands. In Parma and Piacenza were to be three of these fiefs--in
Naples, recently conquered, six--and in the Venetian provinces twelve,
among which were Dalmatia, Treviso, Bassano, Vicenza, Rovigno, and other
demesnes whose titles acquired a new interest from the celebrity of the
men who bore them. Two other dukedoms, conferred respectively on Marshal
Bernadotte and the minister Talleyrand, were formed from the papal
districts of Pontecorvo and Benevento. The emperor of the French, now
lord paramount of the kingdom enclosing these territories, seized them
without troubling himself to invent any pretext; coolly assuring the pope
that the loss would be compensated afterwards, but that the nature of
the indemnification would materially depend upon the holy father’s good
behaviour.

THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES AND THE PAPACY

The king of Naples, lately the abject vassal of the French, had allowed
a body of Russians and English to land without resistance. Cardinal
Ruffo, who resented the tragedy of 1799, and despised the intriguing of
Acton, was sent to deprecate the conqueror’s wrath, but returned home a
confirmed Bonapartist; and Napoleon, who wanted a throne for one of his
brothers, proclaimed to his soldiers that the dynasty of the Bourbons
in lower Italy had ceased to reign. His army crossed the frontier in
January, 1806, upon which the king fled to Sicily; his haughty wife
lingered to the last moment, and then reluctantly followed. Joseph
Bonaparte, meeting no resistance except from the foreigners who composed
the garrison of Gaeta, entered the metropolis early in February, and,
after quietly hearing mass said by Ruffo in the church of St. Januarius,
was proclaimed king of Naples and Sicily. After some fighting, chiefly
in Calabria, the whole country within the Faro of Messina submitted
to its new sovereign, although in several districts the allegiance
was but nominal. In the following summer Sir Sidney Smith took Capri,
and prevailed on Sir John Stuart to land in the Calabrian Gulf of St.
Eufemia; but the only result was the brilliant victory gained by the
British regiments over the French at Maida. The royalist partisans
disgraced their cause by cruelties which no exertions of the English
officers were able to stop; and, after the enemy had increased materially
in strength, the expedition was compelled to return to Sicily.

During that year Napoleon was occupied with the war against Prussia,
which was terminated by the battle of Jena; and in 1807 he had commenced
his system of intrigue in Spain, the first fruit of which was another
appropriation in Italy. The widowed queen of Etruria, who acted as regent
for her son Charles Louis, was unceremoniously ejected from his states,
which in May, 1808, were formed into three departments of France, while
the princess of Piombino was established at Florence with the title
of grand duchess of Tuscany. About the same time--upon the proposal
or pretext that the Bourbons of Parma should be made sovereigns of
Portugal--their duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla were finally
annexed to France.

[Sidenote: [1808-1811 A.D.]]

The principal event of that year was the opening campaign of the French
in Spain and Portugal. The schemes of the military autocrat in that
quarter, destined to be the first step in his road to destruction, led
him to recall his brother Joseph from the throne of Naples, which, on
his leaving Italy for Madrid, was bestowed on Joachim Murat, grand
duke of Berg and Cleves, one of the emperor’s bravest generals, and
husband of his sister Caroline. The new king’s only title was an edict
issued by Napoleon at Bayonne, on the 15th of July, 1808, in which he
announces that he has granted to Joachim the throne of Naples and Sicily,
vacant by the accession of Joseph to that of Spain and the Indies.
The showy and gallant soldier began his reign by driving Sir Hudson
Lowe out of the island of Capri;[23] and when the Carbonari, a sect of
republicans recently organised, had co-operated with the royalists in
raising disturbances throughout Calabria, he sent into the province
his countryman, General Manhés, recommended for such service by having
previously pacified, or depopulated, the Abruzzi. The envoy, executing
his commission with heartless severity, made that secluded region orderly
and peaceful, for the first time perhaps in its modern history.

The next year overturned the papal throne. The turmoil which the
Revolution raised in the Gallican church had been quieted by the
concordat of 1801; but a code of regulations issued by the first consul
for carrying the principles of that compact into effect in France, and
a decree issued by the vice-president Melzi for the same purpose in
Lombardy, had been both disavowed by Pius as unauthorised by him, and as
contrary not only to the spirit of the concordat, but to the principles
of the church of Rome. The reconciliation which ensued was but hollow;
and Napoleon determined that his dominion over Italy, now extending
from one end of the peninsula to the other, should not be defied; and
the papal state was openly claimed as a fief held under Napoleon, the
successor of Charlemagne. The remonstrances of Pius on ecclesiastical
matters, indeed, were urged in a tone that could not have failed to
irritate a temper like that of the emperor.

In January, 1808, as is more fully described in the history of France,
seven thousand soldiers under Miollis, professing to march for Naples,
turned aside and seized Rome; and in April an imperial decree, founding
its reasons on the pope’s refusal of the alliance, on the danger of
leaving an unfriendly power to cut off communication in the midst
of Italy, and on the paramount sovereignty of Charlemagne, annexed
irrevocably to the kingdom of Italy the four papal provinces of Ancona,
Urbino, Macerata, and Camerino.

In May, 1809, Napoleon dated from the palace of Schönbrunn at Vienna a
decree which annexed to the French Empire those provinces of the papal
state which had not been already seized. The pope was to receive an
annuity of two millions of francs, and to confine his attention to the
proper duties of his episcopal office. Pius issued a very firm manifesto,
went through the form of excommunicating Napoleon and all ecclesiastics
who should obey him. On the night between the 5th and 6th of July, the
French soldiers and the police broke into his apartments, and seized his
person. He was transported into France, and thence back to Savona, where
he was kept a close prisoner till 1811. In June, 1810, the kingdom of
Italy received its last accession of territory, the southern or Italian
Tyrol being then incorporated with it.

[Sidenote: [1810-1814 A.D.]]

It appears, as the result of the events which have now been summarily
related, that, from the middle of 1810 till the fall of Napoleon in 1814,
the political divisions of Italy were the following:

The mainland was divided into four sections, or, more properly, into
three, since Lucca falls really under the first. (1) A large proportion
of it had been incorporated with France, whose territories on the western
coast now stretched southward to the frontier of Naples. These Italian
provinces of the French Empire lay chiefly on the western side of the
Apennine, where they included the following districts--Nice, with Savoy,
since 1792; Piedmont, since 1802; Genoa, since 1805; Tuscany, since 1808;
and the western provinces of the Roman see, since 1809. On the northeast
of the mountain chain, France had only Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla,
which were annexed to it in 1808. Within the Neapolitan frontier it
had the duchies of Benevento and Pontecorvo. (2) On the western side
of the mountains, the imperial territory was interrupted by the little
independent principality comprehending Lucca and Massa-Carrara. This
petty state, however, was possessed by members of the emperor’s family,
and was practically one of his French provinces. (3) Central and eastern
Lombardy, with some districts of the Alps, and a part of the peninsula
proper, composed the kingdom of Italy, of which Napoleon wore the crown.
Its territories comprehended, first, the whole of Austrian Lombardy;
secondly, the Valtelline, with Chiavenna and Bormio; thirdly, Venice and
its mainland provinces, from the Oglio on the west to the Isonzo, which
had been latterly fixed as the eastern frontier; fourthly, that part of
the Tyrol which forms the valley of the Adige; fifthly, the territories
of the dukes of Modena and Reggio, except Massa-Carrara; sixthly, the
papal provinces of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna, of Urbino, Macerata,
Camerino, and Ancona. (4) The kingdom of Naples consisted of the same
provinces on the mainland which had been governed by the Bourbons; and
since the year 1806, it had been ruled by sovereigns belonging to the
imperial family of France. The legitimate monarchs still possessed the
two great islands--the ex-king of Naples holding Sicily, the king of
Sardinia the isle which gave him his title.

[Sidenote: [1806-1814 A.D.]]

To the Neapolitan[24] as well as the papal states, no change of masters
or of polity could at the time of the Revolution have been an evil; the
Venetian provinces, likewise, were then ill-governed and oppressed;
upon Lombardy, the leaden hand of Austria had again begun to lie heavy;
and in Tuscany itself there was much that required amendment, both in
the character of the new rulers and in that of the people. The spirit
of local jealousy, too, and the total want of military spirit not less
than of national pride, were things that the Revolution aided powerfully
in rooting out, although the Italians paid dearly for the benefit. The
resources of the country, in agriculture and in manufactures, were
developed with a success which nothing in its modern history had yet
paralleled; and the prosperity was checked only, and driven into new
channels, by that unwise and revengeful policy by which Napoleon for
years, beginning with the Berlin decree of 1806, attempted to place the
British Empire and its colonies in a state of blockade.

Even that arbitrary temper which, in the later years of his reign,
converted his rule into an unmixed despotism, was never shown on the
south of the Alps with the same fierceness which it assumed in the
other provinces of his kingdom. In his secret soul, Napoleon Bonaparte
was proud of that southern pedigree which, by every artifice down to
the petty trick of misspelling his family name, he strove to make his
transalpine subjects forget; himself an Italian in feeling, much rather
than a Frenchman, he understood and sympathised with the character of his
countrymen, in its weakness as well as in its strength, in its capacities
for improvement as well as in its symptoms of decay; he flattered the
populace, he breathed his own fiery spirit into the army, he honoured the
learned and scientific, he employed and trusted those intelligent men
who panted for a field of political action. He taught the people to feel
themselves a mighty nation; and those whom he so ennobled have not yet
forgotten their stern benefactor. If Napoleon chastised Italy with whips,
he chastised France with scorpions; and the one region not less than the
other has profited by the wholesome discipline.

After the fall of the popedom, an attempt was made to give unity and a
show of independence to the Italian provinces of the empire, by uniting
them into one general government, the administration of which, conferred
at first on Louis Bonaparte, was afterwards given to the prince Borghese,
the head of a noble Roman family of the first rank, who had married
Pauline, one of the emperor’s sisters. The French scheme of taxation was
introduced, with very slight modifications; and in 1812, the Italian
provinces (excluding Nice) yielded to the exchequer fully half as much
as was contributed by all the other territories lately added to the
empire, including as these did some of the richest commercial cities
in Europe. The gross sum raised by taxes of all kinds during that year
was 95,712,349 francs, or nearly four millions sterling, which gave
62,644,560 francs as the net return to the treasury; and it is worthy of
notice, likewise, that the cost of collection here was considerably less,
in proportion, than in the other recent acquisitions. The revenue was
liberally spent in organising efficient courts of law (whose text-book
was of course the Code Napoléon), in executing works of usefulness
as well as pomp, such as roads, bridges, and public buildings, in
investigating the antiquities of Rome and other places, and in advancing
arts and manufactures, by premiums and similar encouragements.

Arbitrary as was his method of imposing the new law-book, nothing which
Napoleon did for Italy was half so distinguished a benefit. Another
importation from France was the military conscription, which, in some
particulars advantageous, was in most respects a severe evil. The annual
levies ordered during the six years which ended with 1814, amounted in
all to ninety-eight thousand men, rising from six thousand in 1806, to
fifteen thousand, which was the demand during each of the last four
years; but only a portion of these troops were ever called into active
service. Still the emperor’s foreign wars, especially those in Spain and
Russia, cost to his Cisalpine provinces the lives of thousands. That
restoration of hereditary aristocracy which was effected in France, took
place in Italy likewise, by a decree of 1808, bestowing on the sovereign
the power of conferring titles, and allowing the nobles so created to
institute majorats, or devises of lands in favour of their eldest sons,
or others whom they might select to transmit their honours.

We have yet to survey the finances of the kingdom, that branch of its
polity which, in both its departments, the receipt and the expenditure,
has been more loudly blamed than any other. Part of the censure is
fully deserved; but very much of it is overcharged, and not a little is
utterly unfounded. Two heavy faults pervaded the whole system: first,
that multiplication of taxes, both in number and amount, which Napoleon,
constantly immersed in foreign wars, imposed with a more direct view to
the filling of his own exchequer than to the comfort or prosperity of his
subjects; secondly, that dependent situation of Lombardy which caused her
interests to be sacrificed in several instances to those of France.

THE ISLANDS OF SICILY AND SARDINIA

[Sidenote: [1801-1814 A.D.]]

In the meantime, while the whole peninsula was subject to the French
emperor, or to his vassal-princes, the English had preserved Sicily for
King Ferdinand.

When the court first removed to that island, the discontent of the lower
orders was general; and on its breaking out into violence at Messina
and elsewhere, the marquis Artali subdued the spirit of the people by
cruelties which no remonstrances of the British could stop. The British,
indeed, were not popular; and they soon lost the favour of the imperious
queen, who entered into secret dealings with Napoleon. The reckless
extravagance of the court, rendering necessary an excessive taxation,
completed the disgust of the nation; and the barons, in their parliament
of 1810, besides protecting themselves and others by refusing the
supplies, except on conditions which made the collection of them all but
impossible, voluntarily aided the popular cause, by abolishing many of
their own feudal privileges.

Matters were coming to a bloody crisis, when Lord William Bentinck,
the new ambassador at Palermo, executed the resolutions of the English
government. The queen was forced to consent that her husband should
resign his power to his son, as vicar or regent, while Bentinck was named
captain-general of Sicily. Parliament was summoned in 1812, and framed a
charter which, after violent resistance from Caroline, was ratified by
the prince-vicar.

The history of Sardinia, during the French reign on the mainland,
possesses neither interest nor importance enough to detain us long. Its
king, Charles Emmanuel, weary of the world, abdicated in 1802 and retired
to Rome, where he lived many years in devotional exercises, receiving a
pension from Napoleon on his seizure of the city, and becoming a Jesuit
when that order was restored. His brother and successor, Victor Emmanuel,
held his island-crown by the same tenure as his Sicilian neighbour, or,
in other words, by the protection of the English fleet.[d]

THE RISE OF NATIONAL SPIRIT

When Francis II of Austria renounced the imperial German crown on the
6th of August, 1806, Austria seems to have renounced its authority
over Italy, though that country had hitherto found its main support in
Austrian rule. In all encroachments of Austria in Italy, outside of its
own province, the Italians later took it as a precedent that in 1806
Austria of itself renounced the ancient rights of the Holy Roman Empire.

The political convictions had for long been blunted, the political
passions concerning the contributions and frauds of French proconsuls
and their tools subsided as the fire of a burnt-out house. The more
dangerous Italians were made barons and counts, and Melzi, prominent for
his character and intellect, had been made a duke. The rage which still
smouldered in individuals over the degradation of Italy is shown in the
writings of Count Alfieri, who was born in Piedmont, 1743, and died at
Florence, 1804; and of Niccolo Ugo Foscolo, born of a Greek mother, in
Venice, 1772, and deceased in London, 1827. While far from stainless
themselves, these men were panegyrists of patriotic celibacy and suicide,
and possessed a sort of volcanic genius, that urged them on to write
something great. Classic antiquity, stalking about in a phenomenally
high cothurnus, was their religion. Alfieri declared that the papacy
was irreconcilable with the freedom of Italy; both writers arrived at
a certain desperate calm out of sheer admiration for England. To teach
the Italian people to feel their political misfortune was their mission,
and in its performance they remained the grand-masters of the desperate
party. Some of the youth of Italy ignited their negative patriotism,
their hatred of the tyrant and disdain of the lower classes at the fire
of these doctrines; but for all their straining after effect both poets
possessed more genuine patriotic passion than was ever evinced by their
imitators, and were heroes of patriotic virtue compared to many who
coldly traded on the passions of others.

[Illustration: ALFIERI]

A lasting after-effect of the republic was the complete abolition of
feudal rights, which gave the Lombard and Venetian nobles a position of
singular freedom.

[Sidenote: [1805-1806 A.D.]]

In 1805, as we have seen, Napoleon appointed Eugène Beauharnais, son of
Josephine, viceroy; later he made him his successor in the kingdom of
Italy, with the order to govern it after the simple system: “The emperor
wills it!” The new ruler himself wrote to Napoleon that the kingdom
of Italy would pay 30,000,000 francs to France yearly. Eugène married
the daughter of King Max of Bavaria, with whom he shared Tyrol in the
division suggested by their nationality.

Two days after the wedding, the 16th of January, 1806, Napoleon adopted
Eugène. Ancona and all Venice being now added to it, the “kingdom
of Italy” numbered 6,500,000 souls to 1,530 square miles. Even the
courts, or rather their counsellors, worthy of the necessities of the
time, observed that from the union of all these fragments the idea of
nationality was slowly arising.

[Sidenote: [1806-1813 A.D.]]

Balbo[e] says of this time: “It was vassalage, no doubt; but a vassalage
that shared the pride, the joys, the triumphs of the ruler. It was a
time of universal self-respect, and from it dates the first utterance by
the people of the name of Italy with increased love and honour; all over
Italy the petty municipal and provincial jealousies which had taken root
centuries before, and flourished even in the Utopian republic of a day,
began to decline.”

We must not forget that Balbo belonged to the Piedmontese; hence the
highest military nobility. The families whose sons had to pass through
fire and be sacrificed to the Moloch of Napoleon’s ambition, could not
then have shared his sentiments. Out of 30,000 Italians scarcely 9,000
returned from Spain. It caused a still more painful impression when
Napoleon announced that of the 27,000 men of the kingdom of Italy who had
gone to Russia, scarcely a thousand remained, especially as he made the
announcement dryly, without a word of acknowledgment, and only ordered
the raising of a new army. The remainder of Italy, partly incorporated to
France and partly Neapolitan, had similar losses to bear.[f]

THE FALL OF NAPOLEON

In the winter of 1812 the emperor’s great army perished among the snows
of Russia. Germany rose against him as one man; the battle of Leipsic
completed his ruin; and before the end of 1813, he retained none of his
foreign territories but Italy. As he had used the influence of religion
to strengthen his rising power, so he now again caught at its support
to arrest his fall. Calling the imprisoned pope to Fontainebleau after
his return from the fatal campaign in the north, he prevailed on him to
subscribe a concordat, which yielded some of the disputed points, and
gave again to the French Empire the patronage of the see of Rome. But
the advisers of Pius in this step had been Cardinal Ruffo and men who,
like him, watched the times from a secular point of view: and different
sentiments were suggested to the pontiff by those other friends, the
cardinals Pacca, Gabrielli, Litta, and De Pietro, who were next admitted
to his closet. He retracted his consent, and Napoleon lost the hold which
he had thus hoped to gain both on France and Italy.

In the meantime, the nation had been called on to take an active share in
the closing struggle maintained by their conqueror; the kingdom of Italy,
except the sullen aristocracy of Venice, came forward with cheerfulness
and spirit to furnish extraordinary contributions of men and money.
Piedmont was equally zealous and active. Little was done to aid Napoleon,
and nothing whatever to secure the independence of Italy after his
dethronement. Jealousies, local and personal, though they had been lulled
asleep, were not destroyed; opinions and desires differed by innumerable
shades; and, above all, there was no chief, no man that could have led
the nation into battle, defying the fearful odds which would have been
brought against it. Neither for the establishment of an independent
peninsular monarchy, nor for that of a federation or a single republic,
were there materials among those who guided the destinies of the country;
Murat and Eugène Beauharnais were equally ill-fitted to sustain the part
of Robert the Bruce; and among all their Italian generals there was no
Kosciuszko.

[Sidenote: [1813-1815 A.D.]]

In the summer of 1813, the Austrian armies defiled from the southern
passes of the Alps; and after several indecisive engagements with the
forces of Eugène, they had gained, before the end of the campaign, a
great part of northern Italy. Meanwhile, King Joachim, marching his
troops northwards, seized the papal provinces, and astonished Europe by
proclaiming himself the ally of Austria. He had concluded a bargain, by
which Francis, on condition of receiving his assistance, guaranteed the
Neapolitan throne to himself and his heirs. In the ensuing spring, a body
of English and Sicilians took Leghorn (Livorno) and were thence led by
Lord William Bentinck against Genoa, which surrendered without resistance.

But the contest was already over; for on the 11th of April, 1814,
Napoleon signed, at Fontainebleau, his act of abdication. Upon receiving
this intelligence, Eugène attempted to secure Lombardy for himself. The
senators declined to comply with his wish. A riot ensued, in which Prina,
the unpopular minister of finance, was torn in pieces by the mob, and
Méjean with difficulty escaped. The viceroy sought refuge with the king
of Bavaria, one of whose daughters was his wife. German armies forthwith
took possession of all the chief towns and places of strength in the
peninsula.

In the course of the same year, the legitimate princes of Italy returned
one by one to their thrones, as the congress of Vienna settled their
claims. But the history of Napoleon’s empire will not be closed until we
have anticipated a period of some months, in order to behold the fall of
the last of those sovereignties which he had erected on the south of the
Alps.

This was Naples, which for some time remained in an anomalous position.
The emperor Francis, however desirous he might be, durst not break his
own engagements; but France, Spain, and Sicily protested against all
resolutions of the congress, so long as Joachim should be permitted to
retain his kingdom. His own imprudence soon removed the difficulty.
In March, 1815, on hearing that Napoleon had left Elba and effected
a landing, he offered to Austria to join in the war against him, on
condition of receiving a general acknowledgment of his title. The answer
was evasive, and he hastened to gain for himself all he could. With an
army of fifty or sixty thousand men, ill-trained, and not well inclined,
he marched as far as Ravenna, whence a German force of ten thousand drove
him back within his own frontier. He fled by sea, while his metropolis
surrendered to the English fleet; and, in June, 1815, Ferdinand landed at
Baja, and took possession of all his old provinces on the mainland.

After the battle of Waterloo, the dethroned Joachim wandered through
France, and crossed to Corsica; whence, with about two hundred followers,
he sailed for Italy, in the chimerical hope of conquering his lost
kingdom. He landed in Calabria, where the soil yet reeked with the
blood shed by Manhés; the peasants seized him, and delivered him to
the military. A court-martial, receiving its commission from Naples,
convicted him of treason; and on the 13th of October, 1815, he was shot
in Pizzo, meeting an inglorious death with the same courage which he had
always shown in the field of battle.[d]

FOOTNOTES

[23] [“This general, later Napoleon’s jailer, surrendered and was
released on parole.”--DE CASTRO.[g]]

[24] [Of Joachim Murat’s administration of Naples, De Castro says:
“Joachim’s government, assisted by good and energetic ministers, amongst
whom was Ricciardi, Count di Camaldoli, proposed to enforce and amplify
the good laws of Joseph, and to impress upon the Neapolitans the duty
of improving themselves. At the same time, the necessity of punishments
being less, they wished to modify the rigours of the law, and obliterate
if possible all traces of past storms. Many partisans of the Bourbons,
or accused of being so by the authorities, were released from prison
and returned from exile. The education of the young was provided for
by the establishment of a suitable college at Naples, and a school for
girls was opened in every commune. There were to be four universities,
Naples, Attamura, Chiti, and Catanzaro, each one with a faculty of five.
New professorships were established, lyceums and schools were founded
according to the promises of the previous king. Elementary education
became widespread, replacing the confusing and superficial encyclopædia
instruction. Inspections and examinations were combined with great
prudence.”[g]]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIX. INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES

[Sidenote: [1815-1848 A.D.]]

In the plenitude of his despotic authority, Napoleon had destroyed all
the former order of things. He had trampled down the ancient republics,
and obliterated even the names of the most time-honoured principalities.
The queenly splendour of Venice had not saved the most glorious of
republics from his iron grasp. Lucca had found no safety in those
republican institutions, the origin of which is lost in the obscurity of
remote antiquity. Imperial Rome herself had attracted no respect to the
throne of the vicegerent of heaven upon earth. The pontiff, from whose
hands Napoleon had received the chrism that gave him the sacred character
of an anointed king, was carried away a prisoner under an escort of
French dragoons.

No national government was left. In the worst days of foreign invasion
the pontiff, with bitter truth, said to the doge of Venice, “There is
nothing Italian left in Italy except my tiara and your ducal hat.” Under
the dominion of Napoleon, both the tiara and the ducal hat were gone. The
pope was a prisoner in France, and Venice was a province of the emperor’s
Italian kingdom. The only remnant of Italian nationality--and, placed on
the head of a stranger, it could scarcely be said to belong to Italy--was
the Lombards’ iron crown. Such was the condition of Italy with which the
sovereigns at Paris, and in the congress of Vienna, had to deal.[b]

[Sidenote: [1815-1818 A.D.]]

The restoration of the legitimate dynasties, partially effected in 1814,
was completed the following year; and all the most important relations of
the Italian states were fixed in the course of that period, by successive
acts of the congress of Vienna.

The house of Austria received its ancient territories of the Milanese and
Mantua; but to these were added Venice and all its mainland provinces,
together with those districts which Napoleon had taken from the Grisons.
In this manner, profiting by deeds of spoliation which he had professedly
taken up arms to avenge, the emperor Francis became master of all
Lombardy, as far westward as the Ticino, and as far south as the Po:
and on the 7th of April, 1815, he proclaimed the erection of these
territories, extending eastward to the mountains forming the right bank
of the Isonzo, into a monarchical state called the Lombardo-Venetian
Kingdom.

The king of Sardinia [Victor Emmanuel I], who still retained his insular
dominion, received back Piedmont and Savoy; while in addition to these,
by a resolution which excited deep indignation in Italy, and was charged
against the English government as a violation of express pledges, were
given all the provinces of the Genoese Republic, which their new ruler
erected into a duchy. The female line of the house of Este, represented
by Francis, grandson of the last duke Ercole, and son of the archduke
Ferdinand of Austria, received, as an independent ducal state, the
principalities of Modena, Reggio, and Mirandola, to which Massa-Carrara
was soon added.

Lucca, proclaimed a duchy, passed to the infanta Maria Louisa, formerly
queen of Etruria: but, the court of Madrid having protested against
the resolution which disallowed the claims of that princess to the
principality of Parma, a new arrangement was concluded in 1817. By the
original plan, Parma, with Piacenza and Guastalla, had been bestowed
as an independent duchy on the ex-empress of the French, Marie Louise
[Napoleon’s wife], with the remainder to her son, the young duke of
Reichstadt: the subsequent treaty provided that, on the death of the
former, the ex-queen of Etruria or her heirs should receive Parma and its
annexed provinces, giving up Lucca to be incorporated into Tuscany.

The archduke Ferdinand returned to that Tuscan duchy which he had
inherited from his father Leopold; and, besides the isle of Elba, and
some trifling extensions of frontier, he now received uncontrolled
possession of the garrison-state.

The pope was confirmed in his sovereignty over the states of the church
as far north as the Po, and including the Neapolitan districts of
Benevento and Pontecorvo; but his French provinces were not restored.

To the old king of Naples were given his dominions in their former
extent;[25] and on the 8th of December, 1816, he declared himself, by
the title of Ferdinand I, the founder of a new dynasty, whose realm,
embracing both the mainland provinces and the island, was named the
united kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The petty San Marino was formally
recognised as the last surviving representative of the Italian republics;
and a French peer, who possessed Monaco, an imperial fief on the coast
near Nice, had influence enough to preserve for his lands the nominal
rank of an independent state.

In styling himself merely king of Lombardy and Venice, the emperor
Francis assumed a title which expressed the real amount of his power much
less properly than it would have been denoted by that more ambitious
name which Napoleon had given to a monarchy embracing but a few more
Italian provinces. Without any further condition Austria was mistress of
the half of Italy. Naples alone was left to dispute with the pope about
his claims of feudal homage, which were finally compromised in 1818, for
an annual payment of 12,000 crowns to Rome. The dangers, however, which
encompassed the restored sovereigns were made the pretence for conferring
on the Austrians a temporary right of interference far more active than
any ancient privilege. They were allowed to garrison Piacenza during the
reign of Marie Louise, and Ferrara and Comacchio permanently; while the
king of Naples accepted as a favour, and agreed to subsidise largely, a
German army which was to protect him from his own subjects during a fixed
term of years.[d]

MARRIOTT ON THE RESTORATION

Looking no longer to the past but to the future, the most interesting
feature of the Restoration still remains to be noticed. At the beginning
of the sixteenth century the dukes of Savoy had acquired Piedmont, and
thus succeeded in straddling the Alps. Their geographical position, as
the prince de Ligne had cynically said, did not permit them to behave
like honest men. Consequently by rather tortuous, but in the main
successful, diplomacy they managed in the eighteenth century to add
the royal crown of Sardinia to the ducal crowns of Piedmont and Savoy;
and never was a European war concluded, however remote the principal
combatants might be, but the house of Savoy was able to acquire several
of the towns of Lombardy, stripping it, as the saying goes, like an
artichoke, leaf by leaf. Their position was still further strengthened in
1815 by the acquisition of the annihilated republic of Genoa.

Such was the Italy of 1815, little if at all better than Metternich’s
“geographical expression.”[26] But for all that the Italy of 1815 was
not the Italy of the ante-Napoleonic days. Strive as they might, the
diplomatists of Vienna could not set back the hands of time, nor erase
from the minds of the Italian people the newly awakened recollection of
their ancient fame; they could not stifle, strive as they might, their
newly conceived but none the less passionate longing for the realisation
of their national identity. A more accurate or more eloquent expression
of this feeling could hardly be found than in the letter addressed,
thirty years afterwards, by Mazzini nominally to Sir James Graham, really
to the English people:

“There are over there (in Lombardy) from four to five millions
of human creatures gifted with an immortal soul, with powerful
faculties, with ardent and generous passions; with aspirations
towards free agency, towards the ideal which their fathers
had a glimpse of, which nature and tradition point out to
them; towards a national union with other millions of brother
souls in order to attain it; from four to five millions of
men desiring only to advance under the eye of God, their only
master, towards the accomplishment of a social task which they
have in common with sixteen or seventeen millions of other men,
speaking the same language, treading the same earth, cradled in
their infancy in the same maternal songs, strengthened in their
youth by the same sun, inspired by the same memories, the same
sources of literary genius. Country, liberty, brotherhood, all
are wrested from them; their faculties are mutilated, curbed,
chained, within a narrow circle traced for them by men who
are strangers to their tendencies, to their wants, to their
wishes; their tradition is broken under the cane of an Austrian
corporal; their immortal soul feudatory to the stupid caprices
of a man seated on a throne at Vienna, to the caprices of the
Tyrolese agents; and you go on indifferent, coolly inquiring
if these men be subject to this or that tariff, if the bread
that they eat costs them a halfpenny more or less! That tariff,
whatever it is, is too high; it is not they who have had the
ordering of it; that bread, dear or not, is moistened with
tears, for it is the bread of slaves.”[e]

ERRORS OF THE MONARCHY

[Sidenote: [1815-1816 A.D.]]

The condition of Italy, in 1815, was one in which old things struggled
with new. Her soldiers, after having served with credit under Napoleon,
were either hastily disbanded, or called upon to transfer their
allegiance to powers against which they had often been arrayed. The
transition from war to peace is apt to bear hardly upon men whose
services are no longer required, and whose career is brought to a close.
Where feelings of good-will and mutual confidence exist, such hardships
are felt, but do not rankle. From the restored governments of Italy
the veterans of Napoleon’s armies obtained little sympathy. Their case
was not generously or wisely considered, and their feelings, as well
as claims, were disregarded. Distinction, whether military or civil,
obtained under the French Empire, was viewed with narrow-minded aversion.
At a crisis when the greatest delicacy was required, the generous
confidence and noble forbearance which win the allegiance of the heart
were wanting; and the prejudices of retrogradist counsellors were allowed
to prevail. At Milan, disgust was excited by the presence of a German
army, and by the employment of foreign officials. At Turin, and still
more at Naples, royalist factions were allowed to monopolise and abuse
the powers of the state.

Thus peace, which had been hailed with so much joy, was robbed of
its sweetness; the exactions of the French were forgotten, and the
impartiality of their administration began to be regretted. Then it was
that the Carbonari became dangerous, not only by their alliance with the
resuscitated embers of Jacobinism--smothered, but not extinguished, by
Bonaparte--but by the strength which they derived from a general feeling
of disappointment.[f]

The civil and political reforms which had been instituted at the end
of the last century were abandoned. The Jesuits were restored; many
suppressed monasteries were re-established; and the mortmain laws were
repealed. Elementary education was narrowed in its limits, and thrown
into the hands of the clergy. Professors suspected of liberal views were
expelled from the universities, and the press was placed under the most
rigid supervision. All persons who had taken part in the Napoleonic
governments, or who were known to entertain patriotic opinions, found
themselves harassed, watched, spied on, and reported. The cities swarmed
with police agents and informers. The passport system was made more
stringent, and men were frequently refused even a few days’ leave of
absence from their homes. The Code Napoléon was withdrawn from those
provinces which had formed part of the Italian kingdom, while, in the
papal states, the administration was placed again in the hands of
ecclesiastics.

This political and spiritual reign of terror, which had for its object
the crushing of Italian liberalism, was sanctioned and supported by
Austria. Each petty potentate bound himself to receive orders from
Vienna, and, in return for this obedience, the emperor guaranteed
him in the possession of his throne. The Lombardo-Venetian kingdom,
powerfully defended and connected with Austria by land and sea, became
one huge fortress, garrisoned with armed men in perpetual menace of the
country. Under these conditions the Italians were half maddened, and
thousands of otherwise quiet citizens, either in the hope of finding
redress and protection, or only from a feeling of revenge, joined secret
revolutionary societies; for it must not be supposed that the Revolution
had left the Italians as passive as it found them.

A new spirit was astir, which was not likely to be checked by the
arrangements of the European congress--the spirit of national
independence. During the convulsions caused by Napoleon’s conquest of
Italy the allied powers had themselves fostered this spirit, in order to
oppose French rule. The Austrians, the English, and Murat, in turn, had
publicly invited the Italians to fight for their national independence.
And now the people, who relied upon the proclamations and expected
the fulfilment of so many promises, found themselves by the consent
of Europe delivered over, tied and gagged, to a foreign oppressor. To
take but one example: Ferdinand, when he quitted Naples in May, 1815,
addressed a proclamation to his subjects, solemnly engaging to respect
the laws that should in his absence be decreed by a constitution. In
June he pledged himself at Vienna to introduce into his kingdom no
institutions irreconcilable with those which Austria might establish in
her own dependencies. Accordingly in 1816 he put an end to the Sicilian
constitution of 1812.[g]

Among the means which were effective in first rousing Italy from her
lethargy, and in fostering the will to acquire her independence at all
costs, the secret society of the Carbonari[27] undoubtedly occupies the
front rank. The Carbonari acted in two ways; by what they did and by what
they caused to be done by others who were outside their society, and
perhaps unfavourable to it, but who were none the less sensible of the
pressure it exercised. The origin of Carbonarism has been sought in vain;
as a specimen of the childish fables that once passed for its history
may be noticed the legend that Francis I of France once stumbled on a
charcoal burner’s hut when hunting “on the frontiers of his kingdom next
to Scotland,” and was initiated into the rites similar to those in use
among the sectaries of the nineteenth century. Those rites referred to
vengeance which was to be taken on the wolf that slew the lamb; the wolf
standing for tyrants and oppressors, and the lamb for Jesus Christ, the
sinless victim, by whom all the oppressed were represented.

The Carbonari themselves generally believed that they were heirs to an
organisation started in Germany before the eleventh century, under the
name of the Faith of the Kohlen-Brenners [charcoal burners], of which
Theobald de Bri, who was afterwards canonised, was a member. Theobald was
adopted as patron saint of the modern society, and his fancied portrait
figured in all the lodges. The religious symbolism of the Carbonari,
their oaths and ceremonies, and the axes, blocks, and other furniture
of the initiatory chamber, were well calculated to impress the poorer
and more ignorant and excitable of the brethren. The Vatican affected to
believe that Carbonarism was an offshoot of freemasonry, but, in spite
of sundry points of resemblance, such as the engagements of mutual help
assumed by members, there seems to have been no real connection between
the two. The practical aims of the Carbonari may be summed up in two
words: freedom and independence.

A Genoese of the name of Malghella, who was Murat’s minister of police,
was the first person to give a powerful impetus to Carbonarism, of
which he has even been called the inventor, but the inference goes too
far. Malghella ended miserably; after the fall of Murat he was arrested
by the Austrians, who consigned him as a new subject to the Sardinian
government, which immediately put him in prison. Whatever was truly
Italian in Murat’s policy must be mainly attributed to him. As early
as 1813 he urged the king to declare himself frankly for independence,
and to grant a constitution to his Neapolitan subjects. But Malghella
did not find the destined saviour of Italy in Murat; his one lasting
work was to establish Carbonarism on so strong a basis that, when the
Bourbons returned, there were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands,
of Carbonari in all parts of the realm. The discovery was not a pleasant
one to the restored rulers, and the prince of Canosa, the new minister
of police, thought to counteract the evil done by his predecessor
by setting up an abominable secret society called the Calderai del
Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise), principally recruited from the
refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits, and let-out convicts, who were
provided by government with 20,000 muskets, and were sworn to exterminate
all enemies of the church of Rome, whether Jansenists, freemasons,
or Carbonari. This association committed some horrible excesses, but
otherwise it had no results. The Carbonari closed in their ranks, and
learned to observe more strictly their rules of secrecy.

[Sidenote: [1816-1821 A.D.]]

From the kingdom of Naples, Carbonarism spread to the Roman states, and
found a congenial soil in Romagna, which became the focus whence it
spread over the rest of Italy. It was natural that it should take the
colour, more or less, of the places where it grew. In Romagna, where
political assassination is in the blood of the people, a dagger was
substituted for the symbolical woodman’s axe in the initiatory rites.
It was probably only in Romagna that the conventional threat against
informers was often carried out. The Romagnols invested Carbonarism with
the wild intensity of their own temperament, resolute even to crime, but
capable of supreme impersonal enthusiasm. The ferment of expectancy that
prevailed in Romagna is reflected in the _Letters and Journals of Lord
Byron_, whom young Count Pietro Gamba made a Carbonaro, and who looked
forward to seeing the Italians send the barbarians of all nations back
to their own dens, as to the most interesting spectacle and moment in
existence. His lower apartments, he writes, were full of the bayonets,
fusils, and cartridges of his Carbonari cronies: “I suppose that they
consider me as a dépôt, to be sacrificed in case of accidents. It is
no great matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what
is sacrificed. It is a grand object--the very poetry of politics. Only
think--a free Italy! Why, there has been nothing like it since the days
of Augustus!” The movement on which such great hopes were set was to
begin in the kingdom of Naples in the spring of 1820.[h]

THE INSURRECTIONS OF 1820-1821

In 1820 and 1821 the discontents of the people, and the disappointment
of many in the educated classes, broke out into insurrection, first at
Naples, and then in Piedmont. There were no symptoms of concert, even
between the Neapolitans and the Piedmontese; and the plots which arose
elsewhere seem to have been produced by causes altogether local. But
the immediate encouragement of the Italian revolt was furnished by the
revolution in Spain,[28] and by the principle of non-intervention, which
the allied sovereigns had adopted in reference to that country. The
Italians vainly hoped that the same rule would be followed in their case.

On the 2nd of July, 1820, there broke out a mutiny among the troops.
The insurgents were headed by two or three subaltern officers, who were
Carbonari; and the whole army, having deserted the king, placed itself
under its own generals. The revolt was joined by the people from all
the provinces, and a remonstrance was sent to the government, demanding
a representative constitution. The old king deposited his power in the
hands of the crown prince Francis, as vicar, having first, however,
promised to grant the nation their request, and to publish the charter
in eight days. Unfortunately, the ultra-party, who were at this stage in
possession of all the power, came forward instantly with a demand that
the constitution should be that of the Spanish cortes, first published
in 1812, and recently reinstituted. The prince-vicar acceded to this
proposal.

A new difficulty soon arose. The Sicilians revolted and demanded a
separate constitution and parliament, which the government refused to
grant. Bloody disturbances took place at Palermo, which the Neapolitans
suppressed by sending across an armed force.

The Neapolitan parliament was opened on the 1st of October, 1820, by the
king in person, in the large church of the Spirito Santo. In the same
month the three crowned heads who formed the Holy Alliance, attended by
ministers from most of the other European powers, met at Troppau. The
sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia resolved to violate their
own late precedents of non-intervention, and to put down the Neapolitan
constitution by force of arms. The weak monarch was easily convinced that
his promises had been extorted and therefore were not binding, and the
Neapolitans did not learn their danger until the Germans, 43,000 strong,
were within a few days’ march of the frontier. A skirmish took place near
Rieti, on the 7th of March, 1821; and next morning Pépé’s army had melted
down to a few hundreds. The war was at an end.

On the 15th of May the king returned to Naples; and the Austrians left
him strong garrisons, both on the mainland and in Sicily. The promise of
complete amnesty, which had made part of his message to the parliament,
was instantly forgotten. Courts-martial and criminal juntas were set down
everywhere; a hundred persons at least were executed, among whom were
Morelli and Silvati, two of the officers who had headed the first mutiny.
Carrascosa and Pépé escaped; and Colletta, and two other generals, were
allowed to live under surveillance in remote provinces of Austria.

The Neapolitan constitutionalists had hardly dispersed, when another
military insurrection broke out in Piedmont. It was headed by several
noblemen and officers of rank, and secretly favoured by Charles Albert,
prince of Carignano, a kinsman of the royal family, who later became king
of Sardinia.

[Sidenote: [1821-1824 A.D.]]

On the 10th of March, 1821, several regiments simultaneously mutinied. On
the 12th the insurgents seized the citadel of Turin, and on the 13th the
king abdicated in favour of his absent brother, Charles Felix, appointing
the prince of Carignano regent, who next day took the oaths to the
Spanish constitution. On the 16th the new king, Charles Felix, repudiated
the acts of the regent; and in the night of the 21st Charles Albert fled
to the camp of the Austrians. On the 8th of April the German army joined
the royal troops at Novara, and beat the insurgents; the junta dissolved
itself on the 9th; and on the 10th the king was in possession of Turin
and of the whole country.

While these stormy scenes were acting in the two extremities of the
peninsula, no district of Italy remained altogether undisturbed.

Arrests took place in several quarters of the papal state, but most of
all in the eastern provinces. In the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, the
government professed to have discovered dangerous plots, as to which
we know nothing with certainty except the existence of an association
of well-educated and high-principled men at Milan, who laboured in the
cause of education by instituting schools, and attempted to aid public
enlightenment by a periodical called the _Conciliatore_, which the
Austrians speedily suppressed. Those members of this society who became
best known to the world were the counts Porro and Confalonieri, and the
poet Silvio Pellico. These with many others were seized, and several were
condemned to die. None of them were actually put to death, but whatever
may have been the political offences of those unfortunate Milanese who,
like him and Pellico, pined or died in the dungeons of Spielberg, it is
at least certain that there was no truth whatever in most of the charges
which the Austrians at the time allowed their journals to propagate
against them.

THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1831

[Illustration: POPE LEO XII IN PONTIFICAL ROBES]

[Sidenote: [1821-1832 A.D.]]

The effect produced by those abortive revolutions was very disastrous
to Italy. They introduced over the whole country a hateful system
of espionage, caused by suspicion in the rulers and dislike in the
subjects, which was not soon relaxed, and has still left painful traces.
However, the measures of this sort which were adopted, with some which
occasionally removed causes of complaint, were effectual in keeping the
people tolerably quiet for about ten years. In Sicily a conspiracy broke
out in 1822, and in 1828 a weak insurrection at Salerno was suppressed.
Tuscany and Lombardy remained tranquil under a mild despotism and thirty
thousand Austrian bayonets; but the French Revolution of 1830[29] gave
an example which was followed next year by the states of the church, by
Modena, and by Parma.

We may be assisted in discovering causes for the insurrection in the
papal states, by examining one or two of the principal acts of the
government after the death of Pius VII, which took place in 1823. On the
5th of October, 1824, the new pope Leo XII issued a _motu-proprio_ which
annihilated at a blow the charter of 1816. The administration both of
Leo and his successor, Pius VIII, was conducted in accordance with the
spirit thus indicated. The arbitrary proceedings of the police became a
universal pest; the administration of criminal justice was again secret,
irresponsible, and inhumanly tedious; and, both in that department and
in civil causes, the judges were openly charged with general venality.
Besides all the old burdens, some new or obsolete ones were imposed,
especially the _focalico_, a tax on every hearth, which weighed very
heavily on the peasantry; and the customs were increased exorbitantly,
while the government-monopolies were extended.

In Modena, it seemed to have been resolved to sweep away every vestige
that the French had left behind them. The old laws of the Este had been
re-enacted, but were every day infringed by edicts of the prince, and
by special commissions of justice. The taxes were raised to nearly five
times their amount under Napoleon; and for the elective functionaries of
the communes, the sovereign substituted young noblemen, chosen by himself.

The insurrection began in Modena, where, in the night of the 3rd of
February, 1831, a body of conspirators were arrested in the house of Ciro
Menotti. The people rose, and the duke fled to Mantua. On the 4th, being
just two days after the election of Pope Gregory XVI, Bologna was in open
revolt. The rebellion spread over the greater part of the Roman state.
At the same time, the ex-empress Marie Louise fled from Parma, which
was likewise in tumult. The subjects of the papal provinces declared
openly against the temporal sovereignty of the pope, and on the 26th of
February, deputies from all the revolted states united in proclaiming a
new republic. The allied sovereigns did not lose a day in putting down
the insurrection. On the 9th of March the duke of Modena with an Austrian
army retook his capital; and, after some resistance, the Germans,
before the end of the same month, had restored to the holy see all its
possessions. In Modena, Menotti and Borelli, the leaders of the revolt,
were hanged, and more than a hundred others were imprisoned for life. In
Parma, Marie Louise acted mercifully, and voluntarily redressed some of
the grievances of which her subjects, perhaps with less reason than their
neighbours, had complained. In the papal states no executions took place,
but many men were condemned to imprisonment for longer or shorter periods.

The leading powers of Europe interposed to recommend concessions by the
pope to his subjects; and, on the 5th of July, 1831, the holy father
issued a _motu-proprio_, which, for the third time since 1814, altered
the administration. It resumed much of the charter of 1816, retaining the
division into delegations, and the subdivision of these into districts;
but it narrowed greatly the functions of the congregations, which were
merely to have a consultative voice. And the new act did not give to the
people even that share in election which, as to the communal boards, the
decree of Consalvi had bestowed on them.

The subjects of the papal state did not conceal their disappointment
at the pretended reforms. In January, 1832, the eastern districts
were again in insurrection; and the slaughter of forty inhabitants of
Forlì, men, women, and children, drove the people of the country nearly
mad. Before the end of the month, the revolt was again suppressed by
the Austrian grenadiers. This new interposition, however, at length
aroused the French king, Louis Philippe, probably a little ashamed of
the part he had already acted. On the 22nd of February, 1832, a French
squadron, anchoring off Ancona, landed troops, which seized the town and
citadel. Austria and its satellites professed high indignation at this
interference; but the act seems to be quite defensible on diplomatic
grounds, in the position which France occupied as a guarantee of the
papal kingdom. In the kingdom of Naples, Francis, the prince-vicar of
1820, succeeded his father, and ruled feebly but not unkindly for a few
years, after which his throne devolved on his son, Ferdinand, then a
youth of twenty-one.[d]

Thus the enterprise of 1831, though extensively supported, had been
undertaken without any fixed plan and, as we have seen, ended in
complete discomfiture. The scattered and persecuted _sette_ [societies],
when once more rallied and united, carried on their operations under a
new name; and the ill-starred faction, which was destined to mislead and
vitiate the national impulse of 1848, assumed the title of Young Italy.
“Austria,” says Gualterio, “acquired in this society a new ally.”

[Sidenote: [1831 A.D.]]

In 1831, a young Genoese, Giuseppe Mazzini [born in 1808], obtained
celebrity by the publication of a letter in which he exhorted Charles
Albert, who had just succeeded to the throne, to undertake the liberation
of Italy. The boldness and self-confidence displayed in this production
was admired by the _cervelli bollenti_ of the day; and the exiles and
refugees, whose disappointment was recent and who were smarting under
persecution, were predisposed towards one whose counsels were uttered
with oracular authority, and who cheered them with new and undefined
hopes.

Mazzini soon became the acknowledged centre of the new sect, of which
the establishment was contemporary with that of “Young France” and
“Young Germany,” and which was intended to transform and assimilate
those already in existence, and to give them unity of purpose and
command.[30][f]

SASSONE ON MAZZINI AND “YOUNG ITALY”

[Illustration: GIUSEPPE MAZZINI

(1808-1872)]

To reconstruct a nation torn and bowed down under the most enervating of
clerical and monarchal despotisms requires first of all the creation of
citizens and the organisation of a large and strong association based
on national right. An association depending on the entire people and
opening up to them at the same time a larger horizon than the miserable
position they had occupied in the peninsula--such was the generous idea
which fermented in the head of Mazzini, that great exile of Italian
independence, when he took up at Marseilles his idea already elaborated
during his captivity at Savona and founded the society and paper of
“Young Italy.” It was under the influence of the same principles, and
driven by his unshakable faith in the future of Italy, that he, with
several friends devoted like himself to the popular cause, undertook to
develop the intelligence of poor Italian workmen in London.

The statutes of the new society destined to replace the Carbonari, and
created by Mazzini and a group of exiles, was based on national law
and accessible to all Italians. By its strong popular organisation it
was destined to keep the Austrian forces in perpetual check over the
whole peninsula until the day of help. And thus by the simplicity of
its resources it would defy the surveillance of a most vigilant police.
Religious ideas and patriotic thoughts were blended and confounded in the
thoughts of this apostle of Italian liberty. They might be summed up in
two words--_Dio e popolo_.

The object of Young Italy was inscribed on its national banner of red,
green, and white: on one side it bore the words, “Liberty, Equality,
Humanity;” on the other, “Unity, Independence.”

All initiates into Young Italy were obliged to pay into the society’s
funds a monthly contribution of fivepence, or more, if they were able.

When initiated each new associate had to pronounce the following promise
in the presence of the initiator:

“In the name of God and Italy; in the name of all the martyrs
of the holy Italian cause who have fallen under the blows of
foreign or native tyranny: by the duties which bind me to
my country, to the God who created me, and to the brothers
God has given me; by the innate love in all men for the spot
where his mother was born and her children have lived; by
the shame I feel before citizens of other nations in having
neither the name nor the rights of a citizen, neither national
flag nor fatherland; by the memory of ancient power; by the
consciousness of present abjection; by the tears of Italian
mothers over sons dead on the scaffold, in dungeons, or
in exile; by the misery of Italian millions: believing in
a God-sent mission to Italy and the duty of every Italian
born man to contribute to its accomplishment; convinced that
wherever God has wished a nation to be there the necessary
forces exist to create it--that the people are the depositary
of this force, and in the guiding of this force by the people
and with the people rests the secret of victory--I adhere to
Young Italy, an association of men holding the same faith, and
I swear:

“To devote myself entirely and forever to constituting a
national Italy, one, independent, free, and republican; to help
in every way my associated brothers; now and forever (_Ora e
sempre_); I also swear, calling on my head the anger of God,
the horror of men, and the infamy of perjury, if ever I venture
to betray all or part of my oath.”

The arrangement of degrees was as simple as possible. Rejecting the
interminable hierarchy of Carbonarism, the society had only two degrees:
initiator and initiated. A central committee resided abroad to league
themselves together as much as possible with democratic foreign elements,
and generally to direct the enterprise. Signs of recognition between
the affiliated were suppressed as being pre-eminently dangerous. The
order word, a cut card, a special handshake, sufficed to accredit those
travelling for the central committee to provincial committees and
reciprocally. These signs of recognition were renewable every three
months. A cypress branch (in memory of martyrs) was the symbol of the
society. The general word of order, _Ora e sempre_, alluded to the
constancy necessary to the vindication of Italian rights.[j]

FYFFE’S ESTIMATE OF MAZZINI

At a time not rich in intellectual or in moral power, the most striking
figure among those who are justly honoured as the founders of Italian
independence is perhaps that of Mazzini. Exiled during nearly the whole
of his mature life, a conspirator in the eyes of all governments, a
dreamer in the eyes of the world, Mazzini was a prophet or an evangelist
among those whom his influence led to devote themselves to the one
cause of their country’s regeneration. No firmer faith, no nobler
disinterestedness, ever animated the saint or the patriot; and if in
Mazzini there was also something of the visionary and the fanatic,
the force with which he grasped the two vital conditions of Italian
revival--the expulsion of the foreigner and the establishment of a single
national government--proves him to have been a thinker of genuine
political insight. Laying the foundation of his creed deep in the moral
nature of man, and constructing upon this basis a fabric not of rights
but of duties, he invested the political union with the immediateness,
the sanctity, and the beauty of family life. With him, to live, to think,
to hope, was to live, to think, to hope for Italy; and the Italy of his
ideal was a republic embracing every member of the race, purged of the
priestcraft and the superstition which had degraded the man to the slave,
indebted to itself alone for its independence, and consolidated by the
reign of equal law. The rigidity with which Mazzini adhered to his own
great project in its completeness, and his impatience with any bargaining
away of national rights, excluded him from the work of those practical
politicians and men of expedients who in 1859 effected with foreign aid
the first step towards Italian union; but the influence of his teaching
and his organisation in preparing his countrymen for independence was
immense; and the dynasty which has rendered to united Italy services
which Mazzini thought impossible, owes to this great republican scarcely
less than to its ablest friends.[k]

SYMONDS ON THE PROBLEMS AND THE LEADERS

Though the spirit infused into the Italians by Mazzini’s splendid
eloquence aroused the people into a sense of their high destinies and
duties, though he was the first to believe firmly that Italy could and
would be one free nation, yet the means he sanctioned for securing this
result, and the policy which was inseparable from his opinions, proved
obstacles to statesmen of more practical and sober views. It was the
misfortune of Italy at this epoch that she had not only to fight for
independence, but also to decide upon the form of government which the
nation should elect when it was constituted. All right-thinking and
patriotic men agreed in their desire to free the country from foreign
rule, and to establish national self-government. But should they aim at a
republic or a constitutional monarchy? Should they be satisfied with the
hegemony of Piedmont? Should they attempt a confederation, and if so, how
should the papacy take rank, and should the petty sovereigns be regarded
as sufficiently Italian to hold their thrones?

These and many other hypothetical problems distracted the Italian
patriots. It was impossible for them, in the circumstances, first to form
the nation and then to decide upon its government; for the methods to
be employed in fighting for independence already implied some political
principle. Mazzini’s manipulation of conspiracy, for instance, was
revolutionary and republican; while those who adhered to constitutional
order, and relied upon the arms of Piedmont, had virtually voted for
Sardinian hegemony. The unanimous desire for independence existed in a
vague and nebulous condition. It needed to be condensed into workable
hypothesis; but this process could not be carried on with the growth of
sects perilous to common action.

The party of Young Italy, championed by Mazzini, was the first to detach
itself, and to control the blindly working forces of the Carbonari
movement by a settled plan of action. It was the programme of Young
Italy to establish a republic by the aid of volunteers recruited from
all parts of the peninsula. When Charles Albert came to the throne,
Mazzini, as we have seen, addressed him a letter, as equal unto equal,
calling upon the king to defy Austria and rely upon God and the people.
Because Charles Albert (who, in spite of his fervent patriotism and
genuine liberality of soul, was a man of mixed opinions, scrupulous in
his sense of constitutional obligation, melancholy by temperament, and
superstitiously religious) found himself unwilling or unable to take
this step, the Mazzinisti denounced him as a traitor to 1821, and a
retrogressive autocrat.

[Sidenote: [1831-1846 A.D.]]

In his exile at Geneva, Mazzini now organised an armed attempt on
Savoy. He collected a few hundred refugees of all nations, and crossed
the frontier in 1833. But this feeble attack produced no result beyond
convincing Charles Albert that he could not trust the republicans.
Subsequent attempts on the king’s life roused a new sense of loyalty
in Piedmont, and defined a counter-body of opinion to Mazzini’s. The
patriots of a more practical type, who may be called moderate liberals,
began, in one form or another, to aim at achieving the independence of
Italy constitutionally by the help of the Sardinian kingdom. What rank
Sardinia would take in the new Italy remained an open question.

[Illustration: COUNT DI CAVOUR

(1810-1861)]

The publication of Vincenzo Gioberti’s treatise, _Il Primato morale
e civile degli Italiani_, in 1843, considerably aided the growth of
definite opinion. His utopia was a confederation of Italian powers, under
the spiritual presidency of the papacy, and with the army of Piedmont
for sword and shield. This book had an immense success. It made timid
thinkers feel that they could join the liberals without sacrificing their
religious or constitutional opinions. At the same date Cesare Balbo’s
_Speranze d’Italia_ exercised a somewhat similar influence, through its
sound and unsubversive principles. In its pages Balbo made one shrewd
guess, that the Eastern question would decide Italian independence.

Massimo d’Azeglio, who also was a Piedmontese; the poet Giusti, the
baron Ricasoli, and the marchese Gino Capponi in Tuscany; together with
Alessandro Manzoni at Milan, and many other writers scattered through the
provinces of Italy, gave their weight to the formation of this moderate
liberal party. These men united in condemning the extreme democracy of
the Mazzinisti, and did not believe that Italy could be regenerated by
merely manipulating the insurrectionary force of the revolution. On
political and religious questions they were much divided in detail,
suffering in this respect from the weakness inherent in liberalism.
Yet we are already justified in regarding this party as a sufficient
counterpoise to the republicans; and the man who was destined to give
it coherence, and to win the great prize of Italian independence by
consolidating and working out its principles in practice, was already
there.

The count Camillo Benso di Cavour had been born in 1810, two years later
than Mazzini. He had not yet entered upon his ministerial career, but
was writing articles for the _Risorgimento_, which at Turin opposed the
Mazzinistic journal _Concordia_, and was devoting himself to political
and economical studies. It is impossible to speak of Mazzini and Cavour
without remembering the third great regenerator of Italy, Giuseppe
Garibaldi. At this date he was in exile; but a few years later he
returned, and began his career of popular deliverance in Lombardy.

Mazzini the prophet, Garibaldi the knight-errant, and Cavour the
statesman, of Italian independence, were all natives of the kingdom of
Sardinia. But their several positions in it were so different as to
account in no small measure for the very divergent parts they played in
the coming drama. Mazzini was a native of Genoa, which ill tolerated the
enforced rule of Turin. Garibaldi came from Nice, and was a child of
the people. Cavour was born in the midst of that stiff aristocratical
society of old Piedmont which has been described so vividly by D’Azeglio
in his _Ricordi_. The Piedmontese nobles had the virtues and the defects
of English country squires in the last century. Loyal, truthful, brave,
hard-headed, tough in resistance, obstinately prejudiced, they made
excellent soldiers, and were devoted servants of the crown. Moreover,
they hid beneath their stolid exterior greater political capacity than
the more genial and brilliant inhabitants of southern and central Italy.

Cavour came of this race and understood it. But he was a man of
exceptional quality. He had the genius of statesmanship--a practical
sense of what could be done, combined with rare dexterity in doing it,
fine diplomatic and parliamentary tact, and noble courage in the hour of
need. Without the enthusiasm, amounting to the passion of a new religion,
which Mazzini inspired, without Garibaldi’s brilliant achievements, and
the idolatry excited by this pure-hearted hero in the breasts of all who
fought with him and felt his sacred fire, there is little doubt that
Cavour would not have found the creation of United Italy possible. But if
Cavour had not been there to win the confidence, support, and sympathy
of Europe, if he had not been recognised by the body of the nation as a
man whose work was solid and whose sense was just in all emergencies,
Mazzini’s efforts would have run to waste in questionable insurrections,
and Garibaldi’s feats of arms must have added but one chapter more to the
history of unproductive patriotism.

While, therefore, we recognise the part played by each of these great men
in the liberation of their country, and while we willingly ignore their
differences and disputes, it is Cavour whom we must honour with the title
of the maker of United Italy.

POPE PIUS IX AND HIS LIBERAL POLICY

[Sidenote: [1846-1848 A.D.]]

From this digression, which was necessary in order to make the next acts
in the drama clear, we now return to the year 1846. Misrule had reached
its climax in Rome, and the people were well-nigh maddened, when Gregory
XVI died and Pius IX was elected in his stead.[31] It seemed as though
an age of gold had dawned; for the greatest of all miracles had happened.
The new pope declared himself a liberal, proclaimed a general amnesty
to political offenders, and in due course granted a national guard, and
began to form a constitution. The Neo-Guelfic school of Gioberti believed
that their master’s utopia was about to be realised.

Italy went wild with joy and demonstrations. The pope’s example proved
contagious. Constitutions were granted in Tuscany [February 11, 1848],
Piedmont [March 4th], and Rome [March 14th]. The duke of Lucca fled, and
his domain was joined to Tuscany. Only Austria and Naples declared that
their states needed no reforms. On the 2nd of January, 1848, a liberal
demonstration at Milan served the Austrians for pretext to massacre
defenceless persons in the streets. These Milanese victims were hailed
as martyrs all over Italy, and funeral ceremonies, partaking of the
same patriotic character as the rejoicings of the previous year, kept
up the popular agitation. On the 12th of January Palermo rose against
King Ferdinand II, and Naples followed her example on the 27th. The king
was forced in February to grant the constitution of 1812, to which his
subjects were so ardently attached.[g]

FOOTNOTES

[25] [With regard to Naples there was an interminable and difficult
debate about the documents which were found in Paris, and which clearly
proved the treacherous thoughts of Gioacchino [Joachim Murat] against
the allies. The final result was that even Austria which had upheld him
detested Murat, and on the 10th day of April declared war against him
as we have seen. After these proceedings there was nothing to prevent
the congress of Vienna from taking possession of Naples also. It was
again adjudged to King Ferdinand IV. He was already in possession of the
kingdom when the congress restored it to him.[c]]

[26] [Stillman calls it still less--only a “diplomatic expression.”]

[27] [Literally “charcoalers,” charcoal-making being a prominent industry
in the wilds of the Abruzzo and Calabria where Carbonarism found its
refuge. The ritual of the organisation was founded on charcoal-makers’
terms, thus meetings were called _vendite_ or “sales.” The idea spread to
France, where La Fayette was a prominent member. See volume XIII, chapter
I.]

[28] [The Spanish Revolution, which originated in Cadiz in 1819, resulted
in the establishment of a constitution accepted by the king, and sworn
to by the king of Naples himself as an infante of Spain. This event was
full of interest to the Neapolitans, who felt their own need of a similar
guarantee.--WRIGHTSON.[f]]

[29] [The influence of French politics on Italy has been remarkable. We
have seen the effect of the spirit of 1793 and the Napoleonic idea. The
French revolutions of 1830 and 1848 had like influence.]

[30] [Shortly after the July Revolution of 1830 Mazzini, having been
entrapped by a government spy into the performance of some trifling
commission for the Carbonari, was arrested and imprisoned in the
fortress of Savona on the western Riviera. “The government was not
fond,” so his father was informed, “of young men of talent, the subjects
of whose musings were unknown to it.” After six months’ imprisonment
Mazzini was acquitted of conspiracy, but was nevertheless exiled from
Italy.--MARRIOTT.[e]]

[31] [“Pius IX had a heart and mind of sufficient calibre to comprehend
the line of conduct he must follow in the midst of these circumstances.
He hoped to realise gradually in his own territory and to second
elsewhere all that the present asked for, but not to let himself be
dragged further. “It will take ten years,” he said, “for the national and
political spirit to penetrate the masses.” He worked for this end from
the first day with his minister Gizzi. He called upon the municipal and
ecclesiastical bodies for the best means of inspiring popular education;
he established commissions to investigate the condition of all branches
of the administration, but he took care to meddle with nothing that
directly concerned politics. The respect and sympathy of popular opinion
encouraged Pius IX’s work. Following his example the other sovereigns
took up reforms. But what Pius IX lacked was promptitude of resolution
and the assistance of men practical enough to carry out the aspirations
of his heart.”--ZELLER.[l]]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XX. THE LIBERATION OF ITALY

The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the
strong monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent
forces of revolution. Whenever either one side or the other,
yielding to the influence of its individual sympathies or
prejudices, failed to recognise that thus only, by the
essential logic of events, could the unity of the country be
achieved, the entire edifice was placed in danger of falling
to the ground before it was completed. When Garibaldi stood
on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in a glory not
that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland or
the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in
their tents, of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers
in ice-bound seas; a solar myth, nevertheless certified to be
alive in the nineteenth century--Cavour understood that if he
were left much longer single occupant of the field, either
he would rush to disaster, which would be fatal to Italy, or
he would become so powerful that, in the event of his being
plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more ardent apostles
of revolution into opposition with the king of Sardinia, the
issue of the contest would be by no means sure. To guard
against both possibilities, Cavour decided to act.--COUNTESS
CESARESCO.[b]

[Sidenote: [1848-1866 A.D.]]

Only two powers, a spiritual and a worldly, the Jesuits and the
Austrians, seemed to stand in the way of attaining Italian unity.
Consequently the glowing hatred of the Italians directed itself against
both. “Evvivas” for Gioberti, the enemy of the Jesuits, and “Death to
the Germans” (_Tedeschi_) against Austria, mingled with the cries of
acclamation for “Pio nono.” Irritation in the commercial dealings between
Italians and Austrians in Padua, Milan, and the whole of upper Italy,
mockeries, jests, scornful songs, and threats against the “Germans,”
associations to repress tobacco and the lottery, in order to diminish
the Austrian income, hostile demonstrations, and insulting agreements,
increased the bitterness and anger of both nations to such a degree
that the Austrian soldier lived in the cities of the Lombardic-Venetian
kingdom as in the land of an enemy. Tumults and insulting demonstrations
resulted in sanguinary scenes, so that the Austrian government finally
declared martial law in Lombardy, in order to be able to put down the
excitement and rebellion by force.

[Sidenote: [1848 A.D.]]

The February revolution of 1848 in Paris, incited those states in which
military and revolutionary revolts were already under way to new efforts,
and brought the fermentation to an outbreak in other states where the
excitement had not yet ripened into action. In Italy the ideas of
independence and national unity which had so long appeared in literature
came to the surface and aroused the revolutionary spirits. When Charles
Albert, king of Sardinia and Piedmont, without an actual declaration of
war, sent his army into Milanese territory and drew his sword against
Austria, the whole peninsula was seized by the warlike movement. Not only
were the Italian governments carried away by the force of public opinion
to send troops and to preserve a constitutional attitude; armed troops
of volunteers also marched into the field so that the whole land of the
Apennines was under arms against Austria.

Soon a double trend of opinion became perceptible; whereas Mazzini and
his associates urged a popular war and republican institutions, the
more moderate sought to establish national independence under the cross
of Savoy, in conjunction with the constitutional king Charles Albert.
The latter tendency prevailed after some wavering; in Milan and Venice
the union with Piedmont was resolved upon. The princes of Parma and
Modena who had allied themselves with Austria had to leave their states;
even the grand duke of Tuscany, although giving way to the national
and independent impulses, had to surrender his land to democrats and
republicans for a short time. The pope also agreed to a constitution and
appointed a lay ministry with advanced views; nevertheless the government
and the body of popular representatives were to concern themselves only
with the worldly and political matters of the papal state.

THE WAR BETWEEN NAPLES AND SICILY

[Sidenote: [1848-1850 A.D.]]

A state of war of insupportable animosity and irritation reigned over
the whole of the Subalpine dual monarchy, when the February revolution
of 1848 in Paris threw a firebrand into this inflammable material. In
1847, Metternich is said to have written to the field-marshal Radetzky:
“It is not easy to fight larvæ and fantastic shapes and yet this is our
ceaseless warfare, ever since the appearance of a liberal pope upon
the scene.” These larvæ and fantastic shapes were now to gain body and
substance.

In Sicily, where already a provincial government under the leadership of
a few heads of the nobility like Ruggiero Settimo, Peter Lanza, Prince
of Butera, etc., had taken charge of public affairs in Palermo and
other places, negotiations with King Ferdinand, with Lord Minto as an
intermediary, led to no agreement. A union of the two kingdoms, which
according to the “ultimatum” of the Sicilians could have its only bond in
the person of the monarch, was in opposition to Ferdinand’s desire for
rule. Accordingly Sicily held to its outspoken independence from Naples
and rejected every approach to an understanding with King Ferdinand II.

The Sicilian national representatives, divided into two chambers, elected
the popular and respected noble Ruggiero Settimo, as president of the
provisory government, and on April 13th adopted the resolution: “The
throne of Sicily is declared vacant. Ferdinand Bourbon and his dynasty
are forever removed from the Sicilian throne. Sicily shall be governed
constitutionally and as soon as its constitution has been revised an
Italian prince shall be called to the throne.” When Ferdinand, under
the stress of events before Verona and in Rome, allowed himself to be
moved by reactionary influence to dissolve the chambers of deputies on
the very day of their opening “on account of their assuming illegal
authority and exceeding their limits of power,” when he suppressed an
uprisal of the militia and of the radicals by his Swiss guards and by
the unloosed populace in a barricade battle, and, as Queen Caroline had
done fifty years before, gave up the well-to-do population of his capital
to the murderous and plundering greed of crowds of lazzaroni, then the
cloth which had covered the two kingdoms was completely torn asunder.
The frivolous, uneducated, and powerless people of Naples endured the
hard yoke of military despotism and of a reactionary camarilla; but
Sicily held all the more firmly to the exclusion of the Bourbons and
proceeded to elect a new king after the new constitution had been rapidly
revised in favour of democratic views. After many proposals, in which
foreign influences also had a hand, the highest state authorities, the
government, senate, and commune, united in the resolve to call the second
son of Charles Albert, Prince Albert Amadeus of Savoy, duke of Genoa,
to be the constitutional king of Sicily. But the fate of the beautiful,
unfortunate island was not yet fulfilled, the sanguinary drama not yet
played out. The news of the election reached the royal camp when the star
of the Italian army was already in the descendant.

Charles Albert consequently declined the crown for his son in order not
to incense France or England against him. Ferdinand, however, swore to
preserve the integrity of his kingdom and took measures to subjugate the
island from the citadel of Messina [Sept. 7th-9th], where there was a
strong and well-equipped Neapolitan garrison. There now broke out a civil
war full of horror, and with scenes of wild barbarity, patriotic heroism,
and fanatic passion. General Filangieri, an energetic warrior from the
time of Murat, bombarded Messina, so that thousands of dead bodies lay
in the streets, many houses were burned, and the greater part of the
surviving inhabitants sought safety and protection on the foreign ships
in the harbour. From that time on Ferdinand II was designated as “King
Bomba.”

After some time a truce was brought about through the intervention of
France and England. In April, 1849, however, the war broke out anew. A
numerous company of foreigners, commanded by the Pole, Mieroslawski, came
to the aid of the Sicilians, but the military training and the better
equipment of the Neapolitan mercenaries, especially of the Swiss, carried
the day in the battle of Catania (April 6th, 1849).

On May 14th the Neapolitan army made its entry into Palermo, the capital
of Sicily, and the unfortunate island, over which the tricoloured flag
had waved for more than a year, became again enchained to the military
dominion of the Bourbons. The heads of the provisory government, all of
them men of culture and of noble birth and character, sought refuge among
strangers. Filangieri, elevated to the rank of duke of Taormina, became
governor of Sicily.

REVOLT AGAINST THE POPE; ROME A REPUBLIC

In the papal states, the enthusiasm for the pope declined when he did
not satisfy the exaggerated demands quickly and completely enough,
and when he earnestly rejected the desired declaration of war against
Austria as incompatible with his position and religious dignity. Even the
expulsion of the Jesuits, who were oppressed and threatened in all the
Italian states, and the maintenance of a constitution as the “fundamental
principle for the worldly rule of the papal state,” did not succeed
in winning back his former popularity. The celebrated allocution in a
consistory of cardinals, with the determined declaration that he would
not wage war with Austria, was generally interpreted as the beginning
of a reactionary change. What was the position, then, of the Roman
troops and volunteers under the able general Durand which the liberal
government had sent to join the army of fighters for independence across
the Po? They were looked upon as rebels until Pius himself placed them
under the protection of Charles Albert.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE ENTRANCES TO ST. PETER’S, ROME]

The allocution was the first backward step from the flag of national
uprisal. Pius IX, therefore, soon became as much an object of hatred
and enmity on the part of the patriots as he had before been their
idol. In vain did he nominate the liberal champion Mamiani as president
of the ministry, a position which as yet only clericals had held, and
the historian Farini as under secretary of state; the feeling that the
head of the church had been faithless to the national cause alienated
the hearts of the Roman people more and more. He also had to endure the
mortification of having his peace proposals rejected by Austria, proud
over her new successes at arms. The reactionary _coup d’état_ in Naples
was regarded as the direct result of the allocution, and influenced the
popular passions more and more against spiritual rule.

The clever Italian Rossi of Carrara, who had once taught law in Geneva,
and had then occupied an influential position in Paris with Louis
Philippe and Guizot, and had executed important diplomatic missions,
was called by Pius IX to form a constitutional ministry, in order more
tightly to seize the reins of government which threatened to slip out
of the weak hands of the princes of the church. But, by his energetic
measures against the increasing anarchy, Rossi so drew upon himself the
hatred of the Roman democrats that at the opening of the chambers he was
murdered on the steps of the senate on the very spot upon which Cæsar
once fell.

Thereupon the unrestrained populace, led by the democratically inclined
Charles Lucien Bonaparte, surrounded the Quirinal and forced the pope,
through threats, to name a radical ministry, in which the advocate
Galletti and the old democrat Sterbini had the greatest influence,
next to Mamiani who had been recalled. From that time law and order
disappeared from the holy city. The chamber of deputies was without
power, and became so weakened by the withdrawal of many members that it
was scarcely competent to form legal resolutions; the democratic popular
club, together with the rude mob of Trastevere, controlled matters. Many
cardinals withdrew; Pius IX was guarded like a prisoner.

Enraged at these acts and threatened as to his safety, the pope
finally fled to Gaeta, in disguise, aided by the Bavarian ambassador
Count Spaur. Here he formed a new ministry and entered a protest
against all proceedings in Rome. This move procured at first the most
complete victory for the republican party in the Tiberian city. A new
constitutional assembly was summoned, which in its first sitting deprived
the papacy of its worldly authority, established the Roman republic, and
resolved to work for the union of Italy under a democratic-republican
form of rule. A threat of excommunication from the pope was met with
scorn by the popular union. A provisory government under the direction
of three men undertook the administration of the free state, while the
constitutional assembly laid hands on the church lands in order to
form small farms out of them for the poor, and Garibaldi organised a
considerable militia out of insurrectionary volunteers and democrats.

Garibaldi of Nice (born July 4th, 1807) was a bold insurrectionary
leader who had wandered about in America and elsewhere as a political
refugee for a long time, and who, on his return to his native country,
had taken an active part in the struggle of the Piedmontese and Lombards
against Austria. The unfortunate outcome of the renewed war in upper
Italy, which had brought a large number of refugees to Rome, and the
arrival of Mazzini, who for so long had been the active head of the
“young Italy” party and the soul of the democratic propaganda, increased
the revolutionary excitement in Rome. The union of revolutionary forces
determined the powers protecting the papal states, whose help the pope
had summoned, to common action and armed intervention.

THE FRENCH RESTORE THE POPE

[Illustration: GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

(1807-1882)]

While the Austrians after severe battles took possession of Bologna and
Ancona, the Neapolitans from the south entered Roman territory, and a
French army under General Oudinot, the son of the marshal, landed in
Cività Vecchia and surrounded Rome, which was in a state of intense
excitement. It was in vain that the French declared they came as friends,
to protect order and legal liberty, to prevent Austrians and Neapolitans
from occupying the papal state and its capital, and to forestall a
counter revolution in favour of a reactionary and clerical movement;
the democrats rejected the proffered hand of peace and propitiation,
and prepared an obstinate opposition to the attacking enemy. The first
assault of the French failed, May 2nd, 1849. After a brave fight against
the insurgents, who were well placed and well armed, Oudinot, with severe
losses, had to retreat to the sea and await reinforcements. In order to
separate their opponents the triumvirs then entered into negotiations
with the French general and decided on an eight days’ truce, which
Garibaldi made good use of to attack the Neapolitan troops near Velletri
and drive them back over the border (May 19th). Oudinot now began a new
attack. But this time also they met with such determined resistance at
the Pancrazio gate and in other places that they did not finally gain
possession of the city, under treaty, until after weeks of sanguinary
fighting (July 3rd). The barricades were at once cleared, the provisory
government dissolved, and a foreign military rule established.

Garibaldi with his faithful followers climbed over the Apennines and
after a thousand dangers and adventures escaped in a little boat to Genoa
and from there to America. Of his companions the greater part fell into
the hands of the Austrians; some of them were shot, others imprisoned
in Mantua. Mazzini escaped to Switzerland, and when he was driven out
from thence went to England where he continued his agitations. Pope
Pius remained for a long time in his voluntary exile, and persevered in
his anger towards the ungrateful city. Not until April, 1850, did he
return. Quiet was preserved in Rome by a French garrison; only the bands
of robbers who roamed through the country under desperate leaders bore
testimony to the deep decay of social organisation, and to the impotency
of the government.

REVOLUTIONS IN TUSCANY AND ELSEWHERE

The grand duke Leopold of Tuscany succeeded for a long time in keeping
the favour of his subjects, by his liberal reforms, by banishing the
Jesuits, and by taking part, although forced to do so, in the war against
Austria. But here also the radical agitation finally succeeded in
undermining the soil and in effecting the summoning of a constitutional
assembly. By the activity of the demagogues public affairs soon fell
into anarchy so that the grand duke found himself obliged to leave
Tuscany with his family. The former ministers appeared at the head of
the provisory government. In Leghorn the associates of Mazzini fanned
the revolutionary fire. When the flames were too high, however, the
conservative party put forth its strength and effected a revulsion of
feeling. A moderate liberal government, under Gino Capponi, the Ricasoli
brothers and others, took charge of affairs and invited the grand-duke,
who had been residing in Gaeta, to return. He hesitated for some time
until the Austrians under General d’Aspre had occupied Leghorn and the
republican party had lost. Then only did Leopold re-enter his capital,
Florence, and re-establish the old order (July 27th, 1849).

Duke Francis V of Modena, who had absolutistic inclinations, and Duke
Charles of Parma, who had assumed the reins of government only a short
time before, both of whom had placed themselves under Austrian military
supremacy, did not succeed in withstanding the March storms. They left
their states and attached themselves to Austria. Radetzky’s entry into
Milan was for them also the day of return.

CHARLES ALBERT’S WAR WITH AUSTRIA

[Sidenote: [1848 A.D.]]

The most remarkable change in affairs was taking place in upper
Italy. Charles Albert, king of Piedmont and Sardinia, a man with no
steadfastness of character, had paid for the liberal sins of his youth
by absolutism, but had then, in accordance with the spirit of the time,
raised the flag of Italian nationality and independence, had granted a
liberal constitution and summoned a patriotic ministry. He now thought
the appropriate moment had come to gain the favour of the Italian
people and the possession of the united kingdom of Lombardy and Venice,
together with the dominion over Italy by a warlike incursion upon
Austrian territory. United with the Lombards who had arisen against the
Austrians after some hesitation, established a provisory government, and
after an obstinate battle in the streets March 18th, 1848, and at the
barricades of Milan lasting for several days had obliged the gray-headed
field-marshal Radetzky to retreat with his troops; in alliance with
the Venetians, who, after the liberation of their capital through the
capitulation of the Austrian count Zichy, had joined the general national
uprisal and supported by countless volunteers (_Crociati_) of middle
Italy, Charles Albert marched against Mincio, advanced to the northern
borders of Italy, and, after the victorious encounter at Goito (April
8th, 1848), threatened Peschiera, which with Verona, Mantua, and Legnago
formed the celebrated “Quadrilateral” of fortification. Everywhere waved
the tricoloured flag; most of the cities, with the exception of the
strongholds of Mantua and Verona, joined the insurgents. The war took
on the character of a crusade. The priesthood, from the newly appointed
bishop of Milan down to the lowest brother, worked for the national
cause, for the independence of Italy, and gave to the revolution the
blessing of the church.

But soon the situation changed. On the 6th of May a sanguinary battle
took place at Santa Lucia in which the Austrian army maintained the field
against the enemy. The encounter at Santa Lucia was a turning-point in
the war. Charles Albert began to doubt as to his reaching his end by
arms and hoped to get better terms from the oppressed court at Vienna
through the intervention of England. The source of the war between
Adige and Mincio strengthened the king in his desire for peace. On the
11th of June the field marshal forced the city of Vicenza to surrender
after a sanguinary battle, while the king of Piedmont occupied Rivoli, a
place famous in the history of war, and undertook the siege of Mantua.
The papal troops and volunteers were allowed free exit. At this time
Garibaldi arrived in Charles Albert’s camp in order to take part in the
war of independence. The Italians fought for freedom and nationality; the
Austrians for dominion and military glory.

On the 25th of July, on a hot summer day Count Radetzky gained a victory
at Custozza which established Austria’s military glory in the most
brilliant fashion. The aged field marshal then advanced rapidly into
Lombardy, driving before him the enemy, who were again conquered at
Goito and Volta, and at the beginning of August he stood at the gates of
Milan. Threatened by the mob and reviled and persecuted as a traitor,
Charles Albert had left the city under the cover of night and accepted
the armistice of Vigevino (August 9th, 1848) which he owed more to the
generosity of the victor than to the intervening diplomacy of foreign
powers. Radetzky, as gentle and humane as he was brave and powerful,
stained his victory by no cruelty. A wholesale emigration made Milan a
deserted city. Continued hostile demonstrations in the Lombard city made
the measures of the Austrian governor more severe. Troops were quartered
in the houses of the patriots; the palaces of prominent emigrants were
turned into barracks, contributions were exacted, property of the nobles
was confiscated. On the day after the conclusion of the truce Peschiera
surrendered to General Haynau.

Thereby, however, the war between Sardinia and Austria was not concluded.
The events in Vienna filled the Italians with new hopes; the efforts
abroad to effect a peaceful solution between Piedmont and Austria came
to nothing; the proposed congress in Brussels did not assemble; only
a final decision by arms could dampen the inflamed spirits. Charles
Albert, reviled by the people, pushed by the radicals, threatened by the
republicans in his rulership, led astray by wounded princely pride, in
his desperation formed the resolution to again try the fortune of war.
In March (1849) a large Sardinian army, in which were several Polish
leaders, crossed the Lombard border in order to make a second attempt to
drive the Austrians out of Italy. But the sanguinary victories of the
Austrian army at Montara and Novara March 23rd, 1849, put a quick stop to
these undertakings and shattered the hopes of the Italian patriots.

CHARLES ALBERT ABDICATES: VICTOR EMMANUEL II SUCCEEDS

[Sidenote: [1849 A.D.]]

Charles Albert, despairing of his success but holding the feeling of
his military and princely honour deep in his heart, abdicated in favour
of his son, Victor Emmanuel II, fled from the land of his fathers and
in distant Portugal sought a resting place for the short remainder of
his days. He died in the firm belief that the power and future of Italy
rested in the Piedmontese dynasty.[g]

Charles Albert, great only in misfortune, was not unworthy of magnanimous
treatment and was now very willing to receive it. He had risked all to
redeem the word pledged to the fatherland, and his plans of ambition
and aggrandisement were frustrated and shattered, his sword and courage
completely broken. Italy, both republican and reactionary, had left him
alone on the place of election with his people; he feared and mistrusted
the French Republic; he must have been tired of all the fine counsels,
empty promises of England. He awaited death with calmness, and devoutly
performed the last duties of the Catholic Christian; on the afternoon of
the 26th of July, 1849, he succumbed to a third stroke of apoplexy.

[Illustration: VICTOR EMMANUEL II

(1820-1878)]

The impression wrought by his death was that of an expiation, a sacrifice
to the fatherland; his remains were brought to Genoa on the Piedmontese
war vessel Monzambano. His body was worshipped as that of a martyr and
saint, and thousands followed it to its grave on the lovely summit of
Superga, eastward of Turin.

Besides his rare patience and courage, Charles Albert possessed no
prominent intellectual qualities; if in the one sense he was a brave
soldier, he also proved himself a very indifferent general. As a prince
he had good intentions, but was wanting in all application, desire for
instruction, and in determination to such a point that cunning and
dissimulation were indispensable to him. Nevertheless he was a man, and
the great dangers, the deep suffering which he had to undergo for a cause
also borne by the noblest of the people, conciliated and glorified his
memory; thus he left his successor and his state a very promising but
weighty legacy.[h]

The young king Victor Emmanuel concluded a truce March 26th, 1849,
with the victorious field marshal, but this aroused so much disfavour
throughout the country that the chamber of deputies refused to ratify
it and a revolt broke out in Genoa. Not until the treaty had been
cancelled and the revolt put down by force, did the people succumb to
the inevitable. The new chambers later confirmed the peace with Austria,
which placed a great burden of debt on the country to pay for the
expenses of the war. From that time the Sardinian kingdom advanced on the
way of liberal reform and healthy internal development.

VENICE FAILS TO ACQUIRE FREEDOM

Only Venice, on account of the unconquerable security of its position,
was able to resist the Austrian besieging army for months longer and to
defy all attacks and attempts at conquest. Not until all hope of a happy
outcome of the war had disappeared, after the defeat of the insurgents
in all places, and not until the city had been reduced to a state of
greatest misery through distractions within, and the enemy without, did
Venice surrender to the Austrians under treaty. On August 30th, 1849,
the field marshal made his triumphal entry into the city of lagoons.
Manin, who had borne the greatest part in the heroic defence of Venice,
fled to France, where, rejecting all proffered aid, he supported himself
as an instructor in languages. The former dictator of Venice and the
former prisoner of Spielberg, Pallavicino Trivulzio were the founders
and creators of the Italian national union, in which the republicans and
constitutionalists, in the fifties, rallied around the cross of Savoy
for the liberation and union of the fatherland. Manin was not to live to
see the day of Italy’s independence. He died on September 22nd, 1857.
Ten years later his ashes were transported to Venice and buried in his
liberated native city.

After the fall of Milan and Venice the double eagle spread its wings
once more over the kingdom of Lombardy and Venice; in middle and upper
Italy the banners of the legitimate rulers were once more erected and the
Italian tricolours had a place only in Sardinia. Pius IX proclaimed his
deep repentance for his sins of liberalism. However much foolhardiness
and blind passion the Italian revolution may have brought to light,
one point cannot be denied--the honour of the nation was rescued. For
centuries the object of the scorn and contempt of other nations, the
Italians showed that they also knew how to bear arms; and although this
time also it was no less their own lack of order than the military
superiority of their opponents which caused their surrender, yet by this
uprisal the hope was awakened and strengthened that for them also the day
would dawn, upon which national unity and legal freedom would lay the
foundation of a happier and more worthy popular life.

After the defeat of their attempt to obtain liberty the patriots
recognised the necessity of a closer union with the Sardinian-Piedmontese
royal house, under the flag of which the organisation of a united Italy
could alone be hoped for. This idea was seized by no one with greater
zeal than by the former dictator of Venice, Daniele Manin, during his
exile in Paris.

By means of pamphlets and newspaper articles, in union with Pallavicino,
he sought to prepare his countrymen for a fresh national uprisal under
the cross of Savoy. A propaganda of which “the head was Manin, the arm
Pallavicino” worked for the realisation of the principle: “Independence
and unity under Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy.” The fruit of this
national movement was the Italian national union. Manin did not live
to see its result, but his ideas kept gaining new followers. In La
Farina the patriotic club obtained a more active and fiery co-labourer.
Introduced to Cavour by Pallavicino, the active Sicilian undertook the
rôle of mediator between the minister and the national union.

The propositions of Cavour, though not given the sanction of the
congress, were made the programme of all the reform parties in the
Italian peninsula. Piedmont which numbered, including Savoy and the
island from which the kingdom took its name, scarcely five million
inhabitants, could hope to form one member of the great Italian
federation only after it had succeeded in breaking the rule and influence
of Austria. All attempts to free Italy by force of arms having hitherto
met with ill-success it was seen that Austria must first be spiritually
undermined and weakened before recourse was again had to the sword.
When Austria, setting its faith according to custom in the power of
the bayonet and the influence of the clergy, sought to keep the people
in subjection by means of spiritual pressure and a carefully organised
police, Sardinia followed exactly the opposite course and weakened the
power of the clergy, introduced greater political freedom and endeavoured
in every way to win the confidence of the Italian people. Reforms were
instituted in the system of taxation, foreign traffic and commerce were
encouraged, the number of convents was reduced, and freedom of the press
was allowed. In all these measures Cavour, as minister of commerce, was
the moving spirit. The army was strengthened in important points, the
fortification of Alexandria was begun, and the land defences all over the
kingdom were placed in a state of readiness.

[Sidenote: [1854-1857 A.D.]]

In March, 1854, the despotic voluptuary Duke Charles III of Parma, who
hated democrats and patriots and mistrusted all people of culture, was
murdered in the open street, and two years later the prison-director
Cereali, and the war-auditor Bordi, both objects of popular hatred, were
assassinated in the same manner. Most terrible of all was the situation
in Naples and Sicily, that part of the world fashioned by nature to be
a paradise, but turned by man into a place of damnation. Ferdinand II
made use of the years of European reaction to stamp out every inclination
toward freedom and equal rights among his people, to fill the prisons
with his political adversaries and to carry on all over his realm, a rule
of despotism in which the spy-system, and judicial and official tyranny
came to full luxuriance of growth. The king witnessed from his balcony
the placing in chains by a special flogging-committee, of the political
prisoners who numbered, it is said, from first to last 22,000.

In November the former member of parliament, Baron Bentioigna, headed an
insurrection to force the readoption of the constitution of 1812, but he
was defeated by the king’s troops and afterwards shot with many of his
companions. In December the life of the king was attempted by a Mazzinist
soldier. Armed bands, united in a secret society called the “Camorra,”
perpetrated robbery and murder through all the land. Not daring to remain
longer in the capital the king moved with his family to the castle of
Caserta, which he kept closely guarded, allowing entrance to none but his
most intimate friends. The presence of Mazzini in Genoa in the summer of
1857 brought the excitement over the whole peninsula up to fever-heat
and led to several serious attempts at insurrection in Leghorn, Naples,
and Capri. These insurrections were suppressed, but the causes of the
discontent still remained, and the rebellious spirit was only the more
ready to assert itself again at the first favorable opportunity.

LOUIS NAPOLEON’S INTERVENTION

[Sidenote: [1857-1859 A.D.]]

That war between Sardinia and Austria was merely a question of time
became apparent to everyone toward the end of the fifties. Fortunately
for Sardinia, Austria’s position was an isolated one owing to the enmity
which her attitude during the Crimean War had won for her from Russia,
and her inborn jealousy and distrust of Prussia. The many-headed German
confederation was not in a position to interfere in political questions
of world-importance, and it was Napoleon’s most earnest endeavour to
reconcile Russia with France and Sardinia that a restoration of the
alliance which had received its death-blow in the Crimean War might be
made impossible for the future. It was not long before Russian men-of-war
were to be seen in the Mediterranean, and Napoleon’s efforts on behalf of
France were no less successful. The cautious emperor Napoleon might not
have been so ready to champion the weaker side had it not been for the
attempt on his life made by Orsini, as described in volume XIII.

The emperor had once held close relations with the Italian patriots, had
even been a member of an Italian secret society, and now, regarded by
his former associates as a traitor to their cause, he was condemned by
them to death. In February a letter written by Orsini was made public in
which he adjured the emperor to restore to Italy the independence it had
lost in 1849 through France’s fault; to free it forever from the Austrian
yoke. “Without Italian independence,” the letter closed, “the peace of
Europe, even your majesty’s own safety is but an empty dream. Free my
unhappy fatherland and the blessings of twenty-five million people will
follow you into the next world.”

On the 13th of March Orsini and Pieri perished on the scaffold, the two
remaining accomplices having been deported to America. The courage with
which Orsini met death, and the love of country he manifested up to his
last breath aroused universal sympathy. What Orsini living had failed to
bring about, he accomplished dead. While the murderous attempt was made
the pretext for robbing France of all freedom by means of the security
law of the 28th of January, Napoleon in conjunction with Cavour--who with
artful smoothness calmed his imperial associate’s anger toward Italy, the
hotbed of conspiracies--proceeded to carry out the wishes of Orsini.

Several weeks later Cavour held a secret conference with Napoleon at
which plans regarding Italy were perfected. “Italy to be free as far as
Adria; the whole of upper Italy to be united in a kingdom, France to be
enlarged by the annexation of Savoy,” these were the terms agreed upon
in the interview. It was further proposed that the bond between the two
reigning houses should be made still firmer by the betrothal of Prince
Napoleon Bonaparte with Clotilde, the daughter of Victor Emmanuel.[32]

AUSTRIA DECLARES WAR: MAGENTA AND SOLFERINO

In 1859 war was brought close in sight by Victor Emmanuel’s announcement
at the opening of the chamber of deputies in Turin that Sardinia could
no longer remain insensible to the cries for help that were arising on
all sides. Austria proceeded at once to strengthen her army, to place
the whole of Lombardy under martial law, and by every means possible
sought to secure her power and possessions in Italy. Austria was severely
blamed by the neutral powers for beginning hostilities, and it seemed as
though with the death of Field Marshal Radetzky Austria’s military star
had set forever. To Franz Gyulay, a member of the Hungarian nobility who
had filled many offices but had in none of them given proofs of marked
ability, fell the command.

[Sidenote: [1859 A.D.]]

By shameful inactivity the Austrians allowed the Sardinians time to
concentrate their 80,000 men around the fortress of Alessandria, where
they were joined in May by several divisions of French troops, Garibaldi,
meanwhile, with his “Alpine hunters” guarding the foot of the mountain
whence he could harass the right wing of the Austrians and support the
operations of the main army. The popularity of his name drew volunteers
to his banner in flocks, and his appearance in the northern lake-region
aroused the wildest enthusiasm among the people. About the middle of
May Napoleon himself arrived in Italy; although he left the actual lead
to able and experienced generals, he took his place at the head of the
troops.

Count Stadion, sent out to reconnoitre with 12,000 men, came upon the
French near Montebello May 20th, 1859, and was forced to retreat. The
battle of Magenta followed, June 4th, in which the victory fell to the
French.[33] The bravery of the Austrians in this engagement, although
they suffered from the greatest lack of necessary equipments, excited
the admiration even of the enemy. Never did the defects of the Austrian
administration become so glaringly apparent as during the campaign in
Italy. Lombardy was the prize at stake in this battle of Magenta. Gyulay,
incapable of rallying his scattered forces for a new attempt, immediately
gave orders for a general retreat. Milan was evacuated in the next two
days so hastily that the movement bore the character of a flight, the
fortifications around Pavia and Piacenza were blown up, and the army of
occupation was recalled from all its garrisons.

On the 8th of June, Napoleon, at the side of Victor Emmanuel, made
a triumphal entry into Milan, where he addressed the people in
high-sounding speeches, the Austrians, meanwhile, continuing their
retreat as far as the Mincio, where they took up a new position in the
middle of a quadrangle of fortifications, Peschiera, Verona, Mantua, and
Legnago.

The misfortunes that had befallen Austria confirmed and strengthened
Sardinia in its ideal of Italian unity, and helped to bring about the
fall of the lesser Italian sovereignties. In April the archduke Leopold
of Tuscany had been forced to leave Florence and place himself under the
protection of Austria. A provisory government was established under the
protectorate of the king of Piedmont. But this arrangement did not meet
Napoleon’s views. His secret design was to give the Tuscan throne to his
cousin, Louis Napoleon, the son-in-law of Victor Emmanuel, that there
might gradually grow up in Italy a circle of states tributary to France
which would hinder the dream of Italian unity from ever being realised.

Unionist enthusiasm had already burned too high, however, for political
or diplomatic schemes to avail against it. All over the land the flag of
united Italy was raised, and conjunction demanded with Sardinia. Bologna
declared itself free from the pope and invoked the dictatorship of the
king of Sardinia. Many other cities of the pontifical state followed this
example, indeed the greater part of the pontifical possessions would have
fallen away from Rome had not the terrible storming of Perugia by the
pope’s Swiss guard spread such dismay that Ancona, Ferrara, and Ravenna
for a while remained true.

[Illustration: PILGRIM AT ST. PETERS, ROME]

When Austria became convinced that from neither Prussia nor Germany
was help to be expected, it determined to try again single-handed the
fortunes of war. Following the example of Napoleon the emperor Francis
Joseph led his troops in person, and the incapable Gyulay was allowed to
sink into oblivion. But even under the new leaders Austria’s operations
were not crowned with success; the second encounter with the allied
troops which took place beyond the Mincio resulted in a defeat for the
Austrians--once more on account of serious strategical errors.

Napoleon, informed of the weak points of this position, sent his main
column against the defective centre which occupied a hill near Solferino.
After a murderous battle, June 24th, 1859, the height was captured by the
French, despite the heroic resistance of the Austrians, and the imperial
army was divided into two parts. A second blow struck by Napoleon near
Cavriani met with a like success, the Austrian leaders having issued
conflicting orders that brought the troops into much confusion. Benedek,
who had twice repulsed the Sardinians near San Martino, continued the
battle several hours after it was practically lost to the Austrians; then
a severe storm came up which enabled them to retire in good order. In
this engagement Marshal Niel distinguished himself above all the other
leaders on the French side. It was a bloody day, with a loss of 13,000
resulting to the Austrians. On the side of the allies the loss was even
heavier owing to the greater peril to which they had been exposed in
attacking the height. The victory of Solferino was a fresh leaf in the
laurel-crown of France, and contributed not a little to confirm Napoleon
in possession of the throne.

For various reasons Napoleon, a man of caution and, self-control,
determined to soften as much as possible the sting of defeat to his
humiliated foe, and despatched to Francis Joseph proposals of truce which
were accepted and confirmed at Villafranca. Three days later a personal
meeting took place between the emperors at which the preliminaries of
peace were arranged. Napoleon represented earnestly to the young Francis
Joseph how isolated Austria stood among the nations. It was agreed that
Lombardy should be ceded to France with the exception of Peschiera and
Mantua, that Italy should form a confederacy of states under the general
direction of the pope, and that the restoration of the sovereigns of
Tuscany and Modena, stipulated by Austria, should take place unhindered.
For the final settlement of these points, plenipotentiaries from both
realms were to meet at Zurich.

The terms of peace agreed upon at Villafranca, and ratified in all
essential respects at Zurich, dealt the death-blow to Austria’s influence
in the Apennine peninsula, and laid the foundation, to an extent far
exceeding Napoleon’s expectations, for the national unity of Italy. The
rest could be left in the hands of the Italians themselves. Far from
restoring their former masters to the throne the subjects of the expulsed
or fugitive princes hastened to confirm in a general assembly the
disposition of the old dynasties, and annexed themselves to Sardinia.

THE PAPACY VS. UNITY

We have seen how, before the battle of Solferino, Modena and Parma as
well as Tuscany had declared in favour of union with Piedmont. After the
Peace of Villafranca the states south of the Po united under Garibaldi in
a military league which had for object the repulsion of all attacks from
without and the hindrance of all attempts at restoration on the part of
the particularists and reactionists within. Even Bologna and a great part
of the Romagna withdrew from the pontifical state and petitioned Victor
Emmanuel to take them under his protection. This request was not refused
however hot might be the wrath of the holy father. Under the leadership
of D’Azeglio the necessary steps towards union with Sardinia were taken
throughout Romagna, and by New Year of 1860, a specially established
ministry deliberated on the affairs of the new-fledged state of middle
Italy, to which was given the name of Emilia, from the old Via Æmilia of
Rome.

[Illustration: RUINS OF A TEMPLE OF MINERVA]

Neither the curses of the Vatican nor the wrath of the ultramontanes
all over Europe could retard in the least degree the march of events.
Although the confederation decided upon at Villafranca and Zurich was
never made a fact, owing to the disinclination of Austria and the pope
to institute the necessary reforms, the neutral attitude maintained by
England and France yet materially assisted Italy to realise her dream of
national unity. Towards the end of 1859 a pamphlet published in Paris
entitled _Pope and Congress_ first startled the world with the thought
that it was time the temporal power of the pope should cease, that his
rule ought hereafter to be confined to the precincts of Rome itself. This
naturally threw the whole Catholic world in an uproar, and elicited from
the pope repeated violent denunciations, yet in the course of time the
idea became an accomplished fact. Napoleon had never forgotten that the
holy father had refused him consecration at the time of his coronation.

[Sidenote: [1860-1861 A.D.]]

The union of the middle Italian state’s with Sardinia was the forerunner
of all those “annexations” which was soon to transform completely the
character of the peninsula. Napoleon was willing to permit the expansion
of the upper Italian kingdom provided Savoy and the countship of Nice be
ceded to France. From the time of Cavour’s resumption of his place in the
ministry in January, Napoleon and the crafty minister exerted every art
known to diplomacy to bring about the end they had in view. At last in
March, 1860, the popular vote was obtained which gave Savoy and Nice to
France and made Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Roman legations a part of
the kingdom of Sardinia. The pope excommunicated all who had taken part
or even connived at this despoliation of Rome; but the papal bull, once
so formidable a weapon, had in the course of time lost much of its early
terrors. The 2nd of April witnessed the opening of the first Italian
parliament, in which were representatives not only from Sardinia and
Lombardy, but from Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the Roman legations. “Our
fatherland is no longer the Italy of Rome,” declared the crown speech,
“nor of the Middle Ages; neither shall it be the arena wherein shall meet
for combat the ambitions of all nations. Now and forever it is the Italy
of the Italians.”

GARIBALDI DRIVES THE BOURBONS FROM SICILY

With the Peace of Zurich and the “annexation” that followed closed
the first act in the drama of Italy’s freedom. The way had been
paved thereto by the conviction that had gained ground among the
cultivated classes since 1848 that only by a union of the whole country
under the constitutional monarchy of Sardinia could any stable and
permanent national position be obtained. To accomplish this end all
the revolutionary and nationalist forces made common cause, and chose
as their scene of action the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, which had
lately passed into the hands of Francis II, the inexperienced son of
Ferdinand II. The French and Russian ambassadors had in vain endeavoured,
after the Peace of Villafranca, to bring about an alliance between
Naples and Piedmont, thinking thus to frustrate all the efforts of the
revolutionists; but the policy of tradition, which persisted in placing
trust in Austria, prevailed even with the new king. By his refusal to
espouse the cause of Italian unity Francis II precipitated the fall
of the Bourbon dynasty and the dissolution of the Neapolitan-Sicilian
kingdom.

The project of attacking a kingdom that had at its command a
well-organised military force of 150,000 men was indeed a bold one;
but tyranny had prepared the ground for the operations of the secret
societies, and the indifference with which the warnings of the French
and Russian ambassadors were received, together with the dismissal of
the Swiss mercenaries, robbed the throne of its strongest and most
trustworthy support at the precise moment when Garibaldi and his
associates had planned to strike a decisive blow.

On the 6th of May Garibaldi set sail with 1,062 volunteers from Genoa
without suffering any hinderance from the Sardinian authorities, and
on the 11th of May landed at Marsala, on the west coast of Sicily. To
the protest of the king of Naples and of the German courts against the
impunity allowed a band of “sea-robbers,” Turin made reply that since
the expedition was a private enterprise undertaken by Garibaldi and his
associates, the Piedmontese authorities had no right to interfere.
Before Garibaldi’s departure, however, Cavour had written to Persano: “We
must support the revolution, but it must have all the appearance, in the
eyes of Europe, of a volunteer enterprise.”[34]

[Illustration: LAY CAPUCHINE FRIAR]

After Garibaldi had disembarked with his immediate followers he withdrew
to the mountains and gathered about him, near Salemi, the scattered
fragments of his volunteer corps. On the 14th of May, when the number of
men had increased to 4,000 he issued a proclamation in which, in the name
of Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy, he declared himself dictator over the
realm of Sicily.

After several successful encounters with the king’s troops Garibaldi
pressed towards the capital by way of Calatafimi and Misilmeri, keeping
his confederates informed of his movements by means of watch-fires at
night. On the 27th of May he stood before Palermo and immediately gave
the signal for attack. In a few hours the city, whose population had
risen with one accord to support the invaders, had nearly passed into the
hands of Garibaldi, when General Lanza, who had been despatched to the
island by the young king with an important force, caused the city to be
so heavily bombarded by the citadel and ships of war in the harbour, that
the next day more than half of it lay in ruins. By the intermediary of
the English admiral a truce was arranged which ended with the withdrawal
of the Neapolitan troops and ships, and the delivering over of the city
to the revolutionists.

Almost incalculable were the effects of these events in Palermo. By them
the monarchy was shaken to its base and the name of Garibaldi carried
into every corner of the world. At the court of Naples confidence was
totally destroyed. In vain the king sought to prop his tottering throne
by restoring the constitution of 1848.

Six weeks after the victory at Palermo the “dictator” Garibaldi set sail
for Messina without having fulfilled the expectations of Turin that he
would announce the annexation of Sicily to Sardinia. In three days he
took the fortress of Milazzo, and shortly after the commander of Messina
effected a truce by the terms of which the city, with the exception of
the citadel, was to be evacuated by the Neapolitan troops. Europe learned
with astonishment of the first rapid successes of the great agitator,
but his exploits on the mainland were to excite still greater wonder.
His further progress through the southern part of the peninsula was one
long triumph; nowhere was resolute opposition offered him. On the 5th of
September he arrived at Eboli, not far from Salerno. The very name of
Garibaldi exercised a potent spell over the people; to them he appeared
as the instrument of God on earth, the discharger of a providential
mission.

On the 6th of September Francis II left Naples and withdrew, with
the 40,000 men who still remained to him, to the fortresses of Gaeta
and Capua. The day following Garibaldi made his formal entrance into
Naples in the midst of the acclamations of the people. He established
a provisory government, but still deferred sending news of annexation
to Piedmont. The leaders of the radical parties had filled the popular
demi-god with distrust against the policy of Cavour and it was not until
he was joined by Pallavicino, the martyr of Spielberg, that he again made
common cause with the unionists. The foreign powers preserved a strictly
neutral attitude throughout, and Napoleon’s efforts to effect the
united intervention of France and England failed before the determined
resistance of Palmerston and Russell.

While these events were in progress the excitement of the Italian people
reached fever-heat. The fall of the Bourbon dynasty in Naples, which was
now seen to be imminent, would make the union of the Apennine peninsula
under the sceptre of Victor Emmanuel almost an accomplished fact. The
boast of Garibaldi that from the Quirinal itself, its national capital,
he would announce the birth of the United Italian kingdom, found an echo
in the hearts of the people who made it apparent in every way that they
would be satisfied with no less a victory. But the papal government at
Rome opposed threats of excommunication to every effort of the French
emperor towards reform, and a cry of horror arose from the devout all
over Europe at the danger to which religion would be exposed should there
be any further encroachments upon the temporal power of the pope.

There were thus but two ways left open to Napoleon; either to allow the
Italian revolution to have free play, in which case Garibaldi would
without doubt make an end of the temporal supremacy of the pope and
select Rome as the capital of the Italian kingdom, or to permit an
alliance between Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel whereby a natural limit
would be placed to the revolution, and the danger that Mazzini and the
“Action” party might gain the upper hand would be removed. Napoleon chose
the latter course. There is little doubt of his having sent word to the
king that the latter might add Umbria and the Marches to his realm, and
send his forces to occupy Naples provided he would leave Rome to the
occupation of the French. However this may be, in the early days of
September two divisions of the Sardinian army, under the minister of war
Fanti and General Cialdini, drew near the border of the papal states.

The entrance of the Piedmontese troops was the signal for a general
uprising of the people. In Pesaro, Montefeltre, Sinigaglia, and Urbino
provisory governments were established, and deputations were sent to
Turin. The Sardinian field-marshal laid before General Lamoricière and
the papal court the demand that the people should be allowed to follow
their will in all the papal states; this being rejected with indignation
General Fanti advanced into Umbria, while Cialdini proceeded to the
occupation of the Marches. On both sides great bravery was shown, but
the papal troops were finally defeated and put to rout. Lamoricière
fled with only a handful of followers, to Ancona which was obliged to
surrender, after having been besieged by Cialdini on the land side and
by the Sardinian admiral Persano from the sea. A few days later Victor
Emmanuel arrived in Ancona and assumed command in person of all his
forces.

The intention of the king in taking over the command of the army had been
to effect, in conjunction with Garibaldi, the conquest of the kingdom of
Naples. The attempt on the part of the volunteers to press forward as far
as Capua had been balked by their defeat at Cajazzo. Although the open
and straightforward revolutionist leader had little liking for Cavour,
the man of devious ways and unidealistic views, he felt himself drawn by
many common qualities towards the king in whom he beheld the “liberator”
of Italy. Thus it was not difficult for his friend Pallavicino to induce
him to adopt for his watchword, “One undivided Italy under the sceptre
of the house of Savoy.” When Victor Emmanuel took up his position at
the head of the united troops in Sessia, Garibaldi laid at his feet the
dictatorship of Naples, and transferred to him the mission of making
Italy free and giving her a place among the nations of the earth. “I am
ready to obey you, Sire,” he said; then, after riding into Naples at the
side of the king and commending his followers to the monarch’s favour and
protection, he retired to a small property he possessed on the lonely
island of Capri, refusing all honours and rewards. This was the greatest
moment in the agitated life of the Italian patriot, the one in which he
achieved the conquest of himself.

From now on, the war operations assumed a more definite character. After
the capture of Capua by the Piedmontese and Garibaldians, King Francis,
with the remnant of his best troops, was driven into the fort of Gaeta,
while Victor Emmanuel, after a visit to Palermo, took possession of the
double kingdom of Sicily and disbanded the Garibaldian troops, dismissing
some of them to their homes and taking others into the Sardinian army.

Gaeta had now become the last bulwark of the kingdom of Naples and the
Bourbon dynasty. The valorous defence of the sea-port town, during
which the unfortunate young queen Maria of Bavaria displayed remarkable
heroism, was afterward to constitute the one praiseworthy period in the
short regency of Francis II.

The appeals for help of the beleaguered Bourbon king to the different
powers of Europe failing to bring about any armed intervention, and his
manifestos addressed to the Sicilian people resulting in no uprisings
in his favour, lack of food and ammunition finally compelled the king
to capitulate. On the 13th of February, 1861, he embarked on a French
ship for Rome where he resided for the next ten years, constantly
supported by the hope that his partisans in Naples would bring about a
counter-revolution which would reinstate him on the throne. The following
month the citadel of Messina also surrendered to General Cialdini.

With this event the kingdom of both Sicilies came to an end, and the
supremacy of the Bourbons was forever destroyed in the beautiful
peninsula. On the 18th of February, King Victor Emmanuel assembled in
Turin about his throne representatives from all those states which
acknowledged his rule, and with their joyful acquiescence adopted for
himself and his legitimate descendants the title of “king of Italy.” (Law
of March 17th, 1861.) The protests of the dethroned princes as well as of
the pope and the emperor of Austria were received as so many empty words.

In this manner the impossible had been accomplished; the various states
of Italy with the exception of Austrian Venice in the northwest and the
papal city of Rome with its surroundings, had been united into a single
kingdom. Cavour’s statecraft, Victor Emmanuel’s firmness and decision,
Garibaldi’s patriot devotion, the political tact shown by the educated
classes, had all contributed to bring about the wonderful result; and now
that it had been brought about, equally powerful factors would be needed
to make permanent the newly acquired possessions of freedom and unity.

A safe and satisfactory solution of the “Roman question” could be
attained only by gradually accustoming the Catholic world to the idea
of the separation of the spiritual power from the temporal. According
to Cavour’s idea the papacy should be relieved from all obligations of
worldly rule that it might the better achieve the full glory of its
special mission--the spiritual guidance of Catholic Christendom. “A free
church is a free state,” was the watchword of the question as understood
by Cavour; but an offer which he made to the pope embodying those
conditions was indignantly refused; it would be indeed a work of time to
reconcile the Catholic world to the idea of a church without territorial
possessions.

THE DEATH OF CAVOUR AND THE REVOLT OF GARIBALDI

Such being the condition of affairs the seditious utterances of a band
of agitators calling themselves “Italians of the Italians” caused Cavour
no little trouble and annoyance. Garibaldi himself, who had passed the
greater part of his life in arms against monarchical power, and who
in his idealism and self-sacrificing love of freedom and country was
incapable of seeing existing conditions exactly as they were, was not a
stranger to some of these new revolutionary movements. On the 20th of
April, 1861, he appeared in the Turin parliament to condemn the action
taken in disbanding his army of volunteers, and to protest against
the treatment accorded some of his former comrades-at-arms. He was
finally pacified and induced to return to his lonely island life by the
persuasive representations of Cavour.

Shortly afterward, June 6th, 1861, occurred the death of Count Cavour,
the greatest statesman the world had seen since Cardinal Richelieu. He
was but fifty-one years of age, and his untimely end was undoubtedly
brought about by overwork and the feverish anxiety in which his later
years were passed. “For twelve years,” he declared, “I have been
a conspirator in the cause of my country’s freedom--a most unique
conspirator; I have avowed my aim in parliament and in every court of
Europe, and now at the last I have for fellow-conspirators twenty-five
millions of Italians.” His life-work had not quite reached completion,
his last idea was little more than the vision of a dream; but he had at
last the satisfaction of seeing his own creation, the young kingdom of
Italy, advancing on the road to maturity.[g]

The chief thought which had haunted him in the midst of his delirium was
the south. “Oh! there is great corruption down there, but it is not their
fault, poor things. The country is demoralised but it is not by hurting
it that it will improve.” And above all that the state should not force
itself upon it, nor impose upon it the means of absolute governors.
This was the chief thought of his brief illness and it was also his
political testament. To-day after many years the boundless faith placed
by the great minister in the salutary influence of liberty has been
solemnly confirmed by the facts. The south relinquished brigandage and
accomplished the work of annexation without ever veiling the statue of
liberty.

The highest praise that can be given to Count Cavour was made by a
great statesman whose name was not less celebrated than that of the
great minister, Lord Palmerston. “The name of Cavour,” he said before
the British parliament, “will always live, and will be embalmed in the
memory, in the gratitude, and in the admiration of the human race. The
story of which he is the ornament is truly wonderful, and the most
romantic in the annals of the world. We have seen a people under his
direction and authority wake up from the sleep of two centuries.”[c]

[Illustration: PEDLER, MODERN ROME]

[Sidenote: [1862-1863 A.D.]]

It behoved Cavour’s successor, Ricasoli, to follow closely in the
footsteps of his illustrious predecessor and confine his attention to
the interior up-building of the state. He repeated Cavour’s attempt to
negotiate with Rome for the establishment of a free church in a free
state, but the Florentine statesman was looked upon as almost a foreigner
by the papal advisers, and France unqualifiedly rejected the intervention
he proposed. He resigned his office in March, 1862, whereupon Rattazzi
was appointed head of the ministry.

The first official acts of the new minister were to take back into
the army Garibaldi’s former volunteers, and to proclaim that the
parliamentary decree of March 27th, 1861, which designated Rome as the
future capital of the kingdom, must be carried out. Garibaldi being
summoned from his island to assume the lead in all these undertakings the
“Action” party were again fired with revolutionary ardour. Not only Rome
and Venice were to be conquered, but all the Italian-speaking populations
of the Tyrol and the other side of Adria were to be united under the
banner of the new kingdom. Soon the tide of agitation swelled so high
that the administration saw itself obliged to take strong measures to
protect the country from a general war. Among the most turbulent leaders
who were taken prisoners were many friends and followers of Garibaldi.

It was a misfortune for Italy that no regular sphere of activity was
offered this devoted patriot in the interior administration of his
country, where his high and noble qualities might have been utilised
without much power of initiative being left to his defective political
sense. He determined now to repeat against Rome the course of procedure
that had succeeded with Naples two years ago. He set sail from Genoa and
landed at Palermo where a large force of armed volunteers crowded under
his banner, thirsting to strike some decisive blow that would shake from
Italy the last survival of foreign rule, and to win for the kingdom its
natural capital. Inasmuch as a rumour was spreading abroad which might
find credence in foreign countries that the administration was secretly
shielding the undertaking, and as Napoleon himself had threatened to
occupy Naples if the Turin cabinet did not at once take steps to crush
the revolutionary movement, the king now issued a proclamation declaring
all men traitors to the flag of Italy who overstepped the limits of the
law and participated in any unwarrantable act of violence or aggression.

Nevertheless, Garibaldi persisted in his design which was to “enter
Rome as a conqueror or die within its walls.” On the 24th of August he
landed at Melito, and passing Reggio whose strong fortifications he did
not venture to attack, advanced at once into the Calabrian mountains.
Meanwhile, General Cialdini had despatched a division of the main
army under Colonel Pallavicini, in pursuit of the volunteers, and at
Aspromonte a serious encounter took place. Garibaldi, wounded and taken
prisoner, together with many of his followers, was brought back in a
government steamer to Barignano, on the Gulf of Spezia, where he endured
a long and painful malady.[35]

[Illustration: VENICE TO-DAY]

FLORENCE BECOMES THE CAPITAL

[Sidenote: [1863-1866 A.D.]]

After several fruitless attempts on the part of French diplomats to bring
about some kind of an understanding between the pope and Victor Emmanuel,
an agreement was entered into by France and Italy, according to which the
royal residence was to be transferred from Turin to Florence, and the
French troops of occupation were gradually to be withdrawn from Rome.
With the pope it was agreed that no hindrance should be placed in the way
of the organisation, by the papal authorities, of an army which should
be sufficiently large to support the authority of the holy father and to
preserve peace in the interior and on the borders, but not large enough
to offer resistance to the army of the king.

The provisions of this “September convention” aroused great
dissatisfaction in Turin. Let Rome be chosen as the national capital and
no outcry would be raised, but why should the Piedmontese be expected
to make a sacrifice in favour of Florence? Sullen displeasure soon gave
place to open protestations and street excesses. Instead of trying to put
down the disturbance by mild measures the ministry made the mistake of
using harsh ones. A great number of rioters were killed or wounded. The
distress of the city, which had so long been loyal to himself and his
house, pained the king deeply; and dissolving the present ministry he
gave the formation of a new one into the hands of General Lamarmora, a
Piedmontese by birth.

Peace succeeded quickly upon this change, but the city was none the
less obliged to undergo its fate. During the following month parliament
decreed the transfer of the royal residence, and preparations were at
once begun for moving the court and all the paraphernalia of government
to the ancient city on the Arno. On the morning of the 3rd of February,
without notice or farewell, Victor Emmanuel left behind him his former
capital and proceeded to Florence, where he was henceforth to have his
abode.

Anger was felt in Rome that France and Italy should have held a
convention without seeking the co-operation of the pope. The latter, to
show how few concessions he was willing to make to modern ideas, shortly
after astonished the world by publishing an _Encyclica_ and _Syllabus_
in which, in an array of maxims and admonitions, he condemned and cast
aside as worthless all the attainments of modern times in the different
fields of philosophy, science, and religion. These remarkable expressions
of belief, revealing as they did a degree of enlightenment not far
exceeding that of the Middle Ages, made plain to the world how hopeless
would be any attempt to come to an understanding with the man who could
frame them, and how unwilling and morally incapable he was of recognising
the rights and necessities of present-day humanity.

The Italian chamber of deputies proceeded in its very next session to
institute further changes and reforms. Civil marriage was introduced,
the suppression of convents, as well as the secularisation of churchly
possessions, was decided upon, and the abolition of capital punishment
was proposed. In spite of the difficult financial position in which the
kingdom was placed as a result of the war of freedom in which it had been
engaged, and the expenses consequent upon its reorganisation, Victor
Emmanuel declared his readiness to assume a great part of the Roman debt
provided the papacy would give its recognition to the new state. This
attempt met with the same success that had attended all others: to every
overture the pope opposed his usual reply, “_Non possumus_.”[g]

THE WAR OF 1866 AND ANNEXATION OF VENICE

Italy still looked with hungry eyes at the rich Venetian territory
which still remained to Austria. In 1866 Prussia and Austria fell into
disputes which culminated in war, as described in the histories of
Austria and Prussia. In March, Prussia was glad to secure the alliance
of Italy, promising to continue war until Austria gave up to Italy the
whole mainland of Venice except the city itself and the quadrilateral of
fortresses. June 20th Italy declared war on Austria, which sent an army
of 180,000 into the peninsula, and 27 ships. Against these Italy raised
300,000 men as well as a fleet of 36 vessels. The quadrilateral, however,
gave the Austrians an excellent base, as Bertolini[c] says, as well as a
formidable bulwark. The Italians lacked strategists, and though the king
and Prince Humbert [Umberto] led them, they met with no success. March
24th they were surprised with loss, and at Custozza where, according to
Bertolini,[c] they had only 52,000 men to the Austrians’ 75,000, they
fought a drawn battle, but retreated after a loss of 3,000 men and 4,000
prisoners. Garibaldi’s volunteers, after some slight success at Monte
Suello July 3rd, were surprised and completely routed at Vezza, July 5th.
He retrieved his fortunes, however, at Ampola (July 16th-19th), Bezzea
and Lardaro (July 21st), when word came of an armistice. The navy was
also badly defeated at Lissa, July 17th. Admiral Persano on July 18th
bombarded the Austrian shore batteries, but although he succeeded in
temporarily silencing most of the guns he was unable to effect a landing.
Two days later the Austrian fleet appeared in the harbour and at once
gave battle to the Italian fleet. In this fight the Italian admiral seems
to have lost his head completely, and to have given either conflicting
orders, or no orders at all. The result was a complete victory for the
Austrians.

The Prussians had, however, gone from victory to victory, finally
reaching the triumph of Sadowa, or Königgrätz, July 5th. Austria in
despair and in need of troops made Napoleon III a present of Venetia.
The Italians felt it an “ignominy” to accept Venetia as a gift from the
French, but finally terms were agreed upon with Austria direct, by which
Italy received all the Venetian provinces, and the Iron Crown of the
Lombards, the freedom of service of all Lombards in the Austrian army.
Italy assumed the Lombardo-Venetian debt of 64,000,000 francs and agreed
to pay 35,000,000 francs to Austria. October 19th, 1866, the Italian flag
was hoisted on St. Mark’s. A plebiscite was taken and 647,384 citizens
voted for the union under the constitutional monarchy of Victor Emmanuel,
while only 69 voted against it. November 7th Victor Emmanuel made his
formal entry into Venice amidst great enthusiasm.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[32] [According to Bulle[d] Cavour had higher plans for Clotilde’s
marriage, but yielded for diplomacy’s sake.]

[33] [The losses were considerable on both sides; on the French
side there were 246 officers and 3,463 men dead or wounded; and 735
missing. The Austrians had 281 officers, 3,432 men dead or wounded, and
4,000 missing. But the result of the battle was to open Milan to the
French.--DELORD.[e]]

[34] [“La Farina and his National Society opened up a way--the helper was
the government but the help came from a private person so the government
was not involved. The proof of this is to be found in the letter of
La Farina to Count Cavour written from Bristo Arsizio and dated April
24th, 1860, in which Farina told the minister that the cases (of arms)
which were expected from Modena had not reached Genoa or the station at
Piacenza and deplored this delay, the reason of which he did not know.
The cases arrived the same day at Genoa and news of them was telegraphed.
Letter book No. 595 to La Farina by the vice-governor.”--BERTOLINI.[c]]

[35] [The hero of Italy, like the heroine of France, risen from among
the people to place the king at the head of an emancipated nation,
after having succeeded beyond all probability in the first part of his
undertaking, failed in the second, wounded and made prisoner as was
Joan of Arc. Conducted to the fort of Varignano, in the Gulf of Spezia,
Garibaldi was the object of a universal sympathy. Men disapproved of his
perilous expedition; but what he had attempted was, at bottom, what all
the world desired. An amnesty was granted by the king.--HENNEGUY.[f]]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI. THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY

Italy in 1814 was scarcely aroused to a national consciousness;
in 1849 that consciousness was a dominant fact. Out of
Carbonari plottings to mitigate the tyranny of local despots,
out of the failures of 1820, ’21 and ’31, out of Mazzini’s
Young Italy, and the preachings of Gioberti, had developed a
strong and abiding desire not only for liberty, not only for
independence, but also for unity, without which these could
not endure. The idea of Nationality had sprung up in Italian
hearts. The race which had given Christendom a religion, which
had expressed itself in literature and in art and in science,
and which had once led the world in commerce and industry,
this race had at length set itself to win what it had hitherto
lacked,--political freedom. Italy was to be no longer a
geographical expression, but a nation.--THAYER.[b]

[Sidenote: [1867-1878 A.D.]]

The minister Ricasoli, who had the good fortune to associate his name
with the union of Venetia to the kingdom of Italy, lived only a few
months after the conclusion of peace with Austria. He had decided to
reopen negotiations with the Roman court to determine at least those
matters which had a purely ecclesiastical character. To this end he
sent Tonello to Rome to treat on the business of the vacant episcopal
seats. The affair was successful from the point of view of the Italian
government; but it was not equally so with regard to that of the interest
of the country.

[Sidenote: [1867 A.D.]]

Encouraged by this success the minister composed a plan of laws in
which the relations of the church with the state were regulated upon
the principle of the entire independence of the two powers. This hybrid
law managed by Ricasoli with the ministers of finance and justice was
presented to the chamber on the 17th of January, 1867. Before it was
pronounced the country had expressed its discontent by means of the
press. The Venetian provinces protested in public reunions, but the
government prohibited these meetings. At the elections, however, the
abstention of the clericals from the voting brought in a majority of the
new chamber for the party opposed to the ecclesiastical law, and the
minister, seeing the parliamentary party, sent in his resignation which
was accepted.

Then Rattazzi reappeared upon the scene “like the doctor _in extremis_,”
to use the phrase of Princess Rattazzi,[c] the author of his memoir.
With him there returned those seditious and equivocal circumventions
which again distressed Italy as the work of that fatal man. Borne upon
the shields of the party of action which regarded him as its mind, as
it had looked upon Garibaldi as its arm, he suddenly prepared for the
work. And in the meantime while Sicily was a martyr to cholera and
parliament was occupied in the important business of the liquidation of
the Ecclesiastical Act, the party of action was agitating for hastening
the solution of the Roman question. This question, as aforesaid, entered
upon a new phase after the departure of the French from Rome and a short
time after the solution of the Venetian question.

THE REVOLT OF GARIBALDI

The first announcement of the new proposals of the party of action was a
proclamation from Garibaldi, published in July of 1867, which invited the
Romans to rebel and the Italians to hold themselves in readiness to help
him. The agitation once created, it was increased and fomented by every
means; and as the waves rose the words of the great patriot became more
ardent and violent. At Geneva at the council of peace, and at Balgirate
before a maddened multitude the hero incited them against “the covey of
vipers” which had made its nest at Rome; and on the 16th of September
he published an address to Romans in which he promised them the aid of
100,000 youths “who feared they were too many to share the miserable
glory of expelling from Italy the mercenaries and jugglers.” The deeds
followed the words. At Florence and other places secret preparations were
made for an armed expedition into the Roman states and many young men
were sent towards the frontier.

What was the government doing meanwhile?

The words of the government were clear, but its deeds were obscure, and
in fact the orders given by Rattazzi to the political authorities were so
flaccid and vague that it would have been thought they were only a show,
and that the minister secretly approved the designs of Garibaldi. What a
difference between Cavour and Rattazzi! With Cavour as an ally Garibaldi
made an epic, with Rattazzi a double tragedy. Two ways were open to
Rattazzi, either to act according to the declaration made in the official
diary of the 21st of September, or to act in the opposite way; sooner a
war with France than a Mentana. He followed neither the one nor the other
course but steered between the two, and brought fresh disaster upon his
unhappy country.

When Garibaldi left Florence for Arezzo, to assume command of the
volunteers stationed on the borders, the government, which had let him
go so far, removed him from command and had him taken to the fortress
of Alessandria. But it did nothing to disperse the volunteers who had
received from Garibaldi himself the word of command to prosecute the
undertaking; and soon afterwards terrified at his ardour the government
sent the prisoner free to Caprera, without even exacting a promise to
remain quietly there, thinking it was sufficient guarantee to have the
island watched by a few warships. Meanwhile a band of Garibaldians
of about 200 men entered Viterbo and there instituted a provisionary
government under the name of “committee of insurrection.” At the same
time two other companies passed the frontier.

But grave news arrived at that time from France. The French journals
announced that preparations for a fresh Roman expedition were in progress
at the port of Toulon, and following this announcement there came a note
(October 19th) from the government saying that France would intervene
with her forces if the Italian government did not put a stop to the
Garibaldian movement. And whilst the government was discussing the course
to take in such a contingency the news came that Garibaldi had fled from
Caprera. It was the _coup de grace_ of the minister Rattazzi. The same
evening that Garibaldi arrived at Florence he sent in his resignation,
and the king deputed Cialdini to form a new ministry (October 20th).
Now followed the strange events which showed the embarrassment of the
government. On one side it strove by means of the marquis Pepoli to
persuade the emperor Napoleon that it was strong enough to suppress the
Garibaldian movement; and on the other it let Garibaldi speak in public,
stir the people, and go to Terni to head the movement raised by him. The
central committee of Florence became a true war committee, although it
continued to call itself one of succour, and it announced to all Italy in
its proclamation of the 22nd of October that the insurrection had broken
out in Rome.

But the news was not true. The reported Roman insurrection consisted
in an attempt at rebellion by a hundred youths led by Cairoli, which,
not being seconded by the people, was easily quelled. The misfortune of
the first attempt did not quench the ardour of the patriots nor temper
the audacity of the leaders of the enterprise. A victory gained October
25th by Garibaldi at Monterotondo over the papal troops fomented the
enthusiasm of the insurgent youths so that they feared no danger, nor
were they checked by any obstacle.

THE FRENCH INTERVENE AGAIN: MENTANA, OCTOBER 31ST

The dangers and obstacles increased immeasurably. After long vacillation
the emperor seeing the impotence of the Italian government to end the
Garibaldian invasion had determined on French intervention in the Roman
state. Cialdini’s attempt having failed, the king committed to General
Menabrea the task of forming a new administration. The new ministry made
known its intentions in a royal proclamation dated October 27th, in
which it repudiated the flag raised in the papal states, and invited the
volunteers to enlist at once in the royal army. This proclamation aimed
at a double result, the crushing of the Garibaldian invasion and the
prevention of French intervention. But neither the one nor the other was
achieved.

When the Italian government learned that the French had disembarked
at Civitavecchia, they then decided to intervene and the royal troops
occupied several places in the pontifical states. Although resolved
to intervene, the government thought it well to offer to Garibaldi
an opportunity of retiring with honour from an enterprise which, in
the present state of affairs, could not be carried on without useless
bloodshed and the exposing of the country to grave peril. But Garibaldi,
far from accepting this anchor of salvation, as soon as he knew that the
French had landed at Civitavecchia issued a proclamation to his followers
encouraging them to remain intrepid in the struggle and inviting them to
unite with him at Tivoli so that the unification of the country might
be compassed by some means (October 31st). The volunteer column had
scarcely passed Mentana when Garibaldi received the news of a vigorous
attack on his vanguard by the papal zouaves. Hearing this the general
returned to Mentana to avoid the danger of having his left flank turned
and endeavoured to keep in his rear the rest of the troops that were in
the district (November 3rd). He did not go far before the enemy appeared.
Repulsed at the first attack, they shortly returned with formidable
reinforcements among which were 1,500 Frenchmen. The volunteers could
ill stand against an enemy so superior in numbers and armed with good
weapons. The châssepots did horrible execution. Garibaldi ordered a
retreat, took leave of his followers, and, having taken steps for
disbanding the volunteer corps, he recrossed the frontier. The Italian
government ignorant of his intentions had him arrested and kept in
custody until the excitement had calmed down.

The châssepots had conquered; the compact of September was destroyed;
Rome was once more in the hands of the French, and Turin wept for a
sacrifice which had been in vain. The royal troops commanded by Cadorna
remained in the pontifical territories, but the French minister having
protested against this occupation, the government, not wishing further
to aggravate an already strained situation, ordered them to be recalled
and the king took advantage of this act of abnegation to send a letter
to the emperor Napoleon in which he conjured him, in the interest of the
Napoleonic dynasty, to break definitely with the clerical party and order
the immediate recall of the troops from Rome.

But Napoleon III was deaf to this advice, which was nevertheless wise;
he would not break the hybrid union with the clerical party, and reaped
from it, as recompense, the union in the same grave of the papal monarchy
and the Napoleonic empire. The answer to Pepoli’s letter was given by the
French minister of foreign affairs, Rouher, the faithful executor and
interpreter of his masters’ policy. In the discussion which took place
in the legislative assembly on the new expedition to Rome, this minister
said that the Italians had “never had Rome.”

“We will show him his ‘Never (_jamais_),’” exclaimed Victor Emmanuel in
good Piedmontese, and he was not satisfied until the petulant minister
had apologised for the unfortunate word, saying it had escaped him in the
heat of an impromptu speech.

[Sidenote: [1868-1869 A.D.]]

The king asked the same Menabrea to form a new ministry under his
presidency. Of the old ministers seven remained. The truce, which by
tacit consent was now enjoyed, gave the new ministry an opportunity of
occupying themselves seriously with financial questions, which since the
war of 1866 had again become very grave. This war had in fact cost Italy
six hundred millions besides the debt contracted by the acquisition of
Venetia; the forced tariff had raised the price of gold to fifteen per
cent., causing grave damage to private contracts, and to the state, which
was obliged each year to acquire gold for the payment of the interest
of government securities abroad; and with the increase of the tax on
gold had come the depression of Italian consols, which had fallen to 36
per cent., and in consequence sinister rumours were circulating in the
country and abroad to the effect that Italy would soon be bankrupt. In
the midst of the lugubrious prognostications made about her she displayed
fresh activity and vigour; and in the act which enabled her to support
the new subsidies imposed by the diminished finances of the state, she
initiated a new era of economical prosperity, which was soon to bring
forth splendid and unexpected fruit.

The Florentine, Cambrai Digny, was then at the head of the financial
department. He made himself the defender of the threatened honour of his
country, and demanded that for great evils extreme remedies should be
employed.

THE ROMAN QUESTION RENEWED

While parliament was occupied with the financial question, the minister,
Menabrea, was working to induce the French government to put in force
again the September convention, and to recall her troops from Rome. The
Italian minister offered to guarantee to the pope perfect liberty for the
exercise of his spiritual power, and to assume for Italy a considerable
part of the pontifical debt. In guarantee of the serious nature of his
offer, he pointed to the elements of the authority to be henceforth
recognised in the kingdom, which would lead to the disappearance of all
traces of agitation and to the closing forever of the era of factious
revolutions, of conspiracies and of individual initiative. But the French
government did not share these rose-coloured visions of the Italian
minister, and brought forward information proving the existence of
Mazzinian workings in the peninsula. Menabrea, seeing there was nothing
more to do, resigned his diplomatic position in the chamber of deputies
at the end of March, 1869.

No better effect resulted from another much more important attempt,
made this time by the king, Victor Emmanuel. Moved by the desire of
re-establishing with Napoleon III the friendly relations interrupted
by the events of 1867, and of assuring the preservation of peace in
Europe, which the strained relations existing between France and Prussia
threatened to disturb, he took the initiative of proposing a triple
alliance between Italy, France, and Austria, of which the fundamental
condition was the evacuation of Rome by the French troops, and the formal
recognition of the principle of non-intervention in Italian affairs. The
three contracting powers would then have acted together in all important
questions of European politics, guaranteeing reciprocally the integrity
of their respective territories and not taking any resolution of general
importance without the consent of all. But neither the persuasions of the
emperor of Austria nor those of his cousin, Prince Jerome, were able to
influence Napoleon’s decision. He held firm to his refusal with regard to
the evacuation of Rome, and as this was the fundamental, the whole plan
was abortive, and this on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War.

The year 1868 was celebrated by the marriage of the crown prince to his
cousin Margaret of Savoy. The fiancée of Prince Humbert, an archduchess
of Austria, having died, the minister Menabrea proposed to the king the
granddaughter of the duke of Genoa as a wife for his son. The proposal
pleased the king and the prince, and on the 22nd of April the marriage
was celebrated. The new year opened with painful events, the application
of the tax on flour giving rise to tumults and seditious movements which
obliged the government to use measures of great severity. In Emilia and
Roumania scenes of bloodshed and destruction occurred. General Cadorna,
sent to this province to re-establish order, fulfilled his thankless task
in such a way as to merit the praise of parliament.

The agitation by which the country was disturbed in 1869, was the work
of the Mazzinians. Mazzini had proclaimed from London, “Italy must free
herself from a monarchy, since it has shown that it will not and cannot
give to Italy, either unity, independence, or liberty.” And the disciples
of the prophet speedily translated the republican words into action,
raising tumults and discussions in all the principal cities of Italy. As
we have seen, the French government had given warning of the Mazzinian
sect, deriving from thence a reason for refusing the evacuation of Rome
by the French troops. The Mazzinians, to insure success, had endeavoured
to corrupt the army, especially making their insidious advances to
inferior officers. A few allowed themselves to be drawn into the trap and
expiated their perjury with their lives. The case of Corporal Barsanti
aroused general interest. He was a young man of twenty, the support and
hope of his aged parents, but the minister of war Govone declared that if
the army were not to be demoralised an example must be made, and Barsanti
was shot August 27th, 1870, in the neighbourhood of Milan. A few days
before this execution Mazzini by Govone’s orders had been arrested in
Milan and brought under a strong guard to the fortress of Gaeta. With the
removal of the chief, the republican agitation died away to give place to
another and a very different one, which was that of the restoration of
Rome to Italy and the final fall of the pope’s temporal power.

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY PROCLAIMED (1869 A.D.)

The ministry of Lanza and Sella found itself from its birth face to face
with extraordinary circumstances, demanding the greatest secrecy on the
part of the Italian government if dangers and misfortunes were to be
averted from the state. The convocation of the Vatican council was fixed
for December 8th, 1869. In the speech from the crown, Victor Emmanuel had
expressed the hope that from this assembly would issue some expression
conciliating faith and science, religion and civil life. The assembly
proclaimed instead the dogma of papal infallibility, thus setting the
seal to the antithesis between church and state. As with the preceding
ministry so with the new; the financial question was their principal
care. The Franco-Prussian War broke out about the middle of July, 1870.

ROME TAKEN FROM THE POPE (1870 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1870-1871 A.D.]]

The ruin of the Napoleonic principality in 1870 removed half of the
obstacles which had hitherto prevented Italy from solving the Roman
question in a manner conformable to national interests. At the first
French reverses the imperial government had recalled the garrison from
Rome, declaring that they trusted to their loyalty for the faithful
observance of the convention of September 15th. This was a strange appeal
to the loyalty of the Italian government regarding what had been so
disloyally set aside by the imperial government. However, the minister
Lanza kept faithfully to the convention, impelled by a sentiment of noble
honesty, so that it might not seem that Italy had taken advantage of the
powerlessness caused by the defeats sustained by her ancient ally, to lay
hands upon Rome. But when the empire fell and was succeeded by a republic
all causes for scruples vanished and the duty of the government to settle
the Roman question for the good of the nation could no longer be delayed.

In vain had Victor Emmanuel sent his envoy to Rome with an autograph
letter in which he appealed to the heart of the pope “with the affection
of a son, the loyalty of a king, and the soul of an Italian,” that
he would permit the royal troops, already posted in the outskirts of
Rome, to enter and occupy such positions in the Roman territory as was
necessary for the maintenance of order and the safe-guarding of the
pontiff. Pius IX held firmly to his refusal, saying he would yield to
force but not to injustice.

Then it was necessary to resort to force. The government gave orders to
General Raffaelle Cadorna to pass the borders with his troops, at the
same time informing the European governments, by means of a circular
letter, of the resolution taken and justifying its action by pointing
out the impossibility of reconciling Italy with papal Rome and the
necessity of procuring peace and security for Italy. The note then
reassured the powers as to the steps Italy would take for the safeguard
of the pope’s spiritual power so that his liberty and independence
might be complete. On September 11th Cadorna entered the pontifical
territories. On the 17th the Italian soldiers were at Civitavecchia, and
on the 19th under the walls of Rome.

But Pius IX had determined on his course of conduct and was resolved to
pursue it at any cost. His views were expressed in his letter written
September 19th to General Kanzler, the commander-in-chief of the papal
forces. In it Pius IX ordered Kanzler to treat with the enemy on the
slightest breach of the walls of Rome “as the defence was solely to be
sufficient to serve as proof of an act of violence and nothing more.” And
so it happened; at half-past five on the morning of September 21st the
Italian soldiers opened fire between the Pia and the Sorlara gates and
at the gate of St. John and St. Pancras, and hardly was a breach made
when the papal troops ceased fire and hoisted the white flag on all the
batteries. A messenger was sent to Cadorna and it was speedily agreed
that Rome should surrender all but the Leonine city,[36] which should for
the present remain under the jurisdiction of the pope. Then the papal
troops were awarded the honours of war, but were obliged to lay down arms
and flags. The peasant soldiers were sent back to their homes and all
foreigners despatched to their respective countries at the expense of the
Italian government.[37]

THE PLEBISCITE

General Cadorna’s first act was to nominate a provisional government
which should direct the affairs of the state until the people had decided
which form of government they wished to have. October 2nd was fixed
for the plebiscite. The people of the Roman provinces were called upon
to answer whether they wished to be united under the constitutional
government of Victor Emmanuel and his royal descendants. Out of 167,548
inscribed, 135,291 responded to the appeal; the ballot gave 133,681 ayes
and 1,507 noes. Thus the Roman people placed with their own hands the
burial stone on the kingdom of the popes.[38]

Victor Emmanuel in receiving the plebiscite declared that he was firmly
resolved to uphold the liberty of the church and the independence of the
sovereign pontiff. Thus was accomplished the last act of the redemption
of Italy. The generation which had in its youth beheld Italy downtrodden,
now in its maturer years had the joy of seeing her rise again a nation,
free and united. And whoever writes the history of this great event can
add to the ancient glories of liberty this new and more splendid triumph
that under her ægis a nation arose and a principle made it one.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO]

This year so fruitful in events closed with another extraordinary
fact,--the offer of the Spanish crown to Prince Amadeo the second son
of the Italian king. Having obtained the consent of his august father
the young prince accepted a crown, which, offered to him under the most
favourable auspices, was soon to become a crown of thorns. Two years had
scarcely passed after his accession to the throne when as described in
the history of Spain the young king surrounded by traitorous ministers
and generals abdicated (February 11th, 1873) having miraculously escaped
an attempt to assassinate him (February 18th, 1872).

Towards the end of 1870 Rome was visited by a terrible inundation of the
Tiber which submerged a great part of the city. The clericals declared
it to be the finger of God. Victor Emmanuel hastened to the scene of the
disaster bestowing on the unfortunate Romans the comfort of his presence,
his deeds, and his help. It is by such means that kings gain the love of
their people and kingdoms are fortified.

While Gadda was preparing in Rome the premises for the transfer of
the ministry, parliament was occupied with the law of the guarantees,
thanks to which the co-existence in Rome of the two powers and the two
governments each having complete liberty and independence of the other,
was rendered possible. This was something quite new in history, and many,
not all clericals, thought it impossible; but it became necessary when
Pius IX who had rejected the advice of the Jesuits counselling him to
leave Rome, voluntarily elected to stay.[e]

The taking possession of Rome by King Victor Emmanuel and the voluntary
retirement of Pius IX to the Vatican closes the revolutionary era
to which these two personages have given their names. It had led on
the one hand to the constitutional unity of Italy, and on the other
to the suppression of the states of the church,--the last vestige of
ecclesiastical immunities of the Middle Ages to the exclusively spiritual
constitution of the sovereign pontiff of universal Catholicism,--two of
the most important changes accomplished in the history of politics and
European civilisation.

The last years of the king’s and the pope’s lives spent behind the
walls of the same city, have no further interest than what is offered
by the application of the principles of a successful revolution and the
experiment of the co-existence of two powers, rivals for long years,
under new conditions of proximity and the dying down of the tempest.[f]

The law of guarantees voted by the chamber April 5th, 1871, declared
that the person of the pontiff was sacred and inviolable, and royal
honours were to be paid to him in the territory of his kingdom; that
the holy see should have an annual donation of 3,225,000 lire; that
the apostolic palaces of the Vatican and the Lateran neighbourhood,
and Castel Gondulfo, with all their appurtenances and dependencies,
should be at his disposal; that the pontiff should have complete liberty
to perform the functions of his spiritual ministry; that the envoys
from foreign countries to the holy see should enjoy all the usual
prerogatives and immunities, according to international custom, regarding
diplomatic agents; that the seminaries, academies, colleges, and Catholic
institutions founded in Rome and the suburbs for the education of
ecclesiastics should continue to be subservient to the holy see alone
without any control from the scholastic authorities of the kingdom.

By this same law the relations of the state with the church were also
regulated. All restriction on the right of the meeting of members of the
Catholic clergy was abolished. The government of the kingdom renounced
the right of nomination and preferment to the greater benefices. The
bishops were exempted from taking the oath of allegiance to the king
and the _exequatur_ and the royal _placet_ were abolished, and every
other form of governmental assent in the publication and execution of
acts of ecclesiastical authority. For hitherto there had been no separate
provision for such acts, and these acts of authority regarding the
disposal of ecclesiastical funds and the preferment to benefices great
or small, excepting to those of Rome and the suburban sees, had been
subject to the _exequatur_ and royal _placet_. These were the principal
enactments of the law of papal guarantees.

As might have been foreseen the pope did not accept them but the
governments of Europe on the contrary acknowledged the law, recognising
that it was impossible to arrange anything better calculated to secure
the independence of the pontiff.

ROME AGAIN THE CAPITAL OF ITALY (1871 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1871 A.D.]]

In June, 1871, in pursuance of the engagements given by the government
the transference of the capital was effected. On Sunday, July 2nd, the
king made his solemn entry into Rome. What memories must have been
evolved by this entry of the king of Italy into the eternal city, for
from the triumphs of the Roman rulers, republicans or cæsars, to the
expeditions of the Frank and German kings of the Middle Ages, Rome was
full of splendid memories. But the former came to celebrate the triumph
of their violence over some unfortunate nation, and the latter to revive
the cæsarean institutions under the title of their ascendency over the
other Christian nations of Europe--their empire over Italy.

[Illustration: TOMB OF PLAUTIUS]

In Victor Emmanuel’s entry into Rome force was replaced by the right of
a nation to live free under the leadership of the great mother of Italy,
from whom it had till now been separated. The pope did not come to meet
and bless the king, but he who has the benediction of his country is in
safety, and as he reached the Quirinal he exclaimed: “At last we are here
and here we will stay.”[39]

To this solemn entry of the king of Italy to Rome other memorable events
quickly succeeded. The inauguration of the Mont Cenis tunnel broke down
the barrier of the Alps between Italy and France. Nations overthrow
the barriers which nature has placed between them to facilitate the
interchange of their products to their mutual benefit. It is the eve of
fraternity among nations initiated on the ruins of centuries of strife.

On November 27th the Italian parliament assembled for the first time in
Rome at Montecitorio. The speech from the throne was as the circumstances
demanded, majestic and solemn. “Here where our people,” it said, “after
being dispersed through many centuries, are gathered for the first
time in the majesty of their representatives; here where we recognise
the mother-country of our dreams, all things speak to us of greatness.
At the same time all things remind us of our duty.” And further on it
was announced that national unity had been accomplished without the
interruption of friendly relations with other countries.

[Sidenote: [1872-1874 A.D.]]

The Lanza ministry had already entered upon the fourth year of its
existence; and it was the first time since the founding of the kingdom
of Italy that a ministry had lasted so long. And hardly was the transfer
completed when the truce between the parties was broken, and the fall
of the ministry ensued. In its latter days Italy had seen the death
of three great patriots--Mazzini in 1872, Manzoni and Rattazzi in the
following year. The time has not yet arrived for us to judge these men
with a temperate mind or with a heart free from passion. Mazzini died at
Pisa, March 10th, 1872; he had lived long enough to see Italy free and
united; and although this did not correspond with his ideal of Italy, he
could take pleasure in the thought of having helped so much to compass
her resurrection and to introduce the conception of national unity which
had for centuries been the ideal of philosophers, so that it became a
national idea and a historical fact. Rattazzi died at an unfortunate
moment on the eve of the accession to power of the Left. He could have
instilled discipline into this heterogeneous party and rendered it a
useful instrument of government after having been for sixteen years the
party of opposition. He was taken away just when he could have rendered
such great service to the country, the country which he loved so much
though bad fortune had made him seem to be its evil genius.

THE MINGHETTI MINISTRY (1873-1876 A.D.)

The task of forming a new ministry was given by the king to Marco
Minghetti who was leader of the opposition which was in the majority
against the fallen ministry. The first note of the new ministry was a
triumph of foreign policy. The visit of Victor Emmanuel to the emperors
of Austria and Germany in their respective capitals in September, 1873,
had placed a seal on the friendship of the two Transalpine powers.

[Sidenote: [1874-1877 A.D.]]

Successful as was the foreign policy of the government, it was
counterbalanced by its unfortunate home policy. It will be forever a
stain on its honour that on August 2nd, 1874, the minister Cantelli
ordered the arrest and imprisonment of twenty-nine republicans who had
assembled under the presidency of Aurelio Saffi in the Villa Ruffi to
discuss the course to be adopted by their party with regard to questions
interesting to the country and the line of conduct to be pursued in the
event of a general election. However, the judicial authorities were
perfectly just to the twenty-nine, and acquitting them all showed that if
a police-ridden and licentious ministry was still possible in Italy, the
era of partisan and corruptible magistracy was over. In 1874 the visits
of the emperor of Austria to Venice and of the emperor of Germany to
Milan helped to distract the attention of the country from the tumult
which reigned in parliamentary parties and the revolution which they were
preparing. The successor of Barbarossa came in October, 1874, to greet
the king of Italy in the Lombardian metropolis and there to consecrate by
his presence the elevation of the Italy which his predecessors had for so
many centuries oppressed and martyrised. This splendid epilogue of the
epic which had taken Italy from Novara to Rome was the fruit of the new
civilisation which repeats by the will of the nation the judicial reason
of its political existence; and this was primarily due to the miracle of
a king in whom the glorious epic was personified.

But although the ministry had had its share in this marvellous event it
had not succeeded in strengthening its existence, and already the members
of the government, after having cradled themselves in rose-coloured
hopes, on the eve of the reopening of parliament, in the autumn of
1875, felt the ground tremble beneath their feet. The opposition had
become more audacious and more aggressive. It was the Right which had
constituted the kingdom, after it had been set free by force of arms and
made it really respected abroad and orderly and tranquil at home, as
Minghetti said on the eve of giving up the government of it to the Left.
Minghetti sent in his resignation which was accepted. The king intrusted
to Depretis, the leader of the opposition, the task of forming a new
cabinet. The Left, after having been the opposition for sixteen years,
became the governing party.

DEATH OF VICTOR EMMANUEL AND PIUS IX

[Illustration: A PEASANT COSTUME]

Less than two years had passed since the accession to power of the Left
when Italy was stunned by a calamity as great as it was unexpected. At
the end of 1877 the king went to Turin to pass Christmas. Going on a
hunting expedition at the foot of the Alps he remained two days defying
the cold of the season. On his return to Rome he felt very unwell, having
shivering fits and nausea; but he paid no attention, thinking it was a
passing indisposition. He took to his bed January 6th. Three days later
Victor Emmanuel was no more.

At this time Pope Pius IX was also on his death-bed. Hearing that Victor
Emmanuel was at the point of death he gave his consent to the Viatico
being carried to him, though the Quirinal was a forbidden spot. And when
he heard that he was dead he exclaimed that he had died as a Christian,
a sovereign, and an honest man. A few days later he followed him to the
tomb.

What a multitude of thoughts arise in the mind as we see these two tombs
open almost contemporaneously, one to receive the remains of the last
pope-king, and the other those of the first king of Italy. In these two
men are personified one of the greatest epochs of history, an epoch
fertile in the most glorious events which can take place in a nation. It
is the epoch of a free state and a risen nation. And these two men were
the artificers of the prodigious event--Pius IX by the religious impulse
given to the Italian revolution in its first phases; Victor Emmanuel by
having constituted himself the champion of independence of unity and of
the liberty of Italy. From this moment the two men drifted apart. Pius
IX resumed the life traced for him by papal tradition. Victor Emmanuel
remained faithful to his mission and did his duty to the last day of his
life. A grateful nation by the mouth of its representatives proclaimed
him “The Father of his country.”[e]

FOOTNOTES

[36] [The bombardment lasted from 5:30 A.M. to 10:30 A.M., the white
flag being hoisted at 10:10. Reports of the losses vary greatly, Cadorna
admitting 32 killed and 143 wounded on his side, though the estimates
ranged as high as 2,000; but Beauffort[g] thinks this a manifest
exaggeration. According to O’Clery[h] the pontifical troops lost 16
killed and 53 wounded.]

[37] [Few dates in modern European history equal in significance that of
September 20th, 1870, when the Italian troops under General Cadorna took
possession of Rome in the name of the Italian nation, and completed at
one stroke both the work of the Risorgimento and the destruction of the
temporal power of the Roman pontiff.[d]]

[38] [O’Clery,[h] however, calls the plebiscite a “disgraceful farce,”
comparing it with that by which Napoleon III secured his vote. He points
out that in Rome, where several thousands took arms for the pope, only 46
voted for him. Beauffort[g] says that one foreign sculptor voted 22 times
without being challenged, and that whole bands went from urn to urn.]

[39] [“The dream of his life was accomplished, and in a manner most
flattering to a monarch’s pride. Yet this rose was not without its thorn
either. To be all sweetness he should have had Pio Nono’s blessing, and
be crowned, like Charlemagne, by the hands of the venerable pontiff in
that city of glorious memories where he was henceforth to reign. But he
grasped the rose, thorn and all, with the memorable exclamation, ‘_A Roma
ci siamo e ci resteremo!_’”--GODKIN.[i]]

[Illustration: STREET IN POMPEII, PRESENT TIME]

[Illustration: VILLA NAZIONALE, NAPLES]

CHAPTER XXII. RECENT HISTORY

No sovereign ever mounted his throne amid greater tokens of
good will on the part of the nation than did King Humbert I on
the death of his father, whom he succeeded as quietly as if the
Italian kingdom had existed for generations under the princes
of the house of Savoy. It was a striking proof how completely
that royal house had identified itself with the national cause,
which had had no firmer supporter than Victor Emmanuel. His son
was no less true to it. He commenced his reign on the 9th of
January, 1878, and proved himself one of the best sovereigns
who ever governed a free people. He faithfully adhered to those
principles of constitutional liberty which have delivered Italy
from despotism, revolution, and foreign occupation. He placed
himself above party strife and took his place as chief of the
nation, leaving to it the exercise of the rights secured by its
free institutions. He devoted himself unsparingly to his royal
duties, and sympathised by word and deed with the nation’s joys
and sorrows. His whole conduct, as that of his queen and his
son, justly won the hearts of his people.--PROBYN.[b]

[Sidenote: [1878-1903 A.D.]]

The entry of Francesco Crispi into the Depretis cabinet (December, 1877)
had placed at the ministry of the interior a strong hand and sure eye at
a moment when they were about to become imperatively necessary. Crispi
was the only man of truly statesmanlike calibre in the ranks of the Left.
Formerly a friend and disciple of Mazzini, with whom he had broken on
the question of the monarchical form of government which Crispi believed
indispensable to the unification of Italy, he had afterwards been one of
Garibaldi’s most efficient coadjutors and an active member of the “party
of action.” Passionate, not always scrupulous in his choice and use of
political weapons, intensely patriotic, loyal with a loyalty based rather
on reason than sentiment, quick-witted, prompt in action, determined and
pertinacious, he possessed in eminent degree many qualities lacking in
other liberal chieftains.[c]

Of Crispi, a less moderate opinion is given in the work of Bolton King
and Thomas Okey[d]:

“Crispi was a much abler man than Depretis. He had, at all events,
grandiose politics, a considerable capacity of leading men, a force
and an insistence that fascinated Italy, and for a time made him more
worshipped and more hated than any Italian statesman of this generation.
He was as unscrupulous as Depretis in his methods, and he had a hardy
inconsistency that came not so much from any deliberate dishonesty as
from an impulsiveness that made him the slave to the passion of the
moment, quite forgetful of the promises and the policy of yesterday.

“At one moment he paraded his friendliness to France, a month or two
later he was irritating her by hot and foolish speeches. Now he posed as
an anti-clerical and free-thinker; now he spoke as one who longed for
reconciliation with the Vatican. In 1886 he said that the ‘workman must
be freed from the slavery of capital’; in 1894 he charged socialism with
‘raising the right of spoliation to a science.’ The wildest fancies,
madcap adventures, anything that was showy and dazzling stood for
statesmanship.

“In 1894 he believed, on the vaguest of forged evidence, that the
Sicilian socialists were plotting to surrender the island to France.
When the Russian exiles crowded into Italy after the assassination
of Alexander II, Crispi, then an ex-minister and over sixty years
old, preached a crusade of civilised nations against Russia. He was a
savage, passionate fighter, who stuck at no severity, however unjust or
unconstitutional, towards a political opponent, and whose intolerance
grew till the ex-democrat became essentially a despot.”[d]

Hardly had Crispi assumed office when the unexpected death of Victor
Emmanuel II, as previously described, stirred national feeling to
an unprecedented depth, and placed the continuity of monarchical
institutions in Italy upon trial before Europe. For thirty years Victor
Emmanuel had been the central point of national hopes, the token and
embodiment of the struggle for national redemption. He had led the
country out of the despondency which followed the defeat of Novara
and the abdication of Charles Albert, through all the vicissitudes of
national unification to the final triumph at Rome. His disappearance
snapped the chief link with the heroic period and removed from the helm
of state a ruler of large heart, great experience, and civil courage, at
a moment when elements of continuity were needed and vital problems of
internal reorganisation had still to be faced.

Crispi adopted the measures necessary to insure the tranquil accession
of King Humbert with a quick energy which precluded any radical or
republican demonstrations. His influence decided the choice of the Roman
Pantheon as the late monarch’s burial-place, in spite of formidable
pressure from the Piedmontese, who wished Victor Emmanuel II to rest
with the Sardinian kings at Superga. He also persuaded the new ruler to
inaugurate, as King Humbert I, the new dynastical epoch of the kings of
Italy, instead of continuing as Humbert IV the succession of the kings of
Sardinia.

Before the commotion caused by the death of Victor Emmanuel had passed
away, the decease of Pius IX, February 7th, 1878, had, as we have
seen, placed further demands upon Crispi’s sagacity and promptitude.
Like Victor Emmanuel, Pius IX had been bound up with the history of
the Risorgimento, but, unlike him, had represented and embodied the
anti-national, reactionary spirit. Having once let slip the opportunity
which presented itself in 1846-1848, of placing the papacy at the
head of the unitary movement, he had seen himself driven from Rome,
despoiled piecemeal of papal territory, reduced to an attitude of
perpetual protest, and finally confined, voluntarily, but still confined,
within the walls of the Vatican. Ecclesiastically, he had become the
instrument of the triumph of Jesuit influence, and had in turn set his
seal upon the dogma of the immaculate conception, the syllabus, and
papal infallibility. Yet, in spite of all, his jovial disposition and
good-humoured cynicism saved him from unpopularity, and rendered his
death an occasion of mourning. Notwithstanding the pontiff’s bestowal of
the apostolic benediction _in articulo mortis_ upon Victor Emmanuel, the
attitude of the Vatican had remained so inimical as to make it doubtful
whether the conclave would be held in Rome.

Crispi, whose strong anti-clerical convictions did not prevent him
from regarding the papacy as pre-eminently an Italian institution, was
determined both to prove to the Catholic world the practical independence
of the government of the church and to retain for Rome so potent a
centre of universal attraction as the presence of the future pope. The
sacred college of cardinals having decided to hold the conclave abroad,
Crispi assured them of absolute freedom if they remained in Rome, or of
protection to the frontier, should they migrate; but warned them that,
once evacuated, the Vatican would be occupied in the name of the Italian
government and be lost to the church as headquarters of the papacy.

The cardinals thereupon overruled their former decision, and the conclave
was held in Rome, the new pope, Cardinal Pecci, being elected on the
20th of February, 1878, without let or hindrance. The Italian government
not only prorogued the chamber during the conclave to prevent unseemly
inquiries or demonstrations on the part of deputies, but by means of
Mancini, minister of justice and Cardinal di Pietro, assured the new pope
protection during the settlement of his outstanding personal affairs, an
assurance of which Leo XIII, on the evening after his election, took full
advantage. At the same time the duke of Aosta, commander of the Rome army
corps, ordered the troops to render royal honours to the pontiff should
he officially appear in the capital.

King Humbert addressed to the pope a letter of congratulation upon his
election, and received a courteous reply. The improvement thus signalised
in the relations between Quirinal and Vatican was further exemplified on
the 18th of October, 1878, when the Italian government accepted a papal
formula with regard to the granting of the royal _exequatur_ for bishops,
whereby they, upon nomination by the holy see, recognised state control
over, and made application for, the payment of their temporalities.[c]

IRREDENTISM, THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE AND “TRASFORMISMO”

The partnership of Depretis and Crispi in the cabinet had a short life.
Crispi was attacked as a bigamist, and while the courts declared his
earlier marriage in 1853 null and void and ratified his later marriage,
the popular outcry compelled his resignation. The election of the leader
of the Left, Cairoli, who was an enemy of Depretis and who defeated him
on a taxation question, led Depretis to resign. Cairoli formed a new
cabinet with Count Corti in charge of foreign affairs. He represented
Italy at the congress of Berlin in 1878, where he witnessed Austrian
triumphs over Italian policy. This caused a fall in his popularity and
the activity of revolutionary bodies called irredentists, from their
desire for the “redemption” of Trent and Trieste from Austria, provoked
an agitation which led Corti to resign in October. In November a wretch
named Passanante attempted to assassinate the king at Naples. The king
defended himself with his sabre, but there was an outburst of public
indignation against the ministry in spite of the fact that Cairoli had
bravely thrown himself in front of his sovereign and received a serious
dagger-wound.

Cairoli resigned and Depretis came back into power, only to yield again
to Cairoli in July, 1879. Cairoli’s foreign policy was again so weak as
to merit the epigram of Bonghi,[e] that it was “marked by enormous mental
impotence balanced by equal moral weakness.” In November Cairoli was
compelled to call Depretis to his aid in the face of a financial crisis,
which was made the more dangerous by Depretis’ plan for spending over
forty million pounds on the building of railways.

It was a railway which brought about a misunderstanding with France, and
gave Italy another humiliation in her foreign affairs. Italian influence
in Tunis was threatened by French aggression, and a railway built
there by an English company was the subject of a rivalry between the
two countries. The English courts prevented the French from buying it,
whereupon the Italians secured it at a price estimated at eight times its
value. The next year, 1881, the French, after some difficulties with a
Tunisian tribe, seized Tabarca and Biserta, compelling the bey of Tunis,
who had protested in vain to the powers, to accept a French protectory.
This caused great excitement in Italy, and Cairoli was forced to resign
by a vote of want of confidence.

On account of the dissensions in the party of the Left the king appealed
to the leader of the Right, Sella, but the Left reunited against this
loss of power and Depretis became minister, suffering a new humiliation
in the massacre of Italian workmen at Marseilles on the return of
French soldiers from Tunis. Riots in Rome during a procession carrying
the remains of Pius IX from St. Peter’s to San Lorenzo showed further
governmental feebleness.

A new problem now agitated the politics of Italy. There was an
opportunity to strengthen Italy’s position in the eyes of Europe by
entering a triple alliance with Germany and Austria. The Right strongly
favoured this, but the Centre wished to keep on good terms especially
with France, while Crispi and others in the Left leaned towards Austria.
The irredentist agitation and a fear that Austria might throw her
influence in favour of the papacy decided the matter in favour of the
triple alliance. The visit to Austria of King Humbert and his queen
Margherita furthered the matter. The opposition of Depretis was finally
overcome and the offensive and defensive treaty of the triple alliance
was signed May 20th, 1882. The treaty was, however, kept a secret until
March, 1883. But the position of Italy in the alliance was not one of
much honour, and while it minimised the chances of a restoration of the
papal power, it brought Italy into some danger from France. On March
17th, 1887, the alliance was renewed on better terms for Italy.

In the meanwhile, in 1881, the suffrage had, by lowering the tax
qualifications, been enlarged from 600,000 to 2,000,000; at the same time
it had been extended to practically every man able to read and write.
The state ownership and building of railways, whose income was far less
than estimated, together with the forced currency and the expenditures on
public works and various financial experiments, as well as a tendency to
vote public works in return for local support, have kept Italian finances
in a critical condition, though, in general, the industrial affairs
of Italy have shown a steady improvement and sanitary legislation has
received attention. The increase of the army and of the navy has also
been marked, the new army bill of 1882 having given great satisfaction to
Garibaldi just before his death at Caprera, June 2nd, 1882.

The long tenure of power by the Left had at the same time caused
dissensions in its ranks and frequent compromises with factions of
the Right, causing a gradual partisan “transformation,” called the
_trasformismo_,--it was really another name for chaos. This state of
affairs is generally blamed to Depretis who, in his four recompositions
of his cabinet between 1881 and his death, July 29th, 1887, had made many
alliances with the Right. It is customary to heap upon his memory the
blame for a large part of the financial and political distresses of the
country. He had a large influence also in the none too fortunate colonial
policy of Italy.

In 1884, in return for lending support to the British policy in regard
to Egypt, Italians were encouraged to seize Beilul and Massawa. England
also invited Italy to join her in pacifying the Soudan, an invitation
the more cordially accepted from the massacre in Assab of an exploring
party under the Italian royal commissioner. In January, 1885, an Italian
expedition occupied Beilul and Massawa and began to extend the zone of
occupation. This aroused the _negus_ of Abyssinia and Alula, the _ras_
of Tigré who attacked the Italian exploring parties. The Abyssinians
massacred a force of five hundred officers and men and mutilated the dead
at Dogali, January 26th, 1887. All Italy was horrified at this atrocity
and Crispi, having been called to Depretis’ cabinet, threw his influence
to the vindication of the country’s dignity. The _negus_ of Abyssinia,
though he had 100,000 men against Italy’s 20,000, opened negotiations for
peace and turned against the Mahdists by whom he was defeated and killed
March 10th, 1889. A war of succession arose in which an ancient enemy of
the _negus_, Menelek, king of Shoa, signed the treaty of Ucciali, which
the Italians construed as a protectorate.

But King Menelek, having received the submission of his rival Mangashá,
became more independent in his tone towards the Italians. After an
Italian expedition under General Baratieri had achieved great success in
Eritrea over the Mahdists, Menelek, in 1893, repudiated the Treaty of
Ucciali. His coalition with Mangashá, in which he was easily defeated in
January, 1895, led Baratieri to push on to Adowa and even to Axum, the
holy city of Abyssinia. In December, however, the Abyssinians arose and
the Italian forces suffered several defeats, ending in the great disaster
of Adowa March 1st, 1896, where the Italians lost 6,000 men and nearly
4,000 prisoners. Baratieri fled precipitately, leaving his troops to
follow; but General Baldissera, who had been previously sent to replace
Baratieri, succeeded in making terms with Menelek and securing the
release of the prisoners.

THE POWER OF CRISPI

Shortly after the death of Depretis, Crispi, now sixty-eight years old,
came into power and assumed that predominance which he held for so many
years. Efforts at conciliation with the Vatican, where the pope called
himself a prisoner, had no success. Crispi was strongly in favour of
the Triple Alliance and did little to conciliate French feeling. He had
much support from the Right until, in 1891, he lost his temper during a
speech and rebuked them for their interruptions. Such feeling was raised
against him that he resigned and was succeeded by the marquis de Rudini,
the leader of the Right. Crispi had been accused of “megalomania,” but
he had, by cultivating the friendship of Bismarck and paying him a
visit, so strengthened Italy’s position that the Rudini cabinet seemed
weak by comparison and fell in 1892, being succeeded by Giolitti, whose
administration ushered in “what proved to be the most unfortunate period
of Italian history since the completion of national unity.” Bank scandals
and other revelations of corruption brought about the fall of the
cabinet, weakened by its attitude towards an insurrection due to popular
discontent in Sicily.

[Illustration: A DOORWAY OF ST. MARK’S, VENICE]

The strong hand of Crispi put an end to the riots upon his return in
December, 1893, to the ministry, and heroic efforts were made by his
minister of finance, Sonnino, whose measures were so severe, however,
that Crispi became the victim of an unusually violent war of defamation,
in which his political and private life was exposed to all imaginable
accusation, just or otherwise. An attack was made upon his life by an
anarchist and a few months later a mass of stolen documents were brought
before the chamber by Giolitti, who endeavoured to prosecute Crispi but
was compelled by a counter-suit to flee to Berlin. The radical leader
Cavalotti made another attempt to prove Crispi guilty of embezzlement.
The effort failed, though public respect for the condition of politics
suffered a great diminution. Crispi had gained a great majority at the
election of 1895, but fell before the disaster at Adowa in 1896.

His successor Rudini gave assistance to Cavalotti’s effort to disgrace
Crispi, but without success, as has been said, and after a persecution
of two years a parliamentary commission vindicated Crispi of dishonesty,
though finding him guilty of irregularity. Public discontent brought
about, in May, 1898, riots in the south of Italy. These were put down
with an inexcusable severity especially at Milan where the repression
amounted almost to a massacre. The month before Crispi, who had resigned
his seat in parliament, had been returned by an enormous majority from
Palermo. In June the Rudini ministry fell and Luigi Pelloux, a general of
Savoy, succeeded, but he resigned after a defeat at the polls in June,
1900, and was followed by a moderate liberal cabinet under Saracco.

DEATH OF KING HUMBERT, OF CRISPI, AND OF LEO XIII

Shortly after, July 29th, 1900, an anarchist named Bresci assassinated
King Humbert while he was returning from the distribution of prizes at
an athletic carnival at Monza. King Humbert was a monarch whose personal
magnetism and courage and whose tenderness to his people had atoned for
his lack of great political distinction. During the flood of 1882, and
after the earthquake of 1883, and during the cholera epidemic of 1884,
he had risked his own life to aid the sufferers. He governed in strict
accord with the constitution. His death brought genuine public grief, for
his generosity had won him the name “Humbert the Good.”

The prince of Naples, his only son, succeeded the king, and took the
title Victor Emmanuel III. He was born on November 11th, 1869, and had
married the princess Helena of Montenegro in October, 1896. A daughter,
the Princess Yolanda-Margherita of Savoy, was born to them June 1st, 1901.

On the 12th of August, 1901, Crispi died, leaving behind him a reputation
for forcefulness of character and for intense national feeling, though
there are many acts which his most fervent admirers deeply regret.

The Saracco cabinet had fallen in February, 1901, and was succeeded
by the ministry of Zanardelli who recalled Giolitti, giving him the
portfolio of the interior. The ministry was noteworthy for its somewhat
socialistic spirit which tacitly encouraged great labour agitations;
there were 600 strikes during the first six months of 1901. The general
result was some amelioration of the condition of the labouring classes
and the increase of the socialist strength. Italian finances have also
been somewhat improved.

Pope Leo XIII died after a long illness, July 20th, 1903. While keeping
to the policy of his predecessor in his attitude towards the Italian
government he had brought the Catholic church to a far higher position
of esteem in the eyes of all nations, even of those predominantly
Protestant. His successor, Cardinal Sarto, the patriarch of Venice, took
the name of Pius X and seems to be inclined to a policy of friendship
towards the Italian government, a policy which the king seems eager to
foster. In recent years Italian literature and science have been making
large progress in cosmopolitan favour, and Italy seems destined to a
re-illumination of her ancient splendours.[a]

[Illustration]

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS

[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]

CHAPTER I. THE DARK AGE

[b] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _The History of the Italian Republics_.

[c] FRANCESCO BERTOLINI, _Storia delle Dominazioni in Italia_ (in
Villari’s Storia Politica d’Italia).

[d] PIERRE ANTOINE DARU, _Histoire de la République de Venise_.

[e] HENRY EDWARD NAPIER, _Florentine History_.

[f] GIOVANNI BATISTA TESTA, _History of the War of Frederic I against the
Communes of Lombardy_.

[g] ANDREA DANDOLO, _Chronicon Venetum_.

[h] GIOVANNI DIACONO, _Chronicon_.

[i] HEINRICH LEO, _Entwicklung der Verfassung der Lombardischen Städte_.

[k] W. C. HAZLITT, _History of the Venetian Republic_.

[l] PASQUALE VILLANI, the article “Pisa” in the Ninth Edition of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[m] KARL HILLEBRAND, _Dino Campagni: Étude Historique et Littéraire sur
l’Époque de Dante_.

[n] MALASPINA RICORDANO, _Istoria fiorentina_, in Muratori’s “Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores,” vol. VIII.

[o] E. PROCTOR, _The History of Italy_.

CHAPTER II. IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY

[b] H. E. NAPIER, _op. cit._

[c] J. C. L. SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[d] G. B. TESTA, _op. cit._

CHAPTER III. THE NORMANS IN SICILY

[b] GOFREDUS MALATERRA, _Rerum Roberti Guiscardi et Rogerii fratris ejus_.

[c] E. A. FREEMAN, articles on “Normans” and “Sicily” in the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[d] HENRY HALLAM, _The State of Europe during the Middle Ages_.

[e] FLODOARD, _Annales_.

[f] ADHÉMAR DE CHABANNES, _Chronicon_.

[g] G. B. DEPPING, _Histoire des Expéditions maritimes des Normands_.

[h] ST. MARC, _Histoire de l’Italie_.

[i] S. ASTLEY DUNHAM, _Europe in the Middle Ages_.

[j] GUGLIELMUS APULIENSIS, _Rerum in Apulia, Campania, Calabria et
Sicilia libri_.

[k] ANNA COMNENA, _Alexias_.

[l] E. GIBBON, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.

[m] HUGO FALCANDUS, _Historia Sicula_, in Muratori’s “Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores,” vol. VII.

CHAPTER IV. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

[b] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[c] H. E. NAPIER, _op. cit._

[d] LORENZO PIGNOTTI, _The History of Tuscany_.

[e] MALASPINA, _op. cit._

[f] N. MACCHIAVELLI, _History of Florence_.

[g] G. B. TESTA, _op. cit._

[h] B. DUFFY, _Tuscan Republics_.

CHAPTER V. THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE (_First Half of the Fourteenth
Century_)

[b] P. A. DARU, _op. cit._

[c] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[d] GIOVANNI VILLANI, _Florentine History_.

[e] L. PIGNOTTI, _op. cit._

[f] H. E. NAPIER, _op. cit._

[g] N. TEGRIMUS, _Vita Castruccio_.

[h] MALASPINA, _op. cit._

[i] N. MACCHIAVELLI, _op. cit._

[j] BOCCACCIO, _Decameron_.

CHAPTER VI. THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE

[b] J. A. SYMONDS, _The Renaissance in Italy_.

[c] J. BURCKHARDT, _The Civilisation of the Period of the Renaissance in
Italy_.

[d] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[e] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _The Literature of Southern Europe_.

[f] GIOVANNI VILLANI, _op. cit._

[g] KARL HILLEBRAND, _op. cit._

[h] S. ASTLEY DUNHAM, _op. cit._

[i] E. MÜNTZ, _Les Précurseurs de la Renaissance_.

[j] WM. SPALDING, _Italy and the Italian Islands_.

[k] JOHN RUSKIN, _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_.

[l] GIOVANNI PONTANO, _De Fortitudine_.

[m] HUGO FALCANDUS, _op. cit._

[n] GEBHARDT, _Origines de la Renaissance en Italie_.

[o] DANTE, _Divina Commedia_.

[p] P. L. GINGUENÉ, _L’histoire littéraire de l’Italie_.

CHAPTER VII. ROME UNDER RIENZI

[b] GIOVANNI VILLANI, _op. cit._

[c] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _History of the Italian Republics_.

[d] CARLO CIPOLLA, _Storia delle Signorie Italiani_.

[e] E. G. BULWER-LYTTON, _Rienzi, Last of the Tribunes_.

[f] MATTEO VILLANI, _Florentine History_.

[g] EDWARD GIBBON, _op. cit._

[i] PETRARCH, _Letter to the Roman People_ (from Robinson and Rolfe’s
_Petrarch, the first Modern Scholar and Man of Letters_).

[k] MURATORI, _Italian Antiquities_.

CHAPTER VIII. THE DESPOTS AND TYRANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES

[b] W. SPALDING, _op. cit._

[c] ROBERT COMYN, _History of the Western Empire_.

[d] H. HALLAM, _op. cit._

[e] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[f] ISAAC BUTT, _The History of Italy from the Abdication of Napoleon_.

[g] J. BURCKHARDT, _op. cit._

[h] S. A. DUNHAM, _op. cit._

[i] E. PROCTOR, _op. cit._

CHAPTER IX. THE MARITIME REPUBLICS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES

[b] S. A. DUNHAM, _op. cit._

[c] CAFFARO, _Annales Genuenses_.

[d] JACOBUS DE VARAGINE, _Chronicon Genuense_.

[e] OBERTUS CANCELLARIUS, _Annales Genuenses_.

[f] GIOVANNI VILLANI, _op. cit._

[g] ROBERT COMYN, _op. cit._

[h] G. STELLA, _Annales Genuenses_, in seventeenth volume of Muratori’s
collection.

[i] VETTOR SANDI, _Storia civile Veneta_.

[j] H. HALLAM, _op. cit._

[k] W. C. HAZLITT, _op. cit._

[l] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[m] H. E. NAPIER, _op. cit._

[o] L. PIGNOTTI, _op. cit._

[p] E. PROCTOR, _op. cit._

[q] OTTOBONUS SCRIBA, _Annales Genuenses_.

[r] MARCHIRIUS ET BARTHOLOMÆUS SCRIBÆ, _Annales Genuenses_.

[s] UBERTUS FOLIETA, _Annales Genuenses_.

[t] GATARO, _Istoria Padavana_, in Muratori’s collection.

CHAPTER X. THE COMMERCE OF VENICE

[b] J. BURCKHARDT, _op. cit._

[c] G. VILLANI, _op. cit._

[d] SANUTO, _Vile di Duchi di Venezia_, in “Rerum Italicarum Scriptores.”

[e] W. C. HAZLITT, _op. cit._

[f] H. HALLAM, _op. cit._

[g] P. A. DARU, _op. cit._

[h] W. HEYD, _Histoire du commerce du Levant_.

[i] J. LABARTE, _Arts of the Middle Ages_.

[k] SABELLICUS (MARCUS ANTONIUS COCCIUS), _History of the Republic of
Venice_.

CHAPTER XI. THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE

[b] F. T. PERRENS, _Histoire de Florence_.

[c] MATTEO VILLANI, _op. cit._

[d] GINO CAPPONI, _Storia della republica di Firenze_.

[e] N. MACCHIAVELLI, _op. cit._

CHAPTER XII. FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI

[b] HEINRICH LEO, _Geschichte der italienischen Staaten_.

[c] ALFRED VON REUMONT, _Lorenzo de’ Medici il magnifico_.

[d] WILLIAM ROSCOE, _The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici_.

[e] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[f] F. M. A. VOLTAIRE, _Essai sur les Mœurs et l’esprit des nations_.

[g] GIORGIO VASARI, _Le Vite dei pittore, scultori e architetti_.

[h] TRAVERSARI, _Lat. Ep._

[i] POGGIO BRACCIOLINI, _Opera_.

[j] FLAVIUS BLONDUS, _Italia Illustrata_.

[k] ANGELO MARIA BANDINI, _Letters sopra i principi e progressi della
Biblioteca Laurenziani_.

[l] FICINO, _Marsilio Ficino Epist._

[m] AMMIRATO, _Istorie Florentine_.

[n] GIOVANNI CAMBI, _Del. Erud. Tos._

[o] TRIBALDO DE ROSSI, _Ricordanze di Tribaldo de Rossi, Del. degli Erud.
Toscan._

[p] H. E. NAPIER, _op. cit._

[q] GUICCIARDINI, F., _History of Italy from the Year 1490 to 1532_.

[r] N. MACCHIAVELLI, _op. cit._

CHAPTER XIII. ASPECTS OF RENAISSANCE CULTURE

[b] J. A. SYMONDS, _op. cit._

[c] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _Literature of Southern Europe_.

[d] G. VASARI, _op. cit._

[e] PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON, _The Intellectual Life_.

[f] H. HALLAM, _op. cit._

[g] WORKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI.

[h] W. SPALDING, _op. cit._

[i] HERMAN GRIMM, _Life of Michael Angelo_.

[j] WM. ROSCOE, _op. cit._

CHAPTER XIV. THE “LAST DAY OF ITALY”

[b] F. GUICCIARDINI, _op. cit._

[c] BENVENUTO CELLINI, _The Life of Benvenuto Cellini_.

[d] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[e] H. E. NAPIER, _op. cit._

[f] JOHN BURCHARD (or BUCARDUS), _Diary of John Burchard_ (in Cimber’s
“Archives Curieuses de l’Histoire de France”).

[g] W. H. PRESCOTT, _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_.

[h] F. A. MIGNET, _Rivalité de François I et de Charles V_.

[i] E. QUINET, _Les Révolutions d’Italie_.

[j] MÉMOIRES DE BAYARD.

CHAPTER XV. THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY

[b] J. A. SYMONDS, article “Italy” in the Ninth Edition of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[c] E. PROCTOR, _op. cit._

[d] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _op. cit._

[e] W. ROBERTSON, _The History of the Reign of Charles V_.

[f] CARLO DENINA, _Delle Rivoluzioni d’Italia_.

[h] CALLEGARE, “Preponderanze straniere” in _Storia politica d’Italia
scritta da una Società di Professori_.

[i] JULES ZELLER, _Histoire de l’Italie_.

[j] M. LAFUENTE, _Historia General de España_.

[k] J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, _Literature of Southern Europe_.

CHAPTER XVI. A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY

[b] WM. HUNT, _History of Italy_.

[c] E. PROCTOR, _op. cit._

[d] ANTONIO COSCI, _L’Italia durant le Preponderanza Straniere_ (in
Villari’s work).

[e] H. B. BRIGGS, article “Savoy” in the Ninth Edition of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[f] WILLIAM WHEWELL, _History of the Inductive Sciences from the Earliest
to the Present Time_.

[g] GALILEO, _Dialogo delli due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo, Tolemaico e
Copernicano_.

CHAPTER XVII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

[b] ALFRED VON REUMONT, _Geschichte Toscanas seit dem Ende des
Florentinischen Freistaats_.

[c] HEINRICH LEO, _op. cit._

[d] GIOVANNI DE CASTRO, _Patria_.

[e] E. PROCTOR, _op. cit._

[f] W. SPALDING, _op. cit._

[g] GIUSEPPE MONTANELLI, _Mémoires sur l’Italie_.

[h] JULES ZELLER, _op. cit._

[i] CARLO BOTTA, _History of Italy during the Consulate and Empire of
Napoleon Buonaparte_.

[j] J. REINACH, _La France, et l’Italie devant l’histoire_.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE NAPOLEONIC RÉGIME (1800-1815 A.D.)

[b] CARLO BOTTA, _op. cit._

[c] CARLO DENINA, _Storia dell’Italia Occidentale_.

[d] WILLIAM SPALDING, _op. cit._

[e] CESARE BALBO, _Sommario della storia d’Italia_.

[f] HERMANN REUCHLIN, _Geschichte Italiens_.

[g] GIOVANNI DE CASTRO, _Storia d’Italia, 1799-1814_.

CHAPTER XIX. INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES (1815-1847 A.D.)

[b] ISAAC BUTT, _op. cit._

[c] HEINRICH LEO, _Geschichte der italienischen Staaten_.

[d] W. SPALDING, _op. cit._

[e] J. A. R. MARRIOT, _The Makers of Modern Italy_.

[f] R. H. WRIGHTSON, _A History of Modern Italy_.

[g] J. A. SYMONDS, _op. cit._

[h] COUNTESS MARTINENGO CESARESCO, _The Liberation of Italy_.

[i] GUALTERIO, _Rivolgimenti Italiani_.

[j] F. SASSONE, _France et l’Italie_.

[k] C. A. FYFFE, _A History of Modern Europe_.

[l] JULES ZELLER, _op. cit._

CHAPTER XX. THE LIBERATION OF ITALY (1848-1866 A.D.)

[b] COUNTESS MARTINENGO CESARESCO, _op. cit._

[c] FRANCESCO BERTOLINI, _Etona d’Italia_.

[d] C. BULLE, _Geschichte des Königreiches Italiens_.

[e] TAXILE DELORD, _Histoire du Second Empire_.

[f] FELIX HENNEGUY, _Histoire de l’Italie_.

[g] GEORG WEBER, _Allgemeine Weltgeschichte_.

[h] H. REUCHLIN, _op. cit._

CHAPTER XXI. THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY (1867-1878 A.D.)

[b] W. R. THAYER, _op. cit._

[c] MARIE RATTAZZI, _Bonaparte Rattazzi et son temps, documentis
ineditis_.

[d] H. WICKHAM STEAD, “History of Italy,” in the New Volumes of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[e] F. BERTOLINI, _op. cit._

[f] JULES ZELLER, _Pie IX et Victor Emanuel, 1846-1878_.

[g] COMTE DE BEAUFORT, _Histoire de l’invasion des états pontificaux_.

[h] THE O’CLERY, _The Making of Italy_.

[i] G. S. GODKIN, _Life of Victor Emmanuel II, First King of Italy_.

CHAPTER XXII. 1878-1903

[b] J. W. PROBYN, _Italy from the Fall of Napoleon I in 1815 to the Year
1890_.

[c] H. WICKHAM STEAD, _op. cit._

[d] BOLTON KING and THOMAS OKEY, _Italy To-day_.

[e] RUGGIERO BONGHI, _Leone XIII e il governo italiano_.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: PONTE VECCHIO, FLORENCE]

A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN ITALY

LIST OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED, CITED, OR CONSULTED; WITH CRITICAL AND
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

=About=, Edmund, The Roman Question, New York, 1859, 1 vol.--=Ademar=,
Chronicon Aquitanicum, a history of the Frankish monarchy from its
beginning to 1029.--=Adomoli=, G., Da San Martino a Mentana, Milano,
1892, 8 vols.--=Anna Comnena=, Alexias.

_Anna Comnena_ (1083-1148), daughter of the eastern emperor
Alexis I, was famous for her beauty and her talent. She was
carefully educated by her father, and is said to have early
surpassed all her contemporaries in philosophy and eloquence.
At her father’s death in 1118 she made an unsuccessful attempt
to place her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius, on the throne.
Her _Alexias_, a biography of her father, is one of the most
important works of Byzantine historiography. By some critics,
indeed, it is placed almost on a par with the ancient classics.

=Annales Genuenses=, edited by Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ historica, vol.
18, and Muratori, vol. 6.

The _Annales Genuenses_, written largely by commission of the
republic, form the most complete series of chronicles of their
age. They cover a continuous period of almost two centuries
(1100-1294). Caffaro, who began the series, was a citizen of
distinction, having served the republic as general, consul, and
ambassador. He kept a careful record of what he himself saw and
what was told him by consuls and others in authority. When in
1152 he presented his book to the consuls they ordered it to be
copied and preserved in the archives of the city. Pleased at
this prompt appreciation, he continued his annals to 1163. He
was succeeded by the chancellor Chertus, whose connection with
the events he relates likewise gives value and interest to his
writing. Other names connected with the annals are Ottobonus,
Marchirius, Bartholomeus, and James D’Oria. The annals are
characterised from first to last by impartiality and precision
and a great abundance of facts, names, and dates.

=Archivio Storico Italiano=, Firenze, 1842 ff., 119 vols. to 1903.

The most valuable collection of documents and chronicles
supplementary to Muratori.

=Arrivabene=, Count C., Italy under Victor Emanuel; a personal narrative,
London, 1862, 2 vols.--=Azeglio=, Massimo Marchese d’, Recollections
(trans. by Count Maffei), London, 1868, 2 vols.

* * * * *

=Bacci=, V., Ricordi del Risorgimento Italiano, Milano, 1890.--=Balzani=,
Ugo, Early Chroniclers of Italy, London, 1883.

This volume, one of the series of _Early Chroniclers of
Europe_, contains accounts and criticisms of all the principal
chroniclers of the Middle Ages from Cassiodorus to Villani.
Including, as it does in many instances, brief extracts from
the originals, it gives a very clear idea of the sources of the
mediæval history of Italy.

=Barth=, H., Crispi, Leipsic, 1893.--=Bartholomeus Scriba=, see Annales
Genuenses.--=Bartoli=, A., I primi due Secoli della Litteratura Italiana,
Milano, 1880, 1 vol.--=Beaumont-Vassy=, E. F., Vicomte de, Histoire des
États Européens depuis le Congrès de Vienne, Paris, 1843-1853, 6 vols.
(vol. V has sub-title États Italiens).--=Bergante=, Count A., I nostri
tempi, Milano, 1884.--=Bersezio=, V., Il regno di Vittorio Emanuele II,
Trent’ anni di vita italiana, Torino, 1878-1893, 7 vols.--=Berti=, D.,
Il conte di Cavour avanti il 1848, Roma, 1886.--=Bertocci=, Giuseppe,
Repertorio Bibliografico delle Opere stampate in Italia nel Secolo
XIX, 1876-1887, vols. 1-3.--=Bertolini=, F., Memorio del Risorgimento
Italiano, Milano, 1899; “Storia delle dominazioni Germaniche in Italia,”
in Storia politica d’Italia, Milano, 1900.--=Bianchi=, N., La politica
di Massimo d’Azeglio 1848-1859, Torino, 1883; La Casa di Savoia e
la Monarchia italiana, Torino, 1884.--=Blanc=, J., Bibliographie
italico-française, Milano, 1886.--=Blasi=, R., La Nuova Italia, Torino,
1891.--=Bonetti=, A. M., I Martiri Italiani, Modena, 1891.--=Boraschi=,
G., Garibaldi nella Storia, Pinerolo, 1884.--=Bordone=, J. P. T.,
Garibaldi 1807-1882, Paris, 1891.--=Bosco=, G., Compendium of Italian
History, London, 1881, 1 vol.--=Botta=, Carlo G. G., History of Italy
during Consulate and Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, London, 1828, 2 vols.;
Storia d’Italia, Paris, 1837, 14 vols.--=Breganze=, L., A. Depretis ed
i suoi Tempi, Verona, 1894.--=Breslau=, H., Handbuch der Urkundenlehre
für Italien, Leipsic, 1889.--=Browning=, O., Guelphs and Ghibellines
1256-1409, London, 1893.--=Bulle=, C., Geschichte des Königreiches
Italien, Berlin, 1890.--=Bulwer Lytton=, E., Rienzi.--=Burchardus=,
Johannes, Diarium (incomplete) in Labarthe and Cimber’s _Archives
curieuses de l’histoire de France_.

The diary of _Johannes Burchardus_ (died 1506), master of
ceremonies at the papal court and later Bishop of Horta, is
of great importance on account of its reliability. It covers
the years 1483-1506, and is concerned principally with the
relations of France and England.

=Burckhardt=, J., Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, 3rd edition,
Leipsic, 1877.

As _Jakob Burckhardt_ (1818-1897) combines rare literary skill
with great erudition and keen criticism of sources, his is one
of the most useful of German works on the Renaissance.

=Butt=, Isaac, History of Italy from Abdication of Napoleon I, London,
1860, 2 vols.

* * * * *

=Caffaro=, see Annales Genuenses.--=Callegare=, E., “Preponderanze
straniere,” in Storia politica d’Italia.--=Cantù=, Cesare, Histoire des
Italiens, Paris, 1859, 12 vols.

_Cesare Cantù_ (1805-1895) was at the same time an ardent
republican and a devoted churchman, and his history, owing
largely to its popular character and its partisan spirit,
brought its author into wide repute in his own country.

=Cappeletti=, L., Storia di Carlo Alberto, Roma, 1891; Storia di Vittorio
Emanuele II e del suo regno, Roma, 1892-1893, 3 vols.--=Capponi=, Gino,
Geschichte der florentinischen Republik (trans. by H. Dütschke), Leipsic,
1876, 2 vols.--=Carducci=, G., Studi Litterari, Livorno, 1874; La vita
italiana nel cinquecento, Milano, 1894, 3 vols.--=Cassiodorus=, Magnus
Aurelius, Letters (trans. with introduction by T. Hodgkin), Oxford, 1889.

_Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus_ held the highest offices in the
Ostrogothic kingdom from Theodoric to Vitiges. His letters,
which contain the decrees of Theodoric and of his successors,
are the best source of our knowledge of the Ostrogothic kingdom
in Italy.

=Castro=, G., Piccola Storia d’Italia, Milano, 1888; Patria, Milano,
1882.--=Cellini=, Benvenuto, Memoirs (trans. by T. Roscoe), London, 1850;
(trans. by J. A. Symonds), London, 1887.

_Benvenuto Cellini_ (1500-1571), certainly the most celebrated
if not the greatest of goldsmiths, was also the author of
one of the most famous and remarkable autobiographies ever
written. Although he was born and died at Florence, a large
part of his life was spent in restless wandering, for he was
continually embroiled in feuds and implicated in assassinations
in consequence of which he was frequently forced to sudden
flight. His principal works were executed for Pope Clement VII,
Francis I of France and Cosmo de’ Medici the Great. Besides
his work in gold and silver Cellini also distinguished himself
in die-cutting and enamelling and executed a few pieces of
sculpture on a grander scale. Of these the most famous is the
bronze statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa which stands
in front of the old ducal palace at Florence. This is one of
the most typical monuments of the Italian Renaissance, a work
full of the fire of genius and of the grandeur of terrible
beauty. In his autobiography he sets forth with the utmost
directness and animation the history of these works, as well as
his amours and hatreds and his varied adventures. He relates
his homicides with devout complacency and frequently runs into
extravagances that it is impossible to credit but at the same
time difficult to set down as deliberate falsehoods. Cellini
also wrote treatises on the goldsmith’s art, on sculpture and
on design.

=Cesaresco=, Countess E. Martinengo, The Liberation of Italy,
London, 1895; Cavour, London, 1898.--=Cesaroni=, E., La Tradizione
unitaria in Italia, Torino, 1887.--=Chaillot=, L., L’unita Italiana,
Roma, 1882.--=Chierici=, L., Carlo Alberto e il suo ideale, Roma,
1892.--=Cipolla=, C., Pubblicazioni sulla storia mediævale italiana,
Venezia, 1892; “Storia delle signorie italiane,” in Storia politica
d’Italia, Milano, 1900.--=Colletta=, Gen. P., History of the Kingdom
of Naples 1734-1825 (trans. by S. Horner), Edinburgh, 1858, 2
vols.--=Compagni=, Dino, Istoria Fiorentina dal 1280 al 1312, Firenze,
1728 (Muratori, vol. 9).

_Dino Compagni_, a contemporary of Dante, was a man of strict
integrity and straightforward character who held high office
in Florence for many years, and after his retirement wrote his
chronicle of the years during and just after his own political
life. His personal share in the events he relates makes his
chronicle reliable, while its simple, direct style and the
spirit of passionate patriotism with which it is pervaded lend
it unusual interest.

=Comyn=, Sir R., History of the Western Empire, London, 1851,
2 vols.--=Corpi=, F., Il risorgimento italiano, Biografii
Storico-politichi, Milano, 1884.--=Corradino=, C., Storia d’Italia
474-1494, Torino, 1886.--=Corti=, S., Breve del risorgimento italiano,
Roma, 1885.--=Cosci=, A., “L’Italia durante le Preponderanze straniere,”
in Storia politica d’Italia.--=Costa de Beauregard=, A., Les dernières
années du roi Charles Albert, Paris, 1890.--=Crowe=, J. A., and
=Caval-Caselle=, G. B., A New History of Painting in Italy from the
Second to the Sixteenth Century, etc., London, 1884-1866, 3 vols.;
History of Painting in North Italy, etc., from the Fourteenth to the
Sixteenth Century, London, 1871, 2 vols.

* * * * *

=Dandolo=, Andrea, Chronicon Venetum a pontificatu S. Marci ad annum
usque 1339; succedit Raph. Caresini continuatio usque ad annum 1388 nunc
primum evulgata. In Muratori, vol. xii.

_Andrea Dandolo’s_ work, written while he was doge, is the
most important of Venetian chronicles. The author collected
his materials with great diligence and learning, but made
little effort at logical arrangement or artistic presentation.
Though credulous as to fables concerning remote events, he is
unusually reliable when dealing with his own period and that
immediately preceding.

=Daru=, P. A., Histoire de la République de Venise, Paris, 1877-1884,
6 vols.--=Del Lungo=, I., Dino Compagni e la sua cronica, Firenze,
1879-1880, 3 vols.--=Denina=, C. G. M., Delle Rivoluzioni d’Italia,
Firenze, 1820, 3 vols.--=Dennistoun=, J., Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino,
London, 1851-1853, 3 vols.--=Depping=, G. B., Histoire des Expéditions
maritimes des Normands, Paris, 1826.--=Dunand-Henry=, A., Les doctrines
et la politique économiques du Comte Cavour, Paris, 1902.--=Dunham=, S.
A., Europe in the Middle Ages, London, 1833-1836, 4 vols.

* * * * *

=Eliot=, George, Romola, London, 1863.--=Emiliani=, Gindici, Storia della
litteratura Italiana, Firenze, 1855, 2 vols.--=Épinois=, H. de l’, Les
Pièces du Procès de Galilée, Paris, 1877.--=Ewart=, K. D., Cosimo de’
Medici, London, 1899.

* * * * *

=Falcandus=, Hugo, Historia de rebus gestis in Siciliæ regno, etc.

Gibbon said of _Hugo Falcandus_: “He has been styled the
Tacitus of Sicily; and after a just, but immense abatement
from the first to the twelfth century, from a senator to
a monk, I would not strip him of his title; his narrative
is rapid and perspicuous, his style bold and elegant, his
observation keen. He had studied mankind, and feels like a
man.” Although Falcandus was devoted to the interests of the
Norman nobility in Sicily and obtained his information largely
from partisan sources, his history is judicial and impartial to
a considerable degree. He does not suppress nor distort facts
unfavourable to his party, but contents himself with explaining
them from his point of view. Moreover he had a broader view
of history than as a bare narrative of facts, and to him we
owe our only knowledge of a number of details respecting the
political constitution of the monarchy as well as the condition
of the nobility and the people.

=Fantuzzi=, M., Monumenti Ravennati de’ secoli di mezzo,
Venezia, 1801-1804, 6 vols. Documents of the ninth and following
centuries.--=Farini=, L. C., The Roman State from 1815 to 1830 (trans.
under the direction of W. E. Gladstone), London, 1851 to 1854, 4
vols.--=Ferrari=, Giuseppe, Histoire des révolutions d’Italie; ou Guelfes
et Gibelins, Paris, 1858, 4 vols.--=Filiasi=, G., Memorie storiche de
Veneti primi e secondi, Venezia, 1796-1798, 8 vols.--=Flodoardus=,
Annales.

The chronicle of _Flodoardus_ or _Frodoard_, a Frankish bishop,
covers the years 919-966.

=Freeman=, E. A., Historical Essays, First Series, London, 1871; articles
on “Normans” and “Sicily” in Encyclopædia Britannica.

* * * * *

=Gaffarel=, P., Bonaparte et les républiques italiennes 1796-1799,
Paris, 1895.--=Galileo=, The Accusation, Condemnation, and Abjuration
of, 1819.--=Gallenga=, A. (L. Mariotti), Italy, Past and Present,
London, 1846, 2 vols.; The Pope and the King, London, 1879, 2
vols.--=Galluzzi=, R., Storia del Granducata de Toscana, Firenze,
1822, 11 vols.--=Garibaldi=, G., Epistolario di G. Garibaldi, Milano,
1885, 2 vols.; Autobiography (trans. by A. Werner), London, 1889, 3
vols.--=Gaudenzi=, A., Sui rapporti tra l’Italia l’Impero d’Oriente,
Bologna, 1888.--=Gebhardt=, E., Les Origines de la Renaissance en
Italie, Paris, 1879.--=Ghio=, H., La guerra del anno 1866 in Italia,
Firenze, 1887.--=Ghiron=, J., Annali d’Italia, in continuazione al
Muratori, Milano, 1888.--=Ghisleri=, A., Atlantino storico d’Italia,
Bergamo, 1891.--=Giacometti=, G., La Question Italianne 1814-1816, Paris,
1893.--=Gibbon=, E., Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.--=Gilbert=,
William, Lucretia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, London, 1869, 2
vols.--=Ginguené=, F. L., Histoire Littéraire d’Italie, Paris, 1824-1835,
9 vols.--=Godkin=, G. S., Life of Victor Emmanuel II, First King of
Italy, London, 1879, 2 vols.--=Gotte=, A., La Corona di Casa Savoia,
Firenze, 1887.--=Gregorovius=, F., Lucrezia Borgia, Stuttgart, 1874, 2
vols.; History of the City of Rome during the Middle Ages (trans. by
Annie Hamilton), London, 1894-1902, 8 vols.

_Ferdinand Gregorovius_ (1821-1891) devoted the better part of
his life to the most extensive and minute investigations in the
libraries and archives of Rome, Italy, and Germany. The result
of these studies was his great work, _The History of the City
of Rome_, which is remarkable not only for its scholarship but
for its brilliant and fascinating style. It was translated into
Italian under the authority of the city council of Rome and at
public expense.

=Grimm=, Hermann, Life of Michael Angelo (trans. by Fanny E. Burnett),
London, 1896, 2 vols.--=Guicciardini=, F., History of Italy from
1490-1532 (trans, by Austin P. Goddard), London, 1753, 10 vols.

Since the publication in 1857 of his _Opere inedite_,
_Francesco Guicciardini_ (1483-1540) has stood in the first
rank among political philosophers, even disputing the supremacy
with his friend Macchiavelli. He had a long career as
diplomatist, statesman, and general in which in addition to the
vices of his age he displayed such cold calculation, phlegmatic
egotism and glaring discord between opinions and practice as
to make him perhaps the most odious of his contemporaries.
Yet it is this very want of feeling that gives excellence to
his history. His style is dull and prolix and he has no sense
of perspective, but as an analyst he stands without a rival.
His history is of no interest to the general reader, but is
of great importance for research in the period with which it
deals, 1494-1532.

* * * * *

=Hallam=, H., View of the State of Europe during the Middle
Ages.--=Hartmann=, L. M., Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter, Gotha,
1897-1900, 2 vols.--=Hartwig=, O., Quellen und Forschungen zur ältesten
Geschichte der Stadt Florenz, Halle, 1875-1880, 2 vols.--=Hawthorne=,
Nathaniel, Marble Faun, 1860.--=Hazlitt=, W. C., History of the
Venetian Republic, London, 1860, 4 vols.--=Hegel=, Carl, Geschichte
der Städteverfassung von Italien, Leipsic, 1847, 2 vols.--=Hennegay=,
F., Histoire de l’Italie depuis 1815, Paris, 1885.--=Heyd=, W. von
Geschichte des Lavantehandels im Mittelalter, Leipsic, 1885-1886, 2
vols.--=Hillebrand=, K., Dino Compagni: Étude Historique et Littéraire
sur l’époque de Dante, Paris, 1862.--=Hodgkin=, Thomas, Italy and her
Invaders, Oxford, 1880-1885, 4 vols.

_Thomas Hodgkin_ is the first to present in English the results
of modern research concerning the barbarian invasions of Italy.
He gives a full description of the social organisation, and
traces in detail the movements of the various Germanic and
Asiatic tribes.

=Hunt=, L., Italian Poets, London, 1846, 2 vols.--=Hunt=, William,
History of Italy, London and New York, 1874.

* * * * *

=Jona=, G., La Rappresentanza politica, Modena, 1892.

* * * * *

=Kington=, F. L., History of Frederick II, Emperor of the Romans, London,
1862, 2 vols.--=Kugler=, F. T., Handbook of Painting. The Italian
Schools. Revised and remodelled from the most recent researches by Lady
Eastlake, London, 1880, 2 vols.

* * * * *

=Labarthe=, J., History of the Arts of the Middle Ages, London,
1855--=Leo=, H., Geschichte der italienischen Staaten, Hamburg,
1829-1832, 5 vols.; Entwickelung der Verfassung der lombardischen Städte,
Hamburg, 1824.--=Locascio=, F., Fa fallita Italica, Rebellione del 1848,
Palermo, 1887.--=Lozzi=, C. Biblioteca istorica della antica e nuova
Italia, Palermo, 1886.--=Luise=, G. di, Storia critica delle Revoluzioni
italiane, Napoli, 1887.

* * * * *

=Macaulay=, T. B., Machiavelli, Essay on, London and New
York.--=Machiavelli=, N., History of Florence and of the Affairs of
Italy, London, 1847; Works translated by Detmold, Boston, 1882, 4
vols.--=Malaspini=, Ricordano and Giacotto, L’Istoria antica dell’origine
di Fiorenza sino all’anno 1281, con l’aggiunta dal detto anno per insino
al 1286, Fiorenze, 1566. (Also in Muratori, vol. VIII.)

Of _Ricordano_ and _Giacotto Malaspini_ we possess but very
meagre and uncertain information. The chronicle bearing their
names was long believed to be the earliest work on Italian
history written in the vernacular, but its authenticity has
recently been questioned. Villani contains much of the same
matter in nearly the same words. It is conjectured that the
so-called Malaspini were of later date than Villani and that
they either copied from him or both copied from a common
source that has not come down to us. All this, however, does
not detract from the picturesqueness and interest of their
chronicle, nor from its reliability as to the facts narrated in
it.

=Malaterra=, G., Historia Sicula, Cæsaraugusta, 1578.

_Godofredus Malaterra_, a Benedictine monk, has left us a very
valuable history of the Normans in Sicily, written at the
command of Count Roger. It ends with the year 1099.

=Manso=, F., Geschichte des ostgothischen Reiches in Italien, Breslau,
1824.--=Manucardi=, F., Reminiscenze storiche, Torino, 1890.--=Manzoni=,
A., La rivoluzione francese e la rivoluzione italiana del 1859, Milano,
1889.--=Marchirius Scriba=, see Annales Genuenses.--=Marriott=, J. A.
R., The Makers of Modern Italy, London, 1889.--=Masi=, E. Fra libri di
storia della rivoluzione italiana, Bologna, 1887; Il segreto del Re Carlo
Alberto, Bologna, 1890.--=Maulde la Clavière=, M. A. R. de, La Diplomatie
au temps de Machiavel, Paris, 1892-1893, 3 vols.--=Mazade=, Charles de,
Le Comte de Cavour, Paris and London, 1877.--=Mazzini=, J., Life and
Writings of, London, 1864-1870, 6 vols.; Essays (trans. by T. Okey),
London, 1894.--=Mignet=, F. H., Histoire de la Rivalité de François
I et de Charles V, Paris, 1876, 2 vols.--=Montanelli=, G., Mémoires
sur l’Italie, Paris, 1859, 2 vols.--=Montarola=, B., Bibliografia del
risorgimento Italiano, Roma, 1884.--=Monumenta Germaniæ historica=, ed.
by G. H. Pertz, G. Waitz, and E. Dümmler, Hanover and Berlin, 1826,
etc., 35 vols.--=Müntz=, E., Les Précurseurs de la Renaissance, Paris,
1881.--=Muratori=, L. A., Italicarum rerum scriptores, Mediolani,
1723-1751, 25 vols.; Annali d’Italia, Milano, 1744-1749, 12 vols.

_Ludovico Antonio Muratori_ (1672-1750), for many years
librarian of the duke of Modena, devoted his long life to
ardent and energetic labour in various fields of scholarship.
His principal work, the _Scriptores_, is a great storehouse of
contemporary documents covering the entire Middle Ages from 500
to 1500 and is the most important collection of the sort.

=Mussatus=, Albertinus, De Gestis Heinrici VII Cæsaris, Historia Augusta.
De Gestis Italicorum post Mortem Heinrici VII. In Muratori, vol. X.

_Albertinus Mussatus_ (1261-1330?) had in his lifetime a wide
reputation as a writer of Latin poetry and was also a prominent
political and military leader in his native city of Padua.
While a friend and admirer of the emperor Henry VII, Mussatus
is however quite impartial and trustworthy as a historian.
His style is much more careful and polished than that of most
chroniclers and part of his work is even composed in verse. His
works are of the first importance among the sources for that
period.

* * * * *

=Napier=, H. E., Florentine History, London, 1846-1847, 6
vols.--=Narjoux=, F., Crispi, Paris, 1890.--=Norlaughi=, A., Catalogo
delle opere relative alle cose italiane del periodo 1815-70, Torino,
1884.--=North American Review=, Italian Literature, 1864-1866; Origin of
Italian Language, 1867.

* * * * *

=Obertus Cancellarius=, see Annales Genuenses.--=O’Clery=, P. K., The
Making of Italy, London, 1892.--=Oliphant=, Mrs. M., The Makers of
Florence, London, 1876; The Makers of Venice, London, 1887.--=Orsi=, P.,
La Storia d’Italia narrata da scrittori contemporanei, Torino, 1887;
Come fu fatta l’Italia, Torino, 1891.--=Ottobonus Scriba=, see Annales
Genuenses.

* * * * *

=Perrens=, F. T., Histoire de Florence, Paris, 1877-1884, 6
vols.--=Perrers=, D., Gli ultimi reali di Savoia ed il principe Carlo
Alberto di Carignano, Torino, 1889.--=Pertz=, G. H., see Monumenta
Germaniæ historica.--=Pflugk-Harttung=, J. v., Iter Italicum, Stuttgart,
1883.--=Pignotti=, L., History of Tuscany (trans. by John Bowring),
London, 1823, 4 vols.--=Pio=, O., Dramma della storia italiana, Milano,
1889.--=Pöhlmann=, Robert, Die Wirthschafts-Politik der Florentiner
Renaissance, Leipsic, 1878, 1 vol.--=Procopius of Cæsarea=, De bello
Gothorum.--=Probyn=, J. W., Italy: from Fall of Napoleon I to 1890,
London, 1891.--=Proctor=, C., History of Italy from the Fall of the
Western Empire, London, 1844.--=Pucciauti=, G., Vittorio Emanuele e il
risorgimento d’Italia, Paris, 1893.

* * * * *

=Quinet=, Edgar, Les Révolutions d’Italie, Paris, 1868, 2 vols.

* * * * *

=Ranke=, L., Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494
bis 1535, Berlin, 1824, 2 vols.; Zur venetianischen Geschichte, Leipsic,
1878; Weltgeschichte, Leipsic, 1896, 4 vols.--=Reinach=, J., La France
et l’Italie devant l’histoire, Paris, 1893.--=Reuchlin=, H., Geschichte
Italiens von der Gründung der regierenden Dynastien bis zur Gegenwart,
Leipsic, 1859-1873, 4 vols.--=Reumont=, Alfred von, Bibliografia dei
Lavori Pubblicati in Germania sulla Storia d’Italia, Berlin, 1863;
Geschichte Toscana’s seit dem Ende des florentinischen Freistaates
1530-1859, Gotha, 1876, 2 vols.; Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Magnificent
(trans. by Robert Harrison), London, 1876, 2 vols.; Characterbilder aus
der neueren Geschichte Italiens, Leipsic, 1885.--=Revel=, G. di, Da
Ancona a Napoli, Milano, 1892.--=Robertson=, W., History of the Reign
of Charles V, London, 1856.--=Rodocanachi=, E. P., Le comte de Cavour,
Paris, 1891.--=Rorai=, S. di, Il genio della Rivoluzione Periodo I,
1789-1848, Venezia, 1890.--=Rosa=, G., Genesi della colture italiana,
Milano, 1889.--=Roscoe=, William, Life of Lorenzo de Medici, 8th edition,
London, 1845.--=Ruskin=, J., Seven Lamps of Architecture, London, 1849.

* * * * *

=Saint Maro=, C. H. L. de, Histoire d’Italie depuis la chute de l’empire
d’Occident, Paris, 1761-1770, 6 vols.--=Salimbene=, Chronicon Fra
Salimbene Parmensis, Parma, 1857.

A collection of stories without order or design, which gives,
however, a very minute picture of the condition of Italy in the
thirteenth century.

=Sanctis=, F. de, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, Napoli,
1870.--=Sansi=, A., Storia del Comune di Spoleto dal secolo XII
al XVII, Foligno, 1879-1884, 2 vols.--=Sarti=, T., Il Parlamento
subalpino e nazionale, Terni, 1890.--=Sassone=, F., France et Italie
1820-1886, Geneva, 1886.--=Scheffer-Boichorst=, P., Florentiner Studien,
Leipsic, 1874.--=Schmidt=, D. L., Zur Geschichte der Langobarden,
Leipsic, 1889.--=Sewell=, E. M., Outline History of Italy, London,
1895.--=Sheppard=, William, Life of Poggio Bracciolini, Liverpool,
1837.--=Sichirollo=, G. L. S., Compendio della storia d’Italia nel
medio evo, 1890.--=Silvagni=, D., Rome, its Princes, Priests, and
People, London, 1886-1887, 3 vols.--=Simonsfeld=, H., Andreas Dandolo
und seine Geschichtswerke, Munich, 1876; Venetianische Studien, Munich,
1878.--=Sismondi=, J. C. L. Simonde de, History of the Italian Republics,
London, 1832; Literature of the South of Europe (tr. by Roscoe), London,
1846, 2 vols.

_Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi_ (1773-1842) achieved
much distinction through his works on history and literature,
particularly his _Italian Republics_ and his _History of
France_. He was exceedingly laborious and for the most part
free from prejudice, but was somewhat lacking in penetration
and historical grasp. Of the _Italian Republics_ Mignet says:
“Sismondi has traced this history with vast learning, a noble
spirit, a vigorous talent, sufficient art, and much eloquence.”

=Spalding=, William, Italy and the Italian Islands, New York, 1842, 3
vols.--=Spano=, M., Reminiscenze sulle lotte degli Italiani per la loro
independenza, Roma, 1886.--=Stella=, G. and J., Annales Genuenses ab a.
1298-1435; in Muratori, vol. XXVI.

_Georgius_ and _Johannes Stella_ take up the history of Genua
at the point where the work of Caffaro and his successors stops
and bring it down to their own day (1435).

=Summonte=, G., Storia della città e regno di Napoli, Napoli, 1601-1634,
4 vols.--=Sweetser=, M. F., Titian, Boston, 1878.--=Symonds=, J. A.,
Renaissance in Italy, London and New York, 1875-1886, 7 vols.; Short
History of the Renaissance in Italy, London, 1893; article, “Italy,” in
Encyclopædia Britannica.

_John Addington Symonds_ (1840-1893) was a man of intense
ardour and sympathy who, having a passion for Italy, made
the study of the Renaissance in that country the work of the
greater part of his life. His writing is always brilliant and
terse, though his views are sometimes not clearly defined nor
unbiased.

* * * * *

=Taine=, H., Art in Italy; Italy--Florence and Venice, New York,
1869.--=Tegrimi=, N., Vita di Castruccio, in Muratori, vol.
XI.--=Testa=, G. B., History of the War of Frederick I against the
Communes of Lombardy, London, 1877.--=Thayer=, W. R., Dawn of Italian
Independence--Italy from 1814-1849, Boston, 1893, 2 vols.--=Tiraboschi=,
G., Literary History of Italy, Edinburgh, 1835.--=Tivaroni=, C., Storia
del Risorgimento, Torino, 1869.--=Trolard=, E., Pèlerinage aux champs de
bataille français d’Italie, Paris, 1893.--=Trollope=, T. A., History of
the Commonwealth of Florence, London, 1865, 4 vols.

* * * * *

=Valery=, N., Historical, Literary, and Artistical Travels in Italy
(trans. by C. E. Clifton), Paris, 1842.--=Vaumicci=, A., I martiri
della libertà italiana, Milano, 1885, 2 vols.--=Venosta=, F., Umberto
I, Re d’Italia Milano, 1885.--=Venturi=, Mrs. E. A., J. Mazzinni, A
Memoir, London, 1875.--=Viardot=, L., Wonders of Italian Art, London,
1870.--=Villani=, G., Historia Fiorentina all’anno 1348, continuata da F.
Villani, Milano e Firenze, 1802-46, 12 vols.; also in Muratori, Script.
Res. Ital., vols. XIII-XIV.

_Giovanni Villani_ (1280-1348) was the greatest of all the
Italian chroniclers. Those who preceded him had produced
very incomplete and legendary records, generally limited to
particular places and periods, but Villani includes the whole
of Europe in his chronicle. He says that he conceived the idea
of his history while on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1300 on the
occasion of the great jubilee ordained by Pope Boniface VIII.
The contemplation of Rome’s “great and ancient remains, and
reading the histories and great deeds of the Romans as written
by Virgil, Sallust, Lucan, Livy, Valerius, Paulus Orosius,
and other masters of history” inspired him “to take form and
style from them,” and on his return from Rome he “began to
compile this book, in honour of God and of the blessed John,
and in praise of our city of Florence.” Though prominent in
both the intellectual life and the public affairs of the city
he looks at the facts of its history as calmly and serenely
as an outsider. His work is not only the very corner-stone of
the early mediæval history of Florence, but is of the greatest
value for the history of all Italy in the fourteenth century.
Villani’s chronicle was continued by his brother Matteo and the
latter’s son Filippo and by them brought down to the year 1364.

=Villari=, P., History of Girolamo Savonarola and of his times, London,
1863, 2 vols.; Niccolo Machiavelli and his times, London, 1878-1881, 4
vols.; The Barbarian Invasions of Italy (trans. by L. Villari), London,
1902, 2 vols.; Storia politica d’Italia scritta da una società di
professori, edited by P. Villari Milano, 1900.

_Pasquale Villari_ (1827) is not an historian of very profound
insight, but he possesses great breadth of culture and
sympathy, and his works embody the best results of recent
research on the periods in question. While his sympathy with
the aims of Savonarola has perhaps led him to an extravagant
view of the great reformer, his work on Machiavelli is of
the highest importance to the student of Italian history. As
minister of public instruction in the cabinet of Rudini Villari
contributed much to the reform of education in Italy.

=Voigt=, G., Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, 3rd edition,
edited by Lehnerdt, Berlin, 1893, 2 vols.

* * * * *

=Wallace=, H. B., Essays on Italian Art, Philadelphia,
1858.--=Weise=, J., Italien und die Langobardenherrscher 568-623,
Halle, 1887.--=Whiteside=, J., Italy in the Nineteenth Century, 2nd
edition, London, 1860.--=Wimpffen=, E. F. de, Crimée-Italie, Paris,
1892.--=Wrightson=, R. H., History of Modern Italy from the First French
Revolution to the Year 1850, London, 1855; The Sancta Republica Romana,
London, 1891.

* * * * *

=Zalla=, A., Studio Storico, Firenze, 1890.--=Zanoni=, E., Speranze e
sconforti d’Italia del 1815 al 1846, 1886.--=Zeller=, J. S., Abrégé de
l’Histoire d’Italie depuis la Chute de l’empire Romaine, 2nd edition,
Paris, 1864; Les tribuns et les révolutions en Italie, Paris, 1874.--Pie
IX et Victor Emmanuel, Paris, 1879.

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI, FLORENCE]

[Illustration]

A CHRONOLOGICAL RÉSUMÉ OF ITALIAN HISTORY

THE NORTH ITALIAN STATES AND REPUBLICS

FROM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY (476-1000
A.D.)

The deposition of Romulus Augustulus (476) opens a new era
for the Italian people. The entire peninsula comes under the
titular sway of the Eastern emperor, Odoacer the Herulian
chief ruling as king of his own people, and as regent over
the rest of the inhabitants. This mixed Teutonic and Roman
government is continued by the Ostrogothic dynasty beginning
with Theodoric, who in 493 at the commission of the emperor
overthrows and replaces Odoacer. The chief strength of the
Ostrogoths lies in northern Italy; they have little influence
over the descendants of the Greek colonists in the south. The
ties between Italy and Constantinople having become very weak,
Justinian I plans the reconquest of Italy. By the efforts
of Belisarius and Narses this is accomplished in 553; the
Ostrogothic kingdom falls. Italy is again a real member of the
Roman Empire, ruled in the emperor’s name by the exarch whose
capital is at Ravenna. This state of affairs lasts but fifteen
years. Narses, the first exarch, recalled to Constantinople in
565, and disaffected with his treatment by the empress, is said
to have invited Alboin the Lombard chief to invade the Italian
peninsula. In 568 he crosses the Alps, and in three years is
master of nearly the whole of northern Italy. The political
unity of the peninsula is broken, not to be repaired until the
latter half of the nineteenth century. The Lombards penetrate
through the middle of the peninsula. Venice, founded about
452 by families from Aquileia and Pavia fleeing from Attila,
remains untouched. So does Genoa and its Riviera. Rome does
not acknowledge the Lombard rule at Pavia, neither does the
country east of the Apennines from the Po to Ancona where the
exarch rules at Ravenna, nor the duchy of Naples, the islands
of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and the southernmost province
of Calabria. The duchies of Spoleto and Benevento have Lombard
rulers, but they are nearly independent of Pavia. Such is the
condition of Italy at the end of the sixth century.

Before the close of the next hundred years Constans II (662)
makes a vain attempt to restore the empire in Italy. The
protecting power of Constantinople becomes weaker and weaker,
and in 713 the Venetian islands unite for the purpose of
self-government. Paoluccio Anafesto, the first doge, is elected
and a council of tribunes and judges chosen. This government
lasts until 737 when in a popular tumult the doge Orso is
killed, his ducal office abolished, and replaced by an annually
elected _maestro della milizia_ (master of the military);
but in five years (742) the life-holding office of doge is
restored. Meanwhile the growing Lombard power has encroached
on the exarch’s dominions; the iconoclastic controversy has
virtually alienated the sympathies of the Italian people from
the Eastern emperor, and in 752 the Byzantine possessions in
northern Italy are conquered by Aistulf the Lombard king,
and the exarch flees from Ravenna. Pepin comes from France
at the call of the pope, seizes Aistulf’s conquests which he
hands over to Stephen (755), and from this gift arises the
temporal sovereignty of the pope, which lasts until 1870.
In 774 Charlemagne puts an end to the Lombard dominion in
northern Italy, and his Italian kingdom extends from the Alps
to Terracina. This is included in the Western Empire when it is
restored in 800.

Thus the political map of Italy at the beginning of the ninth
century shows Rome the head of an empire governing the greater
part of the peninsula; Gaeta, Naples, Calabria, Apulia, Sicily,
and Sardinia still give their allegiance to Constantinople.
Venice, though quite independent, acknowledges the Eastern
emperor, and the duke of Benevento pays tribute to him of the
West.

In 810 the people of Venice remove the seat of government from
the mainland to the present city and the building of St. Mark’s
is begun.

In 827 the Saracens begin their attacks on Italy and Sicily.
Their fortunes are varied, but by 890 the fall of the
Carlovingian dynasty has enabled the Greeks to take many
cities from the Saracens and raise a new power that comprises
southern Italy as far north as Salerno. This territory ruled
by a patrician or catapan remains a part of the Eastern Empire
until 1043. Charlemagne does not overthrow the political system
in the north, and the great lords retain their territories
they have enjoyed since the days of Theodoric. With the decay
of Charlemagne’s dynasty, these local rulers correspondingly
increase their power, and the bishops appointed to the
cities have become almost independent sovereigns. This local
ascendency is never suppressed by the emperor, and to it is due
the rise of the mediæval Italian republics.

At the beginning of the tenth century we find these great
territorial lords and bishops the chief powers in northern
Italy--among them the archbishop of Milan, the duke of Friuli,
and the count of Tuscany, the latter asserting his predominance
since the time of Boniface I in 823. The obedience they pay
the king of Italy is merely nominal, and indeed the king is
constantly at war with his great vassals. From the deposition
of Charles the Fat (888) to the intrusion of Otto I into the
affairs of Italy (961) the crown of that country is the bone of
contention between the great lords of Friuli and Benevento. The
Magyars and Saracens also repeatedly invade the land, and the
defended cities rise in power and importance.

With the advent of Otto I their municipal liberty is not much
curtailed. The government of the city is generally carried
on by two or more consuls chosen by popular vote. In 997 the
Venetians’ conquest of the Adriatic coast and islands as far as
Ragusa, put themselves in a more independent attitude towards
the Eastern emperor.

THE ELEVENTH CENTURY

The untimely death of Otto III (1002) is an important event in
the development of the Italian cities. In the resulting dispute
for the crown, Pavia upholds the Lombard nobles in their choice
of Arduin. Milan crowns the German king Henry II.

1003 War between Pisa and Lucca, the first waged between the
mediæval Italian cities.

1004 Henry burns Pavia. Milan and Pavia wake to independent
life and action in this struggle. The Saracens capture a
portion of Pisa.

1011 Second attack of the Saracens on Pisa, which now assumes
the offensive.

1017 The Pisans drive the Saracens from Sardinia and take the
island.

1018 Heribert becomes archbishop of Milan, and the most
powerful lord in northern Italy.

1024 On death of Henry II, Heribert invites Conrad II of
Germany to Italy and gives him the iron crown of Lombardy
(1026).

1026 The Venetians expel their doge Ottone Orseolo, but recall
him in 1031. The people of Lodi resent Heribert’s appointing
their bishop, and a war ensues in which Heribert is successful.

1036 Battle of Campo Malo, between Heribert and the opponent
factions. Heribert summons the emperor to his aid, but the
latter, offended at the independence of the Milanese, retires
to Pavia.

1037 At Diet of Roncaglia Conrad enacts decree that all
fiefs shall be hereditary. This is to check the power of the
ecclesiastical lords. Siege of Milan by Conrad, who has to
retire on account of pestilence.

1039 Siege of Milan raised at death of Conrad. Heribert devises
the _carroccio_.

1041 The people of Milan, headed by Lanzo, drive the nobles out
of Milan.

1044 Peace restored in Milan.

1045 Death of Heribert.

1048-1055 During the pontificate of Leo IX, attempts to enforce
celibacy of clergy are vigorously resisted in Milan.

1055 The countess Matilda begins her rule in Tuscany.

1063 The foundations of the cathedral at Pisa are laid.

1075 Gregory VII approves the Pisan code of laws--a revival of
the Pandects of Justinian.

1077 The Norman conquests of southern Italian cities put the
trade of the Mediterranean into the hands of Venice, Pisa, and
Genoa. For a century and a half Pisa has the largest trade.

1080 The countess Matilda’s army is defeated near Mantua.

1084 Great defeat of the Venetian fleet by Robert Guiscard.

1091 Capture of Mantua and Ravenna by Henry IV.

THE TWELFTH CENTURY

At the beginning of the twelfth century Milan and the other
Lombard cities have become independent municipalities, a result
achieved principally through the war of investitures.

1101 Ferrara submits to the countess Matilda, who has obtained
practically the power of a queen.

1110 Peace made between Pisa and Lucca, which have been at war
for six years.

1111 The Milanese attack and destroy Lodi and Como. The
leadership of Milan in Lombardy is now confirmed.

1114 Revolt of Mantua, which is subdued by the countess
Matilda. The Pisans descend upon the Saracens in the Balearic
Isles, and return with rich booty and many prisoners.

1115 Death of the countess Matilda. Beginning of the struggle
between pope and emperor for her great domain. In 1102 she
deeded them to the pope. With Matilda’s death begins the rise
of Florence and other Tuscan cities to independence.

1118 War breaks out between Genoa and Pisa over the supremacy
of Sardinia and Corsica, a papal edict having awarded the Pisan
church control in Corsica. Consecration of the Pisan cathedral.

1123 Victory of the Venetian fleet over the Egyptians off Joppa.

1124 The Venetians receive a third of the city of Tyre at its
conquest by the crusaders.

1125 Capture of Samos, Andros, and Spalato by the Venetians.

1132 Peace between Genoa and Pisa. Innocent II gives the
Genoese church partial supremacy in Corsica and grants to the
Pisans in Sardinia and elsewhere.

1135 The Pisans proceed against the Normans in southern Italy.
Naples and Amalfi attacked. Amalfi recovered by Roger I.

1137 Second attack of the Pisans in southern Italy. Roger
recovers his lost possessions.

1140 The Genoese acquire Ventimiglia.

1144 War breaks out among the Italian cities. Venice against
Ravenna; Verona and Vicenza against Padua and Treviso; Florence
and Pisa against Lucca and Siena.

1150 The Venetians regain Dalmatia, which has been captured by
pirates.

1151 Defeat of the Milanese by the Cremonese at Castelnuovo.
The _carroccio_ is captured.

1152 Election of Frederick Barbarossa as king of Germany and
Italy. Building of the baptistery of Pisa begun.

1153 Frederick determines to re-establish the imperial
authority in the Italian cities. Lodi and Como ask his
protection against Milan.

1154 Frederick enters Italy. Diet of Roncaglia, where Frederick
hears complaints against Milan and Tortona. He assumes the
Lombard crown at Pavia.

1155 Frederick captures and razes Tortona. Milan prepares for
war.

1156 Milan rebuilds Tortona and defeats Pavia.

1157 Establishment of the Bank of Venice.

1158 Milan again destroys Lodi. Second appearance of Frederick
in Italy. Siege of Milan, which surrenders on account of
famine. Diet at Roncaglia. The Bolognese jurists expound the
code of Justinian to Frederick, who removes the consuls and
substitutes the _podesta_ as ruling officer in the Italian
cities.

1159 The Milanese refuse to obey the podesta.

1160 Surrender of Crema to Frederick. The city is abandoned to
the cruelty of Cremona. Lucca obtains its independence from
Welf of Tuscany.

1162 Surrender of Milan after a nine months’ siege. It is
totally destroyed. Lombardy submits to Frederick.

1163 The cities of the Veronese March, assisted by Venice, form
a league against Frederick.

1167 Siege of Ancona by Frederick, who has returned to Italy
the previous year. Brescia, Bergamo, Mantua, Verona, Cremona,
Treviso, and other north Italian cities form the Lombard League
to regain their liberties from Frederick. It begins to rebuild
Milan.

1168 Frederick, with his army nearly annihilated by the plague,
returns to Germany.

1169 The league builds Alessandria. The pope and Eastern
emperor join the league against Frederick. Other cities enter
the league. Pavia and Montferrat alone remain loyal to the
empire.

1171 The Eastern emperor Manuel I seizes the Venetian
possessions in his dominions. Stephen, king of Hungary,
captures many Dalmatian cities from Venice. Venice recovers
Zara, takes Ragusa, and attacks Negropont.

1172 Capture of Scio by the Venetians.

1173 The Venetian fleet returns from the East and infects the
city with the plague. Tumults break out and the doge is slain.

1174 Fifth expedition of Frederick to Italy. The Campanile of
Pisa is begun.

1175 Peace partially restored between Genoa and Pisa by
Frederick’s mediation.

1176 Frederick threatens Milan. He is defeated disastrously at
Legnano by the Milanese and a few allies. He opens negotiations
with the pope for peace.

1177 Reconciliation between Frederick and the pope at Venice.
Six years’ truce concluded with the Lombard cities. They do not
ask for more than municipal autonomy, and the Italians lose
their greatest opportunity of becoming a powerful nation.

1181 Bela, king of Hungary, recovers Zara and other cities from
Venice.

1183 The truce with Frederick is made permanent by the peace
of Constance. Venice is not included. The communes have their
right to self-government by consuls and to wage warfare
confirmed. These privileges are extended to the Tuscan cities,
among which Florence is becoming the most powerful.

1194 Battle between the Genoese and Pisan fleets in the harbour
of Messina.

1198 Establishment of the republic of Florence.

1199 General war among the Lombard cities owing to a quarrel
between Parma and Piacenza.

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

The acquisition of independence by the cities brings about
constant feuds between the people and the nobles. The latter
have become more or less financially dependent upon the
citizens and are forced to reside a portion of the year in the
cities. Here in their palaces they carry on their feuds, in
defiance of all civil authority. The consuls are powerless to
curb them, and from this state of affairs arises the office of
podesta (the name taken from Frederick Barbarossa’s official,
but having no connection with the empire). The podesta is
always the citizen of another city and holds his office for one
year. His function is to arbitrate and keep peace between the
citizens and nobles, and the powers delegated to him pave the
way for the despots of later times.

1202 The crusaders capture Zara for Venice in fulfilment of
a bargain made with the doge Dandolo, who disregards Pope
Innocent III’s threats of excommunication for this. The
Venetians accompany the crusaders to Constantinople.

1204 In the division of the Eastern Empire after the capture
of Constantinople the Venetians receive about three-eighths of
the empire of Romania. Most of this they make no attempt to
take possession of. Formation of Guelfic leagues in Umbria and
Tuscany, looking to the pope for protection. Pisa, strongly
Ghibelline, holds aloof.

1205 The Venetians exchange a portion of Thessaly with Boniface
of Montferrat for Crete. Venice decides on a policy of allowing
her nobles to take her acquisitions, holding these as fiefs of
the republic.

1208 The Genoese are defeated in an attempt to capture Crete.

1209 The Ghibellines expel the Guelfs from Ferrara.

1215 The Buondelmonte (Guelf) and Amidei (Ghibelline) feud
begins in Florence. It lasts thirty-three years.

1218 Milan forms a league to drive the Ghibellines from
Lombardy. It is defeated at Ghibello; this causes great trouble
between the Lombard nobles and citizens.

1221 The Milanese expel the nobles from the city.

1222 First war between Pisa and Florence. Foundation of the
University of Padua.

1226 Renewal of the Lombard League for twenty-five years.

1227 Frederick II appoints Ezzelino da Romano to conduct
warfare against the Guelfs in the Veronese March. They are
defeated in Verona and Vicenza.

1228 Victory of Pisa over the united forces of Florence and
Lucca near Barga.

1233 The cities of the Veronese March conclude the peace of
Paquara through the efforts of the monk Giovanni da Vicenza. It
lasts only a few days.

1234 Montferrat, Milan, Brescia, and other cities join the
rebellion of Frederick’s son Henry. The Pisans renew war with
the Genoese.

1236 Frederick takes the field against the Lombards. Ezzelino
is in control in Verona, Vicenza, and Padua.

1237 Frederick defeats the Milanese and their allies at
Cortenuova. The _carroccio_ is captured and sent to Rome as a
trophy. Tiepolo, podesta of Milan, son of the doge of Venice,
put to death.

1238 The pope allies himself with Venice and Genoa against
Frederick, who establishes Ghibelline supremacy in Turin, Asti,
Novara, and Alessandria. Frederick unsuccessfully besieges
Brescia.

1239 The Guelf fortunes begin to revive, owing to the pope’s
excommunication of Frederick. Ravenna taken by the Venetians
and Bolognese.

1240 The Venetians and Azzo d’Este take Ferrara. Frederick
recovers Ravenna.

1241 The Pisan and Sicilian fleets capture a number of Genoese
galleys, bearing the French cardinals and bishops to the pope’s
council at Rome. Frederick besieges Genoa.

1243 Frederick’s son Enzio is driven from Milan.

1247 Revolt of Parma against Frederick, who besieges the town.

1248 Frederick raises the siege of Parma. Revolution in
Florence places the city in Ghibelline hands.

1249 The Bolognese defeat Enzio at Fossalta. He is imprisoned
for the rest of his life. Ezzelino da Romano takes Belluno and
the marquisate of Este.

1250 The Florentines free themselves from Ghibelline rule. They
establish the _signoria_. With death of Frederick, the great
power of the emperors in Italy comes to an end.

1251 The Florentines recall the Guelf exiles and wage war on
neighbouring cities to compel them to serve under the Guelf
banner.

1252 The first florin coined at Florence.

1254 The Florentine “Year of Victories.” Many triumphs over the
Tuscan cities.

1256 The marquis Azzo recovers Este and captures Padua.

1258 The Ghibelline leaders exiled from Florence.

1259 Defeat and capture of Ezzelino da Romano at the bridge of
Cassano. He dies of his wounds.

1260 The Ghibellines headed by Manfred win a great victory
at Montaperti. They regain Florence. The popular government
is abolished. One composed of nobles swearing allegiance to
Manfred is substituted.

1264 By this time the head of the Della Torre family holds
the office of lord of the people in Milan, and other Lombard
cities have conferred the same title upon him. The office
has become hereditary, and we have the beginnings of the
future duchy of Milan. The pope, jealous of the Della Torre’s
growing power, appoints Otto Visconti, of a powerful local
family, archbishop of Milan. The people refuse to receive him
and are excommunicated by the pope. Beginning of the Della
Torre-Visconti feud. The Pelavicini are now predominant in the
valley of the Po and the Della Scala in the Veronese March.

1266 After Charles of Anjou’s victories in the south, the
Florentines destroy their Ghibelline government.

1267 The Florentines intrust the signoria to Charles of Anjou
for ten years. Their constitution is restored. The Ghibelline
cities in the north go to Conradin’s assistance.

1269 Charles summons a diet of all Lombard cities at Cremona.
Some confer the signoria on him; others offer him an alliance.
He calls himself imperial vicar. The pope becomes jealous of
Charles’ power.

1270 The Doria and Spinola families obtain control of Genoa and
support the Ghibellines. War between Bologna and Venice.

1277 The pope forces Charles to resign the title of imperial
vicar. The Visconti obtain the ascendency in Milan and
henceforth rule the city.

1280 The count of Savoy takes up his residence in Turin. Faenza
becomes subject to Bologna.

1282 War breaks out between Pisa and Genoa.

1284 Disastrous naval defeat of the Pisans by the Genoese, off
the island of Meloria. The power of Pisa is broken. Ugolino
della Gherardesca made captain-general of Pisa. He makes a
disgraceful peace with the Guelfs.

1288 Deposition of Ugolino, who is starved to death. The
marquis of Este is elected lord of Modena.

1292 Guido di Montefeltro of Pisa victorious over the
Florentines.

1293 Peace between Pisa and Florence. A long war breaks out
between Venice and Genoa.

1296 The Ghibellines expel the Guelfs from Genoa. The Venetians
seize Genoese possessions in the Crimea.

1297 The Venetians shut out membership in the Grand Council to
all but members of the noble families.

1298 The Genoese destroy the Venetian fleet off the Dalmatian
coast.

1299 Peace between Venice and Genoa through mediation of Matteo
Visconti. It is favourable to Genoa.

1300 Florence divided between the Neri (violent Guelfs) and
Bianchi (moderate Guelfs) factions. Pope Boniface VIII invites
Charles of Valois to Italy to check the Bianchi.

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

Civil wars begin to decline. The despots, growing out of the
captains of the people, begin to grasp the free cities.

1301 The Florentines admit Charles of Valois into the city. The
Neri overcome the Bianchi and drive them out. Dante is among
the expelled.

1302 The Visconti are expelled from Milan and the Della Torre
return.

1304 Florence is partially burned in civil riots.

1306 The Este family lose their supremacy in Modena. The Doria
are expelled from Genoa.

1308 Domestic feuds in the Este family. The Venetians assist
one of them to take Ferrara.

1309 The papal legate expels the Estes from Ferrara. It is
governed for the pope by King Robert of Naples, the Guelf
leader.

1310 Henry VII of Luxemburg enters Italy. He confers title of
imperial vicar on the reigning lords of the Lombard towns. The
Venetians establish the Council of Ten.

1311 Henry receives the iron crown of Lombardy. The Guelfs
driven from Milan and the Visconti restored. General Guelf
uprising against Henry. Unsuccessful siege of Brescia. The
Genoese confer absolute authority over the city upon Henry for
twenty years.

1312 Henry withdraws from an attack on Florence.

1313 Death of Henry as he is preparing to attack Robert.
Henry’s visit has afforded the despots a means of consolidating
their power. The Visconti rule in Milan, the Scaligeri in
Verona, the Carraresi in Padua. Uguccione dà Faggiuola in
Lucca. The Ghibellines keep up the struggle in Pisa, Lucca, and
other places.

1315 Uguccione wins many victories over the Guelfs in Lombardy
and Tuscany.

1317 The Este family is restored in Ferrara. Civil war in Genoa.

1318 Robert saves Genoa from the Ghibellines and is made ruler
of the city for ten years.

1319 The Ghibellines renew attack on Genoa after Robert’s
departure. Brescia accepts a governor from Robert.

1320 Unsuccessful attempt of Philip of Valois to crush the
Visconti.

1321 The Ghibellines at Genoa defeat an army sent against them
by Robert. Siege of Cremona by Galeazzo Visconti.

1322 Surrender of Cremona to Galeazzo. His brother Marco
defeats the papal and Neapolitan army. Excommunication of the
Visconti family. Frederick of Austria refuses to take part in
the strife.

1323 The papal army captures Alessandria and Tortona. It is
driven from Milan by the Visconti with the help of Ludwig of
Bavaria, who is excommunicated for giving his assistance.
Massacre of the Pisans in Sardinia by the Aragonese.

1324 Galeazzo defeats the papal and Neapolitan army at Monza.
Robert refuses to make peace.

1325 Castruccio Castracani of Lucca makes himself lord of
Pistoia and with the Visconti attacks Florence.

1326 The Pisans abandon Sardinia to the Aragonese. The
Florentines make Charles, son of Robert, governor of the city
in return for the promise of Robert’s assistance against
Castracani.

1327 Ludwig IV of Germany receives the Lombard crown at Milan.
He imprisons Galeazzo Visconti.

1328 Death of Castracani. Ludwig seizes Pisa and sells Lucca.
Death of the Guelf leader. Carlo Luigi di Gonzaga makes himself
master of Mantua, and assumes title of imperial vicar. Padua
submits to Can Grande della Scala. Ludwig liberates Galeazzo
Visconti, who dies.

1329 Treviso submits to Can Grande della Scala, who dies
shortly afterward. Ludwig returns to Germany. His attempts to
establish the Ghibellines in Germany have ended in failure in
Italy.

1330 John, king of Bohemia, comes to Italy to assume the
leadership of the Ghibellines. He receives the sovereignty of
Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, and other republics. Azzo Visconti
nominally cedes to him the lordship of Milan. John reconciles
the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in these cities.

1332 Jealous of John’s power the Della Scala and Visconti unite
with the Guelfs of Florence against him, in consequence of which

1333 John leaves Italy. The Estes repulse an attack of the
papal army on Ferrara.

1334 The papal legate loses Bologna.

1335 After many disputes the Lombard Ghibellines take
possession of the cities abandoned by John. Lucca, which has
been allotted to Florence, is seized by Mastino della Scala and
war results, in which Florence is unsuccessful. Alliance of
Florence and Venice against Mastino. The Visconti regain Como
and Crema. The Doria and Spinola families again triumphant in
Genoa.

1337 Padua taken from Mastino by Florence and Venice and given
to the Guelf family of Carrara. The Venetians capture Treviso
and other cities, their first Italian possessions beyond the
Lagune. Taddeo de’ Pepoli makes himself master of Bologna.

1338 Florence and Venice make peace with Mastino della Scala
who allies himself with the Ghibellines.

1339 The Genoese, disgusted with the government of their
signoria, replace it by a single chief, Boccanera, who takes
title of doge. First appearance of the Free Companies in Italy.

1341 Mastino attempts to sell Lucca to the Florentines. This
alarms the Pisans, who raise an army and seize Lucca.

1342 The Florentines having taken a sudden fancy to Walter
de Brienne, duke of Athens, who is in Florence on his way to
France, make him their lord for life.

1343 Disgusted with his selfish administration the Florentines
expel the duke of Athens and regain their freedom. Werner forms
the “Great Company.”

1344 The Genoese expel their doge and elect one from the
nobility.

1345 Mediation of Lucchino Visconti in Genoa’s civil troubles.

1346 Revolt of Zara suppressed by the Venetians. Parma and
Piacenza submit to Lucchino Visconti.

1347 Rienzi made tribune in Rome.

1348 The great plague in Italy.

1350 War breaks out between Venice and Genoa over the seizure
of some Venetian ships by the Genoese. The Pepoli cede Bologna
to Giovanni Visconti, brother and successor of Lucchino.

1351 Giovanni Visconti makes an unwarranted attack on the
Tuscan cities. The Florentines drive his army back. The Genoese
fleet under Paganino Doria wins many victories on the Adriatic
and in Negropont.

1352 Defeat of the Venetians and Aragonese by the Genoese in
the Bosporus. The Eastern emperor gives the Genoese the entire
command of the Black Sea.

1353 Fra Moriale organises his free company. Genoa allies
herself with Hungary. After a disastrous defeat by Venice
and Aragon off the Sardinian coast, she gives up to Giovanni
Visconti who refits the fleet which

1354 destroys that of Venice in the Morea. Death of Giovanni
Visconti; he is succeeded by his three nephews. Charles IV of
Germany arrives in Italy and refuses to join the Visconti.
Rienzi returns to Rome from exile. He is made senator, abuses
his power and is killed.

1355 Conspiracy of Marino Falieri, doge of Venice. He is
beheaded. Charles IV received by Pisa and Siena, who pay dearly
for their hospitality. Venice makes peace with Genoa. The
Raspanti restored in Pisa. The Genoese take Tripoli with the
help of Venice.

1356 The Genoese throw off the yoke of the Visconti. League of
north Italian lords goes to war with the Visconti. The marquis
of Montferrat takes Asti from them. Louis of Hungary renews
struggle with Venice. Jacopo de’ Bussolari delivers Pavia from
the Visconti.

1357 Zara, Spalato, and other towns lost to Louis by Venice.
The league assisted by Count Lando’s Free Company defeats
the Visconti on the Oglio. The Raspanti party in Pisa at
instigation of the Visconti begins to annoy the Florentines.

1358 Peace between the Visconti and the league. The Venetians
abandon Istria and Dalmatia to Louis. The Visconti again
besiege Pavia. The Florentines defeat the Great Company.

1359 Pavia capitulates to Galeazzo Visconti. Siege of Bologna
by Barnabò Visconti.

1360 Cardinal Albornoz takes Bologna and Barnabò Visconti is
finally driven away. Chair of Greek literature founded at
Florence.

1361 Barnabò Visconti renews the siege of Bologna. Sir John
Hawkwood invited into Italy. Foundation of the University of
Pavia by Galeazzo Visconti.

1363 Defeats for the Visconti in several places. Sir John
Hawkwood and his company enter service of Pisa. Pisa defeats
Florence.

1364 The Visconti make peace with the league. Peace between
Pisa and Florence. Giovanni Agnello is made doge of Pisa.

1367 Formation of a new league against the Visconti. It
includes the emperor, the king of Hungary, Padua, Ferrara,
Mantua, and Naples. Barnabò threatens Venice.

1368 Charles IV enters Italy. The Visconti pay him a large sum
for peace. Barnabò Visconti invades Mantua.

1369 Charles returns to Germany. Pisa receives its freedom.
Barnabò makes war on Florence, which is assisted by the pope.

1370 Lucca buys its independence from the emperor. Galeazzo
Visconti takes Casale. The Florentines capture San Miniato. The
Eastern emperor Joannes V held in Venice for debt.

1371 Barnabò Visconti captures Reggio.

1372 War breaks out between Venice and Genoa.

1373 Venice makes war on Padua, which is compelled to accept
humiliating peace. Genoa attacks Cyprus, restoring it to the
house of Lusignan.

1375 Truce between the Visconti and their enemies. The papal
legate sends Sir John Hawkwood against the Florentines, who vow
vengeance on the holy see and the French legates. They unite
with Barnabò Visconti against the church and admit Siena, Pisa,
and Lucca into the league, and form the “eight of war.” Eighty
cities and towns throw off the yoke of the legate.

1377 The papal forces punish Faenza and Cesena severely. The
league engages Sir John Hawkwood. It begins to break up.
Bologna makes peace with the pope.

1378 Barnabò makes secret negotiations to betray Florence
to the pope. Florence makes peace with Rome. The Venetians
besiege the Genoese in Cyprus. Defeat of the Genoese fleet off
Antium. Revolt in Florence. Sedition of the ciompi. Silvestro
de’ Medici chosen gonfalonier. Death of Galeazzo Visconti,
succeeded by his son Gian Galeazzo.

1379 The Venetian fleet almost annihilated by the Genoese off
Pola. Pietro Doria captures Chioggia and attacks Venice. Siege
of Treviso by Francesco da Carrara. The town is relieved by
Barnabò Visconti.

1380 The Genoese surrender to the Venetians and make treaty of
peace.

1381 Venice cedes Treviso to Duke Leopold of Austria to save
it from Francesco da Carrara, who has again laid siege to it.
Treaty of Turin. The Albizzi assume the government of Florence.

1384 Leopold of Austria sells Treviso to Francesco da Carrara.

1385 “The Reformers” driven out of Siena. Gian Galeazzo has
his uncle Barnabò put to death, and takes possession of his
dominions, making many reforms. He thus becomes the most
powerful ruler in Italy. The Milan cathedral is started.

1387 Gian Galeazzo, having made an alliance with Francesco
da Carrara of Padua whom Antonio della Scala of Verona is
attacking on behalf of the Venetians, seizes Verona and
Vicenza, the latter of which he refuses to give Carrara as
promised. He now offers himself to the Venetians against Padua.

1388 Galeazzo takes Padua, holds it, captures Treviso, and
threatens Venice. He makes many unsuccessful attempts on the
Tuscan cities. Nice joined to Savoy.

1389 Florence makes alliance with Bologna against Gian Galeazzo
engaging Sir John Hawkwood.

1390 Gian Galeazzo attacks Bologna. He is resisted by Hawkwood.
Francesco Novello da Carrara, assisted by the duke of Bavaria,
takes Padua from Gian Galeazzo. The Florentines engage the
count of Armagnac to invade Lombardy.

1391 Armagnac defeated at Alessandria.

1392 Florence makes peace with Gian Galeazzo. At instigation
of Gian Galeazzo, Jacopo Appiano murders Piero Gambacorti, the
ruler of Pisa, and makes himself master of the city.

1393 Civil war in Genoa.

1394 Death of Sir John Hawkwood.

1395 Gian Galeazzo purchases from the emperor Wencelaus the
title of duke of Milan, and count of Pavia with the investiture
of the twenty-six cities once included in the Lombard League.
The title is to be hereditary.

1396 The Genoese ask the protection of France.

1397 Gian Galeazzo renews war against Florence and Mantua.

1398 The French governor of Genoa is compelled to retire on
account of civil discord in the city. Ten years’ peace between
Gian Galeazzo and Florence and Mantua.

1399 The son of Jacopo Appiano sells Pisa to Gian Galeazzo,
reserving Piombino for himself. Gian Galeazzo receives promise
of surrender from Siena.

1400 Perugia submits to Gian Galeazzo. Paolo Guinigi usurps
sovereignty of Lucca and places himself under Gian Galeazzo’s
protection.

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

1401 Rupert of Germany enters Italy to suppress Gian Galeazzo,
but is defeated. Gian Galeazzo proclaimed sovereign lord of
Bologna.

1402 Gian Galeazzo dies of the plague. He divides his
possessions between his two young sons Giovanni Maria (duke
of Milan) and Filippo Maria (count of Pavia) under the care
of their mother Caterina and the condottieri in his service.
The latter place themselves at the head of various cities. The
Guelfs and Ghibellines recover power in many places.

1403 The dominions of Gian Galeazzo begin to break up. Bologna
and Perugia are restored to the papal states. Siena places
herself under the protection of Florence. The Venetians defeat
a French and Genoese fleet.

1404 Francesco Novello da Carrara seizes Verona from the
Visconti. Venice takes Vicenza and leagues with Francesco
di Gonzaga of Mantua to take Verona from the lord of Padua.
Caterina Visconti imprisoned and poisoned.

1405 The Venetians with the lord of Mantua capture Verona and
Padua. Jean Boucicault, French governor of Genoa, to whom the
Pisans have given the protection of their cities, offers to
sell it to Florence. The Pisans resist, and war with Florence
results.

1406 Francesco da Carrara and his sons executed at Venice. Pisa
surrenders to Florence.

1408 Ladislaus of Naples attacks Tuscany, ravages Arezzo and
Siena, and seizes Cortona.

1409 Florence, in alarm at Ladislaus’ ambitions, calls on Louis
of Anjou to prosecute his claim to Naples. Boucicault attempts
to take Milan. During his absence the Genoese drive the French
from their city. Louis returns to Provence.

1410 The Florentine army under Braccio da Montone occupies
Rome. Ladislaus accepts offers of peace.

1411 War breaks out between Hungary and Venice.

1412 The Milanese murder the cruel Giovanni Maria Visconti.
Filippo Maria seizes the city and marries the widow of Facino
Cane. The Venetians drive the Hungarians from Treviso and
regain part of Friuli.

1416 Amadeus VIII joins Piedmont to Savoy.

1417 Muzio Attendolo Sforza, in the pay of Naples, drives
Braccio da Montone and the Florentine army from Rome.

1418 Filippo Maria has his wife executed.

1419 The Milanese general, Francesco Carmagnola, recovers
Bergamo for Filippo Maria.

1420 Carmagnola recovers Parma, Cremona, and Brescia for Milan.
The Venetians recover Dalmatia and Friuli from the Hungarians.

1421 Genoa submits to Carmagnola, but reserves her liberties.

1424 Filippo Maria defeats the Florentines. Disgrace of
Carmagnola.

1425 Continued defeats of the Florentines. Venice unites with
Florence and employs Carmagnola.

1426 Florence, Venice, Ferrara, Mantua, Siena, Savoy, and
Naples unite against Filippo Maria. Francesco Sforza, son of
Muzio Attendolo, enters his service. Carmagnola takes Brescia
from Milan.

1427 The Venetians destroy a fleet collected by Filippo Maria
to conquer Mantua and Ferrara. Carmagnola defeats badly the
duke of Milan’s army near Macalo. Savoy withdraws from the
league and receives territory from Filippo Maria.

1428 Peace made between Milan and the allies. The Florentines
attack and take possession of Lucca.

1430 Niccolo Piccinino, the Milanese general, drives the
Florentines from Lucca. Venice and Florence reunite against
Milan and the war recommences.

1431 Francesco Sforza defeats Carmagnola at Soncino. The
Milanese destroy the Venetian fleet. The marquis of Montferrat
is defeated by Sforza. The allied fleets defeat the Genoese.

1432 The signoria of Venice suspect Carmagnola’s loyalty. They
invite him to Venice and behead him. Sigismund sells the title
of marquis of Mantua to Giovanni di Gonzaga.

1433 Francesco Sforza occupies the March of Ancona, which the
pope cedes to him the following year. Peace of Ferrara between
Milan and the allies. Treaty between Sigismund and Siena and
Florence. Rinaldo degli Albizzi, head of the oligarchy of
Florence, imprisons and banishes Cosmo de’ Medici, the leader
of the opposition.

1434 The Florentines recall Cosmo de’ Medici and place him at
the head of the government. The banished Albizzi flee to Milan
and persuade the duke to make war on Florence.

1435 Filippo Maria leagues with Alfonso of Naples against the
pope. The Genoese throw off the protection of Milan and restore
their independent government.

1436 Renewal of the league between Florence and Venice against
Milan. Genoa joins it. Francesco Sforza enters the service of
the allies.

1438 Sforza returns to the duke of Milan, who has promised him
his daughter in marriage.

1439 The duke of Milan fails to keep his promise and Sforza
returns to the allies. He is successful against Milan.

1441 Peace made between Milan and the allies. Sforza marries
Filippo Maria’s daughter. Venice acquires the principality of
Ravenna.

1443 Pope Eugenius IV plots to wrest the March of Ancona from
Sforza. Alfonso of Naples and the duke of Milan aid him. Sforza
defeats Piccinino at Monteloro.

1444 Sforza holds out against the alliance, which presses him
hard.

1446 Florence and Venice go to the aid of Sforza.

1447 Sforza loses the March of Ancona. Death of Filippo Maria.
The duchy is claimed by Alfonso of Naples, the duke of Orleans,
and by Sforza. Milan and other Lombard cities restore their
independence, but Sforza makes himself master of Milan and
captures Piacenza. Other cities submit to him.

1448 Sforza goes to war with Venice. He takes a large portion
of their territory, burns their fleet, and wins a great victory
at Caravaggio; then makes an alliance with Venice against
Milan, which is afraid of his treachery and shuts him out of
the city.

1449 The Venetians, realising Sforza’s schemes to enslave
Italy, desert him and join the Milanese. Sforza besieges Milan.

1450 The Milanese finally decide to admit Sforza and recognise
him as their duke.

1452 Sforza, having made alliance with Florence, Genoa, and
Mantua, goes to war with Venice. Frederick III sells Borso
d’Este, Reggio, and the duchy of Modena.

1454 Pope Nicholas V brings about the Peace of Lodi, signed by
Milan and Venice.

1455 Alfonso of Naples signs the Peace of Lodi, and joins with
the pope and the north Italian states in a league against the
Turks.

1457 Genoa and Naples go to war. The Council of Ten in Naples
deposes the great doge Francesco Foscari, who dies of grief.

1458 The Neapolitans besiege Genoa. Cosmo de’ Medici and Lucas
Pitti plan to force despot rule upon Florence.

1461 The Genoese free themselves from Naples.

1462 The Venetians ally themselves with Matthias Corvinus
against the Turks.

1463 Venice purchases Cervia from Malatesta IV.

1464 Sforza obtains control of Genoa. Death of Cosmo de’
Medici. His son Piero succeeds to the presidency of Florence.

1466 The Pitti family is defeated in its attempt to subjugate
Florence. The Alberti party is banished. Death of Francesco
Sforza. His son Galeazzo Maria succeeds. He misgoverns the
duchy and alienates the people from him.

1469 Death of Piero de’ Medici. His sons Lorenzo and Giuliano
succeed, but the governing power remains in the hands of the
five citizens who exercised it under Piero.

1470 The Turks take Negropont in Eubœa from the Venetians.
Florence, Modena, Milan, Naples, and the pope form a holy
league against the Turks. Venice and the knights of Rhodes make
alliance with the sultan of Persia for the same purpose. The
conspiracy of Nardi against the Medici.

1471 The pope confers the duchy of Ferrara upon Borso d’Este.

1472 The fleet of the Holy League drives the Turks from the
Grecian archipelago and ravages Smyrna.

1473 The Turks reach the borders of Friuli.

1475 The Venetians garrison the island of Cyprus. The Turks
capture the Genoese ports in the Crimea.

1476 Conspiracy at Ferrara in favour of Niccolo d’Este. It
fails. Assassination of Galeazzo Maria Sforza at Milan, the
result of the Olgiate conspiracy. His son Giovanni Galeazzo
Maria succeeds under regency of his mother.

1477 Revolt of Matteo de’ Fieschi at Genoa.

1478 The Pazzi conspiracy in Florence, aided by Sixtus IV.
Giuliano is murdered. Lorenzo, wounded, escapes. The people
massacre most of the conspirators, among them the archbishop of
Pisa, for which deed Sixtus excommunicates Florence. The pope,
and Naples, and other Italian states begin war on Florence. The
Genoese restore their government.

1479 Venice makes peace with the Turks, giving up Scutari and
fortresses in Illyria and the Morea. Sixtus IV induces the
Swiss to declare war on Milan. They win a victory at Giornico.
Defeat of the Florentines by the Neapolitans at Poggio
Imperiale. The situation of Lorenzo becomes critical. The
pope demands his expulsion from Florence. He goes to Naples.
Lodovico Sforza (Il Moro), uncle of the young Giovanni Galeazzo
Maria, undertakes the government of Milan.

1480 Lorenzo makes treaty with Ferdinand of Naples. On return
to Florence he makes the yoke more oppressive. The pope in fear
of the Turks, who have landed in Italy, becomes reconciled to
Lorenzo and makes treaty with him.

1481 All states of Italy (Venice excepted) unite against the
Turks and recover Otranto, lost the previous year. Sixtus and
the Venetians attempt to seize Ferrara and divide it between
them.

1482 Milan, Florence, and Naples form a league to prevent
Venice and the pope from carrying out their designs.

1483 Sixtus now sides with the league and excommunicates Venice
for persisting in the attack on Ferrara.

1484 Peace of Bagnolo between Ferrara and Venice; the former
gives up some of her possessions.

1485 Innocent VIII begins a war upon Florence, but makes peace
the following year.

1487 Lorenzo de’ Medici wrests Sarzana from the Genoese, who
put themselves again under Milan’s protection.

1489 Galeotto Manfredi, lord of Faenza, stabbed by his wife
as he is about to sell his principality to the Venetians.
Savonarola arrives in Florence and begins to preach reform in
the church.

1492 Death of Lorenzo de’ Medici. His son Piero succeeds.

1493 Lodovico il Moro, wishing to retain his power in Milan,
plots to get rid of his enemy the king of Naples, and invites
Charles VIII of France to revive the Angevin claim to Naples.

1494 The emperor Maximilian makes Lodovico duke of Milan.
Giovanni Galeazzo Maria banished to Pavia. Alfonso II of Naples
attacks Genoa but is defeated by the Swiss. Charles VIII enters
Italy. Sudden and mysterious death of Giovanni Galeazzo Maria.
Charles enters Tuscany. Piero surrenders Sarzana and offers to
give up Pisa and other cities. The people rise and drive Piero
out of Florence. Charles grants the Pisans their liberty and
proceeds to Rome.

1495 Lodovico, alarmed at Charles’ success, forms a league
against him, with the pope, the emperor Maximilian, and
Ferdinand of Spain, in Venice. Charles leaves Naples and with
difficulty returns to France. Formation of the Grand Council by
advice of Savonarola to govern Florence.

1496 Maximilian comes to Italy with an army, but returns to
Germany after a quarrel with Venice. Florence attempts to
regain Pisa.

1498 The Venetians and Florentines struggle for the possession
of Pisa. Milan aids the Florentines. Execution of Savonarola.
Death of Charles VIII in France. His successor, Louis XII,
takes title of duke of Milan and claims the duchy.

1499 Louis makes a treaty with the Venetians for the conquest
of Milan. The French army enters Italy. Flight of Lodovico il
Moro to Germany. Louis XII enters Milan. The rest of Lombardy
submits. Genoa comes under French protection. The Florentines
tire of the war with Pisa and make peace.

1500 The Milanese tire of the oppressive French. Lodovico
returns with an army. Como, Milan, Parma, and Pavia open their
gates. Novara taken after a siege. Lodovico is betrayed at
Novara into the hands of Louis de la Trémouille, the French
general, and sent to France in captivity. Milan again subject
to the French. The French army marches to Naples.

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

1501 Cesare Borgia begins his conquest of the petty states of
Romagna. He takes Pesaro, Rimini, Forlì, and Faenza.

1502 Cesare seizes the duchy of Urbino with the aid of Louis.
He wars with the Orsini and plans to capture Pisa, and marries
his sister Lucrezia to the son of the duke of Ferrara. The
Florentines create the office of gonfalonier for life.

1503 At death of Pope Alexander VI the dominions of Cesare are
taken from him by Julius II. Venice seizes Faenza and Rimini,
which enrages the pope. The Venetians make peace with the
Turks, renouncing their possessions in the Peloponnesus. Death
of Piero de’ Medici with the French army in Naples. Pietro
Soderini chosen gonfalonier of Florence.

1504 Louis signs treaty of Blois with Maximilian, in which they
propose to divide the republic of Venice between them. Florence
makes another attempt to take Pisa.

1506 Julius II attacks Perugia and Bologna.

1507 Unable to endure the yoke of the French and their own
nobles, the Genoese drive out the French and restore the
republic. Louis at once captures Genoa and puts the doge and
other prominent citizens to death.

1508 Unsuccessful invasion of Italy by Maximilian. The
Venetians defeat him and he is compelled to make truce,
yielding them Trieste. The infamous League of Cambray formed by
the pope, the emperor, Spain, and France against Venice. Savoy,
Mantua, and Ferrara also join.

1509 France declares war on Venice. The Venetians, badly
defeated at Agnadello, give up their possessions in northern
Italy. The Venetians regain Padua. The Florentines capture Pisa.

1510 Julius begins to fear his foreign allies and resolves to
drive the barbarians from Italy with the aid of the Swiss. He
absolves the Venetians and pits the Spanish against the French.
The French are attacked in Genoa, Modena, and Verona.

1511 Julius captures Mirandola; the French take Bologna from
him. Julius forms the holy league with the Spaniards, English,
Swiss, and Venetians against France.

1512 Gaston de Foix relieves the French, besieged in Bologna by
the Spaniards; retakes Brescia, and fights a great battle at
Ravenna with the pope and his allies, in which he is killed.
Maximilian abandons the French. The Swiss occupy Milan and
restore Massimiliano Sforza, son of Lodovico. The pope regains
Bologna and Ferrara, and seizes Parma and Piacenza from the
Milanese. The Medici return to Florence and resume their former
position. Genoa expels the French. Italy passes from the yoke
of France to that of the Swiss, Spaniards, and Germans.

1513 Giovanni de’ Medici becomes Pope Leo X. Alliance between
the Venetians and the French. The latter enter the duchy of
Milan, but are defeated by the Swiss mercenaries at Novara. The
Spaniards attack Venice on behalf of Maximilian, and occupy
Verona, Padua, and Vicenza, acting with great cruelty.

1514 The French are driven out of their last fortresses in
Italy.

1515 Francis I, the new French king, asserts his claim
to Milan, recovers Genoa, and badly defeats the Swiss at
Marignano. He enters Milan, and the Swiss leave Italy forever,
after making peace with Francis. Massimiliano Sforza abdicates.
Venice captures Bergamo and Peschiera. Peace between Francis
and Leo. The latter gives up Parma and Piacenza.

1516 The Venetians capture Brescia and lay siege to Verona.
Treaty of Noyon between Francis and Charles I of Spain.
Maximilian agrees to it. By its terms Venice recovers all the
territory taken from her by the League of Cambray.

1517 Verona restored to Venice. France and Venice renew their
alliance. Leo turns the duke of Urbino out of his duchy and
gives it to Lorenzo de’ Medici.

1518 Treaty of peace signed between Maximilian and Venice.

1519 Death of Lorenzo. The pope annexes Urbino to his states
and attempts to seize Ferrara. Charles V succeeds to the
imperial title.

1521 Leo makes treaty with Charles to drive the French from
Italy. The allies enter Milan; the Sforza are restored. Death
of Leo stops attempts on Ferrara.

1522 The French, defeated, evacuate Lombardy, but retain Genoa,
which is pillaged by the Spaniards.

1524 The French attempt to recover Lombardy. Francis besieges
Pavia.

1525 Battle of Pavia. Defeat and capture of Francis. The way
for Spanish dominion is opened in Italy. The marquis of Pescara
betrays the Sforza party into the hands of the emperor.

1526 Francis, liberated, treats with the pope, the Venetians,
and Francesco Sforza, to deliver Italy from the Spaniards.
Surrender of Sforza and Milan to the Spaniards. The constable
De Bourbon leads the imperial forces to Rome.

1527 Capture and sack of Rome by the Spaniards. The pope a
prisoner, escapes to Orvieto. The Florentines restore their
republican government and drive Alessandro de’ Medici from the
city. A French army under Lautrec enters Lombardy, conquers
Pavia, Genoa, and many other cities. The duke of Ferrara seizes
Modena, and the Venetians Ravenna.

1528 Andrea Doria drives the French from Genoa, and
re-establishes the republic.

1529 Treaty of Barcelona between Charles and the pope,
restoring the Medici to Florence. Peace of Cambray between
Francis and Charles, in which France relinquishes all claims on
Italy to Spain. Francesco Sforza and the duke of Ferrara submit
to Charles. Venice gives up Ravenna and Cervia to the pope. The
republics of Lucca, Genoa, and Siena make themselves dependent
on Charles. The marquis of Montferrat and the duke of Savoy
join the Spanish party and the former is made duke.

1530 Charles crowned king of Italy and emperor at Bologna. Fall
of Florence before the imperial army, after a brave defence by
Francesco Ferrucci. End of the republic. Charles decides the
papal claims on Ferrara in favour of Alfonso d’Este.

1531 Return of Alessandro de’ Medici to Florence with title of
duke of Cività di Penne, obtained from the emperor. The pope
relinquishes Modena to Alfonso and makes him duke of Ferrara.

1535 On death of Francesco Sforza, Charles takes possession of
the duchy of Milan and makes his son Philip governor. For this
act France again attempts to gain a foothold in Italy and sends
an army into Savoy.

1536 Capture of Turin by the French. Sack and burning of Nice.
Montferrat is given to the duke of Mantua.

1537 Assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici. Cosmo of the
younger branch is made duke.

1538 League of Genoa and Venice against the Turks. Andrea Doria
breaks the alliance and is defeated by the Algerine corsair
Barbarossa.

1540 Peace between Venice and the Turks; all the former’s
possessions in the Morea are given up. Paul III forms the
Society of Jesus.

1545 Pope Paul III makes Parma and Piacenza into a duchy for
his son Pier Luigi Farnese.

1546 Cosmo thwarts the plot of Francesco Burlamacchi of Lucca
to restore the liberty of the Tuscan republics. Burlamacchi
executed at Milan.

1547 Gian Luigi de’ Fieschi, with the aid of the French, forms
a conspiracy to throw off the yoke of the Spaniards and Andrea
Doria. Genoa is seized, but Fieschi is drowned and the Doria
remain in control. The duke of Parma is assassinated. The
imperial troops seize Piacenza; the pope seizes Parma.

1552 Pope Julius III gives Parma back to Pier Luigi’s son,
Ottavio. The Sienese drive out the Spanish garrison and admit a
French one.

1553 The French, aided by the Turks, capture a portion of
Corsica from the Genoese, most of which Andrea Doria recovers
the following year.

1554 Cosmo de’ Medici makes a sudden attack on Siena. The
marquis of Marignano undertakes to reduce the city.

1555 Surrender of Siena after a siege of fifteen months. The
Spaniards take possession. Pope Paul IV induces Henry II of
France to break his treaty of peace with Spain. The duke of
Alva invades the papal states. The duke of Guise and the pope
oppose him.

1557 The duke of Alva forces the French to retreat. The pope
makes peace with the Spaniards. Philip gives Cosmo full
sovereignty over Siena.

1559 The French-Spanish war terminated by the peace of
Cateau-Cambrésis. It leaves the king of Spain undisputed lord
of Italy. Savoy and Piedmont (except a few towns) are restored
to Emmanuel Philibert. The only remaining republics are Venice,
Genoa, Lucca, and San Marino. Venice alone is of any importance.

1562 Turin and four other towns are restored by the French to
Emmanuel Philibert. He transfers his capital to Turin, and his
house becomes thoroughly Italian.

1569 Pope Pius V makes Cosmo de’ Medici grand duke of Tuscany.
The emperor protests.

1570 The Turks take Cyprus from the Venetians.

1571 The combined fleets of Venice, Spain, the pope, and the
knights of Malta, defeat the Turks in the Gulf of Lepanto. This
victory delivers Italy from the infidel, but the allies do not
follow it up.

1573 Venice is forced to make peace with the Turks. She gives
up Cyprus and pays a large tribute.

1575 The emperor acknowledges the title of grand duke of
Tuscany.

1576 Great devastation made by the plague in Italy.

1578 Failure of a conspiracy at Florence against the grand duke
of Tuscany.

1580 Charles Emmanuel succeeds his father as duke of Savoy.

1582 Charles Emmanuel fails in an attempt to capture Genoa.

1586 Death of Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma. His son
Alessandro succeeds.

1588 The duke of Savoy taking advantage of Francis’ distracted
condition, conquers Saluzzo.

1589 The duke of Savoy invades Provence.

1590 The French drive Charles Emmanuel from Provence.

1597 Death of Alfonso d’Este, duke of Ferrara. Pope Clement
VIII claims his dominions (Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio) from
his kinsman and heir, Cesare d’Este. France sides with the
pope, and Spain with the duke.

1598 Cesare gives up Ferrara to the pope and retires to Modena
and Reggio, where he rules as duke.

1600 Henry IV of France proceeds against the duke of Savoy.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

1601 Peace of Lyons between Henry IV and Charles Emmanuel. The
latter is allowed to keep Saluzzo, but gives up Bresse, Bugey,
and the Pays de Gex, his possessions in Burgundy.

1606 Pope Paul V attempts to compel Venice to acknowledge
his ecclesiastical supremacy. Hitherto the Venetians have
recognised no chief above their own patriarch. They prepare for
war with the pope. Henry IV mediates. The Venetians in a veiled
manner admit the papal supremacy, but refuse to readmit the
Jesuits, and the pope removes the interdiction.

1613 On the death of Francesco, the duke of Mantua and
Montferrat, his brother Ferdinand succeeds. Charles Emmanuel
invades Montferrat on behalf of his daughter, the late duke’s
widow. Philip III of Spain orders him to evacuate the duchy and
the duke of Savoy goes to war with Spain.

1615 The Spanish governor of Milan attacks Charles Emmanuel.
Venice and the imperial party come to hostilities over the
piracies of the Uscochi, subjects of the empire.

1617 Venice makes alliance with the Dutch.

1618 Conspiracy of Don Pedro de Toledo, governor of Milan, the
duke of Osuna, and the marquis of Bedmar to destroy Venice. It
is betrayed to the Council of Ten and thwarted.

1620 The Catholics in the Grisons revolt against the Protestant
government. Philip III sends the governor of Milan to help the
Catholics. He occupies the Valtelline.

1624 France, Savoy, and Venice unite against Spain in the war
in the Grisons.

1625 The duke of Savoy and a French army make an attempt to
capture Genoa. The Germans and Spaniards invade Savoy and the
duke is obliged to abandon the siege.

1626 On the death of the last of the Della Rovere family the
duchy of Urbino is annexed to the papal states.

1627 On the death of the duke of Mantua, Charles Emmanuel again
seizes Montferrat.

1628 France and Venice oppose the duke of Savoy. Spain and
Austria assist him. The Spaniards seize Casale. Plot of Vachero
and others in Genoa to place the city under the protection of
Charles Emmanuel. It is discovered and its leader executed.

1629 Treaty of Susa between France and Savoy. Spain and the
emperor refuse to ratify it.

1630 Death of Charles Emmanuel, succeeded by his son Victor
Amadeus I. The imperial army seizes Mantua.

1631 The Montferrat question settled by the treaty of Cherasco.
Mantua and Montferrat are given to Charles, duke of Nevers.
Savoy gets a small portion of Montferrat and Pinerolo is ceded
to France.

1637 On death of Victor Amadeus a contest over the regency for
his young son, Charles Emmanuel II, begins.

1639 Capture of Turin by Prince Thomas of Savoy in the contest
for the regency.

1642 The duke’s mother Christina obtains the regency of Savoy
under the protection of France. This leads to the implication
of Italy in the wars of Louis XIII with Germany and Spain.
Civil war breaks out in Italy. The ducal families take the side
of Spain.

1645 War breaks out between Venice and the Turks. The latter
seize a portion of Candia.

1651 The Venetians win a great naval victory from the Turks
near Scio.

1655 The Spaniards besiege Reggio without success. Prince
Thomas of Savoy and the duke of Modena with a French army fail
in an attempt to capture Pavia. Naval victory of the Venetians
over the Turks in the Dardanelles.

1656 Continued naval victories of the Venetians; they hire
mercenaries from the pope, and admit the Jesuits into their
city.

1659 The wars of Louis XIV and Spain ended by the treaty of the
Pyrenees. France retains possession of Pinerolo.

1669 After a long siege the Turks take Candia from the
Venetians. Crete is lost.

1670 After a long reign Ferdinand II, grand duke of Tuscany,
dies, succeeded by his son Cosmo III.

1675 Death of Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy. Victor Amadeus II
succeeds.

1684 The French fleet bombards Genoa, whose citizens have
refused to allow Louis XIV to establish a depot at Savona.
Venice, encouraged by Sobieski’s victories over the Turks,
leagues with the emperor and the Poles against them.

1685 The doge of Genoa and four senators go to Paris to
apologise and make terms with Louis XIV. The Venetians under
Francesco Morosini take many towns in the Morea from the Turks.

1686 The duke of Savoy forbids all religions but the Catholic
to exist in Savoy.

1687 The Venetians complete the conquest of the Morea. They
seize Lepanto, Corinth, and Athens.

1690 Toleration of the Protestants is restored in Savoy, which
joins the league against France. The French take Saluzzo and
other territory from Savoy.

1691 The progress of the French in Savoy is stopped by a German
army. Continued success of the Venetians in Greece.

1694 Siege of Casale by the duke of Savoy.

1695 The war with the Turks begins to turn against the
Venetians.

1696 The duke of Savoy makes peace with France, which gives up
Pinerolo to him.

1699 Treaty of Karlowitz between Venice and the Turks. The
former is confirmed in her conquests in Greece.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

1701 The war of the Spanish Succession is begun in Italy.
Tuscany and Mantua side with the French. Prince Eugene of Savoy
defeats the French army.

1702 Prince Eugene captures Cremona and besieges Mantua. The
duke of Vendôme drives him off. Victory of the French and
Spaniards at Santa Vittoria.

1704 The duke of Savoy goes over to the Austrian side. The
French are supreme in Savoy and Modena.

1706 Battle of Turin and great defeat of the French, who lose
all their conquests in Italy. The duke of Savoy recovers his
possessions and obtains Montferrat. Charles III is proclaimed
king of Spain.

1708 The emperor Joseph I claims the duchy of Mantua on the
death of the last duke. The pope attempts to resist, but is
overcome and submits to Joseph’s claim.

1713 The Peace of Utrecht. For his services in the war of
the Spanish Succession, =Victor Amadeus II= receives Sicily
with the title of king and is crowned at Palermo. The emperor
Charles receives Milan, Mantua, Sardinia, and Naples. Italy
passes from the power of Spain to that of Austria.

1714 The pope lays claim to Sicily and issues a bull against
Victor Amadeus, who ignores it. Philip V marries Elizabeth
Farnese, which makes him heir to Parma and Piacenza, and a
claimant of Tuscany.

1715 The Turks go to war with the Venetians and reconquer the
Morea.

1716 The emperor assists the Venetians. Prince Eugene captures
Temesvar. The combined fleet captures Santa Maura.

1717 In the dispute with Austria over the succession to the
grand duchy of Tuscany, Philip V of Spain unexpectedly conquers
Sardinia. The allied armies make headway against the Turks.

1718 The Quadruple Alliance--Great Britain, France, Austria,
and the Netherlands--formed against Philip, to take Lombardy
from him. War with the Turks ended by the Peace of Passarowitz.
Venice gives up the struggle against the infidels after five
hundred years. She is now in full decline and takes no part in
the eighteenth-century wars. The Spaniards invade Sicily.

1719 The Spaniards defeated and driven off from Messina. They
leave the island.

1720 Philip agrees to the terms of the Quadruple Alliance.
For his adherence to Philip, Victor Amadeus is compelled to
exchange Sicily for Sardinia, and his realm is henceforth
called the kingdom of Sardinia. Sicily is reunited to Naples.

1723 Gian Gastone succeeds to the grand duchy of Tuscany.

1730 Victor Amadeus abdicates in favour of his son, =Charles
Emmanuel III=. The Corsicans revolt against the Genoese to rid
themselves of tyranny.

1731 Death of the last duke of Parma. Don Charles of Spain
succeeds. Victor Amadeus attempts to regain his crown, but is
defeated by Charles Emmanuel and imprisoned in the castle of
Rimini, where he dies in 1732. Charles Emmanuel destroys all
temporal power of the pope in his realm.

1733 The war of the Polish Succession begins. France makes
alliance with Spain and Sardinia. They plan to drive the
Austrians from Italy; to establish Don Charles on the throne
of the Two Sicilies and in the duchies; and to give Milan to
Charles Emmanuel. The latter seizes Milan.

1734 Victory of Charles Emmanuel at Guastalla.

1735 Don Charles goes to Sicily and is crowned king.

1737 Death of Gian Gastone, grand duke of Tuscany, the last of
the Medici.

1738 The Treaty of Vienna settles the disputes of the war
of the Polish Succession. Duke Francis of Lorraine receives
Tuscany. Parma and Piacenza are given to Austria, which keeps
Milan and Mantua. Don Charles acknowledged king of the Two
Sicilies. Charles Emmanuel acquires Novara, and Tortona is
separated from Milan.

1740 War of the Austrian Succession begins. The Bourbon houses
of Spain, France, and the Sicilies oppose the Habsburg-Lorraine
party in the succession of Maria Theresa.

1741 Charles Emmanuel joins the Habsburg cause.

1742 The king of Sardinia attacks Reggio and Modena. The
Spanish army invades Savoy, but is driven back.

1743 The Sardinians defeated by the French and Spaniards, who
seize Parma and Milan. Francis of Lorraine, elected emperor,
sends an Austrian army against them.

1745 Defeat of the French and Spaniards by the king of Sardinia
and the Austrians at Piacenza. The Genoese compelled to admit
the Austrians into the city, but they afterwards expel them.

1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the war, and redivides
Italy. Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla are made into a duchy for
Don Philip, brother of Charles III of the Two Sicilies. The
Austrians keep Milan and Tuscany. Venice, Lucca, and San Marino
remain free, so does Genoa, but, with the duchy of Modena, it
is placed under the protection of France. Until the French
Revolution Italy ceases to be a matter of dispute between the
European nations.

1755 Pasquale Paoli takes command of the Corsicans in their
continued struggle to free themselves from Genoa. He plans to
establish a republic in the island.

1765 Death of the emperor Francis. Tuscany, which, since his
assumption of the emperorship, has been practically an Austrian
province, is given to his son Leopold and becomes a separate
state once more.

1768 Genoa, wearied of the struggle with Corsica, cedes it to
France.

1773 Death of Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia, succeeded by
his son, =Victor Amadeus III=.

1790 Leopold, succeeding to the empire, makes his son,
Ferdinand III, grand duke of Tuscany.

1792 The French army captures Savoy and Nice and makes them
part of the republic.

1793 Victor Amadeus joins the alliance against France.

1796 The French army under Napoleon Bonaparte crosses the
Alps. Victor Amadeus surrenders his claim to Savoy and Nice,
and gives up Alessandria and Tortona after Bonaparte’s many
victories. The French invade the Austrian dominions and enter
Milan. Bonaparte enters Bologna and founds the Cispadane
Republic, with Bologna as capital. Death of Victor Amadeus,
succeeded by his son, =Charles Emmanuel IV=. Defeat of the
Austrians at Arcola.

1797 Defeat of the Austrians at Rivoli completes conquest of
Lombardy. Mantua surrenders to Bonaparte. He declares war on
Venice and enters the city. Revolt against the republican
party in Genoa; Bonaparte interferes and establishes the
Ligurian Republic. He forms Lombardy, Parma, Modena, the
papal state of Bologna, Ferrara, Romagna, and part of Venice
into the Cisalpine Republic, with capital at Milan. Treaty
of Campo-Formio recognises the new republics and gives the
remainder of Venice to Austria.

1798 The French army enters Rome and forms the Tiberine
Republic. Pope Pius VI sent a captive to France. The French
take Piedmont and Charles Emmanuel retires to Sardinia.

1799 The French garrison gives up Rome to the English. The
French directory declares war against Austria and Tuscany. The
allies under Kay and Suvarroff defeat the French many times in
northern Italy. Milan is taken. The Austrians take Ancona and
Coni.

1800 Bonaparte recovers his lost possessions in Italy. Battle
of Marengo. Genoa and Tuscany given up to Bonaparte.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

1801 Bonaparte deposes Ferdinand III; makes Tuscany into the
kingdom of Etruria, and gives it to =Louis=, son of the duke of
Parma.

1802 The Cisalpine becomes the Italian Republic and Bonaparte
is president. Piedmont annexed to France. Charles Emmanuel
abdicates in favour of his brother =Victor Emmanuel I=.

1803 Death of Louis of Etruria. His wife, Maria Louisa, rules
as regent for his young son, =Charles Louis=.

1805 The emperor =Napoleon= makes the Italian Republic into
a kingdom and is crowned king; Eugène Beauharnais viceroy.
The Ligurian Republic is annexed to France. Lucca is made a
principality, and with the kingdom of Etruria given to Elisa
Bonaparte.

1806 By the conditions of the Peace of Pressburg the Venetian
possessions of Austria are added to the kingdom of Italy.
Pauline Bonaparte cedes Guastalla to the kingdom.

1807 Elisa Bonaparte cedes Etruria to the kingdom of Italy.

1809 Napoleon seizes the papal states and occupies Rome. He is
excommunicated by the pope.

1810 The papal states are added to the French Empire.

1814 The English capture Genoa. The pope returns to Rome by
Napoleon’s permission. Fall of Napoleon. Genoa, instigated by
England, makes a vain attempt to restore the Ligurian Republic.

1815 By the Treaty of Paris and Congress of Vienna, Victor
Emmanuel I receives back the kingdom of Sardinia with the
addition of Genoa. Venice and Milan are formed into the
Lombardo-Venetian province of Austria. Lucca is given to the
Parmesan Bourbons who are to recover Parma and Piacenza at
the death of Maria Louisa, Napoleon’s wife, to whom they are
allotted as a duchy. Ferdinand III is restored to Tuscany, and
he is to receive Lucca when the Parmesan house takes possession
of its own territory. Francis IV is made duke of Modena and he
is to receive Lunigiana from the grand duke of Tuscany when
the latter takes possession of Lucca. The papal states are
restored to Pope Pius VII. San Marino remains undisturbed, the
only Italian republic. Murat drives the pope from Rome, but is
defeated and escapes to Corsica. All the Italian sovereigns are
in strict alliance with Austria through whose influence they
hold their thrones.

1821 The people of Turin and Alessandria demand constitutional
governments, and war with Austria. Rather than grant any
concession Victor Emmanuel abdicates in favour of his brother
=Charles Felix=. The movement is suppressed by Austria.

1824 Leopold II succeeds as grand duke of Tuscany.

1825 By Charles Felix’s order the poor in his kingdom are
forbidden instruction in reading and writing.

1830 Duke Francis of Modena intrigues with the liberal party,
in an attempt to obtain the succession to Sardinia.

1831 Revolt of Ciro Menotti in Modena. Francis deserts the
liberals. The duke of Modena and the duchess of Parma forced to
flee. Republican revolt in Romagna against the pope. He calls
on Austria for aid, which is given. The duke of Modena and
duchess of Parma are restored; the revolt in Romagna put down.
Execution of Menotti and his companions. Disappointment of the
liberals in not receiving help from France. Mazzini founds the
“Young Italy” party. Death of Charles Felix and the end of the
elder branch. =Charles Albert= of the Savoy-Carignano line
succeeds. Mazzini calls on him to defy Austria.

1832 The French, jealous of the Austrian garrisons in the papal
states, seize Ancona.

1833 Mazzini makes a raid on Savoy. It fails and he flees to
England.

1837 Charles Albert issues a new code for his kingdom.

1838 The French and Austrians withdraw their garrisons from the
papal states.

1844 Revolt of the Bandiera at Cosenza.

1846 Cardinal Mastai Ferretti is elected pope (Pius IX). He
declares himself a liberal and begins a new policy of reform.
The Austrians remonstrate.

1847 Pius forms the national guard in his states. The Austrians
seize Ferrara. Charles Albert turns from the Austrian party
and declares for reform and the liberation of Italy. Death of
the duchess of Parma. The Bourbons return from Lucca, which is
added to Tuscany.

1848 Metternich refuses to grant any of the demanded reforms
in Lombardo-Venetia. Following the example of Ferdinand
II of the Two Sicilies, the king of Sardinia, the grand
duke of Tuscany, and the pope, grant their people liberal
constitutions. The revolutionary troubles in Vienna and Hungary
incite Lombardo-Venetia to insurrection. The Milanese drive
Marshal Radetzky and the Austrian troops out of the city.
Other cities join the Milanese. The duke of Modena flees.
Venice rises against the Austrians. They leave the city, and a
provincial form of government is set up under Daniele Manin.
Charles Albert declares war on Austria. Peschiera surrenders to
him and he defeats Radetzky at Goito. Lombardo-Venetia votes
for annexation to Sardinia. Charles Albert is badly defeated
by Radetzky at Custozza and makes armistice. The Austrians
re-enter Milan. All the provinces except Venice return to
Austrian rule. Insurrection in Rome. Assassination of the
pope’s minister, Count Rossi. Pius flees to Gaeta.

1849 Revolt in Tuscany; the grand duke flees to Gaeta and a
provincial government is set up in Florence. A republic is
declared in Rome with Mazzini at the head. Gioberti retires
and Rattazzi assumes the leadership of the democratic party in
Piedmont. The war with Austria is renewed and Charles Albert
is completely defeated by Radetzky at Novara. He abdicates
in favour of his son =Victor Emmanuel II=. Genoa attempts to
restore the republic, but the revolt is put down. The French,
jealous of Austria’s power, send an army to restore the pope.
Rome is defended by Garibaldi, but is forced to capitulate. The
French garrison the city and declare for the papal government.
The Florentines recall Leopold, and the duke of Modena returns.
Venice surrenders to the Austrians. Treaty of peace between
Sardinia and Austria. Italy’s struggle for liberty is crushed.

1850 The pope returns to Rome. His policy is now entirely
against reform. The Siccardi law, abolishing ecclesiastical
courts and privileges, passed in Piedmont. Reform progresses
quickly under Victor Emmanuel.

1853 Count d’Azeglio resigns office of chief minister in
Piedmont; succeeded by Count Cavour, who allies himself with
Rattazzi and the democratic party. He begins his work for the
unification of Italy.

1855 Sardinia makes alliance with England and France against
Russia. A Sardinian army is sent to the Crimea.

1856 At Congress of Paris, Cavour lays the grievances of Italy
before the European powers and obtains assurance of Napoleon
III’s assistance.

1858 Cavour meets Napoleon at Plombières and arranges for a
Franco-Italian war against Austria.

1859 Austria demands disarmament of Sardinia. France and
Sardinia declare war. Napoleon declares he will free Italy.
Romagna frees itself from the pope. A revolt in Tuscany causes
the grand duke to flee. Battle of Magenta forces the Austrians
out of Lombardy. Great victory of the allies at Solferino.
Peace of Villafranca. Austria gives up western Lombardy to
Sardinia. The exiled dukes are to be restored. Fear of Prussia
deters Napoleon from carrying out his high purpose, and he
simply agrees to an Italian confederation of which Austria, as
ruler of Venice, will be a member. Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and
Romagna, object to the confederation and ask for annexation
to Sardinia, which decides Victor Emmanuel not to agree to
Napoleon’s plan.

1860 Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna vote to become subject
to Sardinia. Napoleon agrees to this in return for the cession
of Savoy and Nice to France. Garibaldi liberates southern
Italy. The people of the Two Sicilies vote for annexation to
Sardinia. Umbria and the Marches also annexed. Only Rome and
Venice remain to be liberated.

1861 First Italian parliament at Turin. Victor Emmanuel
declared king of Italy. Death of Cavour.

1862 Garibaldi invades Sicily with a volunteer army. Owing
to objections from France, the Italian ministry is forced to
oppose him. He is defeated and wounded at Aspromonte.

1864 The September convention. Napoleon agrees to a gradual
withdrawal of the French troops from Rome. Victor Emmanuel
promises not to attack the pope’s territory. Florence is made
the capital of Italy.

1866 The Prusso-Austrian war breaks out. Alliance of Italy
and Prussia. The Italian army is defeated several times, but
after the Prussian victory of Königgrätz (Sadowa) Austria
cedes Venice to France. Treaty of Vienna. Venice with the
Quadrilateral of fortresses (Verona, Legnago, Peschiera, and
Mantua) is given to Italy. Austria keeps the Istrian and
Dalmatian provinces. The withdrawal of the French troops from
Rome is completed.

1867 Mazzini urges the Italian people to seize Rome. Garibaldi
makes the attempt. He defeats the papal troops at Monte
Rotondo. Victor Emmanuel pleads to have his agreement to the
September convention respected. The French regarrison Rome.
Garibaldi surrenders to the French and papal forces at Mentana,
and is arrested by the Italian government.

1870 The French leave Rome at the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War. Mazzini incites the republicans to seize
Rome. He is arrested and imprisoned at Gaeta. The fall of
Napoleon III releases Victor Emmanuel from the agreement of
the September convention and he enters Rome. The pope appeals
in vain to the king of Prussia and retires to the Vatican.
The papal territories are annexed, and the unity of Italy is
complete.

1871 The capital of Italy transferred to Rome.

1874 The Jesuits are ordered to leave Italy. Garibaldi enters
the chamber of deputies and takes the oath of allegiance.

1878 Death of Victor Emmanuel, succeeded by his son =Humbert=.

1882 Death of Garibaldi.

1885 Italy assumes the government of Massowah.

1887 Formation of the “Triple Alliance” between Italy, Germany,
and Austria. War begins in Massowah.

1888 Italy annexes Massowah. War with the Abyssinians begins.

1891 Treaty with Great Britain concerning the boundaries of
territories in East Africa. Renewal of the Triple Alliance.
Commercial treaty with Austria and Germany. Dispute with the
United States over the massacre of eleven Italian prisoners at
New Orleans.

1892 Indemnity paid by the United States. Diplomatic relations
renewed.

1893 The Aigues-Mortes riots. The bank scandals.

1895 Treaty with France respecting Tunis. Disastrous defeat
of the Italians at Adowa in Abyssinia. Treaty of peace with
Abyssinia recognising independence of Ethiopia.

1898 Bread riots in many places owing to rise of prices. An
Italian fleet attempts to enforce payment of the award to
Signor Cerruti for robbery and imprisonment by Colombia. The
matter is peacefully adjusted.

1900 Assassination of Humbert. His son =Victor Emmanuel III=
succeeds.

1903 Italy allied with England and Germany to enforce payment
of debt by Venezuela. The matter is settled by arbitration.
Death of pope Leo XIII; cardinal Sarto succeeds as Pius X.

THE KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES

_The Hohenstaufens (1198-1266 A.D.)_

1198 =Frederick II=, son of the emperor Henry VI who has
conquered Sicily from the Normans, crowned king of Sicily
(Frederick I of Sicily) with his mother Constanza as regent.
Death of Constanza. Pope Innocent III assumes the guardianship
of Frederick, aged four.

1200 Innocent sends an army to Sicily which defeats Markwald,
who has claimed the guardianship of Frederick.

1201 Markwald, regent of Sicily. He dies and is succeeded by
Capparone. Sicily continues to be the prey of rebellious nobles
and adventurers.

1208 Frederick takes up the reins of government.

1210 The emperor Otto IV threatens to invade Sicily, which he
claims as part of the empire.

1211 Innocent excommunicates Otto and offers the crown of
Germany to Frederick.

1212 Frederick leaves Sicily to dispute the German crown with
Otto. He is crowned king of Germany at Mainz. Civil disorders
recommence in Sicily.

1215 Innocent crowns Frederick king of Germany at Aachen.

1220 Frederick crowned emperor at Rome. He returns to Sicily
and transfers a large colony of Saracens from the mountains to
Nocera.

1231 Frederick has a compilation made of the Norman laws and
ordinances.

1233 Frederick revisits Sicily to quell the republican
pretensions of the eastern cities.

1243 Saracen revolt in the mountainous districts.

1250 At Frederick’s death the crown passes to his son, =Conrad=
king of the Romans. In Conrad’s absence his natural brother
Manfred is regent.

1251 Innocent IV, in his attempts to further the cause of
William of Holland, excommunicates Conrad, and incites
rebellions in Sicily and southern Italy. Manfred puts them down.

1252 Innocent rejects offers of peace from Conrad, who then
attacks the pope. Capua is captured and Naples besieged.

1253 Surrender of Naples to Conrad. Innocent offers Richard,
earl of Cornwall, the crown of Sicily, but he declines it.

1254 Death of Conrad; his son =Conradin=, two years of age,
succeeds him. Manfred retains the regency. He opposes the papal
forces which have advanced into Apulia, and defeats them at
Foggia. Manfred takes Nocera.

1255 The citizens of Messina expel the papal governor. The
legate, having lost a large convoy, agrees to peace with
Manfred. Pope Alexander IV, who has offered the crown of Sicily
to Prince Edmund of England, refuses to ratify the peace. The
English parliament will not vote funds to enable Edmund to take
the Sicilian throne.

1256 Manfred drives the papal authorities from Sicily and makes
himself supreme there.

1258 On false rumour of Conradin’s death =Manfred= is crowned
at Palermo. He assumes the leadership of the Ghibellines in
Italy.

1259 Alexander IV excommunicates Manfred.

1260 Manfred sends aid to the exiled Ghibellines of Florence,
enabling them to win the battle of Montaperti.

1263 Pope Urban IV offers Sicily and Apulia to Charles of
Anjou, brother of Louis IX of France.

1264 The pope proclaims a crusade against Manfred.

1265 Charles of Anjou is crowned king of Sicily at Rome by the
pope. With an army of crusaders he proceeds against Manfred.

_The House of Anjou (1266-1282 A.D.)_

1266 Defeat and death of Manfred at battle of Benevento.
=Charles I= acknowledged king. He enters Naples in triumph.
The seat of government is transferred from Palermo to Naples.
Charles at once makes himself unpopular by his oppression.

1267 The pope makes Charles ruler of Tuscany and the citizens
of Florence offer him the _signoria_ for ten years. The
Ghibellines induce Conradin to enter Italy and proceed against
Charles.

1268 Defeat and capture of Conradin at the battle of
Tagliacozzo. Conradin beheaded at Naples. This disaster crushes
the hopes of the Ghibellines in Italy. Louis IX and Pope
Clement IV protest against Charles’ cruelties.

1269 Charles captures Nocera and scatters the Saracen
population.

1270 Charles joins Louis IX at Tunis in the last crusade. After
death of Louis, Charles makes treaty with the ruler of Tunis
and exacts tribute. The French and Genoese fleets, returning,
are wrecked on the coast of Sicily. Charles seizes the ships
and plunders them for his own benefit.

1274 The Genoese, who have united with the citizens of other
Italian cities to resist the cruelties of Charles, defeat his
fleet.

1275 Pedro of Aragon, husband of Manfred’s daughter Constanza,
begins his attempt to gain the Sicilian throne.

1277 Charles assumes the government of the principality of
Achaia. He plans to attack the Eastern Empire, but the pope
forbids him to do so.

1281 The agitation in Sicily against Charles incited by Pedro
of Aragon and his emissary Giovanni di Procida reaches a high
pitch. The Byzantine emperor Michael also contributes to it.

1282 The Sicilian Vespers. Massacre of the French in Sicily.
Charles lays siege to Messina. Pedro arrives and forces him to
retire to Calabria. Pedro proclaimed king of Sicily. The pope
excommunicates him. The kingdom is separated.

FIRST SEPARATION OF THE KINGDOM

_Naples (House of Anjou, and the Pretenders of the Second House of Anjou)
(1282-1435 A.D.)_

The term “kingdom of Naples” is here used merely for
convenience. It was never officially employed except by Philip,
son of Charles V, and later by Joseph Bonaparte and Murat. The
continental portion of the Two Sicilies was always known as
“Sicily on this side the Pharos,” referring to the lighthouse
at Messina; the island portion was called “Sicily beyond the
Pharos.” So there were often two Sicilian kingdoms and two
kings of Sicily.

1283 Capture of Reggio by Pedro.

1284 Capture of Charles’ son Charles, prince of Salerno, by the
Aragonese admiral Roger de Lauria, in a sea-fight off Naples.
He is sent to Aragon a prisoner.

1285 Death of Charles I. His son, =Charles II=, still a
prisoner, is acknowledged king at Naples.

1287 Roger of Artois, regent of Naples, attempts to recover
Sicily, but Roger de Lauria destroys his fleet.

1288 Charles is liberated by the terms of a treaty between
Aragon and France. He assumes the throne of Naples but resigns
that of Sicily.

1289 Charles is released by the pope from his resignation of
the Sicilian crown. A two years’ truce is effected between
Naples and Sicily.

1292 Defeat of the Neapolitans by Roger de Lauria in Calabria.

1296 The Sicilians invade Calabria, and take Squillace and
other places.

1297 The pope invests Robert duke of Calabria with Sardinia and
Corsica.

1300 Siege of Messina by Robert. Disease compels him to abandon
it.

1309 Death of Charles, succeeded by his son =Robert the Wise=.
He assumes the government of Ferrara as viceroy of the pope.

1312 Robert, in an attempt to prevent the coronation of Henry
VII, seizes the principal fortresses of Rome.

1314 The pope makes Robert senator of Rome and viceroy of
Naples. Robert fails in an attempt to capture Sicily. He makes
a three years’ truce.

1317 Robert’s garrison is expelled from Ferrara.

1318 Robert relieves the Ghibelline siege of Genoa and is
appointed governor for ten years.

1322 Durazzo restored to the kingdom of Naples.

1325 Robert fails in an attempt to capture Palermo.

1338 Another attempt of Robert on Sicily ends in failure.

1343 Death of Robert, succeeded by his granddaughter =Joanna
I=. Her husband, Andrew of Hungary, is not crowned with her. He
allows his Hungarian followers to usurp all political power.

1345 Murder of Andrew of Hungary perhaps by order of Joanna.
His cousin, the duke of Durazzo, incites the Neapolitans
against the queen.

1347 King Louis of Hungary invades Naples to avenge his
brother’s death. Joanna flees to Avignon with her lover, Louis
of Tarentum, and marries him. She resigns her claims on Sicily
and makes treaty with the Sicilian king, Louis.

1348 Louis of Hungary holds Naples. He has the duke of Durazzo
put to death. The plague compels Louis to return to Hungary
and he takes Andrew’s son with him. Avignon is sold by Joanna
to the pope who gives =Louis of Tarentum= the title of king.
Joanna and Louis return to Naples. Louis takes the Free
Company, headed by Werner, into his employ.

1349 Werner deserts Louis for the Hungarians.

1350 Louis of Hungary again invades Naples.

1351 Peace between Joanna and Louis of Hungary, who leaves
Naples.

1353 Niccolo Acciajuoli successfully invades Sicily and
captures Palermo and other towns for the kingdom of Naples.

1357 Rebellion of the duke of Durazzo. Acciajuoli returns to
Naples.

1358 The duke of Durazzo’s rebellion is ended by his
reconciliation with the crown.

1362 Death of Louis of Naples. Joanna marries James of Majorca,
but he does not assume the title of king.

1365 Death of Niccolo Acciajuoli. The king of Sicily recovers
Palermo and Messina.

1372 Peace between Naples and Sicily.

1375 Death of James of Majorca.

1376 Joanna marries Otto, duke of Brunswick, who does not
assume the royal title.

1378 Joanna supports Clement VII against Urban VI.

1379 Urban proclaims a crusade against Clement and Joanna. He
induces Charles of Durazzo, Joanna’s heir, to attempt conquest
of Naples. To thwart him Joanna adopts Louis of Anjou, and
makes him her heir.

1380 Excommunication of Joanna.

1381 Conquest of Naples by =Charles (III) of Durazzo=, who
takes throne and imprisons Joanna and her husband. Clement
gives Joanna’s Provençal dominions to duke Louis of Anjou.

1382 Louis of Anjou as Joanna’s heir attacks Charles, who puts
Joanna to death and takes Sir John Hawkwood into his service.

1384 Death of the pretender _Louis I_ and disbandment of
his army. He leaves his claim to his son, _Louis II_.
Excommunication of Charles, who besieges the pope in Nocera.

1386 Charles, invited to take the Hungarian throne, leaves
Naples to his young son =Ladislaus=, under the regency of the
latter’s mother, Margaret. Charles assassinated in Hungary. The
pope gives the crown of Naples to Louis of Anjou.

1387 Contests in Naples between the supporters of Ladislaus
and Louis. This struggle continues for many years, wrecks the
kingdom, and destroys its influence in Italy.

1388 Urban marches upon Naples with an army to subdue the
factions. He is injured and his army disbands.

1389 Louis II is crowned king of Naples by the anti-pope
Clement at Avignon.

1397 Ladislaus recovers some of the territory that Louis has
occupied.

1399 Ladislaus recovers the city of Naples, and Louis returns
to Provence.

1408 Ladislaus takes possession of Rome.

1409 The adherents of Pope Alexander V expel Ladislaus from
Rome, and invite Louis of Anjou to prosecute his claim to
Naples.

1410 Louis’ fleet on the way to Naples is totally defeated by
the Genoese allies of Ladislaus.

1411 Excommunication of Ladislaus by Pope John XXIII. Louis
defeats Ladislaus at Roccasecca, but from want of supplies is
obliged to return to Provence.

1412 Ladislaus concludes a treaty of peace with John XXIII.

1413 Ladislaus again takes possession of Rome and most of the
papal states.

1414 Death of Ladislaus. He is succeeded by his sister Joanna
II. The Neapolitan army leaves Rome, retaining only the castle
of St. Angelo.

1415 Joanna marries Jacques de Bourbon, who takes all authority
from her.

1416 Joanna regains her power. Muzio Attendolo Sforza, her
constable, whom Jacques has imprisoned, is liberated and his
position is restored.

1417 Sforza expels Braccio from Rome. Death of Louis II. His
son _Louis III_ succeeds as pretender.

1419 Sforza recovers Spoleto from Braccio. Jacques de Bourbon
returns to France.

1420 Joanna makes Alfonso of Aragon her heir. She asks his
protection against Louis III, who is urged by pope Martin to
seize the throne of Naples.

1422 Alfonso threatens to recognise the anti-pope, and the pope
ceases his hostilities. Sforza and Braccio unite to defend
Naples.

1423 Joanna quarrels with Alfonso. She annuls the adoption and
substitutes Louis of Anjou in his place. War with Aragon breaks
out. The Genoese go to the assistance of Naples.

1424 The Genoese take Naples for Queen Joanna. Death of Muzio
Attendolo Sforza. His son Francesco succeeds to the leadership
of the Neapolitan forces. Death of Braccio.

1425 Francesco Sforza leaves the Neapolitans and enters service
of the duke of Milan.

1434 Death of Louis III. Joanna adopts his brother René as her
heir.

1435 Death of Joanna. =René of Anjou= succeeds, but Alfonso of
Aragon and Sicily claims the kingdom. The Visconti and Genoese
uphold René, who is a prisoner in the hands of the duke of
Burgundy.

_Sicily (House of Aragon) (1282-1435 A.D.)_

1282 After Pedro III of Aragon (=Pedro I= of Sicily) drives
Charles of Naples out of Sicily, a parliament at Palermo
chooses him king. The pope excommunicates him and his people.

1283 Pedro obliged to return to Aragon, which the pope has
given to Charles of Valois. He leaves the island to his wife
Constanza and his great admiral Roger de Lauria, who prosecutes
the war against Charles and wins a victory off Malta.

1284 Roger de Lauria captures the son of Charles and sends him
to Aragon.

1285 Death of Pedro. Aragon and Sicily are separated. Pedro’s
second son =James I= receives Sicily. Roger de Lauria captures
Gallipoli and Tarentum.

1287 Roger de Lauria destroys the fleet prepared by Robert of
Artois, regent of Naples, for the conquest of Sicily.

1289 Siege of Gaeta by Roger de Lauria. Two years’ truce
between Naples and Sicily.

1291 James returns to Aragon to succeed his brother Alfonso as
king, leaving his younger brother Frederick regent in Sicily.
The Sicilians seize some territory in Calabria.

1292 Roger de Lauria defeats the Neapolitans and then invades
the Eastern Empire and takes Scios.

1295 James of Aragon becomes reconciled to the pope; the French
claim on Aragon is annulled, and James binds himself by the
treaty of Agnani to restore Sicily to the Angevins. Frederick
and Constanza prepare to prevent this.

1296 =Frederick II= crowned king of Sicily. The Sicilians are
excommunicated, and invade Calabria.

1297 Roger de Lauria captures Otranto. He then deserts the
Sicilians and goes over to James of Aragon, who promises the
pope to make war on Frederick.

1298 Roger di Flor enters Frederick’s service.

1299 James of Aragon besieges Syracuse, and the duke of
Calabria invades Sicily with some success. Great victory of the
Sicilians at Falconara.

1300 The duke of Calabria besieges Messina. Disease ravages his
army and he is obliged to withdraw.

1302 A treaty of peace concluded between Charles II of Naples
and Frederick. The latter receives title of king of Trinacria
for life, and Charles has undisputed right to that of king of
Sicily. Frederick is to marry Charles’ daughter. The terms
of the treaty are not meant to be carried out, and Frederick
resumes the title of king of Sicily.

1303 Roger di Flor forms the Catalan Grand Company out of his
Sicilian mercenaries.

1313 Alliance of Frederick with the emperor Henry VII against
the pope and Robert of Naples.

1314 Sicily is attacked by Robert, who agrees to a three years’
truce.

1317 Robert again attacks Sicily and makes another truce.

1325 Robert attacks Sicily for the third time, but is obliged
to return to Naples after an attempt to capture Palermo.

1337 Death of Frederick. His son =Pedro II= succeeds. The
kingdom sinks into obscurity.

1338 Robert fails in a fourth attack on Sicily.

1339 Robert takes the Lipari Islands from Sicily.

1342 Death of Pedro. His son =Luis= succeeds under the regency
of Pedro’s brother Juan.

1354 Niccolo Acciajuoli, grand seneschal of Naples,
successfully invades Sicily on behalf of Queen Joanna. He
captures Palermo and other territory.

1355 Death of Luis. His younger brother =Frederick III=
succeeds, and to the duchy of Athens as well.

1357 Acciajuoli returns to Naples.

1365 Frederick recovers the territory seized by Acciajuoli on
the latter’s death.

1372 Treaty of peace between Naples and Sicily.

1376 Death of Frederick, succeeded by his daughter =Maria= and
her husband =Martin I=, son of Martin of Aragon.

1386 Nerio Acciajuoli, governor of Corinth, seizes the duchy of
Athens.

1402 Death of Maria; Martin sole sovereign.

1409 Martin goes to Sardinia for his father to quell an
insurrection. He dies. His father =Martin II= succeeds. Sicily
is united to Aragon with Martin I’s second wife Blanche of
Navarre as regent.

1410 Death of Martin, the last of his line. The thrones of
Aragon and Sicily remain vacant until

1412 when the succession is decided in favour of =Ferdinand (I)
the Just=, regent of Castile.

1416 Death of Ferdinand, succeeded by his son =Alfonso (I)
the Magnanimous=. He is a man of cultivated tastes and great
liberality.

1432 Alfonso arrives in Sicily with a fleet to force his claim
to the succession of Naples. In 1420 Queen Joanna made him her
heir, but in 1423 annulled the adoption.

1435 On death of Joanna, Alfonso besieges Gaeta. Naval battle
of Ponza. Alfonso and his brother captured by the Genoese
allies of René. They are sent as prisoners to Milan, where
Alfonso pleads his cause so successfully that Filippo Maria
Visconti, who fears the French influence, withdraws his support
from René, releases Alfonso and recognises him as the successor
to Joanna. Surrender of Gaeta to Alfonso’s brother Don Pedro.

SECOND UNION (1435-1458 A.D.)

1436 Alfonso is proclaimed king at Gaeta and other places.

1438 René is released by the duke of Burgundy and arrives at
Naples to prosecute his claim.

1440 Alfonso, having taken Aversa, lays siege to Naples.

1442 Surrender of Naples to Alfonso. He is now acknowledged by
the whole kingdom. René returns to Provence.

1443 Alfonso acknowledged by Pope Felix V. He attempts to wrest
the March of Ancona for the pope from Francesco Sforza, and
involves himself in a war with the Italian states. Florence and
Venice side with Sforza.

1447 Alfonso claims the duchy of Milan on death of Filippo
Maria Visconti.

1450 Alfonso makes peace with Florence and Venice.

1455 Alfonso joins the Holy League against the Turks.

1457 Alfonso goes to war with Genoa.

1458 Death of Alfonso. His natural son =Ferdinand I= receives
Naples. Sicily, with Aragon and Sardinia, goes to Alfonso’s
brother Juan, king of Navarre.

SECOND SEPARATION

_Naples--the Bastard Line of Aragon (1458-1503 A.D.)_

1459 Ferdinand’s cruelties cause the nobles to ask the help of
John, governor of Genoa, and son of René of Anjou, against the
king. The terms of the Peace of Lodi prevent Francesco Sforza
from lending assistance.

1460 Defeat of Ferdinand on the Sarno. The pope and Sforza now
send assistance.

1461 Scanderbeg, with a force of Albanians, comes to the
assistance of Ferdinand.

1462 Ferdinand defeats John at Troja, and forces him to give up
his attempt on Naples.

1470 Ferdinand joins the Holy League of the pope against the
Turks.

1478 Ferdinand joins Sixtus IV in his war on the Florentines.

1479 Ferdinand makes peace with Lorenzo de’ Medici, which
arouses the pope against him.

1480 The Turks capture Otranto. Sixtus and Ferdinand become
reconciled.

1481 Otranto recovered from the Turks by a general league of
Christian princes.

1485 Oppressed by taxation, the Neapolitan nobles revolt
against Ferdinand.

1486 Innocent VIII takes the side of the Neapolitan nobles.
They send for René II, duke of Lorraine, grandson of René of
Anjou, with offers of the crown. René delays acceptance and
the opportunity passes. Aragon, Milan, and Florence uphold
Ferdinand. Lorenzo de’ Medici finally reconciles the nobles to
Ferdinand, who breaks his promises and punishes them cruelly.

1492 Piero de’ Medici makes alliance with Ferdinand.

1493 Alarmed at this alliance, Lodovico (Il Moro) Sforza
invites Charles VIII of France to invade Naples in the
interests of the Angevin claim.

1494 Death of Ferdinand as he is preparing to resist the French
invasion. His son =Alfonso II= succeeds. Charles enters Italy.
The Neapolitan fleet is defeated off Genoa.

1495 Alfonso abdicates in favour of his son =Ferdinand II=
and retires to a monastery. Charles enters Naples; Ferdinand
flees. Lodovico now becomes alarmed at Charles’ progress and
forms a league against him. Charles leaves Naples in charge of
a viceroy and hurriedly returns to France. Ferdinand returns to
Naples. Most of his kingdom returns to his allegiance.

1496 The viceroy dies and the French garrison leaves Naples.
Venice seizes Brindisi and Otranto for debt. Death of
Ferdinand, succeeded by his uncle =Frederick II=.

1501 Louis XII of France and Ferdinand of Spain and Sicily
agree by Treaty of Granada to conquer Naples and divide it
between them. The conquest is easily accomplished by the duke
of Nemours and Gonsalvo de Cordova. Frederick surrenders his
rights to the French king and is given the duchy of Anjou.

1502 France and Spain begin to quarrel over the partition of
Naples.

1503 Ferdinand adds Naples to the kingdom of Sicily.

_Sicily--the Royal Line of Aragon (1458-1503 A.D.)_

1458 =Juan of Aragon=, hitherto known as king of Navarre,
receives Sicily “beyond the Pharos,” as part of his dominions
on death of his brother Alfonso. Henceforth it is ruled by
viceroys.

1479 Death of Juan, succeeded by his son =Ferdinand the
Catholic=.

1501 Treaty of Granada and conquest of Naples by Ferdinand and
Louis XII.

1502 Quarrel of France and Spain over the division of Naples.
The pope and Cesare Borgia side with France.

1503 Gonsalvo de Cordova wins several victories over the
French, and finally utterly defeats them at Mola. The kingdoms
of Sicily “on this side the Pharos” (Naples) and Sicily “beyond
the Pharos” are united under Ferdinand, and the king is known
as =Ferdinand III=.

THIRD UNION

_The Royal Line of Spain (1503-1516 A.D.)_

1504 Peace between France and Spain. Louis gives up all claim
on Naples.

_The Austro-Spanish Dynasty (1516-1700 A.D.)_

1516 Death of Ferdinand. Succeeded by his grandson =Charles IV=
(V of Germany). A revolt in Sicily is put down the following
year. Sicily is used as a starting-point for the African wars.

1554 Charles gives his son Philip the title of king of Naples,
on Philip’s marriage to Mary of England.

1556 Abdication of Charles V. =Philip I= (II of Spain) receives
the Two Sicilies as part of his dominions. The kingdom becomes
merely a Spanish province. Pope Paul IV wishes to drive the
Spaniards from Naples and makes a league with Henry II of
France for that purpose. Francis, duke of Guise, grandson of
René II of Lorraine, plans to obtain the crown of Naples.

1557 The duke of Guise marches on Naples and lays siege to
Civitella. The duke of Alva, Philip’s viceroy, defeats him, and
he retreats northward. Henry II recalls him to France.

1565 The Inquisition is in full force throughout Philip’s
dominions. Reformed opinions have spread rapidly in Naples.

1598 Death of Philip, succeeded by his son =Philip II= (III of
Spain). The national assemblies are suppressed.

1618 Osuna, viceroy of Naples, plots with the governor of Milan
and Spanish ambassador at Venice, to seize the throne of the
Two Sicilies and destroy Venice. The Venetian Council of Ten
frustrates the plot.

1621 Death of Philip, succeeded by his son =Philip III= (IV of
Spain). The people are heavily taxed.

1647 Insurrection of Masaniello at Naples over a tax on fruit.
The duke of Arcos, the viceroy, is driven into the castle of
St. Elmo. Insurrection at Palermo. The duke of Arcos makes
terms with the people. Assassination of Masaniello. The revolt
subsides, but soon breaks out again. Don John of Austria sent
to preserve order, but is forced to withdraw. The popular
leader, Gennaro Annese, sends for the duke of Guise, who
readily responds. But he ignores Annese, and the latter betrays
Naples to Don John. Guise is sent a prisoner to Spain. Annese
put to death.

1665 Death of Philip, succeeded by his young son =Charles V=
(II of Spain) under the regency of his mother, Maria Anna of
Austria.

1672 Rising in Messina against the oppressions of the Spanish
governor. He is driven from the city.

1674 The people of Messina send to Louis XIV (whom Spain has
taken sides against in the Dutch war) and proclaims him king
of Sicily. Louis sends a fleet to Sicily. His troops occupy
Messina.

1676 French naval victories over the Dutch allies of Spain off
Stromboli, Catania, and Palermo.

1678 The Dutch war settled by the peace of Nimeguen. Louis
withdraws his troops from Sicily. The Sicilians are now more
oppressed than ever.

1693 Great earthquake in Sicily. Messina, Catania, and Syracuse
nearly destroyed by a violent eruption of Mount Etna.

1694 Great earthquake at Naples.

1700 Death of Charles. End of the Austro-Spanish dynasty. The
Two Sicilies acknowledge =Philip IV= (V of Spain) grandson of
Louis XIV.

_From the End of the Austro-Spanish Dynasty to the Peace of Utrecht
(1700-1713 A.D.)_

1701 The emperor Leopold claims the Two Sicilies for the
archduke Charles. The war of the Spanish Succession begins.

1702 Philip arrives at Naples and marches northward.

1706 After the battle of Turin the French are driven out of
Italy and =Charles VI= is proclaimed king of the Two Sicilies.

1708 Pope Clement XI invests Charles with the kingdom of the
Two Sicilies.

THIRD SEPARATION (1713-1720 A.D.)

1713 Peace of Utrecht. Charles VI (now emperor Charles VI)
receives the dominions of Sicily on this side the Pharos
(Naples) together with Milan and Sardinia. The island of Sicily
is given to =Victor Amadeus= of Savoy with the title of king.

1717 Philip V takes Sardinia from the Austrians.

1718 Philip invades Sicily. Victor Amadeus sides with him,
hoping to acquire Lombardy. Formation of the Quadruple Alliance
against Philip.

1719 Philip is driven from Sicily by the allies and negotiates
for peace.

FOURTH UNION (1720-1806 A.D.)

1720 Philip accepts the terms of the alliance. Victor Amadeus
is compelled to exchange Sicily for Sardinia. Charles VI is
once more king of the Two Sicilies, which becomes part of the
German Empire.

1733 War of the Polish Succession begins. Philip V leagues with
France and Sardinia to drive the Austrians from Italy. Philip’s
son Don Charles, the duke of Parma and heir to Tuscany, is to
receive the Two Sicilies.

_The Bourbons (1734-1806 A.D.)_

1734 Don Charles enters Naples and is proclaimed king. An army
arrives from Spain to his assistance. Defeat of the Austrians
at Bitonto and capture of Gaeta by Don Charles.

1735 Don Charles crosses to Italy. The island surrenders to him
and he is crowned as =Charles VII=.

1738 The war is settled by the Treaty of Vienna. Charles VII
acknowledged king of the Two Sicilies and gives up his claim to
Tuscany and to Parma.

1740 Charles joins the alliance against Maria Theresa in the
struggle for the Austrian succession.

1743-1748 The Two Sicilies compelled to remain neutral in the
war of the Austrian Succession by the presence of a British
fleet.

1759 Charles inherits the throne of Spain and resigns the Two
Sicilies to his young son =Ferdinand IV=.

1767 The Jesuits are expelled from the kingdom.

1782 The Inquisition is abolished.

1796 Ferdinand makes a treaty of peace with the French Republic.

1798 The French army invades Neapolitan territory.

1799 Surrender of Naples. Ferdinand flees to Sicily. Naples
is formed into the Parthenopæan Republic by the French. The
English fleet under Nelson appears and assists a Calabrian army
under Cardinal Ruffo to regain Naples and restore Ferdinand.
Ruffo works a barbarous vengeance on the republicans.

1805 The emperor Napoleon makes a treaty of neutrality with
Ferdinand. Terrible earthquake at Naples.

FOURTH SEPARATION

_The Kingdom of Naples (1806-1815 A.D.)_

1806 Napoleon forces Ferdinand to flee and makes his brother
=Joseph Bonaparte= king of Naples. He makes many reforms and
starts to suppress the brigands, who under the Bourbons have
overrun the kingdom. Ferdinand remains ruler of Sicily. The
French defeated by the British at Maida. Queen Caroline of
Sicily organises an insurrection in Calabria.

1808 Joseph Bonaparte is transferred to the throne of Spain and
=Joachim Murat= is made king of Naples. He calls himself king
=Joachim Napoleon=. He takes Capri from the British.

1810 Murat attempts to invade Sicily, but is prevented by the
British.

1811 The guerilla warfare against the brigands ends in their
almost entire extermination. This makes Murat unpopular.

1813 Murat becomes offended at Napoleon during the Russian
campaign and returns to Naples.

1814 Murat makes alliance with Austria and seizes the
principality of Benevento.

1815 Murat declares his intention of restoring the unity of
Italy. The Austrians proceed against him and he is totally
defeated at Tolentino and escapes to France. After Waterloo
he goes to Corsica and attempts to regain Naples, is taken
prisoner in Calabria and executed.

_The Kingdom of Sicily (1806-1815 A.D.)_

1806-1815 Ferdinand continues to rule in Sicily.

FIFTH UNION

_The Bourbon Dynasty (1815-1860 A.D.)_

1815 Ferdinand re-established in the Two Sicilies by the
Congress of Vienna. He now calls himself =Ferdinand I of the
Two Sicilies= and returns to his tyrannical rule.

1819 The Society of the Carbonari becomes powerful. General
Pépé joins it.

1820 Sudden revolt of the Carbonari under Pépé. Ferdinand is
compelled to grant a new constitution.

1821 At conference of Laibach, the great powers decide to
suppress the revolutionary movement in Naples. An Austrian army
invades the kingdom; Pépé is defeated and the constitutional
government overthrown.

1825 Death of Ferdinand, succeeded by his son =Francis I=.

1828 An insurrection of the Carbonari is suppressed.

1830 Death of Francis. His son =Ferdinand II=, “=King Bomba=,”
succeeds.

1840 Settlement with England of the dispute concerning the
sulphur trade.

1844 Execution of the Bandiera in Calabria.

1848 Revolutionary outbreaks begin at Palermo. Ferdinand
grants a constitutional government to his subjects. Violent
outbreaks in Naples. The national guard is almost annihilated
by the royal troops and the _lazzaroni_. The constitution is
withdrawn. A Neapolitan army under General Pépé marches to the
assistance of Charles Albert. Ferdinand bombards Messina to
bring the people to terms, and earns the sobriquet of “King
Bomba.”

1849 The French and English ambassadors attempt to mediate
between Ferdinand and the people of Sicily; the latter reject
the offered terms. Palermo surrenders. Ferdinand sends an army
to assist Pius IX, but it is badly defeated by Garibaldi at
Palestrina and Velletri. The liberal leaders arrested in Naples.

1850 The liberal leaders condemned to imprisonment for life.

1855 The allied powers--England, France, and Sardinia--protest
in vain to Ferdinand against his misgovernment.

1856 England and France withdraw their ambassadors from the Two
Sicilies. Milano attempts to assassinate the king.

1858 Amnesty granted to political offenders.

1859 Death of Ferdinand II, succeeded by his son =Francis II=.
Diplomatic relations resumed.

1860 The foreign ambassadors petition France for reform. A
revolutionary movement begins in Palermo, Messina, and Catania.
Garibaldi arrives at Marsala with five thousand volunteers
from Genoa and assumes title “Dictator of Sicily.” He takes
Palermo and defeats the royal troops at Milazzo. All Sicily
except Messina surrenders to him. Francis promises reforms.
State of siege declared at Naples. Garibaldi refuses to
obey Victor Emmanuel’s command to stop. He enters Messina,
and the Neapolitans agree to evacuate. Francis restores the
constitution of 1848. The count of Trani is proclaimed king
by the army. Garibaldi crosses to Italy and defeats the royal
army at Reggio and San Giovanni. Francis flees to Gaeta,
and Garibaldi enters Naples, assumes the dictatorship, and
institutes reforms. He defeats the royalists on the Volturno.
Victor Emmanuel enters the Abruzzi. The kingdom votes for
annexation to Piedmont. The Two Sicilies is annexed to the
kingdom of Italy.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: ITALY BEFORE 1797.

BORMAY & CO.]

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09 : Italy" ***

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