Full text of "The Civilization Of The Renaissance In Italy"

THEOVIU
THE

5 B95c2 65-12819

Btirckhardt

The civilization of the
Renaissance in Italy

BURCKHARDT

THE CIVILIZATION

OF THE RENAISSANCE

IN ITALY

JACOB BURCKHARDT

THECMLIZMIONOF

THE RENAISSANCE

IN ITALY

THE PHAIDON PRESS -VIENNA
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

PRINTED IN AUSTRIA

PRINTER: R.KIESEL - SALZBURG

PHOTOGRAVURE: WAGNER'SCHE UNIVERSITATS-

BUCHDRUCKEREl . INNSBRUCK

TRANSLATION

BY
S. G, C. MIDDLEMORE

OF CONTENTS

FIRST PART
THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

SECOND PART

THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE INDIVIDUAL

THIRD PART
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY

FOURTH PART

THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD
AND OF MAN

FIFTH PART

SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS

SIXTH PART
MORALITY AND RELIGION

APPENDIX

THE CIVILIZATION OF THE RENAISSANCE

ILLUSTRATED BY
MONUMENTS OF ART

KANSAS CITY C'J.) PUSLIC

PART I
THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

This work bears the title of an essay in the strictest sense of the word. No introduction
one is more conscious than the writer with what limited means and strength
he has addressed himself to a task so arduous. And even if he could look with
greater confidence upon his own researches, he would hardly thereby feel
more assured of the approval of competent judges. To each eye, perhaps, the
outlines of a given civilization present a different picture; and in treating of
a civilization which is the mother of our own, and whose influence is still at
work among us, it is unavoidable that individual judgement and feeling should
tell every moment both on the writer and on the reader. In the wide ocean
upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the
same studies which have served for this work might easily, in other hands,
not only receive a wholly different treatment and application, but lead also
to essentially different conclusions* Such indeed is the importance of the
subject, that it still calls for fresh investigation, and may be studied with
advantage from the most varied points of view. Meanwhile we are content
if a patient hearing be granted us, and if this book be taken and judged as
a whole. It is the most serious difficulty of the history of civilization that
a great intellectual process must be broken up into single, and often into
what seem arbitrary categories, in order to be in any way intelligible. It was
formerly our intention to fill up the gaps in this book by a special work
on the 'Art of the Renaissance' an intention, however, which we have
been able to fulfil 1 only in part.

The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen left Italy in a r) p 1 !!;f al

. . . . Conditions

political condition which differed essentially from that of other countries mthc
of the West. While in France, Spain and England the feudal system was so cn ury
organized that, at the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into
a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it helped to maintain, at least
outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy had shaken it off almost entirely.
The Emperors of the fourteenth century, even in the most favourable case,

1 Burckhardt

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

The

inevitable
multiplicity

were no longer received and respected as feudal lords, but as possible leaders
and supporters of powers already in existence; while the Papacy, 2 with its
creatures and allies, was strong enough to hinder national unity in the future,
not strong enough itself to bring about that unity. Between the two lay a
multitude of political units republics and despots in part of long standing,
in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply on their power
to maintain it. 3 In them for the first time we detect the modern political spirit
of Europe, surrendered freely to its own instincts, often displaying the worst
features of an unbridled egotism, outraging every right, and killing every
germ of a healthier culture. But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome
or in any way compensated, a new fact appears in history the state as the
outcome of reflection and calculation, the state as a work of art. This new
life displays itself in a hundred forms, both in the republican and in the
despotic states, and determines their inward constitution, no less than their
foreign policy. We shall limit ourselves to the consideration of the com-
pleter and more clearly defined type, which is offered by the despotic
states.

T ^ f The internal condition of the despotically governed states had a memorable
Frederick ii counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily, after its trans-
formation by the Emperor Frederick II.* Bred amid treason and peril in the
neighbourhood of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type
who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself to a thoroughly ob-
jective treatment of affairs. His acquaintance with the internal condition and
administration of the Saracenic states was close and intimate; and the mortal
struggle in which he was engaged with the Papacy compelled him, no less
than his adversaries, to bring into the field all the resources at his command.
Frederick's measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the com-
plete destruction of the feudal state, at the transformation of the people into
a multitude destitute of will and of the means of resistance, but profitable
in the utmost degree to the exchequer. He centralized, in a manner hitherto
unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political administration. No
office was henceforth to be filled by popular election, under penalty of the
devastation of the offending district and of the enslavement of its inhabitants.
The taxes, based on a comprehensive assessment, and distributed in accor-
dance with Mohammedan usages, were collected by those cruel and vexatious
methods without which, it is true, it is impossible to obtain any money from
Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a people, but simply a disciplined
multitude of subjects; who were forbidden, for example, to marry out of
the country without special permission, and under no circumstances were
allowed to study abroad. The University of Naples was the first we know
of to restrict the freedom of study, while the East, in these respects at all

Moham-
medan
Usages

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART .

events, left its youth unfettered. It was after the example of Mohammedan
rulers that Frederick traded on his own account in all parts of the Me-
diterranean, reserving to himself the monopoly of many commodities, and
restricting in various ways the commerce of his subjects. The Fatimite
Caliphs, with all their esoteric unbelief, were, at least in their earlier history,
tolerant of the differences in the religious faith of their people; Frederick,
on the other hand, crowned his system of government by a religious in-
quisition, which will seem the more reprehensible when we remember that
in the persons of the heretics he was persecuting the representatives of a free
municipal life. Lastly, the internal police, and the kernel of the army for
foreign service, was composed of Saracens who had been brought over from
Sicily to Nocera and Lucera men who were deaf to the cry of misery
and careless of the ban of the Church. At a later period the subjects, by
whom the use of weapons had long been forgotten, were passive witnesses
of the fall of Manfred and of the seizure of the government by Charles
of Anjou; the latter continued to use the system which he found already
at work.

At the side of the centralizing Emperor appeared an usurper of the most

of Ezzelino

peculiar kind: his vicar and son-in-law, Ezzelino da Romano. He stands as
the representative of no system of government or administration, for all his
activity was wasted in struggles for supremacy in the eastern part of Upper
Italy; but as a political type he was a figure of no less importance for the
future than his imperial protector Frederick. The conquests and usurpations
which had hitherto taken place in the Middle Ages rested on real or pretended
inheritance and other such claims, or else were effected against unbelievers
and excommunicated persons. Here for the first time the attempt was openly
made to found a throne by wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the
adoption, in short, of any means with a view to nothing but the end pursued.
None of his successors, not even Caesar Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of
Ezzelino; but the example once set was not forgotten, and his fall led to no
return of justice among the nations, and served as no warning to future
transgressors.

It was in vain at such a time that St. Thomas Aquinas, a born subject of Influencc of

. . Frederick

Frederick, set up the theory of a constitutional monarchy, in which the prince
was to be supported by an upper house named by himself, and a representative
body elected by the people. Such theories found no echo outside the lecture-
room, and Frederick and Ezzelino were and remain for Italy the great poli-
tical phenomena of the thirteenth century. Their personality, already half
legendary, forms the most important subject of 'The Hundred Old Tales/
whose original composition falls certainly within this century. 5 In them
Ezzelino is spoken of with the awe which all mighty impressions leave behind

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

them. His person became the centre of a whole literature from the chronicle
of eye-witnesses to the half-mythical tragedy 6 of later poets.

Finance

t y rann i es ' reat an d small, of the fourteenth century afford constant
i4th Century proof that examples such as these were not thrown away. Their misdeeds
cried forth loudly and have been circumstantially told by historians. As states
depending for existence on themselves alone, and scientifically organized
with a view to this object, they present to us a higher interest than that of
mere narrative.

The deliberate adaptation of means to ends, of which no prince out of
Italy had at that time a conception, joined to almost absolute power within
the limits of the state, produced among the despots both men and modes
of life of a peculiar character. 7 The chief secret of government in the hands
of the prudent ruler lay in leaving the incidence of taxation so far as possible
where he found it, or as he had first arranged it. The chief sources of income
were: a land tax, based on a valuation; definite taxes on articles of con-
sumption and duties on exported and imported goods; together with the
private fortune of the ruling house. The only possible increase was derived
from the growth of business and of general prosperity. Loans, such as we
find in the free cities, were here unknown; a well-planned confiscation was
held a preferable means of raising money, provided only that it left public
credit unshaken an end attained, for example, by the truly Oriental practice
of deposing and plundering the director of the finances. 8

Out of this income the expenses of the little court, of the body-guard, of
the mercenary troops, and of the public buildings were met, as well as of
the buffoons and men of talent who belonged to the personal attendants of
the prince. The illegitimacy of his rule isolated the tyrant and surrounded
him with constant danger; the most honourable alliance which he could
form was with intellectual merit, without regard to its origin. The liberality
of the northern princes of the thirteenth century was confined to the knights,
to the nobility which served and sang. It was otherwise with the Italian
despot. With his thirst of fame and his passion for monumental works, it
was talent, not birth, which he needed. In the company of the poet and the
scholar he felt himself in a new position, almost, indeed, in possession of a
new legitimacy.

No prince was more famous in this respect than the ruler of Verona,
Can Grande della Scala, who numbered among the illustrious exiles whom
he entertained at his court representatives of the whole of Italy, The men
of letters were not ungrateful. Petrarch, whose visits at the courts of such
men have been so severely censured, sketched an ideal picture of a prince of

The Court

PL 6

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

the fourteenth century. 9 He demands great things from his patron, the lord
of Padua, but in a manner which shows that he holds him capable of them.
'Thou must not be the master but the father of thy subjects, and must love
them as thy children; yea, as members of thy body. 10 Weapons, guards, and
soldiers thou mayest employ against the enemy with thy subjects goodwill
is sufficient. By citizens, of course, I mean those who love the existing order;
for those who daily desire change are rebels and traitors, and against such a
stern justice may take its course/

Here follows, worked out in detail, the purely modern fiction of the
omnipotence of the state. The prince is to take everything into his charge,
to maintain and restore churches and public buildings, to keep up the
municipal police, 11 to drain the marshes, to look after the supply of wine
and corn; so to distribute the taxes that the people can recognize their
necessity; he is to support the sick and the helpless, and to give his protection
and society to distinguished scholars, on whom his fame in after ages will
depend.

But whatever might be the brighter sides of the system, and the merits of
individual rulers, yet the men of the fourteenth century were not without
a more or less distinct consciousness of the brief and uncertain tenure of
most of these despotisms. Inasmuch as political institutions like these are
naturally secure in proportion to the size of the territory in which they
exist, the larger principalities were constantly tempted to swallow up the
smaller. Whole hecatombs of petty rulers were sacrificed at this time to the
Visconti alone. As a result of this outward danger an inward ferment was in
ceaseless activity; and the effect of the situation on the character of the
ruler was generally of the most sinister kind. Absolute power, with its
temptations to luxury and unbridled selfishness, and the perils to which he
was exposed from enemies and conspirators, turned him almost inevitably
into a tyrant in the worst sense of the word. "Well for him if he could trust
his nearest relations! But where all was illegitimate, there could be no regular
law of inheritance, either with regard to the succession or to the division of
the ruler's property; and consequently the heir, if incompetent or a minor,
was liable in the interest of the family itself to be supplanted by an uncle or
cousin of more resolute character. The acknowledgement or exclusion of
the bastards was a fruitful source of contest; and most of these families in
consequence were plagued with a crowd of discontented and vindictive
kinsmen. This circumstance gave rise to continual outbreaks of treason and
to frightful scenes of domestic bloodshed. Sometimes the pretenders lived
abroad in exile, and like the Visconti, who practised the fisherman's craft
on the Lake of Garda, 12 viewed the situation with patient indifference. When
asked by a messenger of his rival when and how he thought of returning to

The ideal

Prince of

that period

Dangers of
Despotism

Defective

laws of

inheritance

g THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Milan, he gave the reply, 'By the same means as those by which I was expelled,
but not till his crimes have outweighed my own/ Sometimes, too, the despot
was sacrificed by his relations, with the view of saving the family, to the
public conscience which he had too grossly outraged. 13 In a few cases the
government was in the hands of the whole family, or at least the ruler was
bound to take their advice; and here, too, the distribution of property and
influence often led to bitter disputes.
The whole of this system excited the deep and persistent hatred of the

Pomp and Florentine writers of that epoch. Even the pomp and display with which the

display j it- -r i_- i

despot was perhaps less anxious to gratify his own vanity than to impress

the popular imagination, awakened their keenest sarcasm. "Woe to an
adventurer if he fell into their hands, like the upstart Doge Agnello of Pisa
(1364), who used to ride out with a golden sceptre, and show himself at the
window of his house, 'as relics are shown,* reclining on embroidered drapery
D ? w anc ^ cus ^ ons > serve d like a pope or emperor, by kneeling attendants. 14 More
Florentines often, however, the old Florentines speak on this subject in a tone of lofty
seriousness. Dante saw and characterized well the vulgarity and common-
place which mark the ambition of the new princes. 15 'What mean their
trumpets and their bells, their horns and their flutes; but come, hangman
come, vultures?' The castle of the tyrant, as pictured by the popular mind,
is a lofty and solitary building, full of dungeons ajnd listening-tubes, 16 the
home of cruelty and misery. Misfortune is foretold to all who enter the
service of the despot, 17 who even becomes at last himself an object of pity:
he must needs be the enemy of all good and honest men; he can trust no
one, and can read in the faces of his subjects the expectation of his fall. 'As
despotisms rise, grow, and are consolidated, so grows in their midst the hidden
element which must produce their dissolution and ruin/ 18 But the deepest
ground of dislike has not been stated; Florence was then the scene of the
richest development of human individuality, while for the despots no other
individuality could be suffered to live and thrive but their own and that of
their nearest dependants. The control of the individual was rigorously carried
out, even down to the establishment of a system of passports. 19

The astrological superstitions and the religious unbelief of many of the
tyrants gave, in the minds of their contemporaries, a peculiar colour to this
awful and God-forsaken existence. "When the last Carrara could no longer
defend the walls and gates of the plague-stricken Padua, hemmed in on all
sides by the Venetians (1405), the soldiers of the guard heard him cry to the
devil e to come and kill him.'

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART j

The most complete and instructive type of the tyranny of the fourteenth
century is to be found unquestionably among the Visconti of Milan, from
the death of the Archbishop Giovanni onwards (1354). The family likeness
which shows itself between Bernab6 and the worst of the Roman Emperors PL 5
is unmistakable; 20 the most important public object was the prince's boar-
hunting; whoever interfered with it was put to death with torture; the
terrified people were forced to maintain 5,000 boar-hounds, with strict
responsibility for their health and safety. The taxes were extorted by every
conceivable sort of compulsion; seven daughters of the prince received a
dowry of 100,000 gold florins apiece; and an enormous treasure was collected.
On the death of his wife (1384) an order was issued e to the subjects' to share
his grief, as once they had shared his joy, and to wear mourning for a year.
The coup dc mam (1385) by which his nephew Giangaleazzo got him into
his power one of those brilliant plots which make the heart of even late
historians beat more quickly 21 was strikingly characteristic of the man.

In Giangaleazzo 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 golden 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. 22 It is not impossible, indeed, that he thought
of draining away the lagoons of Venice. He founded that most wonderful
of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia, 28 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. It would have been strange
indeed if a prince of this character had not also cherished the highest am-
bitions in political matters. King Wenceslaus made him Duke (1395); he His last

t plans

was hoping for nothing less than the Kingdom of Italy 24 or the Imperial
crown, when (1402) he fell ill and died. 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. After his
death the dominions which he had brought together by every sort of violence
fell to pieces; and for a time even the original nucleus could with difficulty
be maintained by his successors. What might have become of his sons Gio-
vanni Maria (died 1412) and Filippo Maria (died 1417), had they lived in a
different country and among other traditions, cannot be said. But, as heirs
of their house, they inherited that monstrous capital of cruelty and cowardice
which had been accumulated from generation to generation.

Giovanni Maria, too, is famed for his dogs, which were no longer, however,

g THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Giovanni usec | f or hunting, but f or tearing human bodies. Tradition has preserved their
names, like those of the bears of the Emperor Valentinian I. 25 In May, 1409,
when war was going on, and the starving populace cried to him in the streets,
Pace! Pace! he let loose his mercenaries upon them, and 200 lives were
sacrificed; under penalty of the gallows it was forbidden to utter the words
pace and guerra, and the priests were ordered, instead of dona nobis pacem,
to say tranqaillitatem! At last a band of conspirators took advantage of the
moment when Facino Cane, the chief Condottiere of the insane ruler, lay
ill at Pavia, and cut down Giovan Maria in the church of San Gottardo at
Milan; the dying Facino on the same day made his officers swear to stand
by the heir Filippo Maria, whom he himself urged his wife 26 to take for a
second husband. His wife, Beatrice di Tenda, followed his advice. We shall
have occasion to speak of Filippo Maria later on.

And in times like these Cola di Rienzi was dreaming of founding on the
rickety enthusiasm of the corrupt population of Rome a new state which
was to comprise all Italy. By the side of rulers such as those whom we have
described, he seems no better than a poor deluded fool.

Despots The despotisms of the fifteenth century show an altered character. Many
uth Century of the less important tyrants, and some of the greater, like the Scala and the
Carrara, had disappeared, while the more powerful ones, aggrandized by
conquest, had given to their systems each its characteristic development.
Naples for example received a fresh and stronger impulse from the new
Aragonese dynasty. A striking feature of this epoch is the attempt of the
Condottieri to found independent dynasties of their own. Facts and the
actual relations of things, apart from traditional estimates, are alone regarded;
talent and audacity win the great prizes. The petty despots, to secure a trust-
worthy support, begin to enter the service of the larger states, and become
themselves Condottieri, receiving in return for their services money and
impunity for their misdeeds, if not an increase of territory. All, whether
small or great, must exert themselves more, must act with greater caution
and calculation, and must learn to refrain from too wholesale barbarities;
only so much wrong is permitted by public opinion as is necessary for the
end in view, and this the impartial bystander certainly finds no fault with.
No trace is here visible of that half -religious loyalty by which the legitimate
princes of the West were supported; personal popularity is the nearest
approach we can find to it. Talent and calculation are the only means of
Contrast advancement. A character like that of Charles the Bold, which wore itself
the Bold out * n t ^ ie passionate pursuit of impracticable ends, was a riddle to the Italians.
'The Swiss were only peasants, and if they were all killed, that would be no

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART Q

satisfaction for the Burgundian nobles who might fall in the war. If the Duke

got possession of all Switzerland without a struggle, his income would not be

5,000 ducats the greater.* 27 The mediaeval features in the character of Charles,

his chivalrous aspirations and ideals, had long become unintelligible to the

Italians. The diplomatists of the South, when they saw him strike his officers

and yet keep them in his service, when he maltreated his troops to punish

them for a defeat, and then threw the blame on his counsellors in the presence

of the same troops, gave him up for lost. 28 Louis XI, on the other hand, whose

policy surpasses that of the Italian princes in their own style, and who was

an avowed admirer of Francesco Sf orza, must be placed in all that regards Pls - 2S 41

culture and refinement far below these rulers.

Good and evil lie strangely mixed together in the Italian States of the
fifteenth century. The personality of the ruler is so highly developed, often
of such deep significance, and so characteristic of the conditions and needs
of the time, that to form an adequate moral judgement on it is no easy task. 29

The foundation of the system was and remained illegitimate, and nothing ^rt^tSn
could remove the curse which rested upon it. The imperial approval or of the
investiture made no change in the matter, since the people attached little
weight to the fact, that the despot had bought a piece of parchment some-
where in foreign countries, or from some stranger passing through his terri-
tory. 30 If the Emperor had been good for anything so ran the logic of un-
critical common sense he would never have let the tyrant rise at all. Since
the Roman expedition of Charles IV, the emperors had done nothing more
in Italy than sanction a tyranny which had arisen without their help; they
could give it no other practical authority than what might flow from an
imperial charter. The whole conduct of Charles in Italy was a scandalous
political comedy. Matteo Villani 81 relates how the Visconti escorted him
round their territory, and at last out of it; how he went about like a hawker
selling his wares (privileges, etc.) for money; what a mean appearance he
made in Rome, and how at the end, without even drawing the sword, he
returned with replenished coffers across the Alps. 32 Sigismund came, on
the first occasion at least (1414), with the good intention of persuading
John XXIII to take part in his council; it was on that journey, when Pope
and Emperor were gazing from the lofty tower of Cremona on the panorama
of Lombardy, that their host, the tyrant Gabrino Fondolo, was seized with Pl> 77
the desire to throw them both over. On his second visit Sigismund came as
a mere adventurer; for more than half a year he remained shut up in Siena,
like a debtor in gaol, and only with difficulty, and at a later period, succeeded PI. ^29
in being crowned in Rome. And what can be thought of Frederick III? His "
journeys to Italy have the air of holiday-trips or pleasure-tours made at the
expense of those who wanted him to confirm their prerogatives, or whose

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Fl. 54

The Empire

and
Intervention

Pi. m

PL J3J

Illegitimate
Succession

vanity it flattered to entertain an emperor. The latter was the case with
Alfonso of Naples, who paid 150,000 florins for the honour of an imperial
visit. 83 At Ferrara, 84 on his second return from Rome (1469), Frederick spent
a whole day without leaving his chamber, distributing no less than eighty
titles; he created knights, counts, doctors, notaries counts, indeed, of
different degrees, as, for instance, counts palatine, counts with the right to
create doctors up to the number of five, counts with the right to legitimatize
bastards, to appoint notaries, and so forth. The Chancellor, however, ex-
pected in return for the patents in question a gratuity which was thought
excessive at Ferrara. 80 The opinion of Borso, himself created Duke of Modena
and Reggio in return for an annual payment of 4,000 gold florins, when his
imperial patron was distributing titles and diplomas to all the little court, is
not mentioned. The humanists, then the chief spokesmen of the age, were
divided in opinion according to their personal interests, while the Emperor
was greeted by some 80 of them with the conventional acclamations of the
poets of imperial Rome. Poggio 87 confessed that he no longer knew what
the coronation meant; in the old times only the victorious Imperator was
crowned, and then he was crowned with laurel.

With Maximilian I begins not only the general* intervention of foreign
nations, but a new imperial policy with regard to Italy. The first step the
investiture of Lodovico il Moro with the duchy of Milan and the exclusion
of his unhappy nephew was not of a kind to bear good fruits. According
to the modern theory of intervention, when two parties are tearing a country
to pieces, a third may step in and take its share, and on this principle the
empire acted. But right and justice were appealed to no longer. "When
Louis XII was expected in Genoa (1502), and the imperial eagle was removed
from the hall of the ducal palace and replaced by painted lilies, the historian
Senarega 88 asked what, after all, was the meaning of the eagle which so
many revolutions had spared, and what claims the empire had upon Genoa.
No one knew more about the matter than the old phrase that Genoa was a
camera imperil. In fact, nobody in Italy could give a clear answer to any such
questions. At length, when Charles V held Spain and the empire together,
he was able by means of Spanish forces to make good imperial claims; but
it is notorious that what he thereby gained turned to the profit, not of the
empire, but of the Spanish monarchy.

Closely connected with the political illegitimacy of the dynasties of the
fifteenth century, was the public indifference to legitimate birth, which to
foreigners for example, to Comines appeared so remarkable. The two
things went naturally together. In northern countries, as in Burgundy, the
illegitimate offspring were provided for by a distinct class of appanages, such
as bishoprics and the like; in Portugal an illegitimate line maintained itself on

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART IZ

the throne only by constant effort; in Italy, on the contrary, there no longer
esxisted a princely house where, even in the direct line of descent, bastards
were not patiently tolerated. The Aragonese monarchs of Naples belonged
to the illegitimate line, Aragon itself falling to the lot of the brother of
Alfonso L The great Frederick of Urbino was, perhaps, no Montef eltro at all. pts - 4 * r
When Pius II was on his way to the Congress of Mantua (1459), eight bastards
of the house of Este rode to meet him at Ferrara, among them the reigning
duke Borso himself and two illegitimate sons of his illegitimate brother and
predecessor Lionello. 89 The latter had also had a lawful wife, herself an
illegitimate daughter of Alfonso I of Naples by an African woman. 40 The
bastards were often admitted to the succession where the lawful children
were minors and the dangers of the situation were pressing; and a rule of
seniority became recognized, which took no account of pure or impure
birth. The fitness of the individual, his worth and his capacity, were of more
weight than all the laws and usages which prevailed elsewhere in the West.
It was the age, indeed, in which the sons of the Popes were founding dynasties.
In the sixteenth century, through the influence of foreign ideas and of the le
counter-reformation which then began, the whole question was judged more
strictly: Varchi discovers that the succession of the legitimate children c is
ordered by reason, and is the will of heaven from eternity.' 41 Cardinal Ippolito
de' Medici founded his claim to the lordship of Florence on the fact that
he was perhaps the fruit of a lawful marriage, and at all events son of a gentle-
woman, and not, like Duke Alessandro, of a servant girl. 42 At this time began
those morganatic marriages of affection which in the fifteenth century, on
grounds either of policy or morality, would have had no meaning at all.
But the highest and the most admired form of illegitimacy in the fifteenth Condottieri

. a* founders

century was presented by the Condottiere, who, whatever may have been of states
his origin, raised himself to the position of an independent ruler. At bottom, Pls -
the occupation of Lower Italy by the Normans in the eleventh century was
of this character. Such attempts now began to keep the peninsula in a con-
stant ferment.

It was possible for a Condottiere to obtain the lordship of a district even
without usurpation, in the case when his employer, through want of money
or troops, provided for him in this way; 45 under any circumstances the Con-
dottiere, even when he dismissed for the time the greater part of his forces,
needed a safe place where he could establish his winter quarters, and lay up
his stores and provisions. The first example of a captain thus portioned is pl -
John Hawkwood, who was invested by Gregory XI with the lordship of
Bagnacavallo and Cotignola. When with Alberigo da Barbiano Italian armies
and leaders appeared upon the scene, the chances of founding a principality,
or of increasing one already acquired, became more frequent. The first great

J2 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

bacchanalian outbreak of military ambition took place in the duchy of Milan
after the death of Giangaleazzo (1402). The policy of his two sons was
chiefly aimed at the destruction of the new despotisms founded by the Con-
dottieri; and from the greatest of them, Facino Cane, the house of Visconti
inherited, together with his widow, a long list of cities, and 400,000 golden
florins, not to speak of the soldiers of her first husband whom Beatrice di
Relation Tenda brought with her. 44 From henceforth that thoroughly immoral
relation between the governments and their Condottieri, which is charac-

vemtient ter * st * c ^ ^e fifteenth century, became more and more common. An old
story 48 one of those which are true and not true, everywhere and nowhere
describes it as follows: The citizens of a certain town (Siena seems to be
meant) had once an officer in their service who had freed them from foreign
aggression; daily they took counsel how to recompense him, and concluded
that no reward in their power was great enough, not even if they made him
lord of the city. At last one of them rose and said, 'Let us kill him and then
worship him as our patron saint/ And so they did, following the example
set by the Roman senate with Romulus. In fact, the Condottieri had reason
to fear none so much as their employers; if they were successful, they became
it. 74, 76 dangerous, and were put out of the way like Roberto Malatesta just after
the victory he had won for Sixtus IV (1482); if they failed, the vengeance
of the Venetians on Carmagnola 46 showed to what risks they were exposed
(1432)* It is characteristic of the moral aspect of the situation, that the Con-
dottieri had often to give their wives and children as hostages, and not-
withstanding this, neither felt nor inspired confidence. They must have been
heroes of abnegation, natures like Belisarius himself, not to be cankered by
hatred and bitterness; only the most perfect goodness could save them from
the most monstrous iniquity. No wonder then if we find them full of con-
tempt for all sacred things, cruel and treacherous to their fellows men who
cared nothing whether or no they died under the baa of the Church* At
the same time, and through the force of the same conditions, the genius and
capacity of many among them attained the highest conceivable development,
and won for them the admiring devotion of their followers; their armies
are the first in modern history in which the personal credit of the leader is
the one moving power. A brilliant example is shown in the life of Francesco
2S _s 3 Sforza; 47 no prejudice of birth could prevent him from winning and turning
to account when he needed it a boundless devotion from each individual
with whom he had to deal; it happened more than once that his enemies laid
down their arms at the sight of him, greeting him reverently with uncovered
heads, each honouring in him c the common father of the men-at-arms/ The
race of the Sforza has this special interest, that from the very beginning of
its history we seem able to trace its endeavours after the crown. 48 The f oun~

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART j-

dation of its fortune lay in the remarkable fruitfulness of the familiy; Fran-
cesco's father, Jacopo, himself a celebrated man, had twenty brothers and J ac p
sisters, all brought up roughly at Cotignola, near Faenza, amid the perils of
one of the endless Romagnole 'vendette' between their own house and that
of the Pasolini. The family dwelling was a mere arsenal and fortress; the
mother and daughters were as warlike as their kinsmen. In his thirteenth
year Jacopo ran away and fled to Panicale to the Papal Condottiere Boldrino
the man who even in death continued to lead his troops, the word of order
being given from the bannered tent in which the embalmed body lay, till
at last a fit leader was found to succeed him. Jacopo, when he had at length
made himself a name in the service of different Condottieri, sent for his
relations, and obtained through them the same advantages that a prince
derives from a numerous dynasty. It was these relations who kept the army
together when he lay a captive in the Castel delTUovo at Naples; his sister
took the royal envoys prisoners with her own hands, and saved him by this
reprisal from death. It was an indication of the breadth and the range of his
plans that in monetary affairs Jacopo was thoroughly trustworthy; even in His
his defeats he consequently found credit with the bankers. He habitually
protected the peasants against the licence of his troops, and reluctantly
destroyed or injured a conquered city. He gave his well-known mistress,
Lucia, the mother of Francesco, in marriage to another, in order to be free
for a princely alliance. Even the marriages of his relations were arranged on
a definite plan. He kept clear of the impious and profligate life of his con-
temporaries, and brought up his son Francesco to the three rules: 'Let other
men's wives alone; strike none of your followers, or, if you do, send the
injured man far away; don't ride a hard-mouthed horse, or one that drops
his shoe.' But his chief source of influence lay in the qualities, if not of a great
general, at least of a great soldier. His frame was powerful, and developed
by every kind of exercise; his peasant's face and frank manners won general
popularity; his memory was marvellous, and after the lapse of years could
recall the names of his followers, the number of their horses, and the amount
of their pay. His education was purely Italian: he devoted his leisure to the
study of history, and had Greek and Latin authors translated for his use. Francesco
Francesco, his still more famous son, set his mind from the first on founding Giacomo
a powerful state, and through brilliant generalship and a faithlessness which Piccmino
hesitated at nothing, got possession of the great city of Milan (1447 145)-
His example was contagious. ^Eneas Sylvius wrote about this time: 49
'In our change-loving Italy, where nothing stands firm, and where no
ancient dynasty exists, a servant can easily become a king.' One man in
particular, who styled himself 'the man of fortune,' filled the imagination
of the whole country: Giacomo Piccinino, the son of Niccol6. It was a

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Defeat of
Piccinino

PI. 3

Later enter-
prises of
Condottieri

burning question of the day if he, too, would succeed in founding a princely
house. The greater states had an obvious interest in hindering it, and even
Francesco Sforza thought it would be all the better if the list of self-made
sovereigns were not enlarged. But the troops and captains sent against him,
at the time, for instance, when he was aiming at the lordship of Siena,
recognized their interest in supporting him: 50 'If it were all over with him,
we should have to go back and plough our fields.' Even while besieging him
at Orbetello, they supplied him with provisions; and he got out of his
straits with honour. But at last fate overtook him. All Italy was betting on
the result, when (1465), after a visit to Sforza at Milan, he went to King
Ferrante at Naples. In spite of the pledges given, and of his high connections,
he was murdered in the Castel Nuovo. 51 Even the Condottieri, who had
obtained their dominions by inheritance, never felt themselves safe. When
Roberto Malatesta and Frederick of Urbino died on the same day (1482),
the one at Rome, the other at Bologna, it was found 63 that each had
recommended his state to the care of the other. Against a class of men who
themselves stuck at nothing, everything was held to be permissible. Francesco
Sforza, when quite young, had married a rich Calabrian heiress, Polissena
Russa, Countess of Montalto, who bore him a daughter; an aunt poisoned
both mother and child, and seized the inheritance. *

From the death of Piccinino onwards, the foundations of new States by
the Condottieri became a scandal not to be tolerated. The four great Powers,
Naples, Milan, the Papacy, and Venice, formed among themselves a political
equilibrium which refused to allow of any disturbance. In the States of the
Church, which swarmed with petty tyrants, who in part were, or had been,
Condottieri, the nephews of the Popes, since the time of Sixtus IV, mono-
polized the right to all such undertakings. But at the first sign of a political
crisis, the soldiers of fortune appeared again upon the scene. Under the
wretched administration of Innocent VIII it was near happening that a
certain Boccalino, who had formerly served in the Burgundian army, gave
himself and the town of Osimo, of which he was master, up to the Turkish
forces; 04 fortunately, through the intervention of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
he proved willing to be paid off, and took himself away. In the year 1495,
when the wars of Charles VIII had turned Italy upside down, the Condottiere
Vidovero, of Brescia, made trial of his strength: 58 he had already seized the
town of Cesena and murdered many of the nobles and the burghers; but
the citadel held out, and he was forced to withdraw. He then, at the head
of a band lent him by another scoundrel, Pandolf o Malatesta of Rimini, son
of the Roberto already spoken of, and Venetian Condottiere, wrested the
town of Castelnuovo from the Archbishop of Ravenna. The Venetians,
fearing that worse would follow, and urged also by the Pope, ordered Pan-

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART j -

dolfo, 'with the kindest intentions/ to take an opportunity of arresting his
good friend: the arrest was made, though e with great regret/ whereupon the
order came to bring the prisoner to the gallows. Pandolfo was considerate
enough to strangle him in prison, and then show his corpse to the people.
The last notable example of such usurpers is the famous Castellan of Musso,
who during the confusion in the Milanese territory which followed the battle
of Pa via (1525), improvised a sovereignty on the Lake of Como.

It may be said in general of the despotisms of the fifteenth century that the
greatest crimes are most frequent in the smallest states. In these, where the
family was numerous and all the members wished to live in a manner
befitting their rank, disputes respecting the inheritance were unavoidable.
Bernardo Varano of Camerino put (1434) two of his brothers to death, 58
wishing to divide their property among his sons. "Where the ruler of a single
town was distinguished by a wise, moderate, and humane government, and
by zeal for intellectual culture, he was generally a member of some great
family, or politically dependent on it. This was the case, for example, with
Alessandro Sforza, 57 Prince of Pesaro, brother of the great Francesco, and
stepfather of Frederick of Urbino (d. 1473). Prudent in administration, just
and affable in his rule, he enjoyed, after years of warfare, a tranquil reign,
collected a noble library, and passed his leisure in learned or religious con-
versation. A man of the same class was Giovanni II Bentivoglio of Bologna P i*.
(1462 1506), whose policy was determined by that of the Este and the
Sforza. What ferocity and bloodthirstiness is found, on the other hand,
among the Varani of Camerino, the Malatesta of Rimini, the Manfreddi of
Faenza, and above all among the Baglioni of Perugia. "We find a striking
picture of the events in the last-named family towards the close of the
fifteenth century, in the admirable historical narratives of Graziani and
Matarazzo. 58

The Baglioni were one of those families whose rule never took the shape

r of Perugia

of an avowed despotism. It was rather a leadership exercised by means of
their vast wealth and of their practical influence in the choice of public
officers. Within the family one man was recognized as head; but deep and
secret jealousy prevailed among the members of the different branches.
Opposed to the Baglioni stood another aristocratic party, led by the family
of the Oddi. In 1487 the city was turned into a camp, and the houses of
the leading citizens swarmed with bravos; scenes of violence were of daily
occurrence. At the burial of a German student, who had been assassinated,
two colleges took arms against one another; sometimes the bravos of the
different houses even joined battle in the public square. The complaints of
the merchants and artisans were vain; the Papal Governors and Nipoti held
their tongues, or took themselves off on the first opportunity. At last the

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Expulsion of oddi were forced to abandon Perugia, and the city became a beleaguered
fortress under the absolute despotism of the Baglioni, who used even the
cathedral as barracks. Plots and surprises were met with cruel vengeance; in
the year 1491, after 130 conspirators, who had forced their way into the
city, were killed and hung up at the Palazzo Comunale, thirty-five altars were
erected in the square, and for three days mass was performed and processions
held, to take away the curse which rested on the spot. A nephew of Inno-
cent VIII was in open day run through in the street. A nephew of Alexan-
der VI, who was sent to smooth matters over, was dismissed with public
contempt. All the while the two leaders of the ruling house, Guido and
Ridolfo, were holding frequent interviews with Suor Colomba of Rieti, a
Dominican nun of saintly reputation and miraculous powers, who under
penalty of some great disaster ordered them to make peace naturally in
vain. Nevertheless the chronicle takes the opportunity to point out the
devotion and piety of the better men in Perugia during this reign of terror.

pit. is*, is? When ' m *494 Charles VIII approached, the Baglioni from Perugia and the
exiles encamped in and near Assisi conducted the war with such ferocity,
that every house in the valley was levelled to the ground. The fields lay
untilled, the peasants were turned into plundering and murdering savages,
the fresh-grown bushes were filled with stags and wolves, and the beasts
grew fat on the bodies of the slain, on so-called 'Christian flesh/ When
PL m Alexander VI withdrew (1495) into Umbria before Charles VIII, then return-
ing from Naples, it occurred to him, when at Perugia, that he might now
intentions r i& himself of the Baglioni once for all; he proposed to Guido a festival or

of the Pope r r

tournament, or something else of the same kind, which would bring the
whole family together. Guido, however, was of opinion, 'that the most
impressive spectacle of all would be to see the whole military force of Perugia
collected in a body,' whereupon the Pope abandoned his project. Soon after,
the exiles made another attack, in which nothing but the personal heroism
of the Baglioni won them the victory. It was then that Simonetto Baglione,
a lad of scarcely eighteen, fought in the square with a handful of followers
against hundreds of the enemy: he fell at last with more than twenty wounds,
but recovered himself when Astorre Baglione came to his help, and mounting
on horseback in gilded armour with a falcon on his helmet, c like Mars in
bearing and in deeds, plunged into the struggle/

At that time Raphael, a boy of twelve years of age, was at school under
Pietro Perugino. The impressions of these days are perhaps immortalized in
the small, early pictures of St. Michael and St. George: something of them,
it may be, lives eternally in the great painting of St. Michael: and if Astorre
PI. 6i Baglione has anywhere f ound his apotheosis, it is in the figure of the heavenly
horseman in the Heliodorus.

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART !j

The opponents of the Baglioni were partly destroyed, partly scattered in
terror, and were henceforth incapable of another enterprise of the kind.
After a time a partial reconciliation took place, and some of the exiles were
allowed to return. But Perugia became none the safer or more tranquil: the
inward discord of the ruling family broke out in frightful excesses* An
opposition was formed against Guido and Ridolf o and their sons Gianpaolo,
Simonetto, Astorre, Gismondo, Gentile, Marcantonio and others, by two
great-nephews, Grifone and Carlo Barciglia; the latter of the two was also
nephew of Varano, Prince of Camerino, and brother-in-law of one of the
former exiles, leronimo della Penna. In vain did Simonetto, warned by
sinister presentiment, entreat his uncle on his knees to allow him to put
Penna to death: Guido refused. The plot ripened suddenly on the occasion blo Jj iacd
of the marriage of Astorre with Lavinia Colonna, at Midsummer 1500. The wedding

j . - in remgia

festival began and lasted several days amid gloomy forebodings, whose
deepening effect is admirably described by Matarazzo. Varano fed and
encouraged them with devilish ingenuity: he worked upon Grifone by the
prospect of undivided authority, and by stories of an imaginary intrigue of
his wife Zenobia with Gianpaolo. Finally each conspirator was provided with
a victim. (The Baglioni lived all of them in separate houses, mostly on the
site of the present castle.) Each received fifteen of the bravos at hand; the
remainder were set on the watch. In the night of July 15 the doors were
forced, and Guido, Astorre, Simonetto, and Gismondo were murdered; the
others succeeded in escaping.

As the corpse of Astorre lay by that of Simonetto in the street, the
spectators, c and especially the foreign students/ compared him to an ancient
Roman, so great and imposing did he seem. In the features of Simonetto
could still be traced the audacity and defiance which death itself had not
tamed. The victors went round among the friends of the family, and did
their best to recommend themselves; they found all in tears and preparing
to leave for the country. Meantime the escaped Baglioni collected forces
without the city, and on the following day forced their way in, Gianpaolo
at their head, and speedily found adherents among others whom Barciglia
had been threatening with death. When Grifone fell into their hands near
Sant* Ercolano, Gianpaolo handed him over for execution to his followers.
Barciglia and Penna fled to Varano, the chief author of the tragedy, at
Camerino; and in a moment, almost without loss, Gianpaolo became master
of the city.

Atalanta, the still young and beautiful mother of Grifone, who the day Atdwta
before had withdrawn to a country house with the latter's wife Zenobia and
two children of Gianpaolo, and more than once had repulsed her son with
a mother's curse, now returned with her daughter-in-law in search of the

2 Burckhardt

jg THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

dying man. All stood aside as the two women approached, each man shrink-
ing from being recognized as the slayer of Grifone, and dreading the male-
diction of the mother. But they were deceived: she herself besought her son
to pardon him who had dealt the fatal blow, and he died with her blessing.
The eyes of the crowd followed the two women reverently as they crossed
the square with blood-stained garments. It was Atalanta for whom Raphael
afterwards painted the world-famed 'Deposition,' with which she laid her
own maternal sorrows at the feet of a yet higher and holier suffering.

The cathedral, in the immediate neighbourhood of which the greater part
of this tragedy had been enacted, was washed with wine and consecrated
afresh. The triumphal arch, erected for the wedding, still remained standing,
painted with the deeds of Astorre and with the laudatory verses of the
narrator of these events, the worthy Matarazzo.

A legendary history, which is simply the reflection of these atrocities,
arose out of the early days of the Baglioni. All the members of this family
from the beginning were reported to have died an evil death twenty-seven
on one occasion together; their houses were said to have been once before
levelled to the ground, and the streets of Perugia paved with the bricks and
more of the same kind. Under Paul III the destruction of their palaces really
took place.

Recurrence or a t j me ^y seem to fa vt f orm ed g 00( i resolutions, to have brought

of the Curse y

their own party into order, and to have protected the public officials against
the arbitrary acts of the nobility. But the old curse broke out again like a
smouldering fire. In 1520 Gianpaolo was enticed to Rome under Leo X,
and there beheaded; one of his sons, Orazio, who ruled in Perugia for a
short time only, and by the most violent means, as the partisan of the Duke
of Urbino (himself threatened by the Pope), once more repeated in his own
family the horrors of the past. His uncle and three cousins were murdered,
whereupon the Duke sent him word that enough had been done. 80 His
brother, Malatesta Baglione, the Florentine general, has made himself im-
mortal by the treason of 1530; and Malatesta's son Ridolfo, the last of the
house, attained, by the murder of the legate and the public officers in the
year 1534, a brief but sanguinary authority.

The Here and there we meet with the names of the rulers of Rimini. Unscrupu-

of Rimmi lousness, impiety, military skill, and high culture, have been seldom so
Pis. 7,8 combined in one individual as in Sigismondo Malatesta (d. 1467). But the
accumulated crimes of such a family must at last outweigh all talent, how-
ever great, and drag the tyrant into the abyss. Pandolfo, Sigismondo's
nephew, who has been mentioned already, succeeded in holding his ground,
for the sole reason that the Venetians refused to abandon their Condottiere,
whatever guilt he might be chargeable with; when his subjects (1497), after

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART jn

ample provocation, 60 bombarded him in his castle at Rimini, and afterwards

allowed him to escape, a Venetian commissioner brought him back, stained

as he was with fratricide and every other abomination. Thirty years later

the Malatesta were penniless exiles. In the year 1527, as in the time of Csesar Decline of

Borgia, a sort of epidemic fell on the petty tyrants: few of them outlived

this date, and none to their own good. At Mirandola, which was governed

by insignificant princes of the house of Pico, lived in the year 1533 a poor

scholar, Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, who had fled from the sack of Rome to the

hospitable hearth of the aged Giovanni Francesco Pico, nephew of the famous

Giovanni; the discussions as to the sepulchral monument which the prince

was constructing for himself gave rise to a treatise, the dedication of which

bears the date of April in this year. The postscript is a sad one. 61 ' In October

of the same year the unhappy prince was attacked in the night and robbed

of life and throne by his brother's son; and I myself escaped narrowly, and

am now in the deepest misery/

A pseudo-despotism without characteristic features, such as Pandolfo Pandoifo
Petrucci exercised from the year 1490 in Siena, then torn by faction, is hardly of sicna
worth a closer consideration. Insignificant and malicious, he governed with
the help of a professor of jurisprudence and of an astrologer, and frightened
his people by an occasional murder. His pastime in the summer months was
to roll blocks of stone from the top of Monte Amiata, without caring what
or whom they hit. After succeeding, where the most prudent failed, in
escaping from the devices of Caesar Borgia, he died at last forsaken und
despised. His sons maintained a qualified supremacy for many years after-
wards.

In treating of the chief dynasties of Italy, it is convenient to discuss the The Ara e-
Aragonese, on account of its special character, apart from the rest. The feudal i n Naples
system, which from the days of the Normans had survived in the form of a
territorial supremacy of the Barons, gave a distinctive colour to the political
constitution of Naples; while elsewhere in Italy, excepting only in the
southern part of the ecclesiastical dominion, and in a few other districts,
a direct tenure of land prevailed, and no hereditary powers were permitted
by the law. The great Alfonso, who reigned in Naples from 1435 onwards
(d. 1458), was a man of another kind than his real or alleged descendants.
Brilliant in his whole existence, fearless in mixing with his people, dignified
and affable in intercourse, admired rather than blamed even for his old man's
passion for Lucrezia d'Alagna, he had the one bad quality of extravagance, 62
from which, however, the natural consequence followed. Unscrupulous
financiers were long omnipotent at Court, till the bankrupt king robbed
them of their spoils; a crusade was preached, as a pretext for taxing the
clergy; when a great earthquake happened in the Abruzzi, the survivors

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Fcrrante

His extreme
measures

Alfonso of
Calabria

were compelled to make good the contributions of the dead. By such means
Alfonso was able to entertain distinguished guests with unrivalled splendour;
he found pleasure in ceaseless expense, even for the benefit of his enemies,
and in rewarding literary work knew absolutely no measure. Poggio received
500 pieces of gold for translating Xenophon's 'Cyropaedeia/

Ferrante, 08 who succeeded him, passed as his illegitimate son by a Spanish
lady, but was not improbably the son of a half-caste Moor of Valencia.
Whether it was his blood or the plots formed against his life by the barons
which embittered and darkened his nature, it is certain that he was equalled
in ferocity by none among the princes of his time. Restlessly active, recog-
nized as one of the most powerful political minds of the day, and free from
the vices of the profligate, he concentrated all his powers, among which must
be reckoned profound dissimulation and an irreconcilable spirit of ven-
geance, on the destruction of his opponents. He had been wounded in every
point in which a ruler is open to offence; for the leaders of the barons, though
related to him by marriage, were yet the allies of his foreign enemies. Extreme
measures became part of his daily policy. The means for this struggle with
his barons, and for his external wars, were exacted in the same Mohammedan
fashion which Frederick II had introduced: the Government alone dealt in
oil and corn; the whole commerce of the country was put by Ferrante into
the hands of a wealthy merchant, Francesco Coppola, who had entire control
of the anchorage on the coast, and shared the profits with the King. Deficits
were made up by forced loans, by executions and confiscations, by open
simony, and by contributions levied on the ecclesiastical corporations. Besides
hunting, which he practised regardless of all rights of property, his pleasures
were of two kinds: he liked to have his opponents near him, either alive in
well-guarded prisons, or dead and embalmed, dressed in the costume which
they wore in their lifetime. 8 * He would chuckle in talking of the captives
with his friends, and made no secret whatever of the museum of mummies.
His victims were mostly men whom he had got into his power by treachery;
some were even seized while guests at the royal table. His conduct to his
first minister, Antonello Petrucci, who had grown sick and grey in his ser-
vice, and from whose increasing fear of death he extorted present after
present, was literally devilish. At length the suspicion of complicity with
the last conspiracy of the barons gave the pretext for his arrest and execution.
"With him died Coppola. The way in which all this is narrated in Caracciolo
and Porzio makes one's hair stand on end. The elder of the King's sons,
Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, enjoyed in later years a kind of co-regency with
his father. He was a savage, brutal profligate, who in point of frankness alone
had the advantage of Ferrante, and who openly avowed his contempt for
religion and its usages. The better and nobler features of the Italian despotisms

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 2J

are not to be found among the princes of this line; all that they possessed
of the art and culture of their time served the purposes of luxury or display.
Even the genuine Spaniards seem to have almost always degenerated in Italy;
but the end of this cross-bred house (1494 and 1503) gives clear proof of
a want of blood. Ferrante died of mental care and trouble; Alfonso accused
his brother Federigo, the only honest member of the family, of treason, and
insulted him in the vilest manner. At length, though he had hitherto passed
for one of the ablest generals in Italy, he lost his head and fled to Sicily,
leaving his son, the younger Ferrante, a prey to the French and to domestic
treason. A dynasty which had ruled as this had done must at least have sold
its life dear, if its children were ever to hope for a restoration. But, as Comines
one-sidedly, and yet on the whole rightly observes on this occasion, 'Jamais
homme cruel ne fui hardi*

The despotism of the Dukes of Milan, whose government from the time T l ie las *
of Giangaleazzo onwards was an absolute monarchy of the most thorough- ^^ *
going sort, shows the genuine Italian character of the fifteenth century.
The last of the Visconti, Filippo Maria (14121447), is a character of
peculiar interest, and of which fortunately an admirable description 65 has
been left us. "What a man of uncommon gifts and high position can be made
by the passion of fear, is here shown with what may be called a mathematical
completeness. All the resources of the State were devoted to the one end of
securing his personal safety, though happily his cruel egotism did not de-
generate into a purposeless thirst for blood. He lived in the Citadel of Milan,
surrounded by magnificent gardens, arbours, and lawns. For years he never
set foot in the city, making his excursions only in the country, where lay
several of his splendid castles.; the flotilla which, drawn by the swiftest horses,
conducted him to them along canals constructed for the purpose, was so
arranged as to allow of the application of the most rigorous etiquette.
Whoever entered the citadel was watched by a hundred eyes; it was for-
bidden even to stand at the window, lest signs should be given to those
without. All who were admitted among the personal followers of the Prince
were subjected to a series of the strictest examinations; then, once accepted,
were charged with the highest diplomatic commissions, as well as with the
humblest personal services both in this Court being alike honourable. And
this was the man who conducted long and difficult wars, who dealt habitually
with political affairs of the first importance, and every day sent his plenipoten-
tiaries to all parts of Italy. His safety lay in the fact that none of his servants
trusted the others, that his Condottieri were watched and misled by spies,
and that the ambassadors and higher officials were baffled and kept apart by

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Sforza
PL 41

artificially nourished jealousies, and in particular by the device of coupling
an honest man with a knave. His inward faith, too, rested upon opposed and
contradictory systems; he believed in blind necessity, and in the influence of
the stars, and offering prayers at one and the same time to helpers of every
sort; he was a student of the ancient authors, as well as of French tales of
chivalry. And yet the same man, who would never suffer death to be
mentioned in his presence, 66 and caused his dying favourites to be removed
from the castle, that no shadow might fall on. the abode of happiness, de-
liberately hastened his own death by closing up a wound, and, refusing to
be bled, died at last with dignity and grace.

Francesco HJ S son-in-law and successor, the fortunate Condottiere Francesco Sforza
(14501466, see p. 12), was perhaps of all the Italians of the fifteenth cen-
tury the man most after the heart of his age. Never was the triumph of
genius and individual power more brilliantly displayed than in him; and those
who would not recognize his merit were at least forced to wonder at him as
the spoilt child of fortune. The Milanese claimed it openly as an honour to
be governed by so distinguished a master; when he entered the city the
thronging populace bore him on horseback into the cathedral, without giving
him the chance to dismount. 67 Let us listen to the balance-sheet of his life,
Hi good in the estimate of Pope Pius II, a judge in such matters: 68 *In the year 1459,
fortune ^^ ^ ^^ ^^ ^ ^ congres$ at Mantua, he was 60 (really 58) years

old; on horseback he looked like a young man; of a lofty and imposing figure,
with serious features, calm and affable in conversation, princely in his whole
bearing, with a combination of bodily and intellectual gifts unrivalled in our
time, unconquered on the field of battle such was the man who raised
himself from a humble position to the control of an empire. His wife was
beautiful and virtuous, his children were like the angels of heaven; he was
seldom ill, and all his chief wishes were fulfilled. And yet he was not without
misfortune. His wife, out of jealousy, killed his mistress; his old comrades
and friends, Troilo and Brunoro, abandoned him and went over to King
Alfonso; another, Ciarpollone, he was forced to hang for treason; he had to
suffer it that his brother Alessandro set the French upon him; one of his
sons formed intrigues against him, and was imprisoned; the March of Ancona,
which he had won in war, he lost again in the same way. No man enjoys so
unclouded a fortune, that he has not somewhere to struggle with adversity.
He is happy who has but few troubles/ With this negative definition of
happiness the learned Pope dismisses the reader. Had he been able to see into
the future, or been willing to stop and discuss the consequences of an
uncontrolled despotism, one pervading fact would not have escaped his
noticethe absence of all guarantee for the future. Those children, beautiful
as angels, carefully and thoroughly educated as they were, fell victims, when

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 2 ,

they grew up, to the corruption of a measureless egotism. Galeazzo Maria Galea22
(1466 1476), solicitous only of outward effect, took pride in the beauty of Pif zs
his hands, in the high salaries he paid, in the financial credit he enjoyed, in
his treasure of two million pieces of gold, in the distinguished people who
surrounded him, and in the army and birds of chase which he maintained.
He was fond of the sound of his own voice, and spoke well, most fluently,
perhaps, when he had the chance of insulting a Venetian ambassador. 89 He
was subject to caprices, such as having a room painted with figures in a single
night; and, what was worse, to fits of senseless debauchery and of revolting
cruelty to his nearest friends. To a handful of enthusiasts, he seemed a tyrant
too bad to live; they murdered him, and thereby delivered the State into the
power of his brothers, one of whom, Lodovico il Moro, threw his nephew
into prison, and took the government into his own hands. From this usur-
pation followed the French intervention, and the disasters which befell the
whole of Italy.

The Moor is the most perfect type of the despot of that age, and, as a Lodovico
kind of natural product, almost disarms our moral judgement. Notwithstand- Pls 24 __ 27
ing the profound immorality of the means he employed, he used them with
perfect ingenuousness; no one would probably have been more astonished
than himself to learn that for the choice of means as well as of ends a human
being is morally responsible; he would rather have reckoned it as a singular
virtue that, so far as possible, he had abstained from too free a use of the
punishment of death. He accepted as no more than his due the almost fabulous
respect of the Italians for his political genius. 70 In 1496 he boasted that the
Pope Alexander was his chaplain, the Emperor Maximilian his Condottiere,
Venice his chamberlain, and the King of France his courier, who must come
and go at his bidding. 71 With marvellous presence of mind he weighed, even
in his last extremity (1499), all possible means of escape, and at length decided,
to his honour, to trust to the goodness of human nature; he rejected the
proposal of his brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, who wished to remain in the
Citadel of Milan, on the ground of a former quarrel: 'Monsignore, take it
not ill, but I trust you not, brother though you be'; and appointed to the
command of the castle, 'that pledge of his return,' a man to whom he had
always done good, but who nevertheless betrayed him. 72 At home the Moor internal
was a good and useful ruler, and to the last he reckoned on his popularity Government
both in Milan and in Como. In later years (after 1496) he had overstrained
the resources of his State, and at Cremona had ordered, out of pure ex-
pediency, a respectable citizen, who had spoken against the new taxes, to be
quietly strangled. Since that time, in holding audiences, he kept his visitors
away from his person by means of a bar, so that in conversing with him
they were compelled to speak at the top of their voices. 78 At his court, the

24 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

most brilliant in Europe, since that of Burgundy had ceased to exist, im-
morality of the worst kind was prevalent: the daughter was sold by the
father, the wife by the husband, the sister by the brother. 7 * The Prince
himself was incessantly active, and, as son of his own deeds, claimed relation-
ship with all who, like himself, stood on their personal merits with scholars,
poets, artists, and musicians. The academy which he founded 715 served rather
for his own purposes than for the instruction of scholars; nor was it the
fame of the distinguished men who surrounded him which he heeded, so
much as their society and their services. It is certain that Bramante was

PL 408 scantily paid at first; 78 Leonardo, on the other hand, was up to 1496 suitably
remunerated and besides, what kept him at the court, if not his own free
will? The world lay open to him, as perhaps to no other mortal man of that
day; and if proof were wanting of the loftier element in the nature of
Lodovico il Moro, it is found in the long stay of the enigmatic master at his
court. That afterwards Leonardo entered the service of Cxsa,r Borgia and
Francis I was probably due to the interest he felt in the unusual and striking
character of the two men*
^Sfona* ^ ter ^ * a ^ * ^ Moor, his sons were badly brought up among strangers,

PI. sa The elder, Massimiliano, had no resemblance to him; the younger, Francesco*
was at all events not without spirit. Milan, which in those years changed its
rulers so often, and suffered so unspeakably in the change, endeavoured to
secure itself against a reaction. In the year 1512 the French, retreating before
the arms of Maximilian and the Spaniards, were induced to make a declaration
that the Milanese had taken no part in their expulsion, and, without being
guilty of rebellion, might yield themselves to a new conqueror. 77 It is a fact
of some political importance that in such moments of transition the unhappy
city, like Naples at the flight of the Aragonese, was apt to fall a prey to
gangs of (often highly aristocratic) scoundrels.
Th , e w nzafifa The house of Gonsaga at Mantua and that of Montef eltro of Urbino were

of Mantua

PL 35 among the best ordered and richest in men of ability during the second half
of the fifteenth century. The Gonzaga were a tolerably harmonious family;
for a long period no murder had been known among them, and their dead
could be shown to the world without fear. The Marquis Francesco Gonzaga 78
Ph. $9.18.20 anc [ l^ W ;f 6j Isabella of Este, in spite of some few irregularities, were a united
and respectable couple, and brought up their sons to be successful and re-
markable men at a time when their small but most important State was
exposed to incessant danger. That Francesco, either as statesman or as soldier,
should adopt a policy of exceptional honesty, was what neither the Emperor,
nor Venice, nor the King of France could have expected or desired; but
certainly since the battle of the Taro (1495), so far as military honour was
concerned, he felt and acted as an Italian patriot, and imparted the same

Federigo

of Urbino

PI. 56

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 2 ,

spirit to his wife. Every deed of loyalty and heroism, such as the defence of

Faenza against Caesar Borgia, she felt as a vindication of the honour of Italy.

Our judgement of her does not need to rest on the praises of the artists and

writers who made the fair princess a rich return for her patronage; her own

letters show her to us as a woman of unshaken firmness, full of kindliness

and humorous observation. Bembo, Bandello, Ariosto, and Bernardo Tasso Pl *. 246, 252

sent their works to this court, small and powerless as it was, and empty as

they found its treasury. A more polished and charming circle was not to be

seen in Italy, since the dissolution (1508) of the old Court of Urbino; and

in one respect, in freedom of movement, the society of Ferrara was inferior

to that of Mantua. In artistic matters Isabella had an accurate knowledge,

and the catalogue of her small but choice collection can be read by no lover

of art without emotion.

In the great Federigo (1444 1482), whether he were a genuine Monte-
feltro or not, Urbino possessed a brilliant representative of the princely
order. As a Condottiere he shared the political morality of soldiers of fortune,
a morality of which the fault does not rest with them alone; as ruler of his
little territory he adopted the plan of spending at home the money he had
earned abroad, and taxing his people as lightly as possible. Of him and his
two successors, Guidobaldo and Francesco Maria, we read: 'They erected
buildings, furthered the cultivation of the land, lived at home, and gave
employment to a large number of people: their subjects loved them. 379 But
not only the state, but the court too, was a work of art and organization,
and this in every sense of the word. Federigo had 500 persons in his service;
the arrangements of the court were as complete as in the capitals of the
greatest monarchs, but nothing was wasted; all had its object, and all was
carefully watched and controlled. The court was no scene of vice and
dissipation: it served as a school of military education for the sons of other
great houses, the thoroughness of whose culture and instruction was made a
point of honour by the Duke. The palace which he built, if not one of the
most splendid, was classical in the perfection of its plan; there was placed the
greatest of his treasures, the celebrated library. Feeling secure in a land where
all gained profit or employment from his rule, and where none were beggars,
he habitually went unarmed and almost unaccompanied; alone among the
princes of his time he ventured to walk in an open park, and to take his
frugal meals in an open chamber, while Livy, or in time of fasting some
devotional work, was read to him. In the course of the same afternoon he
would listen to a lecture on some classical subject, and thence would go to
the monastery of the Clarisses and talk of sacred things through the grating
with the abbess. In the evening he would overlook the martial exercises of
the young people of his court on the meadow of San Francesco, known for

PI. 59

The model
Court

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Guidobaldo

PI. S3

PI. S48

PI, 60

The Estc in
Ferrara
Family
tragedies

PL 2

Finance

its magnificent view, and saw to it well that all the feats were done in the
most perfect manner. He strove always to be affable and accessible to the
utmost degree, visiting the artisans who worked for him in their shops,
holding frequent audiences, and, if possible, attending to the requests of each
individual on the same day that they were presented. No wonder that the
people, as he walked along the street, knelt down and cried: 'Dio ti mantenga,
signore!' He was called by thinking people 'the light of Italy.' 80 His gifted
son Guidobaldo, visited by sickness and misfortune of every kind, was able
at the last (i 508) to give his state into the safe hands of his nephew Francesco
Maria (nephew also of Pope Julius II), who, at least, succeeded in preserving
the territory from any permanent foreign occupation. It is remarkable with
what confidence Guidobaldo yielded and fled before Caesar Borgia and
Francesco before the troops of Leo X; each knew that his restoration would
be all the easier and the more popular the less the country suffered through
a fruitless defence. When Lodovico made the same calculation at Milan, he
forgot the many grounds of hatred which existed against him. The court of
Guidobaldo has been made immortal as the high school of polished manners
by Baldassare Castiglione, who represented his eclogue Thyrsis before, and
in honour of that society (1506), and who afterwards (iji8) laid the scene
of the dialogue of his 'Cortigiano' in the circle of the accomplished Duchess
Elisabetta Gonzaga.

The government of the family of Este at Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio
displays curious contrasts of violence and popularity. 81 Within the palace
frightful deeds were perpetrated; a princess was beheaded (1425) for alleged
adultery with a step-son; legitimate and illegitimate children fled from the
court, and even abroad their lives were threatened by assassins sent in pursuit
of them (1471). Plots from without were incessant; the bastard of a bastard
tried to wrest the crown from the lawful heir, Hercules I: this latter is said
afterwards (1493) to have poisoned his wife on discovering that she, at the
instigation of her brother Ferrante of Naples, was going to poison him. This
list of tragedies is closed by the plot of two bastards against their brothers,
the ruling Duke Alfonso I and the Cardinal Ippolito (1506), which was
discovered in time, and punished with imprisonment for life. The financial
system in this State was of the most perfect kind, and necessarily so, since
none of the large or second-rate powers of Italy were exposed to such danger
and stood in such constant need of armaments and fortifications. It was the
hope of the rulers that the increasing prosperity of the people would keep
pace with the increasing weight of taxation, and the Marquis Niccol6
(d. 1441) used to express the wish that his subjects might be richer than the
people of other countries. If the rapid increase of the population be a measure
of the prosperity actually attained, it is certainly a fact of importance that in

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 27

the year 1497, notwithstanding the wonderful extension of the capital, no
houses were to be let. 82 Ferrara is the first really modern city in Europe;
large and well-built quarters sprang up at the bidding of the ruler: here, by
the concentration of the official classes and the active promotion of trade,
was formed for the first time a true capital; wealthy fugitives from all parts
of Italy, Florentines especially, settled and built their palaces at Ferrara. But
the indirect taxation, at all events, must have reached a point at which it
could only just be borne. The Government, it is true, took measures of
alleviation which were also adopted by other Italian despots, such as Galeazzo
Maria Sforza: in time of famine corn was brought from a distance and seems
to have been distributed gratuitously; 83 but in ordinary times it compensated
itself by the monopoly, if not of corn, of many other of the necessaries of
life fish, salt, meat, fruit, and vegetables, which last were carefully planted
on and near the walls of the city. The most considerable source of income,
however, was the annual sale of public offices, a usage which was common s *! e of

offices

throughout Italy, and about the working of which at Ferrara we have more
precise information. We read, for example, that at the new year ijoz the
majority of the officials bought their places at 'prezzi salati'; public servants
of the most various kinds, custom-house officers, bailiffs (massari), notaries,
c podesta,' judges, and even captains, i.e. lieutenant-governors of provincial
towns, are quoted by name. As one of the c devour ers of the people* who
paid dearly for their places, and who were 'hated worse than the devil,'
Tito Strozza let us hope not the famous Latin poet is mentioned. About
the same time every year the dukes were accustomed to make a round of
visits in Ferrara, the so called c andar per ventura/ in which they took presents
from, at any rate, the more wealthy citizens. The gifts, however, did not
consist of money, but of natural products.

It was the pride of the duke 84 for all Italy to know that at Ferrara the O rdcr an <*

. Punctuality

soldiers received their pay and the professors of the University their salary
not a day later than it was due; that the soldiers never dared lay arbitrary
hands on citizen or peasant; that the town was impregnable to assault; and
that vast sums of coined money were stored up in the citadel. To keep two
sets of accounts seemed unnecessary; the Minister of Finance was at the same
time manager of the ducal household. The buildings erected by Borso
(1430 1471), by Hercules I (till 1505), and by Alfonso I (till 1534), were PI*, isis,
very numerous, but of small size: they are characteristic of a princely house
which, with all its love of splendour Borso never appeared but in embroidery
and jewels indulged in no ill-considered expense. Alfonso may perhaps have
foreseen the fate which was in store for his charming little villas, the Belvedere
with its shady gardens, and Montana with its fountains and beautiful frescoes. Devel P ment
It is undeniable that the dangers to which these princes were constantly Personality

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

exposed developed in them capacities of a remarkable kind. In so artificial
a world only a man of consummate address could hope to succeed; each
candidate for distinction was forced to make good his claims by personal
merit and show himself worthy of the crown he sought. Their characters
are not without dark sides; but in all of them lives something of those
qualities which Italy then pursued as its ideal. "What European monarch of
PI. is the time so laboured for his own culture as, for instance, Alfonso I? His
travels in France, England, and the Netherlands were undertaken for the
purpose of study: by means of them he gained an accurate knowledge of the
industry and commerce of these countries. 85 It is ridiculous to reproach him
with the turner's work which he practised in his leisure hours, connected

?i$. 92, 404 as it was with his skill in the casting of cannon, and with the unprejudiced
freedom with which he surrounded himself by masters of every art. The
Italian princes were not, like their contemporaries in the North, depen-
dent on the society of an aristocracy which held itself to be the only class
worth consideration, and which infected the monarch with the same conceit.
In Italy the prince was permitted and compelled to know and to use men
of every grade in society; and the nobility, though by birth a caste, were
forced in social intercourse to stand upon their personal qualifications alone.
But this is a point which we shall discuss more fully in the sequel.

Loyalty ^he feeling of the Ferrarese towards the ruling house was a strange com-
pound of silent dread, of the truly Italian sense of well-calculated interest,
and of the loyalty of the modern subject: personal admiration was trans-
formed into a new sentiment of duty. The city of Ferrara raised in 1451
a bronze equestrian statue to their Prince Niccol6, who had died ten years
earlier; Borso (1454) did not scruple to place his own statue, also of bronze,
but in a sitting posture, hard by in the market; in addition to which the city,
at the beginning of his reign, decreed to him a * marble triumphal pillar**
A citizen, who, when abroad in Venice, had spoken ill of Borso in public,
was informed against on his return home, and condemned to banishment
and the confiscation of his goods; a loyal subject was with difficulty restrained
from cutting him down before the tribunal itself, and with a rope round

Police and j^ nec k the offender went to the duke and begged for a full pardon. The

Control of

officials government was well provided with spies, and the duke inspected personally
the daily list of travellers which the innkeepers were strictly ordered to
present. Under Borso, 86 who was anxious to leave no distinguished stranger
unhonoured, this regulation sqrved a hospitable purpose; Hercules I 87 used
it simply as a measure of precaution. In Bologna, too, it was then the rule,
under Giovanni n Bentivoglio, that every passing traveller who entered
at one gate must obtain a ticket in order to go out at another. 88 An unfailing
means of popularity was the sudden dismissal of oppressive officials. When

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 2 o

Borso arrested in person his chief and confidential counsellors, when Her-
cules I removed and disgraced a tax-gatherer, who for years had been sucking
the blood of the people, bonfires were lighted and the bells were pealed in
their honour. With one of his servants, however, Hercules let things go too
far. The director of the police, or by whatever name we should choose to
call him (Capitano di Giustizia), was Gregorio Zampante of Lucca a native
being unsuited for an office of this kind. Even the sons and brothers of the
duke trembled before this man; the fines he inflicted amounted to hundreds
and thousands of ducats, and torture was applied even before the hearing
of a case: bribes were accepted from wealthy criminals, and their pardon
obtained from the duke by false representations. Gladly would the people
have paid any sum to this ruler for sending away the c enemy of God and
man/ But Hercules had knighted him and made him godfather to his
children; and year by year Zampante laid by 2,000 ducats. He dared only
eat pigeons bred in his own house, and could not cross the street without
a band of archers and bravos. It was time to get rid of him; in 1496 two
students and a converted Jew whom he had mortally offended, killed him
in his house while taking his siesta, and then rode through the town on horses
held in waiting, raising the cry, c Come out! come out! we have slain Zam-
pante!' The pursuers came too late, and found them already safe across the
frontier. Of course it now rained satires some of them in the form of
sonnets, others of odes.

It was wholly in the spirit of this system that the sovereign imposed his
own respect for useful servants on the court and on the people. When in with the
1469 Borso's privy councillor Lodovico Casella died, no court of law or rm
place of business in the city, and no lecture-room at the University, was
allowed to be open: all had to follow the body to San Domenico, since the
duke intended to be present. And, in fact, 'the first of the house of Este
who attended the corpse of a subject* walked, clad in black, after the coffin,
weeping, while behind him came the relatives of Casella, each conducted
by one of the gentlemen of the Court: the body of the plain citizen was
carried by nobles from the church into the cloister, where it was buried.
Indeed this official sympathy with princely emotion first came up in the
Italian States. 89 At the root of the practice may be a beautiful, humane sen-
timent; the utterance of it, especially in the poets, is, as a rule, of equivocal
sincerity. One of the youthful poems of Ariosto, 90 on the Death of Leonora
of Aragon, wife of Hercules I, contains besides the inevitable graveyard
flowers, which are scattered in the elegies of all ages, some thoroughly modern
features: 'This death had given Ferrara a blow which it would not get over
for years: its benefactress was now its advocate in heaven, since earth was
not worthy of her; truly, the angel of Death did not come to her, as to us

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Celebration
of princely
love-affairs

PI. 227
PL 230

Pomp of
the Eatc

common mortals, with blood-stained scythe, but fair to behold (onesta), and
with so kind a face that every fear was allayed/ But we meet, also, with a
sympathy of a different kind. Novelists, depending wholly on the favour of
their patrons, tell us the love-stories of the prince, even before his death, 91
in a way which, to later times, would seem the height of indiscretion, but
which then passed simply as an innocent compliment. Lyrical poets even
went so far as to sing the illicit flames of their lawfully married lords, e.g.
Angelo Poliziano, those of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Gioviano Pontano,
with a singular gusto, those of Alfonso of Calabria. The poem in question 02
betrays unconsciously the odious disposition of the Aragonese ruler; in these
things too, he must needs be the most fortunate, else woe be to those who are
more successful! That the greatest artists, for example Leonardo, should
paint the mistresses of their patrons was no more than a matter of course.
But the house of Este was not satisfied with the praises of others; it under-
took to celebrate them itself. In the Palazzo Schif anoia Borso caused himself
to be painted in a series of historical representations, and Hercules (from
1472 on) kept the anniversary of his accession to the throne by a procession
which was compared to the feast of Corpus Christi; shops were closed as on
Sunday; in the centre of the line walked all the members of the princely
house (bastards included) clad in embroidered robes. That the crown was
the fountain of honour and authority, that all personal distinction flowed
from it alone, had been long 08 expressed at this court by the Order of the
Golden Spur an order which had nothing in common with medieval
chivalry. Hercules I added to the spur a sword, a gold-laced mantle, and a
grant of money, in return for which there is no doubt that regular service
was required.

The patronage of art and letters for which this court has obtained a world-
wide reputation, was exercised through the University, which was one of
the most perfect in Italy, and by the gift of places in the personal or official
service of the prince; it involved consequently no additional expense. Boiardo,
as a wealthy country gentleman and high official, belonged to this class. At
the time when Ariosto began to distinguish himself, there existed no court,
in the true sense of the word, either at Milan or Florence, and soon there
was none either at Urbino or at Naples. He had to content himself with
Ph. 357, 358 a place among the musicians and jugglers of Cardinal Ippolito till Alfonso
took him into his service. It was otherwise at a later time with Torquato
Tasso, whose presence at court was jealously sought after.

Patronage

PI. $62

*k" **

partie

In face of this centralized authority, all legal opposition within the borders
of the state was futile. The elements needed for the restoration of a republic

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 2 Z

had been for ever destroyed, and the field prepared for violence and

despotism. The nobles, destitute of political rights, even where they held

feudal possessions, might call themselves Guelphs or Ghibellines at will,

might dress up their bravos in padded hose and feathered caps 94 or how else

they pleased; thoughtful men like Machiavelli 95 knew well enough that Milan PI. 234

and Naples were too 'corrupt' for a republic. Strange judgements fall on

these two so-called parties, which now served only to give an official sanction

to personal and family disputes. An Italian prince, whom Agrippa of Nettes-

heim 96 advised to put them down, replied that their quarrels brought him

in more than 12,000 ducats a year in fines. And when in the year 1 500, during

the brief return of Lodovico il Moro to his States, the Guelphs of Tortona

summoned a part of the neighbouring French army into the city, in order

to make an end once for all of their opponents, the French certainly began

by plundering and ruining the Ghibellines, but finished by doing the same

to the Guelphs, till Tortona was utterly laid waste. 97 In Romagna, the hotbed

of every ferocious passion, these two names had long lost all political meaning.

It was a sign of the political delusion of the people that they not seldom

believed the Guelphs to be the natural allies of the French and the Ghibellines

of the Spaniards. It is hard to see that those who tried to profit by this error

got much by doing so. France, after all her interventions, had to abandon

the peninsula at last, and what became of Spain, after she had destroyed Italy,

is known to every reader.

But to return to the despots of the Renaissance. A pure and simple mind, Conspiracies
we might think, would perhaps have argued that, since all power is derived
from God, these princes, if they were loyally and honestly supported by all
their subjects, must in time themselves improve and lose all traces of their
violent origin. But from characters and imaginations inflamed by passion and
ambition, reasoning of this kind could not be expected. Like bad physicians,
they thought to cure the disease by removing the symptoms, and fancied
that if the tyrant were put to death, freedom would follow of itself. Or else,
without reflecting even to this extent, they sought only to give a vent to
the universal hatred, or to take vengeance for some family misfortune or
personal affront. Since the governments were absolute, and free from all
legal restraints, the opposition chose its weapons with equal freedom.
Boccaccio declares openly: 98 c Shall I call the tyrant king or prince, and obey
him loyally as my lord? No, for he is the enemy of the commonwealth.
Against him I may use arms, conspiracies, spies, ambushes and fraud; to do
so is a sacred and necessary work. There is no more acceptable sacrifice than
the blood of a tyrant/ "We need not occupy ourselves with individual cases;
Machiavelli, 99 in a famous chapter of his 'Discorsi/ treats of the conspiracies
of ancient and modern times from the days of the Greek tyrants downwards,

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

Murders in
Churches

Influence of
Antiquity

The Patron
Saint

and classifies them with cold-blooded indifference according to their various
plans and results. We need make but two observations, first on the murders
committed in church, and next on the influence of classical antiquity. So
well was the tyrant guarded that it was almost impossible to lay hands upon
him elsewhere than at solemn religious services; and on no other occasion
was the whole family to be found assembled together. It was thus that the
Fabrianese 100 murdered (1435) the members of their ruling house, the Chia-
velli, during high mass, the signal being given by the words of the Creed,
*Et incarnatus est.' At Milan the Duke Giovan Maria Visconti (1412) was
assassinated at the entrance of the church of San Gottardo, Galeazzo Maria
Sforza (1476) in the church of Santo Stefano, and Lodovico il Moro only
escaped (1484) the daggers of the adherents of the widowed Duchess Bona,
through entering the church of Sant'Ambrogio by another door than that
by which he was expected. There was no intentional impiety in the act; the
assassins of Galeazzo did not fail to pray before the murder to the patron
saint of the church, and to listen devoutly to the first mass. It was, however,
one cause of the partial failure of the conspiracy of the Pazzi against Lorenzo
and Giuliano Medici (1478), that the brigand Montesecco, who had bargained
to commit the murder at a banquet, declined to undertake it in the Cathedral
of Florence. Certain of the clergy *who were familiar with the sacred place,
and consequently had no fear* were induced to act in his stead. 101

As to the imitation of antiquity, the influence of which on moral, and
more especially on political, questions we shall often refer to, the example
was set by the rulers themselves, who, both in their conception of the state
and in their personal conduct, took the old Roman empire avowedly as their
model. In like manner their opponents, when they set to work with a
deliberate theory, took pattern by the ancient tyrannicides. It may be hard
to prove that in the main point in forming the resolve itself they con-
sciously followed a classical example; but the appeal to antiquity was no
mere phrase. The most striking disclosures have been left us with respect to
the murderers of Galeazzo Sforza Lampugnani, Olgiati, and Visconti* 102
Though all three had personal ends to serve, yet their enterprise may be
partly ascribed to a more general reason. About this time Cola de* Montani,
a humanist and professor of eloquence, had awakened among many of the
young Milanese nobility a vague passion for glory and patriotic achievements,
and had mentioned to Lampugnani and Olgiati his hope of delivering Milan.
Suspicion was soon aroused against him: he was banished from the city, and
his pupils were abandoned to the fanaticism he had excited. Some ten days
before the deed they met together and took a solemn oath in the monastery
of Sant'Ambrogio. 'Then/ says Olgiati, 'in a remote corner I raised my eyes
before the picture of the patron saint, and implored his help for ourselves

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

and for all his people/ The heavenly protector of the city was called on to
bless the undertaking, as was afterwards St. Stephen, in whose church it was
fulfilled. Many of their comrades were now informed of the plot, nightly
meetings were held in the house of Lampugnani, and the conspirators practised
for the murder with the sheaths of their daggers. The attempt was successful,
but Lampugnani was killed on the spot by the attendants of the duke; the
others were captured: Visconti was penitent, but Olgiati through all his
tortures maintained that the deed was an acceptable offering to God, and
exclaimed while the executioner was breaking his ribs, 'Courage, Girolamo!
thou wilt long be remembered; death is bitter, but glory is eternal/

But however idealistic the object and purpose of such conspiracies may Iattitator *
appear, the manner in which they were conducted betrays the influence of
that worst of all conspirators, Catiline a man in whose thoughts freedom
had no place whatever. The annals of Siena tells us expressly that the con-
spirators were students of Sallust, and the fact is indirectly confirmed by the
confession of Olgiati. 103 Elsewhere, too, we meet with the name of Catiline,
and a more attractive pattern of the conspirator, apart from the end he
followed, could hardly be discovered.

Among the Florentines, whenever they got rid of, or tried to get rid of, Florencc
the Medici, tyrannicide was a practice universally accepted and approved.
After the flight of the Medici in 1494, the bronze group of Donatello 104
Judith with the dead Holof ernes was taken from their collection and placed
before the Palazzo della Signoria, on the spot where the 'David' of Michel-
angelo now stands, with the inscription, 'Exemplum salutis public* cives
posuere 1495.' No example was more popular than that of the younger
Brutus, who, in Dante, 105 lies with Cassius and Judas Iscariot in the lowest
pit of hell, because of his treason to the empire. Pietro Paolo Boscoli, whose
plot against Giuliano, Giovanni, and Giulio Medici failed (1513), was an
enthusiastic admirer of Brutus, and in order to follow his steps, only waited
to find a Cassius. Such a partner he met with in Agostino Capponi. His last
utterances in prison 108 a striking evidence of the religious feeling of the
time show with what an effort he rid his mind of these classical imaginations,
in order to die like a Christian. A friend and the confessor both had to assure
him that St. Thomas Aquinas condemned conspirators absolutely; but the
confessor afterwards admitted to the same friend that St. Thomas drew a
distinction and permitted conspiracies against a tyrant who had forced
himself on a people against their will. After Lorenzino Medici had murdered
the Duke Alessandro (1537), and then escaped, an apology for the deed
appeared, 107 which is probably his own work, and certainly composed in his
interest, and in which he praises tyrannicide as an act of the highest merit;
-on the supposition that Alessandro was a legitimate Medici, and, therefore,

3 Burckhardt

- , THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

related to him, if only distantly, he boldly compares himself with Timoleon,

who slew his brother for his country's sake. Others, on the same occasion,

made use of the comparison with Brutus, and that Michelangelo himself,

even late in life, was not unfriendly to ideas of this kind, may be inferred

PI. 263 from his bust of Brutus in the Bargello. He left it unfinished, like nearly all

his works, but certainly not because the murder of Caesar was repugnant to

his feeling, as the couplet beneath declares.

The populace ^ popular radicalism in the form in which it is opposed to the monarchies

and the con- r r r r

spirators of later times, is not to be found in the despotic states of the Renaissance.
Each individual protested inwardly against despotism, but was rather dis-
posed to make tolerable or profitable terms with it, than to combine with
others for its destruction. Things must have been as bad as at Camerino,
Fabriano, or Rimini (p. ry), before the citizens united to destroy or expel
the ruling house. They knew in most cases only too well that this would
but mean a change of masters. The star of the Republics was certainly on

the decline.

Decline of the Tfl ie Italian municipalities had, in earlier days, given signal proof of that
force which transforms the city into the state. It remained only that these
cities should combine in a great confederation; and this idea was constantly
recurring to Italian statesmen, whatever differences of form it might from
time to time display. In fact, during the struggles of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, great and formidable leagues actually were formed by the cities;
and Sismondi (ii. 174) is of opinion that the time of the final armaments
of the Lombard confederation against Barbarossa (from 1168 on) was the
moment when a universal Italian league was possible. But the more powerful
states had already developed characteristic features which made any such
scheme impracticable. In their commercial dealings they shrank from no
measures, however extreme, which might damage their competitors; they
held their weaker neighbours in a condition of helpless dependence in short,
they each fancied they could get on by themselves without the assistance of
the rest, and thus paved the way for future usurpation. The usurper was
forthcoming when long conflicts between the nobility and the people, and
between the different factions of the nobility, had awakened the desire for
a strong government, and when bands of mercenaries ready and willing to
sell their aid to the highest bidder had superseded the general levy of the
citizens which party leaders now found unsuited to their purposes. 108 The
tyrants destroyed the freedom of most of the cities; here and there they
were expelled, but not thoroughly, or only for a short time; and they were
always restored, since the inward conditions were favourable to them, and
the opposing forces were exhausted.

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART ,

Among the cities which maintained their independence are two of deep
significance for the history of the human race: Florence, the city of incessant
movement, which has left us a record of the thoughts and aspirations of each
and all who, for three centuries, took part in this movement, and Venice, the
city of apparent stagnation and of political secrecy. No contrast can be
imagined stronger than that which is offered us by these two, and neither
can be compared to anything else which the world has hitherto produced.

Venice recognized itself from the first as a strange and mysterious creation Venicc
the fruits of a higher power than human ingenuity. The solemn foundation Pls ' m ~~ l
of the city was the subject of a legend. On March 25, 413, at midday the
emigrants from Padua laid the first stone at the Rialto, that they might have
a sacred, inviolable asylum amid the devastations of the barbarians. Later
writers attributed to the founders the presentiment of the future greatness
of the city; M. Antonio Sabellico, who has celebrated the event in the
dignified flow of his hexameters, makes the priest, who completes the act
of consecration, cry to heaven, 'When we hereafter attempt great things,
grant us prosperity! Now we kneel before a poor altar; but if our vows are
not made in vain, a hundred temples, O God, of gold and marble shall arise
to Thee/ 109 The island city at the end of the fifteenth century was the jewel- Thc Cit y
casket of the world. It is so described by the same Sabellico, 110 with its ancient
cupolas, its leaning towers, its inlaid marble f afades, its compressed splendour,
where the richest decoration did not hinder the practical employment of
every corner of space. He takes us to the crowded Piazza before San Gia-
cometto at the Rialto, where the business of the world is transacted, not
amid shouting and confusion, but with the subdued hum of many voices;
where in the porticoes round the square 111 and in those of the adjoining
streets sit hundreds of moneychangers and goldsmiths, with endless rows of
shops and warehouses above their heads. He describes the great Fondaco
of the Germans beyond the bridge, where their goods and their dwellings
lay, and before which their ships are drawn up side by side in the canal; higher
up is a whole fleet laden with wine and oil, and parallel with it, on the shore
swarming with porters, are the vaults of the merchants; then from the Rialto
to the square of St. Mark come the inns and the perfumers 3 cabinets. So he
conducts the reader from one quarter of the city to another till he comes
at last to the two hospitals which were among those institutions of public
utility nowhere so numerous as at Venice. Care for the people, in peace
as well as in war, was characteristic of this government, and its attention to
the wounded, even to those of the enemy, excited the admiration of other
states. 112 Public institutions of every kind found in Venice their pattern;
the pensioning of retired servants was carried out systematically, and in-
cluded a provision for widows and orphans. Wealth, political security, and

-g THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

acquaintance with other countries, had matured the understanding of such
The questions. These slender fair-haired men, with quiet cautious steps, and
deliberate speech, differed but slightly in costume and bearing from one
another; ornaments, especially pearls, were reserved for the women and
girls. At that time the general prosperity, notwithstanding the losses sustained
from the Turks, was still dazzling; the stores of energy which the city
possessed and the prejudice in its favour diffused throughout Europe, enabled
it at a much later time to survive the heavy blows which were inflicted by
the discovery of the sea route to the Indies, by the fall of the Mamelukes in
Egypt, and by the war of the League of Cambrai.

The state Sabellico, born in the neighbourhood of Tivoli, and accustomed to the

frank loquacity of the scholars of his day, remarks elsewhere 118 with some

astonishment, that the young nobles who came of a morning to hear his

lectures could not be prevailed on to enter into political discussions: 'When

I ask them what people think, say, and expect about this or that movement

in Italy, they all answer with one voice that they know nothing about the

matter.' Still, in spite of the strict inquisition of the state, much was to be

learned from the more corrupt members of the aristocracy by those who

were willing to pay enough for it. In the last quarter of the fifteenth century

there were traitors among the highest officials; 114 the popes, the Italian

princes, and even second-rate Condottieri in the service of the government

had informers in their pay, sometimes with regular salaries; things went so

far that the Council of Ten found it prudent to conceal important political

news from the Council of the Pregadi, and it was even supposed that Lodo-

vico il Moro had control of a definite number of votes among the latter.

Whether the hanging of single offenders and the high rewards such as a

life-pension of sixty ducats paid to those who informed against them were

of much avail, it is hard to decide; one of the chief causes of this evil, the

poverty of many of the nobility, could not be removed in a day. In the year

1492 a proposal was urged by two of that order, that the state should

spend 70,000 ducats for the relief of those poorer nobles who held no public

office; the matter was near coming before the Great Council, in which it

might have had a majority, when the Council of Ten interfered in time

and banished the two proposers for life to Nicosia in Cyprus. 115 About this

time a Soranzo was hanged, though not at Venice itself, for sacrilege, and a

Contarini put in chains for burglary; another of the same family came in

1499 before the Signory, and complained that for many years he had been

without an office, that he had only sixteen ducats a year and nine children,

that his debts amounted to sixty ducats, that he knew no trade and had lately

been turned on to the streets. We can understand why some of the wealthier

nobles built houses, sometimes whole rows of them, to provide free lodging

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART yj

for their needy comrades. Such works figure in wills among deeds of
charity. 116

But if the enemies of Venice ever founded serious hopes upon abuses of ^f hcalth y

* * elements

this kind, they were greatly in error. It might be thought that the commercial
activity of the city, which put within reach of the humblest a rich reward
for their labour, and the colonies on the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean,
would have diverted from political affairs the dangerous elements of society.
But had not the political history of Genoa, notwithstanding similar advan-
tages, been of the stormiest? The cause of the stability of Venice lies rather
in a combination of circumstances which were found in union nowhere else.
Unassailable from its position, it had been able from the beginning to treat
of foreign affairs with the fullest and calmest reflection, and ignore nearly
altogether the parties which divided the rest of Italy, to escape the entangle-
ment of permanent alliances, and to set the highest price on those which it
thought fit to make. The keynote of the Venetian character was, con-
sequently, 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 with the
possessions on the mainland, 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; and this conviction was so widely diffused among the citizens
that the conspirator found few elements to work upon. And the discontented*
if there were such, were held so far apart by the division between the noble
and the burgher, that a mutual understanding was not easy. On the other
hand, within the ranks of the nobility itself, travel, commercial enterprise,
and the incessant wars with the Turks saved the wealthy and dangerous from
that fruitful source of conspiracies idleness. In these wars they were spared,
often to a criminal extent, by the general in command, and the fall of the
city was predicted by a Venetian Cato, if this fear of the nobles 'to give one
another pain' should continue at the expense of justice. 117 Nevertheless this
free movement in the open air gave the Venetian aristocracy, as a whole,
a healthy bias.

And when envy and ambition called for satisfaction an official victim was
forthcoming, and legal means and authorities were ready. The moral torture,
which for years the Doge Francesco Foscari (d. 1457) suffered before the eyes .
of all Venice, is a frightful example of a vengeance possible only in an aristo-
cracy. The Council of Ten, which had a hand in everything, which disposed
without appeal of life and death, of financial affairs and military appoint-
ments, which included the Inquisitors among its number, and which over-

-g THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

threw Foscari, as it had overthrown so many powerful men before this
Council was yearly chosen afresh from the whole governing body, the Gran
Consiglio, and was consequently the most direct expression of its will. It is
not probable that serious intrigues occurred at these elections, as the short
duration of the office and the accountability which followed rendered it an
object of no great desire. But violent and mysterious as the proceedings of
this and other authorities might be, the genuine Venetian courted rather
than fled their sentence, not only because the Republic had long arms, and
if it could not catch him might punish his family, but because in most cases
it acted from rational motives and not from a thirst for blood. 118 No state,
indeed, has ever exercised a greater moral influence over its subjects, whether
abroad or at home. If traitors were to be found among the Pregadi, there
was ample compensation for this in the fact that every Venetian away from
home was a born spy for his government* It was a matter of course that the
Venetian cardinals at Rome sent home news of the transactions of the secret
papal consistories. The Cardinal Domenico Grimani had the dispatches inter-
cepted in the neighbourhood of Rome (1500) which Ascanio Sforza was
sending to his brother Lodovico il More, and forwarded them to Venice;
his father, then exposed to a serious accusation, claimed public credit for
this service of his son before the Gran Consiglio; in other words, before all
the world. 110

Relations Th e conduct of the Venetian government to the Condottieri in its pay

has been spoken of already. The only further guarantee of their fidelity which
PL 70 could be obtained lay in their great number, by which treachery was made as
difficult as its discovery was easy. In looking at the Venetian army list, one
is only surprised that among forces of such miscellaneous composition any
common action was possible. In the catalogue for the campaign of 1495 we
find 15,526 horsemen, broken up into a number of small divisions. 120 Gon-
zaga of Mantua alone had as many as 1,200, and Gioffredo Borgia 740; then
follow six officers with a contingent of 600 to 700, ten with 400, twelve
with 400 to 200, fourteen or thereabouts with 200 to 100, nine with 80,
six with 50 to 60, and so forth. These forces were partly composed of old
Venetian troops, partly of veterans led by Venetian city or country nobles;
the majority of the leaders were, however, princes and rulers of cities or their
relatives. To these forces must be added 24,000 infantry we are not told
how they were raised or commanded with 3,300 additional troops, who
probably belonged to the special services. In time of peace the cities of the
mainland were wholly unprotected or occupied by insignificant garrisons.
Foreign Venice relied, if not exactly on the loyalty, at least on the good sense of its
subjects; in the war of the League of Cambrai (1509) it absolved them, as is
well known, from their oath of allegiance, and let them compare the ameni-

THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART ^

ties of a foreign occupation with the mild government to which they had
been accustomed. As there had been no treason in their desertion of St. Mark,
and consequently no punishment was to be feared, they returned to their
old masters with the utmost eagerness. This war, we may remark parentheti-
cally, was the result of a century's outcry against the Venetian desire for
aggrandizement. The Venetians, in fact, were not free from the mistake of
those over-clever people who will credit their opponents with no irrational
and inconsiderate conduct. 121 Misled by this optimism, which is, perhaps, a
peculiar weakness of aristocracies, they had utterly ignored not only the
preparations of Mohammed II for the capture of Constantinople, but even PI. ne
the armaments of Charles VIII, till the unexpected blow fell at last. 122 The PI. ^s
League of Cambrai was an event of the same character, in so far as it was
clearly opposed to the interest of the two chief members, Louis XII and PLISS
Julius IL The hatred of all Italy against the victorious city seemed to be PL 154
concentrated in the mind of the Pope, and to have blinded him to the evils
of foreign intervention; and as to the policy of Cardinal d'Amboise and his
king, Venice ought long before to have recognized it as a piece of malicious
imbecility, and to have been thoroughly on its guard. The other members of
the League took part in it from that envy which may be a salutary corrective
to great wealth and power, but which in itself is a beggarly sentiment. Venice
came out of the conflict with honour, but not without lasting damage.

A power, whose foundations were so complicated, whose activity and Th ^"
interests filled so wide a stage, cannot be imagined without a systematic statistics
oversight of the whole, without a regular estimate of means and burdens, of
profits and losses. Venice can fairly make good its claim to be the birthplace
of statistical science, together, perhaps, with Florence, and followed by the
more enlightened despotisms. The feudal state of the Middle Ages knew of
nothing more than catalogues of signorial rights and possessions (Urbaria);
it looked on production as a fixed quantity, which it approximately is, so
long as we have to do with landed property only. The towns, on the other
hand, throughout the West must from very early times have treated pro-
duction, which with them depended on industry and commerce, as exceed-
ingly variable; but, even in the most flourishing times of the Hanseatic
League, they never got beyond a simple commercial balance-sheet. Fleets,
armies, political power^and influence fall under the debit and credit of a
trader's ledger. In the Italian States a clear political consciousness, the pattern
of Mohammedan administration, and the long and active exercise of trade
and commerce, combined to produce for the first time a true science of
s


Search: Advanced Search	UploadAnonymous User (login or join us)