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THE HISTORIANS'
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
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MAC CIII
THE HISTORIANS'
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations
as recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of
all ages : edited, with the assistance of a distinguished
board of advisers and contributors,
by
HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, LL.D.
IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME IX— ITALY
Th.e. Outlook Company T*f History Association
New York London
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
All rights reserved.
1141406
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
New York, U.S.A.
Contributors, and Editorial Revisers.
Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin.
Prof. Joseph Halevy, College of France.
Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University.
Prof. Andrew C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan.
Prof. David H. Miiller, University of Vienna.
Prof. Alfred Rambaud, University of Paris.
Capt. F. Brinkley, Tokio.
Prof. Eduard Meyer, University of Berlin.
Dr. James T. Shotwell, Columbia University.
Prof. Theodor Noldeke, University of Strasbnrg.
Prof. Albert B. Hart, Harvard University.
Dr. Paul Bronnle, Royal Asiatic Society.
Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., London.
Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Mollendorff, University of Berlin.
Prof. H. Marczali, University of Budapest.
Dr. G. W. Botsford, Columbia University.
Prof. Julius Wellhausen, University of Gottingen.
Prof. Franz R. von Krones, University of Graz.
Prof. Wilhelm Soltau, Zabern University.
Prof. R. W. Rogers, Drew Theological Seminary.
Prof. A. Vambe'ry, University of Budapest.
Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, University of Berlin.
Dr. Frederick Robertson Jones, Bryn Mawr College.
Baron Bernardo di San Severino Quaranta, London.
Dr. John P. Peters, New York.
Prof. Adolph Harnack, University of Berlin.
Dr. S. Rappoport, School of Oriental Languages, Paris.
Prof. Hermann Diels, University of Berlin.
Prof. C. TV. C. Oman, Oxford University.
Prof. I. Goldziher, University of Vienna.
Prof. TV. L. Fleming, University of West Virginia.
Prof. R. Koser, University of Berlin.
PAET XIV
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES
FRANCESCO BERTOLINI, J. BURCKHARDT, PIERRE ANTOINE DARU, S. AST-
LEY DUNHAM, F. GUICCIARDINI, W. C. HAZLITT, HEINRICH LEO,
MACHIAVELLI, F. A. MIGNET, H. E. NAPIER, LORENZO PIG-
NOTTI, A. VON REUMONT, WILLIAM ROSCOE, J. C. L. S.
DE SISMONDI, J. A. SYMONDS
WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM
ADHEMAR, AMMIRATO, ANAFESTO, GUGLIELMUS APULIENSIS, ANGELO
MARIA BANDINI, CARLO BOTTA, FLAVIUS BLONDUS, BOCCACCIO, POG-
GIO BRACCIOLINI, H. B. BRIGGS, LYTTON E. G. BULWER, BURCHARD
(OR BURCARDUS), ISAAC BUTT, CAFFARO, CAPPONI, GIOVANNI
DE CASTRO, BENVENUTO CELLINI, CARLO CIPOLLA, ANNA
COMNENA, ROBERT COMYN, ANTONIO COSCI, ANDREA
DANDOLO, DANTE, CARLO DENINA, G. B. DEPPING,
DUFFY, HUGO FALCANDUS, FICINO, FLODOARDUS, UBERTUS FOLIETA, E. A.
FREEMAN, GALILEO, GEBHARDT, E. GIBBON, P. L. GINGUENE, GIOVANNI
DIACONO, HENRY HALLAM, W. HEYD, KARL HILLEBRAND, WILLIAM
HUNT, J. LABARTHE, M. LA FUENTE, RICORDANO MALASPINA,
GOFREDUS MALATERRA, MEMOIRES DE BAYARD, GIUSEPPE
MONTANELLI, E. MtlNTZ, MURATORI, F. T. PERREN,
PETRARCH, GIOVANNI PONTANO, W. H. PRESCOTT,
E. PROCTOR, E. QUINET, J. REINSCH, W. ROBERTSON, T. DE ROSSI,
JOHN RUSKIN, WILLIAM SPALDING, OTTOBONUS SCRIBA, SCRIBE,
MARCHISIUS ET BARTOLOM^IUS, ST. MARC, G. STELLA, TEGRINI,
G. B. TESTA, TRAVERSURI, GIORGIO VASARI, G. VILLANI,
M. VILLANI, P. VILLARI, F. M. A. VOLTAIRE, WILLIAM
WHEWELL, JULES ZELLER
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
VOLUME IX
ITALY
PAGE
INTRODUCTION. THE SCOPE OF ITALIAN HISTORY: A PREFATORY CHARACTER-
ISATION 1
CHAPTER I
ITALY IN THE DARK AGE (476 ca.-HOO A.D.) . . .15
The Barbarian invaders, 17. Charlemagne and his successors, 18. The empire
and the papacy, 21. The disunited municipalities, 22. The origin of Venice, 24. The
origin of the dogeship, 27. Venice in the tenth century, 28. Prosperity and political
reforms, 32. Other maritime cities, 35. The Lombard cities and their allies, 36.
Florence, 39. Social conditions, 40. Municipal wars, 41.
CHAPTER II
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY (1152-1200) . 45
Frederick Barbarossa in Italy, 45. The siege of Crema, 50. Rival popes, 53.
Imperial campaigns and reverses, 54. Frederick once more aggressive, 57. Battle
of Legnano ; peace of Constance, 58. Death of Frederick ; his successor, 60. Grow-
ing power of the nobility, 61.
CHAPTER III
THE NORMANS IN SICILY (787-1204 A.D.) . . . . 63
The Normans in France, 65. The Normans come to Italy, 68. Capture of the
pope ; Robert Guiscard, 69. Conquest of Sicily ; Eastern invasions, 72. Roger, great
count of Sicily, 76. Roger II, 77. William the Bad (il Halo], 81. William the
Good, 81. Norman influence, 83.
CHAPTER IV
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 85
Factions in Florence, 87. Frederick II crowned emperor, 90. Renewal of the
Lombard League, 91. Frederick II and the Lombard League, 92. Battle of Corte-
nuova, 93. Pope against emperor, 94. The Guelf s expelled from Florence ; battle
viii CONTENTS
PAGE
of Fossalta, 97. Death of Frederick II : the succession, 98. The pope and the cities,
99. Florentine affairs; the Guelfs recalled, 101. Florence and Siena at war; battle
of Montaperti, 102. The tyrant Ezzelino, 104. The beginning of feudal tyranny
in Lombardy, 106. Perennial strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines, 108. Charles of
Anjou conquers Sicily, 109. The fall of Conradin ; Gregory X ; Otto Visconti, 110.
Ghibelline successes; the Sicilian Vespers, 112. Waning influence of king, emperor,
and pope, 114. The republic of Pisa, 115. Pisa defeated by Genoa near Meloria, 116.
Perfidy and fall of Ugolino, 117. Florence; the feud of the Bianchi and the Neri,
118. The pope sends Charles of Valois as conciliator, 121.
CHAPTER V
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE (1300-1350 A.D.) . . 124
An emperor once more in Italy, 126. Milan seditions ; Genoa and Venice at war,
128. Henry's coronation and sudden death, 130. Rival emperors ; ecclesiastical dis-
sensions, 131. Castruccio Castracani, 133. Florence menaced, 135. The Florentine
army under Raymond of Cardona, 137. Raymond temporises, 139. A brilliant skir-
mish, 140. Battle of Altopascio, 141. Castruccio adds insult to injury, 143. Flor-
ence in despair calls on the duke of Calabria, 144. Charles and his army, 145. The
Ghibellines call on Ludwig of Bavaria, 147. Successes of Count Novello, 148. Lud-
wig comes to Italy, 149. Castruccio goes to Rome, 150. Castruccio's new conquest ;
his sudden death, 152. Estimates of Castruccio, 153. Duke of Calabria dies ; Lud-
wig retires, 155. Can' Grande Delia Scala, 155. John of Bohemia comes to Italy,
156. Lucca a bone of contention, 158. The duke of Athens made protector of Flor-
ence, 162. Growing unpopularity of the duke of Athens, 164. The duke driven from
the city, 165. Attempted reforms, 167. War of the factions in Florence, 169. The
Great Plague, 171. Boccaccio's account of the plague in Florence, 173. Napier's
reflections on the plague, 176.
CHAPTER VI
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE (ca. 1250-1400 A.D.) . . 178
European culture in general, 181. The universities and nascent scholarship, 183.
Latin and the vernacular, 184. The master poet, and his theme, 186. Dante the
man, 187. Lesser contemporaries of Dante, 190. Petrarch, 191. Early Italian prose,
194. Boccaccio, 198. Lesser contemporaries of Petrarch and Boccaccio, 202. Art
in the thirteen and fourteenth centuries, 203. The Tuscan school of painters, 207.
Ruskin's estimate of Giotto's tower, 209.
CHAPTER VII
ROME UNDER RIENZI (1347-1354 A.D.) . . . . 211
The rise of Rienzi, 213. Lord Lytton on the speech of Rienzi, 216. Rienzi's
opponents; his friends; his proclamations, 218. Disaster succeeds victory, 220.
Anarchy and jubilee in Rome, 223. Rienzi in exile ; his renewed opportunity ; his
death, 224.
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER VIII
PAGE
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
(ca. 1309-1496 A.D.) 230
The kingdom of Naples, 231. Joanna II, 234. Alfonso the Magnanimous, 237.
Ferdinand, 238. The tyrants of Lombardy, 240. Companies of adventure, 241.
Florence menaced by the Visconti, 243. Charles IV in Italy, 244. The " war of
Liberation," 248. The papal schism, 249. Gian Galeazzo Visconti, 251. Filippo
Maria Visconti, 257. The house of Sforza, 258.
CHAPTER IX
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES . 261
The affairs of Pisa and Genoa, 261. Naval exploits, 266. The affairs of Venice,
269. The Tiepolo conspiracy, and the council of Ten, 272. The story of Marino Fali-
eri, 273. Venetian wars and conquests, 275. Victories of Carmagnola, 279. Death
of Frescobaldi; the war ended and renewed, 284. The great naval battle on the Po,
286. The revolt of Pisa ; the cruel ruse of Baldaccio, 288. The fall of Carmagnola,
289. Venice and the Turks, 293. The government of Venice, 297. The two Fos-
cari, 301.
CHAPTER X
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 303
Venice in the Levant, 308. The commercial forebears of the Venetians, 310.
Venetian glass, 315. Other manufactures, 318. The slave trade, 319. The decline
of Venetian commerce, 323. The bank of Venice, 324.
CHAPTER XI
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE (1350-1400 A.D.) . . 326
Social upheavals of the middle of the fourteenth century, 327. Macchiavelli's
account of the Ciompi insurrection, 331. The eight "saints of war," 333. Mob vio-
lence, 336. Michele di Lando, 340. Momentary peace ; renewed insurrections, 343.
CHAPTER XII
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI (1434-1492 A.D.) » . .349
The rise, reverses, and power of Cosmo de' Medici, 350. Cosmo and the revival
of learning, 353. Last years of Cosmo, 356. Roscoe's estimate of Cosmo, 359. Cos-
mo's successor, 361. Piero's sons and the conspiracies, 363. The Pazzi conspiracy,
365. Lorenzo the Magnificent in power, 370. The Florentines routed at Poggibonzi,
373. Lorenzo's embassy to Naples, 375. Peace with honour, 376. Further papal
wars, 379. Last years of Lorenzo, 386. Von Reumont's estimate of Lorenzo, 388.
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIII
PAGE
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE . . . .391
Fifteenth century art, 392. Vasari's estimate of fifteenth century art, 393. Leo-
nardo da Vinci, 395. The end of the mediaeval epoch, 398. The age of Michelangelo,
399. Michelangelo as sculptor, 402. Raphael, 403. Ariosto, 405. Machiavelli, 406.
CHAPTER XIV
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" (1494-1530 A.D.) . . . .408
Charles VIII ; his army, 412. Charles VIII in Rome ; a contemporary account,
414. Charles goes to Naples, 420. Florentine affairs; Savonarola, 421. The French
in Milan, 424. The French and Spaniards in Naples, 428. Northern Italy, 429. The
league of Cambray, 432. Battle of Ravenna, 435. The age of Leo X, 439. Battle of
Marignano ; last years of Leo, 441. Successors of Leo; Francis I and Charles V,
447. Capture and sack of Rome, 452. The fall of Florence, 458.
CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY (1530-1600 A.D.) . . 463
The siege and fall of Siena, 464. An Italian estimate of the abdication of Charles
V, 467. Renewed hostilities; the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, 468. A Spanish
account of the battle of Lepanto, 473. The general condition of Italy, 477. Pope
Sixtus V ; Ferdinand, grand duke of Tuscany, 478. Pope Clement VIII, 481.
CHAPTER XVI
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY (1601-1700 A.D.) . . . 484
General conditions, 485. Galileo and the church, 493. The successors of Urban
VIII, 495. Lesser principalities, 498. Tuscany, 501. Piedmont and Savoy, 502.
Venice, 511. Venetian wars with the Turks, 518.
CHAPTER XVII
ITALY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1701-1800 A.D.) . . . 524
Italy in the war of the Spanish Succession, 528. War of the Quadruple Alliance,
530. War of the Polish Succession, 532. War of the Austrian Succession, 534. Forty
years of "languid peace " for divided Italy, 536. The kingdom of Naples and Sicily,
537. The states of the church, 538. The Sardinian kingdom, 540. The four repub-
lics, 541. Milan and Tuscany, 542. A Tuscan estimate of Leopold, 546. Italy in
the revolutionary age, 547. Time of the French Republic under the national con-
vention, 548. The campaign of 1796 and its consequences, 551. The expulsion of
the French from Italy, 557. Bonaparte reconquers Italy, 564. The growing desire
for liberty, 565.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVIII
PAGE
THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME (1801-1815 A.D.) . . . .566
The constitution of the republic, 567. Napoleon makes Italy a kingdom, 568.
The kingdom of Naples and the papacy, 570. The islands of Sicily and Sardinia, 574.
The rise of national spirit, 574. The fall of Napoleon, 576.
CHAPTER XIX
INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES (1815-1848 A.D.) . . . . 578
Marriott on the Restoration, 580. Errors of the monarchy, 581. The insurrec-
tions of 1820-1821, 583. The revolutions of 1831, 585. Sassone on Mazzini and ' ' young
Italy," 587. Fyffe's estimate of Mazzini, 588. Symonds on the problems and the
leaders, 589. Pope Pius IX and his liberal policy, 591.
CHAPTER XX
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY (1848-1866 A.D.) . . . . 593
The war between Naples and Sicily, 594. Revolt against the pope; Rome a
republic, 595. The French restore the pope, 597. Revolutions in Tuscany and else-
where, 598. Charles Albert's war with Austria, 598. Charles Albert abdicates : Vic-
tor Emmanuel II succeeds, 600. Venice fails to acquire freedom, 601. Louis Napo-
leon's intervention, 603. Austria declares war: Magenta and Solferino, 603. The
papacy versus unity, 606. Garibaldi drives the Bourbons from Sicily, 607. The death
of Cavour and the revolt of Garibaldi, 611. Florence becomes the capital, 613. The
war of 1866 and annexation of Venice, 614.
CHAPTER XXI
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY (1867-1878 A.D.) . . . 616
The revolt of Garibaldi, 617. The French intervene again: Mentana, October
31st, 618. The Roman question renewed, 620. Papal infallibility proclaimed, 621.
Rome taken from the pope, 621. The plebiscite, 622. Rome again the capital of
Italy, 624. The Minghetti ministry, 625. Death of Victor Emmanuel and Pius IX,
626.
CHAPTER XXII
RECENT HISTORY (1878-1903 A.D.) . . . . . 628
Irredentism, the Triple Alliance and "Trasformismo," 630. The power of
Crispi, 632. Death of King Humbert, of Crispi, and of Leo XIII, 633.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 635
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN ITALY . . .639
A CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF ITALIAN HISTORY . ... 646
INTRODUCTION
THE SCOPE OF ITALIAN HISTORY: A PREFATORY
CHARACTERISATION
THE DAKK AGE
IT has been observed again and again that the sweep of history is a con-
tinuous stream, and that all attempts to divide it into epochs are more or less
arbitrary. Nevertheless, one cannot escape the tendency to classify, and
memory is greatly aided by such arbitrary divisions. The largest and per-
haps the most uniformly accepted of such arbitrary parcelling out of history
is the classification into ancient, mediaeval, and modern. Everyone is aware
that the general historian usually regards ancient history as closing either
with the later decades of the fourth century, when the northern barbarians
began their invasions, or, perhaps more generally, with the precise date 476,
when the last emperor of old Rome was dethroned. The ensuing epoch,
comprising a period of about a thousand years, is known as the mediaeval
period ; which epoch is usually considered as closing with the discovery of
the New World in 1492. The earlier centuries of this epoch are usually
spoken of as constituting the dark age.
Such a division is arbitrary, but not altogether illogical. It has been
urged that Rome itself did not know it had fallen in the year 476 ; and that
the Roman Empire — even the Roman Republic, in the phrasing of the
time — went on, as the minds of contemporaries conceived it, uninter-
ruptedly for many centuries after the date which we of later time fix for
the quietus of Roman imperial life. But few things are better established
than the fact that a clear conception of history demands a certain opportunity
for the observation of events in perspective. In other words a contemporary
judgment is rarely, if ever, the best judgment regarding any epoch. In the
multiplicity of details that are thrust necessarily upon the attention of the
contemporary observer, large proportions are lost, and a confused mass of
little things makes the picture as unintelligible as is the large canvas of the
painter when viewed at too short a focus. With the historical view, as with
the painting, one must recede to a certain distance before gaining a measur-
ably true conception. And so looking back through the vista of centuries
one is able to observe very clearly that the time of the alleged fall of the
Western Roman Empire was a time of real crisis in the sweep of historical
events. The erection of the one focal date is, to be sure, a quite unjustifiable
W. — VOL. IX.
2 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
marking of boundary lines, unless it be regarded in the same way in which
one thinks of the parallels of latitude and longitude on the ^globe. It is a
convenient milestone, nothing more. But the epoch which it marks, if not
to be limited to the confines of a single year, is none the less a true epoch ;
as no one can doubt who will consider the history of Rome in the aggregate
during the first, second, and third centuries of the Christian era, and then
will consider the history of the same city during the fifth, sixth, and seventh
centuries. Obviously, a vast change has come over the spirit of civilisation
in this time ; the later centuries, contrasted with the earlier ones, may well
be considered a dark age.
We have already shown that during its period the eastern division of the
later Roman Empire was the seat of a culture which found expression in
the production of an elaborate literature. But the West during this period
was under quite different auspices. Rome had ceased to be important as a
centre of civilisation ; its chief citizens had removed to the city of Constan-
tinople. Here in the West the half-civilised Herulians and Ostrogoths held
almost undisputed sway from 476 till about the middle of the sixth century.
Then for a century the Eastern Empire reasserted control over Rome and
the legions of Narses and Longinus upheld the authority of the Byzantine
emperors. But in 568 the Lombards under Alboin swept down into Italy
and their supremacy was hardly disputed until the Carlovingians took a hand
in Italian affairs, with the result that in 774 Charlemagne, capturing Desi-
derius in Pavia, assumed the title of king of the Lombards and virtually
ended the Lombard kingdom.
In 781 Charlemagne crowned his son Pepin king of Italy, and in the
memorable year 800 Charlemagne was himself crowned emperor of the West,
reviving the title and a semblance of the glory of the old Imperium. Charle-
magne's successors retained nominal control over the empire, and disputed
with the popes the real control of Italy. This warfare between the papal
monarch and the emperors was a salient feature of the later centuries of the
epoch. The power of the church had increased slowly and insidiously until
in the ninth and tenth centuries the bishop of Rome aspired to real kingship
over Italy, — even over the entire empire.
The five hundred years of Italian history outlined in this period contrast
strangely (as has been said) in their world historical meaning with the half
millennium of empire that preceded it, or with the other half millennium within
which were comprised the events of the Roman commonwealth. Those earlier
periods, as we glance back over them in perspective, bristle with great events ;
whereas this later epoch shows a bare plane of mediocrity, if not of decline.
Yet we must not think of these later centuries as representing a time of
relapse into actual barbarism. It was rather an epoch when the decadent
civilisation was struggling against complete overthrow on the one hand,
while the new civilisation was striving to make itself felt, — striving as yet
ineffectually as regards the higher culture, yet none the less preparing the
way for the future germination of a new life in the old empire.
There is no more fascinating effort open to the historian than to glance
back through the mists of the centuries and attempt to penetrate the gloom
of this dark age, and visualise its social conditions. At best such an attempt
at reconstructing the distant past can be but partially successful. If it be
true that " we view the world through our own eyes, each of us, and make
from within us the things we see," as Thackeray tells us regarding our con-
temporary environment, vastly more distorted must our image be of any past
events. Where the monuments, art treasures, and the literature of a great
A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION 3
civilisation have been preserved to us, as in the case of Egypt and Mesopo-
tamia, and Greece, and Rome, we have aids and accessories for the recon-
struction of the picture that enable us to view our rehabilitation with a
certain confidence. But where these mementoes of the past are lost or alto-
gether lacking, the picture must, indeed, be a vague and uncertain one, —
the foggy tracery of the impressionist as contrasted with the firm outlines of
a Michelangelo.
And such are the disadvantages that beset the task of reconstructing the
image of Italy, or indeed of any other part of Europe, in the so-called dark
age. It was a time when the wealth of the later empire had been transferred
to the East. Western Europe was poverty-stricken ; and this practical fact,
perhaps more than any other one cause, operated to prevent the construction
of such monuments of architecture and of art as the earlier centuries achieved.
We have seen illustrated again and again that the seat of the greatest civili-
sation is almost sure to be the commercial and monetary centre of the world ;
and we shall see the same thing illustrated again with renewed force at a
later day in Italy, when the gold of the Florentine tradesmen, the Medici,
stimulates the art development of the later Renaissance. But in these post-
imperial times Italy has no wealth in commerce, as compared with the new
centre of the empire in Constantinople. Such Romans as remain in Italy are
too poor to build palaces and amphitheatres comparable to those of their
predecessors. They have enough to do to guard themselves against the
invaders from the north. At best they can hardly repair the structures that
the earlier civilisation has left them. We read that in Venice it was at one
time made a legal offence, punishable with a fine of one thousand florins, to
suggest any draft on the public treasury for repairing state buildings. Accord-
ing to the familiar tradition, the doge who finally had the temerity to violate
the restriction, came before the council with the thousand florins in his hand
when making the suggestion. This story illustrates the financial stress under
which the Italian cities laboured even at a comparatively late period of the
Middle Ages.
But it would be a very great mistake to suppose that the lapse in the
material civilisation which undoubtedly took place in the later day of
imperial Rome coincided with an entire change in the social conditions of
the people. No trait in human nature is more fixed and more insistent
than the tendency to cling to the ways of our forbears. Conservatism is the
dominant motive of the mass of humanity. What our fathers thought and
believed, we for the most part think and believe. The average man inherits
his religion and his politics much as he inherits the colour of his eyes ; and
has scarcely more likelihood of changing one than the other. In the sweep
of the centuries, ideas and customs do change, to be sure ; but the changes,
in so far as they pertain to long-standing principles or customs, are always
slow and gradual.
Geologists of the nineteenth century demonstrated, after long study and
much argument, that there are no cataclysmic vaults in the sweep of the
geological and biological ages. The lesson thus taught regarding nature at
large is one which the sociologist might apply to his own would-be science
with advantage. In particular this lesson should be called to the attention
of the student of history who would have us believe that there was a sudden
and catastrophic change in the mentality of the people of Italy in the fifth
century A.D. No one who appreciates the true character of human progress
will be disposed to believe, in the absence of confirmatory evidence, that the
Italian of the sixth century differed very greatly in his desires and aspira-
4 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
tions from his grandparent who lived while Rome was yet nominally gov-
erned by an Italian emperor. The successive hordes of barbarians that
swept down from the north took booty wherever they could find it, and
impoverished the country, but for the most part they were not imbued with
the spirit of wanton destruction. We may well believe that they looked
rather with awestruck admiration akin to reverence upon the wonderful
monuments of a civilisation so different from anything they had previously
witnessed. We know that relatively civilised nations of the north sacked
Rome in the sixteenth century more disastrously than it was sacked by
their alleged barbaric precursors of the earlier millennium. Moreover, these
invaders from the north were not omnipresent. They came and went at
relatively long intervals, and there were some territories that they did not
greatly molest. And the history of invasions everywhere goes to show
that after the moment of initial conquest the barbaric vanquisher becomes,
in matters of custom and thought, a follower rather than a leader of the
vanquished.
In the present case there can be no doubt that this rule held true.
The nations of the north were gifted with potentialities that were rapidly
developed through imitation of the southern civilisation. Long before the
so-called dark ages ended, there began to be centres of civilisation in the
north, and here and there a man of real genius — a Roger Bacon or an
Abelard — appeared to prove the rapid forward sweep of the culture move-
ment, since the highest genius never towers far above the culture level of its
time. But this could not have come to pass if the invader from the north
had entered Italy as an all-devastating eliminator of previous civilisations.
He came to conquer, but he remained to learn the arts of civilisation.
In a word, then, we shall gain a truer picture of the state of Italy in the
so-called dark age if we think of it as differing not so greatly in the ideals
of its material civilisation from the Italy of the Roman Empire. There is
no great architecture, no great art, no great literature; but we cannot
believe that there were absolutely no aspirations towards these antique ideals.
When we recall how much that was known to be produced in the earlier day
has been utterly lost, we need not doubt that there were some productions
even in the field of literature, of which we now have no knowledge, that we
would gladly reclaim from oblivion. The cacoethes scribendi is too dominant
an impulse to be quite absent from any generation ; surely, human nature
did not change so utterly in the dark age as to rout this impulse from
the human mind. What chiefly did occur, apparently, was the direction
of the literary impulse into an unfortunate channel — the channel of ecclesi-
asticism. This carried it to a maelstrom from which the would-be producer
of literature was not able to disengage himself for many generations. A
startling evidence of this is found in the fact that as Robinson l points out,
there was no literary layman of renown from Boetius (d. 524 or 525 A.D.)
to Dante (1265-1321 A.D.).
Let us think, then, of the dark age as a time when Italy was impover-
ished ; a time when its material civilisation retrogressed ; a time when the
stress of new conditions thrust some of the old ideals into the background ;
but also as a time when the mixture of races was taking place that was to
give new strength and fibre to a senescent people ; and to make possible the
resuscitation of the old ideals, the rehabilitation of the old material civilisa-
tion, the regeneration of the race.
C1 An Introduction to the History of Western Europe.']
A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION 5
THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES
The regeneration is not to be effected, however, for some time to come.
The llth and the 12th centuries are at best to see only the dawning of the
new day.
Culture of the creative kind is still in abeyance in Italy ; there are still
no writers of significance ; there is little art except as practised in the illumi-
nation of manuscripts, and as foreshadowed in the beginnings of architecture.
Nevertheless, there is a germative culture. Here and there a knight brings
back a book from the East — for this is the age of the Crusades. Here and
there a monk pores over a classic manuscript. Virgil was read and copied
all through the dark age, as we know from the incontestable evidence of
extant manuscripts. There is no manuscript of Horace in the uncial writ-
ing of the early centuries, yet he too must have been read in the West, along
with all the other Latin classics that have come down to us, else these works
would scarcely have been preserved; for the Greek authors alone found
favour in the East. Still it is to be feared that the chief interest felt by
many of the monks in the old-time manuscripts was directed towards the
material on which they were written rather than towards the text itself.
Hagiology often took the place of history and many an ancient manuscript
has been partially preserved in palympsest, merely because a monk who
wished to write the life of a saint was too careless to complete the erasure
of the earlier writing.
Contemplating the monastic life, through which it is often asserted the
germs of learning were preserved in the western world in this dark age,
one receives an impression of racial stasis which does not really accord with
the facts. If the monks were the preservers of the feeble torch of learning,
it was the wandering and warring hosts of the outside world who were pre-
paring their generation to receive the new light when it should again burst
forth. The Scandinavian and German hosts from the north invaded Italy
en masse, from time to time, as we have seen, and successive bands of
crusaders made Italy their highway when journeying to and from the East.
Many of these invaders found the southern clime congenial and took up
their permanent abode there. Thus the Normans established a kingdom in
Italy, and if the other hosts settled as individuals rather than as nations,
their influence must have been none the less potent in bringing about that
mixture of racial elements which makes for racial progress.
Equally important must have been the influence of the commercial spirit.
The conquest of the Normans took from the Greek cities of southern Italy,
Amalfi, Naples, and Gaeta, the commercial supremacy they had previously
enjoyed. They were now superseded by Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. These
cities kept fleets on the sea in constant contact with the East. As might
have been expected, they led other Italian cities in power and influence, and
were the first to show intimations of that quickening of life which presaged
the new birth.
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
The first half of the thirteenth century furnishes additional chapters in
the old story of the fight between emperor and pope. Frederick II, the
present incumbent of the imperial throne, is one of the most picturesque
characters of the Middle Ages. He is a man of extraordinary versatility ;
master of many languages, including Greek and Arabic, patron of the arts,
himself a poet, and what perhaps is most remarkable of all, considering his
6 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
scholarly proclivities, an advocate of the use of the vernacular out of which
is developing a new Italian language. Frederick is far too broad and
versatile a man to be confined within the narrow boundaries of the church ;
hence his life is made up of a series of wrangles with the popes. Yet he up-
holds the religious liberties of his subjects in Sicily ; he prosecutes a successful
crusade, and restores the influence of the western world in Jerusalem. He
is under ban of excommunication when he undertakes this crusade, and now
he is again denounced for having undertaken it. He rebels against the
papal antagonism, and declares that he will wear his crown and uphold its
authority despite ecclesiastical interference. We have seen like threats pro-
nounced before, and have seen such an emperor as Henry IV fail to make
good his menace. But Frederick adopts a novel plan which for a time
proves expedient ; he colonises Luceria with a population of Saracens, which
can furnish him a band of thirty thousand infidel warriors to whom papal
authority means nothing. Notwithstanding this aid, however, he is barely
able to hold his own against the pope in the long run, and he dies just at the
middle of the century, worn out in middle life by endless warrings.
During the ensuing half century Italy is little troubled by the emperors ;
papal authority is at its height, but a disunited Italy consumes its strength
in internal dissensions. The developing civilisation has gradually focalised
more and more towards the north and now its centre has come to be Tuscany,
— the same geographical location which furnished the pre-Roman civilisation
of the Etruscans. Florence is coming to be the chief city of Tuscany ; it is
the chief centre also of one of the most persistent and disastrous strifes that
are convulsing Italy, — the warfare of the Guelf and Ghibellines. This
dissension is in no sense confined to Florence, to be sure ; it includes all Italy
and even extends beyond the national bounds. The factions war with
varying success. In 1260 the Guelfs at Florence meet with a signal reverse
at the battle of Monteaperto. But eight years later at Theliacozza, the
Ghibellines under Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, receive a most
disastrous set-back.
An important feature of the epoch is the steady development of the half
dozen cities ; in particular the rivalry between the three chief maritime cities,
Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. Pisa has more than held her own until now, but in
1284 she receives her quietus in the duel with Genoa off the isle of Meloria ;
henceforth, she must yield supremacy to her conqueror and to Venice.
But, as has been said, the maritime cities no longer hold uncontested
supremacy. Florence, " The Flower of Tuscany," though lacking the ad-
vantage of geographical position, is able, nevertheless, to take a place among
the commercial centres ; thanks to her location on the highway between
Germany and southern Italy, she perhaps profits more by that all essential
mingling of the races to which reference has been made, than any of her
sister cities. Just at the close of the century the warfare of the Guelfs and
Ghibellines receives a new development in Florence through the strife of
the factions that come to be known as the Bianci and Neri ; the dispute
which began as a mere personal strife spreads its baneful influence over the
entire community.
Notwithstanding all these dissensions, however, there is marked progress
in civilisation during this century. The Italian cities can boast that their
streets are paved, while the streets of Paris, the foremost city of the north,
are mere beds of mud. The growing desire for education is evidenced in the
founding of schools and universities in Italy. Just at the close of the cen-
tury the since famous Palazzo Vecchio and the even more famous Santa
A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION 7
Croce were constructed. In the field of pictorial art there were also evi-
dences of the new plane of culture to which Italy had attained, while schol-
arship found a worthy exponent in the celebrated Thomas Aquinas.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
For about a half century Italy has been free from the intrusions of the
emperors, but now early in the fourteenth century Henry VII crosses the Alps.
Unlike some of his predecessors, he meets a rather hearty welcome from
several of the cities and from the pope. The Florentines, on the other hand,
do not welcome him, and his coming leads to the usual turmoils. His sud-
den death — perhaps from poison — dissipates all the hopes based on the impe-
rial presence. His successor, Louis of Bavaria, also comes to Italy and in
association with the great general Castruccio makes war upon the Floren-
tines, who have been forced much against their will to put themselves under
the leadership of the duke of Naples. The Florentines hold their own
fairly well against the outside invaders, but find themselves unable to tolerate
the tyranny within their walls, and end by expelling the tyrant.
A striking feature of the century is the abandonment of Rome by the
popes, who retire to Avignon for more than seventy years, from 1305 to 1377,
an interval famous ever since as the Babylonish captivity. During the
absence of the popes the Romans fared but ill. Lacking the papal power
which made their city a centre of world influence, they are given over to
minor dissensions. The famous Rienzi — " The last of the tribunes " —
makes an heroic effort to restore order just at the middle of the century,
and for a time dominates the situation ; only to be overthrown ingloriously
after a brief period of authority.
In the north the Visconti make themselves dominant in Milan and inter-
fere perpetually in general politics, striving to subordinate all Italy to their
influence. Florence was brought into repeated conflicts with the successive
rulers of this family, and it was in these contests that the great English
general, Sir John Hawkwood came to the fore. Leader of a band of mer-
cenaries, — soldier of fortune in the most literal sense of the word, — this
famous warrior fought first against the Florentines, and subsequently in
their service. Despite some reverses he gained a reputation which led
Hallam to consider him the first great commander since Roman times.
This estimate perhaps does Hawkwood something more than justice; it
overlooks the great Castruccio, to go no further. But undoubtedly Hawk-
wood was a redoubtable leader, and he was among the first of a series of
condottioria who gave distinction to Italian armies during the ensuing
century.
Genoa and Venice are drawn into a disastrous warfare ; in fact the vari-
ous dominant cities of Italy are almost perpetually quarrelling. Even the
great plague which sweeps over Italy in 1348, despite its devastations — so
graphically described by Boccaccio — serves to give scarcely more than a
temporary lull to the dissensions. The insurrection of the Ciompi, the
Great Schism, and the outbreak of the war of Chioggia are dissensions that
mark the later decades of the century.
But all these political dissensions sink quite into insignificance in com-
parison with the tremendous intellectual development of the time. As we
have seen, the western world has been preparing for centuries for the devel-
opment of an indigenous culture. Now the promise meets fruition. It
required but the waft of a breeze from the East to fan the smouldering embers
8 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
into flame. This vivifying influence came about partly through the emigra-
tion of large numbers of scholars from Constantinople ; a migration incited
chiefly by fear of the Turks. These scholars brought with them their love
of the Greek classics and stimulated the nascent scholarship of Italy into a
like enthusiasm. Soon there began and developed a great fashion of search-
ing for classical manuscripts, and many half-forgotten authors were brought
to light. It became the fashion to copy these manuscripts, as every gentle-
man's house must now have a library. The revival of interest came about
in time to save more than one classical author from oblivion, whose works
would probably have perished utterly had they been subjected to another cen-
tury of neglect. Such an author as Velleius Paterculus, for example, is known
exclusively through a single manuscript, which obviously must have escaped
destruction through mere chance ; and everyone is aware how large a pro-
portion of classical writers were not accorded even this measure of fortune.
No doubt many authors were inadvertently allowed to perish even after
this revival of interest, but the number must have been very small in pro-
portion to those that were already lost.
But the revival of interest in the works of antiquity was by no means the
greatest literary feature of the time. There came with it a creative impulse
which gave the world the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, not to
mention the lesser chroniclers. Their work evidenced that spontaneous
outbreak of the creative impulse for which the classicism of the East had
been preparing. How spontaneous it was, how little understood, even by its
originators, is illustrated in the fact that both Dante, the creator of Italian
poetry, and Boccaccio, the creator of Italian prose, regarded their work in the
vernacular as relatively unimportant ; basing their hopes of immortality
upon their archaic Latin treatises, which the world promptly forgot. No
better illustration could be furnished anywhere of that spontaneity of truly
creative art to which we have had occasion more than once to refer.
Nor was it in literature alone that the time was creative. Pictorial art
had likewise its new beginning in this epoch. Cimabue, indeed, had made an
effort to break with the crude traditions of the eastern school of art in the
latter part of the thirteenth century ; his greater pupil Giotto developed his
idea in the early decades of the fourteenth century, and gathered by him, the
school of painters in Florence attempted, following their master, to go to
nature and to reproduce what they saw. Their effort was a crude and
tentative one, judged according to the canons of the later development ;
but it was the beginning of great things. In architecture the effort of the
time was not doomed to be content with mere beginnings : " Giotto's tower,"
the famous Campanile, still stands in evidence of the relative perfection to
which this department of art had attained. All in all, then, the fourteenth
century was a time of wonderful development in Italy ; the clarion note of
Dante has been called the voice of ten silent centuries ; it told of a new
phase of the Renaissance.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
During the fifteenth century Italy enjoyed a period of relative immunity
from outside interference. An emperor was crowned at Rome in the early
days of the century, to be sure, and there were various efforts at interference
by other powers, including the coming of Charles VIII in 1494. But, as a
general thing, it was the Italians themselves who competed with one another,
rather than outside powers who quarrelled with Italy as a whole. The great
A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION 9
forces were, as before, the few important cities. These were forever quar-
relling one with another. Pisa became subordinate to Florence, and the
latter city waxed steadily in greatness. In Milan the rule of the Visconti
continued till towards the middle of the century, when, on the disappearance
of the last member of that important family, the house of Sforza came to the
fore and took to itself the task of dictatorship. In Naples King Ladislaus,
and later Queen Joanna II, maintained regal influence and made their princi-
pality a world power. Thus in the middle of the century the four great
powers were Naples, Milan, Venice, and Florence.
In these wars the mercenary leaders were much in evidence. These were
men to whom fighting was simply a business, — a means to a livelihood. No
question of patriotism was involved in their warfare ; they gave their services
to the state that offered the most liberal payment in gold or its equivalent.
Half a dozen of these men gained particular distinction in the fifteenth cen-
tury. These were Braccio, Fortebraccio, Sforza Attendola, and his son
Francesco Sforza, Carmagnola, Niccolo Piccinino, and Colleno Coleoni.
These men were variously matched against one another in the important
wars.
Braccio and Sforza Attendola came into prominence in the papal wars,
having to do with the Great Schism, and beginning about the close of the first
decade of the fifteenth century. Braccio fought for Florence, and Sforza at
first for Pope John XXIII, and subsequently for King Ladislaus of Naples,
who at this time was the strongest ruler in Italy. This war concerned most
of the powers of Italy, and involved Anjou and France as well. The death
of Ladislaus helped to terminate the conflict, but at the same time precipi-
tated a new war, by raising the question of succession to the throne of
Naples.
In this war of the Neapolitan succession Fillipo Maria, duke of Milan,
upheld the cause of the house of Anjou, while Florence sided with Alfonzo.
The chief scene of the war was in the north where the forces of Milan and
Naples competed with those of Florence and Venice. It was here that
Carmagnola (born Francesco Dussone) was given the opportunity to show
his genius as a leader. He served first under Fillipo, but subsequently
entered the service of Venice and acquired new honours as the opponent of
his old employer. In later campaigns his chief opponent was Francesco
Sforza. The tragic end of Carmagnola will be recalled by every reader.
After the settlement of this war of the Neapolitan succession Fillipo
Maria was soon embroiled again, this time with Pope Eugenius. The pope
took refuge in Florence and the Tuscans, again supported by Venice, upheld
him. Francesco Sforza now fought for the Florentines, his opponent, the
leader of the Visconti's army, being Niccolo Piccinino. But before the war
was over the Visconti had gained Sforza back again. On the death of
Fillipo the Milanese established a republic, avowing that they would never
again submit to a tyrant. But necessity soon drove them to call on Fran-
cesco Sforza to aid them in a war against Venice, and their successful gen-
eral presently usurped power, and established a new line of tyrants. In the
later wars between Milan and Venice Colleno Coleoni appeared, and after
bartering his services first to one party and then to the other, became per-
manently established as generalissimo of the land-forces of Venice in 1454.
One of the most striking features of this warfare was that it came to
nothing. So many rival interests were involved, so kaleidoscopic were the
shiftings of the various leaders, so utterly lacking is any great central cause
of contention, that it is sometimes almost impossible to say where one war
10 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
ends and another begins. Each petty state is thinking of its own interests.
And the only thing approaching a general principle of action is the fear
on the part of each state that any other single state might gain too much
influence over Italy as a whole. In other words the thought of maintaining
a balance of power is in the mind of all such leaders as have no hope of
making themselves supreme. As Florence at no time has a hope of becom-
ing politically dominant, her efforts are always directed towards maintaining
a balance of power, and where personalities do not enter into the matter, she
tends in the main to champion the cause of the weaker party.
But despite the interest which necessarily attaches to all these political
jarrings, the really world-historical importance of Florentine history during
this period has to do not with wars, but with the marvellous internal^culture
development. Already in the van of the Renaissance movement Florence
holds her proud position securely throughout the fifteenth century, and is
incontestably the culture centre of the world.
This was the age of the Medici. It was then that Cosmo the Great and
Lorenzo the Magnificent made their influence felt, and enjoyed practical
dictatorship, though the form of government continued a democracy. The
real source of Florentine influence was founded on the old familiar basis of
commercial prosperity. We have seen how Florence in the previous century
produced such men as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, arid Giotto. The intel-
lectual supremacy thus evidenced was maintained in the ensuing century,
but the early part of that century has no names to show that are comparable
to these in artistic greatness. The stamp of the times, at least of the first
half of the fifteenth century, is industrial rather than artistic. This is the
time when the gradually increasing commercial and industrial importance of
Italy has culminated in unequivocal world supremacy. Venice and Florence
are now the commercial centres of the world. In Florence various forms of
craftsmanship have attained a degree of importance which will make them
famous for all time. The guilds of woollen weavers, of cloth merchants, of
silk weavers, and of money-changers have become institutions of world -wide
influence. The money lenders of Florence are found plying their trade in
every capital of Europe. Despite their extortions they are regarded every-
where as a necessary evil ; and Florentine gold in this century exercises an
influence almost as wide as the quondam influence of Roman arms. The
Florentine money-changer holds almost unchallenged the position that the
Jew occupied at a later day. Oddly enough, it may be noted that the Jew
himself is barred from plying the trade of money lender in Florence until
about the end of the first third of the fifteenth century when, paradoxical as
it may seem, he is legally granted the privilege, to protect the borrower from
the extortions of the native usurers of the city.
The rapid development of commerce and industry brings with it, not
unnaturally, a great change in the habits of the Florentine people. Early
in the century the houses in Florence are still simple and relatively plain in
their equipment. The windows are barred by shutters, glass not being yet
in common use ; the stairways are narrow ; the entrances unostentatious.
But before the close of the century all this is changed. The power of
wealth makes itself felt in the houses, equipments, and costumes of the peo-
ple ; in their luxurious habits of living ; their magnificent banquets and
demonstrations ; and all that goes to make up a life of sensuous pleasure.
Most significant of all, however, is the influence which wealth has ena-
bled one family to attain ; for the power of the Medici is, in its essentials,
the power of gold. It is a power wielded deftly in the hands of prominent
A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION 11
representatives of the family ; a power that seems to make for the good of
the city. Under Lorenzo the Magnificent every form of art is patronised
and cultivated, and Florence easily maintains its supremacy as the culture
centre of Italy. Such sculptors as Donatello, Berrochio, and their fellows ;
such painters as Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Ghirlandajo, not to mention a
varied company of almost equal attainments ; and a company of distinguished
workmen in all departments of the lesser arts, lend their influence to beautify
the city under the patronage of Lorenzo. The school of art thus founded is
to give the world such names as Michelangelo and Raphael in the succeed-
ing generations. Curiously enough, by some unexplained oversight, the
greatest painter of the century, Leonardo da Vinci, was led to make his great-
est efforts in Milan and not in Florence during the life of Lorenzo, though
he returned to the latter city not long after the death of the great patron
of art.
As a patron of literature Lorenzo was no less active. He founded and
developed a wonderful library in which the treasures of antiquity were col-
lected, in the original or in copies, without regard to expense, from all parts
of Europe. The art of book-making was carried to its highest development
in this period. The manuscripts of the time are marvels of beauty. The
ornamentation is beautiful, and the letters themselves are printed with a
degree of regularity closely rivalling the uniformity of a printed page. And
then not long after the middle of the century, just when this art of the scribe
was at its height, the printing-press was introduced from Germany, and an
easy mechanical means was at hand by which the most perfect technique
could be attained. True, the connoisseur did not at first recognise the
printed book as a possible rival of the old hand-made work. For a long
time the collector continued to employ the hand workman, and the dilettante
looked upon the printed book with much the same scornful glance which the
modern collector of paintings bestows upon a chromo or lithograph. The
first printing-press was set up, according to Von Reumont, at Subiaco in
a Benedictine monastery in 1465. Some fifteen years later Vespasiano da
Bisticci, writing about the library of the duke of Urbino, could proudly state
that " All the volumes are of the most faultless beauty, written by hand,
with elegant miniatures, and all on parchment. There are no printed books
among them ; the duke would have been ashamed to have them."1
Notwithstanding the scornful attitude of the connoisseur, however, the
art of printing books made its way rapidly. Hitherto the cost of production
had rendered even the most ordinary book a luxury not to be possessed by
any but the relatively wealthy. Naturally enough, an eager band of book
lovers hailed the advent of the new method, despite its supposed artistic
shortcomings ; and before the end of the century there were printing-presses
in all the important centres of Italy, and numberless classics, beginning with
Virgil, had been given a vastly wider currency than had ever previously been
possible. It is needless here to dwell upon the remoter influences of this
rapid diffusion of classical treasures ; but nowhere was the influence more
important than in Italy.
Summarising in a few words the influences of the fifteenth century in
Italy, it may be repeated that, as a whole, it is an epoch of industrial and
commercial progress rather than of the greatest art. The culminating
achievements of the century, the invention of the printing-press and the
discovery of America were not Italian triumphs ; though as the birthplace
1 Quoted by Von Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici il magnifico.
12 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
of Columbus and the home of Amerigo Vespucci, Italy cannot well be denied
a share in the finding of the New World. Indeed, the association of Italy
with this great achievement is perhaps closer than might at first sight
appear. For on the one hand, it is held that the geographical work of
Toscanelli was directly instrumental in stimulating Columbus to the concep-
tion of a western passage to India ; while, in another view, the influence of
the spirit of exploration and discovery fostered by the commercial relations
of Italy in making possible the feat of Columbus, must have been inestima-
ble. 6e all that as it may, the discovery of the New World — made in the
last decade of the century, and, as it chanced in the same year in which
Lorenzo de' Medici died — may well be considered not merely as a culminat-
ing achievement of the century, but as symbolical of that commercial and
industrial spirit for which the century is chiefly remarkable.
We have now advanced to the date which is usually named as closing the
mediaeval epoch, but what has been said about the arbitrary character of this
classification should be borne in mind. The discovery of America in 1492
did indeed mark the beginning of a new era in one sense, since it opened up
a new hemisphere to the observation and residence of civilised man. That
discovery, too, prepared the way for the demonstration of the fact that the
world is round ; hence it became an important corner-stone in the building
of that new structure of man's conception of cosmology of which the master
builders were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. But the building of
this new structure, — a revolutionising of man's conception of the cosmos, —
did not come about in a year or a century; the superstitions based on the
old conception of cosmology have not lost their hold on mankind even in our
own day. It has even been suggested that the year 1859, when the promul-
gation of thought occurred which gave the death-blow to the old ideas of
cosmogony, and which may be said for the first time to have rendered the
old superstitions truly obsolescent, — that this year rather than the year 1492
might well be named as limiting the mediaeval epoch. So perhaps it may be
with more remote generations of the future, but for the twentieth century
observer the older date will doubtless seem the better one. But, after all,
the question is one of no moment. Considering the recognised arbitrariness
of all such divisions it does not in the least matter as to the exact bounds
given to the mediseval epoch.
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The sixteenth century is a time of peculiar contrasts in Italy. The
invasions which began with the coming of Charles VIII in 1494 continue
and become more and more harassing. Italy comes to be regarded as the
proper prey of the French and Spanish rulers. The Italian principalities,
warring as ever with one another, welcome or repel the invaders in accord-
ance with their own selfish interests. All this time there has been no unified
government of Italy as a whole. Nominally the empire included all, but
this was a mere theory which, for the most part, would not bear examina-
tion. Venice all along has claimed allegiance to the Eastern Empire, which
since the middle of the fifteenth century has ceased to exist. Florence
owes no allegiance to any outside power ; it is strictly autonomous. The
democratic feeling is still strong there notwithstanding the usurpations of
the Medici. Venice and Florence with Siena and Lucca are the only
republics remaining at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Of the
scores of cities which formerly were republics, all the rest have come under
A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION 13
the influence of tyrants, or have been brought into unwilling subordination
to neighbouring cities. And now an even greater humiliation is in store for
many of them at the hands of the transalpine conquerors.
Venice, recovering from her duel to the death with Genoa — the war of
Chioggia — continues to hold closely to her old traditions. Her commercial
prosperity continues for a time, but is gradually lessened through the loss of
eastern territories and through the rivalry brought about by the discovery
of America and of a sea route to India. Florence, having thrown off in
1494 the thraldom imposed by the Medici, makes spasmodic efforts to return
to the old purely democratic system ; but fails in the end. In 1569 Cosmo
de' Medici is made Grand Duke of Tuscany, a position which his successors will
continue to hold for seven generations (till 1737). In a word the spirit of
democracy is virtually dead in Italy, and as yet no local tyrant arises who
has the genius to unite the petty principalities into a unified kingdom.
But if political Italy is chaotic and unproductive in this century the case
is quite different when we consider the civilisation of the time. The vivi-
fying influences of the previous century produced a development particularly
in the field of art, which now shows great results. The early decades of the
sixteenth century constitute an epoch of the greatest art development in
Italy. This is the age of Leonardo, of Michelangelo, of Raphael, and of
Titian, and of the host of disciples of these masters. Under the patronage of
successive popes, the master painters are stimulated to their best efforts, and
those wonderful decorations of the Vatican are undertaken which have been
the delight of all later times.
The literary development, if it does not quite keep pace with the
pictorial, nevertheless attains heights which it has only once before reached
since classical times. All this culture development in a time of turmoil
and political disaster seems anomalous, and, as just intimated, can only be
explained as the fruitage of a development which had its origin in an earlier
epoch. The validity of this explanation is illustrated in the rapid decline
that takes place in Italy after the middle of the sixteenth century — an
intellectual decline which is scarcely to be interrupted until the nineteenth
century.
THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
After the wonderful development of the sixteenth century it is amazing
to consider this time of deterioration. The day of great men is not altogether
past — witness Galileo — but there are no such great poets, historians, artists,
as in past generations. Even the events of the political world have small
world-historical importance. Italy is the battle-ground of nations ; it is a
geographical territory but it is scarcely a state. It has no unity, it has no
individuality ; it has no important autonomous states as a whole that com-
mand the attention of the historian. The intellectual sceptre which Italy
so long swayed has been passed on to the nations of the north. The ecclesi-
astical spirit is everywhere dominant.
The burning of Giordano Bruno in the last year of the sixteenth century
and the persecution of Galileo for daring to uphold the new Copernican
conception of cosmogony are typical features of the epoch. Chronologically
the mediaeval era is past, but the spirit of medievalism still pertains in
Italy ; rather let us say that this unfortunate country has lapsed back into
an archaic cast of thought after having led the world for generations.
The historian must note the play and counterplay of outside nations who
use the territory of Italy as their chess-board, but as regards the Italian him-
14 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
self the world historian might virtually disregard his existence during many
generations. It is only towards the close of the eighteenth century when
Italy came under the sway of Napoleon that there came about a reaction
from the overbearing policy of this new tyrant ; then a desire for liberty began
to make itself felt in Italy, and to prepare the way for that struggle of a
half century later which was to weld the disunited subject principalities
into a unified and autonomous kingdom. But the intimations of this later
development could hardly be appreciated by the contemporary observer who
saw Italy ground beneath the heel of Napoleon, with no seeming chance of
ever escaping from this humiliating position.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
With the overthrow of Napoleon there was but slight betterment in the
immediate condition of Italy. An attempt was made by the powers that had
overthrown the French usurper to restore the Italian principalities to some-
thing like their ante-revolutionary status. But, as has just been noted, the
spirit of liberty was taking possession of the land and its long enslaved peo-
ple began to dream of better things than they had known for centuries.
But their efforts to secure the freedom so long renounced were at first only
attempts; one petty rebellion after another seemed to come to nothing.
But, at last, under the guidance of such leaders as Mazzini, Cavour, Gari-
baldi, and Victor Emmanuel, the seemingly impossible was accomplished :
outside influences were subordinated ; the papal power over secular affairs
was restricted and at last virtually overthrown ; and for the first time in
something like fourteen centuries the geographical territory of Italy came
politically under the sway of a single ruler who owed no allegiance to alien
lands : the dream of the visionaries was accomplished : an Italian kingdom
ruled by an Italian king took the place of the enslaved, disunited principali-
ties of the earlier centuries.
True, this achievement was not the culmination that some of the most
ardent patriots, with Mazzini at their head, had dreamed of. The aim of that
leader, as of many another, had been to achieve not a monarchical but a
republican unity. In their enthusiastic estimate the monarchical form of
government was obsolescent. Their enthusiasm harked back to the days
when Venice and Florence had carried out with so much success the pre-
cepts of democracy. Their imagination was fired also by the example of
that newer republic of the West, whose free institutions have inspired so
much of emulation and so much of hatred in the minds of different classes
of people among the older governments of Europe. But if the dreams of
these enthusiasts were not to be realised, it sufficed for the more conservative
reformers that the constitutional monarchy, embodying many of the pre-
cepts and principles of democracy, had at last brought Italy under the sway
of a single sceptre.
CHAPTER I
ITALY IN THE DARK AGE
[476-ca. 1100 A.D.]
IN taking up the history of Italy we shall, for convenience, go back to the
year 476, when the last legitimate emperor of old Rome in the West was
overthrown, and briefly recapitulate the story of events during the period
of invasion that immediately followed. It will be recalled that we have
already covered the period from 476 to 1024 in much detail in our study of
the Western Empire, in Volume VII. It will be unnecessary, therefore, to
treat this epoch here in anything but the barest outline ; and even this will
involve unavoidable repetitions. Since the later emperors of the Holy Roman
Empire continued for some centuries to invade Italy periodically, and to
claim control over its affairs, it will be almost impossible to avoid repeti-
tion here also ; but inasmuch as such monarchs as Conrad II, Henry IV,
and Frederick II are necessarily given full treatment in the volumes devoted
to Germany, we shall deal somewhat briefly with their Italian incursions in
the present connection. A similar duplication of matter will necessarily
be involved in dealing with the mediseval popes, whose history has already
been chronicled in the previous volume.
The story of temporal affairs in Italy lacks unity from the beginning of
the period under consideration till well towards the close of the nineteenth
century. For the most part, except during the relatively brief periods when
a strong emperor claimed dominion over all Italy, the territory of the Italian
peninsula was divided into numerous petty kingdoms, no one of which at-
tained supremacy over the others. First one and then another became
prominent, but often contemporaneous events of local importance, having
but slight world-historical importance, confuse the picture, and make the
presentation of the history of Italy extremely difficult. We must necessarily
overlook a large number of such petty details, endeavouring to select such
events as have real importance, and to weld them into a continuous narrative.
But at best the story of Italian history lacks dramatic unity ; the scene shifts
from one principality to another too frequently to make possible a really
harmonious presentation. We have really to do with a collection of cities
15
16 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
rather than with a nation. It is the old story of Greece over again ; only
here there are more cities competing for supremacy, with no one at any time
quite so near success as Athens and Sparta respectively were at successive
periods. Yet Milan, Venice, and Florence at times approached the goal if
they did not quite attain it.«
Most of these cities were very old ; the greater number flourished in at
least equal splendour in the time of the Roman Empire ; some, such as Milan,
Verona, Bologna, Capua, were so considerable as to present an image of
Rome, with their circus, their amphitheatre, their tumultuous and idle popu-
lation, their riches and their poverty. Their administration was nearly
republican, most commonly composed, after the example of Rome, of a curia,
or municipal senate elected by the people, and of duumvirs, or annual con-
suls. In all these towns, among the first class of inhabitants were to be
found the proprietors of the neighbouring land, lodged in palaces with their
slaves and f reedmen ; secondly, the artisans and shopkeepers whom their ne-
cessities established around them ; lastly, a crowd of idle people, who had
preserved just enough of land to supply, with the strictest economy, the
means of existence. It does not appear that there was any prosperous manu-
factory in Italy. All manual labour, as well in towns as in the country, was
executed by slaves. Objects of luxury, for the most part, came from Asia.
War had for a long time been the only occupation of the Italians ; for a long
period, too, the legions had been levied partly among the Romans, and
partly among their allies in Italy : but, under the emperors, the distrust of
the master seconded the luxurious effeminacy of the subject, the Italians
finally renounced even war, and the legions were recruited only in Pannonia,
Gaul, and the other provinces bordering on the Rhine and the Danube.
At a later period, the barbarians who menaced Rome were seduced by
liberal pay to engage in its defence ; and in the Roman armies the enemies
of Rome almost entirely replaced the Romans. The country could not, as in
modern states, supply the place of cities in recruiting the armies with a
class of men accustomed to the inclemencies of the weather and inured to
toil. The only labourers to be found were an oppressed foreign race, who
took no interest in public affairs. The Romans cultivated their land either
by slaves purchased from the barbarians and forced by corporal punishment
to labour, or by coloni partiarii, to whom was given a small share in the
harvest as wages ; but, in order to oblige these last to content themselves
with the least possible share, they were attached to the land, and nearly
as much oppressed as slaves themselves. The proprietors of land varied as
between these two systems, according as the price of slaves varied, or the
colons (peasants, labourers) were more or less numerous ; no cultivator of
the land had any property in it.
The greater part was united in immense domains, sometimes embracing
whole provinces, the administration of which was intrusted to freedmen,
whose only consideration was, how to cultivate the land with the least pos-
sible expense, and how to extract from their labourers the greatest degree
of work with the smallest quantity of food. The agriculturists, as well
what were called freedmen as slaves, were almost all barbarians by birth,
without any interest in a social order which only oppressed them, without
courage for its defence, and without any pecuniary resources for themselves;
their numbers also diminished with an alarming rapidity, partly from deser-
tion, partly from new invasions of barbarians, who carried them off to sell as
slaves in other Roman provinces, and finally from a mortality, the necessary
consequence of poverty and starvation.
THE DARK AGE 17
[476-774 A.D.]
Italy, nevertheless, was supposed to enjoy a constant prosperity. During
the entire ages of Trajan and the Antonines, a succession of virtuous and
philosophic emperors followed each other ; the world was in peace ; the laws
were wise and well administered ; riches seemed to increase ; each succeed-
ing generation raised palaces more splendid, monuments and public edifices
more sumptuous, than the preceding ; the senatorial families found their
revenues increase ; the treasury levied greater imposts. But it is not on the
mass of wealth, it is on its distribution, that the prosperity of states depends ;
increasing opulence continued to meet the eye, but men became more miser-
able ; the rural population, formerly active, robust, and energetic, were
succeeded by a foreign race, while the inhabitants of towns sank in vice and
idleness, or perished in want, amidst the riches they had themselves created.
THE BARBARIAN INVADERS
It was into this Italy, such as despotism had made it, that the barbarians
penetrated. Eager for the booty which it contained and could not defend,
they repeatedly ravaged it during the last two centuries of the Western
Empire. The mercenary troops that Rome had levied amongst them for its
defence, preferring pillage to pay, frequently turned their arms against
those they were engaged to defend. They vied with the Romans in making
and unmaking emperors ; and generally chose them from their own ranks,
in order to secure to the soldier a greater share of the property of the
citizen. The booty diminished as the avidity of these foreigners increased.
The pomp of the -Western Empire soon appeared, to an army thus formed, a
useless expense. Odoacer, of the nation of the Heruli, chief of the merce-
naries who then served in Italy, suppressed it by deposing, in 476, the last
emperor. He took upon himself the title of king, and distributed among
his soldiers one-third of the land in the most fertile provinces ; he governed
during seventeen years this still glorious country, as a rich farm which the
barbarians had a right to cultivate for their sole use.
The mercenaries united under the sceptre of Odoacer were not suffi-
ciently strong to defend Italy against a new invasion of barbarians. The
Ostrogoths, encouraged by the Grecian sovereign of new Rome, the emperor
of the East, arrived in 489, under the command of Theodoric, from the coun-
tries north of the Euxine to the borders of Italy ; they completed the conquest
of it in four, and retained possession of the peninsula sixty-four years, under
eight successive kings. These new barbarians, in their turn, demanded and
obtained a portion of land and slaves ; they multiplied, it is true, but became
rapidly enervated in a delicious climate where they had suddenly passed from
the severest privations to the enjoyment of every luxury. They were at
last conquered and subdued in the year 553 by the Romans of Constanti-
nople, whom they despised as the degenerate successors of the same nation
which their ancestors had vanquished.
The invasion of the Lombards in 568 soon followed the destruction of
the monarchy of the Ostrogoths. Amongst the various hordes which issued
from the north of Germany upon the southern regions, the Lombards were
reputed the most courageous, the most cruel, and the proudest of their inde-
pendence ; but their number was inconsiderable, and they scarcely acknow-
ledged any social tie sufficient to keep them united : accordingly, they never
completed the conquest of Italy. From 568 to 774, twenty-one Lombard
kings during 206 years succeeded each other without establishing their
H. W. — VOL. IX. C
18 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[568-814 A.D.]
dominion either on the lagunes, at the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf,
where such of the inhabitants of upper Italy as were personally the most
exposed had taken refuge and founded the Venetian Republic ; or on the
shores of the Adriatic, now called Romagna, governed by a lieutenant of
the emperor of Constantinople, under the title of exarch of the five cities
of Pentapolis; or on Rome, defended only by the spiritual arms of the
patriarch of the Western church ; or on the southern coast, where the Greek
municipalities of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi governed themselves almost as
independent republics. The Lombards, nevertheless, founded a kingdom in
northern Italy, of which Pavia was the capital ; and in southern Italy the
duchy of Benevento, which still maintained its independence two centuries
after the kingdom was subjugated.
From the middle of the eighth century the Lombards, masters of a
country where the great towns still contained much wealth, where the land
had lost nothing of its fertility, where the example of the vanquished had
taught the vanquishers the advantage of reviving some agricultural
industry, excited the envy of their neighbours the Franks, who had con-
quered and oppressed the Gauls, who despised all occupation but war, and
desired no wealth but what the sword could give. They by repeated inva-
sions devastated Italy ; arid at length, in 774, completed the destruction of
the Lombard monarchy.
For more than twenty years the popes or bishops of Rome had been in
the habit of opposing the kings of France to the monarchs of Lombardy,
who were odious to them, at first as pagans, and afterwards as heretics.
Chief of the clergy of the ancient capital, where the power of the emperors
of Constantinople had been nominally established but never felt, they con-
founded their pretensions with those of the empire; and the Lombards
having recently conquered the exarchate of Ravenna, and the Pentapolis,
they demanded that these provinces should be restored to Rome. The
Frankish kings made themselves the champions of this quarrel, which gave
them an opportunity of conquering the Lombard monarchy ; but Charles, the
king who accomplished this conquest, and who was the greatest man that
barbarism ever produced, in treating with Rome, in subjugating Italy, com-
prehended all the beauty of a civilisation which his predecessors had seen
only to destroy ; he conceived the lofty idea of profiting by the barbarian
force at his disposal to put himself at the head of the civilisation which he
laboured to restore. Instead of considering himself as the king of the
conquerors, occupied only in enriching a barbarous army with the spoils of
the vanquished, he made it his duty and his glory to govern the country for
its best interests, and for the common good. He did more : in concert with
Pope Leo III, he re-established the monarchy of the conquered as a western
Roman empire, which he considered the representative of right, in opposi-
tion to barbaric force ; he received from the same pope, and from the Roman
people, on Christmas Day in the year 800, the title of Roman emperor, and
the name of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, which no one before had
ever so well deserved.
CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS SUCCESSORS
As king, and afterwards as emperor, he governed Italy, together with his
other vast states, forty years ; he pursued with constancy, and with increas-
ing ability, the end he proposed to himself, viz., establishing the reign of the
THE DAKK AGE 19
[814-961 A.D.]
laws, and a flourishing civilisation : but barbarism was too strong for him ;
and when he died in 814 it was re-established throughout the empire.
Italy had eight kings of the family of Charlemagne, reckoning his son
and grandson, who reigned under him, and were, properly speaking, his
lieutenants. Charles the Fat, great-grandson of Charlemagne, was deposed
in 888 ; after which ten sovereigns, either Italian or Burgundian, but allied
to the race of the Franks, disputed for seventy years more the crown of
Italy and the empire. In 951 Otto I of Saxony, king of Germany, forced
Berenger II, who then reigned, to acknowledge himself his vassal ; in 961
Otto entered Italy a second time with his Germans, was crowned at Rome
with the title of emperor, and sent Berenger II to end his days in a fortress
in Germany.
Nearly five centuries elapsed from the fall of the ancient Roman Empire
to the passing over of the renewed empire to the Germans. For a long
space of time Italy had been pillaged and oppressed in turn by barba-
rians of every denomination, who wantonly overran the country only to
plunder, and believed themselves valiant because, though in small num-
bers, they spread terror over a vast extent, and imagined by bloodshed to
give a dignity to their depredations. The country, thus exposed to so many
outrages, did not remain such as the Romans had left it. The Goth, Lom-
bard, Frank, and German warriors, who had successively invaded Italy,
introduced several of the opinions and sentiments of the barbarian race,
particularly the habit of independence and resistance to authority. They
divided with their kings the country conquered by their valour. They caused
to be ceded to them vast districts, the inhabitants of which they considered
their property equally with the land. The Lombard monarchy compre-
hended thirty dukedoms, or marquisates ; their number diminished under
Charlemagne and his successors ; but at the same time there rose under them
a numerous class of counts and vavaseurs, amongst whom every duke divided
the province that had been ceded to him, under condition that they should
swear fealty and homage, and follow him to the wars. The counts, in their
turn, divided among the warriors attached to their colours the land appor-
tioned to them. Thus was the feudal system, which made the possession of
land the warrior's pay, and constituted an hereditary subordination founded
on interest and confirmed by oath from the king down to the lowest soldier,
established at the same time throughout Europe. The Lombards had car-
ried into Italy the first germs of this system which had been developed by
the Franks and invigorated by the civil wars of Charlemagne and his
successors; these wars rendered it necessary that every feudatory should
fortify his dwelling to preserve his allegiance to his lord ; and the country,
which till then had been open and without defence, became covered with
castles, in which these feudal lords established their residence.
About the same time — that is to say, in the ninth century — cities began
to rebuild their ancient walls ; for the barbarian kings who had everywhere
levelled these walls to the ground no longer opposed their reconstruction,
and the danger of being invaded by the rival princes who disputed the
throne made them necessary ; besides, at this epoch new swarms of bar-
barians from all parts infested Europe; the inhabitants of Scandinavia,
under the name of Danes and Normans, ravaged England and France ; the
Hungarians devasted Germany and upper Italy ; the Saracens, masters of
Africa, infested the southern coasts of Italy and the isles : conquest was not
the purpose of any of these invaders ; plunder and massacre were their only
objects. Permission to guard themselves against continual outrages could
20 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[814-1039 A.D.]
not be withheld from the inhabitants of towns. Several thousand citizens
had often been obliged to pay ransom to little more than a hundred robbers ;
but, from the time they were permitted by their emperors to rebuild their
walls, to purchase or manufacture arms, they felt themselves in a state to
make themselves respected. Their long suffering had hardened them, had
accustomed them to privations and danger, and had taught them it was better
to defend their lives than yield them up to every contemptible aggressor ; at
the same time, the population of cities, no longer living in idleness at the
expense of the provinces of the empire, addicted themselves to industry for
their own profit : they had, accordingly, some wealth to defend. The ancient
curise and municipalities had been retained in all the towns of Italy by their
barbarian masters, in order to distribute more equally the burdens imposed
by the conquerors, and reach individuals more surely. The magistrates were
the chiefs of a people who demanded only bread, arms, and walls.
In the meantime the dukes, marquises, counts, and prelates, who looked
on these cities as their property, on the inhabitants as men who belonged to
them, and laboured only for their use, soon perceived that these citizens
were ill disposed to obey, and would not suffer themselves to be despoiled,
since they had arms, and could defend themselves under the protection of
their walls : residence in towns thus became disagreeable to the nobles, and
they left them to establish themselves in their castles. They became sen-
sible that to defend these castles they had need of men devoted to them ;
that, notwithstanding the advantage which their heavy armour gave them
when fighting on horseback, they were the minority ; and they hastened to
enfranchise the rural population, to encourage their growth, to give them
arms, and to endeavour to gain their affections. The effect of this change
of rule was rapid : the rural population in the tenth and eleventh centuries
increased, doubled, quadrupled in exact proportion to the land which they
had to cultivate.
Otto I, his son Otto II, and his grandson Otto III were successively
acknowledged emperors and kings of Italy, from 961 to 1002. When
this branch of the house of Saxony became extinct, Henry II of Bava-
ria and Conrad the Salian of Franconia filled the throne from 1004 to
1039. During this period of nearly eighty years, the German emperors
twelve times entered Italy at the head of their armies, which they always
drew up in the plains of Roncaglia near Piacenza : there they held the
states of Lombardy, received homage from their Italian feudatories, caused
the rents due to be paid, and promulgated laws for the government of Italy.
A foreign sovereign, however, almost always absent, known only by his
incursions at the head of a barbarous army, could not efficaciously govern a
country which he hardly knew, and where his yoke was detested. During
these five reigns, the social power became more and more weak in Italy.
The emperors were too happy to acknowledge the local authorities, whatever
they were, whenever they could obtain from them their pecuniary dues :
sometimes they were dukes or marquises, whose dignities had survived the
disasters of various invasions and of civil wars ; sometimes the archbishops
and bishops of great cities, whom Charlemagne and his successors had
frequently invested with duchies and counties escheated to the crown, reck-
oning that lords elected for life would remain more dependent than heredi-
tary lords ; sometimes, finally, they were the magistrates themselves, who,
although elected by the people, received from the monarch the title of impe-
rial vicars, and took part with the nobles and prelates in the plaids (placita),
or diets of Roncaglia.
THE DARK AGE 21
[717-1125 A.D.]
In the time of Conrad the Salian, the prelates almost throughout Lom-
bardy joined the cities against the nobles ; and from 1035 to 1039 there was
a general war between these two orders of society. Conrad put an end to
it, by a constitution which is considered to be the basis of feudal law. By
this the inheritance of fiefs was protected from the caprices of the lords and
of the crown, — the most oppressive conditions of feudal dependence were
suppressed or softened, — and the few remaining slaves of the land were
set free.
THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY
The crown of Conrad the Salian passed in a direct line to his son, grand-
son, and great-grandson. The first, Henry III, reigned from 1039 to 1056 ;
the second, Henry IV, from 1056 to 1106 ; the third, Henry V, from 1106
to 1125. The last two reigns were troubled by the bloody quarrel between
the empire and the court of Rome, called the war of investitures. Rome
had never made part of the monarchy of the Lombards. This ancient capi-
tal of the world, with the territory appertaining to it, had, since the conquest
of Alboin, formed a dukedom, governed by a patrician or Greek duke, sent
from Constantinople. The bishop of Rome, however, who, according to the
ancient canonical forms, was elected by the clergy, the senate, and the people
of his diocese, had much more authority over his flock than this foreign
magistrate.
The pontiff, however, who now began to take exclusively the name of
pope, had more than once successfully defended Rome with his spiritual
arms when temporal ones had failed. When, in the year 717, an iconoclast,
or enemy of images, filled the throne of Constantinople, the popes under
the pretence of heresy rejected his authority altogether; a municipality, at the
head of which were a senate and consuls, then governed Rome nearly as an
independent state ; the Greeks, occupied with their own dissensions, seemed
to forget it ; and Rome owed to this forgetfulness fifty years of a sort of
liberty. The Romans found once more a faint image of their past glory ;
sometimes even the title of Roman Republic was revived. They approved,
notwithstanding, of Pope Stephen II conferring on the princes of the Franks
the dignity of patricians, in order to transfer to them the authority which
the Greek magistrate exercised in their city in the name of the emperor of
Constantinople ; and the people gladly acquiesced when, in the year 800,
Leo III crowned Charlemagne as augustus, and restorer of the Western
Empire. From that period Rome became once more the capital of the em-
pire. At Rome the chiefs of the empire were henceforth to receive the golden
crown from the hands of the pope, after having received the silver one of the
kingdom of Germany at Aachen, and the iron crown of Lombardy at Milan.
Great wealth and much feudal power were, by the gratitude of the
emperors, attached to the see of Rome. The papacy became the highest
object of ambition to the whole sacerdotal order ; and, in an age of violence
and anarchy, barons notorious for their robberies, and young libertines
recommended only by the favour of some Roman ladies, not unfrequently
filled the pontifical chair. The other bishops selected were often no better.
The German emperors, on arriving at Rome, were sometimes obliged to put
an end to such a scandal, and choose among the competitors, or depose a
pope who put all Christendom to the blush. Henry III obliged the people
to renounce the right which they had hitherto exercised, and so greatly
abused, to take part in the election of popes. He, himself, named four
22 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1046-1122 A.D.]
successively, whom he chose from among the most learned and the most
pious of the clergy of Italy and Germany ; and thus powerfully seconded
the spirit of reform which began to animate the church from the eleventh
century.
THE DISUNITED MUNICIPALITIES
The war of investitures, which lasted more than sixty years, accom-
plished the dissolution of every tie between the different members of the
kingdom of Italy. Civil wars have at least this advantage — that they
force the rulers of the people to consult the wishes of their subjects, oblige
them to gain affections which constitute their strength, and to compensate,
by the granting of new privileges, the services which they require. The
prelates, nobles, and cities of Italy obeyed, some the emperor, others the
pope ; not from a blind fear, but from choice, from affection, from conscience,
according as the political or religious sentiment was predominant in each.
The war was general, but everywhere waged with the national forces.
Every city armed its militia, which, headed by the magistrates, attacked the
neighbouring nobles or towns of a contrary party. While each city imag-
ined it was fighting either for the pope or the emperor, it was habitually
impelled exclusively by its own sentiments : every town considered itself as
a whole, as an independent state, which had its own allies and enemies ; each
citizen felt an ardent patriotism, not for the kingdom of Italy, or for the
empire, but for his own city.
At the period when either kings or emperors had granted to towns the
right of raising fortifications, that of assembling the citizens at the sound of
a great bell, to concert together the means of their common defence, had
been also conceded. This meeting of all the men of the state capable of
bearing arms was called a parliament. It assembled in the great square, and
elected annually two consuls, charged with the administration of justice at
home, and the command of the army abroad. The militia of every city was
divided into separate bodies, according to local partitions, each led by a
gonfaloniere, or standard-bearer. They fought on foot, and assembled round
the carroccio, a heavy car drawn by oxen, and covered with the flags and
armorial bearings of the city. A high pole rose in the middle of this car,
bearing the colours and a Christ, which seemed to bless the army, with both
arms extended. A priest said daily mass at an altar placed in the front of
the car. The trumpeters of the community, seated on the back part,
sounded the charge and the retreat. It was Heribert, archbishop of Milan,1
contemporary of Conrad the Salian, who invented this car in imitation of the
ark of alliance, and caused it to be adopted at Milan. All the free cities of
Italy followed the example : this sacred car, entrusted to the guardianship
of the militia, gave them weight and confidence. The nobles who committed
themselves in the civil wars, and were obliged to have recourse to the protec-
tion of towns, where they had been admitted into the first order of citizens,
formed the only cavalry.
The parliament, which named the consuls, appointed also a secret council,
called a consilio di credenza, to assist the government, composed of a few
members taken from each division ; besides a grand council of the people,
who prepared the decisions to be submitted to the parliament. The consilio
archbishop of Milan was the most powerful prince when there was not an Italian
emperor or king of Italy in the north of the peninsula. Milan owes almost all her glory to her
archbishops." — MILMAN, History of Latin Christianity.]
THE DARK AGE 23
[568-1200 A.D.]
di credenza was, at the same time, charged with the administration of the
finances, consisting chiefly of entrance duties collected at the gates of the city,
and voluntary contributions asked of the citizens in moments of danger.
As industry had rapidly increased, and had preceded luxury, as domestic
life was sober, and the produce of labour considerable, wealth had greatly
augmented. The citizens allowed themselves no other use of their riches
than that of defending or embellishing their country. It was from the year
900 to the year 1200 that the most prodigious works were undertaken and
accomplished by the towns of Italy. They began by surrounding them-
selves with thick walls, ditches, towers, and counter guards at the gates ;
immense works, which a patriotism ready for every sacrifice could alone
accomplish. The maritime towns at the same time constructed their ports,
quays, canals, and custom-houses, which served also as vast magazines for
commerce. Every city built public palaces for the signoria, or municipal
magistrates, and prisons; and constructed also temples, which to this day
fill us with admiration by their grandeur and magnificence. These three
regenerating centuries gave an impulse to architecture, which soon awakened
the other fine arts.
The republican spirit which now fermented in every city, and gave to
each of them constitutions so wise, magistrates so zealous, and citizens so
patriotic and so capable of great achievements, had found in Italy itself the
models which had contributed to its formation. The war of investitures
gave wing to this universal spirit of liberty and patriotism in all the munici-
palities of Lombardy, in Piedmont, Venetia, Romagna, and Tuscany. But
there existed already in Italy other free cities, of which the experience had
been sufficiently long to prove that a petty people finds, in its complete
union and devotion to the common cause, a strength often wanting in great
states. The free cities which flourished in the eleventh century rose from
the ruins of the Western Empire ; as those in Italy which preceded them
in the career of liberty rose from the ruins of the empire of the East.
When the Greeks resigned to the Lombards Italy, which a few years
before they had conquered from the Ostrogoths, they still preserved several
isolated ports and fortified places along the coast. Venice, at the extremity
of the Adriatic ; Ravenna, at the south of the mouth of the Po ; Genoa, at
the foot of the Ligurian Mountains ; Pisa, towards the mouths of the Arno ;
Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Amalfi, Bari, were either never conquered by the
Lombards, or were in subjection too short a time to have lost their ancient
walls and the habit of guarding them. These cities served as the refuge of
Roman civilisation. All those who had preserved any fortune, indepen-
dence of mind, or hatred of oppression, assembled in them to concert the
means of resisting the insolence of their barbarian masters. The Grecian
Empire maintained itself at Constantinople in all its ancient pride ; but,
with oriental apathy, it regarded these remains as still representing its
province of Italy, while it did nothing for their defence. From time to
time, a duke, an exarch, a patrician, a catapan, or other magistrate, was sent,
with a title announcing the highest pretensions, but unaccompanied by any
real force. The citizens of these towns demanded money and soldiers to repair
and defend their fortifications; whilst the emperors, on the contrary, demanded
that the money and soldiers of Italy should be sent to Constantinople.
After some disputes, the Greek government found it prudent to abandon the
question, and shut its eyes to the establishment of a liberty it despised,
but which perhaps might be useful in the defence of these distant posses-
sions ; finally, the magistrates, whom these towns themselves nominated,
24 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[452-730 A.D.]
became the acknowledged depositories of the imperial authority. The dis-
posal of their own money and soldiers was allowed them, on condition that
nothing should be demanded of the emperors, who were satisfied to see their
names at the head of every act, and their image on the coin, without exact-
ing other acts of submission. This policy was not, however, exactly followed
with respect to Ravenna, or afterwards to Bari. In these cities the repre-
sentative of the emperor had fixed his residence with a Greek garrison.
Ravenna, as well as the cities appertaining to it, denominated the Pentapolis,
was conquered by the Lombards between 720 and 730. Bari became then
the capital of the thema of Lombardy, which extended over a great part of
Apulia. We have already shown how Rome passed from the Greek to the
Western Empire : we suspect, rather than know, that Genoa and Pisa, after
having been occupied by the Lombards, preserved their relations with Con-
stantinople. The pallium, or silk flag, presented for some time to the em-
perors, was considered by them as a sort of tribute; but Venice on the
upper sea, Gaeta, Naples, and Amalfi, on the lower, advanced more openly to
independence.
VENICE
THE ORIGIN OF VENICE
From the invasion by Attila in 452, the marshes called Lagune, formed at
the extremity of the Adriatic by the slime deposited by seven or eight great
rivers, amidst which arose innumerable islands, had been the refuge of all
the rich inhabitants of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Treviso, and other great
cities of Venetia, who fled from the sabres of the Huns. The Roman Empire
of the West survived this great calamity twenty-four years ; but it was only
a period of expiring agony, during which fresh disasters continually forced
new refugees to establish themselves in the Lagune. A numerous population
was at length formed there, supported by fishing, the making of salt, some
other manufactories, and the commerce carried on by means of these many
rivers. Beyond the reach of the barbarians, who had no vessels, forgotten
by the Romans, and their successors the Ostrogoths, they maintained their
independence under the administration of tribunes, named by an assembly
of the people in each of the separate isles. &
The authentic record of maritime Venice commences with the arrival of
the Lombards in Italy. Of the time previous to this period, the records
are the work of posterior chroniclers written in an adulatory spirit towards
the republican powers.
As Babbo rightly said with regard to the vaunted very ancient origin
and liberty of Venice, it was flattering to the republics to be credited with
THE DAKK AGE 25
[538-600 A.D.]
such old and sovereign power, " but the truth is that liberty and power do
not rise to full force at once, but they gradually gain ground in obscurity
and difficulty." But criticism has for some time directed its attention to
these inventions, and has finally silenced the Venetian traditions with their
pretended foundations.
However, it is not to be inferred that the Venetian islands were uninhab-
ited before the invasion of the Lombards, for there are documents which
prove the contrary. But, as anyone can see, there is a great difference
between the islands having inhabitants and being seats of an organised and
free state as we are asked to believe.
It is now generally granted that, during the Roman sway and at the time
of the temporary invasions, the stable populations of the islands remained
subject to continental Venetia, and more particularly to the mother-city from
which it received its magistrates. But when the foreign invasions became
more lasting, the bonds of independence were necessarily loosened towards
the mother-country, when they were not utterly broken.
The first document showing the emancipation of the islands from conti-
nental Venetia is the letter written by Cassiodorus to the tribune of the
maritime places, in the year 538, in which he asks him to provide a trans-
port to Ravenna for the wines and oils belonging to the Istrians. But if this
letter shows that the inhabitants of the islands at the time of the Gothic
rule had begun to elect their own magistrates instead of receiving them
from the mother-country, it does not prove that the islands thence-
forward had full political power, as Graswinkel of antiquity and Crivello
of modern times would have us to believe. Because in this case the letter
would not have been written in the name of the prefect of the place as
well as in the name of the king, as it was customary with foreigners;
neither would Cassiodorus have dared to use to the Venetian tribune the
same language as he used in his letters to the provincial* of Istria, to the con-
sulare of Liguria, and to the possessori of Syracuse, who were never thought
to be independent magistrates. Moreover, Balbo notes that the vicinity of
the lagunes to Ravenna, the capital and seat of the Gothic kings of Italy,
renders every other supposition absurd.
Hence Romanin shows that this dependence of the islands on the Gothic
dominion was more nominal than real. It is indisputable that it was
changed into a sort of protectorate before it became a real republic, the rule
of the east Goths being of too short duration to permit the confirmation of
their own power, and moreover the nominal amnesty of the islands to the
kingdom sufficiently satisfied the ambition of the Gothic kings and relieved
them of undertaking their conquest. When Italy passed into the hands
of the Greeks through the victories of Belisarius, the Venetian islands fol-
lowed the fate of the mother-country ; and it relapsed subsequently into the
power of the Greeks after the short restoration of the Gothic rule. Moreover,
the Greek sovereignty of the islands seemed to have become a mere military
occupation ; at least it appears so in the second half of the sixth century,
when the migrations were made definitive to confirm the Lombard power in
Italy.
To show how far removed from dependence on Constantinople the islands
were at that time, we quote the authority of the chronicler Giovanni Dia-
cono,^ who dates the origin of the tribunal government and the conformation
of the rank to the metropolises of the islands from the arrival of the Lom-
bards. This fact, whilst showing on one side the autonomous position
assumed by the islands towards the Byzantine Empire, proves on the other
26 tTHE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[550-SOO A.D.]
that the dependence of the islands on the mother-country had now virtu-
ally ceased. Hence the tribunes after the second half of the sixth century
assume the solemn title of tribunes of the islands of the maritime lagunes
proposed by the corporations of the same, to show that their election had
been made with the full authority of the islands without regard to the
mother-cities. The form of the political relations of the islands with
Constantinople can be gathered from the account given by the chronicler
Altinate of Longinus' visit to the islands in the year (584) before returning
to his country.
Altinate relates that when Longinus asked the islanders to receive him
into the lagunes, and thence to transport him to Constantinople in their ships,
he tried to persuade them by saying that he required no oath of fidelity, but,
if they wished to show themselves good servants of the empire and ready to
fight their enemies, he would make known or send for what they wanted
at Constantinople ; he would ask the emperor for whatever they wanted by
means of a writing which he himself would place in the hands of the emperor,
which would increase the concessions to the islands to have open and free
entry to all the ports of the empire in the ways of commerce. The Vene-
tians, satisfied with such promises, after having announced to the exarch how
they were situated, how they had made this sanctuary in the lagunes so as
not to fear being subjugated by any emperor, or king, or any prince whatso-
ever in the world, they received him with great honour, and sent with him
to Constantinople a deputation to ask the emperor for the things promised
by the exarch. And the emperor gave to the Venetians a diploma by which
they were to be held in honour by all the authorities of the capital and the
state, and to receive the protection of the imperial forces for all the mari-
time district and complete security for their commerce in the kingdom ; and
thus the Venetians became subject to his dominion and became proud of the
honour. We see from this account of the chronicler Altinate, which was
confirmed by subsequent chroniclers, that the primary political relation of
the Venetians with the empire was, like that with the Gothic kings of Italy,
a relation of protection more than servitude.
" They recognised," says Romanin, " the emperor as their lord, they bowed
to servile formulas, ordained by the proud vanity of the Eastern court, they
accepted the general custom of heading their acts with the name and the
year of the reigning csesar ; but they continued to rule themselves with their
own laws and with their own magistrates. They made wars and concluded
treaties, which they could not have done in a state of subjection."
And, supported by the authority of the Byzantine records, by the emperor
Constantine Porphyrogenitus at Calcondila, this condition of political auton-
omy, enjoyed by the Venetians in the second half of the sixth century (accord-
ing to the author of the Storia documentata di Venezia), reassumed the diverse
conditions of life by which maritime Venice passed from her first appearance
upon the theatre of history until the conquest of Italy by the Lombards.
From the facts appearing among this accumulated matter he had to con-
clude that the islands were at first dependent on the Venetian territory to
which they were annexed, that in the confusion arising from the barbaric
invasions in which they found themselves cut off from the mother-country
they had to provide for themselves and nominate their own magistrates,
that they recognised the Gothic dominion which caused them no incon-
venience, and they were left in possession of their own municipal government ;
and that finally, at the time of the Lombards, their constitution assumed a
stable form, and their first relations with the kings of Italy and with the
THE DARK AGE 27
[600-713 A.D.]
emperors corresponded rather to those of a protectorate than to a real de-
pendency. Impartial examination of subsequent events proves this fact,
for full liberty in the reforms of their own government and laws without the
intervention of any foreign power is evident ; the wars were spontaneously
undertaken and the treaties independently concluded. By such means every-
thing went on naturally and progressively, as is seen by the records before
us, and as we learn from the national history and story of events.
THE ORIGIN OF THE DOGESHIP
There are but few records of the period between the stipulation of the
compromise with the emperor Maurice to the foundation of the Venetian
dukedom, but they suffice to confirm the autonomous policy enjoyed by the
Venetian islands at that time. The majority of these records refer to the wars
engaged in by the Venetians with the Lombards. By these they became
masters of Padua. At the time of King Agilulf they turned their arms
against the islands to get them under their own sway. The increasing pros-
perity of the islands, and the idea that the wealth accumulated there had
been mostly imported from the continent to protect it from the usurpation of
conquerors, kindled a strong desire to complete its conquest. The external
dangers of the islands were attended by the internal disputes from the ambi-
tions and jealousies of the tribunes.
An imminent invasion of the Lombards was feared when the greater part
of the country, recognising the gravity of the danger menacing them, sum-
moned a general council to Heraclea under the presidency of the chief patri-
arch Aristoforo. And here it was unanimously agreed to introduce a stricter
form of government by preventing the rivalries of the magistrates who were
the chief fomenters of the internal dissensions. And following the example
of great cities like Rome, Genoa, and Naples, which were saved by dukes,
they agreed to appoint a chief magistrate with jurisdiction over all the islands
with the title of "duke" (doge). Then, proceeding to the election of the
person on whom this dignity was to be conferred, their choice fell upon Paolu
Lucio, or Paoluccio Anafesto. Such was the origin of the Venetian dukedom
as it is recorded by chroniclers. But if there is unity among them as to the
causes which gave rise to the ducal power in maritime Venetia, there is none
with regard to the time in which it was instituted. Some put it in the year
697, others relegate it to the first years of the next century. Among them
there is Giovanni Diacono,^ who puts the election of Paoluccio at the time
of Anastasius II, emperor, and of Liutprand king of the Lombards. And as,
according to the most ancient Venetian chronicler, Liutprand succeeded to
the throne in 712 and Anastasius in 713, the election of Paoluccio could not
have been before the latter year.
Therefore between the two extreme dates quoted by the chroniclers there
is a difference of sixteen years, sufficient time to afford material for criticism.
But the different points were defended and contested without result. Mura-
tiri Leo defended the date of 697, which is the date given by Dandolo and
his followers ; Romanin oscillated between the two dates ; Filiasi and Balbo
were inclined to the medium course and put the election of Paoluccio in the
year 706 or 707. But as neither the one nor the other adduces more authen-
tic proofs in support of the closer date, we will remain firm in preferring that
of 713, which is according to the most eminent author on Venetian matters.
We are the more led to this preference by the cause to which the chroniclers
28 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[713-900 A.D.]
generally attribute the foundation of Venetian dukedom. For if it is true
that the imminence of the Lombards led the inhabitants of the islands to
institute a supreme magistrate, it could not have referred to the time preced-
ing Liutprand in which the Lombards, either through flaccidness of purpose
or through internal disputes, were incapable of thinking of new conquests or
exercising fears or apprehensions among their neighbours. The chronicler
Giovanni says nothing of the attributes of the new magistrate, and his silence
on such an important subject is the more deplorable, as in the computations
made by posterior chroniclers on the ducal authority we find names used of
matters more contemporaneous to them than to the time of which they speak.
Andrea Dandolo,^ the most authentic among them, describes in the fol-
lowing words the attributes of the first Venetian dukes : " They had," says
the doge chronicler, " the power and right to convoke the general meeting
for public affairs, to appoint tribunes and judges to administer all matters
private, lay, and ecclesiastical, save the mere spiritual ; they had power in
everything befitting the title of duke ; and by their orders there the councils
of the clergy took place and the election to the prelature was made by the
clergy and the people, the election and the investiture being from their
hands, as they had the power of appointment." It is very doubtful whether
the ducal attributes were originally so defined in detail. Anyhow, from the
appearance of a military magistrate with the title of master of the militia
alongside of the first duke, it can be inferred that the jurisdiction of the
duke was limited to civil affairs. For the chronicler Giovanni,^ in speaking
of Paoluccio Anafesto, says that he judged his own with temperate justice.
And here the verb to judge is used in a more definite and proper sense than
in that used by the Lombard histories and documents respecting their dukes.
It expresses that which is solely civil jurisdiction, whilst the jurisdiction of
the Lombard dukes included the military jurisdiction as well as the civil.
We have an important document of the dogedom of Anafesto,1' which
shows how beneficial the institution of the ducal power was to the Venetians.
This document is a convention of the doge with Liutprand, by which the
Lombard king conceded to the Venetians the trade of the territories of
the kingdom proper, and, defining the limits between the two states, it
declared to be Venetian the territories between the Piave Major and the
Piavicelli on the side of Heraclea. Such, according to the chronicler Gio-
vanni, was the tenor of the treaty of peace concluded between Liutprand
and the first doge of Venice. And we have authentic confirmation of its
truth in its verification, made by Barbarossa in the year 1177, of that which
pertained to the designation of the Venetian confines on the part of Italy. c
It was in 809 [or 810], in a war against Pepin, son of Charlemagne, that
the Venetians made choice of the Island of the Rialto, near which they
assembled their fleet bearing their wealth, and built the city of Venice, the
capital of their republic. Twenty years afterward they transported thither
from Alexandria the body of St. Mark, the evangelist, their chosen patron.
His lion figured in their arms, and his name in their language whenever they
would designate with peculiar affection their country or government.
VENICE IN THE TENTH CENTURY
While the Venetians disputed with the Lombards, the Frank and the
German emperors, the little land on which stood their houses, they had also
to dispute the sea that bathed them, with the Slavonians, who had established
THE DARK AGE 29
[900-996 A.D.]
themselves for the purpose of piracy on the eastern side of the Adriatic. &
It was hardly five hundred years since the fugitives from Padua and Aquileia
had sought refuge in the lagunes. Content with having found safety there
and freedom to enlarge their town and extend their commerce, they had
hitherto only made just wars, having only taken to arms to repulse pirates,
help oppressed neighbours, or to defend their liberty against Pepin and the
Hungarians.
Although many victories had given them a just appreciation of their
strength, they had no aggression to reproach themselves with, unless per-
haps that against the Saracens, but this war was undertaken at the solicita-
tion of the Italian people, and on the request of the Eastern emperor.
Moreover, in generally received ideas of this
epoch, the Saracens, in their quality as infidels,
were beyond the pale of common rights. The
republic had never made incursions on the con-
tinent, for it would not be just to lay to its ac-
count the short expeditions of the two doges,
who had no other object than their own interests.
This union of exiles and fishers had become
a rich, powerful, warlike, yet at the same time a
peaceful nation. The fruit of this moderation
had been if not an existence exempt from trouble,
at least a medium to the creation of an inde-
pendent state, freeing itself little by little from
the influence of the two empires between which
it found itself — a state, moreover, which treated
with its neighbours, counted many illustrious
families, whose princes married kings' daughters,
yet in its entity did not extend beyond the la-
gunes and several points of the neighbouring
coast. A new scene was to open up.
Commerce, that profession in which fortunes
are continually being tried, is not a school of
moderation. Successes inspire greediness and
jealousy, and these latter the spirit of domination.
Maritime commerce wanted ports where her
ships could be gathered, authority
where she bought, privileges where
she sold, safety for navigation, and,
above all, no rivals. This ambitious
spirit is really the same as that of
conquest. Venice will show us an
example of it.
No choice of the Venetians was more justified by its great and lasting
results than that of Doge Pietro Orseolo II in 991. He was the son of him
who had abdicated the dogate fifteen years before. As in the life of all great
men there is something of the marvellous, it was spread abroad that his father
had announced that his son would be the glory of his country, and the holi-
ness of Orseolo I gave to these paternal hopes all the authority of a prophecy.
Hardly was the new doge on the throne, than the factions which had
torn Venice during the reign of his feeble predecessor calmed down or at any
rate were quiet. Deliberations had been frequently troubled ones ; the palace
had more than once been stained with blood. Orseolo made a law by which
A DOGE OF VENICE
30 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[996-997 A.D.]
all acts of violence in the public assembly should be punished by a fine of
twenty gold livres or the death of those who had not the wherewithal to
pay. A statesman as well as a clever warrior, he occupied himself with
forwarding commercial prosperity. He treated with all the Italian states
for goods. He obtained from the emperor of the East that all subjects of
the republic should be exempt from dues throughout the empire, not only
in ports but inland, or at least that the dues should be reduced in the pro-
portion of thirty gold sols to two. Finally he assured himself, by an em-
bassy and presents, of the favour of Egyptian and Syrian sultans. The
interior commerce of the Adriatic was itself an abundant source of riches for
the Venetians. Favoured by concessions from the patriarch of Aquileia
and the Italian kings, their ships went the whole length of Lombardy and
Friuli to sell all sorts of foreign wares. They were welcome in the ports
of Apulia and Calabria ; on the eastern coast of the gulf they enjoyed some
privileges, bought, it is true, by a tribute, but which were none the less
profitable.
They got from Dalmatia firewood, wines, oils, hemp, linen, all kinds of
grain and cattle. The eastern coast offered lead, mercury, and metals of
every kind, wood for building, wools, cloth, house linen, cordage, dried fruits,
and even slaves and eunuchs. Everywhere they possessed themselves of the
exclusive commerce in salt and salted fish, and carried into every country
the merchandise of the East. It was owing to a so extended commerce that
Venice, until then without territory, armed fleets, and placed between two
empires, knew how to resist one and make herself necessary to the other.
These advantages were considerable, but to enjoy them peaceably it was nec-
essary to be delivered from these Nareiitine pirates, who for one hundred and
fifty years annoyed Venetian commerce with their continual inroads. They
furnished no immediate cause for attack, only demanded the annual tribute
which the republic had promised them, to which the doge answered that he
would soon bring it himself. Their attacks were at that time directed
against the peoples established the length of the Adriatic; the Istrians,
Liburnians, and the Dalmatians.
Various nations had established themselves one after another on these
coasts ; at first they depended on their chiefs for protection ; then those
in Dalmatia came under the sway of the Eastern emperor, while those farther
north looked to the ruler of the West. These two empires became feeble ;
various commercial towns sprang up on the sea coast which came by little
and little to regard themselves as independent, and these would have found
an assured source of prosperity in maritime pursuits were it not for the
interference of the neighbouring Narentines. It would not be unreasonable
to conjecture that Venice was not without some anxiety, even jealousy, with
regard to these people settled on the east coast of the Adriatic, for they
were independent, industrious, and good sailors.
Venetian historians relate that all these people, as if moved unanimously,
sent deputies to Venice to implore help against the pirates, offering to give
themselves to the republic if she would deliver them. There are very few
people who will give themselves away, and there are no magistrates who
have the right of giving away people. This deputation, if it be true that
it took place, did more honour to the politics of those who received it than
to the wisdom of those who sent it. However that may be, the Venetians
hastened to collect a considerable armament to go and help, or overthrow,
their neighbours, and the doge, after having received from the bishop's hands
the standard of the republic, went to sea in the spring of the year 997. &
THE DARK AGE 31
[997-998 A.D.]
It was on the 18th of May, 997, that the fleet left its moorings, and
pointed its prows toward Grado, where it was met by the patriarch Vitali
Sanudo, followed by a solemn procession of the clergy and the people. From
Grado the whole armament sailed successively to Pirano, Omago, Emonia,
Parenzo, Rovigno, Pola, Zara, Spalatro, Trau, Ossero, Arbo, Veglia, Sebenigo,
Belgrade, Lenigrado, and Curzola. All those places appeared to welcome
the Venetians as their deliverers, and each readily took an oath of allegiance
to its suzerain. At Zara, where the merchants of Venice had formed their
earliest settlements, and where the people exhibited peculiar fervour, Orseolo
spent six days ; and during that period arrived a deputation from Dircislaus,
king of Croatia, whose alarm at the successful progress of the expedition
rendered him desirous of conciliating the republic. The ambassadors of
Dircislaus were dismissed without an audience. At Trau, he found the
brother of the king, Cresimir by name, who implored his Serenity to aid him
in establishing a joint claim to the throne of his father, from which he stated
that he had been recently driven by the perfidy of Dircislaus. Orseolo
entertained the matter favourably, and even consented shortly afterward
(998), as a mark of his friendship and esteem, as well as on grounds of com-
mercial policy, to the union of his own daughter, Hicela, with the son of the
Croatian prince.
But the campaign was far from being at a close. A great impediment
was still to be conquered. Lesina, the principal member of the Illyrican
group, and the chief resort of the pirates, still remained untaken ; and the
doge, having sent ten galleys from Trau to ravage the coast of Narenta,
hastened with the main squadron to accomplish that object. Orseolo entered
the harbour without hesitation ; and the usual summons to surrender having
produced no effect, an order was given to commence the assault. The
Lesinese shrank in dismay from the tempest of stones and darts which
poured without cessation over their walls ; the escarpment was scaled ; a
tower was invested and taken ; the Venetians entered the town ; and, after
a brief interval of license and confusion, the arrival of the doge restored
order. The judicious clemency of Orseolo conciliated the esteem of the
vanquished ; and such was the powerful effect which the reduction of a place,
generally thought to be unassailable, produced on its neighbours that, so
soon as she heard of the fall of Lesina, the little republic of Ragusa de-
spatched an embassy to offer her allegiance to the conqueror. At the same
time, the ten galleys which had undertaken to lay waste the coast of Narenta,
rejoined the main squadron with forty Croatian prizes; and this collateral
success, which might be partly instrumental in humiliating King Dircislaus,
afforded no slight satisfaction to Orseolo. Having thus, in the course of a
few months, completed the object of his expedition, the doge concluded the
campaign by dictating terms to the sea-robbers of Narenta; and Orseolo,
having returned to the capital, and communicated to the national Arrengo
the wonderful success which had attended the arms of the republic, was pro-
claimed Doge of Venice and Dalmatia (998). The assumption of this lofty
appellation seems to have been entirely in harmony with the notions of
sovereignty generally prevalent at that epoch. The incomplete conquest
and precarious tenure of a few hundred miles of the Dalmatian seaboard
sufficed, in the eyes of the Venetians, to constitute Dalmatia itself into an
integral portion of their dominions ; and it is a circumstance strikingly
characteristic of the age, that, in conferring new honours upon the crown,
no attempt was made to discriminate between an immense tract of country
in which the republic had little or no territorial interest and over a small
32 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[998-1198 A.D.]
portion only of which she exercised the barest of feudal rights, and the
islands, to which she enjoyed the fullest prescriptive and possessory title.1 k
In the intervals of peace Orseolo nobly employed his fortune raising pub-
lic monuments. His father had founded a hospital and rebuilt at his own
expense the palace and church of St. Mark. The son had the cathedral of
Grado rebuilt, others say the whole city, and many buildings in Heraclea.
This magnificence may give an idea to what degree of splendour the great
families had arrived. This particular one had only been raised to ducal
dignity one generation^
It would have been to expect from the illustrious citizens of Venice more
than one could expect from the human race to ask them to forget the glory
and splendour of their house, to raise themselves above domestic interests, to
work only for the grandeur of the state, and make this generation consist in
the equality of all the citizens. The tendency towards aristocracy was for a
long time only the result of influence given by riches, office, the remembrance
of service rendered, and the respect which attaches itself naturally to an il-
lustrious name. This kind of aristocracy existed long before the legal one.
In the political order there was no distinction between nobles and plebeians,
and when a foreigner, or a prince even, was admitted to the quality of Vene-
tian, they said to him, " Civem nostrum creamus " — "We make you our fellow-
citizen."
But the Venetian nobles had frequented the society of high French
barons, and naturally took some of their opinions. On their side the people
and the middle class, like the nobles, were also interested. If the very legiti-
mate pride of the aristocrats made them desire power, the good sense of the
other party advised them to claim a share. It was from the struggle be-
tween these interests that a new form of government arose. One historian
has forgotten himself so far as to say that this revolution led things back to
"a natural order, in which the lower orders were dominated by the upper."
The language has no more sense than dignity, c
PROSPERITY AND POLITICAL REFORMS
The settlement of the Venetian constitution prepared the republic for
her brilliant career of commercial and political grandeur ; and a new source
of wealth and power had meanwhile been unfolding itself in her cupidity and
ambition. No circumstance contributed more effectually to her subsequent
prosperity than the religious wars of the Europeans for the recovery of the
Holy Land from the Mohammedan infidels.
From the epoch of the Peace of Constance to the end of the twelfth cen-
tury, the history of Venice is occupied by no occurrence which deserves to
be recorded. But the first years of the thirteenth century are the most brill-
iant and glorious in the long annals of the republic. They are filled with
the details of a romantic and memorable enterprise — the equipment of a
prodigious naval armament, the fearless pursuit of a distant and gigantic
adventure, the conquest of an ancient empire, the division of the spoil, and
the consummation of commercial grandeur.
In the year 1198, Pope Innocent III, by the preaching of Fulk Neuilly,
a French priest, had stirred up the greatest nobles of that kingdom to
undertake a crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. Baldwin,
P The famous and splendid ceremony of the espousal of the doge with the Adriatic was
instituted to symbolise this conquest.]
THE DAKK AGE 33
[1198-1202 A.D.]
count of Flanders, enrolled himself in the same cause, and Boniface, marquis
of Montferrat, accepted the command of the confederates. They were warned
by the sad experience of former crusades not to attempt the passage to Asia
by land ; and the maritime states of Italy were the only powers which could
furnish shipping for the transport of a numerous army. The barons there-
fore sent a deputation to Venice to entreat the alliance and negotiate for the
assistance of the republic (1201 A.D.).
Henry Dandolo, who, at the extraordinary age of ninety-three, and in
almost total blindness, still preserved the vigorous talents and heroism of
youth, had been for nine years doge of Venice. He received the illustrious
ambassadors with distinction ; and after the object of their mission had been
regularly laid before the councils of the state, announced to them in the
name of the republic the conditions upon which a treaty would be concluded.
As the aristocracy had not yet perfected the entire exclusion of the people
from a voice in public affairs, the magnitude of the business demanded the
solemn assent of the citizens, and a general assembly was convened in the
square of St. Mark. There, before the multitude of more than ten thousand
persons, the proud nobles of France threw themselves upon their knees to
implore the assistance of the commercial republicans in redeeming the sepul-
chre of Christ. Their tears and eloquence prevailed. The terms of alliance
had been left to the dictation of the doge and his counsellors ; and for 85,000
marks of silver, less than ,£200,000 ($1,000,000), and not an unreasonable
demand, the republic engaged to transport 4,500 knights with their horses and
arms, 9,000 esquires, and 20,000 infantry, to any part of the coasts of the East
which the service of God might require, to provision them for nine months,
and to escort and aid them with a fleet of fifty galleys ; but with the farther
conditions that the money should be paid before embarkation, and that what-
ever conquests might be made, should be equally shared between the barons
and the republic.
The Venetians demanded a year of preparation ; and before that period
had expired, both their fidelity to the engagement and the extent of their re-
sources were conspicuously displayed. But all the crusaders were not equally
true to their faith ; many whose ardour had cooled, shamefully deserted
their vows ; others had taken ship for Palestine in Flanders, at Marseilles,
and at other Mediterranean ports ; and when the army had mustered at
Venice, their numbers fell very short of expectation, and they were utterly
unable to defray the stipulated cost of the enterprise. Though their noble
leaders made a generous sacrifice of their valuables, above 30,000 marks were
yet wanted to complete the full payment; and the republic, with true mer-
cantile caution, refused to permit the sailing of the fleet until the amount of
the deficiency should have been lodged in their treasury. The timid and
the lukewarm already rejoiced that the crusade must be abandoned, when
Dandolo suggested an equivalent for the remainder of the debt, by the con-
dition that payment should be deferred if the barons would assist the re-
public in reducing the city of Zara, which had again revolted, before they
pursued the ulterior objects of their voyage.
The citizens of Zara had committed themselves to the sovereignty of the
king of Hungary, and the pope forbade the crusaders to attack the Christian
subjects of a monarch who had himself assumed the cross. But the desire of
honourably discharging their obligations prevailed with the French barons
over the fear of papal displeasure, and, after some scruples, the army em-
barked for Zara (1202 A.D.). The aged doge having obtained permission
from the republic to take the cross and lead the fleet, many of the citizens
H. W. — VOL. IX. D
34 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1032-1204 A.D.]
followed his example in ranging themselves under the sacred banner, and
the veteran hero sailed with the expedition of nearly five hundred vessels, the
most magnificent armament, perhaps, which had ever covered the bosom of
the Adriatic. Though Zara was deemed in that age one of the strongest
cities in the world, the inhabitants were terrified or compelled into a sur-
render after a siege of only five days : their lives were spared, but their
houses were pillaged, and their defences razed to the ground.
[It is unnecessary to follow further the remarkable fortunes of the Vene-
tians and crusaders. The story of the capture of Constantinople has already
been told in the history of the Eastern Empire and of the Crusades.]
The talents and heroism of the venerable Dandolo had won for the doges
of Venice the splendid and accurate title of dukes of three-eighths of
the Roman Empire ; he died at Constantinople almost immediately after the
Latin conquest, full of years and glory ; and bequeathed to the republic
the difficult office of governing a greater extent of dominion than had ever
fallen to the inhabitants of a single city. All the islands of the Ionian, and
most of those in the ^Egean seas, great part of the shores of continental
Greece, many of the ports in the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, the city of
Adrianople, and one-fourth of the eastern capital itself were all embraced
in her allotment, and the large and valuable island of Candia was added to
her possessions by purchase from the marquis of Montferrat to whom it had
been assigned. But the prudence of her senate awakened Venice to a just
sense of her own want of intrinsic strength to preserve these immense
dependencies ; and it was wisely resolved to retain under the public gov-
ernment of the state only the colony at Constantinople, with the island of
Candia and those in the Ionian Sea. The subjects of the republic were not
required to imitate the forbearance of the senate, and many of the great
Venetian families were encouraged, or at least permitted, to found princi-
palities among the ruins of the Eastern Empire, with a reservation of feudal
allegiance to their country. In this manner most of the islands of the
^Egean Archipelago were granted in fief to ten noble houses of Venice, and
continued for several centuries subject to their insular princes.0
It was by slow and artfully disguised encroachments that the nobility of
Venice succeeded in substituting itself for the civic power, and investing
itself with the sovereignty of the republic. During the earlier period, the
doge was an elective prince, the limit of whose power was vested in assem-
blies of the people. It was not till 1032 that he was obliged to consult only
a council, formed from amongst the most illustrious citizens, whom he desig-
nated.1 Thence came the name given them of pregadi (invited). The grand
1 The following is a list of the doges of Venice from about the beginning of the eighth to
the close of the thirteenth centuries :
713, Paoluccio Anafesto ; 717, Marcello Tegliano ; 726, Orleo Orso ; 737, Orso killed — the
republic ruled by annually elected mcestro della milizia ; 742, Diodato Orso ; 755, Galla Catanio ;
756, Domenico Monegaro ; 764, Maurizio Galbaio ; 787, Giovanni Galbaio ; 796, Maurizio Galbaio
II (associated) ; 804, Banishment of the Galbaii — Obelerio di Antenori, Beato and Valentino di
Antenori associated ; 809, Angelo Badoer ; 827, Giustiniano Badoer ; 829, Giovanni Badoer ;
836, Pietro Tradenigo ; 864, Orso Badoer ; 881, Giovanni Badoer II ; 887, Pietro Sanudo ; 888,
Giovanni Badoer II ; Pietro Tribuno ; 912, Orso Badoer II ; 932, Pietro Sanudo II ; 939, Pietro
Badoer ; 942, Pietro Sanudo III ; 959, Pietro Sanudo IV ; 976, Pietro Orseolo I ; 978, Vitale
Sanudo; 979, Tribuno Memo; 991, Pietro Orseolo II; 1008, Ottone Orseolo; 1026, Pietro Bar-
bolano ; 1033, Domenico Flabenigo ; 1043, Domenico Contarini ; 1071, Domenico Selvo ; 1084,
Vitale Falieri; 1096, Vitale Michieli ; 1102, Orlando Falieri ; 1117, Domenico Michieli ; 1130,
Pietro Polani ; 1148, Domenico Morosini ; 1156, Vitale Michieli II ; 1173, Sebastiano Ziani ; 1179,
Orlio Malipiero ; 1192, Henry Dandolo ; 1205, Pietro Ziani ; 1229, Jacopo Tiepolo ; 1249, Marino
Morosini ; 1252, Reniero Zeno ; 1268, Lorenzo Tiepolo • 1275, Jacopo Contarini ; 1280, Giovanni
Dandolo.
THE DARK AGE 35
[58&-1229 A.D.]
council was not formed till 1172, 140 years later, and was from that time
the real sovereign of the republic. It was composed of 480 members, named
annually on the last day of September by twelve tribunes, or grand electors,
of whom two were chosen by each of the six sections of the republic. No
more than four members from one family could be named. The same coun-
sellors might be re-elected each year. As it is in the spirit of a corporation
to tend always towards an aristocracy, the same persons were habitually re-
elected, and when they died their children took their places. The grand
council, neither assuming to itself nor granting to the doge the judicial
power, gave the first example of the creation of a body of judges, numerous,
independent, and irremovable; such, nearly, as was afterwards the parlia-
ment of Paris. In 1179, it created the criminal quarantia; called, also, the
vecchia quarantia, to distinguish it from two other bodies of forty judges
created in 1229.<*
OTHER MARITIME CITIES
The first magistrate of the republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi bore
likewise the title of doge. These three cities, forgotten by the Greek em-
perors, and receiving no aid from them, still held by the ties of commerce to
Greece. The inhabitants had devoted themselves with ardour to navigation ;
they trafficked in the Levant, and covered southern Italy with its rich mer-
chandise. The country situated beyond the Tiber had been exposed to fewer
invasions than upper Italy. It had not, however, entirely escaped. A Lombard
chief entered it in 589, and founded the great duchy of Benevento, which
comprehended nearly the whole southern part of the peninsula. This duke-
dom maintained itself independent of the kingdom of the Lombards at
Pavia, and had not been involved in its fall. It defended itself with valour
against Charlemagne and his successors, who attempted its conquest ; but in
839, at the end of a civil war, it was divided into the three principalities of
Benevento, Salerno, and Capua. The Saracens had established colonies, in
the year 828, in Sicily, which till then had been subject to the Greek Empire ;
these Saracens, a few years afterwards, passed into southern Italy. The three
republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi preserved their independence by excit-
ing enmity between the Lombards and Saracens, who equally menaced them ;
but these barbarians soon sank into the languor produced by the charms of a
southern climate. It seemed as if they had no longer courage to risk a life
to which so many enjoyments were attached. When they fought, it was with
effeminacy ; and they hastened the termination of every war to plunge again
into the voluptuous ease from which it had roused them. The citizens of the
republics had the advantage over them of walls and defiles ; and without being
braver than the Lombards, maintained their independence against them for six
centuries.
The republic of Pisa, which vainly sought to save from ruin these first Ital-
ian republics of the Middle Ages, was a city which navigation and commerce
had enriched. Genoa, which soon became its rival, had escaped the pillage
of these northern conquerors, and had preserved a constant intercourse with
Constantinople and with Syria, from whence the citizens brought the rich
merchandise which they afterwards dispersed throughout Lombardy. The
Pisans and Genoese, invigorated by a seafaring life, were accustomed to
defend with the sword the merchandise which they conveyed from one
extremity to the other of the Mediterranean. They were often in conflict
with the Saracens, like them addicted to maritime commerce, to which these
36 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[936-1195 A.D.]
last frequently added piracy. The Saracens pillaged Genoa in the year 936.
In 1004 they entered a suburb of Pisa, and again invested that city in the
year 1011. Their colonies in Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Isles con-
stantly menaced Italy. The Pisans, seconded by the Genoese, in their turn
attacked Sardinia, in the year 1015; but completed the conquest only in 1050.
They established colonies there, and divided it into fiefs between the most
illustrious families of Pisa and Genoa. They also conquered the Balearic
Isles from the Saracens, between the years 1114 and 1116. « The Pisan fleet
of three hundred sail, commanded by the archbishop Pietro Moriconi, attacked
the Balearic Isles, where as many as twenty thousand Christians were said to
be held captive by the Moslems, and returned loaded with spoil and with a
multitude of Christian and Moslem prisoners. The former were set at liberty
or ransomed, and among the latter was the last descendant of the reigning
dynasty. The chief eunuch, who had governed Majorca, perished in the siege.
Immediately afterwards the fourteen years' war with Genoa broke out. The
two republics contested the dominion of the sea, and both claimed supreme
power over the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. A papal edict awarding the
supremacy of Corsica to the Pisan church proved sufficient cause for the war,
which went on from 1118 to 1132. Then Innocent II transferred the suprem-
acy over part of Corsica to the Genoese church, and compensated Pisa by
grants in Sardinia and elsewhere. Accordingly, to gratify the pope and the
emperor Lothair II, the Pisans entered the Neapolitan territory to combat
the Normans. They aided in the vigorous defence of the city of Naples,
and twice attacked and pillaged Amalfi, in 1135 and 1137, with such effect
that the town never regained its prosperity. It has been said that the copy
of the Pandects then taken by the Pisans from Amalfi was the first known to
them, but in fact they were already acquainted with those laws. The war
with Genoa never came to a real end. Even after the retaking of Jerusalem
by the Moslems (1187), the Pisans and Genoese again met in conflict in the
East, and performed many deeds of valour. They were always ready to come
to blows, and gave still more signal proofs of their enmity during the Sicilian
war in behalf of the emperor Henry VI. There could be no lasting peace
between these rival powers until the one or the other should be crushed. *
When, towards the end of the eleventh century, the western world took up
the dispute with the Saracens for the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, Venice, Pisa,
and Genoa had already reached a high point of commercial power ; these three
cities had more vessels on the Mediterranean than the whole of Christendom
besides. They seconded the crusaders with enthusiasm. They provisioned
them when arrived off the coast of Syria, and kept up their communication with
the West. The Venetians assert that they sent a fleet of two hundred vessels,
in the year 1099, to second the First Crusade. The Pisans affirm that their
archbishop Daimbert, who was afterwards patriarch of Jerusalem, passed into
the East with one hundred and twenty vessels. The Genoese claim only
twenty-eight galleys and six vessels ; but all concurred with equal zeal in the
conquest of the Holy Land; and the three maritime republics obtained impor-
tant privileges, which they preserved as long as the kingdom of Jerusalem
lasted, e
THE LOMBARD CITIES AND THEIR ALLIES
In the early days the Italian towns were only as yet larger groups of
dwelling-houses, without political significance, such as every place acquires
by more abundant and brisker communications, and by being the seat of
THE DARK AGE 37
[1010-1125 A.D.]
some sort of government administration ; in short, when it becomes the cen-
tre of a certain district. The three principal classes of inhabitants were as
a rule : (1) free Lombards ; (2) tributary Romans ; (3) serfs and villeins.
There were as yet not sufficient noble retainers in the individual towns to
form a class by themselves.
Among the Franks this state seemingly subsisted for some time, but the
foundations upon which it rested were undermined. The tributary Romans
became gradually either entirely free or really serfs ; many of the free Lom-
bards took knightly service with the kings of the Franks or their counts,
and many more with bishops and abbots. Thus there grew up new class
distinctions, and once more the population seemed to fall into three distinct
classes : (1) noble retainers ; (2) freemen ; (3) bondsmen, villeins, and the
remainder of the tributaries who tended more and more to become absorbed
by the other classes. Simultaneously, however, there arose another kind of
distinction. It gradually came to pass when the royal prerogative had
become subjected to many changes, and could at best be regarded but as an
uncertain protection, that the bishops counted far more noble retainers and
serfs than the kings ; and as the bishops at the same time exercised feudal
authority over their retainers and villeins, a feeling of hostility sprang up
between the nobles, freemen, and tributaries under the king's official magis-
trates (the counts and gastalds) and the nobles, serfs, and tributaries under
the bishop's magistrates (the vogts). What had been established under the
Franks then developed more fully under the Germans. The bishops also
acquired authority over the freemen, exercising the same power as the
counts, and began to assemble in one township men possessing quite different
rights, but having the same claims to distinction, i.e., noble retainers and
freemen of knightly descent. The serfs and villeins forming the third class
still remained for a long time politically minors.
A great deal of friction between the noble retainers and the freemen of
knightly descent was caused by their having to hold their lands in fief, to
enter into the feudal service of the bishops, or to renounce knightly honours.
Sanguinary fights took place without either party gaining any decisive vic-
tory ; compacts were made between the different classes of citizens, and this
was the origin of the common municipal constitution. From that time the
importance of the aldermen as representatives of all the classes grew apace,
whereas that of the episcopal magistrates sensibly decreased. This repre-
sentative administration had no sooner been founded than it was again upset
by a rupture between the spiritual and temporal powers ; the strife was no
longer between counts and bishops, or between the freemen and the retainers
of the church, but between the king and the pope. The spiritual power be-
came divided against itself; many bishops took up the cause of the king, and
others that of the pope. The same thing happened with the temporal power,
for there were as many princes and lords fighting against as for the king.
The representative administration of the cities was not attacked, but that
body found it difficult to decide by which party they were to be governed, for
each party, that of the king as well as that of the pope, presently had its own
bishops in each city and its adherents among both nobles and freemen.
The bishops were the only losers in this struggle, for in each faction they
strove to outdo each other in the matter of liberality and in conceding their
rights in order to win and retain more partisans. The victorious party,
however, when the struggle was at an end, maintained the established repre-
sentative administration, enriched by the many liberties and rights conceded
by the bishops. The aldermen found their sphere of action greatly enlarged
38 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1125-1155 A.D.]
and enriched, so that henceforth they assumed a position at the head of the
municipality as councillors and magistrates. This government had devel-
oped on similar lines in all the cities, although the victory had remained
sometimes with the papal and sometimes with the royal party ; therefore
the strife had been banished from the cities only to break out finally in the
country, which became divided into two factions, at the head of which were
the rival cities of Pavia and Milan.
At first Pavia belonged to the papal faction and Milan to the royal ; but
when the former realised that she needed more temporal assistance than the
pope could afford her, and the latter city found that the king's protection
brought with it interference in internal affairs, which in a city of Milan's
power and wealth was soon felt to be oppressive, both parties changed
badges, and Pavia followed the royal faction, while Milan flaunted the
papal colours..?
This change of parties occurred during the reigns of Lothair II and
Conrad III, who, from the year 1125 to 1152, placed in opposition the
two houses of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Germany. Milan, having during
the first half of the twelfth century experienced some resistance from the
towns of Lodi and Como, razed the former, dispersing the inhabitants in open
villages, and obliged the latter to destroy its fortifications. Cremona and
Novara adhered to the party of Pavia ; Tortona, Crema, Bergamo, Brescia,
Piacenza, and Parma to that of Milan. Among the towns of Piedmont,
Turin took the lead, and disputed the authority of the counts of Savoy, who
called themselves imperial vicars in that country. Montferrat continued to
have its marquises. They were among the few great feudatories who had
survived the civil wars ; but the towns and provinces were not in subjec-
tion to them, and Asti was more powerful than they were.
The family of the Veronese marquises, on the contrary, who from the
time of the Lombard kings had to defend the frontier against the Germans,
were extinct ; and the great cities of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and
Mantua, nearly equal in power, maintained their independence. Bologna
held the first rank among the towns south of the Po, and had become
equally formidable on the one side to Modena and Reggio, and on the other
to Ferrara, Ravenna, Imola, Faenza, Forli, and Rimini. Tuscany, which
had also had its powerful marquises, saw their family become extinct with
the countess Matilda, the contemporary and friend of Gregory VII. Flor-
ence had since risen in power, destroyed Fiesole, and, without exercising
dominion over the neighbouring towns of Pistoia, Arezzo, San Miniato, and
Volterra, or the more distant towns of Lucca, Cortona, Perugia, and Siena,
was considered the head of the Tuscan League ; and the more so that Pisa
at this period thought only of her maritime expeditions. The family of the
dukes of Spoleto had also become extinct, and the towns of Umbria regained
their freedom ; but their situation in the mountains prevented them from
rising into importance. In fine, Rome herself indulged the same spirit of
independence. An eloquent monk, the disciple of Abelard, who had made
himself known throughout Europe, preached in 1139 a twofold reform in
the religious and political orders ; the name borne by him was Arnold of
Brescia. He spoke to men of the ancient liberty which was their right,
of the abuses which disfigured the church. Driven out of Italy by Pope
Innocent II and the Council of Lateran, he took refuge in Switzerland, and
taught the town of Zurich to frame a free constitution ; but in the year
1143 he was recalled to Rome, and that city again heard the words, " Roman
Republic," "Roman senate," "comitia of the people." The pope branded
THE DARK AGE 39
[800-1200 A.D.]
his opinions with the name of " heresy of the politicians " ; and Arnold of
Brescia, having been given up to him by the emperor, was burned alive before
the gate of the castle of St. Angelo, in the year 1155. But his precepts sur-
vived and the love of liberty in Rome did not perish with him. In southern
Italy, the conquests of the Normans had finally smothered the spirit of
liberty ; and the town of Aquileia in the Abruzzi alone preserved any repub-
lican privileges.6
FLORENCE
It appears that of all the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the one
which was to play the principal part in the history of civilisation was the
last to appear on the world's stage. Florence was still a mere unknown parish
when Pisa, her neighbour, already covered the Mediterranean with her ves-
sels ; and while Milan and the towns of Lombardy were engaged in deadly
fight against the empire, the Tuscan city stood perfectly aloof from the strug-
fle of the two parties, which were dividing not only Italy, but the whole of
urope, and, from the Alps to the Sicilian straits, covering the peninsula with
ruins and deluging it in blood.
Florence long had pursued her career in silence, growing rich by trade,
increasing in size by the reduction of her neighbours, becoming powerful
by the submission of the great, and she was neither more nor less power-
ful than all those small political centres which contributed so largely in
bringing to light Italy's exhaustless fertility in great men. In fact, it was
owing to this large number of small states, to this multitude of diverse
interests, that so many men were enabled to distinguish themselves, and
found a scene for their activity, and that the curious medley which forms
the Italian character was able to develop freely, and to bear its finest fruits.
In this respect all the small towns of Italy are deeply interesting ; to the his-
torian as sources of valuable research, to the philosopher as subjects of
observation of human nature. It is, however, natural that the state which
exercised its influence for the longest period, in the most powerful manner,
and over the widest extent of territory, should also attract the greatest
attention from posterity. Great interest is always felt in the childhood of a
famous man, even when it does not actually present so many curious details
as the childhood of many men who have remained unknown ; we like to see
his first gropings, and in the features of some childish whim we imagine that
we can perceive the plan of the great acts which illustrated his riper age.
In the same way the first symptoms of political life in Athens or in Rome
have always attracted attention, while certain towns of Hellas or Latium,
though probably far more developed in those obscure times, only interest us
as far as they enable us to find traces of the road which these great centres
of civilisation pursued when they first arose. So, in the dearth which exists of
authentic documents on the origin and early centuries of Florence, in order
to obtain a just and complete idea of what she was before the beginning of
the thirteenth century, we are often obliged to illuminate the facts which
have come down to us by the knowledge we have of Lucca, Pisa, Fiesole,
Siena, Arezzo, and other towns of Tuscany.
The chroniclers, by surrounding the origin of Florence with numerous
fables, have singularly concealed the real facts. However, it is probable
that they were right in assigning it a Roman origin, and it is evident that in
this first period and later on, Florence passed, as did the other states, through
the successive phases which were experienced by the entire peninsula. Grow-
40 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[800-1207 A.D.]
ing under the protection of the imperial eagle, and submitting to the power
of the bishop, like her sister-states, like them, also, she knew how, both to
free herself from episcopal dominion and to oppose the empire. Although
somewhat late, she followed the example of all the great towns of Italy in
subduing the small surrounding towns and the country nobles, so as to
increase her territory ; she profited, but to a less extent than Venice, Genoa,
and Pisa, by the commercial advantages of the Crusades. After undergoing
the influence of the German invasion, she supported, more than any other
state, the reaction of communal tendency against the Germanic tendency
which was everywhere felt during the twelfth century. When, later on,
tyranny (in the Greek sense of the word) confiscated democratic liberty, in
every town, in favour of a powerful family or a superior individual, Florence
produced the most accomplished type of the Italian tyrant.
However, turning back to the earliest historical facts proved by unim-
peachable witnesses, we see by the very importance which the chroniclers
attach to the traditions of Charlemagne, the second founder of their city,
how significant for the whole of Italy, and especially for Florence, was the
coronation of this emperor in Rome. They attribute the new wall round
the city to him also, as well as the establishment of consular government ;
and their instinct was correct ; for if these acts were not the direct work of
Charlemagne, they certainly were the consequences of his work. The re-
establishment of the Roman Empire must infallibly be followed by the
restoration of the ancient municipalities, and in general by the whole of
the Roman legislation, wherever it has been destroyed by the invasion.
The town was henceforth governed by a marquis of Tuscany, as lieutenant
of the empire, which was again re-established by Otto the Great, who
appears to have particularly favoured the town of Florence.
At this period the solemn power of the imperial name was so great that
the city, whose rule already extended over a great part of the surrounding
country, and especially over the important town of Fiesole, would never
have dared to oppose the emperor, if the disputes which arose towards the
end of the eleventh century between the empire and the holy see, had not
offered it the long-wished-for opportunity to escape from the marquisate of
Tuscany. The majority of Florentines, for there were already two parties
in the city, enthusiastically espoused the cause of the pope and the countess
Matilda against the emperor Henry IV. A long siege could not shatter their
fidelity. It is from this period, probably, that the establishment of consular
government in Florence dates, which the old chroniclers attributed to Charle-
magne, and which the other towns of Italy had long since adopted from
Rome. This early constitution, which united justice and government in the
hands of two, later on of four, and still later of six consuls, aided by a coun-
cil of one hundred senators, was maintained almost intact till 1207, when the
example of the other republics was followed and a podesta was intrusted with
the jurisdiction. Although all the free inhabitants co-operated in the election
of the magistrates, these latter were only chosen from among the urban nobil-
ity, composed indeed of ancient middle-class families who had long been
wealthy, and of the descendants of Germanic immigrants.
Social Conditions
The population of Florence was then formed, as was that of the greater
number of Italian towns, of two very distinct classes — the patricians and
the people ; the former included the descendants of noble families and the
THE DAEK AGE 41
[1 144-1146 A.D.]
burghers free since the conquest ; the latter included all the other inhabit-
ants of the town, the ancient tributaries of the bishop or the clients of the
nobles whom they had freed. The descendants of these freed men, and also
those of immigrants from other towns, were born free, earned much by the
luxury of the upper classes, and were soon as rich as the patricians. So,
later on, they desired, and were able to obtain for their special functionaries,
entrance into the posts of the republic, and thus it was that popular revo-
lutions took place in the thirteenth century. Before this time, the people
were satisfied to assist in the election of magistrates without dreaming of
claiming the honour for themselves. As for the nobles of the surrounding
country who refused to submit to the government, they were pursued, their
lands devastated and burned, even their fortresses were destroyed, so that in
a short time Florence had sole rule over the neighbouring land. The entire
century during which this constitution was in force, is filled with the sound of
strife with the nobles. At one time the young republic subdued the rock
of Fiesole, a veritable retreat of brigands ; then the powerful family of the
Buondelmonti, of Monte Buono. This family, so famous and so fatal to
Florentine happiness, possessed a small castle about five miles distant from
the town which, commanding the Siena road, enabled them to impose a toll
upon all merchandise in its passage. Florence complained of this imposition,
and being refused redress destroyed their castle, obliging them without further
spoliation to become Florentine citizens ; others followed ; and so they con-
tinued adding bit after bit to their possessions by money, conquest, or persua-
sion, but still maintaining a close alliance with Pisa, which at this period,
although the most commercial and military nation of Tuscany, was rivalled by
Florence in ambition and warlike propensities if not in power and celebrity.
Municipal Wars
In the year 1144 all Tuscany was in arms, partly on account of these
republics, but more from those dissensions that spring from mutual jealousy
in rising states commencing the race of ambition and of blood, who league
for war as a pastime, and regard the butchery of their fellow-creatures as
legitimate amusement. Lucca and Pisa were in constant collision, and the
friendship of the former with Siena, of the latter with Florence, occasioned
a quadruple war between those states, each jealous of the other's ascendency ;
the necessities of commerce, untouched as yet by its rivalry, kept peace
between Pisa and Florence ; and the distance of the other two diminished
their points of contact and consequently their chances of quarrel.
Ulric, marquis or vice -marquis of Tuscany and imperial vicar, commanded
the Florentine army, with which he advanced to the gates of Siena and
burned a suburb ; the Sienese demanded assistance from Lucca, who answered
by declaring war on Florence, not only to draw the enemy from her ally,
but also in aid of Count Guido Guerra of Modigliana, a Ghibelline chief and
confederate of Siena, who had already suffered from Florentine aggression.
Pisa on the other hand took the field at the request of the Florentines and
Count Guido's possessions were devastated by these combined forces while
the Sienese, covertly advancing on Florence, fell into an ambuscade and were
nearly all made prisoners. More bitter was the struggle between Pisa and
Lucca where no exchange of prisoners took place, no ransom was accepted,
and where a strong personal feeling of hatred pervaded every class ; per-
petual incarceration was with them the consequence of defeat, and we are
told by the bishop of Fresingen that several years afterwards he saw " the
42 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1146-1204 A.D.]
Lucchese officers, wasted, squalid, and miserable, in the dungeons of Pisa,
drawing tears of compassion from every passing stranger."
At this period, however, not Tuscany alone but all northern Italy seems
to have been in similar confusion from similar causes ; from jealousy, faction,
and that ever boisterous passage between comparative bondage and complete
independence, for Conrad with full employment in Germany was forced to
leave Italy uncontrolled, a prey to angry passions, unsettled institutions, and
political anarchy. The particular causes of discord between the Tuscan
cities are now difficult to trace ; vicinity, by multiplying the points of
contact, increased the chances and was always a source of dissension ; but
the peculiar enmity between Siena and Florence, according to the Sienese
historians, originated in the assistance given to Henry IV during the siege
of 1081 ; an injury in itself not easily forgiven, but which, fostered as it
was by national emulation, lasted until long after the ruin of both republics.
Elated by success and jealous of the counts Guidi by whose possessions
she was nearly surrounded, Florence assembled an army in February, 1146,
and besieged Monte Croce, a castello about nine miles distant which be-
longed to that family ; but confidence in superiority of force created care-
lessness of conduct, and Count Guido aided by the people of Arezzo defeated
them with great loss. For a time they were quieted by this sharp military
lesson, and a crusade the following year under the emperor Conrad III
carried off some of their more enterprising and devout spirits to Palestine ;
amongst them Dante's ancestor Cacciaguida, who, after having been knighted
by Conrad, fell in battle against the infidels. «
So while the towns of Lombardy were leaguing together boldly to defend
the most cherished interests of independence, the little Tuscan republic was
only busy extending her territory, and increasing at the expense of her
neighbours, she was already the cunning Florence of the fifteenth century,
for whom egoism is the fundamental principle of politics. However, it will
not do to be unjust ; while fighting and subduing the neighbouring nobles
she was also striking a blow at expiring Germanism; it was the munici-
pality triumphing over the members of the feudal body, as at Legnano it
triumphed over their chief. The emperor Frederick Barbarossa was well
aware of it ; and when he came to Florence in 1184, after the Peace of Con-
stance, he listened with interest to the complaints of the nobles, and was well
pleased to take from the city the sovereignty which she had violently assumed
over the surrounding country, contrary to written law. The Florentines
submitted without a murmur to this severe sentence ; they knew that they
had only to wait and to let the storm pass over. In fact, four years later
all the surrounding districts had once more submitted to the burghers.
Ten years later they gained still further advantage by the interregnum
which left Germany a prey to the struggles of Otto IV and Philip of Swabia
and made Italy " a widow of her king." It was then that they formed a
Guelf league on the model of the Lombard League, and succeeded in subdu-
ing that part of the rural nobility which had till then remained independent.
The nobles were forced to take an oath of fidelity to the republic and to
promise to live peacefully and quietly in the town.
In the midst of these political disturbances the trade and wealth of the
city constantly increased. She had till then depended on Pisa, a much richer
and more flourishing town, to which she acted, so to say, as bank; after
destroying Fiesole, which dominated her completely by its position and hin-
dered her commerce, in the twelfth century, she made a swift step forward
and became, first the rival of Siena, later on that of Pisa itself.
THE DAEK AGE 43
[1138-1239 A.D.]
This is the period which the Florentines of the following century were in
the habit of lauding as the golden age of the republic. The people were still
chivalrous and industrious ; their manners were simple ; dresses were made of
coarse material, women were honest and modest ; young girls were not mar-
ried before the age of twenty ; and men did not seek " the largest dowry, but
the best reputation."
It would, however, be a great mistake to think that this period of vir-
tuous patriarchal customs, sobriety, and simple living was free from disturb-
ance. This people of Florence was a passionate race who had not yet passed
through two centuries of revolution, nor yet experienced the paternal and
enervating despotism of the Medicis, nor seen the armies of Charles V. The
state of the town was far from being a calm one, and whether, because judi-
ciary affairs had increased to too great an extent, or because the consuls were
lacking in requisite authority, it soon became necessary, in order to maintain
order and justice in the town, to follow the example of the other republics
and call in a foreign podesta.
" Vice increasing in the town," says Malaspina,^ " and cases of ill-will and
disputes becoming more frequent among the citizens, it was decided in the
interest of the republic, in order to facilitate the punishment of crime and to
prevent all interception, bribery, or intimidation of justice, that a foreigner
of gentle birth should be appointed to the office of podesta for one year,
to decide all trials with his judges, to render justice, pronounce condemna-
tion of wealth and body, and to carry out the laws of the republic of Florence.
Nevertheless the government of the consuls did not cease, since it kept the
direction of all other business, and in this manner the town was governed
till the period when the first nation of Florence was formed." m
As the two famous names of Guelf and Ghibelline originated in these
two rival houses of Bavaria and Franconia, and by their pernicious influence
destroyed Italian prosperity and happiness, a short account of them will not
here be irrelevant, especially as they were the principal though remote
source of that inveterate disunion which has left the peninsula a constant
prey to transalpine ambition. For many ages these factions prowled over
Italy like lions seeking whom they could devour ; they divided city from
city, house from house, family from family ; they tore asunder all domestic
ties, undermined the dearest affections, and scattered duty, obligations, and
humanity to the winds. But these fatal appellations were originally nothing
more than the distinctive names of two princely German families whose
chiefs were rivals in personal ambition and feudal power. The enmity of
one to the popes was reason sufficient for the other's determined adherence
to the holy see ; and though mere leaders of a petty feud, their names be-
came from circumstances the rallying cry of two great opinions which, pene-
trating with the wonted subtilty of religious and political rancour into the
smallest branches of national life, affected Italy and Germany to the quick.
When Conrad III was crowned king of Italy, the last four emperors had
been chosen from the house of Franconia, a family that received its name
from the castle of Waiblingen, or Gueibelinga, situated amongst the Hertfeld
Mountains in the diocese of Augsburg and which was called indiscrimi-
nately " Salic " or " Gueibelinga." The rival house, originally of Altdorf, at
this period governed Bavaria, and in consequence of several of its princes
being named " Guelf o" or "Welf," both the family and its partisans re-
ceived that appellation. The two last Henrys of the Ghibelline house of
Franconia had long contests with the church, as already related, while the
Bavarian Guelfs on the contrary always declared themselves its protectors
44 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[476-1250 A.D.]
from the days of Guelf IV, son of Albert Azzo, lord of Este, in 1076. From
this branch is descended in a direct line the royal family of England and
from his brother Folco the ancient marquises of Este, dukes of Ferrara,
Modena, and Reggio.
These things, springing as they did from rivalry and disappointment,
sharpened hereditary feuds, while the pontiff's support of Lothair aug-
mented the Ghibellines' enmity to holy church ; these names were not,
however, permanently attached to the two factions until 1210, when Innocent
III drove the fourth Otto from the imperial throne and took young Freder-
ick of Sicily under his charge. The pope was then supported by the Ghib-
ellines ; but when the same Frederick turned to rend the church, the Guelfic
banner again waved over it, and there continued until the final dissolution
of these adverse factions, long after the original cause of their quarrels had
melted entirely away.e
Such were the changes which the space of seven centuries from the fall
of the Roman Empire accomplished in Italy. Towards the end of the fifth
century the social tie, which had made of the empire one body, became dis-
solved, and was succeeded by no other. The citizen felt nothing for his
fellow-citizen ; he expected no support from him, and offered him none.
He could nowhere invoke protection ; he everywhere saw only violence and
oppression. Towards the beginning of the twelfth century the citizens of
the towns of Italy had as little to expect from abroad. The emperor of the
Germans, who called himself their sovereign, was, with his barbarian army,
only one enemy more. But universally, where the circle of the same wall
formed a common interest, the spirit of association was developed. The citi-
zens promised each other mutual assistance. Courage grew with liberty ;
and the Italians, no longer oppressed, found at last in themselves their own
defence.
When the inhabitants of the cities of Italy associated for their common
defence, their first necessity was to guard against the brigandage of the bar-
barian armies, which invaded their country and treated them as enemies ;
the second, to protect themselves from the robberies of other barbarians
who called themselves their masters. Their united efforts soon insured
their safety ; in a few years they found themselves rich and powerful ; and
these same men, whom emperors, prelates, and nobles considered only as freed
serfs, perceived that they constituted almost the only public force in Italy.
Their self-confidence grew with their power ; and the desire of domination
succeeded that of independence. Those cities which had accumulated the
most wealth, whose walls enclosed the greatest population, attempted, from
the first half of the twelfth century, to secure by force of arms the obedience
of such of the neighbouring towns as did not appear sufficiently strong to
resist them. These greater cities had no intention to strip the smaller of
their liberty; their sole purpose was to force them into a perpetual alli-
ance, so as to share their good or evil fortune, and always place their
armed force under the standard of the dominant city.&
CHAPTER II
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY
FREDERICK BARBAROSSA IN ITALY
THE long war of the investitures, between the Franconian emperors and
the popes, had given the first impulse to the ambition of the Lombard cities
for alliance; as general interests were involved, as it was a question of
distant operations and common danger, the cities felt the necessity of alli-
ances and of an active correspondence, which soon extended from one ex-
tremity of Italy to the other. The smaller towns soon found that this general
policy was beyond their means, and that the great cities, in which commerce
and wealth had accumulated knowledge, and which alone received the com-
munications of the pope or of the emperor, naturally placed themselves at the
head of the league formed in their provinces, either for the empire or for
the church. These two leagues were not yet known in Italy by the names
of Guelf and Ghibelline, which in Germany had been the war-cry of the two
parties at the battle of Winsberg, fought on the 21st of December, 1140,
and which had previously distinguished, the former the dukes of Saxony and
Bavaria, devoted to the pope, the latter, the emperors of the house of Fran-
conia. But although these two names, which seem since to have become
exclusively Italian, had not yet been adopted in Italy, the hereditary affec-
tion respectively for the two parties already divided the minds of the people
for more than a century, and faction became to each a second country, often
served by them with not less heroism and devotion than their native city.6
Such was the state of Italy, when the Germanic diet, assembled at Frank-
fort in 1152, conferred the crown on Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia,
and of the house of Hohenstaufen. This prince was nephew to Conrad III,
whom he succeeded ; he was allied to the two houses of the Guelfs and
Ghibellines, which had contended with each other for the empire, and was
regarded, with good reason, by the Germans as their most distinguished
45
46 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1152-1155 A.D.]
chief. Frederick Barbarossa was not only brave, but understood the art of
war, at least so far as it could be understood in an age so barbarous. He
made himself beloved by the soldiers, at the same time that he subjected them
to a discipline which others had not yet thought of establishing. He held
his word sacred ; he abhorred gratuitous cruelty, although the shedding of
human blood had in general nothing revolting in it to a prince of the Middle
Ages; but the prerogatives of his
crown appeared to him sacred rights,
which from pride, and even from con-
science, he was disposed to preserve
and extend. The Italians he con-
sidered in a state of revolt against
the imperial throne and the German
nation, and he believed it to be his
first duty to reduce them to subjection.
Frederick Barbarossa, accord-
ingly, in the month of October, 1154,
entered Italy with a powerful German
army, by the valley of Trent. He
proposed to himself not only receiving
there the crowns of Italy and the em-
pire and reducing to obedience sub-
jects who appeared to him to forget
their duty to their sovereign, but
also to punish in particular the Mil-
anese for their arrogance, to redress
the complaints which the citizens of
Pa via and Cremona had brought
against them, and to oblige Milan to
render to the towns of Lodi and Como,
which it had dismantled, all the
privileges which Milan itself enjoyed.
On arriving at Roncaglia, where the
diets of the kingdom of Italy were
held, he was assailed by complaints from the bishop and nobles against the
towns, as well as by complaints against the Milanese from the consuls of Pa via,
of Cremona, of Como, and of Lodi ; while those of Crema, of Brescia, of
Piacenza, of Asti and Tortona vindicated them. Before giving judgment
on the differences submitted to his decision, Frederick announced his inten-
tion of judging for himself the state of the country, by visiting in person
Piedmont and Montferrat. Having to pass through the Milanese territory
on his way to Novara, he commanded the consuls of Milan to supply him with
provisions on the road. The towns acknowledged that they owed the em-
perors upon their journeys the dues designated by the feudal words "foderum,
parata, mansionaticum" (forage, food, and lodging); but the Germans, retarded
in their march by heavy and continued rain, took two days to reach a stage
which the Milanese supposed they would reach in one ; provisions of course
failed ; and the Germans avenged themselves on the unhappy inhabitants by
pillaging and burning the villages wherever sufficient rations were not found.
Frederick treated with kindness the towns of Novara and Turin, but
those of Chieri and Asti had been denounced to him as entertaining the
same sentiments as Milan ; the inhabitants fled at his approach, and he plun-
dered and burned their deserted houses. Arrived next before Tortona, he
A VENETIAN SOLDIER, TWELFTH CENTURY
(Based on Vicellio)
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS 47
[1155 A.D.]
ordered the inhabitants to renounce their alliance with the Milanese ; but
they, trusting to the strength of the upper town, into which they had re-
treated, while Frederick occupied the lower part, had the courage to refuse.
The Germans began the siege of Tortona on the 13th of February, 1155.
They could not prevent the entrance of two hundred Milanese, to assist in
its defence. For sixty-two days did this brave people resist the attacks of
the formidable army of Frederick, the numbers of which had been increased
by the armed force of Pavia, and the other Ghibelline towns. The want of
water compelled them at last to surrender ; and the emperor allowed them to
retire to Milan, taking only the few effects which each individual could carry
away. Everything else was given up to the pillage of the soldiers, and the
houses became a prey to the flames. The Milanese received with respect these
martyrs of liberty, and every opulent house gave shelter and hospitality to
some of the unhappy inhabitants of Tortona. Frederick meanwhile placed on
his head, in the temple of Pavia, the iron crown of the kings of Lombardy, and
began his march on Rome, to receive there the golden crown of the empire.
But the Germans who accompanied the emperor, notwithstanding the
ardour with which they had undertaken this distant expedition, began to grow
tired of so long an absence from their home.
The license extended to their pillage and
debauchery no longer appeared to them a
sufficient compensation for tedious marches
and the dangers of war. They pressed the
emperor to advance towards Rome, and to
avoid all quarrel with the great towns by
which they passed, although almost all re-
fused to admit them within their walls —
providing subsistence and lodging for them
in the suburbs only. The impossibility of
maintaining discipline in a rapacious army,
which beheld for the first time the unknown
riches of commerce and the arts ; the diffi-
culty of avoiding quarrels between two na-
tions, neither of which understood the
language of the other, perhaps justified this
precaution. Frederick thus passed by Pia-
cenza, Parma, Bologna, and Florence. He
was not received even into Rome ; his troops
occupied what was styled the Leonine city,
or the suburb built round the Vatican ; he
was there crowned by the pope, Adrian IV,
while his army was obliged to repel the
Romans, who advanced by the bridge of St.
Angelo and the Borgo1 of Trastevere to
disturb the ceremony. Frederick withdrew
from Rome the following day ; conducting
his army into the mountains to avoid the
great heat of summer. The citizens of
Spoleto, not having supplied with sufficient
haste the provisions he demanded, he attacked, took, and burned their city ;
sickness, however, began to thin the ranks of his soldiers ; many also deserted,
AN ITALIAN SOLDIER OF THE TWELFTH
CENTURY
Borgo is the communication between Trastevere and the Vatican.
48 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1155-1158 A.D.]
to embark at Ancona. Frederick, with a weakened army, directed his march
on Germany by the valleys of the Tyrol. The citizens of Verona, who would
not admit the Germans within their walls, constructed for him a bridge of
boats on the Adige, which he hastily passed over, but had hardly gained the
opposite bank, when enormous pieces of wood, carried down by the impetuosity
of the current, struck and destroyed the bridge. Frederick had no doubt
that the Lombards had laid this snare for him, and flattered themselves with
the breaking of the bridge whilst he should be in the act of passing over ;
but he was no longer sufficiently strong to avenge himself.
The emperor at length returned into Germany with his barbarian soldiers.
He everywhere on his passage spread havoc and desolation ; the line by
which he marched through the Milanese territory was marked by fire ; the
villages of Rosate, Trecale, and Galiata, the towns of Chieri, Asti, Tortona,
and Spoleto were burned. But whilst he thus proved his barbarism, he also
proved his weakness. He did not dare to attack the stronger and more popu-
lous cities, which congratulated themselves on having shut their gates, and
refused submission to him. Thus a year's campaign sufficed to destroy one
of the most formidable armies that Germany had ever poured into Italy ; and
the example of ancient times encouraged the belief that it would be long
before the emperor could again put the Germans in motion. The Milanese
felicitated themselves on having preserved their liberty by their courage and
patriotism. Their treasury was indeed empty ; but the zeal of their opulent
citizens, who knew no other luxury than that of serving their country, soon
replenished it. These men, who poured their wealth into the treasury of
the republic, contented themselves with black bread, and cloaks of coarse
stuff. At the command of their consuls, they left Milan to join their fellow-
citizens in rebuilding, with their own hands, the walls and houses of Tortona,
Rosate, Trecale, Galiata, and other towns, which had suffered in the contest
for the common cause. They next attacked the cities of Pavia, Cremona, and
Novara, which had embraced the party of the emperor, and subjected them
to humiliating conditions; while they drew closer their bonds of alliance
with the towns of Brescia and Piacenza, which had declared for liberty.
But Frederick had more power over Germany than any of his predeces-
sors ; he was regarded there as the restorer of the rights of the empire and
of the German nation. He obtained credit for reducing Italy from what
was called a state of anarchy and revolt, to order and obedience. His vassals
accordingly flocked with eagerness to his standard, when he summoned them
at the feast of Pentecost, 1158, to compel the submission of Italy. The bat-
talions of Germany entered Lombardy at the same time by all the passes
of the Alps. Their approach to Brescia inspired the inhabitants with so
much terror, that they immediately renounced their alliance with Milan, and
paid down a large sum of money for their ransom. The Milanese, on the
contrary, prepared themselves for resistance. They had either destroyed or
fortified all the bridges of the Adda, flattering themselves that this river
would suffice to stop the progress of the emperor ; but a body of German
cavalry dashed boldly into the stream, and, swimming across the river,
gained in safety the opposite bank. They then made themselves masters of
the bridge of Cassano, and the whole army entered into the Milanese ter-
ritory. Frederick, following the course of the Adda, made choice of a situa-
tion about four miles from the ruins of the former Lodi.1 Here he ordered
[! In 1111, the Milanese totally destroyed the city of Lodi, and forbade its rebuilding. Never-
theless a prosperous commune again came into existence, and in 1158 the Milanese came again,
repeating their work of destruction in a more thorough manner.]
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS 49
[1158 A.D.]
the people of Lodi to rebuild their town, which would in future secure to
him the passage of the Adda. He summoned thither also the militias of
Pavia and Cremona, with those of the other towns of Lombardy, which their
jealousy of Milan had attached to the Ghibelline party ; and it was not till
after they had joined him that he encamped, on the 8th of August, 1158,
before Milan.
His engines of war, however, were insufficient to beat down the walls of
so strong and large a town ; and he resolved to reduce the Milanese by
famine. He seized their granaries, burned their stacks of corn, mowed down
the autumnal harvests, and announced his resolution not to raise the siege
till the Milanese had returned to their duty. The few nobles, however, who
had preserved their independence in Lombardy,
proceeded to the camp of the emperor. One of
them, the count of Blandrate, who had before
given proofs of his attachment to the town
of Milan, offered himself as a mediator, was
accepted, and obtained terms not unfavour-
able to the Milanese. They engaged to pay a
tribute to Frederick of nine thousand marks of
silver, to restore to him his regal rights, and
to the towns of Lodi and Como their inde-
pendence. On their side, they were dispensed
from opening their gates to the emperor. They
preserved the right of electing their consuls,
and included in their pacification their allies of
Tortona and Crema. This treaty was signed
the 7th of September, 1158.
Frederick, in granting an honourable capitu-
lation to revolted subjects, whom he had brought
back to their obedience, had no intention of
renouncing the rights of his empire. He con-
sidered that he had preserved, untouched, the
legislative authority of the diet of his kingdom
of Italy. The Milanese, on the contrary, re-
garded their treaty as definitive ; and were
both astonished and indignant when Frederick,
having assembled, towards the llth of Novem-
ber following, the placita or diets of the king-
dom at Roncaglia, promulgated by this diet a
constitution which overthrew their most precious
rights. It took the administration of justice
from the hands of the consuls of towns, to place
it in those of a single judge, and a foreigner, chosen by the emperor, bearing
the name of podesta; it fixed the limits of the regal rights, giving them
much more importance than had been contemplated by the Milanese when
they agreed to acknowledge them ; it deprived cities, as well as the other
members of the empire, of the right of making private war ; it changed the
boundaries of territories appertaining to towns, and in particular took from
Milan the little town of Monza, and the counties of Seprio and of Martesana,
which the inhabitants had always regarded as their own property.
Just motives had made the emperor and the diet consider these innova-
tions necessary for the public peace and prosperity ; but the Milanese re-
garded them only as perfidious violations of the treaty. When the podesta
AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, THIR-
TEENTH CENTURY
H. W. — VOL. IX. B
50 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1158-1160 A.D.]
of the emperor arrived at Milan to take possession of the tribunal, he was
sent contemptuously away. The Milanese flew to arms ; and making every
effort to repossess the different passes of the Adda, prepared to defend them-
selves behind this barrier. Frederick, on his side, assembled a new diet of
the kingdom of Italy at Bologna, in the spring of 1159, and placed Milan
under the ban of the empire.
The emperor did not yet attempt to reduce the Milanese by a regular
siege. His army was neither sufficiently numerous to invest so large a town,
nor his engines of war of sufficient force to make a breach in such strong
walls ; but he proclaimed his determination to employ all his power, as
monarch of Germany and Italy, to ruin that rebellious town. The Milanese,
accordingly, soon saw their corn mowed down, their autumn harvests
destroyed, their vine stocks cut, the trees which covered their country either
cut down or barked, their canals of irrigation broken ; but the generous
citizens of this new republic did not allow themselves to be discouraged by
the superior force of such an enemy, or by the inevitable issue of such a
contest. They saw clearly that they must perish ; but it would be for the
honour and the liberty of Italy ; they were resolved to leave a great example
to their countrymen, and to future generations.
The Siege of Crema
The people of Crema had remained faithful to the Milanese in their good
and evil fortune ; but the siege of that town presented fewer difficulties to
the emperor than the siege of Milan. Crema was of small extent, and could
be invested on every side ; it was also more accessible to the engines of war,
though surrounded by a double wall and a ditch filled with water. The
Cremonese began the siege on the 4th of July, 1159 ; and on the 10th, Fred-
erick arrived to direct it in person. c
The emperor regarded the inhabitants of the town as revolted subjects
and he probably expected to have little difficulty in accomplishing their over-
throw. Contrary to his expectations, however, the Cremascans proved not
only brave but stubborn, and despite his best efforts they held out against
him for about six months. The siege gave rise to many picturesque incidents
and furnished typical illustrations of the methods of warfare of the time.
Even before the first attack Frederick sought to frighten the Cremascans
into submission by the barbarous execution of several of their citizens who
had previously been sent to him as hostages. Nothing daunted, the inhabit-
ants of the besieged city retaliated in kind ; moreover, they gave proof of
their intrepidity by sallying forth and attempting to defeat a portion of the
besieging army in open combat. Their small numbers rendered this an act
of hardihood, but it evidenced the spirit in which they were prepared to repel
the assault.
Frederick, on his part, began the construction of the usual machines
employed against walled cities. The chief of these consisted of great towers
called cats, which were tower-like structures provided with battering-rams
and with grappling-irons for tearing down walls. When these were ready,
a road-bed was made for them by filling in the outer ditch with some two
hundred casks and two hundred car-loads of gravel. Over this improvised
causeway the largest cat was slowly rolled preparatory to the assault.
The Cremascans marshalled themselves on the walls opposite this point
of attack and assailed the cat with great stones hurled by catapults, and with
showers of blazing arrows which had been dipped in a composition of oil,
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS 51
[1159-1160 A.D.]
pitch, lard, and sulphur. These burning arrows were cut from the walls of
the cat with scythes, but it was with difficulty that the flames could be extin-
guished, while the enemy's projectiles threatened the complete destruction of
the invading engine before it could be brought within close range of the walls.
Further enraged at the heroic resistance, Frederick resorted to one of
those measures of barbarity which seem almost incredible when rehearsed to
modern ears. He brought forth the Cre-
mascan prisoners whom he had previously
spared, bound them in chains and suspended
them by ropes beneath their arms from the
front of the cat. The Cremascans beheld
with horror their friends and relatives thus
used to shield the foe ; but at length the
needs of the many were held by the consul,
Giovanni de Medici, to outweigh the inter-
ests of the unfortunate few, and the missiles
of defence were again brought to bear upon
the cat. Nine of the unfortunate Cremas-
cans dangling from the cat were killed, and
others were frightfully injured; but the
occupants of the structure also suffered to
such an extent that they were glad pres-
ently to retire and for the moment to ac-
knowledge themselves beaten.
Where the invaders had failed by open
attack, they in the end succeeded through
the treachery of a Cremascan, one Marchisio,
a mechanic of great ingenuity, whose skill
had largely aided the besieged garrison in
repulsing the enemy's attack. Frederick
found a way to approach this man and
through bribery to gain him over. The
importance laid upon this incident by the
chroniclers of the siege illustrates the value
that attached to individual effort in the war-
fare of those times. The reader of Roman
history will recall how Archimedes long
saved Syracuse from destruction by the ingenuity with which he contrived
means to repel the assaults of the Romans. Warfare had but little changed
in the interval of about fourteen hundred years — had, indeed, but little
changed since the early days of the Egyptians and Babylonians — and the
presence of one inventive mind might seemingly suffice to turn the tide for
or against the besieged city. So now Marchisio, as the story goes, was able
to point out at once to Frederick the inadequacy of his method of attack.
He caused the emperor to abandon his cats, and to build in their place
gigantic towers, the largest being, it is said, about one hundred cubits in
height, and having attached to one of its upper stories a bridge no less than
forty-six cubits long, which would enable its occupants to reach the wall of
a city while their machine was yet at a considerable distance. The tower
itself was further guarded from missiles by brass and iron plates.
In due course of time, these new machines being in readiness, a fresh
attack was begun. The largest tower approached within grappling distance
of the walls ; the invaders poured over the bridge, despite the shower of
A GERMAN OFFICER, TWELFTH CENTURY
52 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1159-1161 A.D.]
missiles that assailed them, and accomplished heroic deeds on the walls where
they grappled with the Cremascans. Tradition usually preserves the names
of one or two among the hardy warriors who figure in such a scene as this.
In the present case the chroniclers have loved to record the deeds of one
Berthold von Arach, represented as a giant in strength, who was said to have
sprung down from the wall with a small band of followers and recklessly to
have invaded the city itself. After performing the usual deeds of prowess,
he at last succumbed to superior numbers, and the conqueror proudly affixed
his scalp with its waving hair as a trophy to his own helmet.
Another warrior who was said to have distinguished himself on that day
was Otto, count palatine of Bavaria. He it was whose efforts were held to
have turned the tide of battle against the Cremascans on the wall and to have
decided the fate of the day ; though Conrad, his brother, who with him led the
assault, performed equal deeds of daring and barely escaped with his life.
At last the Cremascans were driven to abandon their outer wall. On the
morrow, despairing of further defence, they offered to capitulate, throwing
themselves on the mercy of Frederick. " Sad is ever the lot of the van-
quished," cried the despairing consul as he approached the emperor. " Oh,
sire, the hand of the Almighty is heavy upon us. We surrender and throw
ourselves upon your mercy. But if our prayers can touch your heart let us
not be delivered into the hands of the Cremonese, whose many false accusa-
tions have wrought our ruin." The emperor accepted the capitulation, and
extended more merciful terms than his attack in the earlier part of the siege
might have led one to expect. He permitted the Cremascans with their
wives and children to depart, as also the militias of Brescia and Milan ; the
Cremascans taking with them so much as they could carry, their allies going
empty handed. «
"The surrender of Crema," says Testa,<* "took place on January 27th, 1160.
When that unhappy multitude, which amounted to more than twenty thou-
sand persons, came forth, some with a few household goods, some with little
children in their arms, some carrying or supporting the women, the infirm,
and the wounded, it is said that, to avoid the quarters of the Cremonese, they
went close by the pavilion of the emperor ; and that he, at the sight of so much
sorrow and distress, became thoughtful and sad ; until at last, seeing in the
crowd an old and infirm Cremascan who, having come to a difficult place,
could hardly get any further, moved by irresistible compassion, he went up to
him, offered him his hand, and helped him to go forward with the rest. So
strongly can the most opposite affections prevail in turn over the same heart! "
The siege of Crema exhausted the patience of the German army. At this
period, soldiers were unaccustomed to such protracted expeditions. When
they had accomplished their feudal service, they considered they had a
right to return home. The greater number, accordingly, departed; but
Frederick, with immovable constancy, declared he would remain, with the
Italians only of the Ghibelline towns, to make war against the Milanese;
and placing himself at the head of the militias of Pavia, Cremona, and
Novara, carried on the war a whole year, during which his sole object was to
destroy the harvests, and prevent the entrance of any kind of provision into
Milan. In the month of June, 1161, a new army arrived from Germany
to his aid. His subjects began to feel ashamed of having abandoned their
monarch in a foreign country, amongst a people whom they accused of
perfidy and rebellion. They returned with redoubled animosity, which was
soon manifested by ferocious deeds ; they tortured and put to death every
peasant whom they surprised carrying provisions of any kind into Milan.
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS 53
[1161-1163 A.D.]
The rich citizens of the republic had aided the government in making
large magazines, which were already in part exhausted ; an accidental fire hav-
ing consumed the remainder, hunger triumphed over courage and the love of
liberty. For three entire years had the Milanese, since they had been placed
under the ban of the empire, supported this unequal contest ; when, in the
beginning of March, 1162, they were reduced to surrender at discretion. In
deep despair they yielded up their arms and colours, and awaited the orders
of the emperor. Frederick, harsh and haughty, was not ferocious ; never
had he put to death by the executioner rebels or enemies whom he had van-
quished. He suffered nearly a month to elapse before he pronounced his
final determination ; perhaps to augment the anxiety of the subdued, per-
haps, also, to pacify his own wrath, which he at last vented on walls and
inanimate objects, while he pardoned man. He ordered the town to be
completely evacuated, so that there should not be left in it a single living
being. On the 25th of March, he summoned the militias of the rival and
Ghibelline cities, and gave them orders to raze to the earth the houses as well
as the walls of the town, so as not to leave one stone upon another.
Those of the inhabitants of Milan whom their poverty, labour, and
industry attached to the soil, were divided into four open villages, built at a
distance of at least two miles from the walls of their former city. Others
sought hospitality in the neighbouring towns of Italy ; even in those which
had shown most attachment to the emperor. Their sufferings, the extent of
their sacrifices, the recollection of their valour, and the example of their
noble sentiments, made proselytes to the cause of liberty in every city into
which they were received. The delegates of the emperor also (for he him-
self had returned to his German dominions), the podestas whom he had
established in every town, soon made those Lombards who had fought with
him feel only shame and regret at having lent their aid to rivet his yoke on
their own necks. All the privileges of the nation were violated ; justice
was sacrificed to party interest. Taxes continually augmenting had increased
sixfold ; and hardly a third part of the produce of the land remained to
the cultivator. The Italians were universally in a state of suffering and
humiliation ; tyranny at length reached even their consciences.
EIVAL POPES
On the death of Pope Adrian IV, in September, 1159, the electing cardinals
had been equally divided between two candidates ; the one a Sienese, the other
a Roman. Both were declared duly elected by their separate parties ; the
first, under the name of Alexander III ; the second, under that of Victor
III. Frederick declared for the latter, who had shown himself ready to
sacrifice to him the liberties and independence of the church. The former
had been obliged to take refuge in France, though almost the whole of
Christendom did not long hesitate to declare for him. While one council
assembled by Frederick at Pavia rejected him, another assembled at Beauvais
not only rejected but anathematised Victor. Excommunication at length
reached even the emperor; and Alexander, to strengthen himself against
Frederick, endeavoured to gain the affections of the people, by ranging him-
self among the protectors of the liberties of Italy.
Frederick re-entered Italy in the year 1163, accompanied not by an army,
but by a brilliant retinue of German nobles. He did not imagine that in a
country which he now considered subdued, he needed a more imposing
54 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1163-1167 A.D.]
force ; besides, he believed that he could at all times command the militias
of the Ghibelline towns ; and, in fact, he made them this year raze to the
ground the walls of Tortona. He afterwards directed his steps towards
Rome, to support by his presence his schismatic pontiff ; but, in the mean-
time, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso, the most powerful towns of
the Veronese marches, assembled their consuls in congress, to consider the
means of putting an end to a tyranny which overwhelmed them. The con-
suls of these four towns pledged themselves by oath in the name of their
cities to give mutual support to each other in the assertion of their former
rights, and in the resolution to reduce the imperial prerogatives to the point
at which they were fixed under the reign of Henry IV. Frederick, informed
of this association, returned hastily into northern Italy, to put it down. He
assembled the militias of Pavia, Cremona, Novara, Lodi, and Como, with the
intention of leading them against the Veronese marches ; but he soon per-
ceived that the spirit of liberty had made progress in the Ghibelline cities as
well as in those of the Guelfs ; that the militias under his command complained
as much of the vexations inflicted by his podestas as those against whom he
led them ; and that they were ill-disposed to face death only to rivet the
chains of their country. Obliged to bend before a people which he consid-
ered only as revolted subjects, he soon renounced a contest so humiliating,
and returned to Germany, to levy an army more submissive to him.
Other and more pressing interests diverted his attention from this object
till the autumn of 1166. During this interval his anti-pope, Victor III,
died ; and the successor whom he caused to be named was still more strongly
rejected by the church. On the other side, Alexander III had returned
from France to Rome ; contracted an alliance with William, the Norman
king of the Two Sicilies ; and armed the whole of southern Italy against the
emperor.
IMPERIAL CAMPAIGNS AND REVERSES
When Frederick, in the month of October, 1166, descended the moun-
tains of the Grisons to enter Italy by the territory of Brescia, he marched
his army directly to Lodi, without permitting any act of hostility on the
way. At Lodi, he assembled towards the end of November, a diet of
the kingdom of Italy, at which he promised the Lombards to redress the
grievances occasioned by the abuses of power by his podestas, and to respect
their just liberties ; he was desirous of separating their cause from that of
the pope, and the king of Sicily ; and to give greater weight to his negotia-
tion, he marched his army into central Italy. The towns of Romagna and
Tuscany had hitherto made few complaints, and manifested little zeal in
defence of their privileges. Frederick hoped that, by establishing himself
amongst them, he should revive their loyalty, and induce them to augment
the army which he was leading against Rome. But he soon perceived
that the spirit of liberty which animated the other countries of Italy
worked also in these ; he contented himself, accordingly, with taking thirty
hostages from Bologna, and having vainly laid siege to Ancona, he, in the
month of July, 1167, marched his army towards Rome.
The towns of the Veronese marches, seeing the emperor and his army pass
without daring to attack them, became bolder : they assembled a new diet,
in the beginning of April, at the convent of Pontida, between Milan and
Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo, of Brescia, of Mantua
and Ferrara, met there, and joined those of the marches. The union of the
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS 55
[1167 A.D.]
Guelfs and Ghibellines, for the common liberty, was hailed with universal
joy. The deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to the destruc-
tion of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages in imploring aid of the
confederated towns to rebuild the city of Milan. This confederation was
called the League of Lombardy. The consuls took the oath, and their con-
stituents afterwards repeated it, that every Lombard should unite for the
recovery of the common liberty; that the league for this purpose should
last twenty years ; and, finally, that they should aid each other in repair-
ing in common any damage experienced in
this sacred cause, by any one member of the
confederation ; extending even to the past
this contract for reciprocal security, the
league resolved to rebuild Milan.
The militias of Bergamo, Brescia, Cre-
mona, Mantua, Verona, and Treviso arrived
the 27th of April, 1167, on the ground
covered by the ruins of this great city.
They apportioned among themselves the
labour of restoring the enclosing walls ; all
the Milanese of the four villages, as well
as those who had taken refuge in the more
distant towns, came in crowds to take part
in this pious work ; and in a few weeks
the new-grown city was in a state to repel
the insults of its enemies. Lodi was soon
afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to
take the oath to the league ; while the
towns of Venice, Piacenza, Parma, Modena,
and Bologna voluntarily and gladly joined
the association.
Frederick, meanwhile, arrived within
sight of Rome. The Romans dared to
await him in the open field ; he defeated
them with great slaughter, and made him-
self master of the Leonine city. The in-
habitants still defending themselves in the
Vatican, he dislodged them by setting
fire to Santa Maria, the adjoining church;
Alexander, in his fright, escaped by the
Tiber. After his retreat the Romans took the oath of fidelity to the emperor,
without, however, receiving his army within their walls ; but fever, and the
suffocating heat of the Campagna, soon began, by its ravages, to avenge
the Italians ; from the first days of August an alarming mortality broke out
in the camp of the emperor.
The princes to whom he was most attached, the captains in whom he had
most confidence, two thousand knights, with a proportional number of common
soldiers, were carried off in a few weeks. He endeavoured to flee from the
destructive scourge ; he traversed in his retreat Tuscany and the Lunigiana ;
but his route was marked with graves, in which every day, every hour, he
deposited the bodies of his soldiers. He was no longer strong enough to
vanquish even the opposition of the little town of Pontremoli, which refused
him a passage ; and it was by roads almost impracticable that he at length
crossed the Apennines. He arrived at Pavia about the middle of September,
AN ITALIAN OFFICER, TWELFTH CENTURY
56 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1167-1174 A.D.]
and attempted to assemble a diet ; but the deputies of Pavia, Novara, Ver-
celli, and Como alone obeyed his summons. He harangued the assembly
with great vehemence ; and, throwing down his glove, challenged the rebel-
lious cities to a pitched battle. He passed the winter in combating, with his
small remaining army, the league of Lombardy ; but in the month of March,
1168, he escaped from the Italians, and repassed Mont Cenis, to return and
arm the Germans anew against Italy.
After his departure, Novara, Vercelli, Como, Asti, and Tortona also en-
tered into the confederation, which resolved to found, as a monument of its
power, and as a barrier against the Ghibellines of Pavia and Montferrat, a
new city, on the confluence of the rivers Tanaro and Bormida. The Lom-
bards named it Alexandria (Alessandria), in honour of the chief of the
church, and of their league. They collected in it all the inhabitants of
the different villages of that rich plain, which extends from the Po to the
Ligurian Alps, and secured to them all the liberty and privileges for which
they themselves had fought.
Frederick had sacrificed more time, treasure, and blood, to strengthen his
dominion over Italy, than any of his predecessors ; he had succeeded for a
long period in associating the German nation in his ambition. He persuaded
the Germans that their interest and their honour were concerned in the sub-
mission of the Italians. They began, however, to feel tired of a long contest,
from which they derived no advantage ; other interests, affairs more press-
ing, demanded the presence of the emperor at home ; and Frederick was
obliged to suspend for five years his efforts to subdue Italy. During this
period the towns of Lombardy, in the plenitude of their power and liberty,
corrected their laws, recruited their finances, strengthened their fortifications,
and finally placed their militias on a better war establishment. Their con-
suls met also in frequent diets, where they bound themselves by new oaths
to the common defence, and admitted fresh members into the confederation,
which at length reached to the extremity of Romagna.
Frederick, however, did not entirely abandon Italy. He sent thither
Christian, the elected archbishop of Mainz, and arch-chancellor of the em-
pire, as his representative. This warlike prelate soon felt that there was
nothing to be done in Lombardy ; and he proceeded to Tuscany, where the
Ghibelline party still predominated. His first pretension was to establish
peace between the two maritime republics of Genoa and Pisa, which dis-
puted with arms in their hands the commerce of the East. As he found
a greater spirit of pride and independence in the Pisans, he caused to be
thrown into a dungeon their consuls, who had presented themselves at the
diet of the Tuscan towns convoked by him at San Ginasio, in the month of
July, 1173 ; he arrested, at the same time, the consuls of the Florentines,
their allies, while he studiously flattered those of Lucca, of Siena, of Pistoia,
and the nobles of Tuscany, Romagna, and Umbria; promising to avenge
them on their enemies: but, said he, "to do so more effectually, you must
first co-operate with me in crushing the enemies of the emperor." He thus
succeeded in persuading them to second him in the attack which he medi-
tated for the following spring on Ancona.
This city, the most southern of all those attached to the league of Lom-
bardy, contained about twelve thousand inhabitants, enriched by maritime
commerce, and confident in the strength of their almost unassailable position.
Their town, beautifully situated on the extremity of a promontory, which
surrounded a magnificent port, presented on the side open to the continent
only precipitous rocks, with the exception of a single causeway. The citi-
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS 57
[1174-1175 A.D.]
zens had accordingly repulsed successively for ages all the attacks of the
barbarians, and all the pretensions of the emperors. The archbishop Chris-
tian arrived before Ancona in the beginning of April, 1174, and invested
the city with an army levied among the Ghibellines of Tuscany and Umbria.
The people of Ancona repulsed their attack with their accustomed bravery.
But hunger, more formidable than the sword, soon menaced them. The pre-
ceding harvests had failed ; their granaries were empty ; and an enemy's fleet
closed their port. They saw the harvest ripen, without the possibility of
a single sack of corn reaching them. All human subsistence was soon ex-
hausted ; undismayed, however, they tried to support existence with the
herbs and shell-fish which they gathered from their rocks, or with the leather
which commerce had accumulated in their magazines. Such was the food
on which had long subsisted a young and beautiful woman. Observing one
day a soldier summoned to battle, but unable from hunger to proceed, she
refused her breast to the child whom she suckled ; offered it to the warrior ;
and sent him, thus refreshed, to shed his blood for his country.
But to whatever distress the people of Ancona were reduced, they re-
jected every proposal to capitulate. At length the succour invoked from the
Guelf s of Ferrara and Romagna approached ; Christian saw the fires which
they lighted on the mountain of Falcognara, about four miles from Ancona ;
and, unable to give them battle with an army exhausted by the fatigues of
a long siege, he hastily retreated.
FREDERICK ONCE MOKE AGGRESSIVE
In the beginning of October, 1174, Frederick, at the head of a formidable
army, again re-entered Italy. He passed from the county of Burgundy into
Savoy, and descended by Mont Cenis. Suza, the first town to which he came
on his passage, was taken and burned ; Asti, in alarm, opened its gates, and
purchased its security from pillage by a heavy contribution ; but Alexandria
stopped the progress of the emperor. This city, recently founded by the
league of Lombardy, did not hesitate to enter into a contest with the impe-
rial power for the sake of its confederates ; although its mud walls were an
object of derision to the Germans, who first gave this town the surname of
Alessandria della paglia, or of straw. Nevertheless these walls of mud and
straw, but defended by generous and devoted citizens, resisted all the efforts
of the most valiant army and the most warlike monarch of Germany. Fred-
erick consumed in vain four months in a siege, which was prolonged through
the winter. The inundation of rivers more than once threatened him with
destruction, even in his camp ; sickness also decimated his soldiers. Finally,
the combined army of the Lombard League advanced from Piacenza to Tor-
tona ; and on Easter Sunday of the year 1175, Frederick found himself
obliged to raise the siege, and to march for Pavia, to repose his army.
This last check at length compelled the emperor to acknowledge the
power of a people which he had been accustomed to despise. The chiefs of
the Lombard army showed themselves well prepared for battle ; but still
respecting the rights of their monarch, declined attacking him. He entered
into negotiations with them ; all professed their ardent desire to reconcile
the prerogatives of the emperor and the rights of the Roman church with
those of liberty. Six commissioners were appointed to settle the basis of a
treaty which should reconcile the several claims. They began by demand-
ing that the armies on each side should be disbanded. Frederick did not
58 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1175-1177 A.D.]
hesitate to comply ; he dismissed his Germans, and remained at Pavia, trust-
ing solely to the fidelity of his Italian Ghibellines. Legates from the pope
arrived also to join the commissioners; and the negotiations were opened.
But the demands of Frederick were so high as to render agreement almost
impossible. He declared that he desired only his just rights ; " but they
must be those," said he, ''which have been exercised by my predecessors,
Charlemagne, Otto, and the emperors Henry III and Henry IV." The
deputies of the towns opposed to this the concessions of Henry V and
Lothair; but even these could no longer satisfy them. For the Italians,
liberty had advanced with civilisation ; and they could not now submit to
the ancient prerogatives of their masters, without returning to their own
ancient barbarism.
THE BATTLE OF LEGNANO; THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE
The negotiations were broken off, and Frederick sent to Germany for
another army, which, in the spring of 1176, entered the territory of Como by
the Grisons. The emperor joined it about the end of May, after traversing,
without being recognised, the territory of Milan. It was against this great
town that he entertained the most profound resentment, and meditated a new
attack. He flattered himself that he should find the citizens still trembling
under the chastisement which he had before inflicted on their city. On the
29th of May, he met the Milanese army between Legnano and Barano, about
fifteen miles from Milan. Only a few auxiliaries from Piacenza, Verona,
Brescia, Novara, and Vercelli had yet joined them. An impetuous charge of
the German cavalry made that of the Lombards give way. The enemy
pressed forward so near the carroccio, as to give great alarm lest this sacred
car should fall into their hands. But in the army of the Milanese there was
a company of nine hundred young men, who had devoted themselves to its
defence, and were distinguished by the name of " the company of death. "
These brave youths, seeing the Germans gain ground, knelt down; and
invoking God and St. Ambrose, renewed their vow to perish for their country;
then rising, they advanced with such impetuosity that the Germans were dis-
concerted, divided, and driven back. The whole army, reanimated by this
example, hastily pressed forward. The Germans were put to flight ; their
camp was pillaged ; Frederick was separated from his companions in arms,
and obliged to conceal himself, and it was not till he had passed several days,
and encountered various dangers, that he succeeded in reaching Pavia, where
the empress was already mourning his death.
The defeat of Legnano at length determined Frederick to think seriously
of peace, and to abandon pretensions which the Lombards resisted with so much
energy. New negotiations were opened with the pope ; and Venice was chosen,
in concert with him, as the place for holding a congress. This town had
withdrawn its signature from the league of Lombardy ; it was acknowledged
foreign to the Western Empire, and might be considered neutral and indiffer-
ent in the quarrel between the emperor and the free towns. The pope,
Alexander III, arrived at Venice on the 24th of March, 1177. The emperor,
whose presence the Venetians feared, first fixed his residence at one of his
palaces, near Ravenna ; approached afterwards as far as Chioggia, and finally
came even to Venice. The negotiation bore upon three different points —
to reconcile the emperor to the church, by putting an end to the schism ; to
restore peace between the empire of the West and that of the East, and the
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS 59
[1177-1183 A.D.]
king of the Two Sicilies ; and finally to define the constitutional rights of
the emperor and of the cities of Lombardy. c Frederick was obliged to bend
before the angry countenance of a proud priest, and offer his head as a foot-
stool to the Roman bishop !
" I will tread upon the aspic and basilisk," said the pontiff as he placed his
foot upon the emperor's neck, " and the lion and the dragon will I trample
beneath my feet." "Non tibi sed Petro" replied the prince. "Et miU et Petro"1
haughtily returned the priest while he pressed more firmly on the humbled
monarch.** So at least the story goes. But unfortunately it is a narrative
that cannot be accepted without many grains of allowance. Contemporary
accounts do not give these picturesque details, and we are forced to conclude
that the story of Frederick's humiliation was embellished in after times with
incidents quite foreign to the reality. But, divested of all apocryphal inci-
dents, Frederick's concessions to the pope constituted a distinct abasement of
the imperial authority. If Alexander did not literally tread upon the neck
of the emperor, he was certainly entitled to feel that he was figuratively
grinding the secular "aspic and basilisk," the royal "lion and dragon,"
beneath his spiritual heel.a
Frederick had few subjects of dispute with the Grecian emperor, or
the Norman king of the Sicilies ; these parts of the treaty were not difficult
to terminate. But that part which related to the league of Lombardy must
be founded on a new order of ideas ; it was the first pact that Europe had
seen made between a monarch and his subjects ; the first boundary line
traced between authority and liberty. After long and vain attempts, the
negotiators separated, contenting themselves only with obliging the emperor
and the Lombards to conclude a truce of six years, bearing date from the 1st of
August, 1177. During its existence, the rights on each side were to remain
suspended ; and the freedom of commerce was re-established between the
cities which remained faithful to the emperor, and those which drew still
closer their bonds of union by a renewal of the league of Lombardy.
The six years of repose, however, which this truce guaranteed, accustomed
the emperor to submit to limitations of his authority. Thirty years had passed
since the contest had begun between him and the Italian nation ; age had now
tempered his activity and calmed his pride. New incidents had arisen in
Germany to fix his attention. His son, Henry VI, demanded to be associated
in the sovereignty of his two kingdoms of Germany and Italy. A definitive
peace only could restore to Frederick his rights and revenues in Lombardy,
which his subjects there did not dispute, but which the truce held suspended.
The adverse claims were honestly weighed at the Diet of Constance; recip-
rocal concessions were made both by the monarch and his subjects, and the
Peace of Constance, the basis of new public rights for Italy, was at length
signed on the 25th of June, 1183. By this peace the emperor renounced all
regal privileges which he had hitherto claimed in the interior of towns.
He acknowledged the right of the confederate cities to levy armies, to enclose
themselves within fortifications, and to exercise by their commissioners within
their own walls both civil and criminal jurisdiction. The consuls of towns
acquired by the simple nomination of the people all the prerogatives of im-
perial vicars. The cities of Lombardy were further authorised to strengthen
their confederation for the defence of their just rights, recognised by the Peace
of Constance. But, on the other side, they engaged to maintain the just
rights of the emperor, which were defined at the same time ; and in order
[! "Not to you but to St. Peter (I kneel)," said the prince. "Both to me and to Peter,"
returned the priest]
60 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1183 A.D.]
to avoid all disputes, it was agreed that these rights might always be bought
off by the annual sum of two thousand marks of silver. Thus terminated,
in the establishment of a legal liberty, the first and most noble struggle which
the nations of modern Europe have ever maintained against despotism.
The generous resistance of the Lombards, during a war of thirty years,
had conquered from the emperors political liberty for all the towns of the
kingdom of Italy. The right of obeying
only their own laws, of being governed by
their own magistrates, of contracting alli-
ances, of making peace or war, and, in
fine, of administering their own finances,
with the exception only of a certain rev-
enue payable into the imperial treasury,
was more particularly secured by the Peace
of Constance to the confederate cities of
the league of Lombardy.
But the Germans easily comprehended
the impossibility of refusing to their allies
the privileges which their enemies had
gained by conquest ; the liberties, therefore,
stipulated by the Peace of Constance, were
rendered common to all the towns of Italy ;
and those which had been most distin-
guished by their attachment to the Ghi-
belline party were often found the most
zealous for the establishment and preserva-
tion of all the rights of the people. The
cities, however, did not consider themselves
independent. They were proud of the title
of members of the empire ; they knew they
must concur in its defence, as well as in
the maintenance of internal peace ; reserv-
ing only that it must be in pursuance of
their free choice and deliberation. They
were in a manner confederates of an em-
AN ITALIAN OFFICER, TWELFTH CENTURY peror, who acted on them rather by persua-
sion than orders, rather as a party chief
than as a monarch ; and as he was habituated to this compromise with public
opinion in his relations with the princes of the empire, he yielded with the
less repugnance to his Italian subjects. It is a circumstance highly honour-
able to the princes of the house of Hoheristaufen, which continued to reign
sixty-seven years after the Peace of Constance, that during this long period
they made no attempt to infringe the conditions of the compact. They
admitted, with good faith, all the consequences of the concessions made ;
they pardoned liberty, which the vulgar order of kings always regarded as
a usurpation by the subjects of the rights of the crown.
DEATH OF FREDERICK ; HIS SUCCESSOR
It was not long, however, before the struggle was renewed between the
emperor and most of the towns. It was supported with not less devotion
and not fewer sacrifices ; it caused not less calamity whilst it endured ; and
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS 61
[1183-1198 A.D.]
it was crowned, at its close, with results not less happy. But the cities did
not, as in the preceding struggle, engage in it for their own immediate
interest ; they rather seconded the policy of the holy see, which sought the
independence of the church and of Italy, and did not cease to fight for
the attainment of this object till the extinction of the house of Hohenstaufen.
Frederick I survived the Peace of Constance seven years. During this
period he visited Italy with his son Henry VI ; he remained some time at
Milan, where he was received with respect, and gained the affection of all the
inhabitants, towards whom he testified the utmost trust, confidence, and
kindness. Instead of endeavouring to intimidate Lombardy, and recover by
intrigues his former power, he was occupied only with the marriage of his
son Henry, whom he had previously crowned king of Germany, with Con-
stanza, sole heiress of the Norman kings who had conquered the Two Sicilies.
The union of this crown with that of Germany and of Lombardy would have
reduced the pope to be no more than the first bishop of his states ; it would
have disarmed the two auxiliary powers which had supported the league of
Lombardy against the emperor ; and it alarmed the church, in proportion as
it flattered his ambition. The endeavours to prevent or dissolve this union
gave rise to a series of wars extending over a long period. Frederick
Barbarossa did not see the commencement of them. When the news of the
taking of Jerusalem by Saladin, on the 2nd of October, 1187, had thrown all
Europe into consternation, Frederick, listening only to his religious and
chivalric enthusiasm, placed himself at the head of the Third Crusade, which
he led into the East by land, and died the 10th of June, 1190, of a stroke of
apoplexy, caused by the coldness of the waters of the little river Calycadnus
[Salef] in Asia Minor.
Henry VI had worn for five years the German and Italian crowns, when
he received in Germany, where he then was with his wife, news of the death
of William II, king of the Two Sicilies, to whom Constanza was successor ;
and a few months after, that of his father Frederick I. He immediately
began his journey towards southern Italy. Tancred, a bastard of the race
of the Norman kings, put in opposition to him by the Sicilians, defended,
for some time with success, the independence of those provinces, but died in
1194 ; and Henry, who had entered the kingdom as conqueror, and had
made himself detested for his cruelty, also died there suddenly, on the 28th
of September, 1197. He left by his marriage with Constanza only one son,
Frederick II, hardly four years old, who lost his mother in the following
year ; and was, under the protection of the pope, acknowledged, child as he
was, king of the Two Sicilies ; but the imperial and Lombard crowns were
withheld from him for several years.
GROWING POWER OP THE NOBILITY
From the Peace of Constance to the death of Henry VI the free cities of
Italy had, for the space of fifteen years, no contest to maintain against the
emperors ; but their repose and liberty were during this period constantly
endangered by the pretensions of the nobility. The growing grandeur of
the cities, and the decay of the imperial power, had left the nobles of Italy
in a very ambiguous position.
They in some measure no longer had a country ; their only security was
in their own strength ; for the emperor in resigning his power over the
towns had not thought of giving an organisation to the nobles dispersed in
62 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1183-1197 A.D.]
castles. All the families of Italian dukes, and almost all those of marquises
and counts, had become extinct ; those who remained had lost all jurisdic-
tion over their inferiors ; no feudal tenure was respected ; no vassal appeared
at the baronial court, to form the tribunal of his lord. The frontiers of the
kingdom of Lombardy were called marches, after a German word adopted
into almost all the European languages, and the commander of these fron-
tiers was called marquis ; but the families of the powerful Tuscan marquises
were extinct, as well as those of the marquises of Ancona, of Fermo, of
Camerino, of Ivrea, and of those of the Veronese and Trevisan marches.
There remained, however, on these frontiers some families which bore the
same title, and had preserved some wrecks of these ancient and powerful
marquisates.
The nobles were not united by the hierarchical connection of the feudal
system, but by the affections or antipathies of the Guelfs or Ghibellines. In
general, the most powerful families among the nobles, those who had cas-
tles sufficiently strong, lands sufficiently extensive, and vassals sufficiently
numerous to defend themselves, listening only to the ambition of courts,
were attached to the Ghibelline party. Those families, on the contrary, who
possessed castles capable of but little resistance, situated on accessible
eminences, or in plains ; those whose castles were near great towns, and too
weak to support a contest with them, had demanded to be made citizens of
the towns ; they had served them in the wars of the league of Lombardy ;
they had since taken a principal share in the government, and they thus
found themselves attached by common interests to the party of the Guelfs.
Independent nobles were no more to be found in all the plains of Lom-
bardy ; there was not one who had not become citizen of some republic ; but
every chain of mountain was thick-set with castles where a nobility, choosing
obedience to an emperor rather than to citizens, maintained themselves
independent ; these too, attracted sometimes by the wealth and pleasures of
towns, and sometimes desirous of obtaining influence in the counsels of pow-
erful republics, in order to restore them to the emperor, demanded to be
made citizens, when they thought it would open the way to a share in the
government ; and as war was their sole occupation, they were often gladly
received by the republics, which stood in need of good captains.
It was thus the Ghibelline family of Visconti, whose fiefs extended from
the Alps to the Lago Maggiore, became associated with the republic of
Milan. The house of Este, allied to the Guelfs of Saxony and Bavaria, and
devoted to the pope, possessors of several castles built on the fertile chain
of the Euganean hills, joined the republic of Ferrara ; the parallel chain,
which serves as a base to the Tyrolese Alps, was crowned with the castles
of Ezzel, Ezzelino, or Eccelino, of Romano, a family enriched by the emperors,
entirely devoted to the Ghibelline party, and in process of time attached
to the republics of Verona and Vicenza. In like manner were situated on the
northern side of the Apennines the fortresses of the Ghibelline nobles, who
excited revolutions in the republics of Piacenza, Parma, Reggio, and Modena :
on the southern side were the castles of other Ghibellines, in turns citizens
and enemies of the republics of Arezzo, Florence, Pistoia, and Lucca ; lower
in the valleys of the Po, or in the upper vale of Arno, were the castles of
the Guelfs, who had become decidedly citizens of the same republics. c
CHAPTER III
THE NORMANS IN SICILY
[787-1204 A.D.]
A people forsooth most astute, vengeful of injuries ; in the hope of
profit elsewhere despising their paternal territories, imitative in every
way, keeping some mean betwixt prodigality and avarice. Their
leaders indeed are most prodigal from their delight in reputation.
They are a people apt in flattery, so studious of eloquence that even
the very boys you'll find are orators. Unless kept under the yoke of
law, the race is most exceedingly unrestrained (effrenatissima} yet
long suffering in toil, in famine, in cold, when fortune demands;
industrious in falcon hunting. They rejoice in horses and the other
affairs of war, and in luxurious garb. From their name indeed comes
the name of their land. North in English means the region of the
north wind (aquilo) and because they themselves came thence they call
the land Normannia [Normandy]. — MALATERRA.&
NORMANS is the softened form of the word " Northman," applied first to
the people of Scandinavia in general, and afterwards specially to the people
of Norway. In the form of "Norman" (Northmannus, Normannus, Normand)
it is the name of those colonists from Scandinavia who settled themselves in
Gaul, who founded the Norman duchy, who adopted the French tongue and
French manners, and who from their new home set forth on new errands of
conquest, chiefly in the British Islands and in southern Italy and Sicily.
From one point of view the expeditions of the Normans may be looked on as
continuations of the expeditions of the Northmen. As the name is etymo-
logically the same, so the people are by descent the same, and they are still
led by the old spirit of war and adventure.
But in the view of general history Normans and Northmen must be care-
fully distinguished. The change in the name is the sign of a thorough
change, if not in the people themselves, yet in their historical position.
Their national character remains largely the same ; but they have adopted a
new religion, a new language, a new system of law and society, new thoughts
and feelings on all matters. Like as the Norman is still to the Northmen,
the effect of a settlement of Normans is utterly different from the effect of a
settlement of Northmen. There can be no doubt that the establishment of
a Norman power in England was, like the establishment of the Danish power,
greatly helped by the essential kindred of Normans, Danes, and English.
63
64 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[787-1090 A.D.]
But it was helped only silently. To all outward appearances the Norman
conquest of England was an event of an altogether different character from
the Danish conquest. The one was a conquest by a people whose tongue
and institutions were still palpably akin to those of the English. The other
was a conquest by a people whose tongue and institutions were palpably
different from those of the English. The Norman settlers in England felt
no community with the earlier Danish settlers in England. In fact the Nor-
mans met with the steadiest resistance in a part of England which was
largely Danish. But the effect of real, though unacknowledged, kindred
had none the less an important practical effect. There can be no doubt
that this hidden working of kindred between conquerors and conquered in
England, as compared with the utter lack of all fellowship between con-
querors and conquered in Sicily, was one cause out of several which made
so wide a difference between the Norman conquest of England and the
Norman conquest of Sicily.
These two conquests, wrought in the great island of the ocean and in the
great island of the Mediterranean, were the main works of the Normans
after they had fully put on the character of a Christian and French-speaking
people, in other words, after they had changed from Northmen into Normans.
The English and the Sicilian settlements form the main Norman history
of the eleventh century. The tenth century is the time of the settlement of
the Northmen in Gaul, and of the change in religion and language of which
the softening of the name is the outward sign. By the end of it, any traces
of heathen faith, and even of Scandinavian speech, must have been mere
survivals. The new creed, the new speech, the new social system, had taken
such deep root that the descendants of the Scandinavian settlers were better
fitted to be the armed missionaries of all these things than the neighbours
from whom they had borrowed their new possessions. With the zeal of new
converts they set forth on their new errand very much in the spirit of their
heathen forefathers. If Britain and Sicily were the greatest fields of their
enterprise, they were very far from being the only fields. The same spirit
of enterprise which brought the Northmen into Gaul seems to carry the
Normans out of Gaul into every corner of the world. c
We may for the present leave the ethnology and early history of the
Northmen to the later history of Scandinavia, and fuller details of their
invasions of France and England to the histories of those countries, giving
here only a brief resume of their wanderings, and a fuller account of their
career in the powerful little kingdom in Sicily where they meddled busily
with the affairs of all Europe, and much of Asia and Africa. This was, as
Freeman c says, " the most brilliant time for Sicily as a power in the world."
Even under the Greeks it was not so prominent. But before reaching
this period, some mention of their first appearances in continental European
history is necessary, «
Evils still more terrible than political abuses were the lot of those nations
who had been subject to Charlemagne. They, indeed, may appear to us
little better than ferocious barbarians : but they were exposed to the assaults
of tribes, in comparison with whom they must be deemed humane and polished.
Each frontier of the empire had to dread the attack of an enemy. The
Saracens of Africa possessed themselves of Sicily and Sardinia, and became
masters of the Mediterranean Sea.
Much more formidable were the foes by whom Germany was assailed.
The Slavonians, a widely extended people, whose language is still spoken
upon half the surface of Europe, had occupied the countries of Bohemia,
THE NORMANS 65
[787-870 A.D.]
Poland, and Pannonia, on the eastern confines of the empire, and from the
time of Charlemagne acknowledged its superiority. But at the end of the
ninth century, a Tatarian tribe, the Hungarians, overspreading that country
which since has borne their name, and moving
forward like a vast wave, brought a dreadful
reverse upon Germany. All Italy, all Ger-
many, and the south of France, felt the scourge;
till Henry the Fowler, and Otto the Great,
drove them back by successive victories within
their own limits, where in a short time they
learned peaceful arts, adopted the religion, and
followed the policy of Christendom.
If any enemies could be more destructive
than these Hungarians, they were the pirates
of the north, known commonly by the name of
Northmen (Normans). The love of a preda-
tory life seems to have attracted adventurers
of different nations to the Scandinavian seas,
from whence they infested, not only by mari-
time piracy, but continual invasions, the north-
ern coasts both of France and Germany. The
causes of their sudden appearance are inexpli-
cable, or at least could only be sought in the
ancient traditions of Scandinavia. For un-
doubtedly the coasts of France and England
were as little protected from depredations
under the Merovingian kings, and those of the
Heptarchy, as in subsequent times. Yet only
one instance of an attack from this side is re-
corded, and that before the middle of the sixth
century, till the age of Charlemagne. In 787,
the Danes, as we call those northern plunder-
ers, began to infest England, which lay most
immediately open to their incursions. Soon
afterwards they ravaged the coasts of France.
by means of his fleets ; yet they pillaged a few places during his reign. It
is said that, perceiving one day, from a port in the Mediterranean, some
Norman vessels which had penetrated into that sea, he shed tears, in antici-
pation of the miseries which awaited his empire. In the ninth century,
the Norman pirates not only ravaged the Balearic Isles, and nearer coasts of
the Mediterranean, but even Greece.
A SLAVONIAN OF THE TENTH
CENTURY
Charlemagne repulsed them
THE NORMANS IN FRANCE
In Louis' reign their depredations upon the coast were more incessant,
but they did not penetrate into the inland country, till that of Charles the
Bald. The wars between that prince and his family, which exhausted France
of her noblest blood, the insubordination of the provincial governors, even
the instigation of some of Charles' enemies, laid all open to their inroads.
They adopted a uniform plan of warfare both in France and England ; sail-
ing up navigable rivers in their vessels of small burden, and fortifying the
islands which they occasionally found, they made these intrenchments at
H. W. — VOL. IX. F
66 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[870-923 A.D.]
once an asylum for their women and children, a repository for their plunder,
and a place of retreat from superior force. After pillaging a town, they
retired to these strongholds or to their ships ; and it was not till 872 that
they ventured to keep possession of Angers, which, however, they were
compelled to evacuate.
Sixteen years afterwards, they laid siege to Paris, and committed the most
ruinous devastations on the neighbouring country. As these Northmen
were unchecked by religious awe, the rich monasteries, which had stood
harmless amidst the havoc of Christian war, were overwhelmed in the storm.
Perhaps they may have endured some irrecoverable losses of ancient learning ;
but their complaints are of monuments disfigured, bones of saints and kings
dispersed, treasures carried away. St. Denis redeemed its abbot from cap-
tivity with 685 pounds of gold. All the chief abbeys were stripped about
the same time, either by the enemy, or for contributions to the public
necessity. So impoverished was the kingdom, that in 860 Charles the Bald
had great difficulty in collecting 3000 pounds of silver, to subsidise a body
of Northmen against their countrymen. The kings of France, too feeble to
prevent or repel these invaders, had recourse to the palliative of buying
peace at their hands, or rather precarious armistices, to which reviving thirst
of plunder soon put an end. At length Charles the Simple, in 918, ceded a
great province (Neustria), which they had already partly occupied, partly
rendered desolate, and which has derived from them the name of Normandy.
Ignominious as this appears, it proved no impolitic step. Rollo [Rolf or
Hrolf an exile from Norway], the Norman chief, with all his subjects, became
Christians and Frenchmen.**
France would have only had to congratulate herself upon the assignment
she had been compelled to make to the Normans, had the Treaty of Saint-
Clair ratified peace forever between the kingdom and this nation of pirates.
Unfortunately such was not the case, and for a considerable time the
Normans continued to add their ravages to the burden of the many sacrifices
France had made, of all the calamities she had experienced.
Some years before, a number of pagans who were independent of Rollo,
but of whose adventures but little is known, had established themselves at
the mouth of the Loire. Rollo came and attacked them in their retreat, but
they defended themselves valiantly, and the conqueror of the shores of the
Seine was obliged to return to his domains, and leave the pagans in posses-
sion of the mouth of the Loire. Sometime afterwards, both companies
united and fought together ; this came about in the following manner.
There was much indignation in France on account of the deplorable govern-
ment of Charles the Simple, the last degenerate scion of the Carlo vingian
race. Rudolf or Ralph, duke of Burgundy, who was considered the only man
capable of putting a stop to the anarchy in the kingdom and the ravages of
the Normans, was proclaimed king.
Charles entreated the help of the Normans of the Seine, and those of the
Loire. Accordingly they all came to join the forces of the fallen king,
marched with them towards the Oise, marking their progress by their usual
devastations. For the first time, the people of the north interposed in a
civil war which did not concern them. Rudolf turned his forces against
them, and put them to flight. They revenged themselves by killing the pris-
oners they had taken. Regnaud, leader of the Normans of the Loire, who
had extended his inroads as far as Arras, was forced to retire to his strong-
holds. Immediately after this retreat, the Burgundians crossed the Epte
and put Normandy to fire and sword. Rollo, who evidently had not expected
THE NORMANS 67
[923-930 A.D.]
this invasion, made a truce with Rudolf, and gave him hostages, as a guar-
antee of his peaceable intentions, but, in his turn, set up claims which had to
be satisfied. King Charles, he said, whose cause he had followed, had prom-
ised him more lands. To do no less than the dethroned monarch, Rudolf,
according to Flodoard (or Frodoard),e the historian, bestowed upon Rollo,
Bessin, and also Maine. The Normans of the Loire were treated in like
manner, and it seems that a sum of money was granted to them, and that a
tax had to be levied in all parts of France to pay it.
The kingdom continued to be very much agitated by political events.
Although he twice sold peace to Rudolf and broke it again, the Norman
duke embraced Count Heribert's cause, who, forsaking Rudolf after second-
ing him ably, had gone over to the dethroned prince, his prisoner, and with
the assent of Rollo and Hugh, had again proclaimed the unhappy Charles
king. All seemed lost to Rudolf. But Charles was the puppet of his party ;
scarcely had he reascended the throne, than Heribert once more changed his
mind, flung the phantom prince into prison again, and acknowledged Rudolf.
Charles died sometime after in the castle of his jailer.
Whilst these events were taking place in the interior of France, the
Breton generals, in the vicinity of Normandy, commenced, perhaps in revenge
for the incursions of the Scandinavians, ravaging the territory of their neigh-
bours, and invaded the province of Bayeux, but Rollo appeared with his
warriors, engaged in battle with the aggressors and conquered them. One
of the Breton counts, Beranger, yielded to the Normans ; another, Alan, the
chief instigator of the war, took refuge in England. The nobles who had
fought under these two commanders established themselves in France, in
Burgundy, or in Aquitaine ; some of them followed Alan to England. All
those who remained were obliged to acknowledge the suzerainty of the duke
of Normandy. The neighbouring provinces, such as Anjou and Poitou,
were henceforth delivered from the hostile irruptions of these turbulent
chiefs. Thus, Rollo, in his old age, found himself the peaceful possessor of
Normandy, and able to maintain order and peace therein.
It is said that Charles the Simple, while he was still upon the throne,
secretly sent emissaries to Rouen to his daughter Gisela who had married
Rollo ; that this clandestine mission gave umbrage to the Normans, and
that Rollo seized and publicly put to death the envoys of his father-in-law.
Gisela died sometime afterwards ; and Rollo lived as before with Popa,
by whom he had two children, a son named William, and a daughter called
Gerloc, who later received the Christian name of Adela or Adeline.
When William grew to man's estate, the Norman nobles requested their
duke to appoint his successor. He named his son, and he it was the
Normans had in mind, in spite of his illegitimacy. The nobles swore
fidelity and obedience to him beforehand. Rollo lived for five years after
this important event, and died of old age at Rouen. The precise date of his
death, and also his age, are unknown. Everything tends to show that it was
about the year 930, that the death of the first and probably octogenarian
duke of Normandy took place. His bravery, his steadfastness, the energy
of his government are incontestable, but it is permissible to doubt the truth
of the eulogies which the Norman monks in their chronicles have bestowed
upon his devotion, and his respect for the clergy. It is possible he enriched
the churches and convents, that he walked in processions, and with bare
feet before the relics of St. Ouen, formerly taken to France, and which he
forced his father-in-law to restore ; but on the other hand we read in an Eng-
lish chronicle, that he sold or allowed to be sold many relics belonging to
68 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[930-1017 A.D.]
the Norman churches, which were acquired by his ally, Athelstan, king of
England.
A French historian, Adhemar,/ even declares that, feeling his end
approaching, Rollo caused a hundred Christian prisoners to be sacrificed
to the northern idols, and he gave a hundred pounds in gold as a gift to
the churches of Normandy in order to propitiate the pagan gods and the
Christian deity at the same time. According to another historian it was at
the moment that he was about to embrace the Christian faith that Rollo
offered a last human sacrifice to the divinities of that worship he was for-
saking. Perhaps that massacre of Christian prisoners, which he ordered
when Rudolf drove him back from the north of France, was the cause of
these strange tales.
Rollo was buried in the church he had built at Rouen ; afterwards his
remains were placed in a chapel of the cathedral itself. His tomb, facing
that of his son, is still to be seen there. Q
THE NORMANS COMB TO ITALY
When the Northmen, or Normans, had embraced Christianity, in their
attachment to pilgrimage to the Holy Land, they surpassed all the European
people. This was consistent enough with the habits of men, the most enter-
prising, courageous, and valiant on earth. Two motives appear to have
directed their route to Naples; Mounts Cassino and Gargano were illus-
trious for miracles ; and from Naples, Gaeta, Amalfi, or Bari, parts which
maintained a constant intercourse with the East, a passage to Syria might
easily be obtained.
Early in the eleventh century, while forty of these adventurers were at
Salerno, on their return from the Holy Land, a Saracen fleet anchored off
the coast, and demanded heavy contributions as a reward for sparing the
city. The Normans instantly asked Guiomar III, prince of the place, for
arms. To the astonishment of the inhabitants, they mounted their steeds,
caused the gates to be opened, and plunged into the midst of the misbe-
lievers, many of whom they slew, the rest they forced precipitately to
embark.1 Guiomar, with the hope of retaining them at his court, offered
them riches and honours as the condition; and when he found them resolved
to revisit their homes, he brought them to proclaim his offers among their
kindred and friends. It appears, however, that the Normans had no great
reason to be dissatisfied with their own country ; one knight only, Drengot
by name, who, from a deadly feud with a noble of his nation, was not averse
to foreign adventure, resolved to collect his kindred and dependents and
sail for Italy.
On his arrival there with about one hundred followers, he found the yoke
of the Greeks no less detested than the depredations of the Saracens ; that
the pope, emperor, and feudatory were alike prepared to reduce the maritime
places and the mountain forts. For some time their success was thwarted
by obstacles which valour could not surmount. On one occasion they were
defeated by a greatly superior force, and their leader slain ; and the emperor,
Henry II, whose army they had joined, was compelled by a pestilence to
abandon the north of Italy. But under Rainulf, the brother of Drengot,
they resolved to establish a sovereignty for themselves; and in this view they
[* Some historic doubt has been thrown on this anecdote by St. Marc.^]
THE NORMANS 69
[1017-1053 A.D.]
reduced A versa, a fortress belonging to the duchy of Naples, which they forti-
fied in opposition to the wish of that republic. That city, however, they
had soon an opportunity of conciliating. When Pandulf IV, prince of
Capua, took Naples by surprise, where open force would have failed, Sergius,
master of the soldiers, and head of the commonwealth, fled to Aversa, im-
plored the succours of the strangers, and with their aid expelled the garrison
of Capua. The grateful chief erected Aversa into a fief, with which he
invested the Norman leader as Count Rainulf. But this leader was not
destined to lay the foundation of Norman sovereignty.
About this time and allured by the same hope of distinction, there arrived
three sons of Tancred of Hauteville, an illustrious house of Normandy. In
the war which ensued, both Greeks and Saracens were worsted, until all
Apulia was wrested from the former, when the new conquests were parti-
tioned among twelve counts, each with a town and territory. At the head
of these adventurers was Guillaume Bras de Fer, eldest son of Tancred.
But they acknowledged no subordination; they committed on churches and
monasteries, Christians and infidels, friends and foes, excesses which neither
Greek nor Saracen could have exceeded, until the pope, justly regarding
them as the greatest curse of the country, formed a league to expel them.
At the head of a motley army of Romans, Germans, Greeks, Campanians,
and Apulians, Leo IX himself took the field. Guillaume was dead, but his
brother Humphrey (or Humbert) filled his place; Humphrey was assisted by
Robert Guiscard [or Wiscard] another son of Tancred, and by the count of
Aversa.*
CAPTURE OF THE POPE; ROBERT GUISCARD (1053 A.D.)
The Normans of Apulia could muster in the field no more than three
thousand horse, with a handful of infantry; the defection of the natives
intercepted their provisions and retreat ; and their spirit, incapable of fear,
was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the hostile approach of
Leo, they knelt without disgrace or reluctance before their spiritual father.
But the pope was inexorable; his lofty Germans affected to deride the
diminutive stature of their adversaries; and the Normans were informed
that death or exile was their only alternative.
Flight they disdained ; and, as many of them had been three days with-
out tasting food, they embraced the assurance of a more easy and honourable
death. They climbed the hill of Civitella, descended into the plain, and
charged in three divisions the army of the pope. On the left, and in the
centre, Richard, count of Aversa, and Robert, the famous Guiscard, attacked,
broke, routed, and pursued, the Italian multitudes, who fought without dis-
cipline, and fled without shame. A harder trial was reserved for the valour
of Count Humphrey, who led the cavalry of the right wing. The Germans
have been described as unskilful in the management of the horse and lance ;
but on foot they formed a strong and impenetrable phalanx, and neither man,
nor steed, nor armour could resist the weight of their long and two-handed
swords. After a severe conflict they were encompassed by the squadrons
returning from the pursuit, and died in their ranks with the esteem of their
foes and the satisfaction of revenge.
The gates of Civitella were shut against the flying pope, and he was
overtaken by the pious conquerors, who kissed his feet, to implore his bless-
ing and the absolution of their sinful victory. The soldiers beheld in their
enemy and captive the vicar of Christ; and though we may suppose the
70 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1053 A.D.]
policy of the chiefs, it is probable that they were infected by the popular
superstition. In the calm of retirement, the well-meaning pope deplored the
effusion of Christian blood, which must be imputed to his account ; he felt
that he had been the author of sin and scandal ; and as his undertaking had
failed, the indecency of his military character was universally condemned.
With these dispositions, he listened to the offers of a beneficial treaty ;
deserted an alliance which he had preached as the cause of God, and ratified
the past and future con-
quests of the Normans.
By whatever hands they
had been usurped, the
provinces of Apulia and
Calabria were a part of
the donation of Constan-
tine and the patrimony
of St. Peter : the grant
and the acceptance con-
firmed the mutual claims
of the pontiff and the ad-
venturers. They prom-
ised to support each other
with spiritual and tem-
poral arms ; a tribute or
quit-rent of twelve-pence
was afterwards stipulated
for every plough-land ;
and after this memorable
transaction, the kingdom
of Naples remained above
seven hundred years a
fief of the holy see.
The pedigree of Rob-
ert Guiscard, born about
1015, is variously de-
duced from the peasants
and the dukes of Normandy ; from the peasants, by the pride and ignorance
of a Grecian princess ; from the dukes, by the ignorance and flattery of the
Italian subjects. His genuine descent may be ascribed to the second or
middle order of private nobility. He sprang from a race of valvassors,
or bannerets, of the diocese of the Coutances, in lower Normandy ; the castle
of Hauteville was their honourable seat ; his father Tancred was conspicu-
ous in the court and army of the duke; and his military service was furnished
by ten soldiers or knights. Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his
own, made him the father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by
the impartial tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was
insufficient for his numerous and daring progeny ; they saw around the
neighbourhood the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and resolved to seek in
foreign wars a more glorious inheritance. Two only remained to perpetu-
ate the race, and cherish their father's age; their ten brothers passed
the Alps, and joined the Apulian camp of the Normans. The elder were
prompted by native spirit ; their success encouraged their younger brethren ;
and the first three in seniority, William, Drogo, and Humphrey, deserved
to be the chiefs of their nation and the founders of the new republic.
NORMAN WOMAN OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
THE NORMANS 71
[1015-1057 A.D.]
Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the second marriage ; and
even the reluctant praise of his foes has endowed him with the heroic
qualities of a soldier and a statesman. His lofty stature surpassed the
tallest of his army ; his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength
and gracefulness ; and to the decline of life he maintained the patient vigour
of health and the commanding dignity of his form. Robert, at once and
with equal dexterity, could wield in the right hand his sword, his lance in
the left ; in the battle of Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and, in the close
of that memorable day, he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of
valour from the warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition was
founded on the consciousness of superior worth ; in the pursuit of greatness
he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the
feelings of humanity ; though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or
clandestine means was determined only by his present advantage.
The surname of Guiscard * was applied to this master of political wisdom,
which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit ;
and Robert is praised by the Apulian poet.? for excelling the cunning of
Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. According to the Greeks he departed
from Normandy with only five followers on horseback and thirty on foot ;
yet even this allowance appears too bountiful : the sixth son of Tancred of
Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and his first military band was
levied among the adventurers of Italy. His brothers and countrymen had
divided the fertile lands of Apulia ; but they guarded their shares with the
jealousy of avarice ; the aspiring youth was drawn forwards to the mountains
of Calabria, and in his first exploits against the Greeks and the natives it is
not easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To surprise a castle or
a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to plunder the adjacent villages for
necessary food, were the obscure labours which formed and exercised the
powers of his mind and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his
standard ; and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the
name and character of Normans.
As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened the
jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient quarrel, his life was
threatened and his liberty restrained. After the death of Humphrey, the
tender age of his sons excluded them from the command ; they were reduced
to a private estate by the ambition of their guardian and uncle ; and Guis-
card was exalted on a buckler, and saluted count of Apulia, and general of
the republic. With an increase of authority and of force, he resumed the
conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that should raise him for-
ever above the heads of his equals. By some acts of rapine or sacrilege,
he had incurred a papal excommunication ; but Nicholas II was easily per-
suaded that the divisions of friends could terminate only in their mutual
prejudice ; that the Normans were the faithful champions of the holy see ;
and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince, than the caprice of an aris-
tocracy. A synod of one hundred bishops was convened at Melfi ; and the
count interrupted an important enterprise, to guard the person and execute
the decrees of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on
Robert and his posterity the ducal title, with the investiture of Apulia,
Calabria, and all the lands, both in Italy and Sicily, which his sword could
rescue from the schismatic Greeks and the unbelieving Saracens.
1 The Norman writers and editors most conversant with their own idiom interpret Guiscard
or Wiscard, by Callidus, a cunning man. The root "wise" is familiar to our ear; and in the
old word " wiseacre " we can discern something of a similar sense and termination,
72 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1057-1060 A.D.]
This apostolic sanction might justify his arms ; but the obedience of a
free and victorious people could not be transferred without their consent ;
and Guiscard dissembled his elevation till the ensuing campaign had been
illustrated by the conquest of Cosenza and Reggio. In the hour of triumph
he assembled his troops and solicited the Normans to confirm, by their suf-
frage, the judgment of the vicar of Christ. The soldiers hailed with joyful
acclamations their valiant duke ; and the counts, his former equals, pro-
nounced the oath of fidelity with hollow smiles and secret indignation.
CONQUEST OF SICILY ; EASTERN INVASIONS (1060-1090 A.D.)
After this inauguration, Robert styled himself, " by the grace of God and
St. Peter, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of Sicily"; and it was
the labour of twenty years to deserve and realise these lofty appellations.
Such tardy progress, in a narrow space, may seem unworthy of the abilities
of the chief and the spirit of the nation ; but the Normans were few in num-
ber, their resources were scanty, their service was voluntary and precarious.
The bravest designs of the duke were sometimes opposed by the free voice
of his parliament of barons ; the twelve counts of popular election conspired
against his authority ; and against their perfidious uncle the sons of Hum-
phrey demanded justice and revenge. By his policy and vigour, Guiscard
discovered their plots, suppressed their rebellions, and punished the guilty
with death or exile ; but, in these domestic feuds, his years and the national
strength were unprofitably consumed.
After the defeat of his foreign enemies, the Greeks, Lombards, and
Saracens, their broken forces retreated to the strong and populous cities of
the sea coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and defence ; the
Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the field, and their rude
attempts could only succeed by the efforts of persevering courage. The
resistance of Salerno was maintained above eight months ; the siege or
blockade of Bari lasted near four years. In these actions the Norman duke
was the foremost in every danger ; in every fatigue the last and most
patient.
Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been long
detained in Normandy by his own and his father's age. He accepted a
welcome summons ; hastened to the Apulian camp ; and deserved at first
the esteem, and afterwards the envy, of his elder brother. Their valour and
ambition were equal ; but the youth, the beauty, the elegant manners of
Roger, engaged the disinterested love of the soldiers and people. So scanty
was his allowance for himself and forty followers, that he descended from
conquest to robbery, and from robbery to domestic theft ; and so loose were
the notions of prosperity, that, by his own historian Malaterra,& at his special
command, he is accused of stealing horses from a stable of Melfi. His spirit
emerged from poverty and disgrace ; from these base practices he rose to
the merit and glory of a holy war ; and the invasion of Sicily was seconded
by the zeal and policy of his brother Guiscard.
After the retreat of the Greeks, the idolaters, a most audacious reproach
of the Catholics, had retrieved their losses and possessions ; but the deliver-
ance of the island, so vainly undertaken by the forces of the Eastern Empire,
was achieved by a small and private band of adventurers. In the first
attempt, Roger braved, in an open boat, the real and fabulous dangers of
Scylla and Charybdis, landed with only sixty soldiers on a hostile shore,
THE NORMANS 73
[1060-1081 A.D.]
drove the Saracens to the gates of Messina, and safely returned with the
spoils of the adjacent country. In the siege of Trani, three hundred
Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of the island. In the siege of
Palermo the Norman cavalry was assisted by the galleys of Pisa ; and, in
the hour of action, the envy of the two brothers was sublimed to a generous
and invincible emulation. After a war of thirty years, Roger, with the title
of Great Count, obtained the sovereignty of the largest and most fruitful
island of the Mediterranean ; and his administration displays a liberal and
enlightened mind above the limits of his age and education. The Moslems
were maintained in the free enjoyment of their religion and property.
To Robert Guiscard the conquest of Sicily was more glorious than bene-
ficial ; the possession of Apulia and Calabria was inadequate to his ambition;
and he resolved to embrace or create the first occasion of invading, perhaps
of subduing, the Roman Empire of the East. From his first wife, the part-
ner of his humble fortunes, he had been divorced under the pretence of
consanguinity ; and her son Bohemond was destined to imitate, rather than
to succeed, his illustrious father. The second wife of Guiscard was the
daughter of the princess of Salerno ; the Lombards acquiesced in the lineal
succession of their son Roger ; their five daughters were given in honour-
able nuptials, and one of them was betrothed in a tender age to Constantine,
a beautiful youth, the son and heir of the emperor Michael.
But the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution : the
imperial family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the cloister; and
Robert deplored and resented the disgrace of his daughter and the expul-
sion of his ally. A Greek, who styled himself the father of Constantine,
soon appeared at Salerno, and related the adventures of his fall and flight.
That unfortunate friend was acknowledged by the duke, and adorned with
the pomp and titles of imperial dignity ; in his triumphal progress through
Apulia and Calabria, Michael was saluted with the tears and acclamations of
the people ; and Pope Gregory VII exhorted the bishops to preach, and the
Catholics to fight, in the pious work of his restoration. After two years'
incessant preparations, the land and naval forces were assembled at Otranto,
and Robert was accompanied by his wife, who fought by his side, his son
Bohemond, and the representative of the emperor Michael.
Before the general embarkation the Norman duke despatched Bohemond
with fifteen galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu. The Island of
Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the arms or the name of
Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu (we use the modern appella-
tion) to the siege of Durazzo. In the prosecution of his enterprise the
courage of Guiscard was assailed by every form of danger and mischance.
In the most propitious season of the year, as his fleet passed along the coast,
a storm of wind and snow unexpectedly arose ; the Adriatic was swelled by
the raging blast of the south, and a new shipwreck confirmed the old infamy
of the Acroceraunian rocks. The sails, the masts, and the oars were shat-
tered or torn away ; the sea and shore were covered with the fragments of
vessels, with arms and dead bodies ; and the greatest part of the provisions
was either lost or damaged.
The Normans had wept during the tempest ; they were alarmed by the
hostile approach of the Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers and
promises of the Byzantine court. The Apulian and Ragusian vessels fled to
the shore ; several were cut from their cables, and dragged away by the con-
queror ; and a sally from the town carried slaughter and dismay to the tents
of the Norman duke. A seasonable relief was poured into Durazzo, and as
74 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1081 A.D.]
soon as the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the islands and mari-
time towns withdrew from the camp the supply of tribute and provision.
That camp was soon afflicted with a pestilential disease ; five hundred knights
perished by an inglorious death ; and the list of burials (if all could obtain
a decent burial) amounted to ten thousand persons. Under these calamities
the mind of Guiscard alone was firm and invincible ; and while he collected
new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he battered or scaled or sapped the walls
of Durazzo.
While the Roman Empire was attacked by the Turks in the East and the
Normans in the West, the aged successor of Michael surrendered the sceptre
to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious cap-
tain, and the founder of the Comnenian
dynasty. The princess Anna,& his daughter
and historian, observes, in her affected style,
that even Hercules was unequal to a double
combat ; and, on this principle, she approves
a hasty peace with the Turks, which allowed
her father to undertake in person the relief
of Durazzo.
Against the advice of his wisest captains
Alexius resolved to risk the event of a general
action. The princess Anna, who drops a tear
on this melancholy event, is reduced to praise
the strength and swiftness of her father's
horse, and his vigorous struggle when he
was almost overthrown by the stroke of a
lance which had shivered the imperial hel-
met. His desperate valour broke through a
squadron of Franks who opposed his flight ;
and, after wandering two days and as many
nights in the mountains, he found some re-
pose of body, though not of mind, in the
walls of Lychnidus. The victorious Robert
reproached the tardy and feeble pursuit
which had suffered the escape of so illus-
trious a prize ; but he consoled his disap-
pointment by the trophies and standards of
the field, the wealth and luxury of the
Byzantine camp, and the glory of defeating
an army five times more numerous than his
own.
A Venetian noble sold the city for a rich and honourable marriage. At
the dead of night several rope-ladders were dropped from the walls, the light
Calabrians ascended in silence, and the Greeks were awakened by the name
and trumpets of the conqueror. Yet they defended the street three days
against an enemy already master of the rampart ; and near seven months
elapsed between the first investment and the final surrender of the place.
From Durazzo the Norman duke advanced into the heart of Epirus or Albania,
traversed the first mountains of Thessaly, surprised three hundred English
in the city of Castoria, approached Thessalonica, and made Constantinople
tremble.
A more pressing duty suspended the prosecution of his ambitious designs.
By shipwreck, pestilence, and the sword his army was reduced to a third
A NORMAN MATRON OF THE TWELFTH
CENTURY
THE NORMANS 75
[1081-1082 A.D.]
of the original numbers ; and instead of being recruited from Italy, he
was informed, by plaintive epistles, of the mischiefs and dangers which had
been produced by his absence ; the revolt of the cities and barons of Apulia,
the distress of the pope, and the approach or invasion of Henry, king of Ger-
many. Highly presuming that his person was sufficient for the public
safety, he repassed the sea in a single brigantine, and left the remains of the
army under the command of his son and the Norman counts, exhorting
Bohemond to respect the freedom of his peers, and the counts to obey the
authority of their leader. The son of Guiscard trod in the footsteps of his
father ; and the two destroyers are compared, by the Greeks, to the cater-
pillar and the locust, the last of whom devours whatever has escaped the
teeth of the former.
After winning two battles against the emperor, he descended into the plain
of Thessaly, and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of Achilles, which con-
tained the treasure and magazines of the Byzantine camp. The courage of
Bohemond was always conspicuous, and often successful ; but his camp was
pillaged by a stratagem of the Greeks ; the city was impregnable ; and the
venal or discontented counts deserted his standard, betrayed their trusts, and
enlisted in the service of the emperor. Alexius returned to Constantinople
with the advantage, rather than the honour, of victory. After evacuating
the conquests which he could no longer defend, the son of Guiscard embarked
for Italy, and was embraced by a father who esteemed his merit, and sym-
pathised in his misfortune.
Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of Robert, the
most prompt and powerful was Henry IV, king of Germany and Italy, and
future emperor of the West. Henry was the severe adversary of the Nor-
mans, the allies and vassals of Gregory VII, his implacable foe. The long
quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the zeal and
ambition of that haughty priest ; the king and the pope had degraded each
other, and each had seated a rival on the temporal or spiritual throne of
his antagonist. After the defeat and death of his Swabian rebel, Henry
descended into Italy, to assume the imperial crown, and to drive from the
Vatican the tyrant of the church. But the Roman people adhered to the cause
of Gregory ; their resolution was fortified by supplies of men and money from
Apulia ; and the city was thrice ineffectually besieged by the king of Ger-
many.
In the fourth year he corrupted, it is said, with Byzantine gold, the
nobles of Rome, whose estates and castles had been ruined by the war. The
gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages, were delivered into his hands ; the anti-
pope, Clement III, was consecrated in the Lateran ; the grateful pontiff
crowned his protector in the Vatican ; and the Emperor Henry fixed his
residence in the capitol, as the lawful successor of Augustus and Charle-
magne. The ruins of the Septizonium were still defended by the nephew of
Gregory ; the pope himself was invested in the castle of St. Angelo ; and
his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his Norman vassal. Their
friendship had been interrupted by some reciprocal injuries and complaints ;
but, on this pressing occasion, Guiscard was urged by the obligation of
his oath, by his interest, more potent than oaths, by the love of fame, and his
enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy banner, he resolved to fly
to the relief of the prince of the apostles ; the most numerous of his armies,
six thousand horse, and thirty thousand foot, was instantly assembled ; and
his march from Salerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and the
promise of the divine favour.
76 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1081-1085 A.D.]
Henry, invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach ; recol-
lected some indispensable affairs that required his presence in Lombardy ;
exhorted the Romans to persevere in their allegiance ; and hastily retreated
three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less than three years,
the son of Tancred de Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering the pope,
and of compelling the two emperors, of the East and the West, to fly before
his victorious arms.
But the triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By
the aid of the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or scaled ;
but the imperial faction was still powerful and active ; on the third day, the
people rose in a furious tumult ; and a hasty word of the conqueror, in his
defence or revenge, was the signal of fire and pillage. The Saracens of
Sicily, the subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his brother, embraced this
fair occasion of rifling and profaning the Holy City of the Christians ;
many thousands of the citizens, in the sight, and by the allies, of their spirit-
ual father, were exposed to violation, captivity, or death ; and a spacious
quarter of the city, from the Lateran to the Colosseum, was consumed by the
flames.
The deliverer and scourge of Rome might have indulged himself in a
season of repose ; but in the same year of the flight of the German emperor,
the indefatigable Robert resumed the design of his eastern conquests. The
zeal or gratitude of Gregory had promised to his valour the kingdom of
Greece and Asia ; his troops were assembled in arms, flushed with success
and eager for action. By the union of the Greeks and Venetians, the Adri-
atic was covered with a hostile fleet. The dominion of the sea was disputed
in three engagements, in sight of the Island of Corfu ; in the two former,
the skill and number of the allies were superior ; but in the third, the Nor-
mans obtained a final and complete victory. The winter season suspended
his progress ; with the return of spring he again aspired to the conquest of
Constantinople ; but, instead of traversing the hills of Epirus, he turned his
arms against Greece and the islands, where the spoils would repay the labour,
and where the land and sea forces might pursue their joint operations with
vigour and effect.
But in the Isle of Cephalonia, his projects were fatally blasted by an epi-
demical disease ; Robert himself, in the seventieth year of his age, expired in
his tent (July 17th, 1085) ; and a suspicion of poison was imputed, by public
rumour, to his wife or to the Greek emperor. This premature death might
allow a boundless scope for the imagination of his future exploits ; and the
event sufficiently declares, that the Norman greatness was founded on his
life. Without the appearance of an enemy, a victorious army dispersed or
retreated in disorder and consternation ; and Alexius, who had trembled for
his empire, rejoiced in his deliverance. Roger, his second son and successor,
immediately sunk to the humble station of a duke of Apulia ; the esteem or
partiality of his father left the valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his
sword. The national tranquillity was disturbed by his claims, till the First
Crusade against the infidels of the East opened a more splendid field of glory
and conquest.
ROGER, GREAT COUNT OF SICILY (1101-1138 A.D.)
Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon
bounded by the sepulchre. The male line of Robert Guiscard was extin-
guished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in the second generation ; but his
THE NORMANS 77
[1085-1138 A.D.]
younger brother became the father of a line of kings ; and the son of the
Great Count was endowed with the name, the conquests, and the spirit
of the first Roger. The heir of that Norman adventurer was born in Sicily ;
and, at the age of only four years, he succeeded to the sovereignty of the
island. I
This prince, who thus succeeded to such extensive states was dissatis-
fied with the title of duke ; to obtain a higher one, he lent his aid to the
anti-pope Anacletus II, who crowned him king of the Two Sicilies. This
new dignity caused him to regard the republican institutions of Amalfi and
Naples with dislike, perhaps with dread. He took the former, abolished its
privileges, and subjected it to a feudal governor. His next step was to
humble his proud barons, of whom some had too much power always
to remain peaceful. It was attended with equal success ; one after another
all were subdued ; but the chief, Robert, prince of Capua and Aversa, the
descendant of Drengot, was destined to give him some trouble.
Naples, though nominally subject to the Norman princes, still preserved
its own government, laws, and institutions, and was prepared to defend them
to the last extremity. It opened its gates to Robert, and thereby afforded
another stimulus to the vengeance of Roger. The republicans obtained the
aid of a fleet from Pisa; Amalfi was forced to equip another to oppose them;
the Pisans plundered Amalfi, their chief prize being a copy of the famous
Pandects, an accident which is said to have changed the jurisprudence of
half Europe ; they were defeated, and forced to re-embark by the king, who
invested Naples more closely than before. The besieged applied for relief to
the emperor and the true pope, Innocent II. Lothair marched in person
to their aid, while a Pisan fleet advanced by sea. The siege was raised ;
Robert of Capua was restored to his principality, and the whole country as
far as Bari threw off its allegiance to the Normans.
But discord soon appeared between the pope, the emperor, and the
Pisans; their combined forces retired, and Roger had little difficulty in
regaining possession of his territories. The fate of Leo IV, a century before,
did not deter Innocent II from taking the field against the excommunicated
Normans ; the result was the same ; Innocent was defeated and made prisoner,
and was glad to procure his liberation by confirming the regal title of Roger.
He did more ; he granted to the king the investiture not only of Capua, but
of Naples, which had hitherto maintained something like independence, and
over which he had assuredly no control. The republic, abandoned by its
allies, was constrained to submit ; the ducal crown was conferred on the
king ; the kingdom of the two Sicilies was admitted into the great family
of nations.
ROGER II (1138-1154 A.D.)
The reign of Roger II was one of vigour, of success, and of internal
tranquillity. He rendered tributary the Mohammedan tyrants of Tripoli
and Tunis, built fortresses, churches, and monasteries, and administered
justice with unparalleled severity, in regard not only to the poor, but to his
haughty barons. The feudal system which had long before been introduced
into Naples, he perfected; and extended its observance to Sicily, which had
hitherto followed the policy of the Greeks and Saracens. By this revolution,
the free colonists were at once transformed into vassals ; new laws were in-
troduced, which were calculated to confirm the ascendency of the nobles
and prelates ; and new fiscal impositions followed, more oppressive, we are
78 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1138-1154 A.D.]
told, than any which had been invented by preceding conquerors. But here,
as everywhere else, the same system also brought its advantages.
In their native hills and forests, the Normans, like the Lombards, and,
we may add, like all other people of Scandinavian or of Germanic descent,
had been accustomed to meet twice a year, not merely to advise their chief,
but to form a sort of diet or parliament, where their more weighty affairs
were discussed and decided. At first these assemblies consisted of the
conquerors only; but in time the more influential inhabitants were permitted
to attend them. During a long period, however — probably unto the reign
of Frederick II — they consisted of two estates only, the nobles and the
ecclesiastics; the great body of the people had no rights, and consequently
no representation. But as the towns purchased their independence of the
feudal tribunals, and constituted themselves into municipal corporations;
as the number of these corporations was multiplied by charters from the
crown the new communities were permitted to send deputies to their
general meetings.
The kings, who so often suffered from the powers of a haughty aristocracy,
were here, as elsewhere, sufficiently disposed to encourage the formation
and influence of this third chamber, or arm of the legislature. Besides, the
burgesses were generally more able to supply the wants of the state ; they
were attached to the crown which had called them into existence ; and
among them justice was administered, at least in the last resort, by the royal
judges. This triple power of the legislature was established contempo-
raneously both in the island and on the continent ; but in the former, which
had less intercourse with the world, it has subsisted in greater vigour down
to our own times.
But if Roger thus established his sovereignty, he had the mortifica-
tion to lose his two eldest sons, and to see the succession depend on a third,
who was at once vicious and imbecile. Soon after his death, which happened
in 1154, troubles began to distract the realm. *
Since the decease of Robert Guiscard, the Normans had relinquished
above sixty years their hostile designs against the Empire of the East. The
policy of Roger solicited a public and private union with the Greek princes,
whose alliance would dignify his real character; he demanded in marriage a
daughter of the Comnenian family, and the first steps of the treaty seemed to
promise a favourable event. But the contemptuous treatment of his ambas-
sadors exasperated the vanity of the new monarch ; and the insolence of the
Byzantine court was expiated, according to the laws of nations, by the suffer-
ings of a guiltless people. With a fleet of seventy galleys, George, the
admiral of Sicily, appeared before Corfu ; and both the island and city were
delivered into his hands by the disaffected inhabitants, who had yet to learn
that a siege is still more calamitous than a tribute. In this invasion, of some
moment in the annals of commerce, the Normans spread themselves by
sea, and over the provinces of Greece ; and the venerable age of Athens,
Thebes, and Corinth was violated by rapine and cruelty.
The silk-weavers of both sexes, whom George transported to Sicily, com-
posed the most valuable part of the spoil; and in comparing the skilful
industry of the mechanic with the sloth and cowardice of the soldier, he
was heard to exclaim, that the distaff and loom were the only weapons which
the Greeks were capable of using. The progress of this naval armament was
marked by two conspicuous events, the rescue of the king of France, and the
insult of the Byzantine capital. In his return by sea from an unfortunate
crusade, Louis VII was intercepted by the Greeks, who basely violated the
THE NOKMANS 79
[1146-1155 A.D.]
laws of honour and religion. The fortunate encounter of the Norman fleet
delivered the royal captive ; and after a free and honourable entertainment
in the court of Sicily, Louis continued his journey to Rome and Paris.
In the absence of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were
left without defence, and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy and
people — for the soldiers had followed the standard of Manuel — were aston-
ished and dismayed at the hostile appearance of a line of galleys, which boldly
cast anchor in front of the imperial city. The forces of the Sicilian admiral
were inadequate to the siege or assault of an immense and populous metropolis ;
but George enjoyed the glory of humbling the Greek arrogance, and of mark-
ing the path of conquest to the navies of the
West. He landed some soldiers to rifle
the fruits of the royal gardens, and pointed
with silver, or more probably with fire, the
arrows which he discharged against the pal-
ace of the csesars. This playful outrage of
the pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an
unguarded moment, Manuel affected to despise,
while his martial spirit, and the forces of the
empire, were awakened to revenge. The
Archipelago and Ionian Sea were covered with
his squadrons and those of Venice ; in his
homeward voyage George lost nineteen of
his galleys, which were separated and taken ;
after an obstinate defence, Corfu implored
the clemency of her lawful sovereign; nor
could a ship, or a soldier of the Norman prince
be found, unless as a captive, within the limit
of the Eastern Empire. The prosperity and
the health of Roger were already in a declin-
ing state ; while he listened in his palace of
Palermo to the messengers of victory or defeat,
the invincible Manuel, the foremost in every
assault, was celebrated by the Greeks and
Latins as the Alexander or Hercules of the age.
A prince of such a temper could not be
satisfied with having repelled the insolence of
a barbarian. It was the right and duty, it
might be the interest and glory, of Manuel
to restore the ancient majesty of the empire, to
recover the provinces of Italy and Sicily, and
to chastise this pretended king, the grandson of a Norman vassal. The
natives of Calabria were still attached to the Greek language and worship,
which had been inexorably proscribed by the Latin clergy ; after the loss of
her dukes, Apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of Sicily ;
the founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword; and his death had
abated the fear without healing the discontent of his subjects ; the feudal
government was always pregnant with the seeds of rebellion, and a nephew
of Roger himself invited the enemies of his family and nation.
To the brave and noble Palseologus, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch
entrusted a fleet and army ; the siege of Bari was his first exploit, and in
every operation, gold as well as steel was the instrument of victory. Salerno,
and some places along the western coast, maintained their fidelity to the
A NOEMAN MONK OF THE TWELFTH
CENTURY
80 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1155-1156 A.D.]
Norman king ; but he lost in two campaigns the greater part of his con-
tinental possessions ; and the modest emperor, disdaining all flattery and
falsehood, was content with the reduction of three hundred cities or villages
of Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on all the
walls of the palace.
But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped from the
hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded by the prudence
of Alexander III, who paused on this deep and momentous revolution ; nor
could the pope be seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual
inheritance of the Latin name. After his reunion with Frederick, he spoke a
more peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors, excommu-
nicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final separation of
the churches, or at least the empires, of Constantinople and Rome. The
free cities of Lombardy no longer remembered their foreign benefactor, and
he soon incurred the enmity of Venice. One hundred galleys were launched
and armed in as many days ; they swept the coasts of Dalmatia and Greece ;
but after some mutual wounds, the war was terminated by an agreement
inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic. The lieutenant of
Manuel informed his sovereign that his forces were inadequate to resist the
impending attack of the king of Sicily. His prophecy was soon verified ;
the death of Palseologus devolved the command on several chiefs, alike
eminent in rank, alike defective in military talents ; the Greeks were
oppressed by land and sea ; and a captive remnant abjured all future hos-
tility against the person or dominions of their conqueror.
Yet the king of Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel,
who had landed a second army on the Italian shore ; he respectfully addressed
the new Justinian ; solicited a peace or truce of thirty years ; accepted as
a gift the regal title ; and acknowledged himself the military vassal of the
Roman Empire. The Byzantine csesars acquiesced in this shadow of dominion,
without expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of a Norman army ;
and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any hostilities between
Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of that period, the throne of
Manuel was usurped by an inhuman tyrant, who had deserved the abhorrence
of his country and mankind ; the sword of William the Second, the grand-
son of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race ; and the
subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they
detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians
expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts who invaded Romania
with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and cities to the obedience
of the king of Sicily. The Greeks accuse and magnify the wanton and sacri-
legious cruelties that were perpetrated in the sack of Thessalonica, the second
city of the empire. The former deplore the fate of those invincible but
unsuspecting warriors, who were destroyed by the arts of a vanquished foe.
The latter applaud in songs of triumph the repeated victories of their
countrymen on the sea of Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Stry-
mon, and under the walls of Durazzo. A revolution which punished the
crimes of Andronicus, had united against the Franks the zeal and courage of
the successful insurgents; ten thousand were slain in battle, and Isaac Ange-
lus, the new emperor, might indulge his vanity or vengeance in the treatment
of four thousand captives. Such was the event of the last contest between
the Greeks and Normans : before the expiration of twenty years, the rival
nations were lost or degraded in foreign servitude ; and the successors of
Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy.
THE NORMANS 81
[1154-1166 A.D.]
WILLIAM THE BAD (IL MALO) (1154-1166 A.D.)
The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and grandson ;
they might be confounded under the name of William ; they are strongly dis-
criminated by the epithets of the " bad " and the " good " ; but these epithets,
which appear to describe the perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be
applied to either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by
danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the valour of
his race ; but his temper was slothful ; his manners were dissolute ; his
passions headstrong and mischievous ; and the monarch is responsible not
only for his personal vices but for those of Majo, the great admiral, who
abused the confidence, and conspired against the life of his benefactor.
From the Arabian conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of oriental
manners ; the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem of a sultan ; and a
Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the eunuchs,
who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the religion of Mohammed. An
eloquent historian of the times, Falcandus,™ has delineated the misfortunes
of his country ; the ambition and fall of the ungrateful Majo ; the revolt and
punishment of his assassins ; the imprisonment and deliverance of the king
himself ; the private feuds that arose from the public confusion ; and the va-
rious forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo, the island and the
continent, during the reign of William the First, and the minority of his son.
WILLIAM THE GOOD (1166-1189 A.D.)
The youth, innocence, and beauty of William II, endeared him to the
nation ; the factions were reconciled ; the laws were revived ; and from
the manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily enjoyed
a short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose value was enhanced
by the remembrance of the past and the dread of futurity. The legitimate
male posterity of Tancred de Hauteville was extinct in the person of the
second William ; but his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married the most
powerful prince of the age ; and Henry VI, the son of Frederick Barbarossa,
descended from the Alps to claim the imperial crown and the inheritance
of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a free people, this inherit-
ance could only be acquired by arms.
The historian Falcandus writes at the moment and on the spot, with the
feelings of a patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman. " Constanza,
the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in the pleasures and plenty,
and educated in the arts and manners of this fortunate isle, departed long
since to enrich the barbarians with our treasures, and now returns with her
savage allies to contaminate the beauties of her venerable parent. Already
I behold the swarms of angry barbarians ; our opulent cities, the places
flourishing in a long peace, are shaken with fear, desolated by slaughter,
consumed by rapine, and polluted by intemperance and lust. I see the mas-
sacre or captivity of our citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. In
this extremity (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act? By
the unanimous election of a king of valour and experience, Sicily and Cala-
bria might yet be preserved ; for in the levity of the Apulians, ever eager
for new revolutions, I can repose neither confidence nor hope. Should
Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength
of Messina, might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the
H. W. — VOL. IX. Q
82 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1166-1194 A.D.]
savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina ; if they destroy with
fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by the fires of Mount jEtna, what
resource will be left for the interior parts of the island, these noble cities
which should never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a barbarian ?
" Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake ; the ancient
virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude ; but Palermo is still
crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of
Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can unite for
their common safety, they may rush on the barbarians with invincible arms.
But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire
and rebel, if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and sea
coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack, and placed
as it were between the hammer and the anvil, must resign themselves
to hopeless and inevitable servitude." We must
not forget, that a priest here prefers his country
to his religion; and that the Moslems, whose
alliance he seeks, were still numerous and power-
ful in the state of Sicily .m
The hopes or at least the wishes of Falcandus
were at first gratified by the free and unanimous
election of Tancred, the grandson of the first
king, whose birth was illegitimate, but whose civil
and military virtues shone without a blemish.
During four years, the term of his life and reign,
he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the
Apulian frontier, against the powers of Germany;
and the restitution of a royal captive, of Con-
stanza herself, without injury or ransom, may
appear to surpass the most liberal measure of
policy or reason. After his decease, the kingdom
of his widow and infant son fell without a strug-
gle; and Henry pursued his victorious march
from Capua to Palermo. The political balance
of Italy was destroyed by his success ; and if the
pope and the free cities had consulted their ob-
vious and real interest, they would have combined
the powers of earth and heaven to prevent the
dangerous union of the German Empire with
the kingdom of Sicily.
But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican
has so often been praised or arraigned, was on this occasion blind and inac-
tive ; and if it were true that Celestine III had kicked away the imperial
crown from the head of the prostrate Henry, such an act of impotent pride
could serve only to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Geno-
ese, who enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened to the
promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure ; their fleet com-
manded the Straits of Messina, and opened the harbour of Palermo ; and
the first act of his government was to abolish the privileges, and to seize the
property, of these imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated
by the discord of the Christians and Mohammedans ; they fought in the
capital ; several thousands of the latter were slain ; but their surviving
brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above thirty years the peace
of the island.
A NORMAN WARRIOR OF THE
TWELFTH CENTURY
THE KORMANS
83
[1194-1266 A.D.]
By the policy of Frederick II, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted
to Nocera in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor
and his son Manfred were strengthened and disgraced by the service of the
enemies of Christ ; and this national colony maintained their religion and
manners in the heart of Italy, till they were extirpated at the end of the
thirteenth century by the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou.
All the calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored, were surpassed
by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated the royal
sepulchres, and explored the secret treasures of the palace, Palermo, and
the whole kingdom; the pearls and jewels, however precious, might be
easily removed ; but one hundred and sixty horses were laden with the
gold and silver of Sicily. The young king, his mother and sisters, and the
nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses of the Alps ;
and on the slightest rumour of rebellion the captives were deprived of life,
of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity. Constanza herself was touched
with sympathy for the miseries of her country ; and the heiress of the Nor-
man line might struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the
patrimony of her new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age
under the name of Frederick II.
Ten years after this revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their
crown the duchy of Normandy; the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been
transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of
Plantagenet ; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many
trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East,
were lost either in victory or servitude, among the vanquished nations.*
In Sicily the circumstances of the conquest led the Norman settlers to
remain far more distinct from the older races of the land than they did in
England, and in the end not to lose themselves in those older races of the
land but in the settlers of other races who accompanied them and followed
them. So far as there ever was a Sicilian nation at all it might be said to
be called into being by the emperor-king Frederick II. In his day a Latin
element finally triumphed ; but it was not a Norman French-speaking ele-
ment of any kind. The speech of the Lombards at last got the better of the
Greek, Arabic, and French ; how far its ascendency can have been built on
any survival of an earlier Latin speech which had lived alongside of Greek
and Arabic, this is not the place to inquire.
NORMAN INFLUENCE
Of all the points to be insisted on, that which it is most necessary to bear
in mind is the Norman power of adaptation to circumstances, the gift which
in the end destroyed the race as a separate race. English history is utterly
misconceived if it is thought that an acknowledged distinction between
Normans and English went on, perhaps into the fourteenth century, perhaps
into the seventeenth. Long before the earlier of those dates the Norman in
England had done his work; he had unwittingly done much to preserve and
strengthen the national life of a really kindred people, and, that work done,
he had lost himself in the greater mass of that kindred people. In Sicily his
work, far more brilliant, far more beneficent at the time, could not be so
lasting. The Norman princes made Sicily a kingdom ; they ruled it for a
season better than any other kingdom was ruled ; but they could not make
it a Norman kingdom, nor could they themselves become national Sicilian
84
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1130-1194 A.D.]
kings. The kingdom that they founded has now vanished from among the
kingdoms of the earth, because it was only a kingdom and not a nation. In
every other way the Norman has vanished from Sicily as though he had
never been. His very works of building are hardly witnesses to his presence,
because, without external evidence, we should never have taken them to be
his. In Sicily, in short, he gave a few generations of unusual peace and
prosperity to several nations living side by side, and then he, so to speak,
went his way from a land in which he had a work to do, but in which he
never was really at home. In England he made himself, though by rougher
means, more truly at home among unacknowledged kinsmen. When in out-
ward show he seemed to work the unmaking of a nation, he was in truth
giving no small help towards its second making.c
CHAPTER IV
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
THE death of Henry VI was followed by a general war throughout the
empire, which gave fresh activity to the passions of the Italian nobles, and
greater animosity to the opposing parties. The two factions in Germany
had simultaneously raised to the empire the two chiefs of the houses of
Guelf and Ghibelline. Philip I, duke of Swabia, and brother of Henry VI,
had been named king of the Romans by the Ghibellines ; and Otto IV, son
of Henry the Lion, duke of Bavaria and Saxony, by the Guelfs. Their con-
test was prolonged to the 22nd of June, 1208, when Philip was assassinated
by a private enemy. The Germans, wearied with eleven years of civil war,
agreed to unite under the sceptre of his rival, Otto IV, whom they crowned
anew. The following year he passed into Italy, to receive from the pope
the golden crown of the empire.
But though Otto was the legitimate heir of the Guelfs of Bavaria, so
long chiefs of the opposition to the imperial prerogatives, yet now wearing
himself the crown, he was desirous of possessing it with these disputed
rights ; every one was denied him, and all his actions controlled by the pope.
There was soon a declared enmity between the emperor and the pontiff
who, rather than consent to any agreement, or to abate any of his preten-
sions, raised against the Guelf emperor the heir of the Ghibelline house, the
young Frederick II, grandson of Frederick I, hardly eighteen years of age,
and till then reigning under the pope's tutelage over the Two Sicilies only.
Frederick, excited and seconded by the pope, boldly passed through Lom-
bardy in 1212, and arrived at Aachen, where the German Ghibellines awaited,
and crowned him king of the Romans and Germans. Otto IV in the mean-
time returned to Germany, and was acknowledged by Saxony.
85
86 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1197-1218 A.D.]
The civil war, carried on between the two chiefs of the empire, lasted till
the 19th of May, 1218, when Otto died, without any attempt by either party
to despoil his rival of his hereditary possessions. It was this civil war that
caused the names of Guelf and Ghibelline to be exclusively substituted for
those of party of the church and party of the empire. In fact, each noble
family, and each city, seemed to consult only their hereditary affection, and
not their political principles, in ranging themselves under either standard.
The Guelfs placed themselves in opposition to the pope, to repel his Ghibel-
line candidate ; and Milan, Piacenza, and Brescia braved even excommunica-
tion to resist him ; while, on the contrary the Ghibellines of Pavia, Cremona,
and of the marches armed themselves with zeal against an emperor of the
Guelf blood.
During this period, while the minority of Frederick II left so much time
to the cities of Italy to consolidate their independence, and to form real
republics, the person most influential and most prominent in history was the
pope, Innocent III, who reigned from 1197 to 1216. He caused his power
to be felt in the remotest parts of Christendom, but he suffered to be consti-
tuted at Rome, under his own eye, a republic, the liberty of which he
respected, and over which he assumed no authority. The thirteen districts
of Rome each named annually four representatives or caporioni; their meet-
ing formed the senate of the republic, who, with the concurrence of the people,
exercised the sovereignty, with the exception of the judicial power. This
power belonged as in other republics to a foreign military chief, chosen for
one year, and assisted by civil judges, dependent on him, but bearing the
name of senator, instead of podesta. We have still extant the form of oath
taken by the first of these senators, named in 1207. By it he engages to
guarantee security and liberty to the pope as well as to his brothers the
cardinals, but promises no submission to him for himself.
In the beginning of the pontificate of Innocent III, two German generals,
to whom Henry VI had given the titles of duke of Spoleto and marquis
of Ancona, held in dependence and subjection the provinces nearest Rome.
Innocent, to revive the spirit of liberty, sent thither two legates; and by
their interference, the cities of these provinces, built for the most part in the
mountains, and without any means of becoming either wealthy or populous,
threw off the German yoke, and made alliance with those cities which from
the preceding period had entered into the league of Lombardj^; thus two
Guelf leagues were formed, under the protection of the pope ; one in the
marches, comprehending the cities of Ancona, Fermo, Osimo, Camerino, Fano,
Jesi, Sinigaglia, and Pesaro; the other in the duchy, comprehending those
of Spoleto, Rieti, Assisi, Foligno, Nocera, Perugia, Agobbio, Todi, and Citta di
Castello. These leagues, however, in accustoming the cities of these two
provinces to regard the pope as their protector, led them afterwards to submit
without resistance to the sovereignty of the church.
Other legates had been about the same time sent into Tuscany by the
pope ; they convoked at St. Ginasio, a borough situated at the foot of the
mountain of San Miniato, the diet of the towns of that country. These pro-
vincial diets were in the habit of assembling frequently, and had till then
been presided over by an officer belonging to the emperor, in memory of
whom the castle in which he resided is still called San Miniato al Tedesco.
These diets settled the differences which arose between cities, and had
succeeded in saving Tuscany from the civil wars between the Guelfs and
Ghibellines. Pisa, which had been loaded with favours by the sovereigns of
the house of Hohenstaufen, and which had obtained from them the dominion
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 87
[1177-1215 A.D.]
of sixty-four castles or fortified towns on the shores of Tuscany, and over the
isles of Corsica, Elba, Capraia, and Pianosa, proclaimed its determination of
remaining faithful to the Ghibelline party, and its consuls withdrew from
the diet convoked at St. Ginasio ; but those of the cities of Florence, of Siena,
of Arezzo, of Pistoia, and of Lucca accepted the protection of the pope,
offered by his two legates, and promised to coalesce in defence of their com-
mon liberty. &
£ ;___ - - - ..^
FLORENCB
FACTIONS IN FLORENCE
We have already seen that the spirit of political as well as religious party
began to rise as early as 1177, and excepting some short intervals of uneasy
repose, remained in a state of violence until 1182. From this epoch there are
no accounts of actual war within the city of Florence until 1215 ; but nearly
five years of hard fighting between two great factions of undiminished force
was unlikely to be followed by a dead calm except from exhaustion ; or by
any oblivion of injury in an age and country where revenge was a duty, not
a crime.
The great power and independence of the newly created podesta, together
with external hostilities, probably assisted in maintaining peace in a city that
prided itself on being founded under the protection and ascendant of Mars,
and therefore doomed by fate to everlasting troubles. Hence Roccuzzo de'
Mozzi is made by Dante to say:
" Io fui delta citta, che nel Batista
Cangib H primo Padrone, onde eiper questo
Sempre con V arte sua lafara trista."
Disputes which had so long occupied the attention of Italy were not
without participation in Florence, where the quarrels of church and empire
did not fail to create two adverse opinions, but as yet confined to words ; the
prevailing politics, being Guelfic and papal, while the opposition led by Uberti
was entirely imperial, were accidental circumstances ; but combined with and
as it were grafted on local politics, drew a distinct line between contending
factions and boded mischief.
In the year 1215, according to an ancient manuscript published from the
Buondelmonti library, Messer Mazzingo Tegrini de' Mazzinghi invited many
Florentines of high rank to dine at his villa near Campi about six miles from the
capital ; while at table the family jester snatched a trencher of meat from
Messer Uberto degli Infangati who, nettled at this impertinence, expressed his
88 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1215 A.D.]
displeasure in terms so offensive that Messer Oddo Arrighi de' Fifanti as
sharply and unceremoniously rebuked him ; upon this Uberto gave him the
lie and Oddo in return dashed a trencher of meat in his face.
Everything was immediately in confusion ; weapons were soon out, and
while the guests started up in disorder young Buondelmonte de' Buondel-
monti, the friend and companion of Uberto, severely wounded Oddo Arrighi.
The party then separated and Oddo called a meeting of his friends to
consider the offence ; amongst them were the counts Gangalandi, the
Uberti, Amidei, and Lamberti, who unanimously decided that the quarrel
should be quietly settled by a marriage between Buondelmonte and Oddo's
niece, the daughter of Messer Lambertuccio di Capo di Ponte, of the Amidei
family. This proposition appears to have been unhesitatingly accepted by
the offender's family as a day was immediately nominated for the ceremony
of plighting his troth to the destined bride.
During the interim Madonna Aldruda or Gualdrada, wife of Forese de'
Donati, sent privately for young Buondelmonte and thus addressed him :
"Unworthy knight! What! Hast thou accepted a wife through fear of
the Fifanti and Uberti ? Leave her that thou hast taken, choose this damsel
in her place, and be henceforth a brave and honoured gentleman." In so
saying she threw open the chamber door and exposed her daughter to his
view; the unexpected apparition of so much beauty, as it were soliciting
his love, had its usual consequence ; Buondelmonte's better reason was over-
come, yet he had resolution to answer, "Alas ! it is now too late1!" "No,"
replied Aldruda ; " thou canst even yet have her ; dare but to take the step
and let the consequences rest on my head." "I do dare," returned the
fascinated youth, arid stepping forward again plighted a faith no longer his
to give.
Early on the 10th of February, the very day appointed for his original
nuptials, Buondelmonte passed by the Porta Santa Maria amidst all the kins-
folk of his first betrothed, who had assembled near the dwellings of the
Amidei to assist at the expected marriage, yet not without certain misgiv-
ings of his faithlessness. With a haughty demeanour he rode forward through
them all, bearing the marriage ring to the lady of his choice and leaving her
of the Amidei with the shame of an aggravated insult by choosing the same
moment for a violation of one contract and the consummation of a second ;
for in those days, and for centuries after, the old Roman custom of present-
ing a ring long before the marriage ceremony took place was still in use.
Such insults were then impatiently borne ; Oddo Arrighi assembled his kin-
dred in the no longer existing church of Santa Maria sopra Porta to settle
the mode of resenting this affront, and the moody aspect of each individual
marked the character of the meeting and all the vindictive feeling of an
injured family ; there were, however, some of a more temperate spirit that
suggested personal chastisement or at most the gashing of Buondelmonte's
face as the most reasonable and effectual retribution. The assembly paused,
but Mosca de' Lamberti starting suddenly forward exclaimed, " Beat or
wound him as ye list, but first prepare your own graves, for wounds bring
equal consequences with death." "No. Mete him out his deserts and let
him pay the penalty; but no delay. Up and be doing."
This turned the scale and Buondelmonte was doomed, but according to
the manners of that age, not in the field, which would have been hazardous,
but by the sure though inglorious means of noonday murder ; wherefore, at
the very place where the insult was offered, beneath the battlements of the
Amidei, nay under the casement of the deserted maiden, and in his way to a
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 89
[1215-1239 A.D.]
happy expecting bride, vengeance was prepared by these fierce barons for the
perjurer.
On Easter morning, 1215, the murderers concealed themselves within the
courts and towers of the Amidei, which the young and heedless bridegroom
was sure to pass, and he was soon after seen at a distance carelessly riding
alone across the Ponte Vecchio on a milk-white palfrey, attired in a vest
of fine woollen cloth, a white mantle thrown across his shoulders and the
wedding garland on his head. The bridge was passed in thoughtless gaiety,
but scarcely had he reached the time-worn image of the Roman Mars, the
last relic of heathen worship then extant, when the mace of Schiatto degli
Uberti felled him to the ground, and at the base of this grim idol the dag-
gers of Oddo and his furious kinsmen finished the savage deed ; they met
him gay and adorned for the altar, and left him with the bridal wreath still
dangling from his brow a bloody and ill-omened sacrifice. The tidings of
this murder spread rapidly, and disordered the whole community of Flor-
ence ; the people became more and more excited, because both law and
custom had awarded due penalties for faithless men, and death was an
unheard-of punishment.
Buondelmonte's corpse was placed on a bier, with its head resting in the
lap of his affianced bride, the young and beautiful Donati, who hung like a
lily over the pallid features of her husband; and thus united were they
borne through the streets of Florence. It was the gloomy dawning of a
tempestuous day, for in that bloody moment was unchained the demon of
Florentine discord ; the name of Guelf and Ghibelline were then for the first
time assumed by noble and commoner as the cry of faction ; and long after
the original cause of enmity had ceased, they continued to steep all Italy in
blood.
It has been shown that there were already two parties existing in the
commonwealth ; but it was not until after this outrage that the whole com-
munity divided under the above appellations, one part siding with the Buon-
delmonti, who were for the most part Guelfic chiefs and adherents of the
church ; the other with the Uberti, leaders of the Ghibellines and partisans
of the empire. Of seventy-two powerful families mentioned by Malespini,
thirty-nine joined the Buondelmonti banner and thirty-three fought under
the colours of their enemies ; but many more houses of distinction took part
in the civil war ; many afterwards changed sides through quarrels with their
chiefs ; many of the Buondelmonti who before were Ghibellines now became
Guelf s; the former were stigmatised with the epithet of "Paterini" and the
latter with that of " Traditori."
Nevertheless an attempt at reconciliation was made in 1239, by marrying
Neri Piccolino degli Uberti to the daughter of Rinieri Zingani de' Buondel-
monti, a lady celebrated for her wisdom, beauty, and talents. Trusting to
this tie the Uberti and some friends repaired with confidence to visit Bertaldi
de' Buondelmonti of Campi, but were treacherously attacked and beaten
back with some bloodshed ; this renewed the war with greater violence and
Neri dismissed his wife to her own relatives, declaring that he disdained to
become the propagator of a traitorous brood from a deceitful stock. The
unfortunate lady was then compelled by her father to marry Count Panno-
chino de' Pannochieschi, on whose mercy she threw herself, imploring per-
mission to retire into a convent ; for though abandoned by her husband she
protested that she was still his wife and therefore never could belong to
another. Her motives were respected, her prayer generously granted, and
she immediately took the veil in the convent of Montecelli.
90 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1215-1225 A.D.]
Immediately after Buondelmonte's death a low and angry murmur rolled
sullenly through the whole Florentine population, and instinctive prepara-
tions were everywhere in progress for some dimly apprehended danger; as
yet all was calm, but dark clouds were gathering around and the echo of dis-
tant thunder marked the coming storm. Each house was armed and fortified,
towers were again mounted with warlike engines, serragli (barricades) were
erected, the shops all closed, the people in painful doubt, and ancient citizens
who remembered the troubles of other times looked on and trembled. Nor
was their apprehension vain; the curse of heaven seemed to rest on this
devoted city, and with but little cessation during three and thirty years did
Florence reek with the blood of her children. c
The death of Innocent III [1216] and, two years afterwards, of Otto IV
broke the unnatural alliance between a pope and the heir of a Ghibelline fam-
ily. The Milanese, excommunicated by Innocent for having fought against
Frederick II, did not the less persist in making war on his partisans ; well
convinced that the new pope, Honorius III, would soon thank them for it.
They refused Frederick the iron crown of Lombardy, preserved at Monza,
and contracted an alliance with the count Thomas of Savoy, and with the
cities of Crema, Piacenza, Lodi, Vercelli, Novara, Tortona, Como, and Ales-
sandria, to drive the Ghibellines from Lombardy. The Ghibellines defeated
them on the 6th of June, 1218, in a great battle fought against the militias
of Cremona, Parma, Reggio, and Modena, before Ghibello. This reverse of
fortune calmed for some time their military ardour. The citizens of every
town accused the nobles of having led them into war from family enmities and
interests foreign to the city ; at Milan, Piacenza, Cremona, and Modena,
there were battles between the nobles and the people. Laws were proposed
to divide the public magistracy in due proportions between them ; finally
the Milanese, in the year 1221, expelled all the nobles from their city.
FREDERICK II CROWNED EMPEROR
The young Frederick re-entered Italy ; and, after some differences with
Honorius III, received from him, on the 22nd of November, 1220, the crown
of the empire. He afterwards occupied himself in establishing order in his
kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where, during his minority, the popes had
encouraged a universal insubordination. Born in the march of Ancona,
at Jesi, in December, 1194, he was Italian as well by language as by affection
and character. The Italian language, spoken at his court, first rose above
the patois in common use throughout Italy, regarded only as a corruption of
Latin ; he expressed himself with elegance in this language, which, from his
time, was designated by the name of lingua cortigiana ; he encouraged the first
poets, who employed it at his court, and he himself made verses ; he loved
literature and encouraged learning ; he founded schools and universities ; he
promoted distinguished men ; he spoke, with equal facility, Latin, Italian, Ger-
man, French, Greek, and Arabic ; he had the intellectual suppleness and
finesse peculiar to the men of the south, the art of pleasing, a taste for
philosophy, and great independence of opinion, with a leaning to infidelity ;
hence he is accused of having written a book against the three revelations of
Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, entitled De Tribus Impostoribus, which
no one has ever seen, and which perhaps never existed. His want of faith
in the sacred character of the Roman church, and the sanctity of popes, is
less doubtful ; he was suspicious of them, and he employed all his address
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 91
[1225-1233 A.D.]
to defend himself against their enterprises. Honorius III, desirous of
engaging him to recover the Holy Land from the Saracens, made him, in
1225, marry Yolande de Lusignan, heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem ;
after which, Honorius and his successor Gregory IX pressed him to pass into
Palestine. A malady stopped him, in 1227, just as he was about to depart ;
the pope, to punish him for this delay, excommunicated him. He still
pursued him with his anathema when he went to the Holy Land the year
following, and haughtily testified his indignation, because Frederick, in the
year 1229, recovered Jerusalem from the hands of the sultan by treaty,
rather than exterminate the infidels with the sword.
BENEWAL OF THE LOMBARD LEAGUE
Meanwhile the Guelf party again raised their standard in Lombardy ;
the republics of Milan, Bologna, Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Faenza, Mantua,
Vercelli, Lodi, Bergamo, Turin, Alexandria, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso
assembled their consuls in council at San Zenone in the Mantuan territory, on
the 2nd of March, 1226. They renewed the ancient league of Lombardy for
twenty -five years ; and engaged to defend in concert, their own liberty and
the independence of the court of Rome. Three years afterwards, they sent
succour to Gregory IX, when he was attacked by Frederick II on his return
from the Holy Land ; and they were included in the treaty of peace between
the pope and the emperor in 1230.
The pope, however, though defended by the arms of the Lombards, made
them pay dearly for the favour which he showed in naming them to the
emperor as his allies. He consented to protect their civil liberty only so far
as they sacrificed to him their liberty of conscience. The same spirit of
reformation which animated the Albigenses had spread throughout Europe ;
many Christians, disgusted with the corruption and vices of the clergy, or
whose minds revolted against the violence on their reason exercised by the
church, devoted themselves to a contemplative life, renounced all ambition
and the pleasures of the world, and sought a new road to salvation in the
alliance of faith with reason. They called themselves cathari, or the purified ;
paterini, or the resigned. The free towns had, till then, refused permission
to the tribunals of the Inquisition, instituted by Innocent III, to proceed
against them within their walls ; but Gregory IX declared the impossibility
of acknowledging as allies of the holy see republicans so indulgent to the
enemies of the faith ; at the same time, he sent among them the most eloquent
of the Dominicans, to rouse their fanaticism. Leo da Perego, whom he after-
wards made archbishop of Milan, had an only too fatal success in that city,
where he caused a great number of paterini to be burned. St. Peter Martyr,
and the monk Roland of Cremona, obtained an equal triumph in the other
cities of Lombardy.
The monk John of Vicenza had the cities of the march assigned to him
as a province, where the heretics were in still greater numbers than in Lom-
bardy, and included in their ranks some of the most powerful nobles in the
country ; among others, Ezzelino II, of Romano. The monk John announced
himself the minister of peace, not of persecution. After having preached
successively in every town, he assembled, on the plain of Paquara, the 28th
of August, 1233, almost the whole population of the towns of the march ; he
exhorted them to peace in a manner so irresistible, that the greatest enemies,
setting aside their animosities, pardoned and embraced each other ; and all,
92 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1233-1236 A.D.]
with tears of joy, celebrated the warm charity of this man of God. This
man of God, however, celebrated the festival of this reconciliation by judging
and condemning to the flames sixty cathari in the single town of Verona,
whose sufferings he witnessed in the public square ; and afterwards obtained
full power from the towns of Vicenza and Padua to act there in the like
manner.
FBBDEKICK II AND THE LOMBARD LEAGUE
It was only a short period after the Peace of Paquara that Frederick II,
believing he had sufficiently re-established his power in southern Italy,
began to turn his attention towards Lombardy ; he had no intention of dis-
puting the rights guaranteed by his grandfather at the Peace of Constance ;
but it was his will that the cities should remain, what they ought to be by
the treaty, members of the empire, and not enemies of the emperor. He
had raised an army, over which he feared
neither the influence of the monks nor the
pope. He had transported from the moun-
tains of Sicily, into the city of Luceria, in
the capitanate, and into that of Nocera,
in the principato, two strong colonies of
Saracens, which could supply him with thirty
thousand Mussulman soldiers, strangers, by
their language and religion, to all the in-
trigues of the court of Rome. There was
in the Veronese march a man endowed with
great military talents, ambitious, intrepid,
and entirely devoted to the emperor — Ezze-
lino III, of Romano, already powerful by the
great fiefs he held in the mountains, and
the number of his soldiers, whom Frederick
made still more so, by placing him at the
head of the Ghibelline party in all the cities.
Ezzelino, born on the 4th of April, 1194,
was precisely of the same age as the emperor.
The pope had summoned him to arrest his
father, and deliver him to the tribunal of the
Inquisition as a paterino ; but though Ezze-
lino knew neither virtue, pity, nor remorse,
he was not sufficiently depraved for such a
crime.
As Frederick was on the point of attack-
ing the Guelfs of Lombardy on the south
with the Saracens, while Ezzelino advanced
on the east, he learned that his son Henry,
whom he had in the year 1220 crowned king
of Germany, in spite of his extreme youth, seduced by the Guelfs and the
agents of the pope, had revolted against him. The Milanese, in 1234, sent
deputies to offer him the iron crown, which they had refused to his father.
The latter hastened into Germany, and ordered his son to meet him at Worms,
where he threw himself at the feet of his father, and entreated forgiveness.
Frederick deprived him of the crown, and sent him to Apulia, where he died
a few years afterwards. The emperor was obliged to employ two years in
A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY KNIGHT IN
ARMOUR
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 93
[1236-1237 A.D.]
restoring order in Germany ; he after that returned into Italy by the valley
of Trento, and arrived, on the 16th of August, 1236, at Verona with three
thousand German cavalry. A senate of eighty members, nobles and Ghib-
ellines, then governed that republic ; Frederick, by his address in managing
men, engaged them to name Ezzelino captain of the people ; this committed
to him at the same time the command of the militia and the judicial power;
and, in the state of excitement in which parties were much more occupied
with the triumph of their faction than with the security of their liberty,
gave him almost sovereign power. Frederick, obliged to return to Germany,
left under the command of Ezzelino a body of German soldiers, and another
of Saracens, with which this able captain made himself, the same year, mas-
ter of Vicenza, which he barbarously pillaged, and the following year of
Padua. This last was the most powerful city of the province, that in which
the form of government was the most democratic, and in which the Guelfs
had always exercised the most influence. Ezzelino judged it necessary
to secure obedience by taking hostages from the richest and most powerful
families ; he employed his spies to discover the malcontents, whom he pun-
ished with torture, and redoubled his cruelty in proportion to the hatred
which he excited.
THE BATTLE OF COKTENUOVA
The same year, 1237, Frederick approached Mantua, and thus giving
courage to the Ghibelline party, made them triumph over the Guelfs, who
had, till then, the ascendant in that city; he was joined there by ten thou-
sand Saracens, whom he summoned from Apulia, and afterwards advanced
into the Cremonese territory to attack the confederate army of the Guelfs,
commanded by the consuls of Milan, who knew no other art of war but the
bravery evinced in battle. Frederick was a more able captain ; by ma-
noeuvring between Brescia and Cremona, he drew the Milanese beyond the
Oglio, and finally succeeded, as they believed the campaign finished, in plac-
ing himself between them and their country at Cortenuova near Crema.
The Guelfs, although thus cut off from retreat, boldly accepted battle on the
27th of November, 1237, and long disputed the victory. Their defeat was
only the more bloody; it cost them ten thousand men killed or taken
prisoners, with the loss of the carroccio. The fugitives followed during the
night the course of the Oglio to enter the Bergamasque Mountains ; they
would all, however, have fallen into the hands of the Ghibellines, if Pagan
della Torre, the lord of Valsassina, and a Guelf noble, had not hastened
to their assistance, opened the defiles covered by his fortresses, and brought
them thus safely to Milan. The citizens of this town never forgot so
important a service ; and they contracted with the house of della Torre an
alliance which subsequently proved dangerous to their freedom.
The defeat of the Guelfs at Cortenuova alarmed the towns of Lombardy,
the greater number of which detached themselves from Milan. Frederick,
entering Piedmont the following year, gave preponderance to the Ghibelline
party in the cities of Turin, Asti, Novara, Alexandria, and several others.
The constitution was not changed when the power in council passed from
one party to another; but the emperor generally reckoned his partisans
among the nobility, while the people were devoted to the church ; accord-
ingly, the triumph of the aristocracy generally accompanied that of the
Ghibelline party. Four cities only, Milan, Brescia, Piacenza, and Bologna,
remained at the end of the year opposed to the imperial power. Frederick
94 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1238-1243 A.D.]
began his attack on them by laying siege to Brescia ; but the Brescians
dared to face the storm ; they supported, during sixty-eight days, the re-
peated attacks of the emperor, rendered all his efforts fruitless, and forced
him at last to raise the siege with an army weakened and discouraged*
POPE AGAINST EMPEROR
In the meantime, Gregory IX redoubled his efforts to save the Guelf party
from ruin. He saw, with alarm, an emperor, master of the Two Sicilies and
of Germany, on the point of vanquishing all resistance in upper Italy. He
anticipated that this monarch, whose Mussulman soldiers were constantly
passing through the states of Rome, would escape the influence of the church,
and soon evince no respect whatever for a religion which he was accused of
not believing. Gregory had recourse to the two maritime republics
of Venice and Genoa, which, in general occupied with their conquests and
commerce in the East, seldom took any part in the politics of Italy. He
represented to them that they would be soon deprived of the freedom of the
seas, if they did not make some effort to save the champions of liberty and
of the church in Lombardy. He at length obtained their agreement to con-
tract an alliance with the four only surviving cities of the league of Lom-
bardy ; and finally, towards the beginning of the year 1239, he fulminated
another sentence of excommunication against Frederick. This had a greater
effect than Gregory ventured to hope. A considerable number of nobles of
Guelf origin, seduced by court favours, had been won over to the imperial
party. They perceived that, after the anathema of the pope, the emperor dis-
trusted them. The marquis d'Este and the count di San Bonifazio were
even warned that their heads were in danger, and they made their escape
from the imperial camp ; all the other Guelf nobles followed their example,
and the Guelf cities gained captains habituated to arms and familiarised with
higher ideas of politics.
Gregory began to think he should give still greater weight to the anathe-
mas which he launched against the emperor if they were sanctioned by a
council. In the year 1241 he convoked at Rome all the prelates of Christen-
dom. Frederick, who had been established at Pisa since the autumn of
the year 1239, exerted himself to prevent the meeting of a council which he
dreaded. While the two other maritime republics had declared for the
Guelfs, Pisa was entirely of the Ghibelline party. The people were enthusi-
astically attached to the emperor ; and among the nobles, a few only, pro-
prietors of fiefs in Sardinia, headed by the Visconti of Gallura, had forsaken
him for the Guelfs. The Pisans, further excited by their jealousy of the
Genoese, promised Frederick that they would brave for him all the thunders
of the church, and assured him they knew well how to hinder the meeting of
the council. A considerable number of French prelates had embarked at Nice
for Ostia, on board Genoese galleys. Ugolino Buzzacherino de Sismondi,
admiral of the Pisans, lay in wait with a powerful fleet before Meloria,
attacked them on the 3rd of May, 12*41, sunk three vessels, took nineteen, and
made prisoners all the French prelates who were to join the pouncil at Pisa.
The republic loaded them with chains, but they were chains made of silver,
and imprisoned them in the chapter house of the cathedral. Gregory,
alarmed at this reverse of fortune, survived only a few months ; he died the
21st of August, 1241 ; and the college of cardinals, reduced to a very small
number, passed nearly two years before they could agree on a new choice.
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 95
[1243-1245 A.D.]
At last, on the 24th of June, 1243, Senibaldi de' Fieschi, of Genoa, who took
the name of Innocent IV, was elected to the chair of St. Peter. His family,
powerful in Genoa and in the Ligurian Mountains, was also allied to many
noble families, who possessed castles on the northern side of the Apennines^;
and this position gave him great influence in the neighbouring cities of Pla-
centia, Parma, Reggio, and Modena. The elevation of a Fieschi to the
pontificate gave courage to the Guelf party in all these cities.
Frederick had recourse in vain to the new pope to be reconciled to the
church ; Innocent IV was determined to see in him only an enemy of
religion and of the pontifical power, and a chief of barbarians, who in turns
summoned his Germans and his Saracens to tyrannise over Italy. He drew
closer his alliance with the cities of the league of Lombardy, and promised
them to cause the emperor to be condemned and deposed by an ecumenical
council, as his predecessor would have done ; but instead of convoking the.
council in Italy, he fixed for that purpose on the city of Lyons, one-half of
which belonged to the empire and the other to the kingdom of France. He
determined on placing himself with the prelates whom he had summoned
under the protection of St. Louis, who then reigned in France. He went
from Rome to Genoa by sea, escaping the Pisan fleet which watched to inter-
cept his passage ; he excited by his exhortations the enthusiasm of the
Guelfs of Genoa, and of the cities of Lombardy and Piedmont, which he
visited on his passage ; and arriving at Lyons, he opened, on the 28th of
June, 1245, in the convent of St. Just, the council of the universal church.
He found the bishops of France, England, and Germany eager to adopt his
passions ; so that he obtained from them at their third sitting, on the 17th
of July, a sentence of condemnation against Frederick II. The council
declared that for his crimes and iniquities God had rejected him, and would
no longer suffer him to be either emperor or king. In consequence, the
pope and the council released his subjects from their oath of allegiance ;
forbade them under pain of excommunication to obey him under any title
whatever ; and invited the electors of the empire to proceed to the election
of another emperor, while the pope reserved to himself the nomination of
another king of the Two Sicilies.
Frederick at first opposed all his strength of soul against the sentence of
excommunication pronounced by the council on him. Causing his jewels to
be brought him, and placing the golden crown of the empire on his head, he
declared before a numerous assembly that he would still wear it, and knew
how to defend it ; but, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of the Ghibelline
party, the devotion of his friends, and the progress of philosophical opinions,
which he had himself encouraged, the man whom the church had condemned
was in constant danger of being abandoned or betrayed. The mendicant
monks everywhere excited conspiracies against him. They took advantage
of the terrors inspired by sickness and age, to make sinners return, as they
said, to the ways of salvation, and desired them to make amends for their
past transgressions by delivering the church of God from its most dangerous
enemy. Insurrections frequently broke forth in one or other of the Two
Sicilies ; still oftener the emperor discovered amongst his courtiers plots to
destroy him, either by the dagger or poison ; even his private secretary, his
intimate friend, Pietro delle Vigne, whom he had raised from abject poverty,
to whom he had entrusted his most important affairs, gave ear to the counsel
of the monks, and promised to poison his master.
Frederick, on his part, became suspicious and cruel ; his distrust fell on
his most faithful friends ; and the executions which he ordered sometimes
96 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1245-1248 A.D.]
preceded the proofs of guilt. He had confided Germany to his son Conrad,
and the exclusive government of the Veronese marches to Ezzelino. The
hatred which this ferocious man excited by his crimes fell on the emperor.
Ezzelino imprisoned in the most loathsome dungeons those whom he con-
sidered his enemies, and frequently put them to death by torture, or suffered
them to perish by hunger ; he was well aware that the relatives of these
victims must also be his enemies ; they were, in their turn, arrested ; and
the more he sacrificed to his barbarity, the more he was called upon to strike.
The citizens of Milan, Mantua, Bergamo, and Brescia every day heard of
new and horrible crimes committed by the governor of the marches ; they
conceived the greater detestation of the Ghibelline party, and entertained
the firmer determination to repel Frederick.
He, on the contrary, had no thoughts of attack-
ing them ; he established himself during the
Council of Lyons at Turin, and thence entered
into a negotiation with St. Louis, to obtain by
his mediation a reconciliation with the church
to which he made, in token of his submission,
the offer to accompany Louis to the Holy Land.
The revolt of Parma, on the 16th of June,
1247, obliged Frederick to resume his arms at
a moment when he was least disposed. The
friends and relatives of Pope Innocent IV, the
Guelf nobles of the houses of Corregio, Lupi,
and Rossi, re-entering Parma, whence they had
been exiled, triumphed over their adversaries,
and in their turn expelled them from the city.
Frederick was determined at any price to re-
cover Parma. He sent for a numerous band
of Saracens from Apulia, commanded by one of
his natural sons, named Frederick, to whom
he gave the title of king of Antioch. He
assembled the Lombard Ghibellines, under the
command of another of his illegitimate sons,
named Hans or Hensius, called by him king of
Sardinia, and whom he had made imperial
vicar in Lombardy. Ezzelino arrived, too, at
his camp from the Veronese march, with the
militias of Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, and
the soldiers whom he had raised in his heredi-
tary fiefs.
On the other side, the Guelf s of Lombardy
hastened to send succour to a city which had
just sacrificed itself for them. The Milanese set the example ; the militias
of Mantua, Piacenza, and Ferrara followed it ; and the Guelfs, who had been
exiled from Reggio, Modena, and other Ghibelline cities, thinking they
served their country in fighting for their faction, arrived in great numbers
to shut themselves up in Parma. Frederick was prevented from hanging
the hostages given previous to the revolt, before the walls of the city, by the
militia of Pavia, who declared it was with the sword of Ghibelline soldiers
only, and not with that of the executioner, that they would secure the throne
of the emperor. The siege made little progress ; the winter had begun, but
Frederick persisted in his attempt. He proclaimed his determination to
STREET COSTUME OF AN ITALIAN
NOBLEMAN, THIRTEENTH CENTURY
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 97
[1248-1249 A.D.]
raze Paruia to the ground, and to transfer those of the inhabitants who
should be spared into his fortified camp, of which he would make a new
town, called Vittoria. This camp, which he quitted on a hawking party,
on the 8th of February, 1248, was in his absence surprised by a sortie of a
Guelf army from Parma, taken, and pillaged ; his soldiers were dispersed,
and the emperor had the humiliation of being forced to raise the siege.
THE GUELFS EXPELLED FROM FLORENCE ; THE BATTLE OF FOSSALTA
Before this event, he had sent his son, the king of Antioch, into Tuscany
with sixteen hundred German cavalry, to secure Florence to his party ;
where, since the death of Buondelmonte, the Guelfs and Ghibellines, always
in opposition, had not ceased fighting. There was seldom an assembly, a
festival, a public ceremony, without some offence given, either by one or
other of the parties. Both flew to arms ; chains were thrown across the
streets ; barricades were immediately formed, and in every quarter, round
every noble family ; the more contiguous, who had the most frequent causes
of quarrel, fought at the same time in ten different places. Nevertheless
the republic was supposed to lean towards the Guelf party ; and the Flor-
entine Ghibellines, in their relations with other people, had never sought to
separate from their fellow-countrymen, or to place themselves in opposition
to their magistrates. Frederick, fearing to lose Florence, wrote to the
Uberti, the chiefs of the Ghibelline faction, to assemble secretly in their
palace all their party, to attack afterwards in concert and at once all the
posts of the Guelfs ; whilst his son, the king of Antioch, should present
himself at the gates, and thus expel their adversaries from the city. This
plan was executed on the night of Candlemas, 1248 ; the barricades of the
Guelfs were forced in every quarter, because they defended themselves in
small bands against the whole of the opposite party. The Ghibellines,
masters of the town, ordered all the Guelfs to quit it. They afterwards
demolished thirty-six palaces belonging to the same number of the most
illustrious families of that party ; and intimidating the other cities of Tus-
cany, they constrained them to follow their example, and declare for the
emperor.
Frederick II, after the check experienced by him at Parma, returned to
his kingdom of Naples and Sicily, and left to his son Hensius, who estab-
lished himself at Modena, the direction of the war in Lombardy. The pope,
however, had sent a legate, the cardinal Octavian degli Ubaldini, to the
Guelf cities, to engage them to pursue their victory, and punish the imperial
party for what he called their revolt against the church. The powerful
city of Bologna, already celebrated for its university, and superior to the
neighbouring ones by its wealth, its population, and the zeal which a demo-
rnitic government excites, undertook to make the Guelf party triumph
throughout the Cispadane region. Bologna first attacked Komagna, and
forced the towns of Imola, Faenza, Forli, and Cervia to expel the Ghibellines,
and declare for the church. The Bolognese next turned their arms against
Modena. The Modenese cavalry, entering Bologna one day by surprise, carried
off from a public fountain a bucket, which henceforth was preserved in the
tower of Modena as a glorious trophy. The war which followed furnished
Tassoni with the subject of his mock-heroic poem, La Secchia JRapita. The
vrii^ciiuce of the Bolognese was, however, anything but burlesque ; after
i;il bloody battles, the two armies finally met at Fossalta on the 26th of
11. W. — VOL. IX. II
98 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1249-1250 A.D.]
May, 1249. Philip Ugoni of Brescia, who was this year podesta of Bologna,
commanded the Guelf army, in which was united a detachment from the
militias of all the cities of the league of Lombardy. The Ghibellines were
led by king Hensius ; each army consisted of from fifteen to twenty thou-
sand combatants. The battle was long and bloody, but ended with the com-
plete defeat of the Ghibelline party ; King Hensius himself fell into the
hands of the conquerors ; he was immediately taken to Bologna, and con-
fined in the palace of the podesta. The senate of that city rejected all offers
of ransom, all intercession in his favour. He was entertained in a splendid
manner, but kept a prisoner during the rest of his life, which lasted for
twenty-two years.
DEATH OF FREDERICK II : THE SUCCESSION
This last check overwhelmed Frederick. He had now during thirty
years combated the church and the Guelf party ; his bodily as well as
mental energy was worn out in this long contest. His life was embittered
by the treason of those whom he believed his friends, by the disasters of his
partisans, and by the misfortunes which had pursued him even in his own
family. He saw his power in Italy decline ; while the crown of Germany
was disputed with his son Conrad, by competitors favoured by the church.
He appeared to be at length himself disturbed by the excommunications of
the pope, and the fear of that hell with which he had been so incessantly
menaced. He implored anew the assistance and mediation of St. Louis of
France, who was then in the isle of Cyprus. He provided magnificently
for the wants of the crusade army, which this king commanded ; he solicited
leave to join it. He offered to engage never to return from the Holy Land,
and to submit to the most humiliating expiations which the church could
impose. He succeeded in inspiring St. Louis with interest and gratitude.
Frederick, while waiting the effect of St. Louis' good offices, seemed occu-
pied solely in the affairs of his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where he
restored order, and established a prosperity not to be seen elsewhere in
Europe. On the 13th of December, 1250, he was seized with a dysentery,,
of which he died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, at his castle of Floren-
tine, in the capitanate where he had fixed his residence.
The Italian cities, which for the most part date the commencement of
their liberty from the conflicts between the sovereigns of Italy and Ger-
many, or the invasion of Otto the Great, in 951, had already, at the death
of Frederick II, enjoyed for three centuries the protection and progressive
improvement of their municipal constitutions. These three centuries, with
reference to the rest of Europe, are utterly barbarous. Their history is
everywhere obscure and imperfectly known. It records only some great
revolution, or the victories and calamities of princes; the people are always
left in the shade : a writer would have thought it beneath him to occupy
himself about the fate of plebeians ; they were not supposed to be worthy
of history. The towns of Italy, so prodigiously superior to all others in
wealth, intelligence, energy, and independence, were equally regardless of
preserving any record of past times. Some grave chroniclers preserved the
memory of an important crisis, but in general the cities passed whole centu-
ries without leaving any written memorial ; thinking it perhaps good policy
not to attract notice, and to envelope themselves in obscurity. They, how-
ever, of necessity departed from this system in the last century, owing to
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 99
[1260-1257 A.D.]
the two conflicts, in both of which they remained victorious. From 1150
to 1183, they had fought to obtain the Peace of Constance, which they re-
garded as their constitutional charter. From 1183 to 1250, they preserved
the full exercise of the privileges which they had so gloriously acquired ;
but while they continually advanced in opulence, while intelligence and the
arts became more and more developed, they were led by two passions,
equally honourable, to range themselves under two opposite banners. One
party, listening only to their faith, their attachment, and their gratitude to
a family which had given them many great sovereigns, were ready to ven-
ture their all for the cause of the Ghibellines ; the other, alarmed for the
independence of the church, and the liberty of Italy, by the always increas-
ing grandeur of the house of Hohenstaufen, were not less resolute in their
endeavours to wrest from it the sceptre which menaced them. The cities of
the Lombard League had reached the summit of their power at the period
of this second conflict. During the interregnum which lasted from the
death of Frederick II to the entrance into Italy of Henry VII in 1310,
the Lombard republics, a prey to the spirit of faction, and more intent on the
triumph of either the Guelf or Ghibelline parties, than on securing their
own constitutions, all submitted themselves to the military power of some
nobles to whom they had intrusted the command of their militias, and thus
lost all their liberty.
On the death of Frederick II, his son, Conrad IV, king of Germany, did
not feel himself sufficiently strong to appear in Italy, and place on his head,
in succession, the iron crown at Monza, and the golden crown at Rome. He
wished first of all to secure that of the Two Sicilies ; and embarked at some
port in Istria for Naples, in a Pisan vessel, during the month of October,
1251. The remainder of his short life was passed in combating and van-
quishing the Neapolitan Guelfs. He died suddenly at Lavello, on the 21st of
May, 1254. His natural brother, Manfred, a young hero, hardly twenty years
of age, succeeded by his activity and courage in recovering the kingdom
which Innocent IV had already invaded, with the intention of subduing it to
the temporal power of the holy see. But Manfred, beloved by the Saracens
of Luceria, who were the first to defend him, and admired by the Ghibel-
lines of the Two Sicilies, was for a long time detained there by the at-
tacks of the Guelfs, before he could in his turn pursue them through the
rest of Italy. Conrad had left in Germany a son, still an infant, afterwards
known under the name of Conradin ; he was acknowledged king of Germany,
under the name of Conrad V, by a small party only. The electors left the
empire without a head ; and when they afterwards proceeded to elect one in
the year 1257, their suffrages were divided between two princes, strangers to
Germany, where they had never set foot ; one, an Englishman, Richard, earl
of Cornwall ; the other a Spaniard, Alfonso X of Castile.
THE POPE AND THE CITIES
Innocent IV was still in France when he learned of the death of Frederick
II ; he returned thence in the beginning of the spring of 1251 ; wrote to all
the towns to celebrate the deliverance of the church ; gave boundless expres-
sion to his joy ; and made his entry into Milan, and the principal cities of
Lombardy, with all the pomp of a triumph. He supposed that the republicans
of Italy had fought only for him, and that he alone would henceforth be
obeyed by them ; of this he soon made them but too sensible. He treated
100 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1251-1253 A.D.]
the Milanese with arrogance, and threatened to excommunicate them for
not having respected some ecclesiastical immunity. It was the moment in
which the republic, like a warrior reposing himself after battle, began to
feel its wounds. It had made immense sacrifices for the Guelf party ; it
had emptied the treasury, obtained patriotic gifts from every citizen who had
anything to spare ; pledged its revenues, and loaded itself with debt to the
extent of its credit. For the discharge of their debts, the citizens resigned
themselves to the necessity of giving to their podesta, Beno de' Gozzadini
of Bologna, unlimited power to create new imposts, and to raise money
under every form he found possible. The ingratitude of the pope, at a
moment of universal suffering, deeply offended the Milanese ; and the
influence of the Ghibellines in a city where, till then, they had been treated
as enemies, might be dated from that period.
CLOISTERS OF SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE
Innocent IV pursued his journey towards Rome ; but found the capital
of Christendom still less disposed than the first city of Lombardy to obey
him. The Romans in 1253 called another Bolognese noble, named Branca-
leone d'Andolo, to the government of their republic ; and gave him, with
the title of senator, almost unlimited authority. The citizens, continually
alarmed by the quarrels and battles of the Roman nobles, who had converted
the Colosseum, the tombs of Adrian, Augustus, and Csecilia Metella, the
arches of triumph and other monuments of ancient Rome, into so many
fortresses, whence issued banditti, whom they kept in pay, to pillage
passengers and peaceable merchants, demanded of the government above
all things vigour and severity. They forgot the guarantee due to the
accused, in their attention to those only which were required by the public
peace. The senator Brancaleone, at the head of the Roman militia, succes-
sively attacked these monuments, become the retreat of robbers and assas-
sins ; he levelled to the ground the towers which surmounted them ; he
hanged the adventurers who defended them, with their commanders the
nobles, at the palace windows of the latter ; and thus established by ter-
ror security in the streets of Rome. He hardly showed more respect to
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 101
[1250-1253 A.D.]
Innocent than to the Roman nobility. The pope, in order to be at a distance
from him, had transferred his court to Assisi. Brancaleone sent him word
that it was not decorous in a pope to be wandering like a vagabond from
city to city ; and that, if he did not immediately return to the capital of
Christendom of which he was the bishop, the Romans, with their senator at
their head, would march to Assisi and send him out of it by setting fire
to the town.
Thus, although the power of kings had given way to that of the people,
liberty was in general ill understood and insecure. The passions were
impetuous ; a certain point of honour was attached to violence ; the nobles
believed they gave proof of independence by rapine and outrage ; and the
friends of order believed they had attained the highest purpose of govern-
ment, when they made such audacious disturbers tremble. The turbulence
and number of the noble criminals, the support which their crimes found in
a false point of honour, form an excuse for the judicial institutions of the
Italian republics, which were all more calculated to strike terror into crim-
inals too daring to conceal themselves, than to protect the accused against
the unjust suspicion of secret crimes. Order could be maintained only
by an iron hand ; but this iron hand soon crushed liberty. Nevertheless,
among the Italian cities there was one which above all others seemed to
think of justice more than of peace, and of the security of the citizen more
than of the punishment of the guilty. It was Florence ; its judicial institu-
tions are, indeed, far from meriting to be held up as models ; but they were
the first in Italy which offered any guarantee to the citizen ; because Flor-
ence was the city where the love of liberty was the most general and the
most constant in every class ; where the cultivation of the understanding
was carried farthest ; and where enlightenment of mind soonest appeared
in the improvement of the laws.
FLORENTINE AFFAIRS; THE GUELFS RECALLED
The Ghibelline nobles had taken possession of the sovereignty of Flor-
ence with the help of the king of Antioch, two years before the death of
his father, Frederick II ; but their power soon became insupportable to the
free and proud citizens of that republic, who had already become wealthy
by commerce and who reckoned amongst them some distinguished literary
men, such as Brunetto Latini, and Guido Cavalcanti, without having lost
simplicity of manners, their sobriety of habits, or their bodily vigour.
Frederick II still lived, when by a unanimous insurrection, on the 20th
of October, 1250, they set themselves free. All the citizens assembled at
the same moment in the square of Santa Croce ; they divided themselves
into fifty groups, of which each group chose a captain and thus formed com-
panies of militia : a council of these officers was the first-born authority of
this newly revived republic. The podesta by his severity and partiality had
rendered himself universally detested : they deposed him, and supplied his
place by another judge, under the name of captain of the people, but soon
afterwards decreed that the podesta and the captain should each have an inde-
pendent tribunal, in order that they should exercise upon each other a mutual
control; at the same time, they determined that both should be subordi-
nate to the supreme magistracy of the republic, which was charged with the
administration, but divested of the judicial power. They decreed that this
magistracy, which they called the signoria, should be always present, always
102 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1250-1260 A.D.]
assembled in the palace of the republic, ever ready to control the podesta
or the captain, to whom they had been obliged to delegate so much power.
The town was divided into six parts, each sestier, as it was called, named
two anziani. These twelve magistrates ate together, slept at the public
palace, and could never go out but together ; their function lasted only two
months. Twelve others, elected by the people, succeeded them ; and the
republic was so rich in good citizens, and in men worthy of its confidence,
that this rapid succession of anziani did not exhaust their number. The
Florentine militia at the same time attacked and demolished all the towers
which served as a refuge to the nobles, in order that all should henceforth
be forced to submit to the common law.
The new signoria was hardly informed of the death of Frederick, when
by a decree of the 7th of January, 1251, they recalled all the Guelf exiles
to Florence. They henceforth laboured to give that party the preponderance
throughout Tuscany. They declared war against the neighbouring cities of
Pistoia, Pisa, Siena, and Volterra ; not to subjugate them, or to impose hard
conditions, but to force them to rally round the party which they considered
that of the church and of liberty. The year 1254, when the Florentines
were commanded by their podesta, Guiscardo Pietra Santa, a Milanese, is
distinguished in their history by the name of the "Year of Victories."
They took the two cities of Pistoia and Volterra ; they forced those of Pisa
and Siena to sign a peace favourable to the Guelf party ; they refused to
profit by a treason which had given them possession of the citadel of Arezzo
and they restored it to the Aretini; lastly, they built in the Lunigiana,
beyond the territory of Lucca, a fortress destined to shut the entry of Tus-
cany on the Ligurian side, which in memory of their podesta bears to this
day the name of Pietra Santa. The signoria also showed themselves worthy
to be the governors of a city renowned for commerce, the arts, and liberty.
The whole monetary system of Europe was at this period abandoned to the
depredations of sovereigns who continually varied the title and weight of
coins — sometimes to defraud their creditors, at other times to force their
debtors to pay more than they had received, or the tax-payers more than
was due. During 150 years more the kings of France violated their faith
with the public, making annually with the utmost effrontery some import-
ant change in the coins. But the republic of Florence, in the year 1252,
coined its golden florin, of twenty-four carats fine, and of the weight of one
drachma. It placed the value under the guarantee of publicity and of com-
mercial good faith ; and that coin remained unaltered as the standard for all
other values as long as the republic itself endured.
FLORENCE AND SIENA AT WAR ; THE BATTLE OF MONTAPERTI
A conspiracy of Ghibellines to recover their power in Florence and to
concentrate it in the aristocratic faction, forced the republic, in the year
1258, to exile the most illustrious chiefs of that party. It was then directed
by Farinata degli Uberti, who was looked upon as the most eloquent orator
and the ablest warrior in Tuscany. All the Florentine Ghibellines were
favourably received at Siena, although the two republics had mutually
engaged in their last treaty not to give refuge to the rebels of either city.
Farinata afterwards joined Manfred, whom he found firmly established on
the throne of the Two Sicilies, and represented to him that, to guard his
kingdom from all attack, he ought to secure Tuscany and give supremacy
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 103
[1260 A.D.]
to the Ghibelline party. He obtained from him a considerable body of
German cavalry, which he led to Siena.
Hostilities between the two republics had already begun : the colours of
Manfred had been dragged with contempt through the streets by the Floren-
tines. Farinata resolved to take advantage of the irritation of the Germans,
in order to bring the two parties to a general battle. He knew that some
ignorant artisans had found their way into the signoria of Florence, and he
tried to profit by their presumption. He flattered them with the hope that
he would open to them one of the gates of Siena, if they ordered their
army to present itself under the walls of that city. At the same time,
his emissaries undertook to excite the ill will of the plebeians against the
nobles of the Guelf party, who, being more clear-sighted, might discover
his intrigues. Notwithstanding the opposition of the nobles in council, the
signoria resolved to march a Guelf army through the territory of Siena. &
It is said1 there were not less than thirty thousand, and auxiliary troops
came from all the allied cities, or those subjected to the Florentines ; but as
the Ghibellines had been expelled from these cities, the latter had united at
Siena and the Guelfs at Florence, and the two armies presented the sad
spectacle of division and civil war in the whole of Tuscany. From Arezzo
alone it is asserted that nearly five thousand came to the succour of the
Florentines under the command of Donatello Tarlati, whilst another band
of outlaws, conducted by their bishop, had joined in Siena, and if we are to
believe Raffaello Roncioni, a chosen body of three thousand Pisans also came
to Siena. The army of the Guelfs was superior in number to the Ghibel-
lines, that faction being predominant in Tuscany, but probably there was
not that disproportion which some historians wish to make us believe.
The army of the Guelfs marched on as to certain victory, hoping to enter
Siena without fighting; arrived upon the hills of Montaperti they halted
to receive advice from the Sienese to proceed further.
Nothing is more capable of disconcerting a leader and an army than to
see an enemy courageously advancing to meet them, whom they had believed
either beaten or fugitive ; thus the Florentine generals, who went to the
certain conquest of Siena, when they perceived the enemy advancing boldly,
at the head of whom was the German troop, so formidable an enemy to them,
began to despair. They came to blows, and both sides fought with great
valour; but the Florentines, unable to resist the attack made upon them
by the Germans, gave way. Treachery aided to increase the consternation.
Many Ghibellines, hidden in time of the battle, went over to the enemy.
Among the rest, Bocca of the Abati, before going over to the other side,
aimed a treacherous blow at Jacopo Vacca, of the family of the Pazzi, who
carried the ensign of the republic, and brought him to the ground with the
loss of an arm.
This act spread terror among the Florentines, who could no longer dis-
tinguish friends from foes; the only opposition was made around the
triumphant chariot which contained the flags, and around the better part of
the defenders, who were disposed rather to purchase for themselves an illus-
trious death by valour, than their safety by flight. A part of the broken
army had taken refuge in the castle of Montaperti. The castle being taken
by force, the refugees were cut to pieces. It is not easy to ascertain the
number of killed in a battle, since the conquerors always exaggerate it, and
the conquered conceal it ; the latter, or the Florentine writers, acknowledge
[1(The account here given by Pignotti is based chiefly upon the contemporary writer Male-
pina.«]
104 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[125&-1260 A.D.]
only twenty-five hundred killed, and fifteen hundred prisoners — but the
number must have been far greater.
This battle is reckoned among the most bloody of those times, and was
fought on the 4th of September, 1260. The Sienese celebrated the victory
with solemn pomp, in which the triumphant chariot (carroccio) of the
Florentines was seen dragged upon the ground, and the name of City of the
Virgin was taken by Siena on this occasion, as a devout attestation of
gratitude to heaven for the happy issued
The Florentine Guelfs found themselves too much weakened by the
defeat of Montaperti to maintain themselves in Florence. The circumference
of the walls was too vast, and the population too much discouraged by the
enormous loss which they had experienced to admit of defending the city.
All those accordingly who had exercised any authority in the republic — all
those whose names were sufficiently known to discover their party — left
Florence for Lucca together, on horseback. The Guelfs of Prato, Pistoia,
Volterra, and San Gemignano could not hope to maintain their ground
when those of Florence failed. All abandoned their dwellings and joined
the Florentines at Lucca. That city granted to the illustrious fugitives the
church and portico of San Friano and the surrounding quarter, where they
pitched their tents. The Ghibellines entered Florence on the 27th of Sep-
tember, immediately abolished the popular government, and formed a new
magistracy, composed entirely of nobles, who took the oath of fidelity to
Manfred, king of the Two Sicilies.
At a diet of the Ghibelline cities assembled at Empoli, the ambassadors
of Pisa and Siena strongly represented that whilst Florence existed, the
preponderance of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany could never be secure.
They affirmed that the population of that proud and warlike city was entirely
devoted to the Guelf party, that there was no hope of mitigating their hatred
of the nobles and of the family of the last emperor, that democratic habits
were become a sort of second nature to every one of the inhabitants ; they
concluded with demanding that the walls of Florence should be razed to the
ground, and the people dispersed among the neighbouring towns. All the
Ghibellines of Tuscany, all the deputies of the cities jealous of Florence
received the proposition favourably. It was about to be adopted when
Farinata degli Uberti rose, and repelled with indignation this abuse of the
victory which he had just gained. He protested that he loved his country
far better than his party ; and declared that he would, with those same com-
panions in arms whose bravery they had witnessed at the battle of Arbia,
join the Guelfs and fight for them, sooner than consent to the ruin of what
was in the world most dear to him. The enemies of Florence dared not
answer him ; and the diet of Empoli contented itself with decreeing that the
league of Tuscany should take into pay one thousand of the soldiers of Man-
fred, to support in that province the preponderance of the Guelf party. Dante
has immortalised Farinata as the saviour of Florence, and Bocca degli Abati
as the traitor who placed it on the brink of destruction. His poem is filled
with allusions to this memorable epoch.
THE TYRANT EZZELINO
While the Ghibellines thus acquired the preponderance in Tuscany, the
tyrant fell who at the head of that party had caused so much blood to flow
in the Trevisan march. Ezzelino was hereditary lord of Bassano and Pied-
THE THIRTEENTH CENTUKY 105
[1256 A.D.]
raont : he succeeded in making himself named captain of the people by the
republics of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, and Belluno. By this title he
united the judicial with the military power ; he was subject only to councils
which he might assemble or not at his pleasure. It does not appear that
there was any permanent magistracy like the signoria of Florence, to repress
his abuse of power. Accordingly he soon changed the authority which he
derived from the people into a frightful tyranny : fixing his suspicions upon
all who rose to any distinction, who in any way attracted the attention of
their fellow citizens, he did not wait for any expression of discontent, or
symptom of resistance in the nobles, merchants, priests, or lawyers, who by
their eminence alone became suspected, to throw them into prison and there,
by the most excruciating torture, extract confessions of crimes that might
justify his suspicions. The names which
escaped their lips in the agony of torture
were carefully registered in order to supply
fresh victims to the tyrant. In the single
town of Padua there were eight prisons
always full, notwithstanding the incessant
toil of the executioner to empty them ; two
of these contained each three hundred pris-
oners. A brother of Ezzelino, named Alberic,
governed Treviso with less ferocity, but with
a power not less absolute. Cremona was in
like manner subject to a Ghibelline chief;
Milan no longer evinced any repugnance
to that party. In that city, as well as in
Brescia, the factions of nobles and plebeians
disputed for power.
Alexander IV, to destroy the monster
that held in terror the Trevisan march,
caused a crusade to be preached in that
country. He promised those who combated
the ferocious Ezzelino all the indulgences
usually reserved for the deliverers of the
Holy Land. The marquis d'Este, the count
di San Bonifacio, with the cities of Ferrara,
Mantua, and Bologna, assembled their troops
under the standard of the church ; they were
joined by a horde of ignorant fanatics from
the lowest class, anxious to obtain indul-
gences, but unsusceptible of discipline and
incapable of a single act of valour. Their
number, however, so frightened Ezzelino's
lieutenant at Padua, that he defended but feebly the passage of the Bac-
chiglione and the town. The legate Philip, elected archbishop of Ravenna,
entered Padua at the head of the crusaders, on the 18th of June, 1256 ; but
he either would not or could not restrain the fanatic and rapacious rabble
which he had summoned to the support of his soldiers : for seven days the
city was inhumanly pillaged by those whom it had received as its deliverers.
As soon as Ezzelino was informed of the loss he had sustained, he hastened
to separate and disarm the eleven thousand Paduans belonging to his army;
he confined them in prisons, where all, with the exception of two hundred,
met a violent or lingering death.
ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, THIRTEENTH
CENTURY
106 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1256-1260 A.D.]
During the following two years the Guelfs experienced nothing but dis-
asters : the legate whom the pope had placed at their head proved incompe-
tent to command them ; and the crowd of crusaders whom he called to his
ranks served only to compromise them, by want of courage and discipline.
The Ghibelline nobles of Brescia even delivered their country into the hands
of Ezzelino after he had put the legate's army to flight, in the year 1258.
The following year this tyrant, unequalled in Italy for bravery and military
talent, always an enemy to luxury, and proof against the seductions of women,
making the boldest tremble with a look, and preserving in his diminutive
person, at the age of sixty-five, all the vigour of a soldier, advanced into the
centre of Lombardy in the hope that the nobles of Milan, with whom he had
already opened a correspondence, would surrender this great city to him.
He passed the Oglio and afterwards the Adda, with the most brilliant army
he had ever yet commanded : but the marquis Palavicino, Buoso da Doara,
the Cremonese chieftain, and other Ghibellines, his ancient associates, dis-
gusted with his crimes, had secretly made an alliance with the Guelfs for
his destruction.
When they saw that he had advanced so far from his home they
rushed upon him from all sides. On the 16th of September, 1259, whilst he
was preparing to retire, he found himself stopped at the bridge of Cassano.
The Brescians, no longer obedient to his command, began their movement
to abandon him ; all the points of retreat were cut off by the Milanese,
Cremonese, Ferrarians, and Mantuans : repulsed, pursued as far as Vimer-
cato, and at last wounded in the foot, he was made prisoner and taken to
Soncino : there, he refused to speak, rejected all aid of medicine, tore off
all the bandages from his wounds, and finally expired, on the eleventh day
of his captivity. His brother and all his family were massacred in the
following year.
THE BEGINNING OF FEUDAL TYRANNY IN LOMBARDY
The defeat of Ezzelino, and the destruction of the family of Romano,
may be regarded as the last great effort of the Lombards against the estab-
lishment of tyranny in their country. About this time the cities began to
be accustomed to absolute power in a single person. In each republic, the
nobles, always divided by hereditary feuds, regarded it as disgraceful to sub-
mit to the laws, rather than do themselves justice by force of arms : their
quarrels, broils, and brigandage carried troubles and disorder into every street
and public place. The merchants were continually on the watch to shut
their shops on the first cry of alarm ; for the satellites of the nobles were
most commonly banditti, to whom they gave shelter in their palaces, and who
took advantage of the tumult to plunder the shops. At the same time that
the nobles irritated the plebeians by their arrogance, they ridiculed their
incapacity, and endeavoured to exclude them from all the public offices.
The people often, in their indignation, took arms ; the streets were barricaded
and the nobles, besieged in their town houses, were driven to take refuge in
their castles ; but if the militia of the towns afterwards presumed to pursue
in the plains of Lombardy the nobles whom they forced to emigrate, they
soon found themselves sadly inferior. In the course of this century, the nobles
had acquired the habit of fighting on horseback with a lance and covered
with heavy armour. Continual exercise could alone render them expert in
the manoeuvres of cavalry, and accustom them to the enormous weight of the
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 107
[1256-1264 A.D.]
cuirass and helmet; on the other hand, this armour rendered them almost
invulnerable. When they charged with couched lance, and with all the
impetuosity of their war-horses, they overthrew and annihilated the ill-armed
infantry opposed to them without experiencing themselves any damage. The
cities soon felt the necessity of opposing cavalry to cavalry, and of taking
into their pay either those nobles who made common cause with the people,
or foreigners and adventurers who about this time began to exchange their
valour for hire.
As the custom was prevalent of giving the command of the militia
to the first officer of justice, in order to give him authority either to direct
the public force against rebels or disturbers of order, or to discipline the
soldier by the fear of punishment, no commander could be found who
would undertake the military service of a town, without at the same time
possessing the power of the judicial sword — such power as was intrusted to
the podesta or captain of the people. It became necessary then to deliver
into his charge what was named the signoria ; and the more considerable this
corps of cavalry, thus placed for a certain number of years at the service
of the republic, the more this signoria, to which was attached the power of
adjudging life or death in the tribunals, became dangerous to liberty.
Among the first feudal lords who embraced the cause of the people and
undertook the service of a town, with a body of cavalry raised among their
vassals, or among the poor nobles, their adherents, was Pagan della Torre,
the lord of Valsassina. He had endeared himself to the Milanese by saving
their army from the pursuit of Frederick II after the battle of Cortenuova.
He was attached by hereditary affection to the Guelf party ; and although
himself of illustrious birth, he seemed to partake the resentment of the ple-
beians of Milan against the nobility who oppressed them. When he died,
his brother Martino, after him Raymond, then Philip, lastly, Napoleon della
Torre, succeeded each other as captains of the people, commanders of a body
of cavalry which they had raised and placed at the service of the city ; they
were the acknowledged superiors of the podesta and the tribunals. These
five lords succeeded each other in less than twenty j^ears ; and even the
shortness of their lives accustomed the people to regard their election as the
confirmation of a dynasty become hereditary. Other Guelf cities of Lom-
bardy were induced to choose the same captain and the same governor as
Milan, because they believed him a true Guelf, and a real lover of the
people.
These towns found the advantage of drawing closer their alliance with the
city which directed their party ; of placing themselves under a more power-
ful protection ; and of supporting their tribunals with a firmer hand. Martin
della Torre had been elected podesta of Milan in 1256 ; three years later he
obtained the title of elder, and lord of the people. At the same time, Lodi
also named him lord. In 1263, the city of Novara conferred the same
honour on him. Philip, who succeeded him in 1264, was named lord by
Milan, Como, Vercelli, and Bergamo. Thus began to be formed among the
Lombard republics, without their suspecting that they divested themselves
of their liberty, the powerful state which a century and a half later became
the duchy of Milan. But the pope, jealous of the house of della Torre,
appointed archbishop of Milan Otto Visconti, whose family, powerful on the
borders of Lake Maggiore, then shared the exile of the nobles and Ghi-
bellines. This prelate placed himself at the head of their faction ; and
henceforward the rivalry between the families of Delia Torre and Visconti
made that between the people and the nobles almost forgotten.
108 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1257-1261 A.D.]
PERENNIAL STRIFE OF GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES
The bitter enmity between the two parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines
was fatal to the cause of liberty. With the former, the question was religion
— the independence of the church and of Italy, menaced by the Germans and
Saracens, to whom Manfred granted not less confidence than Frederick II ;
with the latter, honour and good faith towards an illustrious family, and
the support of the aristocracy as well as of royalty ; but both were more
intent on avenging offences a thousand times repeated, and guarding against
exile, and the confiscation of property.
These party feelings deeply moved men who gloried in the sacrifices
which they or their ancestors had made to either party ; while they regarded
as entirely secondary the support of the laws, the impartiality of the tribu-
nals, or the equal participation of the citizens in the sovereignty. Every
town of Lombardy forgot itself, to make its faction triumph ; and it looked
for success in giving more unity and force to power. The cities of Mantua
and Ferrara, where the Guelfs were far the more numerous, trusted for their
defence, the one to the count di San Bonifazio, the other to the marquis
d'Este, with so much constancy, that these nobles, under the name of captains
of the people, had become almost sovereigns. In the republic of Verona,
the Ghibellines, on the contrary, predominated ; and as they feared their
faction might sink at the death of Ezzelino, they called to the command of
their militia, and the presidency of their tribunals, Mastino della Scala; lord
of the castle of that name in the Veronese territory ; whose power became
hereditary in his family. The marquis Pelavicino, the most renowned
Ghibelline in the whole valley of the Po, whose strongest castle was San
Donnino, between Parma and Piacenza, and who had formed and disciplined
a superb body of cavalry, was named, alternately with his friend, Buoso da
Doara, lord of the city of Cremona. Pavia and Piacenza also chose him
almost always their captain ; and this honour was at the same time conferred
on him by Milan, Brescia, Tortona, and Alexandria. The Ghibelline party
had, since the offence given by Innocent IV to the Guelfs of Milan, obtained
the ascendency in Lombardy. The house of Della Torre seemed even to
lean towards it ; and it was all powerful in Tuscany. The city of Lucca
had been the last to accede to that party in 1263 ; and the Tuscan Guelfs,
obliged to leave their country, had formed a body of soldiers, which placed it-
self in the pay of the few cities of Lombardy still faithful to the Guelf party.
The court of Rome saw, with great uneasiness, this growing power of the
Ghibelline party, firmly established in the Two Sicilies, under the sceptre of
Manfred. Feared even in Rome and the neighbouring provinces, master in
Tuscany, and making daily progress in Lombardy, Manfred seemed on the
point of making the whole peninsula a single monarchy. It was no longer
with the arms of the Italians that the pope could expect to subdue him.
The Germans afforded no support. Divided between Richard of Cornwall
and Alfonso of Castile, they seemed desirous of delivering themselves from
the imperial authority, by dividing between foreigners an empty title ; while
each state sought to establish a separate independence at home, and abandon
the supremacy of the empire over Italy. It was accordingly necessary to
have recourse to other barbarians to prevent the formation of an Italian
monarchy fatal to the power of the pontiff. Alexander IV died on the 25th
of May, 1261 ; three months afterwards, a Frenchman, who took the name
of Urban IV, was elected his successor ; and he did not hesitate to arm the
French against Manfred,
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 109
[1261-1266 A.D.]
CHARLES OF ANJOU CONQUERS SICILY
His predecessor had already opened some negotiations, for the purpose of
giving the crown of Sicily to Edmund, son of Henry III, king of England.
Urban put an end to them by having recourse to a prince nearer, braver, and
more powerful. He addressed himself to Charles count of Anjou, the brother
of St. Louis, sovereign in right of his wife of the county of Provence. Charles
had already signalised himself in war ; he was, like his brother, a faithful
believer, and still more fanatical and bitter towards the enemies of the
church, against whom he abandoned himself without restraint to his harsh
and pitiless character. His religious zeal, however, did not interfere with his
policy; his interests set limits to his subjection to the church; he knew how
to manage those whom he wished to gain ; and he could flatter, at his need,
the public passions, restrain his anger, and preserve in his language a modera-
tion which was not in his heart. Avarice appeared his ruling passion, but it
was only the means of serving his ambition, which was unbounded. He
accepted the offer of the pope. His wife Beatrice, ambitious of the title of
queen, borne by her three sisters, pawned all her jewels to aid in levying an
army of thirty thousand men, which she led herself through Lombardy. He
had preceded her. Having gone by sea to Rome, with one thousand knights,
he made his entry into that city on the 24th of May, 1265. A new pope, like
his predecessor a Frenchman, named Clement IV, had succeeded Urban, and
was not less favourable to Charles of Anjou. He caused him to be elected
senator by the Roman Republic, and invested him with the kingdom of
Sicily, which he charged him to conquer ; under the condition, however, that
the crown should never be united to that of the empire, or to the sovereignty
of Lombardy and Tuscany. A tribute of eight thousand ounces of gold, and
a white palfrey, was, by this investiture, assigned to St. Peter.
The French army, headed by Beatrice, did not pass through Italy till
towards the end of the summer of 1265 ; and in the month of February of
the following year, Charles entered, at its head, the kingdom of Naples. He
met Manfred, who awaited him in the plain of Grandella, near Benevento, on
the 26th of February. The battle was bloody. The Germans and Saracens
were true to their ancient valour ; but the Apulians fled like cowards, and
the brave son of Frederick II, abandoned by them on the field of battle,
perished. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies was the price of this victory.
Resistance ceased, but not massacre. Charles gave up the pillage of Bene-
vento to his soldiers ; and they cruelly put to death all the inhabitants. The
Italians, who believed they had experienced from the Germans and Saracens
of Frederick and Manfred all that could be feared from the most barbarous
enemies, now found that there was a degree of ferocity still greater than that
to which they had been accustomed from the house of Hohenstaufen. The
French seemed always ready to give as to receive death. The two strong
colonies of Saracens at Luceria and Nocera were soon exterminated, and in a
few years there remained not in the Two Sicilies a single individual of that
nation or religion, nor one German who had been in the pay of Manfred.
Charles willingly consented to acknowledge the Apulians and Sicilians his
subjects ; but he oppressed them, as their conqueror, with intolerable bur-
dens. While he distributed amongst his followers all the great fiefs of the
kingdom, he so secured with a hand of iron his detested dominion that two
years afterwards, when Conradin, the son of Conrad and the nephew of Man-
fred, arrived from Germany to dispute the crown, few malcontents in the
Two Sicilies had the courage to declare for him.
110 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1266-1268 A.D.]
The victory of Charles of Anjou over Manfred restored the ascendant of
the Guelf party in Italy. Filippo della Torre, who for some time seemed
to hesitate between the two factions, at last gave passage through the
Milanese territory to the army of Beatrice. Buoso da Doara was accused of
having received money not to oppose her on the Oglio. The count di San
Bonifazio, the marquis d'Este, and afterwards the Bolognese, openly joined
her party. After the battle of Grandella, the Florentines rose, and drove
out, on the llth of November, 1266, the German garrison, commanded by
Guido Novello, the lieutenant of Manfred. They soon afterwards received
about eight hundred French cavalry from Charles, to whom they entrusted
for ten years the signoria of Florence ; that is to say, they conferred on him
the rights allowed by the Peace of Constance to the emperors. At the same
time they re-established, with full liberty, their internal constitution ; they
augmented the power of their numerous councils, from which they excluded
the nobles and Ghibellines ; and they gave to the corporations of trade, into
which all the industrious part of the population was divided, a direct share
in the government.
THE FALL OF CONRADIN ; GREGORY X; OTTO VISCONTI
It was about the end of the year 1267 that the young Conradin, aged
only sixteen years, arrived at Verona, with ten thousand cavalry, to claim
the inheritance of which the popes had despoiled his family. All the Ghib-
ellines and brave captains, who had distinguished themselves in the service
of his grandfather and uncle, hastened to join him, and to aid him with their
swords and counsel. The republics of Pisa and Siena, always devoted to his
family, but whose zeal was now redoubled by their jealousy of the Floren-
tines, made immense sacrifices for him. The Romans, offended at the pope's
having abandoned their city for Viterbo, as well as jealous of his pretensions
in the republic, from the government of which he had excluded the nobles,
rned their gates to Conradin, and promised him aid. But all these efforts,
this zeal, did not suffice to defend the heir of the house of Hohen-
staufen against the valour of the French. Conradin entered the kingdom
of his fathers by the Abruzzi and met Charles of Anjou in the plain of Taglia-
cozzo, on the 23rd of August, 1268. A desperate battle ensued ; victory long
remained doubtful. Tw6 divisions of the army of Charles were already
destroyed ; and the Germans, who considered themselves the victors, were
dispersed in pursuit of the enemy ; when the French prince, who, till then,
had not appeared on the field, fell on them with his body of reserve, and
completely routed them. Conradin, forced to fly, was arrested, forty-five
miles from Tagliacozzo, as he was about to embark for Sicily. He was
brought to Charles, who, without pity for his youth, esteem for his courage,
or respect for his just right, exacted from the iniquitous judges before whom
he subjected him to the mockery of a trial, a sentence of death. Conradin
was beheaded in the market-place at Naples, on the 26th of October, 1268.
With him perished several of his most illustrious companions in arms — Ger-
man princes, Ghibelline nobles, and citizens of Pisa ; and, after the sacri-
fice of these first victims, an uninterrupted succession of executions long
continued to fill the Two Sicilies with dismay.
The defeat and death of Conradin established the preponderance of the
Guelf party throughout the peninsula. Charles placed himself at the head
of it ; the pope named him imperial vicar in Italy during the interregnum of
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 111
[1268-1278 A.D.]
the empire, and sought to annex to that title all the rights formerly exercised
by the emperors in the free cities. Clement IV died on the 29th of Novem-
ber, 1268 — one month after the execution of Conradin. The cardinals
remained thirty -three months without being able to agree on the choice of
a successor. During this interregnum — the longest the pontifical chair had
ever experienced — Charles remained sole chief of the Guelf party, ruling
over the whole of Italy, which had neither pope nor emperor. He convoked,
in 1269, a diet of the Lombard cities at Cremona, in which the towns of
Piacenza, Cremona, Parma, Modena, Ferrara, and Reggio, consented to
confer on him the signoria; Milan, Como, Vercelli, Novara, Alessandria,
Tortona, Turin, Pavia, Bergamo, and Bologna, declared they should feel
honoured by his alliance and friendship, but could not take him for master.
Italy already felt the weight of the French yoke, which would have pressed
still heavier if the crusade against Tunis to which Charles of Anjou was
summoned by his brother, St. Louis, had not diverted his projects of
ambition.
The conclave assembled at Viterbo at length raised to the vacant chair
Teobaldo Visconti, of Piacenza, who was at that time in the Holy Land.
On his return to Italy, in the year 1272, he took the name of Gregory X.
This wise and moderate man soon discovered that the court of Rome had
overreached itself; in crushing the house of Hohenstaufen, it had given
itself a new master not less dangerous than the preceding. Gregory, in-
stead of seeking to annihilate the Ghibellines, like his predecessors, occupied
himself only in endeavouring to restore an equilibrium and peace between
them and the Guelfs. He persuaded the Florentines and Sienese to recall
the exiled Ghibellines, for the purpose, as he announced, of uniting all
Christendom in the defence of the Holy Land ; and testified the strongest
resentment against Charles, who threw obstacles in the way of this recon-
ciliation. He relieved Pisa from the interdict that had been laid on it by
the holy see. He showed favour to Venice and Genoa; both of which,
offended by the arrogance and injustice of Charles, had made common cause
with his enemies. He engaged the electors of Germany to take advantage
of the death of Richard of Cornwall, which took place in 1271, and put an
end to the interregnum by proceeding to a new election. The electors con-
ferred the crown, in 1273, on Rudolf of Habsburg, founder of the house of
Austria. The death of Gregory X, in the beginning of January, 1276, de-
prived him of the opportunity to develop the projects which these first steps
seem to indicate ; but Nicholas III, who succeeded him in 1277, after three
ephemeral popes, undertook more openly to humble Charles, and to support
the Ghibelline party. He forced the king of Sicily to renounce the title of
imperial vicar, to which Charles had no title except during the interregnum
of the empire ; he still further engaged him to resign the title of senator of
Rome, and the dignity of the signoria, which had been conferred on him by
the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany, by representing to him that his power
over these provinces was contrary to the bull of investiture, which had put
him in possession of the kingdom of Naples.
Rudolf of Habsburg, who had never visited Italy, and was ignorant of
the geography of that country, was, in his turn, persuaded by the pope
to confirm the charters of Louis le Debonnaire, of Otto I, and of Henry VI, of
which copies were sent to him. In these charters, whether true or false,
taken from the chancery at Rome, the sovereignty of the whole of Emilia or
Roinagna, the Pentapolis, the march of Ancona, the patrimony of St. Peter,
and the Campagna of Rome, from Radicofani to Ceperano, were assigned to
112 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1277-1280 A.D.]
the church. The imperial chancery confirmed, without examination, a con-
cession which had never been really made. The two Fredericks, as well
as their predecessors, had always considered this whole extent of country as
belonging to the empire, and always exercised there the imperial rights. A
chancellor of Rudolf arrived in these provinces to demand homage and the
oath of allegiance, which were yielded without difficulty ; but Nicholas ap-
pealed against this homage, and called it a sacrilegious usurpation. Rudolf
was obliged to acknowledge that it was in contradiction to his own diplomas,
and resigned his pretensions. From that period, 1278, the republics held of
the holy see and not of the emperor.
A revolution, not long previous, in the principal cities of Lombardy, had
secured the preponderance to the nobles and the Ghibelline party. These,
having been for a considerable period exiled from Milan, experienced a con-
tinuation of disasters, and, instead of fear, excited compassion. While
Napoleon della Torre, chief of the republic of Milan, was exasperating the
plebeians and Guelfs with his arrogance and contempt of their freedom, he
was informed that Otto Visconti, whom he had exiled, although archbishop
of Milan, had assembled around him at Como many nobles and Ghibellines,
with whom he intended making an attack on the Milanese territory. Napo-
leon marched to meet him ; but, despising enemies whom he had so often van-
quished, he carelessly suffered himself to be surprised by the Ghibellines at
Desio, in the night of the 21st of January, 1277. Having been made prisoner,
with five of his relatives, he and they were placed in three iron cages, in
which the archbishop kept them confined. This prelate was himself received
with enthusiasm at Milan, at Cremona, and Lodi. He formed anew the
councils of these republics, admitting only Ghibellines and nobles, who,
ruined by a long exile, and often supported by the liberality of the arch-
bishop, were become humble and obsequious ; their deference degenerated
into submission, and the republic of Milan, henceforth governed by the
Visconti, became soon no more than a principality.
GHIBELLINE SUCCESSES; THE SICILIAN VESPERS
Nicholas III, of the noble Roman family of the Orsini, felt a hereditary
affection for the Ghibellines, and everywhere favoured them. A rivalry be-
tween two illustrious families of Bologna, the Gieremei and the Lambertazzi,
terminated, in 1274, in the exile of the latter (who were Ghibellines) with all
their adherents. The quarrel between the two families became, from that
period, a bloody war throughout Romagna. Guido de Montefeltro, lord of
the mountains in the neighbourhood of Urbino, who had never joined any
republic, received the Ghibellines into his country; and in commanding
them gained the reputation of a great captain. Nicholas III sent a legate
to Romagna, to compel Bologna and all the Guelf republics to recall the
Ghibellines, and establish peace throughout the province. He succeeded
in 1279. Another legate on a similar mission, and with equal success, was
sent to Florence and Siena. The balance seemed at last on the point of
being established in Italy, when Nicholas died, on the 19th of August, 1280.
Charles, who had submitted without opposition, and without even mani-
festing any displeasure, to the depression of a party on which were founded
all his hopes, and to a reconciliation which destroyed his influence in the Guelf
republics, hastened to Viterbo as soon as he learned the death of the
pope, fully resolved not to suffer another of his enemies to ascend the chair
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 113
[1280-1282 A.D.]
of St. Peter. He caused three cardinals, relatives of Nicholas, whom he
regarded as being adverse to him, to be removed by force from the conclave ;
and, striking terror into the rest, he obtained, on the 22nd of January, 1281,
the election of a pope entirely devoted to him. This was a canon of Tours,
who took the name of Martin IV. He seemed to have no higher mission
than that of seconding the ambition of the king of the Two Sicilies, and serv-
ing him in his enmities. Far from thinking of forming any balance to his
power, he laboured to give him the sovereignty of all Italy. He conferred
on him the title of senator of Rome ; he gave the government of all the
provinces of the church to his French officers; he caused the Ghibellines
to be exiled from all the cities; and he encouraged, with all his power, the
new design of Charles to take possession of the Eastern Empire.
Constantinople had been taken from the Latins on the 25th of July, 1261 ;
and the son of the last Latin emperor was son-in-law of Charles of Anjou.
Martin IV excommunicated Michael Palseologus, the Greek emperor, who
had vainly endeavoured to reconcile the two churches. The new armament,
which Charles was about to lead into Greece, was in preparation at the same
time in all the ports of the Two Sicilies. The king's agents collected the
taxes with redoubled insolence, and levied money with greater severity.
The judges endeavoured to smother resistance by striking terror. In the
meanwhile a noble of Salerno, named John da Procida, the friend, confidant,
and physician of Frederick II and of Manfred, visited in disguise the Two
Sicilies, to reanimate the zeal of the ancient Ghibellines, and rouse their
hatred of the French and of Charles. After having traversed Greece and
Spain to excite new enemies against him, he obtained assurances that Michael
Palaeologus and Constanza, the daughter of Manfred and wife of Don Pedro
of Aragon, would not suffer the Sicilians to be destroyed, if these had the
courage to rise against their oppressors. Their assistance was, in fact, prom-
ised — it was even prepared ; but Sicily was destined to be delivered by a
sudden and popular explosion, which took place at Palermo, on the 30th of
March, 1282. It was excited by a French soldier, who treated rudely the
person of a young bride as she was proceeding to the church of Montreal,
with her betrothed husband, to receive the nuptial benediction. The indig-
nation of her relations and friends was communicated wli;L the rapidity of
lightning to the whole population of Palermo. At that moment tne ^"Hs of
the churches were ringing for vespers; the people answered by the cry, ulo
arms — death to the French ! "
The French were attacked furiously on all sides. Those who attempted
to defend themselves were soon overpowered ; others, who endeavoured to
pass for Italians, were known by their pronunciation of two words, which
they were made to repeat — ceci and ciceri^ and were, on their mispronun-
ciation, immediately put to death. In a few hours more than four thousand
weltered in their blood. Every town in Sicily followed the example of
Palermo. Thus the Sicilian Vespers overthrew the tyranny of Charles
of Anjou and of the Guelfs ; separated the kingdom of Sicily from that of
Naples ; and transferred the crown of the former to Don Pedro of Aragon,
the son-in-law of Manfred, who was considered the heir to the house of
Hohenstaufen.
Charles of Anjou, the first French king of the Two Sicilies, survived the
Sicilian Vespers only three years. He died on the 7th of January, 1285,
aged sixty-five years. At this period his son, Charles II, was a prisoner
in the hands of the Sicilians ; he was set at liberty in 1288, in pursuance of
a treaty by which he acknowledged the separation and independence of the
H. W» — VOL. IX. I
114 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1282-1298 A.D.]
two crowns of Naples and Sicily. The first was assigned to the Guelfs and
the house of Anjou ; the second to the Ghibellines and the house of Aragon ;
but Nicholas IV, by whose influence the treaty was made, broke it, released
Charles from his oath, and authorised him to begin the war anew.
WANING INFLUENCE OF KING, EMPEROR, AND POPE
This war, which lasted twenty-four years, occupied the whole reign
of Charles II. This prince was milder than his father, but weaker also.
He had neither the stern character of Charles of Anjou, which excited
hatred, nor his talents, which commanded admiration or respect. He
always called himself the protector of the Guelf party, but ceased to be its
champion ; and neither the court of Rome, nor the Guelf republics, any
longer demanded counsel, direction, or support from the court of Naples.
He died on the 5th of May, 1309, and was succeeded by his son Robert.
The influence of the emperors, as protectors of the Ghibelline party, during
this period was almost extinct in Italy. Rudolf of Habsburg, who reigned
with glory in Germany from 1273 to 1291, never passed the Alps to be
acknowledged emperor and king of the Lombards ; after him, Adolphus of
Nassau, and his successor, Albert of Austria — the one assassinated in
1298, the other in 1308 — remained alike strangers to Italy. The Ghibelline
party was, accordingly, no longer supported or directed by the emperors,
but it maintained itself by its own resources, by the attachment of the
nobles to the imperial name, and still more by the self-interest of the cap-
tains, who, raised to the signoria either by the choice of the people or of
their faction, created for themselves, in the name of the empire, a sovereignty
to which the Italians unhesitatingly gave the name of tyranny.
Lastly, the third power, that of the pope, which till then had directed
the politics of Italy, ceased about this time to follow a regular system, and
consequently to give a powerful impulse to faction. Martin IV, whose life
terminated two months after that of Charles I, had always acted as his
creature, had seconded him in his enmities, in his thirst of vengeance against
the Sicilians, and in his efforts to recover his dominion over Italy. But
Honorius IV, who reigned after him, from 1285 to 1287, appeared to have
no other thought than that of aggrandising the noble house of Savelli at
Rome, of which he was himself a member ; after him, Nicholas IV, from
1288 to 1292, was not less zealous in his efforts to do as much for that of
Colonna. His predecessor, Nicholas III, had a few years previously set the
example, by applying all his power as pope to the elevation of the Orsini.
These are nearly the first examples of the nepotism of the popes, who had
hardly yet begun to feel themselves sovereigns. They raised these three great
Roman families above all their ancient rivals ; almost all the castles in the
patrimony of St. Peter, and in the Campagna of Rome, became their prop-
erty. The houses of Colonna, Orsini, and Savelli, to support their nobility,
soon began to traffic in their valour, by hiring themselves out with a body
of cavalry to such as would employ them in war ; whilst the peasants, their
vassals, seduced by the spirit of adventure, and still more by the hope
of plunder, abandoned agriculture to enlist in the troops of their liege lord.
The effect of their disorderly lives was that the two provinces nearest
Rome soon became the worst cultivated and the least populous in all Italy,
although the treasures of Europe poured into the capital of the faithful.
After Nicholas IV, a poor hermit, humble, timid, and ignorant, was raised,
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 115
[1288-1303 A.D.]
in 1294, to the chair of St. Peter, under the name of Celestine V. His
election was the effect of a sudden burst of religious enthusiasm, which
seized the college of cardinals ; although this holy senate had never before
shown themselves more ready to consult religion than policy. Celestine V
maintained himself only a few months on the throne ; all his sanctity could
not serve as an excuse for his incapacity ; and the cardinal Benedict Cajetan,
who persuaded him to abdicate, was elected pope in his place, under the
name of Boniface VIII. Boniface, able, expert, intriguing, and unscru-
pulous, would have restored the authority of the holy see, which during the
latter pontificates had been continually sinking, if the violence of his char-
acter, his ungovernable pride, and his transports of passion, had not con-
tinually thwarted his policy. He endeavoured at first to augment the power
of the Guelfs by the aid of France ; he afterwards engaged in a violent
quarrel with the family of Colon na, whom he would willingly have exter-
minated ; and, finally, taking offence against Philip the Fair, he treated
him with as much haughtiness as if he had been the lowest of his vas-
sals. Insulted, and even arrested, by the French prince, in his palace of
Anagni, on the 7th of September, 1303, Boniface died a few weeks after-
wards of rage and humiliation.
THE REPUBLIC OF PISA
The republic of Pisa was one of the first to make known to the world the
riches and power which a small state might acquire by the aid of commerce
and liberty. Pisa had astonished the shores of the Mediterranean by the
number of vessels and galleys that sailed under her flag, by the succour
she had given the crusaders, by the fear she had inspired at Constantinople,
and by the conquest of Sardinia and the Balearic Isles. Pisa was the first to
introduce into Tuscany the arts that ennoble wealth ; her dome, her baptis-
tery, her leaning tower, and her Campo Santo, which the traveller's eye
embraces at one glance, but does not weary of beholding, had been succes-
sively built from the year 1063 to the end of the twelfth century. These
chefs-d'oeuvre had animated the genius of the Pisans ; the great architects
of the thirteenth century were, for the most, pupils of Nicholas of Pisa.
But the moment was come in which the ruin of this glorious republic was at
hand ; a deep-rooted jealousy, to be dated from the conquest of Sardinia, had
frequently, during the last two centuries, armed against each other the repub-
lics of Genoa and Pisa ; a new war between them broke out in 1282. It is
difficult to comprehend how two simple cities could put to sea such prodig-
ious fleets as those of Pisa and Genoa. In 1282, Ginicel Sismondi commanded
thirty Pisan galleys, of which he lost the half in a tempest on the 9th of Sep-
tember ; the following year Rosso Sismondi commanded sixty-four ; in 1284,
Guido Jacia commanded twenty -four, and was vanquished. &
These repeated losses obliged the Pisans to ask succour from the Vene-
tians, in alliance with whom, in the Levant, they had often beaten the
Genoese. Alberto Morosini, a Venetian, mayor of Pisa, endeavoured to
effect a confederacy, but in vain ; the Venetians chose to remain neutral.
True policy, however, ought to have counselled them to support a power, by
the ruin of which, their determined enemies, the Genoese, increased so much
in strength ; and they had reason enough afterwards to perceive their error.
The last misfortune, instead of discouraging the Pisans, inflamed them still
more with a desire for vengeance ; they made one of their greatest efforts by
116 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1284 A.D.]
arming seventy-two galleys, the command of which was given to Count
Ugolino, already very powerful in Pisa ; the flower of the nobility and Pisan
citizens accompanied it, to which were added other smaller vessels. But
instead of attacking the Genoese fleet, only thirty galleys strong, which were
in Sardinia under the command of Giacaria, and which they might have
easily overpowered, they lost precious time by insulting the city of Genoa,
showing themselves before the port, throwing against it a few mortars,
and challenging the Genoese to battle ; and after these useless bravadoes
returning home.
Pisa Defeated by Genoa near Meloria
Nothing is more valuable in war than season and opportunity. The
Genoese had recalled the army of Giacaria with all expedition from Sardinia
and soon equipped a fleet of eighty-eight galleys with many other smaller
vessels, the command of which was given to Obert Doria. Putting to sea, and
hearing that the Pisan arma-
ment was near Meloria, they
advanced to that port. Do-
ria, fearing that the superior
number of their vessels might
oblige the Pisans to refuse
battle, and retire into har-
bour, advanced with only
fifty-eight galleys, ordering
the division of Giacaria to
remain behind with the re-
maining thirty. The Pisans
accepted battle, which was
fought on the 6th of August
with all the fury and ani-
mosity of two nations seeking
to destroy each other. The
succour which arrived to the
Genoese with Giacaria, and
which jthe Pisans did not ex-
Eect, probably decided the
ate of that day. The galley
upon which was the mayor
of Pisa, Alberto Morosirii,
fought furiously with the
admiral's ship, commanded
by Admiral Doria, who was
joined, however, by other
principal galleys commanded
by Admiral Giacaria. Even
the galley which bore the
great Pisan standard was
taken by the galley called St. Matthew (San Matteo), where were many of
the family of Doria, and by the galley Finale the great standard was torn
and broken down, and the defeat was complete. Twenty-seven Pisan galleys
were taken, and seven sunk ; the remainder, rendered unserviceable, with
the advantage of night they saved themselves in the neighbouring Pisan
port, and with three of these the count Ugolino escaped. The killed
THE BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE
THE THIRTEENTH CENTUKY 117
[1282-1288 A.D.]
amounted to four thousand, and many prisoners, among whom was the son
of Count Ugolino.
These losses with those in anterior battles, amounted to about eleven
thousand, and all of the most considerable persons. This event destroyed
the maritime power of Pisa, which could never again recover itself and as-
sume the rank of her rivals. Many illustrious republics, as ancient and
modern history demonstrate, have risen after the most heavy losses. Pisa,
however, was no longer in this condition, and various causes combined to
prevent her regaining it ; the first of which was the loss of her bravest and
wisest citizens taken prisoners, and whom the Genoese, actuated by a cruel
and useless policy, refused to set at liberty ; and being kept in prison for
nearly fifteen years, or so long as the war lasted, the greater part of them
finished their life in wretchedness.^
Perfidy and Fall of Ugolino
While the republic was thus exhausted by this great reverse of fortune,
it was attacked by the league of the Tuscan Guelfs ; and a powerful citizen,
to whom it had entrusted itself, betrayed his country to enslave it. Ugolino
was count of the Gherardesca, a mountainous country situated along the
coast, between Leghorn and Piombino ; he was of Ghibelline origin, but had
married his sister to Giovan di Gallura, chief of the Guelfs of Pisa and of
Sardinia. From that time he artfully opposed the Guelfs to the Ghibellines ;
and though several accused him of having decided the issue of the battle of
Meloria, others regarded him as the person most able, most powerful by his
alliance, and most proper, to reconcile Pisa with the Guelf league. The
Pisans, amidst the dangers of the republic, felt the necessity of a dictator.
They named Ugolino captain-general for ten years ; and the new commander
did, indeed, obtain peace with the Guelf league ; but not till he had caused
all the fortresses of the Pisan territory to be opened by his creatures to the
Lucchese and Florentines — a condition of his treaty with them which he
dared not publicly avow. From that time he sought only to strengthen his
own despotism, by depriving all the magistrates of power, and by intimidat-
ing the archbishop Roger degli Ubaldini, who held jointly with him the
highest rank in the city. The nephew of Ubaldini, having opposed him
with some haughtiness, was killed by him on the spot with his own hand.
His violence, and the number of executions which he ordered, soon rendered
him equally odious to the two parties ; but he had the art, in his fre-
quent changes from one to the other, to make the opposite party believe
him powerfully supported by that with which he at the moment sided. In
the summer of 1282 the Guelfs were exiled ; but finding in the Ghibelline
chiefs, the Gualandi Sismondi and Lanfranchi, a haughtiness which he
thought he had subdued, he charged his son to introduce anew the Guelfs
into the city. His project was discovered and prevented ; the Ghibellines
called the people on all sides to arms and liberty. On the 1st of July, 1288,
Ugolino was besieged in the palace of the signoria ; the insurgents, unable
to vanquish the obstinate resistance opposed to them by himself, his sons,
and his adherents, set fire to the palace ; and, having entered it amidst the
flames, dragged forth Ugolino, two of his sons, and two of his grandsons,
and threw them into the tower of the Sette Vie. The key was given to
the archbishop, from whom was expected the vigilance of an enemy, but the
charity of a priest. That charity, however, was soon exhausted ; the key
after a few months was thrown into the river ; and the wretched count
118 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1288-1293 A.D.]
perished in those agonies of hunger, and of paternal and filial love, upon
which poetry, sculpture, and painting have conferred celebrity.
The victory over Count Ugolino, achieved by the most ardent of the Ghi-
bellines, redoubled the enthusiasm and audacity of that party, and soon
determined them to renew the war with the Guelfs of Tuscany. Notwith-
standing the danger into which the republic was thrown by the ambition of
the last captain-general, it continued to believe, when engaged in a hazardous
war, that the authority of a single person over the military, the finances,
and the tribunals was necessary to its protection ; and it trusted that the
terrible chastisement just inflicted on the tyrant would hinder any other
from following his example. Accordingly Guido de Montefeltro was named
captain. He had acquired a high reputation in defending Forli against the
French forces of Charles of Anjou ; and the republic had not to repent of
its choice. He recovered by force of arms all the fortresses which Ugolino
had given up to the Lucchese and Florentines. The Pisan militia, whom
Montefeltro armed with crossbows, which he had trained them to use with
precision, became the terror of Tuscany. The Guelfs of Florence and Lucca
were glad to make peace in 1293.
FLORENCE; THE FEUD OF THE BIANCHI AND THE NERI
While the Pisans became habituated to trusting the government to a
single person, the Florentines became still more attached to the most demo-
cratic forms of liberty. In 1282 they removed the anziani, whom they had
at first set at the head of their government, to make room for the priori
delle arti, whose name and office were preserved not only to the end of the
republic, but even to our day. The corporation of trades, which they called
the arti, were distinguished by the titles of major and minor. At first only
three, afterwards six, major arti were admitted into the government. The
college, consisting of six priori delle arti, always assembled, and living
together, during two months, in the public palace, formed the signoria, which
represented the republic. Ten years later, the Florentines completed this
signoria, by placing at its head the gonfalonier of justice, elected also for two
months, from among the representatives of the arts, manufactures, and com-
merce. When he displayed the gonfalon, or standard of the state, the
citizens were obliged to rise and assist in the execution of the law. The
arrogance of the nobles, their quarrels, and the disturbance of the public
peace by their frequent battles in the streets, had, in 1292, irritated the whole
population against them. Giano della Bella, himself a noble, but sympathis-
ing in the passions and resentment of the people, proposed to bring them to
order by summary justice, and to confide the execution of it to the gonfalon-
ier whom he caused to be elected. The Guelfs had been so long at the head
of the republic, that their noble families, whose wealth had immensely in-
creased, placed themselves above all law. Giano determined that their nobil-
ity itself should be a title of exclusion, and a commencement of punishment ;
a rigorous edict, bearing the title of " ordinance of justice," first designated
thirty-seven Guelf families of Florence, whom it declared noble and great,
and on this account excluded forever from the signoria ; refusing them at the
same time the privilege of renouncing their nobility, in order to place them-
selves on a footing with the other citizens. When these families troubled the
public peace by battle or assassination, a summary information, or even
common report, was sufficient to induce the gonfalonier to attack them at the
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 119
[1292-1300 A.D.]
head of the militia, raze their houses to the ground, and deliver their persons
to the podesta, to be punished according to their crimes. If other fami-
lies committed the same disorders, if they troubled the state by their private
feuds and outrages, the signoria was authorised to ennoble them, as a pun-
ishment of their crimes, in order to subject them to the same summary justice.
A similar organisation, under different names, was made at Siena, Pistoia,
and Lucca. In all the republics of Tuscany, and in the greater number of
those of Lombardy, the nobility by its turbulence was excluded from all the
magistracies ; and in more than one, a register of nobles was opened, as at
Florence, on which to inscribe, by
way of punishment, the names of
those who violated the public peace.
However rigorous these precau-
tions were, they did not suffice to
retain in subjection to the laws an
order of men who believed them-
selves formed to rule, and who
despised the citizens with whom
they were associated. These very
nobles, to whom was denied all
participation in the government of
the republic, and almost the pro-
tection and equality of the law,
were no sooner entered into their
mountain castles, than they became
sovereigns, and exercised despotic
power over their vassals. The most
cultivated and wooded part of the
Apennines belonged to the republic
of Pistoia. It was a considerable
district, bordering on the Lucchese,
Modenese, Bolognese, and Floren-
tine territory, and was emphati-
cally designated by the name of the
" Mountain." It was covered with
castles belonging either to the Can-
cellieri, or Panciatichi, the two families most powerful in arms and wealth in
all Italy ; the first was Guelf , the second Ghibelline ; and as the party of the
former then ruled in Tuscany, they had obtained the exile of the Panciatichi
from Pistoia. The Cancellieri took advantage of this exile to increase their
power by the purchase of land, by conquest, and by alliance ; in their family
alone they reckoned one hundred men at arms.&
The Cerchi and the Donati were, for riches, nobility, and the number and
influence of their followers, perhaps the two most distinguished families in
Florence. Being neighbours, both in the city and the country, there had
arisen between them some slight displeasure, which however had not occa-
sioned an open quarrel, and perhaps never would have produced any serious
effect if the malignant humours had not been increased by new causes. It
happened that Lore, son of Gulielmo, and Geri, son of Bertacca, both of the
family of Cancellieri, playing together, and coming to words, Geri was
slightly wounded by Lore. This displeased Gulielmo ; and, designing by a
suitable apology to remove all cause of further animosity, he ordered his son
to go to the house of the father of the youth whom he had wounded, and
DOOR OF THE BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE
120 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1300 A.D.]
ask pardon. Lore obeyed his father ; but this act of virtue failed to soften
the cruel mind of Bertacca, and having caused Lore to be seized, in order to
add the greatest indignity to his brutal act, he ordered his servants to chop
off the youth's hand upon a block used for cutting meat and then said to
him, " Go to thy father, and tell him that sword- wounds are cured with iron
and not with words."
The unfeeling barbarity of this act so greatly exasperated Gulielmo that
he ordered his people to take arms for his revenge. Bertacca prepared for
his defence, and not only that family, but the whole city of Pistoia, became
divided. And as the Cancellieri were descended from a Cancelliere who had
had two wives, of whom one was called Bianca (white), one party was named
by those who were descended from her, Bianca; and the other, by way of
greater distinction, was called Nera (black). Much and long-continued
strife took place between the two, attended with the death of many men and
the destruction of much property; and not being able to effect a union
amongst themselves, but weary of the evil, and anxious either to bring it
to an end or, by engaging others in their quarrel, increase it, they came to
Florence, where the Neri, on account of their familiarity with the Donati,
were favoured by Corso, the head of that family ; and on this account the
Bianchi, that they might have a powerful head to defend them against
the Donati, had recourse to Veri de Cerchi, a man in no respect inferior to
Corso.
This quarrel, and the parties in it, brought from Pistoia, increased the
old animosity between the Cerchi and the Donati, and it was already so
manifest, that the priors and all well-disposed men were in hourly apprehen-
sion of its breaking out, and causing a division of the whole city. They
therefore applied to the pontiff, praying that he would interpose his authority
between these turbulent parties, and provide the remedy which they found
themselves unable to furnish. The pope sent for Veri, and charged him to
make peace with the Donati, at which Veri exhibited great astonishment,
saying that he had no enmity against them, and that as pacification pre-
supposes war, he did not know, there being no war between them, how
peace-making could be necessary. Veri having returned from Rome without
anything being effected, the rage of the parties increased to such a degree
that any trivial accident seemed sufficient to make it burst forth, as indeed
presently happened.
It was in the month of May, during which, and upon holidays, it is the
custom of Florence to hold festivals and public rejoicings throughout the
city. Some youths of the Donati family, with their friends, upon horseback,
were standing near the church of the Holy Trinity to look at a party
of ladies who were dancing ; thither also came some of the Cerchi, like
the Donati, accompanied with many of the nobility, and, not knowing that the
Donati were before them, pushed their horses and jostled them ; thereupon
the Donati, thinking themselves insulted, drew their swords, nor were the
Cerchi at all backward to do the same, and not till after the interchange of
many wounds, they separated. This disturbance was the beginning of great
evils ; for the whole city became divided, the people as well as the nobility,
and the parties took the names of the Bianchi and the Neri. The Cerchi
were at the head of the Bianca faction, to which adhered the Adimari, the
Abati, a part of the Tosinghi, of the Bardi, of the Rossi, of the Frescobaldi,
of the Nerli, and of the Manelli ; all the Mozzi, the Scali, Gherardini, Caval-
canti, Malespini, Bostichi, Giandonati, Vecchietti, and Arrigucci. To these
were joined many families of the people, and all the Ghibellines then in
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 121
[1300-1301 A.D.]
Florence, so that their great numbers gave them almost the entire govern-
ment of the city.
The Donati, at the head of whom was Corso, joined the Nera party, to
which also adhered those members of the above-named families who did not
take part with the Bianchi ; and besides these, the whole of the Pazzi, the
Bisdomini, Manieri, Bagnesi, Tornaquinci, Spini, Buondelmonti, Gianfigliazzi,
and the Brunelleschi. Nor did the evil confine itself to the city alone, for
the whole country was divided upon it, so that the captains of the Six
Parts, and whoever were attached to the Guelfic party or the well-being of
the republic, were very much afraid that this new division would occasion
the destruction of the city, and give new life to the Ghibelline faction.
They therefore sent again to Pope Boniface, desiring that, unless he wished
that city which had always been the shield of the church should either be
ruined or become Ghibelline, he would consider of some means for her relief.
The pontiff thereupon sent to Florence, as his legate, Cardinal Matteo
d'Acquasparta, a Portuguese, who, finding the Bianchi, as the most powerful,
the least in fear, not quite submissive to him, he interdicted the city, and
left it in anger ; so that greater confusion now prevailed than previously
to his coming.
The minds of men being in great excitement, it happened that at a funeral
which many of the Donati and the Cerchi attended, they first came to words
and then to arms, from which however nothing but merely tumult resulted
at the moment. However, having each retired to their houses, the Cerchi
determined to attack the Donati, but, by the valour of Corso, they were
repulsed and great numbers of them wounded. The city was in arms. The
laws and the seigniory were set at nought by the rage of the nobility, and the
best and wisest citizens were full of apprehension. The Donati and their
followers, being the least powerful, were in the greatest fear, and to provide
for their safety, they called together Corso, the captains of the Parts, and
the other leaders of the Neri, and resolved to apply to the pope to appoint
some personage of royal blood, that he might reform Florence, thinking by this
means to overcome the Bianchi. Their meeting and determination became
known to the priors, and the adverse party represented it as a conspiracy
against the liberties of the republic. Both parties being in arms, the seigniory,
one of whom at that time was the poet Dante, took courage, and from his
advice and prudence, caused the people to rise for the preservation of order,
and being joined by many from the country, they compelled the leaders of
both parties to lay aside their arms, and banished Corso Donati, with many
of the Neri. And as an evidence of the impartiality of their motives, they
also banished many of the Bianchi, who, however, soon afterwards, under
pretence of some justifiable cause, returned.
The Pope sends Charles of Valois as Conciliator (1301 A.D.)
Corso and his friends, thinking the pope favourable to their party, went
to Rome, and laid their grievances before him, having previously forwarded
a statement of them in writing. Charles of Valois, brother of the king of
France, was then at the papal court, having been called into Italy by the
king of Naples, to go over into Sicily. The pope, therefore, at the earnest
prayers of the banished Florentines, consented to send Charles to Florence,
till the season suitable for his going to Sicily should arrive. He therefore
came, and although the Bianchi, who then governed, were very apprehensive,
still, as the head of the Guelfs, and appointed by the pope, they did not
122 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1301-1302 A.D.]
dare to oppose him. He had, however, agreed not to seek to acquire sov-
ereign authority over the city, and is said to have pocketed 17,000 florins
to bind the bargain.
Thus authorised, Charles armed all his friends and followers, which step
gave the people so strong a suspicion that he designed to rob them of their
liberty, that each took arms, and kept at his own house, in order to be ready, if
Charles should make any such attempt. The Cerchi and the leaders of the
Bianchi faction had acquired universal hatred, by having, whilst at the head
of the republic, conducted themselves with unbecoming pride ; and this
induced Corso and the banished of the Nera party to return to Florence,
knowing well that Charles and the captains of the Parts were favourable to
them. And whilst the citizens, for fear of Charles, kept themselves in arms,
Corso, with all the banished, and followed by many others, entered Florence
without the least impediment. And although Veri de Cerchi was advised
to oppose him, he refused to do so, saying that he wished the people of
Florence, against whom he came, should punish him. However the contrary
happened, for he was welcomed, not punished by them ; and it behooved Veri
to save himself by flight.
Corso, having forced the Pinti Gate, assembled his party at San Pietro
Maggiore, near his own house, where, having drawn together a great number
of friends and people desirous of change, he set at liberty all who had been
imprisoned for offences, whether against the state or against individuals.
He compelled the existing seigniory to withdraw privately to their own
houses, elected a new one from the people of the Nera party, and for five
days plundered the leaders of the Bianchi. The Cerchi and the other heads
of their faction, finding Charles opposed to them, and the greater part of the
people their enemies, withdrew from the city, and retired to their strong-
holds. And although at first they would not listen to the advice of the pope,
they were now compelled to turn to him for assistance, declaring that instead
of uniting the city, Charles had caused greater disunion than before. The
pope again sent Matteo d'Acquasparta, his legate, who made peace
between the Cerchi and the Donati, and strengthened it with marriages
and new betrothals. But wishing that the Bianchi should participate in
the employments of the government, to which the Neri who were then at the
head of it would not consent, he withdrew, with no more satisfaction nor less
enraged than on the former occasion, and left the city interdicted for
disobedience.
Both parties remained in Florence, and were equally discontented, the
Neri from seeing their enemies at hand, and apprehending the loss of their
power, and the Bianchi from finding themselves without either honour or
authority ; and to these natural causes of animosity new injuries were added.
Niccolo de' Cerchi, with many of his friends, went to his estates, and being
arrived at the bridge of Affrico, was attacked by Simone, son of Corso Donati.
The contest was obstinate, and on each side had a sorrowful conclusion;
for Niccolo was slain, and Simone was so severely wounded that he died on
the following night.
This event again disturbed the entire city ; and although the Neri were
most to blame, they were defended by those who were at the head of affairs ;
and before sentence was delivered, a conspiracy of the Bianchi with Piero
Ferrante, one of the barons who had accompanied Charles, was discovered,
by whose assistance they sought to be replaced in the government. The
matter became known by letters addressed to him by the Cerchi, although
some were of the opinion that they were not genuine, but written and pre-
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 123
[1302 A.D.]
tended to be found by the Donati, to abate the infamy which their party
had acquired by the death of Niccolo. The whole of the Cerchi were however
banished with their followers of the Bianca party, of whom was Dante the
poet, their property was confiscated, and their houses were pulled down. /
Dante was at Siena at the time of the pretended conspiracy. It was decreed
that if he ever returned to his native city he should be burned alive. Another
of the banished was Ser Petracco di Parenzo dall' Incisa, whose son Francesco
Petrarch saw the light in exile. ^ Charles, having effected the purpose of his
coming, left the city, and returned to the pope to pursue his enterprise against
Sicily, in which he was neither wiser nor more fortunate than he had been at
Florence ; so that with disgrace and the loss of many of his followers, he
withdrew to France./
•C
CHAPTER V
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE
[1300-1350 A.D.]
FROM the middle of the twelfth century we have seen nearly all the towns
of northern Italy shake off the imperial yoke. Towards the end of the thir-
teenth the emperor Rudolf, instead of disputing their independence, offered to
sell it to them for money. In the f ranchised communes there could no longer
be any pretension to enslave fellow-citizens, but one could be made of gov-
erning them. Riches became a title for taking part in authority, by reason
of the greater interest which the rich had in the preservation and order of
society. It may be seen that a right derived from wealth is less extended
than one derived from landed property. But in towns there could hardly
be landed property properly so called. One could occupy a house, but not
have those lands which, by their extent, position, and the number of men
cultivating them, give power to their possessor.
Moreover, the privileged classes in towns distinguished themselves from
those in the country by the moderation of their pretensions. The latter
were always seen on horseback, clothed in armour, helmets on their heads,
and bearing arms whose use they reserved to themselves. They always
recalled the fact that their right was founded on their force and valiance.
In towns this apparel could have no use ; riches would bring clients, and
seduction gain friends. Little by little the exercise of authority, in so far
as it was prolonged, happy, and met with favour, became a right to new
marks of confidence, these being the supposed debt of those governed to
those governing, and also supposed in the latter an increase of experience, a
transmission of knowledge, of good rules, and a just ambition to make a name
illustrious.
The success of some lords had excited the ambition of all. But in the
large towns the mass of the population opposed a strong resistance to them.
Milan obliged its patricians to be content with a part of the magistrature.
124
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 125
[1300-1350 A.D.]
After having excited general indignation by taking every office, the Milanese
nobles saw themselves reduced to signing a treaty with the plebeians by
which the latter were admitted to an equal share in all public functions,
from an ambassador's charge to that of public trumpeter. The prouder
ones retired to their castles and revenged themselves for their nullity
by devastating the country. But even these devastations augmented
the strength of the towns — that is, their population. The inhabitants,
dispersed in a country open to ravages from the lords, ran to seek shelter for
their families or goods in a walled city. Lordly feudal tyranny peopled the
towns where so much resentment fermented against it and where increased
industry and riches finally furnished the people the means of crushing these
small tyrants.
When the translation of the holy see to Avignon left Rome to herself,
the tocsin of the Capitol obliged the barons to leave their fortified retreats to
SAN MARCO, VENICE
come and humiliate themselves before the popular tribune, and history shows
us the Savelli, Frangipani, Colonna, and Orsini, standing with bare heads,
in a submissive attitude, subscribing tremblingly to an oath of fidelity to the
" law of good estate " in the hands of an innkeeper. Their palaces were no
longer their refuges, their excess had no more the privilege of impunity.
An attempt to revolt forced them to hear their condemnation as though they
were the lowest criminals and to receive the pardon more humiliating still.
In the greater part of the republics where war demanded a leader, but where
abuse of power had made all the native nobles hateful, the rival factions called
on a foreign magistrate to govern Rome, demanded a head from Bologna and
Venice furnished one to Padua, Pisa, and Milan.
In those states where an unfertile soil tempted but a small part of the
population to agriculture, and offered no great means of power to territorial
lords, these latter saw their influence decrease in proportion as other for-
tunes rose by means of commerce. They had, however, to maintain them-
selves, the resources of the military service and, above all, the faction.
126 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1300-1350 A.D.]
This was the condition of the nobles of Genoa, Pisa, and Florence. When
they tried violently to reseize the power, they were suppressed and punished.
Their fortresses were razed, and hatred against them was carried to an
injustice by depriving them of rights which were common to all.
It was in these commercial towns that the citizens, rapidly enriched by
fortunate enterprise, began to compare themselves with those ancient pos-
sessors of privileges and to claim
a share. A nobility sprang up of
quite different origin from the
first, which disputed its author-
ity, but was disposed, like the
other, to retain and abuse it.
It is seen that the influence of
the privileged classes was modi-
fied according to circumstances.
Lords established in Italy by
right of conquest ceased at the
time of the invasion of the Goths
and other foreigners to be rulers,
and were no more than powerful
vassals when regular monarchies
arose.
When the commons were freed
from the domination of the em-
perors, the feudal lords retained
their power where they had suf-
ficient land to preserve their pre-
eminence. They shared or lost it
from that or other causes, par-
ticularly from commerce, which
brought other means of power to
life which rivalled theirs. When
these two kinds of nobles ceased
to be rivals, they agreed in order
to rule. The hatred of the people
against the nobles hurried towns
under the yoke of some of these
powerful men, who had made it
believed that they sincerely took
the popular side. That is what
cost the republic of Milan her
proud liberty. In Genoa some ambitious nobles took the same means to
preserve influence. The Dorias and Spinolas contracted an alliance with the
people, and aided with feigned zeal in the introduction of democratic forms
into the government. Other republics fell into an excess of distrust. Injus-
tice nourished hatreds and deprived the state of its most illustrious citizens.6
A DOGE OF VENICE
AN EMPEROR ONCE MORE IN ITALY
On the 25th of November, 1308, the diet of Germany named Henry VII
of Luxemburg as successor to Albert of Austria ; and this election suddenly
brought Italy back to the same struggle for her independence which she had
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 127
[1295-1310 A.D.]
so heroically supported against the two Fredericks. From the death of the
second Frederick, fifty-eight years had passed since she had seen an emperor.
Rudolf of Habsburg, Adolphus of Nassau, and Albert of Austria had too
much to do in Germany to occupy themselves with this constantly agitated
country, where they could demand obedience only with arms in their hands.
Henry VII was a brave, wise, and just prince ; but he was neither rich nor
powerful. He secured to his son, by marriage, the crown of Bohemia, which
had excited some jealousy among the Germans ; and he believed it would be
expedient, in order to avoid all quarrel in the empire, to quit it for some
time. To flatter the national vanity, he determined on an expedition to
Italy.
Henry, himself a Belgian, had no power but in Belgium and the prov-
inces adjoining France. From Luxemburg he went through the county
of Burgundy to Lausanne. Here he received, in the summer of 1310, the
ambassadors of the Italian states, who came to do him homage. He entered
Piedmont, by Mont Cenis, towards the end of September, accompanied by
only two thousand cavalry, the greater part of whom were Belgians, Franc-
Comtois, or Savoyards. This force would have been wholly insufficient to
subdue Italy ; but Henry VII presented himself
there as the supporter of just rights, of order, and,
to a certain degree, of liberty.
The lords of all Lombardy and Piedmont came to
present themselves to Henry ; some at Turin, others
at Asti. He received them with kindness, but de-
clared his determination to establish legal order, such
as had been settled by the Peace of Constance, in all
the cities of the empire ; and to name in each an
imperial vicar, who should govern in concert with
the municipal magistrates. Philippone di Langusco,
at Pavia ; Simon da Colobiano, at Vercelli ; William
Brusato, at Novara; Antonio Fisiraga, at Lodi, in
obedience to this intimation, laid down the sovereign
power. At the same time, Henry everywhere re-
called the exiles, without distinction of party; at
Como and Mantua, the Ghibellines ; at Brescia and
Piacenza, the Guelfs ; leaving out, however, the
exiles of Verona, a powerful city, which he did not
visit, and which was governed by Can' Grande della
Scala, the most able Ghibelline captain in Italy, the
best soldier, the best politician, and the person whose
services and attachment the emperor most valued.
The rich and populous city of Milan required also
to be treated with address and consideration. The
archbishop Otto Visconti had retained the princi-
pal authority in his hands to a very advanced age.
But long previously to his death, which took place
in 1295, he had transferred to his nephew, Matteo
Visconti, the title of captain of the people, and had accustomed the Milan-
ese to consider him as his lieutenant and successor. Matteo did, in fact,
govern after him, and with almost despotic power, from 1295 to 1302. He
was also named lord of several other cities of Lombardy ; at the same
time he strengthened his family by many rich alliances. But Visconti had
not the art to conciliate either the remains of national pride, or the love
CORNER OF CHURCH OF SAN
GIOVANNI, VENICE
128 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1293-1311 A.D.]
of liberty which still subsisted among his subjects, or the jealousy of the
other princes of Lombardy. A league to give the preponderance to the Guelf
party in this province was formed by Alberto Scotto, lord of Piacenza, and
by Ghiberto da Correggio, lord of Parma; they forced the Visconti to quit
Milan, in 1302, and installed in their place Guido della Torre and his family,
who had been exiles twenty-five years. When Henry VII presented him-
self before Milan, he found it governed by Guido della Torre and the Guelfs.
Matteo Visconti and the Ghibellines were exiled. Henry exacted their recall;
he was crowned in the church of St. Ambrose, on the 6th of January, 1311,
and afterwards asked of the city a gratuity for his army of one hundred
thousand florins. Till then the Italians had seen in the monarch only a
just and impartial pacificator ; but when he demanded money, the different
parties united against him.
MILAN SEDITIONS; GENOA AND VENICE AT WAR
A violent sedition broke forth at Milan. The Delia Torres and the Guelfs
were forced to leave that city. Matteo Visconti and the Ghibellines were
recalled, and the former restored to absolute power. The Guelfs, too, in the
rest of Lombardy, rose and took arms against the emperor. Crema, Cremona,
Lodi, Brescia, and Como revolted at the same time. Henry consumed the
greater part of the summer in besieging Brescia, which at last, towards
the end of September, 1311, he forced to capitulate. He granted to that
town equitable conditions, impatient as he was to enter Tuscany; but,
although Lombardy seemed subdued to his power, he left more germs of
discontent and discord in it than he had found about a year before.
Henry VII arrived with his little army at Genoa, on the 21st of October,
1311. That powerful republic now maintained at St. Jean d'Acre, at Pera
opposite to Constantinople, and at Kaffa in the Black Sea, military and
mercantile colonies, which made themselves respected for their valour, at the
same time that they carried on the richest commerce of the Mediterranean.
Several islands in the Archipelago, amongst others that of Chios, had passed
in sovereignty to Genoese families. The palaces *of Genoa, already called
the "superb," were the admiration of travellers. Its sanguinary rivalry
with Pisa had terminated by securing to the former the empire of the Tyr-
rhene Sea. From that time Genoa had no other rival than Venice.
An accidental rencounter of the fleets of these two cities in the sea of
Cyprus lighted up between them, in 1293, a terrible war, which for seven
years stained the Mediterranean with blood, and consumed immense wealth.
In 1298, the Genoese admiral Lamba Doria, meeting the Venetian com-
mander Andrea Dandolo at Corzuola or Corcyra the Black, at the extremity
of the Adriatic Gulf, burned sixty-six of his galleys, and took eighteen, which
he brought into the port of Genoa, with seven thousand prisoners, suffering
only twelve vessels to escape. The humbled Venetians, in the next year,
asked and obtained peace. The Genoese, vanquishers in turn of the Pisans
and Venetians, passed for the bravest, the most enterprising, and the most
fortunate mariners of all Italy. The government of their city was entirely
democratic ; but the two chains of mountains which extend from Genoa, the
one towards Provence, and the other towards Tuscany (called by the Italians
Le Riviere di Genoa, because the foot of these mountains forms the shore of
the sea), were covered with the castles of the Ligurian nobles ; the peasantry
were all dependent on them, and were always ready to make war for their
THE FKEE CITIES AND THE EMPIKE 129
[1311-1312 A.D.]
liege lords. Four families were pre-eminent for their power and wealth —
the Doria and the Spinola, Ghibellines ; the Grimaldi and the Fieschi, Guelfs.
These nobles, incensed against each other by hereditary enmity, had disturbed
the state by so many outrages that the people adopted, with respect to
them, the same policy as that of the Tuscan republics, and had entirely
excluded them from the magistracy. On the other hand, they had rendered
such eminent and frequent services to the republic ; above all, they had pro-
duced such great naval commanders, that the people, whenever the state was
in danger, had always recourse to them for the choice of an admiral.
Seduced by the glory of these chiefs, the people often afterwards shed
their blood in their private quarrels ; but often, also, wearied by the continual
disturbances which the nobles excited, they had recourse to foreigners to
CHURCH OF ST. TOMMASO, GENOA
subdue them to the common law. The people were in a state of irritation
against the Ligurian nobles, when Henry VII arrived at Genoa, in 1311 ; and
to oblige them to maintain a peace which they were continually breaking,
the Genoese conferred on that monarch absolute authority over the republic
for twenty years. But when the emperor suppressed the podesta, and then
the abbate or defender of the people, and afterwards demanded of the city
a gift of sixty thousand florins, the Genoese perceived that they needed a
government, not only to suppress civil discord, but also to protect rights
not less precious than peace ; an internal fermentation of increasing danger
manifested itself ; and Henry was happy to quit Genoa in safety, on the 16th
of February, 1312, on board a Pisan fleet, which transported him with about
fifteen hundred cavalry to Tuscany.1
P Hunt says : " Dante tells the feelings which were roused by the coming of the king. He
seemed to come as God's vicegerent, to change the fortunes of men and bring the exiled home ;
by the majesty of his presence to bring the peace for which the banished poet longed, and to
administer to all men justice, judgment, and equity."]
H. W. — VOL. IX. K
130 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1312-1313 A.D.]
HENKY'S CORONATION AND SUDDEN DEATH
Henry VII when he entered Italy, was impartial between the Guelfs and
Ghibellines. He owed his election to the influence of the popes, and he was
accompanied by cardinal legates, who were to crown him at Rome. He had
no distrust either of Robert, then king of Naples, the son of Charles II, or
of the Guelf cities. He had no hereditary affection for the Ghibellines, the
zealous partisans of a family long extinct. He endeavoured, accordingly,
to hold the balance fairly between the two parties, and to reconcile them
wherever he was allowed ; but experience had already taught him that the
very name of elected emperor had a magic influence on the Italians, either
to excite the devoted affection of the Ghibellines, or the terror and hatred
of the Guelfs. It was with the latter that resistance to him had begun in the
preceding year in Lombardy ; and that revolt had burst forth on all sides
since his departure. Robert, king of Naples, who assumed the part of champion
of the Guelf party, already testified an open distrust of him ; and Florence,
which by its prudence, ability, wealth, and courage was the real director
of that party, took arms to resist him, refused audience to his ambassadors,
raised all the Guelfs of Italy against him, and finally constrained him to place
that city under the ban of the empire. The republic of Pisa, on the other
hand, whose affection for the Ghibelline party was connected with its hopes
as well as its recollections, served him with a devotion, zeal, and prodigality
which he had not met elsewhere. The Pisans had sent him, when at Lausanne,
a present of sixty thousand florins, to aid him on his passage to Italy. They
paid his debts at Genoa, and they gave him another present when he entered
their city ; finally, they placed at his disposal thirty galleys and six hundred
crossbow-men, who accompanied him to Rome, where he received the golden
crown of the empire from the hands of the pope's legate, in the church
of St. John Lateran, on the 29th of June, 1312. The Romans, who had
taken arms against him, and had received within their walls a Neapolitan
garrison, kept their gates shut during the ceremony, and would not suffer
one of his soldiers to enter the city.
The coronation of the emperor at Rome was the term of service of the
Germans ; they took no interest afterwards in what was passing, or might
be done in that country. They were anxious to depart ; and Henry found
himself at Tivoli, where he passed the summer, almost entirely abandoned by
his transalpine soldiers. Had the Neapolitan king Robert been bolder,
Henry would have been in great danger. In the autumn, however, the
Ghibellines and Bianchi of central Italy rallied round him, and formed a
formidable army, with which he marched to attack Florence, on the 19th
of September, 1312. The Florentines, accustomed to leave their defence to
mercenaries, whose valour was always ready for pay, made small account of
a military courage which they saw so common among men whom they
despised ; but no people carried civil courage and firmness in misfortune
further. Their army was soon infinitely superior in numbers to that of
Henry ; they carried on with perfect calmness their commerce and negotia-
tions, as if their enemies had already departed for Germany, but they would
not drive them out of their territory by giving battle ; they preferred bearing
patiently their depredations, and waiting till they had worn out their enthu-
siasm, exhausted their finances, and should depart of themselves, which they
did on the 6th of January, 1313, finding they could obtain no advantage.
Henry, after giving some months of repose to his army, took the command
of the militia of Pisa, and made war at their head against Lucca ; at the
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 131
[1313-1316 A.D.]
same time, he solicited from his brother, the archbishop of Treves, a German
reinforcement, which he obtained in the following month of July. On the
5th of August, 1313, Henry VII departed from Pisa, commanding twenty-five
hundred ultramontane and fifteen hundred Italian cavalry, with a propor-
tionate number of infantry. He began his march towards Rome, having been
informed that Robert, called by the Florentines to their aid, advanced with all
the forces of the Guelf party to oppose him. The declining military reputation
of the Neapolitans inspired the Germans with little fear, and Robert had but
a small number of French cavalry to give courage to his army ; but the
priests and monks, animated with zeal in defence of the ancient Guelf party
and the independence of the church, seconded him with their prayers, and
the report soon spread that they had seconded him in another manner and in
their own way. The emperor took the road of San Miniato to Castel Fioren-
tino, arrived at Buon Convento, twelve miles beyond Siena, and stopped
there to celebrate the festival of St. Bartholomew. On the 24th of August,
1313, he received the communion from the hands of a Dominican monk,
and expired a few hours afterwards. It was said the monk had mixed the
juice of Napel in the consecrated cup. It was said, also, that Henry was
already attacked by a malady which he concealed. A carbuncle had mani-
fested itself below the knee ; and a cold bath, which he took to calm the
burning irritation, perhaps occasioned his sudden and unexpected death.
RIVAL EMPERORS; ECCLESIASTICAL DISSENSIONS
The electors of the empire were not convoked at Frankfort to name a
successor to Henry VII till ten months after his death. Ten, instead of
seven princes presented themselves ; two pretenders disputed the electoral
rights in each of the houses of Saxony, Bohemia, and Brandenburg. The
electors, divided into two colleges, named simultaneously, on the 19th of
October, 1314, two emperors ; the one, Ludwig IV of Bavaria ; the other,
Frederick III of Austria. Their rights appeared equal ; their adherents in
Germany were also of nearly equal strength ; the sword only could decide ;
and war was accordingly declared and carried on till the 28th of September,
1322, when Frederick was vanquished and made prisoner at Miihldorf.
The church abstained, while the civil war lasted, from pronounc-
ing between the two pretenders to the empire. Clement V did not
witness their double election ; he died on the 20th of April, 1314. It was
necessary, two years afterwards, to use fraud and violence, to confine the
cardinals in conclave at Lyons, for the purpose of naming his successor.
They at last elected the bishop of Avignon. He was a native of Cahors,
the devoted creature of King Robert of Naples, and took the name of John
XXII. He was the first who made Avignon, which was his episcopal town,
the residence of the Roman court, exiled from Italy. He was an intriguer,
notoriously profligate, scandalously avaricious ; he fancied himself, however,
a philosopher, and took a part in the quarrel between the realists and
nominalists; he made himself violent enemies in the schools, on the members
of which he sometimes inflicted the punishment of death. While he used
such violence towards his adversaries as heretics, he shook the credit of the
court of Rome, by being himself accused of heresy. His great object was
to raise to high temporal power the cardinal Bertrand de Poiet, whom he
called his nephew, and who was believed to be his son. For that purpose
he availed himself of the war between the two pretenders to the empire,
132 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1313-1322 A.D.]
regarded by him as a prolongation of the interregnum, during which he
asserted all the rights of the emperors devolved on the holy see. He charged
Cardinal Bertrand to exercise those rights as legate in Lombardy, crush the
Ghibellines, support the Guelfs, but above all, subdue both to the authority
of the church and its legate.
The cardinal Bertrand de Poiet launched his excommunications and em-
ployed the soldiers whom his father had raised for him in Provence, particularly
against Matteo Visconti, lord of Milan, one of the most able and powerful
of the Ghibelline chiefs. Visconti made himself beloved by the Milanese, whom
he had always treated with consideration. Without being virtuous, he had
preserved his reputation unstained by crime. His mind was enlightened.
To a perfect knowledge of mankind, he added quick-sightedness, prompt de-
cision, and a certain military glory, heightened by that of four sons, his
faithful lieutenants, who were all distinguished among the brave. The
Italians gave him the surname of Great, at a period when, it is true, they were
prodigal of that epithet. Matteo Visconti, in his war with the Lombard
Guelfs, took possession of Pavia, Tortona, and Alessandria. He besieged,
in concert with the Genoese Ghibellines, Robert king of Naples, who had
shut himself up in Genoa, desirous of making that city the fortress of
the Guelfs of Lombardy. Visconti compelled the retreat of Philip of Valois,
who, before he was king, had entered Italy at the solicitation of the pope,
in 1320.
The following year he vanquished Raymond de Cardona, a Catalonian,
and one of the pope's generals ; he persuaded Frederick of Austria, who had
sent his brother to aid the pope, to recall his Germans, making him sensible it
could suit neither of the pretenders to the empire to weaken the Ghibellines,
who defended in Italy the interests of whoever of the two remained con-
queror. But, after having made war against the church party twenty years,
without ever suspecting that he betrayed his faith, for he was religious with-
out bigotry, age awakened in him the terrors of superstition ; he began
to fear that the excommunications of the legate would deprive him of salva-
tion ; he abdicated in favour of his eldest son Galeazzo, and died a few
weeks afterwards, on the 22nd of June, 1322. The remorse and scruples of
Matteo Visconti had carried trouble and disorder into his own party, and
gave boldness to that of his adversaries. A violent fermentation at Milan
at length burst forth; Galeazzo was obliged to fly, and the republic was
proclaimed anew ; but virtue and patriotism, without which it could not
subsist, were extinguished ; and after a few weeks Galeazzo was recalled,
and reinvested with the lordship of Milan.
The two parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, since the death of Henry
VII, no longer nearly balanced each other in virtue, talents, and patriotism.
In the beginning of their struggle, there were almost as many republics
on one side as the other ; and sentiments as pure and a devotion as generous
equally animated the partisans of the empire and of the church. But, in
the fourteenth century, the faction of the Ghibellines had become that of
tyranny — of the Guelfs that of liberty. The former displayed those great
military and political talents which personal ambition usually develops. In
the second were to be found, almost exclusively, patriotism, and the heroism
which sacrifices to it every personal interest. The republic of Pisa alone, in
Italy, united the love of liberty with the sentiments of the Ghibelline party.
This republic had been thunderstruck by the death of Henry VII at a moment
when a career of glory and prosperity seemed to open on him. Pisa, exhausted
by the prodigious efforts which she had made to serve him, was true to her-
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 133
[1313-1320 A.D.]
self, when all the Guelfs of Tuscany rose at once, on the death of Henry, to
avenge on her the terror which that monarch had inspired. She gave the
command of her militia to Uguccione da Faggiuola, a noble of the moun-
tainous part of Romagna, which, with the March, produced the best soldiers
in Italy. The Pisans, under the command of Faggiuola, obtained two
signal advantages over the Guelfs. They took Lucca, on the 14th of June,
1314, while the Lucchese Guelfs and Ghibellines were engaged in battle in the
streets of that city ; and, on the 29th of August of the same year, they
defeated, at Montecatini, the Florentines, commanded by two princes of the
house of Naples, and seconded by all the Guelfs of Tuscany and Romagna.
But the Pisans soon perceived that they were fighting, not for themselves, but
for the captain whom they had chosen. Almost immediately after his victory,
he began to exercise an insupportable tyranny over Pisa and Lucca. Fear-
ing much more the citizens of these republics than the enemies of the states,
he, on the slightest suspicion, employed the utmost severity against all
the most illustrious families. At Lucca, he threw into a dungeon Castruccio
Castracani, the most distinguished of the Ghibelline nobles, who had recently
returned to that city with a brilliant reputation, acquired in the wars of
France and Lombardy. A simultaneous insurrection at Lucca and Pisa, on
the 10th of April, 1316, delivered these cities from Uguccione da Faggiuola
and his son.<*
The Pisans put Uguccione's partisans to death, and gave the government
to Count Gaddo della Gherardesca. This news arrived at Lucca when the
Lucchese were tumultuously demanding the liberty of Castruccio. Uguccione
not daring to oppose the general wish, Castruccio was taken from prison and
presented to the public loaded with chains. At this spectacle the people
grew still more furious ; Uguccione was obliged to fly ; and the chains being
taken off Castruccio, the latter, by a rare good fortune, was declared lord of
Lucca on the very day which had been destined for his death, e
CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI
Castruccio was the scion of a Ghibelline stock, and was devoted to the
Ghibelline cause ; for four years successively he was freely elected to com-
mand the Lucchese with almost sovereign power. He knew men and how
to govern them ; knew what enmities to despise or punish, and what friend-
ships to win and retain. As a daring soldier and skilful general he was be-
loved by the troops, for he was not blind to merit and knew how to reward
it, but cared little about the morality of his followers if they only did their
duty and quietly submitted to the rigid discipline that he established and
enforced. No man was more beloved by the people or more generally popu-
lar with every class of citizen ; they admired his talents and were proud of
his fame. In 1320 he felt so confident of his position in the public mind that
he ventured to expel the Avocati, who with about 180 great Guelfic families
now bid adieu to their country, and then boldly demanded the supreme
authority ; out of 210 senators there was but one voice against him, and the
people unanimously confirmed this election. He was therefore a legitimate
ruler. His economical management of the public revenue was exemplary and
productive ; he had amassed great treasure, and his system of military hon-
ours and rewards heightened and improved the warlike spirit of the people
until it had acquired a more professional character. All the neighbouring
predaceous chiefs were allured to his standard by the hope of future con-
134 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1320-1321 A.D.]
quests, and rough and unscrupulous as they were he made them all bend to
his discipline.
Thus prepared on every hand to begin that career of ambition to which he
felt himself more than equal, Matteo Visconti's proposal was warmly received,
and Philip of Valois' expedition with the ready assistance of the Guelfic
league were together considered an infringement of the general peace, or at
least a sufficient excuse for retaliation on the part of the Ghibellines.
Uguccione Faggiuola was dead, a circumstance that heightened the anxiety
of both Castruccio and the Florentines, particularly the latter, whose dread
of this veteran chief, blinding them as it did to the dangerous ambition of
his successor, had never ceased since the disaster of Montecatini.
Such was the state of affairs in April, 1320, when Castruccio Castracani
with some Pisan auxiliaries suddenly occupying Cappiano, Montefalcone,
and the bridges of the Gusciano, broke into the Florentine territory carry-
ing death and devastation as far as Cerreto Guidi, Vinci, and Empoli ; then,
getting possession of Santa Maria a Monte by treachery, returned in triumph
to Lucca. Afterwards, invading Lunigiana and Garfagnana, he dispossessed
Spinetto Malespina of several places necessary for his own military opera-
tions and then marched with all his force to aid the siege of Genoa. This
city still maintained a fierce and bloody struggle with its own exiles and the
Lombard Ghibellines ; war raged not only round the walls but through-
out the whole Riviera, or coast district ; it extended to Sicily and Naples
and involved even more distant countries in its action, so that the siege of
Troy itself, as Villani d asserts, was hardly equal to it for heroic deeds,
marvellous exploits, and hard-fought battles by land and water, without any
cessation either in summer or winter.
The Florentines determined to prevent a junction that would probably
have settled the fate of Genoa, therefore made a powerful diversion in the
Lucchese states which compelled Castruccio to return ere he had joined the
besiegers ; avoiding an action they retreated to the frontier at Fucecchio
while the enemy halted in front of Cappiano, both armies remaining nearly
inactive until the advancing season drove them into winter quarters. To
make amends for this inglorious campaign, more vigorous measures were pur-
sued and an alliance was concluded with the marquis Spinetto Malespina,
who, although a Ghibelline, had been too much injured by Castruccio on
account of his friendship for Uguccione not to seize the first opportunity of
revenge. Florentine troops were despatched to his aid, yet Castruccio was
not apprehensive of anything in that quarter, but prepared with the help of
a powerful body of Lombard Ghibellines for a more serious struggle on the
side of Florence and soon marched to raise the siege of Monte Vettolini at
the head of sixteen hundred men-at-arms. The Florentines, having only half
that number, immediately retired and allowed him to devastate their terri-
tory with impunity for the last twenty days of June, after which he retired
to chastise the Malespini in Lunigiana.
Discontent ran high in Florence and the retiring seigniory were much cen-
sured for their feeble conduct ; the Agubbio faction was still powerful, and
probably the inconvenience of a fluctuating administration was beginning to
be felt, as the foreign affairs with a more complex character embraced a wider
circle; to remedy this, twelve counsellors, two for each sesto under the
denomination of " Buonuomini " were added to the new seigniory, but to con-
tinue six months in office instead of two, and without whose sanction nothing
important could be undertaken. To check also the increasing intimacy, and
consequent favouritism between citizens and foreign officers of state, which
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 135
[1321-1323 A.D.]
led to great abuse, it was decreed that no stranger who brought a kinsman in
his suite could have a place in the commonwealth, and that until ten years
from his resignation of office he could not be re-elected. Some taxes were
then reduced, the gold and silver currency reformed, and preparations made
for a fresh campaign. Azzo of Brescia was appointed captain-general ;
one hundred and sixteen knights and one hundred and sixty mounted cross-
bow-men were enlisted and under the command of Jacopo da Fontana soon
checked Castruccio's incursions so as to protect the line of the Gusciana.
But Philip of Valois' expedition had in the meanwhile failed, and in Lom-
bardy the'Tuscans were defeated at Bardo in the Val-di-Taro, their captain
the marquis of Cavalcabo was killed, Cremona recaptured, and Visconti
everywhere victorious.
In Florence one of the first public measures in 1321 was to complete the
whole circuit of public walls and strengthen it by flanking towers fifty-five
feet high at regular intervals of more than one hundred and eighty feet
apart; a work that was doubtless accelerated by their apprehension of
Castruccio, which had now taken a more alarming character from some
recent proceedings at Pistoia.
This ever-vexed city, harassed by external war and inward troubles,
finally elected the abbate da Pacciana de' Tedici, a tool of Castruccio, as their
ruler ; he was a weak intriguing man who, catching at a popular opinion,
was suddenly floated into power by the stormy multitude without ballast
enough to steady him. Castruccio made good use of him, and a truce was
suddenly concluded with that leader against all the influence of Florence,
by which, according to Villani d (though unnoticed by the anonymous author
of the Istorie Pistolese),/ an annual tribute of three thousand florins was to
be paid by Pistoia. The dread of Castruccio was rapidly and generally
spreading.
FLORENCE MENACED
He fortified Lucca, and prepared to invade Florentine territory. The
Florentines sent a strong detachment of troops into Lombardy on condition
that in the following summer the Genoese and other Guelfic powers were to
attack Lucca on every side and annihilate the rising power of Castruccio.
Scarcely had an army been assembled for this purpose, when intelligence
arrived that their principal condottiere, Jacopo di Fontanabuona, had passed
over with all his following to the enemy ; he had been commissioned to
make himself master of Buggiano and other places by treachery, but failed,
and soon after joined Castruccio with two hundred men-at-arms.
Castruccio with this reinforcement and the possession of his enemy's secrets
crossed the Gusciano on the 13th of June, 1323, attacked Fucecchio and other
places, ravaged the surrounding country, then passed the Arno, devastated
the territory of San Miniato and Montepopoli with all the vale of Elsa,
and marched quietly back to Lucca. On July 1st he suddenly reappeared
in front of Prato, only ten miles from the capital, with six hundred men-at-
arms and four thousand infantry ; the citizens sent in terror to Florence for
help, but paralysed by Fontanabuona's treachery she was nearly destitute
of regular troops. The citizens however had not quite forgotten the use of
arms, and their spirit was still high ; the shops were immediately closed,
a candle was placed at the Prato gate, and every individual liable to serve
summoned to the ranks ere it burned out, under the penalty of losing a
limb ; a proclamation being issued to announce that all exiles who instantly
136 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1322-1324 A.D.]
joined the army would be pardoned and restored to their country. By these
prompt measures, twenty-five hundred men-at-arms and twenty thousand
infantry were in the field round Prato on the 2nd of July, only one day
after Castruccio's appearance, four thousand of whom were exiles !
Castruccio's rash advance with so small a force might have ended disas-
trously if the Florentines had been well commanded ; but he retired in the
night and made an unmolested retreat to Serravalle, the discord in the Flor-
entine camp, an offset from civil dissension, having saved him. Thus ended
this singular campaign in which the army scarcely saw an enemy, but which
brought back danger and revolution to the state. The Florentines now
added three subalterns (pennoniere) to each urban company, so that the whole
force became infinitely more flexible and divisible and better adapted to real
service.
He soon recommenced his successful incursions, but was generally too
weak to oppose the united strength of Florence ; the moral effect of his
character was however very imposing in both states and nothing was too
SAN MINIATO, FLORENCE
daring either for his arms or conscience. His Ghibelline allies the Pisans
were deeply engaged in war with the king of Aragon for the defence of
Sardinia, which offered him a favourable occasion as he thought of becoming
their master ; the conspiracy was however discovered ; the conspirator Betto
or Benedetto Malepra de' Lanfranchi with many others lost his head; all
friendship or alliance with Lucca was renounced by Pisa, and 10,000 golden
florins were offered for the head of Castruccio. About two months after-
wards he suddenly left his capital at the head of a small detachment on the
19th of December, and by the treachery of an inhabitant of Fucecchio was
admitted at night into the town during a deluge of rain, which at first con-
cealed his aggression; the subsequent struggle was fierce and bloody; a
great part of the place was taken, but alarm fires on the towers brought
strong reinforcements from the neighbouring garrisons ; Castruccio held on
with desperate resolution against an overwhelming force of soldiers and
citizens until, wounded, fatigued, and hopeless of success, he sullenly retired
with the loss of banners and horses, but still unmolested ; for the glory of
repulsing him was deemed sufficient, and the habitual dread of his prowess
left no appetite for a second encounter.
Nothing of importance occurred between Castruccio and the Florentines
in the following year, for the former was busy with his intrigues against Pisa
and Pistoia, and the latter employed reducing some petty chieftains in the
Mugello, but still more seriously on the side of Arezzo where the bishop was
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIKE 137
[1324-1325 A.D.]
rapidly gaining ground against the Guelfs. Five hundred men-at-arms were
engaged in France, and other preparations making for the day of battle which
the Florentines foresaw must come before Castruccio could be arrested in the
rapid course of his ambition ; a new confederacy was therefore formed in
March between Florence, Bologna, Siena, Perugia, Orvieto, and Agubbio;
with other communities and Guelfic lords, for the recovery of Citta di Cas-
tello, which was to be effected by a combined army of three thousand men-
at-arms levied for three years, a great part of which was maintained by the
Florentines.
Castruccio meanwhile had moved towards the Pistoian Mountains, and
repairing the castle of Brandelli, whence there was a view of both Pistoia and
Florence, called it Bellosguardo and gazed with a longing eye on either city.
One was only his own in perspective, the other was almost in his grasp ; and
Filippo Tedici, who had driven his uncle from the government of Pistoia,
and was in treaty with Castruccio and Florence, pretending the greatest
alarm, demanded assistance of the latter, with whose aid he hoped to better
his bargain. A body of troops was directly sent under command of the
podesta, but discovering his object, this officer returned in disgust; upon
which he made his terms with Castruccio, and Pistoia was suffered for a
while to exist as an independent state. Florence had attempted to gain it
by treachery but failed, and Castruccio, tired of Filippo's intrigues, offered
him 10,000 florins and his daughter Dialta in marriage for immediate posses-
sion of the city. This secured Filippo, who before daylight on the 5th of
May, 1325, opened a gate to the Lucchese general ; but the latter distrusting
his ally would not enter until he had actually unhinged it, and then took
possession of the place in the manner of the time by scouring the streets at
the head of his cavalry and trampling upon all that came in his way.
The fall of Pistoia was an event of great importance ; equally distant
from Florence and Lucca and on the confines of both, it formed a rallying-
point for the armies of either, and its friendship or enmity had considerable
influence on every operation of the war ; hence the eagerness of Florence
at all times to preserve her authority there, and hence the general consterna-
tion when intelligence of its capture arrived at the capital.
THE FLORENTINE AEMY UNDER RAYMOND OF CARDONA
She might have bought it for the same price or even less than Castruccio,
because Filippo felt himself too insecure not to make both friends and money
by the sacrifice of his country ; but failing, either from want of skill or
perhaps dishonesty in her agents, she repeated her attempts to surprise the
place, thus forcing him into the arms of Castruccio, and he poisoned his own
wife to complete the union. Rumours of this event reached Florence while
the magistrates were engaged in public festivities on the occasion of two for-
eign officers of state being dubbed knights by the republic, and the banquet
was going on in the church of San Piero Scheraggio when the news was con-
firmed. In a moment the whole assembly fell into confusion, the tables were
overturned, and every man was immediately armed and in his saddle ; believ-
ing that a part of the town might still hold out, a rapid march was made as far
as Prato, where hearing the whole truth they returned dejected and mortified
to Florence. The following day brought some consolation in the arrival of
Raymond of Cardona, who had been sent in the preceding November from
Milan on a mission to Rome ; he had promised to return, but was absolved
138 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1325 A.D.]
by the pope and sent instantly to Florence as commander-in-chief of the
republican forces. His presence gave new spirit to the people, which was
increased by the capture of Artimino on the 22nd of May.
One of the finest armies ever assembled by the republic soon took the
field at the enormous expense of 3000 florins a day ; the city bells tolled as a
declaration of war ; the public standard waved over San Piero a Monticelli ;
the soldati or mercenary troops first moved to Prato, and the cavallate with
all the mass of civic infantry joined them on the following morning. One of
the city bells which had been captured at Montale broke while in the act
of sounding; three weeks before there had been a violent earthquake in
Florence, and the following evening a broad stream of fiery vapour flared
over the city. All these circumstances were dwelt upon with anxious and
gloomy foreboding by numbers of citizens over whose mind the talents
THE PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE
and success of Castruccio had gained a superstitious ascendency. The
cavalry consisted of 500 gentlemen of the highest rank in Florence under
the name cavallate or men-at-arms on horseback, all magnificently equipped
and a hundred of them mounted on destrieri, the largest and finest war-
horses of the time and which few could afford to purchase ; none cost less
than 150 golden florins [nearly £200 or $1000], yet there were 300 of these,
natives and strangers, in the Florentine army. Besides the cavallate there
were 1500 foreign cavalry in the pay of Florence, of whom 800 were French
and German gentlemen of the highest rank and distinction ; the general-
in-chief, Raymond of Cardona, a Spanish condottiere, and his lieutenant,
Borneo of Burgundy, were followed by a troop of 230 Catalan and Burgun-
dian cavalry, and lastly there were 450 Gascons, French, Flemings, Italians,
and men of Provence picked with great care from the veteran companies
of Masnadieri, and all experienced soldiers. Fifteen thousand well-ap-
pointed infantry, between citizens and rural troops, completed the personal
force of this fine army, and 800 canvas pavilions and other great tents,
with 6000 ronzini and baggage horses attended its movements.
With the exception of 200 Sienese cavalry no allies had yet joined, but
hostilities commenced on the 17th of June by devastating the Pistoian terri-
tory up to the gates of the capital, capturing many small places, insulting
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 139
[1325 A.D.]
Castruccio, who was in that city, by running for the Palio under its walls,
and sending him repeated challenges to battle. Castruccio dryly answered
that it was not the right time, and the Florentines marched directly to
besiege Tizzano, a strong town about seven miles from Pistoia on the road
to Florence ; there every preparation was apparently made for a regular
siege, while Cardona on the 9th of July sent his lieutenant Borneo with
500 picked men towards Fucecchio; and to engage Castruccio's atten-
tion a strong detachment was at the same time directed to alarm Pistoia
and the surrounding country. Borneo was joined at Fucecchio by 150
Lucchese exiles and a numerous infantry, besides some reinforcements from
the garrisons in Val d'Arno. Carrying with him a pontoon bridge, appa-
rently the first noticed by the early historians of these campaigns, he threw
it silently over the Gusciana at Rosaiuolo during the night, and the whole
division crossed that river without being perceived by the garrisons at the
bridge of Cappiano or Montefalcone, scarcely a mile above and below the
point of passage.
RAYMOND TEMPOEISES
On hearing this, Raymond suddenly quitted Tizzana, passed the lofty
range of Monte Albano, and by nightfall had joined his detachment and
invested the fortified bridge and fortress of Cappiano. This was an unex-
pected stroke for the Lucchese general, who believed himself safe in that
quarter, and would appear to have doubted the possibility of so sudden a
passage of the Gusciana by any soldiers; so that this operation increased
the fame of Cardona, the confidence of the league, and the spirit of the
Florentines. His frontier line being thus broken, Castruccio immediately
quitted Pistoia, and entering the Val di Nievole threw his army in position
amongst the hills above Vivinaia, which he endeavoured to strengthen while
he pressed for the co-operation of all his friends; Pisa disregarded this
summons in consequence of his recent treachery ; but from Lucca, Arezzo,
La Marca, Romagna, and the Maremma he assembled thirteen hundred
men-at-arms and a numerous infantry, with which he reinforced all his
positions from Vivinaia to Porcari, strengthening the latter with additional
works and troops to secure his communications with Lucca ; and finally cut
a trench from the hills to the marsh of Bientina which was guarded with
the utmost solicitude.
The bridge of Cappiano was taken by Cardona on the 13th of July ; the
town itself next fell; two days after, Montefalcone was summoned and
reduced in eight days, and thus the whole line of the Gusciana was cleared
of the enemy. This rapid success brought numerous reinforcements from
Siena, Perugia, Bologna, Agubbio, Grosseto, Montepulciano, Chiusi, Colle,
San Gimignano, Volterra, San Miniato, Faenza, Imola, Count Battifolle,
and the exiles from Lucca and Pistoia; all eager to assist in overwhelm-
ing this formidable chieftain ; so that the army had already swelled to 3454
men-at-arms and a proportionate number of infantry. With this immense
force Cardona advanced, and on the 3rd of August invested the strong for-
tress of Altopascio, which crowns a hill rising from the marshes north of the
Bientina Lake ; the place, although impregnable to an assault, was so dam-
aged by the battering engines and so poisoned by heat, sickness, and the
horrid stench of filthy matter which it was then usual to cast into besieged
towns, that on hearing of the discomfiture of a Lucchese detachment sent from
Pistoia to make a diversion towards Florence it immediately surrendered.
140 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1325 A.D.]
The capture of this place was succeeded by doubts, discussion, and delay;
the troops had become sickly from heats and malaria, and the army propor-
tionably reduced ; discontent and intrigues were plentiful, and Castruccio,
quick in the use of corruption, seized the favourable moment to bribe two
Frenchmen of high rank, but was detected and baffled. Car dona himself,
although proof against Castruccio's temptations, was false and ambitious ;
he had seen Florence in periods of distress repeatedly surrender her liberties,
and determined by getting her into difficulties to try if he also could not be-
come her master ; the fall of Altopascio elated him, his pockets were filled
and his camp emptied by the bribes of rich citizens who, tired of a long cam-
paign and alarmed at increasing sickness, cheerfully exchanged their money
for leave of absence and the pleasures of the capital. The cavalry, being
generally composed of these, was reduced along with the rest of the army to
almost half its original number, and Cardona wished this ; for his thoughts
ran high, and hence his delays, discussions, and repeated demands to be in-
vested with the same power in the city that he already exercised in the army ;
in order, as he said, to insure the necessary obedience. But finding that the
government would not listen to his request, he lay idle amongst the Bientina
marshes while Castruccio, with the eyes and activity of a lynx, strained
every nerve to catch him in his toils, and succeeded ; so that he who at first
neglected the means of victory through bad faith, was at last through inca-
pacity unable to save himself from destruction. Dissension arose both in
the camp and city about the propriety of withdrawing the army to a more
healthy quarter or boldly pushing on to Lucca ; the most cautious advised
the former course from a suspicion of the general's views and the state of the
troops ; but their opponents prevailed both in camp and council, some
of them even favouring Cardona's wildest speculations. It was therefore
resolved to advance towards Lucca; but instead of cutting through the
enemy's position while he was weak, by a direct movement, as might have
been effected, a bad unhealthy post was occupied on the edge of the Sesto
marsh, which decimated the troops while it still more augmented the gains
of the general.
A BRILLIANT SKIRMISH
Castruccio did not fail to profit by this delay, although his army also had
decreased from want of funds and sickness, and therefore could not long
maintain its position without reinforcements, but he discovered in that of
the enemy the seeds of certain victory. By reason, money, and promises he
had already prevailed on Galeazzo Visconti to send his son with eight hun-
dred horse into Tuscany ; and with two hundred more from Passerino, lord
of Mantua and Modena, he hoped soon to recover his ascendency; in the
meanwhile his situation was very precarious, for Cardona by a vigorous effort
might have cut his line of communication ; the latter, now sensible of his
errors and probably urged by the general discontent, had actually detached
a hundred men-at-arms and a body of pioneers to clear a passage over
the mountain. Castruccio's outposts soon checked their progress and were
followed by a stronger body then descending the hill in order of battle;
skirmishing began, and voluntary reinforcements pushed out unordered from
the Florentine camp below. It was entirely an encounter of cavalry ; the
green slopes of the hills were covered with armed and plumed knights,
the whole scene resembled a tournament rather than a real battle and the
effect is described as beautiful. Each party was broken four different times
THE FKEE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 141
[1325 A.D.]
and each reuniting in compact order returned unconquered to the charge;
many lances were shivered, many gentlemen unhorsed, and arms and wounded
and expiring men lay scattered on the mountain side. The Florentines with
only half its numbers for three hours sustained and repulsed the charges of
Castruccio's chivalry, and might have finally prevailed if they had been well
supported ; but Cardona in complete order of battle looked on inactively, his
troops cooped up in a narrow angle of the plain below whence they could not
move without incurring danger. This did not escape Castruccio who there-
fore pushed boldly on with augmenting numbers and, though unhorsed by a
German knight, wounded, and some of his bravest followers slain, by night-
fall had succeeded in driving the enemy back to their entrenchments in face
of a much superior army.
Forty men-at-arms were either killed or taken on the side of Florence,
and many wounded, but all in front ; for the Florentines did not turn, but
battled proudly and retreated sullenly, more angry with their own com-
mander than with the enemy ; they made no prisoners but must have smote
well in the conflict, for no less than a hundred of their opponents' horses had
galloped to the plain with empty saddles from the field of battle.
THE BATTLE OF ALTOPASCIO
The trumpets of either host answered each other in defiance until after
dark, and neither choosing to own a defeat both remained under arms long
after night set in ; but the Florentines lost their spirit from that day's fight
and no longer trusted either in the faith or talents of their general. Cas-
truccio, being anxious to keep the Spaniard in his difficult position, directed
the governors of several towns in the Val di Nievole to entangle him in a
fictitious intrigue with the expectation, of their surrender, and Cardona, thus
duped, notwithstanding every warning, chose to continue in this state of
vain inactivity.
On hearing of Azzo Visconti's arrival at Lucca with eight hundred men-
at-arms he took fright and hastily retreated to Altopascio, whilst Castruccio,
apprehensive of his escape, hurried back to the capital to accelerate the march
of the Lombards. Visconti was so unwilling to proceed without repose or
money that it required all the influence of Castruccio's wife, seconded by the
blandishments of the most beautiful women in Lucca and the payment of
6000 florins, to gain his promise of marching on the following morning;
Castruccio then departed, leaving to the women the care of keeping the
young Milanese chieftain to his engagement. On the morning of the 23rd
of November the allied army paraded ostentatiously in front of Castruccio's
position, with flying colours and sound of many trumpets, daring him as it
were to battle, and the latter fearful of losing such a moment sent out some
troops to amuse them with a prospect of victory while he kept his main body
in hand awaiting the junction of Visconti. This was completed at nine in
the morning, when Castruccio was seen once more descending from the hills
with three-and-twenty hundred men-at-arms in majestic movement towards
the plain, while the greater part of his infantry remained in the mountain
and took no part in the events of this day. An advanced squadron of 150
French and Italian gentlemen began the fight by a bold charge directly
through Visconti's line ; but the second line or main body of Feditori, con-
sisting of seven hundred horsemen under Borneo of Burgundy who had been
corrupted by Azzo or Castruccio, turned when it was time to charge and fled
142 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1325 A.D.]
from the encounter. The whole army, whose confidence was already shaken,
were confounded and some others began to fly ; but had Raymond promptly
moved forward to the support of his first line which had charged so effec-
tively, the battle might still have been maintained on equal terms ; instead of
which he remained motionless and added to the general consternation.
Presently the main body of cavalry, scarcely tarrying to exchange a single
lance-thrust, hurried off in universal confusion, leaving everything to the
infantry who still maintained their ground with undaunted courage ; but
neither their arms nor discipline was calculated to stand alone against such
masses of man and steel as came successively upon them, and after an obsti-
nate resistance they also were discomfited. The battle lasted but a short
time, few were killed in the fight but many in the pursuit, for Castruccio
instantly sent on a detachment to Cappiano, took possession of the bridge
which had already been abandoned, and cut off all direct means of
escape. The slaughter was therefore considerable but uncertain ; the pris-
oners, amongst whom were Raymond of Cardona and his son, were numer-
ous ; the carroccio, the martinella, with all the public standards, banners,
and baggage of the army, were taken ; Cap-
piano and Montefalcone soon capitulated,
and Altopascio not many days after. Thus
did the tide of fortune turn and bear forward
Castruccio to prouder hopes and higher dig-
nities. On the 27th of September his whole
army assembled at Pistoia and was rein-
forced by that garrison, while Castruccio in
all the confidence of victory dismantled the
bridge and forts of Cappiano and Monte-
falcone, and secure in the possession of Pis-
toia left the rest of his frontier open to the
Florentines, whose territory he ravaged for
nearly seven weeks without interruption.
Policy and necessity dictated this course,
for his funds were exhausted, Azzo Visconti
was still unsatisfied, and the army in arrears
of pay ; so that nothing but the plunder of
Florentine citizens could supply his present
necessities. Carmignano was his first con-
quest ; he then marched to Lecore, to Signa,
Campi, Brozzi, and Guaracchi ; all were cap-
tured or fell a prey to flames and plunder ;
Peretola, within two miles of Florence, be-
came for a while his headquarters, while
from the Arno to the mountains he ravaged
all the plain, a plain covered, then as now,
but more richly, with magnificent villas and
beautiful gardens, the delight of the citizens
and the admiration of the world. All was
destroyed. The wealth was plundered, the
monuments of then reviving art were car-
ried away and reserved for the conqueror's triumph. Games were celebrated
and races run on the very spot time out of mind reserved by the Florentines
for their public spectacles. A course of horsemen began the sports ; that of
footmen followed ; and afterwards, to make the insult still more disgusting,
ITALIAN SOLDIER OF THE FOURTEENTH
CENTURY
THE FKEE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 143
[1325 A.D.]
a bevy of common prostitutes ran together in mockery, deriding the impo-
tence of the Florentines, not one of whom had the courage to come forth
and check these insulting spectacles. Yet the city was full of troops, and
thousands had escaped from the fight, but the star of Castruccio shed its
influence over them ; their spirit was subdued, their courage wasted, and
distrust of those great families whose kinsmen were prisoners to Castruccio,
lest they should treat with him secretly, completely distracted their judg-
ment. After another course of devastation the invaders reassembled on the
26th of October and repeated their insults to please Azzo Visconti, who thus
revenged a similar proceeding of the Florentine auxiliaries, not long before,
under the walls of Milan.
Castruccio next occupied Signa, as it gave him command of the Arno at
this point with a free entrance into the Val di Pesa and all the southern
country ; he therefore reinforced and strengthened it, coined silver money
there with the imperial image as an act of high sovereignty, and passed them
current under the name of Castruccini.
CASTRUCCIO ADDS INSULT TO INJURY
Florence was during this time in a painful state of suspicion and dismay;
LI the prisoners' kinsmen were regarded with distrust and deprived of office
>oth within and without the city; half the Contado was a desert, its starving
ibitants huddled together in the capital where a wide-spreading mortality
ras the natural consequence. Deaths were so frequent that the public crier,
/•hose business it was to proclaim the decease of a citizen according to ancient
;ustom, was prohibited from exercising his calling during the continuance of
" malady. Every precaution was adopted to secure the city; the walls were
mgthened, San Miniato a Monte was fortified, and even the citadel of
"iesole repaired from mere apprehension of Castruccio, who threatened
restore it and beleaguer Florence ; and this he probably would have
Lone had not the bishop of Arezzo and the Ubaldini from incipient jealousy
if used to lend their assistance. Fearful of internal war, all exiles but the
jgular Escettati of 1311 were restored to their country on payment of a trifling
impost ; assistance was demanded from King Robert and the allies, but with
Lttle success, for through terror of Castruccio only Colle and San Miniato
edesco answered the call. King Robert afterwards sent some trifling aid ;
>ut still Florence did not despair, and a bold attempt was made to cut off
astruccio's whole army in a pass of the Val di Marina near Calenzano.
lew taxes were imposed to the annual amount of 180,000 florins beyond the
>rdinary revenue ; levies were made in Mantua and in Germany ; Monte
uoni and other important posts were fortified to protect the district ; yet
the middle of all this danger two hundred cavalry were magnanimously
lespatched to Bologna, which was sorely pressed, and its army soon after
Lefeated at Monteveglio by Passerino lord of Mantua, with the assistance of
LZZO Visconti and his followers, fresh from their Tuscan victories.
But this Milanese chief, ere he finally quitted Tuscany, offered a parting
isult to Florence by holding public games in the very bed of the Arno. He
len returned with 25,000 florins as his share of the general plunder, while
Castruccio, loaded with prisoners and booty, resolved to enter his capital in
triumph like a Roman conqueror.
The fame of this event attracted a crowd of spectators from all parts of
Italy, eager to witness the revival of an ancient ceremony but more eager
144 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1325 A.D.]
to behold a hero whose reputation had already become familiar to the world.
On the 10th of November, being the festival of St. Martin, Castruccio made
this triumphal entry into Lucca ; not in a car, but on a magnificent courser,
and at some distance from the gates a solemn procession of the clergy, no-
bility, and almost all the women of exalted rank in the city received him like
a royal personage. At the head of his procession were the prisoners of least
note with uncovered heads, and arms crossed upon the breast, stooping as it
were in humble supplication for the mercy of their emperor ; next came the
Florentine carroccio rolling heavily along, drawn by the same oxen and
decked with the same trappings they had borne in the field, and overhung by
the reversed and now degraded standard of that republic. Then followed
other Florentine banners, those of the Guelf party and the kings of Naples,
with flags and pennons of inferior note, and various communities, all trailing in
the dirt and as it were sweeping the path of the conqueror. Immediately after
this mortifying spectacle walked the same chiefs who had so often borne these
flags to victory. Here Raymond of Cardona also had full leisure to contem-
plate the effects of his own dishonesty; and the gallant Urlimbach, a German
knight who had unhorsed Castruccio, could also muse on the instability of
fortune, as despoiled of arms and spurs he swelled the train of the victor. A
multitude of noble captives followed in this insulting procession, which was
closed by Castruccio and his legions in all the pride and insolence of victory.
But nothing mortified the prisoners so much as being compelled to bear large
waxen torches as offerings to St. Martin, the tutelar saint of Lucca and dear
to her troops because of the Bacchanalian license usual at his festival on pre-
tence of tasting the various flavours of the new-made wines, and because the
saint himself had once been a soldier.
FLORENCE IN DESPAIR CALLS ON THE DUKE OF CALABRIA
Thus bearded at their very gates, insulted, ridiculed, the country a desert,
Signa occupied by the enemy, Prato at his mercy, Montemurlo still unsuc-
coured and ready to fall, the Bolognese army, their only bulwark against
Lombardy, defeated, their best chieftains prisoners, their army diminished,
their expenses increased, their allies daunted, death raging within the city
and destruction without, all things adverse to them, and fortune courting
their enemies — under such a pressure the people at last gave way, and despair
once more compelled them to a temporary surrender of their independence.
Charles duke of Calabria was therefore, and perhaps not unexpectedly, offered
the lordship of Florence for ten years on certain conditions.
It was decreed that the prince should remain for thirty months consecu-
tively within the Florentine state, or at war in the enemy's dominions, and
the three succeeding summer months in addition should hostilities continue.
That in time of war he was to maintain one thousand transalpine cavalry
and have an annual allowance from the republic of 200,000 golden florins ;
half that sum in peace, with the obligation of maintaining only 450 men-at-
arms. If in time of peace the duke wished to be absent, he was bound to
appoint a lieutenant of the blood royal or of some other great and powerful
family ; also to nominate a vicar for the administration of justice, who was
not to alter any part of the government, but on the contrary defend arid
maintain the priors and gonfalonier, the executor of the ordinances of
justice, and the sixteen chiefs of companies. This decree, which passed
on the 23rd of December, 1325, was despatched with a solemn embassy to
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 145
[1325-1326 A.D.]
Naples and finished the transactions of that unfortunate year, widen began
so brightly for the Florentines.
Until the dictator's arrival Florence gave the chief command of her army
to Pierre de Narsi, a French knight of exalted rank who was made prisoner at
Altopascio ; he had just been ransomed,
and smarting under the indignity of Cas-
truccio's triumph sought revenge and dis-
tinction ere he was compelled to relinquish
his brief and hazardous dignity. Not being
able to save Montemurlo which, after a cour-
ageous resistance, honourably capitulated on
the 8th of January, he exerted himself less
worthily by trying to raise insurrections
at Signa and Carmignano, and even at-
tempting the life of Castruccio. But his
effort came to nothing.
CHARLES AND HIS ARMY
The duke of Calabria was detained for
some months, but on the 30th of July he
entered Florence followed by eleven hun-
dred men-at-arms, one hundred of whom
were knights of the Golden Spur. He was
lodged in the podesta's palace from whence
the seat of justice was purposely, perhaps
derisively removed, and formally acknow-
ledged as lord of the Florentine Republic.
It was the mark of misfortune, the stigma
of disgrace ; yet it excited the admiration of
Italy ; for Italy beheld the Florentine people,
masters only of a small and not a very fruit-
ful territory, after their repeated misfor- A FLORENTINE ClTIZEN OF THE FouR.
tunes, after so many defeats, such reverses TEENTH CENTURY
and so much treasure lost — nay, at the very
moment when they seemed to totter on the very brink of ruin, suddenly rise
in their strength and like a giant refreshed with wine, by the power of their
own resources as it were, command the service of so great a prince, and an
army such as had never before been seen in Florence !
There were no less than two thousand men-at-arms assembled, most of
them belonging to the highest ranks of society, independent of the cardinal
legate's court and followers which were far from trifling ; and without reckon-
ing the Florentine chivalry or a single knight of the Guelfic confederacy.
So vast a development of national resources was the more remarkable because
at this very time the ancient bank of the Scali and Amieri, which had already
endured for 120 years with undiminished reputation, failed for the enormous
sum of 400,000 florins, which being for the most part due in the city of
Florence shook the republic to its centre and, excepting bloodshed, was
considered equally ruinous with the battle of Altopascio itself.
The several contingents of the Guelfic league were afterwards summoned,
and increased this fine army to 3450 men-at-arms besides the Florentine
cavallate, never less than five hundred men, and a selection of some of the
H. W. VOL. IX. L
146 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1326 A.D.]
best and bravest infantry in Tuscany. Sixty thousand florins were immedi-
ately raised by a partial and extraordinary tax on the richest citizens, and
every diligence was used by the Florentines to insure success ; yet this great
army remained entirely passive, and they had the mortification to see their
time and treasure idly wasted by him to whom they had surrendered their lib-
erties in the expectation of a very different result. Seeing that nothing
was to be expected from him, the Florentines contented themselves with
fortifying Signa and the opposite town of Gangalandi in order to protect
the agricultural labourers, and then quietly awaited the movements of both
their masters. Castruccio had already driven Spinetto Malaspina from his
dominions in Luiiigiana and compelled him to take refuge with the protec-
tor of all unfortunate exiles, Cane della Scala; but the duke of Calabria
tempted him once more to try his fortune by the invasion of that province
while he with the Florentine army marched on Pistoia. Both these plans were
executed and with more hope of success because the towns of Mammiano and
Gavignana in the mountain of Pistoia had just revolted. Castruccio was not
much alarmed, and though very ill, reduced both places in the middle of a
severe winter, baffled the Florentine army which attempted in vain to relieve
them, and finally compelled it to return in disgrace to the capital; then
turning suddenly on Spinetto, once more drove him into exile.
Thus failed the first dilatory attempt of this brilliant army, and Florence
became more desponding than ever ; those that formerly used to tremble at
the formidable name of Uguccione now acknowledged that he was only a
sudden and startling noise, but that Castruccio was the thunderbolt itself
which had stricken and consumed their country. The citizens were now
utterly distracted and knew not where to turn, such was the confusion and
so great the waste of men, money, and credit occasioned by his uncommon
abilities and continual success; for in the midst of all Castruccio's good
fortune he had never, it was said, committed a rash or hazardous act ; every
event was calculated, few mistakes made, and victory attended him as his
shadow.
To prevent the people of Lunigiana from revolting he destroyed all their
fenced towns and augmented his army with the garrisons ; the works of Mon-
tale near Pistoia were dismantled, and Montefalcone shared the same fate ;
for he used to say that those strongholds were the best which could make
long marches and keep themselves near or distant according as they were
wanted. The awe which his character impressed on the Guelfic lords of
Italy caused Robert to be blamed for opposing the inexperience of his son to
the power of so accomplished a general and exposing the descendant of a line
of illustrious princes to the disgrace of being killed, defeated, or made pris-
oner by a simple gentleman of Lucca. Such was the " form and pressure of
the time " ! In consequence of this, as was supposed, Charles had instruc-
tions to tell the Florentines that unless they would consent to take eight
hundred of his foreign cavalry into the pay of the confederacy he must return
to Naples. This unexpected demand and infringement of every compact,
after all their exertions, astonished the citizens ; but there was no help and
30,000 florins were added to the 450,000 they had already thrown away upon
the duke of Calabria, because few of the allies would submit to the extortion.
Yet this was not all, and, as if to deride their weakness, he at the capricious
request of the duchess repealed some of their sumptuary laws, the solemn
decrees of the state, to which the citizens held with extreme tenacity ; and
they had the mortification to see their wives and daughters in the midst of
the country's misery, when they should rather have been clothed in mourning
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 147
[1322-1326 A.D.]
for her slaughtered citizens, puffed up with such excess of vanity as to adorn
their heads, says Villani,^ with " long tresses of white and yellow silk instead
of hair, which they wore in front ; this decoration, because it displeased
the Florentines as immodest and unnatural, they had already taken from the
females and had made laws against it and other disorderly ornaments ; but
thus the inordinate appetite of women overcame the good sense of men."
THE GHIBELLINES CALL ON LUDWIG OF BAVARIA
The Lombard Ghibellines, seeing so formidable a display of Guelfic power
together with the more intimate union between the church and Naples, in
spite of Castruccio's success could not help feeling that their cause was
in jeopardy, and therefore determined to support it by the imperial power ;
Parma and Bologna had already given themselves to Rome, the bishop of
Arezzo was excommunicated and deposed ; and besides Florence and Siena,
San Miniato, Colle, San Gimignato, and Prato had made Charles their lord,
the last even in perpetuity. This great ex-
tension of power gave the house of Anjou
command over the greater part of Italy, and
therefore no time was lost in despatching an
embassy to implore the " Bavarian " (as Lud-
wig was called by those who did not wish to
be anathematised) to meet the Italian Ghibel-
lines or their ambassadors at Trent for the
purpose of considering the best means of
exalting the imperial dignity.
Until the year 1322 Ludwig of Bavaria
had been so occupied in struggling for the
crown with his rival Frederick of Austria
that he had no leisure to meddle with the
peninsula ; but the decisive battle of Miihl-
dorf, in which four thousand men-at-arms
were killed in repeated charges on the field,
and Frederick of Austria was made prisoner,
left him at liberty to employ himself in for-
eign politics and turn his attention towards
Italy. Pope John XXII, whom he informed
of the victory at Miihldorf , not having before
decided on the candidate he meant to support,
received the letter of Ludwig as his friend,
and promised to aid him in the consummation
of peace ; but when the pontiff heard of the
assistance afforded to his worst enemy, the ex-
communicated Galeazzo Visconti, in 1323,
and of the Bavarian's having compelled Ray-
mond of Cardona, the papal general, to raise
the siege of Milan, his anger exceeded all
bounds. He insisted that as pope he was the
only legitimate ruler of the empire during a vacancy, the only judge between
two competitors ; and until his decision was known no king of the Romans
could exist ; it was, he said, a grave offence against God, and a palpable
contempt of the church to have exercised the powers of royalty without its
A FLORENTINE OF THR UPPER CLASSES,
FOURTEENTH CENTURY
148 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1323-1327 A.D.]
sanction, and protected its enemies, especially Galeazzo Visconti and his
brothers who had been declared heretics by the definitive sentence of a com-
petent tribunal. Ludwig was therefore excommunicated, and again more
solemnly in March, 1324, when he was also declared incapable of ever
ascending the imperial throne. Frederick while in prison had been visited
by Ludwig and treated with so much and such unusual generosity that he
acknowledged him as emperor and was immediately liberated, ever after
remaining his ally and intimate friend. Germany was then pacified, the
pope's intrigues there were all baffled, and the emperor prepared to visit
Italy, to confirm his imperial dignity by a public coronation, and revenge
himself on the pontiff.
In this disposition an invitation from the Italian Ghibellines was pecul-
iarly well-timed, especially as Ludwig, weakened by long wars, remained
without money, and Italy was always considered as an inexhaustible mine
of treasure by transalpine nations. He therefore repaired to Trent about
the middle of February where he was met by Azzo and Marco Visconti of
Milan, Cane della Scala of Verona, Passerino Buonacossi of Mantua, Renaldo
marquis of Este^ the bishop of Arezzo, and ambassadors from Frederick of
Sicily, Castruccio Castracani, the exiles of Genoa and all the other Ghibel-
lines. Here the pope was declared heretical by a considerable body of the
clergy and solemnly excommunicated, ridiculed, and defied ; the imputation
was not new, for this ambitious and mercenary pontiff was a zealous asserter
of his own infallibility, wished to dictate absolutely to the church, and had
made enemies of large bodies of the clergy — amongst others, of the Francis-
can or minor friars, who insisted on Christ's poverty and therefore, follow-
ing his example, condemned all property in churchmen as preposterous and
unbecoming. These monks had been bold enough to denounce John as
heretical and excommunicated, upon which he burned some of them and
deprived others of the little they possessed conforming to their own maxims;
other causes had made other enemies amongst the secular clergy ; so that
Ludwig found himself zealously supported by a powerful body even in the
church, and it was unanimously declared that as Christ had no property all
priests who had were enemies to his sacred poverty.
SUCCESSES OP COUNT NOVELLO
A conspiracy against the life of Castruccio failing in its purpose, another
excommunication of Ludwig and Castruccio, with all their adherents, was sol-
emnly pronounced on the great festival of the patron saint of Florence by
Cardinal Orsini ; and immediately afterwards a noble army of twenty-five hun-
dred horse and twelve thousand infantry under Count Novello encamped at
Signa for three days on purpose to perplex the enemy ; but suddenly quitting
this, they moved on Fucecchio and, crossing the Gusciana by a bridge of boats
previously prepared, appeared before Santa Maria a Monte.
This was the strongest fortress in Tuscany, but at that time somewhat
weakened, because Castruccio had withdrawn a part of its garrison to
strengthen Carmignano, the supposed object of attack, and had left but five
hundred veterans with the people's aid to defend it. Novello stormed and
took this fortress and gave its people over to indiscriminate slaughter. He
then attacked Artimino, which Castruccio had fortified so strongly as to appre-
hend no danger in that quarter. But flushed with his late victory, Novello
at once gave the assault which was renewed for three days successively, the
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE
149
[1327 A.D.]
last battle continuing without intermission from noon until night-fall; when,
all the palisades and one of the gates being burned, the garrison, with the
fate of Santa Maria before their eyes, surrendered on the 27th of August.
Count Novello wished to proceed and carry Tizzana and Carmignano in the
same manner, but Ludwig being now close to Pontremoli, he and his troops
were ordered back to Florence.
It was now about thirteen months since the duke of Calabria had entered
that city with the finest army that its vast resources had ever produced, and
500,000 florins had been expended on him by the community ; yet, saving the
capture of Santa Maria and Artimino, nothing had been done; wherefore
the people became justly discontented, though compelled to suppress their
ill-humour from a sense of present danger and the threatening progress of
the emperor.
LUDWIG COMES TO ITALY
Ludwig was crowned at Milan on the 31st of May by the excommuni-
cated Aretine prelate, the archbishop of Milan having refused to perform
this office ; but whether from a delay in the promised supplies accompanied
by an insolent message from Galeazzo Visconti, as Villani avers, or from the
complaints of Marco, Lodrisio, and Azzo Visconti against Galeazzo's
tyranny, or from suspicion of an attempt to poison
the emperor, — as the sudden death of Stef ano Vis-
conti after tasting his drink, led others to sup-
>se, — it is certain that on the 20th of July
raleazzo's brothers, Lucchino and Giovanni, and
his son Azzo were arrested along with that prince
himself, and closely imprisoned ; the strong castle
of Monza being given up to Ludwig as the price of
ie latter's safety. This revolution was effected
at the public council of Milan after Visconti's Ger-
man troops had been seduced ; an imperial vicar and
twenty-four citizens were immediately appointed to
>vern the city thus suddenly restored to apparent
idependence, and 50,000 florins were granted to
the emperor. This decided conduct pleased the
Milanese and Guelf s as much as it alarmed the other
Lombards, because it was Visconti himself that had
brought Ludwig into Italy and he was the first to
experience that monarch's ingratitude.
A diet afterwards assembled near Brescia where
jveral new bishops were created and about 200,000
lorins collected from the Ghibelline states of Lom-
bardy ; Ludwig then crossed the Po near Cre-
mona, and with two thousand men-at-arms marched
through Parma, passed the mountains without any
opposition from the papal troops stationed in those
parts, and halted at Pontremoli on the 1st of Sep-
tember, 1327. Here he was received by Castruccio, but refused to sojourn
at Lucca until Pisa, which had determined to shut her gates upon him, had
been reduced. This city was at once invested. The siege lasted a month,
and the city might have baffled Ludwig, but fresh discord, the curse of these
licentious republics, caused it to be surrendered on condition that neither
A TUSCAN OFFICER
150 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1327 A.D.]
their own exiles, nor Castruccio, nor any of his people should be admitted
into the town ; that their form of government should remain inviolate, and
60,000 florins be paid into the imperial treasury. On the llth of October
Ludwig entered Pisa, and three days after, the citizens, of their own accord
but principally through fear of the populace, destroyed the capitulation and
admitted both Castruccio and the exiles, while they threw themselves and their
country on the emperor's mercy. Justice was well administered, but dearly
purchased by a contribution of 160,000 florins — enormous at any time, but
peculiarly so at a moment when the Sardinian War and final loss of that prov-
ince had reduced the whole community to the verge of ruin, and when, only
a few days before, 5000 florins could not be demanded without the danger of
revolution ; so badly governed, or so short-sighted and capricious were the
people.
CASTRUCCIO GOES TO ROME
After the settlement of Pisa, Ludwig and Castruccio repaired to Lucca,
where the more powerful spirit of the latter was made manifest in its imme-
diate ascendency and influence over his guest, whose splendid reception
Castruccio followed up by a present of 50,000 florins; both chiefs then
proceeded to Pistoia, from whose heights Castruccio pointed out the plain
and towers of Florence, and showed the easy access which the possession of
the one gave him to the territory of the other.
Returning to Lucca for the feast of St. Martin, the emperor took that
opportunity of publicly placing on the head of Castruccio the ducal circle,
investing him with the states of Lucca, Pistoia, Volterra, and the bishopric
of Luni, conferring on him the privilege of quartering the royal arms of
Bavaria with his own, besides an unscrupulous donation of the Pisan towns
of Serrezzano, Rotina, Montecalvole, and Pietra Cassa. The ceremony of
receiving the ducal coronet from an emperor's hands, Castruccio's great
power, talents, and influence, and the universal feeling that this title would
not long continue vain and empty, but become in substance as in name the
first dukedom in Italy since the time of the ancient Lombards, altogether
imparted a solemn and imposing character to the transaction which increased
the apprehensions of every Italian Guelf ; nor was the Ghibelline Pisa less
anxious or discontented to see four of her walled towns quietly made over
to Castruccio as a coronation gift — an earnest, as it seemed to be, of her
own destiny.
The duke of Calabria, knowing that Castruccio was unwillingly com-
pelled to follow Ludwig, who resumed his march towards Rome on the 15th
of December, also prepared to quit Florence, leaving Philip Sanguineto
with a thousand men-at-arms as his vicar. At a public feast he took leave
of the Florentines, promising to return when the kingdom of Naples should
be safe, and departed on the 27th of December, the same day that Castruccio
by another road marched from Lucca to join the imperialists.
Charles governed despotically, like every ruler of that age ; for liberty
then consisted in the privilege of being eligible to govern and choose gov-
ernors, rather than in being governed well ; and although in doing so he
tyrannically condemned a citizen of rank who with as much reason as inso-
lence opposed the grant of a subsidy to King Robert, thereby proving that
freedom no longer existed in Florence, yet he made himself a favourite with
the citizens by great personal urbanity and his endeavours to reconcile pri-
vate feuds, together with considerable liberality and a generally impartial
K
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 151
[1327-1328 A.D.]
administration of justice. On the other hand, he was unpopular from his
inactive, unwaiiike character, and the excessive cost of his maintenance ;
this, according to Villani, who was employed in auditing the accounts,
amounted in nine months to 900,000 florins ; but as the greater part was
circulated within the town, although a highly taxed
people necessarily worked twice for the same money,
it was still accompanied by great activity and some
outward appearance of prosperity.
The emperor's arrival at Viterbo was immedi-
ately felt in Rome, where a contest had previously
arisen between Stefano Colonna seconded by Napo-
leone Orsini, who adhered to King Robert ; and his
own brother Sciarra Colonna, Jacobo Savelli, and
Tebaldo di Santa Stazio, captains of the people ;
the first two had been expelled; for Castruccio's
arts and Ghibelline ducats had been long at work
in that factious city which the pontiff's absence at
Avignon left in a state of continual agitation. It
was generally governed by an oligarchy headed by
the pope's ministers and those of the king of Naples ;
by the Colonnas, Savelli, and Orsini; with occasional
bursts of the most furious democracy ; the senator
administered justice ; a council of fifty-two members
nominally formed the government and was presided
over by the prefect of Rome, two or three captains of
the people along with the senator being elected by the
popular voice. The Ghibelline chiefs sent privately
to Ludwig, desiring that no heed should be given to
the Roman ambassadors, who wished to settle the
terms on which he was to be received, but that he
should march directly to Rome ; with this hint Cas-
truccio, who was appointed to answer the embassy,
immediately ordered the trumpets to sound to horse,
saying courteously, " This is the emperor's answer."
These messengers were detained, and Ludwig, sud-
denly appearing before the city, surprised the disaffected, confirmed the
doubtful, and gave spirit to his adherents. He was crowned on the 16th
of January, 1328.
During these transactions Benedetto da Orvieto, the duke of Calabria's
judicial vicar, arrived at Florence, where the citizens still found resources to
complete the walls south of the Arno and erect the present Roman gate so as
to secure that quarter of the town, which had been endangered by Castruccio's
late inroads on the Val di Greve. Neither was the duke's lieutenant Philip
Sanguineto inclined to sleep ; by means of two Guelfic citizens of Pistoia,
friends of Simone della Tosa, well acquainted with the weak points of that
city, a plan was laid to surprise it and successfully executed. Having accu-
rate measures of the walls and ditches, Sanguineto, with six hundred men-at-
arms, the two Pistoians, and Simone della Tosa, but no other Florentine,
repaired by night to Prato ; he was there joined by two thousand infantry
with the requisite besieging engines, ladders, and bridges, and continuing
his march arrived under the weakest point of the Pistoian capital before
daylight. The ditch was frozen hard enough to allow one man in armour
to pass at a time, and thus a hundred men-at-arms gained the ramparts,
MARBLE BOOK HOLDER FROM
PISTOIA (1250 A.D.)
152 THE HISTOBY OF ITALY
[1328 A.D.]
unperceived until the officer of the night visited the guards with his patrol ;
a short conflict then took place, the officer and patrol were put to death ;
but an alarm was given, the garrison was immediately under arms, and the
whole city in confusion.
During this time bridges had been thrown over the ditch and engines set
to work at the wall which, with the assistance of some friends within, was per-
forated sufficiently to allow of a man-at-arms leading his horse through; the
assailants were soon united and an obstinate conflict followed with various
success until broad daylight, when the Florentines succeeded in overcoming
all opposition, and then, driving their enemy from the strong but as yet unfin-
ished citadel, continued the plunder of Pistoia for eight successive days. This
event was known at Rome only three days afterwards and raised Castruccio's
anger against Ludwig for compelling him to leave Tuscany. He instantly
set off with five hundred horse and a thousand cross-bowmen, and taking the
Maremma road pushed eagerly forward with only twelve followers ; after
some days, travelling through a very dangerous country, Castruccio reached
Pisa on the 9th of February, where he soon contrived by intrigue and influ-
ence to acquire supreme authority — a tolerable compensation for the loss of
Pistoia.
CASTRUCCIO'S NEW CONQUEST; HIS SUDDEN DEATH
While Castruccio was steadying himself in the government of Pisa, San-
guineto and the Florentines were in high disputation about putting their
recent conquests into a proper state of defence ; the former insisting that he
had done his part in capturing the town, while the citizens maintained that
the duke was bound to discharge such expenses from his salary. The alter-
cation continued and Pistoia remained unvictualled ; but the Florentines,
having gained some trifling advantages, grew as careless and confident as if
fortune had never left their arms, while Castruccio hurried on his prepara-
tions for recapturing the neglected place. Nevertheless the Pisans and even
his former adherents, now disliking his arbitrary sway, offered their city to
Ludwig ; he, fearful of alienating Castruccio, referred them to the empress,
by whom it was accepted and her vicar immediately despatched to take the
reins of government. Castruccio was not thus to be despoiled ; he received
the officer respectfully, but scoured the city with his horsemen in the manner
of the age as a mark of sovereignty ; then dismissed the imperial lieutenant
loaded with gifts and caused himself to be elected and proclaimed absolute
lord of Pisa for two years.
Thus master of new and abundant resources, he lost no time in profiting
by the disputes at Florence, and immediately invested Pistoia with a thou-
sand men-at-arms and numerous infantry; the place was strong, encompassed
by a double ditch, and defended by Simone della Tosa with a sufficient gar-
rison besides many Guelfic citizens. There was a protecting force at Prato
only ten miles off and within sight of its signals, so that if the town had been
well provisioned it might have withstood all Castruccio's efforts until sick-
ness compelled him to retreat. This chief, who had remained at Pisa to
complete his preparations, joined the army on the 30th of May bringing
strong reinforcements, and surrounded the town with a palisaded ditch and
lines of circumvallation. Here he resolved to remain ; nor did all the Flor-
entine stratagems succeed in turning him from his purpose, not even when
they collected a formidable army of twenty-six hundred men-at-arms and for
three days successively defied him to battle, which he constantly pretended
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 153
[1328 A.D.]
to accept, while he only strengthened his camp with additional trenches, fresh
palisades, and wide-branching abbati.
Seeing no chance of provoking him, the allies changed their position, and
attacked the strongest point of his entrenchments with as little skill as suc-
cess, instead of cutting off his supplies by Serravalle, which he would have
been unable to prevent without a battle.
Sanguineto fell sick and had moreover quarrelled with some of the con-
federate chiefs, so that he deemed it best to retire and make a diversion
elsewhere, leaving a strong convoy at Prato ready to succour the place when
a fair occasion offered. On the 28th of July, after delivering another for-
mal challenge which Castruccio was too sagacious to accept, the confederated
army drew off towards Prato and thence marched in two divisions, one by
Signa and the Gusciana to threaten Lucca, the other by the left bank of the
Arno, which destroyed Pontadera and carried the rampart and Fosso Arnon-
ico by storm. This was a great canal and breastwork excavated and fortified
with towers by the Pisans in 1176, both as a national bulwark and an outlet
for the superfluous waters of the Arno, of which river some have supposed
it to be one of the three branches mentioned by Strabo. Thus was opened
all the Pisan territory ; San Casciano and Sansavino soon fell and Pisa saw
herself insulted at her very gates with perfect impunity. Castruccio never-
theless remained immovable ; he calculated on starvation and the moral
effect of seeing a superior army retire without accomplishing anything, and
accordingly on the 3rd of August Pistoia surrendered to sixteen hundred
men-at-arms and the usual force of infantry, in face of an army of nearly
double these numbers.
Thus victorious he returned in triumph to Lucca, more powerful, more
dreaded, and more formidable than before ; none of his important enterprises
ever failed and Italy had not beheld such a captain for centuries. Lord of
Pisa, Lucca, Lunigiana, and much of the eastern Riviera of Genoa, and mas-
ter of three hundred walled towns, he was either courted or dreaded by every
Italian prince from the emperor downwards. But Florence was in terror at
his very name ; and Galeazzo Visconti the once powerful lord of half Lom-
bardy, who had been released by the emperor in the preceding March at Cas-
truccio's intercession, now served under his standard as a private individual.
Visconti soon after expired at Pescia from the effects of a fever engendered
by the labours of the Pistoian siege, and it was fatal to more than him : even
Castruccio's hour drew near ; for the same fever, the consequence of his per-
sonal fatigues, was rapidly consuming him also. He feared the emperor's
resentment for the usurpation of Pisa and would have made peace with
Florence, but was too much mistrusted and therefore failed. ' The malady
increased ; he informed those about him that he was going to die and that his
death would be the signal for great revolutions ; then, taking the necessary
precautions to insure his three sons the quiet succession of his three great
cities, and charging them to conceal his death until they were secure, he
expired on the 3rd of September, 1328, in the forty-seventh year of his age
and the twelfth of his rule over Lucca.
ESTIMATES OF CASTRUCCIO
Tegrimi & his biographer says that Castruccio was a cruel avenger of his
own wrongs ; but as personal vengeance, never justifiable, assumes in princes
a more sharp and bitter aspect, it would be difficult to say whether his conduct
154 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1328 A.D.]
to his subjects merited the name of severity or cruelty. With the soldiers he
was universally popular, and in speaking to them his eloquence and grace of
manner and diction were wonderfully adapted as well to his own dignity as
to the mind and feelings of his audience. He would often calm a tumultuous
soldiery by simply calling them sons, fathers, and brothers, and no army ever
mutinied under his command. He was first in every danger, first to seize the
ladder and mount the wall ; first to swim across a river when swelled to a
torrent ; first in every individual act of skill and courage, as he was first in
talent and command ; and he gained the hearts of soldiers by his agreeable
familiarity with the meanest among them. His great reputation as a war-
rior secured his ascendency in field and council ; and such was his soldiers'
confidence that often by his mere name and appearance the fortune of battle
was restored, fugitives were arrested, and the foe defeated. His arrival
alone was frequently sufficient to force an enemy from fortified places or in-
sure their immediate surrender. Whatever were his individual sentiments he
always consulted his council, composed of the ablest men of Lucca, and more
especially of those most learned in history ; but when it was a pure ques-
tion of war he sought the opinion of old military men well acquainted with
the seat of intended hostilities. Uneducated himself, he yet delighted
in the company and conversation of literary men ; he improved and
maintained the roads and bridges of his state, had numerous spies, amongst
them many women, in all parts of the world, and was properly said to have
the wings of an eagle./
" This Castruccio," says Villani,^ " was in person tall, dexterous, and
handsome ; finely made, not bulky, and of a fair complexion rather inclining to
paleness ; his hair was light and straight and he bore a very gracious aspect.
He was a valorous and magnanimous tyrant, wise and sagacious, of an anxious
and laborious mind and possessing great military talents ; was exiremely
prudent in war and successful in his undertakings. He was much feared
and reverenced and in his time performed many great and remarkable actions.
He was a scourge to his fellow-citizens, to the Pisans, the Pistoians, the
Florentines, and all Tuscany, during the fifteen (twelve ?) years in which he
held the sovereignty of Lucca. He was very cruel in executing and tortur-
ing men, ungrateful for good offices rendered to him in his necessities, partial
to new people and vain of the high station to which he had mounted, so that
he believed himself lord of Florence and king of Tuscany."
Although the first warrior of his age, says Pignotti, it is doubted
whether he was greater in arms than in council ; although he was born and
had lived in the midst of revolutions, he never shed blood unless when
necessity demanded it. He was one of those great men who, although igno-
rant of letters himself, knew their value, and esteemed the learned. An
encourager of useful arts and manufactures, he generously rewarded whoever
introduced new ones. The monuments of the numerous works of public
utility which he undertook are still remaining, such as bridges, roads, and
fortresses.
He was certainly an extraordinary man, and had the theatre of his actions
been more extensive, and his means greater, he would have distinguished
himself equally with any of the celebrated men of antiquity. In the small
sphere, however, in which he was obliged to act, as a private individual,
he became one of the most powerful princes of Italy ; since, at his death, he
possessed Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, the Lunigiana, a great part of the coast to the
east of Genoa, and innumerable castles ; and if he had lived longer, in those
times of revolution and the division of Italy into so many small sovereign-
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 155
[1328-1329 A.D.]
ties, it may be conjectured that his greatness would not have stopped here.
Henry, his eldest son, was heir to his father's estates, but not to his father's
talents. The power of Lucca terminated with Castruccio, since shortly
afterwards we see this city offered for sale, bought by a private citizen, and
the cities and castles which were once occupied by Castruccio retaken by the
Florentines. Upon the arrival of the emperor, the sovereignty of Pisa, and
afterwards that of Lucca, were taken away from his sons.6
DUKE OF CALABRIA DIES : LUDWIG RETIRES
The death of the formidable and ambitious Castruccio saved Florence
from the greatest danger which she had yet incurred; and, to complete
her good fortune, the sovereign she had
chosen to oppose Castruccio, the duke of
Calabria, died also about the same time.
He had distinguished himself only by his
vices, his want of foresight, and his depre-
dations. Ludwig of Bavaria, too, ceased
to be formidable ; he completed his discredit
by his perfidy towards those who had been
the most devoted to him. Salvestro de'
Gatti, lord of Viterbo, had been the first
Ghibelline chief to open a fortress to him
in the states of the church; Ludwig ar-
rested him and put him to the torture to
force him to reveal the place where he had
concealed his treasure. The emperor had
rendered himself odious and ridiculous at
Rome by the puerility of his proceedings
against John XXII, and his vain efforts to
create a schism in the church. Having
returned to Tuscany, he deprived the chil-
dren of Castruccio of the sovereignty of
Lucca, on the 16th of March, 1329, and sold
it to one of their relatives who, a month
afterwards, was driven out by a troop of
German mercenaries which had abandoned
the emperor to make war on their own
account, that is to say, to live by plunder.
Ludwig passed the summer of 1329 in Lom-
bardy. Towards the end of the autumn he returned to Germany, carrying
with him the contempt and detestation of the Italians. He had betrayed
all who had trusted in him ; and completely disorganised the Ghibelline
party which had relied on his support.
A FLORENTINE NOBLEMAN OF THE FOUR-
TEENTH CENTURY
CAN GRANDE DELLA SCALA
That party had just lost another of their most distinguished chiefs, Can'
Grande della Scala. He was the grandson of the first Mastino, whom the
republic of Verona had chosen for master after the death of Ezzelino, in
1260. Can' Grande reigned in that city from 1312 to 1329, with a splendour
156 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1314^1329 A.D.]
which no other prince in Italy equalled. Brave and fortunate in war, and
wise in council, he gained a reputation for generosity, and even probity, to
which few captains could pretend. Among the Lombard princes, he was
the first protector of literature and the arts. The best poets, painters, and
sculptors of Italy, Dante, to whom he offered an asylum, as well as Uguccione
da Faggiuola, and many other exiles illustrious in war or politics were
assembled at his court. He aspired to subdue the Veronese and Trevisan
marches, or what has since been called the Terra Firma of Venice. He took
possession of Vicenza, and afterwards maintained a long war against the
republic of Padua, the most powerful in the district, and that which had
shown the most attachment to the Guelf party and to liberty. But Padua
gave way to all the excesses of democracy ; the people evinced such jealousy
of all distinction, such inconstancy in their choice, such presumption, that
the imprudence of the chiefs as well as of the mob drew down the greatest
disasters on the republic. The Paduans, repeatedly defeated by Can' Grande
della Scala from 1314 to 1318, sought protection by vesting the power in a
single person; and fixed for that purpose on the noble house of Carrara,
which had long given leaders to the Guelf party.
The power vested in a single person soon extinguished all the courage
and virtue that remained ; and on the 10th of September, 1328, Padua sub-
mitted to Can' Grande della Scala. The year following he attacked and
took Treviso, which surrendered on the 6th of July, 1329. He possessed
himself of Feltre and Cividale soon after. The whole province seemed sub-
jugated to his power ; but the conqueror also was subdued. Attacked in
his camp with a mortal disease, he gave orders on entering Treviso that his
couch should be carried into the great church, in which, four days afterwards,
on the 22nd of July, 1329, he expired. He was not more than forty-one
years of age ; Castruccio was forty-seven at his death. Galeazzo Visconti
died at about the same age, less than a year before.
JOHN OF BOHEMIA COMES TO ITALY
The Ghibelline party, which had produced such great captains, thus saw
them all disappear at once in the middle of their careers. Passerino de' Bona-
cossi, tyrant of Mantua, who belonged to the same party, had been assassinated
on the 14th of August, 1328, by the Gonzagas, who thus avenged an affront
offered to the wife of one of them. They took possession of the sovereignty
of Mantua, and kept it in their family till the eighteenth century. Of all
the princes who had well received Ludwig of Bavaria in Italy, the marquis
d'Este was the only one who preserved his power. He was lord of Ferrara;
and even this prince, though a Guelf by birth, was forced by the intrigues of
the pope's legate to join the Ghibellines.
The Ghibelline party, which had been rendered so formidable by the
ability of its captains, was now completely disorganised. The Lombards
placed no confidence in those who remained, they had forgotten liberty and
dared no longer aspire to it ; but they longed for a prince capable of defend-
ing them, and who, by his moderation and good faith, could give them hopes
of peace. They saw none such in Italy ; Germany unexpectedly offered one.
John, king of Bohemia, the son of Henry VII, arrived at Trent towards the
end of the year 1330. The memory of his father was rendered dearer to
the Italians by the comparison of his conduct with that of his successor ; and
John was calculated to heighten this predilection. He could not submit to
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 157
[1329-1335 A.D.]
the barbarism of Bohemia, and inhabited, in preference, the county of Lux-
emburg, or Paris ; and having acquired a spirit of heroism, by his constant
reading or listening to the French romances of chivalry, he aspired to the
glory of being a complete knight. All that could at first sight seduce
the people was united in him — beauty, valour, dexterity in all corporeal
exercises, eloquence, an engaging manner. His conduct in France and Ger-
many, where he had been by turns warrior and pacificator, was noble. He
never sought anything for himself; he seemed to be actuated only by the
love of the general good or glory.
The Italians, justly disgusted with their own princes, eagerly offered to
throw themselves into his arms ; the city of Brescia sent deputies to Trent,
to offer John the sovereignty of their republic. He arrived there, to take
possession of it, on the 31st of December, 1330. Almost immediately after,
Bergamo, Cremona, Pavia, Vercelli, and Novara followed the example of
Brescia. Azzo Visconti himself, son of Galeazzo, who, in 1328, had repur-
chased Milan from Ludwig of Bavaria, could not withstand the enthusiasm
of his subjects ; he nominally ceded the government to John, taking hence-
forth the title of his vicar only. Parma, Modena, Reggio, and lastly Lucca
also soon gave themselves to John of Bohemia. John, in all these cities,
recalled indiscriminately the Guelf and Ghibelline exiles, restored peace, and
made them at last taste the first-fruits of good government.
The Florentines did not find sufficient strength in the Guelf party to
oppose the menacing greatness of the king of Bohemia. Robert of Naples was
become old ; he wanted energy, and his soldiers courage. The republic of
Bologna, formerly so rich and powerful, had lost its vigour under the gov-
ernment of the legate, Bertrand de Poiet; those of Perugia and Siena had
within themselves few resources, and those few their jealousy of Florence
prevented their liberally employing. There remained no free cities in Lom-
bardy ; and all those in the states of the church, which during the preceding
century had shown so much spirit, had fallen under the yoke of some petty
tyrant, who immediately declared for the Ghibelline party. The Florentines
felt the necessity of silencing their hereditary enmities and their ancient
repugnances, and of making an alliance with the Lombard Ghibellines against
John of Bohemia, with the condition that in dividing his spoils they should
all agree to prevent the aggrandisement of any single power, and preserve
between themselves an exact equilibrium, in order that Italy after their con-
quests should incur no danger of being subjugated by one of them. The
treaty of alliance against the king of Bohemia, and the partition of the states
which he had just acquired in Italy, was signed in the month of September,
1332. Cremona was to be given to Visconti ; Parma to Mastino della Scala,
the nephew and successor of Can' Grande; Reggio to Gonzaga; Modena
to the marquis d'Este ; and Lucca to the Florentines.
John did not oppose to this league the resistance that was expected from
his courage and talents. Of an inconstant character, becoming weary of
everything, always pursuing something new, thinking only of shining in
courts and tournaments, he soon regarded all these little Italian principalities,
of which he had already lost some, as too citizen-like and unlordly : he sold
every town which had given itself to him, to whatever noble desired to rule
over it ; and he departed for Paris on the 15th of October, 1333, leaving
Italy in still greater confusion than before. The Lombard Ghibellines, con-
federates of the Florentines, succeeded, before the end of the summer of 1335,
in taking possession of the cities abandoned by the king of Bohemia. Lucca,
which alone fell to the share of Florence, was defended by a band of German
158 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1334-1338 A.D.]
soldiers, who made it the centre of their depredations, and barbarously tyran-
nised over the Lucchese. Mastino della Scala offered to treat for the Flor-
entines with the captains who then commanded at Lucca, and he succeeded in
obtaining the surrender of the town to him, on the 20th of December, 1335.
As soon as he became master of it he began to flatter himself that it would
afford him the means of subjugating the rest of Tuscany; and, instead of
delivering it as he had engaged to the Florentines, he sought to renew against
them a Ghibelline league jointly with the Pisans and all the independent
nobles of the Apennines.
LUCCA A BONE OF CONTENTION
The Florentines, forced to defend
themselves against their ally, who after
they had contributed to his elevation
betrayed them, sought the alliance of
the Venetians, who also had reason
to complain of Mastino. A treaty
was signed between the two
republics on the 21st of June,
1336. The war, to which
Florence liberally contrib-
uted in money, was made
only in Lombardy and was
successful. Padua was taken
from Mastino on the 3rd
of August, 1337, and, as
that town showed no ardent
desire of liberty, it was
given in sovereignty
to the Guelf house of
Carrara. The Vene-
tians took possession
of Treviso, Castel-
franco, and Ceneda.
It was the first acqui-
sition they had made
beyond the Lagune,
their first establishment on terra firma, which henceforward was to min-
gle their interests with those of the rest of Italy. But their ambition at
this moment extended no further. Satisfied themselves, and sacrificing their
allies, they made peace with Mastino della Scala on the 18th of December,
1338, without stipulating that the city of Lucca, the object of the war, should
be given up to the Florentines, for which these had contracted a debt of
450,000 florins. The Florentines, successively betrayed by all their allies,
saw the danger of their position augment daily ; the Guelf s lost, one after
the other, every supporter of their party ; the vigour of the king of Naples,
now seventy-five years of age, was gone. The pope, John XXII, had died at
Avignon, on the 4th of December, 1334; and his successor, Benedict XII, like
him a Frenchman, neither understood nor took any part in the affairs of Italy.
A few months previous, on the 17th of March, 1334, the cardinal Bertrand de
Poiet had been driven by the people from Bologna ; and this ambitious legate,
A FLORENTINE WELL HEAD, FOURTEENTH CENTURY
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 159
[1334-1342 A.D.]
no longer supported by the pope his father, had disappeared from the politi-
cal scene.
But the Bolognese did not long preserve the liberty which they had recov-
ered. One of their citizens, named Taddeo de Pepoli, the richest man in all
Italy, had seduced the German guard which they held in pay, and by its aid
took possession of the sovereignty of Bologna on the 28th of August, 1337.
He then made alliance with the Ghibellines. The number of the free cities on
the aid, or at least the sympathy, of which Florence could reckon continually
diminished. The Genoese, from the commencement of the century, had con-
sumed their strength in internal wars between the great Guelf and Ghibelline
families; as long as they were free, however, the Florentines, without any treaty
of alliance, regarded them as friendly ; but the long-protracted civil wars had
disgusted the people with the government ; they rose on the 23rd of September,
1339, and overthrew it, replacing the signoria by a single chief, Boccanera, on
whom they conferred the title of doge. It might have been feared that they
had only given themselves a tyrant ; but the first doge of Genoa was a friend
to liberty ; and the Genoese people, having imitated Venice in giving them-
selves a first officer in the state with that title, were not long before they
carried the imitation further, by seeking to combine liberty with power vested
in a single person. In the meanwhile Mastino della Scala suffered a Parmesan
noble to take from him the city of Parma. As from that time he had no
further communication with Lucca, he offered to sell it to the Florentines.
The bargain was concluded in the month of August, 1341; but it appeared
to the Pisans the signal of their own servitude, for it cut off all communica-
tion between them and the Ghibellines of Lombardy. They immediately
advanced their militia into the Lucchese states, to prevent the Florentines
from taking possession of the town ; vanquished them in a great battle, on the
2nd of October, 1341, under the walls of Lucca ; and, on the 6th of July fol-
lowing, took possession of that city for themselves. c
A republic like the Florentine, whose strength depends upon commerce,
should take no part in wars which do not affect her. The conquests she can
make are always more expensive than the revenues she can derive from them
are important, and awaken the jealousy of the neighbouring states, engaging
her in fresh broils with them. At the end of a war which had been carried
on for the acquisition of Lucca, the republic found herself greatly in debt,
without having been able to obtain the city ; and the chief source of her
riches, commerce, received a terrible shock in the failure of the trading
firms of Peruzzi and Bardi. These commercial houses had lent to Edward
III, king of England, an immense sum of money. The king was involved in
a war with France; but, although he was for the most part conqueror,
and had frequently invaded the French provinces, nevertheless the luxury and
the magnificence of his court, the incalculable expenses of war, which are
burdensome even to conquerors, rendered him unable to satisfy his creditors ;
and he was obliged to fail in his contracts with these merchants for 1,365,000
florins in gold. Giving money its value in those times we shall find it equiv-
alent to about 7,000,000 sequins [about £3,052,000 or §15,260,000] ; and
such a sum being lost by the city of Florence, we may easily conceive what
injury was done to her commerce. She might, indeed, have been given up
for ruined; these temporary mischiefs, however, are easily repaired, when
the primary fountains of riches are not exhausted or diverted into another
channel, and as these remained untouched in Florence they very soon filled
up the momentary deficiency. But this could not have happened at a more
unlucky moment than when the public, which draws its revenues from private
160 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1341 A.D.]
individuals, was so much in debt. To this evil was added the dearth of
provisions; and, what very frequently accompanies it, a pestilential fever
whereby, if the old writers have not exaggerated, no less than fifteen thou-
sand persons died that year within the walls of Florence.
In order somewhat to console the Florentines for these calamities, a very
respectable embassy arrived from Rome. This city, in the absence of the
pontiff, had been agitated by political convulsions, originating in the discord
of the nobility, it having been reported that the Florentines had, in a great
measure, suppressed their own discords by depriving the nobility of every
share in the government. Roman ambassadors came to make themselves
acquainted with the Florentine constitution, and with the means to prevent
the great from disturbing the public tranquillity. But while the Romans
were coming to learn the manner of living peaceably from the Florentines,
domestic broils were upon the eve of recommencing in Florence. Andrea
Bardi and Bardo Frescobaldi had been very much aggrieved by Jacopo
Gabrielli, of Gubbio, lately created captain of the guard, and the executor of
the despotic orders of those few who wished for the exclusive government in
their own hands, from which both the nobility and the common people were
entirely removed, as well as many of their own order. To these two, smart-
ing under the pains of recent injuries, were united many others from
the great who were deprived by law of any share in the government ;
together with others from the people, who, by an overbearing preponderance,
were kept at a distance from it ; and a conspiracy was planned to change
the government. Their foreign friends, the Pazzi, Tarlati, Guidi, and Uber-
tini, etc., were to come to Florence, and on the 2nd of November the whole city
was to rise and overturn the constitution. The conspiracy was discovered
the day before its execution, by Andrea Bardi, who, either through fear or
remorse, revealed the correspondence to Jacopo Alberti, one of the heads of
the government. The latter, assembling, and there being no time to lose,
ordered the public alarm-bell to be rung; and the people throughout the
city took up arms against the traitors, whose succours had not yet arrived ;
hence those who were on the right bank of the Arno did not move ; on the
other side, too, arms were immediately taken up, and they endeavoured to
defend themselves in the street called Bardi. Surrounded on every side
by the armed people, they were about coming to blows, when the mayor Mat-
teo of Ponte, a native of Brescia, a venerable man, interposed ; and setting
before the Bardi and Frescobaldi the imminent danger of being slaughtered
with their families, he persuaded them to lay down their arms, promising
them that the conspirators should leave Florence, out of which city he him-
self accompanied them in the night.
Fortune appeared to be playing with the Florentines, by offering and
taking away from them, at the same time, the city of Lucca, always annoy-
ing them, whether they aimed at obtaining it by arms or by money. Mastino
Scala, after the loss of Parma, which had been taken away from him by Azzo
Correggio, seeing himself unable any longer to maintain Lucca, offered it to
the Florentines for the sum of 250,000 florins in gold ; the latter consented ;
but before it came to their hands, they were obliged to contend with the
Pisans, who thought they would no longer be enabled to maintain their
liberty if Lucca belonged to the Florentines. They would have been better
pleased, as they were not able to conquer the Florentines by money, had
Lucca remained free ; various councils were held in which it was finally
determined they should take up arms and contend for the possession of
Lucca with the Florentines, and after some fruitless treaty with Mastino
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIEE 161
[1341 A.D.]
they laid siege to it. They had collected many troops both from the Tuscan
Ghibellines and the lords of Lombardy, particularly from Lucchino Visconti,
whose friendship they had purchased with treachery.
One of the first Milanese citizens, Francis of Postierla, had married a
near relative of Lucchino, the beautiful and virtuous Margaret Visconti who
had rejected Lucchino when he fell in love with her. His ill will being
made known to the husband, induced him to frame a conspiracy ; upon the
discovery of which Francis fled to Avignon, whence he was attracted by
Lucchino to Pisa by the most insidious artifices. In spite of a safe passage,
of which the rulers of Pisa had assured him, he was taken and consigned to
Lucchino ; who, in order to crown his barbarous brutality, ordered him
to be beheaded, together with his beloved and unfortunate consort. For
this act of perfidy the Pisans received powerful assistance from Lucchino,
and were enabled to maintain their position in front of the Florentines.
The viceroy of Mastino was treating at the same time with the Pisans
and putting up Lucca at auction. After various altercations about the pay-
ment of the money, the people of the Florentines were finally introduced
into Lucca ; but two strong places belonging to the Lucchese, the Cerruglio
and Montechiaro, still remained in the hands of the Pisans, for which
70,000 florins in gold were deducted. The Pisans, however, would not
depart ; and remaining immovable in the plain of Lucca, the Florentines
would have shown their sense by standing upon the defensive, and either by
occupying important posts prevented the transport of provisions to the Pisan
army, or harassed their country with inroads ; but they were ashamed of
leaving them quiet ; and approaching the enemy, they offered them battle
near the Ghiaia, which the Pisans did not refuse ; and they fought with
varying fortune. The victory inclined in the beginning in favour of the
Florentines, and Giovanni Visconti son of Lucchino was made prisoner ; but
falling into disorder, in following up the enemy, they were routed and put
to flight by a band which remained in guard of the camp. The archers took
a great part in this victory, amongst whom were many Genoese, greatly
renowned in this manner of warfare. The cavalry of the Florentines, so
much more numerous than that of the Pisans, was in a great measure dis-
abled for action by the arrows. The loss of the Florentines, in killed and
prisoners, was not less than two thousand men. The Pisans, taking courage
at this advantage, again surrounded Lucca. It was singular enough to
behold the ambassadors of King Robert, appearing at this moment, demand-
ing the possession of Lucca from the Florentines, as his own property, telling
them Lucca had been given over to his hands since the year 1313, when it was
taken from them by Uguccione da Faggiuola. The prompt consent of the
Florentines, however, did not occasion less astonishment, who thus lost a
city they had so much desired and had purchased with so much treasure and
blood.
The same ambassadors, having taken possession, went to Pisa, and inti-
mated to that republic to raise the siege of a city which belonged to the
king of Naples ; but the Pisans, not yielding so easily, proposed rather to
send ambassadors to the king. It may be conjectured that the king, as an
ancient friend of the Florentines, acted in concert with them to make the
Pisans retreat as the latter really suspected. Malatesta had been made
general of the Florentines, and marched in order to raise the siege of Lucca ;
he was however artfully held at bay by the captain of the Pisans who,
not having sufficient people to cope with the Florentines, and knowing how
greatly Lucca was deficient in provisions, chose to fight by temporising.
H. W. — VOL. IX. M
162 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1341-1342 A.D.^
The duke of Athens arrived at the Florentine army with one hundred French
horse ; and other reinforcements coming up, various operations took place
upon the Serchio, where the Pisans, although inferior in number, made
a brave defence; Malatesta, superior in force, could never dislodge them or
force them to battle ; and, after many attempts to relieve Lucca, he was
obliged to retreat. The Lucchese, thus abandoned, were forced to come
to terms with the Pisans, which were very moderate ; since (having given
time for the Florentines who were in it to retire) they were content to keep
a garrison for fifteen years in the castle of Lucca, called Dell' Agosta in
Ponte Tetto, and in the tower of Montuolo — which was to be paid, however,
by the Lucchese ; in all other respects they were free. Thus, after the waste
of so much treasure and blood, Lucca, which had been so greatly desired,
was held for a moment and again lost.
THE DUKE OP ATHENS MADE PROTECTOR OF FLORENCE
These unsuccessful events had, as usual, excited hatred against the rulers
of the Florentine Republic. The latter, in order to cover themselves and dis-
tract the enemies' attention and fury elsewhere, elected as governor and pro-
tector of the city and its states, Walter, duke of Athens and count of Brienne,
of French extraction but brought up in Greece and Apulia. Since he had
fulfilled the duties of the duke of Calabria in Florence, this man had acquired
great reputation for wisdom and justice; and after the expiration of the
period of Malatesta's government was elected general and protector, with
the most extensive power of administering justice within and without
Florence. The duke was a man of vast ambition, and possessed sufficient
talent to profit by the circumstances in which the city was placed, divided
as it was into three orders of persons, the nobility, the rich middle class,
and the common people. The government was entirely in the hands of the
second ; the other two orders, therefore, were necessarily discontented ; and
adding their old wrongs to the misfortunes which had happened to the
republic from the improvident administration of those who governed, their
complaints became more frequent and daring; but those most irritated,
and probably with the most reason, were the nobility. The people, not
content with having deprived them of every share in the government, would
not even administer justice to them ; they caused the laws to be put in force
against them in the severest manner, which laws were silent for the most
part in favour of the class that governed ; and thus, even in the latter order,
persons were not wanting to whom the government became odious, since the
most important offices were concentrated in the hands of a few.
All these discontented persons united themselves with the duke, urgently
beseeching him to make himself absolute master of the city, and promised to
support him ; thus preferring the slavery of their native country to a free
but aristocratic government, in which they had no share. The duke both
supported and fomented this good disposition towards him; and by some acts
of vigour, which bore the colour of the most scrupulous justice, he drew upon
himself the applauses of the discontented, and struck terror into the people,
having brought to justice and made some of those persons feel the rigour
of the laws, who, from being in the number who divided the principal offices
amongst themselves, went unpunished and were consequently odious to the
rest. Giovanni de' Medici, among the most powerful, had been captain of
Lucca. When arrested, he confessed under torture that he had permitted
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 163
[1342 A.D.]
Tarlati to escape from the camp (although fame reported he was guilty
only of bad custody), and his head was taken off. William Altoviti,
accused of barter, met with the same fate. Rosso Ricci and Naldo Rucellai
were also arrested ; the former had appropriated to himself the pay of the
soldiers ; the latter had received money from the Pisans in order to second
their interests. The duke did not choose to punish them with death, fearful
that too much blood might disgust the people ; they were therefore first
sentenced to the payment of a sum of money, Ricci to perpetual imprison-
ment, and Rucellai was banished to the confines of Perugia. These chastise-
ments in four of the principal families, which had been accustomed to go
unpunished, and were odious to the people and the nobility, drew down great
applause upon the duke, who, considering his design already mature for
making himself absolute master, and conscious he possessed the power, chose
nevertheless to ask the government from the gonfalonier and the priors, who
denied it him with modest but firm remonstrances.
But the magistracy, knowing the great favour he enjoyed from the public,
in order not to excite a dangerous tumult, as the people were to assemble the
morning following, agreed upon giving him the
government for a year, under those limitations
with which King Robert and the duke of
Calabria had formerly enjoyed it. The even-
ing before, the magistracy went with other
jspectable citizens to the duke, who, in order
gain greater respect for piety and modera-
ion, inhabited the convent of Santa Croce, and
if ter many discussions they feigned to agree to
it. The conditions were signed by notaries on
>th sides, and approved by the oath of the
luke, who came to the palace of the priors on
"re morning of the 8th of September, accom-
inied by the greater part of the nobility, by
in innumerable concourse of armed people,
id by his own troops. The gonfalonier made
iown the deliberations which had been held in
le evening ; and when it was heard that the
jigniory of Florence was given to the duke
for a year, many voices from the lower order
)f the people cried out, "For life ! " (a vita).
"lie doors of the palace being opened, he was
onducted into it by the nobility, and installed
ibsolute master, sending away the priors and
"le gonfalonier, who, preserving the name
only, were removed elsewhere in order to rep-
resent a scenic farce. Fireworks were set off
for joy. The arms of the duke were seen hung
up at every corner ; at the ringing of all the
bells his banners were hoisted upon the tower ;
and the bishop Acciajuoli pronounced a homily,
wherein he loudly extolled the praises due to
the supposed virtues of the duke. All the cities of the republic too surren-
dered to him ; he became, therefore, master of Florence, not with the limited
authority by which the royal family of Naples had more than once held it,
but with the absolute power, partly conceded to him and partly usurped.
ITALIAN SOLDIER OF THE FOUR-
TEENTH CENTURY
164 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1342-1343 A.D.]
Right of life and death over persons, distribution of employments, imposition
of taxes or imposts — all were at his will ; so much can a momentary delusion
effect, when produced by the fury of parties !
GROWING UNPOPULARITY OF THE DUKE OF ATHENS
Those who were to gain most by the change were the great, so-called,
who, being hitherto excluded from the employments and obliged to obey a
government of merchants, had now every reason to hope that the duke, to
whom their rank brought them nearer than the others, would grant them his
favour together with no small share in the government. One of the first
acts of the duke was to make peace, and afterwards an alliance with the
Pisans, thinking it necessary to confirm the dominion ; which very much
displeased the Florentines. It is easier to acquire states than to maintain
them. The favoured by the change can be few, and these produce endless
discontents among those who either expected or thought the same reward
due to them. The mind too, which in the execution of the enterprise, has
been assiduously vigilant and active, when once it has obtained its end, is
accustomed generally to relax, at a time when its vigilance ought to be
increased. The duke thought he would be able to preserve by force what
he had acquired by benevolence, and took into pay many foreign troops at
the expense of the republic, an insufficient means against a populous city,
which may be badly inclined.
He soon neglected the friendship of the great, and began to cultivate
that of the common people, extending his favours to the lowest, in order to
deserve their powerful support. Principal persons were put to death upon
trivial pretences ; others were fined heavily in money. To this were added
the insolence and dissoluteness of the duke and his dependants towards the
most honest women; amongst whom they endeavoured to introduce the liber-
tine customs and manners of the French and Neapolitan courts, and substi-
tute them in place of the modest and decent attributes of the republican
Florentines. Not only common dissoluteness degraded his courtiers, but
even vices which nature abhors. The seed of discontent was sown in all
orders of people — in the nobility, besides the motives we have adduced, for
not being admitted to the government, as they had expected ; in the people
for having lost it ; in all orders on account of the increased impositions, so
that three months had hardly elapsed before the government of the duke
became detested with more vehemence than it had been before desired.
It was not difficult for the duke to perceive the change, and the increas-
ing hatred of the people against him; but his manner of acting in these
circumstances was not very judicious. It was natural to imagine that, in a
new principality, some conspiracy might be planned against him ; but he
thought of gaining to himself the public affection by an air of confidence
and extraordinary security, which he carried so far as not only to despise,
but even to punish as calumniators whoever ventured to give him salutary
advice. Matthew of Morozzo, for having warned him that the family of
the Medici were conspiring to kill him, was, by an act of cruelty at once
useless and imprudent, flayed and hanged ; this terrible example, however,
did not deter others, so great is the hope and courage of informers. Lam-
bert Abatti followed Matthew in giving information and receiving punish-
ment ; for having disclosed to the duke that some noble Florentines were
conspiring for his death, and that they held a council with John Riccio, a
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 165
[1343 A.D.]
captain of Mastino, he received the reward due to the trade of an informer.
This cruel severity, without gaining him the good disposition of the Floren-
tines, was adapted only to invite the discontented to conspire against him
more openly. The duke, however, with an unexampled frivolity, appears
to have cared more for words than actions ; since, upon its being reported to
him that Bettone of Cino, who had been already promoted by him, spoke ill
of his government, he caused his tongue to be plucked out, to be stuck
upon a lance, and the unfortunate Bettone to be dragged close to it upon a
car through the city. He banished him afterwards to Romagna, where he
died from the consequences of the wound.
Words cannot express how much, in an eloquent city, eager to examine
and judge of public affairs, such a punishment at once disheartened and
embittered the citizens against him, who thus saw even the liberty of speech
denied them. All orders of the state were roused against the duke ; three
conspiracies were formed against him at the same time, and not one had any
knowledge of the other. The bishop of Florence (himself Acciajuoli) was
the head of the first ; he had loaded the duke with excessive praises at his*
first installation, and was now ashamed of it. As the three conspiracies did
not communicate with each other, the projects to get rid of the duke were
various, none of which could be carried into execution ; because, as suspi-
cions increased, he had vigilantly put himself upon guard, although the con-
spirators for a considerable time remained concealed. Francis Brunelleschi,
one of the adherents of the duke, received a hint of the conspiracy of the
Medici from a Sienese, who came there, but who could only name Paul
Marzecca, a Florentine citizen, and Simone of Monterappoli. These were
arrested, and, being tormented, revealed the names of the conspirators, of
whom Antonio Adimari was the ringleader, a man of great reputation, both
for the qualities with which he was endowed and the greatness of his family.
When summoned he appeared, and was detained ; but the duke dared not put
him to death.
THE DUKE DRIVEN FROM THE CITY
Frightened at the great number and the respectability of the conspirators,
and not thinking he possessed a force sufficient to act against them, he sent for
aid from various parts of Tuscany and to the lord of Bologna ; a part of which
arriving, he caused three hundred of the principal citizens to be summoned,
many of whom were of the conspirators, under the pretext of wishing to con-
sult with them, as he was sometimes wont to do. It was his intention to
arrest them, put part of them to death, and keep the remainder in prison, and
by this execution to terrify the rest of the city, scour it with armed men,
and establish more firmly his dominion. The summons being made known,
and so many being found in the list that it appeared clearly a list of pro-
scribed, the number gave courage to each ; in a short time the three con-
spiracies were united into one, and they determined, instead of offering
their heads to the tyrant, to attack him courageously. The morning of
St. Anne being arrived, which was destined for the enterprise, conten-
tions between the people were purposely kindled, who coming to blows,
all of a sudden the people appeared in arms; the streets were barri-
caded; the nobility and the people, forgetting their ancient contentions,
embraced each other, and united in sustaining the common cause. The
foreign soldiers of the duke, at the news of the rebellion, marched to his
assistance ; many could not gain the palace, and were either killed or made
166 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1343 A.D.]
prisoners. Some, however, came up and joined the guard, which was
accustomed to remain there. A few of the nobles, who had remained
faithful to him, and a part of the lowest order of people whom he had
endeavoured to gain over, came to him ; but these, seeing that the greater
part of the city was in open
rebellion against him, abandoned
him. The priors, who had incau-
tiously retired to the palace for
safety at the beginning of the
tumult, were retained as hostages
by the duke. The soldiers, part
foot and part horse, who were in
the square in his defence, were
very soon beaten by the infuriated
mob, and dismounting retired for
safety within the palace. All the
streets that led to it were block-
aded by the people, and no hope
of succour nor other defence
remained to the duke but the walls.
These were very strong, and suf-
ficiently provided with defenders ;
provisions, however, were want-
ing. He remained there besieged
until the 3rd of August. In the
meantime, having assembled the
people in Santa Raparata, he gave
power to the bishop, united with
fourteen citizens, to reform the
government. All the agents of
the duke who came into the hands
of the people were cruelly mur-
dered and torn to pieces. This
fate attended a notary of the pro-
tector (Simone Norcia), Arrigo
Fei, who was discovered in the act of escape, disguised as a friar, with another
Neapolitan. The people were not contented with a simple death, but mur-
dered them publicly in the most cruel manner.
The duke, in the meantime, found himself pinched by hunger in the
palace, and seeing himself reduced to a bad condition sought for an accom-
modation. The Sienese ambassadors had joined the Florentines with oppor-
tune aid. These, together with the bishop and with Count Simone, treated
with the people, who, however, obstinately refused every accommodation,
unless William of Assisi protector, with his son, and Cerettieri Visdomini
were first given over to them. The duke refused ; but the French soldiers,
who were shut up there, protested they would not perish by hunger or
by the sword for three persons they would not even have saved, and in
the same evening threw the son of the conservatore out at the gate. He
was a youth of fine aspect, of eighteen years of age, and was guilty of no
other crime but that of being son of an odious man. This was sufficient for
the mob to make a sacrifice of him ; he was stabbed by a thousand cuts, and
even .torn to pieces by the teeth of the mob. The same end was made of the
father, who had been spectator of the execution of his son. Being demanded
ITALIAN WARRIOR OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 167
[1343 A.D.]
by loud shouts, and driven out from the palace, he was cut to pieces, carried
in triumph through the city, and his blood and flesh tasted with a savage
eagerness. It is strange to see how the people, united, can commit such
atrocious actions, which any individual, taken abstractedly, could not be
capable of ; it would appear that the passions become multiplied in proportion
as the number of the mob increases ; and that, thinking to do themselves
justice, an emulation in cruelty arises, which makes everyone vie with
another in excesses of barbarity. This brutal occupation was the cause of
the safety of Visdomini, who, being forgotten in that moment, was enabled to
escape in the night. After so many cruelties, the people began to attend
to treaties of accommodation. The duke gave full power to enter into
them by the means of the bishop of Lecce, to fourteen elect, and to the
bishop Acciajuoli. By this treaty he solemnly renounced, on the 3rd of
August, before the Sienese ambassadors and Count Simone, the government
of Florence and the other cities of the republic ; and in token of renunciation
laid down his mace before witnesses. He departed, on the 6th of August,
accompanied by the count, who ordered him on the confines to confirm his
abdication. He at first refused ; but, upon being threatened with being
taken back to Florence, he was induced to ratify it. He left behind him an
atrocious and infamous memory ; nor is any other praise due to his govern-
ment than for the care he gave himself to unite the minds of many citizens
who were alienated from one another by an inveterate and hereditary
hatred, e
ATTEMPTED REFORMS
These events, taking place in the city, induced all the dependencies of the
Florentine state to throw off their yoke ; so that Arezzo, Castiglione, Pistoia,
Volterra, Colle, and San Gemigniano rebelled. Thus Florence found herself
deprived of both her tyrant and her dominions at the same moment, and in
recovering her liberty taught her subjects how they might become free.
The duke being expelled, and the territories lost, the fourteen citizens and
the bishop thought it would be better to act kindly towards their subjects in
peace, than to make them enemies by war, and to show a desire that their
subjects should be free as well as themselves. They therefore sent ambassa-
dors to the people of Arezzo, to renounce all dominion over that city, and to
enter into a treaty with them ; to the end that, as they could not retain them
as subjects, they might make use of them as friends. They also, in the best
manner they were able, agreed with the other places that they should retain
their freedom, and that, being free, they might mutually assist each other in
the preservation of their liberties. This prudent course was attended with
a most favourable result ; for Arezzo, not many years afterwards, returned to
the Florentine rule, and the other places in the course of a few months
returned to their former obedience. Thus it frequently occurs that we
sooner attain our ends by a seeming indifference to them, than by more
obstinate pursuit.
Having settled external affairs, they now turned to the consideration
of those within the city ; and after some altercation between the nobility
and the people, it was arranged that the nobility should form one-third
of the seigniory and fill one-half of the other offices. The city was
hitherto divided into sixths ; and hence there would be six seigniors, one
for each sixth, except when, from some more than ordinary cause, there
had been twelve or thirteen created ; but when this had occurred they were
168 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1343 A.D.]
again soon reduced to six. It now seemed desirable to make an alteration
in this respect, as well because the sixths were not properly divided as that,
wishing to give their proportion to the great, it became desirable to increase
the number. They therefore divided the city into quarters, and for each
created three seigniors. They abolished the office of gonfalonier of justice,
and also the gonfaloniers of the companies of the people ; and instead of the
twelve buonuomini, or good men, created eight counsellors, four from each
party. The government having been established in this matter, the city
might have been in repose if the great had been content to live in that
moderation which civil society requires. But they produced a contrary
result, for those out of office would not conduct themselves as citizens, and
those who were in the government wished to be lords, so that every day
furnished some new instance of their insolence and pride. These things
were very grievous to the people, and they began to regret that for one
tyrant put down there, had sprung up a thousand. The arrogance of
one party and the anger of the other, rose to such a degree that the heads
of the people complained to the bishop of the improper conduct of the
nobility, and what unfit associates they had become for the people ; and
begged he would endeavour to induce them to be content with their share
of administration in the other offices, and leave the magistracy of the
seigniory wholly to themselves.
The bishop was naturally a well-meaning man, but his want of firmness
rendered him easily influenced. Hence, at the instance of his associates, he
at first favoured the duke of Athens, and afterwards, by the advice of other
citizens, conspired against him. At the reformation of the government he
had favoured the nobility, and now he appeared to incline towards the people,
moved by the reasons which they had advanced. Thinking to find in others
the same instability of purpose, he endeavoured to effect an amicable arrange-
ment. With this design he called together the fourteen who were yet in
office, and in the best terms he could imagine advised them to give up the
seigniory to the people, in order to secure the peace of the city ; and assured
them that if they refused, ruin would most probably be the result.
This discourse excited the anger of the nobility to the highest pitch, and
Ridolfo de' Bardi reproved him in unmeasured terms as a man of little faith,
reminding him of his friendship for the duke, to prove the duplicity of his
present conduct, and saying that in driving him away he had acted the part
of a traitor. He concluded by telling him that the honours they had acquired
at their own peril, they would at their own peril defend. Then they left the
bishop, and in great wrath informed their associates in the government, and
all the families of the nobility, of what had been done. The people also
expressed their thoughts to each other, and as the nobility made preparations
for the defence of their seigniors, they determined not to wait till they had
perfected their arrangements ; and therefore, being armed, hastened to the
palace, shouting, as they went along, that the nobility must give up their
share in the government. The uproar and excitement were astonishing.
The seigniors of the nobility found themselves abandoned ; for their friends,
seeing all the people in arms, did not dare to rise in their defence, but each kept
within his own house. The seigniors of the people endeavoured to abate the
excitement of the multitude, by affirming their associates to be good and
moderate men ; but, not succeeding in their attempt, to avoid a greater evil,
sent them home to their houses, whither they were with difficulty conducted.
The nobility having left the palace, the office of the four councillors was
taken from their party, and conferred upon twelve of the people. To the
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 169
[1343 A.D.]
eight seigniors who remained, a gonfalonier of justice was added, and sixteen
gonfaloniers of the companies of the people ; and the council was so reformed,
that the government remained wholly in the hands of the popular party.
WAR OF THE FACTIONS IN FLORENCE
At the time these events took place there was a great scarcity in this
and discontent prevailed both among the highest and lowest classes ;
in the latter for want of food, and in the former from having lost their
power in the state. This circumstance induced Andrea Strozzi to think of
making himself sovereign of the city. Selling his corn at a lower price than
others did, a great many people flocked to his house ; emboldened by the sight
of these, he one morning mounted his horse, and, followed by a considerable
number, called the people to arms, and in a short time drew together about
four thousand men, with whom he proceeded to the seigniory, and demanded
that the gates of the palace should be opened. But the seigniors, by
threats and the force which they retained in the palace, drove them from the
mrt ; and then by proclamation so terrified them, that they gradually
Lropped off and returned to their homes, and Andrea, finding himself alone,
dth some difficulty escaped falling into the hands of the magistrates.
This event, although an act of great temerity, and attended with the result
it usually follows such attempts, raised a hope in the minds of the nobility
>f overcoming the people, seeing that the lowest of the plebeians were at
mmity with them. And to profit by this circumstance, they resolved to arm
"lemselves, and with justifiable force recover those rights of which they had
jen unjustly deprived. Their minds acquired such an assurance of success,
it they openly provided themselves with arms, fortified their houses, and
jven sent to their friends in Lombardy for assistance. The people and the
jigniory made preparation for their defence, and requested aid from Perugia
id Siena, so that the city was filled with the armed followers of either
irty. The nobility on this side of the Arno divided themselves into three
the one occupied the houses of the Cavicciulli, near the church of
>t. John ; another, the houses of the Pazzi and the Donati, near the great
jhurch of St. Peter ; and the third, those of the Cavalcanti in the New
tarket. Those beyond the river fortified the bridges and the streets in
their houses stood ; the Nerli defended the bridge of the Carraja ;
Frescobaldi and the Manelli, the church of the Holy Trinity ; and the
ssi and the Bardi, the bridge of the Rubaconte and the Ponte Vecchio.
'he people were drawn together under the gonfalon of justice and the
msigns of the companies of the artisans.
Both sides being thus arranged in order of battle, the people thought it
iprudent to defer the contest, and the attack was commenced by the Medici
id the Rondinelli, who assailed the Cavicciulli, where the houses of the lat-
ter open upon the piazza of St. John. Here both parties contended with great
obstinacy, and were mutually wounded, from the towers by stones and other
missiles, and from below by arrows. They fought for three hours ; but the
forces of the people continuing to increase, and the Cavicciulli finding them-
selves overcome by numbers, and hopeless of other assistance, submitted
themselves to the people, who saved their houses and property ; and having
disarmed them, ordered them to disperse among their relatives and friends,
and remain unarmed. Being victorious in the first attack, they easily overpow-
ered the Pazzi and the Donati, whose numbers were less than those they had
170 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1343-1344 A.D.]
subdued ; so that there only remained on this side the Arno, the Cavalcanti,
who were strong both in respect of the post they had chosen and in their fol-
lowers. Nevertheless, seeing all the gonfaloniers against them, and that the
others had been overcome by three gonfaloniers alone, they yielded without
offering much resistance. Three parts of the city were now in the hands of
the people, and only one in possession of the nobility ; but this was the
strongest, as well on account of those who held it, as from its situation, being
defended by the Arno ; hence it was first necessary to force the bridges.
The Ponte Vecchio was first assailed and offered a brave resistance ; for the
towers were armed, the streets barricaded, and the barricades defended by
the most resolute men ; so that the people were repulsed with great loss.
Finding their labour at this point fruitless, they endeavoured to force the
Rubaconte bridge, but no better success resulting, they left four gonfaloniers
in charge of the two bridges, and with the others attacked the bridge of
the Carraja. Here, although the Nerli defended themselves like brave
men, they could not resist the fury of the people ; for this bridge, having no
towers, was weaker than the others, and was attacked by the Capponi,
and many families of the people who lived in that vicinity. Being thus
assailed on all sides, they abandoned the barricades and gave way to the
people, who then overcame the Rossi and the Frescobaldi ; for all those
beyond the Arno took part with the conquerors.
There was now no resistance made except by the Bardi, who remained
undaunted, notwithstanding the failure of their friends, the union of the
people against them, and the little chance of success which they seemed to
have. They resolved to die fighting, and rather see their houses burned and
plundered than submit to the power of their enemies. They defended them-
selves with such obstinacy that many fruitless attempts were made to over-
come them, both at the Ponte Vecchio and the Rubaconte ; but their foes were
always repulsed with loss.
There had in former times been a street which led between the houses
of the Pitti, from the Roman road to the walls upon Mount St. George.
By this way the people sent six gonfaloniers, with orders to assail their
houses from behind. This attack overcame the resolution of the Bardi, and
decided the day in favour of the people ; for when those who defended the
barricades in the street learned that their houses were being plundered, they
left the principal fight and hastened to their defence. This caused the Ponte
Vecchio to be lost ; the Bardi fled in all directions and were received into
the houses of the Quaratesi, Panzanesi, and Mozzi. The people, especially the
lower classes, greedy for spoil, sacked and destroyed their houses, and pulled
down and burned their towers and palaces with such outrageous fury that the
most cruel enemy of the Florentine name would have been ashamed of taking
part in such wanton destruction.
The nobility being thus overcome, the people reformed the government ;
and as they were of three kinds, the higher, the middle, and the lower class,
it was ordered that the first should appoint two seigniors, the two latter three
each, and that the gonfalonier should be chosen alternately from either party.
Besides this, all the regulations for the restraint of the nobility were renewed ;
and in order to weaken them still more, many were reduced to the grade of
the people. The ruin of the nobility was so complete, and depressed them so
much, that they never afterwards ventured to take arms for the recovery
of their power, but soon became humbled and abject in the extreme. And
thus [adds Macchiavelli] Florence lost the generosity of her character and
her distinction in arms.*
f!344r-1346 A.D.]
THE FEEE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE
THE GKEAT PLAGUE
171
ITALIAN ARMS, FOURTEENTH CENTURY
For more than thirty years the heavy chain of misfortune had been fall-
ing, link after link, on the devoted city of Florence ; wars, sickness, poverty,
famines, floods, fires, and sanguinary revolutions had successively tried the
spirit of her sons ; yet so great was its elasticity that they still rose superior,
and still held on their wonted course of national enterprise. It was hoped
that misfortune had at length exhausted her quiver, when
they were again stricken in common with all the world by
her most deadly shaft, the great
and desolating plague of 1348.
This dreadful visitation,
which began in the far East
and rolled dismally over the
western world, pressed with
unwonted weight upon Flor-
ence, where the people were
predisposed for disease by a
succession of events that both
morally and physically had af-
fected the whole community.
As far back as the year 1345 unusual and constant rains accompanied and
followed by earthquakes continued from the end of July to the beginning of
November ; the harvests were nearly ruined ; but few grapes appeared ;
tillage was interrupted, and the little wine that could be made had proved
unwholesome.
The Arno again swamped half Florence ; streams, swelled into torrents,
rolled over banks and bridges and ravaged every district ; Rif redi and Bor-
ghetto were ruined by the Terzolla ; the Mugnone and Rimaggio did equal
mischief, and an overwhelming flood was hourly expected in the capital.
The next year's harvest failed, and the rain still poured down through
April, May, and June, 1346, with storms and tempests, and a partial destruc-
tion of the smaller seeds; misfortune seemed busily brooding, but not for
Florence alone ; France and the rest of Italy were struck with equal appre-
hensions ; corn and wine again failed ; the poultry perished for lack of food ;
cattle of every kind were fearfully diminished ; the price of oil became enor-
mous, and fruit was almost entirely extinct. Land produced at the utmost
a quarter, and in some places only a sixth, of the customary crops, and even
that was unwholesome ; want came like an armed man ; the peasants aban-
doned their farms and robbed each other through sheer necessity; or else
begged their bread in Florence, where the concourse of starving wretches
was overwhelming.
No land could be tilled unless the owner provided sustenance in kind for
his labourers besides the necessary seed, and this was almost impossible even
at an enormous cost ; in former scarcities corn was extravagantly dear but
still to be had ; now there was scarcely any even for the highest offers until
the government, with infinite exertion and by mere dint of money, imported it
from the Maremma, Romagna, Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria, Barbary, Tunis, and
the archipelago. But even the receipt of this was difficult ; for Pisa, equally
distressed, detained all that entered Porto Pisano until her own market was
supplied. Thirty thousand florins were nominally thus spent, one-third of
which was supposed to have found its way into the coffers of dishonest and
heartless peculators. Ten great ovens were erected by the government and
172 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1346-1350 A.D.]
strongly barricaded, where by day and night men and women were constantly
employed in making bread ; this was distributed every morning at the sound
of the great bell, to churches, convents, country parishes, and hungry crea-
tures ; but with exceeding difficulty, from the fierce pressure of starving mul-
titudes. In April, 1347, it was found by the bread-tickets received that
no less than ninety-four thousand people were daily furnished with two loaves
each from these ovens. In this were not counted the citizens and their
households who were already supplied and did not share in the public distri-
bution, but bought better bread at more than double price from the numerous
private ovens. It was exclusive also of religious mendicants and other sys-
tematic beggars who in infinite numbers crowded into Florence from the
adjacent towns and districts, and were in continual altercation with the citi-
zens. Yet none were refused, whether stranger or subject, and all classes
joined hand and heart in relieving the general misery. The increase of grain
from the wheat harvest of 1347 reduced the price, towards the end of
June, which however soon mounted up again from the eagerness of bakers to
purchase, in order to uphold the market by refusing to make more than a
certain quantity. This plunged the city into confusion ; tumults began, which
the priors calmed by hanging the baker who commenced this system, and corn
fell to its natural value which the harvest gradually diminished.
Death and sickness of course attended this suffering, and to alleviate the
general distress the priors as early as March had decreed that nobody should
be arrested for any debt under one hundred golden florins until the follow-
ing August ; and also, with a premium for importation, put a maximum price
on the bushel of wheat ; this was useless ; because hunger backed by money
overcame law, and corn sold for double the government value. For further
alleviation all the prisoners in the public jails were released on a com-
promise with their creditors and enemies, as mortality had already begun
in these places to the number of two or three in a day ; public debtors for
less than one hundred florins were also set at liberty on paying fifteen per
cent, of their fines ; but very few could take advantage of this, for all were
suffering from poverty, hunger, and distress.
The effects now began to appear ; women and children of the poorest
classes sank under the woeful pressure ; this lasted until November and car-
ried off about four thousand souls ; but it was worse in Prato, Pistoia, and
Bologna, in Romagna, and throughout all France. In Turkey, Syria,
Tatary, and India, sickness raged with unheard-of violence, giving rise and
currency to a thousand marvellous tales, such as fire issuing from the earth
and air, and consuming men, cattle, houses, trees, and even reducing the very
earth and stones to cinders : those who escaped this, died of pestilence ; and
on the banks of the Tanais, at Trebizond, and in all the neighbouring coun-
tries, only one person in five was left among the living ; in other places it is
said to have rained great black maggots with eight legs, some alive, some
dead, whose sting was death and whose corruption poisoned the atmosphere ;
but these are the least incredible of the numerous fables that this universal
scourge generated in morbid imaginations, and in which all men, being
terror-struck, believed implicitly. Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Syria, Crete,
Rhodes, and the other eastern isles bowed before the pestilence ; thence it
travelled with the course of trade to Sicily, Sardinia, Elba, Corsica, and
throughout the coasts of Italy ; four Genoese galleys carried it to that city out
of eight that had fled from the Euxine ; Milan scarcely felt it, but as there
were then no lazarettos it swept over the Alps, searched every vale in Savoy,
ravaged Provence and Dauphine, infected Burgundy and Catalonia ; missed
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 173
[1347-1350 A.D.]
Brabant, but holding on its course carried death and misery through the
rest of Europe until 1350, when it had penetrated even the Boreal regions
and nearly depopulated Iceland, which has never yet recovered from its
touch.
"This disease," says Giovanni Villani,^ "was of such a nature that none
survived its attack for three days ; certain tumours appeared in the groins
and under the arms ; the patient then spit blood ; and the priest that con-
fessed him, and the neighbour who looked on him often took the malady, so
that every sick creature was abandoned : no confession, no sacrament, no
medicine, no attendance ; yet the pope granted a pardon to every priest who
administered the holy communion, or confessed, or visited and watched the
dying man."
This was in 1347, and solemn processions and offerings were made for
three days together to avert the pestilence from Florence ; in December the
price of bread again augmented, because Romagna had absorbed every bushel
of grain from the Mugello district ; Venice was empty and in want ; Louis of
Hungary's invasion of Apulia, together with pestilence on the coast, pre-
vented her customary supplies from Sicily and southern Italy. Guards were
placed round the Florentine state and grain was once more purchased, so that
the year 1348 came in with fear and hope, but some diminution of misery.
All these sufferings had painfully prepared a way for heavier calamities, and
they struck with killing force on a sickly, weak, and desponding people.
Whether the great plague of 1348 fell with more fatal effects on Florence
than other places may be doubtful ; yet the descriptive pen of Boccaccio J
has thrown a pall of immortality over this scene of universal desolation and
of death./
BOCCACCIO'S ACCOUNT OP THE PLAGUE IN FLORENCE
The year of our Lord's incarnation, 1348, had already come, when in the
noble city of Florence, lovely beyond all others of Italy, appeared the mor-
tal pestilence which by the operation of superior bodies, or from wicked deeds,
was by the just judgment of God for our correction let loose on mortals.
It began some years before in the eastern countries and after having deprived
them of an inconceivable mass of living beings rolled westward in a con-
tinued course from realm to realm with mournful augmentation. Human
wisdom and human prudence availed not, for the city had already been
cleansed of its impurities by officers especially appointed; entrance was
denied to all infected persons, and every means employed to preserve the
public health. Neither were humble supplications to the Almighty more
successful, although made not once but repeatedly in religious processions
and divers other ways by devout persons ; for very early in spring the dismal
signs glared horribly palpable and manifested themselves in wonderful ways ;
not as in the east where bleeding at the nose was a plain symptom of inev-
itable death, but at the beginning, both in male and female, there appeared
about the groins and under the arm-pits certain tumours some of which
increased to the size of a common apple, others to that of an egg ; and those
greater and these less, and were vulgarly called gavoccioli. And from the
two parts of the body above mentioned these deadly gavoccioli within a brief
space began to sprout and swell indiscriminately in every other ; and soon
after this the nature of the disease began to change into black or livid spots,
which in many appeared on the arms, thighs, and other places ; some large
and few, others small and numerous ; and as the gavocciolo at first was and
174 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1348 A.D.]
always remained a certain sign of death, so also were these spots on whom-
soever they appeared.
For the cure of this malady neither the advice of medical men nor the
virtues of any nostrum availed or profited ; on the contrary, whether it were
that the nature of the illness would not permit, or that the ignorance of doc-
tors (of whom, besides regular physicians, the number of both sexes without
a particle of knowledge was enormous) could not divine the cause and there-
fore could apply no remedy; not only few survived, but almost all about the
third day from the appearance of these symptoms, some sooner, some later,
most of them without fever or any other accident, expired.
There were some who fancied that to live moderately and avoid every
excess would be most efficacious in resisting contagion, and so having formed
their society they shrank from all the others by shutting themselves up in
those houses where no sickness as yet existed ; to live better they ate the
most delicate food and drank the finest wines, but in great moderation, hold-
ing no intercourse with the outward world, nor permitting tales of death or
sickness to reach their ears ; but with music and every other diversion that
their means afforded they continued to dwell in seclusion.
Others of a contrary opinion affirmed that drinking deep, and enjoyments,
and singing, and rambling about for amusement, and satisfying every appe-
tite, and mocking and ridiculing everything, was a sovereign antidote to all
existing evil ; and as they said so they did ; for night and day, now at one
tavern, now at another, onward they went ; drinking without mode or meas-
ure, but mostly at other people's houses, whatever pleased and delighted them;
and this was easily done, for almost all, as if they had deserted life, abandoned
the care of themselves and everything they possessed ; wherefore most dwell-
ings remained open to the world at large, and the stranger that entered used
them as if he were the lawful owner; but with all this brutish sensuality they
still kept aloof from the sick.
And in such affliction and misery was also the revered authority of our
laws both divine and human that, deserted by their ministers, they had fallen
to ruin and dissolution ; for these like the rest were either sick or dead ; or
if any remnants existed they were useless ; wherefore all persons were left
to their own imaginings.
Many other people took a middle course between these two, neither restrict-
ing themselves in their food like the former, nor running to excess in drinking
and dissipation like the latter, but made use of things moderately according
to their wants ; and instead of shutting themselves up they rambled about
the town, some with bunches of flowers, some with odoriferous herbs, and
others with fragrant mixtures of spices which they carried in their hands and
continually applied to the nostrils, esteeming it an excellent thing to comfort
the brain by their perfume because the air was loaded and disgusting with
the stench of death, disease, and offensive medicaments. Some again enter-
tained more unfeeling sentiments (as if they were haply more secure), declar-
ing that there was no better, nor even so good a remedy for the plague as to
fly before it ; so, moved by this argument and caring only for themselves,
numbers of both sexes abandoned their native city, their homes, their friendly
meetings, their dearest relatives, and all their property, and sought those of
the stranger ; or else retired to the seclusion of their own country dwellings ;
as if the anger of God, being once moved thus to punish human wickedness,
would spare the rod to them and strike only those enclosed within the walls ;
or, as if they counselled everyone to fly because the final hour of Florence
was arrived.
THE FEEE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE 175
[1348 A.D.]
Many died that haply might have lived by timely aid ; so that between a
want of that assistance which sufferers could not procure, and the malignant
nature of this disease, the multitudes of those who daily and nightly expired
in Florence would be terrible to hear, even without beholding; wherefore,
almost of necessity, things contrary to all former habits were engendered
amongst the surviving citizens.
It was a custom, and we still see it maintained, that in cases of death
every female relation and neighbour should assemble within the deceased's
house and there weep for his loss; and before
the mansion every male kinsman and nearest
neighbour also assembled, with other citizens
in great numbers, attended by divers of the
clergy according to the dead man's quality ;
thence on the shoulders of his peers, with
funeral pomp of torch and music, the corpse
was slowly borne away to that church which
he had previously chosen for a sepulchre. But
when the pestilence raged most fiercely these
things almost entirely ceased, and new customs
superseded them ; for people then died not only
without such assemblies of wailing women, but
passed from the world in many instances with-
out even a single witness ; and few were those
to whom the piteous sobs and tears of relatives
were in mercy conceded; but instead thereof
was heard the laugh or the jest, or the convivial
feast! and this custom the women in general,
casting aside their sex's softness, did for their
own especial advantage most quickly learn.
There were but few whose bodies were ac-
companied to the church by more than ten or
twelve of their neighbours; nor were even
these honourable citizens, but certain grave-
diggers from the lowest classes named becchini
who performed this mercenary service; they
roughly shouldered the bier and moved hastily
and carelessly along, not to the church which LAMP, PALAZZO STROZZI, FLORENCE
the deceased had selected, but to the nearest
cemetery, led by some half-dozen priests with few lights and sometimes
none, who, assisted by the becchini, and not troubling about a funeral service,
tossed the body into any empty pit that they happened to find.
The treatment of the lower and a great portion of the middle classes was
still worse, because the greater part of these being confined either by hope
or poverty to their houses, thousands daily sickened, and being destitute of
assistance were allowed to die ; and many there were who daily and nightly
terminated their existence in the streets, and many that expired in their own
houses, the stench of whose carcasses was the first notice of their dissolution.
Of these and other victims all places were full, and the neighbours, not less
moved by the fear of putrid bodies than by charity towards the dead, with
the assistance of public porters when they were to be had, dragged the
corpses into the street and left them before their several doors where espe-
cially in the morning they were to be seen in heaps by those who wandered
through the tainted thoroughfares, t
176 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1348 A.D.]
NAPIEB'S REFLECTIONS ON THE PLAGUE
In this wide and wasting pestilence all Europe was more or less im-
mersed ; she was bereft of three-fifths of her population, and excepting
Milan, together with a few places at the foot of the Alps, the whole of Italy
was shaken to its centre. Genoa lost 40,000, Naples 60,000 ; and Sicily and
Apulia the incredible number of 530,000 souls ! The city of Trapani was
completely depopulated ; all died ; and her silent walls and empty dwellings
were alone left to tell the tale. Throughout Tuscany the harvest of death
was proportionably great : Pisa lost four-fifths or, as some say, seven-tenths ;
Florence three-fifths ; but Siena mourned for 80,000 of her buried citizens
and never recovered from the blow.
Amongst the illustrious victims of this universal sacrifice were the cele-
brated Laura of Avignon and the historian Giovanni Villani of Florence.
The latter, says Sismondi (and his words will suit all subsequent, as they
are the echo of all antecedent writers), " was the most expert, faithful, ele-
gant, and animated historian that Italy had yet produced : we have made
habitual use of his history during more than half a century with that confi-
dence which is due to a judicious contemporary author who had himself
taken part in public affairs." Villani was in fact much more than a mere
historian, and like almost all Florentines became both merchant and poli-
tician ; he travelled into France and the Netherlands, was several times in
the seigniory, superintended the building of the present walls, directed the
mint, and filled other high offices in the commonwealth. He served also
against Castruccio, was one of the hostages delivered to Mastino della Scala,
and spent a long life in public and private activity ; but finally, ruined by
the failure of the Bonaccorsi with whom he was in partnership, his latter
days were apparently unhappy and he died amidst the misfortunes of his
country.
Sickness gave way before the August sun, and all that remained of the
Florentine people were free from disease at the new seigniory's inauguration
on the 1st of September, but what the remnant was we are not told ; so
small however that poverty disappeared, and riches abounded in consequence
of accumulated inheritances. Yet instead, as some expected, of men's hearts
being softened and subdued and penitent, and turned to religion and virtue
and moderation by so awful a catastrophe, Florence immediately became a
theatre of luxury, riot, and debauchery. As if the hand of God were tired,
and death was swallowed up in victory, feasting, taverns, and every kind of
licentious revel occupied the people ; both sexes, high and low, with new and
fanciful attire, but more especially the latter, flaunted through the streets
bedizened like players in the rich garments of illustrious families, all now
extirpated. And as if these saturnalia were to be everlasting, few labourers
would return to agriculture, fewer still to trade, and those few insisted on
exorbitant remuneration. Unbounded pride and heartless prodigality were
everywhere triumphant ; the hand of death had removed the burden of pov
erty; the departure of death had removed the weight of terror, and the
rebound was startling. With feelings numbed, and passions free, no wish
was too vicious to indulge, no idea too strange for belief.
Superabundance of agricultural produce was looked for because of the
scarcity of mouths, and the contrary happened; for everything fell short
and long continued so, in some countries even to the most biting famine ;
manufactures of almost all kinds, clothes, everything necessary for the
human body, were in like manner expected to appear spontaneously and in
THE FKEE CITIES AND THE EMPIEE 177
[1348 A.D.]
profusion ; but the reverse took place ; most sorts of manufactured goods
soon doubled their former cost, and all labour brought twice the money that
it fetched before the pestilence ; disputes, lawsuits, contests, disturbances of
every class sprouted like nettles throughout the land, and Florence long and
severely felt their evil consequences. Immense treasures too had been willed
away by dying men to public charities, or in trust to corporate bodies for the
poor ; some directly, others after several successions, all now swept off by
exterminating plague ; amongst others there was left to the corporation of
Orto-san-Michele alone the vast inheritance of 350,000 florins, a sum equal
to one year's revenue of the commonwealth. This was in trust for the poor ;
but there were no poor, no paupers, no destitution ; death had murdered
poverty. Money, houses, and other valuables abounded ; the directors felt
their hands at liberty, their conscience easy; and unbounded peculation
was the result ; the elections were kept close amongst themselves ; they
re-elected each other; power and profit moved round in a circle undisturbed
by any external influence for three long years, until at last the angry voice
of Florence destroyed this nefarious and disgraceful system. In a similar
manner, but with better management, 25,000 florins were left to the hospital
of Santa Maria Nuova, and an equal sum to the new and useful company of
" Misericordia " ; so that the city most abounded in charitable resources at
the very time when poverty was for the moment annihilated.
Many corrective laws for the various existing evils were promulgated by
those magistrates who still retained their discretion and now resumed their
power ; one of these was to exonerate minors and married women from any
legal responsibility in affairs of pecuniary and other property, unless with
the consent of their relatives or guardians declared before a judge in the
court of the above corporation of Orto-san-Michele, which had ex-officio their
guardianship. At the same period, and no less to encourage population by
the residence of students than for the dignity of Florence, a public college
was founded for the first time, and able professors were appointed to the
whole range of science, besides civil and canon law and dogmatic theology.
It might have been supposed that all accounts between debtor and
creditor had been cancelled by the plague ; but so many fraudulent bank-
ruptcies had previously occurred and so unwholesome a system of mercantile
credits had been allowed that it became an article of swindling speculation,
and large orders were frequently given on long credit with a sole view to
future insolvency. As a remedy there was now published a decree forbid-
ding any citizen to buy or sell on credit, not only in the state itself but
within a hundred miles of Florence, on pain of losing his reputation and
a fine equal to the amount of the purchase money. Nor were sumptuary
laws forgotten; for riches and luxury required control, and a check was
therefore placed on the expense of marriage ceremonies which now were
frequent in consequence of augmented wealth and thin population ; but as
these could not at once raise citizens to the state new scrutiny-lists became
requisite for three years, which from necessity admitted the nobles to many
public offices both in town and country. /
H. W. — VOL. IX. N
CHAPTER VI
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE
[ca. 1250-1400 A.D.]
WE have seen much in recent chapters of the trials and disasters of
Florence. We now have the more agreeable task of recording her triumphs.
The record of petty quarrels and more pretentious warrings, through which
Florence has thus far been called to our attention, might well have blinded
our eyes to the observation of a remarkable culture development which went
on coincidentally with these political jarrings. In point of fact, there was a
most extraordinary intellectual development taking place in Italy in the later
centuries of the so-called dark ages, and the focus and centre of that devel-
opment was Florence ; in proof of which that city now gave to the world
within a single century a school of writers, led by Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio, who virtually stamped the Italian language for the first time as a
literary medium, and whose works marked the highest development of Italian
creative genius. And contemporaneous with these writers were the artists
Cimabue and Giotto, who gave an altogether similar impulse to art. All
these men were Florentines, and so greatly did their influence preponderate
over that of any other Italians of the epoch that Symonds & is fully justified
in saying : " It may be affirmed without exaggeration that, prior to the
close of the fifteenth century, what we called Italian genius was in truth
the genius of Florence."
This seemingly sudden efflorescence of genius had its origin, as has been
intimated, in a gradual development, which now for the first time produced
tangible results. If, on the one hand, it may be urged that these great men
were spontaneously creative, it must not be forgotten that their genius was
nurtured in a bed of classicism. Dante and Petrarch and Boccaccio were
all classical scholars, the last named being a student of Greek as well as of
Latin. All of them harked back to the great Roman writers as their models
of style, and founded their culture on a study of ancient literature. But
178
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 179
each of them in turn broke away spontaneously from these ancient models
when he came to his really creative efforts, and each put forth in the vernac-
ular the works that were destined to give him perpetuity of fame. In their
own day, to be sure, their Latin works were regarded as having great impor-
tance. Boccaccio never dreamed of placing his Italian writings on a par
with his learned treatises on mythology, geography, and biography ; and we
are assured that for two centuries his name was famous all over Europe on
account of these scientific works, while the Decameron was hardly known
north of the Alps. " Petrarch himself," says Burckhardt,c "trusted and hoped
that his Latin writings would bring him fame with his contemporaries and
with posterity, and thought so little of his Italian poems that, as he often
tells us, he would gladly have destroyed them if he could have succeeded
thereby in blotting them out from the memory of man." Yet these would-
be forgotten poems became a standard of taste for all the world, and have
kept their position in the estimate of critics of each succeeding generation.
This sudden outburst of creative genius of a high order in Italy, while
the rest of the western world was bound by uncreative traditions, has been
variously explained. Burckhardt finds the explanation in circumstances
that led, in Italy earlier than elsewhere, to the emancipation of the
individual. «
In the Middle Ages, he says, both sides of human consciousness — that
which was turned within as that which was turned without — lay dreaming
or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illu-
sion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were
seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as member of
a race, people, party, family, or corporation — only through some general cate-
gory. In Italy this veil first melted into air ; an objective treatment and
consideration of the state and of all the things of this world became possi-
ble. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding
emphasis ; man became a spiritual individual, and recognised himself as such.
In the same way the Greek had once distinguished himself from the barba-
rian, and the Arabian had felt himself an individual at a time when other
Asiatics knew themselves only as members of a race. It will not be difficult to
show that this result was owing above all to the political circumstances
of Italy.
In far earlier times we can here and there detect a development of free
personality which in northern Europe either did not occur at all, or could not
display itself in the same manner. The band of audacious wrong-doers in
the sixteenth century described to us by Liutprand, some of the contempo-
raries of Gregory VII, and a few of the opponents of the first Hohenstaufen
show us characters of this kind. But at the close of the thirteenth
century Italy began to swarm with individuality ; the charm laid upon human
personality was dissolved ; and a thousand figures meet us each in its own
special shape and dress. Dante's great poem would have been impossible in
any other country of Europe, if only for the reason that they all still lay
under the spell of race. For Italy the august poet, through the wealth
of individuality which he set forth, was the most national herald of his time.
This fact appears in the most decisive and unmistakable form. The Italians
of the fourteenth century knew little of false modesty or of hypocrisy in any
shape ; not one of them was afraid of singularity, of being and seeming un-
like his neighbours. By the year 1390 there was no longer any prevailing
fashion of dress for men at Florence, each preferring to clothe himself in his
own way.
180 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
Despotism, as we have already seen, fostered in the highest degree the in-
dividuality not only of the tyrant or condottiere himself, but also of the
men whom he protected or used as his tools — the secretary, minister, poet,
and companion. These people were forced to know all the inward resources
of their own nature, passing or permanent ; and their enjoyment of life was
enhanced and concentrated by the desire to obtain the greatest satisfaction
from a possibly very brief period of power and influence.
But even the subjects whom they ruled over were not free from the same
impulse. Leaving out of account those who wasted their lives in secret
opposition and conspiracies, we speak of the majority who were content with
a strictly private station, like most of the urban population of the Byzantine
Empire and the Mohammedan states. No doubt it was often hard for the
subjects of a Visconti to maintain the dignity of their persons and families,
and multitudes must have lost in moral character through the servitude they
lived under. But this was not the case with regard to individuality ; for
political impotence does not hinder the different tendencies and manifesta-
tions of private life from thriving in the fullest vigour and variety. Wealth
and culture, so far as display and rivalry were not forbidden to them, a
municipal freedom which did not cease to be considerable, and a church which,
unlike that of the Byzantine or of the Mohammedan world, was not identical
with the state — all these conditions undoubtedly favoured the' growth of
individual thought, for which the necessary leisure was furnished by the
cessation of party conflicts. The private man, indifferent to politics, and
busied partly with serious pursuits, partly with the interests of a dilettante,
seems to have been first fully formed in -these despotisms of the fourteenth
century. Documentary evidence cannot, of course, be required on such a
point. The novelists, from whom we might expect information, describe to
us oddities in plenty, but only from one point of view and in so far as the
needs of the story demand. Their scene, too, lies chiefly in the republican
cities.
In the latter, circumstances were also, but in another way, favourable to
the growth of individual character. The more frequently the governing
party was changed, the more the individual was led to make the utmost of
the exercise and enjoyment of power. The statesmen and popular leaders,
especially in Florentine history,1 acquired so marked a personal character,
that we can scarcely find, even exceptionally, a parallel to them in contem-
porary history, hardly even in Jacob van Artevelde.
The members of the defeated parties, on the other hand, often came into
a position like that of the subjects of the despotic states, with the difference
that the freedom or power already enjoyed, and in some cases the hope of
recovering them, gave a higher energy to their individuality. Among these
men of involuntary leisure we find, for instance, an Agnolo Pandolfini (died
1446), whose work on domestic economy is the first complete programme of
developed private life. His estimate of the duties of the individual as against
the dangers and thanklessness of public life is in its way a true monument
of the age.
Banishment, too, has this effect above all, that it either wears the exile out
or develops whatever is greatest in him. "In all our more populous cities,",
says Giovanni Pontano, " we see a crowd of people who have left their homes
1 Franco Sacchetti, in his Capitolo (Eime, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 56), enumerates about 1390
the names of over a hundred distinguished people in the ruling parties who had died within his
memory. However many mediocrities there may have been among them, the list is still remark-
able as evidence of the awakening of individuality.
DANTE
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 181
of their own free will ; but a man takes his virtues with him wherever he
goes." And, in fact, they were by no means only men who had been actually
exiled, but thousands left their native place voluntarily, because they found its
political or economical condition intolerable. The Florentine emigrants at
Ferrara and the Lucchese in Venice formed whole colonies by themselves.
The cosmopolitanism which grew up in the most gifted circles is in itself
a high stage of individualism. Dante, as we have already said, finds a new
home in the language and culture of Italy, but goes beyond even this in the
words, " My country is the whole world." And when his recall to Florence
was offered him on unworthy conditions, he wrote back : " Can I not every-
where behold the light of the sun and the stars, everywhere meditate on the
noblest truths, without appearing ingloriously and shamefully before the city
and the people? Even my bread will not fail me." The artists exult no
less defiantly in their freedom from the constraints of fixed residence.
" Only he who has learned everything," says Ghiberti, " is nowhere a stranger ;
robbed of his fortune and without friends, he is yet the citizen of every
country, and can fearlessly despise the changes of fortune." In the same
strain an exiled humanist writes : " Wherever a learned man fixes his seat,
there is home."c
EUROPEAN CULTURE IN GENERAL
The oppression which weighed upon the rest of Europe contributed to
the maintenance of barbarism, less by rendering difficult and sometimes
dangerous the acquisition of knowledge, than by taking away all attraction
from the exercise of the mind. Thought was a pain to those capable of
judging the state of the human species ; of studying the past, of comparing
it with the present ; and of thus foreseeing the future. Danger and suffer-
ing appeared on all sides. The men who, in France, Germany, England, and
Spain, felt themselves endued with the power of generalising their ideas,
either smothered them, not to aggravate the pain of thought, or directed
them solely to speculations the farthest from real life — towards that scho-
lastic philosophy which so vigorously exercised the understanding, without
bringing it to any conclusion.
In Italy, on the contrary, liberty secured the full enjoyment of intellect-
ual existence. Everyone endeavoured to develop the powers which he felt
within him, because each was conscious that the more his mind opened the
greater was his enjoyment ; everyone directed his powers to a useful and
practical purpose, because each felt himself placed in a state of society in
which he might attain some influence, either for his own benefit or that of
his fellow creatures. The first want which towns had experienced was that
of their defence. Accordingly, military architecture had taken precedence
in the arts. From its exercise the transition was easy to that of religious
architecture, at a time when religion was indispensable to every heart — to
civil architecture, then encouraged by a government in which everything was
for all. The study and pursuit of the beautiful in this first of the fine arts
had paved the way to all the others. From the pleasures of the imagination
through the eye, men ascended to those derived from the soul ; and hence
the birth of poetry. <*
The language of Provence had attained its highest degree of cultivation ;
Spain and Portugal had already produced more than one poet ; and the
langue d' Oil, in the north of France, was receiving considerable attention,
while the Italian was not yet enumerated amongst the languages of Europe,
182 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
and the richness and harmony of its idiom, gradually and obscurely formed
amongst the populace, were not as yet appreciated. But in the thirteenth
century Dante arose to immortalise this hitherto neglected tongue, and,
aided by his single genius, it soon advanced with a rapidity which left all
competition at a distance.
The Lombardian duchy of Benevento, comprising the greater part of the
modern kingdom of Naples, had preserved, under independent princes, and
surrounded by the Greeks and the Saracens, a degree of civilisation which,
in the earlier part of the Middle Ages, was unexampled throughout the rest
of Italy. Many of the fine arts, and some branches of science, were culti-
vated there with success. The schools of Salerno communicated to the West
the medical skill of the Arabs, and the commerce of Amalfi introduced into
those fertile provinces not only wealth but knowledge. From the eighth to
the tenth century, various historical works, written, it is true, in Latin, but
distinguished for their fidelity, their spirit, and their fire, proceeded from
the pen of several men of talent, natives of that district, some of whom
clothed their compositions in hexameter verses, which, compared with others
of the same period, display superior facility and fancy.
The influx of foreigners consequent upon the invasion of the Norman
adventurers, who founded a sovereignty in Apulia, was not sufficiently great to
effect a change in the language ; and, under their government, the Italian
or Sicilian tongue first assumed a settled form. The court of Palermo, early
in the twelfth century, abounded in riches, and consequently indulged in
luxurious habits ; and there the first accents of the Sicilian muse were heard.
There, too, at the same period, the Arabs acquired a degree of influence and
credit which they have never possessed in any other Christian court. The
palace of William I, like those of the monarchs of the East, was guarded by
Mohammedan eunuchs. From them he selected his favourites, his friends,
and sometimes even his ministers. To attach themselves to the arts and to
the various avocations which contribute to the pleasures of life, was the
peculiar province of the Saracens, by whom half of the island is still occupied.
When Frederick II, at the end of the twelfth century, succeeded to the
throne of the Norman monarchs, he transported numerous colonies of Sara-
cens into Apulia and the principality, but he did not banish them from
either his service or his court. Of them his army was composed ; and the
governors of his provinces, whom he denominated justiciaries, were chosen
almost exclusively from their number. Thus was it the destiny of the
Arabians, in the east as well as in the west of Europe, to communicate to
the Latin nations their arts, their science, and their poetry.
From the history of Sicily, we may deduce the effects produced by Ara-
bian influence on the Italian, or as it was then considered, the Sicilian poetry,
with no less certainty than that with which we trace its connection, in the
county of Barcelona and in the kingdom of Castile, with the first efforts of
the Provencal and Spanish poets. William I, an effeminate and voluptuous
prince, forgot, in his palace of Palermo, amidst his Moorish eunuchs, in the
song and the feast, those commotions which agitated his realms. The regency
of the kingdom devolved, at his decease, upon his widow, who entrusted the
government to Gayto Petro, the chief of the eunuchs, connected with
the Saracens of Africa. All the commerce of Palermo was monopolised
by the infidels. They were the professors of every art, and the inventors of
every variety of luxury. The nation accommodated itself to their customs ;
and in their public festivals it was usual for Christian and Moorish women to
sing in concert to the music of their slaves. We may safely conclude that on
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 183
these occasions each party adopted their mother-tongue ; and that the
Italian females who, in the words of Hugo Falcandus,™ responded, in
melancholy cadence to the tambours of their Moorish attendants, would,
in all probability, adapt Sicilian words to African airs and measures.
THE UNIVERSITIES AND NASCENT SCHOLARSHIP
The universities and schools which were already founded obtained more
fame and became more active. The clash of arms, which had not prevented
their flourishing, did not prevent new ones being formed. That same spirit
of rivalry which armed one against the other, princes and nations, led
them to vie one with the other in seeking, by every means, greater renown
and greater glory for their little states. At one time professors were seen
quietly continuing their lectures while fighting was going on under the
walls of the town, or even in the streets and squares; at another time,
the rostrum was overthrown, the professors were driven away, the scholars
put to flight ; but they soon returned, either under the same government or
under the new one which had taken its place, and studies continued their
course.
The University of Bologna suffered continual vicissitudes. At one time
excommunicated by Clement V, the greater number of the scholars passed
to the University of Padua, Bologna's rival ; at another time, in conse-
quence of quarrels which broke out between the professors and the magis-
trates, or between the scholars and the citizens, whole classes deserted and
settled in the neighbouring towns. But all these wrongs were righted.
John XXII withdrew Clement's interdict, and confirmed and increased
the privileges of the university ; the magistrates and citizens granted the
amends demanded by professors and pupils ; and this school, which was
already famous, became more brilliant and more famous. A short time later,
Milan, Pisa, Pavia, Piacenza, Siena, but especially Florence, rivalled with
Padua, Bologna, and the University of Naples founded by Frederick II,
which had so vastly increased under Robert of Naples. Boniface VIII had
founded the University of Rome, his successors confirmed and even ex-
tended its privileges ; but their bulls could not repair the harm done to the
new university by their absence ; it could not do aught but decline so long
as their residence at Avignon left the unfortunate town of Rome almost
deserted, and, as a climax, always a prey to sedition and torn by internal
factions.
It must be remembered that in these universities and schools nothing
was taught except, as in the preceding century, what were commonly called
the seven arts. Literature, properly so called, was almost entirely ignored.
The ancient authors, who, later on, formed the base of literary study, were
scarcely beginning to be discovered. Libraries of schools and monasteries,
even those which several princes had worked to form, mostly contained some
of the works of the fathers, books on theology, law, medicine, astrology,
and scholastic philosophy ; and even these were few in number. It was in
the course of the century then beginning that a praiseworthy eagerness
for the discovery of ancient manuscripts arose in Italy, and, following Italy's
example, spread throughout Europe. The most deserted and dusty corners
of private houses and convents were searched for the works of these
authors, of whom till then nothing remained but the name, and of those who
had left many works of which only the smallest part was known. This
184 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
revolution was principally due to Petrarch, and it is one of his strongest
claims to glory.
One single example will prove the vastness of his work and how little
advanced even the learned of that time were. A professor of the Univer-
sity of Bologna, writing to him on the subject of ancient authors, espe-
cially of poets, and wishing to include among the latter Plato l and Cicero,
was ignorant of the name of Nsevius, and even Plautius, and thought that
Ennius and Statius were contemporaries. The ignorance of the copyists
must be added to the imperfection of knowledge and the scarcity of books.
In transcribing the best books they frequently disfigured them in such a
manner that their authors themselves would have had trouble to recognise
them. All this must be remembered to tone down the accounts found in
histories of literature of the fine libraries given to certain universities, or
founded in certain towns, formed by a certain prince and thrown open by
his orders to the learned and to the public. When compared with our large
libraries, they are insignificant book-cupboards — an absolute famine com-
pared with appalling superabundance.
The science which obtained most assistance from them, and which was the
most abundantly provided with books, was scholastic theology ; it was there-
fore pursued more eagerly than ever. It was no longer the century of men
like Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura ; but their example was quite recent,
and their admirers and disciples entertained the hope of equalling them and
even surpassing them in glory. Hence among theologians arose that eager-
ness, that general fervour to interpret the same books that their predecessors
had interpreted, to explain the explanations themselves, to commentate the
commentaries ; to deepen the shadows while attempting to cast light upon
them, and to obscure by explanation what was at first clear. These are
not only the ideas, but the very words of the wise Tiraboschi ; he added
the very natural wish that none would disturb the repose of these inde-
fatigable commentators in the profound oblivion and dust of the libraries
where they lie buried. However, he does not include among them about
a dozen doctors, whose fame it appears was very great in that century.
We will only mention one of them — an Augustine monk named Denis, a
native of St. Sepulcre — because he was the friend and spiritual adviser of
Petrarch ; this much may be said of him, all the rest may be relegated to
the same place of refuge whose inviolability Tiraboschi reclaims for the mob
of theologians of the century. There should be no rank in dust and
oblivion. All authors of books which are unreadable or which teach
nothing should sleep there alike.
LATIN AND THE VERNACULAR
A complete separation had now taken place between the ordinary lan-
guage of the country and the Latin tongue. Of the latter, the women were
ignorant. The general adoption of the language to which their delicacy
gave new graces, and in which alone they were accessible to the gallantry of
their admirers, was a necessary result. It was now submitted to rules, and
enlivened by that sensibility of expression, of which a dead and pedantic
language ceases to be susceptible. For a century and a half, in fact, it would
seem that the Sicilians confined themselves to the composition of love-songs
? There was a comic poet named Plato.
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE
185
alone. These primitive specimens of Italian poetry have been studiously
preserved, and they have been analysed by M. Ginguene, with equal talent
and learning. To his work, such of our readers as may wish to obtain a
more particular knowledge of these relics will have satisfaction in referring ;
nor can they apply to a better source of information for more complete and
profound details on the subject of Italian poetry
than can possibly find a place in a condensed his-
tory of the general literature of the south.
The merit of amatory poetry consists, almost
entirely, in its expression. Its warmth and ten-
derness of sentiment is injured by any exertion
of mere ingenuity and fancy, in the pursuit of
which the poet, or the lover, seems to lose sight
of his proper object. Little more is required from
him than to represent with sensibility and with
truth the feelings which are common to all who
love. The harmony of language is the best means
of expressing that of the heart. But this principle
seems almost entirely to have escaped the notice
of the first Sicilian and Italian writers. The exam-
ple of the Arabs and of the Provengals induced
them to prefer ostentation to simplicity, and to
exercise a false and affected taste in the choice of
their poetical ornaments. In the best specimens
of this school, we should find little to reward the
labour of translating them ; and we feel less in-
clined to draw the inferior pieces from their
deserved obscurity. It is, therefore, principally
with a view to the history of the language, and
of the versification, that we turn over the pages of
Ciullo d'Alcamo the Sicilian, those of Frederick
II, and of his chancellor, Pietro delle Vigne, of
Oddo delle Colonne, of Mazzeo di Ricco, and
of other poets of the same class.
The language employed by the Sicilians in
their poetical attempts was not the popular dia-
lect, as it then existed among the natives of the
island and as we still find it preserved in some
Sicilian songs, scarcely intelligible to the Italians
themselves. From the imperial court and that of
the kings of Sicily, it had already received a more
elegant form ; and those laws of grammar which
were originally founded upon custom had now
obtained the ascendency over it, and prescribed
their own rules. The lingua cortigiana, the lan-
guage of the court, was already distinguished as
the purest of the Italian dialects. In Tuscany it came into general use ;
and previous to the end of the thirteenth century it received great stability
from several writers of that country, in verse as well as in prose, who carried
it very nearly to that degree of perfection which it has ever since maintained.
For elegance and purity of style, Ricordano Malaspina, who wrote the History
of Florence in 1280, may be pronounced, at the present day, to be in no degree
inferior to the best writers now extant.
PORTION OF BRONZE ARCHI-
TRAVE OF SOUTH DOOR,
BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE
186 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
THE MASTER POET, AND HIS THEME
No poet, however, had yet arisen, gifted with absolute power over the
empire of the soul ; no philosopher had yet pierced into the depths of feeling
and of thought, when Dante, the greatest name of Italy, and the father of
her poetry, appeared, and demonstrated the mightiness of his genius by
availing himself of the rude and imperfect materials within his reach, to
construct an edifice resembling, in magnificence, that universe whose image
it reflects. Instead of amatory effusions addressed to an imaginary beauty,
instead of madrigals full of sprightly insipidity, sonnets laboured into har-
mony, and strained or discordant allegories, the only models, in any modern
language, which presented themselves to the notice of Dante, that great
genius conceived, in his vast imagination, the mysteries of the invisible crea-
tion, and unveiled them to the eyes of the astonished world.
In the century immediately preceding, the energy of some bold and
enthusiastic minds had been directed to religious objects. A new spiritual
force, surpassing in activity and fanaticism all monastic institutions before
established, was organised by St. Francis and St. Dominic, whose furious
harangues and bloody persecutions revived that zeal which, for several
centuries past, had appeared to slumber. In the cells of the monks, never-
theless, the first symptoms of reviving literature were seen. Their studies
had now assumed a scholastic character. To the imagination of the zealot,
the different conditions of a future state were continually present ; and the
spiritual objects which he saw with the eyes of faith were invested with all
the reality of material forms, by the force with which they were presented
to his view in detailed descriptions and in dissertations displaying a scientific
acquaintance with the exact limit of every torment, and the graduated re-
wards of glorification.
A very singular instance of the manner in which these ideas were im-
pressed upon the people is afforded by the native city of Dante, in which
the celebration of a festival was graced by a public representation of the in-
fernal tortures ; and it is not unlikely that the first circulation of the work
of that poet gave occasion to this frightful exhibition. The bed of the
Arno was converted into the gulf of perdition, where all the horrors coined
by the prolific fancy of the monks were concentrated. Nothing was wanting
to make the illusion complete; and the spectators shuddered at the shrieks
and groans of real persons, apparently exposed to the alternate extremes of
fire and frost, to waves of boiling pitch, and to serpents. This scene occurred
at Florence on the 1st of May, 1304.
It appears, then, that when Dante adopted, as the subject of his immortal
poem, the secrets of the invisible world, and the three kingdoms of the dead,
he could not possibly have selected a more popular theme. It had the ad-
vantage of combining the most profound feelings of religion with those vivid
recollections of patriotic glory and party contentions which were necessarily
suggested by the reappearance of the illustrious dead on this novel theatre.
At the close of the century, in the year 1300, and in the week of Easter,
Dante supposes himself to be wandering in the deserts near Jerusalem, and
to be favoured with the means of access to the realm of shadows. He is there
met by Virgil, the object of his incessant study and admiration, who takes
upon himself the office of guide, and who, by his own admirable description of
the heathen hell, seems to have acquired a kind of right to reveal the
mysteries of these forbidden regions. The two bards arrive at a gate, on
which are inscribed these terrific words : «
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 187
" Through me you pass into the city of woe :
Through me you pass into eternal pain :
Through me, among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd :
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here."0
The theme of the poem is too familiar to need further exposition here.
It may be interesting to note, however, that the sequence of regions through
which the poet journeys in witnessing the rewards of paradise is suggested
by the ideas of cosmology that were prevalent in Dante's time. The poem
thus has interest from a scientific as well as from an artistic standpoint — an
interest that is enhanced by the reflection that the time was almost at hand
when a new system of cosmology would supplant the Ptolemaic one here
suggested, and in so doing usher in a new scientific era, somewhat as the
poem itself ushered in a new era of literature. «
The power of the human mind was never more forcibly demonstrated, in its
most exquisite masterpieces, than in the poem of Dante. Without a prototype
in any existing language, equally novel in its various parts and in the com-
bination of the whole, it stands alone as the first monument of modern genius,
the first great work which appeared in the reviving literature of Europe.
In its composition, it is strictly conformable to the essential and invariable
principles of the poetical art. It possesses unity of design and of execution ;
and bears the visible impress of a mighty genius, capable of embracing, at
once, the parts and the whole of its scheme; of employing, with facility,
the most stupendous materials, and of observing all the required niceties of
proportion, without experiencing any difficulty from the constraint. In all
other respects, the poem of Dante is not within the jurisdiction of established
rules. It cannot with propriety be referred to any particular class of compo-
sition, and its author is only to be judged by those laws which he thought fit
to impose upon himself. His modesty induced him to give his work the title
of a comedy, in order to place it in a rank inferior to the epic, to which he
conceived that Virgil had exclusive claims. Dante had not the slightest
acquaintance with the dramatic art, of which he had, in all probability, never
met with a single specimen ; and from this ignorance proceeded that use of
the word which now appears to us to be so extraordinary. In his native
country, the title which he gave to his work was always preserved, and it is
still known as The Divine Comedy. A name so totally different from every
other seems to be happily bestowed upon a production which stands with-
out a rival.
Dante the Man
The glory which Dante acquired, which commenced during his life-time,
and which raised him, in a little time, above the greatest names of Italy,
contributed but little to his happiness. He was born in Florence in 1265,
of the noble and distinguished family of the Alighieri, which was attached,
in politics, to the party of the Guelfs.
Whilst yet very young, he formed a strong attachment to Beatrice, the
daughter of Folco de' Portinari, whom he lost at the age of twenty-five
years. Throughout his future life, he preserved a faithful recollection of
the passion which, during fifteen years, had essentially contributed to the
188
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
happy development of his feelings, and which was thus associated with all
his noblest sentiments and his most elevated thoughts. It was probably
about ten years after the death of Beatrice when Dante commenced his great
work, which occupied him during the remainder of his life, and in which he
assigned the most conspicuous station to the woman he had so tenderly loved.
In this object of his adoration, he found a common point of union for images
both human and divine ; and the Beatrice of his paradise appears to us some-
times in the character of the most beloved of her sex, and sometimes as
an abstract emblem of celestial wisdom. Far from considering the passion
of love in the same light as the ancients, the
father of modern poetry recognises it as a pure,
elevated, and sacred sentiment, calculated to en-
noble an4 to sanctify the soul ; and he has never
been surpassed, by any who have succeeded him,
in his entire and affecting devotion to the object
of his attachment. Dante was, however, induced
by considerations of family convenience to enter
into a new engagement. In 1291, a year after
the death of Beatrice, he married Gemma de' Do-
nati, whose obstinate and violent disposition em-
bittered his domestic life. It is remarkable that,
in the whole course of his work, into which he
introduces the whole universe, he makes no per-
sonal allusion to his wife ; and he was actuated,
no doubt, by motives of delicacy towards her and
her family, when he passed over, in similar silence,
Corso Donati, the leader of the faction of his ene-
mies, and his own most formidable adversary.
In the battle of Campaldino, in 1289, Dante
bore arms for his country against the Aretini, and
also against the Pisans in the campaign of 1290 —
the year subsequent to that in which the catas-
trophe of Count Ugolino occurred. He subse-
quently assumed the magisterial functions, at the
period so fatal to the happiness of his country,
when the civil wars between the Bianchi and the
Neri broke out. He was accused of a criminal
partiality to the interest of the former faction,
during the time when he was a member of the
supreme council ; and when Charles de Valois,
the father of Philip VI, proceeded to Florence,
to appease the dissensions of the two parties, Dante was sentenced, in the
year 1302, to the payment of an oppressive fine and to exile. By the subse-
quent sentence of a revolutionary tribunal, he was condemned, during his
absence, to be burned alive, with all his partisans.
From that period, Dante was compelled to seek an asylum at such of the
Italian courts as were attached to the Ghibelline interest, and were not un-
willing to extend their protection to their ancient enemies. To that party,
which he had opposed in the outset of his career, his perpetual exile and his
misfortune compelled him, ultimately, to become a convert. He resided, for
a considerable time, with the marquis Malaspina. in the Lunigiana, with the
count Busone da Gubbio, and with the two brothers Delia Scala, lords of
Verona. But, in every quarter, the haughty obstinacy of his character, which
TORCH HOLDER, PALAZZO
STROZZI, FLORENCE
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 189
became more inflexible in proportion to the difficulties with which he was
surrounded, and the bitterness of his wit, which frequently broke out in caus-
tic sarcasms, raised up against him new enemies. His attempts to re-enter
Florence with his party, by force of arms, were successively foiled ; his peti-
tions to the people were rejected ; and his last hope, in the emperor Henry
VII, vanished on the death of that monarch. His decease took place at Ra-
venna, on the 14th of September, 1321, whilst he was enjoying the hospitable
protection of Guido Novello da Polenta, the lord of that city, who had always
treated him rather as a friend than as a dependant, and who, a short time
before, had bestowed upon him an honourable mark of his confidence by
charging him with an embassy to the republic of Venice.
On the death of her great poet, all Italy appeared to go into mourning.
On every side copies of his work were multiplied, and enriched with numer-
ous commentaries. In the year 1350, Giovanni Visconti, archbishop and
prince of Milan, engaged a number of learned men in the laborious task of
illustrating and explaining the obscure passages of the Divina Oommedia.
Six distinguished scholars, two theologians, two men of science, and two
Florentine antiquaries united their talents in this undertaking. Two pro-
fessorships were instituted for the purpose of expounding the works of Dante.
One of these, founded at Florence, in the year 1373, was filled by the cele-
brated Boccaccio. The duties of the other, at Bologna, were no less worthily
discharged by Benvenuto d'Imola, a scholar of eminence. It is questionable
whether any other man ever exercised so undisputed an authority and so
direct an influence over the age immediately succeeding his own.
An additional proof of the superiority of this great genius may be drawn
from the commentaries upon his works. We are there surprised to see his
most enthusiastic admirers incapable of appreciating his real grandeur.
Dante himself, in his Latin treatise entitled De Vulgari Eloquentia, appears
to be quite unconscious of the extent of his services to the literature of his
country. Like his commentators, he principally values himself upon the
purity and correctness of his style. Yet he is neither pure nor correct ; but,
what is far superior to either, he had the powers of creative invention. For
the sake of the rhyme, we find him employing a great number of barbarous
words, which do not occur a second time in his verses. But, when he is him-
self affected, and wishes to communicate his emotions, the Italian language
of the thirteenth century, in his powerful hands, displays a richness of ex-
pression, a purity, and an elegance which he was the first to elicit, and by
which it has ever since been distinguished. The personages whom he intro-
duces are moving and breathing beings ; his pictures are nature itself ; his
language speaks at once to the imagination and to the judgment ; and it
would be difficult to point out a passage in his poem which would not form
a subject for the pencil. The admiration of his commentators has also been
abundantly bestowed upon the profound learning of Dante, who, it must be
allowed, appears to have been master of all the knowledge and accomplish-
ments of the age in which he lived. Of these various attainments, his poem
is the faithful depository, from which we may infer, with great precision, the
progress which science had at that time made, and the advances which were
yet necessary to afford full satisfaction to the mind.e
The importance ascribed by Dante's contemporaries to his writings other
than the famous poem is well illustrated in the comment of the historian
Giovanni Villani who, commenting on the death and burial of Dante, says:
" This was a great and learned person in almost every science, although a
layman ; he was a consummate poet and philosopher and rhetorician ; as
190 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
perfect in prose and verse as he was in public speaking a most noble orator ;
in rhyming excellent, with the most polished and beautiful style that ever
appeared in our language up to his time or since. He wrote in his youth
the book of The Early Life of Love, and afterwards when in exile made
twenty moral and amorous canzonets very excellent, and amongst other
things three noble epistles ; one he sent to the Florentine government com-
plaining of his undeserved exile ; another to the emperor Henry when he
was at the siege of Brescia, reprehending him for his delay and almost pro-
phesying; the third to the Italian cardinals during the vacancy after the
death of Pope Clement, urging them to agree in electing an Italian pope —
all in Latin, with noble precepts and excellent sentences and authorities,
which were much commended by the wise and learned. And he wrote the
Commedia where, in polished verse and with great and subtile arguments,
moral, natural, astrological, philosophical, and theological, with new and
beautiful figures, similes, and poetical graces, he composed and treated in a
hundred chapters, or cantos, of the existence of hell, purgatory, and paradise,
so loftily as may be said of it that whoever is of subtile intellect may by his
said treatise perceive and understand. He was well pleased in this poem to
blame and cry out in the manner of poets, in some places perhaps more than
he ought to have done ; but it may be that his exile made him do so. He
also wrote the Monarchia, where he treats of the office of popes and emperors.
And he began a comment on fourteen of the above-named moral canzonets
in the vulgar tongue, which in consequence of his death is found imperfect
except on three, which to judge from what is seen would have proved a lofty,
beautiful, subtile, and most important work, because it is equally ornamented
with noble opinions and fine philosophical and astrological reasoning. Be-
sides these he composed a little book which he entitled I)e Vulgari Eloquentia,
of which he promised to make four books (but only two are to be found, per-
haps in consequence of his early death), where in powerful and elegant Latin
and good reasoning he rejects all the vulgar tongues of Italy.
" This Dante," continues Villani, " from his knowledge, was somewhat
presumptuous, harsh, and disdainful, like an ungracious philosopher; he
scarcely deigned to converse with laymen ; but for his other virtues, science,
and worth as a citizen, it seems but reasonable to give him perpetual remem-
brance in this our chronicle ; nevertheless his noble works left to us in writing
bear true testimony of him and honourable fame to our city."/
LESSER CONTEMPORARIES OF DANTE
To the same period with Dante belongs Francesco Barberini, the disciple,
like Dante, of Brunetto Latini, and author of a treatise in verse on moral
philosophy, which, in conformity with the affected spirit of the times, he
entitled I Documenti d'Amore. Cecco d'Ascoli was also the contemporary of
Dante, and his personal enemy. His poem in five books, called IS Acerba,
or rather, according to M. Ginguene, L'Acerva, " the heap," is a collection of
all the sciences of his age, including astronomy, philosophy, and religion. It
is much less remarkable for its intrinsic merit than for the lamentable catas-
trophe of its author, who was burned alive in Florence as a sorcerer, in 1327,
at the age of seventy years, after having long held the professorship of
judicial astrology in the University of Bologna.
Cino da Pistoia, of the house of the Sinibaldi, was the friend of Dante,
and was equally distinguished by the brilliancy of his talents in two different
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE
departments : as a lawyer, by his commentary on the first nine books of the
code, and, as a poet, by his verses addressed to the beautiful Selvaggia de'
Vergiolesi, of whom he was deprived by death, about the year 1307. As a
lawyer, he was the preceptor of the celebrated Bartolo, who, if he has sur-
passed his master, yet owed much to his lessons. As a poet, he was the
model which Petrarch loved to imitate ; and, in this view, he perhaps did
his imitator as much injury by his refinement and affectation as he benefited
him by the example of his pure and harmonious style. Fazio de' Uberti,
grandson of the great Farinata, who, in consequence of the hatred which
the Florentines entertained for his ancestor, lived and died in exile, raised
himself to equal celebrity at this period by his sonnets and other verses.
At a much later time of life, he composed a poem of the descriptive kind,
entitled Dettamondo, in which he proposed to imitate Dante, and to display
the real world, as that poet had portrayed the world of spirits. But it need
hardly be said that the distance between the original and the imitation is
great indeed.
In some respects all these poets, and many others whose names are yet
more obscure, have common points of resemblance. We find, in all, the same
subtlety of idea, the same incoherent images, and the same perplexed senti-
ments. The spirit of the times was perverted by an affected refinement ;
and it is a subject of just surprise that, in the very outset of a nation,
simplicity and natural feeling should have been superseded by conceit and
bombast. It is, however, to be considered that this nation did not form her
own taste, but adopted that of a foreign country, before she was qualified,
by her own improved knowledge, to make a proper choice. The verses of
the troubadours of Provence were circulated from one end of Italy to the
other. They were diligently perused and committed to memory by every
poet who aspired to public notice, some of whom exercised themselves in
compositions in the same language ; and although the Italians, if we except
the Sicilians, had never any direct intercourse with the Arabians, yet they
derived much information from them by this circuitous route. The almost
unintelligible subtleties with which they treated of love passed for refinement
of sentiment ; while the perpetual rivalry which was maintained between the
heart and the head, between reason and passion, was looked upon as an ingen-
ious application of philosophy to a literary subject. The causeless griefs,
the languors, the dying complaints of a lover became a constituent portion
of the consecrated language in which he addressed his mistress, and from
which he could not without impropriety depart. Conventional feelings in
poetry thus usurped the place of those native and simple sentiments which
are the offspring of the heart.
PETRAKCH
But, instead of dwelling upon these defects in the less celebrated poets,
we shall attempt to exhibit the general spirit of the fourteenth century, as
displayed in the works of the greatest man whom Italy, in that age, produced,
whose reputation has been most widely spread, and whose influence has been
most extensively felt, not only in Italy but in France, in Spain, and in Por-
tugal. The reader will easily imagine that it is Petrarch, the lover of Laura,
to whom we here allude.
Petrarch was the son of a Florentine, who, like Dante, had been exiled
from his native city. He was born at Arezzo, on the night of the 19th of
July, 1304, and he died at Arqua, near Padua, on the 18th of July, 1374.
192
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
During the century of which his life occupied the greater portion, he was
the centre of Italian literature. Passionately attached to letters, and more
especially to history and to poetry, and an enthusiastic admirer of antiquity,
he imparted to his contemporaries by his discourses, his writings, and his
example that taste for the recovery and study of Latin manuscripts which so
eminently distinguished the fourteenth century ; which preserved the master-
pieces of the classical authors, at the very moment when they were about to
be lost forever ; and gave a new impulse, by the imitation of those admirable
models, to the progress of the human intellect.
Petrarch, tortured by the passion which has contributed so greatly to his
celebrity, endeavoured, by travelling during a considerable portion of his life,
to escape from himself and to change the current of his thoughts. He trav-
ersed France, Germany, and every part of Italy ; he visited Spain ; and, with
incessant activity, directed his attention to the examination of the remains of
antiquity. He became intimate with all the scholars, poets, and philosophers
from one end of Europe to the other, whom he inspired with his own spirit.
While he imparted to them the object of his own labours, he directed their
studies ; and his correspondence became a sort of magical bond, which, for
the first time, united the whole literary republic of Europe. At the age in
which he lived, that continent was divided into petty states, and sovereigns
had not yet attempted to establish any of those colossal empires, so dreaded
by other nations. On the
contrary, each country was
divided into smaller sover-
eignties.- The authority of
many a prince did not extend
above thirty leagues from the
little town over which he
ruled ; while at the distance
of a hundred, his name was
unknown. In proportion,
however, as political impor-
tance was confined, literary
glory was extended ; and
Petrarch, the friend of Azzo
di Correggio, prince of Parma,
of Lucchino and of Galeazzo
Visconti, princes of Milan,
and of Francesco di Carrara,
prince of Padua, was better
known and more respected,
throughout Europe, than any
of those petty sovereigns.
This universal reputation, to
,v _ which his high acquirements
I entitled him, and of which he
M PETRARCH frequently made use in for-
warding the interests of lit-
erature, he occasionally turned to account for political purposes. No man of
letters, no poet was doubtless ever charged with so many embassies to great
potentates — to the emperor, the pope, the king of France, the senate of Ven-
ice, and all the princes of Italy. It is very remarkable that Petrarch did not
fulfil these duties merely as a subject of the state which had committed its
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 193
interests to his hands, but that he acted for the benefit of all Europe. He
was intrusted with such missions on account of his reputation; and when
he treated with the different princes, it was, as it were, in the character of an
arbitrator, whose suffrage everyone was eager to obtain, that he might stand
high in the opinion of posterity.
The prodigious labours of Petrarch to promote the study of ancient
literature are, after all, his noblest title to glory. Such was the view in
which they were regarded by the age in which he lived, and such also was
his own opinion. His celebrity, notwithstanding, at the present day depends
much more on his Italian lyrical poems than on his voluminous Latin com-
positions. These lyrical pieces, which were imitated from the Provengals,
from Cino da Pistoia, and from the other poets who flourished at the com-
mencement of that century, have served, in their turn, as models to all the
distinguished poets of the south.
The Latin compositions upon which Petrarch rested his fame, and which
are twelve or fifteen times as voluminous as his Italian writings, are now
only read by the learned. The long poem entitled Africa, which he com-
posed on the victories of the elder Scipio, and which was considered, in his
own age, as a masterpiece worthy of rivalling the ^neid, is very fatiguing
to the ear. The style is inflated, and the subject so devoid of interest and
so exceedingly dull as absolutely to prevent the perusal of the work. His
numerous epistles in verse, instead of giving interest to the historical
events to which they allude, acquire it from that circumstance. The imita-
tion of the ancients, and the fidelity of the copy, which in Petrarch's eyes
constituted their chief merit, deprive these productions of every appearance
of truth. The invectives against the barbarians who had subjugated Italy
are so cold, so bombastic, and so utterly destitute of all colouring suited to
the time and place, that we might believe them to have been written by some
rhetorician who had never seen Italy ; and we might confound them with
those which a poetic fury dictated to Petrarch himself, against the Gauls
who besieged the capital.
His philosophical works, amongst which may be mentioned a treatise on
Solitary Life, and another on Grood and Bad Fortune, are scarcely less bom-
bastic. The sentiments display neither truth nor depth of thought. They
are merely a show of words on some given subject. The author pre-deter-
mines his view of the question, and never examines the arguments for the
purpose of discovering the truth, but of vanquishing the difficulties which
oppose him, and of making everything agree with his own system. His
letters, of which a voluminous collection has been published — which is, how-
ever, far from being complete — are perhaps more read than any other of his
works, as they throw much light upon a period which is well worthy of
being known. We do not, however, discover in them either the familiarity
f intimate friendship or the complete openness of an amiable character.
They display great caution and studied propriety, with an attention to effect
which is not always successful. An Italian would never have written Latin
letters to his friends, if he had wished only to unfold the secrets of his
heart ; but the letters of Cicero were in Latin, and with them Petrarch
wished to have his own compared. He was, evidently, always thinking more
of the public than of his correspondent ; and in fact the public were often
in possession of the letter before his friend. The bearer of an elegantly
written epistle well knew that he should flatter the vanity of the writer by
communicating it ; and he therefore often openly read it, and even gave
copies of it, before it reached its destination.
H. W. — VOL. IX. O
194 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
It is difficult to say whether the extended reputation which Petrarch
enjoyed, during the course of a long life, is more glorious to himself or to
his age. We have elsewhere mentioned the faults of this celebrated man —
that subtlety of intellect which frequently led him to neglect true feeling,
and to abandon himself to a false taste ; and that vanity which too often
induced him to call himself the friend of cruel and contemptible princes,
because they flattered him. But, before we part with him, let us once more
take a view of those great qualities which rendered him the first man of
his age — that ardent love for science to which he consecrated his life, his
powers, and his faculties ; and that glorious enthusiasm for all that is high
and noble in the poetry, the eloquence, the laws, and the manners of antiq-
uity. This enthusiasm is the mark of a superior mind. To such a mind,
the hero becomes greater by being contemplated ; while a narrow and sterile
intellect reduces the greatest men to its own level, and measures them by
its own standard.
This enthusiasm was felt by Petrarch, not only for distinguished men, but
for everything that is great in nature, for religion, for philosophy, for patri-
otism, and for freedom. He was the friend and patron of the unfortunate
Rienzi, who, in the fourteenth century, awakened for a moment the ancient
spirit and fortunes of Rome. He appreciated the fine arts as well as poetry,
and he contributed to make the Romans acquainted with the rich monu-
ments of antiquity, as well as with the manuscripts which they possessed.
His passions were tinctured with a sense of religion which induced him to
worship all the glorious works of the Deity, with which the earth abounds ;
and he believed that, in the woman he loved, he saw the messenger of that
heaven which thus revealed to him its beauty. He enabled his contempora-
ries to estimate the full value of the purity of a passion so modest and so
religious as his own ; while to his countrymen he gave a language worthy of
rivalling those of Greece and Rome, with which, by his means, they had be-
come familiar. Softening and ornamenting his own language by the adoption
of proper rules, he suited it to the expression of every feeling, and changed,
in some degree, its essence. He inspired his age with that enthusiastic love
for the beauty, and that veneration for the study of antiquity, which gave it
a new character, and which determined that of succeeding times. It was,
it may be said, in the name of grateful Europe that Petrarch, on the 8th of
April, 1341, was crowned by the senator of Rome, in the Capitol ; and this
triumph, the most glorious which was ever decreed to man, was not dispro-
portioned to the authority which this great poet was destined to maintain
over future ages.e
EARLY ITALIAN PKOSE
Already, for half a century, Italian poetry had been cultivated with ardour
and with success, and in Dante's time there was scarcely a well-educated
Florentine who could not at need rhyme a sonnet or write a short song in
the vulgar tongue. It was not so easy to write in prose ; for if the poet had
a language and rules of style, there had not yet been a learned time for the
prose writer ; he had no fixed rules, the form in short which allows a writer
to express his thought in the logical order necessary to convey all its shades
of meaning, to show up its striking points, artistically to subordinate the
less important or purely expletive parts. The poet, on the contrary, at his
first attempt met with metrical forms, long adopted and practised in Proven-
Qal, a parent idiom, whose rules could, without any difficulty, be applied
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 195
to Italian. He found moreover that the Provencal poetry, whose prosody
he borrowed, had taken with slight differences the same subjects which he
wished to sing in Italian ; so that he found a poetical storehouse, if the
expression may be allowed, of comparisons, epithets, connecting links,
phrases, and permissible inversions.
It was not so with prose. The Italian language, which could without
difficulty adopt the Provencal metrical system, found no prose developed
which it could take as a model. Latin was the only perfect type which it
could imitate ; but the complete absence of any declension, the relatively
limited number of conjunctions, the impossibility of freeing itself completely
from analytical order, which it experienced in common with all modern lan-
guages, did not allow it to be modelled on Cicero, as poetry was modelled on
Bertrand de Born or Sordello. To reach this point of perfection two or
three more centuries were needed, during which deep thinkers and great
artists moulded this refractory material.
It is true that the Latin historians, who were perfectly known, might
have been taken as examples to be copied and even imitated ; for these
writers had treated the same kinds of subject which were again about to be
attempted. However, there was one difference : ancient history, after all,
was far distant, and the resemblance between the subjects was more apparent
than real ; or at least, if this resemblance really existed, men were too inter-
ested in the events to be able to judge them and compare them with others
as coldly as we are accustomed to do. To sing the praises of his lady's eyes,
to express sentiments of fidelity or sadness, to paint chivalrous tournaments,
it suffices to have read or to have listened to the Provengal troubadours, and
the same words, with very few changes, can almost be transported from one
language into the other. Imagine, on the other hand, a poor chronicler of
the Middle Ages imitating Sallust or Titus Livius : could the vernacular
furnish him with a single word to render those of his model — and the prose
writer, accustomed to think in Latin, could he find in Italian a single expres-
sion equivalent to his thought ? Whence could he have drawn that common
fund of ideas and formulas which is so necessary to write a real history,
however matter of fact, however little philosophic it might be ? Even in
order to relate facts, putting aside all thought of interest, one must have
ideas.
But the difficulty was far greater when abstract subjects were treated.
There is even some confusion in the beautiful prose of Dante's Convito, and
even in the scholastic digressions of The Divine Comedy, although at the
beginning of the fourteenth century the Italian language was already far
more developed than one hundred years before ; and, to go no further, some
idea of the extreme difficulty of such an enterprise may be found by calling
to mind the obstacles which had to be overcome by the first French and
German philosophers who had the courage and self-denial to expose in their
mother-tongues (which were then nearly formed) ideas reasoned in Latin ;
for a certain effort is needed to follow the French and German writings of
Descartes and Wolff, while their Latin works present no difficulty. There-
fore, besides the general and constant causes for the priority of poetry to
prose, there was in Italy a special cause which contributed to develop
poetry first in the vulgar tongue ; this cause was the existence of Proven-
£al poetry, already flourishing and cultivated.
A fact common alike to the literary history of Italy and to that of all
other nations is that the first attempts in prose were generally historical
writings. In fact, among all primitive people we see that the first use they
196 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
made of free speech was to decompose the epic poems, to give the importance
of historical tradition to stories of popular imagination. Thus we see the
Ionian chroniclers, up to Herodotus, add the history of contemporary events
to the deeds of heroes of fable, just as the first Florentine chroniclers, till
Villani, trace back the origin of their native town and its early history to
Roman names whose traditions were doubtless retained in the popular poems
prior to the Provencal school which reigned in Italy towards the middle of
the fourteenth century, and relate, without metre or rhythm, what the
Florentine woman of the time of Frederick Barbarossa sang, seated at her
spindle :
" Favoleggiava con la sua famiglia
De' Trojani, di Fiesole, e di Roma"
— DANTE.
However this may be, it was only about this time that the use of the
vernacular spread little by little ; that public treaties and commercial corre-
spondence began to be written in this language, and the public already
preferred to read in the Italian language stories and other works written
originally in Latin or sometimes in Provengal. But these writings can
scarcely be considered literary works ; they cannot, therefore, be taken as
the starting-point of a history of Italian prose.
Just as the first Italian poems had been written in Sicilian dialect, soon
replaced by the Tuscan dialect, so the first somewhat important and truly
literary work in Italian prose was written in Sicilian dialect, while nearly all
the prose writers of the following period were Tuscans ; and this fact is
sufficiently explained by the general history of Italy in the thirteenth
century.
While Florence and all the centre of the peninsula were in a state of
civil war, or painfully working to attain an independent municipal life,
Naples, the home of the Hohenstaufens and the capital of the kingdom of
the Two Sicilies, was enjoying profound peace, royal luxury, great freedom
of thought, and all the refinements of life, in the midst of institutions which
may be considered perfect for their time. Queen Constanza had already
granted special protection to the Provengal poets, and her son, Frederick II,
only placed above the troubadours of the south of France the learned philos-
ophers of Baghdad and Cordova, as if the great man only believed himself
understood or appreciated by those whose glance was not troubled by reli-
gious, political, or local passions. The influence of this brilliant court, which
united taste for science with frivolity, where serious discussions on law and
philosophy alternated with the gay Provencal wisdom, and where displays of
chivalry and love songs diverted the greatest statesmen of the Middle Ages
after the fatigues or annoyances of politics, this preponderant influence made
the Sicilian nation for a time the chief actor in the history of Italy, and their
language the dominant organ of the rising literature ; and it is not surpris-
ing that the first great work in Italian prose was written in the dialect made
popular by the beautiful songs of the emperor Frederick II and his famous
chancellor Pietro delle Vigne, King Enzio, and the brave Manfred, his half-
brother.
Matteo Spinelli, the contemporary of these poets of noble birth, has left
a chronicle under the very characteristic title "journal," which enables us to
judge at once what Italian prose was at that period. If we quote this work
of Spinelli's first, it is not because we are unaware of the numerous and often
vague attempts which preceded him ; but all previous writings may be con-
sidered as uncertain groping. The language of these works is not even
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 197
completely Italian yet, and the true modern idiom has been considered to rise
in all its individuality in the poems of Ciullo d' Alcamo and in the Journals of
Spinelli. Moreover, the work of the Sicilian chronicler (although, as its
name seems to indicate, it was a diary scarcely intended for publication)
offers by its very extent more ample matter for literary and philological
study than certain inscriptions, deeds, laws, decrees, and other documents of
similar nature.
We do not mean to say that the Journals have nothing Latin about them,
or that they are written in pure Italian or Sicilian. Latin words, even
phrases, which recall the customs of a dead language, are frequently found
SAN MARTINO, NAPLES
in the midst of a speech in all other respects purely Italian ; but these sou-
venirs are always isolated, and do not alter the general character of the
tongue, which is essentially Sicilian. But what distinguishes the style of
this delightful teller of stories is not only the sweetness characteristic of the
dialect he employed, but also a certain carelessness, a certain freedom in
the construction of his sentences. In the first prose writer of a language one
certainly does not expect Ciceronian periods ; it appears perfectly natural
that all his sentences should be co-ordinate, instead of being subordinate to
one another, and that he should simply join his propositions by copulative
conjunctions, instead of arranging them in incidental phrases ; but with
Spinelli, we simply find conversational language, and nothing more ; that is
to say, his style is wanting in clearness. He writes as he would have spoken
to an attentive audience, with all the assistance to be derived from gesture,
198 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
intonation, and expressive glance. This conversational style, applied to
written works of great length, is often unintelligible unless interpreted by a
clever reader, who recites it as an actor recites his role in a comedy. In the
end it becomes wearisome by the very fact that the necessary explanation,
which recitation would give, is wanting. But, on the other hand, there is
an animation which the finest art could not produce — each word, each
expression creates a picture. One might be listening to a loquacious
barber, on the lookout for the gossip of the day, serving up hot the talk
of the town.
This is Spinelli's specialty ; he must not be looked on as a historian, not
even a political chronicler, but as a teller of stories, often amusing, nearly
always animated. The events of contemporary history are only mentioned
incidentally in the midst of town and country gossip. But apart from the
style and light shade of irony which form one of the charms of Boccaccio,
Spinelli's stories are not less wanting in interest than the stories of the
Decameron. This is the great merit of the Journals; their historic value is
almost worthless, and, on account of serious errors (chiefly those of chro-
nology), they become dangerous guides for the reader who takes them seri-
ously and refers to them for information on the period and country in which
Spinelli lived. There is a great difference to be seen when one passes from
this expansive and unpretentious gossip to professional men of letters, to the
somewhat pedantic orators of Florence, from the neglected Sicilian dialect to
the already majestic and developed language of Tuscany.
The study of rhetoric was first cultivated in Florence, and we see, by
Dante's education, the importance attached to this branch of knowledge.
However, the earliest rhetoricians, such as Buoncompagni and Guidotto of
Bologna, seldom employed the vernacular. The honour of fixing, so to say,
the Tuscan dialect, of raising the Italian patois to the rank which Latin had
occupied exclusively till then, belongs to Brunetto Latini, of whom Villani
tells us that he was " the first to polish the Florentines," and to whom Dante,
his pupil, raised a monument more durable than any other claim to immor-
tality which the poor orator possessed : " You taught me how man can make
himself immortal, and it is right that while I live my tongue should declare
the gratitude which I feel.'V
BOCCACCIO
But these after all are only tentative efforts. The first writer to make
use of the new vehicle as a medium for really artistic prose of a creative type
was a Florentine of a slightly later epoch, the contemporary of Petrarch,
Giovanni Boccaccio, the famous author of the Decameron. Boccaccio was
born at Paris, in 1313, and was the natural son of a merchant of Florence,
himself born at Certaldo, a castle in the Val d' Elsa, in the Florentine terri-
tory. His father had intended him for a commercial life, but before devot-
ing him to it, indulged him with a literary education. From his earliest
years, Boccaccio evinced a decided predilection for letters. He wrote verses,
and manifested an extreme aversion to trade. He revolted equally at the
prospect of a commercial life, and the study of the canon law, which his
father was desirous of his undertaking. To oblige his father, however, he
made several journeys of business ; but he brought back with him, instead
of a love for his employment, a more extended information, and an increased
passion for study.
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE
199
He at length obtained permission to devote himself wholly to literature,
and fixed on Naples as his place of residence, where letters then flourished
under the powerful protection of Robert, the reigning monarch. He was
quickly initiated in all the sciences at that time taught. He acquired also
the rudiments of the Greek tongue, which, though then spoken in Calabria,
was an abstruse study with the
early scholars. In 1341, he as-
sisted at the celebrated examina-
tion of Petrarch, which preceded
his coronation at Rome; and,
from that time, a friendship
arose between him and the poet,
which terminated only with their
lives. At this period, Boccaccio,
distinguished no less for the ele-
gance of his person than for the
brilliancy of his wit, and devoted
to pleasure, formed an attach-
ment to a natural daughter of
King Robert, named Maria, who
for several years had been the
wife of a Neapolitan gentleman.
This lady he has celebrated in
his writings, under the name of
Fiammetta. In the attachment
of Boccaccio, we must not look
for that purity or delicacy which
distinguished Petrarch in his love
for Laura. This princess had
been brought up in the most
corrupt court of Italy; she her-
self partook of its spirit, and it
is to her depraved taste that the
exceptionable parts of the De-
cameron, a work undertaken by BOCCACCIO
Boccaccio in compliance with her
request, and for her amusement, are to be attributed. On his side, Boc-
caccio probably loved her as much from vanity as from real passion ; for,
although distinguished for her beauty, her grace, and her wit, as much as
for her rank, she does not seem to have exercised any extraordinary influence
on his life; and neither the conduct nor the writings of Boccaccio afford
evidence of a sincere or profound attachment.
Boccaccio quitted Naples in 1342, to return to Florence. He came back
again in 1344, and returned for the last time in 1350. From that year, he
fixed himself in his native country, where his reputation had already assigned
him a distinguished rank. His life was thenceforth occupied by his public
employments in several embassies ; by the duties which his increasing friend-
ship to Petrarch imposed on him ; and by the constant and indefatigable
labours to which he devoted himself for the advancement of letters, the dis-
covery of ancient manuscripts, the elucidation of subjects of antiquity, the
introduction of the Greek language into Italy, and the composition of his
numerous works. After taking the ecclesiastical habit, in 1361, he died at
Certaldo, in the mansion of his ancestors, on the 21st of December, 1375.
200 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
The Decameron, the work to which Boccaccio is at the present day
indebted for his highest celebrity, is a collection of one hundred novels or
tales. He has ingeniously united them, under the supposition of a party
formed in the dreadful pestilence of 1348, composed of a number of cavaliers,
and young, intelligent, and accomplished women, retired to a delightful part
of the country, to escape the contagion. It was there agreed that each person,
during the space of ten days, should narrate, daily, a fresh story. The com-
pany consisted of ten persons, and thus the number of stories amounted to
one hundred. The description of the enchanting country in the neighbour-
hood of Florence, where these gay recluses had established themselves ; the
record of their walks, their numerous fetes, and their repasts, afforded
Boccaccio an opportunity of displaying all the treasures of his powerful
and easy pen.
These stories, which are varied with infinite art, as well in subject as in
style, from the most pathetic and tender to the most sportive, and, unfortu-
nately, the most licentious, exhibit a wonderful power of narration ; and his
description of the plague in Florence, which serves as an introduction to them,
may be ranked with the most celebrated historical descriptions which have
descended to us. The perfect truth of colouring ; the exquisite choice of
circumstances, calculated to produce the deepest impression, and which place
before our eyes the most repulsive scenes, without exciting disgust ; and the
emotion of the writer, which insensibly pervades every part, give to this
picture that true eloquence of history which, in Thucydides, animates the
relation of the plague in Athens. Boccaccio had, doubtless, this model be-
fore his eyes ; but the events, to which he was a witness, had vividly
impressed his mind, and it was the faithful delineation of what he had seen,
rather than the classical imitation, which served to develop his talent.
The praise of Boccaccio consists in the perfect purity of his language, in
his elegance, his grace, and above all in that naivete which is the chief merit
of narration, and the peculiar charm of the Italian tongue.
Unfortunately Boccaccio did not prescribe to himself the same purity in
his images as in his phraseology. The character of his work is light and
sportive. He has inserted in it a great number of tales of gallantry ; he has
exhausted his powers of ridicule on the duped husband, on the depraved and
depraving monks, and on subjects, in morals and religious worship, which he
himself regarded as sacred ; and his reputation is thus little in harmony
with the real tenor of his conduct. The Decameron was published towards
the middle of the fourteenth century (in 1352 or 1353), when Boccaccio was
at least thirty-nine years of age ; and from the first discovery of printing,
was freely circulated in Italy, until the Council of Trent proscribed it in the
middle of the sixteenth century. At the solicitation of the grand duke of
Tuscany, and after two remarkable negotiations between this prince and
popes Pius V and Sixtus V, the Decameron was again published, in 1573 and
1582, purified and corrected.
Many of the tales of Boccaccio appear to be borrowed from popular recita-
tion, or from real occurrences. We trace the originals of several, in the
ancient French fabliaux; of some, in the Italian collection of the Centi
Novelli; and of others, again, in an Indian romance, which passed through
all the languages of the East, and of which a Latin translation appeared as
early as the twelfth century, under the name of Dolopathos, or The King and
the Seven Wise Men. Invention, in this class of writing, is not less rare than
in every other ; and the same tales, probably, which Boccaccio had collected in
the gay courts of princes, or in the squares of the cities of Italy, have been
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 201
repeated to us anew in all the various languages of Europe. They have
been versified by the early poets of France and England, and have afforded
reputation to three or four imitators of Boccaccio. But, if Boccaccio cannot
boast of being the inventor of these tales, he may still claim the creation of
this class of letters. Before his time, tales were only subjects of social
mirth. He was the first to transport them into the world of letters ; and,
by the elegance of his diction, the just harmony of all the parts of his
subject, and the charm of his narration, he superadded the more refined
gratifications of language and of art, to the simpler delight afforded by
the old narrators.
It is unnecessary to speak here of Boccaccio's other Italian works, beyond
naming his romances Fiammetta and Filocopo, and his heroic poems La
Teseide and Mlostrato. The Latin compositions of Boccaccio are volumi-
nous, and materially contributed, at the time they were written, to the ad-
vancement of letters. The most celebrated of these works are two treatises ;
the one on the genealogy of the gods, and the other on mountains, forests, and
rivers. In the first, he gave an exposition of the ancient mythology ; and in
the second, rectified many errors in geography. These two works have
fallen into neglect, since the discovery of manuscripts then unknown, and
in consequence of the facilities which the art of printing, by opening new
sources, has afforded to the study of antiquity. In the age in which they
were composed, they were, however, equally remarkable for their extensive
information and for the clearness of their arrangement ; but the style is by
no means so pure and elegant as that of Petrarch. But, while the claim to
celebrity, in these great men, is restricted to the Italian poetry of Petrarch
and to the novels of Boccaccio, our gratitude to them is founded on stronger
grounds. They felt more sensibly than any other men that enthusiasm for
the beauties of antiquity, without which we in vain strive to appreciate its
treasures ; and they each devoted a long and laborious life to the discovery
and the study of ancient manuscripts. The most valued works of the ancients
were at that time buried among the archives of convents, scattered at great
distances, incorrect and incomplete, without tables of contents or marginal
notes. Nor did those resources then exist, which printing supplies, for the
perusal of works with which we are not familiar ; and the facilities which are
afforded by previous study, or the collation of the originals with each other,
were equally wanting. It must have required a powerful intellect to dis-
cover, in a manuscript of Cicero, for example, without title or commence-
ment, the full meaning of the author, the period at which he wrote, and other
circumstances, which are connected with his subject ; to correct the numer-
ous errors of the copyists ; to supply the chasms, which, frequently occurring
at the beginning and the end, left neither title nor divisions nor conclusions,
nor anything that might serve as a clew for the perusal ; in short, to deter-
mine how one manuscript, discovered at Heidelberg, should perfect another,
discovered at Naples. It was, in fact, by long and painful journeys that the
scholars of those days equipped themselves for this task. The copying
a manuscript, with the necessary degree of accuracy, was a work of great
labour and expense. A collection of three or four hundred volumes was, at
that time, considered an extensive library; and a scholar was frequently com-
pelled to seek, at a great distance, the completion of a work, commenced
under his own roof.
Petrarch and Boccaccio, in their frequent travels, obtained copies of such
classics as they found in their route. Among other objects, Petrarch pro-
posed to himself to collect all the works of Cicero ; in which he succeeded
202 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
after a lapse of many years. Boccaccio, with a true love of letters, intro-
duced the study of the Greek to the Italians, not only with the view of
securing the interests of commerce or of science, but of enriching their
minds, and extending their researches to the other half of the ancient
world of letters, which had, till then, remained hidden from his contempo-
raries. He founded, in Florence, a chair for the teaching of the Greek
language ; and he himself invited thither, and installed as professor, Leon-
tius Pilatus, one of the most learned Greeks of Constantinople. He
received him into his own house, although he was a man of a morose and
disagreeable temper ; placed him at his table, as long as this professor could
be induced to remain at Florence ; inscribed himself among the first of his
scholars, and procured at his own expense, from Greece, the manuscripts,
which were thus distributed in Florence, and which served as subjects for the
lectures of Leontius Pilatus. For the instruction of those days consisted in
the public delivery of lectures with commentaries, and a book, of which there
perhaps existed only a single copy, sufficed for some thousand scholars.
LESSER CONTEMPORARIES OF PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO
There is an infinite space between the three great men whose works we
have just enumerated, and even the most esteemed of their contemporaries;
and, though these latter have preserved, until the present day, a considerable
reputation, yet we shall only pause to notice their existence, and the epoch
to which they belong. Perhaps the most remarkable are the three Floren-
tine historians of the name of Villani. Giovanni, the eldest, who died in
the first plague, in 1348 ; Matteo, his brother, who died in the second plague,
in 1361; and Filippo, the son of Matteo, who continued the work of his
father to the year 1364, and who wrote a history of the literature of Flor-
ence, the first attempt of this kind in modern times. Two poets of this age
shared with Petrarch the honours of a poetic coronation : Zanobi di Strada,
whom the emperor Charles IV crowned at Pisa in 1355, with great pomp,
but whose verses have not reached us ; and Coluccio Salutati, secretary of
the Florentine Republic, one of the purest Latinists, and most eloquent
statesmen whom Italy in that age produced. The latter, indeed, did not
live to enjoy the honour which had been accorded him by the emperor, at
the request of the Florentines. Coluccio died in 1406, at the age of seventy-
six, before the day appointed for his coronation, and the symbol of glory
was deposited on his tomb ; as, at a subsequent period, a far more illustrious
crown was placed on the tomb of Tasso.
Of the prose writers of Tuscany, Franco Sacchetti, born at Florence
about the year 1335, and who died before the end of the century, after filling
some of the first offices in the republic, approaches the nearest to Boccaccio.
He imitated Boccaccio in his novels, and Petrarch in his lyric poems ; but
the latter were never printed, while of his tales there have been several edi-
tions. Whatever praise be due to the purity and eloquence of his style,
we find his pages more valuable as a history of the manners of the age, than
attractive for their powers of amusement, even when the author thinks him-
self most successful. His 258 tales consist, almost entirely, of the incidents
of his own time, and of his own neighbourhood ; domestic anecdotes, which
in general contain little humour ; tricks, exhibiting little skill, and jests
of little point; and we are often surprised to find a professed jester van-
quished by the smart reply of a child or a clown, which scarcely deserves our
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 203
attention. After reading these tales, we cannot help concluding that the art
of conversation had not made, in the fourteenth century, an equal progress
with the other arts ; and that the great men, to whom we owe so many
excellent works, were not so entertaining in the social intercourse of life as
many persons greatly their inferiors in merit.
Two poets of this time, of some celebrity, chose Dante for their model,
and composed after him in terza rima, long allegories, partly descriptive,
partly scientific. Fazio de' Uberti, in his Dettamondo, undertook the descrip-
tion of the universe, of which the different parts, personified in turns,
relate their history. Federigo Frezzi, bishop of Foligno, who died in 1416,
at the Council of Constance, has, in his Quadriregio, described the four
empires of Love, Satan, Virtue, and Vice. In both of these poets we meet,
occasionally, with lines not unworthy of Dante ; but they formed a very
false estimate of the works of genius, when they regarded the Divina Corn-
media not as an individual poem, but as a species of poetry which anyone
might attempt.
The passionate study of the ancients, of which Petrarch and Boccaccio
had given an example, suspended, in an extraordinary manner, the progress
of Italian literature, and retarded the perfection of that tongue. Italy,
after having produced her three leading classics, sank, for a century, into
inaction. In this period, indeed, erudition made wonderful progress ; and
knowledge became much more general, but sterile in its effects. The mind
had preserved all its activity, and literary fame all its splendour ; but the
unintermitted study of the ancients had precluded all originality in the
authors. Instead of perfecting a new language, and enriching it with works
in unison with modern manners and ideas, they confined themselves to a
servile copy of the ancients. A too scrupulous imitation thus destroyed the
spirit of invention ; and the most eminent scholars may be said to have
produced, in their eloquent writings, little more than college themes. In
proportion as a man was qualified by his rank, or by his talents, to acquire a
name in literature, he blushed to cultivate his mother-tongue. He almost,
indeed, forced himself to forget it, to avoid the danger of corrupting his
Latin style ; and the common people thus remained the only depositaries of
a language which had exhibited so brilliant a dawn, and which had now
again almost relapsed into barbarism.e
ART IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES
Turning from literature to the not distantly related field of art, let us
glance at some of the tentative efforts which prepared the way for the succes-
sion of Florentine masters that were presently to take the lead in this field
and hold it for some centuries.
The Renaissance, that is, the resurrection, in the beginning of the fifteenth
century, of ideas and forms of classic antiquity, was preceded by individual
efforts which, though often failing to reach the mark, ought to be taken
account of in the history of this great revolution. The plastic memories of
the Graeco-Roman world have played in the preoccupation of the Middle
Ages a more considerable role than is usually thought. Mere force of events
put our ancestors in the presence of ancient chefs-d'oeuvre, and they had to
look at them whether they would or not. Some saw in them only idolatrous
monuments, and have found fault with them as such. Others attributed to
them magic virtues ; some have given themselves up to the admiration they
204
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
felt in looking at the immensity of Roman ruins, the richness of early mate-
rials, the perfection of the handiwork. These latter, it might be affirmed,
are the most numerous. Even during the most sombre period of the Middle
Ages, all Europe felt the fascination that Rome, the oldest city par excel-
lence, exercised for twenty
centuries. That which at-
tracted from far and near
thousands of visitors to the
banks of the Tiber was not
only the promise of indul-
gencies, a desire to pray
on the tomb of martyrs,
to contemplate basilics re-
splendent with gold and
precious stones, but also
memories left by the
csesars.
After having heard
with a kind of incredulity
the marvels of this incom-
parable city, one is further
amazed by the number of
its temples, palaces, baths,
and amphitheatres. Have
not reliable authors told
us that she lately pos-
sessed thirty-six trium-
phal arches, twenty-eight
libraries, 856 public baths,
twenty-two equestrian
statues in gilded bronze,
eighty-four of the same in
ivory, obelisks, and innu-
merable colossi ?
From the twelfth cen-
tury popular imagination
laid hold of these pictures,
transforming and ampli-
fying them. Wondrous
tales became current and
were incorporated in
works received as authori-
tative — the Descriptis
plenaria Vbtius Urbis, the
Grraphia aurea urbis Romce,
and lastly the Mirabilia
civitatis Romce. Again at
the end of the fifteenth century the valiant Charles VIII, wanting to give
his subjects some idea of the town into which he had lately entered
lance in hand, caused one of these records of another age to be trans-
lated for them. A few extracts will show with what strong faith these
stories worthy of The Thousand and One Nights were received before the
Renaissance :
DOORWAY, PALAZZO VEC-
CHIO, FLORENCE
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 205
" Inside the capital was the greater part of a golden palace adorned with
precious stones and said to equal the third part of the world, in which there
were as many statues of images as there are provinces in all the world.
Each image had a tambourine round its neck, placed with mathematical art,
so that if any region was in rebellion against the Romans, immediately the
image of the province turned its back to the image of the city of Rome,
which was the largest and dominated the others, and the tambourine at its
neck sounded. Then immediately the Capitol guards told this to the senate,
and people were forthwith sent to expugn that province.
"The horses and nude men denote that in the time of the emperor Tiberius
there were two young philosophers, that is, Praxiteles and Phitas, who said
they were so wise that anything the emperor said in his room, they not being
there, could report word for word. And they did as they said, not de-
manding money for it, but to be always remembered, so the philosophers
have two marble horses with their feet on the ground, which denote the
princes of this century. And they who are naked on the horses denote that
their arm, high and held out, and their bent backs speak of things to come,
and as they are naked, so the science of this world was naked and open to
their understanding."
From admiration to imitation is only one step. Artists in their turn went
to work and took without scruple from what was a common heritage. Doubt-
less many of these borrowings are unconscious or really only show up the
immense inferiority of the copyist. But is the influence of the antique less
striking ? One must recall in this order of ideas the splendid creations of
architects in the Roman period — the duomo, the campanile, and the baptistery
of Pisa, the baptistery of Florence, and the basilica of San Miniato, the
duomo of Lucca, and so many chefs-d'oeuvre raised according to principles
that innovators of the following age, the champions of Gothic style, were
so audaciously to trample underfoot.
Nicholas Crescentius (son of the celebrated tribune) in the eleventh cen-
tury, impelled by a desire to renew the ancient splendour of Rome, had the
elegant little house at Ponte Rotto built of antique fragments. Similarly
the emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1121-1190) had these former glories in
mind, when he had graven on his seal a view of Rome with the Colosseum.
But it was to his illustrious grandson Frederick II (1184-1250) that the
honour is due of first pleading the cause of the Renaissance, and he should
rightly be placed at the head of the precursors. We possess numerous
witnesses of his love for the monuments of ancient art.
Now we see him striking Augustales, those curious imitations of Roman
imperial money, bearing on one side an effigy crowned with laurels, with the
epigraph AVG. IMP. ROM. and draped in the fashion of the caesars ;
on the reverse an eagle with outspread wings with the epigraph FRED-
E R I C V S . Again he buys for a considerable sum (230 oz. of gold) an
onyx cup and other curiosities. From Grotta Ferrata he takes away two
bronzes, statues of a man and of a cow serving for a fountain, and carries
them to Lucera. The church of St. Michael of Ravenna furnishes the mono-
lithic columns he requires for his buildings at Palermo. Near Augusta in
Sicily, he caused excavations to be made in the hope of discovering ancient
remains. Once, it is true, yielding to urgent necessity he had several Roman
monuments at Brindisi destroyed that he might use the materials in con-
structing a citadel. He tried just as he was departing for Palestine to make
the town safe from any attacks, but political reasons outweighed his antiqua-
rian scruples.
206 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
The work dreamed of by Frederick II as amateur was realised by his
contemporary Nicholas of Pisa (1207 ? -1278) who, in the thirteenth century,
held imitation of the antique as a principle, and used it as a mirror by which
nature might be the more clearly shown. His attempt seems prodigious
to us to-day; it supposes a power of initiative which Giotto, Brunelleschi,
Donatello, and Van Eyck have hardly equalled. Imitation with him was not
confined to accessories — ornaments, costumes, armour — nor to types, nor to
proportions of figures, which are all stumpy, as in the Roman sarcophagi of
the decadence. The spirit of his work recalls ancient models.
"Nicholas," says M. Gebhardt," "in the pulpits of Pisa and Siena, and
in the shrine of San Dominico at Bologna, recalls the traditions of a great art
with a naive gravity and assured taste. He is hardly a neo-Greek or a super-
stitious antiquary, but is imbued with the most generous principles of antique
sculpture — the harmonious ordering of the scenes, the skilful employ of
space where many persons move in a narrow frame, the majestic tranquillity
of pose, the finely ordered draperies, the noble heads. But his eye and hand
still express the fashion of primitive sculpture ; the movements express awk-
ward timidity, the faces are sometimes heavy. He gives an impression of
Roman work at the end of the empire. Nicholas of Pisa (Niccolo Pisano),
if he discovered and studied the Greek, did not renounce nature, and, in his
best pieces, he has returned to a study of life. It is in this that he shows
himself an intelligent disciple of the ancients. Apart from Nicholas of Pisa,
the Italian masters each put their own personality in the antique ; none were
servile copyists, and it is Nicholas, the first and consequently the least
learned, whose chisel has left the most instructive reminiscences."
One of the most noted pupils and collaborators of Nicholas, Brother
Guglielmo of Pisa (born about 1238, died after 1313), was inspired with like
principles, but not so strongly. In the pulpit of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas
at Pistoia, he has succeeded better than his master, in reconciling pagan
reminiscences with Christian ideas.
The historic sentiment is one of the distinctive traits of the school of
Nicholas of Pisa. It has recourse not only to antique marbles as models
of style, but to documents as well. Whilst, in the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries, painters and sculptors gave the costume of the period to
sacred characters, their predecessors of the thirteenth century tried to restore,
aided by archaeology, the costumes of Christ and his f amity, the apostles, mar-
tyrs, as absolutely as did the Renaissance champions two hundred years later.
Fra Guglielmo has pushed these scruples very far ; his apostles wear the toga,
tunic, and sandals, and hold a rolled volume in the hand.
In the Descent of the Holy Ghost he seeks, moreover, faithfully to repro-
duce the types of the primitive church, above all in the figures of St. Peter,
St. Paul, and St. John. As with the sculptors of sarcophagi in Rome, Milan,
and the south of France, there is a complete absence of nimbi, showing to
what extent Nicholas of Pisa and his like disdained mediaeval tradition, at
least as regards types, costumes, and attributes. In the scene just mentioned
one remarks also the grouping of the apostles. They are placed in two
ranks, one behind the other, just as in a curious mosaic in the chapel of St.
Aguilino (church of St. . Lawrence at Milan). An arrangement differing
very little is found in another bas-relief on the pulpit — that is, Christ wash-
ing the disciples' feet. The women's dresses deserve special mention. In
the Annunciation and Visitation, Mary and Elizabeth have the head half
covered with a fold of their mantle so as to expose the forehead and the
greater part of the hair. They might be Roman matrons.
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE 207
In his quality as a member of the order of St. Dominican, Fra Guglielmo
had more than once to reprove the too pagan tendencies of his master. The
position of another disciple of Nicholas, Arnolfo of Cambio (died in 1310),
the architect of the dome of Florence, was not less delicate, but for other
reasons. One is surprised to see this master, the promoter of a style depart-
ing so singularly from antique tradition, returning to the latter when he
exchanges the builder's compass for the sculptor's chisel. Let us hasten to
add that the departure is not so great as one might think. In his tomb of the
cardinal of Braye at Orvieto, Arnolfo has known how to give the Virgin a
serene majesty, a simplicity which does not lack grandeur, without pushing
imitation as far as his master. He shows still more entire independence in
the tabernacle of St. Paul beyond the walls, near Rome. If one did not
know Arnolfo to have been Nicholas' disciple, it would be difficult to imagine
it in looking at this hybrid monument.*
Without attempting even to name the other lesser schools of sculpture
and of architecture that were beginning to make their influence felt, let us turn
to culminating artistic achievements of the epoch, as represented in the work
of the great Florentines Cimabue and Giotto.
The Tuscan School of Painters
It is an undisputed fact that the revival of painting, like that of sculp-
ture, commenced in Tuscany. It is equally certain that about the middle
of the thirteenth century, or a little later, which is the point at which
improvement first manifested itself, the prevailing style was the Byzantine,
introduced by Greek artists from Constantinople. But it has not by any
means been clearly discerned wherein the peculiarities of that style con-
sisted ; and it has been usually assumed that it was a rude and defective
manner which, as the first step in advance, the Italian painters had to dis-
card. Materials are extant which justify a different conclusion, and evince
that the introduction of this foreign taste, gross and faulty as it was, truly
formed the first stage in improvement.
From the ninth century till the middle of the thirteenth, painting among
the Byzantine artists differed from contemporary Italian works in several
important particulars. In both quarters art was timidly imitative ; but in
the Eastern Empire the models from which it borrowed were more various
than in the West, and the execution was usually better ; the fashion of the
drapery and ornament had a peculiar character of semi-oriental barbarism ;
and, while in both countries the drawing of the figure was generally bad, the
common tendency of the Greeks was to lengthen it disproportionally, and
that of the Italians to represent it as short and squab. But the most pal-
pable distinctions were two in the technical treatment. First, in the oldest
Italian paintings the vehicle of the colours is transparent, and the tone is
therefore light and clear ; in the works from Constantinople the tone is dark
and yellowish, being produced by the use of some colouring matter which,
if modern chemists have rightly analysed it, was wax. The second difference
was this — that the Greeks, besides ornamenting their draperies richly with
gilding, surrounded their figures with a golden ground ; a barbarous prac-
tice, of which the oldest Italian works exhibit no trace. In those early pro-
ductions of the thirteenth century, where we can trace the first ameliorations
of art, we discover most, or all, of these peculiarities derived from the Greek
style ; some of them prevailed very long ; and the most objectionable, the
flaunting ground, was not entirely discarded even in the time of Raffaelle.
208
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
The oldest name celebrated in Italian painting is that of Cimabue, who,
born about 1240, died in 1300. On the strength of his merit the Florentines
claim the glory of having resuscitated art — a pretension which the school of
Siena seems to have some right, in the person of Duccio, to contest with
them. The works of Cimabue were Byzantine, in their style, in their
colouring, and in their blaze of gold ; and tradition says that he was
taught in his youth by Greek artists. He improved, it is true, upon that
school ; but, though everything regarding him is obscure, there is no suf-
ficient reason for believing that his improvement consisted in any departure
from its principles. To him are commonly assigned some ill-preserved
fresco paintings in the church of St. Francis at Assisi, which at all events
give an idea of the masters from whom he learned ; but his boldness and
loftiness of conception are more clearly evinced by two rudely grand figures
of Madonnas on wood, both at Florence, the more celebrated of the two in
the church of Santa Maria Novella, the other in the Ducal Gallery.
To this great artist succeeds the Florentine Giotto (1276-1336), whose
history and works are somewhat better known. The Italian novelists have
preserved anecdotes of his wealth, his
ugliness, and his profane wit. The story
which describes him as a shepherd boy,
discovered by Cimabue drawing rude
figures on a stone, is perhaps too pic-
turesque to be true ; and his undoubted
pieces display a marked dissimilarity in
spirit to those of his alleged teacher,
while they deviate also from the Byzan-
tine style in colouring, if in nothing
else, having a clear rosy hue which in-
dicates a return to the older Italian
method, though it is also an improve-
ment on it. In the theory of his art,
however, Giotto departed essentially
from all his predecessors. When we
combine the criticisms of the older
writers with the few pictures which
still can be certainly or probably iden-
tified as his, we may describe his char-
acteristics as consisting in an attempt,
made under manifold difficulties, but
attended with surprising success, to
establish, instead of the rude, vague,
devotional loftiness of Cimabue, a beauty
derived from a closer observation of life,
as well as enlivened by a better and less
formal expression of ordinary human
feeling. His only existing work, which
is ascertained by a genuine inscription, is
one in the church of the Santa Croce in
Florence, containing five divisions, of
which that in the centre represents the Saviour crowning the Virgin. The
gallery of the Florentine Accademia delle Arti contains some small compo-
sitions of his, representing, in a fashion half religious and half comic, events
from the history of St. Francis. Frescoes in the upper church of that saint
CAMPANILE OF GIOTTO, FLORENCE
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE
209
at Assisi, assigned to Giotto by some critics, have been pronounced by others
to be inferior, and unlike his genuine remains; but others on the vaulted
roof of the subterranean part of the same building are undoubtedly his, and
resemble the pieces of the academy both in execution and in spirit. Other
pictures laying claim to his name occur in various
galleries throughout Italy as well as elsewhere. «
Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm that has
been bestowed upon the paintings of Giotto, it must
frankly be admitted that these are to be regarded as
remarkable only when viewed in relation to the art
of the time in which they were produced. To extol
them as masterpieces according to the standards that
were developed by the later Florentines would be to
throw criticism to the winds. But the architectural
efforts of Giotto may be praised with less reserve.
The Campanile of Florence has aroused the enthu-
siasm of most critics who have viewed it ; Ruskin *
declares that " of living Christian works, none is so
perfect as the tower of Giotto."
The same writer speaks with equal enthusiasm of
Giotto's work in another field : " Of representations
of human art under heavenly guidance," he says,
" the series of bas-reliefs which stud the base of this
tower of Giotto must be held certainly the chief in
Europe. Read but these inlaid jewels of Giotto
once with patient following, and your hour's study
will give you strength for all your life." This may
be held by colder criticism to be an over-enthusi-
astic estimate, but few who have come under the
spell of the Campanile will wish to modify the elo-
quent words in which Ruskin characterises that
structure as a whole. «
Ruskiris Estimate of Q-iotto's Tower
" The characteristics of power and beauty," he
says, " occur more or less in different buildings, some
in one and some in another. But all together, and
all in their highest possible relative degrees, they
exist, as far as I know, only in one building in the
world, the Campanile of Giotto. In its first appeal to the stranger's eye
there is something unpleasing — a mingling, as it seems to him, of over-
severity with over-minuteness. But let him give it time, as he should to all
other consummate art. I well remember how, when a boy, I used to despise
that Campanile, and think it meanly smooth and finished. But I have since
lived beside it many a day, and looked out upon it from my windows by sun-
light and moonlight, and I shall not soon forget how profound and gloomy
appeared to me the savageness of the northern Gothic, when I afterwards
stood, for the first time, beneath the front of Salisbury. The contrast is
indeed strange if it could be quickly felt, between the rising of those gray
walls out of their quiet swarded space, like dark and barren rocks out of
a green lake, with their rude, mouldering, rough-grained shafts and triple
lights, without tracery or other ornament than the martins' nests in the
FROM A PAINTING BY
GIOTTO
H. w. — VOL. ix. P
210
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
height of them, and that bright, smooth, sunny surface of glowing jasper,
those spiral shafts and fairy traceries, so white, so faint, so crystalline, that
their slight shapes are hardly traced in darkness on the pallor of the eastern
sky, that serene height of mountain alabaster, coloured like a morning cloud
and chased like a sea-shell. And if this be, as I believe it, the model and
mirror of perfect architecture, is there not something to be learned by look-
ing back to the early life of him who raised it ? I said that the power of
human mind had its growth in the wilderness ; much more must the love
and the conception of that beauty, whose every line and hue we have seen
to be, at the best, a faded image of God's daily work, and an arrested ray
of some star or creation, be given chiefly in the places which he has glad-
dened by planting there the fir-tree and the pine. Not within the walls of
Florence, but among the far-away fields of her lilies, was the child trained
who was to raise that headstone of beauty above her towers of watch and
war. Remember all that he became ; count the sacred thoughts with which
he filled the heart of Italy ; ask those who followed him what they learned
at his feet ; and when you have numbered his labours and received their
testimony, if it seem to you that God had verily poured out upon this his
servant no common nor restrained portion of his spirit, and that he was
indeed a king among the children of men, remember also that the legend upon
his crown was that of David's : ' I took thee from the sheep-cote and from
following the sheep.' " *
CHAPTER VII
ROME UNDER RIENZI
[1347-1354 A.D.]
He is accused not of betraying but of defending liberty; he is guilty
not of surrendering but of holding the Capitol. The supreme crime with
which he is charged, and which merits expiation on the scaffold, is that
he dared affirm that the Roman Empire is still at Home, and in posses-
sion of the Roman people. Oh, unpious age ! Oh, preposterous jealousy,
malevolence unprecedented ! What dost thou, O Christ, ineffable and
incorruptible judge of all ? Where are thine eyes with which thou art
wont to scatter the clouds of human misery ? Why dost thou turn them
away ? Why dost thou not, with thy forked lightning, put an end to
this unholy trial ? — PETRARCH.*
THE story of Cola di Rienzi furnishes a unique chapter in Italian history.
It is the story of a patriot and reformer, whose early enthusiasm was not
supported by true moral greatness, and whose efforts were thus foredoomed
to failure, after a momentary semblance of success.
The date of the accession of Charles IV is coincident with that of the
first and greatest rise of Rienzi to power in Rome. To disengage Rienzi
from the atmosphere of romance into which he has been cast for the reader
of to-day by the unguarded rhetoric in Lord Lytton's novel, and its offspring
the libretto of an opera by Richard Wagner, is a task which could serve little
by its accomplishment. In whatever light we regard the tribune we are
bound to admit that his history is an eloquent memorial of the sudden extinc-
tion of what at least appeared to be the most brilliant possibilities. Who
can refuse an ear to the story that captivated the attention of Petrarch —
that story whose fantastic glamour the poet never entirely shook from him
even when his faith in the power of his friend was being rudely shaken ?
It is through Petrarch that the romantic vision of Rienzi's career has been
transmitted to us, and though we may smile at the poet's unreal sense of
government, we are left to wonder at his great imaginative sympathy with
the dreams of the young Nicholas from the moment when he first heard them
from the lips of his friend at Avignon (in 1343) to the time when it needed
all his eloquence with the pope to save Rienzi from execution (in 1352).
Against such a story, illustrated in numerous glowing letters of Petrarch,
211
212 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1347 A.D.]
Hallam's cold sense of justice rebels. He quotes the words of the staunch
republican Giovanni Villani,& a contemporary of Rienzi. " The design he
formed was a fantastic work and one of short duration." He reminds us
of the passage in Madame de StaeTs Corinne, in which Oswald, Lord Nelvil,
and the heroine happen upon the castle of St. Angelo in their intellectual
perambulations through Rome. Nelvil is a descendant, in the direct line, of
another English hero in French fiction, Ed ward, Lord Bumpton — the saddened
English peer with beautiful manners and a heart all Rousseau. Corinne
attacks the monuments with a conscientious zeal worthy of Baedeker and
with more than Baedeker's tenderness for the general spirit of reflection which
such sights are wont to raise. But her critical faculty is never dormant.
She couples Rienzi with Crescentius and Arnold of Brescia, calling them
"those friends of Roman liberty who so often mistook their memories for
hopes." The phrase strikes a note of enthusiasm from Hallam which all the
rhetoric of Rienzi himself fails to produce in the historian. Could Tacitus
have excelled this, he asks ?
But even robbed of the setting by which Petrarch has made it forever
memorable, the story of Rienzi's attitude towards the institutions of his time
is in itself picturesque. Sismondic says of him, " He rejected with deep
indignation the usurpation of two barbarians, the one German, calling him-
self Roman emperor ; the other a Frenchman who called himself the pontiff
of Rome." In the disruption into which Rome was thrown by the contests of
the noble families, Rienzi saw a possible foundation for creating a powerful
sovereignty. The removal of the popes to Avignon made his designs appear
all the more feasible. The people of Rome were to be the backbone of his
strength. He won them by a singular eloquence to which Petrarch bears
evidence even at that period when he is tempted to minimise the wisdom of
his early enthusiasm for Rienzi. Rome was the prey of feudal anarchy : the
municipal government was reduced to impotence. Seizing the opportune
moment Cola di Rienzi (Nicola Gabrini), the son of an innkeeper, makes a
brilliant coup d'etat and becomes tribune elect of the people in 1347. The
feuds of the families of Colonna, Orsini and Savelli have served the ends of
the ambitious youth who at the age of thirty-four found himself in a position
of power all the greater that it was comparatively undefined and absolutely
unparalleled in the annals of history. We can hardly be surprised that the
success of his endeavours, the material realisation of what even to Rienzi him-
self must have clearly possessed some of the attributes of a dream, should
have misled him into the most extravagant abuses of power. He had dreamed
even at that early period of the unification of Italy, and now it seemed as if
he were the divine agent to bring about this unification. Sovereign princes
became his allies. He surrounded himself with all the tokens of magnificence
that occurred to a fertile and greedy imagination. He bathed in the porphyry
font of Constantine ; he assumed the dalmatic worn by the ancient emperors
at their coronation, took the sceptre of government in his hand and placed
seven crowns on his head symbolising the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost ; he
even compared himself to Christ.
The novel of Lord Lytton is a genuine attempt to convey a picture of an
achievement that offered an attractive subject for romantic treatment.
It lacks the sincere ring of the silver eloquence of Petrarch — its main source
of inspiration. It has little of the critical faculty revealed in the phrase
quoted from Madame de Stae'l ; it is a curious combination of diligent research,
sympathetic insight, and a passion for high talk. In the case of one to whoi
contemporaries affix the epithet " fantastic " with noticeable frequency, the
ROME UNDER RIENZI 213
[1342-1347 A.D.]
difficulties of precise delineation are more than usually great. But such a
chapter as that describing the climax of Rienzi's power during his first and
greatest tribunate is a valuable contribution towards that truth of narrative
which lies midway between the barren enumeration of facts and the perf ervid
rhapsodies of those whom the facts have dazzled. For the main narrative
of Rienzi's picturesque career, however, we shall trust to the more prosaic,
yet still appreciative, account of a recent Italian historian. «
THE RISE OF EIENZI
Cola di Rienzi, full of the glories of ancient Rome, thought it possible to
realise politically the thoughts contained in his own works, and those of his
friend Petrarch, and of other great minds of his century. One idea domi-
nated Rienzi. He was the great dreamer of his time ; but he was not mad
in thinking that Rome should rise above the party spirit of Guelfs and
Ghibellines which he equally blamed whilst lamenting the strife continually
excited by the one against the other.
In 1342, after the election of Clement VI in Avignon, the thirteen good
men who ruled Rome sent orators to the new pope asking him to return to
St. Peter's seat. They had done the same at the election of Clement V,
John XXII, and Benedict XII. A young Roman, born to a tavern-keeper
and a washerwoman about the time of the coronation of Henry VII, took part
in the embassy. He was learned in Livy, Seneca, Cicero, and Valerius ; he
was enthusiastic over the deeds of Julius Caesar ; he had learned to read the
ancient inscriptions which were no longer understood, and he loved to ex-
pound them to the degenerate citizens ; and, whilst telling them of the good
Romans and their great justice, he regretted not having been born in their
time. He either did not know or he forgot the stormy scenes of the
republic, the pusillanimity and the iniquity of the empire, and ignored
the virtues and the victories of that Rome which now lay abandoned not
only by her emperor, but even by her pope.
Being presented to Clement VI, Rienzi described to him the robberies
of the lords at Rome, their misdeeds, and the desolation of the city; he
spoke in such forcible words that Clement was astonished, and the elegance
of the Latin language used by the gifted citizen seemed extraordinary.
Petrarch also, who a few years previously had pressed Benedict XII
to return to Rome, represented to the new pope the city that invited
his return.
But Clement, more impressed by the miserable condition of Rome and
the states of the church than by the ardent words of poet or orator, had no
wish to leave Avignon. He authorised the jubilee for the year 1350, and he
deputed the young Stefano Colonna and Bertoldo Orsini to be his vicars in
Rome. He complimented Cola and appointed him notary of the chamber ;
but the latter now began to show his teeth. The murder of a brother for
which he was unable to obtain justice had exasperated him against the bad
judges of Rome ; so now returning from Avignon in favour with the pope, he
took courage to reprove them as kings of the " blood of the poor people " ;
he admonished them with mysterious pictures ; and he had a presentment
made of a ship about to sink in a stormy sea, under which was written :
"This is Rome."
In his increasing assurance, and ascendency over the people, Cola con-
voked them one day to the Lateran when he spoke in the vulgar tongue
214 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1347 A.D.]
so as to be understood by all. He showed the people the Lex Regia of
Vespasian, which he had brought to light for the first time, and which he
thought had been hidden by Boniface VIII out of hatred of the empire.
In this the senate in the ancient Roman forms conferred the imperial power
on Vespasian. Cola, who took it literally, extolled the authority of the
Roman people : " See how fine the senate was, what authority it gave to
the empire ; " and he lamented the loss of so much greatness, and deplored
above all the present desolation of the city, and implored the people not to
disgrace themselves before the pilgrims who would come to Rome for the
jubilee of 1350.
RUINS OP THE TEMPLE OF VENUS, ROMB
All the people applauded, and the nobles scoffed, but he replied in alle-
gorical pictures and discourses. Rome was in a miserable condition ; murder
and rapine were practised on the highways with impunity, pilgrims were
robbed and wounded, and honesty was out of court. Robert and Peter
Colonna were senators, but they were not sufficient to restrain anarchy.
Stefano Colonna, the elder, the valorous and terrible head of the powerful
family of that name, was a cornet in the Roman military ; and Cola thought
that the time had arrived to summon the people to reorganise the city and
to substitute the " good state " for the present disorder.
On the 20th of May, 1347, he assembled the populace and addressed it
from the Campidoglio. Three standards were displayed before him — on the
one was depicted Rome, and signified Liberty ; upon another was St. Paul,
who represented Justice ; and upon the third was St. Peter, indicating Peace
and Concord. He was accompanied by Raymond, bishop of Orvieto, the
pope's vicar in Rome for ecclesiastical matters. Cola spoke of the misery
and servitude of the people of Rome, and as " he for the love of the pope and
the salvation of the people exposed his person to every danger," he then pub-
lished his decrees for the prevention of murder, for the right distribution of
justice, the organisation of the soldiery of the corporation and for the assist-
ance of widows, orphans, and monasteries — the barons were to maintain the
security of the thoroughfares and not to favour any malefactor. Stefano
Colonna returned to Rome in indignation, but as he heard the sound of
uproar and saw the people bearing arms, he fled to Palestrina and shut him-
self up in his family castle. The Orsini, Colonnas, and other barons who
caused the desolation of the city by their incessant strifes were expelled.
Those who had fled in terror at the sudden revolution responded to Cola's
invitation and gradually returned, took the oath, and offered their assistance
to the city.
Cola di Rienzi hastened to restore peace by punishing the evil-doers, and
reinstating justice and security. He then took the title of tribune, as head
ROME UNDER RIENZI 215
[1347 A.D.]
of the people. The pontifical vicar had been appointed his colleague ; but
this was only nominal, for the true and sole head of Rome was Cola.
The distance of the pope from Rome gave the tribune freedom to estab-
lish his authority. Neither he nor the Roman people would have thought
of the tribunate if the pope had been there ; but his absence, and the faint
hope of his return after his recent refusal, made a profound impression upon
the Romans.
Now the idea of the empire and the republic dazzled the eyes of the new
tribune. He wrote letters to the pope at Avignon, and to the cities of Tus-
cany, Lombardy, and Romagna, to Lucchino Visconti, lord of Milan, to the
marquis of Ferrara, and to Ludwig the Bavarian at Naples.
He who called himself " Nicolaus severus et clemens, sancte romane reipub-
lice liberator illustris" reported himself to the territories of Italy as having
assumed the title of tribune to repair the evils which oppressed Rome, and
requested that on the 1st of August all should send two orators to treat on
the welfare of the whole of Italy (della salute di tutta Italia). The fame of
the ardent dreamer who sought to reinstate the Roman Empire, with Rome
at the head and the Italian territories dependent upon it, and united almost
in confederation, ran throughout Italy. The courier sent to Avignon said
that thousands of people pressed upon Rienzi as he passed by to kiss the
wand he bore. The pope gave a favourable reply.
The tribune, moreover, wishing to revive the pomp of old imperialism,
made a triumphal course through the city, and visiting the church of St.
Peter he was received by the clergy singing : " Veni Creator Spiritus" He
ordered the barons to concede to the restoration of the palace of the Campi-
doglio, the seat of the tribunate, and instituted the trained bands of cavalry
and foot-soldiers according to the wards of the city, so that thirteen hundred
infantry and three hundred and sixty cavalry were enrolled. All the barons
had obeyed, with the exception of Giovanni da Vico, who by direct inherit-
ance maintained the title of prefect of the city, in which dignity he had suc-
ceeded his father. He was descended from a family of German origin and
of the imperial party which several times gave Rome reason for war. He
had been vicar in Viterbo during the pontificate, and during its absence
he had been tyrant ; and he was not inclined to submit now to the tribune.
But Cola, with the aid of Tuscany, the Campania, and the maritime prov-
inces, forced him to obey the people of Rome. Cola then reinvested him with
the prefecture and left him Viterbo ; Civita Vecchia, Anagni, and the other
territories submitted.
August approached, and the ambassadors arrived from Florence, Siena,
Teramo, Spoleto, Rieti, Amelia, Tivoli, Velletri, Foligno, Assisi ; the Vene-
tians showed themselves favourable. The majority of the tyrants of Loin-
bardy made light of embassies (like Taddeo, Pepoli of Bologna, Francesco
Ordelaffi of Forli, and Malatesta of Rimini) although many almost repented
later of having treated the invitation so disrespectfully. It seems that
Ludwig the Bavarian himself sent secret envoys to Rome because the tribune
wished to conciliate him with the church. Also Louis of Hungary, who, by
the murder of Andrea was Robert's successor to the kingdom of Naples,
aspired to that kingdom, and, accusing Joanna of complicity in the death of
her husband, sent orators to demand justice ; and he wrote letters to the
tribune, as also did Joanna. Letters, moreover, arrived from Philip of
France ; but they came too late — when Cola had fallen.
Cola, wishing to unite the glamour of pomp with the honour of the
tribune of Rome, was dressed as a cavaliere. In the presence of the orators
216 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1347 A.D.]
of the various Italian cities and amid a great concourse of people he pro-
ceeded in triumph towards the Lateran. Cavaliere Vico Scotto presented him
with the sword and order of a cavaliere, and he had the vanity to bathe in
Constantino's bath, in which it was said that Constantino washed after being
cured of leprosy by St. Silvester. Much was said by the people at this seem-
ing act of profanation, and Cola was unconscious of the grave error that he
made. His vanity began to be his ruin. Made a cavaliere, he addressed a
speech to the people on the dignities lost by the citizens of Rome, he spoke
of the empire and the popedom, and finally summoned before his presence the
imperial electors and Ludwig the Bavarian and Charles IV of Bohemia who
were pretendants to the empire under the ancient law of the election of the
future emperor by the Roman peopled
Turning for the moment from the calm narrative of the historian, let us
listen to the eloquent account in which Lord Lytton describes this remarkable
scene.
LORD LYTTON ON THE SPEECH OF KIENZI
The bell of the great Lateran church sounded shrill and loud, as the
mighty multitude, greater even than that of the preceding night, swept on.
The appointed officers made way with difficulty for the barons and ambassa-
dors, and scarcely were those noble visitors admitted ere the crowd closed in
their ranks, poured headlong into the church, and took the way to the chapel
of Boniface VIII. There, filling every cranny, and blocking up the entrance,
the more fortunate of the press beheld the tribune surrounded by the splen-
did court his genius had collected, and his fortune had subdued. At length,
as the solemn and holy music began to swell through the edifice, preluding
the celebration of the mass, the tribune stepped forth, and the hush of the
music was increased by the universal and dead silence of the audience. His
height, his air, his countenance, were such as always commanded the
attention of crowds; and at this time they received every adjunct from
the interest of the occasion, and that peculiar look of intent yet sup-
pressed fervour, which is, perhaps, the sole gift of the eloquent that nature
alone can give.
"Be it known," said he, slowly and deliberately, "in virtue of that
authority, power, and jurisdiction, which the Roman people, in general par-
liament, have assigned to us, and which the sovereign pontiff hath confirmed,
that we, not ungrateful of the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit — whose
soldier we now are — nor of the favour of the Roman people, declare that
Rome, capital of the world, and base of the Christian church, and that every
city, state, and people of Italy, are henceforth free. By that freedom, and
in the same consecrated authority, we proclaim that the election, jurisdiction,
and monarchy of the Roman Empire appertain to Rome and Rome's people,
and the whole of Italy. We cite, then, and summon personally, the illustri-
ous princes, Ludwig duke of Bavaria, and Charles king of Bohemia, who would
style themselves emperors of Italy, to appear before us, or the other magis-
trates of Rome, to plead and to prove their claim between this day and the
Day of Pentecost. We cite also, and within the same term, the duke of
Saxony, the prince of Brandenburg, and whosoever else, potentate, prince,
or prelate, asserts the right of elector to the imperial throne — a right that,
we find it chronicled from ancient and immemorial time, appertaineth only
to the Roman people — and this in vindication of our civil liberties, without
derogation of the spiritual power of the church, the pontiff, and the sacred
ROME UNDER EIENZI 217
[1347 A.D.]
college.1 Herald, proclaim the citation, at the greater and more formal
length, as written and entrusted to your hands, without the Lateran."
As Rienzi concluded this bold proclamation of the liberties of Italy, the
Tuscan ambassadors, and those of some other of the free states, murmured
low approbation. The ambassadors of those states that affected the party of
the emperor looked at each other in silent amaze
and consternation. The Roman barons remained
with mute lips and downcast eyes ; only over the
aged face of Stefano Colonna settled a smile, half
of scorn, half of exultation. But the great
mass of the citizens were caught by words that
opened so grand a prospect as the emancipation
of all Italy; and the reverence of the tribune's
power and fortune was almost that due to a
supernatural being ; so that they did not pause
to calculate the means which were to correspond
with the boast.
While his eye roved over the crowd, the
gorgeous assemblage near him, the devoted throng
beyond; as on his ear boomed the murmur of
thousands and ten thousands, in the space without,
from before the palace of Constantine (palace
now his own!) sworn to devote life and fortune
to his cause ; in the flush of prosperity that yet
had known no check ; in the zenith of power, as
yet unconscious of reverse, the heart of the tribune
swelled proudly; visions of mighty fame and
limitless dominion; fame and dominion once his
beloved Rome's, and by him to be restored, rushed
before his intoxicated gaze ; and in the delirious
and passionate aspirations of the moment, he
turned his sword alternately to the three quarters
of the then known globe, and said, in an ab-
stracted voice, as a man in a dream, " In the right
of the Roman people this too is mine ! "
Low though the voice, the wild boast was heard by all around as distinctly
as if borne to them in thunder. And vain it were to describe the various sen-
sations it excited ; the extravagance would have moved the derision of his
foes, the grief of his friends, but for the manner of the speaker, which, solemn
1 "II tutto senza derogare air autorita della Chiesa, del Tapa e del Sacro Collegia." So
concludes this extraordinary citation, this bold and wonderful assertion of the classic independ-
ence of Italy, in the most feudal time of the fourteenth century. The anonymous biographer of
Rienzi declares that the tribune cited also the pope and the cardinals to reside in Rome. De Sade
powerfully and incontrovertibly refutes this addition to the daring or the extravagance of Rienzi.
Gibbon, however, who has rendered the rest of the citation in terms more abrupt and discourteous
than he was warranted by any authority, copies the biographer's blunder, and sneers at De Sade,
as using arguments " rather of decency than of weight." Without wearying the reader with all
the arguments of the learned abbe1, it may be sufficient to give the first two :
(1) All the other contemporaneous historians that have treated of this event, G. Villani, Hoc-
semius, the Vatican manuscripts and other chroniclers, relating the citation of the emperor and
electors, say nothing of that of the pope and cardinals ; and the pope (Clement VI) , in his subse-
quent accusations of Rienzi, while very bitter against his citation of the emperor, is wholly silent on
what would have been to the pontiff the much greater offence of citing himself and the cardinals.
(2) The literal act of this citation, as published formally in the Lateran, is extant in Hocse-
mius (whence is borrowed, though not at all its length, the speech in the text of our present
tale), and in this document the pope and his cardinals are not named in the summons.
RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF NEBVA
218 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1347 A.D.]
and commanding, hushed for the moment even reason and hatred themselves
in awe ; afterwards remembered and repeated, void of the spell they had bor-
rowed from the utterer, the words met the cold condemnation of the well-
judging ; but at that moment all things seemed possible to the hero of the
people. He spoke as one inspired — they trembled and believed ; and, as
rapt from the spectacle, he stood a moment silent, his arms still extended,
his dark dilating eye fixed upon space, his lips parted, his proud head tower-
ing and erect above the herd, his own enthusiasm kindled that of the more
humble and distant spectators ; and there was a deep murmur begun by one,
echoed by the rest, " The Lord is with Italy and Rienzi ! "
The tribune turned, he saw the pope's vicar astonished, bewildered, rising
to speak. His sense and foresight returned to him at once, and, resolved to
drown the dangerous disavowal of the papal authority for this hardihood,
which was ready to burst from Raymond's lips, he motioned quickly to the
musicians, and the solemn and ringing chant of the sacred ceremony prevented
the bishop of Orvieto all occasion of self -exoneration or reply.
The moment the ceremony was over, Rienzi touched the bishop, and whis-
pered, " We will explain this to your liking. You feast with us at the Lat-
eran. Your arm." Nor did he leave the good bishop's arm, nor trust him
to other companionship, until to the stormy sound of horn and trumpet, drum
and cymbal, and amidst such a concourse as might have hailed, on the same
spot, the legendary baptism of Constantine, the tribune and his nobles
entered the great gates of the Lateran, then the palace of the world.
Thus ended that remarkable ceremony and that proud challenge of the
northern powers, in behalf of the Italian liberties, which, had it been after-
wards successful, would have been deemed a sublime daring ; which, unsuc-
cessful, has been construed by the vulgar into a frantic insolence ; but which,
calmly considering all the circumstances that urged on the tribune, and all
the power that surrounded him, was not, perhaps, altogether so imprudent as
it seemed. And, even accepting that imprudence in the extremest sense,
by the more penetrating judge of the higher order of character, it will prob-
ably be considered as the magnificent folly of a bold nature, excited at once
by position and prosperity, by religious credulities, by patriotic aspirings, by
scholastic visions too suddenly transferred from reverie to action, beyond
that wise and earthward policy which sharpens the weapon ere it casts the
gauntlet.^
RIENZl'S OPPONENTS; HIS FRIENDS; HIS PROCLAMATIONS
Germany was at this time divided, and Ludwig the Bavarian, who in the
first years of his reign had found a rival in Frederick of Austria, and now
another who was much more formidable in Charles, son of John of Bohemia,
grandson of Henry VII, was no longer reconciled with the pope. In 1387 he
approached the king of France, but here his friendship with Edward of Eng-
land stopped the way of unanimity. His protests of submission provoked
the declaration of the German electors on the independence of the empire
of the pontificate (1338). The negotiation was continued in 1346. Ludwig
wavered, and Clement VI again excommunicated him, enjoining the electors
to fill the vacancy by the election of the king of the Romans.
Charles meanwhile, a candidate of the kingdom, came to Avignon to
renew the promises of Henry VII. He was elected the same year. Ludwig,
now weary of such a long strife, felt the need more than ever of recon-
ciliation and peace.
ROME UNDER RIENZI 219
[1347 A.D.]
Now the tribune with no other power than that of the name of Rome
summoned before his tribunal the two rivals already adjudged by the pope
without regard to the orders given by the pope, nor of those of the electors.
" But the Roman Empire remains in Rome," said Rienzi. " There is no
name on earth more august than that of the Roman Republic ; all the world
recognises its supremacy. Rome is also the foundation of the church. Can
the Roman Empire be found elsewhere than at Rome ? Do we not find its
laws among the Parthians, Persians, and Medes, and is it in Rome that we
are not to find the Roman Empire ? And if not at Rome, where is it to be ? "
These were the ideas of Francesco Petrarch, who had become the firm and
enthusiastic friend of the tribune, having first been thrown with him at
Avignon. Thus when the daring attempt began to fail, the poet laureate was
untiring in exhorting the tribune to insure the welfare of Rome and Italy.
He was astounded at hearing many who were accredited with wisdom doubt
the importance of the cause that Rome and Italy should be in concord.
The gentle spirit of Petrarch, intolerant at the pope's residing at Avignon,
and regretting his sojourn in Gaul, and complaining of the western Baby-
lonia, now forgot his Colonna friends and incited Cola against the barons.
Csesar Augustus at one time had prohibited the Romans using the title
of doming and now everything is changed. " 0 miserabilem fortune vertigi-
nem." But in the meanwhile a great cause of discord had arisen. Raymond,
alarmed at the tribune's speeches, made a formal protest, but the voice of the
notary who recorded it was drowned by musical instruments.
Cola withdrew all the privileges and the concessions given solely to the
Roman people, and declared the Italian cities free ; and on the 3rd of August
in a festival which can be called that of the Italian cities he presented
symbolical standards to the orators of some of the towns. Those of Perugia,
Siena, and Todi received the standards ; but those of Florence, to whom he
wished to present a standard with Rome represented as an aged woman
seated before two young ones, were not there to receive it, because they
thought it would compromise the independence of their city, as they opined
that one of the young women represented Florence.
Henceforward the Florentines, practised in the affairs of the world, knew
that Cola's enterprise " was a fantastic work of short durance." Cola figured
as a messenger of God, and took the title of " candidate of the Holy Spirit,"
and had his titles engraved on a marble tablet on the door of Santa Maria in
Ara Cceli. He afterwards wrote to the pope acquainting him with the deeds
done, and wrote to the Italian cities repeating and delineating his programme
with greater exactitude. He was to re-establish the laws of Rome; he
declared that the monarchy of the world should belong to Rome and all Italy.
He summoned the ruling authorities in Italy, the electors, and the German
chancellors to appear in Rome before him, and the other officials of the pope
and the Roman people to justify his laws (the 5th-6th of August). He
wished to elect a new emperor at Rome, and whilst (August) the matter
was being debated in Rome before him between Joanna of Naples and Louis
of Hungary, his orators went to the different cities (November, December)
asking them to send ambassadors to Rome for the coming festival of St. John,
to treat on the election of the new emperor, maintaining that in antiquity his
election was always looked for at the hands of the Romans and Italians,
and to find means of preventing the Germans ever descending that side of
the Alps.
Subsequently when Cola himself was forced to take refuge with Charles
IV in Bohemia, he was astonished at the audacity with which, trusting in the
220 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1347 A.D.]
" majesty of the name of Rome," he had cast down the gauntlet of defiance
before the German emperor.
On the 15th of August he had himself crowned in the Lateran with sev-
eral symbolical crowns, of oak, ivy, myrtle, laurel, olive, and silver. The
comptroller placed a golden apple in his hand. Then he forbade the use of
the names of Guelf and Ghibelline ; he promulgated the Roman freedom
of the city of all Italians, and believing himself a hero of antique type, he
wrote of his coronation to the pope and to Charles IV. He gave feasts and
dressed in sumptuous attire.
He also ignored the signification of Guelf and Ghibelline, the laws of the
pope and the emperor, but all, according to Petrarch, was done in the name
of Rome, amid whose present miseries vivified by history and ancient litera-
ture there arose before his eyes, drunk with enthusiasm, the temples and
courts of august Rome. The nobility, not being impressed with his dreams,
worked against him, and he was now in fear of treachery. He invited Stefano
Colonna, the elder, and other of the chief barons of the Colonnas, the Orsini,
and the Savelli, to a banquet and then kept them prisoners. He wished to
have them all killed, and had the room adorned with white and red decora-
tions as a sign of blood. Their approaching death was announced to them,
but then his courage failed him for the execution of the sentence. Granting
the prayers of several citizens he pardoned them, believed in the sincerity of
their promises, liberated them, and covered them with honours. In all
practical matters Rienzi's weakness and lack of judgment were clearly
shown.
But naturally discontent arose among the Roman people, and a fire and
flame were kindled which could not be extinguished (the 15th of September).
The liberated barons rushed to their castles, fortified Marino, and openly pre-
pared for war, skirmishing even as far as the gates of Rome. Cola was thus
forced to besiege Marino. In the meanwhile the causes of division with the
pope increased. Clement VI was filled with suspicion against Cola, seeing
that he arbitrarily ruled the territories of Sabina, which were under the pon-
tifical sway. He sent to Rome the cardinal Bertrando di Deux (the pontifi-
cal legate in Italy until 1346), who subsequently co-operated in the ruin of
the tribune. He came to Rome in October and Cola arrogantly appeared
before him clad in the imperial dalmatic, to the sound of trumpets, the sceptre
in his hand and crown upon his head, terrible and fantastic to look at.
DISASTER SUCCEEDS VICTORY
Clement had written to this legate saying that Cola had exceeded the
limits of his authority, breaking the pontifical and imperial decrees and favour-
ing Louis of Hungary against Joanna of Naples whom the pope held to be
innocent of the accusation of complicity in the murder of her husband
Andrea. He gave orders for Cola to revoke the very fatuous laws he had
made and ordered him to be contented with the government of Rome. But
Cola was unwilling to receive such admonitions, which prevented the fulfil-
ment of his designs. The Colonnas in the meanwhile arrived from Pales-
trina, and favoured by the discontent commencing in Rome they entered upon
the perilous venture of storming Rome at the gate of San Lorenzo. Among
the chief barons were Stefano Colonna, the younger, and Giovanni his son,
who died fighting. Cola felt certain of the prefect Da Vico, — who, however,
secretly favoured the Colonnas, the Orsini, and the Savelli, — and had tried
ROME UNDER RIENZI 221
[1347 A.D.]
to imbue the others with his enthusiasm, saying that St. Boniface, i.e., Boni-
face VIII, had appeared to him and assured him of victory over the Colonnas.
They in fact were conquered (the 20th of November). Many of the most
illustrious barons died in that fierce battle, which was the grave of the old
Roman nobility. The tribune, being no warrior, could not boast of a real
victory, but he nevertheless celebrated his triumph, and like the ancients, he
had arms hung up in the temples, and he laid his steel sceptre and his crown
of olive leaves at the feet of the Virgin in Santa Maria in Ara Cceli, boasting
before the people of having done with his sword what neither pope nor
emperor had been able to do.
The next day he made his son Lorenzo a cavalier (knight) at the scene of
victory, sprinkling him with water from the ditch in which Stefano Colonna
had fallen, and bathing him with blood and water, he said to him : " Thou
shalt be a cavalier of victory " ; and thus in vain and barbarous ceremonies
he lost precious time in which he could easily have surprised Marino. The
people murmured at seeing Rienzi sprinkle his son with the blood of the
Colonnas, for he seemed like an Asiatic tyrant, who forgot the execution of
justice in his love of eating and drinking.
MOUNT AVENTINE, ROME
Cola began to be suspicious of the populace, and fearing their fury he was
in no hurry to assemble them for parliament. He had to cease governing
Sabina, although in the name of the church he continued to issue laws and
tracts. He approached the legate, but he did not recover the good will of
the people, who now regarded him as a tyrant (December, 1347).
Together with a pontifical vicar, he assembled the parliament of the
people, proposing a tax on salt, but in this the citizens did not concur, and
soon afterwards a council was formed of twenty-nine sages. But scarcely
were they assembled than he accused two of the members of treachery ; a
tumult arose, and Cola, alarmed, and to reassemble the sole public council
and to excuse himself of any excess, said that he wished to hold the court
in the name of the pope and according to the orders that the cardinal
brought him in his name. But he postponed publishing them (the 10th of
December), and thus from hesitancy to hesitancy, from vanity to vanity, he
worked his own ruin.
The people were no longer with hi.m, he was no longer the tribune of a
few months previous — full of confidence and enthusiasm. He did not
know how to keep the vicar on his side ; and he withdrew to the legate at
Montefiascone, who was commencing operations against the tribune, as he
sided with the Colonnas and Savelli.
222 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1347 A.D.]
Letters arrived from the pope, accusing Cola of having summoned to his
court the Bavarian and the Bohemian, and for having incited the Italian
cities to assemble to elect the emperor, which he had asserted to be a matter
independent of the church and the city of Rome ; in fact he had incited the
people to abandon him. Although Cola then abandoned (at least in appear-
ance) all his pretensions, it was too late.
Petrarch had left Valchiusa to come to Rome to visit the tribune and the
city, no4longer in the hands of the barons, no longer decimated by massacres,
but ruled by a vigorous hand of ancient Roman descent. When he arrived
at Genoa, he heard on the way bad reports of Cola's government. He then
wrote to him to reprove his decadence, and quoting Cicero and Terence, he
strove to inspire him with Roman steadfastness. " The foot must be well
planted," he said to him, " so as to be firm and not to present a ridiculous
spectacle to the enemies."
But these oratorical exhortations were fruitless — resistance had become
impossible ; the legate, the people, were all against him ; and those who a
few months before had hailed him as the restorer of the Roman Republic
now grumbled at him as the " iniquitous one who wished to tyrannise by
force."
John Pipino of Altarmara who was put in prison by Robert had been
set free by Andrew in 1343. When Andrew was killed he left the kingdom
and went to Hungary, where he incited King Louis to go down to Italy to
vindicate the death of his brother, whilst he went to Rome to await him.
The tribune had banished him from Rome for the robberies he had com-
mitted near Terracina, but favoured by the enemies of Cola, he was able to
fortify himself in the district of the Holy Apostles, under the protection of
the Colonnas.
Cola liberated the prefect Da Vico ; but he was mistaken in thinking to
acquire a powerful friend, for he had already voted against the tribune ; his
orders were not followed. The tribune was now quite cast down and dis-
heartened at seeing that the country which had glowed with the ardour of
a whole populace was now destitute of one in his favour ; and he fell to
weeping and sighing.
The people meanwhile came to the Campidoglio, but full of a bad spirit
and actuated by his enemies. Cola appeared before them and told them how
much he had done in his tribunate ; he justified his conduct, and said that
if his fellow-citizens were not satisfied with him it was the fault of their
jealousy, and that he would renounce power in the seventh month from that
in which he had assumed it. But the eloquent language which had once
affected Clement VI, and intoxicated the people with enthusiasm, was now
received coldly, and not a voice rose in his defence.
Weeping, Cola came out on horseback, and to the sound of trumpets and
with imperial accompaniments he passed through the city almost in triumph
and shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. When the tribune
descended from his grandeur, he bewailed the others who were associated
with him and he lamented over the unhappy people. The barons did not
dare to set foot in Rome for three days, and they finally returned, with the
legate, who disapproved of most of the deeds of the tribune, and condemned
him as a heretic. The count Pipino was executed eight days afterwards in
the Abruzzi, and a mitre was put upon his head with the inscription that
he was mockingly called the "liberator of the people of Rome."
Cola on the arrival of the king of Hungary fled to the Naples district
from the dangers which menaced him.
RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR AT ROME
ROME UNDER RIENZI 223
[1347-1350 A.D.]
ANARCHY AND JUBILEE IN ROME
Rome now returned to her old state of anarchy. The senators Bertoldo
Orsini and Luca Savelli failed in maintaining a more orderly government than
the senators preceding them. Stefano Colonna, the elder, died about this
time (1348-1350) ; Werner von Urslingen, the fierce captain of the Great
Company, had returned about a year before to this side of the Alps after
having laid Romagna waste, and in November, 1347, he, with fifteen hundred
armed soldiers, followed Louis of Hungary in Italy to the conquest of Naples.
The confusion with which he filled the kingdom led to the victory of the
Hungarians ; then Urslingen was licensed, and it being easy to find them he
gathered mercenaries under him, and marching towards Rome took and
destroyed Anagni ; but he did not get any further.
The Black Plague [described in our previous chapter], brought from the
Levant in a Genoese galley in 1347, broke out in that year in some places of
Tuscany, Romagna, and Provence. It ceased at the advent of winter, and
broke out again with devastating force at the approach of spring, and ran
riot over the whole of Italy, in 1348, excepting Milan and Piedmont. John
Villani fell a victim to this terrible disease. Three-fifths of the population
died in Florence, and two-thirds in Bologna. In Rome, on the contrary, it
seems to have been less prevalent ; at least we have no authentic records of
the evil attending this city, now squalid and desolate. At the end of the
following year the arrival of the pilgrims for the jubilee at Rome commenced.
Germans and Hungarians came in great numbers. The arrival of the pil-
grims was attended with no disorder. They were at first attacked by beggars
when they reached the district of Rome, and some were killed ; but subse-
quently the Romans had the roads protected. Countless were the Christians
that went by thousands to the Holy City. The roads leading to the churches
of St. Peter, St. John the Lateran, and St. Paul, and the highways outside
the walls, were all crowded with people. Louis of Hungary came to Rome
after having returned to his kingdom. Petrarch also came, but he neither
found his old friends the Colonnas there, nor his new friend Cola, and he
was grieved to see the Lateran half in ruins, the Vatican in disorder, and
the church of the Apostles in ruins.
What feelings must have filled the heart of the poet on revisiting the
Campidoglio and the district of the Apostles and the Colonna palace — in all
Rome there was nothing to remind him of the happy days of his coronation !
"Ah! it is not only we who are getting old that change, for the things
about us deteriorate," he said some years later.
Aribaldo, a Tuscan bishop, was legate in Rome during the jubilee; he
died on the 17th of August, 1350. The pope some time previously had
deputed him to continue the proceedings commenced by Cardinal Bertrand
against Cola. •
The jubilee over, Rome relapsed into anarchy soon after it had elected
the thirteen good men ; and Clement VI, whilst showing himself favourable
to the new administration, nominated four cardinals to examine into matters,
and he confided to them the main part of the government of Rome. To
them Petrarch addressed a letter full of the ideas he had expressed in his
epistle to Cola, and, incensed against the malevolent Roman barons, he spoke
of the plebe Romana who in old times elected their magistrates ; and without
touching on the tribunate he added that the two senators of his time, the
only advance on the conscript (conscritti) fathers, represented the two consuls
of ancient times.
224 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1350-1351 A.D.]
He did not descend to especial admonitions upon the mode of governing,
but only maintained the necessity of restoring ancient liberty and freeing
the house of the apostles from the tyrants who had laid it waste.
RIENZI IN EXILE; HIS RENEWED OPPORTUNITY ; HIS DEATH
Cardinal Aribaldo had always been in fear of Cola; he suspected that
the pope would change and desire the tribune's return, and having been
wounded on the road he had no hesitation in attributing the deed to the
fugitive, who was leading a wandering life full of dangers. Cola travelled in
the Abruzzi, and there met with the friars who retained faith in the poverty
of Christ ; and here Brother Angelo prophesied a great future for him.
In the meanwhile Ludwig the Bavarian died (the llth of October, 1347)
and there remained only Charles IV from whom Cola began to expect the
fulfilment of his aspirations.^ Petrarch had written a long letter to the
emperor in 1350 inviting him to interest himself in Italy. " Let not solici-
tude for transalpine affairs, nor the love of your native soil detain you ; but
whenever you look upon Germany think of Italy. There you were born,
here you were nurtured ; there you enjoy a kingdom, here both a kingdom
and an empire ; and as I believe I may, with the consent of all nations and
peoples, safely add, while the members of the empire are everywhere, here
you will find the head itself." Shortly after he had received this strange
communication from Petrarch, the emperor was confronted with Rienzi him-
self at Prague. He listened to his proposals and then calmly handed him
over to the pope at Avignon. Petrarch writing to Nelli about him in 1352
says : " Cola di Rienzi has recently come, or rather been brought a prisoner
to the papal curia. He who was once the tribune of the city of Rome, in-
spiring terror far and wide, is now the most miserable of men." Had it not
been for Petrarch's influence with the pope and the complexion of politics
at the moment, Rienzi no doubt would have been killed. As it was, he was
kept in prison while Clement lived. «
In the meanwhile the people in Rome had given full authority to Giovanni
Cerrone (1351), to whom the pope had shown himself favourable, and had
appointed him senator and captain. But he fell very soon. The prefect
Giovanni da Vico, also under the ban of excommunication, did not wish to
ROME UNDER RIENZI 225
[1351-1353 A.D.]
submit to him and had re-occupied Viterbo, Toscanella, and other territories
of the patrimony, and then Corneto and Orvieto. Cerrone could not subdue
him, and with the same want of success he so alienated everybody from him
that he had to quit the city, which relapsed into the usual anarchy. On the
6th of December, 1352, Clement VI died, leaving the pontifical seat settled
in Avignon, as he had obtained the city from Queen Joanna of Naples for
8,000 florins.
His successor, Etienne d' Albert or Aubert, a Frenchman like his predeces-
sors, took the name of Innocent VI. He was a just, austere, and severe man,
a man of science and practical views. He began to reform the curia of
Avignon, and sought to find a remedy for the present prostration of the
pontificate by reconstructing the ecclesiastical state and dividing it among
petty and great vicars, tyrants, and lords.
The condition of the lands of the church has been often touched upon,
but it must now be examined more closely. The family of the prefect Da
Vico ruled over Viterbo, Orvieto, Toscanella, Corneto, Civita Vecchia, Terni,
Vertralla, etc. The lordships of the Malatesta of Rimini extended over Fano,
Pesaro, Sinigaglia, Ascoli, Osima, Ancora, etc. ; the Montefeltri ruled in
Urbino and Cagli, the Varani in Camerino, the Da Montemilone in Tolen-
tino, the Gabrieli in Gubbio, the Trinci in Foligno, the Da Mogliani in
Fermo, the Alidosi in Imola, and the Manfredi in Faenza. The dominion
of the Ordelaffi embraced Forli, Forlimpopoli, Cesena, etc. ; that of the Da
Polentas, Ravenna, Cervia, etc. We omit the minor lordships.
Now Bologna was under the Visconti. Although the Da Varani, Di
Camerini, the Alidosi of Imola, and the Estes from time to time renewed
their declarations of fidelity and dependence, receiving under the title of
vicars the lands they possessed, the tenure was of an uncertain character.
Naturally such lordships were not always of the same extent, but they
were increased and reduced according to the various political conditions and
causes of war.
The man appointed by Innocent VI to undertake the difficult task of
raising a state on such insecure and insufficient soil was a Spaniard. Don
Gil Albornoz was born at Cuenca of illustrious family. Alfonso XI of
Aragon procured him the archbishopric of Toledo; he fought the Moors
who had invaded Andalusia and directed the siege of Algeciras ; but when
Peter the Cruel succeeded to the throne he fled from Spain to Avignon,
where Clement VI promoted him to be cardinal (1350). This man, cultured,
zealous, and with the habits of a knight and of a resolute character, was the
friend and adviser of Innocent VI, who finding in him the man fitted to
punish the tyrants, sent him as legate to Italy. He wished him to be
accompanied by Cola di Rienzi, whom in accordance with the wish of the
Romans he liberated from prison, being persuaded, as the pope said when
announcing the liberation to the people of Rome, that if he had done evil, he
had also done good (September, 1353). Thus Innocent VI combined the
strongest and most courageous cardinal of the century with the man of
fancies, the skilled politician, the only person who could excite the feeling
of the Romans, and to these two men he entrusted the restoration of pon-
tifical authority in Italy.
So Cola di Rienzi, who was the Roman of authority in 1347, being now
persuaded of the real state of affairs, had to lower himself to take part in
the party struggle ; and as he had made himself a Ghibelline at the court of
Charles IV at Prague so far as to boast of being the bastard of Henry VII,
so he now adhered to the idea of Guelf in the prison of Avignon. The
H. W. — VOL. IX. Q
226 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1353-1354 A.D.]
prison of Avignon had not been too hard for him, for although he had been
shut up in a tower he had been given a certain amount of liberty, and he had
been able to follow his wish of studying the Bible, and the famous histories
of Titus Livius, and several other books.
In Rome, at the beginning of 1353, Bertoldo Orsini and Stefano Colonna
were senators, and amid the turbulent vortex of factions they had succeeded
in occupying the lordship after the flight of Cerrone. The two senators
were not loved, and before long they were hated by the people, who, harassed
with want of provisions, rose up in fury on the 15th of February, 1353.
Colonna fled to his palace, but Orsini put on his armour and descended the
stairway to mount his horse in view of the people. Then braving the popu-
lace he advanced until his strength failed him and he was buried under
a storm of stones.
The people then took a second tribune, Francesco Baroncelli, a friend of
Cola's, who governed according to his powers, but not with vigour. He was
not recognised by the pope, who had different views on the government of
the city. The Baroncelli were descended from a civil family, and he was the
orator sent to Florence by Cola to announce his elevation to the tribune at
the beginning of his reign.
Albornoz and Cola then left Avignon together to put down the tyrants
and reorganise Rome. The cardinal Egidio (Gil), as he was called, was in
Lombardy in the summer of 1353. Hordes of Tuscans increased the numbers
of Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans in his following. He went down to
Montefiascone which he made the centre of his doings in Romagna. Cola
being in the service of the cardinal in the war was against the prefect Da Vico,
who re-took Viterbo, and other places in the patrimony, and being reinforced
he had turned the anarchy of Rome to his own advantage. The resistance
was obstinate and it only terminated after a long struggle on the 5th of June,
when the prefect surrendered. Whilst Viterbo was fighting, and the tyrants
Bernardo Polenta, lord of Ravenna and Cervia, Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini,
Francesco Ordelaffi of Forli were being expelled from Romagna, the Roman
people looked once more for salvation from Cola, forgetting his bad govern-
ment and the little peace he had procured them.
The feeling for Cola revived from the time he was incarcerated in the
Avignon prison ; and now that he was near Rome with the legate, it
increased still more, although it was not the spontaneous, universal acclama-
tion of 1347. Suspected by the Baroncelli of having communication with the
prefect, the public aversion towards him increased, until at the end of 1353
rebellion broke out and the poor tribune was expelled and nearly killed.
The Romans devoted themselves to the legate and assisted him in the
siege of Viterbo. The war and the negotiations proceeded prosperously for
the church. Roman Tuscany, Umbria, and Sabina gradually gave in, and the
way was being cleared for Cola to return to the government of Rome.
But he had not the necessary money to provide an army of mercenaries, with
which to maintain his dominion. The money he had in Perugia was from
the two young brothers Moriale (Monreal). Fra Moriale was a gentleman
of Provence by birth. The terrible freebooter from 1345 took part in the
majority of the Italian wars, fought with Louis of Hungary in the Neapolitan
enterprise, and in the neighbourhood of Rome both for and against the prefect
Da Vico. Subsequently tired of serving, he formed (1352) a company of his
own of fifteen hundred helmeted men and two thousand foot-soldiers, and
marched against Malatesta da Rimini, against whom he had fought in the
wars of Naples. The successful enterprises increased the company, into
HOME UNDER RIENZI 227
[1354 A.D.]
which he introduced regulations like those of a regular standing army inde-
pendent of every state. Pisa, Siena, Arezzo, Florence, and other cities
of Tuscany and Romagna had dearly paid the price of immunity from his
terrible devastations.
In the July of 1354 he sent his company under the rightful vicar, Count
Lando, to fight for the league against the Visconti. Being a citizen of
Perugia, he there amassed the treasures extorted by terror or gained by sack-
ing the populations of all Italy. His brothers Arimbaldo, doctor of law, and
Brettone, cavaliere di Narbona, lived there ; and they with their brother's
permission gave Cola 4,000 florins to collect some followers and to make
other necessary provisions.
Fra Moriale, wiser than the brothers, did not believe in the success of the
enterprise. " My reason contradicts it," said he ; but he let the money be
given whilst preparing " magnificent things " with his mercenaries.
Cola was made senator of Rome by the legate, and having enlisted sixty
companies, with a few Perugian and Tuscan soldiery, he, on the 1st of
August, 1354, made a solemn entry into Rome by the
Castello gate, under triumphal arches and decorations
of gold and silver. The people, joyous and shouting,
accompanied him to the Campidoglio, where
Cola made an eloquent speech, calling himself
senator of Rome in the name of the pope.
He formed his government ; he made
the two brothers of Fra Moriale cap-
tains of the militia ; he announced
his promotion to Florence, and he
received the embassies from the neigh-
bouring places. Cola was not the
person he was of old to the Roman
people, who were shocked at his in-
temperate way of living. He had be-
come stout, and he consumed his time
in eating and drinking. His former
courage in restraining the barons had
not been forgotten, and he received
obedience from them.
Stefano Colonna, who had been
senator in 1351, shut himself up in
Palestrina, the Orsini shut themselves
up in Marino, and from these forti-
fied spots they laid waste the territory
near Rome. Cola proceeded against
Palestrina, as he was in need of the
money with which to pay the German mercenaries, but he wished to find
means of oppressing Stefano, the "poisonous serpent, the broken reed."
And he tried once more to bring ruin on the house of Colonna, " the cursed
house whose pride had brought the city of Rome to poverty, whilst other
places lived in wealth."
So spoke Cola, and with a thousand Roman cavalry and soldiery, with the
people of Tivoli and Velletri, and reinforcements from the neighbouring
places, he laid siege to the famous Rock of the Colonnas. But the siege had
not long commenced and the raising of the earthworks was not finished before
disputes arose between the Velletrani and Tiburtini ; but worse than that
AN ITALIAN KNIGHT, FOURTEENTH CENTURY
228 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1354 A.D.]
was the arrival of Fra Moriale — for now that his brothers were with Cola,
he was able to come to Rome, from whence he had been formerly banished.
He came to defend the rights of his brothers, who could not get the new
senator to repay the money lent to him — perhaps, moreover, he was moved
by the terrible idea of taking possession of Rome, and sacking it for his mer-
cenaries, and then making it the centre for great power. His fierce soldiers
were already saying that "some fine city would be their spoil." What spoil
could be better than Rome !
It seems that the Colonnas, reduced to a desperate condition, treated with
Moriale for the fall of the tribune. The latter, suspecting that Moriale was
planning his death, returned suddenly to town, and left the siege of Pales-
trina without arranging for his return to it. In Rome he sent for Moriale,
and he appeared before Cola, who took him and had him imprisoned in the
Campidoglio, together with his brothers. At first Fra Moriale thought
he could purchase his liberty. Being brought forward tied, and examined, he
confessed he was the head of the Great Company. Then when sent back to
prison, he knew there was no hope for him. In the morning, accompanied
by his brothers, he was brought out of prison, and beheaded on the 29th of
August, 1354.
The Romans of those days, only judging from the number and the great-
ness of his enterprises relative to the theatre in which they were enacted,
compared him to Csesar ; but Innocent VI, with more reason, likened him to
Holofernes and Attila. The destruction of the great terror of Italy was
considered a great credit to Cola, as he would have caused as much harm in
the future as he had in the past ; but it must be remembered that Cola was
most anxious to take possession of the riches of the brigand. " It seems,"
says Matteo Villani,/ " that he stained his fame with ingratitude and
avarice " ; and Fra Moriale himself, at the moment of his death, turned to
the people and said, "I die for your poverty and my wealth."
Muratori* gives the following unpleasant word-portrait of Rienzi at this
period : " Formerly he was sober, temperate, abstemious ; he had now become
an inordinate drunkard ; he was always eating confectionery and drinking.
It was a terrible thing to be forced to see him. They said that in person
he was of old quite meagre ; he had become enormously fat ; he had a belly
like a tun ; jovial like an Asiatic abbot. He was full of shining flesh (car-
buncles ?) like a peacock-red, and with a long beard ; his face was always
changing ; his eyes would suddenly kindle like fire ; his understanding, too,
kindled in fitful flashes like fire."
After the death of Moriale, Cola pursued the war against the Colonnas
with ardour. He entrusted it to Riccardo degli Anibaldi, a doughty warrior.
He gave orders from the Campidoglio to his officers, and it seems that he
devoted attention and diligence to his soldiers. Cola also once more gave a
proof of constancy and ardour. The want of money for the war forced him
to increase or to again impose the taxes on wine and salt. The Romans bore
it silently until it seemed that he even taxed the common foods. The pope
conjured him to govern justly, and confirmed him as senator. But causes of
complaint now arose ; and it appeared that Cola's weak nature broke under
its own weight. He would first weep, and then laugh ; he incurred every-
body's suspicion, and he patronised one and another without rhyme or
reason, and would release people for money.
On the 4th of October he notified the legate at Montefiascone of his great
danger and that he had received no help. The blow fell suddenly on the
morning of the 8th of October. The Colonnas and Savelli were to the fore.
ROME UNDER EIENZI 229
[1354 A.D.]
The people pressed to the palace crying, " Long live the people ! death to the
traitor Cola di Rienzi ! death to the traitor who has made the tax, death ! "
The tribune, unconscious of his danger, made no defence, nor sounded a
bell. " I also," he said, " am with the people ; the pontifical confirmation has
arrived ; I have only to publish it to the council. " He was not afraid until
he saw he was abandoned by all, and that the uproar increased. He wished
to harangue the people from the window, but it was impossible, for they
threw stones and sticks at him, crying still louder, " Death to the traitor ! "
Confusion filled the palace ; he was doubtful of Brettone, the brother of
Fra Moriale, who was a prisoner. He vacillated, he put on his helmet and
took it off again, uncertain whether to meet death with the dignity of the
ancient Romans or to take refuge in flight — he finally decided on the latter
course.
The Romans were now firing the doors, when the tribune divested him-
self of all his arms, laid aside the insignia of dignity, cut off his beard, dyed
his face black, and put on the door-keeper's mantle and enveloped his head
with a bed-cover. Thus disguised he descended the stairway to the outside
door, and changing his voice, he mingled with the insurgents, himself crying
" Down with the traitor ! " He was outside the palace when he was recog-
nised by his gold armlets, and conducted to the Place of the Lion in the
Campidoglio where the sentences were given. Here he stood for the space of
an hour, a wretched spectacle for the people who stood in silence and seemed
frightened at what they had done and uncertain whether to pardon or
sacrifice him. Cola stood firm and calm awaiting death, and the people
seemed in no hurry to bathe their hands in the blood of him whom a few
months previously they had accompanied in triumph to the Campidoglio,
crowning him with olive leaves, and uttering shouts of joy.
What memories must have filled the mind of the unhappy tribune !
Cecco del Vecchio gave him a blow in the stomach. The sight of blood
changed compassion to fury. A notary wounded him with his sword. He
was soon covered with wounds. He did not say a word, he did not utter
a cry. He was taken to St. Mark's, and he was tied by the feet to a pillar.
His head was mangled and tufts of his hair strewed the way ; he was riddled
with wounds in every part of his body. There he remained two days, whilst
rogues cast stones at him. On the third day Guigurth and Sciarretta Colonna
had him taken over to the field of Augustus, where he was burned upon a
pile of dry thistles. Such was the end of Cola di Rienzi, who made himself
august tribune of Rome, and constituted himself the champion of the
Romans. ^ " In the death, as in the life of Rienzi," says Gibbon,? " the hero
and the coward were strangely mingled. Posterity will compare the vir-
tues and failings of this extraordinary man ; but in a long period of anarchy
and servitude the name of Rienzi has often been celebrated as the deliverer of
his country, and the last of the Roman patriots.
CHAPTER VIII
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND
FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
[ca. 1309-1496 A.D.]
IN the present chapter we shall take up the history of Italy in the latter
part of the fourteenth century and carry it forward to about the year 1500,
with chief reference to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily — which become
united into the kingdom of the Two Sicilies — in the south, and the tyranny
of the Visconti and Sforza at Milan in the north. The history of these prin-
cipalities necessarily involves reference to most of the states of Italy, as they
were constantly embroiled one with another. But for such incidental refer-
ences, we shall reserve the more specific history of the important maritime
republics, Venice and Genoa, and of the chief Tuscan republic, Florence, for
separate treatment in later chapters. During the dominance of the Visconti
in Milan in the latter half of the fourteenth century and the first half of
the fifteenth, this principality dominated northern Italy and was much of the
time in open warfare with Florence. The history of Florence will, there-
fore, be given considerable prominence, and our later chapters will be chiefly
directed to the events of the period of the great Medici, Cosmo and Lorenzo,
whose dictatorship in Florence, it will be recalled, coincides in time with the
later events of the present chapter. The period now under consideration
introduces a number of really important men, including Alfonso the Mag-
nanimous, king of Sicily and Naples.
But the kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the duchy of Milan, important
as they must have seemed to their Italian contemporaries, had no very direct
world-historical influences. They embroiled Italy and kept her in touch
with the nations of the north, to her disadvantage ; but their rulers had no
230
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 231
[1309-1326 A.D.]
thought beyond self -aggrandisement, and no one of them attained sufficient
influence to bring the entire peninsula under his control. Despite the pic-
turesqueness of individual characters,1 therefore, we shall be justified in deal-
ing with the period somewhat briefly, reserving larger space for the more
important developments that came about through the influence of the
commercial republics.
THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES
On the death of Charles II of Naples (1309) his younger son Robert
succeeded to the crowns of Naples and Provence to which he had no recog-
nised or inherited right. They belonged to Carobert, the young king of
Hungary, whose father was the elder son of Charles. But Naples was a
papal fief, and Robert, who hastened to Avignon, had little difficulty in
obtaining from Clement V who saw in this energetic vassal a formidable
opponent of the Ghibellines, a sentence setting aside the claims of his
nephew. At the same time he received the government of Ferrara as vice-
roy of the pope. Robert was no military genius, but he possessed both
wisdom and address, and at once assumed the Guelf leadership in Italy. He
was a prominent member of the great league formed at Florence against
the designs of Henry VII, and the Tuscan republic went so far in 1312 as
to confer a temporary dictatorship upon him, in anticipation of his assis-
tance in resisting imperial aggression.
But Robert's ambition was none less than the general sovereignty of
Italy, and to this end he opposed Henry at every step. A Neapolitan army
seized the principal fortresses of Rome in an attempt to prevent the em-
peror's coronation, but the struggle was brought to an unexpected end the
following year (1313) by Henry's sudden death. It seemed now as if Robert
would realise his dream, but a number of truly remarkable leaders arose to
meet the crisis from the Ghibelline ranks. Against the talents and energies
of Uggocione della Faggiuola, Castruccio Castracani, Matteo Visconti, and
Cane della Scala, whose exploits have been detailed elsewhere, the Guelfic
cause went swiftly to ruin. Robert saw his armies and his allies repeatedly
overcome, and when he passed into Provence in 1318 he had obtained no
success but that of raising the Ghibelline siege of Genoa, for which service
that city surrendered its liberties into his hands for ten years. The plight of
the Guelfs became more desperate day by day, but Robert remained in Pro-
vence insensible to their disasters, and only his greed of dominion roused him
to the continued appeals of the Florentines. His command over that republic
had expired in 1321, and now he promised aid on condition that his son
Charles be made its absolute ruler for ten years. The Florentines stipulated
1 It will be of aid to have a list of the kings of Naples and Sicily, and of the tyrants of Milan,
presented here as a guide to the text.
KINGS OF NAPLES AND SICILY (1309-1496 A.D.). —Naples (House of Anjou) ; 1309,
Robert (The Wise) ; 1343, Joanna I ; 1382, Charles III ; 1386, Ladislaus ; 1414, Joanna II.
Sicily (House of Aragon) ; 1337, Pedro II, king of Sicily ; 1342, Louis ; 1355, Frederick III j
1377, Maria ; 1402, Martin I, king of Aragon ; 1409, Martin II, king of Aragon ; 1412, Ferdinand,
king of Aragon ; 1416, Alfonso I, king of Aragon.
Naples and Sicily (House of Aragon) ; 1435, Alfonso I, king of Aragon ; 1458, Ferdinand I,
king of the Two Sicilies ; 1494, Alfonso II ; 1495, Ferdinand II ; 1496, Frederick II.
TYRANTS AND DUKES OP MILAN (1295-1494 A.D.).— 1295, Matteo Visconti, lord of Milan ;
1322, Galeazzo Visconti ; 1328, Azzo Visconti ; 1339, Lucchino Visconti ; 1349, Giovanni Vis-
conti ; 1354, Matteo II, Barnabd, Galeazzo II ; 1378, Gian Galeazzo, Barnab6 Visconti ; 1385,
Gian Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan in 1395 ; 1402, Gian Maria Visconti, duke ; 1412, Filippo
Maria Visconti, duke ; 1447, Francesco Sforza, duke from 1450 ; 1466, Galeazzo Maria Sforza,
duke ; 1476, Gian Galeazzo Maria Sforza, duke ; 1494, Lodovico Maria Sforza, duke.
232 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1285-1345 A.D.]
for the preservation of their liberties and agreed to his terms, and in 1326 the
young duke of Calabria arrived in Tuscany with two thousand men.
During these years the kingdom of Naples saw little of its ruler, and was
exposed to the ambition of the Aragonese rulers of Sicily. The fortunes of
this Spanish house need not detain us. When Pedro I died in 1285, Aragon
and Sicily were separated, and the late king's second son James I received
Sicily. He remained there but six years when he was called to the throne
of Aragon, and left his younger brother Frederick regent. But James was
faithless to his island subjects, and when his long standing difficulties with
the pope were settled in 1295, he agreed to restore Sicily to the house of
Anjou. Frederick placed himself at once at the head of the opposition to
the transfer and in 1296 was rewarded with the crown. Frederick II was
the restorer of Sicilian independence ; and by 1302 James gave up the
attempt of forcing the Sicilians to keep his perfidious agreement. Robert
made several attempts to annex Sicily to his dominions. The first in 1314
ended in a truce. Frederick, who repulsed the ambitious monarch several
times, died in 1337, and the great love of his subjects established his feeble
son Peter II on the throne. Robert came again at Frederick's death and
also after that of Peter five years later, but the independent spirit of the
islanders was never overcome ; the projects were renounced and Sicily was
left the peaceful possession of its dynasty. Henceforth it sinks into obscurity
until re-united with Naples in 1435. «
The kings of Naples, about the middle of the fourteenth century, had
sunk very low in power and consideration. Robert died on the 19th of
January, 1343, at the age of eighty. He had given his granddaughter,
Joanna, in marriage to her cousin Andrew, the son of the king of Hungary.
Andrew was son of the eldest son of Charles II, and had a better right
than Robert himself to the crown of Naples. The latter, whom his nephew
regarded as a usurper, had been desirous of compounding the rights of the
two branches of his family, by marrying Joanna to Andrew, and crowning
them together ; but these young people felt towards each other only hatred. &
In this baneful sentiment Andrew was encouraged by his Hungarian
attendants, especially by his confessor. Other circumstances added to the
disagreeableness of his situation : he was rude and unpolished ; the Neapoli-
tans, on the contrary, were the most polite people in Europe ; nor could he
conceal from himself that he was the ridicule of the court. He had other
motives of discontent ; his queen was suspected of an intrigue with Louis
of Tarentum, a prince of the royal family, and to him, personally, she evi-
dently bore an aversion. That he threatened one day to be revenged,
is certain ; that his threats inspired several, not even excepting Joanna, with
fear, is equally undoubted ; a plot was formed for his destruction — whether
with her privity, has been disputed by one or two modern writers ; but from
her conduct before and after the tragical event, there is circumstantial evi-
dence enough to implicate her in the guilt. One night (September 18th,
1345), the court having removed to a solitary place in the vicinity of A versa,
Andrew was called by the conspirators from the queen's bed, under pretence
of urgent business of state, and murdered in the corridor. That she was
aware of the plot may be inferred — first, from her momentary reluctance
to allow him to depart ; secondly, from her endeavours to screen the assas-
sins from the pursuit of justice ; thirdly, from her marriage with Louis of
Tarentum ; and fourthly, from the extreme care taken by the functionaries
whom the pope ordered to inquire into the murder to prevent the confes-
sions of the tortured from being heard — in other words, the implication of
DESPOTS AND TYBANTS 233
[1345-1386 A.D.]
the queen. Some of the conspirators were executed ; but, as the queen her-
self and her paramour escaped, this show of justice did not satisfy Louis,
king of Hungary, who invaded Naples, expelled Joanna, punished some of
the suspected nobles, and received the submission of the kingdom. Thence,
however, he was soon driven by the fearful plague which devasted all
Europe in its course, and which appears to have been more severely felt in
Italy than anywhere else. The sway of the Hungarians was already dis-
agreeable to the fickle Neapolitans ; Joanna was recalled, and a desultory war
followed. Louis returned to the scene; but as his troops, after fulfilling
their usual feudal service, murmured to return, he was compelled to enter
into a truce with Joanna, on the condition that her guilt or innocence should
be left to the decision of the pope at Avignon ; that if she were declared
guilty, she would resign the crown, but that, if she were absolved, she
should be allowed to retain it on paying a heavy sum as an indemnification
for the expense of the war.
The decision of one so devoted as Clement VII to the interests of France
could not be doubted. Her complicity in the plot was not denied ; but it
was gravely contended that witchcraft had been employed to seduce her ; in
the end she was absolved, and the indemnity to King Louis approved. Her
subsequent reign continued to be one of guilt and disgrace. The great
barons were too proud to obey her husband, whose imbecility she herself
despised, and whose bed she dishonoured; the Grand Company of merce-
naries ravaged the kingdom to the very gates of the capital ; as both he and
the people were too cowardly to oppose them, their retreat was purchased by
money. After his death, she married a third husband, a prince of the house
of Aragon ; and, on his death, a fourth, Otto of Brunswick ; but, as she had
issue by none of the four, the heir to the crown was Charles, duke of
Durazzo, the last male of the Neapolitan branch of Anjou, who was also
heir to the throne of Hungary. At the court of the latter country, Charles
had imbibed a feeling of hatred against the queen, whom he resolved to
dethrone — a resolution to which he was impelled by Urban VI, who could
never pardon her devotion to the anti-pope Clement. Her attempt to
exclude him from the succession, by the adoption of the count of Anjou, and
the step of Pope Urban, who, in 1380, declared her deposed from the Nea-
politan throne, and preached a crusade against her, sealed her fate. The
prince advanced to Rome, received the crown from the pope, and marched on
Naples, which, like the rest of that cowardly kingdom, submitted to him,
as it had done to every other invader from the downfall of the Western
Empire. Otto, indeed, made a show of resistance ; but his men abandoned
him the moment the engagement commenced, and he fell, like Joanna, into
the hands of the victor. Her death was sudden and violent ; probably it was
caused by suffocation with a feather bolster.
He had little reason to rejoice in this barbarity. He had soon to sustain
an invasion of Naples by Louis of Anjou, who, as usual, was joined by a
considerable number of adherents ; and, though death rid him of a formi-
dable rival, he had to support a quarrel with an arrogant pope, who excom-
municated him and his army. During these transactions, Louis of Hungary
died, and the nobles, preferring the rights of his daughter Maria to those of
a distant relative, proclaimed her their sovereign. But Charles had parti-
sans, who invited him to resume the crown ; he hastened to Buda, forced the
queen to abdicate, and was proclaimed in her stead ; but, in the height of
his success, he was assassinated by the creatures of the queen and her
mother. This tragical event left Naples under the* regency of his widow,
234 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1386-1416 A.D.]
Margarita, during the minority of his son Ladislaus [or Lancelot], then only
ten years of age ; and her government was perpetually exposed to the
intrigues of the French faction, which espoused the interests of a son, equally
young, of Louis of Anjou, who was named after his father. &
The reign of Ladislaus, the son and successor of Charles III, presents a
continued scene of perfidy and rapine. Whilst he successfully defended his
Neapolitan crown against the attempts of the duke of Anjou, he seized for a
moment that of Hungary ; and availed himself of the great schism and the
absence of the pope from Rome continually to harass and pillage the Romans.
No treaties of amity could restrain his thirst for plunder ; he thrice led his
NAPLES.— ARCH OF ALFONSO ON THE EXTREME LEFT
troops to attack the devoted city, seized on the castle of St. Angelo, and
occupied Ostia, Viterbo, and great part of the patrimony of St. Peter. His
ravages were suspended by a premature death ; and in him providence is
said to have anticipated a pest which in the next age became the scourge of
European incontinence. Though three times married, Ladislaus left no
legitimate issue. Unbounded in his lust, he forsook his wives for his more
libidinous paramours. Constantia, his first queen, irreproachable in her fame,
was divorced by her inconstant husband ; Maria of Cyprus, the second, died
through an effort to stimulate her own barrenness ; and the third, the widow
of Orsino, prince of Tarentum, was espoused for the acquisition of her
territories, and abandoned to neglect and imprisonment immediately after
the nuptial ceremonies. He was succeeded by his sister, Joanna II ; but the
royal bed of Naples acquired little purity by the exchange (1414).
Joanna II
Joanna was already the widow of William, son of Leopold II, duke of
Austria, when the death of Ladislaus exalted her to the throne of Naples.
Equally devoid of personal charms and mental delicacy, the princess scorned
the irksome restraints of virtue and of rank. Her lovers were selected
according to her caprice without reference to their station ; and the fortu-
nate possessor of her affections, on her accession to the crown, was Pandol-
f ello Alopo, whom she raised, from the humble station of carver, to the office
of grand-chamberlain. The irregularities of her life and the default of an
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 235
[1416-1420 A.D.]
heir to the throne prompted her nobles to recommend a second marriage ;
and she fixed upon a prince of the house of Bourbon, Jacques de la Marche,
the fourth in lineal succession from Robert, youngest son of St. Louis.
But if Joanna flattered herself that in her new husband she was to find a
screen, and not a check to her vices, she was immediately undeceived ; for
no sooner was the obscure count exalted into the king of Naples, than he
seized upon Alopo ; and in the Ugonies of the rack the distracted lover
betrayed his intercourse with his mistress. The grand-chamberlain was
publicly beheaded, and the queen herself reduced to personal restraint of no
great severity or duration. The people, indignant at seeing their queen thus
imprisoned by a foreigner, burst into insurrection ; and the king was com-
pelled to seek shelter in the Castello delT Ovo. His surrender was rewarded
by the acknowledgment of his royal title, and a stipend of 40,000 ducats
a year — a sum, says the historian, not exceeding the incomes of the
Neapolitan gentry. The French monarch did not long enjoy this semblance
of royalty. He found himself the sport of his faithless consort and her
minions ; his person was again insulted by imprisonment, and his country-
men were commanded to depart the kingdom. Having again recovered his
liberty, he resolved no longer to be cheated by the dreams of ambition ; and
renouncing his adulterous queen and ungovernable subjects, he privately
withdrew from Naples and retired into France, where he ended his days in
the habit of a Franciscan friar (1438).
Amongst the most conspicuous of Joanna's favourites were Giacomuzzo
Attendolo, surnamed Sforza, and Ser Gianni Caracciolo, both distinguished
for their personal beauty. The former, the son of a peasant of Cotignola in
Romagna, had joined in early life the mercenary troops of Italy ; and after
serving with renown under the banners of Ferrara, of Florence, and of the
church, entered the Neapolitan service, and was treated with distinction by
the queen upon her accession to the throne. The jealousy of the minion
Pandolfello Alopo procured the imprisonment of Sforza ; but he was soon
reconciled to his rival ; and being released from his dungeon was created by
Joanna grand constable of the kingdom. During the transient reign of
Jacques de la Marche he had again languished in prison ; but on his release
was restored to his former dignity. Meanwhile a new favourite was daily
gaining unbounded influence over the susceptible heart of Queen Joanna.
Caracciolo, a man of birth and discretion, and of a handsome and graceful
person, was promoted to the office of grand seneschal ; and procured the
removal of Sforza from court upon the honourable employment of checking
the ravages of the mercenary Braccio. But the return of the victorious Sforza
and the rivalry of the two favourites soon filled the city with confusion ;
and Joanna could only quiet the murmurs of her people by consenting to
the banishment of the beloved Caracciolo. The place of his exile was, how-
ever, too near the city to prevent his interference in public affairs ; and,
from the island of Procida, Ser Gianni continued to exert his influence over
his queen and mistress. He again procured the removal of Sforza for the
purpose of dislodging Braccio from the patrimony of St. Peter ; but he took
care that his rival should be so poorly supported by troops that his defeat
and ruin appeared inevitable.
This unfortunate collision between the favourites was destined to pro-
duce the most disastrous consequences, not merely to the kingdom of Naples
but to the whole of Italy. Indignant at the preference shown to Caracciolo,
Sforza abandoned his mistress, and encouraged Louis III the young duke of
Anjou to make good his pretensions to the Neapolitan throne by invading
236 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1420-1435 A.D.]
the kingdom of Joanna. In Naples, a strong spirit existed favourable to the
claims of Louis. The inordinate affection of the queen for Caracciolo (who
was now again restored to her arms) had estranged the nobility from her
cause ; and she deemed it prudent to seek the support of some foreign poten-
tate sufficiently powerful to counteract the designs of her enemies. She
therefore addressed herself to Alfonso V, king of Aragon, whom she promised
to adopt as her successor on the throne of Naples. This offer being accepted
by Alfonso, he set sail for his new inheritance, and received the formal adop-
tion from the childless Joanna, with the title of duke of Calabria and possession
of the Castel Nuovo. By this judicious step the queen extricated herself from
the pressing danger ; Louis of Anjou was staggered in his hopes, and after
a feeble siege of Naples, yielded to necessity and abandoned his enterprise.
Sforza now found means to seal his pardon, and was received with the utmost
cordiality by Joanna and Alfonso.
The reappearance of his ancient rival at the Neapolitan court could not
fail to awaken the jealous and angry feelings of Caracciolo, who had already
perceived his authority endangered by the adoption of Alfonso. To sow the
seeds of dissension was now his object, and the unbounded influence which
he possessed over Joanna gave the utmost facility to his sinister designs.
He succeeded in persuading the credulous queen that the Spaniard had
resolved at once to usurp the succession, and designed to dethrone her and
carry her by force into Catalonia. Terrified at this dismal suggestion,
Alfonso became an object of distrust to Joanna. She shut herself up in the
Castel Nuovo ; and the seizure and imprisonment of the beloved Ser Gianni
filled up the measure of her alarm and horror. Abjuring all further connec-
tion with the king of Aragon she summoned Sforza to her relief, and revoking
her late adoption bestowed the succession upon Louis of Anjou. The partial
defeat of Alfonso and the consequent exchange of prisoners once more
restored Caracciolo to the queen ; but the unhappy kingdom was delivered
over to the miseries of war, the troops of Joanna being led by Sforza, and
those of Alfonso by his rival Braccio. The disorders of his Spanish domin-
ions withdrew the king for the present from Italy ; and, with the exception
of the Castel Nuovo, Joanna was left in quiet possession of the kingdom ;
but not before the two generals had perished in this desperate struggle.
Sforza, in his eager attempt to swim the river Pescara, then unusually
swollen by the influx of the sea, fell a sacrifice to his generous endeavour to
save his drowning page ; and borne down by the additional weight of his
armour he sank to rise no more. His son Francesco Sforza narrowly escaped
a similar fate, and was destined to attain a glorious and triumphant elevation.
The death of Braccio was more congenial to his tumultuous life ; he fell mor-
tally wounded in a desperate conflict, wherein his forces were utterly routed.
After the retreat of Alfonso from Naples, Joanna continued to enjoy an
unmolested reign. Age had quenched the fires of lust ; the life of her once-
loved Ser Gianni was sacrificed to jealousy and suspicion ; and he was assassi-
nated with the connivance, if not by the command, of his mistress. Her
adopted son Louis expired in 1434, to the great grief of Joanna and her
subjects. She herself survived but a few weeks, and died in 1435 in the
sixty-fifth year of her age and twenty-first of her reign. With her ended
the race of Durazzo. By her will she bequeathed the kingdom of Naples to
Rene, duke of Anjou, brother of Louis ; and the adopted heir languished in
the prison of the duke of Burgundy when he was apprised of his nomina-
tion to the fairest kingdom of the earth. His wife Isabella assumed the
regency in his absence, and took possession of Naples.
[1435-1458 A.D.]
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS
Alfonso the Magnanimous
237
The claims of Alfonso were now again to be urged, and he marched at
the head of an army to enforce his pretensions. A singular misfortune
which befell the king in his progress proved highly beneficial to his cause.
Whilst he laid siege to Gaeta, a fleet from Genoa despatched by order of
Filippo Visconti, the reigning duke of Milan, attacked and defeated the
Spanish armament ; and the king, his brother Juan, king of Navarre, Henry
of Aragon, and a host of nobles, were sent prisoners to Milan. By a remark-
able exercise of clemency and moderation, the duke restored his captives
gratuitously to liberty ; and even entered into a league with Alfonso, prom-
ising to assist him in the conquest of Naples.
Whilst a new fleet from Spain was again directed against Naples, Rene
purchased his liberty ; and repairing to his new dominions, maintained a
doubtful contest with his rival during four
years. In the middle of the year 1442 the
final blow was struck by the entry of Alfonso
into the capital, through the self-same aque-
duct which nearly nine hundred years before
had admitted the soldiers of Belisarius. The
duke of Anjou, no longer able to contend
with the fortunes of his rival, withdrew into
France ; and Alfonso at length obtained from
Pope Eugenius IV the investiture of the
kingdom of Naples, which his holiness had
previously conferred upon Rene. After a
pause of eleven years Rene was induced to
reappear in Italy at the pressing instance
of the duke of Milan, who tempted him to
take up arms against Venice, under a promise
to afford his assistance in wresting Naples
from the Spaniard. But the French prince,
now advanced in years, soon grew weary of
the toils of a campaign, and readily yielded
to the anxiety of his troops to return to their
native regions.
Alfonso survived this event only five years,
and died on the 27th of June, 1458. His
paternal dominions, Aragon and Sicily, vested
in default of legitimate issue in his brother
Juan, king of Navarre ; but he bequeathed
the kingdom of Naples, his conquest, to his
natural son Ferdinand, c Whatever may be
thought of the claims subsisting in the house
of Anjou, there can be no question that the
reigning family of Aragon were legitimately excluded from the throne of
Naples, though force and treachery enabled them ultimately to obtain it.
Alfonso, surnamed " the magnanimous," was by far the most accomplished
sovereign whom the fifteenth century produced. The virtues of chivalry
were combined in him with the patronage of letters, and with more than
their patronage — a real enthusiasm for learning, seldom found in a king,
and especially in one so active and ambitious. This devotion to literature
was, among the Italians of that age, almost as sure a passport to general
ALFONSO I
(From a painting)
238 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1458-1479 A.D.]
admiration as his more chivalrous perfection. Magnificence in architecture
and the pageantry of a splendid court gave fresh lustre to his reign. The
Neapolitans perceived with grateful pride that he lived almost entirely
among them, in preference to his patrimonial kingdom, and forgave the
heavy taxes, which faults nearly allied to his virtues — profuseness and
ambition — compelled him to impose. But they remarked a very differ-
ent character in his son. Ferdinand was as dark and vindictive as his
father was affable and generous. The barons, who had many opportunities
of ascertaining his disposition, began, immediately upon Alfonso's death, to
cabal against his succession, turning their eyes first to the legitimate branch
of the family, and, on finding that prospect not favourable, to John, titular
duke of Calabria, son of Rene of Anjou, who survived to protest against the
revolution that had dethroned him.<*
Ferdinand
The duke of Calabria believed that he should be assisted both by Fran-
cesco Sforza — who, before he was duke of Milan, had long fought, as his
father had done before him, for the party of Anjou — and by the Floren-
tine Republic, which had always been devoted to France. But Sforza judged
that the security and independence of Italy could be maintained only so long
as the kingdom of Naples did not fall into the hands of France. The French
were already masters of Genoa and the gates of Italy ; they would traverse
in every direction and hold in fear or subjection every state in the peninsula,
if they should acquire the sovereignty of Naples. For these reasons Sforza
resisted all his friends, dependents, and even his wife, who vehemently solic-
ited him for the house of Anjou ; he also brought Cosmo de' Medici over to
his opinion, and thus prevented the republic of Florence from seconding a
party towards which it found itself strongly inclined. The duke of Calabria,
who had entered Naples in 1459, had begun successfully ; but, receiving no
assistance from abroad, he soon wearied and exhausted the people, who alone
had to furnish him with supplies. He lost, one after the other, all the prov-
inces which had declared for him, and was finally, in 1464, constrained to
abandon the kingdom.
Ferdinand, to strengthen himself, kept in dungeons or put to death all
the feudatories who had shown any favour to his rival ; above all, he resolved
to be rid of the greatest captain that still remained in Italy, Jacopo Piccinino,
the son of Niccolo, and head of what was still called the militia, or school of
Braccio. He sent to Milan, whither Piccinino, who had served the party of
Anjou, had retired, and where he had married a daughter of Sforza, to invite
him to enter his service, promising him the highest dignities in his kingdom.
He gave the most formal engagements for his safety to Sforza, as well as to
Jacopo himself. He received him with honours, such as he would not have
lavished on the greatest sovereign. After having entertained him twenty-
seven days in one perpetual festival, he found means to separate him from
his most trusty officers, caused him to be arrested in his own palace,
and to be immediately strangled. This happened on the 24th of June,
1465.e
Once firmly established on the throne of Naples, Ferdinand continued to
hold his position and to render it more and more secure throughout the
period of his life, which terminated in 1494. He was little respected, but
he made himself pretty generally feared and was accounted the most astute
politician of his time. In alliance with Pope Sixtus IV he made war against
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 239
[147&-1491 A.D.]
Milan and Florence, and in 1479 the allied forces had reduced Lorenzo de'
Medici to such an extremity that the great Florentine was constrained
to visit Naples in the hope of conciliating his enemy. Lorenzo frankly
acknowledged the danger in which he found himself, but he made a shrewd
political move in pointing out that he was not without resources, inasmuch
as it was open to him to invite the French into Italy. He admitted that the
coming of these outsiders could only benefit him through injuring his enemies,
but as a last resource he professed himself ready to adopt this expedient.
He strongly represented, however, that he much preferred to enter into an
arrangement with Ferdinand instead of opening up their country to the
incursions of what the Italians were pleased to call barbarians. Ferdinand
was fully alive to his danger, and was prepared to listen to terms. «
Finally, Lorenzo offered him an indemnity in the republic of Siena, which
the duke of Calabria, son of the king, already coveted. That state had
made alliance with the pope and the king of Naples against Florence;
had received, without distrust, the Neapolitan troops within its fortresses;
and had repeatedly had recourse to the duke of Calabria to terminate, by his
mediation, the continually renewed dissensions between the different orders
of the republic. The duke of Calabria, instead of reconciling them, kept
up their discord ; and, by alternately granting succour to each party, was
become the supreme arbitrator of Siena. Lorenzo de' Medici promised to
offer no obstacle to the transferring of that state in sovereignty to the duke
of Calabria. On this condition, he signed his treaty with the king of Naples
on the 6th of May, 1480. The republic of Siena would have been lost,
and the Neapolitans, masters of so important a place in Tuscany, would
soon have subjugated the rest, when an unexpected event saved Lorenzo
de' Medici from the consequences of his impudent offer. Muhammed II
charged his grand vizir, Akhmet Giedik, to attempt a landing in Italy, which
the latter effected, and made himself master of Otranto on the 28th of July,
1480. Ferdinand, struck with terror, immediately recalled the duke of
Calabria, with his army, to defend his own states.
The Turks had no sooner been driven from Otranto by Alfonso, the
eldest son of the king of Naples, on the 10th of August, 1481, than Sixtus
excited a new war in Italy. His object was to aggrandise his nephew,
Girolamo Riario, for whom he was desirous of forming a great principal-
ity in Romagna. With that view, he proposed to the Venetians to divide
with him the states of the duke of Ferrara ; but a league was formed, in 1482,
by the king of Naples, the duke of Milan, and the Florentines, to defend the
dukedom. The year following, Sixtus IV, fearing that he should not obtain
for his nephew the best part of the spoils of the duke of Ferrara, changed
sides, and excommunicated the Venetians, intending to take from them the
provinces which he destined for Girolamo Riario. The new allies, without
consulting him, soon afterwards made peace with the Venetians, at Bagnolo,
on the 7th of August, 1484.e
Ferdinand had reason to desire peace rather than war, and his influence
was valuable in maintaining a state of relative tranquillity in Italy through-
out most of the later years of his reign. But his oppressive taxation led to
a momentous event in the history of Italy. The Neapolitan nobles rebelled
against their burdens and again aroused the dormant Angevin claim to activ-
ity. Rene II neglected his opportunity, but after Ferdinand, in 1492, had
strengthened himself by an alliance with Piero de' Medici, the jealous Lodo-
vico Sforza appealed to the King of France. Ferdinand died in 1494, a few
months before Charles VIII invaded Italy. «
240
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
THE TYRANTS OF LOMBAKDY
[1152-1300 A.D.]
While imperial power was declining in Italy, the free cities that had
resisted it in the days of its might were gradually falling under the dominion
of feudal tyrannies which rose upon the ruin of their republican institutions.
The slow operation of unnoticed causes had insensibly led to the subversion
of the liberties of communities once so powerful and free. In one important
respect, the Italian municipalities differed essentially from those of other
countries. They included in the roll of their citizens the nobility of the
district in which they were situated. This, while it seemed to add, and did
in fact add to the splendour of the cities, was yet one of the principal ele-
ments of their decay.
The great territorial lords of northern Italy were compelled to seek the
protection and friendship of these powerful communities, and frequently
submitted to their rule. Many of them were bound to reside for a certain
portion of each year within the walls of the
city whose citizenship they had sought or
been compelled to accept. Otho Frigisensis <
(Otto of Freising), the historian of the
reign of Frederick I, complains : " The cities
so much affect liberty, and are so solici-
tous to avoid the insolence of power, that
almost all of them have thrown off every
other authority and are governed by their
own magistrates, insomuch that all that
country is now filled with free cities, most
of which have compelled the bishops to re-
side within their walls, and there is scarcely
any nobleman, how great soever he may be,
who is not subject to the laws and govern-
ment of some city." Elsewhere the same
writer observes that the marquis of Mont-
ferrat was almost the only baron who had
preserved his independence, and had not
become subject to the laws of any city.
The cities of Italy had been free before the
institution of the feudal lordships, and were
not, as in other places, dependent upon the
privileges which it might suit the conven-
ience of a baron to tolerate, or a monarch
to create.
This admission of a territorial aristoc-
racy into the association of the burghers,
if at first it gave strength and elevation to
AN ITALIAN BARON, FIFTEENTH CENTURY these communities, subjected them on the
other hand to the danger of falling under
aristocratic influence. The great nobles built palaces in these towns ; these
palaces became feudal fortresses in the centre of the cities. Attended by
armed retainers from their estates, they fortified their mansions, and in many
instances commanded the city by these military strongholds. The citizens
not only tolerated but encouraged this for the sake of the strength which
the retainers of these noblemen brought to their military force. In the wars
in which they were frequently engaged with each other, it was of no small
DESPOTS AND TYEANTS 241
[1300-1531 A.D.]
importance to one of these cities to command the vassals of a great lord. By
the presence of such an aristocracy, sharing in all the councils of the com-
munity, the very principle of republican equality was insensibly destroyed.
The nobleman who dwelt in his feudal castle frowning over the streets of
the city, who was master of no inconsiderable portion of their army, and
who brought into their assembly the influence both of wealth and power,
was very likely to become, when any emergency gave the opportunity, the pro-
tector instead of the protected — the master instead of the subject of the state.
As the cities fell under the rule of princes, the number of these princes
was speedily reduced. The lords of the more powerful brought those of the
weaker under their sway. The dominion, at first confined to a city, soon
included districts containing many cities within their limits. The duchy of
Milan, erected by the emperor in favour of the Visconti, represented a sover-
eignty extending over the whole of the Milanese. Alessandro Medici, duke
of Florence, soon merged that title in the higher one, which conferred on him
the grand duchy of the Tuscan states.
Companies of Adventure
With the subjection of the cities to tyrants the habit became general of
employing mercenary troops. Afraid of trusting to the militia of the citizens,
these petty lords employed bands of hirelings, who, under the name of " com-
panies of adventure," sold their swords and services to anyone who would
pay them. The emperors, on their visits, were in the habit of bringing
in their train German guards, who frequently were not required to return
with their master to their native land. These men were too glad to accept
any service which retained them in the wealthy country and luxuriant climate
to which they had come. The citizens even of the free cities were flattered
by the strange argument which found a justification for the employment
of mercenaries, in the philosophical reflection that the citizen who thus escaped
military service was, in his attention to his proper business, contributing
far more to the wealth and therefore to the greatness of the community than
he could do in the profession of arms. The argument was specious. It would
have been true if public spirit and patriotism formed no part of the posses-
sions of the state. With this fatal habit of substituting mercenaries for the
national militia passed away the greatness of the Italian cities. Milan had
far degenerated from the days of Legnano when the mercenary ferocity of
hirelings was substituted for the enthusiasm of her own free youth ; and,
under her once proud banners, the " company of adventurers " took the place
of the "company of death."/
The Visconti and Delia Scalas had sent for many of these companies to
Germany, believing that these men — who did not understand the language
of the country, who were bound to it by no affection, and who were acces-
sible to no political passion — would be their best defenders. They proved
ready to execute the most barbarous orders, and for their recompense
demanded only the enjoyments of an intemperate sensuality.
But the Lombard tyrants were deceived in believing the German soldier
would never covet power for himself, and would continue to abuse the right
of the stronger for the advantage of others only. These adventurers soon
discovered that it would be better to make war and pillage the people for
their own profit, without dividing the spoil with a master. Some men of
high rank, who had served in Italy as condottieri (hired captains), proposed
to their soldiers to follow them, make war on the whole world, and divide
I. W. — VOL. IX. R
242 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1339-1359 A.D.]
the booty among themselves. The first company, formed by an Italian noble
at the moment that the Visconti dismissed their soldiers, having made peace
with their adversaries, made an attack suddenly on Milan, in the hope
of plundering that great city, but was almost annihilated in a battle,
fought at Parabiago, on the 20th of February, 1339. A German duke,
known only by his Christian name of Werner, and the inscription he wore
on his breast of " enemy of God, of pity, and of mercy," formed, in 1343,
another association, which maintained itself for a long time under the name
of "the Great Company." It in turns entered the service of princes, and,
when they made peace, carried on its ravages and plunderings for its own
profit. The duke Werner and his successors — the count Lando, a German,
and the friar Moriale, knight of St. John — devastated Italy from Montferrat
to the extremity of the kingdom of Naples. They raised contributions, by
threatening to burn houses and harvests or by putting the prisoners whom
they took to the most horrible tortures. The provinces of Apulia were,
above all, abandoned to their devastations ; and the king and queen of
Naples made not a single effort to protect their people.
There now remained no more than six independent princes in Lombardy.
The Visconti, lords of Milan, had usurped all the central part of that province ;
the western part was held by the marquis of Montferrat, and the eastern by
the Delia Scalas, lords of Verona, Carrara of Padua, Este of Ferrara, and
Gonzaga of Mantua. These weaker princes felt themselves in danger,
and made a league against the Visconti, taking into their service the Great
Company ; but, deceived and pillaged by it, they suffered greater evils than
they inflicted on their enemies. When at last the money of the league was
exhausted, and it could no longer pay the company, this band of robbers en-
tered into the service of the republic of Siena, to be let loose on that of Perugia,
of which the Sienese had conceived a deep jealousy. But the Florentines
would not consent to their entering Tuscany, where their depredations had
been already felt. They shut all the passes of the Apennines ; they armed
the mountaineers ; they made these adventurers experience a first defeat at the
passage of Scalella, on the 24th of July, 1358, and obliged them to fall
back on Romagna. The legate Albornoz, to deliver himself from such guests,
made them enter Perugia the year following. Never had the company been
so brilliant and so formidable ; it levied contributions on Siena, as well as
Perugia ; but vengeance and cupidity alike excited them against the Floren-
tines. They determined on pillaging those rich merchants, whom they
considered far from warlike, or forcing them to ransom themselves.
The marquis of Montferrat, desirous of taking the company into his ser-
vice, pressed the republic of Florence, by his ambassadors, to do what the
greatest potentates had always done — pay the banditti to be rid of them.
He offered himself for mediator and guarantee, and promised a prompt and
cheap deliverance ; but the Florentine Republic protested it would not sub-
mit to anything so base; it assembled an army purely Italian, placing it
under the command of an Italian captain, who was ordered to advance to the
frontier and offer battle to the company. The robbers gave way in propor-
tion to the firmness of the republic ; they made the tour of the Florentine
frontier by Siena, Pisa, and Lucca, always threatening, yet never daring to
violate it. On the 12th of July, 1359, they sent the Florentine commander
a challenge to battle, and afterwards failed to keep the rendezvous which
they had given. They escaped at last from Tuscany, without having fought,
and divided themselves in the service of different princes, humbled indeed, but
too much accustomed to this disorderly life not to be anxious to begin it anew.
[1328-1352 A.D.]
DESPOTS AND TYKANTS
Florence Menaced ly the Visconti
243
The republic of Florence was continually occupied, since the expulsion
of the duke of Athens, in guarding against the ambition of the Visconti,
which threatened the subjugation of all Italy. Azzo Visconti, the son of that
Galeazzo who had been so treacherously used by Ludwig of Bavaria, had, in
1328, purchased the city of Milan from that emperor, and soon afterwards
found himself master of ten other cities
of Lombardy ; but he died suddenly, in
the height of his prosperity, the 16th of
August, 1339. As he left no children,
his uncle Lucchino succeeded him in the
sovereignty. Lucchino was false and
ferocious, but clever, and possessed in
war the hereditary talent of the Visconti.
He was called a lover of justice, probably
because he punished criminals with an
excess of cruelty, and maintained by ter-
ror a perfect police in his states. He
died, poisoned by his wife, on the 23rd
of January, 1349. His brother John,
archbishop of Milan, succeeded him in
power. The latter found himself master
of sixteen of the largest cities in Lom-
bardy — cities which, in the preceding
century, had been so many free and
flourishing republics. His ambition
continually aspired to more extensive
conquests ; and, on the 16th of October,
1350, he engaged the brothers Pepoli to
cede to him Bologna.
These nobles, who had usurped the
sovereignty of their country, were at this
time engaged in a quarrel with the legate,
Gil Albornoz, who asserted that Bologna belonged to the holy see. The
archbishop was already treated by the pope as an enemy, and preferred
exciting still further his wrath, to the renunciation of so important an
acquisition. When Clement VI summoned him to come and justify himself
at the court of Avignon, he answered that he would present himself there at
the head of twelve thousand cavalry and six thousand infantry. The pope,
in his alarm, ceded to him the fief of Bologna, on the 5th of May, 1352, on
condition of receiving from him an annual tribute of 12,000 florins. Florence
saw with terror this city, which had so long been her most powerful and
faithful ally, the Guelf city of letters, commerce, and liberty, thus pass
under the yoke of a tyrant, who had designs upon her liberty also ; who
laid snares around her ; who formed alliances against her with all the petty
tyrants of Romagna, and all the Ghibelline lords of the Apennines. She
was at peace with him, it was true ; but she well knew that the Visconti
neither believed themselves bound by any treaty, nor kept any pledge.
The number of free cities continually diminished. Pisa was still free, but
had, from attachment to the Ghibelline party, made alliance with the Vis-
conti. Siena and Perugia were free also, but weak and jealous ; they were
incessantly disturbed by internal dissensions. The Florentines could not
BENITIEB, SIENA CATHEDRAL
244 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1351-1356 A.D.]
reckon on them. The archbishop of Milan suddenly ordered, towards the
end of the summer, 1351, Giovanni Visconti da Oleggio, his lieutenant at
Bologna, to push info Tuscany at the head of a formidable army, without any
declaration of war. The republic had no ally, and but slight reliance on the
mercenaries in its service ; but the Florentines, who showed little bravery in
the open field, defended themselves obstinately behind walls ; and the great vil-
lage of Scarperia, in the Mugello, although so ill fortified that the walls of
many of the houses served instead of a surrounding wall, and having a garrison
only of two hundred cuirassiers and three hundred infantry, stopped the
Milanese general sixty-one days. He was at last obliged, on the 16th of
October, to retire to Bologna.
The republics of Venice and Genoa were, it might have been thought,
the natural allies to whom the Florentines should have had recourse for
their common defence. Their interests were the same ; and the Visconti
had resolved not to suffer any free state to subsist in Italy, lest their subjects
should learn that there was a better government than their own. Unhappily,
these two republics, irritated by commercial quarrels in the East, were then
engaged in an obstinate war with each other.
Genoa had sacrificed her liberty to her thirst of vengeance ; for although
the republic had not conferred the signoria on the archbishop Visconti with-
out imposing conditions, it soon experienced that oaths are not binding on a
prelate and a tyrant. The freedom of Venice also was in the utmost danger
from the consequences of the same war.
Though the war of the maritime republics might have deprived Florence
of the aid of Venice or Genoa, it had at least diverted the attention of Gio-
vanni Visconti, made him direct his exertions elsewhere, and procured
some repose to Tuscany. He died on the 5th of October, 1354, before he
could renew his attacks ; and his three nephews, the sons of his brother Ste-
phen, agreed to succeed him in common. The eldest, who showed less talent
for government and more sensuality and vice than his brothers, was poisoned
by them the year following. The two survivors, Barnabo and Galeazzo,
divided Lombardy between them, preserving an equal right on Milan and in
the government. Their relative, Visconti da' Oleggio, who was their lieu-
tenant at Bologna, made himself independent in that city nearly about the
same time that the Genoese, indignant at seeing all their conventions vio-
lated, rose in insurrection on the 15th of November, 1356, drove out the
Milanese garrison, and again set themselves free.
Charles IV in Italy
The entry of Charles IV into Tuscany formed also a favourable diversion,
by suspending the projects of the Visconti against the Florentines ; but it
cost them one hundred thousand florins, which they agreed to pay Charles by
treaty on the 12th of March, 1355, to purchase his rights on their city, and
to obtain his engagement that he should nowhere enter the Florentine terri-
tory. The republics of Pisa and Siena, who received him within their walls,
paid still dearer for the hospitality which they granted him. The emperor
encouraged the malcontents in both cities ; he aided them to overthrow the
existing governments ; he hoped by so doing to make these republics little
principalities, which he intended to bestow as an appanage on his brother, the
patriarch of Aquileia ; but after having caused the ruin of his partisans, after
having ordered or permitted the execution of the former magistrates, who
were innocent of any crime, insurrections of the people forced him to quit
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 245
[1342-1364 A.D.]
both cities, without retaining the smallest influence in either. After he had
quitted Italy, the Visconti were engaged in the war to which we have already
alluded, against the marquises of Este, of Montferrat, Delia Scala, Gonzaga,
and Carrara. The siege of Pavia and the ravages of the Great Company
exhausted their resources, but did not make them abandon their projects on
Tuscany. The influence which they retained in the republic of Pisa, as chiefs
of the Ghibelline party, seemed to facilitate their schemes.
Pisa, in losing its maritime power and its possessions in Sardinia, had not
lost its warlike character ; it was still the state in Italy where the citizens
were best exercised in the use of arms, and evinced the most bravery. It had
given proofs of it in conquering, under the eye of the Florentines, the city
of Lucca, which it still retained. Nevertheless, since the peace made by the
duke of Athens on the 14th of October, 1342, commercial interests had recon-
ciled the two republics. The Florentines had obtained a complete enfran-
chisement from all imposts in the port of Pisa ; they had established there
their counting-houses, and attracted thither a rich trade. From that time
the democratic party predominated in the Pisan Republic ; at its head was a
rich merchant, named Francesco Gambacorta, who attached himself to the
Florentines, and to the maintenance of peace. His party was called that of
the Bergolini ; while that of the great Ghibelline families attached to the
counts of la Gherardesca, who despised commerce and excited war, was called
the Raspanti party. The Visconti sought the alliance of the latter ; the
moment did not appear to them yet arrived in which they could assume to
themselves the dominion over all Tuscany. It was sufficient for their present
views to exhaust the Florentine Republic by a war, which would disturb its
commerce ; to weaken the spirit of liberty and energy in the Pisans, by
subduing them to the power of the aristocracy, in the hope that when once
they had ceased to be free, and had submitted to a domestic tyrant, they
would soon prefer a great to a little prince, and throw themselves into his
arms. The revolution, which in 1355 had favoured the emperor in restoring
power to the Raspanti, facilitated this project.
In pursuance of this view, the party of the Raspanti, at the suggestion of
the Visconti, in 1357, began to disturb the Florentines in the enjoyment
of the franchises secured to them at Pisa by the treaty of peace. The Floren-
tines, guessing the project of the Lombard tyrant, instead of defending their
right by arms, resolved on braving an unwholesome climate, and submitting
to the inconvenience of longer and worse roads, transported all their count-
ing-houses to Telamone, a port in the Maremma of Siena. They persisted
till 1361 in despising all the insults of the Pisans, as well as in rejecting all
their offers of reconciliation ; at length, animosity increasing on both sides,
the war broke out, in 1362. The Visconti supplied the Pisans with soldiers.
France during this period had been laid waste by the war with the English ;
and as the sovereigns were rarely in a state to pay their troops, there had
been formed, as in Italy, companies of adventurers, English, Gascon, and
French, who lived at the cost of the country, plundering it with the utmost
barbarity. The Peace of Bretigny permitted several of these companies to
pass into Italy ; they carried with them the plague, which made not less rav-
ages in 1361 than it had done in 1348. The English company commanded
by John Hawkwood, an adventurer, who rendered himself celebrated in
Italy was sent to the Pisans by Barnabo Visconti. After various successes,
the two republics, at last exhausted by the plague and by the rapacity and
want of discipline of the adventurers whom they had taken into pay, made
peace on the 17th of August, 1364, But the purpose of the Visconti was not
246 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1364-1367 A.D.]
the less attained. The Pisans, having exhausted their resources, were at a
loss to make the last payment of thirty thousand florins to their army; they
were reduced to accept the offer made them by Giovanni Agnello, one of
their fellow-citizens, of advancing that sum, on condition of being named
doge of Pisa. The money had for this purpose been secretly advanced by
Barnabo Visconti, to whom Agnello had pledged his word never to consider
himself more than his lieutenant at Pisa. Thus the field fertilised by liberty
became continually more circumscribed; and
Florence, always threatened by the tyrants of
Lombardy, saw around her those only who had
alienated their liberty, and who had no longer
any sentiment in common with the republic.
The chief magistrates of the Florentine
Republic could not conceal from themselves the
danger which now menaced the liberty of Italy.
They found themselves closed in, blockaded as
it were, by the tyrants, who daily made some
new progress. The two brothers Visconti,
masters of Lombardy, had at their disposal
immense wealth and numerous armies; and
their ambition was insatiable. They were
allied, by marriage, to the two houses of France
and England; their intrigues extended through-
out Italy, and every tyrant was under their
protection. At the same time, their own sub-
jects trembled under frightful cruelties. They
shamelessly published an edict, by which the
execution of state criminals was prolonged to
the period of forty days. In it the particular
tortures to be inflicted, day by day, were de-
tailed, and the members to be mutilated desig-
nated, before death was reached. On the other
hand, their finances were in good order ; they
liberally recompensed their partisans, and won
over traitors in every state inimical to them.
They pensioned the captain of every company
of adventurers, on condition that he engaged
to return to their service whenever called upon.
Meanwhile these captains with their soldiers
overran, plundered, and exhausted Italy during the intervals of peace;
reducing the country to such a state as to be incapable of resisting any new
attack. All the Ghibellines, all the nobles who had preserved their inde-
pendence in the Apennines, were allied to the Visconti. The march of these
usurpers was slow, but it seemed sure. The moment was foreseen to approach
when Tuscany would be theirs, as well as Lombardy; particularly as
Florence had no aid to expect either from Genoa or Venice. These two
maritime republics appeared to have withdrawn themselves from Italy, and
to place their whole existence in distant regions explored by their commerce.
For a moment, the few Italian states still free were led to believe that the
succour now so necessary to enable them to resist the Visconti would arrive
both from France and Germany. The pope and the emperor announced their
determination to deliver the country, over which they assumed a supreme
right, from every other yoke. Urban V, moved by the complaints of the
A FLORENTINE, FOURTEENTH
CENTURY
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 247
[1367-1370 A.D.]
Christian world, declared that his duty as bishop of Rome was to return and
live there ; and Charles IV protested that he would deliver his Roman Empire
from the devastations of the adventurers, and from the usurpations of the
Lombard tyrants. In 1367, Urban returned to Italy ; and the same year
formed a league with the emperor, the king of Hungary, the lords of Padua,
Ferrara, and Mantua, and with the queen of Naples, against the Visconti.
But when Charles entered Italy, on the 5th of May, 1368, he thought only
of profiting by the terror with which he inspired the Visconti, to obtain from
them large sums of money ; in return for which he granted them peace.
He afterwards continued his march through the peninsula, with no other
object than that of collecting money.
His presence, however, caused some changes favourable to liberty.
A festival was prepared for him at Lucca, on the 7th of September ; on which
day he intended confirming, by his investiture, the sovereignty of the doge
Giovanni Agnello over Pisa and Lucca. But the stage on which Agnello
had mounted gave way, and in the fall he broke his leg. The Pisans profited
by this accident to recover their freedom, and the emperor kept Lucca for him-
self. At Siena he favoured a revolution which overthrew the ruling aristoc-
racy ; intending, on his return to that city, after a devotional visit to Rome,
to take advantage of the disturbance, and get himself appointed to the signo-
ria ; but a sedition against him broke forth on the 18th of January, 1369.
Barricades were raised on all sides ; his guards were separated from him,
and disarmed ; his palace was broken into. No attempt, indeed, was made
on his person ; but he was left alone several hours in the public square,
addressing himself in turn to the armed troops which closed the entrance of
every street, and which, immovable and silent, remained insensible to all his
entreaties. It was not till he began to suffer from hunger that his equipages
were restored to him, and he was permitted to leave the town. He returned
to Lucca, where he had already lived, in the time of his father, as prince royal
of Bohemia. The Lucchese were attached to him, and placed in him their
last hope to be delivered from a foreign yoke, which had weighed upon them
since the year 1314. They declared themselves ready to make the greatest
sacrifices for the recovery of their freedom ; and they at the same time testi-
fied to him so much confidence and affection as to touch his heart. By a
diploma, on the 6th of April, 1369, Charles restored them to liberty, and
granted them various privileges ; but, on quitting their city, he left in it a
German garrison, with orders not to evacuate that town till the Lucchese had
paid the price of their liberty. It was not till the month of April, 1370, and
not without the aid of Florence and their other allies, that they could acquit
the enormous sum of three hundred thousand florins, the price of the re-estab-
lishment of their republic. The Guelf exiles were then immediately recalled ;
a close alliance was contracted with Florence ; and the signoria, composed
of a gonfalonier and ten anziani, to be changed every two months, was
reconstituted.
Urban V, on his arrival in Italy, endeavoured also to oppose the usurpa-
tions of the Visconti, who had just taken possession of San Miniato, in Tus-
cany, and who, even in the states of the church, were rendering themselves
more powerful than the pope himself. Of the two brothers, Barnabo Vis-
conti was more troublesome to him, by his intrigues. Urban had recourse to
a bull of excommunication, and sent two legates to bear it to him ; but
Barnabo forced these two legates to eat, in his presence, the parchment on
which the bull was written, together with the leaden seals and silken strings.
The pope, frightened at the thought of combating men who seemed to hold
248 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1370-1377 A.D.]
religion in no respect, and wearied, moreover, with his ill-success, was glad
to return to the repose of Avignon, where he arrived in the month of Sep-
tember, 1370, and died the November following.
The "War of Liberation"
Gregory XI, who succeeded him, was ambitious, covetous, and false. He
joined the Florentines in their war against the Visconti ; but the legates, to
whom he had entrusted the government of the ecclesiastical states, and who
had rendered themselves odious by their rapacity and immorality, formed the
project of seizing for themselves Tuscany, which they had engaged to defend.
All the troops of the Florentines had been placed at their disposal, for the
purpose of carrying the war into Lombardy. The cardinal legate, who com-
manded the combined army, resided at Bologna ; the church having rescued
that city from the grasp of Visconti da Oleggio, on the 31st of March, 1360.
He signed a truce with Barnabo Visconti, in the month of June, 1375 ; and,
before the Florentines could recall their soldiers, sent John Hawkwood with
a formidable army to surprise Florence. The Florentines, indignant at such
a shameless want of good faith on the part of the church, whose most faith-
ful allies they had always been, vowed vengeance on the see of Rome. They
determined to rouse the spirit of liberty in every city belonging to it, and
drive out the French legates — more odious and perfidious than the most
abhorred of the Italian tyrants. They, in the month of June, 1375, without
placing any confidence in Barnabo Visconti, made an alliance with him
against the priests, who had just deceived them under the faith of the most
solemn oaths. They admitted the republics of Siena, Lucca, and Pisa into
this league ; they formed a commission of eight persons, to direct the military
department, called " the eight of war " ; they assembled a numerous army,
and gave it colours, on which was inscribed, in golden letters, the word,
" Liberty ! " This army entered the states of the church, proclaiming that
the Florentines demanded nothing for themselves — that not only would they
make no conquests, but would accept dominion over no people who might
offer themselves ; they were desirous only of universal liberty, and would
assist the oppressed with all their power, solicitous for the recovery of their
freedom.
The army of liberty carried revolution into all the states of the church
with an inconceivable rapidity ; eighty cities and towns, in ten days, threw
off the yoke of the legates. The greater number constituted themselves
republics ; a few recalled the ancient families of princes, who had been
exiled by Gil Albornoz, and to whom they were attached by hereditary affec-
tion. Bologna did not accomplish her revolution before the 20th of March,
1376. This ancient republic, in recovering its liberty, vowed fidelity to the
Florentines, to whom it owed the restoration of its freedom. The legates,
beside themselves with rage, endeavoured to restrain the people by terror.
John Hawkwood, on the 29th of March, 1376, delivered up Faenza to a
frightful military execution ; four thousand persons were put to death,
property pillaged, and women violated. The pope, not satisfied with such
rigour, sent Robert of Geneva, another cardinal legate, into Italy^, with a
Breton company of adventurers, considered as the most ferocious of all
those trained to plunder by the wars of France. The new legate treated
Cesena, on the 1st of February, 1377, with still greater barbarity. He was
heard to call out during the massacre, "I will have more blood — kill all
— blood, blood ! " Gregory XI at last felt the necessity of returning to
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 249
[1377-1378 A.D.]
Italy, to appease the universal revolt. He entered Rome on the 17th of Jan-
uary, 1377 ; although the Florentines, who had sent the standard of liberty to
the senators and bannerets of Rome, and had made alliance with the Romans,
expostulated on the danger they incurred if they admitted the pontiff within
their walls.
The two parties, however, began to be equally weary of the war. Some
of the cities enfranchised by the Florentines were already detached from
the league. The Bolognese had made, on the 21st of August, 1377, a sepa-
rate peace with the pope, who had agreed to acknowledge their republic.
Barnabo Visconti carried on with the holy see secret negotiations, in which
he offered to sacrifice to the church, his ally, the republic of Florence. This
republic was then pressed for its consent to the opening of a congress for
restoring peace to Italy, to be held at Sarzana, in the beginning of the year
1378 ; the presidency of the congress was given to Barnabo Visconti. The
conference had scarcely opened when the Florentines perceived, with more
indignation than surprise, that the Lombard tyrant, who had fought in con-
cert with them, intended that they should pay to him and to the pope the
whole expenses of the war. The negotiations took the most alarming turn,
when the unexpected news arrived of the death of Gregory XI, on the 27th
of March, 1378 ; and the congress separated without coming to any decision.
The year which now opened was destined to bring with it the most important
revolutions throughout Italy. Amidst those convulsions the Peace of Flor-
ence with the court of Rome, weakened by the great western schism, was not
difficult to accomplish.
The Papal Schism
The pontifical chair had been transferred to France since the year 1305.
Its exile from Italy lasted seventy-three years. The Christian world, France
excepted, had considered it a scandal; but the French kings hoped by it
to retain the popes in their dependence ; and the French cardinals, who
formed more than three-fourths of the Sacred College, seemed determined to
preserve the pontifical power in their nation. They were, however, thwarted
in this intention by the death of Gregory XI at Rome ; for the conclave must
always assemble where the last pontiff dies. The clamour of the Romans
and the manifestation of opinion throughout Christendom were not without
influence on the conclave. On the 8th of April, 1378, it elected — not,
indeed, a Roman, whom the people demanded, but an Italian — Bartolom-
meo Prignani ; who, having lived long in France, seemed formed to con-
ciliate the prejudices of both parties. He was considered learned and pious.
The cardinals had not, however, calculated on the development of the pas-
sions which a sudden elevation sometimes gives ; or on the degree of impa-
tience, arrogance, and irritability of which man is capable, in his unexpected
capacity of master, though in an inferior situation he had appeared gentle and
modest. The new pope, who took the name of Urban VI, became so violent
and despotic, so confident of himself, and so contemptuous of others, that he
soon quarrelled with all his cardinals. They left him ; assembled again at
Fondi ; and, on the 9th of August, declared the holy see vacant ; asserting
that their previous election was null, having been forced by their terror of the
Romans.
Consequently, on the 2()th of September, they elected another pope.
Their choice, no better than the former, fell on Robert, cardinal of Geneva,
who had presided at the massacre of Cesena ; he took the name of Clement
VII. He was protected by Queen Joanna, with whom Urban had already
250
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1378-1394 A.D.]
quarrelled. Clement established his court at Naples ; but an insurrection of
the people made him quit it the year following, and determined him on
returning, with his cardinals, to Avignon. Urban VI, meanwhile, deposed
as schismatics all the cardinals who had elected Clement, and replaced them
by a new and more numerous college ; but he agreed no better with these
than with their predecessors. He accused them of a conspiracy against
him ; he caused many to be put to the torture in his presence and while he
recited his breviary ; he ordered others to be thrown
into the sea in sacks and drowned ; he quarrelled
with the Romans and the new sovereign of Naples,
whom he had himself named ; he paraded his inca-
pacity and rage through all Italy; and finally took
refuge at Genoa, where he died, on the 9th of
November, 1389. The cardinals who acknowledged
him named a successor on his death, as the French
cardinals did afterwards on the death of
Clement VII, which took place on the 16th
of September, 1394. The church thus
found itself divided between two popes and
two colleges of cardinals, who reciprocally
anathematised each other. Whilst the
Catholic faith was thus shaken, the tempo-
ral sovereignty of the pope, founded by the
conquests of the cardinal Albornoz, was
overthrown. Several of the cities enfran-
chised by the Florentines in the war of
liberty, preserved their republican govern-
but the greater number, particularly in
yoke of petty
ment
Romagna, fell again under the
tyrants.
The terror in which the house of Visconti had
held Florence and the other Italian republics began
somewhat to subside. Barnabo, grown old, had di-
vided the cities of his dominions among his numer-
ous children. His brother, Galeazzo, had died on
the 4th of August, 1378, and been replaced by his son, Gian Galeazzo, called
count de Virtu, from a county in Champagne, given him by Charles V,
whose sister he had married. Barnabo would willingly have deprived his
nephew of his paternal inheritance, to divide it among his children. Gian
Galeazzo, who had already discovered several plots directed against him,
uttered no complaint, but shut himself up in his castle of Pavia, where he
had fixed his residence. He doubled his guard, and took pains to display
his belief that he was surrounded by assassins. He affected, at the same
time, the highest devotion ; he was always at prayers, a rosary in his hand,
and surrounded with monks ; he talked only of pilgrimages and expiatory
ceremonies. His uncle regarded him as pusillanimous, and unworthy of
reigning. In the beginning of May, 1385, Gian Galeazzo sent to Barnabo
to say that he had made a vow of pilgrimage to our Lady of Varese, near
the Lago Maggiore, and that he should be glad to see him on his passage.
Barnabo agreed to meet him at a short distance from Milan, accompanied
by his two sons. Gian Galeazzo arrived, surrounded, as was his custom, by
a numerous guard. He affected to be alarmed at every sudden motion
made near him. On meeting his uncle, however, on the 6th of May, he
AN ITALIAN SOLDIER, FOUR
TEENTH CENTURY
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 251
[1385-1386 A.D.]
hastily dismounted, and respectfully embraced him ; but, while he held him
in his arms, he said in German to his guards, " Strike ! " The Germans,
seizing Barnabo, disarmed and dragged him, with his two sons, to some
distance from his nephew. Gian Galeazzo made several vain attempts to
poison his uncle in the prison into which he had thrown him ; but Barnabo,
suspicious of all the nourishment offered him, was on his guard, and did not
sink under these repeated efforts till the 18th of December of the same year.
G-ian Gf-aleazzo Visconti
All Lombardy submitted, without difficulty, to Gian Galeazzo. His
uncle had never inspired one human being with either esteem or affection.
The nephew had no better title to these sentiments. False and pitiless, he
joined to immeasurable ambition a genius for enterprise, and to immovable
constancy a personal timidity which he did not endeavour to conceal. The
least unexpected motion near him threw him into a paroxysm of nervous
terror. No prince employed so many soldiers to guard his palace, or took
such multiplied precautions of distrust. He seemed to acknowledge himself
the enemy of the whole world. But the vices of tyranny had not weakened
his ability. He employed his immense wealth, without prodigality ; his
finances were always flourishing ; his cities well garrisoned and victualled ;
his army well paid ; all the captains of adventure scattered throughout Italy
received pensions from him, and were ready to return to his service when-
ever called upon. He encouraged the warriors of the new Italian school ;
he well knew how to distinguish, reward, and win their attachment. Many
young Italians, in order to train themselves to arms, had, from about the
middle of this century, engaged in the German, English, and French troops
which inundated Italy ; and they soon proved that Italian valour, directed
by the reflection and intelligence of a highly civilised nation, who carried
their arms as well as tactics to perfection, had greatly the advantage over the
brute courage of barbarians.
Alberic, count of Barbiano, a Romagnole noble, and an ancestor of the
princes Belgiojoso, of Milan, formed a company, under the name of St. George,
into which he admitted Italians only, and which, in 1378, he placed in the
service of Urban VI. This company .defeated, at Ponte Molle, that of
the Bretons, attached to Clement VII, and regarded as the most formid-
able of the foreign troops. From that time, the company of St. George
was the true school of military science in Italy. Young men of courage,
talent, or ambition flocked into it from all parts ; and all the captains who,
twenty years later, attained such high renown, gloried in having served in
that company.
Gian Galeazzo was no sooner firmly established on the throne of Milan,
than he resumed his project of subjugating the rest of Italy ; the two princi-
palities of the Delia Scala at Verona, and of the Carrara at Padua, were
the first to tempt his ambition. The house of La Scala had produced, in the
beginning of the century, some great captains and able politicians; but
their successors had been effeminate and vicious — princes who hardly ever
attained power without getting rid of their brothers by poison or the dag-
ger. The house of Carrara, on the contrary, which gloried in being attached
to the Guelf party, produced princes who might have passed for virtuous, in
comparison with the other tyrants of Italy. Francesco da Carrara, who
then reigned, his son, and grandson were men of courage, endued with great
capacities, and who knew how to gain the affection of their subjects. The
252 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1386-1390 A.D.]
republic of Venice never pardoned Carrara his having made alliance against
her with the Genoese and the king of Hungary. After the death of the
last named, Venice engaged Antonio della Scala to attack Padua, offering
him subsidies to aid him in the conquest of that state. Carrara did all in
his power to be reconciled to the prince, his neighbour, whom, in 1386, he
repeatedly vanquished ; as well as with the republic — always ready to repair
the losses sustained by the lord of Verona. Unable to obtain peace, he was
at last reduced to accept the proffered alliance of Gian Galeazzo Visconti,
who took Verona on the 18th of October, 1387. Instead of restoring to
Carrara the city of Vicenza, as he had promised, he immediately offered
his assistance to the Venetians against Padua ; that republic was imprudent
enough to accept the offer. Padua, long besieged, was given up to Visconti
on the 23rd of November, 1388. A few days afterwards, Treviso was sur-
rendered to him; so that the frontiers of the lord of Milan's dominions
extended even to the edge of the Lagune. He had no sooner planted his
standard there, than he menaced Venice, which had so unwisely facilitated
his conquests.
All the rest of Lombardy was dependent on the lord of Milan. The
marquis of Montferrat was brought up at the court of Galeazzo, who gov-
erned his states as guardian of this young prince. Albert, marquis d' Este,
had, on the 26th of March, 1388, succeeded his brother in the sovereignty
of Ferrara, to the prejudice of his nephew Obizzo, whom he caused to be
beheaded with his mother. He put to death by various revolting execu-
tions almost all his relations, at the suggestion of Gian Galeazzo, whose
object was, by rendering him thus odious to the people, to make the lord of
Ferrara feel that he had no other support than in him. According to the
same infernal policy Gian Galeazzo accused the wife of the lord of Mantua,
daughter of Barnabo, and his own cousin and sister-in-law, of a criminal
intercourse with her husband's secretary. He forged letters by which he
made her appear guilty, concealed them in her apartment, and afterwards
pointed out where they were to be found to Francesco da Gonzaga, who, in
a paroxysm of rage, caused her to be beheaded, and the secretary to be
tortured, and afterwards put to death, in 1390 ; it was not till after many
years that he discovered the truth. Thus all the princes of Lombardy were
either subdued or in discredit for the crimes which Visconti had made them
commit, and by which he held them in his dependence ; he then began to
turn his attention towards Tuscany. In the years 1388 and 1389, the Flor-
entines were repeatedly alarmed by his attempts to take possession of Siena,
Pisa, Bologna, San Miniato, Cortona, and Perugia ; not one attempt had yet
succeeded ; but Florence saw her growing danger, and was well aware that
the tyrant had not yet attacked her, only because he reserved her for his
last conquest.
The arrival at Florence of Francesco II of Carrara, who came to offer
his services and his hatred of Gian Galeazzo to the republic, determined
the Florentines to have recourse to arms. The lord of Milan, in receiving the
capitulation of Padua, had promised to give in compensation some other
sovereignty to the house of Carrara ; but he had either poisoned Francesco I,
or suffered him to perish in prison. Several attempts had been made to
assassinate Francesco II in the province of Asti, whither he had been exiled.
In spite of many dangers, he at last escaped, and fled into Tuscany, taking
his wife, then indisposed, with him. He left her there, and passed into
Germany, in the hopes of exciting new enemies against Gian Galeazzo ;
while the Florentines made alliance with the Bolognese against the lord of
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 253
[1390-1391 A.D.]
Milan, and placed their army under the command of John Hawkwood, who
ever afterwards remained in their service. Carrara, seconded by the duke
of Bavaria, the son-in-law of Barnabo, whose death the duke was desirous of
avenging, re-entered Padua on the 14th of June, 1390, by the bed of the
Brenta, and was received with enthusiasm by the inhabitants, who regarded
him more as a fellow-citizen than a master. He recovered possession of the
whole inheritance of his ancestors.
The extensive commerce of the Florentines had accustomed them to
include all Europe in their negotiations ; and, as they liberally applied their
wealth to the defence of their liberty, they easily found allies abroad. After
having called the duke of Bavaria from Germany, in 1390, they, in the year
following sent to France for the count d'Armagnac with a formidable army ;
but the Germans as well as the French found, with astonishment, that they
could no longer cope with the new Italian militia, which had substituted mili-
tary science for the routine of the transalpine soldier. Armagnac was van-
quished and taken prisoner, on the 25th of July, 1391, by Jacopo del Verme,
and died a few days afterwards. John Hawkwood, who, in the hope of
joining him, had advanced far into Lombardy with the Florentine army,
was placed in the most imminent peril. e He was in the heart of an enemy's
country ; before him were the whole forces of Milan, victorious and now far
superior in numbers, which approached to overpower him, and, in his rear,
were three great rivers which he could not hope to pass with impunity in
their presence. But the confidence which he felt in the resources of his own
genius in no degree abandoned him. After remaining inactive behind his
entrenchments, as if paralysed by terror, until the Milanese, their temerity
and carelessness increasing as he tamely received their insults, were thrown
off their guard, he suddenly fell upon them with so much impetuosity that he
routed them and captured twelve hundred horse. Having thus gained his
object of inspiring his enemy with respect, and deterring him from too close
a pursuit, Hawkwood commenced a masterly retreat, and had repassed both
the Oglio and Mincio before a single trooper of Gian Galeazzo dared appear
on their banks.
But he had yet the rapid Adige to cross, and the difficulty was the greater
as the enemy had already fortified themselves on the dykes, which confine the
waters of that river to its bed. The Lombard plains are almost everywhere
on a lower level than that of the streams which intersect them, and are only
preserved from continual inundations by artificial embankments, between
which the impetuous torrents that descend from the melting of Alpine snows
are securely conducted to the sea. But when these dykes are burst or cut,
the adjacent plains are at once flooded. Hawkwood, on reaching the range
of low land which is known as the Veronese valley, found the Adige, the
Po, and the Polesino before him on the north, the south, and the west, and
Jacopo del Verme hanging on his rear ; and in this situation the enemy sud-
denly cut the dykes of the Adige, and let the river loose from its bed upon
him. The lower ground about the Florentine camp was at once inundated.
As far as the eye could stretch, the country, in every direction but one, was
converted into a vast lake of hourly increasing depth; the waters even
menaced the rising spot on which the army lay ; provisions began to fail ;
and Jacopo del Verme, his whole force guarding the only outlet, sent by a
trumpet a fox enclosed in a cage to the English captain. Hawkwood re-
ceived the taunting present with dry composure, and bade the messenger tell
his general that his fox appeared nothing sad, and doubtless knew by what
door he would quit his cage.
254 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1391-1400 A.D.]
A leader of less courageous enterprise and skilful resource than Hawk-
wood might have despaired of bursting from the toils; but the wily vet-
eran knew both how to inspire his troops with unlimited confidence in his
guidance, and to avail himself of their devotion. Leaving his tents standing,
he silently and boldly led his cavalry before daylight into the inundated
plain towards the Adige; and, with the waters already at the horses' girths,
marched the whole of the same day and the following night beside the dykes
of that river, until he found a spot where its bed had been left dry by the
escape of the waters ; and crossing it at length gave repose to his wearied
troops on the Paduan frontiers. Part of his infantry had perished, and he
had lost many men and horses in the mud, and in canals and ditches — the
danger of which could not be distinguished amidst the general inundation ;
but the army of the league was saved, and Jacopo del Vernie dared not pursue
its hazardous retreat.*
After this campaign, the republic, feeling the want of repose, made peace
with Galeazzo, on the 28th of January, 1392, well knowing that it could place
no trust in him, and that this treaty was no security against his intrigues and
treachery.
These expectations were not belied; for one plot followed another in
rapid succession. The Florentines about this time reckoned on the friend-
ship of the Pisans, who had placed at the head of their republic Pietro
Gambacorta, a rich merchant, formerly an exile at Florence, and warmly
attached to peace and liberty ; but he was old, and had for his secretary
Jacopo Appiano, the friend of his childhood, who was nearly of his own age.
Yet Galeazzo found means to seduce the secretary ; he instigated him to the
assassination of Gambacorta and his children, 011 the 21st of October, 1392.
Appiano, seconded by the satellites furnished him by the duke of Milan,
made himself master of Pisa; but after his death his son, who could with
difficulty maintain himself there, sold the city to Gian Galeazzo, in the month
of February, 1399, reserving only the principality of Piombino, which he
transmitted to his descendants. At Perugia, Pandolfo Baglione, chief of
the noble and Ghibelline party, had, in 1390, put himself under the pro-
tection of Gian Galeazzo, who aided him in changing the limited authority
conferred on him into a tyranny ; but three years afterwards he was assassi-
nated, and the republic of Perugia, distracted by the convulsions of opposing
factions, was compelled to yield itself up to Gian Galeazzo, on the 21st of
January, 1400.
The Germans observed with jealousy the continually increasing greatness
of Visconti, which appeared to them to annihilate the rights of the empire, and
dry up the sources of tribute, on a partition of which they always reckoned.
They pressed Wenceslaus to make war on Gian Galeazzo. But that indolent
and sensual monarch, after some threats, gave it to be understood that
for money he would willingly sanction the usurpations of Gian Galeazzo ;
and, in fact, on the 1st of May, 1395, he granted him, for the sum of
100,000 florins, a diploma which installed him duke of Milan and count
of Pavia, comprehending in this investiture twenty-six cities and their terri-
tory, as far as the Lagune of Venice. These were the same cities which,
more than three centuries before, had signed the glorious league of Lom-
bardy. The duchy of Milan, according to the imperial bull, was to pass
solely to the legitimate male heir of Gian Galeazzo. This concession of
Wenceslaus caused great discontent in Germany ; it was one of the griev-
ances for which the diet of the empire, on the 20th of August, 1400, deposed
the emperor, and appointed Robert elector palatine in his stead. Robert
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 255
[1397-1402 A.D.]
concluded a treaty of subsidy with the Florentines, or rather entered into
their pay, to oppose Gian Galeazzo ; but when, on the 21st of October, 1401,
he met the Milanese troops, commanded by Jacopo del Verme, not far from
Brescia, he experienced, to his surprise and discomfiture, how much the
German cavalry were inferior to the Italian. He was saved from a complete
defeat only by Jacopo da Carrara, who led a body of Italian cavalry to his
aid. Robert found it necessary to retreat, with disgrace, into Germany, after
having received from the Florentines an immense sum of money.
Gian Galeazzo Visconti continued his course of usurpation. In 1397, he
attacked, at the same time, Francesco da Gonzaga at Mantua, and the Floren-
tines, without any previous declaration of war. After having ravaged Tus-
cany and the Mantuan territory, he consented, on the llth of May, 1398, to
sign, under the guarantee of Venice, a truce of ten years, during which
period he was to undertake nothing against Tuscany. That, however,
did not prevent him, in 1399, from taking under his protection the counts
of Poppi and Ubertini, in the Apennines ; or from engaging the republic of
Siena to surrender itself to him, on the llth of November in the same
year.e
In Gian Galeazzo that passion for the colossal which was common to
most of the despots shows itself on the largest scale. He undertook, at the
cost of 300,000 gold florins, the construction of gigantic dykes, to divert
in case of need the Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua, and
thus to render these cities defenceless. It is not impossible, indeed, that
he thought of draining away the lagunes of Venice. He founded that most
wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia, and the cathedral of Milan,
"which exceeds in size and splendour all the churches of Christendom."
The palace in Pavia, which his father Galeazzo began and which he himself
finished, was probably by far the most magnificent of the princely dwellings
of Europe. There he transferred his famous library, and the great collec-
tion of relics of the saints, in which he placed a peculiar faith. His whole
territories are said to have paid him in a single year, besides the regular con-
tribution of 1,200,000 gold florins, no less than 800,000 more in extraordinary
subsidies. 0
The plague broke out anew in Tuscany, and deprived the free states of
all their remaining vigour. The magistrates, on whose prudence and courage
they relied, in a few days sank under the contagion, and left free scope to
the poorest intriguer. This happened at Lucca to the Guelf house of
Guinigi, which had produced many distinguished citizens, all employed in
the first magistracies. They perished under this disease nearly about the
same time. A young man of their family, named Paulo Guinigi, undistin-
guished either for talent or character, profited by this calamity, on the 14th
of October, 1400, to usurp the sovereignty. He immediately abjured the
Guelf party, in which he had been brought up, and placed himself under
the protection of Gian Galeazzo. At Bologna, also, the chief magistrates
of the republic were in like manner swept away by the plague.
Giovanni Bentivoglio, descended from a natural son of that king Enzio
so long prisoner at Bologna, took advantage of the state of languor into
which the republic had fallen, to get himself proclaimed sovereign lord, on
the 27th of February, 1401. He at first thought of putting himself under the
protection of the duke of Milan ; but Gian Galeazzo, coveting the possession
of Bologna, instead of amicably receiving, attacked him the year follow-
ing. Bentivoglio was defeated at Casalecchio, on the 26th of June, 1402.
His capital was taken the next day by the Milanese general, he himself
256 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1400-1412 A.D.]
made prisoner, and two days afterwards put to death. Another general
of Galeazzo, in May, 1400, took possession of Assisi ; the liberty of Genoa,
Perugia, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and Bologna had, one after the other, fallen a
sacrifice to the usurper. The Cancellieri, in the mountains of Pistoia, the
Ubaldini, in those of the Mugello, had given themselves up to the duke of
Milan. The Florentines, having no longer communications with the sea,
across the territories of Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and Bologna, saw the sources of
their wealth and commerce dry up. Never had the republic been in more
imminent danger ; when the plague, which had
so powerfully augmented its calamities, came to
its aid. Gian Galeazzo Visconti was seized with
it at his castle of Marignano, in which he had
shut himself up, to be, as he hoped, secure from
all communication with man. He was carried off
by the pestilence, on the 3rd of September, 1402. «
By his will he divided the greater portion of
his dominions between his two legitimate sons ;
to the elder, Gian Maria, he bequeathed the
duchy of Milan ; to the second, Filippo Maria,
the county of Pavia ; but Pisa, Sarzana, and
Crema were bestowed on his favourite bastard,
Gabriello Visconti.
As the heir to the duchy had barely attained
the age of fourteen, his father entrusted the gov-
ernment to his widow Caterina, to Francesco da
Gonzaga, and to the principal commanders of his
forces. But as these soldiers of fortune were
interested only in their own advancement, the ut-
most confusion prevailed in Milan, and the duchess
and her son were compelled to seek security in
the citadel. The long-forgotten names of Guelf
and Ghibelline again resounded through Lom-
bardy ; and in a short space of time the duchy
was stripped of all its dependent cities. Some,
indeed, maintained a nominal submission ; but
the rulers were too intent on their own interest
to be relied on; and the pontifical army had little
difficulty in procuring the restitution of Bologna
and Perugia to the pope. Siena revolted from
the ducal vicar ; Cremona gave herself to Ugo-
lino Cavalcabo; Parma and Reggio were seized by the condottiere Ottobuono
de' Terzi ; Brescia, by another adventurer, Pandolfo Malatesta. Vercelli,
Novara, and other towns in Piedmont fell into the hands of the marquises of
Montferrat and Saluzzo. Verona, after an obstinate resistance, surrendered
to Francesco da Carrara ; and Vicenza escaped his power by being ceded,
together with Feltre and Belluno, to the Venetians. Besides these heavy
losses, domestic strife aggravated the misfortunes of Milan ; and a fierce
quarrel between the duchess and her son was terminated by her imprison-
ment and death. In the meantime the flame spread to Pavia, and the young
count Filippo was consigned to a dungeon. The dominion of the bastard
Gabriello over Pisa and Sarzana was of brief duration ; and he was com-
pelled to sell the former city to the Florentines, to the great indignation of
her citizens.
TORCH HOLDER, PALAZZO STROZZI,
FLORENCE
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS 257
[1412-1432 A.D.]
Amidst these disasters, the young duke, now fast attaining his majority,
evinced a fierceness and brutality of disposition which detached from him the
last remnant of his adherents. Amongst his favourite diversions was the pas-
time of beholding his well-trained bloodhounds lacerate the limbs of those
subjects who incurred his displeasure ; and his repeated barbarities grew
past endurance. At length a conspiracy was set on foot for his destruction ;
and during mass in the church of St. Gothard he was despatched by
two blows. After his murder a struggle prevailed between his brother Fil-
ippo Maria and Astorre, the natural son of Barnabo Visconti, whose intrepidity
caused him to be styled " the soldier without fear." His efforts, however,
to supplant the legitimate heir were unavailing ; whilst defending the citadel
of Monza his leg was shattered by a stone ; and his death, which immedi-
ately ensued, left Filippo Maria in undisputed possession of the poor remains
of his father's once extensive dukedom (1412).
Filippo Maria Visconti
It was the good fortune of the new duke to retain amongst his commanders
Francesco Bussone, surnamed Carmagnola ; and by the skill and prowess of
this renowned general many of the lost territories of Milan were rapidly
recaptured. Bergamo, Piacenza, Como, and Lodi were again annexed to the
duchy ; Cremona, Parma, Brescia, Crema, and Asti once more submitted ;
and Genoa yielded to the arms of Carmagnola. These signal services were
rewarded by the duke with wealth and honours ; who united the meritorious
warrior to one of his natural daughters, and even adopted him as his successor
in the dukedom, by the name of Francesco Visconti.
His well-earned trophies, however, were not long to be worn by the gal-
lant Carmagnola. Every day proved to him that, having reached the highest
point in his sovereign's favour, the fickleness or jealousy of the duke forbade
him to look for a continuance of his regard. Without being able to ascer-
tain the cause of his disgrace, he found himself deprived of his command,
and even excluded from the ducal presence ; and he indignantly quitted the
court of Milan, denouncing vengeance on the ungrateful Filippo. As Venice
was now in league with Florence and some less considerable states, in order
to check the increasing power of the duke, Carmagnola offered his services to
the Venetian government, and was entrusted with the command of the
allied army. The capture of Brescia and other considerable cities soon
reduced the duke to alarming extremities, and he was happy to purchase
a respite from this ruinous warfare by ceding Bergamo and great part of
the Cremonese to Venice. But the good fortune of Carmagnola forsook him
in a new campaign against his former master ; he received a complete over-
throw by the Milanese troops under Niccolo Piccinino, a defeat which was
rendered doubly disastrous by its mainly contributing to the discomfiture of
the Venetian fleet two days afterwards. Whilst the Venetian galleys were
attacked in the Po by those of Milan, the defeated general, encamped
on the neighbouring shore, was repeatedly summoned to the assistance of his
naval colleague. But though Carmagnola was still at the head of a consid-
erable armament he made no effort to accede to the call ; and under the eyes
of the troops of Venice their fleet was entirely destroyed, with the loss of
eight thousand prisoners (1431).
After a short peace, the restless and ambitious spirit of the duke of Milan
again agitated Italy ; and the papal dominions, as well as those of Florence,
were the objects of his rapacity. After ravaging Romagna and defeating
H. W. VOL. IX. B
258 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1432-1447 A.D.]
the Florentines at Anghiera, the Milanese general Piccinino was recalled
into Lombardy once more to the attack of Venice. But besides her trusty
general Gattamelata, the republic had secured the services of Francesco
Sforza, son of Giaconiuzzo, the favourite of Joanna II, queen of Naples.
Francesco, endowed with the military talents of his father, after leading the
forces of the duke of Milan, saw reason to abandon his patron, and devoted
himself to the service of Venice. He was now opposed to Piccinino, his
former companion in arms, and the annals of Italy are swelled with the
splendid exploits of these great commanders. But the genius of Sforza, if
not superior to, was at least more fortunate than that of his rival ; and his
glory was completed by a triumphant campaign, in which he discomfited
Piccinino and rescued Verona and Brescia from the hands of Filippo. Dur-
ing a short interval of peace the duke of Milan diligently laboured to recover
the friendship of Sforza, who was won over by the offer of Cremona and the
hand of Bianca, the natural daughter of Filippo. But the latter years of this
inconstant prince were spent in turmoil and distraction, and his new son-in-
law became the object of his bitterest persecution. Again reconciled to the
duke, and again exposed to his malice, Sforza still had good reason for pre-
serving his connection with Milan, since Filippo had no legitimate issue,
and his marriage with Bianca encouraged hopes of his succession to the
duchy. At the close of his life the duke again invoked the aid of Sforza
against the Venetians, and immediately afterwards terminated his tumultuous
reign.
With him ended the dynasty of the Visconti in Milan. Without pos-
sessing the personal courage which distinguished many of his family, Filippo
Maria Visconti was endowed with no common share of that keenness and
subtlety which are frequently more efficacious than wisdom and valour. He
has been praised for the clemency and generosity with which he treated his
prisoners — no inconsiderable merit in an age full of perfidy and cruelty,
when, the gates of the prison once closed upon the captive, his fate remained
matter of doubt and secrecy. We have already seen his extraordinary
moderation, when Alfonso of Aragon and his noble companions were led
prisoners to Milan ; nor are there wanting other examples of the magnani-
mous conduct of Filippo. But a dark stain rests upon his fame, from his
unfeeling treatment of his duchess Beatrice, whose alliance and ample for-
tune had rendered him the most signal service, when in the outset of his
reign he was beset by poverty and threatened with expulsion from his pater-
nal inheritance. An improbable accusation of adultery with one of his
domestics stretched the devoted victims on the rack ; and condemned by the
ravings of her imputed paramour the duchess suffered an ignominious death.
In the last moments of her life Beatrice maintained a calmness which can
seldom be commanded by guilt, and died with such solemn assertions of her
innocence as seem to have convinced all save her obdurate husband (1418).
The House of Sforza
Though the Milanese had long acquiesced in the hereditary succession of
the Visconti, Sforza beheld his hopes endangered by the spirit of liberty
which now prevailed in Milan. The late duke left no less than four wills,
each constituting a different successor, and bequeathing the duchy accord-
ing to the momentary dictates of his capricious temper. By one of these,
Bianca, the wife of Sforza, was declared his heir ; but the people rejected
this attempt to dispose of them and the state, and with loud shouts of
DESPOTS AND TYEANTS 259
[1447-1476 A.D.]
" liberty ! " opposed the pretensions of Francesco. Despairing of present suc-
cess, Sf orza wisely resolved to temporise, and his views were soon favoured by
the proceedings of Venice. Anxious to enrich herself with the spoils of
Milan, that republic immediately commenced aggressions on the Milanese
territory, and Sforza was called upon by the citizens to lead their army
against the invaders. But while Sforza affected to defend the interests of
Milan, he secretly negotiated with Venice ; and at length, renouncing his
allegiance to the Milanese, attacked their domains, and with the aid of the
Venetians carried his conquests to the very
gates of the city. In the height of his suc-
cess Sforza found his prospects endangered
by the perfidious policy of his ally. The
senate, alarmed at his approaching power,
now thought fit to intimate the necessity of
suffering Milan to remain free under its new
republican government, and even entered
into a treaty with the Milanese for the pres-
ervation of their liberty and territory. The
genius of Sforza triumphed in this emer-
gency; he baffled the confederate hostility
of Venice and Milan ; and by a strict block-
ade of the city reduced the citizens to the
last stage of famine. Within the walls a
considerable party was ready to surrender
into his hands ; and the populace, maddened
by hunger, anxiously besought their rulers
to capitulate. An insurrection of a few
plebeians drove the regents from the palace ;
and Sforza was received into the city with a
burst of enthusiasm which saluted him by
the title of duke of Milan.
For four years Sforza encountered the
enmity of Venice, until the Peace of Lodi in
1454 put an end to their languid warfare.
He governed Milan during sixteen years
with prudence and moderation ; and, already
possessed of a splendid territory, he wisely
abstained from risking his possessions by
any wanton aggression upon the other states.
He availed himself, however, of the internal commotions of Genoa, who in
1435 had revolted from Filippo Visconti, and now again placed herself under
the dominion of Milan. He maintained the respect of the Italian, as well as
foreign powers ; rendered himself generally acceptable to his people ; and
peaceably transmitted his duchy to his posterity. In that age of treachery
and perfidy, the means by which he had obtained his power left no stigma on
his reputation ; it was sufficient that his bad faith and dissimulation had been
crowned with success.
On the death of Francesco Sforza, in 1466, he was succeeded by his eldest
son Galeazzo Maria, a compound of ambition, lust, and cruelty. Contrary to
the wishes of her brother Amadeus IX', duke of Savoy, he had espoused Bona,
daughter of Duke Louis, and sister of Charlotte married to Louis XI, king of
France. But the nuptial tie placed no restraint on his disorderly life ; the
dwellings of his subjects were perpetually invaded by his illicit passions,
COURT COSTUME OF A YOUNG ITALIAN
NOBLEMAN, FIFTEENTH CENTURY
260 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1476 A.D.]
and the honour of many noble families was violated by his amours. His
savage disposition made him no less odious ; and he delighted in aggravating
the punishment of death by wanton and refined tortures. At length three
young men of noble birth united in the design of destroying the tyrant.
Carlo Visconti, Girolamo Olgiato, and Andrea Lampugnano had been
educated under the same master, and imbibed, with the love of liberty, the
dangerous lesson that the assassination of a tyrant confers immortal fame.
Their patriotism, however, was not unmixed with personal motives, for all
had been privately injured by the object of their vengeance. The bloody
deed was accomplished on the festival of St. Stephen ; Galeazzo fell beneath
the daggers of the conspirators, as he entered the church of the Martyr
between the ambassadors of Mantua and Ferrara. In the general confusion
Olgiato effected his escape ; but the other two were instantly put to death
by the multitude. Nor did Olgiato long elude the pursuit of justice. His
father, in horror at his guilt, refused him admission within his doors ; and
after a short concealment in the house of a friend he was dragged to execu-
tion, and died exulting in his ill-gained immortality.
The conspirators had believed that Milan would approve their murderous
act, and rejoice in her liberation. But an indolent submission possessed the
minds of the people, and the vices of their oppressor appear to have been
forgotten in the emotions produced by his miserable fate. The young son
of the murdered duke was quietly acknowledged as his successor ; and as
Gian Galeazzo Maria had only attained his eighth year, his mother, Bona of
Savoy, was recognised as regent during his minority. Aided by her minister
and favourite, Cecco Simonetta, the duchess soon found herself sufficiently
strong to counteract the sinister machinations of her husband's brothers, who
were anxious to wrest the government out of her hands. Sforzino, duke of
Bari, Lodovico Sforza, surnamed II Moro, the Moor, Ottaviano, and the car-
dinal Ascanio were compelled to quit Milan — the first being banished to his
duchy, the second to Pisa, and the cardinal to Perugia ; whilst Ottaviano, in
attempting his escape, was drowned in the river Adda.c
WEST DOOR BAPTISTERY, PISA
CHAPTER IX
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND
FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
THE AFFAIES OF PISA AND GENOA
IN the disputes between the emperors and the popes, the Pisans followed
the Ghibelline, the Genoese, the Guelf party. Both republics, too, late in the
twelfth century, often replaced their consuls by podestas, and both were
the frequent theatre of strife between the nobles and the populace. In
Genoa, from 1190 to 1216, there appears to have been a struggle whether
consuls or the podesta should govern the state, for during that period we
find both, and, from 1216 to 1252, podestas alone. But, as the popular
assemblies were still convoked whenever any important decision was to
be made, and as the podesta, like the consul, was elected, the citizens still
retained some of their ancient privileges. These, however, were not the
only changes in the form of the executive ; the podesta was sometimes
replaced by the capitano, sometimes by the ablate^ and at other times by
the anziano — dignities of which we find frequent instances in the thir-
teenth century. But none appear to have enjoyed a long lease of power;
often the very next election, according as faction or prejudice or love of
novelty prevailed, ended their name with their administration ; they could,
however, hope that in the perpetually revolving wheel of change their dig-
nity might again attain the summit — &, hope which was almost sure to be
realised. "At present," says the archbishop of Genoa, who wrote towards
the close of the same century, " we have an abbot and elders ; whether we
must soon change them or not, no one can tell ; but at least let us pray God
that we may change for the better, so that we are governed well, no matter
whether we obey consuls, or podestas, or captains, or abbots."
261
262 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1262-1298 A.D.]
The good prelate proceeds to illustrate this truth by quaintly comparing
the different forms of government to three keys, one of gold, one of silver, the
third of wood ; though the material of these, he observes, is very differ-
ently estimated, one is in reality as good as another, provided it does its office,
that of opening. The first capitano surnamed Boccanera, owed his election to
the mob, whom he had gained by flattery, and whom he persuaded to be no
longer governed by tyrannical podestas ; his election was for ten years ; a coun-
cil of thirty-two elders was elected to aid, or, rather, to obey him ; a judge, two
secretaries, and twelve lictors were constantly to await his orders; and a knight
and fifty archers were appointed his body-guard. A man with powers so ample
was sure to become a tyrant ; and we accordingly find that in the second year
of his administration a conspiracy was
formed to depose him. This time he tri-
umphed ; but when half his term was ex-
pired, a confederacy of the nobles, aided
by the populace, compelled him to retire
into private life.
Into the endless domestic quarrels of the
Guelfs and Ghibellines at Genoa and Pisa,
and the consequent alliances — alliances of
momentary duration — contracted in both
cities with the emperor, the pope, or the
king of Naples, we cannot enter ; and if we
could, nobody would thank us for the weari-
some detail. As in Lombardy, the nobles
were often banished, and as often recalled.
The year 1282 is more famous in the an-
nals of both republics, as the origin of a
ruinous war between them. Pisa, with
her sovereignty over Corsica, Elba, and the
greater part of Sardinia ; with her immense
commerce, her establishments in Spain,
Asia, and Greece, her revenues and stores,
had little to gain and much to lose, by con-
tending with a poor and perhaps braver
power. If Genoa had less wealth, she had
equal enterprise, an equal thirst for gain,
and equal ambition. Where so much rivalry
existed, it would easily degenerate into
discord; and petty acts of offence were
followed by general hostilities. In one of
their expeditions the fleet of the Pisans was
almost destroyed by a tempest ; a second, by the enemy; a third, after a
bloody conflict off the isle of Meloria, was all but annihilated, and the loss in
killed was five thousand, in prisoners eleven thousand. These prisoners the
victors refused to ransom and for a reason truly Italian — that the retention
of so many husbands in captivity would prevent their wives from renewing
the population, and that Pisa must in consequence decline. This infernal
policy succeeded ; when, after sixteen years' warfare, peace was made,
scarcely a thousand remained to be restored to their country.
But Pisa had other enemies ; all the cities of Tuscany, with Florence at
their head, entered into an alliance with Genoa to crush the falling republic,
which had rendered itself so obnoxious by its Ghibelline spirit. In this
A LOMBARD AMBASSADOR
THE MAEITIME KEPUBLICS 263
[1284-1369 A.D.]
emergency, convinced how feeble must be the divided efforts of its municipal
magistrates, Pisa subjected itself to the authority of an able and valiant noble,
Ugolino della Gheradesca, who dissipated the formidable confederacy, and,
by some sacrifice of territory, procured peace. Not less distracted was the
internal state of the republic, now the Ghibellines, now the Guelfs being
called by the populace to usurp the chief authority. Though the Genoese had
less domestic liberty, since they were more frequently under the control of
some one tyrant, they were in general much more tranquil. In 1312 they
submitted to the emperor Henry of Luxemburg, but evidently with the reso-
lution of throwing off the yoke the moment he repassed the Alps ; while the
submission of the Pisans was sincere. Two years afterwards the capitano
or dictator of the latter reduced Lucca, and humbled the Florentines ; but
such was his own tyranny that the people expelled him. His fate is that of
all the petty rulers of Italy ; yet, though after this expulsion the forms of a
republic were frequently restored, the spirit was gone ; there was no patri-
otism, no enlightened notions of social duties ; violence and anarchy triumphed,
until the citizens, preferring the tyranny of one to that of many, again cre-
ated or recalled a dictator. The war of the Pisans with Aragon for the
recovery of Sardinia was even more disastrous than that with the Genoese.
It ended in the loss of that important island, which had formed a considera-
ble source of their resources.
The evils, indeed, were partly counterbalanced by the conquest of Lucca,
which had sometimes proved a troublesome neighbour ; but nothing could
restore them to their ancient wealth or power, so long as they were menaced
by so many rival states, especially those of Tuscany, and so long as they were
distracted by never-ceasing domestic broils. In fact, at one time, their ex-
istence depended only on the imperial support ; at another, on the dissensions
or misfortunes of their enemies.
The little republic of Genoa, which, in imitation of Venice, had forsaken
its podestas, abbots, elders, and captains for a doge and senate — but a
senate much less aristocratic than that of the ocean queen, was scarcely
more enviable, though doubtless more secure. This republic, too, had its
pretensions to Sardinia, and consequently a perpetual enemy in the Ara-
gonese kings. Often vanquished, it implored the protection of the king
of Naples or the duke of Milan, according as policy or inclination dictated.
It had, however, a better defence in its natural position, in the barren rocks
which skirted it to the north and east, and in the valour of its sailors ; and
when, as was sometimes the case, its protectors became its masters, the
foreign garrison, being cut off from supplies both by sea and land, was soon
compelled to surrender.
But Pisa had no such defence ; and in 1369 she had the mortification to
see the republic of Lucca restored to independence by the emperor Charles IV.
On this occasion the Lucchese remodelled their constitution ; they retained
their anziani, or elders, with a gonfalonier at their head ; both, however, in
the fear of absolute sway, they renewed every two months. Ten anziani,
with the gonfalonier, formed the seigniory, or executive government, and
were assisted by a council of thirty -six, called boni homines, and elected
every six months. Over these was the college of 180 members, who were
annually elected. &
Of all the republics, Genoa, in the fourteenth century, was accounted the
most wealthy and powerful. But after throwing off the yoke of Robert,
king of Naples, the city was agitated by continual commotions, in which the
Guelfs and Ghibellines were alternately expelled. The institution of an
264 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1339-1458 A.D.]
officer called the abbot of the people, like that of the Roman tribunes, had
been intended to repress the power of the nobles ; and the attempt to dis-
pense with this office was resisted by the commons, who chose for their abbot,
Simone Boccanera, a nobleman of the Ghibelline party, and a zealous advo-
cate for the popular cause. But his noble descent impelled him to decline
an office which had hitherto been held by only one of the people ; and the
multitude overcame his scruples by changing the title of abbot to that of
duke, or doge, in imitation of the Venetians (1339). A select few of the popu-
lar leaders were nominated as his council ; but the authority of Boccanera
appears to have been almost unlimited. He governed with firmness and dis-
cretion, and according to Giovanni Villani a conspiracy of the nobles was
promptly and capitally punished. His reign was, however, suspended in
1344; the members of the noble families, Doria, Spinola, Fieschi, and Gri-
maldi re-assembled in the suburbs, and the doge avoided a violent deposition
by a secret retreat to Pisa. After some confusion, a nobleman, Giovanni da
Murta, was proclaimed doge ; but as renewed disorder convulsed the city, the
contending factions agreed to submit their differences to Lucchino Visconti,
and the rapacious arbitrator was prevented by death alone from occupying
the distracted state.
After the death of Da Murta, a new doge was set up ; but disorder within
and defeat without induced Genoa to throw herself under the protection of
Giovanni Visconti. On the death of that prelate she reassumed her inde-
pendence ; her original doge was recalled, and continued to rule until 1363.
But from the death of Boccanera the state was torn by dissension for upwards
of thirty years, and two rival families of the mercantile class, the Adorni,
adherents of the Guelfs, and the Fregosi of the opposite party, alternately
furnished Genoa with an ephemeral sovereign. In 1396 the reigning doge,
Antonio Adorno, by an act of miserable impolicy, surrendered the state to
Charles VI, king of France, who deputed the government to a renowned
captain, Jean le Maingre, marshal of France, and lord of Boucicault. The
stern severity of this approved soldier was manifested on his entry into the
city ; and two of the most refractory citizens, Battista Boccanera and Battista
Luciardo, were at his command led out to execution. Boccanera's head was
severed from the body, and his companion was about to suffer, when a new
commotion in the assembled crowd distracted the attention of the French
guard. The criminal seized the propitious moment, and darting into the
dense throng was lost among the multitude ; but his place was instantly
supplied by the officer whose neglect had permitted his escape, and whose head
immediately rolled upon the ground at the mandate of the peremptory Bouci-
cault. For eight years the Genoese were overawed by his rigorous govern-
ment ; but his absence favouring insurrection, the French lieutenant was
assassinated, and the state was delivered from the yoke of France.
But the spirit of independence was extinguished in Genoa, and she with-
drew herself from the bondage of France to acknowledge Filippo, duke of
Milan, as her master. Revolt from Milan and reinstatement of the doge
were immediately followed by his deposition, and a new form of government
was introduced by creating ancients and captains of the people. After a few
months' duration this government was dissolved, and Raffaello Adorno was
created doge, and permitted to retain his power for nearly four years. A
new struggle between the rival families once more convulsed the city ; and
whilst Alfonso, king of Naples, threatened Genoa with a most formidable
invasion, a grievous pestilence raged among her citizens. In this complica-
tion of distress, the doge, Pietro Fregoso, with the approbation of the prin-
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 265
[1458-1478 A.D.]
cipal citizens, craved the protection of Charles VII, king of France ; and the
city being by treaty surrendered to that monarch was occupied in his name
by John of Anjou. The union of the families Adorni and Fregosi enabled
the Genoese to expel the French ; an Adorno was for a moment raised
to the duchy and then expelled by the Fregosi, and a Fregoso had scarcely
mounted the throne ere he was displaced by his kinsman, the archbishop
Paolo. The odious character of Paolo Fregoso threatened a speedy dissolu-
tion of his authority ; and the keen-eyed Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan,
already regarded Genoa as his own. He obtained from Louis XI of France
the cession of his rights ; he secured a strong party amongst the discontented
citizens ; and a general revolt in April, 1464, enabled his friends to proclaim
him lord of the city.
During the residue of the reign of Francesco and that of his son, Galeazzo
Sforza, Genoa continued in repose ; but the murder of the latter prince in-
cited the family of Fieschi to attempt a revolt from Milan. The storm was,
however, lulled by the presence of Lodovico and Ottaviano Sforza, the young
duke's uncles ; and their creature Prospero Adorno was accepted by the peo-
ple as their doge under the authority of the duke of Milan. A few months
dispelled his authority ; and Battistino Fregoso was proclaimed independent
sovereign of Genoa.1
In the midst of these perpetual commotions, a new and singular associa-
tion of private individuals took place in Genoa. The bank, or company, of
St. George had been instituted about 1402, when a long course of war-
fare had drained the public treasury. The contributions, therefore, of private
citizens were called in requisition, in security for the repayment of which the
customs were pawned by the republic ; whilst each lender participated in
the receipts in proportion to the extent of his advances.
The administration of their affairs required frequent meetings of the
body of creditors ; and the palace over the custom-house being assigned to
them, they organised a particular form of government. A great council of
one hundred was established for deliberation on their common weal ; whilst
the supreme management of their affairs was entrusted to a directory of eight.
The good order of their little government insured their prosperity; the
increasing necessities of the republic required new advances ; and the public
lands were mortgaged to the bank, until that body became possessed of nearly
all the territory appertaining to the state of Genoa. To the regulation and
defence of this extending territory the company alone were attentive ; and,
without any interference on the part of the commonwealth, an annual elec
tion of their own officers furnished an adequate supply of governors and
magistrates for the provinces. They wisely abstained from taking part
in the unceasing changes in the government; and, alike indifferent to the
cry of Adorni or Fregosi, were intent only on preserving their own inde-
pendence, and securing from the successful ruler the due recognition of their
JMurat. Annali. — Without burdening the text with a barren enumeration of names, we
here subjoin a list of these doges, by which the insecurity of their dignity will sufficiently appear.
1339. Simone Boccanera, abdicated 1344 ; Giovanni da Murta, died 1350 ; Giovanni de' Valenti.
—1356. Boccanera restored, died 1363 ; Gabriello Adorno, deposed and imprisoned 1370 ; Niccolo
di Guarco, dep. 1383 ; Leonardo di Montaldo, died 1384 ; Antonio Adorno, dep. 1390 ; Jacopo
Campo Fregoso, dep. 1392 ; Antonio restored and again dep. 1392 ; Antoniotto di Montaldo, dep.
1394 ; Niccolo Zoaglio, dep. 1394 ; Antonio di Guarco, dep. 1394 ; Antonio Adorno again restored,
resigned 1396. — 1413. Georgio Adorno, dep. 1415 ; Barnab6 Goano, dep. 1415 ; Tommaso Fregoso,
dep. 1442 ; Raffaello Adorno, resigned 1447 ; Barnab6 Adorno, dep. 1447 ; Giano Fregoso, died
1448 ; Lodovico Fregoso, dep. 1450 ; Piero Fregoso, dep. 1458.^—1461. Prospero Adorno, dep. 1461 ;
Lodovico Fregoso, dep. 1463 ; Paolo Fregoso, dep. 1464.— 1478. Battista Fregoso, dep. 1483 ; Paolo
Fregoso, restored, dep. 1487.
266 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1337-1354 A.D.]
laws and privileges. The administration of this society formed a striking
contrast to that of public affairs. Instead of tyranny, corruption, and licen-
tiousness, the bank of St. George presented a model of order, good faith, and
justice ; and the people obtained thereby an influence in the state, which
more effectually preserved their liberty than all their violent attempts to
depress the aristocracy.
Naval Exploits
Notwithstanding the perpetual dissensions of Genoa, she long continued
to maintain her naval renown ; and whilst the plebeians were intent on the
depression of the nobles, the family of Doria were conducting her fleets to
the discomfiture of her enemies. Like her
ancient rival Venice, she had long been ac-
quainted with the Levant ; and Galata and
Pera, the suburbs of Constantinople, were
the reward of services rendered to the Greek
emperor.
After the peace of 1299 the Venetians,
though strengthened by the alliance of the
Aragonese, abstained for a time from renew-
ing the contest ; and the first attack upon
the galleys of Genoa was punished by de-
feat and disgrace. A breach of faith on
the part of Venice was resented by the
seizure of all her traders in the Black Sea ;
but Genoa paid dearly for this aggression,
and a signal defeat by the Venetians off
Caristo nearly annihilated her fleet. In
1351 a powerful armament sailed from
Venice under the command of Niccolo Pi-
sani, one of the most distinguished com-
manders of his age ; and a fierce encounter
in the Dardanelles covered the sea with
the fragments of the hostile vessels. But
severely as the Genoese suffered on this oc-
casion, they might fairly claim the victory,
since the destruction of the Venetian and
Aragonese galleys was more than double
the loss which they themselves sustained ;
and Pisani admitted the defeat by leaving
his enemies in possession of the scene of
action. Even the seat of empire was threat-
ened by the conquerors ; and the Greek
emperor averted their vengeance by the expulsion of his former allies from
the capital. But the pride of Genoa soon afterwards sustained a severe
check ; her fleet, under Antonio Grimaldi, was surprised off Cagliari on the
anniversary of the defeat of Caristo ; and the loss of more than thirty ships
and forty-five hundred prisoners reduced the public to despair. This
disaster, however, was amply compensated by a splendid victory in the follow-
ing year, achieved over Pisani by Andrea Doria and his nephew Giovanni ;
and to the bold and spirited manoeuvre of the latter the success of the day
was chiefly to be attributed. Whilst the Venetians lay within the harbour
of Sapienza, a little island of the Morea, the younger Doria dashed into
A VENETIAN NAVAL OFFICER
(After Vicellio)
THE MAEITIME EEPUBLICS 267
[1354-1379 A.D.]
the port with twelve galleys, and, placing his force between the shore and the
enemy, commenced a furious assault. Meanwhile the residue of the Genoese
fleet attacked the galleys of Pisani in front, and most complete victory was
obtained. The Venetians suffered an enormous loss of both vessels and men ;
and amongst the six thousand prisoners led in triumph to Genoa was the
renowned commander Niccolo Pisani.
The Genoese thus triumphant swept the coast of Barbary, assaulted and
plundered Tripoli, and sold the city to a wealthy Saracen for 50,000 pieces
of gold. A more important conquest was achieved eighteen years after-
wards. At the coronation of Peter de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, a dispute
for precedence arose between the consuls of Genoa and Venice, which the
Cypriote authorities decided in favour of the latter. Irritated by this
award, the Genoese attempted to assert their right by violence ; and the
Cypriotes, resenting an affront offered in the royal presence, flew to arms,
and immediately put the offenders to death. Not content with this summary
vengeance, they set on foot a general massacre through the island, and a
single Genoese was left alive to convey the heavy tidings to the republic.
A new fleet was forthwith sent from Genoa, commanded by Pietro Fregoso,
and the island of Cyprus offered little resistance to the invaders. Nor can
they be accused of want of moderation, since only three lives were sacrificed
to the manes of their slaughtered countrymen; The king was restored to
liberty, and even permitted to retain his title ; but a yearly tribute of 40,000
florins was exacted by the conquerors.
A ,new offence soon kindled another war with Venice. So low had the
Greek Empire fallen that the Genoese had taken upon themselves to dethrone
the emperor Joannes Palseologus in favour of his son Andronicus, who prom-
ised them in return the island of Tenedos. But the deposed tyrant was
supported by their ancient rival, who took advantage of the imperial schism
to get possession of Tenedos ; and Genoa, strengthened by the alliance of
Louis, king of Hungary, Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua, and the patriarch
of Aquileia, declared war against the Venetians. The fleet of Genoa was
commanded by Luciano Doria, that of Venice by Vittore Pisani. Fortune
from the commencement favoured the Genoese ; and in the month of May,
1379, a great and sanguinary battle off Chioggia was attended by a brilliant
victory. The death of their admiral Doria, who fell in the first onset,
inspired them with vindictive fury ; and fifteen Venetian galleys and up-
wards of a thousand prisoners fell into the hands of the conquerors. Many
of these were inhumanly butchered by the Genoese in revenge for the fall of
Doria ; whilst the defeated Pisani, returning to the capital, was plunged into
a dungeon by the implacable government of Venice.
A reinforcement under Pietro Doria now enabled the Genoese to follow
up their victory, and the island and city of Chioggia were captured with
immense loss to the Venetians. The utmost consternation prevailed through-
out Venice, and the most humiliating terms of peace were proposed by the
disheartened senate. But the haughty Doria rejected all terms of accommo-
dation. " Never, by the faith of God ! " he exclaimed, " never, my lords of
Venice, shall ye have peace till we have bridled those brazen horses of St.
Mark's ; when they are bitted, ye may dare to talk of peace."
Nothing can more strongly mark the consternation of the Venetian
government than their yielding on this trying occasion to the outcries of the
populace. In obedience to their urgent call Pisani was delivered from his
dungeon and once more placed in command of the armament. Despair
prompted the most vigorous preparations for defence ; great rewards were
268 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1379-1381 A.D.]
promised to all whose exertions should be most conspicuous ; and nobility
was to be the reward of the thirty citizens who should pre-eminently distin-
guish themselves in preserving the state. The great aim of Pisani was now
to blockade the Genoese fleet, which had taken up its station within the port
of Chioggia. This daring enterprise was achieved with incredible labour
and severe loss on the part of the Venetians. By sinking vessels laden with
stones at the mouths of the several channels which led into the Lagune, he
rendered all egress impossible. 0
The circumstances of the two combatants were thus entirely changed.
But the Genoese fleet, though besieged in Chioggia, was impregnable, and
their command of the land secured them
from famine. Venice, notwithstanding
her unexpected success, was still very far
from secure ; it was difficult for the doge
to keep his position through the winter ;
and if the enemy could appear in open sea,
the risks of combat were extremely haz-
ardous. It is said that the senate delib-
erated upon transporting the seat of their
liberty to Candia, and that the doge had
announced his intention to raise the siege
of Chioggia, if expected succours did not
arrive by the 1st of January, 1380. On
that very day, Carlo Zeno, an admiral,
who, ignorant of the dangers of his coun-
try, had been supporting the honour of
her flag in the Levant and on the coast
of Liguria, appeared with a reinforcement of
eighteen galleys and a store of provisions.
From that moment the confidence of Ven-
ice revived. The fleet, now superior in
strength to the enemy, began to attack
them with vivacity. After several months
of obstinate resistance, the Genoese, whom
their republic had ineffectually attempted
to relieve by a fresh armament, blocked
up in the town of Chioggia, and pressed
by hunger, were obliged to surrender.
Nineteen galleys only out of forty-eight were in good condition, and the
crews were equally diminished in the ten months of their occupation of Chi-
oggia. The pride of Genoa was deemed to be justly humbled ; and even her
own historian Stella & confesses that God would not suffer so noble a city as
Venice to become the spoil of a conqueror.
Each of the two republics had sufficient reason to lament their mutual
prejudices and the selfish cupidity of their merchants, which usurps in all
maritime countries the name of patriotism. Though the capture of Chiog-
gia did not terminate the war, both parties were exhausted, and willing, next
year, to accept the mediation of the duke of Savoy. By the Peace of Turin,
Venice surrendered most of her territorial possessions to the king of Hun-
gary. That prince and Francesco da Carrara were the only gainers. Genoa
obtained the isle of Tenedos, one of the original subjects of dispute — a poor
indemnity for her losses. Though, upon a hasty view, the result of this war
appears more unfavourable to Venice, yet in fact it is the epoch of the decline
A VENETIAN GENERAL
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 269
[1172-1319 A.D.]
of Genoa. From this time she never commanded the ocean with such navies
as in days gone by ; her commerce gradually went into decay ; and the
fifteenth century, the most splendid in the annals of Venice, is, till recent
times, the most ignominious in those of Genoa. But this was partly owing
to internal dissensions, by which her liberty, as well as glory, was for a con-
siderable space of time suspended.
THE AFFAIRS OF VENICE1
While Genoa lost even her political independence, Venice became more
conspicuous and powerful than before.
The great Council of Venice, as established in 1172, was to consist of
480 citizens, equally taken from the six districts of the city, and annually
renewed. But the election was not made immediately by the people. Two
electors, called tribunes, from each of the six districts, appointed the mem-
bers of the council by separate nomination. These tribunes, at first, were
themselves chosen by the people ; so that the intervention of this electoral
body did not apparently trespass upon the democratical character of the
constitution. But the great council, which was principally composed of men
of high birth, and invested by the law with the appointment of the doge,
and of all the councils of magistracy, seem, early in the thirteenth century,
to have assumed the right of naming their own constituents. Besides
appointing the tribunes, they took upon themselves another privilege ; that
of confirming or rejecting their successors, before they resigned their func-
tions.
These usurpations rendered the annual election almost nugatory ; the
same members were usually renewed, and though the dignity of councillor
was not yet hereditary, it remained, upon the whole, in the same families.
In this transitional state the Venetian government continued during the
thirteenth century ; the people actually debarred of power, but a hereditary
aristocracy not completely or legally confirmed. The right of electing,
or rather of re-electing, the great council was transferred, in 1297, from
the tribunes, whose office was abolished, to the council of Forty ; they bal-
lotted upon the names of the members who already sat, and whoever
obtained twelve favouring balls out of forty retained his place. The
vacancies occasioned by rejection or death were filled up by a supplemental
list formed by three electors, nominated in the great council. But they were
expressly prohibited, by laws of 1298 and 1300, from inserting the name of
anyone whose paternal ancestors had not enjoyed the same honour. Thus
an exclusive hereditary aristocracy was finally established. And the per-
sonal rights of noble descent were rendered complete in 1319, by the aboli-
tion of all elective forms. By the constitution of Venice as it was then
settled, every descendant of a member of the great council, on attaining
twenty-five years of age, entered as of right into that body, which of course
became unlimited in its numbers.
1 DOGES OP VENICE, 1289-1501.— 1289, Pietro Gradenigo, the 49th doge ; 1311, Marino Giorgi ;
1312, Giovanni Soranzo ; 1328, Francesco Dandolo ; 1339, Bartolommeo Gradenigo ; 1343, An-
drea Dandolo; 1364, Marino Falieri ; 1365, Giovanni Gradenigo; 1356, Giovanni Delfino; 1361,
Lorenzo Celsi ; 1365, Marco Cornaro ; 1367, Andrea Contarini ; 1382, Michele Morosini j 1382,
Antonio Venier ; 1400, Michele Steno ; 1414, Tommaso Mocenigo ; 1423, Francesco Foscari ;
1457, Pasqual Malipier ; 1462, Cristoforo Moro ; 1471, Niccolo Tron ; 1473, Niccolo Marcello ;
1474, Pietro Mocenigo ; 1476, Andrea Vendramin ; 1478, Giovanni Mocenigo ; 1486, Marco Bar-
barigo j 1486, Agostino Barbarigo; 1501, Leonardo Loredano, the 76th doge.
270 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1297-1319 A.D.]
These gradual changes between 1297 and 1319 were first made known
by Sandi.i All former writers, both ancient and modern, fix the complete
and final establishment of the Venetian aristocracy in 1297.
But an assembly so numerous as the great council, even before it was
thus thrown open to all the nobility, could never have conducted the public
affairs with that secrecy and steadiness which were characteristic of Venice ;
, and without an intermediary power between the doge and the patrician multi-
tude the constitution would have gained noth-
ing in stability to compensate for the loss of
popular freedom. The great council had pro-
ceeded, very soon after its institution, to limit
the ducal prerogatives. That of exercising
criminal justice, a trust of vast importance,
was transferred in 1179, to a council of forty
members annually chosen. The executive gov-
ernment itself was thought too considerable for
the doge without some material limitations.
Instead of naming his own assistants or pregadi,
he was only to preside in a council of sixty
members, to whom the care of the state in all
domestic and foreign relations, and the previous
deliberation upon proposals submitted to the
great council was confided.
This council of pregadi, generally called
in later times the senate, was enlarged, in the
fourteenth century, by sixty additional mem-
bers ; and as a great part of the magistrates had
also seats in it, the whole number amounted
to between two and three hundred. Though
the legislative power, properly speaking, re-
mained with the great council, the senate used
to impose taxes, and had the exclusive right of
making peace and war. It was annually re-
newed, like almost all other councils at Venice,
by the great council. But since even this body
was too numerous for the preliminary discussion
of business, six councillors, forming, along with
the doge, the seigniory, or visible representa-
tive of the republic, were empowered to despatch orders, to correspond with
ambassadors, to treat with foreign states, to convoke and preside in the
councils, and perform other duties of an administration. In part of these
they were obliged to act with the concurrence of what was termed the col-
lege, comprising, besides themselves, certain select councillors, from different
constituted authorities.
It might be imagined, that a dignity so shorn of its lustre as that of doge,
would not excite an overweening ambition. But the Venetians were still
jealous of extinguished power ; and while their constitution was yet imma-
ture, the great council planned new methods of restricting their chief magis-
trate. An oath was taken by the doge on his election, so comprehensive
as to embrace every possible check upon undue influence. He was bound
not to correspond with foreign states, or to open their letters, except in the
presence of the seigniory ; to acquire no property beyond the Venetian
dominions, and to resign what he might already possess ; to interpose,
A VENETIAN SENATOR
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 271
[1296-1310 A.D.]
directly or indirectly, in no judicial process, and not to permit any citizen to
use tokens of subjection in saluting him.
As a further security, they devised a remarkably complicated mode of
supplying the vacancy of his office. Election by open suffrage is always
liable to tumult or corruption, nor does the method of secret ballot, while
it prevents the one, afford in practice any adequate security against the
other. Election by lot incurs the risk of placing incapable persons in situa-
tions of arduous trust. The Venetian scheme was intended to combine the
two modes without their evils, by leaving the absolute choice of their doge
to electors taken by lot.
It was presumed that, among a competent number of persons, though
taken promiscuously, good sense and right principles would gain such an
ascendency, as to prevent any flagrantly improper nomination, if undue
influence could be excluded. For this purpose, the ballot was rendered
exceedingly complicated, that no possible ingenuity or stratagem might
ascertain the electoral body before the last moment. A single lottery,
if fairly conducted, is certainly sufficient for this end. At Venice, as many
balls as there were members of the great council present were placed in an
urn. Thirty of these were gilt. The holders of gilt balls were reduced by a
second ballot to nine. The nine elected forty, whom lot reduced to twelve.
The twelve chose twenty -five by separate nomination. The twenty-five
were reduced by lot to nine ; and each of the nine chose five. These forty-
five were reduced to eleven, as before ; the eleven elected forty-one, who
were the ultimate voters for a doge.
A hereditary prince could never have remained quiet in such trammels
as were imposed upon the doge of Venice. But early prejudice accustoms
men to consider restraint, even upon themselves, as advantageous ; and the
limitations of ducal power appeared to every Venetian as fundamental as
the great laws of the English constitution do to ourselves. Many doges of
Venice, especially in the Middle Ages, were considerable men ; but they
were content with the functions assigned to them, which, if they could avoid
the tantalising comparison of sovereign princes, were enough for the ambition
of republicans. For life the chief magistrates of their country, her noble
citizens forever, they might thank her in their own name for what she gave,
and in that of their posterity for what she withheld.
For some years after what was called the closing of the great council by
the law of 1296, which excluded all but the families actually in possession,
a good deal of discontent showed itself among the commonalty. Several
commotions took place about the beginning of the fourteenth century, with
the object of restoring a more popular regimen. Upon the suppression of the
last, in 1310, the aristocracy sacrificed their own individual freedom along
with that of the people, to the preservation of an imaginary privilege. They
established the famous Council of Ten, that most remarkable part of the
Venetian constitution. This council, it should be observed, consisted in fact
of seventeen, comprising the seigniory, or the doge and his six councillors,
as well as the ten properly so called. The Council of Ten had by usage, if
not by right, a controlling and dictatorial power over the senate and other
magistrates ; rescinding their decisions, and treating separately with foreign
princes. Their vast influence strengthened the executive government, of
which they formed a part, and gave a vigour to its movements, which the
jealousy of the councils would possibly have impeded. But they are chiefly
known as an arbitrary and inquisitorial tribunal, the standing tyranny of
Venice. Excluding the old council of Forty, a regular court of criminal
272 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1289-1325 A.D.]
judicature, not only from the investigation of treasonable charges but of
several other crimes of magnitude, they inquired, they judged, they punished,
according to what they called reason of state.
The public eye never penetrated the mystery of their proceedings ; the
accused was sometimes not heard, never confronted with witnesses ; the con-
demnation was secret as the inquiry, the punishment undivulged like both.
The terrible and odious machinery of a police, the insidious spy, the stipen-
diary informer, unknown to the carelessness of feudal governments, found
their natural soil in the republic of Venice. Tumultuous assemblies were
scarcely possible in so peculiar a city, and private conspiracies never failed
to be detected by the vigilance of the Council of Ten. Compared with the
Tuscan republics, the tranquillity of Venice is truly striking. The names
of Guelf and Ghibelline hardly raised any emotion in her streets, though the
government was considered in the first part of the fourteenth century as
rather inclined towards the latter party. But the wildest excesses of faction
are less dishonouring than the stillness and moral degradation of servitude..?
On the death of Giovanni Dandolo in 1289, the long delay of the electors
to name a successor furnished an excuse to the populace to resume their
ancient privilege ; and they tumultuously hailed Jacopo Tiepolo as their
doge. But Tiepolo, wisely declining an honour thus irregularly conferred,
withdrew for a time from Venice, and the Forty-one at length fixed on Pie-
tro Gradenigo, a nobleman extremely obnoxious to the people. With him
originated a measure which forever shut out the commonalty ; and the
Forty, who were entrusted with the annual election of the council, were
enjoined to re-elect all such members of the old council as were not declared
unfit by twenty-nine voices. Not to render the people desperate, three
commissioners were appointed to make supplemental lists of such other citi-
zens as might be fit to fill vacancies caused by the rejection of the former, or
the death of existing members of the council ; which lists were in like man-
ner subject to the approval of the Forty. But as three commissioners were
appointed by the council itself, it was easy to foresee that this body would be
careful to name such persons only as favoured their own order ; and lest the
electors should err on the popular side, a decree was soon afterwards made, by
which they were forbidden to insert any person in their lists, who himself or
whose ancestor had not formerly belonged to the great council. In course of
time the commissioners were wholly suppressed ; the council was declared
permanent ; and all who could prove themselves descended from one of this
body were entitled to inscribe their names in the Golden Book, and to enter
this noble assembly at the age of twenty-five.
The Tiepolo Conspiracy, and the Council of Ten
These changes were not effected without some movement on the part of
the people ; and the suppression of a feeble conspiracy, and the punishment
of its leaders, did not deter others from plotting against the power of the
aristocracy. A numerous band of citizens, headed by Baiamonte Tiepolo
(son of Jacopo), was formed, and extensive preparations were made for the
subversion of the government. But detection having prematurely driven
the conspirators into open revolt, they were easily overwhelmed and de-
stroyed in the narrow streets of Venice ; and this new conspiracy furnished
an excuse for erecting that fearful tribunal — the Council of Ten. This for-
midable assembly, though originally only a temporary measure, was after-
wards, in 1325, declared permanent. It was invested with arbitrary and
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 273
[1325-1355 A.D.]
almost unlimited powers ; under pretence of watching over the safety of the
republic, the Ten gradually assumed the government of the state, made peace
and war, disposed of the finances, and even abrogated the proceedings of
the great council. Their spies and emissaries pervaded every quarter of the
city ; they seized, imprisoned, or put to secret death, without responsibility
to any higher authority ; whilst no rank was secure from their machinations.
Even the doge himself might tremble at their vigilance and severity ; and
the fate of Marino Falieri, thirty years after the permanent institution of
this council, forms a striking event in the annals of this extraordinary
oligarchy. 9
The Story of Marino Falieri
Falieri, who had passed his fifteenth lustre, had married a young lady of
great beauty and elegance, and the union was naturally, perhaps inevitably,
accompanied by suspicions on the part of the doting husband. They chiefly
fell on the president of the old or " criminal forty " (so called to distinguish
that tribunal from two others of less dignity, which took cognisance of minor
matters), whom he somewhat rudely expelled from his house at an entertain-
ment he had given to the nobility. The president felt the insult the more
deeply, as his attentions had not been devoted to the wife of the doge, but
to one of her women. In the impulse of the moment he wrote on the throne
of the doge a verse which, whether founded on truth or not, he knew must
sorely wound him, as reflecting on his honour and the fidelity of his consort.
It ran:
' * Marin Falieri dalla bella moglie,
Altri la gode ed egli mantiene"
(Marino Falieri of the beautiful wife; others enjoy her, he maintains her).
Falieri discovered the writer, and denounced him to the public advocates;
but, contrary to his expectation, those men, considering the offence a venial
one, carried the cause, not before the tremendous Council of Ten, but the
Criminal Forty — the very tribunal of which the accused was president.
The culprit met with favour ; he was condemned only to one month's
imprisonment.
From this moment the doge indulged uncontrolled animosity against
the tribunal, and even the whole order of nobles, whom he regarded as the
betrayers of his honour. It was followed by the hope of revenge. He
knew the dissatisfaction entertained by both the plebeians and the less
privileged nobles towards the government, and he artfully endeavoured to
foment it. His reply to a citizen who one day complained before him that
a wife or daughter had been dishonoured or insulted by a member of the
grand council, produced great impression : " You will never obtain justice.
Have not I myself been insulted, without the hope of adequate redress?"
In a short time he organised a conspiracy, the object of which was to open
the grand council to the nobility and the election of the members of all the
public functionaries, of the doge himself, to the citizens at large. The
evening before the day fixed for its execution, it was denounced by one
of the conspirators ; others were arrested and tortured ; numbers were
executed.6
But the demands of justice were not yet satisfied, and the law claimed
a larger sacrifice, a nobler victim. The process against Marino Falieri fol-
lowed. On the morning of Thursday, the 16th of April, 1355, the old man
was led from his apartments, attired in his robes of state, to the great council
H. W. VOL. IX. T
274 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1355 A.D.]
chamber, where he was confronted with his accusers and his judges. The
bench was composed of the six privy councillors, nine of the decemvirs, and
a giunta of twenty sages, which had been specially convoked to meet the
extreme gravity of the occasion. The l-atter had a deliberative voice merely,
and no vote.
The articles of arraignment were no sooner read than Falieri made a
candid and unreserved confession. He avowed all. He stigmatised himself
as the worst of criminals, and as one deserving of the highest penalty which
it was in the power of the laws to inflict. Without further preamble it was
then put to the vote, whether the accused should suffer death. Five of the
privy council and the nine decemvirs recorded their suffrages in the affirma-
VENICE FROM SAN GOBQIO
tive. It was a majority of fourteen to one. One voice alone, it seemed,
asked mercy for him who had in the eyes of the aristocracy aggravated
the crime of treason by fraternising with tradesmen and plebeians. After the
delivery of the verdict the condemned was led back to the palace. It had
been ordered that "Marino Falieri, being convicted of conspiring against
the constitution, should be taken to the head of the grand staircase of
St. Mark's, and there, being stripped of the ducal bonnet and the other
emblems of his dignity, should be decapitated." The sentence was one
which could not fail to strike an icy chill into every heart. But it was
received by the doge with a placid equanimity worthy of the hero of Lucca.
The execution took place on the following morning at the hour of tierce.
Giovanni Mocenigo, the senior privy councillor, followed by his five col-
leagues, the decemvirs, the advocates of the commune, and the other great
officers of state, advanced to meet his serenity, who had been conducted
under guard from his own apartments to the great council saloon. Forming
a circle round him, they escorted him to the fatal spot which had been
selected for the horrid catastrophe. A stupendous concourse of persons of
all conditions had congregated to witness the spectacle. A gloomy and
awful stillness reigned throughout the Piazza. The doge, amid a silence in
which a whisper or a sigh would have been audible, implored the forgiveness
of his countrymen, and extolled the equity of the doom which he was about
to undergo. He was then uncrowned and disrobed. A black cap was sub-
stituted for the biretta, and a cloak of the same colour was cast across his
shoulders. At an appointed signal he laid his head on the block, and at a
single stroke the executioner severed it from his body. Immediately after
the removal of the latter, the doors of St. Mark's were thrown open, and the
crowd entered in wild disorder, eager to catch a glimpse of the mutilated
corpse, which was there exposed to view preparatory to burial (Friday, April
17th, 1355).
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 275
[1355-1405 A.D.]
Thus miserably perished, at the ripe age of seventy-seven, one of the
greatest soldiers and statesmen whom Venice could boast ; that same Falieri
who during two and forty years of public services had earned as count of
Valdemarino a splendid and enviable reputation. Such was the ignominious
fall of a man whose versatile talents had enabled him to shine in every branch
of official life, and whose uncontrollable passions brought his white hairs
before the close of seven months from a throne to a scaffold. Falieri had
survived most of his early friends, if not his domestic happiness ; it was
ruled that he should survive his honour also.
The ducal remains were interred without any mark of pomp at San Gio-
vanni e Paolo, behind the monastery, and in the direction of the chapel of
Santa Maria della Pace ; and from a mixed motive of delicacy and pride the
Ten directed their secretary to omit all direct allusions in the books of their
transactions to his sentence and execution. The words, " Let it not be written "
formed the sole clew afforded by the Misti to a great crime and a great
tragedy. The effigy of Falieri found its place after the sepulture in the hall,
where the portraits of all his predecessors were hung. It was not till twelve
years posterior to the event which has been narrated that the Ten, by a decree
dated the 16th of March, 1367, caused it to be cancelled, and a black crape
arras to be substituted, surmounted by the words, "Hie est locus Marini
Faletri decapitati pro criminibus."
Three centuries had passed away, when some labourers digging near the
spot accidentally exhumed a sarcophagus. The discovery did not at the mo-
ment attract much curiosity, but the sarcophagus was eventually opened,
and it was then found to contain a skeleton with the skull placed between
the knees. This peculiarity was designated to indicate that the person, whose
spirit was once dwelling in the now uniformed clay, had died by the hand of
the executioner; and if any doubt still remained, the half-defaced inscrip-
tion on the urn served to show that the bones of the unhappy Falieri were
there.*
Venetian Wars and Conquests
We have already earlier in this chapter told of the wars between Genoa
and Venice, culminating in the humiliation of the former at Chioggia. The
first success of Venice whetted the appetite of her people for further con-
quests. And the queen of maritime cities did not confine her aspirations to
the scenes of her former victories.^
Her anxiety once more to display her banners upon terra firma induced
Venice to lend her aid to Gian Galeazzo Visconti against the Carraras, under
the promise of the restitution of Treviso, which she had lost during the war
of the Chioggia. The bad faith of the lord of Milan would fain have
defrauded the Venetians of their share of the spoil, had not dread of their
power compelled their ally to be reluctantly honest in his spoliation. By
their friendly demonstrations towards Caterina, the widowed duchess of
Milan, the Venetians next obtained the cession of Vicenza, Feltre, and Bel-
luno ; and Francesco Novello da Carrara, who already counted Vicenza as his
prey, was ever baffled in his hopes. His son-in-law, the marquis of Ferrara,
was compelled to declare against him ; and the citizens of Verona, worn out
by siege and famine, opened their gates to the troops of Venice. This
important acquisition was followed up by a succession of easy victories ; the
greatest part of the Paduan territory submitted without a struggle ; and the
capital itself, wasted by hunger and the plague, promised a speedy surrender.
A last desperate sortie was repulsed with terrible slaughter ; and treachery
276 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1405-1450 A.D.]
opened the gates and admitted the forces of Venice. Carrara and his son
Francesco Terzo had now no hope save in the clemency of the conquerors.
They proceeded to Venice, were received with apparent cordiality, and
immured in a dungeon. In this horrible vault they had the miserable satis-
faction of embracing a son and brother, Jacopo da Carrara. After lingering
nearly two months in this region of despair, the father was privately
strangled in prison ; and on the following day his two sons perished in a
similar manner. Two brothers of this illustrious family still survived ; of
these, Ubertino terminated his life by sickness soon after the ruin of his
house ; and Marsilio expiated a rash attempt to regain Padua by a public
execution in 1435. Thus by the destruction of the once potent families of
Scala and Carrara, the tyrant of the Adriatic was predominant in Lombardy,
and invested with a splendid territory, including Padua, Verona, and
Vicenza. Fifteen years afterwards Friuli was wrested from the patriarch
of Aquileia.fl'
An illustrious fugitive, Francesco Carmagnola, who arrived about this
time at Venice, accomplished what Florence had nearly failed in, by discov-
ering to the Venetians the project of the duke of Milan to subjugate them.
Francesco Carmagnola had, by the victories he had gained, the glory he had
acquired, and the influence he obtained over the soldiers, excited the jealousy,
instead of the gratitude, of Filippo Maria, who disgraced him, and deprived
him of his employment, without assigning any reason. Carmagnola returned
to court, but could not even obtain an interview with his master. He retired
to his native country, Piedmont ; his wife and children were arrested, and
his goods confiscated. He arrived at last, by Germany, at Venice ; soon
afterwards some emissaries of the duke of Milan were arrested for an attempt
to poison him. The doge, Francesco Foscari, wishing to give lustre to his
reign by conquest, persuaded the senate of Venice to oppose the increasing
ambition of the duke of Milan. I
Francesco Carmagnola was amongst the first soldiers, if not the first
captain of Italy, and well acquainted with all the troops, plans, secrets, and
resources of Visconti, for his talents had recovered the duchy and he had
long been that prince's chief favourite and counsellor. Seeing Guido Torelli
and others preferred before him, his enemies more heeded, and himself
deprived of the Genoese government, he retired from court, but having
secret notice, whether true or false, that Filippo intended to poison him, now
fled to Venice and proved his sincerity, of which that government doubted,
by this explanation. He also discovered many of Visconti's secrets and his
designs against Venice after the fall of Florence, most of which seem to have
been corroborated by confidential letters of Visconti unfairly made use of
by the Florentine government and sent to Ridolfi for that purpose.
A gentleman named Perino Turlo, who enjoyed the favour and confidence
of Philip, was taken in an attack on Faenza, and being carried prisoner to
Florence, there received his liberty accompanied by great attentions and flat-
tery, and was finally dismissed (after declaring his belief that Philip wished
the friendship of Florence) with an earnest entreaty to make peace between
them. This was a scheme to ascertain Visconti's real designs on Venice, in
order to facilitate the pending negotiations with that state ; but Perino soon
returned with various propositions of peace which Philip, he said, most earn-
estly desired, and as a proof of his sincerity produced a carte-blanche besides
several letters which the seigniory instantly despatched to Venice because
they contained matter of infinite danger to that republic. Lorenzo Ridolfi
lost no time in showing them, and the Venetians, seeing the liberal offers
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 277
[1426 A.D.]
therein made to Florence, the bold confidence of the Florentine ambassador
in urging the league, the important communications and promises of Car-
magnola, and the temptation of conquering Brescia which that captain had
promised, determined to accept the alliance, and a treaty was completed
early in 1426.
This league with Florence was to endure for ten years with conditions
extremely favourable to Venice whose real sources of strength still lay in
commerce, and whose geographical position gave her considerable advantages
in treating with Florence, to whom her co-operation both in force and situa-
tion was of the last importance in a Lombard war. The Venetian territory
in that province from its recent acquisition had not yet become an integral
portion of her national strength ; it was but a lucky addition to an already
consolidated power — a power still rising, absorptive, and hitherto unweak-
ened by expansion, which therefore might be again lost without much dismay,
because no national interests had as yet taken root or identified themselves
in any way with those provinces. But for Florence war with Milan was ever
a matter of vitality, and especially after so many disasters ; wherefore she
eagerly consented to any conditions, and peace, truce, and war were now
equally submitted to the fiat of that cunning and unbending aristocracy.
Venice also made some jealous terms about the Alexandrian trade, was more-
over to have every conquest that might be achieved in Lombardy, and Flor-
ence all those in Romagna and Tuscany not already belonging to the church.
Sixteen thousand cavalry and eight thousand infantry were to constitute
the minimum of the combined force, and strong armaments of galleys on the
Main and flotillas on the Po were to act vigorously against Genoa and every
other tangible point of Visconti's territory. Pope Martin refused to join,
but Siena followed Florence. Niccolo, marquis of Ferrara, accepted the
command of the Florentines, and united with the league for the promised
acquisition of Lugo and Parma if conquered. Amadeus, duke of Savoy, for
his own especial objects, the lord of Mantua, and other Lombard seigniors all
signed it, and Francesco, Count Carmagnola, was appointed generalissimo.
The Venetians alone brought into the field 8830 horse and 8000 foot, the
Florentines 6110 of the former and 6000 of the latter at an expense of 4 and
3 florins a month respectively for every soldier of each arm. To oppose them
Filippo had 8550 horse and 8000 foot, his whole revenue amounting to 54,000
florins monthly. Other authors, and among them Cagnola, make the allied
armies amount to much larger numbers and by the testimony of all there
were full 70,000 of both hosts at Casa al Secco ; but Cambi gives the name
and following of each particular leader; those of Sf orza, Piccinino, Pergola, and
Tolentino being by far the most numerous of the private condottieri and equal
to any of the sovereign princes.
War then commenced and Filippo withdrew his troops from Romagna ;
Carmagnola in performance of his promise marched directly on Brescia ; by
means of a secret understanding with the Avogadori family and other Gueifs
all inhabiting one particular quarter of the city and all hating Visconti, he
easily excited a revolt, and on the 17th of March, 1426, made such a lodg-
ment there as immediately enabled him to lay close siege to the rest of the
town. Brescia, one of the chief cities and most celebrated manufactory of
arms in Italy, was then divided into three distinct fortified districts, each
commanded by its citadel ; and besides them a strong elevated castle which
overlooked the whole.
At first Carmagnola was only master of the ground he stood on, but the
battle soon began with all the fury of an assault and all the bitterness of civil
278 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1426-1427 A.D.]
war until Francesco Sforza, who defended it, was forced to yield and the
allies completed their lodgment. As this news spread to Milan and Florence,
the whole force of war concentrated round Brescia ; Arezzo and Romagna
were soon cleared of troops, and reinforcements poured in from every quarter.
One continued scene of war and blood, of fire, rape, and robbery attracted the
attention of all Italy for eight successive months ; so that, to use the words
of Cavalcanti, " never was any tavern so deluged with water as this unfortu-
nate city was with blood." A ditch encompassed it so closely without that
no succours could enter to mitigate the general suffering ; within, nothing
was heard but shrieks, weeping, and lamentation mingled with the shouts of
struggling warriors and the clang of arms ; with a masterly hand, almost
incredible perseverance, and in face of the whole Milanese army led by
the greatest captains of the day, did Carmagnola in a few months subdue the
three citadels successively, and finally, aided by the Ghibellines themselves,
in November, 1426, that almost impregnable castle, the last stronghold of
Visconti, submitted to his arms. A well-directed artillery, which under the
name of bombarde was now becoming common in sieges, materially assisted
him, and the castle at the moment of its surrender is described as exhibiting
the appearance of a porcupine from the innumerable arrows that covered its
walls, all fixed in the seams of mortar ; a fact that does more honour to the
zeal than the training of Italian archers and cross-bowmen. Thus fell Bres-
cia, as much to the shame of the Milanese commanders as to the glory of
Carmagnola, for its capture was admired as one of the greatest military
exploits of that age and added a noble territory to the Venetian Republic.
Pope Martin, who in consequence of his alliance with Filippo had from that
prince's necessities recovered not only the papal cities in Romagna but others
that never had legally belonged to the church, at last bethought himself of
reconciling the belligerent states; and through his exertions and Filippo's
difficulties a general peace was signed at Venice on the 30th of December,
1426, by which Savoy retained possession of all her conquests on the Milanese
state ; Brescia and its territory remained to Venice ; all places captured from
Florence were restored and her merchants relieved by Filippo, as lord of
Genoa, from the obligation hitherto imposed on them of embarking their
»English and French goods in Genoese bottoms. Milan was once more bound
not to intermeddle with the affairs of Bologna, Romagna, Tuscany, or any state
between that city and Rome, while Florence subscribed to the same condi-
tions as regarded Bologna and that part of Romagna not subject to her sway.
To the great satisfaction of Florence this treaty was proclaimed early in
1427. She had up to the 9th of November with little or no advantage ex-
pended 2,500,000 florins, and her ordinary war expenses were estimated at
about 70,000 a month. Upon this Giovanni Morelli, a cotemporary historian,
exclaims : " Make war, promote war, nourish those who foment war ; Flor-
ence has never been free from war, and never will until the heads of four
leading citizens are annually chopped off upon the scaffold." So true was
it, as it would appear, if any credit may be given to cotemporary writers
though influenced by the prevalent spirit of faction, that private gain was
the great aliment of foreign and domestic war in Florence.
But the ink was scarcely dry on the treaty when Filippo, either repenting
of what he had done or pursuing his secret intentions, with the certainty of
forever losing Brescia if he executed the treaty, invited Carmagnola in per-
son to take possession of Chiari, a fortified town forming a strong outwork
to that city on the road to Milan. Niccolo Tolentino, suspecting treachery,
dissuaded his general from doing so notwithstanding orders from the Vene-
THE MAEITIME EEPUBLICS 279
[1427 A.D.]
tian seigniory, and his counsel was soon justified by information that the
detachment sent on this duty was surrounded and cut to pieces within the
walls. Yisconti followed up this by the equipment of a large flotilla on the Po,
the augmentation of his army with disbanded soldiers from the allies, and
a sudden renewal of hostilities. The astonished league almost immediately
took the field with what troops remained, the general having orders to make
fierce war while a strong armament was preparing to meet the enemy afloat
and attack all vulnerable points on the left bank of the Po.
The first encounter was at Gottolengo. Carmagnola had assembled his
military cars (which in those days were an indispensable portion of all
armies for the rapid movements of infantry), and filling them with cross-bow-
men attempted to surprise the enemy. The Milanese, however, were too
experienced for this and mustering their whole force attacked him unexpect-
edly while in some confusion on his march, and nearly defeated the whole
army ; Carmagnola, however, rallied his people, and after restoring order
began an obstinate contest.
The heat was excessive, the dust intolerable, the visors of helmets, the
eyes and nostrils of the combatants were all choked up so that respiration
became almost impossible. The Milanese were supplied with wine and water
by the female peasantry, but such was the dust and obscurity that friend and
foe seemed alike unknown and many of the allies received refreshment even
from the hands of their enemies. Numbers fell from their horses overpow-
ered by heat and dust ; the plain was strewed with lances, shields, and
wounded men; horses were galloping wildly about the field, some with
saddles, some without ; others had them turned under their bellies, and
many men threw off all their armour to escape suffocation. Piccinino was
conspicuous beyond the rest in knightly daring, and his lance's point was felt
throughout the throng ; for this battle excepting amongst the infantry seems
to have been a confused mass of single combats, more like the mSlSe of a
tournament than a scientific fight of disciplined soldiers ; but the footmen, in
firm well-ordered battalions, with lowered spears, charged and withstood the
charges of the men-at-arms, killing both them and their horses. When
the struggle had lasted some hours and the allies were ready to give way, the
marquis of Mantua, hitherto deceived by false reports from a cowardly fugi-
tive, came suddenly up with his followers and dashing forward saved all the
cavalry and restored the day. The retreat was simultaneously sounded on
both sides ; each host had been three times broken, all but the infantry, who
seem by their discipline to have preserved the rest.
The ducal forces throughout these two campaigns were smaller in num-
bers than the allies, but better soldiers and with a greater number of more
able commanders ; yet they were unsuccessful for want of a common chief,
while Carmagnola was implicitly obeyed, and all his advantages were gained
by bringing superior numbers against the weakest points of the enemy. To
remedy this, Visconti appointed young Carlo Malatesta of Pesaro as his
captain-general ; a youth of no experience, but whose high rank and family
reputation were likely to restrain the continual bickering of the chiefs.
Victories of Carmagnola
Meanwhile Carmagnola, angry at the somewhat disgraceful affair of Got-
tolengo, conceived the idea of surprising Cremona — a thoroughly Guelfic
city and disaffected to every Ghibelline authority ; with this view he took up
a strong position at Sommo close to the town, entrenched and fortified his
280 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
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camp with a thousand war-cars as was his custom, and trusted to those within
the city for ultimate success. Filippo, for the above reasons, became alarmed ;
wherefore, assembling a large force and instantly embarking on the Po, he at
once occupied and saved Cremona. A council of war was of opinion that the
enemy should be attacked because Cremona secured their own safety in case
of defeat, and a victory would almost insure the fall of Mantua. To protect
that place the army was encamped in an open space about half a mile wide,
contained between the city walls and the surrounding ditch, called Le Oerchie
di Cremona, the defence of which involved that of the city itself ; but as the
circuit was large, a continual stream of armed peasantry came pouring in at
their prince's call, ranged under various flags and banners and augmenting
the aggregate of both armies to full seventy thousand combatants. The allies
were superior in the number of regular troops, the Milanese in experience
and discipline, and held themselves fully equal to their antagonists independ-
ent of the peasantry ; these, however, in the unsettled state of that time and
country well knew how to handle their weapons though despised by the con-
dottieri, who represented them to Filippo as useful to fill up ditches and as
convenient marks for exhausting the adverse missiles and sparing the regular
troops; however, their vast numbers would, it was said, excite fear, "the
true harbinger of defeat."
Battle being resolved on, a corps of light-armed troops was sent forward
to begin, but these were quickly driven in on the main body by Taliano Fur-
lano, one of the adverse chiefs who, seeing the Milanese cavalry already
formed and the whole country as far as the eye could reach covered with
banners, instantly turned to give the alarm. Carmagnola was soon in his
saddle and personally directing the defence of a narrow pass protected by a
broad and deep ditch, which the enemy would be compelled to win ere his
main body could be attacked. This was quickly lined with veteran soldiers
and the road within it flanked by a body of eight thousand infantry armed
with the spear and cross-bow, and posted in an almost impenetrable thicket
closely bordering on the public way. This pass was called La Casa-al-Secco,
and Agnolo della Pergola first appeared before it with his followers, sup-
ported by a crowd of peasantry ; the ditch was deep, broad, and well de-
fended, and an increasing shower of arrows galled his people so sorely that
he at once resolved to use the rural bands as a means of filling it. Driving
the peasant multitude forward, he ordered the regular troops to put every
luckless clown to death who turned his face from the enemy ; so that these
wretches with the spear at their back and the cross-bow in front fell like grass
under the scythe of the husbandman. But they were more useful in death ;
by Agnolo's command both killed and wounded, all who fell, were rolled pro-
miscuously into this universal grave, covered up with mould and buried
all together.
Here were to be seen distracted fathers with unsteady hand shovelling
clods upon the bodies of dead and wounded sons; sons heaping earth on
their fathers' heads; brothers covering the bloody remains of brothers;
uncles, nephews; nephews, uncles — all clotted in this horrid compost!
If the wretches turned, a friend's lance or dart went instantly through their
bodies ; if they stood, an enemy's shaft or javelin no less sharply pierced them ;
alive, they filled the pit with sons and brothers, dead or wounded, with them-
selves ! They worked and died by thousands; even the very soldiers that
opposed them at last took pity and aimed their weapons only at armed men.
"And as a reward for this," exclaims Cavalcanti, "God lent us strength and
courage." Nevertheless, so many were thus cruelly sacrificed that the moat
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was soon filled to the utmost level of its banks with earth and flesh and human
blood, and then the knights giving spurs to their steeds dashed proudly over
this infernal causeway ! It was now that the fight commenced: fresh squad-
rons poured in on every side and all rushed madly to the combat, for on this
bloody spot the day was to be decided. "Here," says Cavalcanti, "began
the fierce and mortal struggle ; here every knight led up his followers and
did noble deeds of arms ; here were the shivered lances flying to pieces in
the air, cavaliers lifeless on the ground and all the field bestrewed with dead
and dying ! Here too was seen young Carlo Malatesta, himself and courser
cased complete in mail, and a golden mantle streaming from his shoulders !
Whoever has not seen him has not seen the pride of armies ! Here was store
of blood, and lack of joy and fear and doubt hung hard on every mind !
Nothing was heard but the clang of arms, the shock of lances, the tempest
of cavalry, and the groans and cries and shouts of either host ! The sun
was flaming, the suffering dreadful, the thirst intolerable ; everything
seemed to burn, all conspired against the wish of men, but the Cremonese
women brought refreshments to our enemies."
The whole battle appears to have been concentrated in this pass, so that
numbers made but little difference on either side ; nevertheless the Milanese
chivalry were severely handled by the veterans in the wood, who kept up a
continual discharge of arrows on horse and man from the moment the ditch
was passed, or else ran in with their lances and speared them. As many died
from exhaustion and suffocation as from blows, for the battle was fought early
in July and lasted from two hours after sunrise until evening ; others it is
said expired from the stench of carnage rapidly corrupted by excessive heat.
Carmagnola, forced by circumstances into the thickest fight, was unhorsed,
and a hard conflict between those who tried to save and those who wished to
take him prisoner soon concentrated all the knightly prowess of both armies
round his person; he was remounted, and dust and confusion saved him
more than once, as they did Niccolo Piccinino, besides other leaders on both
sides, from being recognised and captured. The squadrons charged and
recharged in dust and darkness ; no standards could be seen ; the voice alone
revealed a friend ; and when a retreat was sounded whole troops of cavalry
ranged themselves under adverse banners in total ignorance of their own
position. One attack was made by a strong detachment upon the baggage
and for a while placed the allies in great danger ; but being finally repulsed
with the loss of five hundred prisoners a retreat was sounded ; the captives
were equal, yet the victory of Casa-al-Secco was fairly claimed by Carmagnola.
Filippo previous to this battle had endeavoured to balance his ill success
by a naval victory ; the Venetian armament on the Po had been extremely
active, and to check it he placed a strong squadron under the orders of Pacino
Eustachio of Pavia with instructions to lose no time in bringing the enemy
to action. The latter, commanded by Francesco Bembo, did not shun the
encounter, which took place near Brescello; but losing three galleons in
the commencement, Bembo, doubtful of consequences, with that rapid and bold
decision that marks a superior mind, suddenly discontinued the contest and
withdrawing all the cross-bowmen from his remaining galleons manned them
with the crews of others armed only with spears, swords, spontoons, battle-
axes, and short arms of every description. These he placed in the van,
while the galleons thus emptied were manned with cross-bowmen alone and
stationed close in the rear of his first line, with rigid orders under the penalty
of death to kill either himself or any other man that should turn from the
enemy. He then renewed the attack.
282 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1427 A.D.]
With the Milanese in front, in their rear the levelled cross-bows ready to
shoot into the first vessel that gave way, and themselves armed only with
short weapons, the Venetian sailors were compelled either to fight hand to
hand with their enemies or be transfixed without resistance by their own or
adverse missiles. The Lombards were thus rendered the less formidable of
the two, and the closer the fight the more safety, because free from the arrows
of either squadron ; thus excited the galleons were resolutely run alongside
those of the enemy and lashed there, and the battle became more fierce and
obstinate ; the Venetian mariners, chiefly Greeks and Slavonians, are described
as displaying all the courage, sagacity, and savage fury of those nations.
The scene was appalling ; no room for tactics, no hope in flight ; man
encountered man with the eye and hand of death ; the struggle was personal,
unrelenting, resolute; a struggle for existence, not for victory; the Vene-
tians, pressed by a double danger, had no other hope ;
the Greeks of Crete and Negropont with the Slavo-
nian crews performed such deeds as have been rarely
equalled and never yet surpassed. Springing with
the force of tigers on their prey it many times hap-
pened that when the Italian spear had pierced a Sla-
vonian body the wounded man would seize and draw
himself forward on the slippery staff until he grappled
his enemy, and then both rolled struggling into the
stream below. Again, two running each other
through at the same moment and sternly following
up their thrust would close and wrestle as long as
life endured, or fall while yet writhing into the
bloody Po ; for that great stream, full and broad and
ample as it was, became strongly crimsoned. Pacino
at last gave way, and with a few as yet ungrappled
galleys made good his flight, but left fourteen cap-
tured vessels in the hands of Venice.
After the battle of Casa-al-Secco Carmagnola,
who as Cavalcanti asserts was now at the head of
fifty thousand fighting men, laid siege to Casalmag-
giore on the Po and recaptured Bina which Sforza
had surprised ; he then reduced the former and both
armies cautiously manoeuvred, narrowly watching
each other's motions until the beginning of October,
when the allies were besieging Pompeiano, a town
situated about six miles from Brescia on the high-
road to Crema. While Malatesta was absent with
Filippo, the Milanese captains had so placed their
army as to impede the enemy's progress without
risking a general engagement, but when Carlo re-
turned he posted himself between Macalo (now
Maclodio) and the allies, with an intention to succour the besieged. The
two camps only four miles asunder were separated by what then was an
extensive swamp, now a fertile plain; what was then fetid black and stagnant
pools full of reeds and thorns, and swarming with snakes and every loath-
some reptile, now abounding in corn and vines and mulberries. The high-
road, from Orci Novi on the Oglio to Pompeiano and Brescia ran like a
causeway through this waste and passed by a wooden bridge over a channel
of deep water that connected the opposite marshes. Adjoining the swamp
AN ITALIAN KNIGHT, FIF-
TEENTH CENTURY
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and bridge one side of the road was flanked by an extensive wood, so
thick and. wild and full of savage beasts that both men and domestic cattle
shunned it. Just at the bridge-head the road entered a sort of enclosed space
or basin of solid earth in the midst of the marshes, a sort of trap from which
no army once entered and cut off from the bridge could hope to escape
except by the destruction of a superior enemy.
Niccolo Tolentino, a leader of great influence, having examined this
ground, advised Carmagnola to occupy the position while he and his friend
Bernardino with a strong division of the army concealed themselves in the
wood on the other side of the bridge and awaited Carlo's advance, who it
was supposed would run headlong into the trap. This suggestion was fol-
lowed ; the ambuscade was posted in the wood that night, and the other
troops were under arms at daylight. Carlo Malatesta on the other hand,
whether for the reasons mentioned by Corio or a wilful determination to
fight, was on his march by dawn of day ; he soon crossed the bridge and
entered the trap with loud shouts of " Viva il Duca ! Viva il Duca ! " Car-
magnola had marshalled his army in the shape of a crescent and slowly
retired before him, but still deepening his centre as if fearful of the encoun-
ter. When he heard that all had entered, he exclaimed, " They are caught,"
and from a rising ground shortly addressed his people before the battle.
The instant that the enemy's rear was well over the bridge and engaged
with their antagonists, Bernardino darted like lightning from the wood and
seized it at the head of a thousand horse ; he was rapidly followed by Tolen-
tino with a much larger force, but leaving the latter to defend the bridge
he snatched up a heavy and well pointed lance, and with two hundred men-
at-arms dashed deep into the Milanese rear with loud cries and great confu-
sion. The two horns of the crescent then rapidly closed in ; Carmagnola
charged in front ; the cross-bows played unceasingly from every thicket ;
" San Marco" " Duca" and " Marzocco " resounded through the field. " The
shouts of men, the neighing of horses, the shock of lances, the tempest of
swords was so great," says Cavalcanti, " that the loudest thunder might have
rolled above unheeded. The wild beasts fled in terror through the woods
and in these infernal swamps many swarms of serpents were seen rustling
through the reeds at the unwonted uproar ! O reader, think how cruel
must have been this conflict when so many animals, enemies to our nature,
fled in so wild affright ! All was terror and distraction ; Niccolo held
steadily to the bridge ; many were driven into the marshes or dragged by
their stirrups through them ; the flights of arrows were sometimes so dense
as to obscure the sun, and this deadly archery did infinite mischief ; the air
itself seemed changed and terrified, and this great multitude was full of
groaning, blood, and death ! " Every hope of victory at length vanished and
the Milanese broke, surrendered, and fled in all directions. Carlo Malatesta
and eight thousand prisoners laid down their arms, but, strange to say,
almost all were then or subsequently permitted to escape by Carmagnola ;
and this first sowed the seeds of Venetian jealousy.
Guido Torelli, Piccinino, and Francesco Sforza escaped, and by the next
morning all but four hundred prisoners had obtained their liberty ; this
produced strong remonstrances from the Venetian commissaries, upon which
Carmagnola sent for the remaining captives and said to them, " Since my
soldiers have given your comrades their liberty I will not be behind them in
generosity; depart, you also are free." This battle was the climax of Car-
magnola's glory : whether he was unwilling to reduce his old patron too low,
or was secretly influenced by the desire of peace and the recovery of his wife
284 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1427-1428 A.D.]
and children who were in Visconti's hands, or by less honourable motives,
seems uncertain ; but his subsequent efforts were insignificant. There is
no doubt, says Poggio, that he could that day have destroyed Filippo, if he
had retained the prisoners who were the flower of that prince's army ; but
according to the custom of modern soldiers they remained as lookers-on,
intent only on dividing the booty, and let the men-at-arms go free.
None of this was lost on the Venetians ; but not a reproach was heard,
not a sentence uttered, no sign of displeasure reached his ear ; he could still
be useful, was adding bit by bit to their conquests, and as yet in too formi-
dable a position to be struck ; on the contrary, as was their usual custom
when meditating the sacrifice of a victim, more deference was shown him,
more respect paid him ; but he was not forgotten.
Death of Frescobaldi ; the War Ended and Renewed
The liberated army of Milan was soon remounted, equipped, and in the
field ; for most of these battles involved the waste of more money than
blood, as dead men paid no ransoms ; and Visconti had ample resources. He
nevertheless became alarmed at his actual position, and sought new strength
by rousing the emperor Sigismund against Venice, by marrying his daughter
Maria to the duke of Savoy, and by stirring up the poor remnants of the
Carrara and La Scala families to agitate Padua and Verona. He met these
difficulties with an able head and a bold countenance, but was in fact a
strange character and differing according to cotemporary writers from all
other men. No stability, no confidence, no belief, no firmness of purpose ;
mutable as the wind, no regard to promises, unsteady in his friendships, and
prone to sudden antipathies against those who were apparently his dearest
friends; cunning, sagacious, vain of his own judgment, despising that of
others ; whimsically pacific and warlike by turns ; fond of a solitary life, he
was rarely visible but governed through his ministers and temporary favour-
ites, and thence no doubt proceeded many of his worst misfortunes.
A slight check before Genoa, more important from the heroic death of
Tommaso Frescobaldi than from any other injury, in some degree damped
the joy of Florence for this recent victory. Frescobaldi had distinguished
himself as Florentine commissary in the Aretine district by an able and
vigorous conduct under very trying difficulties and a total neglect of him
by the government ; nevertheless he perseveringly withstood the Milanese
forces until the siege of Brescia relieved him. Indignant at this treatment
he personally and boldly reproached the Ten of War with their conduct, and
in no measured terms. Niccolo d' Uzzano tried to soothe him and was
respectfully heard ; but Vieri Guadagni so impatiently rated him as to be
told by Tommaso that nothing but his high official dignity was a protection
from personal chastisement. Niccolo, who fully appreciated the worth of
Frescobaldi, reproved Vieri for his intemperance, and that citizen was soon
after sent as commissary to conduct the war against Genoa, where, for a
while, his vigour and ability were no less conspicuous than before. At last
Fregoso and the Florentines were defeated in an attempt to enter Genoa ;
and Tommaso, who fought to the last, after all were routed was wounded and
made prisoner. The governor, a stern and cruel man, promised him
life, liberty, and reward if he would divulge his government's secrets
and say who within the city of Genoa were in league with Campo Fregoso,
but the alternative of death and torture if he refused. To this Frescobaldi
firmly answered : " Obizzino, if for my silence on the subject of state
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secrets thou wilt put me to death, abandon all hope of knowing those things
that duty to my country and constancy of purpose, even did I know them,
would prevent my revealing ; and, as I have no hope of mercy from thee,
so thou needst not expect any disclosures from me, for even if I were
informed I would not tell thee." He was instantly put to the torture, his
wounds broke out afresh in the agony, but he died without uttering a
syllable. A noble example for his living descendants !
Florence now wished earnestly for peace because she could no longer
expect to gain anything by war, and a continually augmenting expense was
exhausting her resources ; the more equal action of the Catasto promoted this
wish because the rich and great now bore the principal burden. They again
argued, and rightly too, that if war continued, Filippo must lose his state,
which Venice, not Florence, would gain by the very conditions of the league,
and thence with augmented power become more formidable than Visconti
himself, for there would then be none but Florence to oppose her. Naples,
ruled by a weak, licentious woman, was distracted ; the pontiff would not
move ; the emperor would be shut out by Venice, who held the keys of Italy,
and France was far too distant ; better, it was once more repeated, to have an
unenduring enemy than an everlasting and powerful neighbour. Venice had
now acquired a taste for Italian conquest, and the petty acquisitions of Car-
magnola were still adding to her territory ; but her suspicions were awake
and she finally consented to treat, while Visconti was really anxious for
peace in consequence of his recent overthrow. The sincerity of all parties
soon produced its effects and the cardinal of Santa Croce at last restored
tranquillity by accomplishing the signature of a treaty at Ferrara about the
middle of April, 1428, after nearly five years of constant hostilities. The
cost of this long and ruinous war, according to Cavalcanti, amounted to
3,500,000 florins— according to Macchiavelli, 3,050,000.
The Florentines gained nothing by it but a heavy debt and the institution
of the Catasto; the Venetians, in addition to Brescia, gained part of the
Cremonese state with Bergamo and its territory as far as the Adda, which
now became their western boundary. Thus, says Cavalcanti, by the opera-
tion of wicked citizens our people were loaded with poverty, the Venetians
with riches and territory ; and pride and covetousness was the cause of all.
But the peace was not for long. The Florentines attacked Lucca ; Pic-
cinino came to its aid, and the general war recommenced. No less than
fourteen towns revolted in favour of Piccinino during one night, all sending
their keys, and generally imprisoning the Florentine authorities ; yet amidst
the sharp oppression and barbarity of the time, it is refreshing to find that
some of the latter were spared in consequence of their just government, and,
with their families, carried safe across the frontier by the revolted people;
but such exceptions only prove the general rigour of Florentine sway.
In this state of things Micheletto Attend olo of Cotignolo, a nephew of
Sforza, was made captain of the Florentine army, to which some spirit was
soon after restored by an advantage gained at Colle against Count Alberigo
da Barbiano,.Piccinino's successor by Bernardino degli Ubaldini and also by
the gallant behaviour of Ramondo Mannelli and Papi Tedaldi, which cast still
greater credit on the Florentine arms. Stung with a late defeat on the Po,
where they were completely routed by a Genoese admiral, the Venetians sent
a squadron to the Tuscan coast and Riviera of Genoa to revenge this injury ;
they however seem to have been shy of coming to a general engagement until
the Florentines, tired of such harassing inactivity, fitted out two galleys
under the above officers and either forced or shamed them into an attack on
286 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1430-1431 A.D.]
the Genoese squadron. Principally by their own daring courage the latter
were completely beaten near Portofino, and their admiral Francesco Spinola
and eight galleys captured. But long ere this Niccolo Piccinino had ridden
triumphant over most of the Florentine territory, capturing or destroying
town after town from Pontremoli to the gates of Arezzo, which would also
have fallen had he not unaccountably stopped to besiege the little fortress of
Gargonza on his march. This unchecked career of victory riveted his favour
with Filippo Visconti, while it raised the jealousy
of Niccolo Tolentino, who was fed by that prince on
promises alone ; wherefore the latter quitted Milan
in disgust and engaged with the Florentines, who
lent him to the pontiff with two thousand followers,
and the consequence of this defection was Piccinino's
recall to defend Lombardy now threatened by the
league. Pope Martin Vs decease in February,
1431, brought joy to Florence which during all his
reign he had never ceased to hate, and the election
of Gabriel Condelmieri, cardinal of Siena and a
Venetian, who assumed the pontificate as Eugenius
IV, was scarcely less satisfactory. His first measure
was an attempt to restore tranquillity; but this was
done with so decided a leaning towards Florence as
to disgust the Sienese, Visconti, and all her numer-
ous enemies.
War therefore became certain, and the league
between Florence and Venice was more closely
riveted ; but Siena, in concert with Genoa, both of
whom had long been favouring Lucca and were
encouraged by Piccinino, soon broke into open war;
she commenced hostilities under Visconti's general
Alberigo, and by means of Genoa seduced the
seignior of Piombino, a recent ward of the Floren-
tines, to take up arms against them.
The incursions of these neighbours in Val
d' Ambra increased Florentine difficulties, and an
attempt was made to engage Francesco Sforza ; but
true to his own interest he was bought off by the
promise of Visconti's infant daughter Bianca in
marriage.
To cope with him and Piccinino, Carmagnola, notwithstanding his
strange conduct in the late war, was again placed at the head of the Vene-
tian armies, and he advanced into the Cremonese state, but was defeated
with great loss in a most terrible and bloody battle by Sforza on the 6th of
June, 1431, at Soncino on the banks of the river Po.
A MAGISTRATE OF FLORENCE
The Great Naval Battle on the Po
A flotilla consisting of one hundred vessels of all descriptions was
equipped on the Po, and, under Niccolo Trevigiano, moved straight on
Cremona; Visconti had also prepared his squadron under the command
of the Genoese admiral Grimaldi, or, as some say, Pacino Eustachio of
Pavia, who had formerly suffered a defeat — probably both were employed ;
but Venice was too quick, and excelled the Milanese fleet in numbers, size,
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and equipment, so that for some time they had command of the river. The
hostile armaments ultimately met at Bina, near Cremona, and fought until
night parted them, with the loss of seven Milanese galleys. Sforza and Picci-
nino, who had manned the squadron from their troops and feared an attack
from Carmagnola during the next day's fight, deceived the Venetian general
by means of some pretended deserters who reported that they were preparing
to attack him in the heat of the naval battle. Whether Carmagnola were
really deceived, or, as the Venetians thought, had come unwillingly to war,
is still unsettled ; but he acted as if he were, and not only remained under
arms all day but refused any succour to the admiral. Sforza and Piccinino
on the contrary reinforced the fleet with almost all their troops, and next
day, towards the end of June, the most obstinate naval battle then on record
was the consequence.
The Venetian galleys took a position with their bows to the stream, and
all chained together the better to resist it; the Milanese, less in number
but crowded with men, bore gallantly down on their antagonists ; both fleets
were glittering with steel and rough with pikes and lances. The adverse
admirals had a national hatred then far from extinct ; the two Milanese gen-
erals served personally on board, inspiriting their troops as if on the field of
battle ; the defect of a weaker line of vessels was compensated by a stronger
personal force on the side of Milan, while on that of Venice the last day's
success animated every breast to new and more daring courage.
Thus prepared, the fight began, and the struggle was long and fierce ;
but Grimaldi observed that the Po had risen during the night, and at that
season was unlikely to remain so ; he therefore watched its fall, and cheer-
ing his men to a little longer struggle seconded by the efforts of both generals,
looked anxiously for the grounding of the large Venetian galleys, while his
own lighter craft would still be afloat and able to attack them. All turned
out fortunate ; the stream began to fall, the water shoaled rapidly ; the
Venetians felt their galleys take the ground, and turning all their attention
to this accident exposed themselves to the whole fury of Grimaldi who re-
newed the assault with double vigour. Sforza and Piccinino fought like
private men ; the latter was severely wounded in the neck and lamed for
life, but all dashed boldly on to victory while the Venetians struggled
for existence : their admiral's galley at last struck, he himself escaping ; but
this was a signal of defeat, and Grimaldi remained the conqueror. About
twenty-nine galleons and eight thousand prisoners were captured ; the num-
ber of dead must have been immense, but is not recorded, and Venice was
furious; yet the government looked in profound silence on Carmagnola
with all the mystery of its nature ; no reproach, not an outward sign was
suffered to awaken his apprehensions ; but a squadron immediately sailed
to vindicate national honour on the Tuscan and Genoese coasts, the result of
which has been already narrated.
On some erroneous suspicion of the Sienese, Count Alberigo was arrested
and sent prisoner to Milan where the duke absolved him ; but Bernardino,
who had quitted the Florentines, succeeded and waged destructive war against
them, while Micheletto remained so idle and indifferent, particularly in pur-
posely neglecting a fair occasion of surprising Lucca, that Niccolo Tolentino
was ordered to supersede him. This general had some immediate success, but
receiving undue praise was imprudently tempted to attack Bernardino at a
place called the Capanne in Val d' Elsa, where, at the .moment of defeat,
Micheletto came generously up to his rescue and routed the enemy with
great slaughter.
288 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1431 A.D.]
The Revolt of Pisa; The Cruel Ruse of Baldaccio
This raised the public spirits ; but meanwhile the whole rural population
of Pisa revolted, and elected ten persons of a superior class with authority
to govern and tax them for all the purposes of war, resolving to strike for
Visconti while his forces were engaged in regular hostilities ; besides which
a strong body of rustic youth were completely armed and fought under
their countryman Count Antonio da Pontedera, the most active of Visconti's
partisans. Thus in addition to foreign war an extensively organised rebel-
lion pervaded the whole Pisan state, and these untrained clowns battled with
such valour and bitterness as shows the excessive and universal detestation
of Florentine rule, for no justly governed though conquered people would
have fought so rancorously. " Like mad dogs, their bite is mortal," said the
men-at-arms: "we have not to grapple with village clowns, but with demons
of hell." Wherefore none of them were bold enough to meet this furious
peasantry on equal terms ; " unless," says Cavalcanti, " it were those who
loved rather the requiem of death than the pleasures of this world."
Giovanni Fiesco, lord of Pontremoli, feeling the awkward position of his
states, which were alternately the prey of both parties, now sold that town to
Visconti; the war then became universal, malignant, destructive, and attended
with far more than common horrors ; there was no present mercy, and a dis-
mal prospect for the future: famine stalked with withering footsteps over
all the land ; fear and suspicion lurked in every eye ; and town and country,
hamlet and village, castle and cottage, were promiscuously overwhelmed in
one vast flood of unutterable woe.
The condition of Pisa was lamentable : Giuliano di Guccio was the Flor-
entine captain or governor ; Giuliano de' Ricci the archbishop ; both of them
men of stern, determined, and implacable natures, and the city was pining
from want. In this state, and probably fearful of a siege, Guccio issued a
hard command, "which for him was extreme cruelty and for others tears."
All the women, and their young and innocent children, without distinction,
were sternly driven from the town and their own homes. " This unjust
command was obeyed by the wretched victims, whose bitter cries drew tears
of pity even from the depths of the earth. Alas, what a sight to behold
these poor defenceless women and their nurslings thus cast forth : some with
an infant on each arm and on the back behind, other little creatures clinging
to their mothers' skirts, naked and barefoot ; and thus they hastened along
tripping and weeping with the pain of their tender feet, and crying out with
streaming eyes and uplifted faces, 4 Where are we going to, mother ? ' and
making all beholders weep to hear their sobbing voices and infantile ques-
tions, while the wretched women answered, ' We are going where our own
evil fortune and the cruelty of perverse men are sending us. O earth !
Why art thou so hard-hearted as to sustain a life which compared to death
is sharpness ? O profound abyss, send forth thy messengers and let them
drag us to thy dark recesses, for thy bowels are sweeter than honey when
placed beside the bitterness of man I From some of us they have torn our
husbands, from some brothers, from others fathers ; and now they cast us out
desolate among strange contending people, and we know not where to go ! O
God, provide for thy creatures and punish us according to our sins, propor-
tion the punishment to the crime, and vouchsafe that support which will give
us patience to bear this unmitigated woe.' " Uttering such lamentations they
wandered towards Genoa but finally spread in all directions, and settled
particularly about Porto Venere and Pontremoli.
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 289
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The archbishop also had his share of this and other cruelties of a similar
nature ; the times made people hard, but it becomes a priest's duty to try
and soften them rather than ride by night, as this prelate is described in the
memoirs of his own family, on a powerful war-horse, armed cap-a-pie, patrol-
ling the streets to watch over the public tranquillity ; and if any wretch came
under his suspicion in these nocturnal rounds a waxen taper was instantly
lighted and death and confiscation of property, or else exile, submitted to his
choice before it had finished burning.
But the soldiers outdid even the priests. Baldaccio d'Anghiari was one
of those favourite generals of the Florentines that rendered war more terrible
by his natural or acquired ferocity. " He called homicide boldness and reso-
lution ; the want of audacity he described as fearfulness at alarming and
doubtful things ; fidelity was in his mind to be always subservient to the
cause he advocated, and sheer brutality was designated as virtuous audacity.
By such maxims he was led, and led others after him with wonderful fortune
to the most perilous achievements, and he often put to death the enemies of
Florence with his own hand, leaving others to linger away a life which he
had made worse than death itself." This man, thus described by a contem-
porary, took Collegioli, and in a sally that he made from that place captured,
amongst a crowd of prisoners, one named Guasparri da Lucignano, who in
person exactly resembled himself ; it gave rise to a strange notion which he
hastened to realise thus.
Next morning Guasparri was attired in Baldaccio's garments while his
men were ordered to give the Milanese war cry " Duca ! Duca ! " as if in open
mutiny, and follow it up by murdering the prisoner, whose bloody and dis-
figured corpse was thrown from a tower into the ditch below. The remaining
prisoners were then set free and the body shown to them as Baldaccio's, against
whom the troops affected to have mutinied ; they were ordered to disperse
without delay and spread the news of this wicked man's death through the
country, telling how the mutineers held the castle in the duke's name and
waited for assistance. The story soon got abroad and the Pisans in multi-
tudes, armed and unarmed, crowded to see the joyful spectacle, when suddenly
the true Baldaccio appeared with his troops, surrounded them, and sent them
all prisoners to Florence.
Such atrocities, committed, not only without remorse or necessity, but as
it would seem for mere military pastime, gave the wars of this epoch a char-
acter of barbarous vindictiveness and horror that was calculated to lay a
heavy load on the consciences of their authors ; and if Cosmo de' Medici
were really the fomenter of the Lucchese War, all his good acts and good
qualities were but a sorry exchange for the mass of human suffering that his
ambition inflicted and entailed upon his country. That he could have pre-
vented it there is no doubt had he only seconded Niccolo da Uzzano ; that
he, on the contrary, strongly advocated and supported it is equally certain ;
and that it was unjust and void of political necessity can scarcely be ques-
tioned. Wherefore, putting aside all minor accusations, he must stand
convicted of advocating and fostering an unjust and unnecessary war, waged
with unusual horror, atrocious in its character, and destructive in its con-
sequences.
The Fall of Oarmagnola
The Venetians, from their incipient discontent at Carmagnola's conduct
after the victory of Macalo, had become deeply suspicious of his fidelity
since the naval action near Cremona (1432), and this was further strength-
H. w. — VOL. ix. u
290 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1432 A.D.]
ened by his conduct at Cremona itself. His own troops had scaled the walls
and taken a gate of that city, where they defended themselves for two whole
days, vainly expecting assistance from Carmagnola who was near at hand ;
at length exhausted with fatigue they could hold out no longer and were all
cut to pieces. He afterwards allowed Piccinino to capture two fortified
towns successively, under his very eyes and without an effort to save them ;
so that, whether treacherous or not, Venice had good cause for doubt and dis-
satisfaction. Carmagnola's military movements are said to have been always
slow and well considered ; nor was he in the habit of permitting inclina-
tion to overcome reason ; but the Venetian commissaries attached to his army
never ceased to urge him on with all the confidence of ignorance ; he, who
GRAND CANAL, VENICE
was beyond measure proud and never restrained his tongue, answered them
in the manner of Hawkwood to Andrea Vettori : " Go and prepare your
broad cloths and leave me to command the army." " Foolish people," said
Carmagnola, "are you going to teach one that was born in battles and
nourished in blood ? Go, mount your senseless horses and visit the Caspian,
then talk to me of its wonders, and in such things I will place implicit faith ;
but be now content to trust my experience, for I am not less expert on land
than you are at sea. You Venetians are rich in enterprise and prosperity,
and if you deem me faithless, why then, deprive me of office and I will seek
my own fortune." The Venetians were both nettled and alarmed at this
reproof, particularly at the hint of seeking his own fortune, which indicated
an intention of returning to the duke, or, what would have been equally bad,
attaching himself to the emperor who was already in Italy.
At what time they first began to entertain the idea of putting him to
death does not appear, but Cavalcanti asserts that it was continually in debate
and the secret closely kept for eight months by an assembly of two hundred
senators without a suspicion getting abroad or a word being divulged on the
subject. Finally his fate was decreed and in a manner congenial to the time
and country, wi The incidents of its consummation are too suggestive not to
be given in some detail.
On the 28th of March, Foscari, in concert with all the members of the
privy council, proposed, at a meeting of the college, " that the pregadi be
dissolved, and that the Ten do take the matter into their own hands." The
three chiefs of the Ten proposed as an amendment, that " this body be not
dissolved until the present business be out of hand." But, on a division, the
first motion was carried by a majority of two, and the dissolution was
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 291
[1432 A.D.]
decreed, the decemvirs resolving to deal with the matter before them "cir-
cumspectly, but vigorously." In consideration of the gravity of the ques-
tion, the tribunal demanded the assistance of a giunta of twenty senators ;
and these supplemental members, with the doge and the privy council, raised
the number to seven and thirty. When the organisation of the conclave
was nearly complete, a technical irregularity having been discovered, the
whole process was cancelled ; and the point, having been again submitted
with all the previous forms, was again solemnly confirmed. The senate was
charged, upon pain of forfeiture of goods and heads, to abstain from divulg-
ing any of these transactions, and to keep the decemviral decree of the 28th
a profound secret.
On the following day, Giovanni da Impero, secretary of the Ten, a person
of discreet character, and, according to the historian Sanuto, " with a face as
pale as a ghost," was furnished with the ensuing written instructions :
GIOVANNI :
We, Marco Barbarigo, Lorenzo Capello, and Lorenzo Donate, chiefs of the council of
Ten, and Tommaso Michieli and Francesco Loredauo, avogadors of the commune, with our
council of Ten, command thee to repair forthwith to Brescia, to Count Carmagnola, our
captain-general, to whom, after the customary salutations, you will say, that it being now
full time that something should be done for the honour and glory of our state, various plans
have suggested themselves to us for a summer campaign. Much difference of opinion
existing, and the count enjoying peculiarly intimate conversance with Lombardy on either
side of the Po, we recommend and pray him to come here so soon as may be, to consult with
us and the lord of Mantua; and if he consent to come accordingly, you will ascertain
and appraise us on what day he may be expected. But should he decline to comply, you
will with the utmost secrecy communicate to our captains at Brescia and to our proveditor-
general our resolution to have the said Count Carmagnola arrested ; and you will concert
with them the best means for carrying out this our will, and for securing his person in our
fortress of Brescia. We also desire that, when the count himself shall have been safely
lodged, the countess his wife be similarly detained, and that all documents, money, and
other property, be seized, and an inventory thereof taken. Above all, we wish and charge
thee, before seeking an interview with the count, to disclose confidentially to the authorities
at Brescia and to the proveditor-general the nature of these presents (since we ourselves
have not communicated with them), enjoining them, under pain of their goods and heads,
in case the count be contumacious, to execute our behests.
On the 30th, in consequence of an afterthought that Carmagnola might
penetrate the plans of the seigniory, and endeavour to escape, the necessary
orders were forwarded to the governors and captains of the republic to
second Da Impero, and if the general fled to any spot within their jurisdic-
tion, to detain him till further notice ; and a circular, superscribed by the
doge, was sent to all the officers serving immediately under Carmagnola,
bidding them not be surprised at these proceedings, assuring them of the
earnest good-will of the government, and soliciting their implicit obedience
to the directions, which they might receive through the authorities at Brescia
and the proveditor-general, Francesco Garzoni, Cornaro's successor.
Having arrived at his destination, secretary Da Impero closeted himself
>general,
"ercera.
" After the customary salutations," he presented his credentials, which were
as follows :
JL.ft.ai V Allg Oil. J.J. V VyVl «/U J.J.4.O Vl*7DVAUC»U*VftU) O VV^ J. C VOlJL J JLS U> J.iilJ^f VyJ. \J \Jt-\Jf3 V/ \J\J VI JJ
in the first instance with the podesta of Brescia and the proveditor-g(
and afterward proceeded to the quarters of the count at or near Te
To THE MAGNIFICENT COUNT CARMAGNOLA, Captain-General :
The prudent and circumspect person Giovanni da Impero, our secretary, has been charged
by us (i.e., the Ten) to speak about certain matters to your magnificence, wherefore be pleased
to repose in him the faith you would give to ourselves.
292 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1432 A.D.]
Carmagnola, too glad to have an excuse for quitting camp, blindly fell
into the snare, and immediately started with the secretary of the Ten for
Venice. At Padua, he was received with military honours by the local
authorities; and he passed one night there, sharing the bed of Federigo
Contarini, captain of Padua, "his very good friend." On the 7th of April
he reached the capital. A deputation of eight nobles was in waiting to
receive him. At the entrance of the palace, Da Impero vanished, and the
personal followers of the count were turned back with an announcement
that " their master will dine with the doge, and will come home after dinner."
But his other companions remained, and ushered him into the hall of St.
Mark's.
As he passed through, the general observed that the doors closed behind
him. He at once inquired where the doge was, declaring his wish to have
an audience, "as he had much to say to his serenity."
Leonardo Mocenigo, one of the sages of the council, stepped up to him
and told him that Foscari, having had an accident in descending the stair-
case, was confined to his room, and could not receive him till the morrow.
Carmagnola then turned, with a gesture of impatience, on his heel, and
prepared to retrace his steps, remarking : " The hour is late, and it is time
for me to go home."
When he arrived at the corridor which led to the Orba prison, however,
one of the nobles in attendance gently arrested his progress with, " This
way, my lord."
" But that is not the right way," retorted the count hurriedly.
" Yes, yes, it is perfectly so," was the answer given.
At this moment, guards appeared, surrounded Carmagnola, and pushed
him into the corridor. The last words which he was heard to utter were:
"I am lost ! " and, as he spoke, a deep-drawn sigh escaped from him.
During two days, he refused to take any kind of nourishment. The trial
began on the 9th of April with all the forms recognised and required in
criminal procedure by the constitution ; the examination was conducted by
a special committee of nine persons — Luca Mocenigo, privy councillor;
Antonio Barbarigo, Bartolommeo Morisini, and Marino Lando, chiefs of the
Ten ; Daniele Vetturi, Marco Barbarigo, and Luigi Veniero, inquisitors
of the Ten ; and Faustino Viaro and Francesco Loredano, avogadors of the
commune.
On the llth, the accused, having declined to make any answers, was put
to the question. It happened that one of his arms had been fractured in the
service of the republic ; and the committee consequently objected to the use
of the estrapade. But a confession was wrung from him by the application of
the brazier. During Lent, the process was suspended. At its recommence-
ment a mass of documents was submitted for investigation, and numerous
witnesses were summoned. Independently of the confession, which was pos-
sibly of indifferent value, damning evidences of treasonable connivance with
Visconti were adduced. On the propriety of conviction there was perfect
unanimity ; but in regard to the nature of the sentence opinions were
divided. The doge himself and three of the privy council proposed perpetual
imprisonment. The three chiefs of the Ten, and the avogadors of the com-
mune were, under all the circumstances of aggravated guilt, in favour of
capital punishment. A resort was had to the ballot, and, of seven and
twenty persons entitled to vote, nineteen voted for death.
On the 5th of May, 1432, Francesco di Carmagnola was led as a public
traitor to the common place of execution. He wore a scarlet vest with
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 293
[1432-1441 A.D.]
sleeves, a crimson mantle, scarlet stockings, and a velvet cap alia Carmagnola;
a gag was in his mouth ; his hands were pinioned behind him according to
usage ; and there between the " red columns," in the sight of all Venice, his
head was severed from his body at the third stroke of the axe.
Thus fell, in the prime of life, the victim of his own blind and perverse
folly, a man of the first order of talents, and within whose reach the most
splendid opportunities had so recently been. The government of Venice had
tolerated his errors [says Hazlitt] until his criminality was beyond a doubt.
When his death was decreed, his corruption and treason were already suffi-
ciently glaring. Yet there were subsequent discoveries, which made his case
infinitely worse, and which procured an instant mitigation of the penalty
against Niccolo Trevisano and the other officers concerned in the loss of the
battle of the Po ; and some justice, however tardy and inadequate, was ren-
dered to the sufferers by the open declaration of a member of the seigniory
in the great council, " that, if the government had at the time been in pos-
session of that exact information which was now in its hands, its treatment
of Trevisano and his comrades would have been very different. " It has been
said by a modern writer, that " Carmagnola seems to have acted in so equiv-
ocal a manner as would have made him amenable to any court-martial with
little chance of absolution."*
There are other writers, however, who have regarded the guilt of Carma-
gnola as by no means so clearly proved, and there are many who would be dis-
posed to approve the judgment of Pignotti,<> who says, "Probably he was guilty,
but the public have always the right to term injustice any act which decides
the life and honour of a celebrated man without seeing proofs of his guilt, or
at least must consider them very doubtful, as no person who possesses under-
standing can discover any reasonable motive for concealing them. The proof
of this," Pignotti continues, "may be found in the criminal system of the
most polite nations, in particular in that which has formed the glory and
personal security of the English people."
This perhaps is a slight over-statement ; there may be reasons of state
that make it desirable to give publicity to all the facts where treason is
involved. And certainly it would seem as if the Venetian authorities must
have felt very sure of their ground before they decided to do away with their
captain-general, when no man of similar capacity was at hand to take his
place. Nevertheless, the question of the justice of the execution of Car-
magnola remains one of the unsolved problems of history.
Deprived of their great general, the Venetians were crippled, while the
cause of the Visconti was proportionately strengthened. Nevertheless, the
war was brought to a close not long after. Sigismund, who had been
crowned king of the Romans at Milan, was attacked by the Florentines and
shut up in Siena. Partly through his influence the duke of Milan was
led to sign a peace with the allies in 1433. The Venetians remained in
possession of Brescia and Bergamo.05
Venice and the Turks
A little later, by the ruin and exile of the last of the noble family of
Polenta, the Venetians grasped the state of Ravenna (1441). In addition to
these possessions in Italy, Venice continued to enjoy extensive territories
in the East, besides Dalmatia and Durazzo ; with other places in Arbani, she
was mistress of the chief cities in Morea and many of the Ionian Islands.
But the taking of Constantinople by the Turks and the captivity of the
294 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1441-1465 A J>.]
Venetians settled in Pera, threatened her power in the East, and she felt no
repugnance to enter into a treaty with the enemies of her religion. After
the usual negotiations, terms were concluded between Sigismund and Venice ;
by which her possessions were secured to her and her trade guaranteed to
her throughout the empire. In virtue of this treaty, she continued to occupy
Modon, Coron, Napoli di Romania (Nauplia), Argos, and other cities on the
borders of the peninsula, together with
Eubcea (Negropont), and some of the
smaller islands. But this good under-
standing was interrupted in 1463, when
the Turks contrived an excuse for at-
tacking the Venetian territory. Under
pretence of resenting the asylum afforded
to a Turkish refugee, the pasha of the
Morea besieged and captured Argos;
and the republic felt itself compelled
immediately to resent the aggression.
A reinforcement was sent from
Venice to Napoli, and Argos was quickly
recaptured. Corinth was next besieged,
and the project of fortifying the isth-
mus was once more renewed. The
promontory which unites the Pelopon-
nesus to the continent measures scarcely
six miles across between the gulfs of
^Egina and Lepanto. In the early ages
of Greece the narrowness of this pass
had suggested the possibility and expe-
diency of fortifying it by a rampart;
under the emperor Justinian, the an-
cient fortifications were renewed ; and
in 1413 a strong wall, named Hexamilion
from its length, was erected by the
emperor Manuel. Upon the present
occasion, the labour of thirty thousand
workmen accomplished the work in fif-
teen days : a stone wall of more than
twelve feet high, defended by a ditch
and flanked by 136 towers, was drawn
across the isthmus; in the midst the
standard of St. Mark was displayed;
and the performance of the holy service completed the new fortification.
But the approach of the Turks, whose numbers were probably exaggerated
by report, threw the Venetians into distrust and consternation; and unwill-
ing to confide in the strength of their rampart they abandoned the siege of
Corinth, and retreated to Napoli, from which the infidels were repulsed with
the loss of five thousand men.
The Peloponnesus was now exposed to the predatory retaliations of the
Turks and Venetians ; and the Christians appeared anxious to rival or sur-
pass the Mohammedans in the refinement of their barbarous inflictions. The
names of Sparta and Athens may create a momentary interest ; the former,
denoted by the modern town of Mistra erected near its ruins ; the latter, the
poor remains of the ancient city, but still one of the richest and most
A MAGISTRATE OF VENICE
THE MAKITIME REPUBLICS 295
[1465-1478 A.D.]
populous of Greek possessions. In the year 1465 Sigismondo Malatesta
landed in the Morea, with a reinforcement of a thousand men ; and, without
effecting the reduction of the citadel, captured and burned Mistra. In the
following year, Vittore Capello, with the Venetian fleet, arrived in the straits
of Euripus, and landing at Aulis marched into Attica. After making himself
master of the Piraeus, he laid siege to Athens ; her walls were overthrown ;
her inhabitants plundered ; and the Venetians retreated with the spoil to the
opposite shores of Euboea.
The victorious career of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, for a time
diverted the sultan from the war in the Morea; but when Matthias was
induced to change his antagonists, and, instead of warring against the Turks,
to turn upon his Christian brethren of Bohemia, Muhammed II solemnly
bound himself by oath to abolish the idolatrous religion of Christ, and invited
the disciples of the prophet to join him in his pious design. In the begin-
ning of the year 1470, a fleet of 108 galleys, besides a number of smaller
vessels, manned by a force 70,000 strong, issued from the harbour of Con-
stantinople, and sailed for the straits of Euripus. Never since the days of
Xerxes had those seas been cumbered by so vast a multitude ; and in the
same place, whither the Great King had once despatched his countless fleet,
the vessels of the sultan were anchored. The army landed without molesta-
tion on the island, which they united to the mainland by a bridge of boats,
and immediately proceeded to lay siege to the city of Negropont. Muhammed
caused his tent to be pitched on a promontory of the Attic coast, and thence
surveyed the operations of his soldiery.
The hopes of the besieged were now centred in the Venetian fleet, which,
under the command of Niccolo Canale, lay at anchor in the Soronic Gulf.
But that admiral, whilst he awaited a reinforcement, let slip the favourable
opportunity of preventing the debarkation of the enemy, or of shutting up
the Turks in the island by the destruction of their half -deserted fleet and
bridge of boats. By an unaccountable inactivity, he suffered the city to be
attacked, which, after a vigorous resistance of nearly a month, was carried
by assault ; and all the inhabitants who did not escape into the citadel were
put to the sword. At length that fortress was also taken ; and the barbarous
conqueror, who had promised to respect the head of the intrepid governor,
deemed it no violation of his word to saw his victim in halves. After this
decisive blow, which reduced the whole island, Muhammed led back his
conquering army to Constantinople. The Venetian admiral was forthwith
superseded by a new commander, and sent loaded with irons to Venice,
where his countrymen, by an unaccustomed exercise of moderation, were
content to spare his life, and punished his delinquency by perpetual exile.
This success encouraged the Turks to attack the Venetians in their Italian
territory ; and the pasha of Bosnia invaded Istria and Friuli, and carried fire
and sword almost to the gates of Udine. In the following year, however,
the Turks were baffled in their attempt to reduce Scutari in Albania, which
had been delivered by the gallant Scanderbeg to the guardian care of Venice.
Some abortive negotiations for peace suspended hostilities until 1477, when
the troops of Muhammed laid siege to Croia in Albania, which they reduced
to the severest distress. But a new incursion into Friuli struck a panic into
the inhabitants of Venice, who beheld, from the tops of their churches and
towers, the raging flames which devoured the neighbouring villages. A hasty
muster of all their available forces was made to defend the capital ; but the
Turks, distrustful of their strength, or satiated with plunder, once more
withdrew into Albania. The siege of Croia was soon after terminated by its
296 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1459-1479 A.D.]
surrender and the massacre of its inhabitants ; and the sultan, in person,
undertook the reduction of the stubborn city of Scutari.
But not even the presence of the sultan could accomplish the capture of
that redoubted garrison. In vain did the janissaries scale the walls ; in vain
did the Turkish artillery thunder against the shivered barriers ; whilst new
assailants replaced those who fell overwhelmed by the javelins and stones
launched on them by the besieged. For two days and a night the grand
assault was kept up without intermission, until, weary of the useless sacrifice
of his men, Muhammed resolved to convert the siege into a blockade. The
surrounding country was harassed by the ravages of the Turks ; but a new
attempt upon Friuli was successfully resisted ; and the infidels were com-
pelled to confine their incursions to the frontiers of Germany.
These repeated aggressions on her territories made Venice every day more
anxious to conclude a peace with the sultan ; and a fresh negotiation was
opened, wherein the republic submitted to conditions she had, on a former
occasion, rejected. It was agreed that the islands of Negropont and Myti-
lene, with the cities of Croia and Scutari in Albania, and of Tenaro in the
Morea, should be consigned to the Turk ; whilst other conquests were to be
reciprocally restored to their former owners. A tribute of 10,000 ducats was
imposed upon Venice, and the inhabitants of Scutari were to be permitted to
evacuate the city without molestation. Upon this footing a peace was con-
cluded, which delivered Venice from a ruinous war of fifteen years. The poor
remnant of the defenders of Scutari, now reduced to 500 men and 150 women,
were suffered to depart from their homes ; and being conducted to Venice
were munificently provided for at the expense of the republic (1479). 0
While Venice was thus contending with difficulty against Ottoman power
for the preservation of her colonies, Genoa, with less vigour and fortune, had
lost the whole of her possessions and influence in the Black Sea. With the
sceptre of Constantinople, the Turks had acquired the key of the Euxine ;
the Genoese could no longer communicate by sea with their great colony at
Kaffa, except at the pleasure of the sultan : and it was easy to foresee that
Muhammed II would not permit them long to retain so valuable a de-
pendency. Upon the occasion of some petty quarrel with the colonists of
Kaffa, the Tatar governor of the Crimea besieged the place, and invited the
co-operation of the sultan. The Turkish fleet appeared before the port, and
easily effected a breach in the walls ; the colonists were reduced to capitulate ;
and the last vestige of the Genoese power in the Euxine was destroyed (1475).
The misfortunes of the Genoese were without a counterpoise ; but the re-
verses of Venice in the late war were balanced by the acquisition of the
large and beautiful island of Cyprus.
Ever since the conquest of Cyprus by Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and his
gift of its crown to Guy of Lusignan, the descendants of that chieftain had
preserved his inheritance with the kingly title. But a disputed succession
and a civil war in 1459 entailed ruin on the dynasty of Lusignan. After a
contest between the legitimate daughter, and James, the natural son of the
late king, in which the latter prevailed, the Venetians bestowed on him their
protection and the hand of Catherine Cornaro, a young lady of noble family,
who was solemnly declared the adopted daughter of the republic. The new
king of Cyprus, who had thus contracted the singular relation of son-in-law
to the Venetian state, fulfilled its duties with fidelity and deference. But
he died after only a short reign ; and the republic immediately acted as
the natural guardian of his widow and posthumous child. The Cypriotes,
however, were not disposed to accept of the insidious protection of a foreign
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 297
[1454-1489 A.D.]
state ; and, during the absence of the Venetian fleet, they rebelled against
the queen, and deprived her of the charge of her infant son. On his return,
Mocenigo, the Venetian admiral, saw the importance of the crisis. He col-
lected a strong body of land-forces from the republican colonies ; he awed
the islanders into submission, and occupied their fortresses with his troops ;
and from this epoch Cyprus may be numbered among the possessions of
Venice. The infant son of James of Lusignan and Catherine Cornaro died ;
the republic faithlessly removed to Venice some natural children on whom,
in default of legitimate issue, James had settled the succession ; and, in 1489,
the Venetian government at length wholly threw off the mask and completed
their perfidious usurpation, by obliging the adopted daughter of their state
to abdicate her kingdom. Catherine Cornaro had enjoyed no more than the
shadow of royalty under the authority of the delegated counsellors of the
Venetian senate : but that body were still fearful of her attempting to render
herself independent by a second marriage ; and after obtaining her solemn act
of resignation in favour of the republic, they withdrew her from the island,
and assigned her for life a castle and a revenue in their Lombard states. P
The Crovernment of Venice.
The government of Venice had now assumed that perfection of oligarchi-
cal despotism which subsisted, with very little variation, from the year 1454
until the inglorious dissolution of the republic in 1797. The sovereign
authority was vested in the great council ; the government in the senate ;
the administration in the seigniory; the judicial authority in the quarantia;
and the police in the Council of Ten. To these august assemblies the nobles
were alone admissible ; so that every member of the subordinate councils
had a seat in the great council.
The doge was, in name at least, the head of the government, and as such
presided over every council. The external marks of respect were conceded to
his station, and the splendour of the ducal trappings was well contrived
to dazzle the multitude. But from an absolute sovereign the duke of Venice
had gradually dwindled down to a powerless pageant ; and the aristocracy
seem to have delighted in shackling their prince with irksome, though gen-
erally wise restrictions. No person if chosen was permitted to decline the
dignity; and the dignity when once accepted could never be resigned unless
by the consent of the great council. On the other hand, the doge was liable
to deposition ; and the history of the unfortunate Foscari evinces the rigor-
ous treatment to which the sovereign was open. The doge was forbidden
to quit the limits of Venice without special permission ; to possess property
out of the city; to exercise commerce; or to receive any gratuity from a
foreign prince. His revenue was limited to 12,000 ducats, and his expendi-
ture was matter of the severest scrutiny. In his public capacity he could
make neither war nor peace ; he could open no despatches save in the pres-
ence of the seigniory ; nor could he return an answer to a foreign potentate
without their approbation. His wife and family were also precluded from
accepting presents. His brothers, his sons, and even his servants, were ineli-
gible to public office ; and his children were prohibited from contracting for-
eign marriages. After his death, his heirs were liable to be visited for the
errors of his reign ; and compellable to make good any malversation reported
by the censors appointed to inquire into his administration.
The great council included all the nobles who had attained the age of
twenty -five. We have already seen the artifices by which this noble body
298 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1454 A.D.]
shut the door of the assembly against all whose names were not registered in
the Golden Book. But during the famous war of Chioggia the door was again
unbarred ; and faithful to her promise Venice admitted into her nobility
those thirty citizens who were adjudged to have exerted themselves most
strenuously in defence of their country. In this illustrious assembly the real
sovereignty of Venice existed ; from the great council emanated the senate
and other councils ; and it absorbed all other assemblies, since only its own
members were eligible to the important departments of government. Its
peculiar office was to make or repeal laws ; to ballot for magistrates ; and to
approve of, or annul, the taxes proposed by the senate. The residue of the
sovereign functions it was content to leave to the senate ; and as the senators
were themselves members of the council no great risk was incurred of any
violent collision.
BRONZE WELL IN THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE
The chief restrictions imposed upon the nobles related to their inter-
course with foreign powers. They were forbidden to acquire foreign prop-
erty ; to accept foreign presents ; to hold communication with any foreign
ambassador. All intermarriages of themselves and their children with
foreigners were prohibited ; but as too strict an adherence to this prohibi-
tion might have deprived the state of advantageous alliances, an ingenious
evasion was contrived; and when the daughter of a Venetian noble was
sought by a foreign potentate, the state adopted her as its own, and gave
her in marriage as the daughter of St. Mark. Attempts were made from
time to time to prohibit the nobles from trading ; but the impolicy of such
a restriction in a commercial state was too strongly felt to render the inter-
diction available.
The senate, which originally consisted of sixty members, elected annu-
ally by the great council from their own body, was afterwards increased by
the addition of sixty extraordinary members : and the admission of various
public functionaries, in virtue of their office, at length swelled this body to
three hundred. To the senate the immediate functions of government were
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 299
[1454 A.D.]
entrusted ; and they deliberated and decided upon many important points
without any reference to the great council. They made war or peace ; en-
tered into treaties ; appointed ambassadors and commanders ; coined money ;
raised loans ; and regulated the distribution of the finances. But they had
no authority to make laws or impose taxes, unless these were afterwards
approved and confirmed by the great council.
The executive power was vested in the seigniory which consisted of the
doge and the six red counsellors nominated by the great council, one
for every quarter of the city. To these were associated the three chiefs of
the criminal quarantia, and sixteen sages ; and this assembly of twenty-six
was styled "the college." They gave audiences to ambassadors of foreign
princes; received memorials and manifestoes; and opened all public de-
spatches, which they were bound to transmit for the perusal of the senate.
To them also belonged the convoking of the senate ; and by them the resolu-
tions of the senate were to be effectuated.
The supreme judicial authority was lodged in a criminal tribunal of forty
judges, and two civil tribunals, each also consisting of forty. These judges
were all nominated from among the patricians by the great council ; those
of the criminal quarantia were ex-offido
members of the senate ; and as the judges
of the civil courts passed on to the crimi-
nal, all became senators in rotation. These
tribunals formed courts of appeal from
others of inferior jurisdiction ; and admin-
istered justice according to the civil law,
modified by statutes and local customs.
Their proceedings were encumbered by
formalities, and were consequently tardy ;
but their decisions (which were given by
ballot) are admitted to have evinced sa-
gacity and integrity. In criminal matters,
indeed, the friends of the accused were
permitted to use private influence with the
judges; but such culpable attempts at
the perversion of justice were strictly for-
bidden in civil proceedings.
The terrible Council of Ten had al-
ready overawed Venice for more than a
century, when a new engine of tyranny
was introduced still more terrific. The
Council of Ten being deemed too numerous
a body for securing the desired prompt-
ness and mystery of their proceedings,
it was resolved by the great council in
1454 to erect another tribunal, consist-
ing of three members with the most unlimited authority over the lives
and liberty of the community. The Council of Ten were empowered to
nominate two of their black counsellors, and one member of the doge's
council ; and were directed to prepare a body of statutes for the guid-
ance of this new " Inquisition of State." Three days after the passing of
this decree the council were ready with these statutes ; but the elaborate
minuteness of their provisions clearly proves that much time arid deliberation
had been previously expended upon them. That this frightful tribunal
A VENETIAN NOBLEMAN
300 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1454 A.D.]
existed too soon became manifest ; yet such was the mystery which enveloped
its origin that no one presumed to fix the time of its establishment, until
the modern historian of Venice in his laborious researches discovered a copy
of this diabolical code. Such a tissue of refined cruelty and perfidy was
surely never before given to the world ; and the framers of the " Statutes
of the Inquisition " appear to have been gifted with a subtle and relentless
spirit of wickedness which might challenge the malignity of assembled
fiends.
An attentive perusal of this manual of assassination can alone give an
adequate notion of the precision and acuteness with which the depositaries
of this unbounded power are enjoined to draw the unwary into their snares ;
or of the cold-blooded and uncompromising villainy recommended for the
preservation of Venetian policy. Subject to these instructions, the three
inquisitors were abandoned to their own discretion in selecting the time and
place of seizure and investigation, the tortures to be employed, and the
manner of destroying their victims. The nobles and citizens might thus be
publicly exposed on a gibbet, or silently consigned to the adjacent canal.
Innumerable spies pervaded the city ; the recesses of domestic privacy and
the inmost apartments of the ducal palace were alike laid open to the pene-
trating gaze of the Inquisition. Such was the mystery which surrounded
the inquisitors that it was never known, except by the council, to which of
their members this terrible office was entrusted ; and an unguarded whisper
in an inquisitor's presence might in a moment be followed by incarceration
and death.
A system, if possible more monstrous, was also encouraged at Venice.
A number of iron mouths in different parts of the city gaped for accusa-
tions; and an anonymous charge deposited by a secret enemy was suffi-
cient to drag the unconscious accused before his judges. No human being
could enjoy security for an instant; the daggers and the poison of the
Inquisition were always at hand ; and the innocent might suddenly be torn
from the midst of his friends and consigned to the burning heat of the
leaden roofs, or forever immured in the wells, those dismal dungeons sunk
lower than the surface of the canals, where they might sicken and perhaps
die from the foul air.
Amidst these institutions, where the functions of the state were exclusively
vested in the nobles, and the legislative, executive, and judicial powers united
in one body, we may be at a loss to discover what security existed for the
welfare of the subordinate classes. The three avogadors, one of whom was
necessarily a member of the great council and senate, might, indeed, call
upon the legislature to pause when any measure was proposed injurious to
the public ; but in this anxiety for the general good no safety was to be
found for private life or liberty; and we have no means of ascertaining
the quantity of individual misery inflicted by this odious government. But
amidst the distraction of shows and pageants, the people might at least con-
sole themselves with the impartiality of their despotic rulers; since the
nobles, and even the doge himself, were liable to feel the rigour of this
unsparing oligarchy.
The annals of Venice present many glaring instances of her noblest sons
perishing under the malice of an enemy, or sacrificed to the detestable policy
of the state ; and every page of her history is deformed by examples of per-
fidy and injustice. Without adverting to these, we will here briefly repeat
the characteristic story of Foscari ; and it is remarkable that the Inquisition
of State originated at the close of this doge's reign.
19
A
ST. MARK'S, VENICE
THE MAEITIME REPUBLICS 301
[1423-1455 A.D.]
The Two Foscari
On the death of Tommaso Mocenigo in 1423, Francesco Foscari was
raised to the ducal throne. A vigorous understanding, a bold and enter-
prising spirit, were the conspicuous qualities of the new doge ; and during
his long and warlike reign Venice attained a pitch of glory and power she
had never before enjoyed. But whilst Foscari was thus increasing the
prosperity of his country he was struggling with severe domestic affliction.
Three of his sons were successively swept away to the grave ; and the sur-
vivor was reserved but to augment the misery of his afflicted father. Jacopo,
the youngest Foscari, was secretly accused before the Council of Ten of
having received from Filippo, duke of Milan, presents of money and jewels,
and immediately summoned to answer the accusation. The unhappy Fran-
cesco, who presided as doge, beheld his only son stretched upon the rack,
THE DOGANA, VENICE
heard his confession of guilt, and acquiesced in the sentence of perpetual
banishment to Napoli di Romania. This sentence was, however, in some
degree mitigated ; and Trieste was fixed on as the place of his exile, whither
he was allowed the consolation of being accompanied by his young wife.
After residing there above five years a new calamity awaited him. On the
5th of November, 1450, Almoro Donate, one of the chiefs of the council, was
assassinated ; and the circumstance of a servant of Jacopo's having been
seen in Venice on that day was deemed sufficient to fasten suspicion on his
master. The severities of the rack having extorted nothing from the servant,
Jacopo was conducted to Venice, and in his father's presence once more put
to the torture. Far from admitting his participation in the murder, the
unfortunate culprit vehemently asserted his innocence ; but his protestations
availed him nothing; and the inexorable council pronounced a sentence of
perpetual banishment to the island of Candia.
The doge Francesco had already on two occasions expressed his desire of
abdicating his dignity; but on each occasion the great council refused to per-
mit his resignation. The cruel persecution of his son now redoubled his
anxiety to descend from that eminence which exposed him more conspicu-
ously to the malice of his enemies. But the council not only reiterated
their refusal, but compelled him to bind himself by oath to retain the
duchy until relieved by death.
During a five years' residence at Canea in Candia, Jacopo Foscari had
exerted every means in his power to obtain the reversal of his unmerited sen-
tence. Wearied of the hopeless attempt to soften his obdurate countrymen,
302 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1455-1457 A.D.]
he at length addressed a letter to Sforza, duke of Milan, entreating him to
use his influence with the Venetian senate. To solicit foreign protection
was an offence at Venice ; and the letter, by design or accident, being inter-
cepted, Jacopo was conveyed from Canea, and for the third time put to the
rack before the Council of Ten. He immediately admitted the offensive
letter, and rejoiced in the step he had taken, which once more restored him
to his beloved country, and to the presence of his wife, his father, and all
that was dearest to him upon earth. This touching avowal weighed little
with the heartless tribunal, and he was sentenced to be imprisoned in a
dungeon for a year, and then again carried back into Candia. After the
expiration of his imprisonment, he was sent into exile and soon afterwards
died. Meanwhile his innocence of the imputed murder was completely
established: the real assassin of Donato confessed on his death-bed that
his, not Jacopo's, was the guilty hand.
The wretched father now sank under this accumulation of misery : he
fled from public business ; abstained from attendance in the councils ; and
at the age of eighty-four buried himself in retirement so suitable to his years
and misfortunes. But the malice of his enemies was still unsatiated ; it was
resolved that he should be precipitated from a throne he had already thrice
attempted to vacate. By an enormous stretch of power, the Council of Ten
intimated to the doge in the name of the great council, that the state called
for his resignation and absolved him from his oath. They condescended
to offer him a pension of 1500 ducats, and peremptorily insisted on his
quitting the ducal palace within eight days under pain of confiscation of
his property. After a momentary struggle with his pride the old man bowed
to the decree, and descended the Giants' Staircase, which thirty-four years
before he had mounted as the sovereign of Venice. The assembled populace
beheld with pity and indignation the aged father of the republic pass slowly
towards his private dwelling ; but the murmurs of compassion were in a mo-
ment silenced by a menacing proclamation of the Ten. The electors pro-
ceeded to the choice of a new doge, and on the 30th of October, 1457, seven
days after the deposition of Foscari, Pasquale Malipiero was declared duly
elected. The tolling of the bell of St. Mark's tower, which announced the
election, awakened in the soul of Foscari a conflict of passions too furious for
exhausted nature, and he survived the shock only a few hours. Notwith-
standing the resistance of his widow, the council, who had thus hurried him
to his grave, resolved upon the mockery of a magnificent funeral ; and he was
interred with all the splendour usual at a doge's obsequies, the newly elected
duke assisting in the habit of a senator.
One of the chief instruments of the ruin of Foscari was Giacomo Lore-
dano, a noble, whose long-cherished rancour was thus formally entered on his
commercial accounts : " Francesco Foscari, for the death of my father and
uncle." But the debt was now liquidated, and on the opposite page the cold-
blooded Loredano wrote the discharge, " he has paid it. "0
CHAPTER X
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE
IN the preceding chapter we have followed the political development of
Venice, and seen that city acquire undisputed supremacy on the water and
then reach out for land conquests as well. We shall now interrupt the
rather depressing story of political wrangles, to consider the commercial
prosperity of the new world-emporium.
" Venice," says Burckhardt,& " recognised itself from the first as a strange
and mysterious creation — the fruits of a higher power than human ingenuity.
The key-note of the Venetian character was a spirit of proud and contempt-
uous isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city by the other states
of Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity within. The inhabitants
meanwhile were united by the most powerful ties of interest in dealing
both with the colonies and the possessions on the mainland ; and forcing the
population of the latter, that is of all the towns up to Bergamo, to buy and
sell in Venice alone. A power which rested on means so artificial could only
be maintained by internal harmony and unity. On the other hand, within
the ranks of the nobility itself, travel and commercial enterprises, and the
incessant wars with the Turks, saved the wealthy and dangerous from
that fruitful source of conspiracies — idleness. A free government in the
open air gave the Venetian aristocracy, as a whole, a healthy bias."
The Venetian did, in point of fact, seem to differ materially from
his Italian neighbours. We have seen that the city did not come into
prominence until a relatively late period of the Middle Ages. Isolated
geographically, it held aloof from its neighbouring states and never conceded
allegiance to the Western Empire. Nominally, it sought the protection of
Constantinople ; but in reality it neither needed nor received aid from that
quarter, and its allegiance to the Eastern emperor was probably due largely
to the harmlessness of his supposed authority. The seafaring life had
developed here, as so often elsewhere, a hardy and liberty-loving race. The
Venetian reminds us strongly of his prototype, the old-time Phoenician.
But in one regard the citizen of Venice proved even more self-reliant than
304 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
his prototype : he insisted always on choosing his rulers ; moreover, he not
merely elected them, but he held them amenable to the law. We have seen
a striking illustration of this in the preceding chapter, in the legal execution
of the doge Marino Falieri. Seldom, if ever, has that incident been pre-
cisely duplicated. The doge of Venice, elected for life, was surrounded with
all the semblance of royalty and was to all intents and purposes a sovereign.
Yet when this distinguished incumbent of the office had proven himself
disloyal to the constitution, he was adjudged in practically the same manner
with his associates in crime, and subjected to the same punishment.
Nothing could be more characteristic than the manner in which the
punishment of Falieri was carried out. Up to the very last the doge was
treated with all respect. Even when led out to execution, he was still
clothed in his ducal robes. The mandate of the law was carried out not
in anger, but in sorrow ; everything was legal, constitutional ; there was no
breach of dignity. A vast concourse of people waited at the door of the
palace to view the corpse ; but it was no clamouring mob : it was a quiet
and orderly gathering of citizens. The fall of the sovereign had come about
through no reign of terror such as pertained in latter-day France, when
Louis XVI was executed ; no revolution like that which brought Charles I
to the block. The successor to the doge was elected in precisely the same
manner as if the previous incumbent of this office had died a natural death.
In all history, let it be repeated, there is scarcely a precise parallel for this
exhibition of the far-reaching scope of Venetian justice.
We have now to view the real source of the power of this strange nation ;
a power based, as has repeatedly been suggested, upon the old familiar
foundation of commercial prosperity. It was the independence born of this
prosperity that made Venice feared and hated by all the other powers of
Italy — feared and hated, but also admired. We read in Villani c that when
in the early part of the fourteenth century Venice condescended to take
common cause with Florence against the tyrant of Milan, the Florentines
regarded it as a singular honour for their country to have become the con-
federate of the Venetians, "who, for their great excellence and power, had
never allied themselves with any state or prince, except at their ancient
conquest of Constantinople and Romania." We learn, on the other hand,
from the Venetians, how some of the wise men of their city regretted this
same alliance with its attendant grasping after political conquests, on the
mainland. A remarkable account has been preserved to us by Sanuto,^ of
the warning said to have been given to his people by the doge Mocenigo,
who died in 1423, and whose alleged words we shall quote in some detail,
because they furnish us with statistics that will serve as introductory to
our further studies of the national commerce.
The doge asserted that the trade with Lombardy alone brought into
Venice each year no less than 28,800,000 ducats. « " My lords," he is reported
as saying, " from the infirm state in which I find myself, I judge that I am
drawing near the close of my career ; and the obligations under which I lie
to a country which has not only bred me, but has permitted me to attain such
lofty prominence, and has showered upon me so many honours, have prompted
me to call you together around me, in order that I may commend to your
care this Christian city, and persuade you to live in concord with your neigh-
bours, and to preserve this city, as I have done to the best of my ability. In
my time, 4,000,000 ducats of the public debt have been paid though 6,000,000
remain, the latter of which were contracted for the war of Padua, Vi-
cenza, and Verona. We have regularly paid the half-yearly interest on the
THE COMMEKCE OF VENICE 305
funds and the salaries of the public offices. Our city at present sends
abroad for purposes of trade in various parts of the world 10,000,000
ducats a year, of which the interest is not less than 2,000,000. In this
city there are 3000 vessels of smaller burden, which carry 17,000 seamen ;
300 large ships carrying 8000 seamen ; 45 galleys and dromons constantly
in commission for the protection of commerce, which employ 11,000 sea-
men, 3000 carpenters, 3000 caulkers. Of silk cloth- workers there are 3000 ;
of manufacturers of fustian, 16,000. The rent-roll is estimated at 7,050,000
ducats. The income arising from let houses is 150,000. We find 1000
gentlemen with means varying between 700 and 4000 ducats a year. If
you continue to prosper in this manner, you will become masters of all
the gold in Christendom. But, I beseech you, keep your fingers from your
neighbours, as you would keep them out of the fire, and engage in no
unjust wars, for in such errors God will not support princes. Everybody
knows that the Turkish war has rendered you expert and brave in maritime
enterprises. You have six able captains, competent to command large fleets.
You have many persons well versed in diplomacy and in the government of
cities, who are ambassadors of perfect experience. You have numerous
doctors in different sciences, and especially in the law, who enjoy high credit
for their learning among strangers. Your mint coins annually 1,000,000
ducats of gold and 200,000 ducats of silver, of minor pieces, 800,000. Of
this sum 500,000 go to Syria, 100,000 to the Terra Firma, 100,000 to various
other places, 100,000 to England. The remainder is used at home. You are
aware that the Florentines send here every year 16,000 pieces of fine cloth,
of which we dispose in Barbary, Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, Rhodes, Romania,
the Morea, and Istria, and that they bring to our city monthly 60,000
(70,000 ?) ducats' worth of merchandise, amounting annually to 840,000 or
more, and in exchange purchase our goods to our great advantage.
" Therefore it behoves you to beware lest this city decline. It behoves
you to exercise extreme caution in the choice of my successor, in whose power
it will be, to a considerable extent, to govern the republic for good or for
evil. Many of you are inclined to Messer Francesco Foscari, and do not, I
apprehend, sufficiently know his impetuous character, and proud, supercilious
disposition. If he is made doge, you will be at war continually. Those who
now possess 10,000 ducats will have only 1000. Those who possess ten
houses will be proprietors of one, and those who now own ten coats will be
reduced to a single coat. You will lose your money and your reputation.
You will be at the mercy of a soldiery. I have found it impossible to forbear
expressing to you thus my opinion. May God help you to make the wisest
choice ! May he rule your hearts to preserve peace."
Such [says Hazlitte] were the last words of a great and prophetic
statesman. The glaze of death was soon upon those eyes. Those lips were
soon mute. On the 4th of April, 1423, Tommaso Mocenigo expired, leaving
his country more prosperous and opulent than she had ever yet been. Her
treasury was full. Her debt was considerably reduced. The statistics of
her taxation and expenditure exhibited a surplus of 1,000,000 a year. Her
home and foreign trade was flourishing beyond any precedent. No European
power was more highly respected, and the alliance of none was more eagerly
sought and cultivated-^
These calculations of Mocenigo are declared by Hallam / to be so strange
and manifestly inexact as to deserve little regard ; they are, however, viewed
with greater consideration by Daru,0 and by Hazlitt (e). Doubtless they have
not the accuracy of the reports of modern statisticians, yet, as a general state-
H. W. — VOL. IX. X
306 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
ment of what at least are approximate facts, they have the fullest interest,
and the utmost significance. They furnish a clew to the power and greatness
of this remarkable city ; a city which in the year 1422 is said to have had a
population of only 190,000, yet which was the most powerful state of Italy,
and which after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was the uncontested world
metropolis.
In considering the precise conditions of Venetian commerce and manu-
facture it will be well to take at the same time a general view of the com-
merce of late antiquity, that the conditions of trade in the East to which
Venice fell heir may be understood. «
It was to their political and territorial situation that the Venetians owed
their direction towards commercial operations — the cause of their prosperity.
Fugitives from the Italian continent, refuged in small, uncultivated, barren
islands, without certain communication with the continent, they saw nothing
round them but the sea, in their hands a few fleeting possessions which they
had saved from the general devastation, but which would soon be lost if work
and industry could not fructify them.
Salt was the only product of the soil they trod. Fishery could only im-
perfectly provide a subsistence. But this fishery, this salt, became a means
of exchange to provide things necessary for life. Nearly everything was
lacking. The inhabitants of the lagunes were reduced to seek on the neigh-
bouring continent grain, wood, metals, stone, even water. Happily for them
their neighbours could bring them nothing. These people, desolated by
continual war, were not given to navigation. If at that time, when so many
fugitives took refuge in the lagunes, there had been near them a commercial
maritime town eager to bring them all they wanted, such a town would have
taken from them the few riches they had brought into the islands, and little
by little these fugitives, instead of creating a country on uncultivated wastes,
would have sought safety, ease, or work with the foreigner. But the rigour
of their condition, the deprivation of all help condemned them to make great
efforts, and their heroic works contributed also to their happiness and glory.
Again, they would hardly have believed it to be a good thing that the
severity of their lot made them exert themselves on the sea. Continually
obliged themselves to seek what was lacking, they necessarily acquired a
habit of braving the ocean. When what they wanted was not to be found
on the neighbouring coast they sought it on the opposite one. Gradually
they noted at what points they could make their purchases or exchanges
with most advantage. These frequent crossings, made on their own account,
furnished occasion for becoming intermediaries for the two Adriatic shores.
These journeys had at first for object only the provisioning of the islands.
The spirit of commerce gave them wider views ; their limits were extended,
their means perfected. Art and cupidity essayed more difficult routes, and
it was seen that this new town, placed in a position so easy to defend, almost
on the borders which separate Europe from Asia, was called to become
through the industry of its inhabitants the principal market for western
peoples. Other local circumstances gave it the means of easy communication
with a large number of consumers. Italy being separated from Germany by
the Alps was impracticable for commerce. A port situated at the end of the
Adriatic and the mouth of the Po would be the natural market for wools,
silks, cotton, saffron, oil, manna, and all the other productions which Italy
furnished to Hungary and Germany.
For the same reason, all that the north had to get from the Levant,
Africa, and Spain had to pass by Venice. Journeys beyond the straits of
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE
307
Gibraltar towards the eastern coast of Europe then meant a voyage of long
duration. Navigation was so imperfect that the eastern peoples had not yet
learned to seek Mediterranean products, and it was very rarely that they
made expeditions, which meant so much expense, danger, and loss of time.
The result was that the end of the Adriatic Sea was the sole point of com-
munication with the navigable sea, and Venice was a mart offering equal
security against all enemies and tempests. The Po, the Brenta, and the
Adige seemed to empty into the basin of the lagunes expressly to offer the
Venetians an easy route by which they could take without danger or great
expense all productions demanded by eastern Italy. Also it was a constant
care with this growing republic to assure free navigation and all kinds of
franchise on these waters and their numerous affluents. About the year 713
the first doge of the republic concluded a peace with Liutprand, king of
Lombardy, which preserved to Venetians commercial privileges in the ports
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BRIDGE OF THE KIALTO, VENICE
and lands of this kingdom. Not only were they exempt, with their neigh-
bours, from all dues, but they held sovereign rights in perpetuity, and the
exercise of these gave them the means of making themselves a burden to
their rivals. One even sees them, in the fifteenth century, offering to fur-
nish Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan, with ten thousand foot and ten
thousand horse, if he would let them administer the custom-houses of his
capital.
The republic did not give less attention to keeping the exclusive privilege
of furnishing this continent with products of her own small territory. She
perfected the art of extracting salt, and appropriated, as far as she could, all
the salt beds of her coasts. She prevented her neighbours from exploiting
those they had. The Venetians sold two qualities of salt — that manufac-
tured by themselves in their lagunes, called Chioggia salt, and that drawn
from the salt beds of Cervia, I stria, Dalmatia, Sicily, the African coasts, the
Black Sea, and even Astrakhan. All these foreign salts were comprised
under the name of sea-salt or ultramarine salt. The first was of superior
quality and consequently of higher price. The Cervian salt beds belonged
to the Bolognaise. With them the Venetians treated, and, to preserve the
commerce of all the salt from this source, the latter determined the quantity
308 THE HISTOBY OF ITALY
which should be allowed to be sold, establishing surveillance even on the
place of fabrication. The republic even obtained the right to transport rock-
salt which southern Germany and Croatia took from their mines. They
forced the king of Hungary to close his. The coast people on the Adriatic
were not allowed to send away their salt, while the inhabitants of Italy could
not take any but Venetian salt.
For any subject of the republic to buy foreign salt was a crime. The
house of the offender was razed, and he himself banished forever. Yet while
Venice made this monopoly she furnished all these people, now her tribu-
taries, with excellent salt at a very low price. Sales were effected by com-
panies, which undertook to provision such and such a country. It is almost
incredible how much treasure this one branch of commerce for fourteen
centuries procured the Venetians. These privileges cost some bloodshed.
But the defence of their pretensions and the wars they had to sustain against
the corsairs and jealous neighbours put them under the necessity of forming
a military marine. After some centuries of effort, the flag of St. Mark was
seen proudly flying all along the Mediterranean. Venetian fleets made con-
quests, the republic founded rich colonies, extended its navigation and com-
merce in all then known seas, and arrogated the sovereignty of the Adriatic
Sea. The continual wars which divided other peoples, their gross ignorance,
their almost general isolation with regard to commerce and navigation, were
so many favourable circumstances which gave the republic time to establish
the power of her marine and the prosperity of her industry quite firmly.
VENICE IN THE LEVANT
After the fall of the Eastern Empire, Venice became mistress of nearly
all the maritime points of that empire, and had immense advantages in all
the Levant markets. Her merchants there enjoyed all the privileges of the
natives, and in every port her ships found not only free harbourage but
special protection. For eight centuries, that is from the epoch when the
Venetians wanted to become conquerors over the Italian lands, legislation and
politics had for their principal object the prosperity of commerce. Privi-
leges from the foreigner, assured safety with them, facilities for the moving
about of men, goods, and capital, the establishment of banks, perfecting of
money, encouragement of industrial manufactures, a vigilant but not officious
policy, a religious tolerance little known among other nations, all concurred
to make for Venetian commercial greatness.
If to these advantages one adds the possibility of obtaining civic rights,
and considers that a share in sovereignty was attached to this title, one can
imagine what an influx of strangers augmented the population of Venice
and increased its prosperity by bringing capital and new industries. One
can conceive also how citizens of such a state would be attached to their
country, and what would be the strength and resources of this government.
One would feel at the same time that the republic would lose with regard to
all these things when she adopted, or rather submitted to, an aristocratic
government. It has been said that those of the citizens who arrogated all
authority compensated the others by abandoning to them all the advan-
tages resulting from commerce. Indeed, this has been given as a mark of
disinterestedness and moderation from the aristocratic classes. But this is
an error. It is evident that, in spite of a prohibitive law, the nobles con-
tinued to be merchants until that epoch when the republic was already shorn
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 309
of its power and commerce of its splendour. Instances of this are to be
found at every step in history.
If one reflects on the influence that habits of work, emulation, riches,
travel, and association with foreigners must necessarily have had on the
manners of a people and the development of their intellectual faculties, one
may guess that the Venetians must already have become a polished nation
when other peoples, whom nature seemed to have placed in a different rank,
were still barbarians. One is not surprised to read in the history of Charle-
magne that the lords who composed his court were astonished to see, at the
Pavia fair, valuable carpets, silken stuffs, gold tissues, pearls, and precious
stones spread out by Venetian merchants. Doubtless these lofty barons very
much despised the merchants and their business, but their pride would be
lowered somewhat when Pepin was beaten by these same men ; when Euro-
pean kings found themselves obliged to ask for Venetian ships to get into
Palestine ; and when the Baldwins, the Montmorencies, and the counts of
Champagne and of Montfort contracted alliance with these merchants to
conquer and share the empire of Constantinople.
This superiority of the Venetians over other European peoples — we
except the Tuscans, whose literary glory gives them an infinite ascendency
— was maintained until well into the fifteenth century. All French, Ger-
man, and English towns were a formless mass of houses without architecture
or monuments. The lords of these countries lived in melancholy fortresses,
and hardly knew the meaning of luxury and art. At this epoch there was
neither letters nor elegance except in Italy and the part of Spain occupied by
the Moors. It would hardly be just to make out that all these advantages
were derived from one sole cause. Venice no doubt owed her prosperity
partly to the good fortune of having a regular government long before other
nations. But this government which watched over the preservation of public
fortune was not the cause of national wealth ; that was entirely due to com-
merce. From the eighth century, the commerce of Venice with the East
was sufficiently important to determine her to remain in alliance with the
emperor Nicephorus, in spite of Charlemagne's threats.
While, however, the Venetians enjoyed that opulence which is the just
fruit of labour, they were kept by their sumptuary laws within the bounds
of a wise economy — an economy which alone conserves the capital which
feeds commerce and is sole regulator of the price of handiwork. Commerce
has relations with the constitution. In the government of a despot it is
founded on luxury, its only object being to procure the nation all that can
minister to its pride, its luxuries, its fancies ; in the government of many it
is generally founded on economy. Standing between the voluptuous peoples
of the East and the uncultivated European nations, the Venetians imitated
the industry of the one and preserved the simplicity of the other.
During the first centuries of the Venetian Republic, all Europe was in an
uncultured condition. Art had left ancient Italy to pass over to the empire
and ornament the new capital of the world. But when Fortune arrived un-
expectedly with gifts, she found no man ready to receive them. The peoples
to whom Constantino had transported his throne had a taste for voluptuous-
ness rather than a genius for activity. In this neighbourhood, a people of
high antiquity, enlightened long before the barbarians of the West, owed to
its traditions, its activity, its conquests, that variety of knowledge and works
which distinguished civilised nations. The Venetians were continually
changing the products of the East against merchandise from all Europe ; to
form such a chain of communication was much for a population of fishers.
310 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
But they carried their industry even further. They saw that the Grecian
Empire received many useful things from far-off countries and from peoples
almost unknown, but also a multitude of superfluities which were becoming
needful for a society more refined. They established themselves as near as
they could to the source of these objects, and such was the success of their
activity and courage that they became first the carriers and then the com-
mercial masters of pleasure-loving Constantinople.
The peninsula of the Tauric Chersonese, situated at the end of the Black
Sea, had long been for the great cities of the Hellespont and the Greek seas
what Sicily had been for Rome — an inexhaustible storehouse assuring sub-
sistence to the population. This peninsula fed Athens, and paid an annual
tribute of 180,000 measures of wheat to Mithridates. It had abundant salt
beds and furnished wools and hides. These objects of first necessity
acquired a new value through the vicinity of a town like Constantinople.
Marco Polo, the Venetian, speaks of a journey made on this coast by his
father towards the middle of the thirteenth century.
The abundance of sequins throughout the East proves that the Vene-
tians had great commerce there — that their coin was taken confidently, and
that they were obliged to pay for a part of their purchases in ready money.
There is another fact by which one can judge of the great number of
Venetians spread through the Greek Empire. When Manuel Comnenus,
imitating the example of Mithridates, arrested in one day all subjects of the
republic found in the state, the prisons could hardly suffice to contain them ;
they had to fill the churches and monasteries. The difficulty of protecting
their establishments in Asia, the jealousy of the Genoese, and the revolu-
tions of the Eastern Empire, obliged the Venetians many times to seek new
routes to re-establish their constantly interrupted commercial relations.
The story of the vicissitudes which have changed so often the course of
commerce — that commerce which like a river pours continually into the
West, is one well worthy of attention. It seemed that Europe could not
suffice for herself. The activity of its inhabitants exhausted itself in a
thousand ways which produced needs foreign to its welfare. From all time
they counted eastern merchandise among objects of the first necessity, and
this commerce has occupied the industry of several peoples more or less
fortunately placed. 9
Let us go back to Roman times, and trace briefly the development of trade
routes.
THE COMMERCIAL FOREBEARS OP THE VENETIANS
The crowd of barbarian people who inundated the Roman Empire at the
end of its existence brought with it the germs of a new life ; when Rome
had succumbed, these germs began to develop themselves in all parts of
Europe — races young and vigorous but still half barbarous came, all at
once, into the foreground of history ; mingled with the people whom Rome,
up till now, had kept under the yoke, they founded new nationalities ; it
was a general transformation in the state, in society, and in the ways and
customs. Nevertheless, this overthrow did not affect all the conditions of
the life of the people in the same degree. In the domain of commercial life
we do not find, on the threshold of the Middle Ages, any event which ap-
proaches in importance the discovery of the sea route to the East Indies and
the discovery of America, events which coincide with the beginning of the
modern epoch, and which have unexpectedly opened new paths for commerce.
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE
311
Between antiquity and the Middle Ages the transition was less abrupt ;
the commercial intercourse and markets remained, generally, the same as
of old. Since the conquests of Alexander had brought the civilised people of
the West into contact with the remote East, the main currents of commerce
set thitherward, for there was the source of production of those articles
which had become necessary to the insatiable masters of the world. From
the Indies were obtained those spices which the Greeks and Romans put into
their food to heighten its flavour, the greater part of the perfumes which
they sprinkled on their persons and in their apartments, and the ivory
with which they made their precious utensils. China furnished the silk with
which the women, and later on, with the growth of luxury, even the men
of the imperial epoch loved to clothe themselves; for jewels, the moun-
tains of Persia and India sent their precious stones ; the Indian Ocean, its
pearls.
Little by little, this commerce increased to such an extent, that in the
time of Pliny, the Roman Empire expended each year in Asia, in payment of
merchandise obtained from thence, 100,000,000 sesterces (about X 800,000),
of which India alone absorbed one-half. In the Middle Ages, the Levant
was still the principal goal of the mer-
chant of the West. The commodities
which later generations brought from
America, such as sugar and cotton, were
then obtained from Smyrna, Asia Minor,
or Cyprus ; condiments from India, spices
and especially pepper, were some of the
most highly appreciated commodities at
this period. But if we seek the origin
of the delicate fabrics, or the carpets
which were used at the courts and among
the wealthy burghers of the Middle Ages,
we have almost always to go to the East.
Thence came the raw material, very often
the tissue or the embroidery, and finally
the name of the material.
As trade followed the same lines as
in ancient days, so the great commercial
routes remained the same. To obtain the
products of the Levant, the merchantmen
of the West, not knowing the route by
the Cape of Good Hope, confined them-
selves to the short voyage through the
Mediterranean or the waters which com-
municate directly with it. There they
were certain to find, along the shore,
markets already famous in ancient times,
Alexandria, Tyre, Berytus, Antioch,
Byzantium, Trebizond; the creation of
a new market was a great exception.
Merchandise still arrived at the ports of
the Mediterranean or of the Pontus from the remote East by the old ways of
the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf ; that coming from the centre of Asia over-
land still followed the route we find already quoted in Greek and Roman
geographies from the narratives of the merchants.
A VENETIAN BRONZE KNOCKER
312 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
The only elements which had changed in commerce were the mediums ;
Italians, Provencals, and Catalans had taken the place of Greeks and Romans
as commercial nations. But, with respect to this, do not let us forget that
the transition between antiquity and the Middle Ages was gradual. In fact,
when the empire was divided into two parts, the Byzantine half had inherited
the commerce of the East as a natural result of its geographical situation.
Having survived invasions, it played the part of medium in the commercial
relations between the West and the East, until the time when the citizens of
the sea-port towns of Italy, southern France, and Spain were grown strong
enough to do without one.
We possess a sufficient number of documents dating from the time of
Justinian (527-565 A.D.) to make a complete picture of the state of the
East at this time, from the commercial point of view. The most remote
countries of Asia with which the Greeks of Byzantium maintained a regular
commerce were also those which furnished the most precious and choice
products. For centuries, the silk industry had flourished in China, but the
secret of it had been so well kept that strangers had never been able to
learn the process of its manufacture. At length there came a time when
another country was able, in its turn, to cultivate this important branch of
industry. This good fortune fell to the lot of the small kingdom of Khotan,
in the centre of Asia, in consequence of the marriage of its king with a
Chinese princess who, it is said, betrayed the secret of her compatriots and,
managing to elude the supervision of the custom-house officers, brought silk-
worms, eggs, and the seeds of the mulberry tree into her new country.
We cannot say with certainty whether, in the seventh century, the manu-
facture of silk had already spread from the East to the West, and passed
beyond the borders of Khotan, but we may assume that the greater part of
the silk which the western merchants received came from China. The
Chinese exported their products themselves ; but at this time, with rare
exceptions, their ships only conveyed them as far as Ceylon, and their caravans
did not go beyond the frontiers of Turkestan. There other nations received
the precious wares and carried them farther west. But it is difficult to
make a distinction, for the ancient classical writers, and those of the Byzan-
tine epoch after them, gave the name of Seres, not only to the producers of
silk, but also to the various peoples engaged in its distribution.
Such a silk-trading nation were the inhabitants of Sogdiana, in the low-
lands of Bokhara, a race distinguished from the remotest times for their
taste and aptitude for commerce. The silk was brought to them by caravans
from China, and they, in their turn, conveyed it either to the markets of the
north of Iran, or to those south of the Caspian Sea. Our sources of informa-
tion do not, indeed, positively state this as a fact. In his chronicle, The-
ophanes of Byzantium J relates that the markets and ports frequented by the
silk merchants had changed masters three times at short intervals ; having
originally been in the possession of the Persians, they were taken from them
by the so-called White Huns (the Yue-thsi or Yuechi of the Chinese), and
finally were occupied by the Turks.
By whatever route the silk was conveyed, the Persians always endeav-
oured to receive it first, and they watched jealously that it did not reach the
Romans of the East by any other route than that which traversed their coun-
try or by any other hands than theirs. Nevertheless, a certain portion of the
silk was despatched from China to Ceylon by sea ; there it was transhipped
and reached the Persian Gulf by the west coast of India and the south coast
of Carmania. It is obvious that when Chinese wares followed the sea route,
THE COMMEECE OF VENICE 313
they might escape the Persians, for from Ceylon it was possible to take them
by the south of Arabia and Ethiopia. Herein lay a danger to the Persian
monopoly which the emperor Justinian contrived to turn to his advantage.
The Byzantines found it a great hardship to be reduced to having no other
intermediaries for these, to them indispensable, articles than the Persians.
There was no other nation with whom they were so frequently at war, and
how could they see with indifference their own merchants supplying their
enemies with enormous sums in payment for the silks they purchased ; or how
bear patiently the frequent interruptions to trade due to a state of warfare ?
With a view to remedying these inconveniences, the emperor Justinian
attempted in the year 532 to open a road for the silk trade through Ethiopia ;
the Ethiopians could, he thought, purchase the silk from the Indians, and sell
it to the Byzantines. Their king, an ally of Byzantium, allured by the pros-
pect of gain, entered into the emperor's views. But when his subjects arrived
at the ports which the vessels from India had just entered, they found the
Persians masters of the situation in their double capacity of neighbours and
ancient clients ; they were forced to return empty-handed, and the Persians
remained, for the nonce, in uncontested possession of their monopoly.
When it was proved that the Ethiopians were neither strong nor enter-
prising enough to wrest the silk trade from the hands of the Persians, the
problem seemed, for an instant, insoluble. Happily Justinian succeeded in
securing some silkworms' eggs, brought back by missionary monks who had
penetrated to the heart of the countries which produced them, probably to
Khotan (about the year 552). Thus it is that the manufacture of silk was
introduced into the Grecian Empire, and from the year 568 Justin II, the
successor to Justinian, was able to show it in full activity to a Turkish ambas-
sador who happened to be at his court. Many years elapsed, it is true,
before sufficient raw silk was produced in Greece to satisfy the demands of
the native industry. For a long time the greater part of the raw material
and the better qualities of silk had to be brought from China, and the
exorbitant claims of the Persian middlemen to be endured.
But the Persians were not merely transmitters, they were manufacturers
also. Hwen Tsang, who traversed the eastern frontier of Persia at the begin-
ning of the seventh century, says that the Persians were skilled in the weav-
ing of silken or woollen stuffs and carpets, and that products of their industry
were highly prized in the neighbouring kingdoms. They were assisted by
foreign workmen, who came to settle in Persia voluntarily or under coercion
from the Asiatic countries subject to Byzantium. By the adoption of an
unwise system of monopoly ruinous to the silk-weavers of his country, Jus-
tinian promoted their emigration in large numbers to Persia, others were
brought there by force by King Sapor II as part of the spoils he brought
back from his victorious campaign in Mesopotamia and Syria. A tradition
current several generations later traced the origin of the silk manufacture in
Tuster, Susa, and other Persian cities, to the colonies of Greek craftsmen.
To satisfy the luxury of the Sassanidian court, quantities of stuffs of great
value were necessary. When the victorious Greek army, led by the emperor
Heraclius against the Persians, took possession of the royal castle of Dasta-
gerd, in the year 627, they found there a quantity of raw silk and piles of
silken garments, embroidered carpets, and other articles of this kind. It is
permissible to suppose that they were of native manufacture. The spoil
gained on this occasion comprised other things worthy of note. Large
quantities of spices, evidently of Indian origin, pepper, ginger, aloes, and
aloe-wood (agallochum) fell into the hands of the victors ; they were con-
314 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
signed to the flames with the rest, as it was impossible to carry everything
off. Let us add that in the year 636-637, at the storming of Madain (Ctesi-
phon), the capital of the Sassanid Empire, by the Arabs, there were found
large supplies of musk, amber, sandalwood, and enough camphor to freight
a ship ; this last produced nowhere but in the islands beyond India. The
Arabs were so ignorant of its uses, that they proposed to use it to flavour
their bread. All this proves to us that the luxury of the Sassanidian court
was one of the principal causes which turned the stream of Levantine com-
merce towards Persia.
After the Persians had levied their supplies on the merchandise in transit,
there yet remained enormous quantities which passed directly into the Byzan-
tine Empire. ^ These goods were brought across Lake Aral or down the Oxus
into the Caspian Sea. From this sea they entered the Volga, which flows
into it, and thence were carried as far as that place, which is eighteen miles
from the Tanais. Man had even tried to dig a canal of communication
between the two rivers. Arrived in the Tanais, Asiatic productions thence
descended into the Palus-Mseotis, crossed the Black Sea, and went to fill
the stores of Constantinople, then the most flourishing town in the world.
An Armenian king thought of shortening this journey by avoiding the Volga,
Tanais, and Palus-Myeotis. He established direct communication between
the Cyrus, which flows into the Caspian Sea, and the Phasis, which runs to-
wards the end of the Pontus-Euxinus. The crossing by land was only fifteen
leagues. One hundred and twenty bridges were thrown between the moun-
tains to make this route practicable for commerce, and these still witness to
the greatness, utility, and difficulties of the enterprise.
So long as commerce followed this route it enriched the maritime towns
of Kaffa, Trebizond, Sinope, and Byzantium, on the Black Sea. The greed of
the Tatars multiplied dangers on this route ; they diverted towards Lake
Aral the Gihon and the Sihun, two rivers which discharged into the Caspian
Sea, and thus destroyed one of the communications between India and Europe.
Saracen industry reopened communication with the Red Sea, Egypt, and
Alexandria, and all the Syrian ports became marts for oriental merchandise.
This furnished the opportunity to the Venetian trader. Never did people
destined to rise to such great commercial enterprise begin under narrower
circumstances. The Venetians had no territory. They were tributary to
their neighbours for all necessaries of life, and had nothing to offer in
exchange save fish and salt — natural products, of which man could not
considerably augment the value. Yet, inasmuch as the profits of this com-
merce were mediocre, so it was important to extend them. To increase the
consumption of fish, it was necessary to prepare it in such a way that it
would keep ; and to have no rivals in the sale of salt, it was imperative to sell
at the lowest price.
The very poor profits that the islanders could make on these two objects
furnished them the means of buying larger products from the neighbouring
coasts. Wood from Dalmatia they made into boats, their islands became
dockyards that provided means of navigation on the neighbouring rivers and
ports. In proportion as the towns of Aquila, Padua, and Ravenna acquired
prosperity, so handicraft became dearer, and the inhabitants more disdainful
of this kind of work. Thus to the Venetians there resulted not only the
advantage of selling objects augmented in value by their labour, but the still
greater one of perfecting themselves in the art of naval construction, while
other peoples did not make similar progress. Moreover, they always found
plenty of material, and could consequently always increase their marine.
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 315
Their commerce becoming more profitable, they transported into their isles
other rough products, higher priced and capable of receiving a still greater
value when worked ; flax and hemp to make naval equipage, iron to forge
anchors and arms. These were the things which they bartered for the coveted
products of the East. Growing still richer, they exercised their talents on
things more valuable — wool, cotton, silk, silver, gold, even making a high-
priced ware of such common material as glass. Q
Indeed, the manufacture of ornamental glass vessels became so distinc-
tively a Venetian specialty, and one carried to such unrivalled perfection,
that a more detailed reference to this branch of manufacture may well
occupy our attention. «
VENETIAN GLASS
The glass manufactories, to believe the Venetian authors, were almost
contemporaneous with the founding of the city itself. A great event which
marked the beginning of the twelfth century was the means of increasing
their prosperity, and contributed to the introduction of art into a manufac-
ture until then purely industrial. The Venetian Republic had, in short,
participated in the taking of Constantinople by the Latins (1204), and
imbued as she was with the spirit of commerce, she sought to derive every
possible advantage from this victory, in favour of her dawning manufac-
tures. The glass manufactories of the Eastern Empire were inspected by
agents of the republic, and Greek workmen were allured to Venice. It is
certain that, to date from the end of the thirteenth century, an uninter-
rupted series may be produced of acts of the Venetian government, which
prove both the importance of the glass manufactories from that remote
period, and the special interest ever taken by the state in the cultivation of
the art, which, to use the expression of a Venetian writer, it guarded as the
apple of its eye. In this it displayed great sagacity, since for many centu-
ries the four quarters of the world were inundated by the various produc-
tions of the glass manufactories of Venice ; and the sums of money procured
to the republic by this branch of industry alone would utterly defy calculation.
From the end of the thirteenth century, the manufactories of glass had so
multiplied in the interior of Venice, that the city was incessantly exposed to
fires. In 1287, a decree of the great council prohibited any manufactory of
glass to be established within the city, unless by the proprietor of the house in
which it was to be carried on. As this exception in favour of the proprie-
tors perpetuated the inconveniences which the government had endeavoured
to guard against, a new decree was issued on the 8th of October, 1291, by
which all the manufactories of glass still existing in the interior of Venice
were ordered to be demolished and removed out of the city.
It was then that choice was made of the island of Murano, which is only
separated from Venice by a canal of small extent, for establishing in it the
manufactories of glass. In a few years, the whole island was covered with
glass manufactories of various descriptions. But a new decree of the llth
of August, 1592, modified the rigour of the previous regulations in favour of
the manufactories of small glassware (fabbriche di conterie) for the making
of beads, false stones, and glass jewels. These were now allowed to be set
up in the very interior of Venice, with the sole condition of their being
insulated at least five paces from any habitation.
This favour granted to glass jewelry proceeded from the immense
trade in it carried on by Venice at that period, and the government was
316 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
careful in no way to check a branch of industry which extended its relations
in Africa and Asia, and consequently favoured the extension of its navy,
upon which depended the increase of the power of the republic.
The Venetian glass-makers were soon engaged almost exclusively in this
branch of its manufacture, a circumstance which may be accounted for as
follows : About 1250, a Venetian Matteo Polo and his brother Niccolo, father
of the celebrated Marco Polo, were attracted by commercial views to Con-
stantinople. In 1256 they both visited the khan of Tatary, who inhabited
the banks of the Volga. War having obliged them to leave the states of
Bereke,1 in which they had been stopping, they passed on to Bokhara, to the
south of the Caspian Sea, and afterwards proceeded to the court of Kublai,
great khan of the Tatars, whose sovereignty extended over the greater
part of Asia. On their return to their own country, after twenty years'
absence, they found Marco Polo, whom they had left in the cradle. Their
narrations inflamed the imagination of the young man, who desired to
accompany his father and uncle in a new journey, on which they set out.
Marco Polo went with them in 1271. In 1274 he arrived at the court of
Kublai-Khan, attached himself to the service of that monarch, became
governor of one of his provinces, and was trusted by him with the most
important missions.
Extensive travels, and the duties of his high station, filled up the best
years of Marco Polo's life. On returning to Venice, in 1295, after having
explored the greater part of Central Asia, the shores and islands of the
Indian Ocean, and those of the Persian Gulf, he pointed out to his fellow-
citizens, whose intrepidity as navigators was equal to their love of enterprise
as merchants, the routes they must follow to spread the productions of
European industry over Tatary, India, and even as far as China ; he
described the manners of the people who inhabited these immense regions,
and their extraordinary predilection for beads, coloured stones, and jewels
of every description, with which they were fond of adorning their persons
and of decorating their garments. Nothing more was needed to excite the
industrial and mercantile spirit of the Venetians. The glass-makers par-
ticularly devoted themselves more zealously than ever to the manufacture of
beads and glass jewels (arte del margaritaio, arte del perlaio), a manufacture
which, from that time, formed a totally distinct branch from that of glass
vessels (fabbriche di vassellami o recipiendi di vetro e cristallo). The names
of Cristoforo Briani and of Domenico Miotto have been handed down to us
as having been the inventors of coloured beads (margarite), and as having
also been the first glass-makers who turned their attention to the imitation
of precious stones.
This Miotto having been successful in a large speculation he had made at
Bassora, almost all the Venetian glass-makers applied themselves to the
manufacture of these objects, which were soon dispersed over Egypt, Ethi-
opia, and Abyssinia, along the coasts of North Africa, over central Asia,
India, and even as far as China.
This commercial movement would necessarily retard during the course of
the fourteenth century, any progress in the manufacture of glass vessels ; in
fact, all the information existing upon the glass-making of Venice at this
period refers for the most part only to the making of the margarite, which
were a source of such commercial advantages to the republic. Carlo Marino
quotes a document from which it appears that a certain Andolo de Savignon,
1 Brother or son of Batu, grandson of Jenghiz Khan.
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 317
Genoese ambassador at the court of the emperor of China, obtained from the
great council full powers to export this same glass jewellery to a very consid-
erable amount. We learn also, from the inventories of the fourteenth cen-
tury, that at that period richly ornamented vases of glass were still obtained
from the East. Yet the manufacturers of glass vessels were already endeav-
ouring to procure the documents most needed for the improvement of their
productions. The learned Morelli has given an extract from a manuscript
contained in the Naniana library, and dating from the fourteenth century,
which gives an account of the processes employed by the Greeks for render-
ing glass colourless and spotless, for gilding and staining it, and for covering
it with paintings.
The invasion of the Eastern Empire by the Turks, and the taking of Con-
stantinople in 1453, which occasioned the immigration of so many artists into
Italy, was beneficial to glass-making, as well as to the other industrial arts.
To date from the fifteenth century, we find the manufacture of glass vessels
taking a new direction. The Venetian glass-makers borrowed from the
Greeks all their processes for colouring, gilding, and enamelling glass ; and
the Renaissance having restored a taste for the fine forms of antiquity, the
art of glass-making followed the movement given by the great artists at that
period who rendered Italy illustrious ; and vases were produced in no wise
inferior in form to those bequeathed by antiquity. Coccius Sabellicus,* a
Venetian historian of the fifteenth century, affords us evidence of the admi-
ration excited in his time by the beautiful and varied productions of the
Venetian glass manufactories.
At the end of the fifteenth century, or rather in the first years of the six-
teenth, the Venetian glass-makers distinguished themselves by a new inven-
tion, that of vases enriched with filagrees of glass, either white or coloured,
which twisted themselves into a thousand varied patterns, and appeared as
if encrusted in the middle of the paste of the colourless and transparent crys-
tal. This invention, which, while it enriched the vases with an indestructi-
ble ornamentation, preserved at the same time their light and graceful forms,
gave a new impulse to the manufactories of glass-ware, and caused their beauti-
ful productions to be even more sought after by every nation of Europe.
Accordingly the Venetian government used every possible precaution to pre-
vent the secret of this new manufacture from being discovered, or Venetian
workmen from carrying away this branch of industry to other nations.
Already, in the thirteenth century, a decree of the great council had pro-
hibited the exportation, without the authority of the state, of the principal
materials used in the composition of glass. On the 13th of February, 1490,
the superintendence of the manufactories of Murano was intrusted to the
chief of the Council of Ten, and, on the 27th of October, 1547, the council
reserved to itself the care of watching over the manufactories to prevent the
art of glass-making from being carried abroad. Yet all these precautions did
not appear to have been sufficient, and the inquisition of the state, in the
twenty-sixth article of its statutes, announced the following decision : " If a
workman transport his art into a foreign country to the injury of the repub-
lic, a message shall be sent to him to return ; if he does not obey, the persons
most nearly related to him shall be put into prison. If, notwithstand-
ing the imprisonment of his relatives, he persists in remaining abroad, an
emissary shall be commissioned to put him to death." M. Daru, who, in his
Histoire de la rSpublique de Venise, has given us the text of this decree, which
he had copied from the archives of the republic, adds that, in a document
deposited in the archives of foreign affairs, two instances were recorded of
318
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
the execution of this punishment on some workmen whom the emperor
Leopold had enticed into his states.
If the government of Venice thought it needful, on the one hand, to
display all its severity against the glass-makers who should thus betray the
interests of their country, it, on the other hand, loaded with favours those
who remained faithful to its service, and great privileges were accorded
to the island of Murano. From the thirteenth century, the inhabitants of
Murano, for instance, obtained the rights of citizens of Venice, which ren-
dered them admissible to all the high offices of the state.*
OTHER MANUFACTURES
Needless to say, glass production was not the only manufacturing industry
that flourished in Venice. From an early time there were brass or iron
foundries, or both, in operation there ; but much more important forms
of manufacture than these were
the making of cloth-of-gold and
of purple dye. These with glass-
making were the most ancient,
the most extensive, and the most
celebrated of Venetian indus-
tries. «
The trade in cloths-of-gold
in the form of mantles or pallii,
for either sex, was prodigious ;
and the profit arising to the Vene-
tians from this source alone was
incalculably large ; the courts of
France and Germany, and more
particularly the former, were
among the best customers of the
republic. Charlemagne himself
was seldom seen without a robe
of Venetian pattern and texture;
and the constant intercourse
which the patriarch Fortunato
maintained with the son of Pepin,
had at least the good effect of
spreading the knowledge and
appreciation of the manufactures
of his country to the banks of
the Seine and the Loire. It was
a point of policy which the re-
public steadily observed from the
beginning, to make every exten-
sion of territory, every treaty of
peace, beneficial to her interests as a mercantile power. «
The activity of all this industry increased the population, and this led to
increased consumption of every kind, this again leading to new speculations
and returns. The Venetians were no longer satisfied to go and buy raw
materials of the foreigner, but sought to make the country produce them.
Troops of sheep were reared in Polesine, and were sent into the mountains
KNOCKER FROM THE PALAZZO CRIMANI
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 319
of eastern Istria. The hill-sides of Friuli were covered with mulberry trees.
An attempt was made to naturalise the sugar-cane in the isles of the Levant. ^
THE SLAVE TRADE
But after all it was as a commercial rather than as a manufacturing city
that Venice was really great, and nature intended her for the former, not for
the latter. It was in transporting or bartering with the produce of other
peoples that her chief interest lay. In general, no more worthy passport to
fame could be desired by a people than comes through such commercial enter-
prises. There was one phase of commerce, however, which forms an ugly
blot on the otherwise pleasant picture. This is the slave trade. In carrying
out this nefarious business the Genoese and Venetian merchants found, at
one time, an important source of revenue. The chief market was Egypt. «
It appears that the mameluke sultans who governed Egypt from the
middle of the thirteenth century, finding only insufficient resources for re-
cruiting their armies in a native population little fitted for the profession of
arms, had recourse to another quarter : the purchase of slaves, natives of the
countries of the north. On the other hand, in order to fill their harems and
those of the great men of the court, female slaves were brought in and were
frequently renewed. They therefore sent agents in search of slaves of either
sex wherever they could obtain them, even from Christian countries —
Armenia Minor, for instance. The religion to which they had belonged
was of little consequence ; if they were Christians their new masters soon
made converts of them. However, the Egyptian agents by preference visited
the countries where Islam was the dominant religion, and vice versa the mer-
chants from Mussulman countries brought troops of slaves to Egypt to sell
them. So it was especially the ports of Adalia and Candelore, situated in
that part of Asia Minor which had been subjugated by the Seleucidse, which
sent young boys and young girls into Egypt. When Hadrianopolis and
Gallipoli had fallen into the power of the Osmanlis, it was from these two
towns that Greek or Christian vessels started, carrying slaves by hundreds
to Damietta or Alexandria.
But this trade attained its most flourishing condition in the countries
bordering the Black Sea. The development of the power of the mameluke
sultans in Egypt and the propagation of Islam in the great Mongol Empire
of Kiptchak by the khan Bereke had occurred almost simultaneously, and
these events were the occasion of an active exchange of correspondence
and embassies between the masters of the two countries. From this time,
the agents charged with the purchase of slaves for the sultans directed their
search especially towards the northern shores of the Black Sea, and Sultan
Bibars by embassies and presents succeeded in obtaining from Michael
Palseologus, who, it appears, was not aware of the importance of the conces-
sion which he was asked to make, permission to send Egyptian trading
vessels through the Bosporus. Permission was granted only for one vessel
which was to make, once a year, the voyage to the Black Sea, there and
back ; but instead of only one there were often two, and their cargo on the
return voyage consisted of slaves destined to reinforce the sultan's troops.
It must be observed that the condition in which this region then was could
not have been more favourable to the development of this kind of trade.
Although the Tatars were solidly settled in their empire of Kiptchak, there
were still some unsubdued tribes, and between them the normal state was
320 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
one of war — skirmishing war in which Circassians, Russians, Magyars, and
Alajans carried off, each in their turn, Tatar children whom they sold as slaves.
Moreover the Tatars reserved the same fate for the prisoners whom they
brought back from their raids in the Caucasus. And furthermore, among
these savage tribes, when provisions were too dear or taxes too heavy, nothing
was more common than to see parents selling their own children, especially
their daughters. Naturally, it was only the strong, healthy, and well-formed
who were put up for sale. But along the whole of the coast neither the
Tatars nor the tribes whom they had subdued possessed large trading ports.
Kaffa, Tana, etc., were in the hands of the Italians, and so it happened that
the slave trade was concentrated in the Italian marts, and especially at Kaffa.
This latter town was the habitual resort of the agents charged with the pur-
chase of slaves for the sultans of Egypt; a certain number of them even
lived there permanently.
The Genoese were obliged to permit the embarkation of slaves for Egypt
to take place in their port of Kaffa ; if they had placed difficulties in the
way of the sultan's agents, they would have risked compromising their own
commercial relations with Egypt to the greatest extent, and even the ex-
istence of their colonies. Besides, this trade was severely controlled by the
colonial authorities. Every slave passing through underwent examination ; he
was asked if he were Mussulman or Christian. If he was of the Christian
faith or if he expressed a wish to be converted, the consul of Kaffa ransomed
him and kept him in his possession ; he allowed only Mussulmans to leave.
Slaves who wished to become Christians also found a refuge in the bishop's
house, respected by the civil authorities. Moreover, the government watched
with the greatest care that no inhabitant of Kaffa was carried away into
slavery. Finally, there was a tax upon the slave trade, and the republic of
Genoa enforced it energetically in 1431, in spite of the complaint of Sultan
Barsabay, who, in retaliation, imposed a tax of 16,000 ducats on the Genoese
merchants settled in Egypt.
So, legally, the slave trade was tolerated by the Genoese colonial authori-
ties only for Mussulmans and on condition that the transport leaving for
Egypt should be carried out by merchants of their religion and in their own
ships. Captains of Genoese ships were formally forbidden, under pain of
heavy fines, to ship mamelukes of either sex for the purpose of carrying
them into Egypt, Barbary, or the parts of Spain occupied by the Saracens ;
no Genoese was allowed to take part in this trade in any manner whatever.
In the same way, on the departure from Tana, the Venetian galleys were for-
bidden to receive on board Mussulman or Tatar slaves destined to be sent
into Turkish territory. These rules, however, did not prevent certain
Christians from the northern shores of the Black Sea from sending slaves
into Egypt. In 1307, the colonists of Kaffa themselves stole Tatar children
to sell them to the Mussulmans (that is, to send them to Egypt). In 1371,
a certain Niccolo di S. Giorgio went to Kaffa and gave himself out as a " dealer
in slaves." We do not know if he traded with Egypt, but, at the beginning
of the fourteenth century, a Genoese, named Segurano Salvago, went himself
with slaves of both sexes to the sultan of Egypt ; another, named Gentile
Imperiali, accepted the post of agent for the sultan at Kaffa for the purchase
of slaves. Many Genoese also assisted indirectly in the transport of slaves to
Egypt ; the means consisted simply in hiring their vessels for this purpose
to Mussulman slave merchants. Thus the complaints of Pope John XXII
were well-founded, when before the whole world he accused the Genoese
of contributing to increase the power of the infidels by furnishing them with
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 321
slaves. Nearly a century later, at Kaffa, Tana, and other places, Christians
and Jews bought Zichians, Russians, Alajans, Mingrelians, and Abkas and
sold them again to the Saracens, with a profit often ten times as great as the
price of purchase. These unhappy people, who had been baptise^ according
to the Greek rite, were forced to deny their faith, and might esteem them-
selves happy if they did not become the victims of the masters who employed
them for their infamous pleasures. Informed of this scandal, Martin V
thundered excommunication against all the Christians who took part in it,
while as for the Jews, he decreed that those proved guilty of it should
be condemned to wear special marks on their clothes (1425).
In this manner, there arrived every year in the great market of Cairo, by
way of Damietta or of Alexandria, about two thousand mamelukes, whom the
sultan caused to be priced by skilful experts. The subjects who fetched
the highest prices were the Tatars ; they were worth from 130 to 140 ducats
a head ; for a Circassian they paid from 110 to 120 ducats, for a Greek about
90, for an Albanian, a Slavonian or a Serbian, from 70 to 80. The merchants
had the double advantage of making large profits and of receiving tokens of
the sovereign's gratitude for the services they rendered to Islam.
The eastern slaves sent towards the northern shores of the Black Sea did
not all leave with the large convoys for Egypt and Mohammedan countries
in general ; there are many examples of sale and purchase by members of the
colonies themselves. Among others a certain Fatima may be mentioned,
whose name evidently proclaims her Mussulman origin. She was bought
in the first place by a Genoese, named Nicoloso da Murto, and ceded by
him to the prior of the church of St. Laurence of the Genoese, who sold
her to a third Genoese for the sum of 400 new Armenian dirhems; bills of
sale of a similar kind which took place at Famagusta are still in existence.
Those who had taken the habit of having foreign slaves in their service, during
their residence in the colonies of the Levant, brought the custom back with
them, and by their example encouraged others to introduce into their houses
slaves bought at a distance, instead of hired servants or work-people. No
prohibition existed against this, and the slave trade in itself was not con-
sidered disgraceful, provided that the merchant abstained from trading with
Egypt. A Genoese law of 1441 furnishes a decided proof of this. It forbids
all captains of large galleys armed for war, which went to fetch goods from
Romania or Syria, to receive slaves on board, but the reason was that all
disposable space might be reserved for goods, and it makes an exception in
the case where a merchant on board is bringing a slave with him for his
personal service. There were other vessels specially destined to the trans-
port of slaves, and in respect to them the law took only such measures as
were necessary to prevent crowding, which would have an injurious effect
on the health of the cargo ; for example, a vessel with one deck could not
take more than thirty slaves on board, a vessel with two decks not more than
forty-five, and a vessel with three decks not more than sixty.
At this period it was an understood thing that a Christian might, without
scruple, treat as a slave any infidel who fell into his hands; and, for the
greater part, it was precisely the infidels, that is to say the pagans or Mussul-
mans who formed the objects of this trade. The majority of foreign slaves
brought to the Occident came originally from the empire of Kiptchak, situ-
ated at the south of Russia, as it now exists, and belonged either to the Tatar
race, the most important one of the country, or to one of the tribes under its
power — tribes generally called by the same name ; the Circassians and the
Russians were far less numerous ; then came the Turks and Saracens, a name
H. W. — VOL. IX. Y
322
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
which was doubtless applied to the Egyptians and Syrians ; and lastly, but in
very small numbers, came Bulgarians, Slavonians, and Greeks. According to
the ideas of the time, it was only in connection with the last named that any
doubt could arise as to the legality of selling them as slaves, for they were
Christians ; but in practice men did not inquire too closely. As for those
who were not members of the Christian religion, they were generally
converted shortly after their arrival in the West and then exchanged
their barbarous name for a Christian one ; but, in spite of their con-
version, their masters had no scruple in keeping them as slaves, and even in
selling them again.
The very origin of the great majority of these slaves leads to the supposi-
tion that the nations which had colonies on the shores of the Black Sea, the
Genoese and Venetians for example, were also the
nations more especially addicted to trade in slaves.
As a matter of fact hundreds, thousands even, were
sent to Genoa and Venice, while they were far rarer
at Pisa, Florence, Lucca, and Barcelona. In 1368
there were such large numbers of them in Venice
that their quarrelsome, undisciplined masses formed
an actual danger to the safety of the city. The
Tatars were not brought there separately, but some-
times whole families of them together. From
the seaports the slaves were sometimes sent into the
interior ; thus we hear in 1463 of a confectioner of
Vigevano who had a Circassian slave girl, just as
Marco Polo had a Tatar slave at Venice. Mer-
chants from Genoa and Kaffa even took slaves of
both sexes to the court of the German Empire, and
the emperor Frederick III gave them permission
to exhibit them for sale.
One of the interesting sides of the question we
are now studying is the proportion of slaves of
either sex in different countries ; there was a marked
difference in this respect between Egypt and the
West. In Egypt, in spite of a somewhat large
demand for female slaves for the harems, there was
a still larger demand for male slaves, for they formed
the chief contingent of army-recruiting; in the
West, on the contrary, preference was given to
young girls, and for various reasons : possessing
a more gentle disposition, they more easily adapted
themselves to life in general; then they were
more apt than men for the domestic services re-
quired of them ; they learned manual work more
easily ; and lastly, most of them were the instruments of their master's
pleasure. Which was the more enviable fate — that of the men slaves in
Egypt, or that of the women slaves in Italy ? It would be difficult to say.
The former underwent much rough treatment while they were in the ranks,
but they could rise to high posts in the army, and have sometimes even been
seen seated on the throne of the sultan : the others were treated more kindly ;
and indeed their master not infrequently set them free, either during his life
or by his will, but they never occupied a really respected position among the
people.
A VENETIAN STATESMAN
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 323
Youth and health were the two qualities most esteemed ; if the slave was
also beautiful, naturally his value increased. M. Cibrario has made a list of
the sales of slaves, the greater number of which occurred at Genoa or Venice ;
he found fifty -three in the thirteenth century, twenty-nine in the fourteenth,
and twenty-eight in the fifteenth ; he noted that the prices increased from
one century to the other ; for example, in the thirteenth century they varied
between 200 and 300 lire ; in the following century bargains struck under
500 lire are rare ; the highest price rose to about 1400 lire ; in the fifteenth
century the current price was more than 800 lire ; in 1492 at Venice a young
Russian girl was even sold for 87 ducats, that is 2093 lire. In Tuscany,
Bongi found that prices varied from 50 to 75 gold crowns ; the two highest
prices were 85 and 132 gold crowns, and they also were paid for Russian
slaves.
The most brilliant period of the slave trade at Genoa and Venice cor-
responds to the most prosperous time at Kaffa and Tana. But, in 1395,
Tamerlane struck a blow at the colony of Tana from which it never recov-
ered ; then came the taking of Constantinople by Muhammed II ; then this
same sultan forbade the Venetians, through the whole extent of his empire,
to transport Mussulman slaves; he only permitted Christian slaves to be
taken. These various blows caused the ruin of this branch of trade ; in 1459,
loud complaint was made in the Venetian senate of the increasing rarity of
slaves. However, Felix Fabri estimated that, at the end of the fifteenth
century, there were still at Venice about three thousand slaves, natives
of the north of Africa and of Tatary; he only mentions Slavonian slaves,
without giving the number. ^
THE DECLINE OF VENETIAN COMMERCE
Venetian commerce was at its height in the fifteenth century, and Venice
was the undisputed business centre of the world, but not long after this the
prosperity of the city began to decline. There was no very sudden change,
but a gradual alteration brought about by changed exterior conditions. «
Other European peoples had become commercial, and naturally ceased to
procure from Venice what they could themselves provide. They became
rivals to Venice in every market where the natives carried on only a passive
commerce. Asiatic merchandise changed its course and no longer flowed
into the Adriatic. Finally those arts which contributed to the perfecting of
industry progressed among other nations so quickly that the Venetians could
not keep pace. After the fifteenth century many causes made the commerce
decline pretty rapidly. The first of these causes was the conquest of Con-
stantinople by the Turks, and the policy of Sultan Suleiman, who, in 1530,
undertook to make all Asiatic merchandise pass by Constantinople, even that
coming to Europe by Syria and Egypt. They had succeeded in making the
divan understand that there was no advantage in making the merchandise
take a long detour, resulting only in augmenting the price without profit to
the seller. Direct communication with Egypt and Syria was allowed, but
when the Turks were masters of nearly all Greece and the Albanian coasts,
they accustomed caravans to arrive there bringing all the divers productions
from the East. Then the Venetians, always prompt to seize on this merchan-
dise at its landing point, themselves established at Spalato — which offered a
sure and convenient port — a bank, a hospital, and a fair. In the seventeenth
century Spalato became a commercial town more abundantly furnished than
324 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
any Levantine port, being particularly well situated to receive productions
from Persia and the Black Sea.
The second cause of decadence was the ill treatment of European mer-
chants by the Turks, who put a stop to the coming of the large Venetian
fleets. A third was the discovery of America, and of a way to India by the
Cape of Good Hope. A fourth was the ill-directed power of Charles V who,
from the beginning of his reign in 1517, doubled the custom-house duties
payable by the Venetians in his states, making them 20 per cent, on all
goods imported or exported. This was practically a prohibitive tariff.
Moreover Charles formally forbade entry to merchants who did not consent
to stop direct trading with Africa and to bring into his town of Oran all mer-
chandise they had to sell to the Moors. The new king of Spain wanted to
make of this town, where there were already celebrated fairs, a central and
general mart for all barbarian commerce. The Venetians would not submit,
and had to choose between the commerce of Africa and Spain.
Under the reign of Philip II, son of Charles V, the jealousy of Spanish
ministers against Venetian commerce continued to be shown. Many Vene-
tian merchants were annoyed in their undertakings, many of their ships were
retained in port or seized in open sea under various pretexts. It became nec-
essary to take marines on board to protect them against this species of piracy.
Finally, a fifth cause of the commercial decadence was the loss of the isles of
Cyprus and Candia. One is perhaps surprised at the number of reasons
which made for the downfall of Venetian commerce, yet we have not taken
account of the rivalry of Hanseatic towns, leagued towards the end of the
twelfth century. Their ambition was confined to creating a northern com-
merce, while that of Venice was to retain that of the south ; the success of
one meant partial failure of the other. The state of navigation was such
that it was impossible to make a journey to the Baltic by the Mediterranean
and return in one year. That is why the town of Bruges had been chosen
as an intermediate mart, where merchandise from north and south could be
exchanged.
THE BANK OF VENICE
It remains to say a few words on the Bank of Venice. Its antiquity,
which goes back to the twelfth century, that is further than any other known
bank, proves the priority of the Venetians in all commercial establishments.
This bank was a depot which opened a credit to investors to facilitate pay-
ments and bills of exchange ; that is, instead of paying real money, cheques
could be drawn on the bank. Bills on this bank could be payable at sight,
and the bank always justified public confidence. In the early days there had
been plenty of private banks, supported entirely by public confidence. These
were principally held by nobles. Later on the government profited by sup-
pressing them, in accordance with the law which forbade commerce to aristo-
crats, and established a sole national bank, placing it under the care of a
prince, and taking account of all funds deposited therein. This bank was a
depository pure and simple. The banker held no right of retention or com-
mission and paid no interest. In order to insure capitalists paying in, it
was necessary that the credit of the bank should be such that notes on the
bank should count in business as real money.
This is how it was managed. First there was an office where cheques
presented were cashed promptly in coin. By proving themselves able to do
this, fewer demands of the kind were made. There were in Venice several
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE
325
kinds of money. The best was chosen for the bank. It was ruled that it
would only take or pay ducats of full value, whose quality was finer and
alloy less common. It resulted then that drawers of a bill on private bankers
had to run the risk of being paid in money of base alloy, whilst the holder
of credit on the bank was sure of receiving the best value. This system won
bank money a preference over that of current coin and augmented the credit
of the establishment.
Little by little the government introduced the custom of making certain
payments in bills on the bank instead of in coin. It began by admitting
these bills in public depositories without difficulty, and when this usage was
established a law regulated that money would be given at the bank for bills
of exchange, whether from home or abroad, when these exceeded 300 ducats.
It was forbidden to refuse these bills when there was no contrary convention.
This was almost giving them a forced value, yet no violence was offered to pub-
lic confidence. Thus specie was virtually multiplied by making bank bills do
duty for it. The value of these bills being rigorously sustained, and their
redemption in the best coin assured on demand, this convenient form of
currency naturally became popular. As a result, the government found itself
in possession of a large mass of funds which it could use for itself without
paying interest. It would be very difficult to state the amount deposited in
this central commercial bank. It necessarily varied. Towards the middle
of the eighteenth century there were 5,000,000 ducats sterling ; at the end of
that century 14,000,000 or 15,000,000.0
UiiL
CHAPTER XI
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE
[1350-1400 A.D.]
IN an earlier chapter we left the affairs of Florence shortly after the time
of the great plague in the middle of the fourteenth century. Succeeding
chapters have outlined the history of the Neapolitan kingdom, of the Lom-
bard tyrannies, and of the maritime republics, and, in so doing, have necessa-
rily brought us pretty constantly in contact with Florentine affairs. We
are now to give more specific attention to the great Tuscan city, with regard
to its internal conditions during the last century following the great plague.
The central events of this period have to do with the struggles that culmi-
nated in the insurrection of the ciompi, and the momentary assumption of
power by the masses.
The growing discontent of the workmen gives us an illustration of the
old-time conflict between capital and labour. The attempt of the wool
manufactures to put themsevles on a political equality with the supposedly
higher arts was one of those socialistic movements which from time to time
have made themselves felt among all European civilised peoples. Nothing
comparable to this was ever seen in the old Orient, under despotic govern-
ments which subordinated and enslaved the individual ; but such uprisings
occurred in Rome under the commonwealth, and were only prevented from
frequent repetition in imperial Rome by the pauperising ministrations of
the paternal government. The violent outbreak of such a movement in
Florence evidences the wide prevalence there of the democratic spirit, and
the discontent that is the natural accompaniment of conditions making it pos-
sible for the individual to better his social state. Again and again in Italy
of this period men came up from the masses and acquired the utmost distinc-
tion. Where such a defiance of hereditary traditions is possible there must
be a state of social unrest ; but, on the other hand, it is precisely this state
of unrest that makes a great progressive civilisation possible. The present
socialistic uprising in Florence did not reach more than a temporary success,
so far as the precise ambitions of its promoters were concerned ; but, doubt-
less it contributed their numberless ancillary channels to the augmentation
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 327
[1350-1400 A.D.]
of the great stream of progress that was sweeping humanity forward toward
the deep waters of the Renaissance.
While our present concern has to do solely with these internal affairs of
Florence, it will be well to bear in mind the external political conditions
with which these struggles of the guilds were contemporary, as they have been
already outlined in previous chapters. It must be recalled that during all
this time of internecine strife Florence was pretty well occupied with external
warfares as well. This was the half -century when the tyrants of Milan were
making their power secure, and were reaching out with more and more expec-
tant grasp for the lands of influence that might make them supreme in all
Italy. Galeazzo Visconti was the enemy of Florence during the early decades
of the period, and his son Gian Galeazzo, who succeeded him in 1385 — just
after the period of the ciompi's insurrection — terrorised northern Italy
throughout the remainder of the century. It was in the wars of these
Lombard tyrants that Sir John Hawkwood appeared. First he warred for
Visconti ; then, lured by the gold of Florence, he turned enemy to his old
employer. Opposed to Hawkwood in his later campaigns was that other
great leader of mercenaries, Jacopo del Verme, the leader whose famous feat
of cutting the dams and flooding the plain about Hawkwood's army gave the
redoubtable Englishman an opportunity to make that famous retreat which
is one of the most picturesque incidents of military annals.
Almost precisely contemporary with the insurrection of the ciompi,
was the termination of the so-called Babylonish Captivity of the popes at
Avignon, an event soon followed by the Great Schism and its attendant dis-
sensions. In the same decade, too, occurred the famous overthrow of the
Genoese by Venice in the war of Chioggia. All these events have been
treated elsewhere and will be disregarded in the present chapter ; but, as has
been said, it will be well for the reader to bear in mind these great political
upheavals which furnish the setting for the local insurrections in Florence,
and which were of necessity closely associated with them in the minds of
contemporaries . a
SOCIAL UPHEAVALS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
Democracy had not had for the Florentines the disadvantage sometimes
attributed to it — that of making great enterprises impossible. It was their
ruling spirit ; and, being neither an expedient of empiricism nor yet a
deduction of theory, it had not limited the advance of their external power
which absorbed their former rivals, Arezzo and Pistoia, and reduced Siena
to a tributary state. But in the interior of their town itself they had
always opposed a weak resistance to those fatal quarrels which so often
caused them to fall into a state of anarchy. Nobles deprived of their rights,
and finding in persecution that sustenance of life which would soon have
failed them had they been left to degenerate in their narrow caste ; burghers
in possession of the privileges of which they had despoiled the nobles, and
which they guarded fiercely, like a new garden of the Hesperides; lastly
the people, who climbed to the assault as the burghers had climbed before
them — all kept up an agitation with a contrary aim, but incessant, weaken-
ing the power of the state. No stability was left to the state ; never had
Dante's words been truer with regard to what was woven in October
and no longer existed in mid-November. If one day, against their will, the
burghers grudgingly consented to the institution of casting lots which
328 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1339-1353 A.D.]
meant the ruin of their pretensions to oligarchy, shortly after they withdrew
with one hand what they had given with the other ; they replaced in the
bags of the electoral colleges the names which had been drawn from the
priors' bags, and vice versa, so that the same names could be frequently
drawn. But the triumph of their cunning was a short one ! The demo-
cratic instinct framed a law which made this abuse impossible (December,
1339) ; henceforth the tickets drawn from the bags were destroyed, and
no one who filled one office could receive a second, till the bags had been
entirely emptied.
These continual changes in the institutions were not accomplished with-
out disturbances which were a constant cause of alarm, even if they did not
lead to taking up arms. Macchiavelli declares that the abasement of the
nobles was a cause of prosperity for Florence, because the magistrates were
more respected. How can this be believed when the rich burghers are seen
reproducing the excesses and abuses of those whom they succeeded in
power? A petition of August 27th, 1352, accused them of pride, arrogance,
and injustice, and obtained the concession that those accused of misdoing
should be punished as nobles. What threat could have been more effective
in holding them back on the brink of the precipice ? However, they fell to
the bottom. The following year their acts of brigandage formed a constant
topic. Each night some daring robbery was committed. They forced the
tills of the money-changers ; carried away clothes and cloth from the tailors —
forty-five articles on one occasion — two hundred halves of salted pigs from
a pork butcher ; from others, beds with mattresses, ticken, and covers. In
spite of the traffic, which was great even after the curfew, the robbers were
never surprised at work. In vain did the podesta, Paolo Vaiani, a severe
Roman eager for justice, put on foot all the men at his disposal, and even
himself keep watch. After several nights spent in the open air, he at last
discovered certain men carrying bales to the walls and throwing them over ;
their accomplices loaded a boat with them and took them to Pisa. But they
were men of low rank, many of whom believed they were only helping a
bankrupt and saving his possessions from confiscation — the least of offences,
if it was one at all, according to the ideas of those times. These men
received the bastinado; the others were hanged.
The principal criminals were still to be discovered — those who prudently
remained in the background undeterred in their shameful exploits by these
examples in anima vili. After long investigation and examination it was at
last discovered that the thieves were " honourable citizens," who met with
trumpets, lutes, and other musical instruments, as if for the purpose of giving
a serenade. Certain young men of good family stood at either end of the
street and begged the passers-by to take another road, because the musicians
wished to remain unrecognised. The deafening noise made the request
appear rational, and so the place was left free for houses and shops to be
pillaged in the darkness of the night, without attracting suspicion, without
fear of interruption. One of the leaders of the band was Bordone Bordoni,
of an old and wealthy burgher family, whose members succeeded each
other, almost without interruption, in public offices. Put to torture, he
confessed. His brother Gherardo, one of the ambassadors sent the previous
year to Charles IV, pleaded his cause with the priors, and they, indulgent
towards a criminal of their own rank, opposed the capital sentence which
the people demanded and which the podesta wished to pronounce. Finding
it impossible to bend this severe Roman to their desire, they disbanded his
body-guard. They believed that without these latter he would be forced to
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 329
[1353-1355 A.D.]
submit. But he refused to accept this ridiculous situation, indignantly
gave up the rod, emblem of command, and retired to Siena (March llth,
1353).
Immediately the town was roused. Men declared that justice was no
longer to be had by the humble. The least fault caused them to be slaugh-
tered ; if, however, a man of powerful position was banished for a crime, he
posed as a victim of political proscription. If the podestas were cashiered
when they were anxious to render justice, who would be willing to come to
Florence ? The walls were covered with angry inscriptions, insulting the
priors. Those who succeeded them hastened to disavow a compromising
fellowship ; yielding to the general sentiment, they sent an envoy to Siena
to beg the podesta to return, promising strict obedience. Paolo Vaiani did
not yield immediately ; he enumerated his grievances : corn had increased
in price, and his salary was not sufficient for his expenses. If he returned,
it must be with an increase of 2,000 florins — more than was needful, says one
of the chroniclers. He had Bordone beheaded, arid sent many of his accom-
plices into exile. By this means he calmed the people, and at last cleansed
Florence of these miscreants of high rank. But their relatives were left to
rekindle the almost extinguished fire. Gherardo Bordoni accused the Man-
gioni and the Beccanugi of his brother's death. To avenge him he took
advantage of the disorder in the town caused by the approach of the Grand
Company (1354). With his consorti and his followers he pursued his ene-
mies even to their homes, and killed two women who, according to the custom
of the time, were enjoying the cool of the evening on the threshold. The
troops of the seigniory tried to restore order, but they were powerless.
The militia of the suburbs, with their gonfalons, were called out. This
time five of the Bordoni and twelve of their accomplices were condemned to
confiscation of goods and capital punishment, unless they preferred to go into
exile (July, 1354).
Far more serious, and with more disastrous results in this city con-
stantly a prey to the disputes of its families, was the rivalry of the Bicci and
the Albizzi. Macchiavelli compares it with that of the Buondelmonti and the
Uberti, in which history, not clear-sighted, and misinformed, so long saw
the generative act of Florentine annals. A discussion was going on con-
cerning the origin of the Albizzi. According to some, they came from
Arezzo, and consequently were Ghibellines. On the contrary, others, their
friends, declared that they had been driven thence because they were Guelfs.
True or false, the accusation of being Ghibellines was not without danger at
a time when the announced approach of Charles IV was awakening former
terrors. When minds are agitated, the least incident appears important, and
furnishes food for hatred. The Albizzi have servants at Casentino to defend
their property ? It is a lie ! They are there to attack the Ricci. An ass
brushed against one of the Ricci at Mercato Vecchio, and the driver was
beaten for his negligence ? Evidently the Ricci are attacking the Albizzi.
And thus two large families took up arms, and with them the entire city.
It was not easy to disarm them, and they were always ready to take up arms
again. If an occasion for doing so did not soon appear, they would employ
ruse instead of force.
The detail of events is wanting ; but by the measures taken for or against
the great, the fluctuations of public opinion may be seen, or rather the ephem-
eral preponderance of one or other of the two factions. At one time
popular government restores to the nobles, provided they be of the Guelf
faction, the right to hold posts of secondary importance, and suppresses the
330 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1355 A.D.]
big drum used to issue denunciations against them (April 10th, 1355).
Twelve days instead of five, fifteen days instead of ten, as the case may be,
are allowed their enemies to bring an action against them, and consequently
for them to escape. They are allowed to enter the public palace, and to
rebuild their ruined houses. No more bail, no relatives responsible beyond
the third degree. At another time (August 21st, 1355), " in order to pre-
serve and defend popular liberty and innocence, especially that of weak and
unhappy persons," it was de-
creed that nobles condemned
for homicide, acts of wounding,
robbing, incendiarism, adul-
tery, etc., "shall no longer be
allowed, nor yet their descend-
ants, to live in the home of
theirfamily." It was perceived
that the burghers were becom-
ing infused with the spirit
of the nobles, and in conse-
quence the difficulties of pass-
ing from one rank to the other
were increased; three-quarters
of the votes were required in
the ballot, a majority difficult
to realise, and it became, more-
over, an obstacle to the can-
celling of sentences and to
the recall of exiles. When the
seigniory was merciful to the
nobles, it was a sign that
the Albizzi were in power ;
when it was severe to them, it
was under the influence of the
Ricci.
Most frequently the Ricci
were in power. They held
community of ideas with the
medium crafts, and with them
they forbade the holding of
office by the fourteen lesser crafts, an accomplished fact which was never-
theless always contested; they maintained the inexorable law of divieto, which
held at a distance the numerous relatives of a burgher in office, without injur-
ing the lower classes, who either had few relatives or else did not know them.
The nobles and the burghers forgot, as did the Albizzi, that this government
had been able to bring to a happy conclusion the unfortunate affair of Tela-
mone, without engaging in war ; to create a fleet, though they had no shore ;
to drive away the free companies, without paying them shameful ransoms ;
to keep their engagements with the Visconti, without offending the legate ;
and to restore order, which, precarious as it may seem to us, then appeared
satisfactory. They saw only the crime of these lower classes in being so
numerous in office, as arrogant at having obtained position as they were
eager to obtain it, despotic, as their class always is, thinking only of their
own interests, and each of them believing himself a king. These reproaches
are heard in every age in the writings of the chroniclers, always disposed to
AN ITALIAN BRONZE KNOCKER
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 331
[1355-1356 A.D.]
despise what lies before their eyes ; and, moreover, how many men can be
found who do not deserve such reproaches ? The optical illusion which dis-
tance gives is necessary to perceive in the rich burghers only, as we see them
in the past, "the old friends of their country, despisers of their own wealth
to increase that of the republic " ; and it requires the contrary error, which
comes from too close a neighbourhood, to perceive only the failings of the
lower class in a government where the lesser crafts dominated. " It is
wonderful," said Matteo Villani,c "that Florence did not perish then." The
simple statement of facts shows us what to think on this subject. How many
times, under other governments, has Florence not been seen on the brink of
ruin, yet ever rising with powerful force which nothing could destroy.
Another historian of Florence, Signor Gino Capponi,^ blames Dante for
lamenting the confusion of ranks, the introduction into the city of men from
Certaldo, Campi, and Signa, who became merchants and money-changers
and formed the nerve of the new race, and he approves the rich burghers
who were now the objects of the same complaints which they formerly brought
against the nobles. But it should be remembered that in each seigniory of
that time, at the most, three members out of nine were of the lowest crafts,
and that old families still kept their share. If the people of the middle
classes who make the laws agreed by preference with the lowest classes, it
certainly was no proof that the lowest classes were unreasonably exacting ;
and it leads one to think that the rich burghers were extremely so, especially
in refusing to admit any newcomer to a share in the power. &
After the victory of Charles the government was formed of the Guelfs
of Anjou and it acquired great authority over the Ghibellines. But time,
a variety of circumstances, and new divisions had so contributed to sink this
party feeling into oblivion, that many of Ghibelline descent now filled the
highest offices. Observing this, Uguccione, the head of the family of the Ricci,
contrived that the law against the Ghibellines should be again brought into
operation, many imagining the Albizzi to be of that faction, they having
arisen in Arezzo, and come long ago to Florence. Uguccione by this means
hoped to deprive the Albizzi of participation in the government, for all of
Ghibelline blood who were found to hold offices would be condemned in the
penalties which this law provided. The design of Uguccione was discovered
to Piero son of Filippo degli Albizzi, and he resolved to favour it ; for he saw
that to oppose it would at once declare him a Ghibelline ; and thus the law
which was renewed by the ambition of the Ricci for his destruction, instead
of robbing Piero degli Albizzi of reputation, contributed to increase his
influence, although it laid the foundation of many evils. Piero having
favoured this law, which had been contrived by his enemies for his stumbling-
block, it became the stepping-stone to his greatness ; for, making himself
the leader of this new order of things, his authority went on increasing, and
he was in greater favour with the Guelfs than any other man.
As there could not be found a magistrate willing to search out who were
Ghibellines, and as this renewed enactment against them was therefore of
small value, it was provided that authority should be given to the capitani
to find who were of this faction ; and, having discovered, to signify and
admonish them that were, not to take upon themselves any office of gov-
ernment ; to which admonitions, if they were disobedient, they became
332 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1356-1371 A.D.]
condemned in the penalties. Hence, all those who in Florence were deprived
of the power to hold offices were called ammoniti, or "admonished." The
capitani, in time acquiring great audacity, admonished not only those to whom
the admonition was applicable, but any others at the suggestion of their
own avarice or ambition; and from 1356, when this law was made, to 1366,
there had been admonished above two hundred citizens. The captains of
the Parts and the sect of the Guelfs were thus become powerful ; for every-
one honoured them for fear of being admonished ; and most particularly the
leaders, who were Piero degli Albizzi, Lapo da Castiglionchio, and Carlo
Strozzi. The insolent mode of proceeding was offensive to many ; but none
felt so particularly injured with it as the Ricci ; for they knew themselves
to have occasioned it, they saw it involved the ruin of the republic, and their
enemies the Albizzi, contrary to their intention, become great in consequence.
On this account Uguccione de' Ricci, being one of the seigniory, resolved
to put an end to the evil which he and his friends had originated, and with
a new law provided that to the six captains of Parts an additional three
should be appointed, of whom two should be chosen from the companies of
minor artificers, and that before any party could be considered Ghibelline, the
declaration of the capitani must be confirmed by twenty-four Guelfic citizens,
appointed for the purpose. This provision tempered for the time the power
of the capitani, so that the admonitions were greatly diminished, if not
wholly laid aside. Still the parties of the Albizzi and the Ricci were con-
tinually on the alert to oppose each other's laws, deliberations, and enterprises,
not from a conviction of their inexpediency, but from hatred of their pro-
moters. In such distractions the time passed from 1366 to 1371, when the
Guelfs again regained the ascendant. There was in the family of the Buondel-
monti a gentleman named Benchi, who, as an acknowledgment of his merit
in a war against the Pisans, though one of the nobility, had been admitted
amongst the people, and thus became eligible to office amongst the seigniory ;
but when about to take his seat with them, a law was made that no noble-
man who had become of the popular class should be allowed to assume that
office. This gave great offence to Benchi, who, in union with Piero degli
Albizzi, determined to depress the less powerful of the popular party with
admonitions, and obtain the government for themselves. By the interest
which Benchi possessed with the ancient nobility, and that of Piero with
most of the influential citizens, the Guelfic party resumed their ascendency,
and by new reforms among the " parts " so remodelled the administration
as to be able to dispose of the offices of the captains and the twenty-four
citizens at pleasure. They then returned to the admonitions with greater
audacity than ever, and the house of the Albizzi became powerful as the
head of this faction. On the other hand, the Ricci made the most strenuous
exertions against their designs ; so that anxiety universally prevailed, and
ruin was apprehended alike from both parties.
The seigniory, induced by the necessity of the case, gave authority to
fifty-six citizens to provide for the safety of the republic. It is usually
found that most men are better adapted to pursue a good course already
begun, than to discover one applicable to immediate circumstances. These
citizens thought rather of extinguishing existing factions than of preventing
the formation of new ones, and effected neither of these objects. The
facilities for the establishment of new parties were not removed ; and out of
those which they guarded against, another more powerful arose, which brought
the republic into still greater danger. They, however, deprived three of the
family of the Albizzi, and three of that of the Ricci, of all the offices of
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 333
[1371-1375 A.D.]
government, except those of the Guelfic party, for three years ; and amongst
the deprived were Piero degli Albizzi and Uguecione de' Ricci. They for-
bade the citizens to assemble in the palace, except during the sittings of
the seigniory. They provided that if anyone were beaten, or possession of his
property detained from him, he might bring his case before the council and
denounce the offender, even if he were one of the nobility ; and that if it
were proved, the accused should be subject to the usual penalties. This
provision abated the boldness of the Ricci, and increased that of the Albizzi;
since, although it applied equally to both, the Ricci suffered from it by
far the most ; for if Piero was excluded from the palace of the seigniory, the
chamber of the Guelfs, in which he possessed the greatest authority, re-
mained open to him ; and if he and his followers had previously been ready
to admonish, they became after this injury doubly so. To this predisposition
for evil, new excitements were added.
The Eight "Saints of War"
The papal chair was occupied by Gregory XI. He, like his predecessors,
residing at Avignon, governed Italy by legates, who, proud and avaricious,
oppressed many of the cities. One of these legates, then at Bologna, taking
advantage of a great scarcity of food at Florence, endeavoured to render
himself master of Tuscany, and not only withheld provisions from the Flor-
entines, but in order to frustrate their hopes of the future harvest, upon the
approach of spring, attacked them with a large army, trusting that being
famished and unarmed he should find them an easy conquest. He might
perhaps have been successful, had not his forces been mercenary and faith-
less, and. therefore, induced to abandon the enterprise for the sum of 130,000
florins, which the Florentines paid them. People may go to war when they
will, but cannot always withdraw when they like. This contest, commenced
by the ambition of the legate, was continued by the resentment of the Flor-
entines, who, entering into a league with Barnabo of Milan, and with the
cities hostile to the church, appointed eight citizens for the administration of
it, giving them authority to act without appeal, and to expend whatever sums
they might judge expedient, without rendering an account of the outlay.
This war against the pontiff, although Uguecione was now dead, reani-
mated those who had followed the party of the Ricci, who, in opposition to
the Albizzi, had always favoured Barnabo and opposed the church, and this,
the rather, because the eight commissioners of war were all enemies of the
Guelfs. This occasioned Piero degli Albizzi, Lapo da Castiglionchio, Carlo
Strozzi, and others to unite themselves more closely in opposition to their
adversaries. The Eight carried on the war, and the others admonished
during three years, when the death of the pontiff put an end to the hos-
tilities, which had been carried on with so much ability and with such entire
satisfaction to the people, that at the end of each year the Eight were con-
tinued in office, and were called santi, or holy, although they had set ecclesi-
astical censures at defiance, plundered the churches of their property, and
compelled the priests to perform divine service. So much did citizens at
that time prefer the good of their country to their ghostly consolations, and
thus showed the church that if as her friends they had defended, they could
as enemies depress her ; for the whole of Romagna, the Marches, and Perugia
were excited to rebellion.
Yet whilst this war was carried on against the pope, they were unable to
defend themselves against the captains of the Parts and their faction ; for
334 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1875-1378 A.B.]
the insolence of the Guelf s against the Eight attained such a pitch, that they
could not restrain themselves from abusive behaviour, not merely against
some of the most distinguished citizens, but even against the Eight them-
selves ; and the captains of the Parts conducted themselves with such arro-
gance that they were feared more than the seigniory. Those who had
business with them treated them with greater reverence, and their court was
held in higher estimation ; so that no ambassa-
dor came to Florence without commission to
the captains. Pope Gregory being dead, and the
city freed from external war, there still pre-
vailed great confusion within ; for the audacity
of the Guelfs was insupportable, and
~^* as no available mode of subduing
them presented itself, and as it was
thought that recourse must be had
of being prepared against this
calamity, the leaders of the party
assembled to arms, to determine
which party was the stronger.
With the Guelfs were all the an-
cient nobility, and the greater part
of the most powerful popular lead-
ers, of which number, as already
remarked, were Lapo, Piero, and
Carlo. On the other side, were all
the lower orders, the leaders of whom
were the eight commissioners of war,
Giorgio Scali and Tommaso Strozzi,
and with them the Ricci, Alberti, and
/,$T HI * ' ' W^ Medici. The rest of the multitude,
t, W ' as most commonly happens, joined
9 ^ the discontented party.
It appeared to the heads of the
Guelfic faction that their enemies
would be greatly strengthened, and
themselves in considerable danger
in case a hostile seigniory should
resolve on their subjugation. De-
sirous, therefore, to take into consideration the state of the city, and that of
their own friends in particular, they found the ammoniti so numerous and so
great a difficulty, that the whole city was excited against them on this account.
They could not devise any other remedy than that, as their enemies had
deprived them of all the offices of honour, they should banish their opponents
from the city, take possession of the palace of the seigniory, and bring over
the whole state to their own party — in imitation of the Guelfs of former
times, who found no safety in the city till they had driven all their adver-
saries out of it. They were unanimous upon the main point, but did not
agree upon the time of carrying it into execution. It was in the month of
April, in the year 1378, when Lapo, thinking delay unadvisable, expressed
his opinion that procrastination was in the highest degree perilous to them-
selves, as in the next seigniory, Salvestro de' Medici would very probabty
be elected gonfalonier, and they all knew he was opposed to their party.
Piero degli Albizzi, on the other hand, thought it better to defer, since
A FLORENTINE MERCHANT
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IK FLORENCE 335
[1378 A.D.]
they would require forces, which could not be assembled without exciting
observation, and if they were discovered, they would incur great risk. He
thereupon judged it preferable to wait till the approaching feast of St. John,
on which, being the most solemn festival of the city, vast multitudes would
be assembled, amongst whom they might conceal whatever numbers they
pleased. To obviate their fears of Salvestro, he was to be admonished, and
if this did not appear likely to be effectual, they would admonish one of the
" colleagues " of his quarter, and upon re-drawing, as the ballot-boxes would
be nearly empty, chance would very likely occasion that either he or some
associate of his would be drawn, and he would thus be rendered incapable of
sitting as gonfalonier.
They therefore at last came to the conclusion proposed by Piero, though
Lapo consented reluctantly, considering the delay dangerous, and that, as no
opportunity can be in all respects suitable, he who waits for the concurrence
of every advantage either never makes an attempt, or, if induced to do so,
is most frequently foiled. They admonished the colleague, but did not pre-
vent the appointment of Salvestro, for the design was discovered by the
Eight, who took care to render all attempts upon the drawing futile.
Salvestro Alamanno de' Medici was therefore drawn gonfalonier, and,
being of one of the noblest popular families, he could not endure that the
people should be oppressed by a few powerful persons. Having resolved to
put an end to their insolence, and perceiving the middle classes favourably
disposed, and many of the highest of the people on his side, he communicated
his design to Benedetto Alberti, Tommaso Strozzi, and Giorgio Scali, who all
promised their assistance. They, therefore, secretly drew up a law which
had for its object to revive the restrictions upon the nobility, to retrench
the authority of the capitani di parte, and also to recall the ammoniti to
their dignity.
In order to attempt and obtain their ends, at one and the same time, having
to consult, first the colleagues and then the councils, Salvestro being provost
(which office for the time made its possessor almost prince of the city),
he called together the colleagues and the council on the same morning, and
the colleagues being apart, he proposed the law prepared by himself and his
friends, which, being a novelty, encountered in their small number so much
opposition that he was unable to have it passed.
Salvestro, seeing his first attempt likely to fail, pretended to leave the
room for a private reason, and, without being perceived, went immediately
to the council, and taking a lofty position from which he could be both seen
and heard, said that, considering himself invested with the office of gonfalon-
ier not so much to preside in private cases (for which proper judges were
appointed, who have their regular sittings) as to guard the state, correct the
insolence of the powerful, and ameliorate those laws by the influence of which
the republic was being ruined, he had carefully attended to both these duties,
and to his utmost ability provided for them, but found the perversity of some
so much opposed to his just designs as to deprive him of all opportunity of
doing good, and them not only of the means of assisting him with their coun-
sel, but even hearing him. Therefore, finding he no longer contributed either
to the benefit of the republic or of the people generally, he could not perceive
any reason for his longer holding the magistracy, of which he was either
undeserving, or others thought him so, and would therefore retire to his
house, that the people might appoint another in his stead, who would either
have greater virtue or better fortune than himself. And having said this, he
left the room as if to return home.
336 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1378 A.D.]
Mob Violence
Those of the council who were in the secret, and others desirous of nov-
elty, raised a tumult, at which the seigniory and the colleagues came together,
and finding the gonfalonier leaving them, entreatingly and authoritatively
detained him, and obliged him to return to the council room, which was now
full of confusion. Many of the noble citizens were threatened in opprobrious
language; and an artificer seized Carlo Strozzi by the throat, and would
undoubtedly have murdered him, but was with difficulty prevented by those
around. He who made the greatest disturbance, and incited the city to
violence, was Benedetto degli Alberti, who, from a window of the palace,
loudly called the people to arms ; and presently the courtyards were filled with
armed men, and the colleagues granted to threats what they had refused to
entreaty. The capitani di parte had at the same time drawn together a great
number of citizens to their hall, to consult upon the means of defending them-
selves against the orders of the seigniors ; but when they heard the tumult
that was raised, and were informed of the course the councils had adopted,
each took refuge in his own house.
Let no one, when raising popular commotions, imagine he can afterwards
control them at his pleasure, or restrain them from proceeding to the commis-
sion of violence. Salvestro intended to enact his law, and compose the city;
but it happened otherwise ; for the feelings of all had become so excited,
that they shut up the shops ; the citizens fortified themselves in their houses ;
many conveyed their valuable property into the churches and monasteries, and
everyone seemed to apprehend something terrible at hand. The companies
of the arts met, and each appointed an additional officer or syndic ; upon
which the priors summoned their colleagues and these syndics, and consulted
a whole day how the city might be appeased with satisfaction to the differ-
ent parties ; but much difference of opinion prevailed, and no conclusion was
come to. On the following day the arts brought forth their banners, which
the seigniory, understanding, and being apprehensive of evil, called the coun-
cil together to consider what course to adopt. But scarcely were they met,
when the uproar recommenced, and soon the ensigns of the arts, surrounded by
vast numbers of armed men, occupied the courts. Upon this the council, to
give the arts and the people hope of redress, and free themselves as much
as possible from the charge of causing the mischief, gave a general power,
which in Florence is called balia, to the seigniors, the colleagues, the Eight, the
capitani di parte, and to the syndics of the arts, to reform the government of
the city for the common benefit of all. Whilst this was being arranged, a
few of the ensigns of the arts and some of the mob, desirous of avenging
themselves for the recent injuries they had received from the Guelfs, separated
themselves from the rest, and sacked and burned the house of Lapo da Casti-
glionchio, who, when he learned the proceedings of the seigniory against
the Guelfs, and saw the people in arms, having no other resource but conceal-
ment or flight, first took refuge in Santa Croce, and afterwards, being dis-
guised as a monk, fled into the Casentino, where he was often heard to blame
himself for having consented to wait till St. John's day, before they had
made themselves sure of the government. Piero degli Albizzi and Carlo
Strozzi hid themselves upon the first outbreak of the tumult, trusting that
when it was over, by the interest of their numerous friends and relations,
they might remain safely in Florence.
The house of Lapo being burned, as mischief begins with difficulty but
easily increases, many other houses, either through public hatred or private
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 337
[1378 A.D.]
malice, shared the same fate ; and the rioters, that they might have com-
panions more eager than themselves to assist them in their work of plunder,
broke open the public prisons, and then sacked the monastery of the Agnoli
and the convent of Santo Spirito, whither many citizens had taken their most
valuable goods for safety. Nor would the public chambers have escaped
these destroyers' hands, except out of reverence for one of the seigniors who,
on horseback and followed by many citizens in arms, opposed the rage of the
mob.
This popular fury being abated by the authority of the seigniors and the
approach of night, on the following day the balia relieved the admonished, on
condition that they should not for three years be
capable of holding any magistracy. They annulled
the laws made by the Guelf s to the prejudice of the
citizens; declared Lapo da Castiglionchio and his
companions rebels, and with them many others, who
were the objects of universal detestation. After
these resolutions, the new seigniory were drawn for,
and Luigi Guicciardini was appointed gonfalonier,
which gave hope that the tumults would soon be ap-
peased; for everyone thought them to be peaceable
men and lovers of order. Still the shops were not
opened, nor did the citizens lay down their arms,
but continued to patrol the city in great numbers.
Presently a disturbance arose, much more inju-
rious to the republic than anything that had hitherto
occurred. The greatest part of the fires and rob-
beries which took place on the previous days was
perpetrated by the very lowest of the people ; and
those who had been the most audacious were afraid
that, when the greater differences were composed,
they would be punished for the crimes they had
committed ; and that, as usual, they would be aban-
doned by those who had instigated them to the com-
mission of crime. To this may be added the hatred
of the lower orders towards the rich citizens and the
principals of the arts, because they did not think
themselves remunerated for their labour in a manner
equal to their merits. For in the time of Charles I,
when the city was divided into arts, a head or gov-
ernor was appointed to each, and it was provided
that the individuals of each art should be judged in
civil matters by their own superiors. These arts were at first twelve ; in
the course of time they were increased to twenty-one, and attained so much
power that in a few years they grasped the entire government of the
city ; and as some were in greater esteem than others, they were divided
into major and minor ; seven were called the " major," and fourteen the
" minor arts." From this division, and from other causes, arose the arrogance
of the capitani di parte ; for these citizens, who had formerly been Guelfs,
and had the constant disposal of that magistracy, favoured the followers
of the major and persecuted the minor arts and their patrons ; and hence arose
the many commotions already mentioned. When the companies of the arts
were first organised, many of those trades, followed by the lowest of the
people and the plebeians, were not incorporated, but were ranged under those
H. W. — VOL. IX. Z
ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, FOUR-
TEENTH CENTURY
338 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1378 A.D.]
arts most nearly allied to them ; and, hence, when they were not properly
remunerated for their labour, or their masters oppressed them, they had no
one of whom to seek redress, except the magistrate of the art to which theirs
was subject ; and of him they did not think justice always attainable. Of
the arts, that which always had the greatest number of these subordinates
was the woollen ; which being the most powerful body, and first in authority,
supported the greater part of the plebeians and lowest of the people.
The lower classes, then, the subordinates not only of the woollen, but also
of the other arts, were discontented, from the causes just mentioned ; and
their apprehension of punishment for the burnings and robberies they had
committed did not tend to compose them. Meetings took place in different
parts during night, to talk over the past, and to communicate the danger in
which they were. When one of the most daring and experienced, in order
to animate the rest, spoke thus : " If the question now were whether we
should take up arms, rob and burn the houses of the citizens, and plunder
churches, I am one of those who would think it worthy of further considera-
tion, and should, perhaps, prefer poverty and safety to the dangerous pursuit
of an uncertain good. But as we have already armed, and many offences
have been committed, and those who are first in arms will certainly be victors,
to the ruin of their enemies and their own exaltation ; thus honours will
accrue to many of us, and security to all." These arguments greatly inflamed
minds already disposed to mischief so that they determined to take up arms
as soon as they had acquired a sufficient number of associates, and bound
themselves by oath to mutual defence, in case any of them were subdued by
the civil power.
Whilst they were arranging to take possession of the republic, their design
became known to the seigniory, who, having taken a man named Simone,
learned from him the particulars of the conspiracy, and that the outbreak
was to take place on the following day. Finding the danger so pressing,
they called together the colleagues and those citizens who with the syndics
of the arts were endeavouring to effect the union of the city. It was then
evening, and they advised the seigniors to assemble the consuls of the
trades, who proposed that whatever armed force was in Florence should be
collected, and with the gonfaloniers of the people and their companies meet
under arms in the piazza next morning. It happened that whilst Simone
was being tortured, a man named Niccolo da San Friano was regulating the
palace clock, and becoming acquainted with what was going on, returned
home and spread the report of it in his neighbourhood, so that presently the
piazza of Santo Spirito was occupied by above a thousand men. This soon
became known to the other conspirators, and San Pietro Maggiore and San
Lorenzo, their places of assembly, were presently full of them, all under
arms.
At daybreak, on the 21st of July, there did not appear in the piazza
above eighty men in arms friendly to the seigniory, and not one of the gon-
faloniers ; for knowing the whole city to be in a state of insurrection they
were afraid to leave their homes. The first body of plebeians that made its
appearance was that which had assembled at San Pietro Maggiore ; but the
armed force did not venture to attack them. Then came the other multi-
tudes, and finding no opposition, they loudly demanded their prisoners from
the seigniory ; and being resolved to have them by force if they were not
yielded to their threats, they burned the house of Luigi Guicciardini ; and the
seigniory, for fear of greater mischief, set them at liberty. With this addi-
tion to their strength they took the gonfalon of justice from the bearer, and
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 339
[1378 A.D.]
under the shadow of authority which it gave them, burned the houses of
many citizens, selecting those whose owners had publicly or privately excited
their hatred. Many citizens, to avenge themselves for private injuries, con-
ducted them to the houses of their enemies ; for it was quite sufficient to
insure its destruction, if a single voice from the mob called out, " To the
house of such a one," or if he who bore the gonfalon took the road towards
it. All the documents belonging to the woollen trade were burned, and
after the commission of much violence, by way of associating it with some-
thing laudable, Salvestro de' Medici and sixty-three other citizens were
made knights, amongst whom were Benedetto and Antonio degli Alberti,
Tommaso Strozzi, and others similarly their friends ; though many received
the honour against their wills. It was a remarkable peculiarity of the riots
that many who had their houses burned were on the same day and by the
same party made knights; so close were the kindness and the injury
together. This circumstance occurred to Luigi Guicciardini, gonfalonier of
justice.
In this tremendous uproar, the seigniory, finding themselves abandoned
by their armed force, by the leaders of the arts, and by the gonfaloniers,
became dismayed; for none had come to their assistance in obedience to
orders ; and of the sixteen gonfalons, the ensign of the Golden Lion and of
the Vaio, under Giovenco della Stufa and Giovanni Cambi, alone appeared ;
and these, not being joined by any other, soon withdrew. Of the citizens,
on the other hand, some, seeing the fury of this unreasonable multitude and
the palace abandoned, remained within doors; others followed the armed
mob, in the hope that, by being amongst them, they might more easily pro-
tect their own houses or those of their friends. The power of the plebeians
was thus increased and that of the seigniory weakened. The tumult con-
tinued all day, and at night the rioters halted near the palace of Stefano,
behind the church of St. Barnabas. Their number exceeded six thousand,
and before daybreak they obtained by threats the ensigns of the trades, with
which and the gonfalon of justice, when morning came, they proceeded to
the palace of the provost, who refusing to surrender it to them, they took
possession of it by force.
The seigniory, desirous of a compromise, since they could not restrain
them by force, appointed four of the colleagues to proceed to the palace of
the provost, and endeavour to learn what was their intention. They found
that the leaders of the plebeians, with the syndics of the trades and some
citizens, had resolved to signify their wishes to the seigniory. They there-
fore returned with four deputies of the plebeians, who demanded that the
woollen trade should not be allowed to have a foreign judge ; that there
should be formed three new companies of the arts ; namely, one for the wool-
combers and dyers, one for the barbers, doublet-makers, tailors, and such like,
and the third for the lowest class of people. They required that the three
new arts should furnish two seigniors ; the fourteen minor arts, three ; and
that the seigniory should provide a suitable place of assembly for them. They
also made it a condition that no member of these companies should be expected
during two years to pay any debt that amounted to less than 50 ducats ;
that the bank should take no interest on loans already contracted and that
only the principal sum should be demanded ; that the condemned and the
banished should be forgiven, and the admonished should be restored to par-
ticipation in the honours of government. Besides these, many other articles
were stipulated in favour of their friends, and a requisition made that many
of their enemies should be exiled and admonished. These demands, though
340 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1378 A.D.]
grievous and dishonourable to the republic, were for fear of further violence
granted, by the joint deliberation of the seigniors, colleagues, and council
of the people. But in order to give it full effect, it was requisite that the
council of the commune should also give its consent ; and, as they could not
assemble two councils during the same day, it was necessary to defer it till
the morrow. However, the trades appeared content, the plebeians satisfied ;
and both promised that, these laws being confirmed, every disturbance should
cease.
On the following morning, whilst the council of the commune were in
consultation, the impatient and volatile multitude entered the piazza, under
their respective ensigns, with loud and fearful shouts, which struck terror
into all the council and seigniory; and Guerrente Marignolli, one of the
latter, influenced more by fear than anything else, under pretence of guard-
ing the lower doors, left the chamber and fled to his house. He was unable
to conceal himself from the multitude, who, however, took no notice, except
that, upon seeing him, they insisted that all the seigniors should quit the
palace, and declared that if they refused to comply, their houses should be
burned and their families put to death.
The law had now been passed ; the seigniors were in their own apart-
ments; the council had descended from the chamber, and without leaving
the palace, hopeless of saving the city, they remained in the lodges and courts
below, overwhelmed with grief at seeing such depravity in the multitude,
and such perversity or fear in those who might either have restrained or sup-
pressed them. The seigniory, too, were dismayed and fearful for the safety
of their country, finding themselves abandoned by one of their associates,
and without any aid or even advice ; when, at this moment of uncertainty
as to what was about to happen, or what would be best to be done, Tommaso
Strozzi and Benedetto Alberti, either from motives of ambition (being desir-
ous of remaining masters of the palace), or because they thought it the most
advisable step, persuaded them to give way to the popular impulse, and with-
draw privately to their own homes. This advice, given by those who had
been the leaders of the tumult, although the others yielded, filled Alamanno
Acciajuoli and Niccolo del Bene, two of the seigniors, with anger ; and, reas-
suming a little vigour, they said, that if the others would withdraw they
could not help it, but they would remain as long as they continued in office,
if they did not in the meantime lose their lives. These dissensions redoubled
the fears of the seigniory and the rage of the people, so that the gonfalonier,
disposed to conclude his magistracy in dishonour than in danger, recom-
mended himself to the care of Tommaso Strozzi, who withdrew him from the
palace and conducted him to his house. The other seigniors were, one after
another, conveyed in the same manner, so that Alamanno and Niccolo, not to
appear more valiant than wise, seeing themselves left alone, also retired, and
the palace fell into the hands of the plebeians and the eight commissioners
of war, who had not yet laid down their authority.
Michele di Lando
When the plebeians entered the palace, the standard of the gonfalonier
of justice was in the hands of Michele di Lando, a wool-comber. This man,
barefoot, with scarcely anything upon him, and the rabble at his heels,
ascended the staircase, and, having entered the audience chamber of the
seigniory, he stopped, and turning to the multitude said, " You see this palace
is now yours, and the city is in your power ; what do you think ought to be
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 341
[1378 A.D.]
done ? " To which they replied, they would have him for their gonfalonier
and lord ; and that he should govern them and the city as he thought best.
Michele accepted the command ; and, as he was a cool and sagacious man,
more favoured by nature than by fortune, he resolved to compose the tumult
and restore peace to the city. To occupy the minds of the people, and give
himself time to make some arrangement, he ordered that one Nuto, who had
been appointed bargello, or sheriff, by Lapo da Castiglionchio, should be
sought. The greater part of his followers went to execute this commission ;
and, to commence with justice the government he had acquired by favour, he
commanded that no one should either burn or steal anything ; while, to strike
terror into all, he caused a gallows to be erected in the court of the palace.
He began the reform of government by deposing the syndics of the trades,
and appointing new ones; he deprived the seigniory and the colleagues of
their magistracy, and burned the balloting purses containing the names
of those eligible to office under the former government. In the meantime,
Ser Nuto, being brought by the mob into the court, was suspended from the
gallows by one foot ; and those around having torn him to pieces, in little
more than a moment nothing remained of him but the foot by which he had
been tied.
The eight commissioners of war, on the other hand, thinking themselves,
after the departure of the seigniors, left sole masters of the city, had already
formed a new seigniory ; but Michele, on learning this, sent them an order
to quit the palace immediately ; for he wished to show that he could govern
Florence without their assistance. He then assembled the syndics of the
trades, and created as a seigniory, four from the lowest plebeians, two from
the major, and two from the minor trades. Besides this, he made a new
selection of names for the balloting purses, and divided the state into three
parts ; one composed of the new trades, another of the minor, and the third
of the major trades. He gave to Salvestro de' Medici the revenue of the
shops upon the Ponte Vecchio ; for himself he took the provostry of Empoli,
and conferred benefits upon many other citizens, friends of the plebeians,
not so much for the purpose of rewarding their labours, as that they might
serve to screen him from envy.
It seemed to the plebeians that Michele, in his reformation of the state,
had too much favoured the higher ranks of the people, and that they them-
selves had not a sufficient share in the government to enable them to preserve
it ; and hence, prompted by their usual audacity, they again took arms, and
coming tumultuously into the court of the palace, each body under their par-
ticular ensigns, insisted that the seigniory should immediately descend and
consider new means for advancing their well-being and security. Michele,
observing their arrogance, was unwilling to provoke them, but without
further yielding to their request, blamed the manner in which it was made,
advised them to lay down their arms, and promised that then would be con-
ceded to them, what otherwise, for the dignity of the state, must of necessity
be withheld. The multitude, enraged at this reply, withdrew to Santa Maria
Novella, where they appointed eight leaders for their party, with officers and
other regulations to insure influence and respect ; so that the city possessed
two governments, and was under the direction of two distinct powers.
These new leaders determined that eight, elected from their trades, should
constantly reside in the palace with the seigniory, and that whatever the
seigniory should determine must be confirmed by them before it became law.
They took from Salvestro de' Medici and Michele di Lando the whole of what
their former decrees had granted them, and distributed to many of their party
\
342 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1378 A.D.]
offices and emoluments to enable them to support their dignity. These reso-
lutions being passed, to render them valid they sent two of their body to the
seigniory, to insist on their being confirmed by the council, with an inti-
mation, that if not granted they would be vindicated by force. This de'puta-
tion, with amazing audacity and surpassing presumption, explained their
commission to the seigniory, upbraided the gonfalonier with the dignity
they had conferred upon him, the honour they had done him, and with the
ingratitude and want of respect he had shown towards them. Coming to
threats towards the end of their discourse, Michele could not endure their
arrogance, and sensible rather of the dignity of the office he held than of
the meanness of his origin, determined by extraordinary means to punish
such extraordinary insolence, and drawing the sword with which he was girt,
seriously wounded, and caused them to be seized and imprisoned.
When the fact became known, the multitude were filled with rage, and
thinking that by their arms they might insure what without them they had
failed to effect, they seized their weapons, and with the
utmost fury resolved to force the seigniory to consent
to their wishes. Michele, suspecting what would
happen, determined to be prepared, for he knew his
credit rather required him to be first in the attack
than to wait the approach of the enemy, or, like his
predecessors, dishonour both the palace and himself
by flight. He therefore drew together a good number
of citizens (for many began to see their error), mounted
on horseback, and followed by crowds of armed
men, proceeded to Santa Maria Novella, to en-
counter his adversaries. The plebeians, who, as
before observed, were influenced by a similar
desire, had set out about the same time as Michele,
and it happened that, as each took a different
route, they did not meet in their way, and Michele,
upon his return, found the piazza in their posses-
sion. The contest was now for the palace, and
joining in the fight, he soon vanquished them,
drove part of them out of the city, and com-
pelled the rest to throw down their arms and
escape or conceal themselves, as well as they
could. Having thus gained the victory, the
tumults were composed, solely by the talents of
the gonfalonier, who in courage, prudence, and
generosity surpassed every other citizen of
his time, and deserves to be enumerated
among the glorious few who have greatly
benefited their country; for, had he possessed
either malice or ambition, the republic would
have been completely ruined, and the city
must have fallen under greater tyranny than that of the duke of Athens.
But his goodness never allowed a thought to enter his mind opposed to the
universal welfare : his prudence enabled him to conduct affairs in such a
manner that a great majority of his own faction reposed the most entire con-
fidence in him ; and he kept the rest in awe by the influence of his authority.
By the time Michele di Lando had subdued the plebeians the new seigniory
was drawn, and amongst those who composed it were two persons of such
AN ITALIAN CAPTAIN, FOURTEENTH
CENTURY
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 343
[1378-1381 A.D.]
base and mean condition that the desire increased in the minds of the people
to be freed from the ignominy into which they had fallen ; and when, upon
the 1st of September, the new seigniory entered office and the retiring mem-
bers were still in the palace, the piazza being full of armed men, a tumult-
uous cry arose from the midst of them, that none of the lowest of the people
should hold office amongst the seigniory. The obnoxious two were withdrawn
accordingly. The name of one was II Tira, of the other Baroccio, and in
their stead were elected Giorgio Scali and Francesco di Michele. The com-
pany of the lowest trade was also dissolved, and its members deprived of
office, except Michele di Lando, Lorenzo di Puccio, and a few others of better
quality. The honours of government were divided into two parts, one of
which was assigned to the superior trades, the other to the inferior ; except
that the latter were to furnish five seigniors, and the former only four. The
gonfalonier was to be chosen alternately from each.
Momentary Peace; Renewed Insurrections
The government, thus composed, restored peace to the city for the time ;
but though the republic was rescued from the power of the lowest plebeians,
the inferior trades were still more influential than the nobles of the people,
who, however, were obliged to submit for the gratification of the trades, of
whose favour they wished to deprive the plebeians. The new establishment
was supported by all who wished the continued subjugation of those who,
under the name of the Guelfic party, had practised such excessive violence
against the citizens. And as amongst others thus disposed, were Giorgio
Scali, Benedetto Alberti, Salvestro de' Medici, and Tommaso Strozzi, these
four almost became princes of the city. This state of the public mind
strengthened the divisions already commenced between the nobles of the
people and the minor artificers, by the ambition of the Ricci and the Albizzi ;
from which, as at different times very serious effects arose, and as they will
hereafter be frequently mentioned, we shall call the former the popular
party, the latter the plebeian. This condition of things continued three
years, during which many were exiled and put to death ; for the government
lived in constant apprehension, knowing that both within and without the
city many were dissatisfied with them. Those within, either attempted or
were suspected of attempting, every day some new project against them ;
and those without, being under no restraint, were continually, by means of
some prince or republic, spreading reports tending to increase the disaffec-
tion.
Gianozzo da Salerno was at this time in Bologna. He held a command
under Charles of Durazzo, a descendant of the kings of Naples, who, design-
ing to undertake the conquest of the dominions of Queen Joanna, retained
his captain in that city, with the concurrence of Pope Urban, who was at
enmity with the queen. Many Florentine emigrants were also at Bologna,
in close correspondence with him and Charles. This caused the rulers in
Florence to live in continual alarm, and induced them to lend a willing ear
to any calumnies against the suspected. Whilst in this disturbed state of
feeling it was disclosed to the government that Gianozzo da Salerno was
about to march to Florence with the emigrants, and that great numbers of
those within were to rise in arms, and deliver the city to him. Upon this
information many were accused, the principal of whom were Piero degli
Albizzi and Carlo Strozzi ; and after these, Cipriano Mangione, Jacopo
Sacchetti, Donato Barbadori, Filippo Strozzi, and Giovanni Anselini, the
344 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1381 A.D.]
whole of whom, except Carlo Strozzi, who fled, were made prisoners ; and the
seigniory, to prevent anyone from taking arms in their favour, appointed
Tommaso Strozzi and Benedetto Alberti, with a strong armed force, to guard
the city. The arrested citizens were examined, and although nothing was
elicited against them sufficient to induce the capitano to find them guilty,
their enemies excited the minds of the populace to such a degree of outrageous
and overwhelming fury against them, that they were condemned to death,
as it were, by force. Nor was the greatness of his family, or his former
reputation, of any service to Piero degli Albizzi, who had once been, of all
the citizens, the man most feared and honoured. Someone, either as a friend
to render him wise in his prosperity, or an enemy to threaten him with the
fickleness of fortune, had upon the occasion of his making a feast for many
citizens sent him a silver bowl full of sweetmeats, amongst which a large nail
was found, and being seen by many present, was taken for a hint to him to
fix the wheel of fortune which, having conveyed him to the top, must, if the
rotation continued, also bring him to the bottom. This interpretation was
verified, first by his ruin, and afterwards by his death.
After this execution the city was full of consternation, for both victors
and vanquished were alike in fear ; but the worst effects arose from the
apprehensions of those possessing the management of affairs; for every
accident, however trivial, caused them to commit fresh outrages, either by
condemnations, admonitions, or banishment of citizens ; to which must be
added, as scarcely less pernicious, the frequent new laws and regulations
which were made for defence of the government, all of which were put in
execution to the injury of those opposed to their faction. They appointed
forty-six persons, who, with the seigniory, were to purge the republic of all
suspected by the government. They admonished thirty-nine citizens, en-
nobled many of the people, and degraded many nobles to the popular rank.
To strengthen themselves against external foes, they took into their pay
John Hawkwood, an Englishman of great military reputation, who had long
served the pope and others in Italy. Their fears from without were
increased by a report that several bodies of men were being assembled by
Charles of Durazzo for the conquest of Naples, and many Florentine emi-
grants were said to have joined him. Against these dangers, in addition to
the forces which had been raised, large sums of money were provided ;
and Charles, having arrived at Arezzo, obtained from the Florentines
40,000 ducats, and promised he would not molest them. His enterprise
was immediately prosecuted, and having occupied the kingdom of Naples, he
sent Queen Joanna a prisoner into Hungary. This victory renewed the
fears of those who managed the affairs of Florence, for they could not
persuade themselves that their money would have a greater influence on
the king's mind than the friendship which his house had long retained for the
Guelfs, whom they so grievously oppressed.
This suspicion, increasing, multiplied oppressions ; which again, instead
of diminishing the suspicion, augmented it; so that most men lived in the
utmost discontent. To this the insolence of Giorgio Scali and Tommaso
Strozzi (who by their popular influence overawed the magistrates) also con-
tributed, for the rulers were apprehensive that by the power these men
possessed with the plebeians they could set them at defiance; and hence
it is evident that not only to good men, but even to the seditious, this gov-
ernment appeared tyrannical and violent. To put a period to the outrageous
conduct of Giorgio, it happened that his servant accused Giovanni di Cam-
bio of practices against the state, but the capitano declared him innocent.
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 345
[1381 A.D.]
Upon this, the judge determined to punish the accuser with the same
penalties that the accused would have incurred had he been guilty ; but
Giorgio Scali, unable to save him either by his authority or entreaties, ob-
tained the assistance of Tommaso Strozzi, and with a multitude of armed
men, set the informer at liberty and plundered the palace of the capitano,
who was obliged to save himself by flight. This act excited such great
and universal animosity against him, that his enemies began to hope they
would be able to effect his ruin, and also to rescue the city from the power
of the plebeians, who for three years had held her under their arrogant
control.
To the realisation of this design the capitano greatly contributed ; for
the tumult having subsided, he presented himself before the seigniors, and
said he had cheerfully undertaken the office to which they had appointed
him, for he thought he should serve upright men who would take arms for
the defence of justice, and not impede its progress. But now that he had
seen and had experience of the proceedings of the city, and the manner in
which affairs were conducted, that dignity which he had voluntarily as-
sumed with the hope of acquiring honour and emolument he now more
willingly resigned, to escape from the losses and danger to which he found
himself exposed. The complaint of the capitano was heard with the utmost at-
tention by the seigniory, who promising to remunerate him for the injury he
had suffered and provide for his future security, he was satisfied. Some
of them then obtained an interview with certain citizens who were thought
to be lovers of the common good, and least suspected by the state ; and in
conjunction with these, it was concluded that the present was a favourable
opportunity for rescuing the city from Giorgio and the plebeians, the last
outrage he had committed having completely alienated the great body of the
people from him. They judged it best to profit by the occasion before
the excitement had abated, for they knew that the favour of the mob is
often gained or lost by the most trifling circumstance ; and more certainly
to insure success, they determined, if possible, to obtain the concurrence of
Benedetto Alberti, for without it they considered their enterprise to be dan-
gerous.
Benedetto was one of the richest citizens, a man of unassuming manners,
an ardent lover of the liberties of his country, and one to whom tyrannical
measures were in the highest degree offensive ; so that he was easily induced
to concur in their views and consent to Giorgio's ruin. His enmity against
the nobles of the people and the Guelfs, and his friendship for the plebeians,
were caused by the insolence and tyrannical proceedings of the former; but
finding that the plebeians had soon become quite as insolent, he quickly
separated himself from them ; and the injuries committed by them against
the citizens were done wholly without his consent. So that the same motives
which made him join the plebeians induced him to leave them.
Having gained Benedetto and the leaders of the trades to their side, they
provided themselves with arms and made Giorgio prisoner. Tommaso fled.
The next day Giorgio was beheaded, which struck so great a terror into his
party, that none ventured to express the slightest disapprobation, but each
seemed anxious to be foremost in defence of the measure. On being led to
execution, in the presence of that people who only a short time before had
idolised him, Giorgio complained of his hard fortune, and the malignity of
those citizens who, having done him an undeserved injury, had compelled
him to honour and support a mob, possessing neither faith nor gratitude.
Observing Benedetto Alberti amongst those who had armed themselves for
346 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1381-1382 A.D.]
the preservation of order, he said, " Do you, too, consent, Benedetto, that
this injury shall be done to me ? Were I in your place and you in mine, I
would take care that no one should injure you. I tell you, however, this
day is the end of my troubles and the beginning of yours." He then blamed
himself for having confided too much in a people who may be excited and
inflamed by every word, motion, and breath of suspicion. With these com-
plaints he died, in the midst of his armed enemies delighted at his fall.
Some of his most intimate associates were also put to death, and their bodies
dragged about by the mob.
The death of Giorgio caused very great excitement ; many took arms at
the execution in favour of the seigniory and the capitano ; and many others,
either for ambition or as a means for their own safety, did the same. The
city was full of conflicting parties, which each had a particular end in view,
and wished to carry it into effect before they disarmed. The ancient nobility,
called " the great," could not bear to be deprived of public honours ; for the
recovery of which they used their utmost exertions, and earnestly desired
that authority might be restored to the capitani di parte. The nobles of
the people and the major trades were discontented at the share the minor
trades and lowest of the people possessed in the government ; whilst the
minor trades were desirous of increasing their influence, and the lowest people
were apprehensive of losing the companies of their trades and the authority
which these conferred.
Such opposing views occasioned Florence, during a year, to be disturbed
by many riots. Sometimes the nobles of the people took arms ; sometimes
the major, and sometimes the minor trades and the lowest of the people ;
and it often happened that, though in different parts, all were at once in
insurrection. Hence many conflicts took place between the different parties
or with the forces of the palaces ; for the seigniory, sometimes yielding and
at other times resisting, adopted such remedies as they could for these
numerous evils. At length, after two assemblies of the people, and many
balias appointed for the reformation of the city ; after much toil, labour,
and imminent danger, a government was appointed, by which all who had
been banished since Salvestro de' Medici was gonfalonier were restored.
They who had acquired distinctions or emoluments by the balia of 1378
were deprived of them. The honours of government were restored to the
Guelfic party; the two new companies of the trades were dissolved, and
all who had been subject to them assigned to their former companies. The
minor trades were not allowed to elect the gonfalonier of justice ; their share
of honours was reduced from a half to a third; and those of the highest rank
were withdrawn from them altogether. Thus the nobles of the people and
the Guelfs repossessed themselves of the government, which was lost by the
plebeians after it had been in their possession from 1378 to 1381, when these
changes took place.
The new establishment was not less injurious to the citizens, or less
troublesome at its commencement than that of the plebeians had been ; for
many of the nobles of the people who had distinguished themselves as
defenders of the plebeians were banished with a great number of the leaders
of the latter, amongst whom was Michele di Lando; nor could all the benefits
conferred upon the city by his authority, when in danger from the lawless
mob, save him from the rabid fury of the party that was now in power. His
good offices evidently excited little gratitude in his countrymen.
As these banishments and executions had always been offensive to Bene-
detto Alberti, they continued to disgust him, and he censured them both
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE 347
[1381-1393 A.D.]
publicly and privately. The leaders of the government began to fear him,
for they considered him one of the most earnest friends of the plebeians.
It appeared as if, at any moment, something might occur, which, with the
favour of his friends, would enable him to recover his authority, and drive
them out of the city. Whilst in this state of suspicion and jealousy, it hap-
pened that while he was gonfalonier of the companies, his son-in-law, Filippo
Magalotti, was drawn gonfalonier of justice ; and this circumstance increased
the fears of the government, for they thought it would strengthen Benedetto's
influence, and place the state in the greater peril. Anxious to provide a
remedy, without creating much disturbance, they induced Bese Magalotti,
his relative and enemy, to signify to the seigniory that Filippo, not having
attained the age required for the exercise of that office, neither could nor
ought to hold it.
The question was examined by the seigniors, and part of them out of hatred,
others in order to avoid disunion amongst themselves, declared Filippo ineli-
gible to the dignity, and in his stead was drawn Bardo Mancini, who was
quite opposed to the plebeian interests, and an inveterate foe of Benedetto.
This man, having entered upon the duties of his office, created a balia for
reformation of the state, which banished Benedetto Alberti and admonished
all the rest of his family except Antonio. Not to give a worse impression
of his virtue abroad than he had done at home, he made a journey to the
sepulchre of Christ, and whilst upon his return died at Rhodes. His remains
were brought to Florence, and interred with all possible honours by those
who had persecuted him, when alive, with every species of calumny and
injustice. The family of the Alberti was not the only injured party during
these troubles of the city ; for many others were banished and admonished.
It was customary to create the balia for a limited time ; and when the
citizens elected had effected the purpose of their appointment, they resigned
the office from motives of good feeling and decency, although the time
allowed might not have expired. In conformity with this laudable practice,
the balia of that period, supposing that they had accomplished all that was
expected of them, wished to retire ; but when the multitude were acquainted
with their intention, they ran armed to the palace, and insisted that, before
resigning their power, many other persons should be banished and admon-
ished. This greatly displeased the seigniors ; but without disclosing the
extent of their displeasure, they contrived to amuse the multitude with
promises, till they had assembled a sufficient body of armed men, and then
took such measures that fear induced the people to lay aside the weapons
which madness had led them to take up. Nevertheless, in some degree to
gratify the fury of the mob, and to reduce the authority of the plebeian
trades, it was provided that, as the latter had previously possessed a third of
the honours, they should in future have only a fourth. That there might
always be two of the seigniors particularly devoted to the government, they
gave authority to the gonfalonier of justice, and four others, to form a ballot
purse of select citizens, from which, in every seigniory, two should be drawn.
This government, from its establishment in 1381, till the alterations now
made, had continued six years ; and the internal peace of the city remained
undisturbed until 1393. During this time, Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti,
usually called the count of Virtu, imprisoned his uncle Barnabo, and thus
became sovereign of the whole of Lombardy. As he had become duke of
Milan by fraud, he designed to make himself king of Italy by force. In
1391 he commenced a spirited attack upon the Florentines ; but such various
changes occurred in the course of the war that he was frequently in greater
348 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1393 A.D.]
danger than the Florentines themselves, who, though they made a brave and
admirable defence, must have been ruined if he had survived. As it was,
the result was attended with infinitely less evil than their fears of so power-
ful an enemy had led them to apprehend ; for the duke, having taken Bologna,
Pisa, Perugia, and Siena, and prepared a diadem with which to be crowned
king of Italy at Florence, died before he had tasted the fruit of his victories,
or the Florentines began to feel the effect of their disasters.^
CHAPTER XII
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI
[1434-1492 A.D.]
THE democratic party at Florence, directed by the Alberti, Ricci, and
Medici, were deprived of power in 1381, in consequence of the abuse which
their associates, the ciompi, had made of their victory. From that time
their rivals, the Albizzi, directed the republic for the space of fifty-three
years, from 1381 to 1434, with a happiness and glory till then unexampled.
No triumph of an aristocratic faction ever merited a more brilliant place in
history. The one in question maintained itself by the ascendency of its
talents and virtues, without ever interfering with the rights of the other
citizens, or abusing a preponderance which was all in opinion. It was the
most prosperous epoch of the republic — that during which its opulence
acquired the greatest development ; that in which the arts, sciences, and
literature adopted Florence as their native country ; that in which were
born and formed all those great men, of whom the Medici, their contempo-
raries, have reaped the glory, without having had any share in producing
them; that, finally, in which the republic most constantly followed the
noblest policy : considering itself as the guardian of the liberty of Italy, it
in turns set limits to the ambition of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, of Ladislaus,
king of Naples, and of Filippo Maria, duke of Milan. Tornmaso degli
Albizzi, and after him Niccolo da Uzzano, had been the chiefs of the aris-
tocracy at this period of glory and wisdom. To those succeeded Rinaldo,
son of Tommaso degli Albizzi, who forgot, a little more than his predeces-
sors, that he was only a simple citizen. Impetuous, arrogant, jealous, impa-
tient of all opposition, he lost the pre-eminence which his family had so
long maintained.
Rinaldo degli Albizzi saw, with uneasiness, a rival present himself in
Cosmo, son of Giovanni de' Medici, who revived a party formerly the
vanquishers of his ancestors. This man enjoyed a hereditary popularity
at Florence, because he was descended from one of the demagogues who,
in 1378, had undertaken the defence of the minor arts against the aris-
tocracy; he at the same time excited the jealousy of the latter by his
immense wealth, which equalled that of the greatest princes of Italy.
349
350 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1389-1433 A.D.]
Although the Albizzi saw with distrust the family of their rivals attain the
supreme magistracy, they could not exclude from it Giovanni de' Medici,
who was gonfalonier in 1421. His son Cosmo, born in 1389, was priore in
1416 ; he was the head of a commercial establishment which had counting-
houses in all the great cities of Europe and in the Levant ; he at the
same time cultivated literature with ardour. His palace, one of the most
sumptuous in Florence, was the resort of artists, poets, and learned men ;
of those, among others, who about this time introduced the Platonic philoso-
phy into Italy. The opulence of Cosmo de' Medici was always at the ser-
vice of his friends. There were very few poor citizens at Florence to
whom his purse was not open.e
THE RISE, REVERSES, AND POWER OF COSMO DE' MEDICI
Even in the lifetime of his father, Cosmo had engaged himself deeply, not
only in the extensive commerce by which the family had acquired its wealth,
but in the weightier concerns of government. After the death of Giovanni
de' Medici, Cosmo supported and increased the family dignity. His conduct
was uniformly marked by urbanity and kindness to the superior ranks of his
fellow-citizens, and by a constant attention to the interests and the wants of
the lower class, whom he relieved with unbounded generosity. By these
means he acquired numerous and zealous partisans of every denomination ;
but he rather considered them as pledges for the continuance of the power he
possessed than as instruments to be employed in extending it to the ruin and
subjugation of the state. " No family," says Voltaire,/ " ever obtained its
power by so just a title."
The authority which Cosmo and his descendants exercised in Florence,
during the fifteenth century, was of a very peculiar nature, and consisted
rather in a tacit influence on their part, and a voluntary acquiescence on that
of the people, than in any prescribed or definite compact between them. The
form of government was ostensibly a republic, and was directed by a council of
ten citizens, and a chief executive officer called the gonfalonier e, or standard-
bearer, who was chosen every two months. Under this establishment the citi-
zens imagined they enjoyed the full exercise of their liberties ; but such was
the power of the Medici that they generally either assumed to themselves
the first offices of the state, or nominated such persons as they thought proper
to those employments. In this, however, they paid great respect to popular
opinion. That opposition of interests so generally apparent between the
people and their rulers, was at this time scarcely perceived at Florence,
where superior qualifications and industry were the surest recommendations
to public authority and favour. Convinced of the benefits constantly received
from this family, and satisfied that they could at any time withdraw them-
selves from a connection that exacted no engagements, and required only a
temporary acquiescence, the Florentines considered the Medici as the fathers,
and not as the rulers of the republic. On the other hand, the chiefs of this
house, by appearing rather to decline than to court the honours bestowed on
them, and by a singular moderation in the use of them when obtained, were
careful to maintain the character of simple citizens of Florence and servants
of the state. An interchange of reciprocal good offices was the only tie by
which the Florentines and the Medici were bound, and perhaps the long con-
tinuance of this connection may be attributed to the very circumstance of its
having been in the power of either of the parties, at any time, to dissolve it.
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 351
[1443 A.D.]
But the prudence and moderation of Cosmo, though they soothed the jeal-
ous apprehensions of the Florentines, could not at all times repress the ambi-
tious designs of those who wished to possess or to share his authority. In the
year 1433, Rinaldo de' Albizzi, at the head of a powerful party, carried
the appointment of the magistracy. At that time Cosmo had withdrawn
to his seat at Mugello, where he had remained some months, in order to avoid
the disturbances that he saw were likely to ensue ; but at the request of his
friends he returned to Florence, where he was led to expect that a union of
the different parties would be effected, so as to preserve the peace of the city.
In this expectation he was, however, disappointed. No sooner did he make
his appearance in the palace, where his presence had been requested, on pre-
tence of his being intended to share in the administration of the republic, than
he was seized upon by his adversaries, and committed to the custody of Fed-
erigo Malavolti. He remained in this situation for several days, in constant
apprehension of some violence being offered to his person ; but he still more
dreaded that the malice of his enemies might attempt his life by poison.
During four days, a small portion of bread was the only food which he
thought proper to take.
The generosity of his keeper at length relieved him from this state of
anxiety. In order to induce him to take his food with confidence, Malavolti
partook of it with him. In the meantime, his brother Lorenzo, and his cousin
Averardo, having raised a considerable body of men from Romagna and other
neighbouring parts, and being joined by Niccolo da Tolentino, the com-
mander of the troops of the republic, approached towards Florence to his
relief ; but the apprehensions that, in case they resorted to open violence, the
life of Cosmo might be endangered, induced them to abandon their enterprise.
At length Rinaldo and his adherents obtained a decree of the magistracy
against the Medici and their friends, by which Cosmo was banished to Padua
for ten years, Lorenzo to Venice for five years, and several of their relations
and adherents were involved in a similar punishment.
Cosmo would gladly have left the city pursuant to his sentence, had he
been allowed to do so, but his enemies thought it more advisable to retain
him till they had established their authority ; and they frequently gave
him to understand that if his friends raised any opposition to their meas-
ures, his life should answer it. He also suspected that another reason for
his detention was to ruin him in his credit and circumstances, his mer-
cantile concerns being then greatly extended. As soon as these disturb-
ances were known, several of the states of Italy interfered in his behalf.
Three ambassadors arrived from Venice, who proposed to take him under
their protection, and to engage that he should strictly submit to the sentence
imposed on him. The marquis of Ferrara also gave a similar proof of his
attachment. Though their interposition was not immediately successful, it
was of great importance to Cosmo, and secured him from the attempts of
those who aimed at his life. After a confinement of nearly a month, some of
his friends, finding in his adversaries a disposition to gentler measures, took
occasion to forward his cause by the timely application of a sum of money to
Bernardo Guadagni, the gonfalonier, and to Mariotto Baldovinetti, two of the
creatures of Rinaldo. This measure was successful. He was privately taken
from his confinement by night, and led out of Florence. For this piece of
service Guadagni received 1,000 florins, and Baldovinetti 800. " They were
poor souls," says Cosmo in his Ricordi, "for if money had been their object,
they might have had 10,000, or more, to have freed ine from the perils of such
a situation."
352 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1433-1464 A.D.]
From Florence, Cosmo proceeded immediately towards Venice, and at
every place through which he passed, experienced the most flattering atten-
tion and the warmest expressions of regard. On his approach to that city
he was met by his brother Lorenzo and many of his friends, and was received
by the senate with such honours as were bestowed by that stately republic
only on persons of the highest quality and distinction. After a short stay
there, he went to Padua, the place prescribed for his banishment ; but on an
application to the Florentine state, by Andrea Donato, the Venetian ambas-
sador, he was permitted to reside on any part of the Venetian territories, but
not to approach within the distance of 170 miles of Florence. The affec-
tionate reception which he had met with at Venice induced him to fix his
abode there, until a change of circumstances should restore him to his native
country.
Amongst the several learned and ingenious men who accompanied Cosmo
in his banishment, or resorted to him during his stay at Venice, was Michellozzo
Michellozzi, a Florentine sculptor and architect, whom Cosmo (according to
Vasari0) employed in making models and drawings of the most remarkable
buildings in Venice, and also in forming a library in the monastery of St.
George, which he enriched with many valuable manuscripts, and left as an
honourable monument of his gratitude, to a place that had afforded him so
kind an asylum in his adversity. During his residence at Venice, Cosmo
also received frequent visits from Ambrogio Traversari, a learned monk of
Camaldoli, near Florence, and afterwards superior of the monastery of that
place. Though chiefly confined within the limits of a cloister, Traversari
had, perhaps, the best pretensions to the character of a polite scholar of any
man of that age. From the letters of Traversari,^ now. extant, we learn that
Cosmo and his brother not only bore their misfortunes with firmness, but
continued to express on every occasion an inviolable attachment to their
native place. The readiness with which Cosmo had given way to the tempo-
rary clamour raised against him, and the reluctance which he had shown to
renew those bloody rencounters that had so often disgraced the streets of
Florence, gained him new friends. The utmost exertions of his antagonists
could not long prevent the choice of such magistrates as were known to be
attached to the cause of the Medici ; and no sooner did they enter on their
office, than Cosmo and his brother were recalled, and Rinaldo, with his adher-
ents, was compelled to quit the city. This event took place about the expi-
ration of twelve months from the time of Cosmo's banishment.
From this time the life of Cosmo de' Medici was one of almost uninter-
rupted prosperity. The tranquillity enjoyed by the republic, and the
satisfaction and peace of mind which he experienced in the esteem and
confidence of his fellow-citizens, enabled him to indulge his natural propen-
sity to the promotion of science, and the encouragement of learned men.
The study of the Greek language had been introduced into Italy, principally
by the exertions of the celebrated Boccaccio, towards the latter part of the
preceding century, but on the death of that great promoter of letters it again
fell into neglect. After a short interval, another attempt was made to revive
it by the intervention of Emmanuel Chrysoloras, a noble Greek, who, during
the interval of his important embassies, taught that language at Florence
and other cities of Italy, about the beginning of the fifteenth century. His
disciples were numerous and respectable. Amongst others of no inconsider-
able note were Ambrogio Traversari, Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini, the
two latter of whom were natives of Arezzo, whence they took the name of
Aretino, Poggio Bracciolini, Guarino Veronese, and Francesco Filelfo, who,
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 353
[1434-1464 A.D.]
after the death of Chrysoloras, in 1415, strenuously vied with each other in
the support of Grecian literature, and were successful enough to keep the
flame alive till it received new aid from other learned Greeks, who were
driven from Constantinople by the dread of the Turks, or by the total over-
throw of the Eastern Empire. To these illustrious foreigners, as well as to
those eminent Italians, who shortly became
their successful rivals, even in the know-
ledge of their national history and language,
Cosmo afforded the most liberal protection
and support. Of this the numerous pro-
ductions inscribed to his name, or devoted
to his praise, are an ample testimony. In
some of these he is commended for his at-
tachment to his country, his liberality to
his friends, his benevolence to all. He is
denominated the protector of the needy, the
refuge of the oppressed, the constant patron
and support of learned men.
"You have shown," says Poggio,* "such
humanity and moderation in dispensing the
gifts of fortune, that they seem to have
been rather the reward of your virtues and
merits, than conceded by her bounty. De-
voted to the study of letters from your
early years, you have by your example
given additional splendour to science itself.
Although involved in the weightier con-
cerns of state, and unable to devote a great
part of your time to books, yet you have
found a constant satisfaction in the society
of those learned men who have always fre-
quented your house." In enumerating the
men of eminence who distinguished the city
of Florence, Flavio Biondo (Flavius Blon-
dus) J adverts in the first instance to Cosmo COSMO DE* MEDICI
de' Medici — "a citizen who, whilst he excels
in wealth every other citizen of Europe, is rendered much more illustrious by
his prudence, his humanity, his liberality, and what is more to our present
purpose, by his knowledge of useful literature, and particularly of history."
Cosmo and the Revival of Learning
That extreme avidity for the works of the ancient writers which distin-
guished the early part of the fifteenth century announced the near approach
of more enlightened times. Whatever were the causes that determined
men of wealth and learning to exert themselves so strenuously in this pursuit,
certain it is that their interference was of the highest importance to the inter-
ests of posterity, and that if it had been much longer delayed, the loss would
have been in a great degree irreparable ; such of the manuscripts as then
existed of the ancient Greek and Roman authors being daily perishing in
obscure corners, a prey to oblivion and neglect. It was therefore a circum-
stance productive of the happiest consequences, that the pursuits of the opu-
lent were at this time directed rather towards the recovery of the works of
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 A
354 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1434-1464 A.D.]
the ancients than to the encouragement of contemporary merit ; a fact that
may serve in some degree to account for the dearth of original literary
productions during this interval. Induced by the rewards that invariably
attended a successful inquiry, those men who possessed any considerable
share of learning devoted themselves to this occupation, and to such a degree
of enthusiasm was it carried that the discovery of an ancient manuscript was
regarded as almost equivalent to the conquest of a kingdom.
As the natural disposition of Cosmo led him to take an active part in
collecting the remains of the ancient Greek and Roman writers, so he was
enabled, by his wealth and his extensive mercantile intercourse with different
parts of Europe and of Asia, to gratify a passion of this kind beyond any
other individual. To this end he laid injunctions on all his friends and
correspondents, as well as on the missionaries and preachers who travelled
into the remotest countries, to search for and procure ancient manuscripts, in
every language and on every subject. Besides the services of Poggio and
Traversari, Cosmo availed himself of those of Cristoforo Buondelmonte, An-
tonio da Massa, Andrea de Rimino, and many others. The situation of the
Eastern Empire, then daily falling into ruins by the repeated attacks of
the Turks, afforded him, as Bandini* notes, an opportunity of obtaining
many inestimable works in the Hebrew, Greek, Chaldaic, Arabic, and Indian
languages. From these beginnings arose the celebrated library of the Medici,
which, after having been the constant object of the solicitude of its founder,
was after his death further enriched by the attention of his descendants, and
particularly of his grandson Lorenzo ; and after various vicissitudes of
fortune, and frequent and considerable additions, has been preserved to the
present times under the name of the Bibliotheca Mediceo-Laurentiana.
Amongst those who imitated the example of Cosmo de' Medici was Nic-
colo Niccoli, another citizen of Florence, who devoted his whole time and
fortune to the acquisition of ancient manuscripts ; in this pursuit he had
been eminently successful, having collected together eight hundred volumes
of Greek, Roman, and oriental authors ; a number in those times justly
thought very considerable. Several of these works he had copied with
great accuracy, and had diligently employed himself in correcting their
defects and arranging the text in its proper order. In this respect he is
justly regarded by Mehus as the father of this species of criticism. He
died in 1436, having by his will directed that his library should be devoted
to the use of the public, and appointed sixteen curators, amongst whom was
Cosmo de' Medici. After his death, it appeared that he was greatly in debt,
and that his liberal intentions were likely to be frustrated by the insolvency
of his circumstances. Cosmo therefore proposed to his associates, that if
they would resign to him the right of disposition of the books, he would
himself discharge all the debts of Niccolo, to which they readily acceded.
Having thus obtained the sole direction of the manuscripts, he deposited
them for public use in the Dominican monastery of San Marco, at Florence,
which he had himself erected at an enormous expense. This collection was
the foundation of another celebrated library in Florence, known by the
name of the Bibliotheca Marciana, which is yet open to inspection.
In the arrangement of the library of San Marco, Cosmo had procured the
assistance of Tommaso Calandrino (or Parentucelli), who drew up a scheme
for that purpose, and prepared a scientific catalogue of the books it con-
tained. In selecting a coadjutor, the choice of Cosmo had fallen upon an
extraordinary man. Though Tommaso was the son of a poor physician
of Sarzana, and ranked only in the lower order of the clergy, he had the
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 355
[U34-1464 A.D.]
ambition to aim at possessing specimens of these venerable relics of ancient
genius. His learning and his industry enabled him to gratify his wishes,
and his perseverance surmounted the disadvantages of his situation. In
this pursuit he was frequently induced to anticipate his scanty revenue, well
knowing that the estimation in which he was held by his friends would pre-
serve him from pecuniary difficulties. With the Greek and Roman authors
no one was more intimately acquainted, and as he wrote a very fine hand, the
books he possessed acquired additional value from the marginal observations
which he was accustomed to make in perusing them.
By rapid degrees of fortunate preferment, Tommaso was, in the short
space of twelve months, raised from his humble situation in the lower orders
of the church, to the chair of St. Peter, and in eight years, during which
time he enjoyed the supreme dignity by the name of Nicholas V, acquired
a reputation that has increased with the increasing estimation of those
studies which he so liberally fostered and protected. The scanty library of
his predecessors had been nearly dissipated or destroyed by frequent re-
movals between Avignon and Rome, according as the caprice of the reign-
ing pontiff chose either of those places for his residence ; and it appears
from the letters of Traversari, that scarcely anything of value remained.
Nicholas V is therefore to be considered as the founder of the library of
the Vatican. In the completion of this great design, it is true, much was
left to be performed by his successors ; but Nicholas had before his death
collected upwards of five thousand volumes of Greek and Roman authors,
and had not only expressed his intention of establishing a library for the
use of the Roman court, but had also taken measures for carrying such
intention into execution.
Whilst the munificence of the rich and the industry of the learned were
thus employed throughout Italy in preserving the remains of the ancient
authors, some obscure individuals in a corner of Germany had conceived,
and were silently bringing to perfection, an invention which, by means
equally effectual and unexpected, secured to the world the result of their
labours. This was the art of printing with movable types. The coinci-
dence of this discovery with the spirit of the times in which it had birth
was highly fortunate. Had it been made known at a much earlier period,
it would have been disregarded or forgotten, from the mere want of mate-
rials on which to exercise it ; and had it been further postponed, it is
probable that, notwithstanding the generosity of the rich and the diligence
of the learned, many works would have been totally lost, which are now
justly regarded as the noblest monuments of the human intellect.
Nearly the same period of time that gave the world this important
discovery, saw the destruction of the Roman Empire in the East. In the
year 1453, the city of Constantinople was captured by the Turks, under
the command of Muhammed II, after a vigorous defence of fifty-three days.
The encouragement which had been shown to the Greek professors at Florence,
and the character of Cosmo de' Medici as a promoter of letters, induced many
learned Greeks to seek a shelter in that city, where they met with a welcome
and honourable reception. Amongst these were Demetrius Chalcondyles,
Joannes Andronicus Calistus, Constantine, and Andreas Joannes Lascaris,
in whom the Platonic philosophy obtained fresh partisans, and by whose
support it began openly to oppose itself to that of Aristotle. Between the
Greek and Italian professors a spirit of emulation was kindled that operated
most favourably on the cause of letters. Public schools were instituted at
Florence for the study of the Greek tongue. The facility of diffusing their
356 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[ 1434-1464 A.D.]
labours by means of the newly discovered art of printing stimulated the
learned to fresh exertions ; and in a few years the cities of Italy vied with
each other in the number and elegance of works produced from the press.
Last Years of Cosmo
Towards the latter period of his life, a great part of the time that Cosmo
could withdraw from the administration of public affairs, was passed at his
seats at Careggi and Caffaggiolo, where he applied himself to the cultivation
of his farms, from which he derived no inconsiderable revenue. But his
happiest hours were devoted to the study of letters and philosophy, or
passed in the company and conversation of learned men. When he retired
at intervals to his seat at Careggi, he was generally accompanied by Ficino,
where, after having been his protector, he became his pupil in the study of the
Platonic philosophy. For his use, Ficino began those laborious translations
of the works of Plato and his followers which were afterwards completed and
published in the lifetime and by the liberality of Lorenzo. Amongst the
letters of Ficino is one from his truly venerable patron, which bespeaks most
forcibly the turn of his mind, and his earnest desire of acquiring knowledge,
even at his advanced period of life.
" Yesterday," says he, " I arrived at Careggi — not so much for the purpose
of improving my fields as myself. Let me see you, Marsilio, as soon as
possible, and forget not to bring with you the book of our favourite Plato,
De summo bono, which I presume, according to your promise, you have ere
this translated into Latin ; for there is no employment to which I so ardently
devote myself as to find out the true road to happiness. Come then, and fail
not to bring with you the Orphean lyre." Whatever might be the proficiency
of Cosmo in the mysteries of his favourite philosopher, there is reason to
believe that he applied those doctrines and precepts which furnished the liti-
gious disputants of the age with a plentiful source of contention, to the pur-
poses of real life and practical improvement. Notwithstanding his active and
useful life, he often regretted the hours he had lost. " Midas was not more
sparing of his money," says Ficino,* " than Cosmo was of his time."
The wealth and influence that Cosmo had acquired had long entitled him to
rank with the most powerful princes of Italy, with whom he might have
formed connections by the intermarriage of his children ; but being apprehen-
sive that such measures might give rise to suspicions that he entertained de-
signs inimical to the freedom of the state, he rather chose to increase his
interest among the citizens of Florence by the marriage of his children into
the most distinguished families of that place. Piero, his eldest son, married
Lucretia Tornabuoni, by whom he had two sons — Lorenzo, born on the first
day of January, 1448, and Giuliano, born in the year 1453. Piero had also two
daughters, Nannina, who married Bernardo Rucellai, and Bianca, who be-
came the wife of Gulielmo de' Pazzi. Giovanni, the younger son of Cosmo,
espoused Cornelia de' Alessandri, by whom he had a son who died very
young. Giovanni himself did not long survive. He died in the year 1461,
at forty-two years of age. Living under the shade of paternal authority,
his name scarcely occurs in the pages of history ; but the records of literature
bear testimony that in his disposition and studies he did not derogate from the
reputation of that characteristic attachment to men of learning by which
his family was invariably distinguished.
Besides his legitimate offspring, Cosmo left also a natural son, Carlo de'
Medici, whom he liberally educated, and who compensated the disadvantages
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 357
[1434-1464 A.D.]
of his birth by the respectability of his life. The manners of the times
might be alleged in extenuation of a circumstance apparently inconsistent
with the gravity of the character of Cosmo de' Medici ; but Cosmo himself
disclaimed such apology, and whilst he acknowledged his youthful indis-
cretion, made amends to society for the breach of a salutary regulation, by
attending to the morals and the welfare
of his illegitimate descendant. Under his
countenance, Carlo became proposto of Prato,
and one of the apostolic notaries ; and as his
general residence was at Rome, he was fre-
quently resorted to by his father and brothers
for his advice and assistance in procuring
ancient manuscripts and other valuable re-
mains of antiquity.
The death of Giovanni de' Medici, on
whom Cosmo had placed his chief expecta-
tions, and the weak state of health that
Piero experienced, which rendered him un-
fit for the exertions of public life in so
turbulent a place as Florence, raised great
apprehensions in Cosmo that at his decease
the splendour of his family would close.
These reflections embittered the repose of
his latter days. A short time before his
death, being carried through the apartments
of his palace, after having recently lost his
son, he exclaimed with a sigh, " This is too
great a house for so small a family." These
apprehensions were in some degree realised
by the infirmities under which Piero laboured
during the few years in which he held the
direction of the republic; but the talents
of Lorenzo soon dispelled this temporary
gloom, and exalted his family to a degree of
reputation and splendour, of which it is
probable that Cosmo himself had scarcely
formed an idea.**
While Cosmo de' Medici thus fixed the public attention by his private
life, Neri Capponi gained the suffrages of the people by his public conduct.
Charged, as ambassador, with every difficult negotiation — in war, with
every hazardous enterprise — he participated in all the brilliant successes of
the Florentines, as well during the domination of the Albizzi as during that
of the Medici. From the year 1434 to 1455, in which Neri Capponi died,
these two chiefs of the republic had six times assembled the parliament to
make a balia ; and, availing themselves of its authority, which was above the
law, they obtained the exile of all their enemies, and filled the balloting
purses of the magistracy with the names of their own partisans, to the exclu-
sion of all others. It appears that all the efforts of their administration were
directed towards calming the passions of the public, and maintaining peace
without, as well as repose within, the state. They had, in fact, succeeded in
preventing Florence from being troubled with new factions, or engaged in
new wars ; but they drew on the republic all the evils attending an aristo-
cratic government. Medici and Capponi had not been able to find men who
AN ITALIAN CAPTAIN, FIFTEENTH
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358 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1455-1464 A.D.]
would sacrifice the liberties of their country without allowing them to gratify
their baser passions. These two heads of the republic, therefore, suffered their
subordinate agents to divide among themselves all the little governments of
the subject cities, and every lucrative employment ; and these men, not satis-
fied with this first injustice, made unequal partitions of the taxes, increasing
them on the poor, lowering them on the rich, and exempting themselves. At
last they began to sell their protection, as well with respect to the tribunals as
the councils ; favour silenced justice ; and, in the midst of peace and apparent
prosperity, the Florentines felt their republic, undermined by secret corrup-
tion, hastening to ruin.
When Neri Capponi died, the council refused to call a new parliament to
replace the balia, whose power expired on the 1st of July, 1455. It was the
aristocracy itself, comprehending all the creatures of Cosmo de' Medici,
that, from jealousy of his domination, wished to return to the dominion of
the laws. The whole republic was rejoiced, as if liberty had been regained.
The election of the signoria was again made fairly by lot — the catasto was
revised, the contributions were again equitably apportioned, the tribunals
ceased to listen to the recommendations of those who, till then, had made a
traffic of retributive justice. The aristocracy, seeing that clients no longer
flocked to their houses with hands full, began to perceive that their jealousy
of Cosmo de' Medici had only injured themselves. Cosmo, with his immense
fortune,, was just as much respected as before ; the people were intoxicated
with joy to find themselves again free ; but the aristocracy felt themselves
weak and abandoned. They endeavoured to convoke a parliament without
Cosmo ; but he baffled their efforts, the longer to enjoy their humiliation.
He began to fear, however, that the Florentines might once more acquire a
taste for liberty ; and when Lucas Pitti, rich, powerful, and bold, was named
fonfalonier, in July, 1458, he agreed with him to reimpose the yoke on the
lorentines. Pitti assembled the parliament ; but not till he had filled all
the avenues of the public square with soldiers or armed peasants. The peo-
ple, menaced and trembling within this circle, consented to name a new
balia, more violent and tyrannical than any of the preceding. It was com-
posed of 352 persons, to whom was delegated all the power of the republic.
They exiled a great number of the citizens who had shown the most attach-
ment to liberty, and they even put some to death, e
Cosmo now approached the period of his mortal existence, but the facul-
ties of his mind yet remained unimpaired. About twenty days before his
death, when his strength was visibly on the decline, he entered into conver-
sation with Ficino, and whilst the faint beams of a setting sun seemed to
accord with his situation and his feelings, began to lament the miseries of life
and the imperfections inseparable from human nature. As he continued his dis-
course, his sentiments and his views became more elevated, and from bewailing
the lot of humanity, he began to exult in the prospect of that happier state
towards which he felt himself approaching. Ficino replied by citing corre-
sponding sentiments from the Athenian sages, and particularly from Xeno-
crates ; and the last task imposed by Cosmo on his philosophic attendant
was to translate from the Greek the treatise of that author on death. Hav-
ing prepared his mind to wait with composure the awful event, his next
concern was the welfare of his surviving family, to whom he was desirous of
imparting, in a solemn manner, the result of the experience of a long and
active life. Calling into his chamber his wife Contessina, and his son Piero,
he entered into a narrative of all his public transactions ; he gave a full
account of his extensive mercantile connections, and adverted to the state of
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 359
[1464 A.D.]
his domestic concerns. To Piero he recommended a strict attention to the
education of his sons. He requested that his funeral might be conducted
with as much privacy as possible, and concluded his paternal exhortations by
declaring his willingness to submit to the disposal of providence whenever he
should be called upon. These admonitions were not lost on Piero, who com-
municated by letter to Lorenzo and Giuliano the impression which they had
made upon his own mind. At the same time, sensible of his own infirmities,
he exhorted them to consider themselves not as children but as men, seeing
that circumstances rendered it necessary to put their abilities to an early
proof. "A physician," says Piero, "is hourly expected to arrive from
Milan, but, for my own part, I place my confidence in God." Either the
physician did not arrive, or Piero's distrust of him was well founded, for,
about six days afterwards, being the first day of August, 1464, Cosmo died,
at the age of seventy-five years, deeply lamented by a great majority of the
citizens of Florence, whom he had firmly attached to his interest, and who
feared for the safety of the city from the dissensions that were likely to
ensue.
Roscoe's Estimate of Cosmo
The character of Cosmo de' Medici exhibits a combination of virtues and
endowments rarely to be found united in the same person. If in his public
works he was remarkable for his magnificence, he was no less conspicuous for
his prudence in private life. Whilst in the character of chief of the Floren-
tine Republic he supported a constant intercourse with the sovereigns of
Europe, his conduct in Florence was divested of all ostentation, and neither
in his retinue, his friendships, nor his conversation, could he be distinguished
from any other respectable citizen. He well knew the jealous temper of the
Florentines, and preferred the real enjoyment of authority to that open
assumption of it which could only have been regarded as a perpetual insult
by those whom he permitted to gratify their own pride in the reflection that
they were the equals of Cosmo de' Medici.
In affording protection to the arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture,
Cosmo set the great example to those who by their rank and their riches
could alone afford them effectual aid. The countenance shown by him to
those arts was not of that kind which their professors generally experience
from the great ; it was not conceded as a bounty, nor received as a favour,
but appeared in the friendship and equality that subsisted between the artist
and his patron. In the erection of the numerous public buildings in which
Cosmo expended incredible sums of money, he principally availed himself of
the assistance of Michellozzo Michellozzi and Filippo Brunelleschi — the first
of whom was a man of talents, the latter of genius. Soon after his return
from banishment, Cosmo engaged these two artists to form the plan of a
mansion for his own residence. Brunelleschi gave scope to his invention,
and produced the design of a palace which might have suited the proudest
sovereign in Europe ; but Cosmo was led by that prudence which, in his
personal accommodation, regulated all his conduct, to prefer the plan of
Michellozzi, which united extent with simplicity, and elegance with conven-
ience. With the consciousness, Brunelleschi possessed also the irritability
of genius, and in a fit of vexation he destroyed a design which he unjustly
considered as disgraced by its not being carried into execution. Having
completed his dwelling, Cosmo indulged his taste in ornamenting it with the
most precious remains of ancient art, and in the purchase of vases, statues,
busts, gems, and medals, expended no inconsiderable sum.
360 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1464 A.D.]
Nor was he less attentive to the merits of those artists whom his native
place had recently produced. With Masaccio, a better style of painting had
arisen ; and the cold and formal manner of Giotto and his disciples had
given way to a more natural and expressive composition. In Cosmo de'
Medici this rising artist found his most liberal patron and protector. Some
of the works of Masaccio were executed in the chapel of the Brancacci,
where they were held in such estimation that the place was regarded as a
school of study by the most eminent artists who immediately succeeded him.
Even the celebrated Michelangelo, when observing these paintings many
years afterwards, in company with his honest and loquacious friend Vasari,
did not hesitate to express his decided approbation of their merits. The
reputation of Masaccio was emulated by his
disciple, Filippo Lippi, who executed for
Cosmo and his friends many celebrated
pictures, of which Vasari 9 has given a
minute account. Cosmo, however, found
no small difficulty in controlling the temper
and regulating the eccentricities of this
extraordinary character. If the efforts of
these early masters did not reach the true
end of the art, they afforded considerable
assistance towards it ; and whilst Masaccio
and Filippo decorated with their admired
productions the altars of churches and the
apartments of princes, Donatello gave to
marble a proportion of form, a vivacity of
expression, to which his contemporaries
imagined that nothing more was wanting ;
Brunelleschi raised the great dome of the
cathedral of Florence; and Ghiberti cast in
bronze the stupendous doors of the church
of St. John, which Michelangelo deemed
worthy to be the gates of paradise.
In his person, Cosmo was tall; in his
youth, he possessed the advantage of a pre-
possessing countenance ; what age had taken
from his comeliness it had added to his
dignity ; and in his latter years, his appear-
ance was so truly venerable as to have been
the frequent subject of panegyric. His
manner was grave and complacent, but upon
many occasions he gave sufficient proofs that
this did not arise from a want of talents for sarcasm ; and the fidelity of the
Florentine historians has preserved many of his shrewd observations and
remarks. When Rinaldo de' Albizzi, who was then in exile, and meditated
an attack upon his native place, sent a message to Cosmo, importing that
the hen would shortly hatch, he replied, " She will hatch with an ill grace
out of her own nest." On another occasion, when his adversaries gave him
to understand that they were not sleeping, " I believe it," said Cosmo, " I
have spoiled their sleep." "Of what colour is my hair?" said Cosmo,
uncovering his head to the ambassadors of Venice, who came with a complaint
against the Florentines. " White," they replied. " It will not be long,"
said Cosmo, "before that of your senators will be so, too," Shortly before
A FLORENTINE OF THE FIFTEENTH
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FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 361
[1464 A.D.]
his death, his wife inquiring why he closed his eyes, " That I may accustom
them to it," was his reply.
If, from considering the private character of Cosmo, we attend to his
conduct as the moderator and director of the Florentine Republic, our admi-
ration of his abilities will increase with the extent of the theatre upon which
he had to act. So important were his mercantile concerns, that they often
influenced in a very remarkable degree the politics of Italy. When Alfonso,
king of Naples, leagued with the Venetians against Florence, Cosmo called
in such immense debts from those places as deprived them of resources for
carrying on the war. During the contest between the houses of York and
Lancaster, one of his agents in England was resorted to by Edward IV for a
sum of money, which was furnished to such an extraordinary amount, that
it might almost be considered as the means of supporting that monarch on
the throne, and was repaid when his successes enabled him to fulfil his
engagement. The alliance of Cosmo was sedulously courted by the princes
of Italy ; and it was remarked that by a happy kind of fatality, who-
ever united their interests with his, was always enabled either to repress or
to overcome their adversaries. By his assistance the republic of Venice
resisted the united attacks of Filippo, duke of Milan, and of the French
nation ; but when deprived of his support, the Venetians were no longer
able to withstand their enemies. Whatever difficulties Cosmo had to encoun-
ter, at home or abroad, they generally terminated in the acquisition of addi-
tional honour to his country and to himself. The esteem and gratitude of
his fellow-citizens were fully shown a short time before his death, when by a
public decree he was honoured with the title of Pater Patrice, Father of his
Country, an appellation which was inscribed on his tomb, and which, as it
was founded on real merit, has ever since been attached to the name of
Cosmo de' Medici.^
" With all his faults," says Von Reumont,c " Cosmo was certainly a
remarkable man. More than anyone else he contributed to keep alive not
only the forms but much of the spirit of civil equality and dignity, after it
had become impossible to avoid a party government leading sooner or later
to the preponderance of one family."
Marsilio Ficino l described Cosmo as " a man intelligent above all others,
pious before God, just and high-minded towards his fellow-men, modest in
everything that concerned himself, active in his private affairs, but still more
careful and prudent in public ones. He did not live for himself alone,"
adds the eulogist, " but for the service of God and his country."
COSMO'S SUCCESSOR
During the later years of Cosmo's life Lucas Pitti came to regard him-
self as the future chief of the state. It was about this time that he under-
took the building of that magnificent palace which formed the residence of
the grand dukes. The republican equality was not only offended by the
splendour of this regal dwelling, but the construction of it afforded Pitti
an occasion for marking his contempt of liberty and the laws. He made of
this building an asylum for all fugitives from justice, whom no public officer
dared pursue when once he took part in the labour. At the same time
individuals, as well as communities, who would obtain some favour from the
republic, knew that the only means of being heard was to offer Lucas Pitti some
precious wood or marble to be employed in the construction of his palace,
362 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1464-1466 A.D.]
When Cosmo de' Medici died, on the 1st of August, 1464, Lucas Pitti felt
himself released from the control imposed by the virtue and moderation of
that great citizen. Cosmo's son, Piero de' Medici, then forty-eight years
of age, supposed that he should succeed to the administration of the republic,
as he had succeeded to the wealth of his father, by hereditary right ; but the
state of his health did not admit of his attending regularly to business, or of
his inspiring his rivals with much fear. To diminish the weight of affairs
which oppressed him, he resolved on withdrawing a part of his immense for-
tune from commerce, recalling all his loans made in partnership with other
merchants, and laying out this money in land. But this unexpected demand
of considerable capital occasioned a fatal shock to the commerce of Florence,
at the same time that it alienated all the debtors of the house of Medici, and
deprived it of much of its popularity. The death of Sforza also, which took
place on the 8th of March, 1466, deprived the Medicean party of its firmest
support abroad. Francesco Sforza, whether as condottiere or duke of Milan,
had always been the devoted friend of Cosmo. His son, Galeazzo Sforza, who
succeeded him, declared his resolution of persisting in the same alliance ; but
the talents, the character, and, above all, the glory of his father, were not to be
found in him. Galeazzo seemed to believe that the supreme power which he
inherited brought him the right of indulging every pleasure — of abandoning
himself to every vice without restraint. He dissipated by his ostentation the
finances of the duchy of Milan ; he stained by his libertinism the honour of
almost all the noble families ; and he alienated the people by his cruelty.
The friends of liberty at Florence soon perceived that Lucas Pitti and
Piero de' Medici no longer agreed together ; and they recovered courage
when the latter proposed to the council the calling of a parliament, in order
to renew the balia, the power of which expired on the 1st of September, 1465 :
his proposition was rejected. The magistracy began again to be drawn by lot
from among the members of the party victorious in 1434. This return of
liberty, however, was but of short duration. Pitti and Medici were recon-
ciled ; they agreed to call a parliament, and to direct it in concert ; to intimi-
date it, they surrounded it with foreign troops.
But Medici, on the nomination of the balia, on the 2nd of September, 1466,
found means of admitting his own partisans only, and excluding all those of
Lucas Pitti. The citizens who had shown any zeal for liberty were all exiled ;
several were subjected to enormous fines. Five commissioners, called accoppi-
atori, were charged to open, every two months, the purse from which the signo-
ria were to be drawn, and choose from thence the names of the gonfalonier and
eight priori, who were to enter office. These magistrates were so dependent
on Piero de' Medici, that the gonfalonier went frequently to his palace to take
his orders, and afterwards published them as the result of his deliberations
with his colleagues, whom he had not even consulted. Lucas Pitti ruined
himself in building his palace. His talents were judged to bear no proportion
to his ambition ; the friends of liberty, as well as those of Medici, equally
detested him, and he remained deprived of all power in a city which he had
so largely contributed to enslave.
Italy became filled with Florentine emigrants ; every revolution, even
every convocation of parliament, was followed by the exile of many citizens.
The party of the Albizzi had been exiled in 1434 ; but the Alberti, who had
vanquished it, were, in turn, banished in 1466 ; and among the members of
both parties were to be found almost all the historical names of Florence —
those names which Europe had learned to respect, either for immense credit
in commerce, or for the lustre which literature and the arts shed on them.
FLORENCE UNDEK, THE MEDICI 363
[1466-1470 A.D.]
Italy was astonished at the exile of so many illustrious persons. At Flor-
ence, the citizens who escaped proscription trembled to see despotism estab-
lished in their republic ; but the lower orders were in general contented, and
made no attempt to second Bartolommeo Colleoni, when he entered Tuscany,
in 1467, at the head of the Florentine emigrants, who had taken him into
their pay. Commerce prospered ; manufactures were carried on with great
activity ; high wages supported in comfort all who lived by their labour ;
and the Medici entertained them with shows and festivals, keeping them in
a sort of perpetual carnival, amidst which the people soon lost all thought
of liberty.
Piero de' Medici was always in too bad a state of health to exercise in
person the sovereignty he had usurped over his country ; he left it to five or
six citizens who reigned in his name. Tommaso Soderini, Andrea de' Pazzi,
Luigi Guicciardini, Matteo Palmieri, and Pietro Minerbetti, were the real
chiefs of the state. They not only transacted all business, but appropriated
to themselves all the profit ; they sold their influence and credit ; they grati-
fied their cupidity or their vengeance : but they took cafe not to act in their
own names, or to pledge their own responsibility ; they left that to the house of
Medici. Piero, during the latter months of his life, perceived the disorder and
corruption of his agents. He was afflicted to see his memory thus stained,
and he addressed them the severest reprimands ; he even entered into corre-
spondence with the emigrants, whom he thought of recalling, when he died,
on the 2nd of December, 1469. His two sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano, the
elder of whom was not twenty-one years of age, were presented by Tommaso
Soderini to the foreign ambassadors, to the magistrates, and to the first citi-
zens of the ruling faction ; which last he warned, that the only means of
maintaining their party was to preserve the respect of all for its chiefs. But
the two younger Medici, given up to all the pleasures of the age, had yet no
ambition. The power of the state remained in the hands of the five citizens
who had exercised it under Piero.
Italy had reached the fatal period at which liberty can no longer be
saved by a noble resistance, or recovered by open force. There remained
only the dangerous and, most commonly, the fatal resource of conspiracy.
So far from experiencing the repugnance we now feel to assassination as
a means of delivering our country, men of the fifteenth century perceived
honour in a murder, virtue in the sacrifice, and historic grandeur in con-
spiracy. Danger alone stopped them ; but that danger must be terrible.
Tyrants, feeling themselves at war with the universe, were always on their
guard; and as they owed their safety only to terror, the punishment which
they inflicted, if victorious, was extreme in its atrocity. Yet these terrors
did not discourage the enemies of the existing order, whether royalist or
republican. Never had there been more frequent or more daring conspira-
cies than in this century. The ill success of some never deterred others from
immediately treading in their steps.
The first plot was directed against the Medici. Bernardo Nardi, one of the
Florentine citizens, who had been exiled from his country in the time of Piero
de' Medici, accompanied by about a hundred of his partisans, surprised the
gate of Prato, on the 6th of April, 1470. He made himself master of the public
palace, and arrested the Florentine podesta ; he took possession of the citadel
364 THE HISTOBY OF ITALY
[1476 A.D.]
and afterwards, traversing the streets, called on the people to join him,
and fight for liberty. He intended to make this small town the strong-
hold of the republican party, whence to begin his attack on the Medici.
But although he had succeeded by surprise in making himself master of the
town, the inhabitants remained deaf to his voice, and not one answered
his call — not one detested tyranny sufficiently to combat it, at the peril
of the last extremity of human suffering.
The friends of the government, seeing that
Nardi remained alone, at last took arms,
attacked him on all sides, and soon over-
powered him by numbers. Nardi was
made prisoner, led to Florence, and there
beheaded with six of his accomplices; twelve
others were hanged at Prato.
In 1476 a conspiracy was formed, at Mi-
lan, against Galeazzo Sforza, whose yoke
became insupportable to all who had any
elevation of soul. There was no crime| of
which that false and ferocious man was not
believed to be capable. Among other
crimes, he was accused of having poisoned
his mother. It was remarked of him that,
enjoying the spectacle of astonishment and
despair, he always preferred to strike the
most suddenly and cruelly those whom he
had given most reason to rely on his friend-
ship.
Not satisfied with making the most dis-
tinguished women of his states the victims
of his seduction or his violence, he took
pleasure in publishing their shame — in
exposing it to their brothers or husbands.
He not unfrequently gave them up to pros-
titution. His extravagant pomp exhausted
his finances, which he afterwards recruited
by the most cruel extortion on the people.
He took pleasure in inventing new and
most atrocious forms of capital punishment ;
even that of burying his victims alive was
not the most cruel. At last, three young
nobles, of families who had courageously resisted the usurpation of Francesco
Sforza, and who had themselves experienced the injustice and outrages of his
son, resolved to deliver their country from this monster ; not doubting that,
when he had fallen, the Milanese would joyfully unite in substituting a free
government for a tyranny.
Girolamo Olgiati, Carlo Visconti, and Andrea Lampugnani resolved,
in concert, to trust only to themselves, without admitting one other person
into their secret. Their enthusiasm had been excited by the lessons of their
literary instructor, Colas di Montano, who continually set before them the
grandeur of the ancient republics, and the glory of those who had delivered
them from tyranny. Determined on killing the duke, they long exercised
themselves in the handling of the dagger, to be more sure of striking him, each
in the precise part of the tyrant's body assigned to him. Animated with a
STREET COSTUME OF AN ITALIAN NOBLE-
MAN, FIFTEENTH CENTURY
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 365
[1476-1478 A.D.]
religious zeal, not less ardent than their republican enthusiasm, they pre-
pared themselves by prayer, by vows to St. Stephen, and by the assistance of
the mass, for the act which they were about to perform. They made choice
of the 26th of December, 1476, St. Stephen's Day, on which they knew that
the duke Galeazzo would go in state to the church of the saint. They
waited for him in that church ; and when they saw him advance between the
ambassadors of Ferrara and Mantua, they respectfully approached him, their
caps in hand. Feigning to keep off the crowd, they surrounded him, and
struck him all at the same instant, in the midst of his guards and courtiers.
Galeazzo Sforza fell dead under their weapons ; and the crowd which filled
the church saw the tumult and heard the cries, without comprehending the
cause.
The three conspirators endeavoured to escape from the church, to call
the people to arms and liberty ; but the first sentiments which they encoun-
tered were astonishment and terror. The guards of the duke drew their
swords only to avenge him. Lampugnani, in attempting to avoid them, got
entangled in the trains of the kneeling women, was thrown down, and killed
by an esquire of Galeazzo ; a few steps from him, Visconti also was put to
death by the guards. But Olgiati had the misfortune to escape, in this first
moment, from all who pursued him ; and, running through the streets, called
loudly to arms and liberty; not one person answered the call. He after-
wards sought to conceal himself, but was discovered, seized, and put to the
most excruciating torture. In the interval between that infliction and his
death, he wrote or dictated the narrative demanded of him, and which has
been handed down to us. It is composed in a strain of the noblest enthu-
siasm, with a deep religious feeling, with an ardent love of liberty, and with
the firm persuasion that he had performed a good action. He was again
delivered to the executioner to have his flesh torn with red-hot pincers. At
the time of his martyrdom he was only twenty -two years of
The Pazzi Conspiracy
The public agitation excited by the assassination of the duke of Milan
had scarcely subsided, before an event took place at Florence of a much
more atrocious nature, inasmuch as the objects destined to destruction had
not afforded a pretext, in any degree plausible, for such an attempt. Accord-
ingly, we have now to enter on a transaction that has seldom been mentioned
without emotions of the strongest horror and detestation ; and which, as has
justly been observed, is an incontrovertible proof of the practical atheism of
the times in which it took place — a transaction in which a pope, a cardinal,
an archbishop, and several other ecclesiastics associated themselves with
a band of ruffians, to destroy two men who were an honour to their age and
country ; and purposed to perpetrate their crime at a season of hospitality,
in the sanctuary of a Christian church, and at the very moment of the eleva-
tion of the Host, when the audience bowed down before it, and the assassins
were presumed to be in the immediate presence of their God.
At the head of this conspiracy were Sixtus IV and his nephew, Girolamo
Riario. Raffaello Riario, the nephew of this Girolamo, who, although a
young man then pursuing his studies, had lately been raised to the dignity
of cardinal, was rather an instrument than an accomplice in the scheme.
The enmity of Sixtus to Lorenzo had for some time been apparent, and if not
occasioned by the assistance which Lorenzo had afforded to Niccolo Vitelli,
and other independent nobles, whose dominions Sixtus had either threatened
366 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1478 A.D.]
or attacked, was certainly increased by it. The destruction of the Medici
appeared, therefore, to Sixtus as the removal of an obstacle that thwarted all
his views, and by the accomplishment of which the small surrounding states
would soon become an easy prey. There is, however, great reason to believe
that the pope did not confine his ambition to these subordinate governments,
but that if the conspiracy had succeeded to his wish, he meant to have grasped
at the dominion of Florence itself. The alliance lately formed between the
Florentines, the Venetians, and the duke of Milan, which was principally
effected by Lorenzo de' Medici, and by which the pope found himself pre-
vented from disturbing the peace of Italy, was an additional and powerful
motive of resentment. One of the first proofs of the displeasure of the pope
was his depriving Lorenzo of the office of treasurer of the papal see, which
he gave to the Pazzi, a Florentine family, who, as well as the Medici, had a
public bank at Rome, and who afterwards became the coadjutors of Sixtus in
the execution of his treacherous purpose.
The conspiracy, of which Sixtus and his nephew were the real instigators,
was first agitated at Rome, where the intercourse between the count Girolamo
Riario and Francesco de' Pazzi, in consequence of the office held by the latter,
afforded them an opportunity of communicating to each other their common
jealousy of the power of the Medici, and their desire of depriving them of
their influence in Florence ; in which event it is highly probable that the
Pazzi were to have exercised the chief authority in the city, under the patron-
age, if not under the avowed dominion, of the papal see. The principal
agent engaged in the undertaking was Francesco Salviati, archbishop of Pisa,
to which rank he had lately been promoted by Sixtus, in opposition to the
wishes of the Medici, who had for some time endeavoured to prevent him
from exercising his episcopal functions. If it be allowed that the unfavour-
able character given him by Politian is exaggerated, it is generally agreed
that his qualities were the reverse of those which ought to have been the
recommendations to such high preferment. The other conspirators were
Jacopo Salviati, brother of the archbishop ; Jacopo Poggio, one of the sons
of the celebrated Poggio Bracciolini, and who, like all the other sons of that
eminent scholar, had obtained no small share of literary reputation ; Bernardo
Bandini, a daring libertine, rendered desperate by the consequences of his ex-
cesses ; Giovan Battista Montesicco, who had distinguished himself by his
military talents as one of the condottieri of the armies of the pope ; Antonio
Maffei, a priest of Volterra, and Stefano de Bagnone, one of the apostolic
scribes, with several others of inferior note.
In the arrangement of their plan, which appears to have been concerted
with great precaution and secrecy, the conspirators soon discovered that the
dangers which they had to encounter were not so likely to arise from the dif-
ficulty of the attempt, as from the subsequent resentment of the Floren-
tines, a great majority of whom were strongly attached to the Medici.
Hence it became necessary to provide a military force, the assistance of which
might be equally requisite whether the enterprise proved abortive or success-
ful. By the influence of the pope, the king of Naples, who was then in
alliance with him, and on one of whose sons he had recently bestowed
a cardinal's hat, was also induced to countenance the attempt.
These preliminaries being adjusted, Girolamo wrote to his nephew, the
cardinal Riario, then at Pisa, ordering him to obey whatever directions he
might receive from the archbishop. A body of two thousand men were des-
tined to approach by different routes towards Florence, so as to be in readi-
ness at the time appointed for striking the blow.
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 367
[1478 A.D.]
Shortly afterwards, the archbishop requested the presence of the cardinal
at Florence, whither he immediately repaired, and took up his residence at
a seat of the Pazzi, about a mile from the city. It seems to have been the
intention of the conspirators to effect their purpose at Fiesole, where Lorenzo
then had his country residence, to which they supposed that he would invite
the cardinal and his attendants. Nor were they deceived in this conjecture,
for Lorenzo prepared a magnificent entertainment on this occasion ; but the
absence of Giuliano, on account of indisposition, obliged the conspirators to
postpone the attempt. Being thus disappointed in their hopes, another plan
was now to be adopted ; and on further deliberation it was resolved that the
assassination should take place on the succeeding Sunday, in the church of
the Reparata, since called Santa Maria del Fiore, and that the signal for exe-
cution should be the elevation of the Host. At the same moment, the arch-
bishop and others of the conspirators were to seize upon the palace, or
residence of the magistrates, whilst the office of Jacopo de' Pazzi was
to endeavour, by the cry of " Liberty ! " to incite the citizens to revolt.
The immediate assassination of Giuliano was committed to Francesco de'
Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, and that of Lorenzo had been intrusted to the
sole hand of Montesicco. This office he had willingly undertaken whilst
he understood that it was to be executed in a private dwelling, but he
shrank from the idea of polluting the house of God with so heinous a crime.
Two ecclesiastics were therefore selected for the commission of a deed from
which the soldier was deterred by conscientious motives. These were Stefano
da Bagnone, the apostolic scribe, and Antonio Maffei.
The young cardinal having expressed a desire to attend divine service in
the church of the Reparata, on the ensuing Sunday, being the 26th day of
April, 1478, Lorenzo invited him and his suite to his house in Florence.
He accordingly came with a large retinue, supporting the united characters
of cardinal and apostolic legate, and was received by Lorenzo with that
splendour and hospitality with which he was always accustomed to enter-
tain men of high rank and consequence. Giuliano did not appear, a circum-
stance that alarmed the conspirators, whose arrangements would not admit
of longer delay. They soon, however, learned that he intended to be present
at the church. The service was already begun, and the cardinal had taken
his seat, when Francesco de' Pazzi and Bandini, observing that Giuliano was
not yet arrived, left the church and went to his house, in order to insure
and hasten his attendance. Giuliano accompanied them, and as he walked
between them they threw their arms round him with the familiarity of inti-
mate friends, but in fact to discover whether he had any armour under his
dress ;" possibly conjecturing, from his long delay, that he had suspected their
purpose. At the same time, by their freedom and jocularity, they endeav-
oured to obviate any apprehensions which he might entertain from such
a proceeding. The conspirators, having taken their stations near their
intended victims, waited with impatience for the appointed signal. The bell
rang, the priest raised the consecrated wafer, the people bowed before it,
and at the same instant Bandini plunged a short dagger into the breast of
Giuliano.
On receiving the wound, he took a few hasty steps and fell, when Fran-
cesco de' Pazzi rushed upon him with incredible fury, and stabbed him in
different parts of his body, continuing to repeat his strokes even after he
was apparently dead. Such was the violence of his rage that he wounded
himself deeply in the thigh. The priests who had undertaken the murder
of Lorenzo were not equally successful. An ill-directed blow from Maffei,
368 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1478 A.D.]
which was aimed at the throat, but took place behind the neck, rather roused
him to his defence than disabled him. He immediately threw off his
cloak, and holding it up as a shield in his left hand, with his right he drew
his sword, and repelled his assailants. Perceiving that their purpose was
defeated, the two ecclesiastics, after having wounded one of Lorenzo's
attendants who had interposed to defend him, endeavoured to save them-
selves by flight. At the same moment, Bandini, his dagger streaming with
the blood of Giuliano, rushed towards Lorenzo; but meeting in his way
with Francesco Nori, a person in the service of the Medici, in whom they
placed great confidence, he stabbed him with a wound instantaneously
mortal. At the approach of Bandini, the
friends of Lorenzo encircled him, and hur-
ried him into the sacristy, where Politian
and others closed the doors, which were of
brass. Apprehensions being entertained that
the weapon which had wounded him was
poisoned, a young man attached to Lorenzo
sucked the wound. A general alarm and
consternation commenced in the church ;
and such was the tumult that ensued that
it was at first believed that the building was
falling in ; but no sooner was it understood
that Lorenzo was in danger, than several of
the youth of Florence formed themselves into
a body, and receiving him into the midst of
them, conducted him to his house, making a
circuitous turn from the church, lest he
should meet with the dead body of his
brother.
While these transactions passed in the
church, another commotion arose in the pal-
ace, where the archbishop, who had left the
church, as agreed upon before the attack
on the Medici, and about thirty of his asso-
ciates, attempted to overpower the magis-
trates, and to possess themselves of the seat
of government. Leaving some of his fol-
lowers stationed in different apartments, the
archbishop proceeded to an interior chamber,
where Cesare Petrucci, then gonfalonier, and
the other magistrates were assembled. No
sooner was the gonfalonier informed of his approach than, out of respect to
his rank, he rose to meet him. Whether the archbishop was disconcerted by
the presence of Petrucci, who was known to be of a resolute character, of
which he had given a striking instance in frustrating the attack of Bernardo
Nardi upon the town of Prato, or whether his courage was not equal to the
undertaking, is uncertain ; but instead of intimidating the magistrates by a
sudden attack, he began to inform Petrucci that the pope had bestowed an
employment on his son, of which he had to deliver to him the credentials.
This he did with such hesitation, and in so desultory a manner, that it was
scarcely possible to collect his meaning. Petrucci also observed that he
frequently changed colour, and at times turned towards the door, as if giving
a signal to someone to approach.
PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 369
[1478 A.D.]
Alarmed at his manner, and probably aware of his character, Petrucci
suddenly rushed out of the chamber, and called together the guards and
attendants. By attempting to retreat, the archbishop confessed his guilt.
In pursuing him, Petrucci met with Jacopo Poggio, whom he caught by the
hair, and throwing him on the ground, delivered him into the custody of his
followers. The rest of the magistrates and their attendants seized upon
such arms as the place supplied, and the implements of the kitchen became
formidable weapons in their hands. Having secured the doors of the palace,
they furiously attacked their scattered and intimidated enemies, who no
longer attempted resistance. During this commotion, they were alarmed by
a tumult from without, and perceived from the windows Jacopo de' Pazzi,
followed by about one hundred soldiers, crying out, " Liberty ! " and exhort-
ing the people to revolt. At the same time they found that the insurgents
had forced the gates of the palace, and that some of them were entering to
defend their companions. The magistrates, however, persevered in their
defence, and repulsing their enemies, secured the gates till a reinforcement
of their friends came to their assistance. Petrucci was now first informed of
the assassination of Giuliano, and the attack made upon Lorenzo. The
relation of this treachery excited his highest indignation. With the concur-
rence of the state counsellors, he ordered Jacopo Poggio to be hung in sight
of the populace, out of the palace windows, and secured the archbishop,
with his brother, and the other chiefs of the conspiracy. Their followers
were either slaughtered in the palace, or thrown half alive through the win-
dows. One only of the whole number escaped. He was found some days
afterwards concealed in the wainscots, perishing with hunger, and in con-
sideration of his sufferings received his pardon.
The young cardinal Riario, who had taken refuge at the altar, was pre-
served from the rage of the populace by the interference of Lorenzo, who
appeared to give credit to his asseverations that he was ignorant of the inten-
tions of the conspirators. Ammiratow asserts that his fears had so violent
an effect upon him that he never afterwards recovered his natural com-
plexion. His attendants fell a sacrifice to the resentment of the citizens.
The streets were polluted with the dead bodies and mangled limbs of the
slaughtered. With the head of one of these unfortunate wretches on a
lance, the populace paraded the city, which resounded with the cry of "Palle !
Pallet" (Perish the traitors.) Francesco de' Pazzi, being found at the
house of his uncle, Jacopo, where on account of his wound he was confined
to his bed, was dragged out naked and exhausted by loss of blood, and being
brought to the palace, suffered the same death as his associate. His punish-
ment was immediately followed by that of the archbishop, who was hung
through the windows of the palace, and was not allowed even to divest him-
self of his prelatical robes. The last moments of Salviati, if we may credit
Politian, were marked by a singular instance of ferocity. Being suspended
close to Francesco de' Pazzi, he seized the naked body with his teeth, and
relaxed not from his hold even in the agonies of death.
Jacopo de' Pazzi had escaped from the city during the tumult, but the day
following he was made a prisoner by the neighbouring peasants, who, regard-
less of his entreaties to put him to death, brought him to Florence, and
delivered him up to the magistrates. As his guilt was manifest, his execu-
tion was instantaneous, and afforded from the windows of the palace another
spectacle that gratified the resentment of the enraged multitude. His
nephew Renato, who suffered at the same time, excited in some degree the
commiseration of the spectators. Devoted to his studies, and averse to
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 B
370 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1478-1480 A.D.]
popular commotions, he had refused to be an actor in the conspiracy, and
his silence was his only crime. The body of Jacopo had been interred in
the church of Santa Croce, and to this circumstance the superstition of the
people attributed an unusual and incessant fall of rain that succeeded these dis-
turbances. Partaking in their prejudices, or desirous of gratifying their re-
venge, the magistrates ordered his body to be removed without the walls
of the city. The following morning it was again torn from the grave by a
great multitude of children who, in spite of the restrictions of decency and the
interference of some of the inhabitants, after dragging it a long time through
the streets, and treating it with every degree of wanton opprobrium, threw
it into the river Arno. Such was the fate of a man who had enjoyed the
highest honours of the republic, and for his services to the state had been
rewarded with the privileges of the equestrian rank. The rest of the devoted
family were condemned either to imprisonment or to exile, excepting only
Guglielmo de' Pazzi, who, though not unsuspected, was first sheltered from
the popular fury in the house of Lorenzo, and was afterwards ordered to
remain at his own villa, about twenty-five miles distant from Florence.
Although most diligent search was made for the priests who had under-
taken the murder of Lorenzo, it was not till the third day after the attempt
that they were discovered, having obtained a shelter in the monastery of the
Benedictine monks. No sooner were they brought from the place of their
concealment, than the populace, after cruelly mutilating them, put them to
death, and with difficulty were prevented from slaughtering the monks
themselves. Montesicco, who had adhered to the cause of the conspirators,
although he had refused to be the active instrument of their project, was
taken a few days afterwards, as he was endeavouring to save himself by
flight, and beheaded, having first made a full confession of all the cir-
cumstances attending the conspiracy, by which it appeared that the pope
was privy to the whole transaction. The punishment of Bernardo Bandini was
longer delayed. He had safely passed the bounds of Italy, and had taken
refuge at length in Constantinople ; but the sultan Muhammed, being
apprised of his crime, ordered him to be seized and sent in chains to Florence,
at the same time alleging as the motive of his conduct the respect which
he had for the character of Lorenzo de' Medici. He arrived in the month of
December in the ensuing year, and met with the due reward of his treachery.
An embassy was sent from Florence to return thanks to the sultan, in the
name of the republic. <*
LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT IN POWER
The ill success of the conspiracy of the Pazzi strengthened, as always
happens, the government against which it was directed. The Medici had
been content till then to be the first citizens of Florence : from that time
Lorenzo looked upon himself as the prince of the city ; and his friends,
in speaking of him, sometimes employed that title. In addressing him,
the epithet of " most magnificent lord " was habitually employed. It was the
mode of addressing the condottieri, and the petty princes who had no other
title. Lorenzo affected in his habits of life an unbounded liberality, pomp,
and splendour, which he believed necessary to make up for the real rank
which he wanted. The Magnificent, his title of honour, is become, not with-
out reason, his surname with posterity. On the failure of the conspiracy, he
was menaced by all Italy at once. The pope fulminated a bull against him
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 371
[1478-1479 A.D.]
on the 1st of June, 1478, for having hanged an archbishop. He demanded
that Lorenzo de' Medici, the gonfalonier, the priori, and the balia of Eight
should be given up to him, to be punished according to the enormity of their
crime. At the same time he published a league, which he had formed against
them with Ferdinand of Naples and the republic of Siena. He gave the com-
mand of the army of the league to Federigo di Montefeltro, duke of Urbino,
and ordered him to advance into Tuscany. «
The Florentines now prepared for war, by raising money and collecting as
large a force as possible. Being in league with the duke of Milan and the
Venetians, they applied to both for assistance. As the pope had proved him-
self a wolf rather than a shepherd, to avoid being devoured under false accu-
sations they justified their cause with all available arguments, and filled Italy
with accounts of the treachery practised against their government, exposing
the impiety and injustice of the pontiff, and assured the world that the
pontificate which he had wickedly attained he would as impiously fill.
The two armies, under the command of Alfonso, eldest son of Ferrando and
duke of Calabria, who had as his general Federigo, count of Urbino, entered
the Chianti, by permission of the Sienese, who sided with the enemy, occu-
pied Radda with many other fortresses, and having plundered the country,
besieged the Castellina. The Florentines were greatly alarmed at these
attacks, being almost destitute of forces, and finding their friends slow to
assist ; for though the duke sent them aid, the Venetians denied all obliga-
tion to support the Florentines in their private quarrels, since the animosities
of individuals were not to be defended at the public expense. The Floren-
tines, in order to induce the Venetians to take a more correct view of the case,
sent Tommaso Soderini as their ambassador to the senate, and, in the mean-
time, engaged forces, and appointed Ercole, marquis of Ferrara, to the
command of their army. Whilst these preparations were being made, the Cas-
tellina were so hard pressed by the enemy, that the inhabitants, despairing
of relief, surrendered, after having sustained a siege of forty-two days.
The enemy then directed their course towards Arezzo, and encamped
before San Savino. The Florentine army, being now in order, went to meet
them, and having approached within three miles, caused such annoyance that
Federigo d' Urbino demanded a truce for a few days, which was granted, but
proved so disadvantageous to the Florentines that those who had made the
request were astonished at having obtained it ; for, had it been refused, they
would have been compelled to retire in disgrace. Having gained these few
days to recruit themselves, as soon as they were expired they took the castle
in the presence of their enemies. Winter being now come, the forces of the
pope and the king retired for convenient quarters to the Sienese territory.
The Florentines also withdrew to a more commodious situation, and the mar-
quis of Ferrara, having done little for himself and less for others, returned
to his own territories.
At this time, ambassadors came to Florence from the emperor, the king of
France, and the king of Hungary, who were sent by their princes to the pon-
tiff. They solicited the Florentines also to send ambassadors to the pope,
and promised to use their utmost exertion to obtain for them an advan-
tageous peace. The Florentines did not refuse to make trial, both for the
sake of publicly justifying their proceedings, and because they were really de-
sirous of peace. Accordingly, the ambassadors were sent, but returned with-
out coming to any conclusion of their differences. The Florentines, to avail
themselves of the influence of the king of France, since they were attacked
by one part of the Italians and abandoned by the other, sent to him as their
372
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1479 A.D.]
ambassador Donate Acciajuoli, a distinguished Latin and Greek scholar,
whose ancestors had always ranked high in the city ; but whilst on his jour-
ney he died at Milan. To relieve his surviving family and pay a deserved
tribute to his memory, he was honourably buried at the public expense, pro-
vision was made for his sons, and suitable marriage portions given to his
daughters, and Guid' Antonio Vespucci, a man well acquainted with pontifical
and imperial affairs, was sent as ambassador to the king in his stead.
The attack of Signor Roberto upon the Pisan territory, being unexpected,
greatly perplexed the Florentines ; for having to resist the foe in the direc-
tion of Siena, they knew not how to provide
for the places about Pisa. To keep the Luc-
chese faithful, and prevent them from furnish-
ing the enemy either with money or provisions,
they sent as ambassador Piero di Gino Cap-
poni, who was received with so much jealousy,
on account of the hatred which that city always
cherishes against the Florentines from former
injuries and constant fear, that he was on many
occasions in danger of being put to death by
the mob ; and thus his mission gave fresh
cause of animosity rather than of union. The
Florentines recalled the marquis of Ferrara,
and engaged the marquis of Mantua ; they
also as earnestly requested the Venetians to
send them Count Carlo, son of Braccio, and
Deifobo, son of Count Jacopo, and after many
delays, they complied; for having made a truce
with the Turks, they had no excuse to justify
a refusal, and could not break through the
obligation of the league without the utmost
disgrace. The counts Carlo and Deifobo
came with a good force, and being joined by
all that could be spared from the army, which,
under the marquis of Ferrara, held in check
the duke of Calabria, proceeded towards Pisa,
to meet Signor Roberto, who was with his
troops near the river Serchio, and who,
though he had expressed his intention of
awaiting their arrival, withdrew to the camp
at Lunigiana, which he had quitted upon com-
ing into the Pisan territory, while Count Carlo recovered all the places that
had been taken by the enemy in that district.
The Florentines, being thus relieved from the attack in the direction of
Pisa, assembled the whole force between Colle and Santo Geminiano. But
the army, on the arrival of Count Carlo, being composed of Sforzeschi and
Bracceshi, their hereditary feuds soon broke forth, and it was thought that
if they remained long in company they would turn their arms against each
other. It was therefore determined, as the smaller evil, to divide them ; to
send one party, under Count Carlo, into the district of Perugia, and establish
the other at Poggibonzi, where they formed a strong encampment in order to
prevent the enemy from penetrating the Florentine territory. By this they
also hoped to compel the enemy to divide their forces ; for Count Carlo was
understood to have many partisans in Perugia, and it was therefore expected
HUNTING COSTUME OF AN ITALIAN
BARON
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 373
[1479 A.D.]
either that he would occupy the place, or that the pope would be compelled
to send a large body of men for its defence. To reduce the pontiff to greater
necessity, they ordered Niccolo Vitelli, who had been expelled from Citta di
Castello, where his enemy Lorenzo Vitelli commanded, to lead a force
against that place, with the view of driving out his adversary and withdraw-
ing it from obedience to the pope. At the beginning of the campaign, for-
tune seemed to favour the Florentines ; for Count Carlo made rapid advances
in the Perugino, and, Niccolo Vitelli, though unable to enter Castello, was
superior in the field, and plundered the surrounding country without opposi-
tion. The forces also at Poggibonzi constantly overran the country up to
the walls of Siena.
These hopes, however, were not realised ; for, in the first place, Count
Carlo died while in the fullest tide of success, though the consequences of this
would have been less detrimental to the Florentines had not the victory to
which it gave occasion been nullified by the misconduct of others. The
death of the count being known, the forces of the church, which had already
assembled in Perugia, conceived hopes of overcoming the Florentines, and
encamped upon the lake, within three miles of the enemy. On the other side,
Jacopo Guicciardini, commissary to the army, by the advice of Roberto da
Rimino, who, after the death of Count Carlo, was the principal commander,
knowing the ground of their sanguine expectations, determined to meet them ;
and coming to an engagement near the lake, upon the site of the memorable
rout of the Romans by Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, the papal forces
were vanquished. The news of the victory, which did great honour to the
commanders, diffused universal joy at Florence, and would have insured a
favourable termination of the campaign, had not the disorders which arose
in the army at Poggibonzi thrown all into confusion ; for the advantage ob-
tained by the valour of the one was more than counterbalanced by the
disgraceful proceedings of the other. Having made considerable booty in the
Sienese territory, quarrels arose about the division of it between the marquis
of Mantua and the marquis of Ferrara, who, coming to arms, assailed each
other with the utmost fury ; and the Florentines, seeing they could no longer
avail themselves of the services of both, allowed the marquis of Ferrara and
his men to return home.
The Florentines Routed at Poggibonzi
The army being thus reduced, without a leader, and disorder prevailing
in every department, the duke of Calabria, who was with his forces near
Siena, resolved to attack them immediately. The Florentines, finding the
enemy at hand, were seized with a sudden panic ; neither their arms nor their
numbers, in which they were superior to their adversaries, nor their position,
which was one of great strength, could give them confidence ; but observing
the dust occasioned by the enemy's approach, without waiting for a sight of
them, they fled in all directions, leaving their ammunition, carriages, and
artillery to be taken by the foe. Such cowardice and disorder prevailed in
the armies of those times that the turning of a horse's head or tail was suf-
ficient to decide the fate of an expedition. This defeat loaded the king's
troops with booty and filled the Florentines with dismay, for the city, besides
the war, was afflicted with pestilence, which prevailed so extensively that all
who possessed villas fled to them to escape death. This occasioned the
defeat to be attended with greater horror ; for those citizens whose possessions
lay in the Val di Pesa and the Val d'Elsa, having retired to them, hastened to
374 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1479 A.D.]
Florence with all speed as soon as they heard of the disaster, taking with them
not only their children and their property, but even their labourers ; so that
it seemed as if the enemy were expected every moment in the city.
Those who were appointed to the management of the war, perceiving the
universal consternation, commanded the victorious forces in the Perugino to
give up their enterprise in that district and march to oppose the enemy in the
Val d'Elsa, who, after their victory, plundered the country without opposi-
tion ; and although the Florentine army had so closely pressed the city of
Perugia that it was expected to fall into their hands every instant, the people
preferred defending their own possessions to endeavouring to seize those
of others. The troops, thus withdrawn from the pursuit of their good for-
tune, were marched to San Casciano, a castle within eight miles of Florence,
the leaders thinking they could take up no other position till the relics of the
routed army were assembled. On the other hand, the enemy being under no
further restraint at Perugia, and emboldened by the departure of the Floren-
tines, plundered to a large amount in the districts of Arezzo and Cortona ;
whilst those who under Alfonso, duke of Calabria, had been victorious near
Poggibonzi, took the town itself, sacked Vico and Certaldo, and after these
conquests and pillagings encamped before the fortress of Colle, which was
considered very strong ; and as the garrison was brave and faithful to the
Florentines, it was hoped they would hold the enemy at bay till the republic
was able to collect its forces. The Florentines being at San Casciano, and
the enemy continuing to use their utmost exertions against Colle, they deter-
mined to draw nearer, that the inhabitants might be the more resolute in their
defence and the enemy assail them less boldly. With this design they re-
moved their camp from San Casciano to Santo Geminiano, about five miles
from Colle, and with light cavalry and other suitable forces were able every
day to annoy the duke's camp.
All this, however, was insufficient to relieve the people of Colle ; for, hav-
ing consumed their provisions, they were compelled to surrender on the 13th
of November, to the great grief of the Florentines and joy of the enemy,
more especially of the Sienese, who, besides their habitual hatred of the
Florentines, had a particular animosity against the people of Colle.
It was now the depth of winter, and the weather so unsuitable for war
that the pope and the king, either designing to hold out a hope of peace or
more quietly to enjoy the fruit of their victories, proposed a truce for three
months to the Florentines, and allowed them ten days to consider the reply.
The offer was eagerly accepted ; but as wounds are well known to be more
painful after the blood cools than when they were first received, this brief
repose awakened the Florentines to a consciousness of the miseries they had
endured ; and the citizens openly laid the blame upon each other, pointing
out the errors committed in the management of the war, the expenses
uselessly incurred, and the taxes unjustly imposed. These matters were
boldly discussed, not only in private circles, but in the public councils ; and
one individual even ventured to turn to Lorenzo de' Medici and say, " The
city is exhausted and can endure no more war ; it is therefore necessary to
think of peace."
Lorenzo was himself aware of the necessity, and assembled the friends in
whose wisdom and fidelity he had the greatest confidence, when it was at
once concluded that, as the Venetians were lukewarm and unfaithful, and
the duke in the power of his guardians, and involved in domestic difficulties,
it would be desirable by some new alliance to give a better turn to their
affairs. They were in doubt whether to apply to the king or to the pope ;
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 375
[1478-1479 A.D.]
but having examined the question on all sides, they preferred the friendship
of the king as more suitable and secure ; for the short reigns of the pontiffs,
the changes ensuing upon each succession, the disregard shown by the church
towards temporal princes, and the still greater want of respect for them
exhibited in her determinations, rendered it impossible for a secular prince to
trust a pontiff, or safely to share his fortune ; for an adherent of the pope
would have a companion in victory, but in defeat must stand alone, whilst
the pontiff was sustained by his spiritual power and influence.
Lorenzo's Embassy to Naples
Having therefore decided that the king's friendship would be of the
greatest utility to them, they thought it would be most easily and certainly
obtained by Lorenzo's presence ; for in proportion to the confidence they
evinced towards him, the greater they imagined would be the probability of
removing his impressions of past enmities. Lorenzo, having resolved to go
to Naples, recommended the city and government to the care of Tommaso
Soderini, who was at that time gonfalonier of justice. He left Florence at the
beginning of December, and having arrived at Pisa, wrote to the government
to acquaint them with the cause of his departure. The seigniory, to do
him honour, and enable him the more effectually to treat with the king,
appointed him ambassador from the Florentine people, and endowed him
with full authority to make such arrangements as he thought most useful
for the republic.
At this time Roberto da San Severino, with Lodovico and Ascanio (Sf orza,
their elder brother, being dead), again attacked Milan, in order to recover
the government. Having taken Tortona, and the city and the whole state
being in arms, the duchess Bona was advised to restore the Sforzeschi, and
to put a stop to civil contentions by admitting them to the government.
The person who gave this advice was Antonio Tassino, of Ferrara, a man of
low origin, who, coming to Milan, fell into the hands of the duke Galeazzo,
and was given by him to his duchess for her valet. He, either from his
personal attractions, or some secret influence, after the duke's death attained
such influence over the duchess, that he governed the state almost at his
will. This greatly displeased the minister Cecco, whom prudence and long
experience had rendered invaluable ; and who, to the utmost of his power,
endeavoured to diminish the authority of Tassino with the duchess and
other members of the government. Tassino, aware of this, to avenge him-
self for the injury, and secure defenders against Cecco, advised the duchess
to recall the Sforzeschi, which she did, without communicating her design to
the minister, who, when it was done, said to her, " You have taken a step
which will deprive me of my life, and you of the government." This shortly
afterwards took place, for Cecco was put to death by Lodovico, and Tassino
being expelled from the dukedom, the duchess was so enraged that she left
Milan, and gave up the care of her son to Lodovico who, becoming sole
governor of the dukedom, caused, as will be hereafter seen, the ruin of Italy.
Lorenzo de' Medici had set out for Naples, and the truce between the
parties was in force, when, quite unexpectedly, Lodovico Fregoso, being in
correspondence with some persons of Sarzana, entered the place by stealth,
took possession of it with an armed force, and imprisoned the Florentine
governor. This greatly offended the seigniory, for they thought the whole
had been concerted with the connivance of King Ferdinand. They complained
to the duke of Calabria, who was with the army at Siena, of a breach of the
376 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1478-1479 A.D.]
truce ; and he endeavoured to prove, by letters and embassies, that it had
occurred without either his own or his father's knowledge. The Florentines,
however, found themselves in a very awkward predicament, being destitute
of money, the head of the republic in the power of the king, themselves
engaged in a long-standing war with the latter and the pope, in a new one
with the Genoese, and entirely without friends ; for they had no confidence
in the Venetians, and on account of its changeable and unsettled state they
were rather apprehensive of Milan. They had thus only one hope, and that
depended upon Lorenzo's success with the king.
Lorenzo arrived at Naples by sea, and was most honourably received, not
only by Ferdinand, but by the whole city, his coming having excited the
greatest expectation ; for it being generally understood that the war was
undertaken for the sole purpose of effecting his destruction, the power of his
enemies invested his name with additional lustre. Being admitted to the king's
presence, he spoke with so much propriety upon the affairs of Italy, the dis-
position of her princes and people, his hopes from peace, his fears of the re-
sults of war, that Ferdinand was more astonished at the greatness of his mind,
the promptitude of his genius, his gravity and wisdom, than he had previ-
ously been at his power. He consequently treated him with redoubled
honour, and began to feel compelled rather to part with him as a friend, than
detain him as an enemy. However, under various pretexts he kept Lorenzo
from December to March, not only to gain the most perfect knowledge of
his own views, but of those of his city ; for he was not without enemies, who
would have wished the king to detain and treat him in the same manner as
Jacopo Piccinino ; and, with the ostensible view of sympathising for him,
pointed out all that would, or rather what they wished should result from
such a course ; at the same time opposing in the council every proposition
at all likely to favour him. By such means as these the opinion gained
ground that, if he were detained at Naples much longer, the government of
Florence would be changed. This caused the king to postpone their separa-
tion more than he would have otherwise done, to see if any disturbance were
likely to arise. But finding everything going quietly on, Ferdinand allowed
him to depart on the 6th of March, 1479, having, with every kind of attention
and token of regard, endeavoured to gain his affection, and formed with him
a perpetual alliance for their mutual defence. Lorenzo returned to Florence,
and upon presenting himself before the citizens, the impressions he had
created in the popular mind surrounded him with a halo of majesty brighter
than before. He was received with all the joy merited by his extraordinary
qualities and recent services, in having exposed his own life to the most
imminent peril, in order to restore peace to his country. Two days after his
return, the treaty between the republic of Florence and the king, by which
each party bound itself to defend the other's territories, was published. The
places taken from the Florentines during the war were to be given up at the
discretion of the king ; the Pazzi confined in the tower of Volterra were
to be set at liberty, and a certain sum of money, for a limited period, was to
be paid to the duke of Calabria.
Peace with Honour
As soon as this peace was publicly known, the pope and the Venetians
were transported with rage ; the pope thought himself neglected by the king;
the Venetians entertained similar ideas with regard to the Florentines, and
complained that, having been companions in the war, they were not allowed
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 377
[1479 A.D.]
to participate in the peace. Reports of this description being spread
abroad, and received with entire credence at Florence, caused a general
fear that the peace thus made would give rise to greater wars ; and there-
fore the leading members of the government determined to confine the
consideration of the most important affairs to a smaller number, and formed
a council of seventy citizens, in whom the principal authority was invested.
The new regulation calmed the minds of those desirous of change, by con-
vincing them of the futility of their efforts. To establish their authority,
they in the first place ratified the treaty of peace with the king, and sent
as ambassadors to the pope, Antonio Ridolfi and Piero Nasi. But, notwith-
standing the peace, Alfonso, duke of Calabria, still remained at Siena with his
forces, pretending to be detained by discords amongst the citizens, which,
he said, had risen so high, that while he resided outside the city they had
compelled him to enter and assume the office of arbitrator between them. He
took occasion to draw large sums of money from the wealthiest citizens
by way of fines, imprisoned many, banished others, and put some to death ;
he thus became suspected, not only by the Sienese but by the Florentines, of
a design to usurp the sovereignty of Siena ; nor was any remedy then avail-
able, for the republic had formed a new alliance with the king, and was at
enmity with the pope and the Venetians. This suspicion was entertained
not only by the great body of the Florentine people, who are subtle inter-
preters of appearances, but by the principal members of the government ;
and it was agreed, on all hands, that the city never was in so much danger
of losing her liberty.
The Turkish emperor, Muhammed II, had gone with a large army to the
siege of Rhodes, and continued it for several months ; but though his forces
were numerous, and his courage indomitable, he found them more than
equalled by those of the besieged, who resisted his attack with such obstinate
valour that he was at last compelled to retire in disgrace. Having left
Rhodes, part of his army, under the pasha Akhmet, approached Velona, and,
either from observing the facility of the enterprise, or in obedience to his
sovereign's commands, coasting along the Italian shores, he suddenly landed
four thousand soldiers, and attacked the city of Otranto, which he easily took,
plundered, and put all the inhabitants to the sword. He then fortified the
city and port, and having assembled a large body of cavalry, pillaged the sur-
rounding country. The king, learning this, and aware of the redoubtable
character of his assailant, immediately sent messengers to all the surrounding
powers, to request assistance against the common enemy, and ordered the
immediate return of the duke of Calabria with the forces at Siena.
This attack, however it might annoy the duke and the rest of Italy,
occasioned the utmost joy at Florence and Siena ; the latter thinking she had
recovered her liberty, and the former that she had escaped a storm which
threatened her with destruction. These impressions, which were not un-
known to the duke, increased the regret he felt at his departure from
Siena ; and he accused fortune of having, by an unexpected and unaccount-
able accident, deprived him of the sovereignty of Tuscany. The same
circumstance changed the disposition of the pope ; for although he had
previously refused to receive any ambassador from Florence, he was now so
mollified as to be anxious to listen to any overtures of peace ; and it was
intimated to the Florentines that, if they would condescend to ask the pope's
pardon, they would be sure of obtaining it. Thinking it advisable to seize
the opportunity, they sent twelve ambassadors to the pontiff, who, on their
arrival, detained them under different pretexts before he would admit them
378 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1479-1480 A.D.]
to an audience. However, terms were at length settled, and what should be
contributed by each in peace or war.
The messengers were then admitted to the feet of the pontiff, who, with
the utmost pomp, received them in the midst of his cardinals. They
apologised for past occurrences, first showing they had been compelled by
necessity, then blaming the malignity of others, or the rage of the populace,
and their just indignation, and enlarging on the unfortunate condition of
those who are compelled either to fight or die ; saying that, since every
extremity is endured in order to avoid death, they had suffered war, inter-
dicts, and other inconveniences brought upon them by recent events, that
their republic might escape slavery, which is the death of free cities. How-
ever, if in their necessities they had committed any offence, they were
desirous to make atonement, and trusted in his clemency, who, after the
example of the blessed Redeemer, would receive them into his compassionate
arms.
The pope's reply was indignant and haughty. After reiterating all the
offences against the church during the late transactions, he said that, to com-
ply with the precepts of God, he would grant the pardon they asked, but
would have them understand that it was their duty to obey ; and that, upon
the next instance of their disobedience, they would inevitably forfeit the
liberty which they had just been upon the point of losing ; for those merit
freedom who exercise themselves in good works and avoid evil ; that liberty,
improperly used, injures itself and others ; that to think little of God, and
less of his church, is not the part of a free man, but a fool, and one disposed
to evil rather than good, and to effect whose correction is the duty not only
of princes but of every Christian. So that in respect of the recent events,
they had only themselves to blame, who, by their evil deeds, had given rise
to the war, and inflamed it by still worse actions, it having been terminated
by the kindness of others rather than by any merit of their own. The form-
ula of agreement and benediction was then read ; and, in addition to what
had already been considered and agreed upon between the parties, the pope
said that, if the Florentines wished to enjoy the fruit of his forgiveness, they
must maintain fifteen galleys, armed and equipped, at their own expense, so
long as the Turks should make war upon the kingdom of Naples. The
ambassadors complained much of this burden in addition to the arrangement
already made, but were unable to obtain any alleviation. However, after
their return to Florence, the seigniory sent, as ambassador to the pope,
Guid' Antonio Vespucci, who had recently returned from France, and who
by his prudence brought everything to an amicable conclusion, and obtained
many favours from the pontiff, which were considered as presages of a closer
reconciliation.
Having settled their affairs with the pope, Siena being free, themselves
released from the fear of the king by the departure of the duke of Calabria
from Tuscany, and the war with the Turks still continuing, the Florentines
pressed the king to restore their fortresses, which the duke of Calabria, upon
quitting the country, had left in the hands of the Sienese. Ferdinand, appre-
hensive that if he refused they would withdraw from the alliance with him,
and by new wars with the Sienese deprive him of the assistance he hoped to
obtain from the pope and other Italian powers, consented that they should
be given up, and by new favours endeavoured to attach the Florentines to his
interests.
The castles being restored, and this new alliance established, Lorenzo de'
Medici recovered the reputation which first the war and then the peace, when
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 379
[1480-1481 A.D.]
the king's designs were doubtful, had deprived him of ; for at this period
there was no lack of those who openly slandered him with having sold his
country to save himself, and said that in war they had lost their territories,
and in peace their liberty. But the fortresses being recovered, an honourable
treaty ratified with the king, and the city restored to her former influence,
the spirit of public discourse entirely changed in Florence, a place greatly
addicted to gossip, and in which actions are judged by the success attending
them, rather than by the intelligence employed in their direction ; therefore,
the citizens praised Lorenzo extravagantly, declaring that by his prudence
FONTA GAZZA, SIENA
he had recovered in peace what unfavourable circumstances had taken from
them in war, and that by his discretion and judgment he had done more than
the enemy with all the force of their arms.
Further Papal Wars
The invasion of the Turks had deferred the war which was about to
break forth from the anger of the pope and the Venetians at the peace
between the Florentines and the king. But as the beginning of that invasion
was unexpected and beneficial, its conclusion was equally unlocked for and
injurious ; for Muhammed dying suddenly, dissensions arose amongst his
sons ; and the forces which were in Apulia, being abandoned by their com-
mander, surrendered Otranto to the king. The fears which restrained the
pope and the Venetians being thus removed, everyone became apprehensive
of new troubles. On the one hand was the league of the pope and the Vene-
tians, and with them the Genoese, Sienese, and other minor powers ; on the
other, the Florentines, the king, and the duke, with whom were the Bolog-
nese and many princes. The Venetians wished to become lords of Ferrara,
and thought they were justified by circumstances in making the attempt, and
hoping for a favourable result. Their differences arose thus : the marquis
of Ferrara affirmed he was under no obligation to take salt from the Vene-
tians, or to admit their governor; the terms of convention between them
declaring that, after seventy years, the city was to be free from both imposi-
tions. The Venetians replied that, so long as he held the Polesine, he was
380 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1481-1482 A.D.]
bound to receive their salt and their governor. The marquis refusing his
consent, the Venetians considered themselves justified in taking arms, and
that the present moment offered a suitable opportunity; for the pope was
indignant against the Florentines and the king ; and to attach the pope still
further, the count Girolamo, who was then at Venice, was received with all
possible respect, first admitted to the privileges of a citizen, and then raised
to the rank of a senator — the highest distinctions the Venetian senate can
confer. To prepare for the war, they levied new taxes, and appointed to the
command of the forces, Roberto da San Severino, who being offended with
Lodovico, governor of Milan, fled to Tortona, whence, after occasioning some
disturbances, he went to Genoa, and whilst there, was sent for by the Vene-
tians, and placed at the head of their troops.
These circumstances becoming known to the opposite league, induced it
also to provide for war. The duke of Milan appointed as his general Fede-
rigo d'Urbino ; the Florentines engaged Costanzo, lord of Pesaro ; and to
sound the disposition of the pope, and know whether the Venetians made
war against Ferrara with his consent or not, King Ferdinand sent Alfonso,
duke of Calabria, with his army, across the Tronto, and asked the pontiff's
permission to pass into Lombardy to assist the marquis, which was refused
in the most peremptory manner. The Florentines and the king, no longer
doubtful concerning the pope's intentions, determined to harass him, and
thus either opmpel him to take part with them, or throw such obstacles in
his way as would prevent him from helping the Venetians, who had already
taken the field, attacked the marquis, overrun his territory, and encamped
before Figaruolo, a fortress of the greatest importance. In pursuance of the
design of the Florentines and the king, the duke of Calabria, by the assist-
ance of the Colonna family (the Orsini had joined the pope) plundered the
country about Rome, and committed great devastation ; whilst the Floren-
tines, with Niccolo Vitelli, besieged and took Citta di Castello, expelling
Lorenzo Vitelli, who held it for the pope, and placing Niccolo in it as prince.
The pope now found himself in very great straits ; for the city of Rome
was disturbed by factions, and the country covered with enemies. But act-
ing with courage and resolution, he appointed Roberto da Rimini to take the
command of his forces ; and having sent for him to Rome, where his troops
were assembled, told him how great would be the honour if he could deliver
the church from the king's forces and the troubles in which it was involved ;
how greatly indebted not only himself, but all his successors would be, and
that not mankind merely, but God himself would be under obligations to
him. The magnificent Roberto, having considered the forces and preparations
already made, advised the pope to raise as numerous a body of infantry as
possible, which was done without delay. The duke of Calabria was at hand,
and constantly harassed the country up to the very gates of Rome, which so
roused the indignation of the citizens that many offered their assistance to
Roberto, and all were thankfully received. The duke, hearing of these
preparations, withdrew a short distance from the city, that in the belief of
finding him gone, the magnificent Roberto would not pursue him, and also
in expectation of his brother Federigo, whom their father had sent to him
with additional forces. But Roberto, finding himself nearly equal to the duke
in cavalry, and superior in infantry, marched boldly out of Rome, and
took a position within two miles of the enemy. The duke, seeing his adver-
saries close upon him, found he must either fight or disgracefully retire. To
avoid a retreat unbecoming a king's son, he resolved to face the enemy ; and
a battle ensued which continued from morning till midday. In this engage-
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 381
[1482-1483 A.D.]
ment, greater valour was exhibited on both sides than had been shown in any
other during the last fifty years, upwards of a thousand dead being left upon
the field.
The troops of the church were at length victorious ; for her numerous
infantry so annoyed the ducal cavalry that they were compelled to retreat,
and Alfonso himself would have fallen into the hands of the enemy, had he
not been rescued by a body of Turks, who remained at Otranto, and were at
that time in his service. The lord of Rimini, after this victory, returned
triumphantly to Rome, but did not long enjoy the fruit of his valour; for
having, during the heat of the engagement, taken a copious draught of
water, he was seized with a flux, of which he very shortly afterwards died.
The pope caused his funeral to be conducted with great pomp, and in a
few days sent the count Girolamo towards Citta di Castello to restore it to
Lorenzo, and also endeavour to gain Rimini, which being by Roberto's
death left to the care of his widow and a son who was quite a boy, his holi-
ness thought might be easily won ; and this would certainly have been the
case, if the lady had not been defended by the Florentines, who opposed
him so effectually as to prevent his success against both Castello and Rimini.
Whilst these things were in progress at Rome and in Romagna, the
Venetians took possession of Figaruolo and crossed the Po with their forces.
The camp of the duke of Milan and the marquis was in disorder ; for the
count of Urbino, having fallen ill, was carried to Bologna for his recovery,
but died. Thus the marquis' affairs were unfortunately situated, whilst
those of the Venetians gave them increasing hopes of occupying Ferrara.
The Florentines and the king of Naples used their utmost endeavours to
gain the pope to their views ; and not having succeeded by force, they
threatened him with the council, which had already been summoned by the
emperor to assemble at Bale ; and by means of the imperial ambassadors,
and the co-operation of the leading cardinals, who were desirous of peace,
the pope was compelled to turn his attention towards effecting the pacifica-
tion of Italy. With this view, at the instigation of his fears, and with the
conviction that the aggrandisement of the Venetians would be the ruin of
the church and of Italy, he endeavoured to make peace with the league, and
sent his nuncios to Naples, where a treaty was concluded for five years,
between the pope, the king, the duke of Milan, and the Florentines, with an
opening for the Venetians to join them if they thought proper. When this
was accomplished, the pope intimated to the Venetians that they must desist
from war against Ferrara. They refused to comply, and made preparations
to prosecute their design with greater vigour than they had hitherto done ;
and having routed the forces of the duke and the marquis at Argenta, they
approached Ferrara so closely as to pitch their tents in the marquis' park.
The league found they must no longer delay rendering him efficient
assistance, and ordered the duke of Calabria to march to Ferrara with his
forces and those of the pope, the Florentine troops also moving in the
same direction. In order to direct the operations of the war with greater
efficiency, the league assembled a diet at Cremona, which was attended by
the pope's legate, the count Girolamo, the duke of Calabria, the seignior
Lodovico Sforza, and Lorenzo de' Medici, with many other Italian princes ;
and when the measures to be adopted were fully discussed, having decided
that the best way of relieving Ferrara would be to effect a division of the ene-
mies' forces, the league desired Lodovico to attack the Venetians on the side
of Milan, but this he declined, for fear of bringing a war upon the duke's
territories, which it would be difficult to quell. It was therefore resolved
382 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1483-1484 A.D.]
to proceed with the united forces of the league to Ferrara, and having
assembled four thousand cavalry and eight thousand infantry, they went in
pursuit of the Venetians, whose force amounted to twenty -two hundred men-
at-arms, and six thousand foot. They first attacked the Venetian flotilla,
then lying upon the river Po, which they routed with the loss of above
two hundred vessels, and took prisoner Antonio Justiniano, the purveyor of
the fleet. The Venetians, finding all Italy united against them, endeavoured
to support their reputation by engaging in their service the duke of Lorraine,
who joined them with two hundred men-at-arms ; and having suffered so
great a destruction of their fleet, they sent him,
with part of their army, to keep their enemies at
bay, and Roberto da San Severino to cross the
Adda with the remainder, and proceed to Milan,
where they were to raise the cry of "The duke
and the lady Bona ! " — his mother ; hoping by
this means to give a new aspect to affairs there,
believing that Lodovico and his government
were generally unpopular.
This attack at first created great consterna-
tion, and roused the citizens in arms, but eventu-
ally produced consequences unfavourable to the
designs of the Venetians ; for Lodovico was now
desirous to undertake what he had refused to do
at the entreaty of his allies. Leaving the marquis
of Ferrara to the defence of his own territories, he,
with four thousand horse and two thousand foot,
and joined by the duke of Calabria with twelve
thousand horse and five thousand foot, entered
the territory of Bergamo, then Brescia, next that
of Verona, and, in defiance of the Venetians,
plundered the whole country ; for it was with the
greatest difficulty that Roberto and his forces
could save the cities themselves. In the mean-
time, the marquis of Ferrara had recovered a great
part of his territories ; for the duke of Lorraine,
by whom he was attacked, having only at his
command two thousand horse and one thousand
foot, could not withstand him. Hence, during
the whole of 1483 the affairs of the league were
prosperous.
The winter having passed quietly over, the armies again took the field.
To produce the greater impression upon the enemy, the league united their
whole force, and would easily have deprived the Venetians of all they pos-
sessed in Lombardy, if the war had been conducted in the same manner as
during the preceding year ; for by the departure of the duke of Lorraine,
whose term of service had expired, they were reduced to six thousand horse
and five thousand foot, whilst the allies had thirteen thousand horse and five
thousand foot at their disposal. But, as is often the case where several of
equal authority are joined in command, their want of unity decided the
victory to their enemies. Federigo, marquis of Mantua, whose influence
kept the duke of Calabria and Lodovico Sforza within bounds, being dead,
differences arose between them which soon became jealousies. Giovanni
Galeazzo, duke of Milan, was now of an age to take the government on him-
A FLORENTINE, FIFTEENTH
CENTURY
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 383
[1484 A.D.]
self, and had married the daughter of the duke of Calabria, who wished his
son-in-law to exercise the government and not Lodovico ; the latter, being
aware of the duke's design, studied to prevent him from effecting it. The
position of Lodovico being known to the Venetians, they thought they could
make it available for their own interests, and hoped, as they had often
before done, to recover in peace all they had lost by war ; and having secretly
entered into treaty with Lodovico, the terms were concluded in August, 1484.
When this became known to the rest of the allies, they were greatly dis-
satisfied, principally because they found that the places won from the Vene-
tians were to be restored ; that they were allowed to keep Rovigo and the
Polesine, which they had taken from the marquis of Ferrara, and besides
this retain all the pre-eminence and authority over Ferrara itself which they
had formerly possessed. Thus it was evident to everyone they had been
engaged in a war which had cost vast sums of money, during the progress of
which they had acquired honour, and which was concluded with disgrace ;
for the places wrested from the enemy were restored without themselves
recovering those they had lost. They were, however, compelled to ratify the
treaty, on account of the unsatisfactory state of their finances, and because
the faults and ambition of others had rendered them unwilling to put their
fortunes to further proof.
The Florentines, after the pacification of Lombardy, could not remain
quiet ; for it appeared disgraceful that a private gentleman should deprive
them of the fortress of Sarzana ; and as it was allowed by the conditions of
peace not only to demand lost places, but to make war upon any who should
impede their restoration, they immediately provided men and money to
undertake its recovery. Upon this, Agostino Fregoso, who had seized Sar-
zana, being unable to defend it, gave the fortress to the bank of St. George,
which readily accepted it, undertook its defence, put a fleet to sea, and sent
forces to Pietrasanta to prevent all attempts of the Florentines, whose camp
was in the immediate vicinity. The Florentines found it would be essen-
tially necessary to gain possession of Pietrasanta, for without it the acquisi-
tion of Sarzana lost much of its value, being situated between the latter
place and Pisa ; but they could not, consistently with the treaty, besiege it,
unless the people of Pietrasanta, or its garrison, were to impede their acqui-
sition of Sarzana. To induce the enemy to do this, the Florentines sent from
Pisa to the camp a quantity of provisions and military stores, accompanied
by a very weak escort, that the people of Pietrasanta might have little
cause for fear, and by the richness of the booty be tempted to the attack.
The plan succeeded according to their expectation ; for the inhabitants of
Pietrasanta, attracted by the rich prize, took possession of it.
This gave legitimate occasion to the Florentines to undertake operations
against them ; so leaving Sarzana they encamped before Pietrasanta, which
was very populous, and made a gallant defence. The Florentines planted
their artillery in the plain, and formed a rampart on the hill, that they might
also attack the place on that side. Jacopo Guicciardini was commissary of
the army; and whilg the siege of Pietrasanta was going on, the Genoese
took and burned the fortress of Vada, and, landing their forces, plundered
the surrounding country. Bongianni Gianfigliazzi was sent against them
with a body of horse and foot, and checked their audacity, so that they pur-
sued their depredations less boldly. The fleet continuing its efforts went to
Leghorn, and by pontoons and other means approached the new tower, play-
ing their artillery upon it for several days, but being unable to make any
impression they withdrew.
384 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1485 A.D.]
In the meantime the Florentines proceeded slowly against Pietrasanta,
and the enemy taking courage attacked and took their works upon the hill.
This was effected with so much glory, and struck such a panic into the Flor-
entines, that they were almost ready to raise the siege, and actually retreated
a distance of four miles ; for their generals thought that they would retire to
winter quarters, it being now October, and make no further attempt till the
return of spring.
When this discomfiture was known at Florence, the government was
filled with indignation ; and, to impart fresh vigour to the enterprise, and
restore the reputation of their forces, they immediately appointed Guid'
Antonio Vespucci and Bernardo del Neri commissaries, who, with vast sums
of money, proceeded to the army, and intimated the heavy displeasure of the
seigniory, and of the whole city, if they did not return to the walls ; and what
a disgrace, if so large an army and so many generals, having only a small
garrison to contend with, could not conquer so poor and weak a place. They
explained the immediate and future advantages that would result from the
acquisition, and spoke so forcibly upon the subject, that all became anxious
to renew the attack. They resolved, in the first place, to recover the ram-
part upon the hill ; and here it was evident how greatly humanity, affability,
and condescension influence the minds of soldiers ; for Guid' Antonio Ves-
pucci, by encouraging one and promising another, shaking hands with this
man and embracing that, induced them to proceed to the charge with such
impetuosity, that they gained possession of the rampart in an instant. How-
ever, the victory was not unattended by misfortune, for Count Antonio da
Marciano was killed by a cannon-shot. This success filled the townspeople
with so much terror that they began to make proposals for capitulation ;
and to invest the surrender with imposing solemnity, Lorenzo de' Medici
came to the camp, when, after a few days, the fortress was given up. It
being now winter, the leaders of the expedition thought it unadvisable to
make any further effort until the return of spring, more particularly because
the autumnal air had been so unhealthful that numbers were affected by it.
Guid' Antonio Vespucci and Bongianni Gianfigliazzi were taken ill and died,
to the great regret of all, so greatly had Antonio's conduct at Pietrasanta
endeared him to the army.
Upon the taking of Pietrasanta, the Lucchese sent ambassadors to Flor-
ence, to demand its surrender to their republic, on account of its having pre-
viously belonged to them, and because, as they alleged, it was in the conditions
that places taken by either party were to be restored to their original posses-
sors. The Florentines did not deny the articles, but replied that they did
not know whether, by the treaty between themselves and the Genoese, which
was then under discussion, it would have to be given up or not, and there-
fore could not reply to that point at present ; but in case of its restitution, it
would first be necessary for the Lucchese to reimburse them for the expenses
they had incurred and the injury they had suffered, in the death of so many
citizens ; and that when this was satisfactorily arranged, they might entertain
hopes of obtaining the place. The whole winter was consumed in negotia-
tions between the Florentines and Genoese, which, by the pope's interven-
tion, were carried on at Rome ; but not being concluded upon the return
of spring, the Florentines would have attacked Sarzana had they not been
prevented by the illness of Lorenzo de' Medici and the war between the
pope and King Ferdinand ; for Lorenzo was afflicted not only by the gout,
which seemed hereditary in his family, but also by violent pains in the
stomach, and was compelled to go to the baths for relief.
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 385
[1485-1486 A.D.]
The more important reason was furnished by the war, of which this was
the origin. The city of Aquila, though subject to the kingdom of Naples,
was in a manner free ; and the count di Montorio possessed great influence
over it. The duke of Calabria was upon the banks of the Tronto with his
men-at-arms, under pretence of appeasing some disturbances amongst the peas-
antry, but really with a design of reducing Aquila entirely under the
king's authority, and sent for the count di Montorio, as if to consult him
upon the business he pretended then to have in hand. The count obeyed
without the least suspicion, and on his arrival was made prisoner by the
duke and sent to Naples. When this circumstance became known at Aquila,
the anger of the inhabitants arose to the highest pitch ; taking arms they
killed Antonio Cencinello, commissary for the king, and with him some
inhabitants known partisans of his majesty. The Aquilani, in order to
have a defender in their rebellion, raised the banner of the church, and sent
envoys to the pope, to submit their city and themselves to him, beseeching
that he would defend them as his own subjects against the tyranny of the
king. The pontiff gladly undertook their defence, for he had both public
and private reasons for hating that monarch; and Signer Roberto da San
Severino, an enemy of the duke of Milan, being disengaged, was appointed
to take the command of his forces, and sent for with all speed to Rome. He
entreated the friends and relatives of the count di Montorio to withdraw
their allegiance from the king, and induced the princes of Altimura, Salerno,
and Bisignano to take arms against him. The king, finding himself so sud-
denly involved in war had recourse to the Florentines and the duke of Milan
for assistance. The Florentines hesitated with regard to their own conduct, for
they felt all the inconvenience of neglecting their own affairs to attend to
those of others, and hostilities against the church seemed likely to involve
much risk. However, being under the obligation of a league, they pre-
ferred their honour to convenience or security, engaged the Orsini, and sent
all their own forces under the count di Pitigliano towards Rome, to the assist-
ance of the king. The latter divided his forces into two parts ; one, under
the duke of Calabria, he sent towards Rome, which, being joined by the
Florentines, opposed the army of the church ; with the other, under his own
command, he attacked the barons, and the war was prosecuted with various
success on both sides. At length, the king, being universally victorious,
peace was concluded by the intervention of the ambassadors of the king of
Spain, in August, 1486, to which the pope consented ; for having found for-
tune opposed to him he was not disposed to tempt it further. In this treaty
all the powers of Italy were united, except the Genoese, who were omitted as
rebels against the republic of Milan, and unjust occupiers of territories
belonging to the Florentines. Upon the peace being ratified, Roberto da San
Severino, having been during the war a treacherous ally of the church, and
by no means formidable to her enemies, left Rome ; being followed by the
forces of the duke and the Florentines, after passing Cesena, he found them near
him, and urging his flight reached Ravenna with less than a hundred horse.
Of his forces, part were received into the duke's service, and part were plun-
dered by the peasantry. The king, being reconciled with his barons, put to
death Jacopo Coppola and Antonello d'Aversa and their sons, for having,
during the war, betrayed his secrets to the pope.
The pope having observed, in the course of the war, how promptly and
earnestly the Florentines adhered to their alliances, although he had previ-
ously been opposed to them from his attachment to the Genoese, and the
assistance they had rendered to the king, now evinced a more amicable
H. W. VOL. IX. 2 C
386 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1486A.D.]
disposition, and received their ambassadors with greater favour than previ-
ously. Lorenzo de' Medici, being made acquainted with this change of feeling,
encouraged it with the utmost solicitude ; for he thought it would be of great
advantage, if to the friendship of the king he could add that of the pontiff.
The pope had a son named Francesco, upon whom designing to bestow
states and attach friends who might be useful to him after his own death,
he saw no safer connection in Italy than Lorenzo's, and therefore induced the
latter to give him one of his daughters in marriage. Having formed this
alliance, the pope desired the Genoese to concede Sarzana to the Floren-
tines, insisting that they had no right to detain what Agostino had sold, nor
was Agostino justified in making over to the bank of St. George what was
not his own. However, his holiness did not succeed with them ; for the
Genoese, during these transactions at Rome, armed several vessels, and,
unknown to the Florentines, landed three thousand foot, attacked Sar-
zanello, situated above Sarzana, plundered and burned the town near it, and
then, directing their artillery against the fortress, fired upon it with their
utmost energy. This assault was new and unexpected by the Florentines,
who immediately assembled their forces under Virginio Orsini, at Pisa, and
complained to the pope that, whilst he was endeavouring to establish peace,
the Genoese had renewed their attack upon them. They then sent Piero
Corsini to Lucca, that by his presence he might keep the city faithful ; and
Pagolantonio Soderini to Venice, to learn how that republic was disposed.
They demanded assistance of the king and of Signor Lodovico, but obtained
it from neither ; for the king expressed apprehensions of the Turkish fleet,
and Lodovico made excuses, but sent no aid. Thus the Florentines in their
own wars were almost always obliged to stand alone, and found no friends to
assist them with the same readiness they practised towards others. Nor did
they, on this desertion of their allies (it being nothing new to them), give
way to despondency ; for having assembled a large army under Jacopo
Guicciardini and Piero Vettori, they sent it against the enemy, who had
encamped on the river Magra, at the same time pressing Sarzanello with
mines and every species of attack. The commissaries being resolved to relieve
the place, an engagement ensued, when the Genoese were routed, and Lodo-
vico de' Fieschi, with several other principal men, made prisoners. The Sar-
zanesi were not so depressed at their defeat as to be willing to surrender, but
obstinately prepared for their defence, whilst the Florentine commissaries pro-
ceeded with their operations, and instances of valour occurred on both sides.
The siege being protracted by a variety of fortune, Lorenzo de' Medici
resolved to go to the camp, and on his arrival the troops acquired fresh
courage, whilst that of the enemy seemed to fail ; for perceiving the obsti-
nacy of the Florentines' attack, and the delay of the Genoese in coming
to their relief, they surrendered to Lorenzo, without asking conditions, and
none were treated with severity except two or three who were leaders of
the rebellion. During the siege, Lodovico had sent troops to Pontremoli,
as if with an intention of assisting the Florentines ; but having secret cor-
respondence in Genoa, a party was raised there who gave the city to Milan.**
LAST YEARS OF LORENZO
From this period until the death of Lorenzo Italy remained at peace and
little of any moment occurred at Florence. Lorenzo's power augmented daily,
and like a deep and rapid stream looked clear and smooth and beautiful
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 387
[1486-1491 A.D.]
until crossed by some obstacle ; then its force mounted up and swept every-
thing violently away. Nor was it alone in Florence that its strength and
volume were felt ; Lorenzo's true object and interest, like Ferdinand's, was
peace, and they held the balance in their hand ; the unquiet nature of
Alfonso was doubtful and dangerous, but Lorenzo ruled the unextinct ener-
gies of a powerful republic with the decision and unity of an absolute
monarch and would allow no seeds of discord to be sown without an instan-
taneous effort to destroy ; he influenced all the smaller states, and the vast
weight of Florence cast on the side of one or other of the greater was never
without its consequences. Disputes for instance occurred this year between
Lodovico Sforza and Alfonso of Calabria about the former's virtually usurp-
ing the whole sovereign authority of Milan from his nephew; and these,
partly by persuasion, and partly by threats of placing himself on the side of
the injured party, Lorenzo settled as he did most others ; for he was well
convinced that nothing would prove more dangerous to his own authority
than any increase of power in either of these potentates. By such judicious
management he maintained the peace of Italy, well knowing that no ties,
whether of relationship, or obligation, or personal attachment, would ever
have the beneficial effects that are produced by fear on sovereign princes.
If Cosmo purchased the liberties of Florence, Lorenzo received back the
money with interest, not in power alone, but in gold and silver : under
the gonfaloniership of Piero Alamanni in July and August, 1490, the disorder
of his finances had become so great as to make a fresh grant of public money
absolutely necessary to restore them, and in the year 1491, other fraudulent
means were adopted to make up the deficiency. His extensive commercial
establishments were necessarily left in the hands of agents who, puffed up
with the importance of their master's name, squandered his substance while
they neglected his affairs ; from the beginning his credit had been sustained
by occasional grants of public money to a large amount ; but now the evil
was so alarmingly increased that a violent effort of the commonwealth became
necessary to remove it, and that effort no less than public bankruptcy ! On the
13th of August, 1490, a balia of seventeen members with the full powers of
the whole Florentine nation was created to examine the condition of the coin-
age, the state of the various gabelle, and the public finances as connected with the
private necessities of Lorenzo ; to ascertain also what was spent on the occa-
sion of making his son a cardinal, which with subsequent donations amounted
to 50,000 florins. The disorder both of the public revenues and the private
resources of the Medici was extreme, the former having even been anticipated
and spent by his own and his agents' extravagance : the portions of young
women, already mentioned as forming a public stock based on national faith
and moral integrity, were the first and greatest sufferers ; this branch of the
public debt which previously paid three per cent, per annum was at once
reduced by the authority of the commission to half that interest ; and the
instantaneous fall of public credit reduced the luogU di monte, or shares of
100 florins of public stock, from twenty-seven to eleven and a half ! The
young women who married were allowed a sufficient sum from their por-
tions to pay the contract duty, which of course immediately returned to
the treasury ; the remainder was reserved, and a payment of seven per cent,
promised at the end of twenty years !
One consequence of this was a sudden check to marriage ; and when the
portions were invested in public securities, dowers of 1500, 1800, and even
2000 florins were given by parties of equal rank to make up the deficiency
between real and nominal portions, where 1100 had previously served.
388 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1491-1492 A.D.]
There were consequently few marriages except those accomplished by force
of ready money, and even for these Lorenzo's permission became necessary !
" Now," says Giovanni Cambi,^ with all the indignation that might be
expected from the son of the persecuted Neri, "now let all reflect on what it
is to set up tyrants in the city and create balias, and assemble parliaments."
The depreciated currencies of Siena, Lucca, and Bologna affected that of
Florence, so that to keep the silver coin in the country it was in like manner
depreciated ; this measure was considered fair and necessary at the moment
by many ; but for the people's quiet, who first and most sensibly feel such
evils and who now justly began to murmur, it was announced as a measure
for enabling government to pay those marriage portions which had been
stopped the previous year. The public for a season appear to have acqui-
esced in this, not immediately perceiving that they were paying Lorenzo de'
Medici's debts ; but when this new money, called the quattrino bianco was
issued at one-fifth more than its real value and not taken by the treasury for
more than its actual worth, the citizens saw plainly that they were defrauded
and that every species of taxation was virtually augmented by it to that
amount, whereupon a deep murmur of indignation pervaded the community.
Their anger was vain ; Lorenzo's private necessities required the sacrifice,
and his power enforced it !
When Innocent VIII made Lorenzo's son, Giovanni de' Medici, a cardinal
ere the boy had completed the age of fourteen, being rather ashamed of his
work he accompanied this honour by a stipulation that the hat was not to be
worn for three years. That time had now elapsed ; Innocent sent the long-
desired insignia, and thus prepared the way for a pontificate which encour-
aged Italian genius and established Medicean grandeur. The ceremony of
assuming this hat was performed with great pomp on the 10th of March,
1492, and on the 9th of the following April Lorenzo breathed his last
at Careggi in the forty-fourth year of his age.
On his death-bed Lorenzo is said to have sent for Girolamo Savonarola
(whom he had always unsuccessfully courted), to confess and grant him ab-
solution. The monk first demanded whether he placed entire faith in the
mercy of God, and was answered in the affirmative. He next asked if
Lorenzo were ready to surrender all the wealth which he had wrongfully
acquired. And this, after some hesitation, was also answered in the affirma-
tive. The third question was if he would re-establish popular government
and restore public liberty ; but to this he would give no answer, or according
to others gave a decided negative ; upon which the uncompromising church-
man quitted him without bestowing absolution. The authenticity of this
anecdote has been questioned, but it is in keeping with the character of
both men.p
VON REUMONT'S ESTIMATE OF LORENZO
Lorenzo de' Medici was called from this world at the age of forty-
three years — a short life in which to have accomplished so much, to have
achieved fame so wide-spread and enduring. In the character of this remark-
able man, the foremost representative of a remarkable period, we find the irre-
sistible onward impulse of creative power united to a deep knowledge of the
stages that succeed each other in the development of the new; we find
the highest degree of receptivity combined with a student's seriousness and
capacity for taking pains ; we see a keen and joyous appreciation of art go
hand in hand with the practical sense necessary to the proper conduct of
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 389
A.D.]
life ; we find him to possess, in a word, all the qualities that go to make the
statesman, the poet, the citizen, and the prince.
He knew no fatigue under the multiplicity of public affairs that fell to
him as head of a peculiarly constituted state ; with sure and rapid view he
could take cognisance of the whole mass of business while giving his atten-
tion to the smallest details. In his later years he became wary and discreet,
never acting save as the result of deep reflection, holding steadfastly to the
goal he had set himself, conscious, but not unduly, of the dignity of his posi-
tion and that of the state he represented. In his home and family life he
was gay and companionable. As a husband he was not above reproach,
it is true ; but he was tenderly attached to the wife he had not chosen,
devoted to the excellent mother with whom he had many qualities in com-
mon, and to his children he was always a generous provider, a wise counsellor
and guide. He had the faculty of attracting to himself people of the widest
diversity of character, and was capable of forming warm and lasting friend-
ships ; amid all the cares of state he was never too busy to render assistance
to a friend, and was as ready to exert himself in behalf of the low as of the
high.
It is not to be denied, however, that he possessed a share of the weak-
nesses and failings of his times, which were chiefly apparent in his political
life, superior as it was in consistency and honesty of purpose to that of most
foreign or Italian statesmen of his day. His interior policy, in particular,
has received sharp blame, as much for its refashioning of the constitution to
permit an increase in personal power as for the corrupt methods employed to
gain undisputed control over the state funds. As regards the latter charge
it is difficult to see how in later years — had longer life been granted to
Lorenzo — a catastrophe could have been avoided, unless a protracted peace
had allowed the maintenance of a perfect balance in the state expenditures.
In respect to the first shortcoming many contemporaries expressed the
opinion that Lorenzo's fixed and secret aim was to create for himself a prin-
cipality, to attain which end he was merely awaiting a favourable oppor-
tunity — the appointment to the office of gonfalonier, for example, when he
should have reached the proper age.
When all has been weighed and judged, undoubtedly the worst evil in
the rule of Lorenzo the Magnificent is just this lack of agreement between
form and fact, this diversion of the highest authority from its proper centre.
Personality had become the most powerful factor in all departments of the
administration — the political, the financial, the judicial. Nevertheless if
Florence was free from the excesses that disgraced every other Italian state,
if Lorenzo's rule was mild and blameless compared to that of Cosmo, not
only the continuance of peace, the assured position of the country, and the
habit on the part of the people of submitting to such a rule were to be
thanked for it, but the views and ability of the man who stood at the head.
Lorenzo de' Medici was determined to be obeyed, but he was no tyrant : on
the one hand too keen-sighted a reader of men, and too well- versed in the
traditions of his people ; on the other he was of a nature too magnanimous
and richly endowed, too open, too necessitous of friendship to fall into an
extreme of despotism. Above all he was a citizen of Florence, and if left to
himself, would have allowed nothing in his outer circumstances to distinguish
him from the rest of his fellow-citizens ; but after the Pazzi conspiracy it
was deemed necessary that he should be accompanied everywhere by a
guard, formed at first of four trusted friends, later of twelve paid mem-
bers of the nobility.
390 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1492 A.D.]
As regards his arbitrary administration of the state finances opinions
varied even in his own time. Had he not diverted to his own purposes a
portion of the public funds, argued some, he would have been ruined, and
his ruin would have entailed that of countless others. All that he took
from first to last, as well to preserve his credit as to carry on an extravagant
mode of life, was as nothing compared to the losses an incompetent ruler
would have brought upon the state ; one ill-considered or untimely public
regulation alone would have cost the treasury dearer than Lorenzo's entire
rule. The final aim of all the Medici, so ran the general opinion, was their
own profit or advancement, but they remained Florentine citizens to the
end, and in most cases their interests and those of their city were identical.
To the kindly disposed who rendered this judgment after Lorenzo's death,
the answer was indeed given that the aim of the Medici had been none
the less sole dominion, because it was given the form of democracy by the
destruction of the patrician influence, and the raising to favour of members
of the lower classes; that a subtle, crafty tyranny, like that of Cosmo de'
Medici, or one tempered by generosity and benevolence, like Lorenzo's,
was the more dangerous for the people inasmuch as it paved the way for a
severer form.
In the ninth chapter of his History of Florence Guicciardini Q. gives a
masterly summing up of Lorenzo de' Medici's influence over the city that
gave him birth. "Florence," he says, "did not become free under Lorenzo
de' Medici, but a better master no city could have had. Incalculable good
resulted to it as the outpouring of his own benevolent nature, while the
evils that are inseparable from tyranny in any form were limited in their
workings — rendered almost harmless, in fact, when his will came into play.
There were doubtless many who rejoiced at his death ; but all who took
any part in the administration regretted it deeply, even those who thought
they had grounds of complaint against him, for none could tell what a
change of rulers might bring about. "c
POPE LEO IV ARRESTING THE CONFLAGRATION
(By Eaphael)
CHAPTER XIII
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE
What we call, for want of a better name, the Renaissance, was a
period of transition from the Middle Ages to the first phase of modern
life. It was a step which had to be made, at unequal distances of time
and under varying influences, by all the peoples of the European com-
munity. At the commencement of this period, the modern nations
acquired consistency and fixity of type. Mutually repelled by the prin-
ciple of nationality, which made of each a separate organism, they were
at the same time drawn and knit together by a common bond of intel-
lectual activities and interests. The" creation of this international con-
sciousness or spirit, which, after the lapse of four centuries, justifies us
in regarding the past history of Europe as the history of a single family,
and encourages us to expect from the future a still closer interaction
of the western nations, can be ascribed in a great measure to the
Renaissance. &
WE must now interrupt the story of political development, to make a casual
survey of the culture of the time of the Medici and the succeeding genera-
tion. Scholarship had progressed pretty steadily since the days of Petrarch.
" Even the early part of the fifteenth century," says Roscoe,.J " produced
scholars as much superior to Petrarch and his coadjutors, as they were to the
monkish compilers and scholastic disputants who immediately preceded
them; and the labours of Leonardo Aretino, Gianozzo Manetti, Guarino
Veronese, and Poggio Bracciolini, prepared the way for the still more cor-
rect and classical productions of Politiano, Sarmazaro, Pontano, and
Augur elli."
Now there came a fresh impulse through the arrival of numerous Greek
scholars from the East, and their example led to a more philosophical study
of classical languages. The establishment of public libraries in Italy began
now to be a prominent feature of the culture development. Cosmo de'
39}
392 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
Medici was particularly active in this direction ; his son Piero steadily pur-
sued the same object ; and Lorenzo brought the work to a culmination in
the final development of the Laurentian library. The interest in the classics
was probably influential in retarding the development of Italian literature.
Nevertheless, the influence of Lorenzo de' Medici was directed also towards
the field of creative literature, and he himself was prominent in the restora-
tion of Italian poetry. « He attempted to restore the poetry of his country,
to the state in which Petrarch had left it ; but this man, so superior by
the greatness of his character, and by the universality of his genius, did not
possess the talent of versification in the same degree as Petrarch. In his
love verses, his sonnets, and canzoni, we find less sweetness and harmony.
Their poetical colouring is less striking ; and it is remarked that they dis-
play a ruder expression, more nearly allied to the infancy of the language.
On the other hand, his ideas are more natural, and are often accompanied
by a great charm of imagination.
The most talented literary protege of Lorenzo was the famous scholar,
Angelo Politiano. Politiano was born on the 24th of July, 1454, at Monte
Pulciano (Mons Politianus), a castle, of which he adopted the name, instead
of that of Ambrogini, borne by his father. He applied himself with ardour
to those scholastic studies which engaged the general mind in the fifteenth
century. Some Latin and Greek epigrams, which he wrote between the age
of thirteen and seventeen, surprised his teachers and the companions of his
studies. But the work which introduced him to Lorenzo de' Medici, and which
had the greatest influence on his age, was a poem on a tournament, in
which Julian de' Medici was the victor, in 1468. From that time, Lorenzo
received Politiano into his palace ; made him the constant companion of his
labours and his studies ; provided for all his necessities, and soon afterwards
confided to him the education of his children. Politiano, after this invita-
tion, attached himself to the more serious studies of the Platonic philosophy,
of antiquity, and of law ; but his poem in honour of the tournament of Julian
de' Medici remains a monument of the distinguished taste of the fifteenth
century. This celebrated fragment commences like a large work, but
unfortunately was never finished, c
We need not now mention the other minor poets of the age. Suffice it
that, all in all, the age of the Medici cannot be called a time of really great
literary development. It produced no Dante, Petrarch, or Boccaccio. But
it witnessed a tremendous advance in general culture, due in part to the
study of the classics, and it prepared the way for Ariosto and Tasso.
FIFTEENTH CENTURY ART
The real glory of the time was its achievement in the field of the graphic
arts. In this field also the epoch was transitional ; but the transition carries
us, in the latter part of the epoch, to heights never previously attained. At
the beginning of the fifteenth century such work as that of Giotto repre-
sents the highest standard of accomplishment ; before the death of Lorenzo
de' Medici, Leonardo da Vinci had produced his greatest masterpiece. In
other words, the fundamental problems of the pictorial art which the four-
teenth century had failed to solve had yielded to the researches of this later
generation. The laws of perspective had been perfected by Brunelleschi
and Masaccio ; anatomy had been studied as never previously by the
Florentines Ghiberti and Donatello ; and a large number of earnest investi-
gators, turning to nature on the one hand for their model, while developing
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE
393
a pictorial sense by observation combined with reflection, had prepared
the way for the final realisation of the value of light and shadow and of the
proper distribution of the parts of a composition which reached approximate
perfection at the hands of Leonardo.
A brief but comprehensive estimate of the art development of the first
half of the fifteenth century has been left us by Vasari, himself an artist
contemporary with Michelangelo. Viewing the work of his predecessors
from the standpoint of the final culmination of the sixteenth century, —
the time of Michelangelo, — Vasari combines the judgment of a tolerably
keen critic with the sympathies of a fellow-student. His estimate thus
has double value. «
Vasari's Estimate of Fifteenth Century Art
In this period, he says, the arts will be seen to have infinitely improved
at all points ; the compositions comprise more figures ; the accessories and
ornaments are richer, and
more abundant; the draw-
ing is more correct, and
approaches more closely to
the truth of nature ; and,
even where no great facil-
ity or practice is displayed,
the works yet evince much
thought and care; the man-
ner is more free and grace-
ful ; the colouring more
brilliant and pleasing, in-
somuch that little is now
required to the attainment
of perfection in the faith-
ful imitation of nature.
By the study and diligence
of the great Filippo Bru-
nelleschi, architecture first
recovered the measures and
proportions of the antique,
in the round columns as
well as in the square pi-
lasters, and the rusticated
and plain angles. Care
was taken that all should
proceed according to rule ; that a fixed arrangement should be adhered to,
and that the various portions of the work should receive each its due measure
and place. Drawing acquired force and correctness, a better grace was
imparted to the buildings erected, and the excellence of the art was made
manifest : the beauty and variety of design required for capitals and cornices
were restored ; and, while we perceive the ground plans of churches and
other edifices to have been admirably laid at this period, we also remark that
the fabrics themselves are finely proportioned, magnificently arranged, and
richly adorned, as may be seen in that astonishing erection, the cupola of
Santa Maria del Fiore, in Florence, and in the beauty and grace of its lantern ;
in the graceful, rich, and variously ornamented church of Santo Spirito ; and
JESUS DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS
(By Leonardo da Vinci)
394 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
i
in the no less beautiful edifice of San Lorenzo ; or again, in the fanciful
invention of the octangular church of the Angioli ; in the light and graceful
church and convent belonging to the abbey of Florence ; and in the magnifi-
cent and lordly commencement of the Pitti Palace, to say nothing of the vast
and commodious edifice constructed by Francesco di Giorgio, in the church
and palace of the Duomo, at Urbino ; of the strong and rich castle of Naples ;
or of the impregnable fortress of Milan, and many other remarkable erections
of that time.
What is here said of architecture, may with equal propriety be affirmed
of painting and sculpture, in both of which are still to be seen many extraor-
dinary works executed by the masters of the period, as that of Masaccio
in the church of the Carmine, for example, where the artist has depicted
a naked figure shivering with the cold, besides many spirited and life-like
forms, in other pictures. Meantime the art of sculpture made so decided
an improvement as to leave but little remaining to be accomplished. The
method adopted by the masters of the period was so efficient, their treat-
ment so natural and graceful, their drawing so accurate, their proportions
so correct that their statues began to assume the appearance of living men,
and were no longer lifeless images of stone, as were those of the earlier day.
Of this there will be found proof in the works of the Sienese, Jacopo della
Quercia, which, as compared with earlier works, possess more life and
grace, with more correct design, and more careful finish ; those of Filippo
Brunelleschi exhibit a finer development and play of the muscles, with more
accurate proportions, and a more judicious treatment — remarks which are
alike applicable to the works produced by the disciples of these masters.
Still more was performed by Lorenzo Ghiberti, in his work of the gates of
San Giovanni, fertility of invention, judicious arrangement, correct design,
and admirable treatment, being all alike conspicuous in these wonderful
productions, the figures of which seem to move and possess a living soul.
Donato [Donatello] also lived at the same period. His productions are
equal to good works of antiquity. He is the type and representative of all
the other masters of the period ; since he united with himself the qualities
which were divided among the rest, and which must be sought among many,
imparting to his figures a life, movement, and reality which enables them to
bear comparison with those of later times — nay even, as has been said, with
the ancients themselves.
Similar progress was made at the same time in painting which the excel-
lent and amirable Masaccio delivered entirely from the manner of Giotto, as
regards the heads, the carnations, the draperies, the buildings, and colour-
ings; he also restored the practice of foreshortening, together with more
natural attitudes, and a much more effectual expression of feeling in the ges-
tures and the movements of the body, art seeking to approach the truth of
nature by more correct design, and to exhibit so close a resemblance to the
countenance of the living man that each figure might at once be recognised
as the person for whom it was intended. Thus the masters constantly
endeavoured to reproduce what they beheld in nature, and no more ; their
works became, consequently, more carefully considered and better under-
stood. This gave them courage to impose rules of perspective, and to carry
the foreshortenings precisely to the point which gives an exact imitation
of the relief apparent in nature and the real form. Minute attention to the
effects of light and shade, and to various difficulties of the art, succeeded,
and efforts were made to produce a better order of composition. Landscapes
also were attempted. Tracts of country, trees, shrubs, flowers, the clouds,
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE
395
the air, and other natural objects were depicted with some resemblance to the
realities represented, insomuch that we may boldly affirm that these arts had
not only become ennobled, but had attained that flower of youth from which
the fruit afterwards to follow might reasonably be looked for, and hope enter-
tained that they would shortly reach the perfection of their existence.^
We must not pause even to mention the names of all the distinguished
company of artists, a good proportion of them Florentines, who flourished in
the time of Masaccio and in the immediate succeeding generation, although
this list includes such names as Ghirlandajo, Filippo Lippi, Filippino Lippi,
Perugino, and Botticelli ; the last named in particular is still the delight of
all who love the spirituelle in art ; the others are known and esteemed by all
students of painting, and by the countless hosts of travellers who flock yearly
to the churches and galleries of
Italy to see their works. We
must pause for a moment, however,
to consider the work of the great
master, whose accomplishment was
in some sense to eclipse their
efforts, the versatile genius,
Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo da Vinci
Without question Leonardo
was the most colossal intellect of
the century ; 1 indeed, he has been
called by Hamertone the most
comprehensive genius of any age.
Scarcely any other intellectual
hero ever so completely won the
admiration of his contemporaries
and the unqualified approval of
posterity. Vasari's estimate of
Leonardo voices the contemporary
judgment regarding him.«
The richest gifts, he says, are
occasionally seen to be showered,
as by celestial influence, on certain
human beings — nay, they some-
times supernaturally and marvel-
lously congregate in one sole
person; beauty, grace, and talent being united in such a manner that to what-
ever the man thus favoured may turn himself, his every action is so divine as
to leave all other men far behind him, and manifestly to prove that he has been
specially endowed by the hand of God himself, and has not obtained his pre-
eminence by human teaching, or the power of man. This was seen and
acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, to say
nothing of his beauty of person, which yet was such that it has never been
sufficiently extolled, there was a grace beyond expression which was rendered
manifest without thought or effort in every act and deed; and who had besides
so rare a gift of talent and ability that to whatever subject he turned his
[! Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 ; he lived till 1519, when he died in France at the
court of Francis I.]
LEONARDO DA VINCI
(1452-1519)
396 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
attention, however difficult, he presently made himself absolute master of it.
Extraordinary power was in his case conjoined with remarkable facility, a
mind of regal boldness and magnanimous daring ; his gifts were such that
the celebrity of his name extended most widely, and he was held in the
highest estimation, not in his own time only, but also, and even to a greater
extent, after his death — nay, this he has continued, and will continue in all
succeeding ages.^
Our present concern is chiefly with Leonardo as an artist, but it is impos-
sible not to consider the other phases of his multifarious genius. Hallam
has briefly summarised his position as a writer and scientific investigator. «
As Leonardo was born in 1452, he says, we may presume his mind to
have been in full expansion before 1490. His Treatise on Painting is known
as a very early disquisition of the rules of the art. But his greatest literary
distinction is derived from those short fragments of his unpublished writings
that appeared not many years since ; and which, according, at least, to our
common estimate of the age in which he lived, are more like revelations of
physical truths vouchsafed to a single mind, than the superstructure of its
reasoning upon any established basis. The discoveries which made Galileo,
and Kepler, and Maestlin, and Maurolycus, and Castelli, and other names
illustrious, the system of Copernicus, the very theories of recent geologers,
are anticipated by Da Vinci, within the compass of a few pages, not perhaps
in the most precise language, or on the most conclusive reasoning, but so as
to strike us with something like the awe of preternatural knowledge.
In an age of so much dogmatism, he first laid down the grand principle
of Bacon, that experiment and observation must be the guides to just theory
in the investigation of nature. If any doubt could be harboured, not as to
the right of Leonardo da Vinci to stand as the first name of the fifteenth
century, which is beyond all doubt, but as to his originality in so many dis-
coveries, which, probably, no one man, especially in such circumstances, has
ever made, it must be on a hypothesis, not very untenable, that some parts
of physical science had already attained a height which mere books do not
record. The extraordinary works of ecclesiastical architecture in the Middle
Ages, especially in the fifteenth century, as well as those of Toscanelli and
Fioravanti, which we have mentioned, lend some countenance to this opinion ;
and it is said to be confirmed by the notes of Fra Mauro, a lay brother of a
convent near Venice, on a planisphere constructed by him, and still extant.
Leonardo himself speaks of the earth's annual motion, in a treatise that appears
to have been written about 1510, as the opinion of many philosophers in his
age./
Among the almost numberless scraps of manuscript left us by Leonardo
is a letter which he addressed to Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan, in 1483.
The original of this letter exists in the author's own orthography, and it
gives his own estimate of his accomplishments at the age of thirty-one. It
will be borne in mind, of course, that this letter is addressed to a prince who
would be likely to value the services of a practical engineer more than those
of a mere painter. This, no doubt, explains in part the subordinate place
given to Leonardo's capacity as sculptor and painter, which, as will be seen,
is only mentioned after ten other specifications. Nevertheless, it was while
in Milan that Leonardo executed his greatest work, the famous Last Supper.
The letter is as follows :«
Having seen and sufficiently considered the works of all those who repute themselves
to be masters and inventors of instruments for war, and found that the form and operation
of these works are in no way different from those in common use, I permit myself, without
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE 397
seeking to detract from the merit of any other, to make known to your excellency the secrets
I have discovered, at the same time offering with fitting opportunity, and at your good pleas-
ure, to perform all those things which, for the present, I will but briefly note below.
(1) I have a method of constructing very light and portable bridges, to be used in the
pursuit of, or retreat from, the enemy, with others of a stronger sort, proof against fire or
force, and easy to fix or remove. I have also means for burning and destroying those of
the enemy.
(2) For the service of sieges, I am prepared to remove the water from the ditches, and
to make an infinite variety of fascines, scaling-ladders, etc., with engines of other kinds
proper to the purposes of a siege.
(3) If the height of the defences or the strength of the position should be such that
the place cannot be effectually bombarded, I have other means, whereby any fortress may be
destroyed, provided it be not founded on stone.
(4) I have also most convenient and portable bombs, proper for throwing showers of
small missiles, and with the smoke thereof causing great terror to the enemy, to his immi-
nent loss and confusion.
(5) By means of excavations made without noise, and forming tortuous and narrow
ways, I have means of reaching any given . . . (point ?), even though it be necessary to
pass beneath ditches or under a river.
(6) I can also construct covered wagons, secure and indestructible, which, entering
among the enemy, will break the strongest bodies of men ; and behind these the infantry
can follow in safety and without impediment.
(7) I can, if needful, also make bombs, mortars, and field-pieces of beautiful and
useful shape, entirely different from those in common use.
(8) Where the use of bombs is not practicable, I can make crossbows, mangonels,
ballistae, and other machines of extraordinary efficiency and quite out of the common way.
In fine, as the circumstances of the case shall demand, I can prepare engines of offence for
all purposes.
(9) In case of the conflict having to be maintained at sea, I have methods for making
numerous instruments, offensive and defensive, with vessels that shall resist the force of the
most powerful bombs. I can also make powders or vapours for the offence of the enemy.
(10) In time of peace, I believe that I could equal any other, as regards works in
architecture. I can prepare designs for buildings, whether public or private, and also con-
duct water from one place to another.
Furthermore, I can execute works in sculpture, marble, bronze, or terra-cotta. In
painting also I can do what may be done, as well as any other, be he who he may.
I can likewise undertake the execution of the bronze horse, which is a monument that
will be to the perpetual glory and immortal honour of my lord your father of happy
memory, and of the illustrious house of Sforza.
And if any of the above named things shall seem to any man to be impossible and
impracticable, I am perfectly ready to make trial of them in your excellency's park, or in
whatever other place you shall be pleased to command, commending myself to you with all
possible humility.fl'
Leonardo liked better to theorise, observe, and commit his inferences
and perceptions to his memorandum-book, than to weary himself with those
slavish details which are essential to the production of every immortal work.
From these causes, aided by his extreme fastidiousness of taste and love for
minute finish, his works were few, and scarcely one of them was ever com-
pleted. But this very universality of capacity, with his eagerly inquiring
spirit, qualified him to supply the defects under which art yet laboured : no
one has as good a claim as he, to be considered the parent of the highest
school in his art ; and no artist, before or since, has ever united in himself so
many of the most illustrious qualities of genius.
His most characteristic excellence, in his own profession, is his tone of
feeling and imagination, which is mild, graceful, and poetically devotional ;
too ethereal for effectively depicting scenes from active life, but admirably
harmonised to religious subjects. To these merits in the poetical elements
of his art, he added others not less valuable in the practical ; for not only
was he the first who exhibited minutely scientific anatomical knowledge, but
he set a perfect example of relief and harmony in colouring, for which,
398
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
especially in that rich dark style which is common with him, his pictures
and those of his school are at this day a banquet to the eye.ft
We possess pictures enough of this great master, says Grimm,* to prevent
us from considering the accounts of the magic of his art as empty exag-
geration. We are ever inclined to be incredulous. Leonardo's paintings,
however, possess such a charm, that the truest description falls far short of
them. We should scarcely consider them possible, if we did not see them
with our eyes. He possesses the secret of letting us almost read the beating
of the heart in the countenance of those whom he represents. He seems to
see nature in constant
holiday brightness, and
never otherwise. Our
feelings become gradually
so deadened, that per-
ceiving the same loss
among our friends, we at
length believe, that the
fresh spring-like appear-
ance of nature and life,
which opened before us so
long as we were children,
was only the delusion of
happiness, and that the
dimmer light in which
they appear to us subse-
quently, affords the more
true view. But let us step
before Leonardo's finest
works, and see if the
dreams of ideal existence
do not appear natural and
significant ! As splinters
of metal are drawn to the
magnet as it moves through
iron filings, and adhere to it in a thousand fine points, while the grains of
sand fall powerless away, so there are men, who, passing through the lifeless
throng of constant intercourse, carry away with them, involuntarily, only the
traces of the genuine metal in it, in this following their nature alone, which
absorbs it on every side. They are rare privileged men to whom this is
awarded. Leonardo belonged to these favoured ones of fate.*
MODESTY AND VANITY
(By Leonardo da Vinci)
THE END OF THE MEDIAEVAL EPOCH
While Leonardo was in his prime the period usually marked as terminat-
ing the Middle Ages was passed. Recent students are much less disposed
than were students of the earlier generation to emphasise the division of
past time into epochs ; and of course it cannot be too often emphasised that
the year 1492 marked no decisive turning-point in the estimate of contempo-
rary minds. Nevertheless, the close of the fifteenth century has by common
consent been regarded as marking the culmination of that intellectual devel-
opment in Italy which has long been spoken of as the Renaissance. Scholars
of to-day are fond of pointing out that the real re-birth of culture began
away back in the eleventh and twelfth centuries ; and we have seen how far
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE
399
this new development had progressed in the time of Dante and Petrarch.
Nevertheless, despite the illogicality of such divisions, classifications of time,
like the minor classifications of the zoologist, have utility as aids to mem-
orising and to vivid presentation of the facts of history, that make them all
but indispensable. And doubtless the popular mind at least will long cling
to the term " Renaissance " and apply it more particularly to that great final
development of the graphic arts which reached its culmination late in the
fifteenth and early in the sixteenth century and which had such exponents as
Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and their minor confreres.
It is quite impossible to attempt anything like an elaborate discussion of
the culture of this period within present spatial limits. We can at best
glance at the work of the great
central figure of the epoch,
Michelangelo, and, letting him
typify the period, content our-
selves with scarcely more than
mentioning the names of his
great contemporaries.^
THE AGE OF MICHELANGELO
But he who bears the palm
from all [says Vasari with an
enthusiasm which all posterity
has echoed], whether of the
living or the dead; he who
transcends and eclipses every
other, is the divine Michelangelo
Buonarotti, who takes the first
place, not in one of these arts
only, but in all three. This
master surpasses and excels not
only all those artists who have
well-nigh surpassed nature her-
self, but even all the most famous
masters of antiquity, who did,
beyond all doubt, vanquish her
most gloriously ; he alone has
triumphed over the later as over
the earlier, and even over Nature
herself, which one could scarcely imagine to be capable of exhibiting anything,
however extraordinary, however difficult, that he would not, by the force of his
most divine genius, and by the power of his art, design, judgment, diligence,
and grace, very far surpass and excel ; nor does this remark apply to paint-
ing and the use of colours only, wherein are, nevertheless, compromised all
corporeal forms, all bodies, direct or curved, palpable or impalpable, visible or
invisible, but to the exceeding roundness and relief of his statues also. Fos-
tered by the power of his art, and cultivated by his labours, the beautiful and
fruitful plant has already put forth many and most noble branches, which have
not only filled the world with the most delicious fruits, in unwonted profusion,
but have also brought three noble arts to so admirable a degree of perfection,
that we may safely affirm the statues of this master to be, in all their parts,
more beautiful than the antique. If the heads, hands, arms, or feet of the
MICHELANGELO
(1475-1564)
400 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
one be placed in comparison with those of the other, there will be found
in those of the modern a more exact rectitude of principle, a grace more
entirely graceful, a much more absolute perfection, in short, there is also
in the manner, a certain facility in the conquering of difficulties, than
which it is impossible even to imagine anything better ; and what is here
said applies equally to his paintings, for if it were possible to place these
face to face with those of the most famous Greeks and Romans, thus brought
into comparison, they would still further increase in value, and be esteemed
to surpass those of the ancients in as great a degree as his sculptures excel
all the antique. <*
Painting, sculpture, and architecture, with fortification, theology, and
poetry, employed by turns the universal genius of the great Florentine.
Born of a distinguished family, who reluctantly gave way to his inclination,
he was first instructed in painting : and for his study of this art as well as
of sculpture, the antiques in Florence and Rome, and the anatomy of the
human body, were actively laid under contribution. Indeed, his profound
anatomical knowledge gave at once the most prominent feature to his style
of design, and the most dangerous of the examples which he furnished to his
indiscriminating imitators ; and among his grandest figures some are exact
reproductions of the Torso of the Belvedere. The influence which this
extraordinary man exercised over every department of art, was as great in
painting as in any of his other pursuits ; but his predilection for sculpture,
assisted perhaps by other motives, diverted him from the use of the pencil,
and his works were consequently few.
He despised oil-painting, and it is doubtful whether there exists a single
genuine picture of his executed in that way. Florence contains a doubtful
piece in oils representing the Fates, and a composition of a Holy Family in
distemper, which is acknowledged to be that which he produced for Angelo
Doni. But several masterpieces, still extant, are believed to have been
painted after his designs. Rome contains two of these, — Daniele da
Volterra's Deposition from the Cross, in the church of the Trinita de' Monti,
and an Annunciation by Marco Venusti, in the sacristy of the Lateran. The
finest, however, of all the works in which his assistance has been traced, is
the oil-painting of the Raising of Lazarus, executed by the Venetian Fra
Sebastiano del Piombo, who, after acquiring great excellence in his native
school, went to Rome and studied design under Buonarroti. He was
prompted to attempt the Lazarus by his master, who desired to eclipse, by a
union of Florentine drawing with Venetian colour, the great picture of the
Transfiguration, on which Raphael was then engaged. Michelangelo
unquestionably designed the principal group in Sebastiano's piece ; and the
strength of expression, the grandeur of composition and style, and the
anatomical knowledge, favour the belief that he actually painted a great
part of it. The figure of Lazarus, seated on his coffin, assisting in disengag-
ing himself from the grave-clothes, and gazing up at the Saviour in the first
return of consciousness, amazed, grateful, and adoring, is in every respect
inspired by the patriarchal sublimity and powerful expression which belong
to the master.
But Buonarroti's genius shone forth unclouded in his immense series of
paintings in fresco, which still adorn Rome in the Sistine chapel of the
Vatican. Their history is as characteristic as the works themselves. Before
leaving Florence he had begun, and he afterwards at intervals finished, a
work which, now lost, is described as having more than any other evinced
his anatomical skill and power of expression. This was the famous cartoon
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE
401
of Pisa, figuring the Florentine soldiers bathing in the Arno and called to
arms on a sudden attack by the Pisans. In 1504 Julius II invited him
to Rome and employed him as a sculptor ; but some years later the same
pontiff ordered him to paint in fresco the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. Dis-
satisfied with his assistants he executed the whole of the immense ceiling
with his own hands, in the space of twenty months, finishing it in 1512 or
1513. The universal admiration excited by this stupendous work did not
tempt the artist to prosecute painting further ; and his next great under-
taking, the Last Judgment, which fills the end of the same chapel, was not
commenced till the pontificate of Paul III, and was completed, after eight
years' labour, in 1541. His last frescoes, the Crucifixion of Saint Peter and
the Conversion of Saint Paul, both in the Pauline chapel of the Vatican,
were the offspring of old age, and
bodily, though not mental, exhaustion.
The frescoes of the Sistine chapel
represent, from the pages of the Bible,
the outlines of the religious history
of man. The spirit which animates
them is the stern awfulness of the
Hebrew prophets ; the milder graces
of the new covenant glimmer faintly
and unfrequently through; the beauty
and repose of classicism are all but
utterly banished. The master's idea
of godhead is that of superhuman
strength in action, and the divinity
which he thus conceives he imparts
to all his figures of the human race.
The work, as a whole, is one which no
other mind must venture to imitate ;
but of those very qualities which make
it dangerous as a model in art, none
could be removed without injuring its
severe sublimity.
The ceiling is divided into numer-
ous compartments, each of which con-
tains a scene selected from the Old
Testament : — the Creator forming the
elements, the earth, the first man ; —
the creation of Eve, and the fall of
man, in which feminine grace for a
moment visits the fancy of the artist ; — the expulsion from Eden ; — the
deluge, and the subsequent history of Noah ; — the brazen serpent, the tri-
umphs of David and of Judith, and the symbolical history of Jonah. The
absorbed greatness which animates the principal figures of these groups, is
repeated in the ornamental divisions of the ceiling, where are the Sibyls, and
those unparalleled figures of the prophets, which are the highest proofs of the
painter's religious grandeur.
The Last Judgment, a colossal composition, sixty feet in height by thirty
in breadth, and embracing an almost countless number of figures, is a more
ambitious and also a more celebrated work, but is far from being so com-
pletely successful. No artist but Michelangelo could have made it what it
is ; but it might have been made much greater by him, — the painter of the
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 D
RAPHAEL
(1483-1520)
402 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
Eve, the Delphic Sibyl, the Lazarus, and the Prophets. Its faults are many ;
— an entire absence of beauty and of repose ; — vagueness and monotony of
character, which is increased by the general nudity of the figures ; — osten-
tatious display of academic attitudes and anatomy ; — and, in some promi-
nent personages, especially the Judge, an absolute meanness and grossness
of conception. The merits of this wonderful monument of genius are less
easily enumerated. Its heaven is not the heaven either of art or of religion ;
but its hell is more terribly sublime than anything which imagination ever
framed. Vast as the piece is, its composition is simple and admirable, and
nothing ever approached to its perfect unity of sentiment. Every thought
and emotion are swallowed up in one idea, — the presence of the righteous
Judge : with the exception of a single unobtrusive group composed by a
reunited wife and husband, every one in the crowd of the awakened dead
stands solitary, waiting for his doom.
Michelangelo as Sculptor
The character of this great man's sculpture was as vast, as strong, as
eagerly bent on the exhibition of science and the representation of violent
action, as were his wonderful paintings ; but the plastic art was still less
fitted than the pictorial, for being guided by these principles uncontrolled.
Though he adored the antiques for their anatomy, he was blind to their
beauty and repose : his own ideal was a ruder one, which neither his skill
nor that of any other was qualified fully to express ; and yet his vigour and
feeling do in a few instances overcome all material obstacles, leading him to
the very verge of sublimity, and not far from the true path of art.
His purest works are those of his youth, executed while his imagination
was still filled by the Grecian statues, which, with Ghirlandajo's other
pupils, he had studied in the gardens of the Medici. There is much antique
calmness in the fighting groups on the bas-relief which, preserved by the
Buonarroti family in Florence, is the earliest of his known specimens ; and
his Bacchus with the young Faun in the Uffizi, an effort of his twenty-fourth
year, possessing indifferent and somewhat inaccurate forms, approaches, in
its softly waving lines and gentleness of expression, nearer to the Greek than
any other work of its author. The Pieta of St. Peter's is characterised,
especially in the figure of the mother, by much of the same temper, which is
not lost even in the colossal David of the Florentine Piazza del Granduca.
His genius had free scope in the three greatest of his works : the Monu-
ment of Pope Julius II, and the Tombs of Julian and Lorenzo de' Medici.
The first of these, planned by the old priest himself with his characteristic
boldness and magnificence, but curtailed in its execution by the parsimony
of his heirs, furnished occupation to the artist, at intervals, during many
years. Statues merely blocked out, which were intended to belong to it, are
now in the gardens of the Pitti palace ; two slaves are in the Louvre ; the
remainder of the monument, being the only part that was finished by the
master, consists of the celebrated sitting figure of Moses, in the Roman
church of San Pietro in Vincoli. The lawgiver of the Hebrews, a massy
figure in barbaric costume, with tangled goat-like hair and beard, and horns
like Ammon or Bacchus, rests one arm on the tables of the law, looking for-
ward with an air of silent and gloomy menace. The strength of the work
is unquestionable ; its value as being, with the Victory, the most character-
istic of its author's works, is equally clear ; its sublimity admits of greater
doubt. The tombs of the two Medici, finished earlier than the Moses, are
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE
403
works of a far higher and purer strain ; being really the finest that Michel-
angelo ever produced. Upon each of the two sarcophagi rests a sitting
figure in armour, the likeness of the dead man who reposes within. On each
side of Lorenzo is a reclining statue, the one representing Twilight, the other
Dawn ; and Julian's tomb is in like manner flanked by the recumbent figures
of Night and Day. The statue of Lorenzo is a fine and simple portrait :
that of Julian has scarcely ever been surpassed for its air of dignified and
thoughtful repose. The Dawn is a majestic female ; the Twilight is a grand
male figure, looking down. The Day is unfinished, but fine — a bold male
form ; the Night is a drooping, slumbering, sad-looking female.
THE DEAD CHRIST IN THE ARMS OF THE VIRGIN
(By Andrea del Sarto, a famous Florentine contemporary of Michelangelo)
RAPHAEL
The one great rival of Michelangelo, and the one painter whom posterity
has been disposed to rank even above him in genius is Raphael. This
wonderful man was the son of an obscure painter in Urbino. He studied
under Perugino, and is believed to have profited largely also through study
of the works of Leonardo and of Michelangelo, but particularly from Nar-
caccio." To Michelangelo's cartoons as well as to his Sistine ceiling,
Raphael certainly owed deep obligations. In his twenty-sixth year, invited
by his kinsman Bramante, he migrated to Rome, where he laboured with
unwearied industry from that time till his death, which took place when he
404
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
was thirty-seven years old, and about to be raised by Leo X to the rank of
a cardinal.
Raphael found the mechanism of art nearly complete, and its application
no longer exclusively ecclesiastical. These two circumstances gave full play
to that union of powers, which his mind possessed to an unequalled extent.
Far less correct than Michelangelo in drawing and anatomy, less profound
in his study of the antique, and less capable of dealing with those loftiest
themes that may be said to hover on the very brink of impracticability, he
yet possessed knowledge of a high order, an elevated sense of sublimity and
energy within his own sphere, an extensive and felicitous invention, and a
feeling of beauty and grace which was the very purest and most divine that
art has ever boasted. The idealism of his genius was united to a perception
of character and expression, and a dramatic power of representing human
action, which he used with the happiest effect when his subject called for
their exercise. His admirers are influenced more by their own prepos-
sessions than by his peculiar merits, when they give the preference to his
Madonnas, saints, angels, or apostles, to his portraits, or to his historical and
epic compositions.
The general progress of Raphael's manner may be traced with sufficient
certainty. He appears at first as little more than the ablest pupil of Pietro ;
inspired by all the warmth and tenderness of the Perugian school, but
embarrassed by all his master's timidity and littleness. When he had become
acquainted with the bolder spirit
and the better mechanism of the
Florentines, we see how his genius
gradually extricated itself, and
how, though still guided by the
devotional temper of his youthful
models, he attained greater free-
dom both in handling and in-
vention. In his earliest works at
Rome he struggles to emerge into
a sphere wider than either of
these : his idealism is not lost,
but it is strengthened by a more
intimate acquaintance with life
and nature ; and both his fancy
and his power of observation are
rendered gradually more efficient
by an improved technical skill, by
greater ease and strength of draw-
ing, by greater mastery of colour
as well as of light and shade, and
by rapid approaches towards that
unity of conception and that
breadth of design, which ennoble
his finest works.
Till we find Raphael in Rome,
we must be contented to trace his
progress by his altar-pieces, and
two or three portraits. Of genuine
pictures belonging to this youthful period, and still in Italy, several possess
very high merit ; and one of these, — the Borghese Entombment^ — painted
TIZIANO VECBLLI TITIAN
(1477-1576)
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE 405
after the artist had nearly emancipated himself from the Umbrian trammels,
is equal to the best of his works both in expression and composition.
His great frescoes cover the walls and part of the roofs, in four of the
state-rooms belonging to the old Vatican palace. The first chamber, called
that of the Segnatura, was finished in 1511 ; and under the reign of the same
pope, Julius II, the next apartment, named, from its main subject, that of
the Heliodorus, was partly painted. After the accession of Leo X, the artist
completed that chamber, and proceeded to the third, that of the Incendio,
which he finished in 1517. For the fourth, the hall of Constantine, he left
the designs, which were painted by his surviving pupils. Under Leo he
also designed the small frescoes in the arcade called Raphael's Loggie ; and
in the same pontificate he produced the celebrated Cartoons. *
With this brief summary, and with no more than a mere mention of the
great Venetian painters, Titian and Tintoretti, and that other great contem-
porary painter Correggio, we must turn from the art of the period to catch
the barest glimpse of the two or three literary figures of the time, before
we turn back to the sweep of political events. Michelangelo himself was a
poet, but we shall not attempt to deal here with this side of the multiform
genius of that extraordinary man. Instead we shall turn to the central lit-
erary figure of the epoch, Ariosto. «
Ariosto
Lodovico Ariosto was born on the 8th of September, 1474, at Reggio, of
which place his father was governor, for the duke of Ferrara. He was
intended for the study of jurisprudence, and, like many other distinguished
poets, he experienced a long struggle between the will of his father, who was
anxious that he should pursue a profession, and his own feelings, which
prompted him to the indulgence of his genius. After five years of unprofit-
able study, his father at length consented to his devoting himself solely to
literature.
The Orlando Furioso of Ariosto is a poem universally known. It has
been translated into all the modern tongues ; and by the sole charm of its
adventures, independently of its poetry, has long been the delight of the
youth of all countries. It may therefore be taken for granted, that all the
world is aware that Ariosto undertook to sing the Paladins and their
amours at the court of Charlemagne, during the fabulous wars of this
monarch against the Moors. If it were required to assign an historical
epoch to the events contained in this poem, we must place them before the
year 778, when Orlando was slain at the battle of Roncesvalles, in an expe-
dition which Charlemagne made, before he was emperor, to defend the fron-
tiers of Spain. But it may be conjectured, that the romance writers have
confounded the wars of Charles Martel against Abd el Rahman, with those
of Charlemagne ; and have thus given rise to the traditions of the invasion
of France by the Saracens, and of those unheard-of perils, from which the
west of Europe was saved by the valour of the Paladins. Every reader
knows that Orlando, of all the heroes of Ariosto the most renowned for his
valour, became mad, through love for Angelica ; and that his madness,
which is only an episode in this long poem, has given its name to the whole
of the composition, although it is not until the twenty-third canto that
Orlando is deprived of his senses.
It does not appear that Ariosto had the intention of writing a strictly
epic poem. He had rejected the advice of Bembo, who wished him to com-
406 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
pose his poem in Latin, the only language, in the opinion of the cardinal,
worthy of a serious subject. Ariosto thought, perhaps, that an Italian poem
should necessarily be light and sportive. He scorned the adopted rules of
poetry, and proved himself sufficiently powerful to create new ones. His
work may, indeed, be said to possess an unity of subject ; the great struggle
between the Christians and the Moors, which began with the invasion of
France, and terminated with her deliverance. This was the subject which
he had proposed to himself in his argument. The lives and adventures of his
several heroes, contributed to this great action ; and were so many subordinate
episodes, which may be admitted in epic poetry, and which, in so long a
work, cannot be considered as destroying the unity.
The poem of Ariosto is, therefore, only a fragment of the history of the
knights of Charlemagne and their amours ; and it has neither beginning nor
end, further than any particular detached period may be said to possess
them. This want of unity essentially injures the interest and the general
impression which we ought to derive from the work. But the avidity with
which all nations, and all ages, have read Ariosto, even when his story is
despoiled of its poetic charms by translation, sufficiently proves that he had
the art of giving to its individual parts an interest which it does not possess
as a whole.
Machiavelli
From Ariosto we turn to his great contemporary, the illustrious secretary
of the Florentine republic, Niccolo Machiavelli, a man of profound thought,
and the most eloquent historian and most skilful politician that Italy has
produced. But a distinction less enviable has attached his name to the
infamous principles which he developed, though probably with good inten-
tions, in his treatise, entitled II Principe ; and his name is, at the present
day, allied to everything false and perfidious in politics.
Machiavelli was born at Florence, on the 3rd of May, 1469, of a family
which had enjoyed the first offices in the republic. We are not acquainted
with the history of his youth ; but at the age of thirty he entered into public
business as chancellor of the state, and from that time he was constantly
employed in public affairs, and particularly in embassies. He was sent four
times, by the republic, to the court of France ; twice to the imperial court ;
and twice to that of Rome. Among his embassies to the smaller princes of
Italy, the one of the longest duration was to Caesar Borgia, whom he nar-
rowly observed at the very important period when this illustrious villain
was elevating himself by his crimes, and whose diabolical policy he had thus
an opportunity of studying at leisure. In the midst of these grave occupa-
tions his satiric gaiety did not forsake him ; and it was at this period that
he composed his comedies, his novel of Belfagor, and some stanzas and sonnets
which are not deficient in poetical merit. He had a considerable share in
directing the councils of the republic as to arming and forming its militia ;
and he assumed more pride to himself from this advice, which liberated the
state from the yoke of the Condottieri^ than from the fame of his literary
works. The influence to which he owed his elevation in the Florentine
Republic was that of the free party which contested the power of the Medici
and at that time held them in exile. When the latter were recalled in 1512
Machiavelli was deprived of all his employs and banished. He then entered
into a conspiracy against the usurpers, which was discovered, and he was
put to the torture, but without wresting from him, by extreme agonies, any
confession which could impeach either himself or those who had confided in
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE
407
his honour. Leo X, on his elevation to the pontificate, restored him to
liberty.
Machiavelli has not, in any of his writings, testified his resentment of the
cruel treatment he experienced. He seems to have concealed it at the
bottom of his heart ; but we easily perceive that torture had not increased
his love of princes, and that he took a pleasure in painting them as he had
seen them, in a work in which he feigned to instruct them. It was, in fact,
after having lost his employs that he wrote on history and politics, with that
profound knowledge of the human heart which he had acquired in public life,
and with the habit of unweaving, in all its intricacies, the political perfidies
which then prevailed in Italy. He dedicated his treatise of the Principe, not
to Lorenzo the Magnificent, but to Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, the proud
usurper of the liberties of Florence, and of the estates of his benefactor, the
former duke of Urbino, of the house of Rovere. Lorenzo thought himself
profound when he was crafty, and energetic when he was cruel ; and Machia-
velli, in showing, in his treatise of the Principe, how an able usurper, who is
not restrained by any moral principle, may consolidate his power, gave to
the duke instructions conformable to his taste. The true object, however, of
Machiavelli could not be to secure on his throne a tyrant whom he hated, and
against whom he had conspired. Nor is it probable that he only proposed
to himself to expose to the people the maxims of tyranny in order to render
them odious; for an universal experience had, at that time, made them
known throughout all Italy, and that diabolical policy which Machiavelli
reduced to a system was, in the sixteenth century, that of all the states.
It was also at this period of his life that Machiavelli wrote his History of
Florence, dedicated to Pope Clement VII, and in which he instructed the
Italians in the art of uniting the eloquence of history with depth of reflec-
tion. He has attached himself, much less than his predecessors in the same
line, to the narration of military events. But his work, as a history of
popular passions and tumults, is a masterpiece. He was again employed in
public affairs by the pope, and was charged with the direction of the fortifi-
cations, when death deprived his country of his further services, on the 22nd
of June, 1527, three years before the termination of the Florentine Republics
FBESCOBS BY COBRBGGIO
CHAPTER
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY"
[1494-1530 A.D.]
THE period was at length arrived when Italy — which had restored intel-
lectual light to Europe, reconciled civil order with liberty, recalled youth to
the study of laws and of philosophy, created the taste for poetry and the
fine arts, revived the science and literature of antiquity, given prosperity to
commerce, manufactures, and agriculture — was destined to become the prey
of those very barbarians whom she was leading to civilisation. Her inde-
pendence must necessarily perish with her liberty, which was hitherto the
source of her grandeur and power. In a country covered with republics
three centuries before, there remained but four at the death of Lorenzo de'
Medici ; and in those, although the word " liberty " was still inscribed on
their banners, that principle of life had disappeared from their institutions.
Florence, already governed for three generations by the family of the
Medici, corrupted by their licentiousness, and rendered venal by their
wealth, had been taught by them to fear and to obey. Venice with its
jealous aristocracy, Siena and Lucca, each governed by a single caste of citi-
zens, if still republics, had no longer popular governments or republican
energy. Neither in those four cities, nor in Genoa, which had surrendered
its liberty to the Sforzas, nor in Bologna, which yielded to the Bentivoglios,
nor in any of the monarchical states, was there to be found throughout Italy
that power of a people whose every individual will tends to the public weal,
whose efforts are all combined for the public benefit and the common safety.
The princes of that country could appeal only to order and the obedience of
the subject, not to the enthusiasm of the citizen, for the protection of Italian
independence and of their own.
Immense wealth, coveted by the rest of Europe, was, it is true, always
accumulating in absolute monarchies, as well as in republics ; but if, on the
one hand, it furnished the pay of powerful armies, on the other, it aug-
mented the danger of Italy, by exciting the cupidity of its neighbours.
The number of national soldiers was very considerable; their profession
was that which led the most rapidly to distinction and fortune. Engaged
408
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 409
[1492 A.D.]
only for the duration of hostilities, and at liberty to retire every month,
instead of spending their lives in the indolence of garrisons or abandoning
the freedom of their will, they passed rapidly from one service to another,
seeking only war, and never becoming enervated by idleness. The horses
and armour of the Italian men-at-arms were reckoned superior to those of
the transalpine nations, against which they had measured themselves in
France during "the war of the public weal." The Italian captains had
made war a science, every branch of which they thoroughly knew. It was
never suspected for a moment that the soldier should be wanting in courage ;
but the general mildness of manners and the progress of civilisation had
accustomed the Italians to make war with sentiments of honour and human-
ity towards the vanquished. Ever ready to give quarter, they did not strike
a fallen enemy. Often, after having taken from him his horse and armour,
they set him free ; at least, they never demanded a ransom so enormous as
to ruin him. Horsemen who went to battle clad in steel were rarely killed
or wounded, so long as they kept their saddles. Once unhorsed, they sur-
rendered. The battle, therefore, never became murderous. The courage of
the Italian soldiers, which had accommodated itself to this milder warfare,
suddenly gave way before the new dangers and ferocity of barbarian ene-
mies. They became terror-struck when they perceived that the French
caused dismounted horsemen to be put to death by their valets, or made
prisoners only to extort from them, under the name of ransom, all they
possessed. The Italian cavalry, equal in courage and superior in military
science to the French, were for some time unable to make head against an
enemy whose ferocity disturbed their imaginations.
While Italy had lost a part of the advantages which, in the preceding
century, had constituted her security, the transalpine nations had suddenly
acquired a power which destroyed the ancient equilibrium. Up to the close
of the fifteenth century, wars were much fewer between nation and nation
than between French, Germans, or Spaniards among themselves. Even the
war between the English and the French, which desolated France for more
than a century, sprang not from enmity between two rival nations, but from
the circumstance that the kings of England were French princes, hereditary
sovereigns of Normandy, Poitou, and Guienne. Charles VII at last forced
the English back beyond sea, and reunited to the monarchy provinces which
had been detached from it for centuries. Louis XI vanquished the dukes and
peers of France who had disputed his authority ; he humbled the house of
Burgundy, which had begun to have interests foreign to France. His
young successor and son, Charles VIII, on coming of age, found himself
the master of a vast kingdom in a state of complete obedience, a brilliant
army, and large revenues ; but was weak enough to think that there was no
glory to be obtained unless in distant and chivalrous expeditions. The
different monarchies of Spain, which had long been rivals, were united by
the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon with Isabella of Castile, and by the
conquest which they jointly made of the Moorish kingdom of Granada.
Spain, forming for the first time one great power, began to exercise an influ-
ence which she had never till then claimed. The emperor Maximilian, after
having united the Low Countries and the county of Burgundy, his wife's
inheritance, to the states of Austria, which he inherited from his father,
asserted his right to exercise over the whole of Germany the imperial
authority which had escaped from the hands of his predecessors. Lastly,
the Swiss, rendered illustrious by their victories over Charles the Bold, had
begun, but since his death only, to make a traffic of their lives, and enter
410 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1492-1494 A.D.]
the service of foreign nations. At the same time, the empire of the Turks
extended along the whole shore of the Adriatic, and menaced at once Venice
and the kingdom of Naples. Italy was surrounded on all sides by powers
which had suddenly become gigantic, and of which not one had, half a
century before, given her uneasiness.
France was the first to carry abroad an activity unemployed at home,
and to make Italy feel the change which had taken place in the politics of
Europe. Its king, Charles VIII, claimed the inheritance of all the rights
of the second house of Anjou on the kingdom of
Naples. Those rights, founded on the adoption
of Louis I of Anjou by Joanna I, had never been
acknowledged by the people or confirmed by posses-
sion. For the space of a hundred and ten years
Louis I, II, and III, and Rene, the brother of the
last, made frequent but unsuccessful attempts to
mount the throne of Naples. The brother and the
daughter of Rene, Charles of Maine and Margaret
of Anjou, at last either ceded or sold those rights
to Louis XI. His son, Charles VIII, as soon as he
was of age, determined on asserting them. Eager
for glory, in proportion as his weak frame and still
weaker intellect incapacitated him for acquiring it,
he, at the age of twenty-four, resolved on treading
in the footsteps of Charlemagne and his paladins;
and undertook the conquest of Naples as the first
exploit that was to lead to the conquest of Constan-
tinople and the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre.
Charles VIII entered Italy in the month of Au-
gust, 1494, with thirty-six hundred men-at-arms or
heavy cavalry ; twenty thousand infantry, Gascons,
Bretons, and French; eight thousand Swiss, and a
formidable train of artillery. This last arm had
received in France, during the wars of Charles VII,
a degree of perfection yet unknown to the rest of
Europe. The states of upper Italy were favourable
to the expedition of the French. The duchess of
Savoy and the marchioness of Montferrat, regents
for their sons, who were under age, opened the pas-
sages of the Alps to Charles VIII. Lodovico the
Moor, regent of the duchy of Milan, recently alarmed at the demand made on
him by the king of Naples, to give up the regency to his nephew, Giovanni
Galeazzo, then of full age, and married to a Neapolitan princess, had himself
called the French into Italy ; and to facilitate their conquest of the kingdom
of Naples, opened to them all the fortresses of Genoa which were dependent
on him. The republic of Venice intended to remain neutral, reposing in its
own strength, and made the duke of Ferrara and the marquis of Mantua,
its neighbours, adopt the same policy; but southern Italy formed for its
defence a league, comprehending the Tuscan republics, the states of the
church, and the kingdom of Naples.
At Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici left three sons ; of whom Piero II, at
the age of twenty- one, was named chief of the republic. His grandfather,
Piero I, son of Cosmo, oppressed with infirmities and premature old age,
had shown little talent, and no capacity for the government of a state.
AN ITALIAN PEASANT
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 411
[1492-1494 A.D.]
Piero II, on the contrary, was remarkable for his bodily vigour and address ;
but he thought only of shining at festivals, tilts, and tournaments. It was
said that he had given proofs of talent in his literary studies, that he spoke
with grace and dignity ; but in his public career he proved himself arrogant,
presumptuous, and passionate. He determined on governing the Florentines
as a master, without disguising the yoke which he imposed on them ; not
deigning to trouble himself with business, he transmitted his orders by his
secretary, or some one of his household, to the magistrates.
Piero de' Medici remained faithful to the treaty which his father had
made with Ferdinand, king of Naples, and engaged to refuse the French a
free passage, if they attempted to enter southern Italy by Tuscany. The
republics of Siena and Lucca, too feeble to adopt an independent policy,
promised to follow the impulse given by Medici. In the states of the
church, Rodrigo Borgia had succeeded to Innocent VIII, on the llth of
August, 1492, under the name of Alexander VI. He was the richest of the
cardinals, and at the same time the most depraved in morals, and the most
perfidious as a politician. The marriage of one of his sons (for he had
several) with a natural daughter of Alfonso, son of Ferdinand, had put the
seal to his alliance with the reigning house of Naples. That house then
appeared at the summit of prosperity. Ferdinand, though seventy years of
age, was still vigorous : he was rich, he had triumphed over all his enemies ;
he passed for the most able politician in Italy. His two sons, Alfonso and
Frederick, and his grandson, Ferdinand, were reputed skilful warriors ; they
had an army and a numerous fleet under their orders. However, Ferdinand
dreaded a war with France, and he had just opened negotiations to avoid it
when he died suddenly, on the 25th of January, 1494. His son, Alfonso II,
succeeded him ; while Frederick took command of the fleet, and the young
Ferdinand that of the army, destined to defend Romagna against the
French.
It was by Pontremoli and the Lunigiana that Charles VIII, according to
the advice of Lodovico the Moor, resolved to conduct his army into southern
Italy. This road traversing the Apennines from Parma to Pontremoli, over
poor pasture lands, and descending through olive groves to the sea, the
shore of which it follows at the foot of the mountains, was not without
danger. The country produces little grain of any kind. Corn was brought
from abroad, at a great expense, in exchange for oil. The narrow space be-
tween the sea and the mountains was defended by a chain of fortresses,
which might long stop the army on a coast where it would have experienced
at the same time famine and the pestilential fever of Pietrasanta. Piero de'
Medici, upon learning that the French were arrived at Sarzana, and perceiv-
ing the fermentation which the news of their approach excited at Florence,
resolved to imitate that act of his father which he had heard the most
praised — his visit to Ferdinand at Naples. He departed to meet Charles
VIII. On his road he traversed a field of battle, where three hundred
Florentine soldiers had been cut to pieces by the French, who had refused to
give quarter to a single one. Seized with terror, on being introduced to
Charles, he, on the first summons, caused the fortresses of Sarzana and Sar-
zanello to be immediately surrendered. He afterwards gave up those of
Librafratta, Pisa, and Livorno (Leghorn), consenting that Charles should
garrison and keep them until his return from Italy, or until peace was
signed, and thus establishing the king of France in the heart of Tuscany.
It was contrary to the wish of the Florentines that Medici had engaged in
hostilities against the French, for whom they entertained an hereditary
412 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1494 A.D.]
attachment ; but the conduct of the chief of the state, who, after having
drawn them into a war, delivered their fortresses, without authority, into
the hands of the enemy whom he had provoked, appeared as disgraceful as
it was criminal.
Piero de' Medici, after this act of weakness, quitted Charles, to return
in haste to Florence, where he arrived on the 8th of November, 1494. On
his preparing, the next day, to visit the signoria, he found guards at the door
of the palace, who refused him admittance. Astonished at this opposition,
he returned home, to put himself under the protection of his brother-in-law,
Paolo Orsini, a Roman noble, whom he had taken, with a troop of cavalry,
into the pay of the republic. Supported by Orsini, the three brothers Medici
rapidly traversed the streets, repeating the war-cry of their family, " Palle !
Palle!" — without exciting a single movement of the populace, upon whom
they reckoned, in their favour. The friends of liberty, the Piagnoni, on the
other hand, excited by the exhortations of Savonarola, assembled, and took
arms. Their number continually increased. The Medici, terrified, left the
city by the gate of San Gallo, traversed the Apennines, retired first to
Bologna, then to Venice, and thus lost, without a struggle, a sovereignty
which their family had already exercised sixty years. The same day, the
19th of November, 1494, on which the Medici were driven out of Florence,
the Florentines were driven out of Pisa.<*
CHARLES VIII ; HIS AEMY (1494 A.D.)
The French army was now ready to march on Florence. It consisted of
thirty-six hundred men-at-arms; six thousand foot-archers from Brittany;
six thousand crossbowmen from the central provinces ; eight thousand Gas-
con infantry, at that time the most esteemed in France; all armed with
arquebuses and two-handed swords ; and eight thousand Swiss or German
pikemen and halberdiers. An immense number of attendants followed and
increased this splendid force which was led by the king, the duke of Orleans,
afterwards Louis XII, the duke of Vendome; the count of Montpensier;
Louis de Ligne, lord of Luxemburg ; Louis de la Tremouille and other great
seigniors ; besides the seneschal of Beaucaire, Brigonnet, bishop of St. Malo,
both confidential advisers of Charles ; and, though last not least, his father's
old and faithful counsellor Philip de Comines, lord of Argenton, who has left
so interesting and instructive a history of his own times to posterity. The
French man-at-arms or lance (a name which seems to have been gradually
dropped in Italy after the disappearance of transalpine condottieri by whom it
was introduced) consisted of six horsemen, of which two were archers ; they
were nearly all French subjects, and all gentlemen, who were neither enrolled
nor removed at the general's pleasure nor paid by him as in Italy, but
received their salary direct from the crown. Their squadrons were always
maintained complete, and every man was well equipped both with arms and
horses, for their circumstances were equal to it, and there was a good
spirit and an honourable emulation to distinguish themselves not only for
the sake of glory but promotion ; and the same spirit existed among the
leaders and generals, who were all lords and barons or of illustrious family
and nearly all native Frenchmen. None of the subordinate chiefs com-
manded more than a hundred lances, and when these were complete they
looked only to glory and promotion, which were pursued with a singular
devotion to the king whom they considered the source of both. The result
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 413
[1494 A.D.]
of this spirit and this equality was a steadiness in their service, an absence of
any desire, whether from avarice or ambition, to change their masters,
and a similar absence of any rivalry with other captains for a larger com-
mand.
All this differed from the Italian army in which the men-at-arms were at
this time principally composed of the lower ranks of society, of strangers
from other states, the subjects of other princes ; all depending on the con-
dottieri, with whom they agreed for their salary and by them alone was it paid,
yet without any generous stimulus to honour, glory, or good service — but
on the contrary the certainty of an unfeeling dismissal when no longer
wanted. The generals themselves were
rarely the subjects of those they served
and frequently had different ends and in-
terests, which were sometimes even directly
inimical. Amongst them there was abun-
dance of hatred and rivalry and consequent
absence of discipline : nor had they always
a prefixed period of service; wherefore
being entire masters of their troops they
left their numbers incomplete, though paid
for ; defrauded their employers ; demanded
shameful contributions from them in emer-
gencies, and then tired of the service, or
stimulated by ambition or avarice or some
other temptation they were not only fickle
but unfaithful. Nor was there less differ-
ence in the infantry of France and Italy ;
the latter fought in compact and well-
ordered battalions, but scattered over the
country and taking advantage of its banks
and ditches and all its local peculiarities.
The Swiss in French pay on the contrary
combated in large masses of an invariable
number of rank and file, and never break-
ing this order they presented themselves
like a strong, solid, and almost unconquer-
able wall where there was sufficient space
to deploy their battalions; with similar
discipline and similar order did the French
and Gascon infantry fight, but not with
equal bravery. In their ordnance however
the French were far superior to the Italians and sent so great a quantity
both of battering and field artillery to Genoa for this war, and of so superior
a nature, that the Italian officers were astonished. Hitherto in Italy this
warlike arm whether used in the field or fortress had been of a very cum-
brous construction ; the largest were denominated bombarde and were made
both of brass and iron, but of great size — difficult of transport, difficult
to place, and difficult to discharge ; much time was consumed in loading ;
a long interval passed after every round ; and the effect in general was
comparatively trifling with reference to the time and labour employed,
there being always a sufficient interval after each discharge for the garrison
to repair the damage at their leisure. The French had already cast much
lighter pieces of brass ordnance to which they seem to be the first who gave
AN ITALIAN OF THE MEDDLE CLASS,
FIFTEENTH CENTURY
414 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1494 A.D.]
the name of cannon, and used iron shot instead of stone balls : these were
placed on lighter carriages, and instead of bullocks as in Italy, they were
drawn by horses and kept pace with the army. They were placed in battery
with a rapidity that astonished the Italians, and their fire was so quick and
well-directed that what had previously been many days' work amongst the
latter was accomplished in a few hours by the Frenchmen; so that this
alone made their army formidable to all Italy independent of their native
ferocity and valour. «
Charles VIII, on receiving from Piero de' Medici the fortresses of Libra-
fratta, Pisa, and Livorno, in the Pisan states, engaged to preserve to the Flor-
entines the countries within the range of these fortresses, and to restore them
at the conclusion of the war. But Charles had very confused notions of the
rights of a country into which he carried war, and was by no means scrupu-
lous as to keeping his word. When a deputation of Pisans represented to
him the tyranny under which they groaned, and solicited from him the lib-
erty of their country, he granted their request without hesitation, without
even suspecting that he disposed of what was not his, or that he broke his
word to the Florentines ; he equally forgot every other engagement with them.
Upon entering Florence, on the 17th of November, at the head of his army,
he regarded himself as a conqueror, and therefore as dispensed from every
promise which he had made to Piero de' Medici — he hesitated only between
restoring his conquest to Piero, or retaining it himself. The magistrates in
vain represented to him that he was the guest of the nation, and not its mas-
ter ; that the gates had been opened to him as a mark of respect, not from
any fear ; that the Florentines were far from feeling themselves conquered,
whilst the palaces of Florence were occupied not only by the citizens but by
the soldiers of the republic. Charles still insisted on disgraceful conditions,
which his secretary read as his ultimatum. Piero Capponi suddenly snatched
the paper from the secretary's hand, and tearing it, exclaimed, " Well, if it
be thus, sound your trumpets, and we will ring our bells ! " This energetic
movement daunted the French ; Charles declared himself content with the
subsidy offered by the republic, and engaged on his part to restore as soon as
he had accomplished the conquest of Naples, or signed peace, or even con-
sented to a long truce, all the fortresses which had been delivered to him by
Medici. Charles after this convention departed from Florence, by the road
to Siena, on the 28th of November. The Neapolitan army evacuated Ro-
magna, the patrimony of St. Peter, and Rome, in succession, as he advanced.
He entered Rome on the 31st of December, without fighting a blow.d
Some very interesting details of the king's entry into Rome and his recep-
tion there by the pope have been preserved to us in a diary kept by one John
Burchard, " master of ceremonies of the chapel of Pope Alexander VI." A
few extracts from this diary are here given :
Charles VIII in Rome : A Contemporary Account
From the diary of John Burchard, master of ceremonies of the chapel of
Pope Alexander VI (1494-1495). " Book of notes collected by me, John
Burchard of Strasburg, protonotary of the apostolic see, etc."
The 19th and 21st, 22nd and 23rd of December the troops of the king of
France made excursions as far as San Lazaro and across the meadows which
surround the castle of St. Angelo. They had even formed the plan of seiz-
ing Rome by treachery at night in one direction, while the Colonna would
enter from another with the aid of a thousand Frenchmen who were to come
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 415
down the river from the environs of Ostia ; but a high wind so disturbed
their intentions that they could not put them into execution. They wished,
in truth, to enter the city by the Porto San Paolo, fire, pillage it, and commit
a thousand other atrocities, and the author of the project was, they say, Car-
dinal Gurck, who himself would have come to the gate of the city, had not
the fierce storm compelled him to go back.
This same cardinal was one of the principal abettors of the king of
France's march upon Rome. He had, in fact, decided the inhabitants of
Aquapendente and other lands of the church to grant passage to the king
of France, by vaunting the liberality and affability of that prince and of the
French in general ; he assured them that the French would take nothing
without paying for it, not even a fowl, an egg, or the slightest thing, affirm-
ing also that our holy father had promised the king he would let him
cross the estates of the church. By such discourse and similar he induced
the people to let the king of France and his troops in, contrary to the pope's
express wish. And to prove to the German officials who were in the city
that he was looking after their interests, he wrote an open letter which he
caused to be distributed among the most prominent of them in the city :
To our brothers and friends the prelates and other dignitaries of the German nation and
the estates of the Most Illustrious Archduke Philip : residents of this city :
We call on God who sounds all hearts and loins to witness that we have made every
effort with the Most Christian King, as well in the name of our Sovereign Pontiff and in our
own, to induce friendship and good feeling between the Pope and the King; nevertheless we
have not as yet been able to succeed ; we do not know to whom to attribute the fault, but it
certainly is not to the King of France who has no other desires than to conduct himself as a
submissive son towards the Sovereign Pontiff and the Holy See according to the example of
his predecessors. Doubtless the principal obstacle to this arrangement comes from the gravity
of our offences towards God, and if he does not let Himself be appeased by the prayers of
pious souls, this alliance and the consequent peace between Christian princes cannot take
place. In any case as it is to be feared that the troops of the Most Christian King and his
allies will in a few days invade the city, if the enemies, which the King has in Rome, oppose
the ratification of the above mentioned agreement. I have used my influence with the Prince
that his troops may cause no harm to foreigners, to whatever nation they may belong, resid-
ing for the moment in Rome, at least unless they are found in arms against his Majesty. In
consequence, the King wishes and directs that all subjects of the Most Serene King of the
Romans, and the Most Illustrious Prince, Archduke of Austria, be not treated by his troops
with less respect than his own subjects and all the Roman citizens. To this effect he has
sent me to my Lord Count of Montpensier, his relative and lieutenant-general, to let him
know on the part of the King that he must take measures to prevent the troops from com-
mitting any outrage or annoyance upon the above mentioned residents of Rome and espe-
cially upon the Most Reverend Cardinals, foreigners of all nations, Roman citizens, and
finally the subjects of the Emperor and the Archduke.
I have wished to make known to you this determination that in case (from which God
preserve us) of the King's troops entering Rome in arms, you would be informed of his Most
Christian Majesty's good intentions ; if you would protect the more easily your persons and
your property, I advise you in case of tumult, to take refuge, with the permission of the
Lord Secretary, the Cardinal of Lyons, in my palace ; I am writing at the moment to the
said Secretary to ask that he be pleased to give you this shelter ; indeed I have not forgotten
that God created me out of nothing, that He raised me to the dignity and responsibilities of
the Cardinalate, at the prayers of the King of the Romans and the electors of the Empire.
This is why, as long as I shall live, I shall force myself, through gratitude, to render ser-
vice to the Emperor, the Archduke Philip, and all their subjects with the same devotion as
if I were born in their states. Adieu, dearly beloved brethren. Pray God to hear our desires
which are for universal peace among all Christians and universal war against the Turks.
Fonnello, 23rd Dece-nbe, Your friend anther, ^
December 25th, feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the most
reverend cardinal Mont-Real, who was to say high mass, was appointed by
416 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1494 A.D.]
the holy father, on receipt of what had been learned of the king of France's
intentions concerning his entry into Rome, to go to that prince and beg him
to send one of his men who would consult with the pope as to the manner in
which he would make his entry. The morning of the same day our holy
father the pope before going to his chapel called all the cardinals, with the
exception of the cardinal of Alessandria who was to say mass, together in the
hall known as Papagallo, and announced the arrival of the king of France,
in the presence of the duke of Calabria.
On Friday the 26th of the same month, our holy father betook himself to
the large chapel of the palace where he received the king's ambassadors who,
to the number of three, had been sent the night previous. They were : the
RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF VENUS, ROME
grand marshal of the realm, Messire Jean de Gannay first president of the
parliament of Paris, and one other — all laymen. I caused them to be placed
— the grand marshal on the steps of the pontifical throne, in front and above
the senator ; the two others on the bench of the lay ambassadors, where were
seated two ambassadors from the king of Naples, who, refusing to recognise
the new-comers on pretext that they knew nothing of their characters as
ambassadors, got up and left the place ; but on the information I gave them
by special order of the pope that they were ambassadors of the king of
France, they came back to their bench and yielded the point. The king's
envoys were accompanied by a large number of Frenchmen, several of whom,
forgetting all decorum, tried to place themselves close to the prelates and
even in their seats. I was obliged to make them get out and assign them
more suitable positions. Whereupon the pope called me to him and said in
great irritation that I was compromising his interests, that the French must
be let place themselves where they wished ; I replied to his holiness, who
thus let himself be carried away a little, that his wish being known to me I
would let them place themselves where they wished without making any
observation.
Wednesday December 31st, at early morning, I set out on horseback by
order of our holy father the pope to meet the king of France, to inform him
of the order of his reception according to the ceremonial, to learn his wishes
and execute all that his majesty would prescribe for me : I was accompanied
by the reverend father in Jesus Christ, the lord Bartolommeo, bishop of Nepi,
the pope's secretary ; by Lord Jerome Porcario, auditor of the Rote, by the
dean Coronato de Planca ; and by Marius Milorius, Christopher Buzolus,
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 417
[1494^1495 A.D.]
chancellor of Rome, and Jacob de Sinibaldis — Roman citizens. At Galera,
two miles from the city, we met the most reverend cardinals of San Pietro
in Vincoli, Gurck and Savelli, to whom I made homage without descending
from my horse. A short time after we came upon the king to whom we
made our respectful salutations, but still remained on horseback on account
of the mud and the bad weather.
The bishop of Nepi having explained to the king what the holy father
charged him with saying touching the prince's reception, on my side I made
known to his majesty the object of our errand. The king replied that he
desired to enter Rome without pomp ; he then listened to Lord Jerome
Porcario who spoke on behalf of his Roman colleagues, placing the citizens
and all they possessed at the king's disposition. The king made a short
reply without explaining what he was going to do about the offer Porcario
had just made him. The Romans withdrew. On the king's invitation
I accompanied him for the space of about four miles ; he questioned me on
the ceremonial, the pope, and the cardinals, of Valentino's (Cesare Borgia)
rank and position, plying his questions so that I could scarce answer one
satisfactorily. In the outskirts of Burghetto two Venetian ambassadors
presented themselves before the king ; they were soon followed by the most
reverend cardinal Ascagni, who, without descending from his mule, uncov-
ered himself before the king ; the prince did the same to the cardinal ; both
then resumed their headgear, arid the most reverend cardinal Ascagni rode
on the king's left hand and accompanied him over the Milvian bridge and as
far as the palace of St. Mark, ordinary residence of the most reverend cardi-
nal of Benevento. We arrived there towards the second hour of the night,
over roads deep with mud. From the palace of the most reverend cardinal
of Lisbon, close to the church of San Laurentio, to the palace of St. Mark
the whole route was lighted up with fires, torches, and candles, and from
nearly all the houses came shouts of "Francia! Francia! Columna! Columna!
Vincula! Vincula!"
This same day before the king's entry into Rome, the keys of all the city
gates were delivered into the hands of the grand marshal of the king of
France, according to the command of that prince and with the pope's consent.
The French said in fact, and indeed it was quite true, that on a former occa-
sion the keys had been similarly turned over to the duke of Calabria during
his visit to Rome, and that the king of France should have the same rights.
The following days, all the most reverend cardinals residing in Rome visited
the king of France in turn, according to custom, except the cardinals of
Naples and of Orsini, who, lodged in the apostolic palace in apartments
which the holy father had assigned them, did not leave the palace and make
this visit. Before his entry I had informed the king on the way that, in
receiving the cardinals' visits, he should himself go forward to meet them,
conduct them to the door on leaving, give them his hand, and I instructed
him in other similar customs. But he acted entirely differently. He neither
went forward to meet them nor conducted them to the door ; the members of
his suite did not pay the respects expected of them. The nearest courtyard
to the king's apartments in the palazzo San Marco was strewn with straw
and not even cleaned ; candles were fastened to the doors and chimney
places — in fact, one would have thought himself in a pig pen.
Saturday, January 3rd, the partisans of the Colonna and the French
wrecked the residences of the most reverend cardinal of Naples' nephew, of
Jacob de Comititibus' son, and of Lord Bartolommeo de Lucca, valet-de-
chambre of our holy father the pope. The French, that they might lodge
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2E
418 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1495 A.D.]
themselves in their own fashion, forced an entrance into the houses from all
sides, threw out even beasts and movables, burned the woodwork, and ate and
drank their fill without paying for anything, all of which caused great talk
among the people. In consequence of this, the king of France caused an
order to be published all over the city forbidding the entering of houses by
force under penalty of death. Monday, January 5th, pontifical vespers were
said in the great chapel of the palace and in the pope's presence. Before
his holiness left the Papagallo chamber several Frenchmen were admitted to
kiss his foot.
Sunday, January llth, it was agreed between our holy father the pope and
Philip de Bresse, the king of France's uncle, that his holiness would deliver
for six months the sultan Djem, brother of the Grand Turk, to the king of
France, who would at once pay twenty thousand ducats to the pope and
would pledge himself, under the security of the Florentine and Venetian mer-
chants, to return the same sultan Djem to the pope immediately the six months
had expired ; the king of France could receive the crown of Naples without
prejudice to the right of any others ; and that the cardinals of San Pietro in
Vincoli, Gurck, Savelli, and Colonna would be safe from all reproach.
Sunday, January 18th, the holy father sent for me by one of the pages
and told me that the next day a public consistory would be held to receive
the king of France. According to the wishes of his holiness, I arranged
that the president of the parliament of Paris should say a few words in the
king's name, a speech in which his majesty would recognise his holiness the
pope as the true vicar and successor of St. Peter. The holy father further
made known to me his intention of saying mass pontifically and publicly in
the basilica of St. Peter on the following Tuesday, the feast of St. Sebastian,
in honour of the king, asking me what place the prince should occupy and
which mass to celebrate. He counted, in fact, on saying the mass of the
Holy Ghost, the office of which he knew best. I replied to his holiness that
the mass to celebrate was that of St. Sebastian; and as for the king he
would occupy a special seat placed in front of the cardinals' bench, between
that bench and the chair of the cardinal of Naples, who would assist. As
a matter of fact, it was not the cardinal's duty to fulfil that function on
this day ; but there was no objection to his doing so, as it was the custom
to assist his holiness on all days when he was not familiar with the office.
While we were conversing, the king of France arrived at the pontifical
palace ; the pope, informed of his coming, went to meet him at the palace
entrance. The pope wore a white camail, a rich stole, and white cap, a
costume scarcely suitable under the circumstances. His majesty came to
settle definitely with the pope the articles of agreement already concluded
and signed, upon which a difference had already risen between them con-
cerning the securities to be given by the king for the return of the Turk
at the end of six months.
The agreement stated, in effect, that the king would furnish several
nobles and prelates of his realm of the pope's choosing, for security ; the
president claimed that this clause must be limited to ten persons only, while
the pope demanded thirty or forty. The discussion on this point was pro-
longed for three or four hours ; finally the pope entered an apartment in
which two papal chairs had been placed, followed by the king, whom he made
sit in one of these chairs, after which he seated himself in the other, on
the king's right. On the pope's side were the cardinals of St. Anastasia and
St. Alessandria. On the king's side, the most reverend cardinals of St. Denis
and St. Malo, the two papal secretaries, the datary, and several others.
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 419
[1495 A.D.]
The articles of agreement were read and agreed to. Two notaries were
called in — namely, the noble Stephen de Harnia for the pope, and the noble
Oliver Yvan, clerk of Mans, for the king. These wrote out the treaty in
French for his majesty, and in Latin for his holiness.
Monday, January 19th, the great hall of the apostolic palace was arranged
in the usual manner for the public consistory, at which the reception of the
king of France and the ceremony of obedience were to take place.
The king placed himself on the left of the sovereign pontiff, and I
motioned him to pronounce the formula of obedience. He said that he was
going to do it immediately; but at that moment the president of the parlia-
ment of Paris advanced to the pope's feet and, kneeling, explained that the
king had come in person to take the oath of obedience ; but before doing so
he wished to obtain three favours from his holiness, according to the custom-
ary privilege of vassals before the oath or homage of their obedience. He
asked the confirmation of the rights granted to him the most Christian king,
the queen his spouse, to the dauphin his son, and to all the others included in
the book whose title he mentioned ; next, the investiture of the kingdom of
Naples for himself ; and, finally, the annulling of the clause concerning the
security to guarantee the return of the Grand Turk's brother to the pope —
an article agreed to the day before with the others. The pope replied that
he willingly confirmed the privileges which were the subject of the first
demand, as they had been established by custom ; but as for the investiture
of the kingdom of Naples, since that was an affair in which another was
interested, it could not be decided until after mature deliberation and con-
sultation with the cardinals, among whom he would make every effort that
his majesty should receive the satisfaction he desired ; and as regards Djem
— the Grand Turk's brother — he desired to agree unanimously with the king
and the sacred college, hoping that there would be no point of difference
between them concerning that article. After receiving this reply the king,
who was standing on the pope's left, pronounced the following words :
" Holy father, I have come to make obedience and reverence to your holi-
ness in the manner that my predecessors the kings of France have done."
After which the president, of whom we have spoken and who remained
on his knees, got up and, standing before his holiness, enlarged in these
words upon what the king had just said :
" Most holy father, there is an ancient custom among Christian princes,
especially the most Christian kings, to testify through their ambassadors to
their veneration for the holy see and for the popes whom the Almighty has
put at the head of the church ; but the king here present, having formed the
design of visiting the tomb of the holy apostles, has come in person to per-
form this duty. Thus he recognises you, holy father, as the head of all the
faithful, as the true vicar of Jesus Christ and as the legitimate successor of
the holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, willingly granting you that filial
obedience which the kings of France, his predecessors, were accustomed to
profess to the popes. This is why the king offers himself and all dependent
on him to the service of your holiness and of the holy see."
Tuesday, January 27th, the sultan Djem, brother of the Grand Turk, was
taken from the castle of St. Angelo to the palace of St. Mark and delivered
into the hands of the king of France.
Wednesday, January 28th, the king of France and his people, all in arms,
visited the pope, with whom the king of France remained alone for some time.
He then withdrew, and was escorted by the pope as far as the gallery leading
to the main apartments, where the king knelt and uncovered. The pope
420 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1495 A.D.]
likewise bared his head in order to embrace him ; the king pretended
to wish to kiss the pope's feet, but he would not allow it. The king de-
parted and mounted the horse that was waiting for him at the entrance of
the private garden, where he waited some time for Cardinal Valentino who
was going with him to Naples ; finally the latter, after taking leave of the
pope, came to the place where the king was waiting, mounted his mule in
cardinal's robes, and presented the king with six superb horses. The king
then started with Cardinal Valentino on his left ; the other cardinals,
whose escort the king did not wish for, retired. The king made straight
for Marino, where he arrived during the course of the day. The cardinals
of San Pietro in Vincoli, Savelli, and Colonna, and the auditor of the cham-
ber also left Rome with the king. During the evening Cardinal Gurck
followed the king. The Grand Turk's brother had already left for Marino./
Charles goes to Naples
The first resistance which Charles encountered was on the frontiers of the
kingdom of Naples ; and having there taken by assault two small towns, he
massacred the inhabitants. This instance of ferocity struck Alfonso II with
such terror, that he abdicated the crown in favour of his son, Ferdinand II,
and retired with his treasure into Sicily. Ferdinand occupied Capua with
his whole army, intending to defend the passage of the Volturno. He left
that city to appease a sedition which had broken out at Naples ; Capua,
during his absence, was given up through fear to the French, and he was
himself forced, on the 21st of February, to embark for Ischia. All the
barons, his vassals, all the provincial cities, sent deputations to Charles ;
and the whole kingdom of Naples was conquered without a single battle in
its defence. The powers of the north of Italy regarded these important
conquests with a jealous eye ; they, moreover, were already disgusted by the
insolence of the French, who had begun to conduct themselves as masters
throughout the whole peninsula. The duke of Orleans, who had been left by
Charles at Asti, already declared his pretensions to the duchy of Milan, as heir
to his grandmother, Valentina Visconti. Lodovico Sforza, upon this, con-
tracted alliances with the Venetians, the pope, the king of Spain, and the em-
peror Maximilian, for maintaining the independence of Italy ; and the duke
of Milan and the Venetians assembled near Parma a powerful army, under
the command of the marquis of Mantua.
Charles VIII had passed three months at Naples in feasts and tourna-
ments, while his lieutenants were subduing and disorganising the provinces.
The news of what was passing in northern Italy determined him on return-
ing to France with the half of his army. He departed from Naples, on the
20th of May, 1495, and passed peaceably through Rome, whilst the pope
shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. From Siena he went to Pisa,
and thence to Pontremoli, where he entered the Apennines. Gonzaga, mar-
quis of Mantua, awaited him at Fornovo, on the other side of that chain of
mountains. Charles passed the Taro, with the hope of avoiding him ; but
was attacked on its borders by the Italians, on the 6th of July. He was at
the time in full march ; the divisions of his army were scattered, and at
some distance from each other. For some time his danger was imminent ;
but the impetuosity of the French, and the obstinate valour of the Swiss,
repaired the fault of their general. A great number of the Italian men-at-
arms were thrown in the charges of the French cavalry, many others were
brought down by the Swiss halberds, and all were instantly put to death by
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 421
[1495-1496 A.D.]
the servants of the army. Gonzaga left thirty-five hundred dead on the field,
and Charles continued his retreat. On his arrival at Asti, he entered into
treaty with Lodovico Sforza, for the deliverance of the duke of Orleans,
whom Sforza besieged at Novara. He disbanded twenty thousand Swiss,
who were brought to him from the mountains, but to whose hands he would
not venture to confide himself. On the 22nd of October, 1495, he repassed
the Alps, after having ravaged all Italy with the violence and rapidity of a
hurricane. He had left his relative, Gilbert de Montpensier, viceroy at
Naples, with the half of his army ; but the people, already wearied with his
yoke, recalled Ferdinand II. The French, after many battles, successively
lost their conquests, and were at length forced to capitulate at Aversa
(Atella), on the 23rd of July, 1496.
The invasion of the French not only spread terror from one extremity of
Italy to the other, but changed the whole policy of that country, by render-
ing it dependent upon that of the transalpine nations. While Charles VIII
pretended to be the legitimate heir of the kingdom of Naples, the duke of
Orleans, who succeeded him under the name of Louis XII, called himself
heir to the duchy of Milan. Maximilian, ambitious as he was inconsistent,
claimed in the states of Italy prerogatives to which no emperor had pre-
tended since the death of Frederick II in 1250. The Swiss had learned, at
the same time, that at the foot of their mountains there lay rich and feeble
cities which they might pillage, and a delicious climate, which offered all the
enjoyments of life ; they saw neighbouring monarchs ready to pay them for
exercising there their brigandage. Finally, Ferdinand and Isabella, mon-
archs of Aragon and Castile, announced their intention of defending the
bastard branch of the house of Aragon, which reigned at Naples. But,
already masters of Sicily, they purposed passing the strait and were secretly
in treaty with Charles VIII, to divide with him the spoils of the relative
whom they pretended to defend. Amidst these different pretensions and
intrigues, in which Italian interests had no longer any share, the spirit of
liberty revived in Tuscany once more, but only to exhaust itself in a new
struggle between the Florentines and Pisans. The French garrisons
which Charles had left in Pisa and Librafratta, instead of delivering them
to the Florentines, according to his order, had given them up to the Pisans
themselves on the 1st of January, 1496. The allies, who had fought Charles
at Fornovo, reproached the Florentines with their attachment to that mon-
arch, and took part against them with the Pisans. Lodovico Sforza, and the
Venetians, sent reinforcements to the latter, and the emperor Maximilian
himself brought them aid. Thus, the only Italians who had at heart the
honour and independence of Italy exhausted themselves in unequal strug-
gles and in fruitless attempts.^
FLORENTINE AFFAIRS ; SAVONAROLA
The Florentine Republic was the only friendly power that Charles had
left in Italy ; a friendship, though false, in every way important and almost
indispensable to France in the prosecution of her Italian conquests, but
equally so to Florence as her widest and richest field of commerce. Yet so
far from trying to conciliate the latter, that monarch not only broke his oath
and retained her fairest possessions, but left his wildest soldiers to protect
her revolted subjects ; his Gascon infantry, when unchecked by the royal
presence, and imbued with all the Pisan hatred of Florence, carried on their
422 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1494 A.D.]
warlike operations in a spirit of barbarity as yet unknown to the Italians.
Among other excesses they fancied that the Florentines swallowed their
gold and jewels before every encounter in order to preserve something if
taken prisoners ; wherefore all their suspected captives were killed and
ripped open to make a thorough search for those embo welled treasures : for
such cruelty, however, they paid full dearly when made prisoners at Ponte
di Sacco, in despite of every effort of the Florentine commissaries. «
At the moment when Florence expelled the Medici, that republic was
bandied between three different parties. The first was that of the enthu-
siasts, directed by Girolamo
Savonarola; who promised the
miraculous protection of the Di-
vinity for the reform of the
church and the establishment
of liberty. These demanded a
democratic constitution — they
were called the Piagnoni. The
second consisted of men who
had shared power with the Me-
dici, but who had separated
from them ; who wished to pos-
sess alone the powers and profits
of government, and who endeav-
oured to amuse the people by
dissipations and pleasures, in
order to establish at their ease
an aristocracy — these were
called the Arabia ti. The third
party was composed of men who
remained faithful to the Medici,
but not daring to declare them-
selves, lived in retirement —
they were called Bigi. These
three parties were so equally
balanced in the balia named by
the parliament, on the 2nd of
December, 1494, that it soon
became impossible to carry on
the government. Girolamo Savonarola took advantage of this state of
affairs to urge that the people had never delegated their power to a balia
which did not abuse the trust. " The people," he said, " would do much
better to reserve this power to themselves, and exercise it by a council,
into which all the citizens should be admitted." His proposition was agreed
to : more than eighteen hundred Florentines furnished proof that either they,
their fathers, or their grandfathers had sat in the magistracy ; they were
consequently acknowledged citizens, and admitted to sit in the general
council. This council was declared sovereign, on the 1st of July, 1495 ; it
was invested with the election of magistrates, hitherto chosen by lot, and a
general amnesty was proclaimed, to bury in oblivion all the ancient dissen-
sions of the Florentine Republic.
So important a modification of the constitution seemed to promise this
republic a happier futurity. The friar Savonarola, who had exercised such
influence in the council, evinced at the same time an ardent love of man-
SAVONAROLA
(From an old print)
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 423
[1494-1498 A.D.]
kind, deep respect for the rights of all, great sensibility, and an elevated
mind. Though a zealous reformer of the church, and in this respect a pre-
cursor of Luther, who was destined to begin his mission twenty years later,
he did not quit the pale of orthodoxy ; he did not assume the right of
examining doctrine ; he limited his efforts to the restoration of discipline,
the reformation of the morals of the clergy, and the recall of priests, as well
as other citizens, to the practice of the Gospel precepts : but his zeal was
mixed with enthusiasm ; he believed himself under the immediate inspira-
tion of providence ; he took his own impulses for prophetic revelations, by
which he directed the politics of his disciples, the Piagnoni. He had pre-
dicted to the Florentines the coming of the French into Italy ; he had
represented to them Charles VIII as an instrument by which the Divinity
designed to chastise the crimes of the nation ; he had counselled them to
remain faithful to their alliance with that king, the instrument of provi-
dence, even though his conduct, especially in reference to the affairs of Pisa,
had been highly culpable.
This alliance however ranged the Florentines among the enemies of
Pope Alexander VI, one of the founders of the league which had driven
the French out of Italy ; he accused them of being traitors to the church
and to their country for their attachment to a foreign prince. Alexander,
equally offended by the projects of reform and by the politics of Savonarola,
denounced him to the church as a heretic, and interdicted him from preach-
ing. The monk at first obeyed, and procured the appointment of his friend
and disciple the Dominican friar, Buonvicino of Pescia, as his successor in
the church of St. Mark ; but on Christmas Day, 1497, he declared from the
pulpit that God had revealed to him that he ought not to submit to a cor-
rupt tribunal ; he then openly took the sacrament with the monks of St.
Mark, and afterwards continued to preach. In the course of his sermons,
he more than once held up to reprobation the scandalous conduct of the
pope, whom the public voice accused of every vice and every crime to be
expected in a libertine so depraved — a man so ambitious, perfidious, and
cruel — a monarch and a priest intoxicated with absolute power.
In the meantime, the rivalry encouraged by the court of Rome between
the religious orders soon procured the pope champions eager to combat
Savonarola : he was a Dominican — the general of the Augustines, that
order whence Martin Luther was soon to issue. Friar Mariano di Ghinaz-
zano signalised himself by his zeal in opposing Savonarola. He presented
to the pope Friar Francis of Apulia, of the order of minor Observantines,
who was sent to Florence to preach against the Florentine monk, in the
church of Santa Croce. This preacher declared to his audience that he
knew Savonarola pretended to support his doctrine by a miracle. "For
me," said he, "I am a sinner; I have not the presumption to perform
miracles ; nevertheless, let a fire be lighted, and I am ready to enter it with
him. I am certain of perishing, but Christian charity teaches me not to
withhold my life, if, in sacrificing it, I might precipitate into hell a heresi-
arch, who has already drawn into it so many souls."
This strange proposition was rejected by Savonarola ; but his friend and
disciple, Friar Domenico Buonvicino, eagerly accepted it. Francis of Apulia
declared that he would risk his life against Savonarola only. Meanwhile,
a crowd of monks, of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, rivalled each
other in their offers to prove by the ordeal of fire, on one side the truth,
on the other the falsehood, of the new doctrine. Enthusiasm spread beyond
the two convents ; many priests and seculars, and even women and children,
424 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1498 A.D.]
more especially on the side of Savonarola, earnestly requested to be admitted
to the proof. The pope warmly testified his gratitude to the Franciscans
for their devotion. The signoria of Florence consented that two monks
only should devote themselves for their respective orders, and directed
the pile to be prepared. The whole population of the town and country, to
which a signal miracle was promised, received the announcement with trans-
ports of joy.
On the 7th of April, 1498, a scaffold, dreadful to look on, was erected
in the public square of Florence : two piles of large pieces of wood, mixed
with fagots and broom, which should quickly take fire, extended each eighty
feet long, four feet thick, and five feet high ; they were separated by a nar-
row space of two feet, to serve as a passage by which the two priests were
to enter, and pass the whole length of the piles during the fire. Every win-
dow was full ; every roof was covered with spectators ; almost the whole
population of the republic was collected round the place. The portico
called the Loggia de' Lanzi, divided in two by a partition, was assigned to
the two orders of monks. The Dominicans arrived at their station chanting
canticles, and bearing the holy sacrament. The Franciscans immediately
declared that they would not permit the host to be carried amidst flames.
They insisted that the friar Buonvicino should enter the fire, as their own
champion was prepared to do, without this divine safeguard. The Domini-
cans answered, that they would not separate themselves from their God at
the moment when they implored his aid. The dispute upon this point grew
warm. Several hours passed away. The multitude, which had waited long,
and begun to feel hunger and thirst, lost patience ; a deluge of rain sud-
denly fell upon the city, and descended in torrents from the roofs of the
houses — all present were drenched. The piles were so wet that they could
no longer be lighted ; and the crowd, disappointed of a miracle so impa-
tiently looked for, separated, with the notion of having been unworthily
trifled with. Savonarola lost all his credit ; he was henceforth rather looked
on as an impostor. Next day his convent was besieged by the Arabiati,
eager to profit by the inconstancy of the multitude ; he was arrested, with
his two friends, Domenico Buonvicino and Silvestro Marruffi, and led to
prison. The Piagnoni, his partisans, were exposed to every outrage from
the populace — two of them were killed ; their rivals and old enemies ex-
citing the general ferment for their destruction. Even in the signoria
the majority was against them, and yielded to the pressing demands of the
pope. The three imprisoned monks were subjected to a criminal prosecu-
tion. Alexander VI despatched judges from Rome, with orders to condemn
the accused to death. Conformably with the laws of the church, the trial
opened with the torture. Savonarola was too weak and nervous to support
it : he avowed in his agony all that was imputed to him ; and, with his two
disciples, was condemned to death. The three monks were burned alive,
on the 23rd of May, 1498, in the same square where, six weeks before, a pile
had been raised to prepare them a triumph.
THE FRENCH IN MILAN
The expedition of Charles VIII against Naples had directed towards
Italy the attention of all the western powers. The transalpine nations had
learned that they were strong enough to act as masters, and if they pleased
as robbers, in this the richest and most civilised country of the earth. All
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 425
[1498-1499 A.D.]
the powers on the confines henceforth aspired to subject some part of Italy
to their dominion. They coveted their share of tribute from a land so fruitful
of impost, from those cities in which industry employed such numbers, and
accumulated so much capital. Cupidity put arms in their hands, and
smothered every generous feeling. The commanders were rapacious ; the
soldiers thought only of pillage. They regarded the Italians as a race aban-
doned to their extortions, and vied with each other in the barbarous methods
which they invented for extorting money from the vanquished, until at last
they completely destroyed the prosperity which had provoked their envy.
Charles VIII died at Amboise, on the 7th of April, 1498, the day destined
at Florence for the trial by fire of the doctrine of Savonarola. Louis XII,
who succeeded that monarch, claimed, as grandson of Valentina Visconti, to
be the legitimate heir to the duchy of Milan, although, according to the law
acknowledged by all Italy, and confirmed by the imperial investure granted
to the father of Valentina, females were excluded from all share in the suc-
cession. This monarch, at his coronation, took with the title of king of
France those of duke of Milan and king of Naples and Jerusalem. It was to
the duchy of Milan that he seemed particularly attached, apparently as having
been the object of his ambition before he came to the throne. He preserved
during his whole reign, as if he were simply duke of Milan, a feudal respect
for the emperor as lord paramount, which was as fatal to France as to Italy.
After having thus announced to the world his pretensions to the duchy
of Milan, Louis hastened to secure his possession of it by arms. He easily
separated his antagonist, Lodovico Sforza, from all his allies. The emperor
Maximilian had married the niece of Lodovico, to whom he had granted the
investure of his duchy ; but Maximilian forgot, with extreme levity, his prom-
ises and alliances. A new ambition, a supposed offence, even a whim,
sufficed to make him abandon his most matured projects. The Swiss had
just then excited his resentment ; and to attack them the more effectually,
he signed with Louis XII a truce, in which Lodovico Sforza was not included,
and was therefore abandoned to his enemy. The Venetians were interested
still more than the emperor in defending Lodovico, but were incensed against
him ; they accused him of having deceived them, as well in the war against
Charles VIII as in that for the defence of Pisa. They suspected him of
having suggested to Maximilian the claims which he had just made on all
their conquests in Lombardy, as having previously appertained to the empire.
They were obliged, moreover, to reserve all their resources to resist the most
formidable of their enemies. Bajazet II had just declared war against them.
Bands of robbers continually descended from the mountains of Turkish Albania
to lay waste Venetian Dalmatia. The Turkish pashas offered their sup-
port to every traitor who attempted to take from the Venetians any of their
stations in the Levant. Corfu very nearly fell into the hands of the Turks ; at
length hostilities openly began. The Turks attacked Zara ; all the Venetian
merchants established at Constantinople were put into irons, and Scander
Pasha, sanjak of Bosnia, passed the Isonzo on the 29th of September, 1499,
with seven thousand Turkish cavalry. He ravaged all the rich country
which extends from that river to the Tagliamento, at the extremity of the
Adriatic, and spread terror up to the lagunes which surround Venice. Invaded
by an enemy so formidable, against whom they were destined to support,
for seven years, a relentless war, the Venetians would not expose themselves
to the danger of maintaining another war against the French. On the 15th
of April, 1499, they signed, at Blois, with Louis, a treaty, by which they
contracted an alliance, against Lodovico Sforza and abandoned the conquest
426 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1499-150OA.D.]
of the Milanese to the king of France, reserving to themselves Cremona and
the Ghiara d'Adda.
Lodovico Sforza found no allies in any other part of Italy. Since the
execution of Savonarola at Florence, the faction of the Arabiati had suc-
ceeded that of the Piagnoni in the administration, without changing its policy.
The republic continued to guard against the intrigues of the Medici, who
entered into an alliance with every enemy of their country, in order to bring
it back under their yoke. Florence continued her efforts to subdue Pisa ;
but, fearing to excite the jealousy of the kings of France and Spain, did not
assemble for that purpose either a numerous army or a great train of artil-
lery. She contented herself with ravaging the Pisan territory every year, in
order to reduce that city by famine. Even these expeditions were suspended
when those powerful monarchs found it convenient to make a show of peace.
The cities of Siena, Lucca, and Genoa, actuated by their jealousy of Flor-
ence, sent succour to Pisa. Pope Alexander VI, who had been always the
enemy of Charles VIII, now entered into an alliance with Louis XII ; but
on condition that Cesare Borgia, son of Alexander, should be made duke of
Valentinois in France and of Romagna in Italy — the French king assisting
him against the petty princes, feudatories of the holy see, who were masters
of that province. The king of Naples, Frederick, who had succeeded his
nephew Ferdinand on the 7th of September, 1496, was well aware that he
should, in his turn, be attacked by France ; but although he merited, by his
talents and virtues, the confidence of his subjects, he had great difficulty in
re-establishing some order in his kingdom, which was ruined by war, and
had neither an army nor an exchequer to succour his natural ally, the duke
of Milan.
A powerful French army, commanded by the sires De Ligny and
D'Aubigny, passed the Alps in the month of August, 1499. On the 13th
of that month they attacked and took by assault the two petty fortresses of
Arazzo and Annone, on the borders of the Tanaro ; putting the garrisons, and
almost all the inhabitants, to the sword. This ferocious proceeding spread
terror among the troops of Lodovico Sforza. His army, the command of
which he had given to Galeazzo San Severino, dispersed ; and the duke, not
venturing to remain at Milan, sought for himself, his children, and his
treasure refuge in Germany, with the emperor Maximilian. Louis XII, who
arrived afterwards in Italy, made his entry into the forsaken capital of
Lodovico on the 2nd of October. The trembling people, wishing to conciliate
their new master, saluted him with the title of duke of Milan, and expressed
their joy in receiving him as their sovereign. The rest of Lombardy also
submitted without resistance ; and Genoa, which had placed itself under the
protection of the duke of Milan, passed over to that of the king of France.
Louis returned to Lyons before the end of the year ; the fugitive hopes
which he had excited already gave way to hatred. The insolence of the
French, their violation of all national institutions, their contempt of Italian
manners, the accumulation of taxes, and the irregularities in the administra-
tion rendered their yoke insupportable. Lodovico Sforza was informed of
the general ferment, and of the desire of his subjects for his return. He was
on the Swiss frontier, with a considerable treasure ; a brave but disorderly
crowd of young men, ready to serve anyone for pay, joined him. In a few
days five hundred cavalry and eight thousand infantry assembled under his
banner ; and, in the month of February, 1500, he entered Lombardy at
their head. Como, Milan, Parma, and Pavia immediately opened their gates
to him : he next besieged Novara, which capitulated. Louis, meanwhile,
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 427
[1500-1501 A.D.]
displayed great activity in suppressing the rebellion : his general, Louis
de la Tremouille, arrived before Novara, in the beginning of April, with an
army in which were reckoned ten thousand Swiss. The men of that nation
in the two hostile camps, opposed to each other for hire, hesitated, parleyed,
and finally took a resolution more fatal to their honour than a battle between
fellow-countrymen could have been. Those within Novara not only con-
sented to withdraw themselves, but to give up to the French the Italian
men-at-arms with whom they were incorporated, and who were immediately
put to the sword or drowned in the river. They permitted La Tremouille
to arrest in their ranks Lodovico Sforza and the two brothers San Severino,
who attempted to escape in disguise. They received from the French the
wages thus basely won, and afterwards, rendered reckless by the sense of
CAPO DI MONTE PALACE, NAPLES
their infamy, they in their retreat seized Bellinzona, which they ever after
retained. Thus, even the weakest of the neighbours of Italy would have
their share in her conquest. Lodovico Sforza was conducted into France,
and there condemned to a severe captivity, which, ten years afterwards,
ended with his life. The Milanese remained subject to the king of France
from this period to the month of June, 1512.
The facility with which Louis had conquered the duchy of Milan must
have led him to expect that he should not meet with much more resistance
from the kingdom of Naples. Frederick also, sensible of this, demanded
peace ; and, to obtain it, offered to hold his kingdom in fief, as tributary
to France. He reckoned, however, on the support of Ferdinand the
Catholic, his kinsman and neighbour, who had promised him powerful aid
and had given him a pledge of the future by sending into Sicily his best
general, Gonsalvo de Cordova, with sixty vessels and eight thousand chosen
infantry. But Ferdinand had previously proposed to Louis a secret under-
standing to divide between them the spoils of the unhappy Frederick.
While the French entered on the north to conquer the kingdom of Naples,
he proposed that the Spaniards should enter on the south to defend it ;
and that, on meeting, they, instead of giving battle, should shake hands on
the partition of the kingdom — each remaining master of one-half. This
was the basis of the Treaty of Granada, signed on the llth of November,
1500. In the summer of 1501 the perfidious compact was executed by the
two greatest monarchs of Europe.
428 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1500-1504 A.D.]
THE FRENCH AND SPANIARDS IN NAPLES
The French army arrived at Rome on the 25th of June, at the same time
that the army of Gonsalvo de Cordova landed in Calabria. The former, from
the moment they passed the frontier, treated the Neapolitans as rebels,
and hanged the soldiers who surrendered to them. Arrived before Capua,
they entered that city while the magistrates were signing the capitulation,
and massacred seven thousand of the inhabitants. The treachery of Ferdi-
nand inspired the unhappy Frederick with still more aversion than the
ferocity of the French. Having retired to the island of Ischia, he surren-
dered to Louis, and was sent to France, where he died, in a captivity by no
means rigorous, three years afterwards. The Spaniards and French advanced
towards each other, without encountering any resistance. They met on the
limits which the treaty of Granada had respectively assigned to them ; but
the moment the conquest was terminated, jealousy appeared. The duke de
Nemours and Gonsalvo de Cordova disputed upon the division of the king-
dom ; each claimed for his master some province not named in the treaty.
Hostilities at last began between them on the 19th of June, 1502, at
Atripalda. Louis, while the negotiation was pending, delayed sending rein-
forcements to his general. After a struggle, not without glory, and in which
La Palisse and Bayard first distinguished themselves, D'Aubigny was
defeated at Seminara on the 21st of April, and Nemours at Cerignola on the
28th of the same month, 1503. The French army was entirely destroyed,
and the kingdom of Naples lost to Louis XII. Louis had sent off, during
the same campaign, a more powerful army than the first, to recover it ; but,
on arriving near Rome, news was received of the death of Alexander VI,
which took place on the 18th of August, 1503. The cardinal D'Amboise,
prime minister of Louis, detained the army there to support his intrigues in
the conclave : when it renewed its march, in the month of October, the rainy
season had commenced. Gonsalvo de Cordova had taken his position on the
Garigliano, the passage of which he defended, amidst inundated plains, with
a constancy and patience characteristic of the Spanish infantry. During more
than two months the French suffered or perished in the marshes : a pestilen-
tial malady carried off the flower of the army, and damped the courage and
confidence of the remainder. Gonsalvo, having at last passed the river him-
self, on the 27th of December, attacked and completely destroyed the French
army. On the 1st of January, 1504, Gaeta surrendered to him ; and the
whole kingdom of Naples was now, like Sicily, but a Spanish possession.
Thus the greater part of Italy had already fallen under the yoke of the
nations which the Italians denominated barbarian. The French were masters
of the Milanese and of the whole of Liguria; the Spaniards of the Two Sicilies ;
even the Swiss had made some small conquests along the Lago Maggiore ;
and this was the moment in which Louis XII called the Germans also into
Italy. On the 22nd of September of the same year in which he lost Gaeta,
his last hold in the kingdom of Naples, he signed the Treaty of Blois, by
which he divided with Maximilian the republic of Venice, as he had divided
with Ferdinand the kingdom of Naples. Experience ought to have taught
him that Maximilian, like Ferdinand, would reserve for himself the conquests
made in common. The future ought to have alarmed him ; for Charles, the
grandson and heir of Maximilian of Austria, and of Ferdinand of Aragon,
of Mary of Burgundy, and of Isabella of Castile, was already born. It
was foreseen that he would unite under his sceptre the greatest monarchies
in Europe ; and Louis, instead of guarding against his future greatness, had
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 429
[1500-1507 A.D.]
promised to give him his daughter in marriage. It was the thoughtlessness
of Maximilian, and not the prudence of Louis, that delayed during four
years the execution of the Treaty of Blois.
NORTHERN ITALY
During this interval, Genoa — which had never ceased to consider herself
a republic, although the signoria had been conferred first on Ludovico Sf orza,
and next on Louis XII, as duke of Milan — learned from experience that a
foreign monarch was incapable of comprehending either her laws or liberty.
According to the capitulation, one-half of the magistrates of Genoa should be
noble, the other half plebeian. They were to be chosen by the suffrages
of their fellow-citizens ; they were to retain the government of the whole of
Liguria and the administration of their own finances, with the reservation
of a fixed sum payable yearly to the king of France. But the French could
never comprehend that nobles were on an equality with villeins ; that a king
was bound by conditions imposed by his subjects ; or that money could be
refused to him who had force. All the capitulations of Genoa were suc-
cessively violated ; while the Genoese nobles ranged themselves on the side
of a king against their country : they were known to carry insolently about
them a dagger, on which was inscribed " Chastise villeins " ; so impatient
were they to separate themselves from the people, even by meanness and
assassination. That people could not support the double yoke of a foreign
master and of nobles who betrayed their country. On the 7th of February,
1507, they revolted, drove out the French, proclaimed the republic, and
named a new doge ; but time failed them to organise their defence. On the
3rd of April Louis advanced from Grenoble with a powerful army. He
soon arrived before Genoa : the newly raised militia, unable to withstand
veteran troops, were defeated. Louis entered Genoa on the 29th of April ;
and immediately sent the doge and the greater number of the generous
citizens, who had signalised themselves in the defence of their country, to
the scaffold.
Independent Italy now comprised only the states of the church, Tuscany,
and the republic of Venice ; and even these provinces were pressed by the
transalpine nations on every side. The Spaniards and French alternately
spread terror through Tuscany and the states of the church ; the Germans
and Turks held in awe the territories of Venice. The states of the church
were at the same time a prey to the intrigues of the detestable Alexander,
and his son Cesare Borgia. More murders, more assassinations, more glaring
acts of perfidy were committed within a short space, than during the annals
of the most depraved monarchies. Cesare Borgia, whom his father created
duke of Romagna in 1501, had previously despoiled and put to death the
petty princes who reigned at Pesaro, Rimini, Forli, and Faenza. He had,
in like manner, possessed himself of Piombino in Tuscany, the duchy of
Urbino, and the little principalities of Camerino and Sinigaglia. He had
caused to be strangled in this last city, on the 31st of December, 1502, four
tyrants of the states of the church, who followed the trade of condottieri.
These princes had served in his pay, and, alarmed by his intrigues, had taken
arms against him ; but, seduced by his artifices, they placed themselves vol-
untarily in his power. Cesare Borgia had made himself master of Citta di
Castello, and of Perugia ; and was menacing Bologna, Siena, and Florence,
when, on the 18th of August, 1503, he and his father drank, by mistake,
430 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1502-1509 A.D.]
a poison which they had prepared for one of their guests. His father died
of it, and Borgia himself was in extreme danger. In thirteen months he lost
all his sovereignties, the fruits of so many crimes. Attacked in turn by Pope
Julius II, who had succeeded his father, and by Gonsalvo de Cordova, he was
at last sent into Spain, where he died in battle, more honourably than he
deserved.
In Tuscany, the republic of Florence found itself surrounded with ene-
mies. The Medici, continuing exiles, had entered into alliances with all the
tyrants in the pontifical states : they took part in every plot against their
country ; at the same time, they sought the friendship of the king of France,
who was more disposed to favour a prince than a republic. Piero de' Med-
ici had accompanied the army sent, in 1508, against the kingdom of Naples,
and lost his life at the defeat of the Garigliano. His death did not deliver
Florence from the apprehension which he had inspired. His brothers Gio-
vanni and Giuliano carried on their intrigues against their country. The
war with Pisa, too, which still lasted, exhausted the finances of Florence.
The Pisans had lost their commerce and manufactures ; they saw their har-
vests, each year, destroyed by the Florentines : but they opposed to all these
disasters a constancy and courage not to be subdued. The French, Germans,
and Spaniards in turn sent them succour ; not from taking any interest in
their cause, but with the view of profiting by the struggle which they pro-
tracted. Lucca and Siena also, jealous of the Florentines, secretly assisted
the Pisans ; but only so far as they could do it without compromising them-
selves with neighbours whom they feared. Lucca fell, by degrees, into the
hands of a narrow oligarchy. Siena suffered itself to be enslaved by Pan-
dolfo Petrucci, a citizen, whom it had named captain of the guard, and who
commanded obedience, without departing from the manners and habits of
republican equality.
In the new position of Italy, continually menaced by absolute princes,
whose deliberations were secret, and who united perfidy with force, the Flor-
entines became sensible that their government could not act with the requisite
discretion and secrecy, while it continued to be changed every two months.
Their allies even complained that no secret could be confided to them, with-
out becoming known, at the same time, to the whole republic. They accord-
ingly judged it necessary to place at the head of the state a single magistrate,
who should be present at every council, and who should be the depositary of
every communication requiring secrecy. This chief, who was to retain the
name of gonfalonier, was elected, like the doge of Venice, for life ; he was
to be lodged in the palace, and to have a salary of 100 florins a month. The
law which created a gonfalonier for life was voted on the 16th of August,
1502 ; but it was not till the 22nd of September following that the grand
council chose Pietro Soderini to fill that office. He was a man universally
respected ; of mature age, without ambition, without children ; and the
republic never had reason to repent its choice. The republic, at the same
time, introduced the authority of a single man into the administration, and
suppressed it in the tribunals. A law of the 15th of April, 1502, abolished
the offices of podesta and of captain of justice, and supplied their places by
the ruota; a tribunal composed of five judges, of whom four must agree in
passing sentence : each, in his turn, was to be president of the tribunal for
six months. This rotation caused the name of ruota to be given to the
supreme courts of law at Rome and Florence.
The most important service expected from Soderini was that of subjecting
Pisa anew to the Florentine Republic : he did not accomplish this until
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 431
[1441-1509 A.D.]
1509. That city had long been reduced to the last extremity : the inhabi-
tants, thinned by war and famine, had no longer any hope of holding out ;
but Louis XII and Ferdinand of Aragon announced to the Florentines that
they must be paid for the conquest which Florence was on the point of mak-
ing. Pisa had been defended by them since 1507, but only to prevent
its surrendering before the amount demanded was agreed on : it was at length
fixed at 100,000 florins to be paid to the king of France, and 50,000 to the king
of Aragon. This treaty was signed on the 13th of March ; and on the 8th of
June, 1509, Pisa, which had cruelly suffered from famine, opened its gates to
the Florentine army: the occupying army was preceded by convoys of
provisions, which the soldiers themselves distributed to the citizens. The
signoria of Florence abolished all the confiscations pronounced against the
Pisans since the year 1494 ; they restored to them all their property and
privileges. They tried, in every way, to conciliate and attach that proud
people ; but nothing could overcome their deep resentment, and their regret
for the loss of their independence. Almost every family, which had pre-
served any fortune, emigrated ; and the population, already so reduced by
war, was still further diminished after the peace.
The republic of Venice was condemned, by the war which it had to sup-
port against the Turkish Empire, from 1499 to 1503, to make no effort for
maintaining the independence of Italy against France and Aragon. It had
solicited the aid of all Christendom, as if for a holy war, against Bajazet II ;
and, in fact, alternately received assistance from the kings of France, Aragon,
and Portugal, and from the pope : but these aids, limited to short services on
great occasions, were of little real efficacy. They aggravated the misery of
the Greeks among whom the war was carried on, caused little injury to the
Turks, and were of but little service to the Venetians. The Mussulmans had
made progress in naval discipline ; the Venetian fleet could no longer cope
with theirs ; and Antonio Grimani, its commander, till then considered the
most fortunate of the citizens of Venice, already father of a cardinal, and des-
tined, long after, to be the doge of the republic, was, on his return to his coun-
try, loaded with irons. Lepanto, Pylos, Modon, and Coron, were successively
conquered from the Venetians by the Turks ; the former were glad at last
to accept a peace negotiated by Andrea Gritti, one of their fellow-citizens,
a captive at Constantinople. By this peace they renounced all title to the
places which they had lost in the Peloponnesus, and restored to Bajazet
the island of Santa Maura, which they had, on their side, conquered from the
Turks. This peace was signed in the month of November, 1503.
The period in which the republic of Venice was delivered from the terror
of the Turks was also that of the death of Alexander VI, and of the ruin of
his son, Cesare Borgia. The opportunity appeared to the signoria favoura-
ble for extending its possessions in Romagna. That province had been long
the object of its ambition. Venice had acquired by treachery, on the 24th
of February, 1441, the principality of Ravenna, governed for 166 years by
the house of Polenta. In 1463, it had purchased Cervia, with its salt marshes,
from Malatesta IV, one of the princes of Rimini ; upon the death of Cesare
Borgia, it took possession of Faenza, the principality of Manfredi ; of Rimini,
the principality of Malatesta ; and of several fortresses. Imola and Forll,
governed by the Alidosi and the Ordelaffi, alone remained to be subdued, in
order to make Venice mistress of the whole of Romagna. The Venetians
offered the pope the same submission, the same annual tribute, for which
those petty princes were acknowledged pontifical vicars. But Julius II, who
had succeeded Borgia, although violent and irascible, had a strong sense of
432 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1504-1509 A.D.]
his duty as a pontiff and as an Italian. He was determined on preserving
the states of the church intact for his successors. He rejected all nepotism,
all aggrandisement of his family ; and would have accused himself of unpar-
donable weakness, if he suffered others to usurp what he refused to give his
family. He haughtily exacted the restitution of all that the Venetians pos-
sessed in the states of the church ; and as he could not obtain it from them,
he consented to receive it from the hands of Louis and Maximilian, who
combined to despoil the republic. He, however, communicated to the Vene-
tians the projects formed against them, and it was not till they appeared
resolved to restore him nothing, that he concluded his compact with their
enemies.
THE LEAGUE OF CAMBRAY
The league against Venice, signed at Cambray, on the 10th of December,
1508, by Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian, and the cardinal
d'Amboise, prime minister of Louis, was only the completion of the secret
Treaty of Blois, of the 22nd of September, 1504. No offence had been
given, to justify this perfidious compact. Maximilian, who detested Louis,
had the same year endeavoured to attack him in the Milanese ; but the
Venetians refused him a passage ; and after three months' hostilities,
the treaty between the emperor and the republic was renewed, on the 7th of
June, 1508. Louis XII, whom the Venetians defended, and Maximilian, with
whom they were reconciled, had no other complaint against them than that
they had no king, and that their subjects thus excited the envy of those
who had. The two monarchs agreed to divide between them all the Terra
Firma of the Venetians, to abandon to Ferdinand all their fortresses in Apulia,
to the pope the lordships in Romagna, to the houses of Este and Gonzaga
the small districts near the Po; and thus to give all an interest in the
destruction of the only state sufficiently strong to maintain the independence
of Italy.
France was the first to declare war against the republic of Venice, in the
month of January, 1509. Hostilities commenced on the 15th of April ; on
the 27th of the same month the pope excommunicated the doge and the
republic. The Venetians had assembled an army of forty-two thousand
men, under the command of the impetuous Bartolommeo d'Alviano and the
cautious Pitigliano. The disagreement between these two chiefs, both able
generals, caused the loss of the battle of Agnadello, fought on the 14th of
May, 1509, with the French, who did not exceed thirty thousand. Half
only, or less, of the Venetian army was engaged; but that part fought
heroically, and perished without falling back one step. After this discom-
fiture, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, and Cremona hastily surrendered to the
conquerors, who planted their banners on the border of Ghiara d'Adda, the
limits assigned by the treaty of partition. Louis signalised this rapid con-
quest by atrocious cruelties ; he caused the Venetian governors of Caravaggio
and of Peschiera to be hanged, and the garrison and inhabitants to be put to
the sword ; he ruined, by enormous ransoms, all the Venetian nobles who
fell into his hands ; seeking to vindicate to himself his unjust attack by the
hatred which he studied to excite.
The French suspended their operations from the 31st of May ; but the
emperor, the pope, the duke of Ferrara, the marquis of Mantua, and Fer-
dinand of Aragon profited by the disasters of the republic to invade its
provinces on all sides at once. The senate, in the impossibility of making
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 433
[1509 A.D.]
head against so many enemies, took the generous resolution of releasing all
its subjects from their oath of fidelity, and permitting them to treat with the
enemy, since it was no longer in its power to defend them. In letting them
feel the weight of a foreign yoke, the senate knew that it only rendered more
dear the paternal authority of the republic ; and, in fact, those citizens who
had eagerly opened their gates to the French, Germans, and Spaniards, soon
contrasted, in despair, their tyranny with the just and equal power which
they had not had the courage to defend. The Germans, above all, no sooner
entered the Venetian cities,
than they plunged into the most
brutal debauchery ; offending
public decency, and exercising
their cruelty and rapacity on
all those who came within their
reach. Notwithstanding this,
the native nobles joined them.
They were eager to substitute
monarchy for republican equal-
ity and freedom, but their in-
solence only aggravated the
hatred which the Germans in-
spired. The army of the repub-
lic had taken refuge at Mestre,
on the borders of the Lagune,
when suddenly the citizen
evinced a courage which the
soldier no longer possessed.
Treviso, in the month of June,
and Padua on the 17th of July,
drove out the imperialists;
and the banners of St. Mark,
which had hitherto constantly
retreated, began once again to
advance.
The war of the league of
Cambray showed the Italians,
for the first time, what formid-
able forces the transalpine na-
tions could bring against them.
Maximilian arrived to besiege
Padua in the month of Septem-
ber, 1509. He had in his army,
Germans, Swiss, French, Spaniards, Savoyards; troops of the pope, of the
marquis of Mantua, and of the duke of Modena ; in all more than one hundred
thousand men, with one hundred pieces of cannon. He was, notwithstand-
ing, obliged to raise the siege, on the 3rd of October, after many encounters,
supported on each side with equal valour. But these barbarians, who came
to dispute with the Italians the sovereignty of their country, did not need
success to prove their ferocity. After having taken from the poor peasant,
or captive, all that he possessed, they put him to the torture to discover
hidden treasure, or to extort ransom from the compassion of friends. In this
abuse of brute force, the Germans showed themselves the most savage, the
Spaniards the most coldly ferocious. Both were more odious than the French;
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 F
DOORWAY OF ST. MARK'S SCHOOL, VENICE
434 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1509-1511 A.D.]
although the last mentioned had bands called flayers (Scorcheurs), formed
in the English wars, and long trained to grind the people.
Pope Julius II soon began to hate his accomplices in the league of Cam-
bray. Violent and irascible, he had often shown in his fits of passion that
he could be as cruel as the worst of them. But he had the soul of an
Italian. He could not brook the humiliation of his country, and its being
enslaved by those whom he called barbarians. Having recovered the cities
of Romagna, the subject of his quarrel with the Venetians, he began to make
advances to them. At the end of the first campaign, he entered into nego-
tiations; and on the 21st of February, 1510, granted them absolution. He
was aware that he could never drive the barbarians out of Italy but by arm-
ing them against each other ; and as the French were those whom he most
feared, he had recourse to the Germans. It was necessary to begin with
reconciling the Venetians to the emperor ; but Maximilian, always ready to
undertake everything, and incapable of bringing anything to a conclusion,
would not relax in a single article of what he called his rights. As emperor,
he considered himself monarch of all Italy; and although he was always
stopped on its frontier, he refused to renounce the smallest part of what he
purposed conquering. He asserted that the whole Venetian territory had
been usurped from the empire ; and before granting peace to the republic,
demanded almost its annihilation.
It was with the aid of the Swiss that the pope designed to liberate
Italy. He admired the valour and piety of that warlike people ; he saw,
with pleasure, that cupidity had become their ruling passion. The Italians,
who needed the defence of the Swiss, were rich enough to pay them ; and a
wise policy conspired for once with avarice ; for the Swiss republics could
not be safe if liberty were not re-established in Italy. Louis XII, by his
prejudice in favour of nobility, had offended those proud mountaineers,
whom, even in his own army, he considered only as revolted peasants.
Julius II employed the bishop of Sion, whom he afterwards made cardinal,
to irritate them still more against France. In the course of the summer
of 1510, the French, according to the plan which Julius had formed, were
attacked in the Milanese by the Swiss, in Genoa by the Genoese emigrants,
at Modena by the pontifical troops, and at Verona by the Venetians ; but,
notwithstanding the profound secrecy in which the pope enveloped his nego-
tiations and intrigues, he could not succeed, as he had hoped, in surprising
the French everywhere at the same time. The four attacks were made
successively, and repulsed. The sire de Chaumont, lieutenant of Louis in
Lombardy, determined to avenge himself by besieging the pope in Bologna,
in the month of October. Julius feigned a desire to purchase peace at any
Erice ; but, while negotiating, he caused troops to advance ; and, on finding
imself the stronger, suddenly changed his language, used threats, and made
Chaumont retire. When Chaumont had placed his troops in winter quarters,
the pope, during the greatest severity of the season, attacked the small state
of Mirandola, which had put itself under the protection of France, and entered
its capital by a breach, on the 20th of January, 1511.
The pope's troops, commanded by the duke of Urbino, experienced in the
following campaign a signal defeat at Casalecchio, on the 21st of May, 1511.
It was called "the day of the ass-drivers," because the French knights re-
turned driving asses before them loaded with booty. The loss of Bologna
followed; but Julius II was not discouraged. His legates laboured, through-
out Europe, to raise enemies against France. They at last accomplished a
league, which was signed on the 5th of October, and which was called " holy,"
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 435
[1511-1512 A.D.]
because it was headed by the pope. It comprehended the kings of Spain
and England, the Swiss, and the Venetians. Louis XII, to oppose an eccle-
siastical authority to that of the pontiffs, convoked, in concert with Maxi-
milian, whom he continued to consider his ally, an oecumenical council. A
few cardinals, who had separated from the pope, clothed it with their author-
ity ; and Florence dared not refuse to the two greatest monarchs of Europe
the city of Pisa for its place of meeting, although the whole population
beheld with dread this commencement of a new schism .<*
The combined forces were to be placed under the command of Raymond
de Cardona, viceroy of Naples, a person of polished and engaging address,
but without the resolution or experience requisite to military success. The
rough old pope sarcastically nicknamed him "Lady Cardona." It was an
appointment that would certainly never have been made by Queen Isabella.
Indeed, the favour shown this nobleman on this and other occasions was so
much beyond his deserts as to raise a suspicion in many that he was more
nearly allied by blood to Ferdinand than was usually imagined.
THE BATTLE OP RAVENNA
Early in 1512, France, by great exertions and without a single confed-
erate out of Italy, save the false and fluctuating emperor, got an army into
the field superior to that of the allies in point of numbers, and still more so in
the character of its commander. This was Gaston de Foix, duke of Nemours
and brother of the queen of Aragon. Though a boy in years — for he was
but twenty-two — he was ripe in understanding, and possessed consummate
military talents. He introduced a severer discipline into his army, and an
entirely new system of tactics. He looked forward to his results with stern
indifference to the means by which they were to be effected. He disre-
garded the difficulties of the roads and the inclemency of the season, which
had hitherto put a check on military operations. Through the midst of
frightful morasses, or in the depth of winter snows, he performed his marches
with a celerity unknown in the warfare of that age. In less than a fortnight
after leaving Milan he relieved Bologna (February 5th), then besieged by
the allies, made a countermarch on Brescia, defeated a detachment by the way,
and the whole Venetian army under its walls, and, on the same day with the
last event, succeeded in carrying the place by storm. After a few weeks'
dissipation of the carnival, he again put himself in motion, and, descending
on Ravenna, succeeded in bringing the allied army to a decisive action
under its walls. Ferdinand, well understanding the peculiar characters
of the French and of the Spanish soldier, had cautioned his general to
adopt the Fabian policy of Gonsalvo, and avoid a close encounter as long as
possible.
This battle, fought with the greatest numbers, was also the most mur-
derous which had stained the fair soil of Italy for a century (April llth,
1512). No less than eighteen or twenty thousand, according to authentic
accounts, fell in it, comprehending the best blood of France and Italy. The
viceroy Cardona went off somewhat too early for his reputation. But the
Spanish infantry, under the count Pedro Navarro, behaved in a style worthy
of the school of Gonsalvo. During the early part of the day, they lay on the
ground, in a position which sheltered them from the deadly artillery of Este,
then the best mounted and best served of any in Europe. When at length,
as the tide of battle was going against them, they were brought into the
436 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1512 A.D.]
field, Navarro led them at once against a deep column of lansquenets who,
armed with the long German pike, were bearing down all before them. The
Spaniards received the shock of this formidable weapon on the mailed pano-
ply with which their bodies were covered, and, dexterously gliding into the
hostile ranks, contrived with their short swords to do such execution on the
enemy, unprotected except by corselets in front, and incapable of availing
themselves of their long weapon, that they were thrown into confusion and
totally discomfited. It was repeating the experiment more than once made
during these wars, but never on so great a scale, and it fully establishes the
superiority of the Spanish arms.
The Italian infantry, which had fallen back before the lansquenets, now
rallied under cover of the Spanish charge ; until at length the overwhelming
clouds of French gendarmerie headed by Ives d' Aldgre, who lost his own life
in the melSe, compelled the allies to give ground. The retreat of the Span-
iards, however, was conducted with admirable order, and they preserved
their ranks unbroken, as they repeatedly turned to drive back the tide of
pursuit. At this crisis, Gaston de Foix, flushed with success, was so exas-
perated by the sight of this valiant corps going off in so cool and orderly
a manner from the field, that he made a desperate charge at the head of his
chivalry, in hopes of breaking it. Unfortunately, his wounded horse fell
under him. It was in vain his followers called out, " It is our viceroy, the
brother of your queen ! " The words had no charm for a Spanish ear, and
he was despatched with a multitude of wounds. He received fourteen or
fifteen in the face ; " good proof," says Bayard's secretary and biographer,
called the loyal serviteurj " that the gentle prince had never turned his back."
There are few instances in history, if indeed there be any, of so brief and
at the same time so brilliant a military career as that of Gaston de Foix ;
and it well entitled him to the epithet his countrymen gave him of " the
thunderbolt of Italy." He had not merely given extraordinary promise,
but in the course of a very few months had achieved such results as might
well make the greatest powers of the peninsula tremble for their possessions.
His precocious military talents, the early age at which he assumed the com-
mand of armies, as well as many peculiarities of his discipline and tactics,
suggest some resemblance to the beginning of Napoleon's career.
Unhappily, his brilliant fame is sullied by a recklessness of human life,
the more odious in one too young to be steeled by familiarity with the iron
trade to which he was devoted. It may be fair, however, to charge this on
the age rather than on the individual, for surely never was there one charac-
terised by greater brutality and more unsparing ferocity in its wars. So
little had the progress of civilisation done for humanity. It is not until a
recent period that a more generous spirit has operated ; that a fellow-crea-
ture has been understood not to forfeit his rights as a man because he is an
enemy; that conventional laws have been established, tending greatly to miti-
gate the evils of a condition which, with every alleviation, is one of unspeak-
able misery ; and that those who hold the destinies of nations in their hands
have been made to feel that there is less true glory, and far less profit, to be
derived from war than from the wise prevention of it.
The defeat at Ravenna struck a panic into the confederates. The stout
heart of Julius II faltered, and it required all the assurances of the Spanish
and Venetian ministers to keep him staunch to his purpose. King Ferdinand
issued orders to the great captain to hold himself in readiness for taking the
command of forces to be instantly raised for Naples. There could be no
better proof of the royal consternation.
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 437
[1512 A.D.]
The victory of Ravenna, however, was more fatal to the French than to
their foes. The uninterrupted successes of a commander are so far unfortu-
nate, that they incline his followers^ by the brilliant illusion they throw
around his name, to rely less on their own resources than on him whom they
have hitherto found invincible ; and thus subject their own destiny to all the
casualties which attach to the fortunes of a single individual. The death of
Gaston de Foix seemed to dissolve the only bond which held the French
together. The officers became divided, the soldiers disheartened, and, with
the loss of their young hero, lost all interest in the service.?
The ministers of Louis thought they might, after the battle of Ravenna,
safely dismiss a part of their army; but Maximilian, betraying all his
engagements, abandoned the French to their enemies. Without consenting
to make peace with Venice, he gave passage through his territory to twenty
thousand Swiss, who were to join the Venetian army, in order to attack the
French. He, at the same time, recalled all the Germans who had enlisted
under the banner of France. Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry VIII of Eng-
land almost simultaneously attacked Louis, who, to defend himself, was
obliged to recall his troops from Italy. In the beginning of June, they
evacuated the Milanese; of which the Swiss took possession, in the name
of Massimiliano Sforza, son of Lodovico il Moro (the Moor). On the 29th of
the same month, a revolution drove the French out of Genoa ; and the repub-
lic and a new doge were again proclaimed. The possessions of France were
soon reduced to a few small fortresses in that Italy which the French thought
they had subdued. But the Italians did not recover their liberty by the
defeat of only one of their oppressors. From the yoke of France, they
passed under that of the Swiss, the Spaniards, and the Germans ; and the
last they endured always seemed the most galling. To add to their humili-
ation, the victory of the Holy League enslaved the last and only republic
truly free in Italy.
Florence was connected with France by a treaty concluded in concert
with Ferdinand the Catholic. The republic continued to observe it scrupu-
lously, even after Ferdinand had disengaged himself from it. Florence had
fulfilled towards all the belligerent powers the duties of good neighbourhood
and neutrality, and had given offence to none ; but the league, which had
just driven the French out of Italy, was already divided in interest, and
undecided on the plan which it should pursue. It was agreed only on one
point, that of obtaining money. The Swiss lived at discretion in Lombardy,
and levied in it the most ruinous contributions : the Spaniards of Raymond
de Cardona insisted also on having a province abandoned to their inexorable
avidity ; Tuscany was rich and not warlike. The victorious powers who had
assembled in congress at Mantua proposed to the Florentines to buy them-
selves off with a contribution ; but the Medici, who presented themselves at
this congress, asked to be restored to their country, asserting that they could
extract much more money by force, for the use of the Holy League, than a
republican government could obtain from the people by gentler means. Ray-
mond de Cardona readily believed them, and in the month of August, 1512,
accompanied them across the Apennines, with five thousand Spanish infantry
as inaccessible to pity as to fear. Raymond sent forward to tell the Floren-
tines that, if they would preserve their liberty, they must recall the Medici,
displace the gonfalonier Soderini, and pay the Spanish army 40,000 florins.
He arrived at the same time before the small town of Prato, which shut its
gates against him ; it was well fortified, but defended only by the ordinanza,
or country militia. On the 30th of August, the Spaniards made a breach in
438 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1512 AJ>.]
the wall, which these peasants basely abandoned. The city was taken by
assault ; the militia, which would have incurred less danger in fighting val-
iantly, were put to the sword ; five thousand citizens were afterwards massa-
cred, and others, divided among the victors, were put to lingering tortures,
either to force them to discover where they had concealed their treasure, or
to oblige their kinsmen to ransom them out of pity ; the Spaniards having
already pillaged all they could discover in holy as well as profane places.
The terror caused at Florence, by the news of the massacre of Prato, pro-
duced next day a revolution. A company of young nobles, belonging to the
most illustrious families, who, under the title of Society of the Garden
Ruccellai, were noted for their love of the arts, of luxury and pleasure, took
possession, on the 31st of August, of the public palace ; they favoured the
escape of Soderini, and sent to tell Raymond de Cardona that they were
ready to accept the conditions which he offered. But all treaties with
tyrants are deceptions. Giuliano de' Medici, the third son of Lorenzo,
whose character was gentle and conciliatory, entered Florence on the 2nd of
September, and consented to leave many of the liberties of the republic
untouched. His brother, the cardinal Giovanni, afterwards Leo X, who did
not enter till the 14th of the same month, forced the signoria to call a
parliament on the 16th. In this pretended assembly of the sovereign people,
few were admitted except strangers and soldiers : all the laws enacted since
the expulsion of the Medici in 1494 were abolished. A balia, composed only
of the creatures of that family, was invested with the sovereignty of the
republic. This balia showed itself abjectly subservient to the cardinal
Giovanni de' Medici, his brother Giuliano, and their nephew Lorenzo, who
now returned to Florence after eighteen years of exile, during which they
had lost every republican habit, and all sympathy with their fellow-citizens.
None of them had legitimate children ; but they brought back with them
three bastards, — Giulio, afterwards Clement VII, Ippolito, and Alessandro,
— who had all a fatal influence on the destiny of their country. Their
fortune, formerly colossal, was dissipated in their long exile ; and their first
care, on returning to Florence, was to raise money for themselves, as well
as for the Spaniards, who had re-established their tyranny.
The three destructive wars — viz., that of the French and Swiss in the
Milanese, that of the French and Spaniards in the kingdom of Naples, that of
the French, Spaniards, Germans, and Swiss, in the states of Venice — robbed
Italy of her independence. The country to which Europe was indebted for
its progress in every art and science, which had imparted to other nations
the medical science of Salerno, the jurisprudence of Bologna, the the-
ology of Rome, the philosophy, poetry, and fine arts of Florence, the tactics
and strategy of the Bracceschi and Sforzeschi schools, the commerce and
banks of the Lombards, the process of irrigation, the scientific cultivation
both of hills and plains — that country now belonged no more to its own in-
habitants ! The struggle between the transalpine nations continued, with no
other object than that of determining to which of them Italy should belong ;
and bequeathed nothing to that nation but long-enduring, hopeless agonies.
Julius II in vain congratulated himself on having expelled the French, who
had first imposed a foreign yoke on Italy ; he vowed in vain that he would
never rest till he had also driven out all the barbarians ; but he deceived
himself in his calculations: he did not drive out the barbarians, he only
made them give way to other barbarians ; and the new-comers were ever the
most oppressive and cruel. However, this project of national liberation,
which the pope alone could still entertain in Italy with any prospect of
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 439
[1512-1513 A.D.]
success, was soon abandoned. Eight months after the expulsion of the
French from the Milanese, and five months after the re-establishment of
the Medici at Florence, Julius II, on the 21st of February, 1513, sank under an
inflammatory disease. On the llth of March, Giovanni de' Medici succeeded
him, under the name of Leo X — eleven months after the latter had been
made prisoner by the French at the battle of Ravenna, and six months after
the Spanish arms had given him the sovereignty of his country, Florence.
THE AGE OF LEO X
It has been the singular good fortune of Leo X to have his name associated
with the most brilliant epoch of letters and the arts since their revival. He
has thus shared the glory of all the poets, philosophers, artists, men of learning
and science, his contemporaries. He has been held up to posterity as one
who formed and raised to eminence men who were in fact his elders, and who
had attained celebrity before the epoch of his power. His merit consisted in
showering his liberality on those whose works and whose fame had already
deserved it. His reign, on the other hand, which lasted nine years, was
marked by fearful calamities, which hastened the destruction of those arts
and sciences to which alone the age of Leo owes its splendour. The mis-
fortunes which he drew down on his successor was still more dreadful.
The pope was himself a man of pleasure, easy, careless, prodigal ; who
expended in sumptuous feasts the immense treasures accumulated by his
predecessors. He had the taste to adorn his palace with the finest works
of antiquity, and the sense to enjoy the society of philosophers and poets ;
but he had never the elevation of soul to comprehend his duties, or to con-
sult his conscience. His indecent conversation and licentious conduct
scandalised the church ; his prodigality led him to encourage the shameful
traffic in indulgences, which gave rise to the schism of Luther ; his thought-
lessness and indifference to human suffering made him light up wars the
most ruinous, and which he was utterly unable to carry on ; he never thought
of securing the independence of Italy, or of expelling the barbarians : it was
simply for the aggrandisement of his family that he contracted or abandoned
alliances with the transalpine nations : he succeeded, indeed, in procuring
that his brother Giuliano should be named duke of Nemours, and he created
his nephew duke of Urbino ; but he endeavoured also to erect for the former
a new state, composed of the districts of Parma, Piacenza, Reggio, and
Modena ; for the latter, another, consisting of the several petty principalities
which still maintained themselves in the states of the church. His tortuous
policy to accomplish the first object, his perfidy and cruelty to attain the
second, deserved to be much more severely branded by historians.
The sovereign pontiff and the republic of Venice were the only powers in
Italy which still preserved some shadow of independence. Julius II had
succeeded in uniting Romagna, the Marches, the patrimony and campagna
of Rome, to the holy see. Amongst all the vassals of the church, he had
spared only his own nephew, Gian Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino.
On the defeat of the French, he further seized Parma and Piacenza, which he
detached from the Milanese, without having the remotest title to their pos-
session, as he also took Modena from the duke of Ferrara, whom he detested.
Leo X found the holy see in possession of all these states, and was at the
same time himself all-powerful at Florence. Even the moment of his eleva-
tion to the pontificate was marked by an event which showed that every
440 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1513 A.D.]
vestige of liberty had disappeared from that republic. The partisans
of the Medici pretended to have discovered at Florence a conspiracy, of
which they produced no other proofs than some imprudent speeches, and
some wishes uttered for liberty. The most illustrious citizens were, never-
theless, arrested ; and Macchiavelli, with several others, was put to the
torture. Pietro Boscoli and Agostino Capponi were beheaded ; and those
who were called their accomplices exiled. The two republics of Siena and
Lucca were in a state of trembling subjection to the pontiff ; so that all
central Italy, peopled with about four million inhabitants, was dependent on
him : but the court of Rome, since it had ceased to respect the ancient muni-
cipal liberties, never extended its authority over a new province without
ruining its population and resources. Law and order seemed incom-
patible with the government of priests : the laws gave way to intrigue and
favour ; commerce gave way to monopoly. Justice deserted the tribunals,
foresight the councils, and valour the armies. It was proverbially said that
the arms of the church had no edge. The great name of pope still moved
Europe at a distance, but it brought no real force to the allies whom he
adopted.
The republic of Venice, with a smaller territory, and a far less numerous
population, was in reality much more powerful than the church. Venetian
subjects, if they did not enjoy liberty, had at least a government which main-
tained justice, order, and the law ; their material prosperity was judiciously
protected. They in return were contented, and proved themselves devotedly
attached to their government ; but the wars raised by the league of Cambray
overwhelmed that republic with calamity. The city of Venice, secure amidst
the waters, alone escaped the invasion of the barbarians ; though, even there,
the richest quarters had been laid waste by an accidental fire. The country
and the provincial towns experienced in turn the ferocity of the French, Swiss,
Germans, and Spaniards. Three centuries and a half had elapsed since this
same Veronese march, the cradle of the Lombard League, had repelled the
invasion of Frederick Barbarossa. But while the world boasted a continual
progress, since that period, in civilisation, — while philosophy and justice
had better defined the rights of men, — while the arts, literature, and poetry
had quickened the feelings, and rendered man more susceptible of painful
impressions, — war was made with a ferocity at which men in an age of the
darkest barbarism would have blushed. The massacre of all the inhabitants
of a town taken by assault, the execution of whole garrisons which had sur-
rendered at discretion, the giving up of prisoners to the conquering soldiers
in order to be tortured into the confession of hidden treasure, became the
common practice of war in the armies of Louis XII, Ferdinand, and Maxi-
milian. Kings were haughty in proportion to their power ; they considered
themselves at so much the greater distance above human nature : they were
the more offended at all resistance, the more incapable of compassion for
sufferings which they did not see or did not comprehend. The misery which
they caused presented itself to them more as an abstraction ; they regarded
masses, not individuals ; they justified their cruelties by the name of offended
majesty ; they quieted remorse by considering themselves, not as men, but
as scourges in the hand of God. Centuries have elapsed, and civilisation
has not ceased to march forward ; the voice of humanity has continued
to become more and more powerful ; no one now dares to believe himself
great enough to be dispensed from humanity ; nevertheless, those who would
shrink with horror from witnessing the putting to death of an individual do
not hesitate to condemn whole nations to execution. The crimes which
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY " 441
[1513-1515 A.D.]
remain for us to relate do not merit more execration than those of which we
are ourselves the witnesses at this day. Kings, in their detestation of free-
dom, let loose upon unhappy Italy, in the sixteenth century, famine, war,
and pestilence ; as, from the same motive in a later time, they loosed upon
heroic Poland, famine, war, and the cholera.
Louis XII, after having lost the Milanese, through his infatuated ambition
to reconquer the small province of the Cremonese, which he had himself ceded
to the republic of Venice, felt anew the desire of being reconciled with that
republic, his first ally in Italy. The Venetians, who knew that without their
money, artillery, and cavalry, the Swiss could never have faced the French,
much less have driven them out of Italy, saw that their allies did not appre-
ciate their efforts and sacrifices. Maximilian, who in joining never granted
them peace, but only a truce, reasserted his claims on Verona and Vicenza,
and would not consent to allow the Venetians any states in terra firma but
such as they purchased from him at an enormous price. The pope, to enforce
the demands of Maximilian, threatened the Venetians with excommunication ;
and their danger after victory appeared as great as after defeat. Andrea
Gritti, one of their senators, — made prisoner after the battle of Agnadello,
and the same who, during his captivity at Constantinople, had signed the
peace of his country with the Turks, — again took advantage of his captivity
in France to negotiate with Louis. He reconciled the republic with that
monarch, who had been the first to attack it ; and a treaty of alliance was
signed at Blois, on the 24th of March, 1513. This was, however, a source of
new calamity to Venice. A French army, commanded by La Tremouille,
entered the Milanese, and on its approach the Germans and Spaniards retired.
The Swiss, who gloried in having re-established Massimiliano Sforza on the
throne of his ancestors, were, however, resolved not to abandon him. They
descended from their mountains in numerous bodies, on the 6th of June,
1513 ; attacked La Tremouille at the Riotta, near Novara ; defeated him,
and drove him back with all the French forces beyond the Alps. The
Spaniards and the soldiers of Leo X next attacked the Venetians without
any provocation : they were at peace with the republic, but they invaded
its territory in the name of their ally Maximilian. They occupied the
Paduan state, the Veronese, and that of Vicenza, from the 13th of June till
the end of autumn. It was during this invasion the Spaniards displayed
that heartless cruelty which rendered them the horror of Italy ; that cupidity
which multiplied torture, and which invented sufferings more and more atro-
cious, to extort gold from their prisoners. The Germans in the next cam-
paign overran the Venetian provinces; and, notwithstanding the savage
cruelties and numerous crimes of which the country had just been the
theatre, yet the German commander found means to signalise himself by
his ferocity.
The Battle of Marignano ; Last Years of Leo
Francis I succeeded Louis XII on the 1st of January, 1515 ; on the 27th
of June he renewed his predecessor's treaty of alliance with Venice ; and on
the 15th of August entered the plains of Lombardy, by the marquisate of
Saluzzo, with a powerful army. He met but little resistance in the provinces
south of the Po ; but the Swiss meanwhile arrived in great force to defend
Massimiliano Sforza, whom, since they had reseated him on the throne, they
regarded as their vassal. Francis in vain endeavoured to negotiate with
them : they would not listen to the voice of their commanders ; democracy
had passed from their landsgemeinde into their armies, popular orators roused
442 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1515 A.D.]
their passions; and on the 13th of September they impetuously left Milan to
attack Francis I at Marignano (Melegnano). Deep ditches lined with
soldiers bordered the causeway by which they advanced ; their commanders
wished by some manoeuvre to get clear of them, or make the enemy change
his position ; but the Swiss, despising all the arts of war, expected to com-
mand success by mere intrepidity and bodily strength. <*
As soon as Francis I became aware that the Swiss were marching against
him he made vigorous preparations to receive them. The duchy of Milan,
which with prudent negotiation he hoped to obtain, could only be gained by
a complete victory.
His army was drawn up on three lines on the road leading from Marig-
nano to Milan ; the advance-guard, commanded by the high constable of
Bourbon, encamped in the village of San Giuliano, a short distance below
San Donato ; the main body of the army, the command of which the king
had reserved for himself, was at Santa Brigitta, within bowshot of the high
constable ; the rear-guard, placed under the command of the duke of Alencon,
was at about the same distance from the king's main body. The army, thus
disposed in echelons, held the highway of Milan on its left, and protecting
its right by the river Lambro, occupied a territory covered with trenches
and intersected with small irrigation canals, which would guard it from the
sudden attacks of the Swiss infantry, and also sometimes be inconvenient
for the deploying and the charges of its own cavalry, wherein lay a principal
portion of its strength.
Francis I hastily made his arrangements to face the danger, and with-
stand the shock of an encounter with the Swiss army. As he himself said
in the animated description of the battle he sent to his mother, the regent,
he "placed his German foot-soldiers in order." He had formed two corps of
them, each nine thousand strong, and placed them on the sides of the avenue
by which the Swiss were advancing, besides the picked corps of six thou-
sand lansquenets of the Black Companies. The Gascon archers and the
French adventurers, under Pedro Navarro, occupied, not far from there, a
very strong position near the heavy artillery, which was ably led by the
seneschal of Armagnac.
The Swiss then came up. They had made the distance between Milan
and the French camp without stopping. " It is not possible," says the king,
" to advance with greater fury or more boldly." The discharge of the artil-
lery forced them to take shelter for a moment in a hollow. Then, with
levelled pikes, they fell upon the French army. The high constable of
Bourbon, and Marshal de la Palice at the head of the men-at-arms of the
advance-guard, charged, but were not able to break through them. Thrown
back themselves upon their infantry, they were pursued by the Swiss, who
attacked the lansquenets with fury and put them to rout. The day was
declining, and the battle, begun late (between four and five o'clock), was
assuming the same appearance as at Navarre. The largest company of
Swiss, having driven back the men-at-arms and overthrown the lansquenets,
was marching upon the guns to seize them, turn them against the French
army, and thus complete her defeat.
But there were braver hearts and more resolute spirits amongst those
commanding at Marignano than at Navarre. Francis I, armed cap-d-pie,
mounted on a great charger whose caparison was covered in fleur-de-lis
and his initial, F, crowned, had flung himself in this victorious moment
before the Swiss at the head of two hundred men-at-arms, as well as eight
hundred horsemen. After having valiantly charged one of their companies
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 443
[1515 A.D.]
and forced them to throw down their pikes, he had attacked a large com-
pany which he was not able to overcome but compelled to retreat. Then,
proceeding in the direction of his threatened artillery, he there rallied five
or six thousand lansquenets, and more than three thousand men-at-arms,
with whom he made a firm stand against the largest detachment of the
Swiss, who were not able to seize and remove the pieces of cannon as they
intended. The better to impede these Swiss, Francis I discharged a charge
of artillery upon them, which dislodged them and obliged them to return
to a trench they had crossed and there take shelter.
The high constable, on his side, having rallied a large company of men-
at-arms and the majority of the infantry, had attacked five or six thousand
Swiss with much vigour, and had driven them back to their own places.
Night fell whilst both sides were fighting
thus — the Swiss without succeeding in
carrying the French camps, the French
unable to completely repulse the attacks of
the Swiss. They continued fighting with
pertinacity and no little confusion for sev-
eral hours by the dim light of the moon,
still veiled by the clouds of dust. The hos-
tile troops had some difficulty in recognis-
ing each other in this vast and confused
struggle. Towards eleven o'clock at night,
the moonlight having failed them, dark-
ness prevented their continuing this des-
perate conflict. The Swiss had had the
advantage at the commencement of the bat-
tle, as they had broken through the French
lines, but things had been less favourable to
them at the finish, as they had been partly
driven back to their own. In spite of their
efforts, having attacked that day without
vanquishing, they awaited the morrow to
recommence the battle.
Both sides passed the night under arms
in the position occupied at the cessation
of action owing to the darkness, and not
far from each other. Francis I, after many
charges, had returned to the artillery, who,
firing opportunely upon the Swiss battal-
ions, had several times broken through
them, and were shortly to prove to be of
even more powerful assistance. Showing
the foresight of a general after showing the intrepidity of a soldier, he caused
Duprat, the chancellor, who had followed him on this campaign, to write
three most important letters, which were confided to trusty messengers.
The first was addressed to the Venetian general, Bartolommeo d'Alviano,
whom he enjoined to set out immediately, and to come from Lodi with
his customary promptitude, so as to join the forces he commanded to those
of Francis on the following day. The second exhorted Louis d'Ars, who
occupied Pavia, to carefully guard his stronghold which might, in case
of disaster, serve as a point of retreat. In the third he warned Lautrec of
the attack of the Swiss, and advised him not to remit or allow to be taken
ITALIAN ARMOUR, FIRST HALF OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY
444 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1515 A.D.]
the money he carried about him, in execution of the violated treaty of Gal-
larate. These precautions taken, he " spent the rest of the night," so he
wrote after the battle, " in the saddle, his lance in hand, and his helmet
on his head," and only rested for a few moments, leaning on a gun-carriage.
An hour before dawn he prepared everything for the coming battle.
He took up a position slightly in the rear, and more favourable than the one
he had occupied the preceding day. Instead of leaving his army drawn up
in three lines, he placed his men abreast in only one line. Remaining in the
centre of his battle array, he called upon the high constable of Bourbon
to form his right wing with the advance-guard, and his brother-in-law, the
duke of Alengon, to form his left wing with the rear-guard. The guns,
well placed and defended, were by well-directed firing, to harass the enemy
on their march, and could only be approached by them with difficulty.
It was in this order that Francis I awaited the attack of the Swiss.
The leaders of the allies had held a council of war during the night, to
consult as to the next day's battle and how to render it more decisive. At
daybreak they closed up their huge battalions and set out somewhat ponder-
ously. They seemed at first to be proceeding in a body towards the centre
of the French army, but some discharges of artillery which pierced their ranks
caused them to retreat in the direction of the positions they had occupied
during the night. There they formed into three detachments which marched
on the main body and the two wings of the French. The first detachment,
supported by the six small guns of the Swiss, advanced towards Francis I,
whose steadfast attitude and powerful artillery kept it at a certain distance.
Whilst this detachment of eight hundred men faced and attacked the king,
the two other detachments of about equal strength had flung themselves
upon the two wings commanded by the high constable and the duke of
Alengon, hoping to scatter them, so as to then surround, and thus easily
overcome, the main body of the army. Whether the Swiss had less confidence
than the day before, or whether they were met with even more courage
and steadfastness, they saw their enemies facing their pikes as they had
never done yet. The high constable with his lansquenets and men-at-arms,
and Pedro Navarro with the Gascon archers and the adventurers, resisted
the detachment attacking the right wing, and, after a sharp struggle, drove
it back. In the left wing the duke of Alengon was at first less fortunate.
Whilst the king stopped the advance of the central column of the Swiss,
and the high constable victoriously drove back the left one, the right column
had turned and assailed the forces of the duke of Alengon, which had been
scattered and had retreated in confusion. In spite of the terror of the
fugitives, who had precipitately fled from the field of battle, and were spread-
ing along the road to Pavia the news of the victory of the Swiss, the conflict
remained at this point.
D'Aubigny and Aymar de Prie, having rallied the troops, did their
utmost to repair the disaster of the duke of Alengon, and bravely charged
the enemy. They were struggling with them when Bartolommeo d'Alviano,
who had started early from Lodi, arrived about ten o'clock from that side
of the battle-field. At the head of his armed men and his light cavalry,
he at once fell upon the Swiss with the cry of " Saint Mark ! " This unex-
pected attack disconcerted them. They feared the whole Venetian army
would be upon them, and they retreated. Closely pursued, they fell back
towards the centre, where the allies' battalions, placed opposite . Francis I,
had not been able to make any progress. They discharged and received
cannon-shots during several hours, possibly awaiting the victorious issue
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 445
[1515-1516 A.D.]
of the two attacks of the right and left wings to attempt more securely
to break through the main body of the army. They made one last and
vigorous effort. A company of five thousand men were told off, and marched
with the resolution of despair as far as the French lines. But, taken
obliquely by the artillery, charged by Francis I and his men-at-arms,
attacked with hatchets and pikes by the valiant lansquenets of the Black
Company, stationed in the centre with the king, pierced by the arrows of the
Gascon archers, who had hastened from the right side where they had gained
the mastery, the Swiss company was cut to pieces and none escaped.
The king, with a decisive movement, then bore down with his cavalry
upon the other confederates, who abandoned their position and their guns.
The Swiss, driven back or vanquished on every side, gave the signal for
retreat, and retired from the battle-field, leaving from seven to eight thou-
sand dead. Carrying their wounded, they retook the Milan road in fairly
good order and without pursuit, and entered that town with a haughty
demeanour, and not as a defeated army. They were beaten, nevertheless,
for they had just lost at Marignano that prestige, which, since Sempach,
Granson, and Morat, and as late as at Novara, had made them invincible.^
This horrible butchery, however, hastened the conclusion of the wars which
arose from the league of Cambray. The Swiss were not sufficiently powerful
to maintain their sway in Lombardy ; eight of their cantons, on the 7th of
November, signed, at Geneva, a treaty of peace with Francis I, who compen-
sated with considerable sums of money all the claims which they consented
to abandon. On the 29th of November the other cantons acceded to this
pacification, which took the name of " Paix perpStuelle" and France recov-
ered the right of raising such infantry as she needed among the Swiss. Ray-
mond de Cardona, alarmed at the retreat of the Swiss, evacuated Lombardy
with the Spanish troops. The French recovered possession of the whole
duchy of Milan. Massimiliano Sforza abdicated the sovereignty for a revenue
of 30,000 crowns secured to him in France. Leo X, ranging himself on the
side of the victors, signed, at Viterbo, on the 13th of October, a treaty, by
which he restored Parma and Piacenza to the French.
In a conference held with Francis at Bologna, between the 10th and 15th
of the following December, Leo induced that monarch to sacrifice the liberties
of the Gallican church by the concordat, to renounce the protection he had
hitherto extended to the Florentines and to the duke of Urbino, although the
former had always remained faithful to France. The pope seized the states
of the duke of Urbino, and conferred them on his nephew, Lorenzo II de'
Medici. Amidst these transactions, Ferdinand the Catholic died, on the 15th
of January, 1516, and his grandson Charles succeeded to his Spanish kingdoms.
On the 13th of August following, Charles signed, at Noyon, a treaty, by
which Francis ceded to him all his right to the kingdom of Naples as the
dower of a newborn daughter, whom he promised to Charles in marriage.
From that time Maximilian remained singly at war with the republic of
Venice and with France. During the campaign of 1516, his German army
continued to commit the most enormous crimes in the Veronese march ; but
Maximilian had never money enough to carry on the war without the subsi-
dies of his allies ; remaining alone, he could no longer hope to be successful.
On the 14th of December he consented to accede to the treaty of Noyon ; he
evacuated Verona, which he had till then occupied, and the Venetians were
once more put by the French in possession of all the states of which the
league of Cambray had proposed the partition : but their wealth was annihi-
lated, their population reduced to one-half, their constitution itself shaken, and
446 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1516-1519 A.D.]
they were never after in a state to make those efforts for the defence of the
independence of Italy, which might have been expected from them before
this devastating war.
Had Italy been allowed to repose after so many disasters, she might still
have recovered her strength and population ; and when the struggle should
have recommenced with the transalpine nations, she would have been found
prepared for battle ; but the heartless levity and ambition of Leo did not
give her time. While the family of the
Medici was becoming extinct around him,
he dreamed only of investing it with new
dignities ; he refused the Florentines per-
mission to re-establish their republic, and
offered his alliance to whatever foreign
monarch would aid him in founding on its
ruins a principality for the bastard Medici.
His third brother Giuliano, duke of Nemours,
whom he had at first charged with the gov-
ernment of Florence, died on the 17th of
March, 1516. Lorenzo II, son of his eldest
brother Piero, whom he had made duke of
Urbino, and whom he sent to command at
Florence after Giuliano, rendered himself
odious there by his pride and by his con-
temptible incapacity — he too died only
three years afterwards, on the 28th of April,
1519. Leo supplied his place by Cardinal
Giulio de' Medici, afterwards Clement VII.
This prelate was the natural son of the first
Giuliano killed in the Pazzi conspiracy of
1478. He was considered the most able
of the pope's ministers, and the most moder-
ate of his lieutenants. Giuliano II had also
left an illegitimate son, Ippolito, afterwards
cardinal ; and Lorenzo II had a legitimate
daughter, Catherine, afterwards queen of
France, and an illegitimate son, Alexander,
destined to be the future tyrant of Flor-
ence. Leo, whether desirous of establish-
ing these descendants, or carried away by the restlessness and levity of his
character, sighed only for war.
The emperor Maximilian died on the 19th of January, 1519, leaving his
hereditary states of Austria to his grandson Charles, already sovereign of all
Spain, of the Two Sicilies, of the Low Countries, and of the county of Bur-
gundy. Charles and Francis both presented themselves as candidates for the
imperial crown ; the electors gave it to the former, on the 28th of June,
1519 ; he was from that period named Charles V. Italy, indeed the whole
of Europe, was endangered by the immeasurable growth of this young mon-
arch's power. The states of the church, over which he domineered by means
of his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, could not hope to preserve any independ-
ence but through an alliance with France. Leo at first thought so, and
signed the preliminary articles of a league with Francis ; but, suddenly
changing sides, he invited Charles V to join him in driving the French out
of Italy. A secret treaty was signed between him and the emperor, on the
AN ATTENDANT OF AN ITALIAN PRINCE,
FIRST HALF OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 447
[1519-1522 A.D.]
8th of May, 1521. By this the duchy of Milan was to be restored to Fran-
cesco Sforza, the second son of Louis the Moor. Parma, Piacenza, and Fer-
rara were to be united to the holy see : a duchy in the kingdom of Naples
was to be secured to the bastard Alessandro de' Medici. The pope united his
army to that of the emperor in the kingdom of Naples ; the command of it
was given jointly to Prospero Colonna and the marquis Pescara : war was
declared on the 1st of August, and the imperial and pontifical troops entered
Milan on the 19th of November : but in the midst of the joy of this first
success, Leo X died unexpectedly, on the 1st of December, 1521.
SUCCESSORS OF LEO ; FRANCIS I AND CHARLES V
Death opportunely delivered Leo from the dangers and anxieties into
which he had thoughtlessly precipitated himself. His finances were
exhausted ; his prodigality had deprived him of every resource ; and he had
no means of carrying on a war which he had only just begun. He left his
successors in a state of distress which was unjustly attributed to them, and
which rendered them odious to the people ; for the war into which he had
plunged them, without any reasonable motive, was the most disastrous of all
those which had yet afflicted unhappy Italy. There remained no power truly
Italian that could take any part in it for her defence. Venice was so ex-
hausted by the war of the league of Cambray that she was forced to limit
her efforts to the maintenance of her neutrality, and was hardly powerful
enough to make even her neutral position respected. Florence remained
subject to the cardinal Giulio de' Medici. The republics of Siena and Lucca
were tremblingly prepared to obey the strongest : all the rest depended on
the transalpine power ; for an unexpected election, on the 9th of January,
1522, had given a Flemish successor to Leo X, under the name of Adrian
VI. This person had been the preceptor of Charles V, and had never seen
Italy, where he was regarded as a barbarian. The kingdom of Naples was
governed and plundered by the Spaniards. After the French had lost the
duchy of Milan, Francesco Sforza, who had been brought back by the impe-
rialists, possessed only the name of sovereign. He had never been for a
moment independent ; he had never been able to protect his subjects from
the tyranny of the Spanish and German soldiers, who were his guards.
Finally, the marquis de Montferrat and the duke of Savoy had allowed the
French to become masters in their states, and had no power to refuse them
passage to ravage oppressed Italy anew.
The marshal Lautrec, whom Francis I had charged to defend the Milan-
ese, and who still occupied the greater part of the territory, was forced by
the Swiss, who formed the sinews of his army, to attack the imperialists
on the 29th of April, 1522, at Bicocca. Prospero Colonna had taken up a
strong position about three or four miles from Milan, on the road to Monza :
he valued himself on making a defensive war — on being successful without
giving battle. The Swiss attacked him in front, throwing themselves, with-
out listening to the voice of their commander, into a hollow way which
covered him, and where they perished, without the possibility of resistance.
After having performed prodigies of valour, the remainder were repulsed
with dreadful loss. In spite of the remonstrances of Lautrec, they imme-
diately departed for their mountains ; and he for his court, to justify himself.
Lescuns, his successor in the command, suffered the imperialists to surprise
and pillage Lodi; and was at last forced to capitulate at Cremona on the
448 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1522-1525 A.D.]
6th of May, and evacuate the rest of Lombardy. Genoa was not compre-
hended in the capitulation, and remained still in possession of the French ;
but, on the 20th of May, that city was also surprised by the Spaniards, and
pillaged with all the ferocity which signalised that nation. It was one of
the largest depots of commerce in the West, and the ruin of so opulent
a town shook the fortune of every merchant in Europe. The general of
Charles then, judging Lombardy too much exhausted to support his armies,
led them to live at discretion in the provinces of his ally, the pope. They
raised among the states still calling themselves independent enormous sub-
sidies to pay the soldiers, for which purpose Charles never sent money. The
plague, breaking out at the same time at Rome and Florence, added to the
calamities of Italy so much the more that Adrian VI abolished, as pagan
superstition or acts of revolt against providence, all the sanitary measures
of police which had been invented to stop the spread of contagion. The pope
died on the 14th of September, 1523 ; and the Romans, who held him in
horror, crowned his physician with laurel, as the saviour of his country.
The death of Adrian, however, saved no one. The cardinal Giulio de'
Medici was chosen his successor, on the 18th of November, under the name
of Clement VII. This man had passed for an able minister under his cousin
Leo X, because prosperity still endured, and the pontifical treasury was not
exhausted ; but when he had to struggle with a distress which he, however,
had not caused, his ignorance in finance and administration, his sordid ava-
rice, his pusillanimity, his imprudence, his sudden and ill-considered resolu-
tions, his long indecisions, made him alike odious and contemptible. He was
not strong enough to resist the tide of adversity. He found himself, without
money and without soldiers, engaged in a war without an object ; he was
incapable of commanding, and nowhere found obedience.
The French were not disposed to abandon their title to Lombardy, the
possession of which they had just lost. Before the end of the campaign,
Francis sent thither another army, commanded by his favourite, the admiral
Bonnivet. This admiral entered Italy by Piedmont ; passed the Ticino on
the 14th of September, 1523; and marched on Milan. But Prospero Colonna,
who had chosen, among the great men of antiquity, Fabius Cunctator for his
model, was admirable in the art of stopping an army, of fatiguing it by slight
checks, and at last forcing it to retreat without giving battle. Bonnivet,
who maintained himself on the borders of Lombardy, was forced, in the
month of May following, to open himself a passage to France by Ivrea and
Mont St. Bernard. The chevalier Bayard was killed while protecting the
retreat of Bonnivet, in the rear-guard. The imperialists had been joined,
the preceding year, by a deserter of high importance, the constable Bourbon,
one of the first princes of the blood in France, who was accompanied by
many nobles. Charles V put him, jointly with Pescara, at the head of his
army, and sent him into Provence in the month of July ; but, after having
besieged Marseilles, he was soon constrained to retreat. Francis I, who
had assembled a powerful army, again entered Lombardy, and made himself
master of Milan : he next laid siege to Pavia, on the 28th of October. Some
time was necessary for the imperialists to reassemble their army, which the
campaign of Provence had disorganised. At length it approached Pavia,
which had resisted through the whole winter. The king of France was
pressed by all his captains to raise the siege, and to march against the enemy;
but he refused, declaring that it would be a compromise of the royal dignity,
and foolishly remained within his lines. He was attacked by Pescara on
the 24th of February, 1525 ; and, after a murderous battle, made prisoner.
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 449
[1525 A.D.]
For several months, while Francis I was besieging Pavia, he appeared
the strongest power in Italy ; and the pope and the Venetians, alarmed at
his proximity, had treated with him anew, and pledged themselves to remain
neutral. The imperial generals, after their victory, declared that these
treaties with the French were offences against their master, for which they
should demand satisfaction. Always without money, and pressed by the
avidity of their soldiers, they sought only to discover offenders, as a pre-
tence to raise contributions, and to let their troops live at free quarters.
The pope and the Venetians were at first disposed to join in a league for
resisting these exactions ; and they offered Louise of Savoy, regent of
France, their aid to set her son Francis at liberty. But Clement VII had
not sufficient courage to join this league ; he preferred returning again to
the alliance of the emperor and the duke of Milan, for which he paid a con-
siderable sum. As soon as the imperial generals had received the money,
they refused to execute the treaty which they had made with him, and the
pope was obliged to go back to the Venetians and Louise of Savoy.
Meanwhile Girolamo Morone, chancellor of the duke of Milan, an old
man regarded as the most able politician of his time, made overtures, which
revived the hope of arming all Italy for her independence. Francesco
Sforza found himself treated by the Germans and Spaniards with the great-
est indignity in his own palace : his subjects were exposed to every kind of
insult from an unbridled soldiery; and when he endeavoured to protect
them, the officers took pleasure in making him witness aggravations of
injustice and outrage. The man, however, who made the German yoke
press most severely on him was the marquis Pescara, an Italian, but
descended from the Catalonian house of A valos, established in the kingdom
of Naples for more than a century. He manifested a sort of vanity in asso-
ciating himself with the Spaniards : he commanded their infantry ; he
adopted the manners as well as pride of that nation. Morone, nevertheless,
did not despair of awakening his patriotism, by exciting his ambition. The
kingdom of Naples, which had nourished under the bastard branch of the
house of Aragon when the family of Avalos first entered it, had sunk, since
it had been united to Spain, into a state of the most grievous oppression.
Morone determined on offering Pescara the crown of Naples, if he would
join his efforts to those of all the other Italians, for the deliverance of his
country. Success depended on him : he could distribute the imperial troops,
which he commanded, in such a manner as that they could oppose no resist-
ance. The duke of Milan had been warned that Charles V intended taking
his duchy from him to confer it on his brother Ferdinand of Austria. The
kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan were ready to pass over from
the emperor's party to that of France, provided the French king would
renounce all his claims to both, acknowledge Pescara king of Naples, Fran-
cesco Sforza duke of Milan ; and restore to Italy her independence, after
having delivered her from her enemies.
This negotiation was at first successful ; each of the governments to
which the proposition of concurring in the independence of Italy was
addressed, seemed to agree to it. France renounced all pretensions to Lom-
bardy and the Two Sicilies ; Switzerland promised to protect, on its side,
the land of ancient liberty, and to furnish it with soldiers ; Henry VIII of
England promised money ; Pescara coveted the crown, and Sforza was impa-
tient to throw off a yoke which had become insupportable to him ; but,
unhappily, the negotiation was intrusted to too many cabinets, all jealous,
perfidious, and eager to obtain advantages for themselves by sacrificing their
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 Q
450 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1525-1526 A.D.]
allies. Clement was desirous of obtaining from the emperor a more advan-
tageous treaty, by threatening him with France ; the queen regent of France
endeavoured to engage Charles to relax his rigour towards her son, by
threatening him with Italy ; Pescara, reserving the choice of either betray-
ing his master or his allies, as should prove most profitable to him, had
warned Charles that he was engaged in a plot which he would reveal as soon
as he had every clew to it. The duchess of Alengon, sister of Francis, sent
by her mother to negotiate at Madrid, spoke still more clearly. She offered
Charles to abandon Italy, the project respecting which she disclosed, pro-
vided the emperor, in restoring her brother to liberty, would renounce his
purpose of making him purchase it at the price of one of the provinces of
France. Pescara, finding that his court knew more than he had told, deter-
mined on adopting the part of provocative
agent instead of rebel ; he had only to
choose between them. On the 14th of Octo-
ber, 1525, he invited Morone to a last con-
ference in the castle of Novara. After
having made him explain all his projects
anew, while Spanish officers hid behind the
arras heard them, he caused him to be
arrested, seized all the fortresses in the
state of Milan, and laid siege to the castle,
in which the duke had shut himself up.
He denounced to the emperor as traitors
the pope, and all the other Italians his
accomplices ; but while he played this odious
part, he was attacked by a slow disease, of
which he died on the 30th of November,
1525, at the age of thirty-six, abhorred by
all Italy.
Charles, abusing the advantages which he
had obtained, imposed on Francis the treaty
of Madrid, signed on the 14th of January,
1526 ; by which the latter abandoned Italy
and the duchy of Burgundy. He was set
at liberty on the 18th of March following ;
and almost immediately declared to the
Italians that he did not regard himself
bound by a treaty extorted from him by
force. On the 22nd of May, he joined a
league for the liberty of Italy with Clement
VII, the Venetians, and Francesco Sforza,
but still did not abandon the policy of his
mother : instead of thinking in earnest of restoring Italian independence,
and thus securing the equilibrium of Europe, he had only one purpose —
that of alarming Charles with the Italians ; and was ready to sacrifice them
as soon as the emperor should abandon Burgundy. At the same time, his
supineness, love of pleasure, distrust of his fortune, and repugnance to vio-
late the Treaty of Madrid, hindered him from fulfilling any of the engage-
ments which he had contracted towards the Italians ; he sent them neither
money, French cavalry, nor Swiss forces. Charles, on the other hand, sent
no supplies to pay his armies to Antonio de Leyva, the constable Bourbon,
and Hugo de Mongada, their commanders. These troops were therefore
AN ITALIAN CAPTAIN, FIRST HALF OP
SIXTEENTH CENTURY
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 451
[1526-1527 A.D.]
obliged to live at free quarters, and the oppression of the whole country
was still more dreadful than it had ever yet been.
The defection of the duke of Milan, in particular, gave a pretence to
Antonio de Leyva to treat the wretched Milanese with redoubled rigour, as
if they could be responsible for what Leyva called the treachery of their
master. The Spanish army was quartered on the citizens of Milan ; and
there was not a soldier who did not make his host a prisoner, keeping him
bound at the foot of the bed, or in the cellar, for the purpose of having him
daily at hand, to force him, by blows or fresh torture, to satisfy some new
caprice. As soon as one wretched person died under his sufferings, or broke
his bonds and ended his sufferings by voluntary death, either precipitating
himself through a window or into a well, the Spaniard passed into another
house to recommence on its proprietor the same torture.
The Venetians and the pope had united their forces, under the command
of the duke of Urbino, who, exaggerating the tactics of Prospero Colonna,
was ambitious of no other success in war than that of avoiding battle. He
announced to the senate of Venice that he would not approach Milan till
the French and Swiss, whose support he had been promised, joined him.
His inaction, while witnessing so many horrors, reduced the Italians to
despair. Sforza, who had been nine months blockaded in the castle of Milan,
and who always hoped to be delivered by the duke of Urbino, whose colours
were in sight, supported the last extremity of hunger before he surrendered
to the Spaniards, on the 24th of July, 1526. The pope, meanwhile, was far
from suspecting himself in any danger ; but his personal enemy, Pompeo
Colonna, took advantage of the name of the imperial party to raise in the
papal state eight thousand armed peasants, with whom, on the 20th of Sep-
tember, he surprised the Vatican, pillaged the palace, as well as the temple
of St. Peter, and constrained the pope to abjure the alliance of France and
Venice. About the same time, George of Frundsberg, a German condottiere,
entered Lombardy with thirteen thousand adventurers, whom he had engaged
to follow him, and serve the emperor without pay, contenting themselves
with the pillage of that unhappy country.
The constable Bourbon, to whom Charles had given chief command of
his forces in Italy, determined to take advantage of this new army, and unite
it to that for which at Milan he had now no further occasion ; but it was
not without great difficulty that he could persuade the Spaniards to quit
that city where they enjoyed the savage pleasure of inflicting torture on
their hosts. At length, however, he succeeded in leading them to Pavia.
On the 30th of January, 1527, he joined Frundsberg, who died soon after of
apoplexy. Bourbon now remained alone charged with the command of this
formidable army, already exceeding twenty-five thousand men, and con-
tinually joined on its route by disbanded soldiers and brigands intent on
pillage. The constable had neither money, equipments, nor artillery, and
very few cavalry ; every town shut its gates on his approach, and he was
often on the point of wanting provisions. He took the road of southern
Italy, and entered Tuscany, still uncertain whether he should pillage Flor-
ence or Rome. The marquis of Saluzzo, with a small army, retreated before
him ; the duke of Urbino followed in his rear, but always keeping out of
reach of battle. At last, Bourbon took the road to Rome, by the valley
of the Tiber. On the 5th of May, 1527, he arrived before the, capital of
Christendom. Clement had on the 15th of March signed a truce with the
viceroy of Naples and dismissed his troops. On the approach of Bourbon
the walls of Rome were again mounted with engines of
452 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1527 A.D.]
CAPTURE AND SACK OF HOME
Bourbon encamped in the fields near Rome on the 5th of May and with
military insolence sent a trumpeter to the pope to ask for passage through the
city, that he might lead his army into the kingdom of Naples. The next day
at daybreak he attacked Borgo on the side of the mountain and the church of
Santo Spirito, resolved to conquer or die (for indeed no other hope was left
him) and a fierce battle was begun. Fortune favoured him in approaching,
for a thick fog arose before day which enabled him more securely to establish
his army in the place where the battle commenced. From the first Bourbon
fought desperately at the head of his troops, not only because he had no
refuge if the victory failed him but also because it appeared to him that the
German infantry proceeded coldly to the assault. The assault was but begun
when he was wounded by an arquebuse and fell dead.& The fall of Bourbon
was due to Benvenuto Cellini, if we may accept the statements of that some-
what egotistical autobiographer. Cellini was participating in the defence
of Rome and has left us a vivid account of many of its incidents. He tells us
that he had gone with one Alexander del Bene to the walls of Campo Santo,
and that finding the enemy irresistible they had determined to return with
the utmost speed, but that before doing so he was determined to perform
some manly action. « "Having taken aim with my piece," he says, "where
I saw the thickest crowd of the enemy, I fixed my eye on a person who
seemed to be lifted up by the rest : but the misty weather prevented me
from distinguishing whether he was on horseback or on foot. Then turning
suddenly about to Alexander and Cecchino, I bade them fire off their pieces,
and showed them how to escape every shot of the besiegers. Having accord-
ingly fired twice for the enemy's once, I softly approached the walls, and
perceived that there was an extraordinary confusion among the assailants,
occasioned by our having shot the duke of Bourbon : he was, as I understood
afterwards, that chief personage whom I saw raised by the rest."c The fall
of Bourbon, far from cooling the ardour of his soldiers did but increase it, and
after fighting furiously for two hours they entered Borgo at last, assisted by
the weakness of the defences and the faint resistance of the enemy.
As it is always difficult to carry an assault without cannon, the besiegers
lost about a thousand men. As soon as the imperial army had forced an
entrance, everyone took to flight, and many made for the castle, leaving the
suburbs at the mercy of the conquerors. The pope, who awaited the event
in the Vatican, when he heard that the enemy was in the city, immediately
fled to the castle with many cardinals. Here he considered whether he
should stay where he was, or if he might escape through Rome with the
light cavalry of his guard and reach a place of safety.
News was brought him by Berard de Padone, of the imperial army, of the
death of Bourbon and that the troops, full of consternation at their loss,
were disposed to come to terms. The pope sent an envoy to their chiefs
and unfortunately gave up the idea of flight, while he and his captains had
never been so irresolute in taking measures for their own defence as they
were on this occasion. The Spaniards, finding no attempt was made to
defend the Trastevere, entered it at noon without any resistance. They
had no difficulty in entering Rome by the Ponte Sisto at five o'clock the
same evening. Here, as is usual in such cases, everything was in confusion,
and all the court and citizens had taken to flight except those who trusted
in the name of their party, and certain cardinals who were known for
their adherence to Cesare, and therefore thought themselves safer than the
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 453
[1527 A.D.]
rest. Then the soldiers sacked the city on every side without distinction of
friend or foe.
It is impossible to estimate the extent of the spoil because of the accumu-
lation of riches, and rare and precious things belonging to the courtiers and
merchants, and of the quality and number of the prisoners for whom heavy
ransoms were paid. But worst of all, the soldiers, especially the Germans,
who were rendered cruel and insolent by their hatred for the Roman church,
seized several prelates and having dressed them in their pontifical robes and
the insignia of their office, mounted them on asses and led them with scorn
and derision through the streets of Rome.
Four thousand men or thereabout perished in the battle or in the fury
of pillage. The palaces of the cardinals were all sacked (including that of
Cardinal Colonna, who was not with the army) excepting those palaces
in which the merchants had taken refuge with their personal effects and
those of many others, and which were spared from pillage upon payment of
large sums of money. Many who had thus compounded with the Spaniards
were pillaged by the Germans or obliged to compound with them also.
The marchioness of Mantua paid 50,000 ducats to save her palace, this sum
being furnished by the merchants who had taken refuge there; it was
rumoured that 10,000 went to her son Don Ferrand. The cardinal of Siena,
who had inherited his adherence to the emperor from his ancestors, was
taken prisoner by the Germans, who sacked his palace though he had com-
pounded for it with the Spaniards. They led him bareheaded through
Borgo with many blows, and he only escaped from their hands by payment
of 5,000 ducats. The cardinals of Minerva and Ponzetto met with a similar
misfortune ; they were taken prisoner by the Germans and paid their
ransom, but they were first led through Rome in a vile procession. The
Spanish and German prelates, who did not expect insult from their compa-
triots, were taken prisoner and treated as cruelly as the rest.
On every side arose the cries and lamentations of Roman ladies and
nuns dragged off by bands of soldiers to satisfy their lust. Everywhere
arose the wails of those who were being horribly tortured to force them to
pay ransom, and reveal where their property was concealed. All the holy
things, the sacrament, and relics of saints, of which the churches were full,
lay scattered on the ground stripped of their ornaments and further outraged
by the barbarous Germans. Whatever escaped the soldiers (which was
everything of little value) was pillaged by the peasants of the lands of
Colonna who arrived later ; but Cardinal Colonna who arrived next day
saved many ladies who had taken refuge in his palace. It was said that the
spoil in money, gold, silver, and precious stones amounted to 1,000,000
ducats, and that the ransoms amounted to a much higher sum.
While the imperial army was taking Rome, Count Guido at the head of the
light cavalry and eight hundred arquebusiers appeared on the Ponte de
Salara, expecting to enter the city that evening ; for in spite of the letter of
the bishop of Verona he had continued on his way, not wishing to lose the
glory of having helped to save the capital. But being informed of what had
occurred, he resolved to withdraw to Orticoli where he rejoined the rest
of his troops. As it is human nature to judge mildly and favourably of one's
own actions and to look with the utmost severity on the actions of others,
there were some who greatly blamed the count for having missed so good an
opportunity ; for the imperial troops all intent on pillage, ransacking the
houses, seeking hidden treasures, taking prisoners and removing their booty
to a safe place, were scattered about the city in disorder, heedless of their
454 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1527-1528 A.D.]
banners and of the commands of their captains. Therefore many believed
that if Count Guido had promptly led his men into Rome and marched upon
the castle, which was not besieged nor guarded by any from without, he
might not only have liberated the pope but also have achieved a more glori-
ous success. The enemy was so intent on plunder that it would have been
difficult to assemble a large number upon any sudden alarm. This was
most certainly proved a few days later when by command of the captains,
or upon some alarm, the call to arms was sounded and not a soldier rallied
to his banner. However, men often persuade themselves that if a certain
act had been done or omitted,
certain results would have fol-
lowed; whereas if the matter
had been put to the proof, ex-
perience would often show
them their mistake. &
The capital of Christen-
dom was thus abandoned to a
pillage unparalleled in the most
calamitous period — that of
the first triumph of barbarism
over civilisation : neither Al-
aric the Goth nor Genseric the
Vandal had treated it with
like ferocity. This dreadful
state of crime and agony lasted
not merely days, but was pro-
longed for more than nine
months: it was not till the 17th
of February, 1528, that the
prince of Orange, one of the
French lords who had accom-
panied Bourbon in his rebel-
lion, finally withdrew from
Rome all of this army that vice
and disease had spared. The
Germans, indeed, after the first
few days, had sheathed their
swords, to plunge into drunk-
enness and the most brutal
debauchery; but the Spaniards,
up to the last hour of their
stay in Rome, indefatigable
in their cold-blooded cruelty,
continued to invent fresh torture to extort new ransoms from all who fell
into their hands; even the plague, the consequence of so much suffering,
moral and physical, which broke out amidst all these horrors, did not make
the rapacious Spaniard loose his prey.
The struggle between the Italians, feebly seconded by the French, and
the generals of Charles V, was prolonged yet more than two years after the
sack of Rome ; but it only added to the desolation of Italy, and destroyed
alike in all the Italian provinces the last remains of prosperity. On the
18th of August, 1527, Henry VIII of England and Francis I contracted the
Treaty of Amiens, for the deliverance, as the two sovereigns announced, of
PORTA DEL POPOLO, ROME
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 455
[1527-1528 A.D.]
the pope. A powerful French army, commanded by Lautrec, entered Italy
in the same month, by the province of Alessandria. They surprised Pavia
on the 1st of October, and during eight days barbarously pillaged that great
city, under pretence of avenging the defeat of their king under its walls.
After this success, Lautrec, instead of completing the conquest of Lombardy,
directed his march towards the south ; renewed the alliance of France with
the duke of Ferrara, to whose son was given in marriage a daughter of Louis
XII, sister of the queen of France. He secured the friendship of the Flor-
entine Republic, which, on the 17th of the preceding May, had taken advan-
tage of the distress and captivity of the pope to recover its liberty and to
re-establish its government in the same form in which it stood in 1512. The
pope, learning that Lautrec had arrived at Orvieto, escaped from the castle
of St. Angelo on the 9th of December, and took refuge in the French camp.
The Spaniard Alarcon had detained him captive, with thirteen cardinals,
during six months, in that fortress ; and, though the plague had broken out
there, he did not relax in his severity. After having received 400,000
ducats for his ransom, instead of releasing him, as he had engaged to the
next day, it is probable that he suffered him to escape, lest his own soldiers
should arrest him in order to extort a second ransom.
Lautrec passed the Tronto to enter the Abruzzi with his powerful army
on the 10th of February, 1528. The banditti whom Charles V called his
soldiers, whom he never paid, and who showed no disposition to obedience,
were cantoned at Milan, Rome, and the principal cities in Italy : they divided
their time between debauchery and the infliction of torture on their hosts ;
their officers were unable to induce them to leave the towns and advance
towards the enemy. The people, in the excess of suffering, met every
change with eagerness, and received Lautrec as a deliverer. He would
probably have obtained complete success, if Francis had not just at this
moment withheld the monthly advance of money which he had promised.
That monarch, identifying his pride of royalty with prodigality, exhausted
his finances in pleasures and entertainments; his want of economy drew on
him all his disasters.
Lautrec, on his side, although he had many qualities of a good general,
was harsh, proud, and obstinate : he piqued himself on doing always the
opposite of what he was counselled. Disregarding the national peculiarities
of the French, he attempted in war to discipline them in slow and regular
movements. He lost valuable time in Apulia, where he took and sacked
Melfi, on the 23rd of March, with a barbarity worthy of his adversaries, the
Spaniards : he did not arrive till the 1st of May before Naples. The prince
of Orange had just entered that city with the army which had sacked Rome,
but of which the greater part had been carried off by a dreadful mortality,
the consequence and punishment of its vices and crimes. Instead of vigor-
ously attacking them, Lautrec, in spite of the warm remonstrances of his
officers, persisted in reducing Naples by blockade ; thus exposing his army to
the influence of a destructive climate. The imperial fleet was destroyed, on
the 28th of May, in the gulf of Salerno, by Filippino Doria, who was in the
pay of France. The inhabitants of Naples experienced the most cruel priva-
tions, and sickness soon made great havoc amongst them : but a malady not
less fatal broke out at the same time in the French camp. The soldiers,
under a burning sun, surrounded with putrid water, condemned to every kind
of privation, harassed by the light cavalry of the enemy, infinitely superior to
theirs, sank, one after the other, under pestilential fevers. In the middle of
June, the French reckoned in their camp twenty -five thousand men ; by the
456 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1528 A.D.]
2nd of August there did not remain four thousand fit for service. At this
period all the springs were dry, and the troops began to suffer from hunger
and thirst. Lautrec, ill as he was, had till then supported the army by his
courage and invincible obstinacy ; but, worn out at last, he expired in the
night of the 15th of August : almost all the other officers died in like manner.
The marquis of Saluzzo, on whom the command of the army devolved, felt
the necessity of a retreat, but knew not how to secure it in presence of such
a superior force. He tried to escape from the imperialists, by taking advan-
tage of a tremendous storm, in the night of the 29th of August ; but was
soon pursued, and overtaken at Aversa, where, on the 30th, he was forced to
capitulate. The magazines and hospitals at Capua were, at the same time,
given up to the Spaniards. The prisoners and the sick were crowded to-
CASTEL DELL' Ovo, NAPLES
gether in the stables of the Magdalen, where contagion acquired new force.
The Spaniards foresaw it, and watched with indifference the agony and death
of all ; for nearly all of that brilliant army perished — a few invalids only ever
returning to France.
During the same campaign another French army, conducted by Francois
de Bourbon, count of St. Pol, had entered Lombardy, at the moment when
Henry, duke of Brunswick, led thither a German army. Henry, finding
nothing more to pillage, announced that his mission was to punish a rebel-
lious nation, and put to the sword all the inhabitants of the villages through
which he passed. Milan was at once a prey to famine and the plague,
aggravated by the cupidity and cold-blooded ferocity of Leyva, who still
commanded the Spanish garrison. Leyva seized all the provisions brought
in from the country ; and, to profit by the general misery, resold them at an
enormous price. Genoa had remained subject to the French, and was little
less oppressed ; none of its republican institutions was any longer respected :
but a great admiral still rendered it illustrious. Andrea Doria had collected
a fleet, on board of which he summoned all the enterprising spirits of Liguria :
his nephew Filippino, who had just gained a victory over the imperialists,
was his lieutenant. The Dorias demanded the restoration of liberty to their
country as the price of their services : unable to obtain it from the French,
they passed over to the imperialists. Assured by the promises of Charles, they
presented themselves, on the 12th of September, before Genoa, excited their
countrymen to revolt, and constrained the French to evacuate the town:
they made themselves masters of Savona on the 21st of October, and
a few days afterwards of Castelletto. Doria then proclaimed the republic,
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 457
[1528-1529 A.D.]
and re-established once more the freedom of Genoa, at the moment when
all freedom was near its end in Italy. The winter passed in suffering and
inaction. The following year, Antonio de Leyva surprised the count de St.
Pol at Landriano, on the 21st of June, 1529, and made him prisoner, with all
the principal officers of the French army. The rest dispersed or returned
to France. This was the last military incident in this dreadful war.
Peace was ardently desired on all sides ; negotiations were actively
carried on, but every potentate sought to deceive his ally in order to obtain
better conditions from his adversary. Margaret of Austria, the sister of the
emperor's father, and Louise of Savoy, the mother of the king of France,
met at Cambray ; and, in conference to which no witnesses were admitted,
arranged what was called "le traite des dames." Clement VII had at the
same time a nuncio at Barcelona, who negotiated with the emperor. The
latter was impatient to arrange the affairs of Italy, in order to pass into
Germany. Not only had Suleiman invaded Austria, and, on the 13th of
September, arrived under the walls of Vienna, but the reformation of Luther
excited in all the north of Germany a continually increasing ferment. On
the 20th of June, 1529, Charles signed at Barcelona a treaty of perpetual
alliance with the pope : by it he engaged to sacrifice the republic of Florence
to the pope's vengeance, and to place in the service of Clement, in order to
accomplish it, all the brigands who had previously devastated Italy. Flor-
ence was to be given in sovereignty to the bastard Alessandro de' Medici, who
was to marry an illegitimate daughter of Charles V. On the 5th of August
following, Louise and Margaret signed the Treaty of Cambray, by which
France abandoned, without reserve, all its Italian allies to the caprices of
Charles ; who, on his side, renounced Burgundy, and restored to Francis
his two sons, who had been retained as hostages.
Charles arrived at Genoa, on board the fleet of Andrea Doria, on the 12th
of August. The pope awaited him at Bologna, into which he made his entry
on the 5th of November. He summoned thither all the princes of Italy, or
their deputies, and treated them with more moderation than might have
been expected after the shameful abandonment of them by France. As
he knew the health of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, to be in a declin-
ing state, which promised but few years of life, he granted him the
restitution of his duchy for the sum of 900,000 ducats, which Sforza was to
pay at different terms : they had not all fallen due when that prince died,
on the 24th of October, 1535, without issue, and his estates escheated to
the emperor. On the 23rd of December, 1529, Charles granted peace to the
Venetians ; who restored him only some places in Apulia, and gave up
Ravenna and Cervia to the pope. On the 20th of March, Alfonso d'Este
also signed a treaty, by which he referred his differences with the pope to
the arbitration of the emperor. Charles did not pronounce on them till the
following year. He conferred on Alfonso the possession of Modena, Reggio,
and Rubiera, as fiefs of the empire ; and he made the pope give him the
investiture of Ferrara. On the 25th of March, 1530, a diploma of the emperor
raised the marquisate of Mantua to a duchy, in favour of Federigo de
Gonzaga. The duke of Savoy and the marquis of Montferrat, till then pro-
tected by France, arrived at Bologna, to place themselves under the protection
of the emperor. The duke of Urbino was recommended to him by the
Venetians, and obtained some promises of favour. The republics of Genoa,
Siena, and Lucca had permission to vegetate under the imperial protection ;
and Charles, having received from the pope, at Bologna, on the 22nd of
February and 24th of March, the two crowns of Lombardy and of the empire,
458 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1527-1530 A.D.]
departed in the beginning of April for Germany, in order to escape witness-
ing the odious service in which he consented that his troops should be
employed against Florence.
THE FALL OF FLORENCE
The Florentines who, from 1512, had been victims of all the faults of Leo
X and Clement VII, who had been drawn into all the oscillations of their
policy, and called upon to make prodigious sacrifices of money for projects with
which they had not even been made acquainted, were taught under these popes
to detest the yoke of the Medici. When the constable of Bourbon approached
their walls in his march to Rome, on the 26th of April, 1527, they were on
the point of recovering their liberty ; the cardinal De Cortona, who com-
manded for the pope at Florence, had distributed arms among the citizens
for their defence, and they determined to employ them for their liberation ;
but the terror which this army of brigands inspired did the cardinal the ser-
vice of repressing insurrection. When, however, they heard soon after of
the taking of Rome, and of the captivity of the pope, all the most notable
citizens presented themselves in their civic dress to the cardinal De Cortona ;
declared firmly, but with calmness, that they were henceforth free ; and
compelled him, with the two bastard Medici whom he brought up, to quit
the city. It was on the 17th of May, 1527, that the lieutenant of Clement
obeyed ; and the constitution, such as it existed in 1512, with its grand
council, was restored without change, except that the office of gonfalonier
was declared annual. The first person invested with this charge was Niccolo
Capponi, a man enthusiastic in religion, and moderate in politics ; he was the
son of Pietro Capponi, who had braved Charles VIII. In 1529, he was suc-
ceeded by Baldassare Carducci, whose character was more energetic, and
opinions more democratic. Carducci was succeeded, in 1530, by Raffaelle
Girolami, who witnessed the end of the republic.
Florence, during the whole period of its glory and power, had neglected
the arts of war ; it reckoned for its defence on the adventurers whom its
wealth could summon from all parts to its service ; and set but little value on
a courage which men, without any other virtue, were so eager to sell to the
highest bidder. Since the transalpine nations had begun to subdue Italy to
their tyranny, these hireling arms sufficed no longer for the public safety.
Statesmen began to see the necessity of giving the republic a protection within
itself. Macchiavelli, who died on the 22nd of June, 1527, six weeks after
the restoration of the popular government, had been long engaged in per-
suading his fellow citizens of the necessity of awakening a military spirit in
the people ; it was he who caused the country militia, named I* ordinanza, to
be formed into regiments. A body of mercenaries, organised by Giovanni
de' Medici, a distant kinsman of the popes, served at the time as a military
school for the Tuscans, among whom alone the corps had been raised ; it
acquired a high reputation under the name of bande nere. No infantry
equalled it in courage and intelligence. Five thousand of these warriors
served under Lautrec in the kingdom of Naples, where they almost all per-
ished. When, towards the year 1528, the Florentines perceived that their
situation became more and more critical, they formed, among those who
enjoyed the greatest privileges in their country, two bodies of militia, which
displayed the utmost valour for its defence. The first, consisting of three
hundred young men of noble families, undertook the guard of the palace, and
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 459
[1527-1530 A.D.]
the support of the constitution ; the second, of four thousand soldiers drawn
only from among families having a right to sit in the council general, were
called the civic militia ; both soon found opportunities of proving that gen-
erosity and patriotism suffice to create, in a very short period, the best
soldiers. The illustrious Michelangelo was charged to superintend the forti-
fications of Florence ; they were completed in the month of April, 1529.
Lastly, the ten commissioners of war chose for the command of the city
Malatesta Baglioni of Perugia, who was recommended to them as much for
his hatred of the Medici, who had unjustly put his father to death, as for his
reputation for valour and military talent.
Clement VII sent against Florence, his native state, that very prince of
Orange, the successor of Bourbon, who had made him prisoner at Rome ;
and with him that very army of robbers which had overwhelmed the holy
see, and its subjects, with misery and every outrage. This army entered
Tuscany in the month of September, 1529, and took possession of Cortona,
Arezzo, and all the upper Val d'Arno. On the 14th of October the prince of
Orange encamped in the plain of Ripoli, at the foot of the walls of Florence ;
and, towards the end of December, Ferdinando di Gonzaga led on the right
bank of the Arno another imperial army, composed of twenty thousand Span-
iards and Germans, which occupied without resistance Pistoia and Prato.
Notwithstanding the immense superiority of their forces, the imperialists did
not attempt to make a breach in the walls of Florence ; they resolved to
make themselves masters of the city by a blockade. The Florentines, on the
contrary, animated by preachers who inherited the zeal of Savonarola, and
who united liberty with religion as an object of their worship, were eager for
battle ; they made frequent attacks on the whole line of their enemies, led in
turns by Malatesta Baglioni and Stefano Colonna. They made nightly sal-
lies, covered with white shirts to distinguish each other in the dark, and suc-
sessively surprised the posts of the imperialists ; but the slight advantages
thus obtained could not disguise the growing danger of the republic.
France had abandoned them to their enemies ; there remained not one ally
either in Italy or the rest of Europe ; while the army of the pope and em-
peror comprehended all the survivors of those soldiers who had so long been
the terror of Italy by their courage and ferocity, and whose warlike ardour
was now redoubled by the hope of the approaching pillage of the richest city
in the West.
The Florentines had one solitary chance of deliverance. Francesco Fer-
rucci, one of their citizens, who had learned the art of war in the bande nere,
and joined to a mind full of resources an unconquerable intrepidity and an
ardent patriotism, was not shut up within the walls of Florence ; he had been
named commissary-general, with unlimited power over all that remained
without the capital. Ferrucci was at first engaged in conveying provisions
from Empoli to Florence ; he afterwards took Volterra from the imperialists,
and, having formed a small army, proposed to the signoria to seduce all the
adventurers and brigands from the imperial army, by promising them another
pillage of the pontifical court, and succeeding in that, to march at their head
on Rome, frighten Clement, and force him to grant peace to their country.
The signoria rejected this plan as too daring. Ferrucci then formed a sec-
ond, which was little less bold. He departed from Volterra, made the tour
of Tuscany, which the imperial troops traversed in every direction, collected
at Livorno, Pisa, the Val di Nievole, and in the mountains of Pistoia, every
soldier, every man of courage, still devoted to the republic ; and, after hav-
ing thus increased his army, he intended to fall on the imperial camp before
460 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1530-1531 A.D.]
Florence and force the prince of Orange, who began to feel the want of
money, to raise the siege. Ferrucci, with an intrepidity equal to his skill,
led his little troop, from the 14th of July to the 2nd of August, 1530,
through numerous bodies of imperialists, who preceded, followed, and sur-
rounded him on all sides, as far as Gavinana, four miles from San Marcello, in
the mountains of Pistoia. He entered that village about midday, on the 2nd
of August, with three thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry. The
prince of Orange at the same time entered by another gate, with a part of the
army which besieged Florence. The different corps, which had on every
side harassed Ferrucci in his march, poured in upon him from all quarters ;
the battle instantly began, and was fought with relentless fury within the
walls of Gavinana. Philibert de Chalons, prince of Orange, in whom that
house became extinct, was killed by a double shot, and his corps put to flight,
but other bands of imperialists successively arrived, and continually renewed
the attack on a small force exhausted with fatigue ; two thousand Florentines
were already stretched on the field of battle, when Ferrucci, pierced with
several mortal wounds, was borne bleeding to the presence of his personal
enemy, Fabrizio Maramaldi, a Calabrese, who commanded the light cavalry
of the emperor. The Calabrese stabbed him several times in his rage, while
Ferrucci calmly said, " Thou wouldst kill a dead man ! " The republic
perished with him.
When news of the disaster at Gavinana reached Florence, the consterna-
tion was extreme. Baglioni, who for some days had been in treaty with
the prince of Orange, and who was accused of having given him notice of the
project of Ferrucci, declared that a longer resistance was impossible, and that
he was determined to save an imprudent city, which seemed bent upon its
own ruin. On the 8th of August he opened the bastion, in which he was
stationed, to an imperial captain, and planted his artillery so as to command
the town. The citizens in consternation abandoned the defence of the walls
to employ themselves in concealing their valuable effects in the churches ;
and the signoria acquainted Ferdinando di Gonzaga, who had succeeded the
prince of Orange in the command of the army, that they were ready to
capitulate. The terms granted on the 12th of August, 1530, were less rig-
orous than the Florentines might have apprehended. They were to pay a
gratuity of 80,000 crowns to the army which besieged them, and to recall the
Medici. In return, a complete amnesty was to be granted to all who had
acted against that family, the pope, or the emperor. But Clement had no
intention to observe any of the engagements contracted in his name. On
the 20th of August, he caused the parliament, in the name of the sovereign
people, to create a balia, which was to execute the vengeance of which he
would not himself take the responsibility ; he subjected to the torture, and
afterwards punished with exile or death, by means of this balia, all the patri-
ots who had signalised themselves by their zeal for liberty. In the first
month 150 illustrious citizens were banished; before the end of the year
there were more than one thousand sufferers ; every Florentine family, even
among those most devoted to the Medici, had some one member among the
proscribed.
Alessandro, the bastard Medici, whom Clement had appointed chief of
the Florentine Republic in preference to his cousin Ippolito, did not return
to his country till the 5th of July, 1531 ; he was the bearer of a rescript from
the emperor, which gave Florence a constitution nearly monarchial ; but, so
far from confining himself within the limits traced, Alessandro oppressed the
people with the most grievous tyranny. Cruelty, debauchery, and extortion
THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY" 461
[1531-1737 A.D.]
marked him for public hatred. On the 10th of August, 1535, he caused to
be poisoned his cousin, the cardinal Ippolito, who undertook the defence of
his fellow countrymen against him. He at last, on the 6th of January, 1537,
was himself assassinated by his kinsman and companion in licentiousness,
Lorenzino de' Medici.
But the death of Alessandro did not restore freedom to his country. The
agents of his tyranny, the most able but also the most odious of whom was
the historian Guicciardini, needed a prince for their protector. They made
choice of Cosmo de' Medici, a young man of nineteen, descended in the
fourth generation from Lorenzo, the brother of the former Cosmo. On the
9th of January, 1537, they proclaimed him duke of Florence, hoping to guide
him henceforth at their pleasure ; but they were deceived. This man, false,
cool-blooded, and ferocious, who had all the vices of Filippo II, and who
shrank from no crime, soon got rid of his counsellors, as well as of his adver-
saries. Cosmo I, in 1569, obtained from the pope, Pius V, the title of grand
duke of Tuscany, a title that the emperor would not then acknowledge,
though he afterwards, in 1575, granted it to the son of Cosmo. Seven grand
dukes of that family reigned successively at Florence. The last, Gian Gas-
tone, died on the 9th of July, 1737. <*
Right had disappeared, cries Quinet, leaving an immense gap — in fact
a gulf which opened under the nation's feet and into which she went head
foremost, almost dragging her conquerors after her. To understand these
times we must remember that there had been no real conquest because no
national resistance. No one in the fifteenth century had really defended
the sovereignty of Italy. When Europe presented herself she entered as
into a vacant heritage, devoid of humanity. Italy did not defend herself,
because practically non-existent. She had not been able to pull herself
together. Never has such a thing been seen on the earth : a great people
invaded, and this invasion finding no obstacle. The foreigners who entered,
by the always open breach of the papacy, came with precaution. They
sounded the land, thinking to find a people, and only found an illusion.
Reassured, they came on restrainedly. Europe overflowed the empty places.
In her last moments Italy made profession of worshipping only strength,
crying with Macchiavelli, " Woe to the conquered ! " She reserved for her
defeat none of those life doctrines which nourish even corpses and prevent
their crumbling to powder. Her theories were only for the victorious.
Now that she was conquered she was taken in her own trap, and could not
well revive because she had pronounced her own death sentence.
Evil had arrived at such a pitch that two things were equally necessary :
Luther's reform to break Catholicism ; the chastisement of Italy to restore
that which threatened to disappear — the human conscience. Each town
was smitten by the arms proper to her. Venice fell slowly but noiselessly,
like a body drowned by the doges in the lagunes. There were other cities
which languished as if they had been poisoned. As for Florence, who had
gained so many subjects, she perished, put up and sold at auction like
poisoners bought and sold for the pleasure of choking them.
In reality, the papacy had the honour of aiming the two decisive blows.
Julius II, in the league of Cambray, crushed Venice. Clement VII, in
league with Charles V, crushed Florence. These two vital centres once
destroyed, all was lost.*
The evil destiny of Italy was accomplished. Charles VIII, when he
first invaded that country, opened its gates to all the transalpine nations :
from that period Italy was ravaged, during thirty-six years, by Germans,
462
THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1494-1530 A.D.]
French, Spaniards, Swiss, and even Turks. They inflicted on her calamities
beyond example in history ; calamities so much the more keenly felt, as the
sufferers were more civilised, and the authors more barbarous. The French
invasion ended in giving to the greatest enemies of France the dominion of
that country, so rich, so industrious, and of which the possession was sought
ardently by all. Never would the house of Austria have achieved the con-
quest of Italy, if Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I had not previously
destroyed the wealth and military organisation of the nation ; if they had
not themselves introduced the Spaniards into the kingdom of Naples, and
the Germans into the states of Venice ; forgetting that both must soon after
be subject to Charles V. The independence of Italy would have been bene-
ficial to France ; the rapacious and improvident policy which made France
seek subjects where it should only have sought allies, was the origin of a
long train of disasters to the French.
A period of three centuries of weakness, humiliation, and suffering, in
Italy, began in the year 1530 ; from that time she was always oppressed
by foreigners, and enervated and corrupted by her masters. These last
reproached her with the vices of which they were themselves the authors.
After having reduced her to the impossibility of resisting, they accused her
of cowardice when she submitted, and of rebellion when she made efforts to
vindicate herself. The Italians, during this long period of slavery, were
agitated with the desire of becoming once more a nation : as, however, they
had lost the direction of their own affairs, they ceased to have any history
which could be called theirs ; their misfortunes have become but episodes in
the histories of other nations. ^
wwnmKMKXx^
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY
[1530-1600 A.D.]
From 1530 to 1796, that is, for a period of nearly three centuries,
the Italians had no history of their own. Their annals are filled with
records of dynastic changes and redistributions of territory, consequent
upon treaties signed by foreign powers, in the settlement of quarrels
which nowise concerned the people. Italy only too often became the
theatre of desolating and distracting wars. But these wars were fought
for the most part by alien armies ; the points at issue were decided
beyond the Alps ; the gains accrued to royal families whose names
were unpronounceable by southern tongues. That the Italians had
created modern civilisation for Europe availed them nothing. Italy,
intellectually first among the peoples, was now politically and practi-
cally last ; and nothing to her historian is more heart-rending than to
watch the gradual extinction of her spirit in this age of slavery.
— J. A. SYMONDS.&
THE first circumstance, after the fall of Florence, which interrupted the
ignominious repose of Italy, was the renewal of hostilities between Francis I
and the emperor. During the expedition of Charles V against Tunis, the
French monarch availed himself of the distraction of the imperial strength
to commence his offensive operations. His troops broke into the territories
of the duke of Savoy, against whom he had some causes of dissatisfaction, and
easily wrested all Savoy, and the greater part of Piedmont, from that feeble
prince ; while the imperialists took possession of the remainder of his states,
under pretence of defending them. Meanwhile the death of Francesco
Sforza, who left no posterity, revived the long wars for the possession of the
Milanese state. On the one hand, Francis I, alleging that he had only
ceded that duchy to Sforza and his descendants, insisted that his rights
returned to him in full force by the decease of that prince without issue ;
on the other, Charles V anticipated his designs by seizing the duchy as a
lapsed fief of the empire. Francis I, after some hollow negotiations with his
crafty rival, once more staked the decision of his pretensions on a trial of
arms. Lombardy became again the theatre of furious contests between the
French and the imperialists; but the usual fortunes of Francis still pursued
463
464 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1535-1554 A.D.]
him ; and although his troops inflicted a sanguinary defeat on their oppo-
nents in the battle of Cerisole, the fruits of their victory were lost by the
necessity, under which the French monarch was placed, of turning his strength
to the defence of the northern frontiers of his own kingdom. The peace of
Crespy, in 1544, left Charles in possession of Lombardy ; and though Francis
still retained part of the dominions of the duke of Savoy, the despotic
authority of his rival over Italy remained unshaken.
The tranquillity restored to the peninsula by the peace of Crespy was not
materially disturbed for several years. This period was indeed signalised
by the abortive conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa, and earlier by the separation
of Parma and Piacenza from the papal dominions, and their erection into a
sovereign duchy. These territories, which originally formed part of the
Milanese states, had first been annexed to the holy see by the conquests of
Julius II ; they had frequently changed masters in the subsequent convul-
sions of Italy ; and their possession had finally been confirmed to the papacy
by the consent of Francesco Sforza. By the' subserviency of the sacred
college, the reigning pontiff, Paul III, of the family of Farnese, was suffered
to detach these valuable dependencies from the holy see, and to bestow them
upon his son with the ducal dignity. But neither the trifling change which
was wrought in the divisions of Lombardy by the creation of the duchy of
Parma and Piacenza, nor the dangerous conspiracy of Fiesco, affected the
general aspect and the quietude of Italy.
Shortly after the death of Pope Paul III, however, the determination of
the emperor to spoil his family obliged Ottavio Farnese, the reigning duke
of Parma, to throw himself into the arms of Henry II, the new monarch of
France; and thus a new war was kindled in Lombardy and Piedmont, in
which the French appeared, as the defenders of Ottavio, against the forces
of Charles V and of the new pope, Julius III (1551). The war of Parma
produced no memorable event, until it was extended into Tuscany by the
revolt of Siena against the grievous oppression of the Spanish garrison,
which the people had themselves introduced to curb the tyranny of the aris-
tocratical faction of their republic. After expelling their Spanish masters,
the Sienese invited the aid of the French for the maintenance of their
liberties against the emperor (1552). c
THE SIEGE AND FALL OP SIENA
Cosmo I, duke of Florence, had promised to remain neutral in the war
lighted up anew between the French and the imperialists ; he nevertheless,
on the 27th of January, 1554, attacked, without any declaration of war, the
Sienese, whose city he hoped to take by surprise. Having failed in this
attack, he gave the command to the ferocious Medecino, marquis of Mari-
gnano, who undertook to reduce it by famine. The first act of Marignano
was to massacre without mercy all the women, children, aged, and sick,
whom the Sienese, beginning to feel the want of provisions, had sent out of
the town ; every peasant discovered carrying provisions into Siena was
immediately hung before its gates. The villages and fortresses of the
Sienese, for the most part, attempted to remain faithful to the republic ;
but in all those which held out until the cannon was planted against their
walls, the inhabitants were inhumanly put to death. <*
To oppose Marignano, and the formidable army which he assembled, the
king of France made choice of Pietro Strozzi, a Florentine nobleman, who had
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 465
[1554 A.D.]
resided long in France as an exile, and who had risen by his merit to high
reputation as well as command in the army. He was the son of Filippo
Strozzi, who, in the year 1537, had concurred with such ardour in the attempt
to expel the family of Medici out of Florence, in order to re-establish the
ancient republican form of government, and who had perished in the under-
taking. The son inherited the implacable aversion of the Medici, as well as
the same enthusiastic zeal for the liberty of Florence which had animated his
father, whose death he was impatient to revenge. Henry flattered himself
that his army would make rapid progress under a general whose zeal to
promote his interest was roused and seconded by such powerful pas-
sions ; especially as he had allotted him, for the scene of action, his native
country, in which he had many powerful partisans, ready to facilitate all his
operations.
But how specious soever the motives might appear which induced Henry
to make this choice, it proved fatal to the interests of France in Italy.
Cosmo, as soon as he heard that the mortal enemy of his family was
appointed to take the command in Tuscany, concluded that the king of
France aimed at something more than the protection of the Sienese, and saw
the necessity of making extraordinary efforts not merely to reduce Siena,
but to save himself from destruction. At the same time the cardinal of
Ferrara, who had the entire direction of the French affairs in Italy, consid-
ered Strozzi as a formidable rival in power, and, in order to prevent his
acquiring any increase of authority from success, he was extremely remiss in
supplying him either with money to pay his troops, or with provisions to
support them. Strozzi himself, blinded by his resentment against the
Medici, pushed on his operations with the impetuosity of revenge, rather
than with the caution and prudence becoming a great general.
At first, however, he attacked several towns in the territory of Florence
with such vigour as obliged Medecino, in order to check his progress, to
withdraw the greater part of his army from Siena, which he had invested
before Strozzi's arrival in Italy. As Cosmo sustained the whole burden
of military operations, the expense of which must soon have exhausted his
revenues ; as neither the viceroy of Naples nor governor of Milan was in
condition to afford him any effectual aid ; and as the troops which Medecino
had left in the camp before Siena could attempt nothing against it during
his absence, it was Strozzi's business to have protracted the war, and to have
transferred the seat of it into the territories of Florence ; but the hope of
ruining his enemy by one decisive blow precipitated him into a general
engagement, not far from Marciano. The armies were nearly equal in num-
ber ; but a body of Italian cavalry, in which Strozzi placed great confidence,
having fled without making any resistance, either through the treachery
or the cowardice of the officers who commanded it, his infantry remained
exposed to the attacks of all Medecino's troops. Encouraged, however, by
Strozzi's presence and example, who, after receiving a dangerous wound in
endeavouring to rally the cavalry, placed himself at the head of the infantry,
and manifested an admirable presence of mind, as well as extraordinary
valour, they stood their ground with great firmness, and repulsed such of
the enemy as ventured to approach them. But those gallant troops being
surrounded at last on every side, and torn in pieces by a battery of cannon
which Medecino brought to bear upon them, the Florentine cavalry broke in
on their flanks, and a general rout ensued. Strozzi, faint with the loss of
blood, and deeply affected with the fatal consequences of his own rashness,
found the utmost difficulty in making his escape with a handful of men.
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 H
466 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1554-1556 A.D.]
Medecino returned immediately to the siege of Siena with his victorious
forces, and as Strozzi could not, after the greatest efforts jof activity, collect
so many men as to form the appearance of a regular army, he had leisure to
carry on his approaches against the town without molestation. But the
Sienese, instead of sinking into despair upon this cruel disappointment of
their only hope of obtaining relief, prepared to defend themselves to the
utmost extremity, with that undaunted fortitude which the love of liberty
alone can inspire. This generous resolution was warmly seconded by
Montluc, who commanded the French garrison in the town. The active
and enterprising courage which he had displayed on many occasions had
procured him this command ; and as he had ambition which aspired to the
highest military dignities, without any pretensions to attain them but what
he could derive from merit, he determined to distinguish his defence of Siena
by extraordinary efforts of valour and perseverance. For this purpose,
he repaired and strengthened the fortifications with unwearied industry ; he
trained the citizens to the use of arms, and accustomed them to go through
the fatigues and dangers of service in common with the soldiers ; and as the
enemy were extremely strict in guarding all the avenues to the city, he hus-
banded the provisions in the magazines with the most parsimonious economy,
and prevailed on the soldiers, as well as the citizens, to restrict themselves
to a very moderate daily allowance for their subsistence. Medecino, though
his army was not numerous enough to storm the town by open force, vent-
ured twice to assault it by surprise ; but he was received each time with so
much spirit, and repulsed with such loss, as discouraged him from repeating
the attempt, and left him no hopes of reducing the town but by famine.
With this view he fortified his camp with great care, occupied all the
posts of strength round the place, and having cut off the besieged from any
communication with the adjacent country, he waited patiently until neces-
sity should compel them to open their gates. But their enthusiastic zeal
for liberty made the citizens despise the distresses occasioned by the scarcity
of provisions, and supported them long under all the miseries of famine :
Montluc, by his example and exhortations, taught his soldiers to vie with
them in patience and abstinence ; and it was not until they had withstood a
siege of ten months, until they had eaten up all the horses, dogs, and other
animals in the place, and were reduced almost to their last morsel of bread,
that they proposed a capitulation (1555). Even then they demanded hon-
ourable terms ; and as Cosmo, though no stranger to the extremity of their
condition, was afraid that despair might prompt them to venture upon some
wild enterprise, he immediately granted them conditions more favourable
than they could have expected.
The capitulation was made in the emperor's name, who engaged to take
the republic of Siena under the protection of the empire ; he promised to
maintain the ancient liberties of the city, to allow the magistrates the full
exercise of their former authority, to secure the citizens in the undisturbed
possession of their privileges and property ; he granted an ample and
unlimited pardon to all who had borne arms against him; he reserved
to himself the right of placing a garrison in the town, but engaged not to
rebuild the citadel without the consent of the citizens. Montluc and his
French garrison were allowed to march out with all the honours of war.
Medecino observed the articles of capitulation, as far as depended on
him, with great exactness. No violence or insult whatever was offered to
the inhabitants, and the French garrison was treated with all the respect due
to their spirit and bravery. But many of the citizens suspecting, from the
POPE PAUL III
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 467
[1556-1557 A.D.]
extraordinary facility with which they had obtained such favourable condi-
tions, that the emperor, as well as Cosmo, would take the first opportunity
of violating them, and disdaining to possess a precarious liberty, which
depended on the will of another, abandoned the place of their nativity, and
accompanied the French to Montalcino, Porto Ercole, and other small
towns in the territory of the republic. They established in Montalcino
the same model of government to which they had been accustomed at Siena,
and appointing magistrates with the same titles and jurisdiction, solaced
themselves with this image of their ancient liberty .*
The Spaniards retained possession of Siena for two years, and did not
surrender it to the duke of Florence until the 19th of July, 1557. After
the subjugation of Siena, there remained in Italy only three republics, Lucca,
Genoa, and Venice, unless it may be permitted to reckon San Marino, a free
village, situated on the summit of a mountain of Romagna, which has alike
escaped both usurpation and history until our own time.d
In the same year that witnessed the fall of Siena (1565), Charles V
began putting into execution his intention to abdicate the various crowns
of his vast dominions.
AN ITALIAN ESTIMATE OF THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V
It has never been doubted that the ambition of Charles V was great and
insatiable, and that this alone was his dominant passion. It was therefore
a greater marvel that he should voluntarily despoil himself of all authority
and dignity. But a close examination of the question will show that his
action had its origin in that very ambition. After thirty years of continual
warfare, journeys, negotiations, and perils, he realised that he was no hap-
pier than before, and perhaps higher motives prompted him to think upon
the vanity and frailty of human greatness ; or satiety and weariness having
disgusted him with kingship and power, he thought to win the praise of
men by other means, and to seek tranquillity and repose in private life.
But it is most probable that after his reverses in Germany Charles recog-
nised the impossibility of attaining to that absolute monarchy which he
longed for, and experienced in himself that change of feeling to which the
human heart is naturally inclined ; and that the excessive longing for sove-
reignty over the whole world was succeeded by total lethargy and a longing
for quiet and inaction, more especially as he was suffering from ill health
and was beginning to feel the weight of years. The care which he had
taken to accustom Prince Philip, his only son, to the cares of government,
sending him to Italy and investing him with the duchy of Milan in 1540,
might lead one to believe that he had long since conceived and matured the
design of renouncing his authority before he died ; and that he would have
done so much sooner if matters had been in such a state that he could have with-
drawn with dignity, and without laying himself open to a charge of weakness.
In the meanwhile Henry II, no more resolved to keep peace with
Charles V than firmly persuaded that this was the sincere desire of the latter,
had leagued himself with the German princes, the enemies of the emperor,
and hostilities were begun on both sides without any formal declaration of
war. Thus while the French attacked Toul, Verdun, and Metz in Lower
Germany, the German allies, whose chief leaders were Maurice, duke and
elector of Saxony, Duke Albert of Mecklenburg, and Albert of Brandenburg,
markgraf of Kulmbach and Bayreuth, showed such spirit in their encounter
468 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1555-1556 A.D.]
with the imperial army in the direction of the Tyrol that the emperor him-
self, surprised at Innsbruck, withdrew hastily into Dalmatia to the lands of
his brother Ferdinand, leaving all his baggage as spoil to the enemy. This
fresh blow further confirmed him in his resolution to withdraw from the
world. After the flight from Innsbruck it was observed that he suffered
from a melancholy humour, and in Villach in Carinthia shut himself in his
room for several days, giving no audiences and despatching no business.
Having recruited his army he marched towards Flanders, where he vainly
attempted to besiege Metz, which was occupied by the king of France.
Still further saddened by this proof of his altered fortune, he almost entirely
abandoned the administration of his dominions, partly to Prince Philip and
partly to his favourite the bishop of Arras, and his sister the widowed
queen of Hungary.
In order to evade the cares of government, which had now become dis-
tasteful to him, he reduced himself to a private house in Brussels, where, says
Segin,^ " he took great interest in clock-making, delighting in such machinery
and in talking with the workmen and watching their work." He began the
formal abdication of his crown by making over the kingdom of Naples to his
son (1554). Julius III approved this abdication, and received in the name
of King Philip the homage paid to him by the kings of Naples as feudatories
of the holy see. Thus the states of Milan and Naples changed their ruler
somewhat earlier than Spain. But this separation of the kingdom of Naples
and duchy of Milan from Spain, to which-they were justly united, the former
because of the ancient right of the king of Aragon, and the latter because of
the will of Charles, who bestowed it upon the heir presumptive of the throne
of Spain, was only temporary, for the next year (1555) Charles further
bestowed the Low Countries upon his son, and a little later (1556) the
kingdom of Spain and the dominions of the new world./
RENEWED HOSTILITIES ; THE TREATY OF CATEAU-CAMBRESIS
At the time of the abdication of Charles V the flames of war which had
raged in Europe with such intense violence during the greater part of his long
reign seemed already expiring in their embers. But they were rekindled in
Italy, almost immediately after the accession of Philip II, by the fierce
passions of Paul IV, a rash and violent pontiff. In his indignation at the
opposition which Charles V had raised against his election, and moreover to
gratify the ambition of his family, Paul IV had already instigated Henry II
of France to join him in a league to ruin the imperial power in Italy ; and
he now, in concert with the French monarch, directed against Philip II the
hostile measures which he had prepared against his father.
Philip II, that most odious of tyrants, whose atrocious cruelty and imbecile
superstition may divide the judgment between execration and contempt, shrank
with horror from the impiety of combating the pontiff, whom he had regarded
as the vicegerent of God upon earth. He therefore vainly exhausted every
resource of negotiation, before he was reconciled by the opinion of the Spanish
ecclesiastics, whom he anxiously consulted, to the lawfulness of engaging in
such a contest. At length he was prevailed upon to suffer the duke of Alva
to lead the veteran Spanish bands from the kingdom of Naples into the
papal territories. The advance of Alva to the gates of Rome, however,
struck consternation into the sacred college ; and the haughty and obstinate
pontiff was compelled by the terror of his cardinals to conclude a truce with
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 469
[1556-1557 A.D.]
the Spanish general, which he immediately broke on learning the approach
of a superior French army under the duke de Guise (1556).
This celebrated captain of France, to whom the project was confided of
conquering the kingdom of Naples from the Spaniards, was, however, able to
accomplish nothing in Italy which accorded with his past and subsequent
fame. Crossing the Alps at the head of twenty thousand men, he penetrated,
without meeting any resistance, through Lombardy and Tuscany to the
ecclesiastical capital. If he could effect the reduction of the kingdom of
Naples, it was imagined that the Spanish provinces in northern Italy must
fall of themselves ; and having, therefore, left the Milanese duchy unassailed
THE COLONNADE, ST. PETER'S, ROME
behind him, he passed on from Rome to the banks of the Garigliano, where
he found Alva posted with an inferior force to oppose him. The wily caution
of the Spanish general and the patient valour of his troops disconcerted the
impetuosity of the French and the military skill of their gallant leader : and
disease had already begun to make fearful havoc in the ranks of the invaders,
when Guise was recalled, by the victory of the Spaniards at St. Quentin, to
defend the frontiers of France.0
The confusion at Rome was great. But the pope, though considerably
grieved, gave no external sign of being disturbed or alarmed. " The ambas-
sador of France has just assured me," wrote the bishop of Anglone on the
25th of August, 1557, " that the pope felt greatly the constable's defeat, and
is troubled ; yet in spite of his affliction he does not say cease, but that his
courage is greater than ever, and, from what he sees and believes, his holiness
is more than ever disposed to continue the friendly relations, as he well
knows he cannot bear the cost alone and has need of the king's aid." Never-
theless, Paul IV could not be unmindful that he was left alone to face the
victorious enemy, bolder in their pretensions, as they knew themselves
superior to their adversary.
The pope therefore took the resolution of checking the victorious march of
the duke of Alva, and saving Rome by coming to terms. Cardinal Caraffa
470 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1557-1558 A.D.]
attempted through the medium of Alessandro Placidi to negotiate with
the Spanish viceroy, but the conditions imposed were too onerous to be
accepted by the pontifical court. Cosmo intervened in favour of the latter,
being anxious for peace, and a peace was signed upon most honourable terms
for the pope, who through the sagacity of Silvestro Aldobrandini recovered
all he had lost, and was enabled to confirm the sentences against the rebel-
lious vassals, while King Philip promised to send a solemn embassy to him,
asking grace and pardon.
But in a secret article of the treaty (an article which the pope ignored),
the duchy of Paliano, the apparent cause of the war, remained in the hands of
the Spanish. The duke of Alva had therefore to repair to Rome, and, though
much against his will, was forced to bow before the pontiff and ask pardon
for having made war on the church. The pope, who could hardly believe
that he was free from a war into which he had been dragged without fore-
seeing all the consequences, received him with great benignity and sent the
rosa benedetta to his wife the vice-queen. The duke of Ferrara was not
included in the peace, but Cosmo prevailed upon Philip to receive him into
favour, which was to the great advantage of the duke, who was now on
friendly terms with the Venetians, having taken part in the fight between
the pope and Spain without the republic's consent, and who saw himself
threatened by Duke Ottavio Farnese, anxious to enlarge his dominions at the
expense of the house of Este ; while his people, exhausted by a disastrous
war, ardently longed for peace.
De Guise left Rome on the same day as the duke of Alva entered the
town ; he proceeded in all haste to France, where his arrival was eagerly
looked for, and was appointed lieutenant-general with full powers. At the
head of the French army he entered the field, though the season was far
advanced. While feigning to bear down on the frontier of Flanders, he
suddenly turned and fell upon Calais, the last place which the English held
in France — an important dominion, as it secured them an easy and safe
passage into the heart of the country. In eight days De Guise took posses-
sion of the place ; a success due not so much to valour as to his usual fore-
sight, he having seized the moment when the fort was left denuded of
its garrison. This victory avenged St. Quentin and partly smoothed the
way to a general peace.
First a truce was spoken of, then a general disarming, then a disbanding
of foreign troops ; but ultimately the two powers appointed their plenipo-
tentiaries, who on the 12th of October, 1558, assembled at Cercamps, to
formulate their proposals. Negotiations were long and difficult, especially
respecting the question of the possession of Calais, being suspended on the
17th of November, 1558, on account of the death of Mary Tudor, queen
of England ; they were resumed at Cateau-Cambresis in the following
year, and finally peace was signed between England and France in the first
place, between France and Spain in the second. The conditions were as
follows : France restored Marienburg, Thionville, Damvillers, Montme'dy, in
exchange for St. Quentin, Ham, Catalet, and Therouanne ; she kept Calais
and restored without compensation Bovigny and Bouillon to the bishop of
Liege, while Philip kept Hesdin. In Italy the French evacuated Montferrat,
Milan, Corsica, Montalcino, Siena, Piedmont, excepting the forts of Turin,
Chieri, Pinerolo, Chivasso, Villanova d'Asti, which she held in pledge, and
which by the Treaty of Fossano, signed by the cardinal of Lorraine in ' the
name of the king of France, were restored to Emmanuel Philibert in
exchange for the forts of Savigliano and Perosa.
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 471
[1558-1565 A.D.]
The Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis left Savoy, Bresse, and Bugey free,
but not so the duchy of Saluzzo, which held by France was occupied by
Henry IV and definitely abandoned to Piedmont in 1601, in exchange for
Bresse and Bugey. The restitution of the forts of Piedmont on the part of
France put the seal on the separation of this power from northern Italy. Two
marriages were arranged to make the peace binding, one between Philip II,
left a widower a short time previously, and Elizabeth of Valois, eldest
daughter of Henry, and the other between Margaret, sister of the latter, and
the duke of Savoy.
The Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, completed fifty years later by that of
Vervins, was the fundamental treaty of Europe until the Treaty of West-
phalia. Few diplomatic acts have had such lasting results. The convention
of the 2nd of April, 1559, answered the momentary needs of Europe ; defined
the limits of the possessions of every nation ; broke the power of the house
of Habsburg, which inclined to universal monarchy ; lessened the authority of
Philip II in Italy and the Low Countries, and compelled the said monarch
to keep within the limits of the Iberian peninsula ; and assured liberty to the
rest of Europe, so recently threatened by the omnipotence of Charles V.*
But in its consequences to Italy, this famous treaty was particularly
important. To detach the duke of Parma from the French interest during
the late war, Philip had already restored to him the part of his states which
Charles V had formerly seized : to confirm the fidelity of Cosmo I, after-
wards grand duke of Tuscany, he had assigned Siena to the sceptre of the
Medici, and retained only in Tuscany the small maritime district which was
destined to form a Spanish province, under the title of lo stato degli presidi —
the state of the garrisons. The general pacification confirmed these cessions
of Philip ; it also restored to the house of Savoy the greater part of its pos-
sessions, which the French and Spanish kings engaged to evacuate; and it
left the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan under the recognised
sovereignty of Spain.
Thus the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis may be considered to have finally
regulated the limit and the existence of these Italian principalities and
provinces which, under despotic government, whether native or foreign, had
embraced almost the whole surface of the peninsula ; and it left only the
shadow of republican freedom to Venice, Genoa, Lucca, and — if it be worth
naming — to the petty community of San Marino in the ecclesiastical states.
But this same pacification is yet more remarkable, as the era from which
Italy ceased to be the theatre of contention between the monarchs of Spain
and Germany and France, in their struggle for the mastery of continental
Europe. Other regions were now to be scathed by their ambition, and other
countries were to succeed to that inheritance of warfare and all its calamities,
of which Italy had reaped, and was yet to reap, only the bitterest fruits.0
A new phase now began for Italy; she no longer resisted servitude but
became resigned, nay hastened to it. That same brilliant genius that had
strayed in the slippery paths of the Renaissance expiated its pagan scepticism
in the rigours of penitence and sometimes in the weaknesses of super-
stition.
Pius IV set the example of resignation. Entirely occupied in embel-
lishing Rome, he had built the Porta Pia, opened up the via Montecavallo;
protected the coasts against barbaric pirates by the Borgo, Ancona, and
Civita-Vecchia fortifications, and had no other object than peace in his
relations with foreign powers. Solicited by the Savoy ambassador to help
his master in recovering Geneva, now turned Protestant, " What are we
472 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1563-1572 A.D.]
coming to," he said to him, " that such propositions should be made to me ?
I desire above all things peace." He was convinced that the holy see could
not long maintain itself without help from the princes, and above all made
much of those who reigned over Italy. He thought once of conferring the
title of king on Cosmo, or at least of making him archduke. He refused
nothing to his vassal Philip II for the kingdom of Naples, and allowed him
to oppose the formality of the exequatur to his own decrees. Still less did
he combat the measures which the king took in Milan to restrain the privi-
leges left by Charles V to the senate and the last communal liberties.
The holy see, it is true, gained spiritually what she lost temporally. In
the last sessions of the Council of Trent, which she had the glory of reopen-
ing in 1563, Pope Pius IV, by politic concessions made to the prince,
strengthened the religious reforms which it had seemed possible might be
seized from him. By ceasing to invoke his right over crowned heads
he obtained one thing — there was no
more talk of reforming the church by
reforming the head of it. The coun-
cil, instead of putting itself above
him, bo wed before his authority. Not
only was tradition maintained, and
dogma in all its rigour, but the power
of the holy see in all of its Catholicity
was raised and extended. The pope
remained sole judge of the changes
to be worked in discipline, was infal-
lible in matters of faith, supreme
interpreter of canons, uncontested
head of bishops, and Rome could
console herself for the definite loss of
a part of Europe by seeing her power
doubled in the Catholic nations of the south who rallied religiously round her.
The lay .sovereigns of Italy had not this compensation. Cosmo de'
Medici could freely restrain by terror his subjects of Florence and Siena,
who still feared him. He could fortify Grossetto, Leghorn ; found the order
of the cavaliers of St. Stephen against pirates; construct galleys, hollow
out canals, irrigate and try to repeople and make the Maremma healthy ;
but in seizing the little town of Foligliano from Niccolo Orsini he roused the
discontent of the sovereigns, and did not appease them save by accepting
the hand of the archduchess Johanna, an Austrian princess, for his son.
The duke of Savoy, Emmanuel Philibert, who had given a victory to Philip
II over the king of France at St. Quentin, recovered, through favour of the
troubles in France, all his Piedmontese towns. But neither from the king
of Spain nor the pope did he obtain the help he needed to reduce Geneva.
Under Pope Pius V (1566) the work of Catholic restoration and weak-
ening of the peninsula was finished. This holy but inflexible old man,
admired by the people for his always bare head, long white beard, and coun-
tenance beaming with piety, got the Roman Inquisition admitted into all the
Italian states, and severely watched over faith and customs. Bishops were
bound to keep in residence, monks and nuns forced to strict seclusion. The
Collegium Germanicum, founded by the Jesuits, became a forcing house for
priests for Italy and Germany. Abuses had partly disappeared ; scandals
diminished in Rome. Cardinals eminent for their piety gave tone to the
Roman court — among these the politic Gallio di Como, the administrator
THE LION OF ST. MARK'S, VENICE
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 473
[1565-1571 A.D.]
Salviati, San Severino, the man of the Inquisition, and Madruzzi, surnamed
the Cato of the sacred college. Tiepolo, the Venetian ambassador, a little
later rendered the Holy City this witness : " Rome strives to conquer the
disrepute into which she had fallen ; she has now become more Christian in
her customs and manner of living." In Lombardy, the archbishop of Milan,
Carlo Borromeo, a worthy emulator of Pius V, did not content himself
with reforming the churches and clergy, the monks and nuns. He restrained
public amusement, watched over the regularity of marriages and the gen-
eral conduct of the laity : his zeal even led him beyond the limit of his
powers. He aspired to lend his religious decrees the aid of military force,
and the governor of Milan bowed to the ascendency of a zeal free from all
political ambition.
This reform, quite ecclesiastical and- for discipline, had not, unfortu-
nately, anything practical or strong. Worship was re-established without
reformation of men's characters. The faith was strengthened without cor-
rection of manners. Minds were dominated without souls being uplifted.
One great action stands out during this epoch. Pius V determined a league
against the Turks and among the Italian and Spanish states. Under the
leadership of Don John, the vassals of Venice, Genoa, Tuscany, Naples, and
the church states carried a glorious victory at Lepanto (1571).* So great and
so glorious was this victory, that we must give it more than passing notice.
As one of the great decisive battles between the Orient and the Occident,
it had really world-historical significance. We shall adopt the enthusiastic
narrative of the Spanish historian Lafuente.a
A SPANISH ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO
The Turkish fleet in Lepanto had been reinforced with ships, victuals,
artillery, and soldiers drawn from the Morea and Modon, so that it num-
bered no less than 240 galleys, and a multitude of galiots, foists, and other
craft, with 120,000 men, soldiers and rowers. Pertev Pasha and Ali Uluch,
as also the viceroy of Alexandria and other Turkish generals, counselled
Ali Pasha not to fight or to risk in one battle the loss of the conquests made
in Cyprus. But Ali, as commander-in-chief of the fleet, rejected their
advice as cowardly. The reason of this was that a famous corsair, dis-
guised as a fisherman, had been able to approach and reconnoitre the Chris-
tian galleys, and whether to encourage the Mussulmans, or because he had
not seen the whole fleet, had greatly underestimated their numbers, and had
assured the pasha of a certain, indeed almost infallible victory.
Don John's generals, amongst whom were Giovanni Andrea Doria,
Ascanio de la Corna, and Sebastian Veniero, also feared engaging in a battle;
and some, declaring that it would be rashness, came forward to advise him
to retreat. " Gentlemen," replied the son of Charles V, " it is no longer
the hour for advising, but for fighting ; " and he continued disposing the
order of battle.
Besides his natural valour, his confidence had been heightened by the re-
port he had received that Ali Uluch, the Algerian, had separated from the
Turkish fleet. Both commanders were deceived and confident, both counted
on the victory, both were equally anxious for battle ; it would seem that they
were moved by a mysterious force. Don John passed from ship to ship
encouraging the Christians. "Brothers," he cried in sonorous accents to the
Spaniards, " we are here to vanquish or die, if God so wishes it. Do not
474 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1571 A.D.]
give your arrogant enemy occasion to cry out with haughty impiety, 4 Where
is your God ? ' Fight with faith in his holy name ; killed or victorious, you
shall enjoy immortality." And to the Venetians: "The day has come to
avenge insults ; you hold in your hands the remedy to your sufferings, wield
your swords with courage and anger." And the fire of his words inflamed
the hearts of the combatants with warlike ardour.
Ali Pasha, who was confident of victory, thinking that the whole of the
Christian fleet was in sight, when the greater part of it was hidden from him
by the Curzolari Islands, was dumfounded, and cursed the corsair who had
deceived him, when upon his sailing into the open he discovered its magni-
tude, saw the multitude of sails and the admirable order in which it was
disposed.
Don John also perceived that he had been mistaken in the number of the
enemy's ships, and that it was uncertain whether Ali Uluch had deserted ;
he fully weighed the danger into which he had run, but remembered who he
was, fixed his eyes on a crucifix which he always wore, then raised them to
heaven, and placing his trust in God resolved to fight with the presentiment
of victory. The wind, which at first had been contrary to the Christians,
presently turned against the infidels, rendering the operations of their ships
difficult, and being favourable to the Christian fleet, which raised their cour-
age. Among other things Don John caused the beakheads of all the galleys to
be cut away, commencing with his own flag-ship, which measure, as after-
wards proved, was of great advantage.
Six Venetian galleasses sailed as a vanguard, the left wing formed of sixty
galleys was commanded by the provveditore Barbarigo ; Giovanni Andrea
Doria commanded the right which was composed of nearly an equal number of
sail ; in the centre division, composed of sixty-three galleys, was the gen-
eralissimo Don John of Austria in his flag-ship, having on each side the two
generals of Rome and Venice, Colonna and Veniero, and in the rear his lieu-
tenant, Requesens, chief knight commander of Castile. The rear-guard or
relief squadron, of thirty-five galleys, was commanded by Don Alvaro de
Bazan, marquis of Santa Cruz.
The Turkish fleet, more numerous than the Christian, formed a half moon
and was also divided into three bodies. The right, of fifty -five galleys, was
commanded by the viceroy of Alexandria, Muhammed Siroko ; the left wing,
composed of ninety-three, by Ali Uluch of Algiers, and the two pashas, Per-
tev and Ali, were in the centre with ninety-six sail, with their corresponding
relief force or rear-guard. So that each division faced the corresponding
division of the enemy, and the standard of the Grand Turk fluttered in front
of the holy standard of the league.
The wind had fallen, the waters of the gulf were tranquil, and the sun
shone out from a blue and clear sky, as though God wished that no element
should disturb the struggle of men, that nature should oppose no obstacle to
the battle which was to decide the triumph of the cross or the crescent. If the
reflection of the polished arms, the shining shields, and burnished helmets of
the Christians dazzled the Mussulmans, the eyes of the allies were wounded
by the gilded poop lanterns, the silver and gold inscriptions of the Turkish
standards, the stars, the moon, the double-edged scimitars, which shone from
the ships of the Ottoman admirals. Nothing could be discerned on the hori-
zon but banners and pendants of varied colours. For a brief space the two
fleets surveyed one another in mutual wonder ; this impressive silence was
broken by a broadside discharged from Ali's galley, which was answered by
another from Don John's flag-ship.
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 475
[1571 A.D.]
The first boom of the artillery, which was the signal for battle, was fol-
lowed instantly by the usual clamour and shouting, with which the Moors
commence a fight. The Turkish right wing commanded by the viceroy of
Alexandria first engaged with the Christian left, commanded by the prov-
veditore Barbarigo. The Venetians fought unshielded with the furious
courage and passion of men fighting the murderers of their compatriots.
Doria the Genoese engaged with Ali Uluch the Algerian, who captured the
flag-ship of Malta, and put all her defenders to the sword, with the exception
of the prior and two other knights, who, covered with wounds, were saved
by being counted among the dead.
Ali Pasha and Don John of Austria sought each other with equal hatred,
until with a terrible shock their two galleys rushed together, the fire of the
artillery and arquebuses from the Spanish ship doing deadly work on the
men of the Turkish galley. The action became general, and the contending
galleys changed about ; the sea was white with the foam of the troubled waves,
the smoke of the artillery and arquebuses darkened the sky, turned midday
into night, the sparks flying from the swords and shields as they clashed
together seemed like lightning flashing from black clouds. Ships were
engulfed in the waves, Turks and Christians fell in a muddled heap, clasped
together like brothers, with the hatred of enemies, by the side of a sinking
ship ; greedy flames devoured others ; a Turkish ship would be seen flying a
Christian flag, and a Spanish galley guided by a Turkish commandant.
Swords broken, they fought hand to hand ; all was destruction and death,
until the sea became reddened with blood. " Never," says the author of the
Memories of Lepanto, " had the Mediterranean witnessed on her bosom, nor
shall the world again see, a conflict so obstinate, a butchery so terrible, men
so valiant and so enraged."
With his youthful and untiring arm Don John of Austria wielded his
sword unceasingly, his person being ever exposed to danger ; youthful
also in the battle appeared the veteran Sebastian Veniero ; Colonna did
justice to his illustrious name ; Requesens showed himself a worthy lieutenant
of the valiant prince Don John ; the prince of Parma proved that the blood
of Charles V ran in his veins ; the wounds he received did not check
Urbino ; Figueroa, Zapata, Carillo, every captain of the flag-ship worked like
men well used to battle, setting little value on their lives, when the flag-ship
was hard pressed, because Ali and Pertev Pasha also fought like heroes with
their janissaries.
Don Alvaro de Bazan came to the rescue, as though his galley was moved
by lightning, and mowed down Mussulmans, clearing all before him, though
balls turned against his shield. Like a whirlwind he moved, nor did his
fire slacken though ships were engulfed at his side and captains fell life-
less before him. Ali Uluch held Doria in desperate conflict ; the marquis
of Santa Cruz, leaving the flag-ship in safety, rushed to his assistance,
regained the flag-ship of Malta, relieved the Genoese, and put the Algerian
to ignominious flight.
It is impossible to relate the special deeds of prowess of every captain and
every soldier in the stupendous struggle, in which the janissaries, who held
themselves to be the most valiant warriors of the world, were to learn that
there were Christian soldiers more valiant, more audacious, and more daring
than they. Nevertheless we cannot omit making special mention of a Span-
ish soldier who, prostrated with fever on board Giovanni Andrea Doria's
galley, but feeling a more fierce fever burning in his breast, that is to say,
the fire of courage and the desire of battle, left his bed and begged the
476 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1571 A.D.]
captain to station him at the post of greatest danger. In vain his comrades,
in vain the captain himself, tried to convince him that he was more in a
condition to be curing his body than exposing it to danger. The soldier
insisted, the soldier fought valiantly, the soldier was wounded in the breast
and left hand, but yet he would not retreat, for the maxim of this soldier
was, that wounds received in battle are stars which guide to the heaven of
glory. The stubborn soldier stood firm, and could not be prevailed upon
to retire that he might be attended to, until his galley had ceased to battle,
the captain Francisco de San Pedro being killed in the fight. The reader
will understand why, in the midst of numerous other deeds of prowess, we
have singled that of this soldier in particular, for he will have divined that
this soldier was no other than Miguel de Cervantes, who, then unknown to
the world as a soldier, became afterwards famous as a writer.
But it is now time to draw this furious fight to a close, the result of it
being for a time doubtful. The Turks had already suffered a great loss
when Pertev Pasha, pressed by Don Juan de Cordova, fell into the sea,
and his galley was boarded by Paulo Jordan Urbino, the seraskier being
forced to swim to a small boat in which to escape. But the Christians did
not set up the cry of victory until they saw Ali Pasha, after the vigorous and
stubborn efforts of himself and the three hundred janissaries of his flag-ship,
fall on the gangway wounded in the forehead by a ball from one of Don
John's arquebusiers.
Another cut off his head and presented it to the Christian generalissimo,
who with noble generosity censured the action with horror, and ordered
such trophies to be thrown into the sea ; nevertheless he could not prevent
the head of the Turkish admiral from being raised and exhibited on the
point of a spear. The Christian's cry of victory resounded through the air,
and was carried by the winds to the shore.
The last engagement was between the galleys of Ali Uluch and Giovanni
Andrea Doria, but on the approach of Don John, the viceroy of Algiers
hastened to effect his escape, with forty vessels saved from the general de-
struction ; and so great was his haste that neither Giovanni Andrea nor
Alvaro de Bazan could give chase. Nevertheless well-nigh all his men per-
ished, either drowned in the waves, when jumping in terror to the shore, or
killed among the rocks by the Venetians.
In this memorable battle the Turks lost 220 ships ; of this number 130 fell
into the hands of the Christians, more than 90 were engulfed in the sea, or
reduced to ruins by fire, 40 alone escaped ; 25,000 Turks fell in battle,
50,000 were taken prisoners ; the allies took from them 17 heavy cannon,
and 250 of smaller calibre, more than 12,000 Christians, captives of the
Mussulmans, employed as rowers, saw their chains broken and precious
liberty recovered. The Christian losses were also great, about 8,000 valiant
soldiers and sailors were killed, 2,000 of these were Spaniards, 800 of the
papal army, and the rest Venetians. Only 15 ships were lost. On the other
hand the gilded poop lanterns, the purple banners embroidered in gold and
silver, the stars and moon, the pasha's pennons, were precious trophies which
the allies won in the battle.
Such in brief, concludes Lafuente, was the famous naval battle of Lepanto,
the most famous ever recorded in the annals of nations, for the number of
ships, the exertions and valour of the combatants, for the complete destruc-
tion of a fleet as formidable as was the Ottoman fleet. The janissaries were
no longer invincible ; the Sublime Porte was to lose its supremacy in the
Mediterranean. J
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 477
[1569-1582 A.D.]
THE GENERAL CONDITION OF ITALY
" There was a man sent from God, whose name was John," Pius V could
cry in his enthusiasm over the victory of Lepanto. But besides this victory
there was little to arouse enthusiasm in Italy ; scandals and baseness pre-
vailed everywhere. The Medici offered the worst examples of this. Dread-
ful rumours circulated on the sudden and close deaths of Cosmo's two sons.
It was confidently said that one, Giovanni, had in a fit of jealousy during a
hunting party assassinated his brother Garcias, and that Cosmo had slain the
fratricide some days later in the arms of his mother. The third, Francesco,
although married to the archduchess Johanna, publicly contracted a liaison
which seemed to give rise every day to fresh scandals, and Cosmo in the
recesses of his palace indulged in stormy passions made worse by a sombre
melancholy. All this did not hinder Pope Pius V, in 1569, from conferring
on Cosmo, by what right is not known, the title of grand duke. This act
showed to what depths the Italian princes had sunk. The other small sov-
ereigns, whose lives were also not the most exemplary, showed themselves
very jealous. The dukes of Ferrara and Savoy protested at the courts of
Madrid and Vienna, and aspired to guard the right of precedence, which the
pope had also just changed. At least they would be of the first rank among
slaves. The right of precedence, such as it was in the general servitude,
remained the object of the princes' feverish rivalry. To maintain this their
wise men used a good deal of heraldic and feudal science. Their ambassadors
fought at the courts of Madrid and Vienna.
Loss of liberty was not compensated for by material prosperity. This
was clearly shown during the reigns of Gregory XIII at Rome and Francesco
I at Florence.
Gregory XIII, although of less deep piety than his predecessor, was
carried along in his spiritual government by the vigorous impulse given by
Pius V. He founded an international college at Rome, and accomplished a
work truly European by the reform of the calendar in 1582. His attempts to
regulate economic conditions were not so successful. Francesco de' Medici,
more docile still than his father to the Spanish yoke, obtained by con-
cessions in 1576, from the emperor and the Spanish king, that recognition of
his grand-ducal title which Cosmo had refused, with the right of precedence
over the other dukes. With less reverence than ever he established Bianca
Capello in his palace, she losing nothing of his affection for having given him a
child by another father ; she even became his wife after the death of the arch-
duchess. Quite a Spanish prince, he separated himself entirely from the
people. After the fashion of Philip II he only lived in the midst of courte-
sans and favourites, who began to form a nobility in a state which was for-
merly largely democratic. But through his negligence all the elements of
order and prosperity in Tuscany were lost. The city of Leghorn alone
slightly developed, thanks to the commercial privileges he granted her, but
the rest of the country became deserted compared to what it had been under
Cosmo I. Pisa, from twenty-two thousand inhabitants, fell to eight thou-
sand ; and in 1575 a conspiracy was necessary to overthrow that voluptuous
tyrant who had no thought for the morrow.
In the Milanese, where the governors respected the debris of ancient
liberties, there was still some activity. Milanese arms and embroideries were
sought after, woollen-weavers were very busy in Como and the capital. The
work of canalisation went on. Milan passed as Italy's most populous city and
had 150,000 inhabitants. But at Naples the exigencies and venality of the
478 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1572-1585 A.D.]
administration exhausted all sources of prosperity. Whilst rich families in
Lombardy, the Marignani, the Sforza, the Serboni, the Borromei, and the
Trivulzi, displayed a princely luxuriousness, the Neapolitan nobility, quickly
ruined by court life, retired to their chateaux and lived by oppressing the
peasants. Even the townsfolk, crushed by taxation, and above all by the ca-
price of viceroys, were ruined. The miserable tax-payers, after all their
furniture had been sold, were even driven to strip off their roofs and sell the
material. Towns fell into decay. Localities formerly very flourishing, like
Giovinazzo in Apulia, completely disappeared. A whole province was deso-
lated ; Calabria was now only crossed by caravans.
In the whole peninsula brigandage was organised, as in great epochs of
misery. The discontented, the banished, ruined people, and bad subjects
united in bands under bold and adventur-
ous chiefs and wrought sanguinary revenge.
The Apennine gorges, the little chateaux
there, became the refuge for these outlaws
or bandits who replaced the condottieri,
and were as a last and wild protestation
of national independence. The people, far
from despising them, called them the bravi.
Grandees, princes, even cardinals often
went to these men to seek help needed to
execute vengeance or even to satisfy their
cupidity. Marco Bernardi of Cosenza in
Calabria; Pietro Leonello of Spoleto in the
Marches ; Alfonso Piccolomini, lord of
I* • ^^m^^^m^m^^ •:>.'- Montemarciano, and his noble family in
t! if><$ the Apennines, became the terror of the
peninsula. It needed a real military
Spanish expedition to destroy Marco Ber-
nardi and his band. Alfonso Piccolomini
seized chateaux and even small towns in
the papal states. Pope Gregory XIII
augmented his military forces and gave
Cardinal Sforza the fullest power to rid
the patrimony of St. Peter of this brigand-
age. Gregory XIII could not, however,
disarm Piccolomini but by pardoning him
and restoring his goods. Such was the
state to which imperial and pontifical
restoration had reduced the peninsula towards the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury. But at the threshold of the seventeenth century two energetic men
tried to raise Italy and even put her in the way of profiting by the restora-
tion of France, her natural protector, since she had fallen under the Spanish
yoke : these were Sixtus V, sovereign pontiff, and Ferdinand I, grand duke
of Tuscany.
POPE SIXTUS V ; FERDINAND, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY
Felice Peretti [Sixtus V], one of a poor slave family who had taken
refuge at Montalto, had been raised in the rough school of poverty. He
had often in his youth guarded the fruit or taken care of swine. Received
into a Franciscan convent, he had risen by showing a mixture of theologic
SS. GIOVANNI B PAOLO, VENICE
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 479
[1585-1590 A.D.]
erudition and facility in administration, which evidenced a decided mind and
firm character. He was sixty-four and somewhat infirm when called to the
papacy (1585). This honour seemed to tend to rejuvenescence, a fact which
gave rise to a report that the day after his exaltation he had thrown away
his crutches. He was the first for some time who understood that the pope,
as temporal sovereign, cannot be absorbed exclusively in religious duties
without imperilling that same spiritual power, and he undertook first to
destroy brigandage and raise the finances of the holy see. From the first
day, most energetic measures were taken against the brigands. A price
was set on the heads of the leaders ; their relatives were rendered respon-
sible and liable for all their misdeeds. The holy father found good all
the measures exercised against them. No pity was to be expected from
him. "As long as I live," he said the very day of his coronation, "every
criminal shall suffer capital punishment." At the end of two years, ambas-
sadors congratulated the pope on the safety of the roads in the pontifical
domain.
Gregory XIII had, as Sixtus V said, eaten the revenues of three pontiffs :
his own, those of his predecessor, and those of his successor. Sixtus V
exercised considerable economies in the expenses of the pontifical chamber.
He created a number of venal duties, and established monti on the consump-
tion of wine, wood, and even small industries. In a short time he had paid
his debts, and could put aside annually a million gold crowns : a reserve
destined to pay for great events such as a crusade, a famine, or an invasion
of St. Peter's domain. The ordinary excess of receipts was employed by
him in embellishing Rome. Since Sixtus IV had joined the two shores of
the Tiber by the bridge which bears his name, the lower part of the town
had been entirely rebuilt ; beyond the river rose the marvels of the Vatican,
the Belvedere, the Loggia, and the palace of the Chigi ; beyond these, the
Cancellaria of Julius II, the Farnese and Orsini palaces. But the heights of
the town were always abandoned ; the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli
and the palace of the Conservator! on the Capitoline no longer attracted the
inhabitants. Sixtus V, to repeople these beautiful and celebrated heights,
conducted greatly needed water there by means of works which rivalled
those of the Romans. He caused to flow, sometimes under ground, some-
times in aqueducts, to the Capitoline and Quirinal, that aqua felice which
gave in four hours 20,537 cubic metres of water and nourished twenty-seven
fountains. He planned a great number of streets, facilitated communication
between the higher and the lower towns, and doubled, as it were, the town
of Rome.
The former Franciscan monk also caused a reaction against paganism in
art ; and was happy in celebrating in his works the triumph of the Christian
faith. He surmounted with a cross the beautiful obelisk which the architect
Fontana had raised with so much trouble and delight on the Piazza di San
Pietro. He knocked down the statues of Trajan and Antoninus from the
triumphal columns of those emperors to put up St. Peter and St. Paul, and
to build his churches and realise his plans destroyed the monuments of
antiquity, even the beautiful temple of Severus. He even sacrificed to this
Christian vandalism the beautiful tomb of Csecilia Metella. But before all,
this positive mind had always one end in view — public utility; and Rome
really rose under his pontificate.
The death of the grand duke of Florence, Francesco, was as favourable to
Tuscany as that of Gregory XIII to the church states. Duke Francesco and
Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici, rarely in accord, were still embroiled after the
480 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1587-1590 A.D.]
accession of Pope Sixtus V. In the autumn of 1587, Francesco having fallen
ill, Ferdinand came to Florence and there was reconciled with him. But some
days after the fever of Francesco grew worse, Bianca Capello herself was at-
tacked by the same illness. The husband and wife whose passion for each
other had troubled the court of Tuscany, even of Italy, died within two days
of each other, and Cardinal Ferdinand became duke of Florence. A thousand
rumours were set afloat to damage him, but the new duke soon stifled them
by benefits bestowed. An enlightened man, with practical good sense and
resolution, Ferdinand I repaired the miseries caused by the negligence of
Francesco. The prosperity of Leghorn was taken in hand ; the town of Pisa
helped by the opening of a canal which put her in communication with
Leghorn at that point where the Genoese were soon to assist at a yearly fair.
The course of the Arno received a more advantageous direction ; there was
much done in the way of draining inundated lands, and the prospect of
repeopling the Maremma was reundertaken by increasing the water-supply
and damming the overflow of Lake Fucecchio. Ferdinand kept a navy suf-
ciently considerable to drive the Barbary pirates back to Bona, and tried to
reanimate art and letters, which had been the glory of his country and his
ancestors.
Pope Sixtus V and Ferdinand were so constituted as to understand each
other. Their foreign policy began to betray more independence. Sixtus V
pursued as far as Spanish territory the brigands who were sometimes pro-
tected by them. Ferdinand sent away all the Spaniards whom Francesco
had taken into pay, and confided his fortresses to Italians whom he could
trust. Both men had come to a good understanding with the Venetian
republic. The pope particularly was fond of that town, which had helped
him to destroy the brigands. He often assured her that he would willingly
shed his blood for her. They also attached to themselves the Gonzagas of
Mantua and Genoa, threatened by Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy, who hoped
to obtain everything from Spain by proving himself her most zealous par-
tisan. It was already a scene of resistance. But help must be sought from
without. France, preyed upon for twenty-five years by the horrors of a
religious war which paralysed all foreign politics, could hardly stand against
the efforts and intrigues of Philip II. Ferdinand and Venice favoured as
much as they could the restoration of a strong and national power. The
republic guessed first what the future would be, and had the courage to recog-
nise Henry IV before all the other states. After her, Ferdinand entered into
friendly relations with the new king ; and while the duke of Savoy seized
from him Barcelonnette and Antibes, he threw himself into the chateau
d'lf and put an efficient garrison there.
Sixtus V hesitated. He threatened to break with the republic, for
which he had promised to shed his blood. He allowed himself, however, to
be persuaded to relent, and even received M. de Luxembourg, the envoy of
Henry IV, in private audience. The Spanish ambassador begged, threat-
ened. Sixtus went down before such boldness. Philip II again began to
send bandits to the pontifical territory, and intercepted the convoys laden
with grain which Ferdinand had caused to come for the provisionment of
Tuscany.
Sixtus V went so far as to speak of excommunicating the Catholic king
of Spain. This energetic man, however, bent under so great a task, and
died the 7th of August, 1590, pursued by the cowardly maledictions of the
people, who broke his statues, and decided that that honour should not again
be given to living popes.
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 481
[1590-1600 A.D.]
POPE CLEMENT VIII (1690-1606 A.D.)
The death of Sixtus V again agitated the conclave. The Medicean party
at last arrived at finding a pope, if not hostile, at least less devoted to Spain
— Urban VII. But he died at the end of seven days, and the struggle
recommenced. The viceroy of Naples, to finish it, sent brigands. Olivares
threatened the cardinals with a siege. Gregory XIV, a pope devoted to
Spain, was elected; but only reigned seven months. A third struggle
began, more fierce than the preceding ones. The cardinal of San Severino,
supported by the Spaniards, failed one day of the papacy by a single vote.
"Anxiety," he himself said, "made me sweat blood." Cardinal Aldobran-
dini, the creature of Sixtus V, much less devoted to the Spaniards, was at
last elected on January 30th, 1592, and took the name of Clement VIII.
This was a victory for Italy. The abjuration of Henry IV, his entry
into Paris in 1594, was another. It was celebrated in the peninsula as a
national event. The pope, who up to then had managed the Spanish and
only secretly received the ambassadors of Henry IV, no longer resisted the
insistances of the grand duke of Florence. In vain the Spanish party left
Rome with the cardinals, who led them ; in vain the duke of Sessa, Philip
II's ambassador, threw his Abruzzian bandits on church lands. Supported
by the Venetians, by the duke of Tuscany, by the emperor himself, to
whom the Italians furnished help against the Turks, the pope carried all
before him. He declared in solemn ceremony (September 8th, 1595) Henry
to be reconciled with the Catholic church, thus re-establishing between the
orthodox powers a favourable equilibrium to his own independence and
the freeing of Italy. The peninsula, in effect, soon found she had gained
a powerful support against Spain. Alfonso II, duke of Ferrara, Modena,
and Reggio, dying in 1597, had left his heritage to Don Cesare his cousin,
in default of a direct heir. Clement VIII claimed, as fief of the holy see,
the town of Ferrara, hurled excommunication against Don Cesare, who
aspired to all the heritage, and raised a loan to support an army of spiritual
thunderbolts.
At first events did not seem to favour the holy see. The court of Spain,
who thought it had somewhat against Clement VIII, was ill disposed. The
grand duke of Tuscany, brother-in-law to Don Cesare, this time abandoned
the pope. Even the Venetian Republic hindered him from recruiting soldiers
in Dalmatia. Henry IV forgot what he owed to Venice, to the grand duke,
and offered to send an army beyond the mountains to put the pope in posses-
sion of Ferrara. Don Cesare, obliged to yield, gave up the town after tak-
ing away the archives, the library, and the artillery of his predecessors. He
thereafter contented himself with the title of duke of Modena and Reggio.
The town of Ferrara lost all its advantages, all its £clat as capital, and soon
saw rise in place of the ducal palace and the beautiful belvedere sung by her
poets, a citadel which easily kept in awe a town promptly dispeopled.
Philip II, who for thirty years had allowed nothing to be done in Italy
without his permission, was obliged to yield this time. He thus signed, before
dying, the peace of Vervins, which announced the re-establishment of French
power and the decadence of Spain. His successor, Philip III, abandoned even
the most faithful of the servitors of his house in Italy — Charles Emmanuel I,
duke of Savoy, from whom Henry IV, by the treaty of Lyons, received in
1600 Bugey, Valromey, and Gex, in exchange for the marquisate of Saluzzo.
Italy now turned with full hope towards France. The holy see had
nothing but kindness for her. The learned cardinal Baronius repeated, to
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 I
482 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
whoever cared to listen, that the papacy had never received of any nation so
much service. " Can it be allowed," cried the cardinal's nephew, Aldobrandini,
through whose hands all affairs passed, " can it be allowed that the Spanish
should command in the house of a stranger in spite of him ? " And it was
not perhaps without reflection that he put millions in reserve and maintained
an army of twelve thousand men. Not having had occasion to meddle with
France since the Peace of Lyons, Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy began to
understand that it was in Italy, at the expense of Spain, that he must seek
aggrandisement. So he entered into intimate relations with Henry IV, so
long time his enemy. In waiting for better things, he ended by organising
the senate established by his father at Carignan on the model of the French
parliaments. He reanimated agriculture and commerce and fortified Turin,
an Italian city. He himself wrote a parallel between great men ancient and
modern, and began to found the military power of his little state.
Ferdinand of Tuscany, only too happy to see Maria de' Medici mount
the French throne, did not long hold out before Henry IV. He was bold
enough to send his admiral Inghirami, at the head of his fleet, to fight the
Turks in the Adriatic, even seeking to seize from them the isle of Cyprus.
In the north and south of Italy the Milanese and the Neapolitans themselves
began to grow restless under the iron yoke of Spain. It was perhaps the
time to attempt something. Cardinal Aldobrandini once proposed to Venice
a league against Spain. But Cardinal Aldobrandini and Ferdinand were
sworn foes. Henry IV, moreover, was not yet firmly enough established in
France to act outside it.
There then remained only one alternative for the Neapolitan kingdom —
one of those isolated revolts, so extraordinarily foolish, so frequent in the
peninsula, which can only be explained by the misery of the people. A
Dominican, Tommaso Campanella, a deep thinker if he had not been a still
greater dreamer, tore himself from his philosophic elucidations and dreams
to call, like a new Savonarola, his compatriots to liberty. He believed in the
faith of the Apocalypse that the seventeenth century would be for Italy
the signal for a cataclysm wherein would be engulfed the Spanish domina-
tion, and he formed the project of founding a kind of universal theocratic
republic. He began first by Calabria, his country. Monks, not only Domini-
cans, but Franciscans and Augustines, drawn away by his eloquence, began
to preach the doctrines of this new emissary from God, and blew upon the
hardly extinct ashes of Neapolitan frenzy. Even many bishops and a few
barons followed the monks. An army, recruited in part by bandits, went
out from Calabria. The count of Lemos, viceroy of Naples, soon had the
upper hand. The unfortunates who were seized perished in frightful tor-
ments. Tommaso Campanella, regarded as insane, was thrown in a dungeon,
where he stayed twenty-seven years, and passed from the dream of a univer-
sal republic to that of a universal holy empire.
This attempt sufficed to put the Spanish government, already full of dis-
trust, still more on their guard. Philip III, at Rome, roused Cardinal Farnese,
head of his faction, against Aldobrandini. The garrisons of Tuscany were
strengthened; Fuentes, governor of Milan, assembled sufficient troops to
scare the whole peninsula. He would have done more, if the king of Spain,
Philip III, and his minister, the duke of Lerma, satisfied with maintaining
their domination, had not taken every precaution not to rouse the interven-
tion of Henry IV from beyond the Alps.*
Fully to appreciate the character of the times just treated, one must
recall the state of contemporary civilisation. We have been brought some-
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY 483
what in contact with the conditions in Germany, France, and Spain, because
these countries were in constant political association with Italy. To com-
plete the picture, it should be recalled that the sixteenth century was the age
of Henry VIII and Elizabeth in England ; therefore, the time of Spencer,
Shakespeare, and Bacon. It was the age also of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin ;
the time when the spirit of the Reformation was actively battling with the
old ecclesiasticism, and when the counter influence of the Inquisition made
itself felt everywhere. Italy being relatively uninfluenced by the Refor-
mation was also relatively free from the excesses of the Inquisition.
Nevertheless, it furnished just at the close of the century a most striking
illustration of inquisitorial power in the persecution, imprisonment, and
finally the execution by burning at the stake of the famous philosopher,
Giordano Bruno.
But the Italian civilisation of the time presents some more attractive
features. The artistic impulses of the Renaissance, at which we have
glimpsed in an earlier chapter, could not be blotted out in a single generation ;
and it must be recalled that Michelangelo lived until the year 1564 ; so the
art movement did not pass its climax before the middle of the century. In
the field of literature the activities of the earlier generation were unabated.
" Among the numbers of men who had devoted themselves to letters," says
Sismondi,* " Italy produced at this glorious epoch, at least thirty poets, whom
their contemporaries placed on a level with the first names of antiquity, and
whose fame, it was thought, would be commensurate with the existence of
the world. But even the names of these illustrious men begin to be for-
gotten ; and their works, buried in the libraries of the learned, are now
seldom read.
"The circumstances of their equality in merit has doubtless been an
obstacle to the duration of their reputation. Fame does not possess a strong
memory. For a long flight, she relieves herself from all unnecessary en-
cumbrances. She rejects, on her departure, and in her course, many who
thought themselves accepted by her, and she comes down to late ages, with
the lightest possible burthen. Unable to choose between Bembo, Sadoleti,
Sanazzaro, Bernardo Accolti, and so many others, she relinquishes them
all."
There is one name, however, that stands out from amidst this company in
a secure position. This is the name of Torquato Tasso, the famous author of
the G-erusalemme Liberata (" Jerusalem Delivered "), a poem dealing with
the First Crusade, which by common consent has high rank among the great
epics, and which placed its author in contemporary estimation, as in that of
posterity, on an approximate level with Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto. The
appearance of Tasso in this epoch is another illustration of that fruitage of
literary genius in times of political degeneration to which reference has
previously been made.«
CHAPTER XVI
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY
[1601-1700 A.D.]
From the fall of Siena on to the nineteenth century Italy can
scarcely be said to have existed at all except as a geographical expres-
sion. Italians still ruled over certain parts of the land, but they had
the vices without the virtues of their nation, and reigned more as the
dependents of foreign sovereigns than as independent princes. During
the seventeenth, the eighteenth, and the early part of the nineteenth
centuries, Italy was made the scene of wars in which her people had
no interest, and was divided by treaties which brought her no good.*
— HUNT.
THE general aspect of Italy, during the whole course of the seventeenth
century, remained unchanged by any signal revolution. The period which
had already elapsed between the extinction of national and civil independence
and the opening of the period before us had sufficed to establish the perma-
nency of the several despotic governments of the peninsula, and to regulate
the limits of their various states and provinces. If we except some popular
commotions in Naples and Sicily, the struggle between the oppressed and
the oppressor had wholly ceased. Servitude had become the heirloom of
the people ; and they bowed their necks unresistingly and from habit to the
grievous yoke which their fathers had borne before them. Their tyrants,
domestic and foreign, revelled or slumbered on their thrones.
The Italian princes of the seventeenth century were more voluptuous and
effeminate, but perhaps less ferocious and sanguinary, than the ancient Vis-
conti, the Scala, the Carrara, the Gonzaga. But the condition of their sub-
jects was not the less degraded. Their sceptres had broken every mouldering
relic of freedom ; and their dynasties, unmolested in their seats, were left
(we except that of Savoy) to that quiet and gradual extinction which was
insured by the progress of mental and corporeal degeneracy — the hereditary
consequences of slothful and bloated intemperance. The seventeenth cen-
tury, however, saw untroubled to its close the reign of several ducal houses,
which were to become extinct in the following age.
484
A CENTUEY OF OBSCURITY 485
[1600-1627 A.D.]
Compared with that of the preceding century, the history of Italy at this
period may appear less deeply tinged with national crime, and humiliation,
and misery ; for the expiring throes of political vitality had been followed
by the stillness of death. But, as a distinguished writer has well remarked,
we should greatly err if, in observing that history is little more than the
record of human calamity, we should conclude that the times over which it
is silent are necessarily less characterised by misfortune. History can sel-
dom penetrate into the recesses of society, can rarely observe the shipwreck
of domestic peace and the destruction of private virtue. The happiness and
the wretchedness of families equally escape its cognisance. But we know
that, in the country and in the times which now engage our attention, the
frightful corruption of manners and morality had sapped the most sacred
relations of life. The influence of the Spanish sovereignty over a great part
of the peninsula had made way for the introduction of many Castilian preju-
dices ; and these were fatally engrafted on the vices of a people already too
prone to licentious gallantry. The merchant-noble of the Italian republics
had been taught to see no degradation in commerce ; and some of the
numerous members of his household were always engaged in pursuits which
increased the wealth and consequence of their family.
But the haughty cavalier of Spain viewed the exercise of such plebeian
industry with bitter contempt. The Spanish military inundated the penin-
sula ; and the growth of Spanish sentiment was encouraged by the Italian
princes. They induced their courtiers to withdraw their capital from com-
merce, that they might invest it in estates, which descended to their eldest
sons, the representatives of their families ; and the younger branches of
every noble house were condemned to patrician indolence, poverty, and
celibacy. It was to recompense these younger sons, thus sacrificed to family
pride, and forever debarred from forming matrimonial connections, that the
strange and demoralising office of the cicisbeo, or cavaliere servente, was insti-
tuted : an office which, under the guise of romantic politeness, and fostered
by the dissolute example of the Italian princes and their courts, thinly veiled
the universal privilege of adultery.
This pernicious and execrable fashion poisoned the sweet fountain of
domestic happiness and confidence at its sources. The wife was no longer
the intimate of her husband's heart, the faithful partner of his joys and cares.
The eternal presence of the licensed paramour blasted his peace ; and the
emotions of paternal love were converted into distracting doubts or baleful
indifference. The degraded parent, husband, son, fled from the pollution
which reigned within his own dwelling, himself to plunge into a similar
vortex of corruption. All the social ties were loosened : need we demand
of history if public happiness could reside in that land, where private mor-
ality had perished.
GENERAL CONDITIONS
In attempting to bring the unimportant fortunes of Italy during the
seventeenth century into a general point of view, we should find considerable
and needless difficulty. In the beginning of the century, a quarrel between
the popedom and Venice appeared likely to kindle a general war in the
peninsula ; but the difference was terminated by negotiation (1627).
Twenty years later, the disputed succession of the duchy of Mantua cre-
ated more lasting troubles, and involved all Lombardy in hostilities ; in which
the imperialists, the Spaniards, the French, and the troops of Savoy once
486 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1600-1700 A.D.]
more mingled on the ancient theatre of so many sanguinary wars and calami-
tous devastations. But this uninteresting struggle, if not marked by less
cruelty and rapine towards the inhabitants of the country, was pursued with
less destructive vigour and activity than in the preceding century ; nor were
the French arms attended by those violent alternations of success and failure
which had formerly inflicted such woes upon the peninsula. From the epoch
at which Henry IV excluded himself from Italy by the Savoyard treaty,
until the ambitious designs of Cardinal Richelieu involved France in the
support of the pretensions of the Grisons over the Valtelline country against
Spain, the French standards had not been displayed beyond the Alps. But
from the moment at which the celebrated minister of Louis XIII engaged
in this enterprise, until the Peace of the Pyrenees, the incessant contest of
the French and Spanish monarchies, in which the dukes of Savoy and other
Italian powers variously embarked, was continually extended to the frontiers
of Piedmont and Lombardy.
The arms of the combatants, however, seldom penetrated beyond the
northern limits of Italy ; and their rivalry, which held such a fatal influence
on the peace of other parts of the European continent, can scarcely be said to
have materially affected the national affairs of the peninsula. Meanwhile, the
few brief and petty internal hostilities which arose and terminated among
the Italian princes were of still less general consequence and interest. The
subsequent gigantic wars into which Louis XIV, by his insatiable lust of
conquest, forced the great powers of Europe, were little felt in Italy until
the close of the century — except in the territories of the dukes of Savoy.
Thus, altogether, instead of endeavouring to trace the history of Italy during
the seventeenth century as one integral and undivided subject, it will be
more convenient still to consider the few importants events in the contem-
porary annals of her different provinces as really appertaining, without much
connection, to distinct and separate states.
The immediate dominion of the Spanish monarchy over great part of Italy
lasted during the whole of the seventeenth century. Naples, Sicily, Milan,
and Sardinia were exposed alike to the oppression of the Spanish court, and
to the inherent vices of its administration. Its grievous exactions were
rendered more ruinous by the injudicious and absurd manner of their inflic-
tion ; by the private rapacity of the viceroys, and the peculation of their
officers. Its despotism was aggravated by all the wantonness of power,
and all the contemptuous insolence of pride. But of these four subject
states, the last two, Milan and Sardinia, suffered in silence ; and except that
the Lombard duchy was almost incessantly a prey to warfare and ravages
from which the insular kingdom was exempted, a common obscurity and
total dearth of all interest equally pervade the annals of both. But the
fortunes of the two kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were more remarkable
from the violent efforts of the people, ill conducted and unsuccessful though
these were, to shake off the intolerable yoke of Spain.
The decline of the Spanish monarchy, which had already commenced
in the reign of Philip II, continued rapidly progressive under his succes-
sors, the third and fourth Philip, and the feeble Charles II, so the neces-
sities of the Spanish government became more pressing, and its demands
more rapacious and exorbitant. Of the revenue of about 6,000,000 gold
ducats, which the viceroys extorted from the kingdom, less than 1,500,000
covered the whole public charge, civil and military, of the country ; and after
all their own embezzlements and those of their subalterns, they sent yearly
to Spain more than 4,000,000, no part of which ever returned. Thus was
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 487
[1600-1700 A.D.]
the kingdom perpetually drained of wealth, which nothing but the lavish
abundance of nature in that most fertile of regions could in any degree have
renovated. But even the luxuriant opulence of Naples could neither satisfy
the avarice of the court of Madrid, nor protect the people from misery and
want under a government whose impositions increased with the public
exhaustion, and were multi-
plied with equal infatuation
and wickedness upon the com-
mon necessaries of life. In
this manner, duties were es-
tablished upon flesh, fish, oil,
and even upon flour and
bread ; and the people found
themselves crushed under
taxation, to pay the debts and
to feed the armies of Spain.
Their wealth and their youth
were alike drawn out of their
country, in quarrels altogether
foreign to the national inter-
ests ; in the unfortunate and
mismanaged wars in the
Spanish court in Lombardy
and Catalonia, and in the Low
Countries and Germany.
Meanwhile, as during the last
century, the interior of the
kingdom was almost always
infested with banditti, rend-
ered daring and reckless of
crime by their numbers and
the defenceless state of so-
ciety; and so ill-guarded were
the sea coasts that the Turk-
ish pirates made habitual
descents during the whole
course of the century, ravaged
the country, attacked villages
and even cities, and carried
off the people into slavery.
It cannot excite our surprise that the evils of the Spanish administration
filled the Neapolitans with discontent and indignation ; we may only wonder
that any people could be found abject enough to submit to a government at
once so oppressive and feeble. The first decided attempt to throw off the
foreign yoke had its origin among an order in which such a spirit might
least be anticipated. In the last year of the sixteenth century, Tommaso
Campanella, a Dominican friar, had, on account, says Giannone, of his wicked
life and the suspicion of infidelity, incurred the rigours of the Roman Inquisi-
tion. On his release he laboured, in revenge for the treatment which he had
received at Rome, to induce the brethren of his own order, the Augustines,
and the Franciscans, to excite a religious and political revolution in Calabria.
He acquired among them the same reputation for sanctity and prophetic
illumination which Savonarola had gained at Florence a hundred years
WELL NEAR THE PIAZZA DEI SIGNOBI, VERONA
488 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1600-1647 A.D.]
before. He secretly inveighed against the Spanish tyranny; he declared
that he was appointed by the Almighty to overthrow it, and to establish a
republic in its place ; and he succeeded in enlisting the monastic orders and
several bishops of Calabria in the cause. By their exhortations, a multitude
of people and banditti of the province were roused to second him, and his
design was embraced by great numbers of the provincial barons, whose
names the historian declares that he suppresses from regard to their descend-
ants. Campanella relied likewise on the assistance of the Turks in the
meditated insurrection. But the secret of so extensive a conspiracy could
not be preserved ; the government got notice of it before it was ripe for
execution ; and Campanella and his chief priestly associates, with other
conspirators, were adroitly arrested. Many of them were put to death
under circumstances of atrocious cruelty ; but Campanella himself, in the
extremity of his torments, had the consummate address to render his confes-
sion so perplexed and incoherent that he was regarded as a madman, and
sentenced only to perpetual imprisonment; from which he contrived at
length to escape. He fled to France, and peaceably ended his life many
years afterwards at Paris.
After the suppression of this conspiracy, Naples was frequently agitated
at different intervals by commotions, into which the lower people were driven
by misery and want. These partial ebullitions of popular discontent were
not, however, marked by any very serious character until the middle of the
century, when the tyranny of the viceregal government and the disorders
and wretchedness of the kingdom reached their consummation. The Span-
ish resources of taxation had been exhausted on the ordinary articles of
consumption ; the poor of the capital and kingdom had been successively
compelled to forego the use of meat and bread by heavy duties ; and the
abundant fruits of their happy climate remained almost their sole means of
support. The duke of Arcos, who was then viceroy, could find no other expe-
dient to meet the still craving demands of his court upon a country already
drained of its life-blood, than to impose a tax upon this last supply of food ;
and his measure roused the famishing people to desperation.
An accidental affray in the market of Naples swelled into a general insur-
rection of the populace of the capital ; and an obscure and bold individual
from the dregs of the people immediately rose to the head of the insurgents.
Tommaso Aniello, better known under the name of Masaniello, a native of
Amain and servant of a fisherman, had received an affront from the officers
of the customs and sought an occasion of gratifying his lurking vengeance.
Seizing the moment when the popular exasperation was at its height, he led
the rioters to the attack and demolition of the custom-house. The flames of
insurrection at once spread with uncontrollable violence ; the palace of the
viceroy was pillaged ; and Arcos himself was driven for refuge to one of
the castles of Naples. The infuriated populace murdered many of the
nobles, burned the houses of all who were obnoxious to them, and filled
the whole capital with flames and blood. Their youthful idol Masaniello,
tattered and half naked, with a scaffold for his throne and the sword for his
sceptre, commanded everywhere with absolute sway.
The viceroy, terrified into virtue at these excesses, which the long oppres-
sion of his court and his own tyranny had provoked, and finding the insur-
rection spreading through the provinces, consented to all the demands of
, Masaniello and his followers. By a treaty which he concluded with the in-
surgents, he solemnly promised the repeal of all the taxes imposed since
the time of Charles V, and engaged that no new duties should thenceforth be
A CENTURY OF OBSCUEITY 489
[1647-1648 A.D.]
levied ; he guaranteed the ancient and long-violated privileges of parliament ;
and he bound himself by oath to an act of oblivion. A short interval of
calm was thus gained ; but the perfidious viceroy employed it only in grati-
fying the vanity of Masaniello by caresses and entertainments ; until, having
caused a potion to be administered to him in his wine at a banquet, he suc-
ceeded in unsettling his reason. The demagogue then by his extravagances
and cruelties lost the affection of the people ; and Arcos easily procured
his assassination by some of his own followers.
The viceroy had no sooner thus deprived the people of their young leader,
whose native talents had rendered him truly formidable, than he immediately
showed a determination to break all the articles of his compact. But the
people, penetrating his treachery, flew again to arms ; and the insurrection
burst forth in the capital and provinces with more sanguinary fury than before.
Again Arcos dissembled ; and again the deluded people had laid down their
arms ; when, on the appearance of a Spanish fleet before Naples, the citadels
and shipping suddenly opened a tremendous cannonade on the city ; and at
the same moment some thousand Spanish infantry disembarked and com-
menced a general massacre in the streets. The Neapolitans were confounded
and panic-stricken at the aggravated perfidy; but they were a hundred times
more numerous than the handful of troops which assailed them. When they
recovered from their first consternation, they attacked their enemies in every
street ; and after a frightful carnage on both sides, the Spaniards were
driven either into the fortresses or the sea.
After this conflict, the people, who, since the death of Masaniello, had
fallen under the influence of Gennaro Annese, a soldier of mean birth,
resolved fiercely and fearlessly to throw off the Spanish yoke altogether. It
chanced that Henry, duke of Guise, who by maternal descent from the second
line of Anjou had some hereditary pretensions to the Neapolitan crown, was
at this juncture at Rome on his private business ; and to him the insurgents
applied, with the offer of constituting him their captain-general. At the
same time they resolved to erect Naples into a republic under his presidency ;
and the duke, a high-spirited prince, hastened to assume a command which
opened so many glorious prospects of ambition. The contest with the Span-
ish viceroy, his fortresses, and squadron, was then resumed with new blood-
shed, and with indecisive results. But though the Neapolitans had hailed
the name of a republic with rapture, they were, of all people, by their incon-
sistency and irresolution, least qualified for such a form of government. In
this insurrection, they had for some time professed obedience to the king of
Spain, while they were resisting his arms ; and even now they wavered, and
were divided among themselves. On the one hand, the duke de Guise, out-
raged by their excesses, and grasping perhaps at the establishment of an
arbitrary power in his own person, began to exercise an odious authority,
and showed himself intolerant of the influence of Annese : on the other,
that leader of the people was irritated at finding himself deprived of all
command. In his jealousy of Guise, he basely resolved to betray his coun-
trymen to the Spaniards ; and in the temporary absence of the duke, who
had left the city with a small force to protect the introduction of some sup-
plies, he opened the gates to the enemy (1648 A.D.). When the Spanish
troops re-entered the capital the abject multitude received them with loud
acclamations ; and the duke of Guise himself, in endeavouring to effect his
flight, was made prisoner, and sent to Spain. In one of those gloomy Span-
ish dungeons he was kept a prisoner and mourned for some years the vanity
of his ambition.
490 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1647-1674 A.D.]
Thus, in a few hours, was the Spanish yoke again fixed on the necks of
the prostrate Neapolitans; and it was riveted more firmly and grievously
than ever. As soon as their submission was secured, almost all the men who
had taken a prominent share in the insurrection, and who had been promised
pardon, were seized, and under various pretences of their having mediated
new troubles, were either publicly or privately executed. The traitor
Gennaro Annese himself shared the same fate — a worthy example that
neither the faith of oaths, nor the memory of eminent services are securities
against the jealousy and vengeance of despotism. That despotism had no
longer anything to fear from the degraded people who had returned under
its iron sceptre. The miseries of Naples could not increase ; but they were
not diminished until the death of Charles II and the extinction of the
Austrian dynasty of Spain in the last year of the century.
The sister kingdom of Sicily had long shared the lot of Naples, in all the
distresses which the tyrannical and impolitic government of Spain could
inflict upon the people. The Sicilians were only more fortunate than their
continental neighbours, as the inferior wealth and resources of their island
rendered them a less inviting prey to the insatiable necessities of Spain, to
the drain of her wars, and the rapacity of her ministers. But even in Sicily,
which by the excellence of its soil for raising corn seems intended to be the
granary of Italy, the Spanish government succeeded in creating artificial
dearth and squalid penury ; and in the natural seat of abundance, the people
were often without bread to eat. Their misery goaded them at length
nearly to the commission of the same excesses as those which have just been
described at Naples. A few months earlier than the revolt under Masaniello
the lower orders rose at Palermo, chose for their leader one Guiseppe d'Alessi,
a person of as low condition as the Neapolitan demagogue, and under his
orders put their viceroy, the marquis of los Velos, to flight. But this insur-
rection at Palermo was less serious than that of Naples and, after passing
through similar stages, was more easily quelled. The Sicilian viceroy, like
Arcos, did not scruple at premeditated violation of the solemnity of oaths.
Like him, he swore to grant the people all their demands, and a total amnesty;
and yet, after perfidiously obtaining the assassination of the popular leader,
he caused the inhabitants to be slaughtered in the streets, their chiefs to be
hanged, and the burdens which he had been forced to remove to be laid on
again.
This detestable admixture of perfidy and sanguinary violence bent the
spirit of the Palermitans to the yoke, and Sicily relapsed into the tameness
of suffering for above twenty-seven years ; until this tranquillity was broken,
during the general war in Europe, which preceded the Treaty of Nimeguen,
by a new and more dangerous insurrection. The city of Messina had,
until this epoch, in some measure enjoyed a republican constitution and was
governed by a senate of its own, under the presidency only of a Spanish
lieutenant, with very limited powers. This freedom of the city had insured
its prosperity : its population amounted to sixty thousand souls, its com-
merce flourished, and its wealth rivalled the dreams of avarice. The Neapol-
itan historian asserts that the privileges of the people had rendered them
insolent ; but there is more reason to believe that the Spanish government
looked with a jealous and unfriendly eye upon a happy independence, which
was calculated to fill their other Sicilian subjects with bitter repinings at the
gloomy contrast of their own wretched slavery. Several differences with
successive viceroys regarding their privileges had inspired the citizens of
Messina with discontent ; and at length they rose in open rebellion against
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 491
[1674-1679 A.D.]
their Spanish governor, Don Diego de Soria, and expelled him from the city
(1674 A.D.). Despairing of defending their rights, without assistance,
against the whole power of the Spanish monarchy, they had then recourse
to Louis XIV, and tempted him with the offer of the sovereignty of their
city, and the eventual union of their whole island with the French dominions.
Louis eagerly closed with a proposal, which opened at least an advantageous
diversion in his war against Spain. He was proclaimed king of Sicily at
Messina, and immediately despatched a small squadron to take possession of
the city in his name.
The arrival of his force was succeeded, early in the following year, by
that of a formidable French fleet, under the duke de Vivonne ; and the
Messinese, being encouraged by these succours, rejected all the Spanish
offers of indemnity and accommodation. On the other hand, the court of
Madrid, being roused to exertion by the danger of losing the whole island,
had fitted out a strong armament to secure its preservation and the recovery
of Messina ; and a Dutch fleet under the famous De Ruyter arrived in the
Mediterranean to co-operate with the Spanish forces. The war in Sicily was
prosecuted with fury on both sides for nearly four years ; and several sangui-
nary battles were fought off the coast, between the combined fleets and that
of France. In all of these the French had the advantage : in one, the gallant
De Ruyter fell ; and in another, the French, under Vivonne and Duquesne,
with inferior force, attacked the Dutch and Spanish squadrons of twenty-
seven sail of the line, nineteen galleys, and several fire-ships at anchor, under
the guns of Palermo, and gained a complete victory. This success placed
Messina in security, and might have enabled both Naples and Sicily to throw
off the onerous dominion of Spain. But the spiritless and subjugated people
evinced no disposition to rise against their oppressors ; and all the efforts
of the French eventually failed in extending the authority of their monarch
beyond the walls of Messina.
The French king had lost the hope of possessing himself of all Sicily, and
was already weary of supporting the Messinese, when the conferences for a
general peace were opened at Nimeguen. There, dictating as a conqueror,
he might at least have stipulated for the ancient rights of the Messinese, and
insisted upon an amnesty for the brave citizens, who, relying on the sacred
obligation of protection, had utterly provoked the vengeance of their Spanish
governors by placing themselves under his sceptre. But, that his pride
might not suffer by a formal evacuation of the city as a condition of the
approaching peace, he basely preferred the gratification of this absurd punc-
tilio to the real preservation of honour and the common dictates of humanity.
His troops were secretly ordered to abandon Messina before the signature of
peace ; and so precipitate was the embarkation that the wretched inhabitants,
stricken with sudden terror at their impending fate, despairing of pardon
from their former governors, and hopeless of successful resistance against
them, had only a few hours to choose between exile and anticipated death.
Seven thousand of them hurried on board the French fleet, without having
time to secure even their money or portable articles, and the French com-
mander, fearing that his vessels would be overcrowded, sailed from the har-
bour ; while two thousand more of the fugitives yet remained on the beach
with outstretched arms, in the last agonies of despair, vainly imploring him
with piercing cries not to abandon them to their merciless enemies.
The condition of the Messinese who fled for refuge to France, and of
those who remained in the city, differed little in the event. Louis XIV,
after affording the former an asylum for scarcely more than one short year,
492 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1600-1679 A.D.]
inhumanly chased them in the last stage of destitution from his dominions.
About five hundred of them, rashly venturing to return to their country,
under the faith of Spanish passports, were seized on their arrival at Messina,
and either executed or condemned to the galleys. Many others, even of the
highest rank, were reduced to beg their bread over Europe, or to congregate
in bands, and rob on the highways ; and the miserable remnant, plunged into
the abyss of desperation, passed into Turkey, and fearfully consummated
their wretchedness by the renunciation of their faith. Their brethren, who
had not quitted Messina, had meanwhile at first been deluded with the hope
of pardon by the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. But the amnesty which he pub-
lished was revoked by special orders from Madrid ; and all, who had been in
any way conspicuous in the insurrection, were either put to death or banished.
Messina was deprived of all its privileges ; the town-house was razed to the
ground ; and on the spot was erected a galling monument of the degrada-
tion of the city — a pyramid surmounted by the statue of the king of Spain,
cast with the metal of the great bell which had formerly summoned the people
to their free parliaments. The purposes of Spanish tyranny were accom-
plished : the population of Messina had dwindled from sixty to eleven thou-
sand persons ; and the obedience of the city was insured by a desolation from
which it has never since risen to its ancient prosperity.
Thus were the annals of Naples and Sicily distinguished only, during
the seventeenth century, by paroxysms of popular suffering. The condi-
tion of central Italy was more obscure and tranquil ; for the maladminis-
tration of its rulers did not occasion the same resistance. Yet if the papal
government was less decidedly tyrannical and rapacious than that of Spain,
the evils, which had become inherent in it during preceding ages, remained
undiminished and incurable ; and agricultural and commercial industry was
permanently banished from the Roman states. Meanwhile the succession
of the pontiffs was marked by few circumstances to arrest our attention.
To Clement VIII, who reigned at the opening of the century, succeeded in
1604 Leo XI, of the family of Medici, who survived his election only a few
weeks ; and on his death the cardinal Camillo Borghese was raised to the
tiara by the title of Paul V. Filled with extravagant and exploded opinions
of the authority of the holy see, Paul V signalised the commencement of his
pontificate by the impotent attempt to revive those pretensions of the papal
jurisdiction and supremacy over the powers of the earth, which, in the dark
ages, had inundated Italy and the empire with blood. He thus involved the
papacy in disputes with several of the Catholic governments of Europe, and
in a serious difference with Venice in particular. After his merited defeat
on this occasion, he cautiously avoided to compromise his authority by the
repetition of any similar efforts ; and during the remainder of his pontifi-
cate of sixteen years, his only cares were to embellish the ecclesiastical
capital, and to enrich his nephews with vast estates in the Roman patrimony,
which thus became the hereditary possessions of the family of Borghese.
Paul V, on his death in 1621, was succeeded by Gregory XV, whose insig-
nificant pontificate filled only two years ; and in 1623 the conclave placed
the cardinal Maffeo Barberini in the chair of St. Peter, under the name of
Urban VIII. This pope, during a reign of twenty-one years, was wholly
under the guidance of his two nephews, the cardinal Antonio and Taddeo
Barberini, prefect of Rome. These ambitious relatives were not satisfied
with the riches which he heaped upon them ; and their project of acquiring
for their family the Roman duchies of Castro and Ronciglione, fiefs held of
the church by the house of Farnese, involved the papacy in a war with
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 493
[1610-1644 A.D.]
Parma. Odoardo Farnese, the reigning duke of Parma, had contracted
immense debts to charitable foundations at Rome, of which he neglected to
pay even the interest. He thus afforded Taddeo Barberini, as prefect of
that capital, a pretext for summoning him before the apostolic chamber ; and
on his contemptuous neglect of the citation, the Barberini obtained an order
for sequestrating his Roman fiefs. The duke of Parma had recourse to
arms for his defence ; the pope excommunicated him ; and hostilities com-
menced between him and Taddeo, who acted as general of the church. But
this war of the Barberini, as it has been named, the only strictly Italian
contest of the century, produced no decisive result. It was invested with a
ridiculous character by the cowardice of Taddeo and the papal troops, who,
to the number of eighteen thousand, fled before a handful of cavalry under
the duke Odoardo. After this disgraceful check, the Barberini were but too
happy to obtain a suspension of arms ; and the war was shortly terminated
by a treaty, which left the combatants in their original state (1644).
Urban VIII, or rather his nephews, had thus failed in gaining possession
of the fiefs of Castro and Ronciglione ; but the pope had succeeded some
years before in securing to the holy see a much more important acquisition,
which he did not venture to appropriate to his family. This was the duchy
of Urbino, which had remained under the sovereignty of the family of
Rovere since the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Julius II had
induced the last prince of the line of Montefeltro to adopt his nephew
for a successor. The house of Rovere had for 120 years maintained the
intellectual splendour of the little court of Urbino, the most polished
in Italy ; but Urban VIII persuaded the aged duke, Francesco Maria,
who had no male heirs, to abdicate his sovereignty in favour of the church.
The duchy of Urbino was annexed to the Roman states ; and the industry
and prosperity for which it had been remarkable under its own princes
immediately withered.0
GALILEO AND THE CHUKCH
During the pontificate of Urban VIII, an interesting controversy between
science and theology reached a culmination in the persecution of Italy's most
famous scientist of the century, Galileo. This great experimental philosopher
had developed the telescope, and in 1610 made the discovery of the satellites
of Jupiter. This discovery, along with others almost equally interesting,
was announced in Galileo's Nuncius Sidereus, published at Venice in 1610. «
The title of this work will best convey an idea of the claim it made to
public notice : " The Sidereal Messenger, announcing great and very wonder-
ful spectacles, and offering them to the consideration of everyone, but
especially of philosophers and astronomers; which have been observed by
Gralileo Galilei, etc., by the assistance of a perspective glass lately invented
by him; namely, in the face of the moon, in innumerable fixed stars in the
milky-way, in nebulous stars, but especially in four planets which revolve
round Jupiter at different intervals and periods with a wonderful celerity ;
which, hitherto not known to any one, the author has recently been the first
to detect, and has decreed to call the Medicean stars"
The interest this discovery excited was intense ; and men were at this
period so little habituated to accommodate their convictions on matters of
science to newly observed facts that several of "the paper-philosophers,"
as Galileo termed them, appear to have thought they could get rid of these
new objects by writing books against them. The effect which the discovery
494 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1610-1632 A.D.]
had upon the reception of the Copernican system was immediately very
considerable. It showed that the real universe was very different from that
which ancient philosophers had imagined, and suggested at once the thought
that it contained mechanism more various and more vast than had yet been
conjectured. And when the system of the planet Jupiter thus offered to the
bodily eye a model or image of the solar system according to the views of
Copernicus, it supported the belief of such an arrangement of the planets,
by an analogy all but irresistible.
Later in the same year Galileo observed and reported the phases of the
planet Venus, thus further corroborating the Copernican doctrine. This
doctrine when first promulgated
by Copernicus had apparently
excited no very great alarm
among the theologians of the
time. But its assertion and
confirmation by Galileo now pro-
voked a storm of controversy,
and was visited by severe con-
demnation. Galileo's own be-
haviour appears to have provoked
the interference of the ecclesi-
astical authorities; but there
must have been a great change in
the temper of the times to make
it possible for his adversaries to
bring down the sentence of the
Inquisition upon opinions which
had been so long current with-
out giving any serious offence.
The heliocentric doctrine had
for a century been making its
way into the minds of thoughtful
men, on the general ground of its simplicity and symmetry. Galileo appears
to have thought that now, when these original recommendations of the
system had been reinforced by his own discoveries and reasonings, it ought to
be universally acknowledged as a truth and a reality. And when arguments
against the fixity of the sun and the motion of the earth were adduced from
the expressions of Scripture, he could not be satisfied without maintaining
his favourite opinion to be conformable to Scripture as well as to philosophy;
and he was very eager in his attempts to obtain from authority a declaration
to this effect. The ecclesiastical authorities were naturally averse to express
themselves in favour of a novel opinion, startling to the common mind,
and contrary to the most obvious meaning of the words of the Bible ;
and when they were compelled to pronounce, they decided against Gali-
leo and his doctrines. He was accused before the Inquisition in 1615 ; but
at that period the result was that he was merely recommended to confine
himself to the mathematical reasonings upon the system, and to abstain from
meddling with the Scripture. Galileo's zeal for his opinions soon led him
again to bring the question under the notice of the pope, and the result
was a declaration of the Inquisition that the doctrine of the earth's motion
appeared to be contrary to the sacred Scripture. Galileo was prohibited from
defending and teaching this doctrine in any manner, and promised obedience
to this injunction. But in 1632 he published his Dialogo delli due Massimi
GALILEO GALILEI
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 495
[1632-1660 A.D.]
Sistemi del Hondo, Tolemaico e Copernicano ;9 and in this, he defended the
heliocentric system by all the strongest arguments which its admirers used.
Not only so, but he introduced into this Dialogue a character under the name
of Simplicius, in whose mouth was put the defence of all the ancient dogmas,
and who was represented as defeated at all points in the discussion ; and he
prefixed to the Dialogue a notice, To the Discreet Reader, in which, in a vein
of transparent irony, he assigned his reasons for the publication. " Some
years ago," he says, " a wholesome edict was promulgated at Rome, which,
in order to check the perilous scandals of the present age, imposed silence
upon the Pythagorean opinion of the motion of the earth. There were not
wanting," he adds, "persons who rashly asserted that this decree was the
result, not of a judicious inquiry, but of a passion ill-informed ; and com-
plaints were heard that counsellors, utterly unacquainted with astronomical
observations, ought not to be allowed, with their undue prohibitions, to clip
the wings of speculative intellects. At the hearing of rash lamentations like
these, my zeal could not keep silence." And he then goes on to say that he
wishes, by the publication of his Dialogue, to show that the subject had been
fully examined at Rome. The result of this was that Galileo was condemned
for his infraction of the injunction laid upon him in 1616 ; his Dialogue was
prohibited ; he himself was commanded to abjure on his knees the doctrine
which he had taught ; and this abjuration he performed.
The ecclesiastical authorities having once declared the doctrine of the
earth's motion to be contrary to Scripture and heretical, long adhered in form
to this declaration, and did not allow the Copernican system to be taught in
any other way than as an "hypothesis."/
THE SUCCESSORS OF URBAN VIII
Urban VIII was succeeded in 1644 by Innocent X, who revived with
more success the pretensions of the holy see to the fiefs of Castro and Ron-
ciglione. The unliquidated debts of the house of Farnese were still the
pretext for the seizure of these possessions ; but the papal officers were
expelled from Castro, and the bishop, whom Innocent had installed in that
see, was murdered by order of the minister of Ranuccio II, duke of Parma.
The pope was so highly exasperated by these acts, that he directed his whole
force against Castro ; the Parmesan troops were repulsed in an attempt to
succour the place ; and when famine had compelled it to surrender, the
pope, confounding the innocent inhabitants with the perpetrators of the
assassination, caused the city to be razed to its foundations, and a pyramid
to be erected on the ruins commemorative of his vengeance. The restitu-
tion of these fiefs to the house of Parrna was made a condition of the peace
of the Pyrenees ; but Alexander VII, who succeeded Innocent X in 1656,
contrived after many negotiations to obtain permission to hold them in
pledge, until Ranuccio II should discharge the debts of his crown. By the
failure of the duke to satisfy this engagement, the disputed states remained
finally annexed to the popedom.
The pontificate of Alexander VII proved, however, an epoch of grievous
humiliation for the pride of the holy see. In 1660, an affray was occasioned
at Rome through the privileges, arrogantly claimed by the French ambassa-
dors, of protecting all the quarter of the city near their residence from the
usual operations of justice ; and Louis XIV determined, in the insolence of
his power, to support a pretension which would be intolerable to the meanest
496 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1660-1664 A.D.]
court in Europe. He sent the duke of Crequi as his ambassador to Rome,
with a numerous and well-armed retinue, to brave the pope in his own
capital. Crequi took formal military possession of a certain number of
streets near the palace of his embassy, according to the extent over which '
the right of asylum had been permitted by usage to his predecessors. He
placed guards throughout this circuit, as if it had been one of his master's
fortresses ; and the papal government, anxious to avoid a rupture with the
haughty monarch of France, overlooked the usurpation. But every effort
to preserve peace was ineffectual against the resolution which had been
taken on the opposite side to provoke some open quarrel. The duke of
Cre'qui's people made it their occupation to outrage the police of Rome, and
to insult the Corsican guard of the pope. Still, even these excesses of the
French were tolerated by Alexander, until they
rose to such a height that the peaceful citizens
dared no longer to pass through the streets by
night. At length the Corsican guards were
goaded into a fray with the followers of the
embassy, which brought matters to the crisis
desired by Louis. While the Corsicans were vio-
lently irritated by the death of one of their com-
rades in the broil, they happened to meet the
carriage of the duchess of Crequi ; they fired
upon and killed two of her attendants, and
the duke immediately quitted Rome, as if his
master had received in his person an unpro-
voked and mortal affront.
Alexander VII soon found that Louis XIV
was resolved to avail himself of the most seri-
ous colouring which could be given to this
affair. The king expelled the pope's nuncio
from France; he seized upon Avignon and
its papal dependencies ; and he assembled an
army in Provence, which crossed the Alps to
take satisfaction in Rome itself. The pope
at first showed an inclination to assert the
common rights of every crown with becoming
spirit; and he endeavoured to engage several
COSTUME WORN BY THE MEMBER OF Catholic princes to protect the dignity of the
PANiEDTH^cSNDEMNJD T^THE ^oly ^' But uonQ of the great powers were
SCAFFOLD, VENICE in a condition at that juncture to undertake
his defence. His own temporal strength was
quite unequal to a struggle with France ; the spiritual arms of the Vatican
had now fallen into contempt ; and he had the bitter mortification of being
obliged to submit to the terms of accommodation which Louis XIV imperi-
ously dictated. The principal of these were the banishment of all the
persons who had taken a part in the insult offered to the train of the French
ambassador; the suppression of the Corsican guard; the erection of a
column, even in Rome, with a legend to proclaim the injury and its repara-
tion : and, finally, the mission of one of the pope's own family to Paris to
make his apologies. All these humiliating conditions were subscribed to,
and rigorously enforced. Cardinal Chigi, the nephew of Alexander VII, was
the first ecclesiastic despatched to any monarch, to demand pardon for the
holy see.
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 497
[1600-1700 A.D.]
Alexander VII did not survive this memorable epoch of degradation for
the papacy above three years. He was succeeded in 1667 by Clement IX,
who wore the triple crown over two years, and was replaced in 1670 by
Clement X. The unimportant reign of this pope occupied seven years, and
closed in 1676. The pontificate of his successor, Innocent XI, was more
remarkable for the renewal of the quarrel respecting the privileges of the
French embassy. To terminate the flagrant abuses which these privileges
engendered, Innocent published a decree that no foreign minister should
thenceforth be accredited at the papal court, until he had expressly renounced
every pretension of the kind. This reasonable provision was admitted with-
out opposition by all the Catholic monarchs, except Louis XIV : but he alone
refused to recognise its justice; and on the death of the duke d'Estrees,
his ambassador at Rome, he sent the marquis de Lavardin to succeed him,
and to enforce the maintenance of the old privileges. For this purpose,
Lavardin was attended by a body of eight hundred armed men; and the
sovereignty of the pope was again insolently braved in his own capital. The
guards of Lavardin violently excluded the papal police from all access to
the quarter of the city which they occupied ; and Innocent at length excom-
municated the ambassador. This proceeding would at Paris have excited only
ridicule ; but in Rome the outraged pride of the court, and the prejudices
which still enveloped the ancient throne of papal supremacy and super-
stition, excluded Lavardin from the pale of society ; and he found the soli-
tude in which he was left so irksome that he at last petitioned to be
recalled.
The pontificate of Innocent XI terminated in 1689 ; and it was not until
three years after his death that Louis XIV was at length persuaded to desist
from the assertion of a pretended right, which could have no other object
than to gratify his pride at the expense of multiplying crime and anarchy,
in the chosen seat of the religion which he professed. This was the last
event in the papal annals of the seventeenth century which deserves to be
recorded. We have already found the reigns of several of the popes entirely
barren of circumstance ; and after that of Innocent XI, we should be alto-
gether at a loss how to bestow a single comment upon the obscure pontifi-
cates of his next three successors : of Alexander VIII, who died in 1691 ;
of Innocent XII ; and of Clement XI, who was placed in the chair of St.
Peter in the last year of the century.
The two contests with the popedom, which the house of Farnese main-
tained for the possession of the fiefs of Castro and Ronciglione, were almost
the only remarkable circumstances in the annals of the duchy of Parma
during this century. Ranuccio I, the son of the hero Alessandro Farnese,
who wore the ducal crown at its commencement, resembled his father in no
quality but mere courage. His long reign was distinguished only for its
habitual tyranny and avarice ; and for the wanton cruelty with which he
caused a great number of his nobility and other subjects to be put to death
in 1612, that he might confiscate their property under the charge of a con-
spiracy, which appears to have had no real existence. He was succeeded in
1622 by his son, Odoard, whose misplaced confidence in his military talents
plunged his subjects into many calamities. Vainly imagining that the mar-
tial virtues of his grandfather Alessandro were hereditary in his person, he
eagerly sought occassion of entering on a career of activity and distinction
in the field, for which his egotistical presumption and his excessive corpu-
lence equally disqualified him. By engaging, in 1635, in the war between
France and Spain in northern Italy, as the ally of the former power, he
H. W. — VOL. If.. 2 K
498 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1600-1700 A.D.]
exposed his states to cruel ravages ; and though, in the subsequent war of
the Barberini he was indebted to the misconduct of the papal army for the
preservation of his fiefs, that contest did not terminate until he had con-
sumed the resources of his duchy by his prodigality and ignorance.
The death of Odoard, in 1646, relieved his subjects from the apprehension
of a continuance of similar evils from his restless temper ; and the mild and
indolent character of his son Ranuccio II seemed to promise an era of greater
tranquillity. But Ranuccio was always governed by unworthy favourites,
who oppressed his people; and it was one of these ministers, whose violence,
as we have seen, provoked the destruction of Castro, and entailed the loss of
its dependencies on the duchy of Parma. The long and feeble reign of Ranuccio
II, thus marked only by disgrace, was a fitting prelude to the extinction of
the sovereignty and existence of the house of Farnese. Buried in slothful
indulgence and lethargy, the members of the ducal family were oppressed
with hereditary obesity, which shortened their lives. Ranuccio II himself
survived to the year 1694; but he might already anticipate the approaching
failure of the male line of his dynasty. Odoard, the eldest of his sons, had
died before him of suffocation, the consequence of corpulence ; the two
others, Don Francesco and Don Vincente, who were destined successively to
ascend the throne after him, resembled their brother in their diseased con-
stitutions; and the probability that these princes would die without issue
rendered their niece, Elizabeth (Elisabetta) Farnese, daughter of Odoard,
sole presumptive heiress of the states of her family.
LESSER PRINCIPALITIES
Of the dukes of Parma, whose reigns filled the seventeenth century, not
one deserved either the love of his people or the respect of posterity. The
contemporary annals of the princes of Este were graced by more ability and
virtue. But the reduction of the dominion of those sovereigns to the nar-
row limits of the duchies of Modena and Reggio diminished the consequence
which their ancestors had enjoyed in Italy during the preceding century,
before the seizure of Ferrara by the Roman see. Don Cesare of Este, whose
weakness had submitted to this spoliation, reigned until the year 1628. His
subjects of Modena forgave him a pusillanimity which had rendered their
city the elegant seat of his beneficent reign. His son, Alfonso III, who suc-
ceeded him, was stricken with such wondrous affliction for the death of his
wife, only a few months after his accession to the ducal crown, that he abdi-
cated his throne, and retired into a Capuchin convent in the Tyrol. On
this event, his son Francesco I assumed his sceptre in 1629, and reigned
nearly thirty years. Joining in the wars of the times in upper Italy between
France and Spain, and alternately espousing their opposite causes, Francesco
I acquired the reputation of one of the ablest captains of his age, as he was
also one of the best sovereigns. His skilful conduct and policy in these
unimportant contests were rewarded by the extension of his territories ;
and in 1636, the little principality of Correggio (more famous in the annals
of art than of war) was annexed to his imperial fiefs. Neither the short
reign of his son and successor, Alfonso IV, which commenced in 1658 and
ended in 1662, nor that of his grandson, Francesco II, which began with
a feeble minority and terminated after a protracted administration of the
same character, demand our particular notice ; and in 1694, the cardinal
Rinaldo, son of the first Francesco, succeeded his nephew, and entered upon
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 499
[1600-1700 A.D.]
a reign which was reserved for signal calamities in the first years of the new
century.
In the affairs of Parma and Modena, during the century before us, there
is scarcely anything to invite our attention ; but the fortunes of Mantua, so
obscure in the preceding age, were rendered somewhat remarkable in this by
the wars which the disputed succession to its sovereignty occasioned. The
reign of Vincente I, who, having succeeded to the ducal crowns of Mantua
and Montferrat in 1587, still wore them at the opening of the seventeenth
century, and that of his successor Francesco IV, were equally obscure and
unimportant. But, on the death of Francesco, in 1612, some troubles arose,
from the pretensions which the duke of Savoy advanced anew over the state
of Montferrat. It was not until after several years that negotiations termi-
nated the indecisive hostilities which were thus occasioned, and in which
Spain interfered directly against the duke of Savoy, while France more
indirectly assisted him. By the Treaty of Asti in 1615, and of Madrid in
1617, the duke of Savoy engaged to leave Montferrat to the house of
Gonzaga, until the emperor should decide on his claims. The last duke
of Mantua, Francesco IV, had left only a daughter : but as Montferrat was
a feminine fief, that state descended to her ; while her father's two brothers,
Ferdinando and Vincente II, reigned successively over Mantua without leav-
ing issue. On the death of the latter of these two princes, both of whom
shortened their days by their infamous debaucheries, the direct male line
of the ducal house of Gonzaga became extinct ; and the right of succession to
the Mantua duchy devolved on a collateral branch, descended from a younger
son of the duke Federigo II, who had died in 1540. This part of the family
of Gonzaga was established in France, in possession of the first honours of
nobility, and was now represented by Charles, duke de Nevers. By sending
his son, the duke of Rethel, to Mantua in the last illness of Vincente II,
Charles not only secured the succession to that duchy, which he might law-
fully claim, but reannexed Montferrat to its diadem. For, on the very same
night on which Vincente II expired, the duke of Rethel received the hand
of Maria, the daughter of Francesco IV, and heiress of Montferrat; and
the right of inheritance to all the states of the ducal line thus centred in the
branch of Nevers.
The new ducal house of Gonzaga did not commence its sovereignty over
Mantua and Montferrat without violent opposition. The duke of Savoy
renewed his claim upon the latter province ; and Cesare Gonzaga, duke of
Guastalla, the representative of a distant branch of that family, made preten-
sions to the duchy of Mantua. At the same time the Spanish government
thought to take advantage of a disputed succession, for the purpose of annex-
ing the Mantuan to the Milanese states ; and the emperor Ferdinand II
placed the duke of Nevers under the ban of the empire for having taken
possession of its dependent fiefs without waiting for a formal investiture at
its hands. The objects of Ferdinand were evidently to revive the imperial
jurisdiction in Italy, and to enrich the Spanish dynasty of his family by the
acquisition of these states. To promote these combined plans of the house
of Austria an imperial army crossed the Alps, and surprised the city of
Mantua, which was sacked with merciless ferocity (1630). At the same
time the duke of Savoy concluded a treaty with Spain, for the partition of
Montferrat ; and the new duke of Mantua seemed likely to be dispossessed
of the whole of his dominions. But fortunately for him, it was at this junc-
ture that Cardinal Richelieu had entered on his famous design of humbling
the power and ambition of both the Spanish and German dynasties of the
500 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1630-1680 A.D.]
house of Austria ; and a French army, under Louis XIII in person, forcing
the pass at Susa, crossed the Alps to support the Gonzagas of Nevers against
all their enemies. We pass over the uninteresting details of the general
war, which was thus kindled in northern Italy by the Mantuan succession.
When Richelieu himself appeared on the theatre of contest, at the head of
a formidable French army, all resistance was hopeless ; and his success
shortly produced an accommodation between the belligerents in the penin-
sula, by which the emperor was compelled, in the settlement of the matter, to
bestow the disputed investiture of Mantua and Montferrat upon Charles of
Nevers (1631).
This prince, who thenceforth reigned at Mantua under the title of
Carlo I, retained that duchy without further opposition. But in 1635 he
was drawn, by the memory of the
eminent services which France had
rendered him, into an alliance with that
power against Spain, in the new war
which broke out between the rival
dynasties of Bourbon and Austria.
Such a connection could serve, how-
ever, only to destroy the repose and
endanger the safety of his duchies.
Neither Carlo I nor his son Carlo II,
who succeeded him in 1637, could pre-
vent Montferrat from being perpet-
ually overrun and ravaged by the
contending armies of France, Spain,
the empire, and Savoy ; and the Man-
tuan dukes abandoned almost every
effort to retain the possession of that
province until, after being for above
twenty years the seat of warfare and
desolation, it was at length restored to
Carlo II by the general Peace of the
Pyrenees.
Carlo II died in 1665 ; and his son
Ferdinando Carlo commenced the long
and disgraceful reign with which the
sovereignty and race of the Gonzagas
were to terminate early in the next
century. This prince, more dissolute,
more insensible of dishonour, more
deeply buried in grovelling vice than
almost any of his predecessors, was
worthy of being the last of a family which, since its elevation to the tyranny
of Mantua, had, during four centuries of sovereignty, relieved its career of
blood and debauchery by few examples of true greatness and virtue. To
gratify his extravagance, and indulge in his low and vicious excesses, Ferdi-
nando Carlo crushed his people under grievous taxation. To raise fresh
supplies, which his exhausted states could no longer afford, he shamelessly in
1680 sold Casale, the capital of Montferrat, to Louis XIV, who immediately
occupied the place with twelve thousand men under his general Catinat.
The sums which the duke thus raised, either by extortion from his oppressed
subjects or from this disgraceful transaction, were dissipated in abandoned
THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE, GENOA
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 501
[1600-1670 A.D.]
pleasures in the carnivals of Venice, among a people who openly evinced
their contempt for him, and whose sovereign oligarchy passed a decree for-
bidding any of their noble body from mingling in his society.
TUSCANY
From the affairs of Mantua, we may pass to those of Tuscany ; but the
transition is attended with little augmentation of interest. A common
dearth of attraction marks the annals of most of the despotisms of Italy ;
and when Tuscany descended to the rank of a duchy, her pre-eminence of
splendour survived only in the past, and her modern story sank into the
same ignominious obscurity with that of Parma, and Modena, and Mantua.
We are reminded only of the existence of the solitary republic which sur-
vived in this quarter of Italy, to wonder how Lucca escaped subjugation to
the power whose dominions encircled and hemmed in her narrow territory ;
and we are permitted to contemplate her ancient republican rivals, Florence,
Siena, and Pisa, only as the capital and the provincial cities of the ducal
sovereigns of Tuscany. Of these princes of the house of Medici, four
reigned successively during the seventeenth century. At its commencement,
the ducal crown was worn by Ferdinand I, whose personal vices and politi-
cal talents have been already noticed. After the failure of his project to
throw off the Spanish yoke, his efforts were exclusively devoted to the
encouragement of commerce and maritime industry among his subjects ;
and the enlightened measures to which he was prompted by a thorough
knowledge of the science of government, and a keen perception of his own
interests, were rewarded with signal success. To attract the trade of the
Mediterranean to the shores of Tuscany, he made choice of the castle of
Livorno (Leghorn) for the seat of a free port. He improved the natural
advantages of its harbour, which had already excited the attention of some
of his predecessors, by several grand and useful works ; he invested the
town which rose on the site with liberal privileges ; and from this epoch,
Livorno continued to flourish, until it attained the mercantile prosperity and
opulence which have rendered it one of the first maritime cities of the penin-
sula. The skilful policy which Ferdinand I pursued in this and other
respects produced a rapid influx of wealth into his states ; and before his
death, which occurred in 1609, he had amassed immense treasures.
Several of the first princes of the ducal house of Medici seemed to have
inherited some portion of that commercial ability by which their merchant
ancestors had founded the grandeur of their house ; and they profited by the
contempt or ignorance which precluded other Italian princes from rivalling
them in the cultivation of the same pursuits. Cosmo II, the son and succes-
sor of Ferdinand, imitated his example with even more earnest zeal, and
with more brilliant success. But on his death, in 1621, the minority of his
son Ferdinand II destroyed the transient prosperity of the ducal govern-
ment. The rich treasury of the two preceding dukes was drained in furnish-
ing troops and subsidies to Spain and Austria ; and Ferdinand, who was left
under the guardianship of his grandmother and mother, was only released
from female tutelage on attaining the age of manhood, to exhibit during his
long reign all the enfeebling consequences of such an education. His charac-
ter was mild, peaceable, and benevolent ; and his administration responded
to his personal qualities. From this epoch, the political importance of Tus-
cany entirely ceased ; the state was stricken with moral paralysis ; and lethargy
502 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1027-1700 A.D.]
and indolence became the only characteristics of the government and the
people.
Ferdinand II, however, was not destitute of talents ; and the enthusiasm
with which the grand-duke and his brother promoted the cultivation of
science at least protected his inactive reign from the reproach of utter insig-
nificance. But his son, Cosmo III, who ascended his throne in 1670, reigned
with a weakness which was relieved by no intellectual tastes. Unhappy and
suspicious in his temper, his life was embittered by domestic disagreements
with his duchess ; fanatical and bigoted, he was constantly surrounded and
governed by monks ; and at the close of the seventeenth century, Florence,
once the throne of literature, the fair and splendid seat of all the arts which
can embellish and illumine life, was converted into the temple of gloomy
superstition and hypocrisy.
PIEDMONT AND SAVOY
While the other ducal thrones of Italy were thus for the most part filled
only by slothful voluptuaries, that of Savoy seemed reserved for a succession
of sovereigns, whose fearless activity and political talents constantly placed
their characters in brilliant contrast with the indolence and imbecility
of their despicable contemporaries.0 The history of this house shows in a
striking manner how the destinies of a nation may depend on the fortunes
of a princely family. During eight centuries the princes of Savoy have, in
the words of Charles Emmanuel III, " treated Italy as an artichoke to be
eaten leaf by leaf." Their work is now perfected in the freedom of the
state.
The descent of Humbert the Whitehanded, the founder of the family, is
uncertain, but he was probably a son of Amadeus, the great-grandson of
Boson of Provence. In reward for services rendered to Rudolf III of Aries,
Humbert obtained from him in 1027 the counties of Savoy and Maurienne,
and from the emperor Conrad the Salic, Chablais, and the lower Valais. On
his death in 1048 he was succeeded perhaps by his eldest son, Amadeus I, but
eventually by his fourth son, Otho, who, by his marriage with Adelaide of
Susa, obtained the counties of Turin and the Val d'Aosta, and so acquired a
footing in the valley of the Po. Otho was succeeded in 1060 by his son
Amadeus II, who maintained a judicious neutrality between his brother-
in-law, the emperor Henry IV, and the pope. In reward for his mediation
he obtained from the former, after Canossa, the province of Bugey. The
accession of his son Humbert II in 1080 brought fresh increase of territory
in the valley of the Tarantaise, and in 1091 this prince succeeded to the
dignities of his grandmother, Adelaide. Amadeus III came to the throne in
1103, and in 1111 his states were created counties of the empire by Henry V.
On his way home from the crusades in 1149 Amadeus died at Nicosia, and
was succeeded by his son Humbert III. The prince took the part of the
pope against Barbarossa, who ravaged his territories until Humbert's death
in 1188. The guardians of his son Thomas reconciled their ward and the
emperor. He received from Henry VI accessions of territory in Vaud,
Bugey, and Valais, with the title of imperial vicar in Piedmont and Lom-
bardy. He was followed in 1233 by Amadeus IV. A campaign against
the inhabitants of Valais ended in the annexation of their district, and his
support of Frederick II against the pope caused the erection of Chablais
and Aosta into a duchy.
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 503
[1523-1482 A.D.]
In 1253 his son Boniface succeeded to his states at the age of nine, but
after giving proofs of his valour by defeating the troops of Charles of Anjou
before Turin, he was taken prisoner and died of grief (1263).
The Salic law now came into operation for the first time, and Peter, the
uncle of Boniface, was called to the throne. This prince, on the marriage
of his nieces, Eleanor and Sancha of Provence, with Henry III of England
and Richard, earl of Cornwall, had visited England, where he had been
created earl of Richmond, and built a palace in London, afterwards called
Savoy House. In return he recognised the claims of Richard to the imperial
throne, and received from him Kyburg, in the diocese of Lausanne. At his
death in 1268 he was succeeded by his brother Philip I, who died in 1285,
when their nephew Amadeus V came to the throne. This prince, surnamed
the Great, united Bauge and Bresse to his states in right of his wife Sibylla,
and later on lower Faucigny and part of Geneva. For his second wife he
married Mary of Brabant, sister of the emperor Henry VII, from whom
he received the seigniory of Aosta. His life was passed in continual and
victorious warfare, and one of his last exploits was to force the Turks to
raise the siege of Rhodes. He died in 1323. His son Edward succeeded
him, and dying in 1329, was followed by his brother Aymon. This prince
died in 1343, when his son Amadeus VI ascended the throne. His reign
was, like his grandfather's, a series of petty wars, from which he came out
victorious and with extended territory, until he died of the plague (1383).
The promising reign of his son Amadeus VII was cut short by a fall from
his horse in 1391. Before his death, however, he had received the allegiance
of Barcelonnette, Ventimiglia, Villafranca, and Nice, so gaining access to the
Mediterranean.
His son Amadeus VIII now came to the throne, under the guardianship
of his grandmother Bona (Bonne) de Bourbon. On attaining his majority
he first directed his efforts to strengthening his power in the outlying prov-
inces. The states of Savoy now extended from the Lake of Geneva to the
Mediterranean, and from the Saone to the Sesia. Amadeus threw all
the weight of his power on the side of the emperor, and Sigismund in 1416
erected the counties of Savoy and Piedmont into duchies. At this time, too,
the duke recovered the fief of Piedmont, which had been granted to Philip,
prince of Achaia, by Amadeus V. The county of Vercelli afterwards re-
warded him for joining the league against the duke of Milan, bat in 1434
a plot against his life made him put into execution a plan he had long formed,
of retiring to a monastery. He accordingly made his son Louis lieutenant-
general of the dukedom, and assumed the habit of the knights of St. Maurice.
But he was not destined to find the repose he sought. The prelates assembled
at the council of Bale voted the deposition of Pope Eugenius IV, and elected
Amadeus in his place, as Felix V. He abdicated his dukedom definitely, but
without much gain in temporal honours, for the schism continued until the
death of Eugenius in 1447, shortly after which it was healed by the honour-
able submission of Felix to Nicholas V. The early years of Louis' reign
were under the guidance of his father, and peace and prosperity blessed his
people ; but he afterwards made an alliance with the dauphin which brought
him into conflict with Charles VII of France, though a lasting reconciliation
was soon effected. His son Amadeus IX succeeded in 1465, but, though his
virtues led to his beatification, his bodily sufferings made him assign the
regency to his wife Yolande, a daughter of Charles VII. He died in 1472,
when his son Philibert I succeeded to the throne and to his share in the
contests of Yolande with her brother and brothers-in-law. His reign lasted
504 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1482-1601 A.D.]
only ten years, when he was succeeded by his brother Charles I. This prince
raised for a time by his valour the drooping fortunes of his house, but he
died in 1489 at the age of thirty-one, having inherited from his aunt, Char-
lotte of Lusignan, her pretensions to the titular kingdoms of Cyprus, Jerusa-
lem, and Armenia. He was succeeded by his son Charles II, an infant, who,
dying in 1496, was followed by Philip II, brother of Amadeus XI. He
died in 1497, leaving Philibert II, who succeeded him, and Charles III, who
ascended the throne on his brother's death in 1504. In spite of himself
Charles was drawn into the wars of the period, but the decisive victory of
Francis at Marignano gave the duke the opportunity of negotiating the con-
ference at Bologna which led to the conclusion of peace in 1516. Charles
was less fortunate in the part he took in the wars between Francis I and
Charles V, the brother-in-law of his wife. He tried to maintain a strict
neutrality, but his attendance at the emperor's coronation at Bologna in 1530
was imperative in his double character of kinsman and vassal. The visit
was fatal to him, for he was rewarded with the county of Asti, and this so
displeased the French king that on the revolt of Geneva to Protestantism in
1532, Francis sent help to the citizens. Berne and Fribourg did likewise,
and so expelled the duke from Lausanne and Vaud. Charles now sided
definitely with the emperor, and Francis at once raised some imaginary
claims to his states. On their rejection the French army marched into
Savoy, descended on Piedmont, and seized Turin (1536). Charles V came
to the aid of his ally, and invested the city, but was obliged to make peace.
France kept Savoy, and the emperor occupied Piedmont, so that only Nice
remained to the duke. On the resumption of hostilities in 1541 Piedmont
again suffered. In 1544 the Treaty of Crespy restored his states to Charles,
but the terms were not carried out, and he died of grief in 1553. His only
surviving son, Emmanuel Philibert, succeeded to the rights, but not the
domains of his ancestors. On the abdication of Charles V the duke was
appointed governor of the Low Countries, and in 1557 the victory of St. Quen-
tin marked him as one of the first generals of his time. Such services could
not go unrewarded, and the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis restored him his
states, with certain exceptions still to be held by France and Spain. One
of the conditions of the treaty also provided for the marriage of the duke
with Margaret of France, sister of Henry II. The evacuation of the places
held by them was faithfully carried out by the contracting powers, and
Emmanuel Philibert occupied himself in strengthening his military and naval
forces, until his death in 1580 prevented the execution of his ambitious
designs. His son Charles Emmanuel I, called the Great, threw in his lot with
Spain, and in 1590 invaded Provence and was received by the citizens of Aix.
His intention was doubtless to revive the ancient kingdom of Aries, but his
plans were frustrated by the accession of Henry IV to the throne of Frances
By his treaty with Henry, in the year 1601, Charles Emmanuel exchanged
his Savoyard county of Bresse for the Italian marquisate of Saluzzo. By
this arrangement, the duke of Savoy sacrificed a fertile province to acquire a
barren and rocky territory ; but he excluded the French from an easy access
into Piedmont, and strengthened his Italian frontier. By consolidating his
states, he gained a considerable advance towards the future independence of
his family ; and the superiority of his policy over that of Henry IV in this
transaction occasioned the remark of a contemporary, that the French king
had bargained like a peddler, and the Savoyard duke like a king.
From this epoch, the house of Savoy became almost exclusively an Italian
power, and its princes, to use the language of one of their historians, thence-
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 505
[1601-1634 A.D.]
forth viewed the remains of their transmontane possessions only as a noble-
man, moving in the splendour of a court, regards the ancient and neglected
fief from which he derives his title. Charles Emmanuel found that the
improvement effected in the geographical posture of his states immediately
increased his importance; and his alliance was courted both by France
and Spain. But during the remainder of his long reign, his own restless and
overweening ambition, and the natural difficulties of his situation, placed as
he was with inferior strength between two mighty rivals, entailed many
calamities on his dominions. He made an unsuccessful attempt in 1602 to
surprise Geneva by an escalade in the night, and after a disgraceful repulse
concluded a peace, which recognised the independence of that republic.
Ten years later, he endeavoured, as we have seen, to wrest Montferrat from
the house of Gonzaga ; but being violently opposed by Spain, and weakly
supported by France, he was compelled, after several years of hostilities,
to submit his claim to the decision of the emperor — or, in other words, to
abandon it altogether. Such checks to his ambition were, however, of little
importance, in comparison with the reverses consequent upon the share
which he took in the war of the Mantuan succession (1628).
In that contest he was induced, by the hope of partitioning Montferrat
with the Spaniards, to unite with them against the new duke of Mantua
and the French his supporters ; and he suffered heavily in this alliance.
When Louis XIII, at the head of a gallant army, forced the strong pass of
Susa against the duke and his troops, and overran all Piedmont, Charles
Emmanuel was compelled to purchase the deliverance of his states by sign-
ing a separate peace, and leaving the fortress of Susa as a pledge in the
hands of the conquerors. They insisted further that he should act offen-
sively against his former allies ; but Louis XIII and his great minister
Richelieu were no sooner recalled into France by the war against the Prot-
estants, than the versatile duke, resenting their tyranny, immediately
resumed his league with Spain.
The possession of Susa rendered the French masters of the gates of the
Savoyard dominions ; and as soon as Richelieu had triumphantly concluded
the war against the Huguenots, he returned to the Alps. He was invested
by his master with a supreme military command, which disgraced his priestly
functions ; and he poured the forces of France again into Piedmont. All
Savoy was conquered by the French king in person ; and above half of Pied-
mont was seized by his forces under the warlike cardinal. Amidst so many
cruel reverses, oppressed by the overwhelming strength of his enemies, and
abandoned by his Spanish allies, who made no vigorous efforts to arrest the
progress of the French, Charles Emmanuel suddenly breathed his last, after
a reign of fifty years (1630).
Victor Amadeus I, his eldest son and successor, was the husband of
Christina, daughter of Henry IV of France, and therefore disposed to ally
himself with her country. Almost immediately after his accession to the
ducal crown, he entered into negotiations with Richelieu, which terminated
in a truce. In the following year, the general peace, which concluded the
war of the Mantuan succession, was signed at Cherasco (1631). By this
treaty, the new duke of Savoy recovered all his dominions except Pinerolo
(Pignerol), which he was compelled to cede to the French ; who, although
Richelieu restored Susa to Victor Amadeus, thus retained possession of the
passes of the Alps by Briangon and the valley of Exilles. Victor Amadeus
was not inferior to his father either in courage or abilities; but he was
not equally restless and intriguing. Submitting to circumstances beyond
506 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1634-1657 A.D.]
his control, he endured the ascendency which France had acquired over his
states, and the yet more galling pride of Richelieu, with temper and pru-
dence. To the close of his short reign he maintained with good faith a
close alliance with Louis XIII, which indeed it was scarcely optional with
him to have rejected, and which, in 1634, involved him, as an auxiliary, in
a new war undertaken by Richelieu against the house of Austria.
The death of Victor Amadeus in 1637, while this contest was yet raging,
was the prelude to still heavier calamities for his house and his subjects than
either had known for nearly a century. He left two infant sons, the eldest
of whom dying almost immediately after him, the succession devolved upon
the other, Charles Emmanuel II, a boy of four years of age. By his testa-
ment, Victor Amadeus committed the regency of his states, and the care of
his children, to his duchess Christina. The government of that princess
was in the outset assailed by the secret machinations of Richelieu, and by the
open hostility of the brothers of her late husband. Richelieu designed to
imprison the sister, and to despoil the nephew of his own master ; and he
would have annexed their states to the French monarchy, under the plea
that the care of the young prince and the regency of his duchy belonged
of right to Louis XIII, as his maternal uncle. When the vigilance of
Christina defeated the intention of the cardinal to surprise her at Ver-
celli, the sister of Louis XIII had still to endure all the despotic influence
of her brother's minister. The conduct of her husband's relations left her
however no alternative but to purchase the aid of the French against them.
Both the brothers of Victor Amadeus, the cardinal Maurice, and Prince
Thomas (founder of the branch of Savoy-Carignano), had quarrelled with the
late duke, and withdrawn from his court to embrace the party of his enemies ;
the one entered the service of the emperor, the other that of the king of
Spain in the Low Countries. On the death of Victor Amadeus, they returned
to Piedmont only to trouble the administration of Christina by themselves
laying claim to the regency ; and at length, on her resisting their pretensions,
they openly asserted them in arms. The two princes were supported by
the house of Austria ; the duchess-regent was protected b}^ France ; and the
whole country of Savoy and Piedmont was at once plunged into the aggra-
vated horrors of foreign and civil war. In the first year of this unhappy
contest, the capital was delivered into the hands of Prince Thomas by his
partisans ; and the regent, escaping with difficulty on this surprise into the
citadel of Turin, was compelled to consign the defence of that fortress to
the French, who treacherously retained the deposit for eighteen years. In
like manner, they acquired possession of several important places ; the Span-
iards on their part became masters of others ; and while the regent and her
brothers-in-law were contending for the government of Piedmont, they were
betrayed by the ill faith and ambition of their respective protectors.
A reconciliation in the ducal family was at length effected by the tardy
discovery that mutual injuries could terminate only in common ruin. The
two princes deserted the party of Spain, and succeeded in recovering for their
house most of the fortresses which they had aided the Spaniards in reducing.
The duchess-mother retained the regency ; and the princes were gratified
with the same appanages by which she had originally offered to purchase
their friendship. Still the French remained all powerful in Piedmont ; and
if death had not interrupted the projects of Richelieu, it is probable that the
ducal house of Savoy would have been utterly sacrificed to his skilful and
unprincipled policy, and that its dominions would have been permanently
annexed to the monarchy of France. Even under the government of his
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 507
[1657-1692 A.D.]
more pacific successor, Mazarin, it was not until the year 1657 that the French
garrison was withdrawn from the citadel of Turin ; and this act of justice
was only extorted from that minister as the price of his niece's marriage
into the ducal family of Savoy. The exhaustion of Spain and the internal
troubles of France had totally prevented the active prosecution in northern
Italy of the long war between those powers. But the embers of hostility
were not wholly extinguished in Piedmont until the Peace of the Pyrenees,
by which Charles Emmanuel II recovered all his duchy except Pinerolo and
its Alpine passes, and these the French still retained (1659).
The termination of the minority of Charles Emmanuel II, in 1648, had
put an end to the intrigues of his uncles. But the duke continued to submit
to the ambitious and able control of his mother until her death ; and his
subsequent reign was in no respect brilliant. His states, however, after the
Treaty of the Pyrenees, enjoyed a long interval of repose ; and though
the early close of his life in 1675 subjected them to another minority, it
proved neither turbulent nor calamitous, as his own had done. His son, the
celebrated Victor Amadeus II, was only nine years old when he nominally
commenced his reign under the regency of his mother. The princess, a
daughter of the French house of Nemours, had all the ambition without the
talents which had distinguished the duchess Christina. Surrounded by
French favourites and by the partisans of that nation, she was wholly sub-
servient to the will of Louis XIV ; and Victor Amadeus, on attaining the
age of manhood, gave the first indications of the consummate political ability
for which he became afterwards so famous, by his decent address in dispos-
sessing his reluctant parent and her faction of all influence in public affairs,
without having recourse to actual violence.
The policy of the duke soon excited the suspicion of Louis XIV; and after
exhausting all the resources of negotiation and intrigue for some years, to
gain him over to his purpose of wresting Milan from the Spaniards, the
French monarch resolved to disarm him. But Victor Amadeus penetrated
his designs, and anticipated their execution. He was too good a politician,
and too sensible of his own weakness, not to discover that, if he consented to
open a free passage to Louis XIV through his dominions, and to aid him in
effecting the conquest of Lombardy, he should speedily be despoiled in his
turn, and reduced to the rank of a vassal of the French crown. He there-
fore acceded to the league of Augsburg between the empire, England, Spain,
and Holland ; and his subjects eagerly seconded him in his resolution rather
to encounter the dangers of a contest with the gigantic power of France,
than to submit without a struggle to the imperious and humiliating demands
of Louis.
The commencement of the war in Piedmont was marked by a torrent of
misfortune, which might have overwhelmed a prince of less fortitude than
Victor Amadeus with sudden despair. Although he was joined by a Spanish
army at the opening of hostilities, the French, who commanded the gates of
Italy by the possession of Pinerolo had already assembled in force in Pied-
mont. They were led by Catinat, who deserves to be mentioned among the
most accomplished and scientific captains of his own or of any age ; and the su-
perior abilities of this great commander triumphed over the military talents
of the young duke. At the battle of Staffarda (1690) in the first campaign, the
allies were totally defeated ; and great part both of Savoy and Piedmont was
almost immediately afterwards reduced by the conquerors. Victor Amadeus
was however undismayed ; he continued the war with energy and skill ; and
the support of his allies and his own activity had the effect of balancing the
508 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1600-1700 A.D.]
fortune of the contest. Penetrating into France, in 1692, he was even enabled
to retaliate upon his enemies by this diversion, for the ravage of his dominions;
and although Catinat, in the fourth campaign, inflicted at Marsaglia upon
the Piedmontese, Austrian, and Spanish armies, under the duke in person
and the famous prince Eugene, a yet more calamitous and memorable defeat
than that at Staffarda, the allies speedily recovered from the disaster.
But it comes not within our purpose to repeat the often-told tale of mili-
tary operations, which belong to the general history of Europe. After six
years of incessant warfare, Victor Amadeus was still in an attitude to render
his neutrality an important object for
France to gain, and one which he had
himself every reason to desire. So that it
could be attained with advantage to him-
self, he was little scrupulous in abandon- *
ing his allies ; and the conditions which
he extorted from Louis XIV had all the
results of victory. By the separate peace
concluded between France and Savoy at
Turin, Louis XIV abandoned the posses-
sion of Pinerolo and restored all his con-
quests in Savoy and Piedmont ; but the
most material stipulation of the treaty was
the neutrality of all Italy, to which the
contracting parties equally bound them-
selves to oblige all other powers to accede.
To enforce this article, Victor Amadeus
did not hesitate to join his arms to those
of France against his former allies ; and
the entrance of his forces, in conjunction
with the army of Catinat, into the Milanese
territories, immediately compelled the em-
peror and the king of Spain to consent to
a suspension of arms in the peninsula.
The allies of Victor Amadeus might
justly reproach him with a desertion of
their cause, and perhaps even with the
aggravation of perfidy ; but he deserved
the gratitude of Italy, if not for his self-
ish policy, at least for its fruits. In
closing the gates of his own frontiers,
he had skilfully provided also for the
repose of the peninsula and its evacuation by the French. All Italy regarded
him as a liberator ; the security of his own dominions was effected, and his
power and consequence were prodigiously augmented. Thus, by establishing
the independence of his states, he prepared the claim of his house to the
assumption of the royal title among the powers of Europe, to which he
elevated it in the beginning of the new century.
The increasing power of the sovereigns of Piedmont was a foreboding
of evil for the only republic of the Middle Ages which had partially escaped
the storms of despotism in that quarter of Italy ; and Genoa had already
gained, during the seventeenth century, sufficient experience of the dangers
of her vicinity to the princes of the house of Savoy. In the Grison war,
between France and the house of Austria, the republic was involved by her
A MUSKETEER OF THE EARLY SEVEN-
TEENTH CENTURY
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 509
[1624-1628 A.D.]
dependence upon Spain ; and the share which she took in the contest
enabled the duke of Savoy, then in alliance with France, to draw down the
weight of the French arms upon her. Besides being actuated by the usual
rapacity of his ambition, with the hope of annexing the Genoese territory to
his states, Charles Emmanuel I had several causes of offence against the
republic. Her rulers had before given assistance to the Spaniards against
him ; they had attempted to control him in the purchase of the fief of
Zucarel from the family of Carretto ; and the populace of Genoa had insulted
him by defacing his portrait in their city during the excesses of a riot. He
therefore pointed out Genoa to his allies for an easy and important conquest ;
and while he overran the Ligurian country, a French army of thirty thousand
men under the constable de Lesdiguieres advanced to the siege of the repub-
lican capital. Though the Genoese were unprovided against this sudden
attack, they were animated by the brave spirit, and the eloquence of one of
their fellow-citizens, a member of the illustrious house of Doria, to oppose
a firm resistance to the besiegers ; and their gallant defence of the city
was converted into a triumph, at the moment when they were reduced to
extremity. A powerful Spanish armament, equipped with unusual vigour,
arrived to their succour from Naples and Milan ; the French were compelled
to raise the siege ; and the peace, which shortly followed these hostilities,
served only to cover the duke of Savoy with the disgrace of merited failure
in his designs against the existence of the republic.
The secret hostility which Charles Emmanuel cherished against Genoa
menaced her, a few years later, with more imminent perils ; since the revenge-
ful spirit of the duke was associated with the discontent of a large party
in the republic. We have formerly noticed the constitution of the sovereign
oligarchy of Genoa, and its tendency, by the extinction of some noble houses,
and the reduction of numbers in others, to narrow the circle of political
rights. The surviving body, meanwhile, were sparing in the use of the law,
which authorised them to admit ten new families annually to a share in their
privileges of sovereignty. The senate either began to elude it altogether,
or applied it only to childless or aged individuals. Thus, before the middle
of the seventeenth century, the number of persons whose names appeared in
the libra cForo — the golden volume of privileged nobility — had dwindled to
about seven hundred. A law was then passed, by which the whole of these
exclusive proprietors of the rights of citizenship thenceforth took their seats
in the great council, on reaching the age of manhood, instead of entering
it by rotation, as had formerly been the practice, when the republic was
represented by a more comprehensive aristocracy.
While the arrogance and the individual importance of the members of
the oligarchy were increased in proportion to this diminution in their num-
bers, another class, that of the unprivileged aristocracy of birth and wealth,
had multiplied in the state. Many ancient houses, possessors of rural fiefs
in Liguria, and invested with titles of nobility, had been originally omitted in
the roll of citizenship ; many other families of newer pretensions had since
acquired riches and distinction by commercial industry, and accidents of
fortune; and the union of all these constituted an order, which rivalled
the oligarchy in the usual sources of pride, and far outweighed them in num-
bers. Affected superiority and contempt on the one hand, and mortification
and envy on the other, produced reciprocal hatred between these branches of
the Genoese aristocracy ; and their divisions inspired the duke of Savoy
with the hope of plunging the state into an anarchy, by which he might
profit.
510 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1628-1672 A.D.]
Pursuing his master's views, the ambassador of Charles Emmanuel at
Genoa selected a wealthy merchant of the unprivileged aristocracy, Giulio
Cesare Vachero, for the agitator and leader of a conspiracy to overthrow the
oligarchical constitution. Vachero, although engaged in the occupation of
commerce, aspired to move in the sphere of nobility. His immense riches,
his numerous retinue, his splendid establishment, rivalled the magnificence
of the Fregosi, the Adorni, the popolani grandi of other days. He always
appeared armed and in martial costume — the characteristics of the gentle-
man of the times ; he was surrounded by bravos ; and he unscrupulously
employed these desperate men in the atrocious gratification of his pride and
his vengeance. He found sufficient occupation for their poniards in the
numerous petty affronts, which the privileged nobles delighted to heap on a
person of his condition. Vachero was stung to the soul by all the scorn and
disdain which the highly born affect for upstart and unwarranted preten-
sions — by the contemptuous denial of the courtesy of a passing salutation,
the supercilious stare, the provoking smile of derision, the taunting innuendo,
the jest, the sneer. Every one of these slights or insults offered to himself
or his wife was washed out in the blood of the noble offenders (1628).
But all these covert assassinations could not satiate the revengeful spirit
nor heal the rankling irritation of Vachero ; and he was easily instigated by
the arts of the Savoyard ambassador to organise a plot, and to place himself
at its head, for the destruction of the oligarchy. He knew that his discon-
tent was shared by all the citizens like himself, whose names had not been
admitted into the libro cToro ; and he reckoned on the co-operation of very
many of the feudal seigniors of Liguria, whose ancient houses had never been
inserted in that register, and who found their consequence eclipsed in the
city, by their detested and more fortunate rivals of the oligarchy. He
readily induced a numerous party to embrace his design ; he secretly increased
the force of his retainers and bravos ; and he lavished immense sums among
the lower people, to secure their fidelity without entrusting them with his
plans. The day was already named for the attack of the palace of govern-
ment : it was determined to overpower the foreign guard ; to cast the
senators from the windows ; to massacre all the individuals embraced in the
privileged order ; to change the constitution of the republic ; and finally, to
invest Vachero with the supreme authority of the state, by the title of doge,
and under the protection of the duke of Savoy. But at the moment when
the conspiracy was ripe for execution, it was betrayed to the government by
a retainer of Vachero, who had been appointed to act a subordinate share
in it. Vachero himself, and a few other leading personages in the plot, were
secured before the alarm was given to the rest, who immediately fled. The
guilt of Vachero and his accomplices was clearly established ; the proofs
against them were even supported by the conduct of the duke of Savoy, who
openly avowed himself the protector of their enterprise ; and notwithstand-
ing his arrogant threat of revenging their punishment upon the republic,
the senate did not hesitate to order their immediate execution.
The insolent menaces of Charles Emmanuel were vain ; and the firmness
of the Genoese government produced no material consequences. During the
distractions which closed his own reign, and which, filling that of his son,
extended through the minority of his grandsons, the republic remained
undisturbed by the aggressions of the house of Savoy. In this long period
of above forty years, the repose of Genoa was disturbed neither by any other
foreign hostilities, nor by intestine commotions. A second war, which at
length broke out between the republic and the duchy of Savoy, during the
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 511
[1800-1685 A.D.]
reign of Charles Emmanuel II, scarcely merits our notice, for its circum-
stances and its conclusion were alike insignificant ; and during the remain-
der of the seventeenth century, the Genoese oligarchy were only startled
from their dream of pride and security by a single event — the most humili-
ating, until our own times at least, in the long annals of their republic.
When Louis XIV became master of Casale by purchase from the duke of
Mantua, he demanded of the republic of Genoa permission to establish a
depot at the port of Savona, for the free supply of salt to the inhabitants of
his new city, and the transit of warlike stores and recruits for his garrison.
The Genoese government were sufficiently acquainted with the character of
the French monarch to anticipate that their compliance with this demand
would terminate in his appropriating the port of Savona altogether to him-
self ; and cautiously exerting the option of refusal which they unquestion-
ably possessed, they eluded the application. With equal right and more
boldness, they fitted out a few galleys to guard their coasts against any sur-
prise, and to protect their revenue on salt. Louis imperiously required them
to disarm this squadron ; and then, driven beyond all the limits of endur-
ance, and justly incensed at such an insult upon the independence of the
republic, the senate treated the summons with contempt.
But the oligarchy of Genoa had not sufficiently measured the weakness of
their state, or the implacable and unbounded pride of the powerful tyrant.
A French armament of fourteen sail of the line, with a long train of frigates,
galleys, and bomb ketches, suddenly appeared before Genoa, and a furious
bombardment of three days, in which fifty thousand shells and carcasses are
said to have been thrown into the place, reduced to a heap of ruins half the
numerous and magnificent palaces, which had obtained for Genoa the appella-
tion of " the Proud." The senate were compelled to save the remains of their
capital from total destruction by an unqualified submission ; and the terms
dictated by the arrogance of the French monarch, obliged the doge and four
of the principal senators, to repair in their robes of state to Paris, to sue for
pardon and to supplicate his clemency. The epithets of glory have often
been prostituted on the character of Louis XIV, by those who are easily
dazzled with the glare of false splendour ; but of all the wholesale outrages
upon humanity which disgraced the detestable ambition of that heartless
destroyer of his species, this unprovoked assault upon a defenceless people,
merely to gratify his insatiable vanity, was — if we except the horrible
devastation of the Palatinate — the most barbarous and wanton.
VENICE
While Genoa was either wholly subservient to the influence of Spain,
with difficulty repulsing the machinations of the princes of Savoy, or endur-
ing all the insulting arrogance of France, her ancient rival was holding her
political course with more pretensions to independence and dignity. Through-
out the age before us, Venice seemed roused to the exertion of the few
remains of her ancient spirit and strength. Starting with renewed vigour
from the languor and obscurity of the preceding century, the republic
evinced a proud resolution to maintain her prescriptive rights, and even
in some measure aspired to assert the lost independence of Italy. Her
efforts in this latter respect, indeed, deserve to be mentioned, rather for the
courage which dictated them, than for their results. The relative force of
the states of Europe had too essentially changed ; the commercial foundations
512 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1600-1605 A.D.]
of her own prosperity were too irretrievably ruined to render it possible that
she should rear her head again above other powers of the second order, or
become the protectress and successful champion of the peninsula. But, in
the seventeenth century, the annals of Venice were at least not stained with
disgrace. Even her losses, in a protracted and unequal contest with the
Turks, were redeemed from shame by many brilliant acts of heroism in her
unavailing defence ; and the unfortunate issue of one war was balanced by
the happier results of a second. But the firmness of the republic was con-
spicuous, and her success unalloyed.
The first of the struggles, in which Venice was called upon to engage in
this century, was produced, soon after its opening, by that violent attempt of
Pope Paul V, to which we have before alluded, to revive the monstrous and
exploded doctrine of papal jurisdiction and su-
premacy over the temporal affairs of the world
(1605). The Venetians had, even in the dark
ages, been remarkable for their freedom from the
trammels of superstition, and consistent in repell-
ing the encroachments of ecclesiastical power.
Upon no occasion would the senate either permit
the publication or execution of any papal decree
in their territories, until it had received their
previous sanction ; or suffer an appeal to the court
of Rome from any of their subjects, except by
their own authority, and through the ambassador
of the republic. The jurisdiction of the Council
of Ten was as despotic and final over the Vene-
tian clergy as over all other classes in the state ;
and while ecclesiastics were rigidly excluded from
all interference in political affairs, and from the
exercise of any civil functions, the right of the sec-
ular tribunals to judge them in every case not
purely spiritual was a principle, from which the
government never departed either in theory or
practice. Of all the extravagant privileges
claimed by the Romish church for its militia, the
exemption of the ecclesiastical body from taxa-
tion (unless as the immediate act of the popes)
was the only one recognised by the Venetian gov-
ernment; and, to annul this, immunity was a pro-
ject which had more than once been entertained.
With a spirit similar to that which retained
the clergy under due subjection, universal relig-
(Many of these were people in straitened ious toleration was a steady maxim of the Vene-
circumstances, who wore a mask to . . „,, 11-1 -11 t •
disguise their features.) tian senate. The public and peaceable worship
of the Mussulman, the Jew, the Greek, the Arme-
nian, had always been equally permitted in the republican dominions ; and
in later times even the Protestant sects had met in the capital and provinces
with a like indulgence. The iniquitous principles of the oligarchical
administration forbid us from attributing to its conduct in these respects any
higher or more enlightened motive than the interested and necessary policy
of a commercial state. But it is a striking proof of the ability and stern
vigilance of this government, that, notwithstanding its universal toleration
and rejection of ecclesiastical control, no pretence was left for the popes to
A VENETIAN BEGGAR
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 513
[1604-1606 A.D.]
impugn its zealous fidelity to the Romish church ; and that, at a time when
all Europe was convulsed by the struggle of religious opinions, Venice alone
could receive into her corrupted bosom the elements of discord, without
shaking the foundations of her established faith or sustaining the slightest
shock to her habitual tranquillity.
The fierce temper with which Paul V seated himself on the papal throne,
and the systematic determination of the Venetian senate to submit to no
ecclesiastical usurpations, could not fail to bring the republic into collision
with so rash and violent a pontiff. Accordingly Paul V had scarcely com-
menced his reign, when he conceived offence at the refusal of the senate
to provoke a war with the Turks, by assisting the Hungarians at his com-
mand with subsidies against the infidels. His dissatisfaction with the re-
public was increased by her obstinacy in levying duty upon all merchandise
entering the papal ports in the Adriatic — a matter in which, assuredly,
religion was in nowise interested ; and it reached its height when the senate
passed a law, or rather revived an old one, forbidding the further alienation
of immovable property in favour of religious foundations ; which indeed,
even in their states, were already possessed of overgrown wealth.
At this juncture the Council of Ten, acting upon its established prin-
ciple of subjecting priests to secular jurisdiction, caused two ecclesiastics, a
canon of Vicenza, named Sarraceno, and an abbot of Nervesa, to be succes-
sively arrested and thrown into prison, to await their trials for offences with
which they were charged. Their alleged crimes were of the blackest enor-
mity : rape in one case ; assassination, poisonings, and parricide in the other.
The pope, as if the rights of the church had been violently outraged by these
arrests, summoned the doge and senate to deliver over the two priests to the
spiritual arm, on pain of excommunication; and he seized the occasion to
demand, under the same penalty, the repeal of the existing regulations
against the increase of the ecclesiastical edifices and property. But the doge
and senate, positively refusing to retract their measures, treated the papal
menaces with contempt; and Paul V then struck them, their capital, and
their whole republic with excommunication and interdict (1606).
The Venetian government endured the anathemas, so appalling to the
votaries of superstition, with unshaken firmness. In reply to the papal
denunciations of the divine wrath against the republic, they successfully
published repeated and forcible appeals to the justice of their cause, and
to the common-sense of the world. The general sentiment of Catholic
Europe responded to their arguments ; and their own subjects, filled with
indignation at the unprovoked sentence against the state, zealously sec-
onded their spirit. In private the doge had not hesitated to hold out to
the papal nuncio an alarming threat that the perseverance of his holiness
in violent measures would impel the republic to dissolve her connection
altogether with the Roman see; and the open procedure of the senate was
scarcely less bold. On pain of death, all parochial ministers and monks in
the Venetian states were commanded to pay no regard to the interdict, and
to continue to perform the offices of religion as usual. The secular clergy
yielded implicit obedience to the decree ; and when the Jesuits, Capuchins,
and other monastic orders endeavoured to qualify their allegiance, between
the pope and the republic, by making a reservation against the performance
of mass, they were immediately deprived of their possessions, and expelled
from the Venetian territories.
The pope, finding his spiritual weapons ineffectual against the constancy
of the Venetians, showed an inclination to have recourse to temporal arms.
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 L,
514 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1606-1615 A.D.]
He levied troops, and endeavoured to engage Philip III of Spain and
other princes in the support of his authority. At the same time, both the
Spanish monarch and Henry IV of France, the ally of the republic, began to
interest themselves in a quarrel which nearly concerned all Catholic powers,
and threatened Europe with commotion. In reality, both sovereigns aspired
to the honour of being the arbiter of the difference. But the feint of arm-
ing to second the pope, by which Philip III hoped to terrify the republic into
submitting to his mediation, had only the effect of determining the senate to
prefer the interposition of his rival ; and Henry IV became the zealous nego-
tiator between the pope and the republic.
Paul IV discovered at length that Spain had no serious resolution to
support him by arms, and that, without the application of a force which he
could not command, it was vain to expect submission from so inflexible a
body as the Venetian oligarchy. He was therefore reduced to the most
humiliating compromise of his boasted dignity. Without obtaining a single
concession on the point in dispute, he was obliged to revoke his spiritual
sentences. The doge and senate could not even receive an absolution ; they
refused to alter their decree against the alienation of property in favour of
the church ; and though they consigned the two imprisoned ecclesiastics to the
disposal of Henry IV, they accompanied this act with a formal declara-
tion, that was intended only as a voluntary mark of their respect for that
monarch their ally, and to be in no degree construed into an abandonment
of their right and practice of subjecting their clergy to secular jurisdiction.
Even their deference for Henry IV could not prevail over their resentment
and suspicion of the banished Jesuits : they peremptorily refused to rein-
state that order in its possessions ; and it was not until after the middle
of the century that the Jesuits obtained admission again into the states of
the republic. Thus, with the signal triumph of Venice, terminated a
struggle, happily a bloodless one, which was not less remarkable for the
firmness of the republic than important for its general effects in crushing the
pretensions of papal tyranny. For its issue may assuredly be regarded as
having relieved all Roman Catholic states from future dread of excommuni-
cation and interdict — and therefore from the danger of spiritual engines,
impotent in themselves, and formidable only when unresisted.
With the same unyielding spirit which characterised their resistance to
papal and ecclesiastical usurpation, the Venetian senate resolved to tolerate
no infringement upon the tyrannical pretension of their own republic to the
despotic sovereignty of the Adriatic. Before the contest with Paul V, their
state had already been seriously incommoded by the piracies of the Uscochi.
This community, originally formed of Christian inhabitants of Dalmatia
and Croatia, had been driven, in the sixteenth century, by the perpetual
Turkish invasions of their provinces, to the fastness of Clissa, whence they
successfully retaliated upon their infidel foes by incursions into the Ottoman
territories. At length, overpowered by the Turks, and dispersed from their
stronghold, these Uscochi, or refugees, as their name implies in the Dalma-
tian tongue, were collected by Ferdinand, archduke of Austria (afterwards
emperor), and established in the maritime town of Segna to guard that post
against the Turks. In their new station, which, on the land side, was pro-
tected from access by mountains and forests, while numerous inlets and
intricate shallows rendered it difficult of approach from the sea, the Uscochi
betook themselves to piracy ; and, for above seventy years, their light and
swift barks boldly infested the Adriatic with impunity. Their first attacks
were directed against the infidels ; but irritated by the interference of the
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 515
[1615-1617 A.D.]
Venetians, who, as sovereigns of the Adriatic, found themselves compelled
by the complaints and threats of the Porte to punish their freebooting
enterprises, they began to extend their depredations to the commerce of the
republic.
It was to little purpose that the senate called upon the Austrian govern-
ment to restrain its lawless subjects; their representations were either
eluded altogether, or failed in obtaining any effectual satisfaction. The
Uscochi, a fearless and desperate band, recruited by outlaws and men of
abandoned lives, became more audacious by the connivance of Austria ; and
the republic was obliged to maintain a small squadron constantly at sea to
protect her commerce against them. At length, after having recourse alter-
nately, for above half a century, to fruitless negotiations with Austria, and
insufficient attempts to chastise the pirates, the republic seriously deter-
mined to put an end to their vexatious hostilities and increasing insolence.
The capture of a Venetian galley and the massacre of its crew in 1615, and
an irruption of the Uscochi into Istria, brought affairs to a crisis. The
Austrian government, then directed by the archduke Ferdinand of Styria,
instead of giving satisfaction for these outrages, demanded the free naviga-
tion of the Adriatic for its vessels ; and the senate found an appeal to arms
the only mode of preserving its efficient sovereignty over the gulf. The
Venetian troops made reprisals on the Austrian territory ; and an open war
commenced between the archduke and the republic.
The contest was soon associated, by the interference of Spain, with the
hostilities then carried on between that monarchy and the duke of Savoy in
northern Italy respecting Montferrat. For pro-
tection against the enmity of the two branches of
the house of Austria, Venice united herself with
Savoy, and largely subsidised that state. She even
sought more distant allies, and a league, offensive
and defensive, was signed between her and the
seven united provinces. Notwithstanding the
difference of religious faith, which, in that age
constituted in itself a principle of political
hostility, the two republics found a bond
of union, stronger than this repulsion, in
their common reasons for opposing the
Spanish power. They engaged to afford
each other a reciprocal assistance in money,
vessels, or men, whenever menaced with
attack ; and in fulfilment of this treaty, a
strong body of Dutch troops arrived in the
Adriatic. Before the disembarkation of
this force, the Venetians had already gained some advantages in the Austrian
provinces on the coasts of that sea ; and the archduke was induced by the
appearance of the Dutch, and his projects in Germany, to open negotiations
for a general peace in northern Italy.
The same treaty terminated the wars of the house of Austria respecting
Montferrat and the Uscochi. Ferdinand of Austria gave security for the
dispersion of the pirates, whom he had protected ; and thus the Venetian
republic was finally delivered from the vexatious and lawless depredations
of those freebooters, who had so long annoyed her commerce and harassed
her subjects (1617). It does not appear that the force of this singular race
of pirates, who had thus risen into historical notice, ever exceeded a thousand
LlON, SUPPORTING THE PILLAR OF THE
PULPIT, ST. MARK'S
516 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1617-1618 A.D.]
men ; but their extraordinary hardihood and ferocity, their incessant enter-
prise and activity, their inaccessible position, and the connivance of Austria,
had rendered them formidable enemies. Their depredations, and the con-
stant expense of petty armaments against them, were estimated to have cost
the Venetians in thirty years a loss of more than 20,000,000 gold ducats ;
and no less a question than the security of the dominion of the republic over
the Adriatic was decided by the war against them.
Although Spain and Venice had not been regularly at war, the tyrannical
ascendency exercised by the Spanish court over the affairs of Italy, occa-
sioned the Venetians to regard that power with particular apprehension and
enmity ; and the spirit shown by the senate in the late contest had filled the
Spanish government with implacable hatred towards the republic. By her
alliances and her whole procedure, Venice had declared against the house
of Austria, and betrayed her disposition to curb the alarming and over-
spreading authority of both its branches in the peninsula. The haughty
ministers of Philip III secretly nourished projects of vengeance against the
state, which had dared to manifest a systematic hostility to the Spanish
dominion ; and they are accused, even in apparent peace, of having regarded
the republic as an enemy whom it behoved them to destroy. At the epoch
of the conclusion of the war relative to Montferrat and the Uscochi, the
duke of Osuna was viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro de Toledo, governor of
Milan, and the marquis of Bedmar, ambassador at Venice from the court
of Madrid. To the hostility entertained against the republic by these three
ministers, the two former of whom governed the Italian possessions of
Spain with almost regal independence, has usually been attributed the forma-
tion, with the connivance of the court of Madrid, of one of the most atrocious
and deep-laid conspiracies on record. The real character of this mysterious
transaction must ever remain among the unsolved problems of history ; for
even the circumstances which were partially suffered by the Council of Ten
to transpire were so imperfectly explained, and so liable to suspicion from
the habitual iniquity of their policy, as to have given rise to a thousand
various and contradictory versions of the same events. Of these we shall
attempt to collect only such as are scarcely open to doubt.
The Venetians had no reason to hope that the exasperation of the Spanish
government, at the part which they had taken in the late war in Italy, would
die away with the termination of hostilities ; and it appeared to the world
a consequence of the enmity of the court of Madrid towards the republic
that the duke of Osuna, the viceroy of Naples, continued his warlike equip-
ments in that kingdom with undiminished activity, notwithstanding the
signature of peace. The viceroy, indeed, pretended that his naval arma-
ments were designed against the infidels ; and when the court of Madrid
recalled the royal Spanish fleet from the coasts of Italy, the duke of Osuna
sent the Neapolitan squadron to sea under a flag emblazoned with his own
family arms. But it was difficult to suppose, either that a viceroy dared to
hoist his personal standard unsanctioned by his sovereign and would be
suffered to engage in a private war against the Ottoman Empire, or that he
would require for that purpose the charts of the Venetian lagunes, and the
flat-bottomed vessels fitted for their navigation, which he busily collected.
The republic accordingly manifested serious alarm, and sedulously prepared
for defence.
Affairs were in this state, when one morning several strangers were found
suspended from the gibbets of the square of St. Mark. The public conster-
nation increased when, on the following dawn, other bodies were also found
A CENTURY OE OBSCURITY 517
[1618-1619 A.D.]
hanging on the same fatal spot — also of strangers. It was at the same time
whispered that numerous arrests had filled the dungeons of the Council
of Ten with some hundreds of criminals ; and there was, too, certain proof
that many persons had been privately drowned in the canals of Venice.
To these fearful indications that the state had been alarmed by some extra-
ordinary danger, the terrors of which were magnified by their obscurity,
were shortly added further rumours that several foreigners serving in the
fleet had been poniarded, hanged, or cast into the sea. The city was then
filled with the most alarming reports : that a conspiracy of long duration
had been discovered ; that its object was to massacre the nobility, to destroy
the republic, to deliver the whole capital to flames and pillage; that the
Spanish ambassador was the mover of the horrible plot. Venice was filled
with indignation and terror ; yet the impenetrable Council of Ten preserved
the most profound silence, neither confirming nor contradicting the general
belief. The life of the marquis of Bedmar was violently threatened by the
populace : he retired from Venice ; the senate received a new ambassador
from Spain without any signs of displeasure ; and, finally, it was not until
five months after the executions that the government commanded solemn
thanksgiving to be offered up to the Almighty for the preservation of the
state from the dangers which had threatened its existence.
On the extent of these dangers nothing was ever certainly known ; but
amongst the persons executed the most conspicuous was ascertained to be a
French naval captain of high reputation for ability and courage in his voca-
tion, Jacques Pierre, who, after a life passed in enterprises of a doubtful
or piratical character, had apparently deserted the service of the viceroy of
Naples to embrace that of the republic. This man, and a brother adventurer,
one Langlade, who had been employed in the arsenal in the construction of
petards and other fireworks, were absent from Venice with the fleet when
the other executions took place ; and they were suddenly put to death while
on this service. Two other French captains named Regnault and Bouslart,
with numerous foreigners, principally of the same nation, who had lately
been taken into the republican service, were privately tortured and executed
in various ways in the capital ; and altogether 260 officers and other
military adventurers are stated to have perished by the hands of the
executioner for their alleged share in the conspiracy. The vengeance or
shocking policy of the Council of Ten proceeded yet further ; and so careful
was that body to bury every trace of this inexplicable affair in the deepest
oblivion, that Antoine Jafner, also a French captain, and other informers, who
had revealed the existence of a plot, though at first rewarded, were all in the
sequel either known to have met a violent death, or mysteriously disap-
peared altogether. Of the three Spanish ministers, to whom it has been
customary to assign the origin of the conspiracy, the two principal were
distinguished by opposite fates. The marquis of Bedemar, after the ter-
mination of his embassy, found signal political advancement, and finished by
obtaining a cardinal's hat, by the interest of his court with the holy see.
But the duke of Osuna, after being removed from viceroyalty, was disgraced
on suspicion of having designed to renounce his allegiance, and to place the
crown of Naples on his own head ; and he died in prison.
Whether the safety of Venice had really been endangered or not by
the machinations of Spain, the measures of that power were observed by the
senate with a watchful and jealous eye ; and, for many years, the policy of
the republic was constantly employed in endeavours to counteract the
projects of the house of Austria. In 1619, the Venetians perceived with
518 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1619-1645 A.D.]
violent alarm that the court of Madrid, under pretence of protecting the
Catholics of the Valtelline against their rulers, the Protestants of the Grison
confederation, was labouring to acquire the possession of that valley, which,
by connecting the Milanese states with the Tyrol, would cement the domin-
ions of the Spanish and German dynasties of the Austrian family. The
establishment of this easy communication was particularly dangerous for the
Venetians, because it would envelop their states, from the Lisonzo to
the Po, with an unbroken chain of hostile posts, and would intercept all
direct intercourse with Savoy and the territories of France. The senate
eagerly therefore negotiated the league between these last two powers and
their republic, which, in 1623, was followed by the Grison war against
the house of Austria. This contest produced little satisfactory fruits for the
Venetians ; and it did not terminate before the Grisons, though they recov-
ered their sovereignty over the Valtelline, had themselves embraced the
party of Spain.
The Grison war had not closed, when Venice was drawn, by her sys-
tematic opposition to the Spanish power, into a more important quarrel —
that of the Mantuan Succession, in which she of course espoused the cause of
the Gonzaga of Nevers. In this struggle the republic, who sent an army
of twenty thousand men into the field on her Lombard frontiers, experienced
nothing but disgrace ; and the senate were but too happy to find their states
left, by the Peace of Cherasco in 1631, precisely in the same situation as
before the war ; while the prince whom they had supported remained seated
on the throne of Mantua. This pacification reconciled the republic with the
house of Austria, and terminated her share in the Italian wars of the seven-
teenth century. Her efforts to promote the deliverance of the peninsula
from the Spanish power can scarcely be said to have met with success ; nor
was the rapid decline of that monarchy, which had already commenced,
hastened, perhaps, by her hostility. But she had displayed remarkable
energy in the policy of her counsels ; and the recovery of her own particular
independence was at least triumphantly effected. So completely were her pre-
tensions to the sovereignty of the Adriatic maintained that, when in the year
1630, just before the conclusion of the Mantuan War, a princess of the
Spanish dynasty wished to pass by sea from Naples to Trieste, to espouse
the son of the emperor, the senator refused to allow the Spanish squadron to
escort her, as an infringement upon their right of excluding every foreign
armament from those waters ; but they gallantly offered their own fleet for
her service. The Spanish government at first rejected the offer ; but the
Venetians, says Giannone, boldly declared that, if the Spaniards were re-
solved to prefer a trial of force to their friendly proposal, the infanta must
fight her way to her wedding through fire and smoke. The haughty court
of Madrid was compelled to yield ; and the Venetian admiral, Antonio Pisani,
then gave the princess a convoy in splendid bearing to Trieste with a
squadron of light galleys.
Venetian Wars with the Turks
Throughout the remainder of the seventeenth century, the affairs of
Venice had little connection with those of the older Italian states ; and in
tracing the annals of the republic, our attention is wholly diverted to the
Eastern theatre of her struggles against the Ottoman power. It was a sudden
and overwhelming aggression which first broke the long interval of peace
between the Turkish and Venetian governments. Under pretence of taking
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 519
[1645-1657 A.D.]
vengeance upon the knights of Malta, for the capture of some Turkish ves-
sels, the Porte fitted out an enormous expedition ; and 348 galleys and other
vessels of war, with an immense number of transports, having on board a
land-force of fifty thousand men, issued from the Dardanelles with the
ostensible design of attacking the stronghold of the order of St. John
(1645). But instead of making sail for Malta, the fleet of the sultan steered
for the shores of Candia ; and unexpectedly, and without any provocation,
the Turkish army disembarked on that island. The Venetians, although the
senate had conceived some uneasiness on the real destination of the Ottoman
expedition, were little prepared for resistance ; but they defended themselves
against this faithless surprise with remarkable courage, and even with despera-
tion. During a long war of twenty-five years, the most ruinous which they
had ever sustained against the infidels, the Venetian senate and all classes
of their subjects displayed a zealous energy and a fortitude worthy of the
best days of their republic. But the resources of Venice were no longer
what they had been in the early ages of her prosperity ; and although the
empire of the sultans had declined from the meridian of its power, the contest
was still too disproportionate between the fanatical and warlike myriads of
Turkey and the limited forces of a maritime state. The Venetians, per-
haps, could not withdraw from the unequal conflict with honour ; but the
prudent senate might easily foresee its disastrous result.
The first important operation of the Turkish army in Candia was the
siege of Canea, one of the principal cities of the island. Before the end of
the first campaign, the assailants had entered that place by capitulation ; but
so gallant was the defence that, although the garrison was composed only of
two or three thousand native militia, twenty thousand Turks are said to have
fallen before the walls. Meanwhile, at Venice, all orders had rivalled each
other in devotion and pecuniary sacrifices to preserve the most valuable
colony of the state ; and notwithstanding the apathy of Spain, the disorders
of France and the empire, and other causes, which deprived the republic of
the efficient support of Christendom against a common enemy, the senate
were able to reinforce the garrisons of Candia, and to oppose a powerful fleet
to the infidels. The naval force of the republic was still indeed very inferior
in numbers to that of the Moslems ; but this inferiority was compensated by
the advantages of skill and disciplined courage ; and throughout the war the
offensive operations of the Venetians on the waves strikingly displayed their
superiority in maritime science and conduct. For many successive years, the
Venetian squadrons assumed and triumphantly maintained their station,
during the seasons of active operations, at the mouth of the Dardanelles, and
blockaded the straits and the port of Constantinople. The Mussulmans con-
stantly endeavoured with furious perseverance to remove the shame of their
confinement by an inferior force ; but they were almost always defeated. The
naval trophies of Venice were swelled by many brilliant victories, but by five
in particular : in 1649 near Smyrna ; in 1651 near Paros ; in 1655 at the
passage of the Dardanelles ; and, in the two following years, at the same
place. In these encounters, the exploits of the patrician families of Morosini,
of Grimani, of Mocenigo emulated the glorious deeds of their illustrious
ancestors ; and their successes gave temporary possession to the republic of
some ports in Dalmatia, and of several islands in the Archipelago.
But, notwithstanding the devotion and courage of the Venetians on their
own element, and their desperate resistance in the fortresses of Candia, the
war in that island was draining the life-blood of the republic, without afford-
ing one rational hope of ultimate success. The vigilance of the Venetian
520 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1648-1669 A.D.]
squadrons could not prevent the Turks from feeding their army in Candia
with desultory and perpetual reinforcements of janissaries and other troops
from the neighbouring shore of the Morea ; and whenever tempests, or
exhaustion, or the overwhelming strength of the Ottoman armaments com-
pelled the republican fleet to retire into port, the numbers of the invading
army were swollen by fresh thousands. The exhaustless stream of the Otto-
man population was directed with unceasing flow towards the scene of contest :
the Porte was contented to purchase the acquisition of Candia by the sacrifice
of hecatombs of human victims. To raise new resources, the Venetian senate
were reduced to the humiliating expedient of offering the dignity of admis-
sion into their body and the highest offices of state to public sale : to obtain
the continued means of succouring Candia, they implored the aid of all the
powers of Europe. As the contest became more desperate, their entreaties
met with general attention ; and almost every Christian state afforded them
a few reinforcements. But these were never simultaneous or numerous ;
and though they arrested the progress of the infidels, they only protracted
the calamitous struggle.
In 1648 the Turkish army had penetrated to the walls of Candia, the
capital of the island ; and for twenty years they kept that city in a continued
state of siege. But it was only in the year 1666 that the assaults of the infi-
dels attained their consummation of vigour, by the debarkation of reinforce-
ments which raised their army to seventy thousand men, and on the arrival
of Akhmet Kiupergli, the famous Ottoman vizir, to assume in person the
direction of their irresistible force. This able commander was opposed by a
leader in no respect inferior to him, Francesco Morosini, captain-general of
the Venetians; and thenceforth the defence of Candia was signalised by
prodigies of desperate valour, which exceed all belief. But we, in these
days, are surprised to find that the Turks, in the direction of their
approaches, and the employment of an immense battering train, showed a
far superior skill to that of the Christians. The details of the siege of
Candia belong to the history of the military art ; but the general reader will
best imagine the obstinacy of the defence from the fact that, in six months,
the combatants exchanged thirty-two general assaults and seventeen furious
sallies ; that above six hundred mines were sprung ; and that four thousand
Christians and twenty thousand Mussulmans perished in the ditches and
trenches of the place.
The most numerous and the last reinforcements received by the Venetians
was six thousand French troops, despatched by Louis XIV under the dukes
of Beaufort and Navailles. The characteristic rashness of their nation
induced these commanders, contrary to the advice of Morosini, to hazard an
imprudent sortie, in which they were totally defeated, and the former of
these noblemen slain. After this disaster, no entreaty of Morosini could
prevent the duke of Navailles from abandoning the defence of the city, with
a precipitation as great as that which had provoked the calamity. The
French re-embarked ; the other auxiliaries followed their example ; and
Morosini was left with a handful of Venetians among a mass of blackened
and untenable ruins. Thus deserted, after a glorious though hopeless resist-
ance which has immortalised his name, Francesco Morosini ventured on his
sole responsibility to conclude a treaty of peace with the vizir, which the
Venetian senate, notwithstanding their jealousy of such unauthorised acts in
their officers, rejoiced to confirm. The whole island of Candia, except two
or three ports, was surrendered to the Turks ; the republic preserved her
other possessions in the Levant ; and the war was thus terminated by the
A CENTUKY OF OBSCURITY 521
[1669-1687 A.D.]
event of a siege, in the long course of which the incredible number of 120,000
Turks and 30,000 Christians are declared to have perished (1669).
Notwithstanding the unfortunate issue of this war, the Venetian republic
had not come off without honour from an unequal struggle, which had been
signalised by ten naval victories and by one of the most stubborn and brill-
iant defences recorded in history. Although, therefore, a prodigious ex-
penditure of blood and treasure had utterly drained the resources of the
republic, her courage was unsubdued, and her pride was even augmented
by the events of the contest. The successes of the infidels had inspired less
terror than indignant impatience and thirst of revenge ; and the senate
watched in secret for the first favourable occasion of retaliating upon the
Mussulmans. After the Venetian strength had been repaired by fifteen
years of uninterrupted repose and prosperous industry, this occasion of ven-
geance was found, in the war which the Porte had declared against the
empire in 1682. An offensive league was signed between the emperor, the
king of Poland, the czar of Muscovy, and the Venetians. The principal
stipulation of this alliance was that each party should be guaranteed in the
possession of its future conquests from the infidels ; and the republic imme-
diately fitted out a squadron of twenty-four sail of the line, and about fifty
galleys.
There appeared but one man at Venice worthy of the chief command —
that Francesco Morosini, who had so gallantly defended Candia, and whom
the senate and people had rewarded with the most flagrant ingratitude. A
strange and wanton accusation of cowardice was too palpably belied by every
event of his public life to be persisted in, even by the envy which his emi-
nent reputation had provoked, and by the malignity that commonly waits
upon public services, where they have been unfortunate. But a second and
unprovoked charge of malversation had been followed by imprisonment.
Still, however, devoting himself to his country's cause, and forgetting his
private injuries, Morosini shamed his enemies by a noble revenge ; and, once
more at the head of the Venetian armaments, he led them to a brilliant
career of victory. The chief force of the Ottoman Empire was diverted to
the Austrian War ; and the vigorous efforts of the republican armies were
feebly or unsuccessfully resisted by the divided strength of the Mussulmans.
In the first naval campaign, the mouth of the Adriatic was secured by the
reduction of the island of Santa Maura, one of the keys of that sea ; and the
neighbouring continent of Greece was invaded. In three years more, Moro-
sini consummated his bold design of wresting the whole of the Morea from
the infidels. In the course of the operations in that peninsula, the count of
Konigsmark, a Swedish officer who was entrusted with the command of the
Venetian land-forces under the captain-general, inflicted two signal defeats
in the field upon the Turkish armies. Modon, Argos, and Napoli di Romania,
the capital of the Morea, successfully fell after regular sieges, c
The year 1687 was not so propitious for the Venetians ; nevertheless Moro-
sini rendered himself master of Lepanto and Corinth. The conquest of the
Morea was nearly completed. At this time the senate voted for the great
captain a bust in bronze, bearing the inscription : "Francisco Maurocenico
Peloponnesiaco adhuc viventi Senatus" This honour redoubled the ardour of
Morosini. After conquering Sparta he turned to Attica, and laying siege to
Athens easily took it. It was in this assault on Athens that a shell struck
the Parthenon, of which the Turks had made a powder magazine, and re-
duced that celebrated edifice to ruins. Morosini, who to skill in war and
love of country added admiration for the great and beautiful, did his best
522 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1687-1695 A.D.]
to save what he could of this venerated relic, and exclaimed : " Oh Athens,
protector of Art, to what art thou reduced ! " Thus was ancient Greece
avenged on ancient barbarism. But different rulers had left too deep fur-
rows on this sacred soil to enable the republic of Venice, already enfeebled,
to recall it to life; there reigned the silence of a past which could never
be renewed.
In 1688 the Venetian fleet leaving the Gulf of ^Egina operated against
the island of Negropont (Eubcea), but was unable to take it, not only on
account of the resistance offered by the Turks, but because sickness had
begun to decimate the ranks, and a band of Germans fighting for the republic
were withdrawn. The Venetians were however continually gaming victories
in Dalrnatia, while the Turks were frequently discomfited in Hungary ; so
that the latter began to make proposals for peace. The demands of the
allies, however, were so exorbitant that the negotiations failed, and the Turks
decided to continue the war to the utmost of their power, a decision which
was influenced by the turbulent state of Europe. Morosini was not dis-
couraged by this new boldness on the part of the Turks ; he had now been
raised to the supreme dignity of the dogeship, and wished by some fresh, great
deed to prove that the republic had done wisely in reposing complete faith
in him. He had in his mind the design of attempting once more the con-
quest of Negropont ; but the forces there being already under other leaders,
he decided to take Monembasia, which would make the conquest of the
Morea quite complete. But the siege had scarcely begun when Morosini fell
ill, and he was obliged to surrender his command to Girolamo Cornaro and
return to Venice. The porte brought forward fresh proposals for peace, but
they were rejected.
The emperor wished to employ all his forces against the French ; he was
not disinclined to listen to suggestions for an agreement. Knowing this,
the Venetians understood how much it was to their interest to conduct
carefully the enterprise which they had in hand, so that if peace should be
concluded it might be to their advantage. So Cornaro assailed Monembasia
with great ardour until he finally mastered it, after which he attacked the
Ottoman fleet and defeated it at Mytilene. After the taking of Vallona,
which was dismantled, an illness ended Cornaro's honoured life. Domenico
Mocenigo who succeeded him in his command was very different from his
predecessor. An attempt made by him to conquer Candia failed through
his cowardice ; he was punished by the senate, who deprived him of his
command and begged Morosini to place himself once more at the head of the
army. Morosini, though well on in years, started at once from Monembasia
the 24th of May, 1693. On this occasion, however, he did nothing very
remarkable beyond acquiring possession of some islands — among others
Salamis ; partly because the season was unfavourable, and the Turks were
strongly fortified in the Hellenic territory which still remained to them. He
died not long after (January 9th, 1694), and was succeeded in his command
by Antonio Zeno.
The new commander, while the troops were gaining fresh victories in
Dalmatia, took Scio ; but he afterwards allowed a favourable opportunity
of defeating the Turkish fleet to escape him, and did not even trouble to
keep Scio which he had conquered. He was called upon to give an account
of his conduct, and thrown into prison where he died before sentence had
been pronounced against him. His successor, Alessandro Molin, was more
fortunate. It seemed as though the star of Venice was once more declining,
and the enemy's forces again became threatening. The Turks, recovering
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY 523
[1695-1699 A.D.]
from the defeats they had sustained, again attempted the reconquest of the
Morea. But not only were they unsuccessful in this, but Molin determined
to meet them off Scio and there gained over them a signal victory. Equally
auspicious for Venice were the years 1696, 1697, 1698, in which last, on
September 20th, the purveyor extraordinary, Girolan Dolfin, gained another
naval victory by which supremacy of the sea was secured to the republic and
the dominion of the Archipelago guaranteed. But already the other great
victory of Zenta, within the military boundaries, was gained by Prince
Eugene of Savoy on September llth ; and as the Turks lost their
grand vizir, seventeen pashas, thirty thousand soldiers dead and three
thousand prisoners, the sultan was convinced that the only thing which
remained for him to do was to sue once more for peace, the more so as
Cornale, who succeeded Molin as commander, had in various encounters
defeated the Ottoman army and, closing the passage of the Dardanelles, had
several times reduced Constantinople to starvation. The Christian powers
were not this time deaf to the request of the sultan. They perceived the
necessity of making peace with the East, since the hopes and fears growing
out of the war of the Spanish Succession had given rise to contentions of all
kinds among the three cabinets.
Through the mediation of England and Holland — after the overcoming
of many difficulties brought forward principally by the Venetians, who feared
that they might lose in peace what they had gained in war, or that they
would not receive from the empire, a rival power, all due regard for their
interests — on the 13th of November, 1693, the imperial plenipotentiaries,
with those of Poland, Russia, Venice, and the Turks, assembled in congress
at Karlowitz, a town on the Danube to the south of Peter wardein.d
By the Treaty of Karlowitz, which the republic, in concert with the
empire, concluded with the Ottoman Porte, Venice retained all her conquests
in the Morea (including Corinth and its isthmus), the islands of Algina and
Santa Maura, and some Dalmatian fortresses which she had captured ;
and she restored Athens and her remaining acquisitions on the Grecian
continent (1699).c
CHAPTER XVII
ITALY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[1701-1800 A.D.]
ITALY'S condition when she left the death-stricken hands of the dynasty
of Charles V made a lively impression on her new sovereigns. It showed
what could be done towards the unhappiness of a country by foreign rule —
a rule which only thought from day to day of gathering fruits of conquest,
without even trying to assure those of the morrow.
For a century and a half the governors of Milan and Naples, and fol-
lowing their example the independent sovereigns, egoists, or oppressors,
with rare exceptions, had allowed ancient evils to subsist or replaced them
by new ones. They had only sought to exploit to their own profit the
privileges, the old institutions of the Middle Ages, instead of reforming or
ameliorating them. Nobles and clergy in particular had been left in pos-
session of their old rights over the chase, fishing, mills, furnaces, justice even,
and were the real instruments of domination. Thence arose the strangest
position of affairs.
Legislations, ancient and contradictory customs which in the south went
back to the Normans, the Hohenstaufens, and the Angevins, or in the north
at Bologna, Florence, Pisa, Siena, survived in institutions of lost republics,
formed an inextricable chaos where the arbitrator reaped a rich harvest.
Privileges and jurisdictions, both feudal and clerical, confused or perverted
the systems of judicial and political administration ; taxation varied in every
country and for every person ; power made itself oppressively but univer-
sally felt. The general tax-collectors, to whom finance was given over, and
venal officials, who represented authority, still further augmented disorder.
Lastly the power of the holy see, taking a more active part in political
institutions in Italy than anywhere else, came as a final burden.
In the country the rights of primogeniture, mortgage, trusteeship, and
free pasturage condemned the land to sterility. In towns the old corpora-
tions, statutes, and recent monopolies killed all commerce and industry.
There were hardly any natural products in this the most fertile country of
Europe, still less of manufactured products in towns which formerly had
624
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 525
[1701-1723 A.D.]
filled the markets of Europe with their exports, and the bad condition of the
roads overburdened with turnpikes did not allow of transit over a peninsula
so admirably situated and which in the Middle Ages had served as a link
between Europe and the Levant. Moreover the deserted state of Apulia
recalled the times of the decadence of the Roman Empire. In the kingdom
of Naples the royal pasturage had an extent of fifty miles in length and
fifteen miles in breadth. In Tuscany and the papal states the Maremma
reached as far as the Mediterranean coasts. The greater part of the towns
in central and southern Italy were depopulated, their palaces deserted, the
houses fallen into ruins and never repaired. Even literature and art, which
had maintained themselves up to that time, had now shared the common
Politically the eighteenth century, like the sixteenth, began in Italy with
fifty years of warfare; but the sufferings of the country, although often
heavy, were always much lighter than those which had prevailed during the
great struggle between France and the house of Charles V.
There broke out successively four European wars, into all of which the
Italians were dragged by their foreign masters./ The first of these was
the war of the Spanish Succession ; the second, the war of the Quadruple
Alliance ; the third, the war of the Polish Succession ; the fourth, the war
of the Austrian Succession. A brief review of the effect upon Italy of these
wars will form the chief topic of the present chapter. But before taking up
the sweep of these political events, it may be of interest to glance at the
internal conditions of the most interesting of Italian states, Tuscany, and
witness the passing of its famous family of Medici, which now becomes
extinct after three centuries of domination. Cosmo III, who occupied the
ducal throne at the close of the century, continued to reign until 1723. «
Although neither public nor private conditions were very satisfactory
under his government, the brilliancy of the court gave no indication that
times were bad. There never was a time of greater luxury, nor had so
many rich gifts ever found their way into foreign lands before. Cosmo
had an abnormal craving for notoriety. He wished to pass for the most
magnificent of sovereigns, while his ever-increasing leaning towards piety
gave rise to the most singular contrasts between his private and his court
life — contrasts which were intensified by the habits and surroundings of his
sons and for a time of his own brother also. The latter, Francesco Maria,
when cardinal, knew no moderation in his expenditure, and the learned
French Benedictines who saw him in Rome, in 1687, report that the grand
duke was forced on account of his extravagance to recall him to Siena, and
then describe how refreshments alone cost him daily twenty-five louis d'or.
Besides monks of all orders, who were always to be found in the palace (the
prince had founded near the Ambrogiana an Alcantarian 1 monastery which
was maintained at his expense), individuals of all nations presented them-
selves at court. The ambassadors took the greatest pains to gratify Cosmo's
wishes : Czar Peter sent him four Calmucks, and from the Danish king,
Frederick IV, he received Greenlanders. The residences were filled with
treasures and curiosities of all kinds, and the princely vineyards and gardens
were of the choicest. At the end of the winter of 1719, King Frederick IV
of Denmark spent nearly six weeks in Florence, which he had already visited
as crown prince in 1692 under the incognito of the count of Schaumburg.
The great trouble which the ceremonial gave, in spite of the incognito on
1 Alcantarians, an order of Franciscan monks.
526 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1719-1725 A.D.]
that occasion, is described by the prince's attendant, Hans Heinrich von
Ahlefeld, in his account of the journey. An inscription on the archway of
the Porta San Gallo commemorates the visit of the Scandinavian monarch,
whose predecessor, Christian I, had passed through that very gate 235 years
before. Cosmo celebrated the visit of his exalted guest, in spite of the
Lenten season, by balls and music. A large print which represents the even-
ing progress of the princess Violante Beatrice at the time of the invest-
ment of Siena on April 12th, 1717, gives some idea of the brilliancy and
ceremonial as well as of the costumes and uniforms in customary use on
official occasions: the princess drove through the gaily decorated town in
her state carriage, almost entirely made of crystal and drawn by six horses,
surrounded by pages and halberdiers bearing torches, and followed by the
magnificent carriages of the nobility on to the Piazza del Campo, whose
every tower and roof was brilliantly illuminated and which was filled to
overflowing by a surging crowd. The privations and losses of later years
so depressed Cosmo, however, that he could think of nothing but his religious
exercises, and the distinguished flower of Florentine youth went into foreign
lands to seek compensation for the restrictions imposed upon them at home.
When in 1720 the electoral princess of the Palatinate, who was by no means
a pleasure-seeker, felt it incumbent upon her to break through this severe
regime by encouraging the carnival festivities, the whole nation showed
unmistakably how hateful this morose existence had been to them.&
Cosmo III died at an advanced age on October 31st, 1723, leaving as
his successor his son Giovan Gastone. The country at this time was plunged
in debt, industries had decayed, prosperity was destroyed. The new arch-
duke drove away the monks and priestly flatterers that had surrounded his
father, suppressed several pensions that had been awarded, converted here-
tics, Turks, and Jews — lightened, in a word, many of the burdens that
oppressed the land without displaying the energy necessary to remove the
worst evils from which it suffered. He held at a distance his German wife,
who had lately entered with alacrity upon the duties of her position as reign-
ing archduchess in Florence. In matters pertaining to exterior politics he
followed closely in the footsteps of his father. Entertaining little hope of
setting aside the decisions of the Quadruple Alliance, he took good care to
fix the allodial estates of the house of Medici and to indicate which portions
could be looked upon as territorial and which must be ceded to the electress
of the Palatinate as compensation for the future transfer of the feudal tenure
to another family of the Medici female line.
A new turn was given to Tuscan affairs in 1725, while the belief still
prevailed that the infante Charles would shortly arrive from Spain with an
armed force with the intention of so establishing himself in Tuscany that his
position and that of his successors could not be shaken either by the nego-
tiations at Cambray or the pretensions of the emperor. Instead of this
solution the Madrid court secretly despatched to Vienna Baron de Ripperda,
an able Belgian who had recently gone over to the Catholic church. This
envoy succeeded in effecting a separate contract between the emperor and
Philip V whereby Tuscany and Parma were to be held as possessions of the
infante Charles and his successors without the establishment there of foreign
garrisons, exactly in accordance with the provisions of the Quadruple Alli-
ance. Although this agreement (which brought to a close the congress of
Cambray dispelled the fears of the archduke as to an irruption of the Span-
iards into his domains before his death, and made possible an undisturbed
continuance of his dissolute mode of life, fresh mistrust arose between the
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 527
[1725-1743 A.D.]
courts of Vienna and Madrid which created renewed tension in the affairs
of the Italian states.0
Giovan Gastone loved conviviality, and during the first years of his reign
he took part in the social functions given by the most distinguished families
in the capital. Florence seemed to be suddenly transformed. The new
sovereign put a stop to the prying censorship of morals with which his prede-
cessor had tormented his subjects of all classes. After he had once made
the regulations that seemed to him urgently needed, he refused to hear any-
thing more about the affairs of administration, and he prohibited all reports
on the life and doings of his subjects. The doors of his palace were closed
to all the monks and clergy, and to the converts and neophytes that Cosmo
had loved to gather round him. The palace, however, gained nothing by
the changed company in which Giovan Gastone indulged, more especially
during the last sad years of his reign. When his father's pensions to his
clerical proteges ceased, the ill-deserved gratuities bestowed upon the depraved
clients of Giuliano Dami, the ruspanti (as they were called from their weekly
doles of the goldpieces known as ruspo) were much worse. The depravity
of morals from which the whole of Italy suffered had never been worse.
And Giovan Gastone's indifference increased with his ill-health. "The
present court," writes Johann Georg Keysler in January, 1730, " is very
quiet and dreary. The sister of the grand duke has turned devote and
frequents cloisters and churches more than the court. The grand duchess,
widow of the elder brother, is of a lively disposition, it is true, and particu-
larly gracious to foreigners, but perhaps she shrinks from the thought of
passing for a lover of vanities in the eyes of her sister-in-law. The grand
duke himself has not left his room since last July. No traveller or foreign
minister is admitted to an audience with him, and he spends most of his time
in bed, partly on account of the discomforts of asthma and dropsy from
which he suffers, and partly on account of the strong drinks and liquors
which he takes."
The presence of the infante Don Charles roused this gloomy court for
the last time. The prince shot hares and game in the Boboli Gardens and
drove through the corridor between the palace and the Uffizzi in a little
carriage drawn by a stag. As soon as he had gone everything returned to
its former gloom. Giovan Gastone did not leave his couch again. Only
once, just before the last crisis, when he felt himself a little better, he was
carried in his arm-chair to the window on the ground-floor, while the surging
crowds thronged the square. He doled out money by handfuls and bought
masses of things that were offered to him, such as books, pictures, stuffs and
all the thousand and one strange things which were exposed for sale at this
curious fair. Thus did the last of the Medici bid his last farewell to the
Florentine peopled
Gastone had no bounds to his profusion and the dissipation of their
wealth ; and when he died (1737), his reign had inflicted many deep wounds
on the prosperity of Tuscany. The death of his sister, a few years after-
wards, completed the extinction of the sovereign house of Medici. A dis-
tant collateral branch of the same original stock, descended from one of the
ancestors of the great Cosmo, was left to survive even to these times ; but
no claim to the inheritance of the ducal house was ever recognised in its
members. Francis of Lorraine, the consort of Maria Theresa of Austria,
to whom this inheritance was assigned by the Peace of Vienna, naturally
resided little in Tuscany, and his elevation to the imperial crown seemed to
consign the grand duchy to the long administration of foreign viceroys.
528 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1700-1765 A.D.]
But the governors chosen by Francis were men of ability and virtue, who
strove to ameliorate the condition of the people ; and on the death of the
emperor Francis (1765), his will, in consonance with the spirit of the Peace
of Aix-la-Chapelle, gave to Tuscany a sovereign of its own. This was his
second son, Peter Leopold, to whom he bequeathed the grand duchy, while
his eldest, Joseph II, succeeded to his imperial crown. Leopold was only
eighteen years of age when he commenced a reign which exhibited to admi-
ration the rare spectacle of a patriot and a philosopher on the throne.e We
shall have occasion to make further reference to the life of this remarkable
prince later on. Now we must take up the development of Italian history
in general from the beginning of the century. Our first concern is with the
wars that grew out of the extinction of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain. «
ITALY IN THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION
Charles II of Spain died without sons in the year 1700, and several sov-
ereigns, amongst whom was Victor Amadeus II, laid claim to the throne and
made alliances to obtain it, or at least to divide the vast inheritance among
themselves. Before dying, Charles had appointed Philip duke of Anjou,
grandson of Louis XIV, to be his successor, and although the country was
exhausted and a terrible war could be foreseen, the king of France accepted
the inheritance for his grandson with the famous saying, " The Pyrenees are
no more." Philip V was in fact recognised in Madrid, but a European war
of thirteen years' duration followed.
The duke of Savoy was undecided what side to adopt, but willing or
unwilling he was compelled to side with France, and to give in marriage to
Philip V his daughter Maria Louisa, who in spite of her youth showed great
judgment, and during her husband's absence on his campaign in Italy, gov-
erned the kingdom in a wise and intelligent manner. Clement XI, exalted
in that year to the pontifical see, would not side with France, but intervened
to prevent war ; and, seeing that he was unsuccessful, endeavoured — but in
vain — to form a league among the Italian princes to save Italy from again
becoming the arena of European wars. To this pope, sincerely and coura-
geously Italian, praise is due. Eugene of Savoy, conqueror of the Turks,
was despatched from Hungary to Italy against the Franco-Piedmontese, and
it must have grieved him to turn his arms against his kinsman.
For two years the war was continued without any definite results, though
the French were worsted at Chiari, and their mediocre General Villeroi was
taken prisoner at Cremona ; later at Luzzara in Modena the victory was uncer-
tain. Meanwhile Eugene, more than ever disgusted with the arrogance of
the French, endeavoured to separate the duke from the league, and had no
trouble in persuading him to abandon it. Louis XIV avenged himself by
taking prisoner all the Piedmontese on his territory. The duke arrested
the French ambassador, and appealed to his people saying, " I prefer the
honour of dying arms in hand to the shame of suffering myself to be
oppressed." Having renewed his troops, he confronted the enemy's arms
almost alone (Eugene had returned to fight in Germany) ; his courage
appeared to become stronger in danger.
Fortune does not always favour the good and brave, and Victor lost
many towns and was reduced to defending his own capital. A desperate
attack was made on the latter, but the citizens maintained their ancient
reputation.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 529
[1706-1714 A.D.]
Before giving orders for the bombardment, La Feuillade, who commanded
the besiegers, sent word to the duke to inquire where he was quartered, that
he might spare him. " On the walls of the citadel," replied the duke. The
defence being well ordered, the duke made a sally with a few brave and tried
followers. Thus threatened at close quarters, hearing distant rumours of
trouble, suffering, and every kind of want, the intrepid men of Turin held
out. The fury of the artillery, the laying of mines, the assaults, lasted three
months, but day and night the citizens above and below ground watched and
combated. Even from the orphanage the orphans came forward to labour
in the mines. Aid was expected, but it came not ; though the ever active
TURIN
Eugene was commissioned to bring reinforcements. Eventually the two
princes met, and together from the hill of Superga they drew up the plan of
battle, the duke promising to erect there a church in thanksgiving if the
victory was his.
Turin was in peril. On the 29th of August a large number of the enemy
reached a postern of the citadel unseen ; a mine was laid at the spot, but
could not be fired without danger ; in this imminent peril Pietro Nicco
d'Andorno, of Biella, made the companies retire, and like a new Decius
offered himself to die ; the match being applied, he was buried with the
French under the ruins. This great deed brought glory on Turin, and the
fame of it shall live forever in the country. Nevertheless the French occu-
pied the castle of Pianezza, on the left bank of the Dora Riparia ; it was
imperative that the Piedmontese should dislodge them from this place, but
for this it was necessary to take them unawares and they knew not how.
But an old peasant woman, by name Maria Bricca, discovered on the night of
the 5th of September that instead of keeping watch the French were amus-
ing themselves, and she immediately ran to give the news in the Italian
camp. At the head of the soldiers she led the way by a subterranean passage
into the castle, and, hatchet in hand, crying " Viva Savoia" she informed the
enemy they were prisoners.
Two days later Victor and Eugene, uniting their talents and forces,
inflicted on the French a crushing defeat, so that twenty thousand were left
dead on the field and the survivors fled beyond the Alps. The Franco-
Spaniards evacuated Naples ; and the Austrians, solely because they were the
new lords, were greeted as friends and liberators. The war was continued
outside Italy, and later the exhausted powers were brought to signing the
Treaty of Utrecht 1713, confirmed the following year at Rastatt. By this
treaty Austria obtained Milan, Naples, and Sardinia ; Victor Amadeus
obtained the far distant Sicily, Montferrat, Lomellina, and Val di Susa, with
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 M
530
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1714r-1718 A.D.]
Mantua, Mirandola,
the title of king ; a few small states were distributed
and afterwards, Guastalla.
This aggrandisement of the house of Savoy and also that of Prussia was
specially insisted upon by England, then the peacemaker of the continent and
arbitrator in this peace, for which reason she intervened between France
and Austria, and preserved European equilibrium. Thus were favoured the
legitimate ambitions of two minor
states, Piedmont and Prussia, that
aimed at a high mark, and in the
similarity of their fortunes they
became the bulwarks of two na-
tions, the hope and pride of two
countries. &
WAR
OF THE QUADRUPLE
ALLIANCE
It was by the ambitious in-
trigues of an Italian princess and
an Italian priest, that the repose
of the peninsula was again dis-
turbed, only four years after this
pacification. Giulio Alberoni, the
son of a peasant, and originally a
poor curate near Parma, had risen
by his talents and artful spirit to
the office of first minister of Spain.
Philip V, on the death of his
queen, Maria Louisa of Savoy, had
espoused the princess Elizabeth
Farnese ; and Alberoni, by means
of this marriage, of which he was
regarded as the author, enjoyed
the favour of the new queen, and
acquired an absolute ascendency
over the feeble mind of her hus-
band.
His first object was to obtain
a cardinal's hat for himself ; and
being indulged with that honour
by the pope, the next and more
comprehensive scheme of his am-
bition was to signalise his public
administration. To his energetic
and audacious conceptions, it seemed not too gigantic or arduous an under-
taking to recover for the Spanish monarchy all its ancient possessions and
power in Italy, which had been totally lost by the Peace of Utrecht. He
duped the wily Victor Amadeus, and enlisted him in his views by the promise
of the Milanese provinces in exchange for Sicily ; and the disgust which
the stern and haughty insolence of the imperial government had already
excited in the peninsula, rendered the pope, the grand duke of Tuscany, and
other Italian princes, not adverse to the designs of the Spanish minister.
COURT OF PALACE BUILT BY CHARLES VII OF NAPLES
AT PORTICI IN 1738
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 531
[1717-1718 A.D.]
But the great powers of Europe looked with far different eyes upon his
unquiet ambition. The personal interest and feelings of the duke of Orleans,
who now governed France during the minority of Louis XV, placed him in
opposition to Philip V; and the duke discovered a plot laid by Alberoni,
through the Spanish ambassador at Paris, to deprive him of the regency of
France, to which the cardinal persuaded his master to assert his claim as the
nearest relative of Louis XV. The intrigues held with the Scottish Jaco-
bites by Alberoni, who had formed a chimerical scheme of placing the pre-
tender on the throne of Great Britain, and thus securing a new and grateful
ally for Spain, rendered George I as jealous as the duke of Orleans of
the designs of the court of Madrid. For their mutual protection against the
machinations of Alberoni, the British monarch and the French regent nego-
tiated a defensive league between Great Britain, France, and Holland, which,
by the accession of the emperor to its objects, shortly swelled into the famous
Quadruple Alliance (1718).
Besides the provision of the contracting parties for their mutual defence,
the Quadruple Alliance laboured at once to provide for the continued repose
of Italy, and to gratify the ambition both of the family of Austria and of the
Spanish house of Bourbon. Although Parma and Piacenza were not femi-
nine fiefs, the approaching extinction of the male line of Farnese gave Eliza-
beth the best subsisting claim to the succession of her uncle's states. To
the grand duchy of Tuscany she had also pretensions by maternal descent,
after the failure of the male ducal line of Medici ; which, like that of
Farnese, seemed to be fast approaching its termination. As, therefore, the
children of the young queen were excluded from the expectation of ascend-
ing the Spanish throne, which the sons of Philip by his first marriage were
of course destined to inherit, the idea was conceived of forming an establish-
ment in Italy for Don Charles, her first-born ; and the Quadruple Alliance
provided that the young prince should be guaranteed in the succession both
of Parma and Piacenza, and of Tuscany, on the death of the last princes of
the Farnese and Medicean dynasties. It was to reconcile the emperor to this
admission of a Spanish prince into Italy, that Sicily was assigned to him in
exchange for Sardinia. The weaker powers and the people were alone sacri-
ficed. While the princes of Parma and Tuscany were compelled to endure
the cruel mortification of seeing foreign statesmen dispose by anticipation of
their inheritance, during their own lives, and without their option; and while,
with a far more flagrant usurpation of natural rights, the will of their sub-
jects was as little consulted — it was resolved to compel Victor Amadeus to
receive, as an equivalent for his new kingdom of Sicily, that of Sardinia,
which boasted not a third part of either its population or general value.
The provisions of the Quadruple Alliance were haughtily rejected by
Alberoni, who had already entered on the active prosecution of his designs
upon the Italian provinces. Having hitherto endeavoured, during his short
administration, to recruit the exhausted strength of Spain, he now plunged
that monarch headlong into a new contest, with such forces as had been
regained in four years of peace ; and his vigorous, but overwrought direction
of the resources of the state, seemed at first to justify his presumption.
A body of eight thousand Spaniards was disembarked on the island of Sar-
dinia, and at once wrested that kingdom from the feeble garrisons of the
imperialists (1717). In the following year, a large Spanish fleet of sixty
vessels of war, convoying thirty-five thousand land-forces, appeared in the
Mediterranean ; and notwithstanding the previous negotiations of Alberoni
with Victor Amadeus, Sicily was the first object of attack. Against this
532 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1718-1731 A.D.]
perfidious surprise, the Savoyard prince was in no condition to defend his new
kingdom ; and though his viceroy at first endeavoured to resist the prog-
ress of the Spanish arms, Victor Amadeus, sensible of his weakness and
inability to afford the necessary succours for preserving so distant a posses-
sion, made a merit of necessity, and assented to the provisions of the Quad-
ruple Alliance (1718). Withdrawing his troops from the contest, he assumed
the title of king of Sardinia, though he yet possessed not a foot of territory
in that island.
Meanwhile the powers of the Quadruple Alliance, finding all negotiations
hopeless, had begun to act vigorously against the Spanish forces. Even
before the open declaration of war, to which England and France had now
recourse to reduce the court of Spain to abandon its designs, Sir George
Byng, the British admiral in the Mediterranean, had not hesitated to attack
the Spanish fleet, which he completely annihilated off the Sicilian coast.
This disaster overthrew all the magnificent projects of Alberoni. The
British admiral poured the imperial troops from the Italian continent into
Sicily; and the Spaniards rapidly lost ground, and made overtures for
evacuating the island. The enterprises of the court of Madrid were equally
unfortunate in other quarters ; and Philip V, at last discovering the imprac-
ticability of Alberoni's schemes, sacrificed his minister to the jealousy of the
European powers, and acceded to the terms of the Quadruple Alliance
(1719). Victor Amadeus was placed in possession of the kingdom of Sar-
dinia, which his house has retained ever since this epoch with the regal
title. The cupidity of the emperor was satisfied by the reunion of the crowns
of the Two Sicilies in his favour ; and the ambitious maternal anxiety of
the Spanish queen was allayed by the promised reversion of the states of the
Medici and of her own family to the infante Don Charles (1720).
For thirteen years after the conclusion of the war of the Quadruple
Alliance, Italy was left in profound and uninterrupted repose. The first
half of the eighteenth century was completely the age of political chicanery ;
and the intricate negotiations, which engrossed the attention and only served
to expose the laborious insincerity of the statesmen of Europe, seemed to be
ever threatening new troubles. But the treaties, which followed that of the
Quadruple Alliance in thick succession for many years, had no other effect
in Italy than to secure the Parmesan succession to the infante Don Charles
of Spain. Francesco and Antonio, the two surviving sons of the duke
Ranuccio II of Parma and Piacenza, who died in 1694, had both inherited
the diseased and enormous corpulence of their family. Neither of them
had issue; the duke Francesco terminated his reign and life in 1727; and
Antonio, his successor, survived him only four years. The death of the
youngest of her uncles realised the ambitious hopes which Elizabeth Farnese
had cherished of conveying the states of her own house to her son (1731).
The male line of Farnese having thus become extinct, the youthful Don
Charles, with a body of Spanish troops, was quietly put in possession of
the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, and reluctantly acknowledged by the
last prince of the Medici as his destined successor in the grand duchy of
Tuscany.
THE WAR OF THE POLISH SUCCESSION
The final settlement of the Parmesan and Tuscan succession seemed to
eradicate the seeds of hostilities in Italy ; but it had become the unhappy
fortune of that country to follow captive in the train of foreign negotiation,
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 533
[1731-1738 A.D.]
and to suffer and to bleed for the most distant broils of her foreign masters.
Only two years had elapsed after the elevation of the Spanish prince to the
ducal throne of Parma, when Italy was suddenly chosen as the field for
the decision of a quarrel which had originated in the disputed election of
a king of Poland. Upon this occasion, the two branches of the Bourbon
dynasty united in the same league against the house of Austria, and resolved
to attack its possessions in Italy. Charles Emmanuel III, the new king of
Sardinia, joined their formidable confederacy, and the imperial strength in
the peninsula was crushed under its weight.
While Charles Emmanuel, at the head of the French and Piedmontese
troops, easily conquered the whole Milanese states in a short time, the
Spaniards at Parma, being delivered of all apprehension for the issue of
the war in Lombardy, found themselves at liberty to divert their views
to the south. A Spanish army of thirty thousand men disembarked in the
peninsula under the duke of Montemar, and joined Don Charles ; and that
young prince, at the age of seventeen, assuming the nominal command-in-
chief of the forces of Spain in Italy, led them to attempt the conquest of the
Sicilies. The duke of Montemar, who guided his military operations, gained
for him a complete and decisive victory at Bitonto in Apulia over the feeble
imperial army, which was intrusted with the defence of southern Italy. The
opposition of language, and manners, and character, between the Germans
and Italians, rendered the cold sullen tyranny of Austria peculiarly hateful
to the volatile Neapolitans; and they eagerly threw off a yoke to which
time had not yet habituated them. The capital had already opened its
gates before the battle of Bitonto ; and the provinces hastened to offer a
ready submission to the conquerors. The Sicilians imitated the example of
their continental neighbours; and at Naples and Palermo Don Charles
received the crowns of the Two Sicilies (1735).
For the facility with which the Spaniards had effected these conquests,
they were principally indebted to the powerful operations of the French in
Lombardy, and to the vigour with which the armies of Louis XV pressed
those of the emperor in Germany, and prevented him from despatching
sufficient succours to his Italian dependencies. The court of Madrid now
began to cherish again the hope of recovering the whole of the Italian
provinces, which the Spanish monarchy had lost by the Peace of Utrecht ;
and the duke of Montemar conducted his army into Lombardy to unite with
the French and Piedmontese in completing the expulsion of the Austrians
from the peninsula. But the emperor, discouraged by so many reverses,
made overtures of peace ; and the French cabinet was not disposed to
indulge the ambition of Spain with further acquisitions.
Negotiations for a general peace were opened, to which Philip V was
compelled to accede ; and at length the confirmation of the preliminaries by
the Peace of Vienna once more changed the aspect of Italy. The crowns of
Naples and Sicily were secured to Don Charles. The provinces of Milan
and Mantua were left to the emperor ; the duchies of Parma and Piacenza
were annexed to his Lombard possessions to recompense him in some measure
for the loss of the Sicilies ; and the extinction of the house of Medici by
the death of the grand duke Giovan Gastone, while the negotiations were
yet pending, completed a new arrangement for the succession of Tuscany.
Francis, duke of Lorraine, who had lately received the hand of Maria
Theresa, the eldest daughter and heiress of the emperor, took possession of
the grand duchy, in exchange for his hereditary states ; and Charles VI
was gratified by this favourable provision for his son-in-law and destined
534 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1738-1742 A.D.]
successor in the imperial dignity. Finally, the king of Sardinia, in lieu of
the ambitious hopes, with which he had been amused, of possessing all the
Milanese duchy, was obliged to content himself with the acquisition of
the valuable districts of Tortona and Novara.
THE WAR, OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION
This general accommodation among the arbiters of Italy procured only
a brief interval of repose for the degraded people of the peninsula, before
they were exposed to far greater evils than those which they had suffered in
the short course of the late war. The emperor Charles VI died only two
years after the confirmation of the Peace of Vienna ; and the very powers
who by that treaty had guaranteed the famous Pragmatic Sanction — or act
by which the emperor, as he had no son, was allowed to settle his hereditary
states upon his daughter Maria Theresa — conspired to rob her of those
dominions. The furious war of the Austrian Succession which followed,
filled Italy during seven years with rapine and havoc.
In the year after the death of Charles VI, a Spanish army under the
duke of Montemar, disembarked on the Tuscan coast to attempt further
conquests in Italy ; and although these troops arrived to attack the terri-
tories of his consort, the new grand duke was obliged to affect a neu-
trality and to permit their free passage through his dominions. On the
other hand, the king of the Sicilies, who desired to aid his father's forces in
their operations, was equally compelled to accept a neutrality, by the appear-
ance of a British squadron in the bay of Naples, and the threatened bom-
bardment of that city. This humiliation, to which the exposed situation of
his capital reduced him, did not, however, prevent the Neapolitan monarch
at a later period from taking part in the war. But his engagement in the
contest had only the effect of drawing the Austrian arms into southern
Italy, and inflicting the ravages of a licentious soldiery upon the neutral
states of the church and the frontiers of Naples (1742).
But northern Italy was the constant theatre of far more destructive hos-
tilities ; and the Italian sovereign, who acted the most conspicuous part in
the general war of Europe, was Charles Emmanuel III, the king of Sar-
dinia. That active and politic prince, pursuing the skilful but selfish and
unscrupulous system of aggrandisement, which had become habitual to the
Savoyard dynasty, made a traffic of his alliance to the highest bidder. He
first offered to join the confederated Bourbons ; but the court of Spain
could not be induced to purchase his adherence by promising him an
adequate share of the Milanese states, which the Spaniards were confident
of regaining. Charles Emmanuel therefore deserted the Bourbon alliance to
range himself in the party of Maria Theresa. But it was not until he had
extorted new cessions of territory from that princess in Lombardy, and large
subsidies from England which protected her, that he entered seriously and
vigorously into the war, as the auxiliary of Austria and England. As soon
as Charles Emmanuel began to declare himself against the Bourbon cause,
his states became immediately the prey of invasion. Although the Spanish
dynasty pretended to lay claim to the whole succession of the house of
Austria, the real motive which actuated the court of Madrid in these wars
was the ambition of the queen of Spain, Elizabeth Farnese, to obtain an
establishment in Italy for another of her sons, the infante Don Philip ; and
that prince, leading a Spanish army from the Pyrenees through the south of
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 535
[1742-1748 A.D.]
France, overran and occupied all Savoy, which was mercilessly pillaged by his
troops. But Don Philip was unable to penetrate into Piedmont ; and mean-
while the duke of Montemar, with the Spanish army already in Italy, had
been oppressed successfully by the Austrians and Piedmontese on these
opposite frontiers of Lornbardy.
But Charles Emmanuel, even after he had formally pledged himself to
England and Austria, was perpetually carrying on secret and separate nego-
tiations with the Bourbons ; and it was only because he could not obtain all
the terms which he demanded of them, and because he was also as suspicious
of their ill-faith as he was conscious of his own, that he maintained his alli-
ances unchanged to the end of the war (1743). His states were almost
constantly the theatre of hostilities, equally destructive to his subjects,
whether success or failure alternately attended his career. Yet he displayed
activity and skill and courage, scarcely inferior to the brilliant qualities
which had distinguished his father, Victor Amadeus. When, however, the
infante Don Philip had been joined by the prince of Conti with twenty
thousand men, all the efforts of the Sardinian monarch, though he headed
his troops in person, could not resist the desperate valour of the French and
Spanish confederates ; who, forcing the tremendous passes of the Alps,
broke triumphantly into Piedmont, and for some time swept over its plains
as conquerors (1744). But reinforced by the Austrians, Charles Em-
manuel, before the end of the same campaign, turned the tide of fortune,
and obliged the allies to retire for the winter into France. They still retained
possession of the duchy of Savoy, and crushed the inhabitants under every
species of oppression.
In the following year, Genoa declared for the Bourbon confederation ;
and the Spanish and French forces under Don Philip, being thus at liberty
to form a junction in the territories of that republic with the second Spanish
army from Naples, the king of Sardinia and the Austrians were utterly
unable to resist their immense superiority of numbers (1745). In this cam-
paign, Parma and Piacenza were reduced by the duke of Modena, the ally of
France and Spain ; Turin was menaced with bombardment ; Tortona fell
to the Bourbon arms ; Pavia was carried by assault ; and Don Philip, pene-
trating into the heart of Lombardy, closed the operations of the year by his
victorious entry into Milan.
But such were the sudden vicissitudes of this sanguinary war, that the
brilliant successes of the Spanish prince were shortly rendered nugatory by
a growing misunderstanding between the courts of Paris and Madrid, and
by the arrival of large reinforcements for the Austrian army in the peninsula
(1746). Don Philip lost, in less than another year, all that he fyad acquired
in the preceding campaign. He was driven out of Milan ; he was obliged
to evacuate all Lombardy ; and the French and Spanish forces were finally
compelled, by the increasing strength of the Austrians, to recross the Alps,
and to make their retreat into France. The king of Sardinia and his allies
carried the war into Provence, without meeting with much success ; and the
French in their turn endeavoured once more to penetrate into Piedmont.
But while that quarter of Italy was threatened with new ravages, the penin-
sula was saved from further miseries by the signature of the Peace of Aix-
la-Chapelle (1748).
One of the declared purposes of the European powers in their assembled
congress was to give independence to Italy ; and if that object could have
been attained without the restoration of ancient freedom, and the revival of
national virtue among the Italians, the provisions of the Treaty of Aix-la-
536 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1748-1789 A.D.]
Chapelle would have been wise and equitable. The Austrians were permitted
to retain only Milan and Mantua ; and all other foreign powers consented
to exclude themselves from the peninsula. The grand duke Francis of
Lorraine, now become emperor, engaged to resign Tuscany to a younger
branch of his imperial house. The throne of the Two Sicilies was confirmed
to Don Charles and his heirs, to form a distinct and independent branch
of the Spanish house of Bourbon ; and the duchies of Parma and Piacenza
were elevated anew into a sovereign state in favour of Don Philip, who thus
became the founder of a third dynasty of the same family. The king of
Sardinia received some further accessions of territory, which were detached
from the duchy of Milan ; and all the other native powers of Italy remained,
or were re-established, in their former condition.
FORTY YEARS OF " LANGUID PEACE " FOR DIVIDED ITALY
Thus was Italy, after two centuries of prostration under the yoke of other
nations, relieved from the long oppression of foreigners. A small portion
only of her territory remained subject to the empire ; and all the rest of the
peninsula was divided among a few independent governments.
But after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Italy was still as little constituted
as before to command the respect or the tear of the world. Her people for
the most part cherished no attachment for rulers to whom they were indebted
neither for benefits nor happiness, in whose success they could feel no
community of interest, and whose aggrandisement could reflect no glory on
themselves.
The condition of Italy after the nominal restoration of her independence,
offers, as a philosophical writer has well remarked, a striking lesson of polit-
ical experience. The powers of Europe, after having in some measure
annihilated a great nation, were at length awakened to a sense of the injury
which they had inflicted upon humanity, and upon the general political
system of the world. They laboured sincerely to repair the work of destruc-
tion ; there was nothing which they did not restore to Italy, except what
they could not restore — the extinguished energies and dignity of the people.
Forty years of profound peace succeeded to their attempt ; and these were
only forty years of effeminacy, weakness, and corruption — a memorable
example to statesmen that the mere act of their will can neither renovate a
degraded nation, nor replenish its weight in the political balance ; and that
national independence is a vain boon, where the people are not interested in
its preservation, and where no institutions revive the spirit of honour, and
the honest excitement of freedom.
During these forty years of languid peace (from the Treaty of Aix-la-
Chapelle to the epoch of the French Revolution) the general history of Italy
presents not a single circumstance for our observation ; and it only remains
for us to pass in rapid review the few domestic occurrences of any moment
in the different Italian states of the eighteenth century. The affairs of the
Sicilies, of the popedom, of the states of the house of Savoy, of the duchies
of Tuscany and Modena, of the republics of Genoa and Venice, and of the
Milanese and Mantuan provinces, may each require a brief notice. But
the obscure or tranquil fortunes of Lucca, and of the duchies of Parma and
Piacenza, would scarcely merit a separate place in this enumeration.
The duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which had once more been separated
from that of Milan to form the independent appanage of a Spanish prince,
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 537
[1738-1765 A.D.]
relapsed into the deep oblivion from which the dispute for their possession
had alone drawn them. Don Philip reigned until the year 1765, and his son,
Don Ferdinand, succeeded him. The administration of both of these princes
was, in a political sense, marked by no important event ; but the literary and
scientific tastes of Don Philip entitle him to be mentioned with respect, and
shed some beneficial influence on his ducal states.
THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES AND SICILY
The transition of the crowns of Naples and Sicily, from the extinguished
Spanish branch of the house of Austria to the collateral line of Germany,
and from that dynasty again to a junior member of the Spanish Bourbons,
has already been noticed ; and we take up the annals of the Sicilies from the
epoch only at which the infante Don Charles was confirmed in the posses-
sion of their throne by the Treaty of Vienna. This sovereign, who reigned
at Naples under the title of Charles VII, but who is better known by his
later designation of Charles III of Spain, governed southern Italy above
twenty-one years.
The general reputation of his character has perhaps been much over-
rated ; but, as the monarch of the Sicilies, he undoubtedly laboured to pro-
mote the welfare of his kingdom. The war of the Spanish Succession
paralysed all his efforts during the first half of his reign ; but after the restora-
tion of tranquillity in 1748, he devoted himself zealously and exclusively to
the pacific work of improvement. He was well seconded by the virtuous
intentions, if not by the limited talents, of his minister Tanucci. The princi-
pal error of both proceeded from their ignorance of the first principles of
finance ; and the cultivated mind and theoretical knowledge of Tanucci
fitted him less for the active conduct of affairs than for the station of professor
of law, from which the king had raised him to his friendship and confidence.
It has been objected as a second mistake of Charles, or his minister, that
the system of government which they adopted contemplated only the contin-
uance of peace, and contained no provision against the possibility of war.
No attempt was made either to kindle a martial spirit in the people, or to
rouse them to the power of defending themselves from foreign aggression and
insult. The army, the fortifications, and all warlike establishments were
suffered to fall into utter decay ; and the military force of the kingdom,
which was nominally fixed at thirty thousand men, was kept so incomplete
that it rarely exceeded half that number. The only security for the preser-
vation of honourable peace at home was forgotten in a system which
neglected the means of commanding respect abroad ; but Charles occupied
himself, as if he indulged the delusive hope of maintaining his subjects in
eternal tranquillity. He studiously embellished his capital ; and the useful
public works, harbours, aqueducts, canals, and national granaries, which
preserve the memory of his reign, are magnificent and numerous.
The laudable exertions of Charles were but just beginning to produce
beneficial effects, when he was summoned by the death of his elder brother,
Ferdinand VI of Spain, who left no children, to assume the crown of that
kingdom (1759). According to the spirit of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle,
his next brother, Don Philip, duke of Parma, should have succeeded to the
vacant throne of the Sicilies ; but Charles III was permitted to place one of
his own younger sons in the seat which he had just quitted. His eldest
son betrayed such marks of hopeless idiocy that it was necessary to set him
538 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1759-1825 A.D.]
altogether aside from the succession to any part of his dominions ; the inheri-
tance of the Spanish throne was reserved for the second, who afterwards
reigned under the title of Charles IV ; and it was to the third that the
sceptre of the Sicilies was assigned.
This prince, who under the name of Ferdinand IV of Naples and Sicily
reigned till 1825, was then a boy of nine years of age. Charles appointed a
Neapolitan council of regency to govern in his son's name ; but the marquis
Tanucci remained the real dictator of the public administration; and the
new monarch of Spain continued to exercise a decisive influence over the
councils of the Two Sicilies during the whole of his son's minority, and
even for some time after its expiration. It was by the act of Tanucci,
and in conjunction with the policy of Charles, that the Jesuits were expelled
from the Two Sicilies and from Spain at the same epoch ; that the ancient
usurpations of the holy see were boldly repressed ; and that the progress of
other useful reforms was zealously forwarded.
It was the most fatal negligence of Charles III, and the lasting misfor-
tune of his son, that the education of Ferdinand IV was entrusted to the
prince of San Nicandro, a man utterly destitute of ability or knowledge.
The young monarch, who was not deficient in natural capacity, was thus
permitted to remain in the grossest ignorance. The sports of the field were
the only occupation and amusement of his youth ; and the character of his
subsequent reign was deplorably influenced by the idleness and distaste for
public affairs in which he had been suffered to grow up. The marriage of
Ferdinand with the princess Carolina of Austria put a term to the ascen-
dency of Charles III over the Neapolitan councils. His faithful servant
Tanucci lost his authority in the administration ; some years afterwards
he was finally disgraced ; and the ambitious consort of Ferdinand, having
gained an absolute sway over the mind of her feeble husband, engrossed the
direction of the state. Her assumption of the reins of sovereignty was
followed by the rise of a minion, who acquired as decided an influence over
her spirit as she already exercised over that of the king. This was the
famous Acton, a low Irish adventurer, who, after occupying some station
in the French marine, passed into Tuscany, and was received into the service
of the grand duke. He had the good fortune to distinguish himself in an
expedition against the pirates of Barbary ; and thenceforth his elevation was
astonishingly rapid. He became known to the queen, and was entrusted with
the direction of the Neapolitan navy. Still young, and gifted with consum-
mate address, he won the personal favour of Carolina ; he governed while he
seemed implicitly to obey her ; and without any higher qualifications, or any
knowledge beyond the narrow circle of his profession, he was successively
raised to the office of minister of war and of foreign affairs. The whole
power of government centred in his person ; and Acton was the real sover-
eign in the Sicilies, when the corrupt court and the misgoverned state
encountered the universal shock of the French Revolution, e
THE STATES OF THE CHURCH
On the outline of government and policy in the ecclesiastical state, as
these features presented themselves in the seventeenth century, very little
has to be either altered or added, if we would make the picture true for the
age that succeeded. It is necessary indeed to pay, at the outset, that tribute
of respect which is deserved by the personal character of most of the sover-
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 539
[1700-1800 A.D.]
eigns who ruled on the Seven Hills during the eighteenth century. Never
had the bishops of Rome been so decorous, so generally unexceptionable in
morals ; seldom had they numbered so many men of sincere and earnest
piety; never had the list included names more illustrious for talent and
learning. Two popes in particular, Prospero Lambertini and the accom-
plished Antonio Ganganelli, would have reflected honour upon any throne in
Christendom.
But those venerable priests, who, for a few years before they sank into
the grave, left the altar and the closet, the breviary and the pen, to wear the
triple crown and wield the keys of St. Peter, discovered by sad experience
what everyone who has administered that office must have discovered before
he had slept a month under the roof of the Vatican. Genius becomes a
public calamity, virtue itself is paralysed into despair, when, after a lifetime
spent in the library or the cloister, they are summoned, in the decrepitude of
old age, to discharge duties more complicated, more difficult, requiring greater
versatility and greater energy in action than those which belong to any other
sovereignty in the world. Where the whole edifice of government must be
overturned before effectual repair can be wrought upon any of its parts, dif-
ferences in the character of successive rulers are confined in their results to
individual and temporary interests. In regard to the permanent improve-
ment or deterioration of the state, Rodrigo Borgia was as innocent as the
irreproachable Barnaba Chiaramonti ; Clement VII was as wise as Sixtus V;
and the hermit-pope Pietro di Murrhone, with his gentle and pious ignorance,
was not more helpless than Julian della Rovere, who wore armour beneath
his sacerdotal robe.
The most unpleasing task which the popes of the eighteenth century had
to perform was that of accommodating their prerogatives over the Catholic
states to those opinions of independence which were now rooted in every
cabinet of Europe. The priestly chiefs bowed with infinite reluctance to
this hard necessity ; some of them disgraced themselves by persecuting
foreign inquirers, like Giannone and Genovesi; and, but for the activity
and talent of Clement XIV, who yielded gracefully what he had no power
to withhold, the papal court might have suffered losses infinitely more inju-
rious than the sacrifice which it was obliged to make of its able servants the
Jesuits. Pius VI, on whose head were to break the thunders of the French
Revolution, was more a man of the world than any of his recent predecessors.
Long employed in offices of the government, and familiar in an especial
degree with the business of the Roman exchequer, he distinguished him-
self by endeavours zealous and incessant, but utterly unsuccessful, to intro-
duce internal ameliorations. The sluggish imbecility of the papal rule cannot
be better proved than by the fact that, till the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury, while internal taxes and restrictions ground the faces of the people,
there was no duty (though, at several points of time, there were absolute
prohibitions) on the importation of foreign manufactures ; and that one of
the most vaunted measures of this reign was the organisation of a force to
protect the frontiers against smuggling ; a measure of which, amidst all their
recent tariffs, the popes do not appear to have ever dreamed.
In the details of his new system of foreign duties on merchandise, as well
as in many of his regulations for agriculture and internal trade, Pius and his
advisers proved singularly how much they were still in the dark as to the
principles of political economy. His partial abolition of the innumerable
baronial tolls did not confer benefits half sufficient to counterbalance the
evils produced by his arbitrary restrictions on the corn-trade ; his expensive
540 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1700-1800 A.D.]
operations for draining the Pontine marshes were rendered useless by his gift
the reclaimed lands to his nephew ; and his depreciation of the currency by
excessive issues of paper money was an anticipation of one of the worst errors
committed by the leaders of the French Revolution.
THE SARDINIAN KINGDOM
During the latter half of the eighteenth century, the counts of Savoy
were precluded from prosecuting further that policy which had gained for
them an extensive dominion and a kingly name. But, even amidst the wars
which had preceded this period, and still more energetically after their close,
the able and ambitious Victor Amadeus continued that system of internal
improvement, to whose results he looked forward as likely to make him the
sovereign of a people rich as well as warlike, rivals of their southern neigh-
bours in literature and art, as they had already outstripped them in energy
and public spirit.
In his endeavours for the intellectual improvement of the higher ranks
(for whom exclusively his institutions were designed), he succeeded as ill as
an arbitrary king may be expected to succeed when he aims at amending a
corrupted, martial, and ignorant aristocracy. For commerce he was able to
effect greatly more, through those regulations imposed on the silk-manufac-
ture, which, however alien their narrow spirit may be to the genuine princi-
ples of commerce, were found to be not ill-calculated to check an equally
narrow spirit abroad, and were accordingly imitated in Milan and the eastern
provinces. Several excellent laws aided the rural population. One enact-
ment expressly recognised, in contradiction to all older practice, agricultural
leases for a fixed term of years, usually from nine to eighteen ; and not only
so, but the lawgivers studiously left loopholes for evading a rule which they
were in terms obliged to enact, for making the endurance of such leases
dependent on the survivance of the landlord who had granted them. This
characteristic artifice shows the influence of the higher classes, against whom
however Victor Amadeus carried by arbitrary interference his great and bene-
ficial measure for an equalisation of public burdens. For, before he abdicated
the throne, all the estates in Piedmont, without distinction of tenure, were
subjected to an impartial land-tax, assessed in conformity to a general valua-
tion, which likewise furnished the materials for levying all local burdens on
the communes, such as those for roads, schools, and costs of administration.
When we add such improvements as these to the changes which we per-
ceived to be in progress during the seventeenth century, we shall wonder,
if we learn nothing more, how it should have happened that the subjects of
this kingdom were not only the first to throw themselves into the arms
of the revolutionary French, but have since complained of their government
more bitterly than any other Italians. It is not difficult to find the reasons.
All the reforms of the Piedmontese princes were made for their own ends,
not for the sake of the people, who were kept peremptorily in subjection to
the king, and left in total dependence on his character for their share of
individual comfort; the nobles, likewise, being disarmed as well as the
commonalty, the crown was freed from the only check on its conduct; and
bitter discontents arose both from that abject submission to the priesthood,
and from that childish fear of change, which for the last few generations
have distinguished the princes. But, at the same time, amidst the innova-
tions which were introduced after the middle of the seventeenth century, it
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 541
[1700-1740 A.D.]
had been found expedient to conciliate the alarmed aristocracy by leaving
its members in possession of many personal and empty, yet invidious privi-
leges; and the consequence was a haughtiness on the part of the upper
ranks met by sullen defiance among the multitude, a mutual mistrust among
all orders, ready to kindle into deadly hatred.
Charles Emmanuel III, notorious in the early years of his reign for his
ingratitude towards a father who had resigned the throne in his favour, was
more creditably distinguished in later life by his endeavours to reconcile the
conflicting wishes of the different orders of society, and to purify completely
the administration of justice. His nobles complained of the number of com-
moners whom he promoted to public posts : the suitors in the courts of law
marvelled at the conduct of a king who so far distrusted his own judgment,
and so far honoured the judicial servants of his crown, as to refuse granting
any briefs of dispensation from judicial sentences, unless after consultation
with the judges by whom the decision had been pronounced. He was less
prudent in his management of the military force, which he weakened greatly
by the promotion of inefficient officers, the nobility being always preferred, and
a commoner finding it all but impossible to rise to high rank. This abuse
became greatly more flagrant in the reign of his successor, who gave the last
impulse to the growing discontent of his subjects, by his superstitious sub-
servience to confessors and bigots, and not less by increasing his army to an
unreasonable size, and taxing the people severely for its pay and subsistence.
Sardinia, rude, poor, and lawless, like other provinces of Spain, was little
improved by its new sovereign, Victor Amadeus II. In his son, however, it
found the best ruler it had seen for ages. Much was done by him to weaken
feudalism, encourage agriculture, and extirpate the bands of robbers ; two
universities were founded, and the inferior schools somewhat improved ; and
the year 1738 was a remarkable epoch in the island, from the reforms which
it witnessed in every department.
THE FOUR REPUBLICS
The history of Lucca offers no fact worthy of being mentioned. Its
oligarchy grew more and more exclusive, and the peasant landholders in its
rural districts became impoverished through the excessive division of prop-
erty by succession.
The miniature republic of San Marino had retreated into its wonted
obscurity since 1739, when the fallen intriguer, Cardinal Alberoni, then
papal legate in Romagna, repeated at its expense that treachery by which he
had formerly convulsed all Europe. Alleging that the government of San
Marino had become a narrow oligarchy, which was true but did not justify his
interference, he conquered its territory with a single company of soldiers and
a few officers of police. The people appealed to Clement XII, who ordered
them to determine their own fate in a general meeting : they unanimously
voted against submission to the church, and the papal troops were withdrawn.
In 1746, the Genoese commonalty, unsupported by the nobles, showed,
in their expulsion of the Austrians, a spirit worthy of their fathers. With
this bold insurrection the history of the republic of Genoa closes for half a
century. In 1718 it had increased its territory, by purchasing the imperial
fief of Finale ; but within a few years it lost Corsica.
The revolted Corsicans allowed their country to be formed into a mock
kingdom in 1736, by the foolish ambition of Theodore von Neuhof, a German
542 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1736-1768 A.D.]
baron ; and, after they had been deserted by him, they continued to resist
the united forces brought against them by the Genoese and Louis XV of
France. The islanders now established a republic, which, from 1755, was
headed by the celebrated Pasquale Paoli : and the contest for freedom was
maintained manfully till Genoa, tired of an expensive war, and deeply
indebted to France, ceded Corsica to that power on receiving an acquittance.
Louis renewed the attack with increased vigour, and the besieged republi-
cans resisted bravely till the struggle became utterly hopeless. Paoli emi-
grated to England, and the island became a French province in 1768, the
year before it gave birth to Napoleon Bonaparte.
The commerce of Venice was nearly at a end; her manufactures were
insignificant ; her flag was insulted on her own Adriatic by every power of
Europe. She still, however, possessed an Italian territory, peopled by two
millions and a half of subjects ; her Dalmatian and Albanian provinces and
the Ionian Isles had half a million more. Her taxes had been nearly doubled
in the eighteenth century, and amounted, in 1789, to about 11,600,000 ducats
(£1,919,800 or $9,599,000); her public credit was bad; and her debt was
44,000,000 ducats (£7,283,300 or 136,416,500). The gloomy government
remained unchanged. The Council of Ten had resisted frequent attempts
to overturn it : an attack in 1761 was checked by arrests and imprisonments
in monasteries; and the Ten and the Three still exercised, though more
cautiously than before, their singular functions. Their spies cost annually,
in the eighteenth century, about 200,000 ducats ; and more than one secret
execution was laid to their charge. But licentiousness was more prevalent
than cruelty ; infamous women were pensioned as informers by the state ;
and in the public gaming-houses, amidst the masked gamesters, senators,
officially appointed, presided undisguised.
In 1768, the nobles, displeased with the church, named a commission to
inquire into the state of its revenues. The report, which is still extant, is
curious. The commissioners estimate the gross income at 4,274,460 ducats
(£719,100, $3,595,500). Of this sum, 2,734,807 ducats were permanent,
being derived from lands, money invested, or perpetual rents. The remain-
der was casual, being made up of the alms bestowed on mendicant orders,
and of the prices paid for temporary masses. The whole number of masses
for which the clergy received payment was prodigious, being not less than
8,938,459. Of these the parochial and other secular clergymen celebrated
4,250,060 ; the monastic orders celebrated the rest, being 4,688,399, of
which 3,107,682 were masses on perpetual foundations. On the latter class
the Venetian commissioners sarcastically remark that the whole number of the
monks and friars was 7,638, of which only 3,272 were in priest's orders, and
entitled to say mass ; and that, consequently, if the monks performed all the
masses for which they took payment, each of their priests would have to
officiate fourteen or fifteen hundred times a year.
MILAN AND TUSCANY
For seventeen years after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the duchies of
Milan and Mantua, forming one province, and the grand duchy of Tuscany as
another, were governed by viceroys appointed by Maria Theresa and her
husband Francis. On the emperor's death in 1765, the two Lombard duchies
continued to constitute a province of the empire under his son Joseph II ;
but Tuscany was formed into an independent sovereignty for Peter Leopold,
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 543
[1755-1790 A.D.]
the new emperor's younger brother. All these sovereigns were remarkable
persons : the sons were worthy of their heroic mother ; and Leopold, free
from that ambition which stained the names of Maria Theresa and Joseph
with the infamous partition of Poland, was one of the greatest men that ever
filled a throne.
The statistical results of this period were highly pleasing. Austrian
Lombardy, at length enabled to profit in some measure by its singular phys-
ical advantages, was, in 1790, by far the most flourishing province in Italy ;
while Tuscany also was prosperous, and in some respects more decidedly so
than Joseph's duchies. The institutions of both states were wonderfully im-
proved ; and the history of these changes is one of the most interesting
pages in the annals of modern Italy.
That the long servitude of the Italians had ruined their character as well
as their national resources, could not have been more clearly proved than
by the bitter opposition with which they met all the reforms introduced by
their new masters. There was hardly an improvement of any importance,
especially in Lombardy, that was not absolutely forced upon the natives ;
and the most sweeping changes were skilfully evaded, some of them during
more than a generation. Much of this delay was attributable to the wonted
slowness of the Austrian court ; but much also was produced by the passive
resistance of the people. The great system of administration, the first
draft of which had been laid before the empress in 1739, did not come
into activity till 1755, and its introduction makes that year an important
epoch for northern Italy.
A few only of the features which distinguished the plan of taxation can be
here described. One of the worst evils to be removed was the subdivision of
the state into seven districts, each of which, like a separate kingdom, has its
duties on mercantile imports, exports, and transits. This abuse was swept
away by a single stroke of the pen ; and similar restrictions on agricultural
produce shared the same fate. The excise was subjected to good regulations,
and the customs based on principles as fair as any that then prevailed in
Europe. Lastly, a new survey and valuation formed the rule for an equitable
assessment of the land-tax. A dispassionate and well-qualified judge was able
to find in the system but four serious defects : an insufficient check on the
land-valuators ; the retention of the unwise mercantile-tax ; the imposition
of a capitation-tax on the peasantry and others who paid no land-tax ; and
the permission to the church, which possessed a third of the lands in the state,
and had till now paid no taxes for them, to retain too many of its Spanish
privileges.
But the portion of the plan that most interests us is the administrative. In
the general government, the obnoxious senate was retained, and formed a very
injurious barrier between the subjects and the throne, generating petty cabals,
and assisting in keeping up that tendency to secrecy and plotting which had
been triumphant under the Spaniards. In the provincial government, the
leading principle was, to subject everything in the last instance to the control
of the boards of administration at Milan, while the immediate administra-
tion of every province was put under a delegate appointed by the sovereign ;
although, at the same time, a considerable part of the actual management was
consigned to a provincial council established in every chief city. The local
statutes of the old republics or petty principalities, which it was not in all cases
considered safe to touch, created many diversities in the execution of this plan;
but the general rule was to introduce in the provincial councils members of
three orders: the representatives of the cities, who were nobles, and elected by
544 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1755-1790 A.D.]
their own class in each town ; the representatives elected by the landholders
of the province ; and the mercantile men who represented, and were elected by,
the corporation of merchants. The council so formed devolved its ordinary
powers on a committee of its own body, called the prefects of government.
Communal councils were also instituted, according to regulations laid down in
a prolix code. Each of them administered the patrimony of the commune,
under the presidency of a chancellor appointed by the
sovereign. Their own members were five for each com-
mune: three representatives of the landholders, one
representative of the mercantile body, and one represent-
ative of those who were subject to the capitation-tax.
They were elected annually in a meeting of all the land-
holders rated on the books for the land-tax ; soldiers
and churchmen, however, being ineligible. The same
constituency also elected the consul, who was an inferior
criminal judge, and the syndic, who had dignity without
any real duties.
Joseph, seconded by his excellent viceroy Count
Firmian, under whom served Verri, Carli, Neri, and
other enlightened Italians, followed out the plan of
amelioration which had been thus delineated for him.
He improved the courts of justice and the judicial pro-
cedure, especially in criminal causes, abolishing, at the
suggestion of Beccaria, torture and secret trials. He
annulled or diminished the most vexatious of the feudal
privileges, and imposed checks on the perpetual destina-
tion of estates. He patronised agriculture, and extended
commerce and manufactures by the construction of roads,
as well as by the abolition of some remaining imposts
and restrictions. When the death of his mother, in
1780, freed him from her remonstrances on ecclesiastical
matters, he commenced with his accustomed impetuosity
a series of changes in that department, which Pius VI
considered so dangerous that he made a fruitless journey
to Vienna in the hope of procuring their repeal. The
most material of those measures were the following : all
dissenters were to enjoy toleration ; the bishops were
forbidden, as they had already been forbidden by other princes, to act upon
any papal bull but such as should be transmitted to them by the government ;
the monastic clergy were declared to be dependent, not on the general of
their order who lived in Rome, but directly on the. resident bishop of the
diocese within which their cloister was situated ; lastly, all nunneries were
suppressed, except those which pledged themselves to occupy their members
in the education of the young. The emperor's death interrupted the consoli-
dation of his famous system for giving uniformity to his system of government
throughout all the Austrian dominions. The decree of 1786, which promul-
gated this new constitution, divided the Italian provinces into eight circles,
in each of which the local administration was to be vested in a chamber
closely dependent upon the government. This departure from the late
arrangement created in Lombardy universal discontent.
Sometimes unjust and cruel, often misjudging and imprudent, always
headstrong, passionate, and despotic, doing good to his subjects by force,
and punishing as ungrateful all who refused to be thus benefited, Joseph was
AN ITALIAN PEASANT,
CLOSE OF THE EIGHT-
EENTH CENTURY
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 545
[1765-1790 A.D.]
an unconscious instrument in the hand of providence for advancing in south-
ern Europe the great revolution of his time. One inveterate evil was extir-
pated, that another might be substituted for it, which, being less deeply
rooted, was destined in its turn to wither and die away. " At length," said
a noble-minded Italian in the last stage of the emperor's reign, " the obsta-
cles which hindered the happiness of nations have mainly disappeared. Over
the greater part of Europe despotism has banished feudal anarchy ; and the
manners and spirit of the times have already weakened despotism."
The reforms in the grand duchy of Tuscany went infinitely further than
those of Joseph and his mother in the provinces of the Po. They were com-
menced during the life of Francis, by the prince of Craon, his viceroy at Flor-
ence ; and the plan was formed, even thus early, for consolidating into one
common code all those contradictory laws which, subsisting in the old Tuscan
communities, had been maintained since the subjection of all to the duchy.
But it was reserved for younger hands to construct this noble edifice.
Till we reflect that Leopold's scheme of legislation for Tuscany was de-
vised and executed long before that change of opinions which the French
Revolution diffused through the whole of Europe, we are not fully aware
how very far he stood in advance of his age. In his new code the criminal
section was especially bold, inasmuch as it swept away at once torture, con-
fiscation, secret trial, and even the punishment of death. Imprisonment for
debt, forbidden by one of his laws unless the claim exceeded a certain amount,
was afterwards abolished altogether. All privileged jurisdictions were de-
stroyed, and the public courts fortified in their independence and authority.
Restrictions on agriculture were totally removed ; and large tracts of com-
mon were brought into cultivation by being divided among poor peasants in
property, subject only to a small crown-rent. The grand duke discontinued
the ruinous system of farming out the taxes ; he diminished their amount,
and abandoned most of the government monopolies. Notwithstanding, he
was able, before he left Italy, to pay off the greater part of a large national
debt ; for, under his new system, and especially through the absolute freedom
which he allowed to commerce, industry flourished so wonderfully, that his
revenue suffered hardly any diminution.
Leopold's ecclesiastical reforms were equally daring, and gave deep
offence to the papal government. They were chiefly designed for improving
the condition of the parochial clergy, and for curbing the monastic orders.
He suppressed the Inquisition ; he imposed severe limitations on the pro-
fession of monks and nuns ; he made the regular clergy dependent, not
merely (as his brother had done) on their bishop, but directly on the priest of
the parish ; he taxed church-lands like those belonging to laymen ; he even
seized arbitrarily several large estates which had been destined to useless
ecclesiastical purposes, and applied their proceeds towards increasing the
insufficient incomes of the priests in rural parishes. This step, as well as
several others, formed parts of his great scheme against tithes, of which he
gradually introduced a general commutation.
In the system which this great man enforced there were unquestionably
many defects. There was something (though not much) of his brother's
hasty disregard for obstacles arising from foreign quarters ; a fault which
made his scheme for free trade in some respects injurious to his subjects, and
forced him in his later years to resume a few restrictions. There was a dis-
position to overstrain the principles of reform, manifested when he totally
abolished trading corporations, or when, in the last year of the period, he
annulled at a blow all rights of primogeniture, and all substitutions in
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 N
546 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1765-1790 A.D.]
succession to land. There was a jealous watchfulness over details, a temper
exceedingly useful but very irritating, which displayed itself with equal
force in the severe system of police, and in the curious circular letter which
he addressed to the nobles, requesting that their ladies might be made to
dress more economically. There was some fickleness of purpose, though
much less than those have believed, who forget the existence of that chaos
of local laws and privileges, through which he had for years to pilot his way,
embarrassed, misled, and thwarted at every step. Lastly, there were two
absolute wants. Leopold did not, because in a single generation he could
not, renovate the heart and mind of his people ; and therefore the degenerate
Florentines murmured at his strictness of rule, and ridiculed his personal
peculiarities. He did not give to his subjects a representative constitution ;
and therefore his fabric of beneficent legislation crumbled into fragments
the moment his hand ceased to support its weight.
TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL, TIVOLI
It is said, indeed, that he had sketched a constitution before he left Tus-
cany; but, at all events, his reforms in the local administration went very
far towards this great end. His purpose, in which, as in so much besides,
he was obstructed by a multiplicity of special statutes and customs, was to
introduce over the duchy one uniform system of municipal government,
embracing all districts, rural as well as urban. During his whole reign,
step after step led him towards this result, by organising new communal
councils in various provinces, which had at length comprehended nearly the
whole state. At the same time there was extended to the new boards the
privilege conferred first on those in the Florentine territory, of managing
their local patrimony as of old, without dependence upon the supreme gov-
ernment. The polity of Alessandro de' Medici, which still prevailed in
Florence, was annulled in 1781; and the elective board which administered
the affairs of the city thenceforth consisted of a gonfalonier, as president,
eleven priors, and twenty councillors./
A Tuscan Estimate of Leopold
The reforms of Leopold I (Emperor Leopold II) did not suffice to drag
Tuscany from the abyss into which she had been cast by the sbirocracy of the
Medici. A fallen people would rise again to the enthusiasm of grand ideas,
but what grand idea did Leopold I place at the head of the regenerative
movement ? He corrected clerical abuses, but did not enkindle the religious
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 547
[1765-1790 A.D.]
faith of the people after the example of the ardent preachers of the Crusades
of the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century reformers. He recognised
equality in civil laws, but did not make a social credo of it like the French
republicans.
Leopold's idea was a paternal government, a sort of family council, where
the most touching accord would reign between the prince and the assembly
elected by the commons. He wanted to make another Arcadia of Tuscany,
an Arcadia simply occupied with its well-being and material progress, foreign
to the use of arms and neutral in all aspects of war. But this was not the
way to model character and make free citizens. The shock given to Europe
by the French Revolution and the results therefrom had quite other effects.
When Italy owed to the France of '89 that moral shock which stirred up
men's minds and made them enter into communication with the universal
conscience, it did not need more to convict of error those who reproached the
French Revolution with having upset the reforms of Italian princes without
any compensation. Abstention in this gigantic struggle was impossible.
It was imperative to fight either for the powers of the past or for those of
the future ; so this worship of principles became the great passion of souls,
and character regained all its old vigour. The Restoration came to check
this salutary movement.
The sleeping sbirocracy inaugurated by Fossombroni went back to the
Medici traditions and the meanness of the old regime was again substituted
for the moral and political grandeur of the French epoch. But it was
thenceforth impossible to stifle the germs of the new life. We shall see these
germs, in spite of most unfavourable conditions, fructifying in Tuscany as in
other parts of Italy ; we shall see the country of Michelangelo coming out
of its abasement and paying the Italian revolution the tribute of its genius,
its love, and its blood, g
ITALY IN THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE
For the sovereigns of Italy, as well as for the people, the first three
years of the revolutionary age formed a time of abortive plans and earnest
preparation.
Events of immediate interest cut short two visionary designs, of which,
although both must have failed of success, yet either, by the very attempt,
might have given another colour to the history of Europe. A few aspiring
cardinals, looking back to Gregory VII and Sixtus V, devised an Italian
league, to be headed by the pope ; and at the court of Turin, which took
example from its own more recent annals, there was planned a campaign
against its Austrian neighbours. But Rome was destined to fall a passive
victim to foreign aggression ; and the ambitious king of Sardinia became the
scapegoat of the prince whose Lombard crown he had wished to transfer to
his own brows.
The emperor Joseph died in the beginning of the year 1790, and Leopold,
leaving Tuscany to his second son Ferdinand, received both the hereditary
dominions of Austria and the imperial dignity. He extricated himself skill
fully from the foreign wars into which his brother had plunged ; but neither
the internal discontents of the Low Countries, nor the dangers which threat-
ened Louis XVI, were evils so easily remedied. He employed his diplomacy
in endeavouring, by means of a European congress, to impose constitutional
limitations on all the contending parties in France ; but disappointment in
548 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1790-1794 A.D.]
this scheme, and fresh revolts among his own provinces, embittered every
moment of his life. He was tempted to become a leading party in the fatal
Treaty of Pilnitz, which may be truly said to have destroyed the French
monarchy ; and in the spring of 1792, his death, at the age of forty-four,
saved him from beholding the calamities which speedily followed. His
hereditary estates descended to his eldest son Francis, who likewise suc-
ceeded him as emperor ; and the policy of the new reign, warlike as well as
anti-revolutionary from its very opening, accelerated the contest which soon
desolated Europe.
Two other Italian courts, besides those of Lombardy and Tuscany, were
deeply interested in the fate of the royal family in Paris. The queen of
Naples was, like Marie Antoinette, a daughter of Maria Theresa ; and the
two brothers of Louis XVI were sons-in-law of the king of Sardinia. The
advisers of Ferdinand prepared for the struggle by strengthening the artil-
lery and marine, by reconciling themselves with the see of Rome, by impos-
ing extraordinary taxes, and by seizing the money deposited in the national
banks ; but to these measures were added others of a different cast, designed
for crushing the dreaded strength of public opinion. Arbitrary commissions
were organised for trying political offences ; spies were set to watch Cirillo,
Pagano, Conforti, Delfico, and other men of liberal views ; foreign books and
newspapers were excluded ; and Filangieri's work was burned by the hands of
the common hangman. In the other extremity of the peninsula, the count
d'Artois imitated at Turin, on a smaller scale, the court of emigrant nobles
which surrounded Monsieur at Coblenz. Simultaneously with that alliance
between the emperor and the king of Prussia, which produced the abortive
invasion of France in 1792, there was concluded an Italian league, headed
openly by Naples and Rome, and secretly joined by Victor Amadeus, while
the grand duke of Tuscany, as well as the Venetians and the Genoese,
remained determinedly neutral.
Time of the French Republic under the National Convention
The little cloud which rose over the tennis-court at Versailles, had already
overshadowed all the thrones in Europe ; and that of Sardinia was the first
on which it discharged its tempest. Where both parties were resolved on
war, a pretence was readily found. Semonville, sent to negotiate for a
passage for the French armies through Piedmont, was reported to have
propagated revolutionary doctrines on his way : he was ordered to quit the
king's dominions, and a second envoy was refused leave to cross the
frontier.
On the 18th of September, 1792, the national assembly declared war
against the king of Sardinia ; and an invasion of his states immediately
ensued. The Savoyards, discontented and democratic, had no will to fight ;
the Piedmontese, ill-officered as well as mutinous, had neither will nor
ability ; and within a fortnight Savoy and the county of Nice were in the
possession of the French troops. The atrocities, however, which took place
at Paris during the autumn of that year, and the execution of the king in
the beginning of the next, not only gave fresh vigour to the operations of
the allied sovereigns, but added new members to their league. In 1793 a
British fleet occupied Corsica ; while the Austrians and Piedmontese vainly
tried to fight their way against Kellermann through Savoy to Lyons.
During the succeeding summer, the republicans, entering Italy with one
army by the Alps, and with another through the neutral territory of Genoa,
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 549
[1793-1795 A.D.]
maintained a more energetic campaign, which left them masters of all the
passes leading down into Piedmont. At the same time Pasquale Paoli, sup-
ported by England, arranged a constitution for Corsica, which acknowledged
George III as its king.
In the course of the year 1795, the alarm produced by the recent suc-
cesses of the French not only disarmed some of their most active enemies,
but gained for them allies in Italy itself, the stronghold of legitimate mon-
archy. Ferdinand of Tuscany, a cautious or timid man, anxious to preserve
the commerce of Leghorn, and seeing no reason why he should sacrifice his
people to the ambition or revenge of the greater European courts, was the
first crowned head that recognised the new democratic state. In February
of this year, he concluded a treaty with France, disclaiming his enforced
connection with the allies, and binding himself to a strict neutrality. Soon
afterwards the coalition lost three of its members, Holland, Prussia, and
Spain. Within the Alps the war languished ; and the Austrians and Pied-
montese were able, till the end of the autumn, to keep the invading armies
cooped up in the northwestern corner of the peninsula. Meanwhile that
fermentation of men's minds, which had its centre in Paris, was diffusing
itself over most of the Italian provinces, among those classes that were pre-
disposed to receive such an impulse.
Tuscany was the quarter in which the new opinions met with the least
countenance. Although the grand duke had been tempted to depart from
some of his father's commercial and agricultural laws, his plan of polity
remained so far entire that the constitutionalists had really little to complain
of. In ecclesiastical matters, however, the priesthood renewed with success
those instigations by which many of them long before had crippled the efforts
of their bold reformer ; and Leopold had not been twelve months at Vienna,
when the peasantry clamorously demanded the re-establishment of certain
religious fraternities and forms of worship which he had abolished as
superstitious and hurtful. In the eastern provinces of the papal state
there was much silent discontent among all classes ; but in Rome itself,
although a few men held democratic opinions, the only outbreak that hap-
Eened was that of January, 1793, when Bassville, the French secretary of
3gation, an active republican agent, was stoned to death by the populace.
In Parma, Duke Ferdinand had recently alarmed the thinking part of his
subjects by introducing the papal Inquisition, and by exhibiting himself, in
strong contrast to his early habits, as a religious formalist and devotee. The
duke of Modena was perhaps more unpopular than he deserved to be. In
the republics opinions were greatly divided, though from dissimilar causes.
San Marino was a cipher ; Lucca was made passive, not only by her own
insignificance, but by a general indifference towards change ; the Venetians
were distracted by two opposite feelings, their fear of Austrian encroach-
ment and their hatred of Parisian democracy; the Genoese, although the
revolutionary party was strong among them, not only dreaded the destruction
of their commerce, but were personally interested in the French funds.
In the remaining sections of the peninsula, the extreme south and the
extreme north, were to be found the most zealous disciples of the Revolu-
tion. In the kingdom of Naples, both on the mainland and in Sicily, con-
spiracies were repeatedly discovered, and the plotters executed, several of
them having been previously tortured to enforce a discovery of their accom-
plices. Even the ministers of state charged each other with treason ; and
Acton procured the imprisonment of the chevalier De' Medici, with several
other men high in office. The people, although strong in prejudice, were at
550 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1795-1796 A.D.]
this time discontented with the increased taxation, and the renewal of arbi-
trary interference by the government ; many of the nobles were as eager as
the middle classes in their wishes for general amelioration ; and the church
herself, whose property the rulers were every day seizing to satisfy the
necessities of the exchequer, was not at first able to discover whether repub-
licanism or legitimate monarchy was likely to be her most dangerous enemy.
Throughout Austrian Lombardy the desire of change became almost uni-
versal. The people at large were disgusted by public burdens heavily
augmented, and by the coarse insolence of the German satellites who exacted
them; those classes, which had enjoyed the semblance of political power
under the constitution of Maria Theresa, were provoked by that mixture of
military command and absolute foreign rule which, since Leopold's death,
had been substituted for it ; and reflecting men perceived, in the attitude
which the cabinet of Vienna had now decidedly assumed, no prospect of
improvement or relief if the allied sovereigns should be victorious. Pied-
mont was a still more favourable soil for republicanism, and there its principles
soon rooted themselves very deeply. On the mainland, more than one con-
spiracy was discovered and punished ; while the Sardinians, finding them-
selves treated as rebels when they sent deputies to demand those reforms
which they conceived themselves to have merited by their brave resistance
to the French fleet, broke out into open revolt, killed several members of
the government, and were with difficulty dissuaded by the viceroy from
giving up the island to France.
The Campaign of 1796 and its Consequences
The Italians were soon to learn that their wishes and interests were
matters of as absolute indifference to those who now contended on their soil,
as they had been during the whole preceding course of their modern history.
Their future master, the French general Bonaparte, receiving from the
Directory the command of the army of Italy, avowed on quitting Paris his
determination to finish the war in a month by complete success or utter
defeat. That which seemed to others an idle bravado, suggested by sudden
elevation to a young and self-confident man, was, in the mind of the speaker
himself, a pledge to be literally fulfilled. He began his attack pn the 12th
of April, 1796, and on the 15th of May he entered Milan in triumph as the
conqueror of all Lombardy and Piedmont.
This wonderful campaign embraced several of Napoleon's most celebrated
victories. The battles of Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego, fought on three
successive days in April, amidst the mountains which lie northwest from
Genoa, drove back into the plain Beaulieu's Austrian army, and its Piedmon-
tese allies under Colli. Victor Amadeus, not less inconstant than imprudent,
deserted the contest in premature despair ; and in May his ambassadors at
Paris signed a discreditable peace, by which he gave up Savoy and Nice to
the French Republic, admitted garrisons into some of his fortresses, disman-
tled the rest, and paid heavy contributions to the invaders. Bonaparte,
pursuing the Austrians into Lombardy, intimidated the duke of Parma into
an armistice, which was purchased by a large payment in money, and the
surrender of twenty works of art, to be selected by French commissioners,
and placed in the museum at Paris. The bloody passage of the bridge of
Lodi, where Napoleon himself, with the generals of his staff, charged in
person up to the mouths of the enemy's guns, left the plain of the Po com-
pletely open to his armies, and kindled among the young conqueror's soldiers
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY 551
[1796 A.D.]
that devoted confidence which bore them onward through years of victory.
Milan received a provisional government and national guard, but had to
contribute heavily for the support of the republican troops ; and the duke
of Modena, also, could not obtain an armistice without furnishing liberal
supplies, to which, according to the rule thenceforth invariably followed by
the invaders, was added the surrender of the choicest pictures from his
gallery.
Already feared as well as honoured abroad, General Bonaparte next
proceeded to intimidate the government at home. To Carnot's order for
marching upon Rome and Naples with one division of the army, while
Kellermann, with another, should keep his hold of Lombardy, he replied by
transmitting his resignation, and denouncing the project as ruinous. In the
south, said he, there are no enemies worth conquering ; the possession of
Italy must be contested with the Austrians, and the plains of the Po ought
to be the scene of the struggle. While he waited for the answer to his bold
remonstrance, the peasantry, excited by the priests and some of the nobles,
rose in several quarters against him. At Milan the disturbance was easily
quieted ; but at Pavia it was not suppressed till the town was taken by
storm, and given up to be plundered by the soldiery. This terrible example
produced its effect ; the Italians trembled and submitted, and the French
and Germans were left to fight their battles undisturbed. Meanwhile, the
Directory, aware, as their general well knew, that they could not dispense
with his services, sent an approval of all his plans, and confirmed him in the
undivided command of the army, stipulating only that he should satisfy the
honour of France by humbling, in his own way, the pope and the king of
Naples. He received these instructions while occupying the line of the
Adige ; and, after having distributed troops on different points in the north,
he himself prepared to march as far southwards as might be necessary for
frightening his adversaries in that quarter. Before he had time to cross the
Apennines, the king of Naples had lost heart, and made humiliating submis-
sions, concluding an armistice, afterwards changed into a treaty of peace.
The pope, left totally defenceless, and seeing the conqueror holding Bologna
in person, concluded a truce on harder terms than any which had been yet
exacted. The citadel of Ancona was to be given up with all its stores ; the
French were also to retain possession of the provinces of Bologna and Ferrara,
where both the chief cities had organised free governments for themselves ;
the papal treasury was to pay large contributions in money and provisions ;
and Paris was to be adorned by a hundred works of art, and five hundred
manuscripts from the Vatican. Having thus dealt with the enemies of the
republic, Bonaparte next proceeded to dispose of the grand duke of Tuscany,
its earliest friend. On a pretence that the neutrality had been violated, he
seized the port of Leghorn, confiscated the goods of English traders which
lay there, and attempted, though unsuccessfully, to capture their merchant-
ships.
The wars of 1796 were not yet at an end. In September a second
Austrian army of sixty thousand men, under the veteran marshal Wurmser,
marched through the Tyrol ; but his active adversary had already returned
northwards ; and a campaign of six days in the neighbourhood of the Lake
of Garda, and along the valley of the Brenta, forced the shattered remains
of the imperial forces to take refuge in the strong fortress of Mantua, which
the French had already attacked, and now invested anew. In November a
third Austrian army, under Alvinzi, placed its enemy in extreme peril ; but
the desperate battle of Arcola, fought near Verona during three whole days,
552 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1796-1797 A.D.]
drove this host likewise back into the mountains. The military events of the
year were closed by the revolt of the Corsicans against the English, after
which the French envoy Saliceti established in the island a provisional demo-
cratic government.
But there were yet other tasks to be performed. The French had excited
in the minds of all the Italians wishes which it was very far from easy to
gratify. The Lombards demanded an independent and republican organisa-
tion ; but the Directory, anticipating the chances of war, which might make
it necessary to buy a peace with Austria, dared not as yet to do more than
throw out vague encouragements. The pope, whose eastern provinces
entertained similar desires, was not so dangerous ; and Bonaparte, without
consulting his masters, freed them from any embarrassment into which they
might have been thrown by their recent treaty with the duke of Modena.
That prince's capital was disaffected, and Reggio had already openly revolted.
Napoleon, professing to have discovered that the duke had violated the
neutrality, deposed his administration, and declared the provinces free. By
his instigation, also, deputies from Bologna, Ferrara, Reggio, Mirandola, and
Modena, chosen respectively by the lawyers, landholders, and merchants,
assembled in the end of 1796, and erected the two papal legations with the
Modenese duchy into a commonwealth. This state, lying wholly between
the Po and Rome, was called the Cispadane Republic.
The contest among the foreigners for the soil of Italy was ended in the
spring of 1797. In January of that year, Alvinzi's army, increased by rein-
forcements to fifty thousand men, attacked that under Bonaparte, amounting
to about forty-five thousand, at Rivoli, between the river Adige and the
Lake of Garda. This bravely fought battle closed in the total rout of the
Austrians ; and early next month, Wurmser, compelled by disease and famine,
surrendered Mantua. The last effort of the emperor, who sent the archduke
Charles across the northeastern frontier of Italy, was as unfortunate as the
preceding ones ; the hereditary states of Austria were invaded by the victo-
rious general in person ; and their sovereign submitted in April, when the
French army lay within twenty-five leagues of Vienna.
But, before crossing the Alps, the young conqueror had humbled another
enemy. Pius VI, not altogether without provocation, had broken the con-
vention of Bologna, and raised troops to assist the emperor ; upon which,
Bonaparte, after his victory over Alvinzi, marching rapidly southward, over-
threw the papal troops under Colli, and dictated at Tolentino, in February,
the terms of a humiliating peace. The pope formally relinquished to the
Cispadane Republic, not only the legation of Bologna and Ferrara, already
ceded, but the province of Romagna in addition ; he yielded to the French
Republic his territories of Avignon and the neighbouring Venaissin ; he
left Ancona in the hands of its troops, till a general peace should be concluded ;
he engaged to pay large contributions as the ransom of those other provinces
which the enemy had just seized ; and he renewed the obligation to deliver
manuscripts and works of art, which accordingly were soon carried away.
The peace with the emperor was not arranged so easily. Its outlines were
contained in the preliminaries of Leoben, signed on the 18th of April, 1797 ;
and the main difficulties were obviated at the expense of Venice, whose
government, regarded with dislike by both parties, had acted so as to forfeit
all claims on the indulgence of the one, without being able to earn much
gratitude from the other. Besides yielding the Austrian Netherlands and the
frontier of the Rhine, Francis entirely renounced his provinces in Lombardy,
and agreed to acknowledge the new Italian republics. In compensation for
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 553
[1797 A.D.]
these sacrifices, he was to receive, almost entire, the mainland provinces of
Venice, including Illyria, Istria, and upper Italy as far west as the Oglio ;
the districts of Bergamo and Brescia, with the Polesine, all lying beyond
that river, being intended to form part of the Cispadane Republic. These
Venetian territories were already in revolt, and had declared themselves free
commonwealths, demanding protection from the French, who had excited
them to insurrection, and now coolly abandoned most of them to a new
master. For the injustice contemplated towards these unfortunate Lombards
no palliation could be offered, and none was ever attempted ; but for the
wrong threatened to the Venetian Republic itself, pretexts speedily pre-
sented themselves.
MONACO
Before the preliminaries were signed, Colonel Junot had been despatched
to Venice, to demand satisfaction for a slaughter of some soldiers in the towns
bordering on the Lake of Garda. In Verona also, about the same time, the
populace of the city and district, headed by a few of the nobles and clergy,
attacked, robbed, and murdered the French and their partisans ; and on the
17th of April, there broke out a general massacre. The Veronese mob, and
the Venetian troops, drove the foreigners into the citadel, and held the town
three days, committing horrible cruelties on all who were suspected of being
favourable to the enemy ; but, on the 20th of the same month, a detachment
of the French stormed the place, and revenged their friends by numerous
executions, in the course of which there perished several noblemen, and
a Capuchin friar, whose eloquence had been the prop of the insurrection.
On the approach of the same evening, a French privateer, in escaping from
an Austrian vessel, ran into the harbour of Venice, in violation of the ordin-
ary law ; upon which a scuffle ensued with the Slavonian sailors, and the
French captain and several of his crew were killed. Bonaparte received at
once the welcome news of both occurrences — the taking of Verona, and the
outrage on the ship. He instantly ordered the French envoy at Venice to
depart, but not till he should have demanded that the commandant of the
port and the three inquisitors of state should be put in prison for trial. The
cowardly senate, without a moment's hesitation, arrested those men, ordered
the public prosecutors to draw up indictments against them, and instructed
554 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1797 A.D.]
the deputies who attended at the general's headquarters to offer the most
humble submissions.
Bonaparte told them abruptly that their aristocratic constitution was out
of date, and he intended to annul it. Without waiting for an answer he
declared war on Venice, whose leaders had already foreseen his sentence, and
endeavoured to palliate its effects. A few of the principal nobles held
a secret meeting in the apartments of the imbecile Lodovico Manin, the hun-
dred-and-twentieth and last doge, where they resolved to summon the grand
council, and propose alterations in the constitution. About the very time
when the lords of the Adriatic crouched thus abjectly, the last instance of
Venetian spirit was exhibited in Treviso by Angelo Giustiniani, the governor
of the province, who, on giving up his sword to the French general, reproached
him to his face with his betrayal of Venice. Napoleon listened quietly to
his invectives, and dismissed him unharmed.
Next day, while the city resounded with impotent preparations for defence,
about half of the members of the grand council met to decree its dissolution.
The doge prefaced, by a long speech, a motion for authorising the envoys to
treat with the victorious general regarding alterations on the constitution.
The motion was seconded by Pietro Antonio Bembo, and carried almost
unanimously. Bonaparte, however, insisted that the council should by a
formal act depose itself, and create a democracy. His agents used in the
city the necessary means of allurement and intimidation ; and on the 12th
of May, 1797, the grand council met for the last time. The people gathered
in the square of St. Mark ; the sailors belonging to the ships of war, already
ordered to leave the harbour, made a confused noise ; and, a few musket-
shots being fired, a universal panic seized the nobles. There was a sudden
cry for the question ; it was put, and the abolition of the constitution was
carried by 512 voices to 20, five members declining to vote. The people
were surprised to see their chiefs leaving the palace dejected ; but the cause
was soon explained. A tumult arose ; the mob attacked the houses of several
French partisans, and finding one man with a tricolour cockade in his pocket,
nailed it upon his forehead. Order being restored, a provisional adminis-
tration was established ; and, on the 16th of May, a definitive treaty was
signed at Milan between France and the new republic of Venice. The repre-
sentative form of government was recognised ; the infant state received, on
its own petition, a garrison of French troops ; while a fine, and the delivery
of pictures and manuscripts, were secretly stipulated. When, soon after-
wards, the Venetian envoys who had signed this convention demanded that
Bonaparte should procure a ratification of it, he coolly reminded them of a
fact which he himself had probably recollected a few days earlier — that,
when the treaty was arranged, their mandate had expired by the dissolution
of their constituency, the grand council. He therefore declared that the
compact was null, and that the Directory must be left to determine for them-
selves in relation to the revolutionised state.
At this time, however, it was the conqueror's wish, by an act equally
unjust towards another section of the Italians, to compensate to the Vene-
tians in some measure the spoliation they had suffered. He designed to
incorporate with Venice his newly formed Cispadane Republic, while a
transpadane republic should contain the Venetian districts of Bergamo and
Brescia, in addition to the emancipated provinces in central Lombardy,
no longer liable to be claimed by Austria. But Venice was destined to be
the victim of a treachery yet more inexcusable. The cession of Mantua to the
Austrians, which was involved in the plan sketched at Leoben, was viewed
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 555
[1797 A.D.]
with disapprobation in Paris ; while the Venetians were considered at once
too aristocratic to be safe neighbours, and too weak to be useful allies.
Francis, on the other hand, was extremely desirous to command the head of
the Adriatic ; and his plenipotentiaries and the French general treated
secretly for exchanging the islands and duchy of Venice for the fortress and
province of Mantua.
In the meantime, the new position of matters altered Bonaparte's views
as to the organisation of upper Italy. The inhabitants of the Cispadane
Republic, whose constitution, though framed, had never been formally
approved, were easily induced to accept a plan submitted to them, for unit-
ing all the free provinces of the north into one powerful state ; and, on the
30th of June, 1797, was announced the formation of the new commonwealth,
which was named the Cisalpine Republic. A proclamation, signed by
Bonaparte, declared that the French Republic had succeeded by conquest to
the possession of that Italian territory formerly held by the house of Austria
and other powers; but that, relinquishing its claims, it pronounced the new
state independent, and, convinced equally of the blessings of liberty and the
horrors of revolution, bestowed upon it its own constitution, " the fruit of
the experience of the most enlightened nation in the world." The pre-
scribed polity accordingly bestowed the right of citizenship on all men born
and residing in the state (except beggars or vagabonds), who should have
attained the age of twenty-one, and demanded inscription on the roll. The
active franchise was vested in assemblies elective and primary, the executive
in a directory of five members, and the making of the laws, with other
deliberative functions, in a legislative body and council of ancients — all in
close imitation of the French constitution of 1795. Napoleon, as usual,
reserved to himself the power of naming, for the first time, the members of
the Directory and of both councils. That the choice of these bodies, as well
as of such functionaries as were to be appointed by them, would fall on
persons zealous in the republican cause, was a thing unavoidable as well as
proper ; but it was .universally admitted that the selection was, with very
few exceptions, exceedingly judicious. The president and first director was
the ex-duke Serbelloni, who did not long remain in active life ; and three of
the other directors, men both able and honest, were Alessandri a nobleman
of Bergamo, Moscati a physician, and Paradisi a distinguished mathemati-
cian. Count Porro of Milan was minister of police; Luosi, a lawyer of
Mirandola, was minister of justice ; and the secretary of the Directory was
Sommariva, a retired advocate of Lodi, who has since been so well known in
Paris for his patronage of the fine arts. In the committee who framed the
constitution, we find the names of Mascheroni the poet and man of science,
and of Melzi d'Eril, whose talents, integrity, and independence were after-
wards well proved in a higher sphere. Melzi was a noble Milanese of
Spanish extraction, and uncle to Palafox, the defender of Saragossa.
The republic at first embraced the Austrian duchy of Milan, the Venetian
provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, and Polesine, the Modenese principalities of
Modena, Reggio, Mirandola, and Massa- Carrara, and the three papal legations
of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna. In the following autumn the province
of Mantua was incorporated with it. About the same time the Alpine
district of the Valtelline, including Chiavenna and Bormio, was claimed
as a dependency by the Orisons, but denied its subjection. Bonaparte,
chosen arbiter, adjudged all the disputed territories to be independent, upon
which their inhabitants offered themselves, and were received, as members
of the Cisalpine Republic.
556 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1797-1798 A.D.]
The aristocracy of Genoa did not long survive that of Venice. Internal
factions were quieted by a convention in June, 1797, in which the principle
of democracy was recognised, and a provisional government named by the
French commander-in-chief. The defeated nobles, entering into alliance
with a few unscrupulous ministers of the church, were able to convince the
populace that their foreign friends wished to destroy the ancient faith ; and
it is said that, for the benefit of the better educated class, there was printed
a falsified copy of the proposed constitution, containing an article which
declared the Catholic religion to be abolished in the state. In September
several thousand armed peasants attacked the city, but were beaten with
great slaughter by General Duphot, at the head of the national guards and
French troops ; and, on the 2nd of December, there was publicly laid before
the people, and approved, a constitution of the same sort as the Cisalpine,
under which the Genoese state was styled the Ligurian Republic.
The fate of Venice had been already settled. Its interests formed no part
of those difficulties which made the negotiations of the autumn so stormy ;
and on the 17th of October, 1797, the treaty of Campo-Formio established
peace definitively between France and Austria, to which latter the island-
city was given up without reserve or conditions. The fleets of the Direc-
tory seized the Ionian Islands, the Austrians occupied the mainland, and
on the 18th of January, 1798, the French troops, in Venice since the preced-
ing spring, evacuated it, and admitted the soldiers of the emperor.
Though Pius VI still retained his western and southeastern provinces,
he was about to lose these also. His subjects were now universally infected
with the prevalent love of change ; Urbino, Macerata, and other places,
repeatedly declared themselves republican and independent ; and the Direc-
tory watched but for a plausible pretence to strike the last blow. In
December, 1797, a quarrel between some of the French partisans in Rome
and the papal soldiery produced a riot, in the course of which the democratic
party fled for refuge to the Corsini palace, occupied by Joseph Bonaparte,
the ambassador of France. The military pursued them, and in the confusion
General Duphot was shot upon the staircase. The Parisian government
exclaimed against this violation of public law, recapitulated all the offences
already committed by the papal court, refused to accept its apologies, and in
February, 1798, an army under Berthier occupied its capital. Their general
demanded that the pope should resign his temporal sovereignty, retaining
his universal bishopric, and receiving a large pension. Pius, obstinately
refusing, was carried into Tuscany, and thence into France, where he died.
The nobles and cardinals were plundered ; and though the people at large
were better treated, yet, with the characteristic fickleness of their race, they
attempted in the Trastevere a revolt, which was not quelled without much
bloodshed. The French soldiers and subalterns themselves, not only de-
frauded of their pay but disgusted by the rapine of the superior officers and
commissaries, mutinied both in Rome and Mantua; and General Masse*na,
the worst offender, found it prudent to resign his command.
On the 20th of March, 1798, the constitution of the Roman or Tiberine
Republic was formally proclaimed. Like the rest, it was a servile copy from
that of the French, which, however, it was thought necessary in this instance
to disguise under classical names. The state was at first composed of the
Agro Romano, with the Patrimony (Patrimonium Petri), Sabina, Umbria,
the territories of Orvieto, Perugia, Macerata, Camerino, and Fermo ; but the
March of Ancona, which had been temporarily formed into a separate com-
monwealth, was soon added to it.
[1798 A.D.]
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The Expulsion of the French from Italy (1198-1199 A.D.)
557
The years 1798 and 1799 formed a strong contrast to those which imme-
diately preceded them. Within and without, in finance, in diplomacy, and
in war, France was alike unfortunate. In the beginning of this period her
champion Bonaparte sailed for Egypt with his Italian army ; and the fields
where these brave men had gained their laurels were now to be the scene of
repeated and disastrous defeats, inflicted upon those who attempted to retain
their conquests.
The French owed this result in some measure to their own misconduct ;
for, little as the Italians were able to influence permanently the destiny of
their native land, the resentment which was kindled throughout the country
THE FORUM, POMPEII, AT THE PRESENT TIME
by the behaviour of the foreigners, aided materially in precipitating their
second change of masters. The policy pursued systematically by the French
Republic towards those new commonwealths, which she professed to regard
as her independent allies, would have been insufferably irritating even
though it had been administered by agents prudent and honourable. Each
state was obliged not only to receive a large body of French soldiers, but to
defray the expenses of their subsistence. The Cisalpine Republic, by a
treaty which its legislative councils long refused to ratify, was compelled to
admit an army of twenty-five thousand men, and to pay annually for its sup-
port eighteen millions of francs ; even its own native troops were placed
under the command of the French generals ; the members of its administra-
tion were forcibly displaced if, like Moscati and Paradisi, they refused to
obey orders transmitted from Paris ; and some of the most patriotic Lom-
bards, such as Baron Custodi and the poet Fantoni, were imprisoned for that
opposition which the foreign rulers called incivism. The constitution itself
soon gave way ; for, on the last day of August, 1798, an irregular meeting of
the councils substituted for it a new one, dictated by Trouve the French
envoy at Milan ; and his plan again made room for other changes, enforced
by his successor the notorious Fouche, and by Fouche's successor Rivaud.
The opposition party in Paris remonstrated in vain ; and the Lombards
began to hate equally the French nation, and those of themselves who were
558 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1798-1799 A.D.]
unfortunate enough to hold places of authority. A few honest patriots,
headed by General Lahoz of Mantua, and the Cremonese Birago, who had
been miuister at war, organised a secret society for establishing Italian inde-
pendence ; and in the Ligurian and Roman states a similar spirit was rapidly
spreading, although it worked less strongly. There, indeed, the grievances
were not of so outrageous a kind, and consisted mainly in the extortions and
oppressions practised incessantly by the generals and agents of the Directory,
than which no government on earth had ever servants more shamefully
dishonest.
But the French Republic, before losing its hold of Italy, had the fortune
for a short time to possess the whole peninsula. The sovereigns of conti-
nental Europe, having lost sight of Napoleon, began to recover courage ; and
no sooner did the intelligence arrive that Nelson had destroyed the enemy's
fleet at Abukir, than a new league was formed, in which Italy was made one
of the principal objects. The first move was made, imprudently and prema-
turely, by the king of Naples, or rather by his queen and her advisers, who,
raising an army of eighty thousand men, invaded the Roman territories. In
November, 1798, they seized the capital, where their soldiers behaved with an
insolent cruelty which made the citizens, although heartily sick of the French,
wish fervently to have them back again. The Austrian general Mack, who
had been placed at the head of the Neapolitan troops, showed on a small scale
that incapacity which afterwards more signally disgraced him ; his soldiers
were undisciplined, indolent, and lukewarm ; and Championnet, reconquer-
ing the papal provinces with a French army not half so large as that of his
adversary, pursued him southward, and, almost without striking a blow,
became master of the kingdom of Naples.
The only resistance really formidable was offered when the republican
troops approached the metropolis. The weak king had already fled, and,
embarking on board the English fleet, crossed into Sicily. The peasantry
hung on the rear of the invaders, and massacred stragglers ; and the lazza-
roni, that wild race who formed in those days so large a proportion of the
populace, rose in fury on the report that a convention was concluded by
the governor Prince Pignatelli. The fierce rabble filled the streets, howling
acclamations to the king, the holy Catholic faith, and their tutelary saint
Januarius ; they drove out the regency, butchered the suspected democrats,
and, with arms, though without either discipline or officers, poured out
to meet the enemy on the plains. The French cannon mowed them down
like grass ; but for three whole days they again and again returned to meet
the charge, and several thousands of them fell before they gave way. The
wrecks of this irrationally brave multitude next defended the city, which the
assailants had to gain street by street. Championnet, accompanied by Fay-
poult, the commissioner of the Directory, took formal possession of Naples,
divided all the mainland provinces into departments, and formed them into
one state, called the Parthenopean Republic. A commission of citizens was
appointed to prepare a constitution, in which the chief part of the task was
performed by Mario Pagano. The plan which was finally approved was in
substance the same as the other Italian charters ; but its author had added
to the ordinary features two original ones — a tribunal of five censors,
whose functions as correctors of vice were not likely to do much good, and
an ephorate or court of supreme revision for laws and magistracies, which
promised better fruits.
The nobles in the provinces were much divided in their opinions ; but
many of them still fondly remembered the lessons which they had learned
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 559
[1798-1799 A.D.]
from Filarigieri and his scholars ; and the middle classes, having yet experi-
enced no evils but those of absolute and feudal monarchy, listened with eager-
ness to the promises held out by the republicans. In the huge metropolis the
adherents of the king were powerless ; many were willing, from the usual
motives, to worship the rising sun ; a few lettered enthusiasts were sincere in
their hopes of witnessing at length that regeneration which their country so
greatly needed ; and the lazzaroni themselves became submissive and well-
disposed, as soon as the saints, through the agency of their accredited
servants, had declared in favour of freedom and democracy.
Says Botta: i " Championnet understood perfectly the importance which
those fiery spirits attached to their religious belief. Accordingly he placed a
guard of honour at the church of St. Januarius, and sent to those who had
charge of it a polite message, intimating that he should be particularly obliged
if the saint would perform the usual miracle of the liquefaction of his blood.
The saint did perform the miracle; and the lazzaroni hailed it with loud
applause, exclaiming, that after all it was not true that the French were a god-
less race, as the court had wished them to think; and that now nothing should
ever make them believe but that it was the will of heaven that the French
should possess Naples, since in their presence the blood of the saint had
melted."
Piedmont had already fallen. Ginguene, who afterwards wrote the history
of Italian literature, had failed, as ambassador at Turin, in executing with
proper cunning the plans of Talleyrand; but his successor soon contrived to
irritate into open resistance the new prince Charles Emmanuel, a weak,
bigoted, conscientious man. General Joubert seized the province and cit-
adel of Turin; and the king, executing on the 9th of December, 1798, a
formal act of abdication of his sovereignty over the mainland, was allowed
to retire into Sardinia. The provisional government named for Piedmont,
among whom was the historian Botta, found it impossible to rule the
impoverished and distracted country; repose was the universal wish, and a
union with the all-powerful neighbour seemed the only probable means of
obtaining it. Early in the ensuing spring Piedmont was organised on the
model of the French Republic, as the last step but one towards a final
incorporation.
There remained to be destroyed no more than two of the old Italian gov-
ernments. In January, 1799, Lucca, then occupied by French troops under
General Miollis, abolished its oligarchy, and assumed a directorial and demo-
cratic constitution, after the fashionable example. In March, the Directory,
now assured of a fresh war with Austria, seized all the large towns in Tus-
cany, placed the duchy under the protection of a French commissioner, and
allowed the grand-duke Ferdinand to retire to Vienna with a part of his
personal property.
But a storm was now about to break upon the heads of the French in
every quarter of Italy ; and the year 1799 became for the grim Suvaroff that
which 1796 had been for Bonaparte. In the end of March the Austrian gen-
eral Bellegarde crossed the Alps, beat back the republican forces in the north,
and joined the Russians, raising the allied army to a strength of sixty thousand,
while its opponents in the peninsula did not amount to a third of the number.
The gallant Moreau, the French commander-in-chief , had the hard task of fight-
ing for the honour of his nation without a chance of victory ; and Macdonald,
the new commandant of Naples, was ordered to cut his way to his superior
through the whole length of Italy ; an undertaking which he accomplished with
great loss but signal bravery. The allies overran the Milanese and Piedmont ;
560 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1799 A.D.]
and the Directory sent two new armies under Championnet and Joubert, both
of which were defeated. Most of those Italians who had taken a lead in the
republican governments fled into France, and those who remained behind were
imprisoned and otherwise punished. The peasantry in almost every province
rose and aided the allies. Naples was lost in June, and Rome immediately fol-
lowed. Ancona, desperately defended by General Monnier, capitulated in
October ; and at the end of the year Massena commanded, within the walls of
Genoa, besieged, famished, and about to surrender, the only French troops that
were left in Italy.
Although the military events of this year do not possess such importance
as to deserve minute recital, yet one chapter of its history, embracing the hor-
rible fate which befell Naples, is both painfully interesting in itself, and strik-
ingly illustrative of the disorganised state of society in that quarter. The
spectacle which was exhibited in the overgrown metropolis of that kingdom
was indeed so unlike anything we should expect to witness in modern times
that we endeavour to find a partial solution of the problem in the moral and
statistical position of the city. We can find no parallel without reverting
to the period of the Roman Empire.
The municipal constitution of Naples, whose main features have already
been incidentally described, was the model for all the cities in the kingdom,
except Aquila, whose polity was copied from Rome. Thefts and robberies
were rare, the homicides were estimated at about forty annually, and some
vices the government chose to overlook. The municipal administration, with
a jurisdiction extending only over the markets and the university, belonged to
the eletti or representatives of the piazze, seggi, orsedili, of which there were six,
composed exclusively of nobles. These patricians, meeting in open porticoes,
several of which may still be seen in ruins, chose annually deputies in each
piazza, and the deputies chose the eletto. A seventh piazza was formed for the
popolo or plebeian burghers ; but care was taken that this class should have no
real power. They were divided locally into twenty -nine wards, for each of
which the king every year named a capitano ; and the twenty-nine captains,
who were held to compose the piazza of the people, appointed as the eletto del
popolo a citizen, not noble, suggested by the crown. The seven eletti, with a
syndic chosen by the six noble eletti, formed the municipal council, and met
twice a week in a convent, from which the board derived its usual name of the
tribunal of San Lorenzo. Many functions of the municipality were devolved
upon nine deputations of citizens, chosen periodically by the patrician piazze.
But of the popolo, a very large number, said to have amounted in the end of
the eighteenth century to thirty thousand or more, were known in ordinary
language by the name of lazzari or lazzaroni. These were the lowest of the
inhabitants, including, of course, many who had no honest means of livelihood,
but consisting mainly of those who, though they gained their bread by their
labour, did not practise any sort of skilled industry. Their distinctive char-
acter, as compared with the populace of other great cities, lay in two points.
First, the usual cheapness of fruits and other vegetables enabled them to subsist
on the very smallest earnings ; while the mildness of the climate made them,
during the greater part of the year, nearly independent both of clothing and
shelter. Accordingly, many of them were literally homeless, spending the day
in the streets as errand-porters, fruit-sellers, day-labourers, or mere idlers, and
sleeping by night on the steps of churches or beneath archways ; while all of
them were for a great part of their time unemployed. These circumstances
produced their second peculiarity, that strong spirit of union which had at one
time extended to a regular organisation. They were the only class in Italy
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 561
[1799 A.D.]
whom the Spaniards feared ; the viceroys named them in their edicts with
deference, and received deputations from them to complain of grievances ; and
in the seventeenth century they were even allowed to meet tumultuously once
a year in the piazza del Mercato, and name by acclamation their temporary
chief or capo-lazzaro. Since the accession of the Bourbons, it is true, they
were less closely banded together, and their custom of electing an annual head
seems to have fallen into disuse ; but we have already seen, and shall immedi-
ately discover still more dreadful proofs, that the ancient temper was not yet
extinct.
We cannot fail to be struck with the likeness which this unwieldy and
dangerous commonalty bore to the populace of imperial Rome ; and the sys-
tem which was pursued for furnishing the city with provisions was another
point of close resemblance. During four hundred years every conceivable
plan for preventing scarcity by restrictive laws had been tried without effect.
An assize of bread and flour, fixed in 1401, was followed in 1496 by the
building of public magazines, in which the eletti kept a large stock of grain ;
and at the same time there was established a strict monopoly in favour of a
prescribed number of flour-merchants and bakers. The municipality lost
enormously by this system ; for dearths became frequent, and the corpora-
tion then, exactly like the Roman senate and emperors, sold their corn at
a heavy loss, and lowered the price of the bread. Since 1764 the city had
been supplied by eighteen privileged bakers, by the macaroni-makers, and
one or two subordinate crafts ; these tradesmen paid rent to the government
for their shops ; and not only were they obliged to buy the greater part of
their flour from the public granaries, but had to deposit corn of their own in
large quantities, as a security for their engagements, being bound likewise
to purchase this grain from the distant provinces. In the year 1782 it was
ascertained from official returns that, in the nineteen years preceding, the
corporation had lost 2,632,645 ducats, or about .£436,000. They had spent
this money without earning so much as thanks ; for there was a general
prejudice against their establishments, and, both at Naples and at Palermo,
where there was a similar system, more than two-thirds of the people made
their own bread at home, except when the price of grain rose, on which
everyone flocked to the public bakehouses.
Such was the scene, and such were the principal actors, in that fearful
tragedy of which we are now to be spectators.
Scarcely had the Parthenopean Republic been proclaimed when the fero-
cious cardinal Ruffo landed at Reggio, bringing with him from Sicily a
patent as royal vicar. In Calabria, and the other southern provinces, he
soon organised numerous tumultuary hordes, several of whose captains were
the most practised robbers, a few bands being commanded by military subal-
terns, and some by parish priests. Proni, one of the leaders, was a convicted
assassin ; De' Cesari was a notorious highwayman, as was Michele Pezzo,
better known by the name of Fra Diavolo, or Friar Beelzebub ; and Mam-
mone Gaetano, a miller of Sora, was the worst monster of all. The brigands
crowded to serve under their favourite captains ; many old soldiers enlisted,
and the peasants, aroused by their clergymen, joined in thousands, and
quickly learned the trade of murder. The French despatched against them
General Duhesme, who was accompanied by a young Neapolitan, Ettore
Caraffa, count of Ruvo, a man every way worthy to be pitted against the
cardinal and his associates. The two parties swept over the kingdom like a
plague, from Reggio to the mountains of the ulterior Abruzzo ; and the war,
if it deserves the name, soon became on both sides a struggle of revenge and
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2O
562 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1799 A.D.]
extermination. Prisoners were put to the torture ; villages and towns were
burned, and their inhabitants massacred ; Caraffa had the barbarous satisfac-
tion of exterminating his rebellious vassals ; and Ruffo's followers, enam-
oured of bloodshed and pillage, speedily ceased to ask whether their victims
were republicans or royalists.
The cardinal, soon reducing the southern districts, advanced upon Naples ;
and the French, unable to cope with him, evacuated the city, leaving but
weak garrisons in the three castles. The republican government lost authority
at once, and the legislative councils were
insulted in their halls by bands of armed
ruffians. No plan of defence seems to
have been matured, although the leading
men did all they could to inspirit the
people. In the theatres, which continued
open, Alfieri's tragedies were received with
shouts, and interrupted by vehement ad-
dresses from persons in the crowd ; friars
preached freedom and resistance in the
churches and on the streets ; and the su-
perstitious lazzaroni were for a time kept
in check, by seeing the saints anew mani-
fest their favour to the revolution.1 The
few native troops which still were under
arms were sent out and defeated in the
plain ; and, when the royalists approached,
abject terror alternated with the resolution
of despair. Most members of the coun-
cils and administration retired into the
lower forts, the Castel dell' Ovo and
Castelnuovo.
There were in Naples about two thou-
sand Calabrese, men of all ranks, nobles,
priests, and peasants, driven from their
homes by Ruffo's hordes. They alone
were firm. A part of them took up their
post in the city ; the rest, unprovided with
artillery, marched out and garrisoned the
castle of Viviena, beyond the bridge of
the Maddalena. The royalists surrounded them, their heavy guns battered
down the walls of the fort, and the assailants entered by storm. The
republicans fought like hungry tigers, not a man surrendered or fled ; and,
when all but a handful had fallen, Antonio Toscani, a priest of Cosenza, who
commanded this little remnant, threw a match into the powder-magazine
beside him, and perished in the common destruction of friends and enemies.
The streets were for a time defended by the remaining Calabrese, while
Prince Caraccioli, the king's admiral, who had joined the popular party, kept
up a fire on the royalists from a few small vessels in the harbour ; bat a
body of the lazzaroni suddenly attacked the republicans in the rear, their
1 " In the midst of this confusion, the customary annual procession of St. Januarius took
place. Before it began, the democratic leaders sent to the keepers of the church, desiring them
to pray heartily that the saint might perform the miracle. The keepers did pray heartily, and
the blood bubbled up in less than two minutes. The lazzaroni shouted that St. Januarius had
become a republican." — BOTTA.*
AN ITALIAN PEASANT WOMAN
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 563
[1799 A.D.]
ranks were broken, and the city was lost. Ruffo took possession of it on the
14th of June, 1799.
Dark as are the crimes which stain the history of our race, humanity has
seldom been disgraced by scenes so horrible as those which followed. Uni-
versal carnage was but one feature of the atrocity ; the details are sickening,
many of them utterly unfit to be told. Some republicans were strangled with
designed protraction of agony ; others were burned upon slow fires ; the in-
furiated murderers danced and yelled round the piles on which their victims
writhed ; and it is even said that men were seen to snatch the flesh from the
ashes, and greedily devour it. The lazzaroni, once more loyal subjects, eagerly
assisted in hunting down the rebels ; during two whole days the massacre
was uninterrupted, and death without torture was accepted as mercy.
The two lower castles surrendered on a capitulation with the car-
dinal which stipulated that the republicans should, at their choice, remain
unmolested in Naples or be conveyed to Toulon ; and two prelates with two
noblemen, who were prisoners in the forts, were consigned to Colonel Mejean,
the French commandant of the Castel Sant' Elmo, as hostages for the per-
formance of the convention. The last incidents of this bloody tale cannot
be told without extreme reluctance by any native of the British Empire ;
for they stain deeply one of the brightest names in the national history.
While the persons protected by the treaty were preparing to embark, the
English fleet under Nelson arrived, bringing the king, the minister Acton,
and the ambassador Sir William Hamilton, with his wife, who was at once
the queen's confidante and the evil genius of the brave admiral. The French
commandant, treacherous as well as cowardly, surrendered the castle, and
gave up the hostages without making any conditions. The capitulation was
declared null, although the cardinal indignantly remonstrated, and retired
from the royal service on failing to procure its fulfilment. The republicans
were searched for and imprisoned; and arbitrary commissions sat to try
them. Under the sentences passed by such courts, in the metropolis and the
provinces, four thousand persons died by the hand of the executioner.
Among them were some whose names appeared with distinction on the
file of literature : Domenico Cirillo, the naturalist, who refused to beg his
life ; the eloquent and philosophical Mario Pagano ; Lorenzo Baffi, the
translator of some of the Herculanean manuscripts, who rejected poison
offered to him by his friends in prison ; Conforti, a learned canonist, and
writer on ethics and history ; Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, a woman of much
talent, who had edited a democratic newspaper. Mantone, an artillery officer,
who had been the republican rninister-at-war, made on his trial no defence
but this, "I have capitulated." On board one of the ships was executed the
aged Admiral Caraccioli, with whose name we are but too well acquainted.
Another victim, the count of Ruvo, does not inspire so much compassion,
unless we are to believe, as his whole conduct leads one to suspect, that
he was absolutely insane. Being sentenced to be beheaded, he insisted on
dying with his eyes unbandaged, laid himself upon the block with his face
uppermost, and watched steadily the descending axe. Superstitious folly
closed scenes which had begun in treachery and revenge. St. Januarius, for
having wrought republican miracles, was solemnly deposed by the lazzaroni,
with the approval of the government ; and in his place was substituted, as
patron of the city, St. Anthony of Padua, who, through the agency of the
church, had revealed a design said to have been formed by the advocates of
democracy, for hanging all the loyal populace. The new protector, however,
proved inefficient ; and the old one was soon reinstated.
564 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1799-1801 A.D.]
Bonaparte Reconquers Italy
The fortunes of France, sunk to the lowest ebb, were about to swell again
with a tide fuller than ever. While the restored sovereigns of Italy were
busied in reorganising their states and punishing their revolted subjects,
Paris saw the " heir of the Revolution " take possession of his inheritance.
Bonaparte, having returned from the East, was master of France, and
resolved to be master of Europe. He was nominated first consul under the
constitution called that of the year Eight, which was proclaimed 011 the 26th
day of December, 1799.
In May, 1800, the main body of the French army, led by Napoleon in
person, effected its celebrated passage of the Great St. Bernard. The invad-
ers, pouring from the highlands, overran Lombardy, and attacked Piedmont.
The Austrian general Melas, with forty thousand men, was stationed near
Alessandria, when the first consul, somewhat inferior in strength, advanced
against him ; and on the 14th of June the two hosts encountered each other
on the bloody field of Marengo. In the evening, when the French had all
but lost the battle, Desaix came up and achieved the victory at the cost of
his life ; the Austrians were signally defeated, and the reconquest of Italy,
so far as it was judged prudent to attempt it, was already secured. Melas
concluded an armistice which gave the enemy possession of Genoa, Savona,
and Urbino, with all the strong places in Piedmont and Lombardy as far
east as the Oglio. Napoleon reorganised the Cisalpine and Ligurian repub-
lics, created a provisional government in Piedmont, and returned to Paris.
Meanwhile, the old pope having died the preceding year, a conclave,
which opened at Venice in March, 1800, had raised to the papal chair
Cardinal Chiaramonti, a native of Cesena and bishop of Imola, who, since the
annexation of his see to the Cisalpine commonwealth, had favoured liberal
opinions in politics. He was allowed by all parties to return to Rome, and
assume the government of the provinces which had formed the Tiberine
Republic. The king of Naples was left unmolested, but Tuscany, at first
given up to the Austrians, was seized in a short time by the French.
The negotiations for a lasting peace proved abortive, and a new war
speedily commenced, which was chiefly waged on the northern side of the
Alps, and ended in December, 1800, with Moreau's victory over the Austrians
at Hohenlinden. In the beginning of the following year, the Peace of Lune-
ville restored matters in northern Italy nearly to the same position which
they had occupied under the Treaty of Campo-Formio ; but Tuscany was
erected into the kingdom of Etruria, and given to Louis, son of the duke of
Parma, though the French were to retain Elba, Piombino, and the coast-
garrisons. The new king's father (whose duchy was given to France), and
the grand duke of Tuscany, were to be compensated in Germany for the loss
of their Italian states. The king of Naples, after invading the Roman prov-
inces, and giving Murat the trouble of marching an army as far as Foligno
to meet him, abandoned his engagements with England, and concluded an
alliance with the French Republic.
Napoleon, restoring the Catholic religion in France, and endeavouring to
maintain a good understanding with the court of Rome, proceeded to re-
arrange the republican states of Italy. According to his usual policy, how-
ever, he tried to make all his changes appear to have proceeded from the
wish of the people themselves ; and, through honest conviction in many
cases, and selfish subserviency in many more, he was easily able to procure
converts to his opinions./
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 565
[1800 A.D.]
THE GKOWING DESIRE FOR LIBERTY
If the great desire of Italy at the end of the eighteenth century was
incontestably to become a nation, a desire all the more ardent because it was
so recent, since it dated back only forty years, was she ready to take action
and undertake her own government ? It is doubtful. Not that the Italian
middle-class educated in the school of French philosophers and convinced of
the principles of '89 was not thenceforth capable to assume the power, and
even to obtain the adhesion of the rural masses to the new ideas, in spite of
their ignorance and submission to the clergy ; but because a nation cannot
exist without a leader — and there was no leader. Under the successive
domination of so many foreign tyrannies, all these noble towns, each of which
had formerly been a small state and had astonished the world with its
magnificence, had fallen, one after the other, to the rank of prefectures with-
out moral authority and without credit. As she had borne the burden of her
cosmopolitism for three centuries, Italy was now about to expiate, during a
shorter period, but still severely, this hatred of all concentration which had
been, since the fall of the Roman Empire, the strongest and most constant of
her passions. The municipal spirit of antiquity, which had inspired all the
towns of the peninsula during the whole of the Middle Ages, had been, even
more than the Catholic and universal spirit of papacy, the rock on which the
modern principle of national unity had been wrecked. The Ghibellines had
incarnated this principle in the house of Hohenstaufen, and the Guelfs for
many years in the house of Anjou, but it had been overthrown in Italy at
the very moment when it was triumphing over all the rest of Europe. And
hence it doubtless was that arose the incomparable lustre of Italian civilisa-
tion at the dawn of the Renaissance, that universal blossoming of literature
and art even in the most humble towns where there was then more intel-
lectual culture than in the greatest cities of Germany, of England, or even
of France. But from the same cause also arose that marvellous and fruitful
intensity of individual and municipal life, that phenomenon, almost unique in
history, of a nation repulsing the idea of unity, similar to a nebula refusing to
take form. The law of development carried into effect by the various states
of Latin Europe had been the successive agglomeration of all the elements of
the same or similar origin round a central nucleus, their crystallisation
round a concrete sovereignty, and if the expression may be allowed, one soul
in common. But Italy had systematically evaded this law of centralisation,
a law not only historical but physical, which in politics as in nature is the
indispensable condition of all progress. She was therefore at the end of
the fifteenth century the hydra with a hundred heads. Then the hundred
heads fell one after the other under the blows of the great French, German,
and Spanish invasions; the nation itself had almost perished. And now
that the nation had slowly formed again she sought for a head in vain. If
she wished to live, and she wished it with invincible passion, she in turn
must realise what all the other nations of Europe had accomplished so many
centuries ago, and, forsaking her past, she must set to work to take a central
sovereignty. Nationality is unity, and unity can only be formed round a
common centre..?
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME
[1801-1816 A.D.]
THE mind of Bonaparte was capable of exercising the most contrary
qualities in the prosecution of his designs. Having reconciled himself to the
pope, defeated Austria, and deluded Alexander, being also confident of
peace with England, he applied himself to bringing into effect that which he
had so long conceived in his own mind, and had so pertinaciously pursued.
He was anxious that the first impulse should come from Italy, fearing that
a certain residuum of republican opinions in France might prove a bad
consequence, if the way were not smoothed for his design by some exciting
precedent. Thus, having conquered Italy by the arms of France, he sought
to vanquish France by the obsequious concessions of Italy.
His Italian machinations were opened with imposing effect ; and in
Lombardy his most devoted adherents were artfully employed in disseminat-
ing the idea of the insecurity arising to the Cisalpine Republic from the
temporary nature of its government.
Whilst these ideas were disseminated amongst the people, Petiet negoti-
ated with the chiefs of the republic, in order that the imperative commands of
the consul might appear to be the desires and the spontaneous supplications
of the nation. When the consultations were concluded at Paris for the
design, and at Milan for its execution, a decree was issued by the legislative
council of the Cisalpine Republic, commanding an extraordinary consulto to
proceed to Lyons, in order there to frame the fundamental laws of the state,
and to give information to the consul. &
In December, 1801, at Lyons, a deputation of four hundred and fifty citi-
zens, from the Cisalpine Republic, offered to Napoleon, then first consul,
the presidency of their government for a term of years. He accepted the
gift, and in January, 1802, with the assent of the deputies, promulgated a
constitution for their state, which was now named the Italian Republic. In
June following, the Ligurian Republic likewise accepted an altered charter,
which received modifications in December. The Piedmontese, wearied of
anarchy and of their despot, General Menou, consented, for the second time,
that their country should be made a province of France ; and the formal
annexation took place in September of the same year.
566
THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME 567
[1801-1802 A.D.]
The gradual changes of view in Bonaparte and his countrymen are curiously
illustrated by the successive constitutions which their influence established
in Italy. In 1802, at home as well as abroad, they were immeasurably
distant from the universal citizenship and primary assemblies of 1793 ;
southern polity differed in several prominent points from that which had
been imposed on their own country. It is best exemplified by the constitution
of the Italian Republic, which was closely copied in the Ligurian ; and these
charters were considered at the time, not without probability, as experiments
by which, as we have said, the first consul tried the temper of his future
subjects on his own side of the Alps. In the first place, this system boldly
shook off democracy ; for the citi-
zens at large were disfranchised, not
indeed in words, but in reality:
a step which had not been fully
taken in France, even by Bona-
parte's consular constitution. Next,
the Italian acts divided among the
colleges, or bodies of the middle
and upper classes (boards elected
with something like freedom of
choice), most of those functions
which in Paris were committed to
the consul's favourite tool, the self-
appointed senate. Lastly, the mass
of the people being thus disarmed,
and the educated leaders lulled into
acquiescence, the president of the
state received a power far beyond
even that which he exercised over
his French fellow-citizens.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
REPUBLIC
The details of the constitution
given to the Italian Republic are
historically curious, in relation both
to what went before and to what
followed.
It at once narrowed the fran-
chise, declaring citizenship to be
dependent on a property-qualification, which was to be fixed by the legislature;
but this right carried, by itself, not a particle of political power. The elective
functions were vested exclusively in three colleges and a board of censors, which
were to be convoked once at least in two years, for short sessions. The col-
lege of the possidenti or land-holders was composed of three hundred citizens,
rated for the land-tax on property worth not less than 6,000 Milanese livres,
or about <£170. It was self-elected, and met at Milan. The college of the
dotti or savants contained two hundred citizens, eminent in art, theology,
ethics, jurisprudence, physics, or political science. It sat at Bologna. The
college of the commercianti or merchants consisted of two hundred citizens,
elected by the board itself from among the most distinguished mercantile
men or manufacturers. Its seat was Brescia. Members of all the colleges
PIAZZA BELLA COLLEGIATE
568 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1802-1804 A.D.]
held their places for life. The censors were a committee of twenty-one
named by the colleges at every sitting. This commission, assembling at
Cremona, nominated the council of state, the legislative body, the courts of
revision and cassation, and the commissaries of finance, all from lists sub-
mitted by the colleges. It was likewise authorised to impeach public servants
for malversation in office.
The administration was vested in a president (who could name a vice-
president), a council of state, a cabinet of ministers, and a legislative council.
The president was elected by the first of these bodies, and held his office for
ten years. He possessed the initiative in all laws, and in all diplomatic
business, and also the whole executive power, to be exercised through the
ministry.
The council of state was particularly designed for advising in foreign
affairs, and for sanctioning by its decrees all extraordinary measures of the
president. The ministers lay under a broad personal responsibility, both
for acts and omissions. The legislative council, chosen, like the ministry, by
the president, had a deliberative voice in all drafts of law ; and the prepara-
tion and carrying through of bills were to be mainly intrusted to it.
The legislative body, which possessed the functions indicated by its name,
consisted of seventy-five members, one-third of whom were to go out every
two years. It was to be convoked and prorogued by the government ; but
its sittings were to last not less than two months in every year.
The Catholic clergy were recognised as the ministers of the national
church, and as entitled to possess the ecclesiastical revenues. The adminis-
tration named the bishops, who again appointed the parish priests, subject
to the approval of the government. An unqualified toleration was prom-
ised to all other creeds.
The tenor of this charter, and the position which Napoleon held in virtue
of it, made it more natural than usual that he should, as his countrymen had
invariably done in similar cases, nominate for the first time all the members
of the government. The choice was in general wise and popular. Melzi
d'Eril was vice-president.
Under this new order of things, while the Neapolitan government ruled
with jealousy and little wisdom, and the court of Rome with kindness but
feebly, the remainder of the peninsula was subject, either in reality or both
in reality and in name, to the French Republic. Sustained by foreign
influence, the northern and central regions of Italy began to enjoy a pros-
perity and quiet to which for years they had been strangers. The new
commonwealths were as far as ever from being nationally independent;
some parts of the country were avowedly provinces of France ; and every-
where the political privileges of individuals had, as we have seen, shrunk far
within the limits to which they had stretched immediately after the Revolu-
tion. But the absence of national independence, although a great evil, was
counterbalanced by many advantages ; and the curtailment of public rights,
as bitter experience had proved, was a blessing both to the state and to its
citizens.
NAPOLEON MAKES ITALY A KINGDOM
On the 18th day of May, 1804, the senate declared Napoleon emperor of
the French, "through the grace of God and the principles of the republic."
The pope, after much hesitation, consented to bestow on the new empire the
sanction of the church ; and accordingly, journeying to Paris in the dead of
winter, he officiated at the coronation in Notre Dame.
THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME 569
[1804-1805 A.D.]
The Italians could not reasonably expect that they should be allowed to
stand solitary exceptions to the new system of their master ; and the prin-
cipal citizens in Lombardy were speedily prepared, by arguments or induce-
ments suited to the occasion, for taking such steps as should place them,
with an appearance of voluntary submission, under the monarchical polity.
The vice-president Melzi was sent to Paris at the head of a deputation from
the Italian Republic. In March, 1805, these envoys waited on the emperor,
and presented to him an instrument purporting to contain the unanimous
resolution of the constituted authorities of the state, whereby they offered
to him and his male descendants, legitimate, natural, or adopted, the crown
of their republic, which they consented should be transformed into "the
kingdom of Italy." The resolutions were immediately embodied in a con-
stitutional statute, by which Napoleon accepted the sovereignty, but pledged
himself to resign it in favour of one who should be born or adopted his son,
as soon as Naples, the Ionian Isles, and Malta should be evacuated by all
foreign troops. In April the emperor-king passed through Piedmont in tri-
umph, and on the 26th of May his coronation was performed in the cathedral
of Milan. The archbishop of the see, Cardinal Caprara, who had been his
principal assistant in negotiating with the pope, attended at the ceremony,
and was allowed to consecrate the insignia; but the "iron crown" of Lom-
bardy, the distinctive symbol of royal power, was, like the diadem of France,
placed on Napoleon's head by his own hand.
" This part of the ceremonial," says Denina,c " differed from the ancient
usage. It left no room for supposing that the crowned monarch acknow-
ledged himself to derive from any other than God, or the power which by
the divine will he held in his hands, that proud ensign of sovereignty, of
which he thus publicly took possession."
He did not leave the peninsula till he had not only organised the gov-
ernment and constitution of his own kingdom of Italy, but completed
material changes on the adjacent states. Before the coronation, the doge
and senate of Genoa, warned that the independence of the Ligurian Re-
public could not be guaranteed, and jealously averse, it is said, to a union
with the new kingdom, petitioned for annexation to France. Their lord
condescendingly granted the prayer which he had himself dictated ; and
the formal incorporation was completed in October, 1805. In March of the
same year, the principality of Piombino had been given to his sister Elisa
Bonaparte, as a fief of the French Empire ; and in July the territories
belonging to the republic of Lucca were erected into another principality
for her husband, Pasquale Bacciocchi. The only parts of upper Italy that
remained unappropriated were the provinces of the ex-duke of Parma, which,
though occupied by the French, were not formally incorporated either with
the empire or the kingdom of Italy. The viceroyalty of the latter was con-
ferred on Eugene Beauharnais, the son of the empress Josephine. None of
the great powers in Europe acknowledged the new kingdom, and indeed
none of them was asked to do so.
The legitimate sovereigns did not leave their plebeian brother to enjoy
unmolested so much as the first year of his reign. An invasion of Italy
under the archduke Charles ended in the defeat of the Austrians by Massena
upon the Adige ; and in December, 1805, the great battle of Austerlitz forced
the emperor Francis to conclude the unfavourable Treaty of Presburg. In
respect to the Italian peninsula, he acknowledged Napoleon's kingly title,
and acquiesced in all his other arrangements ; but, further, he was compelled
to surrender Venice with its provinces as he had received them at the Peace
570 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1805-1808 A.D.]
of Campo-Formio, consenting that they should be united with the kingdom of
Italy. In January, 1806, the island-city was occupied by French troops
under General Miollis.
Napoleon seized the opportunity of the new acquisition, for founding that
hereditary noblesse with Italian titles, whose ranks were speedily filled by
his most useful servants, civil as well as military. There were specified cer-
tain districts which the emperor reserved the right of erecting into duke-
doms, appropriating to their titular possessors a fifteenth part of the revenues
derived from the provinces in which they lay, and setting aside for the same
purpose the price of large tracts of national lands. In Parma and Piacenza
were to be three of these fiefs — in Naples, recently conquered, six — and in
the Venetian provinces twelve, among which were Dalmatia, Treviso,
Bassano, Vicenza, Rovigo, and other demesnes whose titles acquired a new
interest from the celebrity of the men who bore them. Two other duke-
doms, conferred respectively on Marshal Bernadotte and the minister Talley-
rand, were formed from the papal districts of Pontecorvo and Benevento.
The emperor of the French, now lord paramount of the kingdom enclosing
these territories, seized them without troubling himself to invent any pretext;
coolly assuring the pope that the loss would be compensated afterwards, but
that the nature of the indemnification would materially depend upon the holy
father's good behaviour.
THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES AND THE PAPACY
The king of Naples, lately the abject vassal of the French, had allowed a
body of Russians and English to land without resistance. Cardinal Ruffo,
who resented the tragedy of 1799, and despised the intriguing of Acton,
was sent to deprecate the conqueror's wrath, but returned home a confirmed
Bonapartist ; and Napoleon, who wanted a throne for one of his brothers,
proclaimed to his soldiers that the dynasty of the Bourbons in lower Italy
had ceased to reign. His army crossed the frontier in January, 1806, upon
which the king fled to Sicily ; his haughty wife lingered to the last moment,
and then reluctantly followed. Joseph Bonaparte, meeting no resistance
except from the foreigners who composed the garrison of Gaeta, entered the
metropolis early in February, and, after quietly hearing mass said by Ruffo
in the church of St. Januarius, was proclaimed king of Naples and Sicily.
After some fighting, chiefly in Calabria, the whole country within the Faro
of Messina submitted to its new sovereign, although in several districts the
allegiance was but nominal. In the following summer Sir Sidney Smith
took Capri, and prevailed on Sir John Stuart to land in the Calabrian Gulf
of St. Eufemia ; but the only result was the brilliant victory gained by the
British regiments over the French at Maida. The royalist partisans dis-
graced their cause by cruelties which no exertions of the English officers
were able to stop ; and, after the enemy had increased materially in strength,
the expedition was compelled to return to Sicily.
During that year Napoleon was occupied with the war against Prussia,
which was terminated by the battle of Jena ; and in 1807 he had commenced
his system of intrigue in Spain, the first fruit of which was another appro-
priation in Italy. The widowed queen of Etruria, who acted as regent for
her son Charles Louis, was unceremoniously ejected from his states, which
in May, 1808, were formed into three departments of France, while the
princess of Piombino was established at Florence with the title of grand
duchess of Tuscany. About the same time — upon the proposal or pretext
THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME 571
[1808-1811 A.D.]
that the Bourbons of Parma should be made sovereigns of Portugal — their
duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla were finally annexed to France.
The principal event of that year was the opening campaign of the French
in Spain and Portugal. The schemes of the military autocrat in that quarter,
destined to be the first step in his road to destruction, led him to recall his
brother Joseph from the throne of Naples, which, on his leaving Italy for
Madrid, was bestowed on Joachim Murat, grand duke of Berg and Cleves,
one of the emperor's bravest generals, and husband of his sister Caroline.
The new king's only title was an edict issued by Napoleon at Bayonne, on
the 15th of July, 1808, in which he announces that he has granted to
Joachim the throne of Naples and Sicily, vacant by the accession of Joseph
to that of Spain and the Indies. The showy and gallant soldier began his
reign by driving Sir Hudson Lowe out of the island of Capri ; 1 and when the
Carbonari, a sect of republicans recently organised, had co-operated with
the royalists in raising disturbances throughout Calabria, he sent into the
province his countryman, General Manhes, recommended for such service
by having previously pacified, or depopulated, the Abruzzi. The envoy,
executing his commission with heartless severity, made that secluded region
orderly and peaceful, for the first time perhaps in its modern history.
The next year overturned the papal throne. The turmoil which the
Revolution raised in the Gallican church had been quieted by the concordat
of 1801 ; but a code of regulations issued by the first consul for carrying the
principles of that compact into effect in France, and a decree issued by
the vice-president Melzi for the same purpose in Lombardy, had been both
disavowed by Pius as unauthorised by him, and as contrary not only to the
spirit of the concordat, but to the principles of the church of Rome. The
reconciliation which ensued was but hollow ; and Napoleon determined that
his dominion over Italy, now extending from one end of the peninsula to the
other, should not be defied ; and the papal state was openly claimed as a fief
held under Napoleon, the successor of Charlemagne. The remonstrances
of Pius on ecclesiastical matters, indeed, were urged in a tone that could not
have failed to irritate a temper like that of the emperor.
In January, 1808, as is more fully described in the history of France,
seven thousand soldiers under Miollis, professing to march for Naples,
turned aside and seized Rome ; and in April an imperial decree, founding
its reasons on the pope's refusal of the alliance, on the danger of leaving an
unfriendly power to cut off communication in the midst of Italy, and on the
paramount sovereignty of Charlemagne, annexed irrevocably to the kingdom
of Italy the four papal provinces of Ancona, Urbino, Macerata, and Camerino.
In May, 1809, Napoleon dated from the palace of Schonbrunn at Vienna
a decree which annexed to the French Empire those provinces of the papal
state which had not been already seized. The pope was to receive an annuity
of two millions of francs, and to confine his attention to the proper duties of
his episcopal office. Pius issued a very firm manifesto, went through the
form of excommunicating Napoleon and all ecclesiastics who should obey
him. On the night between the 5th and 6th of July, the French soldiers
and the police broke into his apartments, and seized his person. He was
transported into France, and thence back to Savona, where he was kept a
close prisoner till 1811. In June, 1810, the kingdom of Italy received its
last accession of territory, the southern or Italian Tyrol being then incor-
porated with it.
[* "This general, later Napoleon's jailer, surrendered and was released on parole." — DB
CASTRO.?]
572 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1810-1814 A.D.]
It appears, as the result of the events which have now been summarily
related, that, from the middle of 1810 till the fall of Napoleon in 1814, the
political divisions of Italy were the following :
The mainland was divided into four sections, or, more properly, into
three, since Lucca falls really under the first. (1) A large proportion of it
had been incorporated with France, whose territories on the western coast
now stretched southward to the frontier of Naples. These Italian prov-
inces of the French Empire lay chiefly on the western side of the Apennine,
where they included the following districts — Nice, with Savoy, since
1792; Piedmont, since 1802 ; Genoa, since 1805; Tuscany, since 1808 ; and
the western provinces of the Roman see, since 1809. On the northeast of the
mountain chain, France had only Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, which
were annexed to it in 1808. Within the Neapolitan frontier it had the
duchies of Benevento and Pontecorvo. (2) On the western side of the moun-
tains, the imperial territory was interrupted by the little independent
principality comprehending Lucca and Massa-Carrara. This petty state,
however, was possessed by members of the emperor's family, and was practi-
cally one of his French provinces. (3) Central and eastern Lombardy, with
some districts of the Alps, and a part of the peninsula proper, composed the
kingdom of Italy, of which Napoleon wore the crown. Its territories com-
prehended, first, the whole of Austrian Lombardy ; secondly, the Valtelline,
with Chiavenna and Bormio ; thirdly, Venice and its mainland provinces,
from the Oglio on the west to the Isonzo, which had been latterly fixed as
the eastern frontier ; fourthly, that part of the Tyrol which forms the valley
of the Adige ; fifthly, the territories of the dukes of Modena and Reggio,
except Massa-Carrara ; sixthly, the papal provinces of Ferrara, Bologna, and
Romagna, of Urbino, Macerata, Camerino, and Ancona. (4) The kingdom
of Naples consisted of the same provinces on the mainland which had been
governed by the Bourbons ; and since the year 1806, it had been ruled by
sovereigns belonging to the imperial family of France. The legitimate
monarchs still possessed the two great islands — the ex-king of Naples hold-
ing Sicily, the king of Sardinia the isle which gave him his title.
To the Neapolitan1 as well as the papal states, no change of masters or of
polity could at the time of the Revolution have been an evil ; the Venetian
provinces, likewise, were then ill-governed and oppressed ; upon Lombardy,
the leaden hand of Austria had again begun to lie heavy ; and in Tuscany
itself there was much that required amendment, both in the character of the
new rulers and in that of the people. The spirit of local jealousy, too, and
the total want of military spirit not less than of national pride, were things
that the Revolution aided powerfully in rooting out, although the Italians
paid dearly for the benefit. The resources of the country, in agriculture and
in manufactures, were developed with a success which nothing in its modern
[* Of Joachim Murat's administration of Naples, De Castro says : " Joachim's government, as-
sisted by good and energetic ministers, amongst whom was Ricciardi, Count di Camaldoli, proposed
to enforce and amplify the good laws of Joseph, and to impress upon the Neapolitans the duty
of improving themselves. At the same time, the necessity of punishments being less, they wished
to modify the rigours of the law, and obliterate if possible all traces of past storms. Many parti-
sans of the Bourbons, or accused of being so by the authorities, were released from prison and
returned from exile. The education of the young was provided for by the establishment of a
suitable college at Naples, and a school for girls was opened in every commune. There were to be
four universities, Naples, Attamura, Chiti, and Catanzaro, each one with a faculty of five. New
professorships were established, lyceums and schools were founded according to the promises
of the previous king. Elementary education became widespread, replacing the confusing and
superficial encyclopaedia instruction. Inspections and examinations were combined with great
prudence." 0]
THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME 573
[1806-1814 A.D.]
history had yet paralleled ; and the prosperity was checked only, and driven
into new channels, by that unwise and revengeful policy by which Napoleon
for years, beginning with the Berlin decree of 1806, attempted to place the
British Empire and its colonies in a state of blockade.
Even that arbitrary temper which, in the later years of his reign, con-
verted his rule into an unmixed despotism, was never shown on the south of
the Alps with the same fierceness which it assumed in the other provinces
of his kingdom. In his secret soul, Napoleon Bonaparte was proud of that
southern pedigree which, by every artifice down to the petty trick of mis-
spelling his family name, he strove to make his transalpine subjects forget ;
himself an Italian in feeling, much rather than a Frenchman, he understood
and sympathised with the character of his countrymen, in its weakness as
well as in its strength, in its capacities for improvement as well as in its
symptoms of decay; he flattered the populace, he breathed his own fiery
spirit into the army, he honoured the learned and scientific, he employed and
trusted those intelligent men who panted for a field of political action. He
taught the people to feel themselves a mighty nation ; and those whom he so
ennobled have not yet forgotten their stern benefactor. If Napoleon chas-
tised Italy with whips, he chastised France with scorpions; and the one
region not less than the other has profited by the wholesome discipline.
After the fall of the popedom, an attempt was made to give unity and a
show of independence to the Italian provinces of the empire, by uniting them
into one general government, the administration of which, conferred at first
on Louis Bonaparte, was afterwards given to the prince Borghese, the head of
a noble Roman family of the first rank, who had married Pauline, one of the
emperor's sisters. The French scheme of taxation was introduced, with very
slight modifications; and in 1812, the Italian provinces (excluding Nice)
yielded to the exchequer fully half as much as was contributed by all the
other territories lately added to the empire, including as these did some of
the richest commercial cities in Europe. The gross sum raised by taxes
of all kinds during that year was 95,712,349 francs, or nearly four millions
sterling, which gave 62,644,560 francs as the net return to the treasury; and
it is worthy of notice, likewise, that the cost of collection here was considera-
bly less, in proportion, than in the other recent acquisitions. The revenue
was liberally spent in organising efficient courts of law (whose text-book
was of course the Code Napoleon), in executing works of usefulness as
well as pomp, such as roads, bridges, and public buildings, in investigating
the antiquities of Rome and other places, and in advancing arts and manu-
factures, by premiums and similar encouragements.
Arbitrary as was his method of imposing the new law-book, nothing which
Napoleon did for Italy was half so distinguished a benefit. Another impor-
tation from France was the military conscription, which, in some particulars
advantageous, was in most respects a severe evil. The annual levies ordered
during the six years which ended with 1814, amounted in all to ninety-
eight thousand men, rising from six thousand in 1806, to fifteen thousand,
which was the demand during each of the last four years ; but only a por-
tion of these troops were ever called into active service. Still the emperor's
foreign wars, especially those in Spain and Russia, cost to his Cisalpine
provinces the lives of thousands. That restoration of hereditary aristocracy
which was effected in France, took place in Italy likewise, by a decree of
1808, bestowing on the sovereign the power of conferring titles, and allowing
the nobles so created to institute majorats, or devises of lands in favour of
their eldest sons, or others whom they might select to transmit their honours.
574 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1801-1814 A.D.]
We have yet to survey the finances of the kingdom, that branch of its
polity which, in both its departments, the receipt and the expenditure, has
been more loudly blamed than any other. Part of the censure is fully
deserved ; but very much of it is overcharged, and not a little is utterly
unfounded. Two heavy faults pervaded the whole system : first, that
multiplication of taxes, both in number and amount, which Napoleon, con-
stantly immersed in foreign wars, imposed with a more direct view to the
filling of his own exchequer than to the comfort or prosperity of his subjects ;
secondly, that dependent situation of Lombardy which caused her interests
to be sacrificed in several instances to those of France.
THE ISLANDS OF SICILY AND SARDINIA
In the meantime, while the whole peninsula was subject to the French
emperor, or to his vassal-princes, the English had preserved Sicily for King
Ferdinand.
When the court first removed to that island, the discontent of the lower
orders was general ; and on its breaking out into violence at Messina and
elsewhere, the marquis Artali subdued the spirit of the people by cruelties
which no remonstrances of the British could stop. The British, indeed,
were not popular ; and they soon lost the favour of the imperious queen,
who entered into secret dealings with Napoleon. The reckless extravagance
of the court, rendering necessary an excessive taxation, completed the dis-
gust of the nation ; and the barons, in their parliament of 1810, besides
protecting themselves and others by refusing the supplies, except on condi-
tions which made the collection of them all but impossible, voluntarily aided
the popular cause, by abolishing many of their own feudal privileges.
Matters were coming to a bloody crisis, when Lord William Bentinck,
the new ambassador at Palermo, executed the resolutions of the English
government. The queen was forced to consent that her husband should
resign his power to his son, as vicar or regent, while Bentinck was named
captain-general of Sicily. Parliament was summoned in 1812, and framed a
charter which, after violent resistance from Caroline, was ratified by the
prince-vicar.
The history of Sardinia, during the French reign on the mainland, pos-
sesses neither interest nor importance enough to detain us long. Its king,
Charles Emmanuel, weary of the world, abdicated in 1802 and retired to
Rome, where he lived many years in devotional exercises, receiving a pen-
sion from Napoleon on his seizure of the city, and becoming a Jesuit when
that order was restored. His brother and successor, Victor Emmanuel, held
his island-crown by the same tenure as his Sicilian neighbour, or, in other
words, by the protection of the English fleet, d
THE RISE OF NATIONAL SPIRIT
When Francis II of Austria renounced the imperial German crown on
the 6th of August, 1806, Austria seems to have renounced its authority over
Italy, though that country had hitherto found its main support in Austrian
rule. In all encroachments of Austria in Italy, outside of its own province,
the Italians later took it as a precedent that in 1806 Austria of itself
renounced the ancient rights of the Holy Roman Empire.
The political convictions had for long been blunted, the political passions
concerning the contributions and frauds of French proconsuls and their
THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME 575
[1805-1806 A.D.]
tools subsided as the fire of a burnt-out house. The more dangerous Ital-
ians were made barons and counts, and Melzi, prominent for his character
and intellect, had been made a duke. The rage which still smouldered
in individuals over the degradation of Italy is shown in the writings of
Count Alfieri, who was born in Piedmont, 1743, and died at Florence, 1804 ;
and of Niccolo Ugo Foscolo, born of a Greek mother, in Venice, 1772, and
deceased in London, 1827. While far from stainless themselves, these men
were panegyrists of patriotic celibacy
and suicide, and possessed a sort of
volcanic genius, that urged them on
to write something great. Classic
antiquity, stalking about in a
phenomenally high cothurnus, was
their religion. Alfieri declared that
the papacy was irreconcilable with
the freedom of Italy ; both writers
arrived at a certain desperate calm
out of sheer admiration for England.
To teach the Italian people to feel
their political misfortune was their
mission, and in its performance they
remained the grand-masters of the
desperate party. Some of the youth
of Italy ignited their negative patri-
otism, their hatred of the tyrant and
disdain of the lower classes at the fire
of these doctrines ; but for all their
straining after effect both poets pos-
sessed more genuine patriotic passion
than was ever evinced by their imita-
tors, and were heroes of patriotic
virtue compared to many who coldly
traded on the passions of others. ALFIERI
A lasting after-effect of the re-
public was the complete abolition of feudal rights, which gave the Lombard
and Venetian nobles a position of singular freedom.
In 1805, as we have seen, Napoleon appointed Eugene Beauharnais, son of
Josephine, viceroy ; later he made him his successor in the kingdom of Italy,
with the order to govern it after the simple system : " The emperor wills
it ! " The new ruler himself wrote to Napoleon that the kingdom of Italy
would pay 30,000,000 francs to France yearly. Eugene married the daugh-
ter of King Max of Bavaria, with whom he shared Tyrol in the division
suggested by their nationality.
Two days after the wedding, the 16th of January, 1806, Napoleon adopted
Eugene. Arcona and all Venice being now added to it, the "kingdom of
Italy " numbered 6,500,000 souls to 1,530 square miles. Even the courts,
or rather their counsellors, worthy of the necessities of the time, observed
that from the union of all these fragments the idea of nationality was slowly
arising.
Balbo e says of this time : " It was vassalage, no doubt ; but a vassalage
that shared the pride, the joys, the triumphs of the ruler. It was a time of
universal self-respect, and from it dates the first utterance by the people
of the name of Italy with increased love and honour ; all over Italy the petty
576 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1806-1813 A.D.]
municipal and provincial jealousies which had taken root centuries before,
and nourished even in the Utopian republic of a day, began to decline."
We must not forget that Balbo belonged to the Piedmontese ; hence the
highest military nobility. The families whose sons had to pass through fire
and be sacrificed to the Moloch of Napoleon's ambition, could not then have
shared his sentiments. Out of 30,000 Italians scarcely 9,000 returned from
Spain. It caused a still more painful impression when Napoleon announced
that of the 27,000 men of the kingdom of Italy who had gone to Russia,
scarcely a thousand remained, especially as he made the announcement dryly,
without a word of acknowledgment, and only ordered the raising of a new
army. The remainder of Italy, partly incorporated to France and partly
Neapolitan, had similar losses to bear./
THE FALL OF NAPOLEON
In the winter of 1812 the emperor's great army perished among the snows
of Russia. Germany rose against him as one man ; the battle of Leipsic
completed his ruin ; and before the end of 1813, he retained none of his
foreign territories but Italy. As he had used the influence of religion to
strengthen his rising power, so he now again caught at its support to arrest
his fall. Calling the imprisoned pope to Fontainebleau after his return
from the fatal campaign in the north, he prevailed on him to subscribe a
concordat, which yielded some of the disputed points, and gave again to the
French Empire the patronage of the see of Rome. But the advisers of Pius
in this step had been Cardinal Ruffo and men who, like him, watched the
times from a secular point of view : and different sentiments were suggested
to the pontiff by those other friends, the cardinals Pacca, Gabrielli, Litta,
and De Pietro, who were next admitted to his closet. He retracted his
consent, and Napoleon lost the hold which he had thus hoped to gain both
on France and Italy.
In the meantime, the nation had been called on to take an active share in
the closing struggle maintained by their conqueror ; the kingdom of Italy,
except the sullen aristocracy of Venice, came forward with cheerfulness and
spirit to furnish extraordinary contributions of men and money. Piedmont
was equally zealous and active. Little was done to aid Napoleon, and noth-
ing whatever to secure the independence of Italy after his dethronement.
Jealousies, local and personal, though they had been lulled asleep, were not
destroyed ; opinions and desires differed by innumerable shades ; and, above
all, there was no chief, no man that could have led the nation into battle,
defying the fearful odds which would have been brought against it. Neither
for the establishment of an independent peninsular monarchy, nor for that
of a federation or a single republic, were there materials among those who
guided the destinies of the country ; Murat and Eugene Beauharnais were
equally ill-fitted to sustain the part of Robert the Bruce ; and among all
their Italian generals there was no Kosciuszko.
In the summer of 1813, the Austrian armies defiled from the southern
passes of the Alps ; and after several indecisive engagements with the forces
of Eugene, they had gained, before the end of the campaign, a great part of
northern Italy. Meanwhile, King Joachim, marching his troops northwards,
seized the papal provinces, and astonished Europe by proclaiming himself
the ally of Austria. He had concluded a bargain, by which Francis, on con-
dition of receiving his assistance, guaranteed the Neapolitan throne to him-
self and his heirs. In the ensuing spring, a body of English and Sicilians
THE NAPOLEONIC B^GIME 577
[1813-1815 A.D.]
took Leghorn (Livorno) and were thence led by Lord William Bentinck
against Genoa, which surrendered without resistance.
But the contest was already over ; for on the llth of April, 1814, Napo-
leon signed, at Fontainebleau, his act of abdication. Upon receiving this
intelligence, Eugene attempted to secure Lombardy for himself. The sena-
tors declined to comply with his wish. A riot ensued, in which Prina, the
unpopular minister of finance, was torn in pieces by the mob, and Mejan
with difficulty escaped. The viceroy sought refuge with the king of Bavaria,
one of whose daughters was his wife. German armies forthwith took pos-
session of all the chief towns and places of strength in the peninsula.
In the course of the same year, the legitimate princes of Italy returned
one by one to their thrones, as the congress of Vienna settled their claims.
But the history of Napoleon's empire will not be closed until we have antici-
pated a period of some months, in order to behold the fall of the last of those
sovereignties which he had erected on the south of the Alps.
This was Naples, which for some time remained in an anomalous position.
The emperor Francis, however desirous he might be, durst not break his own
engagements ; but France, Spain, and Sicily protested against all resolutions
of the congress, so long as Joachim should be permitted to retain his king-
dom. His own imprudence soon removed the difficulty. In March, 1815,
on hearing that Napoleon had left Elba and effected a landing, he offered to
Austria to join in the war against him, on condition of receiving a general
acknowledgment of his title. The answer was evasive, and he hastened to
gain for himself all he could. With an army of fifty or sixty thousand men,
ill-trained, and not well inclined, he marched as far as Ravenna, whence a
German force of ten thousand drove him back within his own frontier. He
fled by sea, while his metropolis surrendered to the English fleet ; and, in
June, 1815, Ferdinand landed at Baja, and took possession of all his old
provinces on the mainland.
After the battle of Waterloo, the dethroned Joachim wandered through
France, and crossed to Corsica ; whence, with about two hundred followers,
he sailed for Italy, in the chimerical hope of conquering his lost kingdom.
He landed in Calabria, where the soil yet reeked with the blood shed by
Manhes ; the peasants seized him, and delivered him to the military. A
court-martial, receiving its commission from Naples, convicted him of trea-
son ; and on the 13th of October, 1815, he was shot in Pizzo, meeting an
inglorious death with the same courage which he had always shown in the
field of battled
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2P
CHAPTER XIX
INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES
[1815-1848 A.D.]
IN the plenitude of his despotic authority, Napoleon had destroyed all
the former order of things. He had trampled down the ancient republics,
and obliterated even the names of the most time-honoured principalities.
The queenly splendour of Venice had not saved the most glorious of
republics from his iron grasp. Lucca had found no safety in those repub-
lican institutions, the origin of which is lost in the obscurity of remote
antiquity. Imperial Rome herself had attracted no respect to the throne
of the vicegerent of heaven upon earth. The pontiff, from whose hands
Napoleon had received the chrism that gave him the sacred character of an
anointed king, was carried away a prisoner under an escort of French
dragoons.
No national government was left. In the worst days of foreign invasion
the pontiff, with bitter truth, said to the doge of Venice, " There is nothing
Italian left in Italy except my tiara and your ducal hat." Under the
dominion of Napoleon, both the tiara and the ducal hat were gone. The
pope was a prisoner in France, and Venice was a province of the emperor's
Italian kingdom. The only remnant of Italian nationality — and, placed on
the head of a stranger, it could scarcely be said to belong to Italy — was the
Lombards' iron crown. Such was the condition of Italy with which the
sovereigns at Paris, and in the congress of Vienna, had to deal.&
The restoration of the legitimate dynasties, partially effected in 1814,
was completed the following year ; and all the most important relations of
the Italian states were fixed in the course of that period, by successive acts
of the congress of Vienna.
The house of Austria received its ancient territories of the Milanese and
Mantua; but to these were added Venice and all its mainland provinces,
together with those districts which Napoleon had taken from the Orisons.
In this manner, profiting by deeds of spoliation which he had professedly
taken up arms to avenge, the emperor Francis became master of all Lom-
bardy, as far westward as the Ticino, and as far south as the Po : and on
678
INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES 579
[1815-1818 A.D.]
the 7th of April, 1815, he proclaimed the erection of these territories,
extending eastward to the mountains forming the right bank of the Isonzo,
into a monarchical state called the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom.
The king of Sardinia [Victor Emmanuel I], who still retained his insular
dominion, received back Piedmont and Savoy ; while in addition to these,
by a resolution which excited deep indignation in Italy, and was charged
against the English government as a violation of express pledges, were
given all the provinces of the Genoese Republic, which their new ruler
erected into a duchy. The female line of the house of Este, represented by
Francis, grandson of the last duke Ercole, and son of the archduke Ferdi-
nand of Austria, received, as an independent ducal state, the principalities of
Modena, Reggio, and Mirandola, to which Massa- Carrara was soon added.
Lucca, proclaimed a duchy, passed to the infanta Maria Louisa, formerly
queen of Etruria : but, the court of Madrid having protested against the
resolution which disallowed the claims of that princess to the principality of
Parma, a new arrangement was concluded in 1817. By the original plan,
Parma, with Piacenza and Guastalla, had been bestowed as an independent
duchy on the ex-empress of the French, Marie Louise [Napoleon's wife],
with the remainder to her son, the young duke of Reichstadt : the subse-
quent treaty provided that, on the death of the former, the ex-queen of
Etruria or her heirs should receive Parma and its annexed provinces, giving
up Lucca to be incorporated into Tuscany.
The archduke Ferdinand returned to that Tuscan duchy which he had
inherited from his father Leopold ; and, besides the isle of Elba, and some
trifling extensions of frontier, he now received uncontrolled possession of
the garrison-state.
The pope was confirmed in his sovereignty over the states of the church
as far north as the Po, and including the Neapolitan districts of Benevento
and Pontecorvo ; but his French provinces were not restored.
To the old king of Naples were given his dominions in their former
extent ; l and on the 8th of December, 1816, he declared himself, by the title
of Ferdinand I, the founder of a new dynasty, whose realm, embracing both
the mainland provinces and the island, was named the united kingdom of the
Two Sicilies. The petty San Marino was formally recognised as the last
surviving representative of the Italian republics; and a French peer, who
possessed Monaco, an imperial fief on the coast near Nice, had influence
enough to preserve for his lands the nominal rank of an independent state.
In styling himself merely king of Lombardy and Venice, the emperor
Francis assumed a title which expressed the real amount of his power much
less properly than it would have been denoted by that more ambitious name
which Napoleon had given to a monarchy embracing but a few more Italian
provinces. Without any further condition Austria was mistress of the half of
Italy. Naples alone was left to dispute with the pope about his claims
of feudal homage, which were finally compromised in 1818, for an annual
payment of 12,000 crowns to Rome. The dangers, however, which encom-
passed the restored sovereigns were made the pretence for conferring on the
Austrians a temporary right of interference far more active than any ancient
[* With regard to Naples there was an interminable and difficult debate about the documents
which were found in Paris, and which clearly proved the treacherous thoughts of Gioacchino
[Joachim Murat] against the allies. The final result was that even Austria which had upheld
him detested Murat, and on the 10th day of April declared war against him as we have seen.
After these proceedings there was nothing to prevent the congress of Vienna from taking posses-
sion of Naples also. It was again adjudged to King Ferdinand IV. He was already in possession
of the kingdom when the congress restored it to him.c]
580 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1815 A.D.]
privilege. They were allowed to garrison Piacenza during the reign of
Marie Louise, and Ferrara and Comacchio permanently ; while the king
of Naples accepted as a favour, and agreed to subsidise largely, a German
army which was to protect him from his own subjects during a fixed term
of years. d
MARRIOTT ON THE RESTORATION
Looking no longer to the past but to the future, the most interesting
feature of the Restoration still remains to be noticed. At the beginning of
the sixteenth century the dukes of Savoy had acquired Piedmont, and thus
succeeded in straddling the Alps. Their geographical position, as the prince
de Ligne had cynically said, did not permit them to behave like honest men.
Consequently by rather tortuous, but in the main successful, diplomacy they
managed in the eighteenth century to add the royal crown of Sardinia to
the ducal crowns of Piedmont and Savoy ; and never was a European war
concluded, however remote the principal combatants might be, but the house
of Savoy was able to acquire several of the towns of Lombardy, stripping
it, as the saying goes, like an artichoke, leaf by leaf. Their position was
still further strengthened in 1815 by the acquisition of the annihilated
republic of Genoa.
Such was the Italy of 1815, little if at all better than Metternich's
" geographical expression." l But for all that the Italy of 1815 was not the
Italy of the ante-Napoleonic days. Strive as they might, the diplomatists
of Vienna could not set back the hands of time, nor erase from the minds of
the Italian people the newly awakened recollection of their ancient fame ;
they could not stifle, strive as they might, their newly conceived but none the
less passionate longing for the realisation of their national identity. A
more accurate or more eloquent expression of this feeling could hardly be
found than in the letter addressed, thirty years afterwards, by Mazzini
nominally to Sir James Graham, really to the English people :
" There are over there (in Lombardy) from four to five millions of human creatures
gifted with an immortal soul, with powerful faculties, with ardent and generous passions ;
with aspirations towards free agency, towards the ideal which their fathers had a glimpse
of, which nature and tradition point out to them ; towards a national union with other mill-
ions of brother souls in order to attain it ; from four to five millions of men desiring only
to advance under the eye of God, their only master, towards the accomplishment of a social
task which they have in common with sixteen or seventeen millions of other men, speaking
the same language, treading the same earth, cradled in their infancy in the same maternal
songs, strengthened in their youth by the same sun, inspired by the same memories, the
same sources of literary genius. Country, liberty, brotherhood, all are wrested from them ;
their faculties are mutilated, curbed, chained, within a narrow circle traced for them by men
who are strangers to their tendencies, to their wants, to their wishes ; their tradition is
broken under the cane of an Austrian corporal ; their immortal soul feudatory to the stupid
caprices of a man seated on a throne at Vienna, to the caprices of the Tyrolese agents ; and
you go on indifferent, coolly inquiring if these men be subject to this or that tariff, if the
bread that they eat costs them a halfpenny more or less ! That tariff, whatever it is, is too
high ; it is not they who have had the ordering of it ; that bread, dear or not, is moistened
with tears, for it is the bread of slaves."*
ERRORS OF THE MONARCHY
The condition of Italy, in 1815, was one in which old things struggled
with new. Her soldiers, after having served with credit under Napoleon,
were either hastily disbanded, or called upon to transfer their allegiance to
[1 Stillman calls it still less — only a "diplomatic expression."]
INEFFECTUAL STKUGGLES 581
[1815 A.D.]
powers against which they had often been arrayed. The transition from
war to peace is apt to bear hardly upon men whose services are no longer
required, and whose career is brought to a close. Where feelings of good-
will and mutual confidence exist, such hardships are felt, but do not rankle.
From the restored governments of Italy the veterans of Napoleon's armies
obtained little sympathy. Their case was not generously or wisely con-
sidered, and their feelings, as well as claims, were disregarded. Distinction,
whether military or civil, obtained under the French Empire, was viewed
with narrow-minded aversion. At a crisis when the greatest delicacy was
required, the generous confidence and noble forbearance which win the alle-
giance of the heart were wanting ; and the prejudices of retrogradist counsel-
lors were allowed to prevail. At Milan, disgust was excited by the presence
of a German army, and by the employment of foreign officials. At Turin,
and still more at Naples, royalist factions were allowed to monopolise and
abuse the powers of the state.
Thus peace, which had been hailed with so much joy, was robbed of its
sweetness ; the exactions of the French were forgotten, and the impartiality
of their administration began to be regretted. Then it was that the Car-
bonari became dangerous, not only by their alliance with the resuscitated
embers of Jacobinism — smothered, but not extinguished, by Bonaparte —
but by the strength which they derived from a general feeling of dis-
appointment./
The civil and political reforms which had been instituted at the end of
the last century were abandoned. The Jesuits were restored ; many sup-
pressed monasteries were re-established ; and the mortmain laws were
repealed. Elementary education was narrowed in its limits, and thrown into
the hands of the clergy. Professors suspected of liberal views were expelled
from the universities, and the press was placed under the most rigid super-
vision. All persons who had taken part in the Napoleonic governments, or
who were known to entertain patriotic opinions, found themselves harassed,
watched, spied on, and reported. The cities swarmed with police agents and
informers. The passport system was made more stringent, and men were
frequently refused even a few days' leave of absence from their homes. The
Code Napoleon was withdrawn from those provinces which had formed part
of the Italian kingdom, while, in the papal states, the administration was
placed again in the hands of ecclesiastics.
This political and spiritual reign of terror, which had for its object the
crushing of Italian liberalism, was sanctioned and supported by Austria.
Each petty potentate bound himself to receive orders from Vienna, and, in
return for this obedience, the emperor guaranteed him in the possession of
his throne. The Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, powerfully defended and
connected with Austria by land and sea, became one huge fortress, garrisoned
with armed men in perpetual menace of the country. Under these condi-
tions the Italians were half maddened, and thousands of otherwise quiet citi-
zens, either in the hope of finding redress and protection, or only from a
feeling of revenge, joined secret revolutionary societies ; for it must not be
supposed that the Revolution had left the Italians as passive as it found them.
A new spirit was astir, which was not likely to be checked by the arrange-
ments of the European congress — the spirit of national independence.
During the convulsions caused by Napoleon's conquest of Italy the allied
powers had themselves fostered this spirit, in order to oppose French rule.
The Austrians, the English, and Murat, in turn, had publicly invited the
Italians to fight for their national independence. And now the people, who
582 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1815-1816 A.D.]
relied upon the proclamations and expected the fulfilment of so many prom-
ises, found themselves by the consent of Europe delivered over, tied and
gagged, to a foreign oppressor. To take but one example : Ferdinand, when
he quitted Naples in May, 1815, addressed a proclamation to his subjects,
solemnly engaging to respect the laws that should in his absence be decreed
by a constitution. In June he pledged himself at Vienna to introduce into
his kingdom no institutions irreconcilable with those which Austria might
establish in her own dependencies. Accordingly in 1816 he put an end to
the Sicilian constitution of 1812.0
Among the means which were effective in first rousing Italy from her
lethargy, and in fostering the will to acquire her independence at all costs,
the secret society of the Carbonari l undoubtedly occupies the front rank.
The Carbonari acted in two ways ; by what they did and by what they
caused to be done by others who were outside their society, and perhaps
unfavourable to it, but who were none the less sensible of the pressure it
exercised. The origin of Carbonarism has been sought in vain ; as a speci-
men of the childish fables that once passed for its history may be noticed
the legend that Francis I of France once stumbled on a charcoal burner's hut
when hunting " on the frontiers of his kingdom next to Scotland," and was
initiated into the rites similar to those in use among the sectaries of the nine-
teenth century. Those rites referred to vengeance which was to be taken
on the wolf that slew the lamb ; the wolf standing for tyrants and oppressors,
and the lamb for Jesus Christ, the sinless victim, by whom all the oppressed
were represented.
The Carbonari themselves generally believed that they were heirs to an
organisation started in Germany before the eleventh century, under the
name of the Faith of the Kohlen-Brenners [charcoal burners], of which
Theobald de Bri, who was afterwards canonised, was a member. Theobald
was adopted as patron saint of the modern society, and his fancied portrait
figured in all the lodges. The religious symbolism of the Carbonari, their
oaths and ceremonies, and the axes, blocks, and other furniture of the initia-
tory chamber, were well calculated to impress the poorer and more ignorant
and excitable of the brethren. The Vatican affected to believe that Car-
bonarism was an offshoot of freemasonry, but, in spite of sundry points of
resemblance, such as the engagements of mutual help assumed by members,
there seems to have been no real connection between the two. The practical
aims of the Carbonari may be summed up in two words : freedom and inde-
pendence.
A Genoese of the name of Malghella, who was Murat's minister of police,
was the first person to give a powerful impetus to Carbonarism, of which he
has even been called the inventor, but the inference goes too far. Malghella
ended miserably ; after the fall of Murat he was arrested by the Austrians,
who consigned him as a new subject to the Sardinian government, which
immediately put him in prison. Whatever was truly Italian in Murat's
policy must be mainly attributed to him. As early as 1813 he urged the
king to declare himself frankly for independence, and to grant a constitu-
tion to his Neapolitan subjects. But Malghella did not find the destined
saviour of Italy in Murat ; his one lasting work was to establish Carbonarism
on so strong a basis that, when the Bourbons returned, there were thousands,
[J Literally " charcoalers," charcoal-making being a prominent industry in the wilds of the
Abruzzo and Calabria where Carbonarism found its refuge. The ritual of the organisation was
founded on charcoal-makers' terms, thus meetings were called vendite or "sales." The idea
spread to France, where La Fayette was a prominent member. See volume XIII, chapter I.]
INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES 583
[1816-1821 A.D.]
if not hundreds of thousands, of Carbonari in all parts of the realm. The
discovery was not a pleasant one to the restored rulers, and the prince of
Canosa, the new minister of police, thought to counteract the evil done by
his predecessor by setting up an abominable secret society called the Calderai
del Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise), principally recruited from
the refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits, and let-out convicts, who were
provided by government with 20,000 muskets, and were sworn to extermi-
nate all enemies of the church of Rome, whether Jansenists, freemasons, or
Carbonari. This association committed some horrible excesses, but other-
wise it had no results. The Carbonari closed in their ranks, and learned to
observe more strictly their rules of secrecy.
From the kingdom of Naples, Carbonarism spread to the Roman states,
and found a congenial soil in Romagna, which became the focus whence it
spread over the rest of Italy. It was natural that it should take the colour,
more or less, of the places where it grew. In Romagna, where political
assassination is in the blood of the people, a dagger was substituted for the
symbolical woodman's axe in the initiatory rites. It was probably only in
Romagna that the conventional threat against informers was often carried
out. The Romagnols invested Carbonarism with the wild intensity of their
own temperament, resolute even to crime, but capable of supreme impersonal
enthusiasm. The ferment of expectancy that prevailed in Romagna is
reflected in the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, whom young Count Pietro
Gamba made a Carbonaro, and who looked forward to seeing the Italians
send the barbarians of all nations back to their own dens, as to the most
interesting spectacle and moment in existence. His lower apartments, he
writes, were full of the bayonets, fusils, and cartridges of his Carbonari
cronies : " I suppose that they consider me as a depot, to be sacrificed in case
of accidents. It is no great matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated,
who or what is sacrificed. It is a grand object — the very poetry of politics.
Only think — a free Italy ! Why, there has been nothing like it since the
days of Augustus ! " The movement on which such great hopes were set
was to begin in the kingdom of Naples in the spring of 1820. ^
THE INSURRECTIONS OF 1820-1821
In 1820 and 1821 the discontents of the people, and the disappointment
of many in the educated classes, broke out into insurrection, first at Naples,
and then in Piedmont. There were no symptoms of concert, even between
the Neapolitans and the Piedmontese ; and the plots which arose elsewhere
seem to have been produced by causes altogether local. But the immediate
encouragement of the Italian revolt was furnished by the revolution in
Spain,1 and by the principle of non-intervention, which the allied sovereigns
had adopted in reference to that country. The Italians vainly hoped that
the same rule would be followed in their case.
On the 2nd of July, 1820, there broke out a mutiny among the troops.
The insurgents were headed by two or three subaltern officers, who were
Carbonari; and the whole army, having deserted the king, placed itself
under its own generals. The revolt was joined by the people from all the
provinces, and a remonstrance was sent to the government, demanding a
[ i The Spanish Revolution, which originated in Cadiz in 1819, resulted in the establishment
of a constitution accepted by the king, and sworn to by the king of Naples himself as an infante
of Spain. This event was full of interest to the Neapolitans, who felt their own need of a
similar guarantee. — WRIGHTSON./]
584 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1820-1821 A.D.]
representative constitution. The old king deposited his power in the hands
of the crown prince Francis, as vicar, having first, however, promised to
grant the nation their request, and to publish the charter in eight days.
Unfortunately, the ultra-party, who were at this stage in possession of all
the power, came forward instantly with a demand that the constitution
should be that of the Spanish cortes, first published in 1812, and recently
reinstituted. The prince-vicar acceded to this proposal.
A new difficulty soon arose. The Sicilians revolted and demanded a
separate constitution and parliament, which the government refused to
grant. Bloody disturbances took place at Palermo, which the Neapolitans
suppressed by sending across an armed force.
The Neapolitan parliament was opened on the 1st of October, 1820, by
the king in person, in the large church of the Spirito Santo. In the same
month the three crowned heads who formed the Holy Alliance, attended by
ministers from most of the other European powers, met at Troppau. The
sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia resolved to violate their own late
precedents of non-intervention, and to put down the Neapolitan constitution
by force of arms. The weak monarch was easily convinced that his promises
had been extorted and therefore were not binding, and the Neapolitans did
not learn their danger until the Germans, 43,000 strong, were within a few
days' march of the frontier. A skirmish took place near Rieti, on the 7th
of March, 1821 ; and next morning Pepe's army had melted down to a few
hundreds. The war was at an end.
On the 15th of May the king returned to Naples ; and the Austrians left
him strong garrisons, both on the mainland and in Sicily. Tne promise of
complete amnesty, which had made part of his message to the parliament, was
instantly forgotten. Courts-martial and criminal juntas were set down
everywhere ; a hundred persons at least were executed, among whom were
Morelli and Silvati, two of the officers who had headed the first mutiny.
Carrascosa and Pepe escaped ; and Colletta, and two other generals, were
allowed to live under surveillance in remote provinces of Austria.
The Neapolitan constitutionalists had hardly dispersed, when another
military insurrection broke out in Piedmont. It was headed by several
noblemen and officers of rank, and secretly favoured by Charles Albert,
prince of Carignano, a kinsman of the royal family, who later became king
of Sardinia.
On the 10th of March, 1821, several regiments simultaneously mutinied.
On the 12th the insurgents seized the citadel of Turin, and on the 13th the
king abdicated in favour of his absent brother, Charles Felix, appointing
the prince of Carignano regent, who next day took the oaths to the Spanish
constitution. On the 16th the new king, Charles Felix, repudiated the acts of
the regent ; and in the night of the 21st Charles Albert fled to the camp
of the Austrians. On the 8th of April the German army joined the royal
troops at Novara, and beat the insurgents ; the junta dissolved itself on the
9th ; and on the 10th the king was in possession of Turin and of the whole
country.
While these stormy scenes were acting in the two extremities of the
peninsula, no district of Italy remained altogether undisturbed.
Arrests took place in several quarters of the papal state, but most of all
in the eastern provinces. In the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, the govern-
ment professed to have discovered dangerous plots, as to which we know
nothing with certainty except the existence of an association of well-edu-
cated and high-principled men at Milan, who laboured in the cause of educa-
INEFFECTUAL STKUGGLES 585
[1821-1824 A.D.]
tion by instituting schools, and attempted to aid public enlightenment by
a periodical called the Conciliatore, which the Austrians speedily suppressed.
Those members of this society who became best known to the world were
the counts Porro and Confalonieri, and the poet Silvio Pellico. These with
many others were seized, and several were condemned to die. None of
them were actually put to death, but whatever may have been the political
offences of those unfortunate Milanese who, like him and Pellico, pined or
died in the dungeons of Spiel-
berg, it is at least certain that
there was no truth whatever in
most of the charges which the
Austrians at the time allowed
their journals to propagate
against them.
THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1831
The effect produced by those
abortive revolutions was very
disastrous to Italy. They intro-
duced over the whole country a
hateful system of espionage,
caused by suspicion in the rulers
and dislike in the subjects, which
was not soon relaxed, and has
still left painful traces. How-
ever, the measures of this
sort which were adopted, with
some which occasionally removed
causes of complaint, were effec-
tual in keeping the people toler-
ably quiet for about ten years.
In Sicily a conspiracy broke out
in 1822, and in 1828 a weak
insurrection at Salerno was sup-
pressed. Tuscany and Lombardy remained tranquil under a mild despotism
and thirty thousand Austrian bayonets ; but the French Revolution of 1830 \
gave an example which was followed next year by the states of the church,
by Modena, and by Parma.
We may be assisted in discovering causes for the insurrection in the
papal states, by examining one or two of the principal acts of the govern-
ment after the death of Pius VII, which took place in 1823. On the 5th
of October, 1824, the new pope Leo XII issued a motu-proprio which anni-
hilated at a blow the charter of 1816. The administration both of Leo and
his successor, Pius VIII, was conducted in accordance with the spirit thus
indicated. The arbitrary proceedings of the police became a universal pest ;
the administration of criminal justice was again secret, irresponsible, and
inhumanly tedious ; and, both in that department and in civil causes, the
judges were openly charged with general venality. Besides all the old bur-
dens, some new or obsolete ones were imposed, especially the focalico, a tax
[* The influence of French politics on Italy has been remarkable. We have seen the effect
of the spirit of 1793 and the Napoleonic idea. The French revolutions of 1830 and 1848 had like
influence.]
POPE LEO XII IN PONTIFICAL ROBES
586 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
[1821-1832 A.D.]
on every hearth, which weighed very heavily on the peasantry ; and the customs
were increased exorbitantly, while the government-monopolies were extended.
In Modena, it seemed to have been resolved to sweep away every vestige
that the French had left behind them. The old laws of the Este had been
re-enacted, but were every day infringed by edicts of the prince, and by
special commissions of justice. The taxes were raised to nearly five times
their amount under Napoleon ; and for the elective functionaries of the
communes, the sovereign substituted young noblemen, chosen by himself.
The insurrection began in Modena, where, in the night of the 3rd of
February, 1831, a body of conspirators were arrested in the house of Giro
Menotti. The people rose, and the duke fled to Mantua. On the 4th,
being just two days after the election of Pope Gregory XVI, Bologna was
in open revolt. The rebellion spread over the greater part of the Roman
state. At the same time, the ex-empress Marie Louise fled from Parma,
which was likewise in tumult. The subjects of the papal provinces declared
openly against the temporal sovereignty of the pope, and on the 26th of
February, deputies from all the revolted states united in proclaiming a new
republic. The allied sovereigns did not lose a day in putting down the
insurrection. On the 9th of March the duke of Modena with an Austrian
army retook his capital ; and, after some resistance, the Germans, before the
end of the same month, had restored to the holy see all its possessions. In
Modena, Menotti and Borelli, the leaders of the revolt, were hanged, and
more than a hundred others were imprisoned for life. In Parma, Marie
Louise acted mercifully, and voluntarily redressed some of the grievances of
which her subjects, perhaps with less reason than their neighbours, had com-
plained. In the papal states no executions took place, but many men were
condemned to imprisonment for longer or shorter periods.
The leading powers of Europe interposed to recommend concessions by
the pope to his subjects ; and, on the 5th of July, 1831, the holy father
issued a motu-proprio, which, for the third time since 1814, altered the
administration. It resumed much of the charter of 1816, retaining the
division into delegations, and the subdivision of these into districts ; but it
narrowed greatly the functions of the congregations, which were merely to
have a consultative voice. And the new act did not give to the people even
that share in election which, as to the communal boards, the decree of Con-
salvi had bestowed on them.
The subjects of the papal state did not conceal their disappointment at
the pretended reforms. In January, 1832, the eastern districts were again
in insurrection ; and the slaughter of forty inhabitants of Forli, men, women,
and children, drove the people of the country nearly mad. Before the end of the
month, the revolt was again suppressed by the Austrian grenadiers. This new
interposition, however, at length aroused the French king, Louis Philippe,
probably a little ashamed of the part he had already acted. On the 22nd
of February, 1832, a French squadron,, anchoring off Ancona, landed troops,
which seized the town and citadel. Austria and its satellites professed high
indignation at this interference ; but the act seems to be quite defensible on
diplomatic grounds, in the position which France occupied as a guarantee of
the papal kingdom. In the kingdom of Naples, Francis, the prince-vicar
of 1820, succeeded his father, and ruled feebly but not unkindly for a few
years, after which his throne devolved on his son, Ferdinand, then a youth
of twenty-one. ^
Thus the enterprise of 1831, though extensively supported, had been
undertaken without any fixed plan and, as we have seen, ended in complete
INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES 587
[1831 A.D.]
discomfiture. The scattered and persecuted sette [societies], when once
more rallied and united, carried on their operations under a new name ;
and the ill-starred faction, which was destined to mislead and vitiate the
national impulse of 1848, assumed the title of Young Italy. "Austria,"
says Gualterio, "acquired in this society a new ally."
In 1831, a young Genoese, Giuseppe Mazzini [born in 1808], obtained
celebrity by the publication of a letter in which he exhorted Charles Albert,
who had just succeeded to the throne, to undertake the liberation of Italy.
The boldness and self-confidence displayed in this production was admired
by the cervelli bollenti of the day ; and the exiles and refugees, whose dis-
appointment was recent and who were smarting under persecution, were
predisposed towards one whose counsels
were uttered with oracular authority,
and who cheered them with new and
undefined hopes.
Mazzini soon became the acknow-
ledged centre of the new sect, of which
the establishment was contemporary
with that of "Young France" and
"Young Germany," and which was
intended to transform and assimilate
those already in existence, and to give
them unity of purpose and command.1/
SASSONE ON MAZZINI AND " YOUNG
ITALY "
To reconstruct a nation* torn and
bowed down under the most enervating
of clerical and monarchal despotisms
requires first of all the creation of citi-
zens and the organisation of a large
and strong association based on national
right. An association depending on
the entire people and opening up to
them at the same time a larger horizon
than the miserable position they had
occupied in the peninsula — such was
the generous idea which fermented in
the head of Mazzini, that great exile of Italian independence, when he
took up at Marseilles his idea already elaborated during his captivity at
Savona and founded the society and paper of " Young Italy." It was under
the influence of the same principles, and driven by his unshakable faith in the
future of Italy, that he, with several friends devoted like himself to the pop-
ular cause, undertook to develop the intelligence of poor Italian workmen
in London.
The statutes of the new society destined to replace the Carbonari, and
created by Mazzini and a group of exiles, was based on national law and
[! Shortly after the July Revolution of 1830 Mazzini, having been entrapped by a govern-
ment spy into the performance of some trifling commission for the Carbonari, was arrested and
imprisoned in the fortress of Savona on the western Riviera. " The government was not fond,"
so his father was informed, "of young men of talent, the subjects of whose musings were
unknown to it." After six months' imprisonment Mazzini was acquitted of conspiracy, but
was nevertheless exiled from Italy. — MARRIOTT. «]
GIUSEPPE MAZZINI
(1808-1872)
588 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1831 A.D.]
accessible to all Italians. By its strong popular organisation it was destined
to keep the Austrian forces in perpetual check over the whole peninsula
until the day of help. And thus by the simplicity of its resources it would
defy the surveillance of a most vigilant police. Religious ideas and patriotic
thoughts were blended and confounded in the thoughts of this apostle of
Italian liberty. They might be summed up in two words — Dio e popolo.
The object of Young Italy was inscribed on its national banner of red,
green, and white : on one side it bore the words, " Liberty, Equality,
Humanity ; " on the other, "Unity, Independence."
All initiates into Young Italy were obliged to pay into the society's funds
a monthly contribution of fivepence, or more, if they were able.
When initiated each new associate had to pronounce the following
promise in the presence of the initiator :
" In the name of God and Italy ; in the name of all the martyrs of the holy Italian cause
who have fallen under the blows of foreign or native tyranny : by the duties which bind me
to my country, to the God who created me, and to the brothers God has given me ; by the
innate love in all men for the spot where his mother was born and her children have lived ;
by the shame I feel before citizens of other nations in having neither the name nor the
rights of a citizen, neither national flag nor fatherland ; by the memory of ancient power ;
by the consciousness of present abjection; by the tears of Italian mothers over sons dead on
the scaffold, in dungeons, or in exile ; by the misery of Italian millions : believing in a God-
sent mission to Italy and the duty of every Italian born man to contribute to its accomplish-
ment; convinced that wherever God has wished a nation to be there the necessary forces
exist to create it — that the people are the depositary of this force, and in the guiding of
this force by the people and with the people rests the secret of victory — I adhere to Young
Italy, an association of men holding the same faith, and I swear :
" To devote myself entirely and forever to constituting a national Italy, one, independent,
free, and republican ; to help in every way my associated brothers; now and forever (Ora e
sempre) ; I also swear, calling on my head the anger of God, the horror of men, and the
infamy of perjury, if ever I venture to betray all or part of my oath."
The arrangement of degrees was as simple as possible. Rejecting the
interminable hierarchy of Carbonarism, the society had only two degrees :
initiator and initiated. A central committee resided abroad to league them-
selves together as much as possible with democratic foreign elements, and
generally to direct the enterprise. Signs of recognition between the affiliated
were suppressed as being pre-eminently dangerous. The order word, a cut
card, a special handshake, sufficed to accredit those travelling for the central
committee to provincial committees and reciprocally. These signs of recog-
nition were renewable every three months. A cypress branch (in memory
of martyrs) was the symbol of the society. The general word of order,
Ora e sempre, alluded to the constancy necessary to the vindication of Italian
right sJ
FYFFE'S ESTIMATE OF MAZZIKE
At a time not rich in intellectual or in moral power, the most striking
figure among those who are justly honoured as the founders of Italian inde-
pendence is perhaps that of Mazzini. Exiled during nearly the whole of his
mature life, a conspirator in the eyes of all governments, a dreamer in the
eyes of the world, Mazzini was a prophet or an evangelist among those whom
his influence led to devote themselves to the one cause of their country's
regeneration. No firmer faith, no nobler disinterestedness, ever animated the
saint or the patriot; and if in Mazzini there was also something of the
visionary and the fanatic, the force with which he grasped the two vital
conditions of Italian revival — the expulsion of the foreigner and the estab-
lishment of a single national government — proves him to have been a thinker
INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES 589
[1831 A.D.]
of genuine political insight. Laying the foundation of his creed deep in the
moral nature of man, and constructing upon this basis a fabric not of rights
but of duties, he invested the political union with the immediateness, the
sanctity, and the beauty of family life. With him, to live, to think, to hope,
was to live, to think, to hope for Italy; and the Italy of his ideal was a
republic embracing every member of the race, purged of the priestcraft and
the superstition which had degraded the man to the slave, indebted to itself
alone for its independence, and consolidated by the reign of equal law. The
rigidity with which Mazzini adhered to his own great project in its com-
pleteness, and his impatience with any bargaining away of national rights,
excluded him from the work of those practical politicians and men of expe-
dients who in 1859 effected with foreign aid the first step towards Italian
union ; but the influence of his teaching and his organisation in preparing
his countrymen for independence was immense ; and the dynasty which has
rendered to united Italy services which Mazzini thought impossible, owes to
this great republican scarcely less than to its ablest friends. &
SYMONDS ON THE PROBLEMS AND THE LEADERS
Though the spirit infused into the Italians by Mazzini's splendid elo-
quence aroused the people into a sense of their high destinies and duties,
though he was the first to believe firmly that Italy could and would be one
free nation, yet the means he sanctioned for securing this result, and the
policy which was inseparable from his opinions, proved obstacles to states-
men of more practical and sober views. It was the misfortune of Italy at
this epoch that she had not only to fight for independence, but also to decide
upon the form of government which the nation should elect when it was
constituted. All right-thinking and patriotic men agreed in their desire to
free the country from foreign rule, and to establish national self-government.
But should they aim at a republic or a constitutional monarchy? Should
they be satisfied with the hegemony of Piedmont ? Should they attempt a
confederation, and if so, how should the papacy take rank, and should the
petty sovereigns be regarded as sufficiently Italian to hold their thrones ?
These and many other hypothetical problems distracted the Italian
patriots. It was impossible for them, in the circumstances, first to form the
nation and then to decide upon its government; for the methods to be
employed in fighting for independence already implied some political princi-
ple. Mazzini's manipulation of conspiracy, for instance, was revolutionary
and republican ; while those who adhered to constitutional order, and relied
upon the arms of Piedmont, had virtually voted for Sardinian hegemony.
The unanimous desire for independence existed in a vague and nebulous
condition. It needed to be condensed into workable hypothesis; but this
process could not be carried on with the growth of sects perilous to common
action.
The party of Young Italy, championed by Mazzini, was the first to detach
itself, and to control the blindly working forces of the Carbonari movement
by a settled plan of action. It was the programme of Young Italy to estab-
lish a republic by the aid of volunteers recruited from all parts of the penin-
sula. When Charles Albert came to the throne, Mazzini, as we have seen,
addressed him a letter, as equal unto equal, calling upon the king to defy
Austria and rely upon God and the people. Because Charles Albert (who,
in spite of his fervent patriotism and genuine liberality of soul, was a man
of mixed opinions, scrupulous in his sense of constitutional obligation,
590 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1831-1846 A.D.]
melancholy by temperament, and superstitiously religious) found himself
unwilling or unable to take this step, the Mazzinisti denounced him as a
traitor to 1821, and a retrogressive autocrat.
In his exile at Geneva, Mazzini now organised an armed attempt on Savoy.
He collected a few hundred refugees of all nations, and crossed the frontier
in 1883. But this feeble attack produced no result beyond convincing Charles
Albert that he could not trust the republicans. Subsequent attempts on the
king's life roused a new sense of loyalty in Piedmont, and denned a counter-
body of opinion to Mazzini's. The patriots of a more practical type, who
may be called moderate liberals, began, in one form or another, to aim at
achieving the independence of Italy constitutionally by the help of the Sar-
dinian kingdom. What rank Sardinia
would take in the new Italy remained
an open question.
The publication of Vincenzo Gio-
berti's treatise, 11 Primato morale e civile
degli Italiani, in 1843, considerably
aided the growth of definite opinion.
His utopia was a confederation of
Italian powers, under the spiritual
presidency of the papacy, and with the
army of Piedmont for sword and shield.
This book had an immense success. It
made timid thinkers feel that they
could join the liberals without sacrific-
ing their religious or constitutional
opinions. At the same date Cesare
1T~ M / ^ ^^ ' Balbo's Speranze d1 Italia exercised a
I ati* ' ^^^ somewhat similar influence, through
its sound and unsubversive principles.
In its pages Balbo made one shrewd
guess, that the Eastern question would
decide Italian independence.
Massimo d'Azeglio, who also was a
Piedmontese ; the poet Giusti, the baron
Ricasoli, and the marchese Gino Cap-
poni in Tuscany; together with Alle-
COUNT DI CAVOUB sandro Manzoni at Milan, and many
(1810-1861) other writers scattered through the
provinces of Italy, gave their weight
to the formation of this moderate liberal party. These men united in con-
demning the extreme democracy of the Mazzinisti, and did not believe that
Italy could be regenerated by merely manipulating the insurrectionary force
of the revolution. On political and religious questions they were much
divided in detail, suffering in this respect from the weakness inherent in
liberalism. Yet we are already justified in regarding this party as a suffi-
cient counterpoise to the republicans ; and the man who was destined to give
it coherence, and to win the great prize of Italian independence by consoli-
dating and working out its principles in practice, was already there.
The count Camillo Benso di Cavour had been born in 1810, two years
later than Mazzini. He had not yet entered upon his ministerial career,
but was writing articles for the JRisorgimento, which at Turin opposed the
Mazzinistic journal Coacordia, and was devoting himself to political and
INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES 591
[1846 A.D.]
economical studies. It is impossible to speak of Mazzini and Cavour with-
out remembering the third great regenerator of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi.
At this date he was in exile ; but a few years later he returned, and began
his career of popular deliverance in Lombardy.
Mazzini the prophet, Garibaldi the knight-errant, and Cavour the states-
man, of Italian independence, were all natives of the kingdom of Sardinia.
But their several positions in it were so different as to account in no small
measure for the very divergent parts they played in the coming drama.
Mazzini was a native of Genoa, which ill tolerated the enforced rule of
Turin. Garibaldi came from Nice, and was a child of the people. Cavour
was born in the midst of that stiff aristocratical society of old Piedmont
which has been described so vividly by D'Azeglio in his Ricordi. The
Piedmontese nobles had the virtues and the defects of English country
squires in the last century. Loyal, truthful, brave, hard-headed, tough in
resistance, obstinately prejudiced, they made excellent soldiers, and were
devoted servants of the crown. Moreover, they hid beneath their stolid
exterior greater political capacity than the more genial and brilliant inhabit-
ants of southern and central Italy.
Cavour came of this race and understood it. But he was a man of excep-
tional quality. He had the genius of statesmanship — a practical sense of
what could be done, combined with rare dexterity in doing it, fine diplo-
matic and parliamentary tact, and noble courage in the hour of need.
Without the enthusiasm, amounting to the passion of a new religion, which
Mazzini inspired, without Garibaldi's brilliant achievements, and the idolatry
excited by this pure-hearted hero in the breasts of all who fought with him
and felt his sacred fire, there is little doubt that Cavour would not have
found the creation of United Italy possible. But if Cavour had not been
there to win the confidence, support, and sympathy of Europe, if he had not
been recognised by the body of the nation as a man whose work was solid
and whose sense was just in all emergencies, Mazzini's efforts would have
run to waste in questionable insurrections, and Garibaldi's feats of arms
must have added but one chapter more to the history of unproductive
patriotism.
While, therefore, we recognise the part played by each of these great
men in the liberation of their country, and while we willingly ignore their
differences and disputes, it is Cavour whom we must honour with the title
of the maker of United Italy.
POPE PIUS IX AND HIS LIBERAL POLICY
From this digression, which was necessary in order to make the next
acts in the drama clear, we now return to the year 1846. Misrule had
reached its climax in Rome, and the people were well-nigh maddened, when
Gregory XVI died and Pius IX was elected in his stead.1 It seemed as
[* " Pius IX had a heart and mind of sufficient calibre to comprehend the line of conduct he
must follow in the midst of these circumstances. He hoped to realise gradually in his own terri-
tory and to second elsewhere all that the present asked for, but not to let himself be dragged
further. " It will take ten years," he said, " for the national and political spirit to penetrate the
masses." He worked for this end from the first day with his minister Gizzi. He called upon
the municipal and ecclesiastical bodies for the best means of inspiring popular education ; he
established commissions to investigate the condition of all branches of the administration, but he
took care to meddle with nothing that directly concerned politics. The respect and sympathy of
popular opinion encouraged Pius IX' s work. Following his example the other sovereigns took
up reforms. But what Pius IX lacked was promptitude of resolution and the assistance of men
practical enough to carry out the aspirations of his heart. — ZELLER.*]
592 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1846-1848 A.D.]
though an age of gold had dawned ; for the greatest of all miracles had
happened. The new pope declared himself a liberal, proclaimed a general
amnesty to political offenders, and in due course granted a national guard,
and began to form a constitution. The Neo-Guelfic school of Gioberti
believed that their master's Utopia was about to be realised.
Italy went wild with joy and demonstrations. The pope's example proved
contagious. Constitutions were granted in Tuscany [February 11, 1848],
Piedmont [March 4th], and Rome [March 14th]. The duke of Lucca fled,
and his domain was joined to Tuscany. Only Austria and Naples declared
that their states needed no reforms. On the 2nd of January, 1848, a liberal
demonstration at Milan served the Austrians for pretext to massacre defence-
less persons in the streets. These Milanese victims were hailed as martyrs
all over Italy, and funeral ceremonies, partaking of the same patriotic char-
acter as the rejoicings of the previous year, kept up the popular agitation.
On the 12th of January Palermo rose against King Ferdinand II, and
Naples followed her example on the 27th. The king was forced in February
to grant the constitution of 1812, to which his subjects were so ardently
attached. 0
CHAPTER XX
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY
[1848-1866 A.D.]
The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the strong
monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent forces of revo-
lution. Whenever either one side or the other, yielding to the in-
fluence of its individual sympathies or prejudices, failed to recognise
that thus only, by the essential logic of events, could the unity of the
country be achieved, the entire edifice was placed in danger of falling
to the ground before it was completed. When Garibaldi stood on Cape
Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in a glory not that of Welling-
ton or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland or the Cid Campeador ;
the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their tents, of the wild horse-
men of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound seas ; a solar myth,
nevertheless certified to be alive in the nineteenth century — Cavour
understood that if he were left much longer single occupant of the
field, either he would rush to disaster, which would be fatal to Italy,
or he would become so powerful that, in the event of his being
plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more ardent apostles of revo-
lution into opposition with the king of Sardinia, the issue of the con-
test would be by no means sure. To guard against both possibilities,
Cavour decided to act. — COUNTESS
ONLY two powers, a spiritual and a worldly, the Jesuits and the Austrians,
seemed to stand in the way of attaining Italian unity. Consequently the
glowing hatred of the Italians directed itself against both. " Evvivas "
for Gioberti, the enemy of the Jesuits, and " Death to the Germans "
(Tedeschi) against Austria, mingled with the cries of acclamation for " Pio
nono." Irritation in the commercial dealings between Italians and Austrians
in Padua, Milan, and the whole of upper Italy, mockeries, jests, scornful
songs, and threats against the " Germans," associations to repress tobacco
and the lottery, in order to diminish the Austrian income, hostile demonstra-
tions, and insulting agreements, increased the bitterness and anger of both
nations to such a degree that the Austrian soldier lived in the cities of the
Lombardic-Venetian kingdom as in the land of an enemy. Tumults and
insulting demonstrations resulted in sanguinary scenes, so that the Austrian
government finally declared martial law in Lombardy, in order to be able to
put down the excitement and rebellion by force.
The February revolution of 1848 in Paris, incited those states in which
military and revolutionary revolts were already under way to new efforts,
and brought the fermentation to an outbreak in other states where the
excitement had not yet ripened into action. In Italy the ideas of independence
i. w. — VOL. ix. 2 Q
593
594 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1848 A.D.]
and national unity which had so long appeared in literature came to the sur-
face and aroused the revolutionary spirits. When Charles Albert, king of
Sardinia and Piedmont, without an actual declaration of war, sent his army
into Milanese territory and drew his sword against Austria, the whole penin-
sula was seized by the warlike movement. Not only were the Italian gov-
ernments carried away by the force of public opinion to send troops and to
preserve a constitutional attitude ; armed troops of volunteers also marched
into the field so that the whole land of the Apennines was under arms against
Austria.
Soon a double trend of opinion became perceptible ; whereas Mazzini and
his associates urged a popular war and republican institutions, the more
moderate sought to establish national independence under the cross of
Savoy, in conjunction with the constitutional king Charles Albert. The
latter tendency prevailed after some wavering ; in Milan and Venice the
union with Piedmont was resolved upon. The princes of Parma and Modena
who had allied themselves with Austria had to leave their states ; even the
grand duke of Tuscany, although giving way to the national and independent
impulses, had to surrender his land to democrats and republicans for a short
time. The pope also agreed to a constitution and appointed a lay ministry
with advanced views ; nevertheless the government and the body of popular
representatives were to concern themselves only with the worldly and politi-
cal matters of the papal state.
THE WAR BETWEEN NAPLES AND SICILY
A state of war of insupportable animosity and irritation reigned over the
whole of the Subalpine dual monarchy, when the February revolution of
1848 in Paris threw a firebrand into this inflammable material. In 1847,
Metternich is said to have written to the field-marshal Radetzky : " It is not
easy to fight larvas and fantastic shapes and yet this is our ceaseless war-
fare, ever since the appearance of a liberal pope upon the scene." These
larvae and fantastic shapes were now to gain body and substance.
In Sicily, where already a provincial government under the leadership of
a few heads of the nobility like Ruggiero Settimo, Peter Lanza, Prince of
Butera, etc., had taken charge of public affairs in Palermo and other places,
negotiations with King Ferdinand, with Lord Minto as an intermediary,
led to no agreement. A union of the two kingdoms, which according to the
"ultimatum" of the Sicilians could have its only bond in the person of
the monarch, was in opposition to Ferdinand's desire for rule. Accordingly
Sicily held to its outspoken independence from Naples and rejected every
approach to an understanding with King Ferdinand II.
The Sicilian national representatives, divided into two chambers, elected
the popular and respected noble Ruggiero Settimo, as president of the pro-
visory government, and on April 13th adopted the resolution : " The throne
of Sicily is declared vacant. Ferdinand Bourbon and his dynasty are for-
ever removed from the Sicilian throne. Sicily shall be governed constitu-
tionally and as soon as its constitution has been revised an Italian prince
shall be called to the throne." When Ferdinand, under the stress of events
before Verona and in Rome, allowed himself to be moved by reactionary in-
fluence to dissolve the chambers of deputies on the very day of their opening
uon account of their assuming illegal authority and exceeding their limits of
power," when he suppressed an uprisal of the militia and of the radicals by
his Swiss guards and by the unloosed populace in a barricade battle, and, as
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 595
[1848-1849 A.D.]
Queen Caroline had done fifty years before, gave up the well-to-do popula-
tion of his capital to the murderous and plundering greed of crowds of laz-
zaroni, then the cloth which had covered the two kingdoms was completely
torn asunder. The frivolous, uneducated, and powerless people of Naples
endured the hard yoke of military despotism and of a reactionary camarilla ;
but Sicily held all the more firmly to the exclusion of the Bourbons and pro-
ceeded to elect a new king after the new constitution had been rapidly re-
vised in favour of democratic views. After many proposals, in which foreign
influences also had a hand, the highest state authorities, the government,
senate, and commune, united in the resolve to call the second son of Charles
Albert, Prince Albert Amadeus of Savoy, duke of Genoa, to be the constitu-
tional king of Sicily. But the fate of the beautiful, unfortunate island was
not yet fulfilled, the sanguinary drama not yet played out. The news of the
election reached the royal camp when the star of the Italian army was already
in the descendant.
Charles Albert consequently declined the crown for his son in order not
to incense France or England against him. Ferdinand, however, swore to
preserve the integrity of his kingdom and took measures to subjugate the
island from the citadel of Messina [Sept. 7th-9th], where there was a strong
and well-equipped Neapolitan garrison. There now broke out a civil war
full of horror, and with scenes of wild barbarity, patriotic heroism, and
fanatic passion. General Filangieri, an energetic warrior from the time
of Murat, bombarded Messina, so that thousands of dead bodies lay in the
streets, many houses were burned, and the greater part of the surviving
inhabitants sought safety and protection on the foreign ships in the harbour.
From that time on Ferdinand II was designated as "King Bomba."
After some time a truce was brought about through the intervention
of France and England. In April, 1849, however, the war broke out anew.
A numerous company of foreigners, commanded by the Pole, Mieroslawski,
came to the aid of the Sicilians, but the military training and the better
equipment of the Neapolitan mercenaries, especially of the Swiss, carried the
day in the battle of Catania (April 6th, 1849).
On May 14th the Neapolitan army made its entry into Palermo, the
capital of Sicily, and the unfortunate island, over which the tricoloured flag
had waved for more than a year, became again enchained to the military
dominion of the Bourbons. The heads of the provisory government, all of
them men of culture and of noble birth and character, sought refuge among
strangers. Filangieri, elevated to the rank of duke of Taormina, became
governor of Sicily.
REVOLT AGAINST THE POPE ; ROME A REPUBLIC
In the papal states, the enthusiasm for the pope declined when he did
not satisfy the exaggerated demands quickly and completely enough, and
when he earnestly rejected the desired declaration of war against Austria as
incompatible with his position and religious dignity. Even the expulsion
of the Jesuits, who were oppressed and threatened in all the Italian states,
and the maintenance of a constitution as the " fundamental principle for the
worldly rule of the papal state," did not succeed in winning back his former
popularity. The celebrated allocution in a consistory of cardinals, with the
determined declaration that he would not wage war with Austria, was gen-
erally interpreted as the beginning of a reactionary change. What was the
position, then, of the Roman troops and volunteers under the able general
596 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1849 A.D.]
Durand which the liberal government had sent to join the army of fighters
for independence across the Po? They were looked upon as rebels until
Pius himself placed them under the protection of Charles Albert.
The allocution was the first backward step from the flag of national
uprisal. Pius IX, therefore, soon became as much an object of hatred and
enmity on the part of the patriots as he had before been their idol. In vain
did he nominate the liberal champion Mamiani as president of the ministry,
a position which as yet only clericals had
held, and the historian Farini as under secre-
tary of state ; the feeling that the head of
the church had been faithless to the national
cause alienated the hearts of the Roman
people more and more. He also had to
endure the mortification of having his peace
proposals rejected by Austria, proud over
her new successes at arms. The reactionary
coup d'Stat in Naples was regarded as the
direct result of the allocution, and influ-
enced the popular passions more and more
against spiritual rule.
The clever Italian Rossi of Carrara, who
had once taught law in Geneva, and had then
occupied an influential position in Paris with
Louis Philippe and Guizot, and had executed
important diplomatic missions, was called by
Pius IX to form a constitutional ministry,
in order more tightly to seize the reins of
government which threatened to slip out
of the weak hands of the princes of the
church. But, by his energetic measures
against the increasing anarchy, Rossi so
drew upon himself the hatred of the Roman
democrats that at the opening of the cham-
bers he was murdered on the steps of the
senate on the very spot upon which Caesar
once fell.
Thereupon the unrestrained populace,
led by the democratically inclined Charles
Lucien Bonaparte, surrounded the Quirinal
ONE OF THE ENTRANCES TO ST. PETER'S, and forced the pope, through threats, to
ROME name a radical ministry, in which the advo-
cate Galletti and the old democrat Sterbini
had the greatest influence, next to Mamiani who had been recalled. From
that time law and order disappeared from the holy city. The chamber of
deputies was without power, and became so weakened by the withdrawal
of many members that it was scarcely competent to form legal resolutions ;
the democratic popular club, together with the rude mob of Trastevere,
controlled matters. Many cardinals withdrew ; Pius IX was guarded like a
prisoner.
Enraged at these acts and threatened as to his safety, the pope finally
fled to Gaeta, in disguise, aided by the Bavarian ambassador Count Spaur.
Here he formed a new ministry and entered a protest against all proceed-
ings in Rome. This move procured at first the most complete victory for
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 597
[1849 A.D.]
the republican party in the Tiberian city. A new constitutional assembly
was summoned, which in its first sitting deprived the papacy of its worldly
authority, established the Roman republic, and resolved to work for the
union of Italy under a democratic-republican form of rule. A threat of
excommunication from the pope was met with scorn by the popular union.
A provisory government under the direction of three men undertook the
administration of the free state, while the constitutional assembly laid hands
on the church lands in order to form small farms out of them for the
poor, and Garibaldi organised a considerable militia out of insurrectionary
volunteers and democrats.
Garibaldi of Nice (born July 4th, 1807) was a bold insurrectionary leader
who had wandered about in America and elsewhere as a political refugee for
a long time, and who, on his return to
his native country, had taken an active
part in the struggle of the Piedmontese
and Lombards against Austria. The
unfortunate outcome of the renewed
war in upper Italy, which had brought
a large number of refugees to Rome,
and the arrival of Mazzini, who for so
long had been the active head of the
" young Italy " party and the soul of
the democratic propaganda, increased
the revolutionary excitement in Rome.
The union of revolutionary forces de-
termined the powers protecting the
papal states, whose help the pope had
summoned, to common action and armed
intervention.
THE FRENCH RESTORE THE POPE
While the Austrians after severe
battles took possession of Bologna and
Ancona, the Neapolitans from the south
entered Roman territory, and a French
army under General Oudinot, the son
of the marshal, landed in Civita Vecchia
and surrounded Rome, which was in
a state of intense excitement. It was
in vain that the French declared they came as friends, to protect order
and legal liberty, to prevent Austrians and Neapolitans from occupy-
ing the papal state and its capital, and to forestall a counter revolution in
favour of a reactionary and clerical movement ; the democrats rejected the
proffered hand of peace and propitiation, and prepared an obstinate opposi-
tion to the attacking enemy. The first assault of the French failed, May 2nd,
1849. After a brave fight against the insurgents, who were well placed and
well armed, Oudinot, with severe losses, had to retreat to the sea and await
reinforcements. In order to separate their opponents the triumvirs then
entered into negotiations with the French general and decided on an eight
days' truce, which Garibaldi made good use of to attack the Neapolitan
troops near Velletri and drive them back over the border (May 19th).
Oudinot now began a new attack. But this time also they met with such
GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI
(1807-1882)
598 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1848-1850 A.D.]
determined resistance at the Pancrazio gate and in other places that they did
not finally gain possession of the city, under treaty, until after weeks of
sanguinary fighting (July 3rd). The barricades were at once cleared, the
provisory government dissolved, and a foreign military rule established.
Garibaldi with his faithful followers climbed over the Apennines and
after a thousand dangers and adventures escaped in a little boat to Genoa and
from there to America. Of his companions the greater part fell into the
hands of the Austrians ; some of them were shot, others imprisoned in
Mantua. Mazzini escaped to Switzerland, and when he was driven out from
thence went to England where he continued his agitations. Pope Pius
remained for a long time in his voluntary exile, and persevered in his
anger towards the ungrateful city. Not until April, 1850, did he return.
Quiet was preserved in Rome by a French garrison ; only the bands of
robbers who roamed through the country under desperate leaders bore testi-
mony to the deep decay of social organisation, and to the impotency of the
government.
REVOLUTIONS IN TUSCANY AND ELSEWHERE
The grand duke Leopold of Tuscany succeeded for a long time in keeping
the favour of his subjects, by his liberal reforms, by banishing the Jesuits,
and by taking part, although forced to do so, in the war against Austria.
But here also the radical agitation finally succeeded in undermining the
soil and in effecting the summoning of a constitutional assembly. By the activ-
ity of the demagogues public affairs soon fell into anarchy so that the
grand duke found himself obliged to leave Tuscany with his family. The
former ministers appeared at the head of the provisory government. In
Leghorn the associates of Mazzini fanned the revolutionary fire. When the
flames were too high, however, the conservative party put forth its strength
and effected a revulsion of feeling. A moderate liberal government, under
Gino Capponi, the Ricasoli brothers and others, took charge of affairs and
invited the grand-duke, who had been residing in Gaeta, to return. He
hesitated for some time until the Austrians under General d'Aspre had occu-
pied Leghorn and the republican party had lost. Then only did Leopold
re-enter his capital, Florence, and re-establish the old order (July 27th, 1849).
Duke Francis V of Modena, who had absolutistic inclinations, and Duke
Charles of Parma, who had assumed the reins of government only a short
time before, both of whom had placed themselves under Austrian military
supremacy, did notjsucceed in withstanding the March storms. They left
their states and attached themselves to Austria. Radetzky's entry into
Milan was for them also the day of return.
CHARLES ALBERT'S WAR WITH AUSTRIA
The most remarkable change in affairs was taking place in upper Italy.
Charles Albert, king of Piedmont and Sardinia, a man with no steadfastness
of character, had paid for the liberal sins of his youth by absolutism, but had
then, in accordance with the spirit of the time, raised the flag of Italian
nationality and independence, had granted a liberal constitution and
summoned a patriotic ministry. He now thought the appropriate moment
had come to gain the favour of the Italian people and the possession of the
united kingdom of Lombardy and Venice, together with the dominion over
Italy by a warlike incursion upon Austrian territory. United with the
Lombards who had arisen against the Austrians after some hesitation,
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 599
[1848 A.D.]
established a provisory government, and after an obstinate battle in the
streets March 18th, 1848, and at the barricades of Milan lasting for several
days had obliged the gray-headed field-marshal Radetzky to retreat with his
troops ; in alliance with the Venetians, who, after the liberation of their
capital through the capitulation of the Austrian count Zichy, had joined the
general national uprisal and supported by countless volunteers ( Crociati) of
middle Italy, Charles Albert marched against Mincio, advanced to the north-
ern borders of Italy, and, after the victorious encounter at Goito (April 8th,
1848), threatened Peschiera, which with Verona, Mantua, and Legnago formed
the celebrated " Quadrilateral " of fortification. Everywhere waved the
tricoloured flag ; most of the cities, with the exception of the strongholds
of Mantua and Verona, joined the insurgents. The war took on the charac-
ter of a crusade. The priesthood, from the newly appointed bishop of Milan
down to the lowest brother, worked for the national cause, for the inde-
pendence of Italy, and gave to the revolution the blessing of the church.
But soon the situation changed. On the 6th of May a sanguinary battle
took place at Santa Lucia in which the Austrian army maintained the field
against the enemy. The encounter at Santa Lucia was a turning-point in
the war. Charles Albert began to doubt as to his reaching his end by arms
and hoped to get better terms from the oppressed court at Vienna through
the intervention of England. The source of the war between Adige and
Mincio strengthened the king in his desire for peace. On the llth of June
the field marshal forced the city of Vicenza to surrender after a sanguinary
battle, while the king of Piedmont occupied Rivoli, a place famous in the
history of war, and undertook the siege of Mantua. The papal troops and
volunteers were allowed free exit. At this time Garibaldi arrived in Charles
Albert's camp in order to take part in the war of independence. The Italians
fought for freedom and nationality ; the Austrians for dominion and military
glory.
On the 25th of July, on a hot summer day Count Radetzky gained a
victory at Custozza which established Austria's military glory in the most
brilliant fashion. The aged field marshal then advanced rapidly into Lom-
bardy, driving before him the enemy, who were again conquered at Goito
and Volta, and at the beginning of August he stood at the gates of Milan.
Threatened by the mob and reviled and persecuted as a traitor, Charles
Albert had left the city under the cover of night and accepted the armistice
of Vigevino (August 9th, 1848) which he owed more to the generosity of
the victor than to the intervening diplomacy of foreign powers. Radetzky,
as gentle and humane as he was brave and powerful, stained his victory by
no cruelty. A wholesale emigration made Milan a deserted city. Continued
hostile demonstrations in the Lombard city made the measures of the Aus-
trian governor more severe. Troops were quartered in the houses of the
patriots; the palaces of prominent emigrants were turned into barracks,
contributions were exacted, property of the nobles was confiscated. On
the day after the conclusion of the truce Peschiera surrendered to General
Haynau.
Thereby, however, the war between Sardinia and Austria was not con-
cluded. The events in Vienna filled the Italians with new hopes ; the efforts
abroad to effect a peaceful solution between Piedmont and Austria came to
nothing ; the proposed congress in Brussels did not assemble ; only a final
decision by arms could dampen the inflamed spirits. Charles Albert, reviled
by the people, pushed by the radicals, threatened by the republicans in his
rulership, led astray by wounded princely pride, in his desperation formed
600 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1849 A.D.]
the resolution to again try the fortune of war. In March (1849) a large
Sardinian army, in which were several Polish leaders, crossed the Lombard
border in order to make a second attempt to drive the Austrians out of Italy.
But the sanguinary victories of the Austrian army at Montara and Novara
March 23rd, 1849, put a quick stop to these undertakings and shattered the
hopes of the Italian patriots.
CHARLES ALBERT ABDICATES : VICTOR EMMANUEL II SUCCEEDS
Charles Albert, despairing of his success but holding the feeling of his
military and princely honour deep in his heart, abdicated in favour of his son,
Victor Emmanuel II, fled from the land of his fathers and in distant Portugal
sought a resting place for the short re-
mainder of his days. He died in the
firm belief that the power and future
of Italy rested in the Piedmontese
dynasty. 9
Charles Albert, great only in mis-
fortune, was not unworthy of magnan-
imous treatment and was now very
willing to receive it. He had risked
all to redeem the word pledged to the
fatherland, and his plans of ambition
and aggrandisement were frustrated
and shattered, his sword and courage
completely broken. Italy, both repub-
lican and reactionary, had left him
alone on the place of election with his
people ; he feared and mistrusted the
F]
'rench Republic; he must have been
tired of all the fine counsels, empty
promises of England. He awaited
death with calmness, and devoutly per-
formed the last duties of the Catholic
Christian ; on the afternoon of the
26th of July, 1849, he succumbed to
a third stroke of apoplexy.
The impression wrought by his
death was that of an expiation, a sac-
rifice to the fatherland ; his remains
were brought to Genoa on the Pied-
montese war vessel Monzambano. His body was worshipped as that of a
martyr and saint, and thousands followed it to its grave on the lovely sum-
mit of Superga, eastward of Turin.
Besides his rare patience and courage, Charles Albert possessed no
prominent intellectual qualities ; if in the one sense he was a brave soldier, he
also proved himself a very indifferent general. As a prince he had good
intentions, but was wanting in all application, desire for instruction, and in
determination to such a point that cunning and dissimulation were indis-
pensable to him. Nevertheless he was a man, and the great dangers, the
deep suffering which he had to undergo for a cause also borne by the noblest
of the people, conciliated and glorified his memory ; thus he left his successor
and his state a very promising but weighty legacy. *
VICTOR EMMANUEL II
(1820-1878)
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 601
[1849 A.D.]
The young king Victor Emmanuel concluded a truce March 26th, 1849,
with the victorious field marshal, but this aroused so much disfavour through-
out the country that the chamber of deputies refused to ratify it and a
revolt broke out in Genoa. Not until the treaty had been cancelled and
the revolt put down by force, did the people succumb to the inevitable.
The new chambers later confirmed the peace with Austria, which placed a
freat burden of debt on the country to pay for the expenses of the war.
rom that time the Sardinian kingdom advanced on the way of liberal
reform and healthy internal development.
VENICE FAILS TO ACQUIRE FREEDOM
Only Venice, on account of the unconquerable security of its position,
was able to resist the Austrian besieging army for months longer and to
defy all attacks and attempts at conquest. Not until all hope of a happy
outcome of the war had disappeared, after the defeat of the insurgents in all
places, and not until the city had been reduced to a state of greatest misery
through distractions within, and the enemy without, did Venice surrender
to the Austrians under treaty. On August 30th, 1849, the field marshal
made his triumphal entry into the city of lagoons. Manin, who had borne
the greatest part in the heroic defence of Venice, fled to France, where,
rejecting all proffered aid, he supported himself as an instructor in lan-
guages. The former dictator of Venice and the former prisoner of Spiel-
berg, Pallavicino Trivulzio were the founders and creators of the Italian
national union, in which the republicans and constitutionalists, in the fifties,
rallied around the cross of Savoy for the liberation and union of the father-
land. Manin was not to live to see the day of Italy's independence. He
died on September 22nd, 1857. Ten years later his ashes were transported
Venice and buried in his liberated native city.
After the fall of Milan and Venice the double eagle spread its wings once
more over the kingdom of Lombardy and Venice ; in middle and upper Italy
the banners of the legitimate rulers were once more erected and the Italian tri-
colours had a place only in Sardinia. Pius IX proclaimed his deep repentance
for his sins of liberalism. However much foolhardiness and blind passion
the Italian revolution may have brought to light, one point cannot be
denied : — the honour of the nation was rescued. For centuries the object of
the scorn and contempt of other nations, the Italians showed that they also
knew how to bear arms ; and although this time also it was no less their own
lack of order than the military superiority of their opponents which caused
their surrender, yet by this uprisal the hope was awakened and strength-
ened that for them also the day would dawn, upon which national unity and
legal freedom would lay the foundation of a happier and more worthy
popular life.
After the defeat of their attempt to obtain liberty the patriots recognised
the necessity of a closer union with the Sardinian-Piedmontese royal house,
under the flag of which the organisation of a united Italy could alone be
hoped for. This idea was seized by no one with greater zeal than by the
former dictator of Venice, Daniele Manin, during his exile in Paris.
By means of pamphlets and newspaper articles, in union with Pallavicino,
he sought to prepare his countrymen for a fresh national uprisal under the
cross of Savoy. A propaganda of which "the head was Manin, the arm
Pallavicino " worked for the realisation of the principle : " Independence and
unity under Victor Emmanuel, king pf Italy." The fruit of this national
602 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1854-1857 A.D.]
movement was the Italian national union. Manin did not live to see its
result, but his ideas kept gaining new followers. In La Farina the patriotic
club obtained a more active and fiery co-labourer. Introduced to Cavour
by Pallavicino, the active Sicilian undertook the role of mediator between
the minister and the national union.
The propositions of Cavour, though not given the sanction of the con-
gress, were made the programme of all the reform parties in the Italian
peninsula. Piedmont which numbered, including Savoy and the island
from which the kingdom took its name, scarcely five million inhabitants,
could hope to form one member of the great Italian federation only after it
had succeeded in breaking the rule and influence of Austria. All attempts
to free Italy by force of arms having hitherto met with ill-success it was
seen that Austria must first be spiritually undermined and weakened before
recourse was again had to the sword. When Austria, setting its faith ac-
cording to custom in the power of the bayonet and the influence of the
clergy, sought to keep the people in subjection by means of spiritual press-
ure and a carefully organised police, Sardinia followed exactly the opposite
course and weakened the power of the clergy, introduced greater political
freedom and endeavoured in every way to win the confidence of the Italian
people. Reforms were instituted in the system of taxation, foreign traffic
and commerce were encouraged, the number of convents was reduced, and
freedom of the press was allowed. In all these measures Cavour, as minister
of commerce, was the moving spirit. The army was strengthened in impor-
tant points, the fortification of Alexandria was begun, and the land defences
all over the kingdom were placed in a state of readiness.
In March, 1854, the despotic voluptuary Duke Charles III of Parma, who
hated democrats and patriots and mistrusted all people of culture, was mur-
dered in the open street, and two years later the prison-director Cereali, and
the war-auditor Bordi, both objects of popular hatred, were assassinated
in the same manner. Most terrible of all was the situation in Naples and
Sicily, that part of the world fashioned by nature to be a paradise, but
turned by man into a place of damnation. Ferdinand II made use of the
years of European reaction to stamp out every inclination toward freedom
and equal rights among his people, to fill the prisons with his political adver-
saries and to carry on all over his realm, a rule of despotism in which the
spy-system, and judicial and official tyranny came to full luxuriance of
growth. The king witnessed from his balcony the placing in chains by a
special flogging-committee, of the political prisoners who numbered, it is
said, from first to last 22,000.
In November the former member of parliament, Baron Bentioigna, headed
an insurrection to force the readoption of the constitution of 1812, but he
was defeated by the king's troops and afterwards shot with many of his
companions. In December the life of the king was attempted by a Mazzin-
ist soldier. Armed bands, united in a secret society called the " Camorra,"
perpetrated robbery and murder through all the land. Not daring to remain
longer in the capital the king moved with his family to the castle of Caserta,
which he kept closely guarded, allowing entrance to none but his most inti-
mate friends. The presence of Mazzini in Genoa in the summer of 1857
brought the excitement over the whole peninsula up to fever-heat and led to
several serious attempts at insurrection in Leghorn, Naples, and Capri.
These insurrections were suppressed, but the causes of the discontent still
remained, and the rebellious spirit was only the more ready to assert itself
again at the first favorable opportunity.
THE LIBEBATION OF ITALY 603
[1857-1859 A.D.]
LOUIS NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTION
That war between Sardinia and Austria was merely a question of time
became apparent to everyone toward the end of the fifties. Fortunately for
Sardinia, Austria's position was an isolated one owing to the enmity which
her attitude during the Crimean War had won for her from Russia, and her
inborn jealousy and distrust of Prussia. The many-headed German confed-
eration was not in a position to interfere in political questions of world-
importance, and it was Napoleon's most earnest endeavour to reconcile
Russia with France and Sardinia that a restoration of the alliance which had
received its death-blow in the Crimean War might be made impossible for
the future. It was not long before Russian men-of-war were to be seen in
the Mediterranean, and Napoleon's efforts on behalf of France were no less
successful. The cautious emperor Napoleon might not have been so ready
to champion the weaker side had it not been for the attempt on his life made
by Orsini, as described in volume XIII.
The emperor had once held close relations with the Italian patriots, had
even been a member of an Italian secret society, and now, regarded by his
former associates as a traitor to their cause, he was condemned by them to
death. In February a letter written by Orsini was made public in which he
adjured the emperor to restore to Italy the independence it had lost in 1849
through France's fault ; to free it forever from the Austrian yoke. " With-
out Italian independence," the letter closed, " the peace of Europe, even your
majesty's own safety is but an empty dream. Free my unhappy fatherland
and the blessings of twenty-five million people will follow you into the next
world."
On the 13th of March Orsini and Fieri perished on the scaffold, the two
remaining accomplices having been deported to America. The courage with
which Orsini met death, and the love of country he manifested up to his last
breath aroused universal sympathy. What Orsini living had failed to bring
about, he accomplished dead. While the murderous attempt was made the
pretext for robbing France of all freedom by means of the security law of
the 28th of January, Napoleon in conjunction with Cavour — who with artful
smoothness calmed his imperial associate's anger toward Italy, the hotbed of
conspiracies — proceeded to carry out the wishes of Orsini.
Several weeks later Cavour held a secret conference with Napoleon at
which plans regarding Italy were perfected. "Italy to be free as far as
Adria ; the whole of upper Italy to be united in a kingdom, France to be
enlarged by the annexation of Savoy," these were the terms agreed upon in
the interview. It was further proposed that the bond between the two
reigning houses should be made still firmer by the betrothal of Prince Napo-
leon Bonaparte with Clotilde, the daughter of Victor Emmanuel.1
AUSTRIA DECLARES WAR : MAGENTA AND SOLFERINO
In 1859 war was brought close in sight by Victor Emmanuel's announce-
ment at the opening of the chamber of deputies in Turin that Sardinia
could no longer remain insensible to the cries for help that were arising on
all sides. Austria proceeded at once to strengthen her army, to place the
whole of Lombardy under martial law, and by every means possible sought
to secure her power and possessions in Italy. Austria was severely blamed
[J According to Bulled Cavour had higher plans for Clotilde's marriage, but yielded for
diplomacy's sake.]
604 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1859 A.D.]
by the neutral powers for beginning hostilities, and it seemed as though with
the death of Field Marshal Radetzky Austria's military star had set forever.
To Franz Gyulay, a member of the Hungarian nobility who had filled many
offices but had in none of them given proofs of marked ability, fell the com-
mand.
By shameful inactivity the Austrians allowed the Sardinians time to
concentrate their 80,000 men around the fortress of Alessandria, where they
were joined in May by several divisions of French troops, Garibaldi, mean-
while, with his " Alpine hunters " guarding the foot of the mountain whence
he could harass the right wing of the Austrians and support the operations
of the main army. The popularity of his name drew volunteers to his ban-
ner in flocks, and his appearance in the northern lake-region aroused the
wildest enthusiasm among the people. • About the middle of May Napoleon
himself arrived in Italy; although he left the actual lead to able and experi-
enced generals, he took his place at the head of the troops.
Count Stadion, sent out to reconnoitre with 12,000 men, came upon the
French near Montebello May 20th, 1859, and was forced to retreat. The
battle of Magenta followed, June 4th, in which the victory fell to the French.1
The bravery of the Austrians in this engagement, although they suffered
from the greatest lack of necessary equipments, excited the admiration even
of the enemy. Never did the defects of the Austrian administration become
so glaringly apparent as during the campaign in Italy. Lombardy was the
prize at stake in this battle of Magenta. Gyulay, incapable of rallying his
scattered forces for a new attempt, immediately gave orders for a general
retreat. Milan was evacuated in the next two days so hastily that the
movement bore the character of a flight, the fortifications around Pavia and
Piacenza were blown up, and the army of occupation was recalled from all
its garrisons.
On the 8th of June, Napoleon, at the side of Victor Emmanuel, made a
triumphal entry into Milan, where he addressed the people in high-sounding
speeches, the Austrians, meanwhile, continuing their retreat as far as the
Mincio, where they took up a new position in the middle of a quadrangle of
fortifications, Peschiera, Verona, Mantua, and Legnago.
The misfortunes that had befallen Austria confirmed and strengthened
Sardinia in its ideal of Italian unity, and helped to bring about the fall of the
lesser Italian sovereignties. In April the archduke Leopold of Tuscany had
been forced to leave Florence and place himself under the protection of
Austria. A provisory government was established under the protectorate
of the king of Piedmont. But this arrangement did not meet Napoleon's
views. His secret design was to give the Tuscan throne to his cousin, Louis
Napoleon, the son-in-law of Victor Emmanuel, that there might gradually
grow up in Italy a circle of states tributary to France which would hinder
the dream of Italian unity from ever being realised.
Unionist enthusiasm had already burned too high, however, for political
or diplomatic schemes to avail against it. All over the land the flag of united
Italy was raised, and conjunction demanded with Sardinia. Bologna declared
itself free from the pope and invoked the dictatorship of the king of Sardinia.
Many other cities of the pontifical state followed this example, indeed the
greater part of the pontifical possessions would have fallen away from Rome
[! The losses were considerable on both sides ; on the French side there were 246 officers
and 3,463 men dead or wounded ; and 735 missing. The Austrians had 281 officers, 3,432 men
dead or wounded, and 4,000 missing. But the result of the battle was to open Milan to the
French. —
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 605
[1859 A.D.]
had not the terrible storming of Perugia by the pope's Swiss guard spread
such dismay that Ancona, Ferrara, and Ravenna for a while remained true.
When Austria became convinced that from neither Prussia nor Germany
was help to be expected, it determined to try again single-handed the for-
tunes of war. Following the example of Napoleon the emperor Francis
Joseph led his troops in person, and the incapable Gyulay was allowed to
sink into oblivion. But even under the new leaders Austria's operations
were not crowned with success ; the second encounter with the allied troops
which took place beyond the Mincio
resulted in a defeat for the Austri-
ans — once more on account of seri-
ous strategical errors.
Napoleon, informed of the weak
points of this position, sent his
main column against the defective
centre which occupied a hill near
Solferino. After a murderous bat-
tle, June 24th, 1859, the height
was captured by the French, de-
spite the heroic resistance of the
Austrians, and the imperial army
was divided into two parts. A
second blow struck by Napoleon
near Cavriani met with a like suc-
cess, the Austrian leaders having
issued conflicting orders that
brought the troops into much con-
fusion. Benedek, who had twice
repulsed the Sardinians near San
Martino, continued the battle sev-
eral hours after it was practically
lost to the Austrians ; then a severe
storm came up which enabled them
to retire in good order. In this
engagement Marshal Niel distin-
guished himself above all the other
leaders on the French side. It was
a bloody day, with a loss of 13,000
resulting to the Austrians. On the
side of the allies the loss was even
heavier owing to the greater peril
to which they had been exposed in
attacking the height. The victory of Solferino was a fresh leaf in the laurel-
crown of France, and contributed not a little to confirm Napoleon in posses-
sion of the throne.
For various reasons Napoleon, a man of caution and^ self-control, deter-
mined to soften as much as possible the sting of defeat to his humiliated foe,
and despatched to Francis Joseph proposals of truce which were accepted and
confirmed at Villafranca. Three days later a personal meeting took place
between the emperors at which the preliminaries of peace were arranged.
Napoleon represented earnestly to the young Francis Joseph how isolated
Austria stood among the nations. It was agreed that Lombardy should be
ceded to France with the exception of Peschiera and Mantua, that Italy
PILGRIM AT ST. PETERS, ROME
606 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1859 A.D.]
should form a confederacy of states under the general direction of the pope,
and that the restoration of the sovereigns of Tuscany and Modena, stipulated
by Austria, should take place unhindered. For the final settlement of these
points, plenipotentiaries from both realms were to meet at Zurich.
The terms of peace agreed upon at Villafranca, and ratified in all essential
respects at Zurich, dealt the death-blow to Austria's influence in the Apen-
nine peninsula, and laid the foundation, to an extent far exceeding Napoleon's
expectations, for the national unity of Italy. The rest could be left in the
hands of the Italians themselves. Far from restoring their former masters
to the throne the subjects of the expulsed or fugitive princes hastened to con-
firm in a general assembly the disposition of the old dynasties, and annexed
themselves to Sardinia.
THE PAPACY VS. UNITY
We have seen how, before the battle of Solferino, Modena and Parma as
well as Tuscany had declared in favour of union with Piedmont. After the
Peace of Villafranca the states south of the Po united under Garibaldi in a
military league which had for object the
repulsion of all attacks from without and
the hindrance of all attempts at restora-
tion on the part of the particularists and
reactionists within. Even Bologna and
a great part of the Romagna withdrew
from the pontifical state and petitioned
Victor Emmanuel to take them under
his protection. This request was not
refused however hot might be the wrath
of the holy father. Under the leadership
of D'Azeglio the necessary steps towards
union with Sardinia were taken through-
out Romagna, and by New Year of 1860,
a specially established ministry deliber-
ated on the affairs of the new-fledged
state of middle Italy, to which was given
the name of Emilia, from the old Via
^Emilia of Rome.
Neither the curses of the Vatican nor
the wrath of the ul tramontanes all over
Europe could retard in the least degree
the march of events. Although the
confederation decided upon at Villafranca
and Zurich was never made a fact, owing
to the disinclination of Austria and the
pope to institute the necessary reforms,
the neutral attitude maintained by Eng-
land and France yet materially assisted
Italy to realise her dream of national
unity. Towards the end of 1859 a
pamphlet published in Paris entitled Pope and Congress first startled the
world with the thought that it was time the temporal power of the pope
should cease, that his rule ought hereafter to be confined to the precincts of
Rome itself. This naturally threw the whole Catholic world in an uproar,
and elicited from the pope repeated violent denunciations, yet in the course
RUINS OF A TEMPLE OF MINERVA
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 607
[I860 A.D.]
of time the idea became an accomplished fact. Napoleon had never forgotten
that the holy father had refused him consecration at the time of his coronation.
The union of the middle Italian states with Sardinia was the forerunner
of all those " annexations " which was soon to transform completely the
character of the peninsula. Napoleon was willing to permit the expansion
of the upper Italian kingdom provided Savoy and the countship of Nice be
ceded to France. From the time of Cavour's resumption of his place in the
ministry in January, Napoleon and the crafty minister exerted every art
known to diplomacy to bring about the end they had in view. At last in
March, 1860, the popular vote was obtained which gave Savoy and Nice to
France and made Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Roman legations a part
of the kingdom of Sardinia. The pope excommunicated all who had taken
part or even connived at this despoliation of Rome ; but the papal bull, once
so formidable a weapon, had in the course of time lost much of its early
terrors. The 2nd of April witnessed the opening of the first Italian parlia-
ment, in which were representatives not only from Sardinia and Lombardy,
but from Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the Roman legations. " Our father-
land is no longer the Italy of Rome," declared the crown speech, "nor of
the Middle Ages ; neither shall it be the arena wherein shall meet for com-
bat the ambitions of all nations. Now and forever it is the Italy of the
Italians."
GARIBALDI DRIVES THE BOURBONS FROM SICILY
With the Peace of Zurich and the " annexation " that followed closed
the first act in the drama of Italy's freedom. The way had been paved
thereto by the conviction that had gained ground among the cultivated
classes since 1848 that only by a union of the whole country under the con-
stitutional monarchy of Sardinia could any stable and permanent national
position be obtained. To accomplish this end all the revolutionary and
nationalist forces made common cause, and chose as their scene of action the
kingdom of Naples and Sicily, which had lately passed into the hands of
Francis II, the inexperienced son of Ferdinand II. The French and Rus-
sian ambassadors had in vain endeavoured, after the Peace of Villafranca,
to bring about an alliance between Naples and Piedmont, thinking thus to
frustrate all the efforts of the revolutionists ; but the policy of tradition,
which persisted in placing trust in Austria, prevailed even with the new
king. By his refusal to espouse the cause of Italian unity Francis II
precipitated the fall of the Bourbon dynasty and the dissolution of the
Neapolitan-Sicilian kingdom.
The project of attacking a kingdom that had at its command a well-
organised military force of 150,000 men was indeed a bold one ; but tyranny
had prepared the ground for the operations of the secret societies, and the
indifference with which the warnings of the French and Russian ambassadors
were received, together with the dismissal of the Swiss mercenaries, robbed
the throne of its strongest and most trustworthy support at the precise
moment when Garibaldi and his associates had planned to strike a decisive
blow.
On the 6th of May Garibaldi set sail with 1,062 volunteers from Genoa
without suffering any hinderance from the Sardinian authorities, and on the
llth of May landed at Marsala, on the west coast of Sicily. To the protest
of the king of Naples and of the German courts against the impunity allowed
a band of "sea-robbers," Turin made reply that since the expedition was
a private enterprise undertaken by Garibaldi and his associates, the Pied-
r
608 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[I860 A.D.]
montese authorities had no right to interfere. Before Garibaldi's departure,
however, Cavour had written to Persano : " We must support the revolu-
tion, but it must have all the appearance, in the eyes of Europe, of a volun-
teer enterprise."1
After Garibaldi had disembarked with his immediate followers he with-
drew to the mountains and gathered about him, near Salemi, the scattered
fragments of his volunteer corps. On the 14th of May, when the number
of men had increased to 4,000 he issued a proclamation in which, in the name
of Victor Emmanuel, king of
Italy, he declared himself dicta-
tor over the realm of Sicily.
After several successful en-
counters with the king's troops
Garibaldi pressed towards the
capital by way of Calatafimi and
Misilmeri, keeping his confeder-
ates informed of his movements
by means of watch-fires at night.
On the 27th of May he stood be-
fore Palermo and immediately
gave the signal for attack. In
a few hours the city, whose popu-
lation had risen with one accord to
support the invaders, had nearly
passed into the hands of Gari-
baldi, when General Lanza, who
had been despatched to the island
by the young king with an im-
portant force, caused the city to
be so heavily bombarded by the
citadel and ships of war in the
harbour, that the next day more
than half of it lay in ruins. By
the intermediary of the English
admiral a truce was arranged
which ended with the withdrawal
of the Neapolitan troops and ships, and the delivering over of the city to
the revolutionists.
Almost incalculable were the effects of these events in Palermo. By
them the monarchy was shaken to its base and the name of Garibaldi car-
ried into every corner of the world. At the court of Naples confidence was
totally destroyed. In vain the king sought to prop his tottering throne by
restoring the constitution of 1848.
Six weeks after the victory at Palermo the " dictator " Garibaldi set sail
for Messina without having fulfilled the expectations of Turin that he would
announce the annexation of Sicily to Sardinia. In three days he took the
fortress of Milazzo, and shortly after the commander of Messina effected
P "La Farina and his National Society opened up a way — the helper was the government
but the help came from a private person so the government was not involved. The proof of this
is to be found in the letter of La Farina to Count Cavour written from Bristo Arsizio and dated
April 24th, 1860, in which Farina told the minister that the cases (of arms) which were expected
from Modena had not reached Genoa or the station at Piacenza and deplored this delay, the reason
of which he did not know. The cases arrived the same day at Genoa and news of them was
telegraphed. Letter book No. 595 to La Farina by the vice-governor." — BERTOLINI.C]
LAY CAPUCHINE FRIAR
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 609
[I860 A.D.]
a truce by the terms of which the city, with the exception of the citadel,
was to be evacuated by the Neapolitan troops. Europe learned with aston-
ishment of the first rapid successes of the great agitator, but his exploits
on the mainland were to excite still greater wonder. His further progress
through the southern part of the peninsula was one long triumph ; nowhere
was resolute opposition offered him. On the 5th of September he arrived
at Eboli, not far from Salerno. The very name of Garibaldi exercised
a potent spell over the people ; to them he appeared as the instrument of
God on earth, the discharger of a providential mission.
On the 6th of September Francis II left Naples and withdrew, with the
40,000 men who still remained to him, to the fortresses of Gaeta and Capua.
The day following Garibaldi made his formal entrance into Naples in the
midst of the acclamations of the people. He established a provisory gov-
ernment, but still deferred sending news of annexation to Piedmont. The
leaders of the radical parties had filled the popular demi-god with distrust
against the policy of Cavour and it was not until he was joined by Palla-
vicino, the martyr of Spielberg, that he again made common cause with the
unionists. The foreign powers preserved a strictly neutral attitude through-
out, and Napoleon's efforts to effect the united intervention of France and
England failed before the determined resistance of Palmerston and Russell.
While these events were in progress the excitement of the Italian people
reached fever-heat. The fall of the Bourbon dynasty in Naples, which was
now seen to be imminent, would make the union of the Apennine peninsula
under the sceptre of Victor Emmanuel almost an accomplished fact. The
boast of Garibaldi that from the Quirinal itself, its national capital, he would
announce the birth of the United Italian kingdom, found an echo in the
hearts of the people who made it apparent in every way that they would be
satisfied with no less a victory. But the papal government at Rome opposed
threats of excommunication to every effort of the French emperor towards
reform, and a cry of horror arose from the devout all over Europe at the
danger to which religion would be exposed should there be any further
encroachments upon the temporal power of the pope.
There were thus but two ways left open to Napoleon ; either to allow the
Italian revolution to have free play, in which case Garibaldi would without
doubt make an end of the temporal supremacy of the pope and select Rome
as the capital of the Italian kingdom, or to permit an alliance between Gari-
baldi and Victor Emmanuel whereby a natural limit would be placed to the
revolution, and the danger that Mazzini and the " Action " party might gain
the upper hand would be removed. Napoleon chose the latter course.
There is little doubt of his having sent word to the king that the latter
might add Umbria and the Marches to his realm, and send his forces to
occupy Naples provided he would leave Rome to the occupation of the
French. However this may be, in the early days of September two divisions
of the Sardinian army, under the minister of war Fanti and General Cialdini,
drew near the border of the papal states.
The entrance of the Piedmontese troops was the signal for a general
uprising of the people. In Pesaro, Montefeltre, Sinigaglia, and Urbino pro-
visory governments were established, and deputations were sent to Turin.
The Sardinian field-marshal laid before General Lamoriciere and the papal
court the demand that the people should be allowed to follow their will in
all the papal states ; this being rejected with indignation General Fanti
advanced into Umbria, while Cialdini proceeded to the occupation of the
Marches. On both sides great bravery was shown, but the papal troops
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2R
610 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1860-1861 A.D.]
were finally defeated and put to rout. Lamoriciere fled with only a handful
of followers, to Ancona which was obliged to surrender, after having been
besieged by Cialdini on the land side and by the Sardinian admiral Persano
from the sea. A few days later Victor Emmanuel arrived in Ancona and
assumed command in person of all his forces.
The intention of the king in taking over the command of the army had
been to effect, in conjunction with Garibaldi, the conquest of the kingdom of
Naples. The attempt on the part of the volunteers to press forward as far
as Capua had been balked by their defeat at Cajazzo. Although the open
and straightforward revolutionist leader had little liking for Cavour, the
man of devious ways and unidealistic views, he felt himself drawn by many
common qualities towards the king in whom he beheld the " liberator " of
Italy. Thus it was not difficult for his friend Pallavicino to induce him
to adopt for his watchword, " One undivided Italy under the sceptre of the
house of Savoy." When Victor Emmanuel took up his position at the head
of the united troops in Sessia, Garibaldi laid at his feet the dictatorship of
Naples, and transferred to him the mission of making Italy free and giving
her a place among the nations of the earth. " I am ready to obey you, Sire,"
he said ; then, after riding into Naples at the side of the king and com-
mending his followers to the monarch's favour and protection, he retired to
a small property he possessed on the lonely island of Capri, refusing all
honours and rewards. This was the greatest moment in the agitated life of
the Italian patriot, the one in which he achieved the conquest of himself.
From now on, the war operations assumed a more definite character.
After the capture of Capua by the Piedmontese and Garibaldians, King
Francis, with the remnant of his best troops, was driven into the fort of
Gaeta, while Victor Emmanuel, after a visit to Palermo, took possession of
the double kingdom of Sicily and disbanded the Garibaldian troops, dismiss-
ing some of them to their homes and taking others into the Sardinian army.
Gaeta had now become the last bulwark of the kingdom of Naples and
the Bourbon dynasty. The valorous defence of the seaport town, during
which the unfortunate young queen Maria of Bavaria displayed remarkable
heroism, was afterward to constitute the one praiseworthy period in the
short regency of Francis II.
The appeals for help of the beleaguered Bourbon king to the different
powers of Europe failing to bring about any armed intervention, and his mani-
festos addressed to the Sicilian people resulting in no uprisings in his favour,
lack of food and ammunition finally compelled the king to capitulate. On
the 13th of February, 1861, he embarked on a French ship for Rome
where he resided for the next ten years, constantly supported by the hope
that his partisans in Naples would bring about a counter-revolution which
would reinstate him on the throne. The following month the citadel of
Messina also surrendered to General Cialdini.
With this event the kingdom of both Sicilies came to an end, and the
supremacy of the Bourbons was forever destroyed in the beautiful penin-
sula. On the 18th of February, King Victor Emmanuel assembled in Turin
about his throne representatives from all those states which acknowleged his
rule, and with their joyful acquiescence adopted for himself and his legiti-
mate descendants the title of "king of Italy." (Law of March 17th,
1861.) The protests of the dethroned princes as well as of the pope and
the emperor of Austria were received as so many empty words.
In this manner the impossible had been accomplished ; the various states
of Italy with the exception of Austrian Venice in the northwest and the papal
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 611
[1861 A.D.]
city of Rome with its surroundings, had been united into a single kingdom.
Cavour's statecraft, Victor Emmanuel's firmness and decision, Garibaldi's
patriot devotion, the political tact shown by the educated classes, had all con-
tributed to bring about the wonderful result ; and now that it had been
brought about, equally powerful factors would be needed to make permanent
the newly acquired possessions of freedom and unity.
A safe and satisfactory solution of the " Roman question " could be
attained only by gradually accustoming the Catholic world to the idea of the
separation of the spiritual power from the temporal. According to Cavour's
idea the papacy should be relieved from all obligations of worldly rule that
it might the better achieve the full glory of its special mission — the spiritual
guidance of Catholic Christendom. " A free church is a free state," was
the watchword of the question as understood by Cavour ; but an offer which
he made to the pope embodying those conditions was indignantly refused ;
it would be indeed a work of time to reconcile the Catholic world to the
idea of a church without territorial possessions.
THE DEATH OF CAVOUR AND THE REVOLT OF GARIBALDI
• Such being the condition of affairs the seditious utterances of a band of
agitators calling themselves "Italians of the Italians" caused Cavour no
little trouble and annoyance. Garibaldi himself, who had passed the greater
part of his life in arms against monarchical power, and who in his idealism
and self-sacrificing love of freedom and country was incapable of seeing
existing conditions exactly as they were, was not a stranger to some of these
new revolutionary movements. On the 20th of April, 1861, he appeared in
the Turin parliament to condemn the action taken in disbanding his army of
volunteers, and to protest against the treatment accorded some of his former
comrades-at-arms. He was finally pacified and induced to return to his
lonely island life by the persuasive representations of Cavour.
Shortly afterward, June 6th, 1861, occurred the death of Count Cavour,
the greatest statesman the world had seen since Cardinal Richelieu. He was
but fifty-one years of age, and his untimely end was undoubtedly brought
about by overwork and the feverish anxiety in which his later years were
passed. " For twelve years," he declared, " I have been a conspirator in the
cause of my country's freedom — a most unique conspirator ; I have avowed
my aim in parliament and in every court of Europe, and now at the last I
have for fellow-conspirators twenty-five millions of Italians." His life-work
had not quite reached completion, his last idea was little more than the vision
of a dream ; but he had at last the satisfaction of seeing his own creation,
the young kingdom of Italy, advancing on the road to maturity.^
The chief thought which had haunted him in the midst of his delirium
was the south. " Oh ! there is great corruption down there, but it is not
their fault, poor things. The country is demoralised but it is not by hurting
it that it will improve." And above all that the state should not force itself
upon it, nor impose upon it the means of absolute governors. This was the
chief thought of his brief illness and it was also his political testament. To-
day after many years the boundless faith placed by the great minister in the
salutary influence of liberty has been solemnly confirmed by the facts. The
south relinquished brigandage and accomplished the work of annexation
without ever veiling the statue of liberty.
The highest praise that can be given to Count Cavour was made by a
great statesman whose name was not less celebrated than that of the great
612 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1862 A.D.]
minister, Lord Palmerston. "The name of Cavour," he said before the
British parliament, " will always live, and will be embalmed in the memory,
in the gratitude, and in the admiration of the human race. The story of
which he is the ornament is truly wonderful, and the most romantic in
the annals of the world. We have seen a people under his direction and
authority wake up from the sleep of two centuries."0
It behoved Cavour's successor, Ricasoli, to follow closely in the footsteps
of his illustrious predecessor and confine his attention to the interior up-build-
ing of the state. He repeated Cavour's
attempt to negotiate with Rome for the
establishment of a free church in a free
state, but the Florentine statesman
was looked upon as almost a foreigner
by the papal advisers, and France
unqualifiedly rejected the intervention
he proposed. He resigned his office in
March, 1862, whereupon Rattazzi was
appointed head of the ministry.
The first official acts of the new
minister were to take back into the
army Garibaldi's former volunteers,
and to proclaim that the parliamentary
decree of March 27th, 1861, which
designated Rome as the future capi-
tal of the kingdom, must be carried
out. Garibaldi being summoned from
his island to assume the lead in all
these undertakings the "Action"
party were again fired with revolu-
tionary ardour. Not only Rome and
Venice were to be conquered, but all
the Italian-speaking populations of
the Tyrol and the other side of Adria
were to be united under the banner
of the new kingdom. Soon the tide
of agitation swelled so high that the
administration saw itself obliged to
take strong measures to protect the
country from a general war. Among
the most turbulent leaders who were
taken prisoners were many friends
and followers of Garibaldi.
It was a misfortune for Italy that no regular sphere of activity was offered
this devoted patriot in the interior administration of his country, where his
high and noble qualities might have been utilised without much power of
initiative being left to his defective political sense. He determined now to
repeat against Rome the course of procedure that had succeeded with Naples
two years ago. He set sail from Genoa and landed at Palermo where a large
force of armed volunteers crowded under his banner, thirsting to strike some
decisive blow that would shake from Italy the last survival of foreign rule,
and to win for the kingdom its natural capital. Inasmuch as a rumour was
spreading abroad which might find credence in foreign countries that the
administration was secretly shielding the undertaking, and as Napoleon him-
PEDLER, MODERN ROME
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 613
[1862-1863 A.D.]
self had threatened to occupy Naples if the Turin cabinet did not at once
take steps to crush the revolutionary movement, the king now issued a proc-
lamation declaring all men traitors to the flag of Italy who overstepped the
limits of the law and participated in any unwarrantable act of violence or
aggression.
Nevertheless, Garibaldi persisted in his design which was to " enter Rome
as a conqueror or die within its walls." On the 24th of August he landed
at Melito, and passing Reggio whose strong fortifications he did not venture to
attack, advanced at once into the Calabrian mountains. Meanwhile, General
Cialdini had despatched a division of the main army under Colonel Pallavi-
cini, in pursuit of the volunteers, and at Aspromonte a serious encounter
took place. Garibaldi, wounded and taken prisoner, together with many of
his followers, was brought back in a government steamer to Barignano, on
the Gulf of Spezia, where he endured a long and painful malady.1
FLORENCE BECOMES THE CAPITAL
After several fruitless attempts on the part of French diplomats to bring
about some kind of an understanding between the pope and Victor Emmanuel,
an agreement was entered into by France and Italy, according to which the
royal residence was to be transferred from Turin to Florence, and the French
troops of occupation were gradually to be withdrawn from Rome. With
the pope it was agreed that no hindrance should be placed in the way of the
organisation, by the papal authorities, of an army which should be suffi-
ciently large to support the authority of the holy father and to preserve peace
in the interior and on the borders, but not large enough to offer resistance
to the army of the king.
The provisions of this " September convention " aroused great dissatis-
faction in Turin. Let Rome be chosen as the national capital and no outcry
would be raised, but why should the Piedmontese be expected to make a
sacrifice in favour of Florence ? Sullen displeasure soon gave place to open
protestations and street excesses. Instead of trying to put down the dis-
turbance by mild measures the ministry made the mistake of using harsh
ones. A great number of rioters were killed or wounded. The distress of
the city, which had so long been loyal to himself and his house, pained the
king deeply ; and dissolving the present ministry he gave the formation of
a new one into the hands of General Lamarmora, a Piedmontese by birth.
Peace succeeded quickly upon this change, but the city was none the less
obliged to undergo its fate. During the following month parliament decreed
the transfer of the royal residence, and preparations were at once begun for
moving the court and all the paraphernalia of government to the ancient
city on the Arno. On the morning of the 3rd of February, without notice
or farewell, Victor Emmanuel left behind him his former capital and pro-
ceeded to Florence, where he was henceforth to have his abode.
Anger was felt in Rome that France and Italy should have held a con-
vention without seeking the co-operation of the pope. The latter, to show
how few concessions he was willing to make to modern ideas, shortly after
astonished the world by publishing an Encyclica and Syllabus in which, in
f1 The hero of Italy, like the heroine of France, risen from among the people to place the king
at the head of an emancipated nation, after having succeeded beyond all probability in the first
part of his undertaking, failed in the second, wounded and made prisoner as was Joan of Arc.
Conducted to the fort of Varignano, in the Gulf of Spezia, Garibaldi was the object of a universal
sympathy. Men disapproved of his perilous expedition ; but what he had attempted was, at
bottom, what all the world desired. An amnesty was granted by the king. — HENNEGUY,/]
614 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1863-1866 A.D.]
an array of maxims and admonitions, he condemned and cast aside as worth-
less all the attainments of modern times in the different fields of philosophy,
science, and religion. These remarkable expressions of belief, revealing as
they did a degree of enlightenment not far exceeding that of the Middle
Ages, made plain to the world how hopeless would be any attempt to come
to an understanding with the man who could frame them, and how unwill-
ing and morally incapable he was of recognising the rights and necessities
of present-day humanity.
The Italian chamber of deputies proceeded in its very next session to
institute further changes and reforms. Civil marriage was introduced, the
suppression of convents, as well as the secularisation of churchly possessions,
was decided upon, and the abolition of capital punishment was proposed.
In spite of the difficult financial position in which the kingdom was placed
as a result of the war of freedom in which it had been engaged, and the
expenses consequent upon its reorganisation, Victor Emmanuel declared his
readiness to assume a great part of the Roman debt provided the papacy
would give its recognition to the new state. This attempt met with the
same success that had attended all others : to every overture the pope opposed
his usual reply, " Non possumus." ff
THE WAR OF 1866 AND ANNEXATION OF VENICE
Italy still looked with hungry eyes at the rich Venetian territory which
still remained to Austria. In 1866 Prussia and Austria fell into disputes
which culminated in war, as described in the histories of Austria and
Prussia. In March, Prussia was glad to secure the alliance of Italy, prom-
ising to continue war until Austria gave up to Italy the whole mainland of
Venice except the city itself and the quadrilateral of fortresses. June 20th
Italy declared war on Austria, which sent an army of 180,000 into the penin-
sula, and 27 ships. Against these Italy raised 300,000 men as well as a fleet
of 36 vessels. The quadrilateral, however, gave the Austrians an excellent
base, as Bertolinic says, as well as a formidable bulwark. The Italians
lacked strategists, and though the king and Prince Humbert [Umberto] led
them, they met with no success. March 24th they were surprised with loss,
and at Custozza where, according to Bertolini,c they had only 52,000 men to
the Austrians' 75,000, they fought a drawn battle, but retreated after a loss
of 3,000 men and 4,000 prisoners. Garibaldi's volunteers, after some slight
success at Monte Suello July 3rd, were surprised and completely routed
at Vezza, July 5th. He retrieved his fortunes, however, at Ampola (July
16th-19th), Bezzea and Lardaro (July 21st), when word came of an armis-
tice. The navy was also badly defeated at Lissa, July 17th. Admiral
Persano on July 18th bombarded the Austrian shore batteries, but although
he succeeded in temporarily silencing most of the guns he was unable to
effect a landing. Two days later the Austrian fleet appeared in the harbour
and at once gave battle to the Italian fleet. In this fight the Italian admiral
seems to have lost his head completely, and to have given either conflicting
orders, or no orders at all. The result was a complete victory for the
Austrians.
The Prussians had, however, gone from victory to victory, finally reach-
ing the triumph of Sadowa, or Koniggratz, July 5th. Austria in despair and
in need of troops made Napoleon III a present of Venetia. The Italians felt
it an " ignominy " to accept Venetia as a gift from the French, but finally
terms were agreed upon with Austria direct, by which Italy received all the
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 615
[1866 A.D.]
Venetian provinces, and the Iron Crown of the Lombards, the freedom of
service of all Lombards in the Austrian army. Italy assumed the Lombardo-
Venetian debt of 64,000,000 francs and agreed to pay 35,000,000 francs to
Austria. October 19th, 1866, the Italian flag1 was hoisted on St. Mark's.
A plebiscite was taken and 647,384 citizens voted for the union under the
constitutional monarchy of Victor Emmanuel, while only 69 voted against
it. November 7th Victor Emmanuel made his formal entry into Venice
amidst great enthusiasm.^
l^34<
CHAPTER XXI
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY
[1867-1878 A.D.]
Italy in 1814 was scarcely aroused to a national consciousness; in
1849 that consciousness was a dominant fact. Out of Carbonari plot-
tings to mitigate the tyranny of local despots, out of the failures of
1820, '21 and '31, out of Mazzini's Young Italy, and the preachings of
Gioberti, had developed a strong and abiding desire not only for liberty,
not only for independence, but also for unity, without which these could
not endure. The idea of Nationality had sprung up in Italian hearts.
The race which had given Christendom a religion, which had expressed
itself in literature and in art and in science, and which had once led
the world in commerce and industry, this race had at length set itself
to win what it had hitherto lacked, — political freedom. Italy was to
be no longer a geographical expression, but a nation. — THAYER.&
THE minister Ricasoli, who had the good fortune to associate his name
with the union of Venetia to the kingdom of Italy, lived only a few months
after the conclusion of peace with Austria. He had decided to reopen nego-
tiations with the Roman court to determine at least those matters which had
a purely ecclesiastical character. To this end he sent Tonello to Rome to
treat on the business of the vacant episcopal seats. The affair was success-
ful from the point of view of the Italian government ; but it was not equally
so with regard to that of the interest of the country.
Encouraged by this success the minister composed a plan of laws in which
the relations of the church with the state were regulated upon the principle
of the entire independence of the two powers. This hybrid law managed
by Ricasoli with the ministers of finance and justice was presented to
the chamber on the 17th of January, 1867. Before it was pronounced the
country had expressed its discontent by means of the press. The Venetian
provinces protested in public reunions, but the government prohibited these
meetings. At the elections, however, the abstention of the clericals from
the voting brought in a majority of the new chamber for the party opposed
to the ecclesiastical law, and the minister, seeing the parliamentary party,
sent in his resignation which was accepted.
616
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY 617
[1867 A.D.]
Then Rattazzi reappeared upon the scene " like the doctor in extremis"
to use the phrase of Princess Rattazzi,c the author of his memoir. With
him there returned those seditious and equivocal circumventions which
again distressed Italy as the work of that fatal man. Borne upon the shields
of the party of action which regarded him as its mind, as it had looked upon
Garibaldi as its arm, he suddenly prepared for the work. And in the mean-
time while Sicily was a martyr to cholera and parliament was occupied in the
important business of the liquidation of the Ecclesiastical Act, the party of
action was agitating for hastening the solution of the Roman question. This
question, as aforesaid, entered upon a new phase after the departure of the
French from Rome and. a short time after the solution of the Venetian
question.
THE REVOLT OF GARIBALDI
The first announcement of the new proposals of the party of action was
a proclamation from Garibaldi, published in July of 1867, which invited
the Romans to rebel and the Italians to hold themselves in readiness to help
him. The agitation once created, it was increased and fomented by every
means ; and as the waves rose the words of the great patriot became more
ardent and violent. At Geneva at the council of peace, and at Balgirate
before a maddened multitude the hero incited them against "the covey of
vipers " which had made its nest at Rome ; and on the 16th of September
he published an address to Romans in which he promised them the aid of
100,000 youths "who feared they were too many to share the miserable
glory of expelling from Italy the mercenaries and jugglers." The deeds
followed the words. At Florence and other places secret preparations were
made for an armed expedition into the Roman states and many young men
were sent towards the frontier.
What was the government doing meanwhile ?
The words of the government were clear, but its deeds were obscure,
and in fact the orders given by Rattazzi to the political authorities were so
flaccid and vague that it would have been thought they were only a show,
and that the minister secretly approved the designs of Garibaldi. What a
difference between Cavour and Rattazzi ! With Cavour as an ally Garibaldi
made an epic, with Rattazzi a double tragedy. Two ways were open to
Rattazzi, either to act according to the declaration made in the official diary
of the 21st of September, or to act in the opposite way ; sooner a war with
France than a Mentana. He followed neither the one nor the other course
but steered between the two, and brought fresh disaster upon his unhappy
country.
When Garibaldi left Florence for Arezzo, to assume command of the
volunteers stationed on the borders, the government, which had let him go so
far, removed him from command and had him taken to the fortress of Ales-
sandria. But it did nothing to disperse the volunteers who had received
from Garibaldi himself the word of command to prosecute the undertaking ;
and soon afterwards terrified at his ardour the government sent the prisoner
free to Caprera, without even exacting a promise to remain quietly there,
thinking it was sufficient guarantee to have the island watched by a few
warships. Meanwhile a band of Garibaldians of about 200 men entered
Viterbo and there instituted a provisionary government under the name of
"committee of insurrection." At the same time two other companies passed
the frontier.
618 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1867 A.D.]
But grave news arrived at that time from France. The French journals
announced that preparations for a fresh Roman expedition were in progress
at the port of Toulon, and following this announcement there came a note
(October 19th) from the government saying that France would intervene
with her forces if the Italian government did not put a stop to the Gari-
baldian movement. And whilst the government was discussing the course
to take in such a contingency the news came that Garibaldi had fled from
Caprera. It was the coup de grace of the minister Rattazzi. The same
evening that Garibaldi arrived at Florence he sent in his resignation, and
the king deputed Cialdini to form a new ministry (October 20th). Now
followed the strange events which showed the embarrassment of the govern-
ment. On one side it strove by means of the marquis Pepoli to persuade
the emperor Napoleon that it was strong enough to suppress the Garibaldian
movement ; and on the other it let Garibaldi speak in public, stir the people,
and go to Terni to head the movement raised by him. The central com-
mittee of Florence became a true war committee, although it continued to
call itself one of succour, and it announced to all Italy in its proclamation
of the 22nd of October that the insurrection had broken out in Rome.
But the news was not true. The reported Roman insurrection consisted
in an attempt at rebellion by a hundred youths led by Cairoli, which, not
being seconded by the people, was easily quelled. The misfortune of the first
attempt did not quench the ardour of the patriots nor temper the audacity of
the leaders of the enterprise. A victory gained October 25th by Garibaldi
at Monterotondo over the papal troops fomented the enthusiasm of the
insurgent youths so that they feared no danger, nor were they checked by
any obstacle.
THE FRENCH INTERVENE AGAIN: MENTANA, OCTOBER 31ST
The dangers and obstacles increased immeasurably. After long vacilla-
tion the emperor seeing the impotence of the Italian government to end the
Garibaldian invasion had determined on French intervention in the Roman
state. Cialdini's attempt having failed, the king committed to General
Menebrea the task of forming a new administration. The new ministry
made known its intentions in a royal proclamation dated October 27th, in
which it repudiated the flag raised in the papal states, and invited the volun-
teers to enlist at once in the royal army. This proclamation aimed at a
double result, the crushing of the Garibaldian invasion and the prevention
of French intervention. But neither the one nor the other was achieved.
When the Italian government learned that the French had disembarked
at Civitavecchia, they then decided to intervene and the royal troops occu-
pied several places in the pontifical states. Although resolved to intervene,
the government thought it well to offer to Garibaldi an opportunity of retir-
ing with honour from an enterprise which, in the present state of affairs,
could not be carried on without useless bloodshed and the exposing of the
country to grave peril. But Garibaldi, far from accepting this anchor of
salvation, as soon as he knew that the French had landed at Civitavecchia
issued a proclamation to his followers encouraging them to remain intrepid
in the struggle and inviting them to unite with him at Tivoli so that the
unification of the country might be compassed by some means (October
31st). The volunteer column had scarcely passed Mentana when Garibaldi
received the news of a vigorous attack on his vanguard by the papal zouaves.
Hearing this the general returned to Mentana to avoid the danger of having
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY 619
[1867 A.D.]
his left flank turned and endeavoured to keep in his rear the rest of the
troops that were in the district (November 3rd). He did not go far before
the enemy appeared. Repulsed at the first attack, they shortly returned
with formidable reinforcements among which were 1,500 Frenchmen. The
volunteers could ill stand against an enemy so superior in numbers and
armed with good weapons. The chassepots did horrible execution. Gari-
baldi ordered a retreat, took leave of his followers, and, having taken steps
for disbanding the volunteer corps, he recrossed the frontier. The Italian
government ignorant of his intentions had him arrested and kept in custody
until the excitement had calmed down.
The chassepots had conquered ; the compact of September was destroyed ;
Rome was once more in the hands of the French, and Turin wept for a sac-
rifice which had been in vain. The royal troops commanded by Cadorna
remained in the pontifical territories, but the French minister having pro-
tested against this occupation, the government, not wishing further to aggra-
vate an already strained situation, ordered them to be recalled and the king
took advantage of this act of abnegation to send a letter to the emperor
Napoleon in which he conjured him, in the interest of the Napoleonic dynasty,
to break definitely with the clerical party and order the immediate recall of
the troops from Rome.
But Napoleon III was deaf to this advice, which was nevertheless wise ;
he would not break the hybrid union with the clerical party, and reaped
from it, as recompense, the union in the same grave of the papal monarchy
and the Napoleonic empire. The answer to Pepoli's letter was given by the
French minister of foreign affairs, Rouher, the faithful executor and inter-
preter of his masters' policy. In the discussion which took place in the
legislative assembly on the new expedition to Rome, this minister said that
the Italians had "never had Rome."
" We will show him his ' Never (Jamais)^ " exclaimed Victor Emmanuel
in good Piedmontese, and he was not satisfied until the petulant minister
had apologised for the unfortunate word, saying it had escaped him in the
heat of an impromptu speech.
The king asked the same Menabrea to form a new ministry under his
presidency. Of the old ministers seven remained. The truce, which by
tacit consent was now enjoyed, gave the new ministry an opportunity of
occupying themselves seriously with financial questions, which since the war
of 1866 had again become very grave. This war had in fact cost Italy six
hundred millions besides the debt contracted by the acquisition of Venetia ;
the forced tariff had raised the price of gold to fifteen per cent., causing grave
damage to private contracts, and to the state, which was obliged each year to
acquire gold for the payment of the interest of government securities abroad ;
and with the increase of the tax on gold had come the depression of Italian
consols, which had fallen to 36 per cent., and in consequence sinister rumours
were circulating in the country and abroad to the effect that Italy would
soon be bankrupt. In the midst of the lugubrious prognostications made
about her she displayed fresh activity and vigour; and in the act which
enabled her to support the new subsidies imposed by the diminished finances
of the state, she initiated a new era of economical prosperity, which was soon
to bring forth splendid and unexpected fruit.
The Florentine, Cambrai Digny, was then at the head of the financial
department. He made himself the defender of the threatened honour of his
country, and demanded that for great evils extreme remedies should be
employed.
620 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[186&-1869 A.D.]
THE ROMAN QUESTION RENEWED
While parliament was occupied with the financial question, the minister,
Menabrea, was working to induce the French government to put in force
again the September convention, and to recall her troops from Rome. The
Italian minister offered to guarantee to the pope perfect liberty for the
exercise of his spiritual power, and to assume for Italy a considerable part
of the pontifical debt. In guarantee of the serious nature of his offer, he
pointed to the elements of the authority to be henceforth recognised in the
kingdom, which would lead to the disappearance of all traces of agitation
and to the closing forever of the era of factious revolutions, of conspiracies and
of individual initiative. But the French government did not share these
rose-coloured visions of the Italian minister, and brought forward informa-
tion proving the existence of Mazzinian workings in the peninsula. Menabrea,
seeing there was nothing more to do, resigned his diplomatic position in the
chamber of deputies at the end of March, 1869.
No better effect resulted from another much more important attempt,
made this time by the king, Victor Emmanuel. Moved by the desire of
re-establishing with Napoleon III the friendly relations interrupted by the
events of 1867, and of assuring the preservation of peace in Europe, which
the strained relations existing between France and Prussia threatened to
disturb, he took the initiative of proposing a triple alliance between Italy,
France, and Austria, of which the fundamental condition was the evacuation
of Rome by the French troops, and the formal recognition of the principle of
non-intervention in Italian affairs. The three contracting powers would
then have acted together in all important questions of European politics,
guaranteeing reciprocally the integrity of their respective territories and
not taking any resolution of general importance without the consent of all.
But neither the persuasions of the emperor of Austria nor those of his cousin,
Prince Jerome, were able to influence Napoleon's decision. He held firm to
his refusal with regard to the evacuation of Rome, and as this was the
fundamental, the whole plan was abortive, and this on the eve of the Franco-
Prussian War.
The year 1868 was celebrated by the marriage of the crown prince to his
cousin Margaret of Savoy. The fiancee of Prince Humbert, an archduchess
of Austria, having died, the minister Menabrea proposed to the king the
granddaughter of the duke of Genoa as a wife for his son. The proposal
pleased the king and the prince, and on the 22nd of April the marriage was
celebrated. The new year opened with painful events, the application of the
tax on flour giving rise to tumults and seditious movements which obliged
the government to use measures of great severity. In Emilia and Roumania
scenes of bloodshed and destruction occurred. General Cadorna, sent to this
province to re-establish order, fulfilled his thankless task in such a way as to
merit the praise of parliament.
The agitation by which the country was disturbed in 1869, was the work
of the Mazzinians. Mazzini had proclaimed from London, " Italy must free
herself from a monarchy, since it has shown that it will not and cannot give
to Italy, either unity, independence, or liberty." And the disciples of the
prophet speedily translated the republican words into action, raising tumults
and discussions in all the principal cities of Italy. As we have seen, the
French government had given warning of the Mazzinian sect, deriving from
thence a reason for refusing the evacuation of Rome by the French troops. The
Mazzinians, to insure success, had endeavoured to corrupt the army, espe-
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY 621
[1870 A.D.]
cially making their insidious advances to inferior officers. A few allowed
themselves to be drawn into the trap and expiated their perjury with their
lives. The case of Corporal Barsanti aroused general interest. He was a
young man of twenty, the support and hope of his aged parents, but the
minister of war Govone declared that if the army were not to be demoralised
an example must be made, and Barsanti was shot August 27th, 1870, in the
neighbourhood of Milan. A few days before this execution Mazzini by
Govone's orders had been arrested in Milan and brought under a strong
guard to the fortress of Gaeta. With the removal of the chief, the repub-
lican agitation died away to give place to another and a very different one,
which was that of the restoration of Rome to Italy and the final fall of the
pope's temporal power.
PAPAL INFALLIBILITY PROCLAIMED (1869 A.D.)
The ministry of Lanza and Sella found itself from its birth face to face
with extraordinary circumstances, demanding the greatest secrecy on the
part of the Italian government if dangers and misfortunes were to be averted
from the state. The convocation of the Vatican council was fixed for
December 8th, 1869. In the speech from the crown, Victor Emmanuel had
expressed the hope that from this assembly would issue some expression
conciliating faith and science, religion and civil life. The assembly pro-
claimed instead the dogma of papal infallibility, thus setting the seal to the
antithesis between church and state. As with the preceding ministry so
with the new ; the financial question was their principal care. The Franco-
Prussian War broke out about the middle of July, 1870.
ROME TAKEN FROM THE POPE (1870 A.D.)
The ruin of the Napoleonic principality in 1870 removed half of the
obstacles which had hitherto prevented Italy from solving the Roman ques-
tion in a manner conformable to national interests. At the first French
reverses the imperial government had recalled the garrison from Rome,
declaring that they trusted to their loyalty for the faithful observance of tlje
convention of September 15th. This was a strange appeal to the loyalty of
the Italian government regarding what had been so disloyally set aside by the
imperial government. However, the minister Lanza kept faithfully to
the convention, impelled by a sentiment of noble honesty, so that it might
not seem that Italy had taken advantage of the powerlessness caused by the
defeats sustained by her ancient ally, to lay hands upon Rome. But when
the empire fell and was succeeded by a republic all causes for scruples van-
ished and the duty of the government to settle the Roman question for the
good of the nation could no longer be delayed.
In vain had Victor Emmanuel sent his envoy to Rome with an autograph
letter in which he appealed to the heart of the pope " with the affection of a
son, the loyalty of a king, and the soul of an Italian," that he would permit
the royal troops, already posted in the outskirts of Rome, to enter and
occupy such positions in the Roman territory as was necessary for the main-
tenance of order and the safe-guarding of the pontiff. Pius IX held firmly
to his refusal, saying he would yield to force but not to injustice.
Then it was necessary to resort to force. The government gave orders
to General Raffaele Cadorna to pass the borders with his troops, at the same
time informing the European governments, by means of a circular letter, of
622 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1870 A.D.]
the resolution taken and justifying its action by pointing out the impossi-
bility of reconciling Italy with papal Rome and the necessity of procuring
peace and security for Italy. The note then reassured the powers as to the
steps Italy would take for the safeguard of the pope's spiritual power so
that his liberty and independence might be complete. On September llth
Cardona entered the pontifical territories. On the 17th the Italian soldiers
were at Civitavecchia, and on the 19th under the walls of Rome.
But Pius IX had determined on his course of conduct and was resolved
to pursue it at any cost. His views were expressed in his letter written Sep-
tember 19th to General Kanzler, the commander-in-chief of the papal forces.
In it Pius IX ordered Kanzler to treat with the enemy on the slightest
breach of the walls of Rome "as the defence was solely to be sufficient
to serve as proof of an act of violence and nothing more." And so it hap-
pened ; at half -past five on the morning of September 21st the Italian sol-
diers opened fire between the Pia and the Sorlara gates and at the gate of
St. John and St. Pancras, and hardly was a breach made when the papal
troops ceased fire and hoisted the white flag on all the batteries. A messen-
ger was sent to Cadorna and it was speedily agreed that Rome should sur-
render all but the Leonine city,1 which should for the present remain under
the jurisdiction of the pope. Then the papal troops were awarded the hon-
ours of war, but were obliged to lay down arms and flags. The peasant
soldiers were sent back to their homes and all foreigners despatched to their
respective countries at the expense of the Italian government.2
THE PLEBISCITE
General Cadorna's first act was to nominate a provisional government
which should direct the affairs of the state until the people had decided
which form of government they wished to have. October 2nd was fixed for
the plebiscite. The people of the Roman provinces were called upon to
answer whether they wished to be united under the constitutional govern-
ment of Victor Emmanuel and his royal descendants. Out of 167,548
inscribed, 135,291 responded to the appeal ; the ballot gave 133,681 ayes and
1,507 noes. Thus the Roman people placed with their own hands the burial
stone on the kingdom of the popes.3
Victor Emmanuel in receiving the plebiscite declared that he was firmly
resolved to uphold the liberty of the church and the independence of the
sovereign pontiff. Thus was accomplished the last act of the redemption of
Italy. The generation which had in its youth beheld Italy downtrodden,
now in its maturer years had the joy of seeing her rise again a nation, free
and united. And whoever writes the history of this great event can add to
the ancient glories of liberty this new and more splendid triumph that under
her segis a nation arose and a principle made it one.
[! The bombardment lasted from 5:30 A.M. to 10:30 A.M., the white flag being hoisted at
10: 10. Reports of the losses vary greatly, Cadorna admitting 32 killed and 143 wounded on his
side, though the estimates ranged as high as 2,000 ; but Beauffortj/ thinks this a manifest exag-
geration. According to O'Clery^ the pontifical troops lost 16 killed and 53 wounded.]
[2 Few dates in modern European history equal in significance that of September 20th,
1870, when the Italian troops under General Cadorna took possession of Rome in the name of
the Italian nation, and completed at one stroke both the work of the Risorgimento and the
destruction of the temporal power of the Roman pontiff, d]
[3 O'Clery,^ however, calls the plebiscite a "disgraceful farce," comparing it with that by
which Napoleon III secured his vote. He points out that in Rome, where several thousands took
arms for the pope, only 46 voted for him. Beauffort? says that one foreign sculptor voted 22
limes without being challenged, and that whole bands went from urn to urn.]
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY 623
[1870-1871 A.D.]
This year so fruitful in events closed with another extraordinary fact, —
the offer of the Spanish crown to Prince Amadeo the second son of the
Italian king. Having obtained the consent of his august father the jroung
prince accepted a crown, which, offered to him under the most favourable
auspices, was soon to become a crown of thorns. Two years had scarcely
passed after his accession to the throne when as described in the history of
Spain the young king surrounded by traitorous ministers and generals
abdicated (February llth, 1873) having miraculously escaped an attempt to
assassinate him (February 18th, 1872).
Towards the end of 1870 Rome was visited by a terrible inundation
of the Tiber which submerged a great part of the city. The clericals
declared it to be the finger of God. Victor Emmanuel hastened to the scene
of the disaster bestowing on the unfortunate Romans the comfort of his
Sresence, his deeds, and his help. It is by such means that kings gain the
>ve of their people and kingdoms are fortified.
While Gadda was preparing in Rome the premises for the transfer of the
ministry, parliament was occupied with the law of the guarantees, thanks to
which the co-existence in Rome of the two powers and the two governments
each having complete liberty and independence of the other, was rendered
possible. This was something quite new in history, and many, not all
clericals, thought it impossible ; but it became necessary when Pius IX who
had rejected the advice of the Jesuits counselling him to leave Rome,
voluntarily elected to stay.e
The taking possession of Rome by King Victor Emmanuel and the volun-
tary retirement of Pius IX to the Vatican closes the revolutionary era to which
these two personages have given their names. It had led on the one hand to
the constitutional unity of Italy, and on the other to the suppression of
the states of the church, — the last vestige of ecclesiastical immunities of the
Middle Ages to the exclusively spiritual constitution of the sovereign pontiff
of universal Catholicism, — two of the most important changes accomplished
in the history of politics and European civilisation.
The last years of the king's and the pope's lives spent behind the walls of
the same city, have no further interest than what is offered by the applica-
tion of the principles of a successful revolution and the experiment of the
co-existence of two powers, rivals for long years, under new conditions of
proximity and the dying down of the tempest./
The law of guarantees voted by the chamber April 5th, 1871, declared
that the person of the pontiff was sacred and inviolable, and royal honours
were to be paid to him in the territory of his kingdom ; that the holy see
should have an annual donation of 3,225,000 lire ; that the apostolic palaces
of the Vatican and the Lateran neighbourhood, and Castel Gondulfo, with
all their appurtenances and dependencies, should be at his disposal ; that the
pontiff should have complete liberty to perform the functions of his spiritual
ministry; that the envoys from foreign countries to the holy see should
enjoy all the usual prerogatives and immunities, according to international
custom, regarding diplomatic agents ; that the seminaries, academies, colleges,
and Catholic institutions founded in Rome and the suburbs for the educa-
tion of ecclesiastics should continue to be subservient to the holy see alone
without any control from the scholastic authorities of the kingdom.
By this same law the relations of the state with the church were also
regulated. All restriction on the right of the meeting of members of the
Catholic clergy was abolished. The government of the kingdom renounced
the right of nomination and preferment to the greater benefices. The bishops
624 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
[1871 A.D.]
were exempted from taking the oath of allegiance to the king and the exe-
quatur and the royal placet were abolished, and every other form of govern-
mental assent in the publication and execution of acts of ecclesiastical
authority. For hitherto there had been no separate provision for such acts,
and these acts of authority regarding the disposal of ecclesiastical funds and
the preferment to benefices great or small, excepting to those of Rome and
the suburban sees, had been subject to the exequatur and royal placet.
These were the principal enact-
ments of the law of papal guaran-
tees.
As might have been foreseen
the pope did not accept them but
the governments of Europe on the
contrary acknowledged the law,
recognising that it was impossible
to arrange anything better calcu-
lated to secure the independence
of the pontiff.
ROME AGAIN THE CAPITAL OF
ITALY (1871 A.D.)
In June, 1871, in pursuance of
the engagements given by the
government the transference of
the capital was effected. On Sun-
day, July 2nd, the king made his
solemn entry into Rome. What
memories must have been evolved
by this entry of the king of Italy
into the eternal city, for from the
triumphs of the Roman rulers,
republicans or csesars, to the expe-
ditions of the Frank and German
kings of the Middle Ages, Rome
TOMB OF PLAUTIUS was full of splendid memories.
But the former came to celebrate
the triumph of their violence over some unfortunate nation, and the latter
to revive the csesarean institutions under the title of their ascendency over
the other Christian nations of Europe — their empire over Italy.
In Victor Emmanuel's entry into Rome force was replaced by the right
of a nation to live free under the leadership of the great mother of Italy,
from whom it had till now been separated. The pope did not come to meet
and bless the king, but he who has the benediction of his country is in
safety, and as he reached the Quirinal he exclaimed : " At last we are here
and here we will stay." 1
To this solemn entry of the king of Italy to Rome other memorable events
quickly succeeded. The inauguration of the Mont Cenis tunnel broke
[J " The dream of his life was accomplished, and in a manner most flattering to a monarch's
pride. Yet this rose was not without its thorn either. To be all sweetness he should have had
Pio Nono's blessing, and be crowned, like Charlemagne, by the hands of the venerable pontiff in
that city of glorious memories where he was henceforth to reign. But he grasped the rose, thorn
and all, with the memorable exclamation, ' A Roma ci siamo e ci resteremo ! ' " — GODKIN.*]
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY 625
[1872-1874 A.D.]
down the barrier of the Alps between Italy and France. Nations overthrow
the barriers which nature has placed between them to facilitate the inter-
change of their products to their mutual benefit. It is the eve of fraternity
among nations initiated on the ruins of centuries of strife.
On November 27th the Italian parliament assembled for the first time in
Rome at Montecitorio. The speech from the throne was as the circumstances
demanded, majestic and solemn. " Here where our people," it said, " after
being dispersed through many centuries, are gathered for the first time in the
majesty of their representatives ; here where we recognise the mother-country
of our dreams, all things speak to us of greatness. At the same time all
things remind us of our duty." And further on it was announced that
national unity had been accomplished without the interruption of friendly
relations with other countries.
The Lanza ministry had already entered upon the fourth year of its exist-
ence ; and it was the first time since the founding of the kingdom of Italy
that a ministry had lasted so long. And hardly was the transfer completed
when the truce between the parties was broken, and the fall of the ministry
ensued. In its latter days Italy had seen the death of three great patriots
— Mazzini in 1872, Manzoni and Rattazzi in the following year. The time
has not yet arrived for us to judge these men with a temperate mind or
with a heart free from passion. Mazzini died at Pisa, March 10th, 1872 ;
he had lived long enough to see Italy free and united ; and although this
did not correspond with his ideal of Italy, he could take pleasure in the
thought of having helped so much to compass her resurrection and to intro-
duce the conception of national unity which had for centuries been the ideal
of philosophers, so that it became a national idea and a historical fact.
Rattazzi died at an unfortunate moment on the eve of the accession to
power of the Left. He could have instilled discipline into this hetero-
geneous party and rendered it a useful instrument of government after
having been for sixteen years the party of opposition. He was taken away
just when he could have rendered such great service to the country, the
country which he loved so much though bad fortune had made him seem
to be its evil genius.
THE MINGHETTI MINISTRY (1873-1876 A.D.)
The task of forming a new ministry was given by the king to Marco
Minghetti who was leader of the opposition which was in the majority against
the fallen ministry. The first note of the new ministry was a triumph of
foreign policy. The visit of Victor Emmanuel to the emperors of Austria
and Germany in their respective capitals in September, 1873, had placed a
seal on the friendship of the two Transalpine powers.
Successful as was the foreign policy of the government, it was counter-
balanced by its unfortunate home policy. It will be forever a stain on its
honour that on August 2nd, 1874, the minister Cantelli ordered the arrest
and imprisonment of twenty-nine republicans who had assembled under the
presidency of Aurelio Saffi in the Villa Rufii to discuss the course to be
adopted by their party with regard to questions interesting to the country
and the line of conduct to be pursued in the event of a general election.
However, the judicial authorities were perfectly just to the twenty-nine, and
acquitting them all showed that if a police-ridden and licentious ministry
was still possible in Italy, the era of partisan and corruptible magistracy was
over. In 1874 the visits of the emperor of Austria to Venice and of the
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 S
626 THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
[1874-1877 A.D.]
emperor of Germany to Milan helped to distract the attention of the country
from the tumult which reigned in parliamentary parties and the revolution
which they were preparing. The successor of Barbarossa came in October,
1874, to greet the king of Italy in the Lombardian metropolis and there to
consecrate by his presence the elevation of the Italy which his predecessors
had for so many centuries oppressed and martyrised. This splendid epilogue
of the epic which had taken Italy from Novara to Rome was the fruit of the
new civilisation which repeats by the will of the nation the judicial reason
of its political existence ; and this was pri-
marily due to the miracle of a king in whom
the glorious epic was personified.
But although the ministry had had its
share in this marvellous event it had not suc-
ceeded in strengthening its existence, and
already the members of the government, after
having cradled themselves in rose-coloured
hopes, on the eve of the re-opening of parlia-
ment, in the autumn of 1875, felt the ground
tremble beneath their feet. The opposition
had become more audacious and more aggres-
sive. It was the Right which had constituted
the kingdom, after it had been set free by force
of arms and made it really respected abroad
and orderly and tranquil at home, as Minghetti
said on the eve of giving up the government
of it to the Left. Minghetti sent in his resigna-
tion which was accepted. The king intrusted
to Depretis, the leader of the opposition, the
task of forming a new cabinet. The Left, after
having been the opposition for sixteen years,
became the governing party.
DEATH OF VICTOR EMMANUEL AND PIUS IX
Less than two years had passed since the
accession to power of the Left when Italy was
stunned by a calamity as great as it was unex-
pected. At the end of 1877 the king went to
Turin to pass Christmas. Going on a hunting
expedition at the foot of the Alps he remained
two days defying the cold of the season. On
his return to Rome he felt very unwell, having shivering fits and nausea ;
but he paid no attention, thinking it was a passing indisposition. He took
to his bed January 6th. Three days later Victor Emmanuel was no more.
At this time Pope Pius IX was also on his death-bed. Hearing that
Victor Emmanuel was at the point of death he gave his consent to the
Viatico being carried to him, though the Quirinal was a forbidden spot.
And when he heard that he was dead he exclaimed that he had died as a
Christian, a sovereign, and an honest man. A few days later he followed
him to the tomb.
What a multitude of thoughts arise in the mind as we see these two
tombs open almost contemporaneously, one to receive the remains of the last
pope-king, and the other those of the first king of Italy. In these two men are
A PEASANT COSTUME
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY
627
personified one of the greatest epochs of history, an epoch fertile in the most
glorious events which can take place in a nation. It is the epoch of a free
state and a risen nation. And these two men were the artificers of the pro-
digious event — Pius IX by the religious impulse given to the Italian revo-
lution in its first phases ; Victor Emmanuel by having constituted himself
the champion of independence of unity and of the liberty of Italy. From
this moment the two men drifted apart. Pius IX resumed the life traced
for him by papal tradition. Victor Emmanuel remained faithful to his mis-
sion and did his duty to the last day of his life. A grateful nation by the
mouth of its representatives proclaimed him " The Father of his country." e
STREET IN POMPEII, PRESENT TIME
VILLA NAZIONALE, NAPLES
CHAPTER XXII
RECENT HISTORY
[1878-1903 A.D.]
No sovereign ever mounted his throne amid greater tokens of good
will on the part of the nation than did King Humbert I on the death
of his father, whom he succeeded as quietly as if the Italian kingdom
had existed for generations under the princes of the house of Savoy.
It was a striking proof how completely that royal house had identified
itself with the national cause, which had had no firmer supporter than
Victor Emmanuel. His son was no less true to it. He commenced
his reign on the 9th of January, 1878, and proved himself one of the
best sovereigns who ever governed a free people. He faithfully
adhered to those principles of constitutional liberty which have deliv-
ered Italy from despotism, revolution, and foreign occupation. He
placed himself above party strife and took his place as chief of the
nation, leaving to it the exercise of the rights secured by its free insti-
tutions. He devoted himself unsparingly to his royal duties, and
sympathised by word and deed with the nation's joys and sorrows.
His whole conduct, as that of his queen and his son, justly won the
hearts of his people. —
THE entry of Francesco Crispi into the Depretis cabinet (December,
1877) had placed at the ministry of the interior a strong hand and sure eye
at a moment when they were about to become imperatively necessary.
Crispi was the only man of truly statesmanlike calibre in the ranks of the
Left. Formerly a friend and disciple of Mazzini, with whom he had broken
on the question of the monarchical form of government which Crispi believed
indispensable to the unification of Italy, he had afterwards been one of Gari-
baldi's most efficient coadjutors and an active member of the "party of
action." Passionate, not always scrupulous in his choice and use of political
weapons, intensely patriotic, loyal with a loyalty based rather on reason than
sentiment, quick-witted, prompt in action, determined and pertinacious,
he possessed in eminent degree many qualities lacking in other liberal
chieftains.0
Of Crispi, a less moderate opinion is given in the work of Bolton King
and Thomas Okey^:
" Crispi was a much abler man than Depretis. He had, at all events,
grandiose politics, a considerable capacity of leading men, a force and an
628
RECENT HISTOEY 629
insistence that fascinated Italy, and for a time made him more worshipped
and more hated than any Italian statesman of this generation. He was as
unscrupulous as Depretis in his methods, and he had a hardy inconsistency
that came not so much from any deliberate dishonesty as from an impulsive-
ness that made him the slave to the passion of the moment, quite forgetful
of the promises and the policy of yesterday.
" At one moment he paraded his friendliness to France, a month or two
later he was irritating her by hot and foolish speeches. Now he posed as an
anti-clerical and free-thinker ; now he spoke as one who longed for recon-
ciliation with the Vatican. In 1886 he said that the 'workman must be
freed from the slavery of capital ' ; in 1894 he charged socialism with
'raising the right of spoliation to a science.' The wildest fancies, madcap
adventures, anything that was showy and dazzling stood for statesmanship.
" In 1894 he believed, on the vaguest of forged evidence, that the Sicilian
socialists were plotting to surrender the island to France. When the Rus-
sian exiles crowded into Italy after the assassination of Alexander II, Crispi,
then an ex-minister and over sixty years old, preached a crusade of civilised
nations against Russia. He was a savage, passionate fighter, who stuck at
no severity, however unjust or unconstitutional, towards a political oppo-
nent, and whose intolerance grew till the ex-democrat became essentially a
despot. "<*
Hardly had Crispi assumed office when the unexpected death of Victor
Emmanuel II, as previously described, stirred national feeling to an unprece-
dented depth, and placed the continuity of monarchical institutions in Italy
upon trial before Europe. For thirty years Victor Emmanuel had been the
central point of national hopes, the token and embodiment of the struggle
for national redemption. He had led the country out of the despondency
which followed the defeat of Novara and the abdication of Charles Albert,
through all the vicissitudes of national unification to the final triumph at
Rome. His disappearance snapped the chief link with the heroic period
and removed from the helm of state a ruler of large heart, great experience,
and civil courage, at a moment when elements of continuity were needed and
vital problems of internal reorganisation had still to be faced.
Crispi adopted the measures necessary to insure the tranquil accession
of King Humbert with a quick energy which precluded any radical or
republican demonstrations. His influence decided the choice of the Roman
Pantheon as the late monarch's burial-place, in spite of formidable pressure
from the Piedmontese, who wished Victor Emmanuel II to rest with the
Sardinian kings at Superga. He also persuaded the new ruler to inaugu-
rate, as King Humbert I, the new dynastical epoch of the kings of Italy,
instead of continuing as Humbert IV the succession of the kings of Sardinia.
Before the commotion caused by the death of Victor Emmanuel had
passed away, the decease of Pius IX, February 7th, 1878, had, as we have
seen, placed further demands upon Crispi's sagacity and promptitude. Like
Victor Emmanuel, Pius IX had been bound up with the history of the
Risorgimento, but, unlike him, had represented and embodied the anti-
national, reactionary spirit. Having once let slip the opportunity which
presented itself in 1846-1848, of placing the papacy at the head of the unitary
movement, he had seen himself driven from Rome, despoiled piecemeal of
papal territory, reduced to an attitude of perpetual protest, and finally con-
fined, voluntarily, but still confined, within the walls of the Vatican. Eccle-
siastically, he had become the instrument of the triumph of Jesuit influence,
and had in turn set his seal upon the dogma of the immaculate conception,
630 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
the syllabus, and papal infallibility. Yet, in spite of all, his jovial disposi-
tion and good-humoured cynicism saved him from unpopularity, and ren-
dered his death an occasion of mourning. Notwithstanding the pontiff's
bestowal of the apostolic benediction in articulo mortis upon Victor Emman-
uel, the attitude of the Vatican had remained so inimical as to make it
doubtful whether the conclave would be held in Rome.
Crispi, whose strong anti-clerical convictions did not prevent him from
regarding the papacy as pre-eminently an Italian institution, was determined
both to prove to the Catholic world the practical independence of the gov-
ernment of the church and to retain for Rome so potent a centre of univer-
sal attraction as the presence of the future pope. The sacred college of
cardinals having decided to hold the conclave abroad, Crispi assured them
of absolute freedom if they remained in Rome, or of protection to the
frontier, should they migrate ; but warned them that, once evacuated, the
Vatican would be occupied in the name of the Italian government and be
lost to the church as headquarters of the papacy.
The cardinals thereupon overruled their former decision, and the con-
clave was held in Rome, the new pope, Cardinal Pecci, being elected on the
20th of February, 1878, without let or hindrance. The Italian government
not only prorogued the chamber during the conclave to prevent unseemly
inquiries or demonstrations on the part of deputies, but by means of Man-
cini, minister of justice and Cardinal di Pietro, assured the new pope
protection during the settlement of his outstanding personal affairs, an assur-
ance of which Leo XIII, on the evening after his election, took full advan-
tage. At the same time the duke of Aosta, commander of the Rome army
corps, ordered the troops to render royal honours to the pontiff should he
officially appear in the capital.
King Humbert addressed to the pope a letter of congratulation upon his
election, and received a courteous reply. The improvement thus signalised
in the relations between Quirinal and Vatican was further exemplified on the
18th of October, 1878, when the Italian government accepted a papal formula
with regard to the granting of the royal exequatur for bishops, whereby they,
upon nomination by the holy see, recognised state control over, and made
application for, the payment of their temporalities.6
IRREDENTISM, THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE AND
The partnership of Depretis and Crispi in the cabinet had a short life.
Crispi was attacked as a bigamist, and while the courts declared his earlier
marriage in 1853 null and void and ratified his later marriage, the popular
outcry compelled his resignation. The election of the leader of the Left,
Cairoli, who was an enemy of Depretis and who defeated him on a taxation
question, led Depretis to resign. Cairoli formed a new cabinet with Count
Corti in charge of foreign affairs. He represented Italy at the congress of
Berlin in 1878, where he witnessed Austrian triumphs over Italian policy.
This caused a fall in his popularity and the activity of revolutionary bodies
called irredentists, from their desire for the "redemption" of Trent and
Trieste from Austria, provoked an agitation which led Corti to resign in
October. In November a wretch named Passanante attempted to assassinate
the king at Naples. The king defended himself with his sabre, but there
was an outburst of public indignation against the ministry in spite of the
fact that Cairoli had bravely thrown himself in front of his sovereign and
received a serious dagger-wound.
RECENT HISTOKY 631
Cairoli resigned and Depretis came back into power, only to yield again
to Cairoli in July, 1879. Cairoli's foreign policy was again so weak as to
merit the epigram of Bonghi,e that it was " marked by enormous mental
impotence balanced by equal moral weakness." In November Cairoli was
compelled to call Depretis to his aid in the face of a financial crisis, which
was made the more dangerous by Depretis' plan for spending over forty
million pounds on the building of railways.
It was a railway which brought about a misunderstanding with France,
and gave Italy another humiliation in her foreign affairs. Italian influence
in Tunis was threatened by French aggression, and a railway built there by
an English company was the subject of a rivalry between the two countries.
The English courts prevented the French from buying it, whereupon the
Italians secured it at a price estimated at eight times its value. The next
year, 1881, the French, after some difficulties with a Tunisian tribe, seized
Tabarca and Biserta, compelling the bey of Tunis, who had protested in vain
to the powers, to accept a French protectory. This caused great excitement
in Italy, and Cairoli was forced to resign by a vote of want of confidence.
On account of the dissensions in the party of the Left the king appealed
to the leader of the Right, Sella, but the Left reunited against this loss of
power and Depretis became minister, suffering a new humiliation in the
massacre of Italian workmen at Marseilles on the return of French soldiers
from Tunis. Riots in Rome during a procession carrying the remains of
Pius IX from St. Peter's to San Lorenzo showed further governmental
feebleness.
A new problem now agitated the politics of Italy. There was an oppor-
tunity to strengthen Italy's position in the eyes of Europe by entering a triple
alliance with Germany and Austria. The Right strongly favoured this, but
the Centre wished to keep on good terms especially with France, while Crispi
and others in the Left leaned towards Austria. The irredentist agitation
and a fear that Austria might throw her influence in favour of the papacy
decided the matter in favour of the triple alliance. The visit to Austria of
King Humbert and his queen. Margherita furthered the matter. The oppo-
sition of Depretis was finally overcome and the offensive and defensive treaty
of the triple alliance was signed May 20th, 1882. The treaty was, however,
kept a secret until March, 1883. But the position of Italy in the alliance
was not one of much honour, and while it minimised the chances of a res-
toration of the papal power, it brought Italy into some danger from France.
On March 17th, 1887, the alliance was renewed on better terms for Italy.
In the meanwhile, in 1881, the suffrage had, by lowering the tax qualifica-
tions, been enlarged from 600,000 to 2,000,000 ; at the same time it had been
extended to practically every man able to read and write. The state owner-
ship and building of railways, whose income was far less than estimated,
together with the forced currency and the expenditures on public works and
various financial experiments, as well as a tendency to vote public works in
return for local support, have kept Italian finances in a critical condition,
though, in general, the industrial affairs of Italy have shown a steady
improvement and sanitary legislation has received attention. The increase
of the army and of the navy has also been marked, the new army bill of
1882 having given great satisfaction to Garibaldi just before his death at
Caprera, June 2nd, 1882.
The long tenure of power by the Left had at the same time caused dissen-
sions in its ranks and frequent compromises with factions of the Right, caus-
ing a gradual partisan "transformation," called the trasformismo, — it was
632 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
really another name for chaos. This state of affairs is generally blamed to
Depretis who, in his four recompositions of his cabinet between 1881 and his
death, July 29th, 1887, had made many alliances with the Right. It is cus-
tomary to heap upon his memory the blame for a large part of the financial
and political distresses of the country. He had a large influence also in the
none too fortunate colonial policy of Italy.
In 1884, in return for lending support to the British policy in regard to
Egypt, Italians were encouraged to seize Beilul and Massawa. England also
invited Italy to join her in pacifying the Soudan, an invitation the more cor-
dially accepted from the massacre in Assab of an exploring party under the
Italian royal commissioner. In January, 1885, an Italian expedition occu-
pied Beilul and Massawa and began to extend the zone of occupation. This
aroused the negus of Abyssinia and Alula, the ras of Tigre who attacked the
Italian exploring parties. The Abyssinians massacred a force of five hun-
dred officers and men and mutilated the dead at Dogali, January 26th, 1887.
All Italy was horrified at this atrocity and Crispi, having been called to
Depretis' cabinet, threw his influence to the vindication of the country's
dignity. The negus of Abyssinia, though he had 100,000 men against Italy's
20,000, opened negotiations for peace and turned against the Mahdists by
whom he was defeated and killed March 10th, 1889. A war of succession
arose in which an ancient enemy of the negus, Menelek, king of Shoa, signed
the treaty of Ucciali, which the Italians construed as a protectorate.
But King Menelek, having received the submission of his rival Mangasha,
became more independent in his tone towards the Italians. After an Italian
expedition under General Baratieri had achieved great success in Eritrea over
the Mahdists, Menelek, in 1893, repudiated the Treaty of Ucciali. His coali-
tion with Mangasha, in which he was easily defeated in January, 1895, led
Baratieri to push on to Adowa and even to Axum, the holy city of Abyssinia.
In December, however, the Abyssinians arose and the Italian forces suffered
several defeats, ending in the great disaster of Adowa March 1st, 1896, where
the Italians lost 6,000 men and nearly 4,000 prisoners. Baratieri fled pre-
cipitately, leaving his troops to follow; but General Baldissera, who had
been previously sent to replace Baratieri, succeeded in making terms with
Menelek and securing the release of the prisoners.
THE POWER OF CRISPI
Shortly after the death of Depretis, Crispi, now sixty-eight years old,
came into power and assumed that predominance which he held for so many
years. Efforts at conciliation with the Vatican, where the pope called him-
self a prisoner, had no success. Crispi was strongly in favour of the Triple
Alliance and did little to conciliate French feeling. He had much support
from the Right until, in 1891, he lost his temper during a speech and rebuked
them for their interruptions. Such feeling was raised against him that he
resigned and was succeeded by the marquis de Rudini, the leader of the
Right. Crispi had been accused of " megalomania," but he had, by culti-
vating the friendship of Bismarck and paying him a visit, so strengthened
Italy's position that the Rudini cabinet seemed weak by comparison and fell
in 1892, being succeeded by Giolitti, whose administration ushered in " what
proved to be the most unfortunate period of Italian history since the com-
pletion of national unity." Bank scandals and other revelations of corrup-
tion brought about the fall of the cabinet, weakened by its attitude towards
an insurrection due to popular discontent in Sicily.
RECENT HISTORY
633
The strong hand of Crispi put an end to the riots upon his return in
December, 1893, to the ministry, and heroic efforts were made by his minister
of finance, Sonnino, whose measures were so severe, however, that Crispi
became the victim of an unusually violent war of defamation, in which his
political and private life was exposed to all imaginable accusation, just or
otherwise. An attack was made upon his life by an anarchist and a few
months later a mass of stolen documents were brought before the chamber
by Giolitti, who endeavoured to prosecute Crispi but was compelled by a
counter-suit to flee to Berlin. The radical leader Cavalotti made another
attempt to prove Crispi guilty of embezzlement. The effort failed, though
public respect for the condition of politics suf-
fered a great diminution. Crispi had gained a
great majority at the election of 1895, but fell
before the disaster at Adowa in 1896.
His successor Rudini gave assistance to Cava-
lotti's effort to disgrace Crispi, but without suc-
cess, as has been said, and after a persecution of
two years a parliamentary commission vindicated
Crispi of dishonesty, though finding him guilty
of irregularity. Public discontent brought about,
in May, 1898, riots in the south of Italy. These
were put down with an inexcusable severity espe-
cially at Milan where the repression amounted
almost to a massacre. The month before Crispi,
who had resigned his seat in parliament, had been
returned by an enormous majority from Palermo.
In June the Rudini ministry fell and Luigi
Pelloux, a general of Savoy, succeeded, but he
resigned after a defeat at the polls in June, 1900,
and was followed by a moderate liberal cabinet
under Saracco.
DEATH OF KING HUMBERT, OP CRISPI, AND OF
LEO XIII
Shortly after, July 29th, 1900, an anarchist
named Bresci assassinated King Humbert while
he was returning from the distribution of prizes
at an athletic carnival at Monza. King Humbert
was a monarch whose personal magnetism and
courage and whose tenderness to his people had
atoned for his lack of great political distinction.
and after the earthquake of 1883, and during the cholera epidemic of 1884, he
had risked his own life to aid the sufferers. He governed in strict accord
with the constitution. His death brought genuine public grief, for his
generosity had won him the name " Humbert the Good."
The prince of Naples, his only son, succeeded the king, and took the title
Victor Emmanuel III. He was born on November llth, 1869, and had mar-
ried the princess Helena of Montenegro in October, 1896. A daughter, the
Princess Yolanda-Margherita of Savoy, was born to them June 1st, 1901.
On the 12th of August, 1901, Crispi died, leaving behind him a repu-
tation for f orcef ulness of character and for intense national feeling, though
there are many acts which his most fervent admirers deeply regret.
A DOORWAY OF ST. MARK'S,
VENICE
During the flood of 1882,
634
THE HISTOEY OF ITALY
The Saracco cabinet had fallen in February, 1901, and was succeeded
by the ministry of Zanardelli who recalled Giolitti, giving him the portfolio
of the interior. The ministry was noteworthy for its somewhat socialistic
spirit which tacitly encouraged great labour agitations; there were 600 strikes
during the first six months of 1901. The general result was some ameliora-
tion of the condition of the labouring classes and the increase of the socialist
strength. Italian finances have also been somewhat improved.
Pope Leo XIII died after a long illness, July 20th, 1903. While keeping
to the policy of his predecessor in his attitude towards the Italian govern-
ment he had brought the Catholic church to a far higher position of esteem
in the eyes of all nations, even of those predominantly Protestant. His
successor, Cardinal Sarto, the patriarch of Venice, took the name of Pius X
and seems to be inclined to a policy of friendship towards the Italian govern-
ment, a policy which the king seems eager to foster. In recent years Italian
literature and science have been making large progress in cosmopolitan
favour, and Italy seems destined to a re-illumination of her ancient
splendours. a
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
[The letter « is reserved for Editorial Matter.]
CHAPTER I. THE DARK AGE
6 J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, The History of the Italian Republics. — c FRANCESCO BERTOLINI,
Storia delle Dominazioni in Italia (in Villari's Storia Politica d'ltalia). — d PIERRE ANTOINE
DARU, Histoire de la Republique de Venise. — e HENRY EDWARD NAPIER, Florentine History.
— -f GIOVANNI BATISTA TESTA, History of the War of Frederic I against the Communes of
Lombardy. — ? ANDREA DANDOLO, Chronicon Venetum. — h GIOVANNI DIACONO, Chronicon. —
i HEINRICH LEO, Entwicklung der Verfassung der Lombardischen Stadte. — * W. C. HAZLITT,
History of the Venetian Republic. — l PASQUALE VILLANI, the article " Pisa " in the Ninth
Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. — m KARL HILLEBRAND, Dino Campagni: £tude
Historique et Litteraire sur I'Epoque de Dante. — "MALASPINA RICORDANO, Istoria fiorentina,
in Muratori's "Rerum Italicarum Scriptores," vol. VIII. — °E. PROCTOR, The History of
Italy.
CHAPTER II. IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY
6H. E. NAPIER, op. cit. — c J. C. L. SISMONDI, op. cit. — dG. B. TESTA, op. cit.
CHAPTER III. THE NORMANS IN SICILY
6 GOFREDUS M ALATERRA, Rerum Roberti Guiscardi et Rogerii fratris ejus. — c E. A.
FREEMAN, articles on " Normans " and " Sicily " in the Encyclopedia Britannica. — rf HENRY
HALLAM, The State of Europe during the Middle Ages. — e FLODOARD, Annales. — f ADHEMAR
DE CHABANNES, Chronicon. — ° G. B. DEPPING, Histoire des Expeditions maritimes des Nor-
mands. — h ST. MARC, Histoire de V Italic. — * S. ASTLEY DUNHAM, Europe in the Middle Ages.
— i GUGLIELMUS APULIENSIS, Rerum in Apulia, Campania, Calabria et Sicilia libri. — k ANNA
COMNENA, Alexias. — l E. GIBBON, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. — m HUGO
FALCANDUS, Historia Sicula, in Muratori's " Rerum Italicarum Scriptores," vol. VII.
CHAPTER IV. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
6 J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — c H. E. NAPIER, op. cit. — d LORENZO PIGNOTTI, The
History of Tuscany. — e MALASPINA, op. cit. — /N. MACCHIAVELLI, History of Florence. —
* G. B. TESTA, op. cit. — h B. DUFFY, Tuscan Republics.
CHAPTER V. THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE
(First Half of the Fourteenth Century)
b P. A. DARU, op. cit. — c J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — d GIOVANNI VILLANI, Florentine
History. — eL. PIGNOTTI, op. cit.—SH.. E.NAPIER, op. cit. — * N. TEGRIMUS, Vita Castruccio.
— h MALASPINA, op. cit. — fN. MACCHIAVELLI, op. cit. — J f BOCCACCIO, Decameron.
635
636 BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
CHAPTER VI. THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE
bJ. A. SYMONDS, The Renaissance in Italy. — c J. BURCKHARDT, The Civilisation of the
Period of the Renaissance in Italy. — d J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — e J. C. L. S. DE
SISMONDI, The Literature of Southern Europe. — '"GIOVANNI VILLANI, op. cit. — » KARL
HILLEBRAND, op. cit. — h S. ASTLEY DUNHAM, op. cit. — * E. MUNTZ, Les Precurseurs de la
Renaissance. — iWw. SPALDING, Italy and the Italian Islands. — *JOHN RUSKIN, The Seven
Lamps of Architecture. — l GIOVANNI PONTANO, De Fortitudine. — ™HuGO FALCANDUS, op.
dt. — "GEBHARDT, Origines de la Renaissance en Italie. — ° DANTE, Divina Commedia. —
P P. L. GINGUENE, L'histoire litter -aire de V Italie.
CHAPTER VII. ROME UNDER RIENZI
b GIOVANNI VILLANI, op. cit. — cJ. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, History of the Italian Republics.—
d CARLO CIPOLLA, Storia delle Signorie Italiani. — CE. G. BULWER-LYTTON, Rienzi,Last of the
Tribunes. — /MATTEO VILLANI, Florentine History. — 0 EDWARD GIBBON, op. cit. — * PE-
TRARCH, Letter to the Roman People (from Robinson and Rolfe's Petrarch, the first Modern
Scholar and Man of Letters). — k MURATORI, Italian Antiquities.
CHAPTER VIII. THE DESPOTS AND TYRANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES
b W. SPALDING, op. cit. — c ROBERT COMYN, History of the Western Empire. — dH. HAL-
LAM, op. cit. — e J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — f ISAAC BUTT, The History of Italy from the
Abdication of Napoleon. — 0J. BURCKHARDT, op. cit. — AS. A. DUNHAM, op. cit. — *E. PROC-
TOR, op. cit.
CHAPTER IX. THE MARITIME REPUBLICS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES
6 S. A. DUNHAM, op. cit. — CAFFARO, Annales Genuenses. — JACOBUS DE VARAGINE,
Chronicon Genuense. — OBERTUS CANCELLARIUS, Annales Genuenses. — GIOVANNI VIL-
LANI, op. cit. — g ROBERT COMYN, op. cit. — h G. STELLA, Annales Genuenses, in seventeenth
volume of Muratori's collection. — *VETTOR SANDI, Storia civile Veneta. — *H. HALLAM,
op. cit. — *W. C. HAZLITT, op. cit. — 'J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — m H. E. NAPIER,
op, cit. — °L. PIGNOTTI, op. cit. — *>E. PROCTOR, op. cit. — OTTOBONUS SCRIBA, Annales
Genuenses. — MARCHIRIUS ET BARTHOLOM^EUS SCRIBE, Annales Genuenses. — UBERTUS
FOLIETA, Annales Genuenses. — GATARO, Istoria Padavana, in Muratori's collection.
CHAPTER X. THE COMMERCE OF VENICE
b J. BURCKHARDT, op. cit. — c G. VILLANI, op. cit. — d SANUTO, Vile di Duchi di Venezia,
in " Rerum Italic-arum Scriptores." — « W. C. HAZLITT, op. cit. — / H. HALLAM, op. cit. —
Q P. A. DARU, op. cit. — h W. HEYD, Histoire du commerce du Levant. — * J. LABARTE, Arts of the
Middle Ages. — fc SABELLICUS (MARCUS ANTONIUS Coccius), History of the Republic of Venice.
CHAPTER XI. THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE.
b F. T. PERRENS, Histoire de Florence. — c MATTEO VILLANI, op. cit. — <* GINO CAPPONI,
Storia della republica di Firenze. — e N. MACCHIAVELLI, op. cit.
CHAPTER XII. FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI
HEINRICH LEO, Geschichte der italienischen Staaten. — c ALFRED VON REUMONT, Lorenzo
de' Medici il magnifico. — d WILLIAM ROSCOE, The Life of Lorenzo de' Medici. — eJ. C. L. S.
DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — /F. M. A. VOLTAIRE, Essai sur les Mceurs et I 'esprit des nations. —
v GIORGIO VASARI, Le Vite dei pittore, scultori e architetti. — h TRAVERSARI, Lat. Ep. —
*POGGIO BRACCIOLINI, Opera. — i FLAVIUS BLONDUS, Italia Illustrata. — k ANGELO MARIA
BANDINI, Letters sopra i principi e progressi della Biblioteca Laurenziani. — l FICINO, Marsilio
Ficino Epist. — m AMMIRATO, Istorie Florentine. — n GIOVANNI CAMBI, Del. Erud. Tos. —
TRIBALDO DE Rossi, Ricordanze di Tribaldo de Rossi, Del. degli Erud. Toscan. — ' H. E.
NAPIER, op. cit. — « GUICCIARDINI, F., History of Italy from 'the Year 1490 to 1532. — rN.
MACCHIAVELLI, op. cit.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 637
CHAPTER XIII. ASPECTS OF RENAISSANCE CULTURE
6 J. A. SYMONDS, op. cit. — c J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, Literature of Southern Europe. — d G.
VASARI, op. cit. — e PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON, The Intellectual Life. — ^H. HALLAM,
op. cit. — 9 WORKS OP LEONARDO DA VINCI. — h W. SPALDING., op. cit. — * HERMAN GRIMM,
Life of Michael Angelo. — WM. ROSCOE, op. cit.
CHAPTER XIV. THE "LAST DAY OF ITALY"
6 F. GUICCIARDINI, op. cit. — c BENVENUTO CELLINI, The Life of Benvenuto Cellini. —
d J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — e H. E. NAPIER, op. cit. — ^JOHN BURCHARD (or BUCAR-
DUS), Diary of John Burchard (in Cimber's " Archives Curieuses de FHistoire de France "). —
9 W. H. PRESCOTT, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. — h F. A. MIGNET, Rivalitede
Francois I et de Charles V. — * E. QUINET, Les Revolutions d' Italic. — i MEMOIRES DE BAYARD.
CHAPTER XV. THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY
6 J. A. SYMONDS, article " Italy " in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
— c E. PROCTOR, op. cit. — d J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — eW. ROBERTSON, The History of
the Reign of Charles V. — /CARLO DENINA, Delle Rivoluzioni d' Italia. — h CALLEGARE, " Pre-
ponderance straniere " in Storia politica d' Italia scritta da una Societa di' Professori. — * JULES
ZELLER, Histoire de I'ltalie.— JM.. LAFUENTE, Historia General de Espana. — kJ. C. L. S.
DE SISMONDI, Literature of Southern Europe.
CHAPTER XVI. A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY
6WM. HUNT, History of Italy. — c E. PROCTOR, op. cit. — d ANTONIO Cosci, L' Italia
durant le Preponderanza Straniere (in Villari's work). — e H. B. BRIGGS, article "Savoy"
in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. — /WILLIAM WHEWELL, History of
the Inductive Sciences from the Earliest to the Present Time. — f GALILEO, Dialogo delli due
Massimi Sistemi del Mondo, Tolemaico e Copernicano.
CHAPTER XVII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
6 ALFRED VON REUMONT, Geschichte Toscanas seit dem Ende des Florentinischen Frei-
staats. — CHEINRICH LEO, op. cit. — d GIOVANNI DE CASTRO, Patria. — eE. PROCTOR, op. cit.
— f W. SPALDING, op. cit. — o GUISEPPE MONTANELLI, Memoiressur I'ltalie. — h JULES ZELLER,
op. cit. — * CARLO BOTTA, History of Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon
Buonaparte. — i J. REINACH, La France, et U Italy devant I'histoire.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE NAPOLEONIC REGIME (1800-1815 A.D.)
6 CARLO BOTTA, op. cit. — c CARLO DENINA, Storia delV Italia Occidentale. — d WILLIAM
SPALDING, op. cit. — e CESARE BALBO, Sommario della storia d' Italia. —^HERMANN REUCHLIN,
Geschichte Italiens. — o GIOVANNI DE CASTRO, Storia d' Italia, 1799-1814.
CHAPTER XIX. INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES (1815-1847 A.D.)
6 ISAAC BUTT, op. cit. — CHEINRICH LEO, Geschichte der italienischen Staaten. — d W.
SPALDING, op. cit. — e J. A. R. HARRIOT, The Makers of Modern Italy. — / R. H. WRIGHTSON,
A History of Modern Italy. — ^J. A. SYMONDS, op. cit. — h COUNTESS MARTINENGO CESA-
RESCO, The Liberation of Italy. — GUALTERIO, Rivolgimenti Italiani. — J'F. SASSONE, France
et ritalie. — * C. A. FYFFE, A History of Modern Europe. — l JULES ZELLER, op. cit.
CHAPTER XX. THE LIBERATION OF ITALY (1848-1866 A.D.)
6 COUNTESS MARTINENGO CESARESCO, op. cit. — c FRANCESCO BERTOLINI, Etona d' Italia.
dC. BULLE, Geschichte des Konigreiches Italiens. — e TAXILE DELORD, Histoire du Second
Empire. — f FELIX HENNEGUY, Histoire de I'ltalie. — ° GEORG WEBER, Allgemeine Weltge-
schichte. — h H. REUCHLIN, op. cit.
638 BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
CHAPTER XXL THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY (1867-1878 A.D.)
bW. R. THAYER, op. cit. — c MARIE RATTAZZI, Bonaparte Rattazzi et son temps, docu-
mentis ineditis. — dH. WICKHAM STEAD," History of Italy," in the New Volumes of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. — eF. BERTOLINI, op. cit. — f JULES ZELLER, Pie IX et Victor
Emanuel, 1846-1878. — g COMTE DE BEAUFORT, Histoire de I'invasion des etats pontificaux. —
h THE O'CLERY, The Making of Italy. — * G. S. GODKIN, Life of Victor Emmanuel II, First
King of Italy.
CHAPTER XXII. 1878-1903
6 J. W. PROBYN, Italy from the Fall of Napoleon I in 1815 to the Year 1890. — c H. WICK-
HAM STEAD, op. cit. — <*BOLTON KING and THOMAS OKEY, Italy To-day. — e RUGGIERO
BONGHI, Leone XIII e il governo italiano.
PONTE VECCHIO,
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN
ITALY
LIST OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED, CITED, OR CONSULTED; WITH CRITICAL
AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
About, Edmund, The Roman Question, New York, 1859, 1 vol. — Ademar, Chronicon
Aquitanicum, a history of the Prankish monarchy from its beginning to 1029. — Adomoli,
G., Da San Martino a Mentana, Milano, 1892, 8 vols. — Anna Comnena, Alexias.
Anna Comnena (1083-1148), daughter of the eastern emperor Alexis I, was famous for
her beauty and her talent. She was carefully educated by her father, and is said to have
early surpassed all her contemporaries in philosophy and eloquence. At her father's death
in 1118 she made an unsuccessful attempt to place her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius, on
the throne. Her Alexias, a biography of her father, is one of the most important works of
Byzantine historiography. By some critics, indeed, it is placed almost on a par with the
ancient classics.
Annales Genuenses, edited by Pertz, Monumenta Germanise historica, vol. 18, and
Muratori, vol. 6.
The Annales Genuenses, written largely by commission of the republic, form the most
complete series of chronicles of their age. They cover a continuous period of almost two
centuries (1100-1294). Caffaro, who began the series, was a citizen of distinction, having
served the republic as general, consul, and ambassador. He kept a careful record of what he
himself saw and what was told him by consuls and others in authority. When in 1152 he
presented his book to the consuls they ordered it to be copied and preserved in the archives
of the city. Pleased at this prompt appreciation, he continued his annals to 1163. He was
succeeded by the chancellor Chertus, whose connection with the events he relates likewise
gives value and interest to his writing. Other names connected with the annals are Otto-
bonus, Marchirius, Bartholomeus, and James D'Oria. The annals are characterised from
first to last by impartiality and precision and a great abundance of facts, names, and dates.
Archivio Storico Italiano, Firenze, 1842 if., 119 vols. to 1903.
The most valuable collection of documents and chronicles supplementary to Muratori.
Arrivabene, Count C., Italy under Victor Emanuel ; a personal narrative, London, 1862,
2 vols. — Azeglio, Massimo Marchese d', Recollections (trans, by Count Maffei), London,
1868, 2 vols.
Bacci, V., Ricordi del Risorgimento Italiano, Milano, 1890. — Balzani, Ugo, Early
Chroniclers of Italy, London, 1883.
This volume, one of the series of Early Chroniclers of Europe, contains accounts and
criticisms of all the principal chroniclers of the Middle Ages from Cassiodorus to Villani.
Including, as it does in many instances, brief extracts from the originals, it gives a very
clear idea of the sources of the mediaeval history of Italy.
Earth, H., Crispi, Leipsic, 1893. — Bartholomeus Scriba, see Annales Genuenses. —
Bartoli, A., I primi due Secoli della Litteratura Italiana, Milano, 1880, 1 vol. — Beaumont-
Vassy, E. F., Vicomte de, Histoire des Etats Europeans depuis le Congres de Vienne, Paris,
1843-1853, 6 vols. (vol. V has sub-title Etats Italiens). — Bergante, Count A., I nostri tempi,
Milano, 1884. — Bersezio, V., II regno di Vittorio Eman uele II, Trent' anni di vita italiana,
639
640 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL AND MODERN ITALY
Torino, 1878-1893,7 vols. — Berti, D.,I1 conte di Cavour avantiil 1848, Roma, 1886. — Ber-
tocci, Giuseppe, Repertorio Bibliografico delle Opere stampate in Italia nel Secolo XIX,
1876-1887, vols. 1-3. — Bertolini, F., Memorio del Risorgimento Italiano, Milano, 1899;
"Storia delle dominazioni Germaniche in Italia," in Storia politica d' Italia, Milano, 1900.—
Bianchi, N., La politica di Massimo d' Azeglio 1848-1859, Torino, 1883 ; La Casa di Savoiae
la Monarchia italiana, Torino, 1884. — Blanc, J., Bibliographic italico-francaise, Milano, 1886.
Blasi, R., La Nuova Italia, Torino, 1891. — Bonetti, A. M., I Martiri Italiani, Modena,
1891. Boraschi, G., Garibaldi nella Storia, Pinerolo, 1884. — Bordone, J. P. T., Garibaldi
1807-1882, Paris, 1891. — Bosco, G., Compendium of Italian History, London, 1881, 1 vol.
Botta, Carlo G. G., History of Italy during Consulate and Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte,
London, 1828, 2 vols.; Storia d' Italia, Paris, 1837, 14 vols. — Breganze, L., A. Depretis ed i
suoi Tempi, Verona, 1894. — Breslau, H., Handbuch der Urkundenlehre fur Italien, Leipsic,
1889. — Browning, O., Guelphs and Ghibellines 1256-1409, London, 1893. — Bulle, C.,
Geschichte des Konigreiches Italien, Berlin, 1890. — Bulwer Lytton, E., Rienzi. — Burchar-
dus, Johannes, Diarium (incomplete) in Labarthe and Cimber's Archives curieuses de I'his-
toire de France.
The diary of Johannes Burchardus (died 1506), master of ceremonies at the papal court
and later Bishop of Horta, is of great importance on account of its reliability. It covers the
years 1483-1506, and is concerned principally with the relations of France and England.
Burckhardt, J., Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, 3rd edition, Leipsic, 1877.
As Jakob Burckhardt (1818-1897) combines rare literary skill with great erudition and
keen criticism of sources, his is one of the most useful of German works on the Renaissance.
Butt, Isaac, History of Italy from Abdication of Napoleon I, London, 1860, 2 vols.
Caffaro, see Annales Genuenses. — Callegare, E., " Preponderanze straniere," in Storia
politica d' Italia. — Cantti, Cesare, Histoire des Italiens, Paris, 1859, 12 vols.
Cesare Cantu (1805-1895) was at the same time an ardent republican and a devoted church-
man, and his history, owing largely to its popular character and its partisan spirit, brought
its author into wide repute in his own country.
Cappeletti, L., Storia di Carlo Alberto, Roma, 1891; Storia di Vittorio Emanuele II e
del suo regno, Roma, 1892-1893, 3 vols. — Capponi, Gino, Geschichte der florentinischen
Republik (trans, by H. Diitschke), Leipsic, 1876, 2 vols. — Carducci, G., Studi Litterari,
Livorno, 1874 ; La vita italiana nel cinquecento, Milano, 1894, 3 vols. — Cassiodorus, Magnus
Aurelius, Letters (trans, with introduction by T. Hodgkin), Oxford, 1889.
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus held the highest offices in the Ostrogothic kingdom from
Theodoric to Vitiges. His letters, which contain the decrees of Theodoric and of his suc-
cessors, are the best source of our knowledge of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy.
Castro, G., Piccola Storia dTtalia, Milano, 1888 ; Patria, Milano, 1882. — Cellini, Ben-
venuto, Memoirs (trans, by T. Roscoe), London, 1850; (trans, by J. A. Symonds), London,
1887.
Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), certainly the most celebrated if not the greatest of gold-
smiths, was also the author of one of the most famous and remarkable autobiographies ever
written. Although he was born and died at Florence, a large part of his life was spent in
restless wandering, for he was continually embroiled in feuds and implicated in assassina-
tions in consequence of which he was frequently forced to sudden flight. His principal
works were executed for Pope Clement VII, Francis I of France and Cosmo de' Medici the
Great. Besides his work in gold and silver Cellini also distinguished himself in die-
cutting and enamelling and executed a few pieces of sculpture on a grander scale. Of these
the most famous is the bronze statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa which stands in
front of the old ducal palace at Florence. This is one of the most typical monuments of the
Italian Renaissance, a work full of the fire of genius and of the grandeur of terrible beauty.
In his autobiography he sets forth with the utmost directness and animation the history of
these works, as well as his amours and hatreds and his varied adventures. He relates his
homicides with devout complacency and frequently runs into extravagances that it is impos-
sible to credit but at the same time difficult to set down as deliberate falsehoods. Cellini
also wrote treatises on the goldsmith's art, on sculpture and on design.
Cesaresco, Countess E. Martinengo, The Liberation of Italy, London, 1895; Cavour,
London, 1898. — Cesaroni, E., La Tradizione unitaria in Italia, Torino, 1887. — Chaillot,
L., L' unita Italiana, Roma, 1882. — Chierici, L., Carlo Alberto e il suo ideale, Roma, 1892.
— Cipolla, C., Pubblicazioni sulla storia medioevale italiana, Venezia, 1892 ; " Storia delle
signorie italiane," in Storia politica d' Italia, Milano, 1900. — Colletta, Gen. P., History of
the Kingdom of Naples 1734-1825 (trans, by S. Horner), Edinburgh, 1858, 2 vols. — Com-
pagni, Dino, Istoria Fiorentina dal 1280 al 1312, Firenze, 1728 (Muratori, vol. 9).
Dino Compagni, a contemporary of Dante, was a man of strict integrity and straight-
forward character who held high office in Florence for many years, and after his retirement
wrote his chronicle of the years during and just after his own political life. His personal
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 641
share in the events he relates makes his chronicle reliable, while its simple, direct style and
the spirit of passionate patriotism with which it is pervaded lend it unusual interest.
Comyn, Sir R., History of the Western Empire, London, 1851, 2 vols. — Corpi, F., II
risorgimerito italiano, Biografii Storico-politichi, Milano, 1884. — Corradino, C., Storia
d' Italia 474-1494, Torino, 1886. — Corti, S., Breve del risorgimento italiano, Roma, 1885.
— Cosci, A., " L' Italia durante le Preponderanze straniere," in Storia politica d' Italia. —
Costa de Beauregard, A., Les dernieres annees du roi Charles Albert, Paris, 1890. —
Crowe, J. A., and Caval-Caselle, G. B., A New History of Painting in Italy from the
Second to the Sixteenth Century, etc., London, 1884-1866, 3 vols. ; History of Painting in
North Italy, etc., from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century, London, 1871, 2 vols.
Dandolo, Andrea, Chronicon Venetum a pontificatu S. Marci ad annum usque 1339 ;
succedit Raph. Caresini continuatio usque ad annum 1388 nunc primum evulgata. In
Muratori, vol. xii.
Andrea Dandolo' 's work, written while he was doge, is the most important of Venetian
chronicles. The author collected his materials with great diligence and learning, but made
little effort at logical arrangement or artistic presentation. Though credulous as to fables
concerning remote events, he is unusually reliable when dealing with his own period and
that immediately preceding.
Daru, P. A., Histoire de la Republique de Venise, Paris, 1877-1884, 6 vols. — Del Lungo,
L, Dino Compagni e la sua cronica, Firenze, 1879-1880, 3 vols. — Denina, C. G. M., Delle
Rivoluzioni d' Italia, Firenze, 1820, 3 vols. — Dennistoun, J., Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino,
London, 1851-1853, 3 vols. — Depping, G. B., Histoire des Expeditions maritimes des Nor-
mands, Paris, 1826. — Dunand-Henry, A., Les doctrines et la politique economiques du
Comte Cavour, Paris, 1902. — Dunham, S. A., Europe in the Middle Ages, London, 1833-1836,
4 vols.
Eliot, George, Romola, London, 1863. — Emiliani, Gindici, Storia della litteratura Itali-
ana, Firenze, 1855, 2 vols. — Epinois, H. de 1', Les Pieces du Proces de Galilee, Paris, 1877.
— Ewart, K. D., Cosimo de' Medici, London, 1899.
Falcandus, Hugo, Historia de rebus gestis in Siciliae regno, etc.
Gibbon said of Hugo Falcandus : " He has been styled the Tacitus of Sicily ; and after a
just, but immense abatement from the first to the twelfth century, from a senator to a monk,
1 would not strip him of his title ; his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his style bold and
elegant, his observation keen. He had studied mankind, and feels like a man." Although
Falcandus was devoted to the interests of the Norman nobility in Sicily and obtained his
information largely from partisan sources, his history is judicial and impartial to a consid-
erable degree. He does not suppress nor distort facts unfavourable to his party, but contents
himself with explaining them from his point of view. Moreover he had a broader view of
history than as a bare narrative of facts, and to him we owe our only knowledge of a number
of details respecting the political constitution of the monarchy as well as the condition of
the nobility and the people.
Fantuzzi, M., Monumenti Ravennati de' secoli di mezzo, Venezia, 1801-1804, 6 vols.
Documents of the ninth and following centuries. — Farini, L. C., The Roman State from
1815 to 1830 (trans, under the direction of W. E. Gladstone), London, 1851 to 1854, 4 vols.
— Ferrari, Giuseppe, Histoire des revolutions d'ltalie ; ou Guelf es et Gibelins, Paris, 1858,
4 vols. — Filiasi, G., Memorie storiche de Veneti primi e secondi, Venezia, 1796-1798, 8 vols.
— Flodoardus, Annales.
The chronicle of Flodoardus or Frodoard, a Frankish bishop, covers the years 919-966.
Freeman, E. A., Historical Essays, First Series, London, 1871 ; articles on " Normans "
and " Sicily " in Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Gaffarel, P., Bonaparte et les republiques italiennes 1796-1799, Paris, 1895. — Galileo,
The Accusation, Condemnation, and Abjuration of, 1819. — Gallenga, A. (L. Mariotti),
Italy, Past and Present, London, 1846, 2 vols.; The Pope and the King, London, 1879,
2 vols. — Galluzzi, R., Storia del Granducata de Toscana, Firenze, 1822, 11 vols. — Gari-
baldi, G., Epistolario di G. Garibaldi, Milano, 1885, 2 vols.; Autobiography (trans, by
A. Werner), London, 1889, 3 vols. — Gaudenzi, A., Sui rapporti tra 1' Italia 1' Impero
d'Oriente, Bologna, 1888. — Gebhardt, E., Les Origines de la Renaissance en Italic, Paris,
1879. — Ghio, H., La guerra del anno 1866 in Italia, Firenze, 1887. — Ghiron, J., Annali
d' Italia, in continuazione al Muratori, Milano, 1888. — Ghisleri, A., Atlantino storico
d' Italia, Bergamo, 1891. — Giacometti, G., La Question Italianne 1814-1816, Paris, 1893.—
Gibbon, E., Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. — Gilbert, William, Lucretia Borgia,
Duchess of Ferrara, London, 1869, 2 vols. — Ginguene', F. L., Histoire Litteraire d'ltalie,
Paris, 1824-1835, 9 vols. — Godkin, G. S., Life of Victor Emmanuel II, First King of Italy,
H. W. — VOL. IX. 2 T
642 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN ITALY
London, 1879, 2 vols. — Gotte, A., La Corona di Casa Savoia, Firenze, 1887. — Gregoro-
vius, F., Lucrezia Borgia, Stuttgart, 1874, 2 vols. ; History of the City of Rome during the
Middle Ages (trans, by Annie Hamilton), London, 1894-1902, 8 vols.
Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821-1891) devoted the better part of his life to the most exten-
sive and minute investigations in the libraries and archives of Rome, Italy, and Germany.
The result of these studies was his great work, The History of the City of Rome, which is
remarkable not only for its scholarship but for its brilliant and fascinating style. It was
translated into Italian under the authority of the city council of Rome and at public expense.
Grimm, Hermann, Life of Michael Angelo (trans, by Fanny E. Burnett), London, 1896,
2 vols. Guicciardini, F., History of Italy from 1490-1532 (trans, by Austin P. Goddard),
London, 1753, 10 vols.
Since the publication in 1857 of his Opere inedite, Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540) has
stood in the first rank among political philosophers, even disputing the supremacy with his
friend Macchiavelli. He had a long career as diplomatist, statesman, and general in which
in addition to the vices of his age he displayed such cold calculation, phlegmatic egotism
and glaring discord between opinions and practice as to make him perhaps the most odious
of his contemporaries. Yet it is this very want of feeling that gives excellence to his history.
His style is dull and prolix and he has no sense of perspective, but as an analyst he stands
without a rival. His history is of no interest to the general reader, but is of great importance
for research in the period with which it deals, 1494-1532.
Hallam, H, View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages. — Hartmann, L. M.,
Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter, Gotha, 1897-1900, 2 vols. — Hartwig, O., Quellen und
Forschungen zur altesten Geschichte der Stadt Florenz, Halle, 1875-1880, 2 vols. — Haw-
thorne, Nathaniel, Marble Faun, I860.— Hazlitt, W. C., History of the Venetian Republic,
London, 1860, 4 vols. — Hegel, Carl, Geschichte der Stadteverfassung von Italien, Leipsic,
1847, 2 vols. — Hennegay, F., Histoire de 1'Italie depuis 1815, Paris, 1885. — Heyd, W. von
Geschichte des Lavantehandels im Mittelalter, Leipsic, 1885-1886, 2 vols. — Hillebrand, K.,
Dino Compagni: Etude Historique et Litteraire sur Pepoque de Dante, Paris, 1862. —
Hodgkin, Thomas, Italy and her Invaders, Oxford, 1880-1885, 4 vols.
Thomas Hodgkin is the first to present in English the results of modern research concern-
ing the barbarian invasions of Italy. He gives a full description of the social organisation,
and traces in detail the movements of the various Germanic and Asiatic tribes.
Hunt, L., Italian Poets, London, 1846, 2 vols. — Hunt, William, History of Italy, London
and New York, 1874.
Jona, G., La Rappresentanza politica, Modena, 1892.
Kington, F. L., History of Frederick II, Emperor of the Romans, London, 1862, 2 vols.
— Kugler, F. T., Handbook of Painting. The Italian Schools. Revised and remodelled
from the most recent researches by Lady Eastlake, London, 1880, 2 vols.
Labarthe, J., History of the Arts of the Middle Ages, London, 1855 — Leo, H.,
Geschichte der italienischen Staaten, Hamburg, 1829-1832, 5 vols. ; Entwickelung der Verf as-
sung der lombardischen Stadte, Hamburg, 1824. — Locascio, F., Fa fallita Italica, Rebel-
lione del 1848, Palermo, 1887. — Lozzi, C. Biblioteca istorica della antica e nuova Italia,
Palermo, 1886. — Luise, G. di, Storia critica delle Revoluzioni italiane, Napoli, 1887.
Macaulay, T. B., Machiavelli, Essay on, London and New York. — Machiavelli, N.,
History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy, London, 1847 ; Works translated by Detmold,
Boston, 1882, 4 vols. — Malaspini, Ricordano and Giacotto, LTstoria antica dell' origine
di Fiorenza sino all' anno 1281, con T aggiunta dal detto anno per insino al 1286, Fiorenze,
1566. (Also in Muratori, vol. VIII.)
Of Ricordano and Giacotto Malaspini we possess but very meagre and uncertain infor-
mation. The chronicle bearing their names was long believed to be the earliest work on
Italian history written in the vernacular, but its authenticity has recently been questioned.
Villani contains much of the same matter in nearly the same words. It is conjectured that
the so-called Malaspini were of later date than Villani and that they either copied from him
or both copied from a common source that has not come down to us. All this, however,
does not detract from the picturesqueness and interest of their chronicle, nor from its
reliability as to the facts narrated in it.
Malaterra, G., Historia Sicula, Caesaraugusta, 1578.
Godofredus Malaterra, a Benedictine monk, has left us a very valuable history of the
Normans in Sicily, written at the command of Count Roger. It ends with the year 1099.
Manso, F., Geschichte des ostgothischen Reiches in Italien, Breslau, 1824. — Manu-
cardi, F., Reminiscenze storiche, Torino, 1890. — Manzoni, A., La rivoluzione f rancese e la
WITH CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 643
rivoluzione italiana del 1859, Milano, 1889. — Marchirius Scriba, see Annales Genuenses. —
Marriott, J. A. R., The Makers of Modern Italy, London, 1889.— Masi, E. Fra libri di
storia della rivoluzione italiana, Bologna, 1887 ; II segreto del Re Carlo Alberto, Bologna,
1890. — Maulde la Claviere, M. A. R. de, La Diplomatic au temps de Machiavel, Paris,
1892-1893, 3 vols. — Mazade, Charles de, Le Comte de Cavour, Paris and London, 1877.
— Mazzini, J., Life and Writings of, London, 1864-1870, 6 vols. ; Essays (trans, by
T. Okey), London, 1894. — Mignet, F. H., Histoire de la Rivalite de Fran9ois I et de
Charles V, Paris, 1876, 2 vols. Montanelli, G., Memoires sur 1'Italie, Paris, 1859, 2 vols.
— Montarola. B., Bibliografia del risorgimento Italiano, Roma, 1884. — Monumenta
Germaniae historica, ed. by G. H. Pertz, G. Waitz, and E. Diimmler, Hanover and Berlin,
1826, etc., 35 vols. — Muntz, E., Les Precurseurs de la Renaissance, Paris, 1881. — Muratori,
L. A., Italicarum rerum scriptores, Mediolani, 1723-1751, 25 vols. ; Annali d' Italia, Milano,
1744-1749, 12 vols.
Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750), for many years librarian of the duke of Modena,
devoted his long life to ardent and energetic labour in various fields of scholarship. His
principal work, the Scriptores, is a great storehouse of contemporary documents covering the
entire Middle Ages from 500 to 1500 and is the most important collection of the sort.
Mussatus, Albertinus, De Gestis Heinrici VII Caesaris, Historia Augusta. De Gestis
Italicorum post Mortem Heinrici VII. In Muratori, vol. X.
Albertinus Mussatus (1261-1330 ?) had in his lifetime a wide reputation as a writer of
Latin poetry and was also a prominent political and military leader in his native city of
Padua. While a friend and admirer of the emperor Henry VII, Mussatus is however quite
impartial and trustworthy as a historian. His style is much more careful and polished than
that of most chroniclers and part of his work is even composed in verse. His works are of
the first importance among the sources for that period.
Napier, H. E., Florentine History, London, 1846-1847, 6 vols. — Narjoux, F., Crispi,
Paris, 1890. — Norlaughi, A., Catalogo delle opere relative alle cose italiane del periodo
1815-70, Torino, 1884. — North American Review, Italian Literature, 1864-1866; Origin
of Italian Language, 1867.
Obertus Cancellarius, see Annales Genuenses. — O'Clery, P. K., The Making of Italy,
London, 1892. — Oliphant, Mrs. M., The Makers of Florence, London, 1876 ; The Makers
of Venice, London, 1887. — Orsi, P., La Storia d' Italia narrata da scrittori contemporanei,
Torino, 1887; Come fu fatta 1' Italia, Torino, 1891. — Ottobonus Scriba, see Annales
Genuenses.
Perrens, F. T., Histoire de Florence, Paris, 1877-1884, 6 vols. — Ferrers, D., Gli ultimi
reali di Savoia ed ilprincipe Carlo Alberto di Carignano, Torino, 1889. — Pertz, G. H., see
Monumenta Germaniae historica. — Pflugk-Harttung, J. v., Iter Italicum, Stuttgart, 1883.
— Pignotti, L., History of Tuscany (trans, by John Bowring), London, 1823, 4 vols. — Pio, O.,
Dramrna della storia italiana, Milano, 1889. — Fohlmann, Robert, Die Wirthschafts-Politik
der Florentiner Renaissance, Leipsic, 1878, 1 vol. — Procopius of Caesarea, De bello
Gothorum. — Probyn, J. W., Italy: from Fall of Napoleon I to 1890, London, 1891. —
Proctor, C., History of Italy from the Fall of the Western Empire, London, 1844.—
Pucciauti, G., Vittorio Emanuele e il risorgimento d' Italia, Paris, 1893.
Quinet, Edgar, Les Revolutions d'ltalie, Paris, 1868, 2 vols.
Ranke, L., Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Volker von 1494 bis 1535,
Berlin, 1824, 2 vols. ; Zur venetianischen Geschichte, Leipsic, 1878 ; Weltgeschichte, Leipsic,
1896, 4 vols. — Reinach, J., La France et ITtalie devant 1'histoire, Paris, 1893. — Reuchlin,
H., Geschichte Italiens von der Grundung der regierenden Dynastien bis zur Gegenwart,
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Germania suUa Storia d' Italia, Berlin, 1863 ; Geschichte Toscana's seit dem Ende des floren-
tinischen Freistaates 1530-1859, Gotha, 1876, 2 vols. ; Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent
(trans, by Robert Harrison), London, 1876, 2 vols.; Characterbilder aus der neueren Ge-
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Robertson, W., History of the Reign of Charles V, London, 1856. — Rodocanachi, E. P.,
Le comte de Cavour, Paris, 1891.— Rorai, S. di, II genio della Rivoluzione Periodo I, 178fc
1848, Venezia, 1890. — Rosa, G., Genesi della colture italiana, Milano, 1889. — Roscoe,
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Saint Marc, C. H. L. de, Histoire d'ltalie depuis la chute de 1'empire d'Occident, Paris,
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644 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDLEVAL AND MODERN ITALY
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in praise of our city of Florence." Though prominent in both the intellectual life and the
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sider. His work is not only the very corner-stone of the early mediaeval history of Florence,
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WITH CEITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
645
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perhaps led him to an extravagant view of the great reformer, his work on Machiavelli is
of the highest importance to the student of Italian history. As minister of public instruc-
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1815 al 1846, 1886. — Zeller, J. S., Abrege de 1'Histoire d'ltalie depuis la Chute de 1'empire
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Pie IX et Victor Emmanuel, Paris, 1879.
BIRTHPLACE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI, FLORENCE
A CHRONOLOGICAL RESUME OF ITALIAN HISTORY
THE NORTH ITALIAN STATES AND REPUBLICS
FROM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
(476-1000 A.D.)
The deposition of Romulus Augustulus (476) opens a new era for the Italian people.
The entire peninsula comes under the titular sway of the Eastern emperor, Odo-
acer the Herulian chief ruling as king of his own people, and as regent over the rest
of the inhabitants. This mixed Teutonic and Roman government is continued by
the Ostrogothic dynasty beginning with Theodoric, who in 493 at the commission of
the emperor overthrows and replaces Odoacer. The chief strength of the Ostro-
goths lies in northern Italy ; they have little influence over the descendants of the
Greek colonists in the south. The ties between Italy and Constantinople having
become very weak, Justinian I plans the reconquest of Italy. By the efforts of
Belisarius and Narses this is accomplished in 553 ; the Ostrogothic kingdom falls.
Italy is again a real member of the Roman Empire, ruled in the emperor's name by
the exarch whose capital is at Ravenna. This state of affairs lasts but fifteen years.
Narses, the first exarch, recalled to Constantinople in 565, and disaffected with his
treatment by the empress, is said to have invited Alboin the Lombard chief to
invade the Italian peninsula. In 568 he crosses the Alps, and in three years is
master of nearly the whole of northern Italy. The political unity of the peninsula
is broken, not to be repaired until the latter half of the nineteenth century. The
Lombards penetrate through the middle of the peninsula. Venice, founded about
452 by families from Aquileia and Pavia fleeing from Attila, remains untouched.
So does Genoa and its Riviera. Rome does not acknowledge the Lombard rule at
Pavia, neither does the country east of the Apennines from the Po to Ancona where
the exarch rules at Ravenna, nor the duchy of Naples, the islands of Sicily, Sardinia
and Corsica, and the southernmost province of Calabria. The duchies of Spoleto
and Benevento have Lombard rulers, but they are nearly independent of Pavia.
Such is the condition of Italy at the end of the sixth century.
Before the close of the next hundred years Constans II (662) makes a vain attempt to
restore the empire in Italy. The protecting power of Constantinople becomes
weaker and weaker, and in 713 the Venetian islands unite for the purpose of self-
government. Paoluccio Anafesto, the first doge, is elected and a council of tribunes
646
CHRONOLOGICAL RSUM 647
and judges chosen. This government lasts until 737 when in a popular tumult
the doge Orso is killed, his ducal office abolished, and replaced by an annually
elected maestro della milizia (master of the military) ; but in five years (742) the life-
holding office of doge is restored. Meanwhile the growing Lombard power has
encroached on the exarch's dominions ; the iconoclastic controversy has virtually
alienated the sympathies of the Italian people from the Eastern emperor, and in
752 the Byzantine possessions in northern Italy are conquered by Aistulf the Lom-
bard king, and the exarch flees from Ravenna. Pepin comes from France at the call
of the pope, seizes Aistulf 's conquests which he hands over to Stephen (755), and
from this gift arises the temporal sovereignty of the pope, which lasts until 1870.
In 774 Charlemagne puts an end to the Lombard dominion in northern Italy, and
his Italian kingdom extends from the Alps to Terracina. This is included in the
Western Empire when it is restored in 800.
Thus the political map of Italy at the beginning of the ninth century shows Rome
the head of an empire governing the greater part of the peninsula ; Gaeta, Naples,
Calabria, Apulia, Sicily, and Sardinia still give their allegiance to Constantinople.
Venice, though quite independent, acknowledges the Eastern emperor, and the duke
of Benevento pays tribute to him of the West.
In 810 the people of Venice remove the seat of government from the mainland to
the present city and the building of St. Mark's is begun.
In 827 the Saracens begin their attacks on Italy and Sicily. Their fortunes are varied,
but by 890 the fall of the Carlo vingian dynasty has enabled the Greeks to take
many cities from the Saracens and raise a new power that comprises southern Italy
as far north as Salerno. This territory ruled by a patrician or catapan remains a
part of the Eastern Empire until 1043. Charlemagne does not overthrow the polit-
ical system in the north, and the great lords retain their territories they have enjoyed
since the days of Theodoric. With the decay of Charlemagne's dynasty, these local
rulers correspondingly increase their power, and the bishops appointed to the cities
have become almost independent sovereigns. This local ascendency is never sup-
pressed by the emperor, and to it is due the rise of the mediaeval Italian republics.
At the beginning of the tenth century we find these great territorial lords and bishops
the chief powers in northern Italy — among them the archbishop of Milan, the duke
of Friuli, and the count of Tuscany, the latter asserting his predominance since the
time of Boniface I in 823. The obedience they pay the king of Italy is merely
nominal, and indeed the king is constantly at war with his great vassals. From the
deposition of Charles the Fat (888) to the intrusion of Otto I into the affairs of
Italy (961) the crown of that country is the bone of contention between the great
lords of Friuli and Benevento. The Magyars and Saracens also repeatedly invade
the land, and the defended cities rise in power and importance.
With the advent of Otto I their municipal liberty is not much curtailed. The govern-
ment of the city is generally carried on by two or more consuls chosen by popular
vote. In 997 the Venetians' conquest of the Adriatic coast and islands as far as
Ragusa, put themselves in a more independent attitude towards the Eastern emperor.
THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
The untimely death of Otto III (1002) is an important event in the development of the
Italian cities. In the resulting dispute for the crown, Pavia upholds the Lombard
nobles in their choice of Arduin. Milan crowns the German king Henry II.
1003 War between Pisa and Lucca, the first waged between the mediaeval Italian cities.
1004 Henry burns Pavia. Milan and Pavia wake to independent life and action in this strug-
gle. The Saracens capture a portion of Pisa.
1011 Second attack of the Saracens on Pisa, which now assumes the offensive.
1017 The Pisans drive the Saracens from Sardinia and take the island.
1018 Heribert becomes archbishop of Milan, and the most powerful lord in northern Italy.
1024 On death of Henry II, Heribert invites Conrad II of Germany to Italy and gives him
the iron crown of Lombardy (1026).
1026 The Venetians expel their doge Ottone Orseolo, but recall him in 1031. The people
of Lodi resent Heribert's appointing their bishop, and a war ensues in which Heri-
bert is successful.
1036 Battle of Campo Malo, between Heribert and the opponent factions. Heribert sum-
mons the emperor to his aid, but the latter, offended at the independence of the
Milanese, retires to Pavia.
648 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1037 At Diet of Roncaglia Conrad enacts decree that all fiefs shall be hereditary. This is to
check the power of the ecclesiastical lords. Siege of Milan by Conrad, who has
to retire on account of pestilence.
1039 Siege of Milan raised at death of Conrad. Heribert devises the carroccio.
1041 The people of Milan, headed by Lanzo, drive the nobles out of Milan.
1044 Peace restored in Milan.
1045 Death of Heribert.
1048-1055 During the pontificate of Leo IX, attempts to enforce celibacy of clergy are vigor-
ously resisted in Milan.
1055 The countess Matilda begins her rule in Tuscany.
1063 The foundations of the cathedral at Pisa are laid.
1075 Gregory VII approves the Pisan code of laws — a revival of the Pandects of Justinian.
1077 The Norman conquests of southern Italian cities put the trade of the Mediterranean
into the hands of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. For a century and a half Pisa has the
largest trade.
1080 The countess Matilda's army is defeated near Mantua.
1084 Great defeat of the Venetian fleet by Robert Guiscard.
1091 Capture of Mantua and Ravenna by Henry IV.
THE TWELFTH CENTURY
At the beginning of the twelfth century Milan and the other Lombard cities have
become independent municipalities, a result achieved principally through the war of
investitures.
1101 Ferrara submits to the countess Matilda, who has obtained practically the power of a queen.
1110 Peace made between Pisa and Lucca, which have been at war for six years.
1111 The Milanese attack and destroy Lodi and Como. The leadership of Milan in Lom-
bardy is now confirmed.
1114 Revolt of Mantua, which is subdued by the countess Matilda. The Pisans descend
upon the Saracens in the Balearic Isles, and return with rich booty and many
prisoners.
1115 Death of the countess Matilda. Beginning of the struggle between pope and emperor
for her great domain. In 1102 she deeded them to the pope. With Matilda's death
begins the rise of Florence and other Tuscan cities to independence.
1118 War breaks out between Genoa and Pisa over the supremacy of Sardinia and Corsica,
a papal edict having awarded the Pisan church control in Corsica. Consecration of
the Pisan cathedral.
1123 Victory of the Venetian fleet over the Egyptians off Joppa.
1124 The Venetians receive a third of the city of Tyre at its conquest by the crusaders.
1125 Capture of Samos, Andros, and Spalato by the Venetians.
1132 Peace between Genoa and Pisa. Innocent II gives the Genoese church partial suprem-
acy in Corsica and grants to the Pisans in Sardinia and elsewhere.
1135 The Pisans proceed against the Normans in southern Italy. Naples and Amalfi
attacked. Amalfi recovered by Roger I.
1137 Second attack of the Pisans in southern Italy. Roger recovers his lost possessions.
1140 The Genoese acquire Ventimiglia.
1144 War breaks out among the Italian cities. Venice against Ravenna ; Verona and Vi-
cenza against Padua and Treviso ; Florence and Pisa against Lucca and Siena.
1150 The Venetians regain Dalmatia, which has been captured by pirates.
1151 Defeat of the Milanese by the Cremonese at Castelnuovo. The carroccio is captured.
1152 Election of Frederick Barbarossa as king of Germany and Italy. Building of the bap-
tistery of Pisa begun.
1153 Frederick determines to re-establish the imperial authority in the Italian cities. Lodi
and Como ask his protection against Milan.
1154 Frederick enters Italy. Diet of Roncaglia, where Frederick hears complaints against
Milan and Tortona. He assumes the Lombard crown at Pavia.
1155 Frederick captures and razes Tortona. Milan prepares for war.
1156 Milan rebuilds Tortona and defeats Pavia.
1157 Establishment of the Bank of Venice.
1158 Milan again destroys Lodi. Second appearance of Frederick in Italy. Siege of Milan,
which surrenders on account of famine. Diet at Roncaglia. The Bolognese jurists
expound the code of Justinian to Frederick, who removes the consuls and substitutes
the podesta as ruling officer in the Italian cities.
CHRONOLOGICAL KSUM 649
1159 The Milanese refuse to obey the podesta.
1160 Surrender of Crema to Frederick. The city is abandoned to the cruelty of Cremona.
Lucca obtains its independence from Welf of Tuscany.
1162 Surrender of Milan after a nine months' siege. It is totally destroyed. Lombardy
submits to Frederick.
1163 The cities of the Veronese March, assisted by Venice, form a league against Frederick.
1167 Siege of Ancona by Frederick, who has returned to Italy the previous year. Brescia,
Bergamo, Mantua, Verona, Cremona, Treviso, and other north Italian cities form the
Lombard League to regain their liberties from Frederick. It begins to rebuild Milan.
1168 Frederick, with his army nearly annihilated by the plague, returns to Germany.
1169 The league builds Alessandria. The pope and Eastern emperor join the league against
Frederick. Other cities enter the league. Pavia and Montferrat alone remain loyal
to the empire.
1171 The Eastern emperor Manuel I seizes the Venetian possessions in his dominions.
Stephen, king of Hungary, captures many Dalmatian cities from Venice. Venice
recovers Zara, takes Ragusa, and attacks Negropont.
1172 Capture of Scio by the Venetians.
1173 The Venetian fleet returns from the East and infects the city with the plague. Tumults
break out and the doge is slain.
1174 Fifth expedition of Frederick to Italy. The Campanile of Pisa is begun.
1175 Peace partially restored between Genoa and Pisa by Frederick's mediation.
1176 Frederick threatens Milan. He is defeated disastrously at Legnano by the Milanese
and a few allies. He opens negotiations with the pope for peace.
1177 Reconciliation between Frederick and the pope at Venice. Six years' truce concluded
with the Lombard cities. They do not ask for more than municipal autonomy, and
the Italians lose their greatest opportunity of becoming a powerful nation.
1181 Bela, king of Hungary, recovers Zara and other cities from Venice.
1183 The truce with Frederick is made permanent by the peace of Constance. Venice is not
included. The communes have their right to self-government by consuls and to
wage warfare confirmed. These privileges are extended to the Tuscan cities, among
which Florence is becoming the most powerful.
1194 Battle between the Genoese and Pisan fleets in the harbour of Messina.
1198 Establishment of the republic of Florence.
1199 General war among the Lombard cities owing to a quarrel between Parma and Pia-
cenza.
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
The acquisition of independence by the cities brings about constant feuds between the
people and the nobles. The latter have become more or less financially dependent
upon the citizens and are forced to reside a portion of the year in the cities. Here
in their palaces they carry on their feuds, in defiance of all civil authority. The con-
suls are powerless to curb them, and from this state of affairs arises the office of po-
desta (the name taken from Frederick Barbarossa's official, but having no connection
with the empire). The podesta is always the citizen of another city and holds his
office for one year. His function is to arbitrate and keep peace between the
citizens and nobles, and the powers delegated to him pave the way for the despots
of later times.
1202 The crusaders capture Zara for Venice in fulfilment of a bargain made with the doge
Dandolo, who disregards Pope Innocent Ill's threats of excommunication for this.
The Venetians accompany the crusaders to Constantinople.
1204 In the division of the Eastern Empire after the capture of Constantinople the Venetians
receive about three-eighths of the empire of Romania. Most of this they make no
attempt to take possession of. Formation of Guelfic leagues in Umbria and Tus-
cany, looking to the pope for protection. Pisa, strongly Ghibelline, holds aloof.
1205 The Venetians exchange a portion of Thessaly with Boniface of Montferrat for Crete.
Venice decides on a policy of allowing her nobles to take her acquisitions, holding
these as fiefs of the republic.
1208 The Genoese are defeated in an attempt to capture Crete.
1209 The GhibeUines expel the Guelfs from Ferrara.
1215 The Buondelmonte (Guelf ) and Amidei (Ghibelline) feud begins in Florence. It lasts
thirty-three years.
1218 Milan forms a league to drive the GhibeUines from Lombardy. It is defeated at
Ghibello ; this causes great trouble between the Lombard nobles and citizens.
650 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1221 The Milanese expel the nobles from the city.
1222 First war between Pisa and Florence. Foundation of the University of Padua.
1226 Renewal of the Lombard League for twenty-five years.
1227 Frederick II appoints Ezzelino da Romano to conduct warfare against the Guelf s in the
Veronese March. They are defeated in Verona and Vicenza.
1228 Victory of Pisa over the united forces of Florence and Lucca near Barga.
1233 The cities of the Veronese March conclude the peace of Paquara through the efforts of
the monk Giovanni da Vicenza. It lasts only a few days.
1234 Montferrat, Milan, Brescia, and other cities join the rebellion of Frederick's son Henry.
The Pisans renew war with the Genoese.
1236 Frederick takes the field against the Lombards. Ezzelino is in control in Verona,
Vicenza, and Padua.
1237 Frederick defeats the Milanese and their allies at Cortenuova. The carroccio is captured
and sent to Rome as a trophy. Tiepolo, podesta of Milan, son of the doge of Venice,
put to death.
1238 The pope allies himself with Venice and Genoa against Frederick, who establishes
Ghibelline supremacy in Turin, Asti, Novara, and Alessandria. Frederick unsuccess-
fully besieges Brescia.
1239 The Guelf fortunes begin to revive, owing to the pope's excommunication of Frederick.
Ravenna taken by the Venetians and Bolognese.
1240 The Venetians and Azzo d'Este take Ferrara. Frederick recovers Ravenna.
1241 The Pisan and Sicilian fleets capture a number of Genoese galleys, bearing the
French cardinals and bishops to the pope's council at Rome. Frederick besieges
Genoa.
1243 Frederick's son Enzio is driven from Milan.
1247 Revolt of Parma against Frederick, who besieges the town.
1248 Frederick raises the siege of Parma. Revolution in Florence places the city in Ghibel-
line hands.
1249 The Bolognese defeat Enzio at Fossalta. He is imprisoned for the rest of his life.
Ezzelino da Romano takes Belluno and the marquisate of Este.
1250 The Florentines free themselves from Ghibelline rule. They establish the signoria.
With death of Frederick, the great power of the emperors in Italy comes to an end.
1251 The Florentines recall the Guelf exiles and wage war on neighbouring cities to compel
them to serve under the Guelf banner.
1252 The first florin coined at Florence.
1254 The Florentine " Year of Victories." Many triumphs over the Tuscan cities.
1256 The marquis Azzo recovers Este and captures Padua.
1258 The Ghibelline leaders exiled from Florence.
1259 Defeat and capture of Ezzelino da Romano at the bridge of Cassano. He dies of his
wounds.
1260 The Ghibellines headed by Manfred win a great victory at Montaperti. They regain
Florence. The popular government is abolished. One composed of nobles swearing
allegiance to Manfred is substituted.
1264 By this time the head of the Delia Torre family holds the office of lord of the people
in Milan, and other Lombard cities have conferred the same title upon him. The
office has become hereditary, and we have the beginnings of the future duchy of
Milan. The pope, jealous of the Delia Torre's growing power, appoints Otto Visconti,
of a powerful local family, archbishop of Milan. The people refuse to receive him
and are excommunicated by the pope. Beginning of the Delia Torre- Visconti feud.
The Pelavicini are now predominant in the valley of the Po and the Delia Scala in
the Veronese March.
1266 After Charles of Anjou's victories in the south, the Florentines destroy their Ghibelline
government.
1267 The Florentines intrust the signoria to Charles of Anjou for ten years. Their constitu-
tion is restored. The Ghibelline cities in the north go to Conradin's assistance.
1269 Charles summons a diet of all Lombard cities at Cremona. Some confer the signoria
on him ; others offer him an alliance. He calls himself imperial vicar. The pope
becomes jealous of Charles' power.
1270 The Doria and Spinola families obtain control of Genoa and support the Ghibellines.
War between Bologna and Venice.
1277 The pope forces Charles to resign the title of imperial vicar. The Visconti obtain the
ascendency in Milan and henceforth rule the city.
1280 The count of Savoy takes up his residence in Turin. Faenza becomes subject to
Bologna.
1282 War breaks out between Pisa and Genoa.
CHRONOLOGICAL RSUM 651
1284 Disastrous naval defeat of the Pisans by the Genoese, off the island of Meloria. The
power of Pisa is broken. Ugolino della Gherardesca made captain-general of Pisa.
He makes a disgraceful peace with the Guelf s.
1288 Deposition of Ugolino, who is starved to death. The marquis of Este is elected lord of
Modena.
1292 Guido di Montefeltro of Pisa victorious over the Florentines.
1293 Peace between Pisa and Florence. A long war breaks out between Venice and Genoa.
1296 The Ghibellines expel the Guelfs from Genoa. The Venetians seize Genoese posses-
sions in the Crimea.
1297 The Venetians shut out membership in the Grand Council to all but members of the
noble families.
1298 The Genoese destroy the Venetian fleet off the Dalmatian coast.
1299 Peace between Venice and Genoa through mediation of Matteo Visconti. It is favour-
able to Genoa.
1300 Florence divided between the Neri (violent Guelfs) and Bianchi (moderate Guelfs)
factions. Pope Boniface VIII invites Charles of Valois to Italy to check the
Bianchi.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
Civil wars begin to decline. The despots, growing out of the captains of the people,
begin to grasp the free cities.
1301 The Florentines admit Charles of Valois into the city. The Neri overcome the
Bianchi and drive them out. Dante is among the expelled.
1302 The Visconti are expelled from Milan and the Delia Torre return.
1304 Florence is partially burned in civil riots.
1306 The Este family lose their supremacy in Modena. The Doria are expelled from
Genoa.
1308 Domestic feuds in the Este family. The Venetians assist one of them to take Ferrara.
1309 The papal legate expels the Estes from Ferrara. It is governed for the pope by
King Robert of Naples, the Guelf leader.
1310 Henry VII of Luxemburg enters Italy. He confers title of imperial vicar on the
reigning lords of the Lombard towns. The Venetians establish the Council of Ten.
1311 Henry receives the iron crown of Lombardy. The Guelfs driven from Milan and the
Visconti restored. General Guelf uprising against Henry. Unsuccessful siege of
Brescia. The Genoese confer absolute authority over the city upon Henry for
twenty years.
1312 Henry withdraws from an attack on Florence.
1313 Death of Henry as he is preparing to attack Robert. Henry's visit has afforded the
despots a means of consolidating their power. The Visconti rule in Milan, the
Scaligeri in Verona, the Carraresi in Padua. Uguccione dk Faggiuola in Lucca.
The Ghibellines keep up the struggle in Pisa, Lucca, and other places.
1315 Uguccione wins many victories over the Guelfs in Lombardy and Tuscany.
1317 The Este family is restored in Ferrara. Civil war in Genoa.
1318 Robert saves Genoa from the Ghibellines and is made ruler of the city for ten years.
1319 The Ghibellines renew attack on Genoa after Robert's departure. Brescia accepts a
governor from Robert.
1320 Unsuccessful attempt of Philip of Valois to crush the Visconti.
1321 The Ghibellines at Genoa defeat an army sent against them by Robert. Siege of
Cremona by Galeazzo Visconti.
1322 Surrender of Cremona to Galeazzo. His brother Marco defeats the papal and Neapol-
itan army. Excommunication of the Visconti family. Frederick of Austria refuses
to take part in the strife.
1323 The papal army captures Alessandria and Tortona. It is driven from Milan by the
Visconti with the help of Ludwig of Bavaria, who is excommunicated for giving
his assistance. Massacre of the Pisans in Sardinia by the Aragonese.
1324 Galeazzo defeats the papal and Neapolitan army at Monza. Robert refuses to make
peace.
1325 Castruccio Castracani of Lucca makes himself lord of Pistoia and with the Visconti
attacks Florence.
1326 The Pisans abandon Sardinia to the Aragonese. The Florentines make Charles, son
of Robert, governor of the city in return for the promise of Robert's assistance
against Castracani.
1327 Ludwig IV of Germany receives the Lombard crown at Milan. He imprisons Gale-
azzo Visconti.
652 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1328 Death of Castracani. Ludwig seizes Pisa and sells Lucca. Death of the Guelf leader.
Carlo Luigi di Gonzaga makes himself master of Mantua, and assumes title of
imperial vicar. Padua submits to Can Grande della Scala. Ludwig liberates Gale-
azzo Visconti, who dies.
1329 Treviso submits to Can Grande della Scala, who dies shortly afterward. Ludwig
returns to Germany. His attempts to establish the Ghibellines in Germany have
ended in failure in Italy.
1330 John, king of Bohemia, comes to Italy to assume the leadership of the Ghibellines.
He receives the sovereignty of Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, and other republics.
Azzo Visconti nominally cedes to him the lordship of Milan. John reconciles the
Guelf and Ghibelline factions in these cities.
1332 Jealous of John's power the Della Scala and Visconti unite with the Guelf s of Flor-
ence against him, in consequence of which
1333 John leaves Italy. The Estes repulse an attack of the papal army on Ferrara.
1334 The papal legate loses Bologna.
1335 After many disputes the Lombard Ghibellines take possession of the cities abandoned
by John. Lucca, which has been allotted to Florence, is seized by Mastino della
Scala and war results, in which Florence is unsuccessful. Alliance of Florence and
Venice against Mastino. The Visconti regain Como and Crema. The Doria and
Spinola families again triumphant in Genoa.
1337 Padua taken from Mastino by Florence and Venice and given to the Guelf family of
Carrara. The Venetians capture Treviso and other cities, their first Italian posses-
sions beyond the Lagune. Taddeo de' Pepoli makes himself master of Bologna.
1338 Florence and Venice make peace with Mastino della Scala who allies himself with the
Ghibellines.
1339 The Genoese, disgusted with the government of their signoria, replace it by a single chief,
Boccanera, who takes title of doge. First appearance of the Free Companies in Italy.
1341 Mastino attempts to sell Lucca to the Florentines. This alarms the Pisans, who raise
an army and seize Lucca.
1342 The Florentines having taken a sudden fancy to Walter de Brienne, duke of Athens,
who is in Florence on his way to France, make him their lord for life.
1343 Disgusted with his selfish administration the Florentines expel the duke of Athens
and regain their freedom. Werner forms the " Great Company."
1344 The Genoese expel their doge and elect one from the nobility.
1345 Mediation of Lucchino Visconti in Genoa's civil troubles.
1346 Revolt of Zara suppressed by the Venetians. Parma and Piacenza submit to Lucchino
Visconti.
1347 Rienzi made tribune in Rome.
1348 The great plague in Italy.
1350 War breaks out between Venice and Genoa over the seizure of some Venetian ships by
the Genoese. The Pepoli cede Bologna to Giovanni Visconti, brother and successor
of Lucchino.
1351 Giovanni Visconti makes an unwarranted attack on the Tuscan cities. The Floren-
tines drive his army back. The Genoese fleet under Paganino Doria wins many vic-
tories on the Adriatic and in Negropont.
1352 Defeat of the Venetians and Aragonese by the Genoese in the Bosporus. The Eastern
emperor gives the Genoese the entire command of the Black Sea.
1353 Fra Moriale organises his free company. Genoa allies herself with Hungary. After
I a disastrous defeat by Venice and Aragon off the Sardinian coast, she gives up to
Giovanni Visconti who refits the fleet which
1354 destroys that of Venice in the Morea. Death of Giovanni Visconti ; he is succeeded
by his three nephews. Charles IV of Germany arrives in Italy and refuses to join
the Visconti. Rienzi returns to Rome from exile. He is made senator, abuses his
power and is killed.
1355 Conspiracy of Marino Falieri, doge of Venice. He is beheaded. Charles IV received
by Pisa and Siena, who pay dearly for their hospitality. Venice makes peace with
Genoa. The Raspanti restored in Pisa. The Genoese take Tripoli with the help of
Venice.
1356 The Genoese throw off the yoke of the Visconti. League of north Italian lords goes
to war with the Visconti. The marquis of Montferrat takes Asti from them. Louis
of Hungary renews struggle with Venice. Jacopo de' Bussolari delivers Pavia from
the Visconti.
1357 Zara, Spalato, and other towns lost to Louis by Venice. The league assisted by Count
Lando's Free Company defeats the Visconti on the Oglio. The Raspanti party in
Pisa at instigation of the Visconti begins to annoy the Florentines,
CHRONOLOGICAL RSUMfi 653
1358 Peace between the Visconti and the league. The Venetians abandon Istria and Dal-
matia to Louis. The Visconti again besiege Pavia. The Florentines defeat the
Great Company.
1359 Pavia capitulates to Galeazzo Visconti. Siege of Bologna by Barnab6 Visconti.
1360 Cardinal Albornoz takes Bologna and Barnabb Visconti is finally driven away. Chair
of Greek literature founded at Florence.
1361 Barnabb Visconti renews the siege of Bologna. Sir John Hawkwood invited into
Italy. Foundation of the University of Pavia by Galeazzo Visconti.
1363 Defeats for the Visconti in several places. Sir John Hawkwood and his company
enter service of Pisa. Pisa defeats Florence.
1364 The Visconti make peace with the league. Peace between Pisa and Florence. Gio-
vanni Agnello is made doge of Pisa.
1367 Formation of a new league against the Visconti. It includes the emperor, the king of
Hungary, Padua, Ferrara, Mantua, and Naples. Barnabo threatens Venice.
1368 Charles IV enters Italy. The Visconti pay him a large sum for peace. Barnab6 Vis-
conti invades Mantua.
1369 Charles returns to Germany. Pisa receives its freedom. Barnab6 makes war on
Florence, which is assisted by the pope.
1370 Lucca buys its independence from the emperor. Galeazzo Visconti takes Casale.
The Florentines capture San Miuiato. The Eastern emperor Joannes V held in
Venice for debt.
1371 Barnabo Visconti captures Keggio.
1372 War breaks out between Venice and Genoa.
1373 Venice makes war on Padua, which is compelled to accept humiliating peace. Genoa
attacks Cyprus, restoring it to the house of Lusignan.
1375 Truce between the Visconti and their enemies. The papal legate sends Sir John
Hawkwood against the Florentines, who vow vengeance on the holy see and the
French legates. They unite with Barnabo Visconti against the church and admit
Siena, Pisa, and Lucca into the league, and form the " eight of war." Eighty cities
and towns throw off the yoke of the legate.
1377 The papal forces punish Faenza and Cesena severely. The league engages Sir John
Hawkwood. It begins to break up. Bologna makes peace with the pope.
1378 Barnabo makes secret negotiations to betray Florence to the pope. Florence makes
peace with Rome. The Venetians besiege the Genoese in Cyprus. Defeat of the
Genoese fleet off Antium. Revolt in Florence. Sedition of the ciompi. Silvestro
de' Medici chosen gonfalonier. Death of Galeazzo Visconti, succeeded by his son
Gian Galeazzo.
1379 The Venetian fleet almost annihilated by the Genoese off Pola. Pietro Doria captures
Chioggia and attacks Venice. Siege of Treviso by Francesco da Carrara. The town
is relieved by Barnabb Visconti.
1380 The Genoese surrender to the Venetians and make treaty of peace.
1381 Venice cedes Treviso to Duke Leopold of Austria to save it from Francesco da Carrara,
who has again laid siege to it. Treaty of Turin. The Albizzi assume the govern-
ment of Florence.
1384 Leopold of Austria sells Treviso to Francesco da Carrara.
1385 " The Reformers " driven out of Siena. Gian Galeazzo has his uncle Barnabb put to
death, and takes possession of his dominions, making many reforms. He thus
becomes the most powerful ruler in Italy. The Milan cathedral is started.
1387 Gian Galeazzo, having made an alliance with Francesco da Carrara of Padua whom
Antonio della Scala of Verona is attacking on behalf of the Venetians, seizes
Verona and Vicenza, the latter of which he refuses to give Carrara as promised. He
now offers himself to the Venetians against Padua.
1388 Galeazzo takes Padua, holds it, captures Treviso, and threatens Venice. He makes
many unsuccessful attempts on the Tuscan cities. Nice joined to Savoy.
1389 Florence makes alliance with Bologna against Gian Galeazzo engaging Sir John
Hawkwood.
1390 Gian Galeazzo attacks Bologna. He is resisted by Hawkwood. Francesco Novello da
Carrara, assisted by the duke of Bavaria, takes Padua from Gian Galeazzo. The
Florentines engage the count of Armagnac to invade Lombardy.
1391 Armagnac defeated at Alessandria.
1392 Florence makes peace with Gian Galeazzo. At instigation of Gian Galeazzo, Jacopo
Appiano murders Piero Gambacorti, the ruler of Pisa, and makes himself master of
the city.
1393 Civil war in Genoa.
1394 Death of Sir John Hawkwood.
654 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1395 Gian Galeazzo purchases from the emperor Wencelaus the title of duke of Milan, and
count of Pavia with the investiture of the twenty-six cities once included in the
Lombard League. The title is to be hereditary.
1396 The Genoese ask the protection of France.
1397 Gian Galeazzo renews war against Florence and Mantua.
1398 The French governor of Genoa is compelled to retire on account of civil discord in the
city. Ten years' peace between Gian Galeazzo and Florence and Mantua.
1399 The son of Jacopo Appiano sells Pisa to Gian Galeazzo, reserving Piombino for him-
self. Gian Galeazzo receives promise of surrender from Siena.
1400 Perugia submits to Gian Galeazzo. Paolo Guinigi usurps sovereignty of Lucca and
places himself under Gian Galeazzo's protection.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
1401 Rupert of Germany enters Italy to suppress Gian Galeazzo, but is defeated. Gian
Galeazzo proclaimed sovereign lord of Bologna.
1402 Gian Galeazzo dies of the plague. He divides his possessions between his two young
sons Giovanni Maria (duke of Milan) and Filippo Maria (count of Pavia) under
the care of their mother Caterina and the condottieri in his service. The latter
place themselves at the head of various cities. The Guelfs and Ghibellines recover
power in many places.
1403 The dominions of Gian Galeazzo begin to break up. Bologna and Perugia are
restored to the papal states. Siena places herself under the protection of Florence.
The Venetians defeat a French and Genoese fleet.
1404 Francesco Novello da Carrara seizes Verona from the Visconti. Venice takes Vicenza
and leagues with Francesco di Gonzaga of Mantua to take Verona from the lord of
Padua. Caterina Visconti imprisoned and poisoned.
1405 The Venetians with the lord of Mantua capture Verona and Padua. Jean Boucicault,
French governor of Genoa, to whom the Pisans have given the protection of their
cities, offers to sell it to Florence. The Pisans resist, and war with Florence results.
1406 Francesco da Carrara and his sons executed at Venice. Pisa surrenders to Florence.
1408 Ladislaus of Naples attacks Tuscany, ravages Arezzo and Siena, and seizes Cortona.
1409 Florence, in alarm at Ladislaus' ambitions, calls on Louis of Anjou to prosecute his
claim to Naples. Boucicault attempts to take Milan. During his absence the
Genoese drive the French from their city. Louis returns to Provence.
1410 The Florentine army under Braccio da Montone occupies Rome. Ladislaus accepts
offers of peace.
1411 War breaks out between Hungary and Venice.
1412 The Milanese murder the cruel Giovanni Maria Visconti. Filippo Maria seizes the
city and marries the widow of Facino Cane. The Venetians drive the Hungarians
from Treviso and regain part of Friuli.
1416 Amadeus VIII joins Piedmont to Savoy.
1417 Muzio Attendolo Sforza, in the pay of Naples, drives Braccio da Montone and the
Florentine army from Rome.
1418 Filippo Maria has his wife executed.
1419 The Milanese general, Francesco Carmagnola, recovers Bergamo for Filippo Maria.
1420 Carmagnola recovers Parma, Cremona, and Brescia for Milan. The Venetians recover
Dalmatia and Friuli from the Hungarians.
1421 Genoa submits to Carmagnola, but reserves her liberties.
1424 Filippo Maria defeats the Florentines. Disgrace of Carmagnola.
1425 Continued defeats of the Florentines. Venice unites with Florence and employs
Carmagnola.
1426 Florence, Venice, Ferrara, Mantua, Siena, Savoy, and Naples unite against Filippo
Maria. Francesco Sforza, son of Muzio Attendolo, enters his service. Carmagnola
takes Brescia from Milan.
1427 The Venetians destroy a fleet collected by Filippo Maria to conquer Mantua and
Ferrara. Carmagnola defeats badly the duke of Milan's army near Macalo. Savoy
withdraws from the league and receives territory from Filippo Maria.
1428 Peace made between Milan and the allies. The Florentines attack and take possession
of Lucca.
1430 Niccolo Piccinino, the Milanese general, drives the Florentines from Lucca. Venice
and Florence reunite against Milan and the war recommences.
1431 Francesco Sforza defeats Carmagnola at Soncino. The Milanese destroy the Venetian fleet.
The marquis of Montf errat is defeated by Sforza. The allied fleets defeat the Genoese.
CHRONOLOGICAL RSUM 655
1432 The signoria of Venice suspect Carmaguola's loyalty. They invite him to Venice
and behead him. Sigismund sells the title of marquis of Mantua to Giovanni di
Gonzaga.
1433 Francesco Sforza occupies the March of Ancona, which the pope cedes to him the fol-
lowing year. Peace of Ferrara between Milan and the allies. Treaty between
Sigismund and Siena and Florence. Rinaldo degli Albizzi, head of the oligarchy
of Florence, imprisons and banishes Cosmo de' Medici, the leader of the opposition.
1434 The Florentines recall Cosmo de' Medici and place him at the head of the government.
The banished Albizzi flee to Milan and persuade the duke to make war on Florence.
1435 Filippo Maria leagues with Alfonso of Naples against the pope. The Genoese throw
off the protection of Milan and restore their independent government.
1436 Renewal of the league between Florence and Venice against Milan. Genoa joins it.
Francesco Sforza enters the service of the allies.
1438 Sforza returns to the duke of Milan, who has promised him his daughter in marriage.
1439 The duke of Milan fails to keep his promise and Sforza returns to the allies. He is
successful against Milan.
1441 Peace made between Milan and the allies. Sforza marries Filippo Maria's daughter.
Venice acquires the principality of Ravenna.
1443 Pope Eugenius IV plots to wrest the March of Ancona from Sforza. Alfonso of Naples
and the duke of Milan aid him. Sforza defeats Piccinino at Monteloro.
1444 Sforza holds out against the alliance, which presses him hard.
1446 Florence and Venice go to the aid of Sforza.
1447 Sforza loses the March of Ancona. Death of Filippo Maria. The duchy is claimed
by Alfonso of Naples, the duke of Orleans, and by Sforza. Milan and other Lom-
bard cities restore their independence, but Sforza makes himself master of Milan
and captures Piacenza. Other cities submit to him.
1448 Sforza goes to war with Venice. He takes a large portion of their territory, burns
their fleet, and wins a great victory at Caravaggio ; then makes an alliance with
Venice against Milan, which is afraid of his treachery and shuts him out of the city.
1449 The Venetians, realising Sforza's schemes to enslave Italy, desert him and join the
Milanese. Sforza besieges Milan.
1450 The Milanese finally decide to admit Sforza and recognise him as their duke.
1452 Sforza, having made alliance with Florence, Genoa, and Mantua, goes to war with
Venice. Frederick III sells Borso d'Este, Reggio, and the duchy of Modena.
1454 Pope Nicholas V brings about the Peace of Lodi, signed by Milan and Venice.
1455 Alfonso of Naples signs the Peace of Lodi, and joins with the pope and the north
Italian states in a league against the Turks.
1457 Genoa and Naples go to war. The Council of Ten in Naples deposes the great doge
Francesco Foscari, who dies of grief.
1458 The Neapolitans besiege Genoa. Cosmo de' Medici and Lucas Pitti plan to force
despot rule upon Florence.
1461 The Genoese free themselves from Naples.
1462 The Venetians ally themselves with Matthias Corvinus against the Turks.
1463 Venice purchases Cervia from Malatesta IV.
1464 Sforza obtains control of Genoa. Death of Cosmo de' Medici. His son Piero succeeds
to the presidency of Florence.
1466 The Pitti family is defeated in its attempt to subjugate Florence. The Alberti party
is banished. Death of Francesco Sforza. His son Galeazzo Maria succeeds. He
misgoverns the duchy and alienates the people from him.
1469 Death of Piero de' Medici. His sons Lorenzo and Giuliano succeed, but the governing
power remains in the hands of the five citizens who exercised it under Piero.
1470 The Turks take Negropont in Eubcea from the Venetians. Florence, Modena, Milan,
Naples, and the pope form a holy league against the Turks. Venice and the knights
of Rhodes make alliance with the sultan of Persia for the same purpose. The con-
spiracy of Nardi against the Medici.
1471 The pope confers the duchy of Ferrara upon Borso d'Este.
1472 The fleet of the Holy League drives the Turks from the Grecian archipelago and ravages
Smyrna.
1473 The Turks reach the borders of Friuli.
1475 The Venetians garrison the island of Cyprus. The Turks capture the Genoese ports
in the Crimea.
1476 Conspiracy at Ferrara in favour of Niccolo d'Este. It fails. Assassination of Gale-
azzo Maria Sforza at Milan, the result of the Olgiate conspiracy. His son Giovanni
Galeazzo Maria succeeds under regency of his mother.
1477 Revolt of Matteo de' Fieschi at Genoa.
656 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1478 The Pazzi conspiracy in Florence, aided by Sixtus IV. Giuliano is murdered. Lo-
renzo, wounded, escapes. The people massacre most of the conspirators, among them
the archbishop of Pisa, for which deed Sixtus excommunicates Florence. The pope,
and Naples, and other Italian states begin war on Florence. The Genoese restore
their government.
1479 Venice makes peace with the Turks, giving up Scutari and fortresses in Illyria and
the Morea. Sixtus IV induces the Swiss to declare war on Milan. They win a vic-
tory at Giornico. Defeat of the Florentines by the Neapolitans at Poggio Imperiale.
The situation of Lorenzo becomes critical. The pope demands his expulsion from
Florence. He goes to Naples. Lodovico Sforza (II Moro), uncle of the young Gio-
vanni Galeazzo Maria, undertakes the government of Milan.
1480 Lorenzo makes treaty with Ferdinand of Naples. On return to Florence he makes the
yoke more oppressive. The pope in fear of the Turks, who have landed in Italy,
becomes reconciled to Lorenzo and makes treaty with him.
1481 All states of Italy (Venice excepted) unite against the Turks and recover Otranto, lost
the previous year. Sixtus and the Venetians attempt to seize Ferrara and divide
it between them.
1482 Milan, Florence, and Naples form a league to prevent Venice and the pope from car-
rying out their designs.
1483 Sixtus now sides with the league and excommunicates Venice for persisting in the
attack on Ferrara.
1484 Peace of Bagnolo between Ferrara and Venice ; the former gives up some of her pos-
sessions.
1485 Innocent VIII begins a war upon Florence, but makes peace the following year.
1487 Lorenzo de' Medici wrests Sarzana from the Genoese, who put themselves again under
Milan's protection.
1489 Galeotto Manfredi, lord of Faenza, stabbed by his wife as he is about to sell his prin-
cipality to the Venetians. Savonarola arrives in Florence and begins to preach
reform in the church.
1492 Death of Lorenzo de' Medici. His son Piero succeeds.
1493 Lodovico il Moro, wishing to retain his power in Milan, plots to get rid of his enemy
the king of Naples, and invites Charles VIII of France to revive the Angevin claim
to Naples.
1494 The emperor Maximilian makes Lodovico duke of Milan. Giovanni Galeazzo Maria
banished to Pavia. Alfonso II of Naples attacks Genoa but is defeated by the Swiss.
Charles VIII enters Italy. Sudden and mysterious death of Giovanni Galeazzo
Maria. Charles enters Tuscany. Piero surrenders Sarzana and offers to give up
Pisa and other cities. The people rise and drive Piero out of Florence. Charles
grants the Pisans their liberty and proceeds to Rome.
1495 Lodovico, alarmed at Charles' success, forms a league against him, with the pope, the
emperor Maximilian, and Ferdinand of Spain, in Venice. Charles leaves Naples
and with difficulty returns to France. Formation of the Grand Council by advice of
Savonarola to govern Florence.
1496 Maximilian comes to Italy with an army, but returns to Germany after a quarrel with
Venice. Florence attempts to regain Pisa.
1498 The Venetians and Florentines struggle for the possession of Pisa. Milan aids the
Florentines. Execution of Savonarola. Death of Charles VIII in France. His
successor, Louis XII, takes title of duke of Milan and claims the duchy.
1499 Louis makes a treaty with the Venetians for the conquest of Milan. The French
army enters Italy. Flight of Lodovico il Moro to Germany. Louis XII enters
Milan. The rest of Lombardy submits. Genoa comes under French protection.
The Florentines tire of the war with Pisa and make peace.
1500 The Milanese tire of the oppressive French. Lodovico returns with an army. Como,
Milan, Parma, and Pavia open their gates. Novara taken after a siege. Lodovico is
betrayed at Novara into the hands of Louis de la Tremouille, the French general, and
sent to France in captivity. Milan again subject to the French. The French army
marches to Naples.
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
1501 Cesare Borgia begins his conquest of the petty states of Romagna. He takes Pesaro,
Rimini, Forli, and Faenza.
1502 Cesare seizes the duchy of Urbino with the aid of Louis. He wars with the Orsini
and plans to capture Pisa, and marries his sister Lucrezia to the son of the duke of
Ferrara. The Florentines create the office of gonfalonier for life.
CHRONOLOGICAL RSUM 657
1503 At death of Pope Alexander VI the dominions of Cesare are taken from him by Julius
II. Venice seizes Faenza and Rimini, which enrages the pope. The Venetians
make peace with the Turks, renouncing their possessions in the Peloponnesus.
Death of Piero de' Medici with the French army in Naples. Pietro Soderini chosen
gonfalonier of Florence.
1504 Louis signs treaty of Blois with Maximilian, in which they propose to divide the
republic of Venice between them. Florence makes another attempt to take Pisa.
1506 Julius II attacks Perugia and Bologna.
1507 Unable to endure the yoke of the French and their own nobles, the Genoese drive out
the French and restore the republic. Louis at once captures Genoa and puts the
doge and other prominent citizens to death.
1508 Unsuccessful invasion of Italy by Maximilian. The Venetians defeat him and he is
compelled to make truce, yielding them Trieste. The infamous League of Cambray
formed by the pope, the emperor, Spain, and France against Venice. Savoy,
Mantua, and Ferrara also join.
1509 France declares war on Venice. The Venetians, badly defeated at Agnadello, give
up their possessions in northern Italy. The Venetians regain Padua. The Floren-
tines capture Pisa.
1510 Julius begins to fear his foreign allies and resolves to drive the barbarians from Italy
with the aid of the Swiss. He absolves the Venetians and pits the Spanish against
the French. The French are attacked in Genoa, Modena, and Verona.
1511 Julius captures Mirandola; the French take Bologna from him. Julius forms the
holy league with the Spaniards, English, Swiss, and Venetians against France.
1512 Gaston de Foix relieves the French, besieged in Bologna by the Spaniards ; retakes
Brescia, and fights a great battle at Ravenna with the pope and his allies, in which
he is killed. Maximilian abandons the French. The Swiss occupy Milan and
restore Massimiliano Sforza, son of Lodovico. The pope regains Bologna and Fer-
rara, and seizes Parma and Piacenza from the Milanese. The Medici return to
Florence and resume their former position. Genoa expels the French. Italy passes
from the yoke of France to that of the Swiss, Spaniards, and Germans.
1513 Giovanni de' Medici becomes Pope Leo X. Alliance between the Venetians and the
French. The latter enter the duchy of Milan, but are defeated by the Swiss mer-
cenaries at Novara. The Spaniards attack Venice on behalf of Maximilian, and
occupy Verona, Padua, and Vicenza, acting with great cruelty.
1514 The French are driven out of their last fortresses in Italy.
1515 Francis I, the new French king, asserts his claim to Milan, recovers Genoa, and badly
defeats the Swiss at Marignano. He enters Milan, and the Swiss leave Italy forever,
after making peace with Francis. Massimiliano Sforza abdicates. Venice captures
Bergamo and Peschiera. Peace between Francis and Leo. The latter gives up
Parma and Piacenza.
1516 The Venetians capture Brescia and lay siege to Verona. Treaty of Noyon between
Francis and Charles I of Spain. Maximilian agrees to it. By its terms Venice
recovers all the territory taken from her by the League of Cambray.
1517 Verona restored to Venice. France and Venice renew their alliance. Leo turns the
duke of Urbino out of his duchy and gives it to Lorenzo de' Medici.
1518 Treaty of peace signed between Maximilian and Venice.
1519 Death of Lorenzo. The pope annexes Urbino to his states and attempts to seize Fer-
rara. Charles V succeeds to the imperial title.
1521 Leo makes treaty with Charles to drive the French from Italy. The allies enter Milan ;
the Sforza are restored. Death of Leo stops attempts on Ferrara.
1522 The French, defeated, evacuate Lombardy, but retain Genoa, which is pillaged by the
Spaniards.
1524 The French attempt to recover Lombardy. Francis besieges Pavia.
1525 Battle of Pavia. Defeat and capture of Francis. The way for Spanish dominion is
opened in Italy. The marquis of Pescara betrays the Sforza party into the hands of
the emperor.
1526 Francis, liberated, treats with the pope, the Venetians, and Francesco Sforza, to deliver
Italy from the Spaniards. Surrender of Sforza and Milan to the Spaniards. The
constable De Bourbon leads the imperial forces to Rome.
1527 Capture and sack of Rome by the Spaniards. The pope a prisoner, escapes to Orvieto.
The Florentines restore their republican government and drive Alessandro de' Medici
from the city. A French army under Lautrec enters Lombardy, conquers Pavia,
Genoa, and many other cities. The duke of Ferrara seizes Modena, and the Venetians
Ravenna.
1528 Andrea Doria drives the French from Genoa, and re-establishes the republic.
H. w. — VOL. ix. 2 u
658 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1529 Treaty of Barcelona between Charles and the pope, restoring the Medici to Florence.
Peace of Cambray between Francis and Charles, in which France relinquishes all
claims on Italy to Spain. Francesco Sforza and the duke of Ferrara submit to
Charles. Venice gives up Ravenna and Cervia to the pope. The republics of
Lucca, Genoa, and Siena make themselves dependent on Charles. The marquis
of Montferrat and the duke of Savoy join the Spanish party and the former is made
1530 Charles crowned king of Italy and emperor at Bologna. Fall of Florence before the
imperial army, after a brave defence by Francesco Ferrucci. End of the republic.
Charles decides the papal claims on Ferrara in favour of Alfonso d'Este.
1531 Return of Alessandro de' Medici to Florence with title of duke of Civita di Penne,
obtained from the emperor. The pope relinquishes Modena to Alfonso and makes
him duke of Ferrara.
1535 On death of Francesco Sforza, Charles takes possession of the duchy of Milan and
makes his son Philip governor. For this act France again attempts to gain a foot-
hold in Italy and sends an army into Savoy.
1536 Capture of Turin by the French. Sack and burning of Nice. Montferrat is given to
the duke of Mantua.
1537 Assassination of Alessandro de' Medici. Cosmo of the younger branch is made duke.
1538 League of Genoa and Venice against the Turks. Andrea Doria breaks the alliance
and is defeated by the Algerine corsair Barbarossa.
1540 Peace between Venice and the Turks ; all the former's possessions in the Morea are
given up. Paul III forms the Society of Jesus.
1545 Pope Paul III makes Parma and Piacenza into a duchy for his son Pier Luigi Farnese.
1546 Cosmo thwarts the plot of Francesco Burlamacchi of Lucca to restore the liberty of the
Tuscan republics. Burlamacchi executed at Milan.
1547 Gian Luigi de' Fieschi, with the aid of the French, forms a conspiracy to throw off the
yoke of the Spaniards and Andrea Doria. Genoa is seized, but Fieschi is drowned
and the Doria remain in control. The duke of Parma is assassinated. The imperial
troops seize Piacenza ; the pope seizes Parma.
1552 Pope Julius III gives Parma back to Pier Luigi's son, Ottavio. The Sienese drive out
the Spanish garrison and admit a French one.
1553 The French, aided by the Turks, capture a portion of Corsica from the Genoese, most
of which Andrea Doria recovers the following year.
1554 Cosmo de' Medici makes a sudden attack on Siena. The marquis of Marignano
undertakes to reduce the city.
1555 Surrender of Siena after a siege of fifteen months. The Spaniards take possession.
Pope Paul IV induces Henry II of France to break his treaty of peace with Spain.
The duke of Alva invades the papal states. The duke of Guise and the pope oppose
him.
1557 The duke of Alva forces the French to retreat. The pope makes peace with the
Spaniards. Philip gives Cosmo full sovereignty over Siena.
1559 The French-Spanish war terminated by the peace of Cateau-Cambresis. It leaves the
king of Spain undisputed lord of Italy. Savoy and Piedmont (except a few towns)
are restored to Emmanuel Philibert. The only remaining republics are Venice,
Genoa, Lucca, and San Marino. Venice alone is of any importance.
1562 Turin and four other towns are restored by the French to Emmanuel Philibert. He
transfers his capital to Turin, and his house becomes thoroughly Italian.
1569 Pope Pius V makes Cosmo de' Medici grand duke of Tuscany. The emperor protests.
1570 The Turks take Cyprus from the Venetians.
1571 The combined fleets of Venice, Spain, the pope, and the knights of Malta, defeat the
Turks in the Gulf of Lepanto. This victory delivers Italy from the infidel, but the
allies do not follow it up.
1573 Venice is forced to make peace with the Turks. She gives up Cyprus and pays a large
tribute.
1575 The emperor acknowledges the title of grand duke of Tuscany.
1576 Great devastation made by the plague in Italy.
1578 Failure of a conspiracy at Florence against the grand duke of Tuscany.
1580 Charles Emmanuel succeeds his father as duke of Savoy.
1582 Charles Emmanuel fails in an attempt to capture Genoa.
1586 Death of Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma. His son Alessandro succeeds.
1588 The duke of Savoy taking advantage of Francis' distracted condition, conquers
Saluzzo.
1589 The duke of Savoy invades Provence.
1590 The French drive Charles Emmanuel from Provence.
CHRONOLOGICAL KUM 659
1597 Death of Alfonso d'Este, duke of Ferrara. Pope Clement VIII claims his dominions
(Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio) from his kinsman and heir, Cesare d'Este. France
sides with the pope, and Spain with the duke.
1598 Cesare gives up Ferrara to the pope and retires to Modena and Reggio, where he rules
as duke.
1600 Henry IV of France proceeds against the duke of Savoy.
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
1601 Peace of Lyons between Henry IV and Charles Emmanuel. The latter is allowed to
keep Saluzzo, but gives up Bresse, Bugey, and the Pays de Gex, his possessions in
Burgundy.
1606 Pope Paul V attempts to compel Venice to acknowledge his ecclesiastical supremacy.
Hitherto the Venetians have recognised no chief above their own patriarch. They
prepare for war with the pope. Henry IV mediates. The Venetians in a veiled
manner admit the papal supremacy, but refuse to readmit the Jesuits, and the pope
removes the interdiction.
1613 On the death of Francesco, the duke of Mantua and Montferrat, his brother Ferdinand
succeeds. Charles Emmanuel invades Montferrat on behalf of his daughter, the late
duke's widow. Philip III of Spain orders him to evacuate the duchy and the duke
of Savoy goes to war with Spain.
1615 The Spanish governor of Milan attacks Charles Emmanuel. Venice and the imperial
party come to hostilities over the piracies of the Uscochi, subjects of the empire.
1617 Venice makes alliance with the Dutch.
1618 Conspiracy of Don Pedro de Toledo, governor of Milan, the duke of Osuna, and the
marquis of Bedmar to destroy Venice. It is betrayed to the Council of Ten and
thwarted.
1620 The Catholics in the Grisons revolt against the Protestant government. Philip III
sends the governor of Milan to help the Catholics. He occupies the Valtelline.
1624 France, Savoy, and Venice unite against Spain in the war in the Grisons.
1625 The duke of Savoy and a French army make an attempt to capture Genoa. The
Germans and Spaniards invade Savoy and the duke is obliged to abandon the siege.
1626 On the death of the last of the Delia Rovere family the duchy of Urbino is annexed to
the papal states.
1627 On the death of the duke of Mantua, Charles Emmanuel again seizes Montferrat.
1628 France and Venice oppose the duke of Savoy. Spain and Austria assist him. The
Spaniards seize Casale. Plot of Vachero and others in Genoa to place the city under
the protection of Charles Emmanuel. It is discovered and its leader executed.
1629 Treaty of Susa between France and Savov. Spain and the emperor refuse to ratify it.
1630 Death of Charles Emmanuel, succeeded by his son Victor Amadeus I. The imperial
army seizes Mantua.
1631 The Montferrat question settled by the treaty of Cherasco. Mantua and Montferrat
are given to Charles, duke of Nevers. Savoy gets a small portion of Montferrat and
Pinerolo is ceded to France.
1637 On death of Victor Amadeus a contest over the regency for his young son, Charles
Emmanuel II, begins.
1639 Capture of Turin by Prince Thomas of Savoy in the contest for the regency.
1642 The duke's mother Christina obtains the regency of Savoy under the protection of
France. This leads to the implication of Italy in the wars of Louis XIII with Ger-
many and Spain. Civil war breaks out in Italy. The ducal families take the side
of Spain.
1645 War breaks out between Venice and the Turks. The latter seize a portion of Candia.
1651 The Venetians win a great naval victory from the Turks near Scio.
1655 The Spaniards besiege Reggio without success. Prince Thomas of Savoy and the duke
of Modena with a French army fail in an attempt to capture Pavia. Naval victory
of the Venetians over the Turks hi the Dardanelles.
1656 Continued naval victories of the Venetians ; they hire mercenaries from the pope, and
admit the Jesuits into their city.
1659 The wars of Louis XIV and Spain ended by the treaty of the Pyrenees. France
retains possession of Pinerolo.
1669 After a long siege the Turks take Candia from the Venetians. Crete is lost.
1670 After a long reign Ferdinand IT, grand duke of Tuscany, dies, succeeded by his son
Cosmo III.
1675 Death of Charles Emmanuel U of Savoy. Victor Amadeus II succeeds.
660 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1684 The French fleet bombards Genoa, whose citizens have refused to allow Louis XIV to
establish a depot at Savona. Venice, encouraged by Sobieski's victories over the
Turks, leagues with the emperor and the Poles against them.
1685 The doge of Genoa and four senators go to Paris to apologise and make terms with
Louis XIV. The Venetians under Francesco Morosini take many towns in the
Morea from the Turks.
1686 The duke of Savoy forbids all religions but the Catholic to exist in Savoy.
1687 The Venetians complete the conquest of the Morea. They seize Lepanto, Corinth,
and Athens.
1690 Toleration of the Protestants is restored in Savoy, which joins the league against
France. The French take Saluzzo and other territory from Savoy.
1691 The progress of the French in Savoy is stopped by a German army. Continued success
of the Venetians in Greece.
1694 Siege of Casale by the duke of Savoy.
1695 The war with the Turks begins to turn against the Venetians.
1696 The duke of Savoy makes peace with France, which gives up Pinerplo to him.
1699 Treaty of Karlowitz between Venice and the Turks. The former is confirmed in her
conquests in Greece.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1701 The war of the Spanish Succession is begun in Italy. Tuscany and Mantua side with
the French. Prince Eugene of Savoy defeats the French army.
1702 Prince Eugene captures Cremona and besieges Mantua. The duke of Vendome drives
him off. Victory of the French and Spaniards at Santa Vittoria.
1704 The duke of Savoy goes over to the Austrian side. The French are supreme in Savoy
and Modena.
1706 Battle of Turin and great defeat of the French, who lose all their conquests in Italy.
The duke of Savoy recovers his possessions and obtains Montferrat. Charles III is
proclaimed king of Spain.
1708 The emperor Joseph I claims the duchy of Mantua on the death of the last duke.
The pope attempts to resist, but is overcome and submits to Joseph's claim.
1713 The Peace of Utrecht. For his services in the war of the Spanish Succession, Victor
Amadeus II receives Sicily with the title of king and is crowned at Palermo.
The emperor Charles receives Milan, Mantua, Sardinia, and Naples. Italy passes
from the power of Spain to that of Austria.
1714 The pope lays claim to Sicily and issues a bull against Victor Amadeus, who ignores it.
Philip V marries Elizabeth Farnese, which makes him heir to Parrna and Piacenza,
and a claimant of Tuscany.
1715 The Turks go to war with the Venetians and reconquer the Morea.
1716 The emperor assists the Venetians. Prince Eugene captures Temesvar. The com-
bined fleet captures Santa Maura.
1717 In the dispute with Austria over the succession to the grand duchy of Tuscany, Philip
V of Spain unexpectedly conquers Sardinia. The allied armies make headway
against the Turks.
1718 The Quadruple Alliance — Great Britain, France, Austria, and the Netherlands —
formed against Philip, to take Lombardy from him. War with the Turks ended by
the Peace of Passarowitz. Venice gives up the struggle against the infidels after
five hundred years. She is now in full decline and takes no part in the eighteenth-
century wars. The Spaniards invade Sicily.
1719 The Spaniards defeated and driven off from Messina. They leave the island.
1720 Philip agrees to the terms of the Quadruple Alliance. For his adherence to Philip,
Victor Amadeus is compelled to exchange Sicily for Sardinia, and his realm is hence-
forth called the kingdom of Sardinia. Sicily is reunited to Naples.
1723 Gian Gastone succeeds to the grand duchy of Tuscany.
1730 Victor Amadeus abdicates in favour of his son, Charles Emmanuel III. The
Corsicans revolt against the Genoese to rid themselves of tyranny.
1731 Death of the last duke of Parma. Don Charles of Spain succeeds. Victor Amadeus
attempts to regain his crown, but is defeated by Charles Emmanuel and imprisoned
in the castle of Rimini, where he dies in 1732. Charles Emmanuel destroys all tem-
poral power of the pope in his realm.
1733 The war of the Polish Succession begins. France makes alliance with Spain and Sar-
dinia. They plan to drive the Austrians from Italy ; to establish Don Charles on
the throne of the Two Sicilies and in the duchies; and to give Milan to Charles
Emmanuel. The latter seizes Milan.
CHRONOLOGICAL KSUM 661
1734 Victory of Charles Emmanuel at Guastalla.
1735 Don Cnarles goes to Sicily and is crowned king.
1737 Death of Gian Gastone, grand duke of Tuscany, the last of the Medici.
1738 The Treaty of Vienna settles the disputes of the war of the Polish Succession. Duke
Francis of Lorraine receives Tuscany. Parma and Piacenza are given to Austria,
which keeps Milan and Mantua. Don Charles acknowledged king of the Two
Sicilies. Charles Emmanuel acquires Novara, and Tortona is separated from Milan.
1740 War of the Austrian Succession begins. The Bourbon houses of Spain, France, and
the Sicilies oppose the Habsburg-Lorraine party in the succession of Maria Theresa.
1741 Charles Emmanuel joins the Habsburg cause.
1742 The king of Sardinia attacks Reggio and Modena. The Spanish army invades Savoy,
but is driven back.
1745 The Sardinians defeated by the French and Spaniards, who seize Parma and Milan.
Francis of Lorraine, elected emperor, sends an Austrian army against them.
1746 Defeat of the French and Spaniards by the king of Sardinia and the Austrians at
Piacenza. The Genoese compelled to admit the Austrians into the city, but they
afterwards expel them.
1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the war, and redivides Italy. Parma, Piacenza, and
Guastalla are made into a duchy for Don Philip, brother of Charles III of the Two
Sicilies. The Austrians keep Milan and Tuscany. Venice, Lucca, and San Marino
remain free, so does Genoa, but, with the duchy of Modena, it is placed under the
protection of France. Until the French Revolution Italy ceases to be a matter of
dispute between the European nations.
1755 Pasquale Paoli takes command of the Corsicans in their continued struggle to free
themselves from Genoa. He plans to establish a republic in the island.
1765 Death of the emperor Francis. Tuscany, which, since his assumption of the emperor-
ship, has been practically an Austrian province, is given to his son Leopold and
becomes a separate state once more.
1768 Genoa, wearied of the struggle with Corsica, cedes it to France.
1773 Death of Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia, succeeded by his son, Victor Amadeus III.
1790 Leopold, succeeding to the empire, makes his son, Ferdinand III, grand duke of
Tuscany.
1792 The French army captures Savoy and Nice and makes them part of the republic.
1793 Victor Amadeus joins the alliance against France.
1796 The French army under Napoleon Bonaparte crosses the Alps. Victor Amadeus
surrenders his claim to Savoy and Nice, and gives up Alessandria and Tortona
after Bonaparte's many victories. The French invade the Austrian dominions and
enter Milan. Bonaparte enters Bologna and founds the Cispadane Republic, with
Bologna as capital. Death of Victor Amadeus, succeeded by his son, Charles
Emmanuel IV. Defeat of the Austrians at Arcola.
1797 Defeat of the Austrians at Rivoli completes conquest of Lombardy. Mantua sur-
renders to Bonaparte. He declares war on Venice and enters the city. Revolt
against the republican party in Genoa ; Bonaparte interferes and establishes the
Ligurian Republic. He forms Lombardy, Parma, Modena, the papal state of Bologna,
Ferrara, Romagna, and part of Venice into the Cisalpine Republic, with capital
at Milan. Treaty of Campo-Formio recognises the new republics and gives the
remainder of Venice to Austria.
1798 The French army enters Rome and forms the Tiberine Republic. Pope Pius VI sent
a captive to France. The French take Piedmont and Charles Emmanuel retires to
Sardinia.
1799 The French garrison gives up Rome to the English. The French directory declares
war against Austria and Tuscany. The allies under Kay and Suvarroff defeat the
French many times in northern Italy. Milan is taken. The Austrians take Ancona
and Coni.
1800 Bonaparte recovers his lost possessions in Italy. Battle of Marengo. Genoa and
Tuscany given up to Bonaparte.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
1801 Bonaparte deposes Ferdinand III ; makes Tuscany into the kingdom of Etruria, and
gives it to Louis, son of the duke of Parma.
1802 The Cisalpine becomes the Italian Republic and Bonaparte is president. Piedmont
annexed to France. Charles Emmanuel abdicates in favour of his brother Victor
Emmanuel I.
662 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1803 Death of Louis of Etruria. His wife, Maria Louisa, rules as regent for his young son,
Charles Louis.
1805 The emperor Napoleon makes the Italian Republic into a kingdom and is crowned
king ; Eugene Beauharnais viceroy. The Ligurian Republic is annexed to France.
Lucca is made a principality, and with the kingdom of Etruria given to Elisa
Bonaparte.
1806 By the conditions of the Peace of Pressburg the Venetian possessions of Austria are
added to the kingdom of Italy. Pauline Bonaparte cedes Guastalla to the kingdom.
1807 Elisa Bonaparte cedes Etruria to the kingdom of Italy.
1809 Napoleon seizes the papal states and occupies Rome. He is excommunicated by the
pope.
1810 The papal states are added to the French Empire.
1814 The English capture Genoa. The pope returns to Rome by Napoleon's permission.
Fall of Napoleon. Genoa, instigated by England, makes a vain attempt to restore
the Ligurian Republic.
1815 By the Treaty of Paris and Congress of Vienna, Victor Emmanuel I receives back the
kingdom of Sardinia with the addition of Genoa. Venice and Milan are formed
into the Lombardo-Venetian province of Austria. Lucca is given to the Parmesan
Bourbons who are to recover Parma and Piacenza at the death of Maria Louisa,
Napoleon's wife, to whom they are allotted as a duchy. Ferdinand III is restored to
Tuscany, and he is to receive Lucca when the Parmesan house takes possession of its
own territory. Francis IV is made duke of Modena and he is to receive Lunigiana
from the grand duke of Tuscany when the latter takes possession of Lucca. The
papal states are restored to Pope Pius VII. San Marino remains undisturbed,
the only Italian republic. Murat drives the pope from Rome, but is defeated and
escapes to Corsica. All the Italian sovereigns are in strict alliance with Austria
through whose influence they hold their thrones.
1821 The people of Turin and Alessandria demand constitutional governments, and war with
Austria. Rather than grant any concession Victor Emmanuel abdicates in favour
of his brother Charles Felix. The movement is suppressed by Austria.
1824 Leopold II succeeds as grand duke of Tuscany.
1825 By Charles Felix's order the poor in his kingdom are forbidden instruction in reading
and writing.
1830 Duke Francis of Modena intrigues with the liberal party, in an attempt to obtain the
succession to Sardinia.
1831 Revolt of Ciro Menotti in Modena. Francis deserts the liberals. The duke of Modena
and the duchess of Parma forced to flee. Republican revolt in Romagna against the
pope. He calls on Austria for aid, which is given. The duke of Modena and duchess
of Parma are restored ; the revolt in Romagna put down. Execution of Menotti
and his companions. Disappointment of the liberals in not receiving help from
France. Mazzini founds the " Young Italy " party. Death of Charles Felix and the
end of the elder branch. Charles Albert of the Savoy-Carignano line succeeds.
Mazzini calls on him to defy Austria.
1832 The French, jealous of the Austrian garrisons in the papal states, seize Ancona.
1833 Mazzini makes a raid on Savoy. It fails and he flees to England.
1837 Charles Albert issues a new code for his kingdom.
1838 The French and Austrian s withdraw their garrisons from the papal states.
1844 Revolt of the Bandiera at Cosenza.
1846 Cardinal Mastai Ferretti is elected pope (Pius IX). He declares himself a liberal and
begins a new policy of reform. The Austrians remonstrate.
1847 Pius forms the national guard in his states. The Austrians seize Ferrara. Charles
Albert turns from the Austrian party and declares for reform and the liberation of
Italy. Death of the duchess of Parma. The Bourbons return from Lucca, which
is added to Tuscany.
1848 Metternich refuses to grant any of the demanded reforms in Lombardo-Venetia.
Following the example of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, the king of Sardinia,
the grand duke of Tuscany, and the pope, grant their people liberal constitutions.
The revolutionary troubles in Vienna and Hungary incite Lombardo-Venetia to
insurrection. The Milanese drive Marshal Radetzky and the Austrian troops out of
the city. Other cities join the Milanese. The duke of Modena flees. Venice rises
against the Austrians. They leave the city, and a provincial form of government is
set up under Daniele Manin. Charles Albert declares war on Austria. Peschiera
surrenders to him and he defeats Radetzky at Goito. Lombardo-Venetia votes for
annexation to Sardinia. Charles Albert is badly defeated by Radetzky at Custozza
and makes armistice. The Austrians re-enter Milan. All the provinces except
CHRONOLOGICAL KSUM 663
Venice return to Austrian rule. Insurrection in Rome. Assassination of the pope's
minister, Count Rossi. Pius flees to Gaeta.
1849 Revolt in Tuscany; the grand duke flees to Gaeta and a provincial government is set
up in Florence. A republic is declared in Rome with Mazzini at the head. Gio-
berti retires and Rattazzi assumes the leadership of the democratic party in Pied-
mont. The war with Austria is renewed and Charles Albert is completely defeated
by Radetzky at Novara. He abdicates in favour of his son Victor Emmanuel II.
Genoa attempts to restore the republic, but the revolt is put down. The French,
jealous of Austria's power, send an army to restore the pope. Rome is defended by
Garibaldi, but is forced to capitulate. The French garrison the city and declare for
the papal government. The Florentines recall Leopold, and the duke of Modena
returns. Venice surrenders to the Austrians. Treaty of peace between Sardinia
and Austria. Italy's struggle for liberty is crushed.
1850 The pope returns to Rome. His policy is now entirely against reform. The Siccardi
law, abolishing ecclesiastical courts and privileges, passed in Piedmont. Reform
progresses quickly under Victor Emmanuel.
1853 Count d'Azeglio resigns office of chief minister in Piedmont; succeeded by Count
Cavour, who allies himself with Rattazzi and the democratic party. He begins his
work for the unification of Italy.
1855 Sardinia makes alliance with England and France against Russia. A Sardinian army
is sent to the Crimea.
1856 At Congress of Paris, Cavour lays the grievances of Italy before the European powers
and obtains assurance of Napoleon Ill's assistance.
1858 Cavour meets Napoleon at Plombieres and arranges for a Franco-Italian war against
Austria.
1859 Austria demands disarmament of Sardinia. France and Sardinia declare war. Na-
poleon declares he will free Italy. Romagna frees itself from the pope. A revolt
in Tuscany causes the grand duke to flee. Battle of Magenta forces the Austrians
out of Lombardy. Great victory of the allies at Solferino. Peace of Villafranca.
Austria gives up western Lombardy to Sardinia. The exiled dukes are to be
restored. Fear of Prussia deters Napoleon from carrying out his high purpose, and
he simply agrees to an Italian confederation of which Austria, as ruler of Venice,
will be a' member. Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna, object to the confed-
eration and ask for annexation to Sardinia, which decides Victor Emmanuel not to
agree to Napoleon's plan.
1860 Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna vote to become subject to Sardinia. Napo-
leon agrees to this in return for the cession of Savoy and Nice to France. Garibaldi
liberates southern Italy. The people of the Two Sicilies vote for annexation to
Sardinia. Umbria and the Marches also annexed. Only Rome and Venice remain
to be liberated.
1861 First Italian parliament at Turin. Victor Emmanuel declared king of Italy. Death of
Cavour.
1862 Garibaldi invades Sicily with a volunteer army. Owing to objections from France,
the Italian ministry is forced to oppose him. He is defeated and wounded at
Aspromonte.
1864 The September convention. Napoleon agrees to a gradual withdrawal of the French
troops from Rome. Victor Emmanuel promises not to attack the pope's territory.
Florence is made the capital of Italy.
1866 The Prusso-Austrian war breaks out. Alliance of Italy and Prussia. The Italian
army is defeated several times, but after the Prussian victory of Koniggratz
(Sadowa) Austria cedes Venice to France. Treaty of Vienna. Venice with the
Quadrilateral of fortresses (Verona, Legnago, Peschiera, and Mantua) is given
to Italy. Austria keeps the Istrian and Dalmatian provinces. The withdrawal
of the French troops from Rome is completed.
1867 Mazzini urges the Italian people to seize Rome. Garibaldi makes the attempt. He
defeats the papal troops at Monte Rotondo. Victor Emmanuel pleads to have his
agreement to the September convention respected. The French regarrison Rome.
Garibaldi surrenders to the French and papal forces at Mentana, and is arrested by
the Italian government.
1870 The French leave Rome at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Mazzini
incites the republicans to seize Rome. He is arrested and imprisoned at Gaeta.
The fall of Napoleon III releases Victor Emmanuel from the agreement of the Sep-
tember convention and he enters Rome. The pope appeals in vain to the king of
Prussia and retires to the Vatican. The papal territories are annexed, and the unity
of Italy is complete.
664 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1871 The capital of Italy transferred to Rome.
1874 The Jesuits are ordered to leave Italy. Garibaldi enters the chamber of deputies and
takes the oath of allegiance.
1878 Death of Victor Emmanuel, succeeded by his son Humbert.
1882 Death of Garibaldi.
1885 Italy assumes the government of Massowah.
1887 Formation of the " Triple Alliance " between Italy, Germany, and Austria. War
begins in Massowah.
1888 Italy annexes Massowah. War with the Abyssinians begins.
1891 Treaty with Great Britain concerning the boundaries of territories in East Africa.
Renewal of the Triple Alliance. Commercial treaty with Austria and Germany.
Dispute with the United States over the massacre of eleven Italian prisoners at
New Orleans.
1892 Indemnity paid by the United States. Diplomatic relations renewed.
1893 The Aigues-Mortes riots. The bank scandals.
1895 Treaty with France respecting Tunis. Disastrous defeat of the Italians at Adowa in
Abyssinia. Treaty of peace with Abyssinia recognising independence of Ethiopia.
1898 Bread riots in many places owing to rise of prices. An Italian fleet attempts to
enforce payment of the award to Signer Cerruti for robbery and imprisonment by
Colombia. The matter is peacefully adjusted.
1900 Assassination of Humbert. His son Victor Emmanuel III succeeds.
1903 Italy allied with England and Germany to enforce payment of debt by Venezuela.
The matter is settled by arbitration. Death of pope Leo XIII ; cardinal Sarto suc-
ceeds as Pius X.
THE KINGDOM OP THE TWO SICILIES
The Hohenstaufens (1198-1266 A.D.)
1198 Frederick II, son of the emperor Henry VI who has conquered Sicily from the Nor-
mans, crowned king of Sicily (Frederick I of Sicily) with his mother Constanza as
regent. Death of Constanza. Pope Innocent III assumes the guardianship of
Frederick, aged four.
1200 Innocent sends an army to Sicily which defeats Markwald, who has claimed the
guardianship of Frederick.
1201 Markwald, regent of Sicily. He dies and is succeeded by Capparone. Sicily con-
tinues to be the prey of rebellious nobles and adventurers.
1208 Frederick takes up the reins of government.
1210 The emperor Otto IV threatens to invade Sicily, which he claims as part of the empire.
1211 Innocent excommunicates Otto and offers the crown of Germany to Frederick.
1212 Frederick leaves Sicily to dispute the German crown with Otto. He is crowned king
of Germany at Mainz. Civil disorders recommence in Sicily.
1215 Innocent crowns Frederick king of Germany at Aachen.
1220 Frederick crowned emperor at Rome. He returns to Sicily and transfers a large
colony of Saracens from the mountains to Nocera.
1231 Frederick has a compilation made of the Norman laws and ordinances.
1233 Frederick revisits Sicily to quell the republican pretensions of the eastern cities.
1243 Saracen revolt in the mountainous districts.
1250 At Frederick's death the crown passes to his son, Conrad king of the Romans. In
Conrad's absence his natural brother Manfred is regent.
1251 Innocent IV, in his attempts to further the cause of William of Holland, excommuni-
cates Conrad, and incites rebellions in Sicily and southern Italy. Manfred puts
them down.
1252 Innocent rejects offers of peace from Conrad, who then attacks the pope. Capua is
captured and Naples besieged.
1253 Surrender of Naples to Conrad. Innocent offers Richard, earl of Cornwall, the crown
of Sicily, but he declines it.
1254 Death of Conrad; his son Conradin, two years of age, succeeds him. Manfred
retains the regency. He opposes the papal forces which have advanced into Apulia,
and def eats them at Foggia. Manfred takes Nocera.
1255 The citizens of Messina expel the papal governor. The legate, having lost a large
convoy, agrees to peace with Manfred. Pope Alexander IV, who has offered the
crown of Sicily to Prince Edmund of England, refuses to ratify the peace. The Eng-
lish parliament will not vote funds to enable Edmund to take the Sicilian throne.
CHRONOLOGICAL RfiSUMfi 665
1256 Manfred drives the papal authorities from Sicily and makes himself supreme there.
1258 On false rumour of Conradin's death Manfred is crowned at Palermo. He assumes
the leadership of the Ghibellines in Italy.
1259 Alexander IV excommunicates Manfred.
1260 Manfred sends aid to the exiled Ghibellines of Florence, enabling them to win the
battle of Montaperti.
1263 Pope Urban IV offers Sicily and Apulia to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX of
France.
1264 The pope proclaims a crusade against Manfred.
1265 Charles of Anjou is crowned king of Sicily at Rome by the pope. With an army of
crusaders he proceeds against Manfred.
The House of Anjou (1266-1282 A.D.)
1266 Defeat and death of Manfred at battle of Benevento. Charles I acknowledged king.
He enters Naples in triumph. The seat of government is transferred from Palermo
to Naples. Charles at once makes himself unpopular by his oppression.
1267 The pope makes Charles ruler of Tuscany and the citizens of Florence offer him the
signoria for ten years. The Ghibellines induce Conradin to enter Italy and proceed
against Charles.
1268 Defeat and capture o£ Conradin at the battle of Tagliacozzo. Conradin beheaded at
Naples. This disaster crushes the hopes of the Ghibellines in Italy. Louis IX and
Pope Clement IV protest against Charles' cruelties.
1269 Charles captures Nocera and scatters the Saracen population.
1270 Charles joins Louis IX at Tunis in the last crusade. After death of Louis, Charles
makes treaty with the ruler of Tunis and exacts tribute. The French and Genoese
fleets, returning, are wrecked on the coast of Sicily. Charles seizes the ships and
plunders them for his own benefit.
1274 The Genoese, who have united with the citizens of other Italian cities to resist the
cruelties of Charles, defeat his fleet.
1275 Pedro of Aragon, husband of Manfred's daughter Constanza, begins his attempt to
gain the Sicilian throne.
1277 Charles assumes the government of the principality of Achaia. He plans to attack
the Eastern Empire, but the pope forbids him to do so.
1281 The agitation in Sicily against Charles incited by Pedro of Aragon and his emissary
Giovanni di Procida reaches a high pitch. The Byzantine emperor Michael also
contributes to it.
1282 The Sicilian Vespers. Massacre of the French in Sicily. Charles lays siege to Mes-
sina. Pedro arrives and forces him to retire to Calabria. Pedro proclaimed king
of Sicily. The pope excommunicates him. The kingdom is separated.
FIRST SEPARATION OF THE KINGDOM
Naples (House of Anjou, and the Pretenders of the Second House of Anjou) (1282-1435 A.D.)
The term " kingdom of Naples " is here used merely for convenience. It was never
officially employed except by Philip, son of Charles V, and later by Joseph Bona-
parte and Murat. The continental portion of the Two Sicilies was always known as
" Sicily on this side the Pharos," referring to the lighthouse at Messina ; the island
portion was called " Sicily beyond the Pharos." So there were often two Sicilian
kingdoms and two kings of Sicily.
1283 Capture of Reggio by Pedro.
1284 Capture of Charles' son Charles, prince of Salerno, by the Aragonese admiral Roger de
Lauria, in a sea-fight off Naples. He is sent to Aragon a prisoner.
1285 Death of Charles I. His son, Charles II, still a prisoner, is acknowledged king at
Naples.
1287 Roger of Artois, regent of Naples, attempts to recover Sicily, but Roger de Lauria
destroys his fleet.
1288 Charles is liberated by the terms of a treaty between Aragon and France. He assumes
the throne of Naples but resigns that of Sicily.
1289 Charles is released by the pope from his resignation of the Sicilian crown. A two
years' truce is effected beween Naples and Sicily.
1292 Defeat of the Neapolitans by Roger de Lauria in Calabria.
1296 The Sicilians invade Calabria, and take Squillace and other places.
666 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1297 The pope invests Robert duke of Calabria with Sardinia and Corsica.
1300 Siege 01 Messina by Robert. Disease compels him to abandon it.
1309 Death of Charles, succeeded by his son Robert the Wise. He assumes the govern-
ment of Ferrara as viceroy of the pope.
1312 Robert, in an attempt to prevent the coronation of Henry VII, seizes the principal
fortresses of Rome.
1314 The pope makes Robert senator of Rome and viceroy of Naples. Robert fails in an
attempt to capture Sicily. He makes a three years' truce.
1317 Robert's garrison is expelled from Ferrara.
1318 Robert relieves the Ghibelline siege of Genoa and is appointed governor for ten years.
1322 Durazzo restored to the kingdom of Naples.
1325 Robert fails in an attempt to capture Palermo.
1338 Another attempt of Robert on Sicily ends in failure.
1343 Death of Robert, succeeded bv his granddaughter Joanna I. Her husband, Andrew of
Hungary, is not crowned with her. He allows his Hungarian followers to usurp all
political power.
1345 Murder of Andrew of Hungary perhaps by order of Joanna. His cousin, the duke of
Durazzo, incites the Neapolitans against the queen.
1347 King Louis of Hungary invades Naples to avenge his brother's death. Joanna flees
to Avignon with her lover, Louis of Tarentum, and marries him. She resigns her
claims on Sicily and makes treaty with the Sicilian king, Louis.
1348 Louis of Hungary holds Naples. He has the duke of Durazzo put to death.
The plague compels Louis to return to Hungary and he takes Andrew's son with
him. Avignon is sold by Joanna to the pope who gives Louis of Tarentum the
title of king. Joanna and Louis return to Naples. Louis takes the Free Company,
headed by Werner, into his employ.
1349 Werner deserts Louis for the Hungarians.
1350 Louis of Hungary again invades Naples.
1351 Peace between Joanna and Louis of Hungary, who leaves Naples.
1353 Niccolo Acciajuoli successfully invades Sicily and captures Palermo and other towns
for the kingdom of Naples.
1357 Rebellion of the duke of Durazzo. Acciajuoli returns to Naples.
1358 The duke of Durazzo's rebellion is ended by his reconciliation with the crown.
1362 Death of Louis of Naples. Joanna marries James of Majorca, but he does not assume
the title of king.
1365 Death of Niccolo Acciajuoli. The king of Sicily recovers Palermo and Messina.
1372 Peace between Naples and Sicily.
1375 Death of James of Majorca.
1376 Joanna marries Otto, duke of Brunswick, who does not assume the royal title.
1378 Joanna supports Clement VII against Urban VI.
1379 Urban proclaims a crusade against Clement and Joanna. He induces Charles of
Durazzo, Joanna's heir, to attempt conquest of Naples. To thwart him Joanna
adopts Louis of Anjou, and makes him her heir.
1380 Excommunication of Joanna.
1381 Conquest of Naples by Charles (III) of Durazzo, who takes throne and imprisons
Joanna and her husband. Clement gives Joanna's Proven9al dominions to duke
Louis of Anjou.
1382 Louis of Anjou as Joanna's heir attacks Charles, who puts Joanna to death and takes
Sir John Hawkwood into his service.
1384 Death of the pretender Louis I and disbandment of his army. He leaves his claim
to his son, Louis II. Excommunication of Charles, who besieges the pope in Nocera.
1386 Charles, invited to take the Hungarian throne, leaves Naples to his young son Ladis-
laus, under the regency of the latter's mother, Margaret. Charles assassinated in
Hungary. The pope gives the crown of Naples to Louis of Anjou.
1387 Contests in Naples between the supporters of Ladislaus and Louis. This struggle
continues for many years, wrecks the kingdom, and destroys its influence in Italy.
1388 Urban marches upon Naples with an army to subdue the factions. He is injured and
his army disbands.
1389 Louis II is crowned king of Naples by the antipope Clement at Avignon.
1397 Ladislaus recovers some of the territory that Louis has occupied.
1399 Ladislaus recovers the city of Naples, and Louis returns to Provence.
1408 Ladislaus takes possession of Rome.
1409 The adherents of Pope Alexander V expel Ladislaus from Rome, and invite Louis of
Anjou to prosecute his claim to Naples.
1410 Louis' fleet on the way to Naples is totally defeated by the Genoese allies of Ladislaus.
CHRONOLOGICAL RSUM 667
1411 Excommunication of Ladislaus by Pope John XXIII. Louis defeats Ladislaus at
Roccasecca, but from want of supplies is obliged to return to Provence.
1112 Ladislaus concludes a treaty of peace with John XXIII.
1413 Ladislaus again takes possession of Rome and most of the papal states.
1414 Death of Ladislaus. He is succeeded by his sister Joanna II. The Neapolitan army
leaves Rome, retaining only the castle of St. Angelo.
1415 Joanna marries Jacques de Bourbon, who takes all authority from her.
1416 Joanna regains her power. Muzio Attendolo Sforza, her constable, whom Jacques has
imprisoned, is liberated and his position is restored.
1417 Sforza expels Braccio from Rome. Death of Louis II. His son Louis III succeeds
as pretender.
1419 Sforza recovers Spoleto from Braccio. Jacques de Bourbon returns to France.
1420 Joanna makes Alfonso of Aragon her heir. She asks his protection against Louis III,
who is urged by pope Martin to seize the throne of Naples.!
1422 Alfonso threatens to recognise the antipope, and the pope ceases his hostilities. Sforza
and Braccio unite to defend Naples.
1423 Joanna quarrels with Alfonso. She annuls the adoption and substitutes Louis of
Anjou in his place. War with Aragon breaks out. The Genoese go to the assist-
ance of Naples.
1424 The Genoese take Naples for Queen Joanna. Death of Muzio Attendolo Sforza. His
son Francesco succeeds to the leadership of the Neapolitan forces. Death of
Braccio.
1425 Francesco Sforza leaves the Neapolitans and enters service of the duke of Milan.
1434 Death of Louis III. Joanna adopts his brother Rene as her heir.
1435 Death of Joanna. Rene' of Anjou succeeds, but Alfonso of Aragon and Sicily claims
the kingdom. The Visconti and Genoese uphold Rene, who is a prisoner in the
hands of the duke of Burgundy.
Sicily (House of Aragon) (1282-1435 A.D.)
1282 After Pedro III of Aragon (Pedro I of Sicily) drives Charles of Naples out of Sicily,
a parliament at Palermo chooses him king. The pope excommunicates him and his
people.
1283 Pedro obliged to return to Aragon, which the pope has given to Charles of Valois.
He leaves the island to his wife Constanza and his great admiral Roger de Lauria,
who prosecutes the war against Charles and wins a victory off Malta.
1284 Roger de Lauria captures the son of Charles and sends him to Aragon.
1285 Death of Pedro. Aragon and Sicily are separated. Pedro's second son James I
receives Sicily. Roger de Lauria captures Gallipoli and Tarentum.
1287 Roger de Lauria destroys the fleet prepared by Robert of Artois, regent of Naples, for
the conquest of Sicily.
1289 Siege of Gaeta by Roger de Lauria. Two years' truce between Naples and Sicily.
1291 James returns to Aragon to succeed his brother Alfonso as king, leaving his younger
brother Frederick regent in Sicily. The Sicilians seize some territory in Calabria.
1292 Roger de Lauria defeats the Neapolitans and then invades the Eastern Empire and
takes Scios.
1295 James of Aragon becomes reconciled to the pope; the French claim on Aragon is
annulled, and James binds himself by the treaty of Agnani to restore Sicily to the
Angevins. Frederick and Constanza prepare to prevent this.
1206 Frederick II crowned king of Sicily. The Sicilians are excommunicated, and invade
Calabria.
1297 Roger de Laiiria captures Otranto. He then deserts the Sicilians and goes over to
James of Aragon, who promises the pope to make war on Frederick.
1298 Roger di Flor enters Frederick's service.
1299 James of Aragon besieges Syracuse, and the duke of Calabria invades Sicily with
some success. Great victory of the Sicilians at Falconara.
1300 The duke of Calabria besieges Messina. Disease ravages his army and he is obliged
to withdraw.
1302 A treaty of peace concluded between Charles II of Naples and Frederick. The latter
receives title of king of Trinacria for life, and Charles has undisputed right to that
of king of Sicily. Frederick is to marry Charles' daughter. The terms of the
treaty are not meant to be carried out, and Frederick resumes the title of king of
Sicily.
1303 Roger di Flor forms the Catalan Grand Company out of his Sicilian mercenaries.
668 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
1313 Alliance of Frederick with the emperor Henry VII against the pope and Robert of
Naples.
1314 Sicily is attacked by Robert, who agrees to a three years' truce.
1317 Robert again attacks Sicily and makes another truce.
1325 Robert attacks Sicily for the third time, but is obliged to return to Naples after an
attempt to capture Palermo.
1337 Death of Frederick. His son Pedro II succeeds. The kingdom sinks into obscurity.
1338 Robert fails in a fourth attack on Sicily.
1339 Robert takes the Lipari Islands from Sicily.
1342 Death of Pedro. His son Luis succeeds under the regency of Pedro's brother Juan.
1354 Niccolo Acciajuoli, grand seneschal of Naples, successfully invades Sicily on behalf of
Queen Joanna. He captures Palermo and other territory.
1355 Death of Luis. His younger brother Frederick III succeeds, and to the duchy of
Athens as well.
1357 Acciajuoli returns to Naples.
1365 Frederick recovers the territory seized by Acciajuoli on the latter's death.
1372 Treaty of peace between Naples and Sicily.
1376 Death of Frederick, succeeded by his daughter Maria and her husband Martin I, son
of Martin of Aragon.
1386 Nerio Acciajuoli, governor of Corinth, seizes the duchy of Athens.
1402 Death of Maria ; Martin sole sovereign.
1409 Martin goes to Sardinia for his father to quell an insurrection. He dies. His father
Martin II succeeds. Sicily is united to Aragon with Martin I's second wife Blanche
of Navarre as regent.
1410 Death of Martin, the last of his line. The thrones of Aragon and Sicily remain vacant
until
1412 when the succession is decided in favour of Ferdinand (I) the Just, regent of Castile.
1416 Death of Ferdinand, succeeded by his son Alfonso (I) the Magnanimous. He is a
man of cultivated tastes and great liberality.
1432 Alfonso arrives in Sicily with a fleet to force his claim to the succession of Naples.
In 1420 Queen Joanna made him her heir, but in 1423 annulled the adoption.
1435 On death of Joanna, Alfonso besieges Gaeta. Naval battle of Ponza. Alfonso and
his brother captured by the Genoese allies of Rene. They are sent as prisoners to
Milan, where Alfonso pleads his cause so successfully that Filippo Maria Visconti,
who fears the French influence, withdraws his support from Rene*, releases Alfonso
and recognises him as the successor to Joanna. Surrender of Gaeta to Alfonso's
brother Don Pedro.
SECOND UNION (1435-1458 A.D.)
1436 Alfonso is proclaimed king at Gaeta and other places.
1438 Rene is released by the duke of Burgundy and arrives at Naples to prosecute his claim.
1440 Alfonso, having taken Aversa, lays siege to Naples.
1442 Surrender of Naples to Alfonso. He is now acknowledged by the whole kingdom.
Rene returns to Provence.
1443 Alfonso acknowledged by Pope Felix V. He attempts to wrest the March of Ancona
for the pope from Francesco Sforza, and involves himself in a war with the Italian
states. Florence and Venice side with Sforza.
1447 Alfonso claims the duchy of Milan on death of Filippo Maria Visconti.
1450 Alfonso makes peace with Florence and Venice.
1455 Alfonso joins the Holy League against the Turks.
1457 Alfonso goes to war with Genoa.
1458 Death of Alfonso. His natural son Ferdinand I receives Naples. Sicily, with Aragon
and Sardinia, goes to Alfonso's brother Juan, king of Navarre.
SECOND SEPARATION
Naples— the Bastard Line of Aragon (1458-1503 A.D.)
1459 Ferdinand's cruelties cause the nobles to ask the help of John, governor of Genoa, and
son of Rene* of Anjou, against the king. The terms of the Peace of Lodi prevent
Francesco Sforza from lending assistance.
1460 Defeat of Ferdinand on the Sarno. The pope and Sforza now send assistance.
CHRONOLOGICAL R^SUM^ 669
1461 Scanderbeg, with a force of Albanians, comes to the assistance of Ferdinand.
1462 Ferdinand defeats John at Troja, and forces him to give up his attempt on Naples.
1470 Ferdinand joins the Holy League of the pope against the Turks.
1478 Ferdinand joins Sixtus IV in his war on the Florentines.
1479 Ferdinand makes peace with Lorenzo de' Medici, which arouses the pope against him.
1480 The Turks capture Otranto. Sixtus and Ferdinand become reconciled.
1481 Otranto recovered from the Turks by a general league of Christian princes.
1485 Oppressed by taxation, the Neapolitan nobles revolt against Ferdinand.
1486 Innocent VIII takes the side of the Neapolitan nobles. They send for Rene II, duke
of Lorraine, grandson of Rene of Anjou, with offers of the crown. Rene delays
acceptance and the opportunity passes. Aragon, Milan, and Florence uphold Ferdi-
nand. Lorenzo de' Medici finally reconciles the nobles to Ferdinand, who breaks
his promises and punishes them cruelly.
1492 Piero de' Medici makes alliance with Ferdinand.
1493 Alarmed at this alliance, Lodovico (II Moro) Sforza invites Charles VIII of France to
invade Naples in the interests of the Angevin claim.
1494 Death of Ferdinand as he is preparing to resist the French invasion. His son
Alfonso II succeeds. Charles enters Italy. The Neapolitan fleet is defeated off
Genoa.
1495 Alfonso abdicates in favour of his son Ferdinand II and retires to a monastery.
Charles enters Naples ; Ferdinand flees. Lodovico now becomes alarmed at Charles'
progress and forms a league against him. Charles leaves Naples in charge of a vice-
roy and hurriedly returns to France. Ferdinand returns to Naples. Most of his
kingdom returns to his allegiance.
1496 The viceroy dies and the French garrison leaves Naples. Venice seizes Brindisi and
Otranto for debt. Death of Ferdinand, succeeded by his uncle Frederick II.
1501 Louis XII of France and Ferdinand of Spain and Sicily agree by Treaty of Granada
to conquer Naples and divide it between them. The conquest is easily accomplished
by the duke of Nemours and Gonsalvo de Cordova. Frederick surrenders his rights
to the French king and is given the duchy of Anjou.
1502 France and Spain begin to quarrel over the partition of Naples.
1503 Ferdinand adds Naples to the kingdom of Sicily.
Sicily — the Royal Line of Aragon (1458-1503 A.D.)
1458 Juan of Aragon, hitherto known as king of Navarre, receives Sicily "beyond the
Pharos," as part of his dominions on death of his brother Alfonso. Henceforth it is
ruled by viceroys.
1479 Death of Juan, succeeded by his son Ferdinand the Catholic.
1501 Treaty of Granada and conquest of Naples by Ferdinand and Louis XII.
1502 Quarrel of France and Spain over the division of Naples. The pope and Cesare
Borgia side with France.
1503 Gonsalvo de Cordova wins several victories over the French, and finally utterly defeats
them at Mola. The kingdoms of Sicily "on this side the Pharos" (Naples) and
Sicily " beyond the Pharos " are united under Ferdinand, and the king is known as
Ferdinand III.
THIRD UNION
The Royal Line of Spain (1503-1516 A.D.)
1504 Peace between France and Spain. Louis gives up all claim on Naples.
The Austro- Spanish Dynasty (1516-1700 A.D.)
1516 Death of Ferdinand. Succeeded by his grandson Charles IV (V of Germany). A
revolt in Sicily is put down the following year. Sicily is used as a starting-point
for the African wars.
1554 Charles gives his son Philip the title of king of Naples, on Philip's marriage to Mary
of England.
1556 Abdication of Charles V. Philip I (II of Spain) receives the Two Sicilies as part of
his dominions. The kingdom becomes merely a Spanish province. Pope Paul IV
wishes to drive the Spaniards from Naples and makes a league with Henry II of
670 THE HISTORY OF ITALY
France for that purpose. Francis, duke of Guise, grandson of Rene II of Lorraine,
plans to obtain the crown of Naples.
1557 The duke of Guise marches on Naples and lays siege to Civitella. The duke of Alva,
Philip's viceroy, defeats him, and he retreats northward. Henry II recalls him to
France.
1565 The Inquisition is in full force throughout Philip's dominions. Reformed opinions
have spread rapidly in Naples.
1598 Death of Philip, succeeded by his son Philip II (III of Spain). The national assem-
blies are suppressed.
1618 Osuna, viceroy of Naples, plots with the governor of Milan and Spanish ambassador
at Venice, to seize the throne of the Two Sicilies and destroy Venice. The Venetian
Council of Ten frustrates the plot.
1621 Death of Philip, succeeded by his son Philip III (IV of Spain). The people are
heavily taxed.
1647 Insurrection of Masaniello at Naples over a tax on fruit. The duke of Arcos, the
viceroy, is driven into the castle of St. Elmo. Insurrection at Palermo. The duke
of Arcos makes terms with the people. Assassination of Masaniello. The revolt
subsides, but soon breaks out again. Don John of Austria sent to preserve order,
but is forced to withdraw. The popular leader, Gennaro Annese, sends for the
duke of Guise, who readily responds. But he ignores Annese, and the latter betrays
Naples to Don John. Guise is sent a prisoner to Spain. Annese put to death.
1665 Death of Philip, succeeded by his young son Charles V (II of Spain) under the regency
of his mother, Maria Anna of Austria.
1672 Rising in Messina against the oppressions of the Spanish governor. He is driven from
the city.
1674 The people of Messina send to Louis XIV (whom Spain has taken sides against in the
Dutch war) and proclaims him king of Sicily. Louis sends a fleet to Sicily. His
troops occupy Messina.
1676 French naval victories over the Dutch allies of Spain off Stromboli, Catania, and
Palermo.
1678 The Dutch war settled by the peace of Nimeguen. Louis withdraws his troops from
Sicily. The Sicilians are now more oppressed than ever.
1693 Great earthquake in Sicily. Messina, Catania, and Syracuse nearly destroyed by a
violent eruption of Mount Etna.
1694 Great earthquake at Naples.
1700 Death of Charles. End of the Austro-Spanish dynasty. The Two Sicilies acknow-
ledge Philip IV (V of Spain) grandson of Louis XIV.
From the End of the Austro-Spanish Dynasty to the Peace of Utrecht (1700-1713 A.D.)
1701 The emperor Leopold claims the Two Sicilies for the archduke Charles. The war of
the Spanish Succession begins.
1702 Philip arrives at Naples and marches northward.
1706 After the battle of Turin the French are driven out of Italy and Charles VI is pro-
claimed king of the Two Sicilies.
1708 Pope Clement XI invests Charles with the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
THIRD SEPARATION (1713-1720 A.D.)
1713 Peace of Utrecht. Charles VI (now emperor Charles VI) receives the dominions of
Sicily on this side the Pharos (Naples) together with Milan and Sardinia. The
island of Sicily is given to Victor Amadeus of Savoy with the title of king.
1717 Philip V takes Sardinia from the Austrians.
1718 Philip invades Sicily. Victor Amadeus sides with him, hoping to acquire Lombardy.
Formation of the Quadruple Alliance against Philip.
1719 Philip is driven from Sicily by the allies and negotiates for peace.
FOURTH UNION (1720-1806 A.D.)
1720 Philip accepts the terms of the alliance. Victor Amadeus is compelled to exchange
Sicily for Sardinia. Charles VI is once more king of the Two Sicilies, which becomes
part of the German Empire.
CHRONOLOGICAL RSUM 671
1733 War of the Polish Succession begins. Philip V leagues with France and Sardinia to
drive the Austrians from Italy. Philip's son Don Charles, the duke of Parma and
heir to Tuscany, is to receive the Two Sicilies.
The Bourbons (1734-1806 A.D.')
1734 Don Charles enters Naples and is proclaimed king. An army arrives from Spain to
his assistance. Defeat of the Austrians at Bitonto and capture of Gaeta by Don
Charles.
1735 Don Charles crosses to Italy. The island surrenders to him and he is crowned as
Charles VII.
1738 The war is settled by the Treaty of Vienna. Charles VII acknowledged king of the
Two Sicilies and gives up his claim to Tuscany and to Parma.
1740 Charles joins the alliance against Maria Theresa in the struggle for the Austrian
succession.
1743-1748 The Two Sicilies compelled to remain neutral in the war of the Austrian Suc-
cession by the presence of a British fleet.
1739 Charles inherits the throne of Spain and resigns the Two Sicilies to his young son
Ferdinand IV.
1767 The Jesuits are expelled from the kingdom.
1782 The Inquisition is abolished.
1796 Ferdinand makes a treaty of peace with the French Republic.
1798 The French army invades Neapolitan territory.
1799 Surrender of Naples. Ferdinand flees to Sicily. Naples is formed into the Partheno-
paean Republic by the French. The English fleet under Nelson appears and assists
a Calabrian army under Cardinal Ruffo to regain Naples and restore Ferdinand.
Ruffo works a barbarous vengeance on the republicans.
1805 The emperor Napoleon makes a treaty of neutrality with Ferdinand. Terrible earth-
quake at Naples.
FOURTH SEPARATION
The Kingdom of Naples (1806-1815 A.D.)
1806 Napoleon forces Ferdinand to flee and makes his brother Joseph Bonaparte king of
Naples. He makes many reforms and starts to suppress the brigands, who under
the Bourbons have overrun the kingdom. Ferdinand remains ruler of Sicily. The
French defeated by the British at Maida. Queen Caroline of Sicily organises an
insurrection in Calabria.
1808 Joseph Bonaparte is transferred to the throne of Spain and Joachim Murat is made
king of Naples. He calls himself king Joachim Napoleon. He takes Capri from
the British.
1810 Murat attempts to invade Sicily, but is prevented by the British.
1811 The guerilla warfare against the brigands ends in their almost entire extermination.
This makes Murat unpopular.
1813 Murat becomes ofEended at Napoleon during the Russian campaign and returns to
Naples.
1814 Murat makes alliance with Austria and seizes the principality of Benevento.
1815 Murat declares his intention of restoring the unity of Italy. The Austrians proceed
against him and he is totally defeated at Tolentino and escapes to France. After
Waterloo he goes to Corsica and attempts to regain Naples, is taken prisoner in
Calabria and executed.
The Kingdom of Sicily (1806-1815 A.D.)
1806-1815 Ferdinand continues to rule in Sicily.
FIFTH UNION
The Bourbon Dynasty (1815-1860 A.D.)
1815 Ferdinand re-established in the Two Sicilies by the Congress of Vienna. He now
calls himself Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and returns to his tyrannical rule.
1819 The Society of the Carbonari becomes powerful. General Pepe joins it.
672 THE HISTOKY OF ITALY
1820 Sudden revolt of the Carbonari under Pepe. Ferdinand is compelled to grant a new
constitution.
1821 At conference of Laibach, the great powers decide to suppress the revolutionary move-
ment in Naples. An Austrian army invades the kingdom ; Pepe is defeated and
the constitutional government overthrown.
1825 Death of Ferdinand, succeeded by his son Francis I.
1828 An insurrection of the Carbonari is suppressed.
1830 Death of Francis. His son Ferdinand II, " King Bomba," succeeds.
1840 Settlement with England of the dispute concerning the sulphur trade.
1844 Execution of the Bandiera in Calabria.
1848 Revolutionary outbreaks begin at Palermo. Ferdinand grants a constitutional gov-
ernment to his subjects. Violent outbreaks in Naples. The national guard is
almost annihilated by the royal troops and the lazzaroni. The constitution is with-
drawn. A Neapolitan army under General Pepe marches to the assistance of Charles
Albert. Ferdinand bombards Messina to bring the people to terms, and earns the
sobriquet of " King Bomba."
1849 The French and English ambassadors attempt to mediate between Ferdinand and the
people of Sicily ; the latter reject the offered terms. Palermo surrenders. Ferdinand
sends an army to assist Pius IX, but it is badly defeated by Garibaldi at Palestrina
and Velletri. The liberal leaders arrested in Naples.
1850 The liberal leaders condemned to imprisonment for life.
1855 The allied powers — England, France, and Sardinia — protest in vain to Ferdinand
against his misgovernment.
1856 England and France withdraw their ambassadors from the Two Sicilies. Milano
attempts to assassinate the king.
1858 Amnesty granted to political offenders.
1859 Death of Ferdinand II, succeeded by his son Francis II. Diplomatic relations
resumed.
1860 The foreign ambassadors petition France for reform. A revolutionary movement
begins in Palermo, Messina, and Catania. Garibaldi arrives at Marsala with five
thousand volunteers from Genoa and assumes title " Dictator of Sicily." He takes
Palermo and defeats the royal troops at Milazzo. All Sicily except Messina sur-
renders to him. Francis promises reforms. State of siege declared at Naples.
Garibaldi refuses to obey Victor Emmanuel's command to stop. He enters Messina,
and the Neapolitans agree to evacuate. Francis restores the constitution of 1848.
The count of Trani is proclaimed king by the army. Garibaldi crosses to Italy and
defeats the royal army at Reggio and San Giovanni. Francis flees to Gaeta, and
Garibaldi enters Naples, assumes the dictatorship, and institutes reforms. He
defeats the royalists on the Volturno. Victor Emmanuel enters the Abruzzi. The
kingdom votes for annexation to Piedmont. The Two Sicilies is annexed to the king-
dom of Italy.
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BEFORE 17O7.
SCALE OF MILE8
The Historians' History of the World. Vol. IX.
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20
W5
v.9
Williams, Henry Smith (edj
The historians1 history
of the world
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