CHAPTER VIII. THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES.

As the majority of the Italian states were in their internal constitution works of art, that is, the fruit of reflection and careful adaptation, so was their relation to one another and to foreign countries also a work of art. That nearly all of them were the result of recent usurpations was a fact which exercised as fatal an influence in their foreign as in their internal policy. Not one of them recognized another without reserve. The same play of chance which had helped to found and consolidate one dynasty might upset another. Nor was it always a matter of choice with the despot whether to keep quiet or not. The necessity of movement and aggrandizement is common to all illegitimate powers. Thus Italy became the scene of a ‘ foreign policy’ which, gradually, as in other countries also, acquired the position of a recognized system of public law. The purely objective treatment of international affairs, as free from prejudice as from moral scruples, attained a perfection which sometimes is not without a certain beauty and grandeur of its own. But as a whole it gives us the impression of a bottomless abyss.

Intrigues, armaments, leagues, corruption and treason make up the outward history of Italy at this period. Venice in particular was long accused of seeking to conquer the whole peninsula, or gradually reducing its strength that one state after another must fall into her hands. But on a closer view it is evident that this complaint did not come from the people, but rather came from the courts and official classes, which were commonly abhorred by their subjects. While the mild government of Venice had secured for itself a general confidence from its people…. Alliances were at the same time formed with the Turks too, with as little scruple or disguise; they were reckoned no worse than any other political expedients. The belief in the unity of Western Christendom had at various times in the course of the Crusades been seriously shaken. However, the fresh advance of the Oriental nations, the need and the ruin of the Greek Empire [Byzantium], had revived the old feeling, though not in its former strength, throughout Western Europe. Italy was a striking exception to this rule. Great as was the terror felt for the Turks, and the actual danger from them, there was yet scarcely a government of any consequence which did not conspire against other Italian states with Mehmet II and his successors. It was no worse than the sending emissaries to poison the cisterns of Venice, which was the charge brought against the heirs of Alfonso King of Naples…. Here was no attendant nobility to foster in the mind of the prince the medieval sense of honor, with all its strange consequences, but princes and counselors were agreed in acting according to the exigencies of the particular case and to the goals they had. Towards the men whose services were used and towards allies, come from what quarter they might, no pride of caste was felt which could possibly estrange a supporter. And the class of the condottieri, in which birth was a matter of indifference, shows clearly enough in what sort of hands the real power lay….

CHAPTER IX. WAR AS A WORK OF ART.

It must here be briefly discussed by what steps the art of war assumed the character of a product of reflection. Throughout the countries of the West the education of the individual soldier in the middle ages was perfect within the limits of the then prevalent system of defense and attack. There was no want of ingenious inventors in the arts of besieging and of fortification. But the development both of strategy and of tactics was hindered by the character and duration of military service and by the ambition of the nobles, who disputed questions of precedence in the face of the enemy and through simple want of discipline caused the loss of great battles like Crecy and Maupertuis. Italy, on the contrary, was the first country to adopt the system of mercenary troops, which demanded a wholly different organization. The early introduction of fire-arms did its part in making war a democratic pursuit, not only because the strongest castles were unable to withstand a bombardment, but because the skill of the engineer, of the gun-founder, and of the artillerist—men belonging to another class than the nobility—was now of the first importance in a campaign. It was felt, with regret, that the value of the individual, which had been the soul of the small and admirably-organized bands of mercenaries, would suffer from these novel means of destruction, which did their work at a distance. And there were condottieri who opposed the introduction of the musket, lately invented in Germany. We read that Paolo Vitelli, while recognizing and himself adopting the cannon, put out the eyes and cut off the hands of the captured enemy gunners because he thought it unworthy that a gallant knight should be wounded and laid low by a common, despised foot soldier. On the whole, however, the new discoveries were accepted and turned to useful account, till the Italians became the teachers of all Europe, both in the building of fortifications and in the means of attacking them….

PART II.

PART II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

CHAPTER I. THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

In the character of these states, whether republics or despotisms, lies the chief reason for the early development of the Italian. It should be recognized that he was the first-born among the sons of modern Europe. In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness—that which was turned within as that which was turned without— lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation. In Italy this veil first melted into air and an objective treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual and recognized himself as such. It will not be difficult to show that this result was owing above all to the political circumstances of Italy…. at the close of the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the repressive charm laid upon human personality was dissolved and a thousand figures meet us, each in its own special shape and dress. Dante’s great poem would have been impossible in any other country of Europe, if only for the reason that they all still lay under the spell of race. For Italy, the august poet, through the wealth of individuality which he set forth, was the most national herald of his time. This fact appears in the most decisive and unmistakable form. The Italians of the fourteenth century knew little of false modesty or of hypocrisy in any shape. Not one of them was afraid of singularity, of being and seeming’ unlike his neighbors.

When this impulse to the highest individual development combined with a powerful and varied nature, which had mastered all the elements of the culture of the age, then arose the all-sided man —1′ uomo universale —who belonged to Italy alone. Men there were of encyclopedic knowledge in many countries during the Middle Ages, and even in the twelfth century there were universal artists, but the problems of architecture, sculpture, and painting were comparatively simple and uniform. But in Italy at the time of the Renaissance, we find artists who in every branch created new and perfect works, and who also made the greatest impression as men. And many of them were masters of a vast circle of spiritual interests outside the arts they practiced.

The fifteenth century is, above all, the era of the many-sided men. The Florentine merchant and statesman was often learned in both the classical languages. The most famous humanists read the ethics and politics of Aristotle to his sons. Even the daughters of the house were highly educated. It is in these circles that private education was first treated seriously. The humanist was compelled to the most varied attainments since his philological learning was not limited, as it now is, to the theoretical knowledge of classical antiquity, but had to serve the practical needs of daily life. While studying Pliny he made collections of natural history. The geography of the ancients was his guide in treating of modern geography. Ancient history was his pattern in writing contemporary chronicles, even when composed in Italian. And he not only translated the comedies of Plautus, but acted as manager when they were put on the stage. Every effective form of ancient literature down to the dialogues of Lucian was imitated, and besides all this, he acted as magistrate, secretary, and diplomat—and not always to his own advantage.

CHAPTER III. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME.

To this inward development of the individual corresponds a new sort of outward distinction—the modern form of glory. In the other countries of Europe the different classes of society lived apart, each with its own medieval caste and sense of honor. The poetical fame of the Troubadours and Minnesanger was peculiar to the knightly order. But in Italy social equality had appeared before the time of the tyrannies or the democracies. We find in Italy early traces of a general society with a common ground in Latin and Italian literature, one needed for this new element in life to grow. To this must be added that the Roman authors, especially Cicero, the most read and admired of all, who were now zealously studied, are filled and saturated with the conception of fame. Their subject itself—the universal empire of Rome—stood as a permanent ideal before the minds of Italians. From henceforth all the aspirations and achievements of the people were governed by a moral postulate, which was still unknown elsewhere in Europe….

CHAPTER IV. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE.

The corrective, not only of this modern desire for fame, but of all highly developed individuality, is found in ridicule, especially when expressed in the victorious form of wit. We read in the Middle Ages how hostile armies, princes, and nobles, provoked one another with symbolical insult, and how the defeated party was loaded with symbolical outrage. Here and there, too, under the influence of classical literature, wit began to be used as a weapon in theological disputes, and the poetry of Provence produced a whole class of satirical compositions. Even the Minnesanger, as their political poems show, could adopt this tone when necessary. But wit could not be an independent element in life till its appropriate victim, the developed individual with personal pretensions, had appeared. Its weapons were then by no means limited to the tongue and the pen, but included tricks and practical jokes—the so-called ‘ burle’ and ‘ beffe’—which form a chief subject of many collections of novels….

PART III. THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Now that this point in our historical view of Italian civilization has been reached, it is time to speak of the influence of antiquity, the ‘ new birth’ of which has been one-sidedly chosen as the name to sum up the whole period. Both what has gone before and what we have still to discuss are colored in a thousand ways by the influence of the ancient world, and though the essence of the phenomena might still have been the same without the classical revival, it is only with and through this revival that they are actually manifested to us. The Renaissance would not have been the process of worldwide significance which it is, if its elements could be so easily separated from one another. We must insist upon it, as one of the chief propositions of this book, that it was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people, which achieved the conquest of the western world… The rest of Europe was free either to repel or else partly or wholly to accept the mighty impulse which came forth from Italy…. The worst that can be said of the movement is that it was anti-popular, that through it Europe became for the first time sharply divided into the cultivated and uncultivated classes. The reproach will appear groundless when we reflect that even now the fact, though clearly recognized, cannot be altered….

But the great and general enthusiasm of the Italians for classical antiquity did not display itself before the fourteenth century. For this a development of civic life was required, which took place only in Italy, and there not till then. It was needful that noble and burgher should first learn to dwell together on equal terms, and that a social world should arise which felt the want of culture, and had the leisure and the means to obtain it. But culture, as soon as it freed itself from the fantastic bonds of the Middle Ages, could not at once and without help find its way to the understanding of the physical and intellectual world. It needed a guide, and found one in the ancient civilization, with its wealth of truth and knowledge in every spiritual interest. Both the form and the substance of this civilization were adopted with admiring gratitude; it became the chief part of the culture of the age. The general condition of the country was favorable to this transformation. The medieval empire, since the fall of the Hohenstaufen, had either renounced, or was unable to make good, its claims on Italy. The Popes had migrated to Avignon. Most of the political powers actually in existence owed their origin to violent and illegitimate means. The spirit of the people, now awakened to self-consciousness, sought for some new and stable ideal on which to rest.

CHAPTER II ROME, THE CITY OF RUINS.

Rome itself, the city of ruins, now became the object of a wholly different sort of piety. The imaginations of the devout pilgrim, or of the seeker after marvels and treasures, are supplanted in contemporary records by the interests of the patriot and the historian. In this sense we must understand Dante’s words, that the stones of the walls of Rome deserve reverence, and that the ground on which the city is built is more worthy than men say. Petrarch gives evidence of a taste divided between classical and Christian antiquity. He tells us how often with Giovanni Colonna he ascended the mighty vaults of the Baths of Diocletian, and there in the transparent air, amid the wide silence, with the broad panorama stretching far around them, they spoke, not of business, or political affairs, but of the history which the ruins beneath their feet suggested, then they would discourse of philosophy and of the inventors of the arts. How often since that time, down to the days of Gibbon and Niebuhr, have the same ruins stirred men’s minds to the same reflections!

…To return to Rome. The inhabitants accepted greedily the homage which was offered them by the rest of Italy. In this mood of public feeling, a report arose, that on April 15, 1485, the corpse of a young Roman lady of the classical period—wonderfully beautiful and in perfect preservation—had been discovered. Some Lombard masons digging out an ancient tomb on an estate of the convent of Santa Maria Novella, on the Appian Way beyond the Cecilia Metella, were said to have found a marble sarcophagus with the inscription, ‘ Julia, daughter of Claudius.’ On this basis the following story was built. The Lombards disappeared with the jewels and treasure which were found with the corpse in the sarcophagus. The body had been coated -with an antiseptic essence, and was as fresh and flexible as that of a girl of fifteen the hour after death. It was said that she still kept the colors of life, with eyes and mouth half open. She was taken to the palace of the Conservator on the Capitoline Hill; and then a pilgrimage to see her began. Among the crowd were many who came to paint her. By the order of Pope Innocent VIII. she was secretly buried one night outside the Pincian Gate; the empty sarcophagus remained in the court of the Conservator. Probably a colored mask of wax or some other material was modeled in the classical style on the face of the corpse, with which the gilded hair of which we read would harmonize admirably. The touching point in the story is not the fact itself, but the firm belief that an ancient body, which was now thought to be at last really before men’s eyes, must of necessity be far more beautiful than anything of modern date.

Meanwhile the material knowledge of old Rome was increased by excavations. Under Alexander VI the so-called Grotesques, that is, the mural decorations of the ancients, were discovered, and the Apollo of the Belvedere was found at Porto d’Anzo. Under Julius II. followed the memorable discoveries of the Laocoon, of the Venus of the Vatican, of the Torso, of the Cleopatra. The palaces of the nobles and the cardinals began to be filled with ancient statues and fragments. Raphael undertook for Leo X. that ideal restoration of the whole ancient city which his celebrated letter (1518 or 1519) speaks of. After a bitter complaint over the devastations which had not even then ceased, and which had been particularly frequent under Julius II, he beseeches the Pope to protect the few relics which were left to testify to the power and greatness of that divine soul of antiquity whose memory was inspiration to all who were capable of higher things. He then goes on with penetrating judgment to lay the foundations of a comparative history of art, and concludes by giving the definition of an architectural survey which has been accepted since his time; he requires the ground plan, section, and elevation separately of every building that remained. How archaeology devoted itself after his day to the study of the venerated city and grew into a special science, and how the Vitruvian Academy at all events proposed to itself great aims, cannot here be related. Let us rather pause at the days of Leo X, under whom the enjoyment of antiquity combined with all other pleasures to give to Roman life a unique stamp and consecration.