PART I.

CHAPTER I.     INTRODUCTION.

The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen [German kings to 1254] left Italy in a political condition which differed essentially from that of other countries of the West. While in France, Spain and England the feudal system was so organized that, at the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it helped to maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy had shaken it off almost entirely. The Emperors of the fourteenth century, even in the most favorable case, were no longer respected as feudal lords, but as possible leaders and supporters of powers already in existence. While the Papacy, with its creatures and allies, was strong enough to hinder national unity in the future, it was not strong enough itself to bring about a unified state. Between the two lay a multitude of political units—republics and despots—some of long standing, some of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it. In them for the first time we detect the modern political spirit of Europe, surrendered freely to its own instincts, often displaying the worst features of an unbridled egoism, outraging every traditional right, and killing every germ of a healthier culture. But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or in any way compensated, a new fact appears in history—the state as the outcome of reflection and calculation, the state as a work of art. This new life displayed itself in a hundred forms, both in the republican and in the despotic states, and determined their domestic constitution, no less than their foreign policy. We shall limit ourselves to the consideration of the more clearly defined type, the despotic states….

CHAPTER II.

THE TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

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

Here follows, worked out in detail, the purely modern fiction of the omnipotence of the state. The prince is to be independent of his courtiers, but at the same time to govern with simplicity and modesty; he is to take everything into his charge, to maintain and restore churches and public buildings, to keep up the municipal police, to drain the marshes, to look after the supply of wine and corn; he is to exercise a strict justice, so to distribute the taxes that the people can recognize their necessity and the regret of the ruler to be compelled to put his hands in the pockets of others; he is to support the sick and the helpless, and to give his protection and society to distinguished scholars, on whom his fame in after ages will depend.

But whatever might be the brighter sides of the system and the merits of individual rulers, the men of the fourteenth century were not without a more or less distinct consciousness of the brief and uncertain tenure of most of these despotisms. The larger principalities were constantly tempted to swallow up the smaller. Whole hecatombs of petty rulers were sacrificed at this time to the Visconti [ruling house of Milan] alone. As a result of this outward danger an domestic ferment was in ceaseless activity; and the effect of the situation on the character of the ruler was generally of the most sinister kind. Absolute power, with its temptations to luxury and unbridled selfishness, and the perils to which he was exposed from enemies and conspirators, turned him almost inevitably into a tyrant in the worst sense of the word. It was difficult enough trusting even his nearest relations! And where all was illegitimate, there could be no regular law of inheritance, either with regard to the succession or to the division of the ruler’s property. Consequently, the heir, if incompetent or a minor, was liable in the interest of the family itself to be supplanted by an uncle or cousin of more resolute character. The acknowledgment or exclusion of the bastards was a fruitful source of competition, and most of these families in consequence were plagued with a crowd of discontented and vindictive kinsmen. This circumstance led to continual outbreaks of treason and to frightful scenes of domestic bloodshed….

Florence was then the scene of the richest development of human individuality, while for the despots no other individuality could be suffered to live and thrive but their own and that of their nearest dependents. The control of the individual was rigorously carried out, even down to the establishment of a system of passports….

The most complete and instructive type of the tyranny of the fourteenth century is to be found unquestionably among the Visconti of Milan, from the death of the Archbishop Giovanni onwards (1354). The family likeness which shows itself between Bernabo and the worst of the Roman Emperors is unmistakable ; the most important public object was the prince’s boar-hunting ; whoever interfered with it was put to death with torture ; the terrified people were forced to maintain 5,000 boar-hounds, with strict responsibility for their health and safety. The taxes were extorted by every conceivable sort of compulsion; seven daughters of the prince received a dowry of 100.000 gold florins apiece; and an enormous treasure was collected. The coup de main (1385) by which his nephew Giangaleazzo got him into his power—one of those brilliant plots which make the heart of even late historians beat more quickly —was strikingly characteristic of the man. Giangaleazzo, despised by his relations on account of his religion and his love of science, resolved on vengeance, and, leaving the city under pretext of a pilgrimage, fell upon his unsuspecting uncle, took him prisoner, forced his way back into the city at the head of an armed band, seized on the government, and gave up the palace of Bernabo to general plunder.

n Giangaleazzo that passion for the colossal which was common to most of the despots shows itself on the largest scale. He undertook, at the cost of 300,000 golden florins, the construction of gigantic dykes, to divert in the Mincio [River] from Mantua and the Brenta [River] from Padua to render these cities defenseless. And it is not impossible that he thought of draining away even the lagoons of Venice. He founded that most wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia, and the cathedral of Milan, which exceeds in size and splendor all the churches of Christendom. The Palace in Pavia, which his father Galeazzo began and which he himself finished, was probably by far the most magnificent of the princely dwellings of Europe. There he transferred his famous library, and the great collection of relics of the saints, in which he placed a peculiar faith. King Winceslaus [IV of Bohemia] made him Duke [in 1395]. He was hoping for nothing less than the Kingdom of Italy or the Imperial crown, when [in 1402] he fell ill and died. His territories are said to have paid him in a single year, besides the regular contribution of 1,200.000 gold florins, no less than 800.000 more in extraordinary subsidies. After his death the dominions which he had brought together by every sort of violence fell to pieces and for a time even the original nucleus could not without difficulty be maintained by his successors. What might have become of his sons Giovanni Maria (died 1412) and Filippo Maria (died 1417), had they lived in a different country and among other traditions cannot be said. But as heirs of their house, they inherited that monstrous capital of cruelty and cowardice which had been accumulated from generation to generation.

Giovanni Maria, too, is famed for his dogs, which were no longer, however, used for hunting, but for tearing human bodies. Tradition has preserved their names, like those of the bears of the Emperor Valentinian I. In May, 1409, when war was going on and the starving populace cried to him in the streets, Pace’. Pace ! he let loose his mercenaries upon them and 200 lives were sacrificed. Under penalty of the gallows it was forbidden to utter the words pace and guerra, and the priests were ordered, instead of dona nobis pacem, to say tran-quillitatem ! At last a band of conspirators took advantage of the moment when Facino Cane, the chief condottiere of the insane ruler, lay ill at Pavia, and cut down Giovan Maria in the church of San Gottardo at Milan. The dying Facino on the same day made his officers swear to stand by the heir Filippo Maria… We shall have occasion to speak of Filippo Maria later on.

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

CHAPTER III.

THE TYRANNY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

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

The foundation of the system was and remained illegitimate, and nothing could remove the curse which rested upon it. The imperial approval or fuedal investiture made no change in the matter, since the people attached little weight to the fact that the despot had bought a piece of parchment somewhere in foreign countries or from some stranger passing through his territory… The whole conduct of Emperor Charles IV in Italy was a scandalous political comedy. Matteo Villani relates how the Visconti escorted him round their territory, and at last out of it; how he went about like a hawker selling his wares (privileges, etc.) for money. What a cheap appearance he made in Rome, and how at the end, without even drawing the sword, he returned with replenished coffers across the Alps. Nevertheless, patriotic enthusiasts and poets, full of the greatness of the past, conceived high hopes at his coming, which were afterwards dissipated by his pitiful conduct. Petrarch, who had written frequent letters exhorting the Emperor to cross the Alps, to give back to Rome its departed greatness, and to set up a new universal empire, now, when the Emperor had come at last, still hoped to see his dreams realized, strove unweariedly, by speech and writing, to impress the Emperor with them, but was at length driven away from him with disgust when he saw the imperial authority dishonored by the submission of Charles to the Pope. Emperor Sigismund came, on the first occasion at least (1414), with the good intention of persuading Pope John XXIII. to take part in his council; it was on that journey, when Pope and Emperor were gazing from the lofty tower of Cremona on the panorama of Lombardy, that their host, the tyrant Gabino Fondolo, was seized with the desire to throw them both over. On his second visit Sigismund came as a mere adventurer, giving no proof whatever of his imperial prerogative, except by crowning Beccadelli as a poet. For more than half a year he remained shut up in Siena, like a debtor in jail, and only with difficulty, and at a later period, succeeded in being crowned in Rome. And what can be thought of Frederick III ? His journeys to Italy have the air of holiday-trips or pleasure-tours made at the expense of those who wanted him to confirm their prerogatives, or whose vanity it flattered to entertain an emperor. The latter was the case with Alfonso of Naples, who paid 150 florins for the honor of an imperial visit. At Ferrara, on his second return from Rome (1469), Frederick spent a whole day without leaving his chamber, distributing no less than eighty titles; he created knights, counts, doctors, notaries—counts, indeed, of different degrees, as, for instance, counts palatine, counts with the right to create doctors up to the number of five, counts with the right to legitimatize bastards, to appoint notaries, and so forth. The humanists, then the chief spokesmen of the age, were divided in opinion according to their personal interests, while the Emperor was greeted by some of them with the conventional acclamations of the poets of imperial Rome.

With Emperor Maximilian I [von Hapsburg] begins not only the general intervention of foreign nations, but a new imperial policy with regard to Italy. According to the modern theory of intervention, when two parties are tearing a country to pieces, a third may step in and take its share. On this principle the empire acted. But right and justice were appealed to no longer. When Louis XII of France was expected in Genoa (1502), and the imperial eagle was removed from the hall of the ducal palace and replaced by painted lilies, the historian, Senarega asked what claims the empire had upon Genoa. Nobody in Italy could give a clear answer to any such questions…

But the highest and the most admired form of illegitimacy in the fifteenth century was presented by the condottiere, who, whatever may have been his origin, raised himself to the position of an independent ruler. Such attempts now began to keep the peninsula in a constant ferment….No wonder then if we find them full of contempt for all sacred things, cruel and treacherous to their fellowmen who cared nothing whether or no they died under the ban of the Church. At the same time, and through the force of the same conditions, the genius and capacity of many among them attained the highest conceivable development and won for them the admiring devotion of their followers. Their armies were the first in modern history in which the personal reputation of the leader was an important element of power. A brilliant example is the life of Francesco Sforza. No prejudice against his low birth could prevent him from winning and making good upon a boundless devotion from each individual with whom he had to deal. It happened more than once that his enemies laid down their arms merely at the sight of him, greeting him reverently with uncovered heads, each honoring in him, ‘the common father of the men-at-arms’…

The four great Powers, Naples, Milan, the Papacy, and Venice, formed among themselves a political equilibrium which refused to allow any disturbance. In the States of the Church, which swarmed with petty tyrants, who in part were, or had been, condottieri, the nephews of the Popes, since the time of Sixtus IV, monopolized the right to all such undertakings. But at the first sign of a political crisis, the soldiers of fortune appeared again upon the scene.

CHAPTER V.

THE GREATER DYNASTIES.

When considering the chief dynasties of Italy, it is convenient to discuss the Aragonese, on account of its special character, apart from the rest. The feudal system, which from the days of the Normans had survived in the form of a territorial supremacy of the Barons, gave a distinctive color to the political constitution of Naples, while elsewhere in Italy, excepting only in the southern part of the Papal States and in a few other districts, a direct tenure of land prevailed and no hereditary powers were permitted by the law. The great Alfonso, who reigned in Naples from 1435 onwards (d. 1458), was a man of another kind than his real or alleged descendants. Brilliant in his whole existence, fearless in mixing with his people, mild and generous towards his enemies, dignified and affable in diplomacy, modest notwithstanding his legitimate royal descent, admired rather than blamed even for his old man’s passion for Lucrezia d’Alagna, he had the one bad quality of extravagance. Unscrupulous financiers were long omnipotent at Court till the bankrupt king robbed them of their spoils. A crusade was preached as a pretext for taxing the clergy. The Jews were forced to save themselves from conversion and other oppressive measures by presents and the payment of regular taxes. When a great earthquake happening in the Abruzzi, the survivors were compelled to make good the contributions of the dead.

King Ferrante who succeeded him passed as his illegitimate son by a Spanish lady, but was probably the son of a half- caste Moor of Valencia. Whether it was his blood or the plots formed against his life by the barons which embittered and darkened his nature, it is certain that he was equaled in ferocity by none among the princes of his time. Restlessly active, recognized as one of the most powerful political minds of the day, and free from the vices of the profligate, he concentrated all his powers, among which must be reckoned profound dissimulation and an irreconcilable spirit of vengeance, on the destruction of his opponents. He had been wounded in every point in which a ruler is open to offense, for the leaders of the barons, though related to him by marriage, were allies of his foreign enemies. Extreme measures became part of his daily policy… He practiced hunting regardless of all rights of property, and his pleasures were of two kinds: he liked to have his opponents near him, either alive in well-guarded prisons or dead and embalmed, dressed in the clothes which they wore in their lifetime. He would chuckle in talking of the captives with his friends, and made no secret whatever of the museum of mummies. His victims were mostly men whom he had got into his power by treachery; some were even seized while guests at the royal table. He was a savage, brutal profligate—described as ‘ the cruelest, worst, most vicious and basest man ever seen’—who alone had the advantage of kingship, and who openly avowed his contempt for religion and its usages. The better and nobler features of the Italian despotisms are not to be found among the princes of this line. All that they possessed of the art and culture of their time served the purposes of luxury or display.

Even the genuine Spaniards seem to have almost always degenerated in Italy; but the end of this cross-bred house (1494 and 1503) gives clear proof of a want of blood. Ferrante died of mental care and trouble; Alfonso accused his brother Federigo, the only honest member of the family, of treason, and insulted him in the vilest manner. At length, though he had hitherto passed for one of the ablest generals in Italy, he lost his head and fled to Sicily, leaving his son, the younger Ferrante, a prey to the French and to domestic treason.

The despotism of the Dukes of Milan, whose government from the time of Giangaleazzo onwards was an absolute monarchy of the most thorough-going sort, shows the genuine Italian character of the fifteenth century. The last of the Visconti, Filippo Maria (1412-1447), is a character of peculiar interest, and of which fortunately have an admirable description. What a man of uncommon gifts and high position can be made by the passion of fear is here shown with what may be called a mathematical completeness. All the resources of the State were devoted to the one end of securing his personal safety, though happily his cruel egoism did not degenerate into a purposeless thirst for blood. He lived in the Citadel of Milan, surrounded by magnificent gardens, arbors, and lawns. For years he never set foot in the city, making his excursions only in the country, where lay several of his splendid castles. The flotilla which, drawn by the swiftest horses, conducted him to them along canals constructed for the purpose, was so arranged as to allow the application of the most rigorous etiquette. Whoever entered the citadel was watched by a hundred eyes. It was forbidden even to stand at the window lest signs should be given to those without….His step-son and successor, the fortunate condottiere Francesco Sforza (1450-1466), was perhaps of all the Italians of the fifteenth century the man most after the heart of his age. Never was the triumph of genius and individual power more brilliantly displayed than in him, and those who did not recognize his merit were at least forced to wonder at him as the spoilt child of fortune. The Milanese claimed it openly as an honor to be governed by so distinguished a master. When he entered the city the thronging populace bore him on horseback into the cathedral without giving him the chance to dismount. According to Pope Pius II, a judge in such matters:

In the year 1459, when the Duke came to the congress at Mantua, he was 58 years old. On horseback he looked like a young man of a lofty and imposing figure, with serious features, calm and affable in conversation, princely in his whole bearing, with a combination of bodily and intellectual gifts unrivaled in our time, unconquered on the field of battle,—such was the man who raised himself from a humble position to the control of an empire. His wife was beautiful and virtuous, his children were like the angels of heaven; he was seldom ill, and all his chief wishes were fulfilled. And yet he was not without misfortune. His wife, out of jealousy, killed his mistress. His old comrades and friends, Troilo and Brunoro, abandoned him and went over to King Alfonso of Naples. Another friend, Ciarpollone, was hanged for treason. His own brother Alessaudro set the French upon him. One of his sons plotted against him and was imprisoned. The March of Ancona, which he had won in war, he lost again in the same way.

…The house of Gonzaga at Mantua and that of Montefeltro of Urbino were among the best ordered and richest in men of ability during the second half of the fifteenth century.

The Gonzaga were a tolerably harmonious family. For a long period no murder had been known among them and their dead could be shown to the world without fear. The Marquis Francesco Gonzaga and his wife, Isabella d’Este, in spite of some irregularities, were a united and respectable couple and brought up their sons to be successful and remarkable men.at a time when their small but important State was exposed to incessant danger. Franceco, so far as military honor was concerned, felt and acted as an Italian patriot and imparted the same spirit to his wife. Every deed of loyalty and heroism, such as her defense of Faenza against Cesare Borgia, she felt as a vindication of the honor of Italy. A more polished and charming circle was not to be seen in Italy, since the dissolution (1508) of the old Court of Urbino. In artistic matters Isabella had a great deal of knowledge and the catalogue of her small but choice collection can be read by no lover of art without emotion.

In the great Federigo (1444-1482), whether he were a genuine Montefeltro or not, Urbino possessed a brilliant representative of the princely order. As a Condottiere he shared the political morality of soldiers of fortune; as ruler of his little territory he adopted the plan of spending at home the money he had earned abroad and taxing his people as lightly as possible. Of him and his two successors, Guidobaldo and Francesco Maria, we read : ‘They erected buildings, furthered the cultivation of the land, lived at home, and gave employment to a large number of people. Their subjects loved them.’ Not only the state, but the court too, was a work of art and organization, and this in every sense of the word. Federigo had 600 persons in his service. The arrangements of the court were as complete as in the capitals of the greatest monarchs, but nothing was wasted, all had a function, and everything was carefully watched and controlled. The court was no scene of vice and dissipation, but rather it served as a school of military education for the sons of other great houses, the thoroughness of whose culture and instruction was made a point of honor by the Duke. The palace which he built, if not one of the most splendid, was classical in the perfection of its plan. There he placed the greatest of his treasures in his celebrated library. Feeling secure in a land where all gained profit or employment from his rule, and where none were beggars, he habitually went unarmed and almost unaccompanied. Alone among the princes of his time he ventured to walk in an open park and to take his frugal meals in an open chamber, while Livy, or in time of fasting some devotional work, was read to him. In the course of the same afternoon he listened to a lecture on some classical subject, visited the monastery of Santa Chiara and discussed sacred things with the abbess through the grating. In the evening he oversaw the martial exercises of the young people of his court on the meadow of St. Francesco, known for its magnificent view, and saw to it that all the feats were done in the most perfect manner. He strove always to be affable and accessible, visiting the artisans who worked for him in their shops, holding frequent audiences, and, if possible, attending to the requests of each individual on the same day that they were presented. No wonder that the people along the street knelt down and cried when he passed: ‘Dio ti mantenga, signore!’ He was called by thinking people ‘ the light of Italy.’

CHAPTER VII.     THE REPUBLICS : VENICE AND FLORENCE.

The Italian municipalities had, in earlier days, already displayed that spirit which transforms the city into the state. It remained only that these cities should combine in a great confederation, and it was this idea that constantly recurred to Italian statesmen…. Among the cities which maintained their independence there are two of deep significance for the history of the human race: Florence, the city of incessant movement, which has left us a record of the thoughts and aspirations of each and all who, for three centuries, took part in this movement, and Venice, the city of apparent stagnation and of political secrecy. No contrast can be imagined stronger than that which is offered to us by these two, and neither can be compared to anything else which the world has hitherto produced.

Venice recognized itself from the first as a strange and mysterious creation—the fruits of a higher power than human ingenuity….The cause of the stability of Venice lies rather in a combination of circumstances which were found in union nowhere else. Unassailable from its position, it had been able from the beginning to engage in foreign affairs with the fullest and calmest reflection and ignore nearly altogether the parties which divided the rest of Italy, to escape the entanglement of permanent alliances, and to set the highest price on those which it thought fit to make. The keynote of the Venetian character was, consequently, a spirit of proud and contemptuous isolation, which, joined with a hatred felt for the city by the other states of Italy, resulted in a strong sense of internal solidarity. The inhabitants were also united by the most powerful ties of interest in dealing both with state colonies and with possessions on the mainland, forcing the population of the latter to buy and sell in Venice alone….We learn that the population of the city in the year 1422 was 190,000 souls. The Italians were, perhaps, the first to reckon a census, not according to hearths, or men able to bear arms, or people able to walk, and so forth, but according to ‘souls,’ and thus to get the most neutral basis for further calculation.

About this time, when the Florentines wished to form an alliance with Venice against Filippo Maria Visconti, they were for the moment refused, in the belief, resting on accurate commercial returns, that a war between Venice and Milan, that is, between seller and buyer was foolish. Even if the duke of Milan simply increased his army, the Milanese, through the heavier taxation they must pay, would have been worse customers. ‘ Better let the Florentines be defeated, and then, used as they are to the life of a free city, they will settle with us and bring their silk and woolen industry with them, as the Lucchese did in their distress.’…

The most elevated political thought and the most varied forms of human development are found united in the history of Florence, which in this sense deserves the name of the first modern state in the world. Here the entire population is busied with what in the despotic cities is the affair of a single family. That wondrous Florentine spirit, at once keenly critical and artistically creative, was incessantly transforming the social and political condition of the state, and as incessantly describing and judging the change. Florence thus became the home of political doctrines and theories, of experiments and sudden changes, but also, like Venice, the home of statistical science, and alone and above all other states in the world, the home of historical representation in the modern sense of the phrase. The spectacle of ancient Rome and a familiarity with its leading writers were not without influence. Giovanni Villani confesses that he received the first impulse to his great work [the first modern history] at the jubilee of the year 1300, and began it immediately on his return home. Yet how many among the 200,000 pilgrims of that year may have been like him in gifts and tendencies, and still did not write the history of their native cities ! For not all of them could encourage themselves with the thought: ‘ Rome is sinking; my native city is rising and ready to achieve great things. I, therefore, wish to realte its past.’