Transcriber’s Note: As a result of editorial shortcomings in the
original, some reference letters in the text don’t have matching entries
in the reference-lists, and vice versa.
THE HISTORIANS’ HISTORY OF THE WORLD
[Illustration: MACCHIAVELLI]
THE HISTORIANS’
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations
as recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of all ages:
edited, with the assistance of a distinguished board of advisers
and contributors, by
HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, LL.D.
[Illustration]
IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME IX--ITALY
The Outlook Company
New York
The History Association
London
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
_All rights reserved._
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
New York, U. S. A.
Contributors, and Editorial Revisers.
Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin.
Prof. Joseph Halévy, College of France.
Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University.
Prof. Andrew C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan.
Prof. David H. Müller, University of Vienna.
Prof. Alfred Rambaud, University of Paris.
Capt. F. Brinkley, Tokio.
Prof. Eduard Meyer, University of Berlin.
Dr. James T. Shotwell, Columbia University.
Prof. Theodor Nöldeke, University of Strasburg.
Prof. Albert B. Hart, Harvard University.
Dr. Paul Brönnle, Royal Asiatic Society.
Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., London.
Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Möllendorff, University of Berlin.
Prof. H. Marczali, University of Budapest.
Dr. G. W. Botsford, Columbia University.
Prof. Julius Wellhausen, University of Göttingen.
Prof. Franz R. von Krones, University of Graz.
Prof. Wilhelm Soltau, Zabern University.
Prof. R. W. Rogers, Drew Theological Seminary.
Prof. A. Vambéry, University of Budapest.
Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, University of Berlin.
Dr. Frederick Robertson Jones, Bryn Mawr College.
Baron Bernardo di San Severino Quaranta, London.
Dr. John P. Peters, New York.
Prof. Adolph Harnack, University of Berlin.
Dr. S. Rappoport, School of Oriental Languages, Paris.
Prof. Hermann Diels, University of Berlin.
Prof. C. W. C. Oman, Oxford University.
Prof. I. Goldziher, University of Vienna.
Prof. W. L. Fleming, University of West Virginia.
Prof. R. Koser, University of Berlin.
PART XIV
THE HISTORY OF ITALY
BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES
FRANCESCO BERTOLINI, J. BURCKHARDT, PIERRE ANTOINE DARU, S. ASTLEY
DUNHAM, F. GUICCIARDINI, W. C. HAZLITT, HEINRICH LEO, MACHIAVELLI,
F. A. MIGNET, H. E. NAPIER, LORENZO PIGNOTTI, A. VON REUMONT,
WILLIAM ROSCOE, J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, J. A. SYMONDS
WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM
ADHÉMAR, AMMIRATO, ANAFESTO, GUGLIELMUS APULIENSIS, ANGELO MARIA
BANDINI, CARLO BOTTA, FLAVIUS BLONDUS, BOCCACCIO, POGGIO
BRACCIOLINI, H. B. BRIGGS, LYTTON E. G. BULWER, BURCHARD
(OR BURCHARDUS), ISAAC BUTT, CAFFARO, CAPPONI, GIOVANNI
DE CASTRO, BENVENUTO CELLINI, CARLO CIPOLLA, ANNA
COMNENA, ROBERT COMYN, ANTONIO COSCI, ANDREA
DANDOLO, DANTE, CARLO DENINA, G. B. DEPPING,
DUFFY, HUGO FALCANDUS, FICINO, FLODOARDUS, UBERTUS FOLIETA, E. A.
FREEMAN, GALILEO, GEBHARDT, E. GIBBON, P. L. GINGUENÉ, GIOVANNI
DIACONO, HENRY HALLAM, W. HEYD, KARL HILLEBRAND, WILLIAM
HUNT, J. LABARTHE, M. LAFUENTE, RICORDANO MALASPINA,
GOFREDUS MALATERRA, MÉMOIRES DE BAYARD, GIUSEPPE
MONTANELLI, E. MÜNTZ, MURATORI, F. T. PERRENS,
PETRARCH, GIOVANNI PONTANO, W. H. PRESCOTT,
E. PROCTOR, E. QUINET, J. REINACH, W. ROBERTSON, T. DE ROSSI,
JOHN RUSKIN, WILLIAM SPALDING, OTTOBONUS SCRIBA, SCRIBÆ,
MARCHIRIUS ET BARTHOLOMÆUS, ST. MARC, G. STELLA,
TEGRINI, G. B. TESTA, TRAVERSARI, GIORGIO VASARI,
G. VILLANI, M. VILLANI, P. VILLARI, F. M. A.
VOLTAIRE, WILLIAM WHEWELL, JULES ZELLER
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS
VOLUME IX
ITALY
PAGE
INTRODUCTION. THE SCOPE OF ITALIAN HISTORY: A PREFATORY
CHARACTERISATION 1
CHAPTER I
ITALY IN THE DARK AGE (476 _ca._-1100 A.D.) 15
The Barbarian invaders, 17. Charlemagne and his successors, 18.
The empire and the papacy, 21. The disunited municipalities,
22. The origin of Venice, 24. The origin of the dogeship, 27.
Venice in the tenth century, 28. Prosperity and political
reforms, 32. Other maritime cities, 35. The Lombard cities
and their allies, 36. Florence, 39. Social conditions, 40.
Municipal wars, 41.
CHAPTER II
IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY (1152-1200 A.D.) 45
Frederick Barbarossa in Italy, 45. The siege of Crema,
50. Rival popes, 53. Imperial campaigns and reverses, 54.
Frederick once more aggressive, 57. Battle of Legnano; peace of
Constance, 58. Death of Frederick; his successor, 60. Growing
power of the nobility, 61.
CHAPTER III
THE NORMANS IN SICILY (787-1204 A.D.) 63
The Normans in France, 65. The Normans come to Italy, 68.
Capture of the pope; Robert Guiscard, 69. Conquest of Sicily;
Eastern invasions, 72. Roger, great count of Sicily, 76. Roger
II, 77. William the Bad (_il Malo_), 81. William the Good, 81.
Norman influence, 83.
CHAPTER IV
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 85
Factions in Florence, 87. Frederick II crowned emperor, 90.
Renewal of the Lombard League, 91. Frederick II and the Lombard
League, 92. Battle of Cortenuova, 93. Pope against emperor,
94. The Guelfs expelled from Florence; battle of Fossalta,
97. Death of Frederick II: the succession, 98. The pope and
the cities, 99. Florentine affairs; the Guelfs recalled,
101. Florence and Siena at war; battle of Montaperti, 102.
The tyrant Ezzelino, 104. The beginning of feudal tyranny in
Lombardy, 106. Perennial strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines, 108.
Charles of Anjou conquers Sicily, 109. The fall of Conradin;
Gregory X; Otto Visconti, 110. Ghibelline successes; the
Sicilian Vespers, 112. Waning influence of king, emperor, and
pope, 114. The republic of Pisa, 115. Pisa defeated by Genoa
near Meloria, 116. Perfidy and fall of Ugolino, 117. Florence;
the feud of the Bianchi and the Neri, 118. The pope sends
Charles of Valois as conciliator, 121.
CHAPTER V
THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE (1300-1350 A.D.) 124
An emperor once more in Italy, 126. Milan seditions; Genoa and
Venice at war, 128. Henry’s coronation and sudden death, 130.
Rival emperors; ecclesiastical dissensions, 131. Castruccio
Castracani, 133. Florence menaced, 135. The Florentine army
under Raymond of Cardona, 137. Raymond temporises, 139. A
brilliant skirmish, 140. Battle of Altopascio, 141. Castruccio
adds insult to injury, 143. Florence in despair calls on
the duke of Calabria, 144. Charles and his army, 145. The
Ghibellines call on Ludwig of Bavaria, 147. Successes of Count
Novello, 148. Ludwig comes to Italy, 149. Castruccio goes to
Rome, 150. Castruccio’s new conquest; his sudden death, 152.
Estimates of Castruccio, 153. Duke of Calabria dies; Ludwig
retires, 155. Can’ Grande Della Scala, 155. John of Bohemia
comes to Italy, 156. Lucca a bone of contention, 158. The duke
of Athens made protector of Florence, 162. Growing unpopularity
of the duke of Athens, 164. The duke driven from the city, 165.
Attempted reforms, 167. War of the factions in Florence, 169.
The Great Plague, 171. Boccaccio’s account of the plague in
Florence, 173. Napier’s reflections on the plague, 176.
CHAPTER VI
THE VANGUARD OF THE RENAISSANCE (_ca._ 1250-1400 A.D.) 178
European culture in general, 181. The universities and
nascent scholarship, 183. Latin and the vernacular, 184. The
master poet, and his theme, 186. Dante the man, 187. Lesser
contemporaries of Dante, 190. Petrarch, 191. Early Italian
prose, 194. Boccaccio, 198. Lesser contemporaries of Petrarch
and Boccaccio, 202. Art in the thirteen and fourteenth
centuries, 203. The Tuscan school of painters, 207. Ruskin’s
estimate of Giotto’s tower, 209.
CHAPTER VII
ROME UNDER RIENZI (1347-1354 A.D.) 211
The rise of Rienzi, 213. Lord Lytton on the speech of Rienzi,
216. Rienzi’s opponents; his friends; his proclamations, 218.
Disaster succeeds victory, 220. Anarchy and jubilee in Rome,
223. Rienzi in exile; his renewed opportunity; his death, 224.
CHAPTER VIII
DESPOTS AND TYRANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
(_ca._ 1309-1496 A.D.) 230
The kingdom of Naples, 231. Joanna II, 234. Alfonso the
Magnanimous, 237. Ferdinand, 238. The tyrants of Lombardy, 240.
Companies of adventure, 241. Florence menaced by the Visconti,
243. Charles IV in Italy, 244. The “war of Liberation,” 248.
The papal schism, 249. Gian Galeazzo Visconti, 251. Filippo
Maria Visconti, 257. The house of Sforza, 258.
CHAPTER IX
THE MARITIME REPUBLICS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES 261
The affairs of Pisa and Genoa, 261. Naval exploits, 266. The
affairs of Venice, 269. The Tiepolo conspiracy, and the council
of Ten, 272. The story of Marino Falieri, 273. Venetian wars
and conquests, 275. Victories of Carmagnola, 279. Death of
Frescobaldi; the war ended and renewed, 284. The great naval
battle on the Po, 286. The revolt of Pisa; the cruel ruse of
Baldaccio, 288. The fall of Carmagnola, 289. Venice and the
Turks, 293. The government of Venice, 297. The two Foscari, 301.
CHAPTER X
THE COMMERCE OF VENICE 303
Venice in the Levant, 308. The commercial forebears of the
Venetians, 310. Venetian glass, 315. Other manufactures, 318.
The slave trade, 319. The decline of Venetian commerce, 323.
The bank of Venice, 324.
CHAPTER XI
THE GUILDS AND THE SEIGNIORY IN FLORENCE (1350-1400 A.D.) 326
Social upheavals of the middle of the fourteenth century,
327. Macchiavelli’s account of the Ciompi insurrection, 331.
The eight “saints of war,” 333. Mob violence, 336. Michele di
Lando, 340. Momentary peace; renewed insurrections, 343.
CHAPTER XII
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI (1434-1492 A.D.) 349
The rise, reverses, and power of Cosmo de’ Medici, 350. Cosmo
and the revival of learning, 353. Last years of Cosmo, 356.
Roscoe’s estimate of Cosmo, 359. Cosmo’s successor, 361.
Piero’s sons and the conspiracies, 363. The Pazzi conspiracy,
365. Lorenzo the Magnificent in power, 370. The Florentines
routed at Poggibonzi, 373. Lorenzo’s embassy to Naples, 375.
Peace with honour, 376. Further papal wars, 379. Last years of
Lorenzo, 386. Von Reumont’s estimate of Lorenzo, 388.
CHAPTER XIII
ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE 391
Fifteenth century art, 392. Vasari’s estimate of fifteenth
century art, 393. Leonardo da Vinci, 395. The end of the
mediæval epoch, 398. The age of Michelangelo, 399. Michelangelo
as sculptor, 402. Raphael, 403. Ariosto, 405. Machiavelli, 406.
CHAPTER XIV
THE “LAST DAY OF ITALY” (1494-1530 A.D.) 408
Charles VIII; his army, 412. Charles VIII in Rome; a
contemporary account, 414. Charles goes to Naples, 420.
Florentine affairs; Savonarola, 421. The French in Milan, 424.
The French and Spaniards in Naples, 428. Northern Italy, 429.
The league of Cambray, 432. Battle of Ravenna, 435. The age
of Leo X, 439. Battle of Marignano; last years of Leo, 441.
Successors of Leo; Francis I and Charles V, 447. Capture and
sack of Rome, 452. The fall of Florence, 458.
CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY (1530-1600 A.D.) 463
The siege and fall of Siena, 464. An Italian estimate of the
abdication of Charles V, 467. Renewed hostilities; the Treaty
of Cateau-Cambrésis, 468. A Spanish account of the battle of
Lepanto, 473. The general condition of Italy, 477. Pope Sixtus
V; Ferdinand, grand duke of Tuscany, 478. Pope Clement VIII,
481.
CHAPTER XVI
A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY (1601-1700 A.D.) 484
General conditions, 485. Galileo and the church, 493. The
successors of Urban VIII, 495. Lesser principalities, 498.
Tuscany, 501. Piedmont and Savoy, 502. Venice, 511. Venetian
wars with the Turks, 518.
CHAPTER XVII
ITALY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1701-1800 A.D.) 524
Italy in the war of the Spanish Succession, 528. War of the
Quadruple Alliance, 530. War of the Polish Succession, 532. War
of the Austrian Succession, 534. Forty years of “languid peace”
for divided Italy, 536. The kingdom of Naples and Sicily, 537.
The states of the church, 538. The Sardinian kingdom, 540. The
four republics, 541. Milan and Tuscany, 542. A Tuscan estimate
of Leopold, 546. Italy in the revolutionary age, 547. Time of
the French Republic under the national convention, 548. The
campaign of 1796 and its consequences, 551. The expulsion of
the French from Italy, 557. Bonaparte reconquers Italy, 564.
The growing desire for liberty, 565.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NAPOLEONIC RÉGIME (1801-1815 A.D.) 566
The constitution of the republic, 567. Napoleon makes Italy
a kingdom, 568. The kingdom of Naples and the papacy, 570.
The islands of Sicily and Sardinia, 574. The rise of national
spirit, 574. The fall of Napoleon, 576.
CHAPTER XIX
INEFFECTUAL STRUGGLES (1815-1848 A.D.) 578
Marriott on the Restoration, 580. Errors of the monarchy,
581. The insurrections of 1820-1821, 583. The revolutions of
1831, 585. Sassone on Mazzini and “young Italy,” 587. Fyffe’s
estimate of Mazzini, 588. Symonds on the problems and the
leaders, 589. Pope Pius IX and his liberal policy, 591.
CHAPTER XX
THE LIBERATION OF ITALY (1848-1866 A.D.) 593
The war between Naples and Sicily, 594. Revolt against the
pope; Rome a republic, 595. The French restore the pope, 597.
Revolutions in Tuscany and elsewhere, 598. Charles Albert’s war
with Austria, 598. Charles Albert abdicates: Victor Emmanuel
II succeeds, 600. Venice fails to acquire freedom, 601. Louis
Napoleon’s intervention, 603. Austria declares war: Magenta
and Solferino, 603. The papacy _versus_ unity, 606. Garibaldi
drives the Bourbons from Sicily, 607. The death of Cavour and
the revolt of Garibaldi, 611. Florence becomes the capital,
613. The war of 1866 and annexation of Venice, 614.
CHAPTER XXI
THE COMPLETION OF ITALIAN UNITY (1867-1878 A.D.) 616
The revolt of Garibaldi, 617. The French intervene again:
Mentana, October 31st, 618. The Roman question renewed, 620.
Papal infallibility proclaimed, 621. Rome taken from the pope,
621. The plebiscite, 622. Rome again the capital of Italy, 624.
The Minghetti ministry, 625. Death of Victor Emmanuel and Pius
IX, 626.
CHAPTER XXII
RECENT HISTORY (1878-1903 A.D.) 628
Irredentism, the Triple Alliance and “Trasformismo,” 630. The
power of Crispi, 632. Death of King Humbert, of Crispi, and of
Leo XIII, 633.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 635
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN ITALY 639
A CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF ITALIAN HISTORY 646
INTRODUCTION
THE SCOPE OF ITALIAN HISTORY: A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION
THE DARK AGE
It has been observed again and again that the sweep of history is a
continuous stream, and that all attempts to divide it into epochs are
more or less arbitrary. Nevertheless, one cannot escape the tendency
to classify, and memory is greatly aided by such arbitrary divisions.
The largest and perhaps the most uniformly accepted of such arbitrary
parcelling out of history is the classification into ancient, mediæval,
and modern. Everyone is aware that the general historian usually regards
ancient history as closing either with the later decades of the fourth
century, when the northern barbarians began their invasions, or, perhaps
more generally, with the precise date 476, when the last emperor of old
Rome was dethroned. The ensuing epoch, comprising a period of about a
thousand years, is known as the mediæval period; which epoch is usually
considered as closing with the discovery of the New World in 1492. The
earlier centuries of this epoch are usually spoken of as constituting the
dark age.
Such a division is arbitrary, but not altogether illogical. It has been
urged that Rome itself did not know it had fallen in the year 476;
and that the Roman Empire--even the Roman Republic, in the phrasing
of the time--went on, as the minds of contemporaries conceived it,
uninterruptedly for many centuries after the date which we of later time
fix for the quietus of Roman imperial life. But few things are better
established than the fact that a clear conception of history demands
a certain opportunity for the observation of events in perspective.
In other words a contemporary judgment is rarely, if ever, the best
judgment regarding any epoch. In the multiplicity of details that are
thrust necessarily upon the attention of the contemporary observer,
large proportions are lost, and a confused mass of little things makes
the picture as unintelligible as is the large canvas of the painter
when viewed at too short a focus. With the historical view, as with
the painting, one must recede to a certain distance before gaining a
measurably true conception. And so looking back through the vista of
centuries one is able to observe very clearly that the time of the
alleged fall of the Western Roman Empire was a time of real crisis in the
sweep of historical events. The erection of the one focal date is, to
be sure, a quite unjustifiable marking of boundary lines, unless it be
regarded in the same way in which one thinks of the parallels of latitude
and longitude on the globe. It is a convenient milestone, nothing more.
But the epoch which it marks, if not to be limited to the confines of a
single year, is none the less a true epoch; as no one can doubt who will
consider the history of Rome in the aggregate during the first, second,
and third centuries of the Christian era, and then will consider the
history of the same city during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries.
Obviously, a vast change has come over the spirit of civilisation in this
time; the later centuries, contrasted with the earlier ones, may well be
considered a dark age.
We have already shown that during its period the eastern division of
the later Roman Empire was the seat of a culture which found expression
in the production of an elaborate literature. But the West during
this period was under quite different auspices. Rome had ceased to be
important as a centre of civilisation; its chief citizens had removed to
the city of Constantinople. Here in the West the half-civilised Herulians
and Ostrogoths held almost undisputed sway from 476 till about the middle
of the sixth century. Then for a century the Eastern Empire reasserted
control over Rome and the legions of Narses and Longinus upheld the
authority of the Byzantine emperors. But in 568 the Lombards under Alboin
swept down into Italy and their supremacy was hardly disputed until the
Carlovingians took a hand in Italian affairs, with the result that in 774
Charlemagne, capturing Desiderius in Pavia, assumed the title of king of
the Lombards and virtually ended the Lombard kingdom.
In 781 Charlemagne crowned his son Pepin king of Italy, and in the
memorable year 800 Charlemagne was himself crowned emperor of the West,
reviving the title and a semblance of the glory of the old Imperium.
Charlemagne’s successors retained nominal control over the empire, and
disputed with the popes the real control of Italy. This warfare between
the papal monarch and the emperors was a salient feature of the later
centuries of the epoch. The power of the church had increased slowly and
insidiously until in the ninth and tenth centuries the bishop of Rome
aspired to real kingship over Italy,--even over the entire empire.
The five hundred years of Italian history outlined in this period
contrast strangely (as has been said) in their world historical meaning
with the half millennium of empire that preceded it, or with the other
half millennium within which were comprised the events of the Roman
commonwealth. Those earlier periods, as we glance back over them in
perspective, bristle with great events; whereas this later epoch shows
a bare plane of mediocrity, if not of decline. Yet we must not think
of these later centuries as representing a time of relapse into actual
barbarism. It was rather an epoch when the decadent civilisation was
struggling against complete overthrow on the one hand, while the
new civilisation was striving to make itself felt,--striving as yet
ineffectually as regards the higher culture, yet none the less preparing
the way for the future germination of a new life in the old empire.
There is no more fascinating effort open to the historian than to glance
back through the mists of the centuries and attempt to penetrate the
gloom of this dark age, and visualise its social conditions. At best
such an attempt at reconstructing the distant past can be but partially
successful. If it be true that “we view the world through our own eyes,
each of us, and make from within us the things we see,” as Thackeray
tells us regarding our contemporary environment, vastly more distorted
must our image be of any past events. Where the monuments, art treasures,
and the literature of a great civilisation have been preserved to us,
as in the case of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and Greece, and Rome, we have
aids and accessories for the reconstruction of the picture that enable
us to view our rehabilitation with a certain confidence. But where
these mementoes of the past are lost or altogether lacking, the picture
must, indeed, be a vague and uncertain one,--the foggy tracery of the
impressionist as contrasted with the firm outlines of a Michelangelo.
And such are the disadvantages that beset the task of reconstructing the
image of Italy, or indeed of any other part of Europe, in the so-called
dark age. It was a time when the wealth of the later empire had been
transferred to the East. Western Europe was poverty-stricken; and this
practical fact, perhaps more than any other one cause, operated to
prevent the construction of such monuments of architecture and of art
as the earlier centuries achieved. We have seen illustrated again and
again that the seat of the greatest civilisation is almost sure to be
the commercial and monetary centre of the world; and we shall see the
same thing illustrated again with renewed force at a later day in Italy,
when the gold of the Florentine tradesmen, the Medici, stimulates the
art development of the later Renaissance. But in these post-imperial
times Italy has no wealth in commerce, as compared with the new centre
of the empire in Constantinople. Such Romans as remain in Italy are too
poor to build palaces and amphitheatres comparable to those of their
predecessors. They have enough to do to guard themselves against the
invaders from the north. At best they can hardly repair the structures
that the earlier civilisation has left them. We read that in Venice
it was at one time made a legal offence, punishable with a fine of
one thousand florins, to suggest any draft on the public treasury for
repairing state buildings. According to the familiar tradition, the doge
who finally had the temerity to violate the restriction, came before the
council with the thousand florins in his hand when making the suggestion.
This story illustrates the financial stress under which the Italian
cities laboured even at a comparatively late period of the Middle Ages.
But it would be a very great mistake to suppose that the lapse in the
material civilisation which undoubtedly took place in the later day of
imperial Rome coincided with an entire change in the social conditions
of the people. No trait in human nature is more fixed and more insistent
than the tendency to cling to the ways of our forbears. Conservatism is
the dominant motive of the mass of humanity. What our fathers thought
and believed, we for the most part think and believe. The average man
inherits his religion and his politics much as he inherits the colour
of his eyes; and has scarcely more likelihood of changing one than the
other. In the sweep of the centuries, ideas and customs do change, to
be sure; but the changes, in so far as they pertain to long-standing
principles or customs, are always slow and gradual.
Geologists of the nineteenth century demonstrated, after long study and
much argument, that there are no cataclysmic vaults in the sweep of the
geological and biological ages. The lesson thus taught regarding nature
at large is one which the sociologist might apply to his own would-be
science with advantage. In particular this lesson should be called to
the attention of the student of history who would have us believe that
there was a sudden and catastrophic change in the mentality of the people
of Italy in the fifth century A.D. No one who appreciates the true
character of human progress will be disposed to believe, in the absence
of confirmatory evidence, that the Italian of the sixth century differed
very greatly in his desires and aspirations from his grandparent who
lived while Rome was yet nominally governed by an Italian emperor. The
successive hordes of barbarians that swept down from the north took booty
wherever they could find it, and impoverished the country, but for the
most part they were not imbued with the spirit of wanton destruction. We
may well believe that they looked rather with awestruck admiration akin
to reverence upon the wonderful monuments of a civilisation so different
from anything they had previously witnessed. We know that relatively
civilised nations of the north sacked Rome in the sixteenth century more
disastrously than it was sacked by their alleged barbaric precursors of
the earlier millennium. Moreover, these invaders from the north were not
omnipresent. They came and went at relatively long intervals, and there
were some territories that they did not greatly molest. And the history
of invasions everywhere goes to show that after the moment of initial
conquest the barbaric vanquisher becomes, in matters of custom and
thought, a follower rather than a leader of the vanquished.
In the present case there can be no doubt that this rule held true. The
nations of the north were gifted with potentialities that were rapidly
developed through imitation of the southern civilisation. Long before
the so-called dark ages ended, there began to be centres of civilisation
in the north, and here and there a man of real genius--a Roger Bacon or
an Abelard--appeared to prove the rapid forward sweep of the culture
movement, since the highest genius never towers far above the culture
level of its time. But this could not have come to pass if the invader
from the north had entered Italy as an all-devastating eliminator of
previous civilisations. He came to conquer, but he remained to learn the
arts of civilisation.
In a word, then, we shall gain a truer picture of the state of Italy
in the so-called dark age if we think of it as differing not so
greatly in the ideals of its material civilisation from the Italy of
the Roman Empire. There is no great architecture, no great art, no
great literature; but we cannot believe that there were absolutely no
aspirations towards these antique ideals. When we recall how much that
was known to be produced in the earlier day has been utterly lost, we
need not doubt that there were some productions even in the field of
literature, of which we now have no knowledge, that we would gladly
reclaim from oblivion. The _cacoethes scribendi_ is too dominant an
impulse to be quite absent from any generation; surely, human nature
did not change so utterly in the dark age as to rout this impulse from
the human mind. What chiefly did occur, apparently, was the direction
of the literary impulse into an unfortunate channel--the channel of
ecclesiasticism. This carried it to a maelstrom from which the would-be
producer of literature was not able to disengage himself for many
generations. A startling evidence of this is found in the fact that as
Robinson[1] points out, there was no literary layman of renown from
Boetius (d. 524 or 525 A.D.) to Dante (1265-1321 A.D.).
Let us think, then, of the dark age as a time when Italy was
impoverished; a time when its material civilisation retrogressed; a time
when the stress of new conditions thrust some of the old ideals into the
background; but also as a time when the mixture of races was taking place
that was to give new strength and fibre to a senescent people; and to
make possible the resuscitation of the old ideals, the rehabilitation of
the old material civilisation, the regeneration of the race.
THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES
The regeneration is not to be effected, however, for some time to come.
The 11th and the 12th centuries are at best to see only the dawning of
the new day.
Culture of the creative kind is still in abeyance in Italy; there are
still no writers of significance; there is little art except as practised
in the illumination of manuscripts, and as foreshadowed in the beginnings
of architecture. Nevertheless, there is a germative culture. Here and
there a knight brings back a book from the East--for this is the age of
the Crusades. Here and there a monk pores over a classic manuscript.
Virgil was read and copied all through the dark age, as we know from the
incontestable evidence of extant manuscripts. There is no manuscript of
Horace in the uncial writing of the early centuries, yet he too must have
been read in the West, along with all the other Latin classics that have
come down to us, else these works would scarcely have been preserved;
for the Greek authors alone found favour in the East. Still it is to be
feared that the chief interest felt by many of the monks in the old-time
manuscripts was directed towards the material on which they were written
rather than towards the text itself. Hagiology often took the place of
history and many an ancient manuscript has been partially preserved in
palympsest, merely because a monk who wished to write the life of a saint
was too careless to complete the erasure of the earlier writing.
Contemplating the monastic life, through which it is often asserted the
germs of learning were preserved in the western world in this dark age,
one receives an impression of racial stasis which does not really accord
with the facts. If the monks were the preservers of the feeble torch of
learning, it was the wandering and warring hosts of the outside world
who were preparing their generation to receive the new light when it
should again burst forth. The Scandinavian and German hosts from the
north invaded Italy _en masse_, from time to time, as we have seen, and
successive bands of crusaders made Italy their highway when journeying
to and from the East. Many of these invaders found the southern clime
congenial and took up their permanent abode there. Thus the Normans
established a kingdom in Italy, and if the other hosts settled as
individuals rather than as nations, their influence must have been none
the less potent in bringing about that mixture of racial elements which
makes for racial progress.
Equally important must have been the influence of the commercial spirit.
The conquest of the Normans took from the Greek cities of southern Italy,
Amalfi, Naples, and Gaeta, the commercial supremacy they had previously
enjoyed. They were now superseded by Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. These
cities kept fleets on the sea in constant contact with the East. As might
have been expected, they led other Italian cities in power and influence,
and were the first to show intimations of that quickening of life which
presaged the new birth.
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
The first half of the thirteenth century furnishes additional chapters in
the old story of the fight between emperor and pope. Frederick II, the
present incumbent of the imperial throne, is one of the most picturesque
characters of the Middle Ages. He is a man of extraordinary versatility;
master of many languages, including Greek and Arabic, patron of the arts,
himself a poet, and what perhaps is most remarkable of all, considering
his scholarly proclivities, an advocate of the use of the vernacular
out of which is developing a new Italian language. Frederick is far too
broad and versatile a man to be confined within the narrow boundaries
of the church; hence his life is made up of a series of wrangles with
the popes. Yet he upholds the religious liberties of his subjects in
Sicily; he prosecutes a successful crusade, and restores the influence
of the western world in Jerusalem. He is under ban of excommunication
when he undertakes this crusade, and now he is again denounced for having
undertaken it. He rebels against the papal antagonism, and declares that
he will wear his crown and uphold its authority despite ecclesiastical
interference. We have seen like threats pronounced before, and have seen
such an emperor as Henry IV fail to make good his menace. But Frederick
adopts a novel plan which for a time proves expedient; he colonises
Luceria with a population of Saracens, which can furnish him a band of
thirty thousand infidel warriors to whom papal authority means nothing.
Notwithstanding this aid, however, he is barely able to hold his own
against the pope in the long run, and he dies just at the middle of the
century, worn out in middle life by endless warrings.
During the ensuing half century Italy is little troubled by the emperors;
papal authority is at its height, but a disunited Italy consumes its
strength in internal dissensions. The developing civilisation has
gradually focalised more and more towards the north and now its centre
has come to be Tuscany,--the same geographical location which furnished
the pre-Roman civilisation of the Etruscans. Florence is coming to be
the chief city of Tuscany; it is the chief centre also of one of the
most persistent and disastrous strifes that are convulsing Italy,--the
warfare of the Guelf and Ghibellines. This dissension is in no sense
confined to Florence, to be sure; it includes all Italy and even extends
beyond the national bounds. The factions war with varying success. In
1260 the Guelfs at Florence meet with a signal reverse at the battle
of Monteaperto. But eight years later at Theliacozza, the Ghibellines
under Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, receive a most disastrous
set-back.
An important feature of the epoch is the steady development of the half
dozen cities; in particular the rivalry between the three chief maritime
cities, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. Pisa has more than held her own until
now, but in 1284 she receives her quietus in the duel with Genoa off the
isle of Meloria; henceforth, she must yield supremacy to her conqueror
and to Venice.
But, as has been said, the maritime cities no longer hold uncontested
supremacy. Florence, “The Flower of Tuscany,” though lacking the
advantage of geographical position, is able, nevertheless, to take a
place among the commercial centres; thanks to her location on the highway
between Germany and southern Italy, she perhaps profits more by that all
essential mingling of the races to which reference has been made, than
any of her sister cities. Just at the close of the century the warfare of
the Guelfs and Ghibellines receives a new development in Florence through
the strife of the factions that come to be known as the Bianchi and Neri;
the dispute which began as a mere personal strife spreads its baneful
influence over the entire community.
Notwithstanding all these dissensions, however, there is marked progress
in civilisation during this century. The Italian cities can boast that
their streets are paved, while the streets of Paris, the foremost city
of the north, are mere beds of mud. The growing desire for education is
evidenced in the founding of schools and universities in Italy. Just at
the close of the century the since famous Palazzo Vecchio and the even
more famous Santa Croce were constructed. In the field of pictorial art
there were also evidences of the new plane of culture to which Italy had
attained, while scholarship found a worthy exponent in the celebrated
Thomas Aquinas.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
For about a half century Italy has been free from the intrusions of the
emperors, but now early in the fourteenth century Henry VII crosses
the Alps. Unlike some of his predecessors, he meets a rather hearty
welcome from several of the cities and from the pope. The Florentines,
on the other hand, do not welcome him, and his coming leads to the usual
turmoils. His sudden death--perhaps from poison--dissipates all the
hopes based on the imperial presence. His successor, Louis of Bavaria,
also comes to Italy and in association with the great general Castruccio
makes war upon the Florentines, who have been forced much against their
will to put themselves under the leadership of the duke of Naples. The
Florentines hold their own fairly well against the outside invaders, but
find themselves unable to tolerate the tyranny within their walls, and
end by expelling the tyrant.
A striking feature of the century is the abandonment of Rome by the
popes, who retire to Avignon for more than seventy years, from 1305
to 1377, an interval famous ever since as the Babylonish captivity.
During the absence of the popes the Romans fared but ill. Lacking the
papal power which made their city a centre of world influence, they are
given over to minor dissensions. The famous Rienzi--“The last of the
tribunes”--makes an heroic effort to restore order just at the middle
of the century, and for a time dominates the situation; only to be
overthrown ingloriously after a brief period of authority.
In the north the Visconti make themselves dominant in Milan and interfere
perpetually in general politics, striving to subordinate all Italy to
their influence. Florence was brought into repeated conflicts with the
successive rulers of this family, and it was in these contests that the
great English general, Sir John Hawkwood came to the fore. Leader of a
band of mercenaries,--soldier of fortune in the most literal sense of
the word,--this famous warrior fought first against the Florentines,
and subsequently in their service. Despite some reverses he gained a
reputation which led Hallam to consider him the first great commander
since Roman times. This estimate perhaps does Hawkwood something more
than justice; it overlooks the great Castruccio, to go no further. But
undoubtedly Hawkwood was a redoubtable leader, and he was among the first
of a series of condottioria who gave distinction to Italian armies during
the ensuing century.
Genoa and Venice are drawn into a disastrous warfare; in fact the
various dominant cities of Italy are almost perpetually quarrelling.
Even the great plague which sweeps over Italy in 1348, despite its
devastations--so graphically described by Boccaccio--serves to give
scarcely more than a temporary lull to the dissensions. The insurrection
of the Ciompi, the Great Schism, and the outbreak of the war of Chioggia
are dissensions that mark the later decades of the century.
But all these political dissensions sink quite into insignificance in
comparison with the tremendous intellectual development of the time. As
we have seen, the western world has been preparing for centuries for the
development of an indigenous culture. Now the promise meets fruition. It
required but the waft of a breeze from the East to fan the smouldering
embers into flame. This vivifying influence came about partly through
the emigration of large numbers of scholars from Constantinople; a
migration incited chiefly by fear of the Turks. These scholars brought
with them their love of the Greek classics and stimulated the nascent
scholarship of Italy into a like enthusiasm. Soon there began and
developed a great fashion of searching for classical manuscripts, and
many half-forgotten authors were brought to light. It became the fashion
to copy these manuscripts, as every gentleman’s house must now have a
library. The revival of interest came about in time to save more than one
classical author from oblivion, whose works would probably have perished
utterly had they been subjected to another century of neglect. Such an
author as Velleius Paterculus, for example, is known exclusively through
a single manuscript, which obviously must have escaped destruction
through mere chance; and everyone is aware how large a proportion of
classical writers were not accorded even this measure of fortune. No
doubt many authors were inadvertently allowed to perish even after
this revival of interest, but the number must have been very small in
proportion to those that were already lost.
But the revival of interest in the works of antiquity was by no means
the greatest literary feature of the time. There came with it a creative
impulse which gave the world the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio,
not to mention the lesser chroniclers. Their work evidenced that
spontaneous outbreak of the creative impulse for which the classicism
of the East had been preparing. How spontaneous it was, how little
understood, even by its originators, is illustrated in the fact that
both Dante, the creator of Italian poetry, and Boccaccio, the creator
of Italian prose, regarded their work in the vernacular as relatively
unimportant; basing their hopes of immortality upon their archaic Latin
treatises, which the world promptly forgot. No better illustration could
be furnished anywhere of that spontaneity of truly creative art to which
we have had occasion more than once to refer.
Nor was it in literature alone that the time was creative. Pictorial art
had likewise its new beginning in this epoch. Cimabue, indeed, had made
an effort to break with the crude traditions of the eastern school of art
in the latter part of the thirteenth century; his greater pupil Giotto
developed his idea in the early decades of the fourteenth century, and
gathered by him, the school of painters in Florence attempted, following
their master, to go to nature and to reproduce what they saw. Their
effort was a crude and tentative one, judged according to the canons
of the later development; but it was the beginning of great things. In
architecture the effort of the time was not doomed to be content with
mere beginnings: “Giotto’s tower,” the famous Campanile, still stands
in evidence of the relative perfection to which this department of
art had attained. All in all, then, the fourteenth century was a time
of wonderful development in Italy; the clarion note of Dante has been
called the voice of ten silent centuries; it told of a new phase of the
Renaissance.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
During the fifteenth century Italy enjoyed a period of relative immunity
from outside interference. An emperor was crowned at Rome in the early
days of the century, to be sure, and there were various efforts at
interference by other powers, including the coming of Charles VIII
in 1494. But, as a general thing, it was the Italians themselves who
competed with one another, rather than outside powers who quarrelled
with Italy as a whole. The great forces were, as before, the few
important cities. These were forever quarrelling one with another. Pisa
became subordinate to Florence, and the latter city waxed steadily in
greatness. In Milan the rule of the Visconti continued till towards the
middle of the century, when, on the disappearance of the last member of
that important family, the house of Sforza came to the fore and took to
itself the task of dictatorship. In Naples King Ladislaus, and later
Queen Joanna II, maintained regal influence and made their principality a
world power. Thus in the middle of the century the four great powers were
Naples, Milan, Venice, and Florence.
In these wars the mercenary leaders were much in evidence. These were
men to whom fighting was simply a business,--a means to a livelihood. No
question of patriotism was involved in their warfare; they gave their
services to the state that offered the most liberal payment in gold or
its equivalent. Half a dozen of these men gained particular distinction
in the fifteenth century. These were Braccio, Fortebraccio, Sforza
Attendola, and his son Francesco Sforza, Carmagnola, Niccolo Piccinino,
and Colleno Coleoni. These men were variously matched against one another
in the important wars.
Braccio and Sforza Attendola came into prominence in the papal wars,
having to do with the Great Schism, and beginning about the close of the
first decade of the fifteenth century. Braccio fought for Florence, and
Sforza at first for Pope John XXIII, and subsequently for King Ladislaus
of Naples, who at this time was the strongest ruler in Italy. This war
concerned most of the powers of Italy, and involved Anjou and France as
well. The death of Ladislaus helped to terminate the conflict, but at the
same time precipitated a new war, by raising the question of succession
to the throne of Naples.
In this war of the Neapolitan succession Fillipo Maria, duke of Milan,
upheld the cause of the house of Anjou, while Florence sided with
Alfonzo. The chief scene of the war was in the north where the forces
of Milan and Naples competed with those of Florence and Venice. It was
here that Carmagnola (born Francesco Dussone) was given the opportunity
to show his genius as a leader. He served first under Fillipo, but
subsequently entered the service of Venice and acquired new honours as
the opponent of his old employer. In later campaigns his chief opponent
was Francesco Sforza. The tragic end of Carmagnola will be recalled by
every reader.
After the settlement of this war of the Neapolitan succession Fillipo
Maria was soon embroiled again, this time with Pope Eugenius. The pope
took refuge in Florence and the Tuscans, again supported by Venice,
upheld him. Francesco Sforza now fought for the Florentines, his
opponent, the leader of the Visconti’s army, being Niccolo Piccinino. But
before the war was over the Visconti had gained Sforza back again. On the
death of Fillipo the Milanese established a republic, avowing that they
would never again submit to a tyrant. But necessity soon drove them to
call on Francesco Sforza to aid them in a war against Venice, and their
successful general presently usurped power, and established a new line
of tyrants. In the later wars between Milan and Venice Colleno Coleoni
appeared, and after bartering his services first to one party and then
to the other, became permanently established as generalissimo of the
land-forces of Venice in 1454.
One of the most striking features of this warfare was that it came to
nothing. So many rival interests were involved, so kaleidoscopic were the
shiftings of the various leaders, so utterly lacking is any great central
cause of contention, that it is sometimes almost impossible to say where
one war ends and another begins. Each petty state is thinking of its own
interests. And the only thing approaching a general principle of action
is the fear on the part of each state that any other single state might
gain too much influence over Italy as a whole. In other words the thought
of maintaining a balance of power is in the mind of all such leaders as
have no hope of making themselves supreme. As Florence at no time has a
hope of becoming politically dominant, her efforts are always directed
towards maintaining a balance of power, and where personalities do not
enter into the matter, she tends in the main to champion the cause of the
weaker party.
But despite the interest which necessarily attaches to all these
political jarrings, the really world-historical importance of
Florentine history during this period has to do not with wars, but
with the marvellous internal culture development. Already in the van
of the Renaissance movement Florence holds her proud position securely
throughout the fifteenth century, and is incontestably the culture centre
of the world.
This was the age of the Medici. It was then that Cosmo the Great and
Lorenzo the Magnificent made their influence felt, and enjoyed practical
dictatorship, though the form of government continued a democracy. The
real source of Florentine influence was founded on the old familiar basis
of commercial prosperity. We have seen how Florence in the previous
century produced such men as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Giotto.
The intellectual supremacy thus evidenced was maintained in the ensuing
century, but the early part of that century has no names to show that are
comparable to these in artistic greatness. The stamp of the times, at
least of the first half of the fifteenth century, is industrial rather
than artistic. This is the time when the gradually increasing commercial
and industrial importance of Italy has culminated in unequivocal world
supremacy. Venice and Florence are now the commercial centres of the
world. In Florence various forms of craftsmanship have attained a
degree of importance which will make them famous for all time. The
guilds of woollen weavers, of cloth merchants, of silk weavers, and of
money-changers have become institutions of world-wide influence. The
money lenders of Florence are found plying their trade in every capital
of Europe. Despite their extortions they are regarded everywhere as
a necessary evil; and Florentine gold in this century exercises an
influence almost as wide as the quondam influence of Roman arms. The
Florentine money-changer holds almost unchallenged the position that
the Jew occupied at a later day. Oddly enough, it may be noted that the
Jew himself is barred from plying the trade of money lender in Florence
until about the end of the first third of the fifteenth century when,
paradoxical as it may seem, he is legally granted the privilege, to
protect the borrower from the extortions of the native usurers of the
city.
The rapid development of commerce and industry brings with it, not
unnaturally, a great change in the habits of the Florentine people. Early
in the century the houses in Florence are still simple and relatively
plain in their equipment. The windows are barred by shutters, glass
not being yet in common use; the stairways are narrow; the entrances
unostentatious. But before the close of the century all this is changed.
The power of wealth makes itself felt in the houses, equipments, and
costumes of the people; in their luxurious habits of living; their
magnificent banquets and demonstrations; and all that goes to make up a
life of sensuous pleasure.
Most significant of all, however, is the influence which wealth has
enabled one family to attain; for the power of the Medici is, in its
essentials, the power of gold. It is a power wielded deftly in the hands
of prominent representatives of the family; a power that seems to make
for the good of the city. Under Lorenzo the Magnificent every form of art
is patronised and cultivated, and Florence easily maintains its supremacy
as the culture centre of Italy. Such sculptors as Donatello, Berrochio,
and their fellows; such painters as Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and
Ghirlandajo, not to mention a varied company of almost equal attainments;
and a company of distinguished workmen in all departments of the lesser
arts, lend their influence to beautify the city under the patronage of
Lorenzo. The school of art thus founded is to give the world such names
as Michelangelo and Raphael in the succeeding generations. Curiously
enough, by some unexplained oversight, the greatest painter of the
century, Leonardo da Vinci, was led to make his greatest efforts in Milan
and not in Florence during the life of Lorenzo, though he returned to the
latter city not long after the death of the great patron of art.
As a patron of literature Lorenzo was no less active. He founded and
developed a wonderful library in which the treasures of antiquity were
collected, in the original or in copies, without regard to expense, from
all parts of Europe. The art of book-making was carried to its highest
development in this period. The manuscripts of the time are marvels of
beauty. The ornamentation is beautiful, and the letters themselves are
printed with a degree of regularity closely rivalling the uniformity of
a printed page. And then not long after the middle of the century, just
when this art of the scribe was at its height, the printing-press was
introduced from Germany, and an easy mechanical means was at hand by
which the most perfect technique could be attained. True, the connoisseur
did not at first recognise the printed book as a possible rival of the
old hand-made work. For a long time the collector continued to employ
the hand workman, and the dilettante looked upon the printed book with
much the same scornful glance which the modern collector of paintings
bestows upon a chromo or lithograph. The first printing-press was set
up, according to Von Reumont, at Subiaco in a Benedictine monastery in
1465. Some fifteen years later Vespasiano da Bisticci, writing about
the library of the duke of Urbino, could proudly state that “All the
volumes are of the most faultless beauty, written by hand, with elegant
miniatures, and all on parchment. There are no printed books among them;
the duke would have been ashamed to have them.”[2]
Notwithstanding the scornful attitude of the connoisseur, however,
the art of printing books made its way rapidly. Hitherto the cost of
production had rendered even the most ordinary book a luxury not to
be possessed by any but the relatively wealthy. Naturally enough, an
eager band of book lovers hailed the advent of the new method, despite
its supposed artistic shortcomings; and before the end of the century
there were printing-presses in all the important centres of Italy, and
numberless classics, beginning with Virgil, had been given a vastly wider
currency than had ever previously been possible. It is needless here to
dwell upon the remoter influences of this rapid diffusion of classical
treasures; but nowhere was the influence more important than in Italy.
Summarising in a few words the influences of the fifteenth century in
Italy, it may be repeated that, as a whole, it is an epoch of industrial
and commercial progress rather than of the greatest art. The culminating
achievements of the century, the invention of the printing-press and the
discovery of America were not Italian triumphs; though as the birthplace
of Columbus and the home of Amerigo Vespucci, Italy cannot well be denied
a share in the finding of the New World. Indeed, the association of
Italy with this great achievement is perhaps closer than might at first
sight appear. For on the one hand, it is held that the geographical work
of Toscanelli was directly instrumental in stimulating Columbus to the
conception of a western passage to India; while, in another view, the
influence of the spirit of exploration and discovery fostered by the
commercial relations of Italy in making possible the feat of Columbus,
must have been inestimable. Be all that as it may, the discovery of the
New World--made in the last decade of the century, and, as it chanced in
the same year in which Lorenzo de’ Medici died--may well be considered
not merely as a culminating achievement of the century, but as symbolical
of that commercial and industrial spirit for which the century is chiefly
remarkable.
We have now advanced to the date which is usually named as closing the
mediæval epoch, but what has been said about the arbitrary character of
this classification should be borne in mind. The discovery of America in
1492 did indeed mark the beginning of a new era in one sense, since it
opened up a new hemisphere to the observation and residence of civilised
man. That discovery, too, prepared the way for the demonstration of the
fact that the world is round; hence it became an important corner-stone
in the building of that new structure of man’s conception of cosmology
of which the master builders were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and
Newton. But the building of this new structure,--a revolutionising of
man’s conception of the cosmos,--did not come about in a year or a
century; the superstitions based on the old conception of cosmology have
not lost their hold on mankind even in our own day. It has even been
suggested that the year 1859, when the promulgation of thought occurred
which gave the death-blow to the old ideas of cosmogony, and which may
be said for the first time to have rendered the old superstitions truly
obsolescent,--that this year rather than the year 1492 might well be
named as limiting the mediæval epoch. So perhaps it may be with more
remote generations of the future, but for the twentieth century observer
the older date will doubtless seem the better one. But, after all, the
question is one of no moment. Considering the recognised arbitrariness of
all such divisions it does not in the least matter as to the exact bounds
given to the mediæval epoch.
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The sixteenth century is a time of peculiar contrasts in Italy. The
invasions which began with the coming of Charles VIII in 1494 continue
and become more and more harassing. Italy comes to be regarded as the
proper prey of the French and Spanish rulers. The Italian principalities,
warring as ever with one another, welcome or repel the invaders in
accordance with their own selfish interests. All this time there has been
no unified government of Italy as a whole. Nominally the empire included
all, but this was a mere theory which, for the most part, would not bear
examination. Venice all along has claimed allegiance to the Eastern
Empire, which since the middle of the fifteenth century has ceased to
exist. Florence owes no allegiance to any outside power; it is strictly
autonomous. The democratic feeling is still strong there notwithstanding
the usurpations of the Medici. Venice and Florence with Siena and Lucca
are the only republics remaining at the beginning of the sixteenth
century. Of the scores of cities which formerly were republics, all the
rest have come under the influence of tyrants, or have been brought into
unwilling subordination to neighbouring cities. And now an even greater
humiliation is in store for many of them at the hands of the transalpine
conquerors.
Venice, recovering from her duel to the death with Genoa--the war of
Chioggia--continues to hold closely to her old traditions. Her commercial
prosperity continues for a time, but is gradually lessened through the
loss of eastern territories and through the rivalry brought about by the
discovery of America and of a sea route to India. Florence, having thrown
off in 1494 the thraldom imposed by the Medici, makes spasmodic efforts
to return to the old purely democratic system; but fails in the end. In
1569 Cosmo de’ Medici is made Grand Duke of Tuscany, a position which his
successors will continue to hold for seven generations (till 1737). In a
word the spirit of democracy is virtually dead in Italy, and as yet no
local tyrant arises who has the genius to unite the petty principalities
into a unified kingdom.
But if political Italy is chaotic and unproductive in this century the
case is quite different when we consider the civilisation of the time.
The vivifying influences of the previous century produced a development
particularly in the field of art, which now shows great results. The
early decades of the sixteenth century constitute an epoch of the
greatest art development in Italy. This is the age of Leonardo, of
Michelangelo, of Raphael, and of Titian, and of the host of disciples
of these masters. Under the patronage of successive popes, the master
painters are stimulated to their best efforts, and those wonderful
decorations of the Vatican are undertaken which have been the delight of
all later times.
The literary development, if it does not quite keep pace with the
pictorial, nevertheless attains heights which it has only once before
reached since classical times. All this culture development in a
time of turmoil and political disaster seems anomalous, and, as just
intimated, can only be explained as the fruitage of a development which
had its origin in an earlier epoch. The validity of this explanation
is illustrated in the rapid decline that takes place in Italy after
the middle of the sixteenth century--an intellectual decline which is
scarcely to be interrupted until the nineteenth century.
THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
After the wonderful development of the sixteenth century it is amazing
to consider this time of deterioration. The day of great men is not
altogether past--witness Galileo--but there are no such great poets,
historians, artists, as in past generations. Even the events of the
political world have small world-historical importance. Italy is the
battle-ground of nations; it is a geographical territory but it is
scarcely a state. It has no unity, it has no individuality; it has no
important autonomous states as a whole that command the attention of
the historian. The intellectual sceptre which Italy so long swayed has
been passed on to the nations of the north. The ecclesiastical spirit is
everywhere dominant.
The burning of Giordano Bruno in the last year of the sixteenth
century and the persecution of Galileo for daring to uphold the new
Copernican conception of cosmogony are typical features of the epoch.
Chronologically the mediæval era is past, but the spirit of mediævalism
still pertains in Italy; rather let us say that this unfortunate country
has lapsed back into an archaic cast of thought after having led the
world for generations.
The historian must note the play and counterplay of outside nations
who use the territory of Italy as their chess-board, but as regards
the Italian himself the world historian might virtually disregard his
existence during many generations. It is only towards the close of the
eighteenth century when Italy came under the sway of Napoleon that there
came about a reaction from the overbearing policy of this new tyrant;
then a desire for liberty began to make itself felt in Italy, and to
prepare the way for that struggle of a half century later which was to
weld the disunited subject principalities into a unified and autonomous
kingdom. But the intimations of this later development could hardly be
appreciated by the contemporary observer who saw Italy ground beneath
the heel of Napoleon, with no seeming chance of ever escaping from this
humiliating position.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
With the overthrow of Napoleon there was but slight betterment in the
immediate condition of Italy. An attempt was made by the powers that had
overthrown the French usurper to restore the Italian principalities to
something like their ante-revolutionary status. But, as has just been
noted, the spirit of liberty was taking possession of the land and its
long enslaved people began to dream of better things than they had known
for centuries. But their efforts to secure the freedom so long renounced
were at first only attempts; one petty rebellion after another seemed
to come to nothing. But, at last, under the guidance of such leaders as
Mazzini, Cavour, Garibaldi, and Victor Emmanuel, the seemingly impossible
was accomplished: outside influences were subordinated; the papal power
over secular affairs was restricted and at last virtually overthrown; and
for the first time in something like fourteen centuries the geographical
territory of Italy came politically under the sway of a single ruler
who owed no allegiance to alien lands: the dream of the visionaries was
accomplished: an Italian kingdom ruled by an Italian king took the place
of the enslaved, disunited principalities of the earlier centuries.
True, this achievement was not the culmination that some of the most
ardent patriots, with Mazzini at their head, had dreamed of. The aim of
that leader, as of many another, had been to achieve not a monarchical
but a republican unity. In their enthusiastic estimate the monarchical
form of government was obsolescent. Their enthusiasm harked back to the
days when Venice and Florence had carried out with so much success the
precepts of democracy. Their imagination was fired also by the example of
that newer republic of the West, whose free institutions have inspired so
much of emulation and so much of hatred in the minds of different classes
of people among the older governments of Europe. But if the dreams of
these enthusiasts were not to be realised, it sufficed for the more
conservative reformers that the constitutional monarchy, embodying many
of the precepts and principles of democracy, had at last brought Italy
under the sway of a single sceptre.
FOOTNOTES
[1] [_An Introduction to the History of Western Europe._]
[2] Quoted by Von Reumont, _Lorenzo de’ Medici il magnifico_.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I. ITALY IN THE DARK AGE
[Sidenote: [476-_ca._ 1100 A.D.]]
In taking up the history of Italy we shall, for convenience, go back to
the year 476, when the last legitimate emperor of old Rome in the West
was overthrown, and briefly recapitulate the story of events during the
period of invasion that immediately followed. It will be recalled that
we have already covered the period from 476 to 1024 in much detail in
our study of the Western Empire, in Volume VII. It will be unnecessary,
therefore, to treat this epoch here in anything but the barest outline;
and even this will involve unavoidable repetitions. Since the later
emperors of the Holy Roman Empire continued for some centuries to invade
Italy periodically, and to claim control over its affairs, it will be
almost impossible to avoid repetition here also; but inasmuch as such
monarchs as Conrad II, Henry IV, and Frederick II are necessarily given
full treatment in the volumes devoted to Germany, we shall deal somewhat
briefly with their Italian incursions in the present connection. A
similar duplication of matter will necessarily be involved in dealing
with the mediæval popes, whose history has already been chronicled in the
previous volume.
The story of temporal affairs in Italy lacks unity from the beginning
of the period under consideration till well towards the close of the
nineteenth century. For the most part, except during the relatively
brief periods when a strong emperor claimed dominion over all Italy,
the territory of the Italian peninsula was divided into numerous petty
kingdoms, no one of which attained supremacy over the others. First one
and then another became prominent, but often contemporaneous events
of local importance, having but slight world-historical importance,
confuse the picture, and make the presentation of the history of Italy
extremely difficult. We must necessarily overlook a large number of
such petty details, endeavouring to select such events as have real
importance, and to weld them into a continuous narrative. But at best
the story of Italian history lacks dramatic unity; the scene shifts from
one principality to another too frequently to make possible a really
harmonious presentation. We have really to do with a collection of
cities rather than with a nation. It is the old story of Greece over
again; only here there are more cities competing for supremacy, with no
one at any time quite so near success as Athens and Sparta respectively
were at successive periods. Yet Milan, Venice, and Florence at times
approached the goal if they did not quite attain it.[a]
Most of these cities were very old; the greater number flourished in at
least equal splendour in the time of the Roman Empire; some, such as
Milan, Verona, Bologna, Capua, were so considerable as to present an
image of Rome, with their circus, their amphitheatre, their tumultuous
and idle population, their riches and their poverty. Their administration
was nearly republican, most commonly composed, after the example of
Rome, of a curia, or municipal senate elected by the people, and of
duumvirs, or annual consuls. In all these towns, among the first class of
inhabitants were to be found the proprietors of the neighbouring land,
lodged in palaces with their slaves and freedmen; secondly, the artisans
and shopkeepers whom their necessities established around them; lastly,
a crowd of idle people, who had preserved just enough of land to supply,
with the strictest economy, the means of existence. It does not appear
that there was any prosperous manufactory in Italy. All manual labour,
as well in towns as in the country, was executed by slaves. Objects of
luxury, for the most part, came from Asia. War had for a long time been
the only occupation of the Italians; for a long period, too, the legions
had been levied partly among the Romans, and partly among their allies in
Italy: but, under the emperors, the distrust of the master seconded the
luxurious effeminacy of the subject, the Italians finally renounced even
war, and the legions were recruited only in Pannonia, Gaul, and the other
provinces bordering on the Rhine and the Danube.
At a later period, the barbarians who menaced Rome were seduced by
liberal pay to engage in its defence; and in the Roman armies the enemies
of Rome almost entirely replaced the Romans. The country could not, as in
modern states, supply the place of cities in recruiting the armies with
a class of men accustomed to the inclemencies of the weather and inured
to toil. The only labourers to be found were an oppressed foreign race,
who took no interest in public affairs. The Romans cultivated their land
either by slaves purchased from the barbarians and forced by corporal
punishment to labour, or by _coloni partiarii_, to whom was given a
small share in the harvest as wages; but, in order to oblige these last
to content themselves with the least possible share, they were attached
to the land, and nearly as much oppressed as slaves themselves. The
proprietors of land varied as between these two systems, according as the
price of slaves varied, or the _colons_ (peasants, labourers) were more
or less numerous; no cultivator of the land had any property in it.
The greater part was united in immense domains, sometimes embracing
whole provinces, the administration of which was intrusted to freedmen,
whose only consideration was, how to cultivate the land with the least
possible expense, and how to extract from their labourers the greatest
degree of work with the smallest quantity of food. The agriculturists, as
well what were called freedmen as slaves, were almost all barbarians by
birth, without any interest in a social order which only oppressed them,
without courage for its defence, and without any pecuniary resources for
themselves; their numbers also diminished with an alarming rapidity,
partly from desertion, partly from new invasions of barbarians, who
carried them off to sell as slaves in other Roman provinces, and finally
from a mortality, the necessary consequence of poverty and starvation.
Italy, nevertheless, was supposed to enjoy a constant prosperity. During
the entire ages of Trajan and the Antonines, a succession of virtuous and
philosophic emperors followed each other; the world was in peace; the
laws were wise and well administered; riches seemed to increase; each
succeeding generation raised palaces more splendid, monuments and public
edifices more sumptuous, than the preceding; the senatorial families
found their revenues increase; the treasury levied greater imposts. But
it is not on the mass of wealth, it is on its distribution, that the
prosperity of states depends; increasing opulence continued to meet
the eye, but men became more miserable; the rural population, formerly
active, robust, and energetic, were succeeded by a foreign race, while
the inhabitants of towns sank in vice and idleness, or perished in want,
amidst the riches they had themselves created.
THE BARBARIAN INVADERS
[Sidenote: [476-814 A.D.]]
It was into this Italy, such as despotism had made it, that the
barbarians penetrated. Eager for the booty which it contained and could
not defend, they repeatedly ravaged it during the last two centuries of
the Western Empire. The mercenary troops that Rome had levied amongst
them for its defence, preferring pillage to pay, frequently turned their
arms against those they were engaged to defend. They vied with the Romans
in making and unmaking emperors; and generally chose them from their own
ranks, in order to secure to the soldier a greater share of the property
of the citizen. The booty diminished as the avidity of these foreigners
increased. The pomp of the Western Empire soon appeared, to an army thus
formed, a useless expense. Odoacer, of the nation of the Heruli, chief
of the mercenaries who then served in Italy, suppressed it by deposing,
in 476, the last emperor. He took upon himself the title of king, and
distributed among his soldiers one-third of the land in the most fertile
provinces; he governed during seventeen years this still glorious
country, as a rich farm which the barbarians had a right to cultivate for
their sole use.
The mercenaries united under the sceptre of Odoacer were not sufficiently
strong to defend Italy against a new invasion of barbarians. The
Ostrogoths, encouraged by the Grecian sovereign of new Rome, the emperor
of the East, arrived in 489, under the command of Theodoric, from the
countries north of the Euxine to the borders of Italy; they completed
the conquest of it in four, and retained possession of the peninsula
sixty-four years, under eight successive kings. These new barbarians,
in their turn, demanded and obtained a portion of land and slaves; they
multiplied, it is true, but became rapidly enervated in a delicious
climate where they had suddenly passed from the severest privations to
the enjoyment of every luxury. They were at last conquered and subdued
in the year 553 by the Romans of Constantinople, whom they despised as
the degenerate successors of the same nation which their ancestors had
vanquished.
The invasion of the Lombards in 568 soon followed the destruction of
the monarchy of the Ostrogoths. Amongst the various hordes which issued
from the north of Germany upon the southern regions, the Lombards were
reputed the most courageous, the most cruel, and the proudest of their
independence; but their number was inconsiderable, and they scarcely
acknowledged any social tie sufficient to keep them united: accordingly,
they never completed the conquest of Italy. From 568 to 774, twenty-one
Lombard kings during 206 years succeeded each other without establishing
their dominion either on the lagunes, at the extremity of the Adriatic
Gulf, where such of the inhabitants of upper Italy as were personally the
most exposed had taken refuge and founded the Venetian Republic; or on
the shores of the Adriatic, now called Romagna, governed by a lieutenant
of the emperor of Constantinople, under the title of exarch of the
five cities of Pentapolis; or on Rome, defended only by the spiritual
arms of the patriarch of the Western church; or on the southern coast,
where the Greek municipalities of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi governed
themselves almost as independent republics. The Lombards, nevertheless,
founded a kingdom in northern Italy, of which Pavia was the capital; and
in southern Italy the duchy of Benevento, which still maintained its
independence two centuries after the kingdom was subjugated.
From the middle of the eighth century the Lombards, masters of a country
where the great towns still contained much wealth, where the land had
lost nothing of its fertility, where the example of the vanquished had
taught the vanquishers the advantage of reviving some agricultural
industry, excited the envy of their neighbours the Franks, who had
conquered and oppressed the Gauls, who despised all occupation but war,
and desired no wealth but what the sword could give. They by repeated
invasions devastated Italy; and at length, in 774, completed the
destruction of the Lombard monarchy.
For more than twenty years the popes or bishops of Rome had been in the
habit of opposing the kings of France to the monarchs of Lombardy, who
were odious to them, at first as pagans, and afterwards as heretics.
Chief of the clergy of the ancient capital, where the power of the
emperors of Constantinople had been nominally established but never
felt, they confounded their pretensions with those of the empire; and
the Lombards having recently conquered the exarchate of Ravenna, and the
Pentapolis, they demanded that these provinces should be restored to
Rome. The Frankish kings made themselves the champions of this quarrel,
which gave them an opportunity of conquering the Lombard monarchy;
but Charles, the king who accomplished this conquest, and who was the
greatest man that barbarism ever produced, in treating with Rome, in
subjugating Italy, comprehended all the beauty of a civilisation which
his predecessors had seen only to destroy; he conceived the lofty idea
of profiting by the barbarian force at his disposal to put himself at
the head of the civilisation which he laboured to restore. Instead of
considering himself as the king of the conquerors, occupied only in
enriching a barbarous army with the spoils of the vanquished, he made
it his duty and his glory to govern the country for its best interests,
and for the common good. He did more: in concert with Pope Leo III,
he re-established the monarchy of the conquered as a western Roman
empire, which he considered the representative of right, in opposition
to barbaric force; he received from the same pope, and from the Roman
people, on Christmas Day in the year 800, the title of Roman emperor, and
the name of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, which no one before had
ever so well deserved.
CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS SUCCESSORS
[Sidenote: [814-1039 A.D.]]
As king, and afterwards as emperor, he governed Italy, together with
his other vast states, forty years; he pursued with constancy, and with
increasing ability, the end he proposed to himself, _viz._, establishing
the reign of the laws, and a flourishing civilisation: but barbarism
was too strong for him; and when he died in 814 it was re-established
throughout the empire.
Italy had eight kings of the family of Charlemagne, reckoning his son
and grandson, who reigned under him, and were, properly speaking, his
lieutenants. Charles the Fat, great-grandson of Charlemagne, was deposed
in 888; after which ten sovereigns, either Italian or Burgundian, but
allied to the race of the Franks, disputed for seventy years more the
crown of Italy and the empire. In 951 Otto I of Saxony, king of Germany,
forced Berenger II, who then reigned, to acknowledge himself his vassal;
in 961 Otto entered Italy a second time with his Germans, was crowned at
Rome with the title of emperor, and sent Berenger II to end his days in a
fortress in Germany.
Nearly five centuries elapsed from the fall of the ancient Roman Empire
to the passing over of the renewed empire to the Germans. For a long
space of time Italy had been pillaged and oppressed in turn by barbarians
of every denomination, who wantonly overran the country only to plunder,
and believed themselves valiant because, though in small numbers, they
spread terror over a vast extent, and imagined by bloodshed to give a
dignity to their depredations. The country, thus exposed to so many
outrages, did not remain such as the Romans had left it. The Goth,
Lombard, Frank, and German warriors, who had successively invaded Italy,
introduced several of the opinions and sentiments of the barbarian race,
particularly the habit of independence and resistance to authority. They
divided with their kings the country conquered by their valour. They
caused to be ceded to them vast districts, the inhabitants of which they
considered their property equally with the land. The Lombard monarchy
comprehended thirty dukedoms, or marquisates; their number diminished
under Charlemagne and his successors; but at the same time there rose
under them a numerous class of counts and _vavaseurs_, amongst whom every
duke divided the province that had been ceded to him, under condition
that they should swear fealty and homage, and follow him to the wars.
The counts, in their turn, divided among the warriors attached to their
colours the land apportioned to them. Thus was the feudal system,
which made the possession of land the warrior’s pay, and constituted
an hereditary subordination founded on interest and confirmed by oath
from the king down to the lowest soldier, established at the same time
throughout Europe. The Lombards had carried into Italy the first germs
of this system which had been developed by the Franks and invigorated by
the civil wars of Charlemagne and his successors; these wars rendered it
necessary that every feudatory should fortify his dwelling to preserve
his allegiance to his lord; and the country, which till then had been
open and without defence, became covered with castles, in which these
feudal lords established their residence.
About the same time--that is to say, in the ninth century--cities
began to rebuild their ancient walls; for the barbarian kings who had
everywhere levelled these walls to the ground no longer opposed their
reconstruction, and the danger of being invaded by the rival princes
who disputed the throne made them necessary; besides, at this epoch new
swarms of barbarians from all parts infested Europe; the inhabitants of
Scandinavia, under the name of Danes and Normans, ravaged England and
France; the Hungarians devasted Germany and upper Italy; the Saracens,
masters of Africa, infested the southern coasts of Italy and the isles:
conquest was not the purpose of any of these invaders; plunder and
massacre were their only objects. Permission to guard themselves against
continual outrages could not be withheld from the inhabitants of towns.
Several thousand citizens had often been obliged to pay ransom to little
more than a hundred robbers; but, from the time they were permitted by
their emperors to rebuild their walls, to purchase or manufacture arms,
they felt themselves in a state to make themselves respected. Their
long suffering had hardened them, had accustomed them to privations and
danger, and had taught them it was better to defend their lives than
yield them up to every contemptible aggressor; at the same time, the
population of cities, no longer living in idleness at the expense of
the provinces of the empire, addicted themselves to industry for their
own profit: they had, accordingly, some wealth to defend. The ancient
curiæ and municipalities had been retained in all the towns of Italy
by their barbarian masters, in order to distribute more equally the
burdens imposed by the conquerors, and reach individuals more surely. The
magistrates were the chiefs of a people who demanded only bread, arms,
and walls.
In the meantime the dukes, marquises, counts, and prelates, who looked on
these cities as their property, on the inhabitants as men who belonged
to them, and laboured only for their use, soon perceived that these
citizens were ill disposed to obey, and would not suffer themselves to
be despoiled, since they had arms, and could defend themselves under the
protection of their walls: residence in towns thus became disagreeable to
the nobles, and they left them to establish themselves in their castles.
They became sensible that to defend these castles they had need of men
devoted to them; that, notwithstanding the advantage which their heavy
armour gave them when fighting on horseback, they were the minority; and
they hastened to enfranchise the rural population, to encourage their
growth, to give them arms, and to endeavour to gain their affections.
The effect of this change of rule was rapid: the rural population in the
tenth and eleventh centuries increased, doubled, quadrupled in exact
proportion to the land which they had to cultivate.
Otto I, his son Otto II, and his grandson Otto III were successively
acknowledged emperors and kings of Italy, from 961 to 1002. When this
branch of the house of Saxony became extinct, Henry II of Bavaria and
Conrad the Salian of Franconia filled the throne from 1004 to 1039.
During this period of nearly eighty years, the German emperors twelve
times entered Italy at the head of their armies, which they always drew
up in the plains of Roncaglia near Piacenza: there they held the states
of Lombardy, received homage from their Italian feudatories, caused the
rents due to be paid, and promulgated laws for the government of Italy.
A foreign sovereign, however, almost always absent, known only by his
incursions at the head of a barbarous army, could not efficaciously
govern a country which he hardly knew, and where his yoke was detested.
During these five reigns, the social power became more and more weak in
Italy. The emperors were too happy to acknowledge the local authorities,
whatever they were, whenever they could obtain from them their pecuniary
dues: sometimes they were dukes or marquises, whose dignities had
survived the disasters of various invasions and of civil wars; sometimes
the archbishops and bishops of great cities, whom Charlemagne and his
successors had frequently invested with duchies and counties escheated
to the crown, reckoning that lords elected for life would remain more
dependent than hereditary lords; sometimes, finally, they were the
magistrates themselves, who, although elected by the people, received
from the monarch the title of imperial vicars, and took part with the
nobles and prelates in the _plaids_ (_placita_), or diets of Roncaglia.
In the time of Conrad the Salian, the prelates almost throughout Lombardy
joined the cities against the nobles; and from 1035 to 1039 there was
a general war between these two orders of society. Conrad put an end
to it, by a constitution which is considered to be the basis of feudal
law. By this the inheritance of fiefs was protected from the caprices of
the lords and of the crown,--the most oppressive conditions of feudal
dependence were suppressed or softened,--and the few remaining slaves of
the land were set free.
THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY
The crown of Conrad the Salian passed in a direct line to his son,
grandson, and great-grandson. The first, Henry III, reigned from 1039 to
1056; the second, Henry IV, from 1056 to 1106; the third, Henry V, from
1106 to 1125. The last two reigns were troubled by the bloody quarrel
between the empire and the court of Rome, called the war of investitures.
Rome had never made part of the monarchy of the Lombards. This ancient
capital of the world, with the territory appertaining to it, had, since
the conquest of Alboin, formed a dukedom, governed by a patrician or
Greek duke, sent from Constantinople. The bishop of Rome, however, who,
according to the ancient canonical forms, was elected by the clergy, the
senate, and the people of his diocese, had much more authority over his
flock than this foreign magistrate.
[Sidenote: [717-1125 A.D.]]
The pontiff, however, who now began to take exclusively the name of pope,
had more than once successfully defended Rome with his spiritual arms
when temporal ones had failed. When, in the year 717, an iconoclast, or
enemy of images, filled the throne of Constantinople, the popes under the
pretence of heresy rejected his authority altogether; a municipality, at
the head of which were a senate and consuls, then governed Rome nearly as
an independent state; the Greeks, occupied with their own dissensions,
seemed to forget it; and Rome owed to this forgetfulness fifty years of
a sort of liberty. The Romans found once more a faint image of their
past glory; sometimes even the title of Roman Republic was revived. They
approved, notwithstanding, of Pope Stephen II conferring on the princes
of the Franks the dignity of patricians, in order to transfer to them the
authority which the Greek magistrate exercised in their city in the name
of the emperor of Constantinople; and the people gladly acquiesced when,
in the year 800, Leo III crowned Charlemagne as augustus, and restorer of
the Western Empire. From that period Rome became once more the capital of
the empire. At Rome the chiefs of the empire were henceforth to receive
the golden crown from the hands of the pope, after having received the
silver one of the kingdom of Germany at Aachen, and the iron crown of
Lombardy at Milan.
Great wealth and much feudal power were, by the gratitude of the
emperors, attached to the see of Rome. The papacy became the highest
object of ambition to the whole sacerdotal order; and, in an age of
violence and anarchy, barons notorious for their robberies, and young
libertines recommended only by the favour of some Roman ladies, not
unfrequently filled the pontifical chair. The other bishops selected
were often no better. The German emperors, on arriving at Rome, were
sometimes obliged to put an end to such a scandal, and choose among the
competitors, or depose a pope who put all Christendom to the blush. Henry
III obliged the people to renounce the right which they had hitherto
exercised, and so greatly abused, to take part in the election of popes.
He, himself, named four successively, whom he chose from among the most
learned and the most pious of the clergy of Italy and Germany; and thus
powerfully seconded the spirit of reform which began to animate the
church from the eleventh century.
THE DISUNITED MUNICIPALITIES
[Sidenote: [1046-1122 A.D.]]
The war of investitures, which lasted more than sixty years, accomplished
the dissolution of every tie between the different members of the
kingdom of Italy. Civil wars have at least this advantage--that they
force the rulers of the people to consult the wishes of their subjects,
oblige them to gain affections which constitute their strength, and to
compensate, by the granting of new privileges, the services which they
require. The prelates, nobles, and cities of Italy obeyed, some the
emperor, others the pope; not from a blind fear, but from choice, from
affection, from conscience, according as the political or religious
sentiment was predominant in each. The war was general, but everywhere
waged with the national forces. Every city armed its militia, which,
headed by the magistrates, attacked the neighbouring nobles or towns of a
contrary party. While each city imagined it was fighting either for the
pope or the emperor, it was habitually impelled exclusively by its own
sentiments: every town considered itself as a whole, as an independent
state, which had its own allies and enemies; each citizen felt an ardent
patriotism, not for the kingdom of Italy, or for the empire, but for his
own city.
At the period when either kings or emperors had granted to towns the
right of raising fortifications, that of assembling the citizens at the
sound of a great bell, to concert together the means of their common
defence, had been also conceded. This meeting of all the men of the
state capable of bearing arms was called a parliament. It assembled in
the great square, and elected annually two consuls, charged with the
administration of justice at home, and the command of the army abroad.
The militia of every city was divided into separate bodies, according
to local partitions, each led by a _gonfalonière_, or standard-bearer.
They fought on foot, and assembled round the _carroccio_, a heavy car
drawn by oxen, and covered with the flags and armorial bearings of the
city. A high pole rose in the middle of this car, bearing the colours
and a Christ, which seemed to bless the army, with both arms extended.
A priest said daily mass at an altar placed in the front of the car.
The trumpeters of the community, seated on the back part, sounded
the charge and the retreat. It was Heribert, archbishop of Milan,[3]
contemporary of Conrad the Salian, who invented this car in imitation of
the ark of alliance, and caused it to be adopted at Milan. All the free
cities of Italy followed the example: this sacred car, entrusted to the
guardianship of the militia, gave them weight and confidence. The nobles
who committed themselves in the civil wars, and were obliged to have
recourse to the protection of towns, where they had been admitted into
the first order of citizens, formed the only cavalry.
The parliament, which named the consuls, appointed also a secret council,
called a _consilio di credenza_, to assist the government, composed of
a few members taken from each division; besides a grand council of the
people, who prepared the decisions to be submitted to the parliament.
The _consilio di credenza_ was, at the same time, charged with the
administration of the finances, consisting chiefly of entrance duties
collected at the gates of the city, and voluntary contributions asked of
the citizens in moments of danger. As industry had rapidly increased,
and had preceded luxury, as domestic life was sober, and the produce
of labour considerable, wealth had greatly augmented. The citizens
allowed themselves no other use of their riches than that of defending
or embellishing their country. It was from the year 900 to the year 1200
that the most prodigious works were undertaken and accomplished by the
towns of Italy. They began by surrounding themselves with thick walls,
ditches, towers, and counter guards at the gates; immense works, which a
patriotism ready for every sacrifice could alone accomplish. The maritime
towns at the same time constructed their ports, quays, canals, and
custom-houses, which served also as vast magazines for commerce. Every
city built public palaces for the _signoria_, or municipal magistrates,
and prisons; and constructed also temples, which to this day fill us with
admiration by their grandeur and magnificence. These three regenerating
centuries gave an impulse to architecture, which soon awakened the other
fine arts.
[Sidenote: [568-1200 A.D.]]
The republican spirit which now fermented in every city, and gave to
each of them constitutions so wise, magistrates so zealous, and citizens
so patriotic and so capable of great achievements, had found in Italy
itself the models which had contributed to its formation. The war of
investitures gave wing to this universal spirit of liberty and patriotism
in all the municipalities of Lombardy, in Piedmont, Venetia, Romagna, and
Tuscany. But there existed already in Italy other free cities, of which
the experience had been sufficiently long to prove that a petty people
finds, in its complete union and devotion to the common cause, a strength
often wanting in great states. The free cities which flourished in the
eleventh century rose from the ruins of the Western Empire; as those in
Italy which preceded them in the career of liberty rose from the ruins of
the empire of the East.
When the Greeks resigned to the Lombards Italy, which a few years before
they had conquered from the Ostrogoths, they still preserved several
isolated ports and fortified places along the coast. Venice, at the
extremity of the Adriatic; Ravenna, at the south of the mouth of the Po;
Genoa, at the foot of the Ligurian Mountains; Pisa, towards the mouths of
the Arno; Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Amalfi, Bari, were either never conquered
by the Lombards, or were in subjection too short a time to have lost
their ancient walls and the habit of guarding them. These cities served
as the refuge of Roman civilisation. All those who had preserved any
fortune, independence of mind, or hatred of oppression, assembled in
them to concert the means of resisting the insolence of their barbarian
masters. The Grecian Empire maintained itself at Constantinople in all
its ancient pride; but, with oriental apathy, it regarded these remains
as still representing its province of Italy, while it did nothing for
their defence. From time to time, a duke, an exarch, a patrician, a
catapan, or other magistrate, was sent, with a title announcing the
highest pretensions, but unaccompanied by any real force. The citizens
of these towns demanded money and soldiers to repair and defend their
fortifications; whilst the emperors, on the contrary, demanded that the
money and soldiers of Italy should be sent to Constantinople. After some
disputes, the Greek government found it prudent to abandon the question,
and shut its eyes to the establishment of a liberty it despised,
but which perhaps might be useful in the defence of these distant
possessions; finally, the magistrates, whom these towns themselves
nominated, became the acknowledged depositories of the imperial
authority. The disposal of their own money and soldiers was allowed them,
on condition that nothing should be demanded of the emperors, who were
satisfied to see their names at the head of every act, and their image on
the coin, without exacting other acts of submission. This policy was not,
however, exactly followed with respect to Ravenna, or afterwards to Bari.
In these cities the representative of the emperor had fixed his residence
with a Greek garrison. Ravenna, as well as the cities appertaining to
it, denominated the Pentapolis, was conquered by the Lombards between
720 and 730. Bari became then the capital of the _thema_ of Lombardy,
which extended over a great part of Apulia. We have already shown how
Rome passed from the Greek to the Western Empire: we suspect, rather than
know, that Genoa and Pisa, after having been occupied by the Lombards,
preserved their relations with Constantinople. The _pallium_, or silk
flag, presented for some time to the emperors, was considered by them
as a sort of tribute; but Venice on the upper sea, Gaeta, Naples, and
Amalfi, on the lower, advanced more openly to independence.
[Illustration: VENICE]
THE ORIGIN OF VENICE
[Sidenote: [452-730 A.D.]]
From the invasion by Attila in 452, the marshes called Lagune, formed at
the extremity of the Adriatic by the slime deposited by seven or eight
great rivers, amidst which arose innumerable islands, had been the refuge
of all the rich inhabitants of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Treviso, and other
great cities of Venetia, who fled from the sabres of the Huns. The Roman
Empire of the West survived this great calamity twenty-four years; but
it was only a period of expiring agony, during which fresh disasters
continually forced new refugees to establish themselves in the Lagune. A
numerous population was at length formed there, supported by fishing, the
making of salt, some other manufactories, and the commerce carried on by
means of these many rivers. Beyond the reach of the barbarians, who had
no vessels, forgotten by the Romans, and their successors the Ostrogoths,
they maintained their independence under the administration of tribunes,
named by an assembly of the people in each of the separate isles.[b]
The authentic record of maritime Venice commences with the arrival of the
Lombards in Italy. Of the time previous to this period, the records are
the work of posterior chroniclers written in an adulatory spirit towards
the republican powers.
As Babbo rightly said with regard to the vaunted very ancient origin and
liberty of Venice, it was flattering to the republics to be credited
with such old and sovereign power, “but the truth is that liberty and
power do not rise to full force at once, but they gradually gain ground
in obscurity and difficulty.” But criticism has for some time directed
its attention to these inventions, and has finally silenced the Venetian
traditions with their pretended foundations.
However, it is not to be inferred that the Venetian islands were
uninhabited before the invasion of the Lombards, for there are documents
which prove the contrary. But, as anyone can see, there is a great
difference between the islands having inhabitants and being seats of an
organised and free state as we are asked to believe.
It is now generally granted that, during the Roman sway and at the
time of the temporary invasions, the stable populations of the islands
remained subject to continental Venetia, and more particularly to the
mother-city from which it received its magistrates. But when the foreign
invasions became more lasting, the bonds of independence were necessarily
loosened towards the mother-country, when they were not utterly broken.
[Sidenote: [538-600 A.D.]]
The first document showing the emancipation of the islands from
continental Venetia is the letter written by Cassiodorus to the tribune
of the maritime places, in the year 538, in which he asks him to
provide a transport to Ravenna for the wines and oils belonging to the
Istrians. But if this letter shows that the inhabitants of the islands
at the time of the Gothic rule had begun to elect their own magistrates
instead of receiving them from the mother-country, it does not prove
that the islands thenceforward had full political power, as Graswinkel
of antiquity and Crivello of modern times would have us to believe.
Because in this case the letter would not have been written in the name
of the prefect of the place as well as in the name of the king, as it
was customary with foreigners; neither would Cassiodorus have dared to
use to the Venetian tribune the same language as he used in his letters
to the _provinciali_ of Istria, to the _consulare_ of Liguria, and to
the _possessori_ of Syracuse, who were never thought to be independent
magistrates. Moreover, Balbo notes that the vicinity of the lagunes to
Ravenna, the capital and seat of the Gothic kings of Italy, renders every
other supposition absurd.
Hence Romanin shows that this dependence of the islands on the Gothic
dominion was more nominal than real. It is indisputable that it was
changed into a sort of protectorate before it became a real republic,
the rule of the east Goths being of too short duration to permit the
confirmation of their own power, and moreover the nominal amnesty of the
islands to the kingdom sufficiently satisfied the ambition of the Gothic
kings and relieved them of undertaking their conquest. When Italy passed
into the hands of the Greeks through the victories of Belisarius, the
Venetian islands followed the fate of the mother-country; and it relapsed
subsequently into the power of the Greeks after the short restoration of
the Gothic rule. Moreover, the Greek sovereignty of the islands seemed
to have become a mere military occupation; at least it appears so in
the second half of the sixth century, when the migrations were made
definitive to confirm the Lombard power in Italy.
To show how far removed from dependence on Constantinople the islands
were at that time, we quote the authority of the chronicler Giovanni
Diacono,[h] who dates the origin of the tribunal government and the
conformation of the rank to the metropolises of the islands from the
arrival of the Lombards. This fact, whilst showing on one side the
autonomous position assumed by the islands towards the Byzantine
Empire, proves on the other that the dependence of the islands on the
mother-country had now virtually ceased. Hence the tribunes after the
second half of the sixth century assume the solemn title of tribunes of
the islands of the maritime lagunes proposed by the corporations of the
same, to show that their election had been made with the full authority
of the islands without regard to the mother-cities. The form of the
political relations of the islands with Constantinople can be gathered
from the account given by the chronicler Altinate of Longinus’ visit to
the islands in the year (584) before returning to his country.
Altinate relates that when Longinus asked the islanders to receive him
into the lagunes, and thence to transport him to Constantinople in their
ships, he tried to persuade them by saying that he required no oath of
fidelity, but, if they wished to show themselves good servants of the
empire and ready to fight their enemies, he would make known or send
for what they wanted at Constantinople; he would ask the emperor for
whatever they wanted by means of a writing which he himself would place
in the hands of the emperor, which would increase the concessions to the
islands to have open and free entry to all the ports of the empire in
the ways of commerce. The Venetians, satisfied with such promises, after
having announced to the exarch how they were situated, how they had made
this sanctuary in the lagunes so as not to fear being subjugated by any
emperor, or king, or any prince whatsoever in the world, they received
him with great honour, and sent with him to Constantinople a deputation
to ask the emperor for the things promised by the exarch. And the emperor
gave to the Venetians a diploma by which they were to be held in honour
by all the authorities of the capital and the state, and to receive
the protection of the imperial forces for all the maritime district
and complete security for their commerce in the kingdom; and thus the
Venetians became subject to his dominion and became proud of the honour.
We see from this account of the chronicler Altinate, which was confirmed
by subsequent chroniclers, that the primary political relation of the
Venetians with the empire was, like that with the Gothic kings of Italy,
a relation of protection more than servitude.
“They recognised,” says Romanin, “the emperor as their lord, they bowed
to servile formulas, ordained by the proud vanity of the Eastern court,
they accepted the general custom of heading their acts with the name and
the year of the reigning cæsar; but they continued to rule themselves
with their own laws and with their own magistrates. They made wars
and concluded treaties, which they could not have done in a state of
subjection.”
And, supported by the authority of the Byzantine records, by the emperor
Constantine Porphyrogenitus at Calcondila, this condition of political
autonomy, enjoyed by the Venetians in the second half of the sixth
century (according to the author of the _Storia documentata di Venezia_),
reassumed the diverse conditions of life by which maritime Venice passed
from her first appearance upon the theatre of history until the conquest
of Italy by the Lombards. From the facts appearing among this accumulated
matter he had to conclude that the islands were at first dependent on
the Venetian territory to which they were annexed, that in the confusion
arising from the barbaric invasions in which they found themselves cut
off from the mother-country they had to provide for themselves and
nominate their own magistrates, that they recognised the Gothic dominion
which caused them no inconvenience, and they were left in possession of
their own municipal government; and that finally, at the time of the
Lombards, their constitution assumed a stable form, and their first
relations with the kings of Italy and with the emperors corresponded
rather to those of a protectorate than to a real dependency. Impartial
examination of subsequent events proves this fact, for full liberty in
the reforms of their own government and laws without the intervention of
any foreign power is evident; the wars were spontaneously undertaken and
the treaties independently concluded. By such means everything went on
naturally and progressively, as is seen by the records before us, and as
we learn from the national history and story of events.
THE ORIGIN OF THE DOGESHIP
[Sidenote: [600-713 A.D.]]
There are but few records of the period between the stipulation of the
compromise with the emperor Maurice to the foundation of the Venetian
dukedom, but they suffice to confirm the autonomous policy enjoyed by
the Venetian islands at that time. The majority of these records refer
to the wars engaged in by the Venetians with the Lombards. By these they
became masters of Padua. At the time of King Agilulf they turned their
arms against the islands to get them under their own sway. The increasing
prosperity of the islands, and the idea that the wealth accumulated
there had been mostly imported from the continent to protect it from
the usurpation of conquerors, kindled a strong desire to complete its
conquest. The external dangers of the islands were attended by the
internal disputes from the ambitions and jealousies of the tribunes.
An imminent invasion of the Lombards was feared when the greater part
of the country, recognising the gravity of the danger menacing them,
summoned a general council to Heraclea under the presidency of the chief
patriarch Aristoforo. And here it was unanimously agreed to introduce
a stricter form of government by preventing the rivalries of the
magistrates who were the chief fomenters of the internal dissensions.
And following the example of great cities like Rome, Genoa, and Naples,
which were saved by dukes, they agreed to appoint a chief magistrate with
jurisdiction over all the islands with the title of “duke” (_doge_).
Then, proceeding to the election of the person on whom this dignity
was to be conferred, their choice fell upon Paolu Lucio, or Paoluccio
Anafesto. Such was the origin of the Venetian dukedom as it is recorded
by chroniclers. But if there is unity among them as to the causes which
gave rise to the ducal power in maritime Venetia, there is none with
regard to the time in which it was instituted. Some put it in the year
697, others relegate it to the first years of the next century. Among
them there is Giovanni Diacono,[h] who puts the election of Paoluccio
at the time of Anastasius II, emperor, and of Liutprand king of the
Lombards. And as, according to the most ancient Venetian chronicler,
Liutprand succeeded to the throne in 712 and Anastasius in 713, the
election of Paoluccio could not have been before the latter year.
[Sidenote: [713-900 A.D.]]
Therefore between the two extreme dates quoted by the chroniclers there
is a difference of sixteen years, sufficient time to afford material for
criticism. But the different points were defended and contested without
result. Muratiri Leo defended the date of 697, which is the date given
by Dandolo and his followers; Romanin oscillated between the two dates;
Filiasi and Balbo were inclined to the medium course and put the election
of Paoluccio in the year 706 or 707. But as neither the one nor the
other adduces more authentic proofs in support of the closer date, we
will remain firm in preferring that of 713, which is according to the
most eminent author on Venetian matters. We are the more led to this
preference by the cause to which the chroniclers generally attribute the
foundation of Venetian dukedom. For if it is true that the imminence of
the Lombards led the inhabitants of the islands to institute a supreme
magistrate, it could not have referred to the time preceding Liutprand
in which the Lombards, either through flaccidness of purpose or through
internal disputes, were incapable of thinking of new conquests or
exercising fears or apprehensions among their neighbours. The chronicler
Giovanni says nothing of the attributes of the new magistrate, and his
silence on such an important subject is the more deplorable, as in the
computations made by posterior chroniclers on the ducal authority we find
names used of matters more contemporaneous to them than to the time of
which they speak.
Andrea Dandolo,[g] the most authentic among them, describes in the
following words the attributes of the first Venetian dukes: “They
had,” says the doge chronicler, “the power and right to convoke the
general meeting for public affairs, to appoint tribunes and judges to
administer all matters private, lay, and ecclesiastical, save the mere
spiritual; they had power in everything befitting the title of duke;
and by their orders there the councils of the clergy took place and the
election to the prelature was made by the clergy and the people, the
election and the investiture being from their hands, as they had the
power of appointment.” It is very doubtful whether the ducal attributes
were originally so defined in detail. Anyhow, from the appearance of a
military magistrate with the title of master of the militia alongside of
the first duke, it can be inferred that the jurisdiction of the duke was
limited to civil affairs. For the chronicler Giovanni,[h] in speaking of
Paoluccio Anafesto, says that he judged his own with temperate justice.
And here the verb to judge is used in a more definite and proper sense
than in that used by the Lombard histories and documents respecting their
dukes. It expresses that which is solely civil jurisdiction, whilst the
jurisdiction of the Lombard dukes included the military jurisdiction as
well as the civil.
We have an important document of the dogedom of Anafesto,[i] which shows
how beneficial the institution of the ducal power was to the Venetians.
This document is a convention of the doge with Liutprand, by which the
Lombard king conceded to the Venetians the trade of the territories of
the kingdom proper, and, defining the limits between the two states,
it declared to be Venetian the territories between the Piave Major
and the Piavicelli on the side of Heraclea. Such, according to the
chronicler Giovanni, was the tenor of the treaty of peace concluded
between Liutprand and the first doge of Venice. And we have authentic
confirmation of its truth in its verification, made by Barbarossa in the
year 1177, of that which pertained to the designation of the Venetian
confines on the part of Italy.[c]
It was in 809 [or 810], in a war against Pepin, son of Charlemagne, that
the Venetians made choice of the Island of the Rialto, near which they
assembled their fleet bearing their wealth, and built the city of Venice,
the capital of their republic. Twenty years afterward they transported
thither from Alexandria the body of St. Mark, the evangelist, their
chosen patron. His lion figured in their arms, and his name in their
language whenever they would designate with peculiar affection their
country or government.
VENICE IN THE TENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: [900-996 A.D.]]
While the Venetians disputed with the Lombards, the Frank and the
German emperors, the little land on which stood their houses, they had
also to dispute the sea that bathed them, with the Slavonians, who had
established themselves for the purpose of piracy on the eastern side of
the Adriatic.[b] It was hardly five hundred years since the fugitives
from Padua and Aquileia had sought refuge in the lagunes. Content with
having found safety there and freedom to enlarge their town and extend
their commerce, they had hitherto only made just wars, having only taken
to arms to repulse pirates, help oppressed neighbours, or to defend their
liberty against Pepin and the Hungarians.
Although many victories had given them a just appreciation of their
strength, they had no aggression to reproach themselves with, unless
perhaps that against the Saracens, but this war was undertaken at the
solicitation of the Italian people, and on the request of the Eastern
emperor. Moreover, in generally received ideas of this epoch, the
Saracens, in their quality as infidels, were beyond the pale of common
rights. The republic had never made incursions on the continent, for it
would not be just to lay to its account the short expeditions of the two
doges, who had no other object than their own interests.
[Illustration: A DOGE OF VENICE]
This union of exiles and fishers had become a rich, powerful, warlike,
yet at the same time a peaceful nation. The fruit of this moderation had
been if not an existence exempt from trouble, at least a medium to the
creation of an independent state, freeing itself little by little from
the influence of the two empires between which it found itself--a state,
moreover, which treated with its neighbours, counted many illustrious
families, whose princes married kings’ daughters, yet in its entity did
not extend beyond the lagunes and several points of the neighbouring
coast. A new scene was to open up.
Commerce, that profession in which fortunes are continually being tried,
is not a school of moderation. Successes inspire greediness and jealousy,
and these latter the spirit of domination. Maritime commerce wanted ports
where her ships could be gathered, authority where she bought, privileges
where she sold, safety for navigation, and, above all, no rivals. This
ambitious spirit is really the same as that of conquest. Venice will show
us an example of it.
No choice of the Venetians was more justified by its great and lasting
results than that of Doge Pietro Orseolo II in 991. He was the son of
him who had abdicated the dogate fifteen years before. As in the life of
all great men there is something of the marvellous, it was spread abroad
that his father had announced that his son would be the glory of his
country, and the holiness of Orseolo I gave to these paternal hopes all
the authority of a prophecy.
Hardly was the new doge on the throne, than the factions which had torn
Venice during the reign of his feeble predecessor calmed down or at any
rate were quiet. Deliberations had been frequently troubled ones; the
palace had more than once been stained with blood. Orseolo made a law by
which all acts of violence in the public assembly should be punished
by a fine of twenty gold livres or the death of those who had not the
wherewithal to pay. A statesman as well as a clever warrior, he occupied
himself with forwarding commercial prosperity. He treated with all the
Italian states for goods. He obtained from the emperor of the East that
all subjects of the republic should be exempt from dues throughout the
empire, not only in ports but inland, or at least that the dues should be
reduced in the proportion of thirty gold sols to two. Finally he assured
himself, by an embassy and presents, of the favour of Egyptian and Syrian
sultans. The interior commerce of the Adriatic was itself an abundant
source of riches for the Venetians. Favoured by concessions from the
patriarch of Aquileia and the Italian kings, their ships went the whole
length of Lombardy and Friuli to sell all sorts of foreign wares. They
were welcome in the ports of Apulia and Calabria; on the eastern coast of
the gulf they enjoyed some privileges, bought, it is true, by a tribute,
but which were none the less profitable.
They got from Dalmatia firewood, wines, oils, hemp, linen, all kinds of
grain and cattle. The eastern coast offered lead, mercury, and metals of
every kind, wood for building, wools, cloth, house linen, cordage, dried
fruits, and even slaves and eunuchs. Everywhere they possessed themselves
of the exclusive commerce in salt and salted fish, and carried into
every country the merchandise of the East. It was owing to a so extended
commerce that Venice, until then without territory, armed fleets, and
placed between two empires, knew how to resist one and make herself
necessary to the other. These advantages were considerable, but to enjoy
them peaceably it was necessary to be delivered from these Narentine
pirates, who for one hundred and fifty years annoyed Venetian commerce
with their continual inroads. They furnished no immediate cause for
attack, only demanded the annual tribute which the republic had promised
them, to which the doge answered that he would soon bring it himself.
Their attacks were at that time directed against the peoples established
the length of the Adriatic; the Istrians, Liburnians, and the Dalmatians.
[Sidenote: [996-997 A.D.]]
Various nations had established themselves one after another on these
coasts; at first they depended on their chiefs for protection; then those
in Dalmatia came under the sway of the Eastern emperor, while those
farther north looked to the ruler of the West. These two empires became
feeble; various commercial towns sprang up on the sea coast which came by
little and little to regard themselves as independent, and these would
have found an assured source of prosperity in maritime pursuits were it
not for the interference of the neighbouring Narentines. It would not be
unreasonable to conjecture that Venice was not without some anxiety, even
jealousy, with regard to these people settled on the east coast of the
Adriatic, for they were independent, industrious, and good sailors.
Venetian historians relate that all these people, as if moved
unanimously, sent deputies to Venice to implore help against the pirates,
offering to give themselves to the republic if she would deliver them.
There are very few people who will give themselves away, and there are no
magistrates who have the right of giving away people. This deputation, if
it be true that it took place, did more honour to the politics of those
who received it than to the wisdom of those who sent it. However that may
be, the Venetians hastened to collect a considerable armament to go and
help, or overthrow, their neighbours, and the doge, after having received
from the bishop’s hands the standard of the republic, went to sea in the
spring of the year 997.[d]
[Sidenote: [997-998 A.D.]]
It was on the 18th of May, 997, that the fleet left its moorings, and
pointed its prows toward Grado, where it was met by the patriarch Vitali
Sanudo, followed by a solemn procession of the clergy and the people.
From Grado the whole armament sailed successively to Pirano, Omago,
Emonia, Parenzo, Rovigno, Pola, Zara, Spalatro, Trau, Ossero, Arbo,
Veglia, Sebenigo, Belgrado, Lenigrado, and Curzola. All those places
appeared to welcome the Venetians as their deliverers, and each readily
took an oath of allegiance to its suzerain. At Zara, where the merchants
of Venice had formed their earliest settlements, and where the people
exhibited peculiar fervour, Orseolo spent six days; and during that
period arrived a deputation from Dircislaus, king of Croatia, whose alarm
at the successful progress of the expedition rendered him desirous of
conciliating the republic. The ambassadors of Dircislaus were dismissed
without an audience. At Trau, he found the brother of the king, Cresimir
by name, who implored his Serenity to aid him in establishing a joint
claim to the throne of his father, from which he stated that he had been
recently driven by the perfidy of Dircislaus. Orseolo entertained the
matter favourably, and even consented shortly afterward (998), as a mark
of his friendship and esteem, as well as on grounds of commercial policy,
to the union of his own daughter, Hicela, with the son of the Croatian
prince.
But the campaign was far from being at a close. A great impediment was
still to be conquered. Lesina, the principal member of the Illyrican
group, and the chief resort of the pirates, still remained untaken;
and the doge, having sent ten galleys from Trau to ravage the coast of
Narenta, hastened with the main squadron to accomplish that object.
Orseolo entered the harbour without hesitation; and the usual summons to
surrender having produced no effect, an order was given to commence the
assault. The Lesinese shrank in dismay from the tempest of stones and
darts which poured without cessation over their walls; the escarpment
was scaled; a tower was invested and taken; the Venetians entered the
town; and, after a brief interval of license and confusion, the arrival
of the doge restored order. The judicious clemency of Orseolo conciliated
the esteem of the vanquished; and such was the powerful effect which the
reduction of a place, generally thought to be unassailable, produced on
its neighbours that, so soon as she heard of the fall of Lesina, the
little republic of Ragusa despatched an embassy to offer her allegiance
to the conqueror. At the same time, the ten galleys which had undertaken
to lay waste the coast of Narenta, rejoined the main squadron with
forty Croatian prizes; and this collateral success, which might be
partly instrumental in humiliating King Dircislaus, afforded no slight
satisfaction to Orseolo. Having thus, in the course of a few months,
completed the object of his expedition, the doge concluded the campaign
by dictating terms to the sea-robbers of Narenta; and Orseolo, having
returned to the capital, and communicated to the national Arrengo the
wonderful success which had attended the arms of the republic, was
proclaimed Doge of Venice and Dalmatia (998). The assumption of this
lofty appellation seems to have been entirely in harmony with the notions
of sovereignty generally prevalent at that epoch. The incomplete conquest
and precarious tenure of a few hundred miles of the Dalmatian seaboard
sufficed, in the eyes of the Venetians, to constitute Dalmatia itself
into an integral portion of their dominions; and it is a circumstance
strikingly characteristic of the age, that, in conferring new honours
upon the crown, no attempt was made to discriminate between an immense
tract of country in which the republic had little or no territorial
interest and over a small portion only of which she exercised the barest
of feudal rights, and the islands, to which she enjoyed the fullest
prescriptive and possessory title.[4][k]
[Sidenote: [998-1198 A.D.]]
In the intervals of peace Orseolo nobly employed his fortune raising
public monuments. His father had founded a hospital and rebuilt at his
own expense the palace and church of St. Mark. The son had the cathedral
of Grado rebuilt, others say the whole city, and many buildings in
Heraclea. This magnificence may give an idea to what degree of splendour
the great families had arrived. This particular one had only been raised
to ducal dignity one generation.[d]
It would have been to expect from the illustrious citizens of Venice
more than one could expect from the human race to ask them to forget the
glory and splendour of their house, to raise themselves above domestic
interests, to work only for the grandeur of the state, and make this
generation consist in the equality of all the citizens. The tendency
towards aristocracy was for a long time only the result of influence
given by riches, office, the remembrance of service rendered, and
the respect which attaches itself naturally to an illustrious name.
This kind of aristocracy existed long before the legal one. In the
political order there was no distinction between nobles and plebeians,
and when a foreigner, or a prince even, was admitted to the quality of
Venetian, they said to him, “_Civem nostrum creamus_”--“We make you our
fellow-citizen.”
But the Venetian nobles had frequented the society of high French barons,
and naturally took some of their opinions. On their side the people and
the middle class, like the nobles, were also interested. If the very
legitimate pride of the aristocrats made them desire power, the good
sense of the other party advised them to claim a share. It was from the
struggle between these interests that a new form of government arose. One
historian has forgotten himself so far as to say that this revolution led
things back to “a natural order, in which the lower orders were dominated
by the upper.” The language has no more sense than dignity.[c]
PROSPERITY AND POLITICAL REFORMS
[Sidenote: [1198-1202 A.D.]]
The settlement of the Venetian constitution prepared the republic for
her brilliant career of commercial and political grandeur; and a new
source of wealth and power had meanwhile been unfolding itself in her
cupidity and ambition. No circumstance contributed more effectually to
her subsequent prosperity than the religious wars of the Europeans for
the recovery of the Holy Land from the Mohammedan infidels.
From the epoch of the Peace of Constance to the end of the twelfth
century, the history of Venice is occupied by no occurrence which
deserves to be recorded. But the first years of the thirteenth
century are the most brilliant and glorious in the long annals of the
republic. They are filled with the details of a romantic and memorable
enterprise--the equipment of a prodigious naval armament, the fearless
pursuit of a distant and gigantic adventure, the conquest of an ancient
empire, the division of the spoil, and the consummation of commercial
grandeur.
In the year 1198, Pope Innocent III, by the preaching of Fulk Neuilly,
a French priest, had stirred up the greatest nobles of that kingdom to
undertake a crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. Baldwin,
count of Flanders, enrolled himself in the same cause, and Boniface,
marquis of Montferrat, accepted the command of the confederates. They
were warned by the sad experience of former crusades not to attempt the
passage to Asia by land; and the maritime states of Italy were the only
powers which could furnish shipping for the transport of a numerous army.
The barons therefore sent a deputation to Venice to entreat the alliance
and negotiate for the assistance of the republic (1201 A.D.).
Henry Dandolo, who, at the extraordinary age of ninety-three, and
in almost total blindness, still preserved the vigorous talents and
heroism of youth, had been for nine years doge of Venice. He received
the illustrious ambassadors with distinction; and after the object of
their mission had been regularly laid before the councils of the state,
announced to them in the name of the republic the conditions upon which
a treaty would be concluded. As the aristocracy had not yet perfected
the entire exclusion of the people from a voice in public affairs, the
magnitude of the business demanded the solemn assent of the citizens,
and a general assembly was convened in the square of St. Mark. There,
before the multitude of more than ten thousand persons, the proud nobles
of France threw themselves upon their knees to implore the assistance of
the commercial republicans in redeeming the sepulchre of Christ. Their
tears and eloquence prevailed. The terms of alliance had been left to
the dictation of the doge and his counsellors; and for 85,000 marks of
silver, less than £200,000 ($1,000,000), and not an unreasonable demand,
the republic engaged to transport 4,500 knights with their horses and
arms, 9,000 esquires, and 20,000 infantry, to any part of the coasts of
the East which the service of God might require, to provision them for
nine months, and to escort and aid them with a fleet of fifty galleys;
but with the farther conditions that the money should be paid before
embarkation, and that whatever conquests might be made, should be equally
shared between the barons and the republic.
The Venetians demanded a year of preparation; and before that period had
expired, both their fidelity to the engagement and the extent of their
resources were conspicuously displayed. But all the crusaders were not
equally true to their faith; many whose ardour had cooled, shamefully
deserted their vows; others had taken ship for Palestine in Flanders,
at Marseilles, and at other Mediterranean ports; and when the army had
mustered at Venice, their numbers fell very short of expectation, and
they were utterly unable to defray the stipulated cost of the enterprise.
Though their noble leaders made a generous sacrifice of their valuables,
above 30,000 marks were yet wanted to complete the full payment; and the
republic, with true mercantile caution, refused to permit the sailing
of the fleet until the amount of the deficiency should have been lodged
in their treasury. The timid and the lukewarm already rejoiced that the
crusade must be abandoned, when Dandolo suggested an equivalent for the
remainder of the debt, by the condition that payment should be deferred
if the barons would assist the republic in reducing the city of Zara,
which had again revolted, before they pursued the ulterior objects of
their voyage.
The citizens of Zara had committed themselves to the sovereignty of
the king of Hungary, and the pope forbade the crusaders to attack the
Christian subjects of a monarch who had himself assumed the cross. But
the desire of honourably discharging their obligations prevailed with
the French barons over the fear of papal displeasure, and, after some
scruples, the army embarked for Zara (1202 A.D.). The aged doge having
obtained permission from the republic to take the cross and lead the
fleet, many of the citizens followed his example in ranging themselves
under the sacred banner, and the veteran hero sailed with the expedition
of nearly five hundred vessels, the most magnificent armament, perhaps,
which had ever covered the bosom of the Adriatic. Though Zara was deemed
in that age one of the strongest cities in the world, the inhabitants
were terrified or compelled into a surrender after a siege of only five
days: their lives were spared, but their houses were pillaged, and their
defences razed to the ground.
[It is unnecessary to follow further the remarkable fortunes of the
Venetians and crusaders. The story of the capture of Constantinople
has already been told in the history of the Eastern Empire and of the
Crusades.]
[Sidenote: [1032-1204 A.D.]]
The talents and heroism of the venerable Dandolo had won for the doges
of Venice the splendid and accurate title of dukes of three-eighths of
the Roman Empire; he died at Constantinople almost immediately after the
Latin conquest, full of years and glory; and bequeathed to the republic
the difficult office of governing a greater extent of dominion than
had ever fallen to the inhabitants of a single city. All the islands
of the Ionian, and most of those in the Ægean seas, great part of the
shores of continental Greece, many of the ports in the Propontis, or
Sea of Marmora, the city of Adrianople, and one-fourth of the eastern
capital itself were all embraced in her allotment, and the large and
valuable island of Candia was added to her possessions by purchase
from the marquis of Montferrat to whom it had been assigned. But the
prudence of her senate awakened Venice to a just sense of her own want
of intrinsic strength to preserve these immense dependencies; and it
was wisely resolved to retain under the public government of the state
only the colony at Constantinople, with the island of Candia and those
in the Ionian Sea. The subjects of the republic were not required to
imitate the forbearance of the senate, and many of the great Venetian
families were encouraged, or at least permitted, to found principalities
among the ruins of the Eastern Empire, with a reservation of feudal
allegiance to their country. In this manner most of the islands of the
Ægean Archipelago were granted in fief to ten noble houses of Venice, and
continued for several centuries subject to their insular princes.[o]
It was by slow and artfully disguised encroachments that the nobility
of Venice succeeded in substituting itself for the civic power, and
investing itself with the sovereignty of the republic. During the
earlier period, the doge was an elective prince, the limit of whose
power was vested in assemblies of the people. It was not till 1032
that he was obliged to consult only a council, formed from amongst the
most illustrious citizens, whom he designated.[5] Thence came the name
given them of _pregadi_ (invited). The grand council was not formed
till 1172, 140 years later, and was from that time the real sovereign
of the republic. It was composed of 480 members, named annually on the
last day of September by twelve tribunes, or grand electors, of whom
two were chosen by each of the six sections of the republic. No more
than four members from one family could be named. The same counsellors
might be re-elected each year. As it is in the spirit of a corporation
to tend always towards an aristocracy, the same persons were habitually
re-elected, and when they died their children took their places. The
grand council, neither assuming to itself nor granting to the doge the
judicial power, gave the first example of the creation of a body of
judges, numerous, independent, and irremovable; such, nearly, as was
afterwards the parliament of Paris. In 1179, it created the criminal
_quarantia_; called, also, the _vecchia quarantia_, to distinguish it
from two other bodies of forty judges created in 1229.[d]
OTHER MARITIME CITIES
[Sidenote: [589-1229 A.D.]]
The first magistrate of the republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi bore
likewise the title of doge. These three cities, forgotten by the Greek
emperors, and receiving no aid from them, still held by the ties of
commerce to Greece. The inhabitants had devoted themselves with ardour
to navigation; they trafficked in the Levant, and covered southern Italy
with its rich merchandise. The country situated beyond the Tiber had
been exposed to fewer invasions than upper Italy. It had not, however,
entirely escaped. A Lombard chief entered it in 589, and founded the
great duchy of Benevento, which comprehended nearly the whole southern
part of the peninsula. This dukedom maintained itself independent of the
kingdom of the Lombards at Pavia, and had not been involved in its fall.
It defended itself with valour against Charlemagne and his successors,
who attempted its conquest; but in 839, at the end of a civil war, it
was divided into the three principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and
Capua. The Saracens had established colonies, in the year 828, in Sicily,
which till then had been subject to the Greek Empire; these Saracens, a
few years afterwards, passed into southern Italy. The three republics
of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi preserved their independence by exciting
enmity between the Lombards and Saracens, who equally menaced them; but
these barbarians soon sank into the languor produced by the charms of
a southern climate. It seemed as if they had no longer courage to risk
a life to which so many enjoyments were attached. When they fought, it
was with effeminacy; and they hastened the termination of every war to
plunge again into the voluptuous ease from which it had roused them.
The citizens of the republics had the advantage over them of walls and
defiles; and without being braver than the Lombards, maintained their
independence against them for six centuries.
[Sidenote: [936-1195 A.D.]]
The republic of Pisa, which vainly sought to save from ruin these first
Italian republics of the Middle Ages, was a city which navigation and
commerce had enriched. Genoa, which soon became its rival, had escaped
the pillage of these northern conquerors, and had preserved a constant
intercourse with Constantinople and with Syria, from whence the citizens
brought the rich merchandise which they afterwards dispersed throughout
Lombardy. The Pisans and Genoese, invigorated by a seafaring life, were
accustomed to defend with the sword the merchandise which they conveyed
from one extremity to the other of the Mediterranean. They were often in
conflict with the Saracens, like them addicted to maritime commerce, to
which these last frequently added piracy. The Saracens pillaged Genoa in
the year 936. In 1004 they entered a suburb of Pisa, and again invested
that city in the year 1011. Their colonies in Sardinia, Corsica, and the
Balearic Isles constantly menaced Italy. The Pisans, seconded by the
Genoese, in their turn attacked Sardinia, in the year 1015; but completed
the conquest only in 1050. They established colonies there, and divided
it into fiefs between the most illustrious families of Pisa and Genoa.
They also conquered the Balearic Isles from the Saracens, between the
years 1114 and 1116.[e] The Pisan fleet of three hundred sail, commanded
by the archbishop Pietro Moriconi, attacked the Balearic Isles, where as
many as twenty thousand Christians were said to be held captive by the
Moslems, and returned loaded with spoil and with a multitude of Christian
and Moslem prisoners. The former were set at liberty or ransomed, and
among the latter was the last descendant of the reigning dynasty.
The chief eunuch, who had governed Majorca, perished in the siege.
Immediately afterwards the fourteen years’ war with Genoa broke out. The
two republics contested the dominion of the sea, and both claimed supreme
power over the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. A papal edict awarding
the supremacy of Corsica to the Pisan church proved sufficient cause for
the war, which went on from 1118 to 1132. Then Innocent II transferred
the supremacy over part of Corsica to the Genoese church, and compensated
Pisa by grants in Sardinia and elsewhere. Accordingly, to gratify the
pope and the emperor Lothair II, the Pisans entered the Neapolitan
territory to combat the Normans. They aided in the vigorous defence of
the city of Naples, and twice attacked and pillaged Amalfi, in 1135 and
1137, with such effect that the town never regained its prosperity. It
has been said that the copy of the _Pandects_ then taken by the Pisans
from Amalfi was the first known to them, but in fact they were already
acquainted with those laws. The war with Genoa never came to a real end.
Even after the retaking of Jerusalem by the Moslems (1187), the Pisans
and Genoese again met in conflict in the East, and performed many deeds
of valour. They were always ready to come to blows, and gave still more
signal proofs of their enmity during the Sicilian war in behalf of the
emperor Henry VI. There could be no lasting peace between these rival
powers until the one or the other should be crushed.[l]
When, towards the end of the eleventh century, the western world took up
the dispute with the Saracens for the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, Venice,
Pisa, and Genoa had already reached a high point of commercial power;
these three cities had more vessels on the Mediterranean than the whole
of Christendom besides. They seconded the crusaders with enthusiasm. They
provisioned them when arrived off the coast of Syria, and kept up their
communication with the West. The Venetians assert that they sent a fleet
of two hundred vessels, in the year 1099, to second the First Crusade.
The Pisans affirm that their archbishop Daimbert, who was afterwards
patriarch of Jerusalem, passed into the East with one hundred and twenty
vessels. The Genoese claim only twenty-eight galleys and six vessels;
but all concurred with equal zeal in the conquest of the Holy Land; and
the three maritime republics obtained important privileges, which they
preserved as long as the kingdom of Jerusalem lasted.[e]
THE LOMBARD CITIES AND THEIR ALLIES
[Sidenote: [1010-1125 A.D.]]
In the early days the Italian towns were only as yet larger groups of
dwelling-houses, without political significance, such as every place
acquires by more abundant and brisker communications, and by being the
seat of some sort of government administration; in short, when it
becomes the centre of a certain district. The three principal classes of
inhabitants were as a rule: (1) free Lombards; (2) tributary Romans; (3)
serfs and villeins. There were as yet not sufficient noble retainers in
the individual towns to form a class by themselves.
Among the Franks this state seemingly subsisted for some time, but the
foundations upon which it rested were undermined. The tributary Romans
became gradually either entirely free or really serfs; many of the free
Lombards took knightly service with the kings of the Franks or their
counts, and many more with bishops and abbots. Thus there grew up new
class distinctions, and once more the population seemed to fall into
three distinct classes: (1) noble retainers; (2) freemen; (3) bondsmen,
villeins, and the remainder of the tributaries who tended more and more
to become absorbed by the other classes. Simultaneously, however, there
arose another kind of distinction. It gradually came to pass when the
royal prerogative had become subjected to many changes, and could at best
be regarded but as an uncertain protection, that the bishops counted
far more noble retainers and serfs than the kings; and as the bishops
at the same time exercised feudal authority over their retainers and
villeins, a feeling of hostility sprang up between the nobles, freemen,
and tributaries under the king’s official magistrates (the counts and
gastalds) and the nobles, serfs, and tributaries under the bishop’s
magistrates (the _vogts_). What had been established under the Franks
then developed more fully under the Germans. The bishops also acquired
authority over the freemen, exercising the same power as the counts, and
began to assemble in one township men possessing quite different rights,
but having the same claims to distinction, _i.e._, noble retainers and
freemen of knightly descent. The serfs and villeins forming the third
class still remained for a long time politically minors.
A great deal of friction between the noble retainers and the freemen of
knightly descent was caused by their having to hold their lands in fief,
to enter into the feudal service of the bishops, or to renounce knightly
honours. Sanguinary fights took place without either party gaining any
decisive victory; compacts were made between the different classes of
citizens, and this was the origin of the common municipal constitution.
From that time the importance of the aldermen as representatives of
all the classes grew apace, whereas that of the episcopal magistrates
sensibly decreased. This representative administration had no sooner been
founded than it was again upset by a rupture between the spiritual and
temporal powers; the strife was no longer between counts and bishops,
or between the freemen and the retainers of the church, but between the
king and the pope. The spiritual power became divided against itself;
many bishops took up the cause of the king, and others that of the pope.
The same thing happened with the temporal power, for there were as many
princes and lords fighting against as for the king.
The representative administration of the cities was not attacked, but
that body found it difficult to decide by which party they were to be
governed, for each party, that of the king as well as that of the pope,
presently had its own bishops in each city and its adherents among both
nobles and freemen. The bishops were the only losers in this struggle,
for in each faction they strove to outdo each other in the matter of
liberality and in conceding their rights in order to win and retain more
partisans. The victorious party, however, when the struggle was at an
end, maintained the established representative administration, enriched
by the many liberties and rights conceded by the bishops. The aldermen
found their sphere of action greatly enlarged and enriched, so that
henceforth they assumed a position at the head of the municipality as
councillors and magistrates. This government had developed on similar
lines in all the cities, although the victory had remained sometimes with
the papal and sometimes with the royal party; therefore the strife had
been banished from the cities only to break out finally in the country,
which became divided into two factions, at the head of which were the
rival cities of Pavia and Milan.
At first Pavia belonged to the papal faction and Milan to the royal; but
when the former realised that she needed more temporal assistance than
the pope could afford her, and the latter city found that the king’s
protection brought with it interference in internal affairs, which in a
city of Milan’s power and wealth was soon felt to be oppressive, both
parties changed badges, and Pavia followed the royal faction, while Milan
flaunted the papal colours.[j]
[Sidenote: [1125-1155 A.D.]]
This change of parties occurred during the reigns of Lothair II and
Conrad III, who, from the year 1125 to 1152, placed in opposition the
two houses of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Germany. Milan, having during
the first half of the twelfth century experienced some resistance from
the towns of Lodi and Como, razed the former, dispersing the inhabitants
in open villages, and obliged the latter to destroy its fortifications.
Cremona and Novara adhered to the party of Pavia; Tortona, Crema,
Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza, and Parma to that of Milan. Among the towns
of Piedmont, Turin took the lead, and disputed the authority of the
counts of Savoy, who called themselves imperial vicars in that country.
Montferrat continued to have its marquises. They were among the few great
feudatories who had survived the civil wars; but the towns and provinces
were not in subjection to them, and Asti was more powerful than they were.
The family of the Veronese marquises, on the contrary, who from the time
of the Lombard kings had to defend the frontier against the Germans, were
extinct; and the great cities of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and
Mantua, nearly equal in power, maintained their independence. Bologna
held the first rank among the towns south of the Po, and had become
equally formidable on the one side to Modena and Reggio, and on the other
to Ferrara, Ravenna, Imola, Faenza, Forlì, and Rimini. Tuscany, which had
also had its powerful marquises, saw their family become extinct with the
countess Matilda, the contemporary and friend of Gregory VII. Florence
had since risen in power, destroyed Fiesole, and, without exercising
dominion over the neighbouring towns of Pistoia, Arezzo, San Miniato,
and Volterra, or the more distant towns of Lucca, Cortona, Perugia, and
Siena, was considered the head of the Tuscan League; and the more so that
Pisa at this period thought only of her maritime expeditions. The family
of the dukes of Spoleto had also become extinct, and the towns of Umbria
regained their freedom; but their situation in the mountains prevented
them from rising into importance. In fine, Rome herself indulged the
same spirit of independence. An eloquent monk, the disciple of Abelard,
who had made himself known throughout Europe, preached in 1139 a twofold
reform in the religious and political orders; the name borne by him was
Arnold of Brescia. He spoke to men of the ancient liberty which was
their right, of the abuses which disfigured the church. Driven out of
Italy by Pope Innocent II and the Council of Lateran, he took refuge in
Switzerland, and taught the town of Zurich to frame a free constitution;
but in the year 1143 he was recalled to Rome, and that city again heard
the words, “Roman Republic,” “Roman senate,” “comitia of the people.” The
pope branded his opinions with the name of “heresy of the politicians”;
and Arnold of Brescia, having been given up to him by the emperor, was
burned alive before the gate of the castle of St. Angelo, in the year
1155. But his precepts survived and the love of liberty in Rome did not
perish with him. In southern Italy, the conquests of the Normans had
finally smothered the spirit of liberty; and the town of Aquileia in the
Abruzzi alone preserved any republican privileges.[b]
FLORENCE
[Sidenote: [800-1207 A.D.]]
It appears that of all the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the
one which was to play the principal part in the history of civilisation
was the last to appear on the world’s stage. Florence was still a
mere unknown parish when Pisa, her neighbour, already covered the
Mediterranean with her vessels; and while Milan and the towns of Lombardy
were engaged in deadly fight against the empire, the Tuscan city stood
perfectly aloof from the struggle of the two parties, which were dividing
not only Italy, but the whole of Europe, and, from the Alps to the
Sicilian straits, covering the peninsula with ruins and deluging it in
blood.
Florence long had pursued her career in silence, growing rich by
trade, increasing in size by the reduction of her neighbours, becoming
powerful by the submission of the great, and she was neither more nor
less powerful than all those small political centres which contributed
so largely in bringing to light Italy’s exhaustless fertility in great
men. In fact, it was owing to this large number of small states, to
this multitude of diverse interests, that so many men were enabled to
distinguish themselves, and found a scene for their activity, and that
the curious medley which forms the Italian character was able to develop
freely, and to bear its finest fruits. In this respect all the small
towns of Italy are deeply interesting; to the historian as sources of
valuable research, to the philosopher as subjects of observation of
human nature. It is, however, natural that the state which exercised
its influence for the longest period, in the most powerful manner, and
over the widest extent of territory, should also attract the greatest
attention from posterity. Great interest is always felt in the childhood
of a famous man, even when it does not actually present so many curious
details as the childhood of many men who have remained unknown; we like
to see his first gropings, and in the features of some childish whim we
imagine that we can perceive the plan of the great acts which illustrated
his riper age.
In the same way the first symptoms of political life in Athens or in Rome
have always attracted attention, while certain towns of Hellas or Latium,
though probably far more developed in those obscure times, only interest
us as far as they enable us to find traces of the road which these great
centres of civilisation pursued when they first arose. So, in the dearth
which exists of authentic documents on the origin and early centuries of
Florence, in order to obtain a just and complete idea of what she was
before the beginning of the thirteenth century, we are often obliged to
illuminate the facts which have come down to us by the knowledge we have
of Lucca, Pisa, Fiesole, Siena, Arezzo, and other towns of Tuscany.
The chroniclers, by surrounding the origin of Florence with numerous
fables, have singularly concealed the real facts. However, it is probable
that they were right in assigning it a Roman origin, and it is evident
that in this first period and later on, Florence passed, as did the other
states, through the successive phases which were experienced by the
entire peninsula. Growing under the protection of the imperial eagle,
and submitting to the power of the bishop, like her sister-states, like
them, also, she knew how, both to free herself from episcopal dominion
and to oppose the empire. Although somewhat late, she followed the
example of all the great towns of Italy in subduing the small surrounding
towns and the country nobles, so as to increase her territory; she
profited, but to a less extent than Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, by the
commercial advantages of the Crusades. After undergoing the influence
of the German invasion, she supported, more than any other state, the
reaction of communal tendency against the Germanic tendency which was
everywhere felt during the twelfth century. When, later on, tyranny (in
the Greek sense of the word) confiscated democratic liberty, in every
town, in favour of a powerful family or a superior individual, Florence
produced the most accomplished type of the Italian tyrant.
However, turning back to the earliest historical facts proved by
unimpeachable witnesses, we see by the very importance which the
chroniclers attach to the traditions of Charlemagne, the second founder
of their city, how significant for the whole of Italy, and especially
for Florence, was the coronation of this emperor in Rome. They attribute
the new wall round the city to him also, as well as the establishment
of consular government; and their instinct was correct; for if these
acts were not the direct work of Charlemagne, they certainly were the
consequences of his work. The re-establishment of the Roman Empire must
infallibly be followed by the restoration of the ancient municipalities,
and in general by the whole of the Roman legislation, wherever it has
been destroyed by the invasion. The town was henceforth governed by
a marquis of Tuscany, as lieutenant of the empire, which was again
re-established by Otto the Great, who appears to have particularly
favoured the town of Florence.
At this period the solemn power of the imperial name was so great
that the city, whose rule already extended over a great part of the
surrounding country, and especially over the important town of Fiesole,
would never have dared to oppose the emperor, if the disputes which arose
towards the end of the eleventh century between the empire and the holy
see, had not offered it the long-wished-for opportunity to escape from
the marquisate of Tuscany. The majority of Florentines, for there were
already two parties in the city, enthusiastically espoused the cause of
the pope and the countess Matilda against the emperor Henry IV. A long
siege could not shatter their fidelity. It is from this period, probably,
that the establishment of consular government in Florence dates, which
the old chroniclers attributed to Charlemagne, and which the other towns
of Italy had long since adopted from Rome. This early constitution, which
united justice and government in the hands of two, later on of four, and
still later of six consuls, aided by a council of one hundred senators,
was maintained almost intact till 1207, when the example of the other
republics was followed and a podesta was intrusted with the jurisdiction.
Although all the free inhabitants co-operated in the election of the
magistrates, these latter were only chosen from among the urban nobility,
composed indeed of ancient middle-class families who had long been
wealthy, and of the descendants of Germanic immigrants.
_Social Conditions_
The population of Florence was then formed, as was that of the greater
number of Italian towns, of two very distinct classes--the patricians
and the people; the former included the descendants of noble families
and the burghers free since the conquest; the latter included all the
other inhabitants of the town, the ancient tributaries of the bishop or
the clients of the nobles whom they had freed. The descendants of these
freed men, and also those of immigrants from other towns, were born free,
earned much by the luxury of the upper classes, and were soon as rich as
the patricians. So, later on, they desired, and were able to obtain for
their special functionaries, entrance into the posts of the republic,
and thus it was that popular revolutions took place in the thirteenth
century. Before this time, the people were satisfied to assist in the
election of magistrates without dreaming of claiming the honour for
themselves. As for the nobles of the surrounding country who refused to
submit to the government, they were pursued, their lands devastated and
burned, even their fortresses were destroyed, so that in a short time
Florence had sole rule over the neighbouring land. The entire century
during which this constitution was in force, is filled with the sound of
strife with the nobles. At one time the young republic subdued the rock
of Fiesole, a veritable retreat of brigands; then the powerful family of
the Buondelmonti, of Monte Buono. This family, so famous and so fatal to
Florentine happiness, possessed a small castle about five miles distant
from the town which, commanding the Siena road, enabled them to impose
a toll upon all merchandise in its passage. Florence complained of this
imposition, and being refused redress destroyed their castle, obliging
them without further spoliation to become Florentine citizens; others
followed; and so they continued adding bit after bit to their possessions
by money, conquest, or persuasion, but still maintaining a close alliance
with Pisa, which at this period, although the most commercial and
military nation of Tuscany, was rivalled by Florence in ambition and
warlike propensities if not in power and celebrity.
_Municipal Wars_
[Sidenote: [1144-1146 A.D.]]
In the year 1144 all Tuscany was in arms, partly on account of these
republics, but more from those dissensions that spring from mutual
jealousy in rising states commencing the race of ambition and of
blood, who league for war as a pastime, and regard the butchery of
their fellow-creatures as legitimate amusement. Lucca and Pisa were in
constant collision, and the friendship of the former with Siena, of the
latter with Florence, occasioned a quadruple war between those states,
each jealous of the other’s ascendency; the necessities of commerce,
untouched as yet by its rivalry, kept peace between Pisa and Florence;
and the distance of the other two diminished their points of contact and
consequently their chances of quarrel.
Ulric, marquis or vice-marquis of Tuscany and imperial vicar, commanded
the Florentine army, with which he advanced to the gates of Siena and
burned a suburb; the Sienese demanded assistance from Lucca, who answered
by declaring war on Florence, not only to draw the enemy from her ally,
but also in aid of Count Guido Guerra of Modigliana, a Ghibelline chief
and confederate of Siena, who had already suffered from Florentine
aggression. Pisa on the other hand took the field at the request of
the Florentines and Count Guido’s possessions were devastated by these
combined forces while the Sienese, covertly advancing on Florence, fell
into an ambuscade and were nearly all made prisoners. More bitter was
the struggle between Pisa and Lucca where no exchange of prisoners took
place, no ransom was accepted, and where a strong personal feeling of
hatred pervaded every class; perpetual incarceration was with them the
consequence of defeat, and we are told by the bishop of Fresingen that
several years afterwards he saw “the Lucchese officers, wasted, squalid,
and miserable, in the dungeons of Pisa, drawing tears of compassion from
every passing stranger.”
At this period, however, not Tuscany alone but all northern Italy seems
to have been in similar confusion from similar causes; from jealousy,
faction, and that ever boisterous passage between comparative bondage and
complete independence, for Conrad with full employment in Germany was
forced to leave Italy uncontrolled, a prey to angry passions, unsettled
institutions, and political anarchy. The particular causes of discord
between the Tuscan cities are now difficult to trace; vicinity, by
multiplying the points of contact, increased the chances and was always a
source of dissension; but the peculiar enmity between Siena and Florence,
according to the Sienese historians, originated in the assistance given
to Henry IV during the siege of 1081; an injury in itself not easily
forgiven, but which, fostered as it was by national emulation, lasted
until long after the ruin of both republics.
[Sidenote: [1146-1204 A.D.]]
Elated by success and jealous of the counts Guidi by whose possessions
she was nearly surrounded, Florence assembled an army in February, 1146,
and besieged Monte Croce, a _castello_ about nine miles distant which
belonged to that family; but confidence in superiority of force created
carelessness of conduct, and Count Guido aided by the people of Arezzo
defeated them with great loss. For a time they were quieted by this sharp
military lesson, and a crusade the following year under the emperor
Conrad III carried off some of their more enterprising and devout spirits
to Palestine; amongst them Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida, who, after
having been knighted by Conrad, fell in battle against the infidels.[e]
So while the towns of Lombardy were leaguing together boldly to defend
the most cherished interests of independence, the little Tuscan republic
was only busy extending her territory, and increasing at the expense of
her neighbours, she was already the cunning Florence of the fifteenth
century, for whom egoism is the fundamental principle of politics.
However, it will not do to be unjust; while fighting and subduing the
neighbouring nobles she was also striking a blow at expiring Germanism;
it was the municipality triumphing over the members of the feudal body,
as at Legnano it triumphed over their chief. The emperor Frederick
Barbarossa was well aware of it; and when he came to Florence in 1184,
after the Peace of Constance, he listened with interest to the complaints
of the nobles, and was well pleased to take from the city the sovereignty
which she had violently assumed over the surrounding country, contrary to
written law. The Florentines submitted without a murmur to this severe
sentence; they knew that they had only to wait and to let the storm pass
over. In fact, four years later all the surrounding districts had once
more submitted to the burghers.
Ten years later they gained still further advantage by the interregnum
which left Germany a prey to the struggles of Otto IV and Philip of
Swabia and made Italy “a widow of her king.” It was then that they formed
a Guelf league on the model of the Lombard League, and succeeded in
subduing that part of the rural nobility which had till then remained
independent. The nobles were forced to take an oath of fidelity to the
republic and to promise to live peacefully and quietly in the town.
In the midst of these political disturbances the trade and wealth of the
city constantly increased. She had till then depended on Pisa, a much
richer and more flourishing town, to which she acted, so to say, as bank;
after destroying Fiesole, which dominated her completely by its position
and hindered her commerce, in the twelfth century, she made a swift step
forward and became, first the rival of Siena, later on that of Pisa
itself.
[Sidenote: [1138-1239 A.D.]]
This is the period which the Florentines of the following century were in
the habit of lauding as the golden age of the republic. The people were
still chivalrous and industrious; their manners were simple; dresses were
made of coarse material, women were honest and modest; young girls were
not married before the age of twenty; and men did not seek “the largest
dowry, but the best reputation.”
It would, however, be a great mistake to think that this period of
virtuous patriarchal customs, sobriety, and simple living was free from
disturbance. This people of Florence was a passionate race who had not
yet passed through two centuries of revolution, nor yet experienced the
paternal and enervating despotism of the Medicis, nor seen the armies
of Charles V. The state of the town was far from being a calm one, and
whether, because judiciary affairs had increased to too great an extent,
or because the consuls were lacking in requisite authority, it soon
became necessary, in order to maintain order and justice in the town, to
follow the example of the other republics and call in a foreign podesta.
“Vice increasing in the town,” says Malaspina,[n] “and cases of ill-will
and disputes becoming more frequent among the citizens, it was decided
in the interest of the republic, in order to facilitate the punishment
of crime and to prevent all interception, bribery, or intimidation of
justice, that a foreigner of gentle birth should be appointed to the
office of podesta for one year, to decide all trials with his judges, to
render justice, pronounce condemnation of wealth and body, and to carry
out the laws of the republic of Florence. Nevertheless the government
of the consuls did not cease, since it kept the direction of all other
business, and in this manner the town was governed till the period when
the first nation of Florence was formed.”[m]
As the two famous names of Guelf and Ghibelline originated in these two
rival houses of Bavaria and Franconia, and by their pernicious influence
destroyed Italian prosperity and happiness, a short account of them
will not here be irrelevant, especially as they were the principal
though remote source of that inveterate disunion which has left the
peninsula a constant prey to transalpine ambition. For many ages these
factions prowled over Italy like lions seeking whom they could devour;
they divided city from city, house from house, family from family; they
tore asunder all domestic ties, undermined the dearest affections,
and scattered duty, obligations, and humanity to the winds. But these
fatal appellations were originally nothing more than the distinctive
names of two princely German families whose chiefs were rivals in
personal ambition and feudal power. The enmity of one to the popes was
reason sufficient for the other’s determined adherence to the holy
see; and though mere leaders of a petty feud, their names became from
circumstances the rallying cry of two great opinions which, penetrating
with the wonted subtilty of religious and political rancour into the
smallest branches of national life, affected Italy and Germany to the
quick.
When Conrad III was crowned king of Italy, the last four emperors had
been chosen from the house of Franconia, a family that received its
name from the castle of Waiblingen, or Gueibelinga, situated amongst
the Hertfeld Mountains in the diocese of Augsburg and which was called
indiscriminately “Salic” or “Gueibelinga.” The rival house, originally
of Altdorf, at this period governed Bavaria, and in consequence of
several of its princes being named “Guelfo” or “Welf,” both the family
and its partisans received that appellation. The two last Henrys of
the Ghibelline house of Franconia had long contests with the church,
as already related, while the Bavarian Guelfs on the contrary always
declared themselves its protectors from the days of Guelf IV, son of
Albert Azzo, lord of Este, in 1076. From this branch is descended in a
direct line the royal family of England and from his brother Folco the
ancient marquises of Este, dukes of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio.
These things, springing as they did from rivalry and disappointment,
sharpened hereditary feuds, while the pontiff’s support of Lothair
augmented the Ghibellines’ enmity to holy church; these names were not,
however, permanently attached to the two factions until 1210, when
Innocent III drove the fourth Otto from the imperial throne and took
young Frederick of Sicily under his charge. The pope was then supported
by the Ghibellines; but when the same Frederick turned to rend the
church, the Guelfic banner again waved over it, and there continued until
the final dissolution of these adverse factions, long after the original
cause of their quarrels had melted entirely away.[e]
[Sidenote: [476-1250 A.D.]]
Such were the changes which the space of seven centuries from the fall
of the Roman Empire accomplished in Italy. Towards the end of the fifth
century the social tie, which had made of the empire one body, became
dissolved, and was succeeded by no other. The citizen felt nothing
for his fellow-citizen; he expected no support from him, and offered
him none. He could nowhere invoke protection; he everywhere saw only
violence and oppression. Towards the beginning of the twelfth century the
citizens of the towns of Italy had as little to expect from abroad. The
emperor of the Germans, who called himself their sovereign, was, with his
barbarian army, only one enemy more. But universally, where the circle
of the same wall formed a common interest, the spirit of association was
developed. The citizens promised each other mutual assistance. Courage
grew with liberty; and the Italians, no longer oppressed, found at last
in themselves their own defence.
When the inhabitants of the cities of Italy associated for their common
defence, their first necessity was to guard against the brigandage of
the barbarian armies, which invaded their country and treated them as
enemies; the second, to protect themselves from the robberies of other
barbarians who called themselves their masters. Their united efforts
soon insured their safety; in a few years they found themselves rich
and powerful; and these same men, whom emperors, prelates, and nobles
considered only as freed serfs, perceived that they constituted almost
the only public force in Italy. Their self-confidence grew with their
power; and the desire of domination succeeded that of independence.
Those cities which had accumulated the most wealth, whose walls enclosed
the greatest population, attempted, from the first half of the twelfth
century, to secure by force of arms the obedience of such of the
neighbouring towns as did not appear sufficiently strong to resist them.
These greater cities had no intention to strip the smaller of their
liberty; their sole purpose was to force them into a perpetual alliance,
so as to share their good or evil fortune, and always place their armed
force under the standard of the dominant city.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[3] [“The archbishop of Milan was the most powerful prince when there was
not an Italian emperor or king of Italy in the north of the peninsula.
Milan owes almost all her glory to her archbishops.”--MILMAN, _History of
Latin Christianity_.]
[4] [The famous and splendid ceremony of the espousal of the doge with
the Adriatic was instituted to symbolise this conquest.]
[5] The following is a list of the doges of Venice from about the
beginning of the eighth to the close of the thirteenth centuries:
713, Paoluccio Anafesto; 717, Marcello Tegliano; 726, Orleo Orso; 737,
Orso killed--the republic ruled by annually elected _maestro della
milizia_; 742, Diodato Orso; 755, Galla Catanio; 756, Domenico Monegaro;
764, Maurizio Galbaio; 787, Giovanni Galbaio; 796, Maurizio Galbaio II
(associated); 804, Banishment of the Galbaii--Obelerio di Antenori,
Beato and Valentino di Antenori associated; 809, Angelo Badoer; 827,
Giustiniano Badoer; 829, Giovanni Badoer; 836, Pietro Tradenigo; 864,
Orso Badoer; 881, Giovanni Badoer II; 887, Pietro Sanudo; 888, Giovanni
Badoer II; Pietro Tribuno; 912, Orso Badoer II; 932, Pietro Sanudo II;
939, Pietro Badoer; 942, Pietro Sanudo III; 959, Pietro Sanudo IV; 976,
Pietro Orseolo I; 978, Vitale Sanudo; 979, Tribuno Memo; 991, Pietro
Orseolo II; 1008, Ottone Orseolo; 1026, Pietro Barbolano; 1033, Domenico
Flabenigo; 1043, Domenico Contarini; 1071, Domenico Selvo; 1084, Vitale
Falieri; 1096, Vitale Michieli; 1102, Orlando Falieri; 1117, Domenico
Michieli; 1130, Pietro Polani; 1148, Domenico Morosini; 1156, Vitale
Michieli II; 1173, Sebastiano Ziani; 1179, Orlio Malipiero; 1192, Henry
Dandolo; 1205, Pietro Ziani; 1229, Jacopo Tiepolo; 1249, Marino Morosini;
1252, Reniero Zeno; 1268, Lorenzo Tiepolo; 1275, Jacopo Contarini; 1280,
Giovanni Dandolo.
[Illustration]