CHAPTER I._The Conspiracy of Gianluigi Fieschi, or, Genoa in the sixteenth century.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

--Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

--Superscript letter “T” has been rendered as text^T.

THE CONSPIRACY

GIANLUIGI FIESCHI.

[Illustration:

Painted by Luca Combiaso Engraved by H. Adlard.

PORTRAIT OF FIESCHI AS S.^T GEORGE.

_SEE PAGE 195._]

SAMPSON LOW, SON & MARSTON, MILTON HOUSE, LUDGATE HILL, 1867

THE CONSPIRACY

GIANLUIGI FIESCHI,

OR,

GENOA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

EMANUELE CELESIA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN,

DAVID H. WHEELER.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, SON & MARSTON,

MILTON HOUSE, 59, LUDGATE HILL.

1866.

[_The Right of Translation is Reserved._]

PREFACE.

IT is perhaps matter for just surprise that English literature has been

so little enriched during the last quarter of a century by archivic

researches in Italy. While these studies have greatly modified the

views of Italian historians, it may be safely said that, with few

exceptions, English history of Italy remains substantially as it was in

1840. The conspiracy of Gianluigi Fieschi, now presented to the English

reading public, is one of those works which strongly mark the progress

of historical research in the Italian Peninsula; and though it treats

of an episode, that episode is so woven into the great events which

surrounded it as to give a vivid picture of the condition of Italy in

the sixteenth century. The work has therefore seemed to me to have

sufficient historical value to merit translation into our language.

I have been more influenced, however, by a desire to make some of those

who read only English acquainted with an Italian author who seems to

me entitled to a larger public than his own people. There is no good

reason why a greater number of Italian writers should not be favoured

with an English dress; and it is probably more the effect of accident

than want of merit in Italian writers that their works are much more

rare in our tongue than those of French and German authors. The younger

historical writers of the time, to which class M. Celesia belongs, have

peculiar claims upon our attention, because they are the first truly

independent writers of the Peninsula, and their works are the first

fruits of liberal institutions and a Free Press. It would be only a

first homage to their worth and sincere devotion to liberal principles

to translate their best works into our language rather than absorb the

substance of them into our own books. This reasoning has induced me to

turn aside for a little while from the labour of preparing a history of

Genoa to render M. Celesia’s beautiful Italian into an English, which I

freely confess to be imperfect in comparison with the original.

The first impression of the general reader may be that this book treats

of events so distant in time, and so different in moral scenery, from

the political and social conditions in which we live as to afford

little or no instruction to us. No history, except that of one’s own

country, affords precise forms in which to mould the present; and what

are called historical parallels do not really exist, since every series

of political events has peculiar elements which make close analogies

with any other series impossible. Those who quote events in the history

of other times and peoples as containing precise instruction for

present national action usually deceive their auditors all the more

completely from being deceived themselves. It is only in the abundant

matter of general principles that history contains lessons of political

wisdom. In this sense the work before the reader is not without

valuable instruction. M. Celesia has given us a view of the social and

political condition of the masses who have too often been excluded from

history because they had been excluded from power in the state.

We see, in fact, some painful scenes of that long tragedy which ended

in the disfranchisement of the Italians, in the very period when most

other European nations were making the bases of their institutions

broader by enlarging the liberties of their peoples; and we see clearly

that two vast despotisms--one reposing on a fiction of the continued

life of the Roman Empire and the other on a perversion of the principle

of Christian Authority--conspiring now together, now against each

other, bewildered the intellect and destroyed the political vitality of

Italy, gradually reducing her to a mere geographical expression. The

people struggled in vain, partly because they struggled blindly, partly

because a pernicious error placed them in exceptional conditions by

stripping them of a part of their rights avowedly in the interest of

humanity at large. So far this struggle was peculiar in form; but at

bottom it was a struggle for popular rights, and its disastrous close

is here shown to have been due to no fault of the people themselves. It

is just here that less than justice has been done to the Italians, and

this work well illustrates the stupendous falsehood which slew them.

Our interest in this error might be less if it were dead; but it lives

and embarasses the Italians of our own day. We have just been gravely

informed by a French statesmen[1] that Rome does not belong to Italy,

but to the whole catholic world; and the statement is a key not only

to current Italian difficulties but also to the failure of the nation

to keep pace with the rest of Europe in the sixteenth century. Then,

more than now, other nations conceived themselves to have a mission

to preserve institutions which Italy was disposed to condemn and

abolish. Then a larger number of Italians than now were bewildered by

the legal or historical claim set up for a dead Empire and a Christian

Church founded upon force, and in their bewilderment went over to their

enemies. But below all this, a brave people struck manful blows for

their salvation, and when they fell were suffocated with the terrible

doctrine that Italy does not belong to herself. The statement of Count

Persigny was and is, in its political significance, when applied to

Italian politics, exactly like a declaration that London does not

belong to England or Paris to France.

I do not forget that the falsehood has been acted upon as a truth in

Italy for some centuries; but political piracy cannot win the moral

approval of our times on the plea that it has been practised for a

long period. The real effect of the doctrine, whatever be its force

from a history made by applying it, is to condemn a whole people

to a certain dependence on other nations, to give France, Austria

and Spain--or to go back to the sixteenth century, France and the

Empire--rights or duties in Italy which must impair the rights of the

Italians. A creed which has this fatal element may be pushed to its

logical consequence--the assassination of a nation. In the sixteenth

century this was done. It was cruel--too cruel to be described--when

history accused the fallen of cowardice, incapacity for liberty and

superstitious devotion to Rome. From such atrocious slanders, the

Italians of the sixteenth century deserve a vindication. M. Celesia has

felt this part of his office so warmly that his word may seem those of

an advocate rather than of an historian to those who forget the wrongs

done to his people in the name of history. But he who fully weighs the

injustice against which our author protests will rather wonder at the

moderation and critical calmness of the greater part of the book than

complain of the glow of honest indignation which lights up some of his

periods.

The critical reader will regret that the work is not fortified by more

copious references. The truth is that it is not the fashion in Italy to

quote authorities, and the citations given were prepared by the author

for this edition. I have added a few explanatory foot-notes; but the

reader is referred for fuller information regarding events in earlier

Genoese history to a forthcoming work on that subject.

D. H. WHEELER.

GENOA, _June, 1865_.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE COUNTS OF LAVAGNA.

The Valley of Entella and Lavagna--The Origin of the Counts of

Fieschi--Their Conflicts with the Commune of Genoa--The Treaty

of Peace between the Fieschi and Genoa--Civil Contentions--The

Riches and Power of the Counts Fieschi--Innocent IV. and Hadrian

V.--Cardinal Gianluigi Fieschi--The Fieschi Bishops and Lords of

Vercelli and Biella--Famous Fieschi Warriors--Isabella, wife of

Lucchino Visconti--St. Catherine--The Arms of the Family--Liberality

and munificence of the Fieschi--Gianluigi II.--Sinibaldo, lord of

thirty-three walled castles.

CHAPTER II.

THE ITALIAN STATES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Leo X., and his false glories--Desperate condition of the Italian

states in the sixteenth century--Their aversion to the Austrian

power--The Sack of Rome--Wars and Plagues--Charles V. and Francis

I.--The Despotism of Christian powers causes Italian peoples to

desire the yoke of the Turks--The Papal theocracy renews with the

empire the compact of Charlemagne.

CHAPTER III.

ANDREA DORIA AND THE REPUBLIC OF GENOA.

The Nobles and the People--Andrea Doria and his first

enterprises--How he abandoned France, and went over to the

Emperor--Accusations and opinions with regard to his motives--The

laws of the _Union_ destroyed the popular, and created the

aristocratic Government--The objects of Doria in contrast with those

of the Genoese Government and the Italian Republics--The lieutenants

of Andrea and his naval forces--Popular movements arrested by bloody

vengeance.

CHAPTER IV.

GIANLUIGI FIESCHI.

Maria della Rovere and her children--The natural gifts of

Gianluigi--Andrea Doria prevents his marriage with the daughter

of Prince Centurione--Gianluigi’s first quarrels with Gianettino

Doria--Naval battle of Giralatte and capture of the corsair

Torghud Rais--Count Fieschi espouses Eleonora of the Princes of

Cybo--The hill of Carignano in the early part of the sixteenth

century--Sumptuousness of the Fieschi palace--Gianluigi, Pansa and

other distinguished men--Female writers--Eleonora Fieschi and her

rhymes.

CHAPTER V.

THE PLOTS OF FIESCHI.

The political ideas of the sixteenth century--The advice of Donato

Gianotto to the Italians--Generous aims of Gianluigi Fieschi--His

reported plots with Cesare Fregoso disproved--The conspiracy with

Pietro Strozzi a fable--Fieschi has secret conferences with Barnaba

Adorno, lord of Silvano--Pier Luca Fieschi and his part in the

conspiracy of Gianluigi--The Count sends Cagnino Gonzaga to treat

with France--The purchase of the Farnesian galleys--Francesco

Burlamacchi.

CHAPTER VI.

PAUL THIRD.

He aspires to grandeur for his family--His hostility to the emperor

and to Doria--He encourages Gianluigi in his designs against the

imperial rule in Genoa--Attempts of Cardinal Trivulzio to induce

Fieschi to give Genoa to France--France is induced by the count to

relinquish her hopes of obtaining Genoa--Verrina and his spirited

counsels--Vengeance of Gianluigi against Giovanni Battista della

Torre.

CHAPTER VII.

PREPARATIONS.

Character of the Fieschi family--Gianluigi acquires the friendship of

the silk operatives and other plebeians--The Duke of Piacenza selects

the count to arbitrate his differences with the Pallavicini--Secret

understandings between the count and the duke--Gianluigi puts

his castles in a condition for war--Gianettino Doria, to pave

the way to supreme power gives Captain Lercaro an order to kill

Fieschi--Industry of Verrina--The decisions of history on the merits

of Fieschi should be made in view of the political doctrines of the

sixteenth century.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SUPPER IN VIALATA.

Bloody propositions attributed to Verrina--The count repulses all

treacherous plans--New schemes--The conspirators introduced into the

city--Gianluigi pays his respects to Prince Doria--Gianettino removes

the suspicions of Giocante and Doria--The supper of Gianluigi--The

guests embrace the conspiracy--Eleonora Cybo and her presentiments.

CHAPTER IX.

THE NIGHT OF THE SECOND OF JANUARY.

Measures taken by the Count--Occupation of the gate of the Archi

and of San Tommaso--Death of Gianettino Doria--Fieschi did not seek

the death of prince Doria--Schemes of Paolo Lavagna--Taking of the

arsenal--Fall and death of Gianluigi--Flight of Andrea Doria to

Masone--The place where Gianluigi was drowned--The several arsenals

of Genoa--The death of Count Fieschi deemed a misfortune by the

Italians.

CHAPTER X.

COMPROMISES AND PUNISHMENTS.

Gerolamo Fieschi continues the insurrection in his own

name--Consultations at the Ducal palace and fighting at San Siro--The

news of the death of Gianluigi discourages the insurgents--Paolo

Panza carries to Gerolamo the decree of pardon--Verrina and others

set sail for France--The African slaves escape with Doria’s

galley--Sack of Doria’s galleys--Return of Andrea and his thirst for

vengeance--Decree of condemnation--Scipione Fieschi and his petitions

to the Senate--Schemes and intrigues of Doria to get possession of

the Fieschi estates--Destruction of the palace in Vialata--Traditions

and legends.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CASTLE OF MONTOBBIO.

Count Gerolamo declines propositions of the government--Intrigue of

the imperial party and revolutionary tendencies of the populace--The

Republic is induced by Andrea Doria to assault Montobbio--The

count’s preparations for defence--Verrina and Assereto assigned

to the command of the works--Andrea induces the government to

decline negotiations with Fieschi--Agostino Spinola closely

invests the castle--Mutiny of the mercenaries of the count--He

offers to surrender the castle on condition of security for the

lives and property of the beseiged--Opposition of Doria to this

stipulation--The treason of his mercenaries compels Fieschi to

surrender--Doria, notwithstanding the entreaties of the government,

treats the defeated Fieschi with great cruelty--Punishment of the

Count of Verrina and other accomplices--Raffaele Sacco and his

letters--The castle of Montobbio razed to the foundations.

CHAPTER XII.

PIER LUIGI FARNESE.

The ferocity and excesses of Andrea Doria--The benefits which he

derived from the fall of the Fieschi--The Farnesi participated in

Genoese conspiracies--Schemes of Andrea Doria against the duke

of Piacenza--Landi is instigated by Andrea to kill the duke--The

assassination of Pierluigi--The assassins and the brief of Paul III.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE NOBLES AND THE PLEBEIANS.

Intrigues of Figuerroa and the nobility--The law of Garibetto--New

efforts of Spain to give Genoa the character of a Duchy--The firmness

of the senate and Andrea foils the scheme of Don Filippo--The

reception of the Spaniards by Doria and by the people--Sad story of a

daughter of the Calvi--Don Bernardino Mendozza and his relations with

Prince Doria--Baneful influence of the Spanish occupation.

CHAPTER XIV.

PRINCE GIULIO CYBO.

The revolt of Naples--Andrea Doria subdues it--Plots of the

exiles against his life--Giulio Cybo seizes the feud of Massa and

Carrara--His schemes for revolutionizing the Republic--Conference

of the Genoese exiles in Venice--Capture of Cybo--Doria labours

to have the emperor condemn Giulio to death--Punishment of

Cybo and his accomplices--Letter of Paul Spinola to the

Genoese government--Scipione Fieschi and his disputes with the

Republic--Maria della Rovere--Eleonora Fieschi; her second marriage

and death.

CHAPTER XV.

SIENA, THE FIESCHI AND SAMPIERO.

Ravages of the Barbary Corsairs--Bartolomeo Magiocco and the Duke of

Savoy--The conference of Chioggia--Siege of Siena--Doria assassinates

Ottobuono Fieschi--Sampiero di Bastelica and his memorable fight with

Spanish knights--Revolts in Corsica--Vannina d’Ornano--The Fieschi

faction unites with Sampiero--Ferocity of Stefano Doria--Sampiero is

betrayed--Pier Luca Fieschi and his career.

CHAPTER XVI.

JACOPO BONFADIO.

Bonfadio executed in prison and his body burned--Errors in regard to

the year of his death--The causes of his arrest and punishment--He

was not guilty of the vices ascribed to him--The true cause of his

ruin was his Annals--The pretence for his condemnation was his

Protestant opinions.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SPANISH DOMINION IN LIGURIA.

The Fieschi at the court of France--Louis XIV. supports their

claims--Bad effects of the law of Garibetto--Severe laws against

the Plebeians--Death of Andrea Doria--Estimate of his public

services--New commotions--Magnanimity of the people--The old nobles

make open war on the Republic--Treaty of Casale in 1576--The Spanish

power in Italy, particularly in Liguria--Aragonese manners corrupt

our people--New taxes and customs--The nobility accepts the fashions,

manners and vices of the Spaniards--Change of the character of the

Genoese people--Last splendours of Italian genius.

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

CATILINE AND FIESCHI COMPARED.--CATILINE’S AIMS OF A GENEROUS

CHARACTER.--FIESCHI SOUGHT TO FREE HIS COUNTRY FROM THE SPANISH

YOKE.--HISTORY UNJUST TO THE VANQUISHED.--SOURCES OF THIS

HISTORY.--MATERIALS FOR THE FUTURE HISTORIAN OF ITALY.

IT would be difficult to find in the history of the sixteenth century

a name more fiercely assailed than that of Gianluigi Fieschi. From

Bonfadio down to the most recent historians, the Count of Lavagna has

received the same treatment at the hands of our writers which the

learned vulgar are accustomed to give to Catiline. This levity of

judgment is a new proof that history is too high a pursuit for servile

minds.

The classic invectives of Cicero and the glittering falsehoods of

Sallust, both written with masterly eloquence, and their echo taken up

by inferior writers have disfigured the manly form of Sergius, and his

cause, supported by the most generous and cultivated Romans, has come

down to us described as the base plot of abandoned men.

Catiline could not have been base. He was illustrious by birth,

well-known for his talents and powerful on account of his numerous

dependants and friends. He stood on the last round of the ladder

leading to the consulship and was supported by knights and senators;

by Antonius Geta, Lentulus, Cethegus and even by Cæsar who was

no stranger to the conspiracy. Crassus favoured him, though he

afterwards turned informer against the conspirators. Entire colonies

and Municipalities supported him. In upper Spain, Gneus Piso, in

Mauritania, Publius Sittius Nucerinus and the legions were his

partisans; in fine, he was the head of all the reformers of Italy and

Gaul.

I do not excuse his violence, his disorderly life and his vices;

though we know of these only through his enemies. But his aims were

unquestionably high and noble. Roman liberty was buried in his tomb

and not even the dagger of Junius Brutus could recall her to life.

I hold it incontestable that the movement, far from being a plot of

reckless men, was general and spontaneous towards that freedom which

Lucius Sylla had extinguished in blood; a movement for which there was

crying urgency in Italy, where crowds of slaves were supplanting the

Latin races, and throughout the dominions of the Republic. In vain have

cunning rhetoricians taught us to execrate the name of the great Roman,

the last of the Tribunes. He has left for history a page written with

his own blood which is more lasting than all envy. It shows us one who

fell dead on the same ground where he steadfastly fought, displaying in

his last hour an heroism which is inconsistent with the crimes coupled

with his name.

Cicero himself tells us that the friendship of Catiline had such

fascinations that he had barely escaped its influence. It may be true

that his pallid face, his fierce eyes and his nervous step, now

quick, now slow, terrified the publicans and patricians of Rome; but

none can believe that he butchered his own son, immolated victims to

the silver eagle of Marius, or handed round in nocturnal conventicles

a cup full of foaming blood. Catiline was a bad man because he was

vanquished; but Salvator Rosa, the soldier and painter of Masaniello,

when he drew Catiline as a stern and magnanimous man did not believe

him a low plotter, and the great captain of our century declared that

he preferred the part of the great Latin conspirator to that of the

versatile Tully.

The character of the Count of Lavagna has been depicted in similar

colours by servile writers skilful in inventing calumnies. Catiline

and Fieschi had the same ambition and a common aim. The former, in

his familiar letters to Lentulus which were published in the Senate,

declared that no venal ambition led him to make war. He said that his

estates were security for his debts and that the liberality and wealth

of Orestilla and his daughter would provide for any deficiency. He

averred, he was impelled by wrongs and slanders, that he made the cause

of the unfortunate his own, because he was defrauded of the fruit of

his labours, and, while he was falsely suspected, was forced to see

base men taking his place.

The same is true of Fieschi, whose death, Gianettino Doria had sworn.

In Genoa, not less than in Rome, a partisan contest between the

nobles and the people had lasted for centuries. Here, after the civil

conflagrations, as after the scourgings of Rome by Marius and Sylla,

liberty gradually expired. In both Republics, the people were bowed

down by the insolence of the great. They were deprived of all share in

the government, and corrupt ambition had unbounded sway. In Liguria,

Andrea Doria had completed the triumph of the party of the nobles and

imperialists and the ruin of popular liberty. Though he forbore to

assume a princely title, he was a true king in authority, his nephew

aspired to regal honours, and every popular right was trampled down by

the Spanish power. According to Bonfadio this subjection was too bitter

for the great soul of the Count Lavagna long to endure the humiliation.

But his enemies wrote, and by a thousand channels circulated, the most

incredible things as parts of his designs:--That he attempted by base

intrigues to ruin the Republic, that he aimed to seduce it to servitude

to his family or to France, to exterminate the Doria family, to lay

bloody and felonious hands on the bank of St. George, to put the city

to fire and sack. The decrees and official reports of the Republic do

not warrant such statements, and a theory more honourable to him is

justified by the gentleness of his character, by the Guelph traditions

of his house, by the fact that he prevented the murder of Doria, in his

palace, and by the conspiracy itself, the fury of which was directed

against the ships of Doria, sparing those of the Republic.

It was necessary for Doria that black designs should be attributed

to Fieschi, otherwise his fearful vengeance would have been

unjustifiable. The slander was profitable also to the Spanish Cæsar,

for it took away from his path a powerful family opposed to the

Aragonese power in Italy. And as matter of fact, these idle tales,

written in Genoa and diffused in France and Spain, were never believed

among us. The greater part of the patricians did not credit them for

they were Fieschi’s friends and would have saved him if the overbearing

spirit of Doria had not imposed his will upon the senate. Such slanders

found no credit with the people, who placed their love upon that

philanthropic family and perpetuated its memory in national songs.

Catiline and Fieschi intended to awaken in their native lands the love

of expiring liberty, and in that aim they had the support of many

nobles and of the people. The pride of Roman patricians could bend to

an alliance with the people, but they scorned to share their rights

with foreign slaves. The Count of Lavagna grasped the hand of the

people, but he refused the alliance of France. This fact testifies for

both to the honesty of their designs; for to a traitor all paths are

good so they but lead to his end.

Catiline, slandered by Cicero upon the rostrum, fulminates in his turn

against his detractor, and though he quits Rome unattended, his exit

is imposing and momentous. Fieschi, bending to the necessities of his

time, found more quiet and secret paths to his end; and when accused

by the minister of Cæsar with seeking to foment a revolution, he

confronted Andrea Doria with a frankness which eluded the Admiral’s

keen vigilance. From the blood of Catiline sprung the dictatorship of

Cæsar; from that of Fieschi, the oligarchic government and the Spanish

dominion in Genoa.

Doria, becoming the supporter and partisan of Charles V. and Phillip

II. prevented Genoa from entering into the league of the Italian

Republics against the Spanish yoke. Genoa, united to the enemies of

Florence and Siena in the time of those memorable sieges, allied

with the enemies of Naples when that people was rising for liberty,

the friend of all the enemies of Italy, dates from that period her

unfortunate decline. The movement of Fieschi, if he had accepted the

alliance of France, might have averted the catastrophe. The French

and Republican league might have extirpated the Spanish power in the

Peninsula, and saved Italy from forging her own chains. It might have

spared Genoa her struggles with the Barbary states, the revolt of the

Corsicans, the decline of her commerce with the East and the most

disastrous of all her civil tumults.

The Genoese people struggled long against that fatal alliance, cemented

with their blood, which Fieschi strove to break. They left no means

untried to dissolve it, using now supplication, now the sword and the

scaffold. And for more than two centuries, a half subdued populace

never grew weary of pouring its indignant complaints into the ear of

the nobility. I have compared Catiline and Fieschi. The resemblance

has not escaped historians. But their works and discourses have been

reported, and judged by their enemies and by the faction which they

strove to displace from power. The name of Count Fieschi waits to be

rehabilitated by time which cancels great wrongs, impartially dispenses

praise and blame, and gives each man that place in the esteem of

posterity which his works merit.

From the earliest times our country was lacerated by two hostile

factions. There were annalists and writers who recorded and magnified

the exploits of those belonging to their party and silently passed over

the praiseworthy actions of their political opponents. Procopius and

Iornandes represent the two creeds which in their time were contending

for the support of the nation. Anastaius is the biographer of the

Popes, as Paul Diacono is of the Longobardic kings. In every province

there were Malaspini and Dino Compagni, imperialists, fighting against

the Guelph and Republican spirit of the three Villani. From the union

of these hostile elements come forth the critical historian of the

nation--Macchiavelli. But when the Germanic irruption cut the nerves of

the Latin traditions, when Charles V. and Andrea Doria reestablished

the foreign power in Italy, the Guelph spirit was silenced, the Journal

killed, the Chronicle and official falsehoods so misrepresented events

as to render history nearly impossible. John Mark Burigozzo, a Lombard

shopkeeper, was the last annalist who recorded the sorrows of the

people. Then came classic, courtly and salaried historians--history

written by the victors. There is need of great caution in reading the

verdict of a history written with the sword. “Woe to the vanquished” in

history as on the battle-field. Corrupt ages praise successful crimes,

and it is only by great effort that after times emancipate themselves

from these servile adulations. There is a coward instinct in man which

prompts him to applaud force and despise the fallen. The conscientious

historian should enter his free protest against such dishonourable

acquiescence in forced verdicts. It is time that history should be

relieved from the tyranny of eloquent but mendacious tongues, and many

powerful ones should be deposed from ill-gotten thrones. It is time to

ask of many who have been called heroes what use they made of their

swords and how they served Italy, and to concede--the supreme right of

misfortune--a tardy tribute of regret to one who fell victim to a high

and generous purpose.

What is the verdict recorded against Fieschi?

Among the writers who were his contemporaries stand foremost, Bonfadio,

Campanaceo, Sigonio, Capelloni, Foglietta, Mascardi and Casoni. I do

not mention foreigners, first among whom are Tuano and the Cardinal de

Retz. I omit, too, the modern writers, since they have all followed

with the assiduity of copyists the earlier historians, making no

effort to study the public archives or even to criticise the text

which they copied. Nevertheless, it is important to give the reader

some account of the historians of that epoch; since the first duty of

one who attempts to describe past events is to employ criticism in its

widest sense, and so to separate the true from the false. Nor can

this be done without carefully weighing the credibility of authors who

have gone this way before us and taking account of the passions which

governed them when they wrote.

The first historian of Fieschi was Bonfadio who was employed by the

senate to write the annals of the Republic. He was a witness of the

events which he described and on the very night of the rising, he

went to the senate in company with Giovanni Battista Grimaldi. Yet

we can yield him little faith; since, writing at the command of the

government, he could not do less than speak harshly of the government’s

enemies. He confesses that he had not in his hands the records of

the conspirators’ trial. He ignores many facts, and never names the

accomplices of Fieschi, scarcely suspecting that there were any. Having

a mania for classic imitation, and borne away by the current of his

times, he depicts Gianluigi as a man thirsting for base deeds and for

blood; so, that if his immortal pages served to render the memory of

Fieschi odious at a time when men had little concern for the honour

of the vanquished, they are certainly too careless and too partial to

satisfy the future. The unfortunate author, who was truthful in all

other matters and failed in this only, because it treated of a plot

against the powerful Doria, reaped bitter fruits for his great bias

against Fieschi.

Not less unjust was Giuseppe Mario Campanaceo, who added to his history

of the conspiracy a comparison between it and that of Catiline. “Both,”

he says, “sprung from noble stock. Both were crushed under the ruin

they plotted for others. In the one, a fierce look, a sanguinary

countenance; in the other, a singular beauty and a virginal candour.

The Roman was stained with bloody and licentious deeds; the Genoese

bore the fame of goodness of heart and grace of manners. The Roman was

verging towards age; the Genoese was in the freshness of his youth, yet

he surpassed the conspirator of the Tiber as much in deceitfulness as

Catiline excelled him in warlike exploits.”

If on minor points the narration of this writer is more accurate, it

still bears the seal of the degraded time in which it was written.

Though the author professes to have taken great pains to discover the

truth, having spent a long time in Genoa for that purpose, it is very

easy to see that he did not escape the contagion of party feeling and

of the malevolence of the faction then dominant in Liguria. It is not

strange, therefore, that he finds a mean and avaricious spirit in

Gianluigi, while he describes Gianettino as an illustrious victim,

rather, as the most virtuous knight of all Christendom.

Carlo Sigonio, in his life of Andrea Doria, and, among Genoese writers,

Oberto Foglietto have treated the matter with elegance of diction but

with unblushing plagiarism.

The same may be said of Lorenzo Capelloni, who described the conspiracy

of Fieschi in a report to Charles V. He was too devoted to Cæsar, and

to Doria, whose life he wrote, not to imitate the others whom we

have mentioned in treating the attempt of Fieschi as a plot of like

character with that of Cybo which he also described.

Agostino Mascardi, who was more of a rhetorician than an historian,

tells us nothing new. Casoni was less devoted to the Spanish power and

therefore more humane towards Fieschi, but he adopted without question

the opinion professed by the party in power who never opened the

archives of the state for the study of the historian.

We therefore conclude that a prudent and impartial criticism forbids

us to give full faith to those who have given to Count Fieschi a

dishonourable place in history.

In our opinion two qualifications are essential to the historian:--That

he be able to collect the most accurate accounts of the facts, and

that party spirit do not cloud the serenity of his mind. The writers

whom we have mentioned lack these credentials. In fact, after studying

the annals of the sixteenth century, we are satisfied that most of

them were ignorant of the true causes of events. Sometimes they knew

only a part of the facts; sometimes, acting under the influence of

personal or political jealousy, they betrayed the truth by silence,

by misrepresentation or by additions of what would serve their own

purposes or the wishes of their masters.

The reader must judge whether we have truly balanced the account.

We see, from what has been said, that it was impossible Fieschi should

have had truthful historians in the provinces ruled by Charles V. It

was not to be expected in Genoa, where the supreme authority of the

Dorias compelled even the least servile writers to the most skilful

management of conscience and speech.

Neither in Tuscany, where the seeds of the Medicean tyranny were

already springing up; not in Lombardy, which was the battle-ground of

the two opposing factions; not in the kingdom of Naples tossed like a

foot-ball from one master to another, but at the moment in the grasp of

Cæsar. Finally, not in Rome where the Spanish government, in its war to

the death upon the spirit of civil and religious liberty, found a swift

accomplice in the Papal court which employed the zeal and devotion

of its inquisitors in consigning to the flames both books and their

authors. It is enough that no writer in Italy was permitted to answer

the blind devotee of Rome, Baronius.

A few noble spirits arose to tell the truth of the Austro-Spanish

power; such as Bandello, Ariosto, Boccalini and Tassoni; nevertheless

in the period between Charles V. and the middle of the 17th century no

true light of history shone on the Peninsula.

Learned and literary men lived in the courts, then the only dispensers

of fame, and writers were more valued for their promptness in serving

masters than for their mental acquirements. Even the best writers

exhausted their ambition in the chase for courtly favour. It is not

true that the protection of princes was useful to letters and arts;

it only seduced them from the path of duty. Truth was banished from

books because it displeased our masters, and history was sure to be

smothered if it contained more than panegyric. Spanish wordiness

had corrupted liberal studies and Italians were no longer honestly

indignant against the oppressors of their country. They descended from

employing their imaginations in intellectual creations to pandering to

the senses. Literary entertainments, like falcons and buffoons, served

for the sport of courtiers, as an instrument of corruption rather than

a stimulant to generous pursuits. Intellect being thus prostrated,

Fieschi could find no historian courageous enough to clear away the

falsehoods that blackened his fame and constrain his calumniators to

an honest confession. Cybo, Farnese, and whoever else, following the

footsteps of Fieschi, opposed at the price of their lives Spanish

influence, shared the historical misfortune of the Count of Lavagna.

It was necessary, then, to rewrite this history and I resolved to

attempt the task. There are subjects (and the conspiracy of Fieschi

is one of them) which seen from a distance fill us with apprehension,

but when we approach and handle them, the alarm which possessed us

generally disappears. I approached my subject with honest boldness

and having studied it intimately, I have dared to rebel against the

common opinion of the learned. If it were necessary to quote all the

authorities for a conviction so opposed to the current of corrupted

history the list would be too long. I, therefore appeal to the

cultivated who will, I hope, bear me witness that very little within

the range of the subject has escaped my notice. I ought, however, to

remark that the Archives of Madrid and Paris have furnished me with

foreign notices of the revolts of Fieschi and his partisans, and

that more perfect information has been obtained from the Archives

of Genoa, Florence, Parma, Massa and Carrara, and from some codexes

and manuscripts which once belonged to Cardinal Adriano Fieschi (the

last of the Savignone branch of the Fieschi family) whose heir, Count

Alessandro Negri di S. Front, kindly permitted me to consult them at

my pleasure. I render him my most hearty thanks. I have drawn other

materials from the writings of the sacred college of Padua in favour

of the Republic and the pleadings of the famous jurists who sustained

the Fieschi party. Many other notices have been taken from private

libraries in Genoa, which are at once so numerous and so difficult of

access. Some documents very favourable to the cause of Fieschi were

recently published by the erudite Bernardo Brea, but the greater part

of them were already familiar to me; for the history which I now send

to the press was written several years ago--a proof of which is that

many extracts from it were then published in the journals. It is hardly

worth while to dwell upon the reasons which kept me from publishing the

work: The times were not, and are not, propitious to historic studies;

yet I am forced in my own despite to bring my manuscript to light, lest

I be accused of treading in the footsteps of a great author who has

recently removed many a stain from the name of Fieschi and lashed his

detractors with the severest condemnation.[2]

A modest cultivator of peaceful studies, I do not fear that any will

suspect me of aiming to destroy the reverence due to a great name;

or that I shall receive the sentence pronounced by Richelieu, who,

on reading the conspiracy of Fieschi written by Cardinal de Retz in

his youth, prophesied that the author would develop a turbulent and

revolutionary spirit.

My humble condition and the honesty of my intentions render me safe

from similar vacticinations. Though in my opinions upon the conspiracy

I depart from the paths beaten by other writers, it is not without

adequate reasons. I feel that the religion of truth, has had hitherto

too few worshippers, that reverence for the unfortunate great of Italy

has been long put under ban, and do not hesitate to say that if what

I shall dare to write was not unknown by others it was most certainly

concealed. What were the aims of Fieschi? What of Andrea Doria? Whither

tended the uprising of the people? Who breathed life into the cause of

national independence? To these questions, so far as I know, no one

has yet made a sufficient answer; and, indeed, how can one write of

Fieschi and Doria without investigating their personal motives, prying

into the secrets of their hearts? Our historians, copying each other

and compressing the tragedy of a century into a few pages, have given

us only the conspiracy and the uprising, that is the least philosophic

moment. For us, history begins where the strife ends. The designs

which animate the combatants do not die with them, and they expand into

the most interesting questions. Let the writer who does not feel the

greatness of his mission shun these questions, I prefer that the reader

shall not believe me a timorous friend of truth.

If once terror chained men’s souls, if great names could not be

discussed, to-day, delivered from the febrile excitements of our

predecessors, we may freely praise and blame the men and deeds of three

centuries ago.

Nor is this all. A general history of Italy remains to be written, and

the materials are scattered in the archives of our communes. Italy will

write it when she shall have secured independence and a true national

unity. In the meantime, mindful of the saying of Vico that, “we ought

to seek for minute notices of facts and their antecedents rather than

general causes and events, since by an accurate study of the facts

themselves it becomes easy to find the causes and to clear up effects

which often seem incredible to us,” I have devoted my utmost strength

to removing a portion of that veil which covers the name of Fieschi,

happy if I am able in this effort to correct some erroneous opinions

and to prepare matter for the future historian of the nation.