THE FLORENTINE HISTORIANS.
Florence, the City of Intelligence--Cupidity, Curiosity, and the Love of
Beauty--Florentine Historical Literature--Philosophical Study of
History--Ricordano Malespini--Florentine History compared with the
Chronicles of other Italian Towns--The Villani--The Date
1300--Statistics--Dante's Political Essays and Pamphlets--Dino
Compagni--Latin Histories of Florence in Fifteenth Century--Lionardo
Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini--The Historians of the First Half of the
Sixteenth Century--Men of Action and Men of Letters: the
Doctrinaires--Florence between 1494 and 1537--Varchi, Segni, Nardi,
Pitti, Nerli, Guicciardini--The Political Importance of these
Writers--The Last Years of Florentine Independence, and the Siege of
1529--State of Parties--Filippo Strozzi--Different Views of Florentine
Weakness taken by the Historians--Their Literary Qualities--Francesco
Guicciardini and Niccolo Machiavelli--Scientific Statists--Discord
between Life and Literature--The Biography of Guicciardini--His 'Istoria
d'Italia,' 'Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze,' 'Storia Fiorentina,'
'Ricordi'--Biography of Machiavelli--His Scheme of a National
Militia--Dedication of 'The Prince'--Political Ethics of the Italian
Renaissance--The Discorsi--The Seven Books on the Art of War and the
'History of Florence.'
Florence was essentially the city of intelligence in modern times. Other
nations have surpassed the Italians in their genius--the quality which
gave a superhuman power of insight to Shakespeare and an universal
sympathy to Goethe. But nowhere else except at Athens has the whole
population of a city been so permeated with ideas, so highly
intellectual by nature, so keen in perception, so witty and so subtle,
as at Florence. The fine and delicate spirit of the Italians existed in
quintessence among the Florentines. And of this superiority not only
they but the inhabitants also of Rome and Lombardy and Naples, were
conscious. Boniface VIII., when he received the ambassadors of the
Christian powers in Rome on the occasion of the Jubilee in 1300,
observed that all of them were citizens of Florence. The witticism which
he is said to have uttered, _i Fiorentini essere il quinto elemento_,
'that the men of Florence form a fifth element,' passed into a proverb.
The primacy of the Florentines in literature, the fine arts, law,
scholarship, philosophy, and science was acknowledged throughout Italy.
When the struggle for existence has been successfully terminated, and
the mere instinct of self-preservation no longer absorbs the activities
of a people, then the three chief motive forces of civilization begin to
operate. These are cupidity, or the desire of wealth and all that it
procures; curiosity, or the desire to discover new facts about the world
and man; and the love of beauty, which is the parent of all art.
Commerce, philosophy, science, scholarship, sculpture, architecture,
painting, music, poetry, are the products of these ruling
impulses--everything in fact which gives a higher value to the life of
man. Different nations have been swayed by these passions in different
degrees. The artistic faculty, which owes its energy to the love of
beauty, has been denied to some; the philosophic faculty, which starts
with curiosity, to others; and some again have shown but little capacity
for amassing wealth by industry or calculation. It is rare to find a
whole nation possessed of all in an equal measure of perfection. Such,
however, were the Florentines.[1] The mere sight of the city and her
monuments would suffice to prove this. But we are not reduced to the
necessity of divining what Florence was by the inspection of her
churches, palaces, and pictures. That marvelous intelligence which was
her pride, burned brightly in a long series of historians and annalists,
who have handed down to us the biography of the city in volumes as
remarkable for penetrative acumen as for definite delineation and
dramatic interest. We possess picture-galleries of pages in which the
great men of Florence live again and seem to breathe and move, epics of
the commonwealth's vicissitudes from her earliest commencement, detailed
tragedies and highly finished episodes, studies of separate characters,
and idylls detached from the main current of her story. The whole mass
of this historical literature is instinct with the spirit of criticism
and vital with experience. The writers have been either actors or
spectators of the drama. Trained in the study of antiquity, as well as
in the council-chambers of the republic and in the courts of foreign
princes, they survey the matter of their histories from a lofty vantage
ground, fortifying their speculative conclusions by practical knowledge
and purifying their judgment of contemporary events with the philosophy
of the past. Owing to this rare mixture of qualities, the Florentines
deserve to be styled the discoverers of the historic method for the
modern world. They first perceived that it is unprofitable to study the
history of a state in isolation, that not wars and treaties only, but
the internal vicissitudes of the commonwealth, form the real subject
matter of inquiry,[2] and that the smallest details, biographical,
economical, or topographical, may have the greatest value. While the
rest of Europe was ignorant of statistics, and little apt to pierce
below the surface of events to the secret springs of conduct, in
Florence a body of scientific historians had gradually been formed, who
recognized the necessity of basing their investigations upon a diligent
study of public records, state-papers, and notes of contemporary
observers.[3] The same men prepared themselves for the task of criticism
by a profound study of ethical and political philosophy in the works of
Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and Tacitus.[4] They examined the methods of
classical historians, and compared the annals of Greece, Rome, and
Palestine with the chronicles of their own country. They attempted to
divine the genius and to characterize the special qualities of the
nations, cities, and individuals of whom they had to treat.[5] At the
same time they spared no pains in seeking out persons possessed of
accurate knowledge in every branch of inquiry that came beneath their
notice, so that their treatises have the freshness of original documents
and the charm of personal memoirs. Much, as I have elsewhere noted, was
due to the peculiarly restless temper of the Florentines, speculative,
variable, unquiet in their politics. The very qualities which exposed
the commonwealth to revolutions, developed the intelligence of her
historians; her want of stability was the price she paid for
intellectual versatility and acuteness unrivaled in modern times. '"_O
ingenia magis acria quam matura_," said Petrarch, and with truth, about
the wits of the Florentines; for it is their property by nature to have
more of liveliness and acumen than of maturity or gravity.'[6]
[1] Since the Greeks, no people have combined curiosity and the love
of beauty, the scientific and the artistic sense, in the same
proportions as the Florentines.
[2] See Machiavelli's critique of Lionardo d'Arezzo and Messer
Poggio, in the Proemio to his _Florentine History_. His own
conception of history, as the attempt to delineate the very spirit
of a nation, is highly philosophical.
[3] The high sense of the requirements of scientific history
attained by the Italians is shown by what Giovio relates of Gian
Galeazzo's archives (_Vita di Gio. Galeazzo_, p. 107). After
describing these, he adds: 'talche, chi volesse scrivere un'
historia giusta non potrebbe desiderare altronde nè più abbondante
nè più certa materia; perciocchè da questi libri facilissimamente si
traggono le cagioni delle guerre, i consigli, e i successi dell'
imprese.' The Proemio to Varchi's _Storie Fiorentine_ (vol. i. pp.
42-44), which gives an account of his preparatory labors, is an
unconscious treatise on the model historian. Accuracy, patience,
love of truth, sincerity in criticism, and laborious research, have
all their proper place assigned to them. Compare Guicciardini,
_Ricordi_, No. cxliii., for sound remarks upon the historian's duty
of collecting the statistics of his own age and country.
[4] The prefaces to Giannotti's critiques of Florence and of Venice
show how thoroughly his mind had been imbued with the _Politics_ of
Aristotle. Varchi acknowledges the direct influence of Polybius and
Tacitus. Livy is Machiavelli's favorite.
[5] On this point the Relazioni of Italian ambassadors are
invaluable. What dryly philosophical compendia are the notes of
Machiavelli upon the French Court and Cesare Borgia! How astute are
the Venetian letters on the opinions and qualities of the Roman
Prelates!
[6] Guicc. _Ricordi_, cciii. _Op. Ined._ vol. i. p. 229.
The year 1300 marks the first development of historical research in
Florence. Two great writers, Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Villani, at
this epoch pursued different lines of study, which determined the future
of this branch of literature for the Italians. It is not
uncharacteristic of Florentine genius that while the chief city of
Tuscany was deficient in historians of her achievements before the date
which I have mentioned, her first essays in historiography should have
been monumental and standard-making for the rest of Italy. Just as the
great burghs of Lombardy attained municipal independence somewhat
earlier than those of Tuscany, so the historic sense developed itself in
the valley of the Po at a period when the valley of the Arno had no
chronicler. Sire Raul and Ottone Morena, the annalists of Milan, Fra
Salimbene, the sagacious and comprehensive historian of Parma,
Rolandino, to whom we owe the chronicle of Ezzelino and the tragedy of
the Trevisan Marches, have no rivals south of the Apennines in the
thirteenth century. Even the Chronicle of the Malespini family, written
in the vulgar tongue from the beginning of the world to the year 1281,
which occupies 146 volumes of Muratori's Collection, and which used to
be the pride of Tuscan antiquarians, has recently been shown to be in
all probability a compilation based upon the Annals of Villani.[1] This
makes the clear emergence of a scientific sense for history in the year
1300 at Florence all the more remarkable. In order to estimate the high
quality of the work achieved by the Villani it is only necessary to turn
the pages of some early chronicles of sister cities which still breathe
the spirit of unintelligent mediæval industry, before the method of
history had been critically apprehended. The naïveté of these records
may be appreciated by the following extracts. A Roman writes[2]: 'I
Lodovico Bonconte Monaldeschi was born in Orvieto, and was brought up in
the city of Rome, where I have resided. I was born in the year 1327, in
the month of June, at the time when the Emperor Lodovico came. Now I
wish to relate the whole history of my age, seeing that I lived one
hundred and fifteen years without illness, except that when I was born I
fainted, and I died of old age, and remained in bed twelve months on
end.' Burigozzo's Chronicle of Milan, again, concludes with these
words:[3] 'As you will see in the Annals of my son, inasmuch as the
death which has overtaken me prevents my writing more.' Chronicles
conceived and written in this spirit are diaries of events, repertories
of strange stories, and old wives' tales, without a deep sense of
personal responsibility, devoid alike of criticism and artistic unity.
Very different is the character of the historical literature which
starts into being in Florence at the opening of the fourteenth century.
[1] See Paul Scheffer-Boichorst, _Florentiner Studien_,
Leipzig, 1874, Carl Hegel, in his defense of Compagni, _Die
Chronik des Dino Compagni, Versuch einer Rettung_, Leipzig,
1875, admits the proof of spuriousness. See the preface, p. v.
The point, however, is still disputed by Florentine scholars of
high authority. Gino Capponi, in his _Storia della Repubblica
di Firenze_ (vol. i. Appendix, final note), observes that while
the Villani are popular in tone the Malespini Chronicle is
feudal. Adolfo Bartoli (_Storia della Lett. It._ vol. iii. p.
155) treats the question as still open. The custom of
preserving brief _fasti_ in the archives of great houses
rendered such compilations as the Malespini Chronicle is now
supposed to have been both easy and attractive. The Christian
name _Ricordano_ given to the first Malespini annalist does not
exist. It has been suggested that it is due to a misreading of
an initial sentence, _Ricordano i Malespini_.
[2] Muratori, vol. xii. p. 529.
[3] _Arch. Stor._ vol. iii. p. 552. Both Monaldeschi and Burigozzo
appear to mention their own death. The probability is that their
annals, as we have them, have been freely dealt with by transcribers
or continuators adopting the historic 'I' after the decease of the
titular authors.
Giovanni Villani relates how, having visited Rome on the occasion of the
Jubilee, when 200,000 pilgrims crowded the streets of the Eternal City,
he was moved in the depth of his soul by the spectacle of the ruins of
the discrowned mistress of the world.[1] 'When I saw the great and
ancient monuments of Rome, and read the histories and the great deeds of
the Romans, written by Virgil, and by Sallust, and by Lucan, and by
Livy, and by Valerius, and Orosius, and other masters of history, who
related small as well as great things of the acts and doings of the
Romans, I took style and manner from them, though, as a learner, I was
not worthy of so vast a work.' Like our own Gibbon, musing upon the
steps of Ara Celi, within sight of the Capitol, and within hearing of
the monks at prayer, he felt the _genius loci_ stir him with a mixture
of astonishment and pathos. Then 'reflecting that our city of Florence,
the daughter and the creature of Rome, was in the ascendant toward great
achievements, while Rome was on the wane, I thought it seemly to relate
in this new Chronicle all the doings and the origins of the town of
Florence, as far as I could collect and discover them, and to continue
the acts of the Florentines and the other notable things of the world in
brief onwards so long as it shall be God's pleasure, hoping in whom by
His grace I have done the work rather than by my poor knowledge; and
therefore in the year 1300, when I returned from Rome, I began to
compile this book, to the reverence of God and Saint John and the praise
of this our city Florence.' The key-note is struck in these passages.
Admiration for the past mingles with prescience of the future. The
artist and the patriot awake together in Villani at the sight of Rome
and the thought of Florence.
[1] Lib. viii. cap. 36.
The result of this visit to Rome in 1300 was the Chronicle which
Giovanni Villani carried in twelve books down to the year 1346. In 1348
he died of the plague, and his work was continued on the same plan by
his brother Matteo. Matteo in his turn died of plague in 1362, and left
the Chronicle to his son Filippo, who brought it down to the year 1365.
Of the three Villani, Giovanni is the greatest, both as a master of
style and as an historical artist. Matteo is valuable for the general
reflections which form exordia to the eleven books that bear his name.
Filippo was more of a rhetorician. He is known as the public lecturer
upon the Divine Comedy, and as the author of some interesting but meager
lives of eminent Florentines, his predecessors or contemporaries.
The Chronicle of the Villani is a treasure-house of clear and accurate
delineations rather than of profound analysis. Not only does it embrace
the whole affairs of Europe in annals which leave little to be desired
in precision of detail and brevity of statement; but, what is more to
our present purpose, it conveys a lively picture of the internal
condition of the Florentines and the statistics of the city in the
fourteenth century. We learn, for example, that the ordinary revenues of
Florence amounted to about 300,000 golden florins,[1] levied chiefly by
way of taxes--90,200 proceeding from the octroi, 58,300 from the retail
wine trade, 14,450 from the salt duties, and so on through the various
imposts, each of which is carefully calculated. Then we are informed
concerning the ordinary expenditure of the Commune--15,240 lire for the
podestà and his establishment, 5,880 lire for the Captain of the people
and his train, 3,600 for the maintenance of the Signory in the Palazzo,
and so on down to a sum of 2,400 for the food of the lions, for candles,
torches, and bonfires. The amount spent publicly in almsgiving; the
salaries of ambassadors and governors; the cost of maintaining the
state armory; the pay of the night-watch; the money spent upon the
yearly games when the palio was run; the wages of the city trumpeters;
and so forth, are all accurately reckoned. In fact the ordinary Budget
of the Commune is set forth. The rate of extraordinary expenses during
war-time is estimated on the scale of sums voted by the Florentines to
carry on the war with Martino della Scala in 1338. At that time they
contributed 25,000 florins monthly to Venice, maintained full garrisons
in the fortresses of the republic, and paid as well for upwards of 1,000
men at arms. In order that a correct notion of these balance-sheets may
be obtained, Villani is careful to give particulars about the value of
the florin and the lira, and the number of florins coined yearly. In
describing the condition of Florence at this period, he computes the
number of citizens capable of bearing arms, between the ages fifteen and
seventy, at 25,000; the population of the city at 90,000, not counting
the monastic communities, nor including the strangers, who are estimated
at about 15,000. The country districts belonging to Florence add 80,000
to this calculation. It is further noticed that the excess of male
births over female was between 300 and 500 yearly in Florence, that from
8,000 to 10,000 boys and girls learned to read; that there were six
schools, in which from 10,000 to 12,000 children learned arithmetic; and
four high schools, in which from 550 to 600 learned grammar and logic.
Then follows a list of the religious houses and churches: among the
charitable institutions are reckoned 30 hospitals capable of receiving
more than 1,000 sick people. Here too it may be mentioned that Villani
reckons the beggars of Florence at 17,000, with the addition of 4,000
paupers and sick persons and religious mendicants.[2] These mendicants
were not all Florentines, but received relief from the city charities.
The big wool factories are numbered at upwards of two hundred; and it is
calculated that from sixty to eighty thousand pieces of cloth were
turned out yearly, to the value in all of about 1,200,000 florins. More
than 30,000 persons lived by this industry. The _calimala_ factories,
where foreign cloths were manufactured into fine materials, numbered
about twenty. These imported some 10,000 pieces of cloth yearly, to the
value of 300,000 florins. The exchange offices are estimated at about
eighty in number. The fortunes made in Florence by trade and by banking
were colossal for those days. Villani tells us that the great houses of
the Bardi and Peruzzi lent to our King Edward III. more than 1,365,000
golden florins.[3] 'And mark this,' he continues, 'that these moneys
were chiefly the property of persons who had given it to them on
deposit.' This debt was to have been recovered out of the wool revenues
and other income of the English; in fact, the Bardi and Peruzzi had
negotiated a national loan, by which they hoped to gain a superb
percentage on their capital. The speculation, however, proved
unfortunate; and the two houses would have failed, but for their
enormous possessions in Tuscany. We hear, for example, of the Bardi
buying the villages of Vernia and Mangona in 1337.[4] As it was, their
credit received a shock from which it never thoroughly recovered; and a
little later on, in 1342, after the ruinous wars with the La Scala
family and Pisa, and after the loss of Lucca, they finally stopped
payment and declared themselves bankrupt.[5] The shock communicated by
this failure to the whole commerce of Christendom is well described by
Villani.[6] The enormous wealth amassed by Florentine citizens in
commerce may be still better imagined when we remember that the Medici,
between the years 1434 and 1471, spent some 663,755 golden florins upon
alms and public works, of which 400,000 were supplied by Cosimo alone.
But to return to Villani; not content with the statistics which I have
already extracted, he proceeds to calculate how many bushels of wheat,
hogsheads of wine, and head of cattle were consumed in Florence by the
year and the week.[7] We are even told that in the month of July 1280,
40,000 loads of melons entered the gate of San Friano and were sold in
the city. Nor are the manners and the costume of the Florentines
neglected: the severe and decent dress of the citizens in the good old
times (about 1260) is contrasted with the new-fangled fashions
introduced by the French in 1342.[8] In addition to all this
miscellaneous information may be mentioned what we learn from Matteo
Villani concerning the foundation of the Monte or Public Funds of
Florence in the year 1345,[9] as well as the remarkable essay upon the
economical and other consequences of the plague of 1348, which forms the
prelude to his continuation of his brother's Chronicle.[10]
[1] xi. 62.
[2] x. 162.
[3] xi. 88.
[4] xi. 74. On this occasion a law was passed forbidding citizens to
become lords of districts within the territory of Florence.
[5] xi. 38.
[6] xi. 88.
[7] xi, 94.
[8] vi. 69; xii. 4.
[9] iii. 106.
[10] i. 1-8.
In his survey of the results of the Black Death, Matteo notices not only
the diminution of the population, but the alteration in public morality,
the displacement of property, the increase in prices, the diminution of
labor, and the multiplication of lawsuits, which were the consequences
direct or indirect of the frightful mortality. Among the details which
he has supplied upon these topics deserve to be commemorated the
enormous bequests to public charities in Florence--350,000 florins to
the Society of Orsammichele, 25,000 to the Compagnia della Misericordia,
and 25,000 to the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. The poorer population
had been almost utterly destroyed by the plague; so that these funds
were for the most part wasted, misapplied, and preyed upon by
mal-administrators.[1] The foundation of the University of Florence is
also mentioned as one of the extraordinary consequences of this
calamity.
[1] Matteo Villani expressly excepts the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova,
which seems to have been well managed.
The whole work of the Villani remains a monument, unique in mediæval
literature, of statistical patience and economical sagacity, proving how
far in advance of the other European nations were the Italians at this
period.[1] Dante's aim is wholly different. Of statistics and of
historical detail we gain but little from his prose works. His mind was
that of a philosopher who generalizes, and of a poet who seizes salient
characteristics, not that of an annalist who aims at scrupulous fidelity
in his account of facts. I need not do more than mention here the
concise and vivid portraits, which he has sketched in the Divine Comedy,
of all the chief cities of Italy; but in his treatise 'De Monarchiâ' we
possess the first attempt at political speculation, the first essay in
constitutional philosophy, to which the literature of modern Europe gave
birth; while his letters addressed to the princes of Italy, the
cardinals, the emperor and the republic of Florence, are in like manner
the first instances of political pamphlets setting forth a rationalized
and consistent system of the rights and duties of nations. In the 'De
Monarchiâ' Dante bases a theory of universal government upon a definite
conception of the nature and the destinies of humanity. Amid the anarchy
and discord of Italy, where selfishness was everywhere predominant, and
where the factions of the Papacy and Empire were but cloaks for party
strife, Dante endeavors to bring his countrymen back to a sublime ideal
of a single monarchy, a true _imperium_, distinct from the priestly
authority of the Church, but not hostile to it,--nay, rather seeking
sanction from Christ's Vicar upon earth and affording protection to the
Holy See, as deriving its own right from the same Divine source.
Political science in this essay takes rank as an independent branch of
philosophy, and the points which Dante seeks to establish are supported
by arguments implying much historical knowledge, though quaintly
scholastic in their application. The Epistles contain the same thoughts:
peace, mutual respect, and obedience to a common head, the duty of the
chief to his subordinates and of the governed to their lord, are urged
with no less force, but in a more familiar style and with direct
allusion to the events which called each letter forth. They are in fact
political brochures addressed by a thinker from his solitude to the
chief actors in the drama of history around him. Nor would it here be
right to omit some notice of the essay 'De Vulgari Eloquio,' which,
considering the date of its appearance, is no less original and
indicative of a new spirit in the world than the treatise 'De
Monarchiâ.' It is an attempt to write the history of Italian as a member
of the Romance Languages, to discuss the qualities of its several
dialects, and to prove the advantages to be gained by the formation of a
common literary tongue for Italy. Though Dante was of course devoid of
what we now call comparative philology, and had but little knowledge of
the first beginnings of the languages which he discusses, yet it is not
more than the truth to say that this essay applies the true method of
critical analysis for the first time to the subject, and is the first
attempt to reason scientifically upon the origin and nature of a modern
language.
[1] We must remember that our own annalists, Holinshed and Stow,
were later by two centuries than the Villani.
While discussing the historical work of Dante and the Villani, it is
impossible that another famous Florentine should not occur to our
recollection, whose name has long been connected with the civic contests
that resulted in the exile of Italy's greatest poet from his native
city. Yet it is not easy for a foreign critic to deal with the question
of Dino Compagni's Chronicle--a question which for years has divided
Italian students into two camps, which has produced a voluminous
literature of its own, and which still remains undecided. The point at
issue is by no means insignificant. While one party contends that we
have in this Chronicle the veracious record of an eye-witness, the other
asserts that it is the impudent fabrication of a later century, composed
on hints furnished by Dante, and obscure documents of the Compagni
family, and expressed in language that has little of the fourteenth
century. The one regards it as a faithful narrative, deficient only in
minor details of accuracy. The other stigmatizes it as a wholly
untrustworthy forgery, and calls attention to numberless mistakes,
confusions, misconceptions, and misrepresentations of events, which
place its genuineness beyond the pale of possibility. After a careful
consideration of Scheffer's, Fanfani's, Gino Capponi's, and Isidoro del
Lungo's arguments, it seems to me clearly established that the Chronicle
of Dino Compagni can no longer be regarded as a perfectly genuine
document of fourteenth-century literature. In the form in which we now
possess it, we are rather obliged to regard it as a _rifacimento_ of
some authentic history, compiled during the course of the fifteenth
century in a prose which bears traces of the post-Boccaccian style of
composition.[1] Yet the authority of Dino Compagni has long been such,
and such is still the literary value of the monograph which bears his
name, that it would be impertinent to dismiss the 'Chronicle'
unceremoniously as a mere fiction. I propose, therefore, first to give
an account of the book on its professed merits, and then to discuss, as
briefly as I can, the question of its authenticity.
[1] The first critic to call Compagni's authenticity in question was
Pietro Fanfani, in an article of _Il Pievano Arlotto_, 1858. The
cause was taken up, shortly after this date, by an abler German
authority, P. Scheffer-Boichorst. The works which I have studied on
this subject are, 1. _Florentiner Studien_, von P.
Scheffer-Boichorst, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1874. 2. _Dino Compagni
vendicato dalla Calunnia di Scrittore della Cronica_, di Pietro
Fanfani, Milano, Carrara, 1875. 3. _Die Chronik des Dino Compagni,
Versuch einer Rettung_, von Dr. Carl Hegel, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1875.
4. _Die Chronik des Dino Compagni, Kritik der Hegelschen Schrift_,
von P. Scheffer-Boichorst, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1875. 5. The note
appended to Gino Capponi's _Storia della Repubblica di Firenze_. 6.
_Dino Compagni e la sua Chronica_, per Isidoro del Lungo, Firenze,
Le Mornier. Unluckily, the last-named work, though it consists
already of two bulky volumes in large 8vo, is not yet complete; and
the part which will treat of the question of authorship and MS.
authority has not appeared.
The year 1300, which Dante chose for the date of his descent with Virgil
to the nether world, and which marked the beginning of Villani's
'Chronicle,' is also mentioned by Dino Compagni in the first sentence of
the preface to his work. 'The recollections of ancient histories,' he
says, 'have a long while stirred my mind to writing the perilous and
ill-fated events, which the noble city, daughter of Rome, has suffered
many years, and especially at the time of the jubilee in the year 1300.'
Dino Compagni, whose 'Chronicle' embraces the period between 1280 and
1312, took the popular side in the struggles of 1282, sat as Prior in
1289, and in 1301, and was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice in 1293. He was
therefore a prominent actor in the drama of those troublous times. He
died in 1324, two years and four months after the date of Dante's death,
and was buried in the church of Santa Trinità. He was a man of the same
stamp as Dante;[1] burning with love for his country, but still more a
lover of the truth; severe in judgment, but beyond suspicion of mere
partisanship; brief in utterance, but weighty with personal experience,
profound conviction, prophetic intensity of feeling, sincerity, and
justice. As a historian, he narrowed his labors to the field of one
small but highly finished picture. He undertook to narrate the civic
quarrels of his times, and to show how the commonwealth of Florence was
brought to ruin by the selfishness of her own citizens; nor can his
'Chronicle,' although it is by no means a masterpiece of historical
accuracy or of lucid arrangement, be surpassed for the liveliness of its
delineation, the graphic clearness of its characters, the earnestness of
its patriotic spirit, and the acute analysis which lays bare the
political situation of a republic torn by factions, during the memorable
period which embraced the revolution of Giano della Bella and the
struggles of the Neri and Bianchi. The comparison of Dino Compagni with
any contemporary annalist in Italy shows that here again, in these
pages, a new spirit has arisen. Muratori, proud to print them for the
first time in 1726, put them on a level with the 'Commentaries of
Cæsar'; Giordani welcomed their author as a second Sallust. The
political sagacity and scientific penetration, possessed in so high a
degree by the Florentines, appear in full maturity. Compagni's
'Chronicle' heads a long list of similar monographs, unique in the
literature of a single city.[2]
[1] The apostrophes to the citizens of Florence at large, and the
imprecations on some of the worst offenders among the party-leaders
(especially in book ii. on the occasion of the calamities of 1301)
are conceived and uttered in the style of Dante.
[2] Among these I may here mention Gino Capponi's history of the
Ciompi Rebellion, Giovanni Cavalcanti's memoirs of the period
between 1420 and 1452, Leo Battista Alberti's narrative of Porcari's
attempt upon the life of Nicholas V., Vespasiano's 'Biographies,'
and Poliziano's 'Essay on the Pazzi Conspiracy.' Gino Capponi, born
about 1350, was Prior in 1396, and Gonfalonier of Justice in 1401
and 1418; he died in 1421. Giovanni Cavalcanti was a zealous admirer
of Cosimo de' Medici; he composed his 'Chronicle' in the prison of
the Stinche, where he was unjustly incarcerated for a debt to the
Commune of Florence. Vespasiano da Bisticci contributed a series of
most valuable portraits to the literature of Italy: all the great
men of his time are there delineated with a simplicity that is the
sign of absolute sincerity, Poliziano was present at the murder of
Giuliano de' Medici in the Florentine Duomo. The historians of the
sixteenth century will be noticed together further on.
The arguments against the authenticity of Dino Compagni's 'Chronicle'
may be arranged in three groups. The _first_ concerns the man himself.
It is urged that, with the exception of his offices as Prior and
Gonfalonier, we have no evidence of his political activity, beyond what
is furnished by the disputed 'Chronicle.' According to his own account,
Dino played a part of the first importance in the complicated events of
1280-1312. Yet he is not mentioned by Giovanni Villani, by Filippo
Vallani, or by Dante. There is no record of his death, except a MS. note
in the Magliabecchian Codex of his 'Chronicle' of the date 1514.[1] He
is known in literature as the author of a few lyrics and an oration to
Pope John XXII., the style of which is so rough and mediæval as to make
it incredible that the same writer should have composed the masterly
paragraphs of the 'Chronicle.'[2] The _second_ group of arguments
affects the substance of the 'Chronicle' itself. Though Dino was Prior
when Charles of Valois entered Florence, he records that event under the
date of Sunday the fourth of November, whereas Charles arrived on the
first of November, and the first Sunday of the month was the fifth. He
differs from the concurrent testimony of other historians in making the
affianced bride of Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti a Giantruffetti instead
of an Amidei, and the Bishop of Arezzo a Pazzi instead of an Ubertini.
He reckons the Arti at twenty-four, whereas they numbered twenty-one. He
places the Coronation of Henry VII. in August, instead of in June, 1312.
He seems to refer to the Palace of the Signory, which could not have
been built at the date in question. He asserts that a member of the
Benivieni family was killed by one of the Galligai, whereas the murderer
was of the blood of the Galli. He represents himself as having been the
first Gonfalonier of Justice who destroyed the houses of rebellious
nobles, while Baldo de' Ruffoli, who held the office before him, had
previously carried out the Ordinances. Speaking of Guido Cavalcanti
about the year 1300, he calls him 'uno giovane gentile'; and yet Guido
had married the daughter of Farinata degli Uberti in 1266, and certainly
did not survive 1300 more than a few months. The peace with Pisa, which
was concluded during Compagni's tenure of the Gonfalonierate, is not
mentioned, though this must have been one of the most important public
events with which he was concerned. Chronology is hopelessly and
inextricably confused; while inaccuracies and difficulties of the kind
described abound on every page of the 'Chronicle,' rendering the labor
of its last commentator and defender one of no small difficulty. The
_third_ group of arguments assails the language of the 'Chronicle' and
its MS. authority. Fanfani, who showed more zeal than courtesy in his
destructive criticism, undertook to prove that Dino's style in general
is not distinguished for the 'purity, simplicity, and propriety' of the
trecento[3]; that it abounds in expressions of a later period, such as
_armata_ for _oste_, _marciare_ for _andare_, _acciò_ for _acciocchè_,
_onde_ for _affinchè_; that numerous imitations of Dante can be traced
in it; and that to an acute student of early Italian prose its palpable
_quattrocentismo_ is only slightly veiled by a persistent affectation of
fourteenth-century archaism. This argument from style seems the
strongest that can be brought against the genuineness of the
'Chronicle'; for while it is possible that Dino may have made
innumerable blunders about the events in which he took a part, it is
incredible that he should have anticipated the growth of Italian by at
least a century. Yet judges no less competent than Fanfani in this
matter of style, and far more trustworthy as witnesses, Vincenzo
Nannucci, Gino Capponi, Isidoro del Lungo, are of opinion that Dino's
'Chronicle' is a masterpiece of Italian fourteenth-century prose; and
till Italian experts are agreed, foreign critics must suspend their
judgment. The analysis of style receives a different development from
Scheffer-Boichorst. In his last essay he undertakes to show that many
passages of the 'Chronicle,' especially the important one which refers
to the _Ordinamenti della Giustizia_, have been borrowed from
Villani.[4] This critical weapon is difficult to handle, for it almost
always cuts both ways. Yet the German historian has made out an
undoubtedly good case by proving Villani's language closer to the
original _Ordinamenti_ than Compagni's. With regard to MS. authority,
the codices of Dino's 'Chronicle' extant in Italy are all of them
derived from a MS. transcribed by Noferi Busini and given by him to
Giovanni Mazzuoli, surnamed Lo Stradino, who was a member of the
Florentine Academy and a greedy collector of antiquities. This MS. bears
the date 1514. The recent origin of this parent codex, and the
questionable character of Lo Stradino, gave rise to not unreasonable
suspicions. Fanfani roundly asserted that the 'Chronicle' must have been
fabricated as a hoax upon the uncritical antiquary, since it suddenly
appeared without a pedigree, at a moment when such forgeries were not
uncommon. Scheffer-Boichorst, in his most recent pamphlet, committed
himself to the opinion that either Lo Stradino himself, nicknamed
_Cronaca Scorretta_ by his Florentine cronies, or one of his
contemporaries, was the forger.[5] An Italian impugner of the
'Chronicle,' Giusto Grion of Verona, declared for Antonfrancesco Doni as
the fabricator.[6] These hypotheses, however, are, to say the least,
unlucky for their suggestors, and really serve to weaken rather than to
strengthen the destructive line of argument. There exists an elder codex
of which Fanfani and his followers were ignorant. It is a MS. of perhaps
the middle of the fifteenth century, which was purchased for the
Ashburnham Library in 1846. This MS. has been minutely described by
Professor Paul Meyer; and Isidoro del Lungo publishes a fac-simile
specimen of one of its pages.[7] By some unaccountable negligence this
latest and most determined defender of Compagni has failed to examine
the MS. with his own eyes.
[1] This is Isidoro del Lungo's Codex A. The note occurs also in the
Ashburnham MS. which Del Lungo refers to the fifteenth century.
[2] On this point it is worth mentioning that some good critics
refer the poems to an elder Dino Compagni, who sat as Ancient in
1251. See the discussion of this question, as also of the authorship
of the _Intelligenza_, claimed by Isidoro del Lungo for the writer
of the 'Chronicle,' in Borgognini's Essays (_Scritti Vari_, Bologna,
Romagnoli, 1877, vol. i.). With regard to the oration to Pope John
XXII. date 1326, it must be noted that this performance was first
printed by Anton Francesco Doni in 1547, and that its genuineness
may be disputed. See Carl Hegel, op. cit. pp. 18-22.
[3] The most important of Fanfani's numerous essays on the Compagni
controversy, together with minor notes by his supporters, are
collected in the book quoted above, Note to p. 241. Fanfani exceeds
all bounds of decency in the language he uses, and in his arrogant
claims to be considered an unique judge of fourteenth-century style.
These claims he bases in some measure upon the fact that he deceived
the Della Crusca by a forgery of his own making, which was actually
accepted for the _Archivio Storico_. See op. cit. p. 181.
[4] _Die Chronik_, etc., pp. 53-57.
[5] _Die Chronik_, etc., p. 39.
[6] See Hegel's op. cit. p. 6.
[7] See Del Lungo, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 19-23, and fac-simile, to
face p. 1. This MS. was bought by G. Libri from the Pucci family in
1840, and sold to Lord Ashburnham. Del Lungo identifies it with a
MS. which Braccio Compagni in the seventeenth century spoke of as
'la copia più antica, appresso il Signor senatore Pandolfini.'
Thus stands the question of Dino Compagni's 'Chronicle.' The defenders
of its authenticity, forced to admit Compagni's glaring inaccuracies,
fall back upon arguments deduced from the internal spirit of the author,
from the difficulties of fabricating a personal narrative instinct with
the spirit of the fourteenth century, from the hypotheses of a copyist's
errors or of a thorough-going literary process of rewriting at a later
date, from the absence of any positive evidence of forgery, and from
general considerations affecting the validity of destructive criticism.
One thing has been clearly proved in the course of the controversy, that
the book can have but little historical value when not corroborated.
Still there is a wide gap between inaccuracy and willful fabrication.
Until the best judges of Italian style are agreed that the 'Chronicle'
could not have been written in the second decade of the fourteenth
century, the arguments adduced from an examination of the facts recorded
in it are not strong enough to demonstrate a forgery. There is the
further question of _cui bono?_ which in all problems of literary
forgery must first receive some probable solution. What proof is there
that the vanity or the cupidity of any parties was satisfied by its
production? A book exists in a MS. of about 1450, acquires some notice
in a MS. of 1514, but is not published to the world until 1726.
Supposing it to have been a forgery, the labor of concocting it must
have been enormous. With all its defects, the 'Chronicle' would still
remain a masterpiece of historical research, imagination, sympathy with
bygone modes of feeling, dramatic vigor, and antiquarian command of
language. But who profited by that labor? Not the author of the forgery,
since he was dead or buried more than two centuries before his
fabrication became famous. Not the Compagni family; for there is no
evidence to show that they had piqued themselves upon being the
depositaries of their ancestors masterpiece, nor did they make any
effort, at a period when the printing-press was very active, to give
this jewel of their archives to the public. If it be objected that, on
the hypothesis of genuineness, the MS. of the 'Chronicle' must have been
divulged before the beginning of the sixteenth century, we can adduce
two plausible answers. In the first place, Dino was the partisan of a
conquered cause; and his family had nothing to gain by publishing an
acrimonious political pamphlet during the triumph of his antagonists. In
the second place, MSS. of even greater literary importance disappeared
in the course of the fourteenth century, to be reproduced when their
subjects again excited interest in the literary world. The history of
Dante's treatise _De Vulgari Eloquio_ is a case in point. With regard to
style, no foreigner can pretend to be a competent judge. Reading the
celebrated description of Florence at the opening of Dino's 'Chronicle,'
I seem indeed, for my own part, to discern a post-Boccaccian
artificiality of phrase. Still there is nothing to render it impossible
that the 'Chronicle,' as we possess it, in the texts of 1450(?) and
1514, may be a _rifacimento_ of an elder and simpler work. In that
section of my history which deals with Italian literature of the
fifteenth century, I shall have occasion to show that such remodeling of
ancient texts to suit the fashion of the time was by no means
unfrequent. The curious discrepancies between the _Trattato della
Famiglia_ as written by Alberti and as ascribed to _Pandolfini_ can only
be explained upon the hypothesis of such _rifacimento_. If the
historical inaccuracies in which the 'Chronicle' abounds are adduced as
convincing proof of its fabrication, it may be replied that the author
of so masterly a romance would naturally have been anxious to preserve a
strict accordance with documents of acknowledged validity. Consequently,
these very blunders might not unreasonably be used to combat the
hypothesis of deliberate forgery. It is remarkable, in this connection,
that only one meager reference is made to Dante by the Chronicler, who,
had he been a literary forger, would scarcely have omitted to enlarge
upon this theme. Without, therefore, venturing to express a decided
opinion on a question which still divides the most competent
Italian judges, I see no reason to despair of the problem being
ultimately solved in a way less unfavorable to Dino Compagni than
Scheffer-Boichorst and Fanfani would approve of. Considered as the
fifteenth century _rifacimento_ of an elder document, the 'Chronicle'
would lose its historical authority, but would still remain an
interesting monument of Florentine literature, and would certainly not
deserve the unqualified names of 'forgery' and 'fabrication' that have
been unhesitatingly showered upon it.[1]
[1] It is to be hoped that the completion of Del Lungo's work may
put an end to the Compagni controversy, either by a solid
vindication of the 'Chronicle,' or by so weak a defense as to render
further partisanship impossible. So far as his book has hitherto
appeared, it contains no signs of an ultimate triumph. The
weightiest point contained in it is the discovery of the Ashburnham
MS. If Del Lungo fails to prove his position, we shall be left to
choose between Scheffer-Boichorst's absolute skepticism or the
modified view adopted by me in the text.
The two chief Florentine historians of the fifteenth century are
Lionardo Bruni of Arezzo, and Poggio Bracciolini, each of whom, in his
capacity of Chancellor to the Republic, undertook to write the annals of
the people of Florence from the earliest date to his own time. Lionardo
Aretino wrote down to the year 1404, and Poggio Bracciolini to the year
1455. Their histories are composed in Latin, and savor much of the
pedantic spirit of the age in which they were projected.[1] Both of them
deserve the criticism of Machiavelli, that they filled their pages too
exclusively with the wars and foreign affairs in which Florence was
engaged, failing to perceive that the true object of the historian is to
set forth the life of a commonwealth as a continuous whole, to draw the
portrait of a state with due regard to its especial physiognomy.[2] To
this critique we may add that both Lionardo and Poggio were led astray
by the false taste of the earlier Renaissance. Their admiration for Livy
and the pedantic proprieties of a labored Latinism made them pay more
attention to rhetoric than to the substance of their work.[3] We meet
with frigid imitations and bombastic generalities, where concise
details and graphic touches would have been acceptable. In short, these
works are rather studies of style in an age when the greatest stylists
were but bunglers and beginners, than valuable histories. The Italians
of the fifteenth century, striving to rival Cicero and Livy, succeeded
only in becoming lifeless shadows of the past. History dictated under
the inspiration of pedantic scholarship, and with the object of
reproducing an obsolete style, by men of letters who had played no
prominent part in the Commonwealth,[4] cannot pretend to the vigor and
the freshness that we admire so much in the writings of men like the
Villani, Gino Capponi, Giovanni Cavalcanti, and many others. Yet even
after making these deductions, it may be asserted with truth that no
city of Italy at this period of the Renaissance, except Florence, could
boast historiographers so competent. Vespasiano at the close of his
biography of Poggio estimates their labor in sentences which deserve to
be remembered: 'Among the other singular obligations which the city of
Florence owes to Messer Lionardo and to Messer Poggio, is this, that
except the Roman Commonwealth no republic or free state in Italy has
been so distinguished as the town of Florence, in having had two such
notable writers to record its doings as Messer Lionardo and Messer
Poggio; for up to the time of their histories everything was in the
greatest obscurity. If the republic of Venice, which can show so many
wise citizens, had the deeds which they have done by sea and land
committed to writing, it would be far more illustrious even than it is
now. And Galeazzo Maria, and Filippo Maria, and all the Visconti--their
actions would also be more famous than they are. Nay, there is not any
republic that ought not to give every reward to writers who should
commemorate its doings. We see at Florence that from the foundation of
the city to the days of Messer Lionardo and Messer Poggio there was no
record of anything that the Florentines had done, in Latin, or history
devoted to themselves. Messer Poggio follows after Messer Lionardo, and
writes like him in Latin. Giovanni Villani, too, wrote an universal
history in the vulgar tongue of whatsoever happened in every place, and
introduces the affairs of Florence as they happened. The same did Messer
Filippo Villani, following after Giovanni Villani. These are they alone
who have distinguished Florence by the histories that they have
written.'[5] The pride of the citizen and a just sense of the value of
history, together with sound remarks upon Venice and Milan, mingle
curiously in this passage with the pedantry of a fifteenth-century
scholar.
[1] Poggio's _Historia Populi Florentini_ is given in the XXth
volume of Muratori's collection. Lionardo's _Istoria Fiorentina_,
translated into Italian by Donato Acciajuoli, has been published by
Le Monnier (Firenze, 1861). The high praise which Ugo Foscolo
bestowed upon the latter seems due to a want of familiarity.
[2] See the preface to the _History of Florence_, by Machiavelli.
[3] Lionardo Bruni, for example, complains in the preface to his
history that it is impossible to accommodate the rude names of his
personages to a polished style.
[4] Both Poggio and Lionardo began life as Papal secretaries; the
latter was not made a citizen of Florence till late in his career.
[5] _Vite di Uomini Illustri_. Barbera, 1859; p. 425.
The historians of the first half of the sixteenth century are a race
apart. Three generations of pedantic erudition and of courtly or
scholastic trifling had separated the men of letters from the men of
action, and had made literature a thing of curiosity. Three generations
of the masked Medicean despotism had destroyed the reality of freedom in
Florence, and had corrupted her citizens to the core. Yet, strange to
say, it was at the end of the fifteenth century that the genius of the
thirteenth revived. Italian literature was cultivated for its own sake
under the auspices of Lorenzo de' Medici. The year 1494 marks the
resurrection of the spirit of old liberty beneath the trumpet-blast of
Savonarola's oratory. Amid the universal corruption of public morals,
from the depth of sloth and servitude, when the reality of liberty was
lost, when fate and fortune had combined to render constitutional
reconstruction impossible for the shattered republics of Italy, the
intellect of the Florentines displayed itself with more than its old
vigor in a series of the most brilliant political writers who have ever
illustrated one short but eventful period in the life of a single
nation. That period is marked by the years 1494 and 1537. It embraces
the two final efforts of the Florentines to shake off the Medicean yoke,
the disastrous siege at the end of which they fell a prey to the
selfishness of their own party-leaders, the persecution of Savonarola by
Pope Alexander, the Church-rule of Popes Leo and Clement, the extinction
of the elder branch of the Medici in its two bastards (Ippolito,
poisoned by his brother Alessandro, and Alessandro poignarded by his
cousin Lorenzino), and the final eclipse of liberty beneath the
Spain-appointed dynasty of the younger Medicean line in Duke Cosimo. The
names of the historians of this period are Niccolo Machiavelli, Jacopo
Nardi, Francesco Guicciardini, Filippo Nerli, Donato Giannotti,
Benedetto Varchi, Bernardo Segni, and Jacopo Pitti.[1] In these men the
mental qualities which we admire in the Villani, Dante, and Compagni
reappear, combined, indeed, in different proportions, tempered with the
new philosophy and scholarship of the Renaissance, and permeated with
quite another morality. In the interval of two centuries freedom has
been lost. It is only the desire for freedom that survives. But that,
after the apathy of the fifteenth century, is still a passion. The
rectitude of instinct and the intense convictions of the earlier age
have been exchanged for a scientific clairvoyance, a 'stoic-epicurean
acceptance' of the facts of vitiated civilization, which in men like
Guicciardini and Machiavelli is absolutely appalling. Nearly all the
authors of this period bear a double face. They write one set of memoirs
for the public, and another set for their own delectation. In their
inmost souls they burn with the zeal for liberty: yet they sell their
abilities to the highest bidder--to Popes whom they despise, and to
Dukes whom they revile in private. What makes the literary labors of
these historians doubly interesting is that they were carried on for the
most part independently; for though they lived at the same time, and in
some cases held familiar conversation with each other, they gave
expression to different shades of political opinion, and their histories
remained in manuscript till some time after their death.[2] The student
of the Renaissance has, therefore the advantage of comparing and
confronting a whole band of independent witnesses to the same events.
Beside their own deliberate criticism of the drama in which all played
some part as actors or spectators, we can use the not less important
testimony they afford unconsciously, according to the bias of private or
political interest by which they are severally swayed.
[1] The dates of these historians are as follows:--
BORN. DIED.
Machiavelli 1469 1527
Nardi 1476 1556
Guicciardini 1482 1540
Nerli 1485 1536
Giannotti 1492 1572
Varchi 1502 1565
Segni 1504 1558
Pitti 1519 1589
[2] Varchi, it is true, had Nardi's _History of Florence_ and
Guicciardini's _History of Italy_ before him while he was compiling
his _History of Florence_. But Segni and Nerli were given for the
first time to the press in the last century; Pitti in 1842, and
Guicciardini's _History of Florence_ in 1859.
The Storia Fiorentina of Varchi extends from the year 1527 to the year
1538; that of Segni from 1527 to 1555; that of Nardi from 1494 to 1552;
that of Pitti from 1494 to 1529; that of Nerli from 1494 to 1537; that
of Guicciardini from 1420 to 1509. The prefatory chapters, which in most
cases introduce the special subject of each history, contain a series of
retrospective surveys over the whole history of Florence extremely
valuable for the detailed information they contain, as well as for the
critical judgments of men whose acumen had been sharpened to the utmost
by their practical participation in politics. It will not, perhaps, be
superfluous to indicate the different parts played by these historians
in the events of their own time. Guicciardini, it is well known, had
governed Bologna and Romagna for the Medicean Popes. He too was
instrumental in placing Duke Cosimo at the head of the republic in 1536.
At Naples, in 1535, he pleaded the cause of Duke Alessandro against the
exiles before Charles V. Nardi on this occasion acted as secretary and
advocate for Filippo Strozzi and the exiles; his own history was
composed in exile at Venice, where he died. Segni was nephew of the
Gonfalonier Capponi, and shared the anxieties of the moderate liberals
during the siege of Florence. Pitti was a member of the great house who
contested the leadership of the republic with the Medici in the
fifteenth century; his zeal for the popular party and his hatred of the
Palleschi may still perhaps be tinctured with ancestral animosity.
Giannotti, in whose critique of the Florentine republic we trace a
spirit no less democratic than Pitti's, was also an actor in the events
of the siege, and afterwards appeared among the exiles. In the attempt
made by the Cardinal Salviati (1537) to reconcile Duke Cosimo and the
adherents of Filippo Strozzi, Giannotti was chosen as the spokesman for
the latter. He wrote and died in exile at Venice. Nerli again took part
in the events of those troublous times, but on the wrong side, by mixing
himself up with the exiles and acting as a spy upon their projects. All
the authors I have mentioned were citizens of Florence, and some of
them were members of her most illustrious families. Varchi, in whom the
flame of Florentine patriotism burns brightest, and who is by far the
most copious annalist of the period, was a native of Montevarchi. Yet,
as often happens, he was more Florentine than the Florentines; and of
the events which he describes, he had for the most part been witness.
Duke Cosimo employed him to write the history; it is a credit both to
the prince and to the author that its chapters should be full of
criticisms so outspoken, and of aspirations after liberty so vehement.
On the very first page of his preface Varchi dares to write these words
respecting Florence--'divenne, dico, di stato piuttosto corrotto e
licenzioso, tirannide, che di sana e moderata repubblica,
principato';[1] in which he deals blame with impartial justice all
round. It must, however, be remembered that at the time when Varchi
wrote, the younger branch of the Medici were firmly established on the
throne of Florence. Between this branch and the elder line there had
always been a coldness. Moreover, all parties had agreed to accept the
duchy as a divinely appointed instrument for rescuing the city from her
factions and reducing her to tranquillity.[2]
[1] 'It passed, I say, from the condition of a corrupt and
ill-conducted commonwealth to tyranny, rather than from a healthy
and well-tempered republic to principality.'
[2] See _Arch. Stor._ vol. i. p. xxxv.
It would be beyond the purpose of this chapter to enter into the
details of the history of Florence between 1527 and 1531--those years of
her last struggle for freedom, which have been so admirably depicted by
her great political annalists. It is rather my object to illustrate the
intellectual qualities of philosophical analysis and acute observation
for which her citizens were eminent. Yet a sketch of the situation is
necessary in order to bring into relief the different points of view
maintained by Segni, Nardi, Varchi, Pitti, and Nerli respectively.
At the period in question Florence was, according to the universal
testimony of these authors, too corrupt for real liberty and too
turbulent for the tranquil acceptance of a despotism. The yoke of the
Medici had destroyed the sense of honor and the pride of the old noble
families; while the policy pursued by Lorenzo and the Popes had created
a class of greedy professional politicians. The city was not content
with slavery; but the burghers, eminent for wealth or ability, were
egotistical, vain, and mutually jealous. Each man sought advantage for
himself. Common action seemed impossible. The Medicean party, or
Palleschi, were either extreme in their devotion to the ruling house,
and desirous of establishing a tyranny; or else they were moderate and
anxious to retain the Medici as the chiefs of a dominant oligarchy. The
point of union between these two divisions of the party was a prejudice
in favor of class rule, a hope to get power and wealth for themselves
through the elevation of the princely family The popular faction on the
other hand agreed in wishing to place the government of the city upon a
broad republican basis. But the leaders of this section of the citizens
favored the plebeian cause from different motives. Some sought only a
way to riches and authority, which they could never have opened for them
under the oligarchy contemplated by the Palleschi. Others, styled
Frateschi or Piagnoni, clung to the ideas of liberty which were
associated with the high morality and impassioned creed of Savonarola.
These were really the backbone of the nation, the class which might have
saved the state if salvation had been possible. Another section, steeped
in the study of ancient authors and imbued with memories of Roman
patriotism, thought it still possible to secure the freedom of the state
by liberal institutions. These men we may call the Doctrinaires. Their
panacea was the establishment of a mixed form of government, such as
that which Giannotti so learnedly illustrated. To these parties must be
added the red republicans, or Arrabbiati--a name originally reserved for
the worst adherents of the Medici, but now applied to fanatics of
Jacobin complexion--and the Libertines, who only cared for such a form
of government as should permit them to indulge their passions.
Amid this medley of interests there resulted, as a matter of fact, two
policies at the moment when the affairs of Florence, threatened by Pope
and Emperor in combination, and deserted by France and the rest of
Italy, grew desperate. One was that of the Gonfalonier Capponi, who
advocated moderate counsels and an accommodation with Clement VII. The
other was that of the Gonfalonier Carducci, who pushed things to
extremities and used the enthusiasm of the Frateschi for sustaining the
spirit of the people in the siege.[1] The latter policy triumphed over
the former. Its principles were an obstinate belief in Francis, though
he had clearly turned a deaf ear to Florence; confidence in the
generals, Baglioni and Colonna, who were privately traitors to the cause
they professed to defend; and reliance on the prophecies of Savonarola,
supported by the preaching of the Friars Foiano, Bartolommeo, and
Zaccaria. Ill-founded as it was in fact, the policy of Carducci had on
its side all that was left of nobility, patriotism, and the fire of
liberty among the Florentines. In spite of the hopelessness of the
attempt, we cannot now read without emotion how bravely and desperately
those last champions of freedom fought, to maintain the independence of
their city at any cost, and in the teeth of overwhelming opposition. The
memory of Savonarola was the inspiration of this policy. Ferrucci was
its hero. It failed. It was in vain that the Florentines had laid waste
Valdarno, destroyed their beautiful suburbs, and leveled their crown of
towers. It was in vain that they had poured forth their treasures to the
uttermost farthing, had borne plague and famine without a murmur, and
had turned themselves at the call of their country into a nation of
soldiers, Charles, Clement, the Palleschi, and Malatesta
Baglioni--enemies without the city walls and traitors within its
gates--were too powerful for the resistance of burghers who had learned
but yesterday to handle arms and to conduct a war on their own
account.[2] Florence had to capitulate. The venomous Palleschi,
Francesco Guicciardini and Baccio Valori, by proscription, exile, and
taxation, drained the strength and broke the spirit of the state. Cæsar
and Christ's Vicar, a new Herod and a new Pilate, embraced and made
friends over the prostrate corpse of sold and slaughtered liberty.
Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offered to the Pontiff
in the sack of Rome.
[1] Guicciardini, writing his _Ricordi_ during the first months of
the siege, remarks upon the power of faith (_Op. Ined._ vol. i. p.
83. Compare p. 134): 'Esemplo a' dì nostri ne è grandissimo questa
ostinazione de' Fiorentini, che essendosi contro a ogni ragione del
mondo messi a aspettare la guerra del papa e imperadore, senza
speranza di alcuno soccorso di altri, disuniti e con mille
difficultà, hanno sostenuto in quelle mura già sette mesi gli e
serciti, e quali non sì sarebbe creduto che avessino sostenuti sette
dì; e condotto le cose in luogo che se vincessino, nessuno più se ne
maraviglierebbe, dove prima da tutti erano giudicati perduti; e
questa ostinazione ha causata in gran parte la fede di non potere
perire, secondo le predicazioni di Fra Jeronimo da Ferrara.'
[2] See above, p. 238, for what Giannotti says of the heroic
Ferrucci.
The part played by Filippo Strozzi in this last drama of the liberties
of Florence is feeble and discreditable, but at the same time
historically instructive, since it shows to what a point the noblest of
the Florentines had fallen. All Pitti's invectives against the
Ottimati, bitter as they may be, are justified by the unvarnished
narrative we read upon the pages of Varchi and Segni concerning this
most vicious, selfish, vain, and brilliant hero of historical romance.
Married to Clarice de' Medici, by whom he had a splendid family of
handsome and vigorous sons, he was more than the rival of his wife's
princely relatives by his wealth. Yet though he made a profession of
patriotism, Filippo failed to use this great influence consistently as a
counterpoise to the Medicean authority. It was he, for instance, who
advised Lorenzo the younger to make himself Duke of Florence.
Distinguished, as he was, above all men of his time for wit, urbanity,
accomplishments, and splendid living, his want of character neutralized
these radiant gifts of nature. His private morals were infamous. He
encouraged by precept and example the worst vices of his age and nation,
consorting with young men whom he instructed in the arts of dissolute
living, and to whom he communicated his own selfish Epicureanism. To him
in a great measure may be attributed the corruption of the Florentine
aristocracy in the sixteenth century. In his public action he was no
less vacillating than unprincipled in private life. After prevailing
upon Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici to leave Florence in 1527, he
failed to execute his trust of getting Pisa from their grasp (moved, it
is said, by a guilty fondness for the young and handsome Ippolito), nor
did he afterwards share any of the hardships and responsibilities of
the siege. Indeed, he then found it necessary to retire into exile in
France, on the excuse of superintending his vast commercial affairs at
Lyons. After the restoration of the Medici he returned to Florence as
the courtier of Duke Alessandro, whom he aided and abetted in his
juvenile debaucheries. Quarreling with Alessandro on the occasion of an
insult offered to his daughter Luisa, and the accusation of murder
brought against his son Piero, he went into opposition and exile, less
for political than for private reasons. After the murder of Alessandro,
he received Lorenzo de' Medici, the fratricide, with the title of
'Second Brutus' at Venice. Meanwhile it was he who paid the dowry of
Catherine de' Medici to the Duke of Orleans, helping thus to strengthen
the house of princes against whom he was plotting, by that splendid
foreign alliance which placed a descendant of the Florentine
bill-brokers on the throne of France. After all these vicissitudes
Filippo Strozzi headed an armed attack upon the dominions of Duke
Cosimo, was taken in the battle of Montemurlo, and finally was murdered
in that very fortress, outside the Porto a Faenza, which he had
counseled Alessandro to construct for the intimidation of the
Florentines.[1] The historians with the exception of Nerli agree in
describing him as a pleasure-loving and self-seeking man, whose many
changes of policy were due, not to conviction, but to the desire of
gaining the utmost license of disorderly living. At the same time we
cannot deny him the fame of brilliant mental qualities, a princely
bearing, and great courage.
[1] See Varchi, vol. iii. p. 61, for the first stone laid of this
castle. It should be said that accounts disagree about Filippo's
death. Nerli very distinctly asserts that he committed suicide.
Segni inclines to the belief that he was murdered by the creatures
of Duke Cosimo.