A REVIEW OF THE STATES OF ITALY (ABOUT 1300)
Now that the two great actors, whose long-drawn quarrel has been the
main thread of Italian history, have made their exits, and left us, as
it were, with a sense of emptiness, it becomes necessary to call the
roll and make a better acquaintance with the lesser _dramatis personae_,
who step to the front of the stage and carry on the plot of history. The
programme reads as follows:--
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The Papacy An absentee.
The Empire A shadow.
The Kingdom of Naples House of Anjou reigning.
The Kingdom of Sicily House of Aragon reigning.
Florence A Guelf democracy.
Siena Ghibelline city.
Pisa Ghibelline city.
Genoa A maritime aristocracy.
Venice A maritime oligarchy.
Milan A Lombard commune.
Savoy A feudal county.
Guelf cities of Tuscany, communes of Lombardy,
petty marquisates of the northwest,
etc.
In the South, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies has already been torn in
two. Charles of Anjou, the conqueror of the Hohenstaufens, clever,
shrewd, and capable as he was, had overreached himself. He entertained
great ambitions, and was dreaming of Constantinople and its imperial
crown, when a rebellion known as the Sicilian Vespers broke out in
Sicily. The country had been overrun with French office-holders and
French soldiers, and the Sicilians, who regretted the Hohenstaufens, had
reached the utmost limit of endurance. The whole island had become a
powder-box; it was a mere matter of accident where and how the powder
would ignite. A French soldier insulted a woman on her way to church. In
a moment he was killed and his fellow soldiers massacred to a man.
"Death to the French!" resounded over the island, and the infuriated
Sicilians put all to the sword. The revolutionists needed a leader, and,
as the old Norman blood royal still survived in Manfred's daughter, they
invited her husband, King Pedro of Aragon, to be their king. Pedro
accepted, and he and his descendants, the House of Aragon, made good
their claim to the throne of Sicily against all the attempts of the
House of Anjou and of the lords suzerain, the Popes, to oust them. By
this revolution, Sicily was separated from the Kingdom of Naples for
more than a hundred years.
In the centre of Italy there was great disorder. The lords of the Papal
States remained at Avignon, and attempted to govern their dominions by
legates; but though their sovereignty nominally extended from the
Tyrrhene Sea to the Adriatic, they were impotent to enforce it. There
was no unity; each town was governed separately by a papal legate, by a
powerful baron, or by a communal government. Rome itself, which in the
absence of the Popes had dwindled to a little city of ruins, towers,
churches, vineyards, and vegetable gardens, was in constant disorder.
The towns near by were often faithful to their allegiance, but across
the Apennines the obstinate little cities between the mountains and the
sea were almost always independent. At present there is nothing of
sufficient interest to prevent us from treating Rome as carelessly as
the Popes did, and passing hurriedly through to Florence and the
independent communes of Northern Italy where we must pause.
Prior to the wars between the Empire and the Papacy feudal institutions
had prevailed there, though with less vigour in Northern Italy than
elsewhere in Europe, and all the land had been divided up into various
fiefs, in which counts and marquesses held sway. During those wars the
cities shook off Imperial dominion and got rid of Imperial rulers, and
began their careers as independent Italian communes. Most of these
cities were of old Roman foundation, but the time of Hildebrand and
Henry IV may be deemed their nativity, as then they first appear in
Italian history as individuals. All these towns were little republics,
each with its own character, but all conforming more or less to a
general type. Within massive walls the city clustered round two main
points, the cathedral, which was flanked by belfry and baptistery, and
the _piazza_ (public square), on which fronted the _Palazzo Pubblico_,
the city hall, where the magistrates had their offices. Round about and
radiating off, houses and palaces, grim and heavy, stood high above the
narrow streets. Scattered here and there scores of private fortresses
raised their great towers thirty yards and more into the air. Street,
palace, tower, all were obviously ready for street warfare, waiting on
tiptoe for the bells to ring.
The citizens were divided into three classes. The upper class included
the old nobility, the high clergy, the large merchants, the rich
bankers; the middle class included the petty merchants, the tradesfolk,
the master artisans; and below them came the miscellaneous many. In some
cities the nobility, allying itself with the proletariat, held the
political power. But in the more democratic cities, like Florence, the
trades and crafts controlled the government. In Florence there were
seven greater guilds,--judges and notaries, wool-merchants, refiners and
dyers of foreign wool, silk-dealers, money-changers, physicians and
apothecaries, furriers; and fourteen lesser guilds,--butchers,
shoemakers, masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, and so on. Every freeman
was obliged to belong to one of the guilds; Dante was enrolled in the
guild of physicians and apothecaries. Trades and crafts descended from
father to son, and each guild was divided into masters, journeymen, and
apprentices.
In the government, executive, legislative, and judicial powers were
distinguished, but not strictly separated. The executive power was
vested in one man, or in several men, who were assisted by a kind of
privy council. This council superintended various matters of public
concern, such as weights, measures, highways, and fines. There was also
a larger council, to which, as well as to public office generally, only
the enfranchised citizens were eligible. These privileged persons were
never more than a small fraction of the population; in Florence, for
instance, barely three thousand, even in her populous days. Finally,
there was a _parliament_ or assembly of all the free citizens, which met
on the _piazza_, and shouted approval or disapproval to such questions
as were submitted to it.
In the earlier days the joint executives were called _consuls_. Their
places were not easy. If they were fair to all, they displeased their
own party; if unfair to the opposite party, they were liable to
retaliation. The difficulties of partisanship led to the appointment of
a new officer, the _podesta_. The name and idea came from the governors
put in the Imperial cities by Barbarossa. The _podesta_, who was elected
by the citizens, supplanted the consuls in all their more important
functions; he became the head of both the civil and the military
service, a kind of governor. He was a nobleman, chosen, in the hope of
avoiding local partisanship, from some other Italian city. The citizens,
if Guelf, of course chose a Guelf; if Ghibelline, a Ghibelline. When the
_podesta's_ term of office, which was usually six months or a year,
began, he came to the city bringing two knights, several judges,
councillors, and notaries, a seneschal and attendants, and in the
_piazza_ took his oath of office,--to observe the laws, to do justice,
and to wrong no man. His duties, and often his movements, were
carefully prescribed; sometimes he was not allowed to enter any house in
the city other than the palace prepared for him. At the end of his term
he was obliged to linger for a time, in order to give anybody who might
be aggrieved an opportunity to lodge a complaint against him and obtain
redress. Such was the ordinary form of communal government; but the
constitutions varied in different cities, and in each city shifted every
few years, as class feeling, partisan enmity, or new men suggested
changes.
The prosperity and power of these communes came from trade, and show how
trade prospered and riches accumulated. Some merchant guilds carried on
a very extensive business. Take the wool guild of Florence. Tuscany
yielded a poor quality of wool, and as it was impossible to weave good
cloth from poor wool, these Florentine merchants imported raw wool from
Tunis, Barbary, Spain, Flanders, and England, wove it into cloth so
deftly that foreigners could not compete with them, and exported it to
the principal markets of Europe. Trade with the North, however, was less
important than trade with the East. Merchandise was carried over the
seas more easily than over the Alps, and in many respects the products
of the East were better and more varied than those of northern Europe.
The Italians loaded the galleys of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa with silken
and woollen stuffs, oil, wine, pitch, tar, and common metals, and
brought back from Alexandria, Constantinople, and the ports of Asia
Minor and Syria, pearls, gold, spices, sugar, Eastern silk, wool and
cotton, goatskins and dyes, and sometimes Eastern slaves. Such a wide
commerce outstripped the capacity of barter and cash, and gave rise to a
system of banking, with its attendant credits and bills of exchange. The
quick-witted Florentines excelled at this business, and great banking
houses, like the Bardi and the Peruzzi, had branches or correspondents
in all the chief cities.
This large commerce in face of the obstacles that barred its way seems
extraordinary. A city like Florence, for instance, especially in the
earlier days, was greatly hampered by the conditions about her. Outside
her walls, within the radius of a dozen or twenty miles, were castles
manned by arrogant nobles, who made traffic unsafe. They would not
conform to the new economic condition of society except upon compulsion.
Rival cities refused to let Florentine wares pass through their
territories without payment of ruinous tolls. Wars were waged to
moderate these exactions. Or, again, war was necessary to enforce the
rights of Florentine citizens in other cities. Moreover, each city had
its own system of weights and measures, its own coinage; each imposed
customs on all wares entering its gates, in earlier days so much a
cart-load, afterwards a percentage of the value. On all highways, at all
bridges and fords, there were tolls to be paid. From city to city a
merchant had to change his money, until in later times certain coins,
like the Florentine florin, passed current everywhere; and sometimes, on
entering the gates, he was obliged to adopt a distinguishing badge, as,
for instance, according to the usage at Bologna, putting a piece of red
wax on his thumb-nail. These were the fetters placed on trade in time of
peace; but peace itself was transitory and uncertain. Apart from the
wars with the Emperor, the cities periodically fought the feudal
nobility, or one another. Venice made war on Ravenna, Pisa on Lucca,
Vicenza on Treviso, Fano on Pesaro, Verona on Padua, Modena on Bologna,
and the greater cities, like Milan and Florence, on any or all of their
respective neighbours. When a city had no absorbing war abroad, factions
fought at home. Burghers and nobles barricaded the streets, manned the
towers, rang the bells, shot and hacked one another with spasmodic fury.
The burghers generally won. They then banished hundreds of their
adversaries, and made laws against them. In some cities a register was
kept to record the names of the nobles whose democracy was suspected; in
others, as in Lucca, nobles were excluded from all share in the
government, and were not allowed to testify against burghers. In Pisa,
if there was disquiet in the streets, the nobles were obliged to stay
indoors.
These factions called themselves Guelfs and Ghibellines. At first Guelfs
were the burghers of the communes and partisans of the Papacy, and
Ghibellines partisans of the Empire and the feudal system; but
subsequently the terms merely served to distinguish political parties,
whose platforms, as we should say, shifted with questions of the hour.
Even when these two factions were at peace, they distinguished
themselves by different badges and fashions. The merlons of the Guelf
battlements were square, those of the Ghibelline swallow-tailed. Good
party men wore caps of diverse pattern, did their hair differently, cut
their bread and folded their napkins in different ways. It was enough
that one side should bow, take an oath, harness a horse, in one mode,
for the other side to start a contrary fashion.
The growth of population, of property, of commerce, however, shows that
history may easily dwell too much upon fighting and war. In these petty
wars and street frays, the numbers engaged were few, and but little
blood was shed. Most of the fighting was a consequence of economic
difficulties. It was the mediaeval equivalent of strikes, lock-outs,
boycotts, undersellings, rivalries, riots, and other phenomena of modern
industry.
The maritime cities were in a very different position from the inland
cities, and had a different history. They enjoyed great advantages for
trade. No feudal barons could bar the sea, and pirates and infidels were
not serious impediments. Greater commercial prosperity, however, begot
more bitter commercial jealousy. Genoa hated Pisa; no Genoese sailor
could endure the cut of a Pisan sail. Both cities had a large trade in
the Levant, and being so near each other became deadly rivals. They
fought spasmodically for years, from the Gulf of Genoa to the Black Sea,
and at last came to the death grapple. The time was unfortunate for
Ghibelline Pisa, as a Guelf league had been attacking her on land. The
decisive battle was fought off the island of Meloria, a few miles from
the mouth of the Arno. The Genoese, who outnumbered the Pisans, won a
great victory, destroyed or captured many galleys, and took ten
thousand prisoners (1284). Pisa never recovered from this blow. Florence
and Lucca took immediate advantage of it to unite with Genoa, and force
Pisa to submit to a Guelf government; and from this time on greedy
Florence, like a hawk, kept her eyes fixed on poor Pisa, impatient for
the time when she should seize her prey.
Genoa remained a republic, active, eager, impetuous, torn by factions
and subject to many vicissitudes, but lack of space compels us to leave
her and pass on to where "Venice sits in state, throned on her hundred
isles." She, queen of the sea, had even a more lavish portion of
individuality than her sister cities, individual as they all were, and
hardly belonged to Italy, so completely did she hold herself aloof from
the two great interests of mediaeval Italy, the Empire and the Papacy. No
cries of Pope's men and king's men, of Guelf and Ghibelline, disturbed
the Grand Canal or the Piazza of St. Mark's; no feudal incumbrances
hampered her mercantile spirit, nor did papal anathemas cause a single
Venetian ship to shift her course. Venice had long remained loyal to
Constantinople, and even after all political dependence had ceased, was,
in character and aspect, more a Constantinople of the West than an
Italian city, a grown-up daughter, more beautiful than her beautiful
mother, who, living her own triumphant and unfilial life, still retained
many of her mother's traits. Untroubled by sentiment, even in the
Crusades, Venice always kept steadily in view her fixed purpose of
increasing her commerce and of securing foreign markets; and this
purpose shaped her political actions, and also, indirectly, the form of
her government.
Originally the citizens, assembled in public meeting, elected the Doge,
and exercised a right to vote on important political matters; but the
great families soon acquired control, and little by little turned the
government into an oligarchy. The first great step was taken in
Barbarossa's time, just when the Lombard cities were struggling to free
themselves from Imperial dominion. A Great Council of four hundred and
eighty members was established, to which were given the powers of
legislation, appointment, electing the Doge, and filling vacancies in
itself. The franchises of the people were all taken away and the
oligarchy left supreme. This oligarchy of merchant princes, in whom
patriotism, pride of place, and love of gain harmoniously accorded, was
an exceedingly competent body of men. The greatness of Venice was their
greatness, and they pursued it devotedly. Beginning early in life these
patricians were trained for their duties by service in the navy and in
the merchant marine, or by employment in the government of the various
cities, islands, and territories included in the long stretch of
coastwise empire. Knowing that Venice lived by commerce they made every
effort by war, diplomacy, and private enterprise, to extend that
commerce. After the conquest and division of the Eastern Empire (1204)
they became more eager than ever for a monopoly of trade with the
Levant, and inevitably came into deadly rivalry with Genoa, also
passionately eager to hold the gorgeous East in fee.
The wars with Genoa, destructive though they were for the time being,
were of service to the aristocracy, for they made the Venetians
appreciate the value of a compact governing body; and the aristocracy
took advantage of that appreciation to tighten its hold on the
government.
Throughout the thirteenth century the Great Council, though it consisted
entirely, or almost entirely, of patricians and elected its own members,
had been open to all classes. Any citizen, however unlikely to be
elected, was eligible. At the close of the century the patricians
secured the enactment of a series of measures, which in substance
divided the citizens into two classes, those whose ancestors had sat in
the Great Council, and those whose ancestors had not, and decreed that
only members of the first class should be eligible. This legislation is
known as the closing of the Great Council. As all those who were
eligible naturally wished to become members, the Council gradually
increased until it finally numbered over fifteen hundred. The patricians
also further curtailed the powers of the Doge, divided the various
functions of government among the main subdivisions of the Council,--the
Senate, the Council of Forty, the Doge's cabinet, and the Council of
Ten,--and gave to the State the definite form of government which it
maintained to its end.
From Venice we must pass by Milan and the cities of the Po, to where in
the extreme Northwest the Counts of Savoy, perched on the Alps,
maintained a precarious sovereignty over both slopes, with no resources
except the muscles of their mountaineers and the possession of Alpine
passes. Little did the proud maritime cities, Genoa and Venice, the
great inland cities, Milan and Florence, and Rome least of all, suspect
that these poor counts would one day consolidate all the territory from
the foot of the mountains to the Riviera in a compact little kingdom
(Piedmont), and from that as a pedestal, step to still higher honours.
The House of Savoy runs aristocratically back into legend; but about the
year 1000, a certain Humbert of the White Hand, emerging from historic
obscurity, obtained the city of Turin and part of Piedmont, as a
marriage portion for his son, and thereby secured to his house a footing
in Italy (1045). In the course of another century or so these Savoyards
in a succession of Humberts and Amedeos, brave, shrewd, and usually
successful men, extended their dominions by war, by marriage, and by
bargains. They made the most of their position as door-keepers to Italy,
and exacted various privileges from needy Emperors, as the price of
passing the Alps. They fought rival counts, waged innumerable petty
wars, and rightly or wrongly acquired territories which are now parts of
France, Switzerland, and Italy. The succession of counts reads like any
other mediaeval genealogy; and their exploits, raids, and sieges viewed
from this cold distance have a somewhat monotonous similarity; but
survival proves the worth and valour of the stock, and when after long
centuries the people of Italy had need of princes, the House of Savoy
was the only noble house that had retained power and respect. It is a
brilliant example of the truth of the saying that those who have been
faithful over a few things shall be masters over many.
Such were the political divisions of Italy in this transition period
which intervenes between the departing Middle Ages and the incoming
Modern World.