i^ A HISTOKY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS BEING ▲ VIEW OF THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND FALL OF ITALIAN FREEDOM Bl J. C. L. de SISMONDI LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YOKE : 15 EAST 16* STREET PRINTED BY SI'OTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQL' A HE LONDON r . , UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA COLLEGE LIBRARY s b AUTHOR'S PREFACE. "Would it be possible to comprise the history of the Italian Republics in a single volume?" This question, addressed to me by Dr. Lardner, the learned editor of the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, gave birth to the present work. It was flattering to me to be associated, in a great historical undertaking, with the most distinguished English writers; but, at a moment when the rights of nations are weighed anew in the balance of public opinion, — when diplo- macy and war have been invoked, in turn, to give or take away from nations the faculty of advancing with- out limit in civilisation, under their respective laws : — at such a moment, it was still more flattering and precious, in my eyes, to lay before the two powerful nations which glory in being without a master, the claims of ill-fated Italy to enjoy the same freedom. I thus found the opportunity of presenting, in the two languages of freemen, the memory of what Italy was ^he first to achieve for obtaining the greatest of blessings, — the memory of the impulse and example which she gave, and which all others but followed. — - and, at the same time, the memory of those crimes of her oppressors which have robbed her of the advantages with which she has endowed the VI PREFACE rest, of the human raee. It seemed to me that the more rapid my recital of the starting up of Ital) from her slumber, — of her struggles, her misfor- tunes, and her glories, — the stronger would be the impression, and the greater the facility with which I could seize, in the history of Italian freedom, that unity of interest which escapes in the simultaneous existence of a hundred independent states. I was already familiarised by long study with this history, in al! its details. After having presented it in six- teen volumes, I no longer felt that influence of novelty by which petty facts often seduce authors into the belief that every notion which it has cost them much labour to acquire must have a propor- tionate value with the reader. I could sacrifice details and episodes without regret. I knew, in some sort, by experience, the vicissitudes which in Italy pro- duced lasting results ; and those which, on the con- trary, produced none. I undertook, then, not an abridgment of my great work, but an entirely new history, in which, with my eyes fixed solely on the free people of the several Italian states, I have studied to portray, within a compass which should be compatible with animation and interest, their first deliverance, their heroism, and their misfortunes. I have confined myself within the limits assigned to me : it is for the reader to judge whether I have employed them with due advantage. J. C. L he Sismondi. LorjLtK, January, 1832. ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OP THK HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS; OR OF THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND FALL OF FREEDOM IN ITALY. INTRODUCTION. P.«g» Importance of the Study of the Italian Republics ; the Science of go. erning Men for their Advantage began with them ... 1 There is nothing to study in the Abuse of Force, or the Oppression if the vanquished, by Barbarians ... i The instructive Part of History begins with the Fusion of the Con- querors with the conquered for the 7ood of all . - - ^ Prosperity of Italy during the middle Ages; her Neighbours, seeking only her Plunder, are instructed by her Example - 4 Our Purpose; a Summary of the History of this Prosperity, its Causes, and its Destruction . • . - i> CHAPTER I. STATE OF THE POPULATION OF ITALY AT THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY. SUCCESSIVE IN- VASIONS OF BARBARIANS BY WHOM ITALY WAS HARASSKD FOR FIVE CENTURIES. THE FIRST EFFORTS OF TOWNS TO DEFEND AND GOVERN THEMSELVES TO BE DATED FROM TiU TENTH CENTURY. All the Inhabitants of Italy made Roman Citizens >«hen the Citlien had ceased to be sovereign . i I 'ixury of the senatorial Families at Rome ; Poverty and Idleness of the otr.eri . . i Mil ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A. D. l'agf The Italian Cities reflective Images only of Home; In- dolence of their Inhabitants; they renounce the Art rfWnr ... -7 Oppression and rapid Decay of the Cultivators of the Land in the Country, whether enslaved or free - 8 Decay of the Nation during the apparent Prosperity of the Reigns of the Antonines . . .9 The Barbarians charged with the Defence of the Empire pillage, and finally suppress it ... 10 476. Odoacer king of Italy j 489, Invasion of the Ostro- goths ; 568, Invasion of the Lombards - - 10 The Lombards divide Italy with the Greeks ; their War with the Franks ; their Defeat - - - 11 800. Charlemagne, their Conqueror, determines to restore the Empire of Civilisation with the Sword of the Bar. barian - - - - - 12 Successors of Charlemagne, French, Italians, and Bur- guiniians ; 951, Otho the great Saxon - -12 Change in Manners introduced by the Barbarians ; feudal System ; fortified Castles • - -IS 80(1 — 900. Towns raise Walls around them ; their Inhabitants arm to defend them - .... 14 :(Kl — ,100. Towns make themselves independent of the Nobles, who enfranchise and arm the rural Population - - 15 961 — 1039. Constitution of the Kingdom of Italy under the German Emperors ; growing Independence - - 16 1039—1125. Disputes of the Emperors with the Pope; Quarrel of Investitures - - . . 17 717 — 1125. Rome governs herself in a State of Freedom, while the Pope undertakes to govern the t hurch - - 18 The Wealth of the Clergy tempted Kings to distribute the Prelacies to their Favourites - .18 Character of Hildebrand, Reformer of the Clergy; renders them independent of che secular Power . 19 1073. Pontificate of Hildebrand, Gregory VII. ; his Succes- sors; Peace of Worms, 1122 - - - 20 The War of Investitures completes the Dissolution of the social Tie between the different Members of the Kingdom of Italy . - - - 21 Organisation of Cities ; their Militias, their Councils, their Finances - - - - 62 Other free Cities in Southern Italy disengage themselves from the Ruins of the Greek Empire - - 23 Decline of the Greek Power on the Coast of Italy, Ra. venna, Bari, Genoa, and Pisa - - - 24 454 Retreat of the Venetians to their Lagune ; 697, their first Doge . . - - - 25 vCS. They found Venice their Capital ; thfy refuse to submit to the Western Empire . - - 9b ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. IX A. D. Pape Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi maintain their Independence against the Lombards aril Saracens for six Centuries St 1000—1138. Northern Adventurers subdue Southern Italy and iU three Republics . . . $7 Pisa and Genoa aggrandised by Commerce ; their War with the Saracens . . . .28 Venice, Pisa, and Genoa assist the first Crusade with their Fleets . . . 29 The Effect of six Centuries of suffering; Italy finds Protection in the Spirit of Association • • S9 CHAP. IL r RODERICK BARBAROSSA DETERMINED TO RESTRICT THE LIBER- TIES OP THE CITIES OF ITALT. — THEIR RESISTANCE. LEA r; t OF LOMBARDY. TRUCE OF VENICE. PEACE OF CONSTANCE, WHICH SETTLED THEIR RIGHTS. 1100 — 1152. Corporations in Towns the only public Force which maintained itself in Italy . . - 30 Milan and Pavia direct two adverse Leagues among the Cities ; their Ambition - - - 31 Different Leagues between the Cities of Piedmont, the Marches, Tuscany, and Ombria . . 5- 1139—1155, Arnold of Brescia preaches Liberty and Reformation of Morals at Rome ; his Execution - - -33 115*. (October) Frederick Barbarossa enters Italy to subdue it 54 1155. (13th of February) Frederick besieges Tortona; he takes and burns that City . - - 35 1155. Frederick is crowned at Rome, and returns to Germany without being admitted into the Cities . .35 The Milanese congratulate themselves on their Resist- ance; they succour those who have suffered for them 56 1158. Second Expedition of Frederick into Italy ; he threatens Milan ; his Treaty with that City . .37 The Diet of Roncaglia regulates the Rights of the Em. pire, without respect to that Treaty - - 3$ Hit The Milanese resume their Anns ; they are placed under the Ban of the Empire ; their Fields ravaged - 39 (10th of July) Frederick besieges Crema; its heroic Resistance and Ruin - - - 40 llfi2L (March) After three Years' Resistance, the Milanese surrender at discretion ; their City is razed to the Ground • • • - - 41 Their Example warms the Zeal of the Italian! ; Discon- tent exasperated by a Schism - . - '£ L ANALYTICAL, AND CHRONOIiOQICAL I A BIS.. A. D. Page 1163. League of Verona, Vicenia, Padua, and Treviso, to re- establish Liberty in Lombardy . . - 43 1166. Frederick re-enters Italy; traverses it, and find* on every side the Spirit of Liberty - -4.1 1167. (27th of April) All the Cities united in the League of Lombardy rebuild Milan . - - 45 Frederick besieges and subdues Rome; his Army is afterwards destroyed by Sickness . . - 46 1168. (March) Frederick forced to quit Italy; the Lombards build Alexandria - • - • 46 1173. The Archbishop Christian, the Emperor's Lieutenant in Tus<*any - . - - 4" 1174. (April) He invests Ancona; he is forced to raise the Siege - - . - - . 48 J174, 1175. Frederick besieges Alexandria during four Months ; he is forced to raise the Siege • - - 49 1175. Negotiations to give a Constitution to Italy ; the Im. possibility of coming to an Understanding - - 50 1176. (29th of May) Frederick defeated by the Milanese at Lignano - . . . . 50 1177. Congress of Venice first Compact in Europe between a Monarch and his Subjects ; Truce of six Years, during which all Claims remain suspended - - 51 117 — 1183. Frederick at last acknowledges that his Subjects have Rights, and seeks Peace in good Faith - - 51 1183. (25th of June) Peace of Constance, which fixes the Rights of the Cities and those of the Emperors . .52 CHAP. III. PROURESS CF THE CITIES TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE FROM THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE TO THE DEATH OF FREDERICK THE SECOND. RELENTLESS STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE GUELPHS AND GHIBELINES. THE FIRST CHIEFS OF PARTIES WHO RAISE THEMSELVES TO TYRANNIC POWER. 1183 1250. The House of HohenstaufTen makes no Attempt to in- fringe the Liberties granted to the Cities by the Peace of Constance - . ... 53 LV1S— U87. The Struggle, nevertheless, is renewed, but it is for the Independence of the Holy See . .54 Danger to Italy from the Union of the three Crowns of the Two Sicilies, Lombardy, and the Empire . 55 Troubles caused by the Nobles ; Extinction of Families ; ancient Dukes and Marquises • .56 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. ii. I). Page Division of the Nobles between the two Leagues of Guelphs and Ghibeline* • The Nobles become Citizens of Republics ; their Quarrels and Violences . . . 58 Institution of Podestas, Judge?, and Generals, to restrain the Turbulence of the Nobles - - 58 1107 — 1216. Wars arising from a double Election to the Empire ; the Pope favours the young Frederick II. - - 5V Innocent III. re-establishes the Monarchy of the Popes, and opposes it to that of the Emperors - - GO Fanaticism and Success of Innocent III. ; Conquest ol Constantinople by the Venetians . - - Gl Constitution of the Roman Republic and Powers of the Senator independent of the Pope - - 62 Innocent forms Leagues between the Cities of the March of Ombria and of Tuscany . . - .63 I2lr>. Quarrel between the Guelph and Ghibeline Nobles at Florence ; Death of Iiuondelmonte - . 6+ War between the Guelphs and Ghibelines of Lombard}- ; Expulsion of the Nobles of Milan - . - .63 1216—1233. Character of Frederick II. ; his Influence on the Italian Language ; his Crusade • . - . 65 1226. (2d of March) Renewal of the League of Lombardy to protect the Pope against the Emperor; Gregory IX. forces the Cities to burn the Paterini Heretics - C6 123) — 1250. Frederick, with Saracen Soldiers, attacks the Pope, who excites the Emperor's Son to revolt . -68 Confidence of Frederick in Eccelino di Romano, Tyrant of Verona and Padua . . . 69 1237. (27th of November) Victory of Frederick II. over the Milanese at Cortenova . . - - 70 1239. Gregory IX. excommunicates Frederick ; he engages Genoa and Venice to succour Lombardy - - 71 1241. (3d of May) Victory of the Pisans at Meloria ; they an est the Prelates on their Way to the Council - 72 12+5. llTlh of July) Frederick II. condemned by the Council of Lyons . . . . . 7S Numerous Conspiracies excited by the Monks against Frederick . . - - - - 73 Ferocity of Eccelino at Padua ; 16th of June, 1247, Revolt of Parma against the Emperor - - 74 1248. (18th of February) The Imperial Army before Parma; his Camp forced by the Guelphs . - - 75 (2d of February) The Ghibelines drive the Guelphs out of Florence, and raze their Palaces to the Ground . 76 1240. (26th of May) Victory ot the Bolognese at Fossalta over Hensius, natural Son of the Emperor; his Captivity - 77 Efforts of Frederick to be reconciled to the Church ; nit Death, on the 13th of Decemtier, 1250 - VI] ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLK. CHAP. IV. INTERREGNUM OF THE EMPIRE. DECLINE AND SUBJUGATION OP THE LOMBARD REPUBLICS. CHARLES OF ANJOU CALLED TO THE SUPPORT OF THE GUELPHS. HIS POWER HIS CRUELTY. SICILIAN VESPERS. 1251 1282. A. D. Page The Cities enjoyed three Centuries of Liberty, upon which History is silent - . . - 78 The Struggle between two Factions, originating in honourable Sentiments, costs the Lombards their Liberty - - - - - 79 Conrad, Son of Frederick, and after him Manfred, Chiefs of the Ghibeline Party in Italy - . . 80 1251. Ingratitude of the Pope towards the Milanese ; alienates them from the Guelph Party - - - 81 Turbulence of the Nobles at Rome and in all the Cities 81 1250. (20th of October) The Florentines recover their Liberty, and create their Militia .... 8:> Institution of the Signoria at Florence; it recalls the exiled Guelphs . - - - - 8+ 1254. Year of Victory of the Florentines over Pistoia, Vol- terra, Pisa, and Sienna ; the Gold Florin of Florence 84 The Ghibeline Nobles exiled from Florence, with Fari- nata degli Uberti at thpir Head ; they retire to Sienna 85 1260. (4th of September) Defeat of the Florentine Gueiphs near Arbia ; they evacuate Florence • .86 The Ghibelines determined to destroy Florence; it is saved by Farinata - - - 87 \VV) — 1260. Tyranny of Eccelino di Romano at Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, and Belluno - - - 88 Crusade preached against Eccelino ; the City of Padua taken from him . . . - 89 1259. (16th of September) Defeat of Eccelino at Soncino ; his Death - - - - - 90 The Turbulence of the Nobles forces the Lombards to compromise their Liberty in order to control it - 91 They intrust the Signoria to those whom they charge with the Command of their Army - -91 1256—1264. The House Delia Torre directs the Milanese Guelphs and other Lombards ... 92 1250 — 1300. Commencement of the hereditary Power of the House of Este at Ferrara and La Scala at Verona - .93 Ascendency of the Ghibelines in all Italy; Uneasiness of the Popes - - . - - 94 1264. Urban IV. calls Charles of Anjou into Italy to oppose the Ghibelines • . - - ft? ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Xlll A.D. Pag. 12K5. (26th of February) Manfred defeated and killed at the Battle of Grandella ; Charles King of the Two Sicilies 96 The Guelph Party recovers the Ascendency in all Italy ; its Triumph at Florence . . . ff~ 1268. Conradin arrives in Italy; Zeal of the Ghibelines in his Favour; he is defeated, on the 23d of August, at Tagliacozzo . . . - - 97 1269 — 1282. Charles of Anjou named by the Pope Imperial Vicar, and acknowledged Lord by the Towns . . 9fc Gregory X. and Nicholas III. endeavour to humiliate Charles, and raise the Ghibeline Party - - 99 1278. The Emperor Rodolf acknowledges the Right of the Pope over all the Country since become the States of the Church - - - - - 100 1277. Napoleon della Torre vanquished, on the 21st of Janu. ary, by Otho Visconti ; the Ghibeline Nobles return to Milan . - - . .101 1281. (22d of February) Election of Martin IV., who favours with all his Power Charles of Anjou . . 102 '.282. (30th of March) Sicilian Vespers, which overthrow the Tyranny of Charles of Anjou . . VXl CHAP. V. ITALY NEGLECTED BY THE EMPERORS ABANDONED BY THE POPES. COUNT UGOLINO AT PlSA. THE BIANCHIAND NEUI AT FLORENCE. CLOSING OF THE GRAND COUNCIL AT VENICl;, — EXPEDITION OF THE EMPEROR HENRY VII. INTO ITALT 12«3— 1313. Italy ceases to he subject to the Chiefs of two Factions only ...... 104 Weakness of Charles II. King of Naples; three Em- perors who do not visit Italy ... 10:"> First Examples of the Nepotism of Popes in favour of the Orsini, Colonna, and Savelli - - - 100 The pontifical Power weakened under Celestine V. and Boniface VIIL - - - . - lot Prodigious Prosperity of Italy ; Progress of Agricul- ture - - .... 107 Beauty of the Cities; Monuments of Architecture; Commencement of the Fine Arts - - -108 Activity of Commerce and of Manufactures ; general Wealth - - - - - 109 Grandeur of Pisa; its Rivalry with Genoa, a ruinous War begun ir 1282 - ■ 110 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLR. A. D. Page 128*. (6tn of August) Defeat of the Pisans by the Genoese oir Meloria ; Decline of their Republic - . 110 1288. Ugolino della Ghirardesca, Commander of Pisa; his Treachery, and cruel Death - - - 111 1292. Guido di Monteteltro, Commander of Pisa ; his Victo- ries over the Guel[)hs of Florence and Lucca • 112 1292. The Gonfalonier of Justice, Chief of the Signoria at Florence, charged to repress the Turbulence of the Nobles - . . . - 113 The Nobles excluded by an Ordinance of Law from all Share in the Government ... 114 2296 — 1300. Quarrel of the Cancellieri Neri and Bianchi at Pistota; their Discord reaches Florence ... 115 1301. Boniface VIII., to reconcile them, calls Charles of Valois into Tuscany . ... 116 Violence of the two Parties; Efforts of Benedict XI. to reconcile them ; the Papal Court transferred to France - - - - - 117 Greatness of the Venetian Nobles ; less turbulent ami more skilful than those of Lombardy 1 1 7 Formation in 1172 of the Grand Council of Venice, at first annual, and elected by the People - - 118 Successive Developement of the Venetian Constitution in the 13th Century - - - - - 119 1297. (28th of February) Decree for the closing of the Grand Council of Venice - . - - . 120 1311. Creation of the Council of Ten, which completes the Organisation of the Venetian Aristocracy - -121 1308—1313. Reign of the Emperor Henry VII.; his Expedition into Italy - - - - - - 1.1 The Turbulence of the Nobles had thrown all t lie Cities of Lombardy under the Yoke of some Sovereign Lord 122 1310. Henry VII. liberates the Lombard Cities from their Tyrants, and recalls the Exiles - - - 123 1311 Revoltof theGuelphs of Lombardy against Henry VII. ; he arrives at Genoa - ... 124 War of the Genoese against the Venetians; Victory of the former at Corzola in 1298 ... 123 The Genoese confer the Signoria on Henry VII., and afterwards resume it ; he goes to Pisa - . 126 1311. Zeal of the Pisans for Henry; Armament of the Guelphs against him ; his Coronation - - 127 (19th of September) Henry Vll. threatens Florence; he is obliged to withdraw himself - . . 127 1313. (24th of August' Death of Henry at Tbuor convento ; Suspicions ot naving been poisonea - - 12b ANALYTICAL AN1» CHRONOLOGICAL TA11IE. CHAP. VL akkatne&s of some chibeline chiefs. disorganisation of that party by the perfidy and inconsistency of the emperor i.ouis of bavaria. effort of the florentines to maintain the balance between the powers of italy. they fall under the tyranny of the duke of athens. — his expulsion. 1314 — 1:543. A. D. Page 1314. (19th of October) Double Election to the Empire, of Louis IV. and Frederick III. ; Politics of the Pope - 129 1113 — 1322. Bertrand duPoiet, the Pope's Legate in Italy, attacks the House jf Visconti .... 130 Grandeur of Matteo Visconti ; his Death, the 22d of June, 1322 . . . - - - 131 Uguccione di Faggiuola, Captain of Pisa, his Victories over the Guelphs . - - - - 132 1316. (10th of April) Uguccione driven from Pisa ; Castruccio becomes Master of Lucca ... I3S Lucca becomes the Arsenal of t he Ghibelines; great Talents of Castruccio . . ... 133 Florence at the Head of the Guclph Party in Tuscany; Democratic Spirit of that City .... 134 1323 — 1328. The lialia of Florence, all the Magistracies named by Lot - - 135 Victories gained by Castruccio over the Florentines, who call to their Aid the Duke of Calabria . . . ISO 1327. Louis IV., Conqueror of Frederick III., enters Italy; his Character - . . . 136 Perfidy of Louis IV. towards the Visconti and Pisans; he trusts solply to Castruccio .... 137 1328. Coronation of Louis IV. ; he determines to depose the Pope; Death of Castruccio ... 138 1329. Fresh Perfidy of Louis IV. ; he returns to Germany . 13a 1312 — 1329. Reign of Can' Grande della Scala at Verona ; he con- quers Padua ; his other Conquest), and Death . 139 1330 — 1338. John of Bohemia in Italy; the Enthusiasm which he ex- cites; Lordships conferred on him - . 141 The Florentines resolved to maintain against him the political Equilibrium of Italy - ... m 1332. (September) The Florentines agree with the Lords of Lombard)' to divide between them the States of John 1+3 1333. (October) John abandons or sells all his Lordships, and quits Italy - - - - .144 LfiJG. The Florentines deceived by the Lombard Lords ; con- tract an Alliance with the Venetians . .144 V '' V1 ANALYTICAL AMD CHRONOLOGICAL TABLii. A. D Page J336 — 1338. Successive Subjugation of several free and Buelpfa Cities which detach themselves from Florence ■• - 1W 1341. (Oth of July) ThePisans take Possession of Lucca, to the Prejudice of the Florentines - - - 14* 1312. (1st of August) The People of Florence confer the Title of Captain on the Duke of Athens - - 147 Talents of the Duke of Athens for Intrigue; the Art with which he opposes one Party to the other - 147 (8th ofSeptember) the Duke of Athens causes himself to be proclaimed Sovereign Lord of Florence - - 148 1343. Growing Tyranny of the Duke of Athens ; his Alliance with the Ghibelines - - - - H8 (26th of July) Revolt of Florence against the Duke of Athens; he is driven out of it on the 3d of August . ll'j CHAP. VII. REVIVAL OF LETTERS. REVOLUTIONS ATTEMPTED BY TWO MF.!, OF LETTERS. — ITALY RAVAGED BY THE PLAGUE AND BY COMPANIES OF ADVENTURE. POWER OF THE HOUSE OF VISCONTI. WAR BETWEEN THE MARITIME REPUBLICS. DANGER AND FIRMNESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF FLORENCE. 1344 — 1364. The Exercise of the intellectual Faculties during the Barbarous Ages a Source of Suffering in the other Countries of Europe, a Source of Enjoyment in Italy 151 Progressive March of the Arts, and afterwards of scien- tific Studies .... 152 Eloquence makes no Progress ; Poetry ; Petrarch and Boccaccio . - - - 153 Zeal for Latin Literature; Commencement of the Study of Grecian Literature ... 153 1347. Revolution attempted at Rome by Cola di Rienzi, a passionate Admirer of Antiquity . . 154 He makes use of the Monuments of the Arts to raise the Enthusiasm of the Romans, and to recall their ancient Glory - - 155 His Hatred of the Nobles ; he gets himself named Tri- bune on the 20th of May, and drives them out of Rome 15fi He wants Courage and Capacity, and suffers himself to be driven out of Rome, on the 15th of December . 156 1354. (July) Cola named Senator by the Pope; he is assas- sinated, on the 8th of October - . - 157 UJ5& (May) Friar Jacob Bossolari raises Pavia against its Ty- rants; his tragic End . -157 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Ktli A. D. H lg c C*i4— 1364. Decline of the Authority of the Emperors ; Charlc lv., his Expedition into Italy - - 158 Popes of Avignon ; Conquest of Romagna and of the March by Cardinal Albornoz - . 158 13+5. (18th of September) JoanI of Naples causes her Husband, Andrew of Hungary, to be assassinated ; the Plague - 160 The Italian Population disarmed by their Tyrants ; Form- ation of Companies of Adventure - - -161 1343. The Great Company of the Duke Guarnieri making War on all the World - - . 162 League of the Lombard Lords against the Visconti ; they employ the Great Company . . 163 Noble Resistance of the Florentine Republic to the Great Company - . 163 Power of the Visconti, Lords of sixteen Cities of Lombardy; Florence stops their Conquests . . 164 1351. The Visconti Masters of Bologna; their sudden Attack on Florence - - - - lfiS 1350—1354. War of the Genoese with the Venetians in the Levant ; Grandeur of Paganino Doria - . 16ii 1353. (10th of October) Genoa gives itself to the Archbishop Visconti ; Conspiracy of Marino Faliero . . 167 1354. Division of the different Sovereignties of the Visconti between the three Brothers; Genoa throws off' their Yoke - - - - - 168 1355. Resolutions caused in Tuscany by the Emperor Charles IV. - - - - 168 Intrigues of the Visconti at Pisa to enslave that Republic 169 J362— 1364 War between Pisa and Florence ; French, English, and Gascon Soldiers, who carry the Plague thither . 170 Giovanni Agnello causes himself to be declared Doge of Pisa • . 170 CHAP. VIIL THE FLORENTINES CALL UPON THE CITIES OF ITALY TO RECOVER THEIR LIBERTY. GREAT WESTERN SCHISM. WAR OF CHIOZZA. -J— INSURRECTIONS OF THE POPULACE AGAINST THE CITIZENS. CONQUESTS OF GIAN GALEAZZO VISCONTI DUKE OK MILAN. HIS DEATH. 1365—1402. I36S. Danger which Italian Liberty incurred from Galeazzo and Barnabas Visconti; their perfidious Policy . 171 The Pope and Emperor menace the Visconti, vho makes Peace with them . . .172 KVU1 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A. D. Paga |jG8 — 1370 Charles IV. suffers Pisa to recover its Liberty; he is threatened at Sienna ; he restores to Lucca its Inde- pendence ..... 173 The Visconti excommunicated by Urban V. ; Death of this Pope - . 174 137.3. (July) The Florentines, betrayed by the Church, carry War and Liberty into her States ... 17.5 1376, 1377. Ferocity of the Soldiers of the Church in the War of Liberty; Massacre of Faenza and Cesena - - 175 1378. Peace of Florence with the Church, Consequence of the great Western Schisms . . I7ti Election of Urban VI. at Rome; he quarrels with his Cardinals, who raise Clement VII. to the Chair . 177 Scandal given by the two Antipopes at Rome and Avi. gnon . - . . 171 Joan of Naples excommunicated by Urban VI., and de. throned by Charles III. de Duraz - - 178 War of Chiozza between the two Republics of Genoa and Venice .... 179 Danger which Venice incurs after the Taking of Chi. ozra; Carlo Zeno comes to its Aid, 1st January, 1380 - 180 1380. The Genoese besieged in Chiozza, and forced to surren. der at discretion ; Peace of the 8th of August, 1381 . 181 1378. Discord at Florence between the major and minor Arts ; Burgher Aristocracy . . . . 182 Inveteracy of the Florentine Aristocracy against the Descendants of the ancient Ghibelines . . 183 (18th of June) Salvestro de* Medici, Gonfalonier, appeals to the People against the Burgher Aristocracy . -184 (20th of July) Insurrection of the Ciompi, the poorest Artisans of Florence . . - 185 Cleverness and Vigour of Michael Lando, Gonfalonier of the Ciompi ; the Populace submits to him . - 185 1382 Division among the victorious Democratic Party ; it is anew excluded from Power ... Ib6 Rivalry between the different Orders in the other Re- publics, Adorni and Fregosi, at Genoa ... 187 The Mounts of Sienna, three Burgher Aristocracies, one below the other - . . 187 Opposition between Barnabas Visconti and his Nephew Gian Galeazzo, at Milan . - . 189 1 51 5. (May 6th) Gian Galeazzo arrests his Uncle Barnabas, and puts him to Death ; Vices of the new Tyrant - 189 He encourages Alberic di Barbiano, Founder of the Art of War in Italy - - - .190 1W7, I3S8. Gian Galeazzo conquers Verona, Pad ua, and Treviso 191 1 H7 1390. All the Princes of Lombard)' subdued or disgraced by the Crimes which Visconti makes them commit - 192 1390 Francis II. ot Carrara aided by the Florentines, retakes Padua firao Gian Galeas:o - - - 193 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLK. XIX A. I). page 1392. (21st of October) Jacobo ApptariO raises himself by Assas- sination to the Tyranny of Pisa . . 194 1395. (1st of May) Diploma of the Emperor Winceslaus creates (iian Galeazzo Visconti Duke of Milan . -195 (90 — 1402. Genoa, Perugia, Sienna, Pisa, Lucca, and Bologna, lose their Liberty through the Intrigues of Gian Galeazzo 196 1402. (3d of September) Florence delivered by the Plague, which unexpectedly carries oft' Gun Galeazzo - 197 CHAP. IX. »N*KCH5 IN THE DUCHY OF MILAN. THE VENETIANS CONQUEtt PADUA AND VERONA. THE FLORENTINES, PISA. FLORENCE, MENACED IN TURN BY LADISLAUS KING OF NAPLES AND IILIPPO MARIA VISCONTI, MAINTAINS AGAINST THEM THE EQUILIBRIUM OF ITALY. 1403 1432. Liberty had, in the 12th Century, produced a great moral Advancement - - 197 The Return of despotic Governments had, on the con- trary, multiplied Crimes and Treasons - - l!'8 The Number of free States diminish every Century, and Virtue becomes more rare . . 199 In the 15th Century it was Crime that made Princes - 199 1402 — 1412. The Children of Gian Galeazzo under the Guardianship of Condottieri, who betray them - - 200 I*i4. (16th of October) The Mother of those young Princes dies by Poison ; numerous Tyrants in Lombardy - - ?01 1412. (16th of May) Gian Maria Visconti assassinated, alter committing atrocious Cruelties - - 202 All the Virtue of Italy at this Period took Refuge in Florence ... .202 1404 (7th of April) Francesco da Carrara conquers Verona from the Visconti - ... 203 (23d of June) Venice declares War against Francesco da Carrara ; Conquest of Vicenza and Verona - . 204 1405. (19th of November) Carrara capitulates at Padua; the Venetians put him to Death, together with his Chil- dren ..... 205 All the Tuscan Republics throw oft' the Yoke of the Children of Gian Galeazzo Visconti - . -206 The Florentines determine to conquer Pisa ; Resistance and Valour of the Pisans .... 907 1*06. (9th of November) The Florentines Masters of Pisa; great Emigration of the Pisans . . 3U7 '-* ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A. D. Pag* 1*09 (March) Council convoked at Pisa to put an end to trie great Western Schism ... - 208 1408. Ladislaus King of Naples profited by the Schism to take possession of the States of the Church - - °09 1409. He attacks Florence ; Alliance of the Florentines with Louis of Anjou and Braccio di Montone - -210 All the Armies of Italy formed in the two Schools of Braccio and Sforza .... 211 1*10. (2d of January) The Florentine Army, led by Braccio, enters Rome - .... 212 1414. (Gth of August) Death of Ladislaus, which delivers Florence from great Danger - - - - 212 1412. (16th of June) Filippo Maria Visconti, third Duke of Milan, succeeds his Brother - - - - 213 Intriguing Activity and Ambition joined to Timidity in this Duke ... . - 214 1412 — 1421. Conquests of Francesco Carmagnolj, Visconti's Ge- neral ; Civil Wars at Naples ... 213 1424. Death of the Two great Captains, Sforza and Braccio 215 1423 — 1425. War between the Duke of Milan and the Florentine Republic, which implores the Aid of Venice - - 216 1426. Carmagnola, who had passed over to the Venetians, takes Brescia from the Duke of Milan - . -217 1427 — 1430. War in the Milanese between the most illustrious Ge- nerals in Italy . ... . 217 1431. Reverses of Carmagnola ; Distrust of him by the Ve- netians ... . . 218 1432. (5th of May) Francesco Carmagnola betrayed, arrested, and beheaded at Venice ... . 219 CHAP. X. COSMO DE' MEDICI CHIEF OF THE FLORENTINE REPUBLIC. DEATH OF THE LAST VISCONTI. EFFORTS OF THE MILANESE TO RECOVER THEIR LIBERTY. THEY ARE SUBJUGATED BY FRANCESCO SFORZA. CONSPIRACY OF STEPHANO PORCARI A.T EOME. 1-13 1 — 1454. The lower Class of the People again accustomed to Sub- ordination - - - 219 Liberty ought to be common to all, hut Power should be vested in those only who can comprehend its true Objects . . - . - 22U Order still maintained in the Italian States which had lost their Liberty - . ■ -221 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XX. A. U. l'age Great Prosperity of the Subjects of Venice ; their Attach- ment to St Mark ...- 229 Prosperity of Florence united with more Intelligence and more Turbulence ..... 222 t&si— 1434. Glorious Administration of the Albizzi at Florence ; Chiefs of a moderate Aristocracy - - - 223 Opulence and growing Credit of Cosmo de' Medici ; his Character ... - - 224 1433 (7th of September)Rinaldodegli A Ibizzi causes Cosmo de' Medici to be exiled from Florence . 22j 1434. (September) Cosmo de' Medici recalled; Rinaldo degli Albizzi exiled .-..-- 22(1 ♦34 — 1447. Albizzi takes Refuge with Visconti, who renews the War with Florence ..... 227 Francesco Sforza and Colconi in the Service of Florence and Venice; the Piccinini in that of the Duke - 227 1441. (24th of October) Marriage of Francesco Sforza with Hi. anca Visconti ; 13th of August, 1447, Death of Visconti 228 1435. (5th of August) Battle of Ponza ; Alphonso of Aragon made Prisoner by the Genoese ... 229 He is set at Liberty by the Duke of Milan, and subdues the Kingdom of Naples .... 230 1447. (14th of August) The Republic of Milan re-established ; Extinction of the Visconti . -230 The Doge of Venire, Foscari, and Cosmo de' Medici refuse the Milanese their Alliance - - 231 Ambition of Cosmo de' Medici ; his Enmity to Republics and to Liberty ... . . 231 The Address of Francesco Sforza, who deceives alter- nately the Milanese and Venetians . . -232 1448. (IRth of October! After having gained many Victoiies over the Venetians, Sforza passes over to them - 233 144:). Sforza conquers a great Hartof Lombardy . - 234 1450. (2t>th of February) Milan opens its Gates to Sforza, and acknowledges him Duke ... 1452. Frederick III. will not acknowledge Sforza Duke - 236 Successive Loss of the Liberties of Koine and the States of the Church . . . - - - t 1447 -1454. The Pope Nicholas V. the Protector of Letters, but an Enemy of Liberty - . . 237 Efforts of Stephano Porcari to recover the Rights of the Romans - - ... CJ8 116S. (f^b, of January) Conspiracy of Stephano Porcari ; his jjxccutmn .. . . • - • aflE ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABI«. CHAP. XL ITALY LOSES ALL THE GREAT MEN WHO SHONE IN THE PRE- CEDING PERIOD. THE REPUBI C OF FLORENCE ENSLAVED EY THE MEDICI. WAR OF THE VENETIANS AGAINST THE TL"KK->. CONQUEST OF CYPRUS. 14,34 1478. A. D. Tage Alarm which the Conquest of Constantinople by the Turks spread throughout Italy - . 240 Mahomet II. proposes to subdue Rome as he had done Constantinople . 241 The Council of Ten at Venice jealous of Foscari ; his domestic Misfortunes - - - 24- 1457. (2'jd of October) the Doge, Francesco Foscari, is deposed, and dies immediately on leaving the Palace . 243 1458. (27th of June) Death of Alphonsoof Aragon ; Succession of his natural Son Ferdinand - - .243 Sforza refuses to assist the Anjou Party, who would de- throne Ferdinand ... . . 244 1465. Ferdinand treacherously puts to Death Nicolo Piccinino 245 1464. (1st of August) Death of Cosmo de' Medici, after having destroyed all Equality at Florence . . 245 His Authority till the Year 1455 divided with Neri Capponi ..... 247 1455 — 1464. Struggle of Cosmo de' Medici with the Aristocracy which he had favoured - - . - - 24S Cosmo, in his old Age, favours the Aggrandisement of Lucas Pitti - - - - - - 249 Building of the Pitti Palace, which gives occasion to nu. merous Abuses of Power .... 249 1464 — 1470. Administration of Pietro de 1 Medici ; his Incapacity - 249 1466. (8th of March) Death of Francesco Sforza ; Succession of Galeazzo Sforza . . . ... 250 Lucas Pitti ruined ; Pietro de' Medici sole Ruler at Flo- rence ... . . . 251 Pietro de' Medici from Sickness abandons public Busi- ness to five or six ambitious Intriguers - . 251 1469. 2d of December) Death of Pietro de" Medici . . 252 Enslavement of Bologna; Obscurity of Lucca and Si- enna ; violent Convulsions at Genoa - . 2~,2 Oppression of Lllyria and Greece by the Venetians . 253 J454 — 1462. Conquest of a Number of Christian States by Ma- homet II. ....... 254 1463—1470. War of the Venetians with the Turks; Death ot Pius II., and of Scanderbeg ..... 255 1470—1474. Negotiations of the Venetians with Hussun Cassan ; their great Travellers . . - . . SSI- Expeditions of the Venetians in Asia Minor, and their Cru-lties . . - iJl ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLK. XXU1 A D. Page Civil Wars of Cyprus ; Part taken by the Venetians in them ; Caterina Cornaro - - . 258 1*77, 1478. The Turkish Armies enter Italy ; the Venetians make Peace with them, on the 26th of January, 1479 . 259 CHAP. X1L FREQUENCY OF CONSPIRACIES. THE LAST RESOURCE OF THK ITALIAN PATRIOTS. THEIR ILL SUCCESS.- CONSPIRACY OF THE PAZZI. ADMINISTRATION OF LORENZO De' MEDICI. HIS DEATH. 1470 1492. Despotism supported by all the inert Part of the Nation 259 Nations seem to be attached each to their Government in Proportion to its Imperfections - - . 260 The Tyrants of Italy won the Attachment of the Pea- santry and the Populace - - 261 While the superior Classes detested Tyranny - 261 Murders were so common that they inspired no Repug- nance .... - - 261 1470. (6th of April) Conspiracy of Bernardo Nardi ; he sur- prises Prato; his Execution .... 263 1476. (1st of September) Monarchical Conspiracy at Ferrara in Favour of Nicolo d'Este - - - 2fi4 Conspiracy of Jerome Gentili at Genoa - -265 Conspiracy of Olgiati, Visconti, and Lampugnani at Milan ... . - .2611 (20th of December) They kill the Duke Galeazzo Sforza, and are in their Turn killed - - - -267 Discontent of the Pazzi at Florence; their Connection with the Pope Sixtus IV. - - - .267 Sixtus IV. approves a Conspiracy to restore Liberty to Florence ... ... 2dy 178. Conspiracy of the Pazzi ; Distribution of the different Parts - - - - - - 269 (26th of April! Giulio de' Medici killed ; Lorenzo esc;»i>es from the Conspirators - ... 270 Massacre of the Pazzi ; Execution of -ill the Conspirators 271 (1st of June) I^orenzo de' Medici excommunicated for having hung an Archbishop - . . 272 1479. Revolutions at Genoa and at Milan against the Duchess Sforza - - 273 (5tli of December) Lorenzo departs for Naples, to demand Peace from Ferdinand .... 274 1480. (6th of May> Treaty of Lorenzo with Ferdinand ; he sacrifices Sienna to him ... -275 XXIV ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLH A Page (ICtb of April Changes in the Constitution of Florence to augment the Power of the Medici - - - '.75 l&tth of July) The Turks at Otranto; 3d of December, Peace of Sixtus IV. with the Horeutines - - 276 Anarchy at Rome under the Pontificates of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. - .... 276 1+8.J — H92. Talents, Character, and Conduct of Lorenzo de' Medici ; Conspiracy in Romagna - . 277 1189. O. Savonarola arrived at Florence ; Reform of the Piii- gnoni ..... 278 1492. Lorenzo sick, asks Absolution from Savonarola, who refuses it; he dies, the 8th of April . . .279 CHAP. XIII. INVASION OF ITALY BY CHARLES VIII. PIETRO, SON OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI, DRIVEN OUT OF FLORENCE. REVOLT AND WAR OF FlSA. POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS REFORM Of SAVONAROLA AT FLORENCE. HIS DEATH. 1492 1498. The Independence of Italy must necessarily fall with the Loss of Liberty ... . . 280 Princes could no longer make use of the Enthusiasm of the People for their Defence - - 2£0 The Italian Militia brave; but terrified by the Ferocity of the Transalpine People . . . 281 All the Proi iuces of France and Spain united at this Period under two separate Monarchs - -282 Newly acquired Power of the Emperor, of the Swiss, of the Turks ; Pretensions of France to Naples . 283 U94. [August) Entry of Chailes VIII. into Italy ; the States of Lombardy favour him .... 283 Pietro II. de' Medici at Florence; his Alliance with the King of Naples .... . 284 Alexander VI. at Home; Ferdinand at Naples ; his Son Alphonso succeeds him, on the 25th of January - 285 Charles VII I. arrives before Sarzana ; Pietro de' Medici delivers to him the Fortresses of the Florentines . 285 (]9th of November) The Medici driven out of Florence, and the Florentines from Pisa - - - 286 (17th of November) Charles VIII. at Florence ; he breaks his Faith with the Florentines; he treats with them - 287 '49b. (21st of February! Charles Master of the Kingdom of Naples without having given Battle . - - 2S8 League to force the French to leave Italy; 6th of July, Battle of Fornovo - - - - - 2S9 (22d of October) Charles returns to France ; the French Again ln>i all Italy • . . 28S ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XXV A D. Page All the Transalpine Nations begin to exercise Aulhorit} over Italy - - - - - - 291 19/V— 1493. Three Parties equally balanced at Florence; Formation of the Council General - - . 291 Influence of Savonarola, religious and political Prophet and Reformer ...... 2&1 Irritation of Pope Alexander VI. against Savonarola . 292 Challenge of a Franciscan to Savonarola to pass together through a burning Pile ... -293 1*98. (17th of April, Scaffold prepared at Florence; tempestuous Rain prevents the Trial by Fire - - .294 Savonarola, abandoned by the People and condemned by the Pope, is burnt alive, on the 23d of May . . 295 CHAP. XIV. THE FRENCH MASTERS OF MILAN AND GENOA. THE SPANIARDS OF NAPLES. THE GONFALONIER SODERINI AT FLORENCE. CONQUEST OF FISA. LEAGUE OF CAMRRAY AGAINST VENICE. THE MEDICI RE-ESTABLISHED AT FLORENCE. 1499 1512. The Transalpine Nations continue to pillage Italy till they entirely destroy 1i,:r Prosperity . -295 1498. Louis XII. succeeds Charles VIII. ; his Pretensions to the Duchy of Milan ; Sforza abandoned - - 296 H90. The Venetians attacked by the Turks; form an Alliance with the French against Sforza ... . 297 The Florentines carry on the War timidly against Pisa; the Pope forms an Alliance with the French - 298 (13th of August) Entry of the F'rench into the Milanese, which they subjugate, as well as Genoa . . £98 1500. (February) Sforza recalled to I.ombardy ; he is besieged at Novava, and made Prisoner ... - P99 1C01. Treaty of Grenada; Partition of the Kingdom of Naples between the French and Spaniards - - SOC 1502. The French quarrel with the Spaniards; they lose the Kingdom of Naples in 1503 . - - - 301 150*. The French Masters of I.ombardy, the Spaniards of the Two Sicilies; the Germans called into the Ve- netian States by I.oius XII. - - -302 1>C7- (7th of February) Insurrection at Genoa against the French, who violate the Capitulation - - SOS Genoa subdued ami punished; Revolutions in the States of the Church - - - .303 Consequences of the War between Florence and Pisa; Obscuritv and Decline of Sienna and Lucca - 301 XXVI ANALYTICAL, AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A. 1). P-»ge *502. (lfith of August) The Florentines nameSoderini Gonla- lonier for Life - J05 lfi09. (8th of June) Pisa again subdued by the Floi entities, who are obliged to purcuase the Consent of France and Spain .... - 306 1499 1503. Disastrous War between the Turks and Venetians - 306 1508. Conquests of the Venetians in Romagna ; their Quarrel with Julius II. - - 507 (10th of December) League signed at Cauibray against Venice ... . - - £08 1509. (1+th of May) Battle of Aignadel, lost by the Venetians ; all the Terra Firma of the Venetians invaded by the Confederates . - - - 309 1510. (24th of February) The Pope, disgusted with his Allies, grants Absolution to the Venetians . - . 311 The Pope causes the French to be attacked by all their former Allies, in order to drive them out of Lom- bardy - - - .311 1511. The Pope experiences Reverses; he forms a powerful League against the French . . - - 312 1512. Victory obtained by Gaston de Foix ; he is killed while gaining the Battle of Ravenna, on the 11th of April ..... 313 (June) The French driven out of Italy by the Swiss, Germans, Spaniards, and Venetians . . 314 (August) Entry of the Spaniards into Tuscany, led by the Medici ; Pillage and Massacre at Prato . . 315 (31st of August) Revolution at Florence, which re.esta. blishes the Power of the Medici ... 315 CHAP. XV. CALAMITIES WITH WHICH THE FRENCH, SPANIARDS, AND GER- MANS OVERWHELM ITALY. PILLAGE AND RUIN OF ALL THE GREAT CITIES. OPPRESSION OF THE ITALIAN NATION, AND LOSS OF ITS INDEPENDENCE. 1513 1530. 1513. (21st of February) Death of Julius II., who attempts in vain to drive the Barbarians out of Italy . . 517 The Reputation of Leo X. little merited ; his Levity and Inconsistency ..... 317 The Power of Leo X. unites all the States of the Church to the Florentine States ... . 318 Conspiracy at Florence punished ; municipal Liberty destroyed in tne States of the Church . - - 319 The Republic of Venice ruined by theWars of the League of Cambray .... . • 319 AN iLYTICAL AND OHRONOLOUICAL TAI1LB. aATII A. D. Page 1514. War had become more atrocious with the Progress of Civilisation .... . 320 1513. (24th of March) Treaty of Alliance between Venice and Louis XI 1. against the Germans - . .321 The French beaten at the Riotta on the 6th of June ; new Calamities of the Venetians - - 321 1515. Francis I. in Lombardy, 13th of September; terriDie Battle at Marignano, against the Swiss - - 322 The French regain Possession of the Milanese, and treat with the Pope ... . - 323 151tj. (13th of August) Treaty of Noyon, which puts an End to the Wars of the League of Cambray ... 324 1519. Successive Extinction of the House of Medici in the legitimate Branches ..... 325 1521. (8th of May) Leo X. forms an Alliance with Charles V. to attack the French, and dies, the 1st of December . 3X 1522. (9th of January) Election of a Flemish Pope, Adrian VI.; all Italy subdued by the Transalpine Nations . 326 (26th of May) The French lose all Lombardy ; 30th of May, Genoa pillaged by the Spaniards - . 327 1523. (18th of November) Clement VII. succeeds Adrian VI. ; his Difficulties and his Faults . - - 328 1524. (28th of October) Francis 1. besieges Pavia ; he is made Prisoner there the 24th of February, l."i25 - - 329 ld£5. Secret League between the Italians proposed by G. Morone to recover their Independence - - 330 The Crown of Naples offered to Pescara, in Concert with France, which renounces its Claims on Italy - 331 The Confederates betrayed by the Court of France and Pescara; their Projects defeated - - .332 1526. (14th of January) Treaty of Madrid to set Francis L at liberty; new Intrigues .... 332 The Duke of Milan besieged in his Castle by the Spaniards ; atrocious Cruelty of the lat'er - -333 1527. (30th of January) Bourbon, at the Head of Spanish and German Adventurers, marches on Rome - - 334 (6th of May' Rome taken by assault ; Bourbon is killed ; horrible Pillage - - ... 334 The Pillage to which Rome was abandoned for the Space of nine Months; the Inhabitants put to the Torture . 335 (August) Another French Army in Italy; Pillage of Pavia ; the Pope joins the French, on the 10th of November ..... 536 3T CONVULSIONS. A. D. Page The Independence of Italy would have been advan- tageous to France ; the Error of France gave Italy to Charles V. - - - .341 The Misfortunes of the Italians become now only Episodes in the History of other Nations - - 342 1527. (17th of May) Florence, on the News of the Taking of Rome, expelled the Medici - - ... 343 The Florentines in their Danger, devote themselves, to Arms, which they had till then neglected . - 343 1529. (14th of October) Florence invested by the Armies which Charles V. lends to Clement VII. - -344 Frequent Sallies of the Florentines ; Projects of Ferrucci for their Deliverance ... - 34a 1530 (14th of July to the 2d of August) March of Ferrucci; his Defeat and Death at Gavinana ... 346 (12th of August; Capitulation of Florence; shame- lessly violated - . - - - 347 1531 — 1537. Tyranny of Alexander de' Medici ; he dies by Assassin. ation ; Cosmo the first Grand Duke - - 347 1552. (11th of August) The Siennese introduce the French into their City ; Cosmo I. attacks them - - 343 1555. (2d of April) Capitulation of Sienna, after atrocious Cruelties committed by the General of Cosmo . 349 155fi. Burlamat-hi of Lucca attempts to restore Liberty to the' Tuscan Cities; his Execution - -349 155fjL (9th of November" Martinian Law, which reduced the Aristocracy of Lucca, overthrown through the In- fluence of the French, 25th of December, 1801 . 35tl J547 (2d of January' Conspiracy of Fieschi at Genoa against the Aristocracy founded by Andrea Doria . . 351 I (MB fist of April) Conspiracy at Genoa of Julius Caesar Va- . hero; his Death . 352 ANALYTICAL ASjl CIIBONOLOGICAL TABLK. XXlA A. 1). Page 1684. (18th of May) Genoa bombarded by the Fleet of Louis XIV. . . . .352 Corruption of the Genoese Aristocracy; frequent Re- volts ; Corsica ceded to France, in 1768 . . 553 1746 (5th of December) All Insurrection of the unarmed Peo- ple at Genoa drives out the A ustrians . -354 1797. (fith of June) Convention of Montebello, which gives Equality to the Genoese in the Ligurian Republic - 355 1530 — 1600. The Senate of Venice, aware of its Weakness, abstains from all War, except against the Tur.cs . . 356 1601— 1645. The Venetians, to liberate themselves from the House of Austria, form an Alliance with the Protectants . 357 1618. Conspiracy of the Marquis of Bedmar against Venice; he seems to hide a Project of freeing Italy from the Spanish Yoke - ... 357 1645 — 1699. Two Wars maintained by the Venetians against the Turks - - - - 35S 1700 — 1798. Corruption of the Venetian Aristocracy; its last War with the Turks . . . 360 1"18 1796. The Name of Republic stained by the most odious Ty. ranny at Venice - - - . 561 1796. The Senate of Venice permits the Austrians to make their Territory the Theatre of War - -361 17yl7. (17th of April) The Senate sound the Tocsin for the Massacre of the French even in the Hospital - . 362 (3d of May) France declares War against Venice, which is conquered, and ceded to Austria - - - 3ii'_' 1805. (26th of December) Venice restored to the Kingdom of Italy, and to Libertv . . 353 The Regeneration of 1796 restores more Liberty to Italy than it lost in 1495 ... . 363 The Coalition of 1814 placed all Italy again under the Yoke which the Nation most detested . . 364 The Italians have, since that Period, repeatedly triumphed over their own Tyrants ; foreign Force alone enchains them .... 364 Theie will be no lasting Peace in Europe until the Na- tion which was the first to become free shall have re- covered its Independence • . 3fji HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. INTRODUCTION. 1 he republics which flourished in Italy during tne middle ages have neither been attached by ancienl alliances, nor opposed by long rivalries and wars, to tlie powers which divide Europe at this day. From this it might be supposed that their history is altogether of secondary importance, and that each people, after having studied its own, should give precedence over that of the Italians to the history either of hereditary allies, or of those who, by a prejudice of barbarism, are called natural enemies. It would be a great error : history has no true importance but as it contains a moral lesson. It should be explored, not for -scenes of carnage, but for instiuctions in the government of mankind. The know- ledge of times past is good only as it instructs us to avoid mistakes, to imitate virtues, to improve by ex- perience : but the pre-eminent object of this study, — the science of governing men for their advantage, of de- veloping their individual faculties, intellectual and moral, for their greater happiness, — that political philosophy, began in modern Europe only with the Italian republics of the middle ages, and from them diffused itself over other nations. After the destruction of the Roman empire, which carried away ancient civilisation with it in its fall, power henceforth, through many generations, belonged only to Barbarians, exercising with their brutal passions the a 2 HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN KEPITBMCS. rights of conquest over Simian society. There was no longer a government, no longer an association ol" ali the inhabitants of a country organised for the common good : society was divided between the conquerors and the conquered. The former, indeed, had a spirit of independence: they were companions united under theii chief, to :;a.isfy in common their rapacity and luxury ; it was their glory to be feared, to be obeyed, and to be re- venged. Afterhaving exhausted their caprices on the van- quished, they delighted in hearing such feats celebrated by their poets at festivals, as great deeds in which they took pride. For those, on the contrary, who had fallen under the yoke of the barbarians, there was no pro- tection to be expected, there was no government formed even partly for their advantage — in short, there was no social bond. They were compelled to labour, that their conquerors might enjoy, — to suffer and be humiliated, that those might pride themselves on their domination. Such was the state of Europe for a long period after the fall of the Roman empire, — a state of which the history offers out little real instruction, and on which perhaps it may be as well not to dwell. We are easily seduced by the display of energy : the courage of the barbarians, employed only in crime and devastation, attracts us ; long rivalries sometimes appear to us as a reason for hatred between descendants ; and a poetic hue still dis- guises ages which can only teach us one lesson — to avert at all price their return. Useful history, that of which the knowledge should be universally diffused, begins only with the period when the victors and vanquished, inhabitants of the same country, were fused into one people ; and still more decisively when they became united by a single bond, the public good, at the period when the government be- longed to the people, and not the people to the govern- ment. The fusion of conquerors and conquered was more or less rapid in the different states of Europe : in some it lowered the former, in others it raised the latter ; and public order cannot be considered as having been esta- INTRODUCTION. 3 Wished till the people were no longer confounded with the property which they created for the use of their masters. After the invasion of the barbarians, the people every where belonged, in the first instance, to the army ; but, as the army must preser v e its organisation to remain powerful, it could not exist without a chief : the power of the chief was often confounded with that of his sol- diers, who sometimes found it advantageous to invest him with almost despotic authority. Thus it frequently hap- pened that the chief, called by the barbarians king, from having been no more than the deputy chosen by the army, became its master. He had ruled for the army, by the army, and finally he ruled the army itself: government from being military became patrimonial; the people and the army belonged alike to the king, and were governed solely for the advantage of the king. In the midst of these governments, either military or patrimonial, when Gaul belonged to the Franks, Spain to the Visigoths, England to the Saxons, and at a later period to the Normans, or when each of these countries belonged to a king of the do- minant race, Italy began early to feel, and to declare, that she belonged only to herself - to assume authority, and to exercise it for her own advantage. Italy, invaded by the barbarians, like the other western states, pillaged, oppressed, and disorganised, could, no more than they, repel the invaders or expel them, and constitute herself a single state. There, as elsewhere, the ancient social body was annihilated ; but there, more than elsewhere, the principle of life remained in the fragments of the broken colossus: the Italians succumbed as a nation, but the component parts of their grand social union, their cities and towns, the first elements in some sort of what forms a nation, arose and defended themselves on their own account; every smaller association of men, which had survived the great one, had the courage to exist for itself — to feel that it had interests to protect, sentiments above fear, and virtues that deserved success. The Italians sought the good of all, not that of masters at the expense of slaves. Their hearts first told them B ii 4 HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. and their reason confirmed, that they h;td still a country : for her they set the first example of those puhlic vir- tues which became the pattern of Europe. From the moment they formed their own governments, and formed them for the common good, they prospered: while every other nation suffered, they rose in intelligence as well as virtue. The exercise of commerce and the arts aug- mented their wealth, and fixed on them the attention of other nations; their example enlightened the smaller associations framed in the towns of the rest of Europe, and imitating them at a distance; their experience di- rected the meditations of some superior minds formed in the government of the Italian republics, who rose from the practice to the theory of civil society, anil showed, not only to their own country, but to future nations and ages, the object to which all human asso- ciations should tend, and the best means by which to attain it. Jn the mean time, while the Italian republics increased in population, intelligence, virtue, and wealth, the patri- monial governments of the rest of Europe advanced also, but in another manner. Nations made some slow pro- gress in civilisation; their chiefs increased in power, not by the developement of the resources of their people, but by the agglomeration of new states ; their kingdoms, subject to the laws of inheritance and primogeniture, which always cause, and in no long period, the extinction of rich families, had grown, as the patrimony of the wealthy grows, by inheritance, by marriage, and by the abuse of power. The ancient sovereign families had for the most part, become extinct, if not in all their branches, at least in the eldest; and their territories had accumulated on a few survivors in the younger branches. About ten powerful succeeded a hundred feeble princes. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, the chiefs of the French, German, and Spanish nations were tempted to invade Italy, allured by the marvellous opulence of a country where the plunder of a single town afforded sometimes greater riches than they could wrest from INTRODUCTION. 6 millions of their own subjects. The most frivolous pretexts sufficed ; and, during forty years of war, that prosperous and beautiful country was ravaged by all the various nations which could find their way into Italy The insatiable brigandage of these new barbarians at length destroyed the opulence which had allured them; but the soldiers of the north and west carried into their own countries, along with the treasures of the Italians, the instruction and example of a more advanced civilis- ation: numerous germs of a better state of things, carried away from the Italian republics of the middle ages, were spread over the rest of Europe. Let us not, while we now reap the harvest, forget the parent soil. It is this first developement of the Italian nation, thus instructive to every other, that we here purpose shortly to retrace. We have endeavoured to include in a single volume a summary of the events of which the Italian peninsula was the theatre, from the fall of the Roman empire to the end of the Middle Age. This summary will not satisfy the philosopher, who wishes to distinguish in the mass of general history the peculiar genius of each people, to follow institutions from their birth, to know their action and their defects, to study man in his various circumstances, and to see depicted individuals as well as nations. M r e refer those who can bestow time and attention on historical studies to the much larger work which we have already published on the same subject : they will there find ample details, and they will be put in the way to obtain still more. Proposing to ourselves here only a summary of facts, and a more luminous view of the ideas they suggest, in order to satisfy the curiosity of those who can give only a limited time and attention to the study of historv, we have abstained from all references; we have considered it useless to cite authorities which wo have made known elsewhere; and, above all, we have endeavoured to make the following pages universally intelligible without the aid of any other book. * *< HISTORY OF THK ITALIAN REPUBLICS, CHAPTER I. STATE OF THE POPULATION OK ITALY AT THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY, ITALY TORMENTED DURING FIVE CENTURIES BY THE SUCCESSIVE INVASIONS OF BARBARIANS. FIRST EFFORTS OF TOWNS, IN THE TENTH CEN- TURY, TO DEFEND AND GOVERN THEMSELVES. Ancient Italy lost her freedom in the conquests of the Roman republic. Her numerous and warlike people had long defended themselves, either in the chain of mountains which, issuing from the southern Alps, crosses the whole length of Italy; or in the vast and rich plains to the east of that chain, formerly occupied by the Cis- alpine Gauls. This people disappeared ; their cities, enlarged and embellished by the Romans, lost all inde- pendence, all remembrance of nationality ; the land was no longer cultivated but by slaves; when the Roman republic itself in its turn also lost its freedom. Rome held sway over the greatest part of the known world ; but, under the necessity of employing despotic authority, in order to secure the obedience of the army, and the distant provinces, she finally became herself the pro- perty of the master whom she had imposed on others. One of the early successors of Augustus had granted to every Italian the rights of citizenship in Rome; but those rights had ceased to confer a participation in the sovereignty of the republic. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the municipalities of Italy, in becoming Roman citizens, renounced no one of the rights of their native cities, of which they might be either jealous or proud. Italy continued to decline rapidly un;!er the empe- rors ; the component parts were no longer in due pro- POPrr.ATlOX IN THE FIFTH KSTUHV. I portion. Rome contained about two or three thousand ■enatorial families, whose luxury and splendour sur- passed all the pomp now displayed by the greatest nobles of our richest monarchies ; but whose effeminacy and pusillanimity shrunk from all the active offices of life. These families were often decimated by despotism ; their property was frequently confiscated; and they be- came rapidly extinct : but others arrived from the provinces to take their place. They were surrounded by an immense population, lodged in miserable houses, almost the only property they possessed. Rome con- tained several millions of inhabitants: the smallest num- ber only exercised the necessary arts and employments of life, and even this more active part of the population (composed chiefly of foreigners and freedmen) left the manual work entirely to slaves ; the remainder, all those who gloried in the title of Roman citizen, who had long despised every vocation but the military service, henceforward rejected even that, and lived in absolute idleness : supported by distributions of corn and largesses from the public treasury, they passed their days in the bath, the circus, and the amphitheatre. The state not only supported them, but took upon itself the charge of amusing them by gratuitous public spectacles. Whole families became extinct from the vices engendered by idleness; but their place was continually supplied by the crowd which flocked from the provinces to enjoy a life of indolence, largesses, immunities, and public shows. Italy was covered with cities: the greater number of those now existing flourished in at least equal splendour in the time of the Roman empire ; some, such as Milan, Verona, Bologna, Capua, were so considerable as to pre- sent an image of Rome, with their circus, their amphi- theatre, their tumultuous and idle population, their riches, and their poverty. Their administration was nearly republican, most commonly composed, after the example of Rome, of a curia, or municipal senate elected by the people, and of duumvirs, or annual consuls. In all these towns, among the first class of inhabitants were to B 1 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN RKPl'IILICR. lit found the proprietors of tlie neighbouring land, lodged in palaces with their slaves and freedmen ; secondly, the artisans and shopkeepers whom their consumption established around them ; lastly, a crowd of idle people, who had preserved just enough of land to supply, with the strictest economy, the means of existence. It does not appear that there was any prosperous manufactory in Italy. All manual labour, as well in towns as in the country, was executed by slaves. Objects of luxury, for the most part, came from Asia. War had for a long time been the only occupation of the Italians ; for a long period, too, the legions had been levied partly among the Romans, and partly among their allies in Italy : but, under the emperors, the distrust of the master seconded the luxurious effeminacy of the subject, the Italians finally renounced even war ; and the legions were re- cruited only in Pannonia, Gaul, and the other provinces bordering on the Rhine and the Danube. At a later period, the barbarians who menaced Rome were seduced by liberal pay to engage in its defence; and in the Roman armies the enemies of Rome almost entirely replaced the Romans. The country could not, as in modern states, supply the place of cities in recruiting the armies with a class of men accustomed to the inclemencies of the weather, and inured to toil. The only labourers to be found were an oppressed foreign race, who took no in- terest in public affairs. The Romans cultivated their land either by slaves purchased from the barbarians, and forced by corporal punishment to labour, or by coloni purliarii, to whom was given a small share in the har- vest as wages : but, in order to oblige these last to con- tent themselves with the least possible share, they were attached to the land, and nearly as much oppressed as slaves themselves. The proprietors of land varied be- tween these two systems, according as the price of slaves varied, or the colons (peasants, labourers) were more or less numerous : no cultivator of the land had any pro- perty in it. The greatest part was united in immense domains, sometimes embracing whole provinces, the ad- INVASIONS OP BARBARIANS. J. ministration of which was intrusted to freedmen, vhose only consideration was, how to cultivate the land with the least possible expense, and how to extract from their labourers the greatest degree of work with the smallest quantity of food. The agriculturists, as well what were called freedmen as slaves, were almost all barbarians by birth, without any interest in a social order which only ( ppressed them, without courage for its defence, and without any pecuniary resources for themselves ; their numbers also diminished with an alarming rapidity, partly from desertion, partly from new invasions of barbarians, who carried them off to sell as slaves in other Roman provinces, and, finally, from a mortality, the necessary consequence of po\erty and starvation. Italy, nevertheless, was supposed to enjoy a constant prosperity. During the entire ages of Trajan and the Antonines, a succession of virtuous and philosophic emperors followed each other ; the world was in peace ; the laws were wise and well administered ; riches seemed to increase ; each succeeding generation raised palaces more splendid, monuments and public edifices more sumptuous, than the preceding ; the senatorial families found their revenues increase; the treasury levied greater imposts. But it is not on the mass of wealth, it is on its distribution, that the prosperity of states depend : increasing opulence continued to meet the eye, but man became more miserable ; the rural popu- lation, formerly active, robust, and energetic, were suc- ceeded by a foreign race ; while the inhabitants of towns sunk in vice and idleness, or perished in want, amidst the riches they had themselves created. It was into this Italy, such as despotism had made it, that the barbarians penetrated. Eager for the booty which it contained and could not defend, they repeatedly ravaged it during the last two centuries of the western empire. The mercenary troops that Rome had levied amongst them for its defence, preferring pillage to pay, frequently turned their arms against those they were engaged to defend. They vied with the Remans iR 10 IIISTOItY OF THE ITALIAN RKPUBLIf*. making and unmaking emperors ; and generally chose them from their own ranks, in order to secure to the soldier a greater share of the property of the citizen. The booty diminished as the avidity of these foreigners increased. The pomp of the western empire soon ap- peared, to an army thus formed, an useless expense. Odoacer. of the nation of the Heruli, chief of the mer- cenaries who then served in Italy, suppressed it by de- posing, in 47fi, the last emperor. He took upon him- self the title of king, and distributed amongst his soldiers one third of the land in the most fertile provinces : he governed during seventeen years this still glorious country, as a rich farm which the barbarians had a right to cultivate for their sole use. The mercenaries united under the sceptre of Odoacer were not sufficiently strong to defend Italy against a new invasion of barbarians. The Ostrogoths, encouraged by the Grecian sovereign of new Rome, the emperor of the east, arrived in 48<), under the command of Theodoric, from the countries north of the Euxine to the borders of Italy: they completed the conquest of it in four, and retained possession of the Peninsula sixty-four years, under eight successive kings. These new barbarians, in their turn, demanded and obtained a portion of land and slaves: they multiplied, it is true; but became rapidly enervated in a delicious climate, where they had sud- denly passed from the severest privations to the enjoy- ment of every luxury. They were at last conquered and subdued, in the year 553, by the Romans of Con- stantinople, whom they despised as the degenerate suc- cessors of the same nation which their ancestors had vanquished. The invasion of the Lombards, in 568, soon followed the destruction of the monarchy of the Ostrogoths Amongst the various hordes which issued from the north of Germany upon the southern regions, the Lombards were reputed the most courageous, the most cruel, and the proudest of their independence ; but their number was inconsiderable, and they scarcely acknowledged any LOMBARDY SUBJUGATKD BV THE FRANKS. 1 1 social tie sufficient to keep them united : accordingly, they never complete! the conquest of Italy. From 568 to 774, twenty-one Lombard kings, during c 206 years succeeded each other without establishing their dominion either on the Lagunes, at the extremity of the Adriatic gulf, where such of the inhabitants of upper Italy as were personally the most exposed had taken refuge and founded the Venetian republic ; or on the shores of the Adriatic, now called Romagna, governed by a lieutenant of the emperor of Constantinople, under the title of exarch of the five cities of l'entapolis ; or on Home, de- fended only by the spiritual arms of the patriarch of the western church ; or on the southern coast, where the Greek municipalities of Naples, Gaeta, and Amain' governed themselves almost as independent republics. The Lombards, nevertheless, founded a kingdom in northern Italy, of which Favia was the capital; and in southern Italy the duchy of Beneventum, which still maintained its independence two cencuries after the kingdom was subjugated. From the middle of the eighth century the Lombards, masters of a country where the great towns still contained much wealth, where the land had lost nothing of its fertility, where the example of the vanquished had taught the vanquishers the advantage of reviving some agricultural industry, excited the envy of their neigh- bours the Franks, who had conquered and oppressed the Gauls, who despised all occupation but war, and desired no wealth but what the sword could give. They by repeated invasions devastated Italy; and at length, in 774, completed the destruction of the Lombard mon- archy. For more than twenty years the popes or bishops of Rome had been in the habit of opposing the kings of France to the monarchs of Lombardy, who were odious to them, at first as pagans, and afterwards as heretics. Chief of the clergy of the ancient capital, where the power of the emperors of Constantinople had been nominally established hut never felt, they con- founded their pretensions with those of the empire; and 12 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. the Lombards having recently conquered the exarchate of Ravenna,' and the Pentapolis, they demanded that these provinces should be restored to Rome. The Frank kings made themselves the champions of this, quarrel, which gave them an opportunity of conquering the Lombard monarchy ; but Charles, the king who accomplished this conquest, and who was the greatest man that barbarism ever produced, in treating with Rome, in subjugating Italy, comprehended all the beauty of a civilisation which his predecessors had seen only to de- stroy : he conceived the lofty idea of profiting by the barbarian force at his disposal to put himself at the head of the civilisation which he laboured to restore. In- stead of considering himself as the king of the conquerors, occupied only in enriching a barbarous army with the spoils of the vanquished, he made it his duty and his glory to govern the country for its best interests, and for the common good : he did more. In concert, with Pot>e Leo III., he re-established the monarchy of the con- quered as a western Roman empire, which he considered the representative of right, in opposition to barbaric force : he received from the same pope, and from the Roman people, on Christmas-day in the year 800, the title of Roman emperor, and the name of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, which no one before had ever so well deserved. As king, and afterwards as emperor, lie governed Italy, together with his other vast states, forty years : he pursued with constancy, and with increasing ability, the end he proposed to himself, viz. establish- ing the reign of the laws, and a flourishing civilisation : but barbarism was too strong for him ; and when he died, in 814, it was re-established throughout the empire. Italy had eight kings of the family of Charlemagne, reckoning his son and grandson, who reigned under him, and were, properly speaking, his lieutenants. Charles le Gros, great grandson of Charlemagne, was deposed in 888 ; after which ten sovereigns, either Italian or Rur- gundian, but allied to the race of the Franks, disputed, 8UC0USSIYK INVASIONS OF BAKBARIANS. ] 3 tor seventy years more, the crown of Italy and the empire. In y51, Otho I. of Saxony, king of Germany, forced Berenger II., who t!:en leigned, to acknowledge himself his vassal : in })()1, O(ho entered Italy a second time with his Germans, was crowned at Rome with the title of emperor, and sent Berenger II. to end his days in a fortress in Germany. Thus, nearly five centuries elapsed from the fall of the ancient Roman empire to the passing over of the re- newed empire to the Germans. For a long space of time Italy had been pillaged and oppressed, in turn, by barbarians of every denomination, who wantonly over ran the country only to plunder, and believed themselves valiant because, though in small numbers, they spread terror over a vast extent, and imagined by bloodshed to give a dignity to their depredations. The country, thus exposed to so many outrages, did not remain such as the Romans had left it. The Goth, Lombard, Frank, and German warriors, who had successively invaded Italy, introduced several of the opinions and sentiments of the barbarian race, particularly the habit of independence and resistance to authority. They divided with their kings the country conquered by their valour. They caused to be ceded to them vast districts, the inhabitants of which they considered their property equally with the land. The Lombard monarchy comprehended thirty dukedoms, or marquisates ; their number diminished under Charlemagne and his successors: but, at the same time, there rose under them a numerous class of counts and vdvasors, amongst whom every duke divided the province that had been ceded to him, under condition that they should swear fealty and homage, and follow him to the wars. The counts, in their turn, divided among the warriors attached to their colours the lard apportioned to them. Thus was the feudal system, which made the possession of land the warrior's pay, and constituted an hereditary subordination, founded on in- terest and confirmed by oath, from the king down to tile lowest soldier, established at the same time through- 14 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN KKPUBMC8. out Europe. The Lombards had carried into Italy the first germs of this system, which had been developed by the Franks, and invigorated by the civil wars of Charle- magne and his successors : these wars rendered it neces- sary that every feudatory should fortify his dwelling to preserve his allegiance to his lord; and the country, which till then had been open, and without defence, became covered with castles, in which these feudal lords established their residence. About the same time, — that is to say, in the ninth cen- tury, — cities began to rebuild their ancient walls; for the barbarian kings who had every where levelled these walls to the ground no longer opposed their reconstruction, the danger of being daily invaded by the rival princes who disputed the throne made them necessary ; besides, at this epocha new swarms of barbarians from all parts infested Europe ; the inhabitants of Scandinavia, under the name of Danes and Normans, ravaged England and France; the Hungarians devastated Germany and Upper Italy ; the Saracens, masters of Africa, infested the southern coasts of Italy and the isles : conquest was not the purpose of any of these invaders ; plunder and massacre were their only objects. Permission to guard themselves against continual outrages could not be with- held from the inhabitants of towns. Several thousand citizens had often been obliged to pay ransom to little more than a hundred robbers : but, from the time they were permitted by their emperors to rebuild their walls, to purchase or manufacture arms, they felt themselves in a state to make themselves respected. Their long suffer- ing had hardened them, had accustomed them to pri- vations and danger, and had taught them it was better to defend their lives than yield them up to every con- temptible aggressor ; at the same time, the population of cities, no longer living in idleness at the expense of the provinces of the empire, addicted themselves to industry for their own profit: they had, accordingly some wealth to defend. The ancient curiae and municipalities had been retained in all the towns of Italy by their barbarian EFKOKTSs OF lOWNS TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. 15 markers, in order to distribute more equally the burdens imposed by the conquerors, and reach individuals more surely. The magistrates were the chiefs of a people who demanded only bread, arms, and walls. From the time when towns were secured by walls, their power rapidly increased ; the oppressed from all parts sought refuge in them from the oppressors : they carried with them their industry, and arms to protect the walls that defended them. Every where they were sure of a good reception ; for every city felt it had strength only in proportion to the number of its citizens: each vied with its neighbour in efforts to augment the means of defence, and in the reception given to strangers. The smaller towns imitated the greater, the villages those in their turn ; and each had a castle, or at least a tower, where the population, in case of a sudden attack, might retire with the most precious of their effects. In the mean time the dukes, marquisses, counts, and prelates, who looked on these cities as their property, on the inhabitants as men who belonged to them, and la- boured only for their use, soon perceived that these citizens were ill disposed to obey, and would not suffer themselves to be despoiled ; since they had arms, and could defend themselves under the protection of their walls : residence in towns thus became disagreeable to the nobles, and they left them to establish themselves in their castles. They became sensible that to defend these castles they had need of men devoted to them; that, rrot- withstanding the advantage which their heavy armour gave them when fighting on horseback, they were the minority ; and they hastened to enfranchise the rural population, to encourage their growth, to give them arms, and to endeavour to gain their affections. The effect of this change of rule was rapid: the rural population in the tenth and eleventh centuries increased, doubled, qua- drupled in exact proportion to the land which they had to cultivate. Otho I., his son Otho II., and his grandson Otho III. were successively acknowledged emperors and kings I 0' HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN RRPl'BLIOb. of Italy, from <)6l to 1002. When this branch cf the house of Saxony became extinct, Henry I), of Bavaria, and Conrad the Salic of Franconia, filled the throne from 1004' to 1039- During this period of nearly eighty years, the German emperors twelve times entered Italy at the bead of their armies, which they always drew up in the plains of Roncaglia near Placentia: there they held the states of Lombanlv, received homage from their Italian feudatories, caused the rents due to be paid, and promulgated laws for the government of Italy. A foreign sovereign, however, almost always absent, known only by his incursions ai the head of a barbarous army, could not efficaciously govern a country which lie hardly knew, and where his yoke was detested. During these five reigns, the social power became more and more weak in Italy. The em- perors were too happy to acknowledge the local autho- rities, whatever they were, whenever they could obtain from them their pecuniary dues : sometimes they were dukes or marquisses, whose dignities had survived the disasters of various invasions and of civil wars; some- times the archbishops and bishops of great cities, whom Charlemagne and his successors had frequently invested with duchies and counties escheated to the crown, reckon- ing that lords elected for life would remain more de- pendent than hereditary lords; sometimes, finally, they were the magistrates themselves, who, although elected by the people, received from the monarch the title of imperial vicars, and took part with the nobles and pre- lates in the Plaids (Placita), or diets of Roncaglia. After a stay of some months, the emperor returned with his army into Germany ; the nobles retired to their castles, the prelates and magistrates to their cities: neither of these last acknowledged a superior authority to their own, nor reckoned on any other force than what they could themselves employ to assert what they called their rights. Opposite interests could not fail to pro- duce collision, and the war -was universal. In the time of Conrad the Salic, the prelates almost throughout AUTHORITY OF THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 17 Lombardy joined the cities against the nobles; and from 1035 to 10o9 there was a general war between these two orders of society. Conrad put an end to it, by a con- stitution which is considered to be the basis of feudal law. By this the inheritance of fiefs was protected from the caprices of the lords and of the crown, — the most op- pressive conditions of feudal dependence were suppressed or softened, — and the few remaining slaves of the land were set free. The crown of Conrad the Salic passed in a direct line to his son, grandson, and great grandson. The first, Henry III., reigned from 10.S9 to 1056"; the second, Henry IV., from 1056 to 1106'; the third, Henry V., from 1 106' to 1125. The last two reigns were troubled by the bloody quarrel between the Empire and the court of Rome, called the war of investitures. Rome had never made part of the monarchy of the Lombards. This ancient capital of the world, with the territory ap- pertaining to it, had, since the conquest of Alhoin, formed a dukedom, governed by a patrician or Greek duke, sent from Constantinople. The bishop of Rome, however, who, according to the ancient canonical forms, was elected by the clergy, the senate, and the people of his diocese, had much more authority over his flock than this foreign magistrate. He considered himself, too, as patriarch of the West, and the head of all the Latin churches. This authority, it is true, was not indisput- ably acknowledged by orthodox prelates ; and the bar- barians, who professed either paganism or Arianism, held it in contempt. The pontiff, however, who now began to take exclusively the name of Pope, had more than once successfully defended Rome with his spiritual arms when temporal ones had failed. When, in the year 717, an iconoclast, or enemy of images, filled the throne of Constantinople, the popes, under the pretence of heresy, rejected his authority altogether: a municipality, at the head of which were a senate and consuls, then go- verned Rome nearly as an independent state ; the Greeks, occupied with their own dissensions, seemed to forget it; C 18 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. and Rome owed to this forgetfulness fifty years of a sort of liberty. The Romans found once more a faint image of their past glory : sometimes even the title of Roman republic was revived. They approved, notwithstanding, of pope Stephen II. conferring on the princes of the Franks the dignity of patricians, in order to transfer to them the authority which the Greek magistrate exercised in their cityin the name of the emperor of Constantinople; and the people gladly acquiesced when, in the year 800, Leo III. crowned Charlemagne as Augustus, and re- storer of the western empire. From that period Rome became once more the capital of the empire. At Rome the chiefs of the empire were henceforth to receive the golden crown from the hands of the pope, after having received the silver one of the kingdom of Germany at Aix-la- Chapelle, and the iron crown of Lombardy at Milan. Great wealth and much feudal power were, by the gratitude of the emperors, attached to the see of Rome, The papacy became the highest object of ambition to the whole sacerdotal order ; and, in an age of violence and anarchy, barons notorious for their robberies, and young libertines recommended only by the favour of some Roman ladies, not unfrequently filled the pontifical chair. The other bishops selected were often no better. The German emperors, on arriving at Rome, were sometimes obliged to put an end to such a scandal, and choose among the competitors, or depose a pope who put all Christen- dom to the blush. Henry III. obliged the people to renounce the right which they had hitherto exercised, and so greatly abused, to take part in the election of popes. He named, himself, four successively, whom he chose among the most learned and the most pious of the clergy of Italy and Germany ; and thus powerfully seconded the spirit of reform which began to animate the church from the eleventh century. Amidst the convulsions to which society was exposed, the wealth of the clergy had remained intact. The kings whom it tempted dared not seize it for them- selves; but they distributed it, with the dignities of the PLANS OF REFORMATION BY IIILDEBRAND. I[J church, among their favourites — their creatures, — ser- vile priests, who had nothing ecclesiastical but the name. These promotions excited a general clamour. Religious men pretended that kings introduced corrup- tion into the body of the clergy — that they destroyed the independence which ought to belong to the ministers of God. An ardent desire to purify the priesthood, by preventing these dignities from being distributed ir. purely temporal views, was manifested ; but it belonged to one of the greatest characters produced in the middle age to agitate all Christendom for the attainment of this end. Hildebrand, born at Soana, in Tuscany, a man of the most obscure condition, but from the moment when he entered into orders distinguished for his talents, was sent by his convent to pursue his studies at Cluny, in France. He conceived, in his solitude, the plan of re- volution, by which he proposed to himself the subjuga- tion of the world to the sacerdotal power. In the universe he saw but God, the priest his sole minister, and mankind obedient. He designed that the whole priesthood should be moved by one single will, should know only one passion — that of establishing the power of Heaven. The whole church appeared to him cor- rupted : he undertook to reform it in its head, in its members, in the whole body of the faithful under its control. He anathematised all intervention of the secu- lar power in the distribution of the dignities of the church ; it was, he said, simony — making a commerce of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The crime was the same, whether the people in their public assemblies, or nobles, or kings, took part in the election of prelates, or attempted to confer on them the investiture of even the temporal power attached to their bishoprics. In 10/59, he obtained of the council of Lateran that the election of popes should be vested in the cardinals ; and the nomi- nation of all prelates in the chapters, jointly with the pope. To detach the clergy from human society, he proscribed and punished with severity the marriage of 20 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBUC9. priests, which, till then, had been permitted or tolerated by some provincial councils, particularly in Lombard y. Finally, concentrating all the power of the church in the pope, he taught the priests to consider him as an unerr- ing being, who became holy by his election — who could alone name and depose bishops — assemble, preside over, and dissolve councils : he was, he said, in short, a god upon earth — absolute master of all princes, who were bound o kiss his feet, and whom he could depose at will, by releasing their subjects from their oaths of fidelity. Hildebrand accomplished, at least for a time, the im- mense revolution which he had undertaken : he changed the spirit of the popedom, of the clergy, and the people ; and he enslaved kings. He procured, by his influence, the election of the four popes who preceded him in the chair of St. Peter, which he ascended himself in the year 1073, taking the name of Gregory VII. The popes his successors continued, after his death in 1085, to act upon his maxims, and seemed as if still animated by his spirit. Nevertheless, he experienced from the clergy, above all from those of Lombardy, a prodigious resistance. He tormented Italy and Germany with a constant civil war ; he called in against Rome the Nor- mans, who burnt the city, and sold almost all the inha- bitants into slavery ; he compelled his heroic rival, the emperor Henry IV., to do penance before him in the open court of Canosa, whilst the ground was covered with snow ; he obliged him to remain three days and three nights in the habit of a penitent, barefooted ami fasting, before he would grant him absolution. The successors of Gregory VII. excited the two sons of Henry IV. successively to revolt against him, and deprse him. Henry soon died of a broken heart. Henry V., the second of these unnatural children, whose cause the pope had espoused, after having obtained the crown by the aid of the priests, became their enemy in his turn. During sixteen years he made war against the church, to maintain the independence of the imperial crown, and the rights o< WAR OF xNVES. ITURES. 21 sect liar sovereigns over the fiefs held hy the clergy. Tlie people at length, wearied and exhausted, forced these two rival powers to an agreement, in which the rights of both were curtailed. In the diet of Worms, 1122, the emperor abandoned to the pope the investiture of bishops by the ring and crosier ; while he reserved to himself the transmission of the regal rights attached to each bishopric by the concession of the sceptre. These were only exterior ceremonies ; in fact, the people alone were deprived of their rights in the choice of their pas- tor. Sovereigns retained almost exclusively the nomi- nation of prelates in their respective dominions. The war of investitures, which lasted more than sixty years, accomplished the dissolution of every tie between the different members of the kingdom of Italy. Civil wars have at least this advantage, — that they force the rulers of the people to consult the wishes of their subjects, oblige them to gain affections which constitute their strength, and to compensate, by the granting of new privileges, the services which they require. The prelates, nobles, and cities of Italy obeyed, some the emperor, others the pope; not from a blind fear, but from choice, from affection, from conscience, according as the political or religious sentiment was predominant in each. The war was general, but every where waged with the national forces. Every city armed its militia, which, headed by the magistrates, attacked the neigh- bouring nobles or towns of a contrary party. While each city imagined it was fighting either for the pope or the emperor, it was habitually impelled exclusively by its own sentiments: every town considered itself as a whole, as an independent state, which had its own allies and enemies ; each citizen felt an ardent patriotism, not for the kingdom of Italy, or for the empire, but for his own city At the period when either kings or emperors had granted to towns the right of raising fortifications, that of assembling the citizens at the sound of a great bell, to concert together the means of their common defence, (. S 22 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. had been also conceded. This meeting of all the men of the state capable of bearing arms was called a par- liament. It assembled in the great square, and elected annually two consuls, charged with the administration of justice at home, and the command of the army abroad. The militia of every city was divided into separate bodies, according to local partitions, each led by a gonfaloniere, or standard bearer. They fought on foot, and assembled round the carroccio, a heavy car drawn by oxen, and covered with the flags and armorial bearings of the city. A high pole rose in the middle of this car, bearing the colours and a Christ, which seemed to bless the army, with both arms extended. A priest said daily mass at an altar placed in the front of the car. The trumpeters of the community, seated on the back part, sounded the charge and the retreat. It was Heribert archbishop of Milan, contemporary of Conrad the Salic, who invented this car in imitation of the ark of alliance, and caused it to be adopted at Milan. All the free cities of Italy followed the example: this sacred car, in- trusted to the guardianship of the militia, gave them weight and confidence. The nobles who committed themselves in the civil wars, and were obliged to have recourse to the protection of towns, where they had been admitted into the first order of citizens, formed the only cavalry. The parliament, which named the consuls, appointed also a secret council, called a Consilio di Credenza, to assist the government, composed of a few members taken from each division ; besides a grand council of the people, who prepared the decisions to be submitted to the parliament. The Consilio di Credenza was, at the same time, charged with the administration of the finances, consisting chiefly of entrance duties collected at the gates of the city, and voluntary contributions asked of the citizens in moments of danger. As industry had rapidly increased, and had preceded luxury, — as domestic life was sober, and the produce of labour considerable, — wealth had greatly augmented. The citizens allowed them- ORIGINAL CONSTITUTIONS OF THE PREE TOWNS. 23 selves no other use of their riches than that of defending or embellishing their country. It was from the year 900 to the year 1200 that the most prodigious works were un- dertaken and accomplished by the towns of Italy. They began by surrounding themselves with thick walls, ditches, towers, and counter guards at the gates ; im- mense works, which a patriotism ready for every sacrifice could alone accomplish. The maritime towns at the same time constructed their ports, quays, canals, and custom-houses, which served also as vast magazines for commerce. Every city built public palaces for the Sig- noria, or municipal magistrates, and prisons; and con- structed also temples, which to this day fill us with admiration by their grandeur and magnificence. These three regenerating centuries gave an impulse to archi- tecture, which soon awakened the other fine arts. The republican spirit which now fermented in every city, and gave to each of them constitutions so wise, ma- gistrates so zealous, and citizens so patriotic, and so capable of great achievements, had found in Italy itself the models which had contributed to its formation. The war of investitures gave wing to this universal spirit of liberty and patriotism in all the municipalities of Lombardy, in Piedmont, Venetia, Romagna, and Tuscany. But there existed already in Italy other free cities, of which the experience had been sufficiently long to prove that a petty people finds, in its complete union and devotion to the common cause, a strength often wanting in great states. The free cities which flourished in the eleventh century rose from the ruins of the western empire ; as those in Italy which preceded them in the career of liberty rose from the ruins of the empire of the East. When the Greeks resigned to the Lombards Italy, which 1 few years before they had conquered from the Ostrogoths, they still preserved several isolated ports and fortified places along the coast. Venice, at the ex- tremity of the Adriatic ; Ravenna, at the south of the mouth of the Po ; Genoa, at the foot of the Ligurian mountains ; Pisa, towards the mouth* of the Arno ; c * %* HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Amain, Bari, were either never conquered by the Lombards, or in subjection too short a time to have lost their ancient walls, and the habit of guarding them. These cities served as the refuge of Roman civilisation. All those who had preserved any fortune, independence of mind, or hatred of oppression, assembled in them to concert the means of resisting the insolence of their barbarian masters. The Grecian em- pire maintained itself at Constantinople in all its ancient pride; but, with oriental apathy, it regarded these remains as still representing its province of Italy, while it did no- thing for their defence. From time to time, a duke, an exarch, a patrician, a catapan, or other magistrate, was sent, with a title announcing the highest pretensions, but unaccompanied by any real force. The citizens of these towns demanded money and soldiers to repair and defend their fortifications ; whilst the emperors, on the contrary, demanded that the money and soldiers of Italy should be sent to Constantinople. After some disputes, the Greek government found it prudent to abandon the question, and shut its eyes on the establishment of a liberty which it despised, but which perhaps might be useful in the defence of these distant possessions; finally, the magistrates, whom these towns themselvesnominated, became the acknowledged depositories of the imperial authority- The disposal of their own money and sol- diers was allowed them, on condition that nothing should be demanded of the emperors, who were satisfied to see their names at the head of every act, and their image on the coin, without exacting other acts of submission. This policy was not, however, exactly followed with respect to Ravenna, or afterwards to Bari. In these cities the representative of the emperor had fixed his residence with a Greek garrison. Ravenna, as well as the cities appertaining to it, denominated the Pentapolis, was conquered by the Lombards between 720 and 730. Bari became then the capital of the thema of Lombardy, which extended over a great part of Apulia. We have already shown how Rome passed from the Greek to the OKlniN OF VENICE. 25 western empire : we suspect, rather than know, that Genoa and Pisa, after having heen occupied hy the Lombards, preserved their relations with Constantinople. The pallium, or silk flag, presented for some time to the emperors, was considered by them as a sort of tribute ; but Venice on the upper sea, Gaeta, Naples, and Amalfi, on the lower, advanced more openly to independence. From the invasion by Attila in 452, the marshes called Lagune, formed at the extremity of the Adriatic by the slime deposed by seven or eight great rivers, amidst which arose innumerable islands, had been the refuge of all the rich inhabitants of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Treviso, and other great cities of Venetia, who fled from the sabres of the Huns. The Roman empire of the west survived this great calamity twenty-four years; hut it was only a period of expiring agony, during which fresh disasters continually forced new refugees to establish themselves in the Lagnne. A numerous popu- lation v;as at length formed there, supported by fishing, the making of salt, some other manufactories, and the commerce carried on by means of these many rivers. IJeyond the reach of the barbarians, who had no vessels, forgotten by the Romans, and their successors the Ostro- goths, they maintained their independence under the ad- ministration of tribunes, named by an assembly of the people in each of the separate isles. The Venetians looked upon the Ostrogoths, and their successors the Lombards, as heretics ; so that religious zeal strengthened theii aversion to the dominant powers of Italy. On the other hand, the population of each island forming a little separate republic, jealousies arose ; their tribunes disagreed. To put an end to these factions, the citizens of every island met in a single assembly at Heraclea in (){)7, and elected a chief of maritime Venetia, whom they called doge, or duke. This title, borne by the Greek governors of the provinces of Italy, seems to indicate that the doge was considered a lieutenant of the empe- ror of Constantinople. The Venetians, in fact, persisting in regarding themselves as members of the eastern em- 2b HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN KEPl'DMCB. pirc never acknowledged the pretensions of Charle- magne and his successors to the dominion of all Italy. It was in 809, in a war against Pepin, son of Charle- magne, that the Venetians made choice of the island of the Rialto, near which they assembled their fleet, with their wealth collected on board, and built the city of Venice, the capital of their republic. Twenty years afterwards they transported thither, from Alexandria, the body of St. .Mark, the evangelist. They chose him patron of their state. His lion figured in their arms, and his name in their language, whenever they would designate with peculiar affection their country or government. While the Venetians disputed with the Lombards, the Frank and the German emperors, the little land on which stood their houses, they had also to dispute the sea that bathed them with the Slavonians, who had established themselves for the purpose of piracy on the eastern side of the Adriatic. Amidst them, on the same coast, several little cities inhabited by Greeks, but for- gotten by the empire, endeavoured in vain to defend their liberties and municipal governments. In 997, these small towns of Istria and Dalmatia made alliance with Venice ; consented to receive judges chosen by the doge, and to fight under his banner. With their aid Venice vanquished the pirates of Narenta and Croatia ; and the doge from that period took the title of duke of Venice and Dalmatia. The first magistrate of the republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi bore likewise the title of doge. These three cities, forgotten by the Greek emperors, and re- ceiving no aid from them, still held by the ties of com- merce to Greece. The inhabitants had devoted them- selves with ardour to navigation ; they trafficked in the Levant, and covered southern Italy with its rich mer- chandise. The country situated beyond the Tiber had been exposed to fewer invasions than upper Italy. It had not, however, entirely escaped. A Lombard chief entered it in 589, an d founded the great duchy of Benevento, which comprehended nearly the whole FREE TOWNS OF SOUTHERN ITALY. 27 southern part of the peninsula. This dukedom main- tained itself independent of the kingdom of the Lom- bards at Pavia, and had not been involved in its fall. It defended itself with valour against Charlemagne and his successors, who attempted its conquest ; but in 83<), at the end of a civil war, it was divided into the three principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua. The Saracens had established colonies, in the year 828, in Sicily, which till then had been subject to the Greek- empire : these Saracens, a few years afterwards, passed into southern Italy. The three republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi preserved their independence by exciting enmity between the Lombards and Saracens, who equally menaced them ; but these barbarians soon sank into the languor produced by the charms of a southern climate. It seemed as if they had no longer courage to risk a life to which so many enjoyments were attached. When they fought it was with effeminacy ; and they hastened the termination of every war, to plunge again into the voluptuous ease from which it had roused them. The citizens of the republics had the advantage over them of walls and defiles ; and, without being braver than the Lombards, maintained their inde- pendence against them for six centuries. Southern Italy, till the year 1000, was disturbed only by the petty wars between the Lombard prin- cipalities, the republics under the protection of the Greek empire, the eatapans of Bari, and the wander- ing bands of Mussulmans, whom love of plunder more than religious zeal had brought into Italy. But about this epoch there arrived at Salerno, and afterwards in Apulia, Norman adventurers, the second or third generation of those terrible Danish corsairs who had so long and so cruelly ravaged France, and who were already, in f)12, established in Neustria, where they adopted Christianity and the French language. TheJ retained the valour of their ancestors, their love o' adventure, and passion for voyages. They first cam: in great numbers to visit as pilgr' ns the sanctuaries o» 28 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. southern Italy, and afterwards entered as soldiers into the armies either of the princes of Lombardy, the republics, or the Greeks of Bari, who had recently reconquered the whole of Apulia. They proved so superior in valour to all those to whom they were op- posed, that these mercenaries soon made all the small states, among which they had come to seek adventures, tremble. In 1041, they conquered Apulia from the Greeks; in 1060, Calabria; from 10()'l to 10f)0, Si- cily : about the same time they subjugated the three Lombard principalities of Beneventum, Salerno, and Capua. The three republics were the last states in southern Italy which fell under the Norman yoke. We do not, indeed, know the date of the conquest of Gaeta, the records of the history of the town being very scanty. But Amain, illustrious for the foundation, in the Holy Land, of the hospital and military order of St. John of Jerusalem, for the invention of the com- pass, and for the preservation of the pandects of Jus- tinian, surrendered to the Normans in 1131. The leader of these last was then Roger II. ; to whom the antipope Anacletus had, the preceding year, given the title of king of the Two Sicilies. Roger besieged, in 1138, the city of Naples; which though, in turns, succoured by the emperor of Germany and the republic of Pisa, was compelled also to surrender. The republic of Pisa, which vainly sought to save from ruin these first Italian republics of the middle ages, was a city which navigation and commerce had enriched. Genoa, which soon became its rival, had escaped the pillage of these northern conquerors, and had preserved a constant intercourse with Constan- tinople and with Syria; from whence the citizens brought the rich merchandise which they afterwards dispersed throughout Lombardy. The Pisans and Genoese, in- vigorated by a seafaring life, were accustomed to defend with the sword the merchandise which they conveyed from one extremity to the other of the Mediterranean. They were often in sonflict with the Saracens, like P19A AND GENOA. 2.9 them addicted to maritime commerce, to ■which these last frequently added piracy. The Saracens pillaged Genoa in the year 931). In 1005 they entered a suburb of Pisa ; and again invested that city in the year 1012, Their colonies in Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Isles, constantly menaced Italy. The Pisans, seconded by the Genoese, in their turn attacked Sardinia, in the year 1017 ; but completed the conquest only in 1050. They established colonies there, and divided it into fiefs, between the most illustrious fa- milies of Pisa and Genoa. They also conquered the Balearic Isles from the Saracens, in the year 1113. When, towards the end of the eleventh century, the western world took up the dispute with the Saracens for the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa had already reached a high point of commercial power; these three cities had more vessels on the Medi- terranean than the whole of Christendom besides. They seconded the Crusaders with enthusiasm. They pro- visioned them when arrived off the coast of Syria, and kept up their communication with the west. The Ve- netians assert that they sent a fleet of 200 vessels, in the year 10.99, to second the first crusade. The Pisans affirm that their archbishop Daimbert, who was after- wards patriarch of Jerusalem, passed into the east with 120 vessels. The Genoese claim only twenty-eight galleys and six vessels : but all concurred with equal zeal in the conquest of the Holy Land ; and the three maritime republics obtained important privileges, which they preserved as long as the kingdom e*f Jerusalem lasted. Such were the changes which the space of six cen- turies from the fall of the Roman empire accomplished in Italy. Towards the end of the fifth century, the so- cial tie, which bad made of the empire one body, became dissolved, and was succeeded by no other. The citizen felt nothing for his fellow-citizen ; he expected no sup- port from him, and offered him none. He coulf no- where invoke protection ; he every where saw only SO HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. violence and oppression. Towards the beginning of the twelfth century, the citizens of the towns of Italy had as little to expect from abroad. The emperor ot the Germans, who called himself their sovereign, was with his barbarian army, only one enemy more. But universally, where the circle of the same wall formed a common interest, the spirit of association was developed. The citizens promised each other mutual assistance Courage grew with iiberty ; and the Italians, no longer oppressed, found at last in themselves their own de- fence. CHAP. II. FREDERICK BARBAROSSA ENDEAVOURS TO ABRIDGE THE LIBERTIES OF THE TOWNS OF ITALY. THEIR RESISTANCE. THE LEAOUE OF LOMBARDV. TRUCE OF VENICE AND PEACE OF CONSTANCE WHICH FIXES THEIR RIGHTS. When the inhabitants of the cities of Italy associated for their common defence, their first necessity was to guard against the brigandage of the barbarian armies, which invaded their country and treated them as enemies ; the second, to protect themselves from the robberies of other barbarians who called themselves their masters. Their united efforts soon ensured their safety; in a few years they found themselves rich and powerful ; and these same men, whom emperors, prelates, and nobles considered only as freed serfs, perceived that they constituted almost the only public force in Italy. Their self-confidence grew with their power ; and the desire of domination succeeded that of independence. Those cities which had accumulated the most wealth, whose walls enclosed the greatest population, attempted, from the first half of the twelfth century, to secure by force of arms ORIOZtl OF (.IELPHS AND GH1BELINES. 31 the obedience of such of the neighbouring towns as did not appear sufficiently strong to resist them. These greater cities had no intention to strip the smaller of their liberty ; their sole purpose was to force thein into a perpetual alliance, so as to share their good or evil fortune, and always place their armed force under the standard of the dominant city. The long war of the investitures, between the Fran- conian emperors and the popes, had given the first im- pulse to this ambition : as general interests were involved, as it was a question of distant operations and common danger, the cities felt the necessity of alliances, and of an active correspondence, which soon extended from one extremity of Italy to the other. The smaller towns soon found that this general policy was beyond their means. and that the great cities, in which commerce and wealth had accumulated knowledge, and which alone received the communications of the pope or of the emperor, naturally placed themselves at the head of the league formed in their provinces, either for the empire or fo. the church. These two leagues were not yet known in Italy by the names of Guelph and Ghibeline, which in Germany had been the war-cry of the two parties at the battle of Winsberg, fought on the ?lst of December, 11 -iO, and which had previously distinguished, the former the dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, devoted to the pope ; the latter, the emperors of the house of Franconia. But although these two names, which seem since to have become exclusively Italian, had not yet been adopted in Italy, the hereditary affection respectively for the two parties already divided the minds of the people for more than a century, and faction became to each a second country, often served by them with not less heroism and devotion than their native city. Two great towns in the plains of Lombardy surpassed every other in power and wealth : Milan, which habit- ually directed the party of the church ; and l'avia, which directed that of the empire. Both towns, however, seem to have changed parties during the reigns of Lothario III. SI HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUIJLICS. and Conrad 1 1., who, from the year 1 125 to 1 152, placed in opposition the two houses of Guelphs and Ghibelines in Germany. Milan, having during the first half of the twelfth century experienced some resistance from the towns of Lodi and Como, rased the former, dispersing the inhabitants in open villages, and obliged the latter to destroy its fortifications. Cremona and Novara ad- hered to the party of Pavia ; Tortona, Crema, Bergamo, Brescia, Placentia, and Parma, to that of Milan. Among the towns of Piedmont, Turin took the lead, and disputed the authority of the counts of Savoy, who called them- selves imperial vicars in that country. Montferrat con- tinued to have its marquises. They were among the few great feudatories who had survived the civil wars ; but the towns and provinces were not in subjection to them, and Asti was more powerful than they were. The family of the Veronese marquises, on the contrary who from the time of the Lombard kings had to defend the frontier against the Germans, were extinct ; and the great cities of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and Mantua, nearly equal in power, maintained their inde- pendence. Bologna held the first rank among the towns south of the Po, and had become equally formi- dable on the one side to Modena and Reggio, and on the other to Ferrara, Ravenna, Imola, Faenza, Forli, and Rimini. Tuscany, which had also had its powerful marquises, saw their family become extinct with the countess Matilda, the contemporary and friend of Gregory VII. Florence had since risen in power, destroyed Fiesole, and, without exercising dominion over the neighbouring towns of Pistoja, Arezzo, San Miniato, and Volterra, or the more distant towns of Lucca, Cortona, Perugia, and Sienna, was considered the head of the Tuscan league ; and the more so that Pisa at this period thought only of her maritime ex- peditions. The family of the dukes of Spoleto had also become extinct, and the towns of Ombria regained their freedom ; but their situation in the mountains pre- sented them from rising into importance. In fine, 1152. ARNOLD OF BRESCIA AT ROME. 33 Rome herself indulged the same spirit of independence. An eloquent monk, the disciple of Abelard, who had made himself known throughout Europe, preached in 1139 twofold reform, in the religious and political orders ; the name borne by him was Arnold of Brescia. He spoke to men of the antique liberty which was their right ; of the abuses which disfigured the church. Driven out of Italy by pope Innocent II. and the council of Lateran, he took refuge in Switzerland, and taught the town of Zurich to frame a free constitution ; but in the year 1 143 he was recalled to Rome, and that city again heard the words " Roman republic," " Roman senate," " comitia of the people." The pope branded his opinions with the name of " heresy of the politicians:" and Arnold of Brescia, having been given up to him by the emperor was burnt alive before the gate of the castle of St. Angelo, in the year 1155. But his precepts survived, and the love of liberty in Rome did not perish with him. In southern Italy, the conquests of the Normans had finally smothered the spirit of liberty; and the town of Aquila in the Abruzzi alone preserved any republican privileges. Such was the state of Italy, when the Germanic diet, assembled at Frankfort in 1 1 52, conferred the crown on Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, and of the house of Hohenstaufen. This prince was nephew to Conrad III., whom he succeeded ; he was allied to the two houses of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, which had contended with each other for the empire, and was regarded, with good reason, by the Germans as their most distinguished chief. Frederick Barbarossa was not only brave, but understood the art of war, at least so far as it could be understood in an age so barbarous. He made himself beloved by the soldiers, at the same time that he sub- jected them to a discipline which others had not ye* thought of establishing. lie held his word sacred; he abhorred gratuitous cruelty, although the shedding of human blood had in general nothing revolting in it to 8 pripce of the middle ages: but the prerogatives of hi# n SA- HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN KE1 I'BLICB. 1155. FIRST EXPEDITION OF FREDERICK. H5 found. Frederick treated with kindness the towns of Notara and Turin ; but those of C'hieri and Asti had been denounced to him as entertaining the same senti- ments as Milan ; the inhabitants fled at his approach, and he plundered and burnt their deserted houses. Ar- rived next before Tortona, he ordered the inhabitants to renounce their alliance with the .Milanese; but tbey, trusting to the strength of the upper town, into which they had retreated, while Frederick occupied the lower part, had the courage to refuse. The Germans began the siege of Tortona on the 13th of February, 1155. They could not prevent the entrance of 200 Milanese, to assist in its defence. For sixty-two days did this brave people resist the attacks of the formidable army of Fre- derick, the numbers of which had been increased by the armed force of Pavia, and the other Ghibeline towns. The want of water compelled them at last to sur- render ; and the emperor allowed them to retire to Milan, taking only the few effects which each individual could carry away ; every thing else was given up to the pillage of the soldiers, and the houses became a prey to the flames. The Milanese received with respect these martyrs of liberty, and every opulent house gave shelter and hospitality to some of the unhappy inhabit- ants of Tortona. Frederick meanwhile placed on his head, in the temple of Pavia, the iron crown of the kings of Lombardy ; and began his march on Rome, to receive there the golden crown of the empire. But the Germans who accompanied the emperor, not- withstanding the ardour with which they had under- taken this distant expedition, began to be tired of so long an absence from their home. The licence extended to their pillage and debauchery no longer appeared to them a sufficient compensation for tedious marches and the dangers of war. They pressed the emperor to ad vance towards Rome, and to avoid all quarrel with the peat towns by which they passed, although almost all refused to admit them within their walls, — providing subsistence and lodging for them in the suburbs only. i) 2 3t) HISTOAV OF THE ITALIAN REPl BL1CS. I 155. The impossibility of maintaining discipline in a rapa- cious army, which beheld for the first time the unknown riches of commerce and the arts ; the difficulty of avoid- ing quarrels between two nations, neither of which un- derstood the language of the other, perhaps justified this precaution. Frederick thus passed by Placentia, Parma, Bologna, and Florence. He was not received even intc Rome ; his troops occupied what was styled the Leonine city, or the suburb built round the Vatican : he was there crowned by the pope, Adrian IV. j while his army was obliged to repel the Romans who advanced by the bridge of St. Angeio and the borgo* of Trastevere to disturb the ceremony. Frederick withdrew from Rome the following day; conducting his army into the moun- tains, to avoid the great heat of summer. The citizens of Spoleto, not having supplied with sufficient haste the provisions he demanded, he attacked, took, and burnt their city : sickness, however, began to thin the ranks of his soldiers; many also deserted, to embark at Ancona. Frederick, with a weakened army, directed his march on Germany by the valleys of the Tyrol. The citi- zens of Verona, who would not admit the Germans within their walls, constructed for him a bridge of boats on the Adige, which he hastily passed over, but had hardly gained the opposite bank, when enormous pieces of wood, carried down by the impetuosity of the current, struck and destroyed the bridge. Frederick had no doubt that the Lombards had laid this snare for him, and flattered themselves with the breaking of the bridge whilst he should be in the act of passing over; but he was no longer sufficiently strong to avenge himself. The emperor at length returned into Germany with his barbarian soldiers. He every where on his passage spread havoc and desolation ; the line by which he marched through the Milanese tenitory was marked by fire ; the villages of Rosate, Trecale, and Galiata, the towns of Chieri, Asti, Tortona, and Spoleto were burnt. But whilst he thus proved his barbarism, he also * Borgo is the communication between Trastevere anil the Vatican. \ I o$. SECOND INVASION OF FREDERICK. 3? proved his weakness. He did not dare to attack the stronger and more populous cities, which congratulated themselves on having shut their gates, and refused sub- mission to him. Thus a year's campaign sufficed to destroy one of the most formidable armies that Germany had ever poured into Italy ; and the example of ancient times encouraged the belief that it would be long before the emperor could again put the Germans in motion. The Milanese felicitated themselves on having preserved their liberty by their courage and patriotism. Their trea- sury was indeed empty ; but the zeal of their opulent citizens, who knew no other luxury than that of serving their country, soon replenished it. These men, who poured their wealth into the treasury of the republic, contented themselves with black bread, and cloaks of coarse stuff. At the command of their consuls, they left Milan to join their fellow-citizens in rebuilding, with their own hands, the walls and houses of Tortona, Rosate, Trecale, Galiata, and other towns, which had suffered in the contest for the common cause. They next attacked the cities of Pavia, Cremona, and No- vara, which had embraced the party of the emperor, and subjected them to humiliating conditions ; while they drew closer their bonds of alliance with the towns of Brescia and Placentia, which had declared for liberty. But Frederick had more power over Germany than any of his predecessors : he was regarded there as the restorer of the rights of the empire and of the German nation. He obtained credit for reducing Italy from what was called a state of anarchy and revolt, to order and obedience. His vassals accordingly flocked with eagerness to his standard, when he summoned them, at the feast of Pentecost, 1158, to compel the submission of Italy. The battalions of Germany entered Lom- bardy at the same time by all the passes of the Alps. Their approach to Brescia inspired the inhabitants with so much terror, that they immediately renounced their alliance with Milan, and paid down a huge sum of money for their ransom. The .Milanese, on the con- i» 3 38 HISTORY OF THE ITAt.iANHEPlBl.lCS. 1158. trary, prepared themselves for resistance. They bad either destroyed or fortified all the bridges of the Adda ; flattering themselves that this river would suffice to stop the progress of the emperor ; hut a body of Ger- man cavalry dashed boldly into the stream, and, swim- ming across the river, gained in safety the opposite hank. They then made themselves masters of the bridge of Cassano, and the whole army entered into the Milanese territory. Frederick, following the course of the Adda, made choice of a situation about four miles from the ruins of the former Lodi. Here he ordered the people of Lodi to rebuild their town, which would in future secure to him the passage of the Adda. He summoned thither also the militias of Pavia and Cremona, with those of the other towns of Lombardy, which their jealousy of Milan had attached to the Ghi- beline party ; and it was not till after they had joined him that he encamped, on the 8th of August, 1158, before Milan. His engines of war, however, were in- sufficient to beat down the walls of so strong and large a town ; and he resolved to reduce the Milanese by famine. He seized their granaries, burnt their stacks of corn, mowed down the autumnal harvests, and an- nounced his i-esolution not to raise the siege till the Milanese had returned to their duty. The few nobles, however, who had preserved their independence in Lombardy proceeded to the camp of the emperor. One of them, the count de Blandrate, who had before given proofs of his attachment to the town of Milan, offered himself as a mediator, was accepted, and obtained terms not unfavourable to the Milanese. They en- gaged to pay a tribute to Frederick of 9000 marks of silver, to restore to him his regal rights, and to the towns of Lodi and Como their independence. On their side, they were dispensed from opening their gates to the emperor. They preserved the right of electing their consuls, and included in their pacification their allies of Tortona and Crema. This treaty was signed the 7th of September, 1158. 1159- THIRD WAR Wlm MILAN. 3ft Frederick, in granting an honourable capitulation to revolted .subjects, whom he had brought back to their obedience, had no intention of renouncing the rights of his empire. He considered that he had preserved, un- touched, the legislative authority of the diet of his king- dom of Italy. The Milanese, on the contrary, regarded their treaty as definitive ; and were both astonished and indignant when Frederick, having assembled, towards the 1 lth of November following, the ]il7 THK J.EAGUK Or LO.MB.AKDY. 4;> The towns of the Veronese marches, seeing the em- peror and his army pass without daring to attack them, became bolder: they assembled a new diet, in the be- ginning of April, at the convent of Pontida, between Milan and Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo, of Brescia, of Mantua and Ferrara met there, and joined those of the marches. The union of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, for the common liberty, was hailed with universal joy. The deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to the destruction of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages in imploring aid of the confederated towns to rebuild the city of Milan. This confederation was called the League of Lombardy. The consuls took the oath, and their constituents afterwards repeated it, that every Lombard should unite for the recovery of the common liberty ; that the league for this purpose should last twenty years ; and, finally, that they should aid each other in repairing in common any damage experienced in this sacred cause, by any one member of the confederation : extending even to the past this contract for reciprocal security, the leasiue resolved to rebuild Milan. The militias of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Mantua, Ve- rona, and Treviso arrived the 27th of April, 11 67, on the ground covered by the ruins of this great city. They apportioned among themselves the labour of re- storing the enclosing walls ; all the Milanese of the four villages, as well as those who had taken refuge in the more distant towns, came in crowds to take part in this pious work ; and in a few weeks the new-grown city was in a state to repel the insults of its enemies. Lodi was soon afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to take the oath to the league; while the towns of Venice, Placentia, Parma, Modena, and Bologna voluntarily and gladly joined the association. Frederick, meanwhile, arrived within sight of Rome. The Romans dared to await him in the open field ; he defeated them with great slaughter, and made himself muster of the Leonine city. The inhabitants still de« 40' III8TOHY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. I)(<8 fending themselves in the Vatican, he dislodge. I them by setting fire to Santa Maria, the adjoining church ; Alexander, in his fright, escaped by the Tiber. After his retreat the Romans took the oath of fidelity to the emperor, without, however, receiving his army within their walls; but fever, and the suffocating heat of the Oampagna, soon began, by its ravages, to avenge the Italians : from the first days of August an alarming mortality broke out in the camp of the emperor. The princes to whom he was most attached, the captains in whom he had most confidence, two thousand knights, with a proportional number of common soldiers, were carried off in a few weeks. He endeavoured to flee from the destructive scourge ; he traversed in his retreat Tuscany and the Lunigiana ; but his route was marked with graves, into which every day, every hour, he de- posited the bodies of his soldiers. He was no longer strong enough to vanquish even the opposition of the Utile town of Pontremoli, which refused him a passage ; and it was by roads almost impracticable that he at length crossed the Apennines. He arrived at Pavia about the middle of September, and attempted to assemble a diet ; but the deputies of Pavia, Novara, Vercelli, and Como alone obeyed his summons. He harangued the assembly with great vehemence ; and, throwing down his glove, challenged the rebellious cities to a pitched battle. He passed the winter in combating, with his small remain- ing army, the league of Lombardy ; but in the month of March, 11 (18, he escaped from the Italians, and re- passed Mount Cenis, to return and arm the Germans anew against Italy. After his departure, Novara, Ver- celli, Como, Asti, and Tortona also entered into the confederation, which resolved to found, as a monument of its power, and as a barrier against the Ghibelines of Pavia and Montferrat, a new city, on the confluence of the rivers Tanaro and Bormida. The Lombards named it Alexandria, in honour of the chief of the church, and of their league. They collected in it all the inhabitants of the different villages of that rich plain, which extends Il6ft. RESF1TK IF ITALY. 17 from the Po to the Ligurian Alps, and secured to them all the liberty and privileges for which they themselves had fought. Frederick had sacrificed more time, treasure, and blood, to strengthen his dominion over Italy than any of his predecessors : he had succeeded for a long period in associating the German nation in his ambition. He persuaded the Germans that their interest and their honour were concerned in the submission of the Italians. They began, however, to feel tired of a long contest, from which they derived no advantage: other interests, affairs more pressing, demanded the presence of the emperor at home ; and Frederick was obliged to suspend for five years his efforts to subdue Italy. During this period the towns of Lombardy, in the plenitude of their power and liberty, corrected their laws, recruited their finances, strengthened their fortifications, and finally placed their militias on a better war establishment. Their consuls met also in frequent d'ets, where they bound themselves by new oaths to the common defence, and admitted fresh members into the confederation, which at length reached to the extremity of Romagna. Frederick, however, did not entirely abandon Italy. He sent thither Christian, the elected archbishop of Ments, and arch-chancellor of the empire, as his representative. This warlike prelate soon felt that there was nothing to be done in Lombardy ; and he proceeded to Tuscany, where the Ghibeline party still predominated. His first pretension was to establish peace between the two mari- time republics of Genoa and Pisa, which disputed with arms in their hands the commerce of the Fast. As he found a greater spirit of pride and independence in the Pisans, he caused to be thrown into a dungeon their consuls, who had presented themselves at the diet of the Tuscan towns convoked by him at San Ginasio, in the month of July, 1 173 ; lie arrested, at the same time, the consuls of the Florentines their allies, while lie studiously nattered those of Lucca, of Sienna, of Pistoia, and the nobles of Tuscany, Romagna, and Ombria; promising to 4b HISTORY OF TIIK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1174-. avenge tliem on their enemies: but, said he, " to do so more effectually, you must first co-operate with me in crushing the enemies of the emperor." He thus suc- ceeded in persuading them to second him in the attack which he meditated for the following spring on Ancona. This city, the most southern of all those attached to the league of Lombardy, contained about twelve thousand inhabitants, enriched by maritime commerce, and con- fident in the strength of their almost unassailable position. Their town, beautifully situated on the extremity of a promontory, which surrounded a magnificent port, pre- sented on the side open to the continent only precipitous rocks, with the exception of a single causeway. The citizens had accordingly repulsed successfully for ages all the attacks of the barbarians, and all the pretensions of the emperors. The archbishop, Christian, arrived before Ancona in the beginning of April, 1174, and in- vested the city with an army levied among the Ghibe- lines of Tuscany and Ombria. The people of Ancona repulsed their attack with their accustomed bravery. But hunger, more formidable than the sword, soon menaced them. The preceding harvests had failed ; their granaries were empty ; and an enemy's fleet closed their port. They saw the harvest ripen, without the possibility of a single sack of corn reaching them. All human subsist- ence was soon exhausted : undismayed, however, they tried to support existence with the herbs and shell-fish which they gathered from their rocks, or with the leather which commerce had accumulated in their magazines, Sach was the food on which had long subsisted a young and beautiful woman. Observing one day a soldier sum- moned to battle, but unable from hunger to proceed, she refused her breast to the child whom she suckled ; offered it to the warrior; and sent him, thus refreshed, to shed his blood for his country. But to whatever distress the people of Ancona were reduced, they rejected every proposal to capitulate. At length the succour invoked from the Guelphs of Ferrara and Romagna ap- pioached ; Christian saw the firet; which they lighted on 1 1 75. SIEGE AT ANCONA. 49 the mountain of Falcognara, about four miles from Ancona ; and, unable to give them battle with an army exhausted by the fatigues of a long siege, he hastily re- treated. In the beginning of October, 1 1 74, Frederick, at the head of a formidable army, again re-entered Italy. He passed from the county of Burgundy into Savoy, and descended by Mont Cenis. Suza, the first town to which he came on his passage, was taken and burnt ; Asti, in alarm, opened its gates, and purchased its security from pillage by a heavy contribution ; but Alexandria stopped the progress of the emperor. This city, recently founded by the league of Lombardy, did not hesitate to enter into a contest with the imperial power, for the sake of its confederates ; although its mud walls were an object of derision to the Germans, who first gave this town the surname of Alexandria delta paglia, or of straw. Ne- vertheless these walls of mud and straw, but defended by generous and devoted citizens, resisted all the efforts of the most valiai.t army and the most warlike monarch of Germany. Frederick consumed in vain four months in a siege, winch was prolonged through the winter. The inundation of rivers more than once threatened him with destruction, even in his camp ; sickness also decimated his soldiers. Finally, the combined army of the Lom- bard league advanced from Placentia to Tortona ; and on Easter Sunday of the year 1175 Frederick found himself obliged to raise the siege, and to march for Pavia, to repose his army. This last check at length compelled the emperor to acknowledge the power of a people which he had been accustomed to despise. The chiefs of the Lombard army showed themselves well prepared for battle ; but still respecting the rights of their monarch, declined attacking him. lie entered into negotiation with them: all pro- fessed their ardent desire to reconcile the prerogatives o; the emperor and the rights of the Roman church with those of liberty. Six commissioners were appointed to settle the basis of a treaty which should reconcile these E 50 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. ll?f). several claims. They began by demanding that the armies on each side should be disbanded. Frederick did not hesi- tate to comply: he dismissed his Germans, and remained at Pavia, trusting solely to the fidelity of his Italian Ghibelines. Legates from the pope arrived also to joir the commissioners ; and the negotiations were opened. But the demands of Frederick were so high as to render agreement almost impossible. He declared that he de- sired only his just rights ; " but they must be those/' said he, " which have been exercised by my predeces- sors, Charlemagne, Otho, and the emperors Henry III. and Henry IV." The deputies of the towns opposed to this the concessions of Henry V. and Lothario ; but even these could no longer satisfy them. For the Italians, liberty had advanced with civilisation ; and they could not now submit to the ancient prerogatives of their masters, without returning to their own anciei t barbarism. The negotiations were broken off, and Frederick sent to Germany for another army, which, in the spring of II763 entered the territory of Como, by the Grisons. The emperor joined it about the end of May, after traversing, without being recognised, the territory of Milan. It was against this great town that he entertained the most profound resentment, and meditated a new attack. He flattered himself that he should find the citi- zens still trembling under the chastisement which he had before inflicted on their city. On the 29th of May, he met the Milanese army between Lignano and Barano, about fifteen miles from Milan. Only a few auxiliaries from Placentia, Verona, Brescia, Novara, and Vercelli had yet joined them. An impetuous charge of the German cavalry made that of the Lombards give way. The enemy pressed forward so near the carroccio, as to give great alarm lest this sacred car should fall into their hands. But in the army of the Milanese there was a company of 900 young men, who had devoted them- selves to its defence, and were distinguished by the name of " the company of death." These brave youths 1177 V10TOKY OF THE LOMBARDS. 51 seeing the Germans gain ground, knelt down ; and in- voking God and St. Ambrose, renewed their vow to perish for their country ; then rising, they advanced with such impetuosity that the Germans were discon- certed, divided, and driven back. The whole army, re- animated by this example, hastily pressed forward. The Germans were put to flight ; their camp was pillaged ; Frederick was separated from his companions in arms, and obliged to conceal himself ; and it was not till he had passed several days, and encountered various dangers, that he succeeded in reaching Pavia, where the empress was already mourning his death. The defeat at Lignano at length determined Frederick to think seriously of peace, and to abandon pretensions which the Lombards resisted with so much energy. New negotiations were opened with the pope ; and Venice was chosen, in concert with him, as the place foi holding a congress. This town had withdrawn its sig- nature from the league of Lombard y • it was acknow- ledged foreign to the Western empire, and might be considered neutral, and indifferent in the quarrel between the emperor and the free towns. The pope, Alexander II I., arrived at Venice on the 24th of March, 1177- The emperor, whose presence the Venetians feared, first fixed his residence at one of his palaces, near Ravenna ; ap- proached afterwards as far as Chiozza, and finally came even to Venice. The negotiation bore upon three dif- ferent points, — to reconcile the emperor to the church, by putting an end to the schism ; to restore peace be- tween the empire of the West and that of the East, and the king of the Two Sicilies ; and finally to define Un- constitutional rights of the emperor and of the cities of Lombardy. Frederick was ready to submit to the church ; and he had few subjects of dispute with the Gre- cian emperor, or the Norman king of the Sicilies: these parts of the treaty were not difficult to terminate. But that part which related to the league of Lombardy must be founded on a new order of ideas : it was the first pact that Europe had seen made between a monarch and E 2 52 HISTORY OF TI1K ITALIAN REPUBLICS. II S3 his subjects ; the first boundary line traced between au- thority and liberty. After long and vain attempts, the negotiators separated, contenting themselves only with obliging the emperor and the Lombards to conclude a truce of six years, bearing date from the 1st of August, 1177- During its existence, the rights on each side were to remain suspended ; and the freedom of com- merce was re-established between the cities which remained faithful to the emperor, and those which drew still closer their bonds of union by a renewal of the league of Lombardy. The six years of repose, however, which this truce guaranteed, accustomed the emperor to submit to limit- ations of his authority. Thirty years had passed since the contest had begun between him and the Italian nation ; age had now tempered his activity and calmed his pride. New incidents had arisen to fix his attention in Germany. His son, Henry VT., demanded to be associated in the sovereignty of his two kingdoms of Germany and Italy. A definitive peace only could re- store to Frederick his rights and revenues in Lombardy, which his subjects there did not dispute, but which the truce held suspended. The adverse claims were honestly weighed at the diet of Constance ; reciprocal concessions were made both by the monarch and his subjects, and the peace of Constance, the basis of new public rights for Italy, was at length signed on the 25th of June, 1183. By this peace the emperor renounced all regal privileges which he had hitherto claimed in the interior of towns. He acknowledged the right of the confederate cities to levy armies, to enclose themselves within fortifications, and to exercise by their commissioners within their own walls both civil and criminal jurisdiction. The consuls of towns acquired by the simple nomination of the people all the prerogatives of imperial vicars. The cities of Lombardy were further authorised to strengthen their confederation for the defence of their just rights, recognised by the peace of Constance. But, on the other side, they engaged to maintain the just rights of 1183. PEACE OF CONSTANCE. 53 the emperor, which were defined at the same time ; and in order to avoid all disputes, it was agreed that these rights might always be bought off by the annual sum of 2000 marks of silver. Thus terminated, in tbe esta- blishment of a legal liberty, the first and most noblt struggle which the nations of modern Europe have evet maintained against despotism. CHAP. III. JROGRESS OP THE CITIES TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE, FROM THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE TO THE DEATH OF FREDERICK II. RELENTLESS ENMITY BETWEEN THE GUEI.PHS AND GHIBELINES. FIRST PARTY CHIEFS WHO ATTAINED TYRANNICAL POWER. The generous resistance of the Lombards, during a war of thirty years, had conquered from the emperors po- litical liberty for all the towns of the kingdom of Italy. The right of obeying only their own laws, of being go- verned by their own magistrates, of contracting alliances, of making peace or war, and, in fine, of administering their own finances, with the exception only of a certain revenue payable into the imperial treasury, was more particularly secured by the peace of Constance to the confederate cities of the league of Lombardy. But the Germans easily comprehended the impossibility of re- fusing to their allies the privileges which their enemies had gained by conquest ; the liberties, therefore, stipu- lated by the peace of Constance, were rendered common to all the towns of Italy: and those which had been most distinguished by their attachment to the Ghibeline party, were often found the most zealous for the establishment and preservation of all the rights of the people. The cities, however, did not consider themselves independent. They were proud of the title of members of the empire : they knew they must concur in its defence, as well as in e 3 51 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN KF.i'1'BLICH. 1183 the maintenance of internal peace; reserving only that it must be in pursuance of their free choice and deliber- ation. They were in a manner confederates of an em- peror, who acted on them rather by persuasion than orders ; rather as a party chief than as a monarch : and as he was habituated to this compromise with public opinion in his relations with the princes of the empire, he yielded with the less repugnance to his Italian subjects. It is a circumstance highly honourable to the princes of the house of Hohenstaufen, which continued to reign sixty-seven years after the peace of Constance, that during this long period they made no attempt to infringe the conditions of the compact. They admitted, with good faith, all the consequences of the concessions made ; they pardoned liberty, which the vulgar order of kings always regarded as a usurpation of the subjects on the rights of the crown. It was not long, however, before the struggle was renewed between the emperor and most of the towns. It was supported with not less devotion and not fewer sacrifices; it caused not less calamity, whilst it endured; and it was crowned, at its close, with results not less happy. But the cities did not, as in the preceding struggle, engage in it for their own immediate interest ; they rather seconded the policy of the holy see, which sought the independence of the church and of Italy, and did not cease to fight for the attainment of this object till the extinction of the house of Hohenstaufen. Frederick I. survived the peace of Constance seven years. During this period he visited Italy with his son Henry VI. : he remained some time at Milan, where he was received with respect, and gained the affection of all the inhabitants, towards whom he testified the utmost trust, confidence, and kindness. Instead of endeavouring to intimidate Lombardy, and recover by intrigues his former power, he was occupied only with the marriage of his son Henry, whom he nad previously crowned king of Germany, with Constance, sole heiress of the Nor- man kings who had conquered the Two Sicilies. The 1 184. PEACEFUL RETURN OF FREDERICK TO MILAN. 55 Anion of this crown with that of Germany and of Lom- bardy would have reduced the pope to be no more than the first bishop of his states ; it would have disarmed the two auxiliary powers which had supported the league of Lombardy against the emperor; and it alarmed the church, in proportion as it flattered his ambition. The endeavours to prevent or dissolve this union gave rise to all the wars of the period embraced in the present chapter. Frederick Barbarossa did not see the commencement of them. When the news of the taking of Jerusalem by Saladin, on the 2d of October, 1187, had thrown all Europe into consternation, Frederick, listening only to his religious and chivalric enthusiasm, placed himself at the head of the third crusade, which he led into the East by land, and died the 10th of June, 1 lf)0, of a stroke of apoplexy, caused by the coldness of the waters of the little river Salef in Asia Minor. Henry VI. had worn for five years the German and Italian crowns, when he received in Germany, where he then was with his wife, news of the death of William II., king of the Two Sicilies, to whom Constance was sue cessor ; and a few months after, that of his father Fre- derick I. He immediately began his journey towards southern Italy. Tancred, a bastard of the race of the Norman kings, put in opposition to him by the Sicilians, defended, for some time with success, the independence ot those provinces, but died in 11 94; and Henry, who had entered the kingdom as conqueror, and had made himself detested for his cruelty, also died there suddenly, on the 28th of September, 1 197- He left by his marriage with Constance only one son, Frederick II., hardly four years old, who lost his mother in the following year ; and was, under the protection of the pope, acknowledged, child as he was, king of the Two Sicilies : but the im- perial and Lombard crowns were withheld from him for several years. From the peace of Constance to the death of Henry VI. the free cities of Italy had, for the space of fifteen vears, E 4 56 HISTOKY OF THK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1190. no contest to maintain against the emperors ; but their repose and liberty were, during this period, constantly endangered by the pretensions of the nobility. The growing grandeur of the cities, and the decay of the imperial power, had left the nobles of Italy in a very ambiguous position. They in some measure no longer had a country ; their only security was in their own strength; for the emperor in resigning his power over the towns had not thought of giving an organisation to the nobles dispersed in castles. All the families of Italian dukes, and almost all those of marquises and counts, had become extinct ; those who remained had lost all jurisdiction over their inferiors ; no feudal tenure was respected ; no vassal appeared at the baronial court, to form the tribunal of his lord. The frontiers of the kingdom of Lombardy were called marches, after a German word adopted into almost all the European languages, and the commander of these frontiers was called marquis ; but the families of the powerful Tuscan marquises were extinct, as well as those of the marquises of Ancona, of Fermo, of Came- rino, of Ivrea, and of those of the Veronese and Trevisan marches. There remained, however, on these frontiers some families which bore the same title, and had pre- served some wrecks of these ancient and powerful mar- quisates: such was the marquis d'Este, in the Veronese inarch; the marquises of Montferrat, Palavacino, Mala- spina, in the march of Ivrea ; but they were not acknow- ledged as lords paramount, or lords of counties and ba- ronies : there was moreover no other organisation than that created by the spirit of party. The nobles were not united by the hierarchical connection of the feudal sys- tem, but by the affections or antipathies of the Guelplis or Ghibelines. In general, the most powerful families among the nobles, those who had castles sufficiently strong, lands sufficiently extensive, and vassals sufficiently numerous to defend themselves, listening only to the am- bition of courts, were attached to the Ghibeline party. Those families, on the contrary, who possessed castles 1190. DEPRESSION OF THE NOBILITY 57 capable of but little resistance, situated on accessible emi- nences, or in plains; tbose whose castles were near great towns, and too weak to support a contest with them, had demanded to be made citizens of the towns ; tliey had served them in the wars of the league of Lombardy ; they had since taken a principal share in the government, and they thus found themselves attached by common interests to the party of the Guelphs. Independent nobles were no more to be found in all the plains of Lombardy ; there was not one who had not become citizen of some republic ; but every chain of mountain was thick-set with castles ; where a nobility choosing obedience to an emperor rather than to citizens, main- tained themselves independent : these, too, attracted sometimes by the wealth and pleasures of towns, and sometimes desirous of obtaining influence in the counsels of powerful republics, in order to restore them to the emperor, demanded to be made citizens, when they thought it would open the way to a share in the govern- ment ; and as war was their sole occupation, they were often gladly received by the republics, which stood in need of good captains. It was thus the Ghibeline family of Visconti, whose fiefs extended from the Alps to the Lago Maggiore, became associated with the republic of Milan. The house of Este, allied to the Guelphs of Saxony and Bavaria, and devoted to the pope, possessors of several castles built on the fertile chain of the Euga- nean hills, joined the republic of Ferrara ; the parallel chain, which serves as a base to the Tyrolese Alps, was crowned with the castles of Ezzel, or Eccelino, of Ro- mano, a family enriched by the emperors, entirely devoted to the Ghibeline party, and in process of time attached to the republics of Verona and Vicenza. In like manner were situated on the northern side of the Apen- nines the fortresses of the Ghibeline nobles, who ex- cited revolutions in the republics of Piacentia, Parma. Reggio, and Modena : on the southern side were the castles of other Ghihelines, in turns citizens and enemies of the republics of Arezzo, Florence, Pistoia, and Lucca: 53 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. HQO. lower in the valleys of the Po, or in the upper vale of Arno, wpre the castles of the Guelphs, who had become decidedly citizens of the same republics. The more the social tie was weakened in the kingdom of Lombardy, the more eager the nobles became to be admitted into the cities. Their wealth and military education soon led them, by the suffrages of their fellow- citizens, to the magistracy in this their new country. But if they displayed more talent for war and politics, they evinced much less subordination or submission to the laws. Their aversions were more virulent, and they gloried in cherishing them as a family inheritance. Ac- customed in their castles to decide every question by the sword, they brought the same habits to the towns. Retain- ing, when they became inhabitants of cities, the wild independence of their ancient fastnesses, their houses were fortresses ; thick walls, high and narrow windows, a massive door of oak, secured with iron bars, promised to resist more than one attack ; and if they were at last forced, a high square tower still served for refuge. From these palaces of the nobles bands of assassins were often seen issuing, to rob or murder citizens, who were treated as enemies : chains were prepared to be thrown across the streets, and in an instant form barricades ; behind which were seen ranged several hundred warriors. The peaceable citizens, to whom these quarrels were indif- ferent, never knew whether the peace they then saw reign around them should not in a few hours be changed into a general war. The power of the consuls seemed in- sufficient to repress these fiery passions. All the towns saw the necessity of adopting the institution of the podestd, which they had received from Frederick Bar- barossa. Their custom was accordingly to choose annually, by their consiglio di credenza, a foreign knight of arms, a warrior chosen from one of the confederate cities. This knight, whom they named podestd, was accompanied by two or three doctors in civil and cri- minal law, dependent on him, and acting under him as judges. The podesta received at the same time the 1 ] QO JUl C1A3L INSTITUTIONS. 5^ command of the militia, and the power of the sword of iustice, or of pronouncing and causing to he executed sentences on criminals. He was bound to render, at the end of the year, an account of the manner in which he had performed his functions to commissioners chosen by the people, and called syndics, before whom he remained a certain number of days amenable to justice. The towns believed that this foreign judge would remain impartial amidst their factions ; but the podesta himself rarely escaped participating in the deep hatred of the Guelphs or Ghibelines : he needed also a hand of iron to maintain order among nobles, so turbulent and so vindictive ; he was accordingly invested with almost unlimited authority, the republics preferring rather to submit to his despotic sway than to anarchy. The violence of faction, never- theless, and its natural consequence, a severe admin- istration of justice, inspired the citizens universally with a deep hatred of the nobles, who were alone accused of having introduced disorder within their walls; and before the end of the twelfth century all the Lombard cities rose successively against the nobles, excluded them from all public functions, and even expelled them from the towns. Brescia, Padua, and Modena were the first to set the example ; but, after a few months, private affection tri- umphed over public resentment, and the nobles were recalled. The death of Henry VI. was followed by a general war throughout the empire, which gave fresh activity to the passions of the Italian nobles, and greater animosity to the opposing parties. The two factions in Germany had simultaneously raised to the empire the two chiefs of the houses of Guelph and Ghibeline. Philip I. duke of Swabia, and brother of Henry VI., had been named king of the Romans by the Ghibelines ; and Otho IV., son of Henry the Lion, duke of Pavaria and Saxony, by the Guelphs. Their contest was prolonged to the 22d of June, 1208, when Philip was assassinated by a private enemy. The Germans, wearied with eleven years or civil war, agreed to unite under the sceptre of his rival, 60 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 12 I£ Otho IV., whom they crowned anew. The following year he passed into Italy, to receive from the pope the golden crown of the empire. But though Otho was the legitimate heir of the Guelphs of Bavaria, so long chiefs of the opposition to the imperial prerogatives, yet now wearing himself the crown, he was desirous of possessing it with these disputed rights: every one was denied him, and all his actions controlled by the pope. There was soon a declared enmity between the emperor and the pontiff, who, rather than consent to any agreement, or to abate any of his pretensions, raised against the Guelph emperor the heir of the Ghibe- line house, the young Frederick II., grandson of Fre- derick I., hardly eighteen years of age, and till then reigning under the pope's tutelage over the Two Sicilies only. Frederick, excited and seconded by the pope, boldly passed through Lombardy in 1212, and arrived at Aix la Chapelle, where the German Ghibelines awaited, and crowned him king of the Romans and Germans. Otho IV. in the mean time returned to Germany, and was acknow- ledged by Saxony. The civil war, carried on between the two chiefs of the empire, lasted till the 19th of May, 1218, when Otho died, without any attempt by either party to despoil his rival of his hereditary posses- sions. It was this civil war that caused the names of Guelphs and Ghibelines to be exclusively substituted foi those of party of the church, and party of the empire. In fact, each noble family, and each city, seemed to consult only their hereditary affection, and not their political prin- ciples, in ranging themselves under either standard. The Guelphs placed themselves in opposition to the pope, to repel his Ghibeline candidate ; and Milan, Placentia, and Brescia braved even excommunication to resist him : while, on the contrary, the Ghibelines of Pavia, Cre- mona, and of the March armed themselves with zeal against an emperor of the Guelph blood. During this period, while the minority of Frederick II. left so much time to the cities of Italy to consolidate their independence, and to form real republics, the per- ]J97» PONTIFICATE OF INNOCENT HI. 67 son most influential anil most prominent in history was the pope, Innocent III., who reigned from 1197 to 12l6. He was a Roman nohle, count of Signa, and only thirty-seven years of age when he ascended the papal chair : he had been raised to it by his reputation for sanctity and learning. A worthy successorof Gregory VII., he elevated, like him, the sovereignty of the popes ; but he seemed to labour for that purpose with a fanaticism more religious, and a pride less worldly : all his efforts tended much more to confirm the power of the church and of religion than his own. Like Alexander III. he did not refuse to join the people in their efforts to ob- tain liberty, provided that liberty bowed with ave before the authority of the church, and admitted no private judgment in matters of faith. He founded the two mendicant orders of Franciscans and Dominicans ; new champions of the church, who were charged to repress all activity of mind, to combat growing intelligence, and to extirpate heresy. He confided to the Dominicans the fearful powers of the inquisition, which he instituted : he charged them to discover and pursue to destruction the new reformers, who, under the name of paterini, multiplied rapidly in Italy. He roused the fanatics of France to exterminate, in the Albigenses, the same reform- ers ; and to destroy not only heretics, but all who, in the population of Languedoc, had any wealth or independ- ence. He addressed his orders to the kings of Europe with a haughtiness worthy of Gregory VII. ; but always fixing his attention much more on discipline and the maintenance of morality than on the augmentation of his temporal power. Finally, he gained a triumph over the eastern church, which he had not sought, but of which he knew how to profit, in subjecting to his authority, and attaching to the Latin church, the patriarch of Constantinople, till then his rival and antagonist. I n the beginning of his pontificate, 1 1 })8, a crusade had been preached in France by Fulk de Neuilly. The cru- saders, having resolved to go bysea to the Holy Land, bor- rowed vessels of the republic of Venice : and finding 62 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1301, themselves afterwards too poor to pay the freight on which they had agreed, they offered instead of it their military services. After having subdued Zara, which had revolted against the republic, they bore up to Con- stantinople in concert with old Andrea Dandolo, doge of Venice. On the 12th of April, 1204, they took by assault the capital of the Grecian empire. They named a Frenchman, Baldwin, count of Flanders, em- peror of Constantinople, and elected under him a Latin patriarch. They gave the kingdom of Thessalonica to an Italian, the marquis of Montferrat ; and they abandoned to the Venetians, for their share of the conquest, one fourth and a half of the Roman empire. The doge was named lord of this portion of the empire, but the con- quests of the republic were in reality limited to the island of Candia, some other isles, Achaia, and the Morea. These possessions beyond the sea diverted for a long period the republic of Venice from any partici- pation in the affairs of Italy. While Innocent III. caused his power to be felt in the remotest parts of Christendom, he suffered to be consti- tuted at Rome, under his own eye, a republic, the liberty of which he respected, and over which he assumed no authority. The thirteen districts of Rome named each annually four representatives or caporioni ; their meet- ing formed the senate of the republic, who, with the concurrence of the people, exercised the sovereignty, with the exception of the judicial power. This power belonged, as in other republics, to a foreign military chief, chosen for one year, and assisted by civil judges, dependent on him, but bearing the name of senator, instead of podesta. We have still extant the form, of oath taken by the first of these senators, named in 1207- By it he engages to guarantee security and liberty to the pope as well as to his brothers the cardinals, but promises no submission to him for himself. In the beginning of the pontificate of Innocent III., two German generals, to whom Henry VI. had given the titles of duke of Spoleto, and marquis of Ancona, held li04. LEAGUES IX 0MBR1A AND TUSCANY. 0.1 in dependence and subjection the provinces nearest Home. Innocent, to revive the spirit of liberty, sent thrther two legates ; and by their interference, the cities of these pro- vinces, built for the most part in the mountains, and ■without any means of becoming either wealthy or popu- lous, threw off the German yoke, and made alliance with those cities which from the preceding period had entered into the league of Lombardy: thus two Guelph leagues were formed, under the protection of the pope ; one in the March, comprehending the cities of Ancona, Fermo, Osimo, Camerino, Fano, Jesi, Sinigallia, and Pesaro ; the other in the duchy, comprehending those of Spoleto, Rieti, Assisa, Foligno, Nocera, Perugia, Agobbio, Todi, and Citta di Castello. These leagues, however, in accus- toming the cities of these two provinces to regard the pope as their protector, led them afterwards to submit without resistance to the sovereignty of the church. Other legates had been about the same time sent into Tuscany by the pope : they convoked at St. Ginasio, a borough situated at the foot of the mountain of San Mi- niato, the diet of the towns of that country. These pro- vincial diets were in the hahitof assembling frequently, and had till then been presided over by an officer belonging to the emperor, in memory of whom the castle in which he resided is still called San Miniato al Tedesco. These diets settled the differences which arose between cities, and had succeeded in saving Tuscany from the civil wars between the Guelphs and Ghibelines. Pisa, which had been loaded with favours by the sovereigns of the house of Ilohenstaufen, and which had obtained from them the dominion of sixty-four castles or fortified towns on the shores of Tuscany, and over the isles of Corsica, Elba, Capraia, and Pianosa, proclaimed its determin- ation of remaining faithful to the Ghiheline party, and its consuls withdrew from the diet convoked at San (ii- nasio ; but those of the cities of Florence, of Sienna, of Arezzo, of Pistoia and of Lucca, accepted the protection of the pope, offered by his two legates, and promised In coalesce in defence of their common liberty. Numerous t)4 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 121.5. noble families in these towns, both Guelphs and Ghibc- bnes, bad demanded the rights of citizenship. Hitherto the magistrates succeeded in maintaining peace, and one of the objects of the leagues was to preserve it ; but, in 1215, a Guelph noble of the upper Vale of Arno, named Buondelmonte, who had been made citizen ot Florence, demanded in marriage a young person of the Ghibeline house of Amidei, and was accepted. While the nuptials were in preparation, a noble lady of the family Donati stopped Buondelmonte as he passed her door, and, bringing him into the room where her women were al work, raised the veil of her daughter, whose beauty was exquisite. " Here," said she, " is the wife I had reserved for thee. Like thee, she is Guelph ; whilst thou takest one from the enemies of thy church and race." Buondelmonte, dazzled and enamoured, instantly accepted the proffered hand. The Amidei, looked upon his incon- stancy as a deep affront. All the noble Ghibeline families of Florence, about twenty-four in number, met, and agreed that he should atone with his life for the offence. Buondel- monte was attacked on the morning of Easter Sunday, just as he had passed the Ponte Vecchio, on horseback, and killed at the foot of the statue of Mars, which still stood there. Forty-two families of the Guelph party met and swore to avenge him ; and blood did indeed atone for blood. Every day some new murder, some new battle, alarmed Florence during the space of thirty- three years. These two parties stood opposed to each other within the walls of the same city; and although often reconciled, every little accident renewed their ani- mosity, and they again flew to arms to avenge ancient wrongs. The death of Innocent III., and, two years after- wards, of Otho IV., broke the unnatural alliance be- tween a pope and the heir of a Ghibeline family. The Milanese, excommunicated by Innocent for having fought against Frederick II., did not the less persist in making war on his partisans; well convinced that the new pope, Honorius III., would soon thank them for it. They 1220. BARKY AGE OF FRKDKRICK II. 6'5 refused Frederick the iron crown of Lbmbardy, preserved at Monza, and contracted an alliance with the count Thomas of Savoy, and with the cities of Crema, Pla- centia, Lodi, Vercelli, Novara, Tortona. Corr.o, and Alex- andria, to drive the Gliibelines from Lombardy. The Ghibelines defeated them on the 6th of June, 1218, in a great battle fought against the militias of Cremona, Parma, Ileggio, and Modena, before Ghibello. This reverse of fortune calmed for some time their military ardour. The citizens of every town accused the nobles of having led them into war from Family enmities and interests foreign to the city : at Milan, Placentia, Cre- mona, and Modena, there were battles between the nobles and the people. Laws were proposed, to divide the public magistracy in due proportions between them ; finally the Milanese, in the year 1221, expelled all the nobles from their city. The young Frederick re-entered Italy ; and, after some differences with Honorius III., received from him, on the 22d of November, 1220, the crown of the em- pire. He afterwards occupied himself in establishing order in his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where, during his minority, the popes had encouraged an universal in- subordination. Born in the inarch of Ancona, at Jesi, in December, 1194, he was Italian as well by language as by affection and character. The Italian language, spoken at his court, first rose above the patois in com- mon use throughout Italy, regarded only as a corruption of Latin : he expressed himself with elegance in this language, which, from his time, was designated by the name of lingua cortigiana ; he encouraged the first poets, who employed it at his court, and he himself made verses; he loved literature and encouraged learning; he founded schools and universities ; he prom* ted distin- guished men; he spoke with equal facility Latin, Italian. German, French, Greek, and Arabic ; he had the intel- lectual suppleness ami finesse peculiar to the men of the south, the art of pleasing, a taste for philosophy, ami ^reat independence of opinion, with a leaning to infi- F 60 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 2'te. dclity ; hence he is accused of having written a book against the three revelations of Moses, Jesus, and Ma- homet, entitled " De Tribus Impostoribus," which no one has ever seen, and which perhaps never existed. His want of faith in the sacred character of the Roman church, and the sanctity of popes, is less doubtful ; he was suspicious of them, and he employed all his address to defend himself against their enterprises. Honorius III., desirous of engaging him to recover the Holy Land from the Saracens, made him, in 1225, marry Yolanda de Lu- signan, heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem ; after which, Honorius and his successor Gregory IX. pressed him to pass into Palestine. A malady stopped him, in 1227, just as he was about to depart: the pope, to punish him for this delay, excommunicated him. He still pursued him with his anathema when he went to the Holy Land the year following, and haughtily testified his indignation, because Frederick, in the year 1229, recovered Jerusa- lem from the hands of the sultan by treaty, rather than exterminate the infidels with the sword. Mean while the Guelph party again raised their stand- ard in Lombardy, the republics of Milan, Bologna, Pla- centia, Verona, Brescia, Faenza, Mantua, Vercelli, Lodi, Bergamo, Turin, Alexandria, Vicenza, Padua, and Tre- viso, assembled their consuls in council at San Zenone in the Mantuan territory, on the 2d of March, 1226. They renewed the ancient league of Lombardy for twenty-five years ; and engaged to defend in concert, their own liberty and the independence of the court of Rome. Three years afterwards, they sent succour to Gregory IX., when he was attacked by Frederick II. on his return from the Holy Land ; and they were included in the treaty of peace between the pope and the emperor in 1230. The pope, however, though defended by the arms of the Lombards, made them pay dearly for the favour which he showed in naming them to the emperor as his allies. He consented to protect their civil liberty only so far as they saciificed to him their liberty of conscience. 1233. PERSECUTIONS. 6™ Tlie same spirit of reformation which animated the Al- bigenses had spread throughout Europe: many Christians, disgusted with the corruption and vices of the clergy, or whose minds revolted against the violence on their rea- son exercised by the church, devoted themselves to a con- templative life, renounced all ambition and the pleasures of the world, and sought a new road to salvation in the alliance of faith with reason. They called themselves cathari, or the purified ; paterini, or the resigned. The free towns had, till then, refused permission to the tribunals of the inquisition, instituted by Innocent III., to proceed against them within their walls ; but Gre- gory IX. declared the impossibility of acknowledging as allies of the holy see republicans so indulgent to the enemies of the faith : at the same time, he sent among them the most eloquent of the Dominicans, to rouse their fanaticism. Leo da Perego, whom he afterwards made archbishop of Milan, had only a too fatal success in that city, where he caused a great number of paterini to be burnt. Saint Peter Martyr, and the monk Roland of Cremona, obtained an equal triumph in the other cities of Lombardy. The monk John of Vicenza had the cities of the March assigned to him as a province, where the heretics were in still greater numbers than in Lom- bardy, and included in their ranks some of the most pow- erful nobles in the country; among others, EccelinoII. of Romano. The monk John announced himself the minister of peace, not of persecution. After having preached successively in every town, he assembled, on the plain of Paquara, the 28th of August, 123.", almost the whole population of the towns of the March : he exhorted them to peace in a manner so irresistible, that the greatest enemies, setting aside their animosities, par- doned and embraced each other ; and all, with tears of joy, celebrated the warm charity of this man of God. Tins man of God, however, celebrated the festival of this reconciliation by judging and condemning to the flames sixty cathari in the single town of Verona, whose Bufferings he witnessed in the public square; and after- F 1 fi8 HISTORY OP TUB ITALIAN BEPUBMCS. 1'234 wards obtained full power from the towns of Vicenza and Padua to act there in the like manner. It was only a short period after the peace of Pa- quara that Frederick II., believing he had sufficiently re-established his power in southern Italy, began to turn his attention towards Lombardy ; he had no intention of disputing the rights guaranteed by his grandfather at the peace of Constance ; but it was his will that the cities should remain, what they ought to be by the treaty, members of the empire, and not enemies of the emperor. He had raised an army, over which he feared neither the influence of the monks nor the pope. He had trans- ported from the mountains of Sicily, into the city of Luceria, in the capitanate, and into that of Nocera, in the principato, two strong colonies of Saracens, which could supply him with 30,000 mussulman soldiers, strangers, by their language and religion, to all the in- trigues of the court of Rome. There was in the Vero- nese march a man endowed with great military talents, ambitious, intrepid, and entirely devoted to the emperor, — Eccelino III., of Romano, already powerful by the great fiefs he held in the mountains, and the number of his soldiers, whom Frederick made still more so, by placing him at the head of the Ghibeline party in all the cities. Eccelino, born on the 4th of April, 11 94, was precisely of the same age as the emperor. The pope had summoned him to arrest his father, and deliver him to the tribunal of the inquisition as a pa- terino : but though Eccelino knew neither virtue, pity, nor remorse, he was not sufficiently depraved for such a crime. As Frederick was on the point of attacking the Guelphs of Lombardy on the south with the Saracens, while Eccelino advanced on the east, he learnt that his son Henry, whom he had in the year 1220 crowned king of Germany, in spite of his extreme youth, seduced by the Guelphs and the agents of the pope, had revolted against him. The Milanese, in 12.34, sent deputies to offer him the iron crown, which they had refused to 1:237. ECCELINO 1)A ROMANO 6^ lis father. The latter hastened into Germany, and or- dered his son to meet him at Worms, where he threw himself at the feet of his father, and entreated forgive- ness. Frederick deprived him of the crown, and sent him to Apulia, where he died a few years afterwards. The emperor was obliged to employ two years in re- storing order in Germany : he after that returned into Italy by the valley of Trento, and arrived, on the 16th of August, 1236, at Verona with 3000 German ca- valry. A senate of eighty members, nobles and Ghi- belines, then governed that republic : Frederick, by his address in managing men, engaged them to name Kc- celino captain of the people : this committed to him at the same time the command of the militia and the judicial power ; and, in the state of excitement in which the parties were, much more occupied with the triumph of their faction than with the security of their liberty, gave him almost sovereign power. Fre- derick, obliged to return to Germany, left under tht command of Eccelino a body of German soldiers, and another of Saracens, with which this able captain made himself, the same year, master of Vicenza, which he barbarously pillaged, and the following year of Padua. This last was the most powerful city of the province, that in which the form of government was the most de- mocratic, and in which the Guelphs had always exer- cised the most influence. Eccelino judged it necessary to secure obedience by taking hostages from the richest and most powerful families ; he employed his spies to discover the malcontents, whom he punished with tor- ture, and redoubled his cruelty in proportion to the hatred which he excited. The same year, 1237, Frederick approached Mantua; and thus giving courage to the Ghibeline party, made them triumph over the Guelphs, who had, till then, the ascendant in that city: he was joined there by 10,000 Saracens, whom he summoned from Apulia, and after- wards advanced into the Cremonese territory to attack tlie confederate army of the Guelphs, commanded b} the V 3 70 HISTORY OF THE 1MUAN REPUBLICS. I2S7 '. consuls of Milan, who knew no other art of ivar but the bravery evinced in battle. Frederick was a more able captain: by manoeuvring between Brescia and Cremona, he drew the Milanese beyond the Oglio, and finally suc- ceeded, as they believed the campaign finished, in placing himself between them and their country at Cortenuova near Crema. The Guelphs, although thus cut off from retreat, boldly accepted battle on the 27th of November, 1237, and long disputed the victory. Their defeat was only the more bloody : it cost them 10,000 men killed or taken prisoners, with the loss of the carroccio. The fugitives followed during the night the course of the Oglio to enter the Bergamasque mountains ; they would all, however, have fallen into the hands of the Ghibe- lines, if Pagan della Torre, the lord of Valsassina, and a Guelph noble, had not hastened to their assistance, opened the defiles covered by his fortresses, and brought them thus safely to Milan. The citizens of this town never forgot so important a service; and they contracted with the house of della Torre an alliance which subse- quently proved dangerous to their freedom. The defeat of the Guelphs at Cortenuova alarmed the towns of Lombanly, the greater number of which de- tached themselves from Milan. Frederick, entering Piedmont the following year, gave preponderance to the Ghibeline party in the cities of Turin, Asti, Novara, Alexandria, and several others. The constitution was not changed when the power in council passed from one party to another ; but the emperor generally reckoned his partisans among the nobility, while the people were devoted to the church: accordingly, the triumph of the aristocracy generally accompanied that of the Ghibeline party. Four cities only, Milan, Brescia, Placentia, and Bologna, remained at the end of the yeu opposed to the imperial power. Frederick began his attack on them by laying siege to Brescia , but the Brescians dared to face the storm : they supported, during sixty-eight days, the repeated attacks of the emperor, rendered all his efforts fruitless, and forced him at last to raise the siege with an army weakened and discouraged. 12,'><). RENEWAL OF THE LOMBARD LEAGl E. 71 In the mean time, Gregory IX. redoubled his efforts to save the Guelph party from ruin. He saw, with alarm, an emperor, master of the Two Sicilies and of Germany, on the point of vanquishing all resistance in Upper Italy. He anticipated that this monarch, whose mussulman soldiers were constantly passing through the states of Home, would escape the influence of the church, and soon evince no respect whatever for a religion which he was accused of not believing. Gregory had recourse to the two maritime republics of Venice and Genoa, which, in general occupied with their conquests and com- merce in the East, seldom took any part in the politics of Italy. He represented to them, that they would be soon deprived of the freedom of the seas, if they did not make some effort to save the champions of liberty and of the church in Lombard} - . He at length obtained their agreement to contract an alliance with the four only surviving cities of the league of Lombardy ; and finally, towards the beginning of the year 1239, he ful- minated another sentence of excommunication against Frederick. This had a greater effect than Gregory ventured to hope. A considerable number of nobles of Guelph origin, seduced by court favours, had been won over to the imperial party. They perceived that after the anathema of the pope, the emperor distrusted them. The marquis d'Este and the count di San Bonifacio were even warned that their heads were in danger, and they made their escape from the imperial camp : all the other Guelph nobles followed their example ; and the Guelph cities gained captains habituated to arms and familiarised with higher ideas of politics. Gregory began to think he should give still greater weight to the anathemas which he launched against the emperor, if they were sanctioned by a council. In the year 1241 he convoked at Rome all the prelates of Christendom. Frederick, who had been established at Pisa since the autumn of the year 123,9, exerted him- self to prevent the meeting of a council winch he dreaded. WTiile the two other maritime republics had declared foi i 1- 72 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1241. the Guelphs, Pisa was entirely of the Ghibeline party. The people were enthusiastically attached to the emperor, and among the nobles, a few only, proprietors of fief's in Sardinia, headed by the Visconti of Gallura, had for- saken him for the Guelphs. The Pisans, further excited by their jealousy of the Genoese, promised Frederick that they would brave for him all the thunders of the church, and assured him they knew well how to hinder the meeting of the council. A considerable number of French prelates had embarked at Nice for Ostia, on board Genoese galleys. Ugolino Buzzacherino de Sis- mondi, admiral of the Pisans, lay in wait with a powerful fleet before Meloria, attacked them on the 3d of May, 1241, sunk three vessels, took nineteen, and made pri- soners all the French prelates who were to join the council at Pisa. The republic loaded them with chains, but they were chains made of silver, and imprisoned them in the chapter house of the cathedral. Gregory, alarmed at this reverse of fortune, survived only a few months : he died the 21st of August, 1241; and the college of cardinals, reduced to a very small number, passed nearly two years before they could agree on a new choice. At last, on the 24th of June, 1243, Sinibald de' Fieschi, of Genoa, who took the name of Innocent IV. was elected to the chair of St. Peter. His family, powerful in Genoa and in the Ligurian mountains, was also allied to many noble families, who possessed castles on the northern side of the Apennines ; and this position gave him great influence in the neighbouring cities of Pla- centia, Parma, Reggio. and Modena. The elevation of a Fieschi to the pontificate gave courage to the Guelph party in all these cities. Frederick had recourse in vain to the new pope to be reconciled to the church ; Innocent IV. was determined to see in him only an enemy of religion, and of the pontifical power, and a chief of barbarians, who in turns summoned his Germans and his Saracens to tyrannise over Italy. He drew closer his alliance with the citieg ot the league of Lombardy, and promised them to cause 1245. COUNCIL OF LYONS. 73 the emperor to be condemned and deposed by an oecu- menical council, as bis predecessor would have done ; but instead of convoking the council in Italy, he fixed for tbat purpose on the city of Lyons, one half of which belonged to the empire, and the other to the kingdom of France. He determined on placing himself with the prelates whom he had summoned under the pro- tection of St. Louis, who then reigned in France. He went from Home to Genoa by sea, escaping the Pisan fleet which watched to intercept his passage: he excited by his exhortations the enthusiasm of the Guelphs of Genoa, and of the cities of Lombardy and Piedmont, which he visited on his passage; and arriving at Lyons, he opened, on the 2Sth of June, 1245, in the convent of St. Just, the council of the universal church. He found the bishops of France, England, and Germany eager to adopt his passions; so that he obtained from them at their third sitting, on the 17th of July, a sentence of con- demnation against Frederick II. The council declared, that for his crimes and iniquities God had rejected him, and would no longer suffer him to be either emperor or king. In consequence, the pope and the council released his subjects from their oath of allegiance; forbade them under pain of excommunication to obey him under any title whatever; and invited the electors of the empire to proceed to the election of another emperor, while the pope reserved to himself the nomination of another king of the Two Sicilies. Frederick at first opposed all his strength of soul against the sentence of excommunication pronounced by the council on him. Causing his jewels to be brought him, and placing the golden crown of the empire on his head, he declared before a numerous assembly that he would still wear it, and knew how to defend it ; but, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of the Ghibeline party, the devotion of his friends, and the progress of philo- sophical opinions, which he had himself encouraged, the man whom the church had condemned was in constant clanger of being abandoned or hetrayed. The mendicant 7* HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1247- monks every where excited conspiracies against liim. They too^< advantage of the terrors inspired by sickness and age, to make sinners return, as they said, to the ways of salvation, and desired them to make amends for their past transgressions, by delivering the church of God from its most dangerous enemy. Insurrections frequently broke forth in one or other of the Two Sicilies ; still oftener the emperor discovered amongst his courtiers plots to destroy him, either by the dagger or poison ; even his private secretary, his intimate friend, Pietro •lelle Vigne, whom he had raised from abject poverty, to whom he had intrusted his most important affairs, gave ear to the counsel of the monks, and promised to poison his master. Frederick, on his part, became suspicious and cruel : his distrust fell on his most faithful friends; and the executions which he ordered sometimes preceded the proofs of guilt. He had confided Germany to his son Conrad, and the exclusive government of the Veronese marches to Eccelino. The hatred which this ferocious man excited by his crimes fell on the emperor. Eccelino imprisoned in the most loathsome dungeons those whom he considered his enemies, and frequently put them to death by torture, or suffered them to perish by hunger: he was well aware that the relatives of these victims must also lie his enemies : they were, in their turn, arrested ; and the more he sacrificed to his barbarity, the more he was called upon to strike. The citizens of Milan, Mantua, Bergamo, and Brescia every day heard of new and horrible crimes committed by the governor of the marches ; they conceived the greater detestation of the Ghibeline party, and entertained the firmer determination to repel Frederick. He, on the contrary, had no thoughts of attacking them : he established himself during the council of Lyons at Turin, and thence entered into a negotiation with St. Louis, to obtain by his mediation a reconciliation with the church, to which he made, in token of his submission, the offer to accompany Louis to the Holy Land. The revolt of Parma, on the l6th of June, 1247, 71't7- STEfiE OF PARMA. J5 obliged Frederick to resume his arms at a moment when lie was least disposed. The friends and relatives of pope Innocent IV., the Guelph nobles of the houses of Corregio, Lupi, and Rossi, re-entering Parma, whence they had been exiled, triumphed over their adversaries, and in their turn expelled them from the city. Fre- derick was determined at any price to recover Parma. He sent for a numerous band of Saracens from Apidia, commanded by one of his natural sons, named Frederick, to whom he gave the title of king of Antioch. He assembled the Lombard Ghibelines, under the command of another of his illegitimate sons, named Hans or Hen- sius, called by him king of Sardinia, and whom he had made imperial vicar in Lombardy. Eccelino arrived too at his camp from the Veronese march, with the militias of Padua, Vicenza, and Verona ; and the sol- diers whom he had raised in his hereditary fiefs. On the other side, the Guelphs of Lombardy hastened to send succour to a city which had just sacrificed itself for them. The Milanese set the example ; the militias of Mantua, Placentiu, and Ferrara followed it; and the Guelphs, who had been exiled from Reggio, Modena, and other Ghibeline cities, thinking they served their country in fighting for their faction, arrived in great numbers to shut themselves up in Parma. Frederick was prevented from hanging the hostages given previous to the revolt, before the walls of the city, by the militia of Pavia; who declared it was with the sword of Ghibeline soldiers only, and not with that of the executioner, that they would secure the throne of the emperor. The siegj. made little progress ; the winter had begun, but Frede- rick persisted in his attempt. He proclaimed his de- termination to rase Parma to the ground, and to transfer those of the inhabitants who should be spared into his fortified camp, of which he would make a new town, called Vittoria. This camp, which he quitted on a hawking party, on the 8th of February, 1248, was in his absence surprised by a sortie of a Guelph army from Parma, taken, and pillaged, his soldiers were dispersed, 76' HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1248. and the emperor had the humiliation of being forced to raise the siege. Before this event, he had sent his son, the king of Antioch, into Tuscany with 1600 German cavalry, to secure Florence to his party ; where, since the death of Buondelmonte, the Guelphs and Ghibelines, always in opposition, had not ceased fighting. There was seldom an assembly, a festival, a public ceremony, without some offence given, either by one or other of the parties. Both flew to arms: chains were thrown across the streets ; barricades were immediately formed, and in every quarter, round every noble family ; the more con- tiguous, who had the most frequent causes of quarrel, fought at the same time in ten different places. Never- theless the republic was supposed to lean towards the Guelph party; and the Florentine Ghibelines, in their relations with other people, had never sought to separate from their fellow-countrymen, or to place themselves in opposition to their magistrates. Frederick, fearing to lose Florence, wrote to the Uberti, the chiefs of the Ghibeline faction, to assemble secretly in their palace all their party, to attack afterwards in concert and at once all the posts of the Guelphs; whilst his son, the king of Antioch, should present himself at the gates, and thus expel their adversaries from the city. This plan was executed on the night of Candlemas, 1248: the barricades of the Guelphs were forced in every quarter, because they defended themselves in small bands against the whole of the opposite party. The Ghibelines, masters of the town, ordered all the Guelphs to quit it. They afterwards demolished thirty-six palaces belonging to the same number of the most illustrious families of that party ; and intimidating the other cities of Tuscany, they constrained them to follow their example, and declare for the emperor. Frederick II., after the check experienced by him at Parma, returned to his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and left to his son Hensius, who established himself at Mo- ilena. the direction of the war in Lombardy. The pope, 12+0. LA SECCHIA HAPITA. 77 however, had sent a legate, the cardinal Octavian degli Ubaldini, to the Guelph cities, to engage them to pursue their victory, and punish the imperial party for what he called their revolt against the church. The powerful city of Bologna, already celebrated for its university, and superior to the neighbouring ones by its wealth, its population, and the zeal which a democratic government excites, undertook to make the Guelph party triumph throughout the Cispadane region. Bologna first attacked Romagna, and forced the towns of Imola, Faenza, Forli, and Cervia to expel the Ghibelines, and declare for the church. The Bolognese next turned their arms against Modena. The Modenese cavalry, entering Bo- logna one day by surprise, carried off from a public fountain a bucket, which henceforth was preserved in the tower of Modena as a glorious trophy. The war which followed furnished Tassoni with the subject of his mock-heroic poem, entitled " La Secchia It:ipita." The vengeance of the Bolognese was, however, any thing but burlesque ; after several bloody battles, the two ar- mies finally met at Fossalta on the Sfith of May, 1249- Philip Ugoni of Brescia, who was this year podesta of Bologna, commanded the Guelph army, in which was united a detachment from the militias of all the cities of the league of Lombardy. The Ghibelines were led by king Hensius : each army consisted of from fifteen to twenty thousand combatants. The battle was long and bloody, but ended with the complete defeat of the Ghibeline party; king Hensius himself fell into the hands of the conquerors : he was immediately taken to Bologna, and confined in the palace of the podesta. The senate of that city rejected all offers of ransom, all in- tercession in his favour. He was entertained in a splen- did manner, but kept a prisoner during the rest of his life, which lasted for twenty-two years. This last check overwhelmed Frederick. He had now during thirty years combated the church and the Guelph party: his bodily as well as mental energy was worn out in this Ions contest. His life was embittered 78 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. J 250. by the treason of those whom he believed his friends, by the disasters of his partisans, and by the misfortunes which had pursued him even in his own family. He saw Ins power in Italy decline; while the crown of Ger- many was disputed with his son Conrad, by competitors favoured by the church. He appeared to be at length himself disturbed by the excommunications of the pope, and the fear of that hell with which he had been so incessantly menaced. He implored anew the assistance and mediation of St. Louis of France, who was then in the isle of Cyprus. He provided magnificently for the wants of the crusade army, which this king commanded : he solicited leave to join it. He offered to engage never to return from the Holy Land, and to submit to the most humiliating expiations which the church could impose. He succeeded in inspiring St. Louis with interest and gratitude. Frederick, while waiting the effect of St. Louis's good offices, seemed occupied solely in the affairs of his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where he restored order, and established a prosperity not to be seen elsewhere in Europe. On the 13th of December, 1250, he was seized with a dysentery, of which he died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, at his castle of Florentino, in the capita- nate where he had fixed his residence. CHAP. IV. INTERREGNUM OP THE EMPIRE. DECLINE AND SUBJUGATION OF THE LOMBARD REPUBLICS. CHARLES OF ANJOU CALLED TO THE SUPPORT OF THE GUELPHS. HIS POWER. HIS CRUELTY. SICILIAN VESPERS. The Italian cities, which for the most part date the commencement of their liberty from the conflicts be- tween the sovereigns of Italy and Germany, or the in- vasion of Otho the Great, in 9-51.. had already, at the death of Frederick II., enjoyed fur three centuries the 1251. UrTBRREGNDM. 79 protection and progressive improvement of tlie'u muni- cipal constitutions. These three centuries, with refer- ence to the rest of Europe, are utterly barbarous. Their history is every where obscure and imperfectly known. It records only some great revolution, or the victories and calamities of princes ; the people are always left in the shade : a writer would have thought it beneath hirn to occupy himself about the fate of plebeians ; they were not supposed to be worthy of history. The towns of Italy, so prodigiously superior to all others in wealth intelligence, energy, and independence, were equally re- gardless of preserving any record of past times. Some grave chroniclers preserved the memory of an important crisis, but in general the cities passed whole centuries without leaving any written memorial ; thinking it per- haps good policy not to attract notice, and to envelope themselves in obscurity. They, however, of necessity departed from this system in the last century, owing to the two conflicts, in both of which they remained victorious. From 11.50 to 118.", they had fought to obtain the peace of Constance, which they regarded as their con- stitutional charter. From 1183 to 1250, they pre- served the full exercise of the privileges which they had so gloriously acquired : but while they continually ad- vanced in opulence, while intelligence and the arts be- came more and more developed, they were led by two passions, equally honourable, to range themselves under two opposite banners. One party, listening only to their faith, their attachment, and their gratitude to a family which had given them many great sovereigns, were ready to venture their all for the cause of the Ghibelines ; the other, alarmed for the independence of the church, and the liberty of Italy, by tlie always in- creasing grandeur of the house of Hohenstaufen, were not less resolute in their endeavours to wrest from it the sceptre which menaced them. The cities of the Lom- bard league had reached the summit of their power at the period of this second conflict. During the inter- regnum which lasted from the d**th of Frederick II. 80 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1254. to the entrance into Italy of Henry VII. in 1310, the Lombard republics, a prey to the spirit of faction, and more intent on the triumph of either the Guelph or Ghibeline parties, than on securing their own con- stitutions, all submitted themselves to the military power of some nobles to whom they had intrusted the command of their militias, and thus all lost their liberty. On the death of Frederick II., his son, Conrad IV., king of Germany, did not feel himself sufficiently strong to appear in Italy, and place on his head, in succession, the iron crown at Monza, and the golden crown at Rome. He wished first of all to secure that of the Two Sicilies ; and embarked at some port in Istria for Naples, in a Pisan vessel, during the month of October, 1251. The remainder of his short life was passed in combating and vanquishing the Neapolitan Guelphs. He died suddenly at Lavello, on the 2 1st of May, 1254. His natural brother, Manfred, a young hero, hardly twenty years of age, succeeded by his activity and courage in recovering the kingdom which Innocent IV. had already invaded, with the intention of subduing it to the tem- poral power of the holy see. But Manfred, beloved by the Saracens of Luceria, who were the first to de- fend him, and admired by the Ghibelines of the Two Sicilies, was for a long time detained there by the attacks of the Guelphs, before he could in his turn pursue them through the rest of Italy. Conrad had left in Germany a son, still an infant, afterwards known under the name of Conradin ; he was acknowledged king of Germany under the name of Conrad V., by a small party only. The electors left the empire without a head ; and when they afterwards proceeded to elect one, in the year 1257, their suffrages were divided between two princes, strangers to Germany, where they had never set foot : one, an Englishman, Richard earl of Cornwall ; the other, a Spaniard, Alphonso X. of Castile.* • Until the end of the year 1256, William, count of Holland, one of the competitors whom the Guelph party hart given to Frederick II., bore the Utie of King oi the Romans. 1251. RETURN OF THE POPE. 8l Innocent IV. was still in France, when he learnt the death of Frederick II.; he returned thence in the be- ginning of the spring of 1251; wrote to all the towns to celebrate the delivera; ie of the church ; heir of the house of Hohenstaufen against the valour of the French. Conradin entered the kingdom of his fathers by the Abruzzi; and met Charles of Anjou in the plain of Tagliacozzo, on the 23d of August, 12(>'3. A despe- rate battle ensued: victory long remained doubtful. H l J8 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN KEPIBLICS. ]20fc. Two divisions of the army of Charles were already de- stroyed ; and the Germans, who considered themselves the victors, were dispersed in pursuit of the enemy; when the French prince, who, till then, had not ap- peared on the field, fell on them with his body of reserve, and completely routed them. Conradin, forced to fly, was arrested, forty-five miles from Tagliacozzo, is he was about to embark for Sicily. He was brought to Charles, who, without pity for his youth, esteem for his courage, or respect for his just right, exacted, from the iniquitous judges before whom he subjected him to the mockery of a trial, a sentence of death. Conradin was beheaded in the market-place at Naples, on the 26th of October, 12fc>8. With him perished several of his most illustrious companions in arms, — German princes, Ghibeline nobles, and citizens of Pisa; and, after the sacrifice of these first victims, an uninterrupted succession of executions long continued to fill the Two Sicilies with dismay. The defeat and death of Conradin established the preponderance of the Guelph party throughout the peninsula. Charles placed himself at the head of it : the pope named him imperial vicar in Italy during the interregnum of the empire, and sought to annex to that title all the rights formerly exercised by the empe- rors in the free cities. Clement IV. died on the 2yth of November, 1268, — one month after the execution of Conradin. The cardinals remained thirty-three months without being able to agree on the choice of a successor. During this interregnum, — the longest the pontifical chair had ever experienced, — Charles remained sole chief of the Guelph party, ruling over the whole of Italy, which had neither pope nor emperor. He convoked, in 12<>9, a diet of the Lombard cities at Cremona, in which the towns of Placentia, Cremona, Parma, Mo- dena, Ferrara, and Reggio, consented to confer on him the signoria : Milan, Como, Vercelli, Novara, Alexan- dria, Tortona, Turin, Pavia, Bergamo, and Bologna, de- clared they should feel honoured by his alliance and 1272. POLICY OF GREGORY X. [)^) friendship, hut could not take hirn for master Italv already felt the weight of the French yoke, which would have pressed still heavier if the crusade against Tunis to which Charles of Anjou was summoned by his bro- ther, Saint Louis, had not diverted his projects of ambition. The conclave assembled at Viterbo at length raised to the vacant chair Tebaldo Visconti, of Placentia, who was at that time in the Holy Land. On his return to Italy, in the year 1272, he took the name of Gregory X. This wise and moderate man soon discovered that the court of Rome had overreached itself: in crushing the house of Hohenstaufen, it had given itself a new mas- ter, not less dangerous than the preceding. Gregory, in- stead of seeking to annihilate the Ghibelines, like his predecessors, occupied himself only in endeavouring to restore an equilibrium and peace between them and the Guelphs. He persuaded the Florentines and Siennese to recall the exiled Ghibelines, for the purpose, as he an- nounced, of uniting all Christendom in the defence of the Holy Land ; and testified the strongest resentment against Charles, who threw obstacles in the way of this reconciliation. He relieved Pisa from the interdict that had been laid on it by the holy see. He showed favour to Venice and Genoa ; both of which, offended by the arrogance and injustice of Charles, had made common cause with his enemies. He engaged the electors of Ger many to take advantage of the death of Richard of Cornwall, which took place in 1271, and put an end to the interregnum by proceeding to a new election. The electors conferred the crown, in 1273, on Rodolph of Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria. The death of Gregory X., in the beginning of January, 1276, de- prived him of the opportunity to develop the projects which these first steps seem to indicate ; but Nicolas III., who succeeded him in 1277, after three ephemeral popes, undertook more openly to humble Charles, and to support the Ghibeline party. He forced the king of Sicily to renounce the title of imperial vicar, ii 2 100 HISTORY OF THE ITAI/IAN HhPVBIICS. 1272. to which Charles had no title except during the inter- regnum of the empire : he still further engaged him to resign the title of senator of Rome, and the dignity of the nignoria, which had been conferred on him by the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany, by representing to him that his power over these provinces was contrary to the bull of investiture, which had put him in possession of the kingdom of Naples. Rodolph of Hapsburg, who had never visited Italy, and was ignorant of the geography of that country, was, in his turn, persuaded by the pope to confirm the charters of Louis le Debonnaire, of Otho I., and of Henry VI., of which copies were sent to him. In these charters, whether true or false, taken from the chancery at Rome, the sovereignty of the whole of Emilia or Romagna, the Pentapolis, the march of An- '!ona, the patrimony of St. Peter, and the campagna of Rome, from Radicofani to Ceperano, were assigned to the church. The imperial chancery confirmed, without examination, a concession which had never been really- made. The two Fredericks, as well as their predeces sors, had always considered this whole extent of country as belonging to the empire, and always exercised there the imperial rights. A chancellor of Rodolph arrived in these provinces to demand homage and the oath of alle- giance, which were yielded without difficulty ; but Nicolas appealed against this homage, and called it a .sacrilegious usurpation. Rodolph was obliged to ac- knowledge that it was in contradiction to his own diplo- mas, and resigned his pretensions. From that period, 1278, the republics, as well as the principalities situated .n the whole extent of what is now called the States of the Church, held of the holy see, and not of the em- peror. A revolution, not long previous, in the principal cities of Lombardy, had secured the preponderance to the nobles and the Ghibeline party. These, having been for a considerable period exiled from Milan, experienced a continuation of disasters, and, instead of fear, excited 1277- RISE OF THE ViacoXTI AT MILAN'. 10) compassion. While Napoleon della Torre, chief of the republic of Milan, was exasperating the plebeians ami Guelphs with li is arrogance and contempt of their free* dom, he was informed that Otho Visconti, whom he had exiled, although archbishop of Milan, had assembled round him at Como many nobles and Ghibelines, with whom he intended making an attack on the Milanese territory. Napoleon marched to meet him ; but, despis- ing enemies whom he had so often vanquished, he care- lessly suffered himself to be surprised by the Ghibelines at Desio, in the night of the 21st of January, 1277- Having been made prisoner, with five of his relatives, he and they were placed in three iron cages, in which tho archbishop kept them confined. This prelate was him- self received with enthusiasm at Milan, at Cremona, and Lodi. He formed anew the councils of these republics, admitting only Ghibelines and nobles ; who, ruined by a long exile, and often supported by the liberality of the archbishop, were become humble and obsequious : their deference degenerated into submission ; and the republic of Milan, henceforth governed by (he Visconti, became soon no more than a principality. Nicolas III., of the noble Roman family of the Orsini, felt an hereditary affection for the Ghibelines, and every where favoured them. A rivalry between two illustrious families of Bologna, the Gieremei and the Lambertazzi, terminated, in 1274, in the exile of the latter, who were Ghibelines, with all their adherents. The quarrel between the two families became, front that period, a bloody war throughout Romagna. Guido de Montefeltro, lord of the mountains in the neighbourhood of Urbino, who had never joined any republic, received the Ghibelines into his country; and in commanding them gained the reputation of a great captain. Nico- las III. sent a legate to Romagna, to compel Bologna and all the Guelph republics to recall the Ghibelines, and establish peace throughout the province. lie suc- ceeded in I27. ( ). Another legate on a similar mission, and with equal success, was sent to Florence and Sienna u 3 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA COLLEGE LIBRARY 702 HISTORY OF THE iTALIAX REPUBLICS. 12^0. The balance seemed at last on the point of being established in Italy, when Nicolas died, on the lyth of August, 1280. Charles, who had submitted without opposition, and without even manifesting any displeasure, to the depres- sion of a party on which were founded all his hopes, and to a reconciliation which destroyed his influence in the Guelph republics, hastened to Viterbo as soon as he learned the death of the pope, fully resolved not to suffer another of his enemies to ascend the chair of St. Peter. He caused three cardinals, relatives of Nicolas, whom he regarded as being adverse to him, to be removed by force from the conclave ; and, striking terror into the rest, he obtained, on the 22d of January, 1281, the election of a pope entirely devoted to him. This was a canon of Tours, who took the name of Martin 1V T . He seemed to have no higher mission than that of seconding the ambition of the king of the Two Sicilies, and serving him in his enmities. Far from thinking of forming any balance to his power, he laboured to give him the sove- reignty of all Italy. He conferred on him the title of se- nator of Rome : he gave the government of all the pro- vinces of the church to his French officers ; he caused the Gliibelines to be exiled from all the cities ; and he encouraged, with all his power, the new design of Charles to take possession of the Eastern empire. C071- stantinople had been taken from the Latins on the 25th of July, 12f)l ; and the son of the last Latin em- peror was son-in-law of Charles of Anjou. Martin IV. excommunicated Michael Paleologus, the Greek empe- ror, who had vainly endeavoured to reconcile the two churches. The new armament, which Charles was about to lead into Greece, was in preparation at the same time in all the ports of the Two Sicilies. The king's agents collected the taxes with redoubled insolence, and levied money with greater severity. The judges endeavoured to smother resistance by striking terror. In the mean- while, a noble of Salerno, named John da Procida, the friend, confidant, and physician of Frederick II., and of l'iSS. Sicilian vt.spees. T01 Manfred, visited in disguise the Two Sicilies, to re- animate the zeal of the ancient Ghihelines, and rouse their hatred of the French and of Charles. After having traversed Greece and Spain to excite new enemies against him, he ohtained assurances that Michael Paleologus. and Constance, the daughter of Manfred and wife of don Pedro of Aragon, would not suffer the Sicilians to be destroyed, if these had the courage to rise against their oppressors. Their assistance was, in fact, promised, — it was even prepared ; but Sicily was destined to be deli- vered by a sudden anil popular explosion, which took place at Palermo, on the 30th of March, 1282. It was excited by a French soldier, who treated rudely the person of a young bride as she was proceeding to the church of Montreal, with her betrothed husband, to re- ceive the nuptial benediction. The indignation of her relations and friends was communicated with the ra- pidity of lightning to the whole population of Palermo. At that moment the bells of the churches were ringing for vespers : the people answered by the cry, " To arms — death to the French ! " The French were attacked furiously on all sides. Those who attempted to defend themselves were soon overpowered ; others, who endeavoured to pass for Italians, were known by their pronunciation of two words, which they were made to repeat — ceci and ciceri, and were, on their mispro- nunciation, immediately put to death. In a few hours, more than 4000 weltered in their blood. Every town in Sicily followed the example of Palermo. Thus the Sicilian vespers overthrew the tyranny of Charles of Anjou and of the Guelphs ; separated the kingdom of Sicily from that of Naples ; and transferred the crown of the former to don Pedro of Aragon, the son-in-law of Manfred, who was considered the heir to the house of Hohenstaufen 104 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1283- CHAP. V. ~Ta.LV NEGLECTED BY THE EMPERORS. ABANDONED BT THK POPES. COUNT UGOLINO. THE BLANCH1 AND NERI AT FLO- RENCE. CLOSE OF THE GRAND COUNCIL AT VENICE. THK EMPEROR HENRY VII. HIS EXPEDITION INTO ITALY. Hitherto we have founi the connecting chain of the events, of which we have undertaken the narrative, in a common interest felt throughout Italy. In seeking to trace the concurrent history of more than two hundred small states, we have found their frequent revolutions referable to the efforts made by the Italians to maintain the balance between the rights of the empire, of the church, and of each city. In the period on which we now enter, politics become complex, interests more widely spread ; and it is much more difficult to seize and follow a dominant idea amidst the various revolu- tions to which Italy was a prey. This difference results chiefly from the fact, that no potentate existed in Italy at this time superior to the republics ; such as the former kings of Naples, the emperors, and popes, who succeeded in acquiring the entire government of a faction, and in thus directing to one end the opposite efforts of all the people of the peninsula. Charles of Anjou, the first French king of the Two Sicilies, survived the Sicilian vespers only three years. He died on the 7th of January, 1285, aged sixty-five years. At this period, his son, Charles II., was a pri- soner in the hands of the Sicilians : he was set at liberty in 1288, in pursuance of a treaty, by which he acknow- ledged the separation and independence of the two crowns of Naples and Sicily. The first was assigned to the Guelphs and the house of .Anjou; the second to the fihibelines, and the house of Aragon : but Nicholas IV., bv whose influence the treaty was made, broke it, re- •283. DECLINE OF THE ROYAL POWER. ll>i> leased Charles from his oath, ami authorised him to begin the war anew. This war, which lasted twenty- four years, occupied without lustre the whole reign of Charles II. This prince was milder than his father, hut weaker also. He had neither the stern character of Charles of Anjou, which excited hatred ; nor his talents, which commanded admiration or respect. He always called himself the protector of the Guelph party, but ceased to be its champion ; and neither the court of Rome, nor the Guelph republics, any longer demanded counsel, direction, or support from the court of Naples. He died on the 5th of May, 130J); and was succeeded by his son Robert. The influence of the emperors, as protectors of the Ghibeline party, during this period was almost ex- tinct in Italy. Rodolph of Hapsburg, who reigned with glory in Germany from 1273 to 1291, never passed the Alps to be acknowledged emperor and king of the Lom- bards ; after him, Adolphus of Nassau, and his suc- cessor, Albert of Austria, — the one assassinated in 12J18, the other in 1308, — remained alike strangers to Italy. TlieGhibeline party was, accordingly, no longer supported or directed by the emperors, but it maintained itself by its own resources, by the attachment of the nobles to the imperial name, and still more by the self-interest of the captains ; who, raised to the signoria either by the choice of the people or of their faction, created for themselves, in the name of the empire, a sovereignty to which the Italians unhesitatingly gave the name of tyranny. Lastly, the third power, that of the pope, which till then had directed the politics of Italy, ceased about this time to follow a regular system, and consequently to give a powerful impulse to faction. Martin IV., whose life terminated two months after that of Charles I., had always acted as his creature, had seconded him in his enmities, in his thirst of vengeance against the Sicilians, and in his efforts to recover his dominion over Italy. Rut. llonorius IV., who reigned after him, from 128"> to 1287, appeared to have no other thought than that of 106 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 283. aggrandising the noble house of Savelli at Home, of which he was himself a member: after rum, Nicolas IV., from 1288 to 1292, was not less zealous in his efforts to egan to divide all Tuscany ; but, violent and choleric, lie was ill calculated to make peace between men as in- temperate as himself. He soon espoused with zeal the party of the Neri, the aristocracy, and the most zealous Guelphs. He had called Charles de Valois, the brother of Philip le Bel, to Italy, to place him at the head of an expedition which he meditated against Sicily. He charged him to pacify Tuscany in his way ; and gave him to understand that it would be easy, in states so rich, to repay himself for his trouble. The republic of Florence dared not refuse the mediation of Charles : it was accustomed to regard the house of France as the protector of the church and of the Guelph party. It, however, limited, in precise terms, the authority allowed him, before receiving him, and the 800 cavalry which he commanded, within the city. But the French princes, at this period, neither respected nor compre- hended the liberty of the citizen : they were incapable of forming any idea of the reciprocal rights which they had to maintain. Charles, making no account of the engagements which he had taken, formed an intimate alliance with the Neri, whom he soon discovered to be the more aristocratic, and more virulent in their enmities. Having agreed on his share of the booty, he gave, from the 5th to the 11th of November, 1301, a loose rein to their passions. He permitted them to pillage and burn the houses of their enemies ; to kill those who were the most odious to them ; to carry off the heiresses of rich families, and marry them to their sons ; to cause sen- tences of exile and confiscation to be pronounced against 1302. PERSECUTION OF THE Bl .NCHf. 11/ all the most illustrious families of the Bianchi party by the podesta, a creature of Charles tie Valois, whom he had brought there. The French cavalry, and the Guelphs of Romagna, whom Charles had also intro- duced into the city, assisted in all these outrages. It was then that Dante, and Petracco dell'Ancisa, the father of Petrarch, were exiled from their country, with many hundred others. Charles at last quitted Florence, on the 4th of April, 1302, carrying off immense wealth. His cavalry were loaded with gold and precious stuffs ; but he carried with him also the curse of the Florentines, which seemed to follow him in his unsuccessful expedi- tion against Sicily. Benedict XI., the successor of Boni- face, vainly endeavoured, during his short pontificate, to reconcile the Bianchi and Neri in the cities of Tuscany, and to recall the latter from exile. He died of poison, on the 4th of July, 1304. Some accuse Philip le Bel of the crime ; he at least reaped all the benefit. This king succeeded by fraud in getting a Frenchman elected pope, under the name of Clement V., whom, to keep him more subservient to his will, he always retained in France; drawing thither, also, the college of cardinals, who were recruited in that country, so that the successors of Clement might also be Frenchmen. It was the beginning of the long retirement, or, as the Italians call it, exile of the popes, at Avignon, which terminated in 1377, and soon after began anew with the great western schism. This exile was favourable to the independence of Rome, and of the other cities of the pontifical states ; and at the same time rendered the holy see almost indiffer- ent to the Guelph party, which it had often indecently seconded. While the nobles of the Italian cities had, by their turbulence, excited the resentment of all classes of the people, — while, by their disobedience to the laws, con- tempt of the tribunals and of public peace, they had drawn on themselves the exclusion not only from the magistracies, but from the common rights, the most precious to the citizens of a free state, — the nobility of I 3 {18 I1IST0HY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 2,7? . Venire rose in importance, and took possession of the go- vernment. Submissive to the laws, but shaping them foi their own use, — forgetting individuals and families, to occupy themselves only about their corporate interests, — they arrived, by insensible usurpations, to the sovereignty of this ancient republic. This nobility of Venice, which appeared so docile to the laws, so patient, so skilful, was the oldest in Europe. It inherited the honours of the Roman empire ; and alone preserved, from the fifth to the eleventh century, the family names, according to the Roman custom, which had been abandoned by the rest of Europe. Like the nobles in the other cities of Italy, they were in turn sovereigns in their fiefs, and subjects in the city. After the conquest of the Greek empire, the Venetians distributed among their nobles several islands in the Archipelago, of which they preserved the sove- reignty, with the titles of dukes or counts, even after the Greeks had recovered Constantinople ; but they had not, and could not have, any fortresses in the vast plains that surround Venice. They had no devoted vassals, al- ways ready to espouse their quarrels ; nor retreats, into which to withdraw from the power of the law. They acknowledged and submitted to the authority of the tri- bunals ; they conducted themselves as citizens, and thus soon became masters of the state. It was by slow and artfully disguised encroachments that the nobility of Venice succeeded in substituting itself for the civic power, and investing itself with the sove- reignty of the republic. During the earlier period, the doge was an elective prince, the limit of whose power was vested in assemblies of the people. It was not till 1032 that he was obliged to consult only a council, formed from amongst the most illustrious citizens, whom he designated. Thence came the name given them of pre'gadi (invited). The grand council was not formed till 1172, 140 years later, and was, from that time, the real sovereign of the republic. It was composed of 480 members, named annually on the last day of September, by twelve tribunes, or grand electors, of whom two were 12[)7. ARISTOCRACY OF VF-NIOE. 1 1 9 chosen by eacli of the six sections of the republic. No more than four members from one family could be named. The same counsellors might be re-elected each year. As it is in the spirit of a corporation to tend always towards an aristocracy, the same persons were habitually re-elected ; and when they died, their chil- dren took their places. The grand council, neither assuming to itself nor granting to the doge the judicial power, gave the first example of the creation of a body of judges, numerous, independent, and irremovable ; such, nearly, as was afterwards the parliament of Paris. In 1 1 79, it created the criminal quarantia; called, also, the vecchia quarantia, to distinguish it from two other bodies of forty judges, created in 1229- The grand council gave a more complete organisation to the government formed from among its members. It was com- posed of a doge ; of six counsellors of the red robe, who remained only eight months in office, and who, with the doge, formed the signoria ; and of the council of pre. gadi, composed of sixty members, renewed each year. The doj;e was obliged, on entering office, to take a rigorously detailed oath, which guaranteed all the public liberties. At his death, a commission of enquiry was formed, to examine whether he had not exceeded his powers; and in case he had, his heirs were responsible. In 1249. the sovereign council renounced the election of the doge, and entrusted it to a commission drawn by lot from among the whole council. This commission named an- other ; which, reduced by lot to one fourth, named a third ; and by these alternate operations of lot and elec- tion, at length formed the last commission of forty-one members, who could elect the doge only by a majority of twenty-five suffrages. It was not till towards the end of the thirteenth century that the people began to dis- cover that they were no more than a cipher in the republic, and the doge no more than a servant of the grand coun- cil, — surrounded, indeed, with pomp, but without any real power. In 1289 the people attempted themsehes 1 4 120 HISTORY OF TIIF ITALIAN KEPUBLfCS. 12,9?. to elect the doge ; but the grand council obliged him whom the popular suffrages had designated to leave Ve- nice, and substituted in his place Pietro Gradenigo, the chief of the aristocratic party. Gradenigo undertook to exclude the people from any part in the election of the grand council, as they were already debarred from anv participation in the election of a doge. He represented it to the grand council as notorious, that for more than a century the same persons, or families, were invariably re-elected ; that the twelve tribunes charged with the annual election contented themselves with examining only whether any of the ancient members merited exclusion from the sovereign council, and confirming all the others ; that since the election was reduced only to the condemnation of some individuals, it was more ex- pedient to confide that judgment to the equity of the same tribunal to which the citizens intrusted their ho- nour and their lives, than to the arbitrary will of twelve individuals, most frequently nominated by intrigue. He proposed, accordingly, instead of election, the purifica- tion of the grand council by the forty criminal judges. The decree which he proposed and carried on the 28th of February, 1297, is famous in the history of Venice, under the name of serrata del maggior consiglio (shutting of the grand council). He legally founded that hereditary aristocracy, — so prudent, so jealous, so am- bitious, — which Europe regarded with astonishment; immovable in principle, unshaken in power ; uniting some of the most odious practices of despotism with the name of liberty; suspicious and perfidious in politics; sanguinary in revenge ; indulgent to the subject ; sump- tuous in the public service, economical in the administra- tion of the finances; equitable and impartial in the admi- nistration of justice; knowing well how to give prosperity to the arts, agriculture, and commerce ; beloved by the people who obeyed it, whilst it made the nobles who par- took its power tremble. The Venetian aristocracy completed its constitution, in 131 1, by the creation of theCouncil of Ten, which, notwithstanding its name, was composed of l c 2[)7- SHUTTING OF THE GRAND COUNCIL. 121 sixteen members and the doge. Ten counsellors of the black robe were annually elected by the great council, in the months of August and September ; and of the six counsellors of the red robe, composing a part of the signoria, three entered office every four months. The Council of Ten, charged to guard the security of the state with a power higher than the law, had an especial com- mission to watch over the nobles, and to punish their crimes against the republic. In this they were restrained by no rule : they were, with respect to the nobility, the depositaries of the power of the great council, or rather of a power unlimited, which no people should entrust to any government. Some other decrees completed the sys- tem of the scrrata del maggior consiglio. It was forbidden to the quarantia to introduce any new man into power. In 1315, a register was opened, called the Golden Book, in which were inscribed the names of all those who had sat in the great council. In 1319, all limitation of number was suppressed ; and, from that period, it sufficed to prove that a person was the descendant of a counsellor, and twenty-five years of age, to be by right a member of the grand council of Venice. On the 2oth of November, 1308, the diet of Germany named Henry VII. of Luxembourg as successor to Albert of Austria ; and this election suddenly brought Italy back to the same struggle for her independence which she had so heroically supported against the two Fre- dericks. From the death of the second Frederick, fifty- eight years had passed since she had seen an emperor ltodolph of Hapsburg, Adolphus of Nassau, and Albert of Austria, had too much to do in Germany, to occupy them- sevles with this constantly agitated country, where they could demand obedience only with arms in their hands. Henry VII. was a brave, wise, and just prince ; but he was neither rich nor powerful. He secured to his son, by marriage, the crown of Bohemia, which had ex- cited some jealousy among the Germans ; and he be- lieved it would be expedient, in order to avoid ail quarrel in the empire, to quit it for some time. To 122 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1310. flatter the national vanity, he determined on an expedi- tion to Italy. Henry, himself a Belgian, had no power but in Belgium and the provinces adjoining France. From Luxembourg he went thiough the county of Burgundy to Lausanne. Here he received, in the summer of 1310, the ambassadors of the Italian states, who came to do him homage. He entered Piedmont, by Mont Cenis, towards the end of September, accompanied by only two thousand cavalry, the greater part of whom were Belgians, Franc-Comtois, or Savoyards. This force would have been wholly insufficient to subdue Italy ; but Henry VII. presented himself there as the sup- porter of just rights, of order, and, to a certain degree, of liberty. The result of the violence of faction, and of the exhaustion of the citizens, had been, to subject almost all Lombardy to petty tyrants. Every city had its lord, sometimes chief of the Guelph, sometimes of the Ghibeline faction, whom his partisans had, for their own interests, invested with dictatorial power. Some- times he was a neighbouring noble, who, seconded by a band of his vassals, had inspired terror, and whom the people respected, because he forced to obedience tur- bulent nobles who had never submitted to any law ; and sometimes too he was a captain of foreign cavalry, called to the service of the republic by the council, with the title of lord assigned at the same time. The name of liberty, and the cry of popolo ! popolo J were every- where fiequently heard; but it was only to overthrow the existing power, and substitute another quite as arbitrary. These despotisms, it is true, were of short duration ; but yet hardly one city enjoyed true liberty. The desire of tranquillity, resulting from the outrages committed by the nobles or by factions, was so great, that the citizens demanded, above all, of the lords and magistrates strength to make themselves feared, — to pu- nish rapidly and severely whoever troubled the public peace. Every city submitted to a form of summary justice, preferring that to anarchy, although the sove- 1310. HENRY VII. IN L0MBAHI1V. 123 reign lord often made an ill use of it, either to gratify his brutal passions, or to accumulate wealth which should he his resource in exile; an evil always to be expected. The lords of all Lomhardy and Piedmont came to present themselves to Henry ; some at Turin, others at Asti. He received them with kindness, but declared his determination to establish legal order, such as had been settled by the peace of Constance, in all the cities of the empire; and to name in each an imperial vicar, who should govern in concert with the municipal ma- gistrates. Philippone di Langusco, at Pavia ; Simon da Colobiano, at Vercelli ; William Brusato, at No- vara ; Antonio Fisiraga, at Lodi ; in obedience to this intimation, laid down the sovereign power. At the same time, Henry every where recalled the exiles, with- out distinction of party : at Como and Mantua, the Ghibelines ; at Brescia and Placentia, the Guelphs ; leaving out, however, the exiles of Verona, a powerful city, which he did not visit, and which was governed by Can' Grande della Scala, the most able Ghibeline captain in Italy, the best soldier, the best politician, and the person whose services and attachment the em- peror most valued. The rich and populous city of Milan required also to be treated w r ith address and consideration. The archbishop, Otho Visconti, had retained the principal authority in his hands to a very advanced age. But long previously to his death, which took place in 12JJ5, he had transferred to his nephew, Matteo Visconti, the title of captain of the people, and had accustomed the Milanese to consider him as his lieutenant and successor. Matteo did, in fact, govern after him, and with almost despotic power, from 1295 to 1.302. He was also named lord of several other cities of Lomhardy ; at the same time he strength- ened his family by many rich alliances. But Visconti had not the art to conciliate either the remains of national pride, or the love of liberty which still subsisted among his subjects, or the jealousy of the «ther princes of Loin- 121 HISTORY OF THK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 131 I. bardy. A league to give the preponderance to the Guelph party in this province was formed by Alberto Scotto, lord of Placentia, and by Ghiberto da Cor- reggio, lord of Parma : they forced the Viscontis to quit Milan, in 1 "02, and installed in their place Guido della Torre and his family, who had been exiles twenty-five years. When Henry VII. presented himself before Milan, he found it governed by Guido della Torre and the Guelph s. Matteo Visconti and the Ghibelines were exiled. Henry exacted their recall ; he was crowned in the church of St. Ambrose, on the 6th of January, 1311, and afterwards asked of the city a gra- tuity for his army of one hundred thousand florins. Till then, the Italians had seen in the monarch only a just and impartial pacificator ; but when he demanded money, the different parties united against him. A violent sedition broke forth at Milan. The Delia Torres and the Guelphs were forced to leave that city. Matteo Visconti and the Ghibelines were recalled, and the former restored to absolute power. The Guelphs, too, in the rest of Lombardy, rose, and took arms against the emperor. Crema, Cremona, Lodi, Brescia, and Como revolted at the same time. Henry consumed the greater part of the summer in besieging Brescia, which at last, towards the end of September, 1311, he forced to capitulate. He granted to that town equitable conditions, impatient as he was to enter Tuscany ; but, although Lombardy seemed subdued to his power, he left more germs of discontent and discord in it than he had found about a year before. Henry VII. arrived with his little army at Genoa, on the 21st of October, 1311. That powerful republic now maintained at St. Jean d'Acre, at Pera opposite to Constantinople, and at Caffa in the Black Sea, military and mercantile colonies, which made themselves re- spected for their valour, at the same time that they carried on the richest commerce of the Mediterranean. Several islands in the Archipelago, amongst others, that of Chios, had passed in sovereignty to Genoese families. 1311. HF.NHY VII. AT UKN0A. 12.* The ])alaces of Genoa, already called the " superb," were the admiration of travellers. Its sanguinary rivalry with Pisa had terminated by securing to the former the empire of the Tyrrhene Sea. From that time, Genoa had no other rival than Venice. An accidental ren- counter of the fleets of these two cities in the sea of Cyprus lighted up between them, in 1293, a terrible war, which for seven years stained the Mediterranean with blood, and consumed immense wealth. In 1298, the Genoese admiral, Lamba Doria, meeting the Vene- tian commander, Andrea Dandolo, at Corzuola or Cor- cyra the Black, at the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf, burnt sixty-six of his galleys, and took eighteen, which he brought into the port of Genoa, with 7000 prisoners ; suffering only twelve vessels to escape. The humb'ed Venetians, in the next year, asked and obtained peace. The Genoese, vanquishers in turn of the Pisans and Venetians, passed for the bravest, the most enterprising, and the most fortunate mariners of all Italy. The government of their city was entirely democratic ; but the two chains of mountains which extend from Genoa, the one towards Provence, and the other towards Tus- cany (called by the Italians Le Riviere di Genoa, because the foot of these mountains forms the shore of the sea), were covered with the castles of theLigurian nobles; the peasantry were all dependent on them, and were always ready to make war for their liege lords. Four families were pre-eminent for their power and wealth — the Doria and the Soinola, Ghibelines ; the Grimaldi and the Fieschi, Guelphs. These nobles, incensed against each other by hereditary enmity, had disturbed the state by so many outrages, that the people adopted, with re- spect to them, the same policy as that of the Tuscan republics, and had entirely excluded them from the magistracy. On the other hand, they had rendered such eminent and frequent services to the republic ; above all, they had produced such great naval commanders, that the people, whenever the state was in danger, had always recourse to them for the choice of an admiral. I2t) H STOBV OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1312. Seduced by the glory of these chiefs, the people often afterwards shed their blood in their private quarrels , but often, also, wearied by the continual disturbances which the nobles excited, they had recourse to foreigners to subdue them to the common law. The people were in this state of irritation against the Ligurian nobles, when Henry VII. arrived at Genoa, in 1311 ; and to oblige them to maintain a peace, which they were continually breaking, the Genoese conferred on that monarch absolute authority over the republic for twenty years. But when the emperor suppressed the podesta, and then the abbate or defender of the people, and afterwards demanded of the city a gift of 6'0,000 florins, the Genoese perceived that they needed a government not only to suppress civil discord, but also to protect rights not less precious than peace ; an internal ferment- ation of increasing danger manifested itself; and Henry was happy to quit Genoa in safety, on the lO'th of Fe- bruary, 1312, on board a Pisan fleet, which transported him with about 1 500 .cavalry to Tuscany. Henry VII., when he entered Italy,' was impartial between the Guelphs and Ghibelines. He owed his election to the influence of the popes, and he was ac- companied by cardinal legates, who were to crown him at Rome. He had no distrust either of Robert, then king of Naples, the son of Charles II., or of the Guelph cities. He had no hereditary affection for the Ghibe- lines, the zealous partisans of a family long extinct. He endeavoured, accordingly, to hold the balance fairly between the two parties, and to reconcile them wher- ever he was allowed ; but experience had already taught him that the very name of elected emperor had a magic influence on the Italians, either to excite the devoted affection of the Ghibelines, or the terror and hatred of the Guelphs. It was with the latter that resistance to him had begun in the preceding year in Lombardy ; and that revolt had burst forth on all sides since bis departure. Robert, king of Naples, who assumed the part of champion of the Guelph party, already testified 1312. I1ENKY VII. IN TUSCANY. 127 an open distrust of him : and Florence, which by its: pru- dence, ability, wealth, and courage, was the real director of that party, took arms to resist him, refused audience to his ambassadors, raised all the Guelphs of Italy against him, and finally constrained him to place that city under the ban of the empire. The republic of Pisa, on the other hand, whose affection for the Ghibeline party was connected with its hopes, as well as its recollections, served him with a devotion, zeal, and prodigality, which he had not met elsewhere. The Pisans had sent him, when at Lausanne, a present of 60,000 florins, to aid him on his passage to Italy. They paid his debts at Genoa, and they gave him another present when he entered their city ; finally, they placed at his disposal thirty galleys and GOO cross-bowmen, who accompanied him to Rome, where he received the golden crown of the empire from the hands of the pope's legate, in the church of St. John de Lateran, on the 20th of June, 1812. The Romans, who had taken arms against him, and had received within their walls a Neapolitan garrison, kept their gates sbut during the ceremony, and would not suffer one of his soldiers to enter the city. The coronation of the emperor at Rome was the term of service of the Germans : they took no interest afterwards in what was passing, or might be done, in that country. They were anxious to depart ; and Henry found himself at Tivoli, where he passed the summer, almost entirely abandoned by his transalpine soldiers. Had the Neapolitan king Robert been bolder, Henry would have been in great danger. In the autumn, however, the Ghibelines and Bianchi of central Italy rallied round him, and formed a formidable army, with winch he marched to attack Florence, on the 10th of September, 1312. The Florentines accustomed to le;ive their defence to mercenaries, whose valour was always ready for pay, made small account of a military courage which they saw so common among men whom they de- Bplsed ; but no people carried civil courage and firmness in misfortune farther. Their army was soon infinitely ^28 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPCRLICS. 131$. superior in numbers to *bat of Henry ; they carried on with perfect calmness their commerce and negotiations, as if their enemies had already departed for Germany, but they would not drive them out of their territory by giving battle ; they preferred bearing patiently their de- predations, and waiting till they had worn out their enthusiasm, exhausted their finances, &nd should depart of themselves, which they did on the tith of January, 1313, finding they could obtain no advantage. Henry, after having given some months of repose to his army, took the command of the miiitia of Pisa, and made war at their head against Lucca ; at the same time, he soli- cited from his brother, the archbishop of Treves, a German reinforcement, which he obtained in the follow- ing month of July. On the 5th of August, 1313, Henry VII. departed from Pisa, commanding 2500 ultramontane and 1500 Italian cavalry, with a propor- tionate number of infantry. He began his march to- wards Rome, having been informed that Robert, called by the Florentines to their aid, advanced with all the forces of the Guelph party to oppose him. The declining military reputation of the Neapolitans inspired the Ger- mans with little fear, and Robert had but a small num- ber of French cavalry to give courage to his army ; but the priests and monks, animated with zeal in defence of the ancient Guelph party and the independence of the church, seconded him with their prayers, and the re- ] ort soon spread that they had seconded him in another manner and in their own way. The emperor took the road of San Miniato to Caste! Fiorentino ; arrived at liuon ( .'on vento, twelve miles beyond Sienna; and stopped there to celebrate the festival of St. Bartholomew. On the 24-th of August, 1313, he received the communion from the hands of a Dominican monk, and expired a few hours afterwards. It was said the monk had mixed the juice of Napel in the consecrated cup. It was said, also, that Henry was already attacked by a malady which he concealed. A carbuncle had manifested itself l313. DEATH OF HENRY VII. 129 below the knee; and a cold bath, which he took to calm the burning irritation, perhaps occasioned his sudden and unexpected death. CHAP. VI. THE POWER AND GREATNESS OF SOME OF THE GHIBELINE CHIEFS. DISORGANISATION OP THAT PARTY", THROUGH THE INCON- SISTENCY AND PERFIDY OF THE EMPEROR LOUIS OF BAVARIA. EFFORT OF THE FLORENTINES TO MAINTAIN AN EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT POWERS OF ITALY. THE TYRANNY AND EXPULSION OF THE DUKE OF ATHENS. The electors of the empire were not convoked at Frank- fort to name a successor to Henry VII. till ten months after his death. Ten, instead of seven, princes pre- sented themselves ; two pretenders disputed the electoral rights in each of the houses of Saxony, Bohemia, and Brandenburg. The electors, divided into two colleges, named simultaneously, on the 19th of October, 1314, two emperors: the one, Louis IV. of Bavaria ; the other, Frederick III. of Austria. Their rights appeared equal ; their adherents in Germany were also of nearly equal strength ; the sword only could decide ; and war was accordingly declared, and carried on till the 28th of September, 1322; when Frederick was vanquished and made prisoner at Muhldorf. The church abstained, while the civil war lasted, from pronouncing between the two pretenders to the empire. Clement V. did not witness their double election ; he died on the 20th of April, 1314. It was necessary, two years afterwards, to use fraud and violence, to confine the car- dinals in conclave at Lyons, for the purpose of naming his successor. They at last elected the bishop of Avignon. He was a native of Cahors, the devoted creature of king Robert of Naples ; and took the name of John XXII. He was the first who made Avignon, which was hie episcopal town, the residence of the Roman court, h. j SO HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBT |CS. 1313 exiled from Italy. He was an intriguer, notoriously profligate, scandalously avaricious : he fancied himself, however, a philosopher, and took a part in the quarrel between the realists and nominalists ; he made himself violent enemies in the schools, on the members of which he sometimes inflicted the punishment of death. While he used such violence towards his adversaries as he- retics, he shook the credit of the court of Rome, by being himself accused of heresy. His great object was to raise to high temporal power the cardinal Bertrand de Poiet, whom he called his nephew, and who was believed to be his son. For that purpose, he availed himself of the war between the two pretenders to the empire, regarded by him as a prolongation of the inter- regnum, during which he asserted all the rights of the emperors devolved on the holy see. He charged car- dinal Bertrand to exercise those rights as legate in Lom- bardy, crush the Ghibelines, support the Guelphs ; but above all, subdue both to the authority of the church and its legate. The cardinal Bertrand de Poiet launched his ex- communications, and employed the soldiers, whom his father had raised for him in Provence, particularly against Matteo Visconti, lord of Milan, one of the most able and powerful of the Ghibeline chiefs. Visconti made himself beloved by the Milanese, whom he had always treated with consideration. Without being vir- tuous, he had preserved his reputation unstained by crime. His mind was enlightened. To a perfect know- ledge of mankind, he added quick-sightedness, prompt decision, and a certain military glory, heightened by that of four sons, his faithful lieutenants, who were all distinguished among the brave. The Italians gave him the surname of Great, at a period when, it is true, they were prodigal of that epithet. Matteo Visconti, in his war with the Lombard Guelphs, took possession of Pavia, Tortona, and Alexandria. He besieged, in con- cert with the Genoese Ghibelines, Rohert king of Naples, who had shut himself up in Genoa, desirous 1313. MATTEO VISCONTI AT MILA>T. 131 of making that city the fortress of the Guelphs of Lombardy. Visconti compelled the retreat of Philip de Valois, who, before he was king, had entered Italy at the solicitation of the pope, in 1320. The following year he vanquished Raymond de Cardona, a Catalonian, and one of the pope's generals ; he persuaded Frederick of Austria, who had sent his brother to aid the pope, to recall his Germans, making him sensible it could suit neither of the pretenders to the empire to weaken the Ghibelines, who defended in Italy the interests of who- ever of the two remained conqueror. But, after having made war against the church party twenty years, with- out ever suspecting that he betrayed his faith, for he was religious without bigotry, age awakened in him the terrors of superstition ; he began to fear that the excommunications of the legate would deprive him of salvation ; he abdicated in favour of his eldest son, Galeazzo ; and died a few weeks afterwards, on the 22d of June, 1322. The remorse and scruples of Matteo Visconti had carried trouble and disorder into his own party, and gave boldness to that of his adversaries. A violent fermentation at Milan at length burst forth ; Galeazzo was obliged to fly, and the republic was pro- claimed anew : but virtue and patriotism, without whit!) it could not subsist, were extinguished ; and, after a few weeks, Galeazzo was recalled, and reinvested with the lordship of Milan. The two parties of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, since the death of Henry VII., no longer nearly balanced each other in virtue, talents, and patriotism. In the begin- ning of their struggle, there were almost as many re- publics on one side as the other ; and sentiments as pure, and a devotion as generous, equally animated the partisans of the empire and of the church. But, in the fourteenth century, the faction of the Ghibelines had become that of tyranny, — of the Guelphs that of liberty. The former displayed those great military and political talents which personal ambition usually develops. In the second were to be found, almost exclusively, patriotism, 132 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1314. and the heroism which sacrifices to it every personal in- terest. The republic of Pisa alone, in Italy, united the love of liberty with the sentiments of the Ghibeline party. This republic had been thunderstruck by the death of Henry VII. at a moment when a career of glory and prosperity seemed to open on him. Pisa, ex- hausted by the prodigious efforts which she had made to serve him, was true to herself, when all the Guelphs of Tuscany rose at once, on the death of Henry, to avenge on her the terror which that monarch had in- spired. She gave the command of her militia to Uguc- cione da Faggiuola, a noble of the mountainous part of llomagna, which, with the March, produced the best soldiers in Italy. The Pisans, under the command of Faggiuola, obtained two signal advantages over the Guelphs. They took Lucca, on the 14th of June, 1314, while the Lucchese Guelphs and Ghibelines were engaged in battle in the streets of that city ; and, on the 29th of August of the same year, they defeated, at Montecatino, the Florentines, commanded by two princes of the house of Naples, and seconded by all the Guelphs of Tuscany and Romagna. But the Pisans soon perceived that they were fighting, not for themselves, but for the captain whom they had chosen. Almost immediately after his victory, he began to exercise an insupportable tyranny over Pisa and Lucca. Fearing much more the citizens of these republics than the enemies of the state, he, on the slightest suspicion, employed the utmost severity against all the most illustrious families. At Lucca, he threw into a dungeon Castruccio Castracani, the most distinguished of the Ghibeline nobles, who had recently returned to that city with a brilliant reputation, acquired in the wars of France and Lombardy. A simultaneous insurrection at Lucca and Pisa, on the 10th of April, 1316", delivered these cities from Uguccione da Faggiuola, and his son, while, at the head of their cavalry, they were departing to join each other. This revolution re- established the republic of Pisa ; but left it exhausted and ruined by long hostilities, and discontented with the J Sib'. CASTRUCCIO AT LUCCA. Lb3 Ghibelines and with its own nobility, who, by a blind spirit of party, had drawn it into continual war. In the month of May, 1322, fifteen chiefs of noble Ghibe- line families, defeated in an obstinate battle, were exiled from Pisa ; and, in less than a year afterwards, all the Pisans established in Sardinia were massacred on the same day, in consequence of a plot, formed by a Pisan rebel, to deliver Sardinia to Alphonso, the son of James II. of Aragon. The war with the Aragonese, to defend the island, completed the ruin of the republic ; and hostilities terminated with the abandonment of this important possession, on the 10th of June, 1326. The revolution of Lucca, which had deprived Uguc- cione da Faggiuola of power, conferred it on his prisoner, Castruccio Castracani, who still bore the fetters on his feet when the insurgents delivered him from his dungeon to be proclaimed lord of Lucca. Castruccio was of the ancient family of thelnteiminelli, so long exiled, with all the Ghibelines, from that city, that it might well have been believed that they had lost all influence ; but the emigrants of the Italian republics frequently acquired, during their exile, new wealth and consideration. Want frequently forced them to labour with redoubled dili- gence, — to devote themselves to commerce, or to military studies. Lucca had been esteemed the citadel of the Guelph party in Tuscany during the latter part of the thirteenth century : since its rich Ghibeline exiles had been recalled, it was become entirely of the latter party. The family of Castruccio had acquired its wealth in Eng- land ; he had himself learned the art of war there, and in France and Lombardy. He had seen displayed, in these countries, the bravery of the soldier ; but he owed to his own intellect and studies the art of leading and disposing armies, which in Italy only began to deserve the name of military science. Signally brave himself, he had the art of communicating to the soldier his courage and enthusiasm. No one had so quick and sure an eye on the field of battle. He was a no less able politician than warrior ; and whether he took part with the Ghibeline k 3 134 HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. ] 3 1 (). chiefs of Lombardy, or the emperor Louis of Bavaria, he became always the sole director of those who admitted oim into their council. To such talents and acquirements was added hardly one virtue : without fidelity in his engagements, without pity for the people, without gra- titude to those who had served him, he put to death, bj various cruel executions, all those who at Lucca excited in him the slightest suspicion ; and, amongst others, the Quartigiani and the Poggi, to whom he owed his eleva- tion. Castruccio was thirty-two years of age when he obtained the sovereignty of his country. He was tall, with an agreeable countenance; and his face, thin and surrounded with long fair hair, was remarkable for its paleness. The republic of Florence found itself called upon to make head against Castruccio, and defend, against his am- bition, the independence of Tuscany. Florence was the Athens of Italy. The genius displayed by some of its citizens, — the talent and intelligence in business to he found even in the mass of the people, — the generosity which seemed the national character, whenever it was necessary to protect the oppressed or defend the cause of liberty, — raised this city above every other. Sienna, Perugia, and Bologna were at this period, like Florence, attached to the Guelph party ; and these four republics, with some weaker towns, formed the Guelph league of Lombardy. The democratic spirit of the Florentines which imparted so much energy, had also its dangers. These republicans, jealous of all distinction, and passion- ately attached to equality, demanded it not only in obe- dience, but in command. They insisted that the greatest possible number of citizens should, in turn, arrive at the office of priori, which, for two months, represented the sovereignty. It, however, did not proceed from base cupidity : this office, as well as every other of the magistracy, was gratuitous. The republic provided the table of the priori only when they were in the palace. In the month of October, 1323, the Florentines intro- duced drawing by lot into the nomination of their first J 323. CONSTITUTION OF FLORENCE. 1 85 magistrates They ordained that a general list of all the eligible citizens, Guelphs, and at least thirty years of age, should be formed by a majority of rive independent ma- gistracies, of which each represented a national interest: the priori, that of the government ; the gonfaloner, that of the militia ; the captains of the party*, that of the Guelphs ; the judges of commerce represented the mer- chants; and the consuls of the arts, industry. Each of these had a right to point out the most eligible citizen. The list which they prepared was submitted to the re- vision of a balia (a word signifying power), composed of the magistrates in office, and the thirty-six deputies chosen by the six divisions of the town. The balia effaced from the list the names of all those whom it considered incapable ; and classed the others according as they ap- peared suitable to the different magistracies, to which they were finally to be raised by lot. Lastly, it divided the list of names by series ; so that the destined purse from which to draw the signoria contained twenty-one tickets, on each of which was inscribed a gonfaloner and six priori ; similar purses were prepared, from which to draw by lot the names of the twelve buoii uomini, the nineteen gonfaloniers of the companies, and all the other magistrates of the republic. All this arrangement was to last only three years and a half, after which a new balia recommenced. Still, in our day, the municipal magistrates of Tuscany are drawn by lot, in the same manner. The activity, wisdom, and extensive views of the Florentine republic, while its supreme magistrates were changed by lot every two months, proves, at the same time, how much intelligence and patriotism there was in the people, and how worthily the priori appre- ciated statesmen, who, without having ostensible offices, directed the republic by their counsel. This movable signoria, however, could not meet in war on equal terms with Castruccio, who united to high talents an energetic character, promptitude, secrecy, * The Capitnni di Parte were the elective heads of the Guelph party, three in number. K 4 136' HISTOHY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1325. find unity of design. He began the war by taking from the Florentines 1'istoia, where an abbot, by the little artifices of a monk, had obtained possession of the sove- reignty. The abbot, on the 5th of May, 1325, sold his country to Castruccio. Florence took into its service lion Raymond de Cardona, a Catalonian general, whom the cardinal Bertrand de Poiet had introduced into Italy. But all who served the Florentines speculated on their wealth : Cardona remarked, that in the brilliant army which the republic had placed under his command, there were many rich merchants, who bore impatiently the fatigues and privations of the service : in order to sell them leave of absence at a higher price, he resolved to complete their disgust. He led them in the middle of summer round the marshes of Bientina, where he long detained them. Many merchants obtained leave of absence by rich presents ; but many more died or fell sick. With his army thus weakened by his own fault he engaged Castruccio at Alto Pascio, and was defeated, on the 23d of September, 1 325. Raymond was taken prisoner; the carroccio fell into the hands of the enemy ; and these trophies of victory ornamented the tri- umphal pomp with which Castruccio returned to Lucca at the head of his army. A signal defeat of the Bolo- gnese, at Monteveglio, on the 1 5th of November, 1325, completed the discouragement of the Guelph party. Bologna sought a protector in the cardinal de Poiet, on whom was conferred the signoria. The Florentines had recourse to the king of Naples, who agreed to aid them only on condition that they would conferthe signoria on his son, the duke of Calabria. Intelligence that Castruccio had engaged the emperor Louis of Bavaria to enter Tuscany, induced them, though with the utmost repug- nance, to adopt this measure. Louis of Bavaria had treated his prisoner Frederick of Austria with magnanimity. He not only set him at liberty, but associated him in his government. Louis passed in Germany for a loyal and generous prince; perhaps, only because violent and cruel actions inspired 1327- LOUIS OK BAVAR7A IN ITALY. 1ST there little horror; public opinion was not yet awakened; and no one rendered an account to the people of the mo- tives of princes, or of their sudden changes from one party to another : hut when the emperor arrived in a civilised country, where free and virtuous men had a share in the government, and brought to light the actions of princes, his conduct, for the most part, seemed stained with cowardice and perfidy — the more so, that he de- ceived without remorse men whom he called deceivers, only because they were more clever than himself. Louis of Bavaria gave a meeting at Trento, in the month of February, 1327, to the principal chiefs of the Ghiheline party; they advanced him 150,000 florins, to pay the expenses of his expedition to Italy : three months after- wards he entered that country with a suite of not more than 600 horsemen ; but the lords of Milan, Mantua, Verona, and Ferrara met him, with their men at arms, for the most part German mercenaries, who thus formed for him a fine army. He received the iron crown at Milan, on the 30th of May; Galeazzo Visconti, the rich- est and most powerful of the Lombard lords, enter- tained him hospitably: but at the same time that he excited the jealousy of the other Ghiheline chiefs, his fine German cavalry and his treasure awakened the cupidity of Louis. Having secured the obedience of these mercenaries, and feigning to lend an ear to the; reports made against Galeazzo by the other Ghiheline lords, he arrested Visconti, together with his sons and his two brothers, in his palace at Milan, on the 6'th of July, 1327; and threatened to put them to the torture if they did not deliver to him their fortresses and their treasure. He detained them eight months in dungeons, without trial, and without assigning any reason for this se- verity. After eight months he liberated them, at the inter- cession of Castruccio. He then ottered to sell them the sovereignty, of which he had himself deprived them : but they were not rich enough; for he had deprived them of the means by which they could profit by his otter. In the month of September, Louis passed into 138 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC?. 1327- Tuscany, at the head of the army which he had seduced from the Visconti. The Pisans, exhausted with the war against Lucca and Sardinia, and desirous of pre- serving the peace which they had concluded with the Guelphs, sent to offer the emperor 60,000 florins, on that condition, Louis arrested their ambassadors, and threatened to put them to death by torture, if their country did not implicity obey his will; after one month of hesitation, Pisa acknowledged him sovereign, and was forced to advance him 150,000 florins. From the moment Louis of Bavaria was joined by Castruccio, he listened to no other counsel ; and under the direction of this able politician, he showed a vigour and intelligence that promised to give him the dominion over all Italy, in spite of the excommunications which the pope poured on him with redoubled irritation, upon seeing him defeat all the intrigues of his favourite, Ber- trand de Poiet. Castruccio persuaded Louis of the importance of confirming his right to the empire by his coronation at Rome ; he delayed, therefore, the war on Florence, near which the duke of Calabria had assem- bled a numerous army, till his return. It is not im- probable that Castruccio meant to reserve for himself the conquest of that city. Louis had named him duke of Lucca, Pistoia, Volterra, and the Lunigiana, on the 11th of November, 1327 ; and he flattered himself with the hope of uniting all Tuscany to this dukedom, after the departure of the emperor. Castruccio accompanied Louis to Rome ; he was made senator of that city, and count palatine of St. John de Lateran. He carried the imperial sword at the coronation, which took place on the 17th of January, 1328, at the Vatican: the cere- mony was performed by schismatic bishops, and in con- tempt of the excommunications of John XXII. Louis in his anger commenced a process in law to depose the pope and appoint a successor ; but at this moment he was deprived of the counsel of Castruccio, who had been recalled to Tuscany by news of the taking of Pistoia by the Florentines, on the 28th of January, 1328. On 1328. QRKATXEsS AND DEATH OF CASTRUCCIO. 139 his return lie took Pisa by surprise ; besieged Pistoia, and made himself master of it on the 3d of August of the same year ; but not till after such fatigue as to oc- casion an illness, of which he died, on the 3d of Sep- tember following. The death of this formidable and ambitious captain saved Florence from the greatest danger which she had yet incurred: and, to complete her good fortune, the sovereign she had chosen to oppose Castruccio, the duke of Calabria, died also about the same time. He had distinguished himself only by his vices, his want of foresight, and his depredations. Louis of Bavaria, too, ceased to be formidable: he completed his discredit by his perfidy towards those who had been the most devoted to him. Salvestro de' Gatti, lord of Vi- terbo, had been the first Ghibeline chief to open a for- tress to him, in the states of the church ; Louis arrested him, and put him to the torture, to force him to reveal the place where he had concealed his treasure. The emperor had rendered himself odious and ridiculous at Home, by the puerility of his proceedings against John XXII., and his vain efforts to create a schism in the church. Having returned to Tuscany, he deprived the children of Castruccio of the sovereignty of Lucca, on the 1 6th of March, 1329, and sold it to one of their relatives, who, a month afterwards, was driven out by a troop of German mercenaries, which had abandoned the emperor to make war on their own account, that is to say, to live by plunder. Louis passed the summer of 1329 in Lombardy. Towards the end of the autumn he returned to Germany, carrying with him the contempt and de- testation of the Italians. He had betrayed all who had trusted in him ; and completely disorganised the Ghibeline party, which had relied on his support. That party had just lost another of their most dis- tinguished chiefs, Can' Grande della Scala. He was the grandson of the first Mastino, whom the republic of Verona had chosen for master after the death of Eccelino, in 1260. Can' Grande reigned in that city from 1312 to 1329, with a splendour which no other prince in 140 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1328? Italy equalled. Brave and fortunate in war, and wise in council, he gained a reputation for generosity, and even probity, to which few captains could pretend. Among the Lombard princes, he was the first protector of literature and the arts. The best poets, painters, and (sculptors of Italy, Dante, to whom he offered an asy- lum, as well as Uguccione da Faggiuola, and many other exiles illustrious in war or politics, were assembled at his court. He aspired to subdue the Veronese and Trevisan marches, or what has since been called the Terra Firma of Venice. He took possession of Vicenza; and afterwards maintained a long war against the re- public of Padua, the most powerful in the district, and that which had shown the most attachment to the Guelph party and to liberty. But Padua gave way to all the excesses of democracy : the people evinced such jealousy of all distinction, such inconstancy in their choice, such presumption, that the imprudence of the chiefs as well as of the mob drew down the greatest disasters on the republic. The Paduans, repeatedly defeated by Can' Grande della Scala from 1314 to 1318, sought protec- tion by vesting the power in a single person ; and fixed for that purpose on the noble house of Carrara, which had long given leaders to the Guelph party. The power vested in a single person soon extinguished all the courage and vinue that remained; and on the 10th of September, 1328, Padua submitted to Can' Grande della Scala. The year following he attacked and took Treviso, which surrendered on the 6th of July, 1329. He possessed himself of Feltre and Cividale soon after. The whole province seemed subjugated to his power ; but the conqueror also was subdued. Attacked in his camp with a mortal disease, he gave orders on entering Treviso, that his couch should be carried into the great church, in which, four days afterwards, on the 22d of July, 1329, he expired. He was not more than forty-one years of age : Castruccio was forty-seven at his death. Galeazzo Visconti died nearly about the samt age, less than a vear befcre. The Ghibeline party. 1329- CAN' GRANDE DELLA SCALA AT VERONA. J 41 which had produced such great captains, thus saw them all disappear at once in the middle of their career. Passerino de' Bonaeossi, tyrant of Mantua, who belonged to the same party, had been assassinated on the 14th of August, 1328, by the Gonzagas, who thus avenged an affront offered to the wife of one of them. They took possession of the sovereignty of Mantua, and kept it in their family till the eighteenth century. Of all the princes who had well received Louis of Bavaria in Italy, the marquis d'Este was the only one who preserved his power. He was lord of Ferrara ; and even this prince, though Guelph by birth, was forced by the intrigues of the pope's legate to join the Ghibelines. The Ghibeline party, which had been rendered so formidable by the ability of its captains, was now com- pletely disorganised. The Lombards placed no con- fidence in those who remained ; they had forgotten liberty, and dared no longer aspire to it ; but they longed for a prince capable of defending them, and who, by his moderation and good faith, could give them hopes of peace. They saw none such in Italy : Germany unexpectedly offered one. John, king cf Bohemia, the son of Henry VII., arrived at Trent towards the end of the year 13 'JO. The memory of his father was rendered dearer to the Italians by the comparison of his conduct with that of his successor ; and John was calculated to heighten this predilection. He could not submit to the barbarism of Bohemia; and inhabited, in preference, the county of Luxemburg, or Paris, and having acrpjired a spirit of heroism, by his constant reading, or listening to the French romances of chivalry, he aspired to the glory of being a complete knight. All that could at first sight seduce the people was united in him ; beauty, valour, dexterity in all corporeal exercises, eloquence, an engaging manner. His conduct in France and Germany, where he had been, by turns, warrior and pacificator, was noble. He never sought any thing for himself; he seemed to be actuated only by the love of the general good or glory. The Italians 142 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1330 justly disgusted with their own princes, eagerly offered to throw themselves into his arms ; the city of Brescia sent deputies to Trent, to offer him the sovereignty of their repuhlic. He arrived there, to take possession of it, on the 3 1st of December, 1330. Almost immediately after, Bergamo, Cremona, Pavia, Vercelli, and Novara followed the example of Brescia. Azzo Visconti him- self, son of Galeazzo, who, in 1328, had repurchased Milan from Louis of Bavaria, could not withstand the enthusiasm of his subjects ; he nominally ceded the government to John, taking henceforth the title of his vicar only. Parma, Modena, Reggio, and, lastly, Lucca also, soon gave themselves to John of Bohemia. John, in all these cities, recalled indiscriminately the Guelph and Ghibeline exiles, restored peace, and made them, at last, taste the first-fruits of good government. But the Florentines, attached to liberty, and satisfied with their constitution, who saw a foreign prince, a Ghibeline, and the son of Henry VII., whom they had always resisted, arrive on their frontier, could not par- ticipate in this infatuation. They knew that, whatever might be the virtue and talents of an absolute prince, his government always degenerated into tyranny ; that, if he was not himself corrupted by power, his successors never failed of being so. Numerous examples in Italy, in their own time, sufficiently demonstrated the rapid degeneracy of the race of princes, and the profound pity merited by a people governed by the son of a great man. They were well aware that it was the municipal, democratic, independent constitutions of the cities of Italy, and the constant emulation between them, that had given them such an immense superiority over the rest of Europe. They easily perceived that Italy, in spite of its division, had nothing to fear for its in- dependence from its transalpine enemies ; while it had every thing to dread for its liberty, as well as for its civilisation, from the immeasurable growth of an ab- solute principality formed within its bosom. The Flo- rentines did not undertake to restore liberty to those 1 .<.<(/. KING JOHN OF BOHEMIA. 1 4> A people who had no longer sufficient elevation of soul to desire or energy to defend it ; but they pursued foi themselves the noble policy of opposing all usurpation or conquest by any who pretended to domination in Italy ; and if they could not preserve to each city its in- dependence, at least of maintaining, through the changes which time necessarily brings, the balance between the different powers, in such a manner that respect for the rights of all should be guaranteed by the alliance of those who demanded only to be free themselves, and to preserve the liberty of others. This system of balancing the different powers in Italy, invented by the statesmen of Florence, was, during the fourteenth and the greater part of the fifteenth centuries, the fundamental rule of their conduct. The Florentines did not find sufficient strength in the Guelph party to oppose the menacing greatness of the king of Bohemia. Robert of Naples was become old ; he wanted energy, and his soldiers courage. The republic of Bologna, formerly so rich and powerful, had lost its vigour under the government of the legate, Ber- trand de Poiet ; those of Perugia and Sienna had within themselves few resources, and those few their jealousy of Florence prevented their liberally employing. There remained no more free cities in Lombardy ; and all those, in the states of the church, which, during the preceding century, had shown so much spirit, had fallen under the yoke of some petty tyrant, who im- mediately declared for the Ghibeline party. The Flo- rentines felt the necessity of silencing their hereditary enmities, and their ancient repugnances, and of making an alliance with the Lombard Ghibelines against John of Bohemia, with the condition that, in dividing his spoils, they should all agree to prevent the aggrandise- ment of any single power, and preserve between them- selves an exact equilibrium, in order tliat Italy, after their conquests, should incur no danger of being sub- jugated by one of them. The treaty of alliance against the king of Bohemia, and the partition of the stat09 141 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1332. which he had just acquired in Italy, was signed in the month of September, 1332. Cremona was to be given to Visconti ; Parma to Mastino della Scala, the nephew and successor of Can' Grande; Reggio to Gonzaga; Modena to the marquis d'Este ; md Lucca to the Flo- rentines. John did not oppose to this league the re- sistance that was expected from his courage and talents. Of an inconstant character, becoming weary of every thing, always pursuing something new, thinking only of shining in courts and tournaments, he soon regarded ail these little Italian principalities, of which he had already lost some, as too citizen-like and unlordly: he sold every town which had given itself to him, to whatever noble desired to rule over it ; and he departed for Paris on the 15th of October, 1333, leaving Italy in still greater confusion than before. The Lombard Ghibe- lines, confederates of the Florentines, succeeded, before the end of the summer of 1335, in taking possession or the cities abandoned by the king of Bohemia. Lucca, which alone fell to the share of Florence, was defended by a band of German soldiers, who made it the centre of their depredations, and barbarously tyrannised over the Lucchese. Mastino della Scala offered to treat for the Florentines with the captains who then commanded at Lucca ; and he succeeded in obtaining the sur- render of the town to him, on the 20th of December, 1335. As soon as he became master of it, he began to flatter himself that it would afford him the means of subjugating the rest of Tuscany ; and, instead of delivering it, as he had engaged, to the Florentines, he sought to renew against them a Ghibeline league jointly with the Pisans and all the independent nobles of the Apennines. The Florentines, forced to defend themselves against their ally, who, after they had contributed to his eleva- tion, betrayed them, sought the alliance of the Venetians, who also had reason to complain of Mastino. A treaty was signed between the two republics, on the 2 1 st of June, 1336". The war to which Florence liberally con- 1337- DANGER O* "TOftKNOE. 145 tributed in money, w&s made only in Lombard)-, and was successful. Padua was taken from Mastino on the 3d of August, 1337, and, as that town showed no ardent desire of liberty, it was given in sovereignty to the Guelph house of Carrara. The Venetians took possession of Treviso, Castel- Franco, and Ceneda. It was the first ac- quisition they had made beyond the Lagune, their first establishment on Terra Firma, which henceforward was to mingle their interests with those of the rest of Italy. But their ambition at this moment extended no farther. Satisfied themselves, and sacrificing their allies, they made peace with Mastino della Seal a, on the 18th of December, 1338, without stipulating that the city of Lucca, the object of the war, should be given up to the Florentines, for which these had contracted a debt of 450,000 florins. The Florentines, successively betrayed by all their allies, saw the danger of their position aug- ment daily ; the Guelphs lost, one after the other, every supporter of their party : the vigour of the king of Naples, now seventy-five years of age, was gone. The pope, John XXII., had died at Avignon, on the 4th of December, 1334; and his successor, Benedict XII., like him a Frenchman, neither understood nor took any part in the affairs of Italy. A few months previous, on the 17th of March, 1334, the cardinal Bertrand de Poiet had been driven by the people from Bologna ; and this ambitious legate, no longer supported by the pope his father, had disappeared from the political scene. But the Bolognese did not long preserve the liberty which they had recovered. One of their citizens, named Taddeo de Pepoli, the richest man in all Italy, had seduced the German guard which they held in pay, and by its aid took possession of the sovereignty of Bologna, on the 28th of August, 1337. He then made alliance with the Ghihelines. The number of the free cities, on the aid, or at least the sympathy, of which Florence could reckon, continually diminished. The Genoese, from the commencement of the century, had consumed their strength in internal wars between the great Guelph and L 146 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1341. Ghibeline families ; as long as they were free, however, the Florentines, without any treaty of alliance, regarded them as friendly ; but the long protracted civil wars had disgusted the people with the government : they rose on the 23d of September, 1339, and overthrew it, replacing the signoria by a single chief, Boccanegra, on whom they conferred the title of doge. It might have been feared they had only given themselves a tyrant : but the first doge of Genoa was a friend to liberty; and the Genoese people having imitated Venice, in giving themselves a first officer in the state with that title, were not long before they carried the imitation farther, by seeking to combine liberty with power vested in a single person. In the mean while Mastino della Scala suffered a Parmesan noble to take from him the city of Parma. As from that time he had no farther communi- cation with Lucca, he offered to sell it to the Florentines. The bargain was concluded in the month of August, 1341 ; but it appeared to the Pisans the signal of their own servitude, for it cut off all communication between them and the Ghibelines of Lombardy. They imme- diately advanced their militia into the Lucchese states, to prevent the Florentines from taking possession of the town ; vanquished them in a great battle, on the 2d of October, 1341, under the walls of Lucca; and, on the fith of July following, took possession of that city for themselves. The people of Florence attributed this train of dis- asters to the incapacity of their magistrates. The burden of the taxes, and of the debt with which the republic was loaded; and the jealousy entertained of the rich mer- chants, who, in spite of the democratic form of the con- stitution, in fact governed the state, excited a discontent which soon took the darkest hue. The people who in all Italy were regarded as by far the most republican, those who owed all their greatness to liberty, for which they had made such immense sacrifices, the people who carried their love of equality and their jealousy of all distinction to excess, of a sudden appeared wearied I44&. THE DUKE OF ATHENS. 147 of their own sovereignty ; they demanded a master, in order to punish and humiliate those who appeared too great to be reached by the laws of a republic ; the) asked to submit to the authority of a single person. At this period, Gaultier de Brienne, duke of Athens, a French noble, but born in Greece, passed through Florence, on his way from Naples to France. The duchy of Athens had remained in his family from the conquest of Constantinople till it was taken from his father in 1312. There remained to him only that of Lecce, in the kingdom of Naples. He had been the lieutenant of the duke of Calabria, at Florence, in 1326', and had then distinguished himself by his bravery and the acuteness of his understanding. It was for this man the Florentines, after their defeat at Lucca, took a sudden fancy. They protested they never should have experienced so many disasters if the duke of Athens had been at the head of their army. On the 1 st of August, 1342, they obliged the signoria to confer on him the title of captain of justice, and give him the command of their militia. The duke of Athens was of that degenerate race of Franks, established in the Levant, whom the people of the West designated by the name of Pullani, to indicate their small stature, their apparent weakness, and fre- quently their cowardice. To this physical conformation they joined the most unbridled love of pleasure, cunning perfidy, habits of despotism, and contempt of human life ; the vices, in short, which connection with the East necessarily communicates to barbarians, always more disposed to be corrupted than to improve. The duke of Athens was named president of the tribunals, and commander of the forces of the republic ; offices of more power than ought to have been given to such a man, but not enough for his ambition : he aspired to be absolute sovereign, and to make a single duchy of Tuscany. He entered into negotiation with those cities which were subject to or allied with Florence, with a view to induce them to place themselves l 2 ] 48 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. i 342. under his rule, anil to shake off the yoke and alliance of the republic. With a rapidity of perception and a talent for intrigue, which he had acquired in Greece, he, in a few days, unravelled all the secret designs, all the jealous passions, which divided the re- public. He perceived that the first class of citizens, who had the greatest share in the government, had also the greatest share in the public hatred; they were objects of execration to the ancient nobility, whom they had excluded from all the offices of government ; of jealousy to the second class of citizens immediately under them; and of envy and anger to the populace, who declared themselves crushed by the taxes. The duke of Athens sacrificed them to these various passions ; be beheaded many, and ruined others by fines. He sent to France and Naples for a troop of cavalry, better suited to intrigue than war. He ordered them to mix among the people, seduce them into taverns, and keep them in a constant state of intoxication, celebrating at the same time the valour and liberality of the duke, and announcing to them that if he was absolute master, he would make the poorest people in Florence live in merriment and abundance. Having thus excited the people to a ferment, he convoked them in parliament in the public square, on the 8th of September. The agitators directing the lowest orders proclaimed him sovereign lord of Florence for his life, forced the public palace, drove from it the gonfalonier and the priori, and installed him there in their place. The liberty of Italy had been at an end, if the duke of Athens had succeeded in establishing the despotism of which he had just laid the foundation : all the other republics seemed plunged in a deep lethargy. The desire of investing power in a single person had invaded the proudest and most opulent cities, all those which bad before shown the greatest abhorrence of tyranny. As the rest of Europe was not yet ready to profit by the example and instruction of Italy, the slavery of Flo- rence, the destruction of all liberty in the city which 1343. EXPULSION OF THE PUKE. 149 gave impulse to the spirit of enquiry, to philosophy, polities, eloquence, poetry, and the fine arts, would have stopped, perhaps for centuries, the civilisation of the world. Gaultier of Athens united all the qualities that Machiavel, 1(30 years later, enumerated as necessary to a prince, the founder of a despotism. Courageous, dissembling, patient, clear-sighted, perfidious, he knew neither respect nor pity ; he was bound by no affection and no principle: accordingly, he sought the alliance of the Ghibeline tyrants of Romagna and Lombardy, whom he had till then combated as enemies to his sove- reign the king of Naples. They on their side joyfully coalesced with a despot, who delivered them from an example which might prove contagious to their subjects in the liberty and happiness of Florence : he had no enemies abroad; and his executioners rapidly delivered him from the more dangerous of his enemies at home. Happily, Florence was not ripe for slavery : ten months sufficed for the duke of Athens to draw from it 400,000 golden florins, which he sent either to France or Naples ; but ten months sufficed also to undeceive all parties who had placed any confidence in him ; to unite them all in one common hatred, and in a common determination to overthrow his tyranny. Three conspiracies, unconnected with each other, were secretly formed : they soon com- prehended almost all the citizens of Florence. The duke, without discovering them, repeatedly defeated them, by the precautions, more rigorous each day, which he took for his security : his cruelty kept pace with his suspicions ; he questioned with the torture all those on whom fell the slightest of his doubts ; it was thus he was led to seize Baldinaccio degli Adimari, who, though the duke w;;s unaware of it, was the chief of one of the conspiracies. The universal ferment which this arrest excited made him sensible that he was in the road to a discovery; he did not, however, betray his sentiments ; he asked reinforce- ments from all his allies, and it was not till those were in motion that, on the 26th of July, he convoked three hundred of the most distinguished citizens, professedly 150 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBM08. 1343. to consult them on the affairs of the republic. Orders were given in the palace to put every one to death a9 soon as he entered; but the people also were ready. In each of the massive palaces of Florence, the citizens were silently assembling : they arrived one by one, with- out noise, and unperceived. The cavalry of the duke filled the street, where every body seemed occupied only with their own affairs ; no agitation, no apparent con- fusion, announced any explosion, when suddenly the cry " To arms !" burst from the old market-place, and was re-echoed to the gates of St. Peter's. Instantly from every window, from the roofs of all the houses, fell a shower of stones and tiles, previously made ready, on the heads of the duke's cavalry ; every palace opened and poured forth armed men, who threw chains across the streets, and made barricades: the cry of " Popoln! popolo! Liberta!" resounded from one extremity of Florence to the other. The cavalry, surprised, dispersed, and over- whelmed with stones, were soon disarmed ; the chains were then taken up, and troops of citizens united and marched to the Palazzo Vecchio, where the duke de- fended himself with 400 transalpine soldiers. Gaultier might have long held out in this massive fortress, if it had been sufficiently victualled ; but hunger forced him to have recourse to the mediation of the bishop of Florence. He capitulated, on the 3d of August, 1343; the bishop concealed him till the 6th from the fury of the people, and sent him off secretly in the night with his cavalry, to whom the duke of Athens owed their pay ; arrived at Venice, he stole away from his com- panions in misfortune, to avoid paying them, and escaped in a small vessel to Naples, whither lie bad previously sent his treasure. I.S44. KKVIVAL OF LETTUK& 151 CHAP. VII. THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS. REVOLUTIONS ATTEMPTED BY TWO LEARNED MEN. ITALY RAVAGED BY THE PLAGUE, AND BY COMPANIES OF ADVENTURERS. THE POWER OF THE HOUSE OF VISCONTI. WAR BETWEFV THE MARITIME REPUBLICS. THE DANGERS AND FIRMNESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF FLORENCE. Tiik oppression which weighed upon the rest of Europe contributed to the maintenance of barbarism, less by rendering difficult, and sometimes dangerous, the acqui- sition of knowledge, than by taking away all attraction from the exercise of the mind. Thought was a pain to those capable of judging the state of the human species, — of studying the past; of comparing it with the pre- sent ; and of thus foreseeing the future. Danger and suffering appeared on all sides. The men who, in France, Germany, England, and Spain, felt themselves endued with the power of generalising their ideas, either smothered them, not to aggravate the pain of thought, or directed them solely to speculations the farthest from real life, — towards that scholastic philosophy which so vigorously exercised the understanding, without bring- ing it to any conclusion. In Italy, on the contrary, liberty secured the full enjoyment of intellectual exist- ence. Every one endeavoured to develop the powers which he felt within him, because each was conscious that the more his mind opened the greater was his enjoy- ment ; every one directed his powers to a useful and practical purpose, because each felt himself placed in a state of society in which he might attain some influence, either for his own benefit or that of his fellow-creatures. The first want which towns had experienced was that of their defence. Accordingly, military architecture had taken precedence in th" arts. From -'ts exercise the trans- ition was easy to that of religious architecture, at a time 152 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 'J44. v. lien religion was indispensable to every heart, — to civil architecture, then encouraged by a government in which every thing was for all. The study and pursuit of the beautiful in this first of the fine arts had paved the way to all the others. From tbe pleasures of the imagination tnrough the eye, men ascended to those derived from the soul ; and hence the birth of poetry. In the sciences, also, the Italians had begun with the personal protection of man. The consideration of his health presented itself; and the earliest school of medi- cine was founded at Salerno, in the neighbourhood of the three republics of Gaeta, Naples, and Amain. Then followed that of his private rights and property ; and the university of Bologna acquired immense celebrity in the teaching of civil and canon law, before any other study was diligently pursued. The rights of all naturally rose out of the rights of each ; and politics, as a science, yet existed only in Italy. Statesmen sought, in history, how governments made the happiness or misery of na- tions, and the study of antiquity was pursued with ardour ; while the two Villain wrote history with as much judgment, elevation of soul, and philosophy as Polybius. At the same time, the thinking men in France, who, instead of brutifying themselves in order to suffer less from despotism, anarchy, and the invasion of the English, exercised their understandings, pas- sionately embraced the study of the scholastic theology. They commented on, and developed with subtlety, prin- ciples of which they did not permit themselves to judge ; and the faculty of the Sorbonne, in the university of Paris, was acknowledged to be the first theological school in Europe ; it was that in which the most acute- ness and depth of thought were united to the most im- plicit faith. In Italy, on the contrary, the mind, accustomed to examine the claims of authoritv, bad already produced, since the time of Frederick 11., and still more after the translation from the Arabic of the books of A\errhoes, thinkers whom the priests accused not only of heresy, but of inciedulity and epicurism. 1344. STUDY UK ANTIQUITY. 1 5$ The popular form of government must have early accustomed the Italians to speak in public ; but the ex- ample of their preachers was prejudicial to their elo- quence : they made discourses, instead of speaking. They supposed that they ought always to begin with what they called propositi;} ; that is, taking a text from some celebrated author, either sacred or profane. And this support which they sought in what was said by another, introduced the substitution of pedantry for reason. Accordingly, the fourteenth century, in Italy so fruitful in great men, has left us no model of political eloquence. The Italians were accustomed to express in verse all that strongly moved them. Poetry was for them the language of truth and of persuasion, as much as of the imagination. Lyric poetry, above all, took the place of eloquence: it shone forth with great bril- liancy in the fourteenth century. Some of the canzoni of Petrarch express the elevated sentiments of a great soul. A crowd of poets at this epoch obeyed the same inspiration. The name of Petrarch, born in 1304, and that of Boccaccio, in 1313, both Florentines, are the most universally known. The second owes his celebrity to the light, elegant, and easy prose of his novels, more than to his poetry. Both have descended to posterity with their Italian writings alone, which they regarded only as relaxations from their labour, and not with their Latin works, upon which they depended for their glory. The Italians, in the fourteenth century, discovered, as it were, anew the ancient world : they felt an affinity of thoughts, hopes, and tastes with the best Latin writers, which inspired them with the highest admiration. Pe- trarch, and particularly Boccaccio, passed from this study to that of Grecian antiquity ; ami, on his solicit- ation, the republic of Florence, in 1; S6'0, founded a chair of Grecian literature, the first in the West. A passion for erudition spread from one end of Italy to the other, with an ardour proportionable to the dark ignorance of the preceding centuries. It was imagined that all know- ledge consisted in knowing and imitating the ancient 154 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 134?. masters. The highest glory was attached to classical .earning ; and Petrarch and Boccaccio attained a degree of celebrity, credit, and power, unequalled by any other men in the middle ages ; not by reason of those merits which we feel at the present day, but as the pontiffs and Interpreters of antiquity. We owe to the learned of the fourteenth century, and to their school, a deep sentiment of gratitude. They discovered, and rendered intelligible to us, all the chefs- d'oeuvre of antiquity. Fragments only of classic works remained, scattered throughout Europe, and on the point of being lost. Those learned men of Italy collected, collated, and explained them : without their antiquarian zeal, all the experience of past ages, all the models of taste, all the great works of genius, would never have reached • us ; and, probably, without such guides we should never have attained the point on which we now stand. But they injured their own age by their exclusive bias to erudition. The imagination was extinguished; genius disappeared ; and even the language retrograded. It was abandoned, as too vulgar, for the Latin, by all those who attained any distinction for talents : the forms o*" thinking of the ancients were adopted with those of their language, and pedantry soon smothered all national ori- ginality. Two of these men, learned in the Greek and Latin literature, friends of Petrarch, loving liberty, not like Italians of the middle ages, but like sons of ancient Rome, profited by their celebrity and by their power .ver their auditors to re-establish a republican govern- ment ; — Cola di Rienzo, at Rome, in 13-i7,and Jacopo de' Bussolari, ten years later, at Pavia. The former, though of obscure birth, soon signalised himself by his progress in letters, by his familiarity with all the writers of an- tiquity, by his knowledge of the manners and laws of the Romans, and of the monuments and inscriptions which still ornamented the capital of the world. No one possessed like him the art of explaining thern, and ot* striking out in his explanations those traits of grandeur 1 34-7 cola di niExzc. \bb and glory which distinguish the ancient republic. Born at Rome, he was a more ardent Roman than republican ; seeking rather to restore the sovereignty of the ancient city than the liberty of mankind. He rejected with deep indignation the usurpations of two barbarians ; the one a German, calling himself Roman emperor ; the other a Frenchman, who called himself the pontiff of Rome. All those who rose to eminence by the study and example of the ancient Romans appeared to him bound to labour to bring back Italy and mankind under the dominion of Rome. Petrarch had also a religious respect for the name of Rome ; but living by turns at the court of Avignon, or at those of the tyrants of Lom- bards, he had much less elevation of soul and true enthusiasm than Cola di Rienzo. The latter was sus- ceptible of all the emotion which the fine arts give : and he employed his own sensibility to act on a susceptible people. Sometimes at the foot of one of the most admir- able monuments of ancient architecture, he explained its purpose to the crowd, by which he was always attended ; he made them feel its beauty, and would take occasion to recall the grandeur and freedom of ancient Rome, which still spoke to her children from those colossal ruins. He would contrast it with the state of degradation and suffering to which Rome was then reduced. He sometimes interpreted in the public places the inscriptions which he discovered ; and would draw forth proofs of the sovereignty which Rome exercised over the whole world. Sometimes he displayed in the capitol allegorical pictures which he had composed, and, in explaining them, would call upon the Roman people to quit their stateof servitude, and recover what he emphatically called the good state. The pope had never exercised any sovereign power in Rome ; but the absence of his court, in ruining the little commerce of the tradesmen, had contributed to throw the city into a desolate state of anarchy. The nobles had reduced the government, composed of a senator and tnirteen caporioni to entire dependence on themselves ; and the nobility of Rome, as well as of the rest of Italy lbt HISTORY OF THK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1347 believed it beneath their station to be submissive to the law. The Colonna, Orsini, and Savelli families, always at war with each other, garrisoned all the fortresses in Rome with banditti, their satellites ; and at their head made daily attacks in the streets upon each other. Cola di Rienzo had a classic hatred for these turbulent nobles ; a hatred which he believed he had inherited from the Gracchi. He felt anxious to be made tribune of the people, in order to deliver them from the yoke of the patricians; and on the 20th of May, 1347, while the Colonnas had quitted Rome with a small body of troops, he summoned the people to take possession of the go- vernment and of the guard of the city. The Romans appointed him, with the bishop of Orvieto, the pope's vicar, or depository of his spiritual power, as tribunes. They ascended the capitol together. At first the revolution seemed accomplished. The power of the name of Rome ; the joy of men of letters throughout Europe; the hatred provoked by the Roman nobles ; the indifference of the pope, and his distance from Rome, favoured this revo- lution. For some weeks it was approved and acknow- ledged by all Italy. But Cola di Rienzo, though elo- quent, learned, and a poet, was neither a statesman nor a warrior : he knew not how to consolidate this good state, to which he pretended to have restored the Ro- mans. He continued to occupy them with allegories, festivals, and processions, while they demanded of him something more positive. His head was turned by vanity ; and he assumed a degree of pomp which excited ridicule. He had soon to support a war against the nobles whom he had exiled ; and though several of the Colonnas perished in an ill-conducted attack on Rome, Cola in repelling them gave proofs of incapacity and cowardice. The pope sent a legate to Rome, to appease the civil war; and this legate, being a French noble, sided with the nobility. The latter having taken possession of .1 division of the town, the tocsin summoned the people to defend themselves, but it sounded in vain ; and on the Xdth of December, 1347, Cola di Rienzo, obliged to 1356. jacopo de' bussolari. 157 abandon the capitol, retreated to the castle of St. Angelo, and afterwards sought refuge with Charles IV., son of John, king of Bohemia, who gave him up to the pope in 135-2. The pope Innocent VI., having in the following year charged his legate, Egidio Albornoz, to recover the ecclesiastical states from the hands of the tyrants who in each city had seized the sovereignty, made Cola di Rienzo accompany him, in order to profit by the influ- ence which the tribune might still have retained at Rome. The legate sent him there in the month of July, 135-1; declaring at the same time that he made him Roman senator by the authority of the pope. Co!a found again his friends at Rome, and for a short time succeeded in awakening the popular enthusiasm ; but he was now only an instrument in the hand of the legate, and it did not depend on him to realise the hopes which he excited. A new sedition broke forth ; and this time the people joined his enemies the Colonnas : his palace was burnt down, he was arrested as he endeavoured to escape in disguise, dragged to the porphyry lion at the foot of the capitol stairs, and there stabbed, on the 8th of October, 1354. Hie monk Jacopo de' Bussolari, who in the month of March, 1 356, had also restored a sort of ephemeral liberty to Pavia, was, like Cola, a learned man, a poet, and a friend of Petrarch; he was a man of ardent imagination, who had borrowed his love of liberty from the ancients. He was a monk of St. Augustine, and was sent to his birthplace, Pavia, to preach there during Lent. This city had been governed, since the year 1313, by the Ghibeline family of Beccaria, who were supported from abroad by the Viscontis, and the marquis de Mont- fen at. A war having broken out between the marquis and the lords of Milan, the Beccarias declared against the "\ iscontis, who had till then regarded the lords of Pavia almost as their lieutenants. The Viscontis in their anijer besieged Pavia: and the city would soon have fallen, if Jacopo de' Bussolari had not, by his eloquent 158 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1356. Eermons, roused the energy of the Pavesans : he preached the reform of morals, faith, liberty, and courage; he at the same time animated them by his example. On the 27th of May, 1356", in descending from the pulpit, he placed himself at their head ; marched out of the town ; attacked the redoubts of the Milanese, took three, one after the other; and forced the Viscontis to raise the siege. It was as important to deliver his country from domestic tyranny as from a foreign yoke. As he often preached against the vices and usurpations of the Beccarias, they endeavoured to get him assassinated; the Pavesans, to protect him, supplied him with a guard; theie were several engagements between the faithful troops of their pastor and the satellites of the tyrants. At last Jacopo de' Bussolari issued an order to the Beccaiias, to leave the city : they obeyed, but, making an alliance with the Viscontis, renewed the war. In 1358, the monk caused the palaces of the Beccarias to be rased to the ground; in 1359, the Viscontis again besieged the city. An epi- demical disease broke out in it with virulence ; all the allies which Jacopo de' Bussolari had procured the Pa- vesans successively abandoned them. The eloquent and courageous monk perceived that he must at last yield to fortune ; and in the month of October, 1 359, offered to capitulate with the Viscontis, and to deliver the city to them, on condition that they should preserve all the municipal liberties, that the exiles whom he had recalled should be allowed to remain, and that an amnesty should be granted the citizens, without a single exception : he stipulated nothing for himself; and the Viscontis employ- ing his ecclesiastical superiors against him, he was con- fined in the prison of his convent at Vercelli, where he died a miserable death. They afterwards annulled the capitulation of Pavia ; declaring that, as they wer« imperial vicars, they could not be held to execute any thing which they promised, contrary to the rights of the empire. This empire had passed from Louis of Bavaria, who died on the 10th of October, 1347, to Charles IV. of I3b2. CARDINAL ALHORXOZ. 159 Bohemia. He had been set up as competitor with the former by the pope, on the ]Oth of July, 1346, ana was called the king of the priests : he was, however, soon after the death of Louis, acknowledged by the whole empire. Desirous of obtaining the same acknow- ledgment in Italy, he entered it on the 14th of October, 1354, but without an army; "appearing," says Villani, " with his disarmed knights mounted on travelling palfreys, rather as a merchant going to a fair than an emperor." He was crowned at Milan, and afterwards at Rome : and extracted from the republics, as he passed, a ransom for their liberty; he caused, by his petty intrigues, much trouble and insurrection, but he at the same time degraded, in the eyes of the Italians, the imperial ma- jesty, by his cupidity, and want of dignity and energy. The popes who succeeded each other at Avignon also lost the respect of the faithful by their immoralities, intrigues, and ambition. To Benedict XI'I., an honest but weak man, possessing a feeble understanding, had succeeded, in 1342, Clement VI., who lighted the fire of civil war again in Germany, and signalised him- self in his Italian politics by the most atrocious treach- ery. Towards the end of 1352, he was succeeded by Innocent VI. This pope formed the project of recover- ing the state belonging to the church ; the sovereignty of which the imperial charters had abandoned to him. He made choice, for this purpose, of cardinal Al- bornoz, a Spaniard, who had already signalised himself in arms against the Moors ; he gave the cardinal little money and few soldiers, but he reckoned, and with some reason, on the favour of the people. These last, in every city of Romagna and of the March, had suffered themselves to be enslaved by the boldest and richest of their fellow-citizens : all were wearied with the yoke of these petty tyrants, and, without any good reason to trust to the government of the church, they were glad of a change. Albornoz, who had still more ability in in- trigue than he had military talent, succeeded in se'.tint; these tyrants at variance one with the other; in obtain- 160 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1347 ing the assistance of the Guelphs of Tuscany ; and, finally, in deposing and subduing them all: but before he terminated these conquests, Innocent VI. died, on the 12th of September, 1362, and was succeeded bv Urban V. The kings of Naples, during this period, had sunk still lower in power and consideration. Robert died on tbt 19th of January, 1343, at the age of eighty. He had given his grand-daughter, Joan, in marriage lo her cousin Andrew, the son of the king of Hungary. An- drew was son of the eldest son of Charles II. ; and had a better right than Robert himself to the crown of Naples. The latter, whom his nephew regarded as an usurper, had been desirous of confounding the rights of the two branches of his family, by marrying Joan to Andrew, and crowning them together ; but these young people felt towards each other only jealousy and hatred. Andrew was brutal, Joan was elegant in her manners, but depraved. She consented to an assassination, which delivered her from her husband, on the 18th of Septem- ber, 1345; and two years after, married her cousin, Louis of Tarento, the instigator of the murder. The crown of Hungary had passed to the elder brother of Andrew, — Louis, called the Great. To avenge his bro- ther, he entered Italy, and conquered Naples in 1348. Joan, meanwhile, fled, with her husband, to Provence , and, to conciliate the favour of the pope, abandoned to him the sovereignty of Avignon. It was exactly at the period of the greatest calamity that ever befell mankind. The plague, brought from the East, made the circuit of Italy, and afterwards of all Europe ; and in every place it reached carried off, in seven or eight months, one third of the population. It is known in history by the name of " the plague of Florence;" because, while it mowed down millions of obscure victims elsewhere, at Florence, where it carried off nearly a hundred thou- sand persons, an advanced civilisation rendered the loss more sensibly felt. Many distinguished men sank under this scourge ; several philosophers studied it ; and a 1348. GREAT PLAGUE. [()] great writer, Boccaccio, has left of it an admirable de- scription. The terror and desolation, which an inflic- tion so dreadful caused throughout Italy, superseded all political hatreds, — all wars, however obstinate. Louis of Hungary, in the middle of his campaign and of his successes, was discouraged, upon seeing the most flourishing armies swept off by sickness. In li>51, he signed a peace with Jean, who returned with her husband to her kingdom of Naples, where both long continued their career of vice and voluptuousness ; abandoning all care of administration, and of the na- tional defence; permitting their provinces, in the bosom of peace, to be plundered and laid waste, in a manner hardly to be feared in the most disastrous wars. The most immediate cause of the sufferings of the kingdom of Naples, and of all Italy, was the form- ation of what was called " companies of adventure." Wherever tyrants had succeeded to free governments, their first care had been to disarm the citizens, whose resistance was to be feared ; and although a little indus- try might soon have supplied swords and lances, yet the danger of being denounced for using them soon made the subjects of these princes lose every military habit. Even the citizens of free towns no longer thought of de- fending themselves: their way of life had weakened their corporeal strength ; and they felt an inferiority too dis- couraging when they had to oppose, without defensive armour, cuirassiers on horseback. The chief strength of armies henceforth was in the heavy-armed cavalry, composed of men who had all their lives followed the trade of war, and who hired themselves for pay. The emperors had successhely brought into Italy many of their countrymen, who afterwards passed into the service of the tyrant princes. The Viscontis and Delia Scalas had sent for many to Germany, believing that these men — who did not understand the language of the country, — who were bound to it by no affection, — and who were accessible to no political passion, — would he their best 162 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN HEPUBLICS. 1.348 defenders. They proved ready to execute the most bar- barous orders, and for their recompenee demanded only the enjoyments of an intemperate sensuality. But the Lombard tyrants were deceived in believing the German soldier would never covet power for himself, and would continue to abuse the right of the stronger for the advantage of others only. These adventurers soon discovered that it would be better to make war and pillage the people for their own profit, without dividing the spoil with a master. Some men of high rank, who had served in Italy as condottieri (hired captains), proposed to their soldiers to follow them, make war on the whole world, and divide the booty among them- selves. The first company, formed by an Italian noble at the moment that the Viscontis dismissed their sol- diers, having made peace with their adversaries, made an attack suddenly on Milan, in the hope of plundering that great city ; but was almost annihilated in a battle, fought at Parabiago, on the 20th of February, 1339. A German duke, known only by his Christian name of Werner, and the inscription he wore on his breast of " enemy of God, of pity, and of mercy," formed, in 1343, another association, which maintained itself for a long time, under the name of " the great company." It in turns entered the service of princes ; and, when they made peace, carried on its ravages and plunderings for its own profit. The duke AYerner and his successors, — the count Lando, a German ; and the friar Moriale, knight of St. John, — devastated Italy from Montferrat to the extremity of the kingdom of Naples. They raised contributions, by threatening to burn houses and harvests, or by putting the prisoners whom they took to the most horrible tortures. The pro- vinces of Apulia were, above all, abandoned to their devastations ; and the king and queen of Naples made not a single effort to protect their people. There now remained no more than six independent princes in Lombardy. The Viscontis, lords of Milan, had usurped all the central part of that province ; the 1348. COMPANIES OF ADVENTURERS. 163 western part was held by the marquis of Montferrat, and the eastern by the Delia Scala, lords of Verona, Carrara of Padua, Este of Ferrara, and Gonzaga of Mantua. These weaker princes felt themselves in danger, and made a league against the Viscontis, taking into their service the great company ; but, deceived and pillaged by it, they suffered greater evils than they inflicted on their enemies. When at last the money of the league was exhausted, and it could no longer pay the company, this band of robbers entered into the service of the re- public of Sienna, to be let loose on that of Perugia, of which the Siennese had conceived a deep jealousy. But the Florentines would not consent to their entering Tus- cany, where their depredations had been already felt. They shut all the passes of the Apennines ; they armed the mountaineers ; they made these adventurers experi- ence a first defeat at the passage of Scalella, on the 2-ith of July, 13. r )8, and obliged them to fall back on Romagna. The legate Albornoz, to deliver himself from such guests, made them enter Perugia the year follow- ing. Never had the company been so brilliant and so formidable : it levied contributions on Sienna, as well as Perugia ; but vengeance and cupidity alike excited them against the Florentines. They determined on pillaging those rich merchants, whom they considered far from warlike, or forcing them to ransom themselves. The Marquis de Montferrat, desirous of taking the company into his service, pressed the republic of Flo- rence, by his ambassadors to do what the greatest potentates had always done, — pay the banditti to be rid of them. He offered himself for mediator and gua- rantee, and promised a prompt and cheap deliverance ; but the Florentine republic protested it would not submit to any thing so base ; it assembled an army purely Italian, placing it under the command of an Italian captain, who was ordered to advance to the fron- tier, and offer battle to the company. The robbers gave way in proportion to the firmness of the republic : they made the tour of the Florentine frontier by Sienna, m 2 11)4 HISTOKS OF THE ITALIAN HKPLBLICS. 1350. Pisa, and Lucca, always threatening, yet never daring to violate it. On the 12th of July, 1359, they sent the Florentine commander a challenge to battle, and afterwards failed to keep the rendezvous which they had given. They escaped at last from Tuscany, with- out having fought, and divided themselves in the sei- vice of different princes, humbled indeed, but too much accustomed to this disorderly life not to be anxious to begin it anew. The republic of Florence was continually occupied, since the expulsion of the duke of Athens, in guarding against the ambition of the Viscontis, which threatened the subjugation of all Italy. Azzo Visconti, the son of that Galeazzo who had been so treacherously used by Louis of Bavaria, had, in 1328, purchased the city of Milan from that emperor, and soon afterwards found himself master of ten other cities of Lombardy ; but he died suddenly, in the height of his prosperity, the 1 6th of August, 1339- As he left no children, his uncle Luchino succeeded him in the sovereignty. Luchino was false and ferocious, but clever, and possessed in war the hereditary talent of the Viscontis. He was called a lover of justice, probably because he punished criminals with an excess of cruelty, and maintained by terror a perfect police in his states. He died, poisoned by his wife, on the 23d of January, 1349« His brother John, archbishop of Milan, succeeded him in power. The latter found himself master of sixteen of the largest cities in Lombardy ; cities which, in the preceding cen- tury, hid been so many free and flourishing republics. His ambition continually aspired to more extensive conquests; and, on the l()th of October, 1350, he en- gaged the brothers Pepoli to cede to him Bologna. These nobles, who had usurped the sovereignty of their country, were at this time engaged in a quarrel with the legate, Giles Albornoz, who asserted that Bologna belonged to the holy see. The archbishop was already treated by the pope as an enemy ; and preferred ex- citing still further his wrath, to the renunciation of so 1351. CREATKKSS OF THE VISCONTIS. l6'5 important an acquisition. When Clement VI. sum- moned him to come, and justify himself at the court of Avignon, he answered, that he would present himself there at the head of 12,000 cavalry and O'OOO infantry. The pope, in his alarm, ceded to him the fief of Bologna, i n the 5th of May, 1352, on condition of receiving from him an annual tribute of 12,000 florins. Florence saw, with terror, this city, which had so long been her most powerful and faithful ally, the Guelph city of letters, commerce, and liberty, thus pass under the yoke of a tyrant, who had designs upon her liberty also ; who laid snares around her ; who formed alliances against her with all the petty tyrants of Romagna, and all the Ghibeline lords of the Apennines. She was at peace with him, it was true; but. she well knew that the Vis- con tis neither believed themselves bound by any treaty, nor kept any pledge. The number of free cities continually diminished. Pisa was still free, but had, from attachment to the Ghibeline party, made alliance with the Viscontis. Vi- enna and Perugia were free also, but weak and jealous ; they were incessantly disturbed by internal dissensions. The Florentines could not reckon on them. The arch- bishop of Milan suddenly ordered, towards the end of the summer, 1351, John Visconti da' Oleggio, his lieu- tenant at Bologna, to push into Tuscany at the head of a formidable army, without any declaration of war. The republic had no ally, and but slight reliance on the mercenaries in its service; but the Florentines, who showed little bravery in the open field, defended them- selves obstinately behind walls; and the meat village of Scarperia,in the Mugello, although so ill fortified that the walls of many of the houses served instead of a surround- ing wall, and having a garrison of only 200 cuirassiers and 300 infantry, stopped the Milanese general sixty- one days. He was at last obliged, on the lGth of Octo- ber, to retire to Bologna. The republics of Venice and Genoa were, It might have been thought, the natural allies to whom the Flo- 1 66 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 352. routines should have bad recourse for their coinmon defence. Their interests were the same ; and the Vis- contis had resolved not to suffer any free state to subsist in Italy, lest their subjects should learn that there was a better government than their own. Unhappily, these two republics, irritated by commercial quarrels in the East, were then engaged in an obstinate war with each other. The Genoese had fortified Pera, a suburb of Constantinople, of which they had rendered them- selves masters, as well as of Caffa in the Crimea ; and these two colonies almost equalled the metropolis in wealth and magnificence. These republicans engaged in a quarrel with the emperor Cantacuzene, besieged his capital, and burnt bis fleet. Two years later, they quarrelled also with the Crimean Tartars at (Jaffa, and attempted to interdict the Latins from carrying on any commerce with them at Tana, now Taganrok. This attempt produced a quarrel with the Venetians, and a war between these two states was the consequence. The Venetians formed an alliance with the Greek emperor, and with Peter IV. of Aragon ; formidable fleets, com- manded the one by the Genoese admiral, Paganino Doria, the other by the Venetian, Nicolo Pisani, dis- played a courage and ability to resist at once man and the elements, which no maritime people have ever since surpassed. On the 13th of February, 1352, Paganino Doria, with sixty-four galleys, attacked, in the straits of the Bosphorus, the Venetians, Catalonians, and Greeks, who had collected, at least, seventy-eight vessels. A violent tempest assailed, in those narrow s'eas, the two fleets in the midst of their combat : they were over- taken by a dark night ; whilst the violence of the winds and tide mixed their vessels, and drove them one against the other. The loss on both sides was prodigious ; but the morning discovered to Pisani that he was no longer in a state to continue the combat : he retired to Candia, and the Greeks made peace with the Genoese. A battle, not less bloody, took place in the following year, on the 29th of August, off the coast of Loiera, in Sardinia 1 35 k MAR OF GENOA AND VENICE. 10? Paganino Doria no longer commanded the Genoese; they were defeated with immense loss : in their distress and discouragement, they gave themselves up, on the 10th of October, 1353, to John Visconti, lord of Milan. This tyrant, the richest in Italy, helped them to re-establish their fleet; the command was given anew to Paganino Doria, who attacked and destroyed the Venetian fleet in the Gulf of Sapienza, in the Morea, on the 3d of November, 1354. The Venetians, exhausted by such great exertions, made peace in the month of May fol- lowing. Genoa had sacrificed her liberty to her thirst of ven- geance ; for although the republic had not conferred the signoria on the archbishop Visconti without imposing conditions, it soon experienced that oaths are not bind- ing on a prelate and a tyrant. The freedom of Venice also was in the utmost danger from the consequences of the same war. It was only a few months alter the peace was signed, that Marino Faliero was elected suc- cessor to Andrea Dandolo, in the ducal chair, on the 11th of September, 1354. The disorders and calamities of war had relaxed every social tie ; the merchants. and the workmen employed in the construction of ves- sels, were discontented ; the nobles conducted themselves with increasing insolence ; and the laws were ill observed. Marino Faliero, who was old, and furiously jealous of a young and beautiful wife, was insulted, under a mask, during the carnival, by the president of the quarantia. 1 1 >• believed the offender in love with his wife. The offence he received was not punished with the severity which he demanded. He lent an ear to the complaints of the plebeians, many of whom had experienced in their domestic life mortal injuries from the young nobility ; and excited a conspiracy, of which he consented to be the chief. But just as he was on the point of wreaking his vengeance on the government of his country, and on the whole order of nobles, some of his accomplices wer< denounced to the Council of Ten : thev were seized, and put to the torture, on tic night of the 15th of \pnl ld8 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1356 1355. Their disclosures implicated the doge, who was also arrested, and on the day after was beheaded. T.hough the war of the maritime republics might have deprived Florence of the aid of Venice or Genoa, it had at least diverted the attention of John Visconti ; made him direct his exertions elsewhere ; and procured some repose to Tuscany. He died on the 5th of October, 1354, before he could renew his attacks ; and his three nephews, the sons of his brother Stephen, agreed to suc- ceed him in common. The eldest, who showed less talent for government, and more sensuality and vice, than his brothers, was poisoned by them the year following. The two survivors, Barnabas and Galeazzo, divided Lom- bardy between them ; preserving an equal right on .Milan, and in the government. Their relative, Visconti da' Oleggio, who was their lieutenant at Bologna, made himself independent in that city nearly about the same time that the Genoese, indignant at seeing all their con- ventions violated, rose in insurrection on the 15th of November, 135 (i, drove out the Milanese garrison, and again set themselves free. The entry of Charles IV. into Tuscany formed also a favourable diversion, by suspending the projects of the Viscontis against the Florentines ; but it cost th^m 100,000 florins, which they agreed to pay Charles by treaty on the 12th of March, 1355, to purchase his rights on their city, and to obtain his engagement that he should nowhere enter the Florentine territory. The republics of Pisa and Sienna, who received him within their walls, paid still dearer for the hospitality which they granted him. The emperor encouraged the mal- contents in both cities ; he aided them to overthrow the existing governments ; he hoped by so doing to make these republics little principalities, which he intended to bestow as an apanage on his hi other, the patriarch of Aquileia: but after having caused the ruin of his parti- sans ; after having ordered or permitted the execution of the former magistrates, who were innocent of any crime, insurrei don* of the people forced him to quit 1357- REVOLUTION AT FISA. ] 6$ both cities, without retaining the smallest influence in either. After he had quitted Italy, the Viscontis were engaged in the war to which Ave have already alluded, against the marquises of Este, of Monferrat, della Scala, Gonzaga, and Carrara. The siege of Pavia, and the ravages of the great company exhausted their resources, but did not make them abandon their projects on Tus- cany. The influence which they retained in the repub- lic of Pisa, as chiefs of the Ghiheline party, seemed to facilitate their schemes. Pisa, in losing its maritime power and its possessions in Sardinia, had not lost its warlike character ; it was still the state in Italy where the citizens were best ex- ercised in the use of arms, and evinced the most braverv. It had given proofs of it in conquering, under the eye of the Florentines, the city of Lucca, which it still re- tained. Nevertheless, since the peace made by the duke of Athens on the 1 1th of October, 1342, commercial interests had reconciled the two republics. The Flo- rentines had obtained a complete enfranchisement from all imposts in the port of Pisa ; they had established there their counting-houses, and attracted thither a rich trade. From that time the democratic party predo- minated in the Pisan republic ; at its head was a rich merchant, named Francesco Gambacorta, who attached himself to the Florentines, and to the maintenance of peace. His party was called that of the Bergolini ; while that of the great Ghiheline families attached to the counts of la Gherardesca, who despised commerce and ex- cited war, was called the Raspanti party. The Viscontis sought the alliance of the latter ; the moment did not appear to them yet arrived in which they could assume to themselves the dominion over all Tuscany. It was sufficient for their present views to exhaust the Floren- tine republic by a war, which would disturb its com- merce ; to weaken the spirit of liberty and energy in the Pisans, by subduing them to the power of the aristo- cracy, in the hope, that when once they had ceased to be fr«e, and had submitted to a d< mestic tyrant, they 170 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 13fi4>. would soon prefer a great to a little prince, and throw themselves into his arms. The revolution, which in 1355 had favoured the emperor in restoring power to the Raspanti, facilitated this project. In pursuance of this view, the party of the Raspanti, at the suggestion of the Viscontis, in 1357 began to disturb the Florentines in the enjoyment of the franchises secured to them at Pisa by the treaty of peace. The Floren- tines, guessing the project of the Lombard tyrant, instead of defending their right by arms, resolved on braving an unwholesome climate, and submitting to the inconveni- ence of longer and worse roads, transported all their counting-houses to Telamone, a port in the maremma of Sienna. They persisted till 136l in despising all the insults of the Pisans, as well as in rejecting all their offers of reconciliation : at length, animosity increasing on both sides, the war broke out, in 1362. The Viscontis supplied the Pisans with soldiers. France during this period had been laid waste by the war with the English ; and as the sovereigns were rarely in a state to pay their troops, there had been formed, as in Italy, companies of adventurers, English, Gascon, and French, who lived at the cost of the country, plundering it with the utmost barbarity. The peace of Bretigny permitted several of these companies to pass into Italy : they carried with them the plague, which made not less ravages in 136l than it had done in 1348. The English company commanded by John Hawkwood, an adventurer, who rendered himself celebrated in Italy, was sent to the Pisans by Barnabas Visconti. After various successes, the two republics, at last exhausted by the plague, and by the rapacity, and want of discipline of the adventurers whom they had taken into pay, made peace on the 17th of August, 1364. But the purpose of the Viscontis was not the less attained. The Pisans having exhausted their resources, were at a loss to make the last payment of 30,000 florins to their army ; they were reduced to accept the offer made them by Giovanni Agnello, one of their fellow citizens, of advancing that sum, on condi- ;305. DANGER OF FLORENCE. ]?1 tion of being named doge of Pisa. The money had for this purpose been secretly advanced by Barnabas Visconti, to whom Agnello had pledged his word never to consider himself more than his lieutenant at Pisa. Thus the field fertilised by liberty became continually more circumscribed; and Florence^ always threatened by the tyrants of Lombardy, saw around her those only who had alienated their liberty, and who had no longer any sentiment in common with the republic. CHAP. VIII. THE FLORENTINES SUMMON THE CITIES BELONGING TO THIl STATES OF THE CHURCH TO RECOVER THEIR LIBERTY. GREAT WESTERN SCHISM. WAR OF CH10ZZA. INSURRECTIONS OF THE rOTULACE AGAINST THE CITIZENS. CONQUESTS OF G1AN GALEAZZO VISCONTI, I1UKE OF MILAN. HIS DEATH. The chief magistrates of the Florentine republic could not conceal from themselves the danger which now menaced the liberty of Italy. They found themselves closed in, — blockaded, as it were, — by the tyrants, who daily made some new progress. The two brothers Vis- conti, masters of Lombardy, had at their disposal im- mense wealth and numerous armies; and their ambition was insatiable. They were allied, by marriage, to the two houses of France and England : their intrigues ex- tended throughout Italy, and every tyrant was under their protection. At the same time, their own subjects trembled under frightful cruelties. They shamelessly published an edict, by which the execution of state cri- minals was prolonged to the period of forty days. In it the particular tortures to be inflicted, day by day, were detailed, and the members to be mutilated designated, before death was reached. On the other hand, their 17- HISTORY OK 1IIK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 13(58, finances were in good order; they liberally recompensed their partisans, and won over traitors in every state ini- mical to them. They pensioned the captain of every company of adventurers, on condition that he engaged to return to their service whenever called upon. Meanwhile, these captains, with their soldiers, over-ran, plundered, and exhausted Italy, during the intervals of peac- ; reducing the country to such a state as to be incapable of resisting any new attack. All the Ghibelines, all the nobles who had preserved their independence in the Apennines, were allied to the Viscontis. The march of these usurpers was slow, but it seemed sure. The mo- ment was foreseen to approach when Tuscany would be theirs, as well as Lombardy; particularly as Florence had no aid to expect either from Genoa or Venice. These two maritime republics appeared to have withdrawn themselves from Italy, and to place their whole existence in distant regions explored by their commerce. For a moment, the few Italian states still free were led to believe that the succour, now so necessary, to en- able them to resist the Viscontis, would arrive both from France and Germany. The pope and the emperor an- nounced their determination to deliver the country, over which they assumed a supreme right, from every other yoke. Urban V., moved by the complaints of the Christian world, declared that his duty, as bishop of Rome, was to return and live there ; and Charles IV. protested that he would deliver his Roman empire from the devasta- tions of the adventurers, and from the usurpations of the Lombard tyrants. In 1367, Urban returned to Italy ; and the same year formed a league with the em- peror, the king of Hungary, the lords of Padua, Fer- rara, and Mantua, and with the queen of Naples, — against the Viscontis. But when Charles entered Italy, on the 5th of May, 1368, he thought only of profiting by the terror with which he inspired the Viscontis, to obtain from them large sums of money ; in return for which he granted them peace. He afterwards continued his march through the peninsula, with no other object 1 3b ( J- LUCCA RESTOREI* 10 FHKEDOM. J ~3 than that of collecting money. His presence, however, caused some changes favourable to liberty. A festival was prepared for him at Lucca, on the 7th of Septem- ber ; on which day he intended confirming, by his in- vestiture, the sovereignty of the doge Gian Agnello over Pisa and Lucca. But the stage on which Agnello had mounted gave way, and in the fall he broke his leg. The Pisans profited by this accident to recover their freedom, and the emperor kept Lucca for himself. At Sienna, he favoured a revolution which overthrew the ruling aristocracy; intending, on his return to that city, after a devotional visit to Home, to take advantage of the disturbance, and get himself appointed to the signo- ria : but a sedition against him broke forth on the 18th of January, 13()f). Barricades were raised on all sides ; his guards were separated from him, and disarmed ; his palace was broken into. No attempt, indeed, was made on his person ; but he was left alone several hours in the public square, addressing himself in turn to the armed troops which closed the entrance of every street, and which, immovable and silent, remained insensible to all his entreaties. It was not till he began to suffer from hunger, that his equipages were restored to him, and he was permitted to leave the town. He returned to Lucca, where he had already lived, in the time of his father, as prince royal of Bohemia. The Lucchese were attached to him, and placed in him their last hope to be delivered from a foreign yoke, which had weighed upon them since the year 1314. They declared themselves ready to make the greatest sacrifices for the recovery of their freedom ; and they, at the same time, testified to him so much confidence and affection as to touch his heart. By a diploma, on the 6th of April, 13()"9, Charles restored them to liberty, and granted them various privileges; but, on quitting their city, he left in it a German garrison, with orders not to evacuate that town till the Lucchese had paid the price of their liberty. It was not till the month of April, 1370, and not without the aid of Flf- rence and their other allies, that they could acquit the 174 HlSl'UUY OF THE ITALIAN KEPI'BLICS. 1370. enormous sum of 300,000 florins, the price of the re- establishment of their republic. The Guelph exiles were then immediately recalled ; a close alliance was contracted with Florence ; and the signoria, composed of a gonfalonier and ten anziani, to be changed every two months, was reconstituted. Urban V., on his arrival in Italy, endeavoured also to oppose the usurpations of the Viscontis, who had just taken possession of San Miniato, in Tuscany, and wno, even in the states of the church, were rendering themselves more powerful than the pope himself. Of the two bro- thers, Barnabas Visconti was more troublesome to him, by his intrigues. Urban had recourse to a bull of ex- communication, and sent two legates to bear it to him ; but Barnabas forced these two legates to eat, in his pre- sence, the parchment on which the bull was written, to- gether with the leaden seals and silken strings. The pope, frightened at the thought of combating men who seemed to hold religion in no respect, and wearied, moreover, with his ill successes, was glad to return to the repose of Avignon, where he arrived in the month of September, 1370; and died the November following. Gregory XL, who succeeded him, was ambitious, co- vetous, and false. He joined the Florentines in their war against- the Viscontis; but the legates, to whom he had entrusted the government of the ecclesiastical states, and who had rendered themselves odious by their rapacity and immorality, formed the project of seizing for them- selves Tuscany, which they had engaged to defend. All the troops of the Florentines had been placed at their disposal, for the purpose of carrying the war into Lombardy. The cardinal legate, who commanded the combined army, resided at Bologna ; the church having rescued that city from the grasp of Visconti da' Olegdo. on the 31st of March, 13()0. He signed a truce with Barnabas Visconti, in the month of June, 1375; and, before the Florentines could recall their soldiers, sent John Hawk wood with a formidable army to surprise Florence. The Florentines, indignant at such a shame- 1375. THE WAR Ol LIBERTY 175 less want of good faith on the part of the church, whose most faithful allies they had always been, vowed ven- geance on the see of Rome. They determined to rouse the spirit of liberty in every city belonging to it, and drive out the French legates, — more odious and perfi- dious than the most abhorred of the Italian tyrants. They, in the month of June, 13~5, without placing any confidence in Barnabas Visconti, made an alliance with him against the priests, who had just deceived them under the faith of the most solemn oaths. They admitted the republics of Sienna, Lucca, and Pisa into this league ; they formed a commission of eight persons, to direct the military department, called " the eight of war ; " they assembled a numerous army, and gave it colours, on which was inscribed, in golden letters, the word '* li- bebty." This army entered the states of the church, proclaiming that the Florentines demanded nothing for themselves, — that not only would they make no con- quests, but would accept dominion over no people who might offer themselves : they were desirous only of universal liberty, — and would assist the oppressed with all their power, solicitous for the recovery of their free- dom. The army of liberty carried revolution into all the states of the church with an inconceivable rapidity : eighty cities and towns, in ten days, threw off the yoke of the legates. The greater number constituted them- selves republics ; a few recalled the ancient families of princes, who had been exiled by Egidio Albofnoz, and to whom they were attached by hereditary affection. Bo- logna did not accomplish her revolution before the '20th of March, 13?(). This ancient republic, in recovering its liberty, vowed fidelity to the Florentines, to whom it owed the restoration of its freedom. The legates, beside themselves with rage, endeavoured to restrain the people by terror. John Ilawkwood, on the 2<)th of March, 1376, delivered up Faenza to a frightful military execu- tion : 4000 persons were put to death, property pillaged, And women violated. The pope, not satisfied with such '76' HISTOKY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. J 378 rigour, sent Robert of Geneva, another cardinal legate, into Italy, with a Breton company of adventurers, considered as the most ferocious of all those trained to plunder by the wars of France. The new legate treated Cesena, on the 1st of February, 1377, with still greater barbarity. He was heard to call out, during the mas- sacre, " I will have more blood ! — kill all ! — blood, blood ! " Gregory XI. at last felt the necessity of returning to Italy, to appease the universal revolt. He entered Rome on the 17th of January, 1377 ; although the Florentines, who had sent the standard of liberty to the senators and bannerets of Rome, and had made alli- ance with the Romans, expostulated on the danger they incurred, if they admitted the pontiff within their walls. The two parties, however, began to be equally weary of the war. Some of the cities enfranchised by the Flo- rentines were already detached from the league. The Bclognese had made, on the 21st of August, 1377, a separate peace with the pope, who had agreed to acknow- ledge their republic. Barnabas Visconti carried on with the holy see secret negotiations, in which he offered to sacrifice to the church his ally, the republic of Florence. This republic was then pressed for its consent to the opening of a congress for restoring peace to Italy, to be held at Sarzana, in the beginning of the year 1378 : the presidency of the congress was given to Barnabas Vis- conti. The conference had scarcely opened when the Florentines perceived, with more indignation than sur- prise, that the Lombard tyrant, who had fought in con- cert with them, intended that they should pay to him and to the pope the whole expenses of the war. The negotiations took the most alarming turn, when the un- expected news arrived of the death of Gregory XL, on the 27th of March, 1378 ; and the congress separated, without coming to any decision. The year which now opened was destined to bring with it the most important revolutions throughout Italy. Amidst those convul- sions, the peace of Florence with the court of Rome. l."7S. GREAT SCHISM OK THE WEST. 177 weakened by the great western schism, was not difficult to accomplish. The pontifical chair had been transferred to France since the year 1305. Its exile from Italy lasted seventy-three years. The Christian world, Fiance e^ • cepted, had considered it a scandal ; but the French kings hoped by it to retain the popes in their depend- ence ; and the French cardinals, who formed more than three fourths of the sacred college, seemed determined to preserve the pontifical power in their nation. Thev were, however, thwarted in this intention by the death of Gregory XI. at Home ; — for the conclave must alwavs assemble where the last pontiff dies. The clamour of the Romans, and the manifestation of opinion throughout Christendom, were not without influence on the con- clave. On the 8th of April. 1378, it elected — not, indeed, a Roman, whom the peopie demanded ; but an Italian, — Bartolomeo Prignani : who, having lived long in France, seemed formed to conciliate the prejudices of both parties. He was considered learned and pious. The cardinals had not, however, calculated on the de- velopement of the passions which a sudden elevation sometimes gives; or on the degree of impatience, arro- gance, and irritability of which man is capable, in his unexpected capacity of master, though in an inferior situation he had appeared gentle and modest. The new pope, who took the name of Urban VI., became so vio- lent and despotic, so confident in himself, and so con- temptuous of others, that he soon quarrelled with all his cardinals. They left him ; assembled again at Fondi ; and, on the Hdi of August, declared the holy sit vacant; asserting that their previous election was null, having been forced by their terror of the Romans. Conse- quently, on the 20th of September, they elected another pope. Their choice, no better than the former, fell on Robert, cardinal of Geneva, who had presided at the massacre of Cesena : he took the name of Clement VII. He was protected by queen Joan, with whom Urban had already quarrelled. Clement established his court at 1 78 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1378 Naples; but an insurrection of the people m£.le hiin quit it the year' following, and determined him on return- ing 3 with his cardinals, to Avignon. Urban VI., mean- while, deposed, as schismatics, all the cardinals who had elected Clement, and replaced them by a new and more numerous college ; but he agreed no better with these than with their predecessors. He accused them of a conspiracy against him ; he caused many to be put to the torture in his presence, and while he recited his bre- viary ; he ordered others to be thrown into the sea in sacks, and drowned ; he quarrelled with the Romans, and the new sovereign of Naples, whom he had himself named ; he paraded his incapacity and rage through all Italy ; and finally took refuge at Genoa, where he died, on the 9th of November, 1389- The cardinals who ac- knowledged him named a successor on his death, as the French cardinals did afterwards on the death of Cle- ment VII., which took place on the lfith of September, 1 394. The church thus found itself divided between two popes and two colleges of cardinals, who reciprocally anathematised each other. Whilst the catholic faith was thus shaken, the temporal sovereignty of the pope founded by the conquests of the cardinal Albornoz, was overthrown. Several of the cities enfranchised by the Florentines in the war of liberty, preserved their re- publican government ; but the greater number, parti- cularly in Romagna, fell again under the yoke of petty tyrants. The part which Joan of Naples had taken in the schism, by protecting what the orthodox called the revolt of Robert of Geneva and the cardinals, awakened the re- sentment which Louis of Hungary still entertained for the murder of her first husband ; she had since successively married three others, without having a child: her na- tural heir was the last prince of the race of Charles of Anjou, named Charles da Durazzo, the grandson of kin^ Robert's brother, and cousin to the king of Hungary, ai whose court he had been brought up. The aged Louis, learning that Uiban VI. had excommunicated and de- 1378. WAR OF chiozza. 17y posed Joan, charged Charles da Durazzo to execute the sentence. He entrusted him with an army, with which the young prince traversed Italy, without meeting any resistance ; he entered Naples on the lCJth of July, 1381, and proclaimed himself king, under the name of Charles III. The queen, who could not arm a single person in her defence, was constrained to surrender to him five weeks afterwards. After detaining her nine months in prison, he caused her to be smothered under a feather bed. Louis of Hungary did not long survive this revolution: he died on the 1 1th of September, 1382, leaving heiress to his dominions' a daughter, with whom Charles da Durazzo soon disputed the crown of Hungary. The emperor Charles IV. had died before Louis, at Prague, on the 29th of November, 1378, and had been succeeded by his son. the debauched Weneeslaus. About the same period (1380) the crown of France had passed to a minor, Charles VI., who afterwards be- came mad. Italy had little to fear from abroad; the danger sprang up in her own bosom. The republics of Venice and Genoa, on every occa- sion mutually opposed, regarded each other as rivals. T he Genoese carried on a considerable commerce in Cyprus, but had excited there the resentment of the people, who in 1372 rose, and at a public festival mas- sacred all the Genoese on whom they could lay hands. The republic avenged this outrage committed on its ci- tizens; and in 1373 conquered the isle of Cyprus: but, using its victory with moderation, restored the island in fief to the house of Lusignan. The Venetians, not- withstanding, offered their alliance to the Cypriots, and in 1378 they, in concert, besieged the Genoese at Fa- magosta. In the many quarrels of the Venetians with Louis of Hungary, and with Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua, they had always found the Genoese siding with their adversaries. The two republics finally attach* d themselves to the two opposite factious which disputed the remains of the empire of Constantinople, now arrived at its last term. Mutual animosity went on continually 180 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1379 increasing. At last the Venetian and Genoese fleets met before Antium, in the month of July, 1378. They attacked each other in the height of a tempest; and the Genoese were vanquished. It was the first battle of a fearful war : Lucian Doria %vas charged, in the month of May, 1379; t0 avenge the Genoese. Having entered the Adriatic, on the 29th of that month he met the Venetian fleet, commanded by Vittor Pisani^ before Pola. Lucian was killed early in the engagement; but that only served to redouble the animosity of the Genoese; and the Venetian fleet was almost annihilated. The senate threw Vittor Pisani, the greatest admiral the republic ever had, into prison, to punish him for a disaster which would have been avoided had his counsel been taken; for he had given battle by the express order of the senate, con- trary to his own judgment. Pietro Doria, who suc- ceeded Lucian in the command of the Genoese fleet, arrived on the 6th of August, to attack the canal or port of Chiozza, twenty-five miles south of Venice. It is one of the numerous openings which cut the Aggere, or long bank formed by nature between the Lugune and the sea. Francesco da Carrara sent at the same time a flotilla of Paduan boats, to attack in rear the Venetians, who defended this opening. The port of Chiozza was forced, and the town taken, on the l6th of August. Chiozza, like Venice, is in the bosom of the Lagune. The Genoese fleet, having arrived thus far, could pass up to the canals of Venice. Never had the republic been in such im- minent danger ; never had she offered to purchase peace by greater or more humiliating sacrifices. But the Genoese, the king of Hungary, and the lord of Padua, rejected all advances : Pietro Doria declared that he would not make peace, before he had bridled, with his own hand, the bronze horses in the square of St. Mark (the same which have since been seen in the Place du Carrousel at Paris). The Venetians, driven to the last extremity, redoubled their patriotic exertions: they crew Vittor Pisani from his dungeon, to place him in the command of a new fleet; they shut their canais 1380. DEFEAT OF THE OENOEBb. 181 with stocKades; they recalled their many vessels dispersed in the Levant, and gave the command of them to Carlo Zeno, another of their greatest citizens. The defence of Venice was, notwithstanding, so far doubtful, that the signoria had made preparations to remove to Candia on the first reverse of fortune. On the 1st of January, 1380, Carlo Zeno arrived with the Meet which he had collected in the eastern seas ; the Venetians, instead of waiting to be besieged, proposed blockading the Genoese fleet in the Lagune of Chiozza, into which it had so victoriously entered. They succeeded in first shutting the canal of Chiozza, and afterwards all the other ports or canals which cut the Aggere : each of these advantages was, however, purchased by an obstinate battle. Forty-eight gallevs, and 14,000 Genoese mariners or soldiers, were shut in at Chiozza ; but they were not abandoned by their country: it sent a new fleet into the Adriatic for their deliverance, while the lord of Padua made the utmost exertions to open a communication with them. The Venetians, always investing the besieged still closer, succeeded in avoiding the battle continually offered them. The Genoese at last perceived that there was no possibility of saving their galleys ; they constructed boats, in which they intended to escape, and gain the fleet winch awaited them in the high seas. The mo- ment these boats were transported to the sea-6hore, they were attacked and burnt by the Venetians. Deprived of all resource, and pressed by famine, the Genoese at last surrendered at discretion, on the 21st of June, 1380. Notwithstanding this great reverse of fortune Genoa was not cast down. The Venetians, hard pressed by land, were obliged to abandon Treviso, and shut themselves up anew in the'irLagune. Hut the two re- publics, equally exhausted by the war, were glad to sign, on the 8th of August, 1381, a treaty of peace, which re-established their former relations, nearly as they stood hefore it commenced. The treaty of peace with the king of Hungary was more disadvantageous to the w 8 182 HISTORY OF Till. ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 137^ Venetians : they ceded to him the whole of Dalmatia , but as he died the year following, they took advantage of the embarrassment into which his daughter war, thrown, to recover their possessions in that province. The discord which had so long fermented in Flo- rence between the higher citizens who administered the government, and the lower orders, who demanded a more complete equality, broke out in 1378; a year fruitful in events to Italy. The form of the Florentine constitution was entirely democratic, the only sovereign was the people ; the nobles and the Ghibelines were excluded from all participation in the government; but a perfect equality appeared to exist in the rest of the nation, which was rendered more complete by the citizens being called by lot to the highest dignities in the state. Nevertheless, if government is instituted for the good of all, to invest all indiscriminately with power, would be very far from obtaining that good, the object of the common effort. Education, and the lei- sure which gives time for reflection, are two conditions equally necessary lo man, in order to attain the com- plete developement of his understanding, and the know- ledge, if ever he should arrive at the administration of public affairs, of what would constitute the happiness of all. Those who have not learnt to think, those to whom manual labour leaves no time for meditation, ought not to undertake the guidance of their fellow-citizens, by entering the difficult career of government. There was at Florence, as there is every where, a distinction to he made between families whose fortune gives them the means of intellectual improvement, and those who, to live, are obliged to devote themselves to mere labour, so much calculated to render the faculties of the mind obtuse. This distinction was marked by the division of citizens into twenty-one corporations of arts and trades ; the seven higher arts were distinguished b.y the name of arti maggiori. In those alone the ma- gistrates were always chosen; and they comprehended families sometimes so enriched by commerce as to rival 1378. nisoortn in Florence. 183 princes in magnificence: they were designated l)y the new appellation of nobili popolani, nohles of the people, and produced men distinguished in the government of the repuhlic for as much virtue as talent. There was, however, a want of union among these great families ; they had been divided between the two parties, which were at first headed by the Albizzi and Kicci : the Albizzi were among the number of those families which the same revolution that drove out the Ghibelines had, for more than a century, placed at the head of the republic. They made it a part of their religion to maintain the Guelph party in all its purity, and they caused the law of admonition, which excluded from the magistracy every descendant of the ancient Ghibelines, and under that pretext every new man, to be executed in all its rigour. Their faction, then, was essentially aristocratic. The Ricci, and with them the Scali, Strozzi, Alberti, and the Medici, had attained later their immense opulence. The name of Medici was never pronounced before the middle of this century: their adversaries profited by the obscurity of their origin, to pretend that their ancestors were Ghibelines. The interest of new families led them to support demo- cratic opinions, and to demand that the distinction between Guelph and Ghibeline, which no longer related to any thing real, should be annihilated. The com- mission of eight, for the department of war, which had directed, with such courage and ability, the attack on the holy see, were all of the Ricci faction. In arming the republic against the church, it appeared as if they had made it adopt all the principles of the Ghibelines but when the citizens, impatient of the weight of taxes, began to sigh for peace, the Albizzi took advantage of their discontent, to revive against their adversaries the accusation of Ghibelinism. They even intended, under this pretext, to exclude them from their country. The increasing ill-will between the two factions made it obvious that the quarrel must soon break out. Wlien Salvestro de Medici vras, in the month of June, 1378, n 4 184- HISTORY OF IHK ITALIAN REPIBUCS. 1378. made by lot gonfaloner, he proposed a law to suspend the proceedings called admonition, which theAlbizzi di- rected against his party. The college or little council of the signoria rejected it, as too favourable to the Ghi- belines. Salvestro appealed, on the 18th of June, to a council ot the people, and afterwards to the people themselves. Violent indignation was immediately ma- nifested against this small oligarchy, which, under pretext of maintaining the ancient Guelph party in all its purity, had branded so many honourable names with exclusion, had encouraged divisions in a republic to which union was necessary, and had thrown doubts on the civic rights of half Florence. The law proposed by Salvestro de' Medici passed by an immense majority. But this first victory awakened more violent disputes upon the rights and equality of the citizens ; on the pri- vileges of the nobili popolani ; on the artifices by which they reserved among themselves the nomination to the magistracies ; on the prerogatives of the major in oppo- sition to the minor arts; and upon the dependent con- dition of the numerous artificers who must range under the banner of the major arts, without being permitted to form themselves into a corporation, or to enjoy any of the advantages attached to these associations. The law which the Medici had just carried, provided only that no new family should be excluded from the magistracies under the pretext that their ancestors were Ghibelines. The people soon demanded that those who had previously been excluded by the admonition should be reinstated in all their rights; that the minor arts should be ad- mitted to furnish members for the magistracies in the same proportion as the major arts ; finally, that three new corporations should be formed, to include workmen, dyers, weavers, fullers, and others employed in the woollen trade. These men, belonging to the woollen art, having no participation in the government, regarded themselves as excluded from every political right. They formed a numerous portion of the population at Flo- rence, called in derision by the name of ciompi. The 1378. SEDITION OP THE CI01IFI. 1 Hh signona, so far from yielding to these demands, reckoned on restraining the people by terror; on the 20th of July they caused one of the chiefs of the ciompi to be put to the torture, as having been found guilty of a plot against the state ; but this only proved a signal for explosion. The ciompi, and all the poorer classes of artisans, flew to arms. The signoria called the urban guard to their aid ; but those dared not assemble. On the 22d of July the ciompi laid siege to the palace of the podesta, and took it on the 23d ; they attacked and made themselves masters also of the palace of the signoria: at that mo- ment a carder of wool, named Michele Lando, in a short waistcoat and barefooted, marched at the head of the people, carrying in his hand the gonfalon of the state, which he had seized in the palace of the podesta: an acclamation suddenly resounded from the crowd who followed him, proclaiming him gonfaloner. During the three preceding days, the populace, masters of the city, had committed many crimes and disorders ; but they had no sooner given a new chief to the state, than the chief thus chosen laboured, with admirable courage and capacity, to restore order and peace. He ordained that for the future the supreme magistracy should be com- posed of three members of the major arts, three of the minor, and three of the ciompi. He put an immediate end to pillaging, burning, and every other disorder. He restored authority to the tribunals, security to the citizens; and exhibited by his own example how much a free government spreads sound sense and elevated sentiments among even the lowest classes of society. The ciompi, it is true, did not long submit to a government which they had themselves created. They rose anew ; but Michele Lando vigorously attacked and vanquished them: a vast number were exiled from the city. The popular party, however, is near its defeat when the moderate chief's are forced to subdue the spirit of the more anient. Frightened at some blamable excesses committed by their partisans, they deprive themselves of all vigour in order to suppress them ; they 186' HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC*. 1.382. disarm those by whose strength they hare conquered J ihey distrust their friends, and confide in their enemies. A man of the lower order had vanquished the anarchists whom no other than himself could have subdued : but immediately afterwards, Florence blushed to have en- trusted so much power to a man of his class ; and on the next drawing of lot for the magistracy, the three ciompi drawn for the priori were not permitted to sit in the signoria. Giorgio Scali, Salvestro de' Medici, and Benedetto Alberti were placed at the head of the re- public : although belonging themselves to the aristocracy, they were the enemies of that order. On discovering a plot of the Albizzi, their ancient rivals, to effect a revolution, with the aid of the troops of Charles III. king of Naples, which then traversed Tuscany, they caused men who had so long administered the republic with glory to die on the scaffold. The public, not- withstanding the confession of the accused, were not con- vinced that they were really guilty, or justly punished. But division soon sprang up in the new administration: some, no longer fearing any rival, insolently abused their power. Giorgio Scali, learning that one of his creatures, accused of bearing false witness, was in the prison of the captain of the people, who prosecuted him, forced the palace of that judge, on the 13th of January, 1382, at the head of a troop of armed men ; gave it up to pillage: and set its prisoner free. Benedetto Alberti, who had always acted honestly, and in the principles of an austere republican, was indignant at the conduct of his ancient associate. He summoned the people to avenge the insulted honour of the tribunals : for that purpose, he made advances to the major arts and the party of the Albizzi. Giorgio Scali was placed at the bar, and received sentence of death, which was imme- diately executed. The aristocracy felt, meanwhile, thai it had recovered power. On the 21st of January, the city rose at the cry of " Long live the Guelph party !" The nobles, the rich merchants, and the higher citizens comprehended in the major arts, took possession of th^ J "82. NEW FACTIONS AT GENOA. 187 public places, created a balia, or supreme commission, to reform the state ; abolished all the laws which had arisen from the revolution, or the tumult of the ciompi ; exiled Michele Lando, Benedetto Alberti, and all those who had in any way signalised themselves in the in- surrection ; and, finally, reconstituted the aristocracy of the nobili popolani more firmly than it had ever yet stood. Similar revolutions broke out at the same time in the other Italian republics: in every one the same progress was to be distinguished. The party which in all had risen to power, as democratic, no sooner felt themselves in possession of it than they turned towards aristocracy. The leaders of the rising generation presented them- selves as hereditary tribunes of the people, at the same time that they impugned hereditary rights. At Genoa, men of new families completely usurped from the ancient, houses of Doria, Spinola, Grimaldi, and Ficschi, all power in the government ; and ranged themselves, soon after the middle of the century, under the standard of two plebeian families, — the one named Adorni, and Guelphs ; the other Fregosi, and Ghibelines. While they proclaimed their hatred of the aristocracy, and their determination not to allow the doge to be taken from a noble family, they combated for the Adorni and Fregosi, with the same enthusiasm and spirit of" client- elage with which their ancestors had fought for a Doria or a Fiesco. The ruinous civil wars into which the republic was precipitated by the rivalry between these two fami- lies, and the fear that theViscontis might profit by these troubles to enslave it, at last determined Antoniotto Adorni, the doge, in I896, to confer, on the 26th oi October, the signoria on Charles VI. king of France, in the hope that a distant monarch might lend the support of his name to the government, without having either the power or the inclination materially to injure the liberty of the republic. At Sienna, after the nobles had been excluded from the magistracies, several plebeian aristocracies succeeded 188 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1382. each other. The signoria, composed of nine members, renewed every two months, had found means of reserv- ing to themselves the nomination of those by whom they were to be replaced. From that time, the election ran among not more than ninety families of rich merchants, who, from 1283 to 1355, remained the real rulers of the republic. This first burgher aristocracy was called " the order," or " monte," of " nine." The jealousy it excited in the rank next below it caused the revolution, which Charles IV. encouraged, in the hope of becoming master of Sienna, on his first passage through that city. The Nine, like the nobles, were excluded from all parti- cipation in the government. It was agreed to replace them by a popular magistracy of twelve members, chosen from the burghership ; but these men were no sooner in power, than, affecting to observe an exact me- dium between the aristocracy just excluded and the de- mocracy whose invasion they feared, they created an order or monte of twelve, out of those burgher families who aspired only to a respectable mediocrity. This order, once in possession of the magistracy, became not less exclusive than its predecessors, and consequently not less odious. When Charles returned in 1368, for ;he second time, to Sienna, the twelve were deprived of power ; and a third order was created, named " the reformers," taken from among the classes inferior in wealth and education to the monte of nine and of twelve. This order did not, at first, usurp ail the power of the republic, — it demanded only an equal partition with the other two; but soon betrayed irritation, because, being by far the most numerous, it had not the most influence. Its pretensions often occasioned commo- tions, and changes in the constitution. When the ciompi seized the government at Florence, the reform- ers, who regarded themselves as holding the same rank in life, made alliance with them ; but, frequently giving way to sudden bursts of passion, thev were accused of failing in good faith as well as prudence. They were at length driven out of Sipnna, on the 24th of 1385. , he repeatedly vanquished; as well as with the republic, • — always ready to repair the losses sustained by the lord of Verona. Unable to obtain peace, In. was at last reduced to accept the proffered alliance of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who took Verona on the 18th of October, 1387- Instead of restoring to Carrara the city of Vicenza, as he had promised, he immediately offered his assistance to the Venetians against Padua: that republic was imprudent enough to accept the offer. Padua, long besieged, was given up to 1<)~ HISTORY OF TIIK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1389- Visconti, on the 23d of November, 1388. A few days afterwards, Treviso was surrendered to him : so that the frontiers of the lord of Milan's dominions extended even to the edge of the Lagune. lie had no sooner planted his standard there, than he menaced Venice, which had «o unwisely facilitated his conquests. All the rest of Lombardy was dependent on the lord of Milan. The marquis of Montferrat was brought up at the court of Galeazzo, who governed his states as guardian of this young prince. Albert, marquis d'Este, had, on the 26th of March, 1388, succeeded his brother in the sovereignty of Ferrara, to the prejudice of his nephew Obizzo, whom he caused to be beheaded with his mother. He put to death by various revolting exe- cutions almost all his relations, at the suggestion of Gian Galeazzo, whose object was, by rendering him thus odious to the people, to make the lord of Ferrara feel that he had no other support than in him. Accord- ing to the same infernal policy, Gian Galeazzo accused the wife of the lord of Mantua, daughter of Barnabas, and his own cousin and sister-in-law, of a criminal in- tercourse with her husband's secretary. He forged let- ters by which he made her appear guilty, concealed them in her apartment, and afterwards pointed out where they were to be found to Francesco da Gonzaga, who, in a paroxysm of rage, caused her to be beheaded, and the secretary to be tortured, and afterwards put to death in 1390: it was not till after many years that he discovered the truth. Thus all the princes of Lombardy were either subdued or in discredit for the crimes which Visconti had made them commit, and by which he held them in his dependence ; he then began to turn his attention towards Tuscany. In the years 1388 and 1389, the Florentines were repeatedly alarmed by his attempts to take possession of Sienna, Pisa, Bologna, San Miniato, Cortona, and Perugia : not one attempt had yet succeeded ; but Florence saw her growing danger, and was well aware that the tyrant had not yet attacked her, only because he reserved her for his last conquest. 1390- WAR BETWEEN PLOItKNOK AND VISOoNTI. 1^3 The arrival at Florence of Francis II. of Carrara, wiio came to ofl'er his services and his hatred of Gian Galeazzo to the republic, determined the Florentines to have recourse to arms. The lord of Milan, in receiving the capitulation of Padua, had promised to give in compensation some other sovereignty to the house of Carrara; but he had either poisoned Francis I., or suf- fered him to perish in prison. Several attempts had been made to assassinate Francis II. in the province of Asti, whither he had been exiled. In spite of many dangers, he at last escaped, and fled into Tuscany. taking his wife, then indisposed, with him. He left her there, and passed into Germany, in the hopes cf exciting new enemies against Gian Galeazzo ; while the Florentines made alliance with the Bolognese against the lord of Milan, and placed their army under the command >f John Hawk wood, who ever afterwards remained in their service. Carrara, seconded by the duke of Bavaria, the son-in-law of Barnabas, whose death the duke was desirous of avenging, re-entered Padua on the 14th of June, 13JJ0, by the bed of the Brenta, and was received with enthusiasm by the inhabitants, who regarded him more as a fellow-citizen than a master. He recovered possession of the whole inheritance of his ancestors. The extensive commerce of the Florentines had ac- customed them to include all Europe in their negoti- ations ; and, as they liberally applied their wealth to the defence of their liberty, they easily found allies abroad. After having called the duke of Bavaria from Germany, in 1390, they in the year following sent to France for the count d'Armagnac with a formidable army ; but the (lermans as well as the French found, with astonish- ment, that they could no longer cope with the new Italian militia, which had substituted military science for the routine of the transalpine soldier. Armagnac was vanquished and taken prisoner, on the 25th of July, i.'JfM, by Giacoino del Verme; and died a few days afterwards. John Hawkwood, who, in the hope of joining him, had advanced far into Lombardy with the 1Q4- HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 13JJ2. Florentine armv, had great difficulty in leading it back in saiety through plains inundated by the Adige. After this campaign, the republic, feeling the want of repose, made peace with Galeazzo, on the 28th of January, 1392 ; well knowing that it could place no trust in him, and that this treaty was no security against his intrigues and treachery. These expectations were not belied ; for one plot fol- lowed another in rapid succession. The Florentines about this time reckoned on the friendship of the Pisans, who had placed at the head of their republic Pietro Gambacorta, a rich merchant, formerly an exile at Florence, and warmly attached to peace and liberty : but he was old, and had for his secretary Jacopo Ap- piano, the friend of his childhood, who was nearly ot his own age. Yet Galeazzo found means to seduce the secretary : he instigated him to the assassination ol Gambacorta and his children, on the 21st of October, 1392. Appiano, seconded by the satellites furnished him by the duke of Milan, made himself master of Pisa: but, after his death, his son, who could with difficulty maintain himself there, sold the city to Gian Galeazzo, in the month of February, 1399; reserving only the principality of Piombino, which he transmitted to his descendants. At Perugia, Pandolpho Baglione, chief of the noble and Ghibeline party, had, in 1390, put himself under the protection of Gian Galeazzo, who aided him in changing the limited authority conferred on him into a tyranny : but three years afterwards he was assassinated; and the republic of Perugia, distracted by the convulsions of opposing factions, was compelled to yield itself up to Gian Galeazzo, on the 21st of January, 1400. The Germans observed with jealousy the continually increasing greatness of Visconti ; which appeared to them to annihilate the rights of the empire, and dry up the sources of tribute, on a partition of which they always reckoned. Thev pressed Wenceslaus to make war on Gian Galeazzo. But that indolent and sensual monarch, alter some threats, gav« it to be understood that for 13Q5. (WAN GALKAZZO, DUKE OF MILAN. 1 9 j money he would willingly sanction the usurpations of Gian Galeazzo: and, in fact, on the 1st of May, 1395, lie granted him, for the sum of 1 00,000 florins, a diploma which installed him duke of Milan and count of Pavia; comprehending in this investiture twenty-six cities and Jieir territory, as far as the Lagune of Venice. These were the same cities which, more than three centuries before, had signed the glorious league of Lombardy. The duchy of Milan, according to the imperial bull, was to pass solely to the legitimate male heir of Gian Galeazzo. This concession of Wenceslaus caused great discontent in Germany : it was one of the grievances for which the diet of the empire, on the 20ih of August, 1400, de- posed the emperor, and appointed Robert elector palatine in his stead. Robert concluded a treaty of subsidy with the Florentines, or rather entered into their pay, to oppose Gian Galeazzo: but when, on the 21st of October, 1401 , he met the Milanese troops, commanded by Jacopo del Verme, not far from Brescia, he experienced, to his surprise and discomfiture, how much the German ca- valry were inferior to the Italian. He was saved from n complete defeat only by Jacopo da Carrara, who led a body of Italian cavalry to his aid. Robert found it neces- sary to retreat, with disgrace, into Germany, after having received from the Florentines an immense sum of money. Gian Galeazzo Visconti continued his course of usurp- ation. In 1397, he attacked, at the same time, Francesco da' Gonzaga at Mantua, and the Florentines, without any previous declaration of war. After having ravaged Tuscany and the Mantuan territory, he consented, on the 1 1th of May, 1398, to sign, under the guarantee of Venice, a truce of ten years, during which period he was to undertake nothing against Tuscany. That, however, did not prevent him, in 139!), from taking under his protection the counts of I'oppi and Ubertini, in the Apennines; or from engaging the republic of Sienna to surrender itself to him, on the 11th of No- vember in the same year. The plague broke out anew in Tuscany, and deprived o 1 1 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1400 the free states of all their remaining vigour. The ma- gistrates, on whose prudence and courage they relied, in a few days sank under the contagion, and left free scope to the poorest intriguer. This happened at Lucca to the Guelph house of Guinigi, which had produced many distinguished citizens, all employed in the first magistracies. They perished under this disease nearly ahout the same time. A young man of their family, named Paulo Guinigi, undistinguished either for talent or character, profited by this calamity, on the 14th of October, 1400, to usurp the sovereignty. He immediately abjured the Guelph party, in which he hai been brought up, and placed himself under the protection of Gian Galeazzo. At Bologna, also, the chief magistrates of the republic were, in like manner, swept away by the plague. Giovanni Bentivoglio, descended from a natural son of that king Hensius so long pri- soner at Bologna, took advantage of the state of languor into which the republic had fallen, to get himself pro- claimed sovereign lord, on the 27th of February, 1401. He at first thought of putting himself under the protec- tion of the duke of Milan ; but Gian Galeazzo, coveting the possession of Bologna, instead of amicably receiving, attacked him the year following. Bentivoglio was de- feated at Casalecchio, on the 26th of June, 1402. His capital was taken the next day by the Milanese general, he himself made prisoner, and two days afterwards put to death. Another general of Galeazzo, in May, 1400, took possession of Assisa : the liberty of Genoa, Pe- rugia, Sienna, Pisa, Lucca, and Bologna had, one after the other, fallen a sacrifice to the usurper. The Can- cellieri, in the mountains of Pistoia, the Ubaldini, in those of the Mugello, had given themselves up to the duke of Milan. The Florentines, having no longer com- munications with the sea, across the territories of Sienna, Pisa, Lucca, and Bologna, saw the sources of their wealth and commerce dry up. Never had the republic been in more imminent danger ; when the plague, which had so powerfully augmented its calamities, came to it: 1402. DEATH OF GIAN GALFAZZ0. 197 aid. Gian Galeazzo Visconti was seized with it at his castle of Marignano, in which he had shut himself up, to be, as he hoped, secure from all communication with man. He was carried off by the pestilence, on the 3d of September, 1402. CHAP. IX. ANARCHY IN THE Dl'CHV OF MILAN. THE VENETIANS MAKI THE CONQUEST OF PADUA AM) VERONA. THE FLORENTINES OF PISA. FLORENCE, MENACED IN TURN BY LADISLAUS KINO OF NAPLES AND FILIPPO MARIA VISCONTI, MAINTAINS AGAINST THEM THE BALANCE OF ITALY. The regeneration of liberty in Italy was signalised still more, if it were possible, by the developement of the moral than by that of the intellectual character of the Italians. The sympathy existing among fellow-citizens, from the habit of living for each other and by each other, — of connecting every thing with the good of all, — produced in republics virtues which despotic states cannot even imagine. Man must have a country, before he can conceive the duty of sacrificing himself for it. The arts of intrigue and flattery are recommendations to a master ; his favour is gained by encouraging his vices : and, in his turn, he recompenses those who serve him at the expense of morality, by dividing with them his power. But to please the people, to rise by the people, virtues must be exhibited to them, not vices : the sympathy of all is gained only by that which is most honourable in each. A popular assembly is swayed only by an appeal to its virtues: even in its errors, some frankness, probity, and generosity, by which men sympathise together, are always to be found ; while, if a dark deed be but conceived, it is a o 3 19& HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1403. Becret carefully kept, with conscious shame, from every eye — it would be easier to execute than to announce or recommend it to the public. Tyrants act on men by terror, corruption, venality, espionnage, envy. Free governments can lead the people only by exciting their more honourable passions. Eloquence, to move men in masses, must make its appeals to honour, pity, justice, and courage. Accordingly, how rich in virtues was Italy in the twelfth century, when covered with re- publics, and when every city simultaneously fought for liberty ! These virtues, the most precious of all treasures, diminished with the progress of time, and in exact pro- portion with the diminution of free states. From the moment a man entered one of those republics, he might reckon with certainty on finding good faith in treaties and negotiations ; zeal for the common advantage in all alliances ; courage and fortitude in adversity ; an un- bounded liberality from the rich to the poor ; in all great calamities, an eagerness, in every one who had property, to devote it to the salvation of all ; finally, an energy in the people to resist, by common exertion, every act of injustice or violence. Even their excesses arose most commonly from some virtuous indignation. From the moment, on the contrary, that a man entered the states of one of the tyrants of Lombardy or Ro- magna, he found a government hostile to public opinion, supporting itself only by perfidy and crime. Spies watched and denounced every expression of generous feeling ; they insinuated themselves into families to betray them ; they abused the sacred ties of kindred, home, and neighbourhood, to convert them into snares ; they made all feel that the wisdom of the subject con- sisted in distrusting every one, and not meddling in the affairs of another. Assassination and poison were com- mon means of government. Every Italian tyrant was stained with the blood of his kindred ; paid murderers despatched the objects of his suspicions; he outraged public virtue, and could maintain order only by fear. Death itself at length failing to inspire terror, he com- J '1-03. DECLINE OK FREEDOM AND VIRTUE. 199 bined with capital punishment protracted tortures, the exhibition of which only rendered men more hardened ami fierce. But the field of virtue in Italy contracted from ace to age, while that of crime enlarged itself. The in- habitants of the kingdom of Naples, from its foundation in the twelfth century, — from the subjugation of the three republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi, — had been dead to every feeling of association, sympathy, or patriot- ism : they had since that time been governed by a corrupt court and nobility, winch offered examples only of vices. In the thirteenth century, Lombardy also had been de- tached from the domain of liberty. During the con- vulsions occasioned either by the violence of the Guelph and Ghibeline factions, or by the contempt of the nobles for all law, every republic, in its turn, fell repeatedly under the yoke of some tyrant ; and, however short his reign, it sufficed to familiarise the mind with viclence instead of justice, and witli the success of crime. At the same time, the devotion of factions to their chiefs, the reference of patriotism to party, and not to the common weal, perverted morality, and confounded tin- rules of right and wrong. In the fourteenth century it was still worse: power in Lombardy had passed to those who made of it the uses most destructive of public viitue. Men rosr to be princes by crime : their perfidy towards their neigh- bours, and their domestic treachery, marked the com- mencement and duration of every reign. Tyrants were so numerous, so constantly under the observation of every citizen, that their example was always operating to corrupt the people. No father of a family could hide from his children the fact, that the prince they must obey had attained power only bv betraying his friends or his fellow-citizens, by poisoning or poniarding his uncle or his brother. The states of the church exhibited not fewer examples of the success of crime : every city of Romagna, of the March, of the patrimony of St. Peter, had its tyrant; and every tyrant reign td enly to tread o 4 200 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN KliPUBMCS. 140S. under foot every moral duty. Nay, more : Barnabaa and Gian Gdeazzo Visconti had, in some sort, kept a school of treachery for Tuscany and the states of the church. They had always encouraged every usurp- ation ; and promised beforehand their alliance to who- ever could smother the voice of a free people, and seduce them from the sway of morality to that of crime. These causes of immorality, all which in Italy con- spired against public virtue, operated in the beginning of the loth century with redoubled force. "When Gian Galeazzo unexpectedly died of the plague, in the height of his successful career, he divided his estates between his two sons, — Gian Maria, then thirteen years of age, whom he declared duke of Milan ; and Filippo Maria, twelve years old, whom he left count of Pavia. But, as these princes were too young to reign, he recommended them to the condottieri in his service, whom he intro- duced into the council as part of the regency : these were the captains of that new militia which had so well served him in the accomplishment of his projects, and in whom he placed the greatest confidence. The school of Alberic Barbiano, which had formed such brave sol- diers and able generals, could not, in like manner, produce good citizens and virtuous men ; and Gian Galeazzo, for the protection of his children, needed counsellors guided by principles that would have stood in his way as long as these men were his servants. Jacopo del Verme, Pandolpho Malatesta, Facino Cane, Ottobon Terzo, and the other captains in whom he trusted, were soldiers of fortune, who made of their valour a trade of carnage and plunder ; who, indifferent to what was just or unjust, were ready to fight for whoever would pay them, and to betray those for any other who would pay them more. They did not long remain faithful guardians to the trust which their master had reposed in them. They shared it with Catherine, widow of Gian Galeazzo, and with Francesco Barbavara, sup- posed to be her lover, and known to have commenced his career as valet-de-chambre to the duke. Warriors i405. NEW TYRANTS IN LOMBARDY. 201 disdained to obey a woman and her valet ; the chiefs, too, of the ancient parties in the cities which Visconti had suhdued, rose with their partisans to recover the sovereignty of their fathers. The condottieri resisted them, hut resisted them for themselves: Facino Cane made himself tyrant at Alexandria ; Ottobon Terzo at Parma ; Pandolpho Malatesta at Brescia. Amidst this anarchy, the duchess Catherine believed herself energetic in proportion as she was violent and cruel. She caused several Milanese nobles to be beheaded without trial ; she gave up many cities to be sacked by the soldiers ; and thus only redoubled the hatred which she excited : she was thrown into prison, where she died by poison on the lfith of October, 1404 ,• and Francesco Barbavara was obliged to fly. The rest of the duchy of .Milan was divided into as many principalities as there were cities. In some, it was the ancient chiefs of the Guelph or Ghibeline party who recovered power ; in others, the captain of adventure who happened to be in garrison there : in several it was some daring villain, such as Giovanni da Vignate at Lodi, or Gabrino Fon- dolo at Cremona, who, profiting by the friendship and confidence of some other usurper, assassinated him, and took his place. Never, even in that country so fertile in tyrants, was power stained with so many crimes. Gian Maria Visconti, who had seen almost all the cities subdued by his father detached from his dominion, still continued to bear the title of duke of Milan ; while his power, even in that city, passed from one ambitious chief to another, and was at last assumed by Facino Cane, one of the best generals of his father. All that Gian Maria Visconti preserved of sovereign power was an unbounded indulgence in every vice. His libertinism would hardly have been remarked ; he was chiefly sig- nalised by the frightful pleasure which he sought in the practice of cruelty. He was passionately devoted to the chace ; but such sports soon failed to quench his thirst for cruelty. The tortures inflicted on unite animals, not finding expression by speech, did not come up to his ¥02 HISTORY OK THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1403. ferocious ideas of enjoyment. He therefore resolved to substitute men for brute animals; and caused all the cri- minals condemned by the tribunals to be given up to him as objects of this inhuman sport. He had his hounds fed with human flesh, in order to render them more ferocious in tearing the victims; and, when ordinary convicts were scarce, he denounced to the tribunals even the crimes in which he had participated, to obtain the condemnation of his accomplices : after which he delivered them to his huntsman, Squarcia Giramo, charged with providing for the ducal chace. He was at last, on the l6th of May, 1412, assassinated by some Milanese nobles. The virtue and elevation of soul which had done such honour to the Italian nation became obscured even in the republics of Genoa, Lucca, Pisa, Sienna, Perugia, and Bologna. These republics, in the course of the fourteenth century, had all more than once fallen under the power of some tyrant: accordingly, the examples of cruelty, perfidy, and the success of those usurpers to whom they had been forced to submit, had had a cor- rupting influence on their citizens. Neither had Venice preserved the true Italian virtue: its citizens often gave proofs of an unbounded devotion to their country, of an unreserved submission to its most severe ordinances ; but it was a narrow r -minded and jealous aristocracy, which, according to the spirit of that government, substituted national selfishness for patriotism. The Venetians took not into the least consideration any other people : they fancied they gave proofs of heroism, when the advan- tage of their republic was in question, in suppressing every human sentiment, in silencing every moral duty. Venice was governed by secret councils, where the voice of the people was never heard : its foreign policy was ad- ministered by the Council of Ten ; which, in its mysterious meetings, took interest only for a guide. The decemvirs dared unblushingly propose to their colleagues deliberating under the sanction of an oath, and animated with the same spirit as themselves, the sacrifice of what was honest and just to what was useful. Italian virtue had taken 14CW. YIRTLE OF FLORUNUU. 203 refuge at Florence: it was there only that the people de- liberated ; that they associated together either for peace or war, or negotiation, as well as for the common admi- nistration of the government. Nothing was proposed to the public, nothing could obtain the assent of all, except what all felt to be just, honourable, and generous. The republic of Florence was always ready to risk its repose and wealth for the equilibrium and independence of Italy ; for the common liberty ; and for the progress of intelligence and civilisation. During two centuries, it was always seen eager to put itself forward as the champion of all that was good and noble. Italy might justly glory in the fact, that wherever she was free, she was always found constant in the road to virtue: she is not answerable for the crimes with which she was sullied by her tyrants. Several thousand citizens had always contributed, by their vote, to all that Florence did that was grand and noble; while about fifcy princes, distributed in as many palaces, with the few wretches which it belongs to tyrannical governments always to bring forward, sufficed to commit, in spite of a whole population, all the crimes which affrighted Italy. At the moment in which the death of Gian Galeazzo annihilated, at least for a time, the threatening power of the dukes of Milan, the two republics in Italy which alone had survived his intrigues, and which he had in vain menaced, profited by the anarchy into which Lom- bardy had fallen, to recover their power, and aggrandise themselves by conquest. Venice, which had shut itself up in its Lat/une, issued forth to extend its frontiers to the Lakeof Garda; and Florence, to which Gian Galeazzo had interdicted all approach to the sea, conquered Pisa, whose ports were necessary to its commerce, and almost to its existence. Francesco da Carrara, re-established in the sovereignty of Padua in the year 13.90, had from that period re- mained faithful to the Guelph party and to Florence: he hoped to profit by the confusion in which the death of Gian Galeazzo had left all Lombard? ; and he invited "JOl HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1404. Gulielmo della Scala to join him, and recover together ♦.he sovereignties of Verona and Vicenza. Gulielmo was the son of that Antonio della Scala who, by his alliance with the Venetians fifteen years before, had caused the ruin of Carrara and his own ; but a community of misfortune had i*econciled them. On the 7th of April, 1-104, they, in conjunction, took Verona. On the 21st of the same month Delia Scala died ; and the report was spread that Carrara had poisoned him. Be that as it may, Carrara, on the 17th of May following, arrested the two sons of Della Scala, and took possession of the city and fortress of Verona. Vicenza, in the mean time, yielded to the Venetians. The latter had hitherto sought their gran- deur only in commerce, in their navy, and in their posses- sions beyond sea; but the confusion into which Lombardy was thrown gave birth in them to a new ambition : they resolved on extending their dominion in a country which seemed to offer itself for their conquest. They entered into treaty with the duchess Catherine Visconti, who renounced all right which her son might have on Verona and Padua ; and they set on foot an army of 9000 cavalry. Their immense wealth permit- ted them to choose the most distinguished captains and the best soldiers in Italy. The republic, in taking them into pay, made it one rule, never to confide the command of its armies to one of its own citizens, that they might have nothing to fear from his power or glory ; and another, not to allow the soldiers to enter the city of Venice, the defence of which needed no more than its Lugune, galleys, and sailors. Two senators, distinguished by the title of procurators of St. Mark, were charged to attend in the camp, and watch over the foreign general whom the signoria had chosen. War between Venice and the lord of Padua was de- clared on the 23d of June, 1404. Francesco da Carrara carried it on with the utmost valour ; but opposed, with- out allies, to forces infinitely superior to his own, he saw successively forced the passage of several canals which intersected his territory, and behind which he had raised -105. VENICE CONQUERS PADUA. '2U5 fortifications. The whole of the Paduan territory was ra- vaged by the Venetian army, and almost all its fortresses taken before the end of the campaign of 1404. A division of the army arrived to besiege Carrara in his capital, on the 12th of June, I4O.0 ; at the same time that another division besieged his second son. Jacopo da Carrara, in Verona, and forced him to capitulate, on the 23d of June. The whole rural population had taken refuge in Padua; and the privations and sufferings experienced in consequence occasioned a contagious malady, which car- ried ofF 40,000 persons. Carrara and his son continued to fight at the head of the survivors with determined bravery, till the Venetians made themselves masters of the first entrenchment. On the 1.0th of November, 1405, a capitulation became necessary. Carrara always flattered himself that the Venetians would grant him some remu- neration for the principality which they wrested from him. He repaired to Venice, with his eldest son, on the faith of the general with whom he had capitulated. On their arrival, they were thrown into prison ; where they found Jacopo da Carrara, who had been taken prisoner at Verona. The Council of Ten, putting in practice the ad- vice given later by Machiavelli, of annihilating the whole race of dethroned tyrants, in order to destroy with them the zeal, hopes, and plots of their partisans, caused Francesco da Carrara and his two sons to be strangled in prison, on the 16th of January, 1406". They, at the same time, set a price on the head of the youngest princes, who had escaped from them, and on those of all the survivors of the house of Delia Scala : not one fell under the dagger of the assassin, notwithstanding the great recompence shamelessly promised by the Vene- tians ; but, on the other hand, not one ever recovered the states of his fathers. The Florentines regarded Francesco da Carrara as one of the firmest champions of the Guelph party in Lom- bardy : they valued his alliance; but they did not think themselves obliged to plunge into war for him, whom they accused of having provoked it by his unjust ag- 200' HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1405. gression on Verona. All their efforts, also, were then directed against Pisa : they regarded the conquest of that city as a necessary condition of their existence, ever since the blockade which Gian Galeazzo had made then, experience, by subjugating all the states that opened to them any communication with the sea. Gian Galeazzo had left the lordship of Pisa to his natural son, Gabriel Maria, who had, with his mother, taken possession of that city. That of Sienna had recovered its freedom in the month of March, 1404, and had renewed its alliance with Florence. Perugia and Bologna had also, in the. preceding month of September, thrown off the yoke of the Viscontis, and voluntarily submitted to the church ; which had left them their. republican form of govern- ment. The Cancellieri, the counts Guidi and Ubertini, and the other feudal nobles of the Apennines, who had placed themselves under the protection of Gian Galeazzo, had been punished for it by the Florentine republic, which had again subdued them to its power. Lucca remained subject to Paulo Guinigi, who governed that ancient republic with moderation, and desired only to be forgotten by his neighbours. Pisa alone, in Tuscany, remained the enemy of Florence. As Gabriel was sen- sible that his brothers, the Viscontis, were then in nu state to defend him, he purchased the protection of the marshal Boucicault, the representative of the king of France at Genoa. Boucicault exercised only the limited authority assigned by the constitution to the doge. The Genoese were far more zealous than the marshal in the support of the independence of Pisa. They feared the competition of the Florentines in their maritime com- merce, if once they were masters of Pisa, Leghorn, and Porto Pisano. Boucicault, on the contrary, after having taken Gabriel Maria under his protection, soon thought of making them an article of trade. He offered to sell Pisa to the Florentines, in the month of June, 1405, for the sum of 400,000 florins; which he agreed to divide with Gabriel Maria. The Pisans, informed of this negotiation, rose on the 2 1 st of July ; disarmed the 1406. THE FLORENTINES CONQUKK MSA. 2G? garrison of their tyrants ; made themselves masters of tile gates of the city; hut failed in their attack on the citadel. Boucicault, informed of these matters, mo- derated his demand ; and asked the Florentines no more than 20(),000 florins for the Pisan citadel, and the castles which he still held in the territory o** Pisa. The Florentines paid him that sum : he was engaged to divide it with Gabriel Maria ; but, to rid himself of this claim, he accused Gabriel of a plot against the king of France, and caused him to be beheaded. The Florentines hoped to induce the Pisans to submit to them by negotiations; and they offered the most ad- vantageous conditions : but the Pisans, who proudly regarded themselves as the most ancient and illustrious of the Tuscan republics, and as having preserved, more than any other, their warlike courage, vigorously be- sieged their citadel, and retook it on the 6th of September. They afterwards demanded peace of the Florentines, offering to reimburse them the money they had paid : to facilitate the negotiation, they recalled from exile Giovanni Gambacorta, whose family had been always favoured by Florence, and named him captain of the people. But their offers were all rejected ; and the Pisans, forced to have recourse to arms, not only fought valiantly themselves, but eagerly sacrificed their whole fortune to purchase the services of the condottieri, whom they called to their aid from all parts of Italy. The war continued for more than a year: the Pisans successively lost all their fortresses and territory : their city was blockaded during the campaign of 1400"; and they courageously supported privations, maladies, and, finally, famine. But the chief whom they had elected did not show a like heroism : Giovanni Gambacorta se- cretly treated with the Florentines ; and obtained the gift of .00,000 florins, and the county of Bagno, to open to them the gates of Pisa; which was done in the night of the 8th and 9th of November, 140o. The Florentines did all in their power to reconcile the Pisans to the yoke winch tliey forced on them : their army was ore 208 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN KhrLBLICS. 1400. ceded into the famished towns by wagon-loads of bread, winch the soldiers distributed themselves to all that demanded it. Gino Capponi, the commissioner of Florence, promised, not only the strictest attention to justice, but privileges, and even friendship, to the con- quered people. These advances were all in vain; the Pisans were too haughty to submit to rivals whom they had so long combated. The most ancient and opu- lent families removed to Lucca, Sardinia, and Siciiy. The young men almost all engaged in the companies of adventure, to find in the camp an independence which they could no longer hope for in their own country: and Pisa, in losing its liberty, lost its commerce, popu- lation, and every remnant of prosperity. The Florentines endeavoured to relieve Pisa from its state of poverty, by filling it with foreigners : they of- fered it to the church for the meeting of the council which was to terminate the great western schism. This schism had lasted since the year 1378. Pietro di Luna, an Aragonese, one of the cardinals who had given rise to it, had succeeded Clement VII., who died at Avignon in 1394. The succession of popes in the other division of the church had been more rapid. Boniface IX., who had succeeded the turbulent Urban AT., in 1389, w- as a better warrior than churchman ; he reconquered successively all the states which hispredecessorliad lost: he entered Rome. and consolidated his power by executions. Innocent VII. , who succeeded him, in 1404, was a gentle and moderate man ; but as he abandoned the exercise of power to his brother, who governed only by terror, the number of executions drove the Romans to revolt. The pcpe was anew driven from his capital; but, returning in 1400", he died a few months afterwards, and Gregory XII., a \ e- netian, was named his successor. In both divisions of the church, the prolongation of the schism was considered dishonourable and calamitous to Christendom : in both the sovereigns were zealous to suppress it ; but on both sides the popes opposed an oDstinate resistance. They had heen each elected by 1409. COUNCIL OF PISA. £09 the two colleges of cardinals, under the express condi- tion that each would he ready to cede his rights, and abdicate at the same time with his competitor. They either refused, or by a thousand artifices delayed, to do 00. Benedict XIII. was besieged in his palace at Avignon by the troops of the king of France, in order to constrain him to yield : but, after he had declared himself ready to abdicate, his adversary, (ire- gory XII., refused. Benedict, however, advanced as far as La Spezzia, and Gregory as far as Lucca, to meet in conference with their two colleges ; but both persisted in not taking the last step. Towards the end of 1408, their cardinals, losing all patience, left them, and assembled at Leghorn ; whence they issued a summons to convoke the oecumenical council at Pisa, in the month of .March following. This council, in which were assembled almost all the prelates of Christendom, after long discussion, condemned and deposed the two popes, on the 5th of June, 1409 ; and, on the 7th of July, the assembled cardinals of the two "obediences" named in their place a third, Alexander V. The deposed popes would not submit to the sentence of the council : both preserved a small flock of the faithful, — the one in Aragon, the other at Rimini and Naples. Gregory had retired to the first-mentioned town ; so that, instead of two, there were three popes in the western church. To terminate the schism, it became necessary to assem'ble a second general council; which, sitting at Constance, on the 1st of November, 1414, forced two of the popes to ab- dicate, and deposed the third. The church, at the same time, implored a reform ; to accomplish which, a third council was assembled at Basle, on the 23d July, 1431, and this laid the foundation of a new schism. While two or three pretenders to the pontifical chair were thus obliged to defend themselves against each other, as well as against their own cardinals and against all Christendom, the king of Naples profited by the confusion to take possession of nearly all the states of the church. That king was Ladislaus. son of 210 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 40 J. Charles III. da Duraz/.o. whom he had succeeded in 1386, being at that time only ten years old. Louis II. of Anjou, a minor, like Ladislaus, disputed the throne with him. The queen, Joan, when pressed by the Hungarians, had adopted Louis I., duke of Anjou, the brother of Charles V. ; who had entered the kingdom of Naples in 1382, and died there in 1384. He left one son, Louis II., then under age, to whom his mother and her partisans gave the title of king of Sicily. The war between these two children, directed by their mothers, ruined the kingdom of Naples during the latter part of the fourteenth century, and destroyed its in- fluence over the rest of Italy. It was not till 1399 that Ladislaus succeeded in driving out the princes of Anjou, and subduing the kingdom. He had grown up amidst civil war, receiving the hardening education of privation and danger, alternately seconded or obstructed by intrigue and treachery. He was brave, and had studied the art of war ; but was still more expert in dissi- mulation and perfidy. His ambition was unbounded, and hispassions unrestrained by any one moral principle. After short attempts to preserve Provence, and to acquire the crown of Hungary, to which his birth gave him a title, he judged it more advantageous to direct all his efforts against the states which bounded his dominions in Italy. In April, 1408, he took possession of Rome • and soon afterwards of Perugia. He conquered almost all the cities of the March, and of the duchy of Spoleto ; from thence he entered Tuscany, ravaged the territories of Arezzo and of Sienna, and took possession of Cortona. The Florentines, when they saw themselves thus at- tacked, without any subject of quarrel, by this ambitious and faithless prince, resolved on opposing to him Louis II. of Anjou. They recalled Louis from France, in 1409 j a "d offered a subsidy to aid him in recovering the crown of Naples. At the same time, they formed a closer connection with one of the two generals who then attracted the attention of all Italy. Among the nu- merous captains who had been formed in the school of I40f). THF BJIACCKSCHI AND SKOK-ZESCHI. 21 J Alberic da Barbiano, there were two regarded as infinitely superior to all others, from the progress which they had made in the art of war. Braccio da Montone, a noble of Perugia, had studied how to render his army man- ageable, by augmenting the number of officers, and by accustoming it to fight in detached bodies, which dis persed and rallied at will. The other was Sforza Atteu- dolo, a peasant of Cotignola, in Ilomagna, who at first distinguished for prodigious strength of body and un- daunted bravery, soon became equally distinguished in military tactics; but, instead of adopting the new method of Braccio, he applied himself to bringing the ancient system to perfection. He continued to move his army in large masses ; which no one conducted with such unison and steadiness. Braccio distin- guished himself by impetuous valour, by prompt and decisive action, and sometimes by trusting to chance : Sforza, by prudent, steady, and cool conduct. All the soldiers of fortune in Italy soon attached themselves to one or other of these two captains ; who, nearly of the same age, and having made their first campaigns together, now- found themselves opposed to each other in a rivalry of interest and glory. The name of the Bracceschi school was given to the band of soldiers of the one, and Sforzeschi 'o the other ; and, when a state called one of these into its service, it was nearly sure of having the other op- posed to it. The Florentines formed a close connection with Brac- cio : they placed him at the head of their army ; and they settled on him a considerable pension, which was to continue even when out of their service, provided he always returned to it when called upon. Louis of Anjou rendered them but little service : he was engaged in K mkdici. 225 same time, cultivated literature with ardour. His palace, one of the most sumptuous in Florence, was the resqrt of artists, poets, and learned men ; of those, among others, who about this time introduced the Platonic philosophy into Italy. The opulence of Cosmo tie' Medici was always at the service of his friends. There were very few poor citizens at Florence to whom his purse was not open. Cosmo de' Medici had no thought of reviving the doctrine of his ancestors, respecting the right of the lowest order of citizens to enter the magistracy. He expressed no democratic opinions, although he severely criticised the government and its measures, whilst under the direction of Rinaldo degli Albizzi. He wished to have seen adopted other alliances and another policy. He asserted that, since the death of Nicolo da Uzzano, in 1427, the security of the state had been endangered by imprudent wars, and the finances dilapidated by the robbery of the commissaries, particularly in the ex- pedition against Lucca. Constant opposition and accu- sation at last so provoked Rinaldo, whose character was impetuous and violent, that he determined on proceed- ing against Cosmo as a state criminal. In the month of September, 1433, a signoria, drawn by lot, was found to be composed of the most devoted creatures of the Albizzi. Bernardo Guadagni presided at it as gonfa- lonier. On the 7th of September, he summoned Cosmo de' Medici to present himself at the palace, and render an account of his conduct; and, on his arrival there, committed him prisoner to the tower of the clock. The people were immediately called to a parliament by the tolling of the great bell. The Florentines had preserved, from the first period of their republic, the custom of these parliaments, in which the whole popu- lation assembled in the public square. Without its being nece.-sary to make those present prove that they were citizens, and without securing any guarantee to the feeble against the powerful, tiny voted by acclamation on what was proposed by the signoria. In consequence 226 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. l4?3 of the sovereignty of the people, the parliament was regarded as superior to all law, to the constitution itself, and even to justice ; when warned of some great national danger which justified revolutionary measures, it was sup- posed to be invested with the whole power of the state, to be raised above all rule : but experience proved that the parliament always sanctioned every revolution, and that tile sovereignty of the people lent its name to every act of tyranny. As such a parliament could not deliberate, it was required to transmit its power to a bulla, or com- mission, which it invested with all the rights possessed by the Florentine people themselves. Rinaldo degli Al- bizzi presented a list of the names of those of whom he wished the balia to be composed ; about two hundred in number. The balia obtained the purses from which were to be drawn the names of the magistrates. They excluded whom they pleased ; they entered new names ; they condemned to exile Cosmo de' Medici and his friends. Albizzi had reckoned on Cosmo's being exe- cuted : he accused Bernardo Guadagni of having received money from his enemy to spare him ; and regarded as a defeat the incomplete vengeance which he had just wreaked. The event justified his fears. Precisely a year af- terwards, in the month of September, 1434, a new si- gnoria was drawn, with Nicolo Donati president, and entirely favourable to Cosmo de' Medici. The balia, notwithstanding its partiality, had not dared to exclude from the magistracy all the eminent men attached to that great citizen. Donati, in his turn, summoned to the palace, Rinaldo degli Albizzi and his friends ; who, instead of obeying, endeavoured to defend themselves . but the same people who had voted for them in the last parliament, so far from taking arms at their call, ap- peared at a new one convoked by Donati, — where they showed the same docility, — where they approved in the same manner by their acclamation another baiia pre- sented by the gonfalonier: and this was no sooner con- stituted, than Cosmo de' Medici, with all his friends, 144.". RISE OF tHANCESCO SFOHZA. %%" were recalled ; and Itinaldo Albizzi, with all his party exiled. Albizzi sought an asylum with Filippo Maria, duke of Milan, on whom, as long as he had directed the republic, he had always made war. Forgetting the danger which he had often foretold to liberty in the aggrandisement of the Visconti, and believing, like all exiles, that his country could never submit to be with- out him, but would rise in his favour on his approach, he pressed Filippo to make war on Florence. The war actually broke out in the same year. Nicolo Piccinino, the successor of Braccio, whom the duke of Milan had placed at the head of his armies, repeatedly penetrated into Tuscany : but the presence of Albizzi, who accom- panied him, produced no effect. Francesco Sforza was opposed, on the side of the Florentines, to Piccinino. Sforza had formed an intimate friendship with Cosmo de' Medici ; he had often in his need had recourse to the purse of the rich banker ; and he already laboured to rise from the rank of condottiere to that of sovereign. In 144.">, he had made the pope, Eugenius IV., cede to him the March of Ancona, in recompence for his services against the pope's subjects ; and he purposed, in making himself feared by Filippo Maria, to obtain in marriage his only but illegitimate daughter, who would bring him in dower at least some fragments of the duchy of Milan. During the remainder of the reign of Filippo Maria, he was habitually at war with the two republics of Venice and Florence. lie was desirous of recovering from the former the Brescian and Bergamasque territory, which he had been forced to cede to the Venetians; and he resumed against the Florentines the project of his an- cestors, to extend the dominion of theViscontis over Tus- cany. Francesco Sforza and Bartolomeo Coleoni gave many proofs of their great talents in the service of the two republics. Nicolo Piccinino and his two sons, Francesco and Jacomo, showed not less ability in the service of the duke of Milan. The last named, however, almost always lost ground by his distrust of his own Q 2 ^'.'8 HISTORY v/F TUB ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 1 17 generals, his versatility, his taste for contradictory in- trigues, his eagerness to sign peace every year, and to recommence hostilities a few weeks afterwards. The history of this war is rendered so confused by the secret practices of Filippo Maria, which most commonly seemed in opposition to his own interest, that we do not attempt to fix it in the memory. The duke of Mi- lan, in making peace with the two republics, on the 21st of October, 1441, granted their general, Francesco Sforza, his daughter Bianca in marriage, ceding with tier in dower the lordships of Cremona and Pontremoli. It seemed to be his purpose thus definitively to reconcile himself with Sforza : but it was impossible for this prince to remain firm in one resolution, or to preserve his confidence in those whom he had rendered powerful. He soon entered into the most complicated intrigues to deprive his son-in-law of all his lordships. The war was renewed between him and the two republics; and Sforza was again the general whom the republics put at the head of their combined army. He was still their com- mander in 1447, when Filippo Maria, pressed by the Venetians, menaced even in the country around Milan, and feaiing to lose his sovereignty, implored the aid of his son-in-law, promising him a sincere reconciliation. Francesco Sforza, who had just lost the March of An- cona by the secret practices of the duke of Milan, yet accepted these last offers. He renounced his ancient alliance with the Florentines and Venetians ; and, on the 9th of August, he set forward with his army from Romagna, where he then was, to the succour of his father-in-law. Arrived at Cotignola. the village of his family, — the village in which his father, after having thrown his pickaxe into the branches of an oak, to be decided either by its ominous fall, or by its remaining fixed, had seized the sword to en "age in a company of ad venture, — he there learned the death of the duke of Milan, which had taken place at his capital, on the 13th of August, 1 4-47. The war of Lombardy was complicated by its con- I 4-4-7. KING ALPHONSO AT NAPLES. 229 nection with anotlier war which at the same time ravaged the kingdom of Naples. The queen, Joan II., had died there, on the 2d of February, 1345; three months after the deatli of her adopted son, Louis III. of Anjou : by her will she had substituted for that prince his brother Rene, duke of Lorraine. But Alphonso, king of Aragotl and Sicily, whom she had primarily adopted, and who had advanced as far as Isehia, the more effectually to observe the events which might occur at Naples, claimed the succession, on the ground of this first adoption, as well as of the ancient rights of Manfred, lo whom he had succeeded in the female line. The kingdom of Naples was divided between the parties of Aragon and Anjou. The Genoese, who had voluntarily ranged themselves under the protection of the duke of Milan, offered their assistance to the duke of Anjou ; their ancient enmity to the Catalonians and Aragonese being further quickened by commercial jealousies. On the 5th of August, 1435, their fleet met that of Alphonso, before the island of Ponza. They defeated it in a great battle ; in which Alphonso had been made prisoner, with his brother, and all the first nobles of his kingdom. These prisoners were conducted to Milan, and there in a little time set at liberty, by an unexpected generosity of Filippo Maria ; whom Alphonso had made sensible how much the sub- jection of the kingdom of Naples to the French would endanger the independence of the duchy of Milan, as well as of all Italy. Visconti contracted not inly a close alliance with his prisoner, whom he liberated, but promised to aid him in ascending the throne of Naples. This alliance, however, cost him the lordship of Genoa; fur the Genoese, indignant at seeing the fruits of their victory carried off by the prince w hem they had chosen, rose on the 27th of December, 1 4>35, drove out the .Milanese garrison, and recovered their freedom. Al phonso, seconded by the duke of Milan, recommenced the war against Rene" of Anjou with greater advantage. On the 2d of June, 141-2, he took from him the city of 230 HISTORY uK THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS 144-7. Naples : from that time peace was re-established in that kingdom, and Alphonso signalised himself by a liberality which gained for him the surname of " the Magnanim- o is." No monarch ever showed more zeal in liter- ature, or granted a more constant and more enlightened protection to men of letters. He proved, by many noble actions, that he had profited by the lessons of antiquity which he admired and studied with so much ardour. He established himself amidst a people which he had conquered, but whose hearts he gained ; and returned no more either to Sicily or Aragon. He died at Naples, on the 27th of June, 1458. Filippo Maria Visconti, at his death, left no legitimate successor : the distant relatives who bore his name were not descended from the princes his ancestors, who had usurped the seigniory of Milan ; and they had not been even thought of in the imperial bull which had insti- tuted the Milanese duchy in favour of Gian Galeazzo. This bull had expressly excluded women from the suc- cession ; who had, besides, never inherited any Italian seigniory. Accordingly, Valentina Visconti, sister to the last duke, and married to the duke of Orleans, and Bianca Visconti, the natural daughter of Filippo Maria, married to Francesco Sforza, had neither of them any right to succeed to the last duke. Upon the extinction of the male line of Visconti, on whom the republic of Milan had conferred the seigniory, the sovereignty legi- timately returned to the republic itself, which claimed its restoration. Four illustrious citizens, Antonio Tri- vulzio, Teodoro Bossi, Giorgio Lampugnani, and In- nocenzio Cotta, on the 14th of August, 1447, excited the people to insurrection ; and, with their support, re- constituted the Milanese republic. They, at the same time, engaged all the captains of adventure and men at arms who had been in the service of the duke of Milan to declare for them. The most illustrious among these were the two brothers Piccinino, sons of Nicolo, who had dial on the 15th of October, 1444; the three brothers San Severino, natural children of a princely 1447. revival of tiik Milanese: republic. 231 house at Naples ; but, above all, Francesco Sforza, who, with his brilliant army, entered the service of the re- public, upon condition that the republic should confirm ihe cession of Cremona, which his wife had brought to him in dower, and add to it the seigniories of Brescia and Verona, if Sforza succeeded in taking either or both those towns from the Venetians. An excellent opportunity then presented itself of restoring to Italy liberty and independence. In the country most exposed to the invasion of the transalpine nations there were three rich and powerful republics, — Milan, Venice, and Florence, — supported on one side by the warlike republics of Switzerland ; on the other, by the more feeble ones of (ienoa, Lucca, Sienna, and Bologna. An equitable alliance between them would have sufficed to secure Italy for ever from the barba- rians who menaced it on the side of France and Ger- many. The opulence of these three republics, their numerous population, and the devotion with which the citizens of free states always concur, with their whole power, in the defence of their country, would have been sufficient to render vain every foreign attack. Unhap- pily, the two men at the head of the republics of Flo- rence and Venice considered only a present and sordid advantage ; they had not the elevation of soul to prefer the future liberty of Italy; and they refused to admit the republic of Milan into a confraternity so desirable for the three states. Francesco Foscari, who was doge of Venice from 1 423 to 1457, had communicated to the republic, of which he was the chief, bis own warlike ambition. He had made it achieve the conquest of the Brescian and Bergamasque territory. He judged the opportunity favourable to detach new provinces from the duchy of Milan, or perhaps to subjugate the whole; and he re- jected all the advances of the Milanese republic, which ardently desired peace. Cosmo de' Medici, at Florence, also, so far from having, lile the preceding chiefs of that republic, a true love of liberty, began to aspire to "z32 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 144? become the prince of a country in which he had risen as heatl of the democratic party. He was so superior to his former associates, in wealth, in the number of dependants, in the deference shown him by foreign powers ; he was likewise so elated by the flattery of all the most distinguished men of letters; that he believed himself formed to govern without opposition, and with- out a. rival. Almost all the Italian republics had suc- cessively submitted to the influence of some family, which had raised itself above every other. The turn of Florence seemed at last come ; Cosmo was deter- mined the Medici should take the same rank there which the Bentivogli held at Bologna. He had him- self contributed to retain that republic, the ally of Flo- rence, under the domineering power of an usurping family. When Annibal Bentivoglio fell, on the 24th of June, 1445, by the hand of assassins, armed by the pope and the duke of Milan, Cosmo de' Medici supplied the Bolognese with another Bentivoglio, by disclosing an affair of gallantry which one of that name had with a Florentine lady of burgher family. The fruit of that intrigue was a son, named Santi Cascese, whom Cosmo de' Medici caused to be received as the head of the Bolognese republic. The moment was, in fact, come when the credit of the Medici was to prevail over the legal power of the Florentine signoria ; and in which they might, like the Bentivogli, transmit their usurped power, not only to their legitimate children, but to their spurious descendants. Cosmo felt no kind of sympathy for the newly forming lepublic at Milan, which vainly endeavoured to awaken in Italy the ancient enthusiasm for liberty : he was jealous, too, of the republic of Venice, which appeared to him to aspire to the dominion of the whole peninsula. By way of counterpoise, he pro- mised Francesco Sforza his support to mount the throne which had been filled by the duke of Milan. Francesco Sforza, who had evinced talents for war superior to those of the most distinguished captains of the age, possessed, at the same time, the frankness and 1418. PERFIDY OF FRANCESCO SFORZA. 283 the liberality which military habits produce. He was considered a man eminently true and generous ; his friends felt devotion to him, his soldiers enthusiasm. But it is not in the trade of captains of adventure that men can be formed to true honour. Francesco Sforza bhowed himself, more than once, perfidious even to his own lieutenants ; some of whom he put to death with great cruelty, for having only excited his suspicion. Bui what, above all, revealed his character, and, at the same time, his cleverness, was the address with which he, in turn, deceived the two republics which trusted him ; rendering their subsidies and soldiers subservient to his own elevation, and betraying them, one after the other, when he had gained his object. It was thus he won at once the admiration of his friend and disciple, Louis XI., and lost the esteem of all honourable men. The duke of Orleans, in the name of his mother, Valentina Visconti, advanced pretensions to the duchy of Milan ; and caused it to be attacked by French troops on the side of Asti. Sforza, not to commit himself with France, left the care of repelling them to Bartolomeo Coleoni, who served the Milanese, but not under the command of Sforza. Sforza, himself, in the mean while, on the lfith of November, 1447j took by assault Pla- centia, then the second city of Lombardy, and pillaged it with a barbarity from which it never recovered. He also employed himself in exasperating the dissension which began to manifest itself in the Milanese council. Trivulzio was a Guelph, Bossi and Lampugnani were Ghibelines ; and the hereditary hatred between their families envenomed their mutual jealousy. Trivulzio engaged the Venetians to offer peace to the republic of Milan, on condition of ceding to them Crema and the Ghiara d'Adda. The Ghibelines, excited by Sforza, refused to accede to the treaty, and caused it to be rejected by the council of 800: he, at the same time, strengthened their confidence by his victories. In the month of May, 1118. he took from the Venetians all they had conquered on the right of the Adda On v l'.i4> HISTORY OF THF, ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1449' the I7th of July, he burnt their fleet on the Po, near Casal Maggiore; and, on the 15th of September, he gained a great and last victory over them at Caravaggio, where he made nearly their whole army prisoners of war. Sforza, after these victories, thought the Venetians sufficiently subdued to prevent them from attempting to conquer a state which offered such vigorous resistance. He feared likewise that the Milanese might be too much elated to submit to him. He therefore released all the Venetian prisoners taken by him at Caravaggio; and on the 18th of October, 1448, signed a treaty with the Ve- netians, by which he guaranteed to them Brescia and Bergamo, and ceded Crema and the Ghiara d'Adda, on condition that they should aid him in making the conquest of the duchy of Milan, with all the territory attached to it under Filippo Maria. The Milanese, indignant at this treachery, soon perceived the extremity of their danger. Several of the condottieri in their pay, imagining they might derive greater advantages from an ambitious usurper than from a republic, preferred following the fortune of a captain so able and so fortunate as Sforza. Among the subject cities, also, there were many that, despairing of setting themselves free, desired, at least, that Milan, of which they were jealous, should, like them, be subject to a master. Placentia was the first to yield to Sforza ; Ahbiate-Grasso, Varese, Tortona, Alexandria, soon after successively opened their gates to him. Pavia had sub- nutted to him in the preceding year, while he was still in the service of the Milanese. In the month of February, 1 149, he took posession of Parma; in the September following, of Lodi and Crema. The Milanese, however, though so hardly pressed, were not wanting to themselvt s. They obtained some succour from the duke of Savoy ; and the richest citizens placing their whole fortunes at the service of the state, it was enabled to supply its militia with firelocks, then a recent invention, and a costly arm, but inspiring the cavalry with great terror. The republic of Venice perceived at last, but too late 1450. FRANCESCO SFOBZA DUKE OF MILAN. 23.5 that its own interests, and the independence of Italy, equally demanded of them to save the republic of Milan. On the 27th of September, 1449, they signed a treaty with the Milanese, by which they acknowledged the new republic, and assigned as limits to it the Adda, the Tessin, the Po, and the Swiss Alps : at the same time, they abandoned to Sforza seven of the largest cities of Loin- bardy, with their fertile provinces. Sforza believed him- self too near attaining his object to renounce it : he, however, sent his brother to Venice to declare his ac- ceptance of the treaty ; and, in conformity with the orders which he had received, he removed his army from Milan. The events occurred in the sowing season ; and he was desirous of inspiring the Milanese with confidence, to finish the sowing of their land, and thus consume the greater part of their grain. As soon as this operation was over, he hastily recalled his army ; he stopped the supplies of provisions, which the Milanese sent for in every direction ; and he renewed hostilities. The Venetians attempted to succour Milan; but he de- feated them, on the 28th of December. The famine which he produced soon became extreme : the people incapable of supporting it, rose on the 25th of February, 1450; and, on the 2f)'th, they opened the gates to Fran- cesco Sforza, proclaiming him duke of Milan. The Venetians still attempted, for some years after, to dispute his newly acquired greatness: in this view, they made alliance with Alphonso, king of Naples, and the duke of Savoy. But Cosmo de' Medici, who became daily more powerful at Florence, and who substituted private af- fection for the generous and ancient love of liberty, drew closer his alliance with Sforza, and sent him aid. Meanwhile, the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, on the 29th of May, 1453, spread terror throughout Christendom. The Italians began to feel the necessity of re-establishing peace among themselves, for the sake of their common defence against barbarians : and a treaty was accordingly signed at Lodi, on the J)th of April, 1454. Bergamo and Brescia, with the territory 230 history of tiii: itaman republics. i 4.52 thereunto belonging, fell to the Venetians ; hut U Fran- cesco St'orza was secured the duchy of Milan, in which Crema and the Ghiara d'Adda were comprehended. The consent of the emperor was wanting to legitimatise the title of duke of Milan to Francesco Sforza. But Fre- derick III. of Austria, who reigned since the 2d of Feb- ruary, 1440, positively refused to acknowledge him. The new duke, however, felt not the least uneasiness : he de- spised Frederick as a weak and indolent prince, incapable either of defending Germany or his hereditary states; and who thought of Italy only as a fair, in which to sell at auction titles, dignities, and investitures to the vanity of the great. In 1432, Sigismond had sold the title of marquis of Mantua to Giovanni Francesco da Gonzaga, for 12,000 florins ; on the 1 5th of May, 1452, Frederick III. sold, at a higher price, the title of duke of Modena and Reggio to Borso d'Este. This family did not obtain from pope Paul II. till nineteen years later the title of duchy for the seigniory of Ferrara, which they held from the church. Sigismond, and after him Frederick, sold, with the utmost effrontery, the titles of counts, barons, knights, imperial notaries, and the legitimatising of bastards, to all who would purchase them ; and Francesco Sforza, believing himself sure of obtaining a vain diploma whenever he asked for one, did not esteem it worth the price. Almost at the same time that the last attempt of the Lombards to recover their liberty failed at Milan, the last attempt of a Roman citizen to restore liberty to Rome was punished with death by pope Nicholas V. The liberties of Rome, as well as those of all the states of the church, had been lost, without the possibility of mark- ing the exact moment of their destruction. The senator and caporioni, or bannerets of Rome, had long adminis- tered the government of the republic, without having the limits of their authority, and of that of the pope, the first citizen of the state, properly defined. The former, in the oaths taken on entering office, instead of swearing obpdience to the pope promised him protection : they 1453. LAST STRUGGLE OF ROME FOR LIBERTY. 237 swore not to allow any one to touch his life or limh, or to infringe his liberty. These magistrates, as well as those of the other states of the church, were always elected by the people. The church was regarded as the protector of popular liberty ; and, when a city returned under its sovereignty, it always considered that it had recovered freedom. The pope, however, often made the people transfer to him the right of naming the senator oi Rome, or the rectors of the other cities of the church. During the long residence of the popes at Avignon, the court of Rome had forgotten its ancient, principles of liberty : its legates had assumed absolute power. The anarchy of Rome, the outrages committed by the nobles, the tyranny of several usurpers, had accustomed the people to the loss of liberty. They had frequently sought refuge, from a tyranny more cruel, in the absolute power of the prelates. Perugia, Bologna, and other cities, had often conferred the signoria on the legate, or the Roman people on the pope, with the suspension of all the rights of the citizen. The great western schism again shook the power of the pontiff's in the states of the church, a few years after they had been conquered by the cardinal Albornoz. The popes, unacknowledged by one half of the church, impoverished, and endangered, lived, nearly the whole duration of the schism, exiled from Rome, and most frequently dependent on the so- vereign lord of Rimini. Martin V., who was elected at the conclusion of the schism by the council of Con- stance, did not immediately recover the obedience of the Roman states : he passed the greatest part of his pon- tificate at Florence. Kugenius IV., who succeeded him on the 3d of May, 1431, again lost, in consequence of his turbulent, ambitious, and despotic character, several of the states that Martin V. had recovered, llis prime minister, the patriarch Yitclleschi, stained his reign with numerous acts of cruelty and perfidy : not one of the liberties of Rome, or of the states of the church, were any longer respected. Nicholas V.. who succeeded Eugenius IV. on the 6th 238 H1STOKY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 14.53. af May, 1447, was known at Florence under the name of Tomaso da Sarzana. He had been preceptor to Ki- naldo degli Albizzi, and afterwards the daily guest of Cosmo de' Medici. His knowledge in ancient literature, in the tine arts, and philosophy, caused him to be ranked among the most distinguished members of the society that assembled at. the house of that illustrious citizen But the studies of Tomaso da Sarzana had not destroyed the servile habits of his mind and education. Gram- marians, poets, and rhetoricians were, in this century, too much accustomed to regard themselves as clients or dependants on the rich and great ; to live by their bounty, and at their table; to receive from their mouths the word of command for their opinions and sentiments. Tomaso da Sarzana could not learn, in the palace of Cosmo de' Medici, to love or respect a liberty which his patron was secretly undermining, and of which he was labour- ing to deprive his country. After he bad obtained the pontificate, he showed the same zeal for the progress of ancient learning, for collections of manuscripts, for trans- lations of Greek works, for the restoration of the monu- ments of antiquity, and for the encouragement of contemporary artists, that had distinguished him in a more humble career. But Nicholas V. rejected impa- tiently all opposition, all control of his will : he deter- mined on seeing in the Romans only submissive subjects, to whom he denied all participation in the government. Stefano Porcari, a Roman noble, willing to profit by the interregnum which preceded the nomination of Nicholas V., to make the Roman citizens demand the renewal and confirmation of their ancient rights and privileges, was denounced to the new pope as a danger- ous person ; and, so far from obtaining what he had hoped, he had the grief to see the citizens always more strictly excluded from any participation in public affairs. Those were entrusted only to prelates, who, being pre- pared for it neither by their studies nor sentiments, suffered the administration to fall into the most shame- ful disorder. 14!»3. DEATH OF STEFANO POnCAIlI. 239 in an insurrection of the people in the Piazza Navona, arising from a quarrel which began at a bull-fight, Stefano Porcari endeavoured to direct their attention to a more noble object, and turn this tumult to the advantage of liberty. The pope hastily indulged all the fancies of the people, with respect to their games or amusements ; but firmly rejected all their serious demands, and exiled Por- cari to Bologna. The latter hoped to obtain by conspiracy what he had failed to accomplish by insurrection. There were not less than 400 exiled Roman citizens : he per- suaded them all to join him, and appointed them a ren- dezvous at Home, for the 5th of January, 1453, in the house of his brother-in-law. Having escaped the vigil- ance of the legate of Bologna, he proceeded there him- self, accompanied by 300 soldiers, whom he had enlisted in his service. The whole band was assembled on the night of the appointed 5th of January ; and Stefano Porcari was haranguing them, to prepare them for the attack of the capitol, — in which he reckoned on re- establishing the senate of the Roman republic, — when, his secret having been betrayed, the house was sur- rounded with troops, the doors suddenly forced, and the conspirators overcome by numbers before their arms had been distributed. Next morning, the body of Stefano Porcari, with those of nine of his associates, were seen hanging from the battlements of the castle of St. Angelo. In spite of their ardent entreaties, they had been denied confession and the sacrament. Eight days later, the execu- tions, after a mockery of law proceedings, were renewed, and continued in great numbers. The pope succeeded in causing those who had taken refuge in neighbouring "*utes to be delivered up to him ; and thus the last sptrk of Roman liberty was extinguished in blood. £40 HISTORY Oh' THE ITALIAN KKPL'BLICS. 1464s. CHAP. XI. ITAi.r LOSES THE GREAT MEN' WHO GAVE LUSTRE TO THE PRE. CEDING PERIOD. THE REPUBLIC OF FLORENCE ENSLAVED KV THC MEDICI. WAR OF THE VENETIANS AGAINST THE TURKS. CONQUEST OF CYPRUS. Thi; generation which witnessed the taking of Con- stantinople by the Turks, was absorbed by the danger with which this terrible calamity menaced Italy. That country saw on its confines the dominion of the Turks : the banner of the crescent floated over the whole eastern coast of the Adriatic ; from the extremity of the Morea to the rugged mountains of Bosnia. Italy was alarmed every year by the conquest and destruction of some Christian kingdom, or by the taking and sacking of some flourishing city. It became filled with emigrants, from the palaces or convents of the whole eastern world. These emigrants were still full of the recollections of a civilisation not inferior to that of Italy herself. They felt the same ardour for ancient literature and science ; they were equally habituated to the luxuries and charms of life; while, at the same time, they had escaped from scenes of desolation, massacre, and martyrdom, which their imagination vividly retraced as being about to be repeated in the country which gave them hospitality. On this plea, they implored pity and aid from those to whom they exposed their wretched- ress ; and their benefactors themselves felt that the hour of Italy was near when the knell of Greece had tolled. The Turks arrived in Europe with an organisation wholly military, that seemed to ensure them a continu- ation of new conquests. Still intoxicated with the re- ligious fanaticism of their prophet, which had been revived by cemmunicating it to a. new nation and 1453. THE TURKS THREATEN ITALY. ij -H monarchy, they believed that they secured their salva- tion by the destruction of infidels. Always aggressors, they marched to battle to gain heaven rather than the riches of the earth. The Turkish horseman was un- equalled in the use of his scimitar, and in the precision with which he managed his horse ; which, running at full speed, stopped, turned, and returned, with a docility which the Latin cavalry could never attain. The new militia of the janissaries was, at the same time, the best infantry in Europe ; the most steady and the most in- trepid ; the only disciplined force at a period when there were no troops of the line in the west. Finally, the artillery of the Turks was more numerous, and better served, than that of the western nations. Industry was not annihilated in the countries which they had conquered : they knew how to profit by the arts which had been carried to perfection in those countries ; and thus united the knowledge of civilised people with the courage of barbarians. The report soon spread at Rome, that the same Mahomet who had conquered Constantinople, had vowed to enter also as conqueror the ancient capital of the world, in order to destroy there what he called the idolatry of the Christians. The fears of Italv were augmented by the conscious- ness of the want of great leaders. During the fi-st pjarter of the century after the taking of Constantinople, all those who had directed with so much glory the powerful states of that country had disappeared, one after the other, without being any where replaced by successors worthy of them. No great name any longer inspired confidence ; no great character undertook the direction of government ; no generous sentiment ani- mated the people, who passed alternately from fear to languor ; and the country, which had till then pre- sented a scene glowing with so much life, exhibits a continual conflict of selfish interests, to the entire ex- clusion of every nobler passion. The first among the eminent men who quitted the scene in Italy was the old doge, Francesco Foscan R 242 HISTORY OF TJIE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1J53. He had directed the republic of Venice for the space of thirty-four years ; and, by communicating Ins ambition to his fellow-citizens, had excited them to the conquest of a part of Lombardy. The council of ten did not, it appears, pardon Foscari an influence and glory which had changed the spirit of the republic, and had drawn n into the whirlpool of Italian politics, of which till tlien it had kept clear. The jealous aristocracy of Venice could not endure that the chief of the state should acquire the respect and affection of the people ; he was made to expiate by domestic grief the lustre attached to his name. Jacopo Foscaiji, the son of the doge, was accused, in 1445, of having received money from the duke of Milan. The informer was a Florentine exile of bad repute : nevertheless, as it was the rule of Venice ro act upon every suspicion, however slight, in matters concerning the safety of the state, the son of the doge was put to the torture. His sufferings forced from him an avowal ; and he was condemned to exile. A con- fession thus extorted leaves the guilt of the accused uncertain, while the barbarous means by which such evi- dence is obtained places beyond doubt the criminality of the judges. Jacopo Foscari was, probably, as guiltless on this occasion as he was five years later, when he was again tortured and condemned. One of the judges who presided at his first trial was assassinated in 1450, and it was suspected that the murderer was an emissary of Jacopo. Jacopo was accordingly declared guilty, and the period of his exile prolonged. His innocence, how- ever, was soon afterwards proved, the assassination hav- ing been acknowledged by another person, who declared that Jacopo had no share in the murder. On receiving the news of this disclosure, the son of the doge, in exile at Canea, entreated his judges to allow him to return to Venice. He preserved for a country, where he had twice been put to the torture, and twice branded with infamy, the passionate attachment so characteristic of the Venetians. He had only one wish, one hope, — that of carrying back to Venice his bones broken by I4f>7. DEPOSITION OF FOSCARI. 243 khe executioner, and dying beside his aged father, his mother, his wife, and children, on the spot which had given him birth. Unable to soften his judges, he wrote to beg the duke of Milan to intercede for him : the letter was intercepted, and transferred to the council of ten. He declared, that this was what he expected ; that he wished to awaken fresh suspicion, as the only means of being restored to home. He was brought back to Venice as he desired. His third criminal pro- secution began, like the two others, with torture ; and it was at this terrible price that he purchased the happiness of once more embracing his parents, wife, and children. He was again sent back to die at Canea. Fifteen months afterwards, on the 23d of October, 1457, his father was deposed from his functions of doge, on the ground of incapacity from extreme age. The old man died while listening to the tolling of the bell for the inaugur- ation of his successor. No one who succeeded to the ducal throne ever ventured, from that time, to provoke the jealousy of the aristocracy. The next great man whom Italy lost, after the doge Foscari, was Alphonso of Aragon, king of Naples : he died on the 27th of June, 1458, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. He had constantly inhabited Italy, or the adjoining isles, since the year 1420, when he was adopted by queen Joan II., and became completely Italian. He proved it by his zeal for reviving literature ; by the pro- tection which he granted to men of letters ; by his ad- miration of the ancients. He deserved the title of Magnanimous, which had been given him by his people. No sovereign of Naples had been so much beloved, or had done so much good to that fine country. Alphonso left to his brother John, king of Navarre, his kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, Sardinia, the Balearic Isles, and Sicily. But he regarded the kingdom of Naples, which he had conquered, as belonging im- mediately to himself; and he left it to Ferdinand, the offspring of his love. The queen wife of Alphonso. believed that this son was born of Marguerite de llijar ; £4i HISTORY OK THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1458. and put her to death by smothering. The victim was said to have sacrificed her reputation to save that of a more illustrious person. Alphonso never forgave his wife this atrocity ; he did not punish her, hut he bade her an eternal adieu. He sent her back to Spain, whither he vowed never to return. He legitirnatised Ferdinand ■ and caused him to be acknowledged his successor by the three orders of the Neapolitan nation assembled in parliament, and by the pope, lord paramount of the kingdom. Ferdinand had scarcely mounted the throne before he showed he in no ways merited the predilection of his father. He was avaricious, cruel, and perfidious. He soon alienated all the Neapolitan barons ; and his long reign was passed in repressing the conspiracies of his vassals. These last called to their aid John, duke of Calabria, the son of Rene of Anjou, who had been formerly the competitor of Alphonso. The duke of Calabria, in his enterprise to place his father on the throne of Naples, believed that he should be assisted both by Francesco Sforza, — who, before he was duke of Milan, had long fought, as his father had done before him, for the party of Anjou, — and by the Florentine re- public, which had always been devoted to France. But Sforza judged that the security and independence of Italy could be maintained only so long as the kingdom of Naples did not fall into the hands of France. The French were already masters of Genoa and the gates of Italy : they would traverse in every direction, and hold in fear or subjection every state in the peninsula, if they should acquire the sovereignty of Naples. For these reasons Sforza resisted all his friends, dependants, and even his wife, who vehemently solicited him for the house of Anjou : he also brought Cosmo de' Medici over to his opinion ,• and thus prevented the republic of Florence from seconding a party towards which it found itself strongly inclined. The duke of Calabria, who had entered Naples in 1459, had begun successfully; but, receiving no assistance from abroad, he soon wearied and ex- hausted the people, who alone had to furnish him with 145b. FERDINAND, KIN« OF NAPLES. 245 supplies. He lost, one after the other, all the provinces which had declared for him ; and was finally, in 1464, constrained to abandon the kingdom. Ferdinand, to strengthen himself, kept in dungeons., or put to death, all the feudatories who had shown any favour to his rival : above all, he resolved to be rid of the greatest captain that i-till remained in Italy, Jacopo I'iccinino, the son of Nicolo, and head of what waj s'ill called the militia, or school of Braccio. He sent to Milan, whither Piccinino, who had served the party of Anjou, had retired, and where he had married a daughter of Sfoiza, to invite him to enter his service, promising him the highest dignities in his kingdom. He gave the most formal engagements for his safety to Sforza, as well as to Jacopo himself. He received him with honours, such as he would not have lavished on the greatest sovereign. After having entertained him twenty-seven days in one perpetual festival, he found means to separate him from his most trusty officers, caused him to be arrested in his own palace, and to be immediately strangled. This happened on the 24th of June, 146.5. A few months after the duke of Calabria had quitted the kingdom of Naples, the great citizen, Cosmo de' Me- dici, who governed Florence, died, in his seventy-fifth year, on the 1st of August, 1464. It was then thirty years since he had been recalled to his country, by the same revolution that had banished the Albizzi. By his authority during that long space of time, he had com- pletely allayed the fermentation which formerly agitated that republic. The constitution had not apparently changed: the executive power was still entrusted to a gonfalonier and eight priori ; who, during the two months they were in office, did not quit the public- palace. The judicial power was still exercised by two or three rectors, aliens to the state, who, under the titles of Captain of the people, of Podesta, and of Bargello, were invested with unlimited power over the lives of the citi- zens. They were chosen eacli year from some friendly « 3 2Ui HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1458. city ; they arrived with tVeir judges, Serjeants, anil all their officers of justice ; they received a munificent salary: but, on leaving office, they were obliged to render an ac- count of their administration before a syndicate charged with the examination of their conduct. Finally, the laws could not be executed without the triple sanction of the college, of the council of the people, and of the common council. But the Florentines had in vain preserved all this outward scaffolding of popular power. Inequality took birth from the immeasurable progress of wealth ; and the citizens felt the distance between individuals among them too enormous to retain the sentiment of equality even in their political rights. The revenues of many Florentine citizens surpassed those of the greatest mon- archical princes. Their palaces, which are to this clay the object of our admiration, already displayed all the prodigies of art ; at the same time that they presented, with the crowd of servants who filled them, the aspect of fortresses, within which public justice dared not penetrate. Artisans no longer claimed any participa- tion in political power; and even citizens of easy fortune no longer felt themselves independent. They knew that the credit and protection of their richer fellow-citizens had become necessary to the prosperity of their industry. It was in consequence of this great inequality that a close aristocracy possessed itself of the whole direction of the state. It acknoAvledged as chiefs Cosmo de' Medici, the richest of the Italians, and Neri Capponi, the ablest statesman of Florence. The former made the most liberal use of his fortune : he built palaces, churches, and hospitals on all sides. He was profuse of gifts, loans, and his credit to the poorest of the citizens. He granted pensions to the learned, and to artists. He collected manuscripts from the Levant and all parts of Europe, and had them copied. Men cele- brated his taste and acquirements. Without having written any thing himself, he passed for a man of letters; and the rerival of the Platonic philosophy was attributed to him. in consequence of the translations made bv Ids 14-58. LAST YEARS OF COSMO DE' MEDICI. 2+7 direction. While Cosmo de' Medici thus fixed the public attention by his private life, Neri Capponi gained the suffrages of the people by his public conduct. Charged, as ambassador, with every difficult negoti- ation, — in war, with every hazardous enterprise, — he participated in all the brilliant successes of the Floren- tines, as well during the domination of the Albizzi as during that of the Medici. From the year 1434 to 1455, in which Neri Capponi died, these two chiefs of the republic had six times assembled the parliament to make a balia ; and, availing themselves of its authority, which was above the law, they obtained the exile of all their enemies, and filled the ballotting purses of the magistracy with the names of their own partisans, to the exclusion of all others. It appears that all the efforts of their administration were directed towards calming the passions of the public, and maintaining peace without, as well as repose within, the state. They had, in fact, succeeded in preventing Florence from being troubled with new factions, or engaged in new wars ; but they drew on the republic all the evils attending an aristocratic government. Medici and Capponi had not been able to find men who would sacrifice the liberties of their country without allowing them to gratify their baser passions. These two heads of the republic, therefore, suffered their subordinate agents to divide among themselves all the little governments of the subject cities, and every lucra- tive employment ; and these men, not satisfied with this first injustice, made unequal partitions of the taxes, in- creasing them on the poor, lowering them on the rich, and exempting themselves. At last they began to sell their protection, as well with respect to the tribunals as the councils : favour silenced justice ; and, in the midst of peace and apparent prosperity, the Florentines felt their republic, undermined by secret corruption, hastening to ruin. When Neri Capponi died the council refused to call a new parliament to replace the balia, whose power ex- pired on the 1st of July, 1455. It was the aristocracy it 1 248 HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 158. itself, comprehending all the creatures of Cosmo de Medici, that, from jealousy of his domination, wished to return to the dominion of the laws. The whole republic was rejoiced, as if liberty had been regained. The elec- tion of the signoria was again made fairly by lot, — the catasto was revised, — the contributions were again equi- tably apportioned, — the tribunals ceased to listen to the recommendations of those who, till then, had made a traffic of distributive justice. The aristocracy, seeing that clients no longer flocked to their houses with hands full, began to perceive that their jealousy of Cosmo de' Medici had only injured themselves. Cosmo, with his immense fortune, was just as much respected as before: the people were intoxicated with joy to find themselves again free ; but the aristocracy felt themselves weak and abandoned. They endeavoured to convoke a par- liament without Cosmo ; but he baffled their efforts, the longer to enjoy their humiliation. He began to fear, however, that the Florentines might once more acquire a taste for liberty ; and when Lucas Pitti, rich, power- ful, and bold, was named gonfalonier, in July, 14o8, he agreed with him to reimpose the yoke on the Flo- rentines. Pitti assembled the parliament ; but not till he had filled all the avenues of the public square with soldiers or armed peasants. The people, menaced and trembling within this circle, consented to name a new balia, more violent and tyrannical than any of the pre- ceding. It was composed of 352 persons, to whom was delegated all the power of the republic. They exiled a great number of the citizens who had shown the most attachment to liberty, and they even put some to death. Cosmo de' Medici was at this period sixty-nine years of age ; he reckoned that his two sons, now in the prime of life, would support his declining years: but Pietro, the eldest, was absolutely incapacitated by he- reditary gout. He could neither walk nor ride, but was carried about in an arm-chair: he was, besides, undis- tinguished by intellect or force of character. Giovanni, 3 464. PIETRO J>e' 5JEHICI. 249 the second, was endued with much more talent : it was on him that Cosmo had placed the hopes of his house ; but he died, in the month of November of the year 1 II).'). Lucas Pitti, rising to the eminence from which they fell, looked on himself henceforth as the only chief of the state. It was about this time that he undertook the building of that magnificent palace which now forms the residence of the grand dukes. The republican equal- ity was not only offended by the splendour of this regal dwelling ; but the construction of it afforded Pitti an occasion for marking his contempt of liberty and the laws. He made of this building an asylum for aU fugi- tives from justice, whom no public officer dared pursue when once he took part in the labour. At the same time individuals, as well as communities, who would obtain some favour from the republic, knew that the only means of being heard was to offer Lucas Pitti some precious wood or marble to be employed in the con- struction of his palace. When Cosmo de' Medici died, at his country house of Careggi, on the 1st of August, 14-64, Lucas Pitti felt himself released from the control imposed by the virtue and moderation of that great citizen ; on whose tomb the signoria inscribed, in the following year, the title of " Father of his Country." His son, Pietro de Medici, then forty-eight years of age, supposed that he should succeed to the administration of the republic, as he had succeeded to the wealth of his father, by he- reditary right: but the state of his health did not admit of his attending regularly to business, or of his inspiring his rivals with much fear. . To diminish the weight of affairs which oppressed him, he resolved on withdrawing a part of his immense fortune from com- merce; recalling all his loans made in partnership with other merchants ; and laying out this money in land. But this unexpected demand of considerable capital occasioned a fatal shock to the commerce of Florence ; at the same time that it alienated all the debtors of the house of Medici, and deprived it of much of its popu- 250 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. \ ^)0. larity. The death of Sf'orza also, which took place on the 8th of March, 1466, deprived the Medicean party of its firmest support abroad. Francesco Sforza, whether as condottiere or duke of Milan, had always been the devoted friend of Ccsmo. His son, Galeazzo Sforza, who succeeded him, declared his resolution of persisting in the same alliance; but the talents, the character, and, above all, the glory of his father, were not to be found in him. Galeazzo seemed to believe that the supreme power which he inherited brought him the right of indulging every pleasure — of abandoning himself to every vice without restraint. He dissipated by his ostentation the finances of the duchy of Milan ; he stained by his libertinism the honour of almost all the noble families ; and he alienated the people by his cruelty. The friends of liberty at Florence soon perceived that Lucas Pitti and Pietro de' Medici no longer agreed toge- ther ; and they recovered courage when the latter pro- posed to the council the calling of a parliament, in order to renew the balia, the power of which expired on the 1st of September, 1465: his proposition was rejected. The magistracy began again to be drawn by lot from among the members of the party victorious in 1434. This return of liberty, however, was but of short dura- tion. Pitti and Medici were reconciled : they agreed to call a parliament, and to direct it in concert ; to intimi- date it, they surrounded it with foreign troops. But Medici, on the nomination of the balia, on the 2d of Sep- tember, 1466, found means of admitting his own parti- sans only, and excluding all those of Lucas Pitti. The citizens who had shown any zeal for liberty were all ex- iled ; several were subjected to enormous fines. Five commissioners, called accoppiatori were charged to open, every two months, the purse from which the signoria were to be drawn, and choose from thence the names of the gonfalonier and eight priori, who were to enter office. These magistrates were so dependent on Pietro de' Me- dici J that the gonfalonier went frequently to his palace tf» l'lti('). FLORENTINE EMIGRANTS. 251 take his orders ; and afterwards published them as the result of his deliberations with his colleagues, whom he had not even consulted. Lucas Pitti ruined himself in building his palace. His talents were judged to hear no proportion to his ambition : the friends of liberty, as well as those of Medici, equally detested him ; and he remained deprived of all power in a city which he had so largely contributed to enslave. Italy became filled with Florentine emigrants : every revolution, even every convocation of parliament, was followed by the exile of many citizens. The party of the Albizzi had been exiled in 1434; but the Alberti, who had vanquished it, were, in their turn, banished in 1 4()() ; and among the members of boJi parties were to be found almost all the historical names of Florence, — those names which Europe had learned to respect, either for immense credit in commerce, or for the lustre which literature and the arts shed on all belonging to that renowned city. Italy was astonished at the exile of so many illustrious persons. At Florence, the citizens who escaped proscription trembled to see despotism esta- blished in their republic ; but the lower orders were in general contented, and made no attempt to second liarto- lomeo Coleoni, when he entered Tuscany, in 14()7, at the head of the Florentine emigrants, who had taken him into their pay. Commerce prospered ; manufac- tures were carried on with great activity ; high wages supported in comfort all who lived by their labour ; and the Medici entertained them with shows and festivals, keeping them in a sort of perpetual carnival, amidst which the people soon lost all thought of liberty. Pietro de' Medici was always in too bad a state of health to exercise in person the sovereignty he had usurped over his country: he left it to five or six citizens, who reigned in his name. Tomaso Soderini, Andrea de' Pazzi, Luigi Guicciardini, Matteo Palmieri, and Pietro Minerbetti, were the real chiefs of the state. They not only transacted all business, lint appropriated to them- selves all the profit ; they sold their influence and credit; 252 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 466. they gratified their cupidity or their vengeance : bur they took care not to act in their own names, or to pledge their own responsibility ; they left that to the house of Medici. Pietro, during the latter months of his life, perceived the disorder and corruption of his agents. He was afflicted to see his memory thus stained, and he addressed them the severest reprimands ; he even entered into correspondence with the emigrants, whom he thought of recalling, when he died, on the 2d of December, 146'9- His two sons, Lorenzo and Giuli- ano, the elder of whom was not twenty-one years of age, were presented by Tomaso Soderini to the foreign ambassadors, to the magistrates, and to the first citizens of the ruling faction ; which last he warned, that the only means of maintaining the influence of their party was to preserve the respect of all for its chiefs. But the two young Medici, given up to all the pleasures of their age, had yet no ambition. The power of the state remained in the hands of the five citizens who had exercised it under Pietro. While the republic of Florence thus lost its liberty, that of Bologna fell equally under the domination of the family of Bentivoglio. Its subjugation was still more disgraceful. No lustre whatever was attached to the name of Giovanni II. (Bentivoglio), who governed that state from 1462 to 1508. Having been left an infant by his father Annibal, killed in 1445, he was brought up by the illegitimate son of one of his relations, whom Cosmo de' Medici had discovered at Florence ; and received from him, as a paternal inheritance, the sove- reignty of his country. The republics of Sienna and Lucca, taking advantage of peace, had sunk into pro- found and obscure tranquillity : that of Genoa, wearied with internal convulsions, which followed each other incessantly, had lost all influence over the rest of Italy; continually oppressed by faction, it no longer preserved even the recollection of liberty. In 1458, it had sub- mitted to the king of France, then Charles VII.; and John of Anjou, duke of Calabria, had come to exercise 146'3. POLICV OF VKNICE IN THE EAST. 25$ the functions of governor in the king's name. He made it, at the same time, his fortress, from whence to attack the kingdom of Naples. But this war had worn out the patience of the Genoese : they rose against the French; and, on the 17th of July, 14(>1, destroyed the army sent to subdue them by Rent 1 of Anjou. The Genoese had no sooner thrown off a foreign yoke, than they became divided into two factions, — the Adorni and the Fregosi : both had, at different times, and more than once, given them a doge. The more violent and tyrannical of these factious magistrates was Paolo Fregoso, also archbishop of Genoa, who had re- turned to his country, in 1462, as chief of banditti ; and left it again, two years afterwards, as chief of a band of pirates. The Genoese, disgusted with their independence, which was disgraced by so many crimes and disturbances, had, on the 13th of April, 1464, yielded to Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan ; and after- wards remained subject to his son Galeazzo. The Venetians alone, at this epoch, preserved in ho- nour the name of republic in Italy ; but it was a republic without liberty. Their internal policy remains in the shade: their efforts for the defence of Italy against the Turks is all that is consigned to history. These efforts would have been more glorious, if they had better known how to govern their eastern subjects. Their possessions on the Illyrian coast, up to the extre- mity of Greece, were so extensive, — they comprehended countries the productions of which were so rich, the po- sitions of which were so strong ; of which one part of the population were so brave, the other so industrious ; that if the Venetians had frankly put themselves at the head of the Illyrian nation, — if they had governed them only with as much equity, with a protection as intelligent, as that with which they governed their conquered provinces in Lombardy, they would have founded an imperishable empire, in which civilisation would not have been lost : but the Venetians always regarded these establishments beyond Italy as the Spaniards, English, and Dutch, at a ?54 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 14G&. later period, have regarded their possessions in the two Indies. They not only did not allow the inhabitants the enjoyment of political rights, but they denied them those of humanity : if they allowed that they were men, they at least never permitted them to forget that they were considered as an inferior race to the Italian. In- stead of turning to account the superior intelligence and industry of the Greeks, they were determined to see in them no other qualities than those of cunning and per- fidy; and they appropriated to themselves, at the expense of the natives, and in their own towns, the monopoly of commerce. The Albanians and Illyrians, very different from the Greeks, were impatient of control, and de- spised the restraints of regular industry ; but they were energetic and brave. The republic would have found in them its best soldiers and sailors, if it had received them into its armies and navies on an equal footing ; but it persisted in considering them oidy as savages, to whom it yielded no confidence, always re- stricting them to the lowest ranks in the army ; and, when at last it consented to raise among them the light cavalry of the Stradiots, they were destined more to over-run and ravage than to defend the country. The Venetians sent an ambassador to Mahomet II. immediately after the taking of Constantinople, to redeem those of their countrymen who had been made captive in the capitul of the Greek empire. On the 18th of April, 1454, this ambassador signed a treaty of peace and good neighbourhood with the sultan, by virtue of which the republic was to support at Constantinople, as in the time of the Greek empire, a baile, who was to be at the same time its ambassador there, and the judge of all the Venetian subjects in the Levant. Mahomet II. took advantage of this peace to subdue successively the Illyrian or Greek princes whose independence had survived the fall of Constantinople. In 145S, he con- quered the kingdoms of Rascia and of Servia; in the same year he over-ran the duchy of Athens, causing the last duke, Francesco Acciaiuolo, a Florentine, to be strangled. I4f)3. TURKISH WAR. 256 111 1460, he despoiled the two Paleologi, brothers of the last emperor, bearing the title of despots of the Morea. In 146'2, he conquered Sinope, Cerasus, and Trebisond, little Greek states which maintained their independence on the borders of the Euxine sea. Jn 146'5, he subdued Wallachia and Moldavia, afterwards the kingdom of Bosnia, and the bannat of Sclavonia. During the same year, the war again broke out in the Morea, between the Venetians and Turks. The former had possessed, for a long period, several strong places in the peninsula, Coron, Modon, Argos, and Napoli di Mai- vagia. The commandant of Coron had received within his fortress a slave, who had stolen the treasury chest of the Turkish commander at Athens, and had divided the money with him : he refused to surrender the culprit, under the pretence of his having turned Christian. The Turks immediately commenced hostilities. Luigi Lore- dano, captain general of the Venetians, excited to revolt the Greeks of the Peloponnesus, and undertook jointly with them to defend the isthmus of Corinth ; but he suffered himself to be driven out of it the following year. He abandoned the Greeks who had joined him : they were all massacred, while he returned to seek refuge in his fortresses. The Venetians, notwithstanding this check, used their endeavours to form a powerful league against the Mus- sulmans. On the 12th of September, 1 Ki.'i, they con- cluded an alliance with Matthias Corvinus the liberator of Hungary: they reckoned on the powerful assistance of a crusade which the duke of Burgundy had promised t>> lead against the infidels, and which the pope Pius II. had caused to be preached in all the Latin countries. But when the pope visited the army, which he had ordered to assemble at Ancona, he found only a disorderly and cowardly troop, greedy of gain, clamorous for money and arms, on receiving which they immediately deserted. Pius II. himself, worn down by illness, expired at An- cona, on the 14th of August, 146*4. The few remaining crusaders immediately dispersed ; th i pope had engaged 25(i history of the Italian republics. 1466. the valiant George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, on the occasion of this crusade, to break the treaty of peace which he had made with the Turks, after twenty years of victories gained over them, from 1442 to 1462. Abandoned alone to those enemies whom he had so long braved, he lost, in 1465, nearly the whole of Epirus, which he had excited to insurrection against the Turks: he himself died on the 17th of January, 1466, in the Venetian town of Alessio, to which he had been driven to take refuge. Matthias Corvinus alone remained to the Venetians: by combating the Turks in Hungary, he prevented them from concentrating their forces against the republic; but the pope, Paul II., who had suc- ceeded Pius II., feared the reformers of Bohemia still more than the Mussulmans. He engaged Matthias Cor- vinus to turn his arms against the king of Bohemia, and depose him for having tolerated the Hussites. The Turks took advantage of the absence of this formidable antagonist to invade Croatia, in 146*9, and to massacre almost all the inhabitants. The year following thev, for the first time, equipped a fleet, with which they drove that of the Venetians out of the Grecian seas ; attacked Eubcea, which belonged to the republic ; took Negropont by assault, on the 12th of July, 1470, and put all the inhabitants to the sword. The Venetians, whose commerce extended through the known world, now attempted to find allies against Mahomet in the distant regions of Asia, situated to the east of Turkey. Their ambassadors, on this occasion, have written relations of their travels, which have been handed down to us ; and they, for the first time, revealed the eastern world to the Latins. Hassan Beg, or Hus- sun Cassan, who had conquered Persia from the descend- ants of Timour, in the year 1468, then threatened the Turkish empire. He had married a Greek princess of Trebisond : the Venetians sent to him as ambassador a relation of that princess, named Catterino Zeno, who, on his way to him, traversed with infinite danger Cara- niania, the little Armenia, and the country cf the Curds. 1472. THE VENETIANS SUBDUE CYPRUS. 2.*)7 This route was soon shut hy the Turks against other Venetians disposed to follow him : and Josaphat Bar- baro, Ambrosio Contarini, and others whom the republic successively sent to Hussun Cassan, attempted alter- nately either to join the caravans of the Mamelukes in Egypt, and traverse with them Syria up to the Persian Gulf; or to arrive by Germany and Poland at the Black Sea, and from thence enter Persia by Georgia and Mingrelia. When Contarini wanted to return to Europe, he was cut off from both these routes by the Turks, and obliged to venture along the whole length of the Caspian Sea, to pass the gates of Derbend, and reach Poland by Astracan and Muscovy. But these travels, wonderful for the fifteenth century, and giving a great impulse to geography, were of little advantage in the war : the communications were too slow and uncertain to admit the possibility of any concert in action between the Persians and Venetians. Their efforts to meet had no other effect than the ruin and pillage of several Greek cities of Asia. In 1472, Pietro Mocenigo laid waste Caria and the Isle of Cos ; he pillaged Satalia, Pamphylia, Smyrna, and Ionia. The following year he burnt Myra in Lycia, every where seeking news of Hussun Cassan, of whose defeat, near Trebisond, he at last heard. These two campaigns were stained with atrocious cruelties inflicted on the Greek Christians, subjects of the Turks, whom the Venetians pretended to deliver. At this period the Venetian admiral was diverted from the war against the Turks, by the part which he took in the civil wars that for twelve years desolated the island of Cyprus. James III. de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, at his death in 145S, left only one legi- timate child — a daughter — who, in the following year, married Louis, the second son of the duke of Savoy ■ he had also a natural son named James, who, with the aid of the soudan of Egypt, whose va>sal he ac- knowledged himself to be, seized the crown from his sister and the duke. James de Lusignan wan re| eatedly 258 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 147*. called upon to defend himself against his sister, to do which he stood in great need of money. A rich Vene- tian merchant gave him his daughter Caterina Cornaio in marriage, with a dower of 100,000 ducats. To render this simple citizen's daughter worthy a royal alliance, the republic adopted Caterina Cornaro, and pronounced her daughter of Saint Mark. The marriage was celebrated in 1471 ; and on the 6'th of June, 1473, James de Lusignan died, leaving his wife pregnant. The republic hastened to proclaim itself guardian of its adopted daughter, and of the child she might bear. This child died in a year after its birth ; and the republic again proclaimed that Caterina Cornaro inherited from her son, and that the republic, in its turn, should inherit from its daughter : regarding itself as eternal, it was sure of surviving Caterina, but it was not equally certain that she might not marry again, and have other children. To secure their guardianship, the Venetians had garrisoned all the cities of the island, since the year 1473; but this precarious possession did not sa- tisfy them. In 1489, they engaged the queen Caterina Cornaro to abdicate, and to retire to Asolo in the Tre- visan. It was thus the Venetian republic gained the kingdom of Cyprus, the crown of which it united with those of Candia and the Morea. The isle of Cyprus, rich in wine, corn, oil, and copper, was the most im- portant of the three. The Turks vainly besieged Scutari in the year 1474, and Lepanto the year following ; but in the same year (1475) Mahomet II. took and ruined the city of Caffa, the flourishing colony of the Genoese, in the Crimea. The Turks, afterwards masters of Bosnia, began, in 1 477 and 1 478, to threaten the states of the Terra Firma of the Venetians. They passed the Isonzo, and even the Tagliamento ; they laid waste the fertile countries of the patriarchate of Aquilea and of Friuli ; they massacred the people, or led them away captive ; and uitis began to make the Italians experience the horrors ai those wars of barbarians which depopulated before 1474. AGE OF CONSPIRACIES. 259 they enslaved the Eastern Empire. On the 15th of June, 1478, they took Croia, which had heen the capital of Scanderbeg, and massacred the inhabitants, in contempt of a capitulation. They afterwards renewed the siege of Scutari. The republic of Venice, aban- doned by all Christendom, exhausted by long exertions, and fearing soon to see the Turkish armies enter Lom- bardy, accounted itself fortunate in purchasing peace by giving up to the Mussulmans Scutari, together with several fortresses which it possessed in Illyria and the Morea. Such were the conditions on which peace was signed between the sultan and the republic, on the 26th of January, 1 4-79- CHAP. XII. FREQUENCY OF CONSPIRACIES. THE LAST RESOURCE OF THl ITALIAN PATRIOTS. THEIR ILL SUCCESS. CONSPIRACY OK THE PAZZI. THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORENZO I)E' MEDICI. HIS DEATH. Italy had reached the fatal period at which liberty can no longer be saved by a noble resistance, or recovered by open force. There remained only the dangerous and, most commonly, the fatal resource of conspiracy. So long as habits of liberty are preserved amongst a whole people ; so long as every class has an equal horror of slavery; a sudden explosion of the sentiment which fills every heart suffices to accomplish a revo- lution — to render vain the efforts of usurpers, or to overthrow a recent tyranny, though at the moment it may have succeeded in establishing itself. The despot, even when he has silenced by terror the people whom has oppressed and disarmed, always feels at war with them ; he has too much to fear from every class, to hope, with any chance of success, to attach any of them s 2 260 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 4? i>. to his cause. But when absolute power has been esta- blished long enough for the violence of its first origin to be forgotten ; when the majority of the men in the prime of life have been born under its yoke, and have never known a better state : the usurper finds himself supported by the inert part of the nation — by those who, incapable of thinking, or of investigating for them- selves, must be contented with borrowed ideas, and with blindly assenting to every doctrine which the govern- ment may promulge. With the loss of liberty is lost also that free and animated intercourse which warms the soul, and diffuses noble sentiments even among classes unenlightened by the knowledge of the past, or by the experience of foreign nations. In slavish coun- tries, the prince alone speaks, amidst universal silence : he dictates the proclamations of authorities, the sen- tences of the tribunals ; he even inspires the language to be uttered from the pulpit or the confessional : be- cause the disposal of the revenue is at his will, he appears as a dispensing providence ; and makes the people believe he gives all that he does not take from them. The indigent are grateful to him for the public charities ; the labourer, for the justice and police which protect his property. The populace of towns applaud the rigour which falls on the higher classes. The national pride takes offence at the foreigner who ex- presses his pity for an unhappy and ill-governed people ; and the vanity of the vulgar is interested in the support of what exists. If any memory of the period of liberty Is preserved amongst the ignorant classes, it only refers to unhappiness and pain. They have heard of the efforts, the sacrifices, made by their fathers in defence of the people's rights; but they see only the evils of the struggle, while the result, because it is not of a material nature, escapes their imagination. They con- clude that bread was as dear, and labour as painful, in the days of liberty as in their times ; and to the pri- vations thev endure were then added dangers and vio- lent catastrophes, of which fathers transmitted to then 1174. Till: POPULACE ATTASHED TO TYRANTS. 201 children some terrible details. Slavery, it is said, so debases man as to make him love it ; and experience confirms the maxim. Nations every where appear at tached each to its government in proportion to its ini perfections ; what is most vicious in institutions is every- where most liked ; and the most obstinate resistance is that which the people oppose to their moral advance- ment. Such, in particular, was the state of Italy towards tht end of the fifteenth century. The lower orders in the cities of Lombardy preserved no other memory of the period of liberty than that impressed on the imagination by some ruin, which their forefathers pointed out as monuments of ancient battles or of ancient violence. The peasantry, having never enjoyed any political rights, feared nothing but the scourge of war ; and prized a government in proportion only to its pacific disposition. Galeazzo Sforza, the more to excite the attachment of the people, moved more by the senses than by reflection, surrounded himself with the magnificence of the richest monarch. The Milanese people were grateful to him for the spectacle, without considering that they paid for it themselves. The Medici, whose authority at Florence was more recent, endeavoured still more to render them- selves popular, by keeping their fellow-citizens in a state of continual festivity ; the expense of which, at least in part, was supplied from their own patrimony. The sovereigns of the other states of Italy, also, in various ways succeeded in gaining the affection of the peasantry and of the populace of towns. The protection against Un- law extended to the guilty was one of the great means of seduction. The law threatened criminals with tin most terrible punishment : prosecutions began with tor- ture, and ended with the wheel. Nevertheless every village festival produced a murder ; and those who committed it were exactly the sort of determined men whom the tyrant most desired to have about him. liy shielding them from justice, he obtained from them and their families a grateful attachment, proportioned to die ■> 3 2f>2 HISTORY OF 1HK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1474- cruelty of the punishment which they escaped. These men, the most dangerous leaders of a rabhle, were therefore all devoted to the prince; and a call to the overthrow of his tyranny found no response either in the towns or in the country. On the other hand, all those who had any elevation of soul — who knew what their country had been, and what it had become — who could compare the servitude at home with the liberty abroad, — all those whom philosophy enlightened on the increasing moral degradation of men subject to absolute power, — could not resign themselves to the loss of liberty, which, they knew would be followed by the loss of vir- tue. They would willingly have resisted ; but soldiers, paid with their own money, shielded the tyrant within walls which their fathers had raised to protect their freedom. Social organisation, founded for the common good, was directed by an usurping hand for the oppres- sion of all. The right of the tribunals to punish, and that of the prince to pardon, were exercised in concert only to provide resolute assassins for the latter. Alliances contracted in the name of the country established a mutual guarantee of the usurpers against the people. No power existed which could be invoked by the enlightened citizen : though he had been assured that all endued with intel- ligence and virtue were on his side — that the whole of the wealthy part of the nation desired liberty — he knew that the tyrant could arm against it the whole ignorant and brutal mass of the people. It w r as resentment for the triumph of injustice and brutality — for the oppres- sion exercised by men governed only by the senses over all those actuated by the nobler sentiments of the soul, — that so frequently in this century obliged the latter to resort to conspiracy. The study of the works of the ancients, also, then pursued with so much ardour, con- ciliated universal approbation, almost admiration, for conspirators. Harmodius, Tiinoleon, Brutus, who with the dagger had restored liberty to Athens, Corinth, and Rome, were pointed out to youthful pupils as the avengers of abused law and justice — as the saviours of humanity; I4?0 SUItPllISE OF FKATO 263 murder, on the other hand, was so common, even men of honour felt so little scrupulous respecting it, that con- spirators were never stopped by any repugnance to shed blood : not only every prince and noble, but every ma- gistrate and citizen, throughout Europe, was ready to kill, in order to defend the smallest right, to overcomt any obstacle, to inspire fear, to give proof of energy oi to blot out an offence. Whoever kept servants, de- manded above all that they should be brave, and that they should wear arms for the execution of any san- guinary order in case of* need. It was because murders were generally committed by them, that domestic service did not degrade. Persons well born placed their children with nobles, as pages, footmen, and grooms, because they carried a sword, and their service was ennobled by the chance of spilling blood. So far from experiencing the repugnance we now feel to assassination as a means of delivering our country, men of the fifteenth centurv perceived honour in a murder, virtue in the sacrifice, and historic grandeur in conspiracy. Danger alone stopped them ; but that danger must be terrible. Tyrants, feeling themselves at war with the universe, were always on their guard ; and as they owed their safety only to terror, the punishment which they inflicted, if victorious, was extreme in its atrocity. Yet these terrors did not discourage the ene- mies of the existing order, whether royalist or republican. Never had there been more frequent or more daring conspiracies than in this century. The ill success of some never deterred others from immediately treading in their steps. The first plot was directed against the Medici. Ber- nardo Xardi, one of the Florentine citizens, who had been exiled from his country in the time of Pietro de Medici, accompanied by about a hundred of his par- tisans, surprised the gate of Prato, on the 6th of April, 1470. He made himself master of the public palace, and arrested the Florentine podesta; he took possession of the citadel ; and afterwards, traversing the street;*, 8 4 264 HISTOItY OF THE ITALIAN* REPUBLICS. 47ft. called the people to join him, and fight for liberty. He intended to make this small town the strong hold of the republican party, whence to begin his attack on the Medici. But although he had succeeded by surprise in making himself master of the town, the inhabitants remained deaf to his voice, and not one answered his call, — not one detested tyranny sufficiently to combat it, at the peril of the last extremity of human suffering. The friends of the government, seeing that Nardi re- mained alone, at last took arms, attacked him on all sides, and soon overpowered him by numbers. Nardi was made prisoner, led to Florence, and there beheaded with six of his accomplices ; twelve others were hanged at Prato. The conspiracy, which broke out at Ferrara on the 1st of September, 147 b", was directed by a monarchical party. The house of Este, sovereign of Ferrara, Mo- dena, and Ileggio, had successively for its chiefs two natural sons of Nicholas III.; — Lionel, who reigned from 1441 to 1450; and Borso, who reigned from 1450 to 1470. It was not till after the death of the latter, that their brother, Hercules I., legitimately born in marriage, suc- ceeded to an inheritance which had been strengthened and augmented under the reigns of the two bastards. It was Borso, in fact, who had caused an authority which his ancestors held from the people, to be sanctioned by the heads of the empire and the church. Frederic III. had named him duke of Modena and Reggio, and Paid II. duke of Ferrara. Borso had no children ; but Lionel left a son, named Nicolo, who, when Hercules took possession of the sovereignty, sought refuge at Mantua. Of all the princes of the house of Este, Lionel anil Borso had been the most beloved by their subjects. The gentleness of their dispositions, their generosity, talents, activity, and love of letters, had won every heart. Those who, for thirty years, had served these two princes, made it a point of duty to transmit their crown to the son of Lionel, and regarded the succession of Hercules as an usurpation. They 14?6. CONSPIRACY AT MILAN. 265 plotted to establish the rights of one whom they con- sidered the legitimate heir of the throne. On the 1st of September, 1476, they introduced Nicolo d'Este, with 000 infantry, into Ferrara, and, immediately dis- persing themselves through the streets, called upon the people to take arms for the son of their benefactor. But the people were indifferent between their masters, and would not incur the risk of punishment by de- claring for either in preference to the other : instead of flocking to their call, they fled, and shut themselves up in their houses. The satellites of Hercules, who, for a moment, had believed the revolution accomplished, re- covered courage, and attacked and vanquished Nicolo, who, with one of his cousins, was immediately beheaded : twenty-five of his accomplices were hanged. Girolamo Gentile, the same year, organised a con- spiracv at Genoa to throw off the yoke of the duke of Milan : it failed in like manner, because the people hesitated to join him, though he had already made himself master of the gates. Notwithstanding these fatal ex- amples, another conspiracy was formed the same year, at Milan, against Galeazzo Sforza, whose yoke became insup- portable to all who had any elevation of soul. There was no crime of which that false and ferocious man was not be- lieved to be capable. Among other crimes, he was accused of having poisoned his mother. It was remarked of him, that, enjoying the spectacle of astonishment and despair, he always preferred to strike the most suddenly and cruelly those whom he had given most reason to rely on his friendship. Not satisfied with making the most distinguished women of his states the victims of his seduction or his violence, he took pleasure in pub- lishing their shame — in exposing it to their brothers or husbands. He not unfrequently gave them up to prostitution. His extravagant pomp exhausted his fi- nances, which he afterwards recruited by the most cruel extortion on the people. He took pleasure in inventing new and most atrocious forms of capital punishment ; even that of burvinjr his victims alive was not the most 260 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 14?6. cruel. At last, three young nobles, of families who had courageously resisted the usurpation of Francesco Sforza, and who had themselves experienced the injustice and outrages of his son, resolved to deliver their country from this monster ; not doubting that, when he had fallen, the Milanese would joyfully unite in substituting a free government for a tyranny. Girolamo Olgiati, Carlo Visconti, and Andrea Lampugnani, resolved, in concert, to trust only to themselves, without admitting one other person into their secret. Their enthusiasm had been excited by the lessons of their literary instructor, Colas di Montano, who continually set before them the grandeur of the ancient republics, and the glory of those who had delivered them from tyranny. Determined on killing the duke, they long exercised themselves in tin- handling of the dagger, to be more sure of striking him, each in the precise part of the tyrant's body as- signed to him. Animated with a religious zeal, not less ardent than their republican enthusiasm, they prepared themselves by prayer, by vows to St. Stephen, and by the assistance of the mass, for the act which they were about to perform. They made choice of the 26th of December, 1476, St. Stephen's day, on which they knew that the duke Galeazzo would go in state to the church of the saint. They waited for him in that church ; and when they saw him advance between the ambassadors of Ferrara and Mantua, they respectfully approached him, their caps in hand. Feigning to keep off the crowd, they surrounded him, and struck him all at the same instant, in the midst of his guards and courtiers. Galea&zo Sforza fell dead under their weapons ; and the crowd which filled the church saw the tumult, and heard the cries, without comprehending the cause. The three conspirators endeavoured to escape from the church, to call the people to arms and liberty ; but the first sentiments which they encountered were asto- nishment and terror. The guards of the duke drew their swords only to avenge him. Lampugnani, in attempt- ing to avoid them, got entangled in the trains of the 14-78. CONSPIRACY OK THE PAZZI. 267 kneeling women, was thrown down, and killed by ar> esquire of Galeazzo : a few steps from him, Visconti also was put to death by the guards But Olgiati had the misfortune to escape, in this first moment, from alJ who pursued him ; and, running through the streets, called loudly to arms and liberty : not one person answered the call. He afterwards sought to conceal himself; but was discovered, seized, and put to the most excruciating torture. In the interval between that in- fliction and his death, he wrote or dictated the narrative demanded of him, and which has been handed down to us. It is composed in a strain of the noblest enthu- siasm, with a deep religious feeling, with an ardent love of liberty, and with the firm persuasion that he had performed a good action. He was again delivered to the executioner, to have his flesh torn with red-hot pincers. At the time of his martyrdom, he was only twenty- two years of age. The conspiracy of the Pazzi at Florence speedily fol- lowed that of Olgiati at Milan. Andrea de' Pazzi, one of the five uccoppiatori, who had exercised such great power under Pietro de' Medici, was dead ; but had left three sons, and several grandsons. One of these last had married a sister of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. Their fortune was immense : it was engaged in com- merce, which they carried on with great success. They con- .sidered that they had a right to be reckoned among those who held the first rank in their country ; but Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, on arriving at man's estat.-. en- deavoured to recover all the authority which their father had suffered to escape from his hand : they, in particu- lar, evinced an extreme jealousy of all those who, in his time, had administered the republic ; and although the family of the Pazzi then reckoned nine citizens, who, by their age, rank, and talents, were formed to sit in the eignoria, the Medici did not permit one of them to be called to it. One of the Pazzi had married the only daughter of Giovanni Borromeo, the richest citizen of Florence, to whose inheritance he was destined to sue- 2f>8 HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1478. ceed ; but, at the moment of Borrcmeo's death, the Me- dici caused a law to be passed, by which the male issue in the collateral line were called to inherit, in preference to daughters ; and they thus deprived Giovanni de' Pazzi of a fortune which he had looked upon as alread , his. Francesco de' Pazzi, his brother, whose temper was hot and impetuous, unable to endure such injustice quitted Florence, to establish himself at Rome. There the pope, Sixtus IV., made him his banker, and soon gave him his w r hole confidence. Sixtus IV. was of the house of Rovere, a plebeian family of Savona. in the states of Genoa. His election to the holy see was tainted with simony ; and he was charged with the most dissolute morals. He had four nephews, whom he had loaded with all the church had to give. He introduced two — Giuliano della Rovere, the son of his brother, and Pietro Riario, his sister's son — into the sacred college. He intended making princes of the two others, who were secular. He married Leonardo della Rovere to a natural daughter of Ferdinand : he made him prefect of Rome and duke of Sora. Girolamo Riario he married to a natural daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, duke of Milan ; after which he purchased for him the city and principality of Imola, to which he purposed to add some principalities of Romagna. This dilapidation of the patrimony of the church, to aggran- dise the nephews of the pope, was one of the most scan- dalous examples of what was afterwards called the nepotism of the court of Rome. But although Sixtus IV. was a corrupt man, he was not destitute of talents, nor even of a certain elevation of sentiment. He had at heart the support of the independence of Italy ; and lit believed it could be maintained only by republican forms of government, and with the aid of liberty, the value of which he had learned to appreciate at Genoa. He found himself constantly thwarted in his politics by the Medici, whether pursuing no higher object than the elevation of his nephews, or following a nobler one, he endeavoured to engage all the states of Italy to join in I l~8. GIVL1ANO DE* MEDICI KILLED. 2()t> a common league for its defence. This continual oppo- sition soon engendered hatred ; and Girolamo Riario and Francesco Pazzi laboured to render it more violent. Sixtus IV. finally promised all the pontifical forces to second a conspiracy, the object of which was to restore liberty to Florence by killing the two brothers Medici. The approbation of the pope alone determined Jacopo de' Pazzi, the eldest of the family, and the uncle of Francesco, to take part in a plot so dangerous. The Pazzi would not run the risk of being abandoned, as the conspirators of Milan had been, after the execu- tion of tlif plot, because no one knew their intentions, or were prepared to second them. Accordingly, tbey admitted vast numbers into their secret: amongst others, Francesco Salviati, whom the pope had named archbishop of Pisa ; but the Medici had refused to let him take pos- session of his see. It was necessary for the success of the conspiracy, that the two Medici should be struck at the same moment ; for if one survived, he would in- stantly be the avenger of the other. It was further advisable that some of the conspirators should occupy the public palace, and intimidate the signoria, while others called the people to liberty : four troops, to act simultaneously, were accordingly requisite. It was judged indispensable, also, that the two brothers should be in the same place, in order that the conspirators might stab them at the same moment. Raphael Riario, a son of the pope's nephew, a young man of eighteen years, whom the pope had just made a cardinal, and sent to Pisa, gave occasion, on his passage through Florence, to many entertainments ; in one of which, it was hoped, the brothers might be found together. But Giuliano was neither at the fete given by Jacopo de' Pazzi to the young cardinal at Montughi, nor at that which Lo- renzo de' Medici gave at Fiesole. The conspirators were, on both days, ready. The archbishop Salviati, with Ja- copo, son of the historian Poggio Rracciolini, and a numerous troop of conspirators, were to make them- selves masters of the nalace, and force the signoria to 270 HISTORY OK THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 147S. approve the revolution ; others, with Jacopo de' Pazzi. were to raise the people. Francesco Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini undertook to kill Giuliano, who, timid and suspicious, generally wore a cuirass under his robe ; and Gian Battista da Montesecco, the captain of a troop of adventurers, was appointed to despatch Lorenzo. The absence of Giuliano on these two occasions obliged the conspirators to defer the execution of their project to a religious ceremony that was to take place in the ca- thedral, and at which the two brothers must indispens- ably be present. It was agreed that the assassins should strike them as they knelt, at the moment that the priest, in performing mass, raised the host, and they, with all present, bowed down their heads. But Gian Battista da Montesecco declared, that though he had undertaken with pleasure to kill Lorenzo at a festival — for he w r as accus- tomed to murder — he could not offer the conspirators his assistance in a church, for he was not accustomed to sacrilege. All the others then refused to commit what began to appear to them an irreligious act ; so that they were forced to have recourse to two priests, Antonio da Vblterra and Stefano di Bagnone, who, accustomed to live in churches, and perform themselves all the offices, felt neither respect nor fear for sacred things. This caused the ruin of all. Every one was at his post when the Medici entered the temple, on the 26th of April, 1478: the brothers took their places at some distance from each other. The mass began : at the moment of the elevation of the host, Antonio da Volterra put his hand on the left shoulder of Lorenzo, the better to secure the blow he was to strike on the right side. The touch, however, made Lorenzo start up, and with his arm enveloped in his cloak, he parried the blow ; he drew his sword, as did his two esquires, and the priests fled. At the same instant Giuliano had been killed by Bernardo Bandini. Fran- cesco de' Pazzi, intending also to strike him, deeply wounded himself in the thigh; Bandini immediately ran towards Lorenzo, who escaped from him, and shut him- 1478. DESTRUCTION OF THE PAZZt. 571 self up in the sacristy. Seeing the people in a state of tumult, and despairing of success, Bandini immediately left Florence, and did not think himself safe till he had reached Constantinople. Salviati, meanwhile, also failed at the palace of the signoria : he had concealed his fol- lowers near the entry, the door of which shut with a spring lock, which his satellites were unable to open, when they were to rejoin him. He afterwards presented himself to the gonfalonier, but his troubled look and em- barrassed language so excited suspicion, that, without lis- tening to him, the gonfalonier sprang to the door, seized by the hair Jacopo Bracciolini, who was concealed behind it, delivered him to his sergeants, and was soon master of the other conspirators in the palace : he had them all instantly put to death, either by the dagger, or by precipitating them alive from the windows ; to the frames of which he hung archbishop Salviati, with two of his cousins and Jacopo Bracciolini. The two priests, who had failed in their attempt to kill Lorenzo, were pursued and cut to pieces by the friends of the Medici : lastly, Jacopo de' Pazzi, who had put himself at the head of the troop of conspirators, whose part it was to summon the people to liberty through the streetSj lost all courage, seeing that no one answered his call. He left the city by the llomagna gate ; but had not pro- ceeded far before he was stopped by a party of peasants, and brought back. In the mean time the friends of the Medici had called the populace to vengeance ; and to this cry, at least, they were not slow in answering : Fran- cesco, Rinaldo, and Jacopo de' Pazzi were hung at the windows of the palace, beside the archbishop ; all those who had any relation of blood or connection of friendship with them — all those who had shown any opposition to the government — were torn from their houses, dragged through the streets, and put to death. More than seventy citizens were torn to pieces by the mob, in these first days. Lorenzo de' Medici afterwards exerted all his ac- tivity to obtain the surrender of those who had sought refuge abroad: even Benardo Bandini was sent buck by 272 HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 476. Mahomet II. from Constantinople. The executioner did not rest till 200 Florentines had perished in con- sequence of the conspiracy of the Pazzi. The ill success of the conspiracy of the Pazzi strengthened, as always happens, the government against which it was directed. The Medici had been content till then to be the first citizens of Florence: from that time Lorenzo looked upon himself as the prince of the city ; and his friends, in speaking of him, sometimes employed that title. In addressing him, the epithet of u most magnificent lord" was habitually employed. It was the mode of addressing the condottieri, and the petty princes who had no other title. Lorenzo affected in his habits of life an unbounded liberality, pomp, and splendour, which he believed necessary to make up for the real rank which he wanted. The Magnificent, his title of honour, is become, not without reason, his surname with posterity. On the failure of the con- spiracy, he was menaced by all Italy at once. The pope fulminated a bull against him on the 1st of June, 1478, for having hanged an ardibishop. He demanded that Lorenzo de' Medici, the gonfalonier, the priori, and the balia of eight, should be given up to him, to be punished according to the enormity of their crime. At the same time he published a league, which he had formed against them with Ferdinand of Naples and the republic of Sienna. He gave the command of the army of the league to Frederic da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, and ordered him to advance into Tuscany. Lorenzo de' Medici, who was no soldier, did not join the army raised to defend him ; he was obliged to confide the command of it to Hercules d'Este, duke of Ferrara, who entered the service of the Florentines, but who soon gave them room to think that there existed a secret understanding between him and the enemy. The duchess Bonne of Savoy, the widow of Galeazzo Sforza, regent of Milan, was the only ally on whom Lorenzo could reckon. But the king of Naples, to prevent her from sending troops into Tuscany, undertook to raise enemies against 1479- GROWING DANGER OF LORENZO 273 her at home. He began by offering aid to the Genoese, who, wearied of the yoke under which they had volun- tarily placed themselves, rose and threw it off in the month of August, 1478. Having recovered their free- dom, they restored the title of doge to Prosper Adorno, who had previously borne it. Sixtus IV. in the month of January, 1479, succeeded in engaging the Swiss of the canton of Uri, to declare war against the duchess of Milan. These formidable moun- taineers obtained a victory, at Giornico, over the best Italian troops, to the astonishment, almost more than alarm, of the latter; who were made, for the first time, to appreciate the corporal strength and unconquerable courage of a race till then unknown to them. On the 7th of September, 1479, the Florentine army was defeated at Poggio Imperiale, by the duke of Calabria, who had there joined his forces with those of the duke of Urbino. Almost at the same time the brothers of Galeazzo Sforza, whom the duchess regent had exiled from Milan, re- entered at the head of their partisans, and accomplished a revolution in that city. They deprived the duchess of the regency; they punished her ministers and favourites with death, for having, as they said, abandoned the true interests of the state, and of the house of Sforza. They declared her son, Gian Galeazzo Sforza, of full age, though not more than twelve years old ; and the eldest brother, Ludovico, surnamed the Moor, undertook the direction of affairs ; from that time he was in fact the sovereign of Milan. The situation of Lorenzo de' Medici became critical : he found himself, without allies, attacked by all the torces of Italy. His enemies had successively ravaged the provinces of the Florentine states, and were already masters of his strongest fortresses. Even his friends at Florence began to tire of a war which the pope and the king of Naples declared they made only against him. The people, whose attachment was founded on his pro- digality and his public entertainments, showed, when Ids prosperity declined, that thty were ready to abandon T 274 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUUUC8. 1 i~[) him. He felt the full extent of his clanger when he was informed by the duke of Urbino, the general of the enemy's army, that, among his adversaries, the king of Naples and Ludovic the Moor were disposed to be recon- ciled to him. The dukes of Urbino and Calabria had not sufficient authority to make peace with him ; but they strongly advised him to go in person to Naples, and they furnished him with a Neapolitan galley at Leghorn to convey him. It was not without fear that Lorenzo put himself into the hands of such an enemy as Ferdinand, who had so often shown himself cruel and perfidious. He departed, however, from Florence, on the 5th of December, 1479; and was received at Naples with more friendship and respect than he had ventured to hope. He frankly acknowledged to Ferdi- nand his danger ; but he explained to him also his resources. Italy abandoned him ; but he placed his hope in France. Louis XL and Rene II. duke of Lorrain both pretended to inherit the right of the Angevins to the kingdom of Naples: they offered their alliance, and promised to send troops to Tuscany. Lorenzo endea- voured to convince Ferdinand of all the danger he incurred by the introduction of the French into Italy. He ac- knowledged that, for himself, he should derive no other advantage than that of injuring his enemies. He strongly represented how preferable it would be for both, to seek an arrangement between themselves, instead of opening their country to the incursion of barbarians ; and, finally, he offered him an indemnity in the republic of Sienna, which the duke of Calabria, son of the king, already coveted. That state had made alliance with the pope and ' he king of Naples against Florence ; had received, without distrust, the Neapolitan troops within its fortresses; and had repeatedly had recourse to the duke of Calabria to terminate, by his mediation, the continually renewed dissensions between the different orders of the republic. The duke of Calabria, instead of reconciling them, kept up their discord ; and, by alternately granting succour to each party, was become the supreme arbitrator of Si- 14K0. THE TURKS SURPRISE 0TRANT0. 27* tuna. Lorenzo de' Medici promised to offer no obstacle to the transferring of that state in sovereignty to the duke of Calabria. On this condition, he signed his treaty with the king of Naples on the 6th of May, 1480 The republic of Sienna would have been lost, and the Neapolitans, masters of so important a place in Tuscany, would soon have subjugated the rest, when an unex- pected event saved Lorenzo de' Medici from the conse- quences of his imprudent offer. Mahomet II. charged his grand vizier, Acbmet Giedik, to attempt a landing in Italy, which the latter effected, and made himself mastei of Otranto on the 28th of July, 1480. Ferdinand, struck with terror, immediately recalled the duke of Ca- labria, with his army, to defend his own states. Lorenzo de' Medici, on his return from Naples to Floience, rendered still more oppressive the yoke which he had imposed on his country. He determined, above all, to efface from his authority the revolutionary, and con- sequently transitory, character which it still retained; a' the same time to obliterate the memory of the sovereignty < f the people, maintained by the periodical assembling oi ] lrliaments. He called one, however, on the 12th of April, 1480, which he purposed should be the last. He made that parliament create a balia ; destined, likewise, to despoil itself fcr ever of a powerwhich those extraordinary commissioners had, in fact, constantly abused. The balia transferred to a new council of seventy members the absolute power which bad been delegated to them by the 1 lorentine people. That council, henceforth, was to form a permanent part of the constituted authorities. It was charged to exercise a general scrutiny, and to choose only those among the Florentine citizens who were qua- lified for the magistracies. They were afterwards to dis- tribute their names in the different elective purses of the signoria. They were to make a new division of tin taxes ; to re-establish an equilibrium in the finances, or rather, to employ the money of the state in acquitting 'he debts of the Medici, whose immense fortune was de- ranged, not only by the magnificence of Lorenzo, but by x 2 27^ H1ST0BY OF TH>i ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 14-82. the profusion and disorder of his clerks, who carried on nis commerce with the pomp and extravagance which .hey thought suitahle to a prince. It was not till the 3d of December, 1480, that the pope, Sixtus IV., reconciled the republic of Florence to the church. He yielded then only to the terror which the conquest of Otranto by the Turks had inspired. Although he had shown talent, and some elevated views for the defence of the independence of Italy, his absolute want of all principle, his impetuosity of character, and his blind partiality to his nephews, rendered him one of the worst popes that ever governed the church. The Turks had no sooner been driven from Otranto, by Alphonso, the eldest son of the king of Naples, on the 10th of August, 1481, than Sixtus excited a new war in Italy. His object was to aggrandise his nephew, Girolamo Riario, for whom he was desirous of forming a great principality in Romagna. With that view, he pro- posed to the Venetians to divide with him the states of the duke of Ferrara ; but a league was formed in 1482, by the king of Naples, the duke of Milan, and the Floren- tines, to defend the dukedom. The year following, Sixtus IV., fearing that he should not obtain for his ne- phew the best part of the spoils of the duke of Ferrara, changed sides, and excommunicated the Venetians, in- tending to take from them the provinces which he des- tined for Girolamo Riario. The new allies, without consulting him, soon afterwards made peace with the Venetians, at Bagnolo, on the 7th of August, 1484. This news threw him into a fit of gout, which, falling inward, destroyed him, on the 13th of August follow- ing. Innocent VIII., who succeeded him, was quite as corrupt as his predecessor ; but endued with far less talent and energy. After having, in the beginning of his pontificate, made war without any reasonable motive against Ferdinand and the Florentines, he made peace with them on the 11th of August, I486". He married his son, Franceschetto Cibo, to a daughter of Lorenzo rle' Medici ; and this alliance afterwards procured to his I 182. ADMINISTRATION OF LORENZO. 277 posterity the duchy of Massa-Carrara. In 1489, he gave a cardinal's hat to Giovanni, son of Lorenzo de' Medici, afterwards LeoX. By the venality of distributive justice, hy monopoly, and by the ignorance and carelessness ol the administration, he brought Rome into a state of po- verty and spoliation hitherto unexampled. He died al last, on the 25th of July, 14<)2, the most despised, hut not the most detested, of the popes who had yet tilled the chair of St. Peter. Lorenzo de' Medici, his friend and counsellor, has been ranked- among the number of great men ; and, in fact, he had some right to the gratitude of posterity, for the constant protection he afforded letters and the arts, and the impulse which he gave to them himself, as a poet and a man of taste. He gained the affection of the literary society which he assembled round him, as much by the charm of his character as by his liberality. But it is not as a statesman that he can pretend to glory. He was a bad citizen of Florence, as well as a bad Italian: he degraded the character of the Flo- rentines, destroyed their energy, ravished from them their liberty, and soon further exposed them to the loss of their independence. Fearing the example and con- tagion of liberty in the rest of Italy, he preferred alliance with the sovereigns who were most odious, — with Ferdinand king of Naples, with Galeazzo Sforza, with his widow, afterwards with Ludovic the Moor ; and lastly, with pope Innocent VIII. At the same time he joined in every intrigue against the repub- lics of Sienna, Lucca, and Genoa. He was suspected also of having favoured conspiracies against two petty princes of Romagna, his enemies. Girolamo Riario, whom Sixtus IV. had made sovereign of Forli and Imola, and who had been the chief promoter of the Pazzi conspiracy, was stabbed in his own palace by three raptains of his guard, on the 14th of April, 1488. Catherine Sforza, his widow, and the natural daughter of the duke Galeazzo, preserved, however, the prin- cipality for her son Octavian. She married, not long t 3 27H I11STOUY OK THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. J J-89- afterwards, Giovanni de' Medici, the grandfather of the first grand duke of Tuscany. It was she who gave her name, afterwards so sadly memorable, to her godchild Catherine de' Medici. Galeotto Manfredi, lord of Faenza, was stabbed by his wife on the 31st of May following, as he was about to sell his little principality to the Venetians, and Faenza remained to his son Astor de' Manfredi, under the protection of Lorenzo de' Me- dici. The house of Medici had encouraged, at Florence, the taste for pleasure and luxury, as a means of confirm- ing its power ; but this corruption of morals began to produce a reaction. All the young men, who had abandoned themselves with enthusiasm to the study of the arts and of letters, who rendered a sort of worship to ancient literature, who studied the Grecian philosophy, and were accused of preferring even the religion of the ancient Romans to that of the church, were, at the same time, devotedly attached to the Medici. This feeling they shared with all the liber- tines, — all those who thought only of sensual pleasure, and who sacrificed to it the liberty of their country : but those of graver morals, and of a deeper religious conviction, — those who regarded the progress of cor- ruption as certain to draw down the vengeance of Heaven on Florence, — joined to compunctious peni- tence a love of ancient liberty, and a detestation of a tyranny founded on the triumph of vice. They were called piagnoni (the weepers). Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk of Ferrara, and an eloquent orator, had preached to them a double reform, religious and political : for he had himself embraced with equal en- thusiasm the cause of piety and that of liberty. He arrived on foot at Florence, in the year 1489> and lodged in the convent of St. Mark. He began im- mediately to preach there, with a profound conviction on his own part, and with a talent equal to his courage, against the scandalous abuses introduced into the church A Rome, and against the criminal usurpations in the 1492. DEATH OF LORENZO DE* MEDICI. 27^ mate, which had deprived the citizen of his just rights The partisans of the douhle reform soon reckoned in this flock the most respectable citizens of Florence. In the beginning of the year 1492, Lorenzo de' Me- dici was attacked by a slow fever, joined to the gout, hereditary in his family : he retired to his country house of Careggi, where, being sensible of his danger, he sent for Girolamo Savonarola, who, till then, had refused to visit him, or to show him any deference ; but it was from him that Lorenzo, struck with his reputation for sanctity and eloquence, desired, in dying, to receive absolution. Savonarola refused him neither his con- solation nor his exhortations ; but he declared that he could not absolve him from his sins till he proved his repentance by reparation, to the utmost of his power. He should forgive his enemies ; restore all that he had usurped : lastly, give back to his country the liberty of which he had despoiled it. Lorenzo de' Me- dici would not consent to such a reparation ; he accord- ingly did not obtain the absolution on which he set a high price, and died, still possessing the sovereignty he had usurped, on the 8th of April, 14.92, in his forty- fourth year. CHAP. XIII. INVASION OF ITALY BY CHARLES VIII. H1ETKO SON OF LORENZO DE* MEDICI DRIVEN FROM FLORENCE. — REVOLT AND WAR OK PISA. THE POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS REFORM OF SAVONAROLA AT FLORENCE HIS DEATH. The period was at length arrived, when Italy which had restored intellectual light to Europe, reconciled civil order with liberty, recalled youth to the study of laws and of philosophy, created the taste for poetry and the fine arts, revived the science and literature T 4 280 UISTOBV OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. J 4{^ of antiquity, given prosperity to commerce, manufac- tures, and agriculture, — was destined to become the prey of those very barbarians whom she was leading to civilisation. Her independence must necessarily perish with her liberty, which was hitherto tin. source of her grandeur and power. In a country covered with republics three centuries before, there re- mained but four at the death of Lorenzo de' Medici ; and in those, although the word " liberty" was still inscribed on their banners, that principle of life had dis- appeared from their institutions. Florence, already go- verned for three generations by the family of the Medici, corrupted by their licentiousness, and rendered venal by their wealth, had been taught by them to fear and to obey. Venice with its jealous aristocracy, Sienna and Lucca each governed by a single caste of citizens, if still republics, had no longer popular governments or republican energy. Neither in those four cities, nor in Genoa, which had surrendered its liberty to the Sforzas, nor in Bologna, which yielded to the Bentivoglios, nor in any of the monarchical states, was there to be found throughout Italy that power of a people whose every individual will tends to the public weal, whose efforts are all combined for the public benefit and the common safety. The princes of that country could appeal only to order and the obedience of the subject, not to the enthusiasm of the citizen, for the protection of Italian independence and of their own. Immense wealth, coveted by the rest of Europe, was, it is true, always accumulating in absolute monarchies, as well as in republics ; but if, on the one hand, it furnished the pay of powerful armies, on the other, it augmented the danger of Italy, by exciting the cupidity of its neighbours. The number of national soldiers was very considerable ; their profession was that which led the most rapidly to distinction and fortune. Engaged only for the duration of hostilities, and at liberty to retire every month ; instead of spending their lives in the indolence of garrisons or abandoning the freedom 14-'')2. GENERAL MILDNESS IN ITALIAN IPAHFARE. 23 1 of their will, they passed rapidly from one service to another, seeking only war, and never becoming enerv- ated by idleness. The horses and armour of the Italian men at arms were reckoned superior to those of the trans- alpine nations against which they had measured them- selves in France, during " the war of the public weal." The Italian captains had made war a science, every branch of which they thoroughly knew. It was never suspected for a moment that the soldier should be wanting in courage; but the general mildness of manners, and the progress of civilisation, had accustomed the Italians to make war with sentiments of honour and humanity towards the vanquished. Ever ready to give quarter, they did not strike a fallen enemy. Often, after having taken from him his horse and armour, they set him free ; at least, they never demanded a ransom so enor- mous as to ruin him. Horsemen who went to battle clad in steel, were rarely killed or wounded, so long as they kept their saddles. Once unhorsed, they surren- dered. The battle, therefore, never became murderous. The courage of the Italian soldiers, which had accom- modated itself to this milder warfare, suddenly gave way before the new dangers and ferocity of barbarian enemies. They became terror-struck when they perceived that the French caused dismounted horsemen to be put to death by their valets, or made prisoners only to extort from them, under the name of ransom, all they pos- sessed. The Italian cavalry, equal in courage, and superior in military science, to the French, was for some time unable to make head against an enemy whose ferocity disturbed their imaginations. While Italy had lost a part of the advantages which, in the preceding century, had constituted her security, the transalpine nations had suddenly acquired a power which destroyed the ancient equilibrium. Up to the close of the fifteenth century, wars were much fewer between nation and nation than between French, Germans, or Spaniards anions themselves. Even the war between the English and the French, which desolated France ror 282 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1492. mure tuan a century, sprarg not from enmity between two rival nations, but from tlie circumstance tbat the Icings of England were French princes, hereditary sove- reigns of Normandy, Poitou, and Guienne. Charles VII. at last forced the English back beyond sea, and re- united to the monarchy provinces which had been detached from it for centuries. Louis XI. vanquished the dukes and peers of France who had disputed his authority ; he humbled the house of Burgundy, which had begun to have interests foreign to France. His young successor and son, Charles VIII., on coming of age, found himself the master of a vast kingdom in a state of complete obedience, a brilliant army, and large revenues ; but was weak enough to think that there was no glory to be obtained unless in distant, and chival- rous expeditions. The different monarchies of Spain, which had long been rivals, were united by the mar- riage of Ferdinand of Aragon with Isabella of Castile, and by the conquest which they jointly made of the Moorish kingdom of Granada. Spain, forming for the first time one great power began to exercise an in- fluence which she had never till then claimed. The emperor Maximilian, after having united the Low Coun- tries and the county of Burgundy, his wife's inheritance, to the states of Austria, which he inherited from his father, asserted his right to exercise over the whole of Germany the imperial authority which had escaped from the hands of his predecessors. Lastly, the Swiss, rendered illustrious by their victories over Charles the Bold, had begun, but since his death only, to make a traffic of their lives, and enter the service of foreign nations. At the same time, the empire of the Turks extended along the whole shore of the Adriatic, and menaced at once Venice and the kingdom of Naples. Italy was surrounded on all sides by powers which had suddenly become gigantic, and of which not one had, half a century before, given her uneasiness. France was the first to carry abroad an activity un- employed at home, and to make Italy feel the change 1491. CHAttI.ES VIIl. INVADES ITALY. 283 which had taken place in the nolitics of Europe. Its king, Charles VI 1 1., claimed the inheritance of all the rights of the second house of Anjou on the kingdom of Naples. Those rights, founded on the adoption of Louis I. of Anjou hy Joan I., had never heen acknowledged by tin- people, or confirmed by possession. For the space of a hundred and ten years, Louis I., II., and III., and Rene, the brother of the last, made frequent but unsuccessful attempts, to mount the throne of Naples. The brother and the daughter of Rene, Charles of Maine and Mar- garet of Anjou, at last either ceded or sold those rights to Louis XI. His son, Charles \TIL, as soon as he was of age, determined on asserting them. Eager for glory, in proportion as his weak frame, and still weaker intel- lect, incapacitated him for acquiring it, he, at the age of twenty-four, resolved on treading in the footsteps of Charlemagne and his paladins ; and undertook the con- quest of Naples as the first exploit that was to lead to the conquest of Constantinople and the deliverance of the holy sepulchre. Charles VIIL entered Italy in the month of August, 1494, with 36*00 men at arms or heavy cavalry ; 20,000 infantry, Gascons, Bretons, and Trench ; 8000 Swiss, and a formidable train of artillery. This last arm had received in France, during the wars of Charles VII., a degree of perfection yet unknown to the rest of Europe. The states of Upper Italy were favour- able to the expedition of the French. The duchess of Savoy and the marchioness of Montferrat, regents for their sons, who were under age, opened the passages of the Alps to Charles VIIL Ludovic the Moor, regent of the duchy of Milan, recently alarmed at the demand made on him by the king of Naples, to give up the regency to his nephew Gian Galeazzo, then of full age, and married to a Neapolitan princess, had himself called the French into Italy ; and, to facilitate their conquest of the kingdom of Naples, opened to them all the for- tresses of Genoa which were dependent on him. The republic of Venice intended to remain neutral, leposir.g ?S4 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN RE.PUBJUC8. I4[)h. in its own strength, and made the duke of Ferrara and the marquis of Mantua, its neighbours, adopt the same policy; but southern Italy formed for its defence a league, comprehending the Tuscan republics, the states of the church, and the kingdom of Naples. At Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici left three sons ; of whom Pietro II., at the age of twenty-one, was named chief of the republic. His grandfather, Pietro I., son of Cosmo, oppressed with infirmities and premature old age, had shown little talent, and no capacity for the government of a state. Pietro II., on the contrary, was remarkable for his bodily vigour and address ; but he thought only of shining at festivals, tilts, and tour- naments. It was said that he had given proofs of ta- lent in his literary studies, that he spoke with grace and dignity ; but in his public career he proved him- self arrogant, presumptuous, and passionate. He de- termined on governing the Florentines as a master, without disguising the yoke which he imposed on them: not deigning to trouble himself with business, he trans- mitted his orders by his secretary, or some one of his household, to the magistrates. Pietro de' Medici re- mained faithful to the treaty which his father had made with Ferdinand king of Naples, and engaged to refuse the French a free passage, if they attempted to enter southern Italy by Tuscany. The republics of Sienna and Lucca, too feeble to adopt an independent policy, pro- mised to follow the impulse given by Medici. In the states of the chur.h, Roderic Borgia had succeeded to Innocent VIII., on the 11th of August, 1492, under the name of Alexander VI. He was the richest of the cardinals, and at the same time the most depraved in morals, and the most perfidious as a politician. The marriage of one of his sons (for he had several) with a natural daughter of Alphonso son of Ferdinand, had put the seal to his al- liance with the reigning house of Naples. That house then appeared at the summit of prosperity. Ferdinand, though seventy years of age, was still vigorous : he was rich. : he had triumphed over all his enemies ; ho passed 1 t94. PIETRO DE' MEDICI .MEETS THE FRENCH. €*■.*» for ihe most able politician in Italy. His two sons, Alphonso anil Frederick, and his grandson, Ferdinand, were reputed skilful warriors : they had an armv and a numerous fleet under their orders. However, Ferdinand dreaded a war with France, and he had just opened negotiations to avoid it when he died suddenly, on the 25th of January, 1494. His son, Alphonso II., succeeded him ; while Frederick took the command of the fleet, and the young Ferdinand that of the army, destined to defend Romagna against the French. It was by Pontremoli and the Lunigiana that Charles VIII., according to the advice of Ludovic the Moor, resolved to conduct his army into Southern Italy. This road, traversing the Apennines from Parma to Pontremoli, over poor pasture lands, and descending through olive groves to the sea, the shore of which it follows at the foot of the mountains, was not without danger. The country produces little grain of any kind. Corn was brought from abroad, at a great expense, in ex- change for oil. The narrow space between the sea and the mountains was defended by a chain of fortresses, which might long stop the army on a coast where it would have experienced at the same time famine and the pestilential fever of Pietra-Santa. Pietro de' Medici, upon learning that the French were arrived at Sarzana, and perceiving the fermentation which the news of their approach excited at Florence, resolved to imitate that act of his father which he had heard the most praised — his visit to Ferdinand at Naples. He departed to meet Charles VIII. On his road he traversed a field of battle, where 300 Florentine soldiers had been cut to pieces by the French, who had refused to give quarter to a single one. Seized with terror, on being introduced to Charles, he, on the first summons, caused the fortn of Sarzana and Sarzanello to be immediately surrendered. He afterwards gave up those of Librafratta, Pisa, and Leghorn ; consenting that Charles should garrison and fcrep them until his return from Italy, or until peact was 28f) HISTOltY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1494. signed ; and thus establishing the king of France in the heart of Tuscany. It was contrary to the wish of the Florentines that Medici had engaged in hos- tilities against the French, for whom they entertained an hereditary attachment; but the conduct of the chief of the state, who, after having drawn them into a war, delivered their fortresses, without authority, into the hands of the enemy whom he had provoked, appeared as disgraceful as it was criminal. Pietro de' Medici, after this act of weakness, quitted Charles, to return in haste to Florence, where he arrived on the 8th of November, 1494. On his preparing, the next day, to visit the signoria, he found guards at the door of the palace, who refused him admittance. Asto- nished at this opposition, he returned home, to put him- self under the protection of his brother-in-law, Paolo Orsini, a Roman noble, whom he had taken, with a troop of cavalry, into the pay of the republic. Supported by Orsini, the three brothers Medici rapidly traversed the streets, repeating the war cry of their family, — " Palle! Palle !" — without exciting a single movement of the po- pulace, upon whom they reckoned, in their favour. The friends of liberty, the Piagnoni, on the other hand, ex- cited by the exhortations of Savonarola, assembled, and took arms. Their number continually increased. The Medici, terrified, left the city by the gate of San Gallo ; traversed the Apennines ; retired first to Bologna, then to Venice ; and thus lost, without a struggle, a sovereignty which their family had already exercised sixty years. The same day, the 19th of November, 1494, on which the Medici were driven out of Florence, the Flo- rentines were driven out of Pisa. This latter city, which had been eighty-seven years under the dominion of her ancient rival, could not habituate herself to a state of sub- jection. Pisa had successively lost all that gave her pros- perity or made her illustrious. She no longer had shipping, commerce, or wealth ; the population diminished ; agri- culture was neglected throughout the Pisan territory ; stagnant water began to infect the air; every profession 14Q4. INSURRECTIONS IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 287 which led to distinction was abai.doned. There were no men of science or letters, no artists ; there remained only soldiers; but with thern, courage and the military spirit survived at Pisa in all their ancient splendour. Every noble served in the companies of adventure ; every citizen and peasant exercised himself in arms, and on every occasion evinced a bravery which was beginning to be rare in Italy, and which commanded the respect of the French. Charles VIII., on receiving from Pietro de' Medici the fortresses of Librafratta, Pisa, and Leghorn, in the Pisan states, engaged to preserve to the Florentines the countries within the range of these fortresses, and to restore them at the conclusion of the war. But Charles had very confused notions of the rights of a country into which he carried war, and was by no means scru- pulous as to keeping his word. When a deputation of Pisans represented to him the tyranny under which they groaned, and solicited from him the liberty of tluir country ; he granted their request without hesitation, without even suspecting that he disposed of what was not his, or that he broke his word to the Florentines : he equally forgot every other engagement with them. Upon entering Florence, on the 17th of November, at the head of his army, he regarded himself as a con- queror, and therefore as dispensed from every promise which he had made to Pietro de' Medici, — he hesitated only between restoring his conquest to Pietro, or retain- ing it himself. The magistrates in vain represented to him that he was the guest of the nation, and not its master : that the gates had been opened to him as a mark of respect, not from any fear; that the Floren. tines were far from feeling themselves conquered, whilst tlie palaces of Florence were occupied not only by the citizens but by the soldiers of the republic. Charles still insisted on disgraceful conditions, which his secre- tary read as his ultimatum. Pietro Capponi suddenly snatched the paper from the secretary's hand, and tearing it, exclaimed, " Well, if it be thus, sound your trumpets, and we will ring our bells !" This energetic movemti.i ?SS HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN RBrVlILICIft 1+95. daunted the French : Charles declared himself content with the subsidy offered by the republic, and engaged on his part to restore as soon as he had accomplished the conquest of Naples, or signed peace, or even con- sented to a long truce, all the fortresses which had been delivered to him by Medici. Charles after this con- vention departed from Florence, by the road to Sienna, on the 28th of November. The Neapolitan aimy evacuated Romagna, the patrimony of St. Peter, and Rome, in succession, as he advanced. He entered Rome on the 31st of December, without fighting a blow. The first resistance which he encountered was on the frontiers of the kingdom of Naples ; and having there taken by assault two small towns, he mas- sacred the inhabitants. This instance of ferocity struck Alphonso II. with such terror, that he abdicated the crown in favour of his son, Ferdinand II., and retired with his treasure into Sicily. Ferdinand occupied Capua with Ins whole army, intending to defend the passage of the Yulturno. He left that city to appease a sedition which had broken out at Naples ; Capua, during his absence, was given up through fear to tne French, and he was himself forced, on the 21st of February, to embark for Ischia. All the barons, his vassals, all the provincial cities, sent deputations to Charies; and the whole kingdom of Naples was conquered without a single battle in its defence. The powers of the north of Italy regarded these important conquests with a jealous eye : they, moreover, were already dis- gusted by the insolence of the French, who had begun to conduct themselves as masters throughout the whole peninsula. The duke of Orleans, who had been left by Charles at Asti, already declared his pretensions to the duchy of Milan, as heir to his grandmother, Valen- tina Visconti. Ludovico Sforza, upon this, contracted alliances with the Venetians, the pope, the king of Spain, and the emperor Maximilian, for maintaining the inde- pendence of Italy ; and the duke of Milan and the Vene* I4?i)5. BATTLE OF FOItNOVO. 28j) tians assembled near Parma a powerful army, under tlie command of the marquis of Mantua. Charles VIII. had passed three months at Naples m feasts and tournaments, while his lieutenants were sub- duing and disorganising the provinces. The news of what was passing in northern Italy determined him on returning to France with the half of his army. He de- parted from Naples, on the 20th of May, 1495, and passed peaceably through Rome, whilst the pope shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. From Sienna he went to Pisa, and thence to Pontremoli, where he entered the Apennines. Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua, awaited him at Fornovo, on the other side of that chain of mountains. Charles passed the Taro, with the hope of avoiding him ; but was attacked on its borders by the Italians, on the 6'th of July. He was at the time in full march ; the divisions of his army were scattered, and at some distance from each other. For some time his danger was imminent; but the impetuosity of the French, and the obstinate valour of the Swiss, repaired the fault of their general. A great number of the Italian men at arms were thrown in the charges of the French cavalry, many others were brought down by the Swiss halberts, and all were instantly put to death by the servants of the army. Gonzaga left 3500 dead on the field, and Charles continued his retreat. On his arrival at Asti, he entered into treaty with Ludovico Sforza, for the deliverance of the duke of Orleans, whom Sforza besieged at Novara. He disbanded 20,000 Swiss, who were brought to him from the mountains, but to whose hands he would not venture to confide himself. On the £2d of October, 1495, he repassed the Alps, after having ravaged all Italy with the violence and rapidity of a hurricane. He bad left bis relative, Gil- bert de Montpensier, viceroy at Naples, with the half of his army ; but the people, already wearied with bis yoke, recalled Ferdinand II. The French, after many battles, successively lost their conquests, and were at length forced to capitulate at Atella, on the 23d of July, \4[)t) 290 HI91'OKY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 4.06. The invasion of the French not only spread terror from one extremity of Italy to the other, but changed the whole policy of that country, by rendering it de- pendent upon that of the transalpine nations. While Charles VIII. pretended to be the legitimate heir of the kingdom of Naples, the duke of Orleans, who succeeded him under the name of Louis XII., called himself heir fco the duchy of Milan. Maximilian, ambitious as he was inconsistent, claimed in the states of Italy preroga- tives to which no emperor had pretended since the death of Frederick II. in 1250. The Swiss had learnt, at the same time, that at the foot of their mountains there lay rich and feeble cities which they might pillage, and a delicious climate, which offered all the enjoyments of life ; they saw neighbouring monarchs ready to pay them for exercising there their brigandage. Finally, Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of Aragon and Cas- tile, announced their intention of defending the bastard branch of the house of Aragon, winch reigned at Naples. But, already masters of Sicily, they purposed passing the strait and were secretly in treaty with Charles VIII., to divide with him the spoils of the relative whom they pretended to defend. Amidst these different pretensions and intrigues, in which Italian interests had no longer any share, the spirit of liberty revived in Tuscany once more, but only to exhaust itself in a new struggle be- tween the Florentines and Pisans. The French garri- sons which Charles had left in Pisa and Librafratta instead of delivering them to the Florentines, according to his order, had given them up to the Pisans them- selves on the 1st of January, 1496'. The allies, who had fought Charles at Fornovo, reproached the Floren- tines with their attachment to that monarch, and took part against them with the Pisans. Ludovico Sforza, and the Venetians, sent reinforcements to the latter, and the emperor Maximilian himself brought them aid. Thus, the only Italians who had at heart the honour and independence of Italy, exhausted themselves in unequal struggles and in fruitless attempts. 14.Qj. THE OBKAT COUNCIL AT FLORENCE. ^01 At the moment when Florence expelled the .Medici that republic was bandied between three different par- ties. The first was that of the enthusiasts, directed by (iirolamo Savonarola; who promised the miraculous pro- tection of the Divinity for the reform of the church and the establishment of liberty. These demanded a demo- cratic constitution, — they were called the Piagnoni. The second consisted of men who had shared power with the Medici, but who had separated from them ; who wished to possess alone the powers and profits of government, and who endeavoured to amuse the people by dissipations and pleasures, in order to establish at tneir ease an aristocracy, — these were called the Arab~ biati. The third party was composed of men who remained faithful to the Medici, but not daring to de- care themselves, lived in retirement, — they were called Bigi. These three parties were so equally balanced in the balia named by the parliament, on the 2d of December, 14<>4, that it soon became impossible to carry on the government. Girolamo Savonarola took advantage of this state of affairs to urge that the people bad never dele- gated their power to a balia which did not abuse the trust. " The people,' he said, " would do much better to reserve this power to themselves, and exercise it by a council, into which all the citizens should be admitted." His proposition was agreed to: more than 1800 Flo- rentines furnished proof that either they, their fathers, or their grandfathers, had sat in the magistracy : they were consequently acknowledged citizens, and admitted to sit in the general council. This council was declared sovereign, on the 1st of July, 1495 ; it was invested with the election of magistrates, hitherto chosen by lot, and a general amnesty was proclaimed, to bury in oblivion all the ancient dissensions of the Florentine republic. So importan' a modification of the constitution seemed to promise this republic a happier futurity. The friar Savonarola, who had exercised such influence in the council, evinced at the same time an arden love of IT 2 •-;y2 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 4}J mankind, deep respect for the rights of all, great sensi- bility, and an elevated mind. Though a zealous re- former of the church, and in this respect a precursor of Luther, who was destined to begin his mission twenty years later, he did not quit the pale of orthodoxy ; he did not assume the right of examining doctrine ; he limited bis efforts to the restoration of discipline, the reformation of the morals of the clergy, and the recall of priests, as well as other citizens, to the practice of the gospel precepts: but his zeal was mixed with enthusiasm ; lie believed himself under the immediate inspiration of Providence ; he took his own impulses for prophetic revelations, by which he directed the politics of his dis- ciples, the Piagnoni. He had predicted to the Floren- tines the coming of the French into Italy ; be had represented to them Charles VIII. as an instrument by which the Divinity designed to chastise the crimes of the nation ; he had counselled them to remain faith- ful to their alliance with that king, the instrument of Providence, even though his conduct, especially in reference to the affairs of Pisa, had been highly culpable. This alliance however ranged the Florentines among the enemies of pope Alexander VI., one of the founders of the league which had driven the French out of Italy ; lie accused them of being traitors to the church and to their country for their attachment to a foreign prince. Alexander, equally offended by the projects of reform and by the politics of Savonarola, denounced him to the church as a heretic, and interdicted him from preaching. The monk at first obeyed, and procured the appoint- ment of his friend and disciple the Dominican friar, Buonvicino of Pescia, as his successor in the church of St. Mark ; but on Christmas- day, 1497, he declared from the pulpit that God had revealed to him, that lie ought not to submit to a corrupt tribunal ; he then ■>penly took the sacrament with the monks of St. Mark, and afterwards continued to preach. In the course of his sermons, he more than once neld up to reprobation '.!« scandalous conduct of the pope, whom the public I IQH. ORDEAL PREPARED FOR SAVONAROLA. 293 voice accused of every vice and every crime to be ex- pected in a libertine so depraved, — a man so ambitious, perfidious, and cruel, — a monarcb and a priest intoxi- cated with absolute power. In the mean time, the rivalry encouraged by the court of Rome between the religious orders soon procured the pone champions eager to combat Savonarola : he was a Dominican, — the general of the Augustines ; that order whence Martin Luther was soon to issue. Friar Mariano di Ghinazzano signalised himself by his zeal in opposing Savonarola. He presented to the pope, friar Francis of Apulia, of the order of minor observantines, who was sent to Florence to preach against the Floren- tine monk, in the church of Santa Croce. This preacher declared to his audience that he knew Savonarola pre- tended to support his doctrine by a miracle. " For me," said he, " I am a sinner ; I have not the pre- sumption to perform miracles, nevertheless, let a fire be lighted, and I am ready to enter it with him. I am certain of perishing, but Christian charity teaches me not to withhold my life, if, in sacrificing it, I might precipitate into hell a heresiarch, who has already drawn into it so many souls." This strange proposition was rejected by Savonarola ; but his friend and disciple, friar Dominic Buonvicino, eagerly accepted it. Francis of Apulia declared that he would risk his life against Savonarola only. Meanwhile, a crowd of monks, of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, rivalled each other in their offers to prove by the ordeal of fire, on one side the truth, on the other the false- hood, of the new doctrine. Enthusiasm spread beyond the two convents ; many priests and seculars, and even women and children, more especially on the side of Savonarola, earnestly requested to be admitted to the proof. The pope warndy testified his gratitude to the Franciscans for their devotion. The signoria of Flo- rence consented that two monks only should devote themselves for their respective orders, and directed the pile to be prepared. The whole population of the town u 3 2\)i IHSTOUY OK TJ1K ITAIJAN Jt^PL'UMC 1 ±0<* and country, to which a signal miracle was pronised, received the announcement with transports of joy. On the 17th of April, 1498, a scaffold, dreadful to look on, was erected in the puhlic square of Florence : two piles of large pieces of wood, mixed with faggots and broom, which should quickly take fire, extended each eighty feet long, four feet thick, and five feet high ; they were separated by a narrow space of two feet, to serve as a passage by which the two priests were to enter, and pass the whole length of the piles during the fire. Every window was full ; every roof was covered with spectators ; almost the whole population of the republic was collected round the place. The portico called the Loggia de' Lanzi, divided in two by a partition, was assigned to the two orders of monks. The Dominicans arrived at their station chanting canticles, and bearing the holy sacra- ment. The Franciscans immediately declared that they would not permit the host to be carried amidst flames. They insisted that the friar Buonvicino should enter the fire, as their own champion was prepared to do, without this divine safeguard. The Dominicans an- swered, that " they would not separate themselves from their God at the moment when they implored his aid." The dispute upon this point grew warm. Several hours passed away. The multitude, which had waited long, and begun to feel hunger and thirst, lost patience ; a deluge of rain suddenly fell upon the city, and de- scended in torrents from the roofs of the houses, — ail present were drenched. The piles were so wet that they could no longer be lighted ; and the crowd, disap- pointed of a miracle so impatiently looked for, separated, with the notion of having been unworthily trifled with. Savonarola lost all his credit; he was henceforth rather looked on as an impostor. Next day his ccnvent was besieged by the Arabbiati, eager to profit by the incon- stancy of the multitude ; he was arrested with his two friends, Domenico Buonvicino, and Silvestro jNlarrufH, and led to prison. The Piagnoni, his partisans, were exposed to every outrage from the populace, — two of I t9#- HCVPIJCE OF SAVONAROLA. 8*f5 them were killed ; their rivals and old enemies ex- citing the general ferment for their destruction. Even in the signoria, the majority was against them ; and yielded to the pressing demands of the pope. The three imprisoned monks were subjected to a criminal prosecution. Alexander VI. despatched judges from Home, with orders to condemn the accused to death. Conformably with the laws of the church, the trial opened with the torture. Savonarola was too weak and nervous to support it : he avowed in his agony all that was imputed to him ; and, with his two disciples. was condemned to death. The three monks were burnt alive, on the 23d of May, 1498, in the same square where, six weeks before, a pile had been raised to pre- pare them a triumph. CHAP. XIV. THE FRENCH MASTERS OF MILAN AND GENOA, AND THE SPANIARUS OF NAPLES. THE GONFALONIER SODERINI AT FLORENCE. LEAGUE OF CAMBRAY AGAINST VENICE. — THE MEDICI Kl- XSTABL1SHED AT FLORENCE. The expedition of Charles VIII. against Naples had directed towards Italy the attention of all the western powers. The transalpine nations had learnt that they were strong enough to act as masters, and if they pleased as robbers, in this the richest and most civilised country of the earth. All the powers on the confines henceforth aspired to subject some part of Italy to their domi- nion. They coveted their share of tribute from a land so fruitful of impost, from those cities in which indus- try employed such numbers, and accumulated so much capital. Cupidity put arms in their hands, and smo- thered every generous feeling. The commanders were v 4 296' HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 4^6 rapacious ; the soldiers thought only of pillage. They regarded the Italians as a race abandoned to their ex- tortions, and vied with each other in the barbarous methods which they invented for extorting money from tht vanquished, until at last they completely destroyed the prosperity which had provoked their envy. Charles VIII. died at Amboise, on the 7th of April, 14.Q8, the day destined at Florence for the trial by fire of the doctrine of Savonarola. Louis XII., who suc- ceeded that monarch, claimed, as grandson of Valentina Visconti, to be the legitimate heir to the duchy of Milan. although, according to the law acknowledged by all Italy. and confirmed by the imperial investiture granted to the father of Valentina, females were excluded from all share in the succession. This monarch, at his coronation, took with the title of king of France those of duke of Milan and king of Naples and Jerusalem. It was to the duchy of Milan that he seemed particularly attached, apparently as having been the object of his ambition before he came to the throne. He preserved during his whole reign, as if he were simply duke of Milan, a feudal respect for the emperor as lord paramount, which was as fatal to France as to Italy. After baving thus announced to the world his pie- tensions to the duchy of Milan, Louis hastened to secure his possession of it by arms. He easily separated his antagonist, Ludovico Sforza, from all his allies. The emperor Maximilian had married the niece of Ludovico, to whom he had granted the investiture of his duchy ; but Maximilian forgot, with extreme levity, his pro- mises and alliances. A new ambition, a supposed offence, even a whim, sufficed to make him abandon his most matured projects. The Swiss had just then ex- cited his resentment ; and to attack them the more effec- tually, he signed with Louis XII. a truce, in which Ludovico Sforza was not included, and was therefore abandoned to his enemy. The Venetians were interested still more than the emperor in defending Ludovico, but were incensed against him ; they accused him of having 1499- WAR OF VENICE AGAINST rilK TCIthS. 297 decehed them, as we 1 ! in the war against Charles VIII. as in that for the defence of Pisa. They suspected him of having suggested to Maximilian the claims which he had just made on all their conquests in Lomhardy, as having previously appertained to the empire. They were obliged, moreover, to reserve all their resources to resist the most formidable of their enemies. Baja- zet II. had just declared war against them. Bands of robbers continually descended from the mountains of Turkish Albania to lay waste Venetian Dalmatia. The Turkish pachas offered their support to every traitor who attempted to take from the Venetians any of their stations in the Levant. Corfu very nearly fell into the hands of the Turks : at length hostilities openly began. The Turks attacked Zara ; all the Venetian merchants established at Constantinople were put into irons, aivj Scander Bashaw, sangiak of Bosnia, passed the Isonzo on the 29th of September, 1499, with 7000 Turkish ca- valry. He ravaged all the rich country which extends from that river to the Tagliamento, at the extremity of the Adriatic, and spread terror up to the lagune which surround Venice. Invaded by an enemy so formidable against whom they were destined to support, for seven years, a relentless war, the Venetians would not expose themselves to the danger of maintaining another war against the French. On the 15th of April, 1499» thev signed, at Blois, with Louis, a treaty, by which they contacted an alliance against Ludovico Sforza, and aha' iloned the conquest of the Milanese to the king of Frai.ce, reserving to themselves Cremona and the Ghiara d'Adda. Ludovico Sforzo found no allies in any other part of Italy. Since the execution of Savonarola at Florence, the faction of the Arabbiati had succeeded that of the Piagnoni in the administration, without changing its policy. The republic continued to guard against the intrigues of the Medici, who entered into an alliance with every enemy >f their country, in order to bring it back under their yoke. Florence continued her cfrorlR ^98 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 14.99 to subdue Pisa ; but, fearing to excite the jealousy of the kings of France and Spain, did not assemble for that purpose either a numerous army or a great train of artillery. She contented herself with ravaging the Pisan territory every year, in order to reduce that city bj famine. Even these expeditions were suspended when those powerful monarchs found it convenient to make a show of peace. The cities of Sienna, Lucca, and Genoa, actuated by their jealousy of Florence, sent succour to Pisa. Pope Alexander VI., who had been always the enemy of Charles VIII., now entered into an alliance with Louis XII.; but on condition that Caesar Borgia, son of Alexander, should be made duke of Valentinois in France and of Romagna in Italy, — the French king assisting him against the petty princes, feudatories of the holy see, who were masters of that province. The king of Naples, Frederick, who had succeeded his nephew Ferdinand on the 7th of Sep- tember, 149fi, was well aware that he should, in his turn, be attacked by France; but although he merited, hy his talents and virtues, the confidence of his suhjects, lie had great difficulty in re-establishing some order in his kingdom, which was ruined by war, and had neither an army nor an exchequer to succour his natural ally, the duke of Milan. A powerful French army, commanded by the sires De Ligny and D'Aubigny, passed the Alps in the month of August, 1499. On the 13th of that month they attacked and took by assault the two petty fortresses of Arazzo and Annone, on the borders of the Tanaro ; putting the garrisons, and almost all the inhabitants, to the sword. This ferocious proceeding spread terror among the troops of Ludovico Sforza. His army, the command of which he had given to Galeazzo San Seve- rino, dispersed ; and the duke, not venturing to remain at Milan, sought for himself, his children, and his treasure, refuge in Germany, with the emperor Maximilian. Louis XII., who arrived afterwards in Italy, made his entry into the forsaken capital of Ludovico on the 2d of 1499. MILAN CONQUERED BY THE FRENCH. %(\[- October. The trembling people, wishing to conciliate cheir new master, saluted him with the title of (hike of Milan, and expressed their joy in receiving him as their sovereign. The rest of Loinbardy also submitted with- out resistance ; and Genoa, which had placed itself under the protection of the duke of Milan, passed over to that of the king of France. Louis returned to Lyons before the end of the year : the fugitive hopes which he had excited alreadj gave way to hatred. The in- solence of the French, — their violation of all nationa. institutions, their contempt of Italian manners, — the accumulation of taxes, and the irregularities in the administration, rendered their yoke insupportable. Lu- dovico Sforza was informed of the general ferment, and of the desire of his subjects for his return. He was on the Swiss frontier, with a considerable treasure: a brave but disorderly crowd of young men, ready to serve any one for pay, joined him. In a few days .")00 cavalry and 8000 infantry assembled under his banner; and, in the month of February, 1500, he entered Lombardy at their head. Como, Milan, Parma. and Pavia immediately opened their gates to him : he next besieged Novara, which capitulated. Louis, mean- while, displayed the greatest activity in suppressing the rebellion : his general, Louis de la Tremouille, arrived before Novara, in the beginning of .April, with an army in which were reckoned 10,000 Swiss. The men of that nation in the two hostile camps, opposed to each other for hire, hesitated, parleyed, and finally took a re- solution more fatal to their honour than a battle between fellow countrymen could have been. Those within Novara not only consented to withdraw themselves, but to give up to the French the Italian men at arms with whom they were incorporated, and who were imme- diately put to the sword or drowned in the river. They permitted La Tremouille to arrest in their ranks Ludovico Sforza, and the two brothets San Severino, who attempted to escape in disguise. They received from the French the wages thus basely won, and .",()() niSTOUY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. loOl. afterwards, rendered reckless by the sense of their infamy, they in their retreat seized Belinzona, which they ever after retained. Thus, even the weakest of the neighbours of Italy would have their share in her con- quest. Ludovico Sforza was conducted into France, and there condemn \\ to a severe captivity, which, ten years afterwards, ended with his life. The Milanese remained subject to the king of France from this period, to the month of June, 1512. The facility with which Louis had conquered the duchy of Milan, must have led him to expect that he should not meet with much more resistance from the kingdom of Naples. Frederick also, sensible of this, de- manded peace ; and, to obtain it, offered to hold hia kingdom in fief, as tributary to France. He reckoned, however, on the support of Ferdinand the Catholic, his kinsman and neighbour, who had promised him power- ful aid, and had given him a pledge of the future by sending into Sicily his best general, Gonzalvo di Cor- dova, with sixty vessels and 8000 chosen infantry. Hut Ferdinand had previously proposed to Louis a seciet un- derstanding, to divide between them the spoils of the unhappy Frederick. While the French entered on the north to conquer the kingdom of Naples, he proposed that the Spaniards should enter on the south to defend it ; and that, on meeting, they, instead of giving battle, should shake hands on the partition of the kingdom, — each remaining master of one half. This was the basis of the treaty of Grenada, signed on the 1 1th of Novem- ber, 1500. In the summer of 1501, the perfidious comjiact was executed by the two greatest monarchs of Europe. The French army arrived at Rome on the 25th of June ; at the same time that the army of Gonzalvo di Cordova landed in Calabria. The former, from the mo- ment they passed the frontier, treated the Neapolitans as rebels, and hanged the soldiers who surrendered to them. Arrived before Capua, they entered that city while the magistrates were signing the capitulation, and massacred 1502. THE FRKNCH AND SPANIARDS IN NAPLES. iSOl 7000 of the inhabitants. The treachery of Ferdinand inspired the unhappy Frederick with still more aversion thaJi the ferocity of the French. Having retired to the island of Ischia, he surrendered to Louis, and vas sent to France, where he died, in a captivity by no means rigor- ous, three years afterwards. The Spaniards and French advanced towards each other, without encountering anv resistance. They met on the limits which the treaty of Grenada had respectively assigned to them ; but the mo- went the conquest was terminated, jealousy appeared. The duke de Nemours and Gonzalvo di Cordova disputed upon the division of the kingdom : each claimed for his master some province not named in the treaty. Hostilities at last began between them on the 19th of June, 1502, at Atripalda. Louis, while the negotiation was pending, delayed sending reinforcements to his general. After a struggle, not without glory, and in which La Palisse ami Bayard first distinguished themselves, D'Aubigny was defeated at Seminara on the 21st of April, and Nemours at Cerignola on the 28th of the same month, 1503. The French army was entirely destroyed, and the kingdom of Naples lost to Louis XII. Louis had sent off, during the same campaign, a more powerful army than the first, to recover it ; but, on arriving near Rome, news was received of the death of Alexander VL, which took place on the 18th of August, 1503. The cardinal d'Amboise, prime minister of Louis, detained the army there to support his intrigues in the conclave: when it renewed its march, in the month of October, the rainy season had commenced. Gonzalvo di Cordova had taken his position on the Garigliano, the passage of which he defended, amidst inundated plains, with a constancy and patience characteristic of the Spanish infantry. During more than two months the French suffered or perished in the marshes: a pestilential malady carried off tin. flower of the army, and damped the courage and confi- dence of the remainder. Gonzalvo, having at last passed the river himself, on the 27th of December, attacked end completely destroyed the French army. On the 1st .'f0'2 HISTORY OK THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1504 of January, 1504-, Gaeta surrendered to him; and the whole kingdom of Naples was now, like Sicily, but a Spanish possession. Thus the greater part of Italy had already fallen under the yoke of the nations which the Italians deno- minated barbarian. The French were masters of the Milanese and of the whole of Liguria; the Spaniards of the Two Sicilies ; even the Swiss had made some small con- quests along the Lago Maggiore ; and this was the mo- ment in which Louis XII. called the Germans also into Italy. On the 22d of September of the same year in which he lost Gaeta, his last hold in the kingdom of Naples, he signed the treaty of Blois, by which he divided with Maximilian the republic of Venice, as he had divided with Ferdinand the kingdom of Naples. Experience ought to have taught him that Maximilian, like Feidinand, would reserve for himself the conquests made in common. The future ought to have alarmrd him; for Charles, the grandson and heir of Maximilian of Austria, and of Ferdinand of Aragon, of Mary of Burgundy, and of Isabella of Castille, was already born. It was foreseen that he would unite under his sceptre the greatest monarchies in Europe ; and Louis, instead of guarding against his future greatness, had promised to give him his daughter in marriage. It was the thoughtlessness of Maximilian, and not the pru- dence of Louis, that delayed, during four years, the execution of the treaty of Blois. During this interval, Genoa — which had never ceased to consider herself a republic, although the signoria had been conferred first on Ludovico Sforza, and next on Louis XII. as duke of Milan — learned from experience that a foreign monarch was incapable of comprehending either her laws or liberty. According to the capitulation, one half of the magistrates of Genoa should be noble, the other half plebeian. They were to be chosen by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens ; they were to retain the government of the whole of Lieuria, and the admi- nistration of their own finances, with the reservation of 1507. CESAR BORGIA IN ROMAGNA. SO* a fixed sum payable yearly to tlie king of France. Hut the French could never comprehend that nobles were on an equality with villains ; that a king was bound by conditions imposed by his subjects ; or that money could be refused to him who had force. All the capitu- lations of Genoa were successively violated ; while the Genoese nobles ranged themselves on the side of a kiiig against their country : they were known to carry inso- lently about them a dagger, on which was inscribed, " Chastise villains ;" so impatient were they to separate themselves from the people, even by meanness and assas- sination. That people could not support the double yoki- of a foreign master and of nobles who betrayed their country. On the 7th of February, 1.007, they revolted, drove out the French, proclaimed the republic, and named a new doge ; but time failed them to organise their defence. On the 3d of April, Louis advanced from Grenoble with a powerful army. He soon arrived before Genoa : the newly-raised militia, unable to with- stand veteran troops, were defeated. Louis entered Genoa on the 29th of April ; and immediately sent the doge and the greater number of the generous citizens, who had signalised themselves in the defence of their country, to the scaffold. Independent Italy now comprised only the states of the Church, Tuscany, and the republic of Venice ; and even these provinces were pressed by the transalpine na- tions on every side. The Spaniards and French alter- nately spread terror through Tuscany and the states of the church ; the Germans and Turks held in awe the territories of Venice. The states of the church were at the same time a prey to the intrigues of the detestable Alexander, and his son Casar Borgia. More murders, more assassin- ations, more glaring acts of perfidy, were committed within a short space, than during the annals of the most depraved monarchies. Caesar Borgia, wnom lis father created duke of Romagna in 1.301, had previously de- spoiled and put to death the petty princes who reigned hi Pesaro, Rimini. Forli. and Faenza. He had. in dktr 50* HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN KKPUBL10S. 1503 manner, possessed himself of Piombino in Tuscany, the duchy of Urbino, and the little principalities of Came- rino and Senegallia. He had caused to be strangled in this last city, on the 31st oi December, 1502, four tyrants of the states of the church, who followed the trade of condottieri. These princes had served in his pay, and, alarmed by his intrigues, had taken arms against him ; but, seduced by his artifices, they placed themselves voluntarily in his power. Caesar Borgia had made himself master of Citta do Castelli, and of Peru- gia ; and was menacing Bologna, Sienna, and Florence, when, on the 18th of August, 1503, he and his father drank, by mistake, a poison which they had prepared for 3iie of their guests. His father died of it, and Borgia himself was in extreme danger. In thirteen months he lost all his sovereignties, the fruits of so many crimes. Attacked in turn by pope Julius II., who had succeeded his father, and by Gonzalvo di Cordova, he was at last sent into Spain, where he died in battle, more honourably than he deserved. In Tuscany, the republic of Florence found itself sur- rounded with enemies. The Medici, continuing exiles, had entered into alliances with all the tyrants in the pon- tifical states : they took part in every plot against their country ; at the same time, they sought the friendship of the king of France, who was more disposed to favour a prince than a republic. Pietro de' Medici had accompa- nied the army sent, in 1503, against the kingdom of Naples, and lost his life at the defeat of the Garigliano. His death did not deliver Florence from the apprehen- sion which he had inspired. His brothers Giovanni and Giuliano carried on their intrigues against their country. The war with Pisa, too, which still lasted, exhausted the finances of Florence. The Pisans had lost their commerce and manufactures ; they saw their har- vests, each year, destroyed by the Florentines : but they opposed to all these disasters a constancy and cou- lage not to be subdued. The French, Germans, and Spaniards, in turn sent them succour ; not from taking 1 f> 02 . GON FA L( >N I ER KOI! I. IKK. 9£M any interest in their cause, but with the view of j.rorit. ing by the struggle which they protracted. Bucca and Sienna also, jealous of the Florentines, secretly assisted the Pisans ; but only so far as they could do it without compromising themselves with neighbours whom they feared. Lucca fell, by degrees, into the hands of a narrow oligarchy. Sienna suffered itself to he enslaved by Pandolfo Petrucci, a citizen, whom it had named captain of the guard, and who commanded obedience, without departing from the manners and habits of re- publican equality. In the new position of Italy, continually menaced by absolute princes, whose deliberations were secret, and who united perfidy with force, the Florentines became sensible that their government could not act with the requisite discretion and secrecy, while it continued to be changed every two months. Their allies even complained that no secret could be confided to them, without becoming known, at the same time, to the whole republic. They accordingly judged it necessary to place at the head of the state a single magistrate, who should be present at every council, and who should be the depositary of every communication requiring secrecy. This chief, who was to retain the name of gonfalonier, was elected, like the doge of Venice, for life ; he was to be lodged in the palace, and to h.ive a salary of 100 florins a month. The law which created a falonier for life was voted on the Kith of August, 1502 : but it was not till the 22d of September following that the grand council chose Pietro Soderini to rill thai He was a man universally respected; of matui without ambition, without children ; and the r< never had reason to repent its choice. The republic, at the same time, introduced the authority of a single man into the administration, and suppressed it in the tri- bunals. A law of the l/ith of April, 1502, abolished the offices of podc-Kta and of captain of justice and supplied their places by the ruota; a tribunal composed of, five judges, of whom foul must agre< in | g x 30b' niSTony of the Italian bepublics. 15U&. sentence: each, in liis turn, was to be president of tfaf tribunal for six months. This rotation caused the name of ruota to be given to the supreme courts of law at Rome and Florence. The most important service expected from Soderini was that of subjecting Pisa anew to the Florentine re- public : he did not accomplish this until 1509- That city had long been reduced to the last extremity : the inhabitants, thinned by war and famine, had no longer any hope of holding out; but Louis XII. and Ferdi- nand of Aragon announced to the Florentines that they must be paid for the conquest which Florence was on the point of making. Pisa had been defended by them since 1507, but only to prevent its surrendering before the amount demanded was agreed on : it was at length fixed at 100,000 florins to be paid to the king or' France, and 50,000 to the king of Aragon. This treaty was signed on the 13th of March; and on the 8th of June, 150,9, Pisa, which had cruelly suffered from famine, opened its gates to the Florentine army : the occupying army was preceded by convoys of provisions, which the soldiers themselves distributed to the citizens. The sigr.oria of Florence abolished all the confiscations pronounced against the Pisans since the year 1494; they restored to them all their property and privileges. They tried, in every way, to conciliate and attach that proud people ; but nothing could overcome their deep resentment, and their regret for the loss of their inde- pendence. Almost every family, which had preserved any fortune, emigrated ; and the population already so reduced by war, was still further diminished after the peace. The republic of Venice was condemned, by the war which it had to support against the Turkish empire, from 1499 to 1503, to make no effort for maintaining the independence of Italy against France and Aragon. It had solicited the aid of all Christendom, as if for a holy war, against Bajazet II.; and, in fact, alternately received assistance from the kings of France, Aragon, and Portugal, and from the pope : but these aids, limited 1503. VENETIANS IN ROMAQNA. 30? to short services on great occasions, were of little rea. efficacy. They aggravated the misery of the Greeks among whom the war was carried on, caused little in- jury to the Turks, and were of but little sen ice to the Venetians. The Mussulmans had made progress in naval discipline ; the Venetian fleet could no longer cope with theirs; and Antonio Grimani, its commander, till then considered the most fortunate of the citizens of Venice, already father of a cardinal, and destined, long after, to he the doge of the republic, was, on his return to his country, loaded with irons. Lepanto, Pylos, Modon, and Coron, were successively conquered from the Venetians by the Turks ; the former were glad at last to accept a peace negotiated by Andrea Gritti, one of their fellow-citizens, a captive at Con- stantinople. By this peace they renounced all title to the places which they had lost in the Peloponnesus, and restored to Bajazet the island of Santa Maura, which they had, on their side, conquered from the Turks. This peace was signed in the month of November, 1503. The period in which the republic of Venice was delivered from the terror of the Turks was also that of the death of Alexander VI., and of the ruin of his son Caesar Borgia. The opportunity appeared to the si- gnoria favourable for extending its possessions in Ro- magna. That province had been long the object of its ambition. Venice had acquired by treachery, on the 24th of February, 144-1, the principality of Ravenna, governed for 1 6(5 years by the house of Polenta. Jn 14()3, it had purchased Cervia, with its salt marshes, from Malatesta IV., one of the princes of Rimini ; upon the death of Caesar Borgia, it took possession of Faenza, the principality of Manfredi ; of Rimini, the principality of Malatesta; and of several fortresses. Imola and Forli, governed by the Alidosi and the Ordelaffi, alone remained to be subdued, in order to make Venice mis- tress of the whole of Romagna. The Venetians oflR red the pope the same submission, the same annual tribute, for which those petty princes were acknowledged pon- x 3 308 aisronv of the itaman republics. 150b. tifical vicars. But Julius 1 1., who had succeeded Borgia, although violent and irascible, had a strong sense of hi* duty as a pontiff and as an Italian. He was determined on preserving the states of the church intact for Ids suc- cessors. He rejected all nepotism, all aggrandisement of his family; and would have accused himself of un- pardonable weakness, if he suffered others to usurp whai he refused to give his family. He haughtily exacted the restitution of all that the Venetians possessed in the states of the church : and as he could not obtain it from them, he consented to receive it from the hands of Louis and Maximilian, who combined to despoil the republic. He, however, commuidcated to the Venetians the pro- jects formed against them, and it was not till they appeared resolved to restore him nothing, that he con- cluded his compact with their enemies. The league against Venice, signed at Cambray, on the 10th of December, 1508, by Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian, and the cardinal d'Amboise. prime minister of Louis, was only the completion of the secret treaty of Blois, of the 22d of September, 1504. No offence had been given, to justify this perfidious compact. Maximilian, who detested Louis, had the same year endeavoured to attack him in the Milanese ; but the Venetians refused him a passage ; and after three months' hostilities, the treaty between the em- peror and the republic was renewed, on the 7th of June, 1508. Louis XIL, whom the Venetians defended, and Maximilian* with whom they were reconciled, had no other complaint against them than that they had no king, and that their subjects thus excited the envy of those who had. The two monarchs agreed to divide between them all the terra firma of the Venetians, to abandon i0 Ferdinand all their fortresses in Apulia, to the pope the lordships in Romagna, to the houses of Este and Gonzaga the small districts near the Po; and thus to give all an interest in the destruction of the only state suffi- ciently strong to maintain the independence of Italy. France was the first to declare war atrainst the re- l.'>09 BATTliK OP AIGNADEt. 'SD[) public of Venice, in the month of January, 1 50.Q. Hos- tilities commenced on the 15th of April ; on the 27th of the same month,, the pope excommunicated the doge and the republic. The Venetians had assembled an army of 42,000 men, under the command of the im- petuous Bartolonuo d'Alviano and the cautious l'iti- gliano. The disagreement between these two chiefs, both able generals, caused the loss of the battle of Ai- gnailel, fought, on the 14th of May, 1509, with the French, who did not exceed 30,000. Half only, or less, of the Venetian army was engaged; but that part fought heroically, and perished without falling back one step. After this discomfiture, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, and Cremona, hastily surrendered to ihe con- querors, who planted their banners on the border of Ghiaradadda, the limits assigned by the treaty of par- tition. Louis signalised this rapid conquest by atrocious cruelties: he caused the Venetian governors of Cara- vaggio and of Pescbiera to be hanged, and the garri- sons and inhabitants to be put to the sword ; he ruined, by enormous ransoms, all the Venetian nobles who fell into his hands; seeking to vindicate to himself his unjust altack by the hatred which he studied to excite. The French suspended their operations from the ."1st of May ; but the emperor, the pope, the duke of Fer- rara, the marquis of Mantua, and Ferdinand of Aragon profited by the disasters of the republic to invade its provinces on all sides at once. The senate, in the impos- sibility of making head against so many enemies, took the generous resolution of releasing all its subjects from their oath of fidelity, and permitting them to treat with the enemy, since it was no longer in its power to defend them. In letting them feel the weight of ;t foreign yoke, the senate knew that it only rendered mote dear the paternal authority of the republic ; and, in fact. those citizens who had eagerly opened their gates to the French, Germans, and Spaniards, soon contrasted, in despair, their tyranny with the just and equal power which they hail not had the courage to defend. The x 3 310 III«T0liY OF T11K ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 50$ Germans, above all, no sooner entered the Venetian cities, tlian they plunged into the most brutal debauchery ; offending public decency, and exercising their cruelty and rapacity on all those who came within their reach. Not- withstanding this, the native nobles joined them. They were eager to substitute monarchy for republican equality and freedom ; but their insolence only aggravated the hatred which the Germans inspired. The army of the republic had taken refuge at Mestre, on the borders of the Lagune, when suddenly the citizen evinced a cou- rage which the soldier no longer possessed. Treviso, in the month of June, and Padua on the 17th of July, drove out the imperialists ; and the banners of St. Mark, which had hitherto constantly retreated, began once again to advance. The war of the league of Cam bray showed the Ita- lians, for the first time, what formidable forces the transalpine nations could bring against them. Maximi- lian arrived to besiege Padua in the month of Septem- ber, 1509- He had in his army Germans, Swiss, French, Spaniards, Savoyards ; troops of the pope, of the marquis of Mantua, and of the duke of Modena ; in all more than 100,000 men, with 100 pieces of cannon. He was, notwithstanding, obliged to raise the siege, on the 3d of October, after many encounters, supported on each side with equal valour. But these barbarians, who came to dispute with the Italians the sovereignty of their country, did not need success to prove their ferocity. After having taken from the poor peasant, or the captive, all that he possessed, they put him to the torture to discover hidden treasure, or to extort ransom from the compassion of friends. In this abuse of brute force, the Germans showed themselves the most savage, the Spaniards the most coldly ferocious. Both were more odious than the French ; although the last mentioned had bands called flayers (ecorcheurs), formed in the English wars, and long trained to grind the people. Pope Julius II. soon began to hate his accomplices in the league of Cambrav. Violent and irascible, he had 10. JULIUS II. INTENT ON LIBERATING ITALY. 311 often shown in his fits of passion that he could be as cruel as the worst of them. But he had the soul of an Italian. He could not brook the humiliation of his country, and its being enslaved by those whom he called barbarians. Having recovered the cities of lloniagna, the subject of his quarrel with the Venetians, he began to make advances to them. At the end of the first cam- paign, he entered into negotiations; and on the 'J 1st of February, 1510, granted them absolution. He was aware that he could never drive the barbarians out of 1 taly but by arming them against each other ; and as the French were those whom he most feared, he had recourse to the Germans. It was necessary to begin with reconciling the Venetians to the emperor; but Maximilian, always ready to undertake every thing, and incapable of bringing any thing to a conclusion, would not relax in a single article of what he called his rights. As emperor, he considered himself monarch of all Italy ; mil although he was always stopped on its frontier, be refused to renounce the smallest part of what he had purposed conquering. He asserted that the whole Ve- netian territory had been usurped from the empire; and before granting peace to the republic, demanded almost its annihilation. Its was with the aid of the Swiss that the pope de- signed to liberate Italy. He admired the valour and piety of that warlike people: he saw, with pleasure, that cupidity had become their ruling passion. The Italians, who needed the defence of the Swiss, were rich enough to pay them ; and a wise policy conspired for once with avarice ; for the Swiss republics could not be safe if liberty were not re-established in Italy. Louis XII., by his prejudice in favour of nobility, had offended those proud mountaineers, whom, even in his own army, he considered only as revolted peasants. Julius II. employed the bishop of Sion. whom he after- wards made cardinal, to irritate them still more against France. In the course of the summer of 1510, the French, according to the plan which .Julius had foimed, .ii2 HISTORY Ol nil: ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1511 were attacked in the Milanese by the Swiss, in Genoa by the Genoese emigrants, at Modena by the pontifical troops, and at Verona by the Venetians ; but, notwith- standing the profound secrecy in which the pope en- veloped his negotiations and intrigues, he could not succeed, as he had hoped, in surprising the French every where at the same time. The four attacks were made successively, and repulsed. The sire de Chaumout, lieutenant of Louis in Lombardy, determined to avenge himself by besieging the pope in Bologno, in the month of October. Julius feigned a desire to purchase peace at any price ; but, while negotiating, he caused troops to advance ; and, on finding himself the stronger, suddenly changed his language, used threats, and made Chaumont retire. When Chaumont had placed his troops in winter quarters, the pope, during the greatest severity of the sea- son, attacked the small state of Mirandola, which had put itself under the protection of France; and entered its capital by a breach, on the 20th of January, 1511. The pope's troops, commanded by the duke of Ur- bino, experienced in the following campaign a signal defeat at Casalecchio, on the 21st of May, 1511. It was called " the day of the ass-drivers," because the French knights returned driving asses before them loaded with booty. The loss of Bologna followed; but Julius II. was not discouraged. His legates laboured, throughout Europe, to raise enemies against France. They at last accomplished a league, which was signed on the 5th of October, and which was called Holy, because it was headed by the pope. It comprehended the kings of Spain and England, the Swiss, and the Venetians. Louis XII., to oppose an ecclesiastical authority to that of the pontiffs, convoked, in concert with .Maximilian, whom he con- tinued to consider his ally an oecumenical council. A few cardinals, who had separated from the pope, clothed it with their authority ; and Florence dared not refuse to the two greatest monarchs of Europe the city of Pisa for its place of meeting, although the whole population be- held with dread this commencement of a new scliism. L>12. VIClnitY AND DEATH in KEHOUHS. 313 A powerful Spanish army meanwhile advanced from Naples, to the aid of the pope, under tin- command of Raymond de Cardona; and laid siege to Bologna <>n the 26th of January, 1512. The French had driven to despair, by their extortions, the people of the provinces which they had seized from Venice. On the 3d of Fe- bruary, Brescia revolted against them. Gaston de Foix, due de Nemours, and nephew of Louis XII., had, at the age of twenty-two, been just placed at the head of the French army. With a rapidity ever memorable, he in turn successfully opposed his two enemies. Having, on the 5th of February, entered Bologna, lie forced the Spaniards to raise the siege, and make a precipitate re- treat through Romagna. Me instantly returned to attack the Venetians, and on his road defeated one of their armies. He retook Brescia by assault, on the 19th <>f February, and punished that unhappy city by a frightful massacre of its inhabitants; but pillage disorganised and corrupted his army, and six weeks elapsed before he could return to Romagna, to oppose the armies of Spain and of the pope, which had again advanced. He forced them to give battle, near Ravenna, on Easter Sunday, the 11th of April, 1512. It was the most murderous battle that Italy had yet seen: nearly 20,000 dead covered the plain on which it was fought. Gaston de Foix, was, fcr the last time, victorious. The formidable Spanish infantry slowly retreated, without permitting itself to be broken in any part. Gaston, furious at its escaping him, made one last effort against it, and was killed. The death of Gaston proved the signal of the d< f--.it of the French in Italy. The ministers of Loins thought they might, after the battle of Ravenna, safely dismiss ;i part of their army; but Maximilian, betraying all his engagements, abandoned the French to their enemies. Without consenting to make peace with Venice, he gave passage through his territory to 20,000 Swiss, who were to join the Venetian army, in order to attack the French. He, at the same time, recalled all the Germans who had enlisted under the banner of France. Ferdi- 314 HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBMC9. 1512. nand of Aragon and Henry VI IT. of England almost simultaneously attacked Louis, who, to defend himself, was obliged to recall his troops from Italy. In the be- ginning of June, they evacuated the Milanese; of which the Swiss took possession, in the name of Maximilian Sforza, son of Louis the Moor. On the 29th of the same month, a revolution drove the French out of Ge- noa ; and the republic and a new doge were again pro- claimed. The possessions of France were soon reduced to a few small fortresses in that Italy which the French thought they had subdued. But the Italians did not re- cover their liberty by the defeat of only one of their oppres- sors. From the yoke of France, they passed under that of the Swiss, the Spaniards, and the Germans ; and the last they endured always seemed the most galling. To add to their humiliation, the victory of the Holy Leagut enslaved the last and only republic truly free in Italy. Florence was connected with France by a treaty con- cluded in concert with Ferdinand the Catholic. The republic continued to observe it scrupulously, even after Ferdinand had disengaged himself from it. Florence had fulfilled towards all the belligerent powers the duties of good neighbourhood and neutrality, and had given offence to none : but the league, which had just driven the French out of Italy, was already divided in interest, and undecided on the plan which it should pursue. It was agreed only on one point, that of obtaining money. The Swiss lived at discretion in Lombardy, and levied in it the most ruinous contributions : the Spaniards of Raymond de Cardona insisted also on having a province abandoned to their inexorable avidity ; Tuscan v was rich and not warlike. The victorious powers who had assembled in congress at Mantua proposed to the Floren- tines to buy themselves off with a contribution ; but the Medici, who presented themselves at this congress, asked to be restored to their country, asserting that they could extract much more money by force, for the use of the holy league, than a republican government could obtain from the people by gentler m^ans. Raymond de Cardona readilv 1.512. FLORENCE ENSLAVED BY III 1 : MEDICI. Sli believed ihem, and in the month of August, 1512, accompanied them across the Apennines, with 5000 Spanish infantry as inaccessible to pity as to fear. Ray- mond sent forward to tell the Florentines, that if they would preserve their liberty, they must recall the Medici, displace the gonfalonier Soderini, and pay the Spanish irmy 40,000 florins. He arrived at the same time before the small town of Prato, which shut its gates against him : it was well fortified, hut defended only by the ordinanza, or country militia. On the 30th of August, the Spaniards made a breach in the wall, which thesi peasants basely abandoned. The city was taken by as- sault ; the militia, which would have incurred less danger in fighting valiantly, were put to the sword : 5000 citizens were afterwards massacred, and others, divided among the victors, were put to lingering tortures, either to force them to discover where they had concealed their treasure, or to oblige their kinsmen to ransom them out of pity; the Spaniards having already pillaged all they could discover in holy as well as profane places. The terror caused at Florence, by the news of the massacre of Prato, produced next day a revolution. A company of young nobles, belonging to the most illus- trious families, who, under the title of Society of the Garden Paiccellai, were noted for their love of the arts, of luxury and pleasure, took possession, on the 31st of August, of the public palace ; they favoured the escape of Soderini, anil sent to tell Raymond de Cardona that they were ready to accept the conditions which he offered. But all treaties with tyrants are deceptions. Giuliano de' Medici, the third son of Lorenzo, whose character was gentle and conciliatory, entered Florence on the 2d of September, and consented to have many of the liberties of the republic untouched. His brother, the cardinal Giovanni, afterwards Leo X. who did not enter till the 14th of the same month, forced the si-noria to call a parliament on the lo'th. In this pretended as- sembly of the sovereign people, few were admitted except sti&ngfs and soldiers: all the laws enacted 6ince 316 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUbmOS. 1 5 1 % the expulsion of the Medici in 1494 were abolished, A balia, composed only of the creatures of that family, was invested with the sovereignty of the republic. This balia showed itself abjectly subservient to the cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, his brother Giuliano, and their nephew Lorenzo, who now returned to Florence after eighteen years of exile, during which they had lost every republican habit, and all sympathy with their fellow- citizens. None of them had legitimate children ; but they brought back with them three bastards, — Giulio, afterwards Clement VII., Ippolito, and Alessandro, — wdio had all a fatal influence on the destiny of their country. Their fortune, formerly colossal, was dissipated in their long exile; and their first care, on returning to Florence, was to raise money for thjmselves, as well as for the Spaniards, who had re-established their tyranny. CHAP. XV. CALAMITIES WITH WHICH THE FRENCH, SPANIARDS, AND GER- MANS OVERWHELMED ITALY. PILLAGE AND RUIN OF THE GREATEST CITIES. OPPRESSION OF THE ITALIAN NATION, AND LOSS OF ITS INDEPENDENCE. The three destructive wars comprised in the last chap- ter — viz. that of the French and Swiss in the Milanese, that of the French and Spaniards in the kingdom of Naples, that of the French, Spaniards, Germans, and Swiss, in the states of Venice, — robbed Italy of her in- dependence. The country to which Europe was indebted for its progress in every art and science, which had im- parted to other nations the medical science of Salerno, the jurisprudence of Bologna, the theology of Rome, the philosophy, poetry, and fine arts of Florence, the tactics and strategy of the Bracceschi and Sforzeschi schoolsj the commerce and banks of the Lombards, the process of irrigation, the scientific cultivation both of 1518 AGO.VY OF ITALV. Sl'7 hills and plains, — that country now belonged no more to its own inhabitants ! The struggle between the trans- alpine nations continued, with no other object than that of determining to which of* them Italy should belong; and bequeathed nothing to that nation but long-enduring, hopeless agonies. Julius II. in vain congratulated him- self on having expelled the French, who had first im- posed a foreign yoke on Italy : he vowed in vain that he would never rest till he had also driven out all the barbarians ; but he deceived himself in his calculations : he did not drive out the barbarians, he only made them give way to other barbarians ; and the new comers were ever the most oppressive and cruel. However, this pro- ject of national liberation, which the pope alone could still entertain in Italy with any prospect of success, was soon abandoned. Eight months after the expulsion of the French from the Milanese, and five months after there-establishment of the Medici at Florence, Julius II., on the 21st of February, 1513, sank under an inflam- matory disease. On the 11th of March, Giovanni de Medici succeeded him, under the name of Leo X. ; eleven months after the latter had been made prisoner by the French at the battle of Ravenna, and six months after the Spanish arms had given him the sovereignty of his country, Florence. It has been the singular good fortune of Leo X. to have his name associated with the most brilliant epoch of letters and the arts since their revival. He has thus shared the glory of all the poets, philosophers, artists, men of learning and science, his contemporaries. He has been held up to posterity as one who formed and raised to eminence men who were in fact his elders, and who had attained celebrity before the epoch of his power. His merit consisted in showering his liberality on those vhone works and whose fame had already deserved it. His reign, on the other hand, which lasted nine years, was marked by fearful calamities, which hastened the de- struction of those arts and sciences to which alone the age of Leo owes its splendour. The misfortunes which Sl& HiSTOIVS OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1513. he drew down on his successor were still more dreadfuj. The pope was himself a man of pleasure, easy, care- less, prodigal ; who expended in sumptuous feasts the immense treasures accumulated hy his predecessor. He had the taste to adorn his palace with the finest works of antiquity, and the sense to enjoy the society of phi- losophers and poets ; but he had never the elevation ot soul to comprehend his duties, or to consult his con- science. His indecent conversation and licentious con- duct scandalised the church ; his prodigality led him to encourage the shameful traffic in indulgences, which gave rise to the schism of Luther ; his thoughtlessness and indifference to human suffering made him light up wars the most ruinous, and which he was utterly un- able to carry on ; he never thought of securing the in- dependence of Italy, or of expelling the barbarians : it was simply for the aggrandisement of his family, that he contracted or abandoned alliances with the trans- alpine nations : he succeeded, indeed, in procuring that his brother Giuliano should be named due de Nemours, and he created his nephew duke of Urbino ; but he endeavoured also to erect for the former a new state, composed of the districts of Parma, Placentia, Reggio, and Modena ; for the latter, another, consisting of the several petty principalities which still maintained them- selves in the states of the church. His tortuous policy to accomplish the first object, his perfidy and cruelty to attain the second, deserved to be much more severely branded by historians. The sovereign pontiff and the republic of Venice were the only powers in Italy that still preserved some shadow of independence. Julius II. had succeeded in uniting Romagna, the March, the patrimony and cam- pagna of Rome, to the holy see. Amongst all the vas- sals of the church, he had spared only his own nephew, Gian Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino. On the de- feat of the French, he further seized Parma and Pia- centia, which he detached from the Milanese, without having the remotest title to their possession, as he ai&o 1513. POWER OK LEO X. 319 took Modena from the duke of Ferrara, whom he de- tested. Leo X. found the holy see in possession of all these states, and was at the same time himself all-powe-- ful at Florence. Even the moment of his elevation to the pontificate was marked hy an event, which showed that every vestige of liberty had disappeared from tba republic. The partisans of ihe Medici pretended to have discovered at Florence a conspiracy, of which th.-y produced no other proofs than some imprudent speeches, and some wishes uttered for liberty. The most illustrious citizens were, nevertheless, arrested ; and Machiavelli, with several others, were put to the torture. Pietro Boscoli and Agostino Capponi were beheaded ; and those who were called their accomplices exiled. The two republics of Sienna and Lucca were in a state of trembling subjection to the pontiff'; so that all central Italy, peopled with about 4,000,000 inhabitants, Was dependent on him : but the court of Rome, since it had ceased to respect the ancient municipal liberties, never extended its authority over a new province without ruining its population and resources. Law and order seemed incompatible with the government of priests : the laws gave way to intrigue and favour ; commerce gave way to monopoly. Justice deserted the tribunals, foresight the councils, and valour the armies. It was proverbially said, that the arms of the church had no edge. The great name of pope still moved Europe at a distance, but it brought no real force to the allies whom he adopted. The republic of Venice, with a smaller territory, and a far less numerous population, was in reality much more powerful than the church. Venetian subjects, if they did not enjoy liberty, had at least a government which maintained justice, order, and the law ; their material prosperity was judiciously protected. They in return were contented, and proved themselves devotedlv attached to their government ; but the wars raised by the league of Cambray overwhelmed that republic with calamity The city of Venice, secure amidst the water* 320 HISTORY OF T1IK ITAL'AX REPUBLICS. 1/JIS'. i.one escaped the invasion of the barbarians ; though, even jiere, the richest quarters had been laid waste by an acci- dental fire. The country and the provincial towns expe- rienced in turn the ferocity of the French, Sw i^s, Germans, and Spaniards. Three centuries and a half had elapsed a.nce this same Veronese march, the cradle of the Loin . bard league, had repelled the invasion of Frederick Barbarossa. But while the world boasted a continual progress, since that period, in civilisation, — while phi- losophy and justice had better defined the rights of men, — while the arts, literature, and poetry, had quickened the feelings, and rendered man more susceptible of pain- ful impressions, — war was made with a ferocity at which men in an age of the darkest barbarism would have blushed. The massacre of all the inhabitants of a town taken by assault, the execution of whole garrisons which had surrendered at discretion, the giving up of prisoners to the conquering soldiers in order to be tortured into the confession of hidden treasure, became the common prac- tice of war in the armies of Louis XII., Ferdinand, and Maximilian. Kings were haughty in proportion to their power; they considered themselves at so much the greater distance above human nature : they were the more of- fended at all resistance, the more incapable of compassion for sufferings which they did not see or did not compre- hend. The misery which they caused presented itself to them more as an abstraction ; they regarded masses, not individuals ; they justified their cruelties by the name of offended majesty ; they quieted remorse by considering themselves, not as men, but as scourges in the hand of God. Three centuries have elapsed, and civilisation has not ceased to march forward ; the voice of humanity has continued to become more and more powerful ; no one now dares to believe himself great enough to be dispensed from humanity ; nevertheless, those who would shrink with horror from witnessing the putting to death of an individual, do not hesitate to condemn who'e nations to execution. The crimes which remain for us to relate, do not merit more execration than those of which we 1513. THE FRENCH AGAIN REPULSED* 32\ are ourselves the witnesses at this day. Kings, in their detestation of freedom, let loose upon unhappy Italy, in the sixteenth century, famine, war, and pestilence; as, from the same motive in our time, they have loosed upon heroic Poland, famine, war, and the cholera. Louis XII., after having lost the Milanese, through his infatuated ambition to reconquer the small province of the Cremonese, which he had himself ceded to the republic of Venice, felt anew the desire of being recon- ciled with that republic, his first ally in Italy. The Venetians, who knew that without their money, artillery, and cavalry, the Swiss could never have faced the French, much less have driven them out of Italy, saw that their allies did not appreciate their efforts and sacrifices. Maximilian, who in joining never granted them peace, but onlv a truce, re-asserted his claims on Verona and Vicenza, and would not consent to allow the Vene- tians any states in Terra Firma but such as they pur- chased from him at an enormous price. The pope, to enforce the demands of Maximilian, threatened the Ve- netians with excommunication ; and their danger after victory appeared as great as after defeat. Andrea Gritti, one of their senators, — made prisoner after the battle of Aignadel, and the same who, during his captivity at Constantinople, had signed the peace of his country with the Turks, — again took advantage of his captivity in France to negotiate with Louis. He reconciled the re- public with that monarch, who had been the first to attack it ; and a treaty of alliance was signed at Blois, on the 24th of March, 1513. This was, however, a source of new calamity to Venice. A French army, commanded by La Tremouille, entered the Milanese, and on its approach the Germans and Spaniards retired. The Swiss, who gloried in having re-established Maxi- milian Sforza on the throne of his ancestors, were, how- ever, resolved not to abandon him. They descended from their mountains in numerous bodies, on the Oth of June, 151 S; attacked La Tremouille at the Riottn near Novara ; defeated him, and drove him back witn all the 392 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS 1515 French forces beyond the Alps. The Spaniards and the soldiers of Leo X. next attacked the Venetians without any provocation : they were at peace with the republic, but they invaded its territory in the name of their ally Maximilian. They occupied the Paduan state, the Ve- ronese, and that of Vicenza, from the 13th of June ti'l the end of autumn. It was during this invasion the Spaniards displayed that heartless cruelty which rendered them the horror of Italy ; that cupidity which multiplied torture, and which invented sufferings more and more atrocious, to extort gold from their prisoners. The Germans in the next campaign, over-ran the Venetian provinces ; and notwithstanding the savage cruelties and numerous crimes of which the country had just been the theatre, yet the German commander found means to signalise himself by his ferocity. Francis I. succeeded Louis XII. on the 1st of January, 1515 ; on the 2?th of June he renewed his predecessor's treaty of alliance with Venice ; and on the 15th of August entered the plains of Lombardy, by the marquisate of Saluzzo, with a powerful army. He met but little resistance in the provinces south of the Po, but the Swiss meanwhile arrived in great force to defend Maximilian Sforza, whom, since they had reseated him on the throne, they regarded as their vassal. Francis in vain endeavoured to negotiate with them ; they would not listen to the voice of their commanders; democracy had passed from their landsgemeinde into their armies, popular orators roused their passions; and on the 13th of September they impetuously left Milan to attack Francis I. at Marignano. Deep ditches lined with soldiers bordered the causeway by which they advanced; their commanders wished by some manoeuvre to get clear of them, or make the enemy change his position ; but the Swiss, despising all the arts of war, expected to command success by mere intrepidity and bodily strength. Tnev marched to the battery in full front : they repulsed the charge of the knights with their halberds, and *hrew vnemselves with fury into the ditches which barred their 151.5. KATTI.E OF iMARIGNANO. #2 I road. Some rushed on to the very mouths of the cannon, which guarded the king, and there fell. Night closed on the combatants ; and the two armies mingled together fought on for four hours longer by moonlight. Com- plete darkness at length forced them to rest on their arms; but the king's trumpet continually sounded, to indicate to the bivouac where he was to be found; while the two famous horns of Uri and Unterwalden called the Swiss together. The battle was renewed on -the 14th at daybreak: the unrelenting obstinacy was the same; but the French had taken advantage of the night to collect and fortify themselves. Marshal Trivulzio, who had been presenl at eighteen pitched battles, de- clared that every other seemed to him children's play in comparison with this "battle of giants," as he called it. 20,000 dead already covered the ground . of these two- thirds were Swiss. When the Swiss despaired of victory they retreated slowly, — but menacing and terrible. The French did not dare to pursue them. This horrible butchery, however, hastened the con- clusion of the wars which arose from the league of Cambray. The Swiss were not sufficiently powerful to maintain their sway in Lombardy : eight of their can- tons, on the 7th of November, signed, at Geneva, a treaty of peace with Francis I., who compensated, with con- siderable sums of money, all the claims which they consented to abandon. On the 29th of November, the other cantons acceded to this pacification, which took the name of " l'aix perpetuelle," and France recovered the right of raising such infantry as she needed among the Swiss. Raymond de Cardona, alarmed at the retreat of the Swiss, evacuated Lombardy with the Spanish troops. The French recovered possession of the whole duchy of Milan. Maximilian Sforza abdicated the sovereignty for a revenue of 30,000 crowns secured to him in France. Leo X., ranging himself on the side of the victors, signed, at Viterbo, on the 1 3th of October. A treaty, by which he restored Parma and IMaeentia to the French. In a conference held with Francis at Bo- v 2 324 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1514>. logna, between the 10th and 15th of the following De- cember, Leo induced that monarch to sacrifice the liber- ties of the Gallican church by the concordat, to renounce the protection he had hitherto extended to the Floren- tines and to the duke of Urbino, although the former had always remained faithful to Francp. The pope seized the states of the duke of Urbino, and conferred them on his nephew, Lorenzo II. de' Medici. Amidst these transactions, Ferdinand the Catholic died, on the 15th of January, ]5l6, and his grandson Charles suc- ceeded to his Spanish kingdoms. On the 13th of August following, Charles signed, at Noyon, a treaty, by which Francis ceded to him all his right to the kingdom of Naples as the dower of a newborn daughter, whom he promised to Charles in marriage. From that time Maximilian remained singly at war with the republic of Venice and with France. During the campaign of 1516', his German army continued to commit the most enormous crimes in the Veronese march ; but Maximilian had never money enough to carry on the war without the subsidies of his allies: remaining alone, he could no longer hope to be successful. On the 14th of De- cember he consented to accede to the treaty of Xoyon ; 1 e evacuated Verona, w r hich he had till then occupied, and the Venetians were once more put by the French in possession of all the states of which the league of Cambray had proposed the partition : but their wealth was annihilated, their population reduced to one half, their constitution itself shaken, and they were never after in a state to make those efforts for the defence of the independence of Italy, which might have been ex- pected from them before this devastating war. Had Italy been allowed to repose after so many dis- asters, she might still have recovered her strength and population ; and when the struggle should have recom- menced with the transalpine nations, she would have been found prepared for battle ; but the heartless levity and ambition of Leo did not give her time. While the family of the Medici was becoming extinct around 1519- CHARLES THE FIFTH. 326 him, he dreamt only of investing it with new dignities ; he refused the Florentines permission to re-establish their republic, and offered his alliance to whatever foreign monarch would aid him in founding on its ruins a principality for the bastard Medici. His third brother Giuliano due de Nemours, whom he had at first charged with the government of Florence, died on the 17th of March, \5\6. Lorenzo II., son of his eldest brother Pietro, whom he had made duke of Urbino, and whom he sent to command at Florence after Giuliano rendered himself cdious there by his pride and by his contemptible incapacity — he too died only three years afterwards, on the 28th of April, 1/51 9. Leo sup- plied his place by cardinal Giulio de' Medici, afterwards Clement VII. This prelate was the natural son of the first Giuliano killed in the Pazzi conspiracy of I ITS. He was considered the most able of the pope's ministers. tnd the most moderate of his lieutenants. Giuliano II. had also left an illegitimate son, Ippolito, afterwards cardinal; and Lorenzo II. had a legitimate daughter, Catherine, afterwards queen of France, and an ille- gitimate son, Alexander, destined to be the future tyrant of Florence. Leo, whether desirous of esta- blishing these descendants, or carried away by the restlessness and levity of his character, sighed only for war. The emperor Maximilian died on the 19th of Ja- nuary, 1/>19> leaving his hereditary states of Austria to his grandson Charles, already sovereign of all Spain, of the Two Sicilies, of the LowCountries, and of the county of Burgundy. Charles and Francis both presented themselves as candidates for the imperial crown ; the electors gave it to the former, on the 28th of June, 1519: he was from that period named Charles V. Italy, indeed the whole of Europe, was endangered by the immeasur- able growth of this young monarch's power. The states of the church, over which he domineered by means of Iiis kingdom of the Two Sicilies, could not hope to preserve any independence but through an alliance y 3 32f) HISTORY OF THE n.VMAN REPUBLICS. 152ii with France. Leo at first thought so, and signed the preliminary articles of a league with Francis ; but, suddenly changing sides, he invited Charles V. to join him in driving the French out of Italy. A secret treaty was signed between him and the emperor, on the 8th of May, 1521. I3y this the duchy of Milan was to be restored to Francesco Sforza, the second son of Louis the Moor. Parma, Placentia, and Ferrara were to be united to the holy see: a duchy in the kingdom of Naples was to be secured to the bastard Alexander de' Medici. The pope united his army to that of the emperor in the kingdom of Naples ; the command of it was given jointly to Prospero Colonna and the marquis Peseara: war was declared on the 1st of August, and the imperial and pontifical troops entered Milan on the 1.9th of November: but in the midst of the joy of this first success, Leo X. died unexpectedly, on the 1st of December, 1521. Death opportunely delivered Leo from the dangers and anxieties into which he had thoughtlessly precipitated himself. His finances were exhausted ; his prodigality had deprived him of every resource ; and he had no means of carrying on a war which he had only just begun. He left his successors in a state of distress which was unjustly attributed to them, and which rendered them odious to the people ; for the war into which he had plunged them, without any reasonable motive, was the most disastrous of all those which had yet afflicted un- happy Italy. There remained no power truly Italian that could take any part in it for her defence. Venice, was so exhausted by the war of the league of Cambray, that she was forced to limit her efforts to the mainte- nance of her neutrality, and was hardly powerful enough to make even her neutral position respected. Florence remained subject to the cardinal Giulio de' Medici. The republics of Sienna and Lucca were tremblingly prepared to obey the strongest : all the rest depended on the trans- alpine power ; for an unexpected election, on the 9th of January, 1522, had given a Flemish successor tc J 522. OPPRESSION OK ITALY. 32? Leo X., under the name of Adrian VI. This person had been the preceptor of Charles V.. and had never seen Italy, where he was regarded as a barbarian. The king- dom of Naples was governed and plundered by the Spa- niards. After the French had lost the duchy of Milan, Francesco Sforza, who had been brought back by the imperialists, possessed only the name of sovereign. He had never been for a moment independent ; he had never been able to protect his subjects from the tyranny of the Spanish and German soldiers, who were his guards. Finally, the marquis de Montferrat and the duke of Savoy had allowed the French to become mas- ters in their states, and had no power to refuse them passage to ravage oppressed Italy anew. The marshal Lautrec, whom Francis I. had charged to defend the Milanese, and who still occupied the greater part of the territory, was forced by the Swiss, who formed the sinews of his army, to attack the imperialists on the 29th of April, 15 c 22, at Hicocca. Prospero Colonna had taken up a strong position about three or four miles from Milan, on the road to Monza: he valued himself on making a defensive war, — on being successful, without giving battle. The Swiss attacked him in front, throw- ing themselves, without listening to the voice of their commander, into a hollow way which covered him, and where they perished, without the possibility of resistance. After having performed prodigies of valour, the re- mainder were repulsed with dreadful loss. In spite of the remonstrances of Lautrec, they immediately departed for their mountains ; and he for his court, to justify him- self. Lescuns, his successor in the command, suffered the imperialists to surprise and pillage Lodi ; and was at last forced to capitulate at Cremona on the 6th of May, and evacuate the rest of Lombardy. Genoa was not comprehended in the capitulation, and remained still in possession of die French ; but, on the 30th of May, that city also was surprised by the Spaniards, and pillaged with all the ferocity which signalised that nation. It was one of the largest depots of commerce in the west, am' 328 HISTORY OK TDK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1523. the ruin of so opulent a town shook the fortune of every merchant in Europe. The general of Charles then, judging Lombardy too much exhausted to support his armies, led them to live at discretion in the provinces of his ally, the pope. They raised among the states still calling themselves independent, enormous subsidies to pay the soldiers, for which purpose Charles never sent money. The plague, breaking out at the same time at Rome and Florence, added to the calamities of Italy so much the more that Adrian VI. abolished, as pagan superstition or acts of revolt against Providence, all the sanitary measures of police which had been invented to stop the spread of contagion. The pope died on the 14th of September, 1 523 ; and the Romans, who held him in horror, crowned his physician with laurel, as the saviour of his country. The death of Adrian, however, saved no one. The cardinal Giulio de' Medici was chosen his successor, on the 18th of November, under the name of Clement VII. This man had passed for an able minister under his cousin Leo X., because prosperity still endured, and the pontifical treasury was not exhausted ; but when he had to struggle with a distress which he, however, had not CHUsed, his ignorance in finance and administration, his sordid avarice, his pusillanimity, his imprudence, his sudden and ill considered resolutions, his long inde- cisions, made him alike odious and contemptible. He was not strong enough to resist the tide of adversity. He found himself, without money and without soldiers, en- gaged in a war without an object : he was incapable of commanding, and nowhere found obedience. The French were not disposed to abandon their title to Lombardy, the possession of which they had just lost. Before the end of the campaign, Francis sent thither another army, commanded by his favourite, the admiral Bonnivet. This admiral entered Italy by Piedmont ; passed the Ticino on the 14th of September, 1523; and marched on Milan. But Prospero Colonna, who had chosen, among the great men of antiquity, Fabius Cunctator for his model, was admirable in the art of stop- 1025- BATTLE OF PA VIA. 52*) ping an army, of fatiguing it by slight checks, and at last forcing it to retreat without giving battle. Bonnivet, who maintained himself on the borders of Lombards, was forced, in the month of May following, to open himself a passage to France by Ivrea and Mont St. Bernard. The chevalier Bayard was killed while pro- tecting the retreat of Bonnivet, in the rear-guard. The imperialists had been joined, the preceding year, by a deserter of high importance, the constable Bourbon, one of the first princes of the blood in France, who was accompanied by many nobles. Charles V. put him, jointly with Pescara, at the head of his army, and sent him into Provence in the month of July ; but after having besieged Marseilles, he was soon constrained to retreat. Francis I., who had assembled a powerful army, again entered Lombardy, and made himself mas- ter of Milan : he next laid siege to Pavia, on the 28th of October. Some time was necessary for the imperialists to re-assemble their army, which the campaign of Pro- vence had disorganised. At length it approached Pavia, which had resisted through the whole winter. The king of France was pressed by all his captains to raise the siege, and to march against the enemy ; but he refused, de- claring that it would be a compromise of the royal dignity, and foolishly remained within his lines. He was attacked by Pescara on the 24th of February, 1525 ; and, after a murderous battle, made prisoner. For several months, while Francis I. was besieging Pavia, he appeared the strongest power in Italy ; and the pope and Venetians, alarmed at his proximity, had treated with him anew, and pledged themselves to re- main neutral. The imperial generals, after their vic- tory, declared that these treaties with the French were offences against their master, for which they should demand satisfaction. Always without money, and pressed by the avidity of their soldiers, they sought only to discover offenders, as a pretence to raise contri- butions, and to let their troops live at free quarters. The pope anil the Venetians were at first disposed iH'jQ HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. l&Uo to join in a league for resisting these exactions ; ami they offered Louisa of Savoy, regent of France, their aid to set her son Francis at liberty. But Clement VII. had not sufficient courage to sign this league: he preferred re- turning again to the alliance of the emperor and the duke of Milan, for which he paid a considerable sum. As soon as the imperial generals had received the money, they refused to execute the treaty which they had made with him, and the pope was obliged to go back to the Vene- tians and Louisa of Savoy. Meanwhile Jerome Morone, chancellor of the duke of Milan, an old man regarded as the most able politician of his time, made overtures, which revived the hope of aiming all Italy for her inde- pendence. Francesco Sforza found himself treated by the Germans and Spaniards with the greatest indignity in his own palace : his subjects were exposed to every kind of insult from an unbridled soldiery ; and when he endeavoured to protect, them, the officers took pleasure in making him witness aggravations of injustice and out- rage. The man, however, who made the German yoke press most severely on him was the marquis Pescara, an Italian, but descended from the Catalonian house of Avalos, established in the kingdom of Naples for more than a century. He manifested a sort of vanity in associating himself with the Spaniards : he commanded their infantry ; he adopted the manners as well as pride of that nation. Morone, nevertheless, did not despair of awakening his patriotism, by exciting his ambition. The kingdom of Naples, which had flourished under the bastard branch of the house of Aragon when the family of Avalos first entered it, had sunk, since it had been united to Spain, into a state of the most grievous oppres- sion. Morone determined on offering Pescara the crown of Naples, if he would join his efforts to those of all the other Italians, for the deliverance of his country. Suc- cess depended on him: he could distribute the imperial troops, which he commanded, in such a manner as that they could oppose no resistance. The duke of Milan had been warned that Charles V. intended taking hi> 1525 treasok" ok pkscara. :;:;l duchy fron. him, to confer it on his brother Ferdinand of Austria. The kingdom of Naples and the ducky ot Milan were ready to pass over from the emperor's party to that of France, provided the French king would renounce all his claims to both, acknowledge Pescara king of Naples, Francesco Sforza duke of Milan ; and restore to Italy her independence, after having delivered her from her enemies. This negotiation was at first successful : each of the governments to which the proposition of concurring in the independenceof Italy was addressed, seemed to agree to it. Fiance renounced all pretensions to Lombard? and the Two Sicilies; Switzerland promised to protect, on its side, the land of ancient liberty, and to furnish it with soldiers; Henry VIII. of England promised money; Pescara coveted the crown, and Sforza was impatient to throw off a yoke which had become insupportable to him ; but, unhappily the negotiation was entrusted to too many cabinets, all jealous, perfidious, and eager to oh- tain advantages for themselves by sacrificing their allies. Clement was desirous of obtaining from the emperor a more advantageous treaty, by threatening him with France; the queen regent of France endeavoured to engage Charles to relax his rigour towards her son, by threatening him with Italy; Pescara, reserving the choice of either betraying bis master or his allies, as should prove most profitable to him, had warned Charles that he was engaged in a plot which he would reveal as soon as he had every clue to it. The duchess of Alencon, sister of Francis, sent by her mother to negotiate at -Madrid, spoke still more clearly. She offered Charles to abandon Italy, the project respecting which she dis- closed, provided the emperor, in restoring her brother to liberty, would renounce bis purpose of making him purchase it at the price of one of the provinces of France. Pescara, finding that his court knew more than he had told, determined on adopting the part of provocative agent instead of rebel : be had only to choose between them. On the 14th ci October, 1525, he invited Morone to a 332 HISTORY CF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1526. last conference in the castle of Novara. After having ma le him explain all his projects anew, while Spanish officers hid behind the arras heard them, he caused him to be arrested, seized all the fortresses in the state of Milan, and laid siege to the castle, in which the duke had shut himself up. He denounced to the emperor as traitors, the pope, and all the other Italians his accom- plices ; but while he played this odious part, he was attacked by a slow disease, of which he died on the 30th of November, 1525, at the age of thirty-six, ab- horred by all Italy. Charles, abusing the advantages which he had ob- tained, imposed on Francis the treaty of Madrid, signed on the 14th of January, 1526'; by which the latter abandoned Italy and the duchy of Burgundy. He was set at liberty on the 18th of March following; and almost immediately declared to the Italians, that he did not regard himself bound by a treaty extorted from him by force. On the 22d of May, he signed a league for the liberty of Italy with Clement VII., the Venetians, and Francesco Sforza, but still did not abandon the policy of his mother : instead of thinking in earnest of restoring Italian independence, and thus securing the equilibrium of Europe, he had only one purpose, — that of alarming Charles with the Italians ; and was ready to sacrifice them as soon as the emperor should abandon Burgundy. At the same time, his supineness, love of pleasure, distrust of his fortune, and repugnance to violate the treaty of Madrid, hindered him from ful- filling any of the engagements which he had contracted towards the Italians ; he sent them neither money, French cavalry, nor Swiss forces. Charles, on the other hand, sent no supplies to pay his armies to Antonio de Leyva, the constable Bourbon, and Hugo de Mon- cada, their commanders. These troops were therefore obliged to live at free quarters, and the oppression of the whole country was still more dreadful than it had ever yet been. The defection of the duke of Milan, in particular, gave 1526'. OPPRESSION OF MILAN. 333 a pretence to Antonio de Leyva to treat the wretched Milanese with redoubled rigour, as if they could he responsible for what Leyva called the treachery of their master. The Spanish army was quartered on the citi- zens of Milan ; and there was not a soldier who did not make his host a prisoner, keeping him bound at the foot of the bed, or in the cellar, for the purpose of having him daily at hand, to force him, by blows or fresh torture, to satisfy some new caprice. As soon as one wretched person died under bis sufferings, or broke his bonds and ended his sufferings by voluntarily death, either precipitating himself through a window or into a well, the Spaniard passed into another house to recommence on its proprietor the same torture. The Venetians and the pope had united their forces, under the command of the duke of Urbino, who, exaggerating the tactics of Prospero Colonna, was ambitious of no other success in war than that of avoiding battle. He announced to the senate of Venice, that he would not approach Milan till the French and Swiss, whose sup- port be had been promised, joined him. His inaction, while witnessing so many horrors, reduced the Italians to despair. Sforza, who had been nine months blockaded in the castle of Milan, and who always hoped to be de- livered by the duke of Urbino, whose colours were in sight, supported the last extremity of hunger be-fore lie surrendered to the Spaniards, on the 24th of July, 1526'. The pope, meanwhile, was far from suspecting himself in any danger ; but his personal enemy, Pompeo Colonna, took advantage of the name of the imperial party to raise in the papal state 8000 armed peasants, with whom, on the 20th of September, he surprised the Vatican, pillaged the palace, as well as the temple of St. Peter, and constrained the pope to abjure the alliance of France and Venice. About the same time, George de Frundsberg, a German condottiere, entered Lombard v with 13,000 adventurers, whom he bad engaged to fol- low him, and serve the emperor without pay. contenting themselves with the pillage of that unhappy country. 334 history ok the Italian republics. Io27. The constable Bourbon, to whom Charles had given the chief command of his forces in Italy, determined to take advantage of this new army, and unite it to that for which at Milan he had now no further occasion ; but it was not without great difficulty that he could persuade the Spaniards, to quit that city where they enjoyed the savage pleasure of inflicting torture on their hosts. At length, however, he succeeded in leading them to Pavia. On the 30th of January, 1527, he joined Frundsberg, who died soon after of apoplexy. Bourbon now remained alone charged with the com- mand of this formidable army, already exceeding 25,00U men, and continually joined on its route by disbanded soldiers and brigands intent on pillage. The constable had neither money, equipments, nor artillery, and very few cavalry ; every town shut its gates on his ap- proach, and he was often on the point of wanting pro- visions. He took the road of southern Italy, and entered Tuscany, still uncertain whether he should pillage Florence or Rome. The marquis of Saluzzo, with a small army, retreated before him ; the duke of Urbino followed in his rear, but always keeping out of reach of battle. At last, Bourbon took the road to Rome, by the valley of the Tiber. On the 5th of May, 1527; he arrived before the capital of Christendom. Clement, Jong alarmed at his march, had, on the 15th of March, signed a truce of eight months with the viceroy of Naples, and dismissed his troops, never imagining that one of the emperor's lieutenants would not respect the engagements of the other. On the approach of Bour- bon, however, the walls of Rome were again mounted with engines of war. The next day, the ()th of May, this renegade prince led his troops to the assault of the city. He was killed near the Janiculum, while mount- ing the first scaling ladder. His fall did not stop the terrific band of robbers which he led. The victorious army scaled the walls, which were ill defended ; and spread terror through the quarters of the Borgo, Vati- 152~. SACK OK KUMK. "5 «.aii, and Trastevere. In a few hours they were masters <>t' the whole city, Clement having neglected to destroy the bridges on the Tiber. The capital of Christendom was then abandoned to a pillage unparalleled in the most calamitous period — that of the first triumph of barbarism over civilisation : neither Alaric the Goth nor Genseric the Vandal had treated it with like ferocity. Not only was all that could be seized in every house and every shop carried off, but the peasants of the fiefs of Colonna took pos- session of the heavy furniture which did not tempt the cupidity of the soldier. From the day on which these barbarians entered the city all personal protection was withdrawn ; women were abandoned to the outrages of the victors; and sanctuaries, enriched by the vene- ration of Christendom for twelve centuries, were de- voted to spoliation. The squares before the churches were strewed with the ornaments of the altar, relics, and other sacred things, which the soldiers threw into the street after having torn off the gold and silver which adorned them. Men, women, and children were (seized, whenever their captors could flatter themselves that they had concealed some treasure, or that there was any one sufficiently interested for them to pay their ransom. Every house resounded with the cries and lamentations of wretched persons thus subjected to the torture ; and this dreadful state of crime and agony lasted not merely days, but was prolonged for more than nine months: it was not till the 17th of February, I 528, that the prince of Orange, one of the French lords who had accompanied Bourbon in his rebellion, finally with- drew from Rome all of this army that vice anil disease had spared. The Germans, indeed, after the first few days, had sheathed their swords, to plunge into drunkenness and the most brutal debauchery ; but the Spaniards, up to the last hour of their stay in Home, indefatigable in their cold-blooded cruelty, continued to invent fresh torture to extort new ransoms from all who fell into their bands; even the plague, the consequence of so mucii sutfering, '336 JIST0RY OF THE ITALaAX REPUBLICS. 152?. moral and physical, which broke out amidst all these horrors, did not make the rapacious Spaniard loo6e his prey. The struggle between the Italians, feebly seconded by the French, and the generals of Charles V., was prolonged yet more than two years after the sack of Rome ; but it only added to the desolation of Italy, and destroyed alike in all the Italian provinces the last remains of prosperity. On the 18th of August, 1527, Henry VIII. of England and Francis I. contracted the treaty of Amiens, for the deliverance, as the two sovereigns an- nounced, of the pope. A powerful French army, com- manded by Lautrec, entered Italy in the same month, by the province of Alexandria. They surprised Pavia on the 1st of October, and during eight days barbarously piilaged that great city, under pretence of avenging tne defeat of their king under its walls. After this success, Lautrec, instead of completing the conquest of Loirt- bardy, directed his march towards the south ; renewed the alliance of France with the duke of Ferrara, to whose son was given in marriage a daughter of Louis XII., sister of the queen of France. He secured the friendship of the Florentine republic, which, on the 17th of the preceding May, had taken advantage of the distress and captivity of the pope, to recover its liberty, arc* to re-establish its government in the same form in which it stood in 1512. The pope, learning that Lautrec had arrived at Orvieto, escaped from the castle of St. Angelo on the 9th of December, and took refuge in the French camp. The Spaniard Alarcon had de- tained him captive, with thirteen cardinals, during six months, in that fortress ; and, though the plague had broken out there, he did not relax in his severity. After having received 400,000 ducats for his ransom, instead of releasing him, as he had engaged to do the next day, it is probable that he suffered him to escape, lest his own soldiers should arrest him in order to extort a second ransom. Lautrec passed the Tronto to enter the Abruzzi with 1528. LAIIKKC AX VAPLES. 837 his powerful army on the 10th of February, 1528. The banditti whom Charles V. called his soldiers, whom he never paid, and who showed no disposition to obe- dience, were cantoned at Milan, Koine, and the principal cities in Italy: they divided their time between de- bauchery and the infliction of torture on their hosts ; their officers were unable to induce them to leave the towns and advance towards the enemy. The people in the excess of suffering, met every change with eagerness, and received Lautrec as a deliverer. lie would probably have obtained complete success, it* Francis had not just at this moment withheld the monthly advance of money which he had promised. That monarch, identifying his pride of royalty with prodigality, exhausted his finances in pleasures and entertainments: his want of economy drew on him all his disasters. Lautrec, on his side, although he had many qualities of a good general, was harsh, proud, and obstinate : he piqued himself on doing always the opposite of what he was counselled. Disregard- in-' the national peculiarities of the French, he at- tempted in war to discipline them in slow and regular movements. He lost valuable time in Apulia, where lit 100k and sacked Melfi, on the 23d of March, with t barbarity worthy of his adversaries, the Spaniards : he did not arrive till the 1st of May before Naples. The prince of Orange had just entered that city with the arinv which had sacked Rome, but of which the greater part had been carried off by a dreadful mortality, the con- sequence and punishment of its vices and crimes Instead of vigorously attacking them, Lautrec, in spite of the warm remonstrances of his officers, persisted in reducing Naples by blockade; thus exposing his army to the influence of a destructive climate. The imperial fleet was destroyed, on the 28th of May, in the gulf of Salerno, by Filippino Doria, who was in the pay of France. The inhabitants of Naples experienced the most cruel piivations, and sickness soon made gr< a' havoc amongst them : but a malady not less fatal broke out at the same time in the French camp. The sol- 3,58 HISTORY OP TMK ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 528 diers, under a burning sun, surrounded with putrid water, condemned to every kind of privation, harassed by the light cavalry of the enemy, infinitely superior tc theirs, sank, one after the other, under pestilential fevers. In the middle of June, the French reckoned in their camp 25,000 men ; by the 2d of August there did not remain 4000 fit for service. At this period all the springs were dry, and the troops began to suffer from hunger and thirst. Lautrec, ill as he was, had till then supported the army by his courage and in- vincible obstinacy ; but, worn out at last, he expired in the night of the 15th of August: — almost all the other officers died in like manner. The marquis de Saluces, on whom the command of the army devolved, felt the necessity of a retreat, but knew not how to secure it in presence of such a superior force. He tried to escape from the imperialists, by taking advantage oi a tremendous storm, in the night of the 29th of August ; but was soon pursued, and overtaken at Aversa, where, on the 30th, he was forced to capitulate. The maga- zines and hospitals at Capua were, at the same time, given up to the Spaniards. The prisoners and the sick were crowded together in the stables of the Magdalen, where contagion acquired new force. The Spaniards foresaw it, and watched with indifference the agony and death of all ; for nearly all of that brilliant army perished — a few invalids only ever returned to France. During the same campaign another French army, conducted by Francois de Bourbon, count de St. Pol, had entered Lombardy, at the moment when Henry duke of Brunswick led thither a German army. Henry, finding nothing more to pillage, announced that his mission was to punish a rebellious nation, and put to the sword all the inhabitants of the villages through which he passed. Milan was at once a prey to famine and the plague, aggravated by the cupidity and cold-blooded ferocity of Leyva, who still commanded the Spanish garrison. Leyva seized all the provisions brought in from the country ; and, to profit by the general misery, 1529- ANDKEA DORIA. 'i3 ( J resold them at an enormous price. Genoa had remained subject to the French, and was little less oppressed ; none of its republican institutions were any longer re- spected : but a great admiral still rendered it illustrious. Andrea Doria had collected a fleet, on hoard of which he summoned all the enterprising spirits of Liguria : his nephew Filippino, who had just gained a victory over the imperialists, was his lieutenant. The Dorias demanded the restoration of liberty to their country as the price of their services: unable to obtain it from the French, they passed over to the imperialists. As- sured by the promises of Charles, they presented themselves, on the 12th of September, before Genoa, excited their countrymen to revolt, and constrained the French to evacuate the town : 'hey made themselves masters of Savona on the 21st of October, and a few days afterwards of Castelletto. Doria then proclaimed the republic, and re-established once more the freedom of Genoa, at the moment when all freedom was near its end in Italy. The winter passed in suffering and in- action. The following year, Antonio de Leyva sur- prised the count tie St. Pol at Landriano, on the 21st of June, L529, ami made him prisoner, with all the prin- cipal officers of the French army. The rest dispersed or returned to France. This was the last military incident in this dreadful war. Peace was ardently desired on all sides; negotiations were actively carried on ; but every potentate sought to deceive his ally in order to obtain better conditions from his adversary. Margaret of Austria, the sister of the emperor's father, and Louisa of Savoy, the mother of the king of France, met at Cambray ; and in conference to which no witnesses were admitted, arranged what was called " Le traite des dames." Clement VII. had at the same time a nuncio at Barcelona, who negotiated with the emperor. The latter was impatient to arrange the affairs of Italy, in order to pass into Germany. Not only had Soliman invaded Austria, and, on the IS til of September, arrived under the walls of Vienna, but tin* z 2 34-0 HISTORY OK THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 i)^ reformation of Luther excited in all the north of Ger- many a continually increasing ferment. On the 2()tk of June, 1529, Charles signed at Barcelona a treaty of perpetual alliance with the pope: hy it he engaged to sacrifice the republic of Florence to the pope's vengeance, and to place in the service of Clement, in order to ac- complish it, all the brigands who had previously de- vastated Italy. Florence was to be given in sovereignty to the bastard Alexander de' Medici, who was to marry an illegitimate daughter of Charles V. On the 5th of August following, Louis and Margaret signed the treaty of Cambray, by which France abandoned, without reserve, all its Italian allies to the caprices of Charles; who, on his side, renounced Burgundy, and restored to Francis his two sons, who had been retained as hostages. Charles arrived at Genoa, on board the fleet of Andrea Doria, on the 12th of August. The pope awaited him at Bologna, into which he made his entry on the 5th of November. He summoned thither all the princes of Italy, or their deputies, and treated them with more moderation than might have been expected after the shameful abandon- ment of them by France. As he knew the health of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, to be in a declining- state, which promised but few years of life, he granted him the restitution of his duchy for the sum of 900,000 ducats, which Sforza was to pay at different term a : they had not all fallen due when that prince died, on the 24th of October, 1535, without issue, and his estates escheated to the emperor. On the 23d of December, 1529, Charles granted peace to the Venetians ; who restored him only some places in Apulia, and gave up Ravenna and Cervia to the pope. On the 2uth of March, Alphonso d'Este also signed a treaty, by which he referred his differences with the pope to the arbitration of the emperor. Charles did not pronounce on them till the following year. He conferred on Al- phonso the possession of Modena, Reggio, and Rubbiera, as fiefs of the empire ; and he made the pope give him the investiture of Ferrara. On the 25th of March. i530. PEACE AND SLAVERY OF ITALY. 341 1530, a diploma of the emperor raised the marquisate of Mantua to a duchy, in favour of Frederick de Gon- zaga. The duke Of Savoy and the marquis de Mont- ferrat, till then protected hy Fiance, arrived at Bolognu, to place themselves under the protection of the emperor. The duke of Urbino was recommended to him by the Venetians, and obtained some promises of favour. The republics of Genoa, Sienna, and Lucca had permission to vegetate under the imperial protection ; and Charles, having received from the pope, at Bologna, on the 22d of February and 24th of March, the two crowns of Lombardy and of the empire, departed in the beginning of April for Germany, in order to escape witnessing the odious service in which lie consented that his troops should be employed against Florence. CHAP. XVI. OPPRESSION OK ITAI.V DURING THE THREE LAST CENTURIES'. — SUCCESSIVE FALL OF ALL HER REPUBLIC'S. — HER LAST CON- VULSIONS. The evil destiny of Italy was accomplished. Charles VIII., when he first invaded that country, opened its gates to all the transalpine nations: from that period Italy was ravaged, during thirty-six years, by Germans, French, Spaniards, Swiss, and even Turks. They inflicted on her calamities beyond example in history; calamities y o much the move keenly felt, as the sufferers were mo^e civilised, and the authors more barbarous. The Freiiih invasion ended in giving to the greatest enemies of Frani u the dominion of that country, so rich, so industrious, and of which the possession was sought ardently by all. Never would the house of Austria have achieved the conquest of Italy, if Charles VI 1 1., Louis XII., and Fr?.neis 1. had not previously destroyed the wealth and z 3 ;)42 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN ItEPUBMCS. 1 5ii /. military organisation of the nation ; if they had not themselves introduced the Spaniards into the kingdom of Naples, and the Germans into the states of Venice ; forgetting that both must soon after he subject to CharlesV. The independence of Italy would have been beneficial to France : the rapacious and improvident policy which made France seek subjects where it should only have sought allies, was the origin of a long train of disasters to the French. A period of three centuries of weakness, humili- ation, and suffering, in Italy, began in the year 1530 : from that time she was always oppressed by fo- reigners, and enervated and corrupted by her masters. These last reproached her with the vices of which they were themselves the authors. After having reduced her to the impossibility of resisting, they accused her of cowardice when she submitted, and of rebellion when she made efforts to vindicate herself. The Italians, during this long period of slavery, were agitated with the desire of becoming once more a nation : as, however, they had lost the direction of their own affairs, they ceased to have any history which could be called theirs ; their misfortunes have become but episodes in the his- tories of other nations. We should not, however, look upon the task which we have imposed on ourselves as concluded, if we did not distinguish, amidst this general subjugation, the particular calamities which closed the existence of the republics which still remained inde- pendent after the coronation of Charles V. The Florentines, who, from 1512, had been victims of all the faults of Leo X. and Clement VII., — who had been drawn into all the oscillations of their policy, and called upon to make prodigious sacrifices of money for projects with which they had not even been made ac- quainted, — were taught under these popes to detest the yoke of the Medici. When the constable Bourbon ap- proached their walls in his march to Rome, on the 2(ith of April, 1527, they were on the point of recovering their liberty : the cardinal de Cortona, who commanded !52S. LAST STRUH'JCK OF FLORENCE. 343 for the pope at Florence, bad distributed arms among the citizens for their defence ; and they determined to employ them for their liberation : but the terror which tins army of brigands inspired did the cardinal the ser- vice of repressing insurrection. When, however, they beard soon after of the taking of Rome, and of the cap- tivity of the pope, all the most notable citizens presented themselves in their civic dress to the cardinal de Cor- tona; declared firmly, but with calmness, that they were henceforth free ; and compelled him, with the two bas- tard Medici whom he brought up, to quit the city. It was on the 17th of May, 1527, that the hentenant of Clement obeyed ; and the constitution, such as it existed in 1512, with its grand council, was re>ton j d without change, except that the office of gonfalonier was declared annual. The first person invested with this charge was Nicolo Capponi, a man enthusiastic in religion, and mo- derate in politics: he was the son of Pietro Capponi, who had braved Charles VIII. In 1529, ne was suc ~ cee(\e<\ by Baldassare Carducci, whose character was more energetic, and opinions more democratic. Carducci was succeeded, in I5.'i(), by RafFaele Girolami, who witnessed the end of the republic. Florence, during the whole period of its glory ami power, had neglected the arts of war : it reckoned for its defence on the adventurer-, whom its wealth could summon from all parts to its service ; and set but little value on a courage which men, without any other virtue, were so eager to sell to the highest bidder. Since the transalpine nations had begun to subdue Italy to their tyranny, these hireling arms sufficed no longer for the public safety. Statesmen began to see the necessity of giving the republic a protection within itself. Macchi- avelli, who died on the 22d of June, 1527, six weeks after the restoration of the popular government, had been long engaged in persuading bis fellow citizens of the necessity of awakening a military spirit in the people: it was he who caused the country militia, named 1'itnli- )tth of June, 1802; and abolished on the 8th of October, 1805, by the union of the state of Genoa to France. Bonaparte had engaged the mem hers of the a a .' 356 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. l()16 government themselves to make the demand, on the 4th of June, 1805. We have now to speak only of the decline and fall of the republic of Venice, the state in Italy whose exist- ence was of longest duration. As this republic was the most powerful, the most wealthy, and the most wisely administered of all the Italian states, it appeared, even after the year 1530, when all Italy fell under the yoke of Charles V., to have preserved some vigour and inde- pendence. But the signoria of Venice did not share in the illusion which it created abroad : it felt the nation's weakness and danger, and knew too well that the vital principle was gone. The whole of the l6'th century was employed by the Venetians in repairing the disasters of the league of Cambrai. They had to rebuild all the walls of their city ; to recover their reduced population ; to re-esta- blish their manufactures and agriculture, and to liquidate the enormous debt with which they were loaded ; be- sides being always menaced by the Turks, against whom they had to support two disastrous wars : one from 1537 to 1540, which cost them their islands in the Archipelago, and their last fortresses in the Morea ; the other from 1570 to 1573, which deprived them of the isle of Cyprus. They appeared in some degree sacred to the western people, who regarded them as their de- fenders against the infidels ; they were moreover united by an identity of interests to the Roman empire, — like them, menaced by the Mussulmans : they, consequently, drew closer their alliance with the house of Austria, and under that pretext withdrew themselves from every other participation in the general affairs of Europe. But in the beginning of the seventeenth century the Mussulman empire no longer inspired so much terror. The yoke of Spain continued to grow more insupport- able to Italy; while the developement of the protestant party in Europe showed some prospect of throwing it off. The policy of the Venetian republic was, in fact, constantly to throw off the yoke of the house o. 10] 8 CONSPIRACY OF BEDMAR. 357 Austria. But knowing its own weakness, and justly suspicious of allies who would abandon after compro- mising them, the Venetians contented themselves with giving succour to those whom they considered the de- fenders of European liberty, without openly making themselves a party in their leagues. Venice was the first to acknowledge Henry IV., re- jected by the catholic powers, and to negotiate his reconciliation with the pope. In 1()17> it made alliance with the Dutch. During the thirty years' war, it gave succour to the protestants of Germany, to Bethlem ( Tabor, and to Ragotski, in Hungary. It supported the duke of Savoy against the king of Spain, and the pro- testant Grisons against the catholics of that canton. At this period, when the republic was come almost to open hostility with the court of Spain, Philip III. was represented in Italy by three powerful noblemen, ambitious, intriguing, and faithless — Don Pedro de To- ledo, governor of Milan ; the duke d'Ossuna, viceroy of N'aples ; and the marquis de Bedmar, ambassador at Venice. In l6l8, a project was formed between these three lords to destroy a republic which stood in the way of their ambition, and which had always thwarted the enterprises of Spain. Some French adventurers, who had signalised themselves in the armies and fleets of the republic, of whom the most illustrious were the corsair Jaques Pierre and Jaffier, dissatisfied with the rewards which they had obtained, offered their services to the marquis de Bedmar. The marquis encouraged them to enlist in their service the assassins, bravos, and robbers who, under the Spanish rule, always formed a part of the household of men of quality. It was agreed that, at a given signal, they should massacre the doge, senators, and nobles; that the city should afterwards be abandoned to their pillage ; and that a general fire should veil their crimes. On the other side, it appears that Jaques Pierre gave early notice of this plot to the senate ; that he carried it on by its order ; that the senate made use of it to hide its secret intelligence with a a 3 .558 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1()74* the duke d'Ossuna, with whom a project was entered into of nearly the same nature with that which had been proposed in the preceding century by Morone to Pes- cara. It was intended, with the aid of the senate, to re-establish the independence of all Italy, by driving the Spaniards out of Lombardy, and giving Ossuna the crown of Naples. Fresh disclosures of Antoine Jaf- fier apparently discovered to the Council of Ten that the conspirators preferred the pillage of Venice to the doubtful chances of a revolt at Naples ; and that the in- formation which they had given of their plot was destined only to deceive the vigilance of the state inquisitors. The republic, however, had embarked itself in intrigues which could not bear the light. On a certain morning, the inhabitants of Venice saw with horror the bodies of Jaques Pierre, Regnault, Boulant, and several others, hanging in the square of St. Mark. One hundred and sixty others were, it was affirmed, drowned in the grand canal ; among them was Jaffier. No motive was as- signed for these executions ; no explanation was given to the public ; no recrimination was addressed to the court of Spain. The Council of Ten desired, above all, the silence of terror; and the romantic history of this conspiracy, published by St. Real in l6?4,and the tragedv of "Venice Preserved," byOtway, in 1682, were the only public documents of this catastrophe for a long time. The Venetians were afterwards forced by the attack, of the Turks to make advances to the house of Austria the enemy of their enemies. On the y3d of June, 1()45, the sultan Ibrahim unexpectedly attacked the isle of Candia. The war which thus began was the longest and most ruinous that the republic had yet sustained against the Ottoman empire: it lasted twenty-five years. The Venetians displayed obstinate valour in defence of Can- dia. Courageous adventurers arrived from every pari of the west to fight under their banner, as in a holy war. Their fleet twice destroyed that of the Mussulmans ; but the forces of the republic were too disproportioned to those of the Turkish empire. Candia was forced to 17 !!• LOSS OF THE MOUKA. ,*5iy surrender on the Oth of September, Kifif) ; and the senate of* that colony, the reflected image of the repub- lic, returned into the grand council of Venice, which had given it birth : peace followed this capitulation. A second war between the Venetians and the Porte was, before the end of the century, crowned with more success. The republic engaged in it, in 16*82, in con- cert with the emperor Leopold and John Sobieski, king of Poland. It conquered the Morea, Egina, Santa Maura, and several fortresses in Dalmatia, which were secured to it by the treaty of Carlowitz, signed on the 26th of January, l6'99 : but the Turks could not suffer so feeble an enemy to take from them one of their finest provinces. They might soon visibly convince themselves that the Venetians were no longer in a state to make a last effort to protect their conquests : the supreme power was concentrated in an oligarchy becoming daily more distracted. Half the nobility admitted to the grand council were reduced to the most extreme poverty. They lived on the bounty of the great, to whom they sold their suffrages. The families from among whom alone was selected the Council of Ten made every other tremble and obey. They regarded the state as a prey to be divided amongst themselves. Justice was venal; the finances dilapidated ; the fortifications falling into ruin ; the ef- fective force of the army did not amount to one half of what appeared on the roll : every thing was to the Venetian noble an object of embezzlement and robbery. The oppression of the distant provinces was so great, that the eastern Christian subjects of the republic regretted the dominion of the Ottomans. The sultan, Achinet III., informed of this universal disorganisation, sent bis army, on the 20th of June, 1714-, into the Morea; and ir. a month conquered that peninsula, covered with fortresses, of which not one made any resistance On the 27th of June, 171S, the republic abandoned, under the peace of Passarowifz, all its claims on the Morea. From that period it had no further war with the Turks. The republic abstained, with the same timidity, from A A 4- 860 HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 792 fiking any part in the war of the succession, either in Spain or Austria, in the quadruple alliance, or in thaf of the election of Poland, which disturbed Italy during the first half of the eighteenth century. It could not even make its neutrality respected. Its territory, always open to every belligerent power, was often the theatre of their most obstinate warfare. Venice, with 3,000,000 of subjects, 14,000 troops of the line (of which one half was composed of excellent Sclavonian soldiers), twelve vessels of war, and the means of arming 50,000 men, was incapable of making herself respected, or of protect- ing her subjects, either by sea or land. Her debt, even in the bosom of peace, was always increasing ; her manufactures always in decay; her territory was infested with robbers ; every city was divided into factions, which the senate encouraged, in order to weaken ii.s subjects. A suspicious and cruel government, which maintained itself only by the vigilance of spies, which had promoted immorality to enervate the people, which made the most profound secrecy its only safeguard, — which did not tolerate even a question on public affairs. — which deprived the accused of every protection before the tribunals, — which acknowledged no other limit to the right of punishing by the dagger, by poison, or by the axe of the executioner, than that of the terror of its rulers; — a government such as this became execrated by its subjects. It stained with the most odious tyranny the very name of republic. The French revolution appeared to the Venetian aris- tocracy an enemy destined to destroy it : of ah the governments which divided Europe, the Venetian was the most opposite in principle to that of the French ; never- theless, the senate refused to enter into the coalition against France, in 1792. Any display of force would have augmented its expenses, and diminished the spoils of provinces which the patricians divided amongst them- selves. The same parsimony, the same sacrifice of the public to private interests, hindered Venice, when the victories of Bonaparte opened Lombardy to him, in l?<)7- VENICE ATTACKS THE FRENCfi. "f>l April, 1796,, from augmenting her army or provisioning ^er fortresses, in order to protect her territory from the two belligerent powers. The government, adopting a vacillating policy between the two parties, and awaiting pvents, laid aside its arms: this soon brought war into the states of the republic. The Austrians, always the first to violate neutral ground, traversed them in every direction : Beaulieu occupied Peschiera and Verona ; Wurmser threw himself into Bassano,and passed through Vicenza and Padua ; Alvinzi and the archduke Charles occupied Friuli and Palma Nova, up to the eastern limits of the republic. Napoleon successively drove the Austrians from each of these provinces ; but, as the French occupied them, the spirit of reform in the tri- bunals and the laws, the spirit of publicity and equality, an impatience of every yoke, — the spirit, in short, of the French, — manifested itself, and the republic was at last made to understand how much it was detested by all those who had the least elevation of soul or cultivation of mind. Others, it is true, of the lowest class, (day-labourer'- in towns, and peasants in the country,) completely under the influence of priests, comprehending only what exists, fearing all change, and still deeply excited by the name of St. Mark, regarded France and evejy thing French with horror. The senate, relying on this party, whose fanaticism it excited, and hearing that Napoleon had passed the Piove on his march to Germany, on the 1 1th of March, 1797, gave orders to arrest at Bergamo fourteen of the principal inhabitants, who had de- clared themselves the most earnest in favour of the new doctrines. The patriots, warned in time, arrested the proveditor himself, raised the standard of revolt, and proclaimed the liberty of Bergamo: a few days afterwards, a similar revolution broke out at Brescia. Bonaparte had just defeated the archduke Charles at the Tagliamento, and was marching on Vienna. An Austrian column, commanded by Laudon, had meanwhile penetrated by the Tyrol into Italy; which lie inundaud .'62 HISTORY OF THE IlALIAN REPUBLICS. 1 79?. with proclamations, announcing the defeat and destruction of the French army, and '.nviting the Italians to take arms to crush its fugitive remains. The senate, feeling that its position became daily more critical, believed the moment come for throwing off the mask and joining the Austrians. Emili, the proveditor of Verona, after having conferred with Laudon, ordered the tocsin to be rung, on the 17th of April, throughout the whole province; and joining 30,000 insurgents to 3000 soldiers, whom he commanded, every where attacked the French, massacred all those within his reach, and suffered the infuriated people to murder 400 sick in the hospitals. The next day preliminaries of peace between Austria and the French republic were signed at Leoben; and, on the 3d of May, 1 797, Bonaparte, informed of the insurrection which had been organised in the rear of his army, and of the massacre of his sick, declared war against Venice from Palma Nova. The oligarchy, ill consternation, implored the court of Vienna, which had drawn it into this imprudent attack, to include Venice in the suspension of arms and the negotiations for peace ; but Austria refused all assistance : she had her own views on her ally, and Venice fell. The French general Baragnai d'Hilliers entered the city on the l6th of May, and planted unopposed the tricolour banner on St. Mark. The negotiations for peace, however, continued. Austria, be- ginning to recover from her panic, disputed the concessions demanded, and asked compensation out of the states of her ally. Hostilities were on the point of recommencing ; but France did not yet find herself strong enough to liberate all Italy. On the 17th of October, 1797, Napoleon signed the treaty of Campo Formio, by which he secured the liberty of one half of the Venetian ter- ritory up to the Adige, which was united to the Cisalpine republic. The Ionian isles were, at the same time, united to France. Austria, on her side, took possession of Venice and the remainder of the Venetian states. The loss of liberty sustained by that part of the republic was. however, of no long duration : at the expiration of 1805. REGENERATION OF ITALY. 3f).S eighteen months the war was renewed ; and, after the French had made themselves masters of Vienna, they obliged Austria to restore Venice and all her territory to the kingdom of Italy, under the treaty of Presbun:, signed on the 26th of December, 180./. It was thus that the invasion of the French, at the end of the eighteenth century, restored to Italy all the advantages of which their invasion at the end of the fifteenth had deprived her. When Charles VIII. en- tered Naples with his victorious army, on the 22d oi February, 1495, and overthrew the ancient svstem of Italian politics, he gave the signal for all the calamities which afterwards precipitated the peninsula under the yoke of the transalpine nations. The Italians continued to regard themselves as the first people in Europe, hut they had almost every where lost their liberty : ol the five republics which they could still reckon, four were narrow aristocracies. When Napoleon Bonaparte was appointed to the command of the French army in Italy, on the 23d of February, 1 7{X>, he began to effect a regeneration which gave to the Italian nation mon liberty than it had lost. It is the participation of numbers in the government, and not the name of re- public as opposed to monarchy, that constitutes liberty : it is, above all, the reign of the laws; publicity in the administration, as well as the tribunals; equality; the removal of all shackles on thought, on education, ami on religion. Five millions and a half of inhabitants in the kingdom of Italy were put in possession of a constitution which secured to them all these advantages, with a par- ticipation in the legislature and in the vote of taxes. They had recovered the glorious name of Italians ; they had a national army, the bravery of which rendered it daily more illustrious. Six millions and a half in- habitants of the kingdom of Naples received institutions less advanced, it is true ; but even there the law had succeeded arbitrary power ; public and oral evidence had succeeded secret information and the torture; equality, the feudal system ; education, instead of retrograding, had ?>M HISTORY OF THE ITAL„.»N REPUBLICS. ISOf. been rendered progressive, and thought, us well as religious conscience, had recovered freedom : finally, 2,000,000 of Piedmontese, 500,000 Genoese, 500,000 Parmesans, and 2,500,000 Tuscans and Romans,— in all, 5,500,000 Italians, — were temporarily united to France. They par- took of all the privileges of the conquerors : they became with them accustomed to the dominion of the law, to freedom of thought, and to military virtue, — secure that at no very distant period, when their political education should be accomplished, they would again be incorporated in that Italy to the future liberty and glory of which they now directed their every thought. Such was the work which the French accomplished by twenty years of victory : it was doubtless incomplete, and left much to be desired ; but it possessed in itself the principle of greater advancement: it promis£(l to revive Italy, liberty, virtue, and glory. It has been the work of the coalition to destroy all; to place Italy again under the galling yoke of Austria ; to take from her, with political liberty, civil and religious freedom, and even freedom of thought ; to corrupt her morals ; and to heap upon her the utmost degree of humiliation. Italy is unanimous in abhorring this ignominious yoke: Italy, to break it, has done all that could be expected of her. In a struggle between an established government and a nation, the former has all the advantages : it has in its favour rapidity of communication, certainty of in- formation, soldiers, arsenals, fortresses, and finances. The people have only their unarmed hands and their masses unaccustomed to act together : nevertheless, in every struggle during these fifteen years in Italy, between the nation and its oppressors, the victory has remained with the people. At Naples, in Sicily, in Piedmont, in the states of the church, at Modena and Parma, unarmed masses have seized the arms of the soldiers ; men chosen by the people have taken the places of the despots in their palaces. The Italians, every where victorious over their own tyrants, have, it is true, been every where forced back under the yoke with redoubled cruelty by the league J 805. PROSPECTS OF ITALY Jti.". of foreign despots. Attacked before they could have given themselves a government or formed a treasury, arsenals, or an army, by the sovereign of another nation, who reckons not less than 30,000,000 of subjects, they did not attempt a hopeless resistance, which would have deprived them of every chance for the future. Let those who demand more of them begin by doing as much themselves. Italy is crushed; but her heart still beats with the love of liberty, virtue, and glory : she is chained and covered with blood ; but she still knows her strength and her future destiny : she is insulted by those for whom she has opened the way to every improvement ; but she feels that she is formed to take the lead again : and Europe- will know no repose till the nation which, in the dark- ages, lighted the torch of civilisation with that of liberty, shall be enabled herself to enjoy the light which sue created. INDEX. A. Achmet Giedik, grand vizier to Mahomet II., 275. Achmet III., pope, 359. Adolphua of Nassau, 105. Adrian IV., pope, 42. Adrian VI., pope, 327. Death of, 328. Agostino Capponi, 319. Aignadel, battle of, 309 Aix-la-Chapelle, peace of, 355. Alberic, governor of Treviso, 88. Albert of Austria, 10">. Albert, marquis d'Este, succeeds his brother in the sovereignty of Ferrara, to the prejudice of ins nephew Dbizzo, whom he caused to be beheadeil with his mother, 192. Alberto Scotto, lord of Placentia, 12+. Albornoz, cardinal, 159. Alencon, duchess of, 331. Alexander III., pope, 43. Con- tracts an alliance with William the Norman, king of the Two Sicilies; and arms the whole of southern Italy against Frederick Barbarossa, 44. Escapes from Rome; after his escape the Ro- mans take the oath of fidelity to Frederick Barbarossa, 46. Ar. rives in Venice to open negotia- tions with the emperor, 51. Alexander IV,, pope, 94. Alexander V., pope, 212. Alexander VI., pope, 284. De- nounces Savonarola a* a heretic, and prohibits him from preach- ing, 29-'. Despatches judges from Koine with orders to condemn Saion.irola, with his two friends, to death, 295. Enters into an alliance with Louis XII. of France, 298. Death of, 304. Alexander de' Medici, receives a rescript frnm the emperor, whirl; gave to Florence a constitution nearly monarchical, 347. Death of, 34S A.exandria, a city founded by the league of Lombard? in bonoux u, pope Alexander, 46. Alphonso the Magnanimous, king of Aragon, 214. Death of, 230. Alphonso II. of Naples, abdicates in favour of his son, 2i>8. Alphonso d'Este, 340. Amalfi, illustrious for the found- ation in the Holy Land of the hospital and military order uf St. John of Jerusalem, for the invention of the compass, and the preservation of the conduits of Justinian, surrendered to the Normans in 1131,28. Ambrosio Contarini, 257. Amedeus VIII., duke of Savov, Amiens, the treaty of, 336 Ancona, marquis of, 62. Andrea Danuolo, doge of Venice, 62. Andrea di Pisa, 10S. Andrea rie Pazzi, 251. Andrea Lampugnaiii, 266. Andrea Gutti, 307. Andrea Dona, proclaims therepub lie, and re-establishes once more the freedom of Genoa, 339. Death of, 351. Angelo, Michael, 344. Aninbal Bentivoglio, 232. Antoine Jaftier, 358. Antonio Fisiraga, 123. Antonio da Volterra, 270. Antonio Grimani, 3U7. Antonio Trivulzio, 230. Antonio de Leyva, :]32. Surprise the Count St Pol at Lanilriano, and makes him prisoner, with all the principal officers of the French army, 339. Antoniotto Adorni, doge of Genoa confers on Charles VI. of liance the signoria of Genoa, 1S7. Aquila, the battle of, 215. Armagnac, count de, ly.i. Arnold of orescia, an eloquent monk, the disciple of Abe.'ard, preaches a twofold reform in the religious and political order- , driven out of Italy by pope Imio- 31)8 cent II. j recalled to home; buint alive before the gate of the ca.itle <>f St. Angelo in 1155, 33. As tor de' Manfredi, £1%. Azzo Visconti, lord of Milan, r'Ail the government to John of Biiie- -rna, taking henceforth the title of his vicar only, 14-'. Death of, 164. I!. Bhjazet II., declares war against Venice, 297. Baldassar Carducci, 3i3. Haldinaccio degli Adimari, 149. Baldwin, count of 1' landers, named by the crusaders emperor of Con- stantinople, 62. Balearic Isles, the, conquered by the Pisans from the Saracens in m;, 29. Barbiano, count of, forms a military company under the name of St George, into which he ad- nutted Italians onl , 190. Barnabas Visconti, 168. Forces the two legates of the pope to eat the parchment, together with the leaden seals and silken strings, on which the bull of excommunica- tion against him was written, 174. Carries on secret negotiation! with th" holy see ; oilers to •.acri. rice to the church the republic of Florence, 176\ Divides his do- minions amongst his children ; thrown into prison by his nephew, Gian Galeazzo, ISP. Death of, 190. Bartolomeo Coleoni, '.'27. Bartoloineo d'Alviano, 309. Bayard the chevalier, 329. Beatrice, wife of Charles of Anjou, leads an army of 30,000 men through Lombardy, to aid her husband in his entry into Sicily, 9.5. Bedmar, marquis de, 3.77. Benedetto, Alberti, placed at the head of the republic of Florence, 186. Exiled from Florence, 187. Benedict XI., pope, endeavours to reconcile the Bianchi and the Neri ; his death, 117. Benedict Ml., pope, 14;7. His cha- racter, lo9. Benedict XIII., pope, besieged in his palace at Avignon by the troops of the king of France ; de- clares himself ready to abdicate; deposed by the oecumenical coun- cil at Pisa ; retire* to Rimini, 209. ".eoi \ento founded by C Lo«nt>ard chief, 2f>. Divided into three principalities, 27. Benorie Gazzadini, 81. Ee-nardo Guadagni gonfalonier ot >1 Jleno Bernardo Nardi surprises the gate of the Prato, makes himself mas- ter of the public palace, arrest) the Florentine podesta,263L Taken prisoner by the governor, and be- headed with six of his accom- plices, 264. Bernardo Bandini, 270. Bertrand de Poiet, cardinal, 130. 145. Bianca, daughter of the duke .Milan; marriage of with Fran- cesco Sfnrza, 228. Bianchi and Neri, the factions of, Hi. Blandr^te, count de, orVers himself as a mediator between the Mi- lanese and Frederick Barbarossa ; obtains terms not unfavourable to the Milanese, Bocca degli Abati, 86 Boccaccio, character of his writings 153. Boccanegra, doge of Genoa, H6. Bologna, flourishing state of, in the time of the Homan empire, 7 R< - public of, 143. Boniface VIII., pope, his character, I0lj. Endeavours to augment the power of the liuelphs; arrested by Philip le Bel in his palace of Anagni, and died a few week- af- terwards of rage and humiliation, 107. Boniface IX, pope, 208. Bonne, duchess of Savoy, regent of Milan, 272. Deprived of the re- gency, 27;. Boninvet, admiral, S28. Borso, duke of Perrara, 264. Botla, Adorno, marquess, I. Boucicault, marshal, 206. Bourbon, the constable de, joins the imperialists, 329. Receives from Charles V. the command if his forces in Italy, 334. His death, S'A. Braccioda Blontoue, placed i>> the Florentines at tin- bead of their arinv, 211. Blade governor of Abruzzi by Alpbonso, king of Aragon; mortally wounded m the battle Of Aquila, -1.7. Brancaleone d'Andolo, a Bolognese no'jie, called by the Romans to ovemment of their republic with the title of senator, si Establishes, by terror, security in the streets of Home, 82. Brescia, the siege of, 70. Blinnvicitio, a Dominican friar, a friend and disciple 01 Savonarola, '2!'.'. Condemned to death j burnt alive on the 23d of May 14!«, :00. Her ueath, 201. Catherine Sforza, 277. Marriage of, with Giovanni de' Medici, S!78. Catterino Zeno, 256, l esar Borgia, son of Pope Alex- ander V I., 298. Created duke of Komagna, 303 Death of, 304. Celestine \'., pope, 106. Charles, king of the Franks, re. ceives from the pope the name of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great ; death of, 12. Charles, count of Anjou, receives the crown of Sicily from the pope; elected senator by the Hu- man republic, 95. Enters Naples at the head of 30,000 men, ;i i. Receives from the Florentines the signoria of Florence for ten years, 97. Named imperial vicar in Italy during the Interregnum of the empire, 98. Summoned by St. Louis to join the crusade, '.'•>. Obliged by the pope to renounce the title of vicar imperial and senator of Home, 1 00. Deprived of the crown of Sicily, 103. Death of, lot. Charles II., of Naples, 10+. His character and death, 105. KX. {Jf Chanes de Valoiii lift Charles I V., ol Bohemia, 158. Called bv the pope king of the priest-, 15!>. Enters Tuscany ; encourages the male-contents ol the republics of 1'isa and Sienna to overthrow the existing government, It*. Return? lo Lucca, 173. Receive; from the doge the signoria of Genoa, 187. Charles da Durazzo, 179. Charles VI., of trance, 17!) Charles Yl I., of France, 257. Charles Yin., of France, 282. In. vanes Italy ; enters Florence, 287 Declares himself content with the subsidy offered by the republic. departs from Florenci" , eaters Home, '.ss. Returns t" Frimce death of, fflu, Charles V., of Germany, 324. signs at Barcelona a treaty of pci pciinl alliance with the pope, S40. Re- ceives from the pope at Bologna, the two crowns of Lombardy, and the empire, Ml. Charles, of Austria, 361. Christian, archbishop of Mentz, 47 Clement IV., pope, 95. Death of 98. Clement V., pope, 117. Death of, 129. Clement VI., pope, 15!). Cedes the fief of Bologna to the archbishop of Milan, on condition of receiv- ing from him an annual tribute Of 12,000 florins, [65, Clement VII., pope, 208. His cha- racter, 3'J8. Cola di Hienzo, re-establishes a re- publican government at Home, 151. His character, 155, Ap- pointed by the Unmans the pope's vicar, I5<>. Death of, 157. Conrad, the Salic, of Franconia, tilled the throne of Italy from 1004 to 1039, 16. Puts an end to the war between the citn s and the nobles, by a constitution whii h is considered the basis of leuda, law, 17. Conrad III., of Germany, .'i.i. ( onrad IV., of German Conrad V., of German} . 80, t onradin, i Conran v., of tier many, disputes the crown ol Sicilj with ( ii.ii les of /Vnjou, 96 Taken prisoner by him alter the battle Of Taghacoz/.a, and behead. si In the market place at Haplet, W Consilio di Credenza, a Secret coun. ell appointed by the parliament ol Milan to assist the government^ , Constance, peace of, V.'. Coustauce, sole heiress of the No;- II D 570 man kings ; marriage of, w.th H-'urv VI., emperor of Germany, 54. ("on stand nople, taken by the Turks hi 1453,235. I nrtona, cardinal de, 342. Cosmo de' Medici, 224. His love of literature, 225. Condemned to exile bv the balia of Florence, 226. Recalled from exile, 227. Seeks to become prince of Flo- rence, 232. Becomes daily more powerful at Florence, 235. Death of, 245. Cosmo de* Medici, duke of Flo. renc.c, 348. Crema, siege, of, 40. Daimbert, archbishop. 29. Dante, 108. Exiled from his coun- try, 117. Dino Compagni, the historian, 116*. Kccelinn II. of Romagna, 67. Eccelino III. of Romagna, placed by Frederick II. at the head of the Ghibeline partv, 68. Named by the members of the republic captain of the people, 69. Ob- tains from Frederick II. the ex- clusive government of the Ve- ronese marches, 74. His cha- racter, K9. His death, 90. Hgidio, AU>ornoz, 157. Klise, princess, sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, invested with the prin- cipality of Lucca, 350. Este, marquis d\ 71. Joins the party of Beatrice, wife of Charles nf Anjou, 97. Eugenius IV., pope, 2'-7. Fabrizio Maramaldi, 346. Facino Cane, 201. Farinata degli Uberti, joins Man- fred, king of the Two Sicilies, 85. Repels with indignation the pro- positions of the ambassadors of Pisa and Sienna, K7. Immrrtal- :«cd by Dante as the saviour of Florence, S8. Ferdinand I. of Naples, his cha- "acter, '-'44. Signs a treaty with fyorenzo de* Medici, 275. Death ..f, 285. '.uiii and II of Naples, 288. Ferdinand of Aragnn. marriage 01 with Isabella ot Castile, 28-'. Ferdinand the Catholic, 300. Hit treachery, .301 Ferdinand of Austria, 331. Ferdinand de Gouzaga, 344. Fil.ppo Malia, count of Pavia, 200. Filippo Maria Visconti, third duke of Milan, his character, 213. Ac- complishes the conquest of Loin, bardy, 214. Makes alliance with Joan II. of Naples, and Louis 111. of Anjnu, 215. Death of, 228. Fihppino Doria, 3T7. Florence, therepublic of, its judicial institutions, 83. The constitution of, 135. State of, in 1432, 220. Fornovo, battle of, '-89. Francesco Gambacorta, 169. Francesco da Gonzaga, lord of Man- tua, in a paroxysm of rage and jealousy, causes his wife to be be- headed, 192. Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua, 179. Accepts the proffered al- liance of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, 191. Re-established in the so. vereignty of Padua in 1S00, 80S. Carries on a war with Venice with the utmost valour, 204. Thrown into prison and strangled, with his two sous, by crder of the Council of Ten, 205 Francesco Carmagnola, a Pied- montese soldier, placed by the duke of Milan at the head of his armies, 214. Excites the jealousy of the duke by the influence he obtained over the soldiers, 216. Basely deceived by the Venetians, and executed between the two columns on the square of St. Mark, in 1432, 219. Franceschetto Cibn, son of pope In- nocent VIII., 276. Francesco Acciaiuolo duke of Athens, 254. Francesco Foscari doge of Venice, 216. His warlike ambition, SSI. Deposed in 145K, and died while listening to the tolling or the hell for the inauguration of his suc- cessor, 243. Francesco Piccinino, 227. Francesco de' Pazzi,268. Francesco, Hinalrio, and Jacopo, execution of. 271. Francesco Salviati archbishop of Fisa, 269. Execution of, 271. Francesco Ferrucci, 345. Death of, 346. Francesco Burlamachi gotifaloner of Lucca, 349. Beheaded bj order of the emperor Charlet V., aso. INDEX 37! Francesco Sforza succeeds his father i in the command of his army, 215. j Forms an intimate friendship with Cosmo de' Medici, 22". Kil- ters with his army the service cif the republic of Milan, S3] Hi* perfidy, 233. Gains a great and last victory over the Venetian! at Caravaggio,'..'34. Proclaimed duke of Milan, 235. Death, of, 250. I r;n cis II. of Carrara, 193. Frauds of Apulia, a friar sent to Florence by the pope to preach against Savonarola, 29 i. Francis I. of France renews the treaty of alliance with Venice, 322. Signs a treaty of peace with the Swiss, which took the name of " Paix perpetuelle," 323. En- ters Lonibardy, makes himself master of Milan, 329. Contracts the treaty of Amiens with Henry VIII. of England, 336. Francois de Bourbon enters Jxim barilv with a French army, 338. Frederick Harbarossa,duke of Swa- Ina, receives the ciown of Italy from the Germanicdiet assembled at Frankfort, 33. Enters Italy with a powerful German army, 34. Plunders and burns the towns ofChieriand Asti, 35. Crowned at Rome by pope Adrian IV. 36. Summons his vassals at the feait of Pentecost, 1158, to compel the submission of Italy, 37. Or- ders the people of Lodi to rebuild their town, 38. Signs a treaty with the Milanese. 38. Assembles a new diet of the kingdom of Italy at Bologna, and places Milan under the ban of the empire, 39. liaises the siege of Crema ; his cruel treatment of the inhabit- ants, 4ii. Haines the siege of Milan, 41. Returns to his Ger- man dominions, 42. Re-enters Italy, 43. Returns to Germany to levy an army ; marches to- wards Rome, 44 Defeats the Romans with great slaughter, and makes himself master of the I/eonine city, 45. Leaves Rome, 46. Obliged to suspend for live \ears his efforts to subdue Italy, 47. Re-enters Italy at the head oi a formidable army, 49. Medi- tates a new attack on Milan, 50, Determines to think seriously of peace ; o|>ens new negotiations with the pope, 51. Concludes a truce of six years with the Lom- bards: signs the peice of t (in- stance, 52. Places himself at ::.•• head of the third crusade which ne leil into the East by land, aim Hied the 10th of June, 1 190, of a stroke of aimplexy, 5R. F.ederick II. of Germany, SB. Crowned at Aiv-la-t hapellc, by the (jermaii Uhibehue*, king o( the Romans and Germans, fin. Receive* from the pope the crown o. the empire; his love ot litera- ture; founds schools and univer- sities. 65. Accused of hat nig written a book against the three revelations ot Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, entitled " De iribns ImpostOTibUS: ' marriage ot, w ill Yolanda de Lusignan , excom- municated by the pope, 66. Re-. establishes his power m southeri Italy, 68. Obliged to employ tv. <■ years in settling his affairs in Germany ; returns to Italy with 3 Ml German cavalry, 69. Rai»e> the siege of Brescia, 70. Excom- municated a second time by the pope, 71. Solicits tobereconcileo lothechurch ; refused by the po| c and declared an enemy ol re- ligion, 72. Opposcsall his strengi h of soul against the sentence pto nounced against him by the coun- cil of Lyons, 73 Becomes sus- picious and cruel; confides t,ii many to his son Conrad, 74. Re- sumes his arms at a moment when he was least disposed, 75 Rai-c- the siege of Parma, 76. De. it of, 78. Frederick, illegitimate son of Fre- derick II., called by him king oi Antioch, 75. Frederick III. of Austria, van- quished by Louis of Bavaria and made prisoner at Mulililorl, 129, defuses to acknowledge Fran- cesco Slorza, duke ol Milan, 23t>. Frederick da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, 272. Frederick, king of Nanlcs, 298 Death of, SOI. French revolution of 1792, 360. G. Gabriel Maria Viscontl, 206. Exe. cution oi, .n7 Gabrino Fondola, 201. Galcazxo Viscontl, lord of Milan. 131. Deprived of his sovereignty and cast into a dungeon together with his sons and his two bro- thers by Louis of Bavaria; li- berated at the intercession of Castruccio, 137. Galcsisu Sfona, 2.50. His ch.it.ie- il 2 S'72 • er, 2ft). Assassinated while ] ro- ceening to the church of St. Ste. plien in 1 476, 2<>6. Jaleazzo San Sevenno, 298. Galeotto, Manfredi, lord of Faenza, '-'78. Gaston de Foix, duke of Nemours, Hauls, the, invade Italy, and com- plete the destruction of the Lom- bard monarchy, 11. Gaultier de Brienne, duke of Athens, 147. His character, 14!' George Castriot, 256. George de Frundsberg, :>S1 Death of, 33+. Ghibelines, the; conspiracy of, to recover their power in Florence, 85. Enter Florence, and imme. diately abolish the popular go- vernment, 87. Obtain the as- cendency in Lombardy, 94. i.lnberto da Correggio, lord of Parma, 124. Giacomo del Verme, 193. <*ian Maria Visconti, duke of Mi- lan, 200. His ferocious charac- ter, 201. Assassinated by some Milanese nobles on the ifi-n of May 141.', 202 Gian Battista da Montesecco, 270. <;ian Luigi de Fieschi, 351, Giannettino Doria, 351. inn . ! refuses to give him absolution, i?79. Promises the miraculoui protection of the Divinity, tor the reform of the church, 2JU. Limit* his efforts to the resttr- ation of discipline; the reform ation of the morals of the clergy ; and the recall of priests to the practice of the Gospel precepts, 292. Denounced as a heretic by the pope, and interdicted from preaching, 292. Holds up to public reprobation the scanda- lous conduct of the pope, 29i. Condemned to death by the judges despatched by the pope ; and burnt aiixe, on the 23d of May, 1498, 295. Giuliano de' Medici, 254 Death of, 270. Guiliano della Rovere, 268. Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua, 289. Gonzalvo di Cordova, i(,0. Grandella, battle of, 96. Gregory IX., pope, 66. Convokes a council at Rome of all the pre- lates of Christendom, 71 Death of, 72. Gregory X., pope, 9!'. Gregory XI., pi pe, his character, 174. His death, 176. Gregory XII., pone, 208. Deposed by the oecumenical council at Pisa ; retires to Aragou, 209. Grenada, treaty of, 300. Guelphs and Ghibelines, union of the, 45. Guido Novella, P7. Guido de Montefeltro, 101. Guido della Torre, governor of Venice, 124. Guiscardo Pietro Santa, podesta of Florence, 84. Gulielmo della Scala, 204. H. Harmodins, 262. Hassan Beg, 256. Henrv II. of Bavaria, 16. Henry 1 1 1, of Italy, 17. Obliges the people to renounce the right they had in the election of popes. 18. ' Henry IV. of Italy, compelled by Hildebrand to do penance before him in the open court of Canosa, 20. Henry V. of Italy, 21. Henry VI., emperor of Germany, marriage of, with Constance, soli heiress of *he Norman kings, 54 His death, 55. 37'J Henrv prince, son of Frederick II., 68. ' Death of, 69. Henry II 1 of England, 95. Henry VII, of Luxembourg, his character, 121, Crowned in the church oi St. Ambrose, 124 lie. reives tile golden Clown of the empire from the hands of tile pope's legate, in the church of St. John de Lateran, 127. Death of, 128. 1 Ienry VIII. of England, 314. Con. tracts the treaty of Amiens with Francis I. of France, for the de- liverance of the pope, 336. Henry, duKe of Brunswick, 338. Hensius, illegitimate son of Frede- rick II., called by him king of Sardinia, and imperial vicar in Lombardy, 7.5. Taken prisoner by the Bolognesc, and confined in the palace of the podesta for life, Hercules I. duke of Ferrara, 264. Heribert, archbishop of Milan, in- vents a car in imitation of the ark of alliance, and causes it to be adopted in Milan, 2'-'. Hildebrand, born at Soano in Tus- cany ; sent by his convent to pursue his studies at Cluny, in France ; undertakes to reform the church, 19. Prohibits the priests from marrying; concentrates all the power of the church in the pope, 20. Ascends the papal chair in 1073, taking the name of Gre- gory VI I., 21. Honorius III., pope, 64. Honorius IV., pope, 103. Hugo de Moncada, 332. Ibrahim, sultan, 3. r >8. Innocent 11., pope, 33. Innocent III., pope, his character ; founds the two mendicant orders of Franciscans and Dominicans, and confides to thcin the fearful powers of the inquisition, which he instituted, til. Houses (be fanatics of France to exterminate the Albigonses, 62. Death of, 64. Innocent IV., pope, 72. Opens in the convent of St. Just, at Lyons. the council of the universal church ; obtains from them a sen. tence of excommunication against Frederick 1 )., 73. Sends the car. dinal Octavian degll Ubatdinl to the Guelph cities, to engage them to pursue their victim, and puni'h the Imperial parly for then revolt against the church, 7/ Enter* Milan on the death of Fredirii k II. with all the pomp of a triumph, 81. Innocent VI., pope, 157. Death uf, 160. Innocent VI I., pope, 208. Innocent VI 1 1., pope, 276°. Innocenzm Cntta, 2 0. Isabella of Castile, marriage of, with Ferdinand of Aragou, 282 1st i i.i and Dalmatia make alliance with Venice, 26. Italy, state of, in the middle ages, I. Invaded by the French, German, and Spanish nations, 4. I'opula. tion of, at the fall of the Itomau empire in the tilth century, 7. Prosperous state of, during the entire ages of Trajan and the , Antonines, y. Invaded by barba- rians, 10. Invaded by the Ostro- goths, under Theodoric, 10. In. vaded by the Gauls, 11. State of, from the fall of the ancient Ro- man empire to the passing over of the revived empire to the Germans, 13. Government of, towards the beginning of the twelfth century, . o. Review of, from the invasion of Otho the (.reat to the ueath of Frederick, 78 Progress of the arts, sciences; and literature in, 108. Revival of letters in, 151. State of the church in the fifteenth century, 199. Threatened by the 'I urk>, 241. Invaded by Uiarlcs \ 111. of France, 203. J. Jacomo Piocinlno, 227. Jacopo de' Hussolari, re-establishes a republican government at I'a- via, 154. His character, 157 His death, 158 Jacopo Appiano, 194. Jacopo Foscari, son of the doge of Venice, 242, Death of, 243. Jacopo l'iniiiino, 245. Jacopo de' l'azzi,26S. Execution of 271. Jacopo Bracciolini, execution ol ■-7 1. James II of Aragou, 133. James III de I.usignan, king of Cypnis, 257. James de l.uslgnan, son of thr former, 257. Jaques, count de la March?, 214 Jaques Piei re, Jerome Mm one, chancellor of thd duke of Milan, 330, 371 Join, wife (if Andrew king of Hun- gary, consents to the murder of her husband, and marries her cousin Louis, the instigator of the murder, 160. Protects pop 1 Clement VII., :~7. Excommu- nicated and deposed l>y pope Ur- ban VI., 178. Surrenders herself to Charles of Durazzo, who causes her to be smothered under a fea- ther bed. 179. Joan II., queen of Naples , her cha- racter, 212. Her death, 229. lohn da Procida, 102. Visits in dis- guise the Two Sicilies, to re-ani- mate the zeal of the Uhibelines, 1US John XXII., pope, 129. His profli- gate character, 130. Death of, 145. John, king of Bohemia, 141. John, archbishop of Milan, suc- ceeds Luchino in the sovereignty of Milan, 164. Receives from the pope the fief of Bologna, on con- dition of his paying him an an- nual tribute of 12,000 florins, 165. Death of, 1158. John Visconti da' Olcggio, 165. John Hawkwood, 170. John XX III., pope, d?|>osed by the council of Constance, 212. John, king of Navarre, 241. John, duke of Calabria, 244 John Sobieski, king of Poland, 359. Josaphat Barbaro, 257. Julius II., pope, 304. His charac- ter, SOS Accomplishes a league against France, which was called Holy, 312. Death of, 317. Julius Cesar Vachero, execution of, 352. L. Ladislaus, king of Naples, takes possession of nearlv all the states of the church, 20ft ' Character of, 210. Death of, 212. I.amba Doria, 125. Lando, count, 162. Lautrec, marshal, persists in reduc- ing Naples by blockade, 337. His death, ;J38. I.eo III., pope, 18. Leo da Perego, a Dominican friar, I.eo X., pope ; his reign and cha- racter, 318. Signs a treaty, by which he restores Parma and Placentia to the French, 323. In- duces Francis I of France to sa- crifice the liberties of the Gallican church, 324. Refuses permission to the Florentines to re-establish their lepublic, 326, Dcain o' 326. Leonardo de'.la Roverc, '268. Leopold, emperor, 359. Lionel, duke of Ferrara, 2f4. Lombards, the, invade Italj, am) destroy the monarchy of the Os- trogoths, 10. Found a city in northern Italy, of which Pavia was the capital, and in southern Italy the duchy cf Benevento, 11. Conquer the exarchate of Ra. venna and the Pentapolis, and de- mand that these provinces should be restored to Rome, 12. Lombardv, the league of, 45. Lorenzo Ridolfi, 216. Lorenzo de' Medici, 252 Aban- doned by Italy, places his hn|>es in France, 274. Signs a treaty with the king of Naples, 275. His administration, 277. His death, 279. Louis IV. of Havaria, successor ot Henry VII., emperor of tier- many, 129. Receives the iron crown at Milan, 137. Proceeds to Rome; crowned in the Vati. can, 138. Returns to Germany, carrying with him the contempt and detestation of the Italians, 139. Louis, king of Hungary, called the Great. 160. Death of, 179. Louis of Tarento, lfio. Louis II. of Anjou, disputes the throne of Naples with Ladislaus, 210. Louis III. of Anjou, 214. Louis XI. of France, 233. Arrives in Italy, 298. Enters Milan, sa. luted by the people as duke ot Milan, 299 Louis XII. of France, signs the treaty of Blois, 302. Convokes, in concert with Maximilian, an cecumenical council against the pope, 312. Attacked by Henry VIII. of England ; obliged to tt- call his troops from Italy, 314 Iymis XIV. of France, 352. Louis de la Tremouille, 299. Louisa of Savov, regent of France, 330. Lucas Pitti. gonfaloner of Flo- rence, 24S Builds the magnifi- cent palace which now form* the residence of the grand uukes, 249. Luchino Visconti, 164. Lucian Doria, 180. Ludovico Sforza, surnamed the Mi>or, 273. Made regent of the duchy of Milan, ?vi. ( outran* alliances with the Venetians, t. e 37 pofte.theking'if Spain, anil Max- imilian, 288. Hi* death, » . I.uigi Guicciardini, 251 l.uigi Lnredano, 255. M. Macchiavelli, death of, 343. Margaret of Austria signs tee league of Carabray, 308. Mahomet 1 1, signs a treaty of peace with the Venetian ambassador, '.'54. Charges his grand vizier Achmet Giedik to attempt a land- ing in Italy, which he effects, and makes himself master of Otranto, •-'75. Malatesta IV., one of the princes of Itimini, 307. Malatesta Baglioni, 344. Manfred, natural son oi Frederick II., recovers the kingdom of Italy from pope Innocent, 80. Killed on the field of battle in the plain of Grandella, near Benevento, 96. Maria Theresa of Austria, Ha3. Margaret of Anjou, 283. Mariano di Ghinazzano, a friar, sig- nalises himself by his zeal in up. |K>sing Savonarola, 293. Marino Faliero elected successor to Andrea Dandolo in the ducal chair of Venice, 167. Arrested by the Council of Ten, and be- headed, 168. Martin IV., pope, excommunicates Michael Paleologus, the Greek emperor, 102. Death of, 105. Martin della Torre, elected podesta of Milan in 1256, 92. Martin Bernardini, gonfaloner of Lucca, 350. Martin Luther, 298. Mastino della Scala succeeds in ob- taining the surrender of Lucca to himself, 144. Matthias Corvinus, the liberator of Hungary, 255. Engaged by pope I'ius II., to turn his arms against the king of Bohemia, 256. Matilda, countess, 32. Matteo Visconti exiled by the lords of I'lacentia and Parma ; recalled by Henry II., and restored to absolute power, 124. His cha- racter; in his war with the Lombard Guelphs takes pos- session of 1'avia, Tortona, and Alexandria, 130. Compels Phi- lip de Valoisto retreat from Italy ; abdicate! in favour of his son <;.i. leazxo; dies on the 22d of June, 1322, 1 It Matteo Palmieri, C5L Maximilian, empecoTof Germain, signs a trine with Loins Ml id France, 296. Kaiaes the siege id Paiiua, 310. Abandons the French to their enemies, 313. Asserts Ins rights on Verona and Vicenza, 321. Heath of, 325. Maximilian Sforza re-established on the throne of his ancestors, 321. Abdicates the sovereignty for a revenue of 30,000 crowns, secured to him in France, Meloria, the battle of, 110. Michael Angelo, 108. Michael Paleologus, the Greek em. peror, 102. Michele Lando, a carder of wool, proclaimed gonfaloner of Flo- rence, 185. His government , exiled from Florence, li>7. Ml. in, nourishing state of, in the tune of the Uoman empire, 7. Based the town of Looi, and obliged the town of Como to de- stroy its fortifications, 32. Siege of, 40. The town of, rased to tne ground by order of Frederick Bar. barossa, 40. Rebuilt, 45. The S»- viglio Grande of, begun io 1179; resumed in 12.'i7, and terminated in a few years alter, 107. Be. vival of the republic of, 230. Con- quered b> the French, 229. Montferrat, marquis de, 157 Monza, the battle of, 214. N. Napoleon della Torre, chief ot tne republic of Milan, taken prisoner by Otho Visconti, archbishop ot Milan, 101. Napoleon Bonaparte gains the vi- tory of Monte Sotte over the I'ied- montese and Austrian! . obliges the Genoese tOLdopt the name of theLigurian republic, >V> Defeats the arcliduke Charles at Taglia. mento,Jiil. Declares war against Venice , signs the treaty of I an ipo Fori Neri Capponi, 247. Nicholas III., |iope, undertakes to humble Charles of Anjou, and to support the Ghibellne party ; exacts from him that he should renounce the title of vicar or imperial, and resign the title M senator of Rome, lui. Sends a legate to Bomagn.i to comprl Bologna and all the (iuelpli re. publics to recall the t.lnbelines, and establish peace throughout *7« the province, 101. Death of, 102. Nicholas IV., pope, 102. Nicholas V., pope, his zeal for the progress of ancient literature ; his character 238. Nicolo Pisani, 166. Nicolo Piccinino succeeds Braccio in command of the Florentine army, 215. Nicolo d'Este, 26a. Nicolo Capponi, 343. O. Octavian de Ubaldini, cardinal, sent as legate by thepnpe to the Guelph cities to engage them to punish the imperial party tor their revolt against the church, 77. Odoacer, of the nation of Heruli, chief of the mercenaries who served in Italy, deposes the em. poror ; takes liim>elf the title of king ; distributes amongst his soldiers one third of the land in the most fertile province, 10. Orleans, duke of, in the name of his mother, advances pretensions to the duchy of Milan, 23$. Ossuno, duke, viceroy of Naples, 357. Ostrogoths, the, invade Italy, under the command of Theodoric, 10. Otho I. of Saxony, king of Ger. many, forces Herenger II., in 951, who then resigned, to ac knowledge himself his vassal ; enters Italy a second time ; crowned at Rome, with the title of emperor; sends Herenger to end his days in a fortress in Italy, IS. Otho II., 15. Otho 111., 15. Otho IV., duke of Bavaria and Saxony, named king of the llomans by the Guelphs, 59. Crowned anew by the Germans ; passes into Italy to receive from the pope the golden crown of the empire; death of, 60. Otho Visiouti, archbishop of Milan, 101. ragan della Torre, the lord of Val- sassuia, 70. Paganino Doria, a Genoese admiral, 166 Pandolfo Petruoci, 305. Pandolpho Malatesta, 201. Parabiago. the battle of, 162. Parma, .siege of, 76. Paul II., pope, 2.36. Paulus II., pope, 256. Paulo Guinigi usurps the so»«> reignty of Lucca, 196. Deponed and sent prisoner to Milan, 218. Paulo Fregosa, archbishop ot'Geuoa, 253. Pedro of Aragon, don, the crown of Sicily transferred from Charles of Anjou to, 103. Pelavicini, the marquis, 3X.. Feseara, marquis, 330. His death, 332. Peter IV. of Aragon, 166. Petracco del Aucisa, the father of Petrarch, 117. Petraroh, character of his writing.-, 153. Philibert de Challon, prince of Orange, 346. Philip I , duke of Swabia, named king of the Romans by the Ghi- belines, 59. Philip Ugoni of Brescia, podesta of Bologna, 77. Philip le Bel accused of poisoning pope Benedict XI.; succeeds by fraud in getting a Frenchman elected pope, 117. Philip III. of Spain, 357. l'liihppone di I>angu»io, 123. Pietro delle Vigne, private secre- tary to Frederick II., conspire- against his master, 74. Pietro Gradenigo, elected doge ot Venice by a grand council, ami carried a decree on the 28th of February, 1297, famous in the history of Venice under the name of serrata del maggior consiglio, 120. Pietro Doria, 180. Pietro Gambacorta placed by tlu Pisans at the head of their re- public, 194 Pietro de Lana, 204. Pietro de' Medici, 248. Death of, Pietro Minerbetti, 251. l'ietro Mocenigo, 257. Pietro Riario, 268. Pietro It., named chief of the re. public of Florence ; his character, 284. Learning that the French were arrived at Sarzana, departs to meet Charles VII I ; surrenders the fortresses of Sarzana and Sar- zanello, 235. Refused admit- tance into the signoria ; leave? the city with his brothers by the gate of San Gailo, and lo>es with- out a struggle a sovereignty which their family had exercised tixty yestfs. 28f> S77 Pictni Capponi, '287. Pietro Soderini, created gonfaloncr of Venice for life; his character, 306. Pietro Boscoli, .319. Pisa, the republic of, compelled to surrender to the Normans, 28. The first to make known to the world the riches and power which a small state might acquire by the aid of commerce and liberty, loy. Introduces into Tuscany the arts that ennoble wealth, 1 10. Unites the love of liberty with :he sentiments ofGhibelinepartj ; gives the command of her militia to Uguccione da Faggiuola ; revo- lution of, l.)-.' 169. I'ius II., causes a crusade to be preached in all the Latin coun- tries ; death of, ~.~>i>. I'oggio Bracciolini, the historian, 69. r.nnpeoColonna raises in the papal .state S(XA) armed peasants ; sur- prises the Vatican; pillages the palace; constrains the pope to ab- jure the e'liance of trance and Venice, 333. Ponlida, the convent of, 4o. R. Raphael Riario, Qfi9. Ravenna conquered by the Lom- bards. 24. Raymond deCardona, 131. R.-lic II., duke of Lorraine, 274. Richard, earl of Cornwall, 80. Death of, 99. Rinaldo degli Albizzi summons Cosmo de' .Medici to appeal before the gonfaloner of Florence, 225, Summoned to appear before Do. 1 1 at i, president of the siguori Condemned to exile, 227. Seeks an asylum with Filippo Maria duke of Milan ; presses him to makewar on Florence, -., Robert, king of Naples, assumes the part of champion of the Guelph party, 126, Agrees to aid the Florentines, on condition that they would confer the signoria on iiis son the duke Of Calabria, 136. Death of, 160. Robert of Geneva, a cardinal legate, sent by the pope with a Breton company of ail venturers intoltaly, 17'i. Elected pope, takes tin- 11. Kui' ol Clement VII , 177 Esta his court at Naples; his death, 17K. Kobx"°t appointed elector palatine of Germany on the deposition nl Wenceslaus, 19.7. sea, the battle of, 212, Ru lolph of Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria . electi I king ol Germany, 99. Persuaded by the pope to confirm the cbar. t .. of Louis the Debonaire and Otho I , 100. Roger, king of the Two Sicilies, lie- Rome, population of in the fittn century, 7. Becomes again the capital Of the empire, 18. A re- public constituted at, tii Sac* of, 335. S. Saint Peter Martvr, 67. Saint Louis, 99. Salvestro de' Medici, made gon- faloner of Florence by lot* IKS, Passes a law to suspend the pro- ceedings called admonition which Aluizzi diiected against thepartv, 18+. Salvestro de' Gath, lord of Viterbo, arrested by Louis of Havana, and put to the torture, to force him to reveal the place where he had Ins concealed treasure, 139. Saluces, marquis rl< San Bonifacio, count di, 71. Joins the party of Beatrice, wife of Charles of Anjou, !>7. Santi Cascese, received as the head of the Bolognese republic, Saracens, the, establish colonies in Sicily, 'SI Sardinia, attacked by ,hn I'-aus in the >ear lul7; toinpietely con. quered in 1050, -9. Sc. Muier bashaw, sangiak of Bos. nia, 297. Sforza Attendolo, a pea-ant of Co> tignola inRomagna,distinguishe> lor prodigious strength of boil) and undaunted courage ; equal I j distinguished in military tactic-, 211. Makes himself master ot Rome, -li Drowned at the pas- ol the Pescara, i!15. Silvestro Marruffi, arrested ; led to prison, 294. Condemned to death by the judges ; desp itch. . Ro by the |iope . fumed alivu on the i .,1 ol Maj ll Bixtus IN'., pope, his dissolute cha. ra. t - all the pon. to restore III Florence by kil :ng die two bro- th, is Vledu-.i. ..;i. 1 ulmiiiates a bull ar.nin Lucento de' Metlici, for having hanged the archbishop .478 ini of Pisa, 272. Engages the Swiss of the canton of Uri to declare v-ar against the duchess of Milan, £73. Reconciles the republic of Florence to the church; excom- municates the Venetians ; his death, 276. Soliman invades Austria, 339. Spoleto, duke of, 62. Stephen II., pope, confers on the princes of the Pranks the dignity of patricians, 18. Stephano Poreari, a Roman noble, 238. Exilen at Bologna by the pope, and afterwards hanged from the battlements of the castle of St. Angelo, 239. Stefano di Bagnone, 270. Taddeo de Pepoli takes possession of the sovereignty of Bologna ; makes alliance with the Ghibe. lines, 145. Tagliacozza, battle of, S3. Peodoro Bossi, 230, I hcodoric, 10. rimoleon, 262. loledo, Don Pedro de, governor of Milan, 357. Tomaso degli Albizzi, 221. Tomaso Soderini, 251. Tortona, siege of, 35. l'rivulzio, marshal, 323. U. Ugolino Buzzacherino de Sismondi, 72. Ugolino, count, named by the Pisans captain general for ten years, 111. Death of, 112. Hguccione da Faggiuola, 132. .roan IV., pope, 94. Urban V., pope, 172. His dratt , 174. 'Jrban VI., pope, 177. Urban V 1 1., pope, 178. Valentino Visconti, 230. Venice, the doge of, takes the title of duke of Venice and Dalmatia, 26. Venetian republic founded by the inhabitants of Upper Italy, 10. Verona, flourishing state of, in the time of the Roman empire, 7. Victor III., pope, 43. Death oi, 44. Vieri de Cerchi, 116. Vittelleschi, the patriarch, prime minister to pope Eugenius IV, 237. Vittor Pisani, 180. W. Wenceslaus succeeds his fathei, Charles IV. emperor of Ger- many, 179. Installed duke of Milan and count of Pavia, 195. William the Norman, king of the Two Sicilies, contracts an alliance with pope Alexander III., and arms the whole of southern Italy against Frederick Barbarossa, 44. William Brusato, 123. Winsberg, battle of, 31. Worms, the diet of, 21. ifoianda de Lusignan, heiress of tl.e kingdom of Jerusalem, marriage ot, with Frederick II., 66. PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON 501 S5 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORN] Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAS STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482 c Hi!| 3 1205 02645 1854 )C SOUTHtRN Rl GIONAl I WWW I W jl II Y AA 000 916 570 J