A REVIEW OF THE STATES OF ITALY (ABOUT 1300)

Now that the two great actors, whose long-drawn quarrel has been the main thread of Italian history, have made their exits, and left us, as it were, with a sense of emptiness, it becomes necessary to call the roll and make a better acquaintance with the lesser _dramatis person_, who step to the front of the stage and carry on the plot of history. The programme reads as follows:--

DRAMATIS PERSON

The Papacy An absentee.

The Empire A shadow.

The Kingdom of Naples House of Anjou reigning.

The Kingdom of Sicily House of Aragon reigning.

Florence A Guelf democracy.

Siena Ghibelline city.

Pisa Ghibelline city.

Genoa A maritime aristocracy.

Venice A maritime oligarchy.

Milan A Lombard commune.

Savoy A feudal county.

Guelf cities of Tuscany, communes of Lombardy, petty marquisates of the northwest, etc.

In the South, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies has already been torn in two. Charles of Anjou, the conqueror of the Hohenstaufens, clever, shrewd, and capable as he was, had overreached himself. He entertained great ambitions, and was dreaming of Constantinople and its imperial crown, when a rebellion known as the Sicilian Vespers broke out in Sicily. The country had been overrun with French office-holders and French soldiers, and the Sicilians, who regretted the Hohenstaufens, had reached the utmost limit of endurance. The whole island had become a powder-box; it was a mere matter of accident where and how the powder would ignite. A French soldier insulted a woman on her way to church. In a moment he was killed and his fellow soldiers ma.s.sacred to a man.

"Death to the French!" resounded over the island, and the infuriated Sicilians put all to the sword. The revolutionists needed a leader, and, as the old Norman blood royal still survived in Manfred's daughter, they invited her husband, King Pedro of Aragon, to be their king. Pedro accepted, and he and his descendants, the House of Aragon, made good their claim to the throne of Sicily against all the attempts of the House of Anjou and of the lords suzerain, the Popes, to oust them. By this revolution, Sicily was separated from the Kingdom of Naples for more than a hundred years.

In the centre of Italy there was great disorder. The lords of the Papal States remained at Avignon, and attempted to govern their dominions by legates; but though their sovereignty nominally extended from the Tyrrhene Sea to the Adriatic, they were impotent to enforce it. There was no unity; each town was governed separately by a papal legate, by a powerful baron, or by a communal government. Rome itself, which in the absence of the Popes had dwindled to a little city of ruins, towers, churches, vineyards, and vegetable gardens, was in constant disorder.

The towns near by were often faithful to their allegiance, but across the Apennines the obstinate little cities between the mountains and the sea were almost always independent. At present there is nothing of sufficient interest to prevent us from treating Rome as carelessly as the Popes did, and pa.s.sing hurriedly through to Florence and the independent communes of Northern Italy where we must pause.

Prior to the wars between the Empire and the Papacy feudal inst.i.tutions had prevailed there, though with less vigour in Northern Italy than elsewhere in Europe, and all the land had been divided up into various fiefs, in which counts and marquesses held sway. During those wars the cities shook off Imperial dominion and got rid of Imperial rulers, and began their careers as independent Italian communes. Most of these cities were of old Roman foundation, but the time of Hildebrand and Henry IV may be deemed their nativity, as then they first appear in Italian history as individuals. All these towns were little republics, each with its own character, but all conforming more or less to a general type. Within ma.s.sive walls the city cl.u.s.tered round two main points, the cathedral, which was flanked by belfry and baptistery, and the _piazza_ (public square), on which fronted the _Palazzo Pubblico_, the city hall, where the magistrates had their offices. Round about and radiating off, houses and palaces, grim and heavy, stood high above the narrow streets. Scattered here and there scores of private fortresses raised their great towers thirty yards and more into the air. Street, palace, tower, all were obviously ready for street warfare, waiting on tiptoe for the bells to ring.

The citizens were divided into three cla.s.ses. The upper cla.s.s included the old n.o.bility, the high clergy, the large merchants, the rich bankers; the middle cla.s.s included the petty merchants, the tradesfolk, the master artisans; and below them came the miscellaneous many. In some cities the n.o.bility, allying itself with the proletariat, held the political power. But in the more democratic cities, like Florence, the trades and crafts controlled the government. In Florence there were seven greater guilds,--judges and notaries, wool-merchants, refiners and dyers of foreign wool, silk-dealers, money-changers, physicians and apothecaries, furriers; and fourteen lesser guilds,--butchers, shoemakers, masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, and so on. Every freeman was obliged to belong to one of the guilds; Dante was enrolled in the guild of physicians and apothecaries. Trades and crafts descended from father to son, and each guild was divided into masters, journeymen, and apprentices.

In the government, executive, legislative, and judicial powers were distinguished, but not strictly separated. The executive power was vested in one man, or in several men, who were a.s.sisted by a kind of privy council. This council superintended various matters of public concern, such as weights, measures, highways, and fines. There was also a larger council, to which, as well as to public office generally, only the enfranchised citizens were eligible. These privileged persons were never more than a small fraction of the population; in Florence, for instance, barely three thousand, even in her populous days. Finally, there was a _parliament_ or a.s.sembly of all the free citizens, which met on the _piazza_, and shouted approval or disapproval to such questions as were submitted to it.

In the earlier days the joint executives were called _consuls_. Their places were not easy. If they were fair to all, they displeased their own party; if unfair to the opposite party, they were liable to retaliation. The difficulties of partisanship led to the appointment of a new officer, the _podest_. The name and idea came from the governors put in the Imperial cities by Barbarossa. The _podest_, who was elected by the citizens, supplanted the consuls in all their more important functions; he became the head of both the civil and the military service, a kind of governor. He was a n.o.bleman, chosen, in the hope of avoiding local partisanship, from some other Italian city. The citizens, if Guelf, of course chose a Guelf; if Ghibelline, a Ghibelline. When the _podest's_ term of office, which was usually six months or a year, began, he came to the city bringing two knights, several judges, councillors, and notaries, a seneschal and attendants, and in the _piazza_ took his oath of office,--to observe the laws, to do justice, and to wrong no man. His duties, and often his movements, were carefully prescribed; sometimes he was not allowed to enter any house in the city other than the palace prepared for him. At the end of his term he was obliged to linger for a time, in order to give anybody who might be aggrieved an opportunity to lodge a complaint against him and obtain redress. Such was the ordinary form of communal government; but the const.i.tutions varied in different cities, and in each city shifted every few years, as cla.s.s feeling, partisan enmity, or new men suggested changes.

The prosperity and power of these communes came from trade, and show how trade prospered and riches acc.u.mulated. Some merchant guilds carried on a very extensive business. Take the wool guild of Florence. Tuscany yielded a poor quality of wool, and as it was impossible to weave good cloth from poor wool, these Florentine merchants imported raw wool from Tunis, Barbary, Spain, Flanders, and England, wove it into cloth so deftly that foreigners could not compete with them, and exported it to the princ.i.p.al markets of Europe. Trade with the North, however, was less important than trade with the East. Merchandise was carried over the seas more easily than over the Alps, and in many respects the products of the East were better and more varied than those of northern Europe.

The Italians loaded the galleys of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa with silken and woollen stuffs, oil, wine, pitch, tar, and common metals, and brought back from Alexandria, Constantinople, and the ports of Asia Minor and Syria, pearls, gold, spices, sugar, Eastern silk, wool and cotton, goatskins and dyes, and sometimes Eastern slaves. Such a wide commerce outstripped the capacity of barter and cash, and gave rise to a system of banking, with its attendant credits and bills of exchange. The quick-witted Florentines excelled at this business, and great banking houses, like the Bardi and the Peruzzi, had branches or correspondents in all the chief cities.

This large commerce in face of the obstacles that barred its way seems extraordinary. A city like Florence, for instance, especially in the earlier days, was greatly hampered by the conditions about her. Outside her walls, within the radius of a dozen or twenty miles, were castles manned by arrogant n.o.bles, who made traffic unsafe. They would not conform to the new economic condition of society except upon compulsion.

Rival cities refused to let Florentine wares pa.s.s through their territories without payment of ruinous tolls. Wars were waged to moderate these exactions. Or, again, war was necessary to enforce the rights of Florentine citizens in other cities. Moreover, each city had its own system of weights and measures, its own coinage; each imposed customs on all wares entering its gates, in earlier days so much a cart-load, afterwards a percentage of the value. On all highways, at all bridges and fords, there were tolls to be paid. From city to city a merchant had to change his money, until in later times certain coins, like the Florentine florin, pa.s.sed current everywhere; and sometimes, on entering the gates, he was obliged to adopt a distinguishing badge, as, for instance, according to the usage at Bologna, putting a piece of red wax on his thumb-nail. These were the fetters placed on trade in time of peace; but peace itself was transitory and uncertain. Apart from the wars with the Emperor, the cities periodically fought the feudal n.o.bility, or one another. Venice made war on Ravenna, Pisa on Lucca, Vicenza on Treviso, Fano on Pesaro, Verona on Padua, Modena on Bologna, and the greater cities, like Milan and Florence, on any or all of their respective neighbours. When a city had no absorbing war abroad, factions fought at home. Burghers and n.o.bles barricaded the streets, manned the towers, rang the bells, shot and hacked one another with spasmodic fury.

The burghers generally won. They then banished hundreds of their adversaries, and made laws against them. In some cities a register was kept to record the names of the n.o.bles whose democracy was suspected; in others, as in Lucca, n.o.bles were excluded from all share in the government, and were not allowed to testify against burghers. In Pisa, if there was disquiet in the streets, the n.o.bles were obliged to stay indoors.

These factions called themselves Guelfs and Ghibellines. At first Guelfs were the burghers of the communes and partisans of the Papacy, and Ghibellines partisans of the Empire and the feudal system; but subsequently the terms merely served to distinguish political parties, whose platforms, as we should say, shifted with questions of the hour.

Even when these two factions were at peace, they distinguished themselves by different badges and fashions. The merlons of the Guelf battlements were square, those of the Ghibelline swallow-tailed. Good party men wore caps of diverse pattern, did their hair differently, cut their bread and folded their napkins in different ways. It was enough that one side should bow, take an oath, harness a horse, in one mode, for the other side to start a contrary fashion.

The growth of population, of property, of commerce, however, shows that history may easily dwell too much upon fighting and war. In these petty wars and street frays, the numbers engaged were few, and but little blood was shed. Most of the fighting was a consequence of economic difficulties. It was the medival equivalent of strikes, lock-outs, boycotts, undersellings, rivalries, riots, and other phenomena of modern industry.

The maritime cities were in a very different position from the inland cities, and had a different history. They enjoyed great advantages for trade. No feudal barons could bar the sea, and pirates and infidels were not serious impediments. Greater commercial prosperity, however, begot more bitter commercial jealousy. Genoa hated Pisa; no Genoese sailor could endure the cut of a Pisan sail. Both cities had a large trade in the Levant, and being so near each other became deadly rivals. They fought spasmodically for years, from the Gulf of Genoa to the Black Sea, and at last came to the death grapple. The time was unfortunate for Ghibelline Pisa, as a Guelf league had been attacking her on land. The decisive battle was fought off the island of Meloria, a few miles from the mouth of the Arno. The Genoese, who outnumbered the Pisans, won a great victory, destroyed or captured many galleys, and took ten thousand prisoners (1284). Pisa never recovered from this blow. Florence and Lucca took immediate advantage of it to unite with Genoa, and force Pisa to submit to a Guelf government; and from this time on greedy Florence, like a hawk, kept her eyes fixed on poor Pisa, impatient for the time when she should seize her prey.

Genoa remained a republic, active, eager, impetuous, torn by factions and subject to many vicissitudes, but lack of s.p.a.ce compels us to leave her and pa.s.s on to where "Venice sits in state, throned on her hundred isles." She, queen of the sea, had even a more lavish portion of individuality than her sister cities, individual as they all were, and hardly belonged to Italy, so completely did she hold herself aloof from the two great interests of medival Italy, the Empire and the Papacy. No cries of Pope's men and king's men, of Guelf and Ghibelline, disturbed the Grand Ca.n.a.l or the Piazza of St. Mark's; no feudal inc.u.mbrances hampered her mercantile spirit, nor did papal anathemas cause a single Venetian ship to shift her course. Venice had long remained loyal to Constantinople, and even after all political dependence had ceased, was, in character and aspect, more a Constantinople of the West than an Italian city, a grown-up daughter, more beautiful than her beautiful mother, who, living her own triumphant and unfilial life, still retained many of her mother's traits. Untroubled by sentiment, even in the Crusades, Venice always kept steadily in view her fixed purpose of increasing her commerce and of securing foreign markets; and this purpose shaped her political actions, and also, indirectly, the form of her government.

Originally the citizens, a.s.sembled in public meeting, elected the Doge, and exercised a right to vote on important political matters; but the great families soon acquired control, and little by little turned the government into an oligarchy. The first great step was taken in Barbarossa's time, just when the Lombard cities were struggling to free themselves from Imperial dominion. A Great Council of four hundred and eighty members was established, to which were given the powers of legislation, appointment, electing the Doge, and filling vacancies in itself. The franchises of the people were all taken away and the oligarchy left supreme. This oligarchy of merchant princes, in whom patriotism, pride of place, and love of gain harmoniously accorded, was an exceedingly competent body of men. The greatness of Venice was their greatness, and they pursued it devotedly. Beginning early in life these patricians were trained for their duties by service in the navy and in the merchant marine, or by employment in the government of the various cities, islands, and territories included in the long stretch of coastwise empire. Knowing that Venice lived by commerce they made every effort by war, diplomacy, and private enterprise, to extend that commerce. After the conquest and division of the Eastern Empire (1204) they became more eager than ever for a monopoly of trade with the Levant, and inevitably came into deadly rivalry with Genoa, also pa.s.sionately eager to hold the gorgeous East in fee.

The wars with Genoa, destructive though they were for the time being, were of service to the aristocracy, for they made the Venetians appreciate the value of a compact governing body; and the aristocracy took advantage of that appreciation to tighten its hold on the government.

Throughout the thirteenth century the Great Council, though it consisted entirely, or almost entirely, of patricians and elected its own members, had been open to all cla.s.ses. Any citizen, however unlikely to be elected, was eligible. At the close of the century the patricians secured the enactment of a series of measures, which in substance divided the citizens into two cla.s.ses, those whose ancestors had sat in the Great Council, and those whose ancestors had not, and decreed that only members of the first cla.s.s should be eligible. This legislation is known as the closing of the Great Council. As all those who were eligible naturally wished to become members, the Council gradually increased until it finally numbered over fifteen hundred. The patricians also further curtailed the powers of the Doge, divided the various functions of government among the main subdivisions of the Council,--the Senate, the Council of Forty, the Doge's cabinet, and the Council of Ten,--and gave to the State the definite form of government which it maintained to its end.

From Venice we must pa.s.s by Milan and the cities of the Po, to where in the extreme Northwest the Counts of Savoy, perched on the Alps, maintained a precarious sovereignty over both slopes, with no resources except the muscles of their mountaineers and the possession of Alpine pa.s.ses. Little did the proud maritime cities, Genoa and Venice, the great inland cities, Milan and Florence, and Rome least of all, suspect that these poor counts would one day consolidate all the territory from the foot of the mountains to the Riviera in a compact little kingdom (Piedmont), and from that as a pedestal, step to still higher honours.

The House of Savoy runs aristocratically back into legend; but about the year 1000, a certain Humbert of the White Hand, emerging from historic obscurity, obtained the city of Turin and part of Piedmont, as a marriage portion for his son, and thereby secured to his house a footing in Italy (1045). In the course of another century or so these Savoyards in a succession of Humberts and Amedeos, brave, shrewd, and usually successful men, extended their dominions by war, by marriage, and by bargains. They made the most of their position as door-keepers to Italy, and exacted various privileges from needy Emperors, as the price of pa.s.sing the Alps. They fought rival counts, waged innumerable petty wars, and rightly or wrongly acquired territories which are now parts of France, Switzerland, and Italy. The succession of counts reads like any other medival genealogy; and their exploits, raids, and sieges viewed from this cold distance have a somewhat monotonous similarity; but survival proves the worth and valour of the stock, and when after long centuries the people of Italy had need of princes, the House of Savoy was the only n.o.ble house that had retained power and respect. It is a brilliant example of the truth of the saying that those who have been faithful over a few things shall be masters over many.

Such were the political divisions of Italy in this transition period which intervenes between the departing Middle Ages and the incoming Modern World.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TRANSITION FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE RENAISSANCE

This intervening period--the twilight between the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Modern World--needs a little further emphasis, from the very fact that it is a period of transition and sheds light both on the time before and the time after. On its emotional side it belonged to the Middle Ages, on its intellectual side it belonged to the Modern World.

Its religion was essentially medival. For instance, a religious wave arose in Perugia, spread through Italy, and crossed the Alps. Hosts of penitents, hundreds and thousands, lamenting, praying, scourging themselves, went from city to city. Men, women, and children, barefoot, walked by night over the winter's snow, carrying tapers, to find relief for their emotional frenzy. These Flagellants were like a primitive Salvation Army, and gave unconscious expression to the profound and widespread discontent with the Church. Their actions, however, so clearly exhibited religious mania that governments took alarm; the hard-headed rulers of Milan erected six hundred gallows on their borders and threatened to hang every Flagellant who came that way.

Other forms of religious sentiment were more rational, and expressed themselves in pa.s.sionate calls for peace between neighbours and countrymen. Priests adjured the fighting cities to be friends: "Oh, when will the day come that Pavia shall say to Milan, Thy people are my people, and Crema to Cremona, Thy city is my city?" In Genoa, one morning before daybreak, the church bells rang, and the astonished citizens, huddling on their clothes, beheld their archbishop, surrounded by his clergy with lighted candles, making the factional leaders swear on the bones of St. John Baptist to lay aside their mutual hate. Gregory X (1271-76) pleaded with the Florentine Guelfs to take back the banished Ghibellines. "A Ghibelline is a Christian, a citizen, a neighbour; then, shall these great names, all joined, yield to that one word, Ghibelline?

And shall that single word--an idle term for none know what it means--have greater power for hate than all those three, which are so clear and strong, for love and charity? And since you say that you have taken up this factional strife for the sake of the Popes of Rome, now, I, Pope of Rome, have taken back to my bosom these prodigal citizens of yours, however far they may have offended, and putting behind me all past wrongs, hold them to be my sons."[13] In consequence of Gregory's pa.s.sionate entreaty, one hundred and fifty leaders of each party met and embraced on the sandy flats of the Arno.

The most famous of these emotional peace-makings was the work of a Dominican monk of Vicenza. On a great plain just outside Verona, a vast congregation a.s.sembled (a contemporary said 400,000 people), from all the warring cities far and near, bishops, barons, burghers, artisans, serfs, women, and children. The monk preached upon the text, "My peace I give unto you." The great company beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, wept for repentance and joy, and embraced one another. Then the friar raised the crucifix and cried, "Blessed be he who shall keep this peace, and cursed be he who shall violate it;" and the audience answered "Amen." It is hardly necessary to say that these emotional peace-makings were soon followed by martial emotions; freed prisoners were hurried back to prison, the recalled were banished again, and sword and halberd were picked up with appet.i.tes whetted by abstinence.

The intellectual side of this period is best represented by the universities, which had sprung up in many of the North Italian cities in the preceding century. The term university signified a guild of students, and possessed many of the characteristics of our colleges. The university was composed of students and professors, and governed itself.

It owned neither lands nor buildings, and in case of need could shift its abode with little trouble. The students, at least in a great university like that of Bologna whither young men flocked by thousands from all Europe, were divided into two bodies, those from beyond the Alps and Italians. These two bodies were subdivided into groups according to their state or city. Each group elected representatives, and these, together with special electors, elected the rector. This representative body made a formal treaty with the town authorities, and secured good terms, because the presence of a university, bringing money and fame, was of great consequence to the town. The professors were appointed by the students. At Bologna Roman law was the chief study, and very famous jurists lectured there. We may remember that Barbarossa had recourse to Bologna when he was in need of lawyers to determine his Imperial rights. It was Roman law that attracted the great concourse of students, for the growing needs of civilization made a constant demand for men learned in the law; but other branches of knowledge were also taught, theology, canon law, medicine, and astrology, as well as the so-called _quadrivium_, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.

The universities, although theology and canon law were taught in them, distinctly represented the secular side of intellectual life. The religious, at least the theological side, was represented by the Church, and more particularly by those philosophers who devoted themselves to that mixture of theology and philosophy known as scholasticism. The greatest of them was Thomas Aquinas (1227-74), whose surname is derived from a little village, Aquino, once existing near Monte Ca.s.sino in Neapolitan territory. Aquinas lectured at various universities. His great work, "Summa Theologi," was a justification of the Roman Catholic faith by an appeal to the reason and to science as then accepted. He started on premises laid down by the Church, and justified all the derivative doctrines by close logic and clear reasoning, as well as by appeals to the Bible, to Aristotle, then deemed the possessor of all knowledge, and to the Church fathers. His work is a complete exposition of G.o.d, nature, and man, as conceived by medival theology, and is still taught by the Catholic Church as the true exposition of its doctrines.

The grateful Church canonized him, his treatise being the miracles he had performed, and named him the Angelic Doctor. Those of us whose minds have no natural apt.i.tude for scholasticism, find his views on purely earthly matters much easier to understand, and not uninteresting, as they throw light on the democratic character of the Church. Speaking of positive law, Aquinas says that it should consist of "reasonable commands for the common good, promulgated by him who has charge of the public weal;" and of kings, that "a prince who makes personal gratification instead of the general happiness his aim, ceases to be legitimate, and it is not rebellion to depose him, provided the attempt shall not cause greater ills than his tyranny;" and, of the n.o.bility, that "many men make a mistake and deem themselves n.o.ble, because they come of a n.o.ble house.... This inherited n.o.bility deserves no envy, except that n.o.blemen are bound to virtue for shame of being unworthy of their stocks; true n.o.bility is only of the soul." St. Thomas Aquinas is also interesting because his theology inspires Dante throughout the "Divine Comedy."

These diverse traits, emotional and intellectual, were natural to a period of transition, when society was pa.s.sing from an age in which the chief interests were emotional to one in which the chief interests were intellectual; and it is interesting to notice that at the same time social life was pa.s.sing from a stage of extreme simplicity to one of comparative luxury. The acc.u.mulation of wealth had its effect in every department of life; it gave people time and opportunity for intellectual interests, and also for luxury and more delicate needs. The advance in wealth was very rapid. By the year 1300 men had already begun to blame the luxurious habits of their time, and to look back to the simplicity of their grandfathers as to an age of primitive innocence. Dante gives full expression to these sentiments through the mouth of his ancestor, Cacciaguida, in the "Paradiso." Others speak in the same way. One of them, referring to the time of Frederick II, says: "In those times the manners of the Italians were rude. A man and his wife ate off the same plate. There were no wooden-handled knives, nor more than one or two drinking-cups in a house. Candles of wax or tallow were unknown; a servant held a torch during supper. The clothes of men were of leather unlined; scarcely any gold or silver was seen on their dress. The common people ate flesh but three times a week, and kept their cold meat for supper. Many did not drink wine in summer. A small stock of corn seemed riches. The portions of women were small; their dress, even after marriage, was simple. The pride of men was to be well provided with arms and horses; that of the n.o.bility to have lofty towers, of which all the cities in Italy were full. But now frugality has been changed for sumptuousness; everything exquisite is sought after in dress,--gold, silver, pearls, silks, and rich furs. Foreign wines and rich meats are required. Hence usury, rapine, fraud, tyranny," etc.[14]

To us to-day this period of transition, with its medival mixture of commerce, religion, and war, of emotion and logic, of admiration for St.

Augustine and belief in the infallibility of Aristotle, looks extremely odd. We forget that our generation may be in danger of similar criticism. Odd or not, this was the state of Italy in the period preceding that great burst of the arts and intellectual life known as the Renaissance.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _Storia degli Italiani_, Cesare Cant, vol. ii, p. 851 (19).

[14] _Europe in the Middle Ages_, Hallam, p. 630.